{dark paradise} Cass

He’d watched the day she died.

But then almost all of Panem had seen it happen. Everyone had had their eyes glued to the screen as River Destin struck out at the little girl from district nine, the girl built of little more than bones and skin, but had made it that far because she was determined, because she was so much like her sister. Everyone had watched as that mutt, for some odd reason had jumped in front and had taken the blow, which had killed it. Then Ivy had had little time to respond with her own attack before more tributes turned on her, before River Destin spun around and attacked her and for the second time busted open a skull. There had been blood and brains; there had been screaming and that stupid girl from district four looking as though she had not meant it. Looking as though bursting open another person’s skull had been entirely by accident. Huh, that had made him laugh. A small bitter little thing that had mixed with the way he had unexpectedly flinched from the blow. He had, he had done just that and that was what worried him at first. Patch Grey, fearsome, destructible, invincible Patch Grey had flinched at the sight of a girl getting killed. He had killed girls with his own hands. He had killed more than any of those tributes in the games, his hands were stained with more blood then any of them and yet they all hated it. Most of them were shocked and terrified at the prospect of ending another person’s lives. It was not that hard, it was simple, really. And yet when Ivy Soren died he had flinched and averted his gaze from that bloody screen. He looked away from the death and destruction, for the first time in his life he found it unsettling.

It had not been one of the most pleasant of days. Normally there was a thrill with each glance; normally Patch would never give a fuck for anyone on that screen. And in all normality he did not. He did not care about a single tribute in those games. None of them he knew, none of them shared an inkling of a relationship to him. However, there was more to say towards the district nine girl that struck a chord in Patch’s heart. It took little effort to imagine Indigo there rather than Ivy. Both girls were fiery, determined and unwilling to give up. And so it had happened. As Ivy had fallen, the blood trickling down her face Patch could see Indigo. He had seen her there, the same thing happening to her, the blood spilling from her face, those perfect brown eyes dying, that cheeky sparkle in them fading. That was what made it hard to watch. That was what had made him turn the television off and go into his personal area and grip a sword with shaking hands and hit and hit and hit at a straw dummy. He had stayed there all night, the familiar sound of sword on straw, that dull thud ringing in his ears as he banished those thoughts from his mind. It had not been Indigo there, it had been Ivy. They looked the same and acted the same, but they were not the same, Indigo was alive. Ivy was not. He’d hacked at that dummy, over-head, undercut, left, right, parry, back-hand and just stabbing and whacking until the limbs had fallen off, until there was an ache in his arm, and sweat ran down his arms and neck and face and his body was shaking.

Part of him had wanted to go to Indigo and check on her, to make sure that those insane beliefs in his head weren’t real, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t for two reasons. He couldn’t. He couldn’t because he might like Indigo, he might want her and need her as much as she probably needed him at that moment, but he was still Patch Grey. He was not going to go over there for her, if she wanted him she would come to him. Patch didn’t do those kinds of things, besides his crazily insane belief, his nightmare that that might be her one day was not something he wanted to face. Patch didn’t get upset at anything and he had been physically rattled at that sight of Ivy’s broken body. The second reason was that he didn’t want to intrude. He couldn’t go see her and help her get thought this, because if Indigo Soren wanted someone to be beside her she would go to them. She was not a girl that didn’t seek help if she did not need it. She was strong and independent and if she needed a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold or someone to talk to it would be her own shoulder, her own reflection. He would wait for her to come to him, that was if she ever decided to see him again. Patch had seen what could happen to families and people when a family member was killed or died. Sometimes they lead to blood feuds and whole entire families being destroyed. He did not, no way in hell, did he want to see that happen to Indigo. But neither did he want to go see her and do something wrong, no it had to be her decision.

Patch stood in his training room. Legs spread apart, eyes staring straight at the straw dummy in front of him. There was a sword held loosely in his hand. He had had to overcome the need to hold any weapon with two hands, his right arm having no hand at all. It had been a birth defect, what the doctors called a club hand. It was still useful, he could use it to whack people and bloody them up. It had taken a long time for him to build strength in it and now that he had, he would not let it go weak again. As he began to raise his sword hand the light, unfamiliar tapping sound of someone at his door echoed through the house. Frowning he placed the sword back on its rack. He wore a ragged old singlet and some tattered old pants. His training clothes. Curious as well as weary he walked lightly over to the door. No one visited Patch. He was not a person to have people come over. He eased open the door. His frown disappeared to be replaced by a look of worry, and strangely enough concern. It was an odd look on a face that was normally, harsh, cruel and mocking. She looked so vulnerable, standing there, wrapped in a thin jacket. She looked empty and hallow as though all that fire that had once raged within her had been put out. It was a disheartening sight to see. And patch found himself in an awkward position, not knowing what to do or say, as she mumbled a weak greeting.

”Can I..can I stay here for a while? I can’t..” Her gaze dropped and it looked as if every ounce of fight Indigo had slipped and she was a girl Patch had never seen before. This was the side of Indigo Patch thought he would never see and yet he still felt that odd strange feeling stir within him as he looked at her. She wasn’t dead, she was right here in front of him and those nightmare’s and crazy dreams he had had were just there to torment him, Ivy’s face swimming in front of him, but instead it had been Indigo’s, because now looking right at her for the first time in such a long time he knew that this was Indigo. He could tell the difference even when she was as broken as she was now. ”I can’t go back.” Without hesitating Patch stepped aside, opening his home to the girl that could play with his heart. “Come on inside.” His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer, “I’m not sure if this means much, but I’m here, so if you need to talk or if you just need someone to sit there beside you, I’ll be right there.” He felt stupid from just saying it, and he could feel the heat spread across his cheeks. Blinking rapidly he looked away, feeling foolish. He didn’t feel like himself whenever Indigo was around. He was prone to outbreaks of rambling and saying things he would never normally say.

There are days and times when you just don’t know what to do. Patch, lately, had been facing an awful lot of those moments. They perturbed him. And more often than not he had put down his sword and slumped into his bed, puzzling over a long, long list of a thousand different solutions to those problems. It felt unusual to do even that, though. Patch grey was a guy that acted, he moved and he functioned by doing and responding to a situation straight away rather than thinking through all the possibilities first. It was less time consuming and it prevented him from worrying, that stupid seed of doubt had no time to embed itself into his mind. Before you know it he would be finished, the problems over, and he would be ready to face the next one. But then things got complicated. They could so unexplainably complicated when Indigo walked right into his life. At first the change of thought, the way of thinking just confused him. He would puzzle over his reactions, more than he would the actions. Sometimes he just go so frustrated that he would force himself to not think and he would go into his little training room and just hack at some straw dummies, until he felt better, until those annoying thoughts had faded. He had drawn the conclusion that he was just going through something, a faze, a small little thing that would pass. It would all go back to normal soon, he hoped.

He missed that careless, reckless way of treating everything he did, but he also didn’t mind this thinking. It made his realise that sometimes what he was going to do wasn’t right and to his dismay he would put it on hold. Yet he knew that he was thinking and doing and actually preventing himself from doing foolish things like bashing up hopeless kids and murdering because Indigo wouldn’t approve. And so the time when he would do such things had become times when he would throw himself into training, working harder than he ever had at his skills. It kept him distracted and that stopped him from letting his thoughts slip to Indigo. He knew what had happened, he had seen it, and everyone had seen it. But some instinct, some gut instinct had forced him to not go see her. So he had stayed put, waiting for her to make that decision. Indigo was a proud girl, she was strong, determined and courageous and if she needed a shoulder to lean on, someone to be there for her she would choose when and where, otherwise she would not have spoken to him ever again. Seeing her here now just reinforced to him that he had done the right thing by her, by staying away and letting her come to him.

As always seeing her made his heart race and he felt foolish already from saying those few simple things he had spoken. He hated, to say the least, the way Indigo always made him fumble around his words. When they had first meet he had been normal, he had smirked and grinned and had been able to speak with that same sarcastic tone that had given their conversations a great amount of flare. They normally would end up teasing each other, and fighting, but he would never stutter, or struggle with what he wanted to say. It always came out. He nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak. But after nodding he found himself angered it his own ability of not being able to speak. Sighing to himself, he closed the door behind them. Thankfully the house was clean, but then Patch, unbelievably always kept a clean house. He was something of a neat freak, and preferred his house to be in order and clean, rather than what other guys would have, things lying everywhere, clothes here and there. The idea of living in a house like that perplexed him, you could find nothing, and without order Patch would not know where he kept anything. Besides he needed to know where everything was at all times, just in case a Peacekeeper ever decided to pay him a visit.

Patch watched as Indigo walked in, she looked distracted and he couldn’t blame her. She sat down on the first chair she saw. ”I just needed an escape, is all.” He looked down at her hands, as she anxiously wrung them together. ”I assume you saw what happened in the games.” He said nothing. It would be bad to say something to that, he knew that much. Indigo abruptly stood up, spinning around so that her back was towards him, she stayed like that for a few second before turning around once more. ”My own mother won’t talk to me about it. I think she’s in denial, or she’s just…scared, or devastated. I don’t know.” She took a shaky breathe, before moving off to the sofa. Patch followed, as she turned around and looked up at him. She looked a lot more composed then a few moments again, but Patch had already seen what was behind that look and he knew it was just that, no more than a mask for show. ”I decided to come here, because… Because everything at home reminds me of her, and I just needed to get away.” He nodded his head, but he could not tell her that he understood what this was like for her. He could not tell her that it would get better, that that pain he knew she felt would go away over time, and that was because he had never felt it and he couldn’t lie to her.

Patch was a lot of things, cold, cruel, harsh, a bully and a murderer, but when it all came down to it he was not a liar. ”Is this where I’m sleeping?” She threw him a broad smile, and he couldn’t help, but return it, a grin that felt like old times, when they both had just sat and bantered with each other, teasing and playing, smirking and smiling as they tried to exploit their weaknesses. It had been fun, a kind of fun that Patch had never had before, he had enjoyed it, being able to talk and stir indigo up with a few words. Strangely enough he had liked the way she would make him angry in a few seconds, and then as easy as that she could say a few words and he would be laughing. It was odd and weird to know that she could do that, but he liked it. “Nope. That is my bed for the night; I can’t have you sleeping on that old thing.” He grinned, and moving forwards he stopped in front of her. “Even though I know you know where it is, because for a girl that has been here only a few times, you have spent an absurd amount of time in my bedroom. But all the same I’ll show you to it.” He smiled, before offering her his hand, so that he could pull her up and show her the way.

The first day they had met he had tried to kill her. At first he had seen her as nothing special, the same as every other girl or boy he had killed. By the time he had gotten to her his tally had risen to six people. Six people dead by his very own hands. He was often surprised that no peacekeeper had caught him. Everyone in the district knew what he was capable, everyone in the district knew he was something they should be frightened of and yet none of them had done a thing. He’d often waited some nights, lying back, head pressed into his single pillow, legs straight out, eyes just looking, wondering, contemplating what would happen if that occurred. He was a light sleeper, uncomfortable with the very idea of someone banging on his door, smashing it to bits and searching his home. The very things he owned would get him killed. He was living a death sentence. Yet, he was still surprised as he was every day that no one had yet gone searching, that none had told the Peacekeeper’s. Patch Grey knew it was a matter of only time before it happened and yet with each passing day he felt more certain that he was going to be safe. More often than not he had tried to persuade himself to leave, keep his gear in this house, and live in another so that if something like that happened he couldn’t be directly linked to it. But that was just foolishness, his gear was safer this way, who knows what bandits would break in, take one glance and steal all of his gear.

Three generations of equipment lay in that room. It was an awful lot of stuff. He prided himself on it; it was his joy and his treasures. No one knew the love he felt for each blade, spear and knife within the confines of three walls. He knew where every blade was kept, he knew each of their sizes and shapes and he would know from one sweeping glance of his eyes if anywhere missing or gone. It had become instinct to know. It would be the first sign that anyone was on to him. Patch was weary of all people. He didn’t like them. People were, in all honesty, not worth his time and most definitely not worth his trust. No, he had only ever meet two people in his life, one of them dead, that he had ever opened up to. No, talking to people and getting to know them was poison it only leads to hurt and yet he had been unable to resist the urge to talk to Indigo. It was the oddest thing he had ever faced. Sometimes he would actually find himself staring at the ceiling as he lay in bed, unable to focus on the sleep he needed. He would feel an unusual emotion crawl into his mind, one that had taken him almost two weeks to fathom out what it actually was. To this day he was still uncertain that he had named it correctly. It had begun a month or two after meeting her. It had become a gnawing presence in his mind, slowly eating away at him, begging to be heard.

It was guilt.

At the first thought of recognition he had felt an unravelling ball of turmoil take hold of him. It was such an alien feeling that he had immediately dismissed the very Notion. Patch Grey did not feel guilty. Patch Grey did not, what so ever, ever feel guilt or remorse over the damage he had caused. He was sadistic and cold-hearted; people like him didn’t even have a heart. No, people like Patch did not feel bad over hurting another person, they loved it, the feeling of blood, the cries of pain, and they were everything he had craved because he was a monster. Because the normal characteristic associated with human behaviour was nothing he had and because of that he wasn’t human. He simply couldn’t be. And yet that awful feeling had not left at the conclusion of this belief. Instead it had grown with every bit of denial, feeding on that doubt, feeding on those insecurities. And every time he thought of her it had only made it worse. It had only made him bit his lip until it had bleed, fists clenched against his sides, as the foreign feeling took control. So he hacked and hacked at those straw dummies, forcing himself with all his will power to not succumb to some dumb emotion that was meant for normal people. He wasn’t like them and he wouldn’t let himself become anything like them. It was safer for him to feel nothing and be no one, but that monster, that animal, or that beast that everyone feared.

Yet he could not stop feeling a crazy, depressing amount of guilt for what he had done. Maybe it was because he had not killed her, maybe it was because he had gotten to know Indigo and he could not even bring himself to think of the image of her dead body. The very thought made his chest ache and his heart pound. It had been painful to see Ivy’s body lying there in the arena, the life bleeding out of her, because he could have so easily switched her away and placed Indigo there and he did not want that. He did not want to see her dead and as much as that thought felt like what any normal person should feel it left Patch feeling hollow and empty on the inside. It was different to feel like that. It felt strange to want to protect someone and care for them rather than kill them, it was something he was not accustomed to, but he wished that he could go back and do it all over again. He wished he had never met her sometimes. Life had been so simple, like any monster or beast he had done what he had wanted, he had felt no regret or guilt for his dealings, just joy and then it changed. Of course it did. Indigo was too hard to ignore and pull away from, she was like a little light in darkness, a fire, he couldn’t blow her out, because when he tried the flame had only grown stronger.

But then he was so grateful he had. These odd feelings and emotions were something of a difficulty for him, but he liked feeling them and maybe knowing that perhaps he wasn’t a monster, or maybe if he was he could change that. He also wished that he could just so easily say sorry for what he had done, for the pain he had caused her, for the blood he had spilled. He had never before wished he could do that, but right now, seeing her in front of him he wish he could. He wanted to be able to tell her he hadn’t meant it, but that was silly, because at the time he had. Now it was different, as pathetic as that sounded it was. He would never wish that kind of hurt and pain upon her, if anything he wanted to be the one to protect her from that and prevent anyone from ever doing anything of that kind to her again. She didn’t deserve it. There was little he could do about it now and at the present moment he felt reluctant to bring back old pain, reopening am old wound just so he could apologise. And yet he knew that part of him just didn’t want to say it, because Patch did not do that kind of thing, but he shoved that belief away, forcing his mind to believe that it was simply because he didn’t want Indigo to relive that painful time and be scared of him. Yes, that had to be the reason why.

His smile broadened as Indigo reached upwards and grabbed his hand. Tugging her upwards he walked with her to his room. He would not play silly with her and try to flatter her with comforts and advice. He knew nothing that would make that pain go away and what was more the only thing he knew was to act normal and be himself. And even seeing a distraught Indigo could not stop him from just acting the way he normally would. He felt safer just saying what was normal and not forcing out any kind of gibberish that would make him stutter or ramble. He’d done that once already, no he would not go down that path again. They walked through the empty house, devoid of any life, apart from them. It was silent and it was calm as though the world were holding its breathe to watch what was happening. They stopped by the side of the bed and Indigo to his surprise wrapped her tiny arms around him. She clung to him, and smiling with something that could have been affection, he held her. He let o when she drew back, sitting down on the edge of his bed. He laughed softly with her as she joked, a smile fitting his lips to match her own. “Night.” He said simply, before withdrawing from the room and slipping silently away and back to the couch. With a sigh he sat down on the worn out sofa. It was familiar under his touch, and he laughed quietly to himself, he had never thought he’d ever end up sleeping on it, being the only person living in his house.

He slipped off his t-shirt, lying down on the couch in just his pants. Stretching out he found to his own amusement that half of his legs over hanged the couch. Pulling the small blanket he had grabbed from his room on top of him, he tried to get himself comfortable. Closing his eyes he willed himself to sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t. With a resigned sigh he trunked his head up to face the ceiling, his mind travelling straight to the determined, fiery girl that lay not ten metres away from him.