burnwithus | (sawyer) light up, light up as if you have a choice

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sawyer

(sawyer) light up, light up as if you have a choice

It's late when she crashes through the forest, which is good considering how little care she's taking to be quiet. At least there's no one around to hear or see her. Katniss was told that there were animals here that were worse than the occasional boar, but she doesn't care. It's hard to care about things like that when there's still alcohol and god-knows-what rushing through your system and bad memories cemented in your brain.

She nearly trips twice over tree roots but keeps going deeper into the forest, not knowing what she's running from but crying and screaming until her lungs hurt, until her voice feels raw and rough. It feels good. Cathartic, almost, even if it doesn't change a thing.

Katniss stops in an empty clearing, laying down in the piles of fluffy white snow that reminds her of comfortable beds and duvet covers, but that only makes it worse. The Capitol had beds like that. Her fingers trace lines in the snow as her tears hit the piles but don't melt the magically pristine substance.

It doesn't change a thing.

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Somewhere out there on the island, there's a group of people partying. Sawyer's been having trouble sleeping all night, because he can hear the calls in the distance, the whoops, the people rabble-rousing and getting all worked up in ways that Sawyer might have cared for decades ago. Right now? It's just irritating. He can't seem to acknowledge anything positive in it, because frankly, it's not doing him any good (everyone he's seen walking in that direction's about half his age, and he's content with his social life being what it is anyway), and it's not the sort of gathering Alex would go to. When someone screams from some distance away, Sawyer only groans and rubs at his eyes in irritation, staring up at the dark ceiling of his hut and thinking that, while he's awake anyway, he might as well take a piss.

Taking care not to wake Alex in the next room over, Sawyer quickly pulls on a pair of jeans, buttoning them but not bothering to zip up the fly because, really, who's going to see? The air hits his bare back and makes him shiver, shaking himself awake as he stumbles over to a bush some distance away.

Only he nearly trips over someone first.

"The hell?" he mutters, before crouching down to figure out if the person needs to be rushed immediately to the clinic, because sleeping on snow, Sawyer's pretty sure that's not a good sign. His eyes widen in recognition. "Catnip."

She doesn't notice him at first, which says something about the state of things because years of training has taught Katniss to be vigilant above all else. But she doesn't notice - or doesn't care, either way she doesn't respond to his words and doesn't bother to wipe her eyes. She lets the curtain of untied hair hide them for her, but it's obvious that she's not going to be able to pass this off as anything else.

Her shoulders are shaking enough to let him know that she's alive, at least. And why is it that he's always around at the worst times? When she's tried so hard to build up a good wall between herself and everyone else on the island. And now he was going to see her like this. The snow leaches some of the excess heat from her body and her face, and she burrows it deeper into the mound, grateful for the relief.

"Dammit," he swears, looking around with a palm pressed to his temple before he decides, fuck it, he's crouching down and picking her up so that he can take her back to a neighboring hut (mostly because he's pretty sure that stepping inside the actual hut would wake Alex up, and he cares about these things, like whether or not Alex gets enough sleep each night, because she's a teenager and still... growing, something like that). Sawyer shivers as his hands dig through the icy snow, powdery though it is, and quickly breaks through the surface to scoop the girl up. She's sturdy enough, but thin, light in his arms as he walks to the hut by his house that he makes sure stays empty of occupants, because it allows him that much more of a buffer, he guesses, against the rest of Tabula Rasa.

"Don't you give up on me now. Whatever the hell happened t'you, don't you give the hell up on me now," he mutters, and for some reason it's important that she hears this and knows just how much he's invested now. It's not even like he's been actively searching for her, but bumping into her that many times, knowing the horrors she's seen and imagines, that's enough reason for Sawyer's involvement, he figures.

Of course it has to be him, the one person Katniss is almost sure will never leave her alone. Everyone on the island is nice enough, but they're usually warded away easily enough with some hostile glances. Sawyer, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. And that makes him that much more dangerous because he's one of the only ones that actually stands a chance at getting somewhere with her.

Katniss isn't sure why she lets him pick her up as if she were a child, because she hasn't been a child for a very long time, if she ever was one. And while she would normally struggle and refuse, perhaps it's the vestiges of drugs still in her system that causes her to go limp. This isn't a sudden, isolated event. This is something that she's been building up to since the moment the bombs went off in the Capitol.

Her throat is too clogged with tears and too rough from screaming for speech right now, so when she does make a noise it sounds terrible. "Why don't you ever go away?"

Maybe it's the way she lays in his arms, stiff, like a doll, that keeps him from laughing even bitterly at her question. This is the stuff he should be guffawing over, the fact that she's getting an entirely wrong picture of the kind of guy he is. And it isn't even because he's tried to shape up lately, though he has. With Katniss, it's always been circumstance. He happened to come across her when she first arrived. They happened to stumble in the same damned cloud of nightmare fog together. And now, whatever she's been through tonight, she's run across the island only to wind up practically at his doorstep, even though he's never invited her there before. Seems like the last thing he can describe that as is not going away.

Then again, it's also possible that she's asking about that stupid tendency of his to cling to anyone who tumbles by, sticking to them like velcro. He does, after all, have that choice to walk away. He's simply not sure how to go about it anymore.

"Catnip, I go away all the time, and I'm pretty sure I run faster'n you can say Wile E. Coyote. But I'm tired, and you're tired, and maybe neither of us are much like ourselves tonight," he says, before shifting her weight largely in one arm and on his knee while he breaks one hand free just long enough to grasp at the front door of the hut and push it in, a warm blast of air hitting them full on as he steps inside.

When the door opens, she struggles this time - letting her feet hit the floor however unsteady they might be. It's the alcohol, she thinks sourly, before steadying herself on a wall before he can do it. Katniss takes deep breaths in an attempt to stop crying, but it doesn't work because Harry's words keep ringing around in her head, although it isn't really him that she's crying about.

Katniss almost never cries. Normally she's too numb to do so, pushing her feelings back into that mysterious place in the mind where fear goes temporarily. It's perceived as a weakness and she lives in a world where only the strongest and most ruthless survive. Not the good and the kind, but people like her.

What wouldn't she have given to trade her life for Prim's? If the universe was fair, Katniss would be dead and her sister would be alive. As it was, there wasn't anything to do about it.

So she cries. It isn't dignified, but he can leave if he wants. Part of her hopes he will - and the bigger part wants him to stay.

Edited 2010-12-13 07:51 (UTC)

He hates seeing girls cry. Seeing a guy cry, most of the time that's either funny or something he can empathize over, but girls, when they cry it just cuts him somewhere deep. More so lately than usual, given that he remembers so clearly now his mother's face toward the end of all that conflict, looking toward her son imploringly, not letting those tears fall down because she had to be strong for him. Sawyer suspects that Katniss is much of the same way, someone who usually holds it all in and doesn't falter, which only makes this harder to see. Predictably, she doesn't cry pretty. It's all hacking coughs and snot, but Sawyer just guides her over to the bed and tries his best to sit her down gently, in spite of the way her stance is so weak that she can probably fall over at any moment without warning.

And then he crouches across from her, looking her in the eye. Maybe it's better that this is all out than in. She held it together during the nightmare, though, so he has to wonder, wonder what's exactly managed to push her over the edge this time.

"Do I gotta go beat the shit outta someone for you?" he asks, trying for light, though his eyes betray the fact that he knows this isn't so.

It takes a while for her to stop hyperventilating enough to answer, because she keeps holding it in and then cracking a few seconds later. The fact that she doesn't cry very often makes it even harder to stop once she's started, but she finally wipes her eyes after a few moments - enough time to shake her head, at least. It's another few moments before she clears her throat again, feeling pain that orients her like it so often does. "Someone gave me something to eat and I forgot about the war. And I was happy. Until I remembered."

The memories came rushing back - how she'd danced with Jason, and kissed Peeta, which was something else she didn't want to face so Katniss pushes the thought away. One hand pulls at her hair roughly, clumsily trying to shove it back into its usual braid but failing miserably. But her hands need something to do, even if the semi-arranged features on her face are close to crumpling again.

Katniss wonders why he cares. Why he's taken the time to bring her to this house. No doubt Harry would say something along the lines of it being right, but Katniss has long since given up on seeing righteousness in people.

There's only so much that Sawyer can do naturally, and petting, comforting, those aren't his fortes. He does listen as well as he can while Katniss tries to get her words out, because he's used to that, to sitting there and waiting for things to happen, for words to come. He's used to hanging onto every last hint or clue in an effort to find out the truth. But he doesn't really know how to calm her tears, how to make the pain ebb away, and all he can do when she starts grabbing at her hair and tugging in a way that's gotta hurt is to grab her wrists and gently ease them away, tugging a ribbon roughly away from the quilt on the bed (it was brought here by Who magic, he supposes it'll at least last the hour, or however long it takes Katniss to get back to where she's from and get a proper tie) and wrapping it around her hair in a neat bow.

"Sounds like someone gave you a pot brownie," he says under his breath, snorting. It makes sense, with that ruckus that was out in the forest. Figures that it'd be something like that. "And for all of two seconds, you thought you were happy and that shit didn't matter, until your brain was screwed back in and it all came back. Yeah. Been there. This is why you don't get smashed at parties."

Letting go of her hair, he slumps a bit, pushes back on the bed until he's leaning against the wall.

"So. Who made you remember?"

A ribbon tied into a bow. Those were the kinds of things Prim liked. Pretty things that they could never afford back before Katniss was famous, with all the trouble that brought them. She flinches when he touches her - an automatic reaction that causes her to bite down hard on her lower lip in order to keep from lashing out. It's the instinct of any Victor, who realizes that the Games aren't limited to the arena. But she lets him tie it anyways - again, without any real justification for it. It's been a long time since anyone's taken care of her, mostly because Katniss wouldn't have accepted it.

She catches his next words, even if she doesn't quite know what they mean. Whether she knows the individual words or not, Katniss still understands the meaning: the cakes were drugged. She knows the feeling very well, even if she didn't recognize it at the time. Morphling was the same way, leaving her to float until she finally drowned.

"A boy." Katniss takes a deep breath, ever watchful of him as if he might change his mind and revoke his kindness at any moment. She knows he killed that man, after all. And she knows more than anyone how the dead never leave you. "We had an argument."

An argument with a boy. If it wasn't for the fact that Katniss wasn't the type of girl he could see getting worked up to the extent she was over romantic matters, he might have laughed. Then again, he reminded himself, in spite of all that he'd seen in his life, there was never anyone who quite managed to catch him off guard than Kate, including even Anthony Cooper himself. Enemies, they mattered, but not always more than friends, because if there was anything Sawyer had learned from those overall do-gooders of the island, it was that true friends were hard to make. Required playing a goddamn dance. The only thing worse, to his mind, were strangers.

Did Katniss still count as that?

"Boys... Ya gotta understand, Katniss. We ain't the most skilled with words," he told her, unable quite to reach out, contenting himself with watching her. "Sometimes we're asses for the sake of being asses. You saw my past, you saw my dreams, I made a friggin' living outta it. But I've seen your nightmares too. And those ain't nightmares to keep so close to your chest that you end up screaming over a prick instead of socking him in the jaw."

It's only after the words are out of her mouth that she realizes how they could be misconstrued. An argument with a boyfriend or something as ridiculous as that. Katniss Everdeen is not a romantic person, despite all of Haymitch and Cinna's efforts into making her one. Maybe not romantic in the sense that she pretends to be with Peeta, but romantic in the ideal of her. Stalwartly overcoming adversity and all that. The thought makes her want to laugh, too.

They took away her bracelet, the metal one that read MENTALLY DISORIENTED. It wasn't true - or maybe it was and she refused to admit it, but it made a good tourniquet, twisted around her arm until the sharpness brought her back to reality.

"No, he was right. He was right and I didn't want to admit it. Or remember." He doesn't get it, but she doesn't expect him to. No one outside of Panem would. But he's also right on one count - she's seen his nightmares, too. The things he'd rather keep hidden.

Is he a good man or just one trying to act like it?

"Well, whether you do or not's your choice," Sawyer reasons, stating the obvious in case it's needed, which it often is when either grief or anger's involved. Katniss in specific has a personality so peculiar, twisted and gnarled and rough like tree bark, that it makes him think a little of himself, wondering if he's going down the same sort of path, wanting to believe that it just isn't possible to reach a point of no return. "But sometimes it's the stuff we least wanna remember that we most need. Gives us context and... guidance, a friggin' conscience, things like that. I don't know what he said. But if I did, and knowing hat you think he's right, I'd repeat his words to you right now."

The point of no return. If she could hear those thoughts, Katniss might say that she reached that point a long time ago. That yes, it is very possible, because she's seen it in so many others. Peeta. The darkness she saw in Gale. Annie Cresta's madness. They're all broken in unique ways yet broken nonetheless.

"He was right to remind me. But I still don't agree with him," she exhales, fingernails digging into skin. "I give up on mankind. We should all die and let some decent species take over." The words tumble out before she can stop them, painting a particularly cynical, jaded picture - but she doesn't take them back or look ashamed. Katniss dares him with her eyes, to judge or scorn her or tell her that she's terrible for saying such a thing - yet somehow, she doesn't think it'll come. Not from him.

He levels her with a long gaze and no small amount of irritation, not so much directed at her, but instead at the fact that he keeps on getting smacked with things like this, right in the face, attitudes that he's given up on ever since the previous island. Everything still seems geared on trying to make him take what little amount of faith he's built up back. Finding Anthony Cooper on the other island with no hint of remorse in his eyes. Michael Dawson being idiotic enough to kill two people and give up another four, just out of his insane need to get his son back.

But he's refusing himself to let things slide back to the way they were before, so he reaches out instead and smacks Katniss lightly on the back of the head.

"Well no wonder he started yellin' at you, with you talkin' like that," he presses his lips together. "How can you live on a friggin' hippie island and not have at least some of your faith restored in people right here? Ain't anyone here even steals from anyone else."

She lashes out before she can help it when he touches her, hitting him in the nose before she realizes what she's done. Instantly, Katniss is defiant, thinking that he shouldn't have touched her, but she chases that thought away. She's breathing hard, every muscle tensed as though she's about to bolt at any moment.

"Sorry," Katniss mutters under her breath. She rarely apologizes for anything, so this in itself is a miracle.

"My fault," Sawyer replies just as quietly, brow raising, willing to admit to himself nonetheless that it was probably rather unfair for him to hit her like that, when he knows some of what she's gone through. Or at least, what she's gone through that's left a lasting impression in her nightmares, which speak more for a person than practically anything else. "Didn't mean to startle ya."

Pressing his lips together, he shakes his head.

"Give up on mankind in general, that ain't my issue, but there's gotta be at least one person out there. One person who matters, who you wouldn't just toss out with the rest. Else you would've turned hermit already."

"Peeta," she says it before she has time to think about it. "He's - he was my fake fiancé at home," that was a long time ago, but the idea of making her appear as something she was not was hardly new. In the same way that her prep team and Haymitch had sought to make her into a symbol of romance, the rebels of 13 wanted her as their symbol. Unwavering and dedicated in the revolution. But such symbols don't normally exist in real life.

It's a long time since Katniss Everdeen was able to be herself.

"I trust him. I'd die to save his life. But I also ruined everything."

She's kind of young to have a fiancé, Sawyer thinks, real or not. Even younger to have one that matters enough for her to be saying all of these things about him, to mention concepts like trust, things that Sawyer isn't sure that anyone understands until they've been through a rough decade or two. Then again, he shouldn't be surprised by now. She grows too much, too soon; he wouldn't be surprised to find that the boys leagues behind in that type of jadedness, perhaps. Hopefully, anyway.

"Fake fiancé, how very scandalous," he notes first, trying for a touch of lightheartedness that doesn't quite make it fully across. "So, what'd you ruin? Take on a dirty mistress on the side while being 'married' to your beau?"

Of course it can't be that. But it's easier to suspect the lighter things.

"I lied to him about the fact that the Capitol firebombed our District," even saying that out loud sounds terrible to her ears, and she winces a little bit. She had once remembered saying that everybody else knew her secrets before she did, but that was forced to change once the people whose side she was supposed to be on changed the rules of the Game and she was forced to hold her own agenda. No, not forced. Chose to do so. That part cannot be forgotten, for the sake of Finnick and Boggs and everyone else led to death by her lies.

"Because it was partially my fault and I didn't want him to hate me," does it need any further explanation? She can't find anything that paints her in a better light, but then again, she's not looking either. Even if it were possible.

Frankly, Katniss Everdeen could use some sugarcoating.

Edited 2011-01-21 01:12 (UTC)

Maybe Sawyer's never experienced anything quite that grave, that overarching, but it still isn't hard to picture. His own world has been metaphorically razed down before, and even if it isn't in a way that's quite as grave, one man instead of many, somehow Sawyer wonders if that might be worse. That a single person can unhinge a child, make his world feel hopeless, like he can only grasp at straws. He breathes and peers at Katniss, this girl who's rough around the edges, tries to picture her doing that to someone.

Doesn't work. She wouldn't. Not intentionally, not knowingly.

"So, you're sayin' you lied 'cause you're only human," Sawyer concludes with a slight shrug, pushing further back and leaning against the wall. "You didn't want someone you love t'hate you, and you didn't want him to hate you 'cause of somethin' you weren't totally responsible for. Human."

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(sawyer) light up, light up as if you have a choice

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