rain check? { emie x cordelia } JB

[k!ah]

It had been just over two weeks since I had meet her. I had gone to the party out of guilt and the desire to fix a crumbling friendship, only to be entertained by a beautiful blonde. We had spent the night locked away in one of the bedrooms, drinking and talking about things that I'd never thought I'd tell a stranger... But it had been one of the best nights of my life, and the last two weeks had been spent obsessing over it and thinking about her, thinking about how rare it was to find someone you could talk the night away with, barely noticing that the sun had started it ascent until light streamed threw drawn curtains

Her name was Emerson Le Roux, a name that was well known and intimidating- even for me and I was a girl who had spent her whole life in front of a camera, and judgemental gazes. Over the last two weeks I had run scenarios after scenario on how to approach her and ask her out. I had even approached the Le Roux mansion a few times, staring at the door, fist balled ready to knock, only to run away tail tucked between my legs. Rejection was never fun, and I was scared that the blonde beauty would shoot me down, my name lost to her.

Running a comb through my hair for the last time I stare at my reflection sternly, I was going to do it today. After the reaping I was going to ask her to dinner. I was going to wine and dine her and then I was going to kiss her goodnight, a kiss that would leave her breathless, a kiss that would have her thinking of me for the rest of the night, and then she would be the one with me on her mind. Nodding to myself I put my brush down on the vanity, before dusting my cheeks with a light coat of blush and dabbing my lops with some glossy lip balm.

My outfit was on point, my make up perfect, and I looked damn cute.

Reaching the town center my blood is taken before I am directed to my position, as I wait I take in the crowd, my eyes taking in a girl whose foundation was the wrong tone, and another whose curls were almost as tight as the stick that seemed to be wedged up her ass- she was complaining about having to stand in the sun, and how if she had to be out here much longer she might loose her prize winning pale complexion. Whilst her skin was stunning, her hair needed some serious work.

I don't pay much attention as the traditional ceremony starts, the usually speeches, the anthem, blah blah blah. It's not until the escorts hand dives into the jar that my body perks up, and I carefully watch as their lips pull back into an enthusiastic smile, the words Emerson Le Roux filled the square.

Oh.

When the formal part of the reaping concludes I wait as family members enter the justice building, most likely saying their goodbyes. I hover around the edge of the square, hands wringing nervously around one another. I had said that today was the day, and Emersons name being called didn't have to change that. After a while the stream of people slow and I find myself standing before the door, peacekeepers on each side. I must have stood there too long, one peacekeeper getting impatient, looking at me with angry eyes as he pulls open the door and demanding I announce myself or piss off.

I give him a dirty look before I enter.

"You know, I had plans to ask you to dinner tonight."

[alex 🐺]

History was repeating itself, but this time, it was Emerson in the room in the Justice Building, wringing her hands and accepting her visitors with an air of detached politeness that Mom would have gagged over. 

When they'd done this for Emmett, she'd left with tears streaming down her face (thoroughly ruining her makeup) and sought solace at the bottom of a bottle.

When it happened with Silk, she had bit her tongue ruby red because she knew, deep down, just how much they would be losing with Silk leaving. How much they'd lost when her body came home. She wished she'd said more to her sister, truth be told. But it was far too late for wishes. For both of them. 

And she wasn't Harper, who stands stoic, unbreakable, a true lion.

He'd begrudgingly pulled her in for a hug and then whispered in her ear that her shoes didn't match her dress and when all else failed, to go for their balls. She wasn't Tat or Rora or Cath who had so much of this life left that even though their family had been torn to shreds, there was still more for them to see, experience, do. There was still more blood to shed. 

There was always more Le Roux blood to shed.

She had given Tat fifty bucks to bet on Julian, knowing he would use it buy himself something nice. She'd told him where her stash was, making him promise that Mom could never find it, and with tears in her eyes, had whispered that her room, whatever was in it, was his to have. That's what older sisters did, right? They—they gave and gave and gave until nothing was left? That sounds right. 

History was repeating itself, but this time, it was Cordelia stumbling into a room and Emie waiting to receive her. 

She looks gorgeous and Emerson swallows deeply, her nerves getting the best of her. Because they may have bonded over a bottle of vodka and shared secrets that Emie had only spilled to Emmett, but she was still the girl that everyone knew. The girl that everyone ran after. And while Emerson was a Le Roux through and through, she lingered in the shadows, slinking through the crowds. Until now. 

Everyone would know her name. Just the way Mom had always wanted. Hadn't she always said that they were legendary? That the would make something of themselves? All that they had to show for themselves now were two coffins with more on the way.  

Emie should be nervous, terrified even, but nerves were nothing compared to whatever the hell was awaiting her just a train ride away. She could handle a cute girl, maybe.  

Her fingers itch, tingle and burn from where she wants to reach out but she can't. They weren't—they definitely weren't anything to each other, despite how this may look. Maybe they could have been something. Her name was written on Emerson's heart just the same. Not etched in stone the way Emmett's was, but it was there.

It's all a story now, whatever they are. Another piece of folklore and mythology to add to the endless lines of dried ink already written about the Le Roux family. She's sure this is just a footnote, an addendum.

"You know, I had plans to ask you to dinner tonight."

Emerson cocks her head to the side, watching the other girl before she takes a few steps closer, perching herself on the edge of the desk that clearly belonged to one of Mom's underlings. Her legs dangle and she bites her lips, bites back all of the things she wants to say. She grips the edge of the desk, feeling the wood beneath her fingers. 

Small things like this that she had taken for granted before an hour ago. Before her name came out of that fucking bowl just like Silk's had. She should be used to it by now—the goodbyes. She wasn't. She never would be.

She chooses these words instead: "That's an easy excuse to make when there's a greater than ninety percent chance that I won't be coming home, Cor."

The nickname rolls off of her tongue like honey and it feels right, somehow, this familiarity between them despite the number of hours spent together that Emerson could count on two hands.

Her mind flashes to the boy she kicked out of bed this morning. Before everything. She had been thinking about Cordelia. A lot. Far too much. But their orbits had swung together and then away from each other and that's just the way of the universe, wasn't it?

And now, Emerson knew that she couldn't fight fate. She could, however, give in to some of her baser impulses. Perks of being a Le Roux, probably. Perks of being reaped. 

"I'm glad you're here though," Emie adds with a grin, her smile lopsided as she looks at Cordelia.

[k!ah]

She doesn't look to phased for a girl who had just been nominated to a game of kill or be killed. Would I have looked the same, poised and unbothered? After years of grooming for this role Emerson Le Roux seemed to be playing it perfectly. She moves closer, sliding onto the table a few feet away biting her lip, looking at me quizzically for a moment. "That's an easy excuse to make when there's a greater than ninety percent chance that I won't be coming home, Cor."

Well, damn, she wasn't wrong. A poorly chosen moment to confess feelings that were nothing but seeds waiting to be planted, watered and nurtured. But as fate had it, we didn't have time, we had nothing but minutes, and I wasn't sure that was long enough to put behind me what could have been. I should have swallowed my fear of rejection, of being hurt the same way Lucinda had hurt me, and knocked on that door. Because know I might never know what it could have been like to be loved by Emerson le Roux, and her by Cordelia Bardot.

And then Emerson is grinning at me, a lopsided smile that has my lips pulling back to mirror her own. "I'm glad you're here though," she says and I close some of the distance between slipping onto the desk beside her. My thigh brushes against her own, the bare skin on my arms touching hers. I try to ignore the warmth coming from her body, warming me from the inside.

"I'm sorry it took so long. You know, I nearly knocked on your door three times. But fled like a bloody idiot each time." I pause, chewing on the inside of my cheek, "and now... Well now, now I owe you a dinner when you come back home." I ignore the implied if

"I'll take you to the most gorgeous restaurant I know down town. We will have a delicious meal, some fucking great wine, and then I will walk you home and kiss you goodnight." A fantasy that we both knew might never become the reality. Sighing, I lean back, the wall cold against the silky material of my dress.

I wondered if next year it might be me in this room, sitting and waiting as my mother fretted, whispering last minute advice into my ear as they prepared to take me away. Would I be scared? Or overwhelmed? I had never really thought of myself as being part of the games. I loved my life. I loved my job, my business and I wouldn't change it for a slim chance of a golden crown instead of my crystal tiara. I'd always thought that gold clashed with my skin.

[alex 🐺]

Emerson's never been bold. That's always been Silk's thing. Was Silk's thing.

It's hard to think about them in the past tense, just like it's hard to reconcile that she won't wake up to Emmett's knock on her window on those nights that he needed to get away from it all, stumbling home at sunrise smelling like sweat and sex. 

Emerson's never been bold but she wants to be, as Cordelia sits next to her, their bodies touching at two points. Her thighs touch Emie's where dress is riding up and she's long since slipped the leather jacket off and their arms graze each other. She swears she feels goosebumps on Cordelia's arm. She swears she can feel an electric thrum underneath her skin. 

Their orbits spinning back together once more for an eclipse. She wasn't sure if it was an omen or a gift from the gods that Cordelia sought her out.  She also wasn't sure she wanted to know either way. 

"I'm sorry it took so long. You know, I nearly knocked on your door three times. But fled like a bloody idiot each time."

Emerson wants to laugh but she holds it back because this, whatever this was, was important and she would take it with her. Water the seeds of this until it blossomed into something in her mind. Because now all that was left were images made up in her mind's eye. God, they had wasted so much time, hadn't they?

"...and now... Well now, now I owe you a dinner when you come back home."

"It's just as well that you never came over. My mother would have probably eaten you alive," Emerson jokes, a wry laugh finally breaking through.

She's corroded, she has to be, rusted out from the tears that she kept inside for so long. She's drowned in them. She tried to drown them too, in alcohol. Nothing had worked.

"I'll take you to the most gorgeous restaurant I know downtown. We will have a delicious meal, some fucking great wine, and then I will walk you home and kiss you goodnight."

Peering at Cordelia from the side, Emie turns to her, bracketing Cordelia's legs with her own. She ducks her head, eyes downcast and she'd never been one for sentiment, never one to smile in the face of affection, but dammit if this girl didn't tear through any of her poorly constructed walls with just a simple phrase. Whatever armor Emerson had, she had stripped it from her, leaving her bare.

"I bet you say that to all the girls. You're a charmer, you know that?" Emerson asks her, an eyebrow cocked.

"I knew from the moment I saw you, hiding in that room, that there was something about you, Cordelia Bardot. Who would have guessed that you would be a hopeless romantic?" Emie pauses, swallowing deeply.

"I'm not complaining though. Dinner sounds—it sounds nice." It sounded normal. Like something normal teenagers did. "You'd pay, obviously," Emerson adds, biting her lower lip, eyes dancing along Cordelia's face, watching how the sunlight sparkled her hair bronze. 

Had she ever been just a normal teenager?

No, she'd never been normal. She was a lion. Tarnished with rust from a sea of tears unshed. 

[k!ah]

"It's just as well that you never came over. My mother would have probably eaten you alive."

She probably wasn't lying. I had seen the one and only Eurydice Le Roux, a lioness standing tall in front of a pride that shrunk with each passing year. She was the mayor, and had a fierceness about her that made it hard to look her in the eye for too long. I had never spoken to her personally, but I had watched her at the reaping, each time smiling proudly at her children when their names are called, shoulders back as they took their place on the stage.

Emerson shifts on the table, throwing her legs over mine, trapping them, me, in place. "I bet you say that to all the girls. You're a charmer, you know that?" Her words pull my lips into a wide grin, my shoulders shaking with gentle laughter. My mum always told me I was a charmer, always saying and doing the right things to win everyone onto my side. It was a side effect of being a people pleaser, I think. Or maybe simply because all my life I had been exposed to the public eye, expected to act a certain way, expected to say certain things. Sometimes I got overwhelmed by my role, terrified that I might forget who I really was.

It was times like when I had meet Emerson that reminded me of who I was, saving me from drowning in the personality of who I was expected to be.

"I knew from the moment I saw you, hiding in that room, that there was something about you, Cordelia Bardot. Who would have guessed that you would be a hopeless romantic?"

"Only with those who matter," I mutter quickly, my hands playing with the material of her dress, before going still, resting on her knees. I try to ignore the way my heart raced a little faster in my chest from their proximity, or from the warmth that radiating from all the places where her body touched mine. I quickly glance over to her and I notice the darkness under her eyes, and the redness in the whites. She looked tired, worn down. She wasn't supposed to look like this, not when she was still so young, when she was supposed to still have a lifetime worth of worries.

"Dinner sounds—it sounds nice." She finally says, "You'd pay, obviously."

My eyes return to hers to see her studying me, the grin that had been on my lips slips to something more bashful, "obviously." I pause for a moment, tucking some loose strands of hair behind my ear. As we sit, I become aware of just how quickly time is going, and that within a mater of minutes she will be herded onto a train towards the Capitol. That this might be the last time that I get to see her, talk with her, might be the only chance that I get to hold her the way I might have if her name had not been called. It might have been selfish of me to want those thing, to need those things when we were only so early into whatever this was...

And in this moment I did not care. They could call me selfish, they could call me naive and stupid for chasing something that would only lead to a wounded heart. But I couldn't be selfish, because I wasn't only risking hurting myself.

Sighing, I slip from the table, escaping the entrapment of Emersons leg. "I should go..." I should have left then, I should have walked right out that door, saving both of us some hurt. But I don't move, I just stand there between the door and Emerson, my eyes lock with hers, then drop to her lips for a moment, before darting back to her eyes. "I can't let you go without doing this first." A moment later I close the distance between us, one hand in her hair, the other cupping her cheek I bring my lips to hers.

[alex 🐺]

It's easy to get lost in Cordelia's eyes. She'd done it before, after all. Trading truths over a bottle of vodka, almost as if they were sharing kisses where their lips would meet on the glass bottle or where Emerson's lipstick had stained the cigarette that they passed back and forth.

It's easy to get lost in Cordelia's eyes because they sparkled like auroras, flecks of golds and greens mixing with the blue like the many lakes that dotted the outskirts of District One. It's easy to think that this calm familiarity with which they're fitting into now, with Emerson's knees touching Cordelia's, with Cordelia playing with the hem of her skirt.

It's easy to get lost in the fantasy because flirting with a cute girl is so much easier to reconcile than a one-way ticket to the very place that carved out half of her soul and returned him in a casket. The very place that stole away her sister. 

Cordelia whispers the words "only those who matter" with a shyness that Emerson was surprised existed within the girl. She was gorgeous, had the entire district hanging on her every word and yet, here she sits with a girl marked for death, carrying the corpses of her family with every step she took.

At least she agrees with Emie that she would pay. It was her idea after all, but the thing that Emerson wouldn't, couldn't tell her was that Emerson would pay for each meal after, in this fantasy. She would treat Cordelia like a queen, like the rarest of gems because she was the rarest of girls. Self-assured but confident, gorgeous but humble, an ocean of thoughts beneath her skin.

"I should go...", Emerson hears, as if from thousands of miles away and not from the girl whose skin was setting fire to Emerson's as she absentmindedly ran her fingers along Emie's knee.

And then—then Cordelia's getting off the desk and the moment is broken and Emerson wants to reach out, claim what should be hers because dammit if she didn't deserve something more in this life than two dead siblings, a family torn asunder, and a missed opportunity with a girl who burned so bright.

She feels cold from where Cordelia's hands used to be and gets to her feet because if there was any moment for being selfish, than this was it and Emerson Le Roux wanted nothing more than to—

"I can't let you go without doing this first."

Cordelia kisses her and Emie feels herself falter before her hands come to rest on Cordelia's waist, pulling her closer, impossibly closer.

Her kiss is saccharine and sunshine, a starburst inside of Emie's chest where her heart used to be. She'd kiss girls before, sure, but never in such a way that she wanted to swoon—actually swoon from the force of it Cordelia's lips on hers and her mouth against hers.

When they separate, hours, minutes, seconds later, Emerson rests her head against Cordelia's breathing her air and catching her breath.

"Like I said, you're a charmer, Cordelia Bardot."