undead starlight ; {lex/mackenzie}

i worried bout rain
and i worried bout lightning
but i watched them off
to the light of the morning

She shrugs at Mackenzie's floundering, not sure if she's got the heart to tell him yes. They're practically the same age, and it isn't like his whopping one year of experience as a victor of the Hunger Games counts for much of anything relevant to Lex's daily life. She's not stuck babysitting tributes on their way off to their actual deaths for the rest of her life. No one she killed is actually dead. Hell, it's not like bleeding out in the vineyard was her first brush with death. Mackenzie Pryce is about as qualified to mentor her about coping as he would be to mentor her about using a coping saw. And anyhow — "It's dinner, Lex. Don't make it weird."

She snorts. "Fair enough," she agrees, swallowing a sip of beer. "Tell you what: why don't you wait til the next reaping." The right corner of her mouth pulls itself onto a shit eating grin. "If I'm heading with you to the Capitol, you can mentor me then." No one really reacts positively when Lex brings up the very real possibility that she'll be reaped for a return appearance in the 81st Hunger Games, so obviously she brings it up with nonchalance at every opportunity.

Mackenzie pivots, trying to distract himself with a forkful of food and Lex with a topic that always catches her interest. "Denali called earlier. Again." Lex feels her jaw clench and her ears go pink. "Asked for you to call when you get the chance." She hasn't been avoiding talking to Denali specifically so much as she's been avoiding phone calls in general. Truth be told, she'd love to hear from Denali again — Mackenzie knows it, too, or he wouldn't be pushing the subject in place of the uncomfortable one left abandoned.

"Okay, Mom," she grumbles, feigning annoyance. "I know. It's just —" Lex has neither made nor received a phone call in her life and doesn't intend to start now. "I don't love the idea of my conversations — personal conversations — getting eavesdropped on." She frowns. "By whatever poor Capitolite has to listen in on your calls. Or by nosy victors."

For as reserved as Lex can be among strangers, anyone who's ever spent enough time near her once she's gotten comfortable can attest to the fact that she has absolutely no filter whatsoever. Careless treasons dropped on bugged lines from the lips of Lex Lionel when she's too excited to think her thoughts through are a danger to her own odds of surviving the 81st reaping — let alone Games — as much as they are to the little Lyons sisters, as much as they are to one Mackenzie Pryce and every tribute under his watch from now until the end of time. No one wants any of that less than Lex does.

"Got a pen and some paper? You can give her a message next time you talk."