for all_at_sea : if I had a heart

[whisted]

Jack Simpson is enjoying this.

That, more than anything, is what has Horatio Hornblower feeling so painfully trapped. There had been a terrible sinking in his gut when his own name had been called during the reaping. There had been a heavy weight that lingered even after his mother's hand was dragged from his shoulder and his father's voice had vanished from his ears. For all that had ripped something from him, the odd inevitable hadn't been so terrible. A piece of him, even now, thinks he could manage to have properly accepted it.

But then, through the haze, had come the harrowing sound of Simpson's name. That had been far too much far too fast. That had been the worst sort of death warrant; the immediate shifting of hope toward dying at the hands of anyone but his District's other tribute.

None of the rest of it had helped, of course. Being dragged far from home was excruciating. Being poked and prodded and needled and explained to, by tense displeased voices, that he somehow didn't even stand and wear his clothes correctly was torturous. Even the odd comfort of being handed into the care of his mentor was undercut by the horrific fact of Simpson standing nearly constantly beside him, practically preening with a nauseating sort of pride.

In defense of the prep team, of course, Horatio apparently doesn't know how to stand properly. It doesn't matter that his fingers grip tight to the chariot, or that all he properly has to do in the Tribute Parade is actually stand still with the faintest bit of a smile. It's just a blessing, Pellew is certainly sighing to himself, that the Capitol seems to find a tribute managing to fall off the back of a chariot faintly endearing.

(Simpson will make his life hell for it later. Thankfully, Horatio doesn't anticipate having that much more life to have to suffer through.)

It will be better, he tells himself, when they can be separated in the Training Center. It will almost be enjoyable, perhaps, to have these few days of being able to make some small amount of space for himself before Jack Simpson thoroughly enjoys killing him.

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[whisted]

Holding James's hand for a few heartbeats helps. It isn't quite the same as it was during the week. It isn't as infinitely reassuring--it can't be, with the strange semi-silence of the arena pressing around them.

It still helps to cling for just a moment.

Horatio's breath comes slow and quiet as he can manage. There's no stopping the brief tensing as James begins pulling fabric clear and dabbing at the wound. Another few breaths brings his heart rate back down a few pegs, attention focused as best as he can on James rather than his pain.

"You think... we can... s-stay here? For a bit?"

Pushing through the pain in his side wouldn't be the end of the world. Sitting until this ache is a little easier to breathe through would be better.

[all_at_sea]

Horatio is much better at this than James is. James has always been taught not to get hurt in the first place. Getting hurt means you get slowed down, slowing down means getting killed. Or at least, that was District 1's opinion as a whole. They trained you to fight, and be very, very good at fighting, but there was so much more to it that they never actually bothered to tell anyone. What to do with wounds. How to find food and drink. How to know if the food you'd found was safe.

On those aspects, Horatio is far better off than he is, and James is grateful. He does know a few things about survival. About tactics. Not staying in one place too long is part of that.

"We can stay a while. Get our breath." He agrees. He knows Horatio needs some more time. Probably more time than they have, but he'll do what he can to try and look after him. That's what he promised, after all.

The gash in Horatio's chest is just about clean now, and another strip of clean cloth is pressed against it, just to make sure that it's protected, that there's not so much blood oozing thickly from it. James can shift, move to sit close to Horatio, picking up the machete and shoving the blade into the dirt. If someone does turn up, he doesn't want to be scrabbling around in the leaves for it.

"We will need to move, in a little while. But I think we're okay to rest here for an hour or so. We just need to be somewhere safer before nightfall."

[whisted]

Horatio is fairly skilled at getting hurt. He hasn't had much practice at fighting, but he has years of experience at taking punishment.

This is worse, admittedly.

It gets easier to breathe once the bandaging is somewhat in place. It gets easier still once his hand can grope to the side and find James's again.

"I don't need an h-hour."

(He needed several. He needed not to be here at all. He needed somewhere quiet to let the bile up into his throat. He needed to cry for longer than he possibly had left to live.)

"We c-can keep moving. Just... I just need-- a minute."

[all_at_sea]

James' fingers curl with Horatio's, holding tight. There's no noise around them save the wind in the canopy, a few birds. If the birds stopped, it was probably because something was around that shouldn't be. There were safe, for the moment.

"We can wait." He says gently, his voice confident and quiet. He needs Horatio to recover a little bit before they do anything more, they both need time. They've lost blood, they've had to fight and run and adrenaline isn't enough. They need more than that, they need time and a moment to breathe and rest. "I need a few minutes too. And then we'll find somewhere to stay overnight. "I need a few minutes too. And then we'll find somewhere to stay overnight."

He reaches for the water canteen again, taking a small sip, and then moving a little closer to Horatio, squirming a little closer in the shelter of the tree roots. It's not a bad little place, if there weren't people looking for them, wanting to kill them, he could stay here with Horatio, curled up close around each other.

[whisted]

James sounds certain. It's a small thing; likely even a forced thing. It doesn't matter.

Trusting James is just as easy here as it had been when they first stepped together for a dance.

Horatio's breath comes a little easier as James shifts closer. His fingers find a more comfortable position settled between the older boy's, less desperate and more steady. His entire body slumps just slightly, leaning back against the mass of tree roots for support as his attention darts briefly skyward toward the canopy.

"Can... Can they see us? A-At home?"

Do his parents know he's alive?

[all_at_sea]

James nods. He's certain of it. He's certain every single second since the plinths rose up through the clearing's floor has been captured. Every second for every Tribute, probably from multiple angles.

"There's cameras everywhere, I should think." After all, he's seen enough footage of the previous Games. It's clear that the Tributes can't always see the cameras trained on them, but they're there all the same.

He doesn't care. His father might be watching, Elizabeth Swann will be watching, the rest of his District. But he knows Horatio is thinking about his parents.

"They'll know you're okay Horatio. I'm sure they know." He says softly. "They'll have been watching. They'll know you patched me up, and you're safe. They know we're keeping each other safe, just like we said we would."

[whisted]

They'll know he's alive. They'll know that he patched James up, and that James did the same. They'll know that, at least for now, the promises are holding.

They'll know he killed Jack Simpson.

Horatio's breath comes tight in his chest for a moment. Maybe it's best not to think about it. Maybe this just has to be shut out like almost everything else happening to them.

After one last moment. After one last heartbeat of looking around them in uncertainty and briefly, purposefully, tugging their joined hands up over their heads.

It helps his breathing to know they'll have seen this piece of the day.

[all_at_sea]

James lets Horatio tug his hand in the air. It's a symbol of their success and defiance and partnership, it shows that the Games haven't yet beaten them. It's important that the Capitol see that.

But there's something else behind it too, something else in Horatio that he'd only seen in momentarily flashes before. When they were training together and Horatio had him pinned, when they had to walk out in front of those cameras and be interviewed. Just now.

Horatio is a quiet boy. He's sweet and thoughtful and smart. But he's also brave. Much braver than James.

He leans back against the tree once their hands go back down, letting his shoulder press against Horatio's, and lets his heartbeat calm down. It's very easy to be utterly in love with him.

"That will be on the front of every newspaper in Panem in the morning." He says, laughter in his tone. "Caesar and his flair for the dramatic must be rubbing off on you."

[whisted]

For the space of a breath, Horatio's vision swims. The papers had been full, last year, of pictures of the last moment of Archie Kennedy's life; of the tall figure of the Career just before--and just after.

"Better-- that than s-something else."

There would inevitably be photos of the two of them. That much had been painfully clear from the final interview. It would be far better for his parents to be confronted with this flicker of defiance than the terrible image of their son killing a boy he had grown up alongside.

A piece of him also hates the idea of his parents having to cope with the image of James killing Beckett. He's not completely certain where the impulse comes from, but it's terrible to think they might imagine James cold and ruthless.

This is better.

[all_at_sea]

James murmurs a soft agreement with that. He knows that there will be pictures of the fallen Tributes- they all had to pose for them before they came here. He doesn't know if Horatio's parents know what a monster Simpson was, he can only imagine they must have done. It's better that Horatio killed him than the other way around. Simpson would gloat, would drag it out and no parent needs that. Even so, no one should have to die. No one should have to kill someone else.

He pulls Horatio a little closer, pressing his face into Horatio's hair, breathing him in. They both smell like blood and mud and leaves and fear, but they're safer together than they are apart.

"I'd like to learn how to make bread." James says gently, if only because right now he wants to distract Horatio from what has just happened, and the breadmaking seems to be a good, happy memory. "What do you have to do? Is it difficult?"

[whisted]

His heart is beating at a more regular interval now. His breath is coming at a steadier pace. The pain in his side is sinking into a dull ache, present but not as distracting as it had been before it was cleaned and covered.

Everything is just about to catch up with him. This entire week, this last terrible hour; all of it is about to come crashing down on his heart. But then there's James, nuzzling close against his hair. Then there's James, murmuring softly as if it were any other day--as if they might well have to get up in a moment and have to stumble their way through another dance.

His breath comes easier as he lets himself rest more properly against the older Tribute. "A... A lot of it is... measuring properly. And... getting g-good at kneading the dough."

[all_at_sea]

James knows that this distraction might not work for very long. It might not work very well but it's all he can come up with right now. There's shock, after something like this. He wants to stave off that for as long as he can, for both of them.

After all he does want to learn how to make bread. With Horatio. In Horatio's parents kitchen. He wants that so much. And he doesn't want to think about what his father will have to say about Cutler's death, about how sloppy it was. About how Cutler deserved a better end than the one James gave him.

"Kneading sounds like something I could manage. I don't know how exact I could be with measuring."

[whisted]

"That's part of why... y-you don't do it alone."

There was something practical to having many hands for large-scale baking, of course. There was something simple and logical about divisions of labor and working with many hands at once.

It's just that it was also a chance to be together without anyone trying to drag the family apart.

[all_at_sea]

James pauses. He wants to say that if they get out of there, Horatio can help him with the measuring out. That there is no one else he'd like to make bread with, or try to make bread with anyway.

But it's still early days and they still have so much to do. They can't hope for rescue, because there is no guarantee it will come. If they can make it to the third day, then James will tell him.

Besides, if the camera are on them, then they can hear as well as see the boys. He can't jeopardise all the work Pellew and Barbara are doing.

"Shall we go find a camp site?"

[whisted]

Finding a place to hide will be a better distraction. It will also, with any luck, exhaust this last bit of adrenaline out of Horatio's system. They'll need to take shifts, of course, but it would be better to be worn down to the point of actually being able to take those few hours of sleep.

Horatio shifts away from the comfort of being pressed closed to James's side carefully. He takes a heartbeat to simply lean forward; to test the sensation of motion in his newly-bandaged chest. The ache shifts and pulses but doesn't get worse.

"...okay."

It would be easier to get up if he took his hand back, but that much separation feels impossible. Scrambling to his feet is a quiet but inelegant thing.

[all_at_sea]

It's not easy to get up without letting go of each other, but they manage it, James picking up the machete and letting his fingers curl around the tang. It might not be a sword, but if they have to make a camp, then it'll be more use than a sword could be.

He lets his fingers squeeze gently against Horatio's again, a gesture that's becoming familiar, but one that seems to help both of them settle, to focus. It's a link, a reminder that they are a team, a partnership.

And when it comes to finding somewhere safe to rest, Horatio is the expert. James has no experience at all in having to survive outdoors. They go slowly, making little noise, and if it weren't for the fact that every tree could hide someone waiting to kill them, the woods aren't that bad. James could almost enjoy them.

"What are we looking for?" James asks, trying to keep his voice as low as possible, trying to help as best he can.

[whisted]

"We..."

It's a stuttering thing. It takes a half-step to remember to duck and pick up the knife, to catch up the canteen. It takes another to get breathing again.

"...we want to avoid-- being at eye-line."

Which is one thing when it's a matter of stalking rabbits. Which is another thing when it's a matter of tracking a deer. Which is entirely new when it's a matter of being tracked by humans.

"Stay low or get high. Be good if we could find an outcropping or a tree."

[all_at_sea]

James nods. Somewhere out of the way, somewhere they aren't going to be easily seen.

He glances up, at the tall trees surrounding them. Some look impossibly high, without any lower branches to make the climb simple, without many thicker branches to settle in once the climb was over.

"We have a lot of trees to choose from." There might be an outcrop of rock, the cliff by the Cornucopia suggests it, but they have no way of knowing where that might be. He'd much prefer it to a tree, although he supposes on a practical level a tree will do, at least for the night.

There is only one problem with trees.

He sucks in a breath, his eyes moving away from the towering trunks and back to Horatio, who clearly has no problem with trees.

"I don't like heights."

[whisted]

Trees had been a reality since Horatio was a child. It hadn't mattered that, as a tiny scrap of a boy, they had been terrifying. It hadn't mattered that he'd stumbled and fallen once or twice; hated desperately the idea of having to go back up.

Life had required him to keep going. Before he knew it, Horatio had barely noticed the height.

But he remembers the sickening sensation clearly enough.

"...we could go low, then. Look for-- maybe more of a cave or-- a break in the rocks. That sort of thing."

[all_at_sea]

James appreciates the alternatives. He is glad that Horatio doesn't make anything of the fact, that he makes no comment about tall people being afraid of heights.

He does appreciate it. But he's not sure how good an alternative it is.

"We can do. But I'm not sure how many caves we'll find. That aren't occupied already. Or booby-trapped."

James doesn't trust the Gamemakers to make a shelter for them and leave it safe and habitable. Even if they have, another Tribute may already have found it. He doesn't want to have to fight someone again if he can avoid it.

Besides... he can manage a tree. A tree should be easy. Besides, part of him wants to impress Horatio. Mastering a fear would probably be a good way to start.

[whisted]

"Same problem with the trees."

Trees, after all, often came with their own natural sort of booby-trapping. The thought prompts Horatio to crouch a little lower as they walk, hand tugging once at James's.

There would almost certainly be tracker jackers in the woods. The Tributes from District 7 would most likely know how to avoid them. The Tributes from District 11 always seemed--after at least twelve years of experience--to have the best handle on coping with them.

Which meant just Horatio.

Or, more properly, which meant just Horatio and, by proxy, James.

[all_at_sea]

"Point taken." James breathes as Horatio ducks down after a pointed look at the trees. He doesn't need to name a specific threat, there are enough things in the wild that can hurt them. Tracker jackers, carnivorous birds, poisonous plants, strangle-vines. James doesn't want to meet any of them. Then again, there are worse things than another Tribute that could be in a cave.

But it will be dark soon. Dark and they need to have found somewhere to rest before then. Horatio needs to be able to sit and rest and James needs time to think.

They go on for a while longer, with only the distant sound of screams to interrupt them. James stops them until the canon fire sounds, and the noises end.

It makes James even more desperate to fund somewhere safe for them. There is a steep bank in the slope, rock with trees and shrubs clinging to the crags.

There's a fissure in the rocks, narrow and half hidden by undergrowth. James isn't sure how he spots it, but he does, and gently tugs Horatio's hand.

"Worth checking?"

[whisted]

Moving quietly is always exhausting. It's just that it's particularly exhausting when the woods might erupt at any moment with the cruelty of human violence.

They pass half a dozen trees that would almost serve. All of them have to be rejected; branches slightly too high, cover slightly too thin, chances that James will fall too great.

Thank goodness James spots a lower option. Horatio feels his breath come back into his lungs--breath he had, apparently, been holding since the cannon fire above their heads.

"Throw something in first?"

[all_at_sea]

That seems sensible. He lets go of Horatio's hand, crouching down to find a couple of small rocks in the leaf-litter. The hand on the machete tightens, creeping closer to the cave and leaving Horatio further away. The gap is narrow, but they can squeeze through- and anyone already in there won't be able to come out at a rush.

Unless they're something small. Small and nasty.

But maybe their luck will hold out.

He tests the weight of one of the stones, and then, after a brief glance back to Horatio, he throws it in. There's not angry shout, no mammalian shriek or hiss of reptile, and so he tries another stone, at a slightly different angle. The only noise is a thud as the stone hits the ground within.

He moves a little closer and uses the machete to poke inside, and then ducks in. It's dark and dim but dry and once he's squeezed through the narrow gap in the rock, there is room enough for the two of them.

He pulls himself out again, and gestures Horatio over.

"Home sweet home. With some curtains, it will be lovely."

[whisted]

The approach is cautious and calculating. It keeps Horatio breathing slow and easy as he watches, practically motionless apart from his chest rising and falling.

It's possible he stops breathing when James disappears into the crevice. It's possible his shoulders slump visibly with relief when James appears again.

He's not certain when his fingers caught tight hold of the knife, but the loosen as he moves to follow James into the dark little space.