this city of gold — lazarus. & nico.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

 (LAZARUS)

Lazarus was stirred awake by the sound of his wine glass breaking. It was a sharp and momentary sound, something that broken egg-shells would make. But, when you had unknowingly touched the shards and they had unknowingly made your fingers bleed, the sound became something else in a split second—

an omen, a warning.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath as a pearl of blood rose from the cut. Lazarus brought it to his mouth, and made his tongue lap at it. For a few seconds, it tasted as though he’d swallowed the rustic wish-coins of some well. Fortunately, the taste ushered the fog in his head elsewhere.

Somewhere in between his third sketch of the day and his seventh poem of the week, he’d fallen asleep, and now graphite smudges marked his hands: ashen and luminous like the carcass of a once-bright fireplace.

The sketch, was of a slender, night-hued coat, taut around the shoulders but aspread near the ends. A red marker had been used to color in the roses that would cascade down from the coat’s shoulder-blades, resembling a flamingo’s hide—but instead of feathers, there would be a rose field.

The poem, dark and slashed with lines gruesomely, was all spiraled and twisted, the metaphors broken and then reassembled together in a haste, the imagery an ivory haze. It was the tale of an animal that’d learnt to speak the human tongue and fallen in love a prince. He’d written it with Vargen Forrester’s face etched in his head; those cold eyes as feral as a wolf’s.

He knew he shouldn’t have dozed off when he rose onto his two feet and every bone in his form creaked in protest, each one wearier than the next. But, Lazarus couldn’t stay in bed forever, not when there were soirees he’d been tasked to go, parties that had sent him invitations written in ornate cursive, sealed with fruit-scented wax.

They lived as lavishly as one could here—

everything in his world bejeweled and gold ever since Lazarus knew how to remember them.

“Thank you,” he said and offered a chaste wink to a waiter that had brought him a flute of champagne, before letting his eyes return to the hall, brimmed with aristocrats and chandeliers and silver platters. His throat became curdled for a second at all of this: the unnecessary wealth, the needless opulence.

But, it stopped when Nico Thorne walked to the bar.

The other was a sunken creature, with hollow cheeks and an equally hollow gaze. If there was light and warmth inside him once, it was long gone; now, only motes of dust and shadows, gnarled as wood, danced in him. The capitol's gold had stained and gotten to him too, it seemed; because that ash-black hair he had before was now bleached to a powdery, white blonde.

Lazarus’ fingertips twirled up a lock to scrutinize it.

“Who did you go to for this?” he queried, the nonchalance so thick in his tone it became obvious at once that it was feigned. “They did a horrendous job, babe.” He let his eyes settle upon him, the stolen blue sky in the two orbs. “Are you here to drink until you drop? The papers say you’ve been making that a weekly thing.”

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

N I C O      T H O R N E

The gazes are like lightning on his face.

He feels them every time he leaves the safe haven of the District Twelve suite, not that that place actually has ever felt like a place to hide, like a place to live, like a place he could ever be himself. It's strange, he hates being there and he hates being out, hates everything about this god-forsaken place, and yet can never seem to get enough of it. Last year was the same, but even worse, doesn't remember if he slept in his bed a single time or if he was on a pill or had downed a drink and was on his feet until the sun rose every morning. He hates it, and he drowns himself in it, loses himself in the moments, dives headfirst into the abyss that is the Capitol.

If he were being honest with himself, he supposes he would realize that he's trying to fill the abyss in his chest by losing himself in the darkness surrounding him, by dancing under neon lights and drinking pretty cocktails, kissing pretty girls and letting pretty boys kiss him. He wishes that there was a pill that he could take that would make him stop feeling like this, feeling empty and hungry all at once, needing something and needing for nothing to happen, for nothing to change and for nothing to be the same. He wants to unbecome, to go back, to be something other than the man that he is. He is useless and necessary, a lifeline to the children sent to murder other children, and yet unable to save them both. He sent Prismarine and Reggie into that arena knowing that he could only save one of them, useless and yet he has to fight day in and day out, night after night for the next however long just to try and see if the boy who he doesn't deserve will be allowed to breathe another day, if the tiny little force-of-nature caged in a girl's chest who deserves a better mentor will ever see a real sunrise again. He wishes there was a pill that would turn him into someone else, anyone else, someone more useless, someone more useful, someone not lost in the middle of the abyss with no motivation to get out.

But time doesn't sleep, and neither does he, and in the city that hates him almost as much as it loves him, there's really no other way for him to be.

And that's the worst fact of all.

He rolls out of the bed he's in, throws the clothes that he was wearing earlier back on, knows that their makeshift home on the floor would probably make Jenas burst out in tears if he ever saw it, but he just doesn't care. There's a bottle of liquor that tastes cheap even though he knows it's expensive in his jacket pocket, and he twists the top of it off as he slips into his black loafers and walks out the door and through the street, letting the night air hit his cheeks until once again he's suffocating in a crowded room of lightning. His whole suit tonight is black—black velvet jacket, black velvet pants, a once-crisp black button-down shirt.

He looks fit for a funeral—his own, or someone else's.

He's not sure he has a preference.

What he does have a preference about, however, is people touching him, and when none other than Lazarus himself steps into Nico's space and twirls his hair around his finger, it takes everything in Nico's will-power not to take both his hands and wrap them around the other man's throat. It's still a tension that he needs to get over, a pet-peeve that he needs to put down, but he can't help it. Since he won the games, people have stepped into his personal space time and time again, seen him on their screens and claimed his body as their own, crooned and sighed about how they just felt his pain when he lost those two limbs, ran their hands up and down his prosthetic and marveled about how real it looks. "Did you really lose your arm and leg or was that just for show?" a girl had asked him once, running her hand down his chest. He'd laughed, smiled until she could see his canines, and told her it was all for show.

After all, everything nowadays is.

"I'm not your babe," he says, eyes hollow and mouth a flat line. It's a crack in the veneer, unable to allow himself to be possessed by anyone other than a boy with sunflowers in his blood. "And if you have a problem with my hair, take it up with Jenas. I don't give a fuck about it either way." He plucks his drink from the bar, flashing pearly whites at the bartender. "He's the one who insisted on it," he goes on. "As for the drinks, I'd say the papers got it wrong." This time he gives Laz the smile, all sharp edges and not enough kindness. "It's not weekly—it's daily."

He lifts his drink in a false salute.

"Care to join me tonight?"

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

 (LAZARUS)

Lazarus had seen fragments of his games—the bloodstained sunflowers, the dancing grass plains, Nico with his teeth gritted and eyes agleam with hostility. He was a warrior then, someone cruel and twisted, a feral god of a boy that was unafraid to bare his fangs at the world.

This Nico was the frayed remnants of that godhood, an altar overturned, that divinity plucked away until all that was left were holy bones.

Lazarus looked at him and did not hide the pity that swirled in his gaze. His hand itched to write a poem about Nico, or make an attire inspired by his story. Both, possibly, if this passion could last for more than day. He could already foresee the lines, and he was already charting out the attire in his head. A hybrid between a frock coat and a sturdy armor, perhaps, beauty fused together with a garb of war.

He knew he’d gotten lost in his own reveries again when the question Nico posed hung in the air between them with no response.

Shaking his head, Lazarus said and made a dismissive wave of his hand. “No, I don’t think I will.” He set down the champagne flute in his hand on the bar counter. “I am not that depressed of a man to drown his sorrows in drinks every night, at least not yet.” Lazarus let out a laugh, tiny and forced. Then, the double-edged meaning of his words cut him and he was quick to spare the other an apologetic glance. “I didn’t mean that – well, I did. But, don’t worry, it isn’t judgment.”

If he was chosen to slaughter twenty-three children, he would do the same thing, every hour even.

Such tragic creatures these victors were, hopelessly chained to their guilt for the rest of their lives. He pitied them. Nico Thorne was no longer a god – he was a plaything, toyed with and coddled. He suddenly felt like an asshole for scrutinizing a lock of his hair without any permission, and that made him feel guiltier for what he decided to do next.

Inching closer to Nico, Lazarus reached for the drink in his hand and tossed its fizzling contents to the back of his throat. It burned, incredibly. He wondered how calloused and numb the other must be in order to swallow such fire water. When he opened his mouth to speak, he had to cough first, the taste lingering like rot in the cavern of the mouth.

“Fuck,” Lazarus gasped out.

“You drink that every day?”

He lowered his hand to brush the skin under which his liver laid, simply to make sure it hadn’t shriveled up and dried out from the single drink. Perhaps, Nico Thorne’s innards were nothing but husks now.

“Clearly, you came here just to get wasted – so why don’t we make use of all this free time you have? Let me fix that hair.” There was burning disdain and grimace in Lazarus’s eyes as they glanced up at the bleach job. He dreaded for the dire future of Nico’s hairline. “I can offer you wine back at my place, not this hellfire.” His throat tautened up in memory. “And, this shouldn’t even be said, but Jenas is a pompous, untalented fool.”

He eyed him, awaiting for his response.

Perhaps, he could be carved into a god once more.

Lazarus was eager to try.