Sol-vest-ice 2021: Prompts (Part 2)
This week had a lot more cognitive load than the last one, so I didn't write as many as I'd like. Still -- enjoy!
If you do read any of the prompts (on this post or the last one), I'd love it if you dropped me a line letting me know. Thanks to those who left comments already; it makes me very happy. :)
For anonymous: Devon & Emory, Victor siblings
Sunlight streams in through the wide bay window. Dust motes dance in the beams, and if not for the giant paint trays laid out on the ground, Devon would want to stretch out on the ground and nap like a cat. He might have anyway, contorted between drop clothes and tins of brushes, except that Emory is here, contemplating the expanse of wall with all the seriousness of the mentor’s seat.
“Can I ask a rude question?”
Emory hums and presses her dry brush to the expanse of white, testing. It always takes her a while to decide what to paint, cautious and thoughtful. “Ask away. I’ll answer if I feel like it.”
Devon chews his lip. He sweeps a wide arc of green over his section of wall: he saw a documentary on lizards earlier this week and their jeweled scales inspired him. “You never got back in touch with your parents.”
A long pause. Emory bends, scoops up some purple onto her palette. “Waiting for the question.”
There are a few different ways he could go from there, it’s true, and the problem is Devon wants to ask all of them. He fills in the shape of the lizard’s body along the curve of spine. “Why not?” he asks finally.
She taps her fingers against the underside of her palette. “Because we don’t,” she says, simple as that. It drives Misha crazy, sometimes, how she can dig and prod and finagle, but Emory never gives up more than she’s willing to. Everyone’s got a limit, but Emory’s must be beyond where Misha is willing to push. “Figured we had good reason. Never occurred to me to ask.”
Shouldn’t have occurred to Devon, either, if he was a proper Victor, but oh well. “Yeah, but … you could, now. If you wanted to.”
“Devon.”
One word and Devon shrinks three feet and loses all structural integrity in his spine. “Sorry,” he mumbles. He tries to lift the brush to paint again, but all of a sudden the fear of wrecking what he’s done holds him frozen.
Emory sighs. “Okay.” She bends, sets down her paintbrush with startling delicacy, and drops down cross-legged across from the tarp. “Yours didn’t want you to go, did they?”
On the floor, the shadows of the trees shift back and forth in the gentle breeze. It’s a question with all the makings of a trap, but Devon started this and he’s not running now. “No.”
She’s watching the shadows. There’s a bird on one of the branches, and its round, little blob keeps darting in and out of the square of light on the floor. “Mine did. Proud as a mountain lion day I got my letter. Used up a whole week’s vouchers before I left for Residential just to send me off.” She falls into her storytelling cadence, smooth and lyrical, like water over rocks in a stream. Devon sits spellbound, even as he sees the waterfall. “Saw them in the Justice Building, day of the Reaping. Both of them came to see me off. Tell me how proud they were, while they still could. Because as soon as they left that building I’d be the district’s daughter, but for five minutes, I was theirs. So proud. And then -”
Emory laughs, a hollow sound that hits Devon like knuckles to the throat. “They wouldn’t want me back. And I’m not gonna wreck the last good memory we have by asking.”
Every beat of Devon’s pulse rushes through his veins like a shot of thunder. “You don’t know that. They were proud of you even before, and you won! That’s all that matters -”
Emory fixes him with a stare that’s at once furious and pitying. It cuts his legs right out from under him. “I’m not the smartest, or the strongest. I didn’t play the crowd or win the Pack. I didn’t win my final showdown. But at least I can obey the rules.”
She picks up her paintbrush, sharp and precise. “Think I’m gonna paint a tiger,” she says. “Those lived with lizards, didn’t they? Reckon I saw that in a book somewhere.”
Devon swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says. “I reckon so.”
For roguedemon: Creed & Alec (Injured Creed AU)
“And he was SO cool!” Kit whips the branch at alarming speed, nearly smacking his own face in the process. Selene seems unbothered; Creed can’t help a noise of distress and reaches down to divert the boy’s aim away from himself. “He had a BIG naganana and he fought ALL the guys and they couldn’t even touch him! Except that one girl who was really tough. I thought maybe she was gonna win but then Alec won! That was the best part. Do you think he’ll come to my school? Sebastian said sometimes the Victors come to our school. Sebastian says his brother said Petra came last year and she arm-wrestled with anybody who wanted to and she always won. I don’t know if Alec would do that ‘cause he’s only got one arm, but that’s okay because I could do it for him instead -“
Selene shakes her head, eyes rolled up toward the sky. “Has he been like this the whole time you’ve been home?” Creed asks in an undertone, once it’s clear that Kit does not expect any conversational feedback, only a captive audience.
“All weekend,” she says. “I mean, it could definitely be worse, but still, oh my god. I hope it’s okay.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Definitely could be worse. Ahead, Kit has looped back around to Alec’s ‘naganana’ and is once more attempting to replicate the signature moves with his branch, fortunately aimed away from his face. “My question is, how was he allowed to watch? I think I had to wait until what, nine?”
Selene snorts. “Dad coughed up for the kiddie cut after Alec won. That’s a new thing after Petra won, by the way. All the thrills, none of the sex and blood. I’m sure they’re regretting it now, but it’s not like he’s going in.” The Capitol will have to descend on the Valent house with a presidential order before Kit joins the Program past Transition, and they both know it. “I think they wanted him to at least see him, you know?”
“That’s fair.” The Alec on screen is not the boy both of them remember, sweet and quiet and simmering at his place in the shadows. It’s strange to think Kit will only know the Victor, proud and tall with flashes of sharp arrogance in the cut of his gaze. But it’s good, too. Alec deserves that as much as he does the victory.
Creed only wishes he could get to know that version of him, but he knows better. He bade his brother goodbye in the Justice Building just like everyone else, and that’s the way things should be.
“Hyaa!” Kit yells, attacking the nearest tree, then collapses in a howling heap when his makeshift polearm snaps in the onslaught.
“Oh boy.” Creed scoops the boy up and drops him on his shoulders. “Come on, you, don’t cry, let’s look for a sturdier weapon. Even Alec had to ask the sponsors for a new one, remember?”
Kit doesn’t know, of course. About Creed, or Selene, the destinies that dodged them last minute. They’ll tell him someday, maybe, probably, or maybe they won’t. Maybe by the time he’s old enough it won’t matter what Creed thought he’d be for the first eighteen years of his life. Maybe by then Creed will have found his purpose and all that exhausting, relentless pressure will feel distant and faintly amusing, the way that childhood dreams are meant to look through indulgent adult eyes.
Creed … doubts that, really, but he also didn’t think he’d be here, spending long afternoons in their shared backyard, pretending to be the chosen losing tribute of the day while Kit’s Alec defeats him over and over and over. It feels strange, but … nice, in a way. Oddly cyclical. At least Alec didn’t rip out anyone’s throat with his teeth.
Creed actually gets a fair bit of mail for someone who disappeared off the face of the earth for years. The hospital sends him reminders about his check-ups, as well as a card every year on his birthday and congratulations postcards for milestone anniversaries. Selene writes to him from training - not often, but sometimes, a few scrawled lines on the back of a report, some silly anecdote with this made me think of you, and it warms his heart. The Peacekeeping Academy, somehow, what a mystery, has learned he’s clear for full physical activity and has started sending brochures, thick, shiny pamphlets that Creed isn’t sure what to think about. Most bafflingly, Devon - as in, Devon the Victor, the Victor of the 60th Hunger Games, the Kissing Killer, the first Victor Creed ever met in person, that Devon - sent him a letter a few weeks after his injury, wishing him well in his recovery.
(Selene tells him later he sent her one as well. She also says she threw it in the garbage, to Creed’s utter horror. What did she need to keep a consolation prize around for? Creed decides not to tell her he keeps his pinned on the bulletin board behind his desk.)
The point is - mail is a novelty but not earth-shattering, and he actually misses the envelope in the pile until his mother hands it back that afternoon. “It just says your name,” she says, voice curling with amusement. ”Are people hiring personal, door-to-door delivery couriers now?”
“What?” Creed turns the envelope over, but she’s right: his name in bold, sweeping handwriting, no address. “Okay, that’s weird. I hope it’s not a death threat.”
“Penmanship’s too nice for that,” Mom says, distracted, the way she does when letting slip details about her old job that makes Creed give her side-eye.
He slides his thumb under the flap and rips open the top, pulls out a folded piece of paper that reads -
“Creed?” Mom touches his shoulder, all tension. “What’s wrong?”
And suddenly the words have to fight past the lump in his throat, and the words in front of him swim and dance. “It’s him,” Creed chokes out finally. “I can see him.”
Only Creed, says the letter. One family member, for now. If he can handle that, and can promise he will not push for more, he is very welcome.
Is it a betrayal? Maybe. But for once in his life, Creed does not, will not take the noble course.
Peacekeeper candidates are not allowed personal calls, but Creed calls anyway and begs for two minutes. When he senses the disapproving stonewall - with apologies to both his father and hers - Creed drops his full name. The Academy knows his parents. They’re actively head-hunting Creed. And if they have any brains in their logistics department, they know exactly who stepped up on that stage last July.
He gets five.
“A casserole?” Selene says it like a curse word. She’s on a hall phone, the laughter and occasional bursts of friendly swearing from the lounge filtering through and making Creed fiercely nostalgic for the Centre. “No, you don’t bring your Victor brother a fucking casserole. Are you out of your mind? Never mind that it’s insane, how many casseroles did people bring you after you got hurt? I bet you wanted to pitch them in the stream.”
“They are a staple of community and fellowship,” Creed says with brittle defensiveness, which is not, of course, a no. “But fine, no casserole. We thought about bringing him a pie, but … maybe that’s manipulative? Childhood favourites, I mean. Like I’m trying to convince him to ask for Mom and Dad.”
“You could, hear me out, not bring anything.”
He glares at the phone, unfortunately thwarted by the lack of video. “I can’t show up to the Victors’ Village empty-handed! What kind of arrogance is that!”
Selene sighs. He knows before she even speaks he’s about to deal with her ultra-patient voice, one of the rare precursors to a Creed-initiated fistfight in their childhood. “Creed. You are the gift. Okay? So don’t be a total weirdo.”
Well, he did ask for her advice. “Fine. So, break any hearts yet?”
“I’m hanging up.”
Callista the Butcher meets him at the entrance to the Victors’ Village, wearing a sweater bejeweled with cats that sparkle when she moves. The sight is so incongruous that for several seconds Creed’s brain shuts off and he can’t focus on anything else.
Fortunate, since it seems she took the time to look him up and down, and he’s not entirely sure she made a flattering assessment. “Hm,” she says finally. “He was afraid you’d bring a casserole.”
“I was convinced not to,” Creed says, too startled to be properly deferent.
“Wise choice. Come with me.” Callista turns, not bothering to look back over her shoulder, so confident in her own authority. And even with the sequined, singing cat kick-line on the back of her sweater, she’s absolutely right.
Alec is waiting for him in the backyard. He has his back to the path, sitting in an oversized chair that’s obviously been hand carved, and the shape of his ears are so familiar that for a second Creed can’t breathe. But he can’t stand there hyperventilating, and so he jogs over and throws himself into the opposite chair before he can lose his mind and his nerve.
Alec looks - good, sharper and warier in a way that makes him look way more like Dad than he ever did as kids, eyes intent and searching. His sleeve is pinned up against his shoulder, the other hand flipping a blunt-tipped knife the way Selene used to for comfort. He could say a hundred things, touching or casual or reassuring, to let Alec know he’s here and nothing he saw onscreen mattered. Instead, what Creed says is: “Did you lose ten pounds?”
Alec stares at him for five excruciating seconds while Creed contemplates the irony of escaping the Arena only to face summary execution inside the Victors’ Village. “That’s the first thing you say to me? You’re a dick.”
Creed’s entire brain screeches to a halt as half a dozen apologies scrabble for dominance, and he half expects Callista to materialize out of nowhere, her baffling sweater firing daggers from the cats’ mouths, when Alec’s frown pulls into a wide grin and he breaks into a laugh. “Wow, you are a civilian now, huh. You used to say worse things to me when we were five.”
“You didn’t almost die when we were five!” Creed snaps, and Alec sits back, eyes bright with satisfaction, and oh, okay. That’s out there now. “Good to know you grew up to be a little asshole.”
Alec shrugs, one-shouldered and deliberate. “I think I earned it.”
Creed laughs, helpless. “Yeah, I guess you did.”
It’s - weird, not to know what to say to his own brother, after a whole childhood of chasing butterflies and playing in the dirt, talking about absolutely nothing. But he can’t talk about their parents, or Selene, or the Games, and in the silence it strikes Creed just how much of their lives, the fabric that wound the two of them together, was made up of all those things. Who are they without them? Is there anything left to build a life?
Alec watches him for a while, then sighs. “Okay,” he says, in the kind of tone Creed associates with Uncle Ramon slapping his knees and standing up at the end of a long night, “Enough of this. Let’s go swimming.”
Creed blinks. “What?”
“I don’t want to sit here staring at you while you try to figure out what to say that won’t offend me,” Alec says, and hey, that’s not fair, Creed is trying really hard! “There’s a lake just outside the Village. Let’s go swim.”
Well, he won’t argue, but at the same time Creed can’t help it. “You know what,” he says as he follows Alec out through a grove of gnarled apple trees, “Winning made you bitchy.”
“Did it?” Alec asks carelessly, that kind of fake-casual voice like distant lightning that Mom used to use on Dad when he said something stupid and all the kids would perk up and grin at each other to see if he noticed in time.
“Didn’t say it’s bad.” Creed kicks a pine cone at Alec’s foot. Alec kicks it once, straight ahead, then (Creed holds his breath) knocks it back across the path to Creed. “It looks good on you. I probably could have used it a bit more when we were younger.”
Alec pauses, then snorts. “Probably. But there’s no way I could have done it then. You’re looking at the product of a good two years of solid rage.”
He doesn’t need to do the math. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” Alec’s turn with the pine cone; he flips it up onto the toe of his sneaker, juggles it with the side of his foot, then tosses it over. “You’re alive. I’m alive.” There’s an invisible pause for the third person that Creed wonders if he imagines, but he doesn’t try to fill it. “The universe has a weird sense of humour, that’s all.”
The Centre does not turn out great swimmers. Basic paddling and a single afternoon in a frozen-over lake to break their cold shock response at the start of Residential is enough to keep District 2 off the accidental drowning list most years, but that’s about it. Creed had to learn from scratch in physiotherapy, and picking up that skill had been strangely satisfying. He’s surprised to see Alec dive into the water without hesitation.
“Emory taught me,” Alec says once he surfaces, bobbing and pushing his hair off his forehead. “I mean, the fun stuff. I also have to do it for physio.”
Oh, obviously, and now Creed feels like an idiot. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we had the same therapist?”
Alec gives him a sideways look, mocking but without much of an edge to it. “I mean, sure, but I think they specialize….”
“No, I think the people who handle knee sprains are definitely the ones who deal with having your arm chopped off.” Creed grins. “Did you ever meet an absolute battleaxe named Elsie?”
It’s still weird. There are still odd sore spots, minefields to hop through awkwardly, topics they skirt like they’re not sure which of them is the reason to avoid. But it’s - better, in the water, with the sun overhead and the waves lapping at the dock and the rope swing overhanging the far bank. Later they scramble up onto the gravel past the row of reeds and flop out to dry, soaked and shivering. Creed sticks one foot in Alec’s ribs; Alec digs his toes into Creed’s upper arm. They don’t wrestle like they used to, there’s a thin layer of ice over their shared peace that Creed hesitates to shatter. Still, it’s almost enough, and he watches the clouds pass from one side of the tree line to the other with the first real feeling of contentment in months.
“Hey,” Alec says, sounding so much more like his ten-year-old self that Creed has to hold himself still. “I don’t know if you talk to Selene, but if you do … say hi?”
Creed swallows. She’s proud of who you grew up to be. She wishes she could see you. She thinks she never will. She has a brother who worships you. “I do. I will.”
Alec lets out a breath. “Okay then.”
His parents don’t ask, and Creed doesn’t offer. It feels strange, holding something like this close, but he’s not about to break his promise. In his pocket there’s a folded piece of paper with a phone number, and he takes it out and traces his fingers over the crease lines.
Small steps, maybe, but they have time.
For anonymous: Victors playing a White Elephant holiday game
Brutus has got to hand it to the kids, there’s an art to running an annual festival, finding that hairline balance between honouring tradition and spicing things up. He knows he can’t be the only one nervous when Odin and Hera passed over the reins, but Misha and Devon have nailed it every fucking year.
This year, they’ve upped the ante on the mailroom blind gift exchange by making it a Death Swap, where each Victor on their turn can choose a new, wrapped gift or steal from a person above them. Anything that makes a pleasant activity more cutthroat is an absolute hit in the Village, which is how a vintage bottle of whiskey that’s older than Ronan keeps getting won and swiped round after round to increasing shouts and jeers.
By the end, Petra has her eyes narrowed as she surveys the array of gifts at everyone’s feet. Each one can only be stolen twice, and trying to steal a forbidden item voids your turn and leaves you with nothing. Brutus isn’t worried, Petra had the longest death list to memorize of all of them so her mental skills are strong, but before she can make her choice, Misha holds up one hand.
“Wait, wait, we have a bonus round for our final guest.” She has an empty gift wrap tube like a microphone, speaking into it in a dead-on Caesar impression, though not as horrifying as Devon doing Claudius Templesmith. Brutus is not going to sleep for a week after this. “It’s a very special round of Swap, or Not?”
Petra gives her a dubious look. “This whole game has been ‘swap or not’.”
“Ah, but not like this. Here!” Devon swoops in and places two boxes in front of her. “In one of these boxes is a gift you will like very much. In the other … Claudius’ sex life! Which is to say, nothing at all.”
“Nice.” Claudius lobs a chocolate from his own prize at Devon’s head.
Petra scowls. “Fifty percent odds are pretty shit for roulette.”
“Not roulette, my young friend. Bluff. Ronan, if you will?”
Ronan, happy with his wool socks that no one bothered to take from him since the beginning of the game, crosses the room with great ceremony to sit on the ottoman Misha sets out for him. “I get another go, do I?”
They sit Petra on an ottoman opposite him, the two of them with their canes balanced on the coffee table between them. Brutus has no idea what this game is supposed to be, and judging by the furrow between Petra’s eyebrows, neither does she. One of Misha’s weird bullshitting games definitely favours Ronan, but they’re all Victors here, he’s not counting anyone out. Not yet.
“Okay, here’s how it works.” Misha waves at the boxes with a flourish. “Petra, you can look in your box. Ronan, stay where you are, no cheating.” Petra lifts the lid of her box, frowns, and sits back. “Okay? Okay. Petra, remember, one of the boxes is empty. Your job is to convince Ronan to swap boxes if he has the box you want.”
Petra shakes her head. “I don’t want his box.”
Oh, boy. Misha presses her mouth thin to hide a laugh while valiantly keeping a straight face. “You still have to convince him.”
“But I don’t want it!” Petra’s frown deepens into a scowl that Brutus definitely recognizes and has worked for an entire year to keep from collapsing into fury. Come on girl, he thinks, it’s just a game. “You said I need to convince Ronan to swap if I want his box, and I don’t. He has the empty one!”
“You’re not supposed to - okay.” Devon exchanges a look with Misha, one that says ‘you tried’. “Ronan. Petra has made her case. Would you like to swap?”
“What?” Petra explodes. “You didn’t say anything about Ronan swapping anyway! I got to convince him, and if I didn’t want to, I get to keep it!”
Misha holds up her hands. “Yes, on your turn, but then Ronan gets his turn.”
Petra’s voice has scaled up well toward the breaking point. “You didn’t say Ronan would get a turn! You didn’t explain all the rules! This isn’t fair! Everyone else knew what they were doing when they played the game!”
“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Brutus says, standing up, but Petra slams her cane to the floor.
“No,” she snaps, cheeks spotted red with anger. “It’s fine. It’s Ronan’s turn.”
Everyone turns to watch Ronan, who definitely understood the rules, whether they were meant to be a twist or not. He’d started out grinning, the way he does when he has a chance to get one over on the youth, but the shine has come off the expression now. “Ah,” he says. “I don’t suppose you would accept a forfeit, in the spirit of fair play -“
Petra narrows her eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
He coughs, clearing his throat. “Well. In that case … I believe I would like to switch.”
The whole room sits in awkward silence as Devon leans forward and slides the boxes around to their opposite owners. Petra, arms folded, stares across the room at the ceiling. “You can have mine,” Emory whispers, but Petra ignores her. Already Brutus is preparing damage control, though he can’t figure out what just yet.
Ronan opens his box … and bursts out laughing.
“Uh,” Brutus says, because he can’t say what the fuck to their illustrious leader, but sometimes it’s a close damn call.
Ronan grins fit to bust a seam and turns over his box over onto the floor. His empty box.
It takes Brutus a second. It takes the whole room a second, after Petra’s performance, but Claudius is the one who gets it first, joining in the laughter. This time Petra’s expression shifts from stony, to sly, to a slow, broad grin.
“Holy shit,” Claudius says, as Petra opens her final box to reveal a brace of throwing knives. “That was fucking legend.”
Petra buckles the brace across her right forearm and flexes. “I win,” she says calmly. “What’s next? Darts?”
For seta-suzume: Song and Claudius
Grief, Claudius’ therapist said once, never really goes away, it just gets smaller and finds better places to hide. Which is good, since you’re not always tripping over it, but it means when you pull some furniture out of the way to vacuum three years down the line and end up stepping on it by mistake, it might hurt more since you weren’t expecting it.
He’s beginning to think it’s the same with Capitol bullshit. Or maybe that’s the wrong metaphor and it’s like putting four cups of sugar in coffee before cutting it out altogether; hard to notice when you’re in the thick of it, it all feels normal, maybe a bit thick and sludgy, but switch to black and suddenly that one little spoonful feels like a punch to the face.
Or maybe Claudius is bad with words and he should stop trying to make pictures for things. But the point is, he and Eibhlin visit Four because Eibhlin saw a documentary on nudibranchs that called them ‘sea rabbits’, and they run into Song at the beach and all he can think about is a decades-old sex tape.
For all his trauma, Claudius has no water damage, so he’s content to sit on the sand and let Eibhlin mince around the tide pool in her waders and magnifying glass. She calls out the occasional enthusiastic observation that he has no chance of understanding, but he throws up a thumbs-up anyhow, and it’s like this that Song passes by him on what he assumes is a daily walk along the shoreline.
“Oh,” Claudius says, like a genius. One of those white screamer birds shrieks overhead, winging its way past like they’ve personally offended it. He is an adult and a survivor and a shadow falling over him does not make him jump and reach for a knife, but there’s still a kick to his heart rate when he looks up to see her watching him. “We’re, uh. Looking for naked rabbit slugs?”
(“I don’t know why you do that,” Eibhlin said once, her voice sharp. “Phrase things specifically to put your intelligence down. You have a near-eidetic memory trained into you from early childhood. You know what they’re called. No one will arrest you for using proper terminology.”
He doesn’t know why he does it either, but he can’t help it.)
Claudius clears his throat. “Nudibranchs,” he says, to appease the ghost of Eibhlin in his head and also the very real one in the shallows who might develop super hearing just to scold him. “The sea rabbit thing.”
“Oh, those.” Song peers out at Eibhlin and her oversized sun hat, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Not sure we can guarantee a specific species, but she’s bound to find something that interests her.”
She stays for a bit, rocking back and forth so her feet sink into the sand, thumbs hooked in the waist of her loose-flowing pants. Song is - well, Claudius doesn’t remember much from his Victory Tour visit to Four, other than Finnick, but Song was always a bit of an enigma to him. She’s between Misha and Devon in age, so not that old, but she’s also married, which makes her feel ancient. Married people should be Brutus, not Devon, even though Claudius knows that makes no sense because so was Cecelia, and she’s younger. People in the quarries got hitched right out of the Reaping - hell, even the dual victors from Twelve were technically married, but that was PR bullshit and does not count.
It’s just, weddings, sure whatever, but being married, that’s like … a mature thing. For mature people. He tries to imagine Misha and Devon sharing bank accounts and planning finances or choosing kitchen tile (yeah okay fine Claudius is an adult who has no idea what adults do) and his brain explodes. But Song was their age and always seemed like she knew how to do those things. Maybe because he’d never seen her swordfight blindfolded.
That’s not the only thing, though.
He tries not to think about it. Honestly, he does. But you can’t try not to think about something, that’s scientifically proven, Eibhlin told him so, the only thing you can do is try very hard to think about something else, and so Claudius uses all his mental power to think very, very hard about tap-dancing blue horses. Which means he misses it when Song talks to him, at first.
He flushes hot. “What?”
“I said…” She drops down next to him, brushing sand from her knees, “It’s okay if you watched it.”
For a second Claudius considers pretending not to know what she’s talking about, but as Brutus likes to say, that would insult and waste both their time in one breath. “I didn’t.” That, at least, is not a lie. “I’d never. It came up once on TV when I couldn’t sleep and I was flipping channels. I thought it was a joke, like one of those shitty parody movies? There’s so much bad Victor-themed porn out there. But I asked Lyme, and she said …” He shrugs.
Song and Theo married a few years after their win. One of the conditions, as a semi-privileged district, was the right to marry their partner of choice, but the price they’d paid was broadcast footage of their wedding night, filmed by a Capitol crew to make it look like a genuine amateur film, albeit with conveniently better lighting. Controversial, between fans who’d expected better production value, and those who appreciated the “authentic” vibe. Initial offerings had been exclusive to the first run of bidders, but after that it had been relegated, like most has-been cries for attention, to the late-night pay-per-view channels, where Claudius had accidentally scrolled passed it.
Before the war he’d be mortified they’re even having this conversation, but after the trials it’s all a bit pointless now. They’ve all had their sins scooped out, scraped over bagels and served at the world’s shittiest breakfast buffet.
“It is what it is,” Song says. They’ve never interacted much at the barbecues, Claudius is old enough to admit his issues and Song has pretty much the opposite to mom energy so he never gravitated to her, but he likes her no-bullshit aura all the same. “We all make trade-offs. There are worse ones.”
“Yeah, maybe, but isn’t it nice that now we can say hey, that’s fucked up! and not have to worry about it?” Claudius stretches out his legs. In the water, Eibhlin lets loose a cry of discovery and crouches down, faces inches away from the rippling surface. “I guess you don’t need me to say that fifteen years later or whatever, but … fucked up. It sucks you had to do all that shit and still play nice when we paraded through your village high on painkillers every few years.”
He’d killed both Fours his year. He never asked whose they were. Some things are better not to know.
Song gives him a shrewd look, but if she knows where his brain went she doesn’t say so. Maybe they weren’t hers anyway. “We did what we had to do,” she says. “And now … those of us left, we hunt sea bunnies.”
Or build a homestead out in Nine, or make windows out of sea glass, or lightning sculptures, or whatever else the rest of them are doing with their time. Yeah. Claudius squints back at the distant shape of the Victors’ houses down the distant shore, spindly-looking legs belying their strength as they stand just off the water. They passed by on their way from the train, dropping off a rocking horse for Noah, courtesy of Nero. The kid barely glanced at Claudius, but boy did he love the horse.
“Do you ever …” Claudius blows out a breath. “I mean, it’s over now, right? You could have kids now, if you wanted. Nobody could come take them away.”
“Big explosion of babies over in Two, is there?” Song’s voice curls in amusement. “You thinking of having one?”
“Oh god no,” he bursts out, and there’s that flush again. “Okay, no, but -“
Song laughs, and the tension releases. “Plenty of reasons not to have kids besides ‘fear of state-sanctioned murder’; I think your mentor knows something about that. Besides, there’s enough to go around, if a person ever gets lonely.”
“I’ll stop asking personal questions now,” Claudius says. “You’ll have to excuse me, the murder school kept me inside as a child and so I was never socialized properly.”
She grins at him. “You’re ten years too late to use that excuse, kiddo.”
He grins back. “Oh, no, I think I’m gonna milk it.”
Eibhlin waves her arm frantically, calling his attention away. “Claudius! You must come see the striations on this specimen! The colours are unbelievable!”
Song claps him on the shoulder. “You kids have fun.”
“You are, like, ten years older than me,” Claudius shoots back, because she is not his mother and there are no Games anymore, so being 3 years older no longer qualifies you as an elder. Song only winks at him, and she leaps to her feet with the kind of grace that only Fours can manage in a terrain of billions of shifting grains, and saunters off.
“Okay,” Claudius calls out, “show me the multicoloured water slugs.”
If you do read any of the prompts (on this post or the last one), I'd love it if you dropped me a line letting me know. Thanks to those who left comments already; it makes me very happy. :)
For anonymous: Devon & Emory, Victor siblings
Sunlight streams in through the wide bay window. Dust motes dance in the beams, and if not for the giant paint trays laid out on the ground, Devon would want to stretch out on the ground and nap like a cat. He might have anyway, contorted between drop clothes and tins of brushes, except that Emory is here, contemplating the expanse of wall with all the seriousness of the mentor’s seat.
“Can I ask a rude question?”
Emory hums and presses her dry brush to the expanse of white, testing. It always takes her a while to decide what to paint, cautious and thoughtful. “Ask away. I’ll answer if I feel like it.”
Devon chews his lip. He sweeps a wide arc of green over his section of wall: he saw a documentary on lizards earlier this week and their jeweled scales inspired him. “You never got back in touch with your parents.”
A long pause. Emory bends, scoops up some purple onto her palette. “Waiting for the question.”
There are a few different ways he could go from there, it’s true, and the problem is Devon wants to ask all of them. He fills in the shape of the lizard’s body along the curve of spine. “Why not?” he asks finally.
She taps her fingers against the underside of her palette. “Because we don’t,” she says, simple as that. It drives Misha crazy, sometimes, how she can dig and prod and finagle, but Emory never gives up more than she’s willing to. Everyone’s got a limit, but Emory’s must be beyond where Misha is willing to push. “Figured we had good reason. Never occurred to me to ask.”
Shouldn’t have occurred to Devon, either, if he was a proper Victor, but oh well. “Yeah, but … you could, now. If you wanted to.”
“Devon.”
One word and Devon shrinks three feet and loses all structural integrity in his spine. “Sorry,” he mumbles. He tries to lift the brush to paint again, but all of a sudden the fear of wrecking what he’s done holds him frozen.
Emory sighs. “Okay.” She bends, sets down her paintbrush with startling delicacy, and drops down cross-legged across from the tarp. “Yours didn’t want you to go, did they?”
On the floor, the shadows of the trees shift back and forth in the gentle breeze. It’s a question with all the makings of a trap, but Devon started this and he’s not running now. “No.”
She’s watching the shadows. There’s a bird on one of the branches, and its round, little blob keeps darting in and out of the square of light on the floor. “Mine did. Proud as a mountain lion day I got my letter. Used up a whole week’s vouchers before I left for Residential just to send me off.” She falls into her storytelling cadence, smooth and lyrical, like water over rocks in a stream. Devon sits spellbound, even as he sees the waterfall. “Saw them in the Justice Building, day of the Reaping. Both of them came to see me off. Tell me how proud they were, while they still could. Because as soon as they left that building I’d be the district’s daughter, but for five minutes, I was theirs. So proud. And then -”
Emory laughs, a hollow sound that hits Devon like knuckles to the throat. “They wouldn’t want me back. And I’m not gonna wreck the last good memory we have by asking.”
Every beat of Devon’s pulse rushes through his veins like a shot of thunder. “You don’t know that. They were proud of you even before, and you won! That’s all that matters -”
Emory fixes him with a stare that’s at once furious and pitying. It cuts his legs right out from under him. “I’m not the smartest, or the strongest. I didn’t play the crowd or win the Pack. I didn’t win my final showdown. But at least I can obey the rules.”
She picks up her paintbrush, sharp and precise. “Think I’m gonna paint a tiger,” she says. “Those lived with lizards, didn’t they? Reckon I saw that in a book somewhere.”
Devon swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says. “I reckon so.”
For roguedemon: Creed & Alec (Injured Creed AU)
“And he was SO cool!” Kit whips the branch at alarming speed, nearly smacking his own face in the process. Selene seems unbothered; Creed can’t help a noise of distress and reaches down to divert the boy’s aim away from himself. “He had a BIG naganana and he fought ALL the guys and they couldn’t even touch him! Except that one girl who was really tough. I thought maybe she was gonna win but then Alec won! That was the best part. Do you think he’ll come to my school? Sebastian said sometimes the Victors come to our school. Sebastian says his brother said Petra came last year and she arm-wrestled with anybody who wanted to and she always won. I don’t know if Alec would do that ‘cause he’s only got one arm, but that’s okay because I could do it for him instead -“
Selene shakes her head, eyes rolled up toward the sky. “Has he been like this the whole time you’ve been home?” Creed asks in an undertone, once it’s clear that Kit does not expect any conversational feedback, only a captive audience.
“All weekend,” she says. “I mean, it could definitely be worse, but still, oh my god. I hope it’s okay.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Definitely could be worse. Ahead, Kit has looped back around to Alec’s ‘naganana’ and is once more attempting to replicate the signature moves with his branch, fortunately aimed away from his face. “My question is, how was he allowed to watch? I think I had to wait until what, nine?”
Selene snorts. “Dad coughed up for the kiddie cut after Alec won. That’s a new thing after Petra won, by the way. All the thrills, none of the sex and blood. I’m sure they’re regretting it now, but it’s not like he’s going in.” The Capitol will have to descend on the Valent house with a presidential order before Kit joins the Program past Transition, and they both know it. “I think they wanted him to at least see him, you know?”
“That’s fair.” The Alec on screen is not the boy both of them remember, sweet and quiet and simmering at his place in the shadows. It’s strange to think Kit will only know the Victor, proud and tall with flashes of sharp arrogance in the cut of his gaze. But it’s good, too. Alec deserves that as much as he does the victory.
Creed only wishes he could get to know that version of him, but he knows better. He bade his brother goodbye in the Justice Building just like everyone else, and that’s the way things should be.
“Hyaa!” Kit yells, attacking the nearest tree, then collapses in a howling heap when his makeshift polearm snaps in the onslaught.
“Oh boy.” Creed scoops the boy up and drops him on his shoulders. “Come on, you, don’t cry, let’s look for a sturdier weapon. Even Alec had to ask the sponsors for a new one, remember?”
Kit doesn’t know, of course. About Creed, or Selene, the destinies that dodged them last minute. They’ll tell him someday, maybe, probably, or maybe they won’t. Maybe by the time he’s old enough it won’t matter what Creed thought he’d be for the first eighteen years of his life. Maybe by then Creed will have found his purpose and all that exhausting, relentless pressure will feel distant and faintly amusing, the way that childhood dreams are meant to look through indulgent adult eyes.
Creed … doubts that, really, but he also didn’t think he’d be here, spending long afternoons in their shared backyard, pretending to be the chosen losing tribute of the day while Kit’s Alec defeats him over and over and over. It feels strange, but … nice, in a way. Oddly cyclical. At least Alec didn’t rip out anyone’s throat with his teeth.
Creed actually gets a fair bit of mail for someone who disappeared off the face of the earth for years. The hospital sends him reminders about his check-ups, as well as a card every year on his birthday and congratulations postcards for milestone anniversaries. Selene writes to him from training - not often, but sometimes, a few scrawled lines on the back of a report, some silly anecdote with this made me think of you, and it warms his heart. The Peacekeeping Academy, somehow, what a mystery, has learned he’s clear for full physical activity and has started sending brochures, thick, shiny pamphlets that Creed isn’t sure what to think about. Most bafflingly, Devon - as in, Devon the Victor, the Victor of the 60th Hunger Games, the Kissing Killer, the first Victor Creed ever met in person, that Devon - sent him a letter a few weeks after his injury, wishing him well in his recovery.
(Selene tells him later he sent her one as well. She also says she threw it in the garbage, to Creed’s utter horror. What did she need to keep a consolation prize around for? Creed decides not to tell her he keeps his pinned on the bulletin board behind his desk.)
The point is - mail is a novelty but not earth-shattering, and he actually misses the envelope in the pile until his mother hands it back that afternoon. “It just says your name,” she says, voice curling with amusement. ”Are people hiring personal, door-to-door delivery couriers now?”
“What?” Creed turns the envelope over, but she’s right: his name in bold, sweeping handwriting, no address. “Okay, that’s weird. I hope it’s not a death threat.”
“Penmanship’s too nice for that,” Mom says, distracted, the way she does when letting slip details about her old job that makes Creed give her side-eye.
He slides his thumb under the flap and rips open the top, pulls out a folded piece of paper that reads -
“Creed?” Mom touches his shoulder, all tension. “What’s wrong?”
And suddenly the words have to fight past the lump in his throat, and the words in front of him swim and dance. “It’s him,” Creed chokes out finally. “I can see him.”
Only Creed, says the letter. One family member, for now. If he can handle that, and can promise he will not push for more, he is very welcome.
Is it a betrayal? Maybe. But for once in his life, Creed does not, will not take the noble course.
Peacekeeper candidates are not allowed personal calls, but Creed calls anyway and begs for two minutes. When he senses the disapproving stonewall - with apologies to both his father and hers - Creed drops his full name. The Academy knows his parents. They’re actively head-hunting Creed. And if they have any brains in their logistics department, they know exactly who stepped up on that stage last July.
He gets five.
“A casserole?” Selene says it like a curse word. She’s on a hall phone, the laughter and occasional bursts of friendly swearing from the lounge filtering through and making Creed fiercely nostalgic for the Centre. “No, you don’t bring your Victor brother a fucking casserole. Are you out of your mind? Never mind that it’s insane, how many casseroles did people bring you after you got hurt? I bet you wanted to pitch them in the stream.”
“They are a staple of community and fellowship,” Creed says with brittle defensiveness, which is not, of course, a no. “But fine, no casserole. We thought about bringing him a pie, but … maybe that’s manipulative? Childhood favourites, I mean. Like I’m trying to convince him to ask for Mom and Dad.”
“You could, hear me out, not bring anything.”
He glares at the phone, unfortunately thwarted by the lack of video. “I can’t show up to the Victors’ Village empty-handed! What kind of arrogance is that!”
Selene sighs. He knows before she even speaks he’s about to deal with her ultra-patient voice, one of the rare precursors to a Creed-initiated fistfight in their childhood. “Creed. You are the gift. Okay? So don’t be a total weirdo.”
Well, he did ask for her advice. “Fine. So, break any hearts yet?”
“I’m hanging up.”
Callista the Butcher meets him at the entrance to the Victors’ Village, wearing a sweater bejeweled with cats that sparkle when she moves. The sight is so incongruous that for several seconds Creed’s brain shuts off and he can’t focus on anything else.
Fortunate, since it seems she took the time to look him up and down, and he’s not entirely sure she made a flattering assessment. “Hm,” she says finally. “He was afraid you’d bring a casserole.”
“I was convinced not to,” Creed says, too startled to be properly deferent.
“Wise choice. Come with me.” Callista turns, not bothering to look back over her shoulder, so confident in her own authority. And even with the sequined, singing cat kick-line on the back of her sweater, she’s absolutely right.
Alec is waiting for him in the backyard. He has his back to the path, sitting in an oversized chair that’s obviously been hand carved, and the shape of his ears are so familiar that for a second Creed can’t breathe. But he can’t stand there hyperventilating, and so he jogs over and throws himself into the opposite chair before he can lose his mind and his nerve.
Alec looks - good, sharper and warier in a way that makes him look way more like Dad than he ever did as kids, eyes intent and searching. His sleeve is pinned up against his shoulder, the other hand flipping a blunt-tipped knife the way Selene used to for comfort. He could say a hundred things, touching or casual or reassuring, to let Alec know he’s here and nothing he saw onscreen mattered. Instead, what Creed says is: “Did you lose ten pounds?”
Alec stares at him for five excruciating seconds while Creed contemplates the irony of escaping the Arena only to face summary execution inside the Victors’ Village. “That’s the first thing you say to me? You’re a dick.”
Creed’s entire brain screeches to a halt as half a dozen apologies scrabble for dominance, and he half expects Callista to materialize out of nowhere, her baffling sweater firing daggers from the cats’ mouths, when Alec’s frown pulls into a wide grin and he breaks into a laugh. “Wow, you are a civilian now, huh. You used to say worse things to me when we were five.”
“You didn’t almost die when we were five!” Creed snaps, and Alec sits back, eyes bright with satisfaction, and oh, okay. That’s out there now. “Good to know you grew up to be a little asshole.”
Alec shrugs, one-shouldered and deliberate. “I think I earned it.”
Creed laughs, helpless. “Yeah, I guess you did.”
It’s - weird, not to know what to say to his own brother, after a whole childhood of chasing butterflies and playing in the dirt, talking about absolutely nothing. But he can’t talk about their parents, or Selene, or the Games, and in the silence it strikes Creed just how much of their lives, the fabric that wound the two of them together, was made up of all those things. Who are they without them? Is there anything left to build a life?
Alec watches him for a while, then sighs. “Okay,” he says, in the kind of tone Creed associates with Uncle Ramon slapping his knees and standing up at the end of a long night, “Enough of this. Let’s go swimming.”
Creed blinks. “What?”
“I don’t want to sit here staring at you while you try to figure out what to say that won’t offend me,” Alec says, and hey, that’s not fair, Creed is trying really hard! “There’s a lake just outside the Village. Let’s go swim.”
Well, he won’t argue, but at the same time Creed can’t help it. “You know what,” he says as he follows Alec out through a grove of gnarled apple trees, “Winning made you bitchy.”
“Did it?” Alec asks carelessly, that kind of fake-casual voice like distant lightning that Mom used to use on Dad when he said something stupid and all the kids would perk up and grin at each other to see if he noticed in time.
“Didn’t say it’s bad.” Creed kicks a pine cone at Alec’s foot. Alec kicks it once, straight ahead, then (Creed holds his breath) knocks it back across the path to Creed. “It looks good on you. I probably could have used it a bit more when we were younger.”
Alec pauses, then snorts. “Probably. But there’s no way I could have done it then. You’re looking at the product of a good two years of solid rage.”
He doesn’t need to do the math. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” Alec’s turn with the pine cone; he flips it up onto the toe of his sneaker, juggles it with the side of his foot, then tosses it over. “You’re alive. I’m alive.” There’s an invisible pause for the third person that Creed wonders if he imagines, but he doesn’t try to fill it. “The universe has a weird sense of humour, that’s all.”
The Centre does not turn out great swimmers. Basic paddling and a single afternoon in a frozen-over lake to break their cold shock response at the start of Residential is enough to keep District 2 off the accidental drowning list most years, but that’s about it. Creed had to learn from scratch in physiotherapy, and picking up that skill had been strangely satisfying. He’s surprised to see Alec dive into the water without hesitation.
“Emory taught me,” Alec says once he surfaces, bobbing and pushing his hair off his forehead. “I mean, the fun stuff. I also have to do it for physio.”
Oh, obviously, and now Creed feels like an idiot. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we had the same therapist?”
Alec gives him a sideways look, mocking but without much of an edge to it. “I mean, sure, but I think they specialize….”
“No, I think the people who handle knee sprains are definitely the ones who deal with having your arm chopped off.” Creed grins. “Did you ever meet an absolute battleaxe named Elsie?”
It’s still weird. There are still odd sore spots, minefields to hop through awkwardly, topics they skirt like they’re not sure which of them is the reason to avoid. But it’s - better, in the water, with the sun overhead and the waves lapping at the dock and the rope swing overhanging the far bank. Later they scramble up onto the gravel past the row of reeds and flop out to dry, soaked and shivering. Creed sticks one foot in Alec’s ribs; Alec digs his toes into Creed’s upper arm. They don’t wrestle like they used to, there’s a thin layer of ice over their shared peace that Creed hesitates to shatter. Still, it’s almost enough, and he watches the clouds pass from one side of the tree line to the other with the first real feeling of contentment in months.
“Hey,” Alec says, sounding so much more like his ten-year-old self that Creed has to hold himself still. “I don’t know if you talk to Selene, but if you do … say hi?”
Creed swallows. She’s proud of who you grew up to be. She wishes she could see you. She thinks she never will. She has a brother who worships you. “I do. I will.”
Alec lets out a breath. “Okay then.”
His parents don’t ask, and Creed doesn’t offer. It feels strange, holding something like this close, but he’s not about to break his promise. In his pocket there’s a folded piece of paper with a phone number, and he takes it out and traces his fingers over the crease lines.
Small steps, maybe, but they have time.
For anonymous: Victors playing a White Elephant holiday game
Brutus has got to hand it to the kids, there’s an art to running an annual festival, finding that hairline balance between honouring tradition and spicing things up. He knows he can’t be the only one nervous when Odin and Hera passed over the reins, but Misha and Devon have nailed it every fucking year.
This year, they’ve upped the ante on the mailroom blind gift exchange by making it a Death Swap, where each Victor on their turn can choose a new, wrapped gift or steal from a person above them. Anything that makes a pleasant activity more cutthroat is an absolute hit in the Village, which is how a vintage bottle of whiskey that’s older than Ronan keeps getting won and swiped round after round to increasing shouts and jeers.
By the end, Petra has her eyes narrowed as she surveys the array of gifts at everyone’s feet. Each one can only be stolen twice, and trying to steal a forbidden item voids your turn and leaves you with nothing. Brutus isn’t worried, Petra had the longest death list to memorize of all of them so her mental skills are strong, but before she can make her choice, Misha holds up one hand.
“Wait, wait, we have a bonus round for our final guest.” She has an empty gift wrap tube like a microphone, speaking into it in a dead-on Caesar impression, though not as horrifying as Devon doing Claudius Templesmith. Brutus is not going to sleep for a week after this. “It’s a very special round of Swap, or Not?”
Petra gives her a dubious look. “This whole game has been ‘swap or not’.”
“Ah, but not like this. Here!” Devon swoops in and places two boxes in front of her. “In one of these boxes is a gift you will like very much. In the other … Claudius’ sex life! Which is to say, nothing at all.”
“Nice.” Claudius lobs a chocolate from his own prize at Devon’s head.
Petra scowls. “Fifty percent odds are pretty shit for roulette.”
“Not roulette, my young friend. Bluff. Ronan, if you will?”
Ronan, happy with his wool socks that no one bothered to take from him since the beginning of the game, crosses the room with great ceremony to sit on the ottoman Misha sets out for him. “I get another go, do I?”
They sit Petra on an ottoman opposite him, the two of them with their canes balanced on the coffee table between them. Brutus has no idea what this game is supposed to be, and judging by the furrow between Petra’s eyebrows, neither does she. One of Misha’s weird bullshitting games definitely favours Ronan, but they’re all Victors here, he’s not counting anyone out. Not yet.
“Okay, here’s how it works.” Misha waves at the boxes with a flourish. “Petra, you can look in your box. Ronan, stay where you are, no cheating.” Petra lifts the lid of her box, frowns, and sits back. “Okay? Okay. Petra, remember, one of the boxes is empty. Your job is to convince Ronan to swap boxes if he has the box you want.”
Petra shakes her head. “I don’t want his box.”
Oh, boy. Misha presses her mouth thin to hide a laugh while valiantly keeping a straight face. “You still have to convince him.”
“But I don’t want it!” Petra’s frown deepens into a scowl that Brutus definitely recognizes and has worked for an entire year to keep from collapsing into fury. Come on girl, he thinks, it’s just a game. “You said I need to convince Ronan to swap if I want his box, and I don’t. He has the empty one!”
“You’re not supposed to - okay.” Devon exchanges a look with Misha, one that says ‘you tried’. “Ronan. Petra has made her case. Would you like to swap?”
“What?” Petra explodes. “You didn’t say anything about Ronan swapping anyway! I got to convince him, and if I didn’t want to, I get to keep it!”
Misha holds up her hands. “Yes, on your turn, but then Ronan gets his turn.”
Petra’s voice has scaled up well toward the breaking point. “You didn’t say Ronan would get a turn! You didn’t explain all the rules! This isn’t fair! Everyone else knew what they were doing when they played the game!”
“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Brutus says, standing up, but Petra slams her cane to the floor.
“No,” she snaps, cheeks spotted red with anger. “It’s fine. It’s Ronan’s turn.”
Everyone turns to watch Ronan, who definitely understood the rules, whether they were meant to be a twist or not. He’d started out grinning, the way he does when he has a chance to get one over on the youth, but the shine has come off the expression now. “Ah,” he says. “I don’t suppose you would accept a forfeit, in the spirit of fair play -“
Petra narrows her eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
He coughs, clearing his throat. “Well. In that case … I believe I would like to switch.”
The whole room sits in awkward silence as Devon leans forward and slides the boxes around to their opposite owners. Petra, arms folded, stares across the room at the ceiling. “You can have mine,” Emory whispers, but Petra ignores her. Already Brutus is preparing damage control, though he can’t figure out what just yet.
Ronan opens his box … and bursts out laughing.
“Uh,” Brutus says, because he can’t say what the fuck to their illustrious leader, but sometimes it’s a close damn call.
Ronan grins fit to bust a seam and turns over his box over onto the floor. His empty box.
It takes Brutus a second. It takes the whole room a second, after Petra’s performance, but Claudius is the one who gets it first, joining in the laughter. This time Petra’s expression shifts from stony, to sly, to a slow, broad grin.
“Holy shit,” Claudius says, as Petra opens her final box to reveal a brace of throwing knives. “That was fucking legend.”
Petra buckles the brace across her right forearm and flexes. “I win,” she says calmly. “What’s next? Darts?”
For seta-suzume: Song and Claudius
Grief, Claudius’ therapist said once, never really goes away, it just gets smaller and finds better places to hide. Which is good, since you’re not always tripping over it, but it means when you pull some furniture out of the way to vacuum three years down the line and end up stepping on it by mistake, it might hurt more since you weren’t expecting it.
He’s beginning to think it’s the same with Capitol bullshit. Or maybe that’s the wrong metaphor and it’s like putting four cups of sugar in coffee before cutting it out altogether; hard to notice when you’re in the thick of it, it all feels normal, maybe a bit thick and sludgy, but switch to black and suddenly that one little spoonful feels like a punch to the face.
Or maybe Claudius is bad with words and he should stop trying to make pictures for things. But the point is, he and Eibhlin visit Four because Eibhlin saw a documentary on nudibranchs that called them ‘sea rabbits’, and they run into Song at the beach and all he can think about is a decades-old sex tape.
For all his trauma, Claudius has no water damage, so he’s content to sit on the sand and let Eibhlin mince around the tide pool in her waders and magnifying glass. She calls out the occasional enthusiastic observation that he has no chance of understanding, but he throws up a thumbs-up anyhow, and it’s like this that Song passes by him on what he assumes is a daily walk along the shoreline.
“Oh,” Claudius says, like a genius. One of those white screamer birds shrieks overhead, winging its way past like they’ve personally offended it. He is an adult and a survivor and a shadow falling over him does not make him jump and reach for a knife, but there’s still a kick to his heart rate when he looks up to see her watching him. “We’re, uh. Looking for naked rabbit slugs?”
(“I don’t know why you do that,” Eibhlin said once, her voice sharp. “Phrase things specifically to put your intelligence down. You have a near-eidetic memory trained into you from early childhood. You know what they’re called. No one will arrest you for using proper terminology.”
He doesn’t know why he does it either, but he can’t help it.)
Claudius clears his throat. “Nudibranchs,” he says, to appease the ghost of Eibhlin in his head and also the very real one in the shallows who might develop super hearing just to scold him. “The sea rabbit thing.”
“Oh, those.” Song peers out at Eibhlin and her oversized sun hat, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Not sure we can guarantee a specific species, but she’s bound to find something that interests her.”
She stays for a bit, rocking back and forth so her feet sink into the sand, thumbs hooked in the waist of her loose-flowing pants. Song is - well, Claudius doesn’t remember much from his Victory Tour visit to Four, other than Finnick, but Song was always a bit of an enigma to him. She’s between Misha and Devon in age, so not that old, but she’s also married, which makes her feel ancient. Married people should be Brutus, not Devon, even though Claudius knows that makes no sense because so was Cecelia, and she’s younger. People in the quarries got hitched right out of the Reaping - hell, even the dual victors from Twelve were technically married, but that was PR bullshit and does not count.
It’s just, weddings, sure whatever, but being married, that’s like … a mature thing. For mature people. He tries to imagine Misha and Devon sharing bank accounts and planning finances or choosing kitchen tile (yeah okay fine Claudius is an adult who has no idea what adults do) and his brain explodes. But Song was their age and always seemed like she knew how to do those things. Maybe because he’d never seen her swordfight blindfolded.
That’s not the only thing, though.
He tries not to think about it. Honestly, he does. But you can’t try not to think about something, that’s scientifically proven, Eibhlin told him so, the only thing you can do is try very hard to think about something else, and so Claudius uses all his mental power to think very, very hard about tap-dancing blue horses. Which means he misses it when Song talks to him, at first.
He flushes hot. “What?”
“I said…” She drops down next to him, brushing sand from her knees, “It’s okay if you watched it.”
For a second Claudius considers pretending not to know what she’s talking about, but as Brutus likes to say, that would insult and waste both their time in one breath. “I didn’t.” That, at least, is not a lie. “I’d never. It came up once on TV when I couldn’t sleep and I was flipping channels. I thought it was a joke, like one of those shitty parody movies? There’s so much bad Victor-themed porn out there. But I asked Lyme, and she said …” He shrugs.
Song and Theo married a few years after their win. One of the conditions, as a semi-privileged district, was the right to marry their partner of choice, but the price they’d paid was broadcast footage of their wedding night, filmed by a Capitol crew to make it look like a genuine amateur film, albeit with conveniently better lighting. Controversial, between fans who’d expected better production value, and those who appreciated the “authentic” vibe. Initial offerings had been exclusive to the first run of bidders, but after that it had been relegated, like most has-been cries for attention, to the late-night pay-per-view channels, where Claudius had accidentally scrolled passed it.
Before the war he’d be mortified they’re even having this conversation, but after the trials it’s all a bit pointless now. They’ve all had their sins scooped out, scraped over bagels and served at the world’s shittiest breakfast buffet.
“It is what it is,” Song says. They’ve never interacted much at the barbecues, Claudius is old enough to admit his issues and Song has pretty much the opposite to mom energy so he never gravitated to her, but he likes her no-bullshit aura all the same. “We all make trade-offs. There are worse ones.”
“Yeah, maybe, but isn’t it nice that now we can say hey, that’s fucked up! and not have to worry about it?” Claudius stretches out his legs. In the water, Eibhlin lets loose a cry of discovery and crouches down, faces inches away from the rippling surface. “I guess you don’t need me to say that fifteen years later or whatever, but … fucked up. It sucks you had to do all that shit and still play nice when we paraded through your village high on painkillers every few years.”
He’d killed both Fours his year. He never asked whose they were. Some things are better not to know.
Song gives him a shrewd look, but if she knows where his brain went she doesn’t say so. Maybe they weren’t hers anyway. “We did what we had to do,” she says. “And now … those of us left, we hunt sea bunnies.”
Or build a homestead out in Nine, or make windows out of sea glass, or lightning sculptures, or whatever else the rest of them are doing with their time. Yeah. Claudius squints back at the distant shape of the Victors’ houses down the distant shore, spindly-looking legs belying their strength as they stand just off the water. They passed by on their way from the train, dropping off a rocking horse for Noah, courtesy of Nero. The kid barely glanced at Claudius, but boy did he love the horse.
“Do you ever …” Claudius blows out a breath. “I mean, it’s over now, right? You could have kids now, if you wanted. Nobody could come take them away.”
“Big explosion of babies over in Two, is there?” Song’s voice curls in amusement. “You thinking of having one?”
“Oh god no,” he bursts out, and there’s that flush again. “Okay, no, but -“
Song laughs, and the tension releases. “Plenty of reasons not to have kids besides ‘fear of state-sanctioned murder’; I think your mentor knows something about that. Besides, there’s enough to go around, if a person ever gets lonely.”
“I’ll stop asking personal questions now,” Claudius says. “You’ll have to excuse me, the murder school kept me inside as a child and so I was never socialized properly.”
She grins at him. “You’re ten years too late to use that excuse, kiddo.”
He grins back. “Oh, no, I think I’m gonna milk it.”
Eibhlin waves her arm frantically, calling his attention away. “Claudius! You must come see the striations on this specimen! The colours are unbelievable!”
Song claps him on the shoulder. “You kids have fun.”
“You are, like, ten years older than me,” Claudius shoots back, because she is not his mother and there are no Games anymore, so being 3 years older no longer qualifies you as an elder. Song only winks at him, and she leaps to her feet with the kind of grace that only Fours can manage in a terrain of billions of shifting grains, and saunters off.
“Okay,” Claudius calls out, “show me the multicoloured water slugs.”