caught up in fantasy {berry and maria}

[[nyte]]

B e r r y

She was like the sun. It's hard to describe, that certain prickling of my skin so suddenly bathed in blinding light. I know that I should have died right then, combusted in the mere presence of someone as bright as her, as pure and unscathed as she seemed with her eyes shut tight and her cheek rested against the smooth suede stretched of my couch. Maria was her name. We had spoken briefly upon her return to the waking world, my stutter soon falling from the tips of my teeth the more comfortable I became. I don't know how she did it. Made me feel so safe, so welcomed despite the throbbing in my temple from my recent collision with a thick metal pole (in front of her, even.) I'm good and acting a fool, at the end of the day that might be all I am. 

But just as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone. Maria was like the wind, frazzled and flighty; completely mad in a breathtakingly beautiful way. She's impossible to pin down no matter how desperately I clutched to the wisps of her that remained. I suppose that is why I've never had more than one friend at a time. No friend that would want to stick around sober, anyway. I am desperate, begging a girl that I have just met to make her way into a heart that she does not even know. I strangle the slightest bit of kindness, so hungry that I risk running them dry. I wouldn't stick around someone as pathetic as me either. 

I guess I'm glad she came to her senses, in the end. 

So tonight, I drink. I drink because if I go too long without the familiar comfort of a bottle pressed to the outside of my lips I can feel myself unraveling. Without bitter liquid that burns bloody paths down my chest, I am nothing. I am lost. It's long since surpassed a simple craving, easily ignored urges and quiet nights spent drinking only tea and settling down with a good book. Alcohol is a poison. Disgusting, wrinkling my nose with every sip. It's killing me.

I need it. I need it more than I've ever needed anything.

At this point I'm as likely to die without it than with it so I guess I just figure what's the fucking point of it all. What's the fucking point of this place and these games? What's the point of living in a world where you can have everything you've ever wanted, to live the life you dreamed of as a child if in the end it is meaningless? In the end, I still have to find my happiness in a bottle. 

The pictures I tore down so long ago have not left their place on my bedroom floor, collecting dust as I haven't the heart to pick them up, nor to throw them away. Like me, they are trapped in an endless limbo that surely has no end. 

I drink at home tonight, emptying the last dregs of a liquor cabinet that has emptied far too quickly, this past month. Upon lonely steps I sit, looking up at the stars coloring the ground polka dotted under a weeping willow's soft shade. My head is stuck so far in the clouds I honestly can't tell what my plans were, I don't remember where I was headed or what I hoped to accomplish. Hell, I don't remember standing up. There is only fire, crawling to the tips of my fingers as my knees glide against rough pavement. I do not pick myself up, deciding to stay hunched over the concrete, retching as blood drips from my bloodied nose onto the tip of my tongue. 

I just wish I could remember how I got here.

[cass]

m a r i a p o p e

He was a dream. A seemingly real and vivid memory, that leaves as quickly as it comes. It's a fleeting feeling of completeness that swallows you down to your toes and leaves a warmth so deeply entwined within the mess of your heart that no matter how far or hard you dig you can't remove it. It's an ache that I can't seem to soothe, it's sad to think that such a pleasant memory only causes me suffering. People should be able to cherish such things, but I've been broken for so long that these plasters of these memories can't even stretch across the cracks to fix me. He's like that bittersweet taste of long forgotten joy that wakes you up in the middle of the night, with tears bridging the edge of your eyes. The sudden gasp of air that catches in your throat as you choke down the sorrow before it takes hold of you completely. I'm forcing them reluctantly away because no one can see how weak I am. How weak these thoughts make me.

I'm a foolish, foolish girl. It was imprudent of me to do as I did, to slip into the darkness and allow myself to be encompassed by that soft glow of his. It was a mistake to have stayed there that night, to have allowed myself to fall into a warped sense of security. The bruises that mar my face are the lingering reminder that I am not allowed to do as I will, that this puppet cannot outrun the strings that chain her down. I flinch away from every person on the street, expecting it to be father or one of his servants. Every time someone brushes my side as they hurry away to complete whatever tedious task that possess them at that moment, I blink, turning away hurriedly, fearing another strike to my face.

A pale finger brushes the swelling on my face, tracing the cracked ridge on my lips. I wince at the touch, dropping my hand to my side quickly. Today my hair falls completely around my face, allowing me to, if only to pretend, that I am normal. I fled the house after receiving permission to leave for the first time in a week. I ran through the streets, as though I could escape. But I know I'll return by nightfall, because if I don't they'll find me. And if I wait I'll be worse off then those minutes, hours and days of pain. Shuddering at the mere thought of what could happen, I step onwards.

I simply wander, knowing there is no escape, but also unwilling to completely succumb to the terror that claws at the edge of my mind. I know when I finally fall into it I'll stay at home and let them do as they want, my will broken. Spirit is all I have left, it seems. I don't think I have much of that. For a moment I cannot hold back the tears that flood my eyes. Hastily I brush a hand over them, forcing whatever it is that wants to break to hold, if only for a little longer.

With a steadying breath I collect myself, dropping my leadened arms, as though they are a weight too heavy for me to carry. I step forwards, my path a winding one. At first, the red that stains the ground doesn't stir anything. It's the sound that causes my eyes to drift upwards, following the maroon smears that have etched themselves into the pavement. It's blood, the realisation doesn't bring a drop of life into me, I cannot summon the will to care. The days edging into darkness and all I can feel is the edge of panic, not knowing if my return home will fit into my fathers wants, not knowing if I'll make it. But my eyes hesitate. The figure at the end of the trail of blood, making those awful sounds sits, perched on a set of stairs.

He's got dark hair. He lacks the appearance of a typical Capitolite, as do I. He looks upwards, and every moment of every dream that I clung to over the past week crashes into my mind. He's here.

I gasp, a sting of pain, quickly turns it into a strangled gulp of air as I slap my lips shut. The iron tang of blood fills my mouth and I gingerly reach a finger up towards my split lip, only to wince at the touch. Drawing it away, I momentarily glance down at the fresh blood on the tips of my fingers, behind them is Berry's blood all over the pavement, running from his nose. "Oh, Mr Berry." The words are so soft I barely hear them myself. Tentatively I step forwards, then, as though, some part of me snaps I hurry to his side, falling to my knees beside him.

"I understand." There is a loneliness haunting the depths of those eyes, those very eyes I'd dreamed of, it was something I'd accepted, and understood from the moment I'd first met him. It was the same pain that tortured my own. Tugging my sleeve downwards I reach forwards. Placing a hand against his cheek, I use the other to gently wipe some of the blood away.

His scars are just like mine.

[[nyte]]

B e r r y

"Oh, Mr. Berry." It's a voice that stings, like a whip into my flesh that bites through it as though I am made of butter. Of something so much weaker than the flesh I bare. It was a brief meeting that we had. This girl who was like sand, slipping between the gaps of my fingers and impossible to contain. I cannot think of anything but her, of her voice and her hair, I cannot think of anything but how humiliated I am to be found like this. By her. Again. Of how happy I am that our wordless goodbye was not the last that I'd see of her.

She is by my side, I need not look to see her there. A space once so empty is taken up by something slight and something pretty. I dare not breathe, lest I scare her away once more. Make her crumble and scatter into the empty Capitol streets. I have never been one to think of a higher power, never believed in a being pulling our strings and making us into nothing more than glorified marionettes somewhere off of in the cosmos. But maybe, just maybe, the idea has some merit. After all, what are the chances of this exact girl and this exact street at this exact time meeting just like that. So casually turning my world upside down.

I must look so foolish, thick red dripping from my lips and falling like rain onto the sidewalk, feeding the roots that run under this concrete. There is no ruby hue to this blood, nothing as pure as the glorified crimson I so often read about as it seeps into the creases of my dried lips. It makes a home there, one that tastes like rotten pennies.

I don't want her to see me like this.

But I can't keep my eyes off of her. I've never been a man of iron will, never one to ignore my instincts for the sake of keeping an image. Especially not when my fingers are numb like this and my head cannot seem to sit straight upon my shoulders for more than a precious second before tilting off kilter once more.

I remember her, I remember her face and the soft slant of her eyes. There is something gentle about the way that she regards me, the only light dancing in her eyes that of the lamps flickering behind us. Empty. Her eyes are empty and yet there are filled with a vibrance that leave me something more than stunned. God, I am pathetic. Even through the muddle I can understand as much, that I so desperately yearn for a girl that I have met but once in my life.

(Twice now, it seems.)

And through the muddle, I cannot find it in me to care. Bright pink crawls into the apples of scraped cheeks the moment her palm finds it, head tilting into the gentle touch as she stains her sleeve an ugly red. A tainted red. Not the same red that has settled upon her lips. It's blood, unmistakably so, but we do not bleed the same color. I wonder what happened, what split such pretty skin so wide open but I dare not ask. There is something personal about the wound, something that begs for a later, or perhaps it begs for silence and feigned ignorance. I'm unsure of which option to choose, but I'm sure I'll ask sometime.

Maybe I can find it in me if I have one of two drinks more.

"I understand." The words are similar to a fist planted deep within my gut. It seems such a simple phrase has left me useless, a puddle in her grasp as I try to remember just how to breathe again. Words are heavy, my stutter has always made such a truth painfully apparent. Words can cut, can sting, words can maim and burn and kill. They are dangerous weapons to wield no doubt.

The whole of my face turns into her palm, pressing into the skin like a kitten begging for attention. Begging for something other than this hollowness sitting in the pit of my stomach and no doubt eating me whole. Killing me from the inside out.

And I cannot think of what to say and so I simply spit what first comes to mind. (Such a talent I only gain when thoroughly inebriated.) "I din' think you'd find me again. 'Specially like this. Pretty girls don' stick around. Not around me. Not when I'm always gettin' hurt."

[cass]

m a r i a p o p e

Is it so weird that I have come to cling to the mere thought of a boy I have met only once before? That’s how ti goes in all the tories, though. I used to read fairy tales when I was younger. I'd sit, perched at the edge of my bed, flipping through the pages. There was always someone in need of a hero, and by the end the person that needed to be saved was always rescued. Thinking back on it, after mother passed I'd glance at the dust covered book sitting on the shelf and wonder when my knight would arrive. Because surely, the amount I suffered meant that I, just like those victims in those stories, was in enough pain to be rescued. But no one ever came. Even as the years have gone by I’ve never stopped waiting, searching, yes, but waiting, no. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let go of that tight knot of need that is embedded within my chest.

It was a simple childish dream to have that kind of hope. Sometimes you need that childish desire to get you through agony. No one was going to break down the door and catch my fathers wrist before he brought it down on me. No one stopped him last week, last month, last year. You’d have thought I’d have given up by now. I've never once stopped hoping that one day I'd have my hero. That small wish is the last thing tying me down to sanity, it’s waiting to snap.

Perhaps he has become a lifeline for me to cling to. A rope thrown over that abyss, something for me to grasp that isn’t frayed and ready to break. He’s a steady image in my head that pulls the darkness away. He’s a childish desire to have that hero. Maybe it was because when I was frantic it was his smile that popped into my head. With it was a surge of warmth and a fond memory, unlike any other I had experienced. He was the first life ring to be thrown out to me, the first person to try and save me instead of watch me drown. It was probably for those reasons that I had gripped too tightly to that one meeting. He’d come along when I’d needed someone.

Perhaps it is because in the nineteen years I have lived the first person to grasp my hand with warmth instead of cold intent was a boy I found on the side of a street. Just the feeling of knowing and the uncertainty of believing, if only for a moment, that here, before me, was someone who could care was enough. Unknowingly I’d made him the hero of this story. Oh how the realisation dawned as I stared down at his broken face. It seeped in and I couldn’t help but lean towards him, as though, from this current distance between us, I could not see him properly. My lips part, as suddenly that realisation turns to surprise and I draw my hand - now covered in blood - away from his face.

"I din' think you'd find me again. 'Specially like this. Pretty girls don' stick around. Not around me. Not when I'm always gettin' hurt.” Huh! He was always getting hurt, but Berry was not the only one. What a sight we would be, the boy with the blood covered face, the girl with more bruises then she could count. Being in his presence, made the marks scarring my face not so alarming. Both times I’d met him he’d somehow managed to hurt himself. Although that wasn’t a good thing it allowed my own self-consciousness at my appearance to lessen. Foolish, right? But, as soon as it fades it comes back just as strong, and I sit back an embarrassed blush covering my cheeks. Pretty? With all these cuts and bruises? With the pale cold skin and haunted eyes? A lady, but not pretty, never pretty.


The slurring speech is enough to make me giggle. Mother would have been so upset if he were in her presence. A warm smile splits my face, it crawls all the way up to my eyes. I cannot remember the last time I felt my entire face light up like this. Even last time we had met my smile had not climbed so high. The ache in my cheeks as it holds is unfamiliar, it’s a different kind of pain, it’s not uncomfortable. Not even the sting in my lips as the cut splits open wider can break the giddiness that flutters in my chest. Shrugging, I wipe more of the blood away, ”you’re not the only when who always gets hurt.”

I look away, it takes a moment for the darkness around me to sink in, and as I realise the time of day the smile dies tom my lips, instantly it is replaced by horror. Leaping to my feet I pull myself away from Berry. Late. It as too late. Oh no, father would be upset. ”Oh no.” I whisper, biting my lip to hold back the tears, I was too far away from home. The quicker I returned the less my punishment would be, if I begged with him, pleaded, got down on my knees and asked for his forgiveness perhaps I could make it better. ”I-I have to go.”

[[nyte]]

B e r r y

The words are sobering, like nails into my cheek and I am left staring into dark eyes and wondering what hides beneath them. And her angel's wings are crumbling, porcelain cracking and I can see just how awful the world can be because this fallen angel has a crack in her lips and I'm beginning to wonder just who put it there.

When she says she has to leave, I feel my heart race, desperation wrapping my fingers around her wrist and I think I just might cry because alone is the last thing I want to be right now. I cannot stand another minute alone and I don't want to let her fall from between my fingertips, I don't want her to melt away and disappear and although my grip is soft she must be able to see the heart on my wrist.

Feebly pumping only inches away from her.

Please don't leave me like this.

But my lips are too heavy and the words are too deep. There is nothing I can think to say that will make any of this better but I think Maria might just be my only friend and that's what I need. That's what I need right now. And she was so warm moments ago but ice has filled her gaze and I am scared that I am losing her. Losing a friend.

"Can't you... can't you stay a little while longer? I'm not... I'm... I'm not bad company."

[cass]

m a r i a p o p e

It tore at her heart and for just a moment that panic faded, and she was left staring at him, her lips gently forming a fond smile. His eyes were such a brilliant colour, and they were so very sad, so lonely and miserable and yet as he gazed into her eyes they were bright with a desperate hope that she herself knew so well. It grazed her soul like a blade and she found herself once more sitting beside him, but before she could stop herself she wrapped her arms tightly around Berry's body, fingers clutching his shirt tightly. Mother had been a wonderful person, she had always said to help people in need, regardless of the consequences, so if being punished meant making Berry happy she'd do it. She'd do it with no regret at all.

Her grip tightened as her stomach clenched, for a moment the thought of her father's fists a terrifying notion, but with a gasp, she pushed those horrendous memories away, instead letting the warmth of his body soak into hers. It was comforting, even if he didn't know what he was comforting her for. They were two broken, desperate beings simply wanting to seek out someone who understood what it was. With her head pressed to the side of his neck, she spoke, each word little more then a whisper, "I'll stay here, with you, Berry. Just as long as you promise to stay with me."

[[nyte]]

B e r r y

My heart turns blue with strain, voice catching in my throat and I am only able to wrap my arm around her waist in response. To feel just how much smaller she is than me and to muse about how well she fits here. And maybe I didn't drink all that much because I can feel my fingers and they are wrapped gently within the fabric of her shirt, pulling her close enough that I can wrap my other arm around her because all I want is to be close.

All I need is to be close.

I give her a smile, wondering just how ridiculous I look with my skin dyed crimson just atop my lip. It doesn't matter I hope, not to her whose smile is so warm and soft and I cannot even breath for fear that I might scare her away. Instead I run my fingers through her hair and smooth it behind her shoulders.

"I promise."

And I lean down to kiss her broken lips.

[cass]

m a r i a p o p e

What a pair they must have been, battered lips and broken faces. Blood stained his shirt and his skin, her clothes as well. But it seemed as though for a few minutes it didn't matter as she buried herself in his warmth. There was security there, safety and a promise that she didn't have to ask for. She'd known, as soon as she'd asked that he'd promise. He was like a flower, appearing before her all at once, before she even knew it was there. And then as the sun hits it, he blooms, and for those hours of watching you can tell, by it's shape and colour that's its perfect and it'll remain there forever.

As he draws away, for a moment her heart stutters, breath catching in her throat as she's forced to meet those eyes of his, but for a moment all that pain has evaporated, to be replaced with something she hasn't seen before. She can't name it, or think of it, but whatever it is it makes her face brighten with the colour of a rose, and her heart race faster then before. Before she can catch her breath he's answering her, and leaning forwards. Without thinking she closes her eyes, moving to match him, as his lips press against hers. Warmth blossoms through her, feeling her dying limbs with new energy, and making that terror around her heart vanish. For those few moments it doesn't matter what her father thinks, what he can do, all that matters is Berry.

So when he pulls away she draws him back in.