carry on {merlin/teddy}

I ache all over.

Like stars locked in rebirth my body explodes with a fresh pain with every move I make. I didn't know it could be this horrible, this thing that Tate calls healing. I don't think it's really healing, I think it's a lie. I think I'm just dying slower. My chest hurts.

It hurts more.

I'm really tired today and all I did was walk down the stairs.

I hold my hands out in front of me, they are unsteady and they shake. Scars criss cross down my arms. Some of them are faded and pinkish-white, the ones from the first few weeks. A few of them are fresher. They have fresh stitches from when Dr. Ken, the gang's doctor came over and did them. She got mad when she saw me picking at the scabs on one of them. She had to cut open a half-healed cut because it was infected and the skin around it was too pink. It hurt but I didn't even scream.

I have a new pain scale in my head and what she did when she cut my skin open felt a bit like a two. Tate hissed and looked away when she sliced it back open but that's mostly because I think he was scared for me.

My chest feels like a nine.

I wince a lower one of my hands to it, rubbing the skin over my heart as if it will help anything. It never does. I'm careful to avoid the stitches on my chest, I don't want to open one. Dr. Ken told me that for every stitch I opened she'd smack Teva.

I'm wearing a green pair of elastic gloves that she let me have. They cover up my fingers. I think my fingers gross my brothers out. They gross me out a bit even though I'm used to them. I think it's maybe because they're so unnatural looking without the nails there. I shudder slightly, having to shut my eyes as the memory comes back, fresh and unbidden.

Pliers Man has his knee in my back and the floor is cold. My chest feels like it's broken. My ribs are broken. I've peed myself and he's tearing off my nails. He's on the third one. The metal bites at my skin, ripping messily. He takes my middle finger's nail in two pieces. I scream with each tug.

Tears fall quiet and slow from my eyes.

I hear Tate come in the room. "Teddy?" he asks. He's looking for me and I should pipe up from my spot here, hidden behind the couch but I don't. I don't want him to catch me crying again. I want him to stop worrying about me but I don't know how to stop being worrisome.

I've been home for nine days but I feel like at any moment those peacekeepers are going to come back and take me away again. "Just kidding," they'll say and they'll put a sack over my head and they'll take me away and they'll electrocute me again. They'll whip me again and there won't be anything my brothers can do about it.

Tate leaves the room and I sigh.

Relieved.

Mo-Mrs. Seraphim. My adopted Mom. My adopted brothers, adopted Mom. She once told me that no matter what, I should never be afraid because I was the luckiest kid in the world. I had three older brothers to protect me and not many kids were that lucky. I used to believe her, that I was indestructible because of my brothers, the incredible Seraphim triplets. I was wrong. Learning that was a hard lesson.

I think I started to understand it the time one of the peacekeepers came into the cell and they took me to a room where they branded thirteen lines across my back. I screamed and cried with every touch of that hot metal and for the first time in my long stay there, none of my brothers were there with me in my head. The heat burned them away, scorching them from my mind, how they used to be.

Ever since I got home, I've noticed how different they are. How they're pretending to be fine. They talk less, joke less. The house is quieter. It isn't how I left it. Things have changed.

It's my fault.

Things are different because of me. I left. They thought I was dead.

I thought they were dead.

Every time one of them comes into my room to check on me, to make sure I'm still there, still breathing, I feel like I'm seeing a ghost.

I started pretending to be asleep every time they checked on me so they could go to sleep too.

At first I didn't have to pretend. I was so tired from being kept awake that I slept for three days straight. Since waking up then I've barely been able to sleep for more than an hour at a time. I get bad dreams. Bad memories. Pliers man is living in my head and he haunts the house. In the shadows that night creates he's here. I lie very still under my covers, watching the corners of the room, waiting for him to appear with that same bored look, wondering if he'll kill me.

I wanted to ask one of my brothers to stay with me but that isn't fair for them so I don't. I know that they've got to work so we can keep the house and they've got things of their own. Teva and Cal finally got together while I was gone and I'm glad. I always sort of thought it'd be nice. Tate found someone too and I met him once, briefly. He had eyes like melted honey though and I knew Tate would be warm with him.

So I'm glad.

I'm just lonely.

I can't sleep and I'm scared.

I can barely eat either.

Tate makes me breakfast like he used to and he tries to make sure that I eat because I know that it worries him that he can count my crooked ribs and I'm trying, I am. I'm not hungry though. I eat two bites and I feel like I'm stuffed full.

Dr. Ken says my appetite will come back as I get healthier but I don't know.

I feel like I'm in purgatory, drifting.

I look up through hair that's grown too long at dust motes dancing in the sunlight coming through the window and I wonder how that got there.

It's been months since I've seen the sunrise. I've been staying up all night just to catch it rising but I keep missing it somehow. I don't think that it's really rising. I think it's a hoax, a fake sun.

What if I'm just in an arena, what if my brothers are mutts and I'm really just insane?

I've toyed with the idea.

The front door opens and I hear Cal's voice. He tells someone to find me and I shift slightly where I am, my breathing gone slow somehow. My brain is moving slow too. I should hide because I don't want to be found but I feel like I'm trying to move through soupy air. It's too much effort to move and hide. If I stay still and quiet no one will find me. I can rest here, silent and alone. I like to be alone.

For a while it's quiet. I hear Cal and Teva go upstairs. Maybe this person will give up and I'll stay here, alone in my hiding spot. Maybe I can grow like flowers here, soft and quiet. I'd like to grow sunflowers from my spine. They can follow the sun through the window.

"Uh, Teddy right?"

I open my eyes slightly. There's a boy there in front of me, one I haven't seen before. For a moment that scares me. I don't like strangers much anymore. Strangers could hurt me. I know they could hurt me before too but now I know better. I don't make any movement of acknowledgement. If I play dead he'll go away, right?

"I'm... uh I'm Merlin and I was uh... I... Are you okay?"

I guess not.

I don't know how to answer his questions. Yes. I am Teddy. No. I am not okay. Those are the correct answers but not the ones that he wants. People want to hear that I am okay. They want a smile and a nod so that they can go on with their day. So I do that.

I work my mouth into a smile, a small, barely there one, but a smile nonetheless and I nod. It's like a rusted lever being tugged up and down. A bone in my neck cracks when I do it and I wince slightly. That was barely a minus two on the pain scale but it sounded sort of bad.

He's still in front of me.

He's blocking the sunlight. It frames his head in a weird sort of glowy halo. He smiles at me uncertainly, eyes crinkling at the edges in concern. He's a stranger but it doesn't look like he wants to hurt me. Cal wouldn't bring anyone over who would.

I guess it's my job to entertain him. I'm not so entertaining anymore. I'm sure I could still list hundreds of facts about the making of Panem, history, poetry, literature, anything. All I can think about lately though is prison.

After a few moments I let out a soft sigh to signal my surrender. "I'll be okay," I tell him, my voice still raw and harsh, not yet fully recovered from months spent cold and screaming. It's not a lie because Dr. Ken told me that I will be. It's fact. I've always held on to facts, in this case I think I need to.

If I was insane would I make up a nice strange boy that looks about my own age to talk to?

Probably.

Wearily, I pat the carpet beside me, teal gloved fingers splayed over the beige wool. If I want him out of my sun it's easier to offer him a spot beside me then to ask him to leave me alone.

I don't like being alone anyway.

It's not that his uncertain smile is sort of nice.

I shut my eyes once again with a quiet sigh when he sits down beside me, getting out of my sun. Warm sun bathes my skin in a comforting light. I am pale and drawn but not by choice. It was so long since I saw the sky that now I spend most of my time at the window watching it to make sure that it stays put. I could sleep like this, I suppose, with the sun watching me. It's peaceful and safe here. The triplets are all around, it should be safe.

I don't feel safe, not anymore. I never do.

Sometimes when I am lying in my bed I hear the sound of boots marching down the hall, coming for me. I lie stiff and still, silent, hoping that if I breathe as quietly as I possibly can then they won't find me. I listen to the sound of their boots marching up and down the hallway outside of my bedroom door for hours, too afraid to call out for Tate. It reminds me of being in the cell, of knowing they were coming for me long before they arrived just because of the echoing sound of their feet. Sometimes as I lay there waiting for them and my body was in too much pain, too weak to do anything, I'd pee myself in fear.

I was in a constant state of it for so long.

I forgot what it's like to not to be afraid. I don't remember if there was ever a time that I wasn't. Life before I was arrested is foggy in my head and harder to remember now. Dr.Ken says that it's shock from what happened to me, that my memories will come back clearer. I hope so. Memories used to be what made me special. I was good at remembering. I still am, but it's all stuff that I want to forget, to repress and stuff into the back of my skull under lock and key.

Like the time the scary woman whom I stabbed came into the cell and stole Castor's eye right out of her face without a word of warning.

My brow furrows at the memory and I clench my hands lightly, as if I didn't just sit there in fear that night when I came back from some fresh torture and found her huddled up in a corner, half-blind and in deep pain.

I wish Castor was here.

There's no one here that I can talk to. Every time I even mention the time I was away Tate's face crumples up like he's going to cry again. Tripp is my big brother but despite my body, he's always been the most fragile. I can't stop thinking about the night I found him with the barrel of a gun resting in his mouth. I don't want to make him more upset by letting him worry too much about what happened to me. Teva's the only ray of sunlight in this place. Even if it's just filtered and pretend happiness I don't want to touch it. I don't want to make it worse than I've already made it.

Castor knows what it's like in there, she understands. I don't even know if she's alive. I don't even know if she's real. It's all relative.

"You don't have to tell me that."

Tell him what?

I open my eyes again, keeping my gaze trained on the sun. I'm afraid that if I look away it will disappear. He goes on, telling me that I don't have to tell him what he wants to hear, that I don't have to lie. I can tell this complete stranger that I am unraveling from the very center of myself, that I can barely stay awake during the day because I can't sleep at night, that my chest hurts more than it ever has before, that I'm afraid that I'm dying again. I look at my brother's faces and all I see is pity and worry. They never used to look at me like that before. Tate always worries but I used to be an equal.

Now I don't even have the strength to stand in the shower, let alone hold a full conversation.

No, he doesn't want to hear the truth. No one does, they want me to back to being who I was. I wasn't ever the peak of health before but I was better than this. I had meat on my bones and a constant grin tucked away in the corner of my mouth. Now it's like I've forgotten how to smile. They don't like that. I was supposed to be the innocent to be kept safe,the reason to keep going. Now I'm not. They've found other people to be their reason. I'm just a sad story, a tragic piece of history. Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. It's funny, when they had me down in that cell all I wanted to do was survive and get back to my brothers.

Now all I hope for is release.

My body hurts. It aches, bad. It's indescribable how much simple movement brings me pain. I'm trying to be strong, like my adopted brothers but it's hard. Walking down the stairs is work, it's exhausting for a boy who is now used to being dragged everywhere. My heart has never been good but it's worse now. I can feel how bad it is in comparison after I died and was brought back to life by the pliers man who I think lives inside of my closet now. Dr.Ken's expression changes just barely when she listens to my heart and I can tell it isn't good.

I'm going to die soon.

There was no point in fighting.

I need to find one, I need to pretend that there is a reason to survive. Not even the thought of my brothers can keep me going anymore. I'm trying but it's like trying to cup sand in my hands. My thoughts wibble wobble through the creases in my brain and fall away until there is nothing left but agony. It's too strong.

My brothers always accept my answer now when they ask how I'm feeling. They're afraid to ask for more now and even if they did I don't think I'd tell them how I really am. The tension in this house is high, static. I'm afraid to set it off. I don't want anything to combust. I can see it in Tate's eyes though, his doubt when I tell him I'm doing alright. I don't look alright. I'm trying to but it's hard. I am haggard and tired and older now than I was four months ago. I am tired. I am so tired.

I lick my lips and take a soft, shuddering breath, an old man bent on making a point. "Maybe it isn't what you want to hear, but what I want to hear," I tell him, voice harsher, raspier than I mean it to be. I was never good at making friends before, always too bookish, ever the observer and barely ever the participant because of my bad heart. I get my intelligence from Mom and Tripp and my mouth from Teva, Tate says. I should really learn how to shut it sometimes.

"I must look really shitty then, huh?" I say, leaning my head back against the back of the couch. The fabric gives slightly beneath my weight and I keep my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. There's still remnants of colour there from the time I read about this man named Michelangelo who painted all over a ceiling once. I think Tate was mad when he saw it but he let me keep the pictures. That was years ago. They're unintelligible now.

If Tate were here he'd get mad at me for swearing. Those words never used to feel right on my tongue but something has changed. That precious thing that Tate was always trying to protect by not letting me learn how to use a gun is gone. I lost it somewhere between the fall and the spring.

"It was a bad winter for me," I whisper, "That's all. I'll be okay."

I 'm too much like Tate now.

I was cold just now, like he can be. I felt it there, the ice on my heart, on my chest, unbidden. I don't want to be like that, to become that. I want to be like mom was, warm. I don't want to lose myself here.

Tears form in my eyes to match his and I lower my head painfully to look at him. "Look," I whisper, "I'm sorry, I didn't used to be like this."

I should be more warm, like Castor was, cradling my head in the cell as I cried in pain and fear. I need to be as brave as she was and I hope that she's alive still, that she's still breathing. Someone needs to survive that cell, if I can't then it has to be her.

Exhaustion grips me like a vice and I feel my limbs go heavy with it, merciless. I get too tired now far too soon and it's agonizing, almost as bad as the constant pain in my chest. What is it worth being alive in constant pain if the only thing I can do is sleep for endless hours?

I want to ask him if he knows what it feels like to die, but I'm afraid of the answer that I'll get.

"Please don't cry, ok?" I ask it of him even as tears leak from my own eyes.

Suddenly the carpet beneath me feels too rough, the couch against my back too hard to the point where it's almost painful but my body is too heavy to move it and it's odd, being so trapped in my own skin. I don't have the excuse anymore of broken legs, of gaping wounds because Ken has stitched them all up.

Nine days, it's been nine days free and I don't fully trust it, I don't know when I will.

I ache all over in small, beating hearts, all overshadowed by the real heart in my chest, beating out of rhythm and too aggressively. I wince, tears turning into those of pain and for a long moment, I am speechless, trapped in the cage of my own pain.

His hands curl up in my shirt, too big for me now, and I am dragged back to this moment in time, his hands a safety rope in this uncertain shore. He begs me, asking me what he can do and I don't have an answer for him, anything that wants to move past my lips. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, agony gripping far too tightly, latex covered hands clenching slowly into weak fists as if to hold myself here.

I lick my lips again, tongue running over the cracked surface, almost cutting myself on them.

"Please," I say, "Help me get upstairs?"

He pulls me up and half of me is left behind there on the floor and I keep doing this, cutting myself in half wherever I go and leaving myself there, remnants. I soft grunt of pain leaves me when he pulls me up and I stumble into him, sagging against him, unable to hold myself up. "I'm sorry," I say softly into his chest.

I don't know when I became like this; so goddamned week.

I think of my heart stopping inside of my chest and I remember it now. It had felt good, final, the end. After months of torture and suffering, it had finally been the end.

And then they'd brought me back. I tighten my lips at the thought of that, the unfairness. Bringing me back only to face the certainty of a slow rattling death was inhumane.

But the detention center never promised to be anything different.

My arm shakes around merlin, doing my best to help him. The strain of movement is enough to make my vision blur and even though I was just recalling it, I have to remember that I was legally dead two weeks ago, that my heart stopped. I'm weak because my body has given out and now it doesn't know how to function anymore, too confused at still existing on a physical level.

"I can't tell them what it was like in there," I say softly as we take the stairs slowly one by one, "It would break them, break Tate."

"I can't hurt them anymore."

Guilt washes over me with an added dull ache.

Guilt for what I put them through when I stabbed that peacekeeper all those months ago.