thearena | If we met at midnight

Entry tags:

If we met at midnight

Who| All those on the liberation mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 2.
Where| District 2.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

The hovercrafts fly in over the tall mountains of the Rockies, dwarfing the towering trees. From the sky, the scene is beautiful, all glittering snow, blue water, and green that never fades. The planes stretch on into the east, seeming never to end. Nestled in the mountains is a city that doesn't appear to have ever seen better days. It's worn and patched, and were the temperature a little warmer, one's first thought might be of the old west. The trains only add to this image, going all over into the various mining mountains.

Propaganda can be seen everywhere here in the city; posters of Snow, of Capitol supporting Tributes, things seeking to inspire District unity. If it seems to rebels like they're the bad guys here, that's because they are. District two doesn't want liberation. A District home to people loyal to the Capitol, to their District and the Peacekeepers, fans of the Games, and full of indoctrination, rebels are not only unwelcome, they're considered threats. Loyalty means everything to them and rebels are disruptions to this loyalty. There will be no help from the people here unless you're a soldier for the Capitol, in which case, housing and bed are offered, as well as munitions. Poster of Albert, Anna, and Felicity have been placed up, saying "The Courage Of Sacrifice!", "The Light Of Victory Shines Ahead!, and "To A Bright And Protected Future!", respectively.

If you serve the rebellion, however, it's off to the mountains with you. It's not exactly safe, but it's the best that can be managed until a takeover is made. The hovercraft lands upon a wider ledge of the snowy mountainside, sitting there rather precariously. There's no cave, and only barely enough room in the hovercraft. Resources are heavily rationed. Camp fires will need to be made outside the plane, and food hunted. Simply pulling in breath in the high altitudes may be difficult. Fight off frostbite may be more so. The moaning winds inspire all kinds of paranoia. Best stick close to one another.

Although everyone is lucky to find the sun shines during the day, allowing for some warmth, as the night falls, the temperature drops. The District shuts down all power, putting it all into heating and leaving the city in total darkness. This provides an advantage of cover for everyone, but if you're not a Districter used to the dark, seeing what you're doing may very well be a problem.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Roland's gone. Firo shouldn't be surprised considering what the man did. What would surprise him would be if he saw his friend any time soon.

From his own experience sabatoging their gracious hosts, Firo knows there's a chance Roland won't be killed--he and Eowyn were only tortured. But maybe the Capitol's stricter now that they're reeling from losses. Maybe Roland's already gotten two right in the back of his head.

Firo spends most of the time after the battle trying not to think of what could be happening to his friend right now.

So when he's walking the halls in their free time, he doesn't expect to see him right there, almost within reach.

Firo stops and blinks a few times to make sure it's real. He clears his throat and calls out to the guards, "Hey--I can take him from here."

People back home have always hated the way he speaks to others as equals, thinking of him as nothing more than a presumptuous brat. Guards and cops especially. And he knows the rules for talking to guards--namely to not--but he's too worried here to bother with them. Roland. He needs to get to him and talk to him. It looks too much like before, and he needs to make it stop.

These guards, regardless of Firo's urge toward caution, always have been - well, not kind. Roland, when he was in the condition to think on such things, thought it might be their Capitol upbringing showing through. A guard in any other land in any other world might do any number of things to his prisoners, enjoying his power over them. But these, they watched the arenas with the rest of the people of this land. They watched the arenas and the tributes and there is no respect there, not a bit of it, but perhaps are a few crumbs of something, the smallest leftovers of hero worship. Not enough to keep them from doing great evils, because they are of Panem, after all. Evil, to the men and women of Panem, is just another word, and one which does not apply to them, and never would.

Signless always had loved these people, tried to sympathize with them. Roland has never tried to understand why. It's just Signless' way, and not one Roland has to agree with, himself. He doesn't.

Signless. "Loves, and lost loves," he says in that voice he can't hear, a voice rough from screaming. "Have I called their names yet? Of course I have. I hear it now. Have I added yours, Firo, to my list of loved dead? Perhaps beside Eddie's. You are so like him. He might appreciate the company."

Roland's guards send looks at each other overtop Roland's bowed head. While he rambles on beneath them, their expressions share one, identical thought: done with this shit.

"You'll have to drag him," one of them says. "You wouldn't think such a skinny fucker would be so damn heavy."

Firo feels ice crawl up his spine when Roland puts his name with those dead. By now, he's learned that there are a lot of them, so perhaps Roland can be excused for just assuming his friends are all gone. But he's right here! Is Roland really that lost?

It's lucky that the guards don't offer much resistance, but Firo doesn't even think to thank them for it. The only thing that occurs to him is that the logical response is a barb about how weak they must be to find his weight too much. Firo could take it just fine when they were sparring.

It's a little different when he's all crumpled like this, though, as Firo soon finds when he tries to slip under one of Roland's arms to support him. Never mind. He's got this. He redoubles his grip and tries to take a step toward Roland's cell.

He tries to find Roland’s eyes with his own and mumbles. “I’m alive. I’m right here. You are too.”

"Aye. You are. You were. You will be again. Like the others." While most of Roland's body has decided to go on leave and not support his weight at all, his feet haven't quite got the message because they keep making motions as if to walk, forward, ever forward. "And the others. I think I feel them in the walls of this place-"

And in this state of course he forgets, he forgets his tongue and that tongue tries to use the words of the high speech, and the way he simply keeps on going rather than stopping at one word must confuse the machine in his brain, because after a line of fruitless stuttering it all comes out at once: "soul-fate-spirit-essence-echo-ghosts," the second-rate translations rushing out practically on top of each other. Roland continues on, of course, words rasping out regardless, because he'll get another chance to say it. He'll get every chance, whether he wants them or not.

"My son. The poorer one, poor of spirit, poor of love, poor Mordred, he of the soured heart. I can feel him here, I always could, every time I walked these rooms for the first time. Not my other son, though, my first, I could never feel him, not here. But he is, he was, he will be again. Like you. Odd, meeting you here. I don't recall... Were you here some of those other times? I'll never feel you here. I don't remember that. Why are you here this time?" Roland's attention condenses all at once, pushing together into something narrow and sharp which he aims at the boy, as if trying to see inside him. "One more boy of mine. Why here, this time? There will never be anyone with me, at the end-not-end-not-end, no company at the wheel-top, before it swings down again. There never is-was-will be. Won't be. You're not new, are you? Can't be. Never is-was-will be. Won't be."

If Firo were more familiar with technology, he'd think those chains of stuttery words sounded like Roland was some kind of glitched program. If he were superstitious, he'd think Roland sounded possessed. Firo is neither of those things, but it unsettles him deeply all the same.

"I didn't know you had kids." It's good, though. Firo may not have known many fathers in his time, but Roland seems suited to the role.

How did they get him out of this last time? Talking, explaining, even arguing. Good. He can do all of that. Firo thinks over Roland's words, seizes on something he thinks he can target, and starts moving his mouth.

"It's just us here, me and you. Together. What about that, huh? You can't tell me I'm wrong." The sternness in his voice falters a moment, and he tries to disguise it by giving another big heave as he coaxes Roland along. "Where do you think you are?"

"Here." His foot catches on something, maybe just the floor, maybe a step because up, up, always up toward the top of that place, the highest room of the tallest tower - "In the desert. And on the train. In New York. In Lud. In the Calla. I remember. I am, and I was, and I will be again. I'm making my way to the top of the wheel, so it can swing me down again." He shudders once, and then again, and when he looks up there's fear bare on his face.

"Is that where we are? The top. The end. The beginning." The fear starts to tremble in his voice now and he tries harder to stand, wobbles, pulls himself halfway upright. "I don't want to. Please. Please."

Edited (icon) 2016-05-18 02:17 (UTC)

It sounds like some sort of fucked up Ferris wheel--that's really all Firo's getting from this so far.

And then Roland's voice changes to something more distressing. “No!” Firo stops in his tracks right there. He'd hoped that they could get in Roland's cell and away from prying eyes before anything really bad happened. But he can't listen to his friend sounding so scared without doing anything.

He twists to try and meet Roland's eyes. “You’re here in Panem. You don't have to--to whatever the hell it is. Got it? They'll have to get by me first and I don't plan on makin' it easy for anybody."

He doesn't make such promises lightly, and he briefly feels a flash of anger that he can't simply promise that he won't let it happen. The problem is that he doesn't know what it is and he won't make a promise he can't keep.

"No. No." Roland shakes his head and the words are made half of fear, half need to negate a statement with so much wrong in it. "Don't you see? Don't you feel it? The boy, the tongueless boy, he never felt it but I always have. There's no resisting. Not for long. Do you hear the king screaming? He wouldn't scream if he knew. He'd laugh. He'd laugh if he knew what's - what was - what will be - what was in store for me."

Roland moves forward, his steps clumsy, half-dragging, but he moves. "There wasn't any escaping it. There isn't any escaping it. There won't be any escaping it. I remember. I remember what will be, and will be, and will be again."

It is entirely coincidental that Roland sense of almost being there, almost, of being in the last moments Before is almost accurate. His cell isn't far. Panting, wide eyed, stumbles ahead, moving steadily toward it.

"Not you. You never were. I remember. I will remember. I know. Oh, a man's mind was never meant for such, I remembered, and I didn't remember, I didn't find you waiting there. Did I? Did you become a part of this now, too? Oh, Firo, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Is this thing Roland seems to think of as an inconsistency--Firo's presence--something he can seize on to wake him up? He's not hopeful, but maybe it's one method to try. "I'm here now, I'm tellin' you." He doesn't know what it is he's a part of. Roland's life? Seems an awfully dramatic reaction just for that.

Firo steps back next to Roland, trying to at least hold his arm to support him. He both wants to slap the man awake and to hold onto him to keep any further harm away. Instead, he aims to steer him to the bed and tugs on his arm to try to make him sit. It's safer if he's not moving--fewer people can see him; a ranting and raving man would look like easy pickings to anyone who wanted to rob or beat on someone.

As he tries to steer his friend, his mind's moving a mile a minute. Normally it'd be his mouth, but this is a more delicate situation than he's used to. "Don't say you're sorry. There's nothing--Look, whatever happened, you gotta tell me more than this. Or listen to me--let me tell you where we are. It's Panem, remember? You're in the prison or whatever the hell they call it. There's no--" He grimaces at the image, "--no guy without a tongue and no king. It's just you and me right now."

"Not now. But there was. Will be. There is, I remember it. Firo." Roland's gait's turning strange now, walking and trying not to, leaning back, pulling against Firo but still moving forward, trying to slow. "One mind - mortal minds - weren't made for this. I see it all at once. Every time, and time, and time. And look - there it is! There it always is. The door. The first door. The last door."

All a sudden Roland throws himself back with a yell, feels his back hit something, tries to fling the hands on him away. "Have pity," he mutters, to himself and to an empty space in the middle of the room. His eyes are wide, horrified. "Mercy. No."

Caught off guard, Firo jumps when Roland does, and his head shoots around to look at whatever has his friend so horrified. With the intensity of the reaction, he half-expects to see something or someone there.

Nothing.

Regrouping, Firo thrusts himself in front of Roland--and in between him and the space he's staring at--and tries to grab both of his arms. He squeezes his fingers as tightly as he can. Even if it takes his full weight, he presses back to try to keep him from moving forward anymore.

"Hey! Just listen to me!" He doesn't bother controlling his volume at all--maybe the loud sound will help jolt him back. "There's nothing here. Whatever the hell it is you're afraid of, it's not there. Look." He risks letting go with one hand so he can wave it around in the general space Roland's looking at.

"There's nothing. Whatever the hell this door is, it's not there and you don't hafta worry about it. It's not there now and it won't be. And it wasn't there before, either--I've been here, remember?"

"Here," he repeats, barely hearing, barely able to remember what he's just heard for all the other memories pressing into his head. He tries. His eyes never leave the center of the room.

"Here. But I smell it. The desert. I can feel the heat. The sand. The memories. About now's when they come. Here's the moment all the memories spill back into me. I remember. And Jake, and Susannah, and Eddie. Even Oy. To feel their love again - to watch them leave me one more time, and time, and time. Oh, I can't, I can't bear it, not one more time, Firo-"

Luck must be with Roland because for a moment, the sound of his own yelling - names, one on top of the other, all his dead, all his lost - and the sound of his own screams have gone dim enough inside Roland's mind so that he can hear, almost, what he says, can feel the shape of the name on his lips. One name he never sung on his way to the Tower.

"Why did I say that name? Were you saying... I don't recall. The memory must have gotten lost, buried under all those others. It must have been important."

Roland's eyes never leave the center of the room. There are hands on his arms. It may be a lucky thing for Firo that Roland is too focused on what's ahead - and behind, and here, and time, and time - to mind the grip. His voice is faint, a breathless murmur, barely there but the words come out, nonetheless. "You've been here, you said. I remember. I remember all of them. Which here were you? There're quite a few of them."

"I--Here?" What the hell does he mean 'which one'? Well, Firo's gathered that Roland seems to think he's elsewhere, but how the hell does Firo convince him of the right 'here'? "Panem, I told you! There's no desert--that's somewhere else right now! You don't have to worry about it!"

He's on the verge of panic as he watches for any sign of recognition. Could any of his words get through to him? Maybe it's time for a different tactic.

The words that come next are a mark of his respect--he wouldn't bother for most other people. Soberly, Firo tries to meet Roland's eyes, even if it's hard when when the guy's staring off into space. "I'll apologize to you later. For now--wake up!"

He maintains his grip with one hand and reaches up with the other to try and smack Roland's face.

Roland's hand is gripped around a wrist. Roland's hand is next to his face. He can see the large welts there and frowns, raises his other hand to poke at them.

Roland's hand is gripped around a wrist. That wrist is attached to an arm, a shoulder. A face. A familiar face.

"Firo, you have to leave. Now. You must, you must, before the end- the start- the end-"

Roland's hand is gripped around a wrist. That wrist is attached to a hand. He stares at it. The palm faces toward him.

"The end, the start," he murmurs to himself, absently. "It never took you. It'll never take anyone. Only me, I think."

He shudders. The wind blows heat out through the doorway, that heat.

There's a hand attached to the wrist which is gripped in Roland's. He stares at it.

The door, Firo's hand, the door. His eyes can't settle on one. The wind blows heat out through the doorway, heat and that acrid smell. He shudders. There is a wrist under his fingers, skin. It's warm.

"Firo." These words come slow, slurred. Forced out of a mouth - surely not his - from a great distance. "Were you trying to slap me?"

The directions to leave send an immediate jolt through Firo’s body. “No!” He wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, and he wants Roland to know it. Leaving him alone right now seems like the absolute worst thing to do. Firo sees those shivers bolting through Roland and, without even thinking about it, adjusts his free hand to give a comforting squeeze.

From last time, he’d learned that there wasn’t much chance of the blow even getting close. It’s not the smack he really wants but the reaction. At first, he’s not sure he’s even secured that… but then he hears the question.

“Yeah, I was, and I'll do it again if I have to.” He answers quickly and without shame, only a hint of wary hope. Roland doesn’t sound completely lucid right now—not by a long shot—but could this be progress? “You kept talkin’ about weird stuff, so I thought it’d snap you out of it.”

He clears his throat, “Do I have your attention now?”

"Attention," he slurs, slow. "No. No, I-"

Wind blows out through the door. It carries heat with it and it carries a scream, a faint scream. His hand pushes against the ground, trying to push him backward. The metal tips of its first couple fingers shriek against the floor and he pushes back desperately, the heels of his boots push against the floor. The door hangs open. His hand tightens around a wrist. Bones, muscle, skin warm under his hand.

"Firo. Firo. What you have to say you'd better say quickly, I- I won't be, I'm not, I wasn't here for much longer."

He shudders. His hand moves from Firo's wrist, slides up, curls itself clumsily over Firo's palm and winds a couple fingers next to Firo's own, trying to grip. "The door hangs open. If you'd have spoken, if you'll speak with the rest of them, speak, quickly, quickly."

His boot heels push back against the floor to the tune of distant shrieking, his own. He recognizes the voice. He remembers. His fingers curl up against a palm, someone else's palm, and he hardly notices. The door hangs open.

Edited 2016-05-28 00:49 (UTC)

He'll try to twist his fingers around Roland’s hand if the man doesn’t do anything about it; it’s just a hunch, but he wonders if touching directly and not just through his clothes does more to bring him back. What harm can it do at this point? Things have already come to a head.

His heart sinks when Roland seems to go back to that goddamn door so quickly. And then he moves again--that's even worse. “Oh no you don’t!”

This time, Firo doesn’t go for just a paltry slap. If he has it, he tightens his grip with the hand that’s holding Roland’s. And then he hurls himself bodily at the other man, aiming to bowl him over if he can—at the least, he wants to cut off any advance towards this “door” Roland thinks is in the room with them.

Whether his efforts are proving to be ineffectual or not, he calls out as close to Roland’s ears as he can shove himself, “Listen to me! Just cut it out about the goddamn door and listen to me!”

Listen to me says the voice of his friend and Roland's hand stops on its way to the throat of the man who'd shoved him down, Firo's throat. Listen. Listen, listen to that wind and the way it pulls at him, it'd been such a relief to stop fighting that pull and just walk, walk toward it, even to set his gun down at its foot, a relief because he hadn't known, hadn't remembered-

Listen to me.

"I'm trying!" Roland cries out, and even now that old, gritted voice of Roland's greatest teacher scrapes at his mind, lie there all night if you're going to keep puling about what you can't do, so Roland stops cold that puling about what he's trying to do and looks at what's in front of him. He only realizes his eyes are squeezed shut when he tries to do it. "I'll listen if you speak again Firo, I'll listen."

His hand, so near his friend's throat, tries to wind its bony fingers around Firo's collar instead, tries to pull him close, close enough to drown out that wind, that dry, awful heat. He remembers that heat. He'll remember it. "I can hear them, the voices of my dead. My damned. I hear my own voice, a dozen times over, a hundred. Listening to one is-" stand with the rest of us when you've found those balls you ain't dropped yet, maggot, "-tricky, quite a trick, holding just one memory in my head at a time, so you'd best make it quick. Quickly, Firo. Tell me what- Tell me. Help me."

Edited (html) 2016-05-29 23:26 (UTC)

Firo's eyes stay straight ahead, fixed on Roland, but there's a fleeting moment where his breath catches in his throat. In the very back of his mind, Firo notes that hand and just how damn lucky he is--maybe this is another sign that they're on the right path. Or a sign of how close they are to veering off the edge. From their past encounters, Firo'd had the impression that Roland's reflexes were always impeccable but that his control over said reflexes wasn't quite perfect in this mental state.

He doesn't flinch when Roland moves again, determined to take whatever he's dishing out. He doesn't even worry about the increased proximity; he only hopes that Roland knows what he's doing and it'll somehow make Firo's words travel faster and louder than those other memories.

"I will. Come on, I swear to you, wherever the hell you think you are, I couldn't be there. I'm not from your world. But I'm here. With you. Do you need me to tell you something I didn't say before?" Like last time? Will Roland even hear all this? Firo doesn't know, but he keeps talking.

No time to think. No time to look back over their conversations and see what's been said and what hasn't. The easiest way--made easy only by the sense of urgency--is to reach into that area he doesn't often talk about. "Maiza Avaro--you remind me of him. He's smarter than the rest of us and he always tries to keep me outta trouble back home. None of the other associates knew it, but he's deadly too. With a knife mostly, instead of a gun, but I bet you could still carve somebody up good, huh? He's the one I fought for my initiation--I know I told you about it, but I didn't tell you who it was, right? I never knew he was so tough before that, but I found out."

"Maiza Avaro," he says, because long habit has trained him to remember things like that and, even in this state, he tries to seal one more memory away with all the others. He thinks about what it is Firo's said. The latter, then the former. He tries to make sense of it. "It's like a logic puzzle, isn't it? You're here. The Tower... Oh, I feel it calling to me still. You speak as if it is one; if one is here, then not the other. But Firo, it's all here. I feel it here. If one is here, so are all the others. But if-"

Roland thinks. It's difficult, thinking past all this, but he gathers up his will and works over all of it, anyway. "Maiza Avaro. The Tower. Oh, Jake, oh, my son, I remember-" Roland's breath catches, as if he's about to weep. His thoughts move on, and it passes. Now that he can remember Jake, he's in no state to focus on him for long.

"Use your brain, maggot!" he murmurs at himself, squeezing his eyes shut and, for once, echoing the advice of his old teacher out loud. It helps, as it always does. What Cortland Andrus has ordered, Roland will do. There's something here. Something he can use. He needs to find it.

"If you say none of the rest is here, you must be seeing something differently. Describe it to me. Everything. Every detail. Describe it to me. What do you see, Firo? What do you see, and hear? I see... I see the field. The red field, waiting for me." Focus. Use your brain, maggot. "I need to hear what you see. Quick- quickly, if you please."

Firo jumps; he doesn't think he's heard Roland talk quite like that, even when he's stern. He takes the 'maggot' comment as directed at himself. "I'm tryin'!"

So try. Something else, because he doesn't think what he's doing has quite worked. Definitely not, with the way Roland's carrying on about the field--whatever the hell that's supposed to be. He shakes his head. "No, no, it's not--"

Pointless to keep up with such general denials. 'No' doesn't tell Roland anything.

"The walls're just plain white--really clean, there's no dirt or dust anywhere here. There's no door--it somehow closes up at night, but I don't think you or me know how." His eyes move from object to object in the room, carefully cataloging it all. But frantic too. "You've got a bed, just the standard kind they have in the prison. White sheets, a pillow, a blanket. There's a chair, too. Metal."

Slowly, very slowly, he tries to move the hand that's entwined with Roland's to the ground. The intent is to guide his friend's hand to feel the floor of the cell. If that works, then he'll move it to the leg of the nearest chair or the bed.

The floor under his hand is hard and cold. The air blowing out from the door, the center, it's warm and dry, and the floor is cold, and the leg of the bed is cold, metal and just the right shape that his fingers fit around it, gather it into a tight grip. "The prison. The most well appointed prison I've ever been kept in. Only Panem- but Panem was never a part of it."

There's his grip on the bed, it is here and under his hand, but that's not enough. His other hand tightens, loosens, moves from Firo's collar and onto his shoulder and Roland tries to focus on his face. His eyes. His own screams howl around his ears.

"These welts on my hand," he murmurs, looking at the spots where the stings from those creatures had, unbeknownst to Roland, started it all. "While I can remember they're there. Those are important, I think. But Panem. Panem. Is that where we are?"

Roland's eyes flicker over Firo's shoulder, back at the door, and fear slips onto his face, widens his eyes even as he forces them, for a second or two, back onto his friend's face again. "Panem. A prison, isn't it? A prison. How did we come here? No, that's not the question. How long? If I'm here, how long have I been here? Trace my steps, that's the way."

Firo’s eyes widen as they land on those wounds; he hadn’t paid them much mind before, but they’re too regular to be random wounds from battle. “Those…” For once, Firo curses himself for not paying attention to all those Arena broadcasts. He should know what these are, if only he can remember all those voices and little details he tried to block out.

There are some things he can figure, though—maybe he should’ve realized it way before, but there’s no helping that now. “They’re makin’ you see all this. They—the Capitol—they drugged you or something. With those bug things.”

Damn it. How long were those supposed to last? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t think it’d even help. Hadn’t Roland already slipped down this path before without their aid?

Firo tries to move to follow Roland’s eyes, hoping that maybe he can block at least some of this imaginary door from view. “A long time. You got here before me, I think, and I was here for…” He tallies them up his head; he’s never bothered to before. “3 Arenas. Those all took months. And then the war’s been goin’ on for months too—about 7—you’ve been here more than a year. Maybe closer to two.”

Again, he wishes he’d paid enough attention to learn these things—the announcers on TV probably mentioned how long Roland had been in Panem many times.

"Two years. Two years in the same place. Can you credit it? Not since I was a child..."

He's woolgathering. Isn't he? This isn't relevant, is it? "Drugs. This isn't, it isn't quite like mescaline, or like those others. Similar. Similar. It could be."

He looks over Firo's shoulder. The fear slips onto his face again, but alongside it this time is fascination. The door waits open. "My worst nightmares, Firo. The ones I could never remember on waking. All the worst moments of my life - and that is saying something. They all begin with that door. That place. I wish I could explain, Firo. You'll be wanting an explanation, and I don't think I'll be able to give it to you. I may not even be able to think on it."

"The center of everything. The legend. The one I followed half my life. Other men sought it too, other creatures, thinking what was at its top would make them into gods. I crossed time, and worlds- I gave up everything- I gave up everyone. But it never gave me up. Not when I begged, not when I screamed."

"But the end I was used for is past now. It's difficult for my head to hold all this at once, but I remember. For now, I remember. The light, the sound of the horn- just once, I only remember it the once. It was the end. My end."

"You say drugs. That I've been here all this time. Here, with you."

"I say that Panem could not send me back if they wanted to. It won't take me anymore. I've seen the end, and it has seen the end of me."

He looks away from the door. He hears it creak. He hears it shut. He pays it no mind.

"I say that I am FREE!" Firo's face may be too close to take a shout but Roland shouts it anyway, face breaking into his wide, widest grin, and he lets go of the leg of the bed, and he lets go of Firo's clothes and he moves to try and press his palms to either side of his dear friend's face. "For the rest of my life, however long or short that it may be. And after, whatever clearing awaits me at the end of my path. I am no tool of Gan, no servant of that which Is, and Was, and will be Again. I have no more part to play in the world's destiny than any other man. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. Childe Roland is dead, and it was you who woke me to his passing. You, Firo Prochainezo. You've done me a great service."

And here is where Firo had better hope he isn't too baffled by the world's most confusing speech to quickly act. Firo had better hope he can quickly act, that is, because if he does not, Roland might be about to kiss him. On the lips. Gently, briefly, with gratitude and love that is not intended to be in the slightest way romantic. This is the way of Roland's people, at times like this. Probably not, though, the way of Firo's. Roland is currently too moved to remember that. Perhaps someone ought to remind him.

Edited 2016-06-09 21:29 (UTC)

At first, Firo’s heartened. It sounds as if Roland is stepping closer and closer to reality, even if he still seems to see the door. He grasps the time, and he seems to grasp the drugs.

The more he rambles, though, the more Firo’s hopes flag—none of it makes sense. Such volume and so close—he’d flinch at the sudden shouting if he weren’t too busy watching it with wide, maybe even fearful eyes. He doesn’t move away when Roland goes to grab him; he’s too afraid to leave him without someone solid to hold on to. Firo doesn’t see it as such an occasion for the joy he seems to show. In fact, he’s pretty sure that he may have accidentally broken his friend and set him off in some sort of maniac fit. How is he going to bring him back from this? Think, think, think—

He’s still struggling to understand what’s going on when their lips touch. Firo’s hardly ready to draw away or ward it off—he hasn’t the faintest clue what’s going on or what’s coming to him until it happens. He’s never kissed or been kissed until now, and it seems so out-of-place in this moment that he can barely believe it just happened.

He tries to throw himself backward. “Wh-what the hell’re you--?” Normally such a gesture would have him screaming and probably trying to strangle someone. It takes a lot to tamp down that urge, and the only reason he can is because he’s so worried for what may have made Roland go even farther off the deep end.

Focus, damn it. He whips his head from side to side as if he can rattle the embarrassment right out of his head. Predictably, it doesn’t work, but he can at least force himself to look up at Roland.

It’s more important, anyway, to figure out whether or not the speech means he’s back to reality or not. Firo can’t wipe the blush off his face, but he can marshal his courage and soldier on to the more critical issue. “Wh-what’s goin’ on?! Are you—” What word can he even put there? “…Are you okay?”

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tell me if this is too much babble i can try to cut it down next time

It's a perfect amount of babble

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in which roland is a bit silly

Just a little bit