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yourheartonfire · 2 years

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ok so i think you did this a while ago, but do you remember that one story you did with bug and everette and gingerly writing reposted it? that story has lived in my head rent free for weeks now, could you think of continuing it?<3

That's one of my favorites too! First part here, original prompt courtesy of @gingerly-writing, continuation suggestion by @avery1s .

CW for mind control and references to off screen dub con and other atrocities.

Later, everyone would collectively claim they had no memories of what they had done - what they'd been forced to do - under the Mad King's reign. A sort of universal spontaneous pardon, necessary for people to be able look each other in the eye and put out the raging trash fires the antagonist had left in his wake.

The protagonist wondered if everyone else was as much of a liar as they were.

Yes, most of those memories were colored a sweet hazy gold, like drowning in honey. But there were moments the protagonist had surfaced, where everything came into sharp relief even if their will was still wrapped in the antagonist's cotton candy mind control.

They remembered snapping to in the council room, kneeling beside the antagonist's chair as an offending minister danced an awkward and humiliated jig on the middle of the conference table.

"This isn't going to solve the grain shortage," the protagonist had said into the hum of the chatter.

The antagonist had nearly choked on his goblet of wine, and the witch king's crown jolted on his head. "Bug? How the hell-"

"You can swallow your pride or refuse the trade agreement or go to war," the protagonist said patiently, amazed at the sound of their own voice. "Only one of those choices doesn't end in starvation."

The antagonist flushed an angry red and grabbed his goblet. The liquid splashed across the protagonist's face. "You dare talk to me like I'm stupid?"

The wine stung the protagonist's eyes as they blinked up at their king in confusion. "Of course I wouldn't. I love you-"

Everett made a horrible noise and clamped his hand to the protagonist's forehead and they sank...

They swam back up again in a red-lit room, sitting on the king's lap before the dying embers in the fireplace as the court cavorted in lockstep through another interminable feast. There was no bread on the table and no smiles on anyone's face. Especially not the king's.

The protagonist raised a hand sleepily to trace the purple/black lines spidering down the antagonist's temples.

"I thought you were going to take this off?" they hummed, raising their fingers towards the crown -

The antagonist caught their hand in a crushing grip. "Bug," he breathed in an unsteady voice. "All the power in the world and you still show your freak face at the worst possible moment."

"All the power in the world," the protagonist repeated. Dimly they were aware their hand hurt in the antagonist's grip but they couldn't quite feel it. That was good. They hoped the courtiers who'd been ordered to stand in the fireplace hadn't felt it either before they'd died. "That's what you wanted. Why aren't you happy, Everett?"

"Oh I'm thrilled," he husked, hauling the protagonist closer across his lap in a bruising grip. "Never better. All my dreams come true. Tell me you love me again."

The protagonist snuggled into that cold embrace, closer to that galloping heartbeat that seemed to quite settle these days, and looked tenderly into their old rival's face.

"I hope you choke and die," the protagonist said sweetly, and wondered why the antagonist's face contorted with rage and magic-

- and they awoke in the royal bedchamber. Gray sunlight struggling through the rips in the velvet drapes, the watered silk of the settee grimy with dust. The antagonist's head on their lap as he sobbed into the protagonist's thigh.

The protagonist stilled, their hand still threaded through the king's overgrown hair where it scraggled down his neck.

"Oh." The antagonist sat back on his heels, wiping tears and snot on his sleeve. "Oh yes. Of course. My little fucking bellwether."

"Oh, Everett." Like moving through molasses, the protagonist drew their fingers slowly through the tangles. The antagonist shuddered. "Are you sad, Everett? Did you break too many toys? Did you order me - me! - to comfort you?"

The antagonist buried their head harder into the protagonist's thigh as the protagonist kept stroking. Somewhere along the way the antagonist had gone from cold to feverish. The protagonist sighed. "You should have listened."

"Just a few more to bring in line," the antagonist whispered. "And the rebellion in the west and the spies in the city and the rest of the disloyal lords..."

"They're all disloyal," the protagonist said. "Everyone hates you, Everett."

They looked up and the protagonist nearly screamed at the terrible black stained eyes staring back out from under the cursed crown. "It's almost done."

The protagonist grabbed for the crown.

They'd expected it to burn or to sting. They were braced for pain. But it felt like normal, cool metal in their hand. Except that it wouldn't come off the antagonist's head.

The antagonist laughed, low and bitter. "It's almost done," he whispered, climbing up to the protagonist's lap. "It'll come off when it's done."

"I almost feel sorry for you," the protagonist said, glaring as the antagonist cupped their face in his hands. "Almost."

"I know, I know. You warned me." And then the antagonist lunged for the protagonist's mouth and...

...quiet. And peace. The protagonist blinked gently awake to sound of songbirds and realized there was nobody in their mind but them.

There was someone else in the bed though.

When the surving ministers burst into the bedroom the protagonist was ready. The king's body had been arranged across the bed, ash and charcoal fragments from the hearth across his dessicated face and the pillows. The protagonist had scrubbed their hands clean of soot and huddled on the settee under a sheet.

"The crown crumbled," they whispered to the courtiers. "How did I get here? What happened?"

There was silence. Then someone cleared their throat and said "I don't rightly remember it myself," and a murmur of agreement rose.

There were questions and suspicion of course, but there was too much to do for imaginations to run wild. The protagonist performed a few weeks of work themselves before making their excuses and leaving. No one begrudge them their exit.

They hit the road with a few coins, their pack, and the witch king's crown angrily pulsing at them from its hidden place in its wrappings. The protagonist's anti-magic field was enough to contain it for now, but they were eager to get to the ends of the earth and dispose of the thing.

I did not create him, the crown murmured. I only enhance what is there.

"I know," the protagonist said out loud, and set out to see how far they could go.

#my fiction #hero x villain #heroxvillain #fantasy #Bug and Everett #gingerly writing #100

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heroes-villains-side-blog · 1 year

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Fics of a touch starved villain with death powers x hero who's the only one immune.

The romance-repulsed and touch-averse in me ⚔ wanting to collect the whole set

Anyway. For 2 and 3, I named them myself, not the authors. I thought they were funny.

For your reading pleasure:

Two-parter, happy ending by @thepenultimateword backup links: part 1 part 2

What are you gonna do? Stab me? by @yourheartonfire backup link

Villain was being annoying and made Hero angry and is scared now by @justsomeonewholiketowrite backup link

My "analysis" of @justsomeonewholiketowrite's snippet if you scroll down :3

4. Deathtouched by @arealphrooblem backup links: part 1

Honorable mentions

Medusa as the villain by @watercolorfreckles backup link

Hero with destructive powers, four-parter, by @auratusaria

Art which fits the theme out-of-context, by @awkwardosthe3rd and @unfried-mouth-wheat backup link

Prompt. Hero with destructive fire powers who hurts everyone they touch, by @gingerly-writing backup link

Fire villain but oh no! It's raining! by @/thepenultimateword backup link

Spoilers and not exactly but fits the vibe kinda by @/thepenultimateword

To blogs that were tagged: This list has existed for over a year now I just didn't know whether to tag you guys. But I've decided I will because you guys obviously have some interest in common + consider it a version of: 🐾

More of #my evil library management (link)

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mirohtron · 1 year

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“You’ve seriously never thought about us kissing?” The superhero crooked an eyebrow. “We’ve been marinating in sexual tension for three years now.”

prompt by @gingerly-writing :> <333

—

“You’ve seriously never thought about us kissing?” The superhero crooked an eyebrow. “We’ve been marinating in sexual tension for three years now.”

The villain choked. Went to hide their blushing face.

When they cracked two fingers apart to peak, the superhero was still staring at them through their cell's reinforced bars.

"No," they said. "You're a bit too terrifying."

That was not entirely true. The superhero was terrifying, yes. Loved by the masses. Feared by the criminal underbelly of the city. But the villain was enamoured, hopelessly, by that. The contrast between their charming, friendly persona that was reserved for the masses and their true cold, calculating, dangerous demeanor left the villain hopelessly pining after them. They were incredible, truly. Perfection.

They ran their hands down their heated face and looked up.

The superhero's perfect face stared down at them. The villain looked down at their crossed legs instead. "I thought you were just toying," they mumbled. "With the flirting."

Silence, again. The villain glanced up at the superhero through their lashes.

The superhero tilted their head in observation. The villain pressed their lips into a thin line and crossed their arms, hunching their shoulders.

The superhero crouched down to meet their level. The villain tucked their chin in and leaned back, refusing to make eye contact. They heard the rustle of the superhero's gloves slipping off of their fingers. They dropped to the floor, right in front of the bars. The villain could've reached out and taken them.

"It doesn't change my offer," said the superhero. "I get you out of this cell in exchange for a kiss."

Had it not been for their dark skin, the villain was sure they would've lit up red. But they couldn't accept the offer, surely. They imagined even a brush of their fingers would leave the villain dizzy and swaying on their feet.

They recalled, once, they'd thrown a stun bomb at the superhero and had them incapacitated for almost ten minutes. The superhero had risen up, suit torn (because they had it remade every day, since it was not completely reinforced so that the public could get glimpses of their skin—and that always, always left the villain faint).

They'd had them up against the wall, smiled down, body radiating heat, and said, "well, aren't you incredible?"

The villain's knees had turned to jelly instantly.

"I can get out of here on my own," they mumbled, biting their tongue right after they spoke so their mind wouldn't conjure up more memories.

"Is that so?" The superhero feigned a curious tone. "A little birdie told me you've bruised your whole body trying to break these bars."

The villain winced. They properly glanced up at the superhero, then, and saw they had their cheek resting on their fist. Their eyes were lazily hooded. Their other hand rose to trail fingers down their neck, to the side of their collarbone.

The villain's hand rose, automatically, to their own collarbone, to the bruise there that was exposed by the loose neckline of their shirt. They pulled it close. Their cheeks flushed for a different reason, then; they hated this cell and the way it suppressed their powers. It felt like one of their limbs had been cut off. They hated the Scientist—the villain that had trapped them here—for finding a way to suppress their powers even more.

They straightened their back. "Liar. This cell's shut down my powers. Maybe it's done that to you, too." They glanced back at the number of fortified doors the superhero had sauntered through when they first entered. They could've broken through those doors with ease.

Once more, the superhero crooked an eyebrow. They lifted their cheek from their fist and closed their fingers around one of the steel bars. The villain watched as it corroded beneath their skin.

They blinked. "Oh."

The superhero spread their hand in a voila gesture, raising their brow. "Oh."

Dumbly, the villain pursed their lips. They seriously considered the offer, then. Glanced, traitorously, at the superhero's lips. Thought of how it would feel to have their mouth pressed against that lovely pair.

Their lips buzzed with sensation. Oh, they felt dizzy right then.

"I'm not an idiot, in case you weren't paying attention," said the superhero. They tilted their head and raked their eyes down the villain—intoxicating. "I can hear your heart thumping like a bunny on caffeine. I always have."

The villain squeaked and put a hand over their heart, as if that would do any good. "You—you make me nervous."

The superhero smiled, then, all sly. "I know I do."

The villain's flush heightened, impossibly so. They didn't even know they could get this flustered. "This is unfair. You knew."

"I'm a very unfair person."

"I'm bad."

The superhero shrugged. "I'm terrible."

The villain clenched their fists. Everything felt very, very hot.

The superhero leaned in. They caught the villain's chin through the bars, bare, callused fingers rough and warm on their skin. "You're good," they said. "You're very good. You're exceptional, able to outsmart even me, and you just keep your talents on the down low so that no one targets you."

Again, the villain pursed their lips into a line. Wobbly. Burning with the phantom sensation of the superhero's mouth on theirs. They had nothing to protest with, then, just the heat curling all around their body, fingers going shaky. "You'll take me out."

"Mm." The superhero tilted the villan's chin as much as the bars allowed them. Ran their fingers around the underside of their jaw. Skated up to touch one burning cheek. "To dinner. Or lunch." The corner of their mouth quirked up, devastatingly sharp and evil. "Or a nice little rooftop if you kiss me." They scraped their thumb along the curve of the villain's bottom lip.

The villain's lips parted automatically. They took in a quivering, nervous breath. "You'll get me out."

"Of course."

"How long have you liked me back?"

The superhero looked pleased. That smile, god, that smile. It wasn't made for the cameras. It was evil, mean, smug. It made the villain's heart flip hopelessly. "I might let you know if you kiss me."

The villain clutched the bars and leaned close. The steel brushed cold against their cheeks. They had to know. Was it after they first drew the superhero's blood? Or from that time one of their inventions sent the superhero flying through ten walls? Or one of the times when they had the villain blushing, pressed flush to a wall?

The superhero chuckled to themselves, gently tipped the villain's chin up, and kissed them.

The villain sighed and pulled them close and the superhero pulled them closer. Their hands snaked beneath their shirt and ran over their back, their sides, teased the edges of their waistband. It stung just slightly from the bruises, but the heat that their hands left in their wake left the villain too brainless to think of anything else but them.

The superhero leaned back first. The villain would've followed their lips mindlessly if it hadn't been for the bars. But instead they stayed there, breathless, lips burning, cheeks still pressed to the steel bars. They tapped the corroded edge of the bar the superhero had touched in urgency.

The superhero ran their hands around the bars in a huge circle, and they snapped right off. The villain barely had time to get to their feet before the superhero had scooped them up into another kiss. This one was hungrier, eager for a proper taste, and the villain had to tiptoe to properly kiss them. They leaned back for air.

"Since the stun bomb," said the superhero. "I've wanted a smart, pretty thing like you since."

"O—oh." The villain wasn't sure how to properly respond to that. They were already afraid they'd been misjudged on the smart part, maybe the superhero had kissed them dumb. But they found that they didn't need to respond, because the superhero was kissing them again.

They walked out hand in hand. The superhero dropped them off on a nice little rooftop, cheeks still burning, lips still buzzing and swollen.

The villain touched a hand to their cheek, feeling the heat there.

Oh, they were head over heels.

#hero x villain #villain x hero #heroes and villains #villains and heros #villain x superhero #kyles.writing #heroes #superhero x villain #villains #superheroes #kissing #me putting 'prompt by gingerly writing :> <3' to hide the fact that i think this is the worst piece ive ever written #the superhero . is not evil enough . imo #but i am too lazy to edit #(false i will probs edit this once ive posted it)#writeblr #writers on tumblr

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max-reblogger · 1 year

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Villain x Henchman #Scenario 15

These characters are both gender neutral and nameless because I couldn't think of anything specific, I wanted to do with them. This is also (again) inspired by one of gingerly-writing's prompts. Hope you like this short scenario and thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hero pushed henchman down with their hand wrapped around the other's throat. Soon enough villain would be there and hero would punish them for hurting them so much. They would finally get their revenge. "Hero! Let go of them!" Villain shouted, landing on the roof. They began walking towards hero with fury in their eyes. Hero clenched their hand around henchman's throat causing villain to stop just as quickly as they had started. "What do you want?" Hero loosened their grip, tears continuing to seep down henchman's cheeks. "You know, making a hero beg is easy. They always have so many weaknesses. Friends, family, the city, an intolerance for pain. But a villain? Oh, now there's a real challenge." "What does that have to do with henchman?!" "Don't interrupt me!" Hero yelled, clenching their hand again. Henchman gasped for air. "Where was I? Right. You used all of my weaknesses against me! YOU KILLED PEOPLE! Just to get to me. So I thought I would return the favour." "How?" "Well, I think that I finally found your only weakness. Don't you agree henchman?" Henchman choked back a sob, unable to breathe, unable to speak with hero choking them harder with each word they spoke. "Henchman isn't my weakness." Venom laced villain's voice. "Then you won't mind if I throw them over the side of this building?" Hero lifted henchman and hung them over the railing of the roof. Henchman clung to hero's arm. "Wait! Wait. Please!" Villain yelled. "Beg me to let them go." Villain slowly bent down, resting on their knees. "I beg you, please, let them go." "As you wish." Hero removed their hand from henchman's throat. And they began to plumet down. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Villain dove over the edge of the roof after henchman, trying to fly as fast they possibly could. But they were too late. Henchman's body was pierced by a street sign. "HENCHMAN!" Bystanders screamed at the bloody sight. Parent's covering their children's eyes as they screamed. Villain cupped henchman's cheek. "Henchman?" Blood slipped from henchman's lips. "Sorry villain. Wish I could have been more useful. Thanks for letting stick by you for so long, though." The last word was barely a whisper as henchman's eyes closed and the breathed their final breath. Villain cried. Hero laughed.

#original scenario #villain x henchman #evil hero #good villain #ish #gingerly-writing #romantic #or platonic #short #angst #sad ending

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queenofbaws · 11 months

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begging on my knees for any CREEPs crumbs you can give me 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Of all the horrible, unspeakable, terrifying, bonechilling sights they could've been greeted by upon entering the apartment, truly this was the worst: There on the couch, slumped behind the podcast recording setup, sat Chris and Ashley, fast asleep. He'd conked out hunched over the table, one arm beneath his chin and the other knocking his glasses askew while propping his head up, and she snoozed away with her cheek smooshed to his shoulder, the cord of the earbuds they were sharing dipping below their chins in a V that made the heart-shaped composition of the scene almost inescapable.

Josh was very much going to puke.

"Aww..." Sam began, jokingly clasping her hands beneath her chin in an over-the-top display, "they're so - wait a second, look at the screen, it's still playing back." Her eyebrows pinched together in a pained expression then, her mouth pulling down in a defeated wince as she asked, "The new episode's that boring, huh?"

"Eh, I dunno about that, Sammy," Josh said, leaning forward over the laptop, meeting her gaze as he hovered his finger over the VOLUME MAX button in a threat as obvious as it was hilarious, "but just to be prudent, what say we...well, spice it up a little, hmm?"

six sentence sat(or)sunday!!!

#icequeen-07 #six sentence weekend #queenie writes supermassive #ghost hunting au #until dawn #i see you begging on your knees and pluck your request from out of your hands #in its place i gingerly lay down one (1) super serious queenie friendship point #heheehhEHEHEHEHE THANK YOOOOOU! my hunger for ghost crumbs is unmatched lately

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anechomirrored · 1 year

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Fandom: none, hero x villian

Rating: T

Prompt(s): "I know what this looks like."

Warnings: An argument

"Wait! Now, hold on-" Villian begins, only to have you turn so sharply he nearly runs into you.

"What?" You snap.

Your hands clench by your side. You're tired, and this latest stunt has you on the edge of spontaneous combustion.

"I know what this looks like." He starts quickly, "I know, but she wouldn't let up. Just kept cornering me the whole fight. She's got one hell of a punch, you know and I was off balance and I just-"

"You just what? Accidently kissed?" You spare him none of the venom that you can currently feel twisting your insides

Why did all of this feel like a betrayal?

It shouldn't even matter!

You are enemies. This guy literally attempts to take over the city on a regular basis.

Your minds keeps replaying the scene along with every moment in your shared narrative that you now suddenly find painful in the the face of it.

The day of the Metro tunnels collapsed and he pulled you out, could have escaped if he had left you, but no.

That time you teamed up against the city's Supervillain and put them safely behind bars?

Now these stupid little truce moments where you both pop in at random just to taunt one another or make sure that latest brawl didn't finish the other off?

None of this should have been happening to begin with.

You have fought one another at almost every turn for years. The whirlwind chases, your daring captures and his last minute get aways. You had done it all and more with him as your main opponent.

Just the two of you in an unending game of cat and mouse.

So maybe that was why seeing him with the city's newest up and coming vigilante like that hurt so much.

"Just go before I get you arrested." You huff.

You turn away from his exasperation.

He protests, because of course he does, but you aren't listening.

"Just get out of here." You say, there's a tremor in your voice that you hope comes off as anger.

Finally he recieves your message and falls silent and you ridgidly wait for the familiar rustle of fabric and the click of a window latch.

After a moment, both sounds reach your ears, but so does his voice.

It's quiet, hardly in character for him.

The last time he'd been this quiet was at the top of the city's tallest highrise. It was New Years. You had watched the city count down together. His voice had been too soft then as well. Too...vulnerable to be the guy that caught you in the occasional overly elaborate trap.

The sound of your name and a gust of wind chilling your skin, returns you to the present.

"I didn't kiss her back."

You resist the urge to turn around.

You know he's already gone.

Standing in the now too empty room, an uncomfortable swirl of emotions, conflicting and messy fill your every molecule.

The fireworks that year had been the biggest and brightest the city had ever set off.

This silence surrounding you now was the loudest thing you'd heard since.

#fictober22 #hero x villain #inspired by gingerly-writing #as someone who avoids fighting writing this was hard #is this angst?#yup #just looked it up #angst #echoes transcribed

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sadisticyouko · 1 year

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C. Don't smoke and look at Yoko instead, specifically the bottom left one—

(////♡_♡////) oh…

he’s so pretty 🥺💕 I guess I won’t smoke…it’s too hard to disagree when youko’s looking right at me >\\\\\\>

but also consider how hot he’d be in a black leather jacket, leaning up against a brick wall in the alley, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and taking a deft pull from the cigarette…

#you show up and ask to bum a cig #he hands the open pack to you and gingerly lift it from the carton #he leans in #offers to light it for you and you look up as the flame catches #the reflection dancing in his mischievous golden eyes #prob steals your wallet before u leave but yanno it’s a memorable experience !!#anyways #youko kurama 😩💕💕💕#sadisticyouko rants #not writing #I’ll be a good girl tonight but only cuz it’s cold !#and if I go to bed with my clothes smelling like cigarettes it’ll make me lonely 😂#I think about mikey when I’m lonely and that doesn’t belong on this blog 😂#✧ anon hour *･ﾟ

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nevada-got-screwed-over · 1 year

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Last Line Game

I got tagged by @theconfusedtissue; which reminded me that I have a Theta!South AU I should be working on now that the semester is over 😅

Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.

Vaulted walls veiled in barbed wire - no doubt electrified - and the small private army of armor-clad security would be overkill for any UNSC installation.

I’m too indecisive to choose who to tag (and there would be so many!) so if you see this on your dash - TAG you’re it :]

#beans speaks #rvb #red versus blue #tag game #theta!south au #*crawls out from under my weighted blanket to place this gingerly on the windowsill for a pigeon to carry to its destination*#I’ve been procrastinating this chapter bc I have to make DECISIONS that will have PLOT CONSEQUENCES #thanks for the tag it inspired me to write a few paragraphs in a cold sweat after I haven’t touched this word file in. like a month.

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arwainian · 6 months

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honestly some of the tags on the last post are brought to you by reading some of Hil Malatino's Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad for class next week. specifically chapter 3 "Found Wanting: On Envy" and uh. highly recommend as a book to help articulate and engage with Bad Feelings you might not understand or know how to touch regarding gender

#arwainian princessoid decrees #transmasc academic gingerly but unflinching writing theory on the various ways you might feel bad while trans #going far beyond and getting far more specific than 'dysphoria'#fatigue. numbness. envy. rage and so on!

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wreywrites · 7 months

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Tiger Shark

Part 3: The Crown

Chapter 13

I wake up in my room in the tribute center. Everything is heavy. Oh so heavy. A woman in a white lab coat walks in and says something. I stare at her. She says it again. I am confused, and it must show, because she says it again. This time her words make sense.

“Annie, how are you feeling?”

“Tired,” I rasp.

She nods. “That’s to be expected. You were treading water for almost eight hours. And very malnourished.” She checks the needle that is in my arm, feeding some liquid from a bag into my blood. When she is done, she gives me a tiny smile. “Go back to sleep, Annie.”

I do.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I wake again. I already feel more alert than last time. I lift my head as high as I can, which is not high at all, but I can see myself. The needle is still in my arm. I am wearing a thin hospital gown, and underneath it, I can see skin and bone. My muscles have atrophied to nothing compounded with malnutrition and my best attempts at dehydration. My head flops back to the pillow.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

The third time I wake up, the woman in the lab coat is back. She has a tray of food, though it is only a cup of broth, a small seaweed roll, and a glass of water. I eat all the food, drink the water, and answer a few questions about how I am feeling. “Tired.” “Heavy.” “Empty.” When she has asked all her questions, she leaves.

In the silence that follows her absence, I hear them. Sounds made by the dying. And then I see them, their blank eyes staring through me. I cannot shut them out.

I must have lost all grip on reality, because the next thing I know the woman is back. Her hands are on my shoulders, strong and steady. My hands are clamped over my ears.

“Annie?” she says, “Annie? Annie, can you hear me? Annie, just listen to my voice. That’s all that matters. Just listen to me. Okay Annie?”

I blink, bringing her face into focus. My muscles are cramped. “How long…?”

“Almost ten minutes. Your heart monitor went crazy a few minutes after I left, so I came back in to check on you and found you curled up and unresponsive.” She eases my sore limbs back into a more normal position. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just… even in the arena, when it was quiet, I could hear them.”

“Hear what?”

“The sounds,” I say quietly. “The death sounds.”

The woman nods. “I’ll turn your ambience on.” She picks up the little remote from my bedside table and clicks a button. My window morphs from the familiar view of the Capitol to an evergreen forest. “Let me know when you see something you like.” She clicks past a desert, a grassy plain, a snowy mountain, and a babbling stream.

“This one,” I say when the window shows a stormy beach with crashing waves and rumbling thunder.

She nods again, then sets the remote on my bedside table next to a glass of water. “If you want to change it, just push the arrows. There’s all sorts of stuff. My favorite is this meadow full of flowers, and there are birds flying around and singing, and there’s just a little bit of a breeze so the flowers all bob up and down.”

I give her the best smile I can manage. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be back with supper in a few hours. Until then, try to sleep some more.” She leaves, closing the door quietly, and I close my eyes and listen to the roar of the waves.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

We go on like this for days. I shuffle through the screens until I find whatever sounds like the best way to cover up the sounds in my head. Each meal, I get a little more food. After a while, they remove the needle from my arm. They have me sit up when I’m not sleeping. Eventually, they have me walk around, stretch, take showers, eat my meals at a little table. I start wearing real clothes, though they are baggy and comfortable and not suited for anything other than lounging around all day.

And then one day, the woman eats lunch with me. I have a sizable portion of broth—with chunks of meat and vegetables, which is a recent development—and two seaweed rolls, and she lets me have a glass of apple juice instead of water. When we finish our meal, she gives me a real smile and says, “You’re ready. Still pretty skinny, but getting stronger again. And let me be the first to tell you, congratulations.”

She takes both our empty trays and leaves. She comes back in a few minutes later and says, “Come on out.”

I leave the room slowly, glancing at her as I pass through the doorway. She simply smiles and nods toward the other end of the hallway. I turn, slowly, and there they are.

I crash into Finnick. It hurts. It hurts a lot. But it is worth it. To have some comfort. To have those strangely familiar arms wrapped around me. To know that I am finally safe. That no one can hurt me anymore. That I can go to bed at night without fear of another tribute slitting my throat in my sleep. That I am going home.

“Thank you,” I rasp into his shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

We stand there, wrapped in each other, for a long time. Then I feel a gentle hand on my back. I let go of Finnick and turn to find Mags at my elbow, beaming up at me. I smile and hug her for several long seconds.

Casca is there, and Marius, and Preps 1, 2, and 3. I hug them all. Even Casca, who I have never before accused of caring, gives me a real smile and says, “Well done, Tiger Shark.”

And when I have hugged and been congratulated by everyone and thanked them all for all they have done to help me, Finnick pulls me into another hug. Mags wraps an arm around each of us, and we stand there at the nexus between hallway and living area, arena and real world, tribute and victor, child and champion.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Finnick asks me if I want to hear about the Games before the show tonight when I have to sit on stage with Caesar Flickerman and watch the three-hour highlight reel on live TV.

I nod. “I don’t want anything to surprise me. I don’t know what might set me off.” I still don’t feel like I have a good grip on reality. The whole time I was in my room recovering, I kept the window screen on, playing something with noise. Rain, birds, waves, anything. As long as it was noise.

I cannot stand silence. And it is silence that sets me off.

Finnick nods. “Obviously, we can’t watch it yet or I’d say we should just do that. So I’ll hit the high points. Five dead in the bloodbath, and you killed Farroe. On day three the girls from Eight and Twelve ran into each other and decided to fight it out over a berry patch. They both died of their wounds. The stampede got the girl from One and the boy from Five, then Jilly killed Elsie and Merritt killed Jilly and Tychus killed Merritt. And after the rest of you ran, the boy from Nine attacked Tychus for not killing Merritt sooner. He thought it was Tychus’s fault Jilly was dead, which is fair, I think, but Tychus wasn’t having it so he just killed him. Then it was pretty quiet for a while. A few of them came really close to running into each other, which is why the Gamemakers didn’t intervene and try to push people together. It kept looking like it was going to happen and then it just didn’t. The boy from Eleven tried to steal some water from the Careers. He almost got away, but Tychus shot him just before he got to the trees. Tychus and the girl from Seven decided to hunt down whoever they could find. He hung back when they saw Stitch and the girl from Six fighting, and then picked her off from the trees after she was the last one standing. Which both horrifies and impresses me. Then there was a whole week of pretty much nothing but close calls and everyone but Zalea running out of clean water, which is what sent the Careers after you and Mako. Tychus did steal your iodine, so… I guess it worked…” he trails off.

In the brief silence that follows, I hear the slick sound of a beheading. “Keep talking,” I say through gritted teeth.

Thankfully, he obliges me. “You took off, which honestly saved your life. Tychus was in the cave looting your supplies and came out right after you jumped in the river. He spent the rest of the Games trying to hunt everyone else down, but he couldn’t find anyone. Surprising, because Zalea was also trying to hunt everyone down at that point. They crossed paths a few times, missed each other by minutes, lots of drama. You were holed up in your bushes, the boy from Three was actually pretty close to where the stampede started, and the boy from Twelve had made himself a nice little treehouse where the trees got closest to the cornucopia. He spent most of the Games there, just watching everything happen. Genius, really. Anyway, the last day the Gamemakers decided this had gone on long enough, so they decided to shake things up with an earthquake.”

“Why would you say it like that?”

“I actually didn’t notice.” He snorts. “Not a bad pun though.”

Mags pokes him.

“Yes, sorry. So the Gamemakers set off their earthquake, but it did more damage than they planned. It broke the dam, and, as luck would have it, right when they triggered the earthquake, Zalea and Tychus finally ran into each other just across the river from your cave.” He shakes his head. “It was shaping up to be quite a fight, then the dam collapsed and killed them both instantly. The boy from Three couldn’t swim, so he drowned almost as soon as the wave swept him up. And that left you treading water and the boy from Twelve using what was the floor of his treehouse as a raft. Except it worked fine as a camouflaged floor, but not as a raft. It started to break up as soon as the water hit it, and he spent seven hours clinging to smaller and smaller pieces. When he didn’t have enough to keep himself afloat, he started treading water. And then you two kept going for just over another hour. He went under about five minutes before you started to give up, but once he was unconscious they sent the hovercraft in for you so they could pick you up as soon as the cannon went off.”

“How long was I out for?”

“They kept you under for two days, then started weaning you off the drip. You didn’t really have any injuries, you were just exhausted and malnourished, so they wanted you to sleep it off and then start eating and exercising.” He smiles a little. “You were a far cry from the Annie the Capitol fell in love with, and they wanted to get you as close to that as they could before the finale.”

“And what do you think?” I hold my arms out to the side. “Did they?”

Mags chuckles, shaking her head.

“No,” Finnick says. “But your eyes are the same. And you still have that same look on your face, and that’s what won over the people who mattered.”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

“Who sent the bread?”

Finnick and I are watching Capitol TV. They are refraining from showing anything from the Games, saving it all for tonight when they watch me watch the highlights live. Non-Hunger Games Capitol TV is surprisingly boring, but also a little hilarious. Right now some poor man named Atticus Feathersby is doing a show about the monkeys at the zoo. It isn’t much, but it is noise. I’ve already blanked out once today, and had to come clean about how often it happened while I was recuperating in my room, even after I started leaving the screen on all the time.

Finnick smiles. “Four. Couple of guys named Rizz and Reefer got their fishing crews together and all chipped in a fair bit. Your dad sent some. Jade and Coral, a bunch of the teachers. Mako’s parents. I know you didn’t think you could do it, but everyone at home did. They never stopped believing in you.” He pauses, then continues, “Your dad was the first person in all of Panem to send us money. As soon as they opened it up for sponsors he sent some with explicit instructions to wait until you really needed something.”

“What did you spend it on?”

“Six cream cheese rolls.”

I smile. “I bet he loved that.”

“I hope so,” Finnick says. “You’ll have to ask him when we get back.”

“What about the water?”

“You’ll meet her tonight.”

“Keep your secrets then. The iodine?”

“You’ll meet him too. I expect you to be very gracious and thankful.”

“I am!” I say, indignant that he would think I feel otherwise. “Whoever they are, they saved my life. The least I can do is say thank you!”

“I’m sure they’ll want to take pictures with you too. Then again, so will everyone else at the party.”

“I suppose I have to smile.”

“Yes, I suppose you will. At home, they know the Games change a person. In the Capitol, they expect you to be the same girl they fell in love with five weeks ago.”

“What if I… fade out again?”

“I’ll be right beside you all night, and so will Mags. And there’ll be plenty of noise to keep you grounded.”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I do not want to go to the highlight show. Finnick tells me victor’s remorse is common, and that I have to go. But I really do not think I can do it. I cannot watch these people die. Watching the highlights means watching twenty-three other people die, two by my hand, several more by my actions, and another several who I was as close to being friends with as one can be in the arena. I cannot watch them die.

“Then don’t,” Finnick says. “Look at Caesar, look at the audience, look at Gloss, look at me.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “They don’t make you talk about it tonight. You just have to sit there and keep breathing. You got through twenty-two days in the arena, you can get through three hours on stage. I know you can.”

I nod. I’m not sure if I believe it, but if he’s confident, then I will have to be as well.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

We eat an early supper with Casca, Marius, and the prep team. I am still on rations, but I get a healthy portion of rice and beef gravy, and when we get in the car to go to the interview, Mags slips me half a cream cheese roll. I smile at her before inhaling it. Finnick shakes his head, but he is smiling.

Marius dresses me in a floor-length sea-green dress and simple flat shoes. The Preps curl my hair and paint my nails the familiar swirling, cream-colored patterns. Mags gives me a hug while Finnick tells me where he and Mags, Marius, the prep team, the other mentors, and even Casca will be sitting. I think he wants to give me plenty of options for recognizable faces to look at so it doesn’t look strange that I only look in one place for the whole show.

Then we all walk to our assigned places under the stage. Above us, Caesar is talking, though I can’t make out his words. Then the platform holding Preps 1 through 3 rises up through a hole in the stage floor. There is healthy applause from the audience. Marius goes next and is met with cheers and whistles. Casca gets the same. I suspect his popularity in the Capitol is about the same as it is in Four: mediocre at best. Then Finnick and Mags, his arm around her shoulders, rise to the stage. The crowd roars. They love Finnick and they adore Mags. When the cheers die down, my platform begins its ascent as Caesar says, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you, the victor of the Seventieth Hunger Games, the Tiger Shark of District Four, Annie Cresta!”

How he timed it that way, I do not know. People smarter than me did the math, I suppose. Just as Caesar shouts my name to the audience, I rise through the stage floor. The crowd goes wild. Cheers, whistles, people chanting my name, someone shouting that they love me, raucous applause. The noise echoes, compounds, reverberates in my skull. I smile, wave, then, feeling emboldened, blow a few kisses to the crowd. Caesar meets me halfway to the armchairs, takes my hand, and lifts it to the sky. If the cheers were loud before, they are deafening now.

After at least a minute, the applause begins to subside. Caesar and I take our seats. He is perched on the edge of his, as usual, but I sit comfortably, leaning back, surveying the audience. In the time it takes the applause to die down, I find everyone I want to. Casca, Marius, and the prep team are off to the right, in front of the other districts’ escorts and style teams. Mags and Finnick are front and center, with the rest of this year’s mentors and every living past victor around and behind them. I suddenly find myself wishing my father was here. It is his face I need. But he is not, and Caesar starts talking.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I know we all can’t wait to talk to our Tiger Shark again, but we will have to.” The audience responds with appropriate levels of sadness. “Tonight, though, we get to watch Annie’s journey from fisherman of District Four to Victor of the Seventieth Hunger Games. Are you excited?”

The crowd roars, and the stage darkens some so it is easier to see the video being played on huge screens all around. Caesar subtly directs my attention to one just to our left which faces the stage at an angle that allows the escort and style team section to see it as well as Caesar and me. I hear the soft thump of a microphone turning off next to me as the sound from the video starts coming in through the speakers, then Caesar whispers, “It’s easy to look away from that screen and still have it look like you’re watching. If that was something you were interested in.”

“Thank you,” I whisper back as video-Casca calls my name in the reaping.

They show the same footage as they did on the recap the night of the reaping. Then, because there is no training center footage to show, they jump straight to our scores and then the interviews. There are only clips of everyone else, a joke or clever line, something particularly endearing, Zalea telling Caesar she can juggle eight oranges at once, but she doesn’t think that’ll be much use in the arena. I hadn’t paid attention to her interview before. Now I am sad. I would have liked to see her juggle eight oranges. In fact, I think I would have liked to have been friends with her, had life been different. But that will never be now. They skip the District Four interviews and save them for the end, after Twelve. They show my entire interview. I am shocked at how different I look now. The arena has physically changed me more than I would have thought possible. Where I was lean and strong before, I am now skin and bone, finally starting to fill out a little, but not nearly enough. But the audience still loves my interview. They laugh in all the same places, and “Odair he is” makes its whispered and giggled rounds again. Even I smile. They don’t show all of Mako’s interview, but they do show the revelation that we are a couple. They cut it short when Caesar asks, “We all hope it doesn’t come to this, but if it were to become just the two of you, could you do it?” and then show Mako and I holding hands at the back of the stage as Caesar says, “The sharks and lovers from Four!”

The screen fades to black, then fades back in with a wide shot showing all twenty-four tributes rising out of the tubes into the arena, and the Games begin. I don’t watch much of it. I know what happens, and I have no mind to watch any of them die again. So I take Caesar’s advice and simply look around the audience in the area of the screen. I react as appropriately as I can to what is happening, smiling when we make our alliance with Merritt, Elsie, Stitch, and Zalea, even laughing a little when they show Stitch fitting me in my buffalo poncho. I didn’t realize how ridiculous I looked until now.

To my surprise, and relief, they don’t show Mako’s death. They show Tychus sneaking into the cave while Mako was spearfishing and I was in the middle of our tree patch, and Taffeta sneaking in from the other side, but just before she kills Mako, the camera cuts to me. It never occurred to me what my face might have looked like in that instant, but on the screen I become almost unrecognizable. Once again, I have surprised myself with my reactions, because instead of the wild terror I expected, I see shock, rage, determination. It is the same expression that Merritt had when he killed Jilly. Still, I stagger backward, though it almost looks like I am bracing for a fight, until I trip, and then I blink and Taffeta is dead. In my mind that took several minutes. In reality it was almost instantaneous.

The video shows my escape in the river—Tychus really was almost in time to kill me then and there—and my wild flight through the woods, and my discovery of the blackberry patch to hide in, then it cuts to the other four remaining tributes, and mostly follows them for the remaining few days, though it does show me getting my water and thanking whoever sent it, and eating my loaf of seaweed bread. Tychus and Zalea really did miss each other by minutes quite often, and one of those times was within a hundred yards of where I was hiding. It’s no small miracle that neither of them found me. I certainly wouldn’t have won a fight.

Zalea finally finds Tychus on the other side of the river from the cave. She manages to sneak up on him when the ground begins to shake. She uses his distraction to her advantage and leaps at him, but he reacts just in time. Instead of his neck, she slices his bow in half with her sword. He tosses the broken bow aside as the ground rocks more and more violently, drawing a sword from his belt. They begin what would have been a duel for the ages, one long spoken of in the history of the Hunger Games, but the ground is rumbling. Even the camera is shaking. There is a deafening crack and the dam comes crashing down. Zalea and Tychus are not swept away by the flood, they are buried under rubble. The camera cuts back to me, sprinting through the trees, then being tossed around by the flood. Then the boy from Twelve, clinging to his raft. The camera alternates between the two of us. For a long time I look confident, like I can do this all day. The boy, meanwhile, has less and less raft every time the camera goes back to him. But I look more and more tired, and by the time the boy has lost the last of his raft, all I can think is how terrible my form has become. Rizz would be disappointed. No, Rizz is happy that I am alive. And then the boy from District Twelve takes one last breath and slips under the surface.

Frankly, the closing shot is beautiful. I am exhausted—you can see it on my face, plain as day. Treading water as I have done, so they say, for nearly eight hours.

The cannon sounds and I lean my head back in the water, smiling. Not the smile of victory, but the smile of one who is finally allowed to sleep. The shot fades; I am a turtle, graceful, master of this sea, and content in my domain.

****

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Tag List: @avoxrising @snow-dragon-rider @anakins-ride-or-die

#wrey writes #the hunger games #thg: tiger shark #annie cresta #finnick odair #mentions of canon typical violence #dissociation #ptsd #i tried to handle the trauma as gingerly as possible but also not sugar coat

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