thecapitol | Existing in a playground of stone

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Existing in a playground of stone

Who| Courfeyrac & Max
What| Max comes back and she's not a baby anymore.
Where| Courf's room in D11
When| Just after coming back from the mini-arena.
Warnings/Notes| ???

He was tired, angry, and he never wanted to see water again in his life. Slinking back to the D11 suites, he promptly ignored everyone else and the greetings from the management team in favor of barricading himself in his bedroom for a little R&R. He wished to be alone. He wished to brood. Or at the very least, he wished to smoke in peace.

He didn't bother switching on the lights, even. Instead, he shut the door behind him and began peeling off his clothes, pausing at his dresser to find the cigarettes he'd stashed in there a few days before. He flicked the lighter, lit the cigarette, then froze, having the sensation rush over him so suddenly that he was being watched.

"Who's in here?" Eyes narrowed, he stared into the dark, silently cursing his shoddy eyesight as he backtracked for the light switch on the wall.

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"Didn't anyone tell you that smoking was bad for your health?" Max stood up from where she lounged on his bed, and walked over only to snatch the cigarette away from his still hand. He looked the same. Everything looked that same, as though she'd simply gone to sleep and woke again in the morning. Even the clothes that waiting for her in her closet where the same tiny outfits that she remembered training in. Only she was different. Wrong.

The dreams of this place had been so strong, so real, that she never let go of a single detail as she grew up. Life happened and she couldn't dwell on dreams, but then she was here again and for a moment Max had thought she might have gone crazy. Maybe she had never escaped Manticore for the second time. Maybe she was locked away and this place was her escape.

And then she'd been brought to the suits of District 11 and it became more than a dream. She didn't linger long in her own room, instead she escaped to the person that had given her some sort of comfort and feeling of belonging. Courfeyrac. The room smelled like him and his clothes, those stupid Capitol clothes, made her grin. Max decided she was going to wait for him and prayed that he wouldn't turn away from her now that she was so wrong. So grown.

Courfeyrac stared at the woman before him. Gaped, actually, was likely the more accurate term. She was a mystery to him, something unfamiliar, something new he couldn't quite define. This beautiful creature before him, snatching away his cigarette, resting in his bedroom as if it were her own, gazing at him with a look on her face which he couldn't quite name. Affection? Fondness? Something more extreme than that or less?

Regardless, he was stunned by her presence, but not quite able to recognize that the woman before him was his own darling Max. What a fool he was, so blind that he could not see the one he'd cried for was there in front of his face. Instead, he scowled at her, in a somewhat playful way, attempting to be casual as he reached for his discarded clothes.

"Didn't anyone teach you how to knock, miss?" Absent was the ever present mademoiselle, replaced with the clumsy sounding English word. "Where I am from it is considered bad manners to barge into another's quarters without their permission. And it is considered scandalous for a young woman such as yourself to enter a man's room alone like this."

He tugged his shirt back on, barely breaking eye contact with her. God, but she was beautiful. He felt like an ass for even noticing.

She had to smile at his foolish face. The look he gave her wasn't as familiar as the brotherly concern he always showed, but those eyes were wonderful to see. Max didn't turn away as he dressed, she didn't even break eye contact; she'd seen enough naked people in her young life to not be bothered by something like skin. Instead she kept smiling, wondering if he knew, and then he spoke and called her miss, and how adorable was that?

"Not many locks where I'm from, plus I figured we're past bad manners and being scandalized, Big Bro."

"Big Bro?" He repeated the words slowly, stupidly, as it suddenly dawned on him that he was indeed staring at Max. In an instant everything was clear. How could he have missed it? Her eyes were the same. Her smile was the same. Even the tone of her voice, though it had changed with age, was recognizable. It was his Max, there before him, but she was different now. For a moment, he thought that he might cry. Instead he wrapped her into his arms, not giving a damn about anything else, if only for the moment.

"My God, I thought I had lost you." She felt so different in his arms now. She didn't feel the same. She was so tall, she wasn't scrappy as she'd been before. No, no. She wasn't the little girl he'd love before. She was grown now. She might not want him to hold her so close anymore. The thought was like a punch to the gut. Still, he quickly made up his mind, not to push her away. He couldn't live with himself if he did. Instead, he squeezed her, kissed her forehead, and prayed in his head. "My love, what has become of you?"

She was never going to let him go. He was still taller than her, so many were, but their size difference was no longer so great which meant her arms could finally wrap around him properly. "No lie, I thought I'd gone off the rails, but then I was back and everything is the same. You're the same."

There were tears. Happy tears. When Max was a child crying had frightened her. It proved that she really was as weak as she feared, but now she knew better and because of that she held nothing back. "I grew up. It's been, God, eight years? Nine? I'm not sure the time differential between worlds." She held on even as he kissed her forehead. She held on as though the moment she let him go he would vanish again. "Who cares? I'm back."

He couldn't stand to see her cry, no matter that she shed tears of joy. With one arm still holding her close, he reached for her cheek to wipe away the tears. "Do not cry, Max, I beg of you. It breaks my heart to see you cry."

It was like they'd taken a knife to his belly and twisted it. Eight years, she'd been away from him. Nine. Whatever. She'd been off doing God only knew what and he'd been left here by himself to mourn her. In a way, he realized he would be mourning her still. His baby sister was gone. The girl in his arms was still his Max, but she was more than that now. She'd lived half a lifetime without him.

"Of course I am still the same. It has been only a few weeks, but I was already mad without you." He tried to be merry, tried not to let the tears in her eyes affect him and make him cry, too. "But you're here now. And you're so..."

He didn't know what he even wanted to say, so he shut up.

The feeling of his hands on her face only made her cry more. He was so real and still so loving; how did she deserve him?

Perhaps it was because she had so recently lost her brothers and sisters again. Manticore was gone, but the damage was done. Tinga was dead and Zack was... Max felt his heart beating in her chest. Zack was gone, but here was Courfeyrac. The very same Courfeyrac who had taken her in and given her a new family. He had treated her like a normal child even though she was so obviously anything but. Oh how she had longed for his gentle hugs on those nights she was alone as a child.

"I dreamed of you. Of all of you, but mostly you. I missed you so much." She had forced herself to forget the love he'd shown her. Life after the Pulse was not one were soft words and strong arms were waiting. She had to learn to be strong and that meant not thinking about the man she called brother.

Finally she pulled back and offered him a teary smile. "A few weeks? I bet you got all lazy without me." She poked at his stomach and laughed.

"I was anything but lazy," he said, not wanting to let her escape too far away. His hand drifted from her cheek and tangled loosely in her hair. "The moment you died, I started to train, just as you would have wanted. I have made all sorts of noble plans to avenge you. I was ready to--"

He stopped short, as if he were suddenly caught off guard. Max was here with him, real and tangible and breathing, and so lovely that it very nearly broke his heart. He couldn't even articulate what gave him pause. He only knew that he felt very overcome all of a sudden. Before Max could protest, he'd loosened his hold on her entirely.

"I prayed you would come back to me, Max. And I prayed that God would let me come back to you." Courfeyrac took her hand then and took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Now I know He is real. I was such a fool to doubt Him. And a fool to doubt you."

He did not pull her toward him. Instead, he kissed her hand, so chastely. "Do not leave me again. I need you."

Revenge? She remembered this world and it's ideas of entertainment and justice. Revenge was no where near acceptable for Courfeyrac to look for because she was very certain that his idea of revenge had nothing to do with the Arena. Her eyes hardened even as she continued to smile. "Well, lucky I got back before you did anything silly."

Max let him drone on about his God. There was no harm in his belief, but as for Max...no, the death of Ben and memory of Alec's' stupid face were both too fresh in her mind. The curse of a photographic memory. Ben murdered because of the Blue Lady, because of some mistaken belief that those deaths would gain her favor. Max was done with Blue Ladies and Gods in general.

Pushing those thoughts back, she pulled him into her arms after he so gently kissed her hand. "Hey, you're stuck with me big bro. Forever. I've lost too much to let you go again."

"And I will not lose you again either." He looped his arms around her and just held her for a long moment. He still couldn't quite believe it. She was in his arms. Max. This was Max. Perhaps, if he told himself that again and again it would truly sink in and he would become used to the idea that she was a grown woman now, and a beautiful woman at that. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted by all that now. He had to celebrate her homecoming somehow. But celebrating would likely mean letting her go, and God knew he couldn't bear to do that just yet.

"I am glad you are here today," he said, pulling back enough to look at her again. "If you had come yesterday you would have watched me die. You see, they put me into another arena again, one of the littler ones."

"Already? How long was I gone?" She'd only experienced two Arena's before returning home, but she had examined how other Arena's were ran, and she thought there would have been more time between the last and next. Perhaps more had changed than she thought.

"As I said, a few weeks, my love. They sent me into another one of those shortened arenas the other day. They sent us off to slowly drown." He felt sick and angry thinking about it, but at least he'd not had to console her younger self about it. If he'd had to relive the first "mini" reaping and pry her off of him again, he wouldn't know what to do. It had been such a soul crushing experience.

She remembers her underwater training at Manticore and how panicked Jack became. Lydecker didn't let them up until time was up, well aware that one of his soldiers was busy drowning. "Who did you tick off to get so popular? Don't they know that when you want to woo someone you don't stick them in deadly situations. Less of course you plan on playing Prince Charming to their Damsel in Distress." Max is all smiles and flirtation. Emotionally she connects to Courfeyrac as her brother, but visually her mind is telling her there's a cute man sitting right here and damn when's your next heat?

Sometimes she really hates herself.

"I only play Prince Charming to you, Max." His answer was playful, but his expression remained grave. He didn't want to notice that she was smiling brightly, or that she seemed to lean into him as she spoke. It made him feel like a monster to think of her intentionally trying to flirt with him, after all she was only a child and she loved him as a sister loves her brother... right? He was horrible to let his eyes wander, even for a moment. Never mind that she was achingly beautiful and already in his bed.

"So romantic." Suddenly she stood because if she didn't then things would get quiet and weird and she would forget that she had Logan, except she didn't, not here and not back there. No, Logan was not a good place to go when trying to avoid awkward thoughts.

"No more sob-fest; it's time to update me on all the 411 since I left."

Courfeyrac was very abruptly reminded of the changes between them again, and so he did not protest at all when she got up to move across the room. Instead, he sat motionless and praying that she did not think he was a coarse man or harbored some sort of wicked motives from his response.

"Kevin was crowned the victor, though I suspect you could deduce as much. There was no stopping him in the end. I have never imagined one man to be capable of such carnage." He swallowed hard, averting his eyes then. "And they have updated the chips which are installed in us. We can no longer speak in any language besides English. And what's more, everything we have written down becomes English as well. All of those foolish poems I wrote? They are wretched, lyrically devoid pieces of garbage in this language. I take it as a personal insult, you see."

"He didn't eat me did he?" That was gross on so many level, although it might explain why she wasn't brought back right away. Maybe they needed a newer model after the cannibal destroyed the original.

She didn't mean to smile so brightly at Courfeyrac's next words. The loss of his love poetry surely was horrible, but she also recalled that some of those poems were already horrible. "Guess you'll have to find a new way to woo the ladies. Maybe change up the whole look. A little hair cut, tighter shirt, and really show you're just so confused by all this English." She laughed as she ruffled his curly hair. "Although, maybe Cindy likes the current look."

"Very well. Make fun if you must." He crossed his arms defiantly. "You never thought I was handsome anyway."

For his part, he didn't mean to look so sullen at the mention of Cinderella. After all, Max had no idea of the heartbreak he'd endured all on his own. It wasn't her fault he was an emotional wreck without both of them. "I've not seen Cindy since before the Arena. She was not resurrected either."

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Existing in a playground of stone

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