Fanfiction: Let me Occupy Your Mind (As You do Mine) Part One of Two
Title: Let me occupy your mind (as you do mine) Part One of Two
Fandom: Big Time Rush x The Hunger Games
Pairing: Kendall/James (Finnick/Annie)
Disclaimer: I own very few things. These works are not amongst them.
Warnings: Uh, it's a fic that takes place in the universe of The Hunger Games. There's violent death, multiple mental bbreakdowns and prostitution. I don't explain any Hunger Gamesy stuff, so things may be confusing if you're unfamiliar. Also SPOILERS (for THG.)
A/N So, this is a thing that happened. garnetice wrote this, a gorgeous drabble featuring Kendall Knight as Finnick Odair and James Diamond as his Annie Cresta. Annnd then I had an unquenchable desire for James to be hideously tortured so I wrote almost 10,000 of Kendall feelings. Sense, I make it. It's unbetaed, too.Title from the wonderful Gotye. Obvious thanks to garnetice for being awesome.
After the games.
Its hours before they let Kendall near him, hours that feel like days.
Kendall’s locked away in a swanky apartment, complete with expensive furnishings and hourly meals and sealed doors and windows.
It’s a whole new type of agony, not knowing if James is safe, or even alive. When the games were on he was never safe, but he was never really out of Kendall’s sight either.
The last time Kendall saw him on the screens in the Mentor’s Observatory, James was hardly recognizable beneath his soaked clothes and matted hair, fresh blood painting his face and arms as he crawled out of the tidal pool that had engulfed the arena.
Kendall has no idea where or how he is now, but watching James lifted from the arena certainly didn’t fill him with relief.
He throws pillows and vases and waits for a reaction, he beats at the sealed door, screams into the communicator, trashes the Capitol-provided accommodation.
It’s not behavior becoming of Kendall Knight, the most desirable man in Panem, it’s certainly not what the public have come to expect from the shining golden boy they see on their screens most nights.
God knows Griffin won’t be pleased.
His knuckles and hands are red raw by the time he considers the bar, a retreat from civilization he usually leaves to Gustavo, unless his cherished guest of the evening is particularly undesirable.
The Capitol’s finest douse themselves in expensive perfumes, which to Kendall taste like misery, pain and blood.
It’s the smell of the arena, of the Capitol itself, the smell of Griffin; sickeningly sweet and dizzyingly strong. It makes Kendall think of death.
So yeah, sometimes the alcohol helps.
He’s three-quarters through a bottle of Gustavo’s personal favorite, his throat and taste buds burnt and stripped down to nothing, when the man himself comes through the door, Lucy Fucking Stone by his side.
In all ways Kendall comes from the ocean, he’s fluid and free and constantly moving.
Lucy, earthy and strong and constantly vicious, is the closest thing Kendall’s ever found to real, human fire.
She gets under his skin like no other.
Kendall tries to jump up, hoping against hope that they’re bringing James to him, that James will follow them into the room, broad smile and warm eyes of gold.
But the world lurches violently, and Kendall falls back against the couch he’s already torn to shreds.
Somewhere deep down Kendall knows that this James, his James, is long gone.
He takes another drink.
“Where is he?” Kendall slurs, the room still caught in an inelegant spin-cycle.
“Probably at the nuthouse by now,” Lucy says with a smirk, tapping her watch.
The world’s a blur, but Kendall doesn’t have to see Lucy to know her self-satisfied smile, it’s constantly present.
Fuck, the most memorable image of the games a few years ago was a tiny, shivering Lucy Stone emerging from the scrub, so timid and weak she’d almost been forgotten amongst the sponsors and the gambling types. Forgotten that is, until she plunged an axe into the side of an older kid from Kendall’s own District Four.
Once the kid’s body had shuddered into stillness, Lucy had stepped into the light and, wiping his blood from her arms, smiled directly into a nearby camera.
She was strong, victorious, and wholly terrifying.
Kendall throws the bottle of white liquor in Lucy’s vague direction, much to Gustavo’s disgust.
“That,” he states airily, “Is an incredible waste of good booze.”
Gustavo points at Kendall, and Kendall attempts to focus on his chubby finger, unaware how someone who does nothing but drink manages to maintain finger fat.
“You’re an incredible waste of everything.” Is Kendall’s response as he lies back into the overstuffed couch, allowing himself to sink into its plush-ness with the distant hope it might just engulf him whole.
“Your tribute is being cared for by The Capitol’s finest,” says Gustavo with a wave of his fingers, wisely ignoring Kendall’s petulance.
“He’s pretty far gone, the worst they’ve seen, but they’ll let you see him in the morning.”
“Thanks,” Kendall says, reaching for another bottle of white liquor, until it’s unfairly snatched from his grasp by Gustavo,
“Nope. That’s mine. Stuff’s not made for delicate little Careers like you, Knight. Leave it for the men.”
Lucy rolls her eyes and hands Kendall a bottle of something dark and thick. It smells like tar.
“Let him drink,” she says, grabbing a bottle for herself.
“God knows he’ll need it for tomorrow.”
There’s the clinking of glass bottles, and then there’s murmurs of conversation, a recount of how each mentor reacted when their precious tributes were slaughtered.
Kendall feels strangely disconnected to it all, laughing as he recalls the mentor from District Two flipping his shit as his pride and joy walked into a terribly constructed and wholly obvious trap just a day into The Games.
They drink until sunrise, and Kendall falls into an uneasy sleep, Lucy wrapped around him on the once beautifully upholstered couch.
“Sorry about your crazy boyfriend,” Lucy whispers into his neck, and Kendall thinks it might almost sound sincere.
//
When he wakes, the apartment smells like food, and not the lavish breakfasts of pastries and gourmet sausages that usually serve for food in the Capitol. Real food, bacon and eggs dripping in fat and fresh bread and...sardines?
“It’s the only fish they’d give me,” chirps Gustavo cheerfully from behind the counter.
“Um. Ok,” says Kendall, pinching the bridge of his nose, unsure how Gustavo is even standing right now, let alone cooking.
Kendall feels like a kid on his first day on the water, green in the gills and desperate for the world to stop swaying and swirling. He still remembers it, a big silver vest being jammed over his head and the pats on the back from the fisherman as they made their way down the wharf, a line of tiny boys and girls going out to sea. It had taken him a year to become accustomed to the rock and rhythm of the water, a year before he could hold back the sick until they got back to land.
By then a new group of rookies had started, and Kendall was captivated by a boy bigger than himself, with long brown hair and brown eyes flecked with gold. James had taken to the water straight away, and Kendall’s dad, one of the instructors at the time, had come home singing the praises of this remarkable little boy who was already one with the water.
Kendall tries to shake his head of thoughts of James, focuses instead on Lucy, sitting at the table, head in hands, apparently feeling just as shitty as Kendall himself.
“Here,” Gustavo says, slamming a small bottle of pills onto the table.
“Hangover be gone, take two, no more.”
In minutes Kendall’s head is lighter, color is returning to Lucy’s cheeks and they’re feeling almost like normal again.
“If you have these, why don’t you take them every day, instead of being a disgusting mess?” Lucy asks, as gentle as ever.
“Because, sweetheart, that would defeat the purpose of drinking myself to death.”
Kendall laughs, deep and rich, and Gustavo and Lucy stare at him, probably worried that he’s lost his mind now too, but it breaks the tension and Gustavo rolls his eyes, and begins to serve the food.
Breakfast is almost pleasant, despite the icy cold sickness that sits in the bottom of Kendall’s stomach like a stone. They break bread and manage to eat civilly, Lucy glaring at Kendall every time he motions to push his plate away. He’s pretty glad for the company in the end; fairly certain he would have broken more than just a few furnishings had the cavalry not arrived when it did.
There’s silence as the ominous alarm rings, and the Capitol Feed surges to life, Miles Bainbridge’s familiar face filling the screen.
Kendall’s breath catches in his throat.
“I hope you’re ready folks,” Begins Bainbridge, vacant grin as brilliant as ever, “in just a few short days we have the big one, our exclusive interview with the winner of the 70th Hunger Games, James Diamond of District 4. Obviously due to certain events there has been some delay in the presentation of our champion, but our team is working hard to get him fit and ready for the interview. So never fear, Mr. James Diamond will be here with me in the studio and you absolutely cannot miss it. It’s going to be a tide-turner, that’s for sure.”
Miles laughs at his own joke, and an empty bottle of wine collides with the projector screen, shattering it.
Kendall barges to the door, throwing all his weight into it, pounding and slamming with his already bruised and bleeding hands as he screams James’ name over and over.
“I’d like you to step away from the door, Kendall.”
The voice from the other side is soft, gentle.
It sends chills down Kendall’s spine.
He steps back and watches the door open slowly, cradling his slightly more battered arm.
Griffin smiles at him as he always does, casting an eye over the apartment but saying nothing of it. Instead he merely looks at Kendall, and Kendall fights the urge to hit him square in the jaw.
“I take it you’d like to see our Victor now?”
//
The walk to the hospital room feels all too familiar.
Kendall’s never consciously walked it of course, he’s not sure anybody but Griffin and his guard ever has. The memory of this journey after his victory is nothing but a serious of disconnected flashes and unfamiliar sounds. All around him machines had beeped, masked faces whispered in hushed tones as they’d sped down corridors of blinding white and rooms of shining platinum.
It’s much the same now, as Kendall is escorted from vehicle to vehicle, down twisting pathways and maze-like hallways until he has no idea where the fuck he is anymore.
That too, is very familiar.
The room is at the end of a very long corridor, its door and walls are glass (or something like it) and James is tiny in his bed, curled on his side and facing away from them.
Kendall forces his way through his entourage of guards, pauses at the door just long enough for Griffin to give the nod and then he’s there, with James, for what seems like the first time in months.
He doesn’t quite know what to do.
In the last few days of the 70th Hunger Games, James Diamond became a stranger. Wild and frightened and nothing like the shining boy-god Kendall had once seen him to be.
Kendall would never forget the horror scene that was poor Camille’s grisly end, the way that all the life had appeared to drain from James’ body, his face ghostly white and totally, completely vacant.
And then there was the screaming.
The cries of an animal wounded and untamed. The girl from District One had bolted into the forest, onto her next prey and James had run too, but with far less purpose or direction. A fleeting close-up from a hidden camera had managed to catch a brief glimpse of his beautiful face, flecked with Camille’s blood.
For a moment Kendall had searched for the eyes he had always adored, their golden glow a comfort, even when the world was constantly closing in on them. James was his light, the strength Kendall had needed long after he’d been lifted from the Arena.
They’d gone to sea together, their only possible escape. But this was a threat not even the open expanse of the ocean could save them from.
Whatever had been in James’ eyes before was long gone. If the lasting image of Lucy’s games was her manic grin as she murdered without second thought, then the lasting image of James’ would be the fleeting shot of his once beautiful eyes; now wild and crazed, and completely inhuman.
“James,” Kendall says softly as he edges towards the bed.
“Jamie?”
The childhood nickname is something of a secret. Proud, beautiful James had never allowed Kendall to use it anywhere in public, especially not the training centre where they’d spent most of their time on land.
“Kendall.”
James’ voice is quiet, weak.
It doesn’t stop Kendall from practically throwing himself onto the bed beside him.
“I’m sorry.” He says, and Kendall shakes his head.
“Why would you be sorry? Fuck, James. You won, you came back. You’re still here.” It’s a flurry of words, and James’ face, primed and polished back to perfection already, scrunches up in confusion as Kendall rambles at him.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he says, shaking his head slowly, “I didn’t want to do it.”
His body shivers beneath the blankets, and Kendall watches as James’ eyes dart nervously around the room.
“James,” he says, pulling back the sheets to take James’ hand,
“I wanted to go back Kendall, I just wanted to go home but I didn’t mean it I swear.”
But Kendall is distracted, staring at James’ hands.
“What is this?”
The cuffs are huge, connected by chains to the sides of James’ bed. It’s thick, cold, unforgiving metal that holds James’ hands by his side.
Kendall’s back at the window in seconds.
“What have you done to him!?” He roars, his eyes locking with Griffin’s through the glass.
Griffin’s expression does not change; he merely nods at a guard and steps into the room as calm as ever.
“What seems to be the problem?” He asks, smiling down at Kendall.
Kendall steadies himself and grits his teeth, focusing on keeping his feet as Griffin’s heady scent wafts towards him.
The walls are closing in again.
“Why is he chained to the bed?” he manages to ask civilly, as his blood boils below the surface.
“Ah yes, the bindings,” says Griffin with a carefree wave of his hand.
“Chains,” Kendall corrects. He’s seen bindings, bindings are lined with fur or leather, and they give the captive some small comfort. These are iron chains, for animals.
Griffin’s gaze sharpens.
“Your friend here was not in what we would call good spirits, Kendall. He has been quite difficult to deal with, and has physically attacked several of our staff when they were trying to treat his injuries.”
“I wonder why he’d be acting that way?” snipes Kendall, in exactly the aggressive tone that James used to admonish him for, whenever Kendall got frustrated with the politics of Griffin and the Capitol in all the wrong places.
“Now, Kendall,” says Griffin, stepping closer to Kendall, the flowery stench fully engulfing Kendall now, so that bile begins to rise in his throat.
He’s suddenly very glad for the presence of the peacekeepers and Capitol businessmen outside, certain that were they not here, Griffin would have him up against the wall by now, his breath hot on Kendall’s neck.
“I understand that James here is a close friend of yours.”
Griffin’s eyes are pointed, sharp; they say a million things, as always. The clearest though, suggests that Griffin knows exactly how close they are.
It makes Kendall’s skin prickle, to think of Griffin watching him and James back in the Victor’s village, or out by the docks on warm nights back in District Four. Nights where Kendall woke up screaming in cold sweats, the mutilated hands of a dead girl from District 8 wrapped tight around his throat. Nights where James kissed him, loved him, fucked him into oblivion, all in the name of a dreamless sleep.
It’s not even clear to Kendall sometimes, what his relationship with James actually is, what its rhyme or reason might be. What he knows is that James is a part of him, that they’re forever entwined by something stronger than games or victory or blood.
It’s this relationship that puts Kendall’s position as Griffin’s most valuable recruit at risk.
“I was hoping that, given our rich history, you might find it within yourself to help me. The post-Games interview is an important tradition, and many young, impressionable people tune it to watch their new hero take the stage. I’m sure you can imagine the disappointment on their faces if the interview was not to go ahead, or if our newest Victor was anything less than the sparkling Diamond he was in the initial interview,” Griffin smiles, showing far too many teeth.
“I understand,” says Kendall dully, dragging his gaze from Griffin to James’ form beneath the stark white blankets.
You were safer in the arena.
“Wonderful!” Griffin says, slapping Kendall on the back before nodding at the men in the hallway.
“Oh, and Kendall,” Griffin pauses, halfway out the door, “Do say hello to your Mother for me, and of course your lovely little sister. I do so enjoy that little girl; she has a lot of moxie.”
It’s all Kendall can do not to fall to the floor as Griffin and his men depart, leaving only two guards by the door. Griffin’s threats aren’t new, but they’re usually better disguised. Somehow his crassness has Kendall feeling more sick with worry than normal.
If Lucy Stone gets under Kendall’s skin, Griffin makes Kendall want to tear his skin clean from his body.
“What was that about?”
Kendall turns to James, now sitting up, chained hands resting on his lap.
His eyes are still glassy, his face tired.
Kendall smiles just a little.
“You’re alive.” He says, and moves to the bed, wrapping James in his arms, eager to feel his warmth, his heartbeat, everything that has been missing ever since James was sucked into a glass tube, never to return.
James laughs, but it’s hollow.
“I am,” he says, “What did Griffin want?”
“What he always wants.”
“Your body?”
Kendall ducks his head.
When Griffin first approached him after Kendall’s victory, his ‘man-crush’ on Kendall had been James’ favorite joke.
Now the mere mention of it makes Kendall’s skin prickle and itch, as though it has suddenly grown too tight.
“Sorry, sorry.” James says, burying his face in Kendall’s neck. “I just...well, you know.”
“I know,” says Kendall, lifting James’ chin so that they’re face to face once more. He makes an effort to smile, to comfort James somehow, to let him know that they can go back to normal.
He kisses him softly, below his cheekbone.
“I know.”
He’s pretty sure normal went out the fucking window a long time ago.
//
James is screaming.
It’s a guttural wail that penetrates everything, and Kendall’s kicking himself for falling asleep, his body curved around James’, reality all but a vacant memory.
Minus the chain digging into his hip.
He wakes to thrashing limbs and cries of pain; James’ body is hot and slick with sweat, and writhing around on the tiny bed.
“James, James, Jamie please” Kendall’s whispered words of comfort turn to begging, pleading with James to stop; to be quiet, to be still.
It’s useless though, wherever James is, it isn’t here in this bed.
Kendall covers him with his body, every wild movement a bruising blow to Kendall’s thigh, his chest, his stomach.
“It’s ok!” Kendall yells, “You’re safe, James, I promise, they can’t get you now.”
He wonders if this is what James has gone through, when Kendall finds himself back in the arena, caught in one of his own traps as Griffin stands, laughing, the scent of roses and blood stronger than ever before.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, James crying out and thrashing about below him.
Kendall’s pain is blinding, and it worsens with every blow.
The song is an old fisherman’s shanty, one his father used to sing. The same one he’s sang Katie to sleep with on cold dark nights and reaping days.
He’s humming, and then singing softly, this sad old tune that used to lull him to sleep.
James grows still.
It might be minutes, or maybe hours, Kendall isn’t sure.
But when James rolls over, quiet except for the lightest of snores, Kendall lifts himself out of the bed.
He goes out into the hallway, and dials a number so familiar; he needn’t look while he types.
God knows what time it is, but Griffin answers.
“He’ll be there.” Kendall says, “He’ll do his duty, and I’ll do mine.”
He can practically hear Griffins victorious grin through the phone.
“Good. Good, Kendall. I knew I could trust you to do the right thing.”
“There’s one condition though,” Kendall says, waiting a moment for Griffin to laugh at his audacity. But fuck it; he has nothing (and everything) to lose.
“Go on.” Says Griffin, his tone unreadable.
“After his duties as Victor are complete, you will never touch him or hurt him again.”
Kendall hangs up before Griffin can respond, and walks back to James’ bed, sliding in once more beside him.
He doesn’t sleep.
//
“I miss food.”
James’ arms are crossed, his chains having been lengthened given his ‘Good Behaviour” since Kendall arrived.
Kendall laughs; the tray over James’ bed is positively covered in bite-sized Capitol delicacies.
“This is food!” says Kendall, picking up a tray of electric blue jelly. He turns the tray upside down and watches as the jelly remains perfectly intact, it’s only movement a slight wobble.
He turns up his nose.
“Kinda.”
James pouts.
“I want a burger.”
Kendall places the jelly stuff on the tray and turns around on the bed so that he’s facing James, taking his hands.
“Look, soon we’ll be home and we can eat burgers until we explode.”
“You mean I’ll be home.”
Kendall sighs.
James knows the arrangement, knows the way that things have worked since Kendall became a Victor, a Hero.
It’s kind of the Capitol’s worst kept secret, Kendall Knight, the most popular whore in Panem.
“It won’t be for long.” Kendall says quietly, his gaze falling to his lap, to their linked hands. “You’ll do the interview and the tour and then you can go home to our Moms and your Dad and Katie.”
“And you’ll go and fuck whoever Griffin tells you too, because that’s what you do.”
It’s a slap to the face.
James has never liked to talk about Kendall’s business with Griffin, but when he has it’s been quiet words of comfort. He tells Kendall how proud he is that Kendall will do anything to protect the people he loves. He certainly doesn’t repeat the whispered words of the public, the same words that prick Kendall like needles when he ventures into town.
“James?” Kendall’s hurting, and James’ gaze is steely.
“What? It’s not exactly a secret that your Panem’s biggest slut.”
James’ eyes are bright in the morning light, bright and dangerous; their glow is eerie and familiar.
Kendall breathes deeply, takes James’ face in his hands,
“James, stop. This isn’t you talking. Look, I’m going to get you away from this, from Griffin and all the freaks here. I won’t let them hurt you like this anymore.”
“It’s too late.” James says, his eyes growing dark and his brow furrowing, “I see them now.”
“See who?” Kendall asks, trying to make eye contact with James, but failing.
“The other tributes, Camille, I can see them all dying Kendall. The girl from Three whistled when she stabbed Alex from Seven in the abdomen. She whistled, Kendall, like the women on their way to the market. And the boy from Nine was so small, smaller than Katie even, and they trampled him at the cornucopia, ran over his body and broke his bones when he was already dead. And I see them, they look at me and point at me and they’re all drowning but I can’t do anything. And Hope, that was the girl from District One, what a thing to name your child. She hurt Camille, Kendall, and it was like the trout at the fishery, and her head...I had to kill her Kendall, she came up out of the water, she couldn’t swim like us but she made it out. I had to do it Kendall, I had to.” James looks up, his eyes startlingly dark as he grabs at Kendall’s wrists.
He begins to nod, fervently.
“Just like you said, Kendall, I did like you said.”
The night before the games, they’d dined together in James’ room. Training was over; Kendall had walked James through everything he possibly could. All there was to do now was gather sponsors, donations, and then to wait.
He felt completely helpless.
James had been quiet, the first time in days. When Kendall had been reaped he’d been moody, silent. Until the cameras had fallen on him of course, he’d had a game to win then, there was no way he wasn’t coming home. But James had been mouthy, confident the whole way through. He wasn’t a killer, but he was a winner. He was already the bane of the other Careers, all watching him like he was their lunch.
He was already a target; something Kendall didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“Get him to pull his head in,” Mags, Camille’s mentor had urged Kendall. “He’ll be murdered before they even bother to go near the cornucopia at this rate.”
But Kendall had watched James, dancing in the hallway outside his room with Camille, his face alight with hope and merriment, and he knew that his was a candle he could never snuff out.
They ate in silence, aside from the occasional joke from Kendall, lame jokes that fell on deaf ears. When James eventually spoke, Kendall almost jumped from his seat.
“How do I do it?” James had asked slowly.
“Do what?”
“How do I kill someone?”
Kendall had nearly spat out his bisque, the one James’ Mom had sent from home, a last meal of sorts.
“James, can we not-“
“You’ve done everything else Kendall. Survival tips, hand to hand combat, ways to get sponsors once I’m in there. I know everything there is to know. But I just can’t- How did you do it?”
Kendall thought of boys and girls in tightly woven nets, strangled and suffocated as they’d tried to fight their way out. He thought of plunging his trident, already coated in dried blood, into their writhing bodies.
Fish. He’d thought back in the arena. Just like any other catch, they needed to be killed so that everyone could eat. Their whole lives they’d killed so that they could survive.
He hadn’t looked James in the eye; he’d stared at his dinner, appetite long gone. James wasn’t a killer, he never would be. But Kendall was another story, he hadn’t just killed, he’d murdered, and somehow become a goddamned hero for it.
“You do what has to be done.”
Kendall pulls his wrist from James’ iron grasp, and holds his hand.
“James, I know, ok, I know. I see them too, the people I...hurt, and I know it’s hard but I’m here ok, like you were there for me, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“But Griffin-“
“Griffin won’t touch you, ever. After the tour you’ll go home, you’ll be safe from Griffin forever, I promise ok? I will make sure of it. You’re not in the arena anymore, you’re with me, and you’re safe.”
“How can you be sure?”
When James looks at him, Kendall feels breathless. His eyes are gold, they’re scared and angry and wild.
They’re arena eyes, lost and wild and something not quite human.
Kendall wants to hold him, to take James in his arms and never leave his side.
“When I get home,” he says, rubbing small circles into James’ hands, the way his mother did when he was a child, “We’ll have all the time we want. We can help out at the markets, visit Mags and her aquarium. We’ll spend all day on the beach, sleep there even. It’ll be just like old times ok?”
James is nodding, muttering quietly to himself. But his grip on Kendall’s fingers is loosening, the tension in his shoulders easing, his face relaxing just a little.
“We’ll get Katie and we’ll go out on the boat, nothing but us and the ocean.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Kendall knows it, but sometimes he gets wrapped up in words and speeches, it comes from years of what the District Four councilmen call ‘Engagement Training.” It’s about choosing words and language to fit the situation, to romance or woo or just generally win over. It’s what won Kendall the Hunger Games.
It’s Kendall’s entire life and somehow, with James’ fragile mind in his hands, he’s forgotten every fucking thing he’s ever learned.
The screaming draws attention this time.
James is rocking back and forth, hands over his ears, knees tucked up under his chin and screaming, wild animalistic wails that could wake the dead. His eyes are completely glazed over and Kendall knows he’s back there, tucked into a cavern near a small pool of water, suddenly aware of a tidal wave like nothing he’s ever seen. Everything is water and children’s screams, and Kendall sees all of it, feels all of it, collecting him, washing him over rocks and trees, scraping scratching and tearing as he goes. He tries to hold on but everything is screaming. James’ screams, the screams of tributes Kendall never knew, the screams of the tributes Kendall killed with his bare hands.
He tries to fight them off; the wailing, drowning ghosts, and he grabs at James face. Singing won’t help this time, and suddenly they’re scratching at him again, only it’s not the dead of the districts, it’s James’ hands, James’ fingers that scratch the skin from Kendall’s cheeks.
It’s James’ foot that collects Kendall and sends him sprawling to the ground.
Kendall’s head hits cold, hard linoleum, and everything is sweetly, blissfully quiet.
//
Two
Fandom: Big Time Rush x The Hunger Games
Pairing: Kendall/James (Finnick/Annie)
Disclaimer: I own very few things. These works are not amongst them.
Warnings: Uh, it's a fic that takes place in the universe of The Hunger Games. There's violent death, multiple mental bbreakdowns and prostitution. I don't explain any Hunger Gamesy stuff, so things may be confusing if you're unfamiliar. Also SPOILERS (for THG.)
A/N So, this is a thing that happened. garnetice wrote this, a gorgeous drabble featuring Kendall Knight as Finnick Odair and James Diamond as his Annie Cresta. Annnd then I had an unquenchable desire for James to be hideously tortured so I wrote almost 10,000 of Kendall feelings. Sense, I make it. It's unbetaed, too.Title from the wonderful Gotye. Obvious thanks to garnetice for being awesome.
After the games.
Its hours before they let Kendall near him, hours that feel like days.
Kendall’s locked away in a swanky apartment, complete with expensive furnishings and hourly meals and sealed doors and windows.
It’s a whole new type of agony, not knowing if James is safe, or even alive. When the games were on he was never safe, but he was never really out of Kendall’s sight either.
The last time Kendall saw him on the screens in the Mentor’s Observatory, James was hardly recognizable beneath his soaked clothes and matted hair, fresh blood painting his face and arms as he crawled out of the tidal pool that had engulfed the arena.
Kendall has no idea where or how he is now, but watching James lifted from the arena certainly didn’t fill him with relief.
He throws pillows and vases and waits for a reaction, he beats at the sealed door, screams into the communicator, trashes the Capitol-provided accommodation.
It’s not behavior becoming of Kendall Knight, the most desirable man in Panem, it’s certainly not what the public have come to expect from the shining golden boy they see on their screens most nights.
God knows Griffin won’t be pleased.
His knuckles and hands are red raw by the time he considers the bar, a retreat from civilization he usually leaves to Gustavo, unless his cherished guest of the evening is particularly undesirable.
The Capitol’s finest douse themselves in expensive perfumes, which to Kendall taste like misery, pain and blood.
It’s the smell of the arena, of the Capitol itself, the smell of Griffin; sickeningly sweet and dizzyingly strong. It makes Kendall think of death.
So yeah, sometimes the alcohol helps.
He’s three-quarters through a bottle of Gustavo’s personal favorite, his throat and taste buds burnt and stripped down to nothing, when the man himself comes through the door, Lucy Fucking Stone by his side.
In all ways Kendall comes from the ocean, he’s fluid and free and constantly moving.
Lucy, earthy and strong and constantly vicious, is the closest thing Kendall’s ever found to real, human fire.
She gets under his skin like no other.
Kendall tries to jump up, hoping against hope that they’re bringing James to him, that James will follow them into the room, broad smile and warm eyes of gold.
But the world lurches violently, and Kendall falls back against the couch he’s already torn to shreds.
Somewhere deep down Kendall knows that this James, his James, is long gone.
He takes another drink.
“Where is he?” Kendall slurs, the room still caught in an inelegant spin-cycle.
“Probably at the nuthouse by now,” Lucy says with a smirk, tapping her watch.
The world’s a blur, but Kendall doesn’t have to see Lucy to know her self-satisfied smile, it’s constantly present.
Fuck, the most memorable image of the games a few years ago was a tiny, shivering Lucy Stone emerging from the scrub, so timid and weak she’d almost been forgotten amongst the sponsors and the gambling types. Forgotten that is, until she plunged an axe into the side of an older kid from Kendall’s own District Four.
Once the kid’s body had shuddered into stillness, Lucy had stepped into the light and, wiping his blood from her arms, smiled directly into a nearby camera.
She was strong, victorious, and wholly terrifying.
Kendall throws the bottle of white liquor in Lucy’s vague direction, much to Gustavo’s disgust.
“That,” he states airily, “Is an incredible waste of good booze.”
Gustavo points at Kendall, and Kendall attempts to focus on his chubby finger, unaware how someone who does nothing but drink manages to maintain finger fat.
“You’re an incredible waste of everything.” Is Kendall’s response as he lies back into the overstuffed couch, allowing himself to sink into its plush-ness with the distant hope it might just engulf him whole.
“Your tribute is being cared for by The Capitol’s finest,” says Gustavo with a wave of his fingers, wisely ignoring Kendall’s petulance.
“He’s pretty far gone, the worst they’ve seen, but they’ll let you see him in the morning.”
“Thanks,” Kendall says, reaching for another bottle of white liquor, until it’s unfairly snatched from his grasp by Gustavo,
“Nope. That’s mine. Stuff’s not made for delicate little Careers like you, Knight. Leave it for the men.”
Lucy rolls her eyes and hands Kendall a bottle of something dark and thick. It smells like tar.
“Let him drink,” she says, grabbing a bottle for herself.
“God knows he’ll need it for tomorrow.”
There’s the clinking of glass bottles, and then there’s murmurs of conversation, a recount of how each mentor reacted when their precious tributes were slaughtered.
Kendall feels strangely disconnected to it all, laughing as he recalls the mentor from District Two flipping his shit as his pride and joy walked into a terribly constructed and wholly obvious trap just a day into The Games.
They drink until sunrise, and Kendall falls into an uneasy sleep, Lucy wrapped around him on the once beautifully upholstered couch.
“Sorry about your crazy boyfriend,” Lucy whispers into his neck, and Kendall thinks it might almost sound sincere.
//
When he wakes, the apartment smells like food, and not the lavish breakfasts of pastries and gourmet sausages that usually serve for food in the Capitol. Real food, bacon and eggs dripping in fat and fresh bread and...sardines?
“It’s the only fish they’d give me,” chirps Gustavo cheerfully from behind the counter.
“Um. Ok,” says Kendall, pinching the bridge of his nose, unsure how Gustavo is even standing right now, let alone cooking.
Kendall feels like a kid on his first day on the water, green in the gills and desperate for the world to stop swaying and swirling. He still remembers it, a big silver vest being jammed over his head and the pats on the back from the fisherman as they made their way down the wharf, a line of tiny boys and girls going out to sea. It had taken him a year to become accustomed to the rock and rhythm of the water, a year before he could hold back the sick until they got back to land.
By then a new group of rookies had started, and Kendall was captivated by a boy bigger than himself, with long brown hair and brown eyes flecked with gold. James had taken to the water straight away, and Kendall’s dad, one of the instructors at the time, had come home singing the praises of this remarkable little boy who was already one with the water.
Kendall tries to shake his head of thoughts of James, focuses instead on Lucy, sitting at the table, head in hands, apparently feeling just as shitty as Kendall himself.
“Here,” Gustavo says, slamming a small bottle of pills onto the table.
“Hangover be gone, take two, no more.”
In minutes Kendall’s head is lighter, color is returning to Lucy’s cheeks and they’re feeling almost like normal again.
“If you have these, why don’t you take them every day, instead of being a disgusting mess?” Lucy asks, as gentle as ever.
“Because, sweetheart, that would defeat the purpose of drinking myself to death.”
Kendall laughs, deep and rich, and Gustavo and Lucy stare at him, probably worried that he’s lost his mind now too, but it breaks the tension and Gustavo rolls his eyes, and begins to serve the food.
Breakfast is almost pleasant, despite the icy cold sickness that sits in the bottom of Kendall’s stomach like a stone. They break bread and manage to eat civilly, Lucy glaring at Kendall every time he motions to push his plate away. He’s pretty glad for the company in the end; fairly certain he would have broken more than just a few furnishings had the cavalry not arrived when it did.
There’s silence as the ominous alarm rings, and the Capitol Feed surges to life, Miles Bainbridge’s familiar face filling the screen.
Kendall’s breath catches in his throat.
“I hope you’re ready folks,” Begins Bainbridge, vacant grin as brilliant as ever, “in just a few short days we have the big one, our exclusive interview with the winner of the 70th Hunger Games, James Diamond of District 4. Obviously due to certain events there has been some delay in the presentation of our champion, but our team is working hard to get him fit and ready for the interview. So never fear, Mr. James Diamond will be here with me in the studio and you absolutely cannot miss it. It’s going to be a tide-turner, that’s for sure.”
Miles laughs at his own joke, and an empty bottle of wine collides with the projector screen, shattering it.
Kendall barges to the door, throwing all his weight into it, pounding and slamming with his already bruised and bleeding hands as he screams James’ name over and over.
“I’d like you to step away from the door, Kendall.”
The voice from the other side is soft, gentle.
It sends chills down Kendall’s spine.
He steps back and watches the door open slowly, cradling his slightly more battered arm.
Griffin smiles at him as he always does, casting an eye over the apartment but saying nothing of it. Instead he merely looks at Kendall, and Kendall fights the urge to hit him square in the jaw.
“I take it you’d like to see our Victor now?”
//
The walk to the hospital room feels all too familiar.
Kendall’s never consciously walked it of course, he’s not sure anybody but Griffin and his guard ever has. The memory of this journey after his victory is nothing but a serious of disconnected flashes and unfamiliar sounds. All around him machines had beeped, masked faces whispered in hushed tones as they’d sped down corridors of blinding white and rooms of shining platinum.
It’s much the same now, as Kendall is escorted from vehicle to vehicle, down twisting pathways and maze-like hallways until he has no idea where the fuck he is anymore.
That too, is very familiar.
The room is at the end of a very long corridor, its door and walls are glass (or something like it) and James is tiny in his bed, curled on his side and facing away from them.
Kendall forces his way through his entourage of guards, pauses at the door just long enough for Griffin to give the nod and then he’s there, with James, for what seems like the first time in months.
He doesn’t quite know what to do.
In the last few days of the 70th Hunger Games, James Diamond became a stranger. Wild and frightened and nothing like the shining boy-god Kendall had once seen him to be.
Kendall would never forget the horror scene that was poor Camille’s grisly end, the way that all the life had appeared to drain from James’ body, his face ghostly white and totally, completely vacant.
And then there was the screaming.
The cries of an animal wounded and untamed. The girl from District One had bolted into the forest, onto her next prey and James had run too, but with far less purpose or direction. A fleeting close-up from a hidden camera had managed to catch a brief glimpse of his beautiful face, flecked with Camille’s blood.
For a moment Kendall had searched for the eyes he had always adored, their golden glow a comfort, even when the world was constantly closing in on them. James was his light, the strength Kendall had needed long after he’d been lifted from the Arena.
They’d gone to sea together, their only possible escape. But this was a threat not even the open expanse of the ocean could save them from.
Whatever had been in James’ eyes before was long gone. If the lasting image of Lucy’s games was her manic grin as she murdered without second thought, then the lasting image of James’ would be the fleeting shot of his once beautiful eyes; now wild and crazed, and completely inhuman.
“James,” Kendall says softly as he edges towards the bed.
“Jamie?”
The childhood nickname is something of a secret. Proud, beautiful James had never allowed Kendall to use it anywhere in public, especially not the training centre where they’d spent most of their time on land.
“Kendall.”
James’ voice is quiet, weak.
It doesn’t stop Kendall from practically throwing himself onto the bed beside him.
“I’m sorry.” He says, and Kendall shakes his head.
“Why would you be sorry? Fuck, James. You won, you came back. You’re still here.” It’s a flurry of words, and James’ face, primed and polished back to perfection already, scrunches up in confusion as Kendall rambles at him.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he says, shaking his head slowly, “I didn’t want to do it.”
His body shivers beneath the blankets, and Kendall watches as James’ eyes dart nervously around the room.
“James,” he says, pulling back the sheets to take James’ hand,
“I wanted to go back Kendall, I just wanted to go home but I didn’t mean it I swear.”
But Kendall is distracted, staring at James’ hands.
“What is this?”
The cuffs are huge, connected by chains to the sides of James’ bed. It’s thick, cold, unforgiving metal that holds James’ hands by his side.
Kendall’s back at the window in seconds.
“What have you done to him!?” He roars, his eyes locking with Griffin’s through the glass.
Griffin’s expression does not change; he merely nods at a guard and steps into the room as calm as ever.
“What seems to be the problem?” He asks, smiling down at Kendall.
Kendall steadies himself and grits his teeth, focusing on keeping his feet as Griffin’s heady scent wafts towards him.
The walls are closing in again.
“Why is he chained to the bed?” he manages to ask civilly, as his blood boils below the surface.
“Ah yes, the bindings,” says Griffin with a carefree wave of his hand.
“Chains,” Kendall corrects. He’s seen bindings, bindings are lined with fur or leather, and they give the captive some small comfort. These are iron chains, for animals.
Griffin’s gaze sharpens.
“Your friend here was not in what we would call good spirits, Kendall. He has been quite difficult to deal with, and has physically attacked several of our staff when they were trying to treat his injuries.”
“I wonder why he’d be acting that way?” snipes Kendall, in exactly the aggressive tone that James used to admonish him for, whenever Kendall got frustrated with the politics of Griffin and the Capitol in all the wrong places.
“Now, Kendall,” says Griffin, stepping closer to Kendall, the flowery stench fully engulfing Kendall now, so that bile begins to rise in his throat.
He’s suddenly very glad for the presence of the peacekeepers and Capitol businessmen outside, certain that were they not here, Griffin would have him up against the wall by now, his breath hot on Kendall’s neck.
“I understand that James here is a close friend of yours.”
Griffin’s eyes are pointed, sharp; they say a million things, as always. The clearest though, suggests that Griffin knows exactly how close they are.
It makes Kendall’s skin prickle, to think of Griffin watching him and James back in the Victor’s village, or out by the docks on warm nights back in District Four. Nights where Kendall woke up screaming in cold sweats, the mutilated hands of a dead girl from District 8 wrapped tight around his throat. Nights where James kissed him, loved him, fucked him into oblivion, all in the name of a dreamless sleep.
It’s not even clear to Kendall sometimes, what his relationship with James actually is, what its rhyme or reason might be. What he knows is that James is a part of him, that they’re forever entwined by something stronger than games or victory or blood.
It’s this relationship that puts Kendall’s position as Griffin’s most valuable recruit at risk.
“I was hoping that, given our rich history, you might find it within yourself to help me. The post-Games interview is an important tradition, and many young, impressionable people tune it to watch their new hero take the stage. I’m sure you can imagine the disappointment on their faces if the interview was not to go ahead, or if our newest Victor was anything less than the sparkling Diamond he was in the initial interview,” Griffin smiles, showing far too many teeth.
“I understand,” says Kendall dully, dragging his gaze from Griffin to James’ form beneath the stark white blankets.
You were safer in the arena.
“Wonderful!” Griffin says, slapping Kendall on the back before nodding at the men in the hallway.
“Oh, and Kendall,” Griffin pauses, halfway out the door, “Do say hello to your Mother for me, and of course your lovely little sister. I do so enjoy that little girl; she has a lot of moxie.”
It’s all Kendall can do not to fall to the floor as Griffin and his men depart, leaving only two guards by the door. Griffin’s threats aren’t new, but they’re usually better disguised. Somehow his crassness has Kendall feeling more sick with worry than normal.
If Lucy Stone gets under Kendall’s skin, Griffin makes Kendall want to tear his skin clean from his body.
“What was that about?”
Kendall turns to James, now sitting up, chained hands resting on his lap.
His eyes are still glassy, his face tired.
Kendall smiles just a little.
“You’re alive.” He says, and moves to the bed, wrapping James in his arms, eager to feel his warmth, his heartbeat, everything that has been missing ever since James was sucked into a glass tube, never to return.
James laughs, but it’s hollow.
“I am,” he says, “What did Griffin want?”
“What he always wants.”
“Your body?”
Kendall ducks his head.
When Griffin first approached him after Kendall’s victory, his ‘man-crush’ on Kendall had been James’ favorite joke.
Now the mere mention of it makes Kendall’s skin prickle and itch, as though it has suddenly grown too tight.
“Sorry, sorry.” James says, burying his face in Kendall’s neck. “I just...well, you know.”
“I know,” says Kendall, lifting James’ chin so that they’re face to face once more. He makes an effort to smile, to comfort James somehow, to let him know that they can go back to normal.
He kisses him softly, below his cheekbone.
“I know.”
He’s pretty sure normal went out the fucking window a long time ago.
//
James is screaming.
It’s a guttural wail that penetrates everything, and Kendall’s kicking himself for falling asleep, his body curved around James’, reality all but a vacant memory.
Minus the chain digging into his hip.
He wakes to thrashing limbs and cries of pain; James’ body is hot and slick with sweat, and writhing around on the tiny bed.
“James, James, Jamie please” Kendall’s whispered words of comfort turn to begging, pleading with James to stop; to be quiet, to be still.
It’s useless though, wherever James is, it isn’t here in this bed.
Kendall covers him with his body, every wild movement a bruising blow to Kendall’s thigh, his chest, his stomach.
“It’s ok!” Kendall yells, “You’re safe, James, I promise, they can’t get you now.”
He wonders if this is what James has gone through, when Kendall finds himself back in the arena, caught in one of his own traps as Griffin stands, laughing, the scent of roses and blood stronger than ever before.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, James crying out and thrashing about below him.
Kendall’s pain is blinding, and it worsens with every blow.
The song is an old fisherman’s shanty, one his father used to sing. The same one he’s sang Katie to sleep with on cold dark nights and reaping days.
He’s humming, and then singing softly, this sad old tune that used to lull him to sleep.
James grows still.
It might be minutes, or maybe hours, Kendall isn’t sure.
But when James rolls over, quiet except for the lightest of snores, Kendall lifts himself out of the bed.
He goes out into the hallway, and dials a number so familiar; he needn’t look while he types.
God knows what time it is, but Griffin answers.
“He’ll be there.” Kendall says, “He’ll do his duty, and I’ll do mine.”
He can practically hear Griffins victorious grin through the phone.
“Good. Good, Kendall. I knew I could trust you to do the right thing.”
“There’s one condition though,” Kendall says, waiting a moment for Griffin to laugh at his audacity. But fuck it; he has nothing (and everything) to lose.
“Go on.” Says Griffin, his tone unreadable.
“After his duties as Victor are complete, you will never touch him or hurt him again.”
Kendall hangs up before Griffin can respond, and walks back to James’ bed, sliding in once more beside him.
He doesn’t sleep.
//
“I miss food.”
James’ arms are crossed, his chains having been lengthened given his ‘Good Behaviour” since Kendall arrived.
Kendall laughs; the tray over James’ bed is positively covered in bite-sized Capitol delicacies.
“This is food!” says Kendall, picking up a tray of electric blue jelly. He turns the tray upside down and watches as the jelly remains perfectly intact, it’s only movement a slight wobble.
He turns up his nose.
“Kinda.”
James pouts.
“I want a burger.”
Kendall places the jelly stuff on the tray and turns around on the bed so that he’s facing James, taking his hands.
“Look, soon we’ll be home and we can eat burgers until we explode.”
“You mean I’ll be home.”
Kendall sighs.
James knows the arrangement, knows the way that things have worked since Kendall became a Victor, a Hero.
It’s kind of the Capitol’s worst kept secret, Kendall Knight, the most popular whore in Panem.
“It won’t be for long.” Kendall says quietly, his gaze falling to his lap, to their linked hands. “You’ll do the interview and the tour and then you can go home to our Moms and your Dad and Katie.”
“And you’ll go and fuck whoever Griffin tells you too, because that’s what you do.”
It’s a slap to the face.
James has never liked to talk about Kendall’s business with Griffin, but when he has it’s been quiet words of comfort. He tells Kendall how proud he is that Kendall will do anything to protect the people he loves. He certainly doesn’t repeat the whispered words of the public, the same words that prick Kendall like needles when he ventures into town.
“James?” Kendall’s hurting, and James’ gaze is steely.
“What? It’s not exactly a secret that your Panem’s biggest slut.”
James’ eyes are bright in the morning light, bright and dangerous; their glow is eerie and familiar.
Kendall breathes deeply, takes James’ face in his hands,
“James, stop. This isn’t you talking. Look, I’m going to get you away from this, from Griffin and all the freaks here. I won’t let them hurt you like this anymore.”
“It’s too late.” James says, his eyes growing dark and his brow furrowing, “I see them now.”
“See who?” Kendall asks, trying to make eye contact with James, but failing.
“The other tributes, Camille, I can see them all dying Kendall. The girl from Three whistled when she stabbed Alex from Seven in the abdomen. She whistled, Kendall, like the women on their way to the market. And the boy from Nine was so small, smaller than Katie even, and they trampled him at the cornucopia, ran over his body and broke his bones when he was already dead. And I see them, they look at me and point at me and they’re all drowning but I can’t do anything. And Hope, that was the girl from District One, what a thing to name your child. She hurt Camille, Kendall, and it was like the trout at the fishery, and her head...I had to kill her Kendall, she came up out of the water, she couldn’t swim like us but she made it out. I had to do it Kendall, I had to.” James looks up, his eyes startlingly dark as he grabs at Kendall’s wrists.
He begins to nod, fervently.
“Just like you said, Kendall, I did like you said.”
The night before the games, they’d dined together in James’ room. Training was over; Kendall had walked James through everything he possibly could. All there was to do now was gather sponsors, donations, and then to wait.
He felt completely helpless.
James had been quiet, the first time in days. When Kendall had been reaped he’d been moody, silent. Until the cameras had fallen on him of course, he’d had a game to win then, there was no way he wasn’t coming home. But James had been mouthy, confident the whole way through. He wasn’t a killer, but he was a winner. He was already the bane of the other Careers, all watching him like he was their lunch.
He was already a target; something Kendall didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“Get him to pull his head in,” Mags, Camille’s mentor had urged Kendall. “He’ll be murdered before they even bother to go near the cornucopia at this rate.”
But Kendall had watched James, dancing in the hallway outside his room with Camille, his face alight with hope and merriment, and he knew that his was a candle he could never snuff out.
They ate in silence, aside from the occasional joke from Kendall, lame jokes that fell on deaf ears. When James eventually spoke, Kendall almost jumped from his seat.
“How do I do it?” James had asked slowly.
“Do what?”
“How do I kill someone?”
Kendall had nearly spat out his bisque, the one James’ Mom had sent from home, a last meal of sorts.
“James, can we not-“
“You’ve done everything else Kendall. Survival tips, hand to hand combat, ways to get sponsors once I’m in there. I know everything there is to know. But I just can’t- How did you do it?”
Kendall thought of boys and girls in tightly woven nets, strangled and suffocated as they’d tried to fight their way out. He thought of plunging his trident, already coated in dried blood, into their writhing bodies.
Fish. He’d thought back in the arena. Just like any other catch, they needed to be killed so that everyone could eat. Their whole lives they’d killed so that they could survive.
He hadn’t looked James in the eye; he’d stared at his dinner, appetite long gone. James wasn’t a killer, he never would be. But Kendall was another story, he hadn’t just killed, he’d murdered, and somehow become a goddamned hero for it.
“You do what has to be done.”
Kendall pulls his wrist from James’ iron grasp, and holds his hand.
“James, I know, ok, I know. I see them too, the people I...hurt, and I know it’s hard but I’m here ok, like you were there for me, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“But Griffin-“
“Griffin won’t touch you, ever. After the tour you’ll go home, you’ll be safe from Griffin forever, I promise ok? I will make sure of it. You’re not in the arena anymore, you’re with me, and you’re safe.”
“How can you be sure?”
When James looks at him, Kendall feels breathless. His eyes are gold, they’re scared and angry and wild.
They’re arena eyes, lost and wild and something not quite human.
Kendall wants to hold him, to take James in his arms and never leave his side.
“When I get home,” he says, rubbing small circles into James’ hands, the way his mother did when he was a child, “We’ll have all the time we want. We can help out at the markets, visit Mags and her aquarium. We’ll spend all day on the beach, sleep there even. It’ll be just like old times ok?”
James is nodding, muttering quietly to himself. But his grip on Kendall’s fingers is loosening, the tension in his shoulders easing, his face relaxing just a little.
“We’ll get Katie and we’ll go out on the boat, nothing but us and the ocean.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Kendall knows it, but sometimes he gets wrapped up in words and speeches, it comes from years of what the District Four councilmen call ‘Engagement Training.” It’s about choosing words and language to fit the situation, to romance or woo or just generally win over. It’s what won Kendall the Hunger Games.
It’s Kendall’s entire life and somehow, with James’ fragile mind in his hands, he’s forgotten every fucking thing he’s ever learned.
The screaming draws attention this time.
James is rocking back and forth, hands over his ears, knees tucked up under his chin and screaming, wild animalistic wails that could wake the dead. His eyes are completely glazed over and Kendall knows he’s back there, tucked into a cavern near a small pool of water, suddenly aware of a tidal wave like nothing he’s ever seen. Everything is water and children’s screams, and Kendall sees all of it, feels all of it, collecting him, washing him over rocks and trees, scraping scratching and tearing as he goes. He tries to hold on but everything is screaming. James’ screams, the screams of tributes Kendall never knew, the screams of the tributes Kendall killed with his bare hands.
He tries to fight them off; the wailing, drowning ghosts, and he grabs at James face. Singing won’t help this time, and suddenly they’re scratching at him again, only it’s not the dead of the districts, it’s James’ hands, James’ fingers that scratch the skin from Kendall’s cheeks.
It’s James’ foot that collects Kendall and sends him sprawling to the ground.
Kendall’s head hits cold, hard linoleum, and everything is sweetly, blissfully quiet.
//
Two