a clock's game {avriel & kirito}

He knows this place now better than he knows his own home.

The training centre at night is near the same as day, it's just as quiet, just as seemingly empty of life, Avriel walks another lap around the basement. He trails his fingers along concrete wall until he hits glass panelling and he can see the large swimming pool that takes up much of the subterranean level. The lights are off, the water still, nothing moves. The glass turns back into concrete and there's the elevator again.

It's just mindlessness that has him walking. Hard to think like this, his thoughts start to drift and the more exhausted he is, the less likely it is that the nightmares will wake him tonight. Some victors choose substances, some other methods. Avriel's found that working his body until it just eventually stops does half a trick.

Concrete, then glass, then there's the elevator again. He walks by it and then leans into the door to the stairwell, pushing it open with his shoulder. He walks up to the landing between the basement and first floor and pauses for a moment.

This morning, he met Nixie. He feels bad, like someone's taken everything out of him and put it all back again in the wrong place. She seems alright for a career, she just isn't Aneesa or Zane. He still couldn't blame her for surviving in the same way that so many had blamed him.

But then there's got to be someone to hate for their deaths.

He starts walking again, counting the stairs as he moves. The pocket of his hoodie is weighed down with a sleeping Scout and it bounces slightly with each stair. The sole of his good foot burns, his stump on the other side itches, "Fuck," he mutters and shoulders his way out of the staircase onto the first floor.

It's late enough that no one's really about either. The dining hall is still open but dinner ended hours back. All that's left is the little bar through a set of double doors off-limit to the tributes. Avriel isn't interested in another drink, not since a few nights ago with Lysander, but sometimes the barman has ice cream and Avriel likes the pink flavour.

He slips through the door and then stops in his tracks. A Victor is sat at the bar, one Avriel hasn't met yet. He sees the cane leaning up against the bar and grimaces. District Eleven ended up being just Kassandra, no one else and that had suited him fine. He doesn't want to stand in front of every goddamn Victor in Panem and wait for judgement.

But here's Kirito, a whole ass adult now. Avriel doesn't know how to talk to adults, hell he doesn't know how to talk to anyone, he doesn't want to. He turns on his heel.

"Time. What a wild concept, huh?"

Merde.

He pauses, wondering if he can pretend that he thought the comment was directed at the bartender. Avriel glances over his shoulder briefly and sees the older victor's head tipped slightly towards him. The guy obviously wants a conversation. Seconds tick by where all Avriel does is stand there. It's getting too late to pretend he didn't hear him and just leave but as time drags on, the tension only grows.

He's got to say something.

"Yeah," he says.

Cool, Avriel.

Av sighs a little and then turns back for the bar. He approaches slowly because he doesn't want to be there. He takes a seat on a stool a couple down from Kirito's, growing up in Nine he learned not to be the trusting type.

The barman slides two scoops of pink ice cream across the counter in a small glass of milk with a spoon and Avriel starts mashing it up. His mom used to make milkshakes this way when he was a kid and he still likes it. It makes him think of her, puts him right back in the kitchen of his old house.

He can hear the shitty old fan ticking as it rotates still, trying and failing to dispel that heavy summer heat.

"You look old" he says after a moment, "I mean older than on the tv."