slow burns . chapter III: declarations, half-truths [Callum]

slow burns . chapter III: declarations, half-truths [Callum] Jul 14, 2020 23:47:43 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jul 14, 2020 23:47:43 GMT -5

[OOC: This is two game days late. I'm sorry, I got busy and then I got super sad, then busy again.
For whoever does the thread trackers, if it's allowed please put this under Day 3]

C A L L U M

Six years old and he peers over the edge of a table too tall for his childish frame, hands clasped desperately on the corners as sunken eyes look to fairytale delicacies hardly visible from the tips of his toes. There's a kingdom of baked goods laid out before him, stacks of cupcake castles and scone towers, light bouncing off of chocolates shaped into the seal of District Twelve in shiny plastic wrapping, reality turned to fantasy by the gold ribbon that ties the bags shut.

It wasn't every day that the small bakery in the District Square chose to move its sales outside, especially during the summer months; yet on the rare occasion that the harsh sun chose to take a moments break and turn its attention away from the world for a little while, it wasn't uncommon to find vendors spotted along the district squares sideways, announcing their spoils for sale.

It was times like those that Twelve had almost felt like home to him.

Almost.

"Kid. Yeah, you.

Are you just going to stare or are you going to buy something?"

The man finally turns his attention towards the little fly of a boy who'd been lingering around his table for half a heartbeat too long, suspicion threading itself between his teeth and on his tongue, dripping into his words. Callum doesn't have the understanding to respond at first, gaze snapping from the baked goods in front of him to the source of the voice.

Breaths caught in the throat of a boy too young to realize that there were no fairytales to be found in Twelve. Hands shake-

"Cal! Sorry about him, sir. He's just looking."

The familiarity of a family voice cuts through the crowd and Callum feels a hand clasp down on his shoulder, squeezing once as Elijah steps up next to him. He feels Elijah pry his fingers from the table cloth, barely seeing the coal stains left from his hands on the cloth as his view suddenly drops. He's quickly back on his toes again, toothpick legs immediately starting to shake without the added balance of the table.

"Hands off Cal, you're leavin' fingerprints all over the cloth."

The man gives them a harsh stare down, brows furrowing together as he switches his look between the two of them before another customer takes his attention and runs.

All three of their gazes shift and, in the end, Callum is left staring up into the hazel eyes of his older brother, watching a small smile slip onto his brothers face before he kneels down, leveling with Callum before sharing in the view that had so captivated the boy.

"Well, which one is your favorite?"

At six years old it's the hardest question Callum's been forced to answer, and his mouth opens slightly as the pastries and cakes in front of him shift back from reality to fairy tale. He doesn't know if it's seconds or minutes that wedge themselves between the question and his answer, but he can feel Elijah's hand move off of his shoulder before fingers intertwine with his, a safety net to make sure Callum wouldn't wander off into the crowd again.

After all, curiosity kills the cat and hurts the heart. Though the latter is much easier to accomplish.

"The red one, there." His finger maps out the way and Elijah smiles, nodding.

"I should've known. Red's your favorite color after all."

Little butterflies of hope flutter in the boys stomach as a fairytale writes itself into his mind, eyes giving away the expectation as they light up. It's not hard to spot and Elijah recognizes the territory he's the both of them into, sadness in his voice when he speaks again.

"Cal.. we don't have enough money for it right now, buddy."

Glass hopes shatter and Callum's face droops, turning his gaze away and hiding the frown that marks his face, a trait learned well from the bowels of Twelve.

"It's your birthday in a couple weeks though yeah? I'll get it for you by then, as a present."

A tight squeeze of the hand and the butterflies settle in again- swirling and tumbling within his stomach.

"I promise."

It's a killing blow wrapped up in golden ribbon and disguised as a declaration of hope, and the heart of a six year old Callum Leare is too naive to realize it, fluttering in his chest as he shows his missing baby teeth with a smile.

"For my birthday?"

"For your birthday, bud."

It's from the stairs that he hears a promise broken, feeling his heart sink heavy into his chest. From the shadows he listens, catching the ghostly strings of frustrated whispers and stubborn demands as they float dead in the air.

It was for Cal's gift, Dad.

I know, but we're behind and just don't have the funds to cut it right now.

There's no other way?

He probably doesn't even remember it Eli. He'll be fine.

I-... fine, alright.

The scream of sliding metal as loose change goes from one hand to another, severing heartstrings and letting the promises that bound them together fall to the floor.

A birthday comes and goes and all that's in his hands are the same coal stained fingertips that had once marked his hope on cloth. Elijah visits him before bed, redemption cradled within the purple bags under his eyes.

"I'm really sorry, Cal. I just didn't have enough-"

Something in the words ebbs and flows, but disintegrates with a single breath.

"It's alright, Eli. I promise."

The words slip from his mouth, but they don't feel as binding anymore. He forces a smile again, this time with his mouth closed.

___

Twelve years old and there's a silence that has taken over their home. It roams the hallways from day to night, pooling itself in the shadows they drown in and pressing blood-dried claws into the walls,

He'd never thought that the ringing scream of silence could be so deadly and deafening, armored by the words neither him nor his brother could speak, its piercing war cry the isolated creak of a floorboard in the night. Silence swarms and overwhelms, drowns them in heavy hearts and answers straight to the point of the knife.

His parents had left and, with it, every held hand laced fingers pat on the back squeeze on the shoulder had left as well.

They had never promised to stay, maybe that assumption meant it was his fault.

He doesn't know if it's regret or ignorance that threads the words on his tongue, pulls thinning heartstrings until he sings an already answered question.

"They'll be back soon Cal."

"I don't think they are."
Blinked back tears and quivering lip.

"Hey, buddy. Listen, I promise-"

Unravel and fold, for the first time anger swirls in his gut.
"Don't promise it Elijah- just please don't."

No promise to give no promise to keep, it's a weekly tradition neither of them realized they started and neither of them wanted to keep. He doesn't know if Elijah is convincing him or himself, he doesn't think Elijah knows either. A fit of screaming and a slammed door later and the sickening silence settles into the walls again.

He can only ask a question so many times before a lie becomes an answer.

A prison can give the illusion of a castle if you stare at the walls enough, hear the soft creak close click of a locked door, if you drown yourself in the covers until all you can feel is a cracked heartbeat and cotton pressed against skin, press face to pillow until you can't feel the tears leaving your eyes anymore.

A castle can become a prison if you accept the sting of reality.

So, he does not.

Solace comes in the scrawled lines of a tale, in feeling yellowed pages warm under his thumb, in the feeling of the warm summer sun blanketing itself on top of his skin through the window. In between books he would press his hand to the glass, feeling the warmth bite at his fingertips and spread into his bones. Safe behind a glass castle window he would feel the vibrations of the crowds that shuffled and twisted and turned outside, writing their own stories in ink and casting the pages into the air, voices little more than soft whispers. The yellow stain of a sun burnt window gave every person that passed by a near ethereal glow, basked them in a filter that made them look both more and less than human, as if they were dripping in the same golds and riches told in the tales he drowned in.

In those soft, fleeting moments, he almost forgot they were gone.

Almost.

On the morning of his birthday there's a little red cupcake sitting on the kitchen table, torn paper note left on the table with coal fingerprints on top corners.

”Cal-
Had to go to the mines early today. Be back around seven.
I know your favorite color is still red. Happy Birthday, bud."

He leaves it on the table to grow stale in the silence and the shadows. The next morning, he finds it in the trash.

___

Eighteen years old and the color red has morphed from a desire to despair. It coats his skin like some sort of sickly armor, dripped and dripped from his cloak and dried underneath his fingernails. He's buried himself amongst the flowers and vines that swarm the top of the spire, feeling his pulse hit in tune with the labored heartbeats that crack in his chest. Kestrel and Bird's memorial sits behind him, blood stains dried into the fur and flowers having fast wilted underneath the sun of the arena. He can't face it, can't face them, not with the words of their stories coating his cloak and his arms, spreading itself across his cheeks and only falling to the tears that fall from his eyes without him realizing.

He coughs once and pain erupts from it, feeling the warmth of his own blood seep through the stitching and drip down his sides.

To think, at one point in time his favorite color was red.

Ghosts in his veins and ghosts in his heart, he breathes them out and feels them hang in the air around him, intertwined with the smell of rotting alcohol and blood that still stains his lips and cloak. Like every other part of himself he’s ever tried to give up his selfishness calls it back mere moments later, he breathes in heavy and the ghosts flow their way back down into his lungs, clawing and screaming all the way down.

Ghosts on the ground and ghosts in the skies. When the creature had finally stopped screaming, finally stopped twitching and he’d finally stop gasping for air himself he’d clawed his way over to a girl too far gone for him to save, felt the way her blood squished and pooled beneath his hands when he pushed palms to grass in an effort to help himself stand up. Lulling in and out of a reality that was too cruel to fully comprehend, between delirium and fantasy he’d occasionally been able to wedge himself in between the two, convince himself that he could hear her heartbeat, that her eyes were moving and following the clouds that swayed and tumbled through the skies above, that all of the red meant nothing- that it was just something forgotten, something borrowed for a while. He’d always loved the color red, it just had never been able to love him back.

He stays with her body until the hovercraft appears above.

Until they warn him what will happen if he doesn’t let them take her.

One time, two times. He takes her plushie just before the third.

”I’m sorry, Bird.”

He curls his legs into his chest as he hears the anthem begin, feeling every bone in his body shake shake rattle as breaths become labored, cracked shattered and broken while they slip from his mouth. He doesn’t know if he will see her, if the girl who had danced through the halls and played melodies to the ghosts in the walls, the only thing that could silence their whispers and turn their screams from horror to delight. He’d been fascinated by Kestrel, by the way she’d wrapped herself in positivity, smiled through the sadness he drowned in, by the way she’d worn her heart on her sleeve and let it bleed hope.

She’d only had so much hope to give. On the second day it’d turned to red and, finally, to silence.

He looks to the skies just in time to see her face, blurry through the tears that refuse to leave his eyes. Her death had come far too early but the confirmation far too late, and as he locks eyes with her ghost in the sky a sickening thought swells within his stomach, twisting and toppling in on itself like the waves of the oceans he’d read about back home. From liquid to gas it rises up in his throat, stinging his cheeks until they go numb and bringing with it the horrifying thought that Kestrel had not been dead when he and Bird had left her staring at the sky, that she had been waiting for them to dance with her- like she had asked him about. Like he had promised. He does not see Bird’s face in the sky and the stinging in his cheeks erupts until he cannot feel his entire face, vision pulsing tears prickling the edges of his eyes. He shouldn’t have let them take her, should have waited till she came back, should have-

from gas back to liquid. He hardly gets to the edge of the spire before he vomits up the poison that courses through his body.

If Bird were here she would scold him. But she is not-

-and Kestrel isn’t either.

And it is his fault.

When his parents had left their traditions had stumbled and fallen, tea on Sundays, watching the sun rise from their roof, marking a growth spurt into the door frame, holding hands to remind themselves that they were family. He remembers them like he remembers the words of a fairytale told to him within the life of the night, against a chorus of crickets and cicadas screaming from the windows and in a castle of bed covers pulled over the eyes. Soft, and warm, dancing on the border between a memory and a fantasy. A squeeze of the hand, a pat on the shoulder. A hug. A heartbeat. A home.

But, like any fairytale, it is just reality with a mask on. Made to be heard, forced to be forgotten.

And in turn, a tradition is just a promise dressed up as something sweet. Made to be felt, forced to be broken.

He clutches a tradition yet to be broken within his hands now, rubs his thumb against the cover and feels the leather scream back at him through his blood-specked fingertip. When he squeezes it in his hands he hears a symphony of crackles yell back at him, and even underneath a fast setting sun of orange and pinks he can see that the journal- born from forged promises and soft fairytales and the fall of a kingdom, is now drenched and dried in a stain of red.

He does not know if it's his blood, or Bird's, or Kestrel's. He supposes it doesn't matter, either.

The pages shift and slide amongst one another when he attempts to open it, binding giving way to the elements of the arena and of his own body, blood and sweat and tears plucking and pulling at the bindings. The pages mumble to him, sweet nothings and soft screams when his fingertips pull against the corners, each one releasing its own voice and they pierce into his brain, claw down into his heart and bury themselves within him. He doesn't realize there's a breath caught in his throat until he makes the leap from tale to reality, home to Capitol.

Nico Thorne's writing is etched into the yellowed page, shaking and twisting at the edges and dripping with a desire to make promises that can't be kept. Clasped in shaking hand and with heavy breaths he reads it under the setting sun. Over and over, again and again, taking in every sentence statement word letter loose lines until they lift from the page and disintegrate into the air. He breathes them in and feels poison drip down his throat, chart a path through his lungs and write its story into his bloodstream. At first it's a sadness, aching and throbbing against his bones and hammering heartstrings, building up castle walls. But the weakness of sadness is how easily it falls, and it only takes one heartbeat before it subsides to the twisting turning rising crashing waves of anger that crash inside his heart and his head.

When he’d first read the note, he’d almost believed him.

Almost.

And almost had been just enough for him during his time at the Training Center, had seeped down deep through his skin and into his bones and into his brain and into his heart. A fools heart goes for fools gold, and when he'd read that note in shaking hands the next morning he'd felt a tributes worst enemy start to press thorns into his heart: hope. Hope, that he would truly be able to write his own story, tell it through sword swings and heartbeats. Hope, that he would remember, that he would be remembered in turn. And, somewhere cold in his heart, the hope that Nico Thorne would keep his promise, the hope that he would come home.

So he had collected the stories of every person he had come across, not realizing that hope was meant to be fleeting, was meant to be finite.

He knew as soon as he'd been raised into the arena, as soon as he'd watched that girl fall in the Bloodbath, as soon as Kestrel had asked him how she would ever dance again, that he had been wrong to ever believe hope would exist, to ever believe his story had not already been written and closed.

In shaking breaths and seeing red he thinks of a midnight conversation with Nico Thorne, Capitol lights bending and twisting their way through the windows and up the walls, across the ceilings and marking them with their own fates. He thinks of Nico's stone stare that matched his own, of bending shadows in the light, of words with no meaning cast out into the night.

of -  what can I do?

of -  I won't forget you.

of -  I'll make sure you're remembered.

of - all Twelve is good at is hatred and forgetting.

He scoffs now, anger dripping from his teeth as breaths leave heavy from his lungs, catching and mingling in his throat on their way out. There's still tears falling, dancing down his chin but he can't feel them under the warmth of an anger that dances a deadly course through him, poking and prodding at every little heartstring he'd convinced himself he still had left to give. He thinks of his conversation with Nico, he thinks of it as a lie. All lies.

Because Callum Leare was simply a boy who told stories.

Is a dead man, with a story not worth remembering.

Read the note, separate it out. Bear the weight in pieces, not whole, for piece by piece he's had everything he's held dear taken away from him in here. His heart can take a few more small cuts, just not a full stab.

No more self hate.

but Nico- he thinks

Kestrel is dead.

Bird is dead.

Their blood is on his hands, on his cloak, dried beneath his fingernails and carved into every piece of his being. Nico sits from his throne and declares no more hatred, but it’s a law that he could never follow. They both know that.

I have no one.

There’s nothing left to hate except for myself.

We're going to get you out.

Anger swirls, deep in his gut and heavy in his heart. Blinking back red hot tears before letting them slide down his cheeks anyways he watches as the note shakes within his grasp. Blink, and think of Bird Ivy's body being pulled from the arena, dripping blood from her throat all the way up.

Take the truth, split it, and tell the half. They would be getting him out, just, within a coffin.

Promise.

When he’d first read the note, he’d almost believed him.

Almost.

But promises had never been kind to him in the past, and they certainly would not be kind to him now.

"Don't promise it Elijah- just please don't."

A note from a king burns just as easily as those of the damned. He watches the flames consume it, feels their heat creeping closer and closer to the blood that clings to his fingertips.

Lets the fire reach out and brush fingers against his own, until the tip of his thumb bubbles and screams under its weight. He lets the embers smolder, lulls himself to sleep watching them.

All Twelve was good at is hatred and forgetting. He'd shown the former. Nico, he's sure, will take care of the latter.

[ Thank you to 🌱 kaitlin. for writing the note from Nico. He's a great
character and threading with him has been some of my favorite things with Cal so far]

-original Cal/Nico thread-