exposure {avriel & talon}

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Arrows
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last seen May 23, 2023 16:50:31 GMT -5

your resident blonde bisexual boy

exposure {avriel & talon} May 11, 2022 17:52:38 GMT -5

Post by Arrows on May 11, 2022 17:52:38 GMT -5

t a l o n .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

Gold, it's not the color I would have gone with, but I don't hate it. The fresh layer of paint almost seems too tempting not to touch resting on the top of my nails. I force myself not to give in to the impulses though, the thought of upsetting Sailor today isn't one I want to run with. However, it has been awhile since she sped out of the room on a mission for some kind of eyeliner. The only issue with that is I don't do well just sitting by myself. In fact, every second she's gone I swear my right leg is bouncing faster and faster.

I hear the bathroom faucet drip once and I'm in the elevator.

I can't do that. I can't just sit in silence right now, I just can't. At least in the elevator I can hear the hum of the electricity. It's comforting in a way, the way it sounds kind of like the inside of the mech. I never thought this would be something I'd deal with. Those mechs killed people and I killed people with them, yet the sound of whirring machines actually makes it easier to breathe for a second. Shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't that sound make me crazy or some shit? The elevator doors open before I have to answer myself.

One of the Peacekeepers on the main level gives me a weird look as I step out barefoot onto the cool tiled floor. I can't really blame him, even when I see myself in the floor's reflection it's a lot. Half of my hair is pressed into curlers, I'm holding my hands out in front of me trying to let the nail polish dry, and I'm literally only dressed in a white robe with no shoes on. Still, I give him the most confident nod I can before escaping down the hallway.

It takes a couple minutes of me continuously looking over my shoulder to really start to realize he isn't going to chase me. A little over a week ago he probably would have grabbed my wrist and sent me back up to Four's floor. I'm still just a sixteen year old, but now I'm a sixteen year old who killed five other teenagers. That changes everything, obviously. I stop walking for a second to shake my head. No regrets, that's what I promised myself.

"I will never forget you."

My jaw tightens. I might not regret it, but the guilt sure stings. It causes me to wince all the way to where my feet stop, toes curling up against the tile. There's a subtle thundering in my heart, a dryness at the back of my throat, and a dull ache ringing in my head as my eyes look at the empty bar. It's not pills, right? My tongue glides slowly over the creases of my lips. It would only be one drink. They wouldn't stop me. I could just-

"Talon! Hey, Talon!"

My head snaps, hands instinctively reaching out in front of me for levers that aren't there. I'm blinking for a second, re-centering myself, as this man and woman come up to me from out of nowhere. My mouth tries to form words, but before I'm even able to there are pens, pads, and questions.

"How are you doing? Has the recovery been easy? Difficult?"

My eyes are darting back and forth between the two as I try to stumble for something to say. I haven't been around this many people since the Games. Beck was there when I woke up in the hospital and then there's Sailor, Nixie, and Annie but they are- I'm still reeling for anything to come out of my mouth as my eyes brush over the bar again. Was I really almost going to do that? After everything, I was really going to-

Something flashes and I take a step back, one of my hands quickly raises to block my face. Two other figures find themselves next to me as their cameras flash several more times in swift succession. Nothing more than half sounds are coming out of my lips as each flash comes with the music, painted sands, and strobing lights of the finale. I can see the elevator behind them, but I feel like I shouldn't just push past them. The bar is to my right, but I don't want to be in there. I can't be in there.

I don't know what to do.

I have no fucking idea what I'm supposed to do.

elegant

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exposure {avriel & talon} May 12, 2022 23:49:28 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on May 12, 2022 23:49:28 GMT -5

✦ ✦ ✦

His phone rings at three in the morning.

Gloria already had a new one waiting for him on his kitchen counter when he got home after the other one broke on Tuesday. This one lights up on his bedside table, vibrating softly in the dark. Pastel colours from the alert play across the ceiling but Avriel just lays there watching them until the ringing stops.

A minute later, it all starts again.

Shrill rings cut through the night– the early morning? – but part of him doesn't mind it. It's jarring but it's still better than the hushed tones that stop as soon as he enters the room these days. His team's been overly careful with him since the morning of the finale.

Avriel hadn't meant to give himself away, he's never been the type to beg for attention, let alone even want it. He'd only winced a little when Cleo ran her long nails through his hair in an effort to tame it. Dried blood flaked onto the collar of his shirt. A look of concern flashed across the hairdresser's face for a split second but then she caught Avriel's gaze in the mirror. He looked away before she could ask him about it.

She must have told Gloria.

They dressed him in black for the occasion, after Nowles and Oswald dying back to back in the top five Gloria decided he should be in mourning. His team chose lace gloves to hide the scars on his hands and a tie pin cut from obsidian in an effort to hold all of his pieces together. The stone caught the light all morning and held it cupped around its edges until it pooled and spilled over the sides to be swallowed by his vantablack tie.

Pain shot through his head all day but it was almost a blessing, it made it easier not to think. He could barely even focus on the wall to ceiling screens showing off Talon and Ellis' fight to the death. Avox walked around with little platters of canapés, bottles of champagne were lined up on a table near the front of the party, waiting to be popped at the exact moment one of the tributes won.

He shut his eyes for most of it, the room spinning around him, the sounds of their struggle overwhelming every other sensation. He could feel the tip of Aspen's spear in his shoulder, twisting down deep, the sound of waves crashing against the shore, sand beneath his feet.

Not coping well.

At least he looked good, the papers all agreed on it the next day. Broody Avriel from District Nine, there was a whole piece about his tributes and their sudden loss. Apparently he looked appropriately subdued so his popularity points had gone up again. Gloria was happy about that.

Avriel just wished that the papers would stop caring about him.

The phone rings again and this time Avriel answers before it can finish the first chime.

He holds it against his cheek, cradling it carefully, the pads of his fingers flush against the sides. The phone's slightly warm but the glass screen is cold against his cheek. It's bad weather on the other end of the line. He can hear raindrops landing hard, a steady beat against the ground.

Someone's breathing, a soft rattling sound intertwined with the rain. Avriel lays there listening for a long quiet moment, eyes trained on the ceiling, dark again now that he's answered the phone.

"Have you eaten?" he asks. Are you alright?

The rain picks up a little on the other side but Eden doesn't answer him. Avriel isn't expecting him to. They just stay like that, breathing into a phone line at each other for a long time.

He wakes up six hours later, his phone dead beside him.

"AVRIEL."

There's a fist banging against his bedroom door.

"AVRIEL, THE CORONATION IS TODAY!"

He wonders why that even matters, he doesn't want to go.

Gloria's voice is too bright, the urgency too much for nine in the morning. He rolls off the bed, feet falling flat against hardwood, Avriel grimaces and curls his toes inwards against it. Cold.

The drawer on his bedside table rattles and then slides open slowly. Scout pushes its head up over the ledge, blinking against the light. Avriel slips a t-shirt on and pulls jeans over his boxers. Gloria's still trying to beat the door down and part of him wonders how she hasn't broken a nail yet.

"OPEN UP, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE– owww..."

The banging stops and Avriel smiles the littlest bit to himself. Scout scrambles over the edge of the drawer and lands on the floor with a soft thud.

"I'll be back in an hour," Gloria warns, "You better be ready for Lafayette by then."

He only waits five minutes before slipping out the door behind her.

Scout leads the way, little inner light glowing contentedly as they go down the stairwell. This is mindless work, simply moving like this. His foot falls in front of him, then the other. No one else really uses the stairwell, not when the elevator works so perfectly, but Avriel likes the ache in his muscles and the sound of his shoes hitting each step.

They hit the ground floor and Avriel comes to a dead stop. People are running past the stairwell door, almost in a frenzy. Some hold cameras, others pen and paper. Avriel presses himself out of sight against the wall, heart racing.

There shouldn't be any reporters in here, not yet, and usually they aren't allowed past the entrance hall.

Where are the Peacekeepers?

"Talon, hey Talon!" someone calls out.

That doesn't make sense either, the new kid should still be upstairs right now, getting ready for the ceremony. There's no way Talon would have even been allowed out of sight for more than a moment.

Something tugging on his pant leg. Avriel looks down and there's Scout, little arm pointing urgently at the door.

"No way," Avriel whispers and shakes his head, "Not my goddamned circus, Scout."

Talon is Beck's problem. Or Nixie, Annie, whoever the fuck is running Four these days. There's enough of them at this point that Avriel shouldn't have to step in here.

It's not like there was ever anyone there for Avriel, he had to figure all this shit out on his own. Maybe Colgate just figured he could handle it alone, maybe he just didn't care enough to be there for Avriel. He told himself he didn't care, he told himself he'd rather be by himself anyway.

Ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"How are you doing? Has the recovery been easy? Difficult?"

Talon's getting mauled out there. Kid's just sixteen years old. That makes him Duke's age.

Avriel sighs and slips out of the stairwell. The reporters have their backs to him, all of them focused solely on Talon. He can't even see the kid through the mess of bodies and limbs.

He bites his lip.

Fuck.

He picks Scout up and drops him on his shoulder. "Hold on," Avriel growls softly and then begins to push his way through the mass of reporters. There are some sounds of hurt, some anger, until they realize who he is. A camera turns and aims itself at his face.

"Avriel?" they say, "Hey! It's Avriel!"

By then it's too late, he's pushed into the little bubble of air they've left Talon, who's currently trying to hide behind their own hands. Avriel doesn't bother trying to communicate, he simply keeps his momentum moving forward. His hand finds the collar of Talon's robe and then he's dragging the newest victor into the training rooms a few doors down by the scruff of their neck.

Avriel releases, pushing the kid further in before slamming his fist down on the door lock normally used to keep tributes out during the private training sessions. The cameras click right on up to the door closing.

"Merde," Avriel mutters under his breath and then leans back against the door as a second line of defence.

He'd done a great job until now of staying out of the limelight this year. He slips his hands into his pockets in an effort to hide their shaking. Scout uses the opportunity to climb down his body and waddle over to Talon.

Avriel lets them collect themself before speaking.

"Hey, you alright?"

Last Edit: May 12, 2022 23:55:36 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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Arrows
Retired Staff

3,236 POSTS

Pronouns: He/Him
last seen May 23, 2023 16:50:31 GMT -5

your resident blonde bisexual boy

exposure {avriel & talon} May 27, 2022 3:01:02 GMT -5

Post by Arrows on May 27, 2022 3:01:02 GMT -5

t a l o n .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

Tears are just as valuable as gold so don't shed them lightly. Isn't that what Dad used to say to me whenever he heard the sound of his "son" sobbing over yet another small set back? My foot fresh from the throes of a jellyfish's tentacles and there were those masculine words waiting for me on the front porch. My nose bent almost backwards from a board breaking underneath me, salt water of my own eyes replacing that of the sea's, and there was that expectation as the first phrase to find my ears in the emergency room. Sundress found from the bottom of my dresser ripped into tattered tendrils across my bedroom floor, a hue of red the physical paint of a slap left in memory fresh upon my cheek, and there were those same set of standards spewed from the one standing over me.

I never understood it.

To me, wouldn't that phrase just mean that the more I cry the richer I become? Well, regardless, that's how I choose to see it. Each tear just means I'm living, each one is valuable in the way it reminds me that I am rich with life. I won't see it under the same twisted bullshit veil of toxic masculinity that my parents promote. Yet, I'd be lying if I said those lessons don't still grasp for my throat at times. Even now as I'm surrounded, I'm suffocating not because of their presence but because a piece of myself won't let them see me cry. It's ridiculous, really. They've all seen me cry a hundred times already as I left an arena painted with blood, but right now I can feel myself resisting the pulsing panic that tightens around my throat.

Fuck, I wish I were high and I hate myself for that. I hate that with every fucking flash of their cameras I crave to be beyond the reach of their scopes and of anyone's eyes. I'm only a day out from the arena and at the first signs of stress I want to break what I built out of bones and loss and turn it all in for something artificial. I killed Ellis, I killed Kiibo, because I wanted a life that I would actually live not just drown in and I'm already standing on the shore hoping for a stray wave to wash me out to sea. What the actual fuck is wrong with me?

"Avriel, hey it's Avriel!"

What- I turn towards the coming commotion just as a flourish of hair, dark as the night, streaks past my eye sight. My mouth is still gasping for something to say when I feel the force of a hand take hold of the neck of my robe. Flailing for an instant, I nearly fall to the floor as the stranger from Nine takes complete, albeit chaotic, control of the situation. I'm too busy trying to keep focus on the fumbling of my feet to even notice where he is leading me before a push literally sends me fully falling to the floor as though a failed completion of my terrible balancing act.

"Ow." The sound of muffled cameras snapping and a door slamming shut echoes out from behind me. Slightly trembling, my fingers curl inward towards my palms currently pressed against the hard tiled floor. One of my hands raises to the base of my neck as I spurt out short shallow breaths from my mouth slowly settling as a couple seconds pass. Shuddering, my lower lip quivers as I can finally feel the pressure pass and the water beginning to well in my eyes. Full tears don't fall though as I'm quick to raise one of my robe's sleeves to my eyes with a miniature sniffle.

"Merde."

My eyes blink realizing I've been on the floor with my back to a Victor this whole time. Rubbing away the last remnants of pooling tears, I turn towards the door staying seated on the floor with my legs crossed beneath me. I stare in silence at his frame, his shape, slung against the door as though an additional barrier. I don't even know what to say or what to do. With Beck I just, well, broke down and cried. With Sailor I just listened and followed the fashion. It feels like in just a little over a week I've forgotten how to do this, how to socialize. I used to be pretty good at it before every word was followed by a gunshot.

I'm distracted from my thoughts by the glowing white creature that casually slides its way down the boy's body. Instinctually, I feel my muscles tighten as it starts coming closer, but I don't move away. I just sit there staring as it waddles right up to me. I recognize the miniature mutt, but I don't know anything about it. In fact, my eyes rise back to Avriel and the door, I don't really know anything about him. It was a year after Turner. I was pushing my limits and Jesse was on too. I honestly don't know how much my memories of his Games are real or something more akin to a mirage.

Still shaking slightly, I lightly hold out a hand as I gently pat the mutt on its head. The back of my throat feels heavy as though lined with lead and mortar. Other kids back in Four used to call me the life of the party. Now I literally am after killing Ellis in something closer to a rave than a finale and here I am struggling to say a single damn word. I thought the Games, the hard part, were over, but I know now that's not true. In one day, I've put together that it's still going. It's day ten of the Games, but they've just moved to a different arena. A Victor is always still a tribute.

"Hey, you alright?"

I don't even know how long I've been staring at the mutt patting its head when Avriel speaks again. Looking to him, I swallow hard trying to find some footing of speech in the silence.

"Uh- I don't know. I think so?" Both my hands fall back into the space where my legs are crossed as my thumbs twiddle against one another. "Thanks for that." I gesture with my head towards the door tightly shut behind his back.

I hate this. I feel like every word takes so much thought to say right now. My eyebrows scrunch down as my jaw tightens and I can feel my eyes roll. "Everything is so hard." I don't even know if I mean to say it out loud, but I do. I say it to this boy, this stranger, who just rescued me and I haven't even properly introduced myself yet. He's a Victor too, of course he knows it's hard. I quickly try to recover.

"I'm Talon, by the way."

elegant

Last Edit: May 27, 2022 3:04:21 GMT -5 by Arrows

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exposure {avriel & talon} Jun 5, 2022 20:08:48 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jun 5, 2022 20:08:48 GMT -5

✦ ✦ ✦

"It's just a kodama," he says, "Not gonna hurt you."

He remembers that feeling after the arena. Every small movement that he caught out of the corner of his eye put him a little bit more on edge. Talon's looking at Scout like the mutt is just another knife in the dark.

Could be that they think Avriel dragged them in here out of malice. People look at him and see all sharp edges with nothing soft to cling to, like all he knows how to do is hurt people.

Part of him does feel a little bad, Talon's probably going to have bruises on his knees now. Still, he could have just let the wolves outside have them, but he didn't.

Bleeding heart, always unravels at the softest tug.

Scout's already decided that it likes Talon. As the new victor pats its head, the Kodama lets out three soft, high pitched notes in rising succession. They sound hollow, as if the sound is moving through a much vaster space. Scout's songs are calming to Avriel by now, though others might find it a little eerie.

He shuts his eyes briefly, letting himself to the new dark of the training centre. It's always a little odd being back in this room, there are so many ghosts, names that don't have meaning anymore, hundreds of them. Just cattle being led in neat little lines through a slaughterhouse, given a number, dead in a week.

Gradually the sound of reporters trying to break the door down behind him dies until all that's left is a half-hearted knocking, then nothing at all.

"Uh- I don't know. I think so?"

Avriel opens his eyes. Talon sounds about as sturdy as they look. Fair enough. Things seemed surreal in those first few weeks out of the arena, like nothing was quite as he remembered it. His hand was his but there were scars across the back of it that hadn't been there before. His fucking foot detached at the ankle, maybe he could take himself apart like that, compartmental, not a real boy anymore, just a mass of wires and pieces that used to fit together better.

He couldn't recognize himself in his reflection, wasn't even sure that he wanted to.

"Everything is so hard."

Talon looks small from their place on the floor, their robe looks to big, their cheeks still gaunt with exhaustion, withdrawal, whatever. The capitol is plastered with images of them where they've smoothed over all those lines. it wouldn't do for the victor of the 90th to look weak.

"I'm Talon, by the way."

"I know," Avriel says.

Then Av steps away from the door and over to Talon. He offers the victor a hand up and in the dark it's easy to hide the tremor in his hand, easy to mask the way his heart's still running from him. He doesn't like reporters.

They sit in silence for a long moment, then he realizes he's meant to introduce himself as well, something he hasn't had to think about doing for two years now. It's impossible to go anywhere without being known, that's another fun perk of winning, anonymity dies with that final kill.

"Avriel Baptiste," he says after too long a pause. Oh well. "That's Scout," he says, hooking a thumb at the brightly lit Kodama.

Scout's wandered off to the side to inspect the plants station. It's probably looking for something to eat, insatiable in its hunger to the point that Avriel has had to get creative about how to keep the Kodama fed.

"Anyway, you should get back upstairs."

The reporters are gone, Talon's fine. He almost turns to go, then hesitates. There was something in Talon's tone that keeps him from leaving, the way a wound feels when it's too fresh to properly fathom.

Av's done his due diligence, beyond probably. The kid's got enough mentors, they don't need advice from Avriel and he's the last person to think what he has to say is valuable anyway. Still, that soft part of him can't help it. It's the same part that wanted to be there for Nixie when she woke up last year.

"It is hard," he says finally, "It's lonely, surviving. Then you feel shit for complaining because you're alive and you're happy about that, but no one really understands what you're going through. They'll tell you they do, but they don't, they can't."

On his tour, every Victor he'd ran into had some sort of comfort to offer him but most of the time it'd felt wrong, like they were trying to fit him in a box not really meant for him.

It gets easier, not right away but it will.

Seems like a lie. His scars are still fresh, Avriel looks at all of them and knows exactly who left them and the more time that passes, the harder it becomes to remember things clearly, the worse the survivor's guilt gets.

He'd rather Talon know the truth.

"Anyone who could actually get what you're going through is dead. The victors– we're all just your next best bet," Avriel says, "And it's really fucking hard."

Last Edit: Jun 5, 2022 20:19:54 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

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