been away / [elijah & krueger]
Jun 13, 2023 10:42:04 GMT -5
Post by pogue on Jun 13, 2023 10:42:04 GMT -5
There's a cinematic masterpieces that rolls out in front of him, burnt film and flashing lights and clinking glasses in the hands of blurry silhouettes.
He watches from the kitchen of District Ten's quarters, bags under his eyes carrying the weight of a hand held up to volunteer, a life thrown away for an empty promise. He's swallowed back his own mortality in the wake of a Capitol arrival, flashing a smile for the cameras and theatrics designed to kill throughout his time in the training center. It's worked, as much as it could for a boy from Ten, but it meant that when the day finally wrapped and the sun fell his mind would eat itself alive, reality and delusion fighting for dominance, tearing him in two from the inside out.
It meant that sleep was off the table, always. He doesn't have the luxury of a victor's life here, resting in a coffin of shadows and guilt.
He knows who it is before the figure slips into view, the sound of creaking floorboards long past needing fixing announcing the arrival of his district partner. He'd held the boy at arms length since the train ride, whispers in the wind of the cult he was a part of sitting dormant in the back of his mind and gnawing at his nerves. It's instinctual, the way his gaze flickers over to Elijah and the way his muscles tense underneath tissue paper skin, planning an escape route before the need ever arises.
He knows what it's born from, years spent on the road and exchanging words, values, blackmail in the back alleyways carving his own conscience into something dangerous. When he looks to Elijah he sees something similar, an assumption, air of mystery and something poisonous underneath the surface.
They weren't that different. He hates to know that.
"So-" He starts, and his own voice sounds so foreign. There's a purple glow that seeps in from the window and blankets itself across the ceiling, ebbing and bleeding into sharp hues of red, a bloodbath. He watches it for a moment, until his own heartbeat swallows the silence and he finds his voice again, shifting his gaze back to the window and the parties that flicker in the distance.
"Is the city of lights everything you expected it to be?"
