eirene /eden .92nd

The sound's a little off on the tv today.

It's halfway through the week, Eden sat in the study last night with the window open and the phone pressed against the side of his face, just sitting there, just listening to Avriel.

It's different this year. Eden's different this year.

He's got his paperback set out on the coffee table, it's not tucked away and hidden anymore. He's got a blanket that's his, sunset orange and soft and tucked into one corner of the couch. He's been cooking, and he's been out in the forest walking and back in the spring he went through a month-long phase where he refused to wear a matching pair of socks just because he could.

Those are the good things, the bad things are these -

there's a day exactly a week before Avriel has to leave that ends in Eden spending twelve hours locked in the guest room and the other twelve sitting on the ground behind the chicken coop. He's mostly fine by the time the week ends, he still stands at the top of the stairs when Avriel rolls his suitcase done the sidewalk, but this time he is unreasonably angry about it. It bubbles under his skin for three days before and four days after, and it's not really triggered by anything specific, it's just there.

He hates it, he hates feeling like that, he hates having to hate something but he likes being able to. The first day Avriel's gone, Eden just stews in it. The feeling loses its allure quickly, but that's part of it too. He hasn't been allowed to be like this in a long time. He doesn't move from the stairs, he just sits right where he is and he tries very hard to do the breathing that Steel always made him try, when he was younger and dumber and worse than this.

But then he's thinking about Steel, and how much he misses her and how stupid he is because he really did leave without staying goodbye, he was that terrible, and he fully expects to never see his sister again.

That makes him angry too. He can't go back to One because he knows he would be forcibly disappeared as soon as he crossed the border line. That one's his fault, because of what he almost did to Cathy, but the rest of it isn't, he knows it isn't. He never asked to be sold and made into something he shouldn't have been, never asked to be sold again and made into something worse.

He knows he's only here because of it, he only ever met Avriel because of it, but he's had enough time to sit and stare at the wall and wonder if being alive now is worth all the years he fought so desperately to stay that way.

It's a terrible collection of thoughts.

It dies down briefly when the Patricia Valfierno announcement blars through the house and makes him jump, then again when the phone rings barely an hour later and Eden spends the rest of the night trying not to let his breathing tip Avriel off.

So the sound's a little off on the tv today, but Eden's sitting under his blanket and the anger that's been sitting on his shoulders makes him feel raw and beat down, so it's not something he particularly cares about.

Eden watches the boy from Eight die and wonders if Avriel's gotten over Patricia yet.

There's something

There's something different about Eden. It's not anything new, it happened sometime when he was ten because that was the first time he actually saw someone die. Out of the three of them, the thing happened to Steel first. But she was always the best at hiding it.

Eden's mind keeps catching on that tournament in Four. He knows he almost died. He knows that he came very, very, close. And he also knows that Avriel was upset about it, he could tell even then, and he can tell now because sometimes Eden will absenetly touch the scar on his chest and Avriel will stare at him and leave for a bit without actually leaving.

He can connect the dots, Eden knows why it happens. He knows, but he doesn't understand.

People die all the time.

Avriel's killed people but he doesn't like to talk about it the way the interviewers on the tv do. Avriel has lost five tributes in the time that Eden's known him, and Avriel pretends that it doesn't bother him but Eden can tell that it does. He can tell that it bothers him so much.

Echo used to always joke that when they left One, Icarus would be the one Le Roux she wouldn't kill on the way out, just so Eden could do it. Except Eden knew she was never really joking, and she's still stuck there while he's here trying to figure out why no one else thinks or acts or speaks the way that they do, trying so damn hard to not feel guilty and failing.

Maybe Avriel was so upset because he's just like that. The same way Eden isn't. Maybe there's not difference between Patricia or Eden or any person on the street and Avriel would feel the same way if any one them died.

It sounds exhausting.

Eden decided very quickly that he didn't like the 92nd. It's fast approaching his least favourite actually, and he doesn't feel even the tiniest bit guilty not rooting for Avriel's tributes now like he did before.

The next fight rolls over sometime later, when the sun's gone down a bit and Eden's only half paying attention because there's a bird perched on the little feeder outside that keeps coming and going. It's not particularly interesting, it just looks like a common sparrow, but directing his focus anywhere else starts to makes his skin crawl.

It turns out to be a weird bird, the longer he watches it. It's set a pattern of flying down, taking a seed, then flying away with it. Fly, take, fly. It just keeps doing it, and Eden keeps watching.

There's not that much seed left in the feeder because he had planned to refill it tomorrow morning when it was a bit lighter out. The bird doesn't seem to notice and just steadily empties it. Fly, take, fly. Eventually it gets to the point where there's only a little bit left, barely even a handful, and then the bird just. Stops.

It flies down like normal, lands on the edge of the feeder, and then it stays there.

Eden watches it until his eyes start to water, until he finally has to blink, and in the time it takes for his eyes to close and then open again the bird has turned its head and is looking directly at him through the window.

Eden's stomach drops, which is irrational, because all the bird is doing is looking. He can tell it's looking at him though.

He can tell.

"My son had to see that." A voice says.

Eden looks back to the tv, trying to shake the feeling of the bird. He immediately feels exposed, like rabbit looking away from a wolf. Which is silly, really. Because it's just a sparrow.

He glances back out of the corner of his eye and the bird is gone.

His shoulders relax infinitesimally.

The girl on the tv looks very angry. There's a body at her feet, but the camera is more interested in her face, so that's where it stays. She looks angry even when she runs away.

Eden wonders if she'll regret leaving someone behind, or if the regret will only come because she feels like she should regret it.

Anika, the scroll along the screen says, even though Eden doesn't care.

Avriel's tribute is there on camera next, and Eden nearly goes back to looking for the bird. It'd been different in the beginning, when Eden had been watching more closely because he thought that maybe there'd be another Storm this year. But there is only Jack, who seems to be made entirely of anger, and Akira, who

is different.

There are only a few things left now that unsettle Eden to the degree that he considers at least a little harmful. Eurydice is one of them. Certain shades of blood is another. The sound of coins falling against cement. The smell of antiseptic, but only when it's used to cover vomit.

Akira is different.

That's what Eden has been telling himself, because there's no other explanation for the way every one of his muscles had tensed up and locked and forced him down to the floor when he was watching yesterday and whatever microphones they used in the arena had picked up him talking to the lake.

Something about the tone. He was on a mat again, in the sand, with a sword in his chest and a fist in his stomach and a voice in his ear telling him that there are things he can never outrun.

It's stupid then, that Eden stays sitting there and watching. The volume on the tv dials up even though the remote is sitting far away on the side-table.

The Akira on screen holds the dead body that turns out to not be dead yet. That's probably good. People'd be upset otherwise.

He's covered in blood though, and the colour of it is just a little

it's not bright, but it's not dark either.

There's something about it that makes Eden tense up. The feeling coils in him, just beside where the anger's been hiding, brushing against it like it's looking for more room.

He feels sick suddenly.

Akira slots his mouth against the gash in the body's chest.

Eden blinks.

There's a second where he's watching and then there's a second where he's not. It's like the bird, except when he opens his eyes, nothing's changed.

They're talking to each other, Akira and the body, and Eden scrambles for the volume remote because the sound of the blood dripping from Akira's chin back to the body's chest is too loud to make their whispers out. He's suddenly panicking without knowing why, cranking the dial as far as it will go but it doesn't make a difference, it's still just that drip drip drip like a leaky faucet.

And then, very suddenly, the talking stops, and just as suddenly, the remote clatters from Eden's hands to the floor because the camera shifts and the body moves one last time and Avriel is looking into the camera while Akira rips through his ribs and drinks from his chest and takes him by the face to kiss him so hard that Eden can hear the wet sound of it under the faucet and the static and the abrupt screaming that sounds like it's coming from two doors down.

And the first thing is

it's that Avriel isn't supposed to be there. Eden knows he gets a fancy apartment during the Games, they'd been on the phone that morning, Akira's thumb traces a line from Avriel's chin to the back of his jaw and Eden is stuck in place just watching. In the span of three seconds he goes from tense to frozen, locked in place like the hair-trigger of a bomb, Avriel doesn't move under Akira but Akira moves over him and a sudden keening sound breaks through the air, Eden tries to lift his hands to his ears to block it out but he can't move, it just gets louder like it's building to something. Cumulating, crescendoing, it gets higher and higher in pitch until he's sure the windows are shaking from it and it feels like his head is about to split into two pieces and then it somehow gets even louder and then it just

stops.

The room goes dead silent and the tv is off, Eden's hand is over the remote.

He can taste iron in his mouth, knows its residual panic because his body is reacting separate from his brain. The thing is he knows the logicality of it. He knows that wasn't Avriel simply because it can't be, but that doesn't stop his arms from shaking, doesn't stop his chest from tightening so much that there might as well be a vice around it.

He'd fallen off the couch at some point, he's on the ground with the remote beside him and the blanket tangled between his legs and he grabs the fabric between his fists until his knuckles turn white. Until the shaking stops and the clacking of his bones against the hardwood doesn't sound like someone knocking at the door anymore.

"Eden." Echo says from behind him.

And Eden whirls around so fast that his feet get caught in the blanket and he falls backwards onto the coffee table. His back slams into it, the side of it jabbing into his tailbone and knocking the breath out of him, but it's nothing compared to what he sees because it's not Echo standing there in Avriel's house in the middle of the night.

It's Eurydice.

"Eden." She says again, like the last time she said his name when he tried to kill her daughter.

It's been nearly two years since Eden last saw her and she still looks the same. Impeccable. Like any aspect of her that even considered falling out of order changed its mind out of fear.

And Eden thought that two years would have made him brave, but when Eurydice steps forward he flinches, and when she grabs him he lets out a sound that's half-way between a whimper and a cry.

She holds his face with her nails, drags her thumb from his chin to the back of his jaw.

Eurydice doesn't say anything else, just looks at him with eyes that give absolutely nothing away and Eden is so sure now, so sure that he will die right here in Avriel's living room. He knows that it won't be quick and he knows that it won't be painless, and he futilely hopes that she'll at least take his body with her so no one will have to stumble over it.

The shaking's started up again, he can feel the force of it rattle his entire body enough to send a tremor up Eurydice's arm from where she's holding him. Her other hand shifts, and Eden knows that will be the knife and he realizes, with startlingly clarity, that he has never been this afraid before because he has never before been afraid to die. Not even with Shadowcat, not on the mat or the sand or in Four, not in that hospital bed with too much painkiller in his IV and a heartbeat under his head.

Eurydice raises her hand and Eden closes his eyes because he is a coward.

He waits, but the knife never comes.

He opens his eyes slowly, thinking now that Eurydice must want him to watch.

But she's holding her first out between them, and poking out the top is the head of a little sparrow.

Eden knows without glancing at it for more than a second that it's the one that was at the window, and that it's dead. He sways in place, the back of his knees knocking against the coffee table again until Eurydice tightens her grip and hauls him to her eye level, her nails scratching like talons against the side of his face.

She holds the bird very close to him, and holds him very close to her.

"What do you want?" She hisses out, sounding more like a snake than a lion, and there is a sudden rage to her that wasn't there before.

Eden's throat clicks when he swallows. It's an awkward angle to be craned at and the bird in her hand smells like its rotting.

It probably is.

But his silence just seems to make her angrier, her face shifts and she looks terrifying, her nails dig into the skin of Eden's face until they break through and he can hear the drip drip drip of his own blood falling to land on her arm. He's screaming but he's not making any noise, he can feel the brush of her nails against his teeth, through his cheek, can feel the way she's tensing to rip them back out but she pulls forwards instead, dragging her hand along his face and tearing and it's such agony he jolts, thrashes, his hand flies to her wrist but it's so cold that it burns him and -

he sits up.

He slaps his own hand against his mouth in time to muffle the next scream and he sits there gasping.

The study window's still open, he's curled up under it with the phone beside him on the floor because he fell asleep while listening to Avriel just like they always do.

He's fine. It's fine. He was dreaming and now it's over. He pushes his shoulder into the corner of the heavy desk and the sharpness of the pain helps to cut through the panicked fog still hiding in the corners of his skull, it grounds him a little until it reminds him too much of Akira tearing into Avriel and Eurydice tearing into Eden and the whole room spins with the force that Eden uses to try and push it all away.

He didn't even fight her, he realizes with such a force that he leans over and dry heaves against the wall. Eurydice had come to him in a dream and Eden thought she was going to kill him and he didn't fight it.

The wall is cold and there's a piece of the wallpaper peeling back that catches on his hair, Eden is sobbing so hard that he's gagging and he hasn't done this in so long, he's not sure if he's ever cried like this, but it feel too horrible to stop.

His whole body aches like he's been running, and he has, he knows that. He has been running. He can't stay steady because he can't make himself be steady. He's turbulent and terrible and even though Avriel was upset, Eden didn't care that Patricia Valfierno died at all. He didn't care because he couldn't, he didn't know her. If he cares about every person he doesn't know then he'll never be able to care about anything else and he so badly wants the chance to care for something.

He wants, and that's the problem with it all.

He wasn't made to want things. He had a more singular purpose, but now he doesn't even have that anymore.

He wants and he wants and he wants,

and it isn't fair.