no white flag above my door // nico & carter.

What's my problem?
Don't get it twisted
It's with the people we praise
who may have assisted

Nico feels on edge when Reggie leaves.

There's something hollow in his chest, almost like he left his heart behind in the other man's hands, and it's so strange and foreign that he has to go over to one of the chairs in the room and sit down. Nico sits down in the chair, slumps down in it and leans his head against the back of it, closing his eyes and trying to settle his bones.

He doesn't know how long he's going to be waiting here, doesn't know how much longer he's going to have to sit there and wait to be marched away to his deathbed, but the only person in his life that would come and say goodbye to him has already come and gone, and he said goodbye to his mother this morning when he pressed his lips against her temple and told her that he was going to volunteer.

She'd never looked at him more proudly.

But now he's sitting.

Now he's waiting for Death.

The very last thing Nico expects is for Carter Laws to walk through the door.

"You have five minutes," he hears, and his head snaps up, eyes hard and face closed-off.

He has nothing to say to this boy--what is there for them to say to each other? What is it that they can do for one another? Carter can offer him no advice, not really. He died in that arena, had his life stolen from his lungs no matter the fact that he's standing here before Nico now looking like there's something important on the tip of his tongue. Nico doesn't get up from his chair, just leans back in it again and puts either of his arms on the rests beside him, doing everything he can no to let Carter see the fear echoing through his chest, only the anger, only the fire.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Laws," Nico says, unable to bring himself to use the other boy's given name, unable to acknowledge any kind of familiarity.

He watched him die on a TV screen.

He's got no respect left for him.

song: neon gravestones
by twenty one pilots