heaven knows, chanel & beck.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

Someone get me out of the sun.

Morning rays beat down on the back of my neck, hot and insistent, making my head pound more than it already had been. The barista had been sweet, brought me a little steel bell of warmed milk to put in my coffee, but I promptly ignored it and just dumped five packets of sugar in my mug and called it a day. I wrap slender, cold fingers around the ceramic like it's a lifeline, my thumb tracing the brim methodically, absently, insistently. I don't even notice when I bring my other hand up to my mouth, pressing my thumbnail between my two center teeth, neurosis on autopilot.

I'm supposed to be thinking about questions to ask Beck Hailsham, am supposed to have spent last night prepping for this interview, but I still resent Hume for putting me on this story in the first place and as such I find most of my thoughts elsewhere. I'd tried to fight him on the assignment, told him I had no goddamned business writing a fluff piece romanticizing and making palatable the victors suffering in the wake of Patricia Valfierno's untimely demise at the hands of the plague that's been sweeping the population. I told him in no uncertain terms that he and I both know this was a well-orchestrated plot by the Council to cut down increasing population numbers and make sure they stayed down like the dogs they all seem to think Panem's citizens are, but he'd just stared at me a moment and rocked back in his office chair, beer belly spilling over the waistband of his pants, barely held aloft by a brown leather belt that probably reeked of tobacco as badly as his office does. I'd bet money the ugly loafers he'd kicked up on his desk stank, too.

Doesn't matter though. End result is still the same.

I'm sitting outside my favorite cafe, the one that's three blocks from my apartment and has a view of the only park worth anyone's time in the residential area. I wrote a piece about that issue a couple years ago that got a lot of traction with the sports-team moms of the Capitol, but for the most part hindsight tells me I should've known better than to try and convince the people here that trees are something worth paying attention to.

It's not hard to see Beck when he comes into view. I doubt he even notices it; I find most victors lack the self-awareness, or rather are too busy suffering under the crushing weight of their own narcissistic victim complexes, to notice the way tides part everywhere they go. The victor from Four is no different, the sidewalk of people stepping to either side of the concrete when they notice him up ahead. People across the street slow their gaits, girls in mini skirts with painted faces giggling and trying to hide their pointing.

"Beck," I say, letting my sunglasses slip half a centimeter down my nose so that he can see my eyes peeking out from behind them. I raise a hand, instead of pushing to stand, an impoliteness which I know better than to chastise myself for but do in my head anyway. Once he's successfully flagged down, "You look like hell." Rude. I fix it quickly, thinking about how Hume called me a soft touch when I told him I didn't want this piece. "Thanks for meeting me this morning."

There's a mug of black coffee waiting for him in front of his chair. I have no idea if he drinks the stuff, but no matter what, I'm still my mother's daughter.

We offer drinks to our guests.

"Long night?"

CHANEL
SATO

[ᴥ]

beck hailsham.

He presses his thumb into the valley between his bruised knuckles until the dull ache sharpens into something more bearable. He's done more damage to his hand than the brick backsplash of the hotel room he'd left behind, likely an intentional move on the part of his PR department now that he thinks about it. There's probably a paper on some intern's desk that lays him out and picks at the bones; complete with psychoanalyses of all his outbursts and a canned de-escalation script.

That poor bastard deserves a raise they'll never get.

For as long as Victors have existed there's been this effort by the Capitol to frame them as a family. It's to their benefit that they seem to stand united, a hoard of Panem's perfect darlings smiling down from propaganda posters. Hell, when he was freshly seventeen and still in the process of picking Walter's blood out from under his nails he'd bought into it too. 'Cause then all the shit he'd been through would mean something, right?

Yeah, no.

Talking to other victors is like talking to a fucking mirror, somewhere to place all those simpering sympathies they're desperate to have but can't convince themselves they deserve. It's okay that you're alive and they're not. You deserve to be here.

bullshit. bullshit. bullshit.

Informing him of Patricia's death had been a scheduled event. They'd pulled him into an empty room, frowns painted over upturned lips as they instructed him not to look toward the camera. Waverly shifted from foot to foot, nerves making the cadence of her delivery jarring. As though she were informing him they'd been out of chocolate milk at the department store and not of his old friend's death.

( "Listen, I know how much you cared for Patricia - if you need me to clear you schedule-"

"Was that all you had to tell me?"

"Beck don't compartmentalize. It's okay to be upset, you're among friends here."

"Is dinner here yet? I'm starving." )

They're still running him ragged on the sympathy circuit, though he never did find out what they did with that initial footage. This morning it's an interview with some journalist who's going to give him puppy dog eyes and extend upturned palms stained crimson with Patricia's blood in comfort. He hadn't talked to her in fucking years by the time she'd died; he's not naïve enough to think that matters.

He'll give 'em hell for her sake, at the very least.

The influx of victors from Four has made travel more bearable. People don't tend to linger as long once they recognize he's not held a headline for a few months. It's still humiliating picking through a starving crowd so he keeps his eyes on the sleek black leather of his shoes as he treks toward the café that'll hold him hostage for an hour and a half.

"Beck." She peers at him over expensive sunglasses and he decides he hates her then and there.

She doesn't rush to greet him so he drags his feet as he approaches, drawing out his last few seconds of freedom. "You look like hell." When he pulls out his chair he lets it screech across the pavement so as to drown out the next part of her greeting. "Thanks... meeting.... morning"

He sits heavy, not even posturing at politeness, "I didn't want to." There's a cup of coffee in front of him and he presses the rim to his lips with no intention of drinking. It's simply comforting to have something else between him and Chanel.

"Long night?"

He blinks slow, eyes swollen and he prays she write that it's from a hangover. His plan is to lean into the assumption and give no real answer because having no control over his emotions makes for shit lying. "Do you care?"

And he wishes he had a cigarette but Waverly had stolen his pack as she'd announced he'd be meeting with Chanel Sato for an early morning interview. She was a frustratingly efficient personal assistant. "Go on and ask the real questions, it'll be more fun for both of us."

"so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave"

♪

[🌱 kaitlin.]

He hates me on sight, but I'm used to it.

It's the sunglasses, slick black things that I like to hide behind. They're out of date, a pair that I bought half a decade ago when the shape was already last seasons rage, but Beck doesn't know I bought them in a vintage shop from a woman who really likes to add beaded fringe to her sleeves. All he sees in the embossed silver logo etched into the top left lens, and that's how I want it. They do a good job of making me look like a bigger bitch than I am, which either works in my favor with people or it doesn't, showing them the curated pieces of myself that my publicist says makes for a good image.

He can hardly blame me. His jacket might be slightly rumpled and his pants might not have a logo on the pocket, but I could recognize expensive stitching from a mile away. Ren Tanaka expects no less of her eldest daughter. As someone who started thinking about what my picture might look like on the inside cover of a book jacket before she could even read all the words inside I'd bet a good chunk of money that I understand the message Beck is trying to project to the world better than he does.

I let him posture, put on the show that he thinks I'm not going to notice. The noise his chair makes grates on my ears; I can feel it in my chest, and it sets my teeth just slightly on edge.

"Do you care?"

No, but he doesn't actually want to hear that. Interesting that he seems to want me to though.

It feels like taking a note directly out of Doc's manifesto, but I take out my notebook and flip open to the spare notes I'd taken the night before. I should have done more, jotted down some questions perhaps, but instead I'd popped too many aspirin and downed them with a glass of vodka instead of water. My notebook only provides me with absent musings about Four's desperation to pop out a victor again until Beck Hailsham came along. I'd scribbled some bullshit about how before orphan boy all they had were a washed-up Kriegel and a blonde who had her spotlight stolen the second she got home. How haunting.

Unfortunately for Hume, I've never been a journalist who particularly relished in the idea of being elbow deep in someone else's privacy. If you ask him, it's probably why I'm a second rate journalist. He's probably right.

But we all need things to fill our days.

Beck wants to fill his by putting on airs, it seems. I'm probably not going to let him.

"Are you a happy drunk?" I ask him, leaning forward on my elbows. I can hear my mother scolding me for having them on the table, but I just reach into the front pocket of my button down and pull out a slim gold case instead of listening to it, flick it open until a cigarette and my packet of matches fall out. I flick the match against the side of the case and light the cigarette with the quick, deft motion of someone who's done this a million times, then slip the case back in my pocket before looking up to read Beck again. "You don't strike me as one."

CHANEL
SATO

[ᴥ]

beck hailsham.

tap. tap. tap.

The fingers on his left hand play an absent rhythm fueled by errant anxiety and nicotine withdrawal. Not that he needs the burn of smoke given this conversation has a similar unpleasantness building in his chest. It’s been about a decade since he smoked his first cigarette. One might think he’d picked up the habit in a, frankly, on-brand attempt at self destruction but the truth is more pathetic than even that. Beck had found himself curious what it was like to take a breath that actually felt like his own. Given that he sits here dressed up by other’s hands in clothes he didn’t pick out for himself, it’s still just about the only way he knows how.

He watches Chanel press the cigarette between her lips with a softer yearning.

”Are you a happy drunk?”

Laughter is torn from his throat involuntarily, loud and sudden and very quickly clamped down by grit teeth. Still he lets eyes fall to Chanel and for the first time he looks at her instead of the space above her shoulder. She leans toward him, though nowhere near close enough to crowd him he finds the attention no less suffocating. It’s wicked and wonderful, searching for any answer he wouldn’t let fall from his tongue.

”You don’t strike me as one.”

As often as Beck begs for agita, it’s rare that someone try to deliver.

His lips twitch against a grimace, forcing them both into uncomfortable silence as he observes her as an opponent this time and not some vapid Capitolite better off speaking to his last photo spread.

She looks to unravel so he ties his tongue into knots, ”Not the strangest way I’ve been asked out.” He sets the coffee she’d bought him down on the table in front of her, naming a boundary because Capitolites seem incapable of helping themselves otherwise. What does he look like in those sharp, honeyed eyes? An easy paycheck or an opportunity to feed ambition? Do those fingers seek to gouge in between the hollows of his ribs in an effort to expose the rot laid beneath or is she more interested in making him pretty and palatable? ”Not the first time it’s been an interview question, either.”

He closes his eyes against a wave of nausea, unpleasant memories have a way of taking root. At this point it’s a fucking infestation. ”If I wanted to be happy, I wouldn’t drink.” He blames poor impulse control on the answer because he certainly wasn’t intending to give her one. ”Do you often ask questions you already know the answer to or is this a special kind of intimidation tactic?” And though every inch of him begs to lean away, he props his chin on his palm and watches Chanel watch him, ”Because we don’t have to play this game. Give me a script, I’ll speak every line.”

It’s hard to ruin what’s already hollow.

So he lets them think that.

So he hopes they believe it.

"so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave"

♪

[🌱 kaitlin.]

I like him less when he laughs.

It's less of a laugh and more of a guffaw, if we're both being honest. I think it takes him as much by surprise as it takes me. Instinct makes me push my glasses back up my the bridge of my nose a half centimeter. I don't know what instinct it is in me that wants to hide from his vitality, but it wins nevertheless. I'd been looking for a reaction certainly; it's my job. I just hadn't been expecting it to be that. I guess I should have. He looks more like himself when he laughs, I suppose, and by that I mean he looks less like himself and more like the version of Beck Hailsham that the world knows. Orphan boy, graceful, beautiful, fragile creature to be pitied, thing that needs taking care of now because no one ever taught him how to take care of himself.

When Beck laughs, he looks like the boy I met in a magazine spread, and by that I mean he looks alive.

"Not the strangest way I’ve been asked out." His voice is collected, practiced. I can see him arranging himself in front of me. Cigarette smoke fills my lungs, the nicotine rushing to my brain and making me feel fizzier. "Not the first time it’s been an interview question, either.” My eyebrows lift involuntarily at that, but I don't interrupt, just level my eyes at him and let my other hand drop from under my chin. I pick up the little spoon on my saucer and knock it around in my coffee cup mostly just to watch how the sound catches up with Beck, watching the nausea rolling over him as I take a sip. "If I wanted to be happy, I wouldn’t drink. Do you often ask questions you already know the answer to or is this a special kind of intimidation tactic? Because we don’t have to play this game. Give me a script, I’ll speak every line.”

Beck surprises me with his self awareness, but I'm not sure that I want him to know that. He's not wrong, of course; when Hume gave me this assignment I knew half the reason was because he didn't want to do the damn thing himself. He's got no interest in pieces like this, stories that read like neatly arranged loaves made to look like flowers, or a perfectly sliced triangle of apple tart. I've been trained to deliver said stories, dragged my heels learning how to write Capitol preapproved, prepackaged, mainstream media since before I learned the was a world outside the Capitol to even process. I don't blame Hume; it's not the reason I got into journalism either. Both of us are also painfully aware of what pays the office electric bills. Hailsham knowing his place in our world, and subsequently suffering from a narcissistic bout of, admittedly if frustratingly well-earned nihilism makes me pause.

He flinched, and I for some reason I want to dig my heels in. If he's being honest: "tell me what makes you happy then."

And by that I mean: why are you hiding from yourself?

I go to lean back in my chair, one arm draped over the back of it while I cross my legs, but then I think better of it and shift to the edge of my seat. My head is pounding; it feels like there's a bee buzzing around in my chest, coffee and nicotine sending my blood rushing to my skull, but I try and ignore it as I shift my notebook to the side. My boot make a satisfying thudding noise against the sidewalk where I drop it before scooting forward, the back pocket of my jeans only barely still on the chair. I pull his untouched napkin towards me.

"Here," I start, and I reach out to hand him my cigarette. "Hold this for me and I'll show you mine if you tell me yours."

A demand, not a question, but I pause just the same. Maybe I'm daring him to say no. Maybe I know he won't.

CHANEL
SATO

the cafe vibes tho

[ᴥ]

beck hailsham.

"tell me what makes you happy then."

"You're annoying."

She's hellbent on honesty ; Beck offers it.

His heart beats slow and methodical, careful with the body he takes great care in resenting. Survivor's guilt that's metastasized into something far more sadistic these days. It's a common trait among his peers - he wouldn't be surprised if such neglect had a hand in Patricia's passing.

It'll certainly have a hand in his.

As far as interrogations go, this one could be better. He's cornered by the wooden paneling behind his head and the pleasant instrumental music leaking out of the cafe's open door. The scent of cooking grease and caffeine forms a pit in his stomach, the hunger is only comforting because it's a manageable pain.

Chanel is smarter than him. Not much of an accomplishment considering he only ever excelled in athletics back at The Academy. Still, it's intimidating to watch her draw conclusions in real time. Her closed lips hold thoughts hostage as she searches for the best angle with which to approach him.

He's beginning to wonder if she even cares about the fucking article at all.

"here,"

When she sets fire between his fingertips Beck is more than willing to burn.

He smiles, cruel and grateful ; be it a mistake or a white flag he brings the cigarette to his lips and takes his first breath of the morning.

When Chanel reaches across the table and his eyes snap to her movement, fear is so often the first thing he remembers to feel. He tenses, trapping her smoke within his lungs until his head is spinning and she's retreated to back her side.

Still, there's little grace to be found around a small café table on a busy street. The constant hum of life around them forces intimacy in a way an empty room wouldn't. She leans close ; he follows suit and though he cannot feel the warmth of her from this distance, he must at least acknowledge she exists. His whole world has narrowed down to this moment in time and the scent of burnt coffee, cigarette smoke, and vanilla shampoo.

"...I'll show you mine if you tell me yours."

If he's being honest, Beck hasn't been happy in a very long time. He'd found it in the crimson hues of the jungle's sky when he reached another dawn; in the shape of Sophie's mouth when she laughed at something he'd said. As far as he was concerned it was yet another lovely little thing he'd never truly had and then lost all the same.

So much of Beck's happiness can only be found within his ghosts.

Yet they call him haunted like it's a bad thing.

"Might have to get back to you on that one." An ember burns between his fingers and he looks at that instead of Chanel "Promise that when I find out, you'll be the first to know." If he sounds bitter, it's because he is. Anger is often the second thing he remembers how to feel.

This place is breathtaking. The very picture of the world he'd fought and killed to live within all those years ago. He could tell Chanel of the list of names playing on repeat in his mind that should be sitting across from her instead of him. The papers would call it cliché, a story they've heard from Beck Hailsham before. Sales wouldn't even cover the cost of production.

The nightmare he lived through means nothing anymore.

But he's still fucking stuck in it.

"See, I wasn't trying to be difficult when I offered to lie." He lies, "I'm content with misery, that's all." He remembers the napkin in her hands and curiosity festers in spite of everything.

"Haven't thought much about what makes Capitolites happy, though. Other than the obvious."

He takes another drag of her cigarette.

"so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave"

♪

[🌱 kaitlin.]

I'm annoying; "so I've heard."

He doesn't phase me, but I think he knows that and is just trying to hide. The more that he says, the less that he says, or so people always seem to think. I always find that when people are trying not to talk about something, they talk a whole lot about something else. Beck Hailsham calls me annoying, and we both know that he's right, and that it's entirely beside the point.

My hand extended, he takes the cigarette and I know that I'm right. He knows it, too.

Cigarette between his lips, we exchange familiarity and intimacy by sharing it unlike many other things in this life. Not a shared breath, but a shared something. On his exhale the smoke escapes his control, gets caught by the wide and blown right past my face and I know that we're both going to walk away smelling like each other.

"We both know you were trying to be difficult," I say to him without looking up from my hands. I'm distracted for half a second by the hangnail on my ring finger, rip it off the nail from where it's broken until there's only a jagged edge left behind. Mentally I add going to the nail salon to my never ending list of self care items I'll probably never get around to. I flick my fingers, flex the muscles, all neurosis, and swallow the taste of burnt coffee in my mouth. "It suits you though, so might as well keep it up."

I look right at him, flick my eyes up to see him through my lashes as I say it, gaze hard, only for a second.

Then I let him hide again.

Sweat beads at the base of my neck, the sun beating down on my collarbones and I desperately wish I was still asleep. Life keeps happening around me though, so I don't stop what I'm doing either now, ripped nails or not.

I can't help but make something of a fuss about it, have to get myself situated properly. My spine curls as I drop my head towards the table, hair falling around me. Emi is better at this than I am, can do it with her eyes closed and probably behind her back if I tugged on the right strings, made her feel like she had something to prove. She learned it from my mother, who tried to teach me when I was a girl, but there was little my mother could do to try and get me to sit at a table and fiddle with some spare squares of paper. Especially sitting next to her.

My sister knows how to do origami like the back of her hand though. I've seen her fold a paper crane in the blink of an eye. They come to me only with intentional recollection now, lacking the muscle memory I could have formed by folding them as a child.

"They're better with washi," I say as I accordion the paper, referring to the beautiful paper my mother used to collect. I was very rarely allowed to use it; as far as I know, the special paper is only made here in the Capitol by a few artisan creators, and even then I remember my mother having to shell out favors and promises to get her hands on a stack. The number of times I was told to respect the kami growing up and that it was only for special occasions stings in my memory every time I think about the collection of colorful ornate cranes on Emi's window ledge. "I was never much good at this as a kid, but I was bored a few years ago and decided I wanted to be better."

I'd been a bottle of bourbon deep at the time and wasted several precious sheets of kami in the process, but woke with a vengeance the next morning, desperate to remember how to fold a crane. It's been an uphill battle.

"Then with the plague that hit the districts this year," I shrug around my folding, almost finished. The napkin is a little bulky, but it makes the wings layers look sort of like a layer of feathers. "I spent a lot of time at home practicing."

That's not factually untrue. I did do that, just not because of the plague. I was under no misconception; that shit was never going to touch us here. The Capitol has its bloody fingerprints all over it. I just never much feel like leaving the comfort of my couch.

But I need him to talk about Patricia.

I push back in my chair, now draping my arm over the back of my chair. Gently, I pick up the little white crane I have folded, extend it towards him for an exchange.

"Trade."

I want my cigarette back, white flag waved.

CHANEL
SATO

[ᴥ]

beck hailsham.

Chanel does not rise to his anger, she meets it where it festers. It's not quite understanding, but it's to her credit that she doesn't try to feign that. There's nothing more unsettling than watching a Capitolite attempt empathy while looking down the bridge of their nose.

"It suits you though, so might as well keep it up."

"It's kept me alive this long, I wouldn't have stopped even if you didn't find it charming." A dry bite, more playful than meant for venom. The furrow between his brows has smoothed some, no doubt thanks to stolen nicotine coursing through his bloodstream to the tune of a rabbit's pulse.

"You collect bad habits," Surrender currently burns between his pointer finger and his middle, so idle hands have turned inward. His focus catches on the jagged edges of her nail as he flicks his head toward it. What a funny place to find common ground.

Then she looks at him like that and it's certainly only to prove that he's got nowhere to hide. Not really. He should be quite used to staring down the barrel of a loaded gun by now, but instead he feels his prosthetic clench into a fist where it sits in his lap. He yearns for the sensation of carving crescent moons into palms.

Another insult rises in his throat and floods his mouth with the bitter taste of chemicals. He knows better than to release it as something tells him she'll hear it for what it is. A plea to just fucking look away.

So instead he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, holds his breath even though there's no smoke on it, and watches. Reluctance quickly melts into rapture as Chanel works. Several times he tries to guess what she's making only for her to fold the napkin into another convoluted shape and leave him at a loss once again. It manages to occupy his thoughts so completely that some kind of childish wonder overwhelms him.

It's brief and awfully melancholy.

Hailsham is still the only place he's ever felt at home. Which is shit because it was shit, but there was a time before they knew how bad things really were. He recalls a day he'd failed a spelling test and sat in the corner of the common room for two hours in hopes that nobody would see him crying. Unfortunately his attempt at obfuscation was not as inconspicuous as he'd hoped and Juno had thrown paper airplanes at the back of his head until he turned around.

Chanel's creation wouldn't soar as well but the wings are far prettier.

"Then with the plague that hit the districts this year,"

He scoffs loudly at that but lets her finish speaking.

Then she holds out the crane and he grinds his teeth together. His hand twitches where it's come to rest on the table. He imagines putting out the cigarette on her stupid fucking bird; considers what might happen if the damn thing caught flame. Let her singe those fingertips with bitten nails, maybe that'd be enough to ward her away from trying to crawl under his skin.

A quieter part of him realizes this is kindness.

That it's okay to be treated gently, even if it's not genuine.

Blame it on the goodwill of a shared cigarette, he lets the crane take it's place. He wonders if she'll smoke it now that he's tainted it or if it was a matter of pride and possession as it so often is with Captiolites.

His hand trembles as he tries to set the crane down without ruining it. "Ah, silly me." He sets his chin on his palm and fucking beams at her, "Didn't even occur to me to worry about how our plague was affecting you." He licks his teeth and raises his brow - all cruel indulgence, "I mean taking up hobbies? Poor thing."

The staples holding together a fresh wound burst open, he blinks hard against eyes gone suddenly dry. It would be so fucking nice if he could conjure anger.

Instead there's only exhaustion, bitter and hopeless and hollow.

"We live, breathe, and die under the Council's thumb. Dunno why everyone is hellbent on pretending Patricia's death was any different."

A thrill shoots up his spine as he speaks. It's blatant treason, but Beck is in the habit of blasphemy.

"We didn't need reminding we're not invincible, they just want to gloat."

"so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave"

♪

[🌱 kaitlin.]

ello tw: she thinks about past suicidal thoughts

He's hard to ignore, I have to give him that.

I could feel his eyes on me while I folded the paper, the napkin shifting shapes under my fingertips, turning into something else. It's a strange thing for me to have someone else witness, my taking a piece of the world and transforming it into something different, but not. It's hard to describe the feeling of using the pieces of something to create something new. Beck's gaze felt hot on my cheeks, like the sun beating down on the back of my neck. "Ah, silly me," Beck uses to break the heat, a tone of cruelty that doesn't make me miss the way he tenderly hold the crane between his fingers, gentle and caring, deeply caring. The way he scoffed when I talk about the torment that wracked the districts this past year is similarly present, an indignance I can taste when I bring the cigarette to my lips and take a long drag. "Didn't even occur to me to worry about how our plague was affecting you. I mean taking up hobbies? Poor thing."

Beck even lifts his eyebrows to match, trying to get my blood boiling. I stopped caring what people like Beck think about me a long time ago though. An assignment is an assignment.

"We live, breathe, and die under the Council's thumb. Dunno why everyone is hellbent on pretending Patricia's death was any different." Beck dares to press on, moving from being callous to me to making sure I know he knows how cruel the world is, as if there's some way I could be less informed about the districts than he must be. It's almost endearing, watching him process the world through a lens I got tired of bearing years ago. It's exhausting pretending to be angry when all you are is, truly, tired. I suppose I could tell Beck that it's not doing anyone any good being a cunt about the fact that Patricia died, and the Capitol most likely could have done something to save her. If he wants to skip sympathies and blame me for a country in shambles though, that's his cruelty to bear. Not mine. "We didn't need reminding we're not invincible, they just want to gloat."

The treason in his words is obvious, if not entirely expected, which makes me want to take a deep breath and sigh but I bite the tiniest little bit of my cheek instead. It hollows my cheekbones out a little when I do that, and he'll notice if he wants to pay attention, but something tells me he's more interested in the image he has of me in his head than the woman I am in front of him. The way that Beck looks at me reminds me of all the times when I was a teenager that I thought about killing myself, the way he throws cruelty into the world. The thoughts had come from a selfish place, I can recognize with time and hindsight. When I was a girl, I thought it would have been a way of showing the world how miserable I was, how miserable they had made me. If I were to kill myself, I could show them my agony, could show them how being alive felt like being slowly flayed with a cake knife. Looking at Beck now, I understand the girl that I was just that much better, understand how I wanted to destroy any love or trust that I might have held in my hands, because it was surely the only way to say love and trust had been destroyed for me. Grinning like a wolf, Beck's mouth is full of blood when he talks. He doesn't trust a word that I say, and I shouldn't trust his either.

He does not know how he gets through his days, and so he must be sure I cannot get through mine. I swallow, level my eyes at him and don't let myself move an inch. He wants me to flinch, and I don't blame him. Too bad for him; I love to disappoint.

"Are you intimating that the Council could have done something to save Patricia Valfierno from the Rose Plague?"

I say it without pause, without hesitation, making sure I meet his eyes. I've barely shifted an inch since I took the first drag of my cigarette after getting it back from him, but it feels like he's trying to flip the world on its head and I'm barely hanging on. I can feel the nicotine hitting my head again, and I want more, but I don't want to move, barely want to breathe as I wait to see what he says. I had expected foreplay when it came to this interview, but this is something else, something much sharper. Beck Hailsham, here for the meaty bits.

Hume is going to kill me when I come to the office tomorrow with fuck all, but fuck it. He wants to rail me for random demographics on any random topic he thinks is relevant to journalism today, then I get to let Beck be a treasonous little brat instead of grieve for his dead friend. Hume thinks with the right story, we'll become the new Victor's View. As if we could ever have the reach they do. No one distributes to the districts, not without their say so. Some fluff piece about Beck and the victors grieving for Patricia might catch a few teenagers with victor-focused brain rot who write fanfiction about the tributes attention, but it isn't going to win us any awards.

So instead I'm going to stare at Beck and wonder how much of this is bark and how much of this is bite. I'm going to pretend I don't feel a vicious curiosity about a boy willing to speak treason out in the street, for all to hear.

We both know the answer to my question is yes.

I want him to say it. I dare him to.

CHANEL
SATO

[ᴥ]

beck hailsham.

Indulgence is the last thing he expected from Chanel Sato, but that only lends to the fact that he should have been paying better attention.

"Are you intimating that the Council could have done something to save Patricia Valfierno from the Rose Plague?"

She doesn't even do him the decency of feigning outrage. The question does not bite, hell, it holds all the weight of pleasant small talk. She looks to him, gaze unwavering, but Beck finds his focus caught on that fucking cigarette resting between her lips. For a brief second his expression slackens into shock and then fear before settling on something like admiration.

He's always loved the company of a loaded gun.

He can feel his pulse fluttering in his wrist, little butterfly kisses that sharpen into stinging adrenaline. His lips part under the answer they both already know but Beck hesitates to speak. If he truly wanted to die he would not spend so much of his time taunting the Reaper. No, he wants to revel in the fact that he continues to survive even with her hands wrapped around his throat. He swallows hard, choking on a laugh to ease the tension of her fingers.

He's not sure what Sato's angle is, but his silence feels a whole lot like losing so- "I'll say it as many times in as many ways as you need, Chanel." It's strange that the distance between them has become unbearable. The bustle of life around him grates on his nerves, the company of the deaf and dumb masses making it difficult to focus on the conversation they are really having. So much quieter than their already hushed voices.

Did she expect to find his beating heart in her hands, he wonders, when she woke up this morning? There's this awful hope stirring in his chest that she hadn't. That, no matter what comes of this interview, he has found out how to make himself a formidable ghost. Sure, it's wrong to hurt someone but don't the scars make for lasting memories?

The out she had offered him was halfhearted at best, offset by how fucking sweet the unspoken challenge sounds. Knuckles white and breath bated, he leans in to get a better view of her as he says, "The Council could have saved Patricia. They didn't." He exhales stale, humid air. Strange glowing eyes bore into the back of his neck. The warmth of blood crawling down his cheeks is stark in contrast to cool rain.

alive.alive.alive

In spite of it all.

To spite them all.

"If I know anything, it's what a kill looks likes." Doesn't always have to be axes in childrens' stomachs. Beck makes it a point to say horrible things. Which he might admit was a problem if they weren't also always true. He enjoys the thrill of watching the thorns wreak havoc. To those he hates, to those he loves; it doesn't matter as long as he's managed to draw blood.

He tunes out the call to return to his jungle. This is the most fun he's had in fucking years.

His eyes are almost frantic as they scan Chanel for a reaction. A small part of him, pathetic and preening, hopes that she is proud to find that he had not only given her a blade but then bared his neck. So full of buzzing impulse, he's yet to realize he's hardly even afraid of her anymore.

That's where the anger comes from, it's not exactly a well kept secret. Those who have bothered developing a tolerance to his venom know well enough that his deepest wounds are self-inflicted. He's simply never been one to worry about collateral damage. Whatever wandering ears might have caught his words are free to keep them, to do with them what they will.

No, he only cares about her. About what she will do with the life he has just set snugly within her palms. If anything, it's nice to be free of it's weight for once.

Relaxed, though maybe he shouldn't be, he laces his fingers together in front of him. And if an ending awaits him, it can't be said that he didn't fucking deserve it. He's always felt the most in control on the brink of spiraling out of it.

"I'll miss her." Aching and genuine, because he need not hide the broken heart already thumping feebly on the table between them, "She didn't lie to me after I won. Helped me more than she knew, more than I ever thanked her for."

"Too late now, I guess." Always is.

"so pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave"

♪

[🌱 kaitlin.]

It’s not hard to put on a show. I’ve known how to do it for years.
Beck breezes through treason, and as usual, it’s unsettling to watch someone care about their own life so little, live and in action. It’s just, I’ve never been any good about watching people self destruct.

Hume would choke if he heard me say that.

“That’s half the job, kid,” I can hear him say. “Let ‘em self destruct. Just make sure it's on the record.”

Beck reminding me he is a killer among a city full of culprits, fifteen feet away from a woman I recognize but definitely don’t have an interest in putting a finger on, isn’t enough to get me to crack in front of the broader crowd of strangers, but I'm human, I feel the want to shift. I want to swallow, so I adjust myself in my seat at the same time, lifting my hand up to my face to slip off the sunglasses I’ve never been able to stop using as a prop. Keeping my eyes trained on the bridge of Beck's nose, one of the sunglass lenses catches the sunlight, a streak of bright light cutting across Beck’s face as the ray gets refracted. Catching him across the eyes with it isn’t intentional, but it’s an odd, selfish comfort to see him have something besides me to react to. I can feel his eyes on me a little bit too much for my liking. After wrapping the glasses in on themselves and setting them on the table, I lean back in my chair a bit, eyes still level on his, still assessing, asking questions I know better than to say out loud.

Beck Hailsham has none of that instinct, I can see that on him clear as day. It’s in the way he leans into it, the way he indulges in the worst possible answer, because it's the most honest one. He’s right, and he knows it, and he’s not afraid to spit it in my face.

A burr in the bloodstream, it catches thinking about how I am not going to give him what he wants.

Beck’s eyes are frantic with it, much as he tries to feign nonchalance. I watch as he lets himself trace each of my movements, eyes flicking to my hands where they folded the sunglasses, my hands where they settle as I rest against the back of my chair, elbow now propped over the lattice design. I watch his gaze trace my now fully exposed features greedily, foolishly, selfishly. It’s as though he wants me to seethe with it too, this rage that he hasn’t got a tamper on in the slightest; bright as the sun, he’s all flame and no control. Even now, he mirrors my body language, tries to cool his expression, as if he isn’t a chemical reaction set free from its glass tube.

Back and away from me, he pretends to lean comfortably in his chair, learning how to dance around me without grace. It stings a little to do, but I’m not going to help him. I’m going to use the weakness he exposed against him.

Call it an assignment, call me a cunt, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Think it’d make you happy if the Council heard you say that?” I don’t mean about the platitudes, earnest as they are, and he knows it. He’s proved he’s smart enough to at least figure out he was falling behind, to figure out he wasn’t actually in charge of this conversation and try to take the reins. I’m fairly certain he’ll know what I meant.

He will.

“After all, your words more or less: there’s always something to be said for honesty.”

Borderline treason, and this time it’s my offense. Not the first time, and not the last. I let that hang for a second that feels like days, my eyes asking more questions that I don't have the right to hear answered. 

CHANEL
SATO