#fuck Alma coin

[cringecanto]

my sexuality headcanons for the madrigals change like the seasons, but the constants are lesbian isabela and bisexual alma

[imaginesheaven]

GN!Reader x Valeria Garza – sibling’s love

Synopsis: Valeria has her Las Almas Cartel. You are one of the Los Vaqueros. Unfortunately, the two of you are twins. So, one day when TF 141 comes to arrest El Sin Nombre, you are confronted with your own family. It will be a hell of a ride to tell your mother, when both of you visit her for dinner together.

Here, something quick I wrote because I couldn't get it out of my head *haha* Please, let me know if you enjoyed it :)

Callsign: Doberman

Warnings: Swearing; violence

Length: ~1.5k

It wasn’t really a pleasant situation how you found out that Valeria – your own fucking twin – is the leader of the Las Almas cartel. Alejandro and Rudy had a long conversation who is actually going to tell you in person, because they knew you would be mad. In the end they just flipped a coin. Alejandro lost unfortunately. It’s an understatement that you were fuming with anger.

“VALERIA!”, you burst into the conversation between Graves and your sister. “You two know each other?”, Phillip looks at you with dislike since you interrupted him. “Ah, we are even closer than that. Same bloodline, eh?”, Valeria winks at you.

Alejandro and Rudy have a hard time to hold you back as you curse a whole lexicon of Spanish swear words over her. “That’s how you greet your long-lost twin, (Y/N)?”, she still knows how to push your buttons. Such a sibling thing of her.

“You disgrace our family. Father would turn around in shame in his grave because of you, pendejo”, you reply playing the same game she does. Valeria leans forward now the one who swears in Spanish; ready to pounce any second.

Graves puts his hand on her shoulder to keep her in the chair. “Get your fucking hand of her, gringo!”, you yell at Graves hating him from the second you first saw him. Valeria leans back in her seat. Something like proud shines in her eyes, “See? Don’t fuck with my little Doberman. I’m well protected.”

For a second your hand curls around the handgun by your side, then you raise your hands in a defensive gesture, “Tell them what you know, Valeria.” With that you turn around to leave before your short fuse will blow up finally.

“Fine, I will. We see each other Thursday for dinner at Mother’s place~”, she yells so you still can hear her words. You don’t turn around or stop. This is going to be the worst week of your whole damn life.

Valeria called you her little Doberman for most of your life, since you were always there to protect her. She is actually the older one for about a minute, but you took your task of keeping your twin safe very seriously. Both of you are very dangerous soldiers. Back when you served together side by side, you were a dream team. Until the day she betrayed you and the army.

Valeria would never admit it out loud that she actually missed having you by her side. She is also a bit jealous how Alejandro and Rudy held you back. It’s like they are your family now. Well, she can understand it after what she has done.

After Graves’ betrayal you didn’t want to be on the team with Alejandro and Gaz to secure Valeria. But what can you say? She is still family. You hate how proud and confident she looks as you put her into the car to bring her to the next prison. “I will be free in 24 hours”, Valeria smiles at you innocently. Both of you know that she tells the truth.

Thursday arrived. You hoped with all you have that Valeria would not be at the dinner with your mother, but no one heard your silent prayers. Your mother opens the door more than happy to see you alive and in one piece, “Come in!”

There she is; sitting at her old place at the dinning table with a glass of wine in her hand. Valeria opens her mouth to greet you, but you raise your hand to stop her right away, “Don’t talk to me, pendejo.”

“What are those manners, (Y/N)?!”, your mother puts her hand onto her chest. “Yes, my little Doberman. Why did you arrest me?”, Valeria smirks knowing exactly how to turn a little flame into a breaching fire. Family is the highest priority for your mother.

“You are fucking El Sin Nombre! I’m militaria! I can’t let you go because we are family!”, you sit down opposite of Valeria. Your mother watches the two of you with furrowed eyebrows, “You arrested Valeria? And you are the cartel leader? Dios mio!”

Your sister leans forward to emphasize her statement, “I just do what it needs to protect you two!” For a second you can see the old Valeria sitting there. “You almost shot me last week”, a slight smirk appears on your lips.

Your mother gasps loudly, “VALERIA! THIS IS YOUR FAMILY!” Your twin rolls her eyes annoyed, “I did miss, right? If I wanted to shoot you, I would have done it.” Laughing you grab the wine bottle from the table, “You were never as good at shooting as me, Val. A few things will never change apparently.”

In the same moment both of you put your handguns onto the table, showing each other no mercy. Just like the fucking old times. Neither of you would hesitate for a second to pull the trigger. It has always been like that.

“NO HANDGUNS ON THE TABLE!!”, your mother yells through the entire room. Both of you flinch with the intensity she still rules the house. “Sorry, mother”, you mumble under your breath and holster your gun quickly. Valeria does the same without any apology just like always. There only two or three things she is actually sorry about.

“If you are going to kill each other, at least after eating! I cooked all day long for you”, your mother shuffles into the kitchen.

Valeria and you keep shooting each other death glares over your plates. When your mother doesn’t look you kick each other underneath the table. Neither of you is going to back down like a true Doberman.

The rest of the dinner actually runs way smoother than thought. Of course, both of you help your mother with the dishes. Your mother puts on her favorite record as she swells in the happiness to have you both back safely.

“You missed a spot”, Valeria exclaims and points her finger at the plate in your hand. “Shut up, it’s clean!”, you still try to suppress your anger at her, but she keeps pushing you. Probably hoping to find your breaking point.

“I will tell Mom that it’s not clean”, she grins at you. Without a word you slap her hand hard so she lets go of the plate. It shatters on the floor into thousand pieces. “MOM! VALERIA BROKE ONE OF THE PLATES!”, you return the winning smile at her.

“No! I didn’t! You did that!”, Valeria tries to explain as your mother comes into the kitchen to find the mess on the floor. “Dios mio! Those are the good plates, Valeria”, she leans down to pick up the shards. Smirking you flip Valeria off with your soapy hands. Of course, behind the back of your mother. She would get a heart attack for sure.

Your twin rolls her eyes annoyed and throws the wet rag into your direction. “No fighting in the house, you two! You can beat each other outside. Do what you have to do to get out your anger”, your mother shushes both of you out of the kitchen. Valeria takes her chance to trip you on the way towards the front door.

“FUCKING HELL! You make me go haywire!”, you raise your hand to smack her square in the face. Suddenly your mother grabs your ear and Valeria’s to bring you down onto her level. She will always have enough strength left to lecture you two.

“I want you to get things right. Like I said: fight, shoot or whatever. I don’t care, but no killing each other. I will see both of you next Thursday to dinner again, comprende?”, she releases both of you with a slight smile on her lips, “Great! Have a nice evening. Love you!”

Without a further word you stumble outside with Valeria right behind you. For a moment you stare at each other, ready to blame the other one for this mess. Valeria starts first to laugh and you can’t help but join her.

“Well, that was fun. See you next Thursday, my little Doberman!”, she makes her way towards the black car that waits already for her. You don’t want to admit it, but you kind of look forward to it.

[showmethesneer]

Now admittedly, I haven't watched the video essay yet, but i saw some fan theory circulating that Lucy Gray Baird is President Coin...

What in the flavoured fuck do you mean?

Do i think she escaped and survived Snow? Absolutely. Not even a question. Do i think she stumbled upon District 13 in her post-mockingjay massacre wandering? I definitely thought about it. It seems likely.

Do i think the music-in-her-veins nomadic performer who couldn't keep her head down at the reaping for five minutes without causing a scene... lived for 60 years in joyless, super militaristic, underground society with no fucking sunlight and no fun? And also became the leader of said lifeless civilization and continued to rule it as such? And then suggested another fucking Hunger Games after the Hunger Games were destroyed?! You must be fucking high.

I know it's cute to think about all the ways in which Lucy Gray and Coriolanus were each other's fucked up little origin stories, and how President Coin is literally the other side of Snow's coin. But Alma Coin is not Lucy Gray. That is literally fucking absurd.

[kahlanmars]

BAD FEELING part. 20

Hi!! Next chapter is here, the song mentioned is obv from our lord and saviour Taylor Swift.

Comments make me happy!

MASTERLIST

20. Safe and sound

If Finnick weren’t there, you would be dead right now. You are sure you could never walk so fast, but the blonde guy just lifted Marjorie and tossed her through the door like she was a potato sack.

Not very classy, but efficient.

The door closes behind you with a loud noise and you begin to shake so hard it hurts you.

«She needs medical help, her ankle is broken or something. Maybe twisted.» You order. You don’t know anything about medical help, even if your mother is a midwife. You should have listened to her more, you should have been more focused.

You risked the life of a kid, perhaps multiple kids, just because you talked without thinking. “Come to me”, like you are a great warrior. You are nothing, even Marjorie almost died because of you. So caught up in your perfect little love fantasy to think about anything else, you are selfish, and you are a murderer. A killer, you killed Clark, you killed that guy in Capitol City, you…

«Daisy, please, Daisy breathe.» Marjorie looks at you, worried.

She is beautiful. You never thought about how beautiful she looks. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, so blue they are almost painful to watch. her family had a bakery you now remember, maybe she is related to Peeta, same colours. 

You look… normal, in comparison. Pretty. Not beautiful, you are plain. Plain and you are not even good, you are evil, you are selfish, you deserve it. You deserve all the bad things that happened to you. 

«I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault I’m sorry…» You begin to say and she rolls her eyes before hugging you. She would never do something like that if you weren’t panicking. 

«You are a little shit and I don’t like you, but this is not your fault.» She reassures you and pats your head. You like honesty. She is as honest as… Well, they grew up together after all, it’s only natural.

The first bang is unexpected. You cover your ears and you watch her as she is taken by the nearest couch to get medicated. The attack has begun.

There are other people. Finnick with Annie, the president Alma Coin, Plutarch Heavensbee, guards you don’t recognize. Haymitch is not here, and neither is Katniss or the other victors. Maybe Katniss is in the Capitol trying to rescue Peeta, you are not part of the revolution, they don’t tell you anything.

You can just wait.

The second bang is terrifying. You are not afraid of dying, that is not the first thought. You are afraid the other bunker is not safe. If you die you can have peace with it. If you live and the people in the higher bunker die, you will never have peace. You can see their faces. Effie, Portia, Lora, Perla, your mother, and heaven knows if Alex came back. You didn’t make it up to your mother. You didn’t say goodbye to Effie, she will never know how much she means to you. And where the fuck is Haymitch? If somehow he knew you weren’t in the bunker and he got out to look for you, or for Marjorie… he is not fit, he can’t survive. If he dies, if Holly dies, if Effie dies…

You try not to cry simply because you are alone, and you don’t want Annie to get more upset, but you end up catching your breath because you feel like you can’t breathe anymore. Your heart pumps so loud now your ears are hurting and maybe they are bleeding and maybe you are dying. 

No. You are noy dying. You remember Effie’s words, this is not a heart attack, it’s a panic attack. You just have to calm yourself.

You think of Dianna, when you were seven. Sweet tea in the summer, playing pirates and singing old songs in the meadows. Happy memories. 

There was a song you always played together, an old song from district twelve you forgot with time.

Just close your eyes, the sun is going down, you’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now, come morning light, you and I’ll be safe and sound.

You can breathe a little better now.  

«Daisy?» Marjorie looks at you tentatively. She must have said something you didn’t catch. 

«Mh?»

«I said you have a good voice.»

«Oh, thank you.»

You didn’t realise you were singing. You bet you sound like a crazy person, singing in a bunker when bombs are exploding in your face.

«Did your mother teach you?» 

Holly used to teach you everything. You didn’t grow up with a father, it has always been you and her. When she adopted you she was so young you can’t imagine it right now, barely legal but in District 12 a mother is better than nothing, so nobody said anything against it, not even the peacekeepers. It was quite usual for the families that were slightly richer to adopt a kid if they didn’t have any, so that the child could help them, work in the fields with them or in the mines. Nobody ever took the girls, though. The girls weren’t useful if not at home, cleaning and babysitting the other children, and for the most part it was a burden that mothers could hold alone. 

Holly Pinecone came from a long line of midwives. Grandmother, who died before you could meet her, was a midwife too. Still at the time it didn’t make any sense that she adopted you at twenty, when she could still get married and have children. It didn’t make sense to anybody except her.

«Mommy! Look! That’s a plant we can use!» You screamed, so happy you could be helpful. Now you know you couldn’t really be helpful at five, she must have indulged you in believing you have found the plants.

«Yes, and what’s the name of this plant?» You tortured your poor raven braid trying to think. Holly told you a hundred times. You couldn’t disappoint her.

«Sagittaria!»

«Very good! And what’s that?» She asked with a wide grin, a smile you matched as soon as you saw the flower.

«That’s a daisy. That's me!»

«Come here, little one.» She put the flower in your hair. «Beautiful girl.» 

You were quite beautiful, everybody used to tell you that. Big hazel eyes, raven hair always in a braid, clean clothes. You were well behaved enough to always smile at the strangers and you were so quiet it was actually nice to have you around. That was the main goal for Holly, that everybody could love you, so they would have protected you in case of danger. 

«Thank you for saying that.» You answered like she instructed you to, being kind was the first thing for Holly. Well behaved. «Can we sing tonight?»

«What do you want to sing?» She asked, well knowing the answer. 

«Safe and Sound!»

«Always that song. Okay, we can sing before bed time.» She caressed your hair. «Now search for edible plants with me.»

«Among other things.» You murmur.

«She loves you so much. She always wanted a kid.» 

That’s the thing, she wanted a kid. And you stayed a kid until Effie called your name, jumping at her commands like a trained dog. 

«She loves me.» You are not sure she likes you. «Do you think we are safe? Do you think they are safe?» 

«The district was prepared.»

After what you think it’s an hour, but are in reality probably minutes, the bombs stop. 

You can’t believe you survived. You hear the mechanical voice like it comes from heaven. 

The blast doors will open in one minute. Please, remain calm and proceed in orderly fashion out of the bunkers.

As soon as everybody’s free to go out you try to recollect yourself to find your family, but Haymitch is faster than you. Which is news.

«Where were you?!» He is angry and his hands are shivering, he looks paler than usual. He brings you in his arms. «I came into the bunker and you weren’t there. Holly didn’t know where you were, Effie didn’t know where you were. I lost it at Effie. She always knows where you are.»

You pull him tighter. «I got trapped out and Finnick saved me.» Saved us. You will tell him in a minute, now you want him all for you. And maybe you won’t tell him everything, or he will kill the guard and you don’t want him to face consequences. 

«Don’t you ever, ever do that again.» He whispers in your ear.

«Wasn’t exactly my plan…» 

«I don’t care. You won’t be in danger ever again. I’ll make sure of that.» He puts a straw of hair over your ear, almost sweetly. «Couldn’t handle it.»

«You got up in the first bunker for me.» You state. 

He shrugs. «You wouldn’t have left Effie alone.» 

Your heart stops at these words. He would have risked everything to stay with you. You jump to reach his lips and pull him in a passionate kiss that makes you blush, also because when you try to catch a breath he kisses you again, even rougher. 

I love you. You almost let it out.

«I was scared of losing you too.» You whisper instead, «I didn’t know where you were, I got so scared.»

«I’m here now, I’m here.» He closes his eyes with you in his arms, his nose buried in your hair. «Never again.»

«I have to go find my mom. I have to go to Effie!»

At least now Holly will be happy you saved her dearest friend.

«And I have to go to see Peeta. They are coming.»

«Peeta is coming back?» You ask, suddenly a lot happier.

«That’s the plan.» He kisses you again. Despite everything, the bombs and President Snow and the attacks, you can see he is happy to see his not-son again. That’s the man who doesn’t want children.

«I want to see him too, after you.» You ask. You are quite fond of the guy. «I have to talk to Plutarch about what happened, can I see you tonight? We have a lot to catch up on.» You snuggle against his neck. 

«I have a meeting with President Coin, but after that I’m all yours.» He lifts you up to kiss you better. He still smells like woods, alcohol and tobacco, which is impossible since Thirteen doesn’t allow any kind of indulgences and you have been underground for a month now.

You want to talk to Holly, but after a brief hug with Effie and Portia (and Alex, who thanks you again and again instructed by his mother) you approach Plutarch Heavensbee. You don’t like him, that’s the man who wanted you to be collateral damage, so it’s only natural you don’t love him. Still, better him than President Coin, that woman scares you.

«Plutarch, can I have a word?» You approach the blonde guy, who is reluctant to be stopped by you but your face must be worried.

You quickly explain what happened, and he nods. «We will relocate him, don’t worry.»

Relocate him?

Relocate him?

«I’m sorry but that is the man who nearly killed two people because he didn’t get laid, and you want to relocate him?» You reply, stunned. You expect this behaviour from the Capitol, from Snow. 

«I get your point, however we can’t lose force at this particular moment.» He tries to explain to you like you are a kid. To him you probably are a kid.

«You will lose forces when he kills someone because he didn’t have the last cookie!» You snap.

«Daisy, you can’t confirm your story.» He argues, but you are raging right now. 

«Marjorie was with me!» It’s impossible they didn’t ask her and you don’t believe she lied, so what is the truth? They simply don’t care?

It’s normal they don’t care for you, you are not even from Thirteen and you don’t expect them to have empathy, but Caius is dangerous for everybody. 

«Can you please lower your voice?» He asks, and you force yourself not to jump his throat. You don’t speak like that to a tribute. It’s dangerous. 

He won’t do anything. You can see in his eyes that he doesn’t want to lose a guard in his precious war, and it doesn’t matter if he leaves a man like this alone. He is no better than Snow, he was his games master after all. He was born and raised in Capitol City, and not everybody changes like Effie Trinket.

It’s okay, you think, you don’t need him. You can do it alone.

Turns out Peeta is not good. He has been tortured, and they did something to him so right now he doesn’t know what is real or not real anymore, and he thinks Katniss is the enemy. The kind, gentle hearted boy who offered you hot chocolate is gone. 

When you open the door to reach for him he is staring at the wall, with watery eyes and an expression of pure pain.

«Babe…» You try to come closer, but you don’t want to interfere.

«He has been tortured. They wiped out his memory. They transformed him into a mut. He is lost.»

«No! No, we can still-»

«He is lost, Daisy!» He shouts. You try not to take a step back. «And it’s my fault.»

«The doctors here are great.» You argue.

«You knew Peeta. He was better than me, better than Katniss, better than you, better than anyone. And he paid for all of us. He is not coming back, he will never… come back. Fuck, I need a drink.»

This time you go for a hug, even if he doesn't want it he needs it, and when he wraps his arms around you he does something you could never think of, he starts crying. He cries and cries in your arms, exhausted. 

«It is my fault, Sweetheart, all my fault.» You swoon him stroking his hair. Peeta has been taken by Snow, Snow is to blame, not him. He only tried to save everybody.

«It is not.» You whisper in his ear. «Everything will be okay. Believe me.» 

Will it be? You can lie to him, but you don’t see how it could be okay. Katniss is broken hearted, Peeta’s memory is gone, and Thirteen’s government is exactly like Capitol City. You feel like you are fighting a tyrant with another one.

You stay in his embrace until he falls asleep, and you slowly follow him. 

It is you who wakes him up this time, screaming like every night. You don’t even remember what you were dreaming about, but you hear your heart in your ears.  

«Sweetheart, it’s me, sweetheart, it is a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare.» He caresses your cheek. «Just a nightmare.»

«I’m sorry…»

«Don’t be.» You breathe a little, still shocked. «You were calling for your mother.»

«Really? Not you?»

«Nah-ah, Holly.» He lies down again, taking your hand. «Are you still in non speaking terms?» 

«I just want my mom back, but I can’t bow down to what she thinks it’s okay for me. Dear Heavens, I have a job, I have a purpose, I have you. I don’t think I’m that bad.»

He strokes your hair and you almost purr in content, closing your eyes. That emotion is much better than rage from your mother.

«Maybe you are punishing her too.» He says tentatively. 

«Punish her? For what?»

«You needed her and she wasn’t there. You asked for her in your dreams before the games. You called her again and again while you were sleeping.»

You look at him. «She couldn’t be there, it’s not… it’s insane.»

«You knew that, but our mind… our mind does not work that way. She guaranteed for all your life that if you were kind and polite the things would have been fine. This didn’t happen, and she couldn’t help with it, she wasn’t there. Effie was. Effie helped you. So maybe your mind said “Ok, one good, one bad”.» He shrugs. «I’m not a shrink, don’t believe a word of what I’ve said.» 

«That actually makes sense.» You don’t humour him, it makes sense. You are not sure you like it but it makes sense.

«Even a broken clock…» He dismisses it. 

You lean to kiss him better, and you touch his chest. «What a wise man, my man.» 

«Your man.» He repeats against your lips. He is smiling now, actually smiling and you want to keep it this way at least for an hour or so. Peeta is not fine and you will handle this together. That doesn’t mean he has to die under the responsibility alone, that he couldn’t smile anymore. 

«Must be the old age.» You joke, but he suddenly pushes you against the mattress.

«I’ll show you old age.» He grumbles and rolls on you, causing you to giggle a little, tragedy almost forgotten for the night. 

taglist: @crimsonincursive

[eliaparadiso]

Alma Coin NSFW Alphabet

Why did I make this? Well I refuse to believe I am the only person who wants to be railed by this woman.

Warnings: Smut, BDSM 

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Quiet, she gets quiet. She’ll immediately get out of bed and get back to work or find something to busy herself with. She’ll get you a glass of water and then send you on your way or if you are staying in her unit let you go to sleep.  

B = Body part (their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Your hips. They are her favourite thing to touch and grab.

Her shoulders and biceps, she might not look it but she is strong, she is after all a soldier first and a president second.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

She’ll lick her fingers after she’s fingered you but will very rarely go out of her way to taste either you or herself.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

She loves to have you eat her out under her desk, and fantasises about having you do it during a meeting.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

She knows what she is doing and does it with almost military precision.

F = Favourite position (this goes without saying)

Missionary. It gives her access to most of your erogenous zones and it’s easier to keep you open and spread for her.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? Are they humorous? etc.)

She doesn’t have time to joke. She is a woman on a mission and there is no time for laughter.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? Does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Full bush

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

She’ll give you some nice soft kisses, at most whisper that she loves you but true intimacy is not something she has the ability to handle anymore.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

She used to do it all the time during her reflection period, now with the rebellion she has no time for that.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Praise, praise, praise and corporal punishment she likes to spank and punish

L = Location (favourite places to do the do)

Her room, occasionally her office but only late at night when no one would bother her.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Winning, she very much enjoys celebratory sex. But seeing you out of uniform will always elicit a response.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Force you, she may be your commander and President but she respects your boundaries. She’s not a capitolite.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Receiving, she prefers to finger you or fuck you with a strap on.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Quick. She likes to make you cum as quickly as possible and prefers you do the same. If you have a little more time she will make love so to speak.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Lives for them. Quick and dirty especially during your reflection period

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? Do they take risks? etc.)

No, most certainly not. It would be unprofessional for anyone to stumble upon you. Doors are always double locked.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

She always comes quickly, she won’t say no to a second round but rarely has time for more than one.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Yes, toys are practically mandatory in 13, sexual health is important. Vibrators and strap-ons and the occasional paddle will make their way into your coupling.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Only if you have been very very insubordinate will she tease. After all, only good little soldiers get to come.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Not a single sound, she’d rather bite through her own lip/hand then admit you can make her scream.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

She gets really excited when you call her Madam President or commander in bed.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

She wears the standard issue, white or grey underwear under her jumpsuit.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Average, unless she’s just pulled one over on the Capitol then expect to be pulled away from the festivities and on to your knees.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

If there is nothing left to do, almost immediately but especially with the rebellion and the constant refugee crisis she’s up later than you almost every night.

[lorata]

If Lyme in 74 could go back to when she was thirteen and do everything again, would she make any different choices?

ok real talk this ask is 18 months old but I have been chipping away at this fic since 2021 so anon if you're still here THANK YOU for the prompt that slowburn ate my brain for the better part of 2 years

(anon if you're long gone I don't blame you but I enjoyed it anyway)

(I don't have a title for this, MAYBE LATER)

Link to LJ if you prefer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claudius’ body lies heavy across her lap. His blood coats her hands, hot and wet and slippery and that’s his blood, his blood, she promised to protect him and now he’s dead. Alma Coin smiles down at her, mouth a mocking gash across her face, and asks for last words. Lyme spits into the dirt. She’d give anything for the Arena so she could take this woman down with her. "Go fuck yourself."

"Personally I think that's lacking that special something, but for a first draft I'll take it," Coin says. Then, almost lazily: "Fire."

Pain, sharp and hot and burning and then —

She jolts upright in bed, sweat-slicked and gasping, air slicing through her lungs like a fresh blade, both hands over her mouth to muffle a scream. A dream. Just a dream. No boots in the dark, no rifles glinting in the torchlight, no bodies of miners crushed beneath fallen rock. No ears ringing from explosions. No Claudius, falling stiff and silent to the ground with eyes wide and a mouth full of blood. He’s here, safe across the room and —

No.

No Claudius. No second bunk. No steel walls and dull, orange recessed lighting. A desk with books and papers stacked in the corner. Shoes — absurdly small — on the chair. Heavy oak dresser with a bedsheet tossed over the large vanity mirror. An open window casting tree shadows on the floor.

And numbers, thousands of numbers, scrawled across the walls in permanent marker: 33 - 16th, 10F, mutt attack. 10 - 3rd, 4M, exsanguination. 27 - 24th, 12M, blunt force trauma.

Twenty-five years of buried memories gush out like fallen intestines. “No,” Lyme says aloud. It comes out rough, the voice of a girl who’s spent years trying to make it sound lower, tougher, less like someone a few inches of hair away from pigtails and ribbons.

Claudius’ body lies heavy across her lap. His blood coats her hands, hot and wet and slippery and that’s his blood, his blood, she promised to protect him and now he’s dead. Alma Coin smiles down at her, mouth a mocking gash across her face, and asks for last words. Lyme spits into the dirt. She’d give anything for the Arena so she could take this woman down with her "Go fuck yourself."

"Personally I think that's lacking that special something, but for a first draft I'll take it," Coin says. Then, almost lazily: "Fire."

Pain, sharp and hot and burning and then —

She jolts upright in bed, sweat-slicked and gasping, air slicing through her lungs like a fresh blade, both hands over her mouth to muffle a scream. A dream. Just a dream. No boots in the dark, no rifles glinting in the torchlight, no bodies of miners crushed beneath fallen rock. No ears ringing from explosions. No Claudius, falling stiff and silent to the ground with eyes wide and a mouth full of blood. He’s here, safe across the room and —

No.

No Claudius. No second bunk. No steel walls and dull, orange recessed lighting. A desk with books and papers stacked in the corner. Shoes — absurdly small — on the chair. Heavy oak dresser with a bedsheet tossed over the large vanity mirror. An open window casting tree shadows on the floor.

And numbers, thousands of numbers, scrawled across the walls in permanent marker: 33 - 16th, 10F, mutt attack. 10 - 3rd, 4M, exsanguination. 27 - 24th, 12M, blunt force trauma.

Twenty-five years of buried memories gush out like fallen intestines. “No,” Lyme says aloud. It comes out rough, the voice of a girl who’s spent years trying to make it sound lower, tougher, less like someone a few inches of hair away from pigtails and ribbons.

She scrambles out of bed, nearly falls on her face when her feet hit the ground too soon. Kid’s bed, barely a foot off the ground. Her legs are gangly, strong calves from walking but not filled out yet. Lyme swallows back bile. Still a dream, still a dream, it has to be a dream —

Rest of the house is dark, quiet. Nothing but the refrigerator humming in the corner of the kitchen; the door cuts a swath in the line of empties on the floor when Lyme yanks it open. No food inside but there wouldn’t be, would it, she kept all her food in her bedroom. In a box in the back of her closet, hidden so he wouldn’t find it. Bread, apples, beans, milk and eggs in a wire basket in the stream out back. The rest of the vouchers will be under her bed, slipped in between the slats. Her stomach knots.

More memories, like water seeping in through boots with a crack in the sealant. The Centre used to give out calendars, shiny, glossy paper with pictures of pretty children grinning at the camera as they climbed the ropes course or tossed dodgeballs, posing with their arms around each other like they won’t be pulling hidden knives as soon as the photo shoot is over. Lyme (she will not think the other name) had one on the back of her door — and yes, once she returns, walking fast like the dark will nip her heels, there it is. This month the kids are racing on the grass, a brown-skinned girl in shorts with bandaids on her knees pumping her fist in triumph as she dashes across the finish line.

May. And one date five days away, circled in thick red marker with giant exclamation marks, the point jammed in hard enough to dent the paper.

Her birthday. Her thirteenth birthday.

“Fuck,” Lyme says, in her Games-damned preteen voice.

She snatches up a school notebook and flips rapidly past math notes interspersed with death list calculations to the first blank page. In five days Lyme — this Lyme, the body she’s found herself back in like an awful nightmare — will turn thirteen. At the time she cared about one thing, and one thing only, but Lyme has watched children and friends live nad die, has seen the country fall in flames, and there is context now, context bigger than a young girl’s escape to freedom. Lyme has long forgotten her age but she knows how long she’s been out, does the math and works it backwards: thirteen in May means the tail end of the 49th —

Brutus. Brutus has just won his Games. He’s there in the Village being the perfect little Victor, while his mentor promises him he’ll never have to go into the Arena ever again. Misha — 11 years old, still in Transition, bright-eyed and feral and burning with life.

And Claudius … Claudius isn’t even a year old.

Lyme’s fingers press in against the pen’s side until her knuckles cramp. Spring of 49 means the world is ramping up for the — fucking hell — Quarter Quell. Four of Two’s tributes will die this year, bloody and ignominious, and Haymitch Abernathy’s family sleeps safe in their house, a two-month countdown ticking down on their lives, unknowing. As do the five hundred-some-odd kids who will have died in brutal, bloody ways before Lyme’s life catches up with itself again.

“Okay,” Lyme says out loud. The sour taste in her mouth thickens. So she’s dead, and living this all again to — what, make the same mistakes? See it happen all over again? Or is this some fucked-up karmic chance to do things differently?

The walls press in, thick and close, and now she’s across the room, shoving up the heavy sash and scrambling up over the sill, twisting around and pulling herself up onto the roof. The lights of town spill over up into the sky, blotting out the lower rim of stars in an orange glow, but the constellations dance above her head as she stares straight up. She saw the Milky Way for the first time in her Field Exam, a spatter of light and colour like a bucket of paint splashed above the jagged tree line so beautiful she’d stopped and stared, camera-face forgotten.

She could do it again. Go back, live the next five years of her life in Residential. Redo all the kills, the isolation tests, the physical demands, the psychological scarring. Live the Arena again: kill all those children — and they would be children now, half her age or less — feel that guilt all over again. Remember every trick, every surprise, every Gamemaker’s changeup or mentor’s wildcard from every Arena over the last twenty years and try to save the ones she’d lost. Find Misha, find Claudius and try to save them again, sit through those awful, agonizing weeks knowing she’d done it once, knowing how close she’d been to losing everything — and how much it mattered that these ones, these ones made it.

Save Cato. Save Brutus. Save her country from splitting into pieces.

All she has to do is live it all again. And in the meantime, hundreds of children will be hacked to pieces on live television, thousands more will starve slowly in the districts, the sex trade brutalizes boys and girls and makes them blame themselves for their own victimization, all while the Capitol parties, the military power hidden in the mountains watches and waits for its time to strike and President Fucking Snow sips tea and gardens in his palatial mansion.

A scream tears its way out of her throat, scaring the crickets into stunned silence. Lyme drags her hands over her face and curls up on her side, fighting a sob. She jams it back into herself with violent force, tracking down every atom of helpless despair and transforming it into rage, because the old mentor’s maxim still holds true: once you start it’s very hard to stop, so don’t open that door unless you’ve got your kid in a place where it’s safe for them to come down.

Unfortunately for Lyme, her mentor’s dead in a pile of rubble. Or, alternately, he’s off in the Village prepping for the Quarter Quell with no fucking clue about the thirty-eight-thirteen-year-old having a fucking breakdown on her roof half a district away. Either way, he can’t help her now.

“Can’t do it,” Lyme says to the empty air. A cricket beeps in solidarity and falls silent. “Can’t do that again.”

She barely made it out the first time with ten deaths on her conscience. If Lyme has to do it all again and bear the weight of thousands she will burn the whole fucking place to the ground.

You know, boss, says a voice in her head that sounds a lot like Claudius, that’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.

Lyme sits up. Wipes her face. Stares down at hands that have never murdered anything worse than a stick with fresh green still in the wood.

“Okay,” she says again. This time it settles in her stomach, heavy like iron. Or — like a sword, its weight balanced in her grip. “Fuck. Okay.”

----------------------------

She’s gone by the time the man who thinks he’s still her father stumbles home.

----------------------------

She hitches a ride on the district train. Adult Lyme in teenage-Lyme’s body spends a good hour plotting how to sneak in, where to hide, how to avoid the train staff — before one of the men spots her and gives a friendly wave. “Hey Maddy,” he calls (the name shoves a dagger into the base of her spine but she stays still even as her lungs close). “Going in early today. Big city?”

And oh. Right. She’d been taking the train back and forth for years, for that last summer’s Reaping, for big-city clothes shopping, sometimes just to get away, and the train men never made her pay for it. Sometimes they pulled up a stool in the engine with them and let her watch over the controls. She used to love watching the train devour the track, the dust of her hometown disappearing in the distance behind her. “Just remember us when you win, eh, kiddo?” the conductor used to grin.

She’d forgotten, of course. Before she even stood on stage at the Reaping square. But today he’s there, and he waves, and Lyme swallows the bag of crushed glass in her throat and forces out a grin. “Got some paperwork at the main office,” she says, then, because she feels like she has to, “Five more days.”

“Attagirl.” He flashes her a thumb’s up. They’re the same age, Lyme thinks, this man now and the person she is inside her head. He might even be younger. “We got some sandwiches in the cooler up front, if you want to swing by and grab a couple. Paperwork can take a lot out of you.”

She laughs in spite of herself — the adult Lyme, not the adult-masquerading-as-kid — because boy does it ever, but the good thing is, he can’t tell the difference between a real one and a twelve-almost-thirteen-year-old faking it, half to stay on their good side and half because underneath it all she liked that they’d treated her like a grownup. (They hadn’t, of course, she can see that now. They’d treated her exactly like they should — with respect, but still a kid. But at the time it felt like they did, and that made all the difference.)

Did they recognize her when she strode onto the stage five years from now, new clothes, new name, a good head taller? Where are they now, in the version of Lyme’s life where she’s lying dead under the mountain? What is their place in Alma Coin’s future?

Lyme grits her teeth and grips her rucksack straps as she follows him down the narrow aisle.

----------------------------

Misha told her once, how she broke into the Peacekeeping office after hours on a dare, to steal her own arrest record and bring it back to impress one of the girls in Residential. Lyme isn’t stupid enough to try that, but one thing Misha told her is that the beat-keepers are pattern-finders. Here in Two — here in the city in Two especially — they’re busy people, but they aren’t pushed to the limits of their cruelty policing the country’s poor and desperate. It’s mostly the little things, and they aren’t always on alert.

In the early morning the station is open, staffed with a skeleton crew. If Lyme had her own body back she could march in and ask, but no one’s going to tell her anything looking like this, and Lyme is quick on her feet with the sponsors but spinning a story to get her into the records room of the central Peacekeeping station is a bit over her head.

Good thing Lyme just finished fighting a war.

Everything is about sight-lines. Get in. Duck. Around a corner. Against the wall. Into a side room. Down, over, across. And she doesn’t even have to pop in to fire off a shot that will alert the whole place to her location. After the past few months it’s actually anti-climactic: in and out with a piece of paper stuffed into her rucksack, all in under ten minutes.

(She looked for another name, too, but there’s nothing there — and won’t be for at least another decade, she realizes as she runs more mental math. Well. At least that gives her time.)

“Ferdinand Jacobs,” Lyme says aloud, and snorts out a laugh into her hand. Ferdinand? “Oh, girl. You didn’t tell me your whole fucking family was like this.”

----------------------------

She tracks down Artemisia Jacobs leaving her apartment for school. And Lyme prepared herself, she did, but all the mental pep talks in the world can’t cope to seeing her girl again, scowling in braids and overalls as she leaps the narrow stairs three at a time and takes a vicious swipe at the flower boxes lining the neighbour’s fence.

She’s alive. Her girl is alive, and safe, even with the remains of an old bruise at the far edge of her cheekbone. Lyme exhales and flattens out her fists.

“Hey,” Lyme calls out.

The girl stops. Narrows her eyes, gives Lyme a quick once-over. “You’re tall,” she says. She hooks her thumbs into her belt loops and rocks back on her heels, chin jutted out in defiance. “No fashion sense though.”

Snow on a Games-damned shitheap, but Lyme has missed her. She shoves down the volcanic rush of affection and keeps her voice casual. “I heard you’re good at stealing things. And setting things on fire.”

Artemisia’s eyes flicker but stay narrowed. Her finger taps an uneven staccato against her leg. “Squeaky rats around here.”

“No rats, just a good reputation.” And oh, hell, Lyme knows her girl but this is her girl as a girl, she’s not her Victor yet, she’s not even a killer, she’s practically an infant, and Lyme has historically reacted with blind panic to anything below Reaping age. How the hell are you supposed to talk to kids? How is she supposed to convince the world’s most skeptical and suspicious kid of something that makes no sense?

Except — it’s Misha, isn’t it, and one thing has always been true.

Lyme squares her shoulders. “I’m going to blow up the Capitol and kill the president. Want to come?”

Artemisia lets out a bark of startled laughter. “What? You’re crazy.”

Lyme doesn’t flinch. She does pull out a knife, from the collection of stolen Centre weapons she’d been keeping under her mattress. She tosses it across the sidewalk; Artemisia catches it without blinking. “Also, I need to steal a baby.”

A full five seconds, then Artemisia laughs again, this time the best kind of wild. “You’re definitely crazy. But sure, why not. Sounds fun.”

----------------------------

They pick their way through the city centre, ripping off bits of a cheese loaf that Artemisia stole from outside a bakery and passing it back and forth. “Do you know the Beaumonts?” Lyme asks her. Claudius told her his full name once, after his mother showed up at the Village, and she’d nearly accused him of pulling one over on her. What the fuck kind of name was that?

Artemisia shoots her a sideways look. “Are Twelves dead meat? Obviously. Which ones?”

The sidewalk ends and Lyme stops, rocking her toes back and forth over the edge. “Gloria and Jeremy.” She’d put a restraining order out on them after Gloria’s unexpected visit. The father never tried, but the mother had made a fuss a few times after that. Legal handled it and Claudius never even had to know.

“Who? Oh, them. No, he’s disowned or whatever. If you want the good stuff you should try —“ She stops, studies Lyme’s expression as she flicks the knife from her sleeve and rolls it over her fingers. “That’s the baby? You’re stealing a Beaumont baby? Ew, why? It’s going to have inbreeding diseases. There’s, like, so many group homes.”

Only Misha would immediately start comparing children to puppies and debate the merits of mutts over purebreds, but Lyme doesn’t have time to get into the analogy. “He’s mine,” she says instead. “I’m taking him.”

Not her best cover story — not even a cover story, really — and she can see Artemisia give her a long once-over and do some rapid math calculations, but Lyme’s mother had been fourteen, a fact that had been scary to Lyme at ten and now as an adult actively horrified her. Nero’s sister wasn’t that much older either. Finally Artemisia shrugs. “Okay,” she says. “No judging. But also, gross. We should probably set the house on fire on the way out.”

Lyme laughs, sharp and nasty, the sound dredging something thick and ugly up from deep within her insides. She closes her eyes on images of silent hovercrafts bombing the Victors’ Village into rubble and snarls her throat closed around a reflexive I’ve missed you. “Save that for the Capitol.”

“Holy shit.” Lyme tips back on her heels, leans back to shade her eyes. Beside her, Artemisia’s low whistle echoes agreement. “That is one ugly house.”

“Social climbers, I told you. But it’s only impressive on the outside, there’s nothing good in it.” She makes a speculative face, like she’s chewing on her tongue. “Except for a baby, I guess. This is so weird. So have you ever been inside? Can you give me anything?”

Lyme hesitates. For half a second she digs around in her memories, tries to find anything Claudius told her that might help, but it’s all fragments: she used to lock me in the closet, she’d drag me to the bathroom and hold my head under the sink, one time I crawled into her bed with a knife. “No,” she admits finally.

Artemisia’s eyes cut to her again, and this time her nose crinkles like a cat smelling something unpleasant. But all she says is, “Okay,” and continues on. “I’ll look. Don’t hang around, you’ll get me caught. Nothing worse than taking a newbie on a job.”

“Thanks,” Lyme says, because she has to, and speaking chokes off the wave of real gratitude, messy and complicated and absolutely unable to express. Artemisia doesn’t know her — will never know her, will never sit with her on a roof at three in the morning, brain meds stuffed into her sock. They’ll never ugly-spar with knives until the blood runs red and the wildness leaves Misha’s eyes, will never patch each other up with Misha propped up on the bathroom counter, sleepy and finally content, head tipped forward onto Lyme’s shoulder as she dabs iodine on a surface cut.

But this Artemisia is alive. And maybe they’ll paint each other’s nails.

Lyme doesn’t turn back to watch Misha at work. She ducks the side street, skirts around until she finds the library Claudius said he used to sleep in sometimes, during the Games when no one asked him why he didn’t have school. It’s not hard to tuck herself into a back corner with a book (“The Cost of Peace: The History of Panem’s Peacekeepers”) and flip listlessly through the pages.

(Once her fingers snag on a page etched with a lithographic print of a familiar mountain fortress. The yawning mouth draws her in, heart beating faster and faster until she slams the book shut. She pulls her knees to her chest, grips the back of her neck with both hands and forces in breath after breath until Claudius’ wide-open eyes and blood-smeared mouth leave her vision.)

“Yo.” A nudge at her shoe. “Found us an in. Also got us some food. Let’s find somewhere to chill until dark.”

----------------------------

Breaking in: easy. Finding the baby: easy. Leaving the house with Gloria and her husband happily asleep in their beds: a whole lot harder.

“You know it’s harder to kill people than it looks,” says Artemisia over her shoulder.

Lyme jumps. “What?” She does manage to keep her voice to a whisper, even as she peers through the crack in the door at the two adults asleep in their beds, oblivious.

“You know, in the Games. They make it look easy. All that stabbing, the blood, the cannon, boom like that.” Artemisia cocks her head thoughtfully. “It’s not, really. People have a lot more blood than you think, and they make way more noise. We can set the house on fire if you want, but I wouldn’t do it now.” She taps the back of Lyme’s hand to punctuate her point, and … oh. Well, shit. Lyme didn’t even notice the knife she’d flipped around to lie flat in her hand, angled precisely for throat-slitting.

She wouldn’t have done it. It’s been years since Lyme set foot in the Arena. But at the same time … memories of artillery thundering overhead, the press of her soldiers at her shoulder as they fought their way up the mountain in charge after useless charge. Lyme’s barometer for ‘senseless death’ has shifted over this past year.

Would anyone care if Jeremy and Gloria Beaumont bled to death in their beds? Would anyone even notice? Does it matter if they haven’t hurt Claudius yet, from their perspective — when they have hurt him already, for years, enough that the shadows of it chased him all the way through to adulthood? No, it fucking doesn’t. Time is clearly not a straight line, a-fucking-parently. They hurt him then. They will hurt him, soon.

They will never hurt him again.

Artemisia watches her still, careful and studying. She has — and hasn’t — killed more people as she has fingers. Lyme exhales and pockets the knife. “Let’s get the kid.”

Babies are — well, they’re terrifying, and gross: needy, leaking flesh-bags that explode out of every orifice and grow heavier with every second. Lyme has spent her entire career successfully cultivating an image that means no one will ever ask her to hold one without ever coming out to say she hates larval humans on camera. But this one will grow up to be Claudius, and it’s not his fault he’s not a person yet. What is Lyme supposed to do, wait for him to grow old enough that Gloria starts slapping him in the face or locking him in cabinets? From what Claudius told her, his memories a mix of fuzzy and strangely sharp, like stepping on glass while feeling around barefoot in a dark room, his very earliest memories hadn’t been that bad. Lonely, maybe, but not aggressive. Things only went wrong once he learned to talk.

It’s very likely Lyme will fuck him up even more than his parents did, but at least she won’t hold his head under the fucking sink.

“Geez, even their diapers are bougie,” Artemisia scoffs from across the room, rifling through a bin. “I’ll make a bag of stuff, I guess. I don’t see a carrier thing so you’ll have to use a blanket if you don’t want to hold him the whole time. Hope you’ve got biceps.”

Lyme swallows hard. “It’s fine, I’ve got him.”  She crosses over to the crib and looks down, stomach twisting. The baby watches her, not crying out, grey eyes wide and serious. (He lies in her lap, eyes sightless, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.) “Hey, D.” Her voice is all wrong, rough even at twelve and not tender or maternal at all, but he only stares at her as she reaches down and lifts him to her shoulder. “Let’s blow this fuck-ass joint.”

----------------------------

Turns out they have one more stop on the way, which was not in the plan but in retrospect, really probably should have been. Because, turns out, when faced with a baby and a ten-year-old and the whole span of the mountains between her and the Capitol and nothing but a brace of knives between them, Lyme doesn’t feel like a war commander with an Arena and two victors and a handful of dead kids and countless dead soldiers behind her. She feels horribly, undeniably, terrifyingly thirteen, and the longer she stays here, the more she wonders if that’s going to stick.

“This is not the Capitol,” says Artemisia, dry as the desert.

Lyme hefts the makeshift carrier-knot over her shoulder. “Pit stop.”

“Now I know you’re nuts,” Artemisia says, that half-mix of admiration and let’s-wait-I-want-to-watch-the-explosion in her tone that Lyme misses so hard her chest aches. “You can’t sneak into the Village. It’s the first thing we learn in school. Even I don’t climb barbed wire, and you’ve got a baby.”

“You don’t need to climb the fence,” Lyme tells her. It doesn’t count as betraying trade secrets, not when Misha would have been here anyway. Not when they don’t plan to stay. “You can get in from above if you climb the mountain trails. No one ever does, that’s all.”

It takes them a day and a half.

“Ho-ly shit,” Artemisia whistles, as they stand on the rear mountain path that leads down to the Village orchard. “How did you find this shit out?”

“I know things,” Lyme says. “Wait here with him. I’ll be back.”

She makes a face, and for a minute Lyme thinks she’s going to make a fight about it, but then Artemisia nods and holds out her arms for — the baby. (It’s still too hard to think of him as Claudius, just yet.) “Okay, yeah. Congrats on finding a place that freaks me out too much to want to steal from. I’m pretty sure if they catch you in here you get used as target practice for the Seniors.”

They don’t use kids, Lyme almost tells her, but the words curl up in the back of her throat and crumble into dust.

Nero answers the door in the ugliest chunky-knit sweater Lyme has ever seen (the bare garment was a sensible Adessa knit, she can recognize the weave, but the front has an embroidered tomcat in lurid purple and gold). He’s younger than Lyme has ever seen him except his original Games tapes, though even young his eyes are hollow. He blinks down at Lyme, and for a dizzying second she sees herself through his eyes: an angry teenager with ropy Centre muscles and an atypical crew cut, too old for telltale bruises on her face but all the hallmarks in the set of her shoulders and the curl of her fists.

“Okay,” Nero says, blase as ever. It’s so painfully Nero — so very much her mentor, who took in Lyme standing over the kitchen sink with a shard of broken glass stuck deep into her wrist and simply said No — that Lyme desperately wants to fling herself at him and bury her face in his chest.

The worst is knowing that she could, a strange girl he’s never seen but who’s bleeding hurt and fear all over his floor, and he’d probably let her.

She hadn’t rehearsed this part. She probably should have. But Lyme always did her best sponsor-work unscripted. “Five years from now, you’re going to meet a tribute,” Lyme says. “She’s going to win, and you’re going to kick off the wildest, most batshit mentor dynasty this Village has ever seen. And twenty years after that, we all die. Every single one of us, in a war we can never hope to win.”

Nero folds his arms. Curls his fingers over his bicep, looks her over as one foot taps a steady rhythm against the floor. “Okay,” he says again, without judgement. Brutus never managed that skill, or either very deliberately cultivated his the other direction; he could make the most neutral statement of fact sound like a virulent condemnation. “And that girl’s you?”

“You killed your old man when you were twelve,” Lyme says. Nero stiffens, but doesn’t try to interrupt. “He was going to hurt your sister. You told me this because I didn’t kill mine, but I wished I could have. I didn’t want a male mentor and you needed me to understand why Adessa or Calli wouldn’t have understood the way you did.” She swallows. “I still think Calli would have let me hunt him down and kill him, but you’re right that it probably wouldn’t have been … you know, better. For me. In the long run, anyway.”

Nero’s breathing has gone suspiciously even, nice and slow but shallow. Lyme would recognize that from across the sponsor ring. “Okay,” he says again. Doesn’t prove anything, she hears at the edges of his words, except what does it prove? What else is there?

“The 75th is the Quarter Quell.” Lyme’s voice cracks. She’s so tired of holding it all in, pretending like she doesn’t know, like none of it all matters. Like she hasn’t been torn apart, like starting over isn’t just as bad as losing everything. All these people, her loved ones, looking at her with a stranger’s eyes. “They Reap us again. There’s a Rebellion — all of us are killed — the details don’t matter. That’s not the point, I don’t care. I want to make it stop. I’m going to make it stop. I’m going to kill the president before it ever happens.”

His eyes are white around the edges, nostrils flared, but he hasn’t moved, his voice still level. “Just you?”

She shakes her head. “I found my kids. Misha’s ten, I think? Maybe eleven, you know birthdays. She wins 57. Claudius is — fuck, he’s just a baby. I thought I could do this, but I can’t — I can’t do it alone.” Lyme, the one she is now, this age, would scream to hear the quiver beneath in her voice, the desperate need underlying it all. “I need my mentor.”

This time his exhale is long and steady. “Kill the president,” Nero repeats, and lets out a slow fuuuuuck that’s more breath than sound. “With a baby. For fuck’s sake. Okay, wait here.”

----------------------------

For once, Artemisia has nothing sarcastic or witty to say. The inter-district train slides smoothly down the rails, humming with the quiet efficiency that had become second nature to Lyme over the years, but since the war had fallen by the wayside of her memory in favour of silent District 13 hovercrafts or clinging to the roof of freight cars. It feels like years since Lyme has enjoyed the kind of sleek, modern comfort the Capitol throws at everyday convenience, but now it sits sour in her mouth. Hard to forget the riots, the images of bread lines in the outer districts, white-uniformed Peacekeepers firing into crowds as the mayor announced rations had been restricted due to seditious activity among the general populace.

Artemisia, at least, knows nothing of this. She can’t stop staring, even though the usual passenger rail has nothing on the twice-yearly tribute train with its cascading chandeliers and overwhelming frippery. Then again, it’s hard to tell whether it’s the wood panelling and plush carpet she’s staring at, or the others in the car with them.

Which — fair. When Nero told her to wait, Lyme expected him to grab his sword, maybe an overnight bag if he’d decided to be extremely proactive. She had not expected him to return with both Ronan and Adessa at his side, both of them studying her with the kind of expression she would rather have redirected to Games footage or her very distant memories of school science class, staring at leaves or bugs or thin slices of potatoes through thick magnifying glass lenses. Adessa in particular very much looks like she’d enjoy taking Lyme apart, with putting her back together firmly listed under ‘optional’.

But apparently while Nero, Mr. ‘country before self, duty before life’ himself is fine to drop everything and take a nonsense-spouting teenager on a treason joyride at the drop of a dagger, he won’t do it without backup, So. Here they are. Adessa, primly knitting by the window and acting like she can’t sense Artemisia’s worshipful eyes on her, and Ronan, who insisted on giving Lyme’s aching back a break, cradling the baby in his arms with years of practice in the ease of his posture.

“How many infants do you suppose I have kissed,” he says to Lyme when he catches her staring. “Not everyone has a reputation for enjoying fingerling baby sandwiches.”

“He’s joking,” Lyme says to Artemisia automatically. “She doesn’t eat meat.”

“Please.” Adessa does not even look up from her stitches, did not bother to question Lyme’s assertion despite her reputation. “As though I would bother with postnatal. All the scientific potential is in the foetal predevelopment stage.”

Artemisia glances at Lyme, eyes questioning, but there she can only shrug. Adessa leveraging her influence in the Capitol to gain access to underground stem cell research for absolutely no reason other than boredom and scientific curiosity — sure, why not.

Adessa smiles to herself and adds another skein.

----------------------------

Years ago — years from now, in the never-was — Claudius asked Lyme what she would have been, if she hadn’t been a Victor. She told him she never could have been anything else. The whole line of his spine had relaxed and he’d said he was the same. Now, the baby who would be Claudius, a tiny, solemn-eyed thing who latches onto her finger with surprising strength, will be anything but that.

“What’s left for us, huh?” Lyme asks him, softly. Artemisia, not one to let herself be awestruck for long, has challenged Nero to a game of five-finger fillet. Lyme took Claudius over to the window, though she’s not really sure how much babies can see or understand. For all she knows the whole thing is a big, flashing blob of light to him. “What do we do, in a world where I stop us from existing?”

It sounds like the plot of a terrible movie the two of them watch at three in the morning when the nightmares get too bad to sleep. The question sounds like something Brutus would snort and punch her for worrying about, the kind of philosophical bullshit that’s above their pay grade, you don’t get to stress about existential shit when you spend half your life trying to keep very real kids very much alive. But here she is, curled up on the ornate wooden passenger bench, watching an Artemisia she only ever knew from photographs cackle in triumph as Nero pretends to suck an imaginary cut on his finger, and wondering if, at the end of all of this, she’ll simply disappear.

As soon as she thought hits, a cool weight spreads across her shoulders. That’s the answer, isn’t it. All of this, this is Lyme’s borrowed time. She died in the mines with Coin’s gun to her forehead, died with a curse on her lips and a snarl on her face and ice-gray eyes boring into her soul. And now she has to change the rules, to twist the game and stop the war and those empty, stupid deaths, but — she was never meant to be here. She’s dead. This is not redemption, it’s not a do-over, not for her. It’s a chance to do a little good before what’s left of her vanishes from the universe for good.

“Nero will look after you,” Lyme tells Claudius. “It wouldn’t be fair if you disappeared, you or Misha or the rest of them. I’m the one who did all this. I’m the only one who remembers. You’ll get a good life and you’ll learn who you can be without all this killing. I’ll tell Nero to get you a cello. They have to make kid-sized ones somewhere.”

“Holy shit,” Artemisia bursts out, the knife clattering to the serving tray she’d filched for the game. Nero sits back, grinning. “You can see the whole mountains from here. I never knew they were so big!”

“Mountains and earth,” Lyme says without thinking. If only Brutus could hear her now.

“You,” Artemisia shoots back without tearing her eyes away from the windows, “are corny as shit, mystery terrorist.”

----------------------------

Lyme never thought too hard about Ronan’s weird Presidential privileges very much, until he walks right in to the mansion unannounced with two Victors, two kids and a baby and nobody tries to stop him. “Oh, he can see us,” Ronan says in a flat voice. “It’s impossible to get the drop on him, the man puts cameras in the showers—”

(“Perv,” says Artemisia, dismissively)

“—but the thing to remember with Coriolanus is, this is a man at the top of his game. He’s killed everyone who opposed him and has leverage on anyone who might think to try. He is both extremely intelligent and understimulated. It makes him dangerous, but in this case it may work in our favour.”

“So he’s letting us in because he’s bored,” Artemisia says. “You know what, I get it.”

----------------------------

Coriolanus is waiting for them in his study, plush carpets and oak-panelled walls, a heavy table with a tray of baked goods. “Ronan,” he says, spreading his hands. “What an unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?” 

This is the part Lyme didn’t think through. What it would feel like to face him now, remembering years of dead children, the cold, casual malice when Artemisia finally won and the President insinuated she wasn’t grateful enough, Claudius returning from his one-on-one pale and shaking, the chill of a death threat wrapped around his throat.

Lyme holds herself still and blank-faced, even as her heart skips in her cheat — but if she’s filled with the murder-fury she can’t imagine Ronan, decades upon decades of resentment and rage coiled up into that quiet, unassuming man and his cane — and she braces herself for the blistering speech she most definitely would have spent the last fifty years perfecting if she were Ronan.

Ronan tilts his head with the predatory anticipation of a hawk spotting a field mouse. His fingers flex at his sides — a knife flies across the room — and President Snow falls, soundless on the ankle-deep carpet, dagger buried to the hilt in the hollow of his eye socket. 

“Holy shit!” Artemisia bursts out. “Holy fuck, you nailed him! I would have gone with a cool line, though. Something like, ‘You can die!’ Okay no that’s stupid, but you know what I mean. You should have had a kill phrase”

“Monologuing drops the odds of a confirmed kill to an average of ten percent,” Adessa says evenly. “Fourth-most common late-game cause of death for over-confident Careers.”

Ronan examines the head of his cane. “Besides, ‘eat my poisoned petit four-flavoured shit, you smug fuck’ didn’t have a snappy ring to it.”

----------------------------

The President is dead. Long live the President.

“You have a choice,” Ronan says, glacial calm, facing down the Peacekeepers who crashed down the door and stare at them, bug-eyed shock behind the clear faceplates. “One: Kill us all right here, report this to your superiors, work to keep order in the streets during the chaos of a power vacuum. Two: Back me now, take control. No one else has to die.”

It can’t possibly work, Lyme thinks. She survived months and months of the worst, most awful, gruelling guerilla bullshit before the end, run after run after run up that Games-damned mountain, soldier after soldier splattered against the bedrock of her homeland and it never felt like they got anywhere. And Ronan’s going to ask nicely?

The Peacekeepers glance at each other. And then — holy shit — they nod, raise their rifles and move to flank the door.

Claudius squirms against Lyme’s back and lets out a fussy grumble.

“And a bottle, please,” Ronan says, still without moving. “We have a little one to feed.”

----------------------------

Claudius fusses in a cradle one of the Peacekeepers conjured up from somewhere on Ronan’s orders, a bemused expression behind the clear faceplate. Misha sprawls on her side on the bed beside him, arms wrapped around herself, one leg jutted awkwardly to the side with the other tucked under her, a confused tangle of limbs that’s at once possessive of her space and self-protective. Lyme sits on the floor, back braced against the wall, like she’s done a hundred times after nightmares or unexpected triggers or escape attempts kept her kids awake. Exhaustion presses to her forehead like a heavy cloth but she can’t sleep, not yet.

She can feel it, the pull of time at the back of her neck. She had one job to do and she did it, and you don’t fulfill a cosmic mission endowed by what-the-fuck ever and get to overstay your welcome. Brutus, Misha, Nero, Claudius, they’re all alive, and now it’s time for Lyme to go. It’s justice, anyway; she caused this, doomed Claudius by bringing him with her, doomed Misha by leaving her behind. Doomed them all by rebelling in the first place. Doomed Brutus by not rebelling sooner. Whatever her choices, she killed them. Now she can finally rest, knowing that she saved them and can vanish from their lives forever.

The starfish, safe and happy in the ocean, don’t need to worry about the kid who tossed them in.

Fuck, that’s maudlin. She’d ask for a drink except there’s an age-lock on the machines in the Games Complex, nothing harder than hot chocolate for minors. Lyme laughs under her breath and lets her eyes fall shut.

----------------------------

She wakes to wailing and a foot kicking her shin in a frenetic rhythm. “Hey, wake up, lazy!” Artemisia grins down at her. She has … banana …? in her hair? “Did you know these machine things make anything you want? I got us a whole pancake bar, it took me like an hour to order all the fixings. Grab your larva and let’s eat.”

Nero shoulders his way into the room, ruffling Lyme’s hair on his way past. “I got him,” he rumbles, reaching down to prop a red-faced and furious Claudius against his shoulder. “Finally crying, huh? Good for you, buddy. Let it out.”

Lyme stares at the sight — her future mentor, cradling her future victor, tickling his baby-soft cheek with one massive finger — and out of reflex digs fingernails into the skin of her wrist until blood beads up beneath the scratches. Nero catches sight and frowns. “Hey, no, don’t do that. C’mon up, I’ll grab a bandage.”

“I’m older than you,” Lyme says reflexively. Snow on a fucking shitpile, right now she’s Adessa’s age. She’d never had time to do the math before.

Nero blinks at her. Claudius, still squalling, jams a tear-stained face into Nero’s neck and subsides into sniffles. He’s probably thinking something about how, if she’s older than he is, why did she bother saying something so stupid and petty, which is a question Lyme asks herself every Games-damned time Nero makes a reasonable point about self-care and she regresses to a stubborn teenager. “We won’t use one with hovercrafts on it, then,” he says, deadpan. “Don’t wait too long, though. The girl is experimenting with the pancakes and some of them are pretty good. She’s got a peanut butter-pineapple and a maple-wasabi that are real tasty. Can’t really recommend the ‘Salt Bomb’ though.”

He saunters out — through the door filters the clink of cutlery, Artemisia’s laughter, Ronan asking for the savoury options please and thank you, Adessa’s liquid what is that monstrosity — and Lyme stares at the line of pink across her smooth (smooth!) wrist. “What the fuck,” she says aloud. Then, again, an edge of panic squeezing her throat: “What the fuck?”

Claudius and Misha both asked her, years ago, what she would have done if she hadn’t won the Games.  Both times Lyme gave the same answer: she could never have been born to do anything but this.

So what is she supposed to do now?

18 YEARS LATER

“Got another one for you.”

Lyme glances up as Pryor drops a file on her desk. “Bad?”

“Not like some of the others, might be nothing. Still, take a look.”

Shouts echo down the corridors, the squeak of shoes and sharp ping of dodgeballs hitting the floor. A few voices rise in evident squabble; a trainer overrides them and the din subsides into the regular chaos of the game. Lyme stares at the wall for a long moment, snorts a low laugh, and flips open the cover of the file.

The face that stares up at her knocks her hard in the gut. Tousled blond hair, blue eyes, square white teeth. He grins through the first few years of photos, but then —

Abrupt mood swings, says his most recent assessment. Short temper, violent outbursts, uncommunicative. Home visit recommended.

Lyme slumps back in her chair, chest aching. “Cato.” The word comes out hardly more than breath. He’d never talked about his home life — never talked about anything, really, hadn’t been interested in his mentor at all, too wrapped up in Clove. No bruises in his file, not like Claudius or Misha or Sloane or Slate or half the kids she took on with warning bells that rang so loud she could barely sleep at night. If he had a shitty family they were the quiet kind, not the kind with heavy fists.

And yet — reactive attachment and codependent and responds to positive reinforcement and he clung to Clove like a lifeline and here he is now, that happy, smiling kid curled in on himself and there’s no kill tests this time to turn him hard.

Breath still caught in her chest, Lyme scrawls home visit approved across the top of the file.

“I know that look.”

She startles. Claudius flops against the door jamb, one eyebrow cocked. “You’re supposed to be flagging kids for the system, not taking them all home.”

Lyme tries for a look halfway between haughty and nonchalant, but the grin her kid gives her says she didn’t pull it off. “Who says I’m taking anyone home? You’re here early.”

Sloane ducks around under Claudius’ arm. He tweaks the end of her braid and she shoots a glare at him, all five foot nothing of her. “No, you didn’t come pick us up.”

“Is it home time already? The kids were just playing —“

She stops as the silence envelops her office. No shrieks. No trainer whistles. No thump of over-excited kids crashing into walls. How long had she been staring at Cato’s file?

Claudius rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Ma, it’s Misha’s night to cook so we have to get secret takeout on the way home.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lyme drops the file in her outbox and holds out her arm to Sloane, who curls in against her side. Claudius flanks her other side and together they head out from the District 2 Athletics and Personal Growth Centre — not-so-secret headquarters for District 2 Family Services — into the glow of the mid-afternoon sun. “Tell me about your day,” she says.

“I tried the crossbow today,” Sloane says. “Just for fun. I don’t think I’m going to stick with it but it was fun to try.”

“I got asked if I want to stay on when I graduate,” Claudius says, so casual it takes Lyme a second.

Her head snaps around so fast a muscle in her neck twinges. “What? What did you say?”

He shrugs. “I told them I’d think about it.”

“Dillweed!” Sloane jogs sideways, reaching around behind Lyme to sock Claudius in the kidneys. “You couldn’t go first so I wouldn’t sound dumb?”

“You’re not dumb, you’re twelve.” He aims a kick back at her that misses by a clearly-purposeful margin. “And you’re doing smart things like trying out lots of stuff to see if you like it. You’re working hard and you’ll get a great recommendation when you’re older, that’s why we have the Centre.”

Twenty years of losing tributes, war, failure, death, a whole new lifetime to try again and this is where she landed: two not-dead kids balancing bickering and stunning sincerity while the third (two years her junior, forever her kid) prepares the worst casserole known to humankind back at home. Cato is not the first file to cross her desk; across the district a handful of kids live out happier lives with families no longer struggling to provide for them, or new parents who are proud to have them, and she will find more. No more looking for bruises and channeling repressed anger into murder — not now, not ever.

Sloane harrumphs like an old man, but then she stops and glances up at Lyme with a slow smile. “Uh oh, Mom’s having feelings.”

Lyme rears back and glares at both of them, but before she can retort, both Claudius and Sloane say “Yeah, yeah” in the exact same tone.

“Oh well now it’s war,” she declares, and knocks them both into the grass.

[arthdoesart]

“What the hell is happening now?!” 

Effie held the drunken victor back from hurling a chair towards their only working television. While she was not made an account by the anonymous people that have kidnapped the children, the former escort was still highly upset, like the rest of them were, when all of their voted scores have all been outright denied. 

In order to score Tribute zero-zero-one, please make sure to input the serial number first. 

Now, you don’t have to manually apply this for District Three is already assigned to unlock the security pass so that everyone can be allowed to vote—

“They’re asking us for a passcode…” Peeta said tiredly, looking at the screen with silent glowering contempt. "It was easier when they would just announce it on television." 

"Yeah? Well, I have a feeling they're not exactly making it easy on purpose." 

Haymitch spat, backing away from the broadcast of a struggling seventeen-year-old Capitol child, who by any means, did not possess the same level of skill as Careers when it came to using a sundry of knives and spears. 

It was pathetic watching the teenager even make an attempt on his part. But what else could the boy do, really? 

"...what happens if he doesn't get a score?" Katniss grimly brought up beside Peeta, her knee bouncing in trepidation for the potential consequence if they're unable to rate him on time. 

Her sharp, ashen seam-like eyes scanned the countdown needed for all the Districts to give their votes. It ran for 60 seconds at least, but now it's down to 40. 

"It won't come to that," Peeta tried to assure her, looping an arm around to pull her close by the shoulder so he could plant a comforting kiss on the side of her forehead. "They all need scores, Katniss. I doubt the people behind this won't give them any—" 

"But it's up to us to give them something!" 

Chapter 2 of Royale Capitol Games will be posted now on ao3 :)

And as always this series is dedicated to @plvtarch

The Royale Capitol Games (18625 words) by PinkMuseSundays Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Alma Coin/Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair (mentioned), Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark, Katniss & Primrose Everdeen (mention), Haymitch Abernathy & Plutarch Heavensbee, Caesar Flickerman & Plutarch Heavensbee, Fulvia Cardew & Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin & Plutarch Heavensbee Characters: Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin, Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Effie Trinket, Beetee Latier, President Paylor, Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta, Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair's Son, Finnick Odair (mentioned), Enobaria (Hunger Games), Caesar Flickerman, Coriolanus Snow, Coriolanus Snow's Granddaughter, Fulvia Cardew, Gale Hawthorne, Original Characters Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Thriller, Mystery, Kidnapping, Romance, Drama & Romance, Quarter Quell (Hunger Games), Fourth Quarter Quell, Inspired by Black Mirror (TV), Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, 76th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe, Child Death, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Capitol Hunger Games, Suffering!Heavenscoin, Funny!Hayffie, Veteran!Everlark, Canon-Typical Violence, Hunger Games Victors, Victors as a Family (Hunger Games), Plutarch and Haymitch bromatism, Plutarch "I'm so stressed out" Heavensbee, Alma "This is what I fucking deserve" Coin, Caesar "That's how you put on a show" Flickerman Series: Part 4 of The odds came with blood and peppermints Summary: "To remind the Capitol that their nefarious deeds will never be forgotten, twenty-four children are reaped from their families to participate in a Battle Royale. Unlike its predecessor, the tributes are chosen at random despite their age, sex, and societal status." The voice chuckled over the last line, as if disbelieving any of the kids from the Capitol were beyond poorer than the high middle-class citizens. "…of course, tributes who refuse to participate within the rules of the game will have their shock collars activated. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first ever Royale Capitol Games, with it also being the Fourth Quarter Quell from the discontinued series of the Hunger Games." The announcer laughs, unaware of the sheer number of Capitol parents that have fainted from the live announcement. They were giddy for a while at having to recite the dreaded line, along with a sickening twist added by the end. "And may the odds ever grant you their favors."   Pairings; Heavenscoin with a side of Hayffie & Everlark.

[morphinomenaljew]

Hey hi hello how are youuuu

I need to be given permission to just be completely insane about Lucy Gray Baird for approx 3 hours thank you.

Is she a critique of the manic pixie dream girl ala Margo Roth Spiegelman? Is she a living breathing folk myth? Is she G-d? I think she might be G-d. Like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA the way she’s characterised in the book is through such a boring G-ddamn lens and the fact that the film gives her so much room to breathe and makes her into this like mythic fucking folk heroine queen and also like one of the most nuanced and interesting and ultimately UNKNOWABLE characters in fiction because the only perspective we get to see her through most of the time is the perspective of someone who will NEVER see her as an equal and therefore never actually know her IT MAKES ME WANT TO CONSUME SOIL she’s so kind and careful and strategic and hopeful and just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I’m bored to tears with takes like Lucy Gray is Related to Katniss, Lucy Gray is Alma Coin (NO THE FUCK SHE IS NOT) Lucy Gray’s story can tie back into Katniss’ but they are fundamentally different protagonists and the whole reason for Katniss’ character arc is to REJECT the idea of “the chosen one.” It doesn’t matter where Lucy Gray is at the start of 74th The Hunger Games.

Someone on TikTok said it best.

Lucy. Gray. Is. Free.

Forever obsessed with her.

[ao3feed-hayffie]

The Royale Capitol Games

by PinkMuseSundays

"To remind the Capitol that their nefarious deeds will never be forgotten, twenty-four children are reaped from their families to participate in a Battle Royale. Unlike its predecessor, the tributes are chosen at random despite their age, sex, and societal status."

The voice chuckled over the last line, as if disbelieving any of the kids from the Capitol were beyond poorer than the high middle-class citizens.

"...of course, tributes who refuse to participate within the rules of the game will have their shock collars activated.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first ever Royale Capitol Games, with it also being the Fourth Quarter Quell from the discontinued series of the Hunger Games."

The announcer laughs, unaware of the sheer number of Capitol parents that have fainted from the live announcement. They were giddy for a while at having to recite the dreaded line, along with a sickening twist added by the end.

"And may the odds ever grant you their favors."

 Pairings; Heavenscoin with a side of Hayffie & Everlark.

Words: 11272, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 4 of The odds came with blood and peppermints

Fandoms: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M, Other

Characters: Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin, Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Effie Trinket, Beetee Latier, President Paylor, Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta, Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair's Son, Finnick Odair (mentioned), Enobaria (Hunger Games), Caesar Flickerman, Coriolanus Snow, Coriolanus Snow's Granddaughter, Fulvia Cardew, Gale Hawthorne, Original Characters

Relationships: Alma Coin/Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair (mentioned), Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark, Katniss & Primrose Everdeen (mention), Haymitch Abernathy & Plutarch Heavensbee, Caesar Flickerman & Plutarch Heavensbee, Fulvia Cardew & Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin & Plutarch Heavensbee

Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Thriller, Mystery, Kidnapping, Romance, Drama & Romance, Quarter Quell (Hunger Games), Fourth Quarter Quell, Inspired by Black Mirror (TV), Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, 76th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe, Child Death, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Capitol Hunger Games, Suffering!Heavenscoin, Funny!Hayffie, Veteran!Everlark, Canon-Typical Violence, Hunger Games Victors, Victors as a Family (Hunger Games), Plutarch and Haymitch bromatism, Plutarch "I'm so stressed out" Heavensbee, Alma "This is what I fucking deserve" Coin, Caesar "That's how you put on a show" Flickerman

Read this story on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/KlPiHwn

[dragonmuse]

i'm turning 41 this sunday, and it's not gonna be much of a thing due to life circumstances and well-practiced not-caring, but it'd tickle me if you had a fun idea how... really, anyone in the main verse might celebrate their 41st.

(happy early birthday! This one caught me right in the brain pan, so have several birthdays actually. These range from angsty to fluffy pretty much in that order because they're in age order. CW: parent death, shitty parent, but it counts)

Eddy  

The world was very quiet, in the wake of so much noise. Eddy’s ears stopped ringing quickly enough. They had secured the package, a blubbering girl, clinging to Eddy’s right arm. Vaguely, Eddy considered scrapping her off onto Fang, who could be counted on administering pats and sweet words to the distressed. 

“S’okay,” Izzy said roughly to her. “We gotta go though. Boss?” 

“Right,” Eddy shook her head, coming back to clarity. They gave the girl a smile, “You’re safe now. We’re going to bring you home.” 

“Thank you,” she wept harder, clinging tighter. Eddy pulled her into a hug, so she could look over her head at Izzy. She gave him three hand signs. He signed back acknowledgement and took off. 

Her will be done. 

Within an hour, they were all on a plane out. They returned the girl to the grave gratitude of her elderly parents. Eddy gave them the bank information. Suddenly they were all substantially richer. Magic. 

They walked out of the house. Eddy wanted to sleep. She wanted to never sleep again. 

“Drink?” Izzy asked. 

“Yeah.” 

They found a bar close by, too posh for their usual, but liquor was liquor. They both got whiskey and took it to a back table away from the daylight glare. They drank in silence, Eddy staring into space above Izzy’s head while Izzy fixed his attention to the door.  

It was only once she drained the glass and set it down, that his attention went to them again. He reached into his pocket, seemingly in slow motion then eventually set down something in front of them. Bemused, she picked it up. It was a coin, heavy and old. She turned it over and over. 

“What’s this?” 

“Found it while we were waiting for the raid. Caught my eye in the dirt,” he shrugged. “Looked old as fuck.” 

“Huh.” There was a face imprinted unevenly on it, words in a language she didn’t recognize.  Interesting. She slipped it into her pocket. 

“Another?” 

“Not today,” she got up, dug for her wallet, but he was already laying out the tip.  

“Headed home?” 

“Maybe.”  

He nodded as if he expected nothing else. Got to his feet. They’d ridden their bikes here, and they were waiting just down the road. Izzy saddled up, then hesitated a moment. 

“What?” She asked warily. His last minute pronouncements were rarely good, his deep desire to get in the last word often skewering the air. 

“Just...happy birthday,” he started his bike and before she could respond, he was gone. 

Asshole. 

It wasn't even their birthday. Was it? Frowning, she got out her phone and turned it back on. They rarely left it on when they left the country. 

It was their birthday. 

41 and still kicking. She shoved the phone back in her pocket where it clinked against the coin. 

Hoo-fucking-ray. 

Stede 

“Happy birthday, Daddy!” Alma said carefully. Her hair was up in two pigtails, looking like sparklers. She smiled at him through the two candles, one a ‘4’, the other a ‘1’. The cake was small, perfunctory. Alma and Mary had sang, one with far more spirit than the other. Charlie had watched silently, with big eyes. The boy didn’t talk much yet, let alone sing. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he managed a smile for her. He caught Mary’s eye. They regarded each other over the flickering lights. As distant as the ocean. 

“Wish,” Charlie said suddenly. 

“Right, of course,” Stede kept the smile glued to his face. “A wish.” 

“Don’t tell us what it is!” Alma scolded him as if he’d been just about to. “You have to keep a secret.” 

“I will,” he promised. 

He stared at the two flames. The plain white cake. Vanilla icing. Vanilla cake beneath. He much preferred lemon, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever told Mary that. Should he? What was one fact in a sea of the unspoken? 

I wish I had a place where I fit. Even if I had to build it around myself. 

Stede didn’t put much faith in wishes. If anyone had been listening, he had made far more desperate ones and a far more tender age and they certainly hadn’t been granted then. But it did feel oddly auspicious that the phone rang in the wee hours of the morning. Mary groaned, curling tighter in on herself under the covers as he picked it up. 

“Hello?” 

“Stede,” that was his father’s wife’s voice. He barely knew the woman, but was unmistakably soft-spoken. So thready that it was often lost during their rare visits entirely. “I’m so sorry. It’s your father.” 

“What’s he done?” Stede sat up, imagining any number of horrors. 

“Died!” She wailed. 

“I see,” he said faintly. 

And as she told him the whole horrible tale, Stede tried very hard not to smile.

It wound up being a very happy birthday after all. 

Izzy  

He got stabbed. There had been worse birthdays. At least this one came with painkillers. 

Pete  

“And the piece of resistance!” Frenchie plonked a box down in front of him. 

“I thought you knew French,” Pete laughed. 

“I do,” Frenchie sniffed. “When I feel like it. And I don’t right now. Take your present, asshole.” 

“Thanks,” Pete lifted it up. 

“We went in together on it,” John told him. 

John and Frenchie were both on the sagging couch that had taken all three of them to get into the apartment. It was high on Pete’s mental list of ‘to replace’ as the money came in. He was on the lone other seat in the apartment, a precarious folding chair. 

“I figured,” he assured John. He hadn’t really been expecting much at all, so it was cool to get a gift. 

He tore through the newspaper and found a repurposed delivery box inside. Opening that and he pulled out a white rectangle. As he held it, it fluffed up freed of it’s confines. 

“A new pillow!” 

“A good one,” John nodded. “We know you’ve been getting a sore neck.” 

“Because you told us. Repeatedly,” Frenchie sniffed. “So. Pillow. It’s supposed to be good for side sleepers.”

“Aw, man, thank you!” He squished it to his chest. “That’s great!” 

“I know it’s not very big, but we’ve got a cake,” John offered. 

“It is big,” Pete told him seriously. 

Last year, everything had been in flux and Pete hadn’t really wanted to acknowledge his birthday anyway. There were things he’d expected to be when he was forty, and broke, parked in Buttons’ house with two ex-co-workers were not any of them. 

But the past year had been one of the happiest of his adult life as it turned out. Who cared if it wasn’t flashy? He had friends, who cared about his neck even if he did complain about it too much, and a job that was kind of okay. No one bothered him much at least. 

“You want the cake then?” Frenchie asked. “We got candles.” 

“Yes, let’s do that.” 

They had cake for dinner. It was a supermarket special, vanilla with a thick chocolate filling. It left him heavy and sluggish, perfect for watching a movie, crowded on the couch with both of them.  

Oluwande  

“I love you so much!” Oluwande told Jim. 

“I know,” they were laughing at him, but that was okay. Jim had a great laugh. 

And Oluwande was maybe a little drunk. 

“You’re the best partner,” he gushed. 

“Oh, I know,” they nodded. 

“I am very drunk.” 

“Ooooh yeah.” 

“Are you drunk?” 

“Nope.” 

“That seems unfair,” he decided. “Why aren’t you drunk?” 

“Because this is way more fun,” they leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. 

“Why am I drunk?” he asked, which seemed more pertinent. 

“Cause you’re a lightweight,” Roach sat down on his other side, holding out a glass of water. “And you insisted you could keep up with me. Spoiler alert: you cannot.” 

“I could,” Oluwande said firmly, taking the water when it was pushed into his hand. 

“You can’t,” Jim told him like they were informing him of a grave injury. 

“No?” 

“No.” 

“Damn. Are we done drinking?” 

“You are.” 

“Okay,” that seemed wise, actually. Things were a little blurry. “Can I have another piece of pie?” 

“Your funeral,” Roach decreed and then there was pie. It smelled amazing. Fuck cake, truly. 

“Please don’t fuck a cake,” Frenchie cackled. When had he gotten here? 

“I wouldn’t. Because it sucks,” he decreed and ate a piece of pie. 

“I like cake,” Stede was saying a little wistfully. Was everyone here? Oh. Right. They were. Party. Oluwande gave himself points for recalling his general location. 

“I’ll get you cake,” Eddy assured him. 

“I mean not right now, I’m very full. Excellent spread, Roach, once again.” 

“Yeah, well, Oluwande is more interesting to cook for. He has taste.” 

“Right now, he has pie,” Frenchie was laughing again. “You good, man?” 

“Yes,” Oluwande said earnestly, taking a sip of his water. “Never been better.” 

“I think you’re aging backwards,” Roach gave him a speculative look. “Damn baby face.” 

“I’m a distinguished man of my years,” Oluwande shrugged. “And I’m cute.” 

“He is,” Frenchie agreed. “We all think you’re cute. Like very. Especially right now. You’re selling it. The tiara especially.” 

The tiara and sash that said ‘Birthday Girl’ had been presented to him while he was still dressed as Teal for the night. He had put them back on after he’d de-dragged because fuck it. He was the Birthday Girl. 

“Happy birthday, Olu,” Jim rested their chin on his shoulder. It was kind of pointy, but he liked that. He pressed his cheek to theirs. 

“Thanks. For everything.” 

“Always,” they slid and arm around him. 

Lucius 

“You want a cake?” Pete asked.  “Nontraditional. No candles. Just sweet goodness.” 

“Not really,” Lucius set down his stylus with a sigh. “I’d really prefer just to pretend it’s not happening at all. Per usual. Please.” 

“Okay,” Pete slid his arm around him, pressed a kiss to his temple. “Would you like, entirely unrelated to any particular day, to go see that immersive Van Gogh thing you keep calling ‘horribly tacky and overpriced’, if I happened to buy some tacky, overpriced tickets?” 

Lucius repressed a smile, “Why would you do such a thing if you knew I thought it was tacky and overpriced?” 

“Because you sometimes love tacky and overpriced and I want to see the pretty pictures. And make you explain them to me.” 

“Fine,” Lucius pretended to be aggrieved. “For your sake. When?” 

“Got ‘em for Wednesday. Okay?” 

“Yeah, okay,” he brought Pete’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thanks.” 

Later that afternoon, Frenchie brought in the mail. There was a small package for Lucius which he presented him without fanfare. It was from some bland company, return address vague. 

“I didn’t order anything,” he frowned, but opened it.  Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back, after all. 

There was a small, but lush box inside, matte black. He drew that out. It felt familiar somehow though he couldn’t pin it down. It had a hinge, so he opened it and was rewarded. A bracelet sat inside, a very thin leather one in his favorite shade of red. Embossed in the center was the image of a key, filled with black resin so it caught the light. 

“Oh you asshole,” Lucius laughed and drew it out. 

Lucius: I said no presents. 

Izzy: coincidence. Ordered it weeks ago, no idea when it would ship. 

Lucius: Liar. I love it. What’s the key for? 

Izzy: cuff isn’t actually locked, doesn’t need a real key. 

Lucius stared at the message, then at the bracelet. He picked it up and put it on, a difficult business one handed. It was unobtrusive, less eye-catching than the thick leather black cuff on Izzy’s wrist. Unlikely someone would even draw a line between one to the other even if they saw them together. 

No one else had to know. Lucius would. Izzy would. 

Lucius: No one would ever believe me if I told them what you were actually like.  

Izzy: good.  

“Happy birthday to me,” Lucius said smugly. 

He’d let their shenanigans pass again this year.  They kept managing to get away with it. Probably wasn’t really teaching the right lesson. Maybe next year he’d be firmer. 

Maybe. 

[caesarflickermans]

Thank you for answering the Plutarch fancast :) How about President Snow and Coin?

Okay, now we are heading from "Marie has had a powerpoint for this specific topic" to very uncharted waters. So this is all just pure vibes, nothing else. I also wouldn't mind recasting the previous actors. They worked just fine and if both are willed to reprise their roles, why not?

For President Snow, I was thinking Christopher Walken. I cannot tell you if I've ever seen a Walken movie, I cannot tell you that I have. But I like this man's vibes. This man has rather sharp features, all of which fit to Snow. A sharp nose, bold lips, and a sharp gaze. Part of it is just genetics luck, part of it is his demeanour. Really, his gaze and the lips are fairly important, and I want a new thg movie to go all out with the scariness of Snow in regards to how artificial he looks. I'm sure the makeup team will have a good day with Walken.

Alma Coin... This one's for our Tumblr wlw folks. I initially thought about Tilda Swinton, but then I thought... why not more sapphic? So Cate Blanchett it is. The reason why I want Alma Coin to be a win for wlw women everywhere is because I can see the appeal of this character. Strong female character who needs no men... So why not interested in women? I want the thg fanbase of lesbians to go nuts over Alma Coin, and Cate Blanchett being Cate Blanchett just fits. She can still look villainous, still has quite that sharp edge that makes her look that part, but if we inevitably will get straights who want to be kissed by Mr. Dictator right over there, then us wlws deserve something good. And that good is the implication that Alma Coin fucks ;)

[named-jiang-or-wang]

The Hunger Games *spoilers*

Just finished the hunger games trilogy in audiobook form. Never again will I underestimate YA fiction popular with teenage girls. I was 30% to tears whenever Katniss sings, 60% to tears whenever somebody she cares about dies, and 90% when she got her happy ending. Jesus fucking christ that girl has suffered. And holy fucking shit people (that we care about and like) die awful, terrible, deaths. It was almost like Gaunt's Ghosts...except they have less plot armor.

Got some nicknames:

Katniss "name a character who went thru more than her ill wait" Everdeen, also Katniss "ill kill everyone in this room and then myself" Everdeen

Peeta "actual best boy too good for this world" Mallark, also Peeta "played em like a damn fiddle" Mallark

Haymitch "Knifefighter" Abernathy

Gale "Warcrimes" Hawthorne

Prim "actual girl on fire" Everdeen

Finnick "Wifeguy" Odair

Johanna "I can fix her" Mason

Coriolanus "Muttlover" Snow

Plutarch "Worldstar" Heavensbee

Alma "Let them fight" Coin

[kahlanmars]

BAD FEELING part. 29

HIIIII we are in the final chapters! I hope you'll cry a little!

MASTERLIST

taglist: @crimsonincursive

gif by bowie-boy

29. You burn with us

The next hours are a living hell. You find out Katniss asked Coin to kill Snow personally, with an arrow. All you can think about is that Effie will be the next one, and then the Games, and on top of it, with a painful irony, you miss Haymitch. You want to be in his arms, you want him to console you and kiss you, but what the fuck did he have in mind. 

He is not a killer. He is against the Games and you are certain he loathes Alma Coin so much and he doesn’t want her as President of a nation. You also know he can’t explain anything to you right now, because the rooms are bugged and the guards already have an eye on you. With Katniss’s decision and Peeta’s reaction, he needs you too. You don’t want him to be alone with his thoughts and his regrets.

Before you can think about it, you are knocking on his door. He opens in his boxers, maybe he was already in bed. The sight is definitely good, but now it’s not the time to think about it.

«Hey.» You start, not sure of how he will react. There is no need, because he pulls you in his arms.

«Look who is here.» He whispers like he doesn’t believe that. You look up to see him better and his eyes are so blue you could drown in them. Even the wrinkles near them are attractive.

«I’m still angry at you.» You state, but it’s less and less true the more you are against his wide chest and you inhale his scent. «But I love you. And I trust you. If you say this is the right way… I know you are a good man.» 

He lifts you up and he takes you to bed, so you can close the door. «I understand your reaction, I get it, really. But I’ve played this game more than you. I know how to do certain things.» He kisses your hand and you end up on his lap. 

«I’m sorry.» You murmur. You are still not sure about that, but he wouldn’t let children die, you are sure of it once the rage is gone. He spent years trying to save children, and he developed an addiction because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

«You don’t have to be. You didn’t have all the elements, it was your right to be angry.» He kisses your shoulder. 

«I was so scared for Effie.» You confess. 

«Effie.» He passes a hand on his face. «This is a problem. I’ll think about it tonight. Don’t worry, we’ll get through it.»

«Can I stay here?» You look at him with big doe eyes and you kiss him on the cheek. «I can’t bear to spend time in that room alone.» 

«You are the angry one, Gorgeous. I’m the one who’s more than happy to share his bed with you.» He strokes your cheek and he waits for you under the sheets.

You take off your uniform and after a pit stop on the toilet (most of your things are in his room, you notice with a hint of satisfaction) you come back to bed. He immediately traps you in his arms.

«I missed you, old man.» And it’s kinda scary how protected you feel right now. 

«You smell so good.» He murmurs against your neck. «You know, you are possibly the last decent thing in this world.»

You open your mouth in disbelief, in a dumb expression you are grateful he doesn’t see. That’s better than “I love you”. He is never that affectionate. 

«Don’t be ridiculous, you have two children.» You dismiss. You actually don’t know how to take this kind of compliment.

«Yeah and I’m worried sick about them. But you… Ah, I don’t know.» 

«When I’m with you I breathe better.» You tell him to ease his explanation. «When I think about home, I think about your arms.» 

«You are a fucking obsession. I can’t think of anything else, it’s really annoying. Sometimes I need to actually think to not think of you.» 

This time you chuckle because he seems really pissed off and it’s hilarious.

«What do you think about when you think about me?» You ask him, tracing lines on his chest and upper arms. You are fishing for these compliments.

«You don’t need your ego stroked.» He lifts his eyebrows and you laugh. 

«C’mon! So I’ll have good dreams.» 

«I think about your lips, how kissable and delicious they are. Your hair, I really love your hair, so soft and they smell amazing. Your eyes, so sweet.» He kisses you but you raise a finger on him.

«Tell me the truth.» You laugh a little. You want to light up the moment because you feel like you really, really love him.

«But this is the truth! …Well, sometimes I think about how good your ass is in this uniform and how I can get you moaning when I kiss your breasts… but it’s only sometimes.» 

«What a chaste man.» You kiss his lobe. «I’ll have to corrupt you a little more then.» 

«Mh, Doll.» He looks at you, and for the first time you really believe he loves you. «I’m so lucky you like me.»

«I really do.» You promise. «I love you but I also like you so much.»

«We are really behaving like teenagers, right?»

«Yeah.» You confirm, grinning like an idiot. «But it’s kinda good, right? To have a little bit of peace in this war? A pause.»

«I’m your pause.» He smiles and he kisses you. 

«You are my peace.» You argue. «…Yeah, definitely teenagers.»

He pats your ass and he bites your shoulders. «Let’s play the part and make out, then.»

You are more than happy to obey - making out with Haymitch is the perfect distraction because his arms are so strong and he tightens the grip everytime you let out a moan - and soon his leg is between yours and you are quite sure you won’t end up just making out.

«You are my best friend.» He reveals instead, watching you in the eyes. 

«Yeah?» That, for you don’t know what specific reason, makes you so happy. You get up a little, to stay on top of him with a devious grin. «I have a really hot best friend.»

He catches your eyes - and your cleavage - with a smirk. «If you are talking about Effie, sweetheart, I’ll…»

«What are you going to do, old man?» You raise your eyebrow. You don’t expect him to take your face in his hands and just peppers you with kisses. That’s something you do, not him. You don’t know what has gotten to him tonight.

«Mh, nothing. Too pretty to do something.» He kisses your pout. «We’ll save everybody. Don’t worry.»

You nod. You know he has a plan. And if you need it, you’ll take down every guard to save Effie Trinket.

«Can we play the game where everything is okay and we are living’ a happy life with no problems at all?» You whisper. The game of distraction it’s the only thing that keeps you able to sleep at night.

During a war you need to sleep at night.

Haymitch gives you a kiss on your neck. «Sure. We are living together and our neighbours are…?» 

«Katniss and Peeta. Who are completely fine.» You decide.

«Makes sense.»

«And on the weekends Portia and Effie come to us and you don’t want to because you want to stay with me alone.» You explain with a smile that he tries to match. 

«They always steal you from me.»

«Exactly. But we all have dinner together. With my mom too. And Finnick and Annie, Perla and Lora… Cinna if he wants to.» You close your eyes. He steals another kiss. 

«That’s nice.»

You feel your eyes become heavy and you are so glad you are in his arms when you are falling asleep. «Yes. That’s nice.»

The next day you demand to see Effie, but she is not in the cell. She is preparing Katniss for the “Proclamation”, as they call it. She is preparing Katniss for when she will shoot President Snow.

A new era begins, they say. A new era of democracy or tyranny you don’t know.

You find Finnick on his way to see the execution. You are going too, because you want to keep an eye on Effie, maybe keep her out of the cell with an excuse. He seems tired, and Annie is not with him.

I would not leave Annie alone in a situation like this, she is a tool. It’s not the nicest thing to say, but she could be an important pawn and a leverage on Finnick and they could decide that, since she has been tortured in the Capitol, she could know something more. Just a question. An interrogation. An imprisonment.

«Odair!» You approach him. You try and fail to smile.

«Daisy.» 

Just “Daisy”. Not a flirt, not a joke. Must be about the vote, he is mad at Haymitch and so he is mad at you.

«About yesterday…» You don’t know what to say. I’m sorry about yesterday? Oh, I’m sorry if my boyfriend voted in favour of throwing innocent children to an arena to kill them. He didn’t mean to.

«You don’t agree with him.» He argues. Of course you don’t agree with the vote, and you don’t even think for a moment that Katniss Everdeen voted yes with the intention of keeping that yes. Katniss is the most maternal person you’ve ever seen, between Prim and little Rue, she is a natural. And she saved baby Ivy, so it’s not like she makes an exception for Capitol kids. 

«He doesn’t agree with him.» You are aware you should shut up, but you need to defend him. He and Katniss are going to be massacred for what they chose, but you know there is a reason. You don't know the reason, but there is one.

«They are children, Daisy.» His voice is harsh and he is angry, rightfully so. For the first time you see a glimpse of the boy who won the games. He is serious, and it kinda scares you a little.

«I know! Just… wait until today. Please.» You pray. He rolls his eyes.

«I hope you are right and not just in love.»

«I wouldn’t risk the children.» That is true, if Haymitch didn’t say anything you would have stopped the relationship. «Where is Annie?»

«In a room with Johanna and Portia. A closed room.» Even if with Johanna she is protected, you guess. As much as you don’t like the woman from District Seven, she and Finnick are best friends and she wouldn’t betray him.

«They have passepartout, nothing is really closed for them.» He gets what you are suggesting, but he shakes his blonde head. 

«She can’t see someone killed again.» 

You suddenly remember Annie Cresta’s story. The girl who went mad after seeing the other tribute from her district being beheaded. She was a career before, she played the part of the nice, sweet girl but she was trained to kill, and Finnick and Mags were her mentors. Finnick was only sixteen or seventeen, she was a year younger. They fell in love during the training, and she suddenly was a weapon against him, used and tortured until he would do what Snow wanted from him.

Snow wanted a lot of things from him. His body, his secrets, his youth. 

Maybe he deserves to kill him.

«Sorry, I didn’t think about it. Are you staying down with Haymitch and Peeta?» You ask, dubious of where you are going to be. Near to Effie, if you can help it. You also wonder where Lora and Perla are, if they chose to come or not. You know that Holly and Marjorie chose not to, they want to keep an eye on the people in the hospital. Everyone has this suspicion under the skin, they force joy for the end of the tyranny but it’s crystal clear something is wrong.

When you enter the place, after a line with the Thirteen citizens, you are stunned it’s so close to an arena. It’s like the place where you’ve had the parade, there are stands and terraces, places to sit. It’s a fucking show for them, not entirely different from the Games. 

You approach the sun, at least. It’s the first time you have had it in a long time. 

«No, I’m up. I don’t want to stay close.» He doesn’t want to be seen. He is not wrong. 

You are in the first row, tho. You are next to Effie, who has a guard behind her - damn it - and you are kind of scared of the new look of District Thirteen. Coin has put blue drapes around the building, and she is standing high, so high, in a grey vest that is slightly different from the others. You understand the crowd. Capitol City ruined their life in District Thirteen when they lost the revolution, and then they saw President Snow on the television for all their lives, like the public enemy number one. And you understand Twelve citizens even more, because you too feel the rage towards him for the years of famine and abuses and violence.

You just don’t feel like anything will change with Coin.

They dressed Effie. She has a white weird dress on, long lashes and a wig. You are not used to her wigs anymore, and you feel like this Effie is an old Effie and she should have stayed without all this Capitol rubbish. Then again, it’s not her idea. You are sure they wanted to show how Capitol she is.

«Welcome to a new Panem!» Alma Coin begins. «Today, on the avenue of the tributes, all of Panem, a free Panem, will witness more than a mere spectacle. We are gathered to witness an historic moment of justice. Today the greatest friend of the revolution will fire the shot to end all wars. May her arrow signify the end of tyranny, and the beginning of a new era.»

Everything feels wrong. Snow is almost insignificant, the man who scared the hell out of you in a car is standing in a black robe, waiting for his killing, and he is peaceful, he is so calm. He looks like a grandpa, and you know he is not, he is fucking dangerous and he should be stopped, but now you are terrified of Coin. She radiates power.

«Mockingjay, may your aim be as true as your heart is pure.»

Katniss is at the centre of the attention. She is the Mockingjay, she is not Katniss, the girl who yesterday was crying next to her sister in the hospital. Her makeup is now heavy and she looks older, deadlier. They want the symbol, not Katniss, because if you squint your eyes you can see a seventeen years old girl who has lost everything she had, who is worried sick for her sister and now she is forced to another execution. But no, they don’t want to see that, they want a hangman.

Haymitch and Peeta are on her left and right. The mentor, the man who created her, and the lover, the boy who never betrayed her. 

She takes an arrow, she prepares for the shooting. She aims at Snow, who is watching her with an infuriating satisfied expression.

And in the blink of an eye she shoots higher and she kills Alma Coin. 

You gasp in disbelief and you take Effie’s hand, to protect her from the guard. There is little need, because the guard looks as confused as you are.

Meanwhile, two guards take away Katniss and the people start to run to President Snow, to kill him. 

We have to get out of here.

You look for Haymitch in the crowd, but when you see him you also see something that freezes the blood in your veins. A sniper is pointing at him. A sniper, a guard, you don’t know and you don’t care.

He can’t die, he can’t die, he can’t.

Before you could think you run as fast as you can and you push him out of the trajectory with all the strength you have. 

«Sweetheart?» He asks, but you don’t listen to him because you feel something weird on your shirt.

«Why is it red? My suit is grey.» You notice, and before you could think of something else you suddenly feel a deep pain in your stomach and you can’t stay up anymore.

«No, you don’t die on me, Sweetheart, you don’t.» You are dying? But it’s not that painful. You just want to sleep. Yes, sleep a little. Five minutes.

«I love you.» You add, because it’s true. You begin to feel a little cold, you would love a blanket right now.

«A doctor, please! Please!» Effie screams, but you only see Haymitch. He is crying. He never cries, certainly not in public.

«Please, please Daisy, stay alive.» He begs you and it hits you. You are dying. There is no way out, you will be dead.

Holly will be crushed. You didn’t say goodbye. And Perla, and Lora… you don’t want to die. You didn’t think, you acted because you saw a danger but you don’t want to die. You are twenty four. You want to travel between the districts, you want to become an apprentice for Portia, you want to live with Haymitch and to wake up every morning with his kisses and you want to go dancing with the girls and to gossip with Effie and you don’t want to die.

Don't fuck it up. Don't be a hero, don't save someone because they look weaker than you. You promised him that.

«I’m sorry I played the hero.» You whisper, and now the pain is strong. It’s almost unbearable.

«Don’t you dare, Dai, honey, please.» He keeps you in his arms and you don’t want to because he is staining all his suit with your blood, and you want to tell him but talking is so, so hard right now.

«I love you.» You repeat. He needs to know it. He needs to know he is loved.

«I love you too. I love you, Daisy. Please. Please.» Don’t call me Daisy, you can’t even whisper now.

You hear him, and everything goes black.

[ao3feed-everlark]

The Royale Capitol Games

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/o2Srnim

by PinkMuseSundays

"To remind the Capitol that their nefarious deeds will never be forgotten, twenty-four children are reaped from their families to participate in a Battle Royale. Unlike its predecessor, the tributes are chosen at random despite their age, sex, and societal status."

The voice chuckled over the last line, as if disbelieving any of the kids from the Capitol were beyond poorer than the high middle-class citizens.

"...of course, tributes who refuse to participate within the rules of the game will have their shock collars activated.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first ever Royale Capitol Games, with it also being the Fourth Quarter Quell from the discontinued series of the Hunger Games."

The announcer laughs, unaware of the sheer number of Capitol parents that have fainted from the live announcement. They were giddy for a while at having to recite the dreaded line, along with a sickening twist added by the end.

"And may the odds ever grant you their favors."

 Pairings; Heavenscoin with a side of Hayffie & Everlark.

Words: 11272, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 4 of The odds came with blood and peppermints

Fandoms: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M, Other

Characters: Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin, Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Effie Trinket, Beetee Latier, President Paylor, Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta, Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair's Son, Finnick Odair (mentioned), Enobaria (Hunger Games), Caesar Flickerman, Coriolanus Snow, Coriolanus Snow's Granddaughter, Fulvia Cardew, Gale Hawthorne, Original Characters

Relationships: Alma Coin/Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair (mentioned), Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark, Katniss & Primrose Everdeen (mention), Haymitch Abernathy & Plutarch Heavensbee, Caesar Flickerman & Plutarch Heavensbee, Fulvia Cardew & Plutarch Heavensbee, Alma Coin & Plutarch Heavensbee

Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Thriller, Mystery, Kidnapping, Romance, Drama & Romance, Quarter Quell (Hunger Games), Fourth Quarter Quell, Inspired by Black Mirror (TV), Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, 76th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe, Child Death, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Capitol Hunger Games, Suffering!Heavenscoin, Funny!Hayffie, Veteran!Everlark, Canon-Typical Violence, Hunger Games Victors, Victors as a Family (Hunger Games), Plutarch and Haymitch bromatism, Plutarch "I'm so stressed out" Heavensbee, Alma "This is what I fucking deserve" Coin, Caesar "That's how you put on a show" Flickerman

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/o2Srnim

[vonlipvig]

Damn, 3 royal authority, 2 government budget plus -1 and now 4 energy with positive +2 Damn, this is good. Not the worse than what i have seen from others like the other players have 1 royal authority, -3 government budget and 1 energy with 0 income. Hey your improving so good for you. Also I'm glad you managed to sway Valgsland and Morella to support your arbitration case against Pales also since your past the meeting between the Prime Minister of Morella if you have an bad relations with Morella the prime minister could offer you biscuits during the meeting which in take case this biscuits is dry as fuck if eaten makes make you comprehensible and somewhat utterly destroyed your vocal chords due to its dryness. And the prime minister begun to berate you and list her demands which if you respond makes you gurgle and incomprehensible more without the tea later being serve to you which is steaming hot and burn your throat as you drink it so yeah good job on not pissing off the prime minister of morella and you can take that biscuits and gave it to Smolak you know. Just a little tomfoolery.

oh anon, you're making me feel like i'm ~The Man~, i fear this is going to go to my head now lmao. i've deluded myself enough to think that it's all going according to plan, so let's hope that we're really on the road to success, as you say!

(also, it's actually 4 authority! have i pissed off my friends in sordland after arresting their tourists? maybe, but i feel like i can fix that if needed. my people need to know i'm on their side, since i've kiiiiinda been neglecting them a bit with all these international disasters happening. guys, i'm very busy, rn.)

yeah, i'm surprised how well that all went! i loved hanging with alma, she's super cool (and i'm very glad she agreed to my demands, too! i kinda backed off on the zille support from her, since i didn't wanna push it, we'll see how that goes). and OH MY GOD, for real? that's hilarious, weaponized biscuits lmaooo. no, these biscuits were lovely, and the tea was delicious, all good in paradise! (but i can picture poor romus trying to wash down the Worst Biscuit Known To Man, tears in his eyes, while alma goes all in on her demands. good strategy, madam prime minister!).

OH i didn't take the biscuit, i gave her the morellan coin i got from rusty, tho i guess it wouldn't have mattered since it would have been a nice biscuit, and we're not about to give smolak a nice biscuit, oh no.

.....but thank you for the info, i know what i'm doing next playthrough, heheheh [<- with evil intent].

[heyhoeudoin]

JOKES ON YOU

"The bad girl and the good boy, huh? Who would have thought."

pairing: famous!camilo madrigal x infamous!reader

words: 5.4k

genre/s: modern!au, fluff, angst ish: hurt/comfort?

warning/s: swearing, sad stuff (i hope), she/they (i hope)

synopsis: camilo seeks help from someone and that someone just happens to be you

masterlist ; part 2

a/n: i've had this idea for a while now and it took forever to write. sorry if things are a bit messy, my thought process kept changing. hopefully y'all enjoy though!

welcome to encanto! a totally normal city with a famous family that is highly treated like royalty or of importance, the madrigals, and an infamous family that is treated like criminals or outcasts, the l/ns.

in actuality, these two families are just regular people; one that is very likable and the other not so much.

the madrigals consists of three generations:

alma 'abuela' madrigal, she gave birth to triplets: julieta, pepa, and bruno. julieta married agustin and gave birth to three daughters: isabela, luisa, and mirabel. bruno didn't marry anyone. pepa married felix and gave birth to a daughter and two sons: dolores, camilo, and antonio.

the l/n also consists of three generations (i'll be using the same family set up from my other work: In Love?):

adella 'mistress' l/n, she gave birth to two sons: dante and f/n. dante is a single dad with a single son: carlos. while f/n married m/n and has two children: irene and well, you.

the difference with these two families is nothing, well, except maybe their jobs and lifestyle.

in the madrigal family; alma owns a school, julieta is the head chef, pepa is the geography teacher, bruno is the history teacher, agustin is the school's entomologist, felix is the guidance counselor. now for the grandchildren, dolores (lovable but quiet) and isabela (the popular girl) are college students; law and biology, respectively, luisa is a third year in high school who is very popular for her strengths, camilo (handsome and troublemaker) and mirabel (pretty and trendsetter) are first years, while antonio (animals! and cute!) is still in kindergarten.

meanwhile in the l/n family; adella owns a casino, dante is the 'boss' for the underground criminals, f/n is a 'shady' doctor, and m/n makes weapons for a living. for the grandchildren, carlos (quiet but intimidating) is a college student who works on poison; toxicology, irene is a third year in high school and he knows everything (whether you'd lie to him, your feelings, etc.), and then you, you're a first year and your reputation? nothing, you're just scary and unapproachable thus why your a loner (but hey, you kinda like it).

interesting dynamics, huh? well, our focus in this story is you and camilo.

the two of you are polar opposites!

camilo here is famous for being a madrigal and his abundant amount of charisma. while you're the outcast for being a l/n and that you're scary and unapproachable. well, that's what people see mostly from what they see and from rumors.

you and camilo were never seen together; talking to each other. both of you were never heard talking about each other even! it's like you two don't even know the other exists!

but that's a lie.

camilo here, actually admires you. why? because, well, first of all, you're very fucking pretty and you're also one of the smartest people! you're always within top five in the entire school. also for your freedom? it just looks like your always in your own world; no one putting pressure on you to be... perfect. camilo is sort of also envious of you.

you, on the other hand, sort of despise camilo. how did that happen? nothing. sure, he's all handsome and knows exactly how to put smiles on people, but how does he just always have people around him. here you are trying to survive from people throwing daggers at you! you are also a bit jealous of camilo.

one coin with two very different sides; looked upon with different angles. however, things change with one visit to the old school building.

camilo just wanted to get away from his massive fan group, be alone for once in his life, but he's too nice to turn them down. it has always been like that, the moment he exits out of his classroom: hoarded by people!

except, when he noticed no one flocked towards him like usual, he immediately took that and ran. where? he doesn't know but then, somehow he made it to the old school building.

the reason why no one hoarded camilo was because you were right behind him when he exited out of the classroom.

and people tend to fear you more than they adore camilo.

back to camilo, when he entered the abandoned building; super eerie, especially with all the dust and debris everywhere. then he noticed a hall with lit lanterns leading up to a clean room with furniture. no it wasn't the school desks; those were gone. from what he could see (since the room is dark and the only light source is the dim lantern in the middle of the room), the room had a couple of couches, a bed, a few fridges, a huge tv (somehow), and a couple of tables then some more stuff other than that.

as if this place was someone's hideout.

camilo decided to just stay around until the next classes start, right now it's lunch which means he's got an hour to stay here.

a long while later, camilo had already snooped through most the things in the room, of course, he tried his best to put them back properly. he also tried to look for a light switch, but then couldn't find one.

'this person sure do like the dark.' camilo sighs out before laying down onto the bed.

after a few seconds, camilo started crying.

...you watched all of it happen.

yes, the hideout in the old school building is yours. meaning, you saw a random person stroll into your room, started snooping around, then laid onto your bed, then started crying.

at first you were pissed, thinking of shouting at the person in your safe space, but then you saw them also carefully handling your things and weren't making any messes. so you let them be and just continued on with reading your book (yes, in the dark).

but then the person started crying, and of course you heard. however, you have no idea what to do so you let the person be for a while to let them cry out their feelings.

after all, it is better to vent out rather than pile it all inside.

"are you feeling a bit better now?"

camilo stood up from the bed so quick, his vision went black for a second. "huh?!" he let out while you just laughed at his shocked state, "how long have you been there?" he asked frantically as you just continue to laugh.

you wiped off fake tears, "i've always been here. you're not used to the dark, huh?" you asked with a half-hearted smile. camilo (you don't know it's camilo) huffed, "well, sorry i'm not a vampire!" you snorted, "yeah, you're not. you're a gremlin, though." you pointed out then laughed harder when he started throwing a tantrum.

you let out a content sigh, "alright, now that i made you a bit comfortable. mind telling me why you were crying? i'll give you a free therapy session." you snickered at the last bit, but camilo knows you were serious about your question.

camilo shifted on the bed, seemingly uncomfortable into letting out and you noticed. "hey, it's fine. you don't have to share, unless you're more wary if i know who you are?" you called out as he turned away a bit. "bullseye?" you smirked, "well, can you see me?" you asked to which he looked over to where your voice was, "uh no–" you snapped your fingers, "exactly! if you can barely see me, what more than me knowing who you are?"

camilo let out a sigh of relief before going back to lay on the bed, "well, mysterious person, don't you ever just feel lonely even with people around you?" he asked making you widen your eyes, "wow, deep question, but no; for me personally at least. although in fairness, that just means that you're not clicking with these people. they're there just because, they aren't your friends in the least, i guess. are the people you hang out with always different?" he lets out a soft, "yeah–" which made you let out a sad smile.

"then you're just a place to visit, never truly staying."

camilo winces at the blunt statement and you saw making you chuckle, "sorry about that, i'm rather straightforward when i need to be. although i could be wrong, i mean i don't really have friends; i stay here during breaks and people avoid me in school." you sheepishly muttered out with an embarrassed look.

camilo then smiles, "then let's be friends!" you turned to him in shock, as in pure absolute shock, "wait! are you sure? i literally just told you that people avoid me like the plague! that's– that's already a reason for itself! that– it must mean that i'm a bad person!" you frantically let out with a hand over your chest while camilo just laughs at you this time.

"you and i laughed together, then i told you a part of my problems to which you gave me an opinion on! a bit hurtful, but the truth hurts right?" you stifled a laugh at that, "true–" "you didn't judge me at all and that's a good thing! i already saw you as a friend when you did that." he scratches the back of his next while looking away.

you stared at him for a couple of seconds before bursting out into a laughter. camilo turned to the sound of your laugh in shock; the laugh is so genuine and loud! it made him start to laugh a bit as well.

"man!" you sighed out, "wow! i've had such good laughs today, damn. if you keep making me feel good like that, i might just force you to stay." you smugly says as camilo huffs his chest out, "more like you're stuck with me; i wasn't going anywhere in the first place!" he calls out making you laugh again and he along as well.

you scoffed, "are you sure though?" he turned to you in confusion, "i mean, classes are about about to start and from what i'm feeling from you: you're a good boy." you stated with a knowing tone as he realizes and stands up.

camilo hurries, well, tries to hurry out to the door, but kept stumbling, "oh my god! i completely forgotten! i gotta go—AH!" fortunately for him, you caught him in time. you stifled a laugh in, "you good?" you asked then held his hand to bring him towards the door.

camilo shivered at the touch of your hand because, one, it was cold and two, he felt strangely weird to be holding hands with you; embarrassed even.

you guided him towards the door, "alright, bye–" "wait!" camilo shouts out, "is it a good time to ask who are you?" he asks with a sheepish tone. you placed your hand on your hip, "dear, just a while ago you were so insecure about me knowing who you are. what makes you think i'll let you know who i am?" you say in such a snide way which made camilo pout a bit to which you saw.

"aw, don't be like that." you cooed, "quite honestly, i'm also insecure about you knowing who i am; i also have a reputation after all. maybe once were both ready, then we can finally introduce ourselves." you explained which made him brighten up, you chuckled at that. "okay!" he nods, "bye-bye, mysterious person!" then leaves, although before he could. "oh and by the way!" you called out,

"if you don't know where to go, you can always come here."

throughout the rest of the day, camilo could only think of the mysterious person (aka you) he met during lunch. this caused him to be distracted for the rest of the day which didn't go unnoticed by his family.

mirabel, who is next to camilo in their limo that is making rounds around the city to pick up the other family members, noticed that her primo is very distracted. she nudged him, "hey, what's wrong with you today?" she asked as camilo turned to her in surprise. he shook his head bashfully, "nothing!– er, nothing... just thinking about some stuff." he says avoiding eye contact.

mirabel hums in suspicion, "thinking huh? well, don't go thinking to hard now. you're getting distracted, right isabela?" she suddenly asks her sister who just arrived inside the limo. "what?" isabela looks up and asks in confusion while mirabel just dismisses her, "never-mind that."

mirabel turns over to camilo again, "i heard that you were spotted walking into the old school building, what were you doing there?" she asks suddenly which made him tense up. mirabel saw and punches his shoulder, "woah dude, calm down, wait, did you bump into y/n?!" camilo perked up at the name, but shook his head, "no–! i'd be a mess if i met y/n!"

mirabel looked at camilo, "what? why would you be a mess?" she then let out a loud gasp and started shaking him, "don't tell me you like her?! camilo, don't! that's so bad!" she exclaims at him while camilo just deadpans at her.

mirabel took out her phone, "here, check this out." she showed camilo a tiktok that went viral: it was you standing in front of a man, who is kneeling down, and saying sorry multiple times then ran away when you extended your hand.

"what was the point of showing me that?" camilo asks as mirabel sighs, "camilo, she's a l/n... people said that they hang out around the old school building, that's why no one goes there anymore." she tries to explain, but camilo only became more confused, "and?" mirabel let out a confused noise, "i mean, why is everyone avoiding and afraid of her? are they that bad or?"

mirabel side glanced at isabela to which she saw and sighed, "camilo, the l/n family are dangerous people. they posses the skills and knowledge that the regular people don't know about; the underground stuff. they own a casino! that's where the most shadiest things happen!" she explains more, but camilo still doesn't get it.

camilo huffs, "well, sure, their family jobs are like that but it doesn't mean that they are bad! whatever, i'll do my own finding. i'm not gonna listen to some rumors and baseless conclusions." he cross his arms together.

mirabel and isabela looked at each other with a knowing look and giggled among themselves.

meanwhile, you got your own problem as well.

your curiosity is killing you! you've been itching to know who that was and why you felt overly the need to... protect him? or rather stay by him. of course, this caused you to have a scowl on your face the rest of the school day. when people saw your face, of course, they spread the rumor of someone pissing you off and that you could blow any minute.

the poor guy who faced your wrath was someone who accidentally bumped into.

"hey, watch where you're... going." the guy who bumped into you faltered when he saw you and worst of all, your glare. you clicked your tongue, "y-y/n!" he stuttered out and back away. you rose your brow, "hey–" he straightened up, "r-right! i'm sorry!" he kneels to you which made you smirk and extend out your hand. the guy thought you were going to hit him or something else scary, so he stood up and ran away.

yeah, after that, people are even more afraid of you now, especially when you're mad.

the only people who'd talk to you are your family and that's it. which is probably why you wanted to talk more to the mysterious person from a while ago; a new person to talk to after forever.

irene, who is staring at you while sipping a drink (the both of you are inside the VIP family area in the casino), "you obsessing over that camilo madrigal again?" he asks, crossing his leg over another.

you looked up at him from your laptop and scoffed, "obsessing? how dare you call it that!" you turned back to your laptop, "someone found my room at the old school building, they were... interesting." your eyes glinted as irene sighed with a worried smile.

"there you go again with your whole 'piqued my interest' thing. who was it anyways?" he asked then suddenly realized something, "wait– how did they even talk to you? your entire batch are afraid of you!" he exclaimed out leaning over the table.

you groaned and rolled your eyes, "the room was dark, as always, he didn't know who i am. same goes for me, i don't know who they are." you sighed out before taking a sip from your drink.

irene stared at you then let out a knowing smirk, "alright then, just be careful." he cooed out while you clicked your tongue, "of course."

from that single day, everything changed.

camilo and you kept secretly meeting each other in the old school building. of course, each other's identity is kept to a secret for reassurance and trust. the two of you always telling each other whatever bothers you two; camilo going on about the pressure of always being perfect and you ranting about things that pisses you off.

until one day, camilo came running into your arms on the brink of tears. he smushed his face into your stomach, your bodies intertwined on the bed. you started caressing his head, "good morning to you too." you softly greeted him as he just let out a grunt. your eyes narrowed, "i'm gonna ask you how you are and i want you to answer me honestly."

"i wanna know who you are, but i don't want you to know who i am. aren't i selfish?" camilo scoffed as you just smiled at him, "that's not selfish, well, it is but sometimes selfish is good. i mean, i also kind of sometimes think like that." you sheepishly told him, getting a bit embarrassed. camilo turned his head up, "really? you wanna know who i am?" he asks all surprised which you though, 'cute.'

you nodded, "yeah! of course, i have a strong sense of curiosity. i got in trouble a lot because of it." you stifled a laugh, "but i remember when we first met you were insecure about it so i didn't... investigate because you're the first person to ever talk to me and i want that to stay." you say bashfully, heat rising up to your cheeks. camilo chuckled at your embarrassed tone making you hit him.

you scoffed, "the jokes on you, camilo." you say quickly which made him turn to you in actual shock and dread, "huh? wait– what– i??? what did you say just now?" he asked all confused, stuttering and all. you did your best to hold your poker face and not burst out laughing, "i said the jokes on you, amigo." you enunciated the last word clearly for him although, that just made him more confused.

camilo shook his head, "i swear i thought you called me by my name." he says all wide eyed except you saw the chance to tease him.

you smirked, "oh? doesn't that mean you think about me a lot?" you snide at him as his jaw drops and his face turning red, "aw! you must really want me to say your name. it's alright, you can say it. i probably don't even know who you are unless your outside famous also then, it's a small maybe." you giggled at the end.

camilo sighs, "well, i am outside famous also, mostly because of my family. i love my family but some times, i don't feel... safe? relaxed? around them. home and family is where you can feel safe and relaxed. where am i suppose to go when i don't wanna go home!" he cries out and goes back to suffocating you into a hug.

this man loves physical affection.

you positioned the two of you on the bed better so that you and him are comfortable. "how about me? do you feel safe– relaxed– no, reassured here with me?" you asked and you felt his head nod into your chest. you chuckled before placing a kiss on his forehead,

"then come and stay with me for how long and whenever you want. if you can't find me, i'd come to you. no matter what, i'll be there."

"well, technically, i wouldn't always know if you need me so call me when you do, i gave you my number for a reason."

after that, camilo knew for a fact that he has—needs—to know who you are. he finally realizes it. all those feelings gathered up, his body does not lie when he shows his physical affection towards you.

camilo madrigal is in love with you.

it is clear as day that camilo has something in his mind; being all happy and giddy before, during, and after school. not that unusual to others, but to the people closest to him? yeah, very suspicious.

and this whole happy-go-lucky era made him go through an event he didn't expect.

camilo now stood inside of the library, at the further area of it (not many people come there). he's in there to look for references he needed for an assignment in english class. he was humming a song that the mysterious person (you) told him about and because of this, he didn't notice that he was walking into a person.

camilo held his hand to his head while he staggered backwards a bit while a thud on the floor was heard. "my poor ass." you mumbled out now laying on the floor with glare on your face, but then that changed when you saw it was camilo, "shit."

camilo held his hand out, "i'm sorry so about that." he says shaking his head, not seeing that the person he bumped into is you. you took his hand and pulled up, "no, it's fine, also were you just humming (insert song choice)?" you asked as he turned to you in shock; that it is you, y/n, and you know the song. "oh my god, y/n?!" camilo spurred out, tensing up, his hand still intertwined with yours.

you sighed with a disappointed look, "are you going to run away now?" you say with a pout on your face which made camilo straighten up as a blush spreads on his face, 'they're so cute sdfhbskdhf' you saw the blush and smirked, "oh, camilo, don't tell me you're one of those who calls themselves a 'fan' of me?"

camilo shook his head bashfully, "wait, you know who i am?" he asked confused which made you laugh. you combed your hair with your hand, "what? of course i do! if you know who i am, then what more than me knowing who you are? you and i are literally the talk of our grade; we have reputations." you explained as he just nods, still a bit shocked.

camilo nervously stood in front of you, fidgeting with his fingers. you saw which made you sigh and place a hand on your hip, "sorry, i'm making you uncomfortable– i mean, the book i need isn't in this aisle, i'll just go somewhere else." you fumbled out before turning around and walking away.

low-key hoping that camilo would stop you.

but he didn't.

kidding, he did.

camilo took a hold of your hand before you could leave the aisle, "sorry! i mean– sorry, about that. i just– i'm kinda interested in you!" he exclaimed suddenly because of his nervous state. camilo noticed what he said and put a hand over his mouth, "what the hell did i just say?! i'm so sorry–! i meant that, let's get to know each other better? wait, no, that just makes it seem like i'm desperate. you need help finding that book?" he rambled on which made you burst into laughter.

you put a hand on his shoulder, "camilo, calm down and yes, i need help finding that book. maybe we could help each other with the assignments as well." you said to him as he nods, "yeah! i mean– sure, let's do that." he says sheepishly as you giggle.

the two of you spent the remaining free period studying and completing assignments. then the bell rung.

camilo pouted seeing as he enjoyed his time with you to which you chuckled at the sight. you pinched his cheeks, "aw camilo! don't be sad, tell you what, here have my number. let's have a date later at the cafe down town?" you asked with a small blush on your face. camilo, on the other hand, is very red at your sudden invite. "yes! i mean– sure, i would love to." he let out a nervous giggle at the end while you handed him a piece of paper.

you stood up with your bags and books, "let's meet in an hour." camilo turned to you, "where? at the cafe?" you shook your head and smirked, "once you realize, you know where." you winked at him then left leaving him confused and blushing.

you arrived home with a glare and a red face. carlos, your cousin, and your mother saw seeing as they were nearby. they then nodded to each other; your mother giving carlos some things to calm you down.

carlos held your shoulder and hand, "y//n, calm down, whatever happened it doesn't matter. here have a cup of tea." he says handing you your favorite cup filled with your favorite tea. of course you took a sip of it, "no, no, you calm down carlos, i'm not mad." you told him with a small smile instead of a glare.

carlos deadpans at you, "why the hell were you walking in with a glare and a red face in then?" now, you glare at him, "it's my resting bitch face, carlos." you clicked your tongue at him, "great! i'm kinda pissed now. go away carlos, i got a date to prepare for." you casually say while shooing him.

wrong move.

your mother popped up out of nowhere and immediately started shaking you, "A DATE?!?///11/1/" she screamed at you while carlos stared at you hella shocked, jaw dropped and all. "a date? y/n, please tell me you're joking, you have the worst reputation out of all of us! this might be a prank." he states as you deadpan at him in return.

"mother, stop shaking me and carlos, i'm the one who asked them out. shut the hell up already, i'm getting a headache from the both of you and i don't wanna be in a bad moon when i meet camilo– SHIT!" you accidentally let out who you're going on a date with which made your mother and carlos stare at you with blinking eyes and open mouths.

irene suddenly appeared from the sky, "I HEARD EVERYTHING!" the three of you turned to him in surprise, "irene, please never do that again." your mother tells him, but he just ignores her and goes to you. "i told you to be careful, y/n!" he tries to talk to you but you took this as your cue to lock yourself up in your room. "BYE!"

there stood your mother; who has a teary look of relief, carlos; who's a bit annoyed, and irene; with a smirk on his face. irene turned to carlos, "i win." he says extending his hand as carlos begrudgingly hands over a stack of cash, "puta."

meanwhile at camilo, he cautiously sneaked back to his room and prepare for the date with you. why is he sneaking back? well, his sister, dolores, just apparently knows everything somehow and she's bad with keeping secrets (some times) especially if those secrets are about camilo.

just as camilo was about to get inside his room, dolores popped out of the corner, "i heard that you have a date later." she says scaring camilo who let out a scream which someone else heard and walked over.

camilo sighs as he places a hand over his heart, "gosh dolores, please, you're gonna give me a heart attack one day." he says trying to stir the conversation but dolores didn't budge. "i'm not going to be the one to give you a heart attack, camilo. it's y/n who's going to, after all, you're going on a date with her." she says all teasingly.

mirabel looked at camilo in shock and started shaking him, "you're going on a date with y/n???!!!?/1/1 have you lost your mind?! they're scary! and dangerous! oh my gosh..." she exclaims at camilo who pushes mirabel away a bit.

"calm down mirabel, she's not that bad. they and i literally spent half of the day together and then she asked me out. alright! i'm going to prepare now, shoo shoo." camilo dismisses mirabel's thoughts and pushes them away from his room and locks himself behind it.

camilo, inside his room, then took out the piece of paper you gave him and his phone as well. "alright, i'll just save their number real quick." he mumbles out while typing the numbers then–

"oh my god, i love my life."

hyou sat on the couch at your hideout, waiting for camilo to burst through the doors and give you a big hug– maybe even a kiss if he's bold enough in which you doubt would happen.

oh you were so wrong.

the moment camilo got inside of the room, he ran towards you and picked you up on his shoulder like a sack. it all happened so fast that it took you a while to notice what was going on. by the time you realized, camilo was running on school grounds with you on his shoulder and there was still people on grounds!

meaning, the two of you are trending right now.

you started hitting camilo's back, "camilo! you're an idiot, put me down!" you screamed at him as he just gives you a laugh, "i will once we're out of the school." he says but you just deadpan at him, "what do you mean?! we are out of the school!"

and now here you two are at the cafe, sitting down at the tables outside of said cafe. you glaring at camilo while he just stares at you with a soft smile. you were also scolding him about carrying you until the cafe until, "stop staring at me like that to distract me!" you called out as your cheeks flush in red. camilo just smirks at you, "i'm not staring at you to distract you." he cooed out while you just rolled your eyes.

you took a sip of your drink, "man, take a look at the people filming us right now. can't wait to get trending, yet again." you sighed, nodding at your drink feeling content with it.

camilo shook his head and took a bite of his cake, "i mean, wouldn't change much; we're both always trending." then he pointed his fork at you, "also, you shouldn't pay attention to them. pay attention to me instead, i'm the one your on a date with!" he whined out making you laugh.

you dragged his chair closer towards you then pinched his cheeks, "i am paying attention to you. i've always payed attention to you." you gave him a sly smile while he pouts more, "no fair! you've always got such nice things to say. where are you getting these?!" he whines out as you just laugh at him.

"you'll come up with some, sooner or later. i mean, i'm not going anywhere so take all the time you need." you told him as you boop his nose causing him to scrunch up his nose.

camilo swatted away your hand then his demeanor changed suddenly. you noticed and got nervous since he probably got something in his mind right now. he moved his chair closer to you, "what are you doing?" you asked but he ignored you.

camilo gently took hold of your chin so that you made eye contact with him, "no, y/n, the joke is on you."

you and camilo connected with a kiss.

bonus:

a picture of you and camilo kissing blew up on the internet. you've got a lot of hate for it, but they wouldn't do anything to you. why? because they all know what would happen if you get pissed.

camilo got teased about it a lot some saying that they thought he was gay, even his family thought so too!

the two of you are happy together, and aren't afraid to show it.

the end.

masterlist ; part 2