See You in Hell - Exover's End(or)

He felt her axe buried in the back of his neck and then nothing else.







Nerves fizzled out, their messages no longer traveling from his crown through his body, and though he heard the sliding of wet flesh against metal as War dislodged her weapon he didn't feel a thing.

In his head there was a silent pressure, pressing out against the walls of his skull like a balloon filled with more and more air till it POPped. Heartache, that wretched beast that sank all hopes and tossed out the life vests and left him for dead, settled into his bones, made itself home. He laid with his face in the mud, fingers twitching by his side, desperate to hold onto the life he no longer afforded, the life he'd lost in the battle with War. I might have lost the battle but I didn't lose War. A chuckle rolled past his lips.

He heard her above him, standing on cracked legs and splintered bones. Unbroken. Unshaken. She was fortified in herself while he was no longer in his own driver's seat. The wheel was stripped from his grip and his headlights burst, and he breathed dirty, earthy rainwater in and out of his mouth. He tasted iron in his lungs and coughed hard. Bloody.

For a moment his arms tingled, sensation rushing to them, synapses stitching together to grace him with motion again, but with a weakly slung arm he knew the uptick in momentum wouldn't keep, knew it would die out as soon as it was brought back. Somewhere, death laughed, an offer Ex rejected now taunting him during the inevitable. Maybe he should've agreed, succumbed to death's wishes and avoided the swelling in his head and slowing of his heart.

But he was glad he told the bastard to fuck off. His life could only be his, and Ex could live with failing himself much more easily than he could being failed by the world. And either way, he wouldn't live much more regardless. He laughed, and slung another arm haphazardly, sloshing mud at War's feet and rolling to the side. He coughed, and whispered as loud as he could, “thank you, War. For seeing me.”

Beverly's tiny tongue lapped furiously at his face, rough against his empty lids, anguished squeaks escaping her mouth. He loved that rat. She cried for him, and with every ounce of strength he still had, he brought his hand up to his friend's body and scooped her up, thumb stroking her backside as she licked at his knuckles and screamed. Ex smiled and he felt the cool of blood seep out, and he knew. She couldn't stay there without him: he had to send her on. “Will you keep Beverly alive?” His hand stretched up, the furry thing still twirling and anxious, and he hoped she didn't hold death against him. “She's a fighter, too.”

Blackness overcame him, darker than usual, and he felt his arm give way and fall back to earth. Everything was still, and the mud was even comforting as it ebbed around him, and he sank like the ships and didn't foresee a rescue party ever sent his way. He didn't want one, either. He wanted to stay right there, let the end swallow him like the sea, greet Finley at the bottom and never breathe again. A shallow, strained inhale, and he coughed harder. Spots of cream penetrated the dark, and he tried to sit but there was nothing to control. His body was heavy and gone, and all he had left were his friends and his home, the things that made him him, and they were right there with him.

He wouldn't be home if they ever sent that search party, if they snatched his remains from the holy ground that consecrated him and welcomed him into life.

He couldn't let that happen.

“One more thing, War….”

Another coughing fit as Finley and Savior and Stanley grabbed their instruments and set up around the hay bales, serenading him, celebrating him. They knew it was coming. They knew where he belonged: with them. Forever.

“Don't let them have me, okay? This…. This is my home.”

A smile, quite possibly his last, wormed its way across his face, cheek to cheek and bloodied. “This is my…. HOME! Home on the raaaange!” And he coughed through his song and his body shook and he hoped his killer would honor his wishes, let him rest in the home he'd made for himself amongst the mountains and fields, the home he'd always wanted.

District ten didn't deserve him. It never took the time to love him. Now he knew he was loved and that was enough. As he faded, the eternal gray lightened to yellows and whites and silvers, shining brilliantly and brightly. His allies strummed and blew around him, and only a bit behind them was Saturn, sitting with Damaris, talking about everything and nothing, and that's what love was. As the champion from five threw what was left of his body into the flaming bale of hay, he embraced the end and embraced the ashes and embraced himself, and for the first time in a long time Exover saw the world.

And it was good.