thecapitol | As sure as God made black and white...

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As sure as God made black and white...

WHO: Wyatt and Maximus
WHAT: Discussing Maximus' actions at the Crowning.
WHERE: Maximus' suite in District 3
WHEN: After this, same night.
Warnings: Possibly some language. Will add more warnings if they become necessary.

He should have waited, Wyatt knew that even as he punching the button for three in the elevator, but there he was, not even waiting for his long-missed pants before he was heading after the Roman.

They already knew - certainly had to suspect, at least, after that asinine display at the crowning - what difference was a few minutes going to make now?

(And what if they were already making plans to come for him? What if the Peacekeepers were already on their way? He needed to be there.

Wyatt wasn't going to watch Max's execution.)

Pointedly ignoring the stylists who stared as he crossed the common room - their conversation dropped to whispers as he passed, an excited hissing back and forth - he turned down the hall to the tribute suites and was pounding on Max's door before he'd even given thought to the idea that they might have already moved him into the mentor's quarters.

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The cat out of sight should have relaxed him, but it didn't. He stood stiffly, hands hard on the wide, leather belt around his waist. Feet shoulder-width apart, he was readying for a fight. And not entirely unconsciously.

"'Course not, Max. I enjoy watchin' my friends try to get themselves killed."

"As I enjoy watching them be killed?" Maximus asked as he stepped over, pulling the laurels from his head though his eyes never left Wyatt's. His gaze was hard.

"I wasn't about to let that display continue, Wyatt."

"I won't argue that was stupid, but we can get to that later."

He shifted, weight rolling back onto his heels. His chin lifted, along with his eyebrows, a pointed emphasis as he spoke.

"Jus' now I'm talkin' about that other thing, Max." His voice dropped, mindful of the eyes and ears he'd passed in the common room. Of the ones he hadn't seen, but he knew were there. "I saw it."

"You saw nothing." He came to a stop a few feet in front of Wyatt, the laurels held tightly enough in his fist to nearly cut into his palm. The warning was all too clear in his voice, though it was a quiet hiss.

They couldn't talk about it. Not here.

His nose flared on a long, hard breath. His knuckles whitened on the belt

Either Max was trying to deny it, or trying to protect him - again - by distancing himself. Both stung.

"I did. An' I'm glad I did."

"Wyatt." He took another half step closer, bending towards him with one shoulder, his face stone cold.

"Not. Here." He pulled himself back up and motioned with his head back toward his private rooms.

His eyes flicked over to the door, then back. He swallowed, and his shoulders rolled, but he nodded

Max had faced down a wild cat, so could he.

"Fine," he drawled, lowly, moving forward. "But we're havin' this out, Max. One way or the other."

He didn't say anything else - there wasn't a point, until they were at least in the relative privacy of his rooms.

Relative, of course, being the operative word.

He pushed the door open with more force than he meant to - the sulking cat starting, its head jerking upwards from where it lay on the floor. But it didn't come any closer to them, just looked at them both sullenly before sliding its muzzled head back onto its pause and looking away.

Maximus waited until Wyatt was in the room before he closed the door solidly behind them.

The cat seemed significantly less interested in him, than he was in it, but Wyatt was still reluctant to turn his back on it and instead he shifted sideways, up along the bed where he could see both it and its new master.

"Well," he said after the moment drag for a tense, uncomfortable beat. (The first real such moment he could remember.) "What've ya got to say for yerself?"

Maximus seemed completely relaxed about the tiger, turning his back to the creature fully, to face the brunt of his friend's anger.

"Nothing. You know exactly who I am, Wyatt. And you know exactly what I must do. You've known for a long time."

Wyatt wasn't surprised by Max's ease with the creature. He'd beaten it.

Wyatt had watched it tear his likeness to bloody ribbons.

"Ya have to die?" His head tipped, face twisting. His eyebrows pulled into a vee, his mouth pressed into a hard line. "Or ya want to?"

Maximus' fist tightened until his knuckles were white, and he threw the laurels down on the bed, his palm covered in angry red marks.

"This isn't about me, Wyatt. Don't."

"Then what is it about, Max?"

The laurels bounced with the force of the throw, skidding across the comforter, but Wyatt's eyes remained on Max's.

"Tell me. Tell me, 'cause I-" His hands peeled off the belt, lifted, and fell with the rise and fall of his shoulders. His head shook, his mouth worked, muscles in his jaw flexing slowly. "'Cause I am at a loss."

He flexed his abused hand and curled it into a fist once more, held hard and firm at his side. The rest of him may as well have been cast in marble.

"You knew. You knew what I must do. And failing to do so while I finally have the chance to--" He cut himself off, abruptly, his teeth coming down hard upon his cheek. Even here, it wasn't safe to talk of murder. He leaned in as close as he could manage. "I do what must be done. For all of us."

Suddenly, his hands were moving again, snapping up with all the lightening speed of striking snakes, fingers curling under the edges of the leather armor, jerking hard.

"That's not what ya told me." Inches apart, Wyatt could smell him - sweat and cotton and leather. Could feel the heat, the anger rolling off him. "You told me, we were in this together."

His whole body shook with the force of Wyatt's grip but he didn't shove him off or reciprocate - just took it, glaring.

"Wyatt, I would walk with you to the River Styx, but even you must see that it is impossible. Every arena, more of us slip away, are replaced. Morrigan. Javert. Thane. Diana." He snapped the names off one by one, knowing that they likely meant nothing to Wyatt, but they did to him. "I will not stand by while you march off to die, and they quietly cause you to disappear as well!"

Wyatt stared at him, for a long, silent moment.

"So I get to add you to my list instead."

His hands tightened as he breathed - and then they released, pulling away, shoving, as if he'd been burned.

"You'll go on an' march off to yer noble end, an' leave me here, alone." His mouth twitched, and he nodded. A wry jerk of his head. "To hell with you too, Maximus."

Maximus didn't push back, stumbling a step backwards as he was shoved, a hot, hard lump of coal suddenly catching in the depths of his throat.

Wasn't quite sure where the stab of pain came from and refused to think on it deeply enough to discover the cause.

"What would you have me do?" He snapped. "I am no senator. No politician. I only have one meager thing to offer, Wyatt."

Wyatt's anger was explosive, when struck, but it was also fast burning. Like touching a match to gunpowder there was a deadly flash, and then, embers.

He smoldered now, weary and hurt. The ragged edges of premature grief tightening his chest.

"Find somethin' else to die for."

There wouldn't be any stopping Max, if that was what he really wanted. Next week, the week that followed, Wyatt would go back into the arena. He wouldn't be here... he wouldn't know... until he came back to an empty room.

But he'd be damned, if Max was going to use him as an excuse.

"I won't be yer cause."

Maximus was nearly beside himself with anger, his shoulders beginning to shake, teeth clenched hard enough to make his jaw ache. His eyes never left Wyatt's.

"Then tell me what I must do!" He snapped, the anger making his voice quake along with his shoulders.

"Because if there is another choice, Wyatt, I can't see it. I will not sit here and have everything that we have done be for nothing!"

"Of course ya can't, Max."

He was a stone in the swirling eddies of Max's anger. It pounded at him, dragged away the earth around his feet, but he held firm.

This was one thing Wyatt wasn't going to stand with him on.

"'Cause you don't want somethin' to fight for, you want somethin' to die for."

He couldn't even begin to reply. His breathed hard, jaw so tight it could crush a man's skull, fists tight at his sides. The silence stretched out until finally he broke it by raising his hands and angrily scrambling with the pin to remove the heavy golden cloak from his shoulders and toss it to the bed behind him too.

"I'm already dead," He said finally as he went to his bracers next, needing something to do with his hands lest he punch through a wall instead. "I've been dead for nearly two thousand years, Wyatt, along with everything else I ever knew. What possible difference does it make."

"It makes a difference to me."

The words were soft, nearly lost beneath the furious rustling of fabric and creak of leather as Max fought with his clothes, but they were honest.

A simple, direct truth, whether Max liked it or not.

He kept fighting with his bracer for a heart beat, a heart beat more, and then gave up - letting his breath out in a rush, eyes to the floor, the anger rushing with it.

Deflated, and defeated.

He tried, again, to pull the leather straps free from his arm.

What could he say? He had given his word, and now had broken it, without even attaining his goal. What kind of honour could he claim, in this?

The striped cat watched from the corner of the room, the end of its long tail twitching rhythmically. Their eyes met, blue against gold, when Max wouldn't - or couldn't - face him.

Distantly, Wyatt wondered what would happen to it, when they came for Max.

Kill it, he supposed. They'd spare it and themselves the trouble and put it out of its misery.

There was something, in his gut, at that thought. Something sharp and dark, something that felt remarkably like envy.

"Go on an' do what ya think ya have to," he said finally, a low, weary whisper. "I can't stop ya."

His eyes flicked back, rested on Max's face. A weighted stare, even if the man wouldn't look at him.

"...But I wish I could."

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