morphine || ky & asher

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

a s h e r .

"what's the worst
thought you ever had?
wish that you could
take it back?"

Aimless wandering is less of a hobby more a necessity at this point. Guess it's kinda my fault for not seeing this coming. Things get good for a while, then they go real bad. I dunno why I expected anything to be different this time around. Optimism is for the lucky pricks that didn't grow up with a drunk ass mom and a dad with the anger management capability of a rotten peanut. Us Clarke kids? We were made to fuck good things up.

Really not surprised my sister did, but sleeping on her ex-husband's couch is getting pre-tty fucking awkward so I dipped a couple months ago. Living back home isn't so bad, I tell myself, nursing the newest bit of cruelty staining paper skin. It spreads like black ink up my thigh, bleeding blue at its edges. I'm strong enough to take a hit without crying now and Dad was pretty proud of that.

He loves the kind of career I've become and that makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about it.

So I spend a lot of time trying not to do that. I've mapped out Victors Village a couple of times over now, I figured they got some cool shit they might leave outside that I can snag. And it's not really stealing if you leave it outside your house. I think? I mean, it makes sense to me so I'm going with that. Bored kid, scared kid, what's the difference in the end? At least I'm doing something constructive with this self-destruction.

Not that I can justify it as self-destruction anymore. I gotta admit I kinda like feeling like the big man, that little flicker of fear in people's eyes when they realize I'm not as small and weak as they thought. That I meet agony with a smile and greet her like my oldest fucking friend. Maybe apples never really fall that far from their trees.

I think that's why I don't have any real friends. Eighteen years in and I've managed to keep myself from hurting anyone important all because I've never let anyone that close. Grey faces made of papier-mâché are easy to destroy, you just gotta leave 'em out in the rain.

And the people who actually mean something to me whether I like it or not? I made sure they aren't all too fond of me either. I'm smarter than people give me credit for, got this whole 'life' thing figured out at fourteen. I think. Aha.

The streets grew blurry a while ago, if I'm being honest. It's not the first time I set out at dusk and was still awake to greet the dawn. The pain of over-exertion came and went, now my legs are so numb it feels like I'm not walking on them at all! Which is, y'know, really great! I think. Aha.

The forest is kinda pretty around Victor Village, like even the trees only manage to care about the millionaires. Funny isn't it? Some day they'll be money lining their pockets like the rest of us. Still it's hard not to appreciate the way morning dew clings to bright green leaves, complacent as gravity pulls them toward their demise.

splat onto the dirt like droplets of-

uh, is that blood?

I stop short for a second, rubbing my eyes a couple times to make sure there's actually a kid on the ground bleeding out in front of me. Long moments tick by, too long, as I stand rooted spot by a cocktail of adrenaline and exhaustion.

The scent of rotten copper reaches me not long after, and I take off at a sprint. "Whoa!" The kid looks to be about my age, dark hair slicked against his forehead like he's been running a marathon and I can't help but wonder if it really takes that much energy to be stabbed.

I mean, he's just laying there right?

Anyway, apply pressure. Right. "Sorry this is gonna hurt like a bitch," I mumble, pressing my hands into his wound the moment I pinpoint the source. I knew career training would come in handy some day, I just always thought I'd be the one doing the stabbing.

"Guess you pissed off someone real good, huh?"

Because that's what you say to the stabbed guy bleeding out on the forest floor.

I wince.

"Uh, don't worry. I got you bro."

elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"Just goes to show
That the blood you bleed
Is just the blood you owe"

After the sound of the kid's footsteps disappear, when the forest lays quiet around me and grinds against the harsh sound of my breathing I lose myself a little bit. It takes me a second to realize how alone I am. My hands hover awkwardly around the hilt still sticking out of my stomach and I wonder just how long I have. If he's hit nothing important it's just dependant on when I'll bleed out.

It's kind of odd, how it's no longer fear I feel, just a strange happiness. I never put much thought into how I wanted to go out before but this doesn't seem so bad. The trees still whisper their secrets to the wind in the canopy above my head, birds go on calling. Things will continue on without me.

My mom might be sad for some time but she has Katelyn, I'm not leaving her alone. She'll heal as everyone else does after a loss. Maybe it will be easier without me, she won't have to worry about me getting reaped anymore, she won't have to lose any more fingers because i'm dying now.

God, it's kind of freeing.

I laugh a little and let my hands fall to the dirt beside me. Laughing hurts but then I guess, when does it not?

I try to remember if I've ever seen anyone else on this trail before. It's hard to think though, like my thoughts are just pooling in one place, all clogged up. I've run it so many times, every morning for the last six years at least. I don't even think anyone else really knows about this path, it's so close to Victor's Village.

Suddenly I realize that I really am dying. I can't move, it's too much. A tear slides down my cheek slowly as the pain of this reality takes over everything that I have and I understand that I am never going to see my mom again. Maybe she won't ever even find me. When I don't turn up at breakfast, she'll think nothing of it. She and Valerian will go to the training centre and start work. I'll lie here in the dirt and die.

Tonight she'll come home expecting to see me but the house will be dark, I won't be there to light it for her. I was so scared of a dark house for so long, I never considered that I might become one.

"Whoa!"

For a moment I think I said it myself.

But then there's a burst of pain, sudden pressure against my stomach and my head spins with it. I shout with it, the cry coming out more feral than I knew I had in me and my hands grab feebly at the pressure point. It's skin there, warm and so much stronger than I am and when I look up, there's a person.

"Oh," I say and I'm so relieved that a sob comes with it. I wrap a hand feebly around his wrist as if I have a chance of keeping him there. I've forgotten how to be brave. I don't know how to keep the pain off my face in this moment and for this stranger, I'm more honest than I've been in a long time.

"I...I tend to have that effect... on... people," I say, "Though I...I mighta deserved this one."

But I don't want him to stop, even if I did deserve it, I don't want to die and it's not becuase my mom will be sad. It's because I want to live. So much time has passed already, I've lost so much blood, I don't even know if this stranger can help me but i want to try.

Besides, Beck will kill me if I die.

This kid looks about the same age as me, maybe a little bit taller. He's familiar somehow, like an ache I've felt before but I can't place him, I'm too sluggish. Maybe he goes to the training centre that I do, maybe I've just seen him around. In the end it doesn't matter who he is other than the fact that he's all I've got.

"Please I'm...it hurts," I tell him and I tug loosely on the sleeve of his shirt, "You... you can help?"