star walking ✷ woods&theo

[Deleted]

C A P T A I N

W  O  O  D  S

"Hey man," he likes to front that he's always big and bold, but his words come out weak. 

He's missed Theo - he's really missed Theo. An aching at his core that festers in a way that makes you hate your life; he left and everything got so much worse, dude. Captain's been on his own for the majority of it, the boys are pretty much done for. Good, fuck those guys. He threw Aytac out the warehouse shortly after Theo left, and sure enough that damn rat never came back. They fought for a day until Aytac put his hands on him, digging his knuckles into the collar of his tee and Captain decked him without thinking about it. A nosebleed between the two of them; guilt set in quick, but not as quick as everyone cleared the hell out.

There was no point in following after them. Marshall's the only one he's seen or talked to since, the only one with balls to show back up after the whole scene. They'd drink or smoke and watch the games but it's not like watching EXY, there was no cheering, only a grimacing, malicious silence that hung between them every time Theo was on screen. He didn't feel right, just sitting there while one of his best guys fought through a screen for his life. It was no sport, it was death every day. 

Captain could hardly stomach the shit, watching the slow and laborious deaths of Theo's allies. 

He never killed until he was alone, and Captain respected that. Only when he had to, but it didn't make it any easier to stomach. On the seventh day, a capitolite reporter came down and sought out anyone they could find with a thread to Theo, and Captain didn't leave the warehouse after hearing about it. Marshall's dumbass spit on the camera man and got sent to the DC, so he finished the season alone. By the end of it, with Nikolas's suicide, there was no celebration. There was only him, Theodore, standing amidst it all while he, Captain, watched alone in the dark.

It was one long week after that, spent wasted one way or another waiting for the time to finally end. Man, I'm going to see you again - he wondered if he was still pissed. At Captain, at the boys, at the situation; he wouldn't blame him if they didn't speak again. And he wondered if they ever overthought each other at the same time, if Theo overthought about him at all. It seems the entire time all Captain could do was question himself, if he was ever good enough. 

But all he could do now was be present. The time of the train station's arrival was written down and double checked a dozen times; he had to be there, he had to see him. It's corny to say what's left of him, but whatever version of Theo came home to him, Captain would gladly accept it. Hell, better than he did last time. Theo proved he never needed his protecting anyways, but he mulls the guilt over until he finally sees him. 

All in one piece, here we go. 

They meet outside the station, the crowd finally dispersing after Theo's ushered through by his escort and Capitolite team. There's a moment where he thinks they'll pass him up entirely before Theo's able to slow things down, buy a minute for some kind of word exchange. All he knows to say is at first is hey man, stuffing his hands in his pockets. It's cold with the distance, and Theo looks different. He can't ignore it, but he doesn't care to focus on it. There's too much for him to say and so little coming to him. 

"It's insane you're actually back," he says, "things kind of fell apart after you left but uhh," that's not his fault. That's how things should've worked out a long time ago, and they can talk it all out later. For now it's two of them and only so much time before the escort takes him away again, for however long that is. It's hard to speak, looking Theo in the eyes again. 

"I'm happy you're home, welcome back."  

[marcellus rhodes 11b arc]

God, the people of Panem are fucking annoying. Every District so far during the tour has been the same shit.

1. Arrive.
2. Be asked by someone for money
3. Tell them no.
4. They ask again.
5. I tell them no again.
6. They call me a bitch.

"I earned this shit. What did you do to end up so fuckin' poor?" I pause, awaiting an answer that begins to reside in their eyes. "Get a job, dude. It'll help out." They expect submission to their venom. But I've grown immune to the poison a snake's bite can offer. I survived the Games, and few people can say they've done the same. 

After that shit, I get scuttled off to repeat cue cards to mayors and families of the fallen. Shit didn't make sense, having the person they didn't care about come to their home and say something nice about their loved one. A little pang hit my chest when I saw Niko's sister when I got to Five. I didn't feel guilty, but it was the first family with a bit of heart to their bones. When I saw Kat, I wondered if she knew her brother had killed himself on national television. I wonder if she's mad at me for not doing such. She's such a small, brunette little thing. When the formalities ended, I was allowed to approach and talk to the families. Getting to her, I tried asking about her brother. If Niko told her he'd bring anything home. She stood there, silent. Eventually, I gave up - maybe when she's done mourning, she can remember the promises that can still be made, like trinkets, or something, from the Capitol.

In my head, I crossed out every day as it led up to Eight. Every train ride, every stop, every stage. I grew increasingly impatient for the day. The crowd was going to be louder in Eight, they tell me, which is expected. I'm the first one (excusing the 80th) in 18 years. I hadn't even been conceived yet when Shelby won her Games.

For the initial tour, I get an extra day at home. After that, we get swept away to the next district. Two days. That's what the schedule says, at least - but fuck their plans, man. I needed to see Woods. It didn't matter what schedule they had lined up for me. My momma, sure, I'll hug her. If Dad shows up, I might give him a handshake and spit in his face. Their loving welcome home was never what I wanted. I had always been welcome home. Belonging was a different story.

But Woods? Unlike Kat, I don't need to see the dude to feel somersaults in my chest. It's not a feeling I'm used to, really, but there's a longing that rooted itself in my chest. A want. A love, but a type of love that I never experienced from my parents. When the train stopped, and we had made it onto the platform, my eyes searched everywhere. This felt much different than when I last stood up in this damn place. Last time, people looked at me like I was crazy. People whispered to their neighbors in the distance, wondering why I would ever volunteer for this. But now people clammer at me. They wanted to say hello, exchange formalities, and ask if my father had returned. They'd tell me they were in my dad's classroom when attending university. "He's a great man," They all say reassuringly as if I never knew the dude. Sometimes I think it'd be better if I didn't.

It took a while for me to find him. My eyes scanned for what felt like hours, my anxiety getting higher and higher with every person that wasn't him. Had he chosen the BASE over me? Was all of this waste? Should I have let them kill me on day one?

Darkness shadows my face for a moment, riddled with doubt. This is all I fought to get home to. I begin to fear he's not here. Suppose he doesn't want me like I desire to have him back in my life - what the fuck do I do with myself? I can't imagine relying on my mother to support me. She never had as a child, I can't imagine as a televised murderer. None of it - Elm, Svetlana, Niko, Mirage, Dorothy - none of their lives would be worth it anymore. And that shit is more horrifying than I originally thought it could be. Fuck, man, I start pleading internally as the escort begins to make us move, parting the sea of citizens, some of them seeing a Victor come home for the first time in their lives.

Where are you, dude? I need you. Please. I feel a well building itself in the back of my eyes. But I can't let it flow, no, not yet. If anything, I can save the tears for my momma - she'd be confused, we've only cried for each other once, but she at least wouldn't say shit. Which is probably best for the first time I see her, anyway. It's hard to avoid the race of thoughts. This is all that was expected when I got home. Woods, and nobody else. I don't need the mayor's fucking dinner. I don't need to be shown the house in the village.

I need him.

Please, man. Please don't abandon me.

I need you, dude. I need you.

I can't do this alone - I don't want to do this fucking shit alone anymore I -

my head whips around as the shape of his face, nose, and lips are silhouetted in my mind and appear in front of me. His body is the shape of the home I've grown so foreign to within the time of two weeks. Seeing it reignites a flame, the fireplace of my lungs providing hearth for the family it's been searching for. Seeing Woods' body is enough to send my feet to a full stop as I turn to face the dude. It takes everything to not run. But I can't. This, here, in the public eye, I've gotta hold up still. I'm still a punk, or that's what they see, and I can't let them see otherwise yet.

It takes a moment to break myself off the escort's arm. A piercing glare at the man is the key, unlocking me from his grip to make it to Captain. There's a beat of silence as we look at each other. There's so much static between us - but this static is unlike the currents streaked in the arena sky. This electric current bounces off of us erratically. It goes from lip to lip, hand to hand, chest to chest, begging for the magnetization that it creates to fulfill itself.

"Hey man," Woods begins, his words falling out like teeth. Loose, holding on by a thread. I can hear that he hurts. Maybe he did miss me. His hands fill the pockets, and the static I felt between us begins to disrupt. "It's insane you're actually back," and you're fuckin' telling me, man- "things kind of fell apart after you left but uhh," what does that pause mean? Is Aytac dead? Did he beat his ass up before I could get to it? Is he about to drop my ass? I begin to roll through the rollex of situations that's built up in my head. There's a lot. From the moment I left on the train, from being brought out of the arena, from sitting on that stage with that gay ass interviewer- Woods' was all I could think about.

"I'm happy you're home, welcome back." They connect their eyes again. There's a beat, two, three. And then whatever magnetic, electric spell kept the two from separating immediately breaks. Snaps in half as my arms rush out under Woods arms, his wrapping above my shoulders. And we hold each other, which is the biggest flare of our sorrow for the past two weeks. It disintegrates every ember in my mind that warms the idea of Woods not wanting anything to ever do with me again.

We aren't huggers, normally. We keep our distance. The physical presence of each other on the couch back in the BASE was all we used to need. But all we need is to be reminded that this is all real. My arms and my crown, his arms and his face in the nook of my neck present our love for each other in a foreign concept. Our bodies, and our breathing, intertwine like whicker baskets. My breath flutters like the petals once used to in the arena - my chest rushes like its' shallow streams. My heart feels like the bass of the arena felt when Dorothy died. The cannon of death, but now, all of those deaths had turned into cannon fodder for a different explosive device.

Our bodies felt connected, providing the homeless hearts with a home.

"I-" it's weird, not being able to bark out words smoother than silk, but I don't know what to say. I don't know how to process this. All that I can feel and smell is his warm embrace. It's something different than my fathers' when I was younger. When my father hugged me as a boy, it was soft, like holding hands or running fingers through hair. This was an intense hug. It holds the weight of twenty three bodies and the fear that I would be one of them. I want to talk, I should, there's so much that could be said to him.

But I stay there, wrapped, enjoying the smell of oakmoss, cigarette, musk - the coordinated smells that turn Woods into a man that I need so goddamn much in my life now. This was so much more different than the two boys on the field. When our feet would touch under the table, somehow, that was all the touch we needed to know the appreciation we felt. That simple touch is not enough anymore in this moment. He is a rock, a hold, a clamp onto my life that god forbid I ever lose it.

"I missed you too." I never missed much in my life. I only ever searched, and this embrace is what seventeen years of searching feels like when it's found. "I'm sorry that I did that to you-" whispers fall into the nook of Woods' neck. Low enough for him to hear, but not the world around us. "I left you. And that was so shitty. It's not fair to you-" he never did anything for me to leave him. Had I turned into my father, turning away from the hands that supported him in everything he did? "It's not fair to us." A trembled breath escapes, once more, holding that well of tears from tipping over. My words tumble out like word vomit. I felt like I was in the Capitol's hospital again, bent over, heaving every single last component of fluid they gave to me. "And I'm sorry."

I don't apologize often because I've been trained to think that the world breeds my problems. That I never do anything wrong. But two weeks ago, I made the biggest fucking mistake of my life by abandoning him like that.

And that feeling is going to haunt me more than Niko's corpse ever would.

[Deleted]

C A P T A I N

W  O  O  D  S

It felt like they knew everything there was to know a month ago, but when Theo embraces Captain he realizes how little he knows. How uncertain it all feels, there's a moment where it feels like he knows nothing anymore. Nothing but Theo, a boy so familiar now that he doesn't think he could ever forget. At first he freezes - they've never been so open in public. They've never been so open period, not in front of the boys and especially not in front of the entire district. There's a pride that comes when he wraps his arms around Theo's waist, pulling him tighter and tighter and still not tight enough. 

He's mine, and I'm not letting go again. 

In a world like District 8, there's no excuse for being soft. Captain doesn't think his parents ever kissed in front of him, or hugged, or held hands, it all feels so unexplored. Theo is new terrain in an old body, and Captain doesn't know where it'll lead anymore, only that he isn't going anywhere. If he needs him, he will stay - and if he doesn't, he will go. He tucks his chin into his neck at first, and then his face to hide from the peering eyes behind them, the cameras now watching them both. Will they ever leave him alone? This might be life now, but it's at least better than what they had before. 

They're something District 8 hasn't seen before, but they've been here all along. In their own lawless country, out in that warehouse exchanging love letters and quick touches. Sometimes he wonders where it all started, it all felt so gradual, so natural, as easy as holding him is. Everybody in the world wants a piece of Theodore Horner, and Captain's lucky enough to have already had him all along. "No, man, no," he says in his ear as Theo apologies, again and again. 

"It's okay I promise, I don't blame you at all," especially not in this moment. There's only so much time before they pull Theo off of him, he's afraid to spend it exchanging nothing but sorrows. I'm just happy you made it back. In one piece too, they aren't always that lucky. "You left, and you came back, that's all that matters to me," he says as if he didn't watch every painstaking moment through his own regrets. He could've stepped in, he could've stepped up, but he did nothing but watch Theo take the fall. There's a dozen people he could blame, but he picks himself out of them all. 

He pulls himself back just enough to look Theo; his face may be different but Captain knows those beautiful brown eyes anywhere. 

That's him, the boy he knew, he wonders how much the arena aged him if any. How things will change from here, and they undoubtedly will. He struggles to find the words and just listens to Theo's on repeat, to us, to us, "to us, huh?" He says with a smirk, to us as if the last year hasn't been obvious enough. From where they stand in each others arms, Woods can feel both of their hearts beat. The world spins around them as if they're the axis, Theo the center of the solar system now, Captain still tries to hide his face from the cameras. They're look at them- at us. 

"It'll just be us two for a while now, once they let you go at least," since Marshall got himself locked up and the other fuckers vanished after one broken nose. Reap what you sow, once they take Theo off to finish the tour of 8, Captain'll be alone for it all. The more he thought of it, the more life as a victor seemed kind of shit. No privacy, no agenda, no say, "do you know when you're free to go home? To the warehouse or the village, where ever you want to go I'll follow." For a second he pictures them running off now, making it back to their own little escape out in the corner of the district, but they'll never make it.

Theo's the victor, Captain's just some boy. They'd stop him before they even made it out the train station, but he can dream, can't he?

[marcellus rhodes 11b arc]

This is embarrassing, man. I’m not a crier. Nor a hugger, nor a kisser - any of that shit really. But I’ve also never been a winner. So it’s about damn time I break down one of those walls for Woods. He deserves it, after all, he’s one of the toughest dudes I’ve ever met. It’s fucked up that I left him out in the dust like that. All to impress the boys, who aren’t even in the picture anymore.

So what the fuck did I do all of that for?

My mind is still tense, despite my body falling deeper into Woods as he wrapped his arms around my waist. It’s a comfort that’s different than a kiss on the forehead from Mom. It’s a belonging, a reality that I never knew. I still don’t, but as I feel the warmth of his breath on my neck and his whispers of reassurance in my ear, it begins to piece itself together. Like the pieces of an old ceramic vase that had broken. He whispers that it’s okay. ”No, man, no” and as my body relaxes my arms still feel tight around him. I don’t want to let go, god damn it, I can’t let go. A breathe, rattled like the last few breaths of Niko in the arena, and all Woods can tell me is that it’s okay. I want to believe him. But a part of this warm embrace brings me back to the child that feared it wasn’t okay. The one that learned his dad was gone and nothing in his world would ever be the same. That little boy watched his mom lock herself away for weeks on end, and for those weeks, he was alone.

He says that I left and came back. That’s all that matters to him. Cap’ pulls back, holding me by the shoulders and I stare into his eyes just as he stares into mine. The realization that I’m home is so fucking surreal, even if it is just for one day. I’m looking at you. I’m fucking here.

Shit, man.

to us echoes within my mind, to us, to us, to us.

This is all for us. Not my mom or dad or anyone else that’s lost any meaning with the crown and mansion. It’s for the one fucking guy that showed up for me and not Mr. Horner, as the interviewers call me. Shit’s too formal, but it’ll all be gone in a year, I hope. Cap’ smiles, a grin like the one I knew so well after we just kicked some ass on the field, breathing the words ”to us” into the world. An extra beat or two starts folding itself into my heartbeat, knowing that he’s in this just as long as I am. Cameras are pointed in our direction and Cap ain’t into the stardom, so as he tries to hide his face I move my body to shield him. We ain’t public, so it’s gonna take a minute for the dude to contort to this celebrity-like following.

"It'll just be us two for a while now, once they let you go at least," which couldn’t be any longer, which causes a ripple through my stomach knowing that I’ve still got what feels like a week left of touring. I just want to be home. My heart wobbles like Francine when she stumbled off of that damn cliff. A base of weariness burrows itself into Cap’s voice, asking about the schedule. "Do you know when you're free to go home? To the warehouse or the village, where ever you want to go I'll follow."

But I don’t want him to follow. That makes him like someone else, like the paparazzi or the girls, boys, mommas, daddies that are gonna reach out and give me tales of my father or mother or some distant fucking cousin. But he’s not somebody else. It’s Captain, my Captain, and for a while, he ran the damn ship. It ain’t my place to take that from him, though I know it’s gonna feel like it. I can’t imagine how he’s gonna feel - I hope he don’t feel useless, or weak, or like some bitch for not doing what I’ve done.

”I, uh, don’t really know man.” The thought of the tour comes back, and it’s hard to predict the Capitol after you’ve played their game. They know you’re a pawn, so your movement is to their desire. ”A week, maybe, at most?” I’m expecting to just round out at twelve and come back. But maybe they’re gonna have me go back to the Capitol for some extra press shit.

Shit, I hope not. ”I’ll be up their ass no matter what. To get back to this,” and we both know what this is. It sucks, as I realize my time will be split between the Capitol and Eight. I wish I could bring him to the Capitol sometime - but if I was annoyed by the neon hair, he’d be on edge just as quickly. ”To us, yeah, whatever that sappy shit we’re starting now.” A low laugh exits my chest. The rest of my visit in Eight would likely be a tour of the village and then being swept back to the mayor’s home for a party, just like the rest.

The good part there is that Woods could join me. I asked about it on the way, since the past few parties only involved the higher-class district members. Woods ain’t high-class, but he’s high-priority to me. Which should qualify - the party’s for me. I don’t want to force him to come though. He probably don’t wanna feel like he’s taking from my earnings or some prideful shit. But I need him there. I can’t take another ballroom dance with some random bitch sent by their daddy to try and scoop some status. If he’s there, at least he can enjoy the food like I do. Some bitch in Seven called me a pig for the way my plate was stacked. ”Hey, by the way-” I rest my weight into him. ”Would you uh, want to come to the mayor’s ball thing?” As far as I know, his closet isn’t stuffed with suits and ties, but Raul would be able to get somethin’ for him if he’s interested in coming. If I'm stuck with just Raul for another night, I think I'd lose my shit, too. ”You don’t have to if you don’t want to dude.” It’s probably expected that I ask my mom, but she’s not the one waiting for me here. ”Just figured we could get some more time before they send me to the rest of the country.”