could you pick up your phone, please? ky/asher
Jun 27, 2021 18:04:10 GMT -5
Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jun 27, 2021 18:04:10 GMT -5
k y .
"I hear your voice on the phone
Now I'm no longer alone
Just how I feel
Could you tell me what's real anymore?"
When he looked at Emerson, he saw Emmett's eyes staring back at him and at first it was a joyful thing. He'd begun to forget what those looked like, a hologram in a museum display was hardly the same, but there they were again, those eyes that scrunched up a bit when he smiled, the shape of his face, the teasing lilt, Emerson hadn't been Emmett but she'd been healing enough in the few days in the training centre.
He shouldn't even have been worried about meeting her, he's sorry he put it off so long. It was just hard to believe that Emerson didn't hate him, not when the media had done such a good job of making it seem like Em's death had been his fault. It'd been so bad that it had spread through the districts as well and when he'd gotten home, Tatton Le Roux had attacked him.
Ky had just assumed that the rest of them felt the same and he'd decided to avoid the whole family. Now, for the first time in two years, the constricted feeling in his chest was lessening. In the train ride to the Capitol, away from the cameras, Emerson had found him in the rows of chairs and they'd spoken.
It was easy to feel hope like that, one knee pulled to his chest and Emerson's smile so bright like Em's had been. It was easy to believe that a victor might come from One again with two Le Roux tributes.
Then there'd been the bloodbath.
Ky sits on red sand, bare feet the only thing to break the stillness of the water of the beach. Birds made of paper fly high overhead, sometimes swooping lower but staying far away from any Capitolite citizen that might be visiting. The air smells saltier than Ky thought it would, the sand is softer too. When he'd seen the area on screen, he'd expected coarseness. Part of him wants to find the exact spot that Emmett first died but he doesn't have to, there's a sign post sticking out of the sand about twenty feet away and Ky doesn't have to be able to read it to know what it's there for.
He shouldn't have come here, he knows that.
Ky left early in the morning, Opal's phone in his back pocket and a note on the counter explaining that he'd gone for a walk but he'd be back soon. He's texted his mom a couple times since, little things, lies saying he was getting coffee even as he was on the transport for the 85th Arena.
He's gotten so good at lying.
But he couldn't sleep last night, Emerson and Emmett and the way they fell so neatly playing through his mind again and again like a broken record and it's so strange, isn't it. It's so strange that they're both gone now but Emerson doesn't get a second chance. It doesn't seem fair, really.
It's not fair.
Ky picks up a handful of sand and lets it fall into the glassy surface of the salt-red flats. The fine sand collects on the surface for a moment before clumping together and sinking down.
He doesn't know how to feel right now and there's no one there to tell him, to make him shaky promises that he's going to be okay. There's no medication this time, no alcohol, no weed, just Ky and the sand and sun and birds flying over head and the knowledge that Emerson is gone now too.
He doesn't even believe in an afterlife enough to hope that she and Emmett are together now. They're both gone and it's like they never even existed.
The phone in his back pocket rumbles against the sand and Ky takes it out, wiping lightly at his eyes to clear away any muffled sounds.
"Hey mom... Yeah, I'm just doing a little shopping... Mmhm, yeah, don't wait up for me, might meet Beck later."
Lying to Opal is so much easier over the phone than it should be. He used to feel bad about it but she's moving on and healing while he gets trapped in the same rut, over and over again, he doesn't want to hold her back. Ky drops the phone on the sand beside him, and lays back on the red. The sky is nearly clear above him but whisps of clouds entangle themselves with each other. The razor-sharp wings of the origami birds slice through them, leaving their mark.
This must have been Emmett's first last view.
He drops an arm over his eyes and lets the feeling settle over him. Birds cry above and there's a gentle sound as the edges of the glass pools ripple softly in the wind, lapping against the sides.
Then, he lets himself cry.
Ky's only been in the Capitol for a week and he already wants to go home again. There's this sickly feeling in his chest, the belt constricting again, making it hard to breath properly.
He doesn't want to talk to anyone, doesn't want to see anyone, he doesn't want anyone to ask how he's doing or how he feels about Emerson's death. He doesn't want to have to smile at the cameras and make up some lie about how he's 'disappointed' but still rooting for Julian because none of it is true.
Ky isn't disappointed, he's angry, mad that this shit is still happening, that they're still paying for a war that happened almost ninety years ago.
Part of him wants to put all that career training to use and take revenge. Capitolites are so soft and it would be so easy. They've grown so complacent in their power that they don't even train their citizens to fight. Kids in the Capitol get to grow up, never having to even touch a blade.
Kids in the district get handed a weapon when they're ten and are made to feel worthless unless they volunteer for a game that wants to kill them.
Kids like Asher.
He misses him.
Ky sits up, and rests his arms on his knees. Things have been weird with him for months now, since that night in the backyard. Ky'd made that decision then, the one where he didn't kiss Asher even though he'd wanted to. The next night he'd been busy, spent a late night in a certain bar downtown laying out plans for a quiet sort of war.
Asher didn't fit into those because Ky hadn't wanted him to. The things Ky's been working on this year, he doesn't want Asher involved in that, doesn't want to be involved with Asher when one day he might find himself bleeding out on a red beach like this one.
But it isn't honest living like this, every day is a little more like quick sand and Ky can't stop flailing. The thing is, he doesn't want to take anyone down with him.
Part of him wants to call Asher now, tell him that it's all over, that when he gets home, he never wants to even see him again. It'd be easier to just cut him off over the phone, it'd be easier to lie like that in the same way it's easier to lie to Opal when he can't see her face. It's simple to pretend that he isn't hurting anyone when it's just a tinny voice over the phone.
Before he can stop himself, Ky dials Justice' house number, thumbs pressing clumsily down on the number pad as he blinks through his tears.
It rings for a long moment, over and over and Ky almost gives up when he hears the tell-tale click.
"Asher?" he asks, speaking carefully to hide his crying, "I have to tell you something."
