you won't catch me around here {ajax and william}

[[nyte]]

william

I don't know what overcomes me before a mutt fight. It ain't what I felt my first battle, that's for sure. No, that kind a fear left me a long while ago. When I stopped carin' whether I lived or died because I was stuck in one lil' cell either way. An' maybe dying is some kind of sick freedom from this prison an' maybe I wouldn't mind it all that much but I can't stand the thought of leaving. Takin' the coward's way out just seems wrong with how far I've come. 'Cause I've fought so hard and worked so long in this prison that I ain't throwing that all away for some chance at freedom. ('Cause what if it's the end of it all? I'm not ready to go.) 

I'm not scared. I don't want to die. I'm just empty. Eyes stiff on the gate that holds me back like I'm one of those fuckin' mutts on the other side of the arena. The ones snarlin' and hissin' and preparing to rip my guts out 'cause that's all they've ever known. I don't blame the mutts. I pity them. Pity their position more than I do my own 'cause I dunno how they treat mutts but it can't be any better than the hell I've faced for three long years now. An' they don't get my memories. That of the sweet sun kissing my skin and the soft voices of my friends or the way the wind felt running its fingers through my hair. Time has only strengthened these memories because they haunt every singe dream. 

"Are you ready?" A voice crawls over the arena, met with the shouts of capitolites more predatory than I or the mutt I was facin'. They revel in death and suffering more than I ever could. I've seen Avox die, I've seen them become no better than the mutts themselves. But even those who would slit my throat in my sleep are so much better than the capitolites. So. Much. Better. 

"Yes." The word leaves tongueless lips. It's not the usual rasp, the animal-like tone I've grown used to hearing every time I breathe in and shake my throat. I can hear the humanity behind it. Yes. I've spoken the words maybe about a million times in the eighteen years I took for granted. But today, but right now, I am human again just for a second. It's as if my tongue has found its way home, crawling into my throat an' sending excitement bubbling throughout the whole of my being. "Yes. Yes. Yes." I repeat those words again an' again because they sound so normal. So human. So me. 

The gates swing open an' I'm caught off guard, sword gripped loosely within shaking palms. All happiness was forgotten in an instant because a monster is lungin' toward my throat an' I'm gonna die. I'm gonNA DIE. I'M GONNA-

He sidesteps the clumsy beast with ease, swiping at a tendon on the monsters's leg as he passes in a panic. The avox boy's movements are something like the wind's gentle caress although he can only just remember the grace of the surface's breeze. His body moves quickly and quietly, throwing himself under the mutt and swiping the sword frantically at it's legs. William was desperate to give the beast the death it deserved. One of peace and of gentle passing because it wasn't so unlike him. They were brothers in injustice. 

It falls, silver sword having made its way along all four of it's paws. Blood rains from the skies, covering the avox boy heavily as he slides out from under the collapsed, crying thing. It was an easy fight today, he muses, carefully running a finger along the beast's smooth hide. It was a beautiful creature. "I'm sorry." The strangled sounds leave him as he grips the things hair within his free palm. "You did not deserve a life like this, I will end it quickly." But perhaps the beast did not want to hear that because it took a heavy paw, swiping it across the artist's flesh and painting a twisted expression upon his maw. 

But the boy is not angry. He runs his hands along the length of the creature a few more times before gently sticking the blade into its throat and his monstrous brother was no more.

It fuckin' hurts. The awful burning radiating throughout the whole of my temple consumes me as I leave the cheerin' crowd behind 'cause the disgusting fuckers were so happy I'd killed the beast for no other reason than there was enough blood to fill a tub. 

Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them. 

I'm no murderer. I've been killin' for three years and it hurts just as bad. I can remember every animal's strangled, gurgled cry as it let out its last breath and I was victorious. Over an' over an' over.

By the time I've reached the viewing platform the towel across my neck has rid most of my body of the beast's blood, but my own still streams down my brow and onto my cheek, dirtying cloth upon my body. But I'm smilin', I can't tell you why but it always makes me feel better. I catch everyone's eye, I make a point of it and grin my toothy grin.

I read somewhere that you could trick your body into bein' happy, if you tried hard enough.

[Python]

A j a x

One moment I’m spinning, sailing, falling through the air like a brick, and the next I’m jolting awake in my bloodstained sheets – soiled by nights of leaky bandages and poor wash jobs – to the sound of that ear-splitting morning bell. It’s the bell that signals sunrise and breakfast and another day in this miserable shithole, but I know better than to and sink back into my mattress, tempting as it is. So I sit up, stretch, and listen to my vertebrae pop like kernels, bones creaking as I shift off the bed and run a hand through my mussy hair. It feels like I got doused in oil. Showers are a privilege here; they don’t want to waste their precious water on us worms, so we only get a shower every few days. Unless we fight, of course. Then we can have as much ice water as we want. They don’t want us stinking the place up with the perfume of the dead.

As far as I know, I don’t have any fights today. My plans are to sit on my bony ass and endure another day. We run like clockwork. I’m a machine that eats, sleeps, pisses, and fights, and I do nothing in-between. I occasionally watch the other slaves socialize with one another. Some sob, others light up the room with their fake laughter. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m so empty, I don’t have room for any of it. What’s the point? The numbers dwindle every day. After a new shipment of Avoxes it’s like a school in here, especially in the cafeteria where all of the pale, terrified faces are either too nauseous to eat or stuffing their faces like the world is going to end. I don’t memorize names or appearances because most of them die. Very few of us are considered “veterans.”

I’m two birthdays in. I’m twenty and my life is complete shit. Death will claim me any day now, but I don’t have the guts to finish myself off. A mutt will inevitably do the dirty work for me. I’ve heard of people offing themselves before – letting the mutts devour them, for instance. I can’t do something reckless like that. The pain I could probably deal with, but it’s the survival instinct that tethers me. Even though this life is pointless and hopeless, I fight anyway. I survive anyway. I hate this life but I can’t die, not yet. It has to be against my will, I guess. That’s one consistency in my life that I can’t shake off. Loss against my will, arrest against my will, sex against my will, slavery against my will. Destiny says I won’t have any power in my death

Breakfast tastes like cardboard. The chefs here can’t cook eggs for shit, and the bread feels stale. I chew it mechanically and swallow until my stomach churns in submission. The lemonade makes me gag, so I pass on that poor excuse of a beverage and go for a piss in the bathroom. They shuffle the lot back to their cells – except for me and a few others, the ones who earned their spots at the top of the hierarchy. We’re allowed to wander in the lounge and watch the fights from a high location. I snatch a cup of peaches before I go. Assholes won’t notice, they never pay any attention to me. I’m the quiet one.

Sometimes I watch the fights and sometimes I don’t. You get sick of watching people get ripped in half by giant teeth, but there also isn’t much else to do. Today it starts off morbid; the first boy loses his leg and climbs the rock prop. He leaves a trail of blood in his wake and the mutt doesn’t hesitate. It catches his ankle in its jaws and drags him down kicking and screaming, then chews on his torso until he bleeds out. The audience is wild and deafening. I yawn and rub crust out of my eyes.

One of the veterans appears next. Bill, or something like that. Some smiley kids that looks like mutt bait but survives every battle he’s in. I’m pretty sure he was here when I first arrived, I can’t remember. I was too hot-headed and bursting at the seams back then. There was too much rage to contain, and I ended up channeling that into my mutt fights. Obviously that’s a useful tactic, but it makes you careless at the same time. Look at the scar on my back, for instance. Wider than my arm from shoulder to spine. I’ve got an equally nasty one on my thigh, too. The scar tissue feels rubbery in some places, and silky in others. Completely inconsistent and grotesque, but my captors try their best to show them off in skimpy uniforms.

Bill wins again. Nobody is surprised, but the crowd roars anyway. I’m tapping the lid of my peach cup when the kid comes waltzing in with a goofy smile on his face. What is wrong with him? I always see him talking to the new shipments and smiling like the world is a garden instead of a shithole. He makes the newbies feel too much comfort. They can’t be careless in a place like this. They’ll die immediately, and the only reaction they’ll receive is a rabid cheer from the Capitolites.

Bill has a gash on his head, still bleeding pretty badly by the looks of it. He smiles through it anyway, and I can’t help but think he’s a trooper. Stupid, but a trooper nonetheless. He walks by me and compels me to offer my peach up. I don’t want the peaches anyway, they’re always a bit too tangy. I hold out my hand.

[[nyte]]

william

The crimson makin' its way down my cheek is warm an' slow. I'd hold the towel 'gainst it but I've had enough of these to know that'd hurt like a bitch an' I don't feel like hurtin' right now. I'm so, so tired of hurtin'. I think a lot of the guys that manage to survive the first dozen fights go numb. I don't see a light in their eyes an' they go about their fights like they're pullin' on a pair of pants. They ain't scared anymore. They ain't mad anymore. They fight an' they breathe an' they survive until they don't. Three fuckin' years and I've seen so many good men go. But I'm not the quiet kind. If I don't spread my wings an' stretch my jaw like the social thing I am I think I'd go crazy. (Though maybe I've got more than one loose screw rollin' around my thick ass skull already.) (An avox that speaks, how absurd.) 

There aren't many you can call Vets that wander this arena. Handful of us, if that. 'Cause the mutts are, more often then not, the victors of our little battles. What do you expect, when you throw a tiny little districter into the pit one tongue short with a blade they can barely lift clutched within their sweatin' palms. I've been there. Hell, sometimes I think I still arm. My fear ain't ever faded, I just learned how to turn it down. Twistin' a little dial like I did with the radio sitting on the side table in my cell.

They used to start you off easy, an' maybe that's how I survived. One day you're fighting a lion and then a tiger, maybe a bear or two (oh my!) an' they start you on the actual mutts once you made it past the first few brawls. An' I wasn't a natural. Oh no I never even picked up a steak knife back in eleven but somehow... somehow I made it here. Call it a miracle. An' I can kill 'em real easy now. I guess I just forget'cause I get all clammy and quiet before the battles. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna live here but I know for certain I don't wanna die either. At least here I can appreciate the little things.

Like the pretty blonde Avox who just came in. I don't think he's gonna last long, he's got those big, innocent eyes, see? The ones that look like me are thrown in with a big ol' nasty thing and bam dead. An' the Capitolites are screamin' and cheerin' like it wasn't a baby killed right in front of their eyes. Or maybe that's why they're cheerin' an' if it was an' old coot like me they'd be booing and hollering for an encore. After a while they start rootin' for you to survive. I guess dying gets too boring. 

But I can appreciate the curve in his jaw and the round of his eyes. I never watch the mutt fights. Won't have to see him get slaughtered. I can imagine the pretty boy escaped an' he's being a good little servant somewhere in the Capitol. Or even that he's free. (He would be, in a way.) I can appreciate the warm smile he always gives me, even covered in tangy mutt blood. He smiles at me now and I close one eye playfully, sending the poor boy's eyes to the floor and a red color to his cheeks. I made sure to appreciate that real well. Long as I don't think of him dyin' I can smile genuinely. It ain't hard. 

There's a Vet hangin' about. His name is Ajax and I remember he arrived about a year after me. (The days are carved in straight lines upon the wood paneling of my bed. I should be twenty-one now. Twenty-one. That's three years of hell that I've survived. The reality that I've been away from home for three whole years'll kill me before any mutt can get their claws on me.) I don't think I've ever seen him smile. He must be miserable. Not even working to trick his body into feeling some semblance of positivity. I pity him so I make sure to smile extra wide at the pale boy with a bird's next upon his skull. 

He's a beast. That's what I've heard. Feral as the mutts he fights in the arena. I'm a coward by nature, a survivor too. The boy intimidates me and therefore I want nothing to do with him. If I want to survive, my best bet is to stay on everyone's best side. Ajax is quiet, even for an avox, so I assume he wishes to stay that way. (An' he'll receive no complaints on my end.) 

Maybe he's feelin' extra good today though 'cause his hand shoots out in front of him. Good as openin' a mouth in avox talk. (I speak it real easy now, so my eyes find his skeletal limbs and wait for the words to flow from his finger tips and into my ears.) But his fingers are holdin' something. A fruit cup. 

Confusion snakes onto my brow, an' I wipe that an' the blood off've it before taking the cup within my hands. I turn it contemplatively within my fingers, examining every inch before pressing it back into his hands, a bit redder than it was before. 

That's a fruit cup. I inform him, fingers curling lazily. Most likely peaches. 

[Python]

A j a x

I’m not a socialite. I don’t think conformity was ever in my blood. Back when I was an actual human being with a tongue and a life worth cherishing, I didn’t engage all that often. I wasn’t timid or anxious or introverted, just wary. My big brother Asher had a reputation for his “acting out,” and his reckless friends were the ones who approached me at school. Usually it was to copy my homework. Other times they expected me to skip lunch with them to have a smoke in the schoolyard. I told them I only smoked marijuana, and that was only when I was stressed. Usually it was around exam time. All of the unwanted attention earned me a false reputation of being the bad little brother, so of course the people I wanted to be friends with didn’t want my contagious bad boy sickness.

It never stopped me, of course. I had a friend here and there, but it was a pathetic cluster, nothing special. I was content with it. Asher always forced me to socialize when he brought his friends over. We would pass around a blunt, or if there were girls we would talk to them instead. When I told Asher I was into boys too, he would bring me the cutest ones he could find. That I didn’t have a problem with.

Since he died – no, since he was murdered – nobody has been there to encourage me. The law silenced me with a knife and shoved me into a world of awkward swallowing and hand-signing. I only ever spoke to the slaves who taught me, and the chef who trained me. The family I worked for didn’t know my language, so I didn’t bother trying. I didn’t even attempt to make conversation, not with paper or gestures. I let Jackson pummel me without making a peep. I never thanked Stella for her unwanted changes to my hair. I never voiced my protests to June when she cornered me in her bedroom. I never begged Marty to let me stay instead of selling me to this dump.

Communication would not have saved me from this fate, I think. But I regret not trying.

I used to screech and bellow in the stadium. Any lion’s roar I could match with my own animalistic war cry, and I think it terrified the other slaves. They avoided me even after I cooled off, even after my fights turned into every other battle. I’ve made my impression, I think. The savage boy who can rip throats with his teeth. The quiet, but secretly crazy Avox boy who will go to any means necessary to keep his worthless life. Crowds scream for me, but it’s a spectacle they want. They don’t care about the person inside of this marred skin.

I’m sure Bill or whatever his name is knows that I’m not one for conversation, so I expect him to accept the treat and walk away. He doesn’t budge. I see the scarlet in his palms, smearing against the plastic to paint an unappetizing picture on my fruit cup. Maybe he’s waiting to thank me. I don’t care if he’s grateful or not, I just want him to take the darned peaches and go.

I don’t anticipate him slapping it right back into my hand. I feel myself grimace and blink, slightly offended. Whether he likes peaches or not, he should accept a gift. Then I see his hands move and I watch them lazily.

I’m more baffled than annoyed, which is surprising. Thanks for the useless observation.

This is almost embarrassing. I grab his hand and press the peach cup back into his palm. "I know what it is. I’m giving it to you." I’m signing rapidly, and one of my fingers twitches at a weird angle. I’m out of practice. I want to sigh, but it’s easier to stare at him blankly. I hope I look unimpressed, because I am. "Eat it."