burgers beyond the barricades | lionel&flynn [vt]

The fresh paint hits the back of my throat first. Even the smell of the grills can’t overwhelm the rennovation that the Dixons have had on their diner. I am glad someone is benefiting from my victory, I am still waiting for mine…nine years on. This year is a quiet one, the pattern goes that I have a friend or relative in the games every other year. Well, most of my family is dead and what is left of my friends, they’re all too old for the reaping. It won’t stop the Capitol though, it will be my 10th anniversary next games, I am sure they’ll throw a great party…

Every year comes a new personality, the briefing on this new one was interesting. It sounds like the Capitol have one hell of a new toy to play with, it means Andal and I can dissapear to the back of the shelf…until someone remembers we exist.

All I know is that I’ll either hate or love Lionel, no inbetween. I am not in the mood for another Theo, I am definitely not going to be the one walking away with a bruised eye. There’s no reason to hate on Lionel, not before I have met him. All I know about him is from the whispers of others.

I have a track record of embarassing myself year after year though, time for a lifestyle change? This year has been a steady one, even if my home feels like it is crumbling all around me. District Six is imploding, my family is barely talking. I have done well to keep my time busy between here and Ten, even if I was helped along with a few shots and bottles. This is the medicine District after all, there’s nothing wrong with self-prescribing.

Mayor Cham has the liberty of starting the District tour with Lionel, I share the stage during the speech but it is lunchtime before his arrival to the diner. Unlike previous years, it is not exclusively booked out for just us. Tour officials fill the tables, as well as Capitol tourists and District elites. Something to do with the protests and wanting to make the District look better than what is really is. The strikes are not something I am involved in, I can’t risk anymore danger on what is left of my family. Though I have helped with a tip-off and a few supplies here and there in secret for the strikers. Anything to help take out the people that have crushed my life. It is why there’s a shit-tonne of peackeepers during the tour, Cham’s and the District’s stress levels are still sky high.

The entourage fills the diner before the special guest arrives, I have been told to wait at the door and welcome Lionel but I am already up at the bar slurping a milkshake mixed with my special medicine.I will need something strong to get though this day, and the next few years of my life. It is doesn’t taste bad though, not while I am dipping fries into it like somebody taught me a few years ago.

”Lionel, over here.” The perfect PR smile pins itself on my face as I slip off the shiny polished chrome bar stool onto my feet. ”I bet you’re starving after having to listen to the mayor talk shit for hours…” I hand him over a paper menu, filled with all of the classics and some victory tour specials. ”Sorry the District is a total mess right now, it is a reflection on all of the people that live in it.”

Ryan