phantom pains || beck & teddy VT

They've got this look. Palpable hatred rolls off of them in waves as he peers out over a sea of hopeless souls and knows exactly what he's taken from them.

("We don’t have anything like the ocean in Six. Just laboratories and hospitals we can’t use.”) The vision those words had painted was strung up with ghosts now. They linger like sunspots that refuse to come into focus.

District Six. He's been dreading this, sat in the belly of a beast with clammy hands wound tight in his lap, silent and still for the entirety a ride that stretched on for more than one eternity. The train screeched against its tracks before coming to a stop, seemingly hesitant to drop him at the mouth of this wolves den. He knows he's broken and bloody and smelling of a scapegoat. Sailor does her best to dress his wound but there's little she can do to mask the scent of prey wafting from in between his parted lips. He knows well they'd devour him if not for the Capitol's guns pressed lovingly into the base of their brittle skulls.

An ivory smile stretches across his lips as they lead him to the stage, playing the hero he's meant to be. What else can he do? His bones are just as easy to break. They had the decency to can a speech for him, crafted by those who play this game much better than he ever could.

He makes it halfway through.

Halfway before it starts.

The prosthetics the Capitol had given him were impeccable in quality and comfort because of course they were. The fake skin stretched across the delicate machinery was only slightly cold to the touch. He could flex his fingers and feel the pressure of a strong caress but his arm was certainly not his anymore. He'd stuck needles beneath his nails to see if he could still feel the pain. He hadn't. Of course he hadn't. The Capitol only cared about the appearance of perfection.

The crowd grows terribly bright all of a sudden and he turns his face away, breath catching as he feels it again. There's a blade cutting into him, hacking uneven patchwork across his forearm. His fingers tingle, broken bones sending heat spiraling all the way to his shoulder.

But it's not his left hand, the one that had held his axe. The one with bloodstains and battlescars. The one that had killed Walter Blake.

It's his right.

His smile grows larger, a predator's grin; he clears his throat and does his best to drown out the confused ripple tearing through the crowd at his abrupt silence. Somewhere in the distance, a safety clicks. His hand throbs.

He has to get out of here.

"Thank you all. Remember everything we do is for the glory of Panem. Your sacrifice was not in vain." The last few lines on his cue card have gone blurry and what he can manage to decipher comes out in staggered syllables falling from his lips in an improper cadence. But it's enough to keep him strong. He's quick to excuse himself, not waiting for the thunderous applause born of forced affection.

It's not supposed to hurt anymore. They promised him it was over, they promised him he was safe.

His back hits the side of the stage, briefly and blisfully free of the heat of the cameras. He cups his good hand over his mouth, trying to catch a breath he'd not realized he was losing. It wheezes in and out of lungs gone black and dry as before the Capitol had turned him to porcelain from the inside out.

Apparently, they'd lied.