birth by sleep | { enzo / kieran }

lorenzo .

"Oh ew, yeah no thanks."

"Lorenzo, you've got to spend time with-"

"Yeah, no thanks, Saffie," he spoke to the floor, tying sweat stained shoelaces. He had spent fourteen years running from his problems and if he had been better at it, he'd made it more than just six days. Everything was so loud all the time, he asked Ansgar about it on the train and he said it was some type of pentatence. Penance? 

Penta means like five, that's pretty cool. He spent the time running thinking about it, how nice the weather had been when he got back. Back from- vacation, the past and now he was in the present again. It felt nice, just like the cooler wind on his face. He was a pseudo-celebrity, even if just in his head, Lorenzo Emberstatt, newly adopted, still the same idiot. 

It was something of a good hobby, ignoring everything he didn't like. Fifteen and fake famous, he wasn't supposed to be but Enzo figured he wasn't supposed to be a lot of things. The other orphans said he shouldn't be alive, but what do they know-- he's not even an orphan! 

Ha!

"Ah fuck," maybe he's getting faster, Enzo thought it'd take longer to run across the block.

"All moved out for ya," Kieran was taller than him, that means something right? Should it? Enzo hadn't had an older brother before, but he had heard what they were like. Assholes, right? He stretched his back while Kieran apologized, shrugged it off -- remind him that Enzo's got cardio. Big chest, flex on him, "don't worry about it haha, I coulda ran it out to you if ya forgot anything." 

Besides, Lorenzo was more introverted these days and never has he waited around for anyone. 

"I could probably race you to your house with my arms tied together!" Hmm, "legs?" He pat Kieran on the should as he walked past him to the door, see ya brother. 

Catch ya around!

[ pisces btw ]

lorenzo .

The box felt heavier than he expected, slapped onto a thin film of sweat. His knees buckled a bit with the tad exhaustion of running the corner. This is a challenge, right? Sure, Enzo flinched when Kieran tossed the box to him but otherwise he’s never been scared of him- of anyone. No, of anything! ”Ahh, see, uh I would-“ no no, for the first time in his life Enzo decided to think. Squinting at Kieran, he realized they were brothers, family. And family means Kieran has to do something back if he does something nice first.

That’s what family’s for right?

Okay so maybe that’s a little self centered, but he had had a rough time so far conceptualize his newfound life. Saffron and Mace and Kieran and these people weren’t real. Just capitol placed citizens to oversee the district kids, he knew this! Read it on the bathroom walls once, and Kieran must’ve just been doing his job. Conspiracies don’t die out easy but neither does Enzo, yknow? ”I mean I cooooould.”

Scratch that, maybe he just had trust issues. ”Yeah yeah, I’m comin”.” He said with a short eyeroll the second his brother looked away, hitching the box higher up in his arms. Truth be told, he wasn’t even going through that much. He was always a temperament child but in his own right, visibly unaffected in the face of others. And he tried his best to keep it from going deeper than that too, problems just stopped existing, nothing internal. It made things easier to be independent, and if anything he had that. Emotional independence, a strong kid.

Not always the best combination, but nevertheless, he tried to write Kieran off. Not to be a bitch or anything, it was just easier to pretend he was still an orphan in a bigger, better house. A rich orphan, y’know? Why the hell not.

”Where do you live anyways? I might’ve ran around there once but I’m guessing it’s not near my home huh?”

[ pisces btw ]

lorenzo .

He tried to brush off Kieran calling the victor village his new home. It felt too emotional; too real. Head pointed to the ground averting eyecontact with him or the house. Part of it was guilt for leaving the other kids — he was rich and known and everything he ever said he’d be — but it was just too easy. Is it something he should be ashamed for? Jokes aside, Enzo literally died for this. Dull pain in his calves building with each mechanical step,

Then there was the other part, ”does it feel weird?

”Huh?”

It does.

”Nah,” he drummed his fingers on the bottom of the box. It felt like he couldn’t take his eyes off the words weird and unwanted, no matter how hard he avoided looking at Kieran they seemed to stare back at him. ”I mean, I’ve got my first family, a sweet ass room, uhh- I have belts now!” Lorenzo counted them off, he had never had those things before, belt included, maybe he was just scared of something else going wrong. Paranoid, of birds? That Temple would still wind up hurt?

Everything was just easier if he took it less seriously, a nice little way of life. ”Well, not yet, but Mace said he’d hit me up with some, sooo,” he droned on, counting the trees that they passed. If he had learned anything, he would’ve been memorizing the way back. Picked up on the short distance from home to home to home to back, but Enzo’s a kid of bad habits anyways. It’ll just be something to run off later, forget about later — rinse & repeat.

“What more could a guy want, y’know?”