#there’s no pretending that all that matters is being alive and coming home to someone. it matters that living is hard too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nariism · 8 months

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come out and haunt me

pair. itoshi sae x ghost!reader

content: fluff, angst/comfort with a happy ending, reader is a ghost, platonic + romantic interactions, strangers to friends (to more?), slight pining

synopsis. sae is 13 years old when he moves to madrid. his temporary apartment is old and cheap, and worst of all it's haunted. but he finds your company better than nothing, even if you do tend to knock all of his belongings over.

wc. 5.7k

You are dead.

As it comes to all mortal humans, you have died. You can't remember when, or how, or why— only that it is your duty to haunt this home, that you are abysmally cold, and that you are dead.

You don't know if you had any last words, what it was like to draw a breath, or how to stop feeling so cold. Cradling yourself somehow makes it worse. But you are dead, so what does it matter if you can't remember?

If you had aspirations and meaning in life, then you suppose you should try to find them in death, too. So you float around empty halls, deliberately bump into things just for the fun of it, and pretend that you aren't dead. It is purposeful enough.

There's a boy who lives with you.

You are dead, and he is alive, yet he seems completely unbothered by your loud, obnoxious presence.

Sae feels more dead than alive.

He is 13 years old when he moves into his temporary home in Madrid. It's old and worn. It is all his parents could afford with Yen in a foreign country.

His new home is despairingly lonely. It makes the heart in his chest sink into the pit of his stomach. He misses Rin. His parents. Japan.

He should be thankful. He doesn't mean to be a brat. But the small apartment is cramped and cold and smells like mildew. He's allergic to something in the walls. His light buzzes horribly when it turns on.

And, well. The place is haunted.

You are a ghost haunting an old, rickety apartment in Madrid.

You've never seen your reflection in the mirror, but you're pretty sure you look scary. There has been others before him— a young couple with a dog; a retired carpenter; a businessman complaining about how shitty work is over the phone. Each and every one of them have left you the same way: screaming, crying, colour drained from their faces and packing their suitcase before you could even say hello.

It's a little lonely, being a ghost. Sometimes you wish you came off a little friendlier. You have no ill intent, you're just bored. Bored and lonely and wishing to know why everyone thinks you're so terrifying.

The boy who lives with you is the first. He's the first to look you dead in the eyes and shrug you off. He's the first to fall asleep knowing your presence is watching. He's the first to leave out a bowl of warm, steaming rice for you even though he seems to know you can't physically eat it.

His company is silent, as is yours. It's better than nothing.

Sae is 13 years and 5 months old when he tells Rin his apartment is haunted.

"A ghost? Seriously?" Rin sounds unimpressed even through the static of the phone call. Take it from the kid who watches horror movies in his spare time. Freak, Sae thinks.

"Seriously. I have a picture."

He can hear his brother pulling his phone away from his ear to look at the image he just sent. The call goes quiet for a moment, and then Rin is scoffing in the microphone again.

"Quit messing with me." The younger Itoshi sighs. "This isn't funny."

Rin is only 11. He lives at home with Mom and Dad. He's not alone right now, in a place where everyone speaks a jumbled language he can't decipher yet.

He doesn't understand that even if Sae isn't being haunted, he shouldn't crush his brother's hopes that someone, or something, is watching over him.

"I'm not," Sae deadpans.

"Yeah, okay, and what does this ghost do, then?" He still sounds skeptical.

"Mostly just knocks over my books and stuff."

From his couch, he watches you bristle in embarrassment and scurry away into the darkness of the hall.

You are some sort of untethered soul, unsure of where your actual body rests. It could be 10 meters from this apartment. It could be in Antarctica, for all you know.

Okay, well, Antarctica is a bit of a reach, but you're certain that your body is somewhere. You wonder what kind of clothes you used to wear; what kind of music you used to listen to; what kind of hairstyle you used to prefer.

You wonder if these things are anything like Sae's.

He's all you have right now. It would be nice if you had some things in common. Maybe you could be friends, if he was ever going to acknowledge you to your face instead of gossiping to his brother.

You watch him quietly from the kitchen table, waiting for your bowl of rice. You must make some kind of face when he instead places a plate of eggs in front of you.

He almost laughs, you think. He hasn't shown any sort of emotion in response to you thus far, so it's hard to tell.

"Coaches told me I have to be stricter about my diet," he says out loud. It's the first words he has ever spoken to you. It's the first words anyone has ever spoken to you.

He eats his bland eggs silently after that remark, eyeing them disdainfully.

You have that in common, at least. You miss your warm bowl of rice.

Sae thinks you are funny.

He's only ever known ghosts to be malicious, benevolent beings. Things stuck in purgatory with no way out, forced to wander the mortal plane and thus turning into baneful monsters. Watching spooky movies with Rin has ingrained this into him— hardwired his brain into giving him goosebumps whenever you're around even though he knows you're harmless.

He has to wonder how anyone could ever find a ghost like you genuinely scary, with your avoidant eyes and that patience while you wait for breakfast.

He doesn't mind doing twice the amount of dishes. Not if it means he doesn't feel alone.

You do silly things, like shoving his belongings over when you want his attention, or sitting on the floor and blowing bone-chillingly cold air into his face when he's taking his midday nap.

He's discovered that your inconsistent corporeal interactions with the world are quite amusing.

"What's your name?" He asks one day over eggs that he's shoving around on his plate.

Silence. Of course.

"Don't have one?"

You shake your head, but really, you don't know. You can't remember.

Sae has never been the talkative type, but for some reason he just can't keep his mouth closed. Being a complete shut-in and not having anyone to talk to outside of his team would do that to him, he guesses. He's thankful that you at least don't seem to have a language barrier when he speaks Japanese.

"Should I name you?"

Your offended expression screams: What am I, a pet?

He just smiles, placing his fork down and observing you carefully. And the name he decides on dances at the tip of his tongue, sounds so sweet coming from his lips.

You can't help but think the name was meant for you, in life or in death.

You like listening to Sae talk.

He has a voice smooth as silk, so charming and boyish. He's young, you think. He told you once that you also looked rather young, and asked you how old you were when you died.

Even if you had an answer for him, it's not like you could have told him.

Sae is famous for his age, you discover one night while watching television with him. You're sitting on the floor and he's on the couch. You cause the TV to frizzle and crack with static but he doesn't shoo you away. Maybe he finds your presence more valuable than the background noise of the screen.

He's in a recording, playing what he calls "football"— light blue uniform, eyes wide with adrenaline, sweat sticking to his forehead and a proud shine in his expression. He isn't smiling by any means (you've also discovered that he rarely does), but you can tell he's happy.

"I'm going to be the greatest striker," he says from the couch. He talks about his dreams a lot, which is apparently what he used to do with Rin, but you don't mind filling in that role temporarily. "I'm going to be the best in the entire world."

You don't know anything about football, but you believe him anyways.

Sae is 14 years old when he gets his first contract payment.

This is his chance, he realizes, to move out of his shitty little apartment and into an actual livable home.

He has to consider if you'll feel lonely, if you even can feel lonely, and if you'll like hanging out with your next housemate, whoever it is that's unlucky enough to have a ghost befall them.

He's getting soft. If it were any other point in his life, Sae would have taken the chance to move out without hesitation. But you've been there for him since day one, kept him enough company — no matter how quiet — for him not to go literally insane.

You're the only thing he has in Madrid that he can come home to right now. You’re the only reason he even comes home at night instead of just sleeping in the locker rooms.

If not him, who else would feed you crappy bland eggs in the morning?

You, football, sleep. You, football, sleep. You, football, sleep. At some point, it became his routine.

"I was thinking of moving out."

Your head tilts to the side. You seem perplexed by his statement.

"Like, leaving. Leaving here."

You blink at him, head tilting the other way. There's a look in your eyes that tells him you understand. There's also a look that tells him it's not your first time being abandoned, left in this terribly lonely, smelly apartment.

"I can never tell what you're thinking," he huffs.

You're still for a moment, just staring at him as if you suddenly can't understand Japanese. But then you get up from the table, walk over to the container of dry rice that's been untouched for so long that it's gathering dust, and knock it over.

"Hey," he scolds sharply, chair screeching as he stands. "I have to clean that, you know?"

You start moving the spilled rice into place. He watches curiously as you sort dry rice into a pile. You don't know any Kanji, he isn't surprised. But you know enough to draw him a universally understood symbol.

When he peers over at the messy counter, he finds himself staring at a giant X. Stay, it means. Don't leave.

That night, when he knows you've retreated into the closet where you seemingly go to sleep, he crumples up the lease for his new place without signing and burns the paper.

It's because he needs to make you eggs tomorrow morning. Only he would know to do that.

"Do ghosts ever have dreams?"

You raise your head from the edge of the bed. You've made it a new habit to protect him in his sleep, from what he can tell. Perching yourself on the floor beside the mattress and resting there, head in your arms, making his sheets cold.

You shake your head. Of course not, he internally smacks himself. What a ridiculous notion.

He rolls himself over onto his side, looking at you from under his duvet. "So when you sleep, you don't see anything?"

Another shake of the head. He isn't sure you're understanding him. There's another pause as he peers at you, and then he sighs, eyes sliding shut.

"Do ghosts ever have dreams?" He asks again, this time emphasizing his words in a different way and hoping you'll answer him the way he wants.

Your eyes shift away for a second, as if pondering. When you look back he's surprised to see that you look... bashful?

You point at him, then at yourself, then shy away again.

You. Me. Friends.

Sae feels silly that it makes his heart ache a little— the sadness carried in your face and a loneliness so powerful he feels it rattling in his own bones.

Well, the two of you have a lot more in common than he thought. How long had you been alone? Was that really all you ever dreamed of? Having a friend?

Suddenly, his doubts about his own dreams feel immeasurably small.

He reaches out to pat your head. His hand goes through you.

Sae is 15 years old when he packs up his belongings for a flight to Japan.

"I'll be back," he promises with a small smile. You believe him. He doesn't lie to you.

You wait patiently at the door for him for two weeks, three days, and sixteen hours. When he comes home, he finds you sitting on the floor like you always do with your head in your knees and a sleepy expression on your face.

He seems colder. More withdrawn, for some reason.

"Miss me?" Sae asks, but he's not even looking at you. He makes his way over to the kitchen and dumps a cup of rice into the cooker, suitcase abandoned at the door unpacked.

You trail behind him curiously, watching him in confusion as he washes it in the sink. He pauses, finally glancing at you before reaching over and dumping a second cup of rice in.

"I stress eat. Don't tell my coach."

The words don't make much sense to you, but you nod anyways.

For the first time in months, he places a bowl of warm rice in front of you. You do as he does, say thanks for the food in your head even though you can't eat, and observe him. You both sit quietly in the dim light of the apartment, moonlight beaming through your single rickety window.

He only gets four bites in before he puts his head in his hands and sobs.

You've never seen someone cry so hard before. Usually, they only do it when they first catch a glimpse of you and flee in terror. You've never known it to be such a painful sound— like a bird singing for the sky but never finding it.

Sae sits there for a long time just crying to himself, not caring that your presence is still watching. It's not like you'd ever judge him or have the voice to speak this secret, anyways.

"Fuck—" he hiccups, wiping up his face. "—Sorry."

You look at him funny. He has no reason to apologize. He's just a kid. A 15 year old kid who needs to stress eat in the solitude of his lonely apartment right now. It makes your chest squeeze; an unfamiliar, horrible feeling that's completely new to you. You wonder if this is what all the anime he watches calls a heart.

By the time he finishes crying, his rice is cold. And when he looks up, his eyes widen. Your lips are trembling and you look like you want to shout at him, but you can't. You are dead. You're a ghost. You can't yell some sense into him, even if you tried.

In the pale moonlight shining into the room, he can see tears illuminated on your cheeks.

Sae is 16 years old when he meets his first partner.

"They're nice," he reassures you as he slicks his bangs up with gel. You shake your head in disapproval and he rolls his eyes. You always liked his bangs down, thinks he looks better that way. "Well, I can't stay single forever."

You scowl at him and swivel on your heel to stubbornly deny his claims. He just laughs.

"You're seriously jealous?"

You shoot him a glare.

"If you really don't like them, you could always scare them away. You are a ghost, aren't you?" He reaches up to pat your head as he always does. And as always, his hand phases through you.

He turns around to fix his hair again, leaning into the mirror to see himself closer.

You're not sure if you even have human features. You can't see them in a reflection, anyways. Even if you did, you're sure they're pretty scary.

You glance at Sae in the reflection. He looks as good as ever, no longer a scrawny little 13 year old kid who eats rice for breakfast every morning. You wonder if his partner is pretty like he is.

He must notice the chill in the air grow ten times colder— a telling sign that your mood is dropping. He turns around to see what has happened, only to find you sulking.

"What?"

You pout, gesturing to the mirror. He looks to the vanity, then to you, and he shakes his head with an exasperated smile.

"I was wondering when you'd ask," he says as if this was a conversation he's been waiting for. And then he talks. Talks more than you've heard in a long time— since he came home from Japan, probably.

He's gotten meaner over the years. He was always a rude little kid, but being pushed around in football must have given him thicker skin and a sharper tongue. You've never known him to be a saint of a human, someone who speaks so eloquently in their descriptions. But here he is now, defying your every expectation like he always does.

He tells you what colour your hair is. Compares the shape of your head to a fruit you can't recall an image of. Gives you a detailed explanation of all your flaws and marks and why he thinks they're so perfect because it proves that you were indeed alive and human at some point.

"You're beautiful," he concludes casually, as if he's not turning the entire world on its head right now.

Silence fills the room as he waits for your response. You don't do anything but gawk at him, and he chuckles.

He doesn't show up to his date that night.

"Your hair got longer," Sae points out one day while he's scrolling through his phone.

Your eyes flutter open from where your head rests on the coffee table. You hadn't even noticed. Can ghosts grow?

"You know, I used to think you'd stay the same forever, but you've been growing up with me. It's cute."

Have you? Is it cute? Are you seriously so tethered to him that you've been unconsciously changing to match him?

Sae puts his phone down at your confusion. "Should I give you a birthday if you're going to grow up?"

You don't know what a birthday is. When he tries to explain it, you're even more perplexed. Ghosts don't have birthdays. They have... deathdays.

He puts a cake in front of you anyways and lets you blow out the candles.

Sae is 17 years old when he gets the eviction notice.

Four years. Four long, hard, unbelievably painful years later, and he's finally being kicked out of his house.

13 year old Sae would have celebrated. All he feels now is despair.

He doesn't tell you. He can't. How can he explain that he won't wake up every morning at 6am sharp to make you eggs? That you won't have someone around who will tell you every little thing that's changed about you from the last day? That you won't be able to doodle him little incomprehensible blobs with dry rice anymore?

He shouldn't care so much. You're not chained to this Earth. You might just disappear once he leaves, inperceptable to anyone else. The thought makes him so sick that he throws up that night. He tells you he ate some bad food.

Sae doesn't want you to feel sad or lonely, but it's not like he can just become a squatter in this place. His dream is to play football, not be thrown into jail.

You wake up one morning, and he's gone.

There isn't a note. There isn't an explanation anywhere to be found. There isn't even a trace of evidence that Itoshi Sae ever lived here.

Well, except for the plate of eggs and bowl of rice sitting on the stove.

You thought you would have been used to being alone by now. For some time, you were used to it. But that was many years ago.

You're not sure how long you've been haunting this apartment in Madrid, nor do you know how much time passes after Sae leaves. The world seems to come to a halt, actually. Without him, what fun is being a ghost?

Now you're just a lost soul like all the others. There isn't anything special about you. You're just the ghost that used to haunt Itoshi Sae and wake him up from his naps.

For the first time in years, you only know one thing. A singular fact that keeps you bound to this world: it's your duty to haunt this home. There is nothing else.

No one moves in after Sae leaves. No one new comes to be haunted. No one dares to set foot into this apartment. You remember that there were moments when life flickered inside of you, if even for just a fraction of your infinite time. The reason for that has abandoned you without explanation.

There's a knock on the door one day. You can't open it, and the person outside doesn't bother sticking around to see you phasing through the door to look around.

There's a birthday cake on the floor with candles that say '19' sticking out of it.

Only one human in the entire world would have deemed today to be your 19th birthday. He's nowhere to be seen.

He moves back to Japan on his 21st birthday. Sae is having trouble remembering what you look like, despite seeing you in his dreams every night.

It's a terrible realization. So terrible that it makes him sob into his pillow at night when no one in the world is awake to hear his anguish.

Japan is lonelier than Madrid. He never thought it would happen, and he blames you entirely.

He doesn't have anyone waiting for him when he opens the door to his luxury penthouse apartment. He only washes one plate in the morning. He wakes up from his midday naps undisturbed and rested.

Sae misses you deeply. And he can't help but wonder if you feel the same.

(You don't know what the yearning ache inside of you is. You don't know what to call it.

You miss him, too. You just can't put a name to the feeling.)

He doesn't stop seeing you in wisps; little blurs in his peripheral that make his head turn fast as lightning. Wherever he looks, you're gone.

It's not fair that you're a ghost who both literally and figuratively haunts him. He'd like to move on in life and forget about those 4 miserable years he spent living in that damned apartment.

He can't. Sae is incapable of moving on from that place. The irony of it is that you actually can't move on from that place, for some reason.

He would give anything to have you haunting him again. It doesn't matter where in the world the two of you are, if you were together everything would be okay. He's impossibly lonely without you.

You start to think that you're the selfish one.

The idea of leaving this terrible apartment in Madrid scares you to your very core— whatever soul is resting in your incorporeal body. It's not fair to place the blame entirely on Sae. Not when you're too wimpy to leave this place and find him.

Death is lonely without him.

One step forward, one day at a time. It's the advice Sae used to mutter to himself while getting ready in the morning.

One step forward, one day at a time. One step forward, one day at a time. And day by day, you're slowly inching closer to the door.

Sae talks to Rin and all he can think about is your confused smiles and head tilts. He talks to his parents and all he can imagine is how cold the room would be if it were you. He talks to his fucking therapist and thinks that all of her shitty advice can't compare to your quiet understanding— that your tears of solidarity are the only thing that could make him feel better.

It's fucked up, really, that he can't move on. His body is in Japan going through the motions: playing football, being famous, being interviewed and going home to nothing. His heart is in Madrid. You took it with you and refuse to let go.

You're the closest thing to love he's ever felt, perhaps— his only friend in Spain. His only reason not to leave. A ghost from his childhood that protected him in his sleep and ate bland eggs for breakfast across the table from him every morning. A ghost that would sit on the floor and wait for him to come home every day. A ghost that kept him company when he had no one else.

He loves you. He doesn't. He needs you. He doesn't. He misses you. He doesn't. Whatever. What does it matter now?

"So playing football has always been your dream?"

Sae stares blankly at the interviewer. He's reminded of a distant conversation: he is laying in bed looking at a ghost with a lump in his throat, and then he makes his first and only friend in Spain.

"Yes."

"And now that you're back in Japan, will you be playing for the national team?"

"I have no interest in playing on such a weak team." In other words, he has no reason to stay in Japan.

"So where will you go?"

Anywhere but here, he wants to say. In reality, he doesn't know where to go anymore if not to his old apartment in Spain. He just knows that he wants to come home to your sleepy face.

(That night, he makes two bowls of rice. He cries like he's 15 years old again and just ruined his relationship with his brother.)

You've never been outside before.

You've heard about it, almost entirely from Sae but also from little snippets of anime he liked to watch. It's brighter than you imagined it to be, and warmer. You're not sure you've ever felt so warm before— it's hard to when you are a walking freezer.

There isn't anyone to tell you where to go. No one pays you any mind. You wonder if you even exist anymore outside of the small confines of that old apartment.

Something tells you that you do.

You don't know where to start looking. He could be all the way across the globe for all you know, though he did used to talk about his home country.

You have no map. You have no sense of direction. You have no one to ask for help.

All you have is the soul caged within your ghostly body tugging in one direction, and wispy feet dragging your body along in response.

Sae is 23 years old when he finally signs the contract to play for Japan, after months of being pestered by Rin about it.

His relationship with his brother is complicated. On one hand, he feels as though Rin will never truly forgive him for what he did when he was 15. On the other, he looks so ecstatic to be playing football together again that Sae wonders if their discourse was imaginary.

Japan is just a smidge less lonely with Rin in his life.

He wants to tell you all about it. That everything worked out and it's fine now. That you can stop weeping for him and to wipe up the tears that fall into nothing.

He counts the distance between you. Fourteen thousand kilometres separate him from telling you how he's living his new dream: playing football with his little brother again.

Fourteen thousand kilometers, ten years of needing you, and a reminder set on his phone to buy you a birthday cake again this year.

His heart aches.

Japan is loud and busy and everyone is always in a hurry to get places.

You have to wonder if Sae really grew up in a city like this, and how he turned out so calm and unmovable. The street names are all in Kanji you can't read, but your soul tells you that you're going the right way, anyways.

There's a crowd gathering when your feet finally come to a halt. Lights flash and there are fancy looking people with microphones clamouring toward the center.

It's only a fraction of a second that your eyes meet, and then someone shoves him into the back of the car and they drive off.

He must be famous here, too.

Sae is 24 years old tossing and turning in his bed, wondering if you were just a figment of his imagination or if you were truly standing there under a streetlamp watching him.

It wouldn't be the first time he dreamed you into existence; on some occasions you feel so real that he nearly reaches out to attempt to pat your head, like he always used to do when he was younger.

He goes back to that spot a couple hours later. The crowd is long gone and it's the dead of night— no one would be around to witness Itoshi Sae looking psychotic.

He doesn't find you in that spot. Instead, you're two blocks down and crouched in front of the window of a 24 hour shop. There's an ad for sparklers, and though you can't read the poster itself, the picture makes you stare with wide eyes.

He crouches down beside you as if 7 years of distance never existed between you.

"Do you want one?" He asks. You look at him in a strange way and his knees grow weak beneath him. You nod.

He comes out five minutes later with a few packs in his hand, walking away from you down the street to the park. You follow him quietly as if 7 years of distance never existed between you.

Sae holds one out, flicks the lighter in his pocket open and ignites the first sparkler. You watch it in fascination, ghostly form illuminated in warm orange and yellow light.

He smiles at you as if 7 years of distance never existed between you.

When the sparkler dies out, he lights another. And another. And another, until he's gone through all the packets he could afford with the Yen in his wallet right now.

As if 7 years of distance never existed between you, he reaches out to pat your head. His hand falls through you.

You think Sae's new apartment is pretentious, but it's clean and open and doesn't smell like mildew.

It's hard to imagine what kind of purpose you had before him— all your memories are flooded with his hands and eyes and bangs and small smiles reserved for you. You think that the only reason you were ever materialized into the mortal plane was to haunt him, and only him. Itoshi Sae's permanent looming presence.

He doesn't seem to mind. In fact, you've noticed he's been smiling more lately since you started waiting for him to come home by the door.

Sae is 25 years old when you fall asleep beside him in his bed.

You don't care that he's a kicker or a blanket hog in his sleep. It's not like either of those would affect you. He watches your sleeping face carefully, waiting to see if he would ever wake up from this blissful dream and be alone again.

But every time he wakes up, there you are.

You've grown since he left you in Madrid— you don't look like some lost little kid anymore, at least. He wonders if your souls are truly so intertwined that you would change alongside him, regardless of the distance.

Your eyes flutter open and his breath catches in his throat. You blink at him slowly in the pale moonlight, brows furrowed.

You point at him. Then yourself.

You. Me.

He nods in understanding.

When he drops a plate of protein pancakes in front of you for breakfast, you look confused.

"Oh, sorry. Do you want rice?"

You shake your head. You don't care what's for breakfast, as long as you're sitting across from him while he eats it.

"I'm going to be the world's best midfielder," he tells you one day. You're on the floor and he's on the couch, and it's like time had never even passed.

You don't know what that means, but it's his dream so it must be important. The most important thing in the world.

What you don't know is that it's not his entire dream. World's best midfielder doesn't mean a thing if he can't come home to tell you all about it.

You are dead.

You're a ghost haunting Itoshi Sae— one that followed him from Madrid all the way to Japan. You don't remember how, or when, or why you died. You can't remember what your face looks like either, no matter how much Sae tries to describe it to you.

You are dead. You're a ghost knocking over Sae's belongings to get his attention when you want it. You're the ghost curled up in bed with him even though he has to wear two layers to stay warm because of it. You're the ghost watching him rotate through different breakfasts that he says could never compare to a good old warm bowl of rice.

You are a ghost, and Itoshi Sae gave you a name. A birthday. A purpose greater than being a loud nuisance.

You are a ghost who likes to watch him light sparklers on his balcony. Who feels the things described only in the books he reads to you. Who learned to love somewhere along the way.

You are dead, and somehow alive at the same time.

(One day, Sae will be brave. One day, he will tell you he loves you. One day, he will thank you for waiting for him at the door when he comes home.)

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mrs-kmikaelson · 4 months

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Our Song and Dance⁴

Pairing: Finnick Odair x reader Summary: You'd grown used to dancing the same dance over and over again, the victor's dance, but then you start dancing with Finnick Odair and you feel things you never thought you'd feel. So you let yourself enjoy the dance, even though you knew that every song inevitably came to an end. Warnings: LONGGGG, descriptions of torture, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, violence, exploitation of minors, mentions of forced prostitution, very complicated relationships, complex mental health issues, death, grief, and some unhealthy coping mechanisms Words: 18.2K

Masterlist

a/n: since it's that time of year, i decided to give u guys a lil present. merry christmas and enjoy!!!

You had never felt so cold.

Growing up in a working home, you sometimes went through winter just hoping that your sheets would be enough to keep you alive, unable to afford a heater. In your first Games, you nearly froze to death, your matches being the only thing that saved you. Then once you had won and made it to the Capitol, you went through those cold nights with Finnick, sometimes hoping that you really would freeze to death, even if you never told him that.

Yet none of those times could compare to how cold you felt now.

Cold as you were brought out of the Capitol. Cold on the hovercraft. Cold when they sedated you. Cold as you were wrapped in blankets. Cold as Finnick went to touch you. And now, as the doctors examined you like you were an artifact, you were still just as cold.

But you were an artifact, weren’t you? You were the Princess.

So it didn’t really matter how cold you were at all.

You had been transported from the open medical area to your own room. It was almost like you blinked and, just like that, you were in a different room. Like magic.

Even though magic did not exist. Not in Panem. Not in this world.

Someone named Boggs had come to see you, explaining that you were in district 13, a district that you thought didn’t exist for your entire life. This is the revolution, he said. He was meant to bring you up to speed, ease your confusion, but you weren’t sure that was possible at the moment.

Throughout his explanation, you didn’t say a word, just staring up at him. This may have been seen as rude, but you weren’t doing it on purpose. You really didn’t know what to say.

He eventually left, not getting anywhere with you. From what you could tell, he had a lot more to deal with than just one girl. For a supposedly dead district, there was a lot going on in 13, but that wasn’t where your mind was.

Your body was in 13, but your mind was in the Capitol.

“Please, don’t-”

You closed your eyes, trying to rid yourself of these memories, but that only made it worse, images appearing underneath your eyelids. Your eyes quickly snapped open, darting around the room, your chest rapidly falling and rising.

You were in a bed. There was a desk, some chairs, a glass of water on the night stand next to you. The floor was white, tiled, not grey concrete. There were lights. You were in 13, where the lights were on, not in the Capitol, surrounded by darkness.

You’re alive, Y/N, you told yourself. But that didn’t seem to make anything better.

When did it ever?

You ran your hands up and down your arms, feeling new scars that hadn’t been there before, scars that could maybe heal one day, but you knew there were still open wounds you had that couldn’t be treated, open wounds that may never scar at all.

You didn’t think the wounds you had right now would ever close.

Your heart was racing, beating so loudly that you could hear it, so you imagined it wasn’t yours at all, that it was Finnick’s heart that you heard. Though you supposed that your heart did belong to him.

Even though you didn’t want to see him.

Nevertheless, imagining him sitting with you and pretending to listen to his heartbeat was what calmed you down. It always would. In a way, that was the only thing about you that remained sure, the only thing you had left from the life you lived.

Because that’s what it was: a life lived. Y/N Y/L/N lived her life. For a time, she was happy. She fell in love. And then she died. Now… now, you didn’t know who you were.

What you did know was that you weren’t the same Y/N that Finnick knew, the same Y/N who’d fall asleep in his arms. Now, you weren’t sure you could fall asleep at all, not for long, never for long.

Johanna and Peeta’s faces flashed through your mind. Their screams still echoed in your head. They were different now, too. Johanna wasn’t so fearless anymore, and the golden boy wasn’t so golden. His bright gold had been captured by darkness, and you weren’t sure if any of you would ever see it again.

At that thought, you finally got up, ignoring the ache in your bones. You couldn’t just sit there. You couldn’t sleep. You couldn’t eat. You couldn’t think anymore- you wouldn’t. You had to see them.

You left your room, a nurse coming up to you right away. “Ma’am, please, you need to rest-”

“I’m fine.” Your voice was raspy and scratched at your throat, so you cleared it. You didn’t know what you looked like, but you knew it couldn’t have been great with the way the nurse was looking at you. “Could you please take me to my friend Johanna?”

Hesitance was painted all over her face, as well as fear. You didn’t know why; you weren’t in any position to fight. “I’m sorry, I- I can’t-”

You cut her off. “I just want to see my friend.” Annoyance laced your voice, but if one listened closely, they’d also hear the desperation. You needed to see her, you needed to see someone familiar, someone that wasn’t there just because you were their responsibility, someone that wasn’t the boy you loved.

Her mouth opened and closed for several seconds before she responded, “I- she’s with a counsellor right now-”

You sharply inhaled, blinking and seeing Johanna, hearing her cry. When you opened your eyes again, you only saw the nurse staring at you anxiously, expectantly. You ran a hand through your hair. You needed to see someone. “Peeta then,” you said. “Take me to Peeta.”

Her fright seemed to increase. She looked at you like you weren’t in your right mind, which was right, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. There was something else in her expression, like there was something you didn’t know, something she didn’t want to tell you, but she nodded, anyway, agreeing.

This nurse was young, kind, and even a little naive. If you were in your right mind, you’d feel more empathy for her, be more compassionate or soft, but you weren’t. Your mind was in all of the wrong places all at once.

She reminded you of the nurse you had in the Capitol. She wasn’t there to ease your pain but to keep you alive, make sure you didn’t bleed to death so that you could go through the whole routine all over again the next day. She looked at you like that, too, like she was scared of you, even though you were the one that was powerless, even though you were the one on the brink of death.

Now you weren’t. You’re safe now, Boggs had told you. You didn’t say anything in that moment, but what you wanted to say was that he was wrong.

You’d never feel safe again.

When the nurse brought you to Peeta, Katniss was also there, but she didn’t notice you, staring through the glass of a white room. There was a blond boy in that room, strapped down to the bed.

But this boy wasn’t Peeta.

He wasn’t Peeta at all.

“Y/N?”

You turned away from the sight in front of you to the voice that called your name. The voice belonged to none other than Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the 50th Hunger Games and second Quarter Quell, but you knew him better as the man who drank his sorrows away until he couldn’t remember all that’d happened to him.

You nodded in greeting, but didn’t speak. He looked like he had more he wanted to say but held it in as he glanced back at the room, a young blonde girl entering it and carefully going to sit on the bed.

“She’s too close,” he remarked.

“It’s okay,” someone else responded. You turned and saw a greying man on the other side of Katniss, recognizing him immediately as opposed to when you first met him. Plutarch Heavensbee.

You glanced to Haymitch who was already looking at you. He glanced at the Gamemaker then nodded to you. Whatever he was trying to say didn’t fully translate, and you didn’t understand why this man who had caused so much pain was standing right next to Katniss like it was nothing, but for now, you still remained silent, choosing to let it be.

Throughout this interaction, Katniss had practically been none the wiser, eyes fixed on the inside of that room. When you redirected your attention to the scene, you realized why she was so focused. You still recognized the blonde girl from the reaping, even though it’d been over a year since they took place.

Primrose Everdeen.

Yet little Primrose never went into The Games. Her sister took her place. This was Katniss’ sister.

We live in district 13 now, she told him, her voice soft, soft enough to tell you that even though she was surrounded by war, her childhood was still there. It’s a real place. Stories are true. A pause. You were rescued.

Peeta didn’t look fazed by what she was saying, his attention on something else entirely. The look in his eyes was contained, but you saw it. Anger. My family hasn’t come to see me, he said, but he was talking to himself more than he was talking to Prim.

Family.

You saw your mother’s face in your mind, but you weren’t sure if that was still what she looked like. The last time you saw her was a year ago, her face stricken with grief, tears leaking from her eyes.

She hadn’t come to see you, either.

And you realized it was probably for the same reason Peeta’s family hadn’t come to see him.

At that realization, anything else Peeta or Prim said fell upon deaf ears. You couldn’t hear a thing, your song playing in your head on a loop, dancing so fast that the world blurred and you couldn’t see a thing.

Dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing-

“Y/N.”

The call of your name cut through the music, making you turn your head to see Katniss staring at you. You glanced around; Haymitch and Plutarch were gone now, so was Prim. It was just Peeta on the other side of the glass, kicking and yelling, people in scrubs going to sedate him.

You actually looked at her now, noticing the purple marks around her neck that matched the bags underneath her eyes. She looked different now, different from the last time you saw her in person and different from when you saw her on TV.

The Girl on Fire looked like her spark had been extinguished.

And, suddenly, she reminded you of yourself now more than ever.

You nodded to her and then turned to walk away, but her hand caught your wrist. Like a reflex, you yanked it away, spinning around to face her. She muttered a sorry under her breath, making you inhale.

“It’s fine,” you replied, your voice quiet. She couldn’t be blamed for how you could no longer handle touch, neither could Finnick. You felt guilt wash over you as you heard his voice cracking in your head, remembering how you didn’t say a word to him.

He’s fine, you told yourself. He has Annie.

Your thoughts were diverted away from him and back to Katniss as she spoke. “Has anyone explained it all to you yet?” This was a question, even though her voice was monotone while she asked it.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, thinking back to Boggs. “Yeah- um, a little.”

She looked at you like you were a puzzle and she was rearranging the pieces in her head, using what little energy she had. “Did they tell you?”

You furrowed your brows. You were just as if not more tired than her, your mind all over the place, too all over the place to understand what she was asking you. “Tell me what?” You questioned.

She didn’t respond right away, still looking at you as if she was trying to figure you out. Her eyes told you this story; however, her expression was blank. You’d seen snippets of her videos, not in full, never in full, but even from a snippet, you were able to see that look.

The way a victor looked.

When you met Katniss, you thought to yourself that she hadn’t been under the spotlight long enough to have been burned.

But with the spotlight they had on her now, she’d gone up in flames.

After a beat, she ceased her mental debate and decided to speak her thoughts. “I think we should talk.”

And she may not have known it, but what she told you may have just changed the course of your life.

Katniss took you to her room, sat you down, and with her raspy voice, she explained your situation to you. I’m The Mockingjay, she said. And they wanted you, too, Y/N. They wanted the Princess of Panem and The Mockingjay to be the voices of this revolution.

You stared at her wordlessly as she went on, just listening. To her, you must have looked crazy, listening to everything she said without any reaction whatsoever, but you knew that Katniss had been dancing long enough now to read you, too.

You were mind-blown. She was telling you that they wanted you to be a voice for the people, but wasn’t that so ironic? Your voice had been on mute for years. You were silent as you were used in the Capitol. You were silent as they made you go back and take everything from kids, kids just like you. Even when you thought you were about to die and had so many things to say to the boy that you loved, you didn’t say any of it.

How could you ever be a voice?

They chose the wrong person. Katniss was good. She was good at being The Mockingjay, good at saying the right things, and great at being a voice for Panem. But you? You weren’t cut out for this.

Why would she tell you this? This revolution had been well-planned and was proceeding fine without you. Why would she tell you this- why now?

You cut her off mid-sentence. “Katniss, what exactly are you trying to tell me?”

She paused as if she didn’t know the answer, either. Her red eyes glazed over and, for a few seconds, you both sat in silence. You thought she wouldn’t say anything until she looked back up at you. This time, her eyes were full of light, like she’d just realized she held the key to all she ever wanted, all you ever wanted.

And, in a way, she did.

“Hope,” she breathed. “I’m telling you that I have hope for a better world.”

A better world.

Once, you had hopes, too. You hoped that your kids would make it through The Games. You hoped that you could be loved back by the person you loved. You hoped that you could one day mend your relationship with your mother. You hoped that you could be happy.

But each of these hopes were crushed until nothing remained but disappointment.

You didn’t have any hope left.

After Katniss’ declaration, you sat silently before eventually leaving without saying a word.

She was so young. Sometimes, you forgot that. She wasn’t a child, but she was supposed to be. She was supposed to have a childhood, not the weight of a country resting on her shoulders.

But you’d carried the weight of the crown for years now.

You knew better.

You abandoned the idea of hope as soon as you dived off that pedestal in The Games, and then it abandoned you for good the second you woke up in the Capitol.

There wasn’t any hope left, not for you.

You got back to your room, ignoring your nurse who opened her mouth to speak to you but ultimately didn’t say anything, letting the door close in her face. It wasn’t personal. There were too many different people on your mind to think about her, so many words you said and didn’t say floating around, things you did and what was done to you.

You didn’t want to be awake anymore, to think about these things. Sometimes, nightmares offered more relief than your real life ever could.

But as you went to go lie down, you suddenly stopped, seeing something on your bed that hadn’t been there before. It was a sleek black box, one that wasn’t so common back where you were from but became an everyday custom after you won The Games. You picked up, clicking the side button and watching light shoot of it and project an image in front of you.

For a moment, you could’ve sworn your heart stopped.

Because that image that the box projected was of Finnick Odair.

It was a video shot here, in 13, similar to others you’d seen, but you’d never seen this. This was the first time you saw him on camera since before the Quell. And this was also the first time you’d looked into his eyes since you left that night.

Even if you weren’t really looking at him.

Finnick was always charming, the corners of his lips always quirked upward. He had mastered this façade- oh, Finnick knew how to dance, dance around all of the hard topics, dance around everything that was wrong with your lives to make you seem like the perfect happy couple, like victors.

But he didn’t look like that in the video.

He looked solemn. And maybe even a little scared.

No matter his appearance, you could’ve never expected the words that came out of his mouth, never from Finnick, never from one of you, from a victor. But he still said them.

Your mouth fell open. For the first time since you arrived in 13, you let tears fall down your cheeks, though you didn’t know if you could stop them, even if you tried. They burned on their way down, rubbing salt into the bruises you could see and the bruises you could never fix.

May the odds be ever in your favour, darling.

The box in your hands clattered to the ground, the video cutting out as you ran to the toilet, but Finnick’s voice still echoed in your ears. You threw up what very little you had eaten, head spinning.

Dancing, dancing, dancing.

This song didn’t sound right anymore. This dance didn’t feel right anymore. You were so tired of dancing- you just wanted to stop.

But Finnick hadn’t stopped at all.

Finnick was still dancing. Katniss was still dancing. Peeta, Johanna, every single person in Panem was now dancing with you. They knew now. They could hear the music, too. And who would save them?

You had wished for years and years that someone would pull you off the dance floor, that someone would make it stop. There were so many people that knew, so many people that just let you endure it- let you all endure it. How could you let any more people endure anything close to that?

You couldn’t stand on the sidelines and watch as everything burned to the ground. No, you wanted to help them set fire to the Capitol and burn Snow alive.

Hope. I’m telling you that I have hope for a better world.

You may not have had this hope. There was no better world out there for you.

But you’d be damned if you didn’t try to make one for every kid out there that cried and prayed their name didn’t get called at the reapings.

You would not get to live in this better world.

But you would make it in memory of the younger you that could have.

You later found Katniss again, telling her that you’d do it. You left out the part about how you sobbed for hours at the recording you knew she left you because that wasn’t what was important right now. You were not important right now.

This was about something much bigger.

She took you to Coin, who cleared the room at the sight of you, a surprised expression on her face. “Ms. Y/L/N, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She stood up, shaking your hand, glancing at Katniss periodically before looking back to you. “I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you sooner-”

“It’s alright,” you cut her off, trying your best to pull your lips into a smile. You had barely been in the room with her for a few seconds, but there was something about this woman that threw you off.

Katniss explained her story to you, how she was a widow, how her entire family died in a day. You sympathized with that, but Alma Coin did not remind you of a widow in the slightest.

She reminded you of the people you saw in the Capitol.

Clearly, she sensed the tension, giving you a smile and letting go of your hand, beckoning you both to sit. You sat down in the chair across from her, surveying the room, looking at the blueprints and papers sprawled everywhere. Your attention was drawn back to the woman when she spoke.

“So, how may I help you? I know adjusting to life here must be hard for you. But I will be here every step of the if you so need it.” You opened your mouth to speak, but she kept going, “You are an incredibly strong young woman. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live through those Games, nor could I imagine what it must have been like within the walls of the Capitol.”

No, you couldn’t, you thought, but you didn’t say that. Instead, you gave her a stiff smile, hoping that all your practice faking it could make it look believable. It seemed that President Coin had some practice faking it, too.

However, you cut straight to the point. “Madam President, I want to help the rebels in any way that I can.”

Her mouth fell open slightly, as if that was the last thing she was expecting. She looked to Katniss again, like you were out of it. And maybe you were, but so was The Girl on Fire. So were all of you.

It wasn’t fair of her to treat you like glass because, the truth was, she was right. You went through The Games not once but twice, and then you were immediately thrown into the Capitol, facing horrors that you weren’t sure you could ever speak aloud, horrors that flashed before your eyes every time you blinked, even as you sat across from her.

But you were. You were sitting across from her. You were ready to do something.

You may have just been pulled from the Devil’s clutches, but you were ready to walk through Hell all over again if it meant you got to kill him.

Katniss didn’t waver. “So do I.”

Coin’s hesitance was easier than expected to spot. For someone who wanted to lead Panem, she surely wore her heart on her sleeve. Or maybe you had just gotten too good at this dance that you could spot anyone’s slightest misstep.

Slowly, she cautioned, “You both are going through a lot right now-”

The brunette sharply cut her off, “That doesn’t matter.” Your eyes were trained on Coin, but if you stole a glance at Katniss, then you knew you would’ve seen the fire in her eyes. In a way, she hadn’t changed at all since the last time you saw her.

And you wished that was true.

“Send me to the Capitol- send us to the Capitol.” Underneath her demand was pleading. “I’ll do anything.”

Coin brought her hand to her mouth, an indent on her finger where her ring was supposed to be yet no ring in sight. “I can’t.” But she wanted to. “I can’t send you there. We can’t get into the Capitol until we control district 2.”

“Then send us to 2,” you spoke up, her eyes moving to yours. There was some emotion in her eyes, pity or fear, you couldn’t tell, but you didn’t want to know what you looked like to find out. “I can fire up your troops, call out to the loyalists. You’ve seen what The Mockingjay can do, and I don’t doubt that you know what I am capable of.” You paused. “Let us win this for you, Madam President.”

She was silent for a moment, continuing to stare at you as if she was waiting for you to break, to do something that showed her that you weren’t capable of this, but she wouldn’t get that opening. You wanted this more than anything, and you would stop at nothing to get it.

Finally, she blinked, and you knew you had her.

“It would be an honour.”

You didn’t tell Katniss, and you certainly didn’t tell Coin, but a part of you was relieved that you weren’t going back to the Capitol so soon. You just left, and yet it felt like it had both been a world ago and just yesterday.

You didn’t know if you could handle it so soon, going back there. You could barely even handle looking at Finnick.

It wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault. You could never blame him, never for this.

How could you blame him when picturing his face was what got you through it?

How could you blame him when the only reason you survived was to find out if he was still alive?

They told you he was dead. They played his screams on a loop until you couldn’t tell that they stopped. His screams now blended in with the music so well.

Oh, you loved him. You loved him so much more than you could ever express. And maybe that’s why you never told him, but now you knew it was for the best. Finnick was strong, and beautiful, and he had a long life ahead of him with the woman of his dreams. You weren’t gonna get in the way of that.

You knew that you’d never truly be happy without him.

But you also knew from experience that he’d never be happy with you.

These were the thoughts that filled your head on the hovercraft. Even as he was nowhere in sight, his face was still all you could see.

He was here, too. You knew he was. Katniss told you beforehand. She didn’t know the whole story between you two, but she still told you. She had no idea how grateful you were.

You were hiding from him. You accepted the fact that the two of you would never get a happy ending, but that didn’t mean that you were ready to see him, knowing that. If you looked into his ocean blue eyes, God knew that he’d only pull you in and drown you in them.

You couldn’t do that.

It wasn’t fair to him.

It wasn’t fair to Annie.

It wasn’t fair to you.

And it wasn’t fair to all the people that were depending on you.

Suddenly, your thoughts were cut off the sound of footsteps came your way. You looked up, letting go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding when you saw it was just Haymitch.

He nodded to you. “Princess.”

You held back a scoff as he sat down next to you on the floor. “Haymitch.”

You still remembered when you met him. He was one of the first people to actually speak to you after you won your Games. For some reason, the others were too “intimidated” by you, but Haymitch didn’t have much left to be scared of, not when he went into an arena with 47 people and was the only one who walked out.

What you couldn’t remember was the last time you had an actual conversation with him, or at least the last time you had a conversation and he was sober.

“How’d you find me?” you asked, but your eyes were still trained on the floor. He didn’t seem to mind.

“I hang around here sometimes, go through the boxes and see if there’s anything medicinal in ‘em,” he responded, making you chuckle.

If he was looking for something medicinal, then you weren’t such a great replacement.

“Well, sorry you couldn’t find what you were looking for.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him shake his head. “No, I need to be brought back to reality, anyway. And you, uh, you do a good job at that.”

You snorted, sensing the compliment was backhanded, even if he didn’t see it that way. Or maybe he did, but Haymitch was never one to hold his thoughts in. “Why, because I’m so fucked up?”

“No.” A beat of silence passed. “Because you remind me of a human’s will to live better than those Games ever did.”

You finally looked up, seeing that he was already looking at you. The sincerity in his eyes was so strong that it burned into yours, making you look away before it burned just enough to spark tears. “I don’t think I’m the best example of that.”

His reply came quick, like he didn’t even have to think about it, but he had no idea how much you would after he said it. “You’re still standing, aren’t you?”

Aren’t you?

You didn’t say anything after that, nor did you look at him, and he didn’t force you to. You spent the rest of the ride pondering over his words.

You thought of every painful thing you ever went through. The Hunger Games. Being sold. The Quarter Quell. The Capitol. Falling in love.

You went through all that, and you were still here. You were still standing.

Weren’t you?

Or were you just waiting for the right moment to fall?

Your thoughts were halted as you felt the hovercraft come to a stop, realizing just how long you’d been thinking. You both stood up, going to leave this room. Like most real conversation you’d had with victors, you thought you both would just pretend it never happened, but right before you were about to enter the main ops room, he stopped you, grabbing your wrist. This time, you stopped the flinch before it could happen, looking up at him.

Haymitch Abernathy was not a soft man. After being cut so many times, his edges were jagged and sharp, but looking at you in that moment, he looked more than just soft. He looked sorry.

He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure to say what he wanted to say or not, something unusual for him. He seemed to have made up his mind, telling you, “Stay standing, Y/N. There are still people out there that can’t do that by themselves.” Then he paused, eyes glazing over.

“Show them that they can.”

Getting off the hovercraft, damage surrounded you. The once pristine nature of district 2 was gone, replaced by devastation, rubble everywhere. If this was district 2, then you couldn’t imagine that any of the other districts were any better, that your district was any better.

Your mind was drawn back to your mother before you shook it away. You couldn’t be thinking of that right now.

A man in black attire carrying an assault rifle greeted you. Not a Peacekeeper. But a chill still went down your spine.

You couldn’t really tell if it was because of the soldier or if it was because you felt Finnick staring at you.

He wasn’t far behind you, in the row behind you and Katniss with Boggs and Gale. You tried to ignore it, but that proved to be harder said than done.

Katniss carried her bow in her hand while a sword was strapped to your belt, lightly hitting your leg as you walked, but you got used to this feeling during your first Games. In a way, it was almost comforting, even though it never should’ve been, even though weapons should’ve never been comforting to a child so young.

But you weren’t a child anymore.

In your hand, you carried a crossbow, Beetee’s special arrows on your back. The sword was really only there for show. This wasn’t The Hunger Games; no, this was a very different and special game entirely.

This was war.

You wouldn’t be getting up close for combat very often, so a crossbow made more sense, but after The Games, weapons started to hold sentimental value, both for the victors and the viewers that watched them. For Katniss, it was her bow; for Finnick, it was his trident; and for you, it was your sword.

Suddenly, as you were making your way to the Justice Building, a bomb went off, shaking the ground and making you spin, your grip on your bow tightening. Your heart was beating rapidly, but Corporal Homes wasn’t fazed, even letting out a little laugh. “Don’t worry. It’s just how the loyalists say good morning.”

You let out a shaky breath, holding the bow tighter to try and stop your hands from trembling. You shut your eyes, trying to calm down, but all that did was bring you right back to the Capitol. Your eyes quickly reopened, but when they did, they met those ocean blues that you’d been trying to avoid.

Your body went rigid. It begged you to look away, but you couldn’t. You were pulled to him like a magnet, a magnet that scraped against you, a magnet that nearly stopped your heart with how strong it was, but no matter how much it hurt you, fighting against it was useless.

Concern swam through his eyes, along with another familiar emotion you couldn’t pinpoint. It had been so long since you last saw him, since you last really saw him. Maybe that was why you couldn’t decipher it.

But, really, it felt like no time had passed at all.

“Are you okay?” God, and his voice. How was it possible that his voice could both fill and create a hole in your heart at the same time? It was both quiet and loud, both sure and uncertain, and caring in every sense of the word.

So warm but made you feel so cold at the same time.

You just looked at him for a few seconds, as if you were hypnotized, until you realized you needed to respond. You nodded, afraid that your voice would crack if you tried to speak.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but a hand came to your shoulder, yanking you out of trance. You turned to see Katniss, glancing between you both for a second before her eyes rested on you. She nodded towards the building and the rest of the crew who had walked ahead of you. You nodded back, walking away from Finnick without another word.

How did we get here? you wondered.

We’re gonna be fine. Look, whenever you get nervous up there, you just hold my hand, alright? You’re not alone in this, okay? I’m right here.

He was right there. He was still right there.

But the difference between then and now was that you could no longer just hold his hand.

He was right there.

But you were still alone.

Once you had put some distance between yourselves and Finnick, Katniss whispered, “I’m sorry.” You turned your head, but her eyes were directed in front of her. “That looked personal.”

“No, it’s fine,” you assured her, and then you left it at that. Because, truth be told, you were grateful for Katniss interrupting you. You weren’t sure you would’ve ever walked away if she hadn’t. But you did. And now you had bigger problems to worry about than your love life, if you could even call it that.

You finally made it into the Justice Building, being greeted by both Commander Lyme and Paylor. While they lived in higher ranks, they were still soldiers. You appreciated how they cut right to the chase.

You and your squad from 13 stood around a table projecting a hologram of district 2’s mountains with at least a dozen other soldiers, more littered throughout the room with Coin on a TV in front of you.

Lyme started, “President Coin, we’re indebted to you for the reinforcements, the Princess, and the Mockingjay.” She glanced at you. “But I’m not sure that anyone outside of 2 knows what we’ve been up against.” She pointed at the hologram. “This is The Nut. The Capitol’s headquarters for all offensive operations. It’s manned by both military and civilian personnel from district 2.” She then continued to explain what all more or less knew, that it lied so deep beneath bedrock that it was untouchable.

“Yesterday, we attempted to take the northeastern gate. The enemy countered from higher up and we were forced to pull back.” She momentarily looked down, her mask of a stone cold commander falling and showing the human behind it. “We took heavy losses.”

Another commander spoke up. “Could we create a decoy? Send troops towards one gate, launch a staggered attack on another.”

Paylor didn’t miss a beat. “Whose troops do you propose as a decoy, Commander?”

Although the question was not directed towards her, Coin still responded, “We have the Mockingjay and we have the Princess of Panem. Do not underestimate their influence. We could use them to erode support, sway some of the loyalists.”

“You’ve been underground a long time, Madam Coin,” Lyme said. “This isn’t like the rest of Panem. Support for the Capitol runs deep here.” And why wouldn’t it? When the oppressor had done just about everything but oppress you, then how could you see the oppression happening everywhere else?

Coin quickly retorted, “Then there is no sacrifice too great.” Her voice was like that of a widow: soft enough that you could tell what she’d been through but firm enough for the exact same reason.

No sacrifice too great… but wasn’t there?

“We need to control the arsenal inside that fortress. Even with every district in this alliance, we are outgunned.” All twelve other districts could band together, but without 2, none of you stood a chance.

No sacrifice too great.

“I won’t commit my people to a ground assault just to pillage weapons.”

“Commander Paylor, your people have suffered more than just about anyone else at the hands of the Capitol.”

“Which is why I won’t condone a mass suicide.”

“If we don’t take district 2, we won’t get into the Capitol.”

For the first time since your entrance, you spoke up. “What if we don’t have to take it?” You felt everyone’s eyes on you but yours remained focused on the hologram in front of you, unblinking as if you weren’t there at all.

And maybe you weren’t.

Lyme responded, “What are you proposing, Ms. Y/L/N?”

What were you proposing? You couldn’t be sure. But you knew what you needed, and that was this war ending in Snow’s final breath.

No sacrifice too great.

“What if we don’t need The Nut to win?” You looked up. “What if we could take it away from them instead?”

Gale seemed to be the only one who caught onto what you were saying, or at least the only one willing to speak it aloud. “We could disable it, trap them inside or flush ‘em out.” He continued, gesturing the hologram. “If we can’t attack straight on, then couldn’t we use our hovercraft to strike around it? We’ll use the mountains; we’ll hit weak spots in the peaks.”

“We could design the bomb targets in sequence using seismic data.”

“Trigger avalanches,” you muttered just above a whisper, imagining it in your head. Something like this happened in The Games once, one of the years you were mentoring. It was catastrophic, akin to a bloodbath. It was a miracle there was even anyone left alive to fight for a victor’s title.

You wondered if Finnick thought of this, too, but you didn’t dare look over at him, looking back to hologram and trying to block the images of blood and terror from your mind.

But as you stood there and spoke about war, you didn’t know if that was possible.

Not when the war in your mind had still yet to be won.

“Block all exits, cut off their supplies. You make it impossible for them to launch their hovercraft.”

Paylor had a look of realization on her face. “Bury them alive.”

“We’d forfeit any chance to control the weapons-”

Beetee cut Coin off, “Yes, but we’d face a weakened Capitol.”

“There’s civilians in there,” Boggs interjected, stoic but any hearing person could hear the compassion in his voice. Civilians. Is that what they were?

You were a civilian too, once. Then you were a tribute, a pawn, a victor, the Princess. Did civilians still exist? What kind of civilians could support the Capitol? What kind of human beings could support the torture you were subjected to, the torture people in the districts were subjected to on a daily basis?

You wondered if your mother was given the courtesy of a civilian before the Capitol took her life.

You weren’t.

“They should be given a chance to surrender. Could use one of the supply tunnels for the evacuees.”

“It’s a luxury we weren’t given when they firebombed 12,” Gale said, as if he were reminding you, as if any of you needed a reminder.

“There’s gotta be a better way.” You were already so focused, but if you were losing attention in any way, Katniss brought it back, the disbelief in her voice audible to everyone in the room. She glanced in between Gale and you, but she didn’t get whatever response she expected of you.

Katniss may have had hope for the good of humanity, but you didn’t have that. The Capitol took that away from you without a second thought. She may have been driven by hope, but you were driven by anger.

There was no sacrifice too great.

“I suggest we try the avalanche, but leave the train tunnel alone,” Coin decided. “Civilians can escape into the square, where our armies will be waiting for their surrender.”

“We should have every available medic standing by.”

“And if they won’t surrender?” Lyme challenged.

Coin’s lips almost formed a smile. “Then we will need a compelling voice to persuade them.” And a voice was something she had.

The Mockingjay and the Princess, two sides of the same coin. Heads or tails, luck was on the President’s side either way.

You tuned out after that, letting everyone else talk logistics. Throughout the entire conversation, you didn’t hear Finnick say a word. He was perhaps the most talkative person you had ever met, and yet now, he had nothing to say.

He only looked at you the whole time, like an artifact.

And even as you walked away, you still felt the cold burn of his stare.

You watched from a broken window of the Justice Building as the hovercrafts started, rubble blowing in the wind. The sight was magnetic, pulling you in to look at it. It was almost beautiful.

This world could’ve been beautiful.

You wished that this dance could have been more beautiful before it made your feet bleed.

You watched as the hovercrafts danced in the sky before dropping bombs on the mountains, dancing to the sound of explosions and then to the sound of cheers around you.

Dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing-

“This isn’t right.” A voice brought you out of your trance. You turned to see Katniss, her eyes on the scene outside the window, as mesmerized as you were. But mesmerized wasn’t the right word. She was stricken by horror.

Oh, if she saw what happened to you that could make you ever justify this. If she saw what happened to Peeta to make him hysteric. If she saw what happened to Johanna to make her numb. If she saw, then would she still be so transfixed then?

If she saw, would she still be standing?

If she saw, would she understand why you still were?

You stared at her for a moment, contemplating if you would say any of this before deciding against it, turning back and monotonously replying, “It’s fire catching, Everdeen.”

She scoffed, “And we’re lighting the match.”

Sharply, you countered, “Don’t forget that the Capitol poured gasoline everywhere first.” You turned back to see her already looking at you. A sigh left your lips. “They did this, Katniss.”

“And so anyone that had anything to do with it deserves to burn for it?”

No.

Yes.

“Did we deserve to burn, Girl on Fire?” You caught her off guard, anger slipping through the cracks of your voice, resolution filling your eyes. “Did we deserve to burn in those reapings, in those parades, in those damn Games as they all made a spectacle of it? All those kids and their families, did they deserve to burn just because the Capitol saw fit?” She was silent, tears coming to her eyes that she refused to let fall, so different from that girl you were with in the arena yet the exact same. Your eyes burned, too. “The way I see it, we’re fighting fire with fire.” You scoffed. “At least we’re giving them a way out.”

You didn’t stick around to hear Katniss’ response, walking away to find whoever would tell you what do next. You could’ve stood by that window for the rest of the night, watching as the terror unfolded, but you had more important things to do than watch the fire.

You had to go light a match.

You examined yourself in the mirror blankly. You were donning a black costume, and a costume it was. Because what was a costume if not an impersonation of something you were not?

But someone thought that this was what you were. Someone thought that you could be a leader. Cinna did—or at least that’s what Effie Trinket told you. You didn’t know why she seemed to be in charge of “design” or why she showed such an interest in you, but you supposed it wasn’t so unusual for an artifact.

Your makeup artists did their jobs fabulously, painting your face until you were almost unrecognizable, until you looked like that girl from before The Games, that girl that the people of Panem knew and loved. With this makeup, you couldn’t see the circles under your eyes, the discolouration of your face. They made you look alive again.

On the outside, at least.

On the inside, you weren’t sure if there was any makeup that could repair the damage that’d been done.

Your hair had been braided into an updo, like a crown. They tried to give you back your necklace, the one Finnick gave to you before The Games, but you never wanted to see that necklace again, never wanted to see a rose ever again.

You would hate the smell of roses for the rest of your life.

“It’s time.” You looked away from your reflection to see Haymitch standing at the door. You nodded to him, glancing back at the mirror one last time before exiting the room. Katniss fell into step with you both as you made your way toward the train tunnel, but remained silent. You didn’t speak, either.

Soon, you were joined by the rest of your Star Squad, but you avoided any and all eye contact with Finnick. It’d be a shame to cry and ruin all that beautiful makeup on your face.

It’d be a shame to feel something right now when you felt so numb.

But you’d quickly be feeling a lot.

“Don’t worry, Katniss. There’ll be survivors,” Boggs tried to reassure. She glanced at him, but didn’t respond.

Haymitch was more concentrated on what you came here to do. “Let’s focus on what it is you gotta say.” He looked in between both of you. “Now, Plutarch wrote a speech that either of you can read-”

“No,” you both simultaneously said, briefly glancing at each other.

Haymitch sighed, throwing the cards to the side. “Okay, didn’t think so. Let’s, uh…” he stopped you both, standing in front of you. “But just remember you’re talking to everybody. Not just the rebels, but the Capitol, the survivors in 2. We want them to lay down their arms. So you- both of you might wanna experiment with a little sensitivity, warmth.”

They have the upper-hand, that’s what he was really saying. But you understood how this worked. You’ve danced this dance a million times already.

“Don’t worry, Haymitch. I know how to fake it.” He looked over at you as if he wanted to say something, but Boggs spoke before he could.

“Make it quick, you’re exposed.”

Katniss walked toward the tunnel first, turning once she was far enough to face the rest of you. They decided that she would go first. She had been at this for a while now, much longer than you.

You’re lucky, you know.

How so?

You just are.

Maybe the Katniss Everdeen that you met in the training centre was lucky, but this one, the one who shot an arrow at the force field in the Quarter Quell, the one who became a symbol before she could even blink… you weren’t so sure that this one was so lucky. Not anymore. Not in this world.

Luck didn’t exist in this new world.

“This is Katniss Everdeen, speaking to all of the loyalists from the heart of district 2-”

“Survivors! Inbound!”

The sound of the train’s horn became audible to you, its wheels screeching against the train tracks. Boggs went running for Katniss while a hand grabbed your shoulder. This time, you couldn’t hold back the flinch.

“We need to go, Y/N.” And then your body went rigid.

That was your name.

That was your name coming from Finnick Odair.

You didn’t even notice when he moved so close to you.

You swallowed, nodding, but it was like your feet were cemented to ground. You couldn’t move. If you moved, if you turned around, then you’d be looking right into his eyes.

Oh, there was time when the only thing you wanted to do was stare into his eyes all day. And maybe the problem was that you still wanted to.

You closed your eyes, inhaling a shaky breath, and when you opened them, the survivors were jumping off the train, being forced down to the ground, guns pointed at them, loud noise everywhere. Suddenly, you couldn’t take your eyes off of what was happening, even as every bone in your body begged you to, even as your head spun.

Finnick’s hand was still on your shoulder, but neither of you moved. None of you did.

Another man jumped off, looking disoriented, but what drew your attention to him wasn’t his appearance but the gun in his hand. The grip on your shoulder got tighter.

“Drop it! Drop your weapon! You! Drop it,” Boggs shouted, aiming his machine gun at him as he moved in your direction. “Drop the gun! Drop it-”

Suddenly, a gun went off, and everyone was screaming. You ducked down, eyes frantically darting everywhere before they settled on Katniss, running towards him, yelling. Your eyes widened, a wave of déjà vu passing over you as you remembered this exact scenario in the Quell, Katniss running towards danger and you running after her.

And just like that, even though you were paralyzed by fear, you quickly shot up, running after her without a thought. “Katniss!”

“Y/N!”

“Stop! He needs help!” She screamed as you were about to reach her. The next moment happened too fast for you to grasp it, the man jabbing his gun at her chin and cocking it. You skidded to a stop where you were, your breath catching in your throat.

Boggs was shouting, but your ears rang. It was almost as if you could feel that barrel on your own skin, and maybe it was because you had.

Snow’s voice rang through your head, Tell me about the rebel plan, Y/N.

You’re gonna have to kill me first.

Oh, sweet girl. He had knelt down next to you. I will make you wish that you died in that arena.

The man’s voice shook you out of your daze. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t shoot you.”

“Drop the gun!”

Katniss was silent, staring right into his eyes, but you saw what was behind the brave façade she was putting on. She didn’t have a reason.

“She can’t.” His eyes went to you, widening as if he hadn’t realized you were there. You stepped forward, feeling everyone’s eyes on you. Inside, you were shaking, but on the outside, you were calm and collected. On the inside, you were just a tribute in this game, but on the outside, you were the victor that everyone had crowned you.

“We blew up your mine. But you burned her district to the ground- my district to the ground.” You stepped closer, your resolve hardening. “So I guess we both have every reason to want to kill each other, but, really, does that make sense?” You asked, not looking away from his eyes once. “You know who I am. You know who she is, and I can bet that you know a few of the people standing behind me. So many people that the Capitol has rooted for, that you have rooted for- why would we be doing this? After the riches, and the glitz, and the glamour, why would we fight back against a system that has supposedly given us everything?”

Because they took everything from you first.

You took another step closer, putting your hands up when he jabbed the gun in Katniss’ neck. “Look around you.” He quickly glanced around before his eyes fell back on you. “Are these the people you want to kill? The same people that you cheered for?” Slowly, your hands fell. “Why are you fighting us? Why are you fighting the rebels? You’re neighbours. You’re family.”

He looked up at you for a few seconds, but those seconds felt like hours. In his eyes, you could see evil, chaos. But you also a sliver of humanity, and you prayed to God that you reached past the chaos to the humanity. You prayed to whoever would listen that he heard you. And, maybe, for the first time, the universe was on your side, because his gun slowly lowered to the ground.

You exhaled a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Katniss was stuck in a trance until you pulled her up, but you weren’t so focused on her. Your eyes panned over the people, your people and the loyalists alike, but they were all just people, you realized.

They were all just people.

“There is no our side or your side,” you yelled, backing away from the man and facing everyone. “There is only freedom and captivity. These people are not your enemy.” You turned, facing the rest of the crowd. “We all have one enemy. And that’s Snow.” Tears gathered in your eyes. “He does not care who you are or how loyal you are, how important you are—to him, we are all just pieces in a game.”

You pointed to your people behind you. “Katniss Everdeen, Haymitch Abernathy, Finnick Odair, Peeta Mellark, Annie Cresta, Johanna, Beetee, Enobaria- we are all that is left from three generations of victors. The rest of them are dead.” The faces of those that you killed flashed through your mind. “Slaughtered in the Quarter Quell or killed in the aftermath, it’s all the same. They were murdered by the Capitol—and it didn’t matter how important, or loyal, or loved they were- their lives were ended like they didn’t mean a thing.”

“And they would do the same to any of you if it benefit them.” You shook your head, raising your voice. “Stop killing for him.” You paused, breathing heavily. Your fight was not with people in the districts. Your fight was with one person and one person only. It was time that everyone else saw that. “Tonight, turn your weapons to the Capitol. Turn your weapons to Snow.”

Before you could say another word, gunfire erupted and you were falling to the ground.

And then your vision went black.

“Please, I don’t know anything,” you sobbed, fighting against your restraints, but it was no use.

Snow tutted, coming out from the shadows in which he hid. “Oh, Y/N, I wish I could believe that.”

Your body shook. “Please, I’m telling the truth, I don’t know anything about a revolution.”

“And yet all of your comrades did?”

You rapidly shook your head back and forth, worsening the pounding in your mind. They kept telling you about an uprising, but you didn’t know what they were talking about. They said you knew, but you didn’t know. They said that Katniss knew, that Peeta knew, that Johanna knew, that Finnick knew, but they couldn’t have.

You didn’t know.

You didn’t know where they were.

You prayed that Finnick was safe, but if he wasn’t, then you prayed that he was dead. You’d rather him be dead than ever face what you were facing now.

“They didn’t. I didn’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Snow looked at you silently for a few moments, and you had no idea what he was thinking. Then brought his hand up. You flinched, but his hand only went to your hair, petting it. The look in his eyes was almost something like pity, you realized, but it wasn’t real. You didn’t know how long you’d been there, wherever you were, but in the time you there, you learned that President Snow was incapable of sympathy.

You even thought that he enjoyed this.

“Oh, my dear princess… I would’ve hoped that you would’ve learned to be honest with me by now,” he sighed, and then he took his hand away and looked away from you altogether, looking to the Peacekeeper that’d moved to the wall. “Again. And let’s be a little more… effective this time.” He moved to walk away, and you shook your head.

“No, no- please don’t- please, please- no- no!”

You shot up, panting, your hands digging into blankets. Your eyes darted around the room and you realized you were back in your bed in the medical centre. A hand was placed over yours and you immediately shuffled away, your eyes going to the person and meeting blue, concerned orbs.

Finnick held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” Your chest still rapidly fell up and down, but for some reason his presence calmed you down and put you into a panic all at the same time.

Only Finnick could do that to you.

You closed your eyes, blinking the remnants of your nightmare away, even if that nightmare wasn’t a nightmare but rather just the life you so happened to live. You’re here, Y/N. You’re alive.

But why?

“How am I alive?” you croaked, looking down at the dull bed sheets instead of into his eyes. It was funny: you looked down to avoid the blue of his eyes, but the colour of these sheets was so similar.

What’s your favourite colour?

It’s blue, not really dark or light either. Sort of green- it’s close to grey, too.

Now that colour just made you want to cry.

Finnick didn’t say anything for a moment, as if he was shocked that you were even speaking to him. And you were, too. You hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, and if you went back to the last time you spoke, back in the arena, you would’ve never thought that this was how it would turn out. Even if you went back to just your first days in the Capitol, you still could’ve never imagined a reality where you didn’t speak to Finnick.

But you could’ve never imagined any of this happening in the first place.

If you went back to the night you met him, you could’ve never imagined how deeply you’d fall for this boy.

And you never could’ve imagined how much it’d hurt when you hit the ground.

Finnick’s voice was low when he finally spoke. “You were shot back in 2. But the bullets were stopped by your costume. Cinna made sure that it was bulletproof.”

Cinna.

The way people spoke about him, in the past tense, the way you hadn’t seen him anywhere. You’d figured that he was dead.

You wondered how many more people would die for this revolution before you could all be free.

“The doctor says you sustained minor injuries, bruised rib, bruised lung. But nothing worse than the injuries you came back from the Capitol with.” At that, you turned your head to face him, meeting his eyes immediately. His eyes were soft but almost hard. He was almost looking at you the same way he did after you volunteered for Annie. In his eyes, you saw care, confusion, sadness, some anger, and emotions you couldn’t name, but most of all, you could see the pure exhaustion weighing him down.

He stared at you for a few seconds, or maybe a few minutes, maybe longer than that—time didn’t seem to exist. “Why would you do that, Y/N?” He whispered. And in that moment, you knew you weren’t talking to the Prince of Panem, the victor of The 65th Hunger Games, or the soldier who wanted to build a better world.

You were just talking to Finnick.

And that scared you.

Your breath hitched.

Why would you do that?

Finn-

Why would you volunteer?

Because you had to.You volunteered for Annie because you had to, the same way you did what you just did because you had to. To you, there was no choice, only one path to follow.

“I did what I was meant to do, Finnick.” Even as you willed it not to, your body betrayed you, your voice cracking on his name, but this time, you kept eye contact. And even though you were talking to Finnick, the Finnick that held you at night and soothed you when you cried, your Finnick, he was not talking to Y/N, not the Y/N that he held and soothed.

That Y/N could not talk to Finnick, not this Finnick.

If she did, you didn’t know if you’d ever get her back again.

He was shaking his head before you even finished speaking. “No, you could’ve died.” I’m already dead.

“But I didn’t.” But I did.

“But you almost did!” You flinched as his hands went up in the air, and then he froze, freezing you with him. You flinched. You flinched like he was gonna hit you, and he saw that. You cursed yourself immediately, wishing you could take it back as the look that encompassed his eyes became hurt.

There were few times when Finnick ever looked at you like that, and you could remember each as if they just happened. You never wanted to see that look on his face again, to be the reason for that look.

Time stopped again. You didn’t know what to say. You wanted to apologize, but you couldn’t find the words. And before you could, time picked back up. Finnick’s hands fell down to the bed, and he looked away from you, lowering his voice. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Y/N.”

Tears welled in your eyes. He didn’t know what he was saying. “You could have the world at your fingertips, Finnick.”

“There is no world for me if you’re not in it.” He looked back at you. And you couldn’t tell if your imagination was playing tricks on you, but you could’ve sworn there were tears in his eyes, too. “You’re my world, Y/N.” And just like that, any hope you had of remaining invulnerable shattered and the dam you were trying to hold in your eyes broke, tears falling down your face.

You shook your head, silent sobs wracking your body. Did he have any idea the effect he had on you? Did he have any idea what he was doing to you? “Why are you saying these things?”

Something akin to a scoff left his lips. “Because it’s true-”

“No- no, they’re not-”

Finnick latched onto your hand, making you look right at him. This time, you saw tears trailing down his cheeks, and they seemed so real. “Y/N, I swear to you on everything I believe in that I’m telling you the truth.”

You wished it was the truth. You wished that this was real. You had been wishing that your pretending could become real for ages now.

But you’d danced this dance long enough to know that wasn’t gonna happen.

Even if Finnick had convinced himself that it would.

“It’s impossible.”

“I l-”

“Ms Y/L/N?” You both turned the source of the new voice, finding your doctor at your door. She glanced between you both carefully as you ripped your hands away from Finnick’s, wiping at the tears that’d fallen and the ones that continued to fall. “May I speak with you, please?” She requested, glancing at him.

He quickly stood up, but this time, you weren’t looking. “Yeah, I’ll, uh- I’ll head out.” He paused for a second, like he was waiting for you to say something, but you weren’t sure that you could continue to speak to him right now, even if you wanted to. When you remained silent, you heard his shoes pitter-patter against the ground as he made his way out of the room.

When he was gone, you exhaled and Dr. Terren looked back at you. She hesitated, “Did I… interrupt something?”

“No,” you breathed out. “Nothing important.”

She nodded after a beat, getting right into her medical talk, but she didn’t look so convinced.

And you weren’t sure that you were, either.

You were hit bad, the doctor said, but it could’ve been worse. And she was right. It could’ve been worse.

You didn’t feel a thing. Lung, ribs—all you felt was heartache. Maybe it was good that you couldn’t feel the pain. But you couldn’t be sure.

She kept pushing the same idea: therapy. That’s where Johanna was. That’s where Peeta was. But that wasn’t gonna be where you were. Terren kept talking about trauma, about how this near-death experience called for you to talk to someone, but really, what good would that do?

Would that therapist understand? Did they go through what you went through? Did they understand what you were going through? You didn’t have time to stop and talk about your feelings, if you could even sort them out into words, nor did you want to reminisce over anything that happened while you were in the Capitol.

Even if reminiscing was all you could do.

When Terren left, you ripped the IV out of your arm, leaving your hospital room to go to the other room they gave you. At least that one wasn’t filled with your favourite colour.

Your room in 13 was grey, like most things here. It was drab, but you wouldn’t complain. Anything was better than the Capitol. The door to your room slid open, and then you stopped. On your floor was the same black box Katniss left you, the same one you watched Finnick from.

Poison.

You swallowed, deciding to ignore the box altogether and go to your ensuite. You never wanted to see that video again. Watching it from that box was the first time you ever saw it, and it would be the last.

They must have gone through extra effort to hide it from you in the Capitol. They made you believe he was dead. You believed this was such conviction that, when you saw him again after the rescue, you thought you were dreaming.

You even thought you’d died.

You even wished you did.

As you looked at yourself in the mirror, dead is what you looked like. That bullet may not have killed you, but you still looked like a corpse. You’re very lucky to be alive, Y/N, Dr. Terren told you.

Luck.

If luck was what kept you alive, then it wasn’t good luck at all. Luck would’ve been that bullet puncturing like it was intended to.

Your hand went to your ribs, looking at the bandages wrapped around them in the mirror. Then your hand travelled to your hair. Long and silky, so sought after in Panem. But as you ran your hands through it, you didn’t feel its softness. All you felt was Snow’s hand, petting you as you begged him not to kill you.

And then that turned into you begging for the exact opposite.

You don’t know how long you were looking at your reflection before you were opening and closing the sink drawers, your hands moving with a mind of their own. Part of you didn’t know what you were doing, but another part of you must have as you suddenly stopped, having found what you were looking for.

Scissors.

You picked them up, staring at them as if they were treasures, watching the light glare off the blades. You didn’t know what you were doing.

All you knew was that this feeling was tearing you apart.

And that’s all you could focus on.

Suddenly, your hand holding the scissors was moving. You still didn’t know what you were doing, but before you could find out, your name sounded.

“Y/N?”

You looked up, seeing Katniss stand in the doorway, confusion on her face that slowly contorted to fear. She glanced down at your hands, making you do the same. Quickly, you moved the scissors away from your wrist, unknowing of how they even got there.

You looked back at Katniss, your mouth opening and closing. You didn’t know what to say. Finally, you stammered, “I- I-” she looked back up at you and you realized that she, too, didn’t know what to say. “My hair. It’s- I want to cut my hair.”

That’s not what you were doing.

Katniss seemed to know that, not looking convinced in the slightest. She was quiet for a few moments, eyes on the scissors before she was walking towards you. Gently, she pried them out of your hand, as if you were a child holding a gun.

Then her eyes met yours. The eyes that were once hard as stone now looked at you with softness. “I’ll help you,” she whispered. She nodded to herself, repeating, “I’ll help you.”

You were grateful for her going with your story, even if it was just because she didn’t know what to say to what she really saw. She moved behind you, exhaling and getting ready right away.

And she may not have known this, but in just her walking in, she had already helped you more than you could’ve ever helped yourself.

Muffled chatter came to your ears as you sat in one of the common areas. Most people ate in the cafeteria, but you couldn’t bring yourself to go in there. Finnick was in there, along with Katniss, and you couldn’t really talk to either of them right now.

With Finnick, you didn’t know where you stood. He said so much to you in your hospital room, after you were shot, but you didn’t know what to make of any of it. He was talking to you like you were more than just fake lovers—and truth be told, that’s what you were. You may have forgotten that for a while or pretended for too long, but it was fake. The dance changed every so often, but at its core, it was the same.

Finnick was acting like this was a dance you engaged in voluntarily, like this was a dance he enjoyed dancing. While you had no one you’d rather dance with, you knew it wasn’t the same for him. You saw the way he looked at Annie; you saw it for the entirety of your “relationship.” He looked at her with such tenderness and care, like she put the stars in the sky. The second you saw her, the second you saw the way he looked at her, you knew that you didn’t stand a chance.

But for some reason, in that hospital room, you almost felt like he looked at you that way.

And that didn’t make sense.

That didn’t make sense at all.

Another part of you didn’t want him to see you like this, not again. Katniss did, and you weren’t ready to see her so soon, either. It was a weak moment, you told yourself, but you were fine now. You were here for a reason—you were still here for a reason.

Show them that they can.

You didn’t have hope, but you were still the hope of so many people, the hope of Panem. You weren’t gonna let them down. You were not going to stand by and let Snow’s reign of terror continue.

You made a pact with yourself. As Katniss was cutting your hair, you promised yourself that you would see this through. Afterward, it didn’t matter what happened, but you would fight until this country was free.

Even if you died for it in the process.

“Looking good, Princess.”

Your head shot up from your tray and, for the first time since you arrived in 13, you felt a smile arise on your face. “Johanna.” Your tray was pushed to the side as you stood, wrapping your arms around her.

“Easy. I hear you’re injured.”

“I’m fine, Jo,” you reassured her, pulling away. She mirrored your smile, a sight you never thought you’d see again after what you heard in the Capitol.

“You always are, aren’t you?” She retorted. You only continued to smile, opting not to respond. She must’ve seen your discomfort—of course she did, she knew you so well—so she changed the subject. “It’s good to see you.”

“Ditto,” you responded, even if it was a little untrue. You loved Johanna. She was the first person you looked for when you got to 13, and seeing her right now made you so unbelievably happy, a happy you didn’t anticipate feeling for a long time, but it wasn’t good to see her like this.

She had always put on a brave face, was always so much stronger than you, but right now, she looked like she was barely holding on. Her eyes were hollow, bags underneath them that matched yours. Her face was pale. And the beautiful red streaks that had once filled her hair, the hair that she loved, was now gone. It was all gone.

The Capitol took it just to show her that they could.

And even though you cut yours out of your own will, they still took yours, too.

Eventually, she sat down with you, resting her head on your shoulder. Before, when things were bad before they got worse, you’d sit together in the Capitol, you, her and Finnick, and you’d pass time together, just like this.

Except Finnick wasn’t here.

However, you convinced yourself that it was for the best.

Annie. He had Annie. You volunteered for Annie, got yourself in this position for Annie, so that he could have a life with her, the life he always wanted. He may have denied it, or maybe he didn’t know that you knew, but some nights, he’d dream about her, talking in his sleep. He wanted to marry her, to have kids with her.

He could do that now. This is what you did this for, so that he could have his happy ending. Even if it meant taking away yours for good.

Like she was reading your thoughts, Johanna muttered, “How come you aren’t in the cafeteria with prince charming?”

You stiffened, but you still knew how to dance this dance, deflecting, “Why aren’t you?”

She lightly chuckled. “Good point.” She didn’t answer, even though you knew the reason why, just as she probably knew the answer to her question. You expected her to drop it, but you supposed you should’ve known better from Johanna Mason. She was silent for a few moments until she spoke again. “He loves you, you know.”

You sighed, “Jo-”

“That boy loves you with all he has, Y/N.” She lifted her head up from your shoulder, making you look at her. “Always has, still does.”

Oh, Finnick and you were incredible. You made the masses believe that the love you shared was real- he made them believe it. You didn’t have to do any work. It wasn’t acting for you, but you knew it was for him.

Not even Johanna knew that it wasn’t real. She might’ve suspected, but for all she knew, you two were really in love. You wished that was true. For years, you wished that was true.

But your wishes rarely ever came true.

“It’s not that simple,” you said.

She slightly tilted her head. “Isn’t it?” Her words echoed throughout your head. Isn’t it? It should’ve been. In a different world, maybe it was that simple. In a different world, maybe the two of you really were as in love as everyone thought you were. In a different world, maybe all those wishes and all that pretending could’ve been a reality.

But that was not this world.

So you didn’t say anything, instead resting your head on her shoulder this time, conveying your thoughts to her without speaking them.

I wish it was.

You lied on your bed in silence, staring up at the plain ceiling and imagining patterns of your own. Back at home, the ceilings had colourful swirls on them, muted tones swooshing together. But that wasn’t really your home. The home you came from didn’t have pretty designs or fancy furniture. The home you came from had paint peeling off the walls. The home you came from didn’t have furniture at all.

But that wasn’t really your home, either.

At some point, you think, that place was something like a home. When your dad was still alive, you’d wake up every morning to the scent of food cooking in the kitchen, even if it was only a bit. But then he died, and there was no one to buy food at all.

That year, you barely ate a thing.

The next year, you picked up the slack. You could still remember it, being ten years old and finding your father’s hunting gear. Going into the forest, you were scared. You didn’t want to harm an animal.

But you did.

And then you did it every time after that.

When you came home, you saw the way your mother looked at you. Somewhere inside of her, something cracked. Somewhere inside of her, she saw something that you couldn’t. And, after that, she started looking at you a lot less.

Five years later, you were sent off to The Games. You could remember seeing your mother in the crowd, but when you got into the Justice Building, she wasn’t there. You waited. And she never showed. But you held your tears and told yourself you had to stay strong, for her, because she couldn’t.

You thought about her in the arena. You thought about her when you picked up that sword. You thought about her when you took your first life. You thought about her when Bay died. And you thought about her when Claudius announced that you, Y/N Y/L/N, had won the 67th Hunger Games.

Was she watching? you wondered. Is she happy?

When you got back to 4 and opened the door to your house, her jaw fell. Like she didn’t know. Like she was shocked. Like she never thought you’d win at all.

Like she didn’t want you to.

Mom, I- I won. Did you watch?

Silence. I watched. I tried, I just- I couldn’t watch you kill after that first- that-... The boy. A boy your age. A boy you stabbed into. A boy who you watched bleed out. A boy whose blood was on your hands–and with the way your mother stared at you, you almost felt like the stains were still there.

And they might as well have been.

She hugged you. But it didn’t feel like she was doing it because she missed you. It felt like she was doing it because that’s what a mother is supposed to do. They’re supposed to hug you–they’re supposed to love you.

But you weren’t you anymore.

You moved into the new house together. Then, soon after, you were moving into Finnick’s, leaving the house to her. You think she was relieved, relieved that she wouldn’t be sleeping in the same house as a killer.

And now, as you lied on this rough bed in 13, there was no house at all. No old house, no new one, no Finnick’s house, no district 4 at all. No mom, either.

What was the last thing I said to her? you wondered. Why can’t I remember the last thing I said to her?

Tears gathered at the corners of your eyes. You couldn’t even remember when you last spoke to her. Your own mother. She was the woman who gave birth to you, the woman who raised you. Yet you couldn’t remember the last time you were in the same room.

And now you’d never be in the same room again.

A burning grew in your throat, but you didn’t let the tears fall, blinking them away. You’d cried an ocean of tears already. Now wasn’t the time to cry anymore. Now was the time to be strong.

You never wanted this. You didn’t choose this, to be princess of a country that only abused its citizens, a country that threw you to the wolves then claimed they loved you when you came out seemingly unscathed, a country that wouldn’t have loved you so much if they knew just how scathed you were.

You did not choose this. But, for some reason, it chose you. The people chose you. The people believed in you. They believed that you were some sort of hero, coming to save them all from this villain that had hurt them all so badly. They didn’t know that it wasn’t true, that you weren’t a hero. They didn’t know that you were scared of the villain, too.

But if the people in the districts could believe in you, the people being bombed and attacked, the people grieving the loss of their loved ones–if they could believe that, then you could, too.

If the people of Panem believed you could be a hero, then you promised yourself that that’s what you’d be.

“So I changed the chemical compound of the powder, adding more fluorine to excite the electrons, causing them to jump more rapidly from orbital to orbital and ignite faster as-”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Beetee paused, like he was surprised that you couldn’t understand. To him, it was so simple, but to most people, like yourself, it had no meaning. “Chemical reaction,” he reiterated. “I increased the strength of the chemical reaction so you can hit more.”

Your mouth formed an O shape. “Makes sense. That’s all you had to say, y’know.”

His mouth opened, likely to say something sweet and snarky as per usual when the two of you spoke, but he was halted by the door to the armory sliding open. You both turned to see The Mockingjay making her way into the room.

Your breath got caught in your throat for a moment before you regulated it, calming yourself down. You hadn’t seen Katniss since she walked in on you in the bathroom. The way her eyes met yours told you that she remembered that day well, too. But if you knew anything about Katniss Everdeen, it was that feelings were not her strong suit. If you knew her as well as you thought you did, then she’d pretend it never happened.

You hoped she’d pretend. If you knew Katniss as well as you thought you did, then she was just as good at pretending as you.

“You wanted to see me?” she queried, directing her vision to Beetee. A breath left you.

“Yeah, I wanted to show you both your new arrows. I adde-”

You cut him off, “He did something to the chemicals to make the arrows better.”

“Reaction. I increased the force of the chemical reaction.”

“Same difference.”

Beetee took a deep breath, closing his eyes and then reopening them. “Since you’re so… well-versed, you can explain it to her.” You snorted at his response while he wheeled away. Beetee always had the ability to make you laugh, even if it wasn’t his intention.

When you looked away from his retreating figure, you were met with Katniss staring right at you, realizing she was still in the room. Her brows furrowed, a light, light smile on her face that would otherwise be invisible to a stranger. “I’ve never seen Beetee get so… irritated.”

The tension in your shoulders dissipated as they shook with your laughter. Nobody had seen him get annoyed often, unless you were around. “Yeah, that happens when you're stuck in the Capitol with someone for years on end.”

Beetee was always a pretty good friend. You met at a Capitol function, of course, and from then on, you made it a point to annoy him whenever you could. Besides amusing you, it also served as a reminder that he was a human, too, not just some Capitol pawn.

Snow didn’t sell Beetee, but he used him in so many other ways. You and Finnick were their pride, but insiders knew that Beetee was their prize. He was perhaps the smartest person you’d ever met, but you figured that, every once in a while, he deserved to let his guard down and just be normal for a few minutes.

And, deep down, you knew he wasn’t as annoyed as he seemed.

Even though you were laughing, the smile on the brunette’s face slowly dimmed as she looked down. Your smile disappeared. “What is it?”

She was quiet for a second until she spoke, “You and the other victors… you all seemed close.”

Seemed.

Pictures flashed through your mind, pictures of your time in the Capitol. Normally, when you thought about your time there, you pictured all the bad, all the conversations behind closed doors, all the grown men and women who used you when you were still a child. What you didn’t think about was all the kids who were there with you, all the kids who had to grow up just as you did.

Some of these people were people you killed, the same people you had conversations with, the same people who were going through exactly what you were going through.

You were close.

Until you weren’t.

You didn’t say anything for a while, letting yourself remember it all. “Yeah,” you finally responded. “Yeah, we were.” And you didn’t say anything more on the matter. You didn’t know what more there was to say. You cleared your throat, changing the topic. “Anyways, this is what Beetee wanted to show us.” You picked up the arrows, showing them to her.

She hummed, looking back up. You knew that she knew what you were doing, but fortunately, she went along with it. “Never knew you could shoot.”

“Oh, please, Everdeen, anyone who grew up in the districts can shoot.”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean they’re any good,” she retorted, shrugging.

You narrowed your eyes. “Is that a challenge?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know, is it?”

Another laugh left your lips, your third time laughing since arriving in 13. “You’re on, Girl on Fire.” You grabbed one of the non-incendiary arrows and a random bow lying on the table, loading the arrow in.

You faced your body to the targets across the room, bringing the bow up to your ear, pulling the arrow back, and eying the red. The corners of your lips quirked upward and, as soon as you turned your head to face Katniss, you let it fly. The look on her face made your smirk widen, turning to see that you hit the target dead-centre.

“How the hell did you just do that?” She walked closer, shock etched onto her face.

“Precision. And years of experience,” you replied, lowering the bow. “My father was a hunter.”

When you looked back at her, she had a different expression, like she was remembering something. Her eyes glazed over. “So was mine.” Her eyes found yours again, and this time, there was something there that wasn’t there before.

Back when you met, she was just Katniss Everdeen, and you were just the Princess. But now, you were both a lot more than that.

It seemed that you and Katniss Everdeen were more alike than you thought.

Right before the 74th Hunger Games, when you and Finnick were watching the training scores on TV, you didn’t think the tributes from 12 stood a chance, even though the girl had the highest score.

Watching the Games, you disregarded them completely, even as they got just as many sponsors as your tributes. You watched as Haymitch Abernathy actually tried, actually cared for these kids, but not even that deterred you.

You ignored the possibility of them winning at all. You wanted it to be your tributes, so badly. They were good. You wanted them to survive, one of them to survive, to make it out of this, to live the rest of their lives. But you should’ve known better.

No matter your best efforts, those kids died, and there was nothing you could’ve done about it.

After that, you assumed it’d go to the Careers. Glimmer and Marvel were crowd favourites, flashy and luxurious, but not as cutthroat as Cato and Clove. A part of you even rooted for them. Maybe tradition would be broken, you thought, maybe it’d go to that kid from 11. Thresh had the determination and resilience to win.

That’s why you were surprised when you turned on the TV to see Peeta and Katniss as the last ones standing.

One of us has to die; they have to have their victor.

No. They don’t.

You were even more surprised when they both walked out of that arena alive.

Peeta became Panem’s golden boy, and he knew exactly what strings to pull, as if he’d been doing this his whole life. Katniss, on the other hand, was not a performer, not the performer you knew Snow wanted her to be. You could tell she was angry, but being angry was not her job.

You knew this because it wasn’t yours, either.

People like you and her didn’t get to be angry. You were supposed to be grateful for the opportunity that the Capitol so generously bestowed upon you, not angry or sad or guilty. That wasn’t for you.

You saw so much of yourself in her. And for that reason, you thought you’d never meet her. Too rebellious, too jagged, too questioning–she was nothing that Snow wanted around the Princess. You were right; you didn’t meet her.

Until the time came for the 75th Hunger Games.

You were surprised when she was the one who came up to you. She was confident and put-together, but you knew better. This was your dance she was dancing. You could hear the lyrics so well.

She was scared.

And she was angry.

Her attitude made you like her. You could’ve been friends, you noted, but not in this lifetime, not when she was meant to be your opponent. You never thought that you and Katniss Everdeen would be friends.

Little did you know, she’d become one of the only friends you had.

“C’mon, Everdeen. You’re going easy on me,” you said, holding your arms out. Katniss stood opposite to you, lightly panting with her hands held up.

“I’m just- I’m just tired-”

“No, you’re not. You’re going easy,” you deadpanned. “Stop stalling and hit me.”

The brunette hesitated for a moment before going in for a punch that you easily caught. “You call that a punch? Where’s that Mockingjay fire?”

She scoffed, yanking her fist out of your grasp. “I’m not going to hit you, Y/N. You were just shot-”

“Well, the revolution doesn’t care if I’m shot or not.” You gestured to your body. “I’m perfectly fine. So hit me like you mean it.”

“No-”

“Hit me like I’m Snow.”

She scoffed again. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to hit you. You’ve barely healed-”

You cut her off. “Fine. If you won’t, then I will.” Without another word, you threw a sharp punch for her face that she narrowly dodged. You didn’t miss a beat, throwing another one right after, and another one right after that like rapid fire.

She blocked your hits, but your pace didn’t alter. The two of you moved around the ring, but Katniss' hands remained in front of her face, not once swinging. You weren’t relenting; you weren’t gonna stop until she swung back.

You had almost backed her into the corner when, suddenly, the wind was knocked out of you and your back was hitting the ground. The world spun. You blinked and you were back in the arena, lying on the ground with Johanna hovering over you. You opened them and you were back in the training room, and now it was Katniss that hovered.

“Holy shit, Y/N, are you okay?” Her eyes were worried and her voice was panicked. Holy shit, she actually hit me. With that realization, a smile slowly formed on your face. “What? Why are you smiling-”

She was abruptly cut off as you swept her feet out from under her, sending her to the ground right next to you. She groaned while you laughed, almost hysterical.

If the old you could’ve seen you now. You never thought you’d be friends with Katniss Everdeen, much less that you’d be laughing with her after she kicked you.

“It’s not that funny,” she heaved, but you didn’t stop, uncontrollably giggling.

“You- you actually did it-” you cackled, tears in your eyes. She looked over at you, still panting, until you made eye contact and she was laughing, too.

You stayed there on the floor together for a while, laughing your hearts out. For all you knew, you wouldn’t get many moments like this for a while, moments where you could just lie down and rest. For all you knew, this revolution would kill you.

So there you were, the Princess and The Mockingjay, pretending that you were just Y/N, and she was just Katniss.

And for now, that made you forget about everything else.

“Please. Please, I’m begging you- please don’t do it again.” Your shoulders shook with sobs, vision blurred.

“Ah, you know that that is not how the game works, my dear.”

“Please- please, I don’t want to play anymore.”

Snow tutted. “You know the rules. You give me something, and you get something in return. If you do not give me anything, then I will take something.”

“Please, I don’t- I don’t have anything more to give-”

He sighed. “Is that so?” He didn’t give you time to say anything else. “In that case, I won’t take from you.”

You blinked the tears in your eyes away to look up at him, a chill going down your spine at his expression. He didn’t look angry. No, he was smiling. “W-what?”

He hummed. “I’ll take from Peeta.” Your heart dropped. You pulled at your restraints as he turned to leave the room.

“No, please! Please, stop! Stop!” He ignored you, walking out the door and letting the door slide closed behind him.

And then the room went black.

You shot up out of bed panting, heart racing with your eyes darting around the room. The walls were grey, but there was a window. There wasn’t a window where you were in the tribute centre. Moonlight shone into the room. There was light. There weren’t Peacekeepers waiting by your bed, waking you up when you fell asleep. You were alone. You were safe. It’s okay. You’re in 13. You’re alive.

You’re alive.

Somehow, that didn’t make it any better.

You breathed in and out slowly, trying to regain control of your breathing like how Dr. Terren showed you. When you were rescued, you couldn’t breathe and you couldn’t be consoled. This feeling that you felt right now was like that, but you don’t know if any panic attack could ever compare to that one.

You were rescued. But it didn’t feel that way.

It didn’t feel that way at all.

Once you calmed down or reached some semblance of feeling calm, your mind went right back to Peeta. You hadn’t been to see him since you first arrived in 13–and even then, you didn’t speak. He wasn’t really in a condition to be spoken to. That’s what you tell yourself, at least. But there was more to it than that.

There was always more to it than what you were willing to acknowledge.

As if your body was moving on its own accord, you threw your bed sheets to the side, slipping on a sweater and sliding your feet into the slippers next to your bed. Walking out of the room, you didn’t spare the clock a glance, walking with a subtle determination that many wouldn’t understand.

You called it a victor’s drive. It was a certain determination that came with fighting for your life, even if it meant taking another’s. It was not wanting to kill, but doing it anyway. It was not wanting to live, but doing that, too.

There were many things a victor did not want to do.

And there were just as many things that you’d do, anyway.

A part of you didn’t know where you were going while the other part was sure of herself. Regardless, you let your body take you to where your mind didn’t want to go, making your way through the dark hallways with no sound other than your feet heard.

Before you knew it, you stood in front of the glass wall that you hadn’t seen since you first got to 13. On the other side lied Peeta, looking no better than the last time you saw him. His screams echoed throughout your brain.

Please! Stop! No-

You screwed your eyes shut, trying to block out the noise that surrounded you even in such silence. His screams quieted after a few seconds, but no matter your resilience or techniques the doctor taught you, no matter what, you’d never be able to silence your song.

There was a time when you almost believed that you could escape it, the music. When Finnick and you were pretending, it felt like you could really have it, a family, like one day it would be more than pretending. But now you knew that wasn’t possible.

This song would never skip.

And you’d be dancing until the day you died.

When you opened your eyes, you were met with blue ones staring back at you, as if he knew you were there. You took in a sharp breath, scared, but maintained your stare. His hair looked shorter and more unkept than you’d ever seen it. It wasn’t so gold anymore.

Peeta’s eyes were blue, but not blue like Finnick’s. They were bright like the sky and full of a childlike innocence that you no longer saw. His eyes weren’t so bright anymore.

He looked like a ghost.

And maybe that’s what you looked like, too.

Without thinking, you went for the door, pulling the handle only for it to remain still. You furrowed your brows, trying again with the same outcome. That’s when you saw the pin pad on the side and realized that it was locked.

Of course, it was. They weren’t gonna leave Peeta Mellark in a room by himself with the door unlocked. Not this Peeta.

This Peeta had to be strapped down to the bed because his one and only objective was to kill the woman he loved. This Peeta wasn’t the same Peeta you met at the parade.

This wasn’t him at all.

With that realization, you turned around, letting his eyes burn into your skull as you walked away. You weren’t sure of anything, but what you were sure of was that you couldn’t be alone right now. If you listened to the music by yourself right now, you didn’t know what you’d do.

Your feet pitter-pattered against the floor in quick motions. You didn’t know where you were going, just that you needed to find Johanna. If you couldn’t talk to Peeta, then you needed to talk to her.

Suddenly, you turned a corner and went tumbling to the ground. You closed your eyes, bracing yourself for the fall, but it never came. Slowly, you opened them and the first thing you saw were another set of blue eyes, not bright or vibrant, but your favourite colour.

Finnick.

Your heart sped up. Suddenly, you could feel that the hands on your arms were his. Suddenly, you realized you were in Finnick Odair’s arms.

You think he only just realized that, too.

He cleared his throat, helping you up and letting you go. As soon as his hands were no longer on your skin, you felt cold. You felt just as cold as when the two of you were in the Capitol, standing outside together.

Except, now, you couldn’t hold each other like you did then.

Even if it was the one thing you wanted more than anything in the world.

Your breath got caught in your throat as you realized just how close he was. He was right there, in front of you.

You’re not alone in this, okay? I’m right here.

Right here.

And not at all at the same time.

He looked at you quietly, not saying a word, but after so long, you’d learned to read Finnick well. He looked like he had so much to say but couldn’t find the words to put them in. He looked like how he looked that night, that night that you were in the Capitol and that poor boy and girl died, that night that you kissed for the first time.

But as you looked at him, really looked at him, he also looked nothing like the Finnick you knew. You’d avoided looking into his eyes ever since you got to 13, in fear of what you’d see, and now that you finally were, you could see that his eyes weren’t so lively anymore. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Could you ever?

“What are you-” he cleared his throat again, “What are you doing up?”

At his question, you diverted your eyes, suddenly finding the floors much more interesting to look at. “I, um, I couldn’t sleep,” you reasoned. You didn’t explain why.

“Yeah, neither could I,” he muttered back, voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t explain, either.

There was a time when you’d seek him out if you couldn’t sleep, a time when you’d go to him if you had a nightmare. That wasn’t possible anymore.

If you danced with him, you didn’t know if he’d be enough to keep you from collapsing.

If you danced with him, you didn’t know how much longer you’d be able to keep going.

After a beat of silence, you spoke, “I should, um… I should get going now.”

You moved to leave, but Finnick grabbing onto your wrist stopped you. You masked your flinch, not because someone was touching you anymore, but because of who that person was. Your skin ignited so hot that it burned.

“Wait, can-” he hesitated, “can we talk?”

Your breath hitched, back still turned to him. His voice was pleading, a tone you never would’ve imagined him taking when you first met. You closed your eyes at the memory, feeling tears gather.

You wanted to say yes—oh, you always wanted to say yes to Finnick. His happiness became the only thing you strived for. You stayed with him even when you knew he loved Annie, you fought for her, you volunteered for her, you pretended you were okay, you pretended you didn’t love him, you pretended all the time.

But you couldn’t pretend anymore.

A nation was counting on you. People were counting on you. People needed you.

You couldn’t fall apart right now. And if you talked to Finnick, you weren’t sure you’d be able to put yourself back together again.

“I-” your voice cracked, “I can’t-”

“Please. Please, Y/N, I just need to talk to you.” You shook your head, holding in the sobs that were begging to escape.

Why was he doing this to you? Why, why, why, why, why, why-

“Please.”

Y/N, please. I’m just asking you to trust me. Please just trust me.

Trust you to do what?

I just need you to trust me, Y/N, please. Trust me.

I trust you.

You would die for this man. You died for this man. And if it came down to it, you’d die again if it meant that he’d get to live in a better world. But you couldn’t talk to him now.

If you talked to him, then it didn’t matter what the Capitol would throw at you, what bullets you’d take. Those eyes would drown you.

You couldn’t do this. Not now.

“No.” You removed your hand from his grasp and walked away as fast as you could, even as your feet felt anchored to the ground, each step hurting more and more. You didn’t turn back once.

The tears that you held in fell as you walked away, running down your face like a waterfall. You walked faster and faster until your walk escalated into a run. The door to your room slid open before you ran in, locking it as it closed. You slid down the metal and let out a sob, more and more following it.

Your hands went over your ears, trying to block out the music, but it only got louder and louder.

No, no, nothing is okay!

We will never be free, Y/N.

Ladies and gentlemen, our tributes for the Hunger Games.

Mom?

President Snow used to sell me.

We are both coming home, Y/N, I swear.

May the odds be ever in your favour, darling.

You screamed in agony, nearly ripping your hair out, uncaring if anyone heard you. Your body shook with sobs and your heart ached. It hurt so bad. You never thought it could hurt this bad.

You didn’t wanna dance anymore. You didn’t wanna feel like this anymore. You didn’t wanna feel anymore at all if this was all it’d feel like.

But it didn’t matter. How you felt didn’t matter. What you wanted didn’t matter. It stopped mattering the second you won those Games, the second you stabbed that boy. You stopped being a person and became the person Snow wanted you to be. You became the Princess.

And now it was your job to make sure there wouldn’t ever be another Princess, another you, another Finnick, another Katniss, Peeta, Johanna, Haymitch, Annie, Bay—it was your job to make sure this never happened to anyone again, that there would never be another group of kids that were forced to kill each other and themselves in the process. It was your job to make sure nobody else ever felt how you felt right now.

As you reminded yourself of that, your sobs gradually subsided and your heart rate came down. You weren’t okay.

But you had to be. You still had things to do- dancing to do.

You were gonna dance one last time, for this country, for all the kids that died, for the kids you were, for the kids you could’ve had, for yourself, and for the man that you loved. You were gonna dance until you couldn’t anymore. You were gonna dance until the music stopped. And amidst all the unknown, one thing was certain.

The day the music died, so would you.

It’s the things we love most, that destroy us.

Taglist: @avoxrising @mxacegrey @littleshadow17 @lovelyteenagebeard @nasyanastya @catastrxblues @zodiyack @zulpix-blog @mushroomelephant @muggies @lantsovheiress @hobiebrowns-wife @notplutos @faeriepigeons @hnslchw @unholyhuntress @aclmagic @gloryekaterina @ayme301 @lem0ns77 @kisskittenn @onlyangel-444 @moonagedaydream505 @spderm4nnnn @satellitespeirs @glitzcute @iammirrorball @corpsebasil @forever-sleepy-sloth @omwtkydttfym @divinelovers @maggiecc @i-am-a-simp1 @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @nelliereadsstuff @how2besalty @dreaminglandsworld @eilaharmonia @catvader101 @lexa138 @h0neylemon @dakotali @hermionelove @theseerbetweenus @whosscruffylooking @yourdailymemedelivery @emma-andrea1 @s1lngwns @meenyminymoes-blog @roxi-reid @rattertatter @sunnybunnyy2 @just-levyy @amaranth-writing @jennaaaaaaaaaaaa @joshhutchersonisdaddy @my-name-is-baby @hehehe13356 @quazsz @chloecharms23 @darlingsoulbeautifulthoughts @thehairington86 @imaegonstargaryenswife0 @ment1tavoid @hereliesme @tayrae515 @mottergirl99 @blackdxggr @giverosespls @erindiggory @feyretopia @bibliosaurous @sleila @soursonnets

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yeyinde · 1 year

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okay wait now we need a second version where the reader does leave with ghost and he walks her home and he's all shitty about the drunk flirting and she's like "bruh it was just flirting, if you would make a move i wouldn't need to make you jealous" 😌

ask and you shall (eventually) receive~ 🖤

i hope you enjoy this!!

"What? He's been keekin' you all night." There is a divot between his brow. When he turns his head, the fairy lights behind make his stubble look darker. "Yer aff yer heid!" Soap’s Version

It's all words.

Thin, hollow: they're empty ones bereft of meaning. They roll over you—a gale rocking you from side to side until you're dizzy with that awful little thing that clings to your pericardium, refusing to relent.

Hope.

Yearning (in English this time, if only just for him).

It clots there, taking root until you're a little queasy. A little unwell. The alcohol, perhaps, or—

He sits by Laswell, head angled down to murmur low in her ear about things that shouldn't matter right now when everyone is alive, and safe, and back together. But of course they do. They always do.

You wonder if they ever rest. If they ever take a moment's reprieve from the endless death and carnage that bulldozes your life until it's in shambles. Until the only thing that remains is broken chunks that reek of smoke and petrol.

It feels impossible.

He hasn't looked up once, despite whatever nonsense Soap might be on about. Untouchable. A chasm.

Ghost is a shoreless island in the distance. Rocky and steep.

Sometimes, if you stand on the furthest point of the beach, you can almost see the land peeking out from under the sea. Hazy. Shrouded. It sits amid the crashing waves, out of reach from everyone.

Soap pulls you back in, a few clipped words shared back and forth, and everything else melts away. This is easy.

This, being: drunk on expensive scotch (thank you, Captain Price; and oh no, thank you, I don't don't want a cigar) as you share snapped banter in a small pub. Vacant, of course, save for the six of you, and the barkeep. A man who offers little more than a nod at you when you mutter about the washroom, and swats at Price when he comes for peanuts and pretzels.

It's easy to pretend, you think, that the honeycomb eyes, a bashful grin, and hands that feel like the sun are what you want.

Easy, and yet—

You wonder if he's had anything to drink.

(You wonder if he'd keep his gloves on while he held you—)

You snap something at Soap, something you hope is witty and charming, and maybe if you play your cards right, you won't end up alone in a foreign land tonight. That, maybe, he'll let you close your eyes, and pretend—

It's ground out, raked through coals. "Soldier."

He makes you dizzy. Makes you want, yearn, makes you—

It falls into nothing, until your head is full of him: blood hell, Christ—

Never said I wasn't.

It feels like more of a reprimand than anything else he'd tossed your way thus far. A warning, maybe. Don't get too close. You know what you're in for.

Don't make him into the fairytale he isn't.

"And you, soldier?"

You're drunk. Too drunk. Head gummy and full of sin.

"Should leave," you say, casting a glance toward the mosaic window. A cross hangs in the distance. An augury. "Maybe go to church."

"Aye, lass. Think someone ought to get you home. Lt?"

You pull the last swallows in your cup before Soap has the chance to take it away from you. Liquid courage, you think, wilting under a black stare. A looming, uncharted island in the distance.

"C'mon," he says, words a shade away from being a command. "Haven't got all night."

You don't point out that it's nearly three in the morning—devil's hour in the company of a ghost—and wisely hold your tongue when Soap leans down, whispering: you can spend the night with me, hen.

"We're leaving." A growl, now.

It jars you. His voice is unlike anything else you've ever heard: gravel and ash; gunfire booming in the distance. It sits low, like the words are dragged up from the depths of his chest, and sounds like smouldering embers.

Your hands shake around the glass. It knocks against the wooden counter when you set it down, a hair too hard. You're crumbling. Slipping into waters that have no bottom. Rough, frothing. The white foam clogs your throat, drenches in you until you're weighed down, and sinking fast.

In over your head. No way out. The island is too far away.

His eyes are sharper than you've ever seen them. A yawning abyss. You wonder if something would snap at the tips of your fingers if you got too close.

Soap brows sit arched on his forehead, mouth thinning into a small line. "Alright, bonnie?"

"Gonna go home," you smile, tired. Wobbly. "Gotta get some sleep. Maybe next time, though."

Ghost's stare has never felt so heavy.

You stumble out of the pub behind him, pointedly ignoring the glance Gaz sends in your direction—the phone in your pocket already buzzing with texts that will make you whimper in the morning (saw you with Lt, mate. What the fuck? I mean what the bloody fuck?). This is normal, you think. Everyday. Mundane. Saturated in the ordinary.

Except—

Sometimes, your life doesn't make any sense. How you can go from coldly planning a man's—mens—murder to walking down the wet streets of Glasgow, head full of your Lieutenant.

The church peaks in the distance. The light spills, bathes it in yellow. The tolling bells call you an idiot.

Your head drops, eyes skirting toward the indomitable man beside you. Idiot, indeed. You can't help yourself, though. He's a magnet. A beacon.

A current sweeping you out to sea.

He says nothing. Hands tucked into the pockets of his black jacket, hood pulled down low. Those haunting eyes roam the corners, surveying the alcoves: always ready, always on-guard.

It's a stifling thing, this silence. Oppressive. Crushing.

Your throat itches with the urge to shatter it, to break it down until there is nothing left of it. Where it can't echo inside your chest like the brutal burn of rejection, and doesn't make your mind reel, an endless spiral of why and how and—

What can you do differently to make it a reality?

No man is untouchable. Not really. There had to be others in his life. A man like Ghost—

It's just impossible, isn't it?

Does he go to a brothel when the urge wells? A pub? Does he have dalliances with other agents he'd met in the field? Ones with battle scars, the taste of gunfire on their breath, and firm hands on their rifle? Is there someone already waiting at home for him, tucked inside a place no one else can reach them? The only inhabitant on an island in the middle of the sea.

What is his type?

And how can it be you?

Queries. Questions. They burn through you.

What if you just went for it? Is that what he likes? Someone who looks him in the eye, and says take me, I'm yours.

You open your mouth to ask, but are stopped in your tracks by the stare fixed on you. Breath caught in your throat. Lungs bereft of air. You splinter.

"S—sir…?"

"What?" It's harsh when it's ground out of his teeth. A snap.

"Are you angry?"

His eyes slide down to you, lidded and heavy. "Negative."

You huff. "Lying to me, now?"

"I've been called many things, Rookie, but a liar isn't one of them."

The grit in his voice makes you tremble. Makes a heat spume inside of you, not unlike the scotch from earlier.

Or—

Maybe it is the scotch. Your head is a slurry; a mess. The world around is shrouded in a sheen, a gloss, that makes the lights smear, and the cobblestone below quake under your feet.

"Are you—" jealous feels too strange in conjunction with Ghost. To the man who, as close as he is beside you, has never felt further away. Stupid Soap and his stupid words.

"Am I what?"

You mull it over. Let the word sit between your incisors to gauge the fit of it. It doesn't quite fit when you roll it around. Doesn't belong together.

(Like him, you.)

You stifle it.

He makes a noise, impatience, perhaps, and the word leaks into their terse air between you before you snap your jowls shut.

"Jealous?"

His eyes slide to you again. The whites glow under the street lamps. "Jealous?"

You feel a little silly. A little stupid. You blame it on the scotch. On Soap, and his keekin' you—

But—

You feel the words pool on your tongue, but you can't stop them from trembling out.

"I could have went home with Soap—"

"Why didn't you?"

It stings. The rejection hurts something fierce, but it's swallowed down.

(In for a penny…)

"You pulled me away. I could have been fucking him right now, and instead I'm wandering around Glasgow—"

Tonight feels as good as any to get your heart wrecked. Loose lips sink ships, after all.

"You might be fucking him, pet," his voice is a snarl, a feathered growl. "But you'd be thinking of me."

It punches into you, and makes you gasp, aloud; the sound echoing over the wet brick surrounding you. Your feet stutter when it's ground out, left to rot in the air. You jerk your head up to look at him, eyes wide. Heart-hammering in your chest.

He stops, too, hands now hanging by his sides, curled into loose fists. His chin is tipped down, liquid eyes boring into you.

You—

You've never seen a sight more damning. One more ready-made for ruin.

He makes you feel a low grade fever burning in your veins. Stupid, intoxicated.

You don't know where to go from here. Thinking of me. He's right. Of course, he is. It feels like a fractured mess when it tugs on the corner of your lip, a slowly unease smile. Distance, you think. You're an island far away from hurt.

Rejection. The brutality of his words—they can't reach your shores.

"And you'd be at home, getting thought of but not fucked." It's shakier than you'd wanted it to be, words a slow tremble. Then, a whisper: "You wouldn't even know."

"I would." He takes a step, another. His stare never wavers. "Just like I knew the first time you touched your little cunt to the thought of me. Couldn't look me in the eye for a week, pet."

"That's—"

It's true. You remember the time—all of them—and the realisation that he knows (he knows, he knows, he knows) burns into you. A knot of discomfort pools in your core.

There is embarrassment, of course there is. Shame, too.

But you're too drunk, too blootered, to think straight. Too raw, and cracked. You're a vanishing island. Water lapping at your inlands.

More hollow, thin words: "why did you take me out?"

"I gave you the option," he corrects, his voice is flat. It carries at the end, and leaves no room for any argument or protests.

It's true, after all.

You drop your chin, hands shaking. It's a bludgeon to your gut.

(How can it be you—?)

Stupid.

The false bravado quivers under his stare. A step backward flattens your spine to the wall of some long-closed Tandoori shop. The bricks are still wet from the rainshower that fell earlier. The cold dampness bleeds into your flesh. Goosebumps prickle.

More liquid courage, you think, hands balling into quivering fists by your side.

You lift your head. In for a penny, right?

No island is truly unreachable. No man, either.

All of this— something —with Ghost is drawn together into this single moment. The distance. The uneasy feeling on the nape of your neck when he's behind you. The want. He's been keekin' you all night. You look over and catch his stare. Feel it on your skin like a brand.

(Ready-made, always.)

It all has to mean something. It has to.

"Is that why you stare at me?"

His eyes are embers. The glow from the streetlights make him look like smouldering ash. Demonic. It thrills you.

"No, pet."

He leans in close, his body a shadow over yours. A tower. You can't see anything except the fill of him spreading out around you. Black. Endlessly so. Your perpetual night. The embers spark, blazing, when he bores into you. A wildfire in the distance. Atavistic fear brims.

Stay away from the fire and the being that can hurt.

His hand presses into the concrete beside your head. There is nowhere to run.

"I stare at you because I keep thinkin' about those little fingers trying to fuck yourself silly, and how desperate you must be knowin' it isn't enough."

You shiver—a whole body chill that has your teeth chattering together at the punctured words that drip, tainted with your demise, from his mouth.

The air in your lungs is noxious. It spumes inside until your knees quake, threatening to drop down into that unfathomable abyss that gapes below. The yawning maw of a man who wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into you until nothing remains. Rucked into the currents, it sends you careening out to sea until your fingers cling to the side of that untouchable island, begging for respite. Salvation.

It's a plea, a whimper: "you should have asked to take me home."

He offers none of it. His hand stretches out, and in the cup of his palm, he promises only ruin.

You shouldn't take it. Don't make him out to be the fairytale he isn't.

But the look he levels you with, ravenous hunger tucked inside the tenebrose of those spiralling depths, has you reaching out. A moth to a flame. The roar of the Styx in your head. You can't resist.

(You wouldn't even try.)

"I already am."

—Gaz regrets sending the text when he wakes up the next morning to a detailed commentary on all the ways his Lt absolutely ruined you

— he refuses to look either of you in the eye for weeks after

—this is completely irrelevant and feel free to roast me for it, but! my hc of a jealous!Ghost depends on where he's at in the relationship

—in the beginning: he doesn't trust, he does his job, and he's distant; but if he feels it, he'll close down. total distance. silence. he's mean about it, too. waspish. he'll try to push you away. cold hearted bastard to a T.

—but later?? oh, boy. that's when the Looming™️ starts. the, oh hey lemme go talk to that cutie over there - oh, wait. what the fuck that is that thing behind them and why does it look like it wants to eat me alive?! he's still mean, of course, but now he has a reason to snap. a reason to stand as close you as physically possible so everyone knows just who you belong to. and if he catches you flirting, i mean. rip, b. 🥹

#simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley fanfic #simon ghost riley x you #requests #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #simon riley cod #cod mw2 #cod fanfic #lord its me again #they caught me simpin

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sapphicvalentines · 11 days

Text

☆Baby, the stars shine bright☆

pt1, pt2

inspired by the 'kamikaze girls',♡ always had unconditional love for lolita fashion and nothing else but when she met ellie,an auburn haired girl whos part of a gang with a dad's fashion sense ,her love for clothes begins to compete with her growing feelings for ellie

strangers to friends to lovers,love-hate friendship,ellie is into reader♡ but reader♡ shows no interest (in the beginning),opposite aesthetics,early 2000s

fluff,wlw

Frilly pink dresses,strawberry cakes,sunny days,classical music and tea times made you the happiest being alive but again,your happiness only relied on external things because deep inside you felt rotten. But at least it was better than feeling totally empty right?

Everytime you felt horrible about yourself you'd think of your parents.

Your dad was rejected by his gang because he could never hold a gun properly (he would cry in vain after shooting someone) and your mother heartlessly cheated on your dad with her gynecologist right after you were born.

Your mom had crossed boundaries and you assumed it was hereditary when you started to gaslight your dad for money so you could build your dream closet.

"My best friend is in the terminal stage of this very rare, deadly disease."

You looked away, pretending to drop tears, not just because of the act but also because guilt was slowly enveloping you. You continued with your fake emotional tone, "She's so young, but she looks so tired and sick. Fortunately, the doctors found a cure."

This statement made your father stop crying and cover his mouth in surprise. He believed every single word coming out of your mouth.

"And they have to perform a surgery that will cost-" It was like a reflex; your dad burst into tears again before handing you 2000 bucks. It wasn't to save your imaginary friend from the disease but to fuel your will to live. You covered your smile with your hand before taking the money and thanking your dad, already imagining the kind of dress you would buy.

The next day, you woke up before your alarm went off, not wasting a second to go to your favorite place.

You walked all the way from home, which was in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, to the train station.

You wished you lived in Tokyo because then you wouldn't have to add the cost of the train ticket to your expenses, allowing you to spend all your money on dresses. But going there once every month prevented you from emptying your wallet every day, so it wasn't all bad.

Relief hit you when you arrived at the train station early. You took a seat, but then you heard people screaming and arguing from afar.

It was your dad doing his 'new' job after leaving his gang. You thought you were good at gaslighting him, but he was certainly better. He was selling fake luxury brand clothes to a group of oblivious people, arguing with him to get a 90% discount. No matter how stubborn you are, you don't think you could ever fool an entire group of people. It made you wonder how your dad believed all of your made-up stories in the first place.

Little did you know, the dress you bought that day would be the last one you bought with your father's money. Karma got both you and your father, almost bankrupting him. The old gang your father was in denounced his actions, leaving him with no job and no money to fund your wardrobe.

When you looked at the fake luxury clothes in your hands, you wondered how people even fell for this. It was just basic white t-shirts with a brand name; not even your alter ego could like this.

But to your biggest surprise, the scam your father had pulled off hadn't reached everyone's ears. Luckily, you soon received a letter that looked like it was written by an 8-year-old:

"Hi, I saw your big tracksuits when I was walking by the city, but there were too many people buying everything. I was wondering if you still have some left for me. Wait for me at your house at 8 am."

And so you did. You stood at your front door, waiting for the child to arrive. You convinced your father to keep his fake clothes for whatever reason, so you could continue what he was doing in secret.

All you had to do was sell fake luxury clothes to afford your dream ones. With no gang to ever snitch on you, you could set your own prices and stop depending on your dad's money.

You spotted a motocycle and squinted your eyes when the person riding drove towards your home

Was it one of the childs parents ?

The person drove closer blowing some dust before parking their motocycle next to your home, they didnt even wear a helmet for security

You realised she was a girl when the dust disappeared but she didnt look like a mother at all

You didnt realise you were staring that long until the auburn girl came up to you and told you to stop

"hey, I told you im looking for the seller where is he ?" her deep commanding voice made you remind the letter, it wasnt an actual child's writing,she was just writing like a child !

"he's not here, but I'm taking his role," the auburn girl said, looking you up and down inspecting your elegant lolita dress.She was blocking the sun, so you couldn't clearly see her facial features.

"are you messing with me?" You could see her features better when her face got closer to yours, attempting to intimidate you. She didn't believe in you, even though she had no idea those clothes were fake. She turned her face away to spit on the ground, and you noticed golden writing on her large jacket's sleeve.

This girl was definitely part of a gang, you thought.

"stop spitting," you retorted in disagreement with her behavior. It was obvious she was doing all this to let people know she's not playing around, but still...

She raised an eyebrow at you, a bit surprised. But before she could do or say anything, you carelessly opened the front door of your home, which was about to turn into a place of business.

#ellie williams #ellie fluff #ellie x reader #ellie x fem reader #ellie tlou #mini series #Spotify

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prying-pandora666 · 9 months

Text

Do you ever think about the characters when they’re alone?

You know, the things the narrative pretty clearly communicates but which we never actually see?

Like how many nights Zuko must’ve laid on his cot in his ship and cried, missing his home, his family, his bed, his life… How many times he wrapped himself up in a blanket and pretended it was his mom holding him again. How many times he woke up from a dream where he’s back home and unburned only to wake up on a cold, hard metal ship, uncomfortable and shivering, hearing the groans of strained metal. Alone. You have no Nation. No place you could settle down. Everyone hates you but none more than your own homeland. What if Uncle dies? Or leaves too? What then? What will he do?

Or how many times Katara dreamed that her mother dying was just a nightmare! That it was all a dream and mom is still alive, dad is still home, her childhood didn’t get cut short. How many times Katara must’ve woken up and sat up looking for mom only to find she’s in the middle of nowhere, in a bedroll, surrounded by other kids she feels responsible for. How many times she cried by herself, wishing she had someone to “mom” her the way she does for everyone else. How often did Sokka have nightmares? How often he feared the Fire Nation showing up and killing them all. That he alone would have to stand up and fight them. How many nightmares of being burned alive, failing, and then watching his tribe suffer the same fate because he couldn’t protect them. How often did he cry out for Hakoda quietly, muffling his words into his pillow, wishing for dad to protect him again?

Surely Toph had her share of night terrors. They’d be dark because she doesn’t know sight, but surely there’d be sounds and a sensation of being trapped, locked in, like in a tiny metal cage. The kind where she discovered metalbending. How many times did she cower and flinch at night, dreaming that metalbending really wasn’t possible? That she’d spend the rest of her life trapped, forced to be an isolated, beautiful bobble, seen but not heard, never allowed out of her prison again?

How often did Aang wake up to the sound of Gyatso calling him, only to sit up and realize it was a dream? His people are dead. His entire way of life is dead. It’s never coming back. No, really. It seems too horrible to be true, but it is. They’re all dead. You are all that remains of your culture and you’re only 12. You can’t possibly know enough to preserve it. What are you going to do? You want to ask Gyatso. You can’t. He’s dead. He’s been dead for 100 years. He’s not even close to having been alive. And yet he feels like he was just here…

And then there’s Azula. Whether living in Ozai’s palace and forced to live every day in anxiety - forced to be perfect in every way - because you know that no one in this world loves you. The only thing keeping you from being the new Zuko is your usefulness. You keep father’s favor by performing, no matter how horrible or traumatic the task, hoping it’ll finally be enough to earn his love and you can finally know what it’s like to be cherished and held and wanted the way mom loved Zuko. Or… when she’s in the abusive asylum. Chi blocked so she’s immobile. Stuffed into a straitjacket. Mistreated and unable to defend yourself. You can’t even tell anyone because no one comes to visit until your brother needs something from you. You cry only in the dead of night, muffling your sobs into the mat you sleep on, brushing away your tears with its coarse fibers since you can’t even use your hands to move your bangs out of your eyes. Never show weakness. You know that much.

How often did they all dream of a warm and safe place where they’d be loved and protected? I hope they all got it in the end, LOK be damned. Every last one.

#avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar #Aang #Katara #Sokka #Toph #Zuko #Azula

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laurasauras · 9 months

Note

rose lalonde. that's it, that's the question.

isn't it just! god i love rose.

it's that she's one of those girls who pretends she has it all together, who thinks she's worth more because she is witty and can come up with brilliant burns exactly on cue, but she's also the girl who pretended her cat could talk to her and who would pretend to have a magnetic W as a mustache and is 13 and was probably making potions in the mud with a stick last week.

she's as cool and calm as a forest pond, and you know there are depths there but you assume those depths are things like "can commune with gods (really)" and "maybe she's telling the truth when she says she's read proust". and then you're 14 and so is she and you're finding out that the depths are "she learned how to cope with being bored and isolated and doomed from a mother she maybe shouldn't have forgiven".

and oh, i have all the pity in the world for momlonde. how awful to be put on this planet to raise a child who will end the world before creating a new one? how could you make friends under those circumstances, knowing they would all die because of what the universe has planned for your little girl? how could you sleep at night knowing that at the very least she'll be traumatised, but it's much more likely that she'll just be dead.

but rose didn't know any of that.

rose just knew that her mother wasn't around, not even to make sure she had the capacity to feed herself, let alone making sure that she was.

she knew that if she screamed that she wanted to kill herself or jammed needles in a (dead) powerpoint, her mother wouldn't talk to her, but she might be given a pony or something.

she knew that the only time her mother was around was when she was drunk, and when she was drunk she would be able to tell rose that she loved her and that she was perfect, and maybe she was merry or maybe she was crying but whatever it was, it was fucking hard to trust. because being sober next to a drunk person's sincerity is unbearable. you know that if they weren't drunk they wouldn't be crying or saying all of that, so it doesn't fucking count. and if you were so perfect and loved, then why would she even need to drink. you're 10 years old and you're supposed to be the centre of your mother's whole life, but you're not and you never have been. you're just the inconvenient kid she remembers when her breath stinks and she can't pronounce your name anymore.

and when you're 14 and she's dead and you're staring at the code you found while trying to make apple juice for someone who is your family (but you can't express your love for him), you remember being 4 and standing in her high heels, your ankles barely poking out of the toe of the shoe. and now they fit pretty damn well.

you're on a journey you can't speed up, knowing that at the end of all this bullshit that doesn't matter the people closest to you might be hurt, might be dead, and the air smells just a little bit doomed ... and in that golden window after two drinks but before five, your mom was charming and funny and beautiful, and she could actually say what she felt. if you're going on your first date with a woman who might make the meaningless tedium worth it, maybe you could use a little of that.

BUT ROSE ISN'T JUST HER TRAUMA!

Rose Is The Flame I Am Drawn To. She Makes Me Feel More Alive Just By Glancing At Me. I Am Bewitched By Her Intelligence And Electrified By Her Humour And Devoted To Her, Just Her, Everything That She Is

rose acts like shes a princess and like the rest of us should feel grateful that she even notices we exist but when you get down to it no one carries a bit like her. she matches me every goddamn step no matter what and she gets what its like to care without making some kind of deal about it

rose is just kind of a dork. it's funny how everyone thinks she's scary. okay, so in a battle between chuck norris and rose lalonde, chuck is going home crying about his kicked nuts and his mommy issues, but just because rose is badass doesn't mean she isn't also the kind of girl who snorts milk through her nose laughing at me pretending to be a walrus with breadsticks. last week. we are 40.

(dear god i'm sorry about the inaccuracy of those text colours, it hurts me too)

so yeah. rose lalonde. that's it, that's the answer.

#homestuck #character study #rose lalonde #rose #tw alcohol #momlonde

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see-arcane · 6 months

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What horror movies would each of the crew enjoy? Who dislikes them?

Mina is at the front of the line for scary stories and horror movies alike. She's a bit of a classic ghost story fiend, so the original The Haunting and The Innocents would be her top picks. She'll also re-watch adaptations of M.R. James' ghost stories every December.

Jonathan may have a soft spot for Shakespeare's theatric scares, but straight horror is not for him. The closest he'll come is the type of 'horror' that really amounts to a romance with scary elements painted over it. He knows it doesn't count, but he quite likes The Shape of Water and, he will very hesitantly admit, Only Lovers Left Alive.

Lucy also doesn't consider herself a big horror fan, but will make exceptions for juicy character dramas dipped in corn syrup blood. She considers The Craft a favorite and--so long as she isn't watching it alone--Carrie.

Jack pretends Psycho is his favorite for Classic Cinema Appreciation cred. It's really Ex Machina. No comment.

Arthur is just Not a Fan of Horror. Full stop. His eyes water every time the pet inevitably gets killed off. He cries outright over sympathetic monster stories. Anything more harrowing than a stop-motion Henry Selick flick will have him hiding behind a pillow, and even then he needs to have someone's hand to hold. (The Rhino in James and the Giant Peach gave him nightmares for a week.)

Quincey isn't really a movie guy, period. He is sadly one of those types to hear rave reviews of such-and-such movie or series, swear he'll check it out, and then immediately forget or ignore it into oblivion. The one exception was Jordan Peele's Nope, which Jack and Arthur herded him into. They all thought it was just a sci-fi modern western-adventure movie. Jack staggered out of the theater afterward. Arthur just passed out. Quincey saw it two more times in the theater and now watches it at least once a month at home.

Van Helsing is also not much of a movie guy, but will watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and The Thing (1982) around Halloween. A bit of a masochistic selection, considering the subject matter, but the stories are too well-done to let the 'conscripting body horror' of it all overwhelm him.

Renfield is fond of telling Jack his favorite is Silence of the Lambs--no guesses why--but if he's being honest, he's a shameless sucker for the type of escapist monster media where the protagonist goes 'Oh no! I've been bitten/cursed/otherwise transformed into a supernatural super-powerful-cool monster who kills all their problems away! Oh nooo~' ...But then, he doesn't consider any of these horror movies. Honest answer? The Fly (1986). He'll never say why.

BONUS:

Dracula watches 30 Days of Night whenever he needs a laugh. He'll binge the entire Hannibal series in...other moods. His roommates know to avoid him when he brings out that particular box set and to pointedly Not Mention a certain soliciting someone for the duration.

The Weird Sisters watch fun old romps like Audition, Fatal Attraction, and both versions of Suspiria for a cozy evening. They only watch The Hunger (1983) when they're feeling maudlin.

#in which the Dracula cast go to the movies #mina harker #jonathan harker #jack seward #arthur holmwood #arthur godalming #quincey morris #lucy westenra #abraham van helsing #r.m. renfield #brides of dracula #the weird sisters #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

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irelandking · 9 months

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avenger/agent reader fic recs

bucky barnes x reader

❤️ = fluff 😔 = angst 🔥 = smut 📱 = social media au

multiparts/series:

single bed - @sebbymylove16

Part 2 & Part 3 You and Bucky have to share a single bed on a mission and it prompts him to say what’s been on his mind for a while ❤️

sly as a fox - @sunmoonandeddie

Part 1 (master list links are broken)

After the blip, the Avengers continue on with business as usual. But they soon find out that while they were away, someone took it upon themselves to do the job they left behind. ❤️📱

catch me - @buckyywiththegoodhair

In which a bet leads Bucky to have to catch you every day for a week, no matter what. ❤️😔

honey and the bee - @chrevastan

One sleepless night brings you to the large communal kitchen at the Avengers Compound. Fully furnished and equipped but barely used, you decide to give the room a little culinary love. Little did you know, your new hobby would bring you some special moments with your friends and opportunities to get to know the newest addition to your team—Bucky Barnes. [chef!reader, baker!reader, avenger!reader, t: enemies-to-lovers] ❤️😔

10 signs an introvert likes you - @andyl394

Bucky wasn’t the type of guy to show his feelings and neither were you the one to notice subtle things, until you come across this video; A guidance that may help you discover rather The Winter Soldier likes you or not. ❤️

mirror for the sun - @imhereforbvcky

Nat tricks you into leading a road trip with Bucky, Sam and Steve. Her plot is partly to get the boys to travel for fun for once but mostly to get you and Bucky together. You and Bucky, who seemingly despise each other. ❤️😔

guiding light - @wkemeup

It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra. While you struggle to stay alive and hold your sanity, Bucky begins to lose himself to a darkness and gives into the soldier because he doesn’t know how to breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. 😔

deadcrush - @heli0s-writes

Part 2 & Part 3 Deadcrush, a game played based on the question “what historical figure would I want to take on a date if they were alive today?” ❤️

best boyfriend you never had - @language-rxgers

When you find out your sister is getting married and expects you to bring a date to her wedding in two months, you panic, having not gone on so much as a coffee date with a guy in far too long. After all, being an Avenger doesn’t leave too much time for a life outside of work. So, when your best friend, none other than the James Buchanan Barnes himself, offers to pretend to be your boyfriend and plus one, how can you refuse? It seems like something that would come out of a movie. However, real life is never like the movies, and stories like this never go as planned. ❤️😔

the coupon book - @tuiccim

12 part series each part a sexy coupon being used 🔥

play pretend - @wkemeup

part 2 When Bucky is injected with a substance that leaves him desperate for release, you offer your help. But once that line is crossed, Bucky’s not sure he can ever go back. (sex pollen) 🔥

almost had me believing it - @tuiccim

An undercover operation playing Bucky Barnes’ wife is a dream come true. Playing house in the suburbs while trying to take down a drug ring brings you and Bucky closer but a nosy neighbor causes trouble in paradise. ❤️😔🔥

#bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes smut

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romeulusroy · 1 year

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Being The Youngest Roy Would Include: Pt. 2

A/N: This I'd solely based on this fic, which I am in love with :) I ran out of room on the first part and had much more to say lol

Warning: addiction/addiction mention, abuse/neglect

Being The Youngest Roy Would Include: Pt. 1

Waking up at random underground bars, clubs, random streets in the city not knowing where you were or how you got there. It was definitely scary at times, but you were too numb to care

No one carded you, fearing your name more than your safety

Whenever you were hungover, you could hide away in your own bathroom on your own floor of the house, not that your father went looking for you or would seek you out very often, if at all

Everyone in that house knew. Everyone knew and they said nothing. When you got sick all over your clothes, reeking of a seedy bar or covered in glitter from clubbing, a fresh pair would magically show up folded on your bed. When your nose bled from the drugs and you used a white towel, a fresh one would be replaced in no time

You always believed you were being careful, that nothing bad would happen. You thought you were holding up the charade, and in some cases you were. Logan never said anything to you, about anything. As long you showed up and did as you were told, he didn't really care what you did outside of that

A few times you'd overdosed. Purely on accident, in your room, at the bars, at a party. A few times you woke up in the hospital, the closest one, but no one ever showed up. Even when you collapsed in your own home, your father was too busy in his meeting to pick up. Your mother was your emergency contact and she rarely picked up, too. Doctors knew who you were and that was enough to silence them, for better or for worse

It was easier to pretend this problem didn't exist. Like everything, your father ignored it, swept it under the rug

It wasn't until you called your father for help, drunk, high, crying and scared, unsure of where you were in the middle of the night did he reach out to someone, angry you woke him up, getting your brother to come find you. Your last attempt at seeking his love, his care, cursing yourself for being so stupid as to think he'd care in the first place

Connor dropped everything and got to you, seeing just how fragile and lost you really were for the first time. You could barely keep your eyes open. That scared him to death

It took a lot longer than they'd like to admit to realize you had a problem, that this wasn't just the occasional drink

Connor was the first to suggest an intervention. The rest followed, unsure of what to do, ashamed they hadn't seen any of this sooner

Coming off a high left you feeling low, helpless, and now embarrassed your big brother had seen you in that state. It wouldn't be the last time you'd go to rehab, but it would be the first

The anger came back though, it always did, and with nothing to soften the blow you took it out on yourself, on others. Your siblings were the first targets and no matter how many times you apologize, the guilt eats you up alive. Accusing them of not caring about you, of not noticing. In one particular dark moment you even accuse Roman and Kendall in aiding you in your addictions in the beginning, neither of them knowing. Kendall tries to tell Rome it's not his fault, coming to his baby brothers aid. If you could take one thing back, it would have been that. The look on their faces still haunts you

"Rome, I'm so sorry. I should never have-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I know, okay? I know."

You try getting clean on your own, something your sister makes it known she's against, but there's nothing she can do. When you can't get into places, when they refuse to have you again, you do it by yourself, mostly at Connors ranch. It's secluded, far away from your father. Once you stayed at Kens, a few times with Shiv, but you liked being at Con's the most. It's a mess and really you should be somewhere with professionals, but it's only for when you slip up, for when things are mostly stable, if that can even be measured

In the end, rehab is where you end up. More than a few times. When you get your phone back, one of them always makes sure to pick up your weekly call, even when you talk about nothing, like with Roman

You still thank Connor for picking you up that night

"Don't worry about it, I was happy to."

Being in your fathers presence is a major trigger. You try to stay with your mother for a few weeks, but she always grows uneasy with you around. She doesn't believe in your addictions, in any of your problems. She sends you back to Logan without a second thought, thinking you and your siblings are blowing things out of proportion

You got your own place, somewhere free of association from all those terrible years, all that sickness. You invite your brothers and sister often, trying to make it up to them every single day

You've been clean from everything for a year. Connor couldn't be more proud. Everyday you fear you'll go back to the old you and every day you find a reason, no matter how small, not to. Most of the time it's for your brothers and sister. All the shit you put them through, everything they've done for you, all the times they picked you up from rock bottom, it's the least you could do for them

Kendall still sneaks you candy, one of the last vices you can truly indulge in. Your favorite from when you were a kid. He doesn't hold anything you say against you, knowing what that mindset is like. When you feel yourself slipping, you turn to him. You don't always have to say it, sometimes he just knows, he understands

Shiv still helps you out. Straightens your hair, fixes your collar, doing some damage control with the public when they've turned the story on you, looking after you in those small, significant ways like when you were little. She and Con are the ones to ask if you're okay, if you need a place to stay for a few days, anything at all. Sometimes you even take them up on their offers

You and Roman are closer now, too. He seeks you out at events, hugging you harder than anyone else. He's always kissing your head, holding you close. His comments remain snarky, but for you, self-aware. Nothing that goes too far. He'd always got a glass of sparkling water ready for you so you don't have to go near the bar. What you said hurt him beyond words, but he also knows that was the detoxing you speaking, not the real you. Still, he checks how much is in his glass now, trying to make up for the past

Connor is still the only good father figure in the world. Every year you send him a card for fathers day, writing the same long winded note as a thank you to him. He pretends they don't mean the world to him, but he's got each one in a box under his bed. They make him feel so, so loved

It's not easy. It never will be. You still have to see Logan, talk to him, pretend there's anything left of your relationship. God only knows what story he's spun for Marcia. But it gets more bearable knowing you have people on your side now, that Connor, Kendall, Shiv, and Roman all have your back no matter what. You're their baby sibling after all

#headcanon #connor roy #connor roy headcanon #connor roy x reader #kendall roy #kendall roy headcanon #kendall roy x reader #shiv roy #shiv roy headcanon #shiv roy x reader #roman roy #roman roy headcanon #roman roy x reader #logan roy #logan roy headcanon #logan roy x reader

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finniestoncrane · 1 year

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Without a Hitch

Dano!Riddler x Female!Reader, word count: 10k commission: eddie meets reader at her work and develops an intense interest in her. and he decides it might be nice to treat himself to a little voyeurism and maybe a bit more... 🐀💚 part 2 here commission me here! request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: stalking, obsessive, noncon, voyeurism

For the longest time, everything in Eddie’s world was a blurred, amoral grey. Nothing mattered too much to him. It hadn’t mattered in a long time, in fact. Nothing ever sparked joy, and nothing really sparked fury. The cruelty he had experienced in the orphanage, the long-endured pain at the hands of peers, the mockery he experienced at work as he tried his hardest, and the days spent watching money that was earmarked to help the downtrodden like himself being funnelled into various criminal enterprises under the knowing noses of Gotham’s corrupt elite. It had wiped him out. It was all too much. He felt as though he were nothing. He didn’t think he mattered. Nothing did.

Occasionally, only sometimes, a notion would come over him. The idea that something could be done to fix the world, to give him back the sense of being alive, and the power to actually make a change, make a difference. But for much of his life it had never amounted to anything more than his scribbled diary entries filled with pain and violence, to be forever sentenced to fictional daydreams. Nothing more than his lustful gazes into the barred window of the army surplus store he passed on his walk to work and home again from the subway station. One day, he thought, maybe. But he didn’t ever think it was likely.

Which is why he supposed it had struck him like a brick to the side of the head when you approached him. Willingly, too. And with no cause, much to his surprise. Another human, one not bound by any social convention or contract to make small talk with him, had decided to waste their time with someone like him. And, eternally grateful, he had put on his best, most human smile, and used all of his practised lines that were standard in normal conversation. Through sheer luck alone, or maybe because you were simply made for him, he seemed to pass the test. The reward being your attention for even just a few seconds more. And he lingered around your workplace in an attempt to get more of it. He would pretend to be looking for your help finding files and films, pretending like he needed the support of the archivist, as if he needed help with anything. Three times now you had been dangerously close to uncovering what he was really doing with the information for the renewal fund and the newsreel footage of the Wayne’s and their beneficiaries. But luckily, he had always managed to use his awkward charm to lure you away from the truth.

Beyond that first interaction, he had never expected to see you again, let alone develop what he assumed was a friendship. You had asked for his number, he guessed out of politeness. But you had texted him. And called him. Regularly in fact. And always asking to meet up again if he was free. You seemed genuinely interested and while that terrified him, he was more than happy to expose himself to just a little bit of pain as the risk, if the reward was your genuine interest. It quickly became apparent to him that you were kind, sweet, caring. And honest. He soon found himself walking you home, meeting you for breakfast, sharing his latest worries with you. Your relationship, your friendship, was helped along by proximity. He remembered how he felt the day he realised that you lived in the apartment block next to his own. That you were so close to him, it had to mean that you two were destined for something more, together. He considered the logical explanations of course. You were both looking for the cheapest place to rent, you both needed access to the subway system, you were both single, so the tiny, studio apartments in the four buildings on this one corner suited you both perfectly. But it had to be more than that, surely.

In that seemingly destined togetherness, he found genuine happiness and comfort. It was a welcome change from his solitude. The years of loneliness had made his heart ache so profoundly that it felt like he was a new person around you. But he was still himself. Even deep down, there was the gnawing, screeching, desperate need for violence and chaos in the name of vengeance and reparations. The need for control, the lust for power. It was all too easy for him to slip into that thinking around you. You were so unique in your forgiving and trusting nature. So easily manipulated, so vulnerable. You trusted Eddie so much, and so quickly. And that alone satisfied the craving for power he had, even just for a little while. But the satisfaction dwindled, and the more time he spent with you, the stronger his desire for more of your affections and attention got.

More power over you, more exposure to you, more of you. And to him, he was being gifted that from the fates of the universe themselves. Because what more of a sign did he need than knowing that you were living in the apartment block next to his own. That you trusted him implicitly. That when you were with him, you confessed to feeling safer, feeling comforted yourself.

He wondered if you felt it as deeply as he did though. He worried over it, ruminating over the question of whether your feelings, while the same, were actually identical. He’d spend hours and hours at night, unable to fall asleep, but not grudging it in the slightest, staring at the ceiling and thinking of you. Did you think of him? Did you appreciate the way he appreciated you? Of course you couldn’t. He was… different. Different from most people really. He felt things stronger, he deserved more as a result. And as wonderful as you were, compared to him, you were still less than. But you could hope, couldn’t you? You could dream of his returned affections? Maybe you did. Maybe you lay in your own bed at night, praying to some gods who weren’t always listening if they were even there at all, that he would be willing to favour you with his attention, or even his love.

And lucky for you, Eddie felt generous. Enough so, that he was willing to put time and effort that he didn’t really have into favouring you with a hint of his adoration. Though, his panic driven mind and shy nature meant he couldn’t really express it to you outright. This would be something more secretive. The kind of adoration you might not even notice. But he would express his love at least.

A lot of dedication was required, copious amounts of effort which he was sure that you might eventually come to appreciate, should you ever find out, or should he ever express it to you in detail. Each day, he monitored your apartment. In order to be sure that he would have the most time, creating a relaxing and fulfilling experience for himself of course, he needed to be sure he knew when the optimum time for a little visit would be. When you left, when you arrived back. How long it took you to walk from the station to the front door of your apartment. Any kind of inconveniences he imagined would hold you back, and any favourable turns that might mean you were home earlier.

It wasn’t as difficult as he first imagined, given that he actually knew a lot of your routine already. And you were very much like him in the sense that you were habitual. You stuck to a routine. Unwise, really, and had he not been so consumed by his own nefarious plans he would have certainly warned you that it’s good to shake things up every now and then, just to throw potential stalkers off of your trail. He supposed the mention of that might scare you though. No one wanted to live in reality, not like he did. Everyone was happy to be blind to the scary things that lurked not even in the shadows but in the broad daylight of society. It was much easier to turn a blind eye to them.

Eddie hadn’t expected you to be much different, though he did think you might be ever so slightly smarter than the rest of the citizens who tucked up their coat collars when they passed by a crime in action and absent-mindedly held their keys between their knuckles. But there you were, walking down the alley shortcut even without him by your side. At least he knew you were likely to go the route he took you every day, and that shaved off almost ten minutes from what precious little time he might have alone.

As he watched you over the course of the week, he came to realise that he thought of your life as quite sad. Eddie appeared to be your only real friend. Or maybe he was something more to you? He had no doubt in his mind that you were possibly beginning to fall for him. Why else would you be willing to spend so much of your time around him? You were so kind and innocent, it was impossible to believe you had any kind of nefarious intentions, which was usually his go to worry when someone extended even the most minor of kindnesses to him. Like that one woman who had offered him her train ticket which she wasn’t going to use. Was she just trying to avoid using the train with him? Had she planted a bomb and decided that he deserved to die with the others? He was glad he had taken the bus that day. You can never tell with some people. But he could tell with you.

It was interesting though, because you didn’t seem to know or understand him as well as he did you, or even as well as you thought you did. You told him so often how genuine he was, how gentle and polite, how kind and generous, how cute and interesting and funny and gentlemanly. So either through willing ignorance, or genuine stupidity, you clearly hadn’t noticed the way he looked at you, leering with a disgustingly perverted lust that riddled him with guilt. So often he took glances down your shirt, admiring the way your breasts curved and filled out the glimpse of bra that he could see. And any time you were bent over, he was entirely focused on your ass, the way you filled out your pants, how it bounced lightly. And any time he had ever been brave enough to compliment you, you brushed it off, blushing, denying that there was anything about you that was worthy of any kind of praise. You were beautiful. You were sweet. But, you were just as pathetic as he was, in so many ways.

While that should have struck a sympathetic chord within him, instead it only made his heart beat more deviously. There would be less in the way, more of you for him. Every facet of your being, all of your attention, focused solely on Eddie. Truly, that was the ideal end goal here. Not ownership necessarily, but worship. Sometimes, it felt like you did. On your knees below him, staring up at him as you reached for something on a low down shelf as you fetched what he asked for. A servant, a worshipper, praying at his feet. Would you beg for him? Would you call to him as though he were a god? Would you open your mouth for salvation and accept it in the form of his rigid cock resting on your tongue, choking you at the back of your throat? He wanted you to. He believed in time, you could want the same thing. And little by little, he would drip feed that notion to you. Infiltrating your mind, body and soul, all for him. But first, he had to infiltrate your apartment. Luckily, that was proving to be a far easier task than he had first imagined when he set out on this first step of his plan.

On the morning he chose to execute this first part of his cunning plan, he waited patiently for you to leave your apartment. This involved him timing your morning. You would wake up, snooze your alarm, rest in your bed for those ten minutes while you checked your phone for messages or news or whatever you were doing, and then you would get up. You showered at night, he knew that now from conversations, not an easy topic to slip in casually but he had managed it. So in the morning, you only washed your face, brushed your teeth, went to the toilet, put on makeup, brushed your hair, got dressed. These things, he had timed you on in total, but he wasn’t sure of the order you did them, or how long each step took individually. He’d know soon enough though.

You ate toast every morning, with varying different toppings. Another fun fact he had gleaned from conversations with you. No doubt you assumed he was just trying to get to know you better, learn more about his friend, make a deeper connection. Which was true, in part, but ever so slightly more nefarious than you could ever imagine.

Taking into account that you might have to choose your outfit a couple of times, or might be having a bad hair day, or might need a little longer with one of the steps, he offered himself a generous margin for error. After all, he knew you would be out of your apartment for at least six hours this day, even adjusting for those ‘what ifs’ that he had planned for. It was the smart thing to do to provide less time in your space to make sure that it was spent well, than be stressed about the notion of you returning unannounced.

Once he was sure you were gone, he made his way rather casually from his own apartment out to the street. It was a rush. No one ever noticed him before, but now, it meant something. The people who brushed past him had no idea what was going on inside his mind, what kind of nasty business he was planning on getting up to. His invisibility, the fact that he was inconsequential enough to become a sort of living secret, was finally working in his favour.

With a perk in his step, he giddily stepped up to your building, pressing the wood just right in the way you knew would get the old and almost completely defunct lock to give way. And with that, he was inside. The thrill, the anticipation, it was enough to send him reeling. But he held his cool, kept himself under control. If anyone were to step out of their apartment and wonder who this stranger in the hallway was, he had his excuses lined up. Although, as prepared as he was, it didn’t stop his chest from shuddering with excitement, and his breath shaking with nerves. Especially not as he stood in front of the familiar sight of your door.

You had gone on vacation for three days once. The loneliest period of his life to date, mostly because you had managed to worm your way into his subconscious so quickly and with such ease that he forgot how lonely he was before he had met you. You’d asked him to water your plants on the second day. And he had done this, diligently, with great care. And then, he’d given you back your spare key with a smile, even when you insisted he keep it, you reminded him that it was better to stay safe and hold onto it yourself. He cared for you, you might need it. He might drop it and lose it and then who might get a hold of it? You smiled and kissed his cheek. He could still feel it if he thought hard enough. And as you walked into your apartment building, he had held the copy he had cut that morning in his fist, smiling at the stinging sensation on his palm as the points dug into his skin.

He held that key again, placing it into the lock as he held his breath, and opened your door. Rushing inside, he closed it slowly again, quietly, so no one in the hall could hear the exits and enterings. He knew what neighbours were like. Nosy. They might mention hearing you, and then you’d be confused, suspicious. Unless… you had given your key to someone else? No… he couldn’t think like that right now. There was no point in getting angry and jealous when he had business to attend to.

Eddie placed his backpack down on your console table in the small hallway. Reaching inside, he pulled out two tiny spy cameras he had bought on a less than legal and less than reputable site linked to him by someone on one of his frequently visited forums. He smiled as he held them between his fingers. They were his ticket into your mind, into your body, into your soul. And he had already planned where he was going to place them, but it was worth it to take one more look around your place now that he had the time to really explore. He’d been here multiple times, but always with you. Never a moment to himself, to have some fun. Except, of course, when he watered the plants. But he was less confident then, more keen to impress you and do a good job. Scared of messing something up. He came in, watered, left. And got the key copied. Now, he couldn’t care less.

You weren’t going to know he was here. He liked you, he appreciated you, he thought you were wonderful. But you weren’t the most observant. It was likely he could leave his backpack there and you might not even question it. But he was going to leave everything exactly the way he found it regardless. The last thing he wanted was a snag in his plan. So with that mindset, he took a slow walk around the kitchen and living space. It was small, but bigger than his. Nothing of note there. He doubted you got up to much in this space other than eating and watching TV. It was interesting to observe it, but the real goals were the bathroom and the bedroom, as he had suspected and planned for.

Heading down the small hallway there was a door in front of him and one to the side. In his head, he played a silent game of “eeny, meeny, miny, mo” and ended up heading straight forward. Opening the door into the room beyond, he realised it was your bathroom. The scent was pleasant. Slightly sugary, peaches, creams, clean. It didn’t have the bland soap smell that was barely covering the masses of damp and mould like his own bathroom did. Taking in the room, he imagined you there. As he observed the space, he placed you in it. Showering, whatever you used that smelled so sweet covering your nude body, suds slipping over your curves and rolls, like you were dousing yourself in icing sugar for him. A treat to taste.

Opening the shower curtain, he lifted your shampoo and sniffed it, inhaling deeply. Just the way you smelled when he hugged you, your light perfumed fragrance staying with him for the rest of his day and into the night as he thought of you. Placing the bottle back exactly, he turned to the sink, brushing his fingers lightly over your toothbrush. It was such a small gesture, such an insignificant action, he thought. But it felt deeply illicit, almost illegal. As though when you next brushed your teeth you might taste him, be completely hypnotised by it, and fall in love with him instantaneously.

Reminding himself that this was a time sensitive operation, he shook the thoughts from his mind and turned back to the bath and shower. It would make sense for him to place the camera in there, somewhere hidden but with a good view. He knew the camera was waterproofed to a point, but it wouldn’t last with too much splashback. And then he spotted it in the corner, a tiny patch of mould. Typical, every apartment in Gotham was riddled with it someway or another. But it would work as the perfect disguise for the camera. He slipped his shoes off, balancing in your bath on his tiptoes within his socks, leaving no marks, and reached up to stick the camera right in the corner. It was camouflaged well enough. Noticeable if you were really looking, but he reasoned that you might be the kind of person who would ignore a little mould problem until it was too difficult to pretend it wasn’t there. And by that point he would have removed the evidence.

Stepping back out of the tub, he put his shoes back on and made his way to the door, flicking off the light switch. With the bathroom in complete darkness, he looked for the soft blue dot that meant the camera was in working order. It wasn’t too obvious, nothing you would notice if you went to the toilet in the night. Only someone hyper-vigilant or looking for something to worry about might ever see it. Definitely not someone as trusting as you, and not while you were still half-asleep. For a brief moment, he did worry that you might shower in the dark, but he realised he was being ridiculous. So he left the bathroom behind, satisfied with his efforts in there. Now, he had to bug your bedroom.

As he walked to the other door in the hall he cursed himself. This wasn’t really bugging you, that would have required a microphone. He should have got something like that to accompany the visuals. Next time, maybe. When he got paid. This was going well so far, he imagined it would be easy enough to sneak in again and upgrade his surveillance equipment.

Eddie lost his train of thought completely when he entered your bedroom. He’d never been in here before. He never thought he would be. There was something so erotic about it, something inherently sexual about being in the space where you lay. Although you obviously got naked in the shower, and he had just been standing there, it was different in here somehow. Likely because instead of picturing you nude, alone, sopping wet and slick with soap, here… Here he could imagine you naked, soft and warm, with his arms wrapped around you as you slept. It was almost too much for him to think about, the potential for something he could have if he played his cards right.

Taking in the whole of the room, he felt his fingers twitching. So much to touch, to sniff. He had to avoid indulging himself though. The more he touched, the more evidence he was risking leaving behind. He had to pick the optimal place to put the camera and leave. A second glance around the room with a slightly clearer mind, he noticed a picture frame on the wall, painted black and slightly protruding. It would hide the camera well enough, he reasoned. And from the angle, it would capture the bed, or at least most of it. But luckily, he had reasoned that you slept on that side more often, as the night stand was filled with your things, a charging cable, your pill box, a well-read book. And your mirror was on the wall it overlooked also, beside your dresser. So the likelihood that he would get to watch your dress and undress in full view seemed to be a sure thing.

With both cameras finally secured, Eddie was far too excited to linger any longer. He would leave now, with plenty of time to spare, wander home past a takeout place to secure himself something more substantial than instant noodles as a reward, and he’d go home to enjoy the fruits of his labours. Finally. It felt like he’d been waiting for this moment for years. And realistically, with how perfect you were to him, with how much he wanted you, needed you, he felt like he had, even unknowingly. Like his whole life had led up to this point. A reward, for the suffering. You were the prize. And he was finally the winner. At last.

Back out on the streets, he could barely contain his excitement, the sheer unadulterated glee emanating from his very soul. Wearing a wide smile across his face, pressing into his cheeks which in turn rose up into the clear frames of his glasses, he ticked off the items on his “to-do” list and made his way back home. Each person who caught his eye, he smiled at. He noticed it happened a lot. Usually, he was ignored, completely invisible. But now, people were looking up, some people were even smiling back. He imagined it must be the fact that he looked more open. Smiling did that to a person. It made them warmer, welcoming, pleasant to observe. And a smile was infectious. A part of him, though, felt like maybe they knew. Maybe they were looking at him now as a man who radiated an aura that said he could do things. He could achieve his goal. He wasn’t someone to mess with. Because if you did, he would break into your house. He would learn your habits. He could do whatever he wanted with you. So you better be polite and smile at him, or else you’d be on his bad side.

With that sense of imagined and self-instilled, but no less prevalent, confidence, he entered his own apartment. He let out a sigh of contended relief. He had done it. And he was so pleased with himself. He felt like he could scream and shout in complete ecstasy. Because whether or not you realised it, or were even willing, you were his now. To observe, to watch and learn about. Like a pet, or one of those web-chats where the women would do what he wanted. But this was free. And he might not be able to control you, but it was better that way. He hated having to use the voice modulator and speak to them as they soullessly gripped their own breasts and touched themselves. He’d far rather be a silent observer. Voyeuristic. As though he’d walked in on them, and they continued regardless of his presence. Ignoring him in favour of their own pleasure. That’s what he wanted. His efforts today would at least give him more of that than he’d experienced before. And for the low price of some cameras and a day off work.

Eddie took the time to get comfortable in his own surroundings again. If he didn’t think about his worries, then they couldn’t hurt him. He’d just have to focus on other things, and try his hardest not to imagine you finding the cameras and calling the cops and somehow realising it was him who placed them there. Instead, he took a shower, watched some TV, took a nap, and ate his food. By that point in the day, he realised that you were likely to arrive home at any point, so, no longer trying to maintain an air of normalcy, he excitedly rushed to his desk.

From the drawer, he produced the box of tissues and the bottle of lotion he had purchased especially for this occasion, feeling that it deserved something of a higher quality than the stuff he kept under his bed. With trembling fingers, either from nerves or excitement, he couldn’t quite tell, he unzipped his pants and let his soft fingertips soothe over the exposed skin above his boxers. His skin tingled as he brushed over the tuft of hair that sat above the base of his stiffening cock.

He knew it was dangerous, to touch himself already, but he could barely contain the need. With his fist around his length, he began to absent-mindedly stroke himself as he stared at the grainy images of your empty apartment. Just that alone was enough to have him twitching under his touch, and fearing he might be ready to cum before he had properly begun to enjoy his hard work, he let go in a shock, taking a few deep breaths and staring down at his length, bobbing as he panted. Precum dripped from the head, and he tapped it with his finger, spreading it over the flushed tip. With a sharp inhale, he chastised himself for being so desperate. There was no need to waste this moment. He needed to get control over his urges, at least until you were actually on screen.

And he didn’t have to wait long, because soon enough, he could see you entering your bathroom. He looked away as you used the toilet, not because he was squeamish, but oddly enough because that seemed like an invasion of your privacy, unlike anything else he had planned. A quick glance to check you were finished showed him that you were already undressing yourself to head into the shower, but much to his demise, as you stepped into the tub, your rear on display to him, the camera cut out just as you began to turn.

In a quick fit of rage, he screamed and smacked the side of his monitor. He had almost had you, full frontal, every inch of you visible to him as you lathered yourself up. He could only imagine the kind of wonderful display he was missing right now. As he conjured up the images of you touching yourself, glistening and wet, he cursed the site he bought the cameras from. He knew it was too good to be true. They were obviously shit, complete and total garbage. Just his luck. Nothing ever went right for him. But then he realised, it was only a matter of minutes until you were finished showering. Then you’d be entering your bedroom. A second chance to see you.

Eddie waited impatiently, thrumming his fingers against the desk and scratching at the veneer that covered the cheap chipboard underneath, nails resting in the grooves he had made from the ceaseless, nerve-induced repetitive motion. But when you appeared, he was struck into a motionless silence, as though he had no idea what to do. It felt like you were there in the room with him, standing in front of him, wet from the shower, hair tied up, nothing but a towel on. He could picture you looking into his eyes, the image on the screen was grainy enough that he had to use his imagination to get clarity anyway, as you dropped the sheet that covered your body, all modesty gone.

And just as you did in his imagination, you did in real life also. There on the screen, your body, uncovered and facing his camera. He couldn’t make out extreme details, but he could vividly picture the way your body moved, your thighs, stomach and breasts, all of you bouncing, jiggling softly as you dried off.

With a pump of the lotion bottle, his palm was slick and quickly attending to his cock, which twitched in a desperate plea for him to notice it and take care of the strenuous tension held within. To do what he had set out to, finally. His own private show. Leaning back in the chair, he kept his eyes focused on the screen as best as he could, fighting the urge to close them in pleasure as he jerked himself, slow but rough movements that forced the foreskin down over his reddened and sensitive head.

Eddie’s eyes were wide as he watched you wandering around your room, still naked. It felt like you knew he was watching and were doing this for him. Why weren’t you dressed yet? He felt his heart sink, though, when you bent down to the bottom drawer, knowing he was about to lose the visual of you, so speeding up his movements around his cock. But instead of clothes, you produced something long, a cable dangling from it. And it didn’t take much of Eddie’s immense brain power to figure out what it was you were about to do.

Breath held in his lungs, he watched you walk to the other side of the bed, holding the plug in one hand. And he watched you disappear out of frame, only the top of your head visible at the angle you lay on. He hadn’t accounted for that at all. Maybe he should have checked where the free sockets in your bedroom were, but how could he possibly have known he was potentially to be treated to watching you touch yourself. Furious at his lack of foresight, and not wanting to tease himself any further, he switched off his laptop and went to sulk in his bed, dick softening almost immediately. He'd have to go back, tomorrow. It was risky, but he needed to see you. He needed it.

In the morning, Eddie was still just as irritated as he had been all night. He’d barely slept, body twitching in rage, stomach knotted at the denial of his orgasm since he went to bed to when he decided it was a reasonable time to give up trying to even get fifteen minutes of sleep in. He lazily dressed himself and went to sit on his sofa, counting the minutes until he felt it wouldn’t be too risky to leave his apartment and head to yours.

This time, as he walked past the people on the street, he didn’t feel like he was co-existing with them. It was back to normal. He was ignored. Most likely because they could sense his shame. Able to taste his humiliation and defeat on their tongues as his scent wafted past them. They knew he was worthless, and useless, and pathetic. He couldn’t even stalk someone right. How is it possible to be bad at crime? That’s what they’d think. And he’d have to nod and smile and agree and take their cruel words. It was the punishment he deserved.

Not for a single moment did he consider the irony in his deep Catholic guilt-ridden brain that he was on his way to provide himself with a pleasurable experience. Eddie was smart, but he wasn’t entirely self-aware. It was something that occasionally occurred to him, but never long enough that it drew his attentions away from what he deemed to be his more important thoughts. And right now, more so than his deeply troubling efforts to chastise himself through the lens of society, he was focused on finally achieving his goal. He’d see you, have you in his mind, on his screen. You’d be there for his entertainment, he was going to get what he wanted.

At your door, he paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and listening quietly with his ear against the wood to make sure you weren’t somehow at home. Nothing, just the tinny echoes of your neighbours gently echoing down the hallway and through the thin walls of the apartment building. So he took out his key and entered. It was nerve-wracking. He was less prepared today. Despite having already done this once, it wasn’t any easier. And he hadn’t given himself time to think of a plan at all. He knew he had to get in and change the camera angle in the bedroom, maybe try and check the one in the shower, although he might just have to remove it completely, to risk the evidence being found when it hadn’t even been of any use in the first place. That would be just his luck.

So that was his first stop. Back into your bathroom, where he could still smell your deodorant and perfume, the sweet air hanging there like a memory of you. He inhaled deeply, not even realising he was doing it, as he removed his shoes once more to stand in the tub. And with that first unpleasant task out the way, a reminder of how close he had been to seeing you fully naked for his own sordid enjoyment, he got his shoes back on and headed to the bedroom. Eddie stopped at the door though, almost as though he were scared to enter. He knew it was silly, he’d been there literally the day before, but now it felt even more like an invasion of your privacy.

It was because you touched yourself. He had imagined you did, quite frequently actually. It was one of his favourite fantasies to play over in his head. But to get to see a glimpse of you getting ready to actually do it? It made the bedroom intimidating. What use was he in your life if you were so used to pleasuring yourself? He felt threatened, intimidated. And for the briefest of moments he considered leaving your apartment and going home empty handed, happy to leave the other camera in your bedroom and hope you never found it, or blamed your landlord if you ever did.

But, feeling defiant, and like he was owed this luxury if you were never going to be satisfied with him physically, he opened the door and stood over the threshold, taking in the surroundings. Your bed wasn’t made, you must have been running late this morning. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, the idea of bumping into you, or entering while you were still there. It was terrifying to think he could make a mistake and end up being caught out. There was no point worrying though, he was here now, and you were gone. His heart stopped when he noticed the bedside table though, covered in energy drinks and a packet of aspirin. You were sick. And yet, you’d still gone out to work? He smiled as he considered how brave and determined you were, his chest in pain as he wished you had told him. He could have looked after you. Or did you not need him for that either?

Why were you like this? You weren’t completely stupid. You must have known, must have realised, that you had an effect on him. That this teasing, making him want you but flaunting the fact you didn’t need him, it was driving him mad. He could feel his mouth turning down, a scowl on his brows as he felt his fists clench in anger.

And then the door opened. And his heart stopped for at least five seconds. Unable to breathe or move or think as he heard your voice, speaking to someone, on the phone he guessed given the lack of another voice.

“Yeah… I just figured- no I’m ok, really. But there was no point in suffering through work with this headache. I really need more sleep. And besides, Eddie wasn’t there, so there wasn’t much point in hanging around… I just hope he doesn’t come looking for me after work… Stop it! So what if I do… You don’t know him… Ok, ok shut up! I’m going to go for a nap. Love you!”

He listened with baited breath as you made your way further into your apartment, knowing you weren’t likely to have a nap on the couch when your comfortable bed was right in the other room. The room he was currently in.

In a panic, his eyes darted around him looking for a space to hide. There was no point in trying to think of excuses, that was a plan flawed from the beginning. He could never face you and try to make you believe whatever story he concocted on the spot. It would be entirely unbelievable, and then everything would be ruined. His efforts. His relationship with you. His life. Everything. So instead, he focused on concealing himself, just until you were asleep, or maybe until you left again. As he searched the room for a good hiding spot, his fingers drifted idly over the pen knife he held in his pocket.

It was a ridiculous notion. But he had to give himself credit. Maybe it would make a good final option. Scorched earth. Commit to it completely. Everything was already well and truly fucked, he might as well save himself the embarrassment. But was he really considering doing that? Getting rid of you? To save himself from a little bit of embarrassment. The least he could do was attempt to hide first. He couldn’t jump to quickly to an action that was so irreversible.

The bed? But what if you reached under it for something, or saw his reflection in the mirror. What if when you lay down on it, the mattress sunk and suffocated him? Behind the dresser? But then he would have to crouch in that corner, and it was doubtful there was space for him. Plus, you were going to walk through that door any second, and he wouldn’t be able to get in there in time.

From the hallway, he could hear you shuffling with your bags and keys, opening the fridge for a snack to bring through with you no doubt. He backed into the wall, somehow hoping that he might be able to camouflage into it, or press himself through it if he forced it hard enough. Luckily, he didn’t have to think anything much stupider than that for any longer, because he realised he had been standing in front of your closet. The slatted wooden doors creaked as he nudged them, and he scrunched his eyes up, cursing himself. You were likely going to open it, but it was his last resort, as he could hear your footsteps closing in. So, as quickly and as quietly as he could, he opened the door and stepped in, standing in the surprisingly open space and holding his breath so you wouldn’t hear him.

And then you were there. Standing in the room, right in front of him. Likely able to smell him, to sense him. But you didn’t, and he was so thankful for it he could almost feel tears of gratitude welling in his eyes. He moved back as you walked past the closet doors, trying to make himself as flat as possible, to hide in the shadows. His view of you was slightly obscured then, but he could make out the vague movements of you traipsing around your room. You kicked off your shoes and aimed them at the closet, the sudden bang causing his heart to leap into his throat, and his gut to twist, feeling like he had taken a hit to it. In a bid to not be caught off guard like that again, he moved forward, closer to the doors, where he could peer through the slats. He was certain that at the angle, you wouldn’t be able to see him. Luckily, whether or not that was true, there were other things on your mind that would surely distract you from any chance of noticing Eddie.

He watched in awe as you began to undress, shifting your pants down and removing your top layers until you were just in your underwear. And then, mercifully, and much to Eddie’s amusement, you removed those too. You stood, completely naked, in front of him. It felt to him like he must have been hallucinating, or that you must know he was in there. It was too perfect. The full display, the way you moved, bending over and strutting in front of his line of vision. But this was all too real, and the threat of being caught held him back from ecstasy. It grounded him. It kept him in reality, the truth of which was that he was risking everything being there and watching you.

Eddie tried to swallow the lump in his throat, his nerves catching up to him. There was an immense amount of guilt flooding his brain, his every sense consumed by it. He wondered if he really should close his eyes. It was already disrespectful of him to have broken in, to have watched you, to have seen you undress. Now, he wasn’t even looking in observation to prevent being caught. This was all pleasure. Pure, unadulterated, but disgusting. He was so ashamed, so horrified by himself, by the way he could feel his cock stiffening, head scratching against the front of his pants, his fingers twitching as they reached for it. He palmed it over the fabric, clenching his teeth as he felt the sting of pleasure, the horror of what he was doing, and the way it made him feel bad. Naughty. Excited.

Of course he shouldn’t be doing this. But it was too late. He was here now. And he reasoned with himself that it was meant to be. Nobody was handed an opportunity like this, let alone him. Someone up there, the God he was so afraid of perhaps, was gifting him joy. A treat, a reward, for the suffering he’d endured up until this point.

As though the universe were trying to convince him of this notion, Eddie noticed that you were reaching in the drawer where he knew you kept the vibrator. The one he had watched in expectant joy as you produced it the night before, when the show was cut short. Now he had a front row seat. Nothing was going to stop him from taking advantage of that.

Through the small slits, his nose pressed up against it as he tried to get as close as possible, Eddie watched you as you lay back on the bed, reminding him of the paintings of the beautiful women at the art museums, the ones that looked soft enough that they might taste like marshmallows, or a slightly undercooked pancake. He was drooling at the thought, not hungry, just desperate to taste you. He let out a soft moan as he watched you flick the power button and bring the vibrating head of the wand up your thigh. Luckily, you hadn’t heard. He imagined you might not be able to over the sound. It was so loud, so permanent. He’d remember it as long as he lived.

When the vibrator teased your lips, you bit your lip, throwing your head back at the touch. Eddie tried to commit the image to memory. He wanted it to be the last thing he ever saw. He could have died happily standing in your closet in that moment, that was until you really started to enjoy yourself. Pressing it hard at the top, the pulsing movements against your clit made you moan, your free hand clinging to the sheets below you. As you sank lower onto the bed, you shifted your hips, spreading your legs wider and allowing Eddie a full view of your already slick and dripping cunt.

Quietly as he could, he inhaled deeply through his nose, desperate to see if he could smell you from his hiding spot, and was enraged to find out he couldn’t. But he was instantly distracted by the sight of you, bringing your free hand away from the sheets and to your breasts, holding them, fingers digging into the ample flesh as you squeezed and grabbed. He was unaware that his own hands were copying the motions, imagining how you might feel in his palm.

Bringing your fingers to your nipples, he watched as you pulled and teased at them, moaning louder. It excited him, to realise you were into a little bit of pain. Maybe you would let him bite you, wrap his mouth around your breasts, let his tongue flit over your hard nipples before he held them in his teeth until you couldn’t take it anymore, pulling at his hair to get him to stop. Pushing his head away and dragging him back in for more, because you found his touch irresistible.

Suddenly stopped in his tracks, Eddie felt a pang of guilt. As though his imagination had gone too far, his fantasy dropping to the floor and shattering, the shards of it reflecting his face looking back up at himself, ashamed of what he was doing. He was pathetic. For the remainder of your session, he resolved not to look. He’d even try his best not to listen. But that resolve was shattered the moment you moved from moans to a mumble, and started speaking.

“Mmm… yes… oh god, yes…”

Your voice was sweet, lower than usual, he could feel the hum behind it vibrating in his chest. Something about it, the way you verbalised your gratitude to your own ministrations, he could feel the effect it had on him as his cock twitched, painful now in it’s erect state, desperately begging for him to grab a hold of it and provide some relief. But there was no way he could do it discreetly, or quietly, not in the state he was in, and certainly not when he heard your next words.

“Oh… yes… oh, Eddie… oh my god, Eddie…”

Briefly, he tried to convince himself that there was another Eddie in your life. That he wasn’t the object of your illicit affections right at that moment. He couldn’t believe it was possible, that you were there in the throes of pleasure, only getting off to the idea that it was him touching you.

Would it be so bad? Would it destroy everything if he came out of the closet then and there, and offered to help you. He tried to think of how he would phrase it, suave and dreamlike perhaps.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’m here to lend a hand.”

No, that sounded like a bad porno.

“What a coincidence, I’m right here!”

Made him sound like a fucking magician.

There was no right way to do it, so instead he stayed perfectly still, his heart in his chest and his cock so hard it hurt, threatening to cum inside his pants at the mere mention of his name crossing your lips, trying hard to stop thinking of his cock head crossing them too.

In a surprisingly short time, which he attributed to the inclusion of himself in your fantasies, you were cumming, screaming his name as you shuddered on the bed, hands all over yourself, likely thinking they were his. He made mental notes of the way you touched and grabbed, hoping for the opportunity to put what he learned into practice someday. He delighted quietly in the way you tossed down the wand and rolled over in bed, still naked, your slick on your thighs and over your cunt. It was delightfully filthy, and he couldn’t help but picture his arms around you, his knee between your thighs, feeling your arousal coating his skin, the scent of sex lingering throughout the night. Or would you let him fall asleep with his cock deep inside of you, warming it in your body as you both slept. There would be time to find out. Right now, he needed to figure out how to get out of your apartment.

His legs were beginning to get sore from standing so still, and he shuffled stealthily from one foot to the other, trying desperately to keep the blood flow moving and to prevent himself from toppling over when it came time to leave. Thankfully, within twenty minutes, you had fallen asleep, your breathing deep and slow, soft moans as you exhaled. Deciding it was now or never, Eddie pushed open the closet door slowly, and stepped back out into your room. The early afternoon sun was beating down hard, filling the room with light. He didn’t feel secure. He felt obvious, stupid. On display for anyone to see. But in terms of practicality, he was grateful for it, as he was able to manoeuvre himself easily towards the door, stepping over the various pieces of clothing you had discarded.

But he lingered for a moment, turning back to take another look at you. Without the slats obscuring his vision you looked even more ethereal. And tempting. He knew it was risky, but it seemed worth it, to traverse your floor and make it over to you, just for a closer inspection at everything you were offering to him in your nude repose.

The closer he got to you, the more intoxicating you became. Your scent, your aura, the sounds you made, it took everything in him not to scream, or to whimper, or to burst into tears. Everything he had wanted lay right in front of him, ripe for the taking. And he’d be a fool not to take even at least a little bit. So he stretched his hand out, placing his palm slowly and lightly on your side, letting it linger there, still, before he drew it down along your waist to your thigh where he let his fingers drift up and down slowly, listening to your soft moans, his own choking in his throat as he kept his eyes focused on your face. He had to make sure that if you woke up he could… he wasn’t really sure what he would do. But it would be better than turning around to find that you had been watching him. Occasionally though, his vision dropped to your breasts, and his fingers, twitching feverishly, left your thigh to graze over your nipples, which were hard in the cool air of your room. You let a soft moan escape past your plump, open lips, and he could feel himself losing control. There was little to no hope of him being able to walk home in this state, and he had very few options available to him. So, deciding he’d already gone this far, he removed his hands from your body and eased his pants down, not bothering to unbutton or unzip them.

His cock bobbed freely as it was released, and Eddie was so thankful to have it no longer pressing against the front of his pants so tightly. He rubbed it with his palm, holding it down and letting it bound back up, biting his lip as he positioned himself directly in front of you, where he could line up his vision to where his cock head was in front of your mouth. It would make it easier for him to imagine you opening your lips, sticking your tongue out, ready to receive him.

Rubbing his cock languidly, he let his thumb drift over the head when he reached the top. Feeling the sticky drips of precum, he realised he would need something to clean up with. Looking around the room, his eyes fell to your panties, the ones you had only removed less than an hour ago. He bent slowly, picking them up and bringing them first to his face. Inhaling deeply, he let a soft whimper escape as your scent lingered on his senses. He clutched them, covering his nose and mouth, breathing deep a few more times before he placed his hand in them and dragged them up his length.

Your touch, that was what he imagined. Your own hand, caressing him, stroking his chest as you gripped his cock, tapping it against your lip and tongue before you swallowed it down. Your mouth would be warm. Your hands would be soft. Your thighs would be comforting as they wrapped around him, holding him into you as he… touched you… no… fucked you. He would fuck you. You’d sink into him and he’d make you moan his name like before. Make you scream it, beg for him, ask him for more as soon as he was finished. He’d tell you that you felt good, that you had a pretty little cunt, that you were made for him.

He could feel his heart rate rising, his teeth biting hard on his lip as his movements became more visceral. His breath shuddered as he picked up the pace. He could feel you on his skin, taste you on his tongue. And if he just reached out, if he just took this one step further, over the precipice, beyond where he could come back from… But it wasn’t worth it. The suspense would feel better. The punishment, denying himself that would mean it would be so much sweeter when you offered yourself to him, consciously, with full consent.

As he pumped at his stiff cock, he let his other hand fall to your cheek, stroking it softly. He was aware that the rest of your body was there, ready to be groped and appreciated by his starving hands, but this felt tender. It felt like a connection between you both. He wanted you, he wanted your body, around him and on him, but he wanted you to feel appreciated. And when he really considered it, that was what everything he had done so far boiled down to.

He just wanted to show you how much he loved you. Appreciated you. Wanted you.

You would know soon enough, he could feel that certainty in his bones, in the way his body tensed and tightened, teeth clenched as he strained his whole jaw, trying not to make any noise as he came, his warm cum painting the panties, the fabric catching it all and preventing him from being caught.

Standing still, cheeks flushed with shame and pride, an odd mix even for someone like him, tainted with copious amounts of Catholic guilt, he felt his knees buckling slightly. Trying to keep himself upright, his body convulsed once more, and again, and he realised he was still cumming. His cock, throbbing in his hand, throat catching on the whining yelps that begged to be let free. But he swallowed, them, pushing his fist to the base of his cock and slowly jerking it, trying to finish himself off, which eventually he mercifully seemed to achieve.

Shakily, he tried to control his breathing. He managed to calm himself enough to walk backwards, softening cock in his hands, still out, as he made his way to the hallway of your apartment. Out there, the light lightly dimmer, he felt calmer, more concealed. Wiping the remnants of his cum from himself, he scrunched the panties into a ball and put them in his pocket. It would be risky to take them, but he could hardly leave them. He hoped you might just assume they’d been kicked under a dresser. Maybe you’d tell him about it, and he’d have to keep his face from smiling at this little secret he had afforded himself.

He kept his hand around them as he made his way quietly out of your apartment, out of the building, and back on to the streets, even after the damp of his cum began to seep out and coat his palm. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to smell you on them. But having them felt like a reminder, like a trophy. And once he was back in his apartment he produced them once more, taking great care to look around him and make sure no one could see what he was doing, his paranoia getting the better of him. Placed on the coffee table, he thought about what he would do with them. Wash them. Use them again. It crossed his mind that it could be a good idea to get one of those toys, the ones shaped like… but it wouldn’t be shaped like you. A confused mix of miserable and hopeful, simultaneously consumed by the guilt his lust had cost him and the insurmountable pride he felt in knowing your thought of him, the way he thought of you. He had known you were meant for him. He was never wrong.

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