sleep well beast // { lex + annie | vt }

[aya]

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we leave our saviors wrapped around the necks of new machines
or at the ends of threads that hold their bodies to the ground

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It's not until Anatalia Morrisen is standing in her woodshop that it occurs to Lex just how many of her tools double as deadly weapons. When she thinks about that, it's a little bit funny: Lex Lionel earned her respectable 9 in part by prying out ribs and severing limbs with a hammer and saw — not to mention that she literally murdered a couple kids with hatchets that looked just like the hand axe hanging on the far wall. But in the context of the workshop, they were always tools of creation and not destruction.

Everywhere she looks sits another weapon: The copper gutter nails lying on her bench from the in-progress porch expansion, seven inches and begging to be driven through an unsuspecting throat, temple, eye socket. The table saw, capable of throwing wood hard enough to concuss or kill operators on accident — let alone thinking what the twenty-four teeth of its flat top grind blade would choose to make a meal out of, given a face pressed in its path. Drills and drivers, crowbars and chisels, awls, wrenches, rasps — hell, even the set square could do some damage slipped between the fourth and fifth ribs.

To the layperson, such a response might sound something like fear. After all, having a murderer of murderers poking through your workspace ought to make anyone nervous. Make no mistake: this isn't fear. The sentiment is closer to mild concern — specifically, mild concern that Lex's questionable grasp on impulse control might slip, that Annie might say the wrong thing, that old instincts might kick in. That she'll be hauled off to some detention center for hard labor or that her resurrection privileges will be revoked before dark.

"Lathe," she says, pointing out the larger shop fixtures. "Drill press. Router. Vise."

It's a strange worry. She and District Four-Fingers had plenty of times to trade blows when death was on the line but only ever swapped jokes. As far as other tributes went, Annie had been one of her favorites.

"Table saw."

At least up until the end. Lex knows it's unfair to hold the desire to live at any cost against Annie, and yet...

"Acetylene torch."

And yet she can't look at Annie without seeing the Finale again. Back in the vault, loaded on painkillers, hunger sated, vision wavering from the hallucinogen that wasn't strong enough because she still remembers.

"That's for my dad's metal casting projects. Definitely not for wood."

All too vividly, she remembers. The javelins, the vambraces, the fire. The knives, Shy's eye, the fire. The blood - her blood, and her axes and her gloves and the fire. Sunk all the way into the cushions, sunk all the way into the mud, gasping. Watching. Useless.

"Too flammable."

An awkward grin reaches up the right side of her face, unsure how best to end the terse tour, but certain that Annie has no interest in a dissertation on proper dovetail technique or an in-depth look at the differences between orbital-finishing sanders and random-orbit sanders and the appropriate uses of each.

She runs a hand through her hair. Sawdust shakes loose; it always does. Her eyes land on the pile of small projects on her workbench: absent whittlings, mostly; a half-finished knife block — purple kingwood with exquisite grain — clamped and glue curing before the piece is cut down to size; striped drink coasters, chamfered and ready for another coat of tung oil; and —

"Oh, here." Lex picks up last week's distraction project and tosses it to the victor. "This is for you." The short piece is clearly shaped to resemble a finger, a hole big enough for a thumb near the knuckle and a metal tooth curving backwards from the nail. "It's olive wood." It's a bottle opener that only requires one hand to operate. "Nothing says 'Victor' like 'crippling alcoholism' so I thought you might find it handy."

sleep well beast the national
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[pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]]

She rises, not because she wants too, but because she has too. She doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Today was the day she had to spend in seven, a district that she held close to her heart because Angel De Costa walked its silent halls.

She didn’t think about it too much, because the thought of thinking about one of the people that she killed in the arena made her stomach turn. She woke up that morning and felt bile spew up her throat and out on the carpet.

She sighed, rolling up the carpet and putting it to the side to take care of it another time. She stripped and headed into the shower, a different type then the one in the capitol, but the fact that the house had more than one working shower was more than a welcome change to Annie.

She didn’t think about it as she washed last nights nightmares off of her body.

Cassius had entered the room, waiting in her bedroom then heading straight into the bathroom to fetch her. ”Just give me a minute.” Annie screamed through the cascade of water and took a deep breath as she turned the hot water on and just stood there for a moment as she tried to collect her thoughts.

She had no clue what she was doing anymore, and now that she was forced to attend not one, but multiple victory tours across the districts to appease the people that wanted to meet her. The games were hard enough, but to face some of the families, the ones that housed the children that she killed? It plagued her mind more than she wanted.

A memory that she wanted to purge over and over again until it was scrubbed clean from her mind.

---

The morning was simple, a speech, a grand entrance to show everyone how “honored” they were to meet Annie for the first time. The families stood there with their mean mugs trying to rip Annie apart with their eyes. Lex and Angel were both present, but they were not holograms, but instead flesh and bone. Something that Annie could thank the capitol for.

They restored their life so they didn’t have to hang on her conscious, but that didn’t mean that the memories would go away. The knife in Angel’s eye would be an image that would never leave her mind, and it would haunt her until the day she died.

But that was something she could forget for a moment, because Angel De Costa was alive, eye patch and all.

She spoke words she didn’t mean when she walked up to the center of the stage, and she looked at Lex and Angel like they weren’t really there. She spent so much time with Angel and barely any with Lex, but there was enough there between both of them for Annie to feel somewhat attached to the tributes of seven. The moment she saw Angel’s eye patch though, she stopped for a moment before bringing her eyes back to Lex. She continued on with her speech, taking deep breaths as the people of seven either clapped or stared at her. There was no in between here. Not for the victors at the least.

---

Next was a demonstration of her skills, to which she sighed. Usually she knew that this didn’t garner much of a crowd in the lower districts because they had more pressing things to worry about then watching a girl throw knives.

However, the minute she walked into the spar circle, she noticed a sizeable crowd, one that obviously wanted to see how she bested one of their own without even lifting a hand.

She shook her head, flexing the prosthetic hand that she agreed to don for now, and saw the weapons that were all laid out by the peacekeepers of the district. She pushed through the ether to grab the knives.

She didn’t waste time.

Before they could even announce her to the district, she threw the knives straight into the dummy, each one landing in an appendage before two finding resonance in each of its fake eyes. Annie didn’t even breath before walking out of the spare circle, She did not want to be congratulated for her skills at murdering people. At least, not anymore.

When Cassius came up behind her to make sure she was alright, she turned around. ”I have somewhere I need to be, Ill be fine. I don’t think they want to kill me here.” Annie spoke clearly to the man before turning her back to him.

She knew that he was going to follow, and that was fine with her, just as long as she didn’t interfere with what she had to do.

---

Annie found herself in a workshop that she never thought she would see in her life.

Lex Lionel told her specifically that she ran a woodshop that would make anyone in another district jealous, and for all intents and purposes, Annie told herself that she would visit it if she made it out. She just so happened to make it out and Lex got to live, so after a brief lunch that Annie barely ate at. She immersed herself in a different world that she didn’t know.

She knew that this is what it had to be like to not be a career. To have a regular hobby or profession that one could be proud of.

Annie took it all in as they moved through the workshop together, at a rather fast pace, but Annie wasn’t taken aback by that.

After all, she was the one to kill her girlfriend in the arena.

Denali Lyons was fierce, but Annie was quicker on the draw, and even though it was very obvious that Denali had killed Lex the day before they met, Annie still couldn’t believe that the girl who was standing in front of her fell short of the finale.

She truly was a titan if she had ever met one.

---

She listened to Lex tell her about the various tools and gadgets she used to craft impressive wood objects that Annie couldn’t help but admire. The craftsmanship was impressive, and Annie for one would spend her money here if she needed any of it.

However, she was sure that the capitol would frown upon any victor having access to various weapons, and she had a feeling that she was always being watched, so she knew that it was best for her to just leave it be.

Lex pointed at a metal case and Annie couldn’t help but glance at it from the side, it reminded her of Janet, which she had returned the day before to the girl it came from in six.

She didn’t want to let it go, but it wasn’t hers to have, now that all the tributes got to live at the end of the story.

”Too flammable? Or too fragile?” Annie spoke lowly as she continued to listen to Lex as they moved around the shop. She wasn’t sure where the sentence came from, but all Annie could think about right now was the finale and the death of Denali Lyons.

She was alive now, and doing well for what it was worth, but Annie wasn’t sure where they stood. She wasn’t sure where she stood with any of the tributes that she got to interact with during her time in the games.

And the moment she realized that her words could be seen as defensive, her eyes made contact with a few of the weapons that were lying around, all of which she could use to defend herself if need be. Cassius was outside waiting for her, but she didn’t want to have to bring him in here unless it was absolutely necessary.

At least Annie could tell that this was a civil meeting between two titans that loved and lost in various ways, and who was Annie to mistake Lex’s words for brutality when she hadn’t done anything to prove that she held ill will towards her?

Not Annie at the least.

---

And with a snap of her arm, she caught what Lex called a gift for her.

Her hand wrapped around the contraption tightly, holding it in her hand so she could get comfortable with it. She didn’t know what to do in return though because Annie had nothing to give in return.

But then Annie thought about how Lex probably didn’t want anything in return, which Annie could respect out of the sheer hospitality that she had just shown her.

She looked at Lex and smiled, ”Still cant help it with the hand jokes I see?” Annie then gave a light giggle, something that she hadn’t done in weeks. ”Its beautiful Lex, thank you.” Annie said to her, realizing that there truly wasn’t enough bad blood between them for them to hate each other. If Lex was more than willing to still make a joke at Annie’s expense, then obviously the death of her girlfriend wasn’t enough to make her pick up an axe and hack her to pieces.

Still, she didn’t know how to approach anything else. ”A glass of wine sounds lovely right now if I am being honest, but if you got some beers we can use this to crack them open…” she grinned for a moment, ”Might as well get a little demonstration.” Annie took in the scenery of the workshop and thought about how this was now going to be her life.

Living to watch other children die.

Basking in the dark of any apartment as she was forced to watch the games over and over again, tortured by not only hers, but also the many games to come.

Her mind wouldn’t be free of them, so right now was her opportunity to just not think about it, and as awkward as it was to have a beer with a girl who had feelings towards one of her victims, Annie didn’t want to think about that.

She just wanted to live.

[aya]

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then the men who look a little like they feel like me
offer them some bottled water then they cut 'em down

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"Too flammable? Or too fragile?"

Focused on trying to come up with what else is worth showing off, it takes a moment for Annie's comment to register in Lex's brain. She snorts, brow furrowing in baffled amusement. The question is so stupid she almost doesn't dignify it with a response. But she can't in good conscience send a visitor out of her woodshop with such a flagrant misunderstanding of the thermal properties of timber.

"It's a blowtorch, Annie. It either melts things or it burns them." Her brow furrows, face as perplexed as it is concerned. "If your wood is fragile you've got dry rot." With a shake of her head, for once Lex hopes that she missed some joke. Otherwise — this is the girl who was supposed to be the best of them?

They move on to easier topics. "Still can't help it with the hand jokes I see?"

Sheepish grin, shrug. "No need to point fingers at me over it." Chuckling along with Annie's light laughter, it's easier to forget all the reasons why she might want her guest dead on the — well, not on the floor, lest she risk the spilled blood staining the unfinished pair of rocking chairs before their first coat of protective varnish. For someone she doesn't know very well, whom she owes nothing and from whom nothing is owed, there's nothing to be gained from a grudge. "Don't mention it. Glad you like it."

Annie asks for a glass of wine and Lex snorts — there's definitely none of that lying around — but fortunately for both of them, beer will suffice. "One sec." Most of the beer and all of the whiskey is kept in the house, but seeing as the woodshop is equally well lived-in, staples like that tend to migrate. She disappears behind the partition that separates the working area and the stacks of stored lumber. A minute later, she reemerges with two brown bottles clenched in each fist. "We've got stout... and more stout." She hands one to Annie, sets two down on her workbench, and opens the fourth against the edge of the table, striking the top of the bottle with the heel of her left hand. The cap pops off and falls to the ground with a gentle clink.

Relaxing into one of the in-progress rocking chairs, she takes a swig. The roasted malts of the strong beer stick to her tongue, faint notes of burnt caramel balanced by an acrid, ashy afterbite. She gestures for Annie to sit in the other chair, enjoying beer and silence for a moment before the questions start bubbling up in her brain.

"Is it weird with the others?" she asks, curiosity getting the best of her. She doesn't know Annie, not well at all — and something about that situation makes it easier to pry. "The victors, I mean. Because we all lived."

It wasn't until she was brought back from the dead that Lex gave too much thought to what victory might have looked like. She would have hated it, obviously. Running around from district to district, entertaining the Capitol while being burdened with the needs of the others sent off to die. Taking responsibility. Fussing over them the way that Mackenzie seems to think that he still ought to be doing.

"Do they hate you for it?" She's always meant to ask her mentor, but never found the right time to bring it up. Given the choice, would he have taken the good with the bad? Resurrect enemies and victims as well as friends? Would it mollify his aching conscience? Or would it pain him to look them in the eyes — the same way Lex had taken pains to avoid the likes of Minx Ahlstrom? She's always meant to ask if he'd rather swap her for Ike Tate, if he wishes he'd been reaped a year later, gone to the redwoods in Angel's place and sent the other boy to die in the glittering hollow. But she can't bring herself to bring it up with the boy who's trying too hard to be her mom; it's easier to ask an equal.

sleep well beast the national
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[pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]]

Annie took a deep breath as the question that she had posed, the one that could have rocked their very relationship had been mentioned. She couldn’t help but ask it, because after the finale, she knew that the dynamics she did share with many of the tributes that she got to interact with would change. Change for the better, or the worse.

That was always leveraging on Annie’s mind since she came out of the games.

But no one died, not one of them. They all came back, like they had dug themselves out of the ground and risen like spring time daisies.

Annie didn’t know how to react at first, but the moment Glamour spoke the twist to her, she passed out. She was looking at him one moment and then her vision had just gone black. Before she knew it, she was in the capitol, a mess of doctors crowding around her as they nipped and sealed all of the wounds she had received in the games.

Of course, her hand was her choice, and while it might have only took days for her to grow a new one back according to them, she wanted the reminder. Besides, Annie couldn’t lie that the prosthetic they gave her was very realistic.

---

”Right Lex. You’re right.” Annie shook her head, thoughts slowly disappearing before trying to avoid saying anything that she might regret saying to her. Of course, Annie could have been reading all the signs wrong, but from the way Denali had been acting during the finale, Annie could tell that there was more to the story between those two, add in the fact that both of them never held any ill will towards Annie, but the rest of her alliance, made Annie suspect that there was some sort of mutual respect between the three of them up until that point.

And then lines had to be drawn, but it was clear that only one of them could go home, at the time being of course.

The comments about her hand jokes was a way of Annie trying to scoot over the situation that she nearly avoided for the time being. Annie wasn’t ready to talk about Denali and what had happened, and to be quite honest, Annie had a feeling that during the finale, they made all the tributes that were down there watch to begin with. So it wasn’t like Lex didn’t know what she was talking about, or maybe she didn’t.

Annie didn’t have much time to think about this, because she was here now, and not in some sort of seclusion that would give her the chance to tear her train of thought apart to smithereens. After all, she was a guest in house Lionel, or in this case, workshop Lionel, and while Annie might have been the victor in this situation, Lex was the queen of this dominion. Which meant that she needed to be on her best behavior. ”Sorry, I just cant help it.” Annie smirked. ”I cant put my finger on it, but they just kind of come in handy when I need them.” Annie couldn’t help but chuckle. Who in the fuck was she not to make a joke at her own peril after all? It was an acceptable topic, a piece of her that she didn’t want to forget after all. And more jokes followed from Lex, which eased Annie into a state of safety that she never thought she would feel again, not as long as she lived at the least.

She didn’t deserve to feel such a thing anymore, because her life was always going to be in danger, as long as she walked down each district and stared down anyone that wanted to tell her that she did not deserve the hand that she was dealt. Little did anyone else know was that Annie also thought that she didn’t deserve the hand that she was dealt, in fact, she wished she could give it back, but because it didn’t work like that, she kept it close, bluffing her way through mountains of raises and calls that she could never chip into.

Just drown at the wayside of them and hope she doesn’t fold.

---

She watches as Lex disappears into the ether, and she tries to calm herself. She knew that Cassius was somewhere on the premises, under a direct order from Annie, that he probably didn’t appreciate but Annie did give one single fuck about what he wanted, but that still didn’t ease her into thinking that everything here was going to be alright. If anything it worried her more, scared her even. However, times like this was when Annie was actually thankful to her father for teaching her the write breathing exercises. She took long deep breathes as Lex had walked away and kept doing so until she came back and handed her a bottle of beer.

Annie wasn’t the biggest fan of beer, but in a place like seven, it was probably either that or some sort of hard liquor, to which Annie really wasn’t in the mood for. She knew that the heavy drinking would come with the years she would spend being a victor. It would come with the countless tributes she would probably lose over the years. For now, she could rest easy, and with that, her liver could too. At least that was how she saw it.

”Thanks.” Annie said as she placed the beer on the table before her and placed the one handed bottle opener over it. It seemed rather easy to operate, and while she did have both hands with her right now, one real and one fake, she still thought it was right of her, or at least courteous to use the gift that was bestowed upon her. She placed her hand on the trigger and pulled gently, the cap popping right off. Annie smiled, a genius tool now in her possession. ”This really is nifty Lex.” She put down the tool and grabbed the beer, taking a sip of it and then realizing that she hadn’t really tasted a stout from seven before.

The taste wasn’t the worst thing that she had tasted, but she could definitely tell that it wasn’t going to be her favorite thing. However, she didn’t have a choice in this matter, so she bit her tongue and smiled, taking a seat as Lex instructed her to do so. It was weird, being in the same room as someone that she was trying to kill months prior to all of this. However, the fact that they didn’t share any bad blood did help. It helped in a way that made this meeting feel like two old friends were reminiscing about the world and what it used to be like. Before both of them were thrown into something that neither of them wanted to be in, no matter how much people claimed that Annie did. She was just happy she made it out alive, just like the rest of them.

---

And as she rocked back and forth for a moment, she realized that she was in a much more relaxed state then she had been in for months, and maybe it was because Cassius didn’t have his nose up her ass, or maybe it was because here, she knew that she was not the enemy. After all, this district housed two tributes that had good relationships with. And while Angel De Costa wasn’t here, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t on her mind. After this she would go see him, just like she promised anyway. It was one of the perks of spending a whole day here instead of just a couple hours.

And then a question, an intrusion, came out of nowhere, but Annie didn’t flinch. She didn’t because there wasn’t much of a past between both of these warriors. She knew that. So anything could be asked, and Annie at the least was sure that she would get an honest answer out of Lex, so Annie had to offer the same thing in order to appease the standards that were placed upon them.

”I don’t know. The victors have been either hot or cold to me.” Annie spoke in riddles, not knowing exactly what to say. ”Some of them feel sorry for me, some of them feel anger towards me, and some of them just ignore me all together.” Annie took a sip of the stout, a weird after taste lingering in her mouth. ”Example, Teddy Ursa feels sorry for me, but also resents the fact that all of you lived and none of the people he lost got to live.” Annie could remember the victory tour in six like it was yesterday, and maybe that was because it was yesterday.

”I wouldn’t wish this hell on anyone Lex.” Annie was honest in her words. ”The feeling of walking into a room that goes up in flames as soon as you even think about speaking to someone.” Annie stayed silent t most events for that reason. ”Having to try to walk on eggshells with people that don’t know you as a person before being a victor.” Annie was going and going and going. ”Others putting their hardships… their regrets before mine Lex.” Annie looked at the girl, rocking back and forth in an almost eerie rhythm. ”That is what I have to live with. That is what it seems like to be the victor of the 80th Hunger games.” Annie had a lot of words and opinions to say, but even though they probably should have been directed towards someone else, Lex was the only person here right now. She might not know what it was like to be a victor, but Annie could tell that Lex might know what it is like to be judged before you even walked into a room.

She kept rocking back and forth. ”I wouldn’t wish this on any of you guys. Ill take the burden, so you all can hold on to the lives you have now.” Annie said as she took another long sip. ”That is, if you would let me.” The beer came down and rested on her lap and she let a smile form on her lips. Of course, she knew that Lex could easily tell her know, that she was just as rebellious as Annie was, and that she had things to say, and things to feel as well. Annie on the other hand wouldn’t let her, because as much as she appreciated the fire known as Lex Lionel, Annie could fight her own battles, no matter how much she would lose at the end.

[aya]

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i'm at a loss, i'm at a loss
i'm losing grip, the fabric's ripped

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She studies the newly crowned victor for a moment, trying to read her expression for something that registers as sarcasm or joke, then gulps down the rest of her stout when no tells make themselves apparent. Hardly pausing for the last malty swallow to make it past her trachea, Lex immediately protests the sentiment:

"Oh, c'mon Annie. Don't make yourself out to be a martyr for the twenty-three people who literally died for you." Caught by the absurdity of the monologue, the situation, Lex laughs, brow furrowed and head shaking. That can't be what Annie thinks of the rest of them, can it? That they're better off for having died so they don't need to — to what? Navigate awkward social situations here and there? "Get fucked," she chuckles, "that's ridiculous."

Sure, barring the part where the guillotine blade of next year's Reaping still hovers over her exposed neck, Lex is totally content with not having to go through the song-and-dance of victory tours and Capitol appearances and mentoring any unlucky bastards ostensibly under her care. But in this regard she suspects she's the exception and not the rule: Lex had a suspiciously easy Games, even up through her relatively peaceful death. It would be bullshit to say she's better for having gone through any of it — it would be bullshit to say that for any of their compatriots, she thinks — but it's not exactly an ill that wouldn't be alleviated somewhat with the new house, the vast sums of money, and the immunity from future Reapings that accompany the crown. Maybe Lex wouldn't trade her easy passing and her quasi-vacation for the title of Victor and the accompanying responsibilities, but that isn't to say that someone like Faux or Carmen or Carter or the Theft twins wouldn't.

"You've been hanging around with de Costa too much the way you talk about burdens. He didn't seem to understand them either." She still remembers that day vividly, unsheathing Denali's knife from the tin O on the hillside, dislodging the RLS Trolley Problem from the tree stump, slinging semi-coherent curses at her dumbass district partner, fully frustrated with his hypocritical insistence that he'd be no onus on his mentor, his murderer, anyone at all. "They're not playing cards. You can't just trade them around or tear them up. That's what makes them burdens."

She saunters back over to her workbench for that second beer and stays put, leaning casually against the counter. Sip. Sigh. "It's not any easier being that kid who came back to life, you know." Out and about in the District, she catches more stares than she would've if she'd won the damn thing, she thinks. They never look for long — Lex stares back, daring them to say something, to give a voice to that patronizing mixture of acrimony and pity. No one ever picks up that gauntlet the way she wishes they would. All-out confrontation would be preferable to the averted gazes and whispered speculations of cowards who can't bring themselves to admit to resenting a kid for the things that happened to her against her will.

"Don't think you're doing anyone any favors for having won the damn thing. It happened. There's no taking any of it back." No take backsies, whispers a voice in the back of her head. No guilt. No apologies. "Don't insult the rest of us by regretting it. Okay? No one wants that." She picks a stray g-clamp from the bench and absently spins the screw. Maybe the delivery was a bit harsh, but Lex means it. She didn't have to think too long about her run in the 80th Games to decide that she wouldn't have changed a single thing about it, knowing everything she knows now. Being so sure, so decisive makes it hard to empathize with any contrition — especially from the person who objectively had the best outcome.

"What I mean is you can't have it both ways." She tightens the clamp against the edge of the bench, then turns her attention back to Annie, locking her eyes on the victor. "Feeling sorry for yourself doesn't do anyone else any favors. Feel however you want. But you're not my hero and I don't want your pity."

With a shrug, she drops the subject and picks up the unopened bottle in its stead. "Another beer?"

sleep well beast the national
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