the caw-n artists // garbage fire & hawkeye

Beside Bene, underneath stars hidden by smoke, Syd sees the boy’s light go out. The shining orb fades and fades until the sound of the his raspy breathing slows.

After a while, near the end, all Syd can really do is sit with him. And that’s how Bene leaves him, sitting quietly with his head in his hands, full of loss and heartache before the loss even happens.

And then it does.

Syd’s head snaps up, and the silence is full of finality. He stares at Benedict’s face and all of its details: the newly blank stare, the mouth drawn slack, the lopsided way it rests in the dirt. Only the faint breeze causes any movement, and even that is formless, smoke floating in the wind like coal dust.

”Bene?” he says, a question, like maybe his soul’s out there somewhere listening. He doesn’t expect a response. More than anything, he just wants to feel like he isn’t alone, and the word allows him to pretend.

As the smoke slowly clears, Syd brushes aside a stray piece of hair from Bene’s face.

”I’m sorry,” he says, face tightening. ”I was supposed to be the one to go.”

And he lets loose, sniffling, and tells Benedict everything he never said when the boy was alive. Stuff he hasn’t told anyone in the Arena, not even a little bit. He tells him about the Reaping day, and how it didn’t go so well when he finally told his parents about his gender. He tells him about how he felt so utterly hopeless that he made a snap decision to end it. How he thought… well, how he wasn’t thinking.

”I didn’t know what to do,” he says. ”I just thought… these other kids, they belong somewhere. But I don’t.”

He looks at his shoes.

”I don’t,” he repeats. ”I meant… I meant to save you. Because you do belong. But I messed up and I couldn’t save you and I’m so, so, so fucking sorry.”

He rubs the tears from his eyes and inhales sharply, trying to steady his heart. It doesn’t work.

”I don’t know what to do now, Bene. I still don’t know what to do.”

------

Hours later, Syd’s curled up in a ball beside Bene’s body. The morning arrives gently, and the light tugs him from sleep. He didn’t want to leave his ally, not like this, but he knows he has to take his leave, or the Gamemakers will find a way to make him.

So he pushes himself up, takes inventory of what he has left. His comfortable sponsor uniform is covered in grime now, so he changes out of that and back into his Capitol-planned outfit. Unlike the rest of his clothes, it’s relatively untouched by muck or blood. At the last minute, he notices the shirt he pressed to Bene’s wound. He takes it from where it’s resting beside the boy’s body and throws it over his head. It makes him feel like he isn’t leaving Benedict behind.

But he is, he knows. The Gamemakers have dropped parachutes from the sky, and Syd’s loath to follow them. Maybe he can find Coach and Belle, drink some water, but he doesn’t know if he can bear to see them. He also knows that other tributes won’t be far behind.

The decision is made when he moves too much, and a wave of nausea almost knocks him off his feet. He feels dizzy, unsteady, and he thinks -- hopes, rather -- that it’s the lack of water making him feel so sick. And maybe he isn’t sure what to do now, but he can at least make up his mind to find something to drink.

So he says goodbye to Benedict Nolan and trudges toward the parachutes.

He isn’t sure how much time passes as he treks across the Arena. It’s difficult to tell the position of the sun through the low smog, and the air feels tense, almost electric, like they’re about to have a thunderstorm of grand proportions.

Syd feels the tension in his muscles too. He carries a new burden, a soreness, the lingering feeling of holding another body upright, dying dead weight.

By the time he sees figures in the distance, he thinks he can almost feel that weight again. He sees their faces, Coach and Belle, and he’s arriving back to them with the knowledge that he failed.

As he gets closer, he notices the death stare in Belle’s eyes. His heart flutters in panic.

"Hey, dickhead! You said you were here to protect us? That right? But Bene is dead and you're still standing. Must have changed your mind, I guess."

Shit. Shit shit shit.

He shakes his head, backs away. All thoughts of dying for Belle have flown out of his head. Now he’s just thinking: fuck, she’s going to kill me.

It’s then that he realizes he does not want to die.

And then comes the bird.

It descends from the sky like a fallen angel, flapping its giant wingspan with wild abandon. Syd can’t do anything to stop it, not with his fists.

The beast swoops down, lurching with its gigantic talons outstretched. Syd is powerless to stop the bird as it crashes into Coach, its talon sinking into his head like Ripred himself has sent a warrior down to smite him.

He hears screaming. Disoriented, shocked, he doesn’t know where it’s coming from. Then he looks and sees Belle, his ally, the one person he’s got left, and leftover compassion floods his brain and pushes him forward.

"Syd. Syd! Syd, help him. Please, you can help him. No,” she says, broken, spluttering. He shakes his head frantically, looking up at the sky.

”He’s gone, Belle,” he says, not sure if it’s true. He reaches to pull her away, but his hands don’t linger, like he’s afraid that she’ll strike him if he pulls too hard.

She disagrees again. Stooped, head bent low like the bird might return at any moment, he tugs on her arm. He can’t make her move, but he can keep trying.

”We have to go.”

He gives one last tug before he gives up.

He can’t save her either. He can’t make her live.

Syd Scoria turns and runs, heels striking the dust, and leaves Coach DeLuxe to die alone.