fandom; Forced prostitution, PTSD, monster, and All the Little Lights by Passenger ; pairing — a capitol client and brutus
a/n: so, this is a really weird fic and it was sort of rushed and written on my phone on a car trip back from virginia since i lost the original fire on my computer because of a virus so hope you like it, :) the title comes from the song wish you were here by kate voegelle; this was beta-read by the fantastic charlotte!
dedication; for the wonderful Estoma, in c/p's back to school exchange
gone away are the golden days
brutus / a broken toy
She's just a broken toy, really.
Nothing more to her than a fallen angel; and Perpetua would like to think that started back then, back in a time when she was just a young child, not even considered to be an ugly duckling yet, but time quickly passes by and amongst being in the care of her mother for the first four years of her life, she's old enough to merely understand what's going around her. Perpetua knows that she's done something wrong, when suddenly, at the age of seven, her mother starts treasuring only her younger brother, the first son of the family, and the oldest; and she should hate him, she really should.
After all, everybody hates her; her mother keeps on saying that Perpetua's never going to become beautiful and perfect, and she keeps on convincing herself, in vain, of course, that she's a late bloomer; it's the only possible explanation. Her eyes are a fiery gray, almost defiant, and her hair is a dull blonde. Nevertheless, she's always wanted to be worth her mother's pride, her mother's love. Her father doesn't really count.
Perpetua realizes that her life has gone to waste upon the day that she's standing backstage at one of her mother's performances — she knows that her mother is around forty years old, of course masking everything up with surgeries, but it's only a matter of time before she slips, and then another younger, prettier primo ballerina would replace her; she was just waiting for the moment when her mother would realize that there was more importance to life than exploring the world, and putting her career on the line, every night. She can hear her mother coming back from a performance, and Callista ( that's her mother's name ) brushes quickly past her, saying, "Great job, darling! You really do have a lot of potential—"
And then, Perpetua feels slightly better about herself, but can't help but have the urge to spy on her mother, backstage, along with all of the other dancers; after all, they're all perfect, and watching them from behind the curtain? It's like looking into a different world, a prettier utopia.
"Can you believe it?" Her mother's voice is unimaginably loud and whiny. "Selenium—" the younger brother, of course, "has so much potential, but he's just not working hard enough! I know that he's only two years old, but you understand what I mean, don't you?"
The other dancers nod, agreeing; one of them pipes up, "My son hasn't even started specializing one of his skills, and he's already eleven years old! And, my daughter, the lousy, fat one, Alexia? She's doing so much better than Sirius; I swear, girls are the only ones who are starting to actually care about their future," the woman sighs, delicately wiping her forehead and the beads of sweat with a light lilac cloth.
Nevertheless, Callista coughs, laughing, "Daughters are better than sons? I'm sorry, but you've got that completely wrong; Perpetua has absolutely no potential for being a dancer, and she just keeps on flouncing around, and her technique? Of course, it's good that I'm selling her off tomorrow; It's a wonder why she's even attending classes. When I was younger, if I was as horrible as her—"
Perpetua doesn't bother staying for the rest; at home, she locks herself into a master bedroom, and shatters.
Several hours later, in the morning, little bits of her are scattered throughout the room; her windows are completely broken, and her mirrors? The glass is falling to pieces upon the floor, cutting into the folds of her skin; papers are torn, fragments of pencils lying around the room, but her closet has remained completely untouched. Perpetua has heard the words that her mother had spoken, and though maybe she had interpreted the meaning incorrectly, it didn't seem to safe to be taking the chance; she had heard stories of ungrateful little wretches, sent to become indentured servants, as bad as those from the outlying Districts.
Shuddering, Perpetua quickly packs her bags and exits through the servant doors, at the back of the mansion. None of them even bother saying goodbye, just turning their head in the other direction, and she knows that it's only a matter of time before she's reported. Therefore, she runs.
.
Like she had expected, Perpetua ends up at the heart of the Capitol — full of city life and bustle, people who are always more beautiful at her just stare at the little ugly duckling, as though she's one of those members from the outlying districts that wins a scholarship to live in the Capitol for a month; that beautiful moment of light, almost like a shooting star, before completely vanquished; Perpetua doesn't want her joy, her happiness to have brevity to it; everlasting is all she's ever been aiming for, and she almost runs into people that she knows. It's to be expected after all, with Callista's numerous number of connections.
Therefore, she decides to start over;
It's sort of easy to change one's identities, especially in a place where money is everything, and suddenly, she's just a Capitol client with problems concerning training and getting into the Games, and everything goes wrong from there. In a way, Perpetua just wishes that she could return back home, but then she would be forced into selling herself to others, but that happens anyway.
She's suddenly moved in with her father — who could hardly care about the fact; making it all the better for a place to hide herself, until Perpetua finds that one day she's transformed into something, anything but what she currently is, and it seems as though nothing of the like is going to happen, not now, not ever; it's then when Perpetua starts to gain hope, all because of a little boy named Peter. And, it's short lived, like everything in life;
The first time that they meet, she's having the worst of days.
Perpetua's just come out with an ugly spat from her father who can't seem to wrap her head around the idea of his little daughter not going to school anymore ( on one of those rare days where he actually cares ), in order to amend everything that had gone wrong with Peter, and her friends are even more furious at her for not telling them any of the small details about the breakup — as if those are memories that Perpetua is willing to cherish for the rest of her lives.
To be fair, none of them had had real break-ups with non Capitol Residents, in which the non-Capitol Resident was the one that had broken up with them; Perpetua's not even sure what really ended the relationship, but it could have been the lies, the cup of tea that erased Peter's memory about anything of The Academy and why they couldn't have possibly ended up together, but it went along the lines of this;
("Perpetua, I can't do this anymore," he had said, in that sweet boy voice of his, and she turns her head slowly, in confusion, because she never thought that anything would come down to something like this, then remembers that perhaps Dillon had told her secret.
She nods her head slowly, "I understand, Peter." But, she doesn't understand — she doesn't understand anything at all; Perpetua doesn't understand why her life has to be so messed up. She really doesn't. In a way, Perpetua has never understood what's gone inside his head, and now, perhaps she never will.)
Perpetua stands up, and takes a deep breath. "Goodbye, Peter.")
Lily and Arista are completely irate at her, and Liz is somewhere traveling the world with her family, because like always, she's always going to be the one to do something wrong. In a way, it's never actually been her fault but Perpetua's always the one who's forced to apologize for everything; perhaps, it's a good thing since she's the one with the highest inflated ego, besides Lily on her worst days.
Nevertheless, it perhaps was wrong of her to speak out at Albus's funeral and tell Lily that, "Yes, this is actually a good thing. Now you won't have to choose between your two boy-toys anymore." And, she sounds like a complete bitch but she's sort of sick and tired of everybody expecting her to be perfect.
Holding it all inside never really gets her anywhere, does it? Lily just looks at Perpetua with her big dark brown eyes, almost as if she's feeling pity but there's also a little bit of hurt between them, guarded behind layers of indifference and things that she couldn't be bothered to care about, at least not at the exact moment. "I can't believe you, Perpetua. I thought that we were best friends."
Perpetua just sighs and walks out of the cemetery, switching off her cell phone as the text messages and missed call phone alerts start coming in; she wonders whether or not she should block their phone numbers — both of theirs, Lily's and Arista's; and decides not to. That would be the final step, and in a way, Perpetua already knows that they would never forgive her for that.
.
She finds herself slowly being drawn to him — he's hard to resist after all. Humming one of those modern songs, All the Little Lights, Perpetua finds his office, and suddenly they're holding onto each other, because he's seen the violence, and she's just a little girl, trying to experience the world. And both of them, they know that whatever they've got going on here? It isn't right, and isn't going to last; but Perpetua wants it to.
He takes her to London.
London, England. It's one of those places that hasn't been already taken over by Capitol and Panem, in general; and only those with the highest authorities have privileges to visit such places. It's in the middle of the year, and the age gap between them should mean something — she's barely sixteen, and he's in his midtwenties; but nobody really seems to care about anything anymore — and her mother has connections, and that's the one time in life where something comes in handy, and her friends understand that she needs a break from everything so she's switched her phone off, packed her bags, and taken a plane (first class, like promised) all the way across the ocean, gazing down at the sea below.
It's not like she hasn't been on a plane before. Her mother's taken her on several trips; her parents, used to take her on several trips to wherever she'd liked to.
But it's different this time, because nobody's criticizing her, and for once, it's nice. Then again, Perpetua knows that nothing lasts, and soon enough he leaves her behind in a train, and she's left to find her own way back home. Once home, he just turns his head the other way upon seeing her, and she feels as though she's worthless, and in the end, everything's the same as it was in the beginning.
And somewhere along the way, Calista would like to have thought that Brutus, perhaps, had fallen in love with her — if you stole my heart, darling, and I stole yours; wouldn't that be the perfect crime — but knows that nothing's true. Of course, there was always going to be somebody with more tricks up their sleeve, somebody that appealed to the audiences and wasn't an indentured servant; a slave, really, is what she is, a slave without a master.
.
In a way, everything has changed.
She is walking through the midst of discomfort and horror — sometimes, Perpetua can still hear their screams for mercy. Even though she's escaped everything, escaped her mother, escaped the people that have continued to put her down, they still follow her throughout her lives, as if the Capitol wants her to always remember than no matter how many challenges she's overcome, Perpetua is still under their control.
In a small town like this, Perpetua begins. It's important to know that you have a reputation.
And, it's not like Perpetua's been in the games, one of those traumatic souls that ends up with post traumatic stress disorder, but she decides that maybe it's best to let the lights fade and live life for a while. Or, just go back over two years and end up listening to every word that her mother says, turning her life completely horrible, but after all, that's what life's about, isn't it?
.
He dies during the 75th Hunger Games.
She's one of the only people who turns off the television, and walks off into the Woods. He dies, a crack of thunder is heard in the far distance, rain falling down upon the village. Children are screaming, and then suddenly there's a silence; they find her body the next day — everything's so cold.