to the bitter end || beck & mackenzie blitz

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

 BECK HAILSHAM♔

He's twenty-two and has lived through at least ten years worth of bullshit on top of it. It's a wonder he keeps finding reasons to be optimistic. He picks out little bits of humanity in the children they keep laying out at the foot of his throne - Arc is radiant and charismatic and just maybe that will be enough to bring them home. Maybe this time Beck won't feel like that axe is back in his hand and he's gutting a little boy just to piss away the life he told him he was desperately fighting for.

Arc Mer gets twenty-second place, by the way. Beck tried to sleep through the Bloodbath. And yeah that's treason or whatever but what is the Capitol gonna do about it? It's all branding at this point. Beck winces every time he sees a news spreads outlining the golden career Victor's fall from grace. History, it seems, is doomed to repeat itself and Beck might find that poetic if he wasn't currently sitting on a couch in the common room fuming that they'd quite literally dragged him out of bed for this.

His chest hurts. That's the first sensation he picks out from the vague discomfort currently suffocating him. "This was entirely worth it, thanks." Venom drips from his words but it's nowhere near potent. He's exhausted. That's the second feeling he manages to untangle. His lids are heavy and an ache runs deep into his bones. Moving toward the liquor cabinet takes more effort than it should.

He considers the crystalline bottles for a few moments, deep purples and vibrant blues all tempting in their own right. He decides on a deep green bottle of whiskey accented with gold and bites back a grin - it's a very topical choice. If not a bit on the nose.

The first few gulps are graceless, trying to bubble back up his throat a couple of times. It's worth it, though, because his head is already swimming by the time he reaches the elevators. Pure instinct guides him, he's seeking comfort and there's really only one person in this godforsaken building that has ever made him feel anything close to that.

He'd been there when Beck woke up, after all. Though he probably regrets that now that he's become the victim of so many drunken rambles.

"Mackenzie!" He doesn't knock before he pushes into Seven's room, falling dramatically onto the floor beside the other Victor and plucking the lit joint from between his fingers to replace it with the bottle of whiskey. See, topical! "In the bloodbath! In the fucking bloodbath!"

He's grinning because he really doesn't know what other expression he's supposed to wear. It's full of sharp edges and so fucking fragile. "You're drinking with me?" It's spoken like a question, giving Mackenzie plenty of room to refuse. "You're drinking with me." He repeats, more certain.

"I just really want to see someone come home." He mutters that under his breath, because he really isn't drunk enough to say that aloud.

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

MACKENZIE PRYCE Listen, the bloodbath was over and he still had two living tributes. Considering that this was the deadliest bloodbath in decades, that was cause for celebration. More specifically, it was cause for him to close himself up in his room and focus on his breathing so his guts didn't force his breakfast onto the floor. Ten years of this. Ten years and not an ounce closer to being free, or better, or happy- A pang of guilt as he watched his beloved comb her long, dark hair in front of her vanity mirror. A clenched fist in reply to the indifference... the cold. Each victor has their own room, regardless of personal circumstance, for a reason. They'd been sleeping in Jaci's room, so his own had been left just as it was when they arrived: clean, pristine, unfairly large, and completely devoid of even an ounce of the warmth that made living spaces livable. They survived. Whiskey took Mackenzie's advice and didn't blow himself up- Mackenzie couldn't remember the last time one of his male tributes had a level head- and Sasha made off with an entire alliance within hours of the gong. They lived, so he should have been happy. Because it could have been worse. It could have been- "Mackenzie!" Yeah. That. His friendship with Beck was one that had been unlikely. Beck was from an Upper District, had close personal ties with Bell- who notably lost her shit in the 83rd- and he was some sort of bastardization of a career. Except he won his games, as opposed to the, uh... more recent career strategies. Maybe their understanding lied within their base need to survive. Maybe their shared escapist tendencies were what tied them together. Or, maybe it was as simple as Mackenzie having a joint and Beck desperately needing to distract himself in those early days after his win: Mackenzie wasn't sure. But it had happened, and now there was yet another person added to the list of people he cared much too deeply for and could not protect. He needed to break the habit of loving, he supposed. It only ever meant losing something eventually, and he was just... tired of losing. Plus, it was the only real way to win. There he was, prime of his life, wealthy, a new father, and all he could think about were the things he couldn't fix. The pieces that were gone. Jaci and Violet and Mom and Max and Marley and Angel and Lex and Teddy and Stella and Nico and Beck and Lysander and- It was too much. So he did what Mackenzie did best and he ran away and started smoking and now Beck was there because things were worse for him and Mackenzie might be able to fix it maybe, maybe, maybe. "Yeah. That was..." he said, deep inhale as he laid back on his bed to stare absently up at the ceiling, "...something. Capitol's been calling the whole group 'suicide squad' now." He patted the bed next to him. He could mope for himself some other time. "Sorry, Becky. Some of 'em just can't be saved."