could you pick up your phone, please? ky/asher

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"I hear your voice on the phone
Now I'm no longer alone
Just how I feel
Could you tell me what's real anymore?"

When he looked at Emerson, he saw Emmett's eyes staring back at him and at first it was a joyful thing. He'd begun to forget what those looked like, a hologram in a museum display was hardly the same, but there they were again, those eyes that scrunched up a bit when he smiled, the shape of his face, the teasing lilt, Emerson hadn't been Emmett but she'd been healing enough in the few days in the training centre.

He shouldn't even have been worried about meeting her, he's sorry he put it off so long. It was just hard to believe that Emerson didn't hate him, not when the media had done such a good job of making it seem like Em's death had been his fault. It'd been so bad that it had spread through the districts as well and when he'd gotten home, Tatton Le Roux had attacked him.

Ky had just assumed that the rest of them felt the same and he'd decided to avoid the whole family. Now, for the first time in two years, the constricted feeling in his chest was lessening. In the train ride to the Capitol, away from the cameras, Emerson had found him in the rows of chairs and they'd spoken.

It was easy to feel hope like that, one knee pulled to his chest and Emerson's smile so bright like Em's had been. It was easy to believe that a victor might come from One again with two Le Roux tributes.

Then there'd been the bloodbath.

Ky sits on red sand, bare feet the only thing to break the stillness of the water of the beach. Birds made of paper fly high overhead, sometimes swooping lower but staying far away from any Capitolite citizen that might be visiting. The air smells saltier than Ky thought it would, the sand is softer too. When he'd seen the area on screen, he'd expected coarseness. Part of him wants to find the exact spot that Emmett first died but he doesn't have to, there's a sign post sticking out of the sand about twenty feet away and Ky doesn't have to be able to read it to know what it's there for.

He shouldn't have come here, he knows that.

Ky left early in the morning, Opal's phone in his back pocket and a note on the counter explaining that he'd gone for a walk but he'd be back soon. He's texted his mom a couple times since, little things, lies saying he was getting coffee even as he was on the transport for the 85th Arena.

He's gotten so good at lying.

But he couldn't sleep last night, Emerson and Emmett and the way they fell so neatly playing through his mind again and again like a broken record and it's so strange, isn't it. It's so strange that they're both gone now but Emerson doesn't get a second chance. It doesn't seem fair, really.

It's not fair.

Ky picks up a handful of sand and lets it fall into the glassy surface of the salt-red flats. The fine sand collects on the surface for a moment before clumping together and sinking down.

He doesn't know how to feel right now and there's no one there to tell him, to make him shaky promises that he's going to be okay. There's no medication this time, no alcohol, no weed, just Ky and the sand and sun and birds flying over head and the knowledge that Emerson is gone now too.

He doesn't even believe in an afterlife enough to hope that she and Emmett are together now. They're both gone and it's like they never even existed.

The phone in his back pocket rumbles against the sand and Ky takes it out, wiping lightly at his eyes to clear away any muffled sounds.

"Hey mom... Yeah, I'm just doing a little shopping... Mmhm, yeah, don't wait up for me, might meet Beck later."

Lying to Opal is so much easier over the phone than it should be. He used to feel bad about it but she's moving on and healing while he gets trapped in the same rut, over and over again, he doesn't want to hold her back. Ky drops the phone on the sand beside him, and lays back on the red. The sky is nearly clear above him but whisps of clouds entangle themselves with each other. The razor-sharp wings of the origami birds slice through them, leaving their mark.

This must have been Emmett's first last view.

He drops an arm over his eyes and lets the feeling settle over him. Birds cry above and there's a gentle sound as the edges of the glass pools ripple softly in the wind, lapping against the sides.

Then, he lets himself cry.

Ky's only been in the Capitol for a week and he already wants to go home again. There's this sickly feeling in his chest, the belt constricting again, making it hard to breath properly.

He doesn't want to talk to anyone, doesn't want to see anyone, he doesn't want anyone to ask how he's doing or how he feels about Emerson's death. He doesn't want to have to smile at the cameras and make up some lie about how he's 'disappointed' but still rooting for Julian because none of it is true.

Ky isn't disappointed, he's angry, mad that this shit is still happening, that they're still paying for a war that happened almost ninety years ago.

Part of him wants to put all that career training to use and take revenge. Capitolites are so soft and it would be so easy. They've grown so complacent in their power that they don't even train their citizens to fight. Kids in the Capitol get to grow up, never having to even touch a blade.

Kids in the district get handed a weapon when they're ten and are made to feel worthless unless they volunteer for a game that wants to kill them.

Kids like Asher.

He misses him.

Ky sits up, and rests his arms on his knees. Things have been weird with him for months now, since that night in the backyard. Ky'd made that decision then, the one where he didn't kiss Asher even though he'd wanted to. The next night he'd been busy, spent a late night in a certain bar downtown laying out plans for a quiet sort of war.

Asher didn't fit into those because Ky hadn't wanted him to. The things Ky's been working on this year, he doesn't want Asher involved in that, doesn't want to be involved with Asher when one day he might find himself bleeding out on a red beach like this one.

But it isn't honest living like this, every day is a little more like quick sand and Ky can't stop flailing. The thing is, he doesn't want to take anyone down with him.

Part of him wants to call Asher now, tell him that it's all over, that when he gets home, he never wants to even see him again. It'd be easier to just cut him off over the phone, it'd be easier to lie like that in the same way it's easier to lie to Opal when he can't see her face. It's simple to pretend that he isn't hurting anyone when it's just a tinny voice over the phone.

Before he can stop himself, Ky dials Justice' house number, thumbs pressing clumsily down on the number pad as he blinks through his tears.

It rings for a long moment, over and over and Ky almost gives up when he hears the tell-tale click.

"Asher?" he asks, speaking carefully to hide his crying, "I have to tell you something."

[[nyte]]

a s h e r .

"I feel close
Well, maybe I'm not, heaven knows
It's a spotlight stuck on the ceiling
Why are these the things that I'm feeling?"

I've been stuck in place for a while now; watching crimson sunsets and biting down on cheeks that taste much of the same. There's safety in the way I've sunk into the sidewalk, faceless to all that pass and especially to those who've left me behind. It hurts a little different every time, I've noticed. I reckon that's because it'd be too easy if you knew what to expect.

The Reaping has come and gone twice since they called my name. Idiots with warm tongues and loveless gazes tell me it'll all get better, that the nightmares will stop with time and patience because that's the only way they can think to fix this broken skull of mine. And then I wake up with sheets tangled around my neck and the ghost of my father's fingers digging into my jaw. I hear them call my name and I fail over and over again.

There's no cure for this kind of infection. It always ends with Poppy and I sitting on opposite sides of an empty apartment, staring at our hands because neither of us know what to say. Poppy caves first and orders dinner, casting anxious glances my way and I glare at her to make it all stop or maybe to dare her to fuckin' do something if she's so damn worried.

Instead, silence stretches on and I watch another crimson sunset.

I'm still figuring out whatever Ky and I were. Friends, sure, but there were so many moments that felt much heavier than that. They hurt, like my chest was twisting itself into knots but I kept leaning into the pain. He felt like relief as much as he felt like a vice. Earning one of those little hiccup-y laughs was a damn victory and I've always liked to win.

I'd decided to let him kiss me that afternoon, more than that I'd wanted him to. It was an awful feeling coiling in my gut, like I was being picked apart by curious fingers. Inconsiderate but not unkind. I was ugly and exposed, neck bared to a blade and, for once, I begged it to cut.

That's why, when he pulled away, it felt so final.

I want to be mad at him. I want that hunger to eat me alive until there's no affection left. It shouldn't matter if I ever see Ky Earnest again because he's desperate to bear the weight of the world and I know I'm ten seconds from fucking shattered. Asher Clarke is not a hero, he's barely a man.

I get why I'm so easy to forget, I really do.

I'd figured Ky was going to the Capitol the minute they called the Le Roux's. Everyone had seen the tabloids a few years ago, I'd even tried to read the article but stopped halfway through because I realized I didn't give a shit. Still, I'd gone to the train station to say goodbye. Words I wouldn't have swallowed for anyone else resting on the tip of my tongue as I watched the beast pull out of its station-

What if I asked you not to go?

It terrifies me that I might start living for his sake.

BRRRING

Something shrill cuts through the stale air settled over Justice's apartment. "Can your boyfriend fuck off?!" It's a venomous bark, anger and resentment placed on her shoulders instead of Ky's. Her son's off gallivanting in the Capitol with a father who's never deserved him and she's stuck in the same shitty apartment as me.

I should feel vindicated, but he calls. Every night.

My stomach lurches.

I press the receiver to my ear, "Aren't you off playing family or some-"

"Asher?" He sounds like broken glass but sweeter, "I have to tell you something." The fire doesn't die when he speaks to me, it's still there. Rage wanting bruises wanting split skin on my knuckles and blood dripping down brick. The fire doesn't die but it becomes a whole lot more bearable.

He might just be the only person I haven't figured out how to hate.

I take a deep breath to obscure how it'd stopped at the sounds of his voice, letting the moment on stretch as I grind my teeth and catch my bearings. We're still friends, right? Whatever that fucking means.

"Ky." I wince at the way I say his name; like it means more than it should. "Sorry I uh-" I clear my throat, "didn't expect you to call. Is everything okay?"

I don't bother asking if he is.

elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"I hear your voice on the phone
Now I'm no longer alone
Just how I feel
Could you tell me what's real anymore?"

Asher's voice comes through loud and angry, his words dripping with venom but Ky can't help but smile a little. He shuts his eyes, brow furrowed slightly, ear pressed up against the speaker. He hears the exact moment Asher realizes it's him because that's the same moment his voice goes gentle.

"Ky," Asher says his name like it's a poem.

A wave of homesickness washes over Ky at the sound of that softness, there's an ache in the back of his mouth, an intense longing that he didn't know he could even feel. His throat tightens and he holds back a sob, a hand over his lips to contain the sound better as he rocks himself back and forth slowly on the red sand.

All he can do for a long moment is listen to Asher's tinny voice over the phone. There's a stiffness in his words, a wound still healing and he knows that he gave him that particular scar. Hurting him is all he's ever going to do to him if he doesn't end things between them now.

"Asher I–" what am I doing?

Ky rests his forehead in his palm, stuck in the heavy silence between them. He thinks about a year ago when he got back and he'd call Justice's number almost every other day, just trying to get to Asher. He'd been so relieved when Asher had finally crawled in through his bedroom window again for the first time in months. It'd been nice, easy to lie and tell himself he was fine then.

He was fine then though, better than fine. The truth is, he likes being around Asher so much. It's always felt safe, like everything else around him is constantly flowing out of reach but Asher is the rock that everything flows around. He's strong as stone, barely anything seems to phase him and Ky still gets surprised when something does.

It just feels like it's always him hurting Asher, he'd be better off without Ky in his life.

"I–" Stop it.

He's always been good at self-sabotage, at drawing away when people try to get too close to him. It's so much easier to shut them out because it's easier to play the part of the happy victor kid. Asher never asked Ky to perform for him though and Ky's never been good at lying to him anyway.

He doesn't want to lie to Asher anymore, he doesn't want to hurt him anymore.

The silence holds between them but it's never made Ky uncomfortable. Even on the phone, it's easier to breathe knowing that he's there on the other side. There's a weight lifted in his chest, it's almost hard to remember that only moments ago, he was going to tell Asher he couldn't see him anymore.

"It's not great," he says finally and he wipes away the last of his tears with the back of his free hand. "Emerson is dead, but you probably saw that."

Crying has drained him and Ky lies back again on the sand. If he keeps his eyes shut, he can forget the tinny sound of the phone and pretend that Asher is there beside him like always, that this is just another afternoon in the orchard.

"And I miss home... I miss you," he says, voice cracking on the last note.

Everything about him, from that one stupid strand of hair that always grows faster than the rest so it hangs in his eyes before a hair cut to the way his voice sounds when they meet for a run in the early morning and he's only half awake. He misses the way they were before the almost kiss and his smile, not the half one, the real one.

How could Ky even think he could live with not seeing him anymore?

"I think I just needed to hear your voice."

He bites his lip, realizing just how that sounds but for the first time, he doesn't scramble to take it back or explain himself, he lets the unspoken truth lie there between them.

[[nyte]]

a s h e r .

"I feel close
Well, maybe I'm not, heaven knows
It's a spotlight stuck on the ceiling
Why are these the things that I'm feeling?"

I was raised in the midst of a war. Baptized by bloody footprints trailing back to my room and lulled to sleep by muffled shouts piercing plaster walls. I was raised by liars who wore shuddering smiles and told me everything was going to be okay. Ky sounds a lot like them right now. I hear the rumble of the storm clouds he swallows and wait for lightning to strike so that I finally know what he sounds like shattered.

And I'm so fucking pissed my hands keep shaking, that I can't help the way he makes me worry. I fiddle with the phone cord, wrapping it around my pointer finger until it's bright red and I can feel the blood boiling beneath my skin. "Asher I-" His voice starts and stops. He's not trying to keep his composure - Ky wears his dishonesty like a shield. It should be second nature.

"You what?" Though I speak through gnashing teeth, they can't break his skin. He's half a world away and always has been. I hate that I have to remind myself I don't really want to hurt the ones I love. Not when it's them that's made me pathetic and fragile and incapable of standing on my own. Not when I need them.

I know I'm weaker now than I was back home, I just haven't decided if I'm okay with that yet.

Emerson is dead. He says it like I don't already know. Like I didn't watch it happen and try to quash the little pinpricks of jealousy piercing the base of my skull at the sound of her canon. People have stopped asking if I still wish I were dead, I think they got tired of hearing the same answer over and over again.

"Did you know her? I'm sorry for your loss." The words sound forced because they are. It's just one of those things they parroted at my brother's funeral like it was supposed to stop it from hurting.

Hell, maybe it does. Maybe I was just too stubborn to let anything help. Not that I care; it's far too much trouble to live with regrets. I simply let myself bleed.

"And I miss home... I miss you," I don't think Ky tries to hurt me, which makes it worse that he's so fucking good at it. And it's all my fault for letting this idiot and his heavy golden heart so close. While my own skips a beat at how he says those words, teeth dug so deep into the skin of my lip that I'm lucky I don't taste blood. I'm not lucky very often.

I can feel my sister's eyes boring into the back of my neck and so I whisper when I speak.

"Should have stayed then, idiot." And I mean the words as much as I don't. I know just how bad I want him here, but I can only hope he hasn't realized that yet. "There's so much I'd give you, Ky, but you've never asked." We're not supposed to talk about what happened that sleepy afternoon, but I'm tired of being the coward he makes of me.

"Why do you keep running away?"

Tell me everything, even if I'm not a very good listener.

elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"I hear your voice on the phone
Now I'm no longer alone
Just how I feel
Could you tell me what's real anymore?"

To love is to mourn-
To fall and fall again.

"Should have stayed then, idiot," he says.

"I know," says Ky, in the space where he's usually supposed to leave a moment of hesitation to think.

But there's no thought.

Asher's words are harsh always but his tone dips down for a soft landing and Ky smiles a little into the receiver, he always softens just for him. He decides to count the moment as an acceptance to his confession, the first time Ky said 'i like you' in so few words and Asher said it back.

For a moment, he lays in that feeling, the sound of the paper birds' cries grow muted as Ky concentrates on Asher's voice. Every syllable sounds different now, every inflection in his best friend's tone pulls him in instead of pushing back and it isn't because Asher's speaking any different, it's because Ky hears it better now, he understands.

God, I really am an idiot.

"There's so much I'd give you, Ky, but you've never asked. Why do you keep running away?"

"I don't know I-" he starts, but that is already a lie.

Ky goes quiet for a long moment, wishing again that Asher could just be here with him. He's always done a better job of interpreting what people want to hear from him with physical cues. He's spent his life mechanically processing each little thing into little pieces to make sense of it, to not have all the angles for once, it's scary.

Lying here could still be easy, Ky could blow the question off, spin it into an accusation maybe. It'd be easier to just argue with Asher than let him in. There are pieces of himself that he's never given anybody, little secrets that he keeps safe, things he couldn't ever share before.

"I'm so afraid," he says, "I'm scared because what if..."

He stops.

What if what?

Asher stops loving me.

No.

He thinks about dark floorboards and doors shut to him, endless hours alone, hours that blended into days and not knowing how to cook so eating stale bread off the loaf in chunks until it went moldy. Holding himself tightly when he skinned his shin, biting his knee to keep himself from crying out because he didn't want to bother his mom. Waiting after kindergarten for hours and hiding in the playground slide so no one would be bothered when they realized his mom hadn't come for him yet.

The way he felt after Emmett died, like he'd never be happy again, how when Tatton stabbed him, he wasn't even afraid of dying.

"What if I take everything from you and then I die and it breaks you?"

It's hard to think about that Asher, the one behind the closed, locked doors, impenetrable. His mouth trembles, the next sentence wavers, precarious over a bottomless chasm. The root of Ky's pain, the monster that lives in the murky depths rumbles, shifting slowly, scales sliding over each other.

It's not meant to be known.

"And what if you die? I don't... I can't be left behind again."

He bites his lip hard as tears well up in his eyes, embarrassed and angry but not understanding why. He wants to curl around those words, draw them back in and pretend that they never happened. It's too sharp, too painful to let Asher have those questions. It feels like looking in on himself, Ky can see where they came from too clearly.

A little boy, can't be more than six, grim-faced and sitting in a dark hallway, waiting, always waiting, hungry, aching.

Wanting.

He opens and closes his free hand into a shaking fist above his head and blinks back tears.

"M'sorry, I shouldn't..." he starts and then peters off again, "I don't know how to ask. I've always just figured things out alone."

[[nyte]]

a s h e r .

"I feel close
Well, maybe I'm not, heaven knows
It's a spotlight stuck on the ceiling
Why are these the things that I'm feeling?"

Love has such violent intentions. His voice holds me hostage and it feels good enough that I know it's dangerous. The way chest seizes when silence falls is fucking terrifying, moreso when I lean into the receiver like that'll bring his voice back. I'm selfish and full of too many secrets but when he says "I'm so afraid." the truth escapes on a measured exhale.

"Me too."

He's always deserved more than I could give him.

I think I've come to hate Ky Earnest as much as I love him. He cannot promise me a happy ending, no one can but he's the first that's ever been honest about it. Instead, they waste their breath promising to do better with candied smiles that are rotten beneath. "What if I take everything from you and then I die and it breaks you?"

There's too much to feel so I laugh instead. It's cruel and cold and I can only hope that it doesn't hurt him. "I wouldn't let you break me." The words aren't quite angry, but they have jagged edges. A bitter part of me wonders if he'll jump at the opportunity to collect another scar.

"Don't make me a burden. It's not your fault." Because I can hear the strain in words uttered through grit teeth, the way he's buckling under the weight of the sins he's chosen to call his own. "It was never your fault. He was never your fault." I say it even though it falls on deaf ears. I know it hurts, so I resolve to say it over and over again until he can't feel it anymore.

I think of the calluses on his palms and the way they scraped against my fingertips. God, I fucking miss him. Though I don't mean to say that, the thought escapes through parted lips. I despise how tender my voice has gone, worn ragged by affection. It makes me nauseous, ringing in my ears like nails on a chalkboard. I don't think I'll ever know if I really want this so much as I need him.

" And what if you die? I don't... I can't be left behind again."

"Ky, I'm not-" I really shouldn't lie to him. We're half a world away but I can feel those eyes, molten with tears I can hear but cannot see. I clench my fingers into a fist to keep from wondering if he'd let me wipe them away. Nonetheless, it's a comforting thought. "You'll never be alone." That's all I can be sure of.

There's so much more to say, but my tongue's tied by wire and electricity. Every time I open my mouth the words resting there feel clumsy and vapid. "Goddammit Ky, just come home." It's little more than a frustrated growl. My next breath shudders, so I dig my nails into my palm. The pain isn't sharp enough to let me feel human again. "We'll talk then. About everything."

But I can't stand on the precipice when I'm so close to breaking.

He ran away to the Capitol so this time I get the last word.

"Goodbye, love you."

I kill the line with a smile.

elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"I hear your voice on the phone
Now I'm no longer alone
Just how I feel
Could you tell me what's real anymore?"

"Me too."

Ky lets out a sharp laugh and it's like something in him breaks at the same time. Tears slip freely down his cheeks and he chews his lip to keep from stopping Asher's voice from coming from the other end. He shuts his eyes and Asher isn't even hundreds of miles away anymore in that apartment but right there beside him on a blanket under the apple trees.

But his chest aches as something else settles there.

Asher always somehow sees all the things that Ky's spent years trying to keep hidden. He has this stupid, annoying way of pulling things out of him that he promised he'd never tell anyone. Part of Ky still wants to fight him over it, still wants to ruin this moment and disappear on him.

Because it's easy.

And "I wouldn't let you break me," is a promise that Ky can't keep in return. He's been broken so many times that for Asher he could shatter, he would. Again and again, he would.

That risk might be okay.

Right?

They call it falling in love and there's a meaning in that he never really got before now.

Beep.

The line goes dead and Ky pauses, fist closed above his head.

Wait.

Goodbye, love you.

Paper cranes dip low as if to check on him and the wind ripples over their wings. Ky catches the soft whistling sound that makes for the first time.

"What?" he whispers to a dead line and squeezes air.

His fist opens and closes again as he catches up and Asher's words replay in his head over and over again.

Don't make me a burden. It's not your fault. You'll never be alone.

Then the line clicks and it starts beeping in his ear so he lets his phone fall into the sand beside him.

He presses the palms of his hands against his eyelids and breathes in slowly, trying to focus on the way that his body feels as it fills with air and then pushes it back out. He feels the sand against his back, the way the grains are rough as they shift against his elbows and slip into the crevices of his skin.

Goodbye, love you.

His fingers curl into his hair and Ky smiles slowly, tentatively as a wave of warmth rushes through him. He pulls his body inwards and then stretches his limbs back out, fingers outstretched as far as he can push them.

"Me too," he says, "Fuck, I love you so much, Asher."

Goddammit Ky, just come home.

He drops his hands and stands up, the red salt pools lay silent, there's not even a ripple.

Then he turns away from them and he goes.