stuck in your head; Katelyn + Cyro

Cyro Krane wasn't perfect.

He's known the mistakes he's made across the years of his life. They stick to him; glittering with signs of self righteous asshole, but he's known for years the only way to survive was to speak out, to create a change, to do something so big that every one else will stare at him. It had been the defense mechanism he had used with his parents to avoid breaking down day after day, until he made the one mistake his father and mother couldn't stand. Forcing them into grandparenthood too soon, but with every choice comes consequences. Suffering from the hateful words thrown at him and his girlfriend. The death of her and the birth of his son. His father's punishment. The Izar's blissful ignorance. Wilson's lack of care from the rumors his mother had spread about him.

He's made many mistakes and suffered enough for them.

Except, this one action would lead to the biggest mistake, but it was the risk he had to take. Loud actions speak more than quiet words. Volunteering for a boy; one boy in which the entire district seemed to hate. None of it mattered anymore, the train had arrived to take him in a metal coffin to his graveyard of consequences, but it had been the only way. People were going to see him as the villain, just like Wilson Izar-Krane had. A father leaving his child behind for selfish endeavours. The truth would come out if people were accepting, but Cyro Krane knew people weren't trustworthy, especially not in his lifetime.

Where had Mayor Izar been when Cyro Krane had starved himself in order to pay for Xander's meals? Where had Katelyn Persimmon been when Cyro Krane had watched his girlfriend die from his father's actions? Where had Harbinger Rhodes been when he sobbed upon opening the eviction letter? Where had Kirito Miristioma been when Xander caught him crying alone in the pantry? Where had Kassandra Nerys been when he decided to sacrifice himself for his son in the ultimate price? They all had been in their homes, surviving through the pain, oblivious to the reality of those who've never been touched by the games. Forgotten faces among the mass, people who truly needed more help than ever.

Vasco Izar had tried his best, but they needed more than just him.

Entering the room, Katelyn Persimmon is there. Pacing on heavy feet, glittering like the brightest gem of Eleven. The saviour in some people's eyes, but she had been the ice princess for years. Cold to him, just like she had been to his cousin when he watched the replays of the games when he finally wanted to learn about his family. The pacing stops with her eyes peering into him, looking for something, a solution to her problem. Not wanting to give her what she wants, he stares back, just as unnerving as she was being to him. She gives up trying to find the right words, clasping her hands together to give him the look that could chill bones, break hearts, and freeze over hell.

"Cyro," Her voice is clipped, filled with the icy chill of her arena. "You saved a boy named Leonardo Black. I suppose I should be applauding your courage." Courage. The words were meant to be cold. The reasons he had for volunteering were not about anyone else, but his son, his angel, his everything. Katelyn Persimmon would learn that soon enough, even if it took a shouting match to get there. "I just have one question." White knuckles against the table; posture ready for the attack. Cyro's been here before.

Grew up to know when people were scathing on the edge of bursting at the seams. At least Katelyn wouldn't hit him, rip his hearts to shreds, or burn the bridges of love for him. Cyro Krane's seen anger before. "What the hell were you thinking?" The words hang in the air, mixing with the white knuckles of her hands. Anger. Pure and fully formed anger that only made his skin burn. Fire on the edges of his fingertips, where he finally stands up, holding his own with the queen of ice. Eyes staring back as he dares her to do anything to him. Cyro Krane's suffered enough.

Katelyn Persimmon couldn't understand his suffering.

"I didn't do it for whoever the fuck Leonardo Black is."

Eyes glaring back to her, holding himself steady. Arms crossed, fingers gripping his biceps taut with the memory of his strength to lift himself up when no one else would. Hard labor in his veins, rough hands glaringly obvious. All of his actions were made with his son in consideration and no one will truly understand that. It's bitter upon his tongue as he speaks once more with the same fire in his lungs.

"I did it for my son. For his future."

The burning sensation upon his chest fills him with that same righteous fire that Vasco Izar had put him into. Katelyn Persimmon doesn't get to judge his actions based on the limited knowledge she has of him. No one knew Cyro Krane, other than his name. Xander had cried when he left, leaving behind the sketchbook of drawings for him. A piece of his son to keep him on the path of why he was doing this. To keep him from regretting this decision. He wouldn't regret it, no matter what the outcome was.

As long as Xander Krane survived and had a new loving family, he wouldn't regret it.

"Everything I do is for him, Persimmon."

The chill burns across his skin; truth present upon her lips. Katelyn Persimmon was the symbol of Eleven, born to be someone to follow in the hell that was Eleven at times. The start of a new era of Eleven when he was so young, looking more like Xander than himself. The start of an era where Katelyn Persimmon brought the first few back and doomed the rest for years until Kassandra Nerys broke through the confines of the capitol. Standing before Katelyn is almost an unwavering sense of might like a blizzard hurling past his eyes, leaving a chill against his skin that only Katelyn Persimmon could leave.

Cyro Krane wasn't afraid of the cold though. Taut jaw filled with a fire of a pain that bleeds through his body, spreading over himself as if there was a torch guiding him through her blizzard. They were two opposites of the same coin, but Cyro knew he would never see the same way Katelyn Persimmon did. Life had given them both different paths where they both have suffered, but Cyro is the one to be continually kicked over and over while he's down. Burnt up in the flame of his own mistakes, bruised stomachs and black eyes of the past filling him. For a moment, he swears Katelyn Persimmon might hit him, but instead it's just words. Icy, but stinging harsh against his cheeks.

"Everything you do is for him," The slow incredulous nodding sets him on the edge of his seat, ready to run or push back just as hard. Fire upon his tongue, built from the depths of his pain and anger, boiling on the edge of no return. "And when you die for him, how does that help? When his future has no father? Are you doing that for him too?" Fingers on the bridge of her nose, as if he were nothing more than the headache bubbling on the edges of her vision. A nuisance in the presence of the Katelyn Persimmon, but he always was going to be someone's nuisance in the end; buried under an avalanche of disappointment. It doesn't hurt after so many years building walls to protect his heart.

For a moment, he's back there. Home, but not his home, their home. The smell of bitter alcohol upon the breath of the one person who tore him apart, word by word. Nothing ever being enough for him amongst the accomplishments in his youth; it always ended with someone else's name heavy upon his tongue. Rumors built from Eleven's gossip channels and the other drunks at the bar who took one look at him thinking Cyro Krane was nothing more than a boy who needed to be taken down a peg. Words spread to his father, leaving their hatred in his disappointment and pure rage, wounds that never quite healed over the years. His heart still beats, but he knew what fear was. He's known what fear was for most of his life, only building his way out of it after meeting Amira and finding a bundle of joy that meant the world to him.

It's the scream of Amira; burnt up in the mix of pain and dying. The one thing that still grows the guilt with vines spiralling upwards through his chest until it burns with the same feeling he had let out that night. A scream of his own until his throat burned with the excessive amount of energy he released, the world kicking him repeatedly again and again just like his father would when he made small mistakes. Told that he would never be enough for anyone, waking up with bruises along his ribs. For a second, he's there screaming and the next, he's in the train staring back at Katelyn Persimmon, still blank faced and raw with anger still.

The groan shakes him with the flurry of ice and snow, cold against his skin. It's the same sound his drunkard of a father used to make when Cyro's messed up once again. The smirk on his lips pulls out of habit; a defense mechanism to remind himself that he wasn't the same kid back then. A teen still, but matured beyond his years due to mistakes that he would never want to take away again. Xander was his world and he would give him the world if he could. Katelyn's words shake him as if a ball of ice shattered upon his chest, wind knocked out of his lungs.

"You’re not afraid," Wrong. He was very afraid of all of this, but it had been the only way. "Nor do you seem regretful. I assume this means you have a plan?" The blue chill of her eyes showed enough for him, ice crown upon her head expecting him to not be. Eyes glance from her blonde hair to her icy cold eyes. The frustration blooming along her skin; almost beautiful, but frightening. Careful about his approach, he lets the words sink in for a moment. The truth of Cyro Krane's decision to leave his son; a possible future orphan. Fire licks the edges of his vision as he stares back, letting himself burn slow and red.

"No."

The word hangs from his lips as he stares back no longer smiling, but burning from the inside out. The years of being told to keep his voice down and bleed like the others. Days of being told he should stay down and learn his place, but he never did. Cyro Krane was a boy who got back up, burnt with the same fire the Izars hold. "I am afraid. You've never met me. You don't know what I feel. I am afraid. Who the hell wouldn't be? Eleven isn't exactly the capitol's favorite district." The taut jaw and warm eyes that flicker with a shimmer of gold in certain lights; blending with the fire in his gut.

"Fear is what drove me here, Katelyn."

It's the truth left behind like the flickers of sparks gliding into the sky, fizzling out with a silence. Insane decisions built on the fear of letting his son grow up suffering things worse than he had. Cyro Krane was never going to be enough for Xander. He's used to it. Failure to be something more than just what his father saw. Isn't that why he bleeds red, burns on the inside, and falls apart? All he had left were his own hands and tough decisions to make sure Xander got everything he never got. It takes a heavy heart to admit defeat; knowing there's nothing more that Cyro Krane could have done.

"Fear of letting my son end up on the streets because I couldn't be enough for him. We were going to die. Die alone in the cold streets of Eleven. No one would have blinked at another person on the street. Isn't that what fear does? Makes us think we have to do the worst thing possible just to be seen? Just to feel like you're heard?" It's a hard pill to swallow, but Cyro knew there were other ways. Other ways that he could have survived, but the easy option was find somewhere better. Find someone else who would be a better parent than himself. "I've struggled more in my life than a teenager should. I've got hundreds of thousands of regrets, Katelyn."

The words burn on his tongue; anger wants to bleed through, but he has to bite the feeling down. Live amongst the ice in order to let himself be heard and if Katelyn Persimmon wanted to burn down every piece of himself, she could. At least she would know about everything. At least she would be able to have the guilt in her chest; the same guilt he carries already. Xander's cries of daddy heavy upon his chest, drawings heavy next to him. There had only been one choice in his eyes.

"I'm not here to die. I don't care if I have to kill every single tribute in that god damn fucking arena, I will do it." The fire is building up again, burning through his veins as he stares at the drawings and back up to Katelyn, his own fingertips finally finding the edge of the table to grip himself down to reality and not let his mind wander once more to the past. "The only plan I had was to make sure my son never ends up on the streets. To make sure he never has to suffer the life I had."

Tension in his fingers as he lets go, knowing that deep down, the chances are that he's going to die. Become another dead body hauled back to Eleven, but that's why this situation was the only way. Grinding his teeth slightly, he holds the stare with Katelyn Persimmon, knowing that he has to burn the idea into her skull until it blooms as the only way. Heavy is the head that carries the crown; bodies strewn about a kingdom of ice. The words finally fall with the blackened ash of his truth.

"And if I don't survive;"

Heat lingers in his skin, licking up his truth in that same scream that had been burned into his skin forever.

"I was going to beg you to take him as your own son."