Low Life || Kyan

The weeks that Anaïs was away dragged for Kyan. He'd left her back in District 1 when he had to mentor, but this was the first time she'd left him to be somewhere else. And it was the first time since the 75th Hunger Games that they'd been apart. That homecoming was perhaps the worst either of them had experienced, but in the time that followed it, their relationship had strengthened. This trip to District 2 should be tame enough though, he had told himself plenty of times. She was going as part of her doctor's training - something he was of course proud of her for - and besides, what could happen to her there? It had the strongest Peacekeeping force in Panem to protect her. Oh, he'd come up with plenty of things that could happen of course, which was why he spent a vast majority of his time either working in the mines or his father's shop. It was infinitely better than being in an empty house, something he found he hated.

Anaïs was expected to be home today, and Kyan felt a mixture of anticipation and relief in that. It should be an easy reunion - she'd be exhausted maybe, but that was it. He hoped for that. He'd already worked in the mines this morning, planned dinner, and had already done some of the basic prep work. Now it was just dependent on when she came home. Taking a break from the kitchen, he'd been cleaning upstairs when he heard the front door open and shut. He stopped. There was no called greeting, but he didn't really expect one. He didn't know what kind of mood she was in, but it didn't matter - she was home and he'd give her whatever he needed right now. He tucked away the cleaning supplies and headed downstairs.

Kyan found his wife in the kitchen, taking gulps from a bottle of wine. The sight made him pause for a moment. He hadn't tried to hide the alcohol in a long while now that things had been somewhat stable for them. It didn't matter, he decided. The whole trip could have been stressful, and she just needed to relax. So he gave her a smile. "Anaïs, I'm-" But he was abruptly caught off by the look on her face, followed by her throwing herself into his arms. He caught her easily, holding tightly to her as she sobbed against him, feeling his mood plunge as confusion took over. What awful thing could have happened to her out there? Had she been kicked out of the program? Had someone tried to hurt her? The doctor she was training under perhaps? Scenarios played out in his mind, but he wasn't sure yet if he should be angry or just hold her or what. He rubbed her back gently as he waited for her to speak. And, pulling back, she finally did.

"Mariana is dead."

Kyan pulled back from Anaïs and took several steps away from her. Of all the things Kyan had thought about that could have happened to Anaïs while she was gone, this was far from any of it. Mariana and Anaïs were two completely different worlds in his mind, and the fact that Mariana could have been kept in the same district that Anaïs was going to had not even crossed his mind while she was gone. Anaïs had even mentioned once that she could look for Mariana, a few months before the trip, and he had shut it down instantly. He didn't want her getting involved with that, and so he had pushed the thought completely out of his mind when it came time for her to actually leave. He should have remembered, though. He should have been prepared for this.

After the shock, Kyan felt anger rise up in him. What kind of sick joke was this? Was Snow playing some new, twisted game? Did he find her and order her to tell him this, bringing her into this awful situation? Or was this somehow Anaïs' idea, a way to strike at him in retaliation for... for... what? They hadn't been perfect when she left, but he certainly hadn't done anything new to hurt her. No. He couldn't really believe that she would do something that low, make up something that awful, so he dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his head. It had to be Snow then, or something along those lines. This was definitely a lie. It had to be. He'd been sent a short video of Mariana after the 75 Games, showing her huddled in her cell, knees to her chest. Her face was turned up to the ceiling and she'd just let out one long, agonizing scream. The video lasted only a handful of seconds, but he had known what it meant. He'd lost both of his tributes, Anaïs' cousins, but he still had to be the good Kyan. Follow the rules. And he had. He'd been everything they could ever want in a victor, in their puppet.

Kyan gripped onto the counter next to him with one hand, the other at a fist by his side. "What are you talking about?" he asked in a forced even tone. He just needed to find out what the game was, and then he could figure out how to play it. "She isn't dead. Snow wouldn't ever let that happen. Did he catch you? Did he tell you to do this? I told you that I wanted you to stay out of it. It's too dangerous. She's my responsibility, and I've kept up my end." I've kept up my end, he thought again, waiting for Anaïs to respond.

---

WC: 963
Tag: Anaïs Zoera-Beryl
Notes: Extra

Kyan could see the pain all over his wife's face, and normally that would be enough to make him go to her. It would be enough for him to stop whatever he was doing and try to fix what was broken, even if that was a hopeless cause. Right now, though, he was stuck behind a wall of emotions that was threatening to burst. He was waiting for it all to be some ploy, some game that he had to figure out his part in and play. When it came to the Capitol, that's all Kyan Beryl's life ever was - a game he had to play the right way. And it had all really started after his Games had ended.

"That was an awfully wooden speech for someone who killed both of our tributes," someone said nearby.

Kyan was sitting alone on one of the less popular beaches, marveling at the vast expanse of blue green in front of him. It was far more spectacular than anything he'd seen back home. Looking away from the ocean, he shielded his eyes from the sun to peer up at the speaker, a girl. She was around his own age, with long brown hair and skin speckled with freckles. "Speeches were never really my thing," he said after a moment.

"So then what is your thing?" the girl asked, sitting down on the sand next to him.

Kyan only gave a bit of a shrug in response, turning his attention back to the water. He rested his arms on his knees, wanting solitude. This whole victory tour was a mess, and he was barely keeping it together between the speeches, his team, and the damn train. Next to him, the girl hugged her knees to her chest and studied the ocean as well. They sat that way for several long moments, and it seemed clear that the girl wasn't planning on going anywhere. Kyan looked back at her. She seemed perfectly at ease, the wind rippling through her hair and the fabric of her dress. "Who are you?" he finally asked.

"Mariana Pike," she said, glancing back to him with a small smile.

"You really think you should be sitting next to me, Mariana Pike? If you've been watching the screens, you'll know I'm not exactly a nice guy."

Mariana's smile only grew, seeming to light up her whole body. She brushed a stray brown curl behind her ear. "That was in there and we're out here. I'm not afraid of you, Kyan Beryl." She poked him with one finger as if to prove it, which caused him to wince a bit in surprise. "A girl can be curious, and I can take care of myself."

Back in his own kitchen, Anaïs' words were pouring over him. He wanted the meat of the story, and almost didn't have the patience for the story's preamble about some fellow doctor's life. If it was anyone but her, he might not have. So many times, he had seen the death firsthand - his parents, his aunt, the tributes he'd killed, and the tributes he'd lost. Each final breath or still face was captured in his memory, locked away under the wall he kept around his heart. But they were there, if he ever needed the confirmation. As for Mariana, he had only images of her vibrant life, and later her torture. The latter made so many memories that might once have been happy cause just as much pain as the torture.

"It's impossible," Kyan breathed, as the last of Anaïs' words hit him.

"You really mean it?"

"Yes. I love you, Mariana." Kyan kissed her again, breathing in the scent of roses and sea that would forever be associated with Mariana. He lay her back against the bed, his kisses slow and deliberate. For once, there was no train to rush back to, no obligation calling either of them away. No one in District 1 even knew he was here, and only her parents did here in Four. After a few moments, Mariana put a hand on his chest to stop him. When he pulled back, her eyes were bright.

"I love you, Kyan, and we're going to change everything together," she promised. "They can't keep doing this to us. To you." She moved out from under him and sat up on the bed. Letting out a breath of mild disappointment, he sat next to her. She put her hands on his cheeks, her blue green eyes looking intently into his. "Uncle Adrien is meeting with the others next week to finalize the plan. The Games will be the perfect cover. I can tell him you're with us, right?"

"Of course," Kyan said with a smile. "We'll take down the Capitol together." And when he kissed her this time, there was nothing more that needed to be said.

But they hadn't taken down the Capitol. That was the last time he had seen her without the aid of a screen. Early in those Games, Kyan had refused to be an escort for Snow and they had taken Mariana. They had kept her for the details of her plan - their plan. They had tortured her for information, and because of him. Because of who he was, or rather, what he was. They had tortured her for years, kept her locked away with the occasional reminder of her pain sent his way. He'd nursed dreams of freeing her in the beginning, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't get in contact with any of her family in Four, couldn't find any connections among his fellow victors, and couldn't press on anything too hard - because there were still others that could be taken. His guilt at not saving her had been at least equal to the guilt of putting her in there in the first place.

Only - four years. Four years meant she only suffered in their hell for maybe... a handful of months. But the videos, the pictures - they had still kept coming. How? There had only been that one brief conversation via screen, the very day President Snow had gleefully told Kyan where his girlfriend was. It had lasted maybe two minutes, and it was certainly real. He'd never questioned after that, because of course they wouldn't let him keep talking to her. But if she'd really been dead for four years...

Kyan turned away from Anaïs, stumbling toward the kitchen table and catching himself on it. He felt like he was going to be sick and still didn't want to believe it, but it was there in Anaïs' face. She couldn't lie to him about this. And if it was really President Snow, he'd twist the knife harder - saying that she'd died yesterday, that he hadn't really believed in his marriage to Anaïs and it cost Mariana her life. He would do it in a place he could record, or publicly on some interview with the whole nation watching. But that wasn't what was happening now. Anaïs, good actor though she could sometimes be, was clearly in pain. Her pain ached inside of his own. He felt as if it was a betrayal to her to feel it, and yet it wouldn't go away.

Kyan flipped the table up, hurling it toward the wall. The solid oak of it didn't break, and all it served to do was leave a dent in the wall. It wasn't good enough. He grabbed a chair and tossed it after the table. Another dent, and only a cracked chair. The second chair didn't even crack, but the hole in the wall was decent now. He'd bought better furniture after those early days, when breaking things was almost his routine. There were still things in the house that were breakable, but they were all behind him - where Anaïs was and beyond. And he couldn't face her. He didn't want her to see, but he didn't know what to do with everything inside of him.

Gripping a third chair, Kyan used it to keep himself upright. "They must think I'm such a damn idiot," he said darkly. "God, you too. All these years. How could I not have known? How could I-" The chair shook and he stopped trying to speak. His anger was leaving him, but he couldn't give in to the sadness waiting for him if he sat down. He should be alone, but right now he wasn't sure if he could move.

---

WC: 1419
Tag: Anaïs Zoera-Beryl
Notes: Sorry it's so crazy freakin long. I guess I found the only way to deal with what Kyan was feeling was via flashbacks.

Kyan felt Anaïs come closer to him and instantly tensed. He wasn't in a state where he could help her. He couldn't comfort her visible pain, and he didn't want to give her his own. His own complicated, pulsing pain. He couldn't watch what he said right now, couldn't be the Kyan he was always supposed to be. For the moment, his wall was down, the dam broken. He would build it up again, stronger, but he didn't have the energy right now. Right now, his brain was struggling to comprehend everything Mariana's death four years ago meant, and to do that, it was throwing him flashes of her. Flashes of their meeting, of his trips to Four, of their love, of her torture. All of it. And how could he handle that when another woman he loved, whom he'd married and would do anything to protect, was here with him.

Kyan winced when she touched him, stumbled a bit when she took his hands in her own. He stayed upright, although her holding his hands wasn't nearly as physically stabilizing as the solid oak chair had been. It must have kept him up in another way. He looked down at their connected hands, unable to bring himself to look at her face. His hands were large in hers. They were calloused hands, hands that had torn life from breathing people, hands that had doomed still others by inaction. Hands that might doom Anaïs one day too, or maybe they already had. And yet, she was holding those hands. It wasn't a gentle or fragile hold, as if one tiny movement or word could sever the connection. She gripped his hands, as if the world could shatter around both of them and she wouldn't let go. As if she still needed him.

There was nothing to say to all that, and while the pressure of being needed was a weight that kept him here, it was also the smallest bit sobering. He was still awash in the mental turbulence of her news, but he at least had a boat amidst the crashing waves. He closed his eyes, not sure if it was a way to concentrate on that or block out the noise in his mind. After a few moments, he felt her hands leave his and her entire self was pressed against him, holding him tightly. The new weight set him back another step, and his hands reflexively came up to steady her. His hands were just placed there on her sides, not accepting or rejecting her embrace, but just unnecessarily steadying her.

"I'm sorry, Kyan. I'm so sorry." The words took a few moments to hit him, after the embrace. Sorry. It's what you said, when someone loses someone else. But he was the one that was sorry. "I was going to save her," Kyan said softly. "I was going to save her by doing what he told me to do. But they never meant for me to save her." His hands slid along her back and he pulled her to him now, feeling the solidity of her. He buried his face in her hair, a part of him expecting the smell of the sea and of roses. But the salt on her skin was from tears, not the sea, and there was no hint of rose. The smell of Anaïs was so different from Mariana, so unique to her and something he craved now. He inhaled deeply, and felt the tears start to come. And for the moment, he let them.

There was no telling how long he stood there, holding Anaïs and pushing around everything in his head. He only knew when he had to stop, as another reminder hit him like a punch in the gut. His arms left her back and his hands went to either side of her face, pulling back only enough to look into her face for the first time since she'd told him. "I'm going to kill you, Anaïs," he said. It was not a threat or a warning really - it was just a sort of submission to the fate ahead of both of them. There was a small silence as that statement hung in the air before he could go on. "They are going to make me kill you, and if you never believed it before, you have to believe it now. You have to believe that it's going to happen. I'm cursed, and they know. Everyone knows it but you." He wiped away a line of her tears with his thumb, the touch surprisingly gentle despite the fervor in his voice. "My parents. My aunt. Seven tributes in my arena. Twenty kids who called me mentor. Felicity, and her baby. Mariana. Mariana's family, probably. Maybe more. I killed all of them. It doesn't matter if I meant it or not. What matters is that you have to get away from me, and I can't know where you're going. Tonight. Right now. Take my uncle with you, if you can. I can get you both to the trains, and once you're in another district, you'll find people to help you. I love you, and you're not going to be next." It was a feeble plan if ever there was one, but it was what he had. Kyan wanted to kiss her right now, one more time, but he only knew it would make it harder. He only kept eye contact, hoping she would see that he was right. "Trust me, Anaïs. Please."

---

WC: 930
Tag: Anaïs Zoera-Beryl

Kyan had been trying to scare her away. He wanted Anaïs to really realize how much of a cursed man he was, because it was the only way he could think of that might actually make her go. It was why he had listed his dead - the first time he had ever done so out loud, to anyone. It was a list that was often in his head, especially when he slept. That list should have scared nearly anyone away. It would have scared the Anaïs he had just forced to marry him, but he could see that it was not scaring her now. She didn't step back or pull away from him. She did have any reaction at all except to listen to him, just as close as she had been before the list. And when her first action after he was finished speaking was to take her hands in his again, he knew he had lost.

Anaïs was going to deny him this, and it tore another pain in his heart. Of course he wanted to be with her, more than almost anything else, but there was no way that being with her could be good for her. He had had that idea in the back of his head for a long time, but it was painfully clear now. Mariana was dead. He couldn't keep anyone alive. But if his list didn't tell her how dangerous he was, if the death of Mariana didn't tell her that, Kyan had no idea what could. Did she care so little for her own well-being that she wouldn't listen? Or was it the opposite - that she cared so much for him?

With a hopelessness in his heart, Kyan listened as Anaïs started talking. She was the opposite of what he had expected her to bein all of this. She was gentle, sweet, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking just how much he didn't deserve someone like this. It was toxic - he was toxic, and yet she was promising never to leave him. He had let someone he had once loved more than life itself die, but Anaïs was telling him that he made her feel alive. It didn't make any sense. After Mariana was taken away, he had mostly resigned himself to being alone forever. He had married Anaïs only for the benefit of his uncle and to avoid a far worse match in the Capitol. If he had married Glitter instead, she would probably have been the one entity he could keep safe, because she was Capitol born. But he hadn't, and here they were. He and Anaïs.

When she kissed him, Kyan couldn't help but kiss her back, pulling her closer still to him. There was, of course, a part of him that was relieved that she didn't want to go. The selfish part of him had wanted her to refuse, because she was the only thing left in his life that gave him meaning. If she had agreed to go off to some mysterious place without him, she'd be safe but he couldn't imagine being anything more than a shell of his former self. He would form no new attachments, protect his uncle, be a mentor, and be nothing else. He would truly give up, more than he had after Mariana. He would never feel anything like he felt now, holding Anaïs. He couldn't promise that if the opportunity didn't come up to send her somewhere safe that he wouldn't take it, but he wasn't going to fight it now. It wasn't only because he had no real fight in him, but because he didn't want to. Of course he still wanted her. He always would.

Kyan closed his eyes with his forehead against hers, letting the last words sink in. "Then what do we do?" he asked her after a few moments, his eyes finding hers again. He never asked anyone for help, rarely for advice. But he was asking for that now. "I can't-- Clearly, I can't protect you. I can't protect anyone, and that time is going to come. They still think they have the power of Mariana over me, and when they find out they don't, you're next. I can't let that happen. And how am I supposed to go back to being what they want now, after this? Keeping you safe by keeping you away from me is the only thing that makes sense, but if you won't go - and god, I don't ever want you to go, Anaïs - what am I supposed to do?"

---

WC: 772
Tag: Anaïs Zoera-Beryl