GOLDEN AGE | ON HIATUS

II | FINN

[ 02 ]

ALL HIS LIFE, Finn hadn't had to play many roles. It was always only one - hero. It had never been his own choice, rather people telling him what to do, whether it was some Crux Agent or every citizen in Semper City. They all expected so much, in exchange for so little. Thinking that if they gave him crumbs, he would return golden loaves to them. But they were wrong, all of them. He was just a kid, barely eighteen, with vague memories of his parents and even more vague memories of a life outside of Crux. One of the only things that he knew was their names; Katherine "Karen" Johnson and Christopher Johnson. Just two office workers, no other children listed, both tall, both born in New Jersey.

Just two normal people, burdened with a child that cost them both their lives while the golden boy lived on.

That was how he imagined them, anyway. He'd only seen their file once, a glance during some testing when he'd been, what, eight? But those words, no matter how much they faded in his vision, remained in his mind. It had been a way to lull himself to sleep, reciting their names until Wildfire grumbled at him from the other bed to shut up. His friend had never known anything about his family, not even his own name. Wildfire had never known his own parents, but never complained about it. Not outwardly, at least. He wasn't a man of many words, but Finn could see the sag of his shoulders whenever family was mentioned.

Finn didn't blame him - at first, he shifted the blame onto himself, and once they were fourteen, onto Narcissa. Crux told him that she was selfish and cruel and ruthless, but she could only remember the burn of her black diamond gaze and the scrape of her bloodied knuckles against the punching bag, thumping out a steady pattern. He wished that he'd joined her more in those endless days spent in the training room, spoken to her just a while longer. Maybe, some wild part of him imagined, he could've stopped her from leaving.

In the darkest corners of his mind, he could still hear her voice, sharp yet blunt simultaneously, strangely close by. Or was it in his mind?

To his surprise, his eyes opened as soon as he told them to, and his stomach lurched as he found himself at the top of a flight of impossibly steep stairs. Steep enough to break your neck on, he thought, clutching the steel bannister. Had he moved even an inch, he'd have fallen. Narcissa's voice continued, slithering into his ears until he wanted to scream to drown it out, and he looked around, searching for the source. The one thing that he hadn't expected was to see her standing right across the landing, muttering something that he couldn't make out. She was leaning against the wall, one foot flat on the dark tiled floor and the other rested on the distantly grimy wallpaper. Black hair cut to her collarbone rested on a burgundy v-neck under a black leather jacket. A huge necklace sat around her neck, looking so heavy that he wouldn't have been surprised if she had to hold it up with her hands.

"You're awake," she said at last. Her red lips curled into a smirk. "You didn't fall."

Finn looked over his shoulder at the stairs. "Nah, bad for you. Last time we met, you were the one falling, huh?" he said calmly. His jacket wasn't on him, but all his other clothes were. He wondered where it was, but didn't ask.