fic: pokerface
fic: pokerface
fandom: btvs(/hunger games)
characters: dawn, katniss, buffy, scoobies
word count: 1400
prompt: dawn/katniss broshippiness for happyg_rl at the october meme
setting: (key-verse) post-The Gift; Dawn questions her life, finds a ruby, and begins to dream of a place where she can mourn her sister with a girl who provides her exactly what she needs.
a/n: mostly a dawn-piece that focuses on the emotional turmoil she was left in after buffy's death. this is a mourning piece, with sisterhood and friendship and hope woven in. completely unnecessary for you to be familiar with hunger games canon or characters. also there is a stray cat.
[Denying someone their self-sacrifice is like kicking a puppy in a room full of old grannies knitting in their rocking chairs.]Sometimes she jumps.
In the moment right when her sister’s face finds peace, she tears past her and hurls her body over the edge. It is funny how she always waits for that look in Buffy’s eye, waits for the breath that finally comes easily after so many years of fighting before ripping it away.
Denying someone their self-sacrifice is like kicking a puppy in a room full of old grannies knitting in their rocking chairs.
(Or at least that’s what the dreams seem to be telling her.)
After the fall, a single drop of her blood fell from her wrist and landed on the platform at her feet. She watched it slowly make its way to the cold metal beneath her. It lay gleaming, intact, a single red ruby shining up at her.
She left it there. Made her own, long, slow decent into the unknown.
They thought they were ripping worlds apart, they had no idea how right they were.
She stared down at her sister’s body and couldn’t understand, above a drop of her blood lay silent and waiting, below her world was shattered and dead. How could she keep on bleeding if the world had ended? How could she keep on flowing if there was no universe left that could hold her together?
No one took the time to explain the metaphysics of the situation she found herself in. She thought maybe there wasn’t an answer. Tara found her curled up in a ball in the bathtub the morning of her first period after the fall. She couldn’t even cry, just kept whispering how to the air - as if it were the answer and not the question. She never tried to open herself up to see if she was still pumping something other than air through her veins. She fell on gravel and scraped her knee and the blood ran red just like it was supposed to. She wondered if it was another trick of the monk variety.
She wondered if she cared.
She went back to her tower night after night, like Rapunzel searching for the safety of a place she once called home. What the difference an hour can make in the span of one’s life.
That drop of blood, the impossible bead that fell from her even as the doors she opened closed, lay on her platform intact, shining, perfect, alive.
It should have dried.
It should be a speck of brown memory lying forgotten and dead on the ground.
She scooped it into a tiny glass canister Janice kept on a chain full of glitter for her pixie-hunter Halloween costume, left behind in times when she still felt like a girl and not a walking wax doll stuffed with corn syrup and red dye.
She wore it on a chain around her neck, her ruby of life.
She stopped wondering why and how she was still breathing.
She started dreaming of something other than her own undeath.
She called it the white room sometimes and the Matrix other times (both of which confused Spike, who was the only person around these days to make pop culture jokes with and the only one who didn’t ever have a clue what she was talking about… which seemed less sad every time she stumped him). Anya threw books on lucid dreaming on her and every night Tara reminded her to find a blue bubble if she felt scared or threatened.
Eventually they all forgot about her weird dreams wandering around a blank page and she grew bored, began a search for the seams.
Everything has a beginning and an end.
(Except her.)
She never found a wall or a seam or an ending, but she did find a door.
She woke herself up laughing. Fresh tears streamed down her face.
It took her another three weeks to find the door again - if it was even the same one.
After all that searching, she was too afraid to open the damn thing.
She spent the next three days trying not to sleep.
Living was easier without mysterious doors that won’t give her the answers she wants anyway.
Sleep prevailed because she was still human after all. (Ain’t that just a kick in the ass?) And she found herself standing in front of a door with no walls. She walked all the way around it, even though she knew it wouldn’t matter because it was a fucking dreamscape after all. Dreams don’t follow human laws. Everyone knew that.
Behind the door was just another white room. Another Matrix. She didn’t dare look down at herself and see if she was wearing all black leather or her pajamas. She wouldn’t have been able to say which would have been worse anyway.
Another white room with a girl dressed all in white. A thin girl with black hair, olive skin, and piercing grey eyes. She looked about as rough around the edges as Buffy did after an apocalypse.
Looked about as lost and defeated as she felt.
“Who are you?”
“My … I’m Dawn.”
“What are you doing here? Did the Capitol send you?” the dejection in her voice made the hair on the back of Dawn’s neck stand on end.
When she was young, right when they had moved to Sunnydale, she had found a stray cat in their backyard. Probably the abandoned kitten of the previous owner’s housecat. It was malnourished and riddled with fleas, feral and wild. Their mother wouldn’t let it into the house, but Buffy helped her coax it with tuna fish into the garage. They set up a box with some blankets and a bowl full of milk. The next day after school they ran in to check on it, but it was curled up in a damp corner - still shivering - the food and milk untouched. No matter what they did, the cat wouldn’t accept them, accept the food or comfort, kept clawing at the walls until finally their mother trapped it in a box and took it to a shelter. There, a nice woman with tired eyes explained that sometimes people left out poison food to kill off the local cat population. Sometimes, she explained, these feral cats were never capable of rehabilitation, too much time in constant threat of danger left the poor things unable to understand anything different.
There was something about the girl that reminded her of that cat from so long ago - a haunted expression, a defiance even in an act of defeat.
“I don’t know anything about a capital… You’re kind of in my dream.”
The girl narrowed her eyes and shrunk to the floor, “Haymitch is right. I’m going crazy.”
“If you than me. And I’d prefer to think myself sane, thanks.”
“I’m Katniss.”
“Why are you in my dream, Katniss?”
“Why are you in mine?”
For reasons unknown to her, Dawn never mentioned the thin girl behind the door to the others. They were too busy whispering in shadows and avoiding her gaze anyway.
There were some things she wanted to keep to herself.
(The ruby of living blood glittered against her chest, daring them to notice, to inquire, to worry, to investigate.
They didn’t.)
Together, they learned to control the expanse of white.
Dawn taught her how to play Scrabble and Monopoly.
Katniss taught her to shoot a bow and arrow.
Dawn taught her what she knew of swords.
Katniss taught her all the folk songs she knew.
(It was almost like her world didn’t fall broken at her feet.
It was almost like …)
“Dawn? Do you have a sister?”
They never talked about anything personal. Kept each other at arm’s length. They were already sharing dreams, it seemed dangerous to share anything more. Neither one of them seemed capable of sharing much more than space and the pieces of their lives that seemed less likely to injure them when they were given away.
“I mean… I’m just trying to… you seem-”
“She’s dead.”
“Mine, too.”
“It sucks. Out there. Every day is like the first.”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe that’s why we have here?”
“I thought if I said it out loud…”
“It’s your turn to deal.”
“This game is ridiculous.”
“It’s poker. It’s all about tricking your opponent.”
“Over cards?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Dealer takes two.”
The blood she carries in a glass bottle on a chain around her neck glints and shines as bright as a jewel.
She keeps on breathing, her blood keeps on flowing, she keeps on living.
She stops dreaming, wishing for death. Starts seeing answers in new days and piles of laundry and overdue math homework; starts seeing questions for what they are and leaving them where they arise.
“Flush!”
“Full House. I win.”
a/n: okay so this is the second mourning piece that I've written for this meme and I swear I'm not hiding some inner personal angst, I guess it's just a theme that I'm feeling right now? NO CLUE.
fandom: btvs(/hunger games)
characters: dawn, katniss, buffy, scoobies
word count: 1400
prompt: dawn/katniss broshippiness for happyg_rl at the october meme
setting: (key-verse) post-The Gift; Dawn questions her life, finds a ruby, and begins to dream of a place where she can mourn her sister with a girl who provides her exactly what she needs.
a/n: mostly a dawn-piece that focuses on the emotional turmoil she was left in after buffy's death. this is a mourning piece, with sisterhood and friendship and hope woven in. completely unnecessary for you to be familiar with hunger games canon or characters. also there is a stray cat.
[Denying someone their self-sacrifice is like kicking a puppy in a room full of old grannies knitting in their rocking chairs.]Sometimes she jumps.
In the moment right when her sister’s face finds peace, she tears past her and hurls her body over the edge. It is funny how she always waits for that look in Buffy’s eye, waits for the breath that finally comes easily after so many years of fighting before ripping it away.
Denying someone their self-sacrifice is like kicking a puppy in a room full of old grannies knitting in their rocking chairs.
(Or at least that’s what the dreams seem to be telling her.)
After the fall, a single drop of her blood fell from her wrist and landed on the platform at her feet. She watched it slowly make its way to the cold metal beneath her. It lay gleaming, intact, a single red ruby shining up at her.
She left it there. Made her own, long, slow decent into the unknown.
They thought they were ripping worlds apart, they had no idea how right they were.
She stared down at her sister’s body and couldn’t understand, above a drop of her blood lay silent and waiting, below her world was shattered and dead. How could she keep on bleeding if the world had ended? How could she keep on flowing if there was no universe left that could hold her together?
No one took the time to explain the metaphysics of the situation she found herself in. She thought maybe there wasn’t an answer. Tara found her curled up in a ball in the bathtub the morning of her first period after the fall. She couldn’t even cry, just kept whispering how to the air - as if it were the answer and not the question. She never tried to open herself up to see if she was still pumping something other than air through her veins. She fell on gravel and scraped her knee and the blood ran red just like it was supposed to. She wondered if it was another trick of the monk variety.
She wondered if she cared.
She went back to her tower night after night, like Rapunzel searching for the safety of a place she once called home. What the difference an hour can make in the span of one’s life.
That drop of blood, the impossible bead that fell from her even as the doors she opened closed, lay on her platform intact, shining, perfect, alive.
It should have dried.
It should be a speck of brown memory lying forgotten and dead on the ground.
She scooped it into a tiny glass canister Janice kept on a chain full of glitter for her pixie-hunter Halloween costume, left behind in times when she still felt like a girl and not a walking wax doll stuffed with corn syrup and red dye.
She wore it on a chain around her neck, her ruby of life.
She stopped wondering why and how she was still breathing.
She started dreaming of something other than her own undeath.
She called it the white room sometimes and the Matrix other times (both of which confused Spike, who was the only person around these days to make pop culture jokes with and the only one who didn’t ever have a clue what she was talking about… which seemed less sad every time she stumped him). Anya threw books on lucid dreaming on her and every night Tara reminded her to find a blue bubble if she felt scared or threatened.
Eventually they all forgot about her weird dreams wandering around a blank page and she grew bored, began a search for the seams.
Everything has a beginning and an end.
(Except her.)
She never found a wall or a seam or an ending, but she did find a door.
She woke herself up laughing. Fresh tears streamed down her face.
It took her another three weeks to find the door again - if it was even the same one.
After all that searching, she was too afraid to open the damn thing.
She spent the next three days trying not to sleep.
Living was easier without mysterious doors that won’t give her the answers she wants anyway.
Sleep prevailed because she was still human after all. (Ain’t that just a kick in the ass?) And she found herself standing in front of a door with no walls. She walked all the way around it, even though she knew it wouldn’t matter because it was a fucking dreamscape after all. Dreams don’t follow human laws. Everyone knew that.
Behind the door was just another white room. Another Matrix. She didn’t dare look down at herself and see if she was wearing all black leather or her pajamas. She wouldn’t have been able to say which would have been worse anyway.
Another white room with a girl dressed all in white. A thin girl with black hair, olive skin, and piercing grey eyes. She looked about as rough around the edges as Buffy did after an apocalypse.
Looked about as lost and defeated as she felt.
“Who are you?”
“My … I’m Dawn.”
“What are you doing here? Did the Capitol send you?” the dejection in her voice made the hair on the back of Dawn’s neck stand on end.
When she was young, right when they had moved to Sunnydale, she had found a stray cat in their backyard. Probably the abandoned kitten of the previous owner’s housecat. It was malnourished and riddled with fleas, feral and wild. Their mother wouldn’t let it into the house, but Buffy helped her coax it with tuna fish into the garage. They set up a box with some blankets and a bowl full of milk. The next day after school they ran in to check on it, but it was curled up in a damp corner - still shivering - the food and milk untouched. No matter what they did, the cat wouldn’t accept them, accept the food or comfort, kept clawing at the walls until finally their mother trapped it in a box and took it to a shelter. There, a nice woman with tired eyes explained that sometimes people left out poison food to kill off the local cat population. Sometimes, she explained, these feral cats were never capable of rehabilitation, too much time in constant threat of danger left the poor things unable to understand anything different.
There was something about the girl that reminded her of that cat from so long ago - a haunted expression, a defiance even in an act of defeat.
“I don’t know anything about a capital… You’re kind of in my dream.”
The girl narrowed her eyes and shrunk to the floor, “Haymitch is right. I’m going crazy.”
“If you than me. And I’d prefer to think myself sane, thanks.”
“I’m Katniss.”
“Why are you in my dream, Katniss?”
“Why are you in mine?”
For reasons unknown to her, Dawn never mentioned the thin girl behind the door to the others. They were too busy whispering in shadows and avoiding her gaze anyway.
There were some things she wanted to keep to herself.
(The ruby of living blood glittered against her chest, daring them to notice, to inquire, to worry, to investigate.
They didn’t.)
Together, they learned to control the expanse of white.
Dawn taught her how to play Scrabble and Monopoly.
Katniss taught her to shoot a bow and arrow.
Dawn taught her what she knew of swords.
Katniss taught her all the folk songs she knew.
(It was almost like her world didn’t fall broken at her feet.
It was almost like …)
“Dawn? Do you have a sister?”
They never talked about anything personal. Kept each other at arm’s length. They were already sharing dreams, it seemed dangerous to share anything more. Neither one of them seemed capable of sharing much more than space and the pieces of their lives that seemed less likely to injure them when they were given away.
“I mean… I’m just trying to… you seem-”
“She’s dead.”
“Mine, too.”
“It sucks. Out there. Every day is like the first.”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe that’s why we have here?”
“I thought if I said it out loud…”
“It’s your turn to deal.”
“This game is ridiculous.”
“It’s poker. It’s all about tricking your opponent.”
“Over cards?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Dealer takes two.”
The blood she carries in a glass bottle on a chain around her neck glints and shines as bright as a jewel.
She keeps on breathing, her blood keeps on flowing, she keeps on living.
She stops dreaming, wishing for death. Starts seeing answers in new days and piles of laundry and overdue math homework; starts seeing questions for what they are and leaving them where they arise.
“Flush!”
“Full House. I win.”
a/n: okay so this is the second mourning piece that I've written for this meme and I swear I'm not hiding some inner personal angst, I guess it's just a theme that I'm feeling right now? NO CLUE.