fall from high places ; ﹙angel ∕ mackenzie ）

"Don't try to save us
cause we're doing it right.
We are the wasted youth"

Gilded, the pathway of a winner was.

Since his victory, Mackenzie had learned to call a lavish lifestyle his own. It was all fur coats he never wanted to wear, hair full of products he hadn't even heard of before the reaping; he certainly wouldn't have been able to afford them. The Capitol had done a good job of erasing Mackenzie Pryce's canvas and repainting him as they saw fit. His image was much darker than he would've ever imagined. Something to match his fellow victor; the Capitol had been calling them the divine pairing. Sultry Salazar and Proud Pryce, they'd said. It was laughable, the things they came up with.

He stood next to Jacinta; the father who hadn't raised him was just on her other side. How Mackenzie had managed not only to avoid punching Bryson in the face, but to avoid talking to him at all was a phenomenon he wouldn't have ever been able to comprehend.

And that was the rub of everything, wasn't it? Try as they might, the Capitol couldn't erase a boy's past. Skeletons lurked within Mackenzie's closet, deeper than the surface that they'd wiped away so easily. No matter how hard they tried, Mackenzie still made wearing fur look like a necessity for survival of a cold winter more than a fashion statement. No matter how much gel they pumped into his hair, a single curl always managed to fall into his face, as it always had.

They had done a very good job of erasing him, but some marks were too eternal for even the Capitol to take away.

Mackenzie found Marley in the crowds, young and pure. Mackenzie had been a lot like him once; he hated the idea of someone ever taking that away from his newly-found brother.

He played it cool, but his throat was tight and his palms were sticky with sweat in the moments leading up to Jacquelyn reaching her hand into that bowl. The worry that Marley would be reaped was almost enough to force Mackenzie's gaze down to the ground, but it was just enough that he couldn't bare to look away for fear of jinxing it.

"Luke Collins!"

He exhaled in relief; he hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath.

"I volunteer!"

——————————

He sat in his quarters on the train, devastation wearing on him like rain. It seeped through his clothes and made him shiver as it ran down his back. He knew he needed to help them, but how? He was hardly an expert; any advice he could've given the tributes would've paralleled "kill them before they kill you;" and he figured they could gather that much for themselves.

Finally, he straightened himself, looked at his reflection. The man staring back at him was sculpted: freshly-shaven and tall, with pouty lips and a glass of deep red wine in his seemingly capable hands. The surface was just about as beautiful as the Capitol could make it; the inside burned with consequence.

Mackenzie found the boy first, tall and thin. So sure of himself that he'd asked for a chance to live the very life that gave Mackenzie nightmares every time he slept.

"Angel de Costa."

He tried the words out for the first time; they sounded nice. The vino tasted better, so he took another sip from his glass and sat himself directly in front of the boy.

"You volunteered. Pipe dream, or death wish?"