When Luck Runs Out

The Last Goodbye

    I woke before my eyes open, mostly because of the cold breeze that was playing uncomfortably on my face. It took me a moment to take in my surroundings, and to realize what waking up officially meant. So I didn't open my eyes, I tried to convince myself that if I didn't open my eyes, what today had in store for me wouldn't happen at all. I was wrong. When I first felt John stir I knew that there was no denying the day, and for the first time I opened my eyes. We were still on the roof, which was no surprise really, unless I had slept walked, which I very much doubted. I was lying with my head over John's heart, listening to its beats increase as he woke. There was some music playing from the ground, but it was quiet and skipping, as if someone had left it going on accident. The celebrations had ended, but I knew the party had just begun. Today was the day that we went into the games. The morning sunlight was dim, obviously it was very early in the day, but I knew the few precious hours we had would slip through my fingers faster than water.
"Sherlock..." John mumbled, picking up his head from the gravel and looking at me. I kept my head were it was, wrapping my arms tighter around his shoulders and refusing to accept that I had to move.
"Today's the day." I muttered. His heart beat increased, with fear no doubt.
"That it is." He agreed, letting his head fall back once more. "Did you sleep?"
"Somehow, yes." I agreed.
"I didn't. You were shaking the whole night, muttering something." John sighed. I sighed, great. Because of me the last night of sleep he had was ruined.
"I'm sorry." I muttered.
"It's alright. I wasn't going to sleep anyway, too much on my mind." John assured.
"I don't want to get up." I decided.
"I know, I know. But the sooner we get up the sooner this is all over, and I'm looking forward to that very much, no matter what the outcome is." John sighed. "I don't like waiting."
"It's better than being tortured." I pointed out.
"In times like these, waiting to be tortured is sometimes the same thing." John decided, shifting in the rock so that he could roll me off of his chest and stand. I lay in the gravel, shaking slightly, whether from the sudden lack of warmth or from fear, I couldn't tell. Probably both.
"Come on Sherlock, I'm sure Mrs. Hudson and Molly are worried." John insisted, offering me a hand up. I sighed, but took it, letting John pull me shakily to my feet. The two of us wandered back to the elevator, taking it down to our flat and into the living room.
"Oh thank god!" Molly exclaimed, running over as soon as the two of us entered the flat. She attacked me with a bone breaking hug, and I could already see tears crusted on her face.
"What the heck?" I asked, prying her off of me.
"We didn't know where you two went, beds empty, doors open, we thought..." Mrs. Hudson muttered. Both women were considerably pale, as if they had been definitely considering the worst.
"We weren't partying, if that's what you thought." John insisted, walking over to the table, where the food was sitting, untouched.
"You thought we killed ourselves, didn't you?" I guessed. I could tell from the looks on their faces that I had hit the nail on the head.
"Well we didn't, we're perfectly okay." John pointed out, taking his seat but not making any move to eat.
"Where were you then?" Molly asked.
"On the roof, thought we'd take in the view, ended up falling asleep." I snapped. Molly wiped another tear from her eye and joined John at the table.
"Come on Sherlock, big day today." Mrs. Hudson insisted, leading me over to the table, where Molly was filling up both of our plates to the absolute max, filled with fruit, French toast, sausage, and eggs.
"You'll need all the strength you can get." She decided, but even as she said that the spoon she was using to dollop out yogurt slipped and fell to the table with a splat. Molly pursed her lips, as if she were trying to hold in even more tears, and sat back in her chair, her hands shaking. I just looked at my plate, various smells that would've made District Twelve go ravenous with hunger parading through the air, and felt my stomach turn with disgust.
"I'm not hungry." I decided, dropping my unused fork onto the plate. John was force feeding himself grapes, but even he seemed to be having trouble keeping them down. Mrs. Hudson was only sipping orange juice, her plate empty. No one talked. After a while of just sitting there, I excused myself to go take a final shower, and changed into my regular clothes. We were allowed to wear anything we wanted to the arena, and I decided that, if it were my last chance, I should take advantage of that and wear my favorite outfit. But even as I tried to button my purple shirt, my fingers kept slipping and it was pretty much a lost cause. I sighed, leaning on the marble countertop and feeling as if I were going to be sick with nerves. This was it, this was the final battle, the last crusade, I was never returning to this bathroom again. Even though I hated this place, the thought of never returning made my eyes burn with tears that I didn't let fall. There would be enough time for that later, but now I had to get ready. I managed to button my shirt all the way, but I left my shoes untied, my fingers just wouldn't lace up the strings. After drying my hair and taking one last look at myself in the foggy mirror, I left the bathroom, shutting off the light so that only the lamp next to the bed was on. I dug around under the bed and found a cigarette, not caring now to smoke it in private, in fact I could go run around with ten needles in my arm and I doubt Molly would even bat an eyelash. I lit it with trembling fingers and breathed in the ash and tar, feeling the slightest bit better, and walked out to check on John. He was in his room, hair still wet, having the same troubles as I had with doing normal things. He was trying and failing to zipper up a red sweatshirt, one that I could tell he had for a long time, considering it was very short on him and the sleeves barely came up to his wrists. I didn't say anything, I just clenched the cigarette between my teeth and zipped it up, feeling John's eyes on me the whole time.
"You're alright?" he asked.
"God no. But getting a little bit better." I decided. John sighed, grabbing the cigarette from my mouth. For a short, terrible second I thought he was going to throw it in the sink and tell me to stay sober for the games, but he just took a long puff and returned it.
"Molly will kill us." He decided.
"We'll be dead soon anyway." I insisted, trying to contort my face into some sort of weak smile. It didn't work. The two of us walked into the living room, and as I suspected, neither of the women seemed to care too much about me smoking. In fact Molly looked kind of envious as she wiped her now raw eyes with another tissue.
"We need to get going soon." Mrs. Hudson muttered, glancing at the clock, a tear traveling down the numerous wrinkles in her face.
"Couldn't we just keep them here? Send Avoxes in instead?" Molly asked hopefully.
"Molly you know more than anyone that doing that would only be worse." Mrs. Hudson insisted. Molly nodded, standing up and disappearing into her room.
"Are you two ready?" Mrs. Hudson asked. I sighed, holding John's hand very tight, and nodded, filling my nostrils once more with smoke. Molly returned a little bit later, looking extremely upset and crossing her arms tightly over her chest.
"Let's go then." Mrs. Hudson decided, her voice cracking a little bit as she stood up, smoothing her dress and trying to look a little bit dignified. Molly, on the other hand, wasn't even trying to hide her grief. She was dressed in sweatpants and a grey hoodie, her hair down in a bit of a rat's nest, her makeup free face streaked with red. John and I took deep breaths, getting off of the couch and moving as a unit into the elevator.
"It will be okay." Molly insisted, grabbing my hand as well and taking long, deep breaths as the elevator descended floors. "It will be okay." she repeated, talking mostly to herself as more silent tears rolled down her face. The rest of us were silent, John still clutching to my hand as a lifeline, and I wouldn't let go.
"They'll make it out, something will happen, an unplanned fire, rebellion, explosion, they'll make it out alright." Molly muttered as the elevator doors opened. The lobby was empty, thankfully, because the whole trope of us was very embarrassing. Four crestfallen underdogs, all holding hands, all in silent tears, marching in a funeral procession to the train. Once the doors closed John let go of my hand, rushed over to the corner of the train and started to throw up onto the ground. I didn't question it, I didn't actually do anything, I knew that eating breakfast was a bad idea. Mrs. Hudson went over to make sure he was okay, but all she could do was pat him on the back and hand him tissues.
"You know what to do right? You took the lessons, you survived once, everything will be okay, of course it will be okay." Molly mumbled.
"Molly, it'll be fine." I assured.
"I can't lose you two, not again." Molly insisted.
"We're not going anywhere." I assured.
"Sherlock, you're going to die!" she insisted, rubbing her eyes furiously with a tissue and pulling the sleeves of her sweatshirt down.
"But that means John won't." I promised.
"There's no hope for either of you." Molly whispered, so quietly that I almost couldn't hear her. But I knew why, she didn't want anyone to hear her being negative, she didn't want us to know what she actually thought. But I knew she was right.
"I'm going to do everything I can, you know that." I assured.
"And in doing that you'll never take into consideration your own life. Both of you two are going to kill yourselves trying to protect the other." Molly pointed out.
"Then it would be worth it." I insisted.
"There are people Sherlock, people that need you other than him! Your parents are at home, waiting for you to return, your brother, who won't even admit it, is worried sick, you're pretty much Mrs. Hudson's son, and you're more than my brother Sherlock, you're more than anything." she insisted, her eyes filling once more with tears.
"When I volunteered, before I got on the train, Mrs. Watson visited me. She made me promise to keep him safe, she said that if we never see each other again that all would be well. I promised her that her son would be alive, that he would leave that arena, that I would die in the process. I'm not going back on my word." I insisted.
"I'm sure your mother made John promise the same thing." Molly decided.
"You'll be okay right?" I asked. Molly shook her head furiously, wrapping her arms around herself once more and sniffling.
"I've never been okay." she insisted. I didn't answer; I just dropped the cigarette out of my mouth and crushed it with the heel of my shoe. With luck it would ignite and burn the train down. The train stopped, ending our conversation. John was upright once more, and we all left the train, leaving the pile of puke for some other poor soul. Our hands joined once more, and we walked through all of the paparazzi, cameras flashing, talking loudly and excitedly at the sight of our despair. We passed through the doors, where Sara and Anthea were standing, waiting for us. Both of them had piles of tissues on them, in their hands and stuffed in their pockets, and their makeup was streaked with tears.
"Here you are." Sara muttered, handing me a nicely folded leather jacket, thin cotton tee shirt, and dark jeans. There were also combat boots with thick soles lying on top, so it must be a rough terrain. I took the outfit shakily, going into the dressing room and doing my best to pull on the outfit. Somehow I managed to dress myself, but I left the shoelaces to Sara, who had come in with my tracker.
"Are you ready?" she asked as she triple knotted the long laces of the shoes. I pulled the necklace out from underneath my shirt, just to make sure I had it, before hastily stuffing it back in. I didn't want Sara to confiscate it, even though I knew it was perfectly safe to bring into the games as a token.
"As I'll ever be." I sighed, looking at the long blue needle, which was on the bench beside me, with fear. I never liked needles.
"You'll be fine, you and John, you'll both be fine. I have hope." She insisted.
"I don't. I know I'll die, and that's that." I decided. Sara took a deep breath, but she obviously agreed with me, because she didn't say anything.
"Give me your arm." She decided. I held out my arm, and she yanked up my sleeve, shoving the needle into my forearm. I winced, clutching to the bottom of the stone bench as the needle beeped and the tracker was planted.
"May the odds be ever in your favor." Sara decided, giving me a big hug which I didn't even try to avoid. I didn't really know how to answer, so I just nodded, walking out of the curtained dressing room to where Mrs. Hudson and Molly were standing. John was still in his dressing room.