#slowly bringing this wip back from the dead like i don't have a gajillion others to work on

[blood-mocha-latte]

what's this about luztoye and the hunger games? (consider this a prod lol)

besties, i am steepling my fingers together evilly...

in all seriousness, i almost completely forgot this wip existed at all. it was sort of a screen test, i think, for luztoye, as i wrote it some time ago, but it's very near and dear to my heart and doesn't really follow a sort of. hunger games fusion equation, if that makes sense.

anyways. thank you for asking! feeling quite insane about it at the moment. might i offer you a snippet in these trying times?

--

“I saw you, you know.” George told him.

He paused and ducked his head, just enough to take another drag of the cigarette without lifting his wrist from where it was propped against the cemented barrier of the wall. 

“During your games. Before them. In your… your…” He trailed off, waving a hand around his head absently. Joe almost groaned, putting out his own smoke against the same barrier.

“God.” He said, and George huffed a grin, quiet.

Two was masonry, so it made sense, Joe supposed, to have everything based off of brass. An alloy: forging two things together to make something stronger. 

Better brass than gold, anyways.

“The headpiece was a bit much,” George began, still almost half-laughing. His eyes crinkled in the corners when he talked, watching the city below them, watching the walls, to the sides and behind them. Always on the alert, though his posture seemed almost relaxed. “But it was… it was good.”

Good, Joe thought, wasn’t a word he’d use to talk about anything. Anyone, anywhere. Still, he just huffed.

“It was stupid.” He said, dry. “It was the same show that the whole thing was, altogether.”

George wasn’t looking at him, but his cigarette dipped with the curve of his smile, gentle and absent. “I know.” He said, soft. “But the brass matched you. Your skin tone, your build, the look on your face. You looked terrifying.”

Terrifying was something Joe didn’t want to be. Not anymore. Maybe not ever, but he’d been seventeen and now he was twenty-four and all he knew was that it wasn’t what he wanted.

“I remember you, too.” He said, before he could think too much. George turned, just enough to see him out of the corner of his eye. Something amused, almost, if it wasn’t so tired. “You were…” He trailed off.

Describing him as beautiful made Joe almost nauseous. Not because George wasn’t, or because Joe didn’t believe it, but because it shouldn’t be beautiful. None of it should be. He felt the same spark as ever flash against his temple with something close to upset. 

“You were beautiful.” Joe finished, anyways, before he could overthink it. He tried not to think about anything, nowadays, so it wasn’t too hard. George laughed, quiet, it was almost startled.

“I was so terrified that I’d be electrocuted.” He said, voice warm. “Figured they’d spray some water at me and I’d get charred to pieces.”

Joe felt his smile curve up into his face, sharp and as painful as a knife. “You didn’t.” He rasped, maybe unnecessarily, felt as something in George’s body language changed, just slightly, as he hesitated and brought his smoke back to his lips, down to the filter.

“Yeah.” He said, almost quiet. “I didn’t.”

He put his cigarette out against the cement, grinding what was left of it into something unrecognizable with his thumb. He turned more fully towards Joe, held out the same hand that he’d kept pressed to his mouth and the smoke and brought it up to the side of Joe’s face; brushed his fingertips along his cheekbone. 

Joe didn’t move. George’s eyes were absent, almost somewhere else.

He remembered him, vaguely, before the games. During interviews and preludes and preslaughters and everything else. A breath of fresh air, he’d heard someone call him. A spark, some great timing. Funny kid. 

He’d lost that spark, before Joe ever spoke to him. Before he could barely bring himself to watch the screen.

“We were both seventeen when we won, you know.” George told him, hand at the side of Joe’s face, and Joe watched him, stayed still. 

Almost like he didn’t want him to leave, like he acted flighty when he was anything but. 

“I guess what makes the difference is that I was fifteen when I watched you, and you were nineteen when you watched me.”

Something about the way that he phrased it made Joe’s throat run dry. Think of his own game, maybe, or of George’s. Of the one in between them, of whatever else. 

“I wish I could have helped you.” He said, hoarse, before he could stop himself. 

Immediately, he regretted it, wanted to pull away. He didn’t, though. Never would, maybe. 

Something in George’s eyes softened, almost imperceptible, as he pressed his palm fully to Joe’s cheek, slipped closer to him. Something in his expression was almost creased, more wary. 

“They would’ve killed you.” He said, pressed his thumb to Joe’s cheekbone. His eyes were dark as ever, still creased at the corners, though he wasn’t smiling. “It would’ve been for nothing.”

Joe knew that he meant because George had survived, anyway. That it hadn’t mattered because of that. 

But Joe still saw him, sometimes, and could barely figure out why. Could see him in the arena, freezing and cold and a thousand other words that didn’t have the weight of the actual feeling. 

“Do you think that’s why we’re—” Joe started, and cut himself off. Close? Not angry at each other? Closer than the others? 

He suffocated the thought from his mind, but not quick enough, George still picking up on the way that he hesitated. His palm, at Joe’s cheek, slipped downwards slightly, just enough for him to press his fingertips to the nape of his neck as George took another step. 

“Because they dropped both of us in frozen hellholes?” He asked, like a clarification. 

Joe barely paid attention, didn’t say anything. He was  too focused on the way that George’s lips moved as he spoke, the way that something in his face was haggard, but that it still shone, soft and warm and young and light. 

“Maybe, I guess. But—” It was George’s turn to hesitate, and Joe watched him. After a brief heartbeat, one that he could hear somewhere in his ears, he reached his own hand out enough to press his fingertips to George’s hip, a careful touch.

“—But I don’t think it was supposed to be me.” Something in George’s voice caught, Joe pretended not to hear it. He pressed his palm more fully against his side, and in return, George brushed his fingertips along the shorn hair at the back of Joe’s neck. He pressed his lips together, a weak smile that wasn’t really one at all. “It should’ve been a victor from Two.”

Joe didn’t close his eyes, but it was a close thing.

Two years after his own game, a frozen hellscape, and tributes are given almost the same arena exactly. He’d survived the cold, he supposed it was only reasonable that he’d be able to mentor. 

He’d failed, and he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t thought of Luz, the entire game.

“Don’t think about that.” He said, voice low, instead of anything else. “It – you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

George’s smile was the same beam it always was; warm and bright and something too entirely good to be here. To be anywhere, really. 

He brought his other hand up to Joe’s collarbone, smoothing his fingertips along the jut of the bone through his t-shirt before pressing them lightly to the side of his throat, tilting his head in an absent gesture.

“I think I already am.” He said, almost a murmur, smiled slightly more gently when Joe dropped his forehead the few inches it required to meet his. “I think I have been for five years, now.”

The way he said it was what gave Joe pause, one hand at his hip, the other rising to his waist in between George’s words. Almost mournful, almost hesitant.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, more a croak than anything else.

George’s headshake was instantaneous, matched with the way that he pressed his lips together, slightly trembling. His eyes were wide, almost, just as bright as the rest of him. 

“Don’t.” He whispered, near-frantic, both hands shifting enough to find either side of Joe’s face, almost a slight tremor. “Don’t. Just kiss me.”

There were no cameras, on top of the tower. The wind and height kept it quiet. Joe didn’t hesitate to oblige him.