holt fier ; district 2 ; cbd 1

She's got them in a chokehold, fingers pressing loving bruises along the hollows of their throats. A legacy once so filled with pride now scrabbles for something to fill the void it left. Be it his older sister's vitriol and his younger's adoration or be it the quiet submission that has consumed his father. They've got this incessant need to make sense of senseless tragedy.

Holt? Well, Holt doesn't care. Getting tangled in the many threads of his family's generational trauma sounds utterly boring when there's better ways to be wasting a Wednesday night. He's got restless hands and wandering eyes, all heat and hunger in the way they consume. That's how he found the tunnels in the first place, yet another hazy night accompanied only by haunted halls with a half-finished bottle of jack clenched in his off hand.

It's great fun collecting secrets and keeping them locked behind his teeth. And in the morning he wears knowing smirks and stifles laughter with his palm. The point of flirting with horrible vices are the lovely little scars they leave in their wake. Forgotten nights immortalized in the shaky ink constellations stretching along the inside of his wrist.

As for the treasure that waits on the other end of those tunnels? He won't let himself get carried away. Ignore that time his cigarette branded his late mother's antique table because he'd been staring out the window and remembering, ghost of a smile from that night rotting on his lips. It won't be long until he burns through Cygnus' quiet danger and finds what he hides beneath.

For his sake, Holt hopes it isn't anything good.