dime in the bottle ; perry vs. krueger, day 8

She cackles when the glass breaks, all wide-eyed and raving - dance sucker dance.

And she's allowed to! It's funny to watch him hop around, trying to avoid the path of the bees. If Perry's lucky, then the Gamemakers pulled some sadistic shit and added some kind of sabertooth dna or something to those things. When do they start growing the fangs? When do the stingers start to double? Fly away my flock, go forth and kamikaze.

“I like you.” She says, outright pointing at Krueger, listing to one side.

There's a universe out there, probably the same one where she ends up siding with Jayson, where she's got this guy in her pocket too. She can see it so perfectly too; her elbow against his throat, her teeth against the curve of his jaw. She would've liked to keep a big strong man around just so she'd have the opportunity to cut him up into a billion pieces and devour them.

But the thing with the big strong ones, is that they usually don't have enough brains to rub together. Foot in his mouth, Krueger goes and ruins the whole jovial mood, easy as ever - 'Who'd ya kill yesterday?' He asks.

Perry falters once and then twice, her grin turns fake and mean and her shoulders go back. The water ripples with the wind, silly little Bellamy, one of her back teeth starts to crack.

He's just trying to get under skin. Objectively. Trying to get her off her game, piss her off, distract her long enough to jab that spear through her eye so he can take another for his creepy ass collection, well it won't work.

She flips like a coin, a multitude oaf emotions flashing across her face while she stands there shaking stupid in her non-existent boots. Her feet are numb at this point, toes digging into the mud and sending pins and needles up her legs. Happy Anniversary, babe.

She shrugs through the annoyance, “Had some loose ends to tie up.” She says nastily. "I'm sure you know what that's like."

Fist caught in her throat, she tilts her head mockingly; predator pawing at the dirt.

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine." She says over a cross of hilts, "How many notches you got on that spear?"

He's pretty enough that Perry ignores the half-hearted attempt of ducking.

It's not like the fly ever really wanted to be eaten by the spider. She can recognize that.

But she can also recognize the croon of her own voice, the salt in the air, the way her mouth slashes bloody across her own face. Like a shark in the motherfuckin' water - the blood on the breeze makes her heart beat a little faster.

“You’re a sweet talker.” She says with a tight flourish, “I like that in a man.”

But she also likes someone with a little more bite; a little more give to them. She likes someone who will let her break them in two and then let her duct tape the bits of bones back together in whatever shape she wants. It's not too much to ask. She'd be doing them a favour, honest, making them into something bigger and brighter and much more suitable to be hanging off her arm.

Who needs a partner when you can have a purse? She'll stitch pretty little designs into their skin and they'll thank her for it.

"We could'a been quite the pair in another life." He tells her. And that's that red string bullshit. Bellamy and Larissa and Caspian and Jayson, and now Krueger neé Gamble. World's worst blunt rotation.

"At least one Young in Love Panem season. Hell, probably two."

"Allstars." She gestures to her face, "Obviously."

Obviously.

"You wanna be the villain with me?" She teases him, trails off as the spear trails behind her, love to hate her and hate to love her - "We could go around breaking everyone's hearts, maybe win a trip out to Four, get a nice tan."

Because that's her prerogative right? Break the heart and crush the bones and stab the chest, leave them there to bleed out.

Krueger's spear drops low again and Perry dances, bacchanal, laughing without grace, skin cold and rotting, "Shit,  s'that the move you show all the girls?"

She watches the bees. Flash of Bellamy. Taste of iron. Nothing.

"Lookin' a little slow there, pal." She pushes herself back up in his face, teeth shining, quieter, deadlier - "You need a new trick."

The only real steady thing is this -

she goes for the heart every time !

And why wouldn't she? Why shouldn't she? She'll sink her teeth into it and eat it raw, rip into it with her claws and feel the gentle give of it beneath her fingers. She'll press her own fingertips into it, cradle the organ like a baby and then swallow it whole like a Titan.

"Besides that killer personality-"

"Aww."

"-what's your claim to fame back in Two?"

What a stupid little question. She giggles like she's flattered, but it comes out wrong. Brittle. Bloody and forced around the edges.

"Who, little ol' me?"

Because, really, what is she known for?

Cheating herself out of monogamy, for one. Being publicly dumped by Miss Know-It-all Rich Bitch, for another. Anything else? Oh - fuckin' - yeah: signing herself up for a death warrant and passing it off as a tropical vacation.

She was Prom Queen because Laura was King, classic mean girl, pretty girl from the shitty District who thought she had something to prove. And look at her now; half-mad and past raving, killed the boy she made out with because apparently he loved her. Someone cue the trumpets. Get the tissues, star the cameras.

She’s the whole package, wrapped up in an oil-slick bow.

”Baby, I can be whatever you want me to be.”

Murderer, career, celebrity - star.

Still, it's an obvious dodge from the question. His weapon lands the hit that his mouth doesn't.

The spear slashes across her leg, red-hot like a poker, and the warmth of it is almost welcome. Perry gets that phantom sensation at the end of her ankle, the sudden prickle of heat suddenly reminding her of that ache down in the marrow of her talus, the numbness starts to thaw from there and the melt travels up. She recoils. Drags a hand down her face in muted frustration.

And then,

"Your name's so stupid." She mutters out of the blue, defensive and grasping and apathetically hysterical. Pretty sure she's said that to him already but can't be too sure, can't be sure about anything in this stupid fucking place, "M'not dying to someone with a stupid name, y'know. No one'd ever let me live it down."

A pause.

"Die it down."

Because she'd be dead? Get it?

You don't have to get it. This is just the kind of shit that happens after a week of trauma development and malnourishment. And hallucinations. Or whatever the hell Caspian is.

And live writhing rabb- mushrooms!

Can't forget about the mushrooms.

Someone get this show off the air.

"Cocky." She chides on an exhale, her ribcage squealing against her lungs, "That mouth's gonna get you in trouble."

But he laughs at her little not-joke, and he pushes his little spear so gently towards her, so softly, that it brushes against her kidney like the flutter of a moth's wing.

Perry's not quite sure why she didn't move for that one. It's gotta be the foot. Her arms are shaking too much to brace herself against her own spear so she can hop out of the way again, she can't support the weight that the movement requires.

"You're gonna hurt my poor parent's feelin's." Krueger's saying over the roar of the blood, and Perry's about to make some other stupid crack, but, "They'll be turnin' in their graves, or somethin'." Oh.

"Sorry for your loss." She says nonsensically, distractedly, because it's abundantly obvious that she isn't actually sorry, too focused on the strange sensation happening across her middle, her hand drifting towards and away from it in a confused sort of pattern.

"Not all of us can have a name befittin' the shit district."

And can we just give her a minute? She's processing her own mortality here.

"Cow shit." She says fuzzily, pointing to him.

And then, while pointing to herself, "Human shit."

It's philosophical, in a way.

"We both got the short end of the shit stick."

And then she looks at him, brow furrowed, fingers against her torso again, pressing in, "M'think I'm-"

And then nothing, trailing off, blinking away little mirror images. It's a strange sort of sensation - girl extraordinaire; never did she ever stop to consider that she could actually die.

All that faux bravado comes surging up like a defense mechanism, or like the final wind, one last hurrah, her chest rises up and up like the final curtain call. She grins sharp enough to chase the chasm of it away, feral enough to quiet the beast, she feels the blood drip from her mouth to her throat in a single unbroken line.

Oh, and speaking of - Director,  line please?

"Dunno if I wanna make a deal with somebody called Gamble."

She heaves herself with a gargantuan amount of effort, listing forwards and then to the left, nearly stumbling. Stupid fucking foot, stupid fucking skin and flesh and bones and blood. Stupid nasty thing in her gut that doesn't let her just roll over and bare her belly with dignity. Stupid thing making a fool of herself. Stupid girl.

"Stay there." She grunts, "I'm comin' over."

The air shifts.

"Baby." He says.

Perry glares at him like she glared at Bellamy, tasting that same sort of acidic bitterness, it's like a shot of adrenaline that didn't settle quite right. Her heart's going too fast, her brain's going too slow, the world is sluggish when her head turns and it takes three whole seconds for the landscape to ease back down.

What a pair they make. Two rotten peas in a little rotting pod.

The gentle look on his face makes her turn very, very cold. It's scarier than him turning monstrous. She wants him to be evil. Something she can jeer at and blame and tease around. She doesn't want to be laid down so softly, killed so tenderly. She didn't give that to Bellamy, why should she be allowed it now?

The spring melt;

"You're dying" and Perry's shaking her head, stumbling again.

"M'not." She tells him, tries to make it as angry as she can, throwing all the kindling she's got left onto a pile and then kicking a match into it, "You're good, but you're not-" A splutter, "-you're not that good."

She's fine. She's cosmic. She's the only person in here who's got a clue. Her free hand flies out wide.

"Shit." It comes back to her in a flash, a funny old joke, she's reaching and grasping and reaching again, she spits into her own grave, "You're s'full of shit. Gonna choke on it."

The ground lurches and Perry wants him to be mean again so badly that her head starts to pound. She wants him to be cruel. She wants the spectacle. The villain can't be the villain in their own story. The 10 doesn't kill the 2. Ratings are going to be godawful, doesn't anyone see that?

"Shithead." She accuses, baiting and terrible - because that's what she promised, isn't it? Something terrible?

Get her good side, darling. Focus in one the way her lip quivers even as she keeps playing the bully. It's a performance, the last one of the evening, so please don't miss it. See the way her pride props her up.

Keep watching, don't change the channel yet - at least give her that.