here in the old therebefore
cw: 14k+ wc, hunger games au, female reader, oliver aiku is from your same district, enemies to lovers, blood, injuries, trauma, heavy angst. I worked really really hard on this and I genuinely hope you will enjoy peeking into this little world I created within the hunger games universe!
This year’s arena is a fucking nightmare.
You think of the afternoon of your reaping and of how similar but entirely different the rainfall currently sticking your clothes to your skin is. Everything here is carefully assembled to feel real enough to evoke a painful nostalgia, to craft the illusion of belonging to the real world still, where the air, the rain, the flowers and the sun are authentic.
But this rain is only falling because the gamemakers want it to fall and the real world is where they’re controlling this fucked up landscape from. You’re not sure you feel real yourself anymore, reduced to a pawn the Capitol will have its great fun watching as it slaughters or gets slaughtered.
President Snow must be really fucking proud of this special adult-only 45th edition, an experiment he was apparently dying to try out. While you’re relieved, thankful for the very first edition where Panem won’t have to watch as children get butchered, you’re also very aware of the actual, ultimate goal: a carnage that is more exciting, grown ups competing against grown ups, tributes who will hopefully make the games last longer and thus grant increased entertainment.
The dizziness forces you to lean against a pine tree, letting the cortex support your weight. You’re so tired and practically out of water. Being on your own has its advantages but it also means that you don’t really get to sleep or relax, ever.
As you watch the way heavy raindrops bend the ferns, you try to image what the other tributes are doing. What he is doing.
His face is yet to be projected in the sky, as opposed to the other 16 tributes who have already fallen. You try to ignore the weird relief the knowledge brings, associate it with the fact that you still want to be the one who kills him. As you promised both him and yourself.
The memory of the laugh Oliver responded with makes your nails angrily dig into the soft, wet soil. Neither mockery nor sarcasm had taken root in the annoyingly familiar sound: it was just a laugh. Someone who didn’t know him well enough could’ve thought he was content with the idea of you planting a knife through his throat.
You, someone who does know him well enough and still doesn’t understand what that laugh meant.
One thing’s for sure, he’s currently doing much better than a lot of tributes. Despite being a career, Oliver refused all alliance proposals and made it clear that he intended to face the games on his own. Why? You have no idea. But you’re pretty confident his sponsors have been drowning him in helpful gifts: he got one of the highest scores from the gamemakers and his interview with Caesar was flawless. The Capitol adores him. Well, as much as a bunch of disgusting pigs can adore someone they sent to die anyway.
Part of your irritation attenuates. He was sent here to die, which is probably the only thing someone like Oliver Aiku has in common with this edition’s other unfortunate tributes.
Still, he’s spent his entire life training for this very moment, hasn’t he? You engaged in your fair share of training too but it was never because you saw the games as some glorious ritual you’d give your best to perform into. It was simply because you wished to face death with a shred of honor. You refuse to go down without a fight, give the Capitol the satisfaction of watching one of their most surprisingly hostile tributes die like a dog. You’re surely not going to emerge victorious from the games, nor you wish to do so in the first place, but you’re going to give them a show alright.
You read the incredulity in their eyes. Your mentors, the gamemakers, Caesar, some of the other tributes. You despise the Capitol and made no secret of it. You were simply smart enough to disguise your aversion with witty jokes and a cheeky demeanour, one they could consider scandalous but in a fun way: audacious, bold, never intimidating.
Unfortunately, being smart about it wasn’t enough to win you a good score or sponsors. On any other edition perhaps you’d have a chance but it is quite nearly impossible to shine when Aiku is the tribute coming from your same District. He put up the perfect show: talented, funny, immensely charming, painfully handsome. There isn’t a single chance in hell someone would decide to sponsor you over him.
Perhaps this is what is going to kill you in the end. You’d certainly prefer dying from dehydration rather than that District 4 girl’s trident anyway.
With a grimace, you remember seeing Oliver snatch a trident from the Cornucopia. Why are you even thinking about him so much? Focus, you tell yourself. It’s a bit late to regret the decision to leave behind the one water source you were able to find but the lake offered close to no refuge and you didn’t want to be murdered in such a stupid way.
You collect some of the rain with your hands and try to drink a few drops but you spit it out immediately: it’s disgusting, the product of someone deciding that dirt and mold should acquire a taste.
“Amazing work on the rain, everyone”, you’re certain some of the audience is cackling so much their stomachs hurt. Maybe at least one fo them will choke on their expensive cognac.
You hear it before you see it but it’s too late. The arrow now stuck in the tree, right by your head, was supposedly meant to produce bigger harm than the scratch now burning on your cheek.
Adrenaline kicks in and you quickly roll over behind the tree while grabbing one of your knives. The dizziness caused by dehydration may be contributing to the sense of disorientation because you are not able to locate where exactly the arrow came from. Whoever is in the forest probably knows a target is all you need.
“Let’s not do that”, it doesn’t help that the voice comes from a completely different spot from the one you’re currently keeping a careful eye on from behind the tree, “no use in hiding. I’ll come out first”.
He really does. Your fingers instinctively close tighter around your knife.
Bastion, District 1, dangerously skilled and unfortunately holding a long range weapon. Something tells you the blood splattered all over his clothes and face is far from being his own.
“See? I’m here. Now you can come out too”.
He says your name and it makes your stomach churn. Well, if this is it, you’re not going to hide like a coward. Face death with dignity. Maybe he’ll kill you but you can still give him hell.
You emerge from behind the tree holding both your knives, clothes glued to your wet skin. Bastion offers a smile.
“There you go. I can make it quick or I can make it excruciating, it’s up to you. Wanna give me those knives?”.
“Sure”, you smile back and toss one so quickly not even someone as well trained as him reacts fast enough to completely circumvent it. The gash on his arm is deep enough to bleed, bothersome enough to make him grimace.
“You think you’re so smart”, he nocks another arrow and you take a step back while he prepares to aim, “too bad you were too much of a bitch for any of us to want you in their alliance”.
The shot is good but not perfect. You can’t help the cry that bubbles up from your throat as the skin of your hip is lacerated. The arrow has a narrow point on it so you deem it safe enough to simply pull it straight out. The sharp pain makes tears well up in your eyes but you don’t give Bastion the satisfaction of hearing another wail.
“You’ve got some guts, I’ll give you that”, he grins, eyes darting to the wound your blood is dripping from. The crimson fluid blends with the rainwater at your feet, tinting a puddle in pale pink.
“Fuck you”, you try to put more distance between your bodies.
Bastion’s tone drips with condescension.
“Under different circumstances, I might’ve let you”.
Good, he needs to keep talking. You need him to be distracted just the right amount, enough to calculate the perfect throwing distance.
“You mean I would’ve been your type if we weren’t supposed to kill each other?”, you take a step forward, which seems to confuse him. Surely the oldest trick in the book will work on this giant idiot.
“I think you would’ve been mine”, just as you tentatively offer a smile, your eyes dramatically widen as they flicker to a spot behin him. You swiftly dodge an imaginary threat and if the bluff is not enough for Bastion to completely abandon his attack stance, it’s at least enough for him to waste a second by whipping his head around. An entire second offered on a silver platter, extended to someone who couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. Poor Bastion. You’d feel worse if he wasn’t such a massive asshole. Oh, and if he wasn’t here to murder you, obviously.
The crossbow falls to the ground. He blinks and brings a hand to his neck, where your knife has been planted through a perfect shot.
“I’m sorry”, you murmur as he looks at you with wide eyes.
Bastion falls to the ground and you step closer, with the intention of granting him a quicker death by stabbing the carotid artery, which you clearly missed. Asshole or not, he’s still as much of a victim as you.
He is scared of dying, it’s written all over his frozen features. Suddenly, he’s not a career anymore: just a terrified boy who is loved by his friends, his family, who now have to watch him die. Just a boy who was willing to do anything to go back to them. You take his hand and squeeze it tight.
The pain that explodes in your leg is sudden, so intense you can’t contain the shriek that echoes across the trees. You collapse right next to Bastion, whose eyes are still open but no longer able to see. You’re barely able to register the horribly familiar sound of the cannon proclaiming his death.
Panting, tears now freely streaming down your cheeks, you roll onto your back and see the arrow planted in the soft flesh of your calf. It’s different from the ones Bastion used, this one’s a hunting arrow. You can feel the razor sharp blades extending out from the axis, the sensation probably matches being stabbed with a double edged knife. The head didn’t go all the way through, which means you can’t just break the shaft in half and pull the ends outwards. You can’t do anything but endure, well aware that the more your leg moves, the more internal damage those blades will cause.
It hurts so much you forget all about facing death with dignity, pathetically sobbing on the ground beside the corpse of the guy you just murdered. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You wish it was quicker, you wish they shot you through the head.
“God, fuck!”, you scream, fists closing around the pulpy, muddy ground underneath you, “finish the fucking job, it hurts!”.
Azora smiles as she steps into the small clearing, crossbow ready. Yeah, it makes sense that she would be part of Bastion’s alliance.
“It hurts?”, her derisory tone sets fire to your rage, “good”.
“What, are you too stupid to hit the target twice?”, the insult is barely a growl between gritted teeth. Azora reads right through it and doesn’t try to hide just how much she is enjoying the show.
Some of them are here for this, they find suffering entertaining. They think it makes them better than the rest of the tributes, an invisible line demarcating what is different about them. What makes them worthier. Poor, delusional fuckers. Azora is as much of an animal as you are, in the eyes of the Capitol.
She crouches down next to you, jaw tensing ever so slightly when her eyes dart to Bastion’s body. You briefly wonder why he’s still here, are the gamemakers refusing to collect him for the sake of the show?
“I think I’ll just watch you bleed to death”, Azora pushes the arrow deeper and you scream again, back arching as your entire body trembles, every nerve shooting off the same response to your brain. Agony.
You’re thankful your body is so worn out from hunger, dehydration and fatigue. You’re thankful it decides to grant you a merciful end.
Right before passing out, you think you imagine the trident that pierces Azora’s throat.
If you’re dead, it really sucks that the pain is still there. Is your soul really the one destined to eternal damnation when people like Snow exist?
No, this is not how death is supposed to feel like. You’re not back in your beloved mountains and while you hope from the bottom of your heart that your parents live a long life out of harm’s way, you were at least hoping to smell your mother’s freshly baked bread one more time in the afterlife. Not even your brother is here to welcome you.
Oliver Aiku is the one who welcomes you instead, back to the devastating meaning this reality holds. You’re still in the arena and, unfortunately, not dead yet. Three bad things at once? Fuck, it’s really not your day.
“It’s okay”, the way his worried eyes keep darting to your leg tells you it’s really not, “you’re safe here. I just need to-”
Pain explodes behind your eyes when he touches the arrow and you can barely hold the scream in, eyes filling with fresh tears.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”, you kick his hand away with the leg you can move, from where you’re lying on… what the hell is it? An old table? Where even are you? It looks like he carried you inside an abandoned building. You didn’t get to explore this part of the arena yet, therefore you feel completely denfeseless.
“I need to get that thing out”, Oliver takes a step forward and you kick again, delirious with anger and pain.
“Fuck you!”, your foot collides with his arm, then his chest, until he grabs your ankle with both hands. You wish you still had at least one of your knives.
“I’m sorry. It’s going to hurt really bad”.
“I will slit your throat open”, you can barely articulate the words from how hard you’re gritting your teeth, “just fucking kill me already”.
Oliver ignores you. Still holding your ankle with one hand, he uses the other to rip part of his shirt while securing the fabric over the shoulder between his teeth.
“Bite into this. If you scream, you’ll reveal our position”.
He doesn’t use the small ball of fabric as a cloth gag. Instead, he gently lets your fingers close around it. Your chest rises and falls too quickly, pain clouding any other sense.
“Fuck. You”.
Oliver looks at your leg again, the hand closed around your ankle giving it a gentle squeeze.
“I know you have no reason to trust me. But if you don’t bleed out, the sepsis will kill you”, he observes the sweat beads covering your forehead and under any other circumstance, if he was someone else, you could’ve believed the worry flashing in those eyes.
“Just kill me already”, you hiss, “I’m sure you don’t need more sponsors, spare me this fucking farce”.
He sighs.
“Okay. How about this? You let me take the arrow out and then I’ll let you kill me. Sounds fair?”.
You just groan, the throbbing in your leg unbearable as fresh blood keeps running down your calf. Out of everyone, it really had to be him. You’re going to die like a fool, a pawn of the Capitol and a toy that will grant Aiku even more sympathy from the lunatics currently tuned in for the show. Behold, the hero from District 2. Talented, funny, merciful. This year’s perfect victor.
“I hate you”, you manage to let out, “I hate you”.
“I know”, he offers a small, perfectly sad smile. Talented.
You were wrong for thinking you’d be able to face death, let alone pain, with dignity. Whatever Oliver is doing puts you in such agony you find yourself gasping for air, fisting his shirt between your trembling fingers as you beg, beg, beg him to stop. He whispers his reassurances, asks you to bite harder into the fabric currently in your mouth. I know, I’m sorry, you’ll be okay, I’m so sorry. You cry, apologize, curse him, try to hit the back of your head against the table hard enough to pass out.
Oliver pulls the arrow out slowly, to make sure he doesn’t break off any of it inside your leg. He considered pushing it through completely and break off the shaft to then pull the arrow out from the rear but he couldn’t bring himself to put you through such torture. You’re already shaking so much, as silent as you manage to be while keeping your eyes squeezed shut and trying to muffle your whimpers.
“You’re doing so good”, he pulls out a small bottle from a backpack that’s different than yours and pours some clear liquid over his hands, “I’m going to clean the wound now, okay?”.
You don’t have the energy to nod so you just keep your exhausted gaze on him.
Oliver does his best with what he has. Cleans the blood but recognizes that the wound is too deep to be treated with an antiseptic. The only thing he can work with is a topical ointment that came with the first aid kit he found in the backpack he snatched from the Cornucopia. You twitch when he carefully applies it over the laceration and then wraps your calf with hopefully clean enough gauze bandages.
“Okay”, he finally sighs in relief, “this should be fine for now. Get some rest, I’ll keep watch”.
You take the clump of cloth out of your mouth and let it fall to the floor, breathing less irregular now. It’s hard to process what happened in the past minutes (hours?). It doesn’t matter how hard you resist it, how drained your mind currently is, what hidden agenda he might have, if it was an act of mercy or not. The indisputable reality is that Oliver Aiku saved your life.
“Why?”, you ask with what’s left of your voice.
He meets your gaze and smiles.
“You have to get better if you want to keep your promise”.
Ah, right. The promise to kill him.
“Okay”, you whisper.
“Okay”, he’s probably still smiling but you are unable to keep your eyes open so there is really no way to validate that.
Oliver lies easily and it certainly wasn’t hard to convince someone on the brink of passing out.
He doesn’t keep watch at all. What he does instead, is watch over you. Day and night, whoever is watching this fucked up edition will probably find keeping up with him boring as hell but he hardly cares.
While he was hoping to find you under different circumstances, at least now he gets to make sure you survive. From day one, ever since your name was drawn at the reaping, all he wanted was to stay alive enough to keep you safe. The only tribute he wants to be killed by.
Oliver is there as your body fights the infection through fever and chills. Sometimes you wake from your slumber and he has to really focus to understand what you’re saying through incoherent, slurred speech. You thank him a lot, curse him again, tell him it hurts, that you’re cold, that he’s beautiful. He remembers when you were both kids, him so intensely focused on his training as all careers are, your sincere loathing. The afternoon you two inevitably got into a physical fight after all your poking and prodding finally made him lose his patience: you broke his nose, he crushed two of your ribs. You believe he’s still that kid because why would you not? Letting everyone believe that is an easy price to pay to protect his family.
But being in the games changes everything. You being here changes everything. Oliver just hopes he’ll convince you to grant him a quick death, not because he’s scared but because he knows those who are dear to him are watching. They already had to go through the pain of losing a father and a husband, a brother and a son will also be gone soon. He hopes to make the process as smooth as possible.
The silver parachute surprises him. There are still people who want to deliver gifts to him? Your mentors, perhaps? They’re possibly the only ones who would care enough to try and save your life, it’s not like you displayed too much of an effort to win over anyone’s sympathy.
Oliver keeps your head up while you try to swallow the colorful antibiotic capsules, skin still far too warm under his touch. This part of the arena is fairly safe from other tributes, the plethora of mutts functioning as a terrific deterrent, but he still can’t bring himself to leave you to go on the hunt for additional food and water.
“Hey”, his head shoots up from where he was resting it on the table. Did he fall asleep?
You’re awake, fully awake now, gaze less clouded and voice clear.
“How are you feeling?”, he asks.
“Better”, you carefully sit up, try to flex your wounded leg. It still hurts too much but you can move it now, the crimson stained bandages tight around your calf. Pressure.
“Good”, Oliver exhales, relaxing his shoulders. You observe him for a few seconds, hold his gaze, then carefully push the half empty bottle of water next to you towards him even if you’re so thirsty your throat feels on fire.
“That’s yours”, he attempts to push it back but you tighten your hold around the plastic, resist his effort.
“Drink”, you click your tongue, impatient, “eat, too”.
He furrows his brows.
“Only if we share”.
“I’m leaving”, you ignore him, slowly swing your legs beyond the edge of the table and try to stand. Oliver watches are you tumble to the floor and tries his best to remain serious as he speaks again.
“Can I say something?”.
“No”, you shoot him a venomous glare, every muscle in your body tense as you try to pretend you’re not in pain. You hold on to the table to get up from the floor and all you can do is rest your hip against it as you stand on the one leg that still carries your weight. The simple action required so much effort your head is spinning already, black dots dancing in your line of vision. Your hand distractedly wanders further on the surface and finds something smooth, cold. Familiar.
Your knives.
Underneath the table, you now catch sight of your useless backpack too.
“When did you…?”, the question is left incomplete, your mouth suddenly drier than ever.
“Right away”, Oliver observes the way your trained fingers twirl one of the knives, the flick of your wrist rendering it almost invisible from how fast you’re spinning it, “thought you’d want them”.
You both know this could be it. This could be the moment you decide to plant a knife in his throat, it’d be so quick he’d barely have the chance to notice it. Despite all that, he still got your weapons for you.
The knives disappear somewhere underneath your jacket, in a hidden pocket. Oliver watches as you slowly shuffle past him, crouch down with a grimace and sit on the cold floor, right next to his backpack. You let your back rest against a half-destroyed concrete column.
“Get some sleep”, you say without looking at him, one hand holding your wounded leg, “I’ll keep watch”.
It’s a strange one, the tacit alliance you form with Oliver Aiku.
If you have your reservations about trusting him, he doesn’t seem to need to think twice about putting his trust in you. He has no problem sleeping, eating what you put together for dinner or breakfast, letting his guard down and offer you countless occasions to stab him in the back.
You don’t want it to hold any special meaning, the fact that he saved your life. What good would it do? You’re going to die anyway. But it’s hard to ignore the gratitude clutching your chest as he replaces the bandages around your leg, shares his supplies, explains what you were doing wrong when attempting to start a smokeless fire. It’s hard to banish the knowledge that he’s the closest, last thing you’ll have from home to a far corner in the back of your mind.
You look at Oliver and remember the arrogant kid he was, always too proud and confident that he’d one day win the games and bring honor to his District. Just like his father did. You remember the countless friends he had at school, the hours he’s spent training in the unbearable summer heat and freezing, numbing winter. You look at him now, some faded bruises on his face, tired eyes, playful smile, and remember the cookies his mother used to bake for the neighborhood kids. He’d always try to convince her to not give any to you, she’s a jerk. As punishment, she’d make him personally bring them to you.
He looks different now that he’s in the arena and you wonder if he believes it was worth it, spending his life adoring those who are now greedily watching the way you slaughter one another for the sake of their entertainment. You wonder if he now sees how little it matters, whether one dedicates an entire life to being a perfectly obedient, devoted little servant. In their eyes, he’s as much as an animal as you are.
You don’t know why he saved you, you’re not sure it matters. Fake or not, perhaps this is the last bit of humanity you’ll be granted in this life and you wish to treasure it. You don’t want your family to watch as you become the monster the Capitol wants you to turn into.
This, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean he should have it easy.
“I can walk”, you grumble.
“But can you run?”, he asks casually, to which you scoff.
“I know an easier way to get water”.
“Which is?”.
“The lake-”
“It’s poisoned in the summer”.
That shuts you up.
The gamemakers designed this arena with slight modifications that manifest as the seasons change, which generally happens approximately every 2-5 hours. The change is not coherent with the natural progress of time: they split the seasons into meaningless, unnatural chunks they control according to their whims. Sometimes spring follows fall and summer begins in the middle of winter. You only stopped by the lake when auburn leaves traced strangely comforting patterns in the sky and crunched beneath your feet.
Oliver shoots you one last worried glance from over his shoulder on his way out and you pretend you don’t notice.
It only took a few days with him to get used to the familiarity of having someone to talk to. Every attempt at keeping yourself busy fails miserably, so you decide to put your injured leg at work to hopefully recover faster. You pace up and down across the space this abandoned building offers, slowly but steadily.
A brief pause by the broken window grants a better idea of what kind of landscape this part of the arena offers: overturned human infrastructures reclaimed by the wilderness, vines and their roots probably ripping apart floors that look exactly like the one you’re standing on. There are a few more abandoned buildings in the distance, what looks like an iron bridge almost swallowed by lush vegetation. The air has a metallic smell to it and it’s quiet, too quiet. They wouldn’t even grace this place with a few birds. But it takes you a few minutes to realize what’s really so unsettling about this scenery: all the greenery suggests vibrancy, liveliness and yet only serves as an eery reminder of how it’s actually filled with nothing but haunting absence. Are mutts the only animals around, is that why everything is so still? Or is it just how summer looks like here?
At dinner, by a small fire that wouldn’t immediately reveal your position, you find yourself constantly observing Oliver. He’s certainly aware but for some reason he feigns obliviousness, which irritates you.
You resent him for how kind and considerate he’s been. You resent him for not providing any reationale to loathe him, for not cultivating the most familiar knee-jerk reaction you’ve had to him ever since you were children. Hostility.
Is this his way to embarrass you, to trigger some fucked up sense of guilt? Does he want you to admit you were an asshole for judging him so harshly, ridicule you as Panem bears witness?
Your wound aches, leg still awkwardly flexed in the one position you can tolerate. An eternal, sour reminder that you owe Oliver fucking Aiku. Your exasperation could burn this entire arena down.
“You’re not eating”, he holds out a portion of mushrooms. You accept it with a frown.
“Let me guess, you’re certain they’re not poisonous”.
“Pretty positive”, he flashes a smile, “I’ve been eating these for three days straight”.
“Maybe you kept the non deadly ones to yourself”.
Oliver chuckles, because you’re already on your second forkful.
“I have no interest in killing you”.
“Why?”.
“Maybe I like you”.
You hold his gaze, astonished.
“I don’t know why I bother”, with a scoff, you lean forward to steal a few mushrooms out of his portion. He lets you.
“Not my fault you never take me seriously”, Oliver shrugs.
“You’re the last person in Panem I’d ever take seriously”.
“Really?”, he frowns, “Copper before me?”.
You don’t mean to laugh, you really don’t. But it’s too late and concealing it by clearing your throat makes you feel all the more ridiculous.
Copper from District 3 is probably the most annoying human being you ever had the misfortune of encountering. Oliver was there as the Peacekeepers had to intervene when at the gymnasium Copper engaged in an increasingly heated discussion with a tribute from District 9. You don’t think you ever saw him train once, he was always just jumping from station to station trying to pick up a fight with anyone who’d react to his endless prodding.
“Well. I did almost break his nose”, a Peacekeeper had to restrain you on the floor, one knee pressed to your back.
“I remember you being good at that”.
You offer a shrug. Oliver leans back, weight supported by his palms as he studies your expression.
“What did he say to you?”.
He watches as you stiffen for a moment, a less trained eye would’ve probably missed it. But he’s been observing you for so long, it’s like he has all your reactions memorized.
“Doesn’t matter. He was an asshole”.
Oliver hums, doesn’t insist. You appreciate the way he lets the discussion fall, gaze lost in the crackling fire separing your legs from his. All the while, you can’t seem to look away from him.
“How many people did you kill?”, the question is quiet. He meets your eyes, some odd feeling unfurling in his chest at the first, serious thing you have ever asked him.
“Five”, Oliver says, “six, with Azora”.
“Why did you do that, Aiku?”.
He wonders if he’ll die before getting to hear you call him by his name at least once in this life.
“You won’t take the answer seriously, so what’s the point of asking?”.
“Why don’t you try me?”.
Oliver holds your gaze for a moment, before speaking next.
“I don’t want you to die”.
You shake your head, in disbelief. There is nothing you currently understand about the man who sits before you and you’re not sure he’s playing a game anymore. If he is, you’ll probably won’t live long enough to learn the rules.
He lets you mull over his answer, reading all the wariness engrained too deep in your features. Oliver never wanted to put in the effort to change the idea you have of him, nor he thinks it’d be worth it. The planned outcome would still be the same and, regardless, time is a luxury neither of you have. But part of him still doesn’t want to die without being seen, it appears. You looked at him like he was a person and not something rotten only for a few seconds and now he’s desperate to prove it. He’s just a man, too. He gets scared at night, he misses the mountains that he knows are so dear to you as well. He’s flawed, so painfully defective in fact, but hasn’t he paid enough for his arrogance? He’s here to die, is it really too much to ask for you to catch a glimpse of who he is now?
“Well”, you murmur, “the mushrooms were good. And non-lethal, which is an obvious bonus”.
Oliver cracks a grateful smile.
“My dad taught me how to identify the edible ones. Not that anything makes sense here but I guess I got lucky”.
You take an apple, one of the very few remaining food supplies stowed in your backpack, and carefully cut it in half with your knife. Begrudgingly, you take note of how natural if feels to give him the bigger piece.
“I’m sorry about him”, you murmur.
Oliver’s dad represented everything you despised and more: a career first and then a victor who spent his life adoring the Capitol, raising his children to become exactly like him. As opposed to their mother, instead of being relieved his kids were lucky enough to escape the reaping, he only expressed regret. Disappointment. All he ever wanted was for at least one of his kids to honor the Capitol or die trying, for all Panem to see. He died due to a sudden illness a few years ago, surely still tormented by the regret of not being able to live enough to see one of his children brutally murdering someone or being murdered on live television. The irony. He would’ve been this special edition’s biggest fan.
Still, Oliver and his sisters loved their dad. He was their hero. You remember how he’d puff out his chest at school while recounting his adventures in the arena, always expressing just how lucky it felt for them to have such a special mentor. You remember watching the way they sobbed at his funeral, which you were forced to attend by your family. The Aikus were there for us when your brother died. You joined your parents and everyone else in sprinkling bread crumbs over his body, Oliver’s mom welcoming your condolences with a warm hug. Oliver and his sisters refused to even shake your hand, reddened eyes begrudgingly staring into the distance to avoid your gaze. You didn’t blame them.
“Thank you for saying that”, he mutters.
“You must miss him a lot”.
Oliver blinks a few times and suddenly you feel stupidly guilty. Why even push it? It’s not like you ever cared about him, let alone his dad.
And yet you know, without having to validate it, that the pain currently dancing in his stare is authentic. You hate that Oliver is being forced to give them this, something genuine and personal. Because of you.
“I do”, he admits quietly, “he would’ve loved mentoring us”. He doesn’t say what he actually feels, which is that he’s really fucking glad his dad is not here to witness what a pathetic disappointment his son has turned into. He was always the only one who could see right through him.
You look away because his affliction is too intimate, too raw.
“He was really proud of you”.
Oliver appreciates that you’re being honest without any unnecessary, fabricated commiseration. You’ve always been one to say exactly what you think and he knows that the pride his father held for him was something you could easily corroborate, despite how badly you despised him. While you purposefully avoid commenting on his observation, somehow you decide to offer him some comfort. It’s way more than what he deserves.
“Yeah. He was”, Oliver bites into his half of the apple, a tight lump in his throat. You shut your eyes for a second, teeth tormenting your lower lip before you decide to readjust the scale.
“Copper told me he felt sad that Ashlar died in a different edition of the games. Because he would’ve loved to be the one to kill him”.
There, balance restored. Now they can have your pain too.
Oliver looks up from his hands, genuinely surprised you’d willingly share something like that with him. He’s even more surprised by the aversion simmering in his stomach: if he was holding his trident, he would’ve probably tightened his hold around it. Fuck that guy.
“He’s an asshole”, he clicks his tongue, “Ashlar was one of the coolest guys of our District”.
You refuse to meet his gaze. The memory of your brother still burns, made all the way more painful by the echoes of all the moments you shared together. He was not exactly Oliver’s friend, they belonged with different social groups, but for some weird reason they respected each other. Whenever you complained about him, Ashlar used to repeat the same sentence without ever getting sick of it. Remember he’s a victim too. And then he left you alone to face this unfair, shitty world. Thank god you’ll leave soon, too.
Oliver’s foot gently nudges your ankle and you look up. The warmth in his eyes is unbearable.
“I’m glad you almost broke his nose”, he says. You blink back warm tears.
“Let’s get some sleep, we should set up camp somewhere else tomorrow. You’re keeping watch first”.
He doesn’t say anything as you slowly curl up on the floor, back facing the fire and him. Oliver hopes watching over you the entire night is enough to keep your nightmares at bay. You fall asleep thinking that you reached the end of yet another day without thanking him for saving your life.
Back in the forest you are, because you learn from the unfortunate experience of a tribute from District 10 that it’s best to stray as far from the shore as possible. Water that turns into viscous blood, mutts in the form of beautiful mermaids who try to drown you, beautiful rocks that turn into deadly giant crabs that patrol the beach.
Well, at least you would be back in the correct spot of the forest by now, if it wasn’t for you. You’re drenched in sweat, the fatigue weighing heavy on your limbs are you pretend to be perfectly capable of walking normally. Your leg is far from being healed and, under normal circumstances, you probably should’ve rested it for at least a week.
You refuse to acknowledge the pain but that’s the best you can do, really. It’s impossible to walk as fast as you should, which forces Oliver to be slower. Asking him to just go has been useless, the last 75 times you tried.
The sun filtering through a canopy of vibrant green leaves creates the patterns of light and shadow dancing on his back as he walks ahead, on the lookout for any potential threat. You have a feeling he’s trying his hardest to subtly keep his focus on you. There’s an oddly worried look he tosses over his shoulder every now and then, clumsily justified with the excuse of being vigilant. He’s just inspecting the trees, inspecting the ground, searching for possible enemies trailing behind you.
Oliver didn’t ask if you’d allow him to carry you simply because that’s not how he’s planning to end up with one of your knives in his neck. But when it starts getting dark and it becomes clear that getting back to the abandoned building area before the night falls is simply not going to happen, that’s when he suggests to stop.
You’re exhausted, in pain, frustrated. A dead weight. It’s exasperating, how helpless you’re feeling.
“Just go already”, you lean against a tree, trying to catch your breath, “you can make it back at a normal pace”.
“That cave looks snug”, he ignores you, indicating a shallow opening between two rocks nearby. You sigh.
“I’m being serious. Leave”.
“Would you abandon me here in the open? All alone, injured, vulnerable?”.
“Yes”.
Oliver snaps his fingers.
“Exactly. I’m a better person than you, so I won’t do that”.
You just look at him, genuinely startled. He grins, bright and warm, eyes shining with mischief.
“God, you’re so-”
“Kind. Selfless? Or were you about to say big-hearted?”.
It’s disgusting, the way he succeeds in getting under your skin enough to evoke the ghost of a smile. Enough to make you forget you’re two people stuck in a giant, murderous amusement park, destined to kill or be killed.
“Let’s find something to eat for dinner first, alright?”, Oliver lightly bumps your shoulder with his fist.
Tactful.
Why does he pick up on every single one of your unintentional cues so well? He just saved you the embarrassment of hiding that smile, of having to come up with something to say to disperse the awkwardness. On top of that, he offered you a chance to feel useful after what was clearly a very hard day. You don’t understand why he’s doing all this and you can’t bring yourself to ask.
Oliver lets you lead the way and be the one to analyze each berry and fruit you come across. A dead squirrel next to a wild strawberry bush suggests it’s best to switch to a different option. You manage to find a few innocuous plums and some chestnuts you will hopefully be able to roast: they should pair well with Oliver’s cheese and your dried beef strips. You’re sure he already knows how to open them but he still stops to observe the way you roll the burr under your foot, applying just enough pressure for it to fall apart and the nuts to come out.
It’s summer until it’s not. Winter comes in the blink of an eye, with biting wind gusts and a brutal hailstorm you are far from being equipped for. Your backpacks can only shield you so much and by the time you stumble into the cave you’ll be spending the night in, you’re both soaked to the bone.
“Are you sure no one else is in here?”, you whisper when Oliver re-emerges from the dark depths of the cave.
“Yeah, I checked everywhere”.
“What are you doing?”, in shock, you watch as he pulls his shirt over his head and starts unbuttoning his pants amid violent shivering. You’re not doing any better yourself, wet clothes sticking uncomfortably to your skin.
“Trying not to die from hypothermia”, Oliver’s clothes are dark pools by his feet as he is left in nothing but his underwear, “we can’t light a fire here”.
“Why not?”, you look away from where you’re hugging your knees on the hard floor. It’s not really necessary, the cave is pretty dark and the storm outside makes it even harder to single out something other than rough shapes.
“The cave is too wet, there’s water dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls. You should take your clothes off too”.
“Don’t be ridiculous”, you try to stubbornly protect yourself from the cold by rubbing your hands together and breathing through your nose. Oliver sighs.
“At least sit on this. You shouldn’t be on the ground”.
He gently grabs your wrist and guides your hand to touch what is currently beneath him, probably that canvas tarp he carries in his backpack.
“I have a blanket we can share”, Oliver murmurs as you quietly accept the invitation and reluctantly sit next to him.
“I’ll get it wet”.
“I don’t mind”.
Suddenly, it all feels so ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. Why should it matter whether you’re wearing any clothes or not? This is not some stupid, intimate moment. You can’t feel your fingers or legs anymore, numbness slowly threatening to claim what that stupid arrow couldn’t, and you’re trying to preserve what, your virtue? Dignity? The Capitol already owns both. To hell with it.
Oliver doesn’t say anything as you start undressing or rather furiously tearing your clothes off, at least from what he can hear and barely see. Anything that is not your underwear is tossed to the floor.
You can feel the way he’s still shaking as you get close, so you heave a deep sigh.
“Okay. We need to share body heat”, you’re perfectly aware that he already knows and you hate that he was respectful enough to not suggest it from the start, “get the blanket, I’m going to sit between your legs. If you try anything-”
“If I try anything, you’re good with knives. I know”.
You try not to dwell over how empty the threat feels by now. Sparing a single second thinking that come the time you won’t be able to actually kill him is too dangerous and your brain refuses to process the possible implications.
His muscles are still spasming as you settle between his legs, the blanket draped over his wide shoulders envelopes you as well and you hold the hems to keep it from falling open. You instinctively lean back and he presses his chest to your back, the arms loosely wrapped around you now pulling you in.
“Imagine this is how we die”, you murmur, barely able to get the words out, “wouldn’t be really fun to watch”.
A beat passes and an unpleasant feelings crawls its way into your gut.
“Aiku?”.
He hums a feeble, quivering sound.
“Keep talking to me”, you try to position yourself differently in his arms, laterally enough for your breath to fan over his throat. Against your better judgment, you let the blanket go and grab his hands instead, squeezing hard. He’s still trembling.
“Okay”, Oliver whispers.
“What would you have for dinner if we were home?”.
He shuts his eyes, trying his hardest to focus instead of surrendering to the numbness slowly taking over his limbs.
“Sometimes we’d have roasted birds”, you feel the deep rumble of his voice vibrate against your skin, where you’re pressed to his chest, “mom filled them with her special orange sauce. Mashed potatoes also sound good right now”.
“Yeah. That’s nice. What else? What’s for dessert?”.
“Cinnamon bread. Apple and goat cheese tart”.
You groan with desire and he chuckles.
“What about you? What are you having?”.
“Mom’s carrot soup and rabbit stew. God, I miss that stew so much. It was Ashlar’s favorite”.
Oliver presses his cheek to your forehead and you don’t object, the darkness doing well in concealing the sick sense of comfort slowly swelling in your chest. You indulge it, nuzzling further into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. His skin is finally regaining some of its warmth, which for some reason eases your strain.
“And for dessert?”, he asks. Gentle, hushed.
“Peach pie”, you whisper back.
Oliver hums and it’s quiet for a while, your breathing patterns falling into a similar, regular rhythm. You listen to the water dripping nearby, the way it echoes. The air smells like damp and fresh dirt, it reminds you of the conifer forest your dad would take you and your brother to when you were kids. Sometimes it’d start raining and the air would smell exactly like this.
“I think it’s snowing now”, Oliver doesn’t even try to conceal the fact that he’s practically hugging you now, purposefully keeping you close as his fingers trace delicate patterns across your arm. You don’t pretend it doesn’t feel good. You don’t pretend it’s not warming you up from within. You just relax further into him, nose intentionally brushing along the strong line of his jaw a few times. He wonders it the cave is silent enough for you to hear how hard his heart is kicking against his ribs.
“My mom would always make us a glass of warm goat milk with honey and spices whenever it snowed”, you recall sadly.
“Mine too”, he smiles, “best way to warm up. My sisters would always try to steal my milk after finishing theirs”.
You smile too, offer a soft hum.
“She made it whenever my best friend visited. Cecelia used to love it”.
Oliver stiffens against you.
He was there, everyone was there when Cecelia Wovey was hung in the town square by the Peacekeepers. A horrifying example to those who forget what type of consequences disobedience leads to.
Cecelia Wovey, with her blonde hair and colorful ribbons. Sometimes she’d sit next to him in class, with the sole purpose of pissing him off. Cecelia Wovey was intelligent but had a loud mouth, pretty dresses and flowy skirts. You two were inseparable, always together, perpetually whispering secrets to each other’s ear and then giggling about who knows what. Cecelia Wovey, suspected instigator. She was until the Capitol decided she ought to be no more.
He hates how indifferent her death made him at the time. The relief he felt at the sight of her empty seat at school now disgusts him.
Oliver doesn’t know what to say, none of the words he could conjure would ever make it right. He can’t say that he remembers how close you two were, how much you loved one other. He can’t say what he actually wants to, which is that he’s so painfully sorry.
You sniffle and his heart breaks.
One of his hands blindly reaches to find yours in the dark and when it does, he makes sure the palm faces your chest as his thumb starts tracing the words across it, slowly but with intention. To make sure you catch every letter, to make sure you’re the only one who does.
Your breath hitches in your throat when he completes the sentence. The way he squeezes your hand afterwards dissipates any doubt: you didn’t misinterpret the words or get them wrong.
I hate them too.
How is that even possible? That would go against everything him and his family have ever been. Is he lying? You know he wasn’t lying back home, why do it now?
“Do you actually like goat milk?”, you choose the words carefully, “you hardly seem the type”.
Oliver squeezes your hand again. He thinks he might die if you refuse to believe him.
“I swear it’s my favorite”.
You can’t wrap your head around what he’s revealing. If they saw what he wrote on your palm, they could very well kill him.
He presses his lips to the shell of your ear and his murmur is so quiet you can barely distinguish the words.
“They think they own me”, a whisper meant for you only. Oliver takes your hand again and you let him press it to his chest first, then bring it up to his forehead, where he taps your pointer finger against the skin two times. My body, my mind. They think they have them.
Oliver knows you’re probably not going to grasp the meaning of what he’s revealing in its entirety. This is the type of conversation he should’ve had in a different setting, where cameras and quite literally the entire nation are not recording his every word and move. But he couldn’t risk anyone back home finding out, ever.
He still remembers the day a man and a woman he had never seen before came looking for his sisters. Their dad had been buried less than a week before two strangers from the Capitol knocked on their door to inquire about Mia and Kaya.
Oliver was the only member of the Aiku family who happened to be home that day, his sisters busy with their Peacekeeper training, his mom out to run some errands. He remembers the way the woman with whiskers surgically implanted into her face looked at him, as if she was seeing a precious gem for the very first time. He remembers how the man’s long fingers dug into his skin when he grabbed him by the jaw, to inspect his face from different angles. Oliver was too excited, too honored to recognize that they weren’t expressing admiration, that they weren’t looking at him and seeing a young man worth praising. They were appreciating him the way one does with a pig that is particularly high in quality.
On the train they gave him nice clothes, offered large portions of delicious food, sweet wine mixed with honey and herbs. They combed his hair, trimmed his nails, waxed his body hair and applied a thick layer of makeup to his face. He didn’t quite grasp what was happening until the train arrived to the Capitol and they locked him in a luxurious room with a man who was much older than him, reeking of alcohol. Oliver tasted the nepenthe on his lips when the stranger forcibly kissed him.
There were a couple more that day, men and women. Despite his clouded mind, courtesy of the wine, he remembers iridescent scales, tattooes, skin with gems implanted in it, colorful wigs, overwhelming perfumes. The way he violently threw up before boarding the train again, in the middle of the night.
They handed him an envelope filled with banknotes and told him he could decline any further trip to the Capitol if he wanted: they did come looking for his sisters, after all. Perhaps even his mother could serve them well.
It took Oliver some time to understand that what was left of the Aiku family had to be of use to the Capitol somehow, after the untimely death of the victor who could no longer be abused. It took him years to realize that winning the games isn’t freeing, doesn’t come with any real glory. There are no winners: only slaves who survive and can be controlled until their useless lives come to an end. Tools used to repay strangers for their loyalty, a reward for their supporters. Forever a step below. Because Snow always lands on top.
Oliver accepted every trip, embraced his role and played it well. He didn’t let anyone, let alone his family, peek into the depths of his shame. He smiled and moaned and praised his masters and took the money, he did what he had to do in order to make sure what was left of his family would be safe. And you? Turns out you we right the whole time, his entire life. The kid he’s been getting into fights with for as long as he can remember, grown into the woman he now admires.
You repudiated the system cleverly, adamant but never loud enough to be considered an agitator. The hostility you held for him and his family always told him everything he needed to know about your stance. And now he will never have the chance to properly tell you that you were right the whole time, he will never get to share the pain he’s been carrying for the past years. It’s only right. People like him don’t deserve sympathy nor redemption. He chose what he wanted to be in this life long ago: it’s only right he dies exactly the way he has lived. Like a coward. Like an Aiku.
So why are you grabbing his hand, securing his arm tighter around you? Why are you still willing to lean into him, lips grazing the spot where his pulse point is? There’s no chance you’re seeing him. He could never hope to die as someone you trust.
You jump when something suddenly lands in your lap, two sets of hands immediately finding the familiar shape of a silver parachute. A sponsor gift?
“Oh”, Oliver chuckles as he easily resumes his role, “I guess someone wants us to warm up”.
But you find yourself unable to pretend the weight of his sudden revelation isn’t threatening to shift your entire world’s axis. So you stay silent, quietly share the freshly delivered goat milk with him as his thumb keeps rubbing comforting, painfully intimate circles over your hip while the storm keeps raging outside.
Unable to discern where you end and he begins, you find yourself slipping into the most peaceful slumber you have experienced the past week. If you’re too worn out to question why it was so easy, so natural to trust Oliver Aiku enough to fall asleep in his arms, your mind is certainly still plagued by questions you know he can’t answer. Whether you can admit to yourself how dangerously different you feel about him now, whether you can find it in yourself to inquire about the meaning of the way you touched, relied on each other, is a completely different matter.
You don’t recognize the foreign anxiety settling in your gut when you wake up alone, curled underneath his blanket. It’s probably spring outside if the birds chirping are anything to go by, a faint light bleeds into the cave and illuminates the belongings left on the floor the previous night.
As you slip into clothes that are still damp, you notice his backpack is still where he left it. His clothes are gone and so is his weapon, which tells you he will most likely be back soon.
You busy yourself with fixing a frugal breakfast: cheese, some of the milk left from the previous night, two boiled eggs, a few chestnuts.
When the cannon fires, you freeze. No movements outside the cave, the birds are still chirping, the sun is getting progressively higher in the sky. You sit on your heels, fingers nervously gripping the fabric of your pants as you wait. The fear clutching your limbs is steel cold and foreign enough to stagger you: there is not a single tribute you should be worried about, let alone him. But you can’t help the way your body is reacting, can you? You can’t stop your unsteady legs from pushing you off the floor. Right as you start limping towards the cave entrance, his silhouette materializes right by the opening. Your lungs expand with relief.
“Morning”, Oliver offers an easy smile, “going somewhere?”.
But you notice it right away, the hand subtly pressed to his side.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”, you rush to him, ignore the apples he whips out of his pocket.
“I’m fine”, he shuffles past you and attentively places the fruits next to all the other provisions you put together for breakfast, “let’s eat”.
You observe the way he sits in a weird, robotic way. Unnatural. He looks tired and abnormally pale.
“Tell me what’s wrong”, the urgency in your voice grows as you kneel next to him, your aching leg protesting against the position. You ignore it.
He meets your worried gaze with half-lidded eyes.
“Nothing is wrong. Please, eat”.
You grab his wrist to move his hand away and lift the hem of his shirt. Tiny, dark creatures are stuck to his skin, pulsating in a way that makes you think they’re feeding off him. They look like an unsettling mix between slugs and leeches.
“Oh, god”, you immediately pull one off but are horrified to find that part of his skin comes off as well. Oliver groans in pain.
“I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry but I need to take them off”, your hands shake as you grab another one, then another one. But there are so many.
He gently grasps your wrist and you look into his tired eyes.
“It’s fine”, he murmurs, “it doesn’t hurt. Let them do the job”.
“Are you fucking serious?”.
“There are worse ways to go”, he chuckles. A foreign, subdued sound.
“No”, you free your hand from his hold, “shut up. Keep your eyes open”, as if to give him a reason, you pull another one of the slimy creatures off his skin. You work quickly despite the pain you know you’re causing him, the idea of those disgusting parasites sucking him dry simply unbearable as you strip him of his clothes and feverishly search every inch of his skin to make sure you got all of them. The ones you remove are mercilessly crushed under your boots.
“Oliver”, you use up all your remaining water ration to carefully wash his wounds, “Oliver, open your eyes”.
He does. How could he not?
You sigh in relief when he looks at you, some weird emotion flashing across his features.
“You make it sound so nice”, he murmurs.
“What?”, you ask, dexterous hands fiddling with the bandages you’re carefully wrapping around his body. You can’t quite believe how many scars he has, the uneven skin foreign and heartbreaking beneath the pads of your fingers. Was it his training? His dad? Some bruises and cuts are more recent, courtesy of the arena. You find yourself tracing the outlines of wounds that no longer cause him pain, touch kept light and tender.
Oliver grabs your wrist again but this time to keep your palm pressed to his skin, thumb gently stroking the back of your hand.
“My name”, he says.
You shake your head, ignore the odd feeling invading your chest as you decide that helping him into his clothes again is more urgent than bickering.
Oliver lets you take the lead. He eats an apple and some chestnuts, lets you help him drink what’s left of the milk. You can only relax when some color slowly dusts his cheeks again.
“Let’s stay here one more night. We’ll move tomorrow”.
“Feel free to go”, he cracks a smile, “you did say you’d abandon me. Alone, injured, vulnerable”.
You roll your eyes. Yeah, he’s fine.
It’s frankly surprising, the amount of food and water the sponsors suddenly decide to gift you. You leave the cave, carefully try to find your way across the forest without straying too far from where Oliver is resting, the most defenseless you’ve ever seen him. You’re still weak yourself, which makes it imperative to urgently find some water and something nutritious, possibly non toxic, to eat.
The gamemakers are clearly having a blast since, despite it being spring, you can’t find a single fruit, berry or animal around. If they’re trying to give you an ultimatum, getting you to choose between leaving Oliver behind, possibly in danger, and finding any kind of nourishment, they’re going to end up being quite disappointed.
You don’t have a rational explanation for how ardently you wish to go back, be by his side and protect him. You don’t want to come up with one. Nothing matters here, your lives are not yours anymore, so you figured you can do whatever the hell you want without necessarily over analyzing the motivation behind your actions. Or your feelings.
Right as you’re busy inspecting an Elm, hoping to collect some edible samaras to bring back to the cave, the silver parachute lands by your feet. Someone sent you a picnic basket filled with two gallons of drinking water, fresh bread, nut butter sandwiches, oranges, cold chicken. You never thought you’d see so much food ever again and it makes you wonder what the motive behind such unexpected generosity could be. Do they want to help you? No, you wouldn’t have received any of this if it wasn’t for Oliver.
They want you to go back to him. Of course they do, what happened last night must have been quite the show for them. They look at District citizens and see animals to bet on but still enjoy the shit out of sentimentality and melodrama. You hate that they were part of it, probably one of the most significantly intimate moments of your life. You hate that they are now tacitly cheering you on, as long as you go back to him and provide further entertainment. They must be clutching their pearls in anticipation. What will happen now? Will the monkeys be brave enough to discuss their tacit, confusing feelings or will they pretend they weren’t all over each other the previous night? Oh, how delightful. How exciting!
Jaw set, you collect the basket and offer a small curtsy the audience will be too dumb to interpret as the mocking gesture you wanted it to come across as. As for the gamemakers, you can only hope they let you live long enough to make sure all this food makes it back to Oliver.
Part of your brain wonders if that’s why he’s been acting like he has in the first place: the Oliver you know would certainly be capable of such subtlety. The man you got to be close to during this madness? Perhaps not so much.
It just wouldn’t make sense for him to give you so many chances to murder him for the sake of establishing some fake, sentimental bond. If it wasn’t for that arrow, you would have killed him and he must know that. Something tells you this is not the Oliver you’ve known your entire life, the arrogant kid whose death in the arena you dreamed of witnessing. He is someone who feels entirely new and, most importantly, someone you feel like you can trust. Someone you want to trust.
Your palm still holds the secret letters his thumb traced on it the previous night and you just know you will guard those words, keep them safe. As for what you feel for him, strength and blind determination may not be enough to guide you, should you choose to venture into such uncharted territory. Even if that’s all you really have.
He’s still asleep when you make it back, so you take your time trying to conceal the cave entrance to the best of your ability: between your leg and his current state, should a tribute find your hiding place, making the cannon fire twice wouldn’t be particularly hard.
A cascade of vines serves you well and even if they end up significantly dimming the light inside the cave, they make you feel less exposed.
Oliver wakes as you’re halfway through your task and he just lies there, attentively observing your every movement. He feels perfectly fine, just a little tired. Tiredness doesn’t prompt such an uptick in someone’s heart rhythm, does it?
No, it’s probably just you.
He already craves the closeness you trusted him with the previous night, his fingers itching as they flex around nothing but the absence of your body next to his. Oliver doesn’t remember ever feeling such ache, heart throbbing painfully in his chest at the implications of its desires. He doesn’t know how to stop. Why would a dead man walking indulge in foolish appetites? He doesn’t get to do that, want something for himself. Even if he did, Oliver knows he’s far from being worthy of someone like you.
And so, you better stop looking at him like that before he does something truly irredeemable such as hoping. You shouldn’t be checking on his wounds, evaluating whether his bandages should be changed already, you shouldn’t be making the sweetest melody of his name. You should be far away by now, should’ve done exactly what you said you would: leave without ever turning back.
Oh, he hates himself. There’s always a new low an Aiku can hit, isn’t there?
“Your sponsors have been exceptionally kind”, you mutter as you hand him a nut butter sandwich.
“How do you know they’re not your sponsors?”.
“I don’t have any”.
“You can’t know that”.
“Well”, you smile, “I’m not very likeable”.
Oliver huffs out a chuckle as he shakes his head.
“That’s not true”.
“Yeah? So you’d sponsor me?”.
“Definitely”.
“And what would you send me?”.
Oliver pauses for a moment, takes a few seconds to ponder as he finishes his lunch. He could easily say the uncomplicated thing, offer the wrong response. But his fingers are still itching and his heart is still throbbing.
“A red hair tie”, he murmurs at last.
I see you. So, please, see me.
Your gasp is quiet as you hold his gaze.
You’ve carried that red hair tie around your wrist for years, until the last remaining thing that could prove you once had a best friend at all, snapped.
Cecelia fought back that day, so fiercely they had to beat her to drag her to the gallows. You remember collecting the crimson piece that fell from her hair hours after the execution, from a muddy puddle. It had been stepped on countless times and it was still the most precious thing you owned for a long, long time. Ashlar helped you wash it clean, your hands were shaking too much, sobs barely giving you the break you needed to breathe.
“How do you know?”, you whisper, incredulous.
Oliver’s hand finds yours, cool fingers closing around your wrist.
“I saw you buying it”, he lies, heaven forbid the gamemakers catch on the wrong words, “I’d think maybe you’d want your lucky charm in the arena”.
It was much more than that and he’s perfectly aware. Your heart aches.
“You remember that?”, the question is a hesitant whisper.
Oliver hums, hand carefully rising to cup your cheek. He frowns as his thumb skates over the skin beneath your eye, brushing off uncharacteristic wetness.
“I remember”, he cracks an uncertain smile, “I paid attention, y’know”.
You lean into his touch like it’s all you’ve ever done, like you don’t know how to do anything but.
“Why?”, you ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe I had a crush on you”.
Now, that makes you chuckle. A sound he never thought he’d get to hear close enough to practically drink it.
Maybe Oliver’s hostility truly always stemmed from his frustration. You were so determined, silently fighting for ideals he was too foolish to comprehend, forever miles out of his league. You deserve so much better than this, than him.
“I always hated you”, it’s barely a murmur that doesn’t wound him the way it used to. Oliver strokes your cheek gently as your gaze falls on his lips.
“I know”, he murmurs back.
You never thought it would sneak up on you one day, his beauty. Oliver Aiku, notoriously one of the most attractive men of District 2. You never thought you’d find yourself appreciating it and you certainly never thought he’d ever look at you like he is now, with such tenderness. You don’t remember ever seeing him look at anyhing the way he’s looking at you.
You lean in and your nose brushes against his, the hand cupping your cheek slides down to cradle your jaw. And then Oliver pulls back, leaving your face cold and your heart thumping painfully in your ears.
“Oh”, gaze low, you try to pull back too, “I’m sorry-”, he doesn’t let you.
Oliver grasps the hem of the blanket you placed on his legs hours ago and carefully drapes it over your heads. You blink, trying to adjust to the exacerbated darkness.
“What are you…?”, confused, you try to draw back once again but Oliver’s fingers are still closed around your forearm as he pulls you in instead. He pauses just short of your lips because he still wants you to have it, the choice to change your mind.
“I didn’t want them to have this”, he murmurs. Not low enough, it’s highly likely the audience was still able to hear. Was it deliberate?
Pushed by a force unknown, you find yourself taking his face in your hands and pressing your lips to his. Yours are chapped, probably unpleasant and painfully inexperienced, but somehow his hand still rises to cradle the back of your neck to pull you closer.
You never thought you’d have a moment that would belong to you and no one else ever again. Oliver gave you that. He’s been given you so much, probably more than you can handle, and you’re not entirely sure you possess what’s needed to process the way everything changed ever since Azora put that arrow through your leg.
He presses his forehead to yours when you pull back, as if scared you’re going to disappear if he stops touching you.
“That was my first kiss”, you admit quietly.
In some odd way, it feels like it was his first kiss too.
“Sorry it was me”, he smiles when you chuckle, fingers gently stroking your hair.
“Are you really?”, the accusation is playful.
He should be. But he’s not good enough of a person.
“No”, Oliver is the one who leans in this time, to whisper the response against your mouth, “I’m just sorry for being late”.
Your second kiss tastes sour, a prophecy you can’t escape. Everything feels disturbingly inevitable now: the reaping, a special edition of the games, him. The irony of the Capitol giving you yet another thing they’re going to soon take away makes your veins throb with hurt. Everything belongs to them, everything will always belong to them.
Oliver gently takes the blanket off your heads and wraps it around your bodies as you scoot closer, let your head rest on his shoulder when his arm wraps around your waist. The cave is not bright enough for him to discern the familiar color of your eyes but he’s certain that, if he could see, he’d find in them the entirety of the starry skies he would observe on his beloved mountains.
“Will you take me seriously, now?”, he mutters.
“Of course not”, you click your tongue.
He huffs out a laugh and you can’t quite believe how good his real laugh sounds. The genuine sound of a man who is amused, not the extension of cruel mockery. You don’t know what changed for him, when exactly his reality shifted, but it must’ve been something drastic. And if he hid it that well, if he felt like he needed to keep the facade up, you can only guess it was probably something disturbing too. Forbidden, even.
“Oliver”, you sit up again, the hand on his chest as support.
“Mmm?”, he tries to not let the way you make his name sound distract him too much.
“Thank you for saving my life”, you say, chin tucked closer to your chest, “and I’m sorry, too”.
He frowns, confused. Nothing he could ever do would deserve your gratitude nor your regret.
“For…”, Oliver leaves the question hanging in the cold, humid air of the cave.
“Only ever blaming you”.
He scoffs.
“Oh, don’t”.
You grasp his chin to keep him from looking away.
“It was never just your fault”.
“You really don’t need to do this”.
“I’m not doing anything”, you fire back.
“God”, he shakes his head when you let him go, “forever the most stubborn woman of our district”.
“That’s right and you better not forget that”.
“How could I?”, Oliver snorts out a chuckle, “now, c’mere if you’re done”. His arm curls possessively around your waist, effectively pulling you in. You don’t resist it, choosing to curl up next to him, your head on his chest.
“I don’t appreciate that tone, Aiku”, you whisper.
“Don’t call me that”, it comes out harsher than he intends. A brief pause, then, softer, “please, can you just say my name?”.
It makes me feel like a person again.
You let the silence stretch on for a while, a few seconds to hopefully placate the butterflies stirring up a storm in your gut. Their traitorous little wings keep flapping, your fingers curl around the fabric of his shirt.
“Oliver”, you murmur, the taste of the word now oddly familiar on your tongue. His lips brush against your temple as he says your name too, reverently, like he’s invoking a spell that will protect him.
Neither of you sleeps, instead you spend the night talking to each other. Talking and talking and talking. While he conveniently avoids discussing anything too specific in relation to his family, you’re happy you get to learn some intimate details about his childhood, the silly traditions that tied him close to his sisters as a kid.
They’d collect elderberry and lime blossoms in the mountains whenever their dad would act more as a parent than a trainer. Oliver used to help his mom bake his sisters’ birthday cake each year and they would always do the same for him. He thought going to school was a waste of time, shocker.
He asks you a lot of questions because it’s the very first time he’s allowed to and feels deserving of inquiring further about what’s yours. Oliver asks about your brother, your parents, how you’d spend your afternoons and evenings, your favorite herbs and medicinal plants to collect in the winter.
He loves mint tea, foggy mornings and the way his cat would curl up in his lap at night. Cassius is his best friend. He prefers swords to tridents but his father taught him how to make the most of basically any weapon. He thinks the way you handle knives is really cool.
Although the morning light can’t really bleed into the cave, glimmers still make it through the vines covering the entrance. A new artificial day begins and, as you make sure he eats more than his usual half for breakfast, you can’t help but think you could actually make it to the end together. Sure, you’re both hurt, but you’re also both lethal. Some of the remaining tributes are strong, not stronger and most importantly not allies. Would it be so unlikely? You’ll win this stupid edition and refuse to kill each other and wait for the gamemakers to panic enough to either crown you both as winners or kill you on the spot. Either option would bring you peace, an eternal escape from this nightmare.
“Can you walk?”, you ask, handing him his backpack and weapon.
“We need to move regardless of whether I can walk or not”.
“Okay but can you?”.
He smirks.
“I can. You’re cute when you’re worried, you know”.
“I’m not worried at all”, you scoff, “I just need to know if you’ll slow me down or whatever”.
“And if I do?”, he challenges, “you’re not gonna wait for me?”.
Your back-stabbing heart fumbles in your chest at his playful tone, at the fondness simmering beneath the question. Oliver studies your seemingly annoyed expression and notices how easy it is for him to now tell when you’re far from being actually irritated.
“Someone has to make sure you don’t get lost in the woods”, must be why you’re taking his hand, “so, yeah. I’ll wait for you”.
“My hero”, he chuckles when you roll your eyes.
The road that leads to the abandoned buildings area is eerily silent, which makes the unnatural fall season all the more depressing. Your footsteps on dry leaves leave behind a crunching sound that is hard to conceal and you start feeling restless: surely the gamemakers must have something planned, if not a natural disaster or particularly vicious mutts, at least a way to make sure the remaining tributes somehow meet each other.
This doesn’t concern you, though. You have no intention of looking for anyone, the plan is to hide and wait and defend yourselves only if absolutely necessary. You’re done hunting strangers down.
“Fall looks better back home”, Oliver observes the kaleidoscope of red and golden hues these fake trees are adorned with.
Everything looks better back home, where life is real and not something built in a lab.
“I miss birds”, you sigh, “I used to hear an owl right outside my window every single night, last spring”.
“My mom always says owls are messengers”.
“I wonder what the message was”.
Oliver shrugs.
“It’s cold. I couldn’t find a nice tree. You’re pretty. Could be anything, really”.
You chuckle, idly shaking your head.
“You’re so…”
“Charming”.
“Foolish”, you correct. He’s probably the most dangerous thing in this arena.
Oliver laughs like a free man, warm and casual and at ease. It hits something soft and patheticlly unprepared inside you. How can he feel like that, in a place like this? You don’t think you’ve ever heard the sound of his true laugh back home, perhaps there was always an artificial vibration to it. He’s always been the product of someone else’s projects and beliefs, destined to be whatever the world expected him to be. Except now, in the worst place ever created, where he’s only been everything you never expected.
His foot hits your back harshly and you find yourself on the ground before you can realize what happened, amber and yellow leaves hardly alleviating the pain of your chin hitting a rock. You barely care about the blood dripping from the open wound as you try to get up, your injured leg still bending awkwardly beneath you.
Someone grunts, a different voice curses. Your hands move before your brain thinks and your knives find their designated place in your hands. Then they disappear, flying only to end up sinking deeply in her chest. The woman has a knife too but it slips from her grasp as she falls to her knees before she gets to plant it in your stomach. So long, Ivory from District 1. One less obstacle in the way of your perfect plan: you didn’t come for her, she came for you.
“God”, you grunt as you rip your knives out of her chest with little to no care and clean the blood with the hem of your shirt, “did you really have to push me like that? I could’ve hit my head”.
“I’m sorry”.
You look up from Ivory’s body and your blood runs cold. You have never dropped your knives, ever, this is the very first time.
“Oliver?”, you rush to him, to where he’s sitting on the colorful leaves with his back against a tree and a hand pressed to his stomach.
“I’m fine”, he murmurs but his voice sounds wrong.
Ivory has never been good with knives, you remember watching her closely at the gymnasium. She’s always been the most precise with spears.
“Let me see”, you force his hand away and your heart misses a beat or two at the sight. The bloodied spear now laying next to his legs clearly pierced all the way through him before Ivory removed it.
You don’t know if pressure will be enough to stop such hemorrhage, yet your palms still press on the wound firmly. The blood seeps through your fingers, an incessant stream your trembling hands are too useless to tame.
“Hey”, he whispers, “leave it. There’s no point”.
“No, shut up”, you press harder and the blood flows between your fingers, tears clouding your vision as your shoulders start shaking.
“Crying? For me?”, Oliver lets out a small chuckle, “I never thought I’d die a lucky man”.
“Stop talking!”, you frantically look around in search for something, anything useful.
His cold fingers close around your wrist and you meet his dull gaze. It’s so unfair for those eyes to look the way they do now, no sight of their usual spark.
“Listen to me”, he says but you violently shake your head.
“No”, then, to the sky, “send something! You enjoyed the show until now, didn’t you? Is this dramatic enough? Is it worth his life? Where are your fucking gifts? Send something!”, you scream so loud your throat burns. But there are no silver parachutes welcoming your plea, no last minute changes of heart. His life doesn’t really carry any meaning for those who are watching, the sponsors had their fun and now it’s time for the grand, emotional finale. They love this shit. You wish you could burn this entire forest down.
“Listen to me”, Oliver says again, the hand not holding your wrist rising to cradle your tear stricken cheek. His touch has never felt this cold, not even in that cave.
“You’re not allowed to come where I’m going, do you understand?”, he tries to offer a smile but his lips are barely able to twitch.
“Shut up”, you say again, but it comes out a broken whisper, “you’re not going anywhere”.
He ignores you.
“You have to make it back home. Tell my family I’m sorry”, he shivers and you press your palm to the back of his hand, a desperate attempt at providing some warmth.
“No. You’re coming too, we’re winning the games together”.
“This is much more than I deserve anyway”, his thumb strokes your skin, “too bad you couldn’t keep your promise, huh?”.
You’re crying so much you feel sore all over, a broken thing with a futile little muscular organ somehow still kicking somewhere behind your ribs.
“Don't cry”, he murmurs, tender and gentle, “don't let them use your tears for their amusement”.
“You can’t go”, you whisper, leaning forward enough to press your forehead to his, “I just found you”.
Oliver lets out a shaky, weak exhale.
“I’m sorry”, he says and at this point you’re not sure what he’s apologizing for anymore. You just repeat that he doesn’t have to, he has nothing to apologize for.
“I’m staining your shirt”, he murmurs. You get closer, press further into his chest as you wrap your arms around his fragile frame. One of his hands strokes your back, wet lips press a kiss to his throat.
“Thank you”, Oliver’s nose nuzzles further into your hair, “for seeing me”.
For the very first time, you sing to him. The same lullaby your mother would sing to you when you were a scared kid, too afraid of the dark to fall asleep. It’s a whisper to his ear, breaks punctuated by your sobs as your heart breaks for the millionth time in this lifetime, the old therebefore, and warm blood penetrates the fabric of your clothes.
Be not afraid my sweet child Deep in the night the peril is mild Lay down your head and shut your bright eyes For when they open again, the sun will soothe your cries.
Here you are loved, your troubles hidden away Sleep, my sweet child The sun will rise to bring a new day.
In the unnatural silence of this year’s arena, a cannon fires.













