Octavia/Pollux. Just because. And also I did not feel like studying. I will, of course, regret this tomorrow. Anyways, please leave a review. It's what all the cool people in the Capitol do. *winkywinky*
you can have the last red skittle
They rip open the bag, exuberant and dramatic at their success in stealing - she prefers to call it borrowing - he always snorts and says, "For forever?" - the coveted bag of skittles. His father is a candymaker, though he prefers the term connoisseur du chocolat, even if he is dealing with candy, not chocolate, most of the time. They are all the rage in the Capitol, confectionaries filled with the gaudy bright colours of the way-back-when-times, sugary sweet artificial flavors and a retro look abounding. The girl loves it, but the boy is impatient with it. He prefers the classic chocolate, most comfortable with the rich dark brown that represents a refuge from school, from home, from colour. But for the sake of the girl, he is quiet about it. This isn't hard for him; he's always quiet, to make up for the girl's exuberance. He likes her. He doesn't usually like anyone. But he likes her.
His father doesn't like her, calling her 'tacky', 'gaudy', 'cheaply dressed'. The boy snorts at this. His father should know. He's the connoisseur. He's the one behind all the candy from the way-back-when-times, and of course, his masterpiece, recreating an apparently famous candy, the strangely named skittles. The boy will never admit it to anyone, but he kind of likes them.
…
They are down to the last two skittles, one red and one yellow. Neither of them likes yellow, but red is something they fight over. The girl is preparing to grab them - she has fast reflexes, so she thinks she could pull it off - but she doesn't need use them. The boy takes the red one, drops it into her dye-stained hand and folds her fingers over it. He tells her, "You can have it."
She will never tell anyone, but she doesn't eat it. She keeps it, alongside her mother's favourite necklace and her father's worn polka-dot tie, in her old wooden jewelry box.
…
The boy and the girl, they are best friends. Others find this weird, the quiet son of the candymaker and the loud pink-pigtailed plump fashion geek. Others still find this adorable and romantic, though the boy and the girl never mention anything more than friendship to each other. (Out loud, at any rate.)
Their friendship changes one night when they are almost fourteen and are coming back from their academy's latest theme dance - "Animalistic Prep", this time. The boy is dressed in normal clothes, pants and a shirt without anything strange or weird or a tail, but the girl is dressed in a paw-print-shaped minidress and cat ears and whiskers and she's put her hair up into this strange style that she says animals called lions used to have, called manes, from the way-back-when-times. The boy is trying his best not to say anything, but he thinks she looks ridiculous.
(And beautiful.)
And the girl is disappointed, because she wants him to say something. But when she catches him sneaking a peek at her paw-print dress for the third time, she does something crazy that she can't believe she never did before.
She kisses him.
(And the things he can do with his tongue, she can't believe.)
…
Their relationship changes again, one night when they are nearing seventeen. They are watching the hunger games at her house - his father doesn't approve of her, and therefore, their relationship - and he makes a comment on how disgusting it all is. She gasps, because he knows she loves the hunger games, loves the ceremonies and the stylists, loves the futility of their survival but how they try anyways and how she wants to be strong like them. He asks her why she's so surprised, can't she think? Can't she see how horrible it is?
She doesn't want to hear this, his condescending tone, the blasphemies he is speaking. But he keeps going so she shouts back at him - she's never really been able to resist a fight - and it escalates and ends with him slamming the door behind him, shattering her world into pieces.
…
They don't talk again. She becomes a prep stylist, and he disappears one day. She tells herself that she doesn't care.
(Even if it isn't true.)
…
She is assigned to a new stylist, Cinna, who is brilliant, and a new team, Venia and Flavius, who are incredible. She says she couldn't be happier, but her reflection never answers back with what she is thinking - if she was happy, why was she miserable?
…
She hasn't seen him in forever.
…
Her tribute is a girl named after an onion, but she doesn't smell like one, and she's nice, so she's okay.
…
Her tribute survives - both of them, actually. And every time she sees them, the star-crossed lovers, she misses him so much more.
…
She wonders where he is.
…
One night when things are going wrong - no one is saying it, but she's not stupid all the time, just in front of everyone else - she takes out her last red skittle. It's a little dusty, but she rubs it off and soon it's nearly as good as new.
But nearly is not good enough, and she decides that green is her new favorite colour. And that she's going to have to dye herself a deeper shade of green, so she can match with her red skittle.
…
Then one night, everything goes wrong and she ends up in a horrible white room underground and she doesn't have her skittle and everyone wears the same clothes all that time and she doesn't have her skittle and she just wants to go home.
…
She wonders how he is.
…
She's so miserable, all the time now. Even if Venia and Flavius are there, she's so miserable and they won't even give her a piece of bread.
…
They lock her in a plain room because of the bread. She stays in there for nearly two weeks, doing nothing but staring forward and listening to Flavius' whimpers and wondering whether he remembers her at all.
…
And one day the girl named after the onion comes back for her, for them, and she's less miserable, because she can walk around now.
…
She's doing that, one day, just walking around, when she says a familiar head of sandy hair just around the corner. She speeds up, but it can't be true. She wants to call out, but her tongue has turned to artificial sugar and all she can do is keep walking, faster and faster.
She gives up the pretense of walking and runs full-tilt at whoever it is - him - and flies into him, knocking them both into the ground.
…
It is him.
…
So of course she starts blabbering about how it's been so long and isn't it funny how they both ended up here? And where has he been all these years and what brings him here and in general how is life? He doesn't say a word, just staring at her with a dazed expression. She notices he's grown a beard. She thinks it's sexy. But why doesn't he say anything? Probably because he doesn't have an opportunity to, seeing as she seems to be intent on fitting nine years of words into one sentence and is currently discussing her last birthday, and the whole feather fiasco.
But even when she finally manages to stop talking he doesn't say anything. Just swallows. Tries to smile at her. And she drops all pretenses of politeness and asks him why he's not saying a word.
But then she notices the extra effort it's taking him to swallow. And she knows. So she goes, "Oh."
…
She spends the rest of the day the way she began it: wandering.
…
Or at least, her mind is wandering, because she finds that she's been sitting in the same place - an empty classroom, by the looks of it - for a while. She doesn't know what to think. He's an Avox? Why? What did he do?
And that's when it hits her.
It's not a question of what he did, but why they did it. They being the Capitol. Why would they turn him into an Avox? Why would they starve the Districts? Why would they have the hunger games?
It's a lot to think about, but for once, she doesn't have any pretty colours to distract her.
…
She keeps thinking and he keeps quiet. One day after the rebellion she kisses him again. She won't ever say anything, but she misses the things he could do with his tongue. She misses his voice. She misses when he would say something, randomly, and change her world completely. But she's missed him too much to let him go, so she holds on. Tight.
…
One day, he gives her something small and sweet and round and red. It's a skittle.