crashing and burning || turner & beck train blitz

[[nyte]]

 BECK HAILSHAM

Twenty years old and I've yet to get my shit together. Black and blue blossom like angel's wings as they stretch down my spine, from where I passed out because I'd rather hurt myself than sleep. I'm stuck, sinking deeper with every breath and the only good thing about another Reaping is that it means acceleration. Getting worse because I've got no idea how to get better.

I'm either hiding it well enough or no one gives a shit.

There's always this sickly sweet atmosphere after the Reaping, charged with ecstasy and something darker. It's comforting to know I'm not the only monster, watching careers tear themselves apart at the Reaper's feet. She's hungry, so fucking hungry. My only thought upon meeting two more tributes is that she'll feed well this year.

(And that this could have been a lot worse.)

I'll grow to love them or hate them, like I always do. And then they'll go and die like everyone else. They're selfish, they asked for this. They want to he remembered, high off the barest trace of hope.

I can't keep waiting for one of them to come home, but maybe I like the way it's killing me slowly.

"Oh, the volunteer himself." I'm first to the train, this time; cross-legged on the h'ordeuvres table because I want to see how many times I can ignore my better's scoldings. I'm not a hypocrite for thinking him foolish - we're cut from the same cloth after all. Delusions of grandeur have never been my Achilles' Heel.

I wonder if it's Turner's.

"You proud of yourself?" I smile through the sound of shattered glass, displacing a crystal bowl as I offer him a half-drunk glass of wine. A taste of what he's gotten himself into.

[Arrows]

I've been lost before, but losing myself in the tunnels of a Capitol train is new. I've been so blacked that the beach looked like a toilet in front of my entire training class, but even then I managed to stagger my way back home. Meanwhile, this one Peacekeeper who is stationed at the back of the train keeps giving me weird looks when I end up in the same spot. Like, okay asshole, this is clearly a choice I am willingly making. Whatever though, he really isn't worth my time.

When I finally do make it to the main car, there is literally only one person: Beck Hailsham. I guess Krigel is too busy busting it up with Kinkade and who knows where Morrisen is, yet I bite. Might as well get to know one of my mentors before being shipped to slaughter. Who knows, maybe when I'm in the arena he can send me a stuffed teddy bear! I can't believe mentors actually send that shit, but hey, a sponsor is a sponsor I guess.

"Oh, the volunteer himself."

So, it's starting there. The whole why would you volunteer to die angle. Then the follow up just ties it all together.

"You proud of yourself?"

I actually look down at my bare body before looking up with an eyebrow raised. It's fine, it has to start somewhere after all.

"Proud for shoving over some scrawny fourteen year old and kissing that Krigel? No, I couldn't care less."

My eyes follow the glass bowl as it breaks and I don't even flinch when it shatters. Instead, I walk over to the Victor making sure my bare feet only crunch several small shards of glass as I raise my gaze to his. I take the wine and down all but a drop in a couple seconds. My tongue glides across my upper lip as I hand the glass back.

"There, I saved you a little taste."

[[nyte]]

 BECK HAILSHAM

He's hard to look away from, captivating in a way that's not quite beautiful. The others will trickle in slowly and I'll be torn from one place I've never called home to another. Inevitable as high tide, and this time I can't be bothered to keep out of the current. That's why it's nice to be alone together, it means I've got time.

That is if Turner Grey's presence wasn't so fucking oppressive. It's like I'm submerged in stale cigarette smoke, coiled deep in my lungs. A miasma of bad fortune but just a little bit sweet. No, I couldn't care less. He's all bare skin and kiss bitten lips, things I call mistakes worn without pride or shame. Like nothing matters but that's obviously a lie.

He wouldn't be here if it didn't.

"Then why'd you do it?" Something like jealousy flares in the pit of my stomach as he approaches, shards of glass digging deep and I bet it hurts. Unconscious fingers trail over my prosthetic, unable to mimic a sensation I'll never again know. He gives me no choice to meet his eyes, so cold they've got to be hiding something.

"I wasn't half as dramatic when I volunteered, it's two damn words." But he hadn't even said them. Standing on ceremony like what lays shattered at his feet. The glass finds my good hand, not breaking eye contact as I drain it of the last few drops. It's all I can not to wince at the taste, the way it burns feeling so much like a mistake.

I grin at him over the rim, a firm barrier between us. "I'm one of the last people you'll meet that's meant to be on your side. You should try trusting me."

I don't dare to wonder if this one's got what it takes to come home.

'Cause fuck, he just might.

[Arrows]

I know the look, the one that matches the bottom of the smudged wine glass he holds. Some people put up veils, distortions, to contain their emotions. Mom does that sometimes whenever something she doesn't expect happens. I guess some say that's how I am. Just some kid buried so far under a mask that they aren't even sure if there is skin there anymore. Unsure whether the human has evaporated away into nothingness or whether it's merely a fragment of the face it once was. I don't see it as a mask, I feel comfortable in my skin even if their emotions don't show it.

That sounds like some kind of rebellious shit right there.

"Then why'd you do it?"

My eyes follow the final fragments of red escape down his throat. As his Adam's apple sends the scarlet away into oblivion, I mirror the gulp silently. Cause there's that question again. The why. First Nanette, and now Mr. Beck Hailsham wants to know why I hopped aboard the death train. I knew it would be the question that kept coming in wave after wave, but right now I'd like to actually catch one and take it in to shore for a bit. Tough, I did sign up for this.

His comment on my "dramatics" spurs a snort and a shrug. I guess that's the rep though, volunteers are all about the spotlight and the attention. I've never needed it. In fact, I've broken it anytime it's gotten too close to me. Maybe Nanette was right. Maybe that is why. Maybe that's why I want his veil gone.

"That was you and I'm me. You see dramatic, someone else sees intriguing, and I just see me. That's what they're getting."

I take another step closer to the young Victor through the field of broken glass. The soles of my feet sting, but I can tell the cuts are shallow. It doesn't matter, my attention is on him as I take the cup again from his hands and look him back in the eyes. No barriers. No veils.

"Never said I didn't trust you. Do you trust me? Or am I just another coffin for you to carry already?"

The corners of my lips turn upward. What does he see? A boy or a body?

[[nyte]]

 BECK HAILSHAM

Like the ocean without waves, I think, he is steady in those hollow words. His face is just skin, no paint or plaster to hide what I don't want to see. With each step closer he forces me to map out every flaw, to remember the upward curve of his lips and the way the ocean's scent clings to his skin. Vaguely, I wonder how someone can be both frozen and set aflame. If he wants me to burn up before I freeze.

I squirm when he takes the glass, cracking teeth with a clenched jaw. Beck Hailsham is so many things, everything anyone wants him to be. I'm somewhere beneath the weight of their expectations, lost and longing for the day they finally realize it. And then I'll fuck it all up because I'm so scared of my reflection that I've covered all the mirrors.

Turner wants me out of my comfort zone, he's reveling in it. The bastard. "See, I don't have to trust you. Life's hardly ever fair." I exhale a laugh, dragging my fingers through my hair to ruin it's style. He wants my gaze but I turn it to the ground, waiting for blood.

It's so easy to hurt what never healed and I am a terribly vulnerable thing. Made up of memories that I can never outrun, like there's nothing left of me that knows peace.

I can't help but resent how comfortable Turner seems in his hollow skin. It's a shame I seem to grow so fond of the things I am desperate to hate.

"If you want an honest answer," I look up at the ceiling before I settle on him, all too aware of the proximity and his current state of dress. A very intentional scene he's made, I'm sure. "I wish you all could just be coffins to me." How wonderful it would be to finally have scars. To tear out this heart of mine that I keep letting bleed. As much as I despise Justice Fray, callous is more sustainable than kind.

"But you're not. You'll never be." A stranger now but not for long, he'll either come back broken or become another ghost. "I do want to help you come home." And I frown because it's hard to smile around these words, "That's why I asked. I want to know if you intend to."

[Arrows]

The edge of comfort, the realm of reality where I exist entirely. Blood bubbling from my feet and red the color of our lips. There is something in the way others shift when boundaries are broken, when expectations of standards are shattered. There is a sweetness in the shouts of a broken hearted boy beaten by fists that once held him close against the cold. There is an appeal to the fierceness of a girl when the face that once followed her with appealing eyes goes ghost. I breathe in these moments, sharp yet satisfying. Fuck, why live life enclosed anyway? Maybe I make moments like this because for a simple second, I feel something more. I should remember to write this little "discovery" down because my therapist would go wild.

The current conversation isn't one I can say I care for, the beginning at least. Trust is such a stupid concept really. Why would you ever willing allow yourself to see another person as safe? That kind of reliance, I've seen it break more bodies than I have. All it takes is a single decision for someone to snap that bond. In fact, speaking of my therapist, he thinks I have trust issues. Which, I mean, looking back, "trust is such a stupid concept really." Yeah okay, one point tiny ass dude with the glasses and a dying marriage.

I flick my tongue as Beck's laughter lingers as long as his fingers flow through his hair. His hair actually looks better a bit out of shape. Probably cause he himself is a natural mess. (One point to the jungle with that giant whack ass chicken.) Still though, which isn't saying much, I kind of dig the vibe.

"Then don't, that might be your smartest decision yet."

I say with a shrug before leaning into the Victor's ear and whispering.

"And I never asked for it to be fair, playing dirty is more practical anyway."

I give the older boy, man-ish person, a smirk and wink as I step back. His next words are heavy, cold with a surge of seriousness. He genuinely wants to be numb, to merely watch the world as a bystander to the force of feelings. Well, when he keeps burying bodies that makes sense. If only he knew. If only he would look at me right now and realize that I am a mirror to those desires. Would he like the reflection or would he realize that the glass is cold to the touch?

"But you're not. You'll never be."

The mirror shatters and I'm alone on the side of ice. That's alright though, I've never minded the cold. Honestly, it's a comforting chill. But I do break the proximity, stepping out from the circle of glittering glass. My fingers float along a nearby table's edge as I walk over to a couch and flop onto its cushions. Pulling my legs into a criss-cross beneath me I merely look up to the Victor and tap my chest twice.

"That's something my family does when someone goes out to sea."

I lean back as I hold my stare, let him see me just like the world will.

"It means be safe and I'll see you soon."

I pause just taking in the silence.

"Does that answer your question?"