Round One - Blue

Mal falls, Booker feels the exact moment that his blade becomes the only thing holding the other boy up. His head falls against Booker's shoulder, his hands, empty now crash against Booker's chest. He's dead and gone before the cannon even sounds.

When a body becomes an empty shell, gravity fails. The mind severed, the body falls. It takes more strength than Booker thought it would to keep Mal's body from falling straight to the ground. He falls to his knees from Mal's weight despite the other boy's slim build. It's hard to move, he feels numb, half-removed from himself. He's kneeling in the woods, dappled sunlight falling on his tan skin, carving a stick into a weapon with a bit of wolf bone.

Then he's back in the arena with a dead boy against his chest and no heart left, or too much of it, to remove him.

He doesn't think that he can do that again.

"Get up."

This time the command comes from Sully. She shoves Mal off of him and Booker falls back a little more, no longer having to hold the weight of the other boy up. Their little arena spins, the sound of the crowd goes in and out. Booker looks at her and the fence is between them again, tall with iron spikes and this time she can't scale it.

His skin feels hot, but cold all at once.

Booker is dying.

They both know it.

All the things his father never wanted him to be, he is. The softness he'd tried to squash out of Booker over and over again, it still somehow remained. Lack of sun, of care, it never quite killed it. For all the cruelty he showed the rest of the world, there was always a piece of him that was still afraid of the dark.

"You know what has to happen now, Booker. Get up."

He tries to focus on that, to push himself to his feet for her but he's so tired. It hurts just to bend forwards, to breathe. His eyes close for a moment, and when he opens them again, she's kneeling in front of him. So close, she's so close for the first time since they left their cages.

He reaches out, fingers curling up against the ground, he wants to touch her, to hold her close. The sound of the train running against the tracks, of the sunlight filtering in through the window and her skin against his. He would give anything for one more hour.

Five more minutes even, just like that.

She pushes his bangs back, and he shuts his eyes against the pads of her fingers, leaning slightly into her touch. He can't remember the last time anyone held him before she did, it was so many years ago now it doesn't even matter.

"Let's spar like we used to," she says and he almost laughs at her.

"Give me a reason," he mumbles, voice hoarse.

Hurting her was never going to be an option for him. Bruises and little scratches picked up from sparring in the yard had always meant nothing, those were never true pain. The splintering of a bone, a gash deep under the skin, that was the hurt that Booker had learned about young.

She draws her blade up his chest, to rest under his chin and Booker gazes up at her, cold metal against his skin.

His father, standing above him in the dining room, his hand curled in a fist and Booker on his knees at his feet.

This was always how he was supposed to end.

"Get up."

Book stands slowly, tightening his grip on the knife still in his hand. She'd never be able to live with herself if he didn't try, he knows that. He wills himself to move as he's always done, years of training hammered into him makes his movements fluid. She throws a punch, he ducks and weaves and pushes her off. He slams a fist into her side but it doesn't quite connect.

Every move, every twist and turn, it hurts. Like being burned alive, his skin crawls with the pain, his vision swims and neither of them get very far. It's getting harder to move and he's shaving off minutes of life with every strike.

She should be knocking him down no problem, he's lost so much blood. He watches her, sees the desperation on his face and Booker knows that's Sully backed into a corner.

That she'll never make this decision alone so he makes it for her.

He makes the opportunity feel organic enough for her to fall for it. Booker throws a punch at her face and when she ducks, getting in close to him to avoid it, blade aimed upwards into his chest, they both pause. This is usually the end.

Where they fall back laughing and Booker sits there smug, another win under his belt. She pulls up a handful of grass and throws it at him, annoyed as she has every right to be. Then they split whatever snack Book's brought with him and lay in the grass until dusk comes and with it the time to part ways.

He smiles the littlest bit, then grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her knife into him.

Fresh pain lances through him, enough to send a tear down his cheek. He's already lost so much blood, it hurts so much, it feels impossible to pick this new hurt out from the wounds. Where before it felt like he could try to keep going on, this time there is a finality to it.

Sully struggles against his hold. The blade twists inside of him and his jaw clenches to hold a cry of pain in. His grip tightens on his shoulder, "Sully stop," he whispers. It hurts, please don't.

"Why?" she asks him.

His knees buckle.

Booker's arm slides over her shoulder, around her back, he's falling, he wraps his hand in the fabric of her jump suit as if to hold himself up but he's fading so fast.

He gazes up at her, aching like always, lays his bloody palm flat against her stomach, her skin warm beneath the jumpsuit, beneath his touch.

The banners above their heads become trees, the screaming of the crowd like the wolves howling and Booker remembers once, he thought he might die in those woods. Claw marks down his arm, head swimming with pain, he'd had to hide in the undergrowth for hours until the wolves moved on.

For just a moment, he'd thought about just letting them win.

Then he'd thought about Celeste, waiting for him to get back from summer break. They were supposed to meet after lunch on the first day of classes and he didn't want her to think he'd forgotten her.

His head swims, he falls into her, cheek against her shoulder. She smells like ice melt, like rain and pine.

"I was dead as soon as they called your name," he says softly. He isn't afraid anymore, he doesn't have to be strong, none of that matters.

His father had spent years teaching him again and again that love was only weakness, that if he wanted to be strong, he had to turn that part of himself off and for so long, Booker had believed him.

"I love you," he says, "You're the only one."