Here I am, with another one-shot! This is written for the Starvation Forum's Monthly One-Shot Challenge. I really like this one-shot, but it is a bit deep. The prompt was deep as well. I really hope you enjoy it. If this is the first Flavius story you have seen, say so in a review. I personally have never read one, so I thought it would be interesting. But, who knows? Maybe someone else decided to write for Flavius as well. It is rated T for vague drug effect mentions. And for the record, this is not a Flavius/Katniss. Just pointing that out. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games, Flavius, anything associated with the series, or the quote that is used for the prompt.
Prompt: "Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real."
Never have I ever met the face of fame. Never have I ever lived.
He finally closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Flavius had a life. He liked to think he was an interesting person. He had friends, he was invited to all the best parties, and he was an under ranking prep stylist working his way to the top. Whenever life became boring, he would simply pop a few of those wonderful yellow pills and his perception would morph into something amazing. And therefore his reality was amazing, because his perception was his reality.
No one told Flavius—or any other Capitol citizen, for that matter—that his perception was wrong. But how could they, when your own perception belonged to your own self? No one could tell him that what he said, thought, saw, and everything he was accustomed to was a lie. And no one had the heart to do so either. It was not a lie to Flavius. It was his reality. Life was partying, having fun, popping the yellow pills to see the marvelous colors, and watching television. Life was making the tributes look pretty enough to be seen in public and then gossiping behind their back. The Twelve Tributes never returned. No one cared that they didn't come back, though. Flavius thought it was all for the better. They couldn't hear what they had said if they didn't come back at all. The tributes were never supposed to hear their secrets. Secrets were secrets, after all.
The fire put him to sleep, a warm flame to back up the wondrous colors.
There was something special about the girl that came in from the train that day. That day for Flavius was like drifting in and out of sleep. Awake when Octavia chattered on about the party the night before, asleep when the girl looked him in the eye. It was like he was dreaming. It wasn't as if Flavius found the girl beautiful, no, not at all, but the hardness in her eyes was like a slap in the face for him. Every eye in the Capitol was soft and dazed, not hard and focused like hers. Instead of waking him up, though, it put him into a dream-like state. His reality was all around him, but his horrible, horrible dreams were in those girl's eyes. And somehow, both were real.
Flavius kept silent for a while as he waxed the girl's leg. He didn't want to gossip, because he felt like the girl would know. He felt (what was that word, the feeling that Flavius had never endured?) uncomfortable and awkward around this girl. Her grey eyes showed years of terror and starvation, two words Flavius would never know. The dream—more like a nightmare—that lived inside that girl's eyes made Flavius doubt. Her flames shined brighter than the boy's, her confidence soaring, but yet brought down by uncertainty. Flavius watched the screen, not paying any heed to Octavia and Venia. They could wait, for Flavius had his whole life to live a reality that was wrong and not worth living. For this girl on the screen, this girl was real. No green skin or yellow pills made Flavius feel alive in such a way. Just watching the face of fame that did not want to be was a wake-up call. But as he thought before, he was not waking up. In fact, he was dreaming. The fact was that this dream was real.
The horrors made Flavius stay awake at night. He had to take those splendid little green sleeping pills to coax him into the real world. But Flavius did nothing but dream, awake or asleep. He surely must be dreaming, because what unfolded on his wide screen television did not happen in real life. It only happened in nightmares. Which meant that he was living a nightmare. It only made sense. Didn't it? But yet Flavius pondered, which was not a thing that he did very often. If his life was a dream, was his dream the reality? If it was, Flavius did not want to dream. He did not want to watch the Girl on Fire suffer while he lounged on his leather couch. Flavius never felt pity for the tributes. Once, he had even gotten a tribute eliminated because the boy had overheard Octavia and him talking. Secrets were secrets, after all, and money talked. Now, Flavius would take every cent and put it all on Katniss.
The dreams came again when she went back into the arena. The arena held that blasted clock that was unknowingly ticking away Flavius' life, and hers as well. He watched it all on his television. Love was such a wonderful thing, Flavius thought. Something he had yet to encounter. Something that before Katniss came he would have thought of as entertainment. Life was a whole mess of 'ifs', Flavius concluded. A whole bunch of things he had never done. Flavius lived in his own Neverland, and he would stay there for as long as he lived. Trapped in his imagination with a yellow pill as the sun. When he dreamed, life became so much more unbearable. Life became terrifying. His dreams were the scariest things he had ever witnessed. But they were real. Nothing so vivid could be false.
Flavius' Neverland was a terrible place. As a child it was all about living and partying and becoming the face of fame. Now Flavius' imagination roamed free, devising terrible creatures with poison in hand and a girl whose arrow had pierced too many hearts.
When had he become a philosopher? Flavius, fun-loving, Fabulous Flavius was pondering about life? When did this happen? When he met the devil he had worshipped for so many years? When he saw those puffy lips sucking the life out of the city he had once held dear? These things that he must be experiencing were things that could not happen in Fabulous Flavius' life. These past few years Flavius had been perpetually dreaming, and yet he had lived more than he had in the twenty years before when he hadn't had his yellow bottle. The dream was reality. However, with all honesty, Flavius wanted to awake and go back to oblivion. Life was so much easier when all you needed to worry about was whether your teeth were white enough and what you were going to wear to the gala that evening. He didn't want responsibility. Flavius didn't want to dream. Flavius didn't want death. But he didn't want life, either.
The devil grinned as Flavius settled down to sleep. No matter where he was he was dreaming, so he didn't sleep much anymore. But tonight he felt too tired. Too tired to resist the never-ending dream that everyone lived. Flavius wanted to escape his Neverland. He couldn't deal with these marvels anymore.
Flavius popped one last yellow pill, and lay down. The devil reached out his hand.
He finally closed his eyes and woke up.
Never have I ever met the face of evil. Never have I ever died.