fantasia of a gypsy — francisco's.

Split me an ocean
Make my mountain move
Oh, baby, I'll remember you

Nico should have seen this coming.

And he had, hadn't he?

He had spent their last night together under a starless sky, had rode in heartbroken anger and silence towards the cornucopia and wanted to keep moving. He hadn't wanted to stay there, in that white house with paper's plastered all along its walls. When the flyer with his mother's face had flown at him and blinded him to everything else, his body had wanted to run, had known that this was a place of darkness, that this was a place of death, a place where first blood had been spilt and he knew that it would be again.

He had been so sure it would be him.

He hadn't even dared think it would be Francis's.

It had been so unimaginable, a fate that he would never think someone would subject this boy to. This boy who was built from sunshine, who had flowers where his heart was, their stems growing through him, wrapping around his bones and turning every part of him beautiful. Nico could never have dreamed that the world would be so cruel to a soul like Francis's, that someone so filled with love and kindness could be forced to die a death meant for someone else—and it was meant for someone else, this much Nico knows beyond a doubt.

He remembers Francis stepping in front of him all too well, heart bared and ready for Death to snatch it from his chest. Nico wishes that he could just snatch it back from Death, wishes that he could take it all back, that he could go back in time and never meet Francis, never sit with him on a rooftop and laugh as he danced along a bench under the stars, a towering tree standing tall over them both. He wishes, as much as he knows that Francis is the reason he is the man he has become, that they could have never met, because if they never met then Francis would never have stepped in front of him, would never have sacrificed his life for Nico's own. Diana's weapon had been meant for Nico, had been trained on Nico's own soul until Francis stepped in to save him, and if they had never met perhaps he could have made it until the end.

Perhaps, without Nico, he could have won.

Instead, Death waits and the sunshine tastes like ash.

Here, standing among the sunflowers, Francis looks so at home, but there's blood trailing down his neck and Nico doesn't think that the other boy has even realized it. "“It’s okay; it doesn’t hurt,” Francis says, hand against Nico's cheek, and all he can think is how wrong he is. Yes, it does, he wants to shout. It hurts so badly that I can feel my bones splintering. It hurts so bad I feel like I'm coming undone.

But Nico doesn't say that, could never bring himself to spit those kinds of truths. Not at Francis, and definitely not now. “You have to take care of yourself now, Nico,” Francis says against Nico's own mouth, but he can't bring himself to kiss the other boy fully. His lips are quivering too much, and he knows that his face must look like fallen ash, knows that there are tears on his marred cheeks, trailing over the very scars that Francis himself had helped to heal. He lifts his trembling hand and strokes Francis's blood stained cheek.

There was so much blood.

Nico is covered in it from their ride and from the fight, but he can't care about his own wounds right now, doesn't care about the blood soaking through his clothes. It had soaked through everything, he thinks, can maybe even feel where it has seeped into his black boots.

“You have to tend to your wounds and rein your anger in,” Francis goes on, and Nico needs him to stop, needs him to stop giving wisdom and stop giving kindness. All he has ever know is anger and disappointment, and even with everything that Francis has taught him, he doesn't know how to handle this, doesn't know what to do or how to act. “And, you have to kill them.”

Despite what Francis has just told him, Nico feels that white hot flash of anger and rage crack through his ribs, can feel the place on his chest still where Diana had ripped through his armor and left a bruise in her path. He can't help it, though he fights it as best that he can. He's still trying to find the lines between what is nurture and what is nature, and if he can ignore them both a teach himself something entirely new, if he can forsake everything that he has ever thought about himself and become someone worthy of the barbed wire crown the victor of this games would be crowned with.

He was still trying to figure out how to deserve to live.

When Francis says I love you the tears stop.

He doesn't remember exactly when they started, only knows that the stop falling the moment those words spill from Francis's mouth, only knows that they begin to dry on his cheeks for the time being when he goes on. "I know," he says, so much more steadily than he would have expected. His voice isn't quivering, like he might have thought it would, almost like Nicos wants in his last moments with Francis to be as strong as the boy Francis had fallen in with, no matter how far away that boy feels now. "You never needed me to keep you grounded," he says, eyes deadlocked on Francis's own. He leans his forehead against Francis's, but doesn't close his eyes, just gazes down the slope of the other boys nose, memorizing the shape of it, committing every inch of him to memory.

"I know exactly where you'll go, where I'm going to look for you every moment of every day." He pulls back a half-breath, to where they are still sharing air but Nico can look into his eyes. "I'll find you in the stars, and in the earth. Bits and pieces of you will always be near me, in the grass under my feet and in the breeze in my lungs, the water I drink and the plants that save me." He smiles softly at the memory of them in the training center one day, Francis pointing out different plant species to him.

"It's why I fell in love with you," Nico goes on, and finally his breath hitches again, and new tears threaten to come forth. "Because you're a part of everything around you."

When Francis steps away from him, Nico lets him, his hand still extending as if trailing after him for just a moment before it falls to his side.

“Whenever you feel lonesome, think of me," Francis says, and Nico just tilts his head, endeared, letting him go on, letting him have his moment under the sun. Nico watches on as Francis takes off his crown of sunflowers, drops it to the ground at his feet. “When you see a flower, alive despite all odds, let it remind you of me.”

Nico can feel the distance growing, can feel Death slipping closer and closer, can feel him taking Francis from his minute by minute, time running out more and more quickly, but Nico can't interrupt him, can't step forwards and just kiss him until neither of them can breath anymore. Francis has always belonged to the earth, no matter what he says about Nico being his anchor. He can't take Francis away from his home now.

"Then I will think of you always," he replies finally.

He has been alone his entire life, even when he was not, even when he was in the arms of another or when he was being tucked into bed by his mother or when he was trying to take care of Taylor, Nico has always been alone. For his entire like, it has been anger that consumed his thoughts in those times, rage and a need for vengeance that kept him breathing.

Now, standing among the sunflowers,
he is finally ready for that to change.


"And I will stay alive like you," he goes on, staggering forwards, not close enough to touch, but needing this distance to be less. "Against all the odds—I'm going to do everything to win, to make it out of here. I vowed to keep you safe, to make sure that you won, and I failed you and—Francis, I'm so sorry for that," he has to stop, to inhale a shuddering breath and will his heart to slow, to not let the guilt consume him the way Francis was so clearly scared that it would. "I'm going to win for you."

A beat, maybe two.

"I'm going to live for you."

Show me a God that I can believe in
Show me some stars beneath this ceiling
And I'll remember you


song: remember
by seinabo sey