Fanfare

Heartbeat

Trenna walks out of her room, shutting the door softly behind her. Her bare feet pad silently across the floor. It is cool against her skin, smooth from so many feet walking over it for so many years. She trails her fingers over the doors of each room she passes, counting as she goes. Her fingers rise and fall over metal, rock, metal, rock. The dining hall seems awfully lonely at this time of night. All the tables are empty; the room is silent. She times her breaths to match each door she passes. Finally, she stops.

The door in front of her is the same as the others; covered in green paint in its own stage of decay as it peels from the metal. Beneath, a shining dark grey peeks out, so that it almost looks as if the metal is riddled with its own bizarre shade of rust. The only thing that makes it any different to the rest of the doors is the small mark at the centre, at the height of her shoulder. There are two twisting lines, sinuous and thin, that trace into the shape of a phoenix in the middle of flight. She traces a finger over it. It is pressed into the metal, the lines so thin and worn away that she's barely able to feel the indents they make.

She takes a deep breath, gathering her courage, her sanity, she doesn't quite know what. But, whatever it is, she needs it. Then she fists her hand and knocks lightly on the door, waits a moment, and opens it.

He sits on the floor, in the gap between his bed and the wall, facing the door. His hair looks darker, a sandy brown rather than blonde. His eyes are ringed with the first shadows she's seen in a long time. He rests his elbows on loosely bent knees, staring down at a small rock in his hands that makes their sight equal. He doesn't move as she hesitantly closes the door behind herself. Doesn't show a sign of having noticed her arrival.

She leans back against the door, her fingers wrapped around the handle, wishing she hadn't come, hadn't asked for this in the first place. His eyes are intently studying the rock. "Sit down," he says quietly.

She slips down the door to the ground, her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. The room is so small that she's only a metre away from him. If she stretched out her legs, their toes would touch. She clears her throat. "Why are we here?"

Pierce's eyes finally leave the rock. "I thought it'd be easier to relax here," he says. "Do you want to go somewhere else?"

Trenna swallows and shakes her head. Being anywhere with him so close has her heart beating faster; in fear or in anticipation, she can't tell. The feeling is strange and foreign, and she can't even begin to interpret it. "This is fine." She takes a small victory in the fact that her voice doesn't shake.

Pierce reaches up and places the rock on his bed before dropping his arm back down to its previous position. He looks at her in a way she can only describe as dark, sharp, piercing, like the gaze of a hunter. He just stares at her. He stares until her skin feels as if it's burning from the intensity.

She shifts uncomfortably and pulls her legs closer to her body. "Um, so. Where do we start?"

Pierce shifts his fingers, as if he's gripping his gun strap at his chest. Trenna looks up; it hangs above his bed. She didn't think Pierce would be one to seek comfort, let alone from an object as violent as a gun. Though a gun makes more sense than a person. She can't imagine him getting close enough to someone to put his arms around them unless he was trying to hurt them. Her lips quirk in a small smile that quickly fades when she meets his eyes again. She feels phantom breath on her neck and gun oil on her fingers and shivers, staring over his shoulder, at the small, hairline cracks in the wall instead. She wipes her hands on her pants, trying to get the feeling to go away.

"We calm down," Pierce says, his eyes catching at the movement of her hands.

She forces them into stillness and grips her ankles. "Alright. Calm. I'm calm." She nods as if this will make it so.