wave meet shore /eden+av

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

No one wants to tell him what's going on, not at first.

Avriel sits there in the hallway outside of surgery for three hours before anyone comes out of the room. When they finally do, they breeze past him before he can even ask about Eden. By then, his phone has rung three times. Avriel finally answers on the fourth.

"You're meant to be at the finals," says Gloria, voice strained.

"I'm busy," he says. Avriel sits with his head tipped back against the wall. Eden's blood is drying in his shirt and his hands are coated in red. It's hard to escape the way that makes him feel, like the dark is falling again. 

"What could you possibly be doing in Four?" Gloria snaps, "This district hates you."

He hangs up.

She's not wrong, he just doesn't want to talk to her anymore. The phone starts ringing again so Avriel turns it off. No one important is going to call him anyway. He doesn't have friends, not really. Seeing the other victors around the training centre once a year doesn't mean closeness.

There's only one person that he wants to talk to right now and he's probably dying on an operating table. He gazes at the florescent light until his eyes hurt. That strange calm feeling has settled over him, the deafening blanket of silence that's so hard to feel though. Part of him has already decided that it doesn't matter if Eden dies. He doesn't even know if they're friends, Avriel barely knows him.

He doesn't want to, not if even the possibility of losing him feels like this.

The weight of it is crushing but it isn't heavy, not like you'd expect. It's more like a compression on his chest, a compactor pushing down slowly, he can feel himself breaking every second that passes.

Eden shouldn't even matter like this, but he does and that's Avriel's fault. No matter how he tries to pretend to cold indifference, he cares a great deal about the people in his life. It isn't just that though, Eden isn't like everyone else. It's hard for him to explain, he just makes Avriel feel that same way that Blade always did– like he's being seen for the first time.

Like he's safe.

"Victor Baptiste?"

Avriel lowers his eyes to see a nurse standing in front of him. It's hard to make out their features, for a long moment all he can see is the splotchy fading memory of light.

"We have a room prepared for Contestant Le Roux. Please follow me."

The room is up three floors and Avriel can see slivers of the ocean through the window. He leans into the frame, gaze trained on those slivers. He wonders if anyone's ever gone past that horizon line. Just ran over it and kept going until Panem was far behind them.

Maybe they'd just hit a wall.

"There's a shower in the bathroom through there," the nurse says and gestures at a door to the left, "An attendant has gone to retrieve a change of clothes for you, until then, here's a sweatshirt from lost and found."

The water doesn't get any hotter than lukewarm but Avriel still stands beneath the shower head for a long time. Eden's blood seems to take forever to come off of his skin. He can't get it out from under his fingernails and he's shivering by the time he finally shuts the water off. His fingers are numb, his jaw clenched tight to keep his teeth from chattering.

The cold offers some kind of clarity. It's easier to think when he's clean.

He runs his hand through strands of wet hair once before slipping out into the now dark hospital room. He's greeted by the sound of a heart rate monitor and a silent form laying motionless in the bed. The sky's gone dark in the time that Avriel was in the shower, lights from the District leak into the room, painting strands of yellows and blues on the linoleum floor.

He's tired but Avriel's too stubborn to leave. He still remembers how it felt to wake up all alone in that sterile hospital room in the Capitol. He'd known from that moment that he was the consolation prize. He doesn't want Eden to feel like that.

Av sits down slowly in the chair beside Eden's bed, not able to look at him just yet. It feels like someone's got their hand cupped around his heart, their grip slowly tightening. He reaches out and entwines Eden's hand in his. Avriel's still so cold from the shower that it feels electric just to hold him.

He's afraid to move much, to shut his eyes. Everything feels too fragile.

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

It feels like being underwater. It’s dark in the room, but of course it is. His eyes are closed, glued shut maybe, or sewn, but the walls keep swaying like they’re fixed to a dock. He can't stop the nausea because it's everywhere.

Eden drifts between pockets of awareness for a long time, not quite waking up, but not quite slipping away either. He sleeps long enough for his legs to ache - a sort of dull feeling that cuts through his ocean like a dingy. His whole body feels heavy, like he'll start sinking straight through the floor and then once that's done he'll just keep going.

He’d woken up during surgery once, he dimly remembers that, but it just keeps coming in flashes. It's confusing, frustrating, like putting a puzzle together and missing the last piece. He loses his thread of thought before he can fully grab onto it. He sees the glare of fluorescents and feels a wrist crushing under his fingers, something plastic in his hand, the feeling of unease. Then the anesthetic had been bumped up and he'd fallen back under.

There's still blood stuck to his skin when he drifts, he's practically swimming in it. It fills his lungs until he chokes and then it spills out of his mouth, dry where it passes, and he just lies there, stuck in place.

His nails dig into the grout of the bathroom tiles but he can smell the rubber of the arena mats. He hears rain against a window, a coin hitting the pavement, he can't breathe.

He can't tell where he is anymore, the doctors don't talk and neither does he, sometimes his sister stands in the corner of the room and stares at him. There's a lock on the boys' rooms but it never stops her, she always gets in trouble for it.

He can't feel the rise and fall of his chest, but he can feel his heartbeat. It thumps steadily in his fingertips, a pattern that follows the beeping in his skull. He counts the one-two one-two of it, but then the rhythm falters, and it changes, faster and then back down, faster and then faster still, it gets faster.

Maybe that's what finally wakes him up.

The inhale hurts when he moves, sudden and panicked, breaking through the water, sitting up and lurching over all at once. The extra sedation makes his limbs sluggish, there's a momentum to his muscles that he's never had before. The heart monitor screams at him, he can't close his eyes, his vision is just white, the smell of antiseptic burns.

He jolts at nothing and tumbles off of the bed, his shoulder hitting the ground but the rest of him staying suspended. He gets caught in the sheets, his legs are tangled up in them because one's still up on the bed, he's stuck there, his ankle is cuffed to the railing.

The wrist cracks in his fist again.

He’s got his sword in someone's chest and then it turns back on him, he's dry heaving onto the floor except he can't tell which way the floor is. There's someone else there with him but he flinches away from them, instinct making him shake and thrash at the sling he's created.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

Time passes, he doesn't know how much. He watches the lights from outside go out one by one until all that's left is the moon and the tungsten yellow glow of a solitary streetlight.

The room is quiet, just the sound of the heart monitor ticking and Eden's shallow, rattling breaths. Avriel still holds his hand and his fingers aren't cold anymore. He cups heat in his palm and holds it there against Eden's skin. Part of him buzzes still, too vibrant, and he's afraid to let go. When he shuts his eyes, everything could change in an instant and he wouldn't know, so he can't sleep.

Not until it's safe again, not until he's sure that Eden's going to be okay.

Eden's hand tightens on Avriel's as if in response to his thoughts and Avriel smiles a little shakily past the crushing pain of his grip.

Sleep, idiot.

He rests his head against the back of the chair idly, eyes on the light streaking the ceiling and wonders what Eden's voice sounds like, if he even has one. Avriel's never asked about it, it's never come up and it's not like it's polite or whatever.

He shuts his eyes and remembers hanging over open air, Eden's hands wrapped around his wrist, the only thing keeping him from plummeting to his death. His heart had been in his throat, everything had seemed sharp after, the sun too bright, the mountain air so clear that he could almost taste it.

Relief, so intense that it ached.

Maybe Eden's voice sounds a little like that.

His thoughts start to drift further, until it gets hard to hold on so he doesn't. A dream dips and sways, holding him gentle. He dreams he's laying in the bottom of the canoe, the stars above him, the only light in the sky. There's no agony this time, no fear, just Avriel and the canoe and the stars and the tether around his wrist.

A grip so strong that it could shatter him if he let it.

Then a wave comes, motion so sudden and intense that Avriel is pulled out of the canoe– no, the chair– he's being dragged along. Avriel opens his eyes, pulled too soon from the dream's grip, everything in flying colour and so much movement it's confusing. Their hands are no longer interlocked. Eden's body is falling, Avriel rolls to cushion the blow, catching his elbow on his stomach. He breathes sharp as Eden's shoulder hits his chest but doesn't push the other boy off.

For a moment, he just lays there, trying to catch his breath and half-failing. Eden lies half on top of him, half on the floor but the bandage around his chest is still snug, he's safe.

"Hey–" he mumbles but Eden is already moving again, body thrashing in confused panic. His elbow mashes Avriel in the shoulder and digs into the scar from Aspen's spear. A note of panic, black and heavy hits him and tears form in the back of his eyes from the pain but he doesn't get mad.

He wraps his arms around Eden tightly to stop him thrashing, "You're gonna tear your stitches, E," he says, "Stop it, stop moving, I got you, I got you, okay?"

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

He's suffocating, stuck in straightjacket, wrapped in a net, the floor is warm and it burns him. He moves like he's drowning because he is, he fights until he can't.

"Stop it."

And the voice is different, but it’s still an order so it cuts through him and he goes limp. His head falls back and he stares up at the ceiling with wide eyes, all the fight seeps out of him, his body feels so heavy. Eden's not there in that recovery room, the tile pattern's wrong, the curtains are off, he's somewhere else.

The rest of the room starts to bloom in like watercolours, everything unfurls in the corners of his vision and then bleeds downwards. He watches the wallpaper melt and holds onto the arm around him so he doesn't get swept away by it. Awareness filters in, slowly but surely, agonizingly out of reach. He can hear himself breathe, he can feel the rattle and the hoarseness of it, but every breath is something monumental. He drags the air in and pushes it out and then he feels winded.

He's got one leg up on the bed still, it's a weird position, it's uncomfortable, but he can't move because someone told him not to, except he can't quite remember it. He can't call his sister by her name because someone told him not to, except he can't quite remember it either, he just stopped talking altogether.

The IV stand had tipped over when he'd fallen, it's laying on the ground now and Eden can see the glint of the metal in his peripherals. It glows like a knife when the light shifts and the hair on the back of his neck raises. The liquid in the bag is clear. His hands are numb. The sedative feels more like a tranquilizer.

The cuff around his ankle feels the same.

Avriel, the lampstand says to him.

Eden frowns.

Avriel isn't here, he's in Nine. Avriel can't be here.

Eden's tongue tastes like blackberries but there's ash in his throat. He clicks when he swallows, eyes watering from watching the ceiling change. Maybe he's falling apart all over again. Maybe this is just another break before the bone calcifies stronger. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad the second time.

His dead weight sinks into the floor but his jaw stays clenched - he can't help it. He can still feel the needle pushing against the inside of his wrist, he can feel the fist in his stomach and the water in his lungs.

He waits for a voice to tell him to get up or stay down, he waits for the sound of a bell that never comes because somehow forfeit is worse than death.

Forfeit, the lampstand laughs back to him.

Eden's grip tightens.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

The words have barely left his lips when Eden goes limp on top of him. The back of his head falls against Avriel's neck, his arms fall limp but Avriel doesn't let go. He needs a second to catch up.

The room spins a little, a few moments ago, Avriel was sleeping but it was weird sleeping, it wasn't a nightmare. His dreams aren't always bad to be fair, but most of the time they are. When awake he can recall good memories from the arena too, not like there were all that many, it's just rare for him to dream about anything but the bad times.

He's probably just really tired, his brain can't render the ghosts tonight.

Avriel lays there in silence, Eden on top of him for probably a moment too long. The other boy's foot is propped up on the bed, still attached to the guardrail like he's a criminal. The heart monitor doesn't sound as frantic anymore but Av doesn't need it to know that Eden's calmed down. He can feel his heartbeat on top of him.

There used to be this stray cat that lived on the street Av grew up on in Nine. If you fed it anything it'd come lay on you on sunny days and purr like a little engine. He used to seek that out, the weight and the warmth, it'd always felt safe having that big old tuxedo cat on his chest.

Eden's sort of like that, just a little bigger.

Avriel shifts a little beneath Eden, who makes no attempt to move. It's almost like he can't. Maybe not, he's got to be pumped full of painkillers and the wound probably kills anyway. Avriel sits them both up slowly so that he's now sitting with Eden in his lap, his head still tipped back resting lightly in the crook of Avriel's neck.

Eden isn't all that light, especially like this. "I didn't mean don't move at all," he says quietly, tone mild, "Just be careful, the stitches, y'know?"

It's hard to tell what Eden is thinking when Avriel can't see his face, still he waits for some sort of answer in patient silence.

He rests his chin lightly on the top of Eden's head. Strange to think that less than twelve hours ago, Avriel thought for sure that Eden was dying right in front of him. He'd forgotten that out here, in the real world, no one has to die. A belief that he's been carrying for years now starts to crumble.

Not everything ends in a shallow grave with wild poppies swaying in the breeze.

He's going to have to attempt lifting Eden up into bed in a moment. His body feels slow, too weak, like he's been running a marathon for months now and this is the first moment he's had to sit down.

Could just stay like this though.

He smiles the smallest bit at his own stupid thought. Nothing like spending the night on cold tile, especially when trying to recover from an injury that should have been fatal. He's just got to find his strength long enough to get Eden into bed, shouldn't be too hard.

"Ready?" he asks, but doesn't make any move to get up yet, "You should be in bed."

Maybe just a little longer like this, with Eden safe in his lap and Avriel's body protecting him, the beat of his heart caught in his arms. Avriel shuts his eyes, so tired, content.

Easier to remember that he's okay like this.

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

Eden's tucked in then, his head is against something warm and soft and he lets himself fall into it a little more, without fulling meaning to. His head falls back a little further, the whole room shifting, he ends up on a shoulder. And how strange? Eden stares at the neck in front of him, and then at the jaw, and then he lifts himself up a little bit to see the face.

He frowns at it. He frowns at Avriel.

The confusion is clear on his face. The fog in his brain tugging at his eyebrows and making his face screw up. He touches the redone stitches on his forehead and then his hand flutters to Avriel's chest. The air stings a little when he thinks about it too long, but he knows Avriel isn't supposed to be here. He'd helped Eden in that bathroom, he'd let him sit, but that was days ago, surely. He should be back home by now, comfortable, doing whatever it is victors do in their downtime.

He stares at Avriel for a little too long, the tilting of the room makes his features warp and it gets hard to focus on one thing. Eden's mouth opens but nothing comes out. He tries again but he just ends up gaping at Avriel, who is here, right now, in the room with him.

The light outside shifts, smoke rising.

One hand drifts up to the side of Avriel's face, searching. Eden's been fooled before and the room laughs at him for it. His veins feel heavy and moving his arm is like carrying bricks, but he does it. The feel of Avriel's skin against Eden's fingertips feels like something he should know.

t feels like it's important.

"Ready?" Avriel's mouth asks, and Eden's head bobs against him, nodding before he's even done speaking. He'd be ready for anything if it meant being held like this.

Eden hasn't had a lot of nice in his life, but he suddenly knows that this is it. He knows it inexplicably. This is the feeling. His thumb traces the E on Avriel's cheek, always the same clumsy letter, and he stares at where he makes contact. It's like the high has all left him, he's just left with the low, the adrenaline is gone, he's sinking. He's tired, and there's an ache in his chest, but he keeps watching Avriel, like if he blinks he'll miss something important.

He feels important.

Avriel's smiling. Eden's thumb drifts closer to the corner of his mouth and then back.

He likes that.

It's like something warm's being poured through his ribcage. Avriel smiles and the world's alright again. Exhaustion pulls at him but Eden just pushes it away. Avriel laughs when he eats a mushroom-rock and everything goes a little quieter. Avriel's hands are gentle when they start to fix him and they hold Eden in a way he's never been held before.

He feels safe, for maybe the first time in his life. His fists don't itch, he doesn't have to look over his shoulder like this because Avriel's arm is right there. He lets Avriel support his weight, he couldn't stand up if he tried to anyways, but it's the thought that counts. Maybe it's the drugs in his system, maybe it's the fact that every one of their chance meetings does something to Eden. He feels a little more human.

His hand goes numb from being held up but that's okay.

Avriel's got him.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

Sometimes the things he wants to say get stuck in his throat.

Like when Billie asks him if he's okay because he's sitting on the porch at two in the morning, staring out into the dark with a gun in his lap. The words are there, but they won't come out. Yeah, I'm fine. He hates lying but sometimes it feels like that's all he's ever done.

And Billie doesn't fall for 'I'm fine' anymore.

Eden's mouth opens and closes and Avriel watches his lips, waiting for mouthed words, something, anything that could be more informative than just watching Eden's movements. Nothing comes and a bitter taste rises in his throat like bile. Av bites the inside of his cheek a little and looks away, not wanting Eden to see that. It's not his fault that he can't speak.

It's like Eden can sense how he's feeling or something because then his fingers are against Avriel's cheek, feeling gently. Av's mouth turns up into a small smile and when he looks down at Eden again, the other boy's expression is so open that it's like he can understand exactly what he's thinking. "Yeah," he says gently and places his hand over his on his cheek, "It's me. I... I didn't want to leave you."

Eden's thumb brushes close to his lip and the careful way he touches him makes his eyes well up. Somehow every time Eden touches him and it's kind, it's a shock and Avriel doesn't know why. It shouldn't be so surprising when someone holds him, it shouldn't feel different and new.

But sometimes he still feels nervous being this close to anyone, it brings up the memory of killing Areto lightening quick. His body aches, the scar on his thigh where she stabbed him in the leg burns, it's like breaking all over again. He's never going to be able to forget the easy tear of her skin and the give of her body onto his knife when he stabbed her. It taught him just how easy it was to kill, how he could do it again.

Half of him wants to push Eden away and the other half wants to never let him go, it's confusing as hell.

"I didn't want you to wake up alone," he says after a moment, "Not after that."

Something tells him that Eden is used to being alone and that makes Avriel ache all over because he knows what that's like.

"Here we go then," he says as Eden nods and braces himself against the side of the bed. He pushes off the wall and pulls Eden and himself up with some difficulty. Eden isn't small and if he isn't careful, his stitches could rip open. Avriel has to pause mid-rise just to catch his breath, then he ends up dragging Eden onto the bed nearly on top of him in an effort to get him flat.

Now he's sort of trapped under Eden's weight but moving could mean tearing Eden's stitches. Avriel lays there, trying to think of the best way to extract himself, but the bed is warm. It feels like it's been a very long time since he was this comfortable. Half-stuck under Eden, he can barely move. The other boy's head has ended up on Avriel's arm, his shoulder against Avriel's chest and Avriel on his side, curled around him.

He stares at him for awhile. Still doesn't feel real that he's alive. Part of him wonders if this is just some elaborate nightmare and tomorrow he'll wake up alone on a train speeding back to Nine.

Except Eden breathes against him and Avriel feels his breath on his cheek. He smiles again.

For just a moment it's like he's staring at the warm light of a fire in the pitch-black and he's so tired of limping along. He's so empty, so cold, sometimes he doesn't even know why he's still going. But then there's the flame in the dark and that light gives him so much hope, again and again, he can keep going because it's there, waiting for him.

"Eden-" he starts.

But he doesn't know how to explain any of that to Eden, not to this boy that he's met a handful of times. The words get stuck in his throat and Avriel doesn't know what to say. Maybe there's nothing that needs saying.

Whatever this feeling is, it'll pass.

"You comfortable?" he asks, "I can try getting up."

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

He gets a little bit lost in Avriel. The room turns inside out and twists in on itself and the walls laugh as everyone loses their balance.

"It's me." Avriel says.

It's something clicking into place. It's a light beam flashing through stained glass. A deadbolt unlocking. There's a firefly under Eden's thumb and it's warm to the touch.

It's you.

Avriel's here and Eden doesn't know why that feels so monumental, but it does.

The tournament seems like it was ages ago. Eden doesn't know anything outside of these four walls, he doesn't feel anything outside of these two arms. He's a little piece of driftwood floating along a river, warm in the sun.

Eden wraps his arms around Avriel's shoulders when he moves. Or he tries. All the grip's left his hands, he can barely make a fist, so he just drapes them across the back of his neck instead. It's awkward and his leg gets twisted, the cuff rattles and it sounds like a handful of pennies. Eden just holds onto Avriel and tries not to throw up. He lets himself be moved, he feels drowsy, his limbs too heavy. His head moves before his stomach does and it's like being transported in pieces.

His stares at the fabric of Avriel's shirt until the stitching of the collar stops swimming.

Everything settles like a snowfall, slow and soothing. Eden's comfortable, the air feels cold, makes his hands tingle, so he burrows closer to the source of warmth. Avriel's heartbeat is like a drum against his ear, his eyes close easily, the static of the darkness fills his head and makes it harder to stay present.

Avriel says his name, his name, and Eden opens his eyes again, blinks blearily at him and then falls forward gently in response. His head lands in the crook of Avriel's neck, his head on his shoulder. His hand finds Avriel's arm and then travels down his sleeve, fingers catching on the cuff and staying there.

He sighs and the air leaves him like he's deflating. Avriel smells like pine trees and bar soap and even if the building caught fire, Eden wouldn't be able to move from that spot.

It's hard to sleep in One. The Le Roux manor is too big, the sounds are too vast. He'd sat with his back against the wall, facing the door, for the first week there. It's been months and he still sleeps on the ground under the window - it's hard not to feel like you're trespassing when you're lying in the bed of a dead boy.

It's hard to sleep in One but Eden is so tired.

Eden tugs at Avriel's sleeve like it'll stop him from leaving, grip weak and hand half-open. It's more twitch than anything, it's barely even a movement, Eden feels like he's dragged himself through tar just from that. It'd be panic-inducing normally, this laxness. For a long time, his fight's been the only thing he's had. Eden's like a cut bird suddenly, but he's held so gently, his wings are bruised and he can't fly but that's ok because he's safe here, like this.

His eyelids flutter, they're heavy with lead and mortar and every blink is a little slower than the last. Some animalistic part of him fights it though, he can't stop staring at the hollow of Avriel's throat and he can't stop counting the beats of his pulse. All of his systems are fighting, his head clashing against his chest, the boy in the forest says that it's safe to sleep and the boy in the ring says that it never is.

But Avriel had said he didn't want Eden to wake up alone, right? So that means he'll stay. Eden will be fine because Avriel will be there.

It's too much for too long. Someone's taken out all his insides and replaced them with cotton, Eden holds onto one thought and then it's gone, ideas start to streak by like brushstrokes, too quick to grab.

He doesn't want to be alone.

No one's talking but the room goes all echoey anyways, the sound of the heart monitor bounces against the bedframe until it sinks into the background, barely even there.

The fabric of Avriel's sleeve is too rough against Eden's fingers so he lets them slip down until they rest against the back of Avriel's wrist instead. It's nicer like that, it's softer, something about it pricks at his brain but he can feel the warmth through his palm and that's like a balm.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

He's either getting better at understanding Eden, or he's just easier to read when he's injured.

The other boy doesn't speak, but Avriel can still sort of get what Eden wants from him. He moves in closer to Avriel, his head leaving Avriel's arm for his chest, to tuck in so damn neat just under his chin. His arm goes with Eden and Av wraps himself around him like he's the most breakable thing he's ever touched.

Eden is almost fully on top of him again but this time it doesn't hurt as much. This time the mattress beneath him is so soft and Eden is so warm and comfortable, Avriel can feel himself shutting down.

Then he feels a little tug on his sleeve and the weight of Eden's wrist on the back of his hand, holding him in place.

Stay.

It's not like he wants to leave but tomorrow the sun will rise and the train will come to take him back to Nine and Eden back to One. He doesn't want to fall asleep but this time it isn't because of the nightmares, he just doesn't want to miss this.

"Eden," he says, but it's getting hard to hear, wading in waist high water, his tongue gets tangled. Eden's fingers slide down to his wrist and stop there. His fingers are rough, touch comforting. Even though he's already on top of Av, that touch is all he can focus on.

"Eden," he says again softly, but there's nothing else he wants to say. Just his name, that soft, gentle thing, Avriel self soothes, hand turning over slowly to catch his fingers in his.

Eden.

He sinks lower and lower for a long time, then stalls somewhere between being awake and sleep. His body too heavy to move, the room dead silent, something in him hesitates.

Dark and ugly, burning in his chest– Fear.

Then nothing.

A flame in the dark. Avriel moves closer and the light of the fire casts itself over the fronts of the trees standing sentinel in the dark. A little light bobs along the forest floor in front of him, Scout. There's no sound in the woods, no stars in the sky anymore, the world might as well be dead and Avriel with it.

Maybe he is dead.

This might be purgatory.

He gets to the edge of the clearing and looks to the fire where Areto is kneeling, waiting for him. She's hunched over. The flame beside her sparks and flickers and Avriel stands there, waiting. This isn't how the dream normally goes.

Then he sees the blood. A glistening pool in front of Areto, deep dark red shining like an oil slick. "'Reto?" Avriel whispers, but something is wrong. He doesn't remember it being like this. She lifts her head and it isn't Areto, the scene's changed.

Eden smiles at him and blood spills from his mouth. One of Avriel's daggers is sticking out of his gut and suddenly he's not at the clearing edge but kneeling right in front of him, his hand wrapped around the handle of the knife, pushing the blade into Eden's stomach.

No!

His eyes fly open and Avriel's grip tightens a little around Eden's fingers. It takes all his concentration to calm his breathing down enough to not wake Eden up. Stupid of him, so fucking stupid of him to think that it was safe to sleep, that Eden's presence could keep the dreams away.

Foolish to forget that he's poison.

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

It's so warm here. Eden turns his face into Avriel's chest, not knowing how to be held but wanting it anyway.

He's so heavy, his ankle feels like it's anchored down, his head buzzes.

Eden's usually a light sleeper, he had to be, but he can feel himself falling now, hard and fas. Avriel's saying his name over and over again like a lullaby and it takes almost everything he has just to stay awake and listen. He loses awareness in sections, until there's just their fingers intertwined, and then there's nothing.

It's the kind of sleep that doesn't feel real. His eyes shut once and then they're cracking open again, fuzzy and confused, it's like barely any time has passed but his body aches worse now. It's like he's blinked and then been hit by a truck.

The morphine must be fading; he'd never put the IV back in after it fell out.

Hopefully he didn't need that.

Eden groans into the bed, his leg is asleep and his joints hurt and there's a heartbeat under his ear that's going just a little too fast. At first he thinks that's just his own. He's disoriented but not panicky, shaky from exertion but not nerves. The world doesn't quite make sense yet.

His hand is clammy when he squeezes it, kind of sweaty, his hair's in his eyes and all he remembers is the sound of a crowd and the feeling of weightlessness.

He doesn't know how long it takes for him to recognize the body he's laying on, he just stares at the botton of Avriel's chin with a dazed sort of clarity.

Oh.

Oh, of course it's you.

He's tired enough to curl up again, aware enough to tune into the thump-thump of a jackrabbit. He's still halfway in that sleep state, but a little bit of unease trickles through the drowsiness. Something feels off. The hair on the back of his neck rises. It could just be the proximity - it's no secret that Eden isn't exactly touchy.

It's not that though. He doesn't feel that with Avriel.

He can't put his finger on it, it's just some sense of foreboding. The twinge in his chest flares.

Avriel's breathing jostles Eden, rocking him like a little boat, he can feel the seasickness of it. Eden makes his own breathing slow in response, in and out and purposeful. Sleep still sticks to him but it's getting harder and harder to hold onto - e just wants a little bit longer like this.

Eden doesn't know what's wrong, the pain is creeping back in but he can't make himself move away. He makes the E shape on the side of Avriel's hand with his thumb, one long line and three little short ones, over and over while their fingers are still tangled.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"don't take away this
one defense of mine
i reserve the right
to disappear"

His breath catches between his mouth and his lungs, pockets of air form and slide away between each other, tectonic plates, he's uneven again. Avriel's gaze is trained on the shitty foam and plaster ceiling tiles and he's certain that he's awake so then why is the pool of blood blooming above his head? Blood seeping through the living room ceiling and his parents above his head, bleeding out but he doesn't know it yet.

Burning cherry pie mixed with the last few embers of a campfire and the weight of Areto against his chest but crisp spring morning coming in through the open doors and windows. The sound of a cannon, Areto's last breath in his ear and the feeling that ran up his arm as his knife pushed through skin then tissue then muscle.

Areto so heavy on his shoulder, Eden so heavy on his chest, the knife in his hand and the blade through Eden's chest, no, the blade through Areto's chest? Everyone staring at him as he kneels there in the ring holding Eden bleeding out and everyone staring at him as he kneels there in the woods with Areto dead on his shoulder. It all clicks together, dragging his mom wrapped in the hallway rug through the woods in Nine and running through empty halls with Eden in his arms. Blade's head in his lap on the beach and Areto's head on his shoulder and Aspen leaning against him on the beach as the sun rose, it all happened the same.

Everybody dies except him.

And his heart in the dark, it is going to crawl up his throat and leave him. The bed starts to fall away beneath him, the weight on his chest becomes overbearing and his hands, so weak, they tense to push it away. A rhythm, so steady that it doesn't apply to him anymore pushes against his own frantic beat. A hand, tightens around his wrist as if to drag him back down.

Into the dirt, into the grave.

Avriel's awake but he isn't present. There are too many other spaces to be and sometimes a house isn't haunted but the person living within it is.

Areto plunges a knife into his leg and pulls his blade into her chest in the same motion. The cannon to mark her death turns into a drum beat against his skin, steady and resolute and so slow against his own.

Boom.

He gasps for air in the dark but the ceiling is so low that he can't raise his head above water anymore.

Boom.

Then a hand around his, a line drawn over the back of it and three more little lines, over and over. Blood falls from the ceiling and drips onto his forehead. It slides into his hair and over his face until he can't see anymore. Grave dirt piled on his skin, he's laying in the hole that was dug for him when he was reaped and Isabelle shovels above him.

Pity.

Pity, pity, pity how it all ends up the same.

A line drawn over the back of his hand and three more little lines, over and over. The pencil finger is warm, it's a letter. There's that beat again, slow and steady, discordant to Avriel's but that doesn't work. It needs to be the same. He tries to match himself to it and at first he can't, but a pocket of air breaks, he lets it out in one long, slow breath.

The line drawn across the back of his hand again, slower, easier to read. Three more lines.

An 'E', it's an 'E'.

Eden.

"Eden?" he whispers.

His breath stops in his throat one last time.

On his chest in the dark, a little broken but alive, no blade through his chest anymore. Avriel lays there in silence until their breathing is the same. Light spills in through the windows. A gull cries as it flies overhead and Eden smells like sweat and blood and a little bit like salt water from the air in Four.

Shame falls over him like a shroud.

"I should have known. I'm-" he starts but it feels false. It feels like a lie forming and Avriel has lied so much to so many people in the last couple years. Eden's never seemed to believe any of them.

"Thank-you."

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"all that i've been taught
and every word i've got
is foreign to me."

The pain feels different now. Eden's acutely aware of the twinge in his chest and his fingers tingle as sensation returns to them.

Avriel says his name and the static recedes a bit more.

It's nice to just lay there. The room is quiet and Eden eventually finds a way to breath that doesn't hurt his lungs. Then Avriel starts to do that thing again - when his words get short and quiet and Eden knows without looking that he's making the face too. The one with the eyebrows pinched, the eyes down, he's falling into himself, making everything smaller.

It's strange how they barely know each other and Eden's already categorized twelve of Avriel's expressions.

Eden pushes his fingertips into the back of Avriel's hand, hard enough to make his nails go white and he can feel the little bird bones there, it almost makes him sick but he doesn't stop. His arm lies across the blanket like it's dead, his head moves with the rise and fall of Avriel's chest. He's got that doctor's wrist in his grip again, he's on a mat, he's squeezing too hard so they're sedating him again.

5 once said he was too dangerous to keep; he's a liability and a ticking time bomb and human resources' worst nightmare, and she was right.

But he couldn't hurt Avriel. He can't. He watches his fingers press down and it's different than before. Eden's own thumbnail digs into his hand, stops him from putting too much pressure onto Avriel's wrist. He's got one part of himself protecting Av from the other parts, and maybe that's what's so scary about it.

It's not Eden's brain stopping him, it's his own body.

It's never been like that before. Sometimes it's the other way around, and Eden's head is screaming at him to stop but his fists don't listen. One-two-three and the ground is slick, his whole body aches, it doesn't belong to him.

"Thank-you." Avriel says, and Eden just makes a low humming noise in the back of his throat, the sound clicking out halfway through.

It doesn't seem like there's much to thank him for when Eden's lying there with his bloody hand on Avriel's, daring his body to revert. The longer he stays still, the more the fog clears.

Eden rolls off of him slowly, inhales sharp because the movement stings. He lands on his back with his shoulder still against Avriel's and tries not to make it look like he's lingering. It's a small bed, he can't go very far. His ankle is stuck lying over Avriel's because of the cuff, his hands go back to his own chest, pushing down again. His fingers press harder against himself, there's nothing stopping him this time.

He wants to see the ocean but he knows that the medics will be back soon, and then he'll have to get on the train and go back to face Eurydice with nothing but a participation ribbon in his fist and a line of deep stitches across his sternum.

He doesn't know long he's been in this room, he doesn't know how long he's been away. Everything's still hazy around the edges like the world's made of burnt out film.

It feels like he can't look at Avriel, not with the echo of broken carpals nestled so snugly in his palm. He has to go back to One, he's has to go back to being Le Roux instead of Eden, and the thought sends a spike of something strange through him. He wants to curl up into Avriel's side but instead he just lies there, staring at the ceiling with his hand flat against his bandages.