rest on your laurels || patricia & beck VT blitz

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

Ghosts hung upon the horizon like a fog, his fingers skimming against their desperate hold as it lolls out of the train's open window. District Four was but a forgotten memory, a smattering of grayish-green to marr the roaring wildfire of dawn. Homecoming hadn't felt anything like home, more like he was back in the eye of the storm and those terrible creatures were spearing him upon those same sharp ends. Except now he was as much of a a monster as they. Leaving it behind meant he could breathe again. Not easy, no it was never easy, but at least he could breathe.

District Five was a safehaven of predictable expectation. Looking out at solemn strangers with a candied smile felt so good. No one here would pretend he was a hero, the only truth to be found within this crowd was the bite of envy that occasionally broke through their manufactured adoration. He was grateful that some still had the will to be so honest.

Sailor had curled his hair today, the ringlets were stiff and starchy against his cheeks and it was all he could to keep himself from raking his fingers through the perfection. The flash of camera lenses were the whisper of a threat against the pulse thrumming just beneath his jaw, rapid as a rabbit's between canine fangs. They couldn't kill him now, he was the epitome of Panem's success, but Beck was quick learning there were fates worse than death. The prospect of finding one of those terrible endings is what kept him bowed at the foot of Snow's throne, head bent in spite of the crown laid upon it.

Meeting with the other victors hadn't been so bad, though. Beck was hesitant to call any part of this tour a highlight, but so many seemed to understand. Not explicitly in words or actions and Beck is partway to fearing it's all in his head but fantasies of understanding are better than nothing at all.

He's nervous. He'd heard stories of Lethe and less of Patricia - the latter hadn't even shown up to the speech he'd foolishly bellowed not hours before.
He'd watched the districts decay as he made a home in each but Five marked a downward spiral into poverty and imperfection. He saw it in the way the cameras chose to focus more on his face than the rolling expanse of cramped houses and smog-stained horizon. The Capitol didn't want her people to see how these sad things lived, lest they might gain some twinge of sympathy.

Beck admits he never thought much of them before now, before Walter had woven stories of wanting everything he'd always had. Still, Victor's village is as grand as it was always meant to be but it is little more than a ghost town. The warm light spilling through the windows of occupied houses doesn't feel like a gift but a taunt.

(Look at what you could have. Look at what you never will.) Victors weren't meant to come from District Five, were they? That's the very reason the Capitol loved Beck as they did. The shackles around his ankles shift, tinny and shrill as it rings in his ears.

"Lethe needs a few moments to prepare for dinner, she'll be ready to see you in a while." A stranger speaks to him, as always her eyes attempt to bore into his own and Beck finds himself desperate for anything but. He rests his hand beneath his jaw, choosing to gaze out the carriage window instead.

"Yeah, sure."

His focus falls upon a garden resting in his periphery. It doesn't belong Lethe, he's parked just outside the Victor's house. Still it wasn't as manicured as those gutted mansions littering the length of this street. A woman sits within its belly, smoke curling out from between her lips. Patricia, it must be. Beck's knuckles go white as a craving sears up his spine like needles dug shallowly into his skin: how long has it been since I had a cigarette?

It didn't match his image. Beck Hailsham was meant to be a career not some pathetic teenager with a thousand vices and the will to do whatever he needs to access them. A long forgotten spark of rebellion ignites within him, quiet as he can he slips out from under his handler's nose and toward the other Victor. He can't help but be curious about her, she doesn't seem to play the game the way the others do.

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

As he draws closer his confidence begins to wane, sure steps stutter to a halt at the mouth of the garden. What was he thinking?! What had he thought he was going to say?

Hey I'm the newest victor! I was wondering why you don't pretend to worship me like anybody else, also can I bum a cigarette?

He's two seconds from turning away when destiny betrays him. His prostethic catches upon a patch of mud and he's still not used to the damned thing so half a second later he's crashing into the fence he'd tried to turn away from.

Pain, not unfamiliar anymore, greets him. His vision swims, followed by a pitiful groan as he catches himself upon his elbows and manages to skin them both in the process. "Fuck."

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

The remains of a three-egg omelette stubbornly cling to the side of an old, black frying pan - the shells discarded lazily into a stone-cold, half-drunk mug of coffee nearby on the marble counter. I dump a ketchup stained ceramic plate into the metal basin of my kitchen sink and make a mental note to maybe attempt to wash it up at some point before passing out on the sofa again. Given that it's not the only plate in there, chances are slim.

My tongue slides across my lower lip as I try to roll tobacco into paper, my forehead a creased expression of inward concentration and focus. I lick the paper again and roll it back and forwards until it sticks. You think I'd be good at this, but it's been a while since I rolled my own, dipping in and out of periods where I managed to convince myself to quit.

I twist the gas and pressing the black button to ignite the hob, leaning down at the stove, cigarette placed between my lips, and use the flame to light it. I turn off the gas just as quick as I turned it on, and enjoy the first few drags alone in my kitchen. At least I managed to get dressed today. I should write that in the damn therapy book.

I'm experimenting with brighter colours - a loud yellow shirt clad with pink triangles, and vibrant denim dungarees that make me look like a farmer. I've started tying back my bleach white hair too, as since I've started wearing glasses it's just been getting in the way. Maybe I should just cut out the middleman and shave it all off? No, I feel good lately, I don't want to change anything about myself, except maybe the nicotine dependency.

It's Victory Tour day, and Four's latest Career Victor is here to visit. Leon would have something wry to say about that, I'm sure. Shame I've not seen the guy in years, I miss his wits quicker than mine and the mischievous glimmer in his blue eyes - back when mischief was allowed and not punished with dehumanisation or public execution.

I didn't go to the speech, I have a doctor's note on behalf of the Capitol - let's me stay inside and generally not cause problems, not that I want to these days. I listened from here - they have giant speakers that echo and ring for miles. It was what it always is, humble, safe, and not-at-all his own words. I was the same.

As I step into my garden to smoke, I smell some kind of roast beef wafting out of Lethe's kitchen. Fuck, is it evening? I flick ash onto the marble and look out at the low sun. I guess it is. I need to get a better sleep schedule if I'm going to fix my broken, weary brain.

There's a crash, a yelp, and then a defeated "Fuck" to my left.

I look over at where my garden fence has caved in under the minor body weight of Beck Hailsham. I stare at him for a few seconds, then up at his entourage who are occupied at Lethe's, then back to the crumbled mess in the mud. He looks just like Barney.

"Last time I saw you, you were on that bridge, driving an axe into that Walter kids gut." I say, walking over until my shadow casts over him, "Now you're face-down in my petunias."

I take a slow drag of my cigarette, looking down at the victor of the eighty-fourth games. They always look so much smaller in real life.

"Funny how life works out." I extend my synthetic arm out to drag him to his feet.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

Brittle laughter fills the silence that falls after Patricia speaks. He struggles to blink away the stars born from his graceless impact and focus on the veil of moonlight framing her face. Strands of it curl against the line of her jaw as she looks down at him. He hates to imagine just how deep his blush has run, considering he can feel it crawling down his neck. Beck was not a man of first impressions it seemed.

He accepts her hand without ceremony, blowing the remnants ruined ringlets from his eyes as the world takes a few seconds to right itself. The crisp white of his pressed shirt now sports a mottled pattern of crushed leaves and mud. A rush of pride quirks the corner of his lips at the sight, quickly followed by exhasperation. Things were in a sorry state if getting dirty counted as some grand act of rebellion.

"The beauty of the Capitol's cut." His words hold a venom he can't contain. He'd watched the recap a thousand times over committing every lie they dared tell to memory. They wouldn't take the truth from him, he wouldn't let them. He owed it the ghosts he'd carried out of the arena.

Or maybe he owed it to himself to believe they were lies. His hands flex instinctually, feeling the weight of his axe within them once again. "Made me into quite the hero, eh?" His smile threatens to split his face in two, tasting strongly of melted plastic. "Guess I've kinda ruined the mystique now. That's a shame."

He doesn't feel all that sorry, dipping his head in as formal of a greeting as he can manage given the circumstance. "Nice to meet you, Patricia. Hope you're not too disappointed."

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

They make heroes of us all, so that we never forget that we are complicit. Do I say that to young Beck Hailsham? Do I break his spirit? Green behind the ears and eyes full of curiosity, I remind myself that this is all still new to him, as it was to me all those years ago. Which Victors told me the truth, and which tried to maintain the illusion?

When he bows, I shift my weight from one foot to the other, looking the boy up and down. I almost laugh. To be disappointed I’d have to have some kind of expectation, and I’m old enough now to know that victors are never the people that they showed you on television. They’re never the picture they painted.

"The only thing you’ve ruined is my fence." I sigh, looking at the mess of white splintered wood and uprooted flowers. I suppose it’s something different to do tomorrow.

I look over the boy’s shoulder again, to his entourage, who still haven’t noticed he has slipped away, "They’re driving you crazy already, huh?"

I take one last drag of my cigarette before dropping it on the marble stone pathway that leads to my front door, stamping out any last burning tobacco with my heel. I glance to the path that leads away from the entrance to victor’s village, a rear exit through a patch of woodland.

"Come on, let’s go for a walk." I tell him that’s what we’re doing, because I don’t know him, and if he’s going to dither then eventually someone will look over and see us. I walk up the garden, towards the main path, giving Beck a pat on the shoulder as I pass.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

"The only thing you've ruined is my fence." Like silk cutting through steel, Patricia's monotone shatters the bravado he wears like armor. It pools in platinum waves at his feet and he's rooted to the spot for a moment too many. She walks on ahead of him and Beck finds himself fighting a smile, eyes wide as saucers as he stares at the back of her head. This time it felt good to be left behind.

'Cause she was under the impression he'd be able to keep up. Not now, maybe, but eventually.

Time stopped for no one, cruel as mankind that had created her. It gave him little chance to grieve, stretching on to reveal a mountain of colorful confetti and propaganda posters. They wanted him numb and complient so they didn't leave even a second for idle thought.

Since he'd awoken in that white-washed infirmary, since he'd won, it seemed like everyone was trying to tell him what that was supposed to mean.

(You're so strong!

It's not your fault.

You should be proud.

You're a monster.

You'll be okay.)

And it wasn't like he'd figured out what Victory meant to him but no one had stopped to ask, either.

There was no time, after all.

His first few steps are heavy, pounding against the pavement in an uncertain cadence before breaking into a light jog to catch up with Patricia. "Already?" He scoffs, looking back at his carers and feeling bile rise in his throat. "Since day one." There was little Beck hated more than conformity, it felt against his very nature. He'd rallied against the machine for so long that that suffering had become inextricable from his pride.

And sure he could fight the Capitol like he had the Academy, but their punishments promised to be far more creative. Death was easy, vollied at every pest that scurried beneath their feet. There were worse fates in store for those in the spotlight. Instead he grew used to the bitter taste this career act left on his tongue. He'd wanted to live, after all.

They're headed toward the mouth of a forest and Beck's shoulders tense. It's as involuntary as the shame that burns the tips of his ears immediately after. He sets his jaw and looks toward the sky - evening has turned it the most lovely shade of lilac, rosy clouds silhouetting themselves against the sinking sun.

It'll be okay, as long as he can see the horizon. His fear is childish and pointless and

still raw.

"What was your story?" He shoves his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet a bit to calm his nerves. Beck had been little more than a year old when Patricia won. She'd played this game his entire lifetime. "Were you the hero? The villain?"

It was the first time in a while that curiosity had gotten the better of him.

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

We walk down the pathway, passing Samiyuq's moss-covered statue to where the marble tiles fade into dirt and the untamed grass sprouts wildly. The white ash trees force the dirt track to twist and weave through the woodland, between taller birches and broad maples. We walk beneath the evening chorus of warblers and redpolls, chickadees and mockingjays, pressing on away from the village as swiftly as we can.

I look to the boy, seventeen years my younger. He is tense, uncertain in my company, but he follows me through this strange forest all the same - because although we've never met, and although we've never spoken, we are bound by blood now. He's cursed, just like the rest of us, and no doubt he feels that maybe he wants someone to understand some of what he's going through.

I did too.

When he asks me about my story, about how the media painted me to the Capitol and the rest of Panem, I hesitate. It's never that black and white - everyone's hero is someone's villain, and I expect that Beck Hailsham is as hated in District Six as I am.

Beck's eyes hold a sympathy behind them, the very same that everyone saw on television. He was sorry for every single tribute that he had to kill, you could see the pain in his face, you could pinpoint the moment where his soul tore in two at having to take another life. He killed with dignity and some form of compassion, at least.

When I watch myself back sprinting through the darkness in night-vision goggles, leaping into the air and stabbing Cha Leviane through the eye, I don't see compassion. When I watch myself drowning Crusader Rhodes in a pool of mercury, I don't see empathy. When my sword pierced through Galaxy's chest and came out the other side, and she coughed up blood, I only see my wild, ruthless expression.

Beck's more of a hero than most of us.

I don't like telling my story, not when it's televised on repeats all year round, taught in history classes, and written all over my scarred neck, severed arm, aching back, and weary expression.

But I do tell him.

"Neither," I say after a short while, "They painted me as more of an anti-hero. Vengeful spirit bullshit."

After Pearl died, that's the angle they went with. A street-rat girl hell-bent on revenge, which of course led to me coming face-to-face with her killer. Such bullshit. My fists clench a little when I think of how something so deeply personal to me was transmitted for every soul in Panem to see. I felt something with Pearl that I don't think I'd ever felt before, which seems totally fucking stupid to admit when I only knew her for a few weeks.

But when you kill for each-other, when someone saves your life, when someone sees you at your absolute lowest point and does everything they can to make you laugh, or make you smile, yes that is different. I'm certain now that I was in love with her.

And they took that, and make it television drama, and everyone saw it.

But that's all in the terms and conditions, isn't it? That's the cost of winning.

Roots seem to twist and reach over the dry dirt pathway, and like to hide underneath the long shadows of twilight. The mossy bank veers and then drops slightly as we anchor left, and approach a longer downward slope, scarred with angled rocks and more roots.

I glance at Beck, remembering his artificial leg and warn him to be careful as we trek downhill for a little while and follow the avenue of pale white tree trunks.

"So, how are you doing?" I ask him, which is a genuine attempt to be empathetic - but it isn't in my nature, and I feel awkward asking him it. He's barely finished showering Walter Blake's blood off his skin, and here I am asking how he's doing. Fucking idiot, Trish.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

Maybe he's not supposed to look at Patricia and see what the Capitol wanted him to. Is that what would mark him a saint? Turning a blind eye to his reality out of stubborn naiveté and this stupid dedication to rebellion for rebellion's sake. Does he truly believe this is enough to begin washing out the blood caked beneath his nail-beds?

Truth is it's not hard to imagine her as vicious and arrogant as Career propaganda paints the middle districts out to be. When Beck attacked an unarmed man in the name of vengeance he'd been painted in golden halos and named a knight in polished onyx. Patricia does something even a fraction of cruel?

Well, the situation speaks for itself.

"Yeah, makes sense." Is all he can muster in response, trying to avoid her gaze by turning his to the treeline but finding that only grinds salt in fresh wounds. How quick that anti-hero has become a beacon of safety, a hempen rope braided around his waist and somehow keeping him tethered to reality. He looks at her, all sharp features and cigarette smoke, and lets himself believe he's not alone in the eye of that storm. A little moment of weakness from which he's trying to draw strength.

He shuffles a couple of steps closer to her and kicks up the dirt they both could have been rotting beneath if things had been just a bit different. If either of them had been only slightly less lucky. No one would think they were much different then. Beck opens his mouth, maybe to say just that, but finds that words fail.

He hopes she sees his swallowed pride in the smile he musters for her sake.

She warns him of the decline and though shame still paints his cheeks, the words don't feel like pity. It's kind of nice though not enough stop him from speeding up to prove she doesn't need to treat him like shattered glass.

(Even if that's exactly what he is.)

His leg starts aching after a couple of steps, but he's remorseless as a career should be. "So, how are you doing?" Beck's smile cracks genuine at the question. How exactly would she like him to respond?

Great, actually, thanks for asking.

Maybe he'd say just that if she wasn't his sole lifeline in a maze of alabaster gravestones. "Lonely, I guess." He brings his shoulders up to his ears in a drawn out shrug, trying to swallow the way his voice wants to break against those words.

When sleep evades him he finds he starts craving the nightmares. If only to see their faces one more time. No matter how grotesque his mind makes her, the memory of Sophie's hand woven through his is still warm enough to keep him from freezing over. What they had could not be captured by Capitol cameras, he takes a sick satisfaction from that.

Their speculation, their gossip, their shitty stories about star-crossed lovers and delicious tragedy is not his ending. It never was. Only Beck and Sophie knew what they had.

And now it's just Beck.

That's an agony he cannot put to words.

"I knew I had to win, but I didn't spend much time planning for what came after." The forest hasn't hurt him yet, it's peace is not as cruel as the jungle's had been. It's obvious that danger isn't lurking around every corner, but he just can't seem to convince himself of that.

"What should I do?" The question sounds as weak and pathetic as he feels.

He's finally alive, but he's never known how to live.

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

It is lonely at the top, I get what Beck means. You're put on a pedestal for everyone to see. People talk about you like you're an asset rather than a person. Everyone wants to know you, but no one wants to be your friend.

They'll be there for the photoshoots and the champagne galas, but when you're crying alone in your eggshell painted bedroom on cold winter nights, the only people that are there for you are the ghosts of the people you killed in cold blood - the ones who's bodies you used as ladders to climb your way to glory.

Sometimes I cling to their company, because the horror of it is the only part of any of this that feels real.

There are nights where I want to reach out and grab one of them, make them switch places with me, because I feel like I'm wasting this. I don't enjoy being a Victor. I'm not grateful for the opportunity, or happy that I get to live this new fantastic life - I feel like I'm taking this spot away from someone who would actually have gotten something out of this.

And I feel like no one else gets that. And I'm not saying that I'd rather be dead, because ever since our parents disowned us and we had to fend for ourselves, every part of my instinct has screamed survive, and that's etched into every fibre of my being.

But no one can be that strong for that long. And I'm not strong.

This kid - and he is just a kid, really - now looks to me with fear in his eyes. Genuine fear. And he asks me what he should do next, like I have all the answers. Like I can make it really simple for him and tell him how to live his life now he's won the Hunger Games like every boy from Four dreams, and the sad truth is I've got nothing for him. Nothing.

"I dunno, it was different for me. They took my life from me - I had to win it back." I say, thinking of how hollow I felt when they called my name. How Rose's screams made my blood run cold and how everything I knew turned on it's head. In Career districts it's very different, it's part of their culture to prepare for the Games, they even put themselves forwards.

The earth flattens out a bit as we bend round, the trees thinning a little as I spot the lake in the distance, between the pines. We stick to the trail, following the clusters of lavender and wild garlic sprouting from the side of the path. The smells here are sweet and strong, almost overpowering.

"You volunteered yourself for this. Surely you must have had some idea of what to expect?" I ask, looking over at the young boy who reminds me so much of my ally from the caves, "Or do they not prepare you for that over at Murder School?"

Maybe that was a bit insensitive, but in the end he's trained to endure worse. And he has.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

Beck was not a man meant for nineteenth birthdays. Peace for sad little Hailshams sat on the other side of paradise in funeral pyres. He was able to face death with such ferocity only because he was so used to her company. Their twisted tango spanned a decade, her fingers knotted tighter around his throat the harder he struggled. It makes him sick to remember the mornings he'd wake in a pool of his own vomit and waste the rest of the hangover telling himself he hadn't been hoping he wouldn't wake up at all.

(Because at least then he'd have died by his own hands.)

Maybe Bell knew that when she left him to volunteer, but Beck doesn't have that much faith in her. The Capitol fills their heads with such vivid color palettes of compliance that she probably thought she deserved that glory she almost chased to the end. Still, he envies that she got to die so absolutely her own. No one could claim Bell was theirs now, not like the Capitol does Beck.

"I knew what to expect." He confirms, though the words taste a bit bitter coming off his tongue. Beck had been a wonderful career before the drugs and the alcohol and the nihilism. He knew ten ways to kill a man before he could write, he was incessantly praised for his strength and for nothing else. Pigs for slaughter are only good for so much. "After all, my best friend died in the finale before mine."

He shifts under her attention, suddenly uncomfortable in her company. It's like the air has gone stale between them, filling his lungs too full as the terrain goes softer around them, hints of a lake lapping at its beach in the distance. Great, water.

"Ah!" He spots a dandelion peeking through a gap in a trunk and a thistle. Lit up with child-like excitement, he carefully stoops to his knee and coaxes the withering thing out of the earth. It's a lovely distraction, if anything.

Beck wasn't one for wishes, even as he runs a finger over the downy seeds he can't think of a single thing he's brave enough to ask for. Frivolous luxuries always made him uneasy, like he couldn't have too many good things before the scales began to tilt. "Here, you must have something you want."

He's well aware the subject change is forced, discomfort obvious in the way he can't bring himself to meet her eyes as he holds out his peace offering. He's irrational and absolutely indignant - desperate to keep Hailsham academy locked away in his heart like a dirty little secret.

If they ever looked past his reforged destiny they wouldn't see Beck Hailsham anymore, just the corpse he was meant to be.

And that's a thousand times worse than the accusation in her words. "I'm really just grateful I'm alive."

That's the closest to the truth he's willing to come.

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

Guilt bleeds in my chest as he tells me about his friend. I've never lost anyone to the Games - maybe Eden, but I must have spoken to the girl about twice in the eight years I knew her. I can't relate to his pain, even more so given the whole Career culture.

I don't remember much of Bell Hailsham. I was hooked up on morphine in a hospital bed when Ridley Le Roux stood the lone victor in the snow, claiming a thorny crown from the cold hands of three other Tributes. All I know is that she was one of the frozen corpses. She didn't get to go home.

But Beck did.

I feel bad that I don't have the answers he's looking for. I'm the worst person to be asking about what to do after winning, given all my failures, mistakes, the people I've left behind, the people I fought who I should have befriended. Hmph. Maybe that makes me the best person to ask.

But a Career? They're half-brainwashed to want to enter the Games and fight for glory. Well, he's got his glory. All the glory he could ever want.

"Good," I finally say in response, "You cling to that."

Beck tries to move on from the topic quickly, his surprise audible as he spots a flower he likes. This boy was murdering people barely a month ago.

I take the dandelion between two fingers, the stem feels wet. From the seeds grey umbrellas sprout, ready to hook onto a gust of wind and travel across the District, to land in soil and germinate far away from the mother plant.

"They kicked us out, Rose. They don't want us anymore."

Something I want.

What do I want? If I knew the answer to that then I'd be halfway to moving on with whatever is left of my life.

We reach the lake. It's not a natural lake, curving at a semicircle before abruptly stopping against a mechanical structure, half brick and half metal, that leans and drops suddenly down the edge of a huge cliff. The hydro-electric dam. It's one of many that power the Capitol and, if we're lucky, District Five. The lake is open access, so long as you don't go to near the dam there are never any issues with loitering on the dirt beach by the edge of the woodland.

As we arrive on the part-mud, part-sand bay, I pause and think for a second, before blowing on the head of the dandelion. The seeds scatter and drift out across the lake, a faint grey cloud dissipating in the breeze.

I want peace.

There's a dullness behind my eyes, because I know I'll never find it.

I sit down on a hand-carved wooden bench, and leave space enough for my companion. The view looks out perfectly on the lake, and there's enough quiet here to forget about the rest of the District, spare the low humming of the dam.

"If you didn't know what you wanted to do after winning, then why did you volunteer?" I ask him openly, "What did you kill those people for - glory?"

I look him carefully in the eye, because I like to think I can spot a liar in the act.

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

The gentle sound of water lapping against dirt is like nails against a chalkboard. He shoves his hands in his pockets to hide how they want to shake, eyes catching on the shadows curling in the water's depths whether he'd like them to or not. Beck's never been in danger of drowning, that's not why he fears the water. Patricia makes her wish and Beck watches as it's scattered pieces strangle themselves in a gentle current.

He doesn't ask what it was, he doesn't even try to guess. If there was anything to that stupid superstition, she deserves the chance at another miracle. He sits beside her, struggling a bit as he folds the fake leg underneath his real one. Yeah, he's probably supposed to be grateful for the oh so generous replacements but they make him terribly uneasy.

The real pieces of him died in that arena, without a doubt the Capitol has found a way to turn them into little bits of profit. They're notoriously thrifty. This arm? This leg? They aren't his. They're a sick imitation and a shitty apology for everything taken from him in that arena.

But it's easier to live like this so he accepted it anyway.

He picks at the hem of his jeans, satisfied at the stains that seep into the coarse material. "For glory?" He repeats Patricia's question back to her, staring over at the lake and remembering his sad little prison with a strange fondness, "As far as anyone's concerned, yeah." His laugh is full of self-loathing.

He's raised himself to be a coward.

And he could have left things there, but the sudden silence left his brain addled white noise. Like that night by the river, when he spilled his secrets to Sophie's ghost. "But really? I was dying."

He'd been to too many funerals to believe any different. Beck wishes he was so naive.

"I guess I figured I'd go out on my own terms or win, either way I'd spite that hellhole of an Orphanage doing it," Bell had gotten so close. He'd always admired her strength and turned a blind eye to her toxina. She was a beacon of broken hope and he still remembers the year he spent grieving her in a haze of smoke and liquor. "But that's kind of pathetic, so yeah, let's just go with glory."

To say that he's ashamed of his origins is an understatement. He carries the Hailsham name as a tribute to his betters, to lost friends and the little birds still trapped in canary cages. His brief stop in Four hadn't allowed for a visit, not that he'd have penciled one in regardless. If he had any choice in the matter he'd forget them all and finally move on with his life.

Good then, that there's no such thing as a choice in Panem.

He draws meaningless shapes in the mud, all to keep from looking at his companion. Lakes aren't as bad as the ocean, he decides, salty mist doesn't coat his skin and the scent of seaweed and fish shit doesn't burn the back of his throat. Though the murky odor is only marginally better. "I hated killing them." He draws a sharp line through a heart, and then another, until three arrows stick out of the childish drawing, "But I'd rather all of them be dead than me."

He wears his sins willingly, lest anyone mistake him for a victim.

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

The answer for me is simple, I killed to survive. I killed because I had no choice. Actively volunteering is on a whole different level to being reaped. Choosing to put yourself in that situation either means you revel in killing others and find sport in chasing that glory, or it means that your life is so bad you'd rather throw it all away for a shot of a new one.

The reality, it seems for Beck, is not that simple. An orphan raised maybe not in the best conditions. An existence he felt was slipping from his grasp. I can understand his motive a little better now, but it's still part of that Career District culture to be raised and trained for it. I could see that Beck was no stranger to wielding a weapon. It's not as black and white as I'd made it seem, and his answer is grey, but fair.

I could see how much he hated killing. I knew he didn't revel in it. I guess I was just curious as to why he'd put himself forward for the Games if that were the case. Now I know.

Fuck, it must have been rough in that orphanage to put himself through hell tand come out the other side, just to get out of it.

Maybe he didn't want to come out the other side. Maybe he wanted to close the curtains and call it a day.

"But I'd rather all of them be dead than me."

I don't believe him.

The stillness of the lake should calm me, but being here with Beck, talking about the Games - it unsettles me for some reason. Like there's a great mass above me pushing down on my chest, some sickly dread of a spider crawling across me, and my stomach drops in the brief moments where I forget that I killed five people to have the privilege of sitting here on this bench - alive.

I want to smoke, but I don't. I exhale all at once, exhausted by the weight of it all. Tired of carrying it around with me everywhere, never getting used to it even after sixteen years. My back hurts. Maybe one day I'll just collapse and that'll be it. I won't have to worry about it anymore. One day.

"Can I give you some advice, kid?" I say, looking out across the water. The trees stand upright like brushes painting the mountains on the horizon, and their inky reflections in the water blot and dance as the wind ripples their forms.

"Drop the act. You're a terrible liar." I say, turning to look him in the eyes. Ripred, he's still so young.

When you spend most your life wearing different masks, you start to see other people wearing the same ones you once did.

I don't buy the tough guy routine - the hardened killer, the swagger of someone who volunteered from a career district. He stinks of fresh blood and he still has the terror in his eyes of someone who was forced to murder other children - it hasn't left his face yet, not even remotely. He's like a young buck in the headlights and when I look at this little kid next to me I see exactly what he doesn't want me to see: a frightened teenager.

You can't con a con-artist.

"You're ashamed of what you did," I say to him, "Just accept it. I'm ashamed of what I had to do - We all are."

I lean back against the bench and admire the view, thinking of all the horrible things they made me do just so I could be lucky enough to enjoy such a simple pleasure as breathing woodland air on a brisk morning.

"The sooner you accept that it's part of the deal, the easier this will all be for you."

[[nyte]]

b e c k .

"when the lights come down,
got an empty crown"

No, he's not a good liar but he's always been good enough. Grimaces look like grins through television grain and everyone liked it better that way. There was no fun in peeling back skin thin as paper to watch his heart bleed beneath it. His home wanted a strong career, the Capitol wanted a pretty face, the losers wanted a monster to hate. Beck always thought he was doing them a favor by playing into their low expectations.

It's no wonder he crumples like this, faced with the the fractures in his own feeble facade. He's looking out at the lake through eyes gone misty, holding his breath to keep it from shaking. He's scared. He's scared that if he lets these storm clouds break there's no turning back. Wading through heavy fog half-alive is how he's learned to survive.

"What's the point in accepting it?" Hopeless and angry, hugging his knees because that used to make him feel safe. Nothing does anymore but what is it they say about old habits dying hard? "It feels... wrong. Like I'm giving up on them."

He'd never owned himself until that man was a murderer. Four lives by his own hand, but nineteen more that belonged to him. The burden seemed easy to bear in that arena where even dead grass looked greener, but maybe he should have just handed off this fucking guilt to someone stronger than who he didn't know he was becoming.

But Beck's always been too selfish for sacrifice.

But the agony? The nightmares? The shame that makes it near impossible to drag himself out of bed some mornings. "The fuck does easier even mean? I get to sleep through the night and they all get to be dead." In a way, Beck never escaped that arena. He's trapped himself within their memories, a tomb of his own creation. Stubbornly, he clings to it even now.

Is this really all for them?

Or is he too scared to face what comes after it all?

What would it mean to accept his shame? Sure his chest might feel a little lighter but at the cost of those precious faces going blurry around the edges. What if he forgets how Silas sounded or the color of Sophie's eyes? How long can he remember Gala's last moments and Walter's last words? Beck doesn't want to become a victor like Justice Fray - with eyes like obsidian as he stares at his little sister's casket.

Sometimes his suffering feels like it's all that's left of them.

"I don't want to leave them."

Please don't make me.

[rook]

.: patricia valfierno :.

It's easy for me to tell Beck to let them go. The dead are dead, and there's nothing you can ever do to bring them back. Sure, you can respect their memories for as long as you can, try and let their sacrifice live on inside of you, all the sentimental bullshit that helps you sleep at night, but ultimately the fact remains - you had to kill them to be stood where you are today.

Letting their deaths way you down for year after year is exhausting, and there's next to no point in beating yourself up for a situation that you didn't create.

But Beck's fresh out of the arena, and he won't want to hear that, and I doubt he could even accept that for three, maybe four years, at a push. It's a realisation every Victor has to arrive at their own pace to.

Some, like myself, get there far quicker than most. Others spend close to a decade wearing their grief around the Capitol. Either way, everyone always comes to the same realisation - you gotta move on with your life.

"It's not about leaving them." I try my best to describe it, "Because they never leave you - ever. It's about accepting the weight and the responsibility of it, and that it can't be changed."

I'm not expert on this, but I like to think that I don't sugar coat it as much as the other Victor's do. I don't participate in their public group therapy sessions or hand-holding routines. I guess in Beck I see innocence, and a broken soul, and some nostalgic part of me wants to try and fix him, or at least help him in not making the same mistakes that I did when I was in his position.

He seems like a good person.

"How's the Victory Tour going?" I try to change the mood of the conversation, "They got you showing off all your signature killing moves yet?"