dead lives dont hate | carter&nico 81st vt

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Tom
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dead lives dont hate | carter&nico 81st vt May 21, 2019 21:39:46 GMT -5

Post by Tom on May 21, 2019 21:39:46 GMT -5

Fuck you, Nico!

The jack grins. The queen smiles. The king frowns. Cards shuffle around with a gentle calm presence as if Carter Laws wasn't questioning why death chose to keep him alive. The pain in chest still weighs heavy as a phantom pain of what once was. Except, he swears he hurts because of regret for his life. The joker laughs with the memory of the screen behind his eyes as the breath of coyotes fill his lungs and the panic spreads throughout his chest and into his sheets.

Nightmares grow with each living breath, no escape from the haunting nights of the arena. His father's already spent much of his time awake at night, fear in those eyes every time Carter rolls out of bed and into the living room at the crack of midnight. Jack always waits with him at his personal garden with a hum of a song he's heard long before. The shared sentiment was sweet, but bitter in his own tongue. Jayne's scream still echoes in his ears most days.

Aranica couldn't be his escape every time he felt this way.

Doesn't help that he's been avoiding his issues instead of facing them head on like he told Jack. He wanted to live for himself, but every day he feels selfish for doing what he wants. Selfish for not spending enough time with Jayne before the reaping. Selfish for still being alive while she'll come home in a coffin and be buried next to Mitchell and Gabriel, where the empty plot of land that was meant for him to be.

Her death had been on the screen, which caused the worst episode he's had since coming back. Lars. Max. Auto. He missed them more days than not when he watches the days past and Jayne's death echoing in his head. Hope that she'd make it out, burned out by Nico Thorne. Jack had angrily slammed something at the sight of it all, but Carter knew what it was like being in those shoes. Knew how much you could lose yourself in those moments.

Fear of death makes people do the worst of things.

He would know.

Anger had been his second reaction to his sister's death. Anger seems pointless nowadays, but he still gets a flash of it now and again. Disconnection from the world had been the first reaction, despite Jack asking him if he could hear, if he could understand why, if he could give them hope. No one else would be like the eightieth tributes. Hope doesn't exist for them anymore, unless you win.

Though, he saw Annie's eyes.

Winning doesn't mean hope.

Carter Laws had found himself on the path again. A rose in his hand and the silence of his own footsteps against the dirt path from the Laws home to the district square. Cards heavy among the front pocket of his button up. Mind stuck over thinking every motion as if it were his last. Despite him knowing it would not be his last, not anymore. Eyes stare into the hollows of white eyes that wonder how he's doing. People smile at him with that friendly pity that makes his stomach churn.

Friendly smiles and pitiful eyes, he's seen them all.

The train station is exactly how he remembers it. Grey, dull, and filled with only hollowness of memories. Hugs shared and tears shed, he can remember the way he waved goodbye to the others, knowing full well that it would only be a few times that they'd see one another. Anger had faded away for many of his emotions towards them. Better to focus on the good things and not the regrets. A sigh from his throat as the sight of Nico Thorne among the grayness of the station, Carter can feel his heart clench at the sight, but he ignores that anger, the sorrow, he focuses on why he came here.

"Uh.... Nico?"

Shuffling from foot to foot, feeling younger than he actually was, he holds himself taller. Eyes shifting from missing limb to missing limb. A sigh from his throat as he holds out the rose cut from the bush that grew the realization of forgiveness. The reason for why he came here. Forgiveness in a world that didn't forgive death. Jack was angry, but Carter was not. He knew what it was like to feel like life was in your own hands and to create death. A small smile fills his lips, despite the struggle as he glances to the others there.

"Uh... This is for you."

The rose extended in a peace offering towards his sister's killer.

"Could we talk? Somewhere else?"

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dead lives dont hate | carter&nico 81st vt Jun 5, 2019 14:48:34 GMT -5

Post by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. on Jun 5, 2019 14:48:34 GMT -5

He sees her face in his dreams every night, the bloody hole in her face where his pitchfork had run through her skull and left behind only death and gore. He sees himself differently night after night though. Sometimes he is the boy who took the sunflower and placed it over the wound, trying to hide the gore from the cameras so that her final image might be one of peace, of something soft.

A rose with none of its thorns.

That's what he had thought of Jayne the first time he met her, that morning on the train when she had tried to be his friend and he had more or less spit on her boots. The mayors daughter, the girl with a world at her feet if she wanted it—he had hated her on sight, the moment he heard her name called. She was too pretty, too kind, too much everything that Nico had never allowed himself to be, and he had hated her for it as vehemently as he had hated all the rest of District Twelve. Not for what they had done, but for what they hadn't. For the fact that they all sat by idly when his father was murdered by a Peacekeeper and no one batted an eye. For the fact that they had all seen his mother crumbling into pieces, into herself, her mind slowly shattering, and had done nothing to help her skin and bones son. For the fact that his lullabies had been about running a blade across the throat of a man who was supposed to protect him, and no one ever cared enough to tell him that wasn't how life should be until his own was in danger.

Jayne, to Nico, had represented everything that he hated about his home, all the opportunities that he could have had if he could have just been given a chance.

But those don't exist in Twelve.

And Nico grew up alone.

Being back here brings him no joy, and his heart is as grey with apathy and discontent as it had been the day he had boarded the very same train that had taken him back here. And here he is again, standing on the edge of a crowd, unable to see the sky, unable to see the sun, and Nico feels horribly, irrevocably, terribly alone.

When he hears his name, he wishes he were invisible.

Maybe it doesn't make sense, that he feels alone and wants nothing more than to hide, but it's the truth. He wishes that he was anywhere but here, that he could hide in the shadows until the end of his days, until he could look in the mirror without seeing the face of Raven Elsu as she fought him off until her dying breath, until he could stop hearing the words Fuck you, Nico Thorne rattling around in his head.

When he realizes exactly who it is that has said his name, Nico wishes he were dead.

He had thought he didn't want to be here before, but then Carter Laws in standing in front of him, holding out a rose like some kind of olive branch, and all Nico can think about is that memory of Jayne on the train, shouting at him on the train as he told her that he didn't care if she lived or died. He remembers his own metaphor for the girl, and takes the flower from Carter's outstretched hand. "Could we talk? Somewhere else?" he asks, and Nico has to swallow thickly. He grasps the stem of the flower tightly in his prosthetic hand, still fascinated by the way the Capitol managed to make it so that he felt pain. It's not quite right, the pain travels up his arm differently now, but he feels it all the same.

"If you really want," he says, voice clipped and preparing for a fight that he isn't sure he deserves to win. No, a fight that he knows he doesn't deserve to win. "I know a place we can go."

He takes a few steps backward, keeping Carter in his sights before finally turning his back to the other boy and leading them away. Nico knows all the corners of Twelve, the smallest of all the districts but with the most hiding places. He'd grown up on these streets, run them time and time again, and he knows a small back alley that opens up to a tiny space that supposed to be green.

It's not, everything here covered in a think layer of coal dust that kills everything in its path, but it's quiet, and Carter can hit him here without getting in trouble, if he really wants.

Nico would let him.

Last Edit: Jun 5, 2019 14:49:53 GMT -5 by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.

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a haunted house.

Tom
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dead lives dont hate | carter&nico 81st vt Jun 20, 2019 19:52:21 GMT -5

Post by Tom on Jun 20, 2019 19:52:21 GMT -5

A rose born from forgiveness is traded.

Heart to heart, they stand together believing they are taller than the endless sky above. Tall enough to ride out their demons. Let the past stay dead in their skin, but it blossoms like the rose of forgiveness. Blooming to life within their bloody veins, processing death through his eyes and into another. Alive, when they should be dead. Carter's seen the same nightmares that haunt Nico Thorne. Every rose has a thorn, but Carter's sick of pricking his finger on thorns. A world with no thorns would be a better lived place than what they're expected.

"If you really want," The stillness in those words. "I know a place we can go." Acceptance of a fate; a fate tangled up with his own name upon the tongue. Jayne's dead body lay between them in a no man's land neither can touch. No one wants to overstep the boundaries set between them already, not in public. Nico moves along in weighted pain with scars hidden by capitol tech, just like himself. Fingers twist with the collar of his shirt, remembering the fake pieces of his own heart they added to keep him alive. Pieces of the capitol attached to his chest to remind him who's property he was.

The streets blur together in place where card tricks made children smile in their pitiful life. Food in Carter's hands as a kid, spreading what he could to the hunger children of Twelve. The children that weren't lucky enough to be found by Mayor Jaime Laws. These streets linger with a smell of coal among the air, floating like black specks of ruin. They pass the long burnt Corradi home, where Mitchell once saved Jack's life. The Mortuus hospital somewhere in the distance, around a corner with the damned cat roaming it, terrifying him whenever he goes to try and catch Raisa Mortuus.

The alley is empty.

No sound.

No worries.

No eyes.

Almost as if Nico Thorne wanted to hide the shame of Jayne's blood from nosy eyes. Carter didn't blame him. When the Eightieth Tributes went home, Carter wanted to hide away from the eyes of Twelve. Avoid the eyes threatening him for even thinking of hurting Hellion. The shame of her own blood on his fists had been enough to keep him down. Nico held a lot more than just some blood on bruised fists. A deep breath hollows out his chest as Carter blinks in the expanse of dirt, cement, and the smell of coal in the air.

"I should be pissed. I should be so mad at everything that happened. But-"

Jack's not in this alley. The anger of someone who doesn't understand, he's seen it. He's been there. He's experienced it already. All of the anger he was meant to feel was not there. No nightmares about Jayne's death, only the complete shut down of his head from the idea of her being dead. Nico Thorne was hardened by the hardships of Twelve. The first moment they had spoken, Carter could see the pain in those eyes. A moment is all he takes before crossing his arms and closing his eyes for a moment.

"-all I have is a major headache of different emotions."

Nico Thorne wasn't a monster.

"Grief?"

Nico Thorne was just a boy like himself.

"Sorrow?"

Nico Thorne was Carter Laws, years ago.

"Understanding."

Eyes open to the clouds of Twelve, where the blue echos across the expanse of freedom away from this place. Aranica had been there for him. Told him that he didn't need to hate himself forever. Laid that comforting presence on him to ground out the nightmares and turmoils of life and death resting at his feet. Her voice would come through dreams at night, giving him the will to escape the self loathing he still carries with him. Stella's calm demeanor gave him a space to speak out his mind with no judgement and the comfort of a friend. Carter Laws was no longer alone, despite feeling like he had been, only a year ago.

Nico Thorne would never be alone, even if it meant Carter Laws had to forgive his sister's killer.

"I'm not here to rip you apart like some of my siblings would want to."

A frown.

"I-I get some of it. I've been in your shoes, Nico. I've seen what can happen when your life is on the line. I've seen how it can rip apart your entire being. I guess-"

No siblings.

No eyes.

No sounds.

"-I wanted to offer you forgiveness."

Tears spent days after the Eightieth where all Carter did was hide away in his room. Hide away in his room from the guilt he felt. The days spent with nightmares of Larceny, of Max, of Auto, of all of the tributes. The cruelty of being in the head space of wanting to throw Fiona to the muttations he knew too well. A year is a lot of time to mull over the pain and the morality shift he had. Only a naive boy going into a games where his own grief took over his entire being. Mitchell's legacy held over his head with the blade of a guillotine, ready to snap down on his neck in the form of coyotes and a sloth.

"A friend gave me a rose, long ago, as a way to send a message to me."

A friendly smile.

"Take mine as a message of forgiveness."

The jack grins. The queen smiles. The king frowns.

"We can't control what the games will do and I know that better than most."

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