#thread: silena & eden.

[brutcllysoft]

@devilwomcn / silena & eden.

So far, everything has been just as exciting as Silena had always believed it would be. She's still high on the adrenaline rush that came from volunteering, the goodbye with her parents having passed by so quickly she's barely even sure she remembers it before she had been swept up into the train. While her life in District One is cushy by comparison to the lower districts, the train car is still nicer than anything she's ever seen before. It's almost a little jarring, but Silena had taken it all in stride. "You're going to give yourself frown lines," she scolds, raising a brow at Eden when they're finally away from prying eyes of the rest of their team. "What are you making that face for?"

[little-engineer-who-cant]

Jason and Clarisse orbit each other around Silena. Because love is only a triangle if it’s closed on all sides.

Part 9 of Sirens Scream Names Forgotten by Tomorrow, Laid to Rest in Infinity

(also posted under cut)

“The city is for strangers, like the sky is for the stars and I think it’s very dangerous if we do not take what’s ours.”

- Gray or Blue (Jaymay)

She’s on his chest, sleeping peacefully and he has no motivation to move her. The warm sunlight streaming across their bodies, his hand in her hair, the soft sheets tangled around them, her weight grounding him to the here and now, the silence in his head. He could stay here for an age, caught in the restful grey area between sleep and consciousness, warm and content. Bundled in blankets, weighed down by soft breaths and gentle hands, tied up by dark hair and a heaviness in his bones that makes him want to sink into this mattress in a way that will leave a permanent impression. 

Something tickles in the back of his mind, a faint niggling reminder that he has things to do, places to be, people to talk to, but he forcibly shoves it away. Days like this were so very few and far between, it would take half of Gotham going up in flames to stir him from this bed. This bubble feels untouchable, a fallacy he knows exists only in his own mind, but it lingers. Sweet and as fragile as spun sugar, alluring to live in. For a moment, he indulges in the fantasy that this is a normal life, a normal day. No work, he and his love could just lounge in bed with no responsibilities other than each other. 

The creak of a footstep shatters that illusion, making him fling an arm over his eyes with a bitten back groan. No alarms sound in his head, telling him exactly who is coming down the hallway, who he is going to see.

He peeks out from under his forearm as Clarisse leans into the doorway, braced on the handle.

“What’s up?” he murmurs, doing his best not to disturb the peace.

“It can wait,” she assures, going to lean out of the room again.

“Clarisse.” She leans back in, brow pinched in confusion and he points to the empty space on the bed, right by the door.

“What…” but she’s drawn by the same strings Jason is, the same shape huddled under the blankets, still gone deep in the world of sleep. So she approaches, despite the protest lingering on her lips like syrup, eyes drawn to the spider web, to the honey that brings them both colliding together. She sits, delicate, trying not to break this gossamer thread of a truce that exists in a bedroom that feels removed from the world.

“Should I point out the obvious?” It’s not as mocking as he means it to be, not as flippant as he wants. It’s too quiet, too raw. Because he knows what he’s seen, the layers upon layers of history between these two friends turned-

“I’m not you,” Clarisse whispers, her hand resting delicately on the curve of Silena’s hip, eyes shadowed with hesitance and reverence alike.

“And I’m not you,” Jason replies just as quietly. Their eyes meet, the past and present looking a possible future in the eye. One or the other-

Her hand leaves Silena’s hip and grasps his wrist, pulling the arm from his face, over his head and onto the pillow.

“You’d better not be getting fatalistic on me, Todd,” Clarisse growls, bracing her weight on that wrist, pressing it into the pillow even as he snarls at her in reflexive response. Aggression for aggression, her restraint for him to fight. A challenge, given and answered as easy as breathing. It’s only Silena, somehow still sleeping on his chest that stops him from lunging head on into a fight he probably will not win and Clarisse knows it by the grin on her face. 

“Fuck off, La Rue.”

“Make me.” She presses further down, arching over the woman slumbering on between them, unaware of what’s surrounding her, restrained only by her presence. The pulsing violence, desperation of each having what the other wants, her, her past, her present, her secrets, her love, suspended together. 

It would be so easy for one or the other to snap, to reach out with deadly hands to eliminate the other. So easy for the breaths they’re sharing to become vicious words, bite wounds, bloody caricatures of smiles. Fanged mouths, belonging to fight dogs, tilting in anticipation of ripping out the other’s throat even as they each anticipate one another too well. Like recognizes like and they’re hungry to tear the other apart. Maybe, if she digs deep enough into his corpse’s chest cavity, she’ll find whatever it is she searches for in his eyes, whatever awful thing beats in his brain like a tumor, maybe she can extract it from him with a surgical violence that feels like salvation. Maybe she can succeed where others have failed because she’s not kind, has never had a reason to care about him.

“Do it,” he begs or orders or some derivative combination of the two. Tear it out, and put him back in the ground a whole man even if she has to do it piece by piece. 

“What do you want me to do?” Her grip tightens, their noses brush and he can taste the blood on his tongue already.

“Tell me the obvious.” He can see the red sparks that shoot through the brown of her eyes, the minute way her skin strains over veins that pulse with almost too much power for a single being to control and yet she confines it as effortlessly as she regulates her breath, the warmth painting his lips and making him whine.

“I’d rather show you.” Their breaths solidify into a proper kiss, the last space closing and their mouths meeting with more gently than he ever thought either of them capable of with anyone but the woman between them. Fangs blunted, claws retracted, blood firmly within their own veins and not pooling between their mouths. A piece of him expects the darkness knifed between his ribs to rise, a challenge to be made and answered, a struggle, a fight, but nothing stirs. His head stays silent, the warmth of the sun, of Silena, of Clarisse melting into his bones and keeping him supine, relaxed, here in this time and place, this bed, this life. 

“Mm?” They slowly part at Silena’s inquisitive little hum, her slight stretch and possible confusion at being squished. But there is no panic in him, no rush in Clarisse’s retreat. No fear in her eyes and Jason doesn’t feel caught. He feels free. “Come’ere,” Silena’s hand reaches blindly behind her and finds Clarisse’s arm at the oddest angle, tugging her rather ineffectively. “Lay down,” Silena nuzzles further into Jason, tugging Clarisse again.

“Silena,” Clarisse murmurs, hand tightening on Jason’s wrist and making his breath catch. 

“If you’re gonna make out, do it in bed. ‘M sleepy,” Silena mumbles back, half muffled by Jason. Clarisse has no response for that, no witty come back or sarcastic insult. Slowly, she obeys, releasing Jason’s wrist in the process. Returns her hand to Silena’s waist, thumb stroking soft skin tenderly as she props herself up on one arm, eyes drinking in whatever picture they make in her shadow.

His hand leaves Silena’s hair and cups Clarisse’s jaw, stroking her cheekbone as delicately as she touches the woman between them, silently asking her to come back. A request she answers as they kiss again, gentle and kind with their rough hands, scarred faces and brutalized bodies. Her own hand leaves Silena’s waist to grip his bicep, both of them curled around Silena’s warm body, a shield and a reminder. Two soldiers made for fighting their fathers’ wars, made soft in the sunlight of a spy’s bed, all three of them twisted together in a heaven of their own making, holding a tiny slice of peace in one another’s palms.

“I love you,” Silena whispers as they break apart and Jason doesn’t know or particularly care who she meant it for. If she meant it for either of them at all. Because he loves Silena, of that there is no doubt. And in this syrup-slow sunrise as he looks into Clarisse’s eyes, he thinks he could love her in some way too.

—

“What is this to you?” she asks him as they watch a warehouse burn a few blocks away. The perfect trap, baited and tripped, another rival gone from the underworld that Jason controls with an ever more iron fist.

He wishes that gave him any hope of surviving this conversation.

“What?” Clarisse snorts, but doesn’t look at him.

“What are we doing, Todd. You and I.”

“Burning shit,” he plays dumb. Now she looks at him. 

“Don’t.” 

He sighs. Looks away. Fiddles with the helmet in his hands. It’s easier to leave the temptation to start a fight if he’s not looking at her. Because the temptation is still there, the desire to dig around in her guts until he pulls out whatever is in her that Silena loves and puts it into himself instead. 

(Do an autopsy and a vivisection leave the same scars?)

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But you’re here. You love her. And she’s been alone for a long time.”

“What does that make you then?”

“Someone who will only ever know a part of her.”

“That makes two of us.” He looks back at her, catches her wry smirk. “Between the two of us, she might be a whole person.” That makes him snort, leaning on the smokestack of this old ass warehouse they’ve posted up on.

“Why do you care what this is?” he asks, curious. “Because to me, if you’re going to stay, I’d rather know the writing on the wall and have a chance at making a bridge than fighting you at every turn.”

“You talk as if jealousy is easy to turn off like a switch.”

“Oh, so you want to gut me too?” It’s comforting that he’s not alone in the sentiment.

“I don’t know what she sees,” Clarisse hisses, looking at him with fire in her eye and venom on her tongue. “I don’t get why she keeps you. Why she cares enough to fight for you, in whatever way she thinks she can.”

“That makes two of us,” he parrots. She swipes at him and he dances far enough away that it’s a glancing swat across the face instead of a concussive force.

“I have had it with you,” she growls, closing the gap between them faster than he can blink. His helmet clangs to the floor as she shoves him back, the railing digging into his spine, their noses brushing as she bends him further, fangs out again, fighting dogs ready to lunge- “Do you have a death wish?”

“I’ve already died,” he shoots back flippantly, “tends to lose its impact after you’ve walked away once.”

“You fucking idiot-” the air between them is red hot, pulsing with blood and rage and violence in a way they chain for most people. The darkness they only release for the worst of the worst and for each other. It’s nice to have company in the depths of hell, of burning so completely with another person that there will be no telling the ashes apart.

“I’ll be-”

“If you say fine-”

“-alive no matter what you do,” he gloats, his own teeth out and aching to dig into her skin, to rip and tear and burrow his way down into her until maybe, if he curls up in her lungs, he can breathe again. “What?” he taunts breathlessly, half laughing even as he wishes she would press farther, maybe just push-

(Be the monster we know we both are.)

“Not going to kill me?” he continues, laughing in her face like it fools either of them.

“I’ll making living hurt so fucking much you’ll wish your death stuck,” is what she promises instead. Pushes him further, bending him back like this is a dance and not a deadly compromise.

“That’s what this is then,” he wheezes, chest burning as his stomach trembles while trying to keep himself balanced. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” but she’s smiling and letting him stand again.

“How do you want the list?” he asks, following her retreat until they’re both away from the edges and toe to toe, eye to eye.

(Heart to heart.)

“Hm. It’ll be more fun to figure it out,” she promises and he laughs and the city burns behind them.

—

The bed is empty when he wakes up. The sun is high, casting two long shadows across the room in the shape of two familiar women. One is short and hunched, folded over, while the other stands tall and proud, both silhouettes washed out and hazy in the dim light that manages to scrape through both the dingy skies of Gotham and the gunky window.

Turning his head, he sees Silena leaned against the window, watching where Clarisse is bent over the railing in the fire escape beyond. 

“You can go back to sleep,” she tells him and he stretches out with a purposefully long and luxurious groan.

“And miss whatever riveting conversation is happening here?” he half-jokes. These two could say more in silences than he’s read in entire novels before, so only their gods know what he’s missed in the quiet.

“Not a conversation,” she corrects, shooting him a smile over her shoulder. There are faint circles under her eye. No sleep. “Just… waiting.”

“For what exactly?”

“For her to… Decide I guess.”

“Hm.” He rolls to his feet and stretches again, reaching towards the ceiling and popping his spine in several places. Clarisse doesn’t move as he joins Silena at the windowsill. Either she’s so deep in her thoughts that she's missed his movement, or she’s ignoring them. It doesn’t matter much either way because neither spectators step out on the fire escape. Silena leans into his side and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. The window is dirty, but he sees their reflections in it, their faces superimposed along Clarisse’s back.

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” she says to their mirrored selves. 

“What question do you think I’m asking?” He watches the muscle in Clarisse’s back shift under her shirt as she rolls something over in her hands.

“If I’m happy. With…” she sighs, perfectly shaped nails drumming a staccato rhythm on the sill for a moment. “Whatever arrangement you two have figured out.”

“Arrangement is a harsh word.”

“So give me a better one to use.”

“I prefer understanding.”

“What exactly is there to understand?”

“You.” She looks up at him, lips pursuing but it doesn’t quite stop him from seeing the way they are curling up at the edges.

“And here I’d thought I was at my least mysterious when around the two of you.”

“She knows who you were. I know who you are. Somewhere in there…” he rolls his tongue over his teeth.

“Is a roadmap to learning me?” she asks and he can’t decipher her tone.

“You’re the only one in both our worlds,” he defends. “Maybe, if we both understand you-”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” but her fingers twist with his, cupping the spot where his hand is on her arm. “But I…” she swallows, their eyes meeting in the window over the curve of Clarisse’s spine. “Are you doing this because you want it? Or because you think I do?”

“Can it not be both?” he asks. 

“Then which is it more?” He takes a breath. 

“Does it matter?” Because he doesn’t know the answer.

“Give me the best you’ve got.”

“This life is going to kill us,” he reminds her and she smiles, sweet and sad and he lets the warmth in his heart melt over onto her tongue. Her eyes flutter shut and she takes a deep breath, shoulders sinking in pleasure as she swallows whatever his devotion tastes like. “Maybe we’ll get back up, maybe we won’t. But…” Her eyes open again and they both look to the dim sky barely visible around the clog of buildings around this shitty sanctuary they’ve made their own.

“Walking together,” she hums. “And you want to understand how I love her too.” Her head tilts up and she presses gentle kisses along his jaw. He nuzzles down into her hair. Her fingers detangle from his long enough to unlock the window but he’s got the strength to push it up with one hand without leaving her arms so he does. She muffles a giggle in his skin as her hand rests on his stomach instead.

“Are you two done gossiping about me?” Clarisse inquires, turning at the noise and he sees what she’s been holding all this time.

His half-mask dangles from her fingers, thumb running compulsively over the slits that cover his mouth.

“Are you done thinking about whatever drove you out here at dawn?” Silena shoots the question back instead. 

“I don’t think there’s a cut and clear answer to that.” Clarisse shifts her weight and leans against the rough brick wall next to their window, head back and eyes closed. Silena lifts a hand and hooks two fingers into the pocket of Jason’s sweatpants that Clarisse has claimed as her own.

“Then tell us what you’ve got right now,” Silena leans against Jason’s shoulder, head finding the nook where his neck and shoulder meet.

“I can’t stay,” she whispers, like the admission will shatter them all, staring out across the city instead of looking them in the eye. Jason’s mask spins aimlessly in her hands. “I… Gotham isn’t mine. Not like it’s either of yours.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to leave,” Silena mumbles, her nose tucking down next to Jason’s collarbone to hide her pout. 

“It does.” Jason runs a hand down Silena’s arm to soothe the tension. Clarisse is kind enough to ignore it, if she even noticed. “I have people out there I have to help. I have obligations and friends… I can’t stay.”

“Okay,” Silena accepts quietly, squeezing Jason in warning before he can open his mouth and make this sad resignation into a fight none of them will win. “Just remember to come back every now and again, will you?”

“What?”

“You can’t stay,” Jason agrees, squeezing Silena in return. An assurance. This isn’t a fight anymore. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave forever.”

“That doesn’t mean you two have to wait for me,” Clarisse sighs.

“We won’t be,” Silena replies simply, leaning away from his neck and pushing her sleep-wild hair out of her face, before tucking herself more firmly under his arm. Surrendering to the inevitable. “But just because your path isn’t twisted with ours doesn’t mean it has to separate forever. We love you.”

“However it has to be,” Jason finishes. Silena’s hand clenches against his abdomen. He strokes his fingers through her wild mane in quiet comfort. Clarisse is going to leave. If they let her go, there’s a better chance of her coming back.

“I didn’t think I’d be having this conversation with you of all people,” Clarisse scoffs at him, but there’s no heat and she’s staring at the empty eyes of his carelessly tossed mask instead of glaring at him.

“I like to think I’ve gotten a little closer to living,” Jason muses. Silena turns back into his neck, he kisses her hair. “And I’m greedy. Death took everything once, what little I let myself have. The Pit tries its damnedest to make me get rid of the rest, but fuck that. I’m taking everything I want. Fuck the world and fuck what it says I should want. I’m already defying it by breathing. Why not keep it up?” Clarisse laughs then, the lines around her eyes deepening. Silena hums into his neck, her smile framing a tendon. 

He holds out a hand. Clarisse ignores it, but her arm bends at a painful angle to fit through the window frame, their hands tangling together in Silena’s hair. Silena rests her head in the cradle of their palms, calm and trusting. The rabbit baring her throat to the wolves that love her. Clarisse crouches down to their level, presses a kiss to the jugular they both will kill to protect.

They all know Clarisse is going to be gone when the sun rises tomorrow. Her spot in the bed will get cold, her place at the table an empty void, the space at his side a lonely reminder when he’s on patrol, but he’s not going to chain her and Silena certainly won’t. But they’ve made their offer, opened their door. All that’s left is to see if she walks back in. 

And as Clarisse squeezes Jason’s fingers, pressing the curves of their entwined knuckles against Silena’s skull, he knows she will.

[brutcllysoft]

There's a sudden ringing in her ears that might be concerning if she didn't have bigger issues going on right now. One would think by that Silena would mean the Hunger Games ordeal going on right now, but really all she can focus on at the moment is what her sister had said. Baby fat — baby fat? She spends half of her days following the rigorous academy training schedule, she does not have baby fat... does she? This is what Silena hates the most about herself. Most of the time, she's calm and confident — conceited or cocky even. Silena is beautiful and she knows it. She'd been brought up to be beautiful — sometimes she thinks it's the most notable thing about her but is ridiculous considering she'd also been the top of her class and she is about to be a victor. But all of that always has and always will come second to the fact that she's beautiful. That's just how the Capitol, and by extension District One, operates. So to have someone so casually point out one of the flaws she hadn't even realized she had? She'll be thinking about that for days, annoyingly. Even now, her pinky finger skates across her jawline, searching for imperfections.

She's been thrown off of her game now, something that she'll need to work on. It can't be that easy to have her lose focus right now, she needs to get her head back on straight. "Two did alright a few years ago." But alright doesn't really cut it, and they both know that. Besides last year Two had been almost embarrassing. An old man and an academy flunk? Silena hadn't expected anything out of either of them and still isn't convinced it wasn't rigged when the girl won in the first place. "Four would be good to have around since we don't know what kind of climate we're looking at." There had been basic swimming lessons at the academy but it definitely isn't Silena's strong suit. "Seven might be okay if it's someone older." Even Eleven has had stronger contenders in the past. They're certainly not careers, but given the nature of their industries, they often worked physical jobs which could lead to strong tributes. Sometimes. She matches Eden's eyeroll with one of her own, not a huge fan of having to avenge the little guy but she knows the Capitol will eat it up. "I'll find someone who can pull their weight but won't actually be a threat in the big picture. Shouldn't be hard."

For all of her fear and anxiety, it’s absolutely sick that Eden’s most prominent emotion is suddenly an intense pang of jealousy. It doesn’t happen often — she’s beautiful and she knows it, that particular trait of hers has been drilled into her since she was a little girl and has only heightened since she became a victor. But the thought of her sister who is, objectively, equally as beautiful as she is coming to take her spot would probably have her face twitching if it weren’t so frozen in place. Eden is used to being fawned over, she is used to being the golden, shining star of their family — it’s what she’s been raised for, and it’s what she’s killed for. When Silena eventually supersedes her in that, Eden’s not sure how she’ll handle it. So her default setting is, of course, deflection of her own insecurities. “Oh, you’re young,” she starts, but what could simply be a compliment on Silena’s youthful beauty obviously has a caveat. “You’ve got time to lose your baby fat before they tighten everything up. Makes everything smoother if you wait I've heard.”

Her head tilts, fingers crushing the glass of water she delicately sips at in an attempt to mask her features as she forces herself to stay in check. They’ve got more important things to worry about than this, and Eden won’t let her moments of envy be the reason her sister bleeds out in an arena. “Two’s been floundering lately but Four could be promising. If you want, it’s sometimes good to bring in someone from an outer district. Gives your alliance an easy breaking point and if you let someone else kill first, you can take the rest of them out right after. That’ll be a good chunk of your competition done for. And sponsors are suckers for a heroic Career avenging the little guy.” Eden’s eyes roll hard at that — and that certainly hadn’t been her own strategy, but Silena’s got a look of sweetness to her that could make it work. “Just something to keep in mind during training. That’s when you’ll really scope things out.”

[brutcllysoft]

Silena hums when Eden shrugs off her claims that she's making a face, but the younger sister makes no effort to push back. What's the point? Clearly whatever is bothering Eden, she doesn't want to talk about and Silena has a feeling she won't want to hear it anyways. If Eden were to start voicing any kind of concern about her choice to volunteer, she knows she would get defensive and the two would only end up arguing. Instead, it's better to nod and agree — though it is annoying when Eden casually talks about the perks of being a victor. Eden is even more beautiful now than she had been before the Games, annoyingly enough. That was just another reason not volunteering had never been a choice for Silena. While there's the obvious and the typical reasons — she'd trained her whole life for this, the promise of eternal glory, bringing honour back to their family after Opal fumbled the bag, blah blah blah... She also can't sentence herself to a life of crows feet and frown lines while the Capitol keeps Eden looking youthful and beautiful. A kinder fate would be death in the games — though that's not going to happen either, so who cares?

"Not that I'll need it for a while," she hums, though she remembers Eden's victory. She had come home looking... not different, but not quite herself either. Some people may have chalked it up to the trauma that everyone pretends doesn't exist, but Silena knows that hadn't really been it. She'd been shiner somehow. Whatever the Capitol had given her (which she hadn't needed because honestly, Eden has always been aggravatingly beautiful) had turned her into the best version of herself but done it in such subtle ways that even their family had a hard time picking out the differences. She can't help but wonder what they'll do to her. "Although I wouldn't hate it if they carved my jawline out a little. You should start advocating for that as soon as everyone else picks up on my inevitable win."

Oh, okay, right to business. She shouldn't be surprised when Eden wants to talk strategy right away, she needs to get her head back in the game, after all. She has her entire life to focus on the luxuries of the Capitol, for now she needs to focus on the task at hand. "I'm open to alliances in the beginning. It makes sense for Marcus and I to stick together — he's stronger than me, but I'm faster than him. It could work for a while. And we'll see what Two and Four bring to the table. I'd rather get it all over and done with sooner than later, though. I know the games are supposed to be a show, but I'd rather not be in there for weeks at a time." She remembers one year the games had gone on for nearly a month and the idea of going that long without a shower makes her want to rip her skin off.

This all feels too familiar — like Eden is being forced to live a life she's already lived, to repeat some of the worst days of her life. It's in the way her parents stood proudly in the crowd when her sister's hand shot up, and the way Silena walked on stage like she was practicing her inevitable victory march. Eden's lived this day before, only seven years ago — and as hard as she tries, she can't help but fear how it will end. But no amount of terror will get her to admit that to her sister, not when Silena is so obviously convinced that things will go differently for her. "No face," she dismisses, but even as Eden shakes her head she can feel her lips turning further downward, her brows furrowing more. A quick peak in one of the shiny, stainless steel fixtures of the train confirms what she'd already known, though. "No frown lines, either, kid. One of the many perks you'll get as a victor." This brings a smile to Eden's features, at least — tight, contained, controlled. Silena will have the privilege of injections and eternal beauty that most victors are afforded when they're sought after, because Silena will win. Silena must win. There is simply no other option. "Have you considered a specific strategy, yet? We'll need to watch the reaping tapes, size up your competition and see what strengths to play at. Other than your obvious charm."