where the sirens sing // phresh

[Stare]

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Bella had grown used to being silent.

There were nights when Cesare would come home, crisp sleeves stained up to his elbows with blood, and they simply exchanged a look before she went upstairs to start a steaming shower for him. When Rodrigo lied through his teeth about where he had been a certain night, she folded her hands placidly in front of her and said nothing. Even on that night, on the night, with blood steaming down her face while her stomach heaved and the world became slick as oil, she was silent.

But silence was pushing her closer and closer to an edge that her brothers were determined to ignore. She was standing at it now, her toes lined up against the drop, her gaze dragged down into the abyss. Bella had pledged long ago that if her family fell she would be dragged down with them, but she stood at the edge alone. She would not be driven to collapse. She wouldn’t.

Complacency may have been what Rodrigo wanted, but she would have nothing to do with it. Not after that night and two Cesare Crocetti’s echoing out into the District Square.

And, since it was Rodrigo had been the one to get her tickets to the show, she supposed she could blame him for her rebellion. It wasn’t treachery, exactly, but her brother had implied a target and she’d made the very conscious decision to sit as far away from him as possible in the darkness. Instead, her gaze was locked on the figure on stage. He was a whirlwind of liquid movements and flexing limbs, and she’d be lying if she wasn’t impressed. As the music began to fade, her lips tugged into a half-smile.

She would be chasing after her own target that night, and a dancer would do just fine.

After the show she slipped backstage. Bella was used to being silent, but she was also used to getting her way, and any opposition she met as she passed back into the darkness was resolved either with recognition of her face or recognition of her name. In the light, the Crocettis were respected for their father’s commitment to the Capitol. In the shadows, they were feared for the blood on their hands.

She glanced down at her pale digits, her pristine, manicured nails, and flashed black to when crimson had splattered over her as she choked on all the scarlet things she’d never said and someone held her up by her waist from behind.

“Cesare Crocetti!”

Not again. Never again.

She approached the dancer silently, that smile still tugging at her lips. Oh, Rodrigo would be furious when he found out. She was meant to be an ambassador, though the streets had crueler names for her kind. Crocetti whore. Keeping the tapping of her heels as quiet as possible, she carefully slipped into his line of sight.

“Congratulations.” Her tone bordered on a hum. Bella folded her hands behind her back, leaning onto her toes and offering him a practiced shy smile. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but I wanted to compliment you personally. You know, before you get swarmed by all the other fans. You were really excellent.”

down in the deep where the sirens sing
and hide in the muddy water
blood on my hands and the moonlit sand
but i’d die just to keep them under

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

| N I C O | R A N I E R |

No matter how many times he’d been on stage, Nico would never get used to the crowd. Even in this small theater he could feel the energy vibrating throughout the room from some two hundred faces behind the golden blur of the lights. Before he went on stage, all he could think about was how many strangers were filling those seats, and how many pairs of eyes would be watching for his mistakes. The nerves tugged his stomach into knots; his heart jumped into his throat.

When the music started, everything else disappeared.

It took hold of him and moved him effortlessly, like the pulling of strings. The dance wasn’t a question of choreography so much as a question of breath— not just his own, but the breath of the woodwinds and the liquid swell of the cello, the billowing timpani that marked each crescendo. Right now, he was nothing but an instrument to the instruments. They reached into him, pulled out the things that were flawed and true, and brought them to the surface to be glimpsed just for a moment. To let down his guard and let the sound in, no masks or secrets, was liberating. This was the feeling that he lived for. But ripred, was he was hopeless at it when he wasn’t dancing.

After his piece a standing ovation pulled him back to earth, and he bowed graciously at the end of the stage as red and white roses rained from the crowd. Peering into the house seats with his hand over his eyes, he looked for familiar faces and nodded to his sister, who was watching from the third center row. Then he bowed again, and with the music still in his feet he picked up one of the roses and trotted off the stage with it behind his ear.

A stagehand offered him a towel and he took it, suddenly aware of his own body and the cover of sweat collecting in the valley of his spine. Nico sat on a metal folding chair and pulled the towel across his neck, down his forehead, with that familiar feeling of coming off a high. Now he was free to worry about the things that filled his head like a vacuum after he danced—what had it looked like? Were people impressed? Would they come back to see him again? And what would this mean for his career, his family?

“Congratulations.”

He leaned back in his chair to see a surprise visitor, all long dark hair and hazel eyes, appear in front of him. Though she’d interrupted a come-down, he found himself matching her smile without a second thought.

“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but I wanted to compliment you personally. You know, before you get swarmed by all the other fans. You were really excellent.”

Remembering his manners, Nico stood up to meet her with a closed-lip smile, his chair grating against the floorboards as he pushed it to the wall behind him. He knew his forehead must be glistening; he wiped it with the back of his hand and then wiped that on the ass of his tights.

”Thanks. It was really nothing,” he said, feigning modesty. Really she’d been the first person outside of his family to visit him backstage in a long time, and she had caught him off guard. Here he was in his tights, covered in sweat, hair in knots—not presentable by any means. His heart still fluttered in his chest, indecisive, but whether it was his nerves or the aftershock of the dance, he didn’t know.

Actually, no one visited him backstage because it was usually off-limits. For some reason he’d forgotten this, but it occurred to him that to allow someone back here could jeopardize his permission to perform here in the future. How had she even gotten through security?

”Hey, not to be rude--” He pulled the rose from behind his ear and pointed at her with it. ”but you’re not really supposed to be back here.” Still, Nico was intrigued; there was something about this girl, the way she’d sought him out, and the way she’d possibly dodged the bodyguards by the backstage entrance to do so.

He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ”I can go change out of this--can we talk somewhere else?”