rerun || luke & beck train

[gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte]

beck hailsham.

There's so much he could have done better, that's all Beck thinks as he stares out over the frenzied crowd and swallows vomit against a barrage of camera flashes. Click. Click. Click. Like a loaded gun pressed to his temple and he fantasizes about pulling the trigger to keep his expression neutral. He clenches his fists behind his back, unable to look at anything but Luke as he climbs up on stage alongside him.

“I am Luke Hailsham! and I fucking volunteer as tribute!” Hard as he tries, Beck cannot stop the way those words hurt. He winces against them, overcome by a pain more visceral than the bite of steel blades. There's blood bubbling from in between his lips, tasting of everything he's fantasized about telling them since finding out about Hailsham's demise.

Because that meant he was free, right? That monster sewn into his every idle thought, that mother whom had crafted everything he was with such loving care became nothing more than a story engraved in crimson ink. Hailsham was dead and that meant everything was going to be okay now.

So why couldn't he bring himself to write? To reach out?

Three years gone and he didn't even fucking try.

Consequence looks a lot like the youth he can't find in Luke's features anymore. No matter how deep he's buried Hailsham, it will always be his home. A stubborn memory erupts into his chest like fingers pushed through a fresh wound. Luke, a few years younger than him, kicking his heels against the edge of his bed as they rifle through a bag of stolen fantasies Beck coaxed a delivery girl into leaving for him last supply drop.

Of course Beck always had the good stuff, pills and potions to take away the rotten bits of reality nobody wanted to face but that wasn't all. Sometimes he'd offer a little extra for expensive treats to find their way into his pockets. Watching the way the other's faces lit up at the taste of forbidden fruit was almost as good as the burn of liquor on an empty stomach.

The Hailshams are not a family, they are bonded by something far more substantial than blood. He watches peacekeepers lead Luke away and feels like they've taken a part of him with them.

It takes a moment to remember how to breathe again, stuck in place as sound and sight blur into a portrait of performative apathy. Don't cry. He can't even tell if he wants to, head only held up by a feeble marionette string as he stumbles down the steps. Eyes search for his, microphones scraping against his lips asking the same invasive insensitivities that he's come to expect.

This time, he does not cut himself to sate their bloodlust. He moves through the crowd aimlessly, eyes unable to leave the spot they last saw Luke fade.

And he knows where he should be headed, but isn't surprised when he turns the opposite direction - toward the mansion he still couldn't bring himself to sleep in alone. He finds courage in the half-drunk bottle of wine on the counter, stars dancing behind his eyelids as he revels in burn of pinot noir on an empty stomach.

He's last to arrive at the train station, cowardice stretched thin as he hesitates at the carriage door.

Luke is already there, Beck knew he would be.

There's a lot he wants to say, none of it will sound right so he doesn't bother.

"Luke." Don't cry. This time he knows he wants to.

He takes a chocolate bar out of his pocket and holds it out instead. "You shouldn't have done this."

Beck wonders if he already knows that.

"'cause i've been seeing some ghosts, and i'd be lying if i told you i'm fine"

♪

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

But you had to go,
I know, I know, I know
Like a wave that crashed
and melted on the shore

The inkling that one’s made a mistake starts as a small feeling in the stomach, then becomes a pit of fear. Luke starts to feel it grow inch by inch the moment he’s being ushered away from the justice building, from Wade, from everything he’s ever known, towards the silver train and the unknown future it waits to carry him to.

It feels akin to a death march. A boy walking up the steps to where his coffin lies ready for him.

But was his decision a mistake or the only choice he got going for him? What would he do if he hadn’t volunteered for this? Have a quaint home with Wade out by the seaside, where the walls are draped in sunlight and they are never haunted by their dark past? A mansion that houses every rescued person from Hailsham, a place they could heal together? Those were pipe-dreams that he has to dismiss from time to time, mere wishful thinking.

The wounds that Hailsham left don’t dwell on the surface— they exist under skin and bone, out of reach.

Through the crowds and the camera clicks that flash like manmade thunder, he makes his way to the silver train. Reporters are shouting questions but his heart hammers too loudly in his chest for him to pick anything up. He can’t breathe again. He needs Wade and the comfort of his words, the serenity of his presence. It’s the memory of them from earlier in the justice building that Luke draws strength from to hold his chin up and to not cry.

But when the train’s doors close in a smooth click and he rests his back against them, everything starts to unleash itself. How pathetic, he muses as hot tears stream down his cheeks again and enter his gasping mouth. Luke Hailsham is every shipwreck he’s ever dreamt about, a cluster of debris scattered about an otherwise empty sea.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” He says in a voice far from threatening and far too broken to the peacekeeper who’s escorted him here and now stands there, staring at him.

Before the peacekeeper could answer, however, another set of doors open in the carriage and Beck walks in.

“Luke.”

”Shit.”

He holds a chocolate bar out and Luke’s too emotional to even consider refusing.

“You shouldn’t done this.”

I know.

But what about what Beck did? They’ve chosen the same path; Beck just made the choice years before him. The other always knew about escapes and dug one out for himself. This was Luke doing the same. Perhaps he should have consorted Wade first, perhaps he should have let him explain his side of the story, and perhaps he shouldn’t have done something so reckless out of an emotional outburst but the words were said, the contract was signed. Luke could take back none of it because this wasn’t some silly children’s game anymore.

He doesn’t understand that though;

a part of him that continues to be plagued by nightmares never got a chance to grow up.

If the anger from before towards Wade hasn’t died yet, maybe he would’ve twisted Beck’s jaw with a furious punch too but all that Luke wants to do now is draw the other in for an embrace and he does it with fervor.

“You look good, man,” he lets out a feeble laugh once he draws back. “Like! All rich boy good! Shit must be real nice for you.” All glory and fame, an easy life. Luke could only dream of that. “Soooo,” after hastily wiping away the tears in his eyes, he begins to unwrap the chocolate bar and lets his gaze dart around because looking at Beck also hurt, “where’s the food! and everything! Heard so many stories about how grand the meals are here.”

Not even the burnouts
are out here anymore
And you had to go,
I know, I know, I know


lyrics: phoebe bridgers, i know the end

[gamemaker artemie 🦉nyte]

beck hailsham.

Maybe the liquor hits the minute he sees Luke, that's what Beck would like to think. It would explain the way the floor beneath his feet turns into a tidal wave, salty water flooding his lungs until every breath fucking burns. Of course, his tolerance is built by stacks of gravestones obscuring stolen innocence, but it's a welcome alternative to how easy it was for Luke to pull the rug out from under him.

His eyes hurt, little pinpricks of anger and fear bashing against the backs of them. It's so easy to get pulled back into his final storm, wind whipping against his skin as he stands, drenched by blood and sweat on that fucking bridge. Broken, bleeding out, having lost every little bit of himself he'd gone into the arena to save. He's seen what he made of himself in the Hunger Games, watched himself lose everything a hundred times over.

Beck never wants to forget the sacrifice he made. Everything he did, he did to survive Hailsham.

And maybe a part of him always thought he was saving them, too.

What a fool he's made of himself.

A second of agonizing silence beats between them and then Luke hugs him. Beck stifles a sob in his shoulder.

He's never yearned for closeness like he does in the moment, never found comfort in the presence of another until he's holding Luke like it's the last thing keeping the both of them alive. In that moment he realizes just how little has actually changed, even though he'd convinced himself everything had.

His old friend pulls away and Beck's arms fall limply by his sides, too busy clenching them into fists to keep from wiping Luke's tears to even attempt to hide his own. It doesn't feel good to cry, there's no catharsis to be found in the belly of a beast hurdling toward the Capitol. He knows better than Luke where they're heading, and what's waiting for them both.

His tears are useless and pitiful and they fall in vain. He hates them.

"You look good man." So they're playing pretend, then? He scrambles for purchase, wiping his eyes and half his makeup off on the cashmere sleeves of his suit, wincing at the thought of Sailor's face when she spots the ruined material.

"Capitol expects me to." There's no small amount of spite in the response, eyes trained on the the shoreline as the train roars to life. He wasn't fond of either home, but at least Enzo had made Four a little more bearable these last few months. He had no such fondness for the Capitol. "But I know I've grown up pretty well since the Academy."

Y'know, back when he was killing himself for sport.

He's nineteen now, older than he'd ever entertained growing. It was always a race to the end with them, eighteen by demand or sixteen by spite. Beck always fantasized about how funny it would be for Hailsham to cut him open only to find lungs blackened by his own intentional mistakes. They would throw away his broken pieces but they'd have been so absolutely his.

Now he wears a smile for the Cameras and for the Capitol and for Luke. He exists for their entertainment, he hurts for their sake and he tries not to think of if he's better off for it.

"Luke I-" He wishes, for a second, that there was any strength left in him. That he could talk about Capitol food and promise that the games are everything like the television would have you believe. He wants to make the same empty promise to him that he did Perdita and Dom the year before

this'll be easy. You'll be home in no time.

But his smile falls flat and Beck chokes on his tongue. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I'm sorry. I-" It falls out of him, the oceans struck by low tide and his eyes are ringed with red regret, "You were free. I though you all were safe now."

Feeble, because he doesn't actually believe that.

"'cause i've been seeing some ghosts, and i'd be lying if i told you i'm fine"

♪