send me ♧ for my muse to respond to your muse playing with their hairdrunk/college!au1,252 words
She couldn’t believe she’d gotten into college at all. Apparently they’d been impressed by her entrance essay, about growing up bumped around foster homes, barely learning to read until she was a teenager, and trying to catch up with her education despite her disadvantages. A few people had said that sports science wasn’t a real subject, but Kris liked it and didn’t see how it was any less real than art history.
But it hadn’t been the romanticised Hollywood college experience she’d expected. She’d met Damon only days into her time there, and that particular story is history. Two days ago, she had broken up with him; it wasn’t enough time for her black eye to heal, but she wanted a party. She wanted to celebrate her freedom, and she wanted to get shitfaced and forget how much that freedom hurt her. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Adri that a party was a good idea, and Andy had relented as long as they promised to let her keep one room locked with her cat safe inside.
The student accommodation was tiny and none too glamorous, but it quickly filled up with dozens of people from their classes, and a great deal of strangers who were apparently friends of friends. Kris had been glued to her bottle of whisky all night, drinking straight from the bottle and letting anyone dance with her. The hands of twenty different people stained her hips, and the music was throbbing in her head like an ache, and her stomach was churning, and she couldn’t find Andy.
She hadn’t realised how drunk she was until she dropped her bottle, and it smashed on the ground. Nobody noticed; the faceless dancing figures soon absorbed it, out of sight and out of mind. Stumbling to her room, Kris wanted nothing more than to sleep. Why had she wanted a fucking party? She was alone and heartbroken and nobody could hear her scream. But when she pushed open the door, there were two bodies writhing in her bed and they didn’t stop even when she yelled.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Teeth clenched and stomach rolling, Kris found the bathroom. She blinked, and then she was kneeling by the toilet heaving. It was nothing solid; it was like throwing up stomach acid, and it burned. She couldn’t remember what was happening. Was this her bathroom, or was it Damon’s? She couldn’t remember, they all looked the same, and the porcelain of the toilet was soothing on her burning forehead. Hiccuping and crying quietly, she didn’t hear the footsteps that would have told her someone had come in. Even when the toilet flushed, and she felt herself being pulled away from it, she didn’t look up.
“Go ‘way,” she groaned, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched.
“Did you take something?” He said, low and urgent. Kris’ eyes flicked open; she couldn’t mistake that voice. Brooks.
She didn’t know he’d been coming; her face crumpled up in confusion, because he and Damon were irrevocably linked in her mind.
“No. No, I’m... fuckin’... I been drinkin’,” she got out, choking on tears and the aftertaste of vomit. It didn’t occur to her to be ashamed for what a mess she was. He didn’t say anything, no dry comment about how she had obviously been drinking, or anything. She felt a cup of water pressed against her lips, and she gulped it down greedily.
“Don’t swallow this, it’s mouthwash,” he warned, before passing her a little plastic cup of blue liquid. Pliant and drunk, Kris obediently tipped it past her lips and ran it over her teeth until he nodded, and she spat it into the toilet. Only then did Brooks sigh, sitting down beside her on the bathroom floor.
“Would you believe he’s a bigger mess than you?” He asked, looking down at her. Kris shook her head, scooting closer to him. She felt very cold all of a sudden, and rested her head against his shoulder. Her eyes drifted shut immediately, and she felt as though she could sleep there. One hand, broad and unfaltering, touched her forehead and brushed back the hair. She had somehow avoided getting any vomit in it, but that didn’t seem to be his goal anyway. He just kept brushing it back in a slow, repetitive motion.
“Like the fuckin’... her goddamn cat,” Kris mumbled, thinking how Andy’s cat always purred when you rubbed his head. That was how she felt with Brooks’ hand in her hair. His fingers worked out all of the knots with the quiet sort of determination she’d always associated with him. When she fought through the sleepiness to peel her eyes open for a moment, she looked up to find him watching her, unmoving but for that hand soothing her, body and soul.
“You’re always so nice to me,” she said, voice a low slur. He’d pulled Damon off her more than once, and he always brought her ice packs and made her sweet tea and made sure Damon fucked off for a few hours until she was ready to leave. Brooks just shrugged now, as though to say of course. As though being nice to Kris was an assumption, not a kindness.
Writhing suddenly in his grip, she twisted herself onto his lap and pressed her lips against his. Even while it happened, she couldn’t remember if it was a good kiss: she remembered her hands on his shoulders, and the room swaying to the muffled beat of the music outside, and the way his hands briefly tightened on her waist before ---
“Kris, don’t,” he said, a look of pain crossing his features.
“You don’t-?”
“No,”
But she didn’t believe him, and she kissed him once more. “Kris!” he said, insistent; his hands were still around her waist, but they held her away. She thought he liked her. She thought he understood. Her eyes filled with fresh tears, dampening her sticky cheeks, and one hand rose hazily into the air in a fist. He caught her wrist before she was halfway to punching him.
“Come on. I think it’s bedtime, and there’s a queue for the bathroom,” he said, still with that pained look on his face. When he stood, he brought her with him easily; she wasn’t quite walking. It was more than Brooks was carrying her, and her feet occasionally moved in front of each other. By the time they reached her room, the couple that had occupied her bed were long gone. It was empty, now. The polluted moonlight cast pale orange shadows against the bed.
“You wanna... want to get in?” she asked, not with a seductive purr, but with desperation. She wanted to feel his hands on her naked body, she wanted him to kiss her until it stopped hurting, she wanted him to moan her name until she forgot how it had sounded on Damon’s lips. He shook his head, and folded her carefully beneath the sheets without a word.
She remembered blinking at his outline, and then nothing.
When the sun rose the next morning, sickly and empty in the sticky leftovers of the previous night’s party, he was gone. There was a glass of water and two painkillers lying on her bedside table, and that was it. Opening her eyes just a crack, she let out the long, agonised groan of an injured animal - not out of pain, but because she knew she had just lost one of the best friends she had.
❝ FAULKNER! ❞ Aurora’s voice cut through the convoy of Reds heading into Archeon in droves. The festival in honor of the princess was historic in that Reds were allowed to attend as guests, which gave the Guard the perfect cover to get Lake back into Archeon. Still, Aurora was distrustful of the situation –– gathering so many Reds in one place, even with all of the Silvers there as well, felt too much like leading lambs to the slaughter. She’d allowed Garnet to go with them on this covert mission ( had allowed all of the Guard who wanted to attend to attend, with STRICT INSTRUCTIONS to keep their wits about them ) but there had been a caveat.
She waited for him to approach, ducking and weaving through the people moving forward, and then pulled him aside. ❝ I need you to do something for me, ❞ she told him, her choice of words implying a request but her tone of voice reminding him that she was his leader.
That was what her mentor Augustus had told her. Grab whatever was closest, get away from the cornucopia and run as fast she could to find shelter. So that was exactly what Victoria had done when the clock had counted down to zero and all the tributes had taken off. There had been a pack only a few yards from her and she had grabbed it, narrowly missing a knife that had been thrown her way. For just a moment, her eyes had met the gaze of her fellow District 2 tribute. But just from that one look, she knew for certain that she would find no help from Gerard. He was in to win and any district loyalties meant nothing to him. So she had turned away to sprint into the ruined city that was the arena.
She had survived night one, hiding out in one of the many ruined buildings and not getting a wink of sleep in fear that her throat would be slit before she could even wake. In her pack she had one small knife, a few packs of food, some rope, and a thin blanket. She had been lucky.
Victoria was nibbling on some of the food when the tumbling of bricks outside made her pause. After a few moments later she heard quiet shuffling. Someone was outside. She curled the knife in her fingers, her hand shaking as she held it out in front of her.
A boy appeared in the doorway. She remembered him from training. Tall, muscular, sharp-lined face and hard eyes. The boy from District 12, Brooks if she remembered correctly, who had vowed in his interview to avenge his brother Reid who had died in the Games two years prior. A boy that would do anything to survive, including killing her.
He took a few steps towards her and Victoria saw the the pick axe in his hand, a weapon definitely placed purposefully by the Gamemakers. She could swear that she saw dried blood on it. He was a miner, he knew how to use that while she could barely keep a proper grip on the knife.
“District 2 hiding in a corner. Something I’ve never seen,” he said sarcastically, finally breaking the silence between them, and despite her fear Victoria scowled at him.
He took a few more steps towards her and Victoria shrunk back farther against the wall. That made him pause and she just dropped the knife to the floor. It was of no use to her anyway. “Do it, just get it over with okay? Just…just do it.” Better that she die now at his hands before the game could get worse.
But what he did next surprised her even more. He stopped and his grip on the axe loosened. After a few moment he spoke. “Not today 2. Not today.”
And with that, one of the most unlikely alliances in Hunger Games history was born.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“So how did you get into this shit anyway?” he asked her a couple of nights later as they sat huddled in a hidden basement that they had found to protect themselves from the cold that the game makers had made rip through the arena. “You’re not….like everyone else from your district. Why you instead of the people who volunteered?”
Victoria wrapped her thin blanket tighter around herself and didn’t answer him right away. What he said was true, she wasn’t like the others from District 2. Her parents hadn’t wanted to train their daughter to be a killer for the sake of glory. At the age of 16, she had never fought her up to the stage to try and get to be that year’s tribute. She had never wanted to. “My dad…he design’s air ships for the Capital,” she started to explain to him, “And President Calore sent him something that he wanted him to build. I don’t know what it was but I could tell it was bad. He refused…”
Brooks didn’t her to figure out the end of the story. “So they sent you in as punishment.”
She remembered the way that her stomach had dropped to the floor when her name had been called. How her mother had broken down in her father’s arms and how Diana had kept a desperate grip on her hand until the Peacekeepers had taken her to the stage. And how despite the number of volunteers to take her place, (Alessa Samos, her mentor’s own sister a notable one among them) they had refused and kept her and Gerard as the tributes. The people of her district may have cheered but she knew that they had all had the same thought. If there was going to be a victor from 2, it would not be Victoria Laris.
“I’m 18. I thought I would be okay. Last year and all, maybe for once in my life I would catch a lucky break,” he scoffed at the idea and rubbed the stubble across his jaw with the palm of his hand, “Guess we both got the short end of the stick huh?”
“Yeah,” Victoria sighed, “Guess we did.” She hesitated a moment before speaking again. “The other day…why didn’t you kill me?”
He waited a few moments to speak as well. “I..I don’t know. Guess I just thought that you didn’t deserve it that’s all,” he said with a simple shrug. “But don’t thank me yet. I still might just kill you.” The playful smirk on his lips told her otherwise.
So Victoria just smirked back and together they listened to muffled music of the fallen tribute salute in the distance until she fell asleep. She knew that with him she was safe for the night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Her hands were stained with red. No matter how much she tried to get it off, it was still there. Underneath her fingernails, in the lines of her palms, stuck between her fingers. And even after Brooks had pulled her away from the body of the District 7 girl that she had been forced to kill and close to his chest as the cannon went off, Victoria had still sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he whispered in her ear, “You did what you had to do to survive okay. You did what you had to do.”
Victoria just nodded and her fingers clung to his shirt as her tears soaked into it. And she she let him hold her through the night until her sobs had finally stopped, telling her stories about 12 and his brother, and watched as the girl’s face appeared in the sky.
She had done what she had to do. She would repeat it as a mantra in her head until she believed it. That was the only way that she would get through the rest of this game.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
By some miracle there had only been three of them left. Her, Brooks, and of course Gerard. And tonight the Gamemakers had decided that it would all come to the end. They had pushed the three of them into what looked like the ruins of a town center and now this was it. The next few minutes would decide all their fates.
Gerard made the first move. “Brooks!” Victoria screamed as the two men went tumbling to the ground. They rolled through the rubble and the dust, kicking and punching and doing their best to kill. Meanwhile she stood helpless on the side. Her knife had been lost when they had been running from a collapsing building. She didn’t have a weapon. She watched as Gerard got a punch in that sent Brooks doubling over and knew that she had to do something or else both she and Brooks would die at Gerard’s hand.
The two were on the ground again and finally, Victoria got an idea. She grabbed the nearest brick that she could find and slowly creeped up behind the two men. Raising her hand, she brought the brick up and smashed it over Gerard’s head as hard as she could. He fell to the ground with a hard thud!, blood pooling around his head and her brick fell down besides him. Brooks was looking at her with wide eyes, blood streaming from his spilt lip. “Damn 2.”
She gave him a ghost of a smile and he returned it. But their relief only lasted a moment and Victoria watched in horror as the sharp rusted end of a pipe burst through Brook’s stomach. Behind him, she saw Gerard’s hand drop and as his eyes shut. A canon went off just as her only friend throughout this whole game collapsed to the ground.
“No!” she screamed as she dropped to her knees besides him, “No, no, no. Brooks no!”
There was so much blood. it was everywhere, soaking into the ground and into her clothes and Victoria knew that there was no stopping it. There was nothing she could do for him. “I’m sorry,” she cried as she stroked his hair with her fingers, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he gasped, wincing as he did and his voice weak as he struggled for breath, “One of us had to win right? I’m….I’m….glad it’s you and not that asshole. I….knew you had it in you.”
“Brooks,” Victoria cried again and she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. It was soft, gentle, a thank you for everything that he had done to her to keep her alive in this game. If it hadn’t been for him she would have been dead long ago. He had saved her.
“Thanks for that 2.” One more smile and his eyes closed. Victoria could feel his heartbeat slow underneath her touch. Another sob escaped her lips and she pressed her forehead to his as the canon went off. He was gone. It was over. She had won.
“Citizens of Panem! The winner of the 63rd annual Hunger Games…Victoria Laris of District 2!”
send me ❅ for my muse to cuddle up next to yours while asleep on the couch
It was easy enough to fall asleep on their couch when the weather outside was cold and dismal. In fact, Damon found it much easier to fall asleep on the couch then he did in his own bed. Especially when he fell asleep within touching distance of Brooks. When Brooks stayed up drinking, Damon would quietly lie down next to him. It was a quiet arrangement that seemed to happen when the wind rattled their old apartment and the rain hit their windows.
Damon would curl beneath the blanket as if it could protect him from the nightmares of the world around him. And if the nightmares crept in like they so often did, Damon would inch slowly towards the quiet man. His arms reaching for the warmth and safety of the only person in the world he could say he truly trusted. He would nestle his head onto the other mans lap, every second he spends in his space radiating through his body with a peaceful warmth. It was like nothing could hurt them if they were close and together. It was like it was just Damon and Brooks. No nightmares. No death. No sadness.
It was those nights that Damon actually slept. It was those nights where he couldn’t see the red staining his hands or his heartbeat so loudly he couldn’t hear anything else. And though it wasn’t often Brooks held him back, Damon didn’t care. He had the warmth he needed, and whether Brooks cared or not, Damon was just happy he never got pushed away. It was rare, Damon always thought as the beginnings of sleep tugged at consciousness, to have a friend that was so soft and caring. Damon didn’t know what would happen to him if he couldn’t feel the kindness and warmth off the only person who cared for him. He was sure if he didn’t have it, he would had been thrown to the dogs long ago.
♫ for your muse to catch mine singing in the shower
Damon had been out of the apartment for long than he had anticipated; instead deciding his time was far more useful by the side of a punching bag than in their home. Once the sweat had dried to his back, and the shaking in his hands no longer hassled him, he made his was back to the warming glow of his and Brooks apartment. It was a safe haven for the both of them, usually surrounded by the humbling and liveable silence that accompanied Brook’s life. And Damon wasn’t going to fight that, not when he got to see his best friend every single day. It was easy, in their comfortable silence, to forget what it was that brought them together.
When Damon pushed the always unlocked door open and was welcomed by the sound of...someone...singing? The absence of silence came as a confusing wave to Damon and his brows knit together in worry. Someone had broken in obviously. Grabbing a bat that lay close to the front door, Damon held it high ready to strike the moment the intruder showed their ugly mug.
But what he didn’t expect as he slowly and quietly pushed the door to the bathroom open that it wasn’t in fact a intruder but Brooks himself. In a moment of sheer panic and confusion Damon dropped the bat and flung himself backwards.
Brooks. was. singing???????????
Damon was sure he had died and gone to heaven, or hell. It wasn’t like he was surprised he had a nice voice, no, it more that Brooks and all his silence had never once given himself the opportunity for such small joy. And Damon wondered for several moments if he should interrupt or let it be. Flopping onto the couch Damon decided that it wasn’t his place to ruin the peacefulness of his friend, instead he decided to let it send him off to sleep.
