Archive of Our Own ^beta

District Seven sees your tears.

District Six leaves you with a sore ache in your chest.

You are numb by District Five.

The wound splits back open in District Four. You catch sight of one of the many faces that haunt you, the girl who forced Ten to stab herself until her torso was shredded. The girl Sapphire skewered in the rage Konig wrought. The girl who slept in the wrong place at the wrong time because she lay in the career pack’s trajectory as they hunted you.

The boy from District Three twists the knife into the wound. His face brings memories of him in shock, choking on a sword, his hands springing up to slice his palms on the blade’s unforgiving steel.

District Two is excruciating.

Titan was the spitting image of his older brother.

And he must take pride in the way your entire body tightens and your face drains of color when you catch his eyes, because his lips pull to the side in a threatening, smug snarl, showing off an all too familiar set of teeth.

District One is just as bad, if not worse.

Sapphire is her mother through and through. Perfect blonde curls and eyes so brilliant you can make them out from where you stand.

A young girl clings to her stark black suit, she must be only six or seven years old. While the mother’s hand strokes her daughter’s hair soothingly, the rest of her projects pure hatred. Her form is tensed, her jaw clenched, and her fist shakes at her side as she stares you both down.

You just barely manage to not throw up all over the stage.

By the end of the agonizing tour, you’re worn down to dust, dehydrated from crying, and loathe yourself more than you ever thought possible. Your shoulders have taken on a permanent slouch, and the only place that’s easy to rest your eyes on is the floor.

You haven’t seen much of Price since he yelled at you, but almost as soon as the team sets foot in the suite, he’s back to snapping his fingers and throwing demands.

“Both of you. Bed. Your own rooms tonight.”

Before you can object, Price sticks a finger up to silence you.

“No pushback! From here on out - when I tell you to do something, you do it, and you don’t question it!”

He snaps his fingers again and points to the hall.

“Bed! Now!”

You move to follow his order, but Konig’s grip on your shoulder keeps you from turning around. When you look up, he’s glaring at Price through harsh, narrowed eyes.

The message of Price’s expression is clear.

‘Do it, boy. I dare you.’

Konig holds his ground for a few nail-biting seconds before he blows out a huff of air and heads for the hall. You’re dragged along behind him, tripping over your own feet to keep up as he tugs you along.

When he gets you to his door, he snatches up your forearms in a firm grip and yanks you into his front. He ignores your gasp, leans down, and meets you into a rough kiss. Even though you’re pliant to his hold, his grip on you is still tight, not daring to let you shake away until he’s finished with you.

He pulls away with a smack and lingers his daunting stare on you for a few more seconds. His brows crease before he huffs, turns on his heels, steps into his room, and slams the door shut behind him.

You stand bewildered in the hall for a few moments, blinking and staring at his door while the pads of your fingers rub together.

You’re not sure why you do what you do next, but when your bedroom door clicks shut, you’re on the wrong side of it. Light feet shuffle to the end of the hall, where you tilt your head to listen in on Price and Ruby, who began speaking as soon as your door closed.

“Oh, John. You’re too hard on them.”

Price’s grumble is just loud enough for you to hear.

“Not in the mood.”

You catch the sounds of glass on wood, shuffling paper, the occasional weighty sigh.

“Maybe you should get some sleep, too,” Ruby nudges.

It might be the nicest thing you’ve ever heard Ruby say to him.

He just grunts.

The silence drags on long enough for you to head for your quarters, but the scrape of a chair stops you.

“Watch the kids. Got a few meetings.”

“At this hour?”

“Yeah.”

“And when will you be back?”

“When I am.”

Price’s footsteps near, and you barely manage to stifle your squeak, clumsily balancing stealth and haste as you scramble to your door and slink into your bedroom. Your palm hovers inches from the wood, as if a guiding hand will somehow convince it to keep quiet.

Your wince fades in the safety of your bedroom, but you’re back to a brace at the knock on your door.

“Y-Yeah?”

Price cracks open your door, peeks his head in, squints at you, and wordlessly seals you back in your room. Your brows furrow when you hear your doorknob being fiddled with.

You already know what’s going to happen if you try to open the door, but it doesn’t stop you from checking anyway.

Trapped.

Crammed in this extravagant bedroom with twenty-two tributes and their loved ones.

They infect every thought, keep you awake for hours, and they tell you that you deserve this.

And you believe them.

————————

You sleep in the snow quadrant.

Standing on your tribute pedestal, begging the boys from six and seven not to disappear into the pine trees.

They can’t hear you, or they’re ignoring you, because they race right past you and towards the forest, crunching snow under their boots with each stride. Their black clothes quickly disappear in the thick branches and the wall of flurries raining from the sky.

You try to chase after them, to warn them, but as soon as you step off your pedestal the snow turns to solid ice and ensnares your feet in its hold. As sturdy as concrete, tugging and yanking only strengthens its grip on you.

You’re still shouting your warnings long after the boys are out of earshot, but it’s pointless.

The rumbling starts in the distance and the pine trees are jerked around with tremendous force. Their snow-dusted caps explode in clouds of powdery snow as branches snap clean off and roots are ripped from the dirt. It’s deafening - the trees, the mountain of snow shaking the earth beneath your feet, but loudest of all is the boys’ heart-wrenching, ear-piercing screams.

The two burst into the clearing, and you have no choice but to watch as the boys disappear into the ruthless avalanche barreling right for you. You yank desperately on your legs to break free from the ice, but it refuses to budge.

In the nick of time, a strong pair of arms wrap around you from behind and tug, freeing your ankles from the ice and lifting you in the air. The last thing you see is Konig’s frigid, narrowed eyes before your neck snaps against your tribute pedestal and your lights go out.

When you wake, gasping and doused in sweat, no one’s there to settle you.

You soothe yourself with deep breaths of far-too-early morning, lay back down on the bed, and stay there for hours. Staring up at the ceiling, thinking of nothing and everything all at the same time.

And you cry.

Cry until your temples are raw and you’re drowning in snot. Until you’re choking on your own sobs and the salty taste of your tears floods your tastebuds. Until your silken pillowcases are blotted with tears and you’re muttering unintelligible apologies to tributes that will never hear them.

You entirely exhaust yourself before the sun has even risen. The well of tears dries up, and you lay motionlessly on the sheets. Numb and thoughtless, the only thing that cuts through is the throbbing pulse in your forehead.

You consider getting up to ask for medicine, but decide after little thought that you deserve this.

You can’t get yourself out of bed at the gentle knock on your door. You don’t even stir, unfocused eyes remain trained on the ceiling.

The knock is a bit louder the second time.

“Are you okay?”

You do perk up at the sound of Konig’s muffled but unmistakable voice. You peel yourself from the covers, and find every muscle in your body aches, and your joints twinge with movement.

As soon as you open the door, you fling yourself into Konig’s arms so fast it startles him. His hands pull up at his sides and hold there before he slowly returns the embrace, massive arms snaking around your shoulders and keeping you snug against his chest.

He doesn’t bother asking what’s wrong. He holds you wordlessly, making wide, soothing strokes over your hair while you breathe him in. He smells clean, a soothing mixture of laundry detergent, soap, and a hint of musk.

You can’t meet his stare when you finally away, turning away and tilting your puffy face to the ground. You catch sight of Ruby’s heels at the end of the hall and hesitate, wondering how long she’s been standing there.

She’s never been so unannounced.

A heavy sigh leaves you, and it turns to a groan that ends in a dramatic flare.

“Ja,” Konig agrees.

The morning is quiet.

All three of you are exhausted. Konig got no sleep, and apparently Price never returned to relieve Ruby of her shift.

You spend most of the morning with your sore limbs tangled with Konig’s on the couch, trying to catch up on rest. The sound of Ruby’s coffee cup clinking against her saucer echoes throughout the suite as she downs cup after cup.

The only thing that successfully makes her perk up, though, is the polite ding of the elevator. She springs into action, her cathartic lecturing hours in the making.

“It’s about time! Where have you- What happened to your face?!”

You and Konig crane your heads to try and get a look at Price, but he stays obscured. He grumbles something you can’t make out.

“You’re drunk!” Ruby exclaims, “Did you sleep at all? This is going to throw-“

“Shut up!”

Konig’s strong arms brace around you when you flinch at Price’s booming voice.

“Just- Shut up.”

You can’t see either of them from your spot on the couch, but you can hear Price’s footsteps fade, the harsh slam of a door, and a stretch of uncomfortable silence.

You and Konig share a look, and it’s clear you’ve both drawn the same conclusion.

That’s no good.

When Ruby comes back to view, she gives an entire-body gesture of disbelief.

“Can you believe him?!”

Whatever chance you had to sneak in some extra sleep this morning has completely disintegrated.

You and Konig are in for a world of trouble. Price clearly knows the consequence, and now you have to wait.

Execution, surely. You and Konig will be executed in front of the entire country. Make sure to show every district what happens when you step out of line and make a fool of the Capitol.

You and Konig don’t speak, although your racing thoughts are so loud you’re sure he can hear them. He must, because he squeezes you tight enough around the waist in a show of comfort you’re worried he might just break you in half.

Ruby gives up with a sigh, grabs two blankets, and plops herself on the other end of the couch. You graciously take her up on her offer of one of the blankets, a warm and fuzzy protection from the stiff, chill air Price left in his wake.

She kicks off her heels and lays back with a huff, but her attempts to take a spite-nap are sabotaged by her own furious mumbling. She tosses and turns with more huffs and puffs.

You might find it amusing if your mouth wasn’t so dry and your stomach wasn’t packed to the brim with dread. Your sweaty fingers tug at Konig’s shirt, rubbing the soft cotton between the pads of your thumb and your forefinger.

Konig tries to soothe you by tracing featherlight circles on your back, shooting tingles up your spine and raising goosebumps on your skin. It’s a useless effort, but you don’t tell him to stop.

All three of you try to get rest before lunch, and all three of you fail. Price doesn’t show up, and Ruby is running on steam, so there’s nothing to fill the silence except for the sound of silverware lazily poking around plates.

You try your hardest, but you can’t get much down. Your perfect, garnished lunch looks as appetizing as a plate of dirt, and your stomach tosses around anything you give it.

Konig and Ruby find it easier to rest with full bellies. So you spend almost the entire day listening to their light snores while you thoughtlessly stare off at a wall.

You’re pressed up as close as you can be to Konig, practically on top of him. His snores are right in your ear, but you could not be farther away from him. A clouded, dreamlike state that glosses your eyes over and drags your thoughts a million miles from your body.

It’s almost like you’ve forgotten.

For once, your brain is cutting you some slack. Emotions so powerful that it simply cannot process them. Shelving the feelings entirely, and taking your surroundings with it. Occasionally both will come crashing down like a pile of bricks on your chest, stealing your breath until your heart can’t take it any more, and then your brain releases the fog that hushes the relentless thoughts once more.

They’re still there. Clawing and desperate and eager to eat you alive from the inside out - but you can hardly make them out through the haze.

You jump out of your skin when he clears his throat. You didn’t even hear him approach, let alone hear him sneak from his quarters.

“Sorry,” Price says softly, “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

The sunrays have long since stopped pouring through the windows, and no one’s bothered to turn the lights on in the dim suite. Still, you can make out the swelling and the bruises that ring his eye socket with splotches of red and dark purple.

He clears his throat again, and shifts his weight onto one foot.

“Can I talk to you kids?”

Price’s stare briefly finds Ruby, curled up and dozing away on the other end of the couch.

“In private?” He adds.

The softness in his voice is meant to be comforting, surely, but it has the opposite intended effect. You eye him carefully before giving a long-winded sigh.

You rub Konig’s chest until he wakes with a sharp inhale. His eyes snap open just as fast as his body shoots to a sit, and he tenses when he meets your face, wide eyes and panting breaths.

“Good morning,” You say, “Bad news.”

It takes him a minute for him to transition from sleep to wake, for his mind to catch up. He finds Price before he looks back to you.

Konig gives you one more tight squeeze before you both stand and follow Price to the dining room.

Price makes you two sit, and then he just… stares at you both.

His eyes flick back and forth between you and Konig as he shifts and squirms and repeatedly clears his throat.

You think you know deep down what this is about, but you refuse to acknowledge it.

So you pretend.

You pretend that everything is fine.

You don’t ask him what this is about, you don’t ask him what happened to his eye, and you don’t dare break the silence in fear you will pop the taut surface tension and release a life-threatening tidal wave.

So the three of you stare at each other.

It is a more than awkward silence.

Painful.

Excruciating.

Price tries to start speaking multiple times, but he never flushes out more than the first syllable before he cuts himself off with a frustrated grunt.

Years must have passed before Price takes a full breath, holds it, and releases it with a whoosh. He licks his lips, jerks his head to the side, and throws his arms out in defeat.

“I couldn’t get you out of it,” He spits, “Okay? I couldn’t do it.”

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was angry with you.

But you do know better.

You swallow and study Price carefully, and waste time before asking your next question.

You already know the answer, but you are savoring every last moment your horrific, gut-churning, unspeakable fate isn’t sealed.

When you find your voice, your crackled words come out independently. Each one its own complete sentence, dragging this out for as long as possible.

“Get us out of what?”

Price doesn’t have to say it, the answer is written on his face. He looks to you, giving you a perfect view of his bruised eye, his features flooded with a pain you’ve only ever seen him wear twice before.

You suck in deep breath, release it, and shrug your shoulders.

“Doesn’t matter,” You say, “It’s not happening.”

Price shakes his head.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“We’ll see about that,” You dismiss with a click of your tongue and a raise of your brows.

Price pulls you up short when he calls you by your name. He must know it chokes you, and he always knows exactly when to play that card.

“You don’t have a choice. And I’m sorry. I tried. Please know I tried.”

The break in his voice pulls the ripcord on your panic. It grabs you by the windpipe and turns the air in your lungs useless.

Your brutal reality is dawning on you, the one you’ve been so determined to ignore. A pill that tasted so bitter your body, mind, and soul immediately rejected it. Pretending it wasn’t even a possibility, pretending that you were too feisty, too tough, too spiteful to bend - because it was a burden you know would crush the remaining shards of you to dust.

Tears claw at your eyeline and the strain tightening your throat bleeds into your weak objection.

“I can’t do it.”

Konig finds your shoulder with an assured squeeze, creating a dull ache in the shape of his large hand.

“You won’t,” Konig says, “I won’t let it happen.”

“You have to,” Price says with a grave shake of his head. His palm is flush with his forehead, slouched over the table with his eyes pinched shut, “You have to.”

Price’s face warps, his next plea only breath.

“Please.”

You watch him through the blur of your tears, and when you find the courage to speak, the panic in your voice rings true.

“And if we don’t?”

Price’s lips fold in and he gives another slow, grim shake of his head.

As the first droplets roll down your cheek, you shove away Konig’s crushing hold, standing so quickly you knock over your chair with an obnoxious bang. You don’t bother to pour a glass, getting down five painful, burning gulps straight from the decanter. Whiskey sloshes against the sides of the crystal and a guttural groan ripples up the back of your throat when you pull away.

With a whip of your arm and a frustrated cry the decanter launches at the wall, just a blur as it whizzes through the air. It shatters on impact, shooting glass in all directions and sending whiskey rushing for the floor.

It’s followed by an empty drinking glass, and then another, and another. Fireworks of jagged, sparkling crystal with each rough snap of your arm. When the booze tray is emptied, it’s flung too, and you let out a raw scream that makes the pressure in your skull go from throbbing to unbearable.

The chairs are your next victims, flung down the stairs of the elevated dining area with a grunt, wooden legs breaking off with deafening bangs and clatters before sliding across the floor.

Konig and Price watch wordlessly, motionlessly, as you destroy the suite. Shattering anything made of glass, clay, porcelain. Throwing any furniture that’s not nailed down. Swiping decor off shelves with one sweep of your arm.

Tears stream generously down your face as you grunt and shout and froth, a truly spectacular tantrum.

The elevator dings, the peacekeepers pour in with their commanding bootsteps, and it’s only seconds before they have you restrained with cruel, gloved grips on your arms and shoulders.

“Get off!” You demand, “Get off!”

They easily force you to your knees, the sharp shards of your destruction carving out your legs.

It’s chaos.

Everyone’s shouting all at once while you flop and thrash against the swarm of bright white uniforms, digging the shards further into your shredded shins.

“Geh weg von ihr!”

“What on earth is happening?!”

“Easy, easy!”

Konig’s yelling words you can’t make out, wrestling peacekeepers off you and throwing punches, and you have no choice but to helplessly watch as one of the uniforms jams a needle into his shoulder. Instantly, Konig’s eyes are rolling behind his eyelids, his arms go limp mid-swing, and he crashes on the shard-covered floor in a heap. The scream that leaves you is harrowing, but it’s cut short by the sharp prick of a needle, and the world escapes you in seconds.

You sleep in the fall forest.

A blur of ginkgo and red maple branches tear into your skin as you run. Your legs aren’t working right, it’s like you’re trying to move through a flood of thick syrup, swallowing your shoes and holding you back with each step.

He’s chasing you, you can hear him, snapping twigs and breaking branches, closing distance much faster than you can get away from him.

At every turn there’s a new threat peeking out from behind the tree trunks and brilliant leaves you have to scramble away from.

A girl strung up to a sturdy maple branch, moaning in pain, blood dripping from her skinless body and splattering onto the petals below.

A pair of eyes, one gouged out and the other as brilliant as a jewel, her warped face flooding the forest with shouts of her vengeance.

A figure carrying a scythe at his side, its metal reflecting a desert sun with each stride, his neck already bent at an impossible angle.

A sardonic laugh right in your ear, even though the body it belongs to is yards away. His skull is caved, beaten to a bloody pulp, but his smile is entirely intact, carnivorous teeth stretched into a bloodthirsty grin.

They close in on you until there is no chance for escape. The blood drooling from their injuries turn from a brilliant red to an inky black ooze that quickly swallows the forest floor.

Their hands reach out, all of them, forcing you to the ground and holding you down by your limbs. Titan’s reanimated corpse grabs you by the hair and lifts your head from the puddle of sticky black tar.

There he is.

Slow bootsteps come to a stop at your feet. For a moment, he stares at you through that terrifying hood, watching you beg and plead. In one smooth motion, he drops to his knees, his hands shoot out to wrap your throat, and he squeezes your windpipe with supernatural strength.

You can’t beg, can’t move, pinned down and paralyzed by unnaturally powerful hands, two made of only muscle and bone so Konig can choke the life from you. His eyes remain unchanged under that hood, drained of feeling and burned into your vision long after the black tar swallows you whole.

You wake swinging, screams already tearing at the back of your throat, the sheets and blankets twisting and trapping your flailing limbs.

“Hey, hey! It’s okay, you’re alright!”

“No, no!”

“You’re here, you’re here, you’re not there!”

Your chest gives uneven heaves as your wide eyes take in Price’s form.

“You’re alright.”

Once he sees the instinctual horror draining in your eyes, a steady transition back to your senses and the shame of your overreaction creeping in, he extends his arms in your direction. Trying to tame you like a wild animal.

Instinctually you lean away from him, your hands held close to your chest as you stare at his arms like they’re trying to hold you down so Konig can choke the life from you.

“You’re good,” He says again.

“Where’s Konig? Where’s Konig?”

“He’s okay,” Price assures you, “He’s okay. He’s still out.”

“Can I see him? Please?”

Price sighs.

“Let him rest. He got a big dose,” He says, “Come get some food in ya.”

You give an uneasy nod, and Price makes slow movements to leave you be.

The first thing you do to get ready for the day is throw up.

A convulsing, pathetic thing on your knees, burying your head into the toilet and trying not to get vomit on your hair.

There’s not even that much in your stomach, and your abdomen quickly grows sore from trying to work up the bitter tasting bile. When your stomach gives up, you collapse onto the tile, unfortunately heated and doing little to help the nausea.

The tears brought on from gagging are quickly replaced with the tears of a girl who has truly hit rock bottom.

You’re a prostitute now.

This is the reality you have woken up to.

And it is your fault.

Surely your punishment for speaking up and further inspiring District Eight, whether you meant to or not. And because they know how to really hit you where it hurts, you get a front row seat to watch Konig be dragged down with you.

You wish you would have died in that arena, and you wonder if it’s too late. If you committed suicide again, would The President bother to put you back together again?

Death is easy.

You’re too tired to kill yourself, anyway.

Instead, your brain shuts down. Lifeless and numb on the floor, staring blankly at the warm tiles you lay on.

Price has to return a second time to coax your limp body from the tiles.

You can hardly find responses to his soft demands that you get dressed and eat, let alone find the strength to stand, but the body that feels a million miles away from your thoughts follows his orders anyway. He has to coach you through just about every moment.

You know he’s just doing that thing again. Trying to cope with his total lack of power by controlling what little he can.

You don’t care.

So you let him, you let him verbally puppet your empty husk while he gets you ready for the day. And he must feel bad about his outbursts, or more likely for not being able to get you out of it, because he’s being more than nice. Babying you, really. While still incredibly patronizing, the ‘Sweethearts’ and ‘Sunshines’ don’t even have a hint of sarcasm to them. The pity pours from him in a generous stream, and soon your ankles are submerged in it.

Like magic, the suite has been entirely reset. No evidence of your destruction remains, every piece of furniture and decor untouched and back in its spot.

Price gets you all the way to the dining table, but his efforts to get you to eat are futile, and when he speaks to you, he’s lucky to get a grunt for a response.

You don’t snap out of it until you hear the screams from down the hall. All at once, your lungs tighten, your heart squeezes, and your stomach drops. You spring from your chair, numb legs stumbling down the stairs in a race for Konig’s cries. You don’t slow, slamming into his door at full force.

“It’s unlocked, it’s unlocked!” Price calls.

Your shaking, frantic hands reach for the doorknob and you send yourself tumbling into his room.

“Konig, Konig!”

Konig’s wide eyes lock on to you, his chest heaving with his panting breaths.

You’ve never seen him look so horrified.

His eyes dart around you as you approach, and before you can close distance, he hops out of bed, nearly trips over the blanket snagged around his foot, and darts away from you.

“Wait, wait!” You call, “It’s okay!”

You chase after him, but he slams the bathroom door shut and locks it before you can even get your faulty legs to work up to a run. You crash into the door with another thud, already yanking at the doorknob and slamming your palms on the door.

“It’s just me! Konig? Konig!”

You swallow, your hands pulling up to your chest.

You take a step back and try again, forcing your tone to be soft.

“Konig? It’s me. Are you okay?”

You tap on the door with a light knuckle.

“Konig?”

Price gives a low quiet whistle from the hall, waving an arm to beckon you.

“Kid, stop, stop. C’mere.”

“But-”

“C’mere.”

Your steps are hesitant, and you keep looking over your shoulder to the bathroom door, but you follow Price out to the hall anyway.

“It’s alright,” He says, “Let him work it out.”

“But- Wh-”

You can’t seem to the find the words, the reason behind why your chest aches.

“It’s different, for boys,” Price says.

Your brows furrow, and you shake your head.

“What is?”

Price sighs.

“He- He doesn’t want you to see him like that.”

“Is that what he said?”

“No, no, but he-” Price clicks his tongue and tosses his shoulders in a way that suggests he’s trying to figure out his wording. “He wants to be strong for you, yeah?”

“He is strong,” You push back, “And- and I’m supposed to be there for him too, right?”

“It’s-” Price’s lips pull to the side, “Look, it’s not about you. Boys are just - we can be stubborn like that.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It is. But y’know, we- we feel the need to-” Price sighs, and abandons his sentence. “Just let him work this one out on his own. Give him space, he’ll come out when he’s ready.”

Price assures you it has nothing to do with you, but it sure feels it does. You can’t help but feel hurt that Konig just… closed you off like that?

He makes you feel better all of the time, and he won’t let you do the same for him?

Your hand crosses over your front and rubs out your opposing bicep.

It only makes it worse that now you’re craving Konig’s comfort and reassurance.

Price senses this, sees the swelled, pathetic little look on your face, and pulls you into an embrace with an ‘awh.’

And while you don’t return the gesture, you let him hold your feeble body while your thoughts bubble and pop like hot tar. The squeaky sob that leaves you makes your whole body twitch in his sturdy hold.

“It’s alright.”

Liar.

“I can’t do it,” You whine, “I can’t do it, I can’t do it.”

“Sh, sh, sh,” He says, “S’alright.”

Liar.

Liar, liar, liar!

You shove away from his hold, roughly swiping away your tears with the inside of your wrist as you storm to your room and slam the door behind you. You throw yourself on your bed, smush your face into the covers, and scream. Scream until your lungs burn and you can taste metal creeping up the back of your raw throat.

Price lets you both throw your respective temper tantrums until it’s time for you to get ready for another irreversible change.

It does not go well for him.

Kicking and screaming and threats of suicide.

Nothing Price hasn’t successfully defused before.

To your relief, when Konig steps from his room, he immediately pulls your shaking body flush into his side. You know he can feel your pitiful stare, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. Refuses, even. Staring straight ahead with that bored expression and half-lidded stare.

The march down to the stylists is unbearable, and probably to your detriments, the three of you seem to have an unspoken agreement to drag this out as long as possible. You can’t help it. Your feet hardly pick up off the ground with each shuffling step.

Price comes to a sudden halt in the middle of the hallway, gives a heavy sigh, and makes a quarter turn. He can’t look at either of you, staring off at the wall of the sterile hallway, his voice low and gruff.

“Three hours. It’s a couple. They’re-”

Price pauses, and his lips pull to the side.

“- nice enough. Could do a lot worse.”

You give a slow, solemn nod, not bothering to fight the tears welling in your eye line or the shake in your knees.

“My best advice?” Price continues, “Get it over with fast and knock ‘em out as quick as you can. Wait out your time and tiptoe ‘til then.”

Halfway through another vacant nod, a thought that had not occurred to you before steals your focus.

“Did you-?”

“That’s not important,” He dismisses, “What is important - is that these people are very close friends with The President. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Your eyes find the floor, and you nod again.

Be good.

Price closes his eyes, and sighs.

“I can’t - I won’t escort you down. I’m sorry.”

He shifts on his feet, and adds, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Those words are so useless to you now, but you don’t tell him that.

Instead you nod and try to ignore the nausea washing over you like a humid, sticky wave. Your stomach may as well be vibrating, sloshing the contents that threaten to make a reappearance.

Not even your body is yours any more.

You can already feel the groping hands, claiming what they own for the evening. And you will have no choice but to endure their perversions.

The worst part is knowing Konig will have to do the same.

And you will have to watch.

And it is all your fault.

You’re given a head start with the prep team while Price keeps Konig behind for a talk. You are thoroughly rinsed, scrubbed to the bone, slathered with goos, and then you’re shipped off to the dressing room.

A heavy breath of relief leaves you once Konig’s back in your sight. You raise a brow at him to ask him what he and Price could possibly need to talk about, but Konig just rolls his eyes and huffs.

Mauve also cannot seem to meet your eyes.

She is clearly upset, her brows creased and her actions just a smidge too forceful. Not with you, she’s gentle with the swipes of her makeup, the guiding tilts of your head. But when she closes a drawer or sets down her brushes and the containers of whatever sticky concoction gets thrown on your way, the slams echo throughout the dressing room. Even though you’re watching her, and you can see it coming, the heavy thuds still make you flinch.

As she evaluates your makeup, she turns her voice to a mutter, her lips barely moving.

“It’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”

And you know she’s not talking about the accuracy of her eyeliner application.

You try not to look at the outfit you’re to wear.

A lacy, tight, black thing with stockings, heels, and unfortunately, underwear to match. There’s not nearly enough fabric on them. You might as well not be wearing any, and you give up trying to arrange them in a way that’s even the least bit comfortable.

She tops it off with an impossibly short black skirt, and a tight shirt that sits so low on your bust you’re afraid your chest might just pop out of it with one false move.

Everything about this outfit is so untrustworthy, uncomfortable. The abrasive lace scratching at your skin, particularly on the crease of your inner thighs. The heels that make you stand far too high. The squeeze on your ribcage and the hem of your skirt just barely covering your skimpy panties.

You feel vulnerable, exposed, defenseless.

Prey.

Konig gets off easy, and he’s finished his makeover long before you are. A simple black button down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, paired with black slacks and dress shoes. The only thing suggestive about it is the amount of buttons that are undone on his shirt, half his chest exposed.

You can’t help but think how attractive he does look, and it makes you twice as sick to your stomach, because you know you’re not going to be the one enjoying it.

When you meet his eyes, he’s already looking at you, and it’s clear by the twisted expression of awe and horror that he’s experiencing a similar thought process.

Only the sound of the angry rhythmic click of Mauve’s heels and the clunky, unsteady clicks of yours echo throughout the hall as Mauve leads you to transport.

You cling to Konig the entire walk, both because these shoes are impossible to do anything in, and because it feels as if you let go, he will be stolen away from you. He’s holding you tight in return, you’re practically hugging as you walk.

You’re surprised to find that you will not be driven in a luxury car, but an armored one.

Mauve can’t speak, can’t even look at you as you’re handed off to four peacekeepers, their intimidating guns at the ready. She just squeezes your arm, turns on her heels, and stomps off. You and Konig raise a brow at each other before being coerced into the back of the car.

The industrial sputter of the engine is far from soothing, and the heavy-duty walls and harsh fluorescents feel like a prison. You’re surprised they didn’t handcuff you.

You chew on your fresh set of glossy black nails with one jittering hand, and dig your fingers into Konig’s knee with the other. Your leg is bouncing furiously, and your body fidgets on the uninviting steel benches. Your skirt keeps riding up with your movements, and you have to repeatedly tug it down to keep from exposing yourself.

Konig holds you steady with an arm slung over the back of your shoulder, pressing you into his side. His other arm crosses over his chest to rest his hand on yours, his thumb running along the hills and valleys of your trembling knuckles.

The peacekeepers do little to comfort you as they escort you straight to your buyer’s door, and with each step your intestines twist a little tighter.

It feels like you’re being marched to your execution.

Three hours.

Three hours for your buyers to do whatever they want with you both.

And it is your fault.

You’re bordering on hyperventilation, your breaths deafening. Puddles of sweat reside in your underarms and your tightly clenched fists.

The seconds between the knock and the door opening are agonizing.

This can’t be happening.

Is this really happening?

It’s too soon.

You didn’t have enough time to prepare.

This can’t be happening.

You can’t breathe.

You’re breathing too much.

It’s too soon.

Run.

When the door swings open, you choke on your breath.

“So nice to see you!”

The couple greets you like you’re old friends. It’s so off-putting. Like you were invited over for dinner, and not to be forced into being intimate with them.

They both look like they’re in their late-thirties, early forties, maybe. The woman is tall and slender. Her short, spiky hair is laced with shiny golden tinsel and ridiculously long eyelashes to match. A bit aged, but you can tell that she was certainly a stunner in her day. She’s been altered surgically, though, not a harsh line on her face and her lips a little too puffy. Whatever she’s done to her face, it seems to have the opposite intended effect, because it’s nothing but uncanny. You can’t help but think she’d look better if she had just let herself age as nature intended.

The man, somehow gangly and padded at the same time, immediately has your intestines in knots - just the look of him. Like if the words weird and awkward had been planted in the dirt and sprouted a person. His only redemption is his headful of thick, boyish black curls.

You can’t hold back your wince as the woman pulls your trembling, damp body into a hug and kisses both your cheeks in greeting.

Her perfume is suffocating. A cloud of sharp, pungent fumes that smells more like alcohol than anything else. It stings your eyes and violates your already struggling throat and lungs.

You were expecting to be treated like the unwilling whores you are, and this, this just feels so slimy. Somehow slimier than if they had stripped you both down and threw you on the bed as soon as you’d walked in the door. At least then you wouldn’t have to pretend like what’s happening is okay and normal.

The man tries to give an incredibly unenthused Konig a handshake, which he silently rebuffs, keeping his arms crossed tightly over his puffed-out chest. The man prompts you for a hug, and commits to his physical introduction even though you make no act to reciprocate. You have to fight every instinct to rip away from him. The best you can do is turn your trembling body to gelatin, to hold your breath to avoid breathing him in, letting him guide you into his gangly arms for an embrace that lasts too long with hands that sit far too low on your back.

“I’m Ellaine,” The woman says, pressing a hand to her collarbones before gesturing to the man, “This is my husband, Pharus, and obviously we know who you are.”

Her golden eyelashes flutter when she giggles. She ends on a sultry hum that sends a shiver down your spine and pulls your shoulders up in a brace.

“We just had to have you first,” Ellaine says, “Two victors! Can you believe it?”

She looks at you as if expecting you to be just as thrilled, but all you can offer her is a warped, uncomfortable smile as you try not to throw up on your heels.

“Hardly,” You croak.

“Where are my manners?” Ellaine fusses, “Please, come in.”

Manners?

You can’t help but blow air out of your nose in something of a snort, because what manners could possibly negate the atrocity they’re about to commit?

You truly cannot think of a worse thing to do to someone, and she’s worried about manners.

“We’ll give you a tour.”

You’re finding yourself more and more thankful that they’re not jumping into things.

Maybe it would be better to just rip the bandaid off, but you are savoring every moment that prolongs another irreversible change of a girl who currently is.

As expected, their suite is repulsively extravagant. Even bigger than your luxurious suite in the tribute tower. The ceilings are so high that every footstep and boisterous word that comes from Ellaine echoes.

She seems to have a taste for any and all things gold. Shimmering golden curtains line the floor to ceiling windows, golden nicknacks scattered all over, and nearly every piece of furniture is trimmed with gold. The walls are lined with paintings, so much so that you can hardly make out the color of the wall they’re hung too.

Ellaine is clearly the talker of the two. Pharus just - follows you around.

Silently.

His presence is suffocating, somehow more than Ellaine’s, who’s hardly let anyone else get a word in since you walked through the door.

Konig is your only saving grace. You cling to his side for dear life, and in return his arm wraps around your shoulders and holds you close as you walk.

Ellaine rambles on as she shows you around the suite, elated to show off her paintings and art pieces. You don’t retain much. All you can focus on is your pulse, just underneath your skin and warping your vision with each rapid beat.

The tour ends with their sitting area, and Ellaine prompts you all to sit on their stark white couch.

There’s a soothing, ethereal soundtrack flooding the dimmed room, although you’re not sure where it’s coming from. A screen on the wall centered between a slew of Ellaine’s paintings projects the illusion of a fireplace, and countless imitation candles flicker on the various tables and shelves.

You can tell they’re trying to set a romantic, intimate atmosphere to get you in the mood, but it just uneases you more.

It reminds you why you’re here.

You offer one-word, shaky responses as Ellaine tries to engage you both in casual conversation.

Unfortunately, the casual conversation revolves mostly around recapping the games, and does little to bring you comfort. Her fingers will occasionally reach out to brush over your shoulder, and each gentle touch feels like she’s leaving gashes on your skin.

When you truly feel like you’re going to throw up, your stomach boiling with anticipation and dread, you spring up from the couch and interrupt Ellaine mid-sentence. Your shins bump into the golden-trimmed glass drink table, shaking and making ripples in the four glasses of wine resting on it.

“I- Can I use your bathroom? Just-” You hesitate, your eyes darting to the side, “Real quick.”

“Me too,” Konig adds swiftly.

“Oh!” Ellaine chirps with a point of her arm, “Down that hall there.”

“Great, thanks.”

“Don’t start without us!”

Ellaine’s flirty, mischievous chime sends another shiver straight down your spine.

You cling to Konig and race to the bathroom as quickly as your shoes will allow. As Konig locks the door, your hands scramble to turn the faucet on, a full stream of water rushing to drown out your words.

You bring your hands to your head.

“I can’t do this,” You whisper frantically, “I’m gonna throw up, I can’t do this, Konig!”

He rests his hands on your wrists and smooths down your arms to coax them from your head. He gives your hands a gentle squeeze once they’re interlocked with his.

“It’s going to be okay,” He says.

“I don’t know, this is just- this is so fucked up! I feel like I’m going to throw up! Did you see that guy?! I hated hugging him! There’s no way-”

You cut yourself off with a grunt, your knees bending and your core doubling over, a movement in a futile attempt to expel your discomfort. On your ascent, your eyes dart around the bathroom, as if these painting-covered walls will somehow grant you the answer.

It’s desperate, it’s useless, but you let go of Konig in a scramble to tear apart the bathroom anyway. Digging for something, anything, the solution that doesn’t exist.

Making a mess of the maid’s cabinets, knocking over cleaning supplies, rummaging through linens and drawers.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

You’re sure you can think your way out this, you can, you will, and you always do.

It is absolutely delusional, but you are sure the answer to all of your problems lie in this bathroom.

Because it has to.

Because you cannot handle the alternative.

Because it’s all your fault.

You almost miss the medicine cabinet - it melds perfectly to the bathroom mirror and the wall, and surely would have gone unnoticed if you weren’t as hopeless. But your fingers have already pried up every painting, your nails have run along every crevice, every golden edge, in search of the answer to all of life’s problems.

First aid kit, mild pain relievers, useless prescriptions.

As Konig rifles through their first aid kit, your eyes catch sight of a vile. Smaller than your pinky, a clear glass cylinder topped with a black cap and filled with a transparent ooze.

You still and take three shallow breaths through parted lips as you inspect the vial.

“Konig - ”

Your voice is breathless, but urgent. You hold the vial up to him, the bathroom light catching on the clear, thick liquid inside.

It might as well be glowing. Your beacon of salvation, your one final hope.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Konig eyes the little vial in your hands.

“I don’t know,” He says, “I’ve never seen it before.”

“It’s the right color,” You say, “And it’s so tiny. I don’t know what else it could be.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I think we have two options,” You hold up the little vial, “We drug ourselves, and wake up stretched out and blissfully unaware.”

“Or?” He asks.

“We drug them, and they wake up tomorrow with absolutely no memory of what happened. And hopefully they just assume they had a great night.”

“I like that one better.”

Your fist closes around the tiny vial, your lifeline, your last hope, a light in a world that was just moments ago dark and helpless and dismal.

Konig’s eyes crinkle as he smiles down at you. He steps closer and gently cups your face in his hands.

“Mein seiger,” He hums.

He tucks a loose strand of your hair behind your ear, and leans down to give you a delicate kiss on the forehead.

“I really hope it’s morphling,” You whisper.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath.

“One of us has to distract, the other pour.”

“I’ll distract,” He offers quickly.

The knock on the door makes you jump out of your skin. Your hand scrambles to stuff what you can only hope is morphling into the bust of your lingerie before shoving everything back into the medicine cabinet and closing it as quietly as you can.

“Everything okay?” Ellaine chimes from the other side of the door.

“Uh, yes! Just - ” Your wide eyes dart to Konig and your hands swirl in a plea for suggestions, but all he offers is a shrug, “Just - making sure!”

Making sure of what, you don’t know, but it’s the best your flustered brain has to offer.

“We’ll be waiting,” She calls in a sing-song.

“Oh,” You get through a wince, “I- I hate this, I hate this so much. Just throw me back in the fucking arena.”

“It’ll be okay,” He says.

Konig takes your hands in his, stroking his thumb over your knuckles. He brings your hand to his lips, and gifts you a soft, reassuring kiss on the back of your hand.

“We’ll figure it out together,” He says.

“I really, really hope this works,” You breathe.

“It will,” He says.

His pinched brows and those hooded eyes are so certain, you almost want to believe him.

“I love you,” He adds.

“I love you, too.”

Two deep encouraging breaths, one to work up the nerve to wrap your fingers around the door handle, and another to work up the courage to creep open the door.

Konig lets you dig your painted nails into his forearm without complaint as he walks you back to the sitting room.

“Come sit!”

Ellaine emphasizes her request - her honey-covered demand - with a hearty pat on the cushion next to her.

So obviously strategically, the two sit on either ends of the couch, forcing you both to be sandwiched between them.

“Wine?” Ellaine asks.

Like you are marching to your deaths, you approach side-by-side, pressing yourself as close to Konig as possible.

Your hands are locked together, disgustingly sweaty, and held with enough intensity to turn your knuckles white. You can’t tell which one of you is causing your locked hands to tremble. Probably you, maybe both.

The man, he still hasn’t spoken, but his gaze is impossible to ignore. It reminds you of the District Nine drunkards with their leering eyes, drooling over anything on two legs. He’s much cleaner, much more refined, but just as creepy. He also seems to breathe solely through his mouth, a characteristic you might not have even noticed if the circumstances were different. But the circumstances aren’t different, and you are finding it incredibly repulsive.

You’re thankful Konig puts himself between you two, taking the bullet and giving you Ellaine instead.

You have to hold your skirt down and press your thighs tightly together to keep from flashing the entire room. You sit so far on the end of the cushion you’re in danger of falling off, already priming yourself to make a run for it.

You and Konig share a glance, trying to work out your flimsy, last-minute plan with only your eyes, trying to figure out how you’re going to distract them so you can spike their drinks.

“Äh-” Konig starts, “I was - I was wondering if you could tell me more about some of your paintings?”

You’re realizing now that you probably should have factored in his dreadful lying skills when choosing the roles for your attempted drugging, because his redirection is about as smooth as sandpaper.

“Of course,” Ellaine purrs.

Konig gives you a final squeeze before he lets go of you to stand. It takes everything in you to not immediately reach out and snatch his arm back up, to hold him tight at your side and never let him go.

There’s an unmistakable look of panic on his face when only Ellaine stands. Pharus stays behind with you on the couch. Even though the true horror is creeping in, you nod faintly but frantically at Konig.

Just go with it.

Konig’s lips warp, but he follows your lead anyway, pointing to the first painting he lays eyes on.

“Äh, this one here.”

“Oh, yes, this is one of my favorites! You have good taste.”

Ellaine punctuates her purred compliment by reaching up to touch his arm, but she must like what she felt, because her touch lingers. She wraps her hand around his bicep, a slight stroke over his instinctively tense muscles.

The jealousy that ignites your skin is red hot and searing.

You have to move, and fast. But you’ve been left alone with weird and awkward, and you’re not sure how to get him away from the drinks.

You understand your mistake as soon as you make it.

Eye contact.

It was the only invitation he needed.

His hand, his gross, sweaty, too-warm hand reaches for your midthigh. The squeak that leaves you when he makes contact with your stockings causes Konig to whip around. His face hardens and those sharp blue eyes pierce straight through Pharus’ hand.

Before Konig does something stupider than this plan, you snatch the wine glass intended for yourself.

It’s an unfortunately full glass, and your hands try to dump the wine into your mouth faster than you can handle, sending droplets down your chin as you race to the bottom of the glass.

You gasp for air when you finally pull away, wiping your face with the back of your forearm. You immediately thrust your empty wine glass in Pharus’ direction, a straggling drop of wine flicking from the glass and splattering on his tie. You don’t wait for yourself to recover from the dry, tart taste of the wine, speaking through your chokes and gags in hopes to get his hand off you as soon as possible.

“Can I get another?”

Pharus is disgustingly eager to fulfill this request.

You have to suppress a whine when he cups his hand over yours, trailing his sweat over the tops of your fingers as he takes the glass from your hold.

His other hand leaves your thigh, finally, but a hand extends towards your face, a moment that lasts a lifetime.

Your breaths are choppy and shallow, eyes screwed shut as he swipes away a droplet of wine that surely didn’t exist from the corner of your lips.

His thumb lingers to smooth over your cheek, a damp, foreign, nauseating caress.

It is in this moment you decide it truly would have been best if you and Konig died in that arena as The President originally intended.

No. Maybe you wish Eleven would have finished you off as it should have been.

If not him, Sapphire.

Titan, even.

If the boy from eight had to skin you alive - you’d let him, would do whatever it takes to get you out of this awful, horrific, gut-churning moment.

You’re choking on your heart - it’s lodged in your throat and strangling you with its furious beating. Whines fall from your quivering lips, tears prick in the corners of your pinched eyes, and there seems to be an unforgiving shard of glass in your throat that shreds you with each swallow.

The moment that lasts a lifetime finally ends - Pharus’ thumb leaves your cheek. You just barely manage to stifle the sound of your sob, but the twitch of your shoulders is telling. You finally open your eyes to watch Pharus as he rises from the couch and disappears to the kitchen with your wine glass.

You shoot a tearful look to Konig, who is clearly hanging on by a thread. Completely deaf to Ellaine’s flirting and immune to her touch. She doesn’t seem to notice that he’s shaking with rage or that his hands are curled into fists at his sides. She’s still hanging off Konig’s arm, making horrible double entendres about her artwork.

‘Masterful strokes’ is your least favorite.

When Konig gives you a nod with his jaw tight and trembling, you scramble for the vial in your bust. Your fingers are just a blur as you unscrew the cap.

Everytime Ellaine even turns her head in any direction other than the painting, Konig’s got his finger pointing to a new corner, stumbling his way through pretending he knows the least bit about art while trying to swallow his hostility.

Ellaine doesn’t even seem to notice, too focused on his impressive build, commenting on his height, comparing their size difference while Konig brushes her off and tries to redirect her focus to another painting.

Your teeth are grit with such force you might just grind them to dust as you flit your gaze between the tricky little vial and Ellaine’s desperate bids for his attention. She’s begging him to hold his palm up to hers to compare sizes.

Your focus, tugged in the direction of Ellaine feeling up the love of your life, and your fingers, clammy, desperate, and trembling through both raw fear and rage, become an immediate, unsolvable problem when the little black cap slips from your hold and hits the drink table with an obnoxious plink of glass on glass.

It’s followed by another, and another, the little black cap skipping like a stone across a crystal lake.

Konig’s impressive form and terrible knowledge of art does little to save you from Ellaine turning her head.

You are choking on the suffocating pause that follows the final plink of glass on glass. Frozen on the edge of the couch, hoping that if you stay still, if you don’t make a single move, maybe Ellaine won’t notice what she so clearly just noticed.

“What’s this?”

With an arrogant quirk in her brow, her hands finally leave Konig to face you.

You are paralyzed under her stare. Each agonizingly slow step of her heels as she nears tightens your guts a little more. All you can do is watch, stunned and horrified as she leans down and carefully plucks the little black cap from the floor and rolls it between her fingers.

“Where’d you find this, little lady?”

Ellaine gives a smug hum, her ill-altered lips curling into something wicked.

“Did you bring it with you?” Ellaine asks, “Couldn’t wait to get your fix?”

She leans over and plants her palm on the glass drink table, simultaneously bringing the little glass cap inches from your face and giving Konig a perfect view of her backside.

You are motionless, a statue as Ellaine’s free hand reaches over and rummages in your fist to fish the vial from your grip. She tsks at you before returning to a stand, towering over you from the other side of the drink table.

“You have sticky fingers, don’t you?” Ellaine asks with a squint of her eyes.

“Pharus!” She calls, her sudden jump in volume making you flinch.

Ellaine chuckles as she screws the cap back on.

You look at Konig, who stares on with his lips pulled to the side. Ellaine turns back to you and puts on a low and dangerous voice.

“Don’t even try to pin it on him. This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Your lips part to explain, to plea, to object, to say anything, but nothing comes out of your dry mouth.

“Trying to get out of it, hm?”

Ellaine circles the drink table, until she’s towering over you just in front of your knocking knees. The dim, orange glow of candlelight only makes her towering figure that much more threatening.

Pharus returns, and Ellaine meets his gaze with a proud smile, a lioness presenting him the fresh kill of the day.

“We’ve got a little thief,” She beams.

Your fear of Ellaine is momentarily redirected to Pharus, closing in at your side.

“Oh,” He says in even understanding, “Well that’s no good.”

Ellaine’s knuckles find the underneath of your chin, guiding your head to tilt up and forcing you to meet her smug grin.

“What do you think The President would make of you trying to get out of your responsibilities, young lady?”

At the mention of The President, your breathing entirely stops.

She tutts.

“Wouldn’t be very good for either of you, would it?”

“Not at all,” Pharus adds.

He sits next to you, far too close. You can feel the burning heat of his thigh on yours, but you refuse to make eye contact with him.

Ellaine voice back drops to a sultry, patronizing whisper.

“I guess you ought to be extra good.”

She shakes the vial in front of your face, dangling your last hope inches from you, mocking you with the final chance that slipped through your sweaty little fingers.

You finally release your breath, lips mumbling in prayer for one more chance, please, one more chance.

“Better make sure she’s not hiding anything under those clothes,” Ellaine says.

You close your eyes and let out an entirely involuntary sob as the tears begin to trickle down your cheeks.

“Oh, look!” Ellaine chimes, “Another crybaby. Your favorite.”

Pharus’ hand finds your knee, his touch as hot and as degrading as a brand. You react as if he is actually searing your skin with a permanent handprint, a harsh flinch and a hiss sucked in through your teeth.

Titan’s bashed-in skull blinds you at the sound of impact, and Sapphire’s right behind him, the repeated pierce of a spear head through her gut, the bubbling of her own blood in the back of her throat.

Ellaine’s scream is ear-piercing.

You can’t move, can’t open your eyes. You don’t want to know what’s going on one couch cushion over.

You cannot handle another memory of brutality.

It’s happening inches from you, close enough you can feel the breeze of flailing limbs on your face, disturbing tufts of your hair. But your couch cushion might as well be your own private island, immune to the sound of Ellaine’s haunting screams and the repeated puncture of flesh and the air so thick with the smell of metal you can taste the tang on your tongue.

The past is your friend in this moment, a collage of gory distractions to keep you from adding another to the collection.

Ellaine - Ellaine is making it difficult.

Her shrieks are starting to break through, shattering, continuous, she hardly seems to pause for breath.

Pharus’ thigh isn’t helping. It knocks into yours as he struggles for the life that steadily escapes him.

Ellaine’s heels take off in a sloppy, uneven run, and Konig leaves you alone with weird and awkward once more, present to listen to him take his wet, gurgling, final breaths.

Ellaine is muffled in an instant. There’s the sound of a quick, mild altercation, and then Konig’s heavy footsteps return.

You don’t open your eyes even when he stills. You don’t want to know, you don’t want to. The blackness behind your eyelids is a better alternative to any of this.

You wait, and you pretend.

You wait until the nothingness lulls you into a false sense of security, and you pretend that you aren’t where you are, that Konig hasn’t done what you know he’s done, and there was never anything before or after this inky blackness.

Eventually you do find the courage to pry open your tear-blurred eyes.

Konig stands a few feet from the other side of the drink table, illuminated by the soft flickering glow of a hundred fake candles. Ellaine is snug to his front, airborne with an arm around the crease of her core. You’re reminded of the boy from eleven, flailing as he was lifted into the air by his ribcage moments before his death. Konig has silenced her with a palm flush over her puffy lips, her stifled screams have turned to stifled pleas.

You take a deep breath before you carefully turn your head to the right.

A swollen face, a limp body, and a pair of silver medical scissors lodged through Pharus’ repeatedly punctured throat. A steady stream of blood gushes from his wounds, his button down and tie stained with a growing patch of brilliant red.

Konig’s voice isn’t grit, nervous, or frantic. It’s spoken clearly and evenly.

“What do I do with her?”

After a beat, you carefully tilt your head up, and finally meet Konig’s eyes.

His face is entirely unreadable. Stone cold. The only thing of note is the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

He’s offering her to you.

Laying her fate in your palms, the judge and jury to his executioner.

You’re frozen in your spot, as if making any action will cement your fate, as if moving will make it real. If you just sit here, maybe, just maybe, the problem will go away.

It does not.

For minutes you sit on their couch, watching as Ellaine thrashes in Konig’s unyielding hold. Her hysterical tears collect on the side of his index finger and the blood stain on Pharus’ suit grows in your peripheral.

You’re processing.

Konig’s kill, the life that sits in your palms, the catastrophic consequence that is to come - but your brain won’t let you. You keep trying to cram the information in, in hopes to conjure up a plan, an opinion, or at the very least a thought, but you can’t seem to make sense of what has happened.

Konig waits patiently, letting Ellaine scratch up his forearms with her golden fingernails, until you give up trying to think your way out of the impossible.

You clear your throat, fix your hair, and rearrange your skirt. You sigh, and give yourself an encouraging nod before you meet Ellaine’s tear-welled eyes and pick up your croaked voice.

“Well, Ellaine, - I - I guess you ought to be extra good.”

Your lips warp, your shoulders pull up, and an awkward laugh leaves your lips. It’s almost like you’re trying to wave away tension at an uncomfortable dinner party with a joke you’re not confident in - but Ellaine does not find this as disarming as you intended.

Her exaggerated tinsel eyelashes pinch shut, and her muffled screams reach a peak before petering off in a fit of sobs.

You lock eyes with Konig, holding his intimidating stare for a few moments longer. You look to Ellaine, and then back to him, and when you speak, your voice is hesitant but challenging.

“Tie her up.”

Konig nods, and when he searches for something to restrain her with, you have no moral qualm reaching over Pharus’ fresh corpse, fussing and ripping the blood-soaked tie from his collar.

Ellaine’s pleads and sobs are at full volume once Konig releases her mouth to take the tie from you. He lingers for a moment on handoff, exchanging Pharus’ blood with a graze of your fingers.

You haven’t been able to let go of him since you lost him - but this - it’s like it’s the first time you’ve ever touched him.

A spark starts at your fingertips and shoots up your arms until your chest is blooming with that cozy, dizzying warmth.

Konig’s eyes are twinkling and his mouth is stretched into a cozy grin. He takes the bloody tie as carefully as he took your ribbon, even with a woman scratching and screaming desperately in his arms.

It’s too far gone now.

There is no amount of good behavior that will breathe life back into the fresh corpse of the Capitol elite on the couch next to you.

Every worry, every fear, every problem that became pressing the moment they called your name on reaping day has melted away and been replaced with a rush of intoxicating freedom and power. That same feeling you had at the oasis in the arena - because it is easy to not worry today when there is no tomorrow.

Ever since the games you have been living in purgatory. Half awake, half asleep, and a million miles away from the nearest living soul.

But now -

Now you are awake.

Knowing that you and Konig both took a turn you could never turn back from, and clearly don’t regret in the slightest, is exhilarating.

This is entirely uncharted territory. Exploring the boundaries that lie beyond the boundaries you never imagined you’d cross.

Together.

Konig studies your face for a few more seconds before he lets Ellaine fall from his arms and to the floor.

You shift on the couch to put some distance between yourself and weird and awkward, snatch an untouched wine glass, and take careful sips as you watch Konig restrain Ellaine with her husband’s blood-soaked tie.

So rough.

You’re afraid he might just break something on Ellaine, the way he’s jerking her limbs and yanking her back into his reach when she tries to crawl away.

You’ve gotten so used to him being your refuge - you almost forgot how dangerous he truly is.

Those arms, big and so unfathomably strong, could crush your bones to dust with less effort than it takes for him to tie his shoes.

You can feel it when you’re in his arms. The potential of his strength. Dulled down for your comfort, but still very much present. Dormant, but waiting.

It’s thrilling.

Watching him use his full strength, easily overpowering another one of your threats, especially while dressed like that. Half of his chest exposed and glistening, his forearms tensing as he tightly binds her wrists and ankles, the occasional grunt of frustration aimed at her for not being the ideal hostage.

Oh, and how she begs and pleads and cries and whines.

Poor thing.

“Gag her.”

Konig moves to follow your command the moment it finishes leaving your lips.

He doesn’t bother looking around. His fists curl into the fabric of his shirt and with one stiff tug, he sends buttons flying in all directions. One of them bounces off the drink table with a plink. He slips the shirt from his arms, rolls it up, and creases Ellaine’s cheeks with the taut, bunched fabric nestled between her puffy lips. He plants a dress shoe in the center of her spine to keep her muzzle tight until it’s tied off on the back of her head with a few harsh jerks.

He then waits for his next instruction.

Your faithful, dedicated servant.

Standing tall and proud with those pretty blue eyes locked onto you and that glistening chest rising and falling. Ignoring the bound and squirming woman at his feet until he knows exactly what he’s to do with her. Putting you in full control of his strength.

The thought is entirely intrusive.

Snap her neck.

Snap her neck like you did the boy from eleven.

Snap her neck and remind me one more time that your love for me knows no bounds.

You hold Konig’s stare. Dangerous and safe, icy and warm, unhinged and devoted.

You don’t want to think about Ellaine or her fate, resting in your sweaty little palms.

All you really want to do right now is explore this new, intoxicating feeling with the love of your life.

So you put a pin in it.

You beckon Konig to your presence, and he’s with you at once, sidestepping the glass table to snatch you up by the back of your thighs with a bounce, resting you around his bare waist and holding you tight in those strong, deadly arms.

You meet in a rough, passionate kiss, exchanging hums and messy tongues. Your hands are all over him, smoothing over his tight, warm shoulders and chest, devouring any part of him in reach.

Konig squeezes the crease of your thigh, and gives an approving hum at the sharp gasp that leaves you. He uses his rough hold to grind you against his slacks.

“Konig!”

Your stare briefly darts over his shoulder to remind him of the pathetic one-woman audience behind him. His eyes narrow, and a sly smile spreads on his face.

“Tell me you don’t want it.”

He savors your stunned expression, the breath he stole and the pretty wide eyes that flit around his face.

At your compliant silence, the corner of his lip twitches up, and he pulls you back into a sloppy kiss. Bloody nails tighten into the back of his shoulders with each brush he makes across the front of your skimpy panties.

Konig’s hands thread through the back of your hair as he carries you down the hall and away from the uninterrupted grating song of muffled sobs and pleas. You don’t break the kiss the entire journey to Ellaine and Pharus’ bedroom, held together by overeager tongues and wandering hands. He closes the door behind you both by forcing you against it. He holds you here for a moment, three shameless, drawn-out ruts into you, before he hauls you to the bed and places you on the rose petal covered blankets. He straddles one of your legs and climbs up the bed until he’s looming overtop you. You can feel him - already straining against the give in his slacks and seeking relief with your thigh.

“You’re all mine,” He grits.

He dips his head to kiss your neck, and rolls hungry, needy grunts along your skin while his assured hand trails up your stockings and sneaks underneath your skirt. He cups the entirety of your cunt over your panties, his large hand swallowing you whole and his possessive touch robbing you of breath. A warm, demanding presence between your thighs.

“Alle meine.”

He breathes his jagged words between the slobbering kisses and sucks on your neck. His brute fingers sink further into your slit, nestling your panties between your lips and pressing his fingertips into the inviting stain of arousal.

“Mein Gott - So fucking wet.”

His tightly pressed fingers massage wide circles and turn your breaths hitched.

“All for me,” He reminds you, “You want my fingers? You want to feel me inside you? Hm?”

“Yes!”

Konig doesn’t bother taking the time to pull off your panties. He tears them with a grunt and lets the meager scraps fall to either side of your hips. The side of his finger glides up and down your slit, his knuckles grazing against your twitching thighs.

He scoffs, and his eyes meet yours. A smug grin grows on his face as he drags his teasing finger through your arousal.

“You’re dripping, you need me this bad?”

You nod with a truly pathetic whine, but it’s still not enough. He swirls the pad of his finger around your entrance and ignores the way your hips mindlessly search for pleasure.

“Tell me how bad you need me.”

His prods at your ego scorches your cheeks, and you can’t seem to look anywhere but the floor as you coax the words out.

“I need you,” You whine, “I- I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything else.”

He scoffs as his finger pushes into you.

“I know,” He says. His eyes narrow, and his brows pinch, “Where would you be without me, little one? Hm?”

He doesn’t get much of an answer, only sputtered breaths and squeaky gasps.

“You were made for me and I was made for you.”

The pad of his thumb presses to your clit and rocks back and forth, working your dripping cunt.

“There is no other way.”

He’s pushing you this time, giving you just a little more than you can handle. Keeping your breaths choked and your body squirming.

“You want me to stop? You have to say it.”

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip to bite back the desperate noises on your tongue, and your legs are trembling from his slow but strict plunges to his knuckle.

He gives a pleased hum, baring his teeth when the corner of his lip lifts in a grin. His half-lidded eyes trail down to your chest, watching you heave on your uneven breaths.

Without breaking his pace, his free hand rests on your hips and smooths up your side. He trails up the curve of your torso, bunching your shirt at his hand.

He stops on the cup of your lingerie. His large, hardened hand palms your breast, roughly kneading and following your squirms.

“Take off your shirt.”

Your shaking fingers can hardly obey, fumbling for your hem and peeling it off, revealing the lingerie and Konig’s groping hand beneath.

Gluttonous eyes scour you from head to heels, devouring your body in your skimpy outfit.

Suddenly you don’t mind it as much.

He meets your stare again, and something shifts in him. His brow creases, his eyes soften, and his pace slows.

“Dressed up all for me?” He breathes.

This one is not so much cocky as it is a genuine question. A reassurance.

“All for you,” You whisper.

A breathy, relieved laugh spills from him. He ducks his head, and presses a kiss to your neck while his fingers continue to thrust into you. The kiss starts gently, just a brush of his lips against your skin, and steadily deepens until his tongue is licking wide strokes over your shoulders. His teeth graze over your flesh, a sharp contrast to his slick, soft tongue.

“You want another?” He whispers against your skin after a long, wet stripe, “Hm? You want me to fill you?”

He kisses your neck as you nod, breathy, squeaky moans on your lips.

“Say it.”

“Konig- I need you, I need more, please-“

He scoffs, lubing up a second finger with your arousal and lining it up with your cunt.

He’s a bit more patient with his second finger, pushing in with gentle movements while he sucks on the sensitive skin of your neck.

Every rut he makes against you draws a huffy, warm breath from him.

“I can’t wait to feel you.”

He’s fucking you at teasing pace - slow, seamless glides in and out of your slick cunt while his thumb rolls up and down your clit with each gentle pump of his finger.

You can only offer a whimper in response, your back arching off the bed to lean into his touch, jutting your hips out to keep his fingers hitting that spot that floods your lower abdomen with an intoxicating warmth. He sits up, flitting his stare between your face and his fingers as he carefully builds up speed.

“Look at you. So wet. You’ll soak my cock with this dripping cunt.”

You’re hypnotized by his touch, by his fingers, his filthy, growled words. Putty in those powerful, killer hands.

When you close your eyes and your head throws back in defeat, Konig puts his hand just under your jaw with a strict grip, warping the flesh of your cheeks beneath his fingers.

“Look at me. I want to see you while I fuck you.”

You obediently meet his crinkled eyes, his gratified smile.

“Do my fingers feel good?”

You can only nod weakly in his hand, a stuttered breath tapering into a squeaky moan.

Konig’s eyes flit around your face as he grinds against your thigh.

“You want me? Hm? You want me inside you?”

You nod against Konig’s forceful hand.

He doesn’t need much convincing. His soaked fingers leave your cunt and he releases your face, smearing your arousal along his waistband in his scramble to undo his slacks. His fingers are impatient to his own detriment, he struggles to pop the button and fumbles long enough for his teeth to clench in frustration.

He kicks his pants to the side and not-so-gracefully strips off his underwear. Firm hands leave little choice on spreading your thighs as he settles between them, and as soon as he’s towering over you, he guides himself to your soaked cunt and slides the tip of his cock down your slit.

You both let out a whine, and you can hear it - the obscene sound of him lubing himself up with your arousal.

Konig presses one of his hands to the mattress next to your head, and lowers himself to press his lips to yours. He keeps his face inches from yours when he pulls away, captivating you with intense eyes.

“Are you ready for me?”

He sounds dangerous. His husky purr offers you one last chance to back out before you take on more than you can handle. It’s exhilarating, tightening the knots of excitement he’s making of your insides.

He swirls his tip around your entrance and applies a bit of pressure, giving you just a taste of what he has in store for you.

You offer a shaky nod, and he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before he sinks his soaked tip into you.

“So eine enge muschi.”

Konig’s head falls forward as he mumbles gruff praises, or degradations, you’re not sure.

Your nails claw at the tensed forearms locking you in at either of your sides. Trapped by massive arms and perfect physique. Pinned under such a powerful being, his form consumes you while he fucks your entrance with his tip.

“You’re going to take it all this time. I don’t care how long it takes. You will feel all of me.”

An insatiable, ravenous grin stretches on his features at the look of worry you give him.

He lapping at your walls with a pace that keeps you squirming and whining beneath him. Not quite uncomfortable, but intentionally provoking, giving you just a little more than you can handle. Reminding you that you’re out of your depth, making sure you know that you are at his mercy. Keeping your nails clawing at him and the strained moans flowing freely. Taking pleasure knowing all you can focus on is how he’s splitting you open and stretching you out.

“Das gefällt dir? Ja? You like that?”

Your affirmations are wavered, you can hardly finish a word once it’s started, each one ending on a raspy breath.

“No one can fill you up like I can,” He grits, “This cunt is all mine.”

He pauses when you wince and your head throws back on the mattress.

“Mm, too big for you?”

You respond with a whiny sigh, which he must find amusing, because he laughs.

Konig lowers himself, pressing his front flush to yours, the tip of his nose brushing along your cheek as he leaves you kisses. His hands graze over your stomach and sink between your legs, tightly pressed fingers massaging over your clit.

“Braves mädchen - working hard to take me.”

His praises are just warm breaths against your skin, and he groans when you clench around him.

“You ready for more of me? Hm?”

You nod, and Konig resumes gently working you open with a hypnotic roll of his hips and a rusty sigh. His arm flexes as he rises, getting a better look at the pathetic, squirming thing beneath him on the mattress. Taking pride in the way you unravel before you’ve even managed to swallow all of him, full and drooling after just a few fingers and half of a throbbing cock.

“Weak little girl.”

Konig’s head tilts down, his eyes narrow, and he snarls.

“You need me.”

Konig eases more of himself into you, his eyes lull behind his eyelids and his bottom lip snags between his teeth. His shoulders pull up, and he shudders.

“So warm und eng um mich herum.”

A cry leaves your lips, legs trembling and head thrown back in defeat. Konig gives you a few much-earned breaks to let you adjust to his size. As he waits, he leans down and buries his face into your neck, back to nibbling at the sensitive skin. Entertaining himself by licking and slobbering and sucking more marks to the surface while his tightly pressed fingers trace wide circles over your clit.

The breaths he takes between showers of his affection are huffed. He occasionally forgets he’s supposed to be patient with you, such a delicate little thing, his hips rutting into you momentarily before he corrects himself. You can feel him pulsing inside of you when he stills.

He pulls away from your neck, meeting your stare with half-lidded, drunken eyes.

He studies you for a moment, and his voice turns soft and wispy.

“I love you,” He says.

“I love you, too.”

You give his shaking biceps a squeeze and smooth your hands up his shoulders. You cup his jaw, drawing him closer to meet you in a tender kiss.

He presses his forehead to yours when he breaks the kiss with panting breaths.

“You feel so good,” He whispers.

You lace your fingers together around the back of his neck.

“You too,” You whisper back.

He smiles down at you, crinkled eyes sparkling and a weak laugh of disbelief on his lips.

He narrows his eyes at you again, his smile turning into something smug.

“You want more, little one? You want to feel more of me?”

You nod with a nervous, choppy sigh. It’s more than a tight fit, you cling to his shoulders for support as you focus on taking him. You can feel his muscles working beneath your fingertips as he eases himself in and out of you.

“So ein guter schwanzwärmer.”

You stutter through a moan, and even though you’re obviously struggling to take him, you’re still grinding down on him without thought.

“Sehr gut-”

He shivers overtop you, panting breaths and his head hung. His bulging muscles are shaking, struggling to restrain himself from pounding into you.

You can’t think about much else other than him, filling you to the brim and teasing that spot that makes your thighs twitch. As he nears bottoming out, the condensation pours from his tongue, huffed and strained.

“Going to take all of it, ja?”

You let out a whine, your fingers trembling and pathetic moans leaving you without permission.

Both of your strangled breaths stop as the base of him presses to your front.

“How does it feel?” He huffs, “To feel all of me?”

You can’t even respond, intoxicated off the feeling of him stuffed deep inside of you.

“Does it feel good to be full?”

The pressure between your legs is splitting, painful - but in a good way. You don’t dare ask him to stop, aching to keep yourself full. You nod up at him, meeting his stare with drowsy eyes.

“You look so pretty on my cock.”

He sinks his hand between your thighs, his fingers making wide circles over your clit once more.

“Es ist meins,” He breathes, “It’s for me.”

He lets out a choked groan when you tighten around him. He can’t hold himself back from grinding into you.

“So eng.”

His eyes roll, huffy pants on his lips. His thumb hones in on your clit and gives it gentle scrubs.

“Konig?” You whine with a grind, “Need you.”

His cock twitches inside of you, and he’s happy to oblige.

He gently slides out about an inch before slowly pushing back in. The circles tracing around your clit waver, a broken groan on his lips.

When you don’t ask him to stop, he does it again, coaxing himself in and out of you, fighting every instinct in his body to fuck what little sense remains from you.

Konig’s eyes pinch, a breathy moan leaving him.

“Too - sch- too weak to handle me? Too much for you, little one?”

Konig’s dirty talk is wavering, strained and slurred and interrupted by heavy pants.

His flushed lips are perpetually parted, face rosen. He can’t resist quickening his pace, entirely submit to your warm, dripping cunt.

“Es tut mir leid - Bitte - ”

His rhythm quickly melts into one of desperation.

“Konig!”

“Tell me - tell me to stop.”

And while your cunt is aching and sore with him buried deep inside of you and his thrusts transitioning into pounds, you don’t dare tell him to stop.

He’s rocking your entire body, your chest bouncing in response to his quickened thrusts. The sound of your slicked cunt lubing his cock intertwines with the claps of his thighs against yours in an obscene chorus.

The moans leaving you are choked and squeaky, but when you try to cover your mouth, he grabs your wrists and pins them to the mattress.

“No,” He grits, “I want to hear you.”

You let out a cry, twisting and writhing your core under his hold.

“Konig - Konig please!”

You’re not even sure what you’re begging for, all you know if you don’t ever want him to stop.

Each of his brute pumps into you is a burst of pleasure, and as he quickens his pace, it melts into one continuous euphoria. Everything is aligning, it’s like he’s helping you fulfill your destined role on this earth. This feeling - it’s why you were born, it’s your purpose.

To be fucked by him.

Used and filled with his thick cock, to let him spread you open and lose himself to your warmth at his whim. A sore cunt is your price to pay, your burden to bear for not being worthy of handling a being so powerful.

You’ve come entirely undone at his hand, drooling and mindless while he forces your body further up the bed with each of his reckless pumps into you.

His grunts are ravening, gravelly and low.

“Genau so… Du willst mehr, nicht wahr?”

He lets go of your wrists, his hands finding your chest instead. He slinks into your lingerie, roughly kneading your chest beneath greedy fingers.

With little warning, Konig pulls out and flips you over with enough force you have to steady yourself with your palms and a gasp. You’re already babbling incoherent pleas at his absence, but before you can even move your weak, shaking limbs to lift yourself, he’s smearing your arousal between your thighs and searching for your dripping cunt with his eager cock.

As soon as he’s sinking into you, he leans down and presses his glistening chest to your back. His palms slide down your arms until he’s engulfing your hands, lacing his fingers with yours to pin your locked hands to the mattress.

You let out a cry when he bottoms out, his hips rutting against you and a low, sinful grunt in your ear as he works his cock against the walls of your tight cunt. His grip on you tightens, and he gives three gentle thrusts before he’s back to snapping his hips into you, returning to his reckless rhythm.

“F- ha- Konig!”

“Gut,” He breathes, “So good for me.”

Each plunge forces you further into the mattress, cheek smushed and fingers clawing at the blankets beneath his hold.

It’s all you can focus on, the overwhelming sensation, not a thought that runs through your mind as you take him, all of him. Lost to the addictive heat in your lower abdomen and the splitting ache between your legs.

Your vision is just a blur, and you can feel the vibration of his grunts on your back, the heat of his moans on your cheek.

“S’big!”

“Take it, mein seiger.”

He kisses the side of your face before he presses his cheek to yours, scratching you with his prickly stubble with each thrust.

“Nimm meinen schwanz.”

Konig breathes a low groan.

“Feel good?” He asks through clenched teeth.

It’s more of a taunt than a genuine question, because the answer already lies in the shake in your legs, the squeaky moans coerced with each powerful thrust of his cock into your wet cunt.

“You like it rough? Hm?”

He’s without restraint, plowing more of his needy cock into you before you can recover from the previous thrust of his hips.

“Naughty girl.”

Each moan that leaves you is filtered through the speed of Konig’s merciless slams, stuttered and choppy with each bottom out.

“Konig, F- Konig!”

“That’s it, mein sieger. Who does your cunt belong to?”

“You- you!”

“It’s mine,” He grits, “I earned it.”

He releases you, and his arm snakes around the crease under your stomach to yank you to your hands and knees, tightening his grasp on your sides to keep you from squirming away from his greedy cock. In this position, he’s somehow able to stuff even more of himself into you, and each thrust forces an embarrassing, repetitive squeak.

“Pretty noises, little one,” He grits.

He plants a kiss to the top of your head without breaking his pace, his hand reaching down to knead the plush flesh of your ass.

“Taking this cock so well, aren’t you?”

The only thing you can offer is a wavering moan, thoughtless and surrendered to the brute cock stretching you out and abusing your cunt.

“Schau dich an. Can’t even talk.”

His forearm wraps around your collarbones and he gives you another tug, lifting your hands from the mattress and arching your back into his chest. A possessive hand wraps around your front, groping your breast under rough, avid palms.

“Mine.”

A sharp breath is sucked through your teeth as cruel fingers tighten around your nipple. You nod frantically, offering desperate, unintelligible praises.

It’s not good enough, though, because his fingers only squeeze harder while he holds you in place by his tensed forearm.

“Yours!” You get through a cry.

He releases you with a pleased hum, intemperate fingers gliding down your soft stomach until his palm melds to your front. The tips of his fingers swirl into your lips, spreading you open to rest on your clit. He doesn’t even have to move them, each of his cruel thrusts forces you across his thick fingers.

All you can do is take it, overwhelmed by his ruthless cock and his possessive hold on your cunt, passive to his powerful thrusts. You couldn’t fight it off if you wanted to, every limb weak and trembling.

Konig suddenly lets go of your cunt and gives you a guiding nudge back onto the mattress. You can’t hold yourself up on your useless arms, let alone catch yourself, so you end up with your face buried in the covers while the hands on your hips keep you right where he wants you, on display.

He changes his pace, he begins to give you one powerful thrust and waits for you to finish bouncing back before he gives you another. He’s using his full strength, not at all holding back.

He’s fucking you like he’s mad at you.

It’s like he’s trying to prove a point. Just the pace itself feels mocking. Degrading, even. So rough and brute on each plunge before he slowly pulls himself out of you, only to force himself back in with everything he has. After his hips collide with the soft flesh of your ass, he lingers on the bottom out, a slow grind against your drooling walls. Again and again, forcing a gasping moan with each merciless pound. Bullying your poor cunt, filling you to the brim with little warning other than the rhythmic beats he makes with your flesh, like he’s training you to be prepared to take all of him at a moment’s notice.

“A filthy little girl,” He spits, “Listen to you.”

And you have no choice, his ruthless cock burying inside you and forcing the moans to spill from your lips whether you like it or not. His fingers dig into your skin to keep you from being shoved across the mattress at his strength.

“You are mine.”

Konig changes his pace again, he keeps the same force of his thrusts, but he picks up speed, giving little time to recover from each ram of his ravenous, throbbing cock.

“I’m going to fill you up, now, ja?”

You can’t even respond, limp in his hold, the world a blur and half your irises hidden behind drunken eyelids.

Konig gives you three brutal, sloppy thrusts, a sinful grunt on his lips and your hips crying under his tight grip. He holds his final thrust, snug against you as his finish marks his claim deep inside you. His body writhes, his moans stuttered and choked as he milks himself with a few lazy, wavered pumps. You can feel him pulsing against your walls, the grip around your wrists tight and shaking.

You can’t move, can’t even think, riding out your high as he catches his heaving breaths overtop you. Both his body and his cock twitch in the aftershocks of his finish.

He stays inside of you as he carefully rests your pliant arms back on the mattress, hunching over to press the first of many soft kisses on your shoulders.

His question is hesitant - small and ashamed.

“Are you okay?”

You nod into the blankets, and after a polite pause, he peppers more gentle kisses along your shoulders.

“That felt really good,” You mumble.

Konig laughs and brushes your miskempt hair from your face, getting a better look at your blissed-out grin and after-sex glow. He nuzzles his way to your cheek to leave a kiss.

“Did so well for me,” He whispers, “Mein sieger.”

Konig sits up, his hands smoothing down the curve of your back, slowly pulling out of you with a few overstimulated tremors.

He collapses on the covers next to you with a heavy sigh and a hand lost to his hair.

You still can’t seem to bring yourself to move, humming contently into the mattress. A light knuckle traces along the dip of your back as you soak in thoughtless bliss.

“I love you,” You mumble.

He scoffs, and while you’re still face down on the mattress with your eyes closed, you can tell he’s smiling, too.

“I love you too.”

Konig rises from the bed, and disappears into the master bathroom. He returns moments later with a damp washcloth and prompts you to roll over so he can clean up the puddle of arousal and finish between your thighs.

It’s weird, but even though he was inside of you moments ago, you feel embarrassed at being exposed like this to him, letting him tenderly swipe the cool cloth over you.

He tosses the washcloth carelessly to the ground before crawling back into the bed with you. He lies face up, and lifts his arm above his head to invite you into his side. You happily accept his offer, resting your head on his chest and slinging your arm over his waist. He’s warm to the touch, silken and inviting, cozy and safe.

You hum behind a content smile as he plucks rose petals from your hair, and when you speak, your words come out like a tune.

“We are so fucked.”

Konig snorts, and his chest bounces your head on the following laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” You ask through a giggle, “It’s not funny.”

“I don’t know,” He says, “Why are you?”

You both devolve into a fit of contagious laughter. Everytime you think you’re winding down, a snort kicks off another round of stuttering bodies and wheezing, squeaky giggles. It goes on for far too long, until your stomach hurts and there are tears in your eyes.

“Maybe no one will notice,” He says after a long-winded sigh.

“No dice.”

You both fall into a lull, lost in the sensation of fingertips playing with locks of your hair or tracing lazy patterns over your back.

“Are you hungry?” He asks.

“I could eat.”

“Want to see what they have?”

You go to sit up, but Konig stops you.

“Ach. Äh, hold on.”

“Right,” You say, “Forgot about her.”

You rub out your knuckles in a moment of consideration, and find you don’t feel like thinking about Ellaine right now.

“Lock her in the bathroom,” You say with a dismissive wave of your hand, “I’ll figure it out later.”

“I’ll take care of it,” He says.

He puts his pants on, and goes to work.

You’re thankful he’s willing to do the dirty work. You don’t want to see Pharus or Ellaine right now.

He leaves the door cracked so you can hear him, to reassure you he is still present. His footsteps, the occasional shut of a door.

No screaming.

You pick at your painted fingers until he returns. When he steps back into the room, he lingers by the door, his eyes darting to the side and his bloody fingers wriggling at his sides.

“Want to shower?” He asks.

You nod.

He looks to the side again, and his hand reaches over his chest to rub the crease of his elbow, smearing blood on himself.

“Together?” He asks.

Your eyes follow his, and you nod again.

You use Ellaine and Pharus’ master bathroom, and it takes far too long for you both to put your heads together and figure out how to work the excessive buttons and knobs, but eventually you manage a heavy stream with a survivable temperature. You both finish stripping down, and step into the countless water jets spraying from every direction.

You don’t even have to say it, there’s an unspoken agreement between you to clean each other. He leans down so that you can reach his hair to wash it out, massaging the soap over his scalp until it foams at your fingertips. Konig’s eyes close, humming contently at your touch.

As he rinses off the suds, you get started on his body, lapping up the sides of his neck and rubbing wide circles down the curve of his shoulders. Your trail to bulging biceps and forearms, washing blood off as you go. You linger on his firm chest and torso longer than you need to as you lather him up.

“Thank you,” He says.

“Mhm.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You ask.

“For - For ruining it.”

Your brows pinch, and your voice softens.

“You didn’t ruin it,” you say, “You saved me.”

He follows your whim when you gesture for him to turn around, and there’s a long pause as you work suds over his back.

“I’m different,” He says softly.

“It’s okay. Me too.”

“No, not like that.” He turns to face you even though you aren’t finished with his back, and he sighs, “I keep hurting people.”

“Me too.”

“No,” He says, “Physically hurting people. And I-”

Konig swallows, and looks down at his open palms. He takes a deep breath before he finishes, his hands turning to fists and dropping at his sides.

“I like it.”

His eyes finally meet yours, a crease in his brow and his weight shifting from leg to leg with a weak sway as he waits for you to respond to his confession.

“Okay,” You say.

He looks to the side, and reaches up to rub out the back of his neck.

“Okay,” He says.

The heavy stream of water on porcelain soothes the following calm silence before he breaks it again.

“I keep having nightmares,” He blurts, “Where I hurt you.”

You wince, shoulders braced and face warped, and you have to refrain from saying ‘Me too.’

“I’m afraid I will,” He says, “I don’t want to, but I’m- I’m not - “

“It’s okay,” You cut, forcing your shoulders back into position, “You won’t.”

There’s a pause before he whispers, his words almost lost to the water raining down on you both.

“You’re afraid of me.”

You tense again, and you’re honestly not even sure if the next statement is a lie or not, but you’re not eager to give it much thought.

“No, I’m not.”

“In the dreams,” He clarifies.

“Oh.”

You let out a heavy breath.

“I’ve been having nightmares too,” You say.

You’re hoping it helps him to know you’re going through the same thing, but you can’t help but feel like it wasn’t the right thing to say. Like you’re just minimizing his pain or redirecting the focus to you when he’s obviously trying to lean on you in this moment.

“Do you dream of me?” He asks carefully.

You swallow, your eyes flitting around the tile through the blanket of steam clouding the shower.

“Sometimes.”

“Bad dreams?”

“All of my dreams are bad.”

“But-”

You turn and snatch up his forearms with insistent but gentle hands.

“Konig, it doesn’t matter. They’re just - they’re just dreams. We- that was fucked up, and our brains are just trying to make sense of it, and it - it all just blurs together. I don’t know. All I know is that after the nightmares I wake up and I love you more than I did yesterday. I need you more than I did yesterday.”

Konig can’t bring himself to speak. He just swallows and nods, those soft puppy dog eyes staring at you as the water rushes over his skin.

When he finds his voice, it’s soft.

“I love you,” He says.

“I love you too,” You whisper.

You give his arms a squeeze before you let go of him.

Your stares linger on each other for a moment. You’re usually pretty good at reading his eyes, but this one eludes you. Somewhere between worry and awe.

As Konig washes out your hair, you fall victim to the tingling sensation on your scalp. You close your eyes and tilt your head back for him until it’s time to rinse.

His hands are gentle as they smooth bubbles over your body. You feel tiny - watching his big hands swallow whatever part of you lies beneath his touch.

“You’re beautiful,” He says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Ja.”

You bite back your smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

Those pretty blue eyes flit down to your shoulder as he delicately massages bubbles over your skin. He lingers here, and it takes you a moment to realize his thumb is running side to side over the spot that you clipped against the hedge maze.

You look down, and with furrowed brows, you breathe your discovery in a tone that suggests you left something important behind.

“My scars are gone.”

“Mine too,” He says as he begins to work down the rest of your arm, “Even the ones from home. You didn’t notice?”

You look down to the arm Sapphire split open with her knife, and find there’s no evidence of your altercation.

“No.”

You stick your leg up to inspect your calves and find spotless skin, no evidence of the cuts the peacekeepers made when they forced you into the shards of your tantrum. You haven’t really been paying much attention to your body, it’s felt so far away from your thoughts ever since the games.

“I don’t like that they do things to you while you’re sleeping,” He says as he lathers up your sides.

Your lips pull to the side.

“Yeah, I guess I never thought about it.”

“Don’t now,” He says.

“Okay,” You say.

And so you don’t.

Konig takes extra care in sudsing your chest, massaging your breasts beneath kind fingers.

“Just being thorough,” He says with a responsible nod.

“Of course.”

After you’re both clean and dry, you help yourself to one of Ellaine’s shirts, Konig replaces his pants, and you make your way to the kitchen. You position yourself behind Konig, almost like you’re hiding from whatever waits for you at the end of this hall, your steps light and your fists tight at your sides.

You’re surprised to see little evidence of Pharus’ death and your hostage.

Pharus’ body has been removed from the sitting room, presumably in the hall bathroom with Ellaine. You can’t make out a sob, a whine, or even a snivel as you pass the closed door.

You squeeze Konig’s hand when you notice the blanket he threw over the blood stain on their couch cushion, surely for your benefit, and Konig squeezes back.

It feels weird to be rummaging in someone else’s fridge, especially since the owners are being held captive in their own home, one of them a still-warm corpse, but you get over it fairly quickly.

It’s your final meal, after all.

You both spread just about everything in their kitchen on their fancy dining table, your feast illuminated by a chandelier that rain shimmering crystal droplets from its golden branches.

While the table is about the biggest dining table you’ve ever seen, you and Konig pull your chairs as close together as you can, sipping on wine and picking apart your feast.

“Should we run away?” You ask.

He shrugs as he tears off a hunk of meat from the wing of a cooked bird, answering through a mouthful.

“If you want. Where would we go?”

“I- I don’t know. Maybe we could-“

You trail off, not really knowing where you were going with the sentence when you started it. Everyone in Panem knows your faces, you wouldn’t make it two blocks, let alone escape the city.

“All these people - they look crazy. So what if we just made ourselves blend in? Dress up and hide in plain sight. Or -”

Your eyes find Konig. How do you disguise a boy this big? In the arena you clocked him from yards away even when he was covered head to toe in gear.

Your eyes flit away as you think on it some more.

“Price?” You ask, high pitched and already doubtful.

Konig shrugs again.

“Yeah,” You sigh.

Not even Price could save you from this one. You didn’t really want to drag him into this, anyway.

You push away your plate, leaning back in your chair with another weighty sigh.

“Let’s come back to it.”

Konig gives a hum that suggests that he knows that you both know you’re absolutely fucked.

There’s an awkward pause, where you tap your nails on the tabletop and you suck on your teeth.

“Wanna snoop?”

Konig hums again, this one a mixture of amused and curious, and a smile tugs at his lips. He wipes his face off with a cloth and tosses it on the table.

“I’d love nothing more.”

You’re hardly gentle about anything as you shuffle through drawers and rifle through cabinets. Making a mess of the place more than you are looking for something, really.

Ellaine and Pharus’ suite is your new temporary oasis, a once-arena to make a playground of - because you know come morning you’ll be dead.

“Found a remote,” You say, holding it over your shoulder and giving it a wave.

“For what?”

“Dunno.”

You turn, fingers fumbling over the sleek, smooth screen of the remote.

It seems to be in control of everything. Their fireplace, the lights, the television, the automatic curtains. One of the buttons turns on a water fixture that you didn’t even realize was there. A waterfall cascades from the ceiling and pours into a small pool that reveals itself from retractable tiles in the floor.

You near the stream and stick your fingers into the flow, watching as the water parts, creating gaps in the seamless, perfect wall of water.

When you’ve had your fix, you shake your wet hand, flinging droplets in all directions before you return to the remote.

Another press of a glossy button and a camouflaged glass door slides open with a zip, leading to their balcony outside.

You approach the window of their suite and peek out into the open air. Their balcony is bigger than the one at the tribute tower, and much higher up.

If you had pants on, maybe you’d ask to sit in the crisp nighttime air, but the harsh wind on your bare legs already draws goosebumps to your skin and makes you shiver.

Wait, though.

You step out onto the balcony, and find the switch for the heater. Almost instantly, a blast of air drapes you in a cozy warmth and protects you from the high winds.

Thanks, Ruby.

You don’t need to coax Konig outside, he’s at your heels without request. You intertwine your hands and snuggle up to each other on one of the many patio couches, wearing warm smiles and exchanging plenty of kisses. It feels eerily empty, there’s enough furniture on this balcony to host a party. And while it’s barren with just the two of you - you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Konig breaks the silence first.

“It’s too bad,” He says weakly.

“What is?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

“It would have been nice.”

And you sigh, because you know what he means.

The sun is setting over the desert, and your time together is limited. You will never get to have your happily ever after, and what little time you have had together is tainted by games and suicides and prostitution and twenty-two dead tributes.

“Yeah,” You say, “It would have been.”

Your heart aches for domesticity with him. Living in victor’s village back home, so rich neither of you would have to break your backs in the fields again, and still have enough to go around for the starving people in Nine.

Waking up next to him, cooking meals with him, grieving together in the privacy of your home. Cuddling each other to sleep every night and being intimate without all of Panem watching.

Oh, and you would have had a shower.

You’re not crazy about a lot of the displays of extravagance the Capitol has to offer, but now that you’ve had a taste of a steamy, warm shower, you’re not eager to let it go.

Konig doesn’t look up from his lap.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers.

“No,” You say, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s my-”

“No,” You cut, “We did this together.”

Maybe it is for the best, anyway.

Maybe joining the twenty-two is a better fate than being haunted by them.

It still would have been nice.

You wonder what Konig would be like in your little hypothetical life of domesticity, and you come to the realization that you really don’t know what he does in his leisure.

“What did you do on Sundays back home?” You ask.

Konig shrugs.

“Chores.”

“Well, yeah, but - for fun.”

He shrugs again.

“Y’know,” You start, “I just realized that I really don’t know that much about you. I mean, I know enough. But-”

Your eyes flick to him.

“Who are you?”

“Not much to know,” He says with a shrug.

“Oh, come on.”

“Ich weiß nicht. I ruined my life and it’s been the same ever since.”

“Ruined your life?”

You look at him expectantly.

His eyes dart between either of yours, his irises slightly flicking side to side before he looks away.

“S’okay,” You say, “You don’t have to say.”

You look back to the sky, your foot rocking back and forth on its heel.

“You don’t know?” He asks quietly.

“Don’t know what?”

His face warps, and you frown.

“What’s up?” You say.

He just shakes his head.

You don’t push.

“Do you want to play a game?” You ask.

“That depends,” He says with a hum, “What do you have in mind?”

“It’s called Love Hate.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s ’cause I just made it up,” You say with a grin.

“And how do you play?” He asks.

“You tell me things that you love and things that you hate, and I’ll win the game because then I’ll know things about you.”

He hums in consideration as he half-heartedly inspects a lock of your hair.

“Okay,” He says, “I love you.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because I already know that.”

“Hmm. I love…”

He trails off as he thinks on your prompt.

“I keep trying to fill in the blank, but you are the only thing that comes to mind.”

“Stop it.”

He kisses the height of your cheek, and raises his brow.

“Make me,” He prods.

“Them’s fightin’ words.”

“You don’t remember the last time?” He says, “How did it turn out for you?”

“Oh!”

You lunge at him, and you’re not really sure what your plan is, but you find yourself in his lap and your arms wrapped around his waist in effort to force him onto his side.

It’s as laughable as you think, and he confirms it with that hearty laugh that makes your chest bloom with a fuzzy warmth.

He’s immovable, and once he has a hold on your forearms, you’re done for.

A firm but gentle grasp, just enough to keep you from yanking free while you squeal and giggle and squirm on his lap.

He gives a tug on your arms until you’re face to face. His eyes narrow and a riling smirk grows on his face.

“I love you.”

He closes the gap between you with a wet, slobbering kiss, and pulls away with a smack before he lets go of your arms.

“Looks like I win.”

“That’s not fair,” You whine.

“Mm.”

He feigns his innocence with a shrug as he rests his hands on your hips.

“All is fair in Love and Hate.”

You scoff.

“I hate that.”

After a pause, your brows furrow and your smile fades.

“Do you not like talking about yourself?” You ask.

He shrugs.

“That’s too bad,” You say with a defeated, dramatic sigh, “I guess you’ll be hot and mysterious forever.”

“Hm. If I’m less mysterious, does that mean I will be less hot?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

He looks away, and takes a breath.

“I love reading,” He says.

“Yeah?”

“Ja.”

“What’s your favorite?”

He looks away, and gives something of a reserved laugh as he thinks on it.

“What?” You ask, nudging him with a grin.

“I really liked the love stories,” He says.

“Yeah?” You ask.

You find your grin growing into a full blown smile.

“Yes,” He says with a nod, “It’s stupid, but-”

He trails off, his eyes staring off at the clouds.

“What?” You ask with a laugh.

His lips fold in as he bites back a grin, dimpling his rosy cheeks.

“Äh, I - I always used to picture the girl as you.”

“Yeah?” You ask through a laugh.

He bites his lip, and nods.

“Ja.”

“That is stupid.”

While your words are harsh, your smile could not be wider. It’s obvious you don’t mean it.

“Do you want to see if they have any books?” You ask, “You could read to me?”

“If you want,” You add.

Konig leaves a featherlight kiss on your forehead.

“Yes.”

You both head back into the suite, and poke around for a bookshelf. This suite is so massive, you wouldn’t be surprised if it had its own library.

One of the walls in an office is lined with shelves, bursting with books and golden nicknacks. There’s so many books, you don’t think you’d be able to read them all in just one lifetime even if you tried.

You hop up on a desk, crossing your legs at the ankle with a gentle sway, and watch as Konig browses their book collection. Ogling his form from behind, really, mesmerized by the hypnotic push and pull of his back muscles with his movements. His fingers run over the spines, occasionally pulling a book from its place to thumb through it.

He must have found one he liked, stepping over to hand it off to you, silently waiting for your approval. He doesn’t have to wait long. You agree without even skimming it over, handing it back to him before you both make the maze-like journey back to the balcony.

You nestle between Konig’s legs, pressing your back flush to his front and resting your head on his chest. His bare arms wrap around you, hovering the book just over your lap. He reads to you like this, the deep vibration of his words on your back and his raspy voice painting a story in your head.

A love story.

And even though it’s stupid, you picture the boy as Konig.

So cozy, so warm, wrapped up in those safe, deadly arms. You rest your eyes, and let yourself melt into his hold.

Even with a hostage and a corpse waiting for you inside, and the price to pay for this rebellion just around the corner, it’s the most relaxed you’ve been since that last day in the arena. A pleased smile on your face and your thoughts replaced with the story he reads to you. Losing yourselves to another world, a world without games and kills and forced intimacy and impending execution.

At the end of the first chapter, Konig takes a break to shower you with kisses from behind. He starts with the top of your head and trails down your neck, quickening the pauses between kisses until you have no choice but to giggle and squeal, his rapid kisses and scratchy stubble too stimulating to handle.

At your pleads and insistence that it tickles, he hums in consideration through the furious kisses in rapid succession on your neck. Holding you tight in those strong arms as you try to squirm away while the book flops around in your lap.

When you’re really out of breath, he relieves you with one final, slobbering, noisy kiss before turning the page and starting a new chapter.

You settle back into his chest with a huff, and get lost in his voice, his story, the vibration of his words on your back.

He even does voices for the different characters, and after every chapter, attacks you with his kisses from behind until you’re out of breath from laughing and squeaking.

Somewhere around chapter seven, your mind starts to wander away from the book.

It’s not intentional, but Ellaine creeps into your thoughts. The sight of her restrained and gagged and trapped in a bathroom with her dead husband clear in your mind.

Oh, Ellaine.

Ellaine, Ellaine, Ellaine.

Whether or not she lives or dies, it will not change the consequence that is to come.

Your fate is sealed, you have nothing to lose.

Do you want to drag her down with you?

You do not want to think of her. You don’t want to decide her fate. You are desperate to free yourself of her so that you can go back to enjoying yourself with the love of your life.

… It’s funny, though.

Maybe you should feel bad about taking a life, about traumatizing a woman by slaughtering her husband in front of her, restraining her and forcing her to be held hostage with his fresh corpse while she knows her fate is to be decided by two unwell district kids -

But you don’t.

The detail that bothers you the most, the tricky little hang up that keeps you from feeling guilty - is that when Ellaine was begging and pleading for her life, screaming at the top of her lungs - no one came to her rescue.

If it had been you, if it had been Konig - it would not have mattered what was done to you, how much you screamed and cried for help -

It would not have come.

And then you find yourself thinking of Price.

Days after his games, forced into the bedroom against his will so soon after losing the love of his life, unable to defend himself in the face of grave consequence.

And you find yourself thinking of all the victors that have come before you. And of the twenty-two tributes who have sacrificed themselves so you could live, who very well would have been subjected to the same.

Willow and Sapphire and Eleven and Sage and The District Twelve tributes with their hollow stares -

Even Titan wouldn’t deserve this.

You keep trying to put yourself in Ellaine and Pharus’ shoes, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t.

You can empathize with the ignorant Capitol citizens somewhat. Because if it had been you, born in the Capitol instead of an outer district, living a prosperous life from the start, maybe you would be just as ignorant.

But you just know, deep down in your core, even if you were elite, you would have never purchased a person with the intent to have them pleasure you against their will. You would soon end another life at your own hand than do such a horrendous thing to another person. The is no level of ignorance that could possibly justify this.

Before the chapter ends, before Konig takes his kiss break, you interrupt him mid-sentence.

“Kill her.”

You ride the expand and deflate of Konig’s chest with one deep breath.

“I already did.”

You peel yourself from his front, core twisting to face him.

“You did?”

He doesn’t look worried, or scared of your reaction. His expression is even.

He nods.

“Okay,” You say.

“Okay,” He says.

He finishes out the chapter, and showers you in kisses until you’re laughing and squealing and rid of your thoughts of Ellaine.

When the end of three far-too-short hours nears, it feels as if the sun is setting over the desert quadrant.

Neither of you acknowledge the bittersweet air.

After the ninth kissing session, you sigh and lull your head dramatically on his shoulder.

“I should probably put pants on,” You groan.

“If you must.”

“I feel like I should. A girl should wear pants if she’s going to be executed.”

“Ja?”

“Ja.”

He gives that inaudible, amused laugh, the one that bounces his shoulders.

“Wanna poke around their closets?” You ask.

He gives you a kiss on the top of your head.

“Yes.”

There’s enough clothes in Ellaine and Pharus’ closet, you’re sure you could wear one outfit a day for the rest of your life and never run out of something new to wear.

Usually wearing the lavish Capitol outfits repulse you, but you find you’re actually having fun rummaging through Ellaine’s closet. Maybe because it’s in your control now. You get to pick what crazy, outlandish outfit you get to wear instead of being forced into some uncomfortable get-up against your will.

“Oh hoh hoh,” You drum up, “What about this one?”

You program the screen that controls their automatic closet. The outfit you selected whips out, a truly ridiculous thing.

You think it’s technically a bathrobe, but it’s so grand you feel it could be the dress of a princess.

A silken pink wrap with a matching belt to be tied around your waist. Adjustable, just what you need while playing dress up in someone else’s closet. The hem would drape onto the floor, but not too much, just enough to create an alluring drag behind you. Both the sleeves and the hem are lined with a soft, bushy pink fur.

Dramatic, but above all, comfortable.

Konig offers little commentary, just watches as you slip the silly thing on and secure the ribbon around your waist. You give the long, loose sleeves a shake, arms entirely swallowed by shiny silk and dancing tufts of pink fur.

You move to a mirror to get a better look at yourself in your puffy outfit.

“Can you believe these people wear this stuff? And actually - mean it?”

You twist your body in the mirror and move your arms, watching as the furry edges slink with your movements like big fuzzy caterpillars. You try to imagine Ellaine wearing such a thing around her house while she -

What do Capitol citizens even do in their freetime?

Surely not chores.

Would Ellaine wear this just to nurse a glass of wine and read a book?

These people are so strange.

When you don’t get a response, you turn to Konig with a mockery of the Capitol accent primed on your tongue, but your face falls when you see his expression.

His brows are raised and his lips are the slightest bit parted. He catches your eyes and flits his stare away, but his cheeks are almost as pink as the fur.

“Oh?” You ask, looking down at your silly outfit with a laugh, “Yeah?”

He clears his throat and shrugs.

“You just - it suits you, is all.”

“Alright. I think I’ll keep it, then. It’d be quite the execution outfit, don’t you think?”

Konig smiles.

“Now we have to find one for you,” You say.

“Ja?”

“Ja,” You say, “Unless you want to be executed shirtless.”

“Hmm.”

Konig steps over to the giant mirror and takes in his form. Giving baby flexes and staring at himself like he’s actually considering it.

“I just might.”

You wrap your silken, fuzzy sleeves around him from behind, a cheeky grin peeking around his ribcage, catching his stare in the mirror as your hands glide up and down his torso.

“I wouldn’t mind,” You say.

His eyelids lower.

“Mm. I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

You give his waist a squeeze, smushing the apple of your cheek against his side.

It was supposed to be the end of your backwards little embrace, but you find yourself lingering. Drawn into his scent and melting into the heat radiating off his muscles.

You close your eyes and take a deep, satisfied breath.

Without breaking the embrace, Konig shuffles in place to face you, and you let him, loosening your hold until you can clamp your arms back around him. His hands find your shoulders with a reassuring squeeze before smoothing down your back to hold you tight in return.

A feeling you’ve felt only a handful of times returns - stepping through the fall forest, funneled into a barbed hedge maze, an exchange of a ribbon as the sun sets over the desert.

That ominous finality.

It feels like it will be the last time you will ever hold him, and it makes your throat ache and your eyes swell with tears.

So you don’t let go.

You hold him, a tight and warm embrace, breathing in his scent. It feels as if everything, all of it - paranoia and mistrust and tokens and young love - games and kills and deaths and double suicides - has led up to this moment.

It’s long overdue, but this is where your story ends.

You don’t let go of him until the doorbell chimes its song throughout the suite. You jump, face already contorted in a wince as your wide eyes dart around Konig’s face in a silent plea for help. His hands find your shoulders, and he gives you another squeeze.

He shrugs, and it seems he will be executed shirtless.

Konig cups your trembling jaw in his hands, bends down, and presses a long, tender kiss on your lips. Gentle enough to nearly convince you that you’re made of glass.

He pulls away slowly, and intently studies your face with a ghost of a smile.

His thumb brushes along the height of your cheek before he pulls away, and you know that it’s time.

Konig keeps you behind him as you make way to the foyer. He creeps open the door, and the peacekeepers are quick to surround you as you step from the crime scene and into the hallway. You prime yourself to be handcuffed, picking up your arms to display your wrists in surrender.

And nothing happens.

Without really giving it much thought, you just assumed as soon as the time was up, they’d somehow know you killed Ellaine and Pharus. As if the peacekeepers would bother to stick around and check on them, to make sure you both lived up to expectation.

But they don’t.

They just escort you from the suite and march you down to the armored car.

You had not accounted for this.

In your head, your fate was cemented. You knew where you would be killed, when, and at whose hand.

This delay has flooded your oasis with uncertainty.

It’s coming, you know that. The President will absolutely be checking in with them for a full report, and have someone check on them after radio silence.

But when?

The countdown is ticking, and you no longer know when it will expire. You almost wish the peacekeepers would have put the bullet in your head as soon as time was up, because you know waiting for the other shoe to drop is going to be incredibly agonizing.

While you look more than guilty, fists clenched and sweating from every pore, your saving grace is that everyone thinks you just endured an evening of being forced into intimacy for the first time. Surely anyone would think that’s the reason you’re acting strange.

Konig, on the other hand, looks unfazed. Standing tall with his bare shoulders back, his eyes half-lidded with indifference. His hold on you is still tight, though.

Only the echo of commanding boots and almost comical slaps of slippers fill the silence as you’re both escorted back to the suite. You didn’t want to be executed in heels, you decided, but Ellaine’s feet must have been huge. Your feet have to cling to the slippers to keep them from falling off while her ridiculous bathrobe drags behind you.

Price is waiting for you on your return, buried in papers spread over the dining table. He sighs loud enough you can hear it from the elevators, and without looking up, he waves a dismissive hand to relieve the peacekeepers.

“You two - Go change and get cleaned up. C’mere when you’re done.”

You follow his order without pushback, abandoning Ellaine’s robe for something just as comfortable, but nowhere near as fancy, and replace the underwear Konig destroyed in the throes of passion.

Ruby practically runs over to you both on your return.

“Oh, my victors! I missed you!”

She gives you a kiss on the cheek, and has to beckon Konig to lean down so she can do the same to him.

“Your very first dinner party! How did it go?!”

“Ruby!” Price barks from across the room, “Let them breathe.”

Ruby clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes at you both.

“Nevermind him. He has been in such a mood,” She waves a limp hand in your direction, “You’d think having not only the first victor of his career, but the second as well - he’d find time to unsour that attitude.”

You just give her an uneasy nod. Price ignores her jab and pointed glare, and instead makes a sharp, one-note whistle to beckon you both.

Price doesn’t acknowledge you right away. He’s focused on his paper with tense shoulders as you stand at attention before him, the scratch of ink dragging across the page the only sound filling this stale room.

It feels like you’re in trouble.

He must know.

Somehow, somehow he figured out what you’ve done, and he’s about to lose it on you both.

You glance at Konig, who meets your stare from the corner of his eyes. His brow perks and a sly, knowing smile tugs on the corner of his lips.

“Are you hurt?” Price finally asks without looking up.

“Huh?”

“Are you hurt?” He repeats, “Did they hurt you?”

“Oh,” You say, “No.”

“Romeo?”

“No.”

When Price looks up he gives you a quick scan, and his face hardens when he locks onto your neck.

Your hand springs up to touch the spot he’s scorching with his stare.

Blood? Is there blood there?

The jig is up, caught, busted.

He knows.

Price’s bruised eye twitches and he turns his head to snap in Ruby’s direction.

“Take her down to medical. Get those fucking marks off‘er neck.”

Oh.

Konig’s strawberry kisses.

“Its so late, John, at least let her-“

You flinch when Price slams his fist on the table, stationery hopping on the tabletop and clattering on their descent.

“Just do it!” He shouts.

Ruby flinches, her hand springing up to her collarbones. She stammers for a moment before swallowing whatever words she had in mind, clears her throat, and looks to you.

“Come on, dear.”

Ruby coaxes you down the stairs with a gentle wave, her hand resting on your shoulder to guide you along.

You shoot a look back to Price, who’s staring at the table with a hand covering his jaw. You wonder if you should just tell him they were marks Konig left behind, but your instincts don’t let you. You deem it to be too incriminating. Like if he knew Konig was the one leaving strawberry kisses on your skin instead of Capitol buyers, he would somehow jump to the conclusion that you committed a double homicide.

You can’t figure out how he would make the connection, but you go with your gut regardless of the potential to relieve his distress. It seems too risky.

Price is rather intuitive.

Konig accompanies you down to medical, obviously, and strangely, Ruby correctly assumes that Konig is the one who left the marks. There’s no one in the halls, but she still leans in and speaks low as you walk to avoid embarrassing you.

“Y’know, it’s not very proper for a young lady to be parading around with love marks on her skin.”

She looks over you to tilt her head at Konig.

“Maybe more discreet next time?”

If you hadn’t just killed two people, maybe you’d find it annoying that Ruby’s so worried about your modesty. How much modesty is left to preserve when you and Konig have not only been intimate in front of all of Panem, but just hours ago you were two murders away from being victims of forced prostitution?

In medical, some foul smelling concoction is smeared on your neck, and you’re both sent to bed almost as soon as you’ve returned to the suite.

Konig isn’t as upset at having to sleep in separate rooms tonight. At his door, he pulls you into his front and slings his arm around the back of your waist. He tips your upper half backwards, leans down, and presses his lips to yours. This one’s neat - precise and firm and unable to be ignored.

He keeps you pinned to his chest in his suggestive hold and studies you with crinkled eyes and a pleased grin.

“See you tomorrow, mein sieger.”

You swallow and give a faint nod.

“I hope so,” You whisper back.

Getting to sleep is no easy feat. You keep waiting for the peacekeepers to barge into your bedroom and have you drug away to be executed in front of the whole country for your crimes.

But they don’t come, and the arms of rest eventually become too tempting to resist.

You sleep in your quarters.

Willow and Sapphire sit at the foot of your bed, their knees folded and their legs just to the sides of them. You’re feet from them, but it looks and sounds like you’re underwater. The words they’re speaking aren’t making sense, but their faces are relaxed and they wear smiles. Occasionally one of them will burst into a fit of laughter.

You feel so at ease, so peaceful. You find yourself entranced by Willow’s nimble fingers as she braids Sapphire’s hair.

All three of you flinch at the bang, and whip your heads around to catch the door splintering into a thousand shards. The warmth in your chest ices over as Konig’s menacing form steps through the rubble.

You try to look back to Willow and Sapphire for help, but Willow’s been flayed and Sapphire’s only got an empty, bloody socket for an eye.

Willow’s skinless body lets out a haunting, guttural moan, smearing blood on the covers as she crawls over to you. You try to run from outstretched hands made of only bone, but Sapphire snatches you by your bicep. She and Willow lock you in place so they can let Konig run his sword straight through your neck.

Breakfast is a lot.

It becomes obvious very quickly that Ruby doesn’t know what’s going on. Not just about the murders, but about the prostitution in general. She keeps asking about how the dinner party went.

Did you have good table manners? Were you polite to the sponsors? Did you thank them for the gifts?

Price gets stiffer with each question she asks. You give polite, reserved answers when it’s clear Konig’s not interested in responding.

You try to keep your responses to a two-word maximum, terrified you might let your secret slip. The entire meal you are worried Price can somehow read your thoughts. Like your misdeeds are written on your skin in bold capital letters.

Thankfully he doesn’t look up from his plate. He’s busy picking at his meal with his fingers, hardly taking bites. Separating something from his food and tossing it roughly around his plate.

Konig doesn’t seem worried. While you can’t sit still or untense your muscles, he’s entirely relaxed next to you. His legs spread and his thigh pressed to yours, slouched in his chair to Ruby’s dismay.

You start when his free hand finds your knee.

He smooths up your thigh, delicate fingers tracing along the inseam of your pants. His touch is stirring, curious fingers exploring the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.

Konig plays it casual, his face bored, keeping his attention on his plate.

Your first urge is to swat him away -

But you don’t.

Instead you sneak panicked glances at Ruby and Price to make sure they’re oblivious to Konig’s wandering hands.

You shoot Konig a look, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. You do catch his lip twitch up in a barely-noticeable pleased grin, one you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

You don’t have the forethought to suppress the sharp breath you suck in when he squeezes.

When his fingers relieve their possessive hold on you, Konig continues to trace circles on your inner thighs.

His movements don’t waver, he continues to eat his breakfast as if he’s not feeling you up in front of an audience.

He runs out of leg, his hand sliding further down the valley of your inner thighs. His pinky lifts from the crease of your leg to graze over your front.

Your fork shakes in your hand, your lips parted to release shallow breaths. He’s just barely touching you, but his faint touch has a powerful rousing effect. A burning heat scorches your cheeks, and you can feel that familiar, thrilling wave of heat rushing to your lower abdomen.

Your fidgeting legs and twitching hips push into his touch with little thought.

You’re having trouble hiding the shake in your fingers and the look of horror on your face, but you still don’t swat him away.

“You have another dinner party tonight,” Price says gruffly.

Konig’s hand pulls away from your thighs the same time your head whips up.

“What? Tonight?”

Will you even make it that long?

At any moment, peacekeepers will barge in and take you both prisoner.

“Yeah. A sole sponsor,” He grunts, still inspecting his plate, clearly displeased with his flawless meal.

“Wha- Are we both going?”

“Mhm.”

You shoot a nervous glance to Konig, but he’s still eating his breakfast, unaffected by this news.

“Okay.”

You say it’s okay, but your voice is pitched so high it’s nowhere near believable.

“This is just marvelous,” Ruby beams, “I’m so proud of you two! How far you’ve come! And you know, these are very powerful connections to have! Who knows what kind of-”

“Ruby,” Price warns with a draw.

“Oh, what is it?” She says with an eye roll.

“Leave them alone.”

Ruby smacks her lips and shakes her head at you both with a wordless complaint.

“No, no, it’s… great,” You say, “I just - I just wish I would have known sooner. To prepare? How many more…dinner parties?”

“One day at a time,” Price sighs.

You’re starting to come to the conclusion that the reason the Capitol has been working so hard to keep you and Konig supervised at all times is to keep you from planning something disastrous.

Say, for instance, a murder in the tune of rebellion.

But Konig doesn’t need to take you somewhere private, and he doesn’t have to use his words.

In fact, he doesn’t even have to turn to face you.

His chin tilts up, and the curve of his fork rides down his bottom lip on a draw. He looks to you from the corner of his sly eyes, an eyebrow perks, and a smile grows around the prongs of his fork.

There is a moment of hesitancy - but you eventually agree with a faint nod and a harsh swallow. He thanks you with a squeeze on your thigh, and his bouncing leg knocks against yours under the table for the rest of the meal.

The silver lining of Price harboring the burden of thinking you really were forced into intimacy last night is that he can hardly say no to you. So when you and Konig ask to sit on the balcony after breakfast, Price lets you, with the one request that you keep the glass door open.

You don’t have the heart to break it to him that his attempts to keep you and Konig from planning something rebellious are useless, so you indulge him.

You and Konig cozy up on the balcony, nestling yourself between his legs and leaning back on his chest, just like you did when he read to you. His strong arms wrap around you as you ease yourself into his hold and let him plant soft kisses anywhere he can reach.

You lay like this for a while, trying to keep your focus from straying anywhere but the fresh air, the buzz of the city below, Konig’s generous kisses.

“Mein sieger,” He breathes into the crook of your neck, “Es tut mir leid-”

He kisses your shoulder, his wide, assertive hands gliding down your ribcage, your stomach, your hips.

“You got me so worked up yesterday,” He whispers, “I never made you finish.”

His hands wrap around the apex of your thighs, kneading the supple flesh beneath his fingers.

“Verzeihen Sie mir.”

His strong, rugged hands slide up your hips until he can hook under your waistband, slinking his fingers into your pants with a slow, teasing descent.

“I’ll make it up to you now? Ja?”

“Ko-”

“Shh.”

His hush, right in your ear, thickens your breaths and sends a shiver down your spine.

He flicks his head in the direction of the balcony door.

“Don’t want anyone to hear, mein seiger.”

Your thighs spread for his wandering hands, his warm, assured palms running over your bare thighs. You watch the outline of his hands through the fabric of your pants as they seek out the front of your underwear. Your breath catches at his firm, presuming hold over the entirety of you. He plants a kiss on your cheek as he massages wide circles over your panties, and keeps his face pressed to yours when he whispers his filthy nothings.

“I’m going to make you cum on my fingers. You can keep quiet, can’t you?”

“Here?” You squeak.

His free hand slinks out of your pants to run over your chest, kneading you through your shirt and brushing over your nipple with his thumb.

“Here,” He hisses.

He sneaks into your panties, gliding up and down your slit, spreading you open and lubing his fingers on the flood of arousal waiting for him. A low laugh leaves him as he plays in your slick mess.

“Did I get you wet earlier, little one?”

His question, whispered and cocky and rhetorical, hitches your breath and sends a heat of arousal straight to your lower core.

“Did you like it when I touched you with everyone watching?”

You flinch when he squeezes your chest, not painfully, but firm enough to make you suck in a breath sharper than a knife through your teeth. Your wide eyes dart to the open balcony door, dreading the moment someone walks out and catches you in the act.

“Mein unartiges Mädchen.”

Konig leaves another kiss on your cheek, as his fingers trace around your clit.

“It’s okay,” He whispers, “I will give you what you need.”

The fingers lost to your panties are teasing, light strums over your clit, an eerie contrast to the sudden drop of his next words. A warning, a reminder, a threat, and a promise - a low, dangerous growl against your cheek.

“I am what you need.”

You nod through sputtered breath, and while there is a chill frosting your spine, a desperate want to please him while at his mercy regardless of the truth - you know his statement is true.

You do need him.

You and Konig are intertwined, so tangled together at this point you might as well be one entity. Your love, your misdeeds, your victories, your deaths, your kills, your lust, your fears, your feelings.

Your very lives depend on each other.

You need him.

You’ve known it since the beginning, as much as you fought and refused and denied.

He fulfills his promise, his threat, keeping the heel of his palm flush against your front as he sinks his middle finger into you.

He huffs in approval from behind you, warm breath rolling along your flesh.

Your eyes flit to the open glass door - at any moment someone could come strutting out onto this balcony to see one of Konig’s hands stuffed down your pants, the other manhandling you like you’re his doll, and your need for him.

And maybe you should bat him away and tell him to stop to save you a level of an embarrassment you know you won’t be able to handle -

But you don’t.

“Hn-!”

“Quiet, mein sieger.”

The hand palming your breast moves to your jaw, two of his fingers brushing over your bottom lip. Obediently you open for him, letting him coax his fingers into your mouth and press them to your tongue.

You can feel him against you, aching against the slack in his lounge pants, making steady grinds against your lower back while he quickens the thrust of his fingers.

You have to resist the urge not to bite down on him as you suck on his fingers and choke down your strangled whines.

“Good girl,” He purrs, “Does it feel good?”

You give a muffled affirmation around the drool-soaked fingers in your mouth.

“Is this tight cunt still sore from taking your fucking yesterday?”

He punctuates his filthy question with a teasing swirl inside you, working you open before he begins to roughly plunge back into you.

His lips press against the dip of your shoulder and your neck. A gentle, disarming kiss before he nibbles at your skin and provokes a squeaky gasp.

“Sei doch still,” He hushes.

The flat of his tongue runs along his bite, his spit soothing the dull ache and his stubble prickly against your skin.

“Es ist okay,” He breathes, “Ich werde mich um dich kümmern.”

Konig’s finger is unrelenting, fucking into you as fast as he can without making too much noise while his massive arms bulge around you to keep you locked in place.

“Ich werde dich beschützen.”

Your carve indents into his fingers with your teeth, biting back the noises aching to leave you.

“Weil du gehörst mir.”

His voice drops to a growl, snarling against your skin.

“Für immer.”

When he sees you’re struggling to choke back your moans and whines, he allows you a break. His fingers come to a slow stop before he carefully pulls from your cunt, dragging through your arousal and up to your clit.

He keeps his cheek smushed to yours, his stubble grinding along your jaw as he rubs circles in your slick. His fingers slide from your imouth to sneak up your shirt, smearing your cool spit over your breast.

“Do you feel me?” He whispers with a drawn-out grind, “Do you feel how excited you got me, unartiges Mädchen?”

He gives you a firm tug until you’re sitting on his lap, a squeak escaping you as his tightly pressed fingers flick side to side over your clit at full speed.

“You have to be quiet,” He says, “You can handle that, can’t you?”

You can hear your own arousal as he quickly scrubs back and forth with a light hand. Maybe more accurately flicking side to side over your entire cunt, not at all precise, but effective. There’s no way he’d be able to go off course with the way his hand works all of you.

“S’too much,” You choke.

Your nails claw into his thighs, pressing yourself further into him to get away from the overwhelming, bordering on painful pleasure.

“You want me to stop? Hm?”

He scoffs when you shake your head. The arm slung over your front tenses, and your back involuntarily arches off his chest as you fight the cries and moans that sit on your tongue.

Konig’s fingers are ruthless, following your squirms and furiously swiping over your clit. Overstimulating you, daring you to make noises you have to fight with everything you have to hold back.

Your writhes against him turns his breaths huffed and only encourages the fingers seeking to ruin you.

Your teeth dig into your bottom lip, eyes pinched shut and swallowing squeaks to keep them from breaching your lips. Konig’s limbs are inescapable, blocking you in and navigating your wriggling with ease. The guiding pressure of his forearm on your middle to keep you against his chest or a firm leg hooked around yours to prevent you from closing your thighs.

Your trembling hands claw at his legs, and when you let out the start of cry he knows you won’t be able to hold back, he clamps his hand over your mouth, silencing your wail and forcing your head against his shoulder with his warm, stern palm.

“Sch, sch, sch.”

The pleasure building between your legs is so intense you’re unintentionally fighting it off.

“You’re going to cum from just my fingers? Hm?”

Your squeaks and cries are muffled by the hand that swallows the lower half of your face.

He knows very well you can’t respond to his taunts. Even without the clammy hand silencing you, you wouldn’t be able to form a coherent sentence because of his other hand.

You’re confident the sound of your own slick and his brute fingers can be heard all over the Capitol, and you’re sure at any given moment a figure will appear at the balcony door and catch you in the act.

Your fears do little to stop the return of that white hot star building in your lower core - flickering and expanding at Konig’s hand. Your entire body trembles in his hold, the struggle against your own pleasure weakening with every passing moment.

Your hands find his thighs, scratching at the cotton of his lounge pants as you brush against a grand finish.

It is intense.

Shockwaves of euphoria shoot from your core in all directions of your body. It’s for the best that Konig’s hand is muting you, because the cry that tries to escape you would have echoed through the streets below. Konig’s muscles tighten around you to keep you pressed against the strain in his paints as you stiffen and convulse in his hold.

Konig doesn’t let up through your intense finish, his fingers still swiping over your pulsing clit unforgivingly and manipulating your pleasure into something twisted. Trapped in his arms as you twitch and moan into his hand.

You tap on his thigh twice, and he takes the hint, coming to a graceful stop before he carefully slides his hand from your pants. He releases the bottom half of your face, freeing your huffs to catch your breath. His arms wrap around your stomach and tighten to keep you steady while he grinds on your backside.

“So gut,” He strains, “Mein gutes Mädchen.”

Your limp body is pliant to his hold, doing nothing more than pushing out heavy breaths. You melt into his whim, letting him keep you still with firm hands on your hips while he rubs against you through his sweatpants.

“I thought about you all night,” He whispers in your ear, “So pretty on my cock yesterday.”

His grinds quickly turn desperate.

“You feel so good. Ich kann nicht anders.”

His pants are nothing short of erotic, heavy in your ear and cut short with each rut against you. Snatched up in his hold and letting him slobber over your neck while you bask in the bliss he wrought.

His fingers tighten into your hips, and he has to stifle his groan with your shoulder.

“Ich bin dein,” He breathes, “Ich- Ich werde Euch dienen.”

Konig sputters through clenched teeth behind you, his hips spasming and his arms constricting around your ribcage so tight he’s making it hard to breathe.

He untenses after a few seconds, still except for the chest that presses into your back with each of his huffy, gravelly breaths. His hold loosens and he slumps his upper half on you, burying his burning face into your neck with a whine.

You rub the top of his thigh and turn your head, his hair tickling your nose as you plant a kiss on the side of his head.

“Did you make a mess?” You tease.

He whines again, squeezes you around your middle, and nods shamefully against your neck.

His apology is so quiet it’s barely audible.

“I’m sorry.”

“Awh. S’okay. You’re still my good boy.”

“I love you,” He whispers breathlessly, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

You trace soothing circles on his thigh while you lean on each other, cooling off and enjoying that relaxing feeling that comes after finish.

Once his breathing has evened and his face drains its flush, you both wander back into the suite, avoiding making eye contact with anyone.

You return to the balcony with clean underwear. Konig lays back, and you follow suit, worming your way into the crevice between the cushions and his side.

You rest your head on his shoulder and a palm on his chest, riding the billow of his ribcage. You melt into each other like this, bodies conforming to one another as you bask in the day.

“I thought about your little game,” He says after a bout of silence, “About what I love and what I hate.”

He gives a proud smile, and adds, “Just for you.”

“Oh?” You say with a curious perk of your brow, “What do you love?”

“I love you,” He says.

A finger comes up to poke your nose, and before you can object to his unsatisfactory answer, he delivers what you were promised.

“And the stars. And bird song and jam.”

“Jam?” You ask with a smile.

“Elderberry, preferably,” He says, “But strawberry will do.”

He smiles, and plants a kiss on your forehead.

“And what do you hate?” You ask.

“I hate,” He draws, “That I’ve never had a pair of shoes that fit until I came here. I hate that this world has put you in danger. And I have never, ever hated someone more than that boy from District Two.”

Konig’s hands tighten into fists.

“It scares me,” He says, “How much I hate him.”

You just nod, and ignore the return of that uneasy feeling needling at you.

“So,” He starts, a fist untensing to delicately brush a strand of hair behind your ear, “Am I less hot now that I’m less mysterious?”

“Hmm. Let me see.”

You squint one eye and reach up to cup his face. He lets you guide him, tilting his jaw side to side while you hum and hah throughout your mock evaluation.

“It’s as I suspected,” You confirm with a sensible nod, “Still hot.”

“Gott sei Dank.”

You and Konig cuddle on the balcony, dozing on and off for the rest of the morning, catching up on the rest you missed out on last night. Plenty of kisses and sweet nothings are exchanged on breaches in wake.

Occasionally either Ruby or Price will pop their heads out to check on you and make sure you’re not up to no good.

But of course, you are.

Lunch is uneventful, and before you know it, you’re shipped back to the prep team to get ready for round two.

Tonight’s color is a deep red, a color that immediately reminds you of blood - so much so you get a whiff of a coppery tang. While your gruesome crimson is softened with more lace and frills, Konig’s silky button down is a solid deep red and offers little to distract from the bloodshed.

And this time, when you and Konig meet eyes in the dressing room, you share a smile.

Faint but unmistakable.

——————————-