fragments { lang & nan day 2 }

[k!ah]

The sun had begun to sink, my legs swinging beneath me. I had climbed one of the rigs, the ladder rusted and creaking as I heaved myself up. My stomach had had butterflies as I had found my balance, sitting on the ledge and looking out into the field of old oil rigs. My head was pounding, from the amount of perfume I had inhaled because of the lake, or because of the radiation that was slowly poisoning me, I did not know. But it was a killer, splitting my head in two.

I close my eyes for a moment, my fingers gently massage my temples, my bicep burning at the movement. The bandage that Flynn had wrapped carefully around my arm hand spots of blood but in the last hour the patches hadn't grown meaning that the clotting phase had begun.

Groaning I drop my arms, watching as my alliances moves around beneath me. I was still frustrated that I had allowed Langley a glimpse of who I was not once, but twice. I hated how easily she had managed to break down my walls. Unlike with Turner, who easily was able to read me, there was just something about the girl that made me weaken. I didn't want her to see me as a cold ice queen, she reminded me of a close friend from home, her feisty teasing nature.

I hated that I wanted her to see me as much as I didn't want her too.

There was no room for friendships in a place like this.

I see her move towards me, staring up at me from the ground.

I force my face to turn emotionless, indifferent almost, as I lazily gazed down at her, "what do you want, Cassidy? If you are looking to hear more about the skeletons in my closet, move on. I'm not going to waste my time."

I could not afford to give her anymore pieces of me.

[alex 🐺]

Somehow, somehow, Langley’s errant swing at the stag had struck true. She feels the legs crack and break under the hammer, a spray of arterial blood coating her face and lips. It didn’t taste sweet, nor should she have expected it to. She had been thinking of blackcurrants and raspberries when she saw the blood. Not of copper and ichor. Nanette spares no glance at her after the stag falls, climbing quickly up one of the rusted structures, her chest heaving.

Langley pauses to look at her for a moment, a vision against the yellow-green sky. Her left arm was a mess and it was bleeding far too much, but a quick tourniquet from the sleeve of the stupid fucking shirt they had given her was enough to hold off the bleeding for now. She only had to contend with the headache, how it threatened to rend her head in two. 

Lang settles by the creature, eyes scanning its body methodically. They could use it, maybe, for food. It could keep them alive for a few days. But that meant a fire and a fire meant that they could easily be hunted. There were no good options. She glances quickly back to Nanette, who catches her looking. 

"What do you want, Cassidy? If you are looking to hear more about the skeletons in my closet, move on. I'm not going to waste my time."

Langley nearly swears, her eyes moving away from the lone figure above her, eyes scanning the horizon.

Nanette seemed to her a memory of a storm, tempestuous and hellbent on destruction. Like what the sea should be like.

But there was no sea near District Ten, no sea here, no matter how badly Langley wanted to break herself against Nanette’s rocks like a wave, molding herself into something new and shining from the sea foam.

Carter, it seemed, wanted nothing more than to keep her at arm’s length. The change from a few moments ago was staggering. But Langley could sense violence behind Nanette’s eyes, a desire to kill and take that made her more of a shark than a girl. More of a threat than a friend. 

Which was - it was fine. She was no more than a ghost, a long night's fever dream that would amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Girls from Ten with no skills didn't win against a Career from Four built and bred for this. 

“I was actually hoping you’d pull some weight around here and help me with this,” Langley gestures to the stag.

“Could be dinner for all of us. But feel free to sulk in peace, I suppose. Your reputation is still intact, Carter. All of Panem thinks you're a bad ass, so give up the pity party.”

 

[k!ah]

I try to ignore the way her face seems to harden at my words, the way she seems taken back by my harsh tone. But I maintain my look of indifference, picking a price of dirt from my pants and dusting them off slightly. “I was actually hoping you’d pull some weight around here and help me with this." My eyes narrow at the words, my jaw dropping slightly before I quickly close it once again.

"Pull some weight..." I whisper in disbelief closing my eyes as I give my head a gentle shake. I had killed one of those things. Largely contributed to saving her life and Flynns life and fucking Revan's life. But I force the anger down, taking a deep breath and dropping my gaze, my eyes landing on the bloody mess on her forearm.

She hadn't wrapped it up correctly. If she left it like that the chances of infection would increase. She needed to cover it, to shield it from the toxin and dirt that sulked around us in the shadows. “Could be dinner for all of us." My stomach growls at the thought of food, but it quickly turns into a sick feeling when the memory of the lake and the stench that still lodged itself deep within my nostrills. "But feel free to sulk in peace, I suppose. Your reputation is still intact, Carter. All of Panem thinks you're a bad ass, so give up the pity party.”

I sit silently for a moment longer, just staring at the girl below me. I wasn't sulking, exactly. Well maybe I was, but not over what she believed it to be. I wonder what she might have thought if she knew what was really going through my mind. If she was to find out that what was causing my sour attitude was being conflicted over what she thought of me. I cared about what the people back home, my loved ones might think of me. What did my mother think of me? I know I handled the situation with Revan poorly, my hand still tingled where it had connected with his face. I touch it with my free hand, massaging it gently. I couldn't understand why he continued to bait me, to provoke me. It was almost as if he wanted me to hit him, to fight him. It was almost as though he found a sick pleasure in seeing my skin crawl because of him.

The coldness in my gaze melts and a long sigh escapes my lips as I silently make my way off the rig, kneeling down beside her to dig through the stags remains. "I wasn't sulking, you know. I was... Contemplating." I pause, looking down at the flesh between my fingers, remembering the harshness that I had spoken to her with only a few moments before. "Sorry... Sorry for snapping at you. I'm- it wasn't fair. I- it wasn't about you," I lie continuing my work on the stag.

"Your arm. You need to wrap that or it will get infected." My gaze moves over to her, from her eyes to her arm. "Let me help you with it." My teeth snag my lip, chewing on it for a moment before I let it go.

[alex 🐺]

Good, Langley thinks, watching the emotions streak across Nanette’s face like a comet across the dark sky.

She must have hit a nerve at the way the blonde’s eyes narrowed and she gaped at her. She had meant to. It tortures Lang a bit, watching Nanette now and how alive she had been during the fight with the mutts, how perfect she looks. How at home she seems in this fucked up wasteland that was spewing fumes and toxic chemicals into the air.

Carter hops down from the rig and joins her kneeling by the stag and Langley methodically begins to tear through the beast’s wounds, trying to pry the skin from the carcass as best as she could without a hunting knife. She had done it helluva lot more cleanly in the private training session, but out here, she was content to use her hands and manipulate the skin and fur as best as she could.

"I wasn't sulking, you know. I was... Contemplating.” She pauses, her gaze down at her fingers and a sigh working its way through her throat. "Sorry... Sorry for snapping at you. I'm- it wasn't fair. I- it wasn't about you.”

“Contemplating, sure,” Langley allows, nodding sagely, bumping her shoulder with Nanette, even if she could barely believe the bullshit coming out Nanette’s mouth.

But the truth was, the blonde owed her nothing. She owed no one anything. She was sunlight, a destroyer, and Langley should do well to remember that. They walked through a tiny apocalypse together and more was coming, but that certainly didn’t mean that they ever needed to explain themselves to each other just yet.

She breaks off the antlers, bending the bone as best as she can to fashion a bloody crown and considers placing it on Nanette’s head before she puts it on her own.

Nan turns to her then, "Your arm. You need to wrap that or it will get infected.

“Oh, Nan, it’s fine, don’t - don’t worry about it.” Langley says quickly, a blush rising on her cheeks because she had done a piss poor job with a tourniquet and it was quite obvious. She tries to fight against Nanette’s hands at her wrist and moving up her arm, but she relents and bows her head, supplicant.

Let me help you with it."

“Fineeeee,” Langley chokes out, accentuating the e, her heart racing for some stupid reason. “Just don’t hold it against me in the future. This doesn’t count as saving my life.”

[k!ah]

Cheeks dusted with a petal of a rose Langley scrambles telling me not to fret about it. But I ignore her, my hand reaching out to grab her wrist and gently, but firmly, pull her arm closer. The injury was jagged, the slice messy and the flesh red and tender. The bleeding had slowed, starting to clot around the edges. We needed to clean it, the risk of infection was extremely high in an environment such as this. But this shithole had nothing that could help us, this arena didn't want to save us, it wanted to see us all dead.

Langley tries to rip her arm from my grip but I hold tight, my eyes locking determinately with her own. I give her a look that almost seems to say to just give in, tucking my loose strands of hair behind my ears as I turn my body to face hers. Finally Langley gives in, submitting with a choked voice, "just don’t hold it against me in the future. This doesn’t count as saving my life.”

My lips pull back into a grin and I give her a knowing look, this could save her life. Gently my hand runs up her arm and I shuffle in a little closer, unwrapping the tourniquet. Using a tourniquet might not have been the best idea. You were only supposed to use them as a last resort. It cut off circulation to the rest of her arm and could potentially cost her the arm itself. "You shouldn't use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding if you can help it. Had you of left it on much longer you could have caused more damage than anything else." I carefully then try to flatten the piece of material out on my lap, folding it into a nice square which I placed over the wound.

"You've got to apply pressure, and hold it. Thats the best way to stop the bleeding- here use your hand to hold this in place whilst I get the bandage." Maybe it sounded condescending, the way I spoke as I moved. But I didn't know what else to say, I needed to keep Langley at arms length. I couldn't- wouldn't- allow her any closer. I couldn't allow any of them any closer. I didn't want them to know me, and I sure as hell didn't want to know them, right? I didn't want it to hurt, really god damn hurt, if I had to watch them, her, die. 

I'd seen it before. Too many times. Tributes getting close to one another, leaning on one another, and then having to watch one another torn into pieces, screaming and begging and crying for it all to stop. The pain in their voices, their eyes, their souls. It fucking hurt to just watch it, let lone allow myself to become a victim to it. 

But maybe it was unavoidable. In an environment when every little sense is magnified, maybe I was playing a fools game in trying to close myself off.

Reaching into the bag that lay beside Langley I pull out some pristine white bandages. They wouldn't stay that way for long, in fact it seemed the moment they were exposed to the toxic hair they seemed to yellow ever so slightly. My hands a gentle once again, one cradling her elbow, the other lining up the edge of the banged with the black fabric that I had asked her to hold in place. Then I begin winding the bandage around her arm, firmly but not so tight that it would cut off circulation. Just the right amount.

"There, that wasn't so bad was it," I give it a gentle pat as I release her arm, my eyes looking back up to notice the blood bone crown which she had placed upon her head. My eyes dart from the crown to her eyes and back again. She looked like a queen of death, her fingers and arms covered in blood, her hair tangled and messy and a crown dipped in the blood of her allies and the monsters they had slain. Unconsciously I reach out to touch the crown, my fingers skimming the edge of the bone, to her hair- then I realise what I was doing and my hand drop immediately.

I stare for a moment longer before my lips spit into a wide, shit eating grin. Pushing my armour back into place I pull back. I would play the fools game, keep her at arm length for myself, to save me from having cared enough to let it break me when she died so that I could make it home. I would save myself some pain. 

"I still think a badass trumps a queen."

[alex 🐺]

She’s thirsty, she realizes it now.

It’s been two days without a decent drink of water and just as long without food and Langley feels as if her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth and her head filled with cotton.

It has to be that, because it can’t be the way that she sees galaxies swirling in the darkness in Nanette’s eyes. It can’t be the glance from the blonde that make her inhale sharply. Lang thanks all the gods above that she was seated because her knees surely would have given way from the touch from Nanette, fingertips dancing up and down her arm to deftly undo the poor excuse for a tourniquet.

"You shouldn't use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding if you can help it. Had you of left it on much longer you could have caused more damage than anything else." Langley nods, eyes glued on Nanette as she chides her silently, her words that should feel like barbs of glass against her skin feel more like a caress. Lang can’t hep but watch as she places the torn part of her shirt on the wound, reaching into her bag to grab an actual bandage.

"You've got to apply pressure, and hold it. Thats the best way to stop the bleeding- here use your hand to hold this in place whilst I get the bandage."

She’s struck dumb, nodding silently, pinpricks of light hitting her eyes and the dull afterglow of the day fading away. Revan and Flynn’s conversation behind them fades to static as she feels sweat bead down her chest into the darkness of her shirt and she’s suddenly drenched and cold, the blood loss covering her with ice in the arid weather. It has to be that, it can't be Nanette's touch that feels like the first snowfall of the year. 

"There, that wasn't so bad was it," Nanette says, patting her arm before releasing it. Langley croaks out an answer, she thinks. At least, she hopes she does. Her arm feels weightless now, tingling from where Nanette had touched it.

“You’re uh, you’re mighty good at that,” she’s finally able to say, even as her breath is stolen away from her, Nanette’s eyes locked on her, dark swirling irises and so much hidden behind them, fingers reaching out to trace the soft lines from her forehead and into her hair.

Her heart stutters in her chest and she's weightless. Floating, as Nanette moves her finger across her brow, everything fading to the back of her mind because nothing else matters in this moment.

A pull of a thread and she feels her entire body relax.
She can barely breathe. The air in her lungs not satisfying the need in her heart, the need to pump more blood to her brain and make her move her fucking limbs or actually say something to the girl next to her who has rendered her speechless.

Langley’s fingers burn, actually burn and tingle from where she yearns to reach out to Nanette. But the moment shatters and she feels the electricity between her heart and her mind sharp like a jolt of a needle. She ached for the annihilation that she knew was coming, danger wrapped a sly smile. Because things like this - they didn't survive the Games. There was always a body count. There was never anything sacred in stolen moments and rushed touches. 

"I still think a badass trumps a queen." Nanette says, a smile breaking her face and the spell has been lifted. Langley can breathe easier now, even if her chest feels like it's been wrapped in ivy. 

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that tomorrow, huh?” she jokes, because she cannot be off-kilter, not when one step in the wrong direction means death. Not even in the face of a gorgeous blonde.

“No cannons means no deaths yet, so there’s still a full field of us. Plenty of time for you to show your stuff, shark killer.”