thecapitol | Easy, easy, you break the bridle to make losing control easy

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Easy, easy, you break the bridle to make losing control easy

Who| Aang, Kurloz, Derek, later Meulin.
What| Kurloz's whole world is his brother. Now he's just learned there's a chance that he may not ever be getting him back.
Where| D4 floor and onward.
When| When the recap airs.
Warnings/Notes| Violence or intent for violence toward a thirteen year old, oh my god, what is wrong with these people.

Kurloz had bought it. Like most other Capitolites, when he saws the names painted on Aang's body and all the other kids, he assumed it for what Aang said: honoring. Righteousness. A marking of heroes. That's what this was about, wasn't it? That's what all of this was for, why he was here.

And to hang onto all of that until his family was his again. Until his brother was home, with him and where he belonged. It was all going so well. Everything had followed to plan. Just as Caiaborus had promised him when he'd finally relinquished the reigns.

He watched the recaps with a bright smile upon his face. He'd soon have another Tribute to dress, Mollusc. He may have passed the boy when he was younger, still visiting the District, but perhaps too young to have really known. He can get to know him now and all will be fine though.

Everything is perfect. And like what happens every time something is perfect, it all shatters in his hands.

Snow's announcement ends the broadcast. He doesn't know when the smile falls off his face but it does, and he is numb. He hears ringing in his ears. There's a dropping of his heart. But it doesn't click yet. Why? Why?

His brother is going to die to make up for this mistake. His brother, his whole fucking world, his purpose, is going to die.

He walks stiffly away, going to search. It does not take long. As his eyes register Aang, his Tribute, one he'd been so fond of only an hour ago, his hands begin to shake. It goes over the whole of him, like he might come apart. And then, the always smiling face twists into something ugly, unmatched rage boiling up inside like he's never known-- or maybe just not known for a long time. His stitches pull and his mouth bleeds but he doesn't even notice. He's rushing forward all at once, a hoarse scream ripping up from a throat that's not made a sounds so loud in a decade, coming out through teeth.

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Aang looks small. He's hugging his knees, staring at the TV with a ghostly white face. He didn't mean for this to happen. He didn't want for this to happen. He thought that they were going to hurt him, not a bunch of kids who had nothing to do with anything.

He feels sick. This wasn't supposed to happen.

But it's happened now, and he was the one who instigated it.

He hears the stumbling of footsteps. He looks up and Kurloz is barreling down on him, blood all over his mouth and fire in his eyes. He's making the worst sound. It puts Aang's teeth on edge.

It would be easy to dodge and dance away. Kurloz is a bull moose, blinded by rage and in a dead charge. It's the easiest kind of attack to avoid. This time, it's not something he wants to avoid.

Aang quietly stands up from the couch and faces Kurloz. Right now, Kurloz's right to lash out at the person who put his family at risk is greater than Aang's right (or desire) to not be hurt. He makes his limbs loose and waits for impact.

The impact that Aang is waiting for doesn't come.

Unlike Kurloz, Derek had known something was up. He's done his homework on his Tributes, and he knows Aang's style - and he's been more paranoid than ever, since his traitorous actions with Peggy. He's not surprised when Snow retaliates, but he is really fucking angry.

The only good thing about the offworlders is that it means the kids from their district are safe, and now they don't even have that any more.

And he'd told Aang, he told the Tributes not to do anything stupid, to follow his and Chuck and Kurloz's lead. Now the District is being punished, the whole staff is in danger, because of Aang.

But Derek isn't the animal they say he is, and he's distant enough from this that he doesn't lose control, even if part of him wants to.

Instead he races in, moving much quicker and quieter than might be expected for someone of his size. He throws himself at Kurloz, wrapping his arms around him and hauling him up, spinning around before he can make contact with Aang.

Then he snarls at his Tribute, an echo of Kurloz's rage in his own expression. "So now you're willing to kill people? Get out of here."

His fist swings and misses. He's hauled up by something. Someone. His mind process that less than it does the lack of pain in his knuckles, the lack of impact. The rage is still swelled up inside with no where for it to go.

The scream builds up behind his eyes and his teeth. A thread in his mouths snaps apart. The scream breaks out through it.

He's caught in Derek's arms, thrashing and kicking. He claws at the air like an animal, trying to reach Aang or otherwise break free. He kicks back at Derek with his heels. It's only slowly sinking in that what's holding him is in fact a person, nevermind it being Derek or not.

He hears Derek's voice though and that clicks. That sinks in like a weapon to skull. Another thread snaps as his scream because a terrible wail. There's no less rage in it, but pain now too, as though it's an injury to him he can't reach Aang and rain down vengeance.

Derek swoops in and picks up Kurloz like he's just a baby bull moose. Aang feels a pang of disappointment that he's not hit. It's wrong and selfish, but he'd take some comfort in it. It doesn't take a genius to guess that Derek is saving Kurloz, not Aang.

Frankly, he would have preferred the punch over what Derek says. The breath is knocked out of him and tears spring in his eyes. He wants to cover his ears and block out the horrible sound Kurloz is making, all the rage and grief in the air that Aang helped cause. He can only watch in horror as the threads snap apart and he sees his Stylist open his mouth for the first time.

He doesn't notice that the tears have overflown and are now streaming down his cheeks. "I... I thought that..." His voice is weak, shaking, and carries nothing but the promise of useless excuses, so he stops. His lip trembles and he backs away, wanting to run, wanting to disappear completely. "I'm sorry."

His voice cracks. The apology might as well be to the wind. It reminds him of standing in battle grounds, in the Temples, in empty butchered villages, and whispering sorry. The bodies in the fields can no longer hear his apologies.

Derek told him to leave, so he'll do that. He goes to his room just to pick up Toro and Hariti before running out of the District like wind.

Edited 2015-09-18 06:45 (UTC)

With the way Aang is standing there waiting for it, even though Derek knows he could move to avoid it - it's obvious that Aang is just accepting this, that maybe he even wants it. Like if Kurloz beats the shit out of him, they'll be even, like Aang thinks he deserves it. It just pisses Derek off more. Aang playing the fucking martyr, standing there and waiting for his punishment to come.

Violence is easy. It's not a punishment, it's a necessity. And in this case, letting Kurloz go at Aang is only going to get Kurloz in trouble - and it's only going to give Aang the punishment he wants, maybe make him feel better.

Aang doesn't deserve to feel better, not with the way he betrayed them all, and Derek knows that words can cut worse than violence.

Derek keeps his hold on Kurloz as he struggles and kicks and screams, stance loose so he can move with Kurloz's thrashing even as his arms lock around him in solid bands.

"Think," Derek growls at his Stylist, dismissing Aang completely as soon as he starts crying. "Stop being stupid. Gonna let him cause you more shit like this."

He never learns what Aang thought. He barely catches the sorry whispered into the air under his own cries. The tears ring of something familiar but he's damned if he can possibly remember what. He keeps reaching as Aang runs off. He's doing the exact opposite of think until Derek tells him to.

He turns his head away from the sound. Derek's voice pulls him to reality and he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want to motherfuckin be here. He tries to break free of Derek but he can't, he's trapped, there's nothing he can do.

Mituna in a bloodied heap, head bleeding open everywhere, so much blood. Meulin with broken bones and her inability to hear even his scream on finding her. Now his brother would soon be made like them, beaten and broken and he'd never even get to say goodbye. Why not him? Why not punish him when he deserved it? Why them? Why didn't the Capitol see he was--

He seizes up all at once as though electrocuted. It runs him through and then leaves him limp. He'd be liable to collapse were Derek not holding him. He gasps, breathing a breath through his mouth, a feeling all foreign and wrong.

"...zhira..." Could that be his voice? That hoarse muted thing? Derek sounds better than him.

He thinks nothing of holding on to Kurloz while he's thrashing. Anger and fighting and pain and violence, yeah, that he knows. That he can handle.

It's when Kurloz goes limp that he falters. He thinks about setting Kurloz down, but he doesn't want to just leave Kurloz like this. He should. He stopped Kurloz from going after Aang and getting himself into more trouble, that should be the end of it. Derek should let go, should leave Kurloz to whatever pain he's feeling.

But Derek suspects he knows the pain that Kurloz is feeling. It's the reason why he's so furious at Aang, why he views this as such a betrayal - Aang's actions put them all in danger. The entire staff could have been viewed as complicit in this.

It could have been Chuck.

It's not, but it's enough that it makes him feel a connection with Kurloz, even deeper than the one he's always felt because of their childhood. He doesn't know what to do with it, but he doesn't let go, either, he keeps holding Kurloz close.

He's growling, low and fierce and protective, frustrated because he doesn't know what to do.

"He knew what he was doing. Can't let them think we did."

He doesn't feel betrayed by Aang. He's past that, too far gone to acknowledge there was anything but anger. He's been betrayed before, truly, in ways much, much worse that left deeper and more lasting scars. Aang means nothing in comparison.

He's watched two of his friends beaten, the other two reaped for the Games. He could live. But he can't lose his brother.

He winces at Derek's words like they've hit him. That's meant for a plan, if not comfort, but his own internalized hatred rears its head instead.

"...Ssshould...'ve... known..." He coughs. He's no longer got a voice for speaking. The coughs shake his famished frame.

The point was, he should've known better. He knew how the world work. He knew what was right and wrong, but he simply didn't see. He's had multiples lessons and he's learned nothing.

Derek isn't good at comfort. He doesn't know how to make his words gentle, how to get his point across without being blunt. Really, he's never tried to learn. He doesn't give a shit about tact - it's pointless. There's no reason to sugar coat the truth.

"Should have," he agrees. "Both should've. I warned him, don't do anything stupid, he didn't listen."

They never listen. Derek learned that a long time ago, and he should have known better. He shouldn't have let himself get lulled in by Anna listening to him and actually winning, by Aang pretending to take some of his advice. He'd known that Aang would think of doing something stupid, that's why he'd told all of the Tributes not to; he should have done more to make sure Aang didn't.

"Learn. Do better."

Learn. Do better. He nods. Yes. Of course.

He coughs again, not for trying to speak, but for the blood in his mouth. He can taste on the tongue he barely resisted biting out ten years ago, and he can feel it dribbled to his chin. It's bright red when he brings a hand up to wipe at it, a little reminder to himself of who he is and what he's not.

Gorewise, it's not as bad as it was ten years ago, but it's certainly not a pretty sight. He doesn't much care about looking pretty right now though. In his action, he is realising exactly what he looked like just then. He remembers watching that animal tear a little girl apart. He remembers seeing the messy kills and tortures done by that thing. He was supposed to be in control. He was supposed to be better.

Slowly, he starts to stand on his own two feet. If he sees Aang, or any of those other kids, he's not sure he'll be able to stop himself-- especially when he didn't the first time. Yet it's so hard to care, even when he reminds himself of the monster he emulates. They've mother fuckin earned this, his mind hisses.

He glances back at Derek and thinks that at least he's used to blood.

There's relief when Kurloz nods at him, and Derek relaxes his hold a little. He doesn't let go, seeing as he's not a hundred percent sure that Kurloz won't go running off after the ones responsible for this if he does, but at least they have this.

They'll do better. They'll be smarter next time, more prepared, and Derek's mind is already working on how to distance them from Aang and the others, how to keep a closer eye on Aang and volunteer anything that looks remotely suspicious to the Peacekeepers.

If he thinks that Kurloz is any kind of monster, it doesn't show. Maybe they're both monsters here, but fuck that, they earned anything that's coming to them.

Derek lifts one arm to his mouth, teeth sinking into a weak point in the fabric of his shirt sleeve and tearing. It leaves one arm bared, exposing more of the his scars than he usually does, but Kurloz is his stylist. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, just like the blood is nothing Derek hasn't seen before.

"Should take out the ones that ripped," he rumbles as he presses the fabric against Kurloz's mouth.

Then he'll have to think of somewhere to take Kurloz where he might actually stay when Derek tells him to.

A monster among monsters. That's something.

It's telling that he doesn't make a face when Derek rips his shirt. He might've frowned in a different situation, but right now he's just staring at it. He lifts a hand to hold the fabric himself, dabbing futile. Mouth wounds always bled more than they ought.

He nods numbly again and starts pulling out the torn bit of stitching first. He continues with the rest of the string and it would come free of his lips with small tugging and plenty of ease, were it not for the blood. One one bit of thread is ruined, it all comes apart. He'll need to go fresh, and probably replace in a few days due to the injury. Infection would get in his way and he hasn't the time or desire to dote on himself.

He already spots the Avox out of the corner of his eyes, going down to clean. He wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't looked of course, but in a case like this, there was irony in it. An Avox cleaning up the pieces of a long silence. Poetry.

He curls his hand around the remains, then looks up at Derek. There's an emptiness in that indigo, and past that, still more fear and rage. There's no smile. He's not in the mood for masks. He looks with a question though. What now? Stand here and be held in the loosest sense of the word?

At least they're good company for each other.

He waits for Kurloz to finish pulling the threads, absently aware of the Avox coming in to clean up, but more focused on what the fuck they're going to do now. For a moment, he wishes they were all back in District 4, away from all of the off worlder Tributes and all of the shit they're causing.

But wishing won't do anything - though it's a good idea to get some distance from Aang and the other off worlders, to have somewhere to get away. That, they can do. Get a base of operations, separate themselves from the people who act against the Capitol, while still managing to keep an eye on Aang and the others for an opportunity to turn them in.

Decided, Derek looks back down at Kurloz. It's unnerving, seeing his Stylist without his smile, but right now, he thinks it'd be even more so to see him with it. He steps back a little, though he keeps one arm wrapped around Kurloz's shoulders.

"Come on."

He'll take him to Meulin, for now. She can look after him until Derek can get everyone on board with his plan.

Kurloz could wear his smile through a lot. He could take a punch without losing it. He could lose plenty before he lost his smile. His brother just ain't one of them things.

He wipes his face again then simply hold the rag there. Those holes will be bleeding for a while if his memories serves well and right. It usually does.

He'd be surprised to learn Derek would consider him of District four. He'd lost his home twice, the first when he left District four for the last time, but he didn't figure anyone saw him as anything but a Capitolite. And what shame was in that? He is a Capitolite. There was nothing wrong with the Capitol, merely everything wrong with him.

Derek wraps his arm around and this feels a little more companionable. He's even willing, possibly, as much as he'd also like to hunt Aang down, to go along with Derek's will. But there's something he needs, something that proves once and for all it's not merely a fashion statement. Something that corrects one of the many wrongs within him. He mimes a needle and thread and glances back at his door.

These days, Derek is more Capitol than District Four himself - at least in his own mind. He is everything the Capitol has shaped him to be, and he'll continue to pretend to be whatever the Capitol wants him to. It stopped bothering him a long time ago, when he realized it was the best way to keep Chuck safe.

His childhood in District Four might be mostly a hazy collection of rose-colored memories, but he still misses it sometimes, and Kurloz was a part of that.

Derek's eyebrows raise when Kurloz mimes at him, but he gives a shrug and steers Kurloz back towards his room.

"Be quick."

Just in case Aang comes back, Derek really doesn't want to break it up again.

He's steered back to his room and he feels like a child. It would be more degrading if he weren't so burned up as it is.

The moment they reach it he's darting out from under Derek's arm. His door is thrown open and he digs through his things with little regard. Thread... thread... It can't just by any thread, it has to be-- suture thread! Kept tucked neatly away from all the others. There's his old needle by it too. He plucks those both up, craddling them in hand and starts back toward the door.

Only to freeze part way there. His eyes catch that photograph, the one of he and his brother wearing identical grins before the backdrop of District four. He practically raised that kid. He was his. They belonged to one another.

He reaches out with shaking fingers, trailing over the picture and ignoring the half what's his side, the half what don't matter. He was supposed to win him back through all this, not lead him to his death. His face twists with renewed fury and he stalks back out of the room to greet Derek, eyes darkened with promise or threat.

Sorry, Kurloz, Derek is maybe a little bit overprotective.

He doesn't follow Kurloz into the room, though, content to lean against the wall out in the hallway while he waits, and thinks. The arena's right around the corner, he and Chuck can take the sponsors they got for Aang and turn them back towards District 4, they can rile up the ones from there and get them to favor Mollusc instead. It'll be easy, especially if they swing hard against the fact that Aang will come back at the true son of District 4 won't.

Derek looks back up when he hears Kurloz coming out of the room, and the look on his face makes him straighten up, body loose and ready in case he has to grab him again.

"Will pick you back up if I need to. We have a plan."

Technically Derek has a plan, but still.

He stares Derek in the eyes for a long moment, then caves and turns his head away. No, he doesn't need to be picked up. He needs to do something until his limbs cry out, he needs to hurt. Bringing hurt is secondary to that need.

He should call Caiaborus. Caiaborus would help him. If he didn't have a better plan, then Caiaborus could just... fix him. Or make him hurt. Either. They're the same, really.

But Derek has a plan. "We" is used, but he certainly hasn't anything yet, even as his mind races to find one-- he always has a plan. He looks confused, faintly. His head starts to tilt in question.

What the motherfuck is the plan, Derek?

Derek stares back, hackles raised a little, then relaxes when Kurloz looks away. He has no idea what's going on in Kurloz's head, but as long as he's not going to make a run for it right now, they're good.

His brows furrow a little at that confusion, then smooth out when he realizes that he hasn't actually said much about the plan. Usually Derek just expects everyone else to keep up with the way his mind works and gets frustrated if they can't, but it's a little different here.

He thinks Kurloz might be a friend, and that's enough for him to take a minute to explain.

"Gonna get out of here. Gotta get some distance." He waves a hand in Aang's general direction, assuming that Kurloz will know what he's talking about. "Need a place for us."

He'd already been thinking about it in an absent kind of way, about giving him and Chuck a place to go and work on their own training away from the Tributes, but it's easy to adapt his vague ideas into a plan for all of them.

"Watch him. He thought like this once, he'll think it again. Next time we catch him before he does it."

Derek's the quiet that gets thinking others will know what's in his skull, scoffing and clinging to it when he realises the people don't know a thing. He's all secrets himself. The thing is that there's some part of Derek that still wants to be a book, read all through and sorted out. Derek didn't quiet himself, the world quieted him.

It's a gift all the same that Derek opts to elaborate. Others wouldn't, not for him. He's not high on the lists of many.

But he's still confused as Derek explains, albeit in a different way now, correlated to the lacking posse of the norm. A place for them? He and Derek? As in an outing? A mother fuckin house? But why in hell would Derek want to get on associating domestic by his ass.

His fingers are floating, half way to pointing at himself in question. The topic shifts back to Aang then and his eyes flash again. His hand curls into a fist, on around the needle and suture thread, as his eyes go down. He looks at the thread; prevention is protection, from destruction comes correction.

This will never be allowed to happen again.

The world quieted them both, as far as Derek's concerned. He'd always thought that Kurloz had way more say in what happened to him than Derek ever did - but after what he saw in their dreams, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. It is what it is.

Derek's much more concerned with making sure their wayward Tribute doesn't screw them all over, that they can create some distance between him and them. That they're more prepared, for when it happens again.

He gives a soft growl when Kurloz points at himself, somewhere between acknowledgement and frustration, that he has to keep explaining.

"Me n' Chuck. You n' Meulin. Anna. District Four. Make sure he can't fuck us over."

There's a small surge of satisfaction when Kurloz makes a fist, as he assumes that Kurloz gets it. That doesn't happen very often, not with someone who isn't Chuck, but both of them know this can't happen again.

"Come on."

Derek, Chuck, Meulin, and Anna. All of them.

A family.

It embarrasses how much this throws him off, how badly he wants it. A Capitolite associating with Districters; he either has a lot of nerve or not enough shame and being caught between both sides means he sees both sides too. Further, he's a Makara. He shouldn't be so shaken. When hadn't he done everything on his own? When hadn't a love for this great city not been enough?

The truth is that is hasn't been for a long time, if ever. But such thoughts don't pass through his head.

Rather, he's touched and relieved for reasons he doesn't all understand. He should say thank you, perhaps, but he's not sure he can yet in any sense of the phrase. Instead, he hurries along at Chuck's command, keeping by his side, the thread and needle heavy in hand.

Derek can see the way that throws Kurloz off - mostly because Derek's really fucking good at reading body language like that, because knowing when someone's thrown off means knowing when they'd be more open to attack - but he doesn't know why. Usually he wouldn't care, but it's Kurloz.

Apparently he cares.

Before he can figure out if it matters or not, though, Kurloz is hurrying along with him, and Derek lets it go. It must not have mattered if Kurloz is going along with the plan.

"Take you to Meulin," he says gruffly. "Need to tell her too."

He's never seen Derek as the heartless one. None of them, really, but Derek never struck him as the one to fall through when the chips were really truly down. He'd flash fang. He'd fight. He'd make all manner of mess if he needed to. But only if he needed to. Kurloz doesn't truly have much in the way of trust in him, being everything he is, but if he were to trust, Derek might be one he'd choose.

Because it wouldn't surprise him to learn that Derek cares. It only surprises that Derek cares about him.

He nods numbly, still rocked by the revelation. Still filled up with gnawing little beasts that whisper in his ears like sea shells, his demise is imminent. He sees vision of that death, hears it, and he can see a stretching eternity of nothing to follow. There is no world without Azhira.

But slowly Meulin seeps into his thoughts, breaking through in beams and waves. Meulin. Meulin, Meulin. It could've been her. It could've been Tuna and it could've been her. It was Derek and Chuck but they lived. Somehow. A miracle.

It takes an eternity and no time at all to reach Meulin's door.

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Easy, easy, you break the bridle to make losing control easy

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