undead starlight ; {lex/mackenzie}

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

[presto][/presto]

"my ghost,
where'd you go?
i can't find you"

She was broken and she didn't even realize it. It was no secret that Lex and Angel were two very, very different creatures. Angel needed to air his inner demons, lest they become him.

Lex seemed content to simply not acknowledge their presence.

Mackenzie made a vow to himself to give her space, to let her process in her own way, to let her be the first one to talk about it. He wasn't a seasoned mentor, this was true, but he still knew what she needed. What was infuriating was that she didn't seem to know. Her indifference made each tick of the clock above his dining table move more slowly. She'd been reaped into the Hunger Games. She'd fought. She'd lost. To the one person in the arena she- well, maybe not trusted, exactly, but something in the neighborhood. And, you know, then she was brought back to life and forced to sleep in a room full of everyone else in the arena who'd failed.

Who the hell could live through that and remain so unbothered that, as Mackenzie allowed his glance to land on her for just a moment, she seemed more interested in one of the prongs on her fork being out of alignment with the others?

Admittedly, there was a selfish aspect to his impatience. Who was meant to keep her alive? Who was the one who convinced Denali to work with her in the first place? Who was the one who'd woken up to everything pardon a promise that Lex would die because of his mistakes? It all came back to him and his stupid, reckless actions. He wondered if he would've been able to hurt Faline the way they'd been forced to hurt each other, then stopped himself. He couldn't go down that road again; there was a chance he wouldn't make it back.

"Lex," he said to her, eyes on his plate. Each time he spoke her name it felt like he was trying to hide something from her; damn, he was a shit liar.

"Do you want a beer? Love my sister to death, but she is the only person I know who is incapable of making tea."

He glanced over at the putrid liquid that still seemed almost just as full as it had been when Lex got it. It was almost laughable, a nostalgia of simpler times. Mackenzie had always mocked Maxine for her distinct lack of culinary skill, and she'd always smirked and said something along the lines of: "Well, since I'm always the one who kills it, maybe you should try cooking it."

He missed those days, tugging down a sip from his glass bottle.

"Plus, you know... beer."

[aya]

must've been forces
that took me on them wild courses
who knows how many poses
that i've been in

Something Lex Lionel is pretty sure she'll never understand is the tendency to write things off as broken the second they don't look brand new anymore. Or the tendency beyond that to decide broken is worthless, that things easily mended are beyond the effort of repairing them. One of the tines of her fork doesn't bend as far forward as the others. It's still a fork.

As she considers it, she frowns. That, too, is out of alignment. Right-skewed like the rest of her expressions, the frown is deeper, more practiced on the side of her face that's never had a knife sticking out of it. It's not broken. It's just seen some shit.

When he says her name, Mackenzie Pryce sounds like he doesn't believe that. No one ever seems like they do. Even without asking — especially without asking — everyone she's seen since she's been back in District Seven has already made up their minds that she ought to feel some sort of way about how she went off to the slaughter, murdered a couple kids, lost a duel and her life only to be brought back and sent right home again. As if living was supposed to be worse than dying, somehow.

Maybe for someone else. Not for Lex.

She finds a narrow seam between two slats on the seat of her chair and fits the fork's tines into the gap. She twists it to the right, then to the left, then back to the right. There. She sets the fork down on the table, all four prongs even with each other once more.

"Beer," she agrees, relaxing back into her seat and finally glancing at her former mentor. "Sure." They both eye the suspicious liquid that was set in front of her. So that was supposed to be tea. She slides the mug further away from her place setting. "I thought you might've given me watered down varnish stripper by mistake." She grins. "Or on purpose."

The beer, wheaty and lightly malted, is inoffensive in comparison to both the tea and the joke. It goes down easier than the not-quite-comfortable silence.

"Why am I here, Mackenzie?" Setting the bottle down on the table, she folds her arms across her chest. "No, wait — don't get existential on me — I mean why am I sitting in your house?" They'd already done the mentor/tribute thing. That went okay, mainly, overlooking the part where Lex fended for herself so well she hadn't even needed sponsorship, and the part where the ally he'd lined up for her wound up being her murderer. "You don't need to keep... you know. Trying to be a mentor."

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

[presto][/presto]

"my ghost,
where'd you go?
i can't find you"

"You don't need to keep... you know. Trying to be a mentor."

Mackenzie allowed himself a long pull from his beer while he gathered his thoughts, swallowing twice before setting the emptied bottle onto the table with a sense of finality. He hadn't even considered that his job with Lex and Angel had run its course. His job was to try and get them out alive. If he succeeded, that was great. If he didn't, he was only one of the many. But letting them go after fighting tooth and nail for their survival seemed as much a slap to his face as it would've to theirs.

"Would you prefer that? If I just stopped?"

The words weren't meant to sound as pointed as they may have. The truth was that he would've been terrified of returning to the normal world all alone and with no one who understood what he'd gone through. If Jacinta hadn't been there to aid him with his reintegration into society, he would've been far worse off than he already was.

Besides, it was nice to feel like he had a job. Helping them was also helping him in a way, and he felt very much like a parent whose child was telling him she didn't need him anymore.

"I know I don't need to. I just—"

He looked for the right words, reminding himself of who he was talking to. Lex was a wild animal. Any sudden movements and she was liable to disappear into the wood, never to be seen or heard from again. The forests of Seven held many mysteries as it was; he would much rather keep Lex there with him.

He could practically imagine the phone call with Denali when he explained that he hadn't spoken to her in a few weeks, and as liable as Lex was to run away, Denali was even more likely to find her way to his front door, demanding an explanation.

When he thought of it that way, it almost felt tempting. If anything, he would get to see her before she chewed him out and forced him to help organize a search party.

"It's dinner, Lex. Don't make it weird."

Mackenzie offered a half smile, thinking of a way to change the subject. Damn, he thought, it's a good thing they aren't my actual children. A good parent would've definitely jumped at the chance to discuss emotions and feelings and all the other gross bullshit that made Mackenzie's throat tighten up and his hands sweat. A detached parent, then. One of those absentee Dads who loves his children but is addicted to his job.

It was better than nothing, he supposed.

"Denali called earlier."

He took a bite of his food, now copying Lex's behavior from before and becoming more-than-fairly interested in his fork.

"Again."

He looked over at her for a spare moment, trying his best to feign ignorance to the elephant in the room.

"Asked for you to call when you get the chance."

[aya]

i worried bout rain
and i worried bout lightning
but i watched them off
to the light of the morning

She shrugs at Mackenzie's floundering, not sure if she's got the heart to tell him yes. They're practically the same age, and it isn't like his whopping one year of experience as a victor of the Hunger Games counts for much of anything relevant to Lex's daily life. She's not stuck babysitting tributes on their way off to their actual deaths for the rest of her life. No one she killed is actually dead. Hell, it's not like bleeding out in the vineyard was her first brush with death. Mackenzie Pryce is about as qualified to mentor her about coping as he would be to mentor her about using a coping saw. And anyhow — "It's dinner, Lex. Don't make it weird."

She snorts. "Fair enough," she agrees, swallowing a sip of beer. "Tell you what: why don't you wait til the next reaping." The right corner of her mouth pulls itself onto a shit eating grin. "If I'm heading with you to the Capitol, you can mentor me then." No one really reacts positively when Lex brings up the very real possibility that she'll be reaped for a return appearance in the 81st Hunger Games, so obviously she brings it up with nonchalance at every opportunity.

Mackenzie pivots, trying to distract himself with a forkful of food and Lex with a topic that always catches her interest. "Denali called earlier. Again." Lex feels her jaw clench and her ears go pink. "Asked for you to call when you get the chance." She hasn't been avoiding talking to Denali specifically so much as she's been avoiding phone calls in general. Truth be told, she'd love to hear from Denali again — Mackenzie knows it, too, or he wouldn't be pushing the subject in place of the uncomfortable one left abandoned.

"Okay, Mom," she grumbles, feigning annoyance. "I know. It's just —" Lex has neither made nor received a phone call in her life and doesn't intend to start now. "I don't love the idea of my conversations — personal conversations — getting eavesdropped on." She frowns. "By whatever poor Capitolite has to listen in on your calls. Or by nosy victors."

For as reserved as Lex can be among strangers, anyone who's ever spent enough time near her once she's gotten comfortable can attest to the fact that she has absolutely no filter whatsoever. Careless treasons dropped on bugged lines from the lips of Lex Lionel when she's too excited to think her thoughts through are a danger to her own odds of surviving the 81st reaping — let alone Games — as much as they are to the little Lyons sisters, as much as they are to one Mackenzie Pryce and every tribute under his watch from now until the end of time. No one wants any of that less than Lex does.

"Got a pen and some paper? You can give her a message next time you talk."