the art of trust // storm + eden, post-91st

[lance]

s t o r m .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

It was strange, really, just how quickly he'd fell into a post-Games routine, for Storm had never been one for uniformity and predictability in his life. Patterns and stability were for adults to use as excuses as to why they never had any fun or always had to reserve their hobbies, so overwhelmed in work were they, so for him to adopt one - well, he had killed five people in the last few months in order to pull himself out of the hole he'd dug himself. If that didn't force him to grow up and mature, he supposed nothing would.

As it was, it was fascinating, falling back into his old life in Nine. Some things were similar - on the weekend, he'd stay over at his fancy new house in the Victor's Village, breaking it in and exploring with his newfound independence, while the five days of the week were reserved for familiarity - he'd wake up in his old bed at the Adroxis estate, have breakfast with some sort of combination of mother, father, brothers, and sisters, and then...

Well. It was still summer. The question as to what he'd do when school started back up again hadn't yet been broached. So, quite frankly, Storm would do whatever the hell he wanted.

Often, that was brooding in his room. He'd recently taken to expressing the dark thoughts that lay in his head out onto paper, be they in the form of long, rambling sentences in a notebook or amateurish sketches and doodles here and there on scraps of paper from his father's study. But every once in a while, the old Storm that yearned to wreak havoc and spark laughter wherever and whenever he could emerged from beneath the layers of trauma, and he'd set out armed with his wits, his trusty old pistol, and a shit-eating grin.

The latter two were absent today, however, though the former was not. See, in the time between his reckless volunteering and their return home to Nine, there'd been a bond born between him and Avriel despite the many years that separated them, one that could only have been born between those who'd suffered the same sort of trauma that came with surviving for a week with only their wits and the blood of their enemies forever staining their hands. (It was why, Avriel had told him, so many of the victors themselves would receive him warmly when it came time for his victory tour in a few months - they alone, after all, knew just what it was like to go through what he had gone through). Yet that bond was one still finding its way in the world, one untried and untested in the face of adversity.

And okay, sue him. Sometimes, Storm found himself so deep in his head that he yearned for Avriel's experience and understanding as the only person in the district who could truly understand. And no matter that it was a Wednesday, right smack dab in the middle of his family week, because good luck telling his head that it needed to stick to some sort of preplanned schedule before falling into the dumps.

(His head, like Storm himself, had never been one for sticking to patterns).

But Avriel had told him that he could come over whenever, especially when his head was playing the old Games that had never truly left him. And Storm had even taken him up on that once or twice, going over in the middle of the night from his house to the one next door. If Avriel had ever been annoyed by the sudden arrivals, well, he'd never shown it - so why would he now?

That, of course, didn't stop his anxiety from spiking as he takes out his spare key and jiggles it in the lock until the familiar click reaches his ears. Sure, they might have their victor bond in common, sure, Avriel had reminded him time and again that it was okay for him to stop by whenever, but still. For all of their shared trauma, Avriel was a grown adult with his own life who still had only truly sat down and talked to Storm a handful of times. And Storm had enough experience being the annoying kid brother that, well, if he's expecting annoyance or irritation at his brief moment of selfishness, then at least in his head it's justified, okay?

The door clicks open, and without hesitating (Storm had found that hesitation was his greatest weakness these days, the one thing most likely to cause him to lose his nerve even if it no longer meant it'd cost him his life) he stepped inside.

"Avriel?" he called out into the entrance. "Are you home? It's Storm! I, uh, kind of need help screwing my head back on str-"

The sentence never finishes, because it is exactly right then and there, halfway through the word straight of all things, that he stops dead in his tracks.

Because there's a man in Avriel's kitchen. An unfairly attractive man who is most certainly not Avriel, one who Storm thinks for one wild second might be an intruder if it wasn't for the chicken nested on his shoulder and Scout humming contently a few feet away.

Huh, Storm thinks. Avriel never struck me as one to have visitors.

"Uh, hi there. I'm Storm, Avriel's, uh, neighbor." It's a painfully long moment of silence and staring before Storm manages to shove his blush down enough to form a coherent sentence. "Do you know where Avriel might be?"

elegant

[calla]

E    D    E    N

"the court fool got the guillotine,
the witches the stake,
you the dopamine."

Very quickly, nearly all at once, the problem of Eden going stir-crazy becomes a scarily real thing.

It was different in the winter, back when he first came to Nine and then the snow fell and there was nothing to do except stay inside and make Avriel teach him card games while he hogged all the blankets because for some reason Avriel was adverse to turning up the heat, even though Eden knows the furnace works perfectly well from sleeping next to it.

But he even kept busy when Avriel was gone, because then the chickens were his responsibility and he spent that handful of weeks completely focused on them so he didn't have the time to focus on everything else.

Now, though.

Now it's worse.

The thing is that Eden's not supposed to be in Nine. He's not supposed to be anywhere at all. The paranoia of Eurydice possibly popping out from behind a building wore off within the first month, but Eden stays inside and away from people because he doesn't want to add to the pile of Avriel's worries that sometimes seems staggering, even from the outside.

So he watches tv a lot, he tries not to stare out the window but sometimes he can't help it. He does pushups in the spare bedroom when Avriel thinks he's taking a nap and he spends hours at a time sitting in the yard with the chickens until the new gaggle of kids that moved in beside them venture outside and take an interest in the clucking noises.

Jennie gets cranky when Eden stops going out as often, but Freckle just takes it upon herself to sneak inside and glue herself to his shoulder. Their favourite thing to do now is to watch is the cooking show with the host that always dresses in all one colour. Eden tactfully changes to the gardening channel whenever they're cooking a poultry dish.

The weather gets warmer and the sun stays out longer, but Eden stays inside and watches a very green man roast tomatoes with Freckle snoozing on his chest and he really tries not to mind it. He's used to be constantly hyper vigilant, it was job to be on edge and to patrol and sometimes beat the shit out of someone, but now all he does is sit there and vibrate and remind himself that this is what he came here for.

Eden knows that Avriel is fine to stay inside for days at a time. Usually in his little shed out back or at the kitchen table, with a pile of something in front of him that holds his attention for so long that on occasion Eden will go about his whole day and when he comes back and checks in, Avriel won't even have moved from his spot.

Eden usually steps up behind him and pokes him right between the shoulder blades, hard enough for him to jolt out of whatever he's stuck in, and then he'll turn around and see it's Eden and he'll notice the way the sun's set and then they'll sit together and eat cereal or scrambled eggs or on one particularly nasty occasion, both at the same time.

And Eden is fully aware now that Avriel is averse to eating anything nutritional that takes longer than sixty seconds to prepare.

Eden and Echo and Steel had gotten the equivalent of table scraps at the Le Roux's, which had been miles and leagues above what they'd gotten before, but now he stares hard at the sharp lines of Avriel's shoulders and the way he gets a little bit paler when he's on a week-long binge of taking apart the grandfather clock at the end of the hall and it bugs him more than it probably should.

It's that time of the month when Avriel goes across the District and fixes things when Eden decides that it's time for him to listen to the very green man with the roasted tomatoes and try to roast his own tomatoes.

It'll be a surprise, for when Avriel comes back home tired and quiet and covered in grease.

He's only seen Avriel work the oven approximately once, but it should be good enough. Eden was sitting at the table pretending not to pay attention, but he was actually paying very good attention.

He's determined not to burn the house down.

This time the very green man on the tv is very blue and he's making a pasta dish that has more vegetables on the plate than Eden's pretty sure he's ever seen in his life.

He knows there's pasta in the pantry only because it's easy to make and keeps for a long time, and that seems to be the only requirements that Avriel stocks. Vegetables on the other hand, Eden doesn't even half to look to know that situation.

He knows that just like he knows that there's a house just a little ways down the street, closer to the hub than the forest, that has a rather impressive garden. Eden knows that he really shouldn't, not just because it's stealing but because he's not supposed to be seen, but the very blue man is chopping very fast and if Eden isn't quick then he'll leave him in the dust.

It takes less than five minutes for Eden to sprint both ways with the goods.

He's got a pot on the stove and there's water in the pot but it doesn't really do anything. He's got tomatoes and something that he's pretty sure was an onion in a pan and they're roasting inside the oven because all he had to do for that was to push the button and it started working.

Freckle takes the moment of stillness to flap from the counter to his shoulder and reassert herself, her talons digging in a little because turning on the oven made the kitchen warm up and even though he's got the window open, Eden had to take his shirt off before he did something stupid like die of heat stroke.

The chicken doesn't seem to mind the heat as much, and she watches the pot with Eden with her beady little eyes until the front door jingles and Eden immediately jumps, which makes her squawk and claw at his shoulder but he doesn't notice because Avriel isn't supposed to be home yet, he should be out for at least another hour, Eden was trying to surprise him-

Except then the voice that comes from the foyer isn't Avriel's and Eden suddenly has the paring knife in one hand and a stray tomato in the other and Freckle goes quiet, like she can feel the way he tenses all at once, every single instinct coming back to him like he hasn't spent the last year acclimating himself to being normal again.

But when Eden whips around it's only the little storm from the tv that walks into their kitchen, and he suddenly feels very silly.

Storm Adroxis turns out to be much smaller in real life.

"Hi there." Little Storm says, and Eden stares at him, because this is technically the first time he hasn't seen the boy either behind a screen or behind a window.

And he's had contact with no one besides Avriel and a bunch of chickens for roughly ten months. His social skills could use some work.

Not that he really had them in the first place.

But he puts the knife down before the tomato, and he thinks that's a good sign.

And he technically doesn't know where Avriel is right now, he always ends up bringing stories from all over, so it's not a lie when Storm asks if he knows where he is and Eden shakes his head no.

In his new found independence, Eden has found that he quite likes technicalities.

Freckle very quickly seems to have had enough of their extended awkward silence and so she decides to rear back and peck Eden right in the shell of his ear. He's very proud when he doesn't flinch, and just keeps looking at Storm.

It's very strange to have someone else in the house. Avriel doesn't get visitors and Eden isn't sure if that's a new development due to him being there or if it's always been like that. He's torn between pushing Storm out because Avriel would probably freak out if he knew he was here, and just letting him stand there a bit longer in order to maximize this shred of non-hostile human contact.

Belatedly, he realizes that he should probably be suspicious of Storm, just based on the merit that he is supposed to be naturally suspicious of everyone. But Eden just keeps looking at him, and he is so very small.

And so instead of panicking or lashing out, Eden reaches back to the counter and offers Storm a cherry tomato.

[lance]

s t o r m .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

Silence is what greets him at first, but honestly Storm doesn't quite register that at first because the second thing he recognizes about the unfamiliar man (the first, of course, being the chicken on his shoulder) is that he's holding a knife. And Storm can't help it, his heart skips a beat because goddammit even over a month later and his first instinct towards anything dangerous is fight or flight-

But it passes in a heartbeat because if the man had planned on stabbing him he would have by now, and the silence extends as slowly, the knife is lowered.

And then Storm finally is able to really, truly take him in and oh, his heart skips a beat for a second time because this unfairly attractive man is shirtless and toned and is that a fucking tattoo-

His rational mind quickly shoves its lizard equivalent out of the way, jostling for dominance because on the one hand Storm didn't quite realized that he found tattoos hot until now and on the other he's still processing the fact that there's a strange man in Avriel's house and where the fuck is Avriel himself-

Cheeks burning, he forcibly relocates his eyes from the man's ink and back towards his face, and okay, he's probably not a threat, because there's no way that any one of Avriel's chickens would simply be nesting on the shoulder of someone they didn't know and trust, and okay, there's some sort of cooking program going on in the background and a pot of something on the stove and-

-and the man has silently held out a hand, and in that hand is a cherry tomato every bit as red as he's sure his face is right now.

"Oh, uh, thank you." He doesn't even like the fruit all that much, but something tells him it'd be rude to just not take it, so he does, popping it into his mouth with a crunch. And it's surreal, because Storm had hit his growth spurt two months before the Games had had shot up six inches but this other guy is still noticeably taller than him, and must clearly work out or something if the body is anything-

-right. No more lizard brain.

His eyes pan across the room again. No Avriel - he definitely had not been quiet upon entry and the elder victor would have shown himself by now if he was home. No trashing of the house, a content chicken perched on a bare shoulder, a wary but not unkind face, a very green man chopping something up on screen, a kitchen adorned with various ingredients...

Ahhhhhhhh, I seeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Like a lightbulb, understanding clicks on within Storm's head as the rational part of him finds victory over the lizard brain for the moment, and he grins. "I know what's happening here," he says around the mouthful of cherry tomato, before swallowing. "I bet you're one of Av's friends, right? And you're in here while he's out and you're either gonna surprise him or prank him, riiiight?"

The gears that had allowed himself to escape danger many times before the Games and had allowed him to adapt on the fly within them spin into action. "Well, I might not know you, or much about cooking - I mean, if it wasn't for my parents I'd probably be eating store-bought noodles or something like that every day - but I can see when there's a secret plan in the works.

Feeling a rush of boldness, he steps forward until it's easy for him to rest his elbows on the counter on the opposite side of the man. "I can help, if you want!" he gushes excitedly I'm great at coming up with surprises and-"

His gaze drops towards the man's bare torso again, and something about the inked skin stops him cold. Right, he realizes. This was not the plan in the slightest. You were not invited here for this.

"Or, uh," he stutters, "I can leave and come back later, um, after you've surprised Av and all that. I'm guessing you weren't expecting me to just drop in like this, haha." He swallows, staring down at the counter. "Sorry."

elegant

[calla]

E    D    E    N

"the court fool got the guillotine,
the witches the stake,
you the dopamine."

Little Storm from the TV doesn't say anything for a bit. He actually stands there long enough that Eden starts to think about retracting his tomato offer, because it's just getting more and more awkward the longer he waits there with his arm outstretched and Storm staring at him like his brain just shut down.

Eden didn't think he was that scary, honest.

Freckle swivels her head around to shine one beady eye down on Storm, and then he finally takes the tomato.

Maybe Eden should try prying open another window. The oven's made the room warm, but Little Storm's bright red and he kind of looks like he's about to keel over. And Eden gets it, he really does. Sometimes the heat aggravates the ugly scar on his chest, the one from back in Four when that spear slid right inbetween his heart and his lung. But he still eyes the kid warily.

The newest victor being found unconscious in Avriel's house would probably be a bad thing.

"I know what's happening here." Storm says, except his mouth is full, so only about three-quarters of it comes out intelligible.

He keeps going - "I bet you're one of Av's friends, right?"

Well, they do live together.

Eden just decides to nod, because that particular thread of thought is long and tangled and probably not entirely appropriate for Little Storm.

Then, in what feels similar to a bout of whiplash, something must unclick in his brain because Storm starts talking at about one hundred words per minute and Eden feels himself slowly but surely zoning out. For about a beat and a half, he entirely glazes over. There's just this weird quality that the kid has - he sure is saying words, but with the speed they're flying, only every other one lands.

He was right to be named after a storm too, because just as suddenly as he starts, he stops. Eden blinks back into awareness at the sudden halt. He comes to and Little Storm is wilting like a little flower and Eden doesn't know why, but he immediately panics.

"Sorry." He's saying, looking like someone's kicked puppy and Eden flounders. When was the last time he was even around a kid? (Oh god) He's hurt people smaller than Little Storm, he's been younger than him here, forced into a ring, bashing someone else's skull against the wall. (Oh god)

He doesn't know what to do.

Freckle does though. She gets right in Eden's ear again and squawks as loud as she can, because that's always her idea of helping.

Thanks, Freckle.

Except Storm still looks like someone's just told him the candy store's been shut down (kids like candy, right?) and it makes Eden's entire chest ache. Maybe he's just like Avriel, and all he has to do is give him something to do with his hands. So Eden hurriedly grabs the paring knife and holds it out to Storm handle first, plunking a carrot down on the counter in front of him for good measure.

[lance]

s t o r m .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

God, why is he like this? He's been home for all of, what, a month? And yet it feels like years because who the hell is he to just, like, completely unload on a stranger like this? It's one thing when he babbles in front of his siblings and his parents, they're used to it for heaven's sake, but this guy most definitely did not sign up for this and if Storm wasn't already considering just sinking into the floor he'd probably just-

A flash of silver abruptly jolts him out of his thoughts, and for one wild second pure panic overwhelms his system. This is it. The strange hot man has finally decided I'm too annoying and he's gonna stab me and oh god-

-and just as quickly he's re-anchored to reality as the next thing he sees isn't the crimson of his own blood but the stark orange of a vegetable. And no, Hot Tattooed Man isn't stabbing him, but holding out the knife. For him.

(That's a first. For obvious reasons, he hadn't yet been allowed near knives ever since coming back home.)

Storm blinks. Then blinks again. The expression on the man's face isn't quite readable, but he gets the gist - wary, a little panicked in his own right, pity-

Except it isn't the kind of pity he'd seen on the many faces around Nine, the kind of pity that's like oh, poor thing, suffering from the consequences of his own actions. No, this is the sort of pity he's seen only on the television, when the heavily makeuped Capitolite actor is looking at a cat that's gone half an hour too long without being fed.

And right. Growth spurt or not, murderer of five or not, he's still just a kid. A kid whose own emotions are impossible to conceal, a kid who must have stirred the heart of this strange man just enough to accidentally coerce him into letting Storm have what he wants.

A few months ago, it'd be the result of a successful prank slash emotional manipulation (look, Storm found out long ago that his status as the almost-baby of the Adroxis family and a good pair of puppy eyes could get him a long way, so this wouldn't be anything new). What is new is that this time, that hadn't been the intent whatsoever. He'd genuinely been in here looking for Avriel, genuinely had gotten squirreled by the idea of, well, whatever was going on in the kitchen, and whomever this was had decided to take pity on him.

It's the first time that such pity doesn't feel condescending.

The burning retreats to his ears and makes its home there, even as Storm averts eye contact upon taking the knife. "Thank you," he murmurs, because shit, now he's almost embarrassed, but he finds that he means it, genuinely. "You, uh, you didn't have to do that."

But he appreciates the gesture regardless. And so carefully, he begins to slice into the carrot.

elegant