★ {LEO HAYES} ★ D1 [FIN]

★ { n a m e } leo cyrus hayes
★ { a g e } eighteen
★ { g e n d e r } male
★ { l o c a t i o n } district one
★ { s e x u a l i t y } heterosexual

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't pretend that I'm alright
And you can't change me

I’m not surprised when he appears, standing tall and board-straight within the doorway despite the unmistakable sheen of blood running down the pale length of his arm, drip drip dripping from his fingertips and forming a small, crimson puddle at his feet. He comes here often, battered and beaten and bloodied by Ripred knows who or what, though it’s not exactly in my job description to inquire as to what causes such injuries in my patients. I just put a band-aid on it and send ‘em on their way, but this one just can’t seem to stay away for too long.

He doesn’t cross the threshold, as if he is waiting for me to invite him into my office. Like a vampire or something, I decide, like in all those storybooks - needing permission to enter one’s quarters. He certainly is pale as one, the pallid skin of his injured arm giving more the appearance of cold marble than actual skin. “Well? Don’t just stand there, boy. Sit down and let me take a look at’cha.” He hesitates for a moment, the corners of his lightly chapped lips curling downward into a half-grimace that says “I don’t want to be here.” But he can’t deny that he needs medical assistance, the puddle at his feet steadily growing, and finally he steps into the room. He moves like a storm cloud, all dark and brooding – typical testosterone-filled teenage boy, I suppose, though he looks like he could trash my entire office if all that power were to be unleashed. He seems oddly at the brink of it, as if he were filled to the brim with chaos and it was slowly beginning to seep over the sides. Not yet, though. Not quite.

He leans against the side of the examination table rather than sitting on it – pompous prick – and watches silently as I roll over to him on my chair, adjusting the glasses on the tip of my nose to get a better look at the nasty gash along his right bicep. If it’s painful, the kid does a fine job of hiding it. His eyes are fixed straight ahead, twin pools of molten golden-brown, hazed over with a practiced blankness and dark brows furrowed above them as if in concentration. The only evidence that he even feels the pain the wound must bring is the muscle jumping in the strong slope of his jaw, his pale cheeks flushed and shining with a thin sheen of sweat. I take his arm in my hands - corded muscle stretched taut beneath cold skin - and examine the gash. It’s not too big, but certainly no paper cut. Whoever did this was out to cause pain, not just win the match. I feel a spark of curiosity, intrigued. “Damn, kid. Who did this to you?”

I feel him tense beneath my gloves, a flicker of something heated and just barely contained and angry flashing across the bright gold of his eyes, and in a voice so much darker and huskier than I’d thought could come out of a kid his age, he growls, “My sister did.”

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late, and we can't go back
I'm sorry I can't be perfect

I heave a sigh before pushing off the examination table and rolling back over to the cabinets on the other side of the room, grabbing supplies - a roll of bandages, antiseptic, some stitches – off the metal tray beside the sink. Having been a nurse at this god-forsaken training center for nearly a decade now, I’ve witnessed plenty of sibling rivalries in all my years here. Careerdom is a home-wrecker, tearing apart families and destroying relationships since the Dark Days. When I wheel back over to the boy, he’s staring at the ground, large hands gripping the sides of the examination table on either side of him in white-knuckled firmness. The anger is gone from his eyes, but I can tell it’s still there – roiling and boiling beneath his skin, a hurricane of rage barely contained. This kid’s got issues, I can tell.

“She must’ve been pissed to want to cause this much damage,” I say absently, pouring the antiseptic onto a cloth before dabbing it along the wound. He barely flinches, and I can’t tell if his teeth are gritted from the pain or from the anger when he hisses out, “Actually, she probably just wanted to see me fail. I didn’t do anything – Aine’s just a manipulative bitch who likes to watch people – shit!” I must’ve pressed too hard, because the boy suddenly jerks his arm away from me rather violently. The look he gives me is something between annoyance and actual embarrassment – as if ashamed at himself for having even acknowledged the pain and reacting so powerfully. I can’t help the smirk that pricks at the corner of my lips – so the kid isn’t as stone-cold as he tries to be – and the look suddenly transforms into a steely determination as he offers up his arm again, his tone is much less passionate when he speaks this time. “-to watch people squirm.”

“Well, she sounds lovely. Hope you’re not afraid of needles.” His eyes harden at the word “afraid”, betraying no fear or even a flicker of pain even as I press the tip of the needle against his skin and push it through. He seems carefully poised and well-controlled, but he can’t fool me – I can see the death grip he has on edges of the table by the bone-whiteness of his knuckles; I’ve been in this business long enough to know when someone’s hurting, and this kid is trying too hard to be something he’s not. He does a damn good job of pretending, though, staring straight at the wall ahead with that dark determination, as if willing himself not to feel any pain. It’s silent like that for a while as I concentrate on stitching up the gash, but it's quickly broken as opens his mouth and says between clenched teeth, “Lovely’s not exactly the word I’d used to describe Aine. Or any member of my family, really.”

“And what word would you sue to describe your family, then?” If talking helps keeps his mind off the pain, then fine – I’ll humor him. He pauses for a moment, thinking. When he finally seems to have decided on just the right word, he straightens up a little as his chests seems to swell, a tiny smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “Powerful.” His anger seems to have completely dissipated, replaced now by this pride for his family. He seems to have forgotten the needles working through his skin, lost in what must be thoughts of how incredible his family is. Careers. “We’re strong, we’re fierce. We can pull through anything, without a doubt.” He looks at me then, and – forgive me if I’m wrong – but it seems almost as if he’s looking down at me, and not just in the literal sense.

“We’re the Hayes family.”

I try not to think about the pain I feel inside
Did you know you used to be my hero?
All the days you spent with me
Now seem so far away
And it feels like you don't care anymore

He says it as if it should have some profound effect on me, as if I should suddenly drop to my knees and kiss the ground at his feet, bemoaning my ignorance for not having recognized his majesty sooner. To be honest, though, I have no idea who the hell the Hayes family is. There are so many “important” families in this district, so many children who think they’re on top of the world just because they have a certain surname. But when you’ve been around careers and their egotism for as long as I have, you really get to a point where you just don’t give a damn anymore. Moreno, Lightwood, Dempsey, Rex, Shore – they all start to blur together after a while, and this “Hayes” family is no exception.

“Refresh my memory, kid. The Hayes family isn’t the one where the children murder each other in cold blood and bury the bodies in the yard, right?” The boy blinks at me – once, twice, three times his golden eyes try to register what I’ve just said correctly– as if honestly confused as to why I don’t know exactly who his family is. But as the moments tick by his expression transforms into one of mild annoyance with a tinge of disbelief. He doesn’t even bother to answer my question, as though it were just too ridiculous. “I’m just wondering, ‘cause I’m not sure what kind of sister does this sort of thing to her brother for the sake of seeing him fall.”

“A horrible, manipulative one,” he mumbles, looking away from me. I turn my attention back to the stitching, which I’ve just about finished. “But that’s just how Aine is. She’s always been that way – Daddy’s little favorite, the princess, the prodigy…” He trails off, and I glance up to see that he’s staring at the opposite wall, a faraway look in his eyes and a half-grimace creeping its way onto his lips. He seems to be lost in some memory – and probably not a happy one, at that – and I realize this kid doesn’t just have issues. He’s got Daddy issues. “As for me, I’m not really much of anything in his eyes, even though I’m the firstborn. He always used to say…he would say to me, ‘Aine was born lucky, but Leo was lucky to be born.’ I mean, what kind of father says that to their son?”

“A horrible, manipulative one,” I echo, and he manages a small grin, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ignore the bastard. Honestly, what’s the worst he can do?” I regret saying it as soon as the boy’s smile suddenly turns grim, and he turns his head away from me. “You have no idea,” he says quietly, almost as if to himself. I can see the muscle working in his jaw, and I use the awkward silence that follows to finish up the last of the stitching, grabbing a roll of bandages of the table beside me. When I turn back to him, he’s inspecting the sutures with an oddly blank expression masking his face. His tone is strangely matter-of-fact when he speaks again.“People don’t fare well when they underestimate my father. My mother learned that the hard way, apparently, seeing as I haven’t seen her since I was a kid. But people underestimate her, too. She’ll come back, I know it.”

He stands and walks silently to the door while I watch, frowning. I feel the need to say something – thank him for opening up, for not jabbering on about how perfect his life is or how incredibly far he can throw a spear or how powerfully he can swing an axe like most other Careers that come traipsing through my door day after day. From what I’ve seen and heard in the last half hour, though, this boy’s life is far from perfect. He’s halfway in the hall when I manage to speak. “Hey, kid… Life really sucks sometimes, but… just, hang in there, all right? Kid? Don’t give up.”

He’s silent for a moment, hovering in the doorway in just the way he had when he first showed up, his face as hard as the horrid life he’s been forced to live for all these years.

“I never give up.”

And then he’s gone.

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't stand another fight
And nothing's alright

★ { o t h e r } ★

★ { f a c e } joe collier
★ { p l o t s } stare’s hayes family plot
★ { s o n g } perfect by simple plan
★ { c o d e } oDair

Nothing's gonna change the things that you said
Nothing's gonna make this right again
Please don't turn your back
I can't believe it's hard just to talk to you
But you don't understand