they'll talk about us, all the lovers | [jack/arcadia] d1

umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]
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they'll talk about us, all the lovers | [jack/arcadia] d1 Oct 28, 2023 17:42:02 GMT -5

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Post by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] on Oct 28, 2023 17:42:02 GMT -5

He didn't know what he was expecting from the District One floor. He'd never been, though it was one of the places he would've been most excited to explore, were he ever permitted to go on tour with the circus. He'd always imagined it to be... cold there, in more ways than one. The degree, sure, but the anger as well: the kind of rage that made the knuckles hurt and the lips chap. To be fair, when he was younger he'd also imagined them all living in their own personal castles, lowering the drawbridge for their sunday dinner guests, throwing their enemies to the moats and watching them be eaten by the crocodiles while they enjoyed afternoon tea. It could've been another planet entirely for all he knew, or not much different than his life back in Five.

He thought of Arcadia growing up in something like that: standing at the top of a tower, looking down at him with that clever smirk, wind in her hair, a thousand plans racing through her mind. He was even so selfish as to imagine himself standing at the bottom of it in knight's armor, all the dragons in the world they could go on to slay together. Would she have lowered the bridge of her heart for him if he asked?

His final decision as the elevator doors opened with a delightful ding: maybe castles and dragons weren't the most unrealistic thing he could dream up.

The first thing he was taken aback by was the size of the room- it reminded him of the performance area below ground in Five, with two thin stages facing each other, flickering spotlights fixed center stage. Velvety red curtains hung heavy on the sides, a small viewing gallery as if for a live audience. Right, he remembered, District One's main export these days is Entertainment. He tried to consider if he would love performing as much if it had been his only choice.

He made his way across the area, each footfall a hollow echo that he was sure was giving away his position to anyone who might've been following him. He stepped past the door and clicked it closed behind him with relief, taking in a breath of the air, which was strangely more crisp here. He wondered if maybe they had to pump in some fresh air to clean out whatever gas they'd used to knock them all out.

Arcadia said her plan was to go back to her room and sleep some more, but Jack was only realizing now, standing just outside the door, that she could've been lying, and that she hadn't explicitly invited him to come and find her. But when his polite knock was met with silence, and then his slightly less polite knock was met with the same, worry set in. This was still the Hunger Games, even if they were sleeping in plush beds instead of hollow logs and caves. And besides, it wouldn't have looked good on their pretend relationship if he walked away now without at least making sure she was okay.

He swiped his keycard and the door slid open with quiet precision. She laid there, perfectly still, but after a moment of steeling his gaze he saw her chest rise as if taking in air. Still alive and well. Great. Now he could just shut the door back and-

The scanner got a faulty reading on his card and blinked with a red light, also emitting a sharp, quick beeping noise.

"Shh! Shush!"

He stepped back inside, swiping it again and again, desperately trying to silence the continued beeping.

"Sorry! Sor- Shh!"

The door slid open, then closed, then open again, before closing him in the room for good. Indignantly, he let his head fall against the surface of it with a thud, not daring to look back at her as he spoke with a low, pleasant voice.

"Heya, Cadi. Uh, your door is a menace."

[scavenges stage one]
oBQCCbVT551-7
[antique sword]

1-7

Last Edit: Oct 28, 2023 17:48:11 GMT -5 by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]

^{I AM A GARDEN OF BLACK AND RED AGONIES}

Cait
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if looks could kill

they'll talk about us, all the lovers | [jack/arcadia] d1 Oct 28, 2023 23:51:33 GMT -5

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Post by Cait on Oct 28, 2023 23:51:33 GMT -5

The plan had been to split up and find Irene and Tati. See if they had suffered similar wounds to Tigs and I and needed to be stitched up in a similar fashion. And my intentions are always well-natured. I had definitely left the med bay with the aim of finding familiar faces… but then I’d taken a left turn, entered an elevator, pressed the button 1 and before I knew it had flopped back into my bed of burgundy and indigo heaven. Oops!

The room is darker than mine back home. The pastel walls of childhood nostalgia can’t compare to the claustrophobia coated wallpaper of our luxurious prison cell. That’s what it is, after all. No matter how many paintings they stick on the walls, or how many stage fixtures they try to cram into the space with intentions of familiarity, nothing in the world will compare to the velveteen safety of the Lumiere-Fray household. The predictability of my parents’ and siblings’ daily schedule; the maple-scented candle wafting through the living room; the dulcet tones of a vintage record player spinning soft jazz on its stylus.

Nonetheless, it’s all too easy to fall back asleep. The bed is softer than I remember it being last night, and my bedsheets swallow me up, promising to shield me from the world for a few more hours, at least.

I dream of falling autumn leaves and dancing down the sidewalk, listening to the crunch of foliage underfoot. The sun glows, impossibly bright; my heart is bursting at the seams, impossibly full. Voices echo in my memory. Someone grabs my hand, then lets go. Someone grabs my hand, then lets go. Someone grabs my hand, but they don’t let go.

At some point, the image shifts. To monsters in the shadows, peeking out from behind closed closet doors, glittering golden eyes multiplying, two to four to eight. Silent, watching.

And then: blaring alarms, déjà vu, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

I jump awake as my heart drops to the floor, mind groggy to catch up, the only useful thought I can conjure is a warning of danger. Gathered up in my bedsheets, I fumble desperately around on the bed beside me for anything to protect myself with, only finding a hot pink watch that would barely leave a bruise if pelted at someone’s head. I am utterly defenceless.

What a sad story that would be: Arcadia Lumiere-Fray, death by slumber.

“Shh! Shush!”

What?

Great. Even more embarrassing: my would-be killer can’t even figure out how to control an electronic door. I groan aloud, close my eyes, run an exasperated hand through the mess of blonde on my head. Let’s get this over with, then. Just put me out of my misery.

“Heya, Cadi. Uh, your door is a menace.”

Oh.

Jack stands by my door, head hung in distress, or embarrassment, or all of the above. I smile at him; it’s not an act.

It’s funny, the effect a voice can have on you. How a few simple words can sound like honey, sticky and sweet and paralysing all at once. How an innocent nickname can soothe even the deepest, most anxious parts of your amygdala. I wonder if that’s the way people feel when I talk to them. I don’t know how I feel to be on the receiving end of it.

I breathe. The danger has passed; our agreement hangs in the air, an unspoken oath of protection permeating the room. He wouldn’t sever this bond. Not yet, at least. No matter how easy it would be to strike down the girl tangled up alone in her own bedsheets.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I smirk lazily at him, the only lingering sign of my initial fear the dilation of my pupils as he finally turns to look at me. I pat the side of my bed invitingly – the mask comes on, the show begins. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

scavenges outfit room

51NCM|j_6h1-7

1 | Costume Designer's Sketchbook

DARS

1-7

Last Edit: Oct 29, 2023 5:12:58 GMT -5 by Cait

i always used to be into writing sort of modern abstract
lyricism stuff (that were like) slight vague indications of a feeling.

umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]
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they'll talk about us, all the lovers | [jack/arcadia] d1 Oct 29, 2023 19:03:34 GMT -5

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Post by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] on Oct 29, 2023 19:03:34 GMT -5

Arcadia's room was... nice, now that he was allowed to acknowledge it. The wall was covered border to gilded border with tapestries and poems and beautifully-rendered portraits and paintings. He noticed an oil on canvas of District One's first victor, Cordelia Blake, sitting on a throne with an actual leopard sitting obediently next to her like a domestic kitten. Jack had always thought that the rumors of the loony old bat owning a big cat were lies- guess not. All they had to celebrate the victors on floor Five were backlit polaroids of Lethe twenty years ago, a single newspaper clipping of Lysander, and the same picture of Patricia they'd used in her death announcement badly cropped onto a cloudy sky.

Arcadia's bed was twice the size of Jack's own on the District Five floor, with plush violet bedding and delicate fuchsia canopy to match the draping on the windows, through which by now the natural golden light of early morning was shining through. He'd only just finished admiring it when Arcadia smoothed out the spot next to herself and beckoned him forward. His throat clenched and he willed himself to behave, stepping forward carefully and quietly, hesitating there at the edge before finally lowering himself onto the mattress.

You're just playing a part. Remember that.

He took her hand into his own, lifting it to his lips for a chaste peck.

"Mmm," he said in response to her at last, "Yes, 'humble'." He gestured to a sixty-inch portrait of Justice Fray riding a horse, completely naked and knit his eyebrows together. Weird. Weird enough as it was, Jack then remembered yet again that Arcadia was a part of two very well-known names in the Games stratosphere. He would've been her- what? Uncle? Cousin? Jack's one and only aunt, Maegan, was a carpenter who moved to Two when Jack was young and hadn't been back since. He couldn't imagine what his relationship would've been like if he had to deal with things like television-sized pictures of her bare ass planted on a majestic horse.

All his stage training was for naught in these instances, if he was being honest. He was good at making people applaud for him, but Jack hadn't the slightest clue how to make them feel. Luckily, Arcadia was a professional and he was at least smart enough to let her take the lead, leaning back against a velveteen burgundy headboard and holding his arm up as if inviting her to snuggle up next to him.

"It does sorta feel like a museum in here," he joked, his tone making it obvious.

Honestly, it was perfectly infuriating that Arcadia had the audacity to not be a horrible person. Jack kept waiting for the other shoe to fall- for her to show him what fucking with a District One was good for and slid a knife out of the sheets and slit his throat, or called on her waiting career friend who had been hiding behind closet doors and beneath the beds to point and laugh before they made his cannon the first of the Games.

Would there even be a cannon this time?

But it didn't ever come. She may have had to entertain other ideas soon enough, but for now the character Arcadia had expertly introduced the world to on Young Love seemed to be good enough for her.

"Only one thing in here really worth admiring, though."

[scavenges script closet]
G9BZwMmciU1-9
[knife]

1-9

Last Edit: Oct 29, 2023 19:04:05 GMT -5 by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]

^{I AM A GARDEN OF BLACK AND RED AGONIES}

Cait
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last seen Nov 21, 2024 2:12:14 GMT -5

if looks could kill

they'll talk about us, all the lovers | [jack/arcadia] d1 Oct 30, 2023 5:21:11 GMT -5

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Post by Cait on Oct 30, 2023 5:21:11 GMT -5

The bed sinks under Jack’s weight as his hesitation subsides, and I release the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Unlikely as it is, there’s always the threat of rejection, nipping away at the darkest corners of my mind – the shame and embarrassment it brings with it sending lonely shivers down my spine. There’s something so stupidly simplistic about being afraid of being forgotten. If I was anyone else, I’d probably hate myself for it.

You’ll never be forgotten – not now, Ridley Le Roux’s beaming face watches the scene unfold with a knowing smile. Is this what you wanted?

My senses are heightened, now with the space between us halved. Being separated from people for too long has always made me feel vulnerable – I can justify it in more ways than one. Growing up a dependent has never felt like a burden.

Until now. Until I put myself in this position where I’m constantly reminded not to trust anybody except myself. It sounds exhaustingly lonely.

I’m grateful to be holding Jack’s hand, then, clinging to his company. My skin crackles, the natural chemistry of being touched shaking the sleep from my eyes. Looking at him, it’s easy to imagine him fitting right back into my life before. Handsome, charming and confident – like all successful and revered District One inhabitants. If the stars had aligned differently, he might have had a different last name. We might have met on the training floor, or in the school yard, or on a national televised quest for love.

Everyone you kiss dies, Vin is an echo in the trees of his forest home. There are so many worlds we will never belong to – him and I and him. Maybe it’s for the best that things turned out this way.

But you’ll still kill them, sooner or later, one way or another.

Jack leans back against the headboard, dutifully slipping into the act of a doting boyfriend. Funny, how moods can shift, how easily the roles are reversed. I will myself to resurface from my unwanted, intrusive thoughts. Leaning on him helps; I curl myself around his steady frame.

“It does sorta feel like a museum in here.”

I laugh airily as I watch his eyes flit incredulously around the room. “Yeah, it’s...” – ghastly, melodramatic, embarrassing – “A lot.” I shake my head, mortified at this impression of One. It’s not like this back home, is what I want to say. But it’s too intimate, too delicate. Not necessary. Not important.

I tilt my face towards his and smile innocently at him, angling for a line as cheesy as his own (I’m not blushing, for the record). “Maybe we should bunk in your room instead.”

It feels easy, the back and forth. I tell myself it’s because I was born for this – have been perfecting tricks of the tongue for years. That’s all it is.

Outlines of silver parachutes glide through the sky: a reminder. Through my window, the clouds part for a new day as the sun starts to rise, bathing the room in a golden glow. For once, the suite feels like a home.

I groan at the thought of moving. Nestle further into Jack’s chest in protest. “We have to get up, don’t we?”

What goes unspoken: we can’t hide. We have to fight. We have to survive.

A grey pile of fabric lies folded at the foot of my bed. Ugh. Grey. You would have thought someone as fashionable as Bourgeois Decadence could have at least designed a uniform with a little more personality. Begrudgingly, I untangle myself – from the bedsheets, from Jack’s arms – and stand to undress, first leaning over to kiss the top of Jack’s head. I linger long enough for the cameras to catch every lasting second. Enough, this is enough.

“Close your eyes. No peaking!” I tease at him, feigning modesty. Obviously not caring in the slightest if he watches.

scavenges script closet

1tVHUMSJ5q1-9

9 | Broken Theater Spotlight

DARS

1-9

Last Edit: Oct 30, 2023 8:07:14 GMT -5 by Cait

i always used to be into writing sort of modern abstract
lyricism stuff (that were like) slight vague indications of a feeling.