Lora's Birthday 2019: Beetee & Adessa
anon asked for outside perspective on Beetee & Adessa
“Do you think they actually have sex? Like, physically, I mean.”
Devon shoots Misha a betrayed glare, but true to form, she hurls that spear right through his chest and doesn’t even bother to help pull it out. “You’re kidding me with this right now.” A year ago he would have tackled her to the ground and shoved her face into the leaves for even daring to put that thought into his head: now he’s learning to navigate the slippery carpet of fallen aspen leaves and pine needles without losing his footing.
“They’re our elders and they deserve happiness, don’t you think you should show some respect?” Misha says, bullshitting beatifically as ever. Across the way Beetee and Adessa stroll arm in arm through the orchard, Beetee’s expression one of reluctance as he squints up at the clear autumn sun. “Sexuality doesn’t suddenly become repulsive once we reach a certain age.”
Devon lifts his cane and thwacks Misha across the shins with it, satisfied when she yelps. (It’s patently ridiculous that she does, that they all do when barking a knee off the coffee table or letting a match burn down too long or closing the cupboard door on a fingertip when they’ve taken blade thrusts to the bone and suffered near-starvation or mutts or tracker jackers - and now, gunshots and grenades - and who knows what else. But it’s a survival tactic like anything else. See, we’re alive, and can complain about these things. If we were dead, it wouldn’t matter.) “You don’t give a shit about respecting healthy mature sexuality, you liar. You think the idea of Beetee having sex is hilarious and you hope Adessa takes charge because you think that’s hot.”
Misha smacks him on the shoulder, but at least she doesn’t insult them both by pretending he’s wrong. “Listen. Tell me you wouldn’t be completely weirded out and a little disappointed if it turned out Adessa was all pantsuits and super high intensity in the daytime, all for her to secretly want someone to spank her when it’s dark.”
He tries, really he does, not to give in. Brutus wouldn’t like it, and Adessa is the only one in the Village who ever truly terrified him, but nobody has ever managed to paint a picture in his mind like Misha, and damned if they aren’t contagious. The giggles bubble up in his chest and he tries to force them down. He’s in his mid-thirties, for granite’s sake. “They used to write risque love notes in the form of chess moves,” he says. “I picked up the mail once and I saw the postcard. And I’m not talking about ‘ooh, put your bishop in my rook’ or ‘I’ll knight you, big boy’ or anything gross like that, it was all legal moves, but somehow it was dirty. You could see them playing it and announcing their moves and never breaking eye contact and every single word would be super sexually charged and anyone watching would be really, really uncomfortable and not know why.”
Misha pauses for a long second, then an incredulous burble of laughter bursts loose like blood from a sword pulled free. “‘I’ll knight you, big boy’?” she echoes. “That’s your example of filthy chess talk?”
This time he does shove her, sending her toppling onto the grass and yellow leaves in a howl of laughter. “Well, I don’t play sex chess!” Devon explodes, which only makes her shriek louder. “And unlike some people, I left all my public romances to the imagination instead of having ‘leaked’ videos and sexting scandals boost my popularity. Excuse me if I’m not an expert.”
“She is right about one thing, child,” said the voice of death behind them, ice and steel wrapped in a charcoal pantsuit. “That impression was absolutely hideous.”
Devon’s soul flees his body like a flock of jabberjays taking flight from the trees when a tribute’s body falls. “So this is how I die,” he says faintly, but he turns to face her because that is what you do at the end. Adessa stands in front of him, clothing impeccable, dark skin radiant, hair pulled back into a practical twist. Misha, the coward, stays flat on the ground, eyes wide and unmoving, apparently testing her luck with the theory (long debunked by many, many tributes and their mutt-chewed corpses) that if you don’t move, a predator won’t attack you.
Devon survived an Arena and a war zone and having both legs blown off right from under him but the curve of Adessa’s eyebrow gives him full-on heart palpitations. “I don’t know anything about chess,” he bursts out. “Or love notes.”
“Clearly.” Adessa looks him up and down, giving the impression that she’s peeling off his skin by doing so. She doesn’t bother looking at Misha, which is apparently even worse, as Misha lets out a low gurgle and drags both hands over her face. “You should ask your partner what I said when she asked me an impudent question years ago, I’m sure she remembers.”
Devon shoots Misha a startled look. She never mentioned anything about asking Adessa sex questions, and since she absolutely can’t keep secrets it means it must have happened before he met her, when she was a fresh-faced baby victor who didn’t know any better. Misha lets out a wild giggle, hands still covering her face like she’s a little kid playing ‘can’t see you, can’t see me’. “You said I’d never be able to handle you because I didn’t have the age or experience,” she said, her voice high with hysteria. Devon chokes back an incredulous noise. “I wouldn’t be challenging or intellectually stimulating enough.”
“Indeed.” Adessa cocks her head, the universal symbol for Run, prey, run, but Devon’s feet stay rooted in the ground. “And having found all that, together here after years living apart, a second Arena, a war, and multiple assassination attempts, I’m going to ask you a question: what do you think?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Misha, still on the ground, looks up at Adessa with a suspiciously touched expression, almost like she might be feeling a genuine emotion. “Okay,” Devon says finally. “And - sorry. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.”
Unbelievably, Adessa waves a hand. “We give up any expectation of privacy or the right to get upset over a little gossip the day we walk out on that stage, although we can expect a little better from each other. I’m not going to murder you for a little curiosity. But next time, be a dear and ask.”
“Yes ma’am,” Devon says, knowing full well he absolutely will not, and also knowing Adessa has to be aware of that.
She gives them both a curt nod and moves to turn away, but stops halfway through the motion and glances back. “For the record, why do you think I insist on daily walks when the man despises the outdoors? Stamina, children. At our age, it’s all about stamina.”
She strolls away without crunching a single leaf underfoot, leaving Devon to wonder whether the encounter really happened or he hallucinated the entire exchange. “No one,” Misha says dreamily, staring up at the sky with wide eyes, “will ever believe us. Not a one.”
“Well.” Devon clears his throat. “I guess that answers your question.”
“Do you think they actually have sex? Like, physically, I mean.”
Devon shoots Misha a betrayed glare, but true to form, she hurls that spear right through his chest and doesn’t even bother to help pull it out. “You’re kidding me with this right now.” A year ago he would have tackled her to the ground and shoved her face into the leaves for even daring to put that thought into his head: now he’s learning to navigate the slippery carpet of fallen aspen leaves and pine needles without losing his footing.
“They’re our elders and they deserve happiness, don’t you think you should show some respect?” Misha says, bullshitting beatifically as ever. Across the way Beetee and Adessa stroll arm in arm through the orchard, Beetee’s expression one of reluctance as he squints up at the clear autumn sun. “Sexuality doesn’t suddenly become repulsive once we reach a certain age.”
Devon lifts his cane and thwacks Misha across the shins with it, satisfied when she yelps. (It’s patently ridiculous that she does, that they all do when barking a knee off the coffee table or letting a match burn down too long or closing the cupboard door on a fingertip when they’ve taken blade thrusts to the bone and suffered near-starvation or mutts or tracker jackers - and now, gunshots and grenades - and who knows what else. But it’s a survival tactic like anything else. See, we’re alive, and can complain about these things. If we were dead, it wouldn’t matter.) “You don’t give a shit about respecting healthy mature sexuality, you liar. You think the idea of Beetee having sex is hilarious and you hope Adessa takes charge because you think that’s hot.”
Misha smacks him on the shoulder, but at least she doesn’t insult them both by pretending he’s wrong. “Listen. Tell me you wouldn’t be completely weirded out and a little disappointed if it turned out Adessa was all pantsuits and super high intensity in the daytime, all for her to secretly want someone to spank her when it’s dark.”
He tries, really he does, not to give in. Brutus wouldn’t like it, and Adessa is the only one in the Village who ever truly terrified him, but nobody has ever managed to paint a picture in his mind like Misha, and damned if they aren’t contagious. The giggles bubble up in his chest and he tries to force them down. He’s in his mid-thirties, for granite’s sake. “They used to write risque love notes in the form of chess moves,” he says. “I picked up the mail once and I saw the postcard. And I’m not talking about ‘ooh, put your bishop in my rook’ or ‘I’ll knight you, big boy’ or anything gross like that, it was all legal moves, but somehow it was dirty. You could see them playing it and announcing their moves and never breaking eye contact and every single word would be super sexually charged and anyone watching would be really, really uncomfortable and not know why.”
Misha pauses for a long second, then an incredulous burble of laughter bursts loose like blood from a sword pulled free. “‘I’ll knight you, big boy’?” she echoes. “That’s your example of filthy chess talk?”
This time he does shove her, sending her toppling onto the grass and yellow leaves in a howl of laughter. “Well, I don’t play sex chess!” Devon explodes, which only makes her shriek louder. “And unlike some people, I left all my public romances to the imagination instead of having ‘leaked’ videos and sexting scandals boost my popularity. Excuse me if I’m not an expert.”
“She is right about one thing, child,” said the voice of death behind them, ice and steel wrapped in a charcoal pantsuit. “That impression was absolutely hideous.”
Devon’s soul flees his body like a flock of jabberjays taking flight from the trees when a tribute’s body falls. “So this is how I die,” he says faintly, but he turns to face her because that is what you do at the end. Adessa stands in front of him, clothing impeccable, dark skin radiant, hair pulled back into a practical twist. Misha, the coward, stays flat on the ground, eyes wide and unmoving, apparently testing her luck with the theory (long debunked by many, many tributes and their mutt-chewed corpses) that if you don’t move, a predator won’t attack you.
Devon survived an Arena and a war zone and having both legs blown off right from under him but the curve of Adessa’s eyebrow gives him full-on heart palpitations. “I don’t know anything about chess,” he bursts out. “Or love notes.”
“Clearly.” Adessa looks him up and down, giving the impression that she’s peeling off his skin by doing so. She doesn’t bother looking at Misha, which is apparently even worse, as Misha lets out a low gurgle and drags both hands over her face. “You should ask your partner what I said when she asked me an impudent question years ago, I’m sure she remembers.”
Devon shoots Misha a startled look. She never mentioned anything about asking Adessa sex questions, and since she absolutely can’t keep secrets it means it must have happened before he met her, when she was a fresh-faced baby victor who didn’t know any better. Misha lets out a wild giggle, hands still covering her face like she’s a little kid playing ‘can’t see you, can’t see me’. “You said I’d never be able to handle you because I didn’t have the age or experience,” she said, her voice high with hysteria. Devon chokes back an incredulous noise. “I wouldn’t be challenging or intellectually stimulating enough.”
“Indeed.” Adessa cocks her head, the universal symbol for Run, prey, run, but Devon’s feet stay rooted in the ground. “And having found all that, together here after years living apart, a second Arena, a war, and multiple assassination attempts, I’m going to ask you a question: what do you think?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Misha, still on the ground, looks up at Adessa with a suspiciously touched expression, almost like she might be feeling a genuine emotion. “Okay,” Devon says finally. “And - sorry. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.”
Unbelievably, Adessa waves a hand. “We give up any expectation of privacy or the right to get upset over a little gossip the day we walk out on that stage, although we can expect a little better from each other. I’m not going to murder you for a little curiosity. But next time, be a dear and ask.”
“Yes ma’am,” Devon says, knowing full well he absolutely will not, and also knowing Adessa has to be aware of that.
She gives them both a curt nod and moves to turn away, but stops halfway through the motion and glances back. “For the record, why do you think I insist on daily walks when the man despises the outdoors? Stamina, children. At our age, it’s all about stamina.”
She strolls away without crunching a single leaf underfoot, leaving Devon to wonder whether the encounter really happened or he hallucinated the entire exchange. “No one,” Misha says dreamily, staring up at the sky with wide eyes, “will ever believe us. Not a one.”
“Well.” Devon clears his throat. “I guess that answers your question.”