a tale of two faces ⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊ andal, 95th - day 6.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

His tryst with Flynn hadn’t been reported.

That, or Sandow didn’t bother. As the procession of games days pass them marching on, the tension has been all but rising in tow, thick and charged amongst the air, nearly electric and wholly humid, the mottled texture of a brewing storm. Everyone seems on razor-edge, district officials amassing behind whatever tribute they have left to root for and marshaling their forces together, all as they, the victors, hound after new sponsor deals.

He has shaken hands with what feels close to a thousand strangers, done countless interviews, been in nearly three places at once, but it doesn’t feel nearly enough. Not even close.

Saffron and Mace are husks of their former selves, glued to the screen whenever Emerson comes on or torn up when he doesn’t, and there is not much he can do to ease their worry except smile, preen, and charm others on their behalf.

There are some days where he wishes he could be the one fighting instead of his tributes, wishes he could be the one to stand in their place. Some sort of inverted savior complex, he wishes he could spare them from the act of murder and let him be the one to do it, or to soak up the guilt as his own. He already has so much of it, so what would some more do? If he could, he would let himself take Emerson’s place like the wolf had taken his own. The blood on him won’t matter, not if it doesn’t stain another innocent soul.

“Mr. Searley,” Sandow says at the beginning of day six, entering his quarters right as he is dressing for another lunch. He looks up to stare at his caretaker in the mirror: a slender, bird-boned man, forever garbed like he had to attend an event at any moment, which is partly true.

The other affixed him a look through the reflection. “We have discussed a strategy to boost our sponsor — something to pull the capitol’s interest towards us once again.”

He doesn’t enjoy the sound of that, not when pulling interest usually comes at his own detriment. But as Emerson’s face materializes once again in his head, Andal draws his shoulders taut one moment and releases the bowstring tension in them with a sigh the next. “What’s the deal? Another low-neck shirt? The leather pants again?” He winces a little at that. Please, not the leather pants again.

“No,” Sandow says. “It’s a tad more drastic than that. Mr. Searley, I’d like you to meet someone who was previously taking care of you. Jhin, sir, please come in.”

The door opens again.

The person that enters next is someone he sees second and smells first: a spine-chillingly familiar scent of roses and perfume in an incongruous mix with antiseptic and other chemicals. The metallic sheen of the mask covering his head completes Andal’s horror.

He had seen this person, felt his touches upon the very contours and seams of his face.

His chest almost immediately swells beyond its normal size as every hair on his skin stands on their ends. If Sandow hadn’t drawn closer to him in a wide stride, it- it wouldn’t have been pretty, that’s for certain.

“What,” Andal says through gnashed teeth, head and heart already racing, “is he doing here?”

Sandow’s hand finds its way on his shoulder. It is a cool respite from the burning heat now coiling around his ribcage. “Jhin is here to return your face, Mr. Searley. We have discussed it extensively with him, and he assured us that it will be a quick, painless procedure.”

The masked figure made a throaty sound, as if to disagree. “It will be a quick procedure,” he said from behind the metal, each word like the creak of oiled gears. “I only need to undo all my stitches and you should be back to normal, Mr. Searley, all in the due course of a long nap.”

His head swirls. He tastes cotton at the back of his throat, but a quick clearing of it returns him his ability to speak. “My face?” Andal wonders aloud. “The … the real one?”

“Yes,” Jhin intones. In the gaps he has for eyes, there are twin wicked gleams. “Your beautiful face, unscarred and returned to its former glory.”

“What would it do? For the,” a gulp, “for the sponsors.”

“You’d be the talk of the town again,” Sandow answers. “We’ll set up more photo ops, call in some more interviews, color the whole thing as what District Ten victors do: fight for what they have lost. You haven’t been sighted in public since you came here, so now would be our opportune moment. We can crush the opponents’ sponsor chances.”

The word ‘crush’ ricochets between the soft bases of his eardrums. And the word ‘unscarred’, of course. A chance to look at the mirror unhaunted again. To see familiarity instead of anomaly. To be, to an extent, whole and patched again.

His shoulders sag. Somewhere, far in the reaches of his thoughts, is the question of what Flynn would think, but burning at the forefront is a chance to become his old self once more. He could feel his desire, his own want for it. He has already dreamt of his own true reflection for the longest time.

“Fine,” Andal concedes. “But if you alter even a single thing on my face again, I’ll tear yours off.”

Jhin releases a sharp laugh at that. “You’ll find that faces are numerous, Mr. Searley, and we wear many throughout our lives. I hope you do not regret having your old one back.”

________________________________________

As the drowsy gas pulls him under once more, his sleep is shot through with shards of fluorescence, memories, and dreams, mosaicked together in bright patches. He dreams he wakes up to see his own reflection in the cracked glass of a mirror: no longer a boy, but a hunkering mess of fur and teeth and claws. His eyes look back at him slitted, maddened, hungry.
________________________________________

The procedure is ruthless-quick. He awakens to the feel of cotton swathed around his face, holding it together, and an acid burn all over it like the world’s most dangerous facial. A round of pills remedies it, to an extent.

He falls asleep again.

When he wakes up, they seat him upright and peels a few patches off his face to inspect the underside. Soft, droning voices fill the antechamber. The burn subsides. After an hour or so, with utmost care, the swaths of cotton gets slowly unspooled and undone and soon, he feels the first caress of air upon his new - or rather, old - skin. His spine shivers; his whole body does. They hand him a mirror. Hands, shaking uncontrollably, slowly raise the piece of glass eye level.

And it’s like staring at a half-forgotten memory, your head quickly filling in the gaps that were once there, completing a once blurred and smudgy image. It’s like remembering something back in a flash, a full taste of the word on the tip of your tongue; it’s like a dream being deciphered and translated back to real, real, real. He touches the patch of skin on his cheek, runs a finger down the familiar crook of his nose.

His eyes start to prickle with little pinpricks behind them. Patched. Whole. Or at least, as much as he could ever be again.