plastic pistols, paper hearts [Roger v Justice | Day 7]

Cannon.

It's done. He's done it. Atlas White is dead and Roger has a moment to rest.

There is a marker amongst Atlas White's things. Permanent, according to the label.

Fine. The notion of permanence is laughable in the form of ink — and Roger would laugh if he could quiet his involuntary wincing every time he draws a breath.

With four fingers, his handwriting is clumsy enough as it is; he doesn't bother to scribble the letters right-side up. It takes a full minute, but when Roger Strangways -Teach glances toward the ruin of his leg, his eyes catch on the five shapes chicken-scratched onto his belt:

[attr="id","poundOfFlesh"]AtLAs

He's done it. It's done.

Cannon.

He swears it's the sound that twists his guts, but truth be told Roger Strangways-Teach has no idea where the pain is coming from anymore. Probably the last wound that Atlas gave him.

Is he dying?

Yes, obviously. But if none of the wounds he's sustained so far have proven mortal, the pirate isn't sure that anything can kill him.

If his math is right, there aren't more than a handful of tributes left in this hell with him. Three, maybe four. Atlas White is dead, but he isn't sure which other faces he'll see whenever the Gamemakers decide that it's night. The muffin girl from training? The lower district boy that tore Scout's chest open during the bloodbath? He doesn't remember their names.

But Justice Fray's stupid smirk has yet to open the Anthem — Roger's still eagerly awaiting the day. And then there's the others, other names he's heard before: Eckhart. Tate. Krigel.

One of the cannon's that fired today was for Scout — he knows it. His heart couldn't possibly feel this heavy if it weren't true.

The only sign of her the pirate has seen is an abandoned roll of duct tape. Could be anyone's, of course. But it's Scout's. He knows that, too.

It gives the crippled career an idea, though. He might've been eight when Opal Shore won her Games, might've been six when Peridot won his — but he's seen tributes in as bad shape as him make it to the end.

Lazy and unmotivated as his mother's said that he is, Roger Strangways-Teach he doesn't know how to quit.

So maybe he'll take a leaf out of Yaa Valarro's book, out of Aria Wolfe's — isn't that better than being disarmed entirely?

And if District One still goes home with the crown, at least he'll have given it — hell, if he kept fighting with one bum leg and no arms, that has to be more than 100%.

With one great effort and a whole lot of groaning, Roger sits himself upright and painstakingly covers the base of his horn knife with Scout's duct tape and sticks it to his forehead. He tries not to think about how she'd tease him and laud him for his transformation into a shiny, bedazzled unicorn.

Bits of adhesive cling to his teeth, to the gash that Atlas opened up mere hours prior. It sticks, it stings — but none of it hurts quite as bad as when an errant strip of tape tugs free one of the braids that Scout Krigel wove in his hair... god, how many days ago?

It feels like another lifetime ago. Back when he was a whole man. Back when this was still more of an adventure than anything else. Back when the world still had space for paper flowers and braids and piggyback rides. And Scout.

The ground was a bad idea, he thinks. As if he had a choice in the matter. But with one bum leg of his own, and the phantom limb that is Scout Krigel still crushing him harder than the missing appendages he's cauterized and stitched, he's not sure he'll be able to get himself up again.

So he lies flat on his back and waits for the Anthem to confirm the cold sorrow that's settled into his heart.

But when it opens with District Four and the half-smile of the girl he parted ways with the day before, Roger cries out as if he's been stabbed again. Expecting it, accepting of the notion of it was one thing. But nothing before this arena or in it has adequately prepared the worn pirate for the acute pain of losing —

Losing who?

Losing a girl he'd carried for as long as he could.

Losing a girl who'd saved his life at least as much as the other way around.

Losing a girl he stuck with to make up for the doom he'd cursed her with when he'd thrown his own name, life, soul into the arena.

Losing a girl he'd come to think of as a little sister — even though he has one of those, and that's why he's here in the first place. Apart from the obvious — that Roger had the choice of one life for another and decided that Brig Strangways-Teach should not die this year at the expense of Scout Krigel — it's weird to think of Brig and Scout in the same context. They're the same age. Roger cares for both of them — deeply.

And today, there is not a question in his mind that, given the opportunity, he would've thrown his broken body in the path of whatever blade, jaw, or fang put Scout Krigel's face in the sky.

"Hey!" he hears. Fuck. "Hey Machaon!"

If he was going to win this thing, Roger Strangways-Teach wanted to save Justice Fray for last.

Fuck it.

He's deluding himself if he thinks he's making it through another day.

If it ends here, then maybe he can give Justice a left arm to match Roger. Something to remember him by. Death is inevitable for —

"I killed Scout."

— and the last paper flower falls from his hair as he swings with all the might he can muster.


[attr="id","rSpeech"][roger attacks justice, dragonfire glazed spike glaive]
OBdlHXsiglaive
[attr="id","rSpeech"][miss — ]

[attr="id","rSpeech"][accuracy reroll]
glaive
[attr="id","rSpeech"][13172 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage]

Justice peels away from Roger's furious cut, away from his redoubled swing. Of course he does. With a name like Fray, the boy sidestepping his blade can only be what Roger is. What Atlas accused him of the day before. "I thought of you a decent man and not a career."

He is half that. With only one busted leg, one four-fingered hand, and no Scout to keep him propped upright, he is only half the man he was when he entered the arena.

Half-decent is a stretch.

The arithmetic is easy enough that anyone could do the math in their head: one career is greater than one-half of a career. There's no surprise that Justice skirts around his blade with ease.

"Nice belt."

Roger killed a boy yesterday.

(Atlas White. He promised he would remember.)

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"I killed Atlas," he explains. The words fall from his mouth simply, like stating a fact. Maybe that should scare him, how easy it is to own up to the fact that he is a murderer, but if Roger didn't care yesterday, lying in a pool of Atlas's blood as it slowly transitioned from warm to tepid to cold and coagulated, he can't fathom how that would be changed with the anthem.

(Scout Krigel is dead.)

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Did you enjoy it?" he accuses, brown eyes narrowing. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Did she deserve it, Fray?"

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"I bet it didn't mean a thing to you." Roger is a hypocrite for saying so — killing Atlas White didn't mean a thing to him yesterday, doesn't mean a thing to him today. But the pirate fell into that awful trap of caring and can't help himself. It seems wrong that someone who meant something to him should be —

"another notch in the belt of a detestable man"

Just like Atlas.

He doesn't think he's got it in him today. With all his might he wishes that he does, that he could overcome — well, everything — and bring District Four's justice across the neck of the Fray boy, a red close-parenthesis to end the afterthought that is the monster in front of him.

But he is not Fitz Ripley. He will never be Fitz Ripley. The only thing he and his childhood hero have in common is that they'll both be a footnote in the story of someone else's victory.


[attr="id","rSpeech"][roger attacks justice, dragonfire glazed spike glaive]
lDzn9fIAglaive
[attr="id","rSpeech"][13063 -- Severed Right Leg at Hip -- 10 damage, +1 Rivalry]

He thought it would feel better.

Justice Fray's leg parts from his body beneath Roger's glaive like a fork cutting through a cake — and not the kind that's six tiers tall and full of fruit and nuts and chunks of chocolate. From experience, the pirate should've known better, but he is still caught off-guard by how easy it is.

Easier than snapping the claws off a crab.

Easier than pulling a cork from a bottle of rum.

Easier than drawing a knife named mercy across the throat of someone who was only ever meant to suffer.

He thought he'd feel better than this. What was that saying about an eye for an eye?

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Vengeance, Justice," he whispers by way of explanation. As if between them, the two boys hadn't already taken enough fire and blood to last a thousand lifetimes. Vengeance, Roger, he should've said — because it isn't the Fray boy who needs to be convinced that this was just.

The words don't help him. As Justice Fray tumbles to the ground, echoing Roger's scream from several days before, the only thing that Roger feels is empty.

His eyes glaze over as his enemy pulls himself to his feet — his foot — and he can't process anything but the words:

"Made sure it was painful for her the whole way through."

His eyebrows knit together, bedazzled beard parting to mouth the words but why just as Justice gives him an answer.

"Because I'm a Career and that's what we do isn't it?"

No. No, it isn't. Not where he comes from. Maybe District One is full of monsters — like Fray's sister (Scout, he recalls with a twinge, Scout Fray.) or like the wicked witch that Fitz Ripley slew in the sea — but he never killed anyone in cold blood. Never tortured someone because he enjoyed it.

Never sought victims out for the prestige of adding them to their kill count.

"I killed a Krigel. You think it meant nothing to me? That kill is everything I've ever dreamed of."

Roger Strangways-Teach can muster no more rage, no more anger. He is the eye of the hurricane. A calm, a clarity settles over him. Killing Justice won't bring Scout back any more than taking the other boy's leg stuck Roger's arm back on his shoulder.

But he can't keep the bitterness from his voice. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"She deserved better than you."

He should've killed her himself, he knows that now. He should've. It would've been kinder than leaving her to wander into the Fray boy's jaws. He could never bring himself to do it — not when she was sliced and battered beyond repair on the first day, not when the mutts took their legs, not when they parted ways.

You did kill her yourself, Roger, a voice at the back of his skull reminds him. When you volunteered.

No. He didn't. He took his place on the stage to keep one girl from stepping up. He threw his life away to make sure that his little sister got to live hers. There were hundreds, thousands of other faces in that crowd. Any one of those girls could've raised her hand for Scout Krigel. It wasn't either/or. He can't keep feeling guilty for something that isn't his fault —

But he can't stop, either.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"If I'm cut from the same stone as you are," he muses, [attr="id","rSpeech"]"then you must know what killing a Fray will mean to me."

The words sound so heavy — and perhaps they should. Once upon a time, a boy they called Jolly Roger would've said them in jest. He doesn't have another laugh left in him.


[attr="id","rSpeech"][roger attacks justice, dragonfire glazed spike glaive]
8tIR7s8Sglaive
[attr="id","rSpeech"][13134 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage]

There hasn't been wind in Roger Strangways-Teach's sails for days, but it's finally starting to show. Again, his glaive slices through the air, makes contact with nothing. He doesn't have anything left — in him, on him. Whichever.

"Nice aim," taunts the Fray boy, even as he tumbles to the ground trying to escape Roger's swing. The enemy axe comes cutting towards him in response, but he brings the head of his glaive down to catch it. For a second the two weapons are a stalemate — then the axe disengages and clips Roger's shoulder.

"About as good as Scout's and, well, we all know how that turned out."

He grits his teeth. Scout Krigel saved his life a dozen times over the last week

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Not so easy when you've only got one leg to stand on," he observes, bemusement turning the corners of his mouth down. The frown matches his mustache, if not his bedazzled beard.

A sigh escapes.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Where's that fighting spirit, Fray?" He spits, blood and phlegm and a bit of grit splattering the ground next to Justice's dumb smirk.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"I've been inches from death for damn near a week," he complains, the exhaustion in his voice finally coming through. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"How come none of you bastards have been able to kill me yet?"

How come he's still fighting?

[attr="id","rSpeech"][roger attacks justice, dragonfire glazed spike glaive]
iy5okTbvglaive
[attr="id","rSpeech"][13171 -- Deep Gash on Left Calf -- 8.0 damage +1 rivalry]

Justice Fray's next words catch him off-guard: "I don't want to be this anymore."

Neither does Roger. He doesn't mind being a murderer. Doesn't mind swinging a glaive at Justice Fray's midsection. Doesn't mind being any of the monsters he's been painted as.

But he doesn't want to struggle to stand, to hold a knife, to draw a breath.

He wishes he was whole.

"Aren't you tired?"

He sighs. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Exhausted," he agrees. Even thinking of it is enough to entice the pirate to shut his eyes — for a moment. Just to see what giving up would feel like.

Like sleep.

Roger's four-fingered hand falls from his wrist. The glaive clatters to the ground next to Justice Fray and it is all Roger can do but stare in disbelief, in curiosity. It sears.

His lips pull away from his teeth as the pirate opens his mouth —

to smile.

An unholy, untamable laugh escapes from Jolly Roger's throat, as if the stump at the end of his remaining wrist is the funniest thing he's ever seen in his entire life.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Good," he says, wild grin still plastered across his face. Unable to think of anything else, he repeats the word: [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Good."

The lights flicker — or maybe it's his vision. A black circle creeps like ivy toward the center of his eyesight, tunneling. A deep ragged breath sends the darkness back a millimeter. Repeat. The oxygen is fire in his lungs, in his gut. Everything probably hurts. He's in too much pain to tell.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Good game, Fray." His smile does not falter. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"I'd offer you my hand to shake, but, well..." The pirate nods at his latest severed appendage to hit the floor. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"You're gonna have to grab it yourself."

He grins harder, equal parts genuine and shit-eating, gestures with the wound that ends his right arm. Roger privately gives Justice a thumbs up, the middle finger, a peace sign, v for victory, an okay — nothing translates from his head.

He drops to his knee, balancing on the bone and the bloody stump that dangles opposite it. He bows his head, presents his neck, the knife clattering from his forehead to to the ground. Roger should've learned that lesson watching years ago: all the duct tape in the world can't piece back together a broken body, a broken soul.

A change of heart brings his head upright, his eyes locking on Justice Fray's.

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Justice?" he whispers, a note of terror creeping into the syllables. He feels small, all of a sudden. He grew up too fast, but maybe he shouldn't've forgotten what everyone else does when they look at him: behind the beard, behind the hard brown glare, he is still as much a boy as the other tributes that came here with him. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"If you're gonna be someone new, can you start now?"

[attr="id","rSpeech"]"Hate me toe-to-hip 'til the day you die — I hate you with both of my fists — but don't make me suffer like she did?"

A tear he can't wipe away wells in the corner of his right eye as he stares at Justice. It's time. He nods.