Hemorrhage // {Mace Reaction to Elon's Death}

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

The television screen flickered, the light dancing in shards. It was broken, shattered by the news that no one else in Panem gave a flying fuck about. But to him, everything had come to a stop, from the light, to his heartbeat. Mace stared, jaw tensed, dead grey eyes staring above the screen because for the past fifteen minutes he had not been able to watch the carnage.

But it was over now. That moment, that last moment, had already come and gone.

One of the Capitolite anchors droned on about the tragic end of the Victor’s brother as they panned to scenes from the arena, from his quick in and out at the Cornucopia, through every fight, every day. Mace had seen them all, of course, but he couldn’t help watching, remembering. Because of course he’d seen them all before, and he would see them all again, countless times. The torture would be a wheel, running him over and over again with every Games.

And it was a fate he perfectly deserved.

The images had long ago faded from his consciousness when Mace stood up. With his dead eyes propped open, he turned to find Elon and Noreen’s styling teams lined up, quiet and at attention. It still wasn’t good enough. The sound he emitted came from beneath his gut, filled him as he bellowed. And they scattered. It wasn’t satisfactory; it made no impression on him whatsoever.

He wanted to lay in the dirt, in the ruddy summer sun of Ten and remember, as he’d done for Larae. But there was nothing that could bring him comfort in the cold sterility of the Capitol. He cast about the room, ripping through the soft blanket that had been thrown over the couch, before he tore into the furniture. The stuffy scratched his rough skin and too quickly Mace had scattered it over the expensive rug.

It wasn’t something soft he wanted to destroy. He wanted to ruin everything.

Because they had ruined his everything, his brother. If it had not been for Elon, and Cygnus, and Icarus, he would have never made it through that icy hell, never been able to cope with the haunting shivers, never been able to see that there could be brotherhood in death. Denver for Cygnus, Aesop for Icarus, Alexander for Elon. Had Elon found that brotherhood? Would someone be there to greet him on the other side, as he was sure Charas was waiting for him?

There might be the little girl, and just the thought of her tore through the numbness, the need to find somewhere quiet. No, he wanted somewhere loud so that his screams could be lost. He should have banned Elon from training the moment he had started talking to her, talking to anyone who couldn’t help him. Because in the end his alliance mates had just gotten in the way. Mace felt the familiar brace in his arms as his fingers curled into fists.

He should have insisted Elon ally with Jae, yes, but also the mutt-minion Topaz had been babysitting. What an asset she’d turned out to be. Mace had no doubt she could have cut her way through a few fucking vines. A few. Fucking. Vines. That’s what had ended Elon, a trick of the Gamemakers, nothing more.

His fist goes through the backboard of the couch, testing his strength after so long. The flimsy backboard gives, sagging under the impact. But it’s not enough; the skin of his knuckles hasn’t even broken. So Mace takes to the coffee table, and then the vases on the mantle, and finally the window itself, hurling one of the dining chairs out of it. At some point his flat lips parted, his eyes filled and he no longer held onto the world around him.

The diamond world shattered in front of him with the window, his scream and snot and tears raining down with the glass. Mace stumbled back, tripped over his own feet and went down on his hip and head. There was a ringing somewhere else, and all around him planes of mirrors, disorienting and suffocating.

He reached for one of his knives – Larae’s throwing knives – and choked on Alexander’s name. Lionel. It was an echo of something current, something in the now, and immediately the diamond world blurred, receded to the shadowy past. Mace came back to himself trembling on the ground, a trickle of blood pooling around his head, his face slivered with glass.

But it was his hands, full of blood, that held the weight of Elon’s death. Mace cradled fire in his palms, and it was not the sort of flame that seared, that cauterized. It was the kind that devoured.

And as the pain, the truth, ate its way through him, Mace clenched and unclenched his bloody fists, mumbling the name he’d never be able to say again without the rot of death.

“Elon, Elon, Elon, Elon…”