The Hunger Games (Aftermath of War Edition)

[thelastbecket]

The war ends and Raleigh's still alive. It's a surprise to him. He didn't have any plans for after because he hadn't planned on there being one for him. He was sure something in the war would kill him, but he had things to do like protecting Chuck and Mako without them noticing, so he fought against those things, coming out on top, and then...then it was over and he wasn't dead so he had to keep living.

He thought about being done with it while they were still sorting things out in the Capital's ruins. He still had a gun and he was so tired of everything. There wasn't a need for him anymore. His body was rendered nearly useless by scars and nerve damage. His limbs didn't do what he wanted them too a third of the time and his mind didn't cooperate most of the time. He was obsolete.

But then Mako showed up and asked him to stand with her and Stacker, just to be seen, not to say anything. Apparently, he had uses he hand't thought of. Mako keeps asking things of him, so he keeps delivering. Then they're settling down. He follows Mako to a part of the country he'd never seen before. There's forest and ocean, a beautiful combination that doesn't remind him of any games, just home and a new start. They fix the remnants of a town not far into the forest from the beach.

Raleigh elects to turn what looks like an old fishing station on a jut of the beach into his home. It's a long walk from the town, but not an unmanageable one for any of them. It's a much shorter distance to the cabin Chuck's built for himself in the forest. It's away from the town, but Mako says he travels into it often and works there.

Raleigh wants to see him, but he can't bring himself to leave the beach and the edge of the trees near his new home. He swims a lot and wonders what would happen if he just stopped treading water one day. He doesn't though, because Mako brings him food in exchange for the nets he makes and the fish he catches, the crustaceans he hauls out of the water. He feels like she'd be disappointed in him if he was gone one day.

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[suicidemission]

"Yeah, mate." He's standing there on the front porch, rocking on his heels with his arms crossed. Raleigh rounds the corner and Chuck smirks at him, though his face is, as always, drawn and pale and weary. He looks older than his years, they all do.

"God you sound like shit," he says cheerfully, carefully picking his way towards Raleigh, hopping off the porch to meet him at the corner of the house. "The fuck've you been doing?"

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh wants to answer Chuck with words, he really does, but speech isn't a thing that comes easy for him anymore and even more than that he's out of practice. Mako never expects him to actually talk to her. Chuck obviously wants a response. So, Raleigh waves behind him, around the building towards his tarp and net, as well as the fishing lines embedded in the sand and the lobster floaters out a ways from shore.

His eyes are locked on Chuck, though. Drinking in his face, and the way he looks healthier than the last time they saw each other, even if the effects of everything are still prominent in his face.

[suicidemission]

Chuck's eyes follow his hand; nets and floaters and all that shit indicates fishing. He settles his hands on his hips and nods, approving.

"Right. Well--"

He hesitates. Mako asked him to check on Raleigh, not sit around and keep him company, but he doesn't feel right leaving just yet. There's some things he needs to say, but the time -- it's not right, just now.

"--show me around?"

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh's lips turn up at the corners ever so slightly and he ducks his head in a nod, as though that's going to help his vocal chords. He tries again though to speak.

"Yeah, sure."

He gestures for Chuck to follow him up the small porch and into the house. The door opens into the small living room and kitchen combo. The only furniture is a small table with two chairs. There's a third in one corner of the room, though. The building itself may look careworn but everything inside of it is obviously meticulously clean and cared for.

Raleigh waves his arm around with a wry look. His house wasn't very big. He opens the door to the small bathroom, barely large enough to hold a tub, a sink, and the toilet. It's as clean at the other room. The second door, the last one is his bedroom. There's a soft cot rolled up in the corner with a neat stack of pillows and blankets, and a hammock strung from two corners of the room.

The only decorations, or signs that a person really lives there are the shells and pieces of sea glass on the window sills.

[suicidemission]

'S nice," Chuck says, strolling with him, hands jammed into his pockets. "Kinda like mine. Got a little bigger kitchen but my bedroom's smaller."

He wanders over to the window and eyes the shells, the pieces of glass and he plucks on up, holds it in his hand and then up in front of his face.

"This is pretty."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh nods along with Chuck's description of his house. Watching Chuck there, in his home made Raleigh both nervous and excited in good ways. Ways he wasn't sure he'd been excited in since before his first games. He picks up one of the shells, not even one of Raleigh's favorites and calls it pretty and Raleigh's heart surges in his chest.

"You can have it." His words are coming back to him slowly but surely. "I've got a bucket."

He does in face have a small bucket of shells and sea glass each. Mako had promised him some wire for the next net he made and he was going to attempt to make jewelry out of some of the pieces if he could. He wasn't sure how good of a chance he had, but it was a new idea, one he liked.

[suicidemission]

He brings it down, thumb idly rubbing over it and he glances at Raleigh, brows up.

"You sure?"

Raleigh doesn't seem to be fucking with him though, and he grins, cheek dimpling as his lips spread into a slow smile.

"Thanks, mate. It'll look nice, in my kitchen."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh nods at Chuck's question, and the slow smile that steals over the younger man's face sucks the breath from Raleigh's lungs. If he had known Chuck would smile like that for a shell Raleigh would have swallowed his panic and taken all of the shells he found to Chuck's home.

He smiles back, the tips of his ears turning pink.

[suicidemission]

Sometimes it's the simplest things that garner the most emotional reactions. Chuck's smile is fleeting because his happiness is, but for a brief moment he glows like a sunrise, all orange and fiery and radiantly burning.

"Find anymore like this, lemme know, yeah?" He slips the shell into his pocket, fingers rubbing over the ridges.

He's not sure what else to say beyond 'thanks', so he shuffles a little, and heads to the door.

"I'll come back tomorrow to check in, okay?"

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh swallows and nods at Chuck. He's pretty sure he's got a few of those in the bucket already, and if not, he's got plenty of time to look in the ocean for them. If he finds more, he'd have motivation, something to shore up against the panic and he could try and visit Chuck himself, even after Mako got back.

"Sure." He says to both questions. He half wants to Chuck to stay, but he can't. He's already overwhelmed, just by ten minutes and one smile. He remembers the propaganda. The Girl in Blue and the Boy on Fire. Mako and Chuck had led the charge after busting out of the arena while they tried to brainwash him against them.

It's still rough going some days knowing which way is up and which down, whether or not he's supposed to trust Mako when she shows up at his door, but the thinks that smile, and the shells might help him remember.

[suicidemission]

Chuck cants his head in Raleigh's direction, then saunters out the front door, letting it bang shut behind him, leaving the house one shell less but somehow still resonating with his presence.

Raleigh's presence sticks with Chuck, too. Chuck spends the rest of the afternoon running laps, pouring sweat, trying to evict the sesation of loss he felt when he'd left Raleigh's house. He's not sure what it is, why he feels like he's left a piece of himself back there, but he wants the sensation gone, immediately.

Running does nothing and so when the sun sets and he's in danger of tripping and breaking his ankle he ventures the distance to the beach and scavenges a few oysters, digging them ouf of their shells and eating them raw, and finding a shining, black pearl in the process.

He takes it to Raleigh tomorrow, clutching it in his hand and calling Raleigh's name until he appears.

"Found something for you," Chuck tells him, holding his hand out. "Last night."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh goes back to the net when Chuck leaves, using the repetitive familiar motions to sort out his head and put everyone and everything in back in it's place. It makes him feel better than he has in a long time. It feels like a step towards something rather than hiding.

He sleeps through more of the night than he usually does, and looks forward to Chuck coming back when he wakes up.

When Chuck appears, calling his name and holding his hand out, Raleigh's cautious about approaching him. He does it slowly, not because he doesn't trust Chuck, but he because he doesn't trust himself. They attempted to reprogram his brain, and sometimes he thought they might have succeeded for a few minutes here and there. He stops with a semi-close, but safe distance between them and holds out his own hand.

[suicidemission]

Chuck knows what they tried to do to Raleigh; Chuck killed a lot of peopel for that, too.

He waits patiently for Raleigh to open his hand and when he does, he drops the little black pearl into his palm.

"Found it last night when I was shucking oysters," he says, shrugging his shoulders and scuffing the sand with his boot. "Thought you might like it."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh stares at the little pearl in his hand for a moment before he brings it up to his face between his forefinger and thumb and smiles.

"I do, thank you. Black pearls are-" He pauses a moment frowning while he tries to fish for the word. "-very rare."

[suicidemission]

"Really?"

Chuck's clueless about pearls, he knows they're round, usually white, and always beyond his price range, which he had always given zero fucks about. Still, he's glad that Raleigh seems to like it, and that he's smiling.

"Well. There ya go then, mate."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh keeps hold of the pearl, planning to gently hand drill a hole through it and put it on a strong piece of fishing like to wear around his neck later.

He's not sure what to say or do around Chuck. Mako is easy, she doesn't expect anything from him. They didn't know each other beyond passing in a hallway, before. Chuck, though, they fought together and went to parties for two years before going back into the games. He wants to try harder though.

"Lobster for dinner if you want to-?"

[suicidemission]

Chuck quirks a brief smile.

"Yeah. That'd -- be great."

Hell, he can't remember the last time he's had lobster. He's great at getting oysters for himself and eating them raw - they don't require a lot of cooking, which isn't something Chuck's great at. Before winning the Games it'd just been him and Herc and because Herc was a previous Victor, he'd grown up in relative comfort.

Mercifully, he'd trained and learned and figured it out, otherwise he would've died of starvation in the Games. He tended to burn most things though, and lobster continued to elude him.

"Need...help with anything?"

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh shakes his head smiling again and jogging off towards the water, diving in and swimming, moving faster and even more gracefully than he did on land. He cuts through the breakers and makes it out to the floating buoys in no time. He raises a cheeky hand to Chuck before he dives for the boxes at the bottom and the lobsters in them. He drags them up and back to shore, shaking out his body as he hist dry sand.

"You can set the table when they're cooked if you want." He knows Chuck doesn't like to just do nothing.

[suicidemission]

Chuck patiently waits for Raleigh to come back (mostly patiently, he fidgets, just a little), then brightens when he emerges (like a god, that's not even fair, Becket).

"Cool," he says, watching him carefully, still not entirely at ease around him but not pushing him away, either. "Will do."

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh keeps his distance from Chuck for the most part. Not even touching him when they round the corner of the house again and head inside of it. He drips carelessly onto the worn wooden planks of floor, padding into the kitchen on light feet. The lobster crates get stacked in the floor while he pulls an enormous slightly dented pot off the top cabinet and starts filing it with water.

He turns back briefly to motion at the kitchen chairs, inviting Chuck to sit.

[suicidemission]

It's for the best. Chuck's not exactly handsy either, and when Raleigh gestures he flops down in the chair, arms crossing over his chest.

...Being around Becket isn't so bad. He's quiet, Chuck doesn't feel like he has to fill the silence, and there's a certain amount of camaraderie that comfortable. They'd been through a lot together and while Chuck doesn't know him (Chuck almost killed him, he can't forget it, wont forget) he thinks maybe...he'd like to.

Maybe. Possibly.

[thelastbecket]

After a couple of minutes, Raleigh opens up the top cabinet revealing a small radio with dials inside. He twists it on and the new radio stations, the ones where the districts were broadcasting their own music, and whatever talk they want scatter by, something that sounds like artful static from district three, drums from five, and finally Raleigh settles on a low voiced duet from district 12.

"Let me know if something starts to bother you."

[suicidemission]

He watches Raleigh move with hooded eyes, taking in his movements, the choice of music.

"It's fine," he says quietly, leaning back in his chair as he looks around, out of the window - anywhere, really.

[thelastbecket]

Raleigh hums along to the songs that play over the next few minutes, obviously familiar with the station and its music. He fixes up the pot with butter and a some herbs from his cabinets then drops the lobsters in.

"We should step outside for a few minutes."

He makes for the door himself.

[suicidemission]

Chuck is less familiar with it. He doesn't -- listen to the radio much. He should, he has one, but he doesn't.

"...Alright."

He watches Raleigh warily, then gets up, and follows him out.