we are a {hurricane} :: circe

are you worth your weight in gold?
'cause you're behind my eyelids when i'm all alone
hey, stranger, i want you to catch me like a cold
you and god both got the guns, and when you shoot i think i'd duck

People have been swinging at me for years, but they nearly always miss. Nearly always. One of these days I’m going to smarten up enough to get my face safely out of Bianca Tarbuck’s punching radius before throwing an insult at her, but until that day comes I’ll be left coming home just as dusk takes over the sky with a spectacularly bloody lip and more-than-a-little wounded pride. The only light on in the Lyon house when I draw up to the gate is the one in Circe’s room, and I swallow a sigh of relief, knowing that any good-natured ribbing I get from her will far more bearable than the inevitable You got that shiner from a girl? tongue-lashing I would have gotten from our father. The rest of the family must be out at some social function or another, or maybe still at training. Since I landed the spot at the Bryze gym I’ve been keeping different hours from the rest of my family, and while I’m grateful for the break from my father’s sermons and Joffrey’s whining, there’s a sort of quiet pang when I think about how I don’t get to see Circe nearly as often. Well, see her in the sense of seeing her. We still get up and walk to school together and walk to training after school until we split up to go to our separate gyms, but other than that my time with her is usually limited to loaded conversations and meaningful glances when other people are watching and ducking into her room in the wee hours of the morning after I finally get home to pull the rumpled covers over her sleeping form where she’s kicked them off in fits of restlessness.

(Neither of us has slept altogether well in years, not since our mother judged us old enough to have separate bedrooms, and it took years of waiting to finally realize that we could only rest easy when we were close enough to hear the sound of each other’s heart beating)

I duck into the entrance hall quietly, dropping my backpack in the corner with a muffled thump before heading to the half-bathroom down the hallway, propping my hands on the cool marble of the sink and inspecting the damage from Bianca’s wrath in the mirror. It was a hell of hit, although I’d never admit it, and even a half hour after the initial injury the wad of tissues I press to my lip still comes away scarlet. Still, I’ve had worse. Nothing a little gauze and some peroxide won’t fix, regardless of the considerable amount of time it’s going to take for my ego to recover. The medicine cabinet is strangely bereft of the usual things to patch up training scrapes though, and I can feel my brow furrow in annoyance as I poke my head back into the hallway and yell up the stairs. “Circe! Are we out of peroxide?”

Silence. “Circe?”

Silence yet again. Rolling my eyes, I grab another fresh wad of tissues to staunch the bleeding before taking the stairs two at a time, all languid movement and inherent grace. Perhaps she’s out with the others and just left her light on. But no, there are soft strains of music leaking out from behind her closed door. She’s got the radio on, couldn’t hear me. Despite the stinging it causes, the most wicked of smirks tugs at the corners of my lips. Who knows how long the rest of the family will be gone, and as the saying goes, when the lion’s cat’s away… I knock on the door briskly but swing it open myself a second later, leaning against the doorframe with a sardonic smile.

“Oh, don’t worry about me; I was only downstairs yelling for medical attention for the past five minutes. Nothing to fret over, just a split lip and shattered dignity. I’m sure I can soldier through it on my own,” I drawl, voice muffled by the tissues still pressed against my mouth. Circe’s the heartbreak kind of beautiful, I always thought, or maybe that was just me realizing that she was the next best thing to looking in a mirror. Still, the past weeks of separation sit in a heavy place behind my sternum, and without really thinking about it I edge into the room, arms looping around the familiar curve of her waist and another lion’s grin stretching across my face. “They’re all still gone, you know. And I’ve missed you.”

oh i confess, i confess to the rumor of us
but he didn't come and speak to me or put my heart at ease
and i believe that half the time, i am a wolf among the sheep
gnawing at the wool over my eyes