a taste of home [andal & flynn]

[gamemaker ☢️ ivan korsch]

It doesn’t feel like a tradition anymore, not now that the Capitol have meddled with it. At least Dale’s family are getting a good cut though. Taking the victors here was supposed to be an escape, it was literally unplanned when I took Avriel the first time. Just a moment of peace for the poor guy that had a schedule rammed from District to District. Just a moment of normality with a nice greasy filling meal, away from all the cameras. Now there is a paparazzi lined up outside, I have at least bargained for just the one photo opportunity inside then OUT they go until the burgers are eaten…

But this year, I am a little uneasy about it all.

I know Andal did not make himself the monster the gamemakers concocted in the arena, every year they have their tricks. I have been assured that the anti-serum has worked well, and I have kept an eye on his previous appointments in the other Districts that were broadcast. But still, this is my home. This is one of my best friend’s businesses, I have made sure there are some measures in place. Just in case…

Slowly some of the preventative processes from the Rose Plague are being taken down in Six but I told Dale to keep the glass dividers up on the diner’s food bar. They are not just good for containing airborne diseases…It will just be me with Andal in the seated area and Dale with his family on the other side.

So now it is time to test those measures and hopefully put my anxieties to rest. We get through the formalities quickly as Andal’s entourage drops him off outside the diner. Hands shaken and snaps taken then the door shuts behind us, keeping the paparazzi out and keeping Andal in…

”It has become a tradition for me to bring the new victors to my friend’s diner for a burger, before a tour of the college.” I say, leading Andal to the newly decorated food bar where red leather and silver metal barstools await our asses. Dale’s dad has really put some money into this place. ”There is a menu suspended on the ceiling, behind the glass…” I point up to the hand written burgers, chalked on a blackboard.

Then the awkward realization hits that should have done freaking months ago, when Andal was declared a winner.

”I am sorry, you are probably so used to burgers and stuff like that being from Ten. I think the meat comes from there that serves this place…” Just so long as I don’t mention the whole werewolf thing, I might just get away with some awkwardness. ”I guess it is a taste of home…”

[gunner, d9 ₊⊹ 👹 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

As the car trundles up to the entrance of the diner teeming with cameramen, it is Chiara’s voice that first rings in his head, urging him to be suave and none of that country drawl. Capitol voice, he absently reminds himself. Refined syllables and whatnot, not full of the fields, the howdy’s and the whatcha’ doing’s.

He hasn’t seen a good field in ages. Hasn’t wandered through one barefoot, hasn’t dillydallied amongst tall bluegrass and dandelions. If he pictures fields, he sees gravestones. If he pictures grass, he sees it stained red. At this point, it’s just self-inflicted pain to picture anything beautiful because he knows it will get twisted on its head and become monstrous. Become the nightmare that he hasn’t really living through. On some days, Andal ignores it.

On others, it doesn’t let him.

He clenches his jaw resolute. Today’s gonna be a good one, damn it. Adjusting the collar of his white shirt, he looks up at his own reflection in the rearview mirror and flinches a muscle. First, it’s the wolf. Second, it’s the face they gave him as a present, as some demented act of kindness. I

f he was brave enough, he’d carve it out.

But he finds himself being weary of bravery ever since he came back.

The door opens to a galaxy of exploding stars. Camera click, and he’s on the stage back home at the very beginning, telling a joke into the mic. Camera click, and he’s with Jack in the training center as she talks to Katrina. Camera click, and Jack’s gone, Katrina’s gone, and his hands are bloody. Camera click, the arrow embedded in Chiara, camera click, darkness emerging from the lake, camera click, Izzy’s eyes, camera click, fur, camera click, claws, camera click, teeth—

He rushes into the diner, closing the door behind him with a loud slam. The sound echoes through the dimly-lit place, empty except for him, a few staff, and Flynn.

Flynn. A dip of his chin is made first as acknowledgement, then a smile follows. Surprisingly, it’s unbidden. Flynn’s gesture is appreciated, although walking up to him, the glass screen between them and the kitchen staff, is well, interesting.

Precautionary, even.

”It has become a tradition for me to bring the new victors to my friend’s diner for a burger, before a tour of the college.”

Andal nods. “Well, I am very grateful to be invited. Feels a bit like being part of a boy’s club.” He chuckles. Takes off his black coat, which consequentially reminds of the dark gloves he now wears around each hand. He flexes his fingers first, then tries his best to ignore the fact that they exist. Today’s a good day, he tells himself, sitting opposite Flynn and looking at the menu.

His eyes land naturally on the words ‘meat supreme’.

A second chuckle, dryer than he intended it to be, leaves him. He licks his lips. “No, no, it’s all—all good. I am, uh, trying out a new diet that only consists of veggies. Gotta’ watch the figure, ya’ know?” He flashes his brows, trying to convince them both of the lie. He isn’t a very good liar. Today’s a good day, today’s a good day, good, good, good.

“Soooooo, I heard you turned Eighteen,” he says with a nod.

“Must be, um, exciting.”

Andal swears he’s been to middle school dances less awkward than this.

[gamemaker ☢️ ivan korsch]

The awkwardness is already piercing through the air. With Andal being the fifth victor that I have welcomed to Six, maybe I should have perfected the script by now. Not that I ever follow the ones that the mayor, the high council rep or the Capitol officials I see once a year hand over to me. It is a perk of using an establishment that is personal to me. The college tour will be an informal one, here is where I determine a friend or foe. And the latter has yet to be encountered.

I bang on the glass divider; it vibrates across the food counter as I try to draw the attention of Dale’s family. ”The usual for me and he wants the vegetarian one…” I can see the disappointment in the chef’s eyes as he only throws one beef patty onto the grill. Damn I need to save this already. ”Don’t worry about the glass – it is just plague precaution, with Six being the epicenter and all that…”

Andal goes on to try and drive the conversation, but I feel like I should just hit my foot on the accelerator, we will either get somewhere or end up in a wreckage and well I am ready to take that chance. ”I mean it is nice to finally drop the whole baby victor thing. I think you, Talon and I are all the same age!” A victor crop from the same generation. The final year it will happen for me. The big one nine approaching next year, the official flag of adulthood in Panem. Yeah, I do not know whether to look forwards to it or hide from it. It is not like the control I have over my life will change…

I rest my elbow on the counter as the beef patty and whatever fake vegetable thing that Andal has ordered sizzle on the different grills. It is hard not to stare at the obvious elephant at the food counter. I was fortunate to leave the arena with manageable scars, even able to refuse a newly grown ear. Andal looks, well damn he looks so different to that tribute I first saw in the training center at the beginning of the games…Yeah, I am not going to ask about that. Or maybe I will. Later, though.

”I use this place as just a moment of peace, I know how overwhelming the tour can be especially at the half way mark. So, if you want to just relax for a moment, let off some steam. There are no cameras in here…” The glass windows of the diner are perfectly obscured, another upgrade the family have taken advantage of since my first date with a victor here. ”Though my friend’s dad may want to take a picture with you at the end.” I point up to the wall besides the food counter grinning, a timeline of the victors that have been welcomed here before.

"So did you pick your face, or...?"

Oh fuck!

The door is right there.

"Sorry, it is just that I am a medical academic and I am curious...We can start again if you want."

[gunner, d9 ₊⊹ 👹 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

He shoots the chef an apologetic look. To be honest, the slab of meat looks and smells delicious the instant it makes love with the hot grill, beckoning him from behind the glass. He swallows hard. His taste receptors, not yet fully normal, reach across the room and fill his tongue with phantom flavors … garlic, onions, salt, pepper, meat, rot, decay.

Andal reaches for the glass of water and empties it in a single gulp.

A muscle ticks in his jaw after. Today’s a good day, he reminds himself, pulling his thoughts together to be a whole instead of letting them break into a hundred shards. Yet, they glisten and remain mosaicked. Flynn speaks, which he's glad for, making a demure smile at his words.

“Yeah, it’s a little disorienting,” he chuckles. “I saw you on the screen and now, here you are, in flesh and bone.”

The reason he accepted Flynn’s invitation is to feel normal again. To have someone of the same age help him exhume the Andal from the before, the Andal who went to summer festivals after school, the Andal who played football and enlisted for volunteer services, the Andal who was class president and enthralled his teachers with his history reports, the Andal who lived like tomorrow was another day to be conquered. King Andal. Boy of summer, the child historian. The Andal whose smiles glowed with sunlight behind crooked teeth. The Andal who laughed.

Sitting here, he finds only the ghost of that memory and the burial site of that child. Perhaps some things couldn’t come back. Perhaps they would be forever entombed in that ghostly castle, along with Isabella and the others.

They set the burgers down between them.

His appetite is nowhere to be found.

Instead Andal folds his arms back, reclining into his clothes and into himself. If Flynn didn’t make a remark about the lack of cameras, he would have shut off completely. He eyes the area, the diner itself. It seems to hold memories he was not a part of: first kisses and celebratory dinners, heartbreaks, and love confessions. The rows of pictures on the wall does make him smile, memorabilia his soft spot.

Flynn’s next words suck the air out of the room and out of himself. His inhale is sharp, loud. He hasn’t expected the other to be that bold.

Exhaling, he finds it to be admirable.

“When I first looked into a reflection, I thought I died and had been reincarnated,” he says. “Like I was living a completely new life, but got possessed by my old one.” A wry laugh. “What a fuc—sorry, pardon—what an awful nightmare that would have been.” He picks up a fork, looks at his own enamel blue eyes in them. They are the only thing they left behind.

“They stole it. All of my scars. They stole the only things I had to show what I lived through.”

The tips of his finger tingle at that. Not the only ones, they seem to say, but there are some scars he couldn’t bear looking at quite yet.

“Sorry.” Andal sets the fork back down. Runs a hand through his ice-blonde hair to comb it back. “Um, do they, uh, do they have fries?” he says, leaning in and narrowing his eyes at Flynn inquisitively. “And milkshake.” His lips curl at that. “I’ll show you a classic District Ten combo.”

[gamemaker ☢️ ivan korsch]

Finally, the burgers are served up and a fresh jug of water divides the two plates between Andal and I. It is always a good awkwardness breaker, the moment the food arrives. The only thing talking in this moment is my stomach and my mouth is pre-occupied to be thinking about stringing together sentences. It has never been a struggle for me, the whole conversation thing. There are always words to be spoken, even if it is forced chatter about the weather or very abrupt prying questions based on another’s appearance.

My bedside manner is something I must work on though, at least the fresh victors are great dummy patients to practice on.

I stop taking obnoxiously large crunchy bites from my burger as Andal explains it all. No decision about his own reflection. No choice on the face that the rest of the world will learn to be his. It seems the Capitol has a lot of strings attached to the newest victor. What a shame. Maybe I can help him find a pair of scissors for some of the strings. It is in the unwritten guidelines of being a victor, helping each other. Especially against them.

”You can learn to live outside of their control.” I say as I drop the half-eaten cheeseburger back onto the plate. ”But they will always have a tight grip on your ankles. Though it may not be too hard to claim back what was stolen… It is easy to take advantage of them like they do us.”

In the early days, they shunned me for signing my name against the enrollment papers of the college. Then they let it go. But this past year the Capitol has used me again, like an asset that they can claim at any time. Just a face for their Rose Plague propaganda. I didn’t even have time to mourn Izzy as they had me stand in front of the cameras during the daily briefings. But there have been some advantages to it for me. The blame on District Six for the spread of the plague seems to have resided and the medicines stock in the hospitals is back to manageable levels. A bargain I pleaded for before accepting the Capitol’s work. A District’s reputation is nothing compared to Andal’s literal face being stolen but when there is a will, there is a way…

”If you ever need help with anything Andal, I am always here. The other victors are too. We are a good asset, more than just friends and faces you see once a year.”

I wipe my face with a napkin as Andal asks for more food, the burger does look a little lonely on the plate. ”Yeah they do those but not together??” I beckon to Dale’s dad, adding a new order to the tab from Andal’s request. ”Also you can curse as much as you want around me and especially in here. No need to apologies, they are in the dictionary for a reason!”

[gunner, d9 ₊⊹ 👹 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

“You can learn to live outside of their control.”

He nods gently. The impossible task at hand, however, is not escaping their control but rather earning his own back.

Months. It has been months and yet he still gnashes his teeth whenever he smells fresh meat, months and yet he still couldn’t go out on full moons. There had countless attempts, many sessions of therapy, even a few candlelight vigils, all done to put a tight leash back on his desires, his wants, his new and terrible hungers, and yet they echo in his chest. They growl and snarl and bare teeth. Sure, the antidote had taken away most of it away—the fur, the hunch, the teeth—but something inside him was altered on a cellular level and it refused to change itself back. They’ve turned you into a mutt, Elvena had said. He couldn’t deny it then and he couldn’t deny it now. Months, and he has yet to see any traces of the redemption he so desperately fought for.

Too slow. Too long, especially when the prospect of surrendering to his other desires is bound to be like relieving one’s bruised shoulders of a terrible, ever-present burden.

Andal’s eyes flit towards the window and takes in the moonlight silvering its edges. “Wonder if there were any folks who just snapped.”

He clears his throat abruptly. His sour mood is out of place here, what with the hearth glow of the ceiling lights and Flynn’s words of support, of tenderness. Andal only wishes they didn’t make him feel so ruined.

“Thank you,” even if I took Izzy’s life.

Even if I ruined your chance to get someone home.

“Maybe next year you’ll see me wearin’ a new one,” he grins. Holds back a dark chuckle. Is he going to end up as the boy who makes insanely dark jokes? Possibly.

A nod goes towards the question. “You eat together. Trust me.” Andal leans back as they bring out their order from behind the glass, golden yellow fries with oil sizzling on them and milkshakes that would deter even those with the sweetest of teeth. Picking a fry up, he dips it in the shake and raises it to toast Flynn before biting on it. Mhm. “Tastes just like home,” Andal says, smiling unbidden.

His eyes dance across the other’s victor features, trying to match them with what he’s seen on the broadcasts before. But Flynn’s hair has grown longer, his face more chiseled. The baby fat, weaned off, is now replaced by a broader jaw, a more structured look. “My mama told me that you only had one swear word a day and if you used more, you’d be taxed by the bonesman,” full country drawl, with a home-baked pastry of a smile. “I used my one word the minute I woke up.”

He reaches for a second fry, intent on performing the same ritual again. “It’s strange, ya’ know, looking at you. It’s like a game of Spot The Difference. I was, what? Thirteen the year you won?”

[gamemaker ☢️ ivan korsch]

Andal is the ninety-second victor. The ninety-second human being that has had to endure these post-games messes. I bet each one has taken it differently; my experience was definitely different to what Andal is experiencing right now. They seem to evolve over the years as the Capitol’s wants and needs of us grow too. I bet being the first victor was the worst, no support and nobody to turn to. I would have hated to be Adder Ames. And what will happen to the hundredth victor? That is if we even get one, not that I must wait a lifetime to find out. Eight years, how many will come from District Six in that time?

I gaze at Andal as thoughts wonder and a few sentences slip from his mouth about his face. I hold back on any further comments about it, it seems to be a topic that is well tread. The air turns a little lighter as the odd combination of milkshake and fries are served at the bar.

”I am not sure about this Andal!” I say as I dip one of the long, quite soggy and droopy fries into the cup of vanilla milkshake. Slowly I drop the sweetly covered potato into my mouth, expecting my gag reflex to fire up. But it doesn’t. I chew for a few seconds, trying to explore the rather bizarre flavours that are exploding in my mouth. ”I mean I don’t hate it…” I pick up another fry, contemplating the practical tomato sauce dip or going for another dive in the vanilla cup. ”I don’t think it will become one of my regular orders but so long as you are enjoying it…”

I go for the tomato sauce. Yeah, I am not trying that again…

I demolish the fries as the conversation continues, the only the other thing I dip into the milkshake cup is a straw so I can finish off the beverage. ”I think I would be in a shit tonne of debt with the bones man…” Superstition and lore have never been subjects that my parents have taught in the house. Always the scientific textbooks and the hard truth of curse words just make you sound like an idiot.

”I guess we have been the same age for two major moments in our life. Maybe we can use that to help each other in all the years that are to come.” Today is just the first day I will have in Andal and I hope it is not the last. We all have each other for as long as we live.

An obnoxious slurping sound echoes from my drink as I fail to suck the thick milk up the straw. ”I can always come to Ten and try one of your diners over there. I rarely use my travel permit, I have only ever been to the Capitol and District Four since my victory tour.”