bottling up a history | teddy/parson | train

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

Parson Cham

Here I am living the nightmares of my childhood. A reality of the never-ending train journey that used to torment my dreams. How life likes to really shake up my childhood, just as the carriage is doing on the tracks. I dare not look out of the window, everything is moving so fast as we pass it by. I can’t look to my left or right, the windows are far too big, but I would rather endure the travel sickness than look straight ahead from the table.

The sight of him brings the vomit up my throat.

No words have slipped from my lips as I have picked from the punnet of grapes on the centre of the table. All I hear is the rattle of the glasses over the murmurs of talk of the others in the carriage. I have nothing to say to him, all the apologising needs to come from him.

I put all the pressure into my fingertips that hold the next grape that I pull from its vine, it bursts as it is overwhelmed by the force. Juice doesn’t travel far but the frustration on my face must have reached the others as they all turn to face me. I shake my head at their stares as I chuck the squashed grape to the back of my throat.

”So I got to talk then.” My eyes do not reach Teddy’s as I trace my hand across the next fruit victim that I wish to fiddle with during this forecasted daunting conversation. A tangerine becomes my prey as I pick away at its skin. ”I never thought I would be the first one to die, y’know.” My fingers scrapes across the orange skin, small chunks pile up beside it on the table.

As soon as the orange is bare, my eyes dare to look up at him as I surrender to the smirk that has begged to be projected on my lips. ”With the way Jacob is going, his odds of ending up in the ground are far greater than the both of us put together.”

I do not allow him to respond to all that I have to say, the frustration inside of me is mellowing with each word that I allow to escape. ”I bet you are wondering why I volunteered?” I take the first bite of the orange, speaking my next words without swallowing a piece. ”Well, you don’t deserve to know.”

[Tom]

☾

A metaphorical wave of a tsunami bigger than anything he's ever seen crash down on him with the emotional weight of something worse than even the Seventy Sixth games could be.

Parson Cham. A single name is all it takes to break Teddy apart piece by piece again. To make him feel like he's no longer strong enough to carry the weight of some many. All he can do is swirl the wine in his glass and think back to when life was easier. When before the accident happened and children played childhood games like pirates, tag, and hide & seek. With just a glance to his new mentee, all he can do is feel the thud of his heartbeat and the feeling of wanting to collapse in on himself. He's promised to never show bias towards a tribute. He's promised himself that everyone deserves an equal chance, but he can't help but watch his friend pick grapes off of the vine.

Picked off like Teddy had been because of his sudden accident taking everything he knew about himself away. A silence fixated on him as he can feel the presence of Pan come up to him like a metaphorical crash with every reminder of his friend. If friend was even what he could call him anymore. Tears always threaten to come out now, but he bites the inside of his cheek and listens to his friend.

"So I got to talk then." Fingers peeling the skin off of a tangerine with a citrus smell. A too clean smell that still rises in his nose from days spent in hospitals using citrus smelling cleaners on the floors. "I never thought I would be the first one to die, y’know."

Peel after peel reminds him what truly lays over their heads. The truth of the matter that Pan could be the first of them three to die. Die. A three lettered word that he's seen time and time again, but he knows why death seems to be attached to his name. He knows what he created when his golden spear cut into Lux Pelotte and signed him up for an eternity of death. The nightmares didn't have to tell him of what his worries were. It was time for karma to truly be his downfall like the Pelotte sister had said.

"With the way Jacob is going, his odds of ending up in the ground are far greater than the both of us put together."

Their friend's name stings in the air like a reminder of Teddy's failures. All he can do is see that smirk and flinch slightly as Pan continues on peeling and speaking to him. Sipping the wine can only calm so much in Teddy.

"I bet you are wondering why I volunteered?" A bite as symbolical as the tearing away of the layers Teddy had created for his victor persona. A silence as he listens to Pan. "Well, you don’t deserve to know."

With his final words, Teddy takes a large sip of wine as he focuses on Pan. Volunteer of the eightieth hunger games. A stupid decision that was probably created because of Teddy's lack of help. Teddy's lack of being able to push himself to help Parson Cham when he needed him most because he couldn't remember his old friends. Memories are stronger than he ever knew and he was facing the reality of that truth. Placing the glass down in front of him, he gives out a sigh of something sorrow filled. Eyes closed as he thinks back onto how much he's dropped the ball in the past years.

"Don't tell me. I deserve to wallow in my failure."

Fingers tap on the board in front of him as thinks back to the days where his mother would scream and his father would create bruises that he was certain they all had saw. Or maybe they didn't, he was always careful to hide them. A silence fills him as he looks to Parson with a frown.

"You're not dead yet. Don't talk so lowly of yourself. Despite everything, I always assumed, you would have been the most likely out of all three of us to make it out of the arena when we were younger. I was too nice. Jacob was too trusting."

The echoing of crashes in his ears as he looks to his friend and smiles with pity plastered to his face. Parson had a hell of his own to face, whether he knew it or not, Teddy would support him to the best of his abilities for as long as he could. All that fire that had fallen with Zeke and Faline coming back now that someone close to him needed him at the top of his game. The best Teddy Ursa that he could be and he wouldn't give his friend any less.

"I'm sorry you know. Ran away from home years ago in a storm. Hit my head so hard in a storm that everything was lost from the past. No recollection of anything. Not until I lost everything and was taken into the games. The process was slow and I remembered bits and pieces. Some things are still fuzzy, but they are coming back to me still. I'm sorry I left you and Cub behind. It's my biggest regret."

Eyes closed as he thinks back to nights spent with dreams of them and how much he wanted to know who the two boys were.

"I'm going to help you. I'm going to be the best that I can be for you, Pan. So I don't want anything less from you."