sleepover / rita & harley

sidney
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sleepover / rita & harley Feb 25, 2024 20:45:17 GMT -5

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Post by sidney on Feb 25, 2024 20:45:17 GMT -5

R I T A

i don't think people love me
they love versions of me i have spun for them

I know it sounds stupid, but I was actually excited when I climbed back up to the tower and found Harley had laid out two bed rolls and lit a few candles. It wasn't anything extravagant, or anything really decadent like I love, but it was nice.

Simple and sweet.

It reminded me of sleepovers with girls from town when I was little. There weren't many at the academy; I wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms when I'd arrived. But those friendships I'd had in diapers, those were the ones I cherished the most.

Maybe if things were different, Harley and I could have had that. Wildly different, don't get me wrong. But still. It's a nice, thought, isn't it?

And for tonight, that was enough.

I plopped down atop the foam-covered blankets and pulled out the bag of chips I'd scavenged earlier. My mother would have a field day when she watched this later - me eating carbs. But fuck her. She wasn't here. Another plucked from the bag and stuffed into my mouth guilt free, and I got comfortable.

"Did you catch who it was, by the way? Who died?"

Last Edit: Feb 27, 2024 22:35:28 GMT -5 by sidney

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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sleepover / rita & harley Feb 26, 2024 19:01:12 GMT -5

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Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Feb 26, 2024 19:01:12 GMT -5

H A R L E Y

one with the baseball bat in the pen
two with the sword, stick, strike & defend

Huh. So it wasn't Hal.

Harley cranes her neck through a hole in the walls of the tower that might once have contained a window as she peers up at the sky, Panem's national anthem blaring through the arena. The snowfall continues, albeit lighter than after the bloodbath, and the holographs against those overcast clouds wink out into a starless sky.

"It's Five," Harley reports to Rita, tucking her upper body back in to the watchtower's sheltered base. "Not Eyebrows," she adds, to clarify, "the other one."

She sits back down on her makeshift bed, scraps of fireproof blanket wrapped around her shoulders for warmth. They'd be stupid to make a fire in here, nothing but wood and metal and a 60ft drop to instant death - but she'd marked the tower with a makeshift flag wrapped around the balcony's bannisters to flutter in the wind. Fuck off, she hoped it warned.

Bathed in the glow of the tower's red light, she unpacks and repacks her bag - content in the silence, yet craving conversation.

The seelie brrrts by her ear and she swats it away, perturbed. Not with you.

"Where to tomorrow?"

table by sidney / lyrics hope tala

Last Edit: Feb 26, 2024 21:59:52 GMT -5 by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

sidney
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1,027 POSTS
Pronouns: she/they
last seen May 16, 2024 16:37:33 GMT -5

sleepover / rita & harley Feb 27, 2024 22:47:15 GMT -5

Quote

Post by sidney on Feb 27, 2024 22:47:15 GMT -5

R I T A

i don't think people love me
they love versions of me i have spun for them

"FIVE?"

I was genuinely shocked. I had not seen that coming at all.

"Damn, I wonder how it happened," I said absent-mindedly, not really thinking about how that would make me look. I'd been working hard to cultivate a certain sort of persona since I've been here in the Capitol. It was necessary. I was doing what I had to. To survive. Because I knew exactly two things in this life. One: all people want when they watch this is a good story. And two: I was a damn good actress.

A chill ran down my spine as the wind kicked up at the tops of the trees around us, loose snow spattering across the windows. "Fuck, it's cold." I tried not to worry, thanking the Gamemakers for having at least put overnight supplies up here. For anyone, Harley and I, stupid enough to climb up. High risk, high reward.

Where to tomorrow?

Shit, I wasn't actually sure. And my eyes went wide as I realized wherever we went, there was no more guarantee for another night's safety. Or that we wouldn't run into someone Harley had pissed off. Like Felicity. Fucking bitch. Serves her right. As if Harley would put her chance of survival on some geek instead of me. Plus, it meant moving further away from Lucky. And my chest ached at the thought.

"I'm not sure," a shrug. The truth. Or at least half of it. "Maybe that huge patch of ice? If we're lucky, it'll be sunny and we can get water."

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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sleepover / rita & harley Feb 28, 2024 16:22:23 GMT -5

Quote

Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Feb 28, 2024 16:22:23 GMT -5

H A R L E Y

one with the baseball bat in the pen
two with the sword, stick, strike & defend

"Got unlucky?" Harley suggests with a shrug, pursing her lips as the various ways Azure Delphine could have died flicker through her conscience. "Or she stuck around too long and found out what happens."

Harley was glad Rita had the instinct to run. She knew her ally wasn't a career, per say - but what did that even mean anyway? Harley's been in more fights than most. Real fights. Not parading around a training ring. Spitting up blood, mesh fencing pressing into your cheek so hard it cuts through skin, the ugly crack of a skull being split open on a concrete wall. Career used to be a status symbol, in the old days of Panem. Now a kid from Twelve had just as much chance of snatching a crown than a kid from Two.

Or Three.

She curls into herself, wrapping arms around her knees and clenching the knife in her fist. Harley tries not to think about juvie all that much. The constant fear that her brother's brains would be the next smears across the cafeteria floor. There's no immediate danger for Maxen, tucked up in their home in Three - but what comes after is the thing that gnaws on Harley as much as the cold. That gaping unknown: Maxen, alone. Without her. Who's going to look after him?

Harley hopes he's sober for this. Wouldn't blame him if he wasn't.

"Water sounds good. Nice, even."

She wishes she were better at this: talking. Socialising without malice, without the promise of pain on her lips. Wishes she had some food to share, imagines her breaking a biscuit in half and passing the larger piece to Rita. Maybe even smiling. Harley didn't have friends. She had enemies, she had her brother, and everyone else was most likely out to get her.

What a suspicious little thing she'd turned in to. Where had Charlotte ended, trusting and oblivious, for Harley to take her place? Her grip tightens on the knife, listening to the sounds of the wind picking up in the night. No gentle beep of a sponsor parachute to match Rita's - no surprises there. Harley was unlikeable, and Rita was everything but.

"What'd they get you?" Harley asks, jutting her chin out towards Rita's new gifts. She hopes she doesn't come across as greedy. Harley's just genuinely curious, and desperate for an excuse to talk.

And ever so slightly jealous. But she won't admit that outloud.

table by sidney / lyrics hope tala

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

sidney
Veteran Member

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Pronouns: she/they
last seen May 16, 2024 16:37:33 GMT -5

sleepover / rita & harley Feb 29, 2024 13:53:22 GMT -5

Quote

Post by sidney on Feb 29, 2024 13:53:22 GMT -5

R I T A

i don't think people love me
they love versions of me i have spun for them

"Oh, this?"

I'd honestly already set it down and forgot about it, minding my new bag and filling it with everything I'd found today. I wasn't surprised I'd received something on the first night; it was to be expected, really.

I'd worked my ass off to make them like me, the least they could do was send me shit. But I'd already found so much food today. I couldn't eat another thing.

"Please, take it," I slid the container toward her, pulling my hand away quick at the warmth of it. "I think its soup, or something." I shoved the contents of my day's haul into the duffle and nodded toward the gift.

"Eat it! Otherwise it'll go to waste. Plus, I need you at full strength tomorrow. I'm sure the water won't be free."

Last Edit: Mar 1, 2024 23:30:02 GMT -5 by sidney

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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sleepover / rita & harley Mar 1, 2024 23:43:38 GMT -5

Quote

Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Mar 1, 2024 23:43:38 GMT -5

H A R L E Y

one with the baseball bat in the pen
two with the sword, stick, strike & defend

Her stomach must have betrayed her at somepoint that evening. Better her internal organs than Rita, she supposes. Although if anyone is going to kill her in here, she hopes it's a pretty blonde from One. Couldn't live with herself if an Eleven took her out. Or- well. Die with herself. Whatever.

"Oh - no, I wasn't-"

"Please, take it!"

Harley has always had a hard time accepting help because nobody has ever offered it. When she and Maxen came home to a ruined house and their parents dead, neighbours shut their curtains and friends crossed the street as if they were ghosts - or worse, strangers. Harley had learned how to swallow that bitterness, how to roll up her sleeves and get on with it herself. Nobody was going to help her and the only person that would help Max was Harley. So onwards she went, never expecting anything in life but the shit end of the stick.

And here she sits at the shit end of that bastard stick presented with a gift that doesn't come with conditions except to be her violent little self. Sheepishly Harley eyes the container, gnaws on her lips and shifts forward to grab it. How awkward she felt, taking. All Harley's ever known how to do is give, give, give - until she's all but hollow, cold bones and a scowl.

"Thanks," she nods, genuine. The gesture even tempts Harley to try on a smile, hoping it doesn't look too lopsided.

Maxen has a great smile, one that stretches all the way up to his eyes. Their Dad's smile. Harley has their long-dead grandmothers frown and little brown moles down her arms. She doesn't have her mother's smile anymore. Harley doubts her mother is even allowed to smile. If she even can; with her tongue cut out and a muzzle clamped over her jaw.

The idea of fighting tomorrow gives Harley a fucked up jolt of excitement. She spoons a mouthful of soup into her mouth, savours the taste, then swallows to satisfy her growling stomach. But that terrible thing in her chest twitches, right down to her white-knuckled fists.

"It's about damn time."

table by sidney / lyrics hope tala

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”