all, then most, now none — jane&wade

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Cinnamon candy, split lips —
she doesn't mind the sting.

Blistered feet, she leaves them bare and walks across bleached floors. And the cameras are watching, tracking her every move, but Mother doesn't call her a 'Little Shadow' for nothing. 'Little Shark,' 'Little Tornado' — tiny terrors in the guise of a girl that just wants to run. She accepts her flaws, shows her teeth and slides across a wet hallway. Crashing and breaking and always laughing. Always looking for a distraction. It's never her intention to hurt others, but she's a gun with a hair-trigger. Her bullets ricochet. Daring her friends to perform reckless stunts and looking away as their limbs are wrapped in casts. Colliding with carers and biting the inside of her cheek as they pick up the contents of a dropped tray.

( "Just go away, Jane." )

She wishes she could. Maybe if she could swim, if she could fly, if— there's no way out. She tells herself to accept that, but even mice try to find the exit of the mazes they're forced to enter. Each day, each week, each year; an eternity of escapism. Just to wake up and be thrown right back into the labyrinth. All for nothing, no reward, but they still fight. They still hope. She does, too. A dead flower in her hair, she runs a finger across the braid and smirks to herself. She'll find a way to keep going, even when they strap her to a table and take all that she has. Lungs stretched to their limits, a heart too tired to keep beating, bones riddled with fractures and eyes that still have so much they want to see. The menagerie of a damaged girl. Deathless. Only almost.

( The flower's still dead. )

No war ever truly ends. Even when the last body falls and the final bomb detonates, the decay is still there. The rot keeps spreading. She wants to be like that — without end, a bad memory. A scar that doesn't heal. It's never her intention to hurt others, but if the institute wants to kill her at eighteen, she'll be a hypocrite. She'll live on, somehow. A hole punched in the wall, windows with snapped hinges and footprints on the roof. Small traces of a life cut short. They'll wash her blood away, but not her soul. Not everything. She knows that her actions will never stop them, that they'll continue to harvest and to destroy long after she's gone, but it's better to scream than to whisper. Her echoes will remain here for centuries. She'll become a battle cry. A white flag stained red.

Security footage blurs — and she disappears. A twirl, crouching, pulling herself through a hidden passage and crawling to her secret place. She lifts a hatch, feels wind blow across her face and she smiles. Standing above her own grave, yet she's never felt more free. There's easier ways to get to her rooftop haven, she knows, but she enjoys the rush of vanishing from plain sight. Nothing frightens her more. She tiptoes across the unsteady surface, holding her arms out and dipping from side to side. Like the birds taught her. She's at the edge when she realizes she's not alone, tilting her head and offering a confused grin to the intruder. She goes back to that night in those vents, sixteen and distraught and held close by a familiar stranger. She hates how safe he makes her feel.

( Roan hasn't in months. )

"You're just full of surprises — aren't ya, Wade?" She kneels down beside him, but it's not long before she's twisting her torso and positioning herself to hang from the ledge. Knuckles white, fingers strained, she arches her neck and laughs at the sky. "Didn't take you for the brooding type." She lets go with one hand, closing her eyes and inhaling through her nose. She remembers all of her balance exercises, core tightening and a slow burn washing over her limbs. This is what keeps her going. The adrenaline. The knowledge that she's still kicking. She pulls herself up to where he's sitting, but she keeps her back facing the open air. She tosses a glance over her shoulder, at a freshly cut lawn bordered by an uncharted forest. The ocean lingers in the distance. "Hey, wanna jump off and see who breaks the least amount of stuff?"

[dars]

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

when the night was full of terrors
and your eyes were filled with tears
when you had not touched me yet
oh, take me back to the night we met

To die can't be the worst thing in the world, right?

He was not the type to obsess over thoughts like these before— that's just it, though. Practically everything in his life could be separated into two parts: before and after. Two lives, two people, two piles of memories and trains of thought. Before, it was simple. He didn't ever realize it until it was too late, but that's sort of how things always happen, huh? Things are shit until they get worse and then you find yourself wishing you could go back.

He found himself sitting on a rooftop, legs folded in front of him. His joints still ached from the climb up, eyes glistening with the very secrets that would be his undoing some day soon.

This was the after. Death and destruction. The end of the world as he knew it.

He sat there in silence, massaging his wrists, staring at the vast, velvety night sky.

To die can't be the worst thing in the world, right?

The hatch opened and he didn't bother looking. There were limited options as to who could possibly show up there, especially this late: Luke, who probably came by his room unannounced and decided his boredom was worth the risk when Wade didn't answer the door, or adventurous Jane with a cautious Roan on her tail. Could've been Sir, as well, but that wasn't the worst thing that could've happened. It wasn't like he would push Wade over the edge, or anything. Instead, he used that time to wipe away the tears streaming down his face.

"You're just full of surprises — aren't ya, Wade?" He smiled, kneading at the knuckles on his right hand. He still hadn't made eye contact with her, but he knew that voice.

"Lose your shadow?" He asked, half expecting to hear Roan's mousy voice say something sarcastic. He didn't, so Wade looked around to confirm that Jane really was all alone. It was then that they made eye contact for the first time.

Jane looked like a sort of immortal being, moonstruck skin, silver hair hanging freely over her shoulders. Being around her made Wade feel more free, always had. She'd been blessed with the heart of a fighter and the feet of a runner, but Wade had always viewed her much like a bolt of lightning: loud, and bright, and sudden, but gone in an instant. Flash bang, the only thing remaining, destruction.

A beautiful mess, though.

"Hey, wanna jump off and see who breaks the least amount of stuff?"

She was already hanging halfway off the edge, her legs dangling freely. Lightning. Flash bang.

Destruction.

Wade stood, his feet carrying him over to her. He peered down at the lawn, pristine, freshly cut as always. The maintenance team really outdid themselves.

"Looks like you're already halfway there," he joked. He sat down carefully, his legs dangling off the edge.

Sometimes, when he came up here, he hoped to see a Capitol hovercraft pass by, or maybe even make out the shoreline he knew was waiting just on the other side of the trees. Maybe someone would be brave enough to come to the island sometime, just long enough for Wade to ask for help, send them on their way. He would sit there for hours, waiting and watching and hoping. And no one would ever come.

He nodded to Jane, offering a hand to pull her back up.

He remembered the night they found out the truth, the night before became after, when he had crawled into an air shaft to find her. She was so broken and so lost then that he had a hard time seeing her under any different light afterward. Was she actually some broken thing, he wasn't sure. But the knowledge that even Jane, iron willed and quick footed and so, so brave, had been fractured into a million pieces was hard for him to swallow.

He couldn't help wondering if it was all just a front.

He hadn't meant to say the words out loud. Or, maybe he had, and he just regretted saying them as soon as they came out, but as he pulled her back up, his lips parted, and he asked: "Do you still have hope?"

What a ridiculous question.

Still, he was stuck with it now.

"It seems like a rare thing to have these days, doesn't it?"

I had all and then most of you
some and now none of you
take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do

song: the night we met

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

"Do you still have hope?"

Moonlight falls —
and she wants to follow.

He holds her for a moment, but seconds pass and she's left alone with the wind. In her hair, across her skin, but he's still there. That counts. And it's a rare thing, she agrees, but the thought of being hopeless shakes her more than what is fast approaching. Just over the horizon. She looks to see a fading sea, distant blue against violet, and it's all a shadow. Midnight wonders and twilight terrors — it's fitting that it's her and Wade out here. Canaries perched at the edge of their cage, but they have no song to sing. They just breathe. They keep going. What else can you do?

"Yeah," she answers quickly, pausing for a moment to think it through. She nods, a weak smile. "I do have hope." It's all she has. And she came so close to losing it, felt a blade rip through her stomach and slept in her own blood, but she woke up the next morning like always. With stitches and a scar — but that's not death. That's not the end. She stares at her medicine boy for a moment, all healing hands and bruised eyes, and she wishes she could be like him. Gentle and calm; always there to pick up the pieces. No matter how sharp. She's the one who shatters.

She's a destructive girl, but that's the burden of setting yourself on fire. She's burnt a lot of people, left her own skin blistered more than once, but she has her uses. The dark can't touch her, any of them — not when she's around. A grin stretched to its limits and hands raised to the sky. Rain kisses her fingertips and lightning shoots down her veins. She's a storm, true, but a distraction just the same. What's a hurricane to the apocalypse? Still, she can't deny that she's afraid. Her mind is blurred and messy, as restless as it is hopeful, but she's always been a hypocrite. Begging not to die while jumping from the roof.

( Crashing, detonating —
no forest stays dead. )

"Don't you?" she asks, tilting her head to the side and scratching at her cheek. It's not her place to pry, but boundaries are just stepping stones to her. She doesn't blame those who have accepted what's to come, but it confuses her. She goes back to many nights spent arguing with Roan, screaming and crying and begging him to fight. To be brave. And she loves him, she knows that she does, but he's never seen any colours flush across her face. Not because of his disorder. Leave it to her to rush into something without thinking of the consequences, kissing someone content with his numbered days — even knowing that she wants to fly away. That she'll leave him behind.

"It seems pointless, I know, but—" She bites her lip, looking down at white knuckles and then up at stars that are the same shade. Their iron is inside of her, too. A result of some ancient explosion. Gwen told her that, so it's legit. The metal must be in Jane's spine. That must be why she's still standing. And it's true that what she sees are just echoes, supernovae long deceased and blinking like ghosts — but they're there. They're burning. "What else do we have, if not that?" She reaches out for his hand, tentative and shy and then without fear. He's so cold. She's too warm. "Hey, listen to me. We're gonna be okay." An empty promise, but a heavy one.

"Just leave it to me, yeah?
I'll dig a tunnel if that's what it takes."

To be free —
to live.

[dars]