after the storm -- constant.

In these bodies we will live,
In these bodies we will die.
Where you invest your love,
You invest your life.
Awake my soul...

Of course there are those nights where I don't sleep. The nights where my body just feels so wrong that I can't even lay down, and have to keep moving. Or the nights where all I can do is lay there, and in the mornings I'm shaking and gray. Those nights where I cannot sleep, all I have are my drawings and my thoughts, so riddled with self-pity it's ridiculous. I know I'm too self centered. I couldn't even shed a tear for those of ours that die in the games this year, so self invested I am with, well, myself. But still, this night in particular led to drawing. I draw everything in sight, and everything that isn't in sight. Most importantly, I draw a girl. Cedric jokes an says that she's the only girl I'll ever get, because it's always the same one. No matter who the middle starts out as, it turns into a young woman with a cheshire grin, red lips, and long dark hair.

She's always the one dancing in strokes of a brush or charcoal across the page, and it feels as useless as trying to catch a pixie, or even a miracle. So I capture her on the page, but no matter what, it never seems exactly right, like I've drawn something wrong. The result is hundreds of pages tacked to the walls in this bedroom so ordered that it might as well be a hospital room. Maybe it would be if it's patient wasn't me. I'm sweating now, as I draw, ink and charcoal staining the side of my hand were it hits the page. My fingertips have gone black as well, possibly perpetually. Now my hands draw Cedric, the boy I've known since childhood, his life hasn't been so easy either. I make sure to capture the way his large hands are covered in callouses, and perch his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. People joke that they have forgotten what colour his eyes are.

I finish the sketch, brushing my hand over the jaw bone that I know so very well. For the longest time, he was the pillar in my life, the strong boy that I could always go to. Even as the other kids used to give him a wide berth, I was drawn t him. The way he was so closed, so strong. So much power n life in him that it hurt to be near him almost because he shined so bright. Being friends with him gave a sense of danger in late night adventures, and trespasses I would not have done alone. An when the other boy grew older and fell in love, I was happy for him. Astrid was so lovely, such a shining thing for him. I had never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at her, like she was something different, so special that if anyone ever tried to touch her, they would lose their hand. But she grew sick, and wilted, then returned to the earth.

Oh the pain my best friend, my only friend, felt. I remember believing it was my fault, that somehow my sickness had transferred from me to her, and she was dying because I couldn't bear the weight of it anymore. I would have happily taken her sickness and died in Astrid's, beautiful Astrid's place for them. Those star-crossed lovers. But she was meant to die, and I was meant to live on. Seemed unfair. I felt like I was being punished, especially in the aftermath, watching Cedric fade away, see his light go out slowly, like he had become lost. And there was nothing I could do, I wasn't Astrid, I'd never be what she was to him. I'm just me, just Constant. Such a useless weight I am to them all. When those nights get too long, sometimes I think it might be better for me to just simply fade out of existence. The only thing that keeps me from curling up and dying is the fact that I know that for all Cedric pretends to find me annoying, he'd kill me again if I died.

Speaking of. The room has progressively gotten lighter, and with that I grab my charcoal, stuff a piece of paper in my jean's pockets, and pull on a dark blue sweater. It's easy to go out this early normally, because the orphanage sleeps at this time. But today as I slip down the stairs, Matron Carman is waiting with an indulgent smile. She knows where I'm going, and she worries that I might be caught, but she never stops me. I kiss her cheek good morning, and she hands me the pills I have to take this morning. There are ones that make me light headed, and others that make me tired so I'll sleep. I put them in my mouth, head out the door, and as soon as it shuts behind me, I spit them out and put them in my pocket. They won't heal me.

She's always looking for things, so desperately, to eep me alive for her. I'm the last thing she has other than the kids that come to the orphanage to live. But I'm the only constant thing. Yet, I'm so inconsistently healthy that I understand why she's afraid for me. Whereas I do not see the point in holding off the unavoidable future. The likely hood is that Cedric will know anyway and make me take them. He knows me too well now. My skin is so pale this morning, you can see the blue veins along my arm. If I'm lucky he won't notice though, the way I look this morning. But it would be laughable to say I'm lucky at all if you look at me. Most people look at me with pity and are done with it. I hope they don't ever look at Cedric that way. I'm used to it, but I don't know if he could take it.

I slip through the waking district. I don't know what time it is, but it's early. Time doesn't really matter to a boy like me. You'd think it would what with being on the perpetual verge of life and death. You'd think I would be a miser of time. Normally I on't even know what day it is. That's alright, I'm okay with that. I never know when it's coming, the day I turn nineteen and go into the mines.

I slip through the fence, not bothering to look around. I do't care, and the Peacekeepers normally don't care about what I do either. I'm the walking ghost of District Twelve. I wouldn't make a good avox even, and what is the point of killing a ghost?

The sound of his baby being strummed tells me that Cedric is already here. I don't exactly have a heavy gait, in fact I'm very light, and I always step carefully in case I get to see a bird or so. But somehow, he always knows when I'm coming. Maybe they're always trying to heal me, but with Cedric, I always feel better. He's like a calming force. I come around a bend, and see his lean form against a tree. So I sit down at the base of one as well, falling more heavily against the trunk as I'm used to. With a loss of sleep, comes a loss of grace.

"Morning Ced, aren't you just looking peachy this morning. Didn't sleep again?"

{ooc: Omr, mumford and sons though, you are excellent <3}

In these bodies we will live,
In these bodies we will die.
Where you invest your love,
You invest your life.
Awake my soul...

"Well, I could almost say the same about you."

I sigh and shut my eyes, getting comfortable against the trunk. Although the morning is crisp, it's comfortable here in the sunlight between the trees in this big sweater. Having someone else nearby doesn't hurt either. The walk has tired me out, sadly. It's embarrassing how tired I can get from the smallest things. No matter what though, people will notice. It makes me think that they're all just watching me, waiting for me to stop struggling to get to the finish line and just lie down in the middle of the track and die. I guess I just wish that Cedric wouldn't see so keenly. The last thing I want is for him to be worrying about me. (Everyone else does more than enough of it.)

Yawning, I pick up a pine cone and toss it in his general direction. "We can't all have sunglasses to hide sleeplessness behind." With that, I let my arm fall into the dirt again, and fold my other arm across my abdomen. It's been acting up again, and although it's been empty, my stomach that is, it won't stop twisting. My fingers dance lightly against the seam on the pocket filled with pills. Sometimes I think about slipping them into Cedric's drink, just so he'll get some relief. But I think sometimes that he prefers not sleeping to sleeping. In sleep comes dreaming, and in dreaming comes hope and happiness and forgetting. But forgetting isn't necessarily what Cedric Lane wants to do. Just as quickly, my fingers dance away from the pocket again. (If he knew that they had gone unswallowed, he'd force feed me them.)

Grimacing slightly, I shift my weight so that I'm cradled in a pocket of the great big trunk of the tree and I have a better view of Cedric. He's right though, I haven't had a proper sleep in ages. My thoughts are too busy being stars I can't bother with fathoming into constellations. It doesn't hep that we haven't seen each other in a while. Although he's so wild and unruly all of the time, he's so peaceful to me. (He doesn't breath weird, like I'm contagious.) Maybe that's it. When he's around, it's like having a second set of lungs that will breath for me. It's not so lonely. It'd be lying to say I haven't asked him to stay in my room with me once or twice, just so I could sleep. (He might swear I was lying if I ever told anyone that he always did.)

"So, if you weren't sleeping, what exactly were you doing?"

I take a moment to think about it. Honestly, I don't even know myself. Things blend together sometimes. "...Ahm....I think I went to see the entertainers two nights ago, last night I slept for.....well, I slept enough. This past night I drew." Okay, so maybe that night was only a few hours sleep, but one can't hope for much when they're me. Ten minutes is sometimes a gift. (Then again, sometimes I'm gifted with days in bed.) they usually follow a long stretch of general insomnia, so soon, I suppose. Soon I'll be sleeping for all day and all night. It's like I'm an animal that hibernates whenever I damn well please. But hey I guess, to each their own. "How has your sleeping been?"

My question sits quietly for a moment before slinking off presumably to go live where spent questions live. I hate to think about Cedric like that. Alone at night, thinking about /her/ again, and worrying. Well I worry too. I don't want him to be alone when I leave him, which will happen one day, and soon. When I go into the mines it'll be my death sentence. (I'm prepared for it, but is he?) I guess i'm just worried about him being alone. He might deny it, but with out me, there will be no one left to pick up the pieces he tries so hard to keep invisible. Shaking my head slightly, I open my eyes, blinking.

"Let's see what magic that the great Constantine conjured up today!"

Rolling my eyes, I pull the paper from my pocket. There are two drawings on two papers. One is the one of Cedric I did earlier, which I wordlessly hand over to him, and the other is of- nothing important, because a small rabbit just hopped out of the underbrush. Quickly, I pull out the charcoal and flip the second page over, getting dust on my pants probably, but I don't care. It's not often that you see wildlife that someone hasn't already strung up for their dinner, and I seriously need to catch that lively gleam in the rabbit's eyes. As I draw, I glance over at Cedric to see what he thinks about his latest portrait. I've drawn him at least a dozen times, if not more.

As I finish the rabbit's face, it hops off, and I'm left with a lump of a body and a very nicely drawn face. I seriously have to learn how to draw faster.

{ooc: I'm sorry as well xD I don't mean to be so glacial. Let me knw if this is enough to work with.}