[fic] Tie Me Down Or I Will Run - 5/?
Title: Tie Me Down Or I Will Run (Tie Me Down And I Will Run)
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/Dak (heavy on this chapter), Kendall/James, Kendall/Carlos, James/Logan, Logan/Mercedes, possible Logan/Kendall, James/Aubrey, possible a lot of pairings
Rating: M
Part: Five
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Word Count: 5,452
Summary: breila_rose: "I think the only thing thg was missing was some hot boy porn."
Author's Notes: This started out as a joke. On ffn, a very nice author is writing a BTR/Hunger Games crossover. Which was super inspiring. So inspiring that I had this awesome idea, which Courtney later summed up nicely (thus she is quoted in the summary): sex. Why not have the boys fuck everywhere? So. Uh. Yeah. This happened. And then jblostfan16 so very nicely compiled it into a word doc and edited and told me to post this shit. So I am. This is still, basically cracky text fic. It just has the added bonus of, well, chapters. And voyeurism. As for this chapter, um. I've had it laying around since Mayish, but also in May, I broke my phone at Hogwarts (obviously JK sensed me cheating with Suzanne). My phone being where I write this thing. And a good chunk of it was on my phone, and I just never really got around to getting it off until now. So. Uh. Here?
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"Morning, sunshine." Kendall moans as his comforter is ripped clean from his grasp, pale sunlight speckling his calves and thighs. He glares sleepily up at Gustavo, who mostly has the nerve to appear pleased with himself. "You wanted some mentoring, so you're getting some. First lesson, fix your face."
The back of Kendall's eyes throb, painfully, as he tries to roll them. He settles for burrowing into the sanctuary of his pillows. They enfold him in their fluffy, downy arms, beckoning him back to oblivion. He's had less than two hours of sleep, haunted by nightmares of mine explosions, dimpled, knife-wielding Careers, and a version of James who hoarded all of his bread like a miserly king. Sometimes he would peer down from his ciabatta throne and give Kendall this disappointed frown that made him feel like facing down Mercedes with a machete would be infinitely preferable. He'd only just found his way into blissful, dreamless peace when Gustavo barged in all cheerful.
And sober.
He cruelly rips the pillows from beneath Kendall's head and says, "Beddy-bye’s over, dog."
"Go away." Kendall futilely attempts to block out the sun with his arms.
"Nope. Up, up, up."
"Why are you channeling Miss Collins?" He groans into the soft skin of his own underarm.
"Because, silly," and this time it is Miss Collins' perky cadence piercing his ear drums, "It's a big, big day."
"Can't you go harass James first?"
"James," Gustavo announces, "Does not have an unfortunate, you know." He waves his hand in Kendall's general direction.
Kendall sighs. "There's nothing wrong with my face."
"Oh no, dear, Gustavo's right," Miss Collins says, most of her attention occupied by the vase of flowers by Kendall's bedside table. He hadn't even noticed them last night, too busy hating his room, the suites, and the entire Capitol to take any pleasure in the simple white blooms. He thinks they are roses.
"What?" He touches the curve of his cheek. Gustavo smirks. That mostly pisses him off, "This isn't a beauty pageant."
"Oh, but it is." Miss Collins beams.
“No, but. How can Gustavo be right? My face is my face. You can’t fix it.”
Kendall’s only just realizing that his chest is bare. His nipples stand at attention, pink-brown, aureoles ringed by goose bumps. He tries to swipe for the comforter, but Gustavo holds it deftly out of his reach. His scowl deepens.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Miss Collins sing songs, caressing a rose. She sighs, “These are lovely. The president has the nicest garden in Panem.”
“The president?”
“He sends ‘em to all the Tributes.” Gustavo’s expression is that of a man who has stepped in something very unpleasant. “Don’t go getting a big head about it, sweetheart.”
“Right, because that probably wouldn’t help the whole dilemma with my face. Which is?” Kendall prompts. He’s not like, vain, or anything. But he’s also not hideous. The implication that he might be is really offensive.
Cheerily, Miss Collins says, “Oh, that. Right there.”
“…Where?” Kendall pats down his cheeks again, searching for a flaw beneath the surface of his skin. All he feels are dimples and the barest trace of scruff, patchy in its growth.
Miss Collins smiles. She’s utterly serene, way calmer than she was the night prior, which mostly makes Kendall wonder if she drank that bottle of wine she ran off with. She pinches his cheek and chides, “Turn that frown upside down.”
Seriously? Kendall bites the inside of his mouth to keep from spitting nasty words. Miss Collins keeps on tugging at his skin, trying to force a smile. Gustavo says, “You can be as grumpy as you want. On the inside. But if I’m going to go through all the trouble of getting you sponsors, I’m going to need you to be bright and shiny on the outside. That’s how you get people to like you.”
“A smile’s going to get me sponsors?” Kendall asks dubiously.
“It can’t hurt. Glaring at everyone like you wish they would drop dead, on the other hand, isn’t winning you any fans.”
“I haven’t been glaring,” Kendall retorts, which may or may not be true. “I just look like this.”
“That’s a problem. If you value your ass, I’d recommend that you stop looking like that. Immediately.”
“No one likes a surly Tribute,” Miss Collins counsels gently, trying to soften the blow.
“Tonight, at the Tribute Parade, we want you to do this,” Gustavo jabs his index fingers in the corners of his mouth, stretching his lips into a grotesque grin. “Not this.” He proceeds to dip his fingertips down, down, down in a horrible parody of Kendall’s face.
Kendall rubs the bridge of his nose. “Fine.”
“Fine?” Miss Collins and Gustavo echo, skeptical.
“I said fine,” he snaps. “Now could you two maybe leave? I feel like I’d enjoy this conversation more over breakfast. Wearing actual clothes.”
Gustavo shakes his head. “This is what I’m talking about, whelp. You need an attitude adjustment, quick.”
Kendall throws his only remaining pillow straight at his mentor’s face. Gustavo dodges, easy, and ushers Miss Collins out of the room in a haze of thick perfume. Kendall slumps back against his headboard and sulks. Objectively he gets that he has no choice but to play the Capitol’s game. Gustavo’s right. He’s going to need help in the arena, and if he doesn’t dazzle on TV, he’s not going to get any. Dilemma is, Kendall doesn’t want to be a pawn. He is too proud, too arrogant, too convinced of his own righteousness to willingly play along.
But.
He promised Carlos and Katie he’d come back alive.
Plus he’s super fond of his ass.
He reluctantly clambers out of bed, engaging in a brief scuffle with the comforter discarded on his floor before making it to the shower. There, he throws the only protest he’s allowed, soaking in the scalding water for close to thirty minutes while jacking off slow to fragmented images of Carlos, James, Mercedes, and Logan. By the time Kendall dries off, he’s ready to follow whatever instructions Gustavo and Miss Collins give him. He sits through breakfast, obedient, sitting straighter, chin held higher, flashing a smile at thirty second intervals.
“Not so toothy. Unless you want to eat us,” Gustavo says, doing his own fair share of glaring. Noon rolls around with no sign of James, but Kendall does not ask after him. They aren’t friends. He said it, and now he has to commit to it. He focuses on trying on different, less-toothy smiles for his audience. Mostly they seem dismayed by his efforts, although Miss Collins is nicer about it than Gustavo, who cracks open a bottle of liquor on the twelfth go.
An hour later, Gustavo is completely skunked, throwing around insults that make Kendall feel pretty homicidal. He’s saved by his prep team, who whisk him off for another fun round of humiliation and shallow gossip. Most of the manscaping is blissfully over with, but today’s mission seems to involve making Kendall glow.
“Dak’s orders,” Shimmery Jennifer informs him while she cheerfully yanks his hair this way and that. Lavender Jennifer bemoans his stubbly skin. She goes to town with a razor that slices dangerously close to his skin and then slathers him with some kind of special serum that stops hair growth.
“You’ll have a baby face for the arena,” she tells him, like reverting to pre-pubescence is something to take pride in.
Exfoliating is next on her agenda. Kendall squirms beneath her massaging hands while Tattooed Jennifer files Kendall’s nails into perfect ovals. She says, “Your District partner is way easier to handle.”
“You’ve seen James?” Kendall perks up, despite himself.
“Sure,” she drawls, tossing her pin-straight hair over one shoulder. Her dark eyes gleam, amused. “He’s been next door with Aubrey and her team all day. Mostly with Aubrey.”
All three of the girls laugh, a lewd edge to the sound that makes Kendall’s throat constrict. “What do you mean?”
Jennifer’s eyebrows lift into her hairline, her grin Cheshire-sly, but she doesn’t answer. Kendall wrangles his hands from her cool grip. “I have to piss.”
There’s a restroom right there in the prep hall, but Kendall argues for privacy.
“It’s not like we haven’t already seen everything,” Shimmery Jennifer stresses, her cat eyes narrow.
“A man deserves secrets!” Kendall does his best Katie-imitation, stomping his foot and trying to school his expression so that he is very, very stern. The Jennifers agree to leave his side for point five seconds so he can find some relief. Only, peeing is the last thing on Kendall’s mind. There’s a door in the far corner, near the gigantic swimming pool of a bathtub, which leads straight to the adjacent prep room. Kendall didn’t pay it any mind before, but now that he knows James is assuredly in there…it can’t hurt to look. Just to see what the Jennifers were on about. Because what they were implying was dumb. James wouldn’t, would he? Not with some Capitol minion, not when he has so much disdain for the Careers and Miss Collins.
Kendall cracks the door, opening it a millimeter at a time so that it won’t make a noise. He shouldn’t have worried. The room is empty. He makes to close the door when a wet noise grabs his attention. A splash in the bathtub, right around the corner of the doorframe, out of sight.
The room is not empty.
Kendall cranes his head through the gap, careful not to knock the heavy metal door aside. He listens to the whisper of breath, drip of bath oils and water, water that ripples, spreading out from their pale bodies. Aubrey- this must be Aubrey- has curls the color of cinnamon and sloe eyes rimmed dark with kohl. Her face is neutral, analytical as she rocks down against James, lower body obscured by the rainbow sparkle of bubbles. Kendall can’t actually make out much of James, other than the broad span of his naked shoulders, glistening wet, the line of his neck and the damp hair at the nape, bleeding up into more familiar red-brown-gold. He can see the place where James’s slender fingers dig into the jut of Aubrey’s ribs, and he can almost make out the circle of James’s lips, the way he’s totally into this gorgeous girl riding his dick.
Kendall thought that James wouldn’t, but James is. More so, he’s enjoying the fuck out of it, from what Kendall can tell. He’s struck by how acutely he does not know his District partner. He does not watch. He has learned his lesson about voyeurism, and this doesn’t turn him on. It makes something sick slither through his stomach; slime that turns sharp every time it touches upon a vital organ. Kendall closes the door with the softest of clicks.
Is James flushed red inside of that girl, slickwetshiny?
Is he harder for her than he got for Kendall?
Whatever. Kendall had the opportunity to get up close and personal with James’s dick, and he didn’t want it. Nothing’s changed. Even if some random stylist has gotten to see what Kendall has only glimpsed in dark, shadowy flashes in the quavering vestibule of a train that moved too fast, so fast, taking him away from everything he’d ever known. He refuses to care.
Refuses.
It doesn’t stop him from getting testy when the Jennifers flood back in with their boundless energy. Come sunset and Dak’s arrival, at least one of them has tried to stab Kendall with the business end of a metal nail file.
“It’d be better if you stopped trying to alienate them,” Dak advises, after they’ve gone.
“Easy for you to say.”
“They’re on your side. They want you to win.”
“So they can go to the Victory parties.”
“Maybe.” Dak lifts his shoulders, a casual shrug. “Does it matter why your allies are allies?”
“I guess not,” Kendall decides. It’s not like he’s got enough allies to be choosy, after all.
Dak beams. He pulls Kendall’s Parade costume from where it’s been hanging in an otherwise empty closet, zippered inside a milky sheet of plastic. “Ready to be stunning?”
“I’m ready to look ridiculous.”
Dak’s lips purse with instant reproach. He’s dressed in simple black again, elegant without effort. His hair is artfully disheveled. He’s attractive.
Better looking than Aubrey.
“Sorry,” Kendall apologizes. “Gustavo says I need to stop glaring. I’m working on it.”
“He’s right. At least for now. You’ve got sparks in your eyes.” Dak thumbs over his cheekbone. His smile is cocksure and perfect and he is so very close. “That’ll come in useful at training. You can scare away all the competition.”
“Am I scaring you away?”
Dak’s smile grows. “No.”
Kendall is caught in his magnetic gaze, the gold of his eyeliner making flecks of the same pop in his irises.
“Close your eyes,” he commands, and Kendall does. He’s all about cooperation now. He breathes through his nose, listening to Dak wrestle with the plastic cover. Something heavy and malleable slides over Kendall’s naked ankle, molding instantly to his skin.
“It’s cold,” he hisses.
Dak chuckles and lifts Kendall’s other foot. “It’ll be worth it.”
He does something strange then, skin brushing against Kendall’s instep. It’s only once it’s over that he realizes the touch was from Dak’s lips.
“You’ll be my finest creation.”
"Do I want to be your creation?” Kendall asks, fighting not to open his eyes.
Dak’s hands still. Simply, he replies, “Yes.”
There is so much weight in that single word that Kendall’s can’t help but consider it. He imagines Dak cutting a pattern from his skin, recreating him as a boy who is the black and gold of the sky, perhaps, or a man who trails the white hot sheen of sparks. Dak pulls Kendall’s costume up and over his knees, his fingers pausing over the inside of Kendall’s thighs. “Stand up.”
Kendall rises up out of his industrial, Capitol-issued seat, metal scraping against the tile. Leather sticks to his bare flesh, struggling to hold Kendall in its embrace. Dak’s touch falls away, but he’s close. His breath mists against Kendall’s neck.
“Can I see yet?”
“You’re not even dressed.” Dak laughs, a gust of sweet air tickling the lobe of Kendall's ear. His proximity is disconcerting, unfamiliar. Dak is a stranger, more so than James, who Kendall passed a million times at school or on his way to the Hob or during trades at the bakery. There's a degree of peril here, as Dak inches Kendall's costume up the white of his thighs, vulnerability of such magnitude that Kendall's heart jumps like a jackrabbit beneath his ribs.
The careful path of the District uniform Dak has crafted halts before Kendall's hips, when the supple fabric catches against less compliant parts of his anatomy. Dak attempts to rectify the snag, the heel of his hand sweeping across Kendall's balls. The tiny gasp that leaves Kendall's lips is as clear and melodic as a mockingjay's song. He sways instinctively towards the heat radiating off Dak's body, inhaling deep without meaning to. Dak smells good, spicy, and it sends desire trickling straight down to Kendall's dick.
All he can see is a veil of black with the occasional lightning strike of color behind his eyelids, but Dak is not so inhibited. He notices the half hearted twitch of Kendall's cock. He huffs a laugh. "Problem?"
"Nope," Kendall replies, but it is strangled, invisible hands choking off his windpipe.
"Are you sure?" Dak mostly sounds amused. Pleasantly, he continues, "I'm great at problem solving."
"Is there anything you're not great at?" Kendall inquires, tone jokey. He's trying for civil, but civil is hard to maintain. Storm clouds brew in his head, mortification and lust and a hint of rage churned to a froth. Why does everyone seem to find it so delightful that he can't get a handle on his own hormones?
"Nope," Dak answers, mocking, low. His offer of an assist is too close to James's the night prior, James, who at this exact moment is still probably nailing his stylist a few feet away, past the thick prep room wall. That makes Kendall angrier, rumbles thunder in his stomach.
Kendall can’t stop himself. His eyes flick open, and there’s Dak, his face bathed in shadow, the bone shine of his cheeks and his nose and his brow. "You're going to ruin the surprise."
Kendall glances down. Pooled beneath the insistent weight of his cock, he can make out shiny, black material. A jumpsuit of some kind?
"It doesn't look like coveralls," Kendall says, relieved. He still scans the room for a hard hat.
The corners of Dak's lips hitch up. "Wait 'til you see it on fire."
"On what now?"
"I'm lighting you on fire," Dak says. "Everyone will see what I see."
"Me, dead?" Kendall squeaks, abruptly way less horny. He is not a fan of this idea. At all. In any way, shape, or form.
"Calm down." Dak grabs for Kendall's jaw, directing his attention squarely back on his face. Kendall's pulse jumps, his entire body on edge. The weird lighting of the prep room makes Dak's features glow, carved of light and darkness, like a beautiful statue. He is intense, but earnest. He murmurs, "It's in my best interests to keep you breathing."
"Until the arena," Kendall grouses, distracting himself from the metallic flecks drifting in the midnight sky of Dak's irises. They draw all the illumination from the room, black holes. If Kendall let himself, it would be easy to get lost in their vortex.
"Longer than that, ideally. I'm not going to all the trouble of lighting you up just to see you extinguished," Dak replies levelly. He pauses. The moment stretches between them, a loose thread, waiting for Dak's careful hands to snip it. "Will you still punch me if I kiss you?"
Kendall bites back, "I thought I wasn't your type."
Even as he says it, he's drawing Dak into him, folding his arms around his neck. He doesn't give himself time to think about all the reasons why he shouldn't. Of all the poor decisions he's made in the past two days, Dak is the most innocuous. He isn't looking for friendship or love, and he's got a vested interest in Kendall's continued survival. The only count against him is his status as a Capitol lackey, but if James can do it, why can't Kendall? Besides, he's lonely and scared and mad and naked and really, really turned on, and the thing about racing heartbeats is that they always race better in pairs.
Dak doesn't have any objections; he sighs contentedly against Kendall's lips as though this is exactly what he's been waiting for. Kendall is cautious at first, not as used to being the aggressor as he would like, but not even close to willing to back down. He doesn’t have to do much to coax Dak’s lips open, to convince him to kiss back. Dak treats Kendall like he’s already on fire, like he has an ember burning in the pit of his stomach that he would like to douse. He swallows down Kendall’s moans whole, invading his personal space, not even the least bit embarrassed about it.
Kendall stumbles, back, back, back, tangled in the half of the black unitard rucked around his thighs. Of all the places he has been in the Capitol so far, this is the most sterile. All the surfaces other than the chair are hard, unforgiving. It’s no wonder James and Aubrey chose the bathtub to fuck in. Dak crowds Kendall against one of the Jennifer’s prep tables, scattered with makeup brushes and sharp instruments that clatter all over the floor, a symphonic accompaniment to the way their hips hitch together with slow, painful friction.
Kendall is naked where it counts while Dak is all buttoned up and that’s not fair at all. When Dak mutters, “Unzip my pants,” he’s quick to obey, fingers on the front fastening while Dak peppers kisses that melt like snowflakes against the skin of Kendall’s throat. Kendall arches into the shape of Dak’s lips, pulsing warmth. Dak isn’t wearing a stitch beneath his slacks. He is warm and hot and very, very visible in the circle of Kendall’s fingers, standing at attention with ease. He’s longer than Carlos, but not as thick, and comparisons have no place here anyway. Kendall tries moving his hand, quick and easy.
Dak says, “It’ll work easier like this.”
He brings his fingers to his mouth, pushing past his own lips and sucking each digit in turn. Kendall draws in a ragged breath, watching as Dak’s skin is coated wet, glistening beneath the fluorescent white light. Half cast in shadows and gold, he reaches down between them and holds Kendall fast, grip sure. He draws his fingers across the stretch of Kendall’s cock, the slickness making his palm skid easily over the shaft. Dak steps even closer, fitting his own thigh between Kendall’s, touching their dicks together.
“We could fuck,” Kendall offers, even though he likes the idea of getting off like this, between the rigid metal of the Jennifer’s prep table and the unrelenting heat of Dak’s body.
“Not enough time,” Dak mumbles back, already reclaiming Kendall’s lips. He pushes his cock into Kendall’s hand, so that he has them both, pressed from base to head all flushed and needy. Kendall tries to jerk them both off, but it’s hard, too much, and not enough space. Dak is kissing Kendall deep, skillful, and all Kendall can do in return is inhale deep, as if he’s trying to craft a Dak shaped lung inside his own body. He pushes up into Dak’s grip, kneading his free hand against Dak’s ass, tugging him closer. Dak fucks up into the hole of Kendall's hand and hits the sparse hair of his belly because they're just practically connected, which, yes. Good. Kendall maneuvers himself so that he's stroking Dak but mostly rutting himself against the shape of his own knuckles, the head of Dak's dick, and the indent of his hipbone. He hasn't gotten off like this since he and Carlos first started fooling around, too scared to stick their fingers into unknown territory, too urgent to do anything individually.
He licks along the shape of Dak's lips, the rugged line of his jaw, the shell of his ear. Dak grunts and bites out at Kendall, catching the corner of his mouth. Lipping against skin, Dak grips Kendall's biceps for better traction, and mostly it makes Kendall think this would run smoother sans his clumsy fingers. He extricates his hand, damp with saliva and precum, from the equation and there. Perfect.
Dak's skin drags against his, lighting up all his nerve endings. Kendall leans his head on his shoulder, grinding their lower bodies together againagainagain. He wants a better range of motion, wants Dak to shed his obnoxiously elegant shirt and to strip off the costume bunched between his knees.
"Can you get off like this?" Dak asks, breath fast, voice measured.
"H'yeah," Kendall nips at the pale triangle of collar bone in from of him, and he doesn't sound even close to put together. "Can you?"
Kendall expects him to say no, expects him to say something about getting all worked up with nowhere to go, but instead Dak slides the thick of his cock against Kendall's a few times and gasps, "Yes."
His balls are tight, squeezing painful, and Dak is sexy, ruined, pink lips gaping open and closed as he works himself against Kendall. The crevasse of heat between his thigh and his dick and his hipbone is damp with sweat and precum, and he kisses Kendall again honey-slow and sloppy.
“Next time,” he says against Kendall’s mouth, low and husky, “Next time I want to fuck you. I want to see how good you take it.”
“Who says there’s going to be a next time?” Kendall shoots back, but now the sun burns beneath his skin, turning him hot and needy. He peers between them to catch sight of the twinned heads of their dicks, moving without rhyme or reason, sliding slow and making his head dizzy with stars. He could turn around right now and let Dak slip inside him, let him go deep. His body tenses up imagining Dak’s thickness, the wet red infiltrating where only Carlos has ever touched.
Kendall is close, teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall into black and gold sky. When he comes out the other side, he’ll be rendered new, metamorphosed into a boy no one will recognize.
Dak directs Kendall's dick towards his perfectly starched black shirt. "Come on me," he pants, losing composure, finally falling apart. "Don't want any of it on the suit."
Kendall isn’t sure why that’s what gets him, the idea of mussing up the pristine picture of Dak’s shirt, painting watercolor stripes of cum across starched black. He has quicksilver in the pit of his stomach that grows brighter and more volatile with the frantic rut of Dak’s hips against his.
Dak’s hands grip bruises like exotic blossoms into Kendall’s biceps, his teeth scraping rough over Kendall’s lower lip. Their breathing is ragged, not at all harmonious, and Kendall’s skin pricks with light. He comes babbling expletives into the corner of Dak’s mouth, bad words that reverberate through the other boy-man’s throat and tremors through his stomach.
Dak slides through the frieze of clear-white Kendall created on his clothes, caught between rough fabric and slick skin, and when he lets go it has mostly rubbed off on Kendall’s skin. He tries to catch what he can in his hands, but it seeps between the curve of flesh connecting his fingers, trickles down the flex of his wrist and drips onto the fabric bunched at his knees.
“Shit,” Dak curses lowly. “I didn’t mean to - we should get you dressed.”
A mask of brisk professionalism slides into place, and Kendall can’t help but find it absurd with Dak’s dick still pressed up against his, soft and warm. He manages to keep his thoughts to himself, sliding his sensitive cock against Dak’s once just to feel him shiver before he leans fully back against the Jennifers’ prep tray.
Their skin sticks at separation, the pull a little painful. Kendall says, “About that setting me on fire thing…”
“I won’t let you burn,” Dak murmurs, his eyes big and earnest. He strokes the inside of Kendall’s forearm. “Trust.”
Kendall barely manages a nod. Trust is not a thing he is great at, but he’ll try. He wants to try. It’s exhausting seeing everyone as an enemy, and he believes that Dak really does want him to keep on breathing, if only because he is convinced that Kendall can be his masterpiece.
Relieved, Dak lets go. Not just of Kendall, but altogether, dismissing the sex drenched air and the uncertainty stretched between them and the whole damn prep room. He is lost in his own vibrant world of imagination, stranded in a far off horizon where Kendall really is a boy who can burn.
Dak wasn’t lying about Kendall’s need to get suited up. While they were occupied, time wore the robin’s egg blue from the sky to reveal the graphite gray beneath. Night is closing its claw around the Capitol as Dak walks Kendall to the loading bay, where twelve chariots lie ominously in wait. Through the gaping maw of the training center’s bay doors, Kendall can see daylight’s last stand. Every time clouds pass overhead, they cast a visible shadow on the mountainside. It’s bizarre, being able to see their passage on the ground and in the sky.
“Are you ready?” Dak asks as they approach District Twelve’s chariot. James is already there, clothed in an identical tar black suit. Aubrey hovers near his elbow, and Kendall swallows back something sharp, but it settles behind his breastbone and refuses to leave.
Dak couldn’t get his jumpsuit completely clean; there is still dried cum sticking to the inside of Kendall’s thighs. So what right, exactly, does he have to sharp feelings where James is concerned? He swallows again and tells Dak, “Not even a little bit.”
All the same, he lets Dak guide him into the chariot’s bed. He doesn’t bother greeting James, but the slight goes unnoticed. Dak and Aubrey have distracted them both with torches of - what Dak assures them is - synthetic fire. Kendall cringes when the torch touches down, certain he’s about to burn to a crisp for all of Panem to see. This trust thing is hard.
But not impossible, because Dak, true to his word, does not let him burn. The flames do little more than tickle. James stares at his own arms in awe, while Kendall is more distracted by the way the fire highlights the dramatic charcoal makeup on James’s face. He’d almost forgotten that the Jennifers put some on him, too. The whole time he was with Dak, was he equally as demonic, like a creature of power and fury?
He turns to Dak, whose smirk flickers with the shadows, mimicking the torch and the suits. Dak mouths, “Beautiful,” and in his head Kendall interprets it as, I told you so.
As they were preparing, the Tribute Parade had already begun, first One in dazzling costumes made of semiprecious stones, Mercedes and her District partner wearing diamond-hard smiles. Then Two, Logan and his partner - Camille, was it? - decked out in gold battle armor, shining and brilliant. They are greeted with cheers so loud and rowdy that Kendall wants to shrink in on himself. How many people are out there, slavering like dogs, wishing all of them dead?
Kendall misses Three when the coal-coated horses pulling his chariot whinny and snort, beginning to trot, but he catches a last glimpse of Four, the female Tribute with seashells strung through her hair. Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten go in quick succession, and the next thing Kendall knows, the chariot in front of him is racing away.
“Try not to smile,” Dak warns.
The chariot lurches beneath Kendall’s feet. The cheering grows closer. He says, “Not a problem,” because smiling is the last thing he feels like doing.
As they emerge into the night, James finally asks, “What’s wrong with your hair?”
Kendall has no idea. It’s not until they’re out in the open, broadcast on the giant screens placed across the circle that he can see what James means. He looks like a dark, wild thing. He looks ravished.
And he is on fire.
Kendall has never felt particularly strong without a bow in hand, but now he radiates raw force, and more. He can see Dak’s handprints all over his body, glowing beneath the flames and the body suit.
He wonders if James can too.
Kendall holds his head up, proud, defiant, and it is only then that he hears the hush that has fallen over the Capitol crowd. There is a silence so deep and profound that it makes Kendall’s ears ring. Strange faces, strange colors, strange mouths all blur between horror and rapture.
“I think they think we’re really on fire,” James hisses, a muscle in his jaw jumping. Kendall isn’t looking at him, but he can see it on one of the giant TVs. “Hold my hand,” James orders, fingers already tangling with Kendall’s. The body suits only extend to mid wrist, and James’s hand is warm, callused, his long fingers familiar in a way they should not be after so little time.
His touch stirs up a tornado in Kendall’s stomach, makes a place behind his collarbone feel ember-warm.
“What, why?” Kendall attempts to pull back. James won’t let him. He raises their twined fingers straight up in the air, a never before seen show of solidarity that has the added bonus of proving neither of them are being flambéed from the outside in.
The Capitol eats it up, shock evolving to pure delight and then applause so thunderous that it is a roar; it shakes the concrete and spooks the horses into speeding their pace.
Kendall tugs futilely at his hand. “You’re not going to let go, are you?”
“Nope,” James replies cheerfully, squeezing. “C’mon, Knight. Glare at all of our adoring fans.”
So Kendall does, because this is what is expected of him. He shall give Panem a show before he dies, and this Tribute Parade will go down in history, in legend; no one will forget the boys from District Twelve, the boys who were on fire.
---
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/Dak (heavy on this chapter), Kendall/James, Kendall/Carlos, James/Logan, Logan/Mercedes, possible Logan/Kendall, James/Aubrey, possible a lot of pairings
Rating: M
Part: Five
Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4
Word Count: 5,452
Summary: breila_rose: "I think the only thing thg was missing was some hot boy porn."
Author's Notes: This started out as a joke. On ffn, a very nice author is writing a BTR/Hunger Games crossover. Which was super inspiring. So inspiring that I had this awesome idea, which Courtney later summed up nicely (thus she is quoted in the summary): sex. Why not have the boys fuck everywhere? So. Uh. Yeah. This happened. And then jblostfan16 so very nicely compiled it into a word doc and edited and told me to post this shit. So I am. This is still, basically cracky text fic. It just has the added bonus of, well, chapters. And voyeurism. As for this chapter, um. I've had it laying around since Mayish, but also in May, I broke my phone at Hogwarts (obviously JK sensed me cheating with Suzanne). My phone being where I write this thing. And a good chunk of it was on my phone, and I just never really got around to getting it off until now. So. Uh. Here?
---
"Morning, sunshine." Kendall moans as his comforter is ripped clean from his grasp, pale sunlight speckling his calves and thighs. He glares sleepily up at Gustavo, who mostly has the nerve to appear pleased with himself. "You wanted some mentoring, so you're getting some. First lesson, fix your face."
The back of Kendall's eyes throb, painfully, as he tries to roll them. He settles for burrowing into the sanctuary of his pillows. They enfold him in their fluffy, downy arms, beckoning him back to oblivion. He's had less than two hours of sleep, haunted by nightmares of mine explosions, dimpled, knife-wielding Careers, and a version of James who hoarded all of his bread like a miserly king. Sometimes he would peer down from his ciabatta throne and give Kendall this disappointed frown that made him feel like facing down Mercedes with a machete would be infinitely preferable. He'd only just found his way into blissful, dreamless peace when Gustavo barged in all cheerful.
And sober.
He cruelly rips the pillows from beneath Kendall's head and says, "Beddy-bye’s over, dog."
"Go away." Kendall futilely attempts to block out the sun with his arms.
"Nope. Up, up, up."
"Why are you channeling Miss Collins?" He groans into the soft skin of his own underarm.
"Because, silly," and this time it is Miss Collins' perky cadence piercing his ear drums, "It's a big, big day."
"Can't you go harass James first?"
"James," Gustavo announces, "Does not have an unfortunate, you know." He waves his hand in Kendall's general direction.
Kendall sighs. "There's nothing wrong with my face."
"Oh no, dear, Gustavo's right," Miss Collins says, most of her attention occupied by the vase of flowers by Kendall's bedside table. He hadn't even noticed them last night, too busy hating his room, the suites, and the entire Capitol to take any pleasure in the simple white blooms. He thinks they are roses.
"What?" He touches the curve of his cheek. Gustavo smirks. That mostly pisses him off, "This isn't a beauty pageant."
"Oh, but it is." Miss Collins beams.
“No, but. How can Gustavo be right? My face is my face. You can’t fix it.”
Kendall’s only just realizing that his chest is bare. His nipples stand at attention, pink-brown, aureoles ringed by goose bumps. He tries to swipe for the comforter, but Gustavo holds it deftly out of his reach. His scowl deepens.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Miss Collins sing songs, caressing a rose. She sighs, “These are lovely. The president has the nicest garden in Panem.”
“The president?”
“He sends ‘em to all the Tributes.” Gustavo’s expression is that of a man who has stepped in something very unpleasant. “Don’t go getting a big head about it, sweetheart.”
“Right, because that probably wouldn’t help the whole dilemma with my face. Which is?” Kendall prompts. He’s not like, vain, or anything. But he’s also not hideous. The implication that he might be is really offensive.
Cheerily, Miss Collins says, “Oh, that. Right there.”
“…Where?” Kendall pats down his cheeks again, searching for a flaw beneath the surface of his skin. All he feels are dimples and the barest trace of scruff, patchy in its growth.
Miss Collins smiles. She’s utterly serene, way calmer than she was the night prior, which mostly makes Kendall wonder if she drank that bottle of wine she ran off with. She pinches his cheek and chides, “Turn that frown upside down.”
Seriously? Kendall bites the inside of his mouth to keep from spitting nasty words. Miss Collins keeps on tugging at his skin, trying to force a smile. Gustavo says, “You can be as grumpy as you want. On the inside. But if I’m going to go through all the trouble of getting you sponsors, I’m going to need you to be bright and shiny on the outside. That’s how you get people to like you.”
“A smile’s going to get me sponsors?” Kendall asks dubiously.
“It can’t hurt. Glaring at everyone like you wish they would drop dead, on the other hand, isn’t winning you any fans.”
“I haven’t been glaring,” Kendall retorts, which may or may not be true. “I just look like this.”
“That’s a problem. If you value your ass, I’d recommend that you stop looking like that. Immediately.”
“No one likes a surly Tribute,” Miss Collins counsels gently, trying to soften the blow.
“Tonight, at the Tribute Parade, we want you to do this,” Gustavo jabs his index fingers in the corners of his mouth, stretching his lips into a grotesque grin. “Not this.” He proceeds to dip his fingertips down, down, down in a horrible parody of Kendall’s face.
Kendall rubs the bridge of his nose. “Fine.”
“Fine?” Miss Collins and Gustavo echo, skeptical.
“I said fine,” he snaps. “Now could you two maybe leave? I feel like I’d enjoy this conversation more over breakfast. Wearing actual clothes.”
Gustavo shakes his head. “This is what I’m talking about, whelp. You need an attitude adjustment, quick.”
Kendall throws his only remaining pillow straight at his mentor’s face. Gustavo dodges, easy, and ushers Miss Collins out of the room in a haze of thick perfume. Kendall slumps back against his headboard and sulks. Objectively he gets that he has no choice but to play the Capitol’s game. Gustavo’s right. He’s going to need help in the arena, and if he doesn’t dazzle on TV, he’s not going to get any. Dilemma is, Kendall doesn’t want to be a pawn. He is too proud, too arrogant, too convinced of his own righteousness to willingly play along.
But.
He promised Carlos and Katie he’d come back alive.
Plus he’s super fond of his ass.
He reluctantly clambers out of bed, engaging in a brief scuffle with the comforter discarded on his floor before making it to the shower. There, he throws the only protest he’s allowed, soaking in the scalding water for close to thirty minutes while jacking off slow to fragmented images of Carlos, James, Mercedes, and Logan. By the time Kendall dries off, he’s ready to follow whatever instructions Gustavo and Miss Collins give him. He sits through breakfast, obedient, sitting straighter, chin held higher, flashing a smile at thirty second intervals.
“Not so toothy. Unless you want to eat us,” Gustavo says, doing his own fair share of glaring. Noon rolls around with no sign of James, but Kendall does not ask after him. They aren’t friends. He said it, and now he has to commit to it. He focuses on trying on different, less-toothy smiles for his audience. Mostly they seem dismayed by his efforts, although Miss Collins is nicer about it than Gustavo, who cracks open a bottle of liquor on the twelfth go.
An hour later, Gustavo is completely skunked, throwing around insults that make Kendall feel pretty homicidal. He’s saved by his prep team, who whisk him off for another fun round of humiliation and shallow gossip. Most of the manscaping is blissfully over with, but today’s mission seems to involve making Kendall glow.
“Dak’s orders,” Shimmery Jennifer informs him while she cheerfully yanks his hair this way and that. Lavender Jennifer bemoans his stubbly skin. She goes to town with a razor that slices dangerously close to his skin and then slathers him with some kind of special serum that stops hair growth.
“You’ll have a baby face for the arena,” she tells him, like reverting to pre-pubescence is something to take pride in.
Exfoliating is next on her agenda. Kendall squirms beneath her massaging hands while Tattooed Jennifer files Kendall’s nails into perfect ovals. She says, “Your District partner is way easier to handle.”
“You’ve seen James?” Kendall perks up, despite himself.
“Sure,” she drawls, tossing her pin-straight hair over one shoulder. Her dark eyes gleam, amused. “He’s been next door with Aubrey and her team all day. Mostly with Aubrey.”
All three of the girls laugh, a lewd edge to the sound that makes Kendall’s throat constrict. “What do you mean?”
Jennifer’s eyebrows lift into her hairline, her grin Cheshire-sly, but she doesn’t answer. Kendall wrangles his hands from her cool grip. “I have to piss.”
There’s a restroom right there in the prep hall, but Kendall argues for privacy.
“It’s not like we haven’t already seen everything,” Shimmery Jennifer stresses, her cat eyes narrow.
“A man deserves secrets!” Kendall does his best Katie-imitation, stomping his foot and trying to school his expression so that he is very, very stern. The Jennifers agree to leave his side for point five seconds so he can find some relief. Only, peeing is the last thing on Kendall’s mind. There’s a door in the far corner, near the gigantic swimming pool of a bathtub, which leads straight to the adjacent prep room. Kendall didn’t pay it any mind before, but now that he knows James is assuredly in there…it can’t hurt to look. Just to see what the Jennifers were on about. Because what they were implying was dumb. James wouldn’t, would he? Not with some Capitol minion, not when he has so much disdain for the Careers and Miss Collins.
Kendall cracks the door, opening it a millimeter at a time so that it won’t make a noise. He shouldn’t have worried. The room is empty. He makes to close the door when a wet noise grabs his attention. A splash in the bathtub, right around the corner of the doorframe, out of sight.
The room is not empty.
Kendall cranes his head through the gap, careful not to knock the heavy metal door aside. He listens to the whisper of breath, drip of bath oils and water, water that ripples, spreading out from their pale bodies. Aubrey- this must be Aubrey- has curls the color of cinnamon and sloe eyes rimmed dark with kohl. Her face is neutral, analytical as she rocks down against James, lower body obscured by the rainbow sparkle of bubbles. Kendall can’t actually make out much of James, other than the broad span of his naked shoulders, glistening wet, the line of his neck and the damp hair at the nape, bleeding up into more familiar red-brown-gold. He can see the place where James’s slender fingers dig into the jut of Aubrey’s ribs, and he can almost make out the circle of James’s lips, the way he’s totally into this gorgeous girl riding his dick.
Kendall thought that James wouldn’t, but James is. More so, he’s enjoying the fuck out of it, from what Kendall can tell. He’s struck by how acutely he does not know his District partner. He does not watch. He has learned his lesson about voyeurism, and this doesn’t turn him on. It makes something sick slither through his stomach; slime that turns sharp every time it touches upon a vital organ. Kendall closes the door with the softest of clicks.
Is James flushed red inside of that girl, slickwetshiny?
Is he harder for her than he got for Kendall?
Whatever. Kendall had the opportunity to get up close and personal with James’s dick, and he didn’t want it. Nothing’s changed. Even if some random stylist has gotten to see what Kendall has only glimpsed in dark, shadowy flashes in the quavering vestibule of a train that moved too fast, so fast, taking him away from everything he’d ever known. He refuses to care.
Refuses.
It doesn’t stop him from getting testy when the Jennifers flood back in with their boundless energy. Come sunset and Dak’s arrival, at least one of them has tried to stab Kendall with the business end of a metal nail file.
“It’d be better if you stopped trying to alienate them,” Dak advises, after they’ve gone.
“Easy for you to say.”
“They’re on your side. They want you to win.”
“So they can go to the Victory parties.”
“Maybe.” Dak lifts his shoulders, a casual shrug. “Does it matter why your allies are allies?”
“I guess not,” Kendall decides. It’s not like he’s got enough allies to be choosy, after all.
Dak beams. He pulls Kendall’s Parade costume from where it’s been hanging in an otherwise empty closet, zippered inside a milky sheet of plastic. “Ready to be stunning?”
“I’m ready to look ridiculous.”
Dak’s lips purse with instant reproach. He’s dressed in simple black again, elegant without effort. His hair is artfully disheveled. He’s attractive.
Better looking than Aubrey.
“Sorry,” Kendall apologizes. “Gustavo says I need to stop glaring. I’m working on it.”
“He’s right. At least for now. You’ve got sparks in your eyes.” Dak thumbs over his cheekbone. His smile is cocksure and perfect and he is so very close. “That’ll come in useful at training. You can scare away all the competition.”
“Am I scaring you away?”
Dak’s smile grows. “No.”
Kendall is caught in his magnetic gaze, the gold of his eyeliner making flecks of the same pop in his irises.
“Close your eyes,” he commands, and Kendall does. He’s all about cooperation now. He breathes through his nose, listening to Dak wrestle with the plastic cover. Something heavy and malleable slides over Kendall’s naked ankle, molding instantly to his skin.
“It’s cold,” he hisses.
Dak chuckles and lifts Kendall’s other foot. “It’ll be worth it.”
He does something strange then, skin brushing against Kendall’s instep. It’s only once it’s over that he realizes the touch was from Dak’s lips.
“You’ll be my finest creation.”
"Do I want to be your creation?” Kendall asks, fighting not to open his eyes.
Dak’s hands still. Simply, he replies, “Yes.”
There is so much weight in that single word that Kendall’s can’t help but consider it. He imagines Dak cutting a pattern from his skin, recreating him as a boy who is the black and gold of the sky, perhaps, or a man who trails the white hot sheen of sparks. Dak pulls Kendall’s costume up and over his knees, his fingers pausing over the inside of Kendall’s thighs. “Stand up.”
Kendall rises up out of his industrial, Capitol-issued seat, metal scraping against the tile. Leather sticks to his bare flesh, struggling to hold Kendall in its embrace. Dak’s touch falls away, but he’s close. His breath mists against Kendall’s neck.
“Can I see yet?”
“You’re not even dressed.” Dak laughs, a gust of sweet air tickling the lobe of Kendall's ear. His proximity is disconcerting, unfamiliar. Dak is a stranger, more so than James, who Kendall passed a million times at school or on his way to the Hob or during trades at the bakery. There's a degree of peril here, as Dak inches Kendall's costume up the white of his thighs, vulnerability of such magnitude that Kendall's heart jumps like a jackrabbit beneath his ribs.
The careful path of the District uniform Dak has crafted halts before Kendall's hips, when the supple fabric catches against less compliant parts of his anatomy. Dak attempts to rectify the snag, the heel of his hand sweeping across Kendall's balls. The tiny gasp that leaves Kendall's lips is as clear and melodic as a mockingjay's song. He sways instinctively towards the heat radiating off Dak's body, inhaling deep without meaning to. Dak smells good, spicy, and it sends desire trickling straight down to Kendall's dick.
All he can see is a veil of black with the occasional lightning strike of color behind his eyelids, but Dak is not so inhibited. He notices the half hearted twitch of Kendall's cock. He huffs a laugh. "Problem?"
"Nope," Kendall replies, but it is strangled, invisible hands choking off his windpipe.
"Are you sure?" Dak mostly sounds amused. Pleasantly, he continues, "I'm great at problem solving."
"Is there anything you're not great at?" Kendall inquires, tone jokey. He's trying for civil, but civil is hard to maintain. Storm clouds brew in his head, mortification and lust and a hint of rage churned to a froth. Why does everyone seem to find it so delightful that he can't get a handle on his own hormones?
"Nope," Dak answers, mocking, low. His offer of an assist is too close to James's the night prior, James, who at this exact moment is still probably nailing his stylist a few feet away, past the thick prep room wall. That makes Kendall angrier, rumbles thunder in his stomach.
Kendall can’t stop himself. His eyes flick open, and there’s Dak, his face bathed in shadow, the bone shine of his cheeks and his nose and his brow. "You're going to ruin the surprise."
Kendall glances down. Pooled beneath the insistent weight of his cock, he can make out shiny, black material. A jumpsuit of some kind?
"It doesn't look like coveralls," Kendall says, relieved. He still scans the room for a hard hat.
The corners of Dak's lips hitch up. "Wait 'til you see it on fire."
"On what now?"
"I'm lighting you on fire," Dak says. "Everyone will see what I see."
"Me, dead?" Kendall squeaks, abruptly way less horny. He is not a fan of this idea. At all. In any way, shape, or form.
"Calm down." Dak grabs for Kendall's jaw, directing his attention squarely back on his face. Kendall's pulse jumps, his entire body on edge. The weird lighting of the prep room makes Dak's features glow, carved of light and darkness, like a beautiful statue. He is intense, but earnest. He murmurs, "It's in my best interests to keep you breathing."
"Until the arena," Kendall grouses, distracting himself from the metallic flecks drifting in the midnight sky of Dak's irises. They draw all the illumination from the room, black holes. If Kendall let himself, it would be easy to get lost in their vortex.
"Longer than that, ideally. I'm not going to all the trouble of lighting you up just to see you extinguished," Dak replies levelly. He pauses. The moment stretches between them, a loose thread, waiting for Dak's careful hands to snip it. "Will you still punch me if I kiss you?"
Kendall bites back, "I thought I wasn't your type."
Even as he says it, he's drawing Dak into him, folding his arms around his neck. He doesn't give himself time to think about all the reasons why he shouldn't. Of all the poor decisions he's made in the past two days, Dak is the most innocuous. He isn't looking for friendship or love, and he's got a vested interest in Kendall's continued survival. The only count against him is his status as a Capitol lackey, but if James can do it, why can't Kendall? Besides, he's lonely and scared and mad and naked and really, really turned on, and the thing about racing heartbeats is that they always race better in pairs.
Dak doesn't have any objections; he sighs contentedly against Kendall's lips as though this is exactly what he's been waiting for. Kendall is cautious at first, not as used to being the aggressor as he would like, but not even close to willing to back down. He doesn’t have to do much to coax Dak’s lips open, to convince him to kiss back. Dak treats Kendall like he’s already on fire, like he has an ember burning in the pit of his stomach that he would like to douse. He swallows down Kendall’s moans whole, invading his personal space, not even the least bit embarrassed about it.
Kendall stumbles, back, back, back, tangled in the half of the black unitard rucked around his thighs. Of all the places he has been in the Capitol so far, this is the most sterile. All the surfaces other than the chair are hard, unforgiving. It’s no wonder James and Aubrey chose the bathtub to fuck in. Dak crowds Kendall against one of the Jennifer’s prep tables, scattered with makeup brushes and sharp instruments that clatter all over the floor, a symphonic accompaniment to the way their hips hitch together with slow, painful friction.
Kendall is naked where it counts while Dak is all buttoned up and that’s not fair at all. When Dak mutters, “Unzip my pants,” he’s quick to obey, fingers on the front fastening while Dak peppers kisses that melt like snowflakes against the skin of Kendall’s throat. Kendall arches into the shape of Dak’s lips, pulsing warmth. Dak isn’t wearing a stitch beneath his slacks. He is warm and hot and very, very visible in the circle of Kendall’s fingers, standing at attention with ease. He’s longer than Carlos, but not as thick, and comparisons have no place here anyway. Kendall tries moving his hand, quick and easy.
Dak says, “It’ll work easier like this.”
He brings his fingers to his mouth, pushing past his own lips and sucking each digit in turn. Kendall draws in a ragged breath, watching as Dak’s skin is coated wet, glistening beneath the fluorescent white light. Half cast in shadows and gold, he reaches down between them and holds Kendall fast, grip sure. He draws his fingers across the stretch of Kendall’s cock, the slickness making his palm skid easily over the shaft. Dak steps even closer, fitting his own thigh between Kendall’s, touching their dicks together.
“We could fuck,” Kendall offers, even though he likes the idea of getting off like this, between the rigid metal of the Jennifer’s prep table and the unrelenting heat of Dak’s body.
“Not enough time,” Dak mumbles back, already reclaiming Kendall’s lips. He pushes his cock into Kendall’s hand, so that he has them both, pressed from base to head all flushed and needy. Kendall tries to jerk them both off, but it’s hard, too much, and not enough space. Dak is kissing Kendall deep, skillful, and all Kendall can do in return is inhale deep, as if he’s trying to craft a Dak shaped lung inside his own body. He pushes up into Dak’s grip, kneading his free hand against Dak’s ass, tugging him closer. Dak fucks up into the hole of Kendall's hand and hits the sparse hair of his belly because they're just practically connected, which, yes. Good. Kendall maneuvers himself so that he's stroking Dak but mostly rutting himself against the shape of his own knuckles, the head of Dak's dick, and the indent of his hipbone. He hasn't gotten off like this since he and Carlos first started fooling around, too scared to stick their fingers into unknown territory, too urgent to do anything individually.
He licks along the shape of Dak's lips, the rugged line of his jaw, the shell of his ear. Dak grunts and bites out at Kendall, catching the corner of his mouth. Lipping against skin, Dak grips Kendall's biceps for better traction, and mostly it makes Kendall think this would run smoother sans his clumsy fingers. He extricates his hand, damp with saliva and precum, from the equation and there. Perfect.
Dak's skin drags against his, lighting up all his nerve endings. Kendall leans his head on his shoulder, grinding their lower bodies together againagainagain. He wants a better range of motion, wants Dak to shed his obnoxiously elegant shirt and to strip off the costume bunched between his knees.
"Can you get off like this?" Dak asks, breath fast, voice measured.
"H'yeah," Kendall nips at the pale triangle of collar bone in from of him, and he doesn't sound even close to put together. "Can you?"
Kendall expects him to say no, expects him to say something about getting all worked up with nowhere to go, but instead Dak slides the thick of his cock against Kendall's a few times and gasps, "Yes."
His balls are tight, squeezing painful, and Dak is sexy, ruined, pink lips gaping open and closed as he works himself against Kendall. The crevasse of heat between his thigh and his dick and his hipbone is damp with sweat and precum, and he kisses Kendall again honey-slow and sloppy.
“Next time,” he says against Kendall’s mouth, low and husky, “Next time I want to fuck you. I want to see how good you take it.”
“Who says there’s going to be a next time?” Kendall shoots back, but now the sun burns beneath his skin, turning him hot and needy. He peers between them to catch sight of the twinned heads of their dicks, moving without rhyme or reason, sliding slow and making his head dizzy with stars. He could turn around right now and let Dak slip inside him, let him go deep. His body tenses up imagining Dak’s thickness, the wet red infiltrating where only Carlos has ever touched.
Kendall is close, teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall into black and gold sky. When he comes out the other side, he’ll be rendered new, metamorphosed into a boy no one will recognize.
Dak directs Kendall's dick towards his perfectly starched black shirt. "Come on me," he pants, losing composure, finally falling apart. "Don't want any of it on the suit."
Kendall isn’t sure why that’s what gets him, the idea of mussing up the pristine picture of Dak’s shirt, painting watercolor stripes of cum across starched black. He has quicksilver in the pit of his stomach that grows brighter and more volatile with the frantic rut of Dak’s hips against his.
Dak’s hands grip bruises like exotic blossoms into Kendall’s biceps, his teeth scraping rough over Kendall’s lower lip. Their breathing is ragged, not at all harmonious, and Kendall’s skin pricks with light. He comes babbling expletives into the corner of Dak’s mouth, bad words that reverberate through the other boy-man’s throat and tremors through his stomach.
Dak slides through the frieze of clear-white Kendall created on his clothes, caught between rough fabric and slick skin, and when he lets go it has mostly rubbed off on Kendall’s skin. He tries to catch what he can in his hands, but it seeps between the curve of flesh connecting his fingers, trickles down the flex of his wrist and drips onto the fabric bunched at his knees.
“Shit,” Dak curses lowly. “I didn’t mean to - we should get you dressed.”
A mask of brisk professionalism slides into place, and Kendall can’t help but find it absurd with Dak’s dick still pressed up against his, soft and warm. He manages to keep his thoughts to himself, sliding his sensitive cock against Dak’s once just to feel him shiver before he leans fully back against the Jennifers’ prep tray.
Their skin sticks at separation, the pull a little painful. Kendall says, “About that setting me on fire thing…”
“I won’t let you burn,” Dak murmurs, his eyes big and earnest. He strokes the inside of Kendall’s forearm. “Trust.”
Kendall barely manages a nod. Trust is not a thing he is great at, but he’ll try. He wants to try. It’s exhausting seeing everyone as an enemy, and he believes that Dak really does want him to keep on breathing, if only because he is convinced that Kendall can be his masterpiece.
Relieved, Dak lets go. Not just of Kendall, but altogether, dismissing the sex drenched air and the uncertainty stretched between them and the whole damn prep room. He is lost in his own vibrant world of imagination, stranded in a far off horizon where Kendall really is a boy who can burn.
Dak wasn’t lying about Kendall’s need to get suited up. While they were occupied, time wore the robin’s egg blue from the sky to reveal the graphite gray beneath. Night is closing its claw around the Capitol as Dak walks Kendall to the loading bay, where twelve chariots lie ominously in wait. Through the gaping maw of the training center’s bay doors, Kendall can see daylight’s last stand. Every time clouds pass overhead, they cast a visible shadow on the mountainside. It’s bizarre, being able to see their passage on the ground and in the sky.
“Are you ready?” Dak asks as they approach District Twelve’s chariot. James is already there, clothed in an identical tar black suit. Aubrey hovers near his elbow, and Kendall swallows back something sharp, but it settles behind his breastbone and refuses to leave.
Dak couldn’t get his jumpsuit completely clean; there is still dried cum sticking to the inside of Kendall’s thighs. So what right, exactly, does he have to sharp feelings where James is concerned? He swallows again and tells Dak, “Not even a little bit.”
All the same, he lets Dak guide him into the chariot’s bed. He doesn’t bother greeting James, but the slight goes unnoticed. Dak and Aubrey have distracted them both with torches of - what Dak assures them is - synthetic fire. Kendall cringes when the torch touches down, certain he’s about to burn to a crisp for all of Panem to see. This trust thing is hard.
But not impossible, because Dak, true to his word, does not let him burn. The flames do little more than tickle. James stares at his own arms in awe, while Kendall is more distracted by the way the fire highlights the dramatic charcoal makeup on James’s face. He’d almost forgotten that the Jennifers put some on him, too. The whole time he was with Dak, was he equally as demonic, like a creature of power and fury?
He turns to Dak, whose smirk flickers with the shadows, mimicking the torch and the suits. Dak mouths, “Beautiful,” and in his head Kendall interprets it as, I told you so.
As they were preparing, the Tribute Parade had already begun, first One in dazzling costumes made of semiprecious stones, Mercedes and her District partner wearing diamond-hard smiles. Then Two, Logan and his partner - Camille, was it? - decked out in gold battle armor, shining and brilliant. They are greeted with cheers so loud and rowdy that Kendall wants to shrink in on himself. How many people are out there, slavering like dogs, wishing all of them dead?
Kendall misses Three when the coal-coated horses pulling his chariot whinny and snort, beginning to trot, but he catches a last glimpse of Four, the female Tribute with seashells strung through her hair. Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten go in quick succession, and the next thing Kendall knows, the chariot in front of him is racing away.
“Try not to smile,” Dak warns.
The chariot lurches beneath Kendall’s feet. The cheering grows closer. He says, “Not a problem,” because smiling is the last thing he feels like doing.
As they emerge into the night, James finally asks, “What’s wrong with your hair?”
Kendall has no idea. It’s not until they’re out in the open, broadcast on the giant screens placed across the circle that he can see what James means. He looks like a dark, wild thing. He looks ravished.
And he is on fire.
Kendall has never felt particularly strong without a bow in hand, but now he radiates raw force, and more. He can see Dak’s handprints all over his body, glowing beneath the flames and the body suit.
He wonders if James can too.
Kendall holds his head up, proud, defiant, and it is only then that he hears the hush that has fallen over the Capitol crowd. There is a silence so deep and profound that it makes Kendall’s ears ring. Strange faces, strange colors, strange mouths all blur between horror and rapture.
“I think they think we’re really on fire,” James hisses, a muscle in his jaw jumping. Kendall isn’t looking at him, but he can see it on one of the giant TVs. “Hold my hand,” James orders, fingers already tangling with Kendall’s. The body suits only extend to mid wrist, and James’s hand is warm, callused, his long fingers familiar in a way they should not be after so little time.
His touch stirs up a tornado in Kendall’s stomach, makes a place behind his collarbone feel ember-warm.
“What, why?” Kendall attempts to pull back. James won’t let him. He raises their twined fingers straight up in the air, a never before seen show of solidarity that has the added bonus of proving neither of them are being flambéed from the outside in.
The Capitol eats it up, shock evolving to pure delight and then applause so thunderous that it is a roar; it shakes the concrete and spooks the horses into speeding their pace.
Kendall tugs futilely at his hand. “You’re not going to let go, are you?”
“Nope,” James replies cheerfully, squeezing. “C’mon, Knight. Glare at all of our adoring fans.”
So Kendall does, because this is what is expected of him. He shall give Panem a show before he dies, and this Tribute Parade will go down in history, in legend; no one will forget the boys from District Twelve, the boys who were on fire.
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