die trying ; beck & talon!train

He was supposed to have found salvation in Nixie Summers. Beck breaks the bitter thought between his teeth and it fills him up so he skips breakfast again. There's a lot to like about her. The cameras are tripping over themselves to eat her alive, to pick apart the pretty new victor until she's nothing but bones.



Yeah, just like Beck.

It was nice for a while, don't get him wrong. Seeing one of his tributes come home was supposed to be the antidote to whatever had been killing him so gently for six fucking years. He tried to force himself to be better, he smiled when he talked to her even if he still refused to do so for photo-ops. He was less reckless, more careful about pushing Capitol boundaries because self-satisfaction was not worth fucking them both over.

Then the Reaping rolled around and he realized it felt as bad as the last one.

She was nothing but a sugar pill.

Beck checked on her before right before the Reaping started. He didn't really know what to say so he just gave her a tight smile and told her he was good at listening if she needed to talk. It was a lie but it's not like Beck expected her to take him up on the offer anyway.

He's come to terms with being haunted but his ghosts were supposed to linger in the shadows. It was okay if he felt Sophie's fingers trailing over the back of his neck at the dead of night - he could always turn on the light and chase her away. They were rarely ever so straightforward as the boy wearing Turner's face.

The mask is poorly made, however, contorted into an expression Beck knows the boy couldn't have managed. Turner was as magnetic as he was strange, calm in spite of the fire that danced across his tongue. The kind of ice that chases heat just to prove it can't be thawed.

Talon is nothing like his brother, then. Captured by high tide instead of commanding it, fighting a losing battle against its currents. His heart thuds painfully in his chest as he watches the boy break down, flinching forward - toward the open wound hoping to soothe until the peacekeeper behind him runs a tender finger over the gun holstered at his side. A wordless reminder that Beck has become intimately familiar with these last few years.

He bites his tongue until he tastes blood and then bites harder.

Beck's the first to the train, still unwilling to be bothered by goodbyes. There's less paparazzi waiting for him though and he makes a mental note to thank Nixie for that. His foot taps an anxious rhythm, fingers drumming against his thigh. A drink would ease his nerves but there will be plenty of time to get shitfaced during the ride to the Capitol.

He's never been very good with words and really wants to say the right thing this time.

He doesn't smile when Talon arrives, but his expression softens considerably.

"Talon." He holds out his hand, ignoring the way his lips had almost wrapped around the wrong name, "First things first, I'm sorry for your loss."

Three years too late.