live fast, die young {open}

They’d spent the previous afternoon watching the clouds overhead and talking about what their world could’ve been if they’d had a chance to do it over again. He spent a good while watching the sunflowers sway in the distance. Echoes resounded across the plains, though he couldn’t see through the dense outcropping of flowers. He left Damaris to her devices. They’d developed a steady rhythm of minding their own business. Saturn would set about stalking the perimeter to make sure there weren’t any foes (though to be fair, as had been pointed out, as flat as the terrain was they should’ve easily seen anyone coming – no one said he was brilliant, after all). Damaris would disappear into her own head. He imagined they made for riveting television.

But the times when they did speak – few words about home or reminding one another to drink water (he may have told her half a dozen times), Saturn felt better. Renewed, even.

He had wondered whether or not he’d go out in a blaze of glory, or how long either of them would last. When the anthem blared, he watched the stars above thinking that Damaris was more of a contender than he’d ever given her credit for, even if they both perpetually appeared on the precipice of shattering to pieces. If he’d learned anything from Damaris it was that strength came from an ability to recognize what brought him pain, and not to just push through it. Wounds needed mending and scars needed healing. Pride and fear kept him from a lot of things, but they weren’t stronger than his heart.

Berlin is first, and Saturn feels something akin to a prick of a needle into his skin. He was formidable, and handsome. A boy that had enough anger that Saturn wondered which of the two of them would have prevailed, should they have faced one another. The next face was a punch to his gut – Stanley Schuster. Saturn inhales a breath and holds. He was a nice boy, kind, and Damaris’s district partner. He wonders if it’ll make her sad and he hopes, selfishly, that they didn’t know each other well enough for her to let it. The other faces come – the girl from nine, the traiter from ten, and both elevens, but he feels nothing, remembers little about them.

He doesn’t say anything as they tuck into their evening rituals. He keeps close to the rocks, awake for first watch, or until he slips into a fit of sleep. He lets an hour or so pass, and watches Damaris stay still.

At least Ex hadn’t gone and gotten himself killed, Saturn muses. He thinks about how long it’s been since he tasted Ex’s lips, or felt the curve of his hips. He compares him to Berlin, who’d been leaner, but muscle to rival his own. He’d liked looking at him in the training center, and for a brief spell, with nothing at all. Of course Stanley drew him into his orbit for how unlike the others he was – skin and bones, waifish, but a genuine smile. Warm enough that he set Saturn alight.

He’s quiet, stripping off his armor. The goat skull helmet makes a little clank against the dust of the rock, but he’s more careful stripping off the breastplate and shin guards. He pauses to stare at Damaris again through the darkness but sees nothing – just the girl on her side, quiet. By the time he’s plucked off his boots, his heart’s pumping through his ears, and he can’t help himself. Maybe he should’ve gone a little bit further away from camp, but Saturn’s level of shame prevented that thought from sticking around long.

“Mmmm… Stanley,” He reinterprets their locker room meeting in his mind. He thinks about how he could’ve held the boy against the lockers, kissing him, and being kissed back. He likes to think the boy would’ve reached up his back, and pressed against his neck. He ponders being pinned by Berlin – because he wonders what an experience that would’ve been, their two bodies up against one another. Had he spent a little more time on the boy it could’ve come to pass, but the daydream of it is all the same, warm and wonderful and exciting.

And then came Ex – he saved this memory for last each night in the arena, so that if he were to die before the morning, he’d at least have thought of something that made him happy. Their bodies, their hearts, for a brief handful of minutes, were one.

Of course, in treating his own body as an amusement park, he wasn’t watching Damaris’s body shift in the darkness. And he certainly didn’t see her sit up while he was getting down to business, at least, until he turned and made full eye contact with her.

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhhh… Damaris?!” Was all he could make out, red faced and short of breath. And then, as he would remember for as long as he lived, was the silence that passed between the both of them. He stops, the wheel in his head spinning and spinning but no words coming. “Shit shit shit shit shit…” He whispers, grabbing his clothes and covering himself, and finding the nearest rock to hide himself behind.

Well what was he supposed to do after three days of running around fending off death? Especially when the boys he’d had any connection with were dropping like flies? For a moment he wonders if it’s disrespectful of the dead but, he imagines they don’t have many thoughts about it now.

They don’t speak that morning, beyond the usual grunt of good morning. He packs and she packs, and they don’t say anything, because Saturn knows that he’s wrong for what he’d done but it was easier to pretend like nothing was wrong than admit. He’d found it was the best strategy to handle things that he didn’t want to address, for which he didn’t have any words. He’d just pretend the moment never happened, and if it was ever brought up (to which he imagined Damaris would never, bless her heart), pretend he didn’t know what they were talking about.

By the time they reach the grass plains, he’s ready to speak to anyone aside from Damaris, almost thankful at the slew of tributes that have gathered by the game maker’s request. Saturn doesn’t quite believe they’re safe (why wouldn’t any of them try now, with their guard down, to kill one another?).

He watches the blaze from the back of the hubbub, and notes the ones still alive. Himself – somehow the sole representative from district one. The boy and girl from two, formidable, aloof, and looking mostly unscathed. Both threes, the young boy and the girl that had proven herself with her training score. The girl from four, impressive as she was. Both from five, the flower boy and the girl who’d been a part of the wealth. Both from six – he was beginning to realize, as he went through them all, how little he knew about them. In fact, he doesn’t know much about the girl from seven, or the boy from nine or twelve. Just that they are alive, and here.

“We should…” He wants to say stick together to Damaris, but he can barely look at her at that moment, so instead he pushes an idea that wounds both of them, “Make some friends. Maybe kiss that pretty girl you were talking about. While we have a chance. You can handle yourself, I bet,” He says with the same smile he gave boys before telling them to get out of his room.

It was a party, and he wasn’t going to let that go to waste.

He steps forward and takes the seat next to the girl from two. He opens a canteen and takes a good long drink before letting out a loud belch. He holds up the canteen near his head and turns to Jessica with a smile.

“What’s up girl?!” Saturn starts, cheesing. “Shame about fuckin’ Myrcella. She was a real smokeshow. Seemed kinda smart too.” He takes holds his canteen closer and motions for a toast. “Cheers to life though, huh? I mean gotta cheers something, and get this party started.” He takes another long drink and empties his canteen before reaching for another. He turns back toward those behind them, and watches the shadows cast by the fire. “Who wants to get lit my dudes?”


Edit: Saturn has now left this thread for [Worst of Me]