what i {say} and what i {mean} // alyssa, bentley

[Deleted]

So boycott love, detox just to retox
And I'd promise you anything for another shot at life
Imperfect boys with their perfect lies
Nobody wants to hear you
Sing about tragedy

[/i][/color][/center]
Kaelen doesn't walk into school on his first day intending to join the glee club, but it kind of just happens.

In fact, he doesn't walk into school intending to do much of anything besides sit in the back of his classes and suffer through the torturous hours of a million things he already knows, being forced to mingle with the plebeians in the meantime. He'd been aware upon arrival that life in Thirteen wasn't exactly going to be a picnic (too many rules and too much surveillance and too much of a chance of getting caught to let him practice his art just yet), but the fact that they're forcing him into an "education" that will do him absolutely no good in the grand scheme of things was enough to make ice-cold irritation spike in his veins from the moment his alarm went off this morning, harsh tones shrieking through the standard-issue cubicle that he supposes is home now, if such a place ever truly existed for him.

Compliance is something he's never done well - after all, why should divinity bow to the will of those so woefully far beneath it? - but for now it's a necessity that he'll have just grit his teeth and soldier through. Kaelen isn't in the habit of doing anything without a heavy dose of the slippery subtlety he so prides himself upon, and making waves is no more his mode of operation than replying in the slightest to the handful of kind smiles and welcomes he gets in the hallway on his way to homeroom. He can see the trepidation lurking behind the hospitality, subtle double-takes when they take in the lanky form moving past them, tight jeans and v-neck and liquid amber eyes outlined in expertly-drawn kohl wrapping together into something that exudes palpable waves of chilled, unspoken malice. He basks in the way the smile of the girl with the locker next to his falters in the wake of one of his own unsettling grins and she nearly falls over herself in an attempt to offer a stammering well, um, have a good first day, I'll, um, see you around? that has him trapped between wanting to laugh and roll his eyes. If the girls in this overglorified rabbit warren are this easy to play with, he'll get bored quite quickly.

Homeroom proves to be even more unbearable than he can imagine. Seniors with last names starting with A-D are housed in a music room of sorts, and Ripred preserve him, if they all join hands and start singing Kum Bah Yah he might have to go back on his vow to not kill anyone until he's become acclimated to the environment. Not differing much from their brethren in the halls, his classmates give him the same owlish stares and tentative greetings when he folds himself into a chair and whips his time-worn copy of The Old Man and the Sea out without sparing any of them the smallest sliver of his attention (Hemingway is infinitely more worthy of his time than any of the groundlings). The upheaval from the new arrival in a district so unaccustomed to change or non-conformism slowly dies from a buzzing murmur to a hushed whisper and Kaelen thanks all the forces of the universe that they finally seem to have stopped ogling him like a science experiment. He knows that deities are meant to be gazed at with fear and adoration, but that is not the nature of the looks he's been getting since he walked in, and he doesn't really enjoy being a source of entertainment in a place so starved of it that anything will do.

The teacher doesn't even come in until five minutes after the bell rings, and Kaelen arches an eyebrow skeptically at the sight of a boy who can't be more that a year older than himself, all lightning-fast movement and disheveled brown hair and electric blue eyes with a strangely piercing quality to them. Are they really so short on educators in nature's basement that they hand out jobs to people fresh out of high school themselves? Poor management choices, he thinks, clicking his tongue disapprovingly in his head, but he has no time to further explore the educational inadequacies of thirteen before The Twitchy One is hovering beside his desk with a blindingly bright smile that very nearly makes him cringe away with a hiss like one of the vampires in those god-awful books in the library back in One - creatures of darkness shun the light, although he thinks that his divinity may cause him to shimmer in the sun rather than burn away to nothing.[/i]

"Hi! You're the new kid, right? I'm Jace. You seem cool. What are you reading? Anyway, homeroom will be over in like thirty seconds so I'm basically supposed to tell you to come ask me if you need help with anything. Yeah. Have a good first day and stuff." The Twitchy One explodes in a torrent of words so fast that the taller brunette can't even process them all, rambling on even after the bell rings and Kaelen launches himself out of his seat in a near-frantic effort to escape. "Hey, you should come audition for glee club after school! We need guys!"

Standing outside the music room roughly seven hours later, Kaelen begins to think he might not be altogether sane. It wasn't The Twitchy One's suggestion that drove him to the door, but rather the scrawling script on the sign up sheet taped to the unyielding cinderblock wall that reads Alyssa Rocciano. Long, spindly fingers brush carefully over the indents her pen made in the paper, tracing the lines that speak of a past gone but nowhere near forgotten. The tactile evidence that her hand moved over this very paper are enough to send echoes of their past ringing in his ears, laughter mingled in an intricate symphony with screams and the tinkling of breaking glass, flickering images of a tire swing and the pages of a book and darkdarkdark eyes dancing deceptively across his line of vision. She's the reason he's here but he'll never admit it to himself because the fact murmurs foreign concepts like attachment and affection that writhe uncomfortably in his chest, so he swallows heavily and tells himself that he's only doing this because it's the only bit of non-conformity he can allow himself at this point, setting his jaw and shouldering the door open.

And of course luck would have it that he'd meet her eyes immediately, his own going wide, astonished citrine as he visually traces her features, tries and succeeds in reverting her back to the tough-as-nails six year old he's been keeping locked safe in his memory for what feels like ages. She's her as surely as he's himself (although he wonders sometimes about the latter), and for the first time, words refuse to come to him, stall in a knot in his throat that feels unpleasantly like it's choking him. What to say to someone he's longed to speak to since the day she dropped out of his life without a trace? How to recconnect with a long-lost confidante and perhaps the only person besides himself that he's ever felt the slightest measure of anything for? How to -

"Hey, new kid! You showed! Cool, you can sing first!" Kaelen makes a mental note to bump The Twitchy One up to the top of his kill list when he makes one, but nevertheless complies, folding his spindly frame onto the piano bench and tracing fingers over the keys in a way that borders reverence. Music is one of the things he does almost as well as crafting intricate elixirs of destruction, and something that feels like a long-lost echo of contentment thrums warm and tangible in his chest when he coxes a few tentative notes out of the instrument, covering up the unintentional lapse in his icy composure with a distasteful wrinkling of his nose.

"You need to get the piano tuned. It's a quartertone flat." An unimpressed monotone that resonates in the filtered underground air, words directed at the blue-eyed boy who never stops moving even though his eyes remain fixed on the stormy features of the girl he likes to think still knows him better than he knows himself seated a few feet away. "But I suppose it'll do. For those of you that hold any interest in the matter, the title of my selection is Someone Like You." [ooc: <--- click it]

He doesn't miss the snickers that rise up from among the collective. Of course they don't take him seriously, a new arrival in skinny jeans and eyeliner that blew in on the nonexistent breeze at the last minute. Kaelen smirks. That's fine by him. He's always been fond of making an impression. His fingers move over the keys with practiced precision, and a clear, pure tenor joins the flowing undertones of the piano, lips curving around words of love and loss that he knows he'll never understand but comes a little closer to actually feeling as the melody makes something tighten palpably in the very core of who he is, tawny orbs fixed on deeper chocolate as words that strike home bloom into the air.

You know how the time flies, only yesterday was the time of our lives. We were born and raised in a summer haze, bound by the surprise of our glory days... She was his everything once upon a time, the saving grace in a hellish world that he was left to survive on his own when she left, and Kaelen feels something in the music that is an emotion he understands all too well - a deep-seated bitterness that never leaves. But he pushes it down for the sake of the performance, searching her face for some semblance that maybe, just maybe she was just as lost without him as he had been without her, or if she even remembers him at all. I hate to show up out of the blue uninvited, but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it. I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over yet... He's never felt anything like devotion or needing someone anywhere else but in the words of a song, but it all resonates a little more real in the hollow cavern of his chest than he's used to and it's more than a little overwhelming, making his eyes drift shut us the piano goes soft beneath the final, hushed chorus.

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you, I wish nothing but the best for you too... Something raw and lost and hurt leaks into his voice when he's met with that gaze again, utterly unfamiliar as if she's looking at a stranger. Maybe after all these years that's all they are, and the idea of something that he's cradled close to his chest as an irrefutable fact of life for as long as he can remember dissolving into smoke and vapor adds something so mournful and pleading to the dizzying heights his voice rises to that Kaelen feels the hair on the back of his own neck stand up. Don't forget me, I beg...

He's never begged a single person for anything in his entire life and he has no intention of doing so, but Alyssa's always had a way of being the exception to things in his head and he thinks that maybe in exchange for having someone to talk to, someone who was above the disgusting hordes of plebeians that he refuses to consort with as anything other than playthings, someone who understands him, he might just resort the plaintive lament that rings heavy and sorrowful in the final notes of the song I remember you said, sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.

The last chord fades away into nothingness and takes with it the bloom of warmth at his center, leaving him as cold and impassive as usual as he pushes the bench back and readjusts the hem of his v-neck, sparing the wide-eyed and surprised Twitchy One the most fleeting of glances before he moves to the back of the room, as far as he can get from dark orbs that have too much of a hold on the space where his heart should be. "There. I sang. And my name isn't New Kid. It's Kaelen. Kaelen Dempsey."[/color][/blockquote][/justify][/size]

[sadniss everdeen]

/82333C/ Every punch I throw reminds me there are things worth fighting for.
/313238/ Jesus, it's like a fucking nightmare inside my head.
/4D65B4/ I got razorblades in my tongue as well as my hair. Wanna check?
/815E4A/ Hey. Shut the fuck up or I'll make you.
/5B786F/ So music makes my day better. What the hell do you care?

She wakes to the insistent feel of something lodged in her ribs. Alyssa's brows furrow and she moans, stretching away from the pressure that follows her even though she rolls away from the offending object. She takes several moments to try and blissfully will herself back into the cocoon of stygian night that she had encased herself in, legs sore and bare, but there was now a nagging feeling in her skull to go along with the discomfort. Her hands clumsily find the protrusion, tracing supple skin and short nails up to a slender shoulder and a lock of long hair.

The fuck? mumbles her mind that hasn't yet caught up to the idea of lucidity, eyes firmly shut but being teased open. Tornado shifts until the pain (arm?) passes over her torso and falls heavily, seeping warm down through her thin shirt and wrapping strong fingers around her narrow hip. It pulls and she groggily rolls with it, soft light from the rooms outside finally casting a glow upon whatever hoards her bed. Now that her brain is wheeling to click things into place she can feel the legs tangled with her own, quiet snores escaping dark lips and odd mumblings as the long arm struggles to pull them together until they're one being. Alyssa pushes back, shaking herself awake, and blinks slowly as the face of her best friend materializes into view.

For a moment she studies the olive skin and the subtle curve of her jaw, thoughtlessly reaching out and tucking a strand of black hair behind the delicate curve of her ear. Once her mind catches up she snatches her hand away, eyes flicking nervously over the dark room in an effort to find the hidden camera. Lower down, the whirlwind can feel Bentley's heat pressing hot and demanding against her thighs; she smothers the small smile she's somehow acquired in the careful examination and her eyes instead stray to the blinking clock illuminating their forms with a careful glow.

7:54.

Wait.

7:54?

"Shit!" she jumps up from the warm covers, tangling herself and landing on the steel-gray carpet with a loud thud. Not-so-secretly she thought that the Council must be made of old stuffy men that had no sense of adventure, regulating everything and everyone to the identical shade and texture. (But there are so many different shades of gray, something she's learned well from years of greasing the palms of some and biting the hands of others.) Bentley grumbles and attempts to turn around, eyes heavy with exhaustion - unaccustomed to the lack of resistance, she ends up spiraling off the bed in almost the same manner of her companion. Alyssa glances up to see her sprawled across her room, confusion and sleepiness painting her features an adorable pattern that can't help but coax a smile out of the girl that's already wiggling into her ripped jeans. "B, come on, we have to get up. We're late."

Not just almost-late but already-late, something that makes her cringe. She'd already been warned (Ms. Hodgins smelled of fish and gave her the evil-eye from afar, but she always followed up on her promises for punishment that Alyssa had no intention of receiving) multiple times, and facing her father wasn't exactly something she wanted to do. The less attention they pay us the better, figlia. We work best under the shadows of the authorities.

Bentley mumbles something incoherent and stumbles to the door, hand reaching for the knob before warm digits circle her wrist and she's met with a raised eyebrow, amusement dancing over the pale skin she's grown to know as well as the stitches in Lord Tubbington's side. "Forget something?" Alyssa snarks, throwing her skirt over her head so it shrouds her sight. The darker girl flails for a moment and giggles, slipping it on and adjusting it on her hips. "Thanks, Lyss," she says, voice still thick with sleep. She hums and almost turns away, but all of a sudden a tanned hand grasps her collar and drags her in for a lazy kiss in thanks. She stutters, stalls and reciprocates, not noticing she's being dragged up to the wall before a warm body pins her own and the feel of a velvet tongue slides across her lips.

Even as she tries to push away, her head tilts of its own volition and allows access to her delicate neck, threading her fingers in shiny locks and groaning low and rough in the depths of her throat. If there's something constant in the world it's their not-quite-friendship; the thing they don't understand but binds them together above all else. Since they were so very young they knew they were it for each other, best of friends and now recently with benefits. Alyssa can't help that her hands wander to the tight skin and map out the known dip of her hip bones, drawn by a magnetism that they've no longer been able to ignore. They're teenagers, she reasons, and if this sates their drive then so be it. She'd rather be at the mercy of Bentley's talented teeth and tongue than some boy who didn't know where to place his fingers. "God, not here, we're already late," Tornado mumbles out, reluctantly detaching herself before it got too hot to get away. Bentley pouts but nips Alyssa's nose, grinning at the wrinkle between her brow. "Ew, Bent. Morning breath."

"You weren't complaining earlier." She snipes, smirking at Alyssa's scowl and flinging open the door to be met by the strong scent of coffee.

Everything is bright in the Swann household - from the unneeded curtains to the strange pictures and wooden furniture that's seen better days. Bentley narrows her eyes and stumbles blindly towards the scent, fingers scrabbling along the smooth countertops before catching on the mugs. There's a chuckle behind her and she turns to grin good morning at her mother, perched carefully in one of the chairs and sipping at her own drink.

Alyssa's always liked Bentley's mom - everything from the bird like structure of her bones to the way she can see the echo of her best friend in her skin, how she'll age gracefully just like the copy now sitting down. They have the same warm eyes and long, shining hair, and both of them scrunch their face in confusion when something passes them by. Hurricane sweeps by but not before languidly embracing Ms. Swann with one arm, mumbling a hello and hurrying to the liquid. From above her cup her eyes meet with Bentley's; they may not speak the once known language of cheerleading but every girl understands the universal knowledge of fat.

In their silent conversation, they skip breakfast.

"You guys are running a little off schedule." she muses, eyes crinkling and lips curving as she takes another sip. Bently just shrugs and sleepily mumbles something into her drink but Alyssa cringes, glancing again at the clock. 8:16. How long did their impromptu session last? "Yeah, we need to get going. Ms. Hodgins is going to fucking bit--" the tornado chokes off her last words at the raised eyebrow reflected over at her, elegant and unwavering. "um, gripe at us again."

Bentley smiles and extends her pinky, locking it into Alyssa's own. Her mom's smile softens as she sees something tender flicker across the abrasive girl's face, lighting up the deeper dark of her eyes and taking years off her usually severe features. Even if they don't know it they simply glow around each other, exuding a warmth that's like fire and ice - complete opposites, but somehow complimentary. She doesn't mention she knows Alyssa has been sneaking inside regularly to leave when the morning comes (and she's a light sleeper, so she's pretty sure she knows why); the quiet certainty that she'll always be there for them is enough, no matter what happens. Alyssa goes through boys like boxing gloves but always seems to gravitate back, and Bentley... well, she would be lying if she wasn't sure she's seen her a few times alongside guys with dark eyes and wandering hands.

Her eyes sparkle as she finishes her mug, fixing them both with a wry smile."And how often do you both run late?"

"Bye, Ms. S!"

"Love you, mom!"

The resounding slam of the door, and then silence. She's never seen them move that fast.

---

Alyssa occupies her time impatiently by making the life of other students around her a living hell. Her feet are kicked up on the back of Abril's chair, but a withering glare whenever the other girl attempts to turn around keeps her position stable. They'd managed to slip past the crabby old counselor and into their homeroom with nary a disturbance and she now watches them all with bored eyes, scribbling down an occassional note that she'll no doubt lose later. From the corner of her gaze she can spy Bentley drifting off at her desk, face planted in the soft swell of her arm with her mouth gaping open and hair splayed everywhere. Her lips curl into an amused smile and she glances around a moment before nudging closer, ignoring how her movement jostles Abril at the front.

"B, wake up. You're gonna get in trouble." She mumbles but Bentley doesn't budge, a slight furrow creasing her forehead. When she grumbles something soundless and curls further into the cocoon of her own arms, Alyssa sighs, noting the restless shifting. She's going to wake with a kink in her neck and an unhappy pout - and nobody can deal with a pouting Bentley, not even her best friend. She shifts again so she's almost touching and Abril turns around with a scowl. "Alyssa, could you please stop rocking my chair? It's disrupting my schoolwork--"

Tornado shifts her chair around with powerful legs, heedless of Abril's wide-eyed stare as she lifts a hand in disinterest. "Can it, dwarf. You're lucky I haven't taken an interest in your hair and all the sharp things I have in my bag. You wouldn't want me to slip, now would you?" Abril cringes back and hastily turns to the front, hunched and protectively sweeping her hair over her shoulder. She snickers but halts when another discontent murmur sounds from Bentley, rolling awkwardly from her position on the desk.

Alyssa hesitates, one hand reaching out to hover in the air between them. No, she doesn't want to wake her up. Math never really makes sense to Bentley anyway. There was another way - but they were in public and she's sworn up and down that her voice is for the darker girl's ears alone. The melodious sounds of her vocal chords had made Bentley settle for as long as they can remember - holed up in the dark of her room tucking chords and harmonies into the shell of her ear.

A suspicious glare at Abril (she seems to feel it and slinks down farther in her seat, if possible) but takes in the deepening frown on her friend's face. Sighing, she slouches until her face is close to the soft curl of a tanned ear and licks her lips, stuttering for a moment before a rusty melody smooths its way through her chest. She doesn't know the source but the hymn slides over her tongue like liquid sugar, escaping firm lips and saturating straight into Bentley's brain. She pauses her annoyed flailing, mumbles something quiet and a slow smiles spreads on her face as the melody continues its rhythm through them both.

Human hurricane lets the soothing not-words she's heard from her mother and grandmother whisper out in rich, velvet tones until the stirring stops completely and Bentley is once again dead to the world. Satisfied, she straightens back up in her seat and returns her disinterested gaze to the front, throat tingling.

She doesn't notice how Abril's head has tilted curiously to the side.

---

Feet kicked up once more on the thread-bare seats, Alyssa's scowl could pierce through metal. Not even Bentley's reassuring hand on her thigh - quickly swatted off when others came through - could tame her ire, teeth grinding and jaw clenching rhythmically in time to the awkward twitching that Wheaton was performing up front. She wonders if it's some strange kind of meeting call for freaks like him, drawn the the hands that jerk one way before settling somewhere else, just to flit away after pause. But then she glances at Bentley's own legs that shuffle nervously from one slot to the other and feels guilty, squashing down the sliver of irritation that stems from a subconscious attempt to smooth away her discomfort.

(If anybody else asked she'd snap and say maybe she wants more opportunity to see Abril crash and burn, to undermine Reagan and fuck around with the mind of her failure of a boyfriend, but it would only take a glance of chocolate brown eyes for her to silently admit her real reason. They fought in whispers for what seemed to be hours but Bentley got her way - she always got her way. There were very few things Alyssa could deny her, and it seemed this was one of them.)

There's a strange prickle on the back of her neck and her fingers go up to scratch away the nervousness, eyes scanning the class in an effort to find her alarm. Over the years and countless surprise attacks by her father - be alert, bambina. be swift. never let down your guard - she's learned to place her instincts above all else, never brushing it off when a twinge in her gut alerts her to something out of place.

Bentley turns to her, sensing the different kind of tension in the map of her muscles. "What's wrong?" she mumbles, knowing the powerful swell from times having to hold the tornado back, hands clasped around large arms with ragged knuckles white and stark through the skin. Alyssa shakes her head and flicks her eyes around again, unable to find the source.

"You need to get the piano tuned. It's a quartertone flat." She stalls and double-takes, glancing back at him after her gaze makes the initial sweep. He's new, that she can tell - his body is still overtly lean with malnutrition and his clothes are wrong, ragged yet high-end with soft fabrics worn from the weeks of wandering in the wild. Alyssa remembers little of her own trek, only days upon days of hunger and listless evenings spent on her father's back, dozing in and out of consciousness while the gnawing in her belly grew. The rings of artfully applied kohl around his eyes give him a coldly brooding look, accentuating the silvery pale pallor of his skin.

But as she connects with his own eyes again it's then that the nagging feeling snaps into place, the hairs on the back of her neck standing viciously on end as an uncomfortable current runs through her skin. There is something inherently wrong about him - whether it be through the measured way he moves or the glimmer of something else behind his face, but she unconsciously hooks one foot around Bentley's ankle in reassurance that the girl hasn't been swept away with the strange pulsating energy that surrounds them. It doesn't go away as he starts singing, no; while he pushes all these things she knows so well but can't form into thought in his voice, there's a nagging certainty that she simply needs to open her mind a little bit more and she'll be knocked off her feet. Her mind's eye grasps for it, but it's not until his voice trails out and Wheaton responds in that grating jump of his that things start to snap into place.

"There. I sang. And my name isn't New Kid. It's Kaelen. Kaelen Dempsey."

Her mouth pops open with a quiet sound as she has flashes of cool metal beneath her hands and the wind in her hair, distant sun brushing against the bones of what will come to be defined cheeks that lend her a sharply beautiful edge. The rubber is hard underneath her but she's laughing, grinning deep with another little boy on the tire swing who still hasn't outgrown his gangly limbs or penchant for sarcasm.

Kaelen? She'd lost hope of ever seeing him again, sealed away in the labyrinth of District Thirteen that hosts a whole new set of problems to balance the ones they left behind. Bentley glances to her and runs her nails gently along the inside of her wrist to calm the rising storm. "Okay, so Alyssa's going to sing next! Hey, I didn't even know you sang. Why didn't you join the music class? Go on up when you're ready." She scowls viciously but a light tap on the soft flesh of her arm and expressive eyes laced with promise temper into into a frown, grinning bright and proud in the half-dark. She must know how difficult it is - Alyssa knows little in the ways of words apart from death threats and filthy soliloquies she bites into the flesh of her conquests. Her voice was meant for Bentley and Bentley alone, but under the guise of corruption she'll let others feel the rough notes and guiding hymns.

When she steps into the bright lights of the floor she feels powerful for a moment; each pump of ruby red blood is echoed so fiercely in her head and the old linoleum tile feels endless. She can feel the only two sets of eyes that matter watching her form, so she swallows and gains momentum into a rising storm.

Her fingers flicker across the neck of the old guitar, feeling the strings under her calloused fingers reverberate in response to her coaxing. After a few careful strums and muttered melodies she nods to herself, squinting out into the crowd. "This song's called Out of the Storm. Made a while ago by a lady with a kickass voice."

The chords start out hesitating, but after she trips over the first few notes they gain power, skilled fingers flicking over to create a simple, soothing rhythm that soon as her absently swaying in place. Please say a prayer for me, I do believe I'm in Hell. She lets the words slip from her lips in a rough, husky tone, lyrics flowing out in a bizarre kind of prayer that she can't quite place. You couldn't be with me, I couldn't be with myself.

You couldn't heal me, I wanted to sleep where I fell. Her voice is a kind of sweet smoke, an edge that hurts as much as it heals. The melody pulls her into a trance, shoulders straightening as hair falls across her face and longing for something she doesn't know is swept into her lyrics, vibrating through that space in her chest and out into the auditorium. You didn't want me, I wanted to be someone else. Alyssa's never been one for heartbreak, been the one on countless ends to hold and shatter until she grinned and dropped the shards at their feet. From out in the audience she squints until she sees Bentley's beaming face, almost squirming at hearing the voice she loves at such an intensity it threatens to drown the crowd. So I saw you were holding me tight by your letting me go, you showed me that the hand I was reaching out for was my own.

[/i]

It built until it was hurtling from her though she never raised her volume above a powerful drawl, harsh notes soothed with a stroke of a velveteen tongue that lent a gentle purr to the ends. Her hands move with certainty now, fingers flicking over the throat of the guitar and feet tapping upon the stool. Thought I was lost when I was crossing that bridge all alone, thank you for taking me home.

Go my love, if all my love just couldn't compare, someday you'll sit in my chair. And finally her eyes connected with the unreadable auburn, nothing but pools of gentle light from her seating. Her alto, full and throaty, grew for a moment with a bitterness she didn't know she possessed, fingers stilling on the guitar as the last notes wrapped gently around their minds with only the lingering murmur to follow them home.

Please say a prayer for me and all the ones that you love, because someday is never too long...

[/color][/size][/blockquote]

[Xena the Warrior Princess]

Bentley is tired, but the energy shooting through the air of the music room, most of it produced by the brunette boy puttering around the room with a pile of sheet music in his hands, is enough to pull her back into the waking world as she throws her arms around her blue-eyed friend and offers a smile like the sun. "Hi, Jace!"

He'd begged her for weeks to join the club and be their dance teacher, but it had taken weeks of begging Alyssa to come with her that had sealed the deal. One doesn't go somewhere without the other, it's a rule that can't be broken, and if Jace wants one then he'll have to take both, although Bentley's sure he doesn't have any sort of problem with having more members given the smile on his face when an unexpected arrival edges through the door.

She feels Alyssa tense up when he walks in the room, offers an uncertain murmur in response, but the taller girl shakes it off, glancing around as the new boy drawls something about the piano being out of tune. Bentley saw him this morning in the hallway, said hi to him even though he didn't say anything back, although that's nothing unusual. Boys don't pay attention to her unless they want something. But she feels the cold chill creeping up the back of her neck when he looks in her direction and she shudders, hand blindly seeking Alyssa's as she feels a foot lock into place around her ankle. Something about the physical contact allows her to relax, sinking back in her chair and letting the surprisingly beautiful voice of the boy with the icy stare filter warm and pleasant through her bubble's light-filled surface.

Alyssa goes rigid again in a motion that jolts Bentley out of her haze, eyes alarmed as the boy introduces himself. The dancer knows that she lives in a world full of things she'll never understand, and that's okay, it really is, but confusion overcomes her as she maps her fingers over the smooth skin she's come to know as well as her own, tracing swirls across Alyssa's arm as Jace calls her forward. Bentley smiles and squeezes her companion's hand. "Good luck, Lyssie. You can do it!"

In moments a soothing alto that winds its way into Bentley's ears lulls her so far into her bubble that she almost doesn't notice the skinny shadow settling into Alyssa's abandoned seat. Smiling, she turns only to come face to face with the new boy, odd-colored eyes rimmed with smoky black fixed alternatively between her and where Alyssa croons out a low melody a few yards away.

"Your voice is really good. It's like the silk napkins my mom has for fancy dinners," she whispers under the overtones of Alyssa's voice, beaming in her bright way even though the cold creeps up her spine without the warmth of a familiar hand in her own. "I'm Bentley. Your name is pretty too. Kaelen. It's nice to say and stuff."

Alyssa's voice wraps around her like a blanket, and Bentley smiles her approval as the song finished and she leads the room in applause, grinning at Jace as he waves her forward and hovers in his twitchy way over the piano keys that she knows he's never been confident playing. "Nice to meet you!" she calls over her shoulder to the new boy before meeting Alyssa halfway and wrapping her arms around her waist with the widest of sunbeam smiles. "You were so good! Wish me luck!"

Bentley is used to people looking at her. They always seem to, whether it's boys with lust or girls with jealousy or any number of people who call her that word without even having to open their mouths. And that's okay. She's learned that with the adjustable walls of her bubble and Alyssa by her side that she can let in or keep out whatever she wants. So even though the nerves gnaw at her stomach she crosses to the center of the open space and waves to the group gracefully. "Hi! I'm Bentley! I'm here because Jace is a really bad dancer and wants me to make you guys not-bad dancers. So I'm gonna sing and dance, okay? My song is called The Call."

Her smile shakes a bit but solidifies when she locks her eyes on Alyssa's and nods quickly at Jace, who launches into a few notes of introduction. Bentley knows that her voice is nothing special, nothing to talk about unless it's blended in the sweetest of harmonies with the lower tones of her best friend's, but even if they want to tell her that she can't sing, they can never make her believe that she can't dance.

"It started out as a feeling which then grew into a hope, which then turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word..." She starts standing still, dark eyes fixed on the ones of the one person she knows will always be there with open arms and the clenched fists to fight off everything that would pop her bubble and leave her broken. Bentley doesn't believe in limits, never has, but it's only with Alyssa that she thinks maybe one day she can fly out of this place that can't understand her. "And then that word grew louder and louder till it was a battle cry. I'll come back when you call me, no need to say goodbye."

And then she dances. Moves with all the fluid agility that has been hers from the start, hears the collective intake of breath from the rest of the room but thinks nothing of it, so lost is she is the careful progression of the music and the dizzying spins and jumps that are all she can feel inside her bubble with the exception of Alyssa's watchful gaze. The song ends, and Bentley smiles.

She might not be smart, but she can move. And that's okay. Really.

ooc - I had to do major editing because my original post was so short. I still feel like this is crap, hope it's acceptable.

[Deleted]

If home is where the heart is
Then we're all just fucked
I can't remember, I can't remember
And I want it so bad I'd shoot the sunshine into my veins
I can't remember the good old days

[/i][/color][/center]
He watches the stiffening line of her shoulders with a carefully analytic gaze as he breezes past with a feline grace that isn't necessarily inherent but has been so practiced over time that it's become second nature. Kaelen tries to remember himself the way she might - a skinny six-year-old with years beyond his age trapped behind his eyes and a nubile bloom of icy hate that would grow to consume him - but finds that it's hard to picture himself in the vulnerable state he knows he inhabited once upon a time. Was there really a chapter in his life where he'd had a friend, a smile to share on the tire swing and someone to whisper the darkest parts of himself to under the hazy dusk of summer nights? Surely there was, he never forgets (or forgives) the things that sit immaculately organized in the vault of his memory, but it's oddly disconnected, like he's watching a freeze-frame of his own life in an alternate universe because Kaelen can't remember another time when he was closer to being happy.

He's never happy. He can only ever manage to feel cold satisfaction.

Alyssa has changed, he notes, changed in the careful alertness that sits heavy in the deeper dark of her eyes when she turns to look at him, the silent threat to the world that lurks under the bleached caramel of her skin almost as if she'd be ready to launch into a fight at the slightest breath of suggestion, the chapped skin of her knuckles and lean lines of muscles that he can trace with his eyes and know from seeing the same forms through years at the training center exactly what fighting style she uses. But mostly she has changed in the anger he can almost see rolling off her in waves, nothing like his own frigid wrath but more akin to a wildfire barely kept at bay and ready to be unleashed, consuming the first unfortunate soul to make the mistake of fueling it. He remembers her having a spark of it in their childhood, a tiny flame of rage carefully cultivated by her father's guiding principles that she released when the occasion called for it - he relishes the memory of her kicking that abominable harpy Avon Lightwood in the teeth when she'd taken his book on the playground - but it was nothing like this, the brewing storm that lurks just beneath her surface and rumbles dangerously in the face of The Twitchy One's babbling. There is no doubt in Kaelen's mind that his only best friend has changed - but then again, so has he.

The only difference is that the things that make him something to be worshipped and feared have been there from the start - his own brand of justice delivered with an undiscriminating hand and the lack of understanding the things like love and attachment that were as a plague among the lower life-forms - and have simply grown of their own accord over the years, moving from the mildly entertaining ventures of imagining those he deemed unworthy of existence dying in a million horrific ways that he pursued in his youth into something much more powerful, true, permanent waste-removal in the most ironic twist of justice that makes the corners of his lips twitch upward whenever he thinks about it. They were all poisoning themselves slowly anyway. All he was doing was speeding up the process. They've both changed in different ways that are somehow the same, Kaelen ruminates quietly as her velveteen alto flows raw and powerful over the hushed collective, steepling slender fingers together and propping his chin on them, still watching her with that calculating stare. He knows somewhere deep in the hollow cavern of his chest that they're both monsters now - the only difference is that she has been carefully crafted by her father's design, whereas Kaelen is fully aware that he was born one.

The back of the room is further away than he'd like to be, feeling more like solitary confinement than divine isolation (the damnably uncomfortable desk obviously built for someone with shorter legs than him isn't Mount Olympus by any means), so he stands up slowly, prowling back up the aisle and settling quietly into Alyssa's empty seat next to a diminutive girl with skin that seems to glow in the dim light of the underground. He pays her no mind other than the fact that she's pretty in a vague, ethereal sort of way, preferring to focus on the dark-eyed form of things he can no longer place with the ease he used to. But the girl doesn't seem to realize that it's not her he's interested in, turning to him with a grin even brighter than The Twitchy One's that makes him squirm uncomfortably in his seat as he can almost feel his dark-drenched skin sear at the exposure. "Your voice is really good. It's like the silk napkins my mom has for fancy dinners. I'm Bentley. Your name is pretty too. Kaelen. It's nice to say and stuff."

Kaelen's eyebrow arches in sardonic questioning at the breathy statement - he's been described in several ways over the course of his life and being told that he sounds like a napkin may or may not be one of the strangest - his attention turning to warm eyes and well-crafted features. Bentley is his type, a dark tone whispers sadistic anticipation across the back of his mind. Petite, pretty, sweet - and clearly dumber than a stump. Unsullied, malleable, easy to twist and warp and break as he'd see fit to. He'd been bemoaning the lack of interesting playthings around the district just earlier that day, and can scarcely believe his fortune in running into the perfect candidate in this ridiculous pseudo-show-choir. He likes to believe that as a self-made deity he makes his own luck, but sometimes things just fall into place a little too seamlessly and he has to tip his hat to the fates.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bentley," he whispers back, voice smooth and almost purring under the rising tide of Alyssa's song from the other side of the room, his head inclining in false attentiveness in her direction as he shifts his chair a bit closer, thinking absently about how it's rare for someone that short to have legs that nice. "You know, I think you might be the prettiest girl who's said something to me all day. They should make you the official welcoming committee."

And then she's gone, flying out of her chair in a shimmering haze that rushes across the room and sweeps Alyssa up in her arms on a tide of giggles, leaving Kaelen still leaned in to continue with a well-practiced script that hasn't failed him until now, blinking black-lined pools of amber in silent confusion. Shaking his head slightly, he sits back up in the desk that is equally as uncomfortable as his last one, watching her performance with feigned interest that only becomes actual in small moments where he goes back to appreciating the fact that she really does have fantastic legs. An unconscious smirk settles on his lips as the petite girl slips into her final pose with immaculate form. Maybe this glee club idea wasn't such a bad one after all.

"Awesome, guys! You're all in. And let's all thank Bentley for agreeing to help us with choreography, yeah?" The Twitchy One babbles, leading the room in applause that Kaelen takes part in courteously, fixing Bentley with one of the more winning and less disturbing smiles in his arsenal. This will be too easy, which in the end might make it a bit less fun (he's always liked a challenge and after Annise his appetite for destruction is a little more insatiable than usual), but Kaelen will take what he can get in this hellish basement of a district. Slim pickings are just a sacrifice he supposes he'll have to make. Wheaton shoves a stapled packet of staff paper that's apparently next week's group number into their hands with another one of those obnoxious smiles that reminds Kaelen that he still needs to write up that kill list, dismissing them with a wave. "All right, same time and place tomorrow. Have a good day!"

He sticks around as the rest of the club filters out through the door, taking much longer than he should to sort things out in his messenger bag and pretending to look at his new music before putting it away as well. The smile he fixes Alyssa with when he turns around is his real one, the one people say can send chills down someone's spine in a second flat, nowhere near as falsely pleasant as the one he offered her dancer friend. White teeth flash icy-sharp under the fluorescent lights as he shrugs his bag over his shoulder and saunters over to the darker-haired girl, free hand perched on a bony hip as he tries to find a piece of who they were behind her eyes and tells himself that nothing has changed, not really. "It's been a while, Lyss. Quite a while."[/color][/blockquote][/justify][/size]

[sadniss everdeen]

/82333C/ Every punch I throw reminds me there are things worth fighting for.
/313238/ Jesus, it's like a fucking nightmare inside my head.
/4D65B4/ I got razorblades in my tongue as well as my hair. Wanna check?
/815E4A/ Hey. Shut the fuck up or I'll make you.
/5B786F/ So music makes my day better. What the hell do you care?



once upon a time we could have ruled the world
shiny scepters and jewels, crowns with fur
but baby, isn't it sad how time passes by?

As soon as Wheaton lets them go Alyssa rises from her seat, sinuous arms wrapping around a firm body and lifting, twirling the tiny girl with a bared grin that only Bentley seems to see. "That was great, B!" she hums, releasing her and handing her back her things, adorned with countless decorations that single her out in the halls (Bentley was never supposed to be here, frozen without the inquisitive gaze of the sun) and paint her differently from all the filth that wallows in this cesspool of a district. "You need to teach me how to spin like that. I never got it." Her counterpart bounces in place and starts to shoot off techniques that make sense only to her, about balance and spotting and never staying too still. Alyssa simply watches her with an amused grin until a flash of movement catches her eye and the warmth of her skin is stolen away into the approaching night.

Kaelen is all teeth and no happiness, feral and calculating but wrong in a way she finds right, eyes glittering with something icy she doesn't want to touch. He slinks in the way she does, but it's held up by something more sinister; a shield to obscure what really lies beneath. It holds but a phantom of the little boy she remembers defending under the searing summer sun, a ghost of days better left forgotten flying through her skull until Bentley's murmuring pulls her back to earth. " -- you're doing that thing where you aren't listening again. Is it because of that boy who sounds like fancy napkins?"

Alyssa glance over and can't help but smile at the way Bentley knows her better than herself, a missing half made whole. She is everything good and right in her life - everything not rude and raw and dark. Still, Alyssa knows there's something off, something not right up in Bentley's head; she soothes the burn of misplaced words and helps her construct beautiful things made up of anything other than the spoken tongue. In return she is allowed light into her life - things she can't create on her own because she's been made of shadow and anger and hatred, the sadness of death and fury of the jaded, incapable of seeing the good in people. Perhaps that's why she turns with eyes serious and expression grave, noting the similar drop in smile with a hint of guilt. "I need to talk to him, okay, B? You have lunch now, so just head down to the cafeteria. I'll meet you there." She links pinkies briefly and gives what she hopes is a reassuring smile - but Bentley has never fallen for her tricks. Still, the trust they have defies silly things like time and she nods, bright as the beaming sun as they break away and she melts into the crowd.

Almost instantly, her face falls into something like a thunderstorm, angry black clouds blooming in her eyes as the coming tempest falls upon her, a distant roaring in her ears. Tension rolls off the graceful curve of her muscles but she tilts her head regardless, beckoning him forward into the throng. They part for her in waves, knowing all too well no good can come of the sharp slap of her heels against the tile and the hint of bared teeth for all to see. She is Moses and they are her sea, pushing and pulling at will for amusement alone. One hand shoots out and she weaves through into a small bathroom where a couple are busy trying to eat each other's faces, the girl's fingers scrabbling at his belt buckle.

"Out." she growls, drawing her shoulders back and eyebrow raised, one hip cocked but still wary. They both freeze and look to her; torn between relaxing and fleeing for their lives. "We were here first. Find your own hole, Rocciano."

She smiles with no vestiges of entertainment, eyes hard and unkind. "That's funny, because I thought you moved your flings to a different hole ever since that freshman slut gave you a blowjob on that very sink? Not very classy, bringing your seconds on the same plate." The girl stares at him for a second before sweeping out of the room with tears budding in her eyes - Alyssa smirks viciously as he muffles a swear and tramples out after her. The door clicks shut and she whirls on him, back leaning against the cold bricks, arms crossed but clenched into fists.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Dempsey?"

[/size][/blockquote]

[Xena the Warrior Princess]

Bentley giggles when her feet leave the ground and the world spins before her, eyes squeezing shut and a ray of pure sunshine warming her skin even though sometimes she feels like she and Jace and a few others like them are the only sources of light miles underground in a world where everybody has lost all desire for the daylight. Alyssa voices her approval and the dancer beams, smiling satisfaction at a job well done into the taller girl’s shoulder. The two of them always work best like this, together, but Bentley can’t deny that sometimes she just wants to shine on her own for a little bit before running back into arms she knows will always be open for her.

"You need to teach me how to spin like that. I never got it," Alyssa says, handing her the messenger bag that had been left in her chair, the plain district standard canvas brightened with marker scribbles and countless homemade ornaments that jingle when Bentley heaves the strap over her shoulder, the weight of it sending her tiny body listing to the left in a struggle to remain upright. She nods absently, her mouth changing from a wildly happy grin into her normal airy smile.

“Okay! It’s not hard. You just have to pick a spot on the wall and watch it no matter what, and try really hard to balance. My mom wants you to come have dinner tonight, so I can show you after I make sure Lord Tubbington isn’t sneaking out to go to a rave again like he did last week. But you’ll get it in no time, I know you… Lyssie?” But her best friend is miles away, lost in the stare of the new boy with the silky smooth voice and the grace of a dancer in the making in his limbs. Bentley’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of them but the budding confusion rattling her mind makes her head begin to hurt in that tired, strained way it does when she looks at her math homework. The way he talks almost makes it seem like they know each other, which can’t be possible since Alyssa has been here almost since Bentley can remember while Kaelen, the tallest of the three students left in the room, has only just arrived. She blinks a few times, confusion knitting her face into a puzzled look that Alyssa doesn’t seem to notice until Bentley lays a questioning hand against the warm skin of her arm. “Lyssie, are you okay? You're doing that thing where you aren't listening again. Is it because of that boy who sounds like fancy napkins?"

"I need to talk to him, okay, B? You have lunch now, so just head down to the cafeteria. I'll meet you there." Alyssa smiles but there’s something out of place in her eyes, a tension that Bentley can feel down to the marrow of her bones when their pinkies lock together for a moment. Bentley can’t understand a lot of things, and that’s okay, it really is, but the one thing she’s always been able to get better than math or reading or even dancing is Alyssa, and right now the vague sensation of something being deeply wrong seems to crawl up her arm from the place where their fingers touch. Bentley smiles and nods because that’s what she does, but it’s the odd feeling of something bigger than both of them twisting her world until her bubble is in grave danger of popping that makes her slip quietly into the hallway once the two of them leave, easily following them since Kaelen towers over everyone else in the hallway until they disappear into a girl’s bathroom of all places. The confusion sends another shot of mild pain shooting through her head. and Bentley’s eyebrows draw together as she huddles next to the door and presses her ear to the wood just in time to hear Alyssa’s muffled “What the fuck are you doing here, Dempsey?”

So they do know each other. Bentley’s lips press together into a pale line as she tries and fails to make sense of it all, the millions of things that the world won’t let her understand tumbling together and twisting with the even greater pain of knowing that Alyssa hasn’t told her the whole story. She isn’t sure which hurts more, her head or her heart.

[Deleted]

Oh, on a wire we were dancing
Two kids, no consequences
Pull the trigger without thinking
There's only one way down this road
It was like a time-bomb set in motion

[/i][/color][/center]
“What the fuck are you doing here, Dempsey?”

Kaelen will never admit to another living person how the sharpness of her words doesn’t quite hurt him (sticks and stones are great weapons indeed but he knows that he’s capable of cutting someone down to nothing with words alone, and not even Alyssa can best him in that competition) so much as it sends and uncomfortable pang shooting through his limbs, foreign and not at all pleasant – if he had to place a name on it, it would be something like almost-betrayal, but he knows better than to believe that. One who feels no allegiance to people can’t be betrayed, not really. Nonetheless, the sensation registers in the lithe length of his limbs but not in his face, which only breaks its carefully neutral deadpan to curve into a half-amused smirk as he leans against the unfeeling surface of the tile wall and welcomes the cold spreading like quicksilver across his skin. “You cut me to the quick, Lyss.” The indifferent monotone of his voice acts as such a perfect counterpoint to the statement that he doesn’t even need to clarify that he’s being sarcastic. “Twelve years, and that’s the kind of welcome I get? I’m hurt. Wounded, even.”

The bird-bone structure of his hand presses dramatically against his narrow ribcage as if she’s stabbed him in the heart – the look in her eyes says with quiet certainty that she might do just that if he doesn’t watch himself. Kaelen knows people and doesn’t miss the barely-controlled storm that surges beneath her skin – and the smirk breaks into another one of the unsettling smiles that have become his trademark over the years. “Would you believe me if I said that One just wasn’t the same without you and I couldn’t bear it anymore? The tire swing’s still there, you know.”

The summer sun bakes unmercifully into his skin, too bright and promising for the darkness that paints itself in a thick layer over too-skinny six-year-old limbs, invisible to the naked eye but undeniably present in the aftermath of something that Kaelen can’t quite understand yet, only enough to know that things can never be the same again. His world has tilted on its axis but the firm surface of the old tire beneath his fingers is the only type of grounding he could think of – the house is too closed off, filled with too many sad faces and horror that is too fresh to be called a memory, and he knows better even at his young age to think that anyone noticed him slipping out the back door hours ago, knows better than to think that anyone would care enough to come looking for him even if they did. He shuts his eyes and tries to sink into a simpler world that only consists of himself and the barely-moving swing beneath him, but his mind has a funny way of keeping everything he wants to throw away trapped on an endless loop.

“Kae?” He registers the voice at the same time he feels a familiar weight settling on the other side of the suspended tire, amber orbs sliding open to take in the sight of dark waves and even darker eyes across from him, regal features shifted into a concerned look. “Is it true? What everyone’s saying? I went downstairs for breakfast and they said –“

“Yeah.” His voice is too heavy for his years, grip tightening on the fraying ropes holding the tire swing aloft. “My mama’s dead. She took a bunch of pills and went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

He leaves out the details, how she’d sent him to bed early and he’d stolen into his parents’ room to ask for a bedtime story only to find her still-warm body sprawled across the floor, empty bottle in her hand and tears still wet on her cheeks. Alyssa doesn’t need to hear it but the look in her eyes says that to some extent that she knows, that she can see the things in his head that even he can’t really describe. Her lips press into a tight line almost as if she had hoped to hear something different, eyes not leaving his. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I’m… I’m angry.” That much Kaelen understands. Something like ice that won’t melt seems to settle under his skin and refuses to leave, that whispers a song of vengeance and ruthlessness that he wants more than anything. “They said she’s dead because I’ve got a sister and some other lady’s her mama. She found out and didn’t want to live anymore. And… I’ve never met her but I hate her, Lyss. I hate all of them.”

“Who’s all of them?”

“Everyone ‘cept you, I guess. It’s not fair, everyone’s saying she was so young, but she wanted to do it and I guess she didn’t care about me enough to want to stay. So I hate her, too. I wish I could…” Kaelen can’t verbalize what he wishes he could do, only that there’s something like justice that his tiny hands could mold out of the pain of everyone in this convoluted mess, his father, the other woman, the baby sister he just learned of that makes his whole world descend into a haze of red when he thinks about her. Words can’t describe, but it flashes behind his eyes, dangerous in a bone-chilling way that Alyssa seems to notice, a hand settling against his shoulder grounding him better than the tire swing ever could and squeezing gently until whatever roils in his veins dissipates, leaving him as nothing more than what he guesses he is – a lost little boy with no mother and a father that could care less.

“I can’t stay. Papa’s been getting all jumpy, doesn’t want me out of the house for too long. But if you need to, come over, okay?” she says, gaze softer than it ever is for anyone else as she wraps him in an awkward, stilted one-armed hug and hops off the swing, running off into the setting sun with a backward wave and a “See you tomorrow!”

It is the last time he ever sees her.

Kaelen shakes his head quickly, snapping back to the present and taking in a much different Alyssa than the one he remembers – tall and strong and eyes holding none of the friendship they had years ago. For a moment he berates himself for ever being as naïve as to believe that twelve years and a whole continent of distance wouldn’t change things. Kaelen knows that he’s changed on a personal level from that evening on the swing in more ways than he can count, and he can only expect that Alyssa has done the same. She may not share his mile-long kill list, but something in the defensive stance of her body murmurs that she too hasn’t had the most amicable road to travel in life. But pity has never been his forte – if there were cause to mourn for every pawn lost for the purpose of a larger game, he’d be an emotional wreck rather than emotionally devoid.

“But no, we’ve always been honest with each other; I think I can tell you the real reason,” he drawls, eyes casting around lazily for any type of surveillance. In a district as wired as Thirteen he knows better than to bare his story outright, and can only hope that Alyssa is still fluent in the subtle sort of code they shared in their youth. “Series of unfortunate events, really. My father had an… accident involving a very nasty mixed drink when I was sixteen. And over the next two years about thirty-some other alcohol-swilling wastes of air around the district had similar… accidents. I thought it might be prudent to make myself scarce before I met with an accident myself. The Peacekeepers never did take kindly to the folks from our neighborhood, if you remember. I played my game until it ran its course, and now I’m here.”

A smile blooms on his lips that lowers the temperature in the room at least twenty degrees and Kaelen crosses his arms in a mirror image of the human windstorm standing across from him. “I’ve been busy, Alyssa. Quite busy indeed. Can you say the same for yourself?” There’s a challenge in it that he can’t quite explain to even himself, an intuition pulling at the tip of his tongue until he ventures out on a limb that he hadn’t known existed. “You seem to be hanging with the good crowd nowadays. That friend of yours, the one with the nice legs… is she spoken for?”

He remembers the game, pushing the envelope until he recoils just before the tipping point, but he isn’t sure if he remembers the rules of engagement when it comes to her. Bony shoulders still digging into the icy tile behind him, Kaelen quirks an eyebrow in Alyssa’s direction, awaiting her reaction. Check.[/color][/blockquote][/justify][/size]

[sadniss everdeen]

/82333C/ Every punch I throw reminds me there are things worth fighting for.
/313238/ Jesus, it's like a fucking nightmare inside my head.
/4D65B4/ I got razorblades in my tongue as well as my hair. Wanna check?
/815E4A/ Hey. Shut the fuck up or I'll make you.
/5B786F/ So music makes my day better. What the hell do you care?

keep dodging lights
like a thief in the night
the sun will rise and expose all your lies



She has never been good at controlling her anger. It grows and flows until her fire breaks through and comes out in a violent burst only calmed by soothing hands or the crunch of flesh upon flesh - this time her nails bite into his skin as she flies towards him, feet skimming hastily upon the ground until she collides into his body with a solid thunk and the stalls shiver behind them with their weight. "You stay away from her, psychopath," she hisses with narrowed eyes and a voice that cuts through glass, thick and sharp, "you can take your pick from the rest of this shit in this school, but you don't lay a finger on her or I will cut it off. I know you think that because we were friends this gives you some sort of free pass, but guess what?" As if realizing for the first time she lets go with a disturbed shudder (physical contact is like trial by fire - no one is worthy nor are they capable of it) and backs up, eyeing the red crescent-moons etched into his waxy skin with some satisfaction. "It doesn't. You're just another outsider in this hellhole... you didn't pick very wisely."

Daddy states that they can never go back, getting all quiet and morose when she mentions it, but it has to be better than this life they're living. It's so structured, so strict. They expect you to do as they please and not according to your own ideals - sheep, all of the that blindly follow what they believe to be salvation from the Capitol's loving trap. Alyssa was never one to follow the rules.

Yet, how many months has it been since she's felt the embrace of the sun? For so long she's had to be content with flickering fluorescent and tasteless walls while the others got to live out their lives without the darkness that seems to follow her wherever she roams. Bentley was District-born; her face as Alyssa showed her the light for the first time will forever remain something to hold onto when the nights become to cold. Here, in flesh and blood, is somebody who has lived out his days with sunrise and sunset, able to feel the wind and the trees and the life she so sorely lacks. Alyssa is one of shadow, of darkness, but even she admits that at times she grows jealous and petty the lighter her skin becomes. "An accident, huh?" she muses, tone rife with sarcasm and dubious denial. "I'm sure. As much as an accident of you hiking all the way out to fuck-all nowhere to hide.

She's had her share of accidents, wandering the halls late at night, slipping silently through the back-alleys that prove just as dangerous as the Old District, ghosting through the lenses of cameras without ever being seen. Her father has a guiding touch and a slick palm. Somehow in the depths of their rooms he brings plants to life where they weep pearls, falling into his outstretched hand to be worth far more than they would have up top. Once, for her fourteenth birthday, he allowed her to test the jewels he has produced, watching carefully as it crawled through her veins and she stumbled to collapse on the floor with a lazy grin on her face and all muscles gone lax. It stayed there for several hours and so did she, murmuring nonsense and whimsicial things, hair stained with sweat and skin pale as snow. She woke with her head in Bentley's lap, petting down her hair, absently watching Capitol television in the dead of night. Everything hurt.

From then on, rarely. Daddy had given her a smug smirk that screamed i told you so and let her ride out the withdrawal alone.

Two years later, she was put into juvie for running the very same substance.

But he doesn't need to know. Not yet. He can sit there with his smirk and his certainty that his life has been worse than hers, but she won't give him the satisfaction of appeasing his thoughts. It may have been so very long but she knows him in a base way that she knows herself, realizes that if you do not give him answers he will simply grow frustrated and easier to move. She may be no genius like his vocabulary betrays him to be, but she understands the ways of the world. "Papi's still in the business... in fact, it's gotten even better down here. Something about this place seems to bring out the worst in people." She snorts at the irony and flexes her chapped knuckles absent-mindedly. "And don't try that subtle threatening bullshit with me, Dempsey. I've got no patience for smoke and mirrors."


She heaves herself off the wall and looks around for a minute, takes in the stark bathrooms scrawled like a notebook, minds of people past and present like a novel. It's all pointless and shallow, suffocating her with the useless information that she'll never deem fit to remember. They all know she'll become a dealer just like her father... why would she need any of this? Perhaps for Bentley, who requires a helping hand to go through her books and papers that have no interest in her otherwise. One day she will become the dancer that this District didn't know they needed. Alyssa smiles slightly at the thought, but the hurricane of wariness hurtling inside stems it before it can turn into anything other than a half-smirk.

Her shields are towering over her head and she turns once again to him, eyes narrowed and dark as pitch. Some say she's a demon in disguise, stalking the hallways for nothing more than amusement, tormenting those that get in her way. A demon is better than a whore. Each are their own evils, but I find one less demeaning than the other. Can you take a guess?

"Why here? You're just going to start again. And trust me, everybody knows something you don't want them to.