call my sorrows by name ★ oz&celeste

[Cait]

celeste brere

I’d decided to steer clear of the weapons after a disastrous first day with the head trainers. They’d told me the right weapon would “call to me” or some magical bullshit like that, but everything I’d picked up had been too heavy, or too crass, or made my skin itch in the worst way.

Mama used to tell me I was a fighter, back when the sky would darken before 6pm and I would ask to crawl into her bed to keep the night terrors away. She told me I was so brave, and hold my hand as she walked me back to my own bed and tucked me in, singing softly until the darkness became a friend to take me into the land of the sleeping.

Right now, I feel anything but brave. There’s no trace of a fighting girl in me – hasn’t been for months now, since the moon disappeared and the sun burned too brightly – and I don’t know how to get her back.

I start to make my way towards the plant station, seeking out the faint familiarity, a small bittersweet reminder of home, until something in my peripheral snags my attention and pulls me up short.

The room isn’t crowded, so it’s easy to spot the small kid hanging out in the corner, shuffling his feet from side to side, looking like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And honestly, same.

He’s familiar, but not quite. I feel a pull towards him and let me feet change their course.

I grab a roll of bandages from the first aid station on my way over to him, wrap it loosely around my arm, and stop in front of him, looking down with soft eyes. I hold my hands out to him, full of unravelled bandages, and smile sheepishly.

“Do you want to try and help me tie these? I can’t get the pressure right.”

[doodle :)]

oz

We gotta get away and disappear
We're running out of time
The sun is low we'll go and break away
Fade into the light.

At this point, Oz just needed a break.

He fulfilled his morning ritual of trying to scale the climbing bars, only to belly-flop into the net for the hundredth time this week. Usually, he got a little farther each time. Not today. His arms felt like putty; they seemed to stretch as he clumsily grappled bar after bar, fingers straining, shoulders trembling like rippling water as he forced himself to stay aloft. But he couldn't do it.

Three bars less than yesterday. He had lain in the net for several minutes, until some trainer forced him out, letting himself feel heavy and useless for a minute. He knew, when he finally clambered out, that he couldn't do the rigorous stations. But even when he tried to study at the edible plants station, everything became muddled. His brain was sludge. The leaves blurred together. His score at the end of it looked terrible.

Not enough sleep. Not enough food or water. He was a moron to think this "Hunger Games diet" was a good idea. It was going to crush him at this rate.

Resigned with his own idiocy, he shuffled away from the station, his eyelids heavy, head and shoulders sagging forward. He needed a break. Hell, he needed a vacation. But for now, he'd settle with a break. There -- a wall...Walls were nice. Hardly anyone around...Perfect. Some fucking privacy for a change. With a deep, relieved sigh, he leaned heavily against the wall, letting his head tilt back on a limp neck, shuffling his feet for a little while as he tried to scoot himself into a position. He'd close his eyes...just for a second...

“Do you want to try and help me tie these?"

His head jerked up -- his eyes sprang open. A girl. A pretty one. Hair all shimmery with the harsh light of the training center. Talking to him?! And smiling at him!!!!!! Holy crap holy holy crap PLAY IT COOL...Holding her hands out -- well, these bandages out... "I can’t get the pressure right,” she explained.

Well, shit that would involve...touching...Touching a...Well, he'd touched Mya (a couple of times, and usually by accident), but Mya didn't count, she was his friend, and this girl was a-- What was her name, even? He knew from the reapings that she was from Eleven...A tribute. Someone who could definitely kill him, even though she didn't look as tough as the careers did. Actually looked pretty nice...But that could be a trick...But how could this be a trick? "Here, bandage my arm for me so I can fucking kill you later, NYEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHH!" That's stupid. Doesn't make sense.

And besides, a girl was basically giving him permission to touch her arm...Which was pretty cool...

"Uh -- yeah, sure," he mumbled, suddenly feeling very hot. He pointed at the bandages. "Do you mind?"

He sized up her arm -- not in a creepy way, his mom taught him not to be a creep, because he wasn't, haha, he's not creepy, why'd you think that...-- and cleared his throat. Something got stuck inside it. He wondered what it was.

"So, um...What's...What's your name?"

She definitely thinks I'm a creep...

elegant

[Cait]

celeste brere

For the record: I know how to tie a damn tourniquet.

There’s a faceless boy back home that told me I had to know the basics of self-preservation if I had any chance of surviving in his world. It’s too dangerous for you, so just look at me now. Fate seems to have a sense of humour.

Funny, how all the training in the world could still have never prepared me for this.

The boy in front of me holds no remnants of home. Maybe that’s why I’d sought out his company – anything too close to my heart feels like rubbing salt in the flesh wound that hasn’t had enough time to heal yet. He’s just a kid – scared, struggling, clueless. A lamb chosen for slaughter with no scapegoat to cushion his fall. I’d watched his Reaping and heard his name be called – Oswald Tove – wrote it down and memorised it to seek him out later.

He looks so much smaller in person.

Utterly defenceless.

He’s got no chance.

And I’m no mother – not even close – but some maternal instinct awakens inside of me, kicks into hyperdrive. I find it all too easy to ride the waves that follow.

I hold out the bandages in one hand and extend my other forearm to him. I watch closely as he mumbles to himself, concentration painted across his face as he accepts the ream. Standing this close, I can practically hear his pulse quicken in real time – can hear the gears turning in his head as he tries to figure out whether I’m an enemy or a friend.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

I’m not good with first impressions. Or second, or third ones, really. I’m too timid, always falling over my words which never land where I want them to. I try to smile when he looks at me, but it doesn’t feel quite right. The Capitol has offset my balance; I don’t know how to get it back.

But I’m willing to try.

“I’m Celeste.”

It’s probably standard etiquette to ask for his own name in return instead of assuming it, but I already know it, and it seems pointless to pretend otherwise. I swallow and try to address him like I would a friend.

“It’s nice to meet you, Oz. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

I try to tell myself that it’s just another person trying to make it through another day.

And then my gaze rests on the roll of bandages suspended between us, and my heart breaks a little more at our unfortunate reality. The truth of the moment: we will never be anything more than passing ghosts in one another’s final hours.

I speak again to stop myself from vomiting.

“You’re not supposed to tie a regular knot once you’ve sealed the wound. It’s supposed to be a half-knot and a twist… but it’s pretty hard to do on your own.”

His face twists into one of determination as he takes over from my half-finished handiwork, the cloud of a previous question mark hovering above his head starting to disappear. He’s probably a third of the way through wrapping my arm in gauze when I say the words I’ve been scared to ask anyone else ever since arriving.

“Are you scared?”

Because I’m fucking terrified.

4-8|ojZmngVEa

[doodle :)]

oz

We gotta get away and disappear
We're running out of time
The sun is low we'll go and break away
Fade into the light.

The expression on his face was so intense the muscles of his face hurt as they visibly twitched beneath the tautened skin. He hardly noticed the coarse bandages as he fumbled with them, desperate to keep his hands steady as he wrapped them round and round her arm. What he noticed was he much he noticed her. How slender her arm was, angel white, how the light draped across it so that the hair of her arms gleamed white. And then he'd have to tell himself to STOP -- and that was where the tension came from, shutting down whatever stupid part of his brain wanted to notice those things, because it's stupid and creepy to fixate on some stranger's arm for more than two seconds, and Oswald DEFINITELY TOTALLY WASN'T A CREEP and definitely totally didn't want to hyper-fixate on a stranger's arm for longer than five minutes.

"I'm Celeste." Shit. Even her name was pretty. “It’s nice to meet you, Oz. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

"Yeah, same," he snorted a little, as though she had made a joke. Tried to ignore the warm spot blooming and tingling in his chest when he noticed that she already knew his name. Sure, after the reapings were televised, anyone and their grandma could learn his name. Still. It felt nice. The warmth. How warm she was against his hands as he worked. NO, OZ, STOP IT.

Still. His mind couldn't help linger, briefly, on how being warm meant you were alive. He liked that thought. He would happily relish it and let it settle into him if he had the awareness, but instead he experienced the idea in a subconscious syllogism. Warmth was to be alive, Celeste is warm, therefore she is alive. It is good that she is alive, he decided, at that same level. He liked that she was alive.

For the first time since he left the Justice Building several days ago, Oz was touching another human being. In his little thirteen-year-old conscious mind, touch only had two available minds, one which was new to him and another that implied kinship, but because the former was new to him he tended to focus on that, partly because that was the culture he grew up in and partly because of its nature. But that weird tingly feeling in his chest was more than he dreaded it was; its meaning lay hidden beneath the pain of awkwardness. There was a connection there, a trust that had been drawn from active choice. A willingness to see the humanity within the other -- "You are not a predator, you may come near." In this world, in this situation, to become something more than a clawed animal, or a beast of prey, to actually be allowed to be seen and felt as a human being...

....And why does the tourniquet look like this, it's not supposed to look like this...

“You’re not supposed to tie a regular knot once you’ve sealed the wound."

Oz blinks, face slackening as he stares at the knot he'd tied.

"It’s supposed to be a half-knot and a twist…but it’s pretty hard to do on your own.”

"Nah nah, I got it," he mumbled quickly, leaning in, clenching his face in dogged determination. Moron! He knew that! He'd visited the first-aid station how many times by now? (Well, only once, but...) Maybe if he actually focused on the knot for a change...

"Are you scared?"

He threw his head up. His spine stiffened, immediately bracing himself for some sort of impact, an accusation. Wondering, dreading, if maybe he was right the first time -- maybe this was some sort of scheme to get him. Some sort of psychological warfare. "Even the girl that let you touch her arm thinks you're pathetic, bro." But then he noticed her face. Actually saw it -- the furrow of the brow, the way the lips parted, the distance in her eyes as they glistened. He softened.

Briefly, he glanced at the climbing bars. Thinking how he forced himself to try to get from one platform to another. For what? All it was was an exercise station. Helpful, but as necessary as stations like blade, first-aid, rationing? Not really. Yet he did it. Because when he woke up in the morning, he bolted out of bed like a scared rabbit, and all he can think about is how, in the next few days, he will be a hunted animal. How, every time he fell down from them, he could feel himself cave in a little -- not his organs, not his ribs, but just his self. How he often wondered if the others watched him. If they wanted to kill him. Eat him. Taste his blood.

He opened his mouth. His vocal chords strained with unnecessary tension. "I..."

But if he said it out loud, another person would know. If he said it out loud, the world would know that Oswald Tove was actually a coward, that his entire life up to this point was built upon fear. And then what would he be? A bug about to be crushed.

"I...I guess as much as anyone else is," he ducked his head as he said it, as though ashamed. Funny! Giving in to panic, all to make some point to himself that he wasn't a coward! "Why do you ask?" he added quickly, for no other reason than to shove the question as far away from himself as possible.

elegant