Boiling point [Beck; VT with Aveo]

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Aveo Angevin "One day, what you did won't matter. What you leave behind will." Six months... Six months had passed and the household had gained a new lease on life. It was much less chaotic then before. A lot more quiet without all the fighting and bickering between the oldest and the youngest. Two children now occupied the house, one per each bedroom. Though, in the tranquil routine was something amiss that would never return. Aveo's room grew warmer as the sunlight started to flood in and a gentle knock on the door came to greet him. Of course, it was returned with a groan. "Go away!" He grumbled, raising an arm as if to swat away the disturbance that might already be in his room. Moments later he let his body slip back into the recesses of his mind. Another dream yet emerged but this one seemed to be filled with anguish and crimson pools and no sooner had his body fully relaxed, he felt the jolt of fear penetrate his heart and he jerked awake. Bolting up in his bed, he clutched his chest and gathered his senses. "Ripred's sake..." His chest began to heave and his body glistened with sweat as he let his eyes focus and settle back on the room he called his own. The aquarium glass that held his precious friends and the card house he'd made last night had fallen over, now scattered on the floor. His sheets sodden were with fear as he remembered all too quickly that this day would be one that he would remember for the rest of his life, aside from the sword that rid him of the only thing that made his life a living hell. "The tour..." A hand reached up to his face, wiping away the damp that decorated his features and as he pulled himself from the bed, he picked up the caterpillar pillow from the floor and placed it gently on the shelf once more. "Hey guys! Anyone going to emerge from their cocoons today? Anyone brave enough to see what's out here and venture out into the great unknown?" He clicked the light on and got a better look to see one of the butterflies had been half formed and no longer moving. Inside, a pang of guilt that through all of the trouble and change it had tried to do, it was nary enough to survive. "Sorry, Quillen. You'll rest later. Don't worry." He reached inside and pulled it out to put it in the drawer until he returned home. Again, a gentle knock came to the door and another groan greeted the visitor. "Aveo? Mom said it's time to leave. We'll see you there when it's time." Her voice had no perk anymore, but like any little kid, she pretended that everything was okay. She's the one who took it the hardest maybe because she felt guilty that she fought with her all the time. She had told him that the day she went to the justice building to see her off, that Amberly didn't even reciprocate the feelings back at her. Maybe that was a good thing. As he opened the door to see her face, it was red and her eyes already wavy with tears. Then again, maybe not. His hand reached up to her cheek and without a word, passed by her. Even as he passed by Alaxa's room, he diverted his gaze away unable to look inside. "Didn't you say we had to get going already? Come on, Alaxa." His attire was nothing special but as he looked in the mirror he began to hate what he saw. His unkempt hair was a problem, no amount of brushing could tame his locks. His gangly arms that hung down by his sides and the pants that were almost two sizes too big and being held up by a belt. New clothes were not going to be purchased unless his had became unwearable as to save money since they had one less to help with income. He watched his family walk out of his house before he ran back to his room to gather up supplies. A jar that held three cocoons and he knew that they'd be emerging any day now. The countdown started two weeks previous and movement was already happening. He could only hope that the newest victor would appreciate the sentiment he was fixing to bestow upon him. "Beck, I have so many questions I want to ask you when I meet you." His whispers were carried on the wind as he was ushered to where the family's gathered.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"former heroes
who quit too late
who just wanna fill up
the trophy case again."

Mutually assured destruction, that's what the Victory Tour was meant to be. Dressed up in all this pretty pink finery, the expensive silk streamers they shot into hollow-eyed crowds was braided into the noose laid heavy against the back of his neck. They made him face them, they made them face him. He'd done this nine times over but each new speech was akin to ripping stitches off a freshly sewn wound. He could speak from experience just how excruciating that was.

He'd rarely been off of Hailsham island. Beck's world had been small, he'd traced the same worn roads for seventeen years and felt the burn of seawater flooding his lungs every time he'd even dared to dream of anything bigger. Now, he'd seen so much that nothing seemed special anymore. The luxury of District One, the acrid burn of pollution in Three, they were all slaves to the same sunrise. Beck hadn't freed himself of his cage - it had merely expanded.

It was tiring to keep up this constant performance. This blinding smile made his cheeks ache and the palms of strangers felt clammy and uncomfortable. He didn't want to be left alone but he certainly didn't want to be here, crumbling beneath the weight of a thousand eyeless gazes. He lived long enough to learn that camera lenses could cut deeper than a blade. It felt wrong to call that victory.

This speech wasn't any different than the last. He read the words they told him to pretend he meant and tried to keep him from withering beneath the weight of his captive audience's contempt. District Ten must see him for what he is, it was an earnest place. Full of sprawling fields and the faint scent of manure it was free of the upper district's delusions of grandeur. To them he wasn't a hero, he was a murderer. A rich bastard come to look down at them, to prove to them that he had everything they didn't. Of course, they'd pretend to love him. Beck would too if he felt the cold kiss of a peacekeeper's gun to his back.

He speaks a final sentence, some bullshit about serving Panem faithfully, and sags beneath the relief of this ending. His next few hours would be full of strangers and suffocation but that was okay. All that meant was he was this much closer to freedom. Sleep had always been a luxury Beck Hailsham could not afford but staring at the ceiling for six hours was preferable to all this performing. Dishonesty was utterly exhausting. But he'd always known that.

Silas has meant something to him, at least he was sure of that at one point. It occurred to him how little he knew about him only when he was ushered toward the tributes families. Would he meet someone who'd known Silas? Would they be angry?

He'd hated Ridley, he'd despised her the minute she set food in his district. She was like a plague descended upon them, he'd wanted her out of his home the minute he laid eyes upon her. That's how they must see him, right? As a reaper, an enemy.

"Beck, I have so many questions I want to ask you when I meet you." A voice tears him from his panic and he realizes then just how white his knuckles had gone. His nails cut into the flesh of his palm, deep enough to draw blood. His head snaps toward the voice, smile already in place as he regards the stranger he'd stolen something dear from.

The resemblance is striking. For a moment all he can see is Amberly, the cut of his jaw and the curve of his eyes, even the way his lips wrap around his words reminds him of her. "You knew Amberly, yeah?" His words tumble away from him faster than he intended, his smile has slipped and his mask had come undone. He hadn't meant to speak as Beck, the boy and not Beck, the Victor but the sight of this ghost had left him vulnerable.

His interaction with Amberly had been brief, but the monster they'd faced still haunts his every nightmare. Sophie had taken something dear from her. An ally, a friend. He'd never gotten to find out how she met her end. That might be worse than taking her life himself, he can't offer him any closure.

"I uh... I'm sorry for your loss. Amberly fought bravely." The words hang lamely in the air and he tries not to gag at the taste they leave upon his tongue. "Ask away. I haven't forgotten any of them." That was his promise, after all.