an armistice is a tender hand {bette/temple}

shrimp
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an armistice is a tender hand {bette/temple} Jan 4, 2019 1:56:16 GMT -5

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Post by shrimp on Jan 4, 2019 1:56:16 GMT -5

"I wanted to live."

She says it quietly, stirring her lukewarm water with a plastic teaspoon. The ripples are faint against the cup, translucent and flimsy, a churning pool. Thoughts churn as well, the words cascading down and scrambling, piles of letters that she can't quite line up. Sentences fragmented, clipped and shoddy.

The scar on Temple's cheek, jagged and twisted, digs into her every time she looks. But she does not turn her head. What she wants to say, what she needs to say - it's more important than the guilt that curls in her chest, the pain that settles on her shoulders, throbs in her knees.

"That night, I thought of what would happen, if we stuck together."

"I saw us facing Denali and Lex. Or Anatalia and Angel. Or even Shy and Carmen - and I knew we could handle... that. But what I couldn't... What I wouldn't, think about, was what would happen next."

She hadn't known what to say, at first. So she didn't approach - if Temple wasn't ready, if she was never ready, that was understandable. If Bette wasn't ready, that was a fault of her own. She had loaded the gun, cocked the hammer, pulled the trigger; to be unprepared was an insult. To have no answer to the question: a lie, stewed in hesitation until it boiled over.

And then Temple sat down, right across from her.

"I couldn't just kill you, when it was all over. And so..." She sighs.

"When you pushed me out of the tree, it hurt."

She lifts the cup to her mouth, but pauses just before she takes a sip. She stays like that, for a moment turned into two, then five. She puts the cup back down, looks back into Temple's eyes, a warm brown, brown against brown hair, brown against brown clothes. She is a hearth, warming the room. And Bette extinguished her.

"But I was relieved. Because then I wouldn't have to feel bad about the next decision."

She rubs at her eye, bags as heavy as bricks.

"It was wrong of me, to push that on you."

Just because I was scared. Just because I was angry. Just because I... Her tone, softer than butter left out to cream, grows halted, rough.

"You deserved better."

I should have told you
Yes, I'm to blame
Oh, I took the blame
Turned it into this serenade
Oh, the mess I've made

ghost - lianne la havas

Last Edit: Jan 4, 2019 2:10:02 GMT -5 by shrimp

sbeeg
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an armistice is a tender hand {bette/temple} Jan 8, 2019 16:48:13 GMT -5

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Post by sbeeg on Jan 8, 2019 16:48:13 GMT -5

I try to keep my distance, yet my eyes keep wandering back to deep brown eyes. I have no right to demand her time, to embrace her, to welcome her to this strange new world we live in now. I have no right.

I did once, but I threw it away.

It becomes too much. I barely last a day, staring from the other side of the vault trying not to feel the pang between my ribs hearing Wander and Eve chat with her. Their laughter, their joy.

Can you miss someone in the same room?

I hardly know what I'm doing when I take the seat across from her. She is dressed in bright yellow, soft and so unlike her yet perfect anyway. She glows and I am pulled into her orbit, a dusty rock blessed with brilliance.

I want to speak, but I cannot reconcile my actions with my heart. A split second decision that, I thought, death would wipe clean.

"I wanted to live."

She speaks before I can even figure out how I came to be near her.

My throat thickens, my fingers still tender from grabbing rough branches.

"I couldn't just kill you, when it was all over. And so..." She sighs, and I begin to actually follow her words. The path she is walking is a lot different than I expected.

"When you pushed me out of the tree, it hurt."

It hurt me too the words die in my chest, never even taking a breath to expel them.

"But I was relieved. Because then I wouldn't have to feel bad about the next decision."

I look up, trying to ignore the stinging behind my eyes.

"It was wrong of me, to push that on you."

I try to fight it back, but it's coming no matter what.

"You deserved better."

The tears flow freely and suddenly I'm unaware of the Peacekeepers with guns trained on us, or the food laid out before me. I see soft yellow and deep brown eyes full of pain they shouldn't feel.

"I'm so sorry, Bette," I feel like a mess sobbing like this, but it can't be halted now. Like a train it must run it's course, and it has been delayed for a long while. "I'm the one who messed this all up. I- I-"

Sobs cut off my words as they try to flow out all at once. Thoughts tumbling in my head now trying to slip out but caught in a bottleneck of emotion.

"I'm so sorry."

table credit griffin^^

shrimp
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an armistice is a tender hand {bette/temple} Jan 27, 2019 20:56:39 GMT -5

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Post by shrimp on Jan 27, 2019 20:56:39 GMT -5

Bette didn't expect tears.

She expected...

...

She doesn't know.

But not this. Temple made her choices, and they weren't always right, but they weren't unsound. Bette knows the field at this point, knows that even if Annie and Shy and Yusei had trained for the games, that they were not Careers. She knows that even if Eve and Wander and herself lasted longer than other alliances, they were not Careers.

They were all just kids, wishing for a miracle, knowing it would not be granted lest they sought it for themselves, wrenching it from others with cannonfire and the searing bite of flame. They were kids who killed, kids who maimed - call them selfish, call them self-righteous, cowardly, malicious. They took the tokens they were given and played as best as they could.

"Hey, you didn't-" she murmurs, and almost on instinct leans foward. Her right hand moves, placed gently on Temple's wrist when it happens.

A flinch. Slight, but still there, rippling under her fingers.

Bette retracts it quickly, clenches her hands together - a prayer to the damned. The silence booms, she blinks as she thinks, pushes the nerves back as her stomach drops and drops and drops.

"You shouldn't..." She thinks back to the forest, and tries again.

"Please." It's even softer than usual, the hoarseness tenfold and mixed with the back of her throat. She closes her eyes, breathes in deeply. Their veins still run, their hearts still beat. Let the consequences fall, she will be ready. ~~Even if they hurt. Especially if they hurt~~.

"Don't apologize for wanting to go home."

I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I've been searching for a trail to follow again
Take me back to the night we met

the night we met - lord huron

Last Edit: Jan 27, 2019 20:59:35 GMT -5 by shrimp

sbeeg
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an armistice is a tender hand {bette/temple} Feb 13, 2019 20:27:55 GMT -5

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Post by sbeeg on Feb 13, 2019 20:27:55 GMT -5

Her voice is soft and smooth, like when they talked about the stars. For a moment I can feel the chill of the night and the burn of the tar fires in my lungs. She reaches out for me, fingers brushing across the back of my hand.

And I'm surrounded by a towering jury of redwoods and my sentence is being delivered blow by blow.

It's the tiniest twitch of muscle, a small reaction to a memory that replays when I close my eyes. I'm not sure if it's my own guilt, from being the hand that pushed my last friend away, or if it's my fear from those last handful of minutes I spent in the Arena. Bette reaching out with the hand that killed me.

Maybe it's both. I don't want to think about it.

She feels me flinch and quickly removes her hand and I'm grateful but left cold.

I sniffle. I've never felt so small before. I was raised on a ranch, I was working as hard as an adult by the time I was six.

"You shouldn't..."

I've had to dive out of the way of stampeding steers. I've picked splinters out of my shoulder, and unwrapped barbed wire from my skin.

"Please."

I never cried, I never needed to. I was alone, and it was so much easier to handle the world on your own.

"Don't apologize for wanting to go home."

I take a breath to calm my stuttering chest. Slowly, I reach across the table, laying a hand on Bette's joined hands. Her skin is warm against my fingers and I let the heat sink into my palm.

I close my eyes and I don't open them until I am confident my voice won't shake.

"Okay," My eyes meet Bette's and I'm struck again by how different her brown eyes are from mine. They're darker, deeper, and focused. "I won't."

My fingers tremble and I squeeze her hand to settle them.

"I don't know if I want to go home anymore"