relative fiction [pogue]

[heather - d2 [mylee]]

S  H  E  L  B  Y

I’m placing two large ice cubes in a rocks glass when Mekhi turns the corner into the kitchenette. Another glass sits nearby, its two pieces of ice having had just enough time to meld together so that when I jam the cocktail stirrer to the bottom of the glass, they move as one unit. Mekhi points out of the room with a questioning look, and I step to the doorway to check on the boy I’ve invited up for a drink.

This suite is but a temporary home, a place to hold my belongings in the off-season and a place to hold my body when it needs to be made available on short notice. As one of the stylists once told me on the train from Eight, It’s hard to make you presentable when we have to schedule in an extra two weeks to track you down.

It is sufficient, and nothing more.

But Love Bellisario seems to find it fascinating, and I watch him wander the perimeter of the room, run his fingers across the spines of books. I duck back into the kitchen and turn my attention back to the two glasses in front of me. As I kneel down in front of the bar cart, I rest my elbow on my knee, my chin on my hand, my eyes skimming over the different bottles of whiskey. The liquid remaining in each fluctuates, but each seem to be in danger of dipping below the label. As I find the one I want, I wrap my hand around its neck and whisper up to Mekhi, He’s the boy from Two. I saw him speaking with Waverly this morning. At the counter, I pull the stopper from the bottle and swap it for a pourer. I turn my sight back to Mekhi as I count slow to four and repeat the process, three times more, satisfied enough with how the artificial light strikes glass, amber, glass again.

I take a drink in each hand and smirk as I pause in the doorway, I poured the bastard a double, he’d best be nothing but gracious to his host.

*

Earlier in the day, I had been called down to a meeting about one of the many frivolous details of the celebration that was to come. Mekhi had accompanied me on the short walk to the office, a high-floor suite with glass walls, panes as tall and thick as a body. I had spent the first five minutes of the meeting giving an authentic attempt at care and consideration, as though the color and texture of tablecloths would change the course of my life. But after a nod just a touch too enthusiastic, I felt the remaining energy seep out of the back of my neck, as though a pin had pricked the space between the vertebrae and there was nothing left to stop my body from leaving itself.

After the course of an hour had passed, I had shaken the correct hands and kissed the correct cheeks before stealing for the stairs that wound down the length of the building. Four flights in Mekhi and I stopped as I spit and cursed, trying desperately to prevent my chest from locking. I leaned against the wall and bent over to strip off the pair of heels digging into my ankles, and we kept winding our way down until we could go no further. When we threw open the door, the familiar neutral tones and unnatural light of the Training Center flooded my vision, and the noise was busy, each sound undistinguishable from the next.

I felt Mekhi’s hand on my shoulder, saw him creep into the edges of my vision as he began his routine of redirecting my path back into the staircase, but I caught his wrist in my hand, whispered, Wait. I felt his body freeze in my grasp until I let go, and I lost the presence of him completely as I crept along the hallway. When I stopped at the edge of the entrance, I planted my palm firmly on the arch’s edging, the sturdy metal cold against the heel of my hand. I poked my head around slowly, as though someone would be waiting to chastise me for my intrusion. I knew better than this, knew that I could go where I pleased without any interruption, within reason.

When the realization crossed through my consciousness, I stepped fully through the open doorway and stood, watching the bodies that bustled and pretended to bustle. I saw Thread mulling about, though he never met my eye in the brief moments that I was able to recognize his figure among the crowd. It took me a moment longer to find Waverly, the bow in her hand drawn back as a boy stood beside her, pointing to her feet. There’s no way to discern the conversation from where I stood, so I waited until Waverly slipped off into the throng of people, though I kept my focus on the boy’s movements.

I shouldered my way into the crowd and almost drowned in the immediate regret, the sensation of being surrounded a weight on my chest that took every coping strategy I’ve half-learned in the last twelve years to wriggle away from. When the bodies thinned, I spotted the boy racking a heavy bow, and I tried to slow and lengthen my pace as I approached, palming a short throwing knife from a station in passing. I always thought that I’d be good with ranged weapons, but somehow I ended up like those fuckers from Four, spears and all. As I talked, I pressed the knife against his thigh, enough to make its presence known, not enough to tear the ripstop pants that seemed to be the one thing the Capitol found fashionable year and again.

I hadn’t given him time to respond then, simply continued to press, pressure and voice as matched as I could force them to be, You should stop by my place for a drink tonight.  I dropped the knife to his feet, the clatter of metal against linoleum nothing out of the ordinary here. As I approached the threshold of no longer being heard, I called back over my shoulder, I hope you like whiskey.

*

Now, I hold a glass in each hand and step loudly into the room, letting my bare feet slap against the laminate. As I sit, I slide a glass across the table toward Love Bellisario and sink back into the plush white fabric of the loveseat. I’m glad you made it, Love. As I take a drink, I watch the ice cubes in his glass separate ever so slightly so that I can just see straight through the amber. I saw your interview—it was…slick. I don’t know how you managed to make volunteering into something so sexy. I bring my own glass to the table and lean forward so that my elbows rest on my knees, But tell me, Love, what does a career like you want with a girl from Eight? You seemed to be having quite the conversation with Waverly this morning.

[ table: pogue ]

[pogue]

L  O  V  E

He'd been watching Waverly's form slip away from his vision when he'd felt the metal press into his thigh, dangerously close to Julian's favorite part about him and he'd frozen still. Instincts flooding over him his eyes had shifted to the left, until Shelby Leviane's form slinked in from the edges of his vision and into the forefront, her voice no more than a threatening whisper, hardly audible above the sounds of clashing swords and trainer input. "You should stop by my place for a drink tonight." An offer he couldn't refuse. "Hope you like whiskey." And, a drink that he'd refuse if he could.

Anyone else and he would have responded in kind, shit-eating grin and charisma and flattery as he navigates the waters of a potential benefit. But Shelby Leviane means nothing but trouble in her tone, the way she slinks off into the shadows of the Training Center and into obscurity. A girl with six kills disappearing just like that could only mean trouble. At least, that's what his Father had told him.

Now he stands, running his fingers across the fraying spines of countless pieces of literature and feeling their age brush against his skin. His footsteps are soft and silent, pressed down gently into the carpet as his eyes wander the room. So this is the life of a victor, all nestled in shadows and surrounded by your own legacy and-

There's a glass waiting for him when he finally turns back towards Shelby and who he can only assume is her bodyguard, staring at him like he's a fucking lamb for the slaughter as he sits across from them, taking the glass and nodding with a quick plastered smile.

And Love Bellisario hates to fucking admit it, hates the way it slinks forward from the back of his mind and dances on the edge of his tongue: He's intimidated. Shelby Leviane, the girl who threaded six deaths into her legacy sits before him in a silence so cold he can feel ice fraying at the edges of his fingertips as he reaches for the whiskey glass. Her bodyguard, a man in white whose towering form is accented only by the tattoos that snake up his throat and under his chin steps forwards from the shadows, eyes narrowing in on him as if to tell him that any funny business isn't warranted here, that Shelby Leviane wasn't afraid to turn that six into a seven.

He gulps, first on his own spit and then on the amber liquid nestled into the glass, feeling it burn and sting as it snakes its way down his throat. His face itches to contort in disgust, eighteen years of life not enough to fully be used to whiskey. He bites the feeling back, settling the glass down onto the table softly, placing it right back onto the watery ring it had left when he'd picked it up.

"I saw your interview – it was... slick" Shelby starts and Love can tell she means none of it. His conversations with Julian and Emerson have taught him how to read between blood-red lines. "I don't know how you managed to make volunteering into something so sexy." 

Love manages a refined smirk, leaning back on his trademark response to her words. It's not quite enough to hide the nerves that bubble up from his stomach, butterflies fluttering up his throat and into the recesses of his mind. His gaze shifts from Shelby to the man to her left and then back again. She knows what she's doing, tossing a clean sweep onto the table only to watch him squirm. Her crown was made up of the damned souls of countless other volunteers, and he knows one would be hard pressed to get her to consider any of their sacrifices as sexy.

"We- I think she'd be a good ally." He lies in response to Shelby's final question, shrugging as he does his best to avoid the ice that she spits forth but it isn't enough. His voice tremors at the end, nervousness lacing itself in his final breaths and he reaches forwards for the whiskey glass once more, taking another sip and letting the liquid burn his tongue as punishment.

"Shouldn't you be flattered?"