pain // storm

One year later, and another layer of ignorance is peeled back from his eyes, replaced with the unerring vision of understanding. One year later, and bit by bit, he gets why Avriel is the way he is.

One year later, he's staring at the screen of the television, watching as Jack Price dies at the hands of the beast girl from District Four. District Four.

It's almost as if it was divine retribution for last year, when he'd turned on the one person who'd bothered to show him anything resembling kindness and struck him down, the spirit of the seaside district striking back against him for twisting, bending, breaking their champion against his blade. The Games had let him hope, when Akira and Jack alike had survived the bloodbath, survived two, three, four days in the arena. Two separate alliances, two separate pacts, two separate chances of survival.

Then, the fifth day. Nine came together as one in the worst of ways, their champions tearing at each other with the intent to kill. Akira may not have fallen at Jack's hands directly (no, that blame goes to Six, who'd at least had the decency to stab him from the front instead of behind) but he may as well have, her blade wet with his blood as he'd crawled off to die.

And the worst part? He can't blame her. He has no moral right to blame her, not after the things he'd done. Hell, hadn't he taken a swing or three at Carly, back when the madness was at its peak, with the intent to kill? Nine has no shortage of instances of civil war between their two representatives, and he knows better than most that when it really comes down to it, ties to home are flimsy at best and downright hostile at worst.

(It'd been District Four, after all, who'd cared for him at his lowest, while the other half of District Nine had ignored him, left him in the dirt, let him fend for himself.)

District Four, who now, in an act of mercy and cruelty alike, strikes his last chance for hope down on his screen. District Four, who, like with him, had teamed up with Jack for as long as humanly possible. District Four, who had burned right through Jack's defiant spirit, the savagery of the beast overcoming the fire in her soul.

And he wonders, as the wolf tears into her flesh, if this was karma. He'd playacted like the winged kid in the tales he'd read while young - Icarus - and in his hubris had flown too close to the sun. And now that he'd gotten what he'd wanted, he'd pay for that two times over for the rest of his life.

He hadn't slept since the fifth day. Not because of the nightmares (nothing he watched would ever, ever compete with living through it) but because it was what he owed them.

He owed it to Akira as his death proved to be a slow one, swallowed up by the lake in another case of cruelty disguised as mercy. He owed it now to Jack, her remains savaged by the very beast she'd tried to slay.

Both of the killers of his tributes are still alive. And he genuinely doesn't know what he'd do if they made it.

But the worst part? Hah. The worst part...

One week ago, a victor had died. Patricia Valfierno, the red-headed woman from District Five, who he'd met exactly once, on his victory tour back home. She'd been nothing but friendly to him in her brash, no-nonsense way (even if the very idea of meeting such a forceful woman scared the shit out of him in theory), though whether that was due to him killing both of the kids who'd ended Brody and Kaius or due to some pre-existing connection with Avriel, he couldn't tell.

He'd barely felt a thing when the news announcement had flashed over the screen. It'd felt much the same way when a distant relative or a friend of a friend of a friend passed away - it felt big, important, but though he had no doubt that he could have genuinely come to like and respect the veteran Victor he'd never gotten to know her.

Not the way Avriel had. Avriel, who was feeling the most pain Storm had ever seen him in the year since he'd won. Avriel, who he'd had no fucking clue how to help because god help him he was only fifteen.

He'd barely stepped foot in the apartment since then. He doubted anyone noticed or cared. Not now. There were bigger things to worry about than a fifteen year old kid who may or may not have his shit together.

So he parks himself in the training center, in the cafeteria, on the roof, anywhere he can manage without leaving the premises of the building itself. Anything to keep him distracted. Anything to keep him from feeling useless.

Akira and Jack fight and bleed and survive for four days, and Storm allowed himself a bit of hope.

And when they're both dead by the time the sun sets on the seventh day, his first failure is experienced like his last victory.

Alone.