fantasia of a gypsy — francisco's.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

   




             

( so i'm back to the velvet underground
back to the floor that i love
to a room where sun lays
and paper flowers
back to the gypsy that i was )

         He has seen the omens.

First, it was the broken vase in the justice building, dirty plant water lapping at his toes through the socks whilst Denali Lyons observed him. Then, came the ravens with their dark plumes and the twisted, equine creature. The last, he muses, was the berserk skeleton of the elephant. All these omens had marked him for Death, and now that it has discovered Francis, it refuses to set him free.

He stirs within Nico’s good arm; the other had feebly taken him to the mouth of the sunflower field, where the dry and colorless earth becomes vivid with yellow and where Francis feels most at home.

A hand raises gently and drags itself across Nico’s cheeks, caressing the flushed skin there.

“It’s okay,” he assures him with a kind smile, “it doesn’t hurt.” Francisco Bloom has always been fractured and fragile, his body painted with fissures, and all of it took was a tap from Diana’s club to break him. But, he loves this fragility of himself because it makes him something he’s proud to be – a fragile, soft creature, with bones spun from cedarwood and skin fragrant of pollen and nectar.

“You have to take care of yourself now, Nico.” He breathes over the other’s mouth. Francis has sacrificed himself for the other and call him selfish but he does not want his efforts to be wasted – he wants Nico to escape this purgatory summer, to go back home and call it a long day. There is no one as deserving of the victor status than Nico Thorne, who pried open his steel heart to make room for love. Francis believes that the strongest heroes aren’t the ones who live, but the ones who love the most. “You have to tend to your wounds and rein your anger in.” Francis could still feel that fury he’s seen in the other’s gaze, humming in sync with his heartbeat which he rests his palm against to listen to.

         “And, you have to kill them.”

It is a cold truth that strays far from his own beliefs, he knows, but a truth nevertheless. Only showering Death with ample sacrifices can steer its hands away from you.

         “I love you, Nico Thorne.

I don’t know why and how I ended up loving you but I do, I do and I do.” No tears spill from Francis’s eyes, but there’s a sadness that is too profound for tears in his words. “And, I don’t want to leave you because you’re my anchor – I don’t know where I’ll drift to if you aren’t there to tie me down.” Dread softly fills his lungs and the wiling flowers along the pulmonary linings do not soak it up.

But, he doesn’t need to be afraid; Death is gentle. Its hands are kind and it waits with its wings outstretched near Francis, looking at him with a gaze full of things and sentiments he couldn’t name clearly so he regards them plainly as melancholy.

( & it all comes down to you
well, you know that it does, well
lightning strikes
maybe once, maybe twice
oh & it lights up the night )

       He looks at the world around him.

It could had been a paradise, this place, lush with life and insects and flora that would only grow for centuries and centuries to come. The sunflowers sway gently and the faint chorus of their stalks brushing against other stalks sound like an ancient hymn, like they’re singing for their lost heir. Gingerly, Francis’ feet slip out of his leather boots and, now barefoot, he takes a step forward into the field. The ground is coarse below his soles but this path he plans to make feel accurate, feels like a path to home. Midway, he stops and gently spins around to face Nico.

The other is far from what a flower is – all steel bones and war, trumpets of battle sometimes playing in lieu of his heartbeat – and it makes Francis wonder about his passion with him. He’s only loved flowers, kissed flowers and worshiped flowers, but now he’s done the same things for Nico Thorne and so much more.

Perhaps, Francisco Bloom is attracted to lonely things instead; flowers are lonely and so is Nico Thorne and he wants nothing more than to unmake this loneliness.

       “Whenever you feel lonesome, think of me.”

Hands grasp the tattered black hat on his head; a few sunflowers are scattered and torn from where Diana’s struck him but most are still alive, despite all odds. He hands it at Nico and it drops near his feet, a crown flung away. Francisco doesn’t need crowns now, not when he is greater and more ethereal than any king or emperor. The forests are his crowns, the rivers are his blood; he is an extension of the earth itself now, one of its organs, a cluster of it issues.

         “When you see a flower,
           alive despite all odds,
           let it remind you of me.”

( to the gypsy
that remains
his face says
freedom
with a little fear )

[ruby wolfe [d2] kaitlin.]

Split me an ocean
Make my mountain move
Oh, baby, I'll remember you

Nico should have seen this coming.

And he had, hadn't he?

He had spent their last night together under a starless sky, had rode in heartbroken anger and silence towards the cornucopia and wanted to keep moving. He hadn't wanted to stay there, in that white house with paper's plastered all along its walls. When the flyer with his mother's face had flown at him and blinded him to everything else, his body had wanted to run, had known that this was a place of darkness, that this was a place of death, a place where first blood had been spilt and he knew that it would be again.

He had been so sure it would be him.

He hadn't even dared think it would be Francis's.

It had been so unimaginable, a fate that he would never think someone would subject this boy to. This boy who was built from sunshine, who had flowers where his heart was, their stems growing through him, wrapping around his bones and turning every part of him beautiful. Nico could never have dreamed that the world would be so cruel to a soul like Francis's, that someone so filled with love and kindness could be forced to die a death meant for someone else—and it was meant for someone else, this much Nico knows beyond a doubt.

He remembers Francis stepping in front of him all too well, heart bared and ready for Death to snatch it from his chest. Nico wishes that he could just snatch it back from Death, wishes that he could take it all back, that he could go back in time and never meet Francis, never sit with him on a rooftop and laugh as he danced along a bench under the stars, a towering tree standing tall over them both. He wishes, as much as he knows that Francis is the reason he is the man he has become, that they could have never met, because if they never met then Francis would never have stepped in front of him, would never have sacrificed his life for Nico's own. Diana's weapon had been meant for Nico, had been trained on Nico's own soul until Francis stepped in to save him, and if they had never met perhaps he could have made it until the end.

Perhaps, without Nico, he could have won.

Instead, Death waits and the sunshine tastes like ash.

Here, standing among the sunflowers, Francis looks so at home, but there's blood trailing down his neck and Nico doesn't think that the other boy has even realized it. "“It’s okay; it doesn’t hurt,” Francis says, hand against Nico's cheek, and all he can think is how wrong he is. Yes, it does, he wants to shout. It hurts so badly that I can feel my bones splintering. It hurts so bad I feel like I'm coming undone.

But Nico doesn't say that, could never bring himself to spit those kinds of truths. Not at Francis, and definitely not now. “You have to take care of yourself now, Nico,” Francis says against Nico's own mouth, but he can't bring himself to kiss the other boy fully. His lips are quivering too much, and he knows that his face must look like fallen ash, knows that there are tears on his marred cheeks, trailing over the very scars that Francis himself had helped to heal. He lifts his trembling hand and strokes Francis's blood stained cheek.

There was so much blood.

Nico is covered in it from their ride and from the fight, but he can't care about his own wounds right now, doesn't care about the blood soaking through his clothes. It had soaked through everything, he thinks, can maybe even feel where it has seeped into his black boots.

“You have to tend to your wounds and rein your anger in,” Francis goes on, and Nico needs him to stop, needs him to stop giving wisdom and stop giving kindness. All he has ever know is anger and disappointment, and even with everything that Francis has taught him, he doesn't know how to handle this, doesn't know what to do or how to act. “And, you have to kill them.”

Despite what Francis has just told him, Nico feels that white hot flash of anger and rage crack through his ribs, can feel the place on his chest still where Diana had ripped through his armor and left a bruise in her path. He can't help it, though he fights it as best that he can. He's still trying to find the lines between what is nurture and what is nature, and if he can ignore them both a teach himself something entirely new, if he can forsake everything that he has ever thought about himself and become someone worthy of the barbed wire crown the victor of this games would be crowned with.

He was still trying to figure out how to deserve to live.

When Francis says I love you the tears stop.

He doesn't remember exactly when they started, only knows that the stop falling the moment those words spill from Francis's mouth, only knows that they begin to dry on his cheeks for the time being when he goes on. "I know," he says, so much more steadily than he would have expected. His voice isn't quivering, like he might have thought it would, almost like Nicos wants in his last moments with Francis to be as strong as the boy Francis had fallen in with, no matter how far away that boy feels now. "You never needed me to keep you grounded," he says, eyes deadlocked on Francis's own. He leans his forehead against Francis's, but doesn't close his eyes, just gazes down the slope of the other boys nose, memorizing the shape of it, committing every inch of him to memory.

"I know exactly where you'll go, where I'm going to look for you every moment of every day." He pulls back a half-breath, to where they are still sharing air but Nico can look into his eyes. "I'll find you in the stars, and in the earth. Bits and pieces of you will always be near me, in the grass under my feet and in the breeze in my lungs, the water I drink and the plants that save me." He smiles softly at the memory of them in the training center one day, Francis pointing out different plant species to him.

"It's why I fell in love with you," Nico goes on, and finally his breath hitches again, and new tears threaten to come forth. "Because you're a part of everything around you."

When Francis steps away from him, Nico lets him, his hand still extending as if trailing after him for just a moment before it falls to his side.

“Whenever you feel lonesome, think of me," Francis says, and Nico just tilts his head, endeared, letting him go on, letting him have his moment under the sun. Nico watches on as Francis takes off his crown of sunflowers, drops it to the ground at his feet. “When you see a flower, alive despite all odds, let it remind you of me.”

Nico can feel the distance growing, can feel Death slipping closer and closer, can feel him taking Francis from his minute by minute, time running out more and more quickly, but Nico can't interrupt him, can't step forwards and just kiss him until neither of them can breath anymore. Francis has always belonged to the earth, no matter what he says about Nico being his anchor. He can't take Francis away from his home now.

"Then I will think of you always," he replies finally.

He has been alone his entire life, even when he was not, even when he was in the arms of another or when he was being tucked into bed by his mother or when he was trying to take care of Taylor, Nico has always been alone. For his entire like, it has been anger that consumed his thoughts in those times, rage and a need for vengeance that kept him breathing.

Now, standing among the sunflowers,
he is finally ready for that to change.


"And I will stay alive like you," he goes on, staggering forwards, not close enough to touch, but needing this distance to be less. "Against all the odds—I'm going to do everything to win, to make it out of here. I vowed to keep you safe, to make sure that you won, and I failed you and—Francis, I'm so sorry for that," he has to stop, to inhale a shuddering breath and will his heart to slow, to not let the guilt consume him the way Francis was so clearly scared that it would. "I'm going to win for you."

A beat, maybe two.

"I'm going to live for you."

Show me a God that I can believe in
Show me some stars beneath this ceiling
And I'll remember you


song: remember
by seinabo sey

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

   




             

( he is dancing away
from you now
he was just a wish
he was just a wish )

There’s a saddening beauty to Francisco’s surrender and natural grace in how he lays his tired bones upon the bed of sunflowers. He’s spewed the world back out and all that remains within him, is a dying orchard brimmed with dead carnations and naked trees.

He can feel the start of the decomposition, feel the decay quietly creep on his organs, feel the muscles clench and harden but Death hovers over him to kiss the pain away. Its lips taste like broken dreams and last breaths. They are so much colder than Nico’s but hold the same comfort.

The world quietens; the only sounds that linger are the birdsongs from afar and the whispers of sunflower leaves around him as they embrace and caress each other in soft grief. This is the tale of a boy who loved to loved; his heart is a foliage, greenery piled on top of greenery, and his hands are gentle as they splay out across the earth below to caress it.

         But, this is also the rebirth of a nymph.

First, there is the somber quietness, stretching on for miles and miles across the sunflower field, lasting for what seems like minutes. It is the sort of quiet that would follow a funeral pyre, when the flames have burned out and all that is left, is a circle of embers.

Then, there is the crunch of a sunflower root and the twist of a sunflower stem. Pollen dust explodes, scenting the air with its cool odor. The ground below hums and hums to a rising crescendo and in a matter of seconds, the sunflower field is alive — astir with moving roots and dancing petals that seek Francis’ body. Tall stems elongate, spanning into thick vines, and attach themselves to his physique. The earth splits, a fissure breaking and breaking and breaking, and the sunflowers lean over him in respect and longing. He is their heir, and they refuse to let him go; the heir of sunflowers belongs to them only.

And so they grow, vines and roots and yellow leaves crisscrossing over tender skin, desperate to serve as its young warrior’s coffin. They web over the bee broach he’s found in a sunflower, they web over the few wounds he’s gotten in the previous frays, they web over his heart and his eyes, they web over his world.

The flowers in his rib-cage wilt but he feels that a new form of growth have arisen from the center of his chest. It’s his soul, slowly peeling itself away from this dying vessel, detaching itself from every fiber and each tendon. It wants to soar, fly, take flight. 

Before they could web over the mouth, Francis whispers, loud enough for Nico to hear over the twist and bend of stems and roots: “— I love you.” Then, they do web over his mouth, roseate lips tasting earth and sunflower roots, and the earth takes him underground, to its heart, back to where he belongs.

         Bury these bones &,
         take all of him home.

It’s a warm place where the air is sweet, the flowers sing and the woods bristle with old magic. It has trees taller than the ones Denali Lyon had told him about, trees that pierce through clouds and dance with the thunder. It has continents full of gardens and orchards, always dancing and rustling, every flower in each of them amaranthine. This world is a wet mold for Francis’ gentle hands to shape, and it has an empty throne, draped in floras, waiting for its heir’s return.

He wakes up to the scent of the most fragrant pollen he’s ever smelled, dressed in cornflowers and daises.

         Immediately, he knows he is home.

( he was just a wish )