#2serpents

peter leaned against the rotting doorframe, watching the dying embers of a long-left campfire as though summoned to share in her malaise. the final glow of the coals barely touched her in the night, her small frame engulfed by the shadows. invisible. [there was a reason why he hadn't yet taken a spot beside her, one he couldn't quite place.. with her knees pulled to her chest and the accompanying silence of the district's furthest corner, the empty seat beside her was less than inviting.] there was something so discomforting about the fact; quiet resignation settled over her like ash from the burnt-out fire, the seemingly rapid thinning of her limbs and the allowing of decay. it was though she was disappearing before him one inch at a time, and he couldn't stop it. he could barely stomach it. and yet, he only had himself to blame. he had dragged himself through her footprints into this forgotten corner of district 8, thinking he could pull her back out. someone had to. but days turned into weeks of the same bleak routine. wake up, hunt, survive. maybe it wasn't only her he was saving. she looked at him sometimes like she knew. [peter couldn't stay in the capitol, couldn't go home, lest he was looked at, touched. he couldn't stand to see those eyes, feel those hands. what did it say about him that being with octavia was the only place he could stand? the only place he felt safe? they once had each other at their mercy, kneeling to a knife's edge. it was there he was sure she had recognised how that place had hollowed him out and left him raw, like an open wound. how there was no return for someone like him without drowning in the weight of it.] his gaze flickered over the smallness that made her. her quiet reminded him, briefly, of the arena the lull before the storm. how still the world felt before peter stuck a blade into edward's eye, the only competitor that threatened his rank, his popularity. but they weren't in the arena anymore, there was no one left to kill but themselves. piece by agonising piece. he was sure he'd be dead if not for the warmth of her shadow.

the jungle presses on peter like a second living thing. it felt as though two thick, oppressive arms had looped around his neck like a hangman's noose except instead of drawing him up, it weighted him towards the ground. the grass was his grave; a soft bed that would indeed fetch no visit, nor raise a stone to mark his falling, only a place to rest his weary head until the cannon boomed, by which time he would've succumbed to some eternal slumber. was dying not to sleep? his body had began to spit out the rot as it detoxed from the capitol's nostrums; pleading for faux sustenance. peter had pinned her beneath him, a knee at either side of her, her hair tossed across the pillow of stalks and leaves. octavia's eyes didn't plead; they challenged. go on. i'm dead anyway. the words resonated deeper than they should have, more than they ever had. the games were as described, a conquest without winners. it didn't matter who he had to cut down to achieve his own means. peter had killed for less provocation sticking a knife in the eye of his first real competitor and twisting until he was no longer a threat to own prowess spotlit by the mere flicker of camp-light and far-off television screens. but in truth, his first victim paled in comparison. he should've relished in the moment. the knife trembled. this was what they wanted, wasn't it? the capitol, the sponsors. their snake in the grass, slithering through the arena and picking off the tributes one by one. the grip on his titular part was waning, fraying like the hem of his blood-soaked shirt. 5-1 odds, practically unheard of. and yet, octavia's stare was pinning him harder than his weight ever could. she bore a face without fear, dead long before his blade kissed her neck. and as peter stared back, the paler her skin appeared. the more hollow. the more resigned.