Catch Me [i'm falling] // kaelenkieron

[Wonder]

Lonely.

That's the only word possible to describe what I am feeling as of lately. Each of everyday is filled with routine, you go here, you do this. They might as well have locked me up instead and the result may very well be the same, except then I would have a home to return to. A home with satin sheets and worldly possessions. A house full of clothes that weren't cargo shorts and bland t-shirts, a house full of strong open wounds that would keep stabbing, over and over again, never allowing themselves to heal over. Every day was filled with duties, everyone had something to do and it was printed on my arm like a tattoo. I'd always been partial to getting a tattoo, however the daily schedule had really turned me off from the entire idea. I didn't really have much to do, still being classified as a teenager, and also still being classified as mentally unstable.

The hospital bracelet still rubbed repeatedly against my left arm, unwavering in it's effort to constantly remind me of what I'd done. The demons danced playfully around my head reminding me of how close I was to falling in their grasp, and they were just waiting for the right time. The right time. When was the time that they'd come down and sweep me up before anyone could know any different? I was a boy in a constant state of waiting, and I've always been impatient. Rub. The yellow band was starting to create a irritated area of skin on my wrist. I'd picked up an awful habit of compulsively rubbing the band up and down along my skin out of pure anxiousness.

I'd been very anxious the past week, it had only been that long since I'd arrived in District Thirteen. The whole idea was sort of shocking to me, the hovercraft that picked me up, the people, had told me that we'd be journeying here, but the whole idea of it still being alive, still thriving was absolutely shocking and incredible really. Surviving against all odds, just like me. Upon arrival, I was dumped right into a hospital bed. Normally, I would have fought but my bones were tired and weary and I'd had enough, I let them take me. The hard mattress was nothing compared to the small pillow that they gave me to rest my head, no longer was I a priority, no longer was I a luxury. I was a rebel.

One of the officers, recruits, I wasn't too sure on which considering they all wore the same exact uniform, had seen fit to tell someone of the situation in which they'd found me. The soft smell of the meadow still burned in my memory. The whole tattle tale situation, really was just a mandatory report, but as I was shoved into a hospital room under constant surveillance for five whole days, it felt as if I was being interrogated. The room was small, dark, a small hole had been eaten through in the top right tile in the ceiling. Rough rope sliding through my fingertips as it wrapped itself around and around into a noose. The ceiling had sixty-four tiles, eight by eight, I'd counted them over and over again to make sure. Three flickering fluorescent bulbs lit up the room, if only barely. The farthest one flickered ever so slightly as if at any moment the world around me would go dark, again.

Solitude was not enjoyable. My father had spent years barred up in his room, doing absolutely nothing, closed off from the world. How he did it I'll never know. The nagging feeling of regret pulled at me constantly, had this been the right choice? Coming along with these people? It hadn't been complete solitude, sure. Nurses had come in on occasion to assess my condition, to feed me and more often than not to see how I was feeling. They'd hobble in the room, ass almost too big to fit through the door with shoes clanging against the floor out of near frustration. They would then scrape the chair from under a desk over to beside the bedside, piercing the silence with shrieks. I almost preferred the shrieking. "And how are you today, Mr. Allard?"

The question was repetitive and pointless, I felt the same as always, an extreme case of annoyance and frustration and that ever-nagging feeling of regret. But that wasn't the answer they wanted to hear. Each nurse would give a nudging smile as if to say, get better you freak, we're got better things to deal with. It was clear that I was no longer roaming the streets of District One any longer, I was a rogue holding the rebels back because I was sad. "Fine." I muttered, clenching my jaw. This room, was this where I'd spend the rest of my days? Locked up and treated like an animal, like a bomb waiting to explode at any second? It seemed so completely ridiculous and stupid. Perhaps carving the walls with lines to track the days might become a hobby of sorts, an award for making it past the day. One streak, two streaks. I could carve them later.

"You're free to go." Perhaps one day I would line the entire room with lines to prove I'd survived, but what would happen when the walls were filled. The white walls weren't very large, this room was about two times if not three smaller than my normal bedroom, my old bedroom. If I'd carved out that, I'd surely live a lifetime and die of old age. Maybe break the curse, if one killed themselves so old, would it even matter? "Mr. Allard." No one would be around to change my diapers when I was old and useless and riddled with arthritis, wasn't it the right thing to do to just kick the bucket at the point? If only I had a room large enough the carve the walls, then perhaps I'd be fine. "Mr. Allard." The nurse sounded pointed, frustrated and annoyed, she wanted to leave as much as I did. "You're free to go. You've been assigned room C5-635. You'll find a uniform in there and everything." Oh, I was good to go. C5-635, home? This was my new home, District Thirteen, C5-635. "If you need any help, just come and find me and I'll be happy to help."

Happy to help, my ass. Her smile was as fake as the tan that she'd somehow accumulated. She was the only nurse I'd seen with any sort of colour to her skin, and it was pure orange. Fake. I watched as she hobbled at the door, ass barely managing to fit the constraints of the door frame. The room stayed silent, I couldn't move. Where was I to go? Walk through the door into a whole new world? It was then that the door I'd been ever so desperate to walk out grew large and scary, what could be out there. I'd only seen glimpses of the District as I'd stepped off the metal walkway of the hovercraft, everything was dark and metal. What could be out there?

Day 6, I thought to myself. Lately I'd been coming up with a mental journal to track everything. Perhaps sometime soon I'd take up actually writing it all down, but for the moment I needed to clear my head.

Day 6,

I escape again.

One foot in front of the other, the self-reminder was sort of stupid really. How hard was it to walk. Left, right, left, right. Before I knew it, I'd cleared the doorway and managed to walk out in to a busy hospital centre with nurses rushing all over the place to different rooms and men walking in with nice pressed clothing and small injuries. This was home. Meandering about the hallways, I followed the numbers. A4-223. Wasn't even close. I follow the noise of the crowd, watch where they go. Everyone seemed to be assembling into a general area, maybe a meeting of sorts, discussing rebellious activities? Taking charge against something in Panem. It seems wild and crazy and I can't believe I'm already being thrown into things like meetings, to take down the Capitol. It seems so crazy!

The low buzz of the crowd turns into a dull roar as a approach closer and closer to the meeting space, exhilaration, adrenaline pouring through every single pour of my body. To think minutes ago I was nothing but a little boy trapped in a white room, and now I was something bigger, better. Left, Right, step. Keep moving forward with the crowd and the deadly lion roar screams in my ears. I see it, the doors, four big blue doors next to each other, almost there.

I walk into the room to a series of tables and the scraping of metal ladles on the bottom of pots. A cafeteria. That's all it was after all, no big grand meeting, no big rebellious movement, lunch. All it was was lunch. My stomach growls for the first time in days, I didn't even realize I was hungry until the smell hits my nose. The food doesn't smell all the pleasant, but any sort of food would be welcome at this point. Walking towards the line up, I look about the room. Tons of children and parents, happy, wild and free. They're safe from any reaping ever, live together, it's safe. The line shuffles along bringing me closer and closer to food. I wonder where these people come from? Were they born here, did they walk here like me? What circumstances led them here, cause I'm more than sure it wasn't all suicide. Step.

I see him. It doesn't seem real at first, the sinking feeling of knowing him from somewhere. A boy across the room walking about happy and smiling yet radiating this aura of home. A boy from District One, and it's not the superb sense of style or the beyond teased hair that give it away. A feeling deep in my stomach is telling me something is not right, this is someone I know but not for a good reason. He walks forward towards me and I'm halting the line, I can hear the angry chatter behind me as I don't move forward, but there's something tugging at my brain that I can't quite yet figure out. Eyes and head unmoving, I reveal my medical bracelet to those behind me, "Sorry, I'm mentally unstable."

The line of people move around me as I watch the boy walk closer and closer, his tall thin frame recognizable and scary. Something of home that isn't quite good. He brushes by me and I see his amber-brown eyes and it clicks. Dempsey. The whole story hadn't really been in the paper for months and months. A boy, Kaelan Dempsey, serial killer. The room grows eerily quiet around me as I watch him stride out of the cafeteria. Wasn't he dead? No, the streets were still covered in his face. Wanted posters plastered every open area, every store front, especially in bars. The boy who poisoned so many men. I let my feet lead the way once again, where was he going? Were his pockets laced with poison ready to take out anyone that came in his way? The fluorescent hallways seemed to become blinding as I follow him through the hallways as his shoes clack against the metal floors.

Step, step. Hiding around the corners hoping he won't hear me walking towards him. Could I be seeing things? The yellow band becomes present in my mind, perhaps I am just mentally stable. A whole group of cafeteria people sure think I am, could I be subconsciously seeing a boy from my District? But, of all people to project in my mind, why would it be a serial killer? Perhaps he was the demon inside me, but more than likely he walked. Just like me. Walked away from the place we'd once called home to build a new life. The Prince and the Serial Killer. A fairy tale waiting to happen.

He stops, I stop. A sign reads that this is the school wing, I'm sure that sometime soon I'll have to find my way here again to attend classes. One wouldn't think that this was a school area, there's no distinct differences from the rest of the place. All metal, doors, walls, floors. Music. I hear it fill my ears and listen as voices rise up in harmonies. Singing? I walk over to the door Kaelan had walked into. Through the window I watch a group of people singing around and dancing. What was this? A singing group of serial killers? The music fills me inside, it'd been a while since I'd listened to melodies, let alone sang them. This was new, the beginning of a new life. A new song. A new symphony.

And maybe I could lend some poison when I need to.

[/blockquote][/justify]

[Deleted]

Life's too short to even care at all, oh
I'm coming up now coming up now out of the blue, oh
These zombies in the park they're looking for my heart
Oh, oh, oh, oh
A dark world aches for a splash of the sun, oh

[/color][/center]
Living under the earth is stifling in a way that few things can be. The days blur into one another, unmarked by the rising or setting of a nonexistent sun (there was a time where I would have said that I was a creature of darkness and would never need the light, but in a world of filtered air and no windows I find myself missing the warmth of summer more than I care to admit) and only tallied by personal landmarks and a changing date on the schedule inked into my skin. June 19th, Year of the 61st Games. I have been a citizen of Thirteen for four months and ten days, and every turn of the earth I can no longer see seems to leave me at the same place. 12:00 – Lunch.

The cafeteria feels more like a stockyard for cattle, all brushed metal walls and concrete floors with the only source of light contained in the buzzing fluorescent bulbs overhead, but that comes as no surprise. If anything, most people down here are closer to livestock than human beings at all. Thirteen is the very embodiment of herd mentality. Not that I would ever glorify humanity, of course – it’s an ugly thing for the most part, full of vice and sin and flawed logic that never seems to improve – but if there’s one thing living in the depths of the earth has taught me, it’s that there are always exceptions. There can be light in the darkest of places, and in the rarest form of serendipity sometimes the sun can shine even underground.

“Kae?”

“What?” My gaze shifts from the endless sea of faces I don’t care about over to the only one I do, deep-dark eyes and easy smiles that I’ve grown to – appreciate. Despite the fact that maybe the world isn’t exactly the hopeless void I expected it to be, love still is a word that has no place in my vocabulary. I came to the understanding a long time ago that I was different from the huddled masses, someone elevated to a higher plane of existence where things like love or affection or devotion are foreign concepts that I have never been able to or even wanted to understand. But there are always exceptions. There can be brief glimpses of time (stolen kisses, fingers intertwined, shared looks that no one else can decipher) where I begin to think that maybe those concepts aren’t quite so foreign, and even against the darkness that sits heavy on my skin like a silk veneer there is a human sun who never fails to sear it away no matter how steadfastly I cling to it as my sole protection in an existence with which I’m unsure how to cope.

Colt gives me an odd look, head cocking to the side in a way that’s more than a little reminiscent of a curious puppy. “You got all your stuff? You’re holding up the line.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I mutter, blinking slowly, picking up the molded plastic tray (since when do I apologize? This underland world of schedules and well-kept secrets is changing the very fabric of me) and falling into stride next to him. “Zoned out for a second. I’ve been feeling weird all day.”

“You okay?” A concerned brush of guitar-rough fingers against my arm that I promptly jerk away from, ever aware of the thousands of eyes in the room. Some secrets I’m not even ready to admit to myself, let alone the rest of the District. I make a concerted effort to ignore the hurt that flashes across Colt’s face as we shuffle through the pressing crowds, telling myself in a repeated mantra that he simply doesn’t understand. Being like that for his whole life is easy in comparison to me questioning everything I once held confidence in. If someone on my level of perception can’t even make sense of it, there’s no way he ever could.

“I’m perfectly fine, so kindly piss off. What are you, my babysitter?” I snark, but the degree of acid in my voice isn’t nearly what it could be, the bite of the statement belied by a crooked smirk that’s the closest I get to a smile.

Colt snorts and grins back, dropping his tray on an empty table. “Fuck you.”

A widened smirk, a lowered murmur lost under the echoing roar of the cafeteria. “Gracious, not now, we’re in public. Maybe after glee club.”

---

Glee club isn’t something I would call a bright spot in my days, but the only thing that really matches that definition is currently swaying to the beat beside me, so I guess it counts in a roundabout sort of way. Music is something I can do, though, something besides crafting intricate elixirs of death and destruction that I can take some degree of pride in. There will come a day when I’ve been here long enough to not arouse suspicion when I will once again ascend to that stage of divinity, purging the world of those who aren’t worth the air they breathe, but not yet. Patience is one of my many virtues. Until then, thrumming beats and intricate harmonies will have to suffice, one of the few instances where I can actually feel echoes of that all-too-human world from which I’ve kept a careful distance for as long as I can remember. Jumping into the fire is one thing, but there’s a kind of thrill in running my fingertips through a candle’s flame and feeling the kiss of an almost-burn sear at my heart skin.

It’s a good song for once, something deep and swirling with a heavy undertone and filigree-delicate lyrics. The words are undeniably pretty, bordering on entrancing and resounding a little too deeply with current events, not helped by the way Colt’s voice lays warm and rich a major third above mine at the start of the verse. I was looking for a breath of life, for a little touch of heavenly light, but all the choirs in my head sing no, oh, oh…

“Okay, guys, good work today!” The grating, electric tenor of Wheaton’s voice scrapes over the blissful silence in the wake of the song’s conclusion, scattering the eerie peace to the wind on a tide of rushing and chatter and bodies clambering for the door.

“Hey, Twitch, can Hanlon and I have the room to practice our duet for Friday?” I drawl boredly, lounging in a languid sprawl on the piano bench.

“I’m your teacher, Dempsey, it’s advisable that you back off with the stupid nicknames.”

“What’re you going to do, put me in detention?” Silence. As predicted. I understand how people work in a way they don’t understand themselves, know that Wheaton is loath to exercise his authority over kids he’s only a year or two older than even if he isn’t able to rationalize in his own hyper little head. “I thought as much. See you tomorrow, Twitch.”

There are many things in the world that I find intolerable, but Jace Wheaton is just a delightfully responsive source of entertainment. I manage to keep from laughing for as long as it takes for him to twitch out of the room, but let loose a faint chuckle as soon as his footsteps fade off down the hall, fingers dancing over a short snippet of Clair de Lune unconsciously the way they always seem to do whenever I’m in front of ivory keys and black lacquer, an involuntary harkening to a canvas of notes that make far more sense than the rest of the world. Somewhere between measures 5 and 7 Colt sidles over and leans into the crook of the piano, fixing me with that odd look again. “The duet’s fine. We’ve been ready since Monday.”

“I know,” I say, abandoning the keyboard and rising from the bench, shifting over in front of him and grinning wickedly. “I was a complete ass to you in the cafeteria.”

“You were. That’s normal and in no way explains why you’re pinning me up against the piano.”

“Let me apologize.” Again with the apologies. What is right wrong with me? My fingers brush a stray tendril of his hair back into place, palm settling against the side of his face. There’s something easy and comforting in the way he leans into the touch that feels almost like home, although I’ve never truly known the meaning of the word. This is one of those brief flashes when all those facets of humanity that so carefully allude me seem to become more understandable, my hand stilling over the candle’s flame and letting the icy veneer melt from my surface. “I did say maybe after glee club, you kn-“

A subtle shift, a faint sound from the hallway filtering through the open door, and I reflexively jump back from the flames that now hold the threat of consuming me, always fearful aware that someone could see my lapse of composure. I only have as much power as I give myself, and Colt Hanlon has the potential to bring me down to the base levels of the rest of the masses. But that’s the second time today, and I realize it a beat too late as the same hurt from earlier settles over Colt’s features and lingers behind his eyes, quietly accusing in the worst of ways because he’s simply incapable of understanding. They all are. “Colt, I didn’t –“

“No, I get it. It’s fine.” His voice is dull and clipped as he pushes off the piano and promptly trips over his own feet, righting himself and grabbing his backpack before walking out into the hall. “I’ll see you later.”

“Damn it all,” I mutter to myself, closing my eyes against a blooming tension headache battering the inside of my skull and carding fingers through my hair. Humans have a tendency of chasing after things that are no good for them, and right now I’m about as close to human as I’ll ever get. Cursing under my breath, I cross the room in three long stride, emerging into the filtered air of the hallway. “Colt, stop being such a goddamn PMSing pubescent girl and come back here and talk to m-… oh, hello.”

The boy in the hall is not Colt. Far from him. Defined features, prominent jawline, piercing eyes and a distinct air of familiarity about him that I can’t shake. That’s an odd realization, seeing as he carries the distinct air of new citizen about him, skin still clinging to the last vestiges of the sun’s influence and his carriage the uncertain one of a person who isn’t in their element (I cringe to think that I was like that only a few months ago, uncertain and not in control of my surroundings, but that quickly changed and I’m more than sufficiently acclimated now). “You’re new, that much is obvious. At any rate, school’s over. You might want to… I don’t know; go lurk in some other hallway. Anyway, did you see a boy leave just now? Short, dark hair, trips all over the place?”

But there’s something else about him, something that trips the thin wire of my self-preservation instinct and screams DANGER. BEWARE. HERE THERE BE DRAGONS. I’ve been feeling odd all day, and something sends a rush of cold through my veins that whispers that I may have just figured out why.[/color]

If I could find a way to see this straight

I'd run away
To some fortune that I
I should have found by now
I'm waiting for this cough syrup to come down, come down[/center][/blockquote][/justify][/size]

[Wonder]

Kept playing love like it was just a game
Pretending to feel the same
Then turn around and leave again.

[/i][/right][/size]

The cold metal walls brush against my skin filling me with a frightened tingle, a cold ruthless feeling on the back of my neck. Trapped in a box with no escape possible. The walls seemingly converge, slowly moving inwards, collapsing on me. Small whistles of wind push outwards, escaping the confines bit by bit leaving little for me to breathe in, surely I’d die sitting here, waiting, lungs burning, fingers grasping and the harsh metal threatening to enclose at any second. Trapped. The walls giggle, a high-pitched squeal as they watch the poor useless boy, watching his only reminder of home. The blinking lights above become brighter, these were the suns here. There was no bright bulb in the sky, just small little bulbs every three metres down. Step, step, step, light. Surely soon, I’d lose the orangey tint from my skin and become nothing but a ghost, a ghost like the boy singing around the choir room.

Breathe. I hadn’t had the air brush through my lips and feed my lungs in what seemed like an hour. The hallway released, walls moved back to their rightful spaces. All it took was a little breath. I stood there unmoving from my spot on the wall, watching. The odd man or woman waltzed down the hall, shoes clacking to the beats being sung behind the door to my left. Clack, clack. Shoes only seemed to make the whole place seem emptier. I’d lived in a house with nothing but the ghosts of my parents to accompany me with every meal, but yet the big metal hallway seemed emptier, no one had lived here. No one had lived here. It was simply a place of work and movement, go forth quickly and never look back, never sit here, steal kisses here. This was not a secret place to meet at midnight; this was a spot where no one stopped, except me.

What was I doing? In a hallway, watching a boy, a familiar boy, a boy who spent a solid two years skulking about neighbourhoods slowly slipping sizzling poison into the drink of the unworthy. The unworthy, those he deemed useless, beyond repair. I am useless and beyond repair. Standing here waiting behind a silver door waiting for what? The serial killer whose deathly glow I recognized from across the room, and realized, hey, you know what, I would like to talk about him. Waiting for a boy who may not even hold any answers. But what were the questions I was even asking? The cold air brushes along my skin soothingly, as if it knows the sinking feeling that’s covered me like a blanket. Comfort isn’t something that’s graced my presence in a while, and yet, in the unwelcoming hallway, listening to the taps of a boy who killed those who I walked past every day, I’ve never felt more at home.

I can feel it, the traces of a doll pressing into my skin; all along it's been there, the bloody prince. The prince jabbing in to my side with a broken wooden sword leaving a small dulled imprint, marking me forever as a soldier. He’d been there all along, hiding in my pocket (concealing himself.) I knew they’d removed him when they’d snapped me down to the hospital bed to keep me still, but he was always there all along, hiding in the clothes the nurse had shoved at me, waiting for me to come back to him. The bloody prince and I, both broken and chipped and looking for our princesses and neither would succeed. The prince’s significant other was dead – and mine, well, they’d never really existed in the first place. A free spirit, that’s what they’d call me; never settle for anyone in the District, too sharp of a tongue to hold anyone down, anyhow.

Tracing the indents and lines of the prince with my forefinger, the world erupts around me in a world of thunder. The pounding of feet against solid metal and the screams and giggles pierce the air, completely and utterly breaking the shield of silence surrounding the prince. Each passing second becomes intolerable. Questioning looks of those who pass, and the mutters and giggles of the meaner ones, I can hear the stray mention of being a loser. That’s what I must look like. A boy standing alone, listening to a group of kids sing while holding a toy prince. I’m the definition of the kid who gets dropped into a dumpster. Not to mention with the bracelet rubbing against my wrist and surely a hollow face from days locked up in a cell refusing to only eat what’s necessary. To them, I’m another psycho, but maybe also to them, I’m just part of their herd. It was time to stop. Stop wallowing in self-pity, stop being someone who I wasn’t. When was I ever this weak, when did I ever let the thought of imprisonment tear me down and leave me useless – I used to be better.

The footsteps pass, the thundering snaps of pounding feet grow farther and farther away, echoing down the emptiness. They’re gone, most of them, I assume. He did not pass. Still in the room to my left, is Kaelen Dempsey, the only bit of home I know of in this gloomy underground. A faint challenge rises within me, a need to propel forward to the door and make myself known, a challenge to one up the extremely intelligent boy at his own game. How quickly could I tear down his reputation to shreds? How quickly could I tear down the love and friends he’d built in this District? A game. This was all me coming back to myself, become the boy who slept with anyone who brushed his skin. Become the boy whose tongue was so sharp that he could stab someone in the heart and kill them. No longer would I be the wimpy boy cowered over a prince, it was time to get over my parents. I was not my father and I never would be.

The door got closer, was I moving my feet? I didn’t even realize that I was moving along, closer to him. My nimble fingers grab at the open crack in the door, bleeding light into the hallway. Breathe in, this was a new start, walking through this door and throwing him to the ground. Stabbing him through the heart with a tongue so sharp – Kaelen lies pressed up against a boy on a piano. Fingers brushing through the other boy’s hair and sweet whispers piercing the eerie silence. Something I wasn’t expecting, for sure. A slight head turn, shit. I cower to the side of the door. Did they see me? The two boys leaning up against the sweet musical instrument, making out? Sure – I’d seen many a couple do stuff all over the place, and I’d had my fun too. But to be whispering up against the black piano after everyone had left could only mean a secret, a secret love affair. Perfect.

A smaller boy comes storming out and I can’t help but watch his frame as he walks away, he seems a lot taller when he’s not pushed up against a piano. I let a smirk cross my face, a target finally. Stepping aside, I let the frustrated boy pass with a simple nod of the head – did he acknowledge me back? I wasn’t watching. Though, I did stare shamelessly at his ass as he stormed away from the room. Reasonable, I would also run away if I was stuck between a serial killer and a hard place. His slim frame bounces away, the air tastes bitter and yet ever so sweet. It seems almost as if I’ve found a key in, a way to go and disturb the boy I chased over to this spot.

“Colt –“ I freeze. The words come from behind the door I’d just been grasping, coming ever so closer, walking, running towards me, and I was stuck. There was nowhere to run to – not in such short time. All there was left to do was to pray, tuck the prince in my pocket, and have fun. A mischievous grin finds its way to my face, carved on like a pumpkin on Halloween, its prime objective to scare. This was going to be a fun day. The screaming and grumbling, fighting over words comes closer and closer until the door bursts open and there he is – Kaelen Dempsey. Chiseled jawline, defined cheekbones, unusually tall and standing right in front of me. A murderer. A pump of adrenaline fills me, everything moves fast and I can catch the movements of the slightest breeze with my eyes. The world, though so incredibly dull here, grows completely exhilarating and beautiful. As if I’m a lion chasing through the wild savannah after a poor, helpless skinny gazelle. So strikingly beautiful, and so easily torn down. “- oh, hello.”

Eyes wide with exhilaration, I watch his every movement. The nervous twitch, the glaring eyes, as if trying to tell what I saw with a single accusing look. I saw everything. I try and burn the message in with my eyes, but somehow I doubt that’s an ability within my possession. Heart pounding, listening as he babbles on about how I’m new, how I should go somewhere else. So incredibly upfront for someone who doesn’t know the situation he’s about to fall into, how naïve of a boy who prided himself on intelligence and tricking authority. There was no authority here, at least none of that caliber. This was a game to be played without the interference of the Capitol. It’s funny that I should be the one to take down – or at least blackmail – the great Dempsey murderer. “Anyway, did you see a boy leave just now? Short, dark hair, trips all over the place?”

“You mean your boyfriend?” I walk towards the open door, the choir room; I need more space than the cramped hallway in which I’d taken cover to hunt, a game like this needed more room. Smirking as I pass Kaelen, I invite him in with a look, as if I’ve already gained such power over him. A dangerous complex to hold, and yet, so fun. I am a lion, he is a gazelle. “He’s kind of cute.” The room opens up and I walk through the open tracing my fingers along hard plastic chair and meandering about the room. This was now my playground. “Nice ass too – mind if I go for him?” I find my way to the piano chair and sit down, and start lining my fingers down the keys. “Considering he kind of wiggled out from beneath you when you had him against this piano right here.” I tap the side of the piano, making a clacking noise. “I’m assuming that he either doesn’t like you, thinks you’re awful in bed, or is just waiting for someone as good looking as me to come along. I didn’t mind staring at him, and mind you,” I smirk towards Kaelen watching his every movement. “He didn’t seem to mind staring at me either.”

This was a game well worth playing. But I need to watch my cups for poison.

[/blockquote][/color]

Her heart is breaking in front of me
And I have no choice
'Cause I won't say goodbye anymore.

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(OOC: Sorry, this is messy, the tenses are everyone, I just wanted to get you a reply ^^)

[Deleted]

So what?
So I conned, I lied
I lied to me, too
So what, so I conned, I lied
I lied to me, too

[/color][/center]
“You mean your boyfriend?”

And my world falls.

All of it, all of the careful precautions and sneaking around and steadfastly ignoring the look on Colt’s face every time he’d reach for my hand and I’d jerk away, it was all for nothing. All of it, lost in the devastating wake of a simple open door and the undiscerning gaze of a boy with danger and a too-familiar spark of sadistic mirth behind his eyes. He is Moira at the point of checkmate, all swirling logic and anticipatory victory, he is Alyssa in the final gritty seconds of a fight, and he is me, the icy hand of Death hovering over anyone’s drink in a Reaping of a different sort. There’s a game at work here, and he’s just made a winning move. Maybe it’s that age-old pull to chase danger or maybe I just can’t stand not having the last word, but something pulls me into the choir room after him, a shock-numbed puppet on an invisible string clambering for some semblance of stability in an existence that is rapidly crumbling.

Wheaton somehow managed to get his hands on a large mirrored panel a few weeks ago that has been stuck to the far wall for choreography practice (as if the vast majority of the glee club can possibly gain anything from watching themselves trip over their own feet), and as I walk back through the door I’m followed by the image of a boy who might be me if he didn’t embody everything I stand against. Mirror-Kaelen looks far too vulnerable, all lanky structure curled defensively inward rather than its typical regal carriage and defined features an open book as opposed to their normal impassive deadpan, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Scared.

Fear is a rare occurrence in a world that I used to consider myself the master of before control was snatched mercilessly from my hands, and it’s an emotion I don’t cope well with - I’ve never been good with feelings other than icy derision and a bottomless wrath that’s never sated, usually I turn to music or Colt to give me some echo of what being human must be like - more akin to a cornered animal than anyone in a position of power. Colt said once in the darkest part of the night that I only lash out at everyone because I’m scared of something I won’t speak of, and at the time I had laughed dismissively, drowning the sound of irrefutable truth under a surge of stubbornness that sits inherent in my veins. I’m forever on the defensive against an adversary that didn’t have a face until now, and shockingly enough that face doesn’t belong to the boy who now holds my most dangerous secret with a wicked smirk, but rather the wide pools of amber and paralyzing fear staring back at me from the polished glass. My logic and the steadfast knowledge of divinity has been warring with the infinitesimal part of me that clings to humanity ever since that first time I acknowledged that deep-dark eyes and steady hands and a laugh that could light up the sky might mean more to me than I can fathom. To walk among the masses is an invitation for fear and pain and the inevitable breaking of the heart I won’t allow myself to have.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I hiss, and mirror-Kaelen does the same, slipping back into the glacial veneer of indignation and leaving the moment of vulnerability behind, eyes flashing with just as much thinly-veiled danger as the other boy’s and posture pulled back to its usual royal grace. “And you obviously have no idea who you’re dealing wi-“

“He’s kind of cute. Nice ass too – mind if I go for him?” My flow of speech stutters to a halt, one or two beats of oddly blissful calm before my vision swims into a haze of red (Alyssa always talks about being this angry but I never understood what it meant to have a fury that burned rather than froze), something ugly and dark and so territorial licking along the insides of my veins, so powerful that it robs me of speech. “Considering he kind of wiggled out from beneath you when you had him against this piano right here. I’m assuming that he either doesn’t like you, thinks you’re awful in bed, or is just waiting for someone as good looking as me to come along. I didn’t mind staring at him, and mind you, he didn’t seem to mind staring at me either.”

So he saw it all. That’s surprisingly irrelevant now, the faint twinge of horror lost under a swirling cataclysm of wrath that sings the siren song of impending destruction in my ear. Everything about me is toxic, I have known this with a heavy certainty for as long as I can remember, and apparently even my love affection is nothing more than poison, obsessive and possessive and so, so violent. Colt isn’t my boyfriend. We don’t work in labels and I could never condemn myself to that kind of commitment that I know I’d be doomed to fail. We’re free to see and talk to and sleep with anyone we damn well please; it was one of my terms of agreement before our interlude began, but somehow it never worked out that way. I know him in the same way I know myself, know that he could never detach himself from the entity of us in that way, and although I made a concerted effort to keep things from being exclusive at first, the last time I even looked at Alyssa or anyone else in that way was over a month ago. We’re not together, I have no claim over him or what he does, but that doesn’t stop a hundred sadistic ways of killing this menial plebeian from running through my mind at the mere suggestion that someone was coveting what is irrefutably mine despite a lack of titles and publicity that claims otherwise. He’s mine and to an extent I am his, never truly content in his absence, and anyone who would attempt to sever those ties is simply begging to be neutralized.

Mirror-Kaelen’s face covers a range of expression in seconds, shock to disbelief to rage and finally settling on a chilling, eerie smile that gives life to an equally frigid laugh, low and dangerous somewhere in the back of my throat. This boy, he’s good at the game of manipulation, but not nearly good enough. He has unknowingly given me a weapon that’s unbeatable, an anger from which no target has ever emerged alive. Something feral and predatory lurks in my limbs and I prowl forward a few inches too far into his personal space, on the offensive now rather than floundering in the endless sea of secrets that could drown me if I let it.

“No use denying it if you saw everything, I suppose,” I drawl offhandedly, leaning against the piano in a casual way that doesn’t match with the frigid glare I hold his gaze with. But then my voice hardens even if my posture doesn’t, a blade of ice that could pierce through anyone’s defenses. “I don’t know who you are, or more importantly who you think you are, but here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep your mouth shut, you’re going to keep your head down and not cause a fuss, and if I even see you looking at Colt, I will end you. Is that clear?”

It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.[/color]

Hold out for the ones you know will love you

Hide out from the ones you know will love you
Hide to the edge and back, be there, slow to make my move, I'm almost there
Everything I say, I say to me first
Everything I do, I do to me first[/center][/blockquote][/justify][/size]