you are my sun in every season ; poppy&justice 73rd

[ᴥ]

P O P P Y .

some things never change even when they hurt

She wakes to the sour taste of stale alcohol stuck deep in her throat. The remnants of last night manifest as a sharp throbbing in her skull and an ache in her chest that feels a lot like regret. Her neck's gone stiff from being pressed against the arm of the couch she'd apparently passed out on. All is safe, the room just as she remembers save for the thin blanket now draped across her shoulders and the Victor passed out on the floor in front of her.

The mansion is a bloody mess. The carpet has already gone sticky from spilled drinks and something suspiciously chunky in the far corner. Empty pizza boxes and shattered plates carve a path from the living room to the kitchen, the windows are open and their drapes torn from their tracks. It looks like a hurricane tore through victor's village and, as her eyes come to rest on Justice's profile only peaceful because he's currently unconscious, Poppy remembers that one has just moved in.

He's not so awful like this, she muses, pulling the blanket tighter around her as she swings her legs off the couch in spite of her body's avid protest. She hopes he managed to drink enough to fend off nightmares, then at least one of them had been successful. They understand each other in all the ways that they need loud and bright and messy to drown out everything that isn't. Poppy's just smart enough to keep that to herself.

It's nice not to be alone in the aftermath, though.

That's all the sentimentality she allows herself, stepping over Justice and picking her way through the mess toward the kitchen. She makes sure her back is turned to him before she speaks, straining on her tip toes to reach for a clean mug in the very back of the cabinet, "You alive, Fray? Because you're going to help with breakfast."

[elegant]

[arx]

JUSTICE.

He groans, pressing his face to the carpet in a futile attempt to wipe the drool from his cheek without having to move his arms. "HnnNNNNnnn-n-ng?" There was supposed to be a protest in there, but his head is pounding and the carpet burn across his cheek makes him want nothing more than to curse—which is what the exclamation was meant to be originally.

He groans louder, more dramatically, as he rolls over. When he bashes his elbow against the coffee table next to him, bottles clink and he curses under his breath before curling in on himself, peering out into the kitchen as he bashes his prosthetic against the table in retaliation.

Doesn't change much. His elbow still hurts, his head is still pounding, and the table hasn't even flinched.

"What time is it?"

He's still drunk. Probably.

That's the excuse he gives when his eyes won't stop following her as she moves through the kitchen. He breathes laughter into his bicep as she stretches to reach one of the higher shelves—even on her tip toes she has to spin the mug with the tips of her fingers until the handle finally comes close enough for her to snag.

He smiles even though she isn't looking.

"Just admit it already," he says as he sits up, eyeing the bottles that still have shit in them. "You only want me for the inches."

He smirks as he finishes off two of the half-empty bottles, back-stepping when he realizes he should've grabbed more for the trash. He steps in wine on the way there; he only notices because his sock makes a horrible, sopping noise against the tile floor.

"Shit," he curses, stumbling a bit as he sets an armful of bottles down before bending to peel his sock off. He tosses it over her head and into the sink as he hops up, sitting on the counter top, pressing the back of his head against the cabinet he guessed she probably needed to get into.

"So," he grins at her. "What're you making?"

you're a sour
little boy
★

[ᴥ]

P O P P Y .

some things never change even when they hurt

She watches congealed wine crawl down the drain in sticky globs, biting the inside of her cheek in stubborn denial of a smile. He settles in her peripheries, something she wishes she wasn't so painfully aware of as she fills the coffee mug with tap-water and drains its contents twice over. She takes a couple deep breaths from in between clenched teeth and pointedly ignores the ache in her jaw from the force of which she bites down on thoughts she'll never acknowledge.

She can't cook. It's funny because that's the only skill her mother had even attempted to pass down. There's not even a hint of the woman she was before marrying Poppy's father because he was nothing if not a particular man. His wife would be nothing more than a perfectly manicured trophy with a few added features, a woman to be seen and not heard and ignored and hurt when it was convenient. Her mother had tried with all her might to teach her only daughter to be just like her - and worse Poppy knows she thinks she's doing the right thing.

Don't think about that. It's all sharp and painful, like fingers finding a forgotten bruise. "What are we making?" She corrects, finally turning to face him and finding she detests his current vantage point. All easy grin and unkempt hair, looking at her like he sees something she doesn't. This game is only fun when she's the one winning, and this doesn't feel like victory.

Rolling her eyes is surprisingly difficult given the hangover, the ground beneath her churns in protest so she braces herself on the counter beside the place his hands rest. She goes through the usual steps of swallowing pain, regulating how she breaths and finding something else to focus on.

The hands at his sides and exposed forearms, sleeves rolled up to expose little scars that are not as insignificant as they seem. Light eyes looking down at her, smug because he's placed himself in her way, given her no choice but to face him and realize she's still here this morning not because she had to be but because she chose to stay.

"I'm not your maid nor your mother," She's on her tiptoes again, lamenting that her heels are lost somewhere beneath the mess left in the living room. Try as she might to reach the cabinet he's claimed as his pillow - and she tries for long enough that she's flushed by the end of it- she can't reach it without asking him to move.

"Why are you like this?" She finishes with a hopeless laugh and without a smile.

[elegant]

[arx]

JUSTICE.

Truth be told, he hadn't really expected her to be here. See, that was what'd always happened. Before. He'd hoped maybe she wouldn't be here—that the first pleasant dream he'd had in months wouldn't actually be a bunch of garbled memories from the night before—and that he'd be able to riddle out some excuse between bottles as to why she was dancing around in his thoughts.

Instead she's dancing around his kitchen and he's gotta find a way to tell her to leave. Before he fucks it all up and starts dancing, too.

"Well why shouldn't I?" he grins despite the look on her face, despite his better judgement whispering in from the back of his mind. "Especially when you make it so entertaining."

He hops down, cursing under his breath when he has to use her arm to catch himself. He lingers a few moments longer than he should to before he pulls away, fingers on fire as he remembers just how frail she is, how many bruises she hides beneath tactfully placed collars and lace.

"Sorry."

He tries to ignore it most days. Because that's sort of what this has become—a 'most days' thing. He calls her when he's drunk, she shows up to make him look either more or less foolish than he's already being, and then he struggles to find the same blanket he covered her up with last time she spent the night because the sun in rising and the chill of morning has already drifted through the windows by the time they've stopped talking. And then nightmares ebb in and out of his consciousness and instead of seeing Atlas and Machaon in the fever dreams-

It's her. And most times he can't remember what his imagination has created and what's reality. He grins, laughs.

Because that's the point, isn't it?

"What're we making then?"

He didn't know shit about cooking. If he had to guess, the milk in his refrigerator had gone sour a week ago and he'd probably dared someone to drink it last night—and perhaps that was the smell emanating from the parlor. But, like, that's only a guess.

"I don't think I have milk."

Felt useless to pretend.

you're a sour
little boy
★

[ᴥ]

P O P P Y .

some things never change even when they hurt

If there is anything Justice Fray has in spades it is the fucking audacity. It must be hatred, the pleasant warmth spilling out of her mouth that's so easy to mistake for laughter.

He leaps off the counter, gripping her for balance and - sorry - he mumbles as though she even noticed the dull ache of his touch with how much effort it took not to lean into it. The word agitates, her temper flaring as her lips curl into a softened sneer. Lest she think better of the action, Poppy draws a line down his forearm with her pointer finger until it reaches the inside of his wrist. She squeezes just shy of gentle, "Don't be."

She'd rather be dead than pitied. The intensity of her pride could only be wrought from constant failure. Eventually, she relaxes her grip but does not let go - let him be the one to pull away if he wants. She holds his wrist below the counter's edge and thus it is out of sight and out of mind. True to her intention, she does not notice the way she counts his heartbeats.

Surveying the damage done to the kitchen makes this whole quest for breakfast seem unlikely. 'In absolute ruins' was a generous descriptor. Poppy had grown to enjoy these parties but it was still grating to watching him disguise desperation as choice. Like he wasn't just searching for something - anything - good in the midst of daydreams full of hellfire.

She should ask if he's found it yet.

There's no point in wondering why he calls and even less in asking herself why she's always answered. They're friends, or some amalgamation of it. It's not the sex or drinking that bother her but the wounds they fail to soothe. It's a pathetic little secret she'll take to the grave but she wants to save him. From himself or from the Capitol, from all the shit he doesn't deserve.

Besides, that smile of his is fucking infectious and it's nice to have something to mirror. "Can I be honest?" She grits her teeth because she rarely ever is, it's an awkward feeling. "I've got no clue what I'm doing. I'd assumed you be too smashed to be awake yet and I could order pancakes and pretend they were mine."

She pouts up at him, "But you're just so obsessed with me you went and ruined everything."

[elegant]