tu me manques /avriel+eden post 91st

Avriel smiles a little against his knuckle, gazing out the window at the forest they're speeding through. The stylist team fusses over Storm a couple of rows away after Gloria threw a fit earlier over his bedhead. He turns his head briefly to watch for a moment, ”Remember,” Avriel says, mimicking Gloria’s syrupy-sweet tone, ”Storm is a legacy Victor! He's got to look perfect!”

Maybe if they all didn't know him so well at this point his mockery could come across as jealousy but the stylist team only laughs. It’s no secret that Avriel is relieved to be out of the spotlight. Homecoming was the moment he always used to dread, when the train doors would open and he'd step out alone to a sea of people. Only to face the families of the dead standing on the platform, waiting to receive their children returned to them in a box.

Loss is such a constant now that it's become a dull beat at his core, woven into him in a way that makes it all a little easier to bear. He gave up on not getting attached to his tributes because it doesn't work. He just lets their loss hurt him, again and again like a tide against stone, eroding him slowly.

Anita grins at him as she thumbs his chin to make him face her. ”You too, Avriel,” she says, ”Just because Storm’s with us now it doesn’t mean you can ignore your duties and slip away.”

"Wouldn't dream of it, An," he lies.

Going home is all he's thought of for days now. His workshop has been waiting for him, growing cobwebs without him there to use it. The chickens in the coop and their eggs, warm in the palm of his hand with yolks gleaming like ichor and rich in colour. There's so much to do before winter too, maintenance on the house and the machines within and there needs to be firewood cut for winter. He almost froze last year.

His stomach flips.

He's so used to having Eden around now that it's been strange to be without him for these past few weeks. It's as if an integral piece of him has gone missing, and now he doesn't work the same. Like if the hour hand on the grandfather clock in the front hallway just disappeared. The minute hand would keep going on without it but there'd be little point to the movement.

Spinning in aimless circles.

Since Eden can't speak and Avriel's never been much of a talker, they spend a lot of time in comfortable silence. A few months back, he started telling Eden stories. Things that his mother used to do, words Duke had said once that became an inside joke, anything that comes to mind, he shares it with him. Eden doesn't seem to care that his stories don't end right and he's not very good with words. Even when Avriel has to use french because there's no translation for the thing he's trying to say, Eden only smiles and nudges him to switch him back.

And sometimes when he wakes from a nightmare, Eden is sitting there in the doorway of his room, back against the frame and he's safe.

The train begins to slow and Avriel looks up, leg bouncing. It’s good this time, pulling into the station. It's a relief every time he gets to return home, maybe there's a part of him still that wonders when the gate will be closed and they won't let him out. Or it's just how loud the Capitol is, bright lights everywhere in a gleaming city that keeps all its crumbling pieces well hidden, not like Nine at all, which exists in a constant state of guerrilla warfare and disrepair.

Home, sweet home.

He bites his lip a little as the train fully stops and then pushes through the stylist team to pat Storm on the shoulder. "Hey, I'll see you at the village," he says, "This is your moment." Scout's still sitting on Storm's shoulder where it's been intently patting the newest victor's cheek for the last ten minutes. Avriel scoops the kodama up and slips down the centre aisle of the train, "You don't need me for this part." Storm's win has nothing to do with him. Anyone who's been through an arena knows that in the end, it's all just dumb luck and being too stubborn to die.

He raises a hand to wave over his shoulder, then before anyone can stop him, Avriel slips out the train doors and into a sunny afternoon in Nine. The Adroxis family leans forward, expecting Storm and getting him. Avriel shrugs as he passes them but doesn't stop moving, knowing full well that the sudden roar from the crowd at his appearance is just pure joy. It's not necessarily for him, just a bunch of happy people who won't have to worry about dinner for the next year because of Storm.

He near jumps down the little steps from the platform to the street, hands in his pockets, gaze cast downwards as the anthem starts playing to herald Storm's arrival. Anyone who was looking at him have turned back towards the platform now.

It's nice to walk away from it, his path clearing in front of him as people push forwards to get a look at Storm. He wonders if Eden remembered to set the clocks back last week or if setting all of them will be his first task. He wants to know whether or not that old man dropped his ancient radio off for a fix yet like Avriel told him to. If the latch he ordered for the chicken coop arrived and if the heater is still making that weird sound.

Avriel moves down silent streets, past closed shops and factories shut down for the day for celebrations. The district is quiet beneath his feet, like how it is at three in the morning on a night with bad weather.

His pace isn't that fast but his heart feels as if it's running ahead of him, leaving pieces of himself behind as it goes until all that's left of him is the lightness in his step.

He bounds up the steps to his house and turns his key in the lock but it takes a couple tries because first the key is upside down in his hand and then his hand is shaking too much. Maybe he'll open the door and Eden won't be there, he'll have gone home and left Avriel because things were too hard.

He pauses.

It hasn't been all good things in the last ten months. There's been so many times he's woken up, mouth dry and lungs ragged from screaming, days where he can't form words and Eden's been too stubborn to just leave him alone. Moments he's almost cried because a letter came home from Duke's boarding school with his grades and they're near perfect and he's so proud but then the pride hurts and he has to shut off.

When he shuts off, it's not good. He's difficult to live with, which is why Billie and Duke left so Avriel knows he won't blame Eden if he decided to disappear while he was away.

It would be harder this time, to keep going. Pointless somehow, like a clock without an hour hand.

Avriel shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He stays like that, thumb running over the back of his other hand again and again, tracing the letter 'E'.

Then he leans into the door to open it.

"Eden?" he calls out, and drops his keys in his shoes for safekeeping after he slips them off, "It's okay, it's just me."

He moves further down the hall but the house is quiet, still. He thinks about the parts of the capitol that he doesn't get to see, the crumbling buildings, falling away from themselves, abandoned during the dark days.

"Eden?"