#th:self

[surya-mirga]

die  //  self

Take it as a love declaration if you want.

Surya saw the text as it flashed across her phone screen, but she paid little notice to it at first. She was in the homestretch, gathering as many sponsors as she could to the same viewing room so she could loudly proclaim a path to victory when her tributes got out of the bloodbath alive. Despite the girls’ skills, she believed they would get out of the launch alive. Avenue knew the odds too much; Rhea knew the cameras too well, even if she didn’t get all the psychology and mechanics of it. She knew how to garner attention. Surya appreciated it.

The press conference was a big part of the Hunger Games news recently, of course. A special little presentation, one that required Lysander’s attention to prepare for rather than requiring his attention in her bed the night before launch. She slept soundly, nonetheless. Woke nervously, knowing that at the breakfast table that morning she would not see Rhea or Avenue. All she could depart to them was done with, so all she had to do now was garner them attention outside the arena. She had a plate of fruit and a coffee with too much sugar, and went to the lobby. 

Half the discussion was about the press conference, half about the arena. She understood why this televised presentation was so important, to welcome a new district. But she hardly thought it worthy of as much discussion as the launch itself. 

She ordered a mimosa at the bar and asked for it to be delivered to a specific viewing room. 

She received a text she only glanced at. She assumed, half-reading, that it was only a little joke from Lysander telling her not to read too much into the arena. 

He was on screen. She didn’t look at his text again, instead sitting with her messages open, more focused on what part of his speech she might turn into a cheeky joke for him to come home to.

Lysander’s voice cut out. The screen went black. But several people in the room were on their phones or tablets, watching a secondary, unedited stream from the Capitol Gazette. She recognized the sight immediately. 

Smoke. Her first love.

Once upon a time, she wished she could twist and float through the air like smoke, creating images and mirages that fulfilled the dreams of those watching. Sometimes, she thought she met that goal. But today, the smoke was evil. It filled her throat and mouth with acid. It burned her from the inside out. It was a cruel smoke, the kind she pretended didn’t exist. It didn’t drift off chimneys or cigarettes; it came from something more vile.

Before it cleared, she knew what was beneath it. 

Take it as a love declaration if you want.

It was all she wanted, to be loved. To be noticed beneath the jewels and makeup and fashion, to be held like she was a child with nothing to offer but loved nonetheless. Maybe it’d been possible, with Lysander, to be so vulnerable. But that possibility was gone in a moment as unlikely as it’d been presented. 

The room was quiet. Too quiet. Everyone was staring at the tiny screens with the Gazette stream, until that went black, too. Several seconds had gone by. Several more seconds than it took for Surya to process the truth. She was tempted to remain calm, to remain nonchalant and joyous. She’d once been known as a joyous girl.

But she wasn’t a girl. 

With a sudden motion, she let loose of the wine glass in her hand. It dropped to the ground, shattering. It gave everyone a reason to gasp, to exhale. Surya didn’t say anything as she walked out of the room, walked first toward the elevator and then toward the lobby doors. There was a flurry of activity, yet not enough, in her opinion. If the world would not stand still for this atrocity, it might as well go into hyperactivity.

Her palm hit the glass door hard, just as someone was walking into the building with enough force to shake the frame of the doors. She glanced to her left, and saw a familiar face. A coward dressed up in Gamemaker’s skin. Easily distracted by the camera lights suddenly on her, the influx of questions.... all came before the man was probably medically declared dead.

A lifetime flashed before her. Poverty, victory, joy. Suffering, punishment, depression. The skin and muscle on her back rippled with a phantom ache at the memory of her selfish disobedience years before. 

Her eyes shifted, focusing in on a lens that she could see turning, shifting, zooming in on her.

“Someone has to die for this.”

#130 #self-para #th:self #para #th:lysander #die

[banshee-grove]

blood in the water  //  final part

Mackerel used to dream about spending his life underwater. He used to imagine what it would be like to be able to hold his breath forever. He had a favorite spot near the docks where he could create a bed of seaweed, and he could gather rocks together where he could set up a floating net. He could live comfortably there, and have his parents throw him down longer rash guards when the water got cold. 

He got older, and his imagination matured with it. There was no fantasizing of life underwater, but life on the water, in the water, it was all he ever wanted. Tearing himself from the sea was as difficult as looking at the empty seat at the table where Mako was supposed to be sitting. It was an unnecessary grief he sent himself into. He could’ve stayed. He should’ve stayed.

The water grew cold quickly. There was no one to send him down more garments. They would do nothing. If he struggled he forgot it as soon as his body grew stiff and he started to sink. His ears, big like his father’s and his brother’s, stung as he sank down and down. He wanted to live underwater, where it was always peaceful, where the sounds were calming and unlike anything heard on the ground. Everything sounded better and funnier underwater. Talking underwater was hilarious, and a bubbling giggle was the best sound ever. He wasn’t sure if they were even real sounds, just vibrations his mind interpreted into a sound.

It didn’t matter, as the pain returned to his lungs. He was wholly with the water now, and his limbs would not let him go back. His ears stung. He didn’t know if his eyes were open or closed, but he saw only darkness. It wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be in this darkness, even if it hurt. The water would never intentionally hurt him. He would be underwater forever.

The water was filled with familiar laughter as it took him. 

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

The television turned off in the Dunes home before Netty and Cliff learned who the next Hunger Games victor was. All they knew was that it would not be their son, again. Their son, who they searched and searched for after his disappearance and assumed to be dead. They thought he’d stolen a boat and gotten lost at sea, on purpose or by accident. They’d already burned his things in a bonfire of mourning and remembrance, only to see him walk on stage at the Reaping. Deja vu. They’d had nothing left to burn for Mako the second time he died, so they gave parts of themselves: Netty’s favorite cookbook, Cliff’s favorite movie tape. 

Little was said as the couple moved about the small house, picking things up here and there, assessing what was important to them. Netty and Cliff could talk for hours on end without boring each other, but they could just as easily communicate in the silence of their home that was growing darker as they didn’t think to turn on more lights. The sky was dark and their home was lit by only a single bulb when the scent of something burning wafted through the kitchen window that was always open. 

Netty took a deep breath, and Cliff placed his hands on her shoulders as he heard her breath hitch. There were stages to grieving, and he knew his wife entered hers at anger. Without Mackerel to talk to and joke with, she’d lost an outlet. The neighbors thought she’d turned nasty with depression. But those same neighbors were outside their back door now, standing around a buoy overturned in the sand where a fire was crackling tall and loud. Netty and Cliff could offer nothing to the makeshift pyre, only walk to join the people who’d been here time and again with them. In hushed voices, the Dunes learned that Medea did not make it, either. Cliff started to cry then, and Netty told a group of women they should figure out who would cook what to put together a care package for the Odairs. It was a surprisingly generous gesture from a woman who had little generous or kind to say in the last year.

For a long time, the crowd was quiet as they watched the flames. No one was in charge, but whenever the fire started to die, someone new would step forward to add wood and poke at it to keep every face in the group half-lit. There were occasional sniffles, occasional sobs, and the constant soft crash of waves on the shore. The moon was high when Cliff spoke.

“Knock, knock.”

The crowd remained quiet. Netty could feel the woman next to her tense up, to hear those words that had turned haunting. Like this bitch knew how haunting it really was. Her sons final words, their final jokes. A crueler, cruder, far more funny thought came to mind. Her sons, wasting their final words on such simple jokes.

“Who’s there?” Netty asked her husband.

“Boo.”

She knew it. She rolled her eyes, and swallowed down a lump in her throat. She could not stop the hot tear that rolled rapidly down her cheek, making up for years of trying not to cry. “Boo who?” Her voice was thick, her throat coated in phlegm and a sudden stream of tears dripping over her lips.

“Hey,” Cliff huffed out. Netty’s vision was a blur of fire and sand and darkness with strange lines, but she heard what came next. The familiar crack of the opening of a beer can. “Don’t cry.”

Cliff held Netty as the cracking sound repeated around the group. She felt his arm shift as he handed his beer off to someone else, and wrapped both arms tight around her. The fire grew bigger, and the crowd slowly grew louder, and the sound of cans and bottles opening repeated many more times. Slowly, Cliff and Netty took themselves away from the comforting warmth of the fire to join their neighbors. By the time the first edges of dawn broke, Netty’s tears had been washed away by the sea. She challenged a group of teenagers to a body surfing competition, then challenged her husband and joined the cheers when she made it farther up the shore than him. She stood waist deep, still in her clothes, as she sipped at a beer and exchanged memories of Mackerel’s childhood antics with her neighbors. Cliff was only a few yards away, listing off the times Mako unintentionally made him laugh. The couple found each other in the water eventually, when the sun was so high that the dying fire barely mattered. Cliff had an arm around Netty’s shoulders and Netty had an arm around his waist as they shared a story, together, of a particularly funny and unlucky day on the water with the boys.

The couple finished their last drink while sitting in the sand, not speaking as their neighbors filtered home. There’d be a single day of rest before the work was to start again, as if the district’s heart hadn’t been torn up. Maybe it hadn’t; maybe no one really cared outside of this little group on the beach that was stumbling home. Netty and Cliff did not look at each other as they finished the last few drops, only leaning on each other until the sun was high enough for it to officially be declared a whole new day.

They collected some of the trash in their path on the way back to the house, and dumped it into the ash that remained in the buoy. They only walked a few feet into the building, the place they’d called home for more than two decades. The place where they discovered the difference between love and married love; where they raised their sons; where they grieved their sons. By the door were the two bags they’d packed, in silence, after turning off the television. 

Their chests tightened as they hitched the bags over their shoulder and walked down the shore, but they did not look back. They worked in silent union, unhitching Cliff’s boat from the dock and steering it out of the harbor.

Maybe the seas would surge and they’d try to return home in a panic. Maybe the water would take them, just like their sons. Maybe they would find a new place, or a new end. They’d talked about it often, late at night, when neither could sleep as they listened to the awful silence of a house that should still have children. Maybe was good, though. Maybe was the one thing that could give them hope.

“Did you say something?” Cliff asked Netty, glancing over his shoulder with a quirked eyebrow. Maybe it was just the waves lapping on the side of the boat, but he thought he heard a voice.

Netty shook her head quickly. “No.”

They stayed quiet for a long time after that, as they worked to guide the sailboat away from Four. The ocean grew louder the farther out they went, crashing and roiling and whistling against the boat. They never once spoke over it.

The Dunes do not disrespect the dead. 

#the end #th:self #self-para #th:netty #th:cliff #family #th:mako #headcanon #para

[chip-foster]

live  //  self

“I’ll ask you to give me your best performance, sans stuttering.”

The launch was always chaos. No matter how down to the minute the arena was planned out, there were always loose ends, loose wires, loose anything to distract from the launch. It used to be Chip’s job to fix them all. But at some point, over the last couple years, he’d transitioned from fixing the last minute issues to calling out the last minute issues. So last minute, that the fuss over Lysander voicing the launch off-site was hardly a concern. He’d been with the man before the Quell, when last-minute fixes required Chip’s hands and mind and Lysander’s intelligence and control. They’d been so close to the launch, to the bloodbath, Chip spiraled. Not Lysander, though. Not the rock. Not the unmoving man. 

Not until he was gone.

This was Chip’s first time in the primary control room, where, true to its name, primary controls were called. In Lysander’s absence, everything still seemed to go according to plan. His microphone was hooked up property and without delay so he could give the countdown in real time on the primary and secondary feed, even as he was miles from the Gamemaker HQ. It was all so simple, to make sure there was no delay. The CapitolTV feed was most important and clear, while the GazetteTV secondary channel was necessary but amateur. Chip was mostly looking at the ground, nodding along as he adjusted Lysander’s audio input to make sure it wasn’t too over-modulated and sounded as normal a possible.

“You’re a DJ, right?” 

Chip didn’t answer his colleague, just went to work. He knew how all this worked, which is probably why the Capitol decided DJ-ing and music production was hit victor-appointed skill. He knew how it all worked in the control specifically, now. He knew the presentation was cheesy and based on half-truths, but at least he could prove himself in a simple sphere where all he had to do was normalize Lysander’s voi-

There was a blast, so loud it silenced everyone in the room. The people on audio tore off their headphones and fell to the floor. The primary feed vanished, but a few screens dedicated to the secondary livestream from the Gazette stayed on. There were flashes as the audio cut out, then gray and darkness.

No one moved. Twenty seconds of silence and televised smoke went by.

Then the carnivorously ambitious swooped in. Deputies and supervisors alike, desperate to be the voice of the countdown after their peer had fallen. Chip saw them all swooping in. It is hard to calculate stress-fueled physical and mental responses until after the fact, but Chip’s were precise.

The ballpoint end of his pen hit a throat.

The heftiest part of his headset hit someone in the jugular.

He shoved a hesitant supervisor to the side, and took their headset. 

Silly, really, like they didn’t know who they were dealing with.

He spotted the “audio off” master button, and dragged his fingers quickly across the board. His speech was hesitant, but his actions never were. 

“No one.” 

It was a command. They were already into the ten second zone by now, but he knew these hungry hearts and ambitious souls by now. Death was an opportunity to them, not sorrowful. The Games would go on. Nothing could stop this, not now. But the least a victor could do was take control. 

His middle finger tapped down on a button, switching the control from external (over the arena) to internal (among Gamemakers).

“Three,” Chip stated. He could’ve started at five, really, but he needed some time to go over his most difficult phonetics before he said it. When it came out fluid, in one syllable, he didn’t hesitate to finish.

“Two.”

“One.”

No one heard him outside the Gamemakers’ control center. No one but the people in the room who were just doing their job. The piranhas, eager for a higher position, were furious. The workers, the people who did this to survive, kept on. Without a hitch.

Death had never stopped a Games. 

Someone had to live for this. 

#th:self #th:lysander #130 #headcanon #live #para #self

[allard-danbur]

kill  //  self

Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?

Allard was only partially paying attention to the events on the large screen in the viewing room. A gathering of Gamemakers and his countrymen, all talking about how jolly it was for District Thirteen to join the fray. Allard could not stomach it, so he chose a launch viewing room that was outfitted with a bar and a piano. He passed around drinks, anecdotes, praises for his tributes, and, with minutes to go to launch, asked who wanted to hear a tune from District Thirteen. He thought it would dramatic and noticeable, to make these sponsors hear the launch over the music he grew up on. He thought it would be memorable, above all - that this was what would put District Thirteen in the Hunger Games history books.

The speech ended abruptly. Allard was seated at the piano, hands over the keys, when the room went silent. He turned watching as the sponsors in the room looked at the screen, each other, the screen, then started patting at their pockets. They produced their cell phones, tablets, laptops, all to hear a haunting echo of hissing and screaming. Worse still, he could recognize that the screaming did not equate to the number of voices present.

Something had happened. Something awful. 

Allard stood up quickly, knocking back the stool. He didn’t make excuses as he left, in a hurry that he was shocked not to see mimicked around him. Perhaps he was moving too fast. Perhaps the world was moving too slow. Perhaps he should hear from his wife soon. She wouldn’t tell him, though, if the world was ending. Not unless Battenberg allowed her.

The world receded to little more than chatter. He could sense it as he walked, as the corner he passed acquired more noise and as he started to run into more people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t far between the Tower and his hotel, but it felt like a whole era had passed. The Era of Vultur, the Era Beyond. He had no name for the latter yet, and little desire to see it seriously. Perhaps this horrific moment was a time to act.

Perhaps.

The elevator wasn’t working at this hotel. An influx of people trying to tune into the Gazette, the government website, anything that might tell them the truth. The first bead of sweat that dropped off him as he ascended the service stairs was truer than the Capitol truth. He wasn’t mad, not at how the Capitol restructured their history. He appreciated it. He would learn from it. He wasn’t climbing for nothing.

His lungs ached as he reached the penthouse, reserved for him and only him. Per his long-standing request, a violin was never far from any entrance: the main door, a servant’s door, a window. It didn’t matter how one got in, all that mattered was a violin nearby. Just in case it was him, desperate. Just in case this was the last thing he might touch.

He picked up the violin and bow as he walked through the front door, sweating profusely after trekking up the stairs. He knew, with a glance at his watch, that the truth he assumed was true by now was proven. He remembered when the Black Eagles came for him, and he stood on the same balcony, with a violin and bow in hand. 

“Monsieur Dupond, they’ve breached the lobby.” “Allard, they’ve breached the lobby!” “They will block the exits soon!” “Allard! They are coming for you!” Time passes, with more frantic pleas to leave this hotel built up on dust and lies.  “Four years to hate me. I think it might take twice as long to get the country to love me. Eight years. Do you like President, or should I change my title?”

A lament. That was what one would call the tune he played as he took the bow to the violin and played without much thought.

Lament (transitive verb)

: to express sorrow, mourning, or regret for often demonstratively 

It was a shame one should die, but one person’s death was not an end. It was a chance. A chance to right the wrongs that put Allard’s people in harm’s way. 

Someone has to kill for this. 

#th:self #th:lysander #self-para #130 #kill

[poppy-battenberg]

in the dead of the night (part three)  //  self-para

Poppy Battenberg has always been quite a girl. 

She hopes to meet herself again one day.

Tragedy hollowed out her soul. And she had a lot of soul to lose, because it wasn’t always this way. The circumstances of the world had not always aligned to tear at her heart. 

Her home smelled of flowers and her mother draped her in leftover, sparkling fabric to make robe-like dressed. Benjy talked to loudly, Arissa fussed with her hair, Adam told them all to quiet down, Ian was tracing a coloring book in the corner, and Sara was watching them all with the smile of learning life is beautiful and full of love. Sometimes her aunt Titaniara came to visit, and their home was filled with the scent of her perfume and the restaurant food she brought. 

The history of the Battenbergs throughout Titaniara’s rebellion has already been accounted for. Benjy died, Arissa died, and the family’s suffering did not end there. It worsened when the betrayals began. When a beloved sister-in-law turned on the government, when the favorite niece let the shreds of her heart harden into deadly points.

And still... Poppy thought it was over. Poppy thought even if she died in the arena, that would be the last bit of suffering for her family. Adam was protected by his closeness to Titaniara, and her father and Ian and Sara were safe. She knew none of them would risk what she had. They were smart enough to learn from others’ mistakes.

It was so dark where Poppy huddled between a warehouse wall and an empty box that she almost didn’t see the parachute. Not until it landed in front of her with a soft thud. She jumped, woken from her half-dozing state. It wasn’t loud enough to be another tribute, but every unexpected noise registered as a threat. She reached out, felt around the edges of the box until she opened it up to hear something hard fall out. She snatched up the note in her left fingers, and felt around on the ground until a familiar shape was in her palm.

A dagger. Finally.

She should’ve stayed in the dark, stayed safe and hidden, but she wanted to know who sent the weapons he desperately needed. With her survival knife in one hand, her dagger in the other, and the small paper threatening to slip from a loose grip between two fingers, she found her way toward the casino. It didn’t take long, once she drew closer, to notice the shine of the brand new dagger. It was so sharp she feared to even hold it too close to her own face or she might hurt herself just breathing on it. 

When her eyes first passed over the note in the flashing neon, she didn’t process it. It was just a short scribble to her. She knew the notes had to be kept short, but this was especially short. She blinked several times, and peered closer.

Adam lied. 

She did not move. With lights exposing her to any approaching tributes, with her grip on the dagger now so loose it might fall at any moment, she did not move. Her heart was still beating. Fast, hard, rushing in her ears.

Adam lied.

And she’d believed him. Like an absolute fool, she’d believed him. He’d looked her in the eye and lied about their own fucking family. He’d lied a million times before, but she knew what this meant. It didn’t matter how anyone found out; maybe everyone already knew, and she’d just been even more of a fool than she thought. All the times he lied before didn’t matter. She hadn’t clung to life for his past lies, not like this one. 

Her hands were shaking. Adam lied.

Her father would not greet her with the warm, reassuring hug she needed. Her brother and sister, who had their whole lives ahead of them, would never be seen again. The last bit of life, the last bit of innocence, that existed in her family - and they were gone. She should’ve known. Too much was burning. She should’ve known, she should’ve gone back. She should’ve asked Adam more questions, she should’ve asked her aunt.

Her shoulders were shaking. Adam lied.

She should’ve just behaved. Just once in her life, she should’ve let the obvious risks keep her in check. She should’ve suggested a different hiding place. She should’ve mended fences with her aunt and brother, gotten them more protection. Her father would be hesitant, but she knew how he missed his estranged sister. If she’d just taken a different fucking risk, they would all be okay. They would all be alive. They never would’ve been so close to the rebels.

Her chest was heaving. Adam lied.

A brother, a sister, a parent dead. Was this rebellion any better than the one before? That killed a brother, a sister, a parent.

Her lip was quivering. Adam lied. 

At least Benjy and Arissa sacrificed for family. All Poppy had done was send her family to the slaughter.

Her legs grew weak. Adam lied.

Ian should’ve been in school right now. He should be bragging to her about being considered for higher classes.

She could not stand. Adam lied.

Sara should’ve been sitting in front of her right now, holding up an elastic as she waited for Poppy to finish braiding her hair. Like Arissa taught her. 

Adam lied. 

She screamed. Months of silence in solitude, days of measured speech. 

She sounded like a wounded animal. When the air was gone from her lungs, she sucked in more oxygen, and screamed again. Her throat ached. She sucked in more of the cool desert air, let it sooth her throat, dared the sand caught on her tongue to choke her. She screamed, and screamed, until she fell to her hands and knees. It did not stop her. The pavement was just there to support her as her throat went raw from the screeching.

Tragedy hollowed out her soul. And each time, her family had filled in the space with love. With small actions, with big actions, with words and songs and bad jokes and good jokes and pleas to quiet and pleas to be honest and good meals and burnt cookies and braided hair and fireworks and reading aloud and sitting in quiet and boarded up windows and busted up bottles and smiles and tears and the scent of flowers and draping sparkling fabric. And the scent of perfume and restaurant food.

Poppy curled her hands together on the ground and rested her forehead on top. Her breathing was ragged. There was deafening music playing from a building nearby. Her knife was out of reach where it clattered to the ground. Her face was to the sky, to the world, unable to see anything through eyes scrunched shut. She had not allowed herself to be so vulnerable in three days. 

Adam lied. 

Poppy sucked in a breath, and spat out saliva tinged with blood and sand. She rested back on her knees. She rubbed at her eyes, wiping at the tears that made the neon blur together into a nauseating mass. She crawled forward, grabbing only her dagger. She dug the point into the ground to help push herself to a shaky crouched position. As she stood, she cringed against a sudden lump rising in her throat.

Adam lied.

But someone found Benjy’s jacket for Poppy.

Someone got her a knife in prison.

Someone told her to win.

Someone smelled of perfume and restaurant food.

It was time to get out. 

#self para #th:self #in the dead of the night #para #day 3 #th:titaniara #family

[valenciaflores]

a beautiful night   //  self

The fireworks were cracking overhead, boisterous with no knowledge of what transpired below.

It really had been a beautiful night. Sober, at first, but convinced by circumstance to indulge in some champagne. Followed by an indulgence in some texts that should never be seen by the public. A final drink at the Chelsea, then a quick cab ride, a quick hook-up, and then...

Her brother was the one who called her as she was readjusting her dress. Her cheeks were still flushed as she met the January air and demanded to know why he was calling her at this hour. Some sort of crisis with whatever new teacher he was dating this time. She felt her stomach churning, something that had been brewing and she’d been clenching since her fucking orgasm.

But it was too much now. It wasn’t just an uneasiness. It was painful. “Victor,” she gasped into the phone.

It hit the pavement hard. 

Her body hit it harder. 

The ghost of old wounds ached as she stiffened, but it was nothing compared to the pain swelling up from her stomach, from her chest. No one noticed at first. She was just another drunk girl collapsed on the sidewalk outside Saints and Sinners, wasn’t she?

The clip fell out of her hair first, metal leaves and flowers clattering to the ground in a grating sound. It was all grating to her. Every heel that clicked on the pavement near her ear, every voice that asked if she needed help. Of course! Of course! But she couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth, and there was nothing but red. 

A beautiful girl shouldn’t die in such an ugly way.

But that’s life, is it not?

This is short, is it not?

So is life. 

Ask her father. He got ten more years than Valencia, but still short. They can discuss that in whatever afterlife, in whatever next life, they choose to.

There is more we could go into. About the bloody scene in which a girl in a champagne dress was found. A girl whose dreams were broken more than a dozen years ago, who settled on a new dream with such vehemence she actually achieved them.

We can go into so much more, about the way all her vibrant life seeped out of her drop by drop. 

About how the ambulance didn’t matter, because nothing could save her. 

About how her friends were hopefully saved from seeing her in such a devastating state, in writhing pain and a body blotched in both blood spilled and trapped beneath her skin.

Her brother’s eulogy echoed in the church a week later, because her mother could not deliver another eulogy: 

“Play the melody you love most. Dance like no one is watching. Remember that Valencia would’ve danced beautifully next to you.”

And remember that it was a beautiful night when Valencia Flores died. 

Because there is nothing shy of a beautiful night that Valencia Flores ever deserved.

#a beautiful night #th:self #self-para #para

[olivier--fontaine]

delusions on christmas  //  self

french catholicism.

it’s snorting something white off the ledge on the other side of the screen in confession and admitting “i had sex before marriage, but didn’t jesus fuck mary magdalene?” and - 

no. it’s not.

it’s holding your mother up by the arm to make sure she doesn’t crumble to pieces on the way to the first mass after her husband’s death. it’s clawing at your tie on christmas. it’s asking where in the church the donkey is on easter.

isn’t it latching on too hard to the story of cain and abel?

how goddamn biblical. you think of that as you beat your brother to a pulp in the back of a bar.

you think you’ll wear cain’s mark on your knuckles until you’re laid to rest next to your father. 

he was a good man, wasn’t he? he went to church, he helped his community, and, as sure as you’re going to burn in hell, he’d never raise a finger against his own kin.

but he had a weak heart, didn’t he? where was the parable about the kind father with the weak heart? where was the homily about living after your life source has been taken from you? 

maybe you’re the prodigal son. maybe this time, the father doesn’t live. maybe this time, he dies and you’re left to return home to your brother who did all he could in the absence. because your mother has always been a kind, strong woman, but she has never been your brother’s guide. 

the bible taught him to look to the men in his life for guidance. whether you all like it or not, that’s what the weekly sermons told him. and then they all left - to death or to france.

and it’s taken blood, sweat, and lies to stand next to him again in these pews that are too small. next to your mother who’s wearing too much old perfume. 

you think, as you listen to the priest for the first time in years, that mary is lucky to have had only one son who thought they were destined to change the world. it’s very messy with two.

#th:self #delusions on christmas #idek i just had some ideas and wanted to write them out #para #th:thomas

[dolly-nova]

blood in the water  //  part two

The Dunes do not disrespect the dead.

Every week, Cliff and Netty Dunes have brought a cup of ocean water to pour over Anchor’s grave. Death does not mean a departure from the sea. For those worthy, it means a burial at sea.

Mako hoped his parents would bring him cups, even gallons, of the ocean water when he was buried beside his grandparents. How unnatural, to be so close to the dead so young.

The pain was quick.

Mako wished life did not flash before your eyes before death. He enjoyed most of his life, but there was a blurry, reddened vision that obstructed all the joy.

There was blood in the water, and it was Anchor’s.

Anchor was a bully, a cruel child, but he did not deserve the deadly fate Mako served to him in a panic. Mako wished, everyday, he could’ve spent every recess being beaten up by Anchor until they were both old enough to know better. Mako didn’t believe Anchor really intended to kill him, but tell that to the instincts of a fisherman’s son being shoved underwater. 

There was blood in the water, and it was Edie’s. 

Perhaps the girl from Five was dead the moment she was raised into the arena. Perhaps there was nothing Mako could’ve done to help her, and perhaps he’d really been merciful before her cannon sounded. Perhaps did not resurrect anyone, though. Perhaps would not save Edie from drowning, would not save her from the Reaping, would not save her from the knife that Mako sliced across her throat with the ease of slicing open the stomach of a dead fish.

There was blood in the water.

Mako always preferred surfing over sailing. He wished he’d seen a real beach, where he could’ve found a way to enjoy the incoming tide and its waves fully. He would’ve played to every camera for a surfboard, no matter how irresponsible. He would’ve taught Zeppelin how to surf, how to run at an approaching wave with only hope that it would encapsulate you completely. As there was a pinch at his neck, it reminded him of the way his shell necklace would tug against his jugular as he crashed into the water on a bad attempt at a wave.

There was blood in the water.

A line was let down from a hover craft barely big enough to collect his body. A weight was attached to sink it down through the water until it wrapped around his body. First he hit air, then his body was welcomed into the water, where it belonged. The wound in his neck was still fresh as he ascended, leaving a trail of crimson behind him. 

There was blood in the water. And it was Mako’s.

______________________________________________________________

Mackerel was out the door before his brother was lifted out of the arena. The sun was barely making its way over the horizon, but he didn’t need much light as he started to gather driftwood.

The Dunes do not disrespect the dead. 

His mother went to the ocean with a bowl, filling it nearly to the top with water to bring to Anchor’s grave. She put some soaking wet seawood over her shoulder to carry there and lay in a wreath. Netty would tell the driftwood headstone of her son’s demise without malice or sorrow. 

His father would collect the items that were most associated with Mako. Various random shells and sticks he’d found in funny shape on the shore, funny books, and a rope he’d used to tie his first tiny sailboat to their dock. Cliff did not cry, because that would insult his late son.

The Dunes do not disrespect the dead.

By sunrise, a bonfire was burning in some old overturned buoy and the neighbors were peaking out from their windows to watch a family in mourning. There was not the hysterics or dramatics they anticipated. Instead, various items from the Dunes’ home were placed amid the flames to burn into ash. Netty offered her love and the books Cliff offered his guidance and the seashells. Mackerel offered his protection and the rope, using Mako’s favorite knife to cut it into pieces instead of choking the fire.

They could’ve cried, but Mako would’ve yelled at them. 

The Dunes do not disrespect the dead. They honor them in life as they would’ve wanted to be celebrated in life. 

The sun rose with the tide. The Dunes retreated to their home, but only briefly.

It was Mackerel who led the charge to the beach. He fell on the first wave, and he laughed. Mako would’ve hated for anyone to shed a tear when there were waves to shred.

Next came the kid next door, barely a couple months younger than Mako and still too small for his surfboard - much like Mako had been. Then the backdoor from another neighbor opened, giving way to the three eldest with surfboards in tow. Another door, another neighbor. Another board, another kid who’d laughed at Mako’s jokes in the school yard. Then came the parents, at a slower pace but with a steady board on the waves that were gaining traction with every minute that passed. 

Parents and kids alike tumbled into the water, made absolute fools of themselves as they sought a moment of joy at dawn. The beach was filled with the sound of roaring waves, shouting, and raucous laughter.

Four does not disrespect the dead.

Mackerel was in the water for a while before he noticed the deep gash on his hand. A cut from the knife that got deeper each time he gripped his board. It stung from the sea salt, but he’d always felt the ocean was the best way to heal a wound - physical, psychological, emotional. Anything could be solved by the waves.

So he dipped his hand down into the water, paying more attention to his own body than a wave as it approached. He watched as the water around the now deep cut clouded in a deep purplish color he couldn’t recall seeing before. The wave was approaching quick, he jumped up, but his focus was still on what remained below the surface. 

There’s blood in the water. And it will not be forgotten.

#th:self #self-para #123 #blood in the water #blood in the water part two #the end #th:mackerel #family

[kaelen-tyr]

taps  //  self

Day is done, Gone the sun...

Kaelen was alone in the apartment. He’d asked Electra and the kids to leave, even if it was selfish to do that. The Games were on the big television in their living room as Kaelen lied on the floor, a hand clasping Thirteen’s paw while the dog lied there, unable to lift its head.

The sun set on the tenth day of the arena, and Kaelen lied on the floor, helpless as Thirteen barely opened his eyes. There was crashing in the arena, darkness, blood...everything that came with an arena.

From the lake, From the hill...

Kaelen remembered taking Thirteen in. Unexpected, but necessary in the isolation of his bunker in One. He’d never been one to seek out company often, but that was because he had the luxury of a big family at home. Companionship was never far away, until he was back in his home district, skulking among the miners and hoping to find rebels within them. It was all for a lost cause; a cause that landed him with a permanent brand on the wrist of the hand that now slowly pet the top of Thirteen’s head. 

But Thirteen was never a lost cause. The thirteenth puppy to be trained by Peacekeepers - with no success. Kaelen saved him at the last second. He’d never intended on having a pet; and he adopted a shadow instead. When Kaelen came home bleeding, Thirteen tried to lick his wounds. When they moved back to the Capitol, Thirteen adjusted. Whenever Kaelen came home with a busted rib, a busted face, busted knuckles, Thirteen was there to lie at his feet and lap up water as his Kaelen drank whiskey. 

From the sky.

It did seem strangely...whimsical that Thirteen fell into his lap when he did; with the name he did. But it was all the more push for Kaelen to fight. 

He always fought for his family. Bu, there is a luxury that comes with parents being alive. You always assume they will be the one who fights to keep your siblings alive. Until they die. 

Everyone, all the Tyrs, were still alive when Kaelen got Thirteen. It was the first creature fully, entirely in his care. And he did all he could to keep the growing puppy alive and healthy.

And in turn, Thirteen plodded alongside him at his brothers’ grave, at Crycinna’s, at his father’s, at Marcia’s...

And that was only for the blood relatives and old friends he’d lost. Thirteen was there with him for every other burial, every other grave visit.

All is well, Safely rest...

And Thirteen was there the first time Kaelen showed Electra his new apartment. It wasn’t a one-bedroom, like he always had. It had several bedrooms, an unspoken indication of what he hoped to have with the woman who’d been knocking him on his ass for years. Thirteen placed his head on Electra’s lap the first time she sat down, and chased Thing the first time he visited.

At some point, the cuddling and the chasing combined. For all parties. It became their home. And as Electra grew bigger, Thirteen transitioned from sleeping on Kaelen’s side of the bed to sleeping on her side of the bed. When Jett was born, he slept by the child’s crib. When Charlie came along, he did it all again - by Electra’s side until he was by Charlie’s crib.

And now, here Kaelen was, lying on the floor next to his best four-legged friend as Thirteen slept in the hallway, guarding Jett and Charlie’s rooms with life seeping from him with each breath.

God is nigh...

Shepherds aren’t built to last forever. The bigger the dog, the shorter the life, unfortunately. Kaelen always knew that, but he knew that at 27.

And eerything was different at 36, with several Games and two rebellions behind him. Both rebellions were failures in his eye, and he was sad he let Thirteen down so much. The dog deserved more, the kids deserved more, Electra deserved more, his family deserved more.

But there was only so much a man could do on his own. And maybe all he could do was save Thirteen from the slaughter, and raise him in the shadow of a rebel. Was Kaelen even a rebel anymore? It didn’t feel like it, but he hoped Thirteen viewed him that way.

If only he was all he hoped his dog saw him as. If only he was that big, that strong, that powerful. But he would only be a man, always. About six feet tall and hoping to topple a century old regime. How had he ever been so stupid, so arrogant, to think he could? But in the the final moments of his best friend’s life, he couldn’t be doubtful. He had to be strong, to know he’d done all he could to right the wrongs in his life.

Kaelen took Hunter’s tongue, took his voice, and hadn’t said a word yet. How many years ago was that now? At least twelve, if not more. And Kaelen never told him. Kaelen still wondered if he ever should. There were few people he loved more, trusted more, than Hunter. With the kids, Kaelen’s time was preoccupied. But every second with Hunter was a selfish reminder to try better; every second with Hunter was a reminder to fight. Every second with Hunter was hopeful, joyful, and, most of all, more than anything, it put a smile on his face.

So Kaelen smiled at Thirteen, and wished the dog had the energy to stick his tongue out in response. But there was nothing. Kaelen squeezed his paw, and there was nothing. Kaelen rolled onto his side to grab the dog’s back and hold him close. 

And there was nothing.

Thirteen died on August 1st, in the year 118, as ice encapsulated the 122nd Hunger Games arena. He died beside his best friend, Kaelen Tyr. He died in the hallway where he protected his family: Kaelen Tyr, Electra Conduit, Jett Tyr, and Charlotte Tyr. And Thing, who was now sitting at the end of the hallway, facing the door. Kaelen hoped that wretched creature was standing guard over the one who’d now slipped away from them.

Kaelen stayed there until long after the sun set on the Capitol. Until it was nearly too dark to navigate the hallways to turn on lights. He’d cried, shamelessly, and called the veterinarian to inform them of Thirteen’s passing. He caught glimpses of the darkened arena, but it was on mute, and it didn’t matter. Panem existed outside the Games, after all.

With a shaky deep breath, Kaelen sunk to the ground again next to Thirteen’s body. The veterinarian would be there soon to assess, but there was nothing to be done. All Kaelen could do was keep the body of his old friend company, while staring at the doors of his children’s bedrooms.

Right now, Jett’s had a drawing of a little robot on the outside. Inside was an intergalactic wonderland he and Electra wouldn’t have been about to create without some outside help from the mentors in Three. And Charlie’s had a picture tacked out front of a snowman outside their building from February. She’d taken the picture by pressing down on the shutter of her father’s camera after he’d adjusted all the settings. She claimed that picture as her own, and inside the room was a fort made out of pillows and blankets she’d surely demand to rearrange soon. She was a little younger than Jett, still finding what she loved and asking for it to be reflected in the space that was her own. Her parents obliged, because they had the privilege to do so.

One day, Kaelen hoped, his son might make it to the stars and find a new world. Through Electra, they’d always be eligible as tributes in Three between 12 and 21 years old. He hoped...he hoped, he hoped, he hoped, he hoped they never saw the inside of a launch tube. And if they did, fuck everyone, he hoped they won no matter how many gallons of blood they had to spill.

But he imagined Jett among the stars, in a little capsule, talking over an intercom back to some abstract base, telling them the stars were less exciting than he’d hoped. He imagined Charlotte taking pictures - not just of the mountains where she loved to trek alongside her parents, but of the realities of Panem and beyond Panem’s border. He hoped his children, already so skilled, both exposed something new, something wonderful, something...

As he sat looking at the doors that led to his children’s lives, he clearly, truly, whole-heartedly hoped they were not rebels. He hoped they did not shed their blood, did not break their bones for false promises and power-hungry people. 

Kaelen had never been one for distinguishing the difference in words. And it’d been a long time since Kaelen really, really hoped for something. 

But looking at that drawing, looking at that picture, he really hoped his children didn’t rebel.

He hoped they revolted. 

#th:self #self-para #para #th:jett #th:charlie #th:electra #taps

[jack-katz]

selling out  //  self

Meanwhile, across town...

[The scene opens on our three main characters.]

RICARDO “RICKY” ISLES. He’s the oldest of the three. Has more under his belt than them - professionally, financially, personally. Had his kids when he was young. Still with the mother, don’t get some fucked up idea of him just yet. He’s always been the funny friend, the funny brother. Now he’s the funny comedian, the funny actor, the funny producer. He can bankroll a film - partially. He still needs support - professionally, financially, artistically. A funny idea he shared with his friends when he was drunk is now their movie.

HUEY VASQUEZ. Second oldest. Personally? We don’t get into that. But professionally, you fucking know him. Made his name as a name bigger than the live show he starred on. Any comedic movie his name is attached to will get a review on the front-page of the entertainment section your under-subscribed local newspaper. Huey loved the funny idea Ricky had for a movie and expanded on it over drinks and cocaine in Ricky’s garage in a Los Angeles suburb while Ricky’s kids were sleeping.

JOHN “JACK” / “JACKIE” KATZ. He’s only Jackie when he’s with Huey and Ricky. The EEE Production Company is what will come out of this, but we aren’t at that part of the story yet. He made his name on an American live show, then hopped overseas and has been catching roles in comedies ever since (and that one indy and a damn West End production, but who gives a fuck?). There’s also that feature film coming out. Unimpressive, in his eyes, because it wasn’t his. Ricky told Jack about the ideas him and Huey were bouncing around (over cocaine and drinks, of course). “Jackie, you’ll love it. You’ll piss your pants.” He hadn’t, but nearly, and that was enough. He was in love. And just like any man in love, he wanted more from it. He’s one of the three main characters, but he has yet to realize he’s the protagonist in this story.

[Getting back to it: The scene opens on our three main characters.

The three boys are sitting at a table. JACK has a set at that comedy club that very night. The boys appear distraught, contemplative. They’ve clearly received some bad news.]

RICKY: This motherfucker seriously pulled out.

HUEY: That’s what your mom said.

RICKY: Shut th-

JACK: So, how much money do we have?

HUEY: You wanna mention money in a room full of comedians, Katz?

JACK: Dude-

HUEY: I forgot, you’re a serious man, Jackie. Wanna make it a serious fucking movie.

JACK: The fuck-

RICKY: Hue, man. You really think this isn’t better off all around?

[HUEY doesn’t respond, just lights up a smoke and has the cigarette immediately put out under the heel of a passing waitress. He eyes up the woman, JACK and RICKY punch him in the arm at the same time.]

HUEY: Where are we gonna get this fucking money? Shit’s done for. We’ll have to call Yanik, Eleanor, everyone, tell them what the fuck happened. You wanna do that, Jackie? Make those calls?

[JACK has no response, just finishes his drink a little too quickly and looks down at the table. Oh right, it was left out of his bio - he has a kid on the way, a friend he knocked up on what was supposed to be a fun night. He’d promised burgers for her at 11:30 p.m. That was before he heard the news.]

JACK: You two... [He finally looked up from the table. He’s not trying to stroke egos. He’s being genuine here.] Someone’s going to be interested in what you guys have to put out.

RICKY: Remember all those assholes pulling their hair out after Cancer? [He’s referring to Cancer, Leo, Virgo, the comedic film he produced and starred in with JACK as his co-star.] I think one of ‘em’s ready to dole out.

HUEY: Dole out? He wants to get in on this?

JACK: It’s not - 

RICKY: It is, but- [He stops short when JACK walks away.]

[Scene dissolves to JACK pacing in a small, dark room as he waits to go up for his set. A tall, gray-haired man enters. It’s RODNEY. A producer. We don’t need to get into his history, recent or past; you won’t like it, anyway. But he’s the lifeline. The only thing that gets this - this movie JACK has hooked his entire life and profession on for months - into production.]

RODNEY: I’ll make you a deal.

JACK: Rodney, I, uh, I appreciate your interest, but -

RODNEY: The deal is this: you make me laugh, I give you money.

JACK: This is a comedy club, that’s n-

RODNEY: So make me fucking laugh.

[HUEY and RICKY are back at the table. JACK’s empty glass is still there.]

HUEY: He better be fucking funny.

RICKY: Of course he’ll be fucking funny.

HUEY: This is fucked up, man.

RICKY: It’s important, man.

HUEY: If Jackie fucks this up.

RICKY: Jackie won’t fuck it up.

HUEY: Does he realize this is the end for him, too, if he fucks up? This little fucking club?

[JACK walks on stage. Suddenly, under pressure, his long rehearsed tight-five goes out the window. He’s ad-libbing, but it’s clear he’s nervous. The jokes aren’t landing. Camera cuts to RODNEY, unimpressed and stony-raced. RICKY and HUEY give him a thumbs’ up from the crowd. The small boost actually does a little to reassure JACK. The ad-libbing picks up, finds a rhythm - just in time for him to be up against the clock on his time. RODNEY is seen again in the crowd, still unfazed. JACK doesn’t do crowd work often, but he makes an attempt. It’s sticky at first - he’s pushing time and he knows it. He’s trying to make complex jokes that are falling short on laughs.]

JACK: You, what’s your name?

CROWD MEMBER #1: Harry.

JACK: And you’re here without Meghan tonight?

CROWD MEMBER #1: Uh-huh, yeah.

JACK: Already moving on, you’re fucking boring. You? What’s your name? No, not you. Yes, you.

RODNEY: Rod.

JACK: What do you do, Rod?

RODNEY: I’m a, uh, banker.

JACK: Really? What do you do as a banker, Roddey?

RODNEY: I help people as much as I can.

JACK: Do you think - Roddey, do you think the people you helped are satisfied?

RODNEY: I hope so. 

JACK: And do you think you actually help people? Do you show up when they have events you sponsor? When they have their grand-openings at the buildings you financed?

RODNEY: I help as much as I can. I come as much as I can.

JACK: You know, Rodney, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Your mom said the same thing last night.

[There’s hesitant laughter and applause as RODNEY slowly smiles. JACK looks embarrassed by his own joke, but if it works, it works.]

[The three main characters are at the table again. All have fresh drinks, all take a sip at the same time.]

JACK: He smiled.

HUEY: He didn’t laugh.

JACK: I-

HUEY: He’s a cunt, Jack, don’t-

JACK: I have that house, I could get-

RICKY: Jackie...

[The three men exchange glances one by one. They all take a drink at once. Then another.]

RICKY: I’ll call my wife tomorrow morning.

HUEY: I’ll call my accountant.

JACK: I’ll call a realtor.

#th:self #self-para #para #work:arch angels #selling out #th:huey #th:ricky

[zhanna-medvedeva]

men ain’t shit, quote me on it

Father figures were a foreign concept to Zhanna. 

Who could be hers?

The actual father who only let her stay in his brothel out of pity the woman he knocked up died in childbirth? The father who’d claimed to love her mother and the moment she got pregnant, started keeping food rations from her to keep her thin for as long as possible? The father who’d tried to whore out his own flesh and blood to a man four times her age because he’d never had an offer for that much money? 

No, he’d been nothing to her. The titkas in the brothel and the dumpsters of Rozhirche raised her, not him. 

Who else, then? The kind old drug dealer who’d gotten her hooked on heroine at an age when she was too young to be so old. She realized only after she got clean that he wasn’t kind, he was just high. All he ever taught her was it’s better to be a drunk than a junkie.

Who else, who else? Some people turn to the families of friends for guidance and comfort. Igor? The only reason she never tore his throat out when she was within a foot of him was because that was Sveta’s right, and Sveta’s right entirely.

No, it would appear there were no father figures in her life that she could have ever relied on. 

Maybe that was why this little ritual was so fucking hilarious to her. Instilling the fear of becoming a father in some men was just too easy, and she loved to test her acting skills on rich men. Call her fucked up, because she was. 

Still, it was hilarious. To her.

This year, it was her very own Hades who’d been such a thorn in her side she decided he would be satisfactory. He’d only gotten one night with her and every other night, no matter how much he paid, he couldn’t do more than get a peck on the cheek from her. But she knew he wasn’t going to give up, and bruises were starting to show up on her best girls after they spent time with him. She knew the game he was trying to play as he spent dwindling funds on his vices. And it was time for the game to be over.

They went golfing, her idea. It was a dreadfully dull sport, but she looked adorable in the pink golf outfit she bought and she had a full set of clubs customized in pink and with some diamonds on the bag. They chatted pleasantly, she even let his hand go a little too high on her leg as they drove from hole to hole in the golf cart. It was just the two of them out early that morning, it was likely peaceful to other kinds of people how quiet and serene everything felt. Zhanna was antsy, and that smile on the man’s face made her want to gag. Motherfucker probably thought this was a date.

She waited until the tenth hole to drop the bomb. They were standing outside the cart and she had her hands pressed into the top of the handle of the driver, leaning on it as if for support. 

“Um, I have to tell you something.” 

Anything, anything at all. God, what a kobylyacha sraka. 

“Well, it’s been a few months since you and I spent the night together. And it was really a beautiful night. I actually haven’t, um, this is really embarrassing...” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and turned her face downward. “You know I normally don’t have trouble with these things. But...I was very busy after that night, and I didn’t spend time with anyone else.” As if she wasn’t fucking someone else whose company she actually enjoyed two hours later. “And then I noticed some differences. Bodily differences. I waited a little, and then I took a test, and...”

It was always the same thing with these rich men. His wife couldn’t know. None of his colleagues could know either. He knew a doctor. He’d pay for her hotel after. She couldn’t keep it. He’d pay her all she wanted. 

The nerve and stupidity of these men was truly baffling. They fell for it every time. They all thought that this dreamy version of herself she portrayed to them was the real her; they were so easy to fool because they so wanted to believe it. Some men really believed all women were soft under every exterior. It was funny at first. 

Until it was infuriating. 

“Honey, I thought you wanted me,” she said, shifting her grip on the driver to flip it up onto her shoulder. “Isn’t that why you’ve been so relentless? Damaging property that isn’t yours just to get my attention? Hand me money that should go to your family?” She placed a hand on her stomach and tilted her head do the side. “Well, I guess it did go to your family. You really don’t want to go through this with me?” He was heading for the cart but her long legs were able to match his attempt at a discreet pace. “You don’t want to hold my hand as I push whatever abomination you’d create out into this world? How do you think that’d feel? How much do you think it’d hurt?”

She swung the driver and it connected with the side of his knee with a satisfying sound. He was down and she kept at it, every bit of resentment she had toward that man - and a number of other men - came out in a flurry of pink and metal. 

She only stopped when the sweat on her hands made it difficult to grip the club. Most of the time she did this, she just squeezed some money and tears out of the most annoying man in her life at the time. But sometimes, now and then, these men caught her at a bad fucking time. And they’d know it.

Squatting down, Zhanna grabbed his chin and turned his face toward her to see he was barely conscious. “Next time you hurt one of my girls or try to worm your pencil dick into my space, I’ll kill you with my bare fucking hands. There’s a house at the end of Gwenyth Street with a flat on the top floor. That is the only place you’re welcome from now on. Don’t worry, she’s blonde.” She dug her heel into the elbow crease of his splayed out arm as she stood up. “Oh, Happy Father’s Day.”

#mobtask #th:self #self-para #para #men aint' shit quote me on it #headcanon

[surya-mirga]

one for the victor

Wars have been fought for princesses, but not this time. Not for you.

Because you do not wear the dainty crown of a girl born into royalty. 

Your crown has always been adorned in the rhinestones you stained with blood and called rubies.

They come for you at midnight.

Surya was uneasy after the 126th Hunger Games drew to a close. She found herself falling asleep too easily, and with little desire to attend the event she was invited to. It was peak party season in the Capitol, but she excused herself with an uncharacteristic quietness on a train back to Eight. It was just her, several suitcases, and several bottles of wine.

In Eight she slept with only her tarot cards. She tended to her garden, and researched the best flowers for the climate for the coming fall. She tried her hand at new makeup techniques she wouldn’t dare to try if she were to go out in public in the Capitol. It would look too messy at her own hand. But on a trip to the square in Eight, she was still the most adorned, most beautiful woman in sight.

She had sponsors who owned factories come to dine and stay for just one night. She had the mayor over for dinner a few times. But she was finding that company wasn’t as constantly appealing as it used to be. She did not rise with the sun, and she completely forgot to wear makeup the last two times she went to the square.

She’d found some bursts of motivation and joy in decorating her home, the one granted to her for her efforts in the arena. What a dark arena it was. It felt like she was back there sometimes, even in the middle of the day. It had to be that the dark skies were chasing her somehow. She fell asleep during the day when she was not really tired, but there seemed to be little else to do. It never stopped her from noting that it was certainly time to go to bed. 

The mayor’s wife dared to say she looked tired at their last dinner. Surya smiled, and ignored the way it felt like the skin under her eyes folded in on itself under the weight of the criticism, the reality of her tiredness. She pointed to a new wrought iron wine rack in the dining room. She asked the mayor’s wife if she wanted another bottle of wine, or if she wanted instead to touch the newly hung, curled up whip on the wall. 

“Is that...?”

“Yes.”

It was not. Surya didn’t think she’d ever get her hands on the whip she’d used in her arena. If anything, it deserved to go to the Fitch family to burn and curse her. Maybe that was what had happened. Maybe there was something wrong with her energy not because of her own doing, but because someone else had figured out a way to manipulate it. Maybe it was an enemy. That made it so much more complicated. Staring at the whip after the mayor’s family left, she found her list of enemies was alarmingly long. 

She grabbed a bottle from the wine rack, and poured it out to the top of her glass. She didn’t have the energy to remove her makeup, but she managed to change into her nightgown only because it was so hot. She emptied the glass and left it on her vanity, but took the bottle with her to bed. 

The first thing she tasted when she woke up was the sticky, sweet aftertaste of red wine. Then dirt, and skin. A hand clamped over her mouth and nose, turning her from groggy to alert in a blink. She could hear crashing downstairs, could hear heaving breathing as the weight of a body knelt over her, but she couldn’t see anything yet. It was still too dark. She started to struggle, but the attacker above was stronger, or maybe just more prepared. She felt something cold on her neck and immediately froze. Her body twitched as something cold and sharp was dragged across the skin. It hurt enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she could feel the blood start to drip, but it was a flesh wound. It would not kill her.

Amateurs.

She curled her lips against the attacker’s hand before they could realize their mistake in the dark, and sank her teeth into their finger until every lingering taste in her mouth was replaced with blood. The attacker quickly pushed off her. She heard something fall in the dark. Not the knife. The bottle. The bottle of wine. She placed one hand to her neck to add pressure and reached around until her hands found the bottom of the bottle. She could hear the other person scrambling in the dark, too, and someone was heading up the stairs. 

Her eyes were adjusting. She used both hands to hold the bottle by the neck and smash it over the first assailant’s head. The bottle slipped from her hand soon after, but not before a piece of it lodged in her palm. She tore the glass out, grunting against pain. She held the little bit of glass out as the person came at her again, aiming for their stomach until the moonlight through the window showed her a better option. Their eyes were actually a beautiful blue, made only more appealing in the shine of the moon. She lifted her hand and stabbed the broken piece of glass in his right eye. It was not enough to stop him, and she was still tackled. 

He hadn’t stabbed her. The knife was somewhere in here. She hadn’t heard it, so it must’ve hit the carpet. 

She pushed both forearms up to try to keep the man away. She hacked up some phlegm and saliva to mix with the blood still in her mouth, then spit at him. He spit right back, sending blood from his eye all over her face. Surya snapped her teeth repeatedly and crunched up to sink her teeth into the man’s shoulder this time. The shock was what she needed, not the damage. He rolled off, and she quickly turned over. The other set of footsteps were in the hallway now. She crawled around on the carpet, hands moving rapidly back and forth until she felt the knife underneath her. The blade was still slippery where there were droplets of her own blood on the end. The handle was still warm from the man’s grip.

There was a new shadow in the room now. Her eyes were adjusted enough to see them better, to see that there was something different about this attacker. They were smaller, but the weapon in their hand was blockier. A gun! A gun! A gun!

Surya grabbed the wine glass from the vanity and threw it at the new intruder’s face. She followed it, diving low at them. There was the distinct sound of a gunshot, then another. Surya froze, breathing hard with palms and knees digging into the woman on the ground now. She waited for the pain to set in. Nothing. She’d missed. There was a sudden crash as her vanity mirror toppled over, and she could see only feathers remained of the pillow where she’d been resting her head. What ugly, ugly weapons. 

She stabbed the knife through the woman’s wrist first, and she released the gun with a sickening spasm. She managed to release it and get the knife through the woman’s throat before the man shoved Surya off. Her back and legs were aching, her neck was throbbing under the cut, but she could still move. She still could see where she was going. Twisting herself free from his weakened grasp, Surya took off. She raced down the stairs, slipping on the last few steps. She ended up curled up on the rug at the bottom, gasping for air. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay there, to go back to sleep, to wake up and suffer with the stiffness and the pain in the morning. But there was movement at the top of the stairs, and through strands of sweat-dampened hair clinging to her face, she saw that her fight was not over. 

On hands and knees, Surya crawled into her kitchen. She used the handle of the fridge to pull herself up and opened up several draws until she realized what she was looking for - the knives - were right in front of her in a block on the counter. There was blood and sweat all over her hands, but she managed to use both to get a grip on the largest knife at the back of the block. She held it out in front of her as the man entered her kitchen. He took a few steps closer, but paused when the knife glinted off a patio light that was left on. They started to circle each other, and Surya’s hands began to ache from her tight grip on the knife. Her hand was bleeding even more now from the pressure of her tensed muscles. Her ankle had twisted on the fall down the stairs, and each small step she took was met with an involuntary twitch and bend of her knee. 

Just when she thought she might be stuck in this purgatory forever, the man lunged at her. One eye was totally gone, and his balance was off. He came at her side instead. She did not dare close her eyes as she brought the knife down on his neck. She was knocked back by the force, sending bottles of wine slipping off the new rack to crash around her. A painting and her whip fell off the wall. The moon provided her enough light to see the blood pooling around the man’s head on the floor next to her. It reached her hands resting next to her, but she did not move them. She needed a moment of stillness, just a moment. 

Slowly, she moved onto all fours again. She wiped her hands on the carpet, and flinched as her fresh wound was dragged over more broken glass. She used one of her dining room chairs to lift herself up. The only sound in the house now, after all the chaos, were her bare feet and her breathing. She walked to her front door that was wide open, with a busted doorknob. There was no safety in staying there.

Surya returned to her dining room to retrieve her whip. Limping, breathing harshly, with a torn up nightgown, and covered in blood from her lips down, she walked out of the Village. She followed the now familiar path that brought her to the square, where it’d been increasingly more dangerous to visit. Her journey took three times as long as it normally did. By the first hints of dawn, she made it. Outside the Justice Building was a defense line of Peacekeepers and soldiers she’d come to learn were from District Thirteen. 

She did not ask for help. When soldiers approached with questions about her injuries, she waved them off. They cautioned her to stay back, but she had nowhere further to go. There was a space in the line of defenders, and she positioned herself there, unfurling the whip at her side.

It did not matter what her crown was made of.

No one took it from her. 

#th:self #self-para #para #126 #126 at home #one for the victor #tw:blood #tw:violence #tw:death #tw:eye trauma

[banshee-grove]

who’s there?  //  part one

He woke up with a sore throat and a heavy chest. Senses dulled, sight blurred by exhaustion and the luxury of the room around him, Mackerel didn’t know where he was. But he called for his mother. The call caught in his throat, but still, she appeared.

She appeared younger, bright, livelier. She appeared at his side with a small smirk and Mako tailing at her heels. She appeared with a gentle hand placed to his forehead, and a cheeky question about whether or not he had a quiz at school that day. Still, she was already clearing off space next to his face, brushing away sand he’d tracked in. Making room for the water and broth and bucket for being sick. She brought the scent of the sea and comfort with her each time she checked in.

It was his only good dream.

The memories came to him rapidly.

Trying to eat sand on the beach. Trying to dive before he knew to hold his breath for so long. An older sailor teaching him a breathwork trick. The first time he was caught on the underside of a ship. The first brithday. Mako’s birth. His mother’s odd mood in the months after that not even Mackerel, her darling, could shake. The first time his father put his hands on his shoulder and muttered, “calm down.” The next time his father did the same, but instead muttered, “lighten up.” Dozens of bonfires. His first long trip at sea, taking a day off of school for it and then bragging for months ago. His first failed test. His first art contest won. The first time he used a thin bit of driftwood to carve a massive portrait into the sand. His first crush. His first heartbreak. His first bad fight with friends as some went off to work on the boats before they sprouted a single hair on their chin. Thinning classrooms. Mako in trouble at school. His father’s exhausted sighs after discussions of the catch that day, his father saying someone needed to be let go, his father asking if Mackerel wanted to work on the boat. His first day at sea. Mako meeting him at the dock, excited to discuss the waves. His first night drunk, bragging to a group of friends about his trip with his dad, but they were unimpressed - they’d already been working. His first kiss, first roll, all on the beach and too sandy to be enjoyable. His second time drunk; really, really drunk. His first hangover met with a smirk by his mother, and she did nothing to make room for water and broth and a bucket for being sick. He had to care for that himself. His baby brother’s arrest. His baby brother’s trial. His baby brother’s incarceration. 

Salt on the sea. Salt on his lips still when he got drunk on his day off. Salt and sweat in his hair when he visited Mako. Salt choking him, streaming down his face in fresh tears as Mako was reaped. Salt on the waves as his board hit the water hard, and he barely scrambled to his feet in time. Salt water stinging a cut on his hand. Salt trailed into the Dunes homes and not cleaned off any surface for months. Salt in the way he talked to his mother. Salt in the way his mother talked to his father. Salt in the air, a year later, when Mako appeared on the stage.

He was sitting at his little metal desk in his little concrete room in his claustrophobic little dorm he’d been assigned with Wattson. He was staring at a wall made of velvet - no, it was concrete. It was concrete in his memory, but before his half-opened eyes, it was velvet. The luxury and darkness of his present room only meshed with the coldness and fluorescence of his dorm room. He drew and drew and wrote and thought and scribbled furiously for hours and hours and days and days - all in the span of thirty seconds spent staring intently at the bedroom wall. He grabbed for something, anything, and pulled a comforter haphazardly over himself as he turned over.

Volunteer. It was a command, clinging to every passing thought of every meal cooked in his home and every meal he cooked in that dorm and every bit of food he tased in the Tower. Why didn’t he volunteer for Mako? Why not wait to help Wattson? He couldn’t, and he couldn’t know. There was reasoning, but he couldn’t grasp it, not in this dreaming state where he could still feel the fabric of the comforter between his fingertips. He pulled it closer, prayed for sleep.

He was in darkness. He’d turned into a room, after several minutes, maybe even hours, of wandering hallways and being too scared to open a door. He’d been chased, relentlessly. For a moment, he’d gotten ahead of his shadow. He stopped, he looked around, and he pushed a door open with all his might. He hoped it’d be as comforting, even if useless, as the kitchen. Instead, all he found himself in was darkness. It made his heart shoot up into his throat, and he charged on into the darkness with tired legs. He was not ready to give the shadow a moment of peace to find him or try to capture him again. He didn’t know where he was doing in the darkness, until there was a doorknob visible just a few feet in front of him and latched onto it, twisting it as he threw his body against the door. He emerged into an empty room. 

He shifted in the bed, facing upright and suddenly blinking as he looked at the canopy. Where the hell was he?

He was in an empty room. It was crooked, all bent out of shape from what he’d seen in person. He turned, and opened the door again, only to a row of shelves there. There were more closets in the room than he’d actually seen, and in his dream revision, he opened every single one to find only shelves. He was exhausted, his chest ached from the agony of finding no way out, and sleep returned more fitfully.

There was a scratching sound. One that tore through his dreams, and forced his groggy eyes opened. He looked at the thick wallpaper, making animations out of the design on the wall. A stick figure emerges from a box, and walks and walks, until they enter another box: the dining room.

The shadow was after him even when he was in that strange empty room. He’d opened the door to find shelves, turned, and found himself face to face with none other than himself. A door finally gave way to hallways. He didn’t think twice, running into the darkness. He felt something stringy and ticklish catch around his neck, and tried to claw at it as his gangly limbs tumbled forward. He spotted a door and pushed forward, expecting to find an empty room.

Instead, it was warm. It warmed him to the core. Not the tingly warmth that he felt deep in the pool. It was real warmth, stifling warmth. There seemed to be no fresh air in the room, but that didn’t stop him. It didn’t make his lungs hurt now, to try to take a breath as he braced himself against a table. He squinted in the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of the room. Had he been here before? He didn’t remember the table, the chairs... or the walls. He leaned his elbows on the table, trying to get a closer look without actually having to get closer to the wall. It looked like someone had thrown a dark sand all around, or dirt.

He heard a sound in the doorway, and jumped up. He grabbed a chair, swinging it out in front of him in a moment of strength. It left him quickly. He instantly grew weak, letting the chair legs crash to the floor as the vision of himself dissipated in the doorway. He crouched down behind his fallen chair, looking all around as he waited for the shadow to appear again.

The wallpaper did not move. Mackerel shifted again, and again, trying to find a comfortable way to sleep. He was tangled up in the comforter, trapped, as his eyes flew open. They locked on the dark patterns of the wallpaper.

And the ash on the wall. Focused less on the shadow and more on his surrounding, Mackerel could recognize art where he saw it. It wasn’t good art, it wasn’t pretty art, but it was art. Art was any collection of figures that presented a meaning. What that meaning was, he didn’t know. He crawled toward the wall, and pressed his fingertips into it as he pulled himself up. He held his hands out, assessing the darkness on his fingertips from the ash in comparison to the darkness of the dried blood and mud that highlighted the lines on his palms. He slapped at the wall, and dragged his hand down, watching as the ash shifted. Watercolor. He licked his fingertip, spit out the disgusting taste of the lingering dirt, and dragged his fingertip through the ash again.

This room could use a watercolor. A passing critical thought as he shifted in his sleep again. It was so dark, just like...

He spat at the wall. Maybe it was disrespectful, but he didn’t see how it was anymore disrespectful than anything else he could do in the arena. Anything else he had done. He gurgled his throat, sucking up more saliva to spit at the wall, on his hands, on his fingertips. He placed his forefinger and middle finger to his tongue, and started to drag them, left to right, through the ashy symbols on the wall. He watched as they distorted, moved past their limits. They were malleable. They could be used.

His eyes flickered, catching sight of the candlelight gleam off a shiny night table and a gaping hole in the wall - another doorway. He needed to wake up, waking up was on the horizon. He blinked once, twice, but in the embroidery on the wallpaper, he still saw his own ashen writings before he jolted awake.

Dragged across the wall, written in ash and saliva, were two words:

KNOCK KNOCK.

#th:self #self-para #para #knock knock #129 #day 1

[chip-foster]

this will get ugly  //  self

“Are you coming back?”

The interviews were always difficult to watch. Maybe it was the bizarre clothing, or maybe it was the statements that objected to everything he’d seen of some tributes in the last few days. He almost envied the tributes who could lie so easily, somehow seem both threatening and endearing at the same time. He’d seen them all, though. He’d tuned up the simulation stations so they were easier to navigate, and he’d watched from afar as they cut down pixelations. Most of it was over cameras, because his attention was required elsewhere. 

It’d been over two years now. Two years and he hadn’t burned out like a lot of new recruits. Over two years, and he was no longer working on half as many red herrings. He knew the arena would be an ancient town for at least three months before launch. 

So as much as he could, he watched from afar during training. Watching over cameras to make sure no one fucked with the technology in the training center too much. The same consoles that he used to fiddle with like they were toys were now viewed as prized possessions. Only he was allowed to fuck with them. Aside from updates on the simulations some tributes wanted in their skills presentations, he had very little contact with the tributes this year. It was better that way.

Especially when they were plastered in makeup, dressed up in chiffon, and sent out to talk to Calix. He didn’t want to see the tributes from Three in their interview. He’d successfully avoided them for over three days, he could continue that now. But every television in the Tower was tuned into the interview. He had no desire to go home. Evie and Paslee left that morning on the first train to Three, an agreement decided upon in the last few Games with Belle that it was best for Evie to be away. Easier to control what she saw, either on television or in her uncle’s tired eyes when he came home. 

Chip knew every television in the HQ would be tuned to the interviews, too. The psych department would be taking notes with each second that passed, and they would be feeding information along to supervisors for adjustments. He walked from bar to cafe to bar to lounge, and everywhere he looked, a tribute was seated across from Calix Crystal. Absolutely insane, really, that this was the last “pleasant” memory afforded to the families of tributes watching. He couldn’t pretend to be that mad about it, really. He just selfishly didn’t want to see.

He descended in the elevator this time. The training center was brightly lit, still, but there was no one there that he could see. Outside the elevator, he used his keycard to open a Gamemakers Only door and took a winding flight of stairs. The room overseeing the training center was brightly lit, too. It had been cleaned up nearly entirely since the presentations, but there were a couple glasses of wine that he spotted tucked discreetly behind a cushioned chair. More like left, and just out of view of Avoxes who weren’t allowed through the Gamemaker entrance. 

Chip hadn’t been asked to attend the skills presentations this year. It was usually just an occasional courtesy. They would randomly invite a couple people from the fringes of tech and landscaping and agriculture to help weigh in on presentations that weren’t so obviously impressive. 

He walked to the glass at the edge of the viewing area, the tip of his nose cool as it barely brushed the window. He wondered if someone from the tech team had been in the room during his skills presentations. His eyes easily traced the pattern of small explosions and sparks he’d set off once upon a time. He could’ve done better. He could’ve placed a dummy within the line of fire, or built a more complex trap. But he was eighteen, and he was stupid. He had no idea what was to come.

Chip shoved his hands in his pocket, looking around the various television screens in the room to see they were all dark. The interviews never lasted long, so he was certain by the time he left the room and got back up the elevator, he’d have missed all the District Three tributes had to offer. He ran a hand over the top of his hat as he walked toward the door, turning his head to the side. To see the wine glasses. 

They were still there. They’d likely been there for over a day. 

Chip’s knuckles went white as he clutched the doorknob. He’d never liked wine, anyway. It always tasted like vinegar to him, but it’d never stopped him.

Did it still taste that way? He could take a taste. Sommeliers did it all the time, and just spit it back out in a bucket. There was no bucket around, but a few drops, or a few sips, wouldn’t do anything. 

He let go of the knob, and walked to take a seat in the cushioned chair. He tapped one foot agains the floor, then another. He finally pulled his hands from his pockets and reached back. He took only half a sip before he spit the red wine back into the glass. It tasted awful. He reached behind him for the other glass and stood up, placing them both in obvious view on a coffee table. He should go.

But he took a sip. And awfulness aside, he hadn’t swallowed, had he? He’d always preferred beer, something with a little more body, with a little more fizz that almost resembled a soda. It was best that he tried a sip of wine first, really. To show he hated it. To show he could try it, though, too. To show he wasn’t eighteen anymore, that maybe with age, with time, with wisdom, he could have a drink. Just one drink, now and then. It was such an important part of the Capitol social scene, to just go for a drink. Such an important part of life in Three, to go to a friend’s house and crack open a cheap beer to talk shit about an employer.

Chip kept his eyes on the training center as he approached the mini fridge against a wall. When he opened it, there were several bottles of champagne inside. He closed it, headed for the door, and backtracked. Champagne was for a celebration, and this was a celebration. All the bullshit he’d overcome, this was a perfect reason for champagne. Just a glass, though, he reasoned as he used a key to tear off the foil. Liquor, beer, wine, had never been the real problem, after all. Just something he swore off. Gotta twist this wire shit off. This was different. Pop. Just one glass. 

It was easier to swallow than the red wine, but the fizz reached his nose. He squeezed his nostrils and walked back toward the window, looking down over the training center. It was remarkable, really, how despite all the changes above ground, this place stayed the same. They updated it every year, of course, but he wondered if it really looked all that different from some of the earliest Games. Sleeker, most likely, and shinier, but had weapons really advanced that much? When was the last time someone invented a new patented object to kill someone with?

He forgot how small champagne glasses were. It had to only be about four ounces, at most, with all the fizziness of the drink. Hardly the equivalent of a real drink, even a single drink. He poured another glass and turned on the nearest television. It flickered to life, and Calix Crystal’s face was the first he saw. He sat back on the arm of a sofa and watched as another tribute came out. The carbonation hardly bothered him as he gulped down the second glass. He waited, impatiently, until at least the next tribute’s interview to pour another glass. 

A jolt went through his elbow as he used it to lean against the door to the staircase, but it was easily ignored as he paused, refilled his glass, and then very carefully went down the stairs. He pressed his thumb over the top of the champagne bottle and used the weighted bottom of the glass to push open the door to the training center. As the door closed behind him, he took a long gulp from the champagne flute. He was drinking from a glass, much more controlled than he’d ever been before. After not drinking for so long, he’d probably have a hangover after finishing this bottle of champagne, but that was just a fun complaint of life. Oh, I’m so hungover. Like it was nothing. It was nothing. He’d just drink water once he got home, and have an extra cup of coffee before his launch shift. That was all it took, right? For everyone else? Why couldn’t he be like everyone else?

He topped off his glass and set the champagne bottle down very, very carefully in a trash can. Flute still in hand, he took a lap around the training center. He touched nothing, just looked at it all with a critical gaze. Noted where things needed unnecessary improvements, like he was the mastermind who would truly change how tributes trained for the Hunger Games. For the Games he thought he was doing something to end, but he hadn’t done enough. Because his foot was always out the door; out the door on the rebellion, on Three, on the Capitol, on this job, on his sobriety, on Evie.

Leaves. He’d scattered leaves across the ground, and put small bombs and sparkers all underneath. How fucking understated, considering what he could’ve done. 

Chip took a long sip from the flute, and turned his gaze from a ball of wires to the rack of knives. He approached, taking a couple more sips in the time it took him to close the space. The large blades were still immensely intimidating, but there was a small survival knife that caught his attention. He shifted the glass into his left hand and picked up the knife. He could not clearly make out his own reflection in the blade, but he could make out the silhouette of every person he could cut through with it.

And he could feel nothing. Finally, it was back. 

As a child, he’d been sent to several different psychiatrists and therapists. They’d said a lot of words that didn’t make sense to his young mind. A few stood out, though. Intelligent, naturally, stuck to his ego. Shy, like anyone needed confirmation. 

Empath. It didn’t make sense, and it made every bit of sense. It explained every lack of expression, or emotion, behind his gestures and tone. He was hiding, because everyone else was so easy to read, so easy to take in. The world was all just a math problem, after all. The warm smile minus the blank eyes minus the sagging posture minutes the back-handed compliment equalled a total lack of approval, of support. It was all so easy, to see facial features, posture, and hear tone, and put it all together into a formula that equated to an unspoken emotion, an emotion that, according to order of operations, affected him last. 

He felt Seraphina die first. He wanted to know why, and he dug in. All problems have a root calculation. If one dug deep enough, they could surely find where Chip’s formula met Sera’s, met Freyja’s, met Perl’s, met Vidia’s. If they just got to the core of the problem, that would solve everything. 

But who the fuck wanted Chip Foster solved?

The knife was returned to its spot on the rack. Chip finished his drink, and hung the flute ever so carefully on a few spare hooks. He needed to go home, to his house that was now empty, and relax and drink water and recover. He found his way up the elevator, and out to a cab, and said something to the driver, and then was somewhere more familiar than his own new home. Champagne tended to end him up here, so he gave in to old desires. This was controlled. This was just to say hello to old friends, and then head home. Maybe have one more drink, but that was it. The world was starting to get a little less concise, a little less upright, and he shouldn’t push it. 

Because it was different this time.

Until the bouncer didn’t recognize him. He recognized the face as a victor’s face, and so Chip was let in, but there was no celebration, no grand welcome that he’d been expecting. A few steps into the club and he could feel his heartbeat eager to be in tandem with the bass. No one’s head turned at his entrance, as he’d expected. His cheeks went pink, not like anyone could see under the dark lights of the club. A bartender he didn’t recognize asked what he was having, and he told her a water. He needed a water, so he asked for it. He could have something that wasn’t liquor, even in this insanely uncomfortable scenario.

Then the manager came out from her office. Chip intentionally or not, who knew how he was acting now, was right in her line of vision. He saw the smile, and he smiled back, finally relaxed. Finally relieved. Finally fucking seen. He didn’t even ask, but a whiskey ginger was placed in front of him within sixty-seven seconds. He counted. He was always fucking counting, it came to him like breathing.

“Nothing’s changed.”

Chip was about to take a sip from his new cocktail but let the glass fall back to the bar suddenly, splashing whiskey and ginger all all over his hand. “I-I-”

“Shut up. You know.”

Chip only gave a slight nod, eyes drifting to his periphery as he took a long, long sip of his drink. He forgot how easy every liquor was to drink once it was mixed with soda. But he’d only have one. And he’d only look once at the stage, and the chairs on the edges where dancers were getting personal with clients. He didn’t recognize most of them, and quickly turned his attention away when he thought one looked at him. He finished off his drink, and waved down the manager to ask for his bill. He paused, and asked for another drink.

He didn’t recognize most of the dancers, but he recognized one. He was already standing when the manager slid him the fresh drink. One sip, and he tasted more whiskey than ginger ale. He swallowed down a gag, and kept walking. He took a seat on the side of the stage, consistently sipping on his drink through tiny straws. 

He’d be hungover tomorrow, but that was just part of a stressful work life. He wouldn’t drink again for weeks, probably, at the very least. This was just a final night of fun before the arena. He was fully in control. Alcohol had never really been the problem, anyway.

A money clip always made this easier. He forgot why he got rid of it until now, when he was awkwardly trying to balance his wallet and his drink in his hand. 

She took the wallet. He remembered her favorite ploy, that ended with the wallet tucked back in his pocket. He didn’t protest, sitting so stock still it made the final part of the performance almost impossible. 

“Chip. C’mon?”

Remembered. She remembered him. He knew enough, logically, to know her manager might’ve whispered his name in her ear. Or maybe it was the victory. Or maybe this was the one arena where he’d really been special and notable.

He pressed his elbows into the sides of the chair and pushed his hips up before sliding down more in the chair. “Jewel. C’mon.” 

She mastered that knowing smile, and he knew it. Every ounce of flattery afforded to him in a place like this, he knew was practiced. But that was part of the freedom. To know it was all bullshit but at least he’d be satisfied. He paid her the remaining cash in his wallet for a lapdance, and ordered another drink when the manager came to check on him.

“We still have the VIP room, Mr. Foster.”

“N-Nah, I’m-” He shook his head to deny the offer. He couldn’t afford it with the cash he had. Also, he told himself, he didn’t want it. This was just a night of fun ahead of a few stressful days. He would sleep, go to his next shift, and no one had to know where he was the night before. He’d just have to shower to get the scent off him. And if all it took was a shower, some coffee, and a nap to get him cleared up, well... He could have more fun, right? If everyone else could do it, he could. He was in control of this situation. He knew the actions, and the consequences. And he had room in his schedule for consequences. 

When his money ran out, he only had cigarettes left to burn. He knew the way without direction. Through the bar door, through the kitchen, out to the back alley where he could smoke a cigarette in peace. And he had peace, for just a moment. Until Jewel joined him. He forgot this was technically for workers only.

“It’s almost closing time,” she informed him.

“I’m going home,” he replied, he reasoned, he implied. He said, whatever that really meant. He said a lot of things in the last hour he didn’t concretely recall.

“Really?”

“Really.” 

This was all about control. He could control this. He could keep this, this thing he refused to apply a noun or verb or anything to, and still live his life. He just had to be careful about timing, careful about who saw him. So he would finish the drink still waiting for him at the bar, and he would go home, and he would have a half gallon of water, and he would sleep until his shift. And if he wanted to do this again, he could. On the weekend. Maybe even have another drink, maybe even do a line, maybe even, maybe even, maybe even...

But it really was all so clear. He could be totally in control this time.

Jewel had finished her own cigarette, and was standing with the back door to the club still open. 

“Are you coming back?”

“Yeah.”

#para #self-para #th:self #about #headcanon #128 #tw:drug mention #tw:relapse #tw:alcohol #tw:sex work

[allard-danbur]

mon fils  //  self-para

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” 

- Le Petit Prince

Allard went to Thirteen after the announcement at the ball. He stayed in his old room, in his old family compound, with his son sleeping in the guest room. Aurélie was grateful for Allard’s arrival to take the nine-year-old off her hands. Just as grateful, was she, for the crate full of wine from the Capitol that was hauled into her family’s home. Despite working full-time now, with Benoit in school, she did not have a little compound of her own. She preferred to stay with her parents, with them to cook and clean and help with Benoit.

In the mornings, Allard would give Benoit a series of tasks to do - easy cleaning jobs, a set number of minutes to sit at the piano (he only ever go to play it when he visited his Grandmother D on the weekends, and it was pitiful to Allard’s trained ears how his son tentatively tapped at the keys), weeding in the heat lamp-lit “garden.” It was enough to occupy the young boy as Allard nursed a coffee and a carb-filled breakfast to erase the tinges of a daily hangover. He usually went over messages from the hotel then, and tried his best to get the latest information from the Capitol. Every day, he hoped he would awake to a headline that Thirteen would no longer be Reaped, or that it would at least be delayed. Delayed just thirteen short years.

Lunch was when they all came together. Allard with his first glass of wine of the day and a to-do list for both himself and Benoit, sometimes individually or sometimes together. Benoit with an update on what he’d been doing all morning, even if Allard knew. Madame Danbur, all made up like she had anywhere to go, eating the same lunch every single day. Then Allard and Benoit would set out on their tasks - educational or fun or musical - and they’d all reconvene for dinner again. Allard would talk about his hotel and life in the Capitol; Benoit would talk about his friends from school and make his childish observations of the world; Madame Danbur criticized.

Benoit took a bath, then Allard made a show of trying to pick a book to read, just so he could hear his son ask him to play him to sleep instead. So Allard would comply. Sometimes he went to the grand piano in the living room, leaving Benoit’s door open so he could hear the noise drift in. Sometimes he played the guitar, slow and soft. And sometimes, if Benoit really asked, he played the violin. He hoped, despite the way his son played the piano, this was a sign he shared a love for music.

When Benoit was asleep, Allard would go back to the living room or the dining room, wherever his mother was inevitably pouring a glass of wine or something stronger for both of them. And they’d talk. Allard spoke honestly about the Capitol, about his hotel, about his health, about his wife. Madame Danbur criticized. 

Every night they spoke about Thirteen’s annexation by Panem. Every night they spoke of Thirteen’s upcoming Reaping. Every morning, Allard decided not to tell Benoit.

Three weeks passed by in what felt like the blink of an eye, but it was too long to be away from his business and his wife. Allard returned to the Capitol on what he was certain was the longest train ride of his life. He dove back into his duties at the hotel, planning for a new suite design and hiring a new chef and tending to guests. His nights were spent at intimate parties and large gatherings and everything in between, cross-faded and chatty. But not talking, not like how he’d talked to his mother. All the speculation about Thirteen was excitable - another district, a strong district, a military district, trained tributes, fresh tributes, tributes like Panem had never seen before. It left Allard feeling dizzy.

His father stopped by the hotel in early June. It was the first time the two had seen each other since the Victor’s Ball. Allard was busy traveling, then catching up from traveling; Benoit was busy with working and studying, then busy sleeping with a woman who looked remarkably like a younger version of Madame Danbur. 

“Ça va?” Allard greeted his father casually, more interested in looking over new suite designs than anything else. The silence for an answer immediately made him straighten up, and look at his father. “Quoi?” he pressed sharply.

His father did not answer in French, did not answer quietly, and he knew the tactic. He knew his father wanted to be heard. It made it harder to say no.

“Sovereign Thorn and President Battenberg believe Thirteen deserves a support team fluent in the ways of the Hunger Games.” He was speaking too formally. He’d rehearsed this. He’d been given this. “Your name came up.”

“As a tour guide?” Allard retorted. 

“As an escort.”

Allard paused. Then he carefully folded up the design plans he’d been looking at, but his mind was elsewhere. His mind was in the future, with a hand dipping into a Reaping bowl filled with slips of paper that only bore Benoit’s name. Not the namesake, the one that mattered. For all his shortcomings as a father, he never imagined a future where he might Reap his own child. He should have told his son what was happening; he shouldn’t have kept him in the dark.

“Is that what little faith they have in Thirteen? To send in a rookie?” Allard asked then. 

His father said nothing.

“No.”

A week later, he and his father had dinner. It was only as they were starting on dessert that his father brought it up again.

“There are a number of candidates, but your name keeps coming up.”

“No.”

Allard returned to Thirteen, just for a few days. Long enough to spent the weekend with little Benoit, to teach him a new song on the piano, and to talk more with Allard’s mother. She did something he’d never once seen his refined mother do - she spit. When he brought up the idea of being an escort, she spit at his feet, as if he’d actually accepted. Wasn’t it bad enough he couldn’t fight for Thirteen, now he was going to Reap their children?!

He was actually meant to stay for more than a week, but he left the next day without saying goodbye to his mother or his son. His father greeted him at the train station.

“The Reaping is less than a month away-”

“What happened to all those candidates?”

“Allard-”

“Benoit!!”

                                                                    ----

They were just kids. 

Allard was in the middle of a tutoring session when Benoit burst through the door, yelling at his son to come. Benoit’s face was red, sweaty. He looked as if he’d run through the tunnels to get home.

“Aurélie!” 

It was all he could get out. The baby was on the way. Allard’s mother was sipping something as she sat reading on the couch in the living room. He ran past her, following behind his father. Words were coming out of his father’s mouth that he didn’t fully understand, medical terms and the like. There was a scooter waiting for them in the tunnel outside their home, the one his father usually took to the hospital if he was in a rush. Without thought or question, and barely hanging on, Allard hopped onto the back just a moment before his father took off. Allard was able to catch a glimpse in that moment of the joy and pride of welcoming a new citizen to Thirteen, a district where birth rates had dropped significantly even in his seventeen years on the earth.

After that was mostly a blur. Benoit led the way, knowing the hospital and its staff like the back of his hands. Allard was handed gloves, a smock, and something to cover his face. His father went off down a different hallway as a nurse trotted next to him. Allard was guided into a room where Aurélie was screaming and clutching the sides of the hospital bed. There was a lot more screaming, his father returned, more rushing, a lot of talking and words he didn’t know, but a nurse assured him and Aurélie the baby was healthy. A boy.

The world did not seem to steady until Allard was squeezed into the hospital bed next to Aurélie, staring down at the little human that was equal parts both of them. It seemed so easy to see it now, as he looked down at the baby’s wrinkled skin, which parts were his and which were Aurélie’s. Once they were given a moment alone, it was interrupted almost immediately by Benoit. 

“I’m here as a grandfather, not a doctor,” he declared, beaming. 

No name was picked at first. They’d argued about it quite a bit. Twenty-four hours passed, then forty-eight, and it was time to leave the hospital. Allard hadn’t changed or showered. Aurélie’s parents hadn’t come to see her, neither had Allard’s mother. Only his father, Benoit, came to visit - he spent his breaks in their room and checked in on them even when he had a busy shift. Aurélie cried a lot. There was a nursery and clothes waiting for her at home, her family was ready to take on a new baby. They had to be. Thirteen’s population needed it. But that didn’t mean a thing to the seventeen-year-old girl who saw how empty the chairs were in her room.

It was time to go. Allard knew what was to come, and he was prepared for a fight with Aurélie about what to name their son. But she spoke before him, with certainty and vigor.

“Benoit.”

Allard returned to his family’s home alone. Aurélie was with her parents, caring for a newborn. They had no space for Allard in all their plans, so he was shut out. His mother and father were in the kitchen when he came home, talking about the intensity of the heat lamp in the garden. The couple fell quiet as they turned to their son, who went from a teenage boy to a father in just a few days time. When he saw the way they looked at him, he felt the weight finally fall on him. Two days of admiring how cute and precious and fragile his newborn son was felt like practice. The way his parents looked at him now, this was real. He was a father now. He had to do more. He had to be ready to set an example.

“We named him Benoit.”

                                                                   ----

“Benoit!!”

A reminder. Of the boy, of his namesake. 

“Not everyone in Thirteen was spoiled like you.”

Allard felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He scoffed, and opened his mouth to protest. His father interrupted.

“Children will take out tesserae. Benoit will be safe. But someone else’s child will need guidance.”

It was such a sappy statement, Allard laughed in his father’s face. They left the train station without anymore discussion.

Allard did not sleep for a week. He had ideas, more and more obscure, of the poor sap that would be in charge of escorting new tributes. The tributes would be told all the wrong things. Worst of all, the tributes might be taught to think this was normal. But this was not normal. This was not the Hunger Games that drew him to Panem. This was a farce of tradition. Battenberg was a farce, a power-hungry leader without anyone to rein her in. What was her end goal? 

It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have it. Not in Thirteen.

Allard sent identical letters to the president, his sovereign, his father, and several high-ranking managers of the Tower. He said he would like to fulfill the role of Thirteen’s escort, to help with a seamless transition as Thirteen joined the Games.

He returned to Thirteen, picked up his son, and went to his family home a week before the Reaping. One night, when his son begged him to play the violin, he decided it was time. He picked up the instrument and began to play a slow, soft tune.

“Have you heard of the Hunger Games?”

Benoit nodded, and began to rattle off a series of facts about the Games.

“Do you know what has happened to Thirteen?”

There was only confused silence from his son. Allard paused his playing, sucked in a deep breath, and resumed.

“Thirteen is a wonderful district, but we need help. Panem, the place with the Games, is going to help. But we have to give something up so they can help. Two chil- Two teenagers from Thirteen will join the next Games.”

“When?” An earnest, nervous question.

“Soon.”

“Am I a tee-teenager?”

“No.”

Benoit did not request music to be played again, and instead Allard had to read his son to sleep at night. Allard drank too much the night before the Reaping, staying in the living room long after his mother went to bed. He nearly missed his alarm, and went through washing up and dressing with half-closed eyes. When he finally emerged from his room, he found a cold silence throughout the family domain. Benoit was gone, his mother was gone, it was only him in this dim, dusty, cramped home he once thought of as a mansion. Thirteen needed help, he could concede that. But they did not need help this way.

An ATV was waiting outside his front door to cart him off to the Reaping. He stood on the edges of the stage, barely paying attention to the speeches Radia and Jeannie gave. He clapped when he heard the audience do it, but only joined half-heartedly and was quick to give up. A nervous energy was making him restless, and he paced until someone hissed at him that it was time to go on stage. So he ascended, he smiled, he waved, he also gave a small speech about the rules of the Reaping that all in the district were likely now too familiar with. He felt no connection with his own body as he reached into the bowl, and pulled out a name.

If he felt disbelief, it didn’t show. What he felt and what his body did were two different things. He watched it all from afar, even as his eyes focused in on the name. 

“Jeanine Twill.”

The whole district knew now. He no longer felt disconnected. He felt sharp, at the ready. This was no coincidence. Panem took on Thirteen, promising little change, and the heir was Reaped? It was worse than obvious; it was heavy-handed. Panem wanted to crush District Thirteen. Panem was out of line. 

Panem needed a better leader.

All to come. All to come. 

Allard turned, looking back at the heir. Clone or not, she was in line to be Sovereign. And Battenberg had come for her, for what? His brother found their future ruler, but perhaps Allard could be the one to save her. Dirty tactics, bribing, promises, deals, whatever it took, he would get Jeannie Twill out alive. Battenberg would know what she was dealing with when Jeannie came out a double victor, just like her brother. But unlike her brother, both victories would not really be for Panem. Or maybe they were for Panem. A better Panem. He was still figuring it out. 

There was a noise in the crowd. A volunteer. Someone ready to take the place of the heir. Allard paused, forgetting his current position, and then called for the girl to come on stage.

This changed nothing.

He was ready for war. 

#th:self #th:benoit #family #self-para #para #mon fils #th:jeannie

[poppy-battenberg]

feral  //  self

Her nails were broken and jagged. 

While she was in the hospital, no one filed them down. No one came too close to her, unless she was sedated. Even then, there were handcuffs on her wrists and ankles to keep her chained to the hospital bed. She hated to be awake, to feel the pain that was not eased until the last few minutes before she drifted into unconsciousness. Most of the time, when she was awake, they gagged her to keep her from asking questions. All she saw were nurses with eyelash extensions and horrifyingly stark, bare walls around her. 

When they finally released her, it was into the firm grip of a robotic Peacekeeper. It was suggested she not be tased, but if she fought against them too much, they would obviously have to do what was necessary. So she fought. She was tased. She ended up on the sidewalk outside the hospital, and used her forearms to try to avoid hitting her head there. The force of the taser and the sudden fall were still enough to give her a headache, but nothing like those first few days. She spit up on the Peacekeeper’s metallic foot, little more than some hospital fluids in her system. She was hauled into the truck with spit dribbling down her chin, and blood running down her clothes from where the skin on her forearms was torn. She was quiet only as long as it took her to catch her breath, then she started to spit and scream. She really didn’t know what had happened outside the walls of the hospital. She had no idea how many days had passed. She had no idea if she was on her way to her execution, prison, or a comfortable meal at home. 

A soldier was in the truck with the Peacekeepers. She was the one who stuck a needle in Poppy’s arm, and the world drifted away quickly again. She hated it. She hated that it was welcome. 

When she opened her eyes again, she was staring at a gray wall. Something was missing from her. She was certain she was naked, but when she tilted her head down, she found herself in clothes that matched the wall. The cuffs. They were gone from her wrist and ankles. She reached a hand up to press against the wall in front of her. Rough. Concrete. She dragged her fingertips down through a groove, staring at that broken and jagged index finger nail. It disgusted her. The daughter of a Capitol stylist, there were always certain things she kept tidy and pretty: her nails and her hair. Now she barely recognized her own hand, aside from the bruises on the wrist and scratches on her palm. Her forearms were wrapped in gauze. 

Beneath her, the gray was smooth, cool. Like the rails on the hospital bed. Metal.

“You’re up.”

Poppy flipped over quickly. Her stomach was empty, she was dehydrated, and she felt the room spin as she gripped at the edge of the metal bed. Someone else was in this room with her. Another girl, another brunette. Another person in gray, the same gray as her clothes and the wall and the bed.

“Wh-Where am I?” Poppy did not recognize her own voice. She did not recognize her own dry mouth as it opened and closed. 

“Capitol prison. My name is Seela.” No games, just a simple response. Poppy could finally see the woman. See the metallic tattoos torn up with scars, the space where her left ear no longer stuck out, the split ends of hair that had clearly been messily chopped off. There was still a little bit of pink dye at the tips. “It’s October 16th. Primrose Everdeen is dead. We eat dinner in five minutes.”

Poppy did not care about Primrose Everdeen. She did not care that the woman she’d only known as a face on a television was dead. That was not a concern to her. She cared if her family made it through this. She cared only about that. When she asked Seela to tell her more, Seela said she wasn’t the Capitol Gazette and sat with her back to Poppy to go back to reading.

When a bell rang, Poppy followed Seela’s lead. Lined up in the cell, then lined up outside the cell. She tried to keep her head straightforward, but her eyes were darting around, looking for a familiar face. Nothing. No one. All these women, and she didn’t recognize a single one. Were they all rebels? There was a sharp jab of someone’s knee to her back, and she realized she’d come to a standstill at the top of the stairs. She started to walk down, holding the railing for support. 

Her body was weak. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time. She’d had mono in high school, and it knocked her off her routine for months. She lost muscle, lost motivation. Following the row of prisoners into the mess hall, she wondered what else she lost. Despite her hunger, the smell in the hall did not appeal to her, and the strange soup she was ladled out did not look appetizing. The bread she was given was stale. The milk carton was closed, she could feel the curdled bits inside sloshing against the side as she walked.

Out of line, without Seela walking in front of her, she suddenly felt very lost. Exposed. Looking around the room, she was very aware that all eyes were on her. It was not paranoia. Everyone was looking at her. She could do nothing but stare back, unable to focus on any one set of eyes. What could she do? Apologize for her aunt? Apologize for their loss? For what reason did they blame her for the failed rebellion? 

Who was going to come for her first?

She took a seat at the end the only empty table in the hall. No one came to sit with her. No one looked at her once she was seated. She forced down the soup and bread. She opened the milk and set it away quickly, afraid the smell might make her soup come back up. 

They lined up again. Poppy could do nothing but sit on her bed as she waited for lights out. She tried to ask Seela if anyone there was from Twelve, and Seela told Poppy to find a hobby. 

Lights out.

Wake up at 6. 

Line up at 6:15.

Breakfast is over at 6:45. 

Rotating shower schedule at 8.

Cell time until 10.

Outdoor rec time until 11.

Lunch at 11:15.

Indoor rec time at 11:45.

Cell time at 12:30.

Line up at 4:45.

Dinner at 5.

Rotating shower schedule at 5:30.

Lights out at 9.

Poppy was punched for the first time on the second day. She tried to fight back, but was easily knocked back down again. There was a shadow of her strength left, and it would need coaxing. It would need help. 

Seela leant her a book. Poppy got a headache within ten minutes of trying to read it. She was sent for an evaluation at the infirmary, had her gauze pads changed, and was given something for her head. She barely made it back in time for lights out. She was awoken by a middle of the night cell check. She had nothing for the guards to look through, and Seela only had Capitol-approved books that were mostly about gardening. Two prisoners were found with secret notes from rebels outside the prison walls. The gunshots went off before the cells were all locked back up. 

Lights out again.

Wake up at 6. Get up, kid.

Line up at 6:15. Don’t be last in line or you’ll get no bread and whatever is at the bottom of the soup pot. 

Breakfast is over at 6:45. Again, don’t be last in line out of here. You’ll be a target for the guards. Cell time. I like silence at these times.

Rotating shower schedule at 8. Don’t get the soap in your eyes. 

Cell time until 10. You need to get a hobby. 

Outdoor rec time until 11. You should run. Don’t look at her.

Lunch at 11:15. This is the best meal of the day. Don’t get busted up beforehand or you’ll miss it.

Indoor rec time at 11:45. None of the board games have all the pieces.

Cell time at 12:30. You need to get a hobby.

Line up at 4:45. Walk in front of me. 

Dinner at 5. Sit with me. 

Rotating shower schedule at 5:30. I’m going to shower. Don’t touch my books.

Lights out at 9. Stay. Quiet.

Poppy didn’t think Seela liked her, but every few days someone else was marched out of the cell after another sweep fo the cells. Seela didn’t like her, but she liked blood on her bedsheets less. An occupied cellmate was better than one that got in trouble. Poppy had the energy a week later to say that trouble had a way of finding her.

Poppy started her first fight an hour later.

It was outside, when she was running (or rather, slowly jogging) at Seela’s insistence so she  couldtire herself out to sleep. She’d gotten too close to someone else’s territory. Irritated, hungry after being last in line for breakfast, she didn’t have time for a shouting match. She split her knuckles on the woman’s jaw and later had to use her own bed sheets to wrap it. If she started a fight, she wouldn’t get treatment for it, Seela said. There was a bruise forming in the center of Poppy’s back by the time she showered, right where the guard had brought down her baton to end the fight. Poppy was given a warning and told that was all she got. No matter who you are. 

Lights out.

Wake up at 6. Stretch. 

Line up at 6:15. Don’t look around. 

Breakfast is over at 6:45. Cell time. More stretching. Write down goals for the day.

Rotating shower schedule at 8. Calisthenics. 

Cell time until 10. Upper body strength and shadow boxing. 

Outdoor rec time until 11. Run. Alternate interval sprints and endurance laps around the yard.

Lunch at 11:15. Do not rush. 

Indoor rec time at 11:45. Watch the news. 

Cell time at 12:30. Lower body strength and hand-to-hand combat drills. 

Line up at 4:45. 

Dinner at 5. 

Rotating shower schedule at 5:30. Cold shower. This is not a time for comfort.

Lights out at 9. Stretch.

Some days, early on, she was so sore she did nothing. Whenever someone new showed up, she asked if they knew anything about Twelve. When they did not, she never spoke to them again. When they did, they never had the answers she was looking for. No one seemed to know what happened to the Battenbergs who’d been hiding in Twelve.

No one also seemed to know when they were getting out, or if they were getting out, either. They hadn’t been executed on the spot, but what came next? No one really knew. No one really knew who was actually a rebel, either. Some were arrested for affiliation, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some lied and just pretended that was the reason they were there. 

One day it was too cold to go outside. Poppy was agitated. She’d grown up in the Capitol, she could stand a November chill. She wanted to run, anyway. She’d warm up. She’d be fine. All arguments she kept to herself as she found a space in the corner of the rec room to sit and contemplate what to do next. She was yelled at for blocking the heating vent. 

The guard was not faster than Poppy as she lunged at the woman. She was desperate to hit something solid, something real. Something that would bleed. As she got the woman in a chokehold, a baton came down on her shoulder, then her back, then her leg. She was stronger than the prisoner, but not stronger than the guards. When she tried to grab at the guard’s leg to drag the woman down, another guard yanked her arms back and snapped on handcuffs.

Poppy was marched through a new concrete corridor, beyond the infirmary and beyond the mess hall for the male prisoners on the other side of the building. A guard had to turn on a flashlight to walk through a hallway lined with solid doors and Peacekeepers stationed outside each one. A door was waiting wide open, Poppy was shoved inside, and the door shut rapidly behind her. There was a little window just beyond the reach of her raised hand, where light filtered into the concrete room. There was no metal bed, just a thin mattress on the ground with suspicious stains. Poppy slowly moved her arms and twisted her body, testing out where she knew the pain would only get worse. No amount of stretching would prevent the soreness of the next morning. 

She sat on the ground, and began to recite to herself survival skills she would tell her tributes.

“Never assume water is drinkable, but always collect it. You can create a fire to boil something easier than you can create water. There are a lot of ways to start a fire...”

Her first stint in solitary was 24 hours. The air shifted around her after that. Seela, favored by the guards for her good behavior, requested to be moved to a different cell. Poppy’s first new cellmate was removed on her second night for a shiv she was hiding in her shoe. The next cellmate tried to strangle Poppy in her sleep, and Poppy slammed the girl’s head on the metal corner of the bed. The guards found them both awake at 6, but only one bleeding, and Poppy was hauled off to solitary again. 

Two days this time. She recited her survival tips again. Her first meal back in the mess hall, she and several others got food poisoning. The amount of rebels in the infirmary was so concerning that several Peacekeepers were stationed there as they were all handed medicine. Among the group, Poppy spotted some familiar faces. The older brother of an old school friend. A girl she’d played soccer with. 

No one from Twelve. 

Weeks had passed, and there was not even a crumb of news about her family. She’d seen the replays of her aunt’s Victor’s Ball speech. She wondered if the woman was cowardly enough to keep hiding out in District Thirteen. Surely, her aunt would’ve said something if rebels killed her only living sibling and his children. Or would that require her to admit to the nation that her own niece was among those rebels?

It made Poppy sick to think about. Her father knew Twelve better than her. Other rebels knew her family was hiding out in the old butcher shop. They must have gotten away. They were helped to escape. Maybe Ian was reading through all new books in District Thirteen now. Maybe Sara was learning that strange language their leader spoke. Maybe her father had lost enough, he was at peace with being separated from his daughter.

She wasn’t dead, after all. She was alive, and as well as she could be under the circumstances. 

The headaches ceased. She challenged other prisoners to arm wrestling competitions to win part of their meal portions. She stacked her cell mattresses and pillows against the wall and punched and kicked at them until she was exhausted. 

She wasn’t dead. Even after her third stint in solitary, that lasted four days and had her ready to scream her head off, she was not dead. And still no word came of her family. No word came that her aunt gave a single flying fuck that her niece was starting to cause a stir in the rebel prison. Poppy didn’t care for any talk of revolution or rebellion. She didn’t care for much talk at all, really. But she cared for the thrill of animosity directed at her, for the chance to fight once more. Maybe if she was sent to death’s doorstep, someone would finally fucking tell her something.

Lights out.

Wake up at 6.

Line up at 6:15.

Breakfast is over at 6:45.

Rotating shower schedule at 8.

Cell time until 10.

Indoor rec time until 11. Bitch, what are you looking at?

Her nails were broken and jagged. As they curled into her palm, she sliced a little of her own skin. She didn’t care. She took a moment to relish the pinch, the impression, and when the guard swung a baton at her, she ducked. One strike with a closed fist to the guard’s ribs. An unclenched but strong hand jabbed hard at the side of the guard’s neck. The guard used two hands on the baton to shoved at Poppy’s chest. Poppy latched onto the stick as she was tackled, pushing back against the pressure on her sternum. Her legs were pinned by the guard. There was little hope for her in this fight, but she refused to give up as she groaned and pushed back against the guard. A group of guards were present within moments, ready to grab Poppy the moment she was freed. She spit and scratched and kicked and screamed, but the rebels were not the only ones who’d gone to war. The guards had dealt with worse. There was a pinch at her neck, and then the drifting feeling she barely recognized almost two months later.

It was December 15th when she woke up in solitary. 

A guard delivered her first breakfast through the meal slot, a change from the usual Peacekeeper delivery. She asked how long she was there this time. She must’ve already been passed out when the guards iterated their usual “for your punishment, you will spend X hours in solitary.” There was no answer from this guard. The meal flap slapped shut.

Lunch was hand-delivered, too, by a different guard. And dinner also. Poppy was unnerved. She tried to exercise, to find a way to train as snow dimmed the outside light from coming in. But her mind was racing, and each time she heard something in the hallway, she found herself suddenly jumping. Had they injected her with anything else? Was she even still in the Capitol prison? There was no way to tell if this was the same cell she’d always been put in.

December 16th. 

The worst thing about solitary was the lack of structure. Poppy thought she hated structure, but there was some level of it that was absolutely needed in human life. She lost count of her squats, she barely broke a sweat, she was hesitant to strike even at the air. All meals were delivered by guards. They were more solid than anything she’d ever had in the mess hall. She wasn’t sure when it was night, and she didn’t know if she really slept. 

December 17th. 

Shortly after breakfast, before her tray was even taken away, there was a clicking sound nearby. The door. It was the door unlocking. Poppy stood immediately, dumping the crumbs from her tray and holding the spoon out like a weapon as she waited to see who would enter. A guard, with a taser already drawn and a new pair of overall in her arms. They were thicker, for the weather that was getting even colder. Poppy did not go after her, and the guard kept the taser drawn until the door was locked again. Poppy changed.

December 18th.

She slept the night before. She started to count to sixty repeatedly, then remembered she hadn’t gone through her usual list of survival tips. She didn’t know why she did it, but it was all she could think to do. Seela told her to get a hobby. This was her hobby. Staying alive. 

She thought a lot about Niko and Gemma that day. The inked reminders of her dead tributes were still so fresh on her skin that even in pale light, she could still see each line. Niko’s and Gemma’s were the biggest, perhaps wishful thinking she would not have need for extra space for homages to the rest of the tributes she could not keep alive. 

Maybe she’d been saving all the good tips for herself.

December 19th.

A steak knife was on her dinner plate. She kept it tight in her grip as she watched a guard pull back the tray through the meal plate. There was no hesitation as the tray scraped on the floor, then there were footsteps down the hallway. Poppy clutched the knife in outstretched arms, defensive, as she lied down on her bed. She fell asleep that way.

December 25th.

She slept with the knife every night. When the sun rose, the cell flooded with light. She got a new set of overalls, but did not change. She stuffed the collar into a crack in the wall. She used her boots to weigh down the end of the stained mattress, and propped it up to rest under the overalls. The arms rested awkwardly and it ended up shorter than most people, but that didn’t matter. Poppy started to do high-knees, jumping jacks, squats, jump squats, push-ups, anything she could think of to get her heart pumping. The steak knife remained always within reach. When she felt sweat start to drip down her hairline, she snatched up the knife and slashed at the overalls. She cut through the fabric, and through the thin cover of her mattress. She swung again, cut again. 

She asked the darkness that night where her family was, as she tried to sleep on a torn up mattress. She got no answer. She’d hoped she was being spied on, that someone, somewhere, might have mercy on her and turn on a tiny little speaker to finally give her an answer. She asked once more, just to see if she hadn’t been loud enough the first time.

She told the darkness to go fuck itself.

January 15th. 

She should’ve known something was different when dinner the night before was heartier than usual. She assumed it was going to be an especially cold night, or a blizzard might be coming. When she woke, the first thing she noticed were her empty hands. Before her vision was fully cleared of sleep, she began to feel around in the dark to find the knife handle. Nothing. Nowhere.

“Oh, look at the poor dear.”

The light that hit her wasn’t from the sun. It was electric. A flashlight. Poppy’s groan at the sight of it bordered on a growl as she squinted her eyes, forcing herself not to close her eyes entirely. 

“What the f-” The voice was so high-pitched and nasally Poppy wanted to tear the woman’s throat out before she could see the full outline of her ridiculous hairstyle. 

“Don’t be a brat, Poppy.” 

Poppy sprang up. Before she could take another step, two guards had swiftly moved to grab her and pull her arms behind her, clapping on handcuffs. Behind the woman with the ridiculous hairstyle stood her older brother. Adam. She’d thought about him often, but never when concerned about the health of her family. She never second-guessed he’d always find a way to survive. She still wondered if he played any part in leading the rebels to their aunt’s bunker. 

Now here he stood, the man who had the answer to every single fucking question she had. The man with the answer to her one burning question, and his arms were crossed, and his nose was wrinkled up. When had he stopped loving her? Or had he always just been a good actor, and their family the unknowing cast?

“Sara-”

The baby first. The one she feared for the most. Her name was the first thing out of Poppy’s mouth. Adam uncrossed his arms. 

“Safe. Of course. Your friends aren’t nearly as good at keeping secrets as you think. We got them out of Twelve before you even got to the Hob.”

The Hob. The hideout. It didn’t affect her, not nearly as much as he was clearly hoping it would. She could see him watching her, waiting for a reaction to a revealed secret she didn’t care about. She didn’t know what past life the Hob belonged to, but it was hazy enough in her memory for her to barely blink. All she cared about was the reassurance, finally, that her family was safe. The palms of her hands grew warm, no longer feeling bare and empty without the knife clutched there.

The woman with the absurd hair cleared her throat. “And it’s Reaping Day!” she exclaimed with a grin. 

Sunrise

Poppy was eased back into the outside world. First a quiet, slow car ride in the dark, then her handcuffs were taken off. There was a long pause after, as everyone stared at her, waiting to see what she would do. She was tempted to go after her brother again, but she knew now where that would land her. She folded her arms instead, exactly mimicking her brother’s stance. He sighed, then just her brother and the stylist brought her up the elevator to a Capitol apartment. She saw the name of the apartment on the sign out front. She recalled something she’d heard in the prison.

“Did you get sick when they poisoned the water?” she asked her brother. 

“No. I’ve been testing my water for years.”

After the long period of silence, it startled her to hear a response. She imagined it might take some getting used to hearing other voices again. Had Adam always sounded so much like their father? She wished she could talk to him. They’d left Twelve, but gone where?

“Where-”

“Poppy, we don’t have much time. We’ll talk after.”

The stylist reached out to wrap her arms around Poppy’s shoulders, and Poppy immediately shoved her away. She felt no need to warn the woman not to fucking touch her again. She was handed a towel, a robe, a facial waxing kit, and a razor. 

For the first five minutes, she showered in only cold water. Slowly, she began to twist the other knob. More and more, then a little off the cold knob. The room filled with steam as her fingers began to prune. She reached out her hands on the wall to steady herself as she began to lower her body, her movements deliberate. Curled up on the tub floor, with nothing but the hot tap on, and sobbed for the first time in months. 

Adam said they did not have much time. It was utter bullshit. The sun was an hour away from rising when they arrived in the apartment. He knew. His heart had turned to ice with all his time around their aunt, but his mind was made sharper by it. When Poppy finally emerged from the bathroom, well after the sun rose, he said they were right on schedule. For a moment, she was comforted to see him drinking tea. She thought he might offer her some.

“You need to wax your eyebrows before anything,” he said instead.

“Bitch, you too,” she snapped. 

The stylist kept her distance as she led Poppy into the bathroom again. She stood several feet away as she guided Poppy through the proper hair removal and grooming steps. Poppy barely glanced at her, moving on what felt like a reclaimed instinct. When the stylist spoke, Poppy’s memory drowned her out with her mother’s voice. After her skin was calmed, and her hair was dried and styled, the stylist excitedly handed her a garment bag and left. Inside was a simple dark red dress, and Benjy’s old leather jacket on the hanger behind it. She hadn’t worn it since the Presidential Ball, but she’d brought it along to Twelve. She didn’t know how Adam found it. 

She remembered something he’d said once, a lifetime ago.

“We thought it was only us. Before you. Me and Benjy and Arissa. We were best friends.”

Adam was a rebel once. Maybe it was a bad family trait, to always want to rebel. Was that it? Or was it the desire to surprise, to draw attention? To be something more than just another bad hairdo at the Hearth Day afterparty? 

She laughed. It felt horrible, but she kept at it. She laughed at her own thoughts, as she imagined her mother’s ghost wreaking havoc if a single one of her children dared to go to a party with a bad hairstyle. Still shaking, not wanting to give up on laughing just yet, she started to dress. Wool tights, and a wool bodysuit under the long sleeve dress. Her brother’s jacket was many things, but it was not warm. Inside the sleeves of the dress she could feel the roughness of a lining of fleece that was added. There was a small packet of gold jewelry hanging from the hangers. She reached up to tug and feel at her ears suddenly, but felt no indentations. All her piercings, closed up. 

She would get them redone. She didn’t think much beyond that. She didn’t know what came after this, what came after playing dress up to watch someone be trotted off to the death. But she told herself she’d get a piercing again, and it was final. She slipped out the bracelets and rings, and adorned herself with such carefree movements, she didn’t recognize her hands. They were too clean, too soft. Except her nails.

Her nails were broken and jagged.

She stared at them, wondered if she should ask for a file to shape them and apply a sticker manicure. But that wasn’t right. This, these jagged, sharp edges, were the reminder of where she’d slept just the night before. She did not look in the mirror after pulling on the jacket, and walked out of the bathroom.

The Reaping

Poppy hadn’t seen so many people in months. It set her on edge. She kept her hands balled up, and continued to look over her shoulder as the stylist, still keeping her distance, led the way for Poppy to check in. Adam hadn’t driven with them to the center of the city. It’d just been Poppy and this stranger. Now, Poppy and this sea of strangers. She braced herself for the pinprick of the blood draw, told herself not to punch someone in the face. But as the draw came, a familiar scent filled her with calm. It was a perfume that told her it was time to smile, to play, to learn, to trust. 

“Poppy.”

Gentle. Aunt Titaniara was always so gentle. Poppy felt the light touch at her elbow before her hand pulled away from the worker. She jerked it away immediately, stared blankly at her aunt. It was not for lack of thought, or emotion. It was too much. She did not know what to do. Did she brave the phalanx of Peacekeepers surrounding her aunt to try to choke her out? Did she thank her for saving the rest of their family? Now, face to face with her, Poppy couldn’t imagine anyone getting close enough to kill this woman. Even now, dressed in white and with an expression of kindness, she looked untouchable.

Poppy realized that her brother chose a pair of short heels that exactly matched the height of her aunt’s. They were the same height, eye to eye. 

Poppy remembered the Seam. Remembered the stench of death everywhere. Death did not scare someone like her aunt, born and raised in a district like Twelve. 

Death is certain. So her aunt took a bigger gamble: to win or lose. Small games don’t matter, not really. There are greater games, with greater stakes. Auntie Titaniara always loved an underdog, and her greatest bet ever had been on herself. 

Death did not scare someone like her aunt. But losing would pack a punch. Maybe that was why she never let Poppy beat her at any games they played, no matter how young and sensitive Poppy was.

“Sit with me,” Titaniara said, as if it was really a suggestion. She held out her hand.

Poppy looked at the Peacekeepers first, and then at her aunt’s hand. Slowly, she reached out. The last time she’d reached for her aunt, she was tased. She tensed her muscles, readied for the pain, but all she felt was her aunt’s gloved hand wrap around her own.

She forgot how swiftly her aunt moved. Poppy had no time to relax into the familiar grasp before her aunt was walking. The Peacekeepers moved in formation. Stiff. Everything was so stiff in this little square that moved around her aunt, who moved so fluidly. Poppy’s feet moved quick, and she was suddenly a child again, rushing to keep up with Auntie Ti in her fun heels as she strolled into the Tower. They scaled the stairs, and it was not until they were seated that Titaniara let go. Not until Poppy was settled did she feel the blood flow quickly to her fingertips, and realized how tight her aunt’s grip was.

Snapping to attention, Poppy checked the clock. Her eyes scanned the crowds, looking for two familiar faces in the crowds. Sara and Ian. She’d never gotten an answer. Where were they? Had her aunt broken the rules to keep them out of the Reaping? Were they out of Panem? Were they in District Thirteen? Was that enough to keep them out of the Reaping? Were -

There she was. In a crowd that never seemed to stop moving, there was her baby sister, looking right at her. Sara was already crying, Poppy could tell from this far away. Her face was flushed, and she wasn’t moving. Poppy looked from her sister, to her aunt, and then back to the crowd. But Sara was already gone. There’d been some commotion as more thirteen-year-old girls joined the group, and a rapid shift took her sister away. 

Among the shifting crowds, she saw a familiar gray. Not every prisoner had her privilege. The rest had to show up in their gray overalls, while she sat in a new dress on stage next to her aunt.

The Reaping ceremony began. 

While the nation watched a pre-recorded video about Panem, Poppy watched her aunt. Watched her unchanging facial expression. Watched the way she kept a small, tight smile on her lips as there was a disclaimer about rebels paying for their actions.

The Black Eagles never stood a chance against a bitch who refused to die, and refused to lose. Even to a fucking kid.

Poppy really didn’t care about interrupting Honey Bellerose. Poppy looked at her aunt. She was tempted to mimic Titaniara, to match her smile exactly. 

Poppy clenched her jaw, and slowly released the tension with an exhale. Poppy found her aunt’s gaze as she raised her hand. Eye to eye.

Her nails were broken and jagged against the blue sky. 

“I volunteer as tribute!”

#feral #127 #th:self #self-para #para #reaping