fighting with shadows {justice&jacinta}

[arx!!]

JUSTICE
FRAY

She was just one swing away from winning. One more swift motion, barely even an ounce of effort behind it, and Jacinta would fall. You could see it. She was teetering on the edge, standing on the line that separated life from death. One final shove and she'd be gone, the only thing left of the girl from seven being the sound of her canon echoing through the darkness—"And I could never be sorry for living. It's okay if you can't, either."—and the memory of the last words she ever spoke ringing in Panem's ears.

Four years. I'd gotten so many so close. I thought the 74th would be my ticket out of the spotlight I pretended to adore so much. I should've known better than to think I'd be so lucky. Opal had to wait nearly 10 whole years before she brought anyone home—who was I to think I deserve anything better?

I was so sure I was watching history repeat itself, just like I had so many times before. History always repeats itself. Always.

At least, until it doesn't.

It was so sudden. So unexpected. I could swear I'd already seen the light beginning to leave her eyes. No one could have known she had enough strength left to send a spear completely through a skull. Spearhead sent through her eye, blood spurting from her face and splattering out the back of her head as her skull split and canon fired. It's all still and silent for a few moments, the final scene of the 77th Hunger Games suspended and floating for a moment so that everyone could take it in.

I couldn't watch for long. Cynthia's blonde hair stained red and head split open, Jacinta so close to death she couldn't even stand as blood filled her chest and spilled from her lips—it was all too familiar. I could feel my limbs growing weak and pain shooting through my limbs as my chest tightened and I began to choke on memories I've worked so hard to forget. Not even the taste of vodka could wash away the taste of blood. Or the memory of Natalie's crushed skull. Or the weightlessness of being dragged away from death by Machaon and Atlas.

"Just give me the bottle," I gasp, turning away from the television and shoving through the crowd until I had space to escape, to run.

History always repeats itself. Always.

Just never in the way you expect.

---

The bottle is long empty by the time the knock at my door shakes me off the floor. Luckily for me, I've got my own stash to replace it. I'm dizzy when I stand, but smiling all the same, chuckling when I open the door to greet the avox standing there. He's silent, as they all are, forever.

"Thanks, bro," I say, handing the empty bottle off to him with my hand on his shoulder as I pass.

I press the other bottle to my lips as I walk, working to tuck my shirt in as I bounce off the walls and slosh wine on the floor. It inexplicably reminds me of Poppy; it makes me laugh. I really fucked that one up. I don't even like wine.

As I walk through the medical center, I realize just how little I remember of it. Spent nearly an entire day recovering here and yet these hallways feel completely foreign. I'm thankful for it, making fresh memories I'll forget later anyway and not having to battle fight shadows around every corner.

My head spins as I open the door, an entirely new and spacious room sending my senses whirling. Normally I'd refrain from showing up here, but seeing as there hasn't been a mentor for her district for over twenty years, I figure it isn't too much of a stretch to offer that designation to the second place finisher. She's just a blur in my vision, so I smile and bow extravagantly so that she knows I come in peace.

I stumble—"Whoa. Door's trynna trip me."—blaming my own faults on the door as it slowly swings shut behind me. I'm far more balanced as I approach her bed, slamming the wine bottle on the side table next to her bed before giving her a quick once over, really only finding the obvious scathe where her ear has been replaced rather convincingly by some strange form of Capitol technology.

"I come bearing gifts," I exclaim, pulling up a chair beside her bed, leaning back dangerously on its back legs.

"Also you're looking lovely, they fixed you right up, didn't they?" I say, trying to wink only to find my eyes incapable of the action—that is to say the wink turns into a blink.

"You gonna drink that?" I ask, pointing at the bottle of wine I just set down, admiring the way the diamonds embedded in the glass sparkle so delicately, even in the harsh hospital lights. I take a few gulps and set it back down. "Thanks."

"Oh, oh, and," I say, remembering I'd prepared some advice for her. You know, like mentors are supposed to do.

I pull out the napkin I'd scribbled on earlier, my penmanship already hard to read without my heavily impaired vision. But the truth is I remember what she said by heart. Her words stuck in my head, floating there and making me laugh every time I remember she actually said them.

"Just some advice. You said, 'I would rather suffer forever than die.'" I look at her, over the napkin, as if I were actually reading the words. You know, for dramatic effect.

"And I just wanted to let you know," I say as I place the napkin safely under the wine bottle at her bedside. But of course not before taking another drink.

"You're wrong. And trust me," I say, setting the bottle down again and patting it gently. "You're gonna need this."

I sit back with a grin, propping my feet up on her bed and hiding pain behind a smile that can only be induced by alcohol and years of practice.

"You're welcome."

[   v i c t o r y   ]

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

JACINTA.

stick, stick to your stones
'cause that's all you know
i was caught in the middle
i swallow my words down to the bone

Everything hurts but is numb all at once. It's like a dull stabbing — a pain that should be sharper cuts through her nerves and reverberates through her body. In some places, she can feel nothing at all, like rifts of nothing. Whatever medicine they have used on her, they seem to have focused it on the side of her head, where her ear should be. She hasn't reached up to touch it, but she knows it isn't there.

She knows that she must be alive because she can still feel. If she were dead, she supposes that she would have no sense of consciousness at all, and she certainly would not be able to feel the beat of her heart or the cold air moving in and out of her airways.

Her eyes flutter open and glaring fluorescent light floods her vision. Jacinta squints against the harsh light and sits up to avoid it, but immediately regrets it. Blood rushes into her head and black spots form in her vision like blots of ink, disorienting her. For a moment, everything blurs and then quickly comes back into focus, like her eyes are faulty, flickering camera lenses. But she doesn't have to see to know where she is; in a hospital bed in the medical wing of the Training Center. The IV in her arm tells her enough to know that.

Although she expects the room to be empty, to her surprise, there is a man standing by the door. He has a familiar, rather handsome face with dark hair and brown eyes, and it takes a few seconds longer than it should for it to register in Jacinta's mind exactly who he is: Justice Fray, the most recent Victor of District One. (Whose mentee she killed.)

But why . . . why is he here? she wonders. Jacinta just blinks at him in confusion. Maybe to chastise me for killing Cynthia.

Justice Fray takes a deep bow and she just blinks again, unable to comprehend the context of the situation. He starts talking but his tone isn't harsh like she expected it to be — nothing about him is predictable and it throws her off. "I come bearing gifts," he says, pulling up a chair to her beside. There is something off-putting about his speech and his movements, how clumsy they seem. She turns her head to look at him and he leans all the back on the chair, so far that Jacinta thinks he may tumble backwards, until he falls back into place.

He's drunk, isn't he? she realizes. What a mess. Still, she doesn't shoo him away; she allows him to sit in her room and keep talking. Hopefully, drunk Justice Fray is somewhat pleasant.

"Also you're looking lovely, they fixed you right up, didn't they?" Justice continues. She would have rolled her eyes but stops herself, unsure of how the drunken Victor would react. Instead, Jacinta just stares at him blankly, unable to form any words. She isn't completely certain of what he means by "fixed you right up" until she reaches her hand up to where her should be and finds, with a sudden flinch jerking her torso up — skin. Jacinta expects to find nothing but a stump, but just as if the Seventy-Seventh finale had never happened, her left ear is exactly where it should be. It takes a moment to process, but then it hits her: the Capitol replaced her ear, of course. Just as Justice has a prosthetic leg, she now has a prosthetic ear; the Capitol's technology appears so convincingly real that if she hadn't seen Roger cut off Justice's leg, she would never have known that its insides were not flesh and bone, but rather steel and wires. The same goes for her ear — it feels just as she remembers it, as if she had never lost it at all.

Jacinta would have gasped, but her lungs still feel weak and she doesn't want to imagine what it might feel like if she breathes in too sharply.

"You gonna drink that?" Justice Fray asks her. She is still too astounded by her prosthetic ear to respond, so he just takes the bottle, pops the cap and drinks from it. "Thanks," and he sets it back down.

And just when Jacinta thinks he is finished talking, he speaks again. "Oh, oh, and," he starts suddenly, as if he just remembered something, and pulls out a napkin with words scribbled on its front. Jacinta catches the words "forever" and "suffer", but it doesn't sink in that they are her words; Justice has written down something she said in the finale.

"Just some advice. You said, 'I would rather suffer forever than die.'" His eyes move from the napkin to her as he speaks. She blinks at him again with those tired eyes of hers as she remembers what it felt like to say those words. "I would rather suffer forever than die" — she had been so desperate then, just barely holding onto consciousness, to life, on a fragile thread. They were the words of a dying girl, a girl who seems so out of reach now that her heartbeat is stable. Everything she felt then, the determination, the adrenaline, the fury burning through her body and her bloodstream are gone and it makes her feel so empty.

"And I just wanted to let you know," Justice sets down the napkin on the table and takes another swig. "You're wrong. And trust me," Justice places the bottle down on the beside table again and pats it with his hand, "you're gonna need this." She eyes the bottle and her gaze moves from it to Justice. He leans back again and props his feet up on her bed, just barely missing her legs with his own. (If she believed she had the strength, she would have shoved his legs back onto the floor.)

"You're welcome," her fellow Victor tells her with the biggest grin he can muster.

"I'm not dead," she states, still disoriented and not quite fully present yet. It just feels so surreal, but here she is. Her pulse is even tracked on the heart monitor against the wall and she watches the jagged lines fluctuate up and down. Her eyes dart around the room, taking it all in again, and then finally settle on Justice. "The eclipse was the last thing I saw and . . . I thought it might be the end."

But here I am. Here we are.

She furrows her brow and looks at the bottle of wine on her beside table. Her reflection is bent in the glass, her features distorted around the cylindrical shape. Jacinta looks back at Justice again and shakes her head, but only halfway, as she quickly finds that her vision spins if she moves too fast.

"Why am I wrong?" Jacinta asks him, her eyes moving up to meet his. He may not be able to give her a serious answer in his current drunken state, but it is better than nothing. "Is surviving after the Games really that bad?" She already knew what was ahead when she decided to kill, when she decided to live. She knew the price and the toll it may take on her soul, but she had always been willing to pay it. Jacinta is still unsure of what exactly victory entails other than throwing away everything she believed in, but does it really matter? She is alive — and that, after all, is what she decided was the only thing she truly wanted.

"I fought for this," she goes on. She is alive — and she fought for every breath she takes, for every beat her heart makes, for every moment she experiences. Screw the price, she decides. She got what she wanted; what more could she need? "And maybe whether I deserve to live is debatable, but that doesn't change that I fought just to be breathing right now, just to be here. How could that be all for nothing?"

'cause nothing's that simple
late at night you pour it out
know that only brings you down
but go ahead and give me all the blame

[arx!!]

JUSTICE
FRAY

Hospital beds make everyone look so much smaller than they really are. Swallowed beneath giant gowns and towering monitors, with pale skin, hollowed cheeks, and eyes swimming with drugs and confusion—it's a strange sort of innocent we only afford to the beaten down, ill, and broken. Doesn't matter if you're a murderer, no matter what terrible things you've done or the people you've hurt. It's one of the only places where even the worst of us can be seen in a good light.

But I know better than to look at her as just some broken kid. Sure she's still just a kid, but aren't we all? Every single one of us. We all return home still just kids, but with-- notches in our belts. Just detestable people with notches in our belts.

"I'm not dead."

"Nah, you won."

She looks really disoriented. Maybe even more so than me. And I can't even wink properly.

I follow her eyes as they flutter around the room, taking it all in properly. I try to recall what I was thinking when I was in here, but all I really remember is Opal. There. Just-- holding me up when I was far too weak, smiling with me because I was alive. I did it.

I think I'm doing this wrong. Actually, I probably shouldn't even be there.

I quit following her gaze when I get dizzy, her eyes finally settling on me with a healthy glaze of confusion.

"The eclipse was the last thing I saw and . . . I thought it might be the end."

I nod slowly, fold my arms over my chest. "Yeah," I say, leaning forward and pulling my feet off the bed as I lean forward in my chair. "Pretty sure everyone thought that."

It's crazy how thorough and effective these Capitolites are at erasing all the visible scars, all the while leaving the pain and inner cuts intact. She looks pristine, just like a doll. Just how the Capitol wants. No blood seeping through her hair or dripping down her leg. Pretty and prim, nothing on the outside to indicate she ever suffered through anything. Or that she'll forever be suffering for the rest of her life.

I laugh so I can feel happy. I watch her gaze settle on the wine bottle and fight the urge to take the gift back. I run my hand through my hair, what's left of my laughter a half-chuckle falling from my lips. I lean back in my chair. I sigh.

"Why am I wrong?" I glance to meet her gaze, her eyes falling into mine. They're pretty eyes—"Is surviving after the Games really that bad?"—and I think I've already lost myself within them because no matter how hard I try I can't seem to figure out how to answer her. I'm too busy trying not to drown, arms flailing, lungs begging for air, and mind stuck in survival mode. Fight, fight, fight—it's how I was programmed and it's all I know and when I said I thought I could change four years ago? That I could be a different man? Someone better?

"I fought for this, and maybe whether I deserve to live is debatable, but that doesn't change that I fought just to be breathing right now, just to be here. How could that be all for nothing?"

And I know I could've never handled this conversation sober. It was a good idea to come in here stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling. A clear mind would've led me to memories I don't feel like thinking too deeply about. But seeing them all at face value with alcohol pulsing through my veins and making everything fuzzy and warm? I can say it all out loud and maybe I won't remember it in the morning. Maybe I'll even be able to laugh at my own suffering. Maybe I'm too damn numb to feel a thing or maybe just too drunk to care that I've got a noose pulling tight at my neck.

Maybe that's the blessing I've been looking for.

"It's not nothing. You'll be rewarded," I slur, head spinning enough that I have to catch myself and clutch at the arm of my chair. "Fortune and fame and some fancy crown and everyone knows your name and they all smile at you."

I take a deep breath, steadying myself and looking back to her with a devilish smirk on my face as I try to decide which pair of her eyes dancing in my vision is actually connected to her. "Parties. So many parties," I chuckle, blinking slowly. "And girls. Lots of really... pretty..." My thought gets lost somewhere between Poppy's lips pressed to my skin and Elara's arm linked with mine; I can't manage to hold the smile through it.

"Uh, yeah," I finish, shrugging dramatically. "It's not nothing."

I lean forward then, elbows on my knees and getting close enough to whisper.

"Who do you want to be, Jacinta?" I ask, eyes darting across her features. "Huh?"

I raise my eyebrows. My head spins.

"I wanted to be better, but," I swallow, rolling my eyes at myself, leaning back so I can gesture to the whole of me. "Look at me. The same man that walked into that arena? He walked right back out." I chuckle at myself, tap my very fake leg. "Well, hopped."

I stare into the wine bottle, face warped in the glass.

"Still the same shitty person."

I grab the bottle, listen to the liquid slosh around inside and my reflection settle within wine. I thumb the label, a comforting distraction I always call upon when I've sat at a bar for too long with nothing but a spilled drink and my own thoughts.

"What did you live for, Seven? Because all I've become is a detestable man."

[   v i c t o r y   ]