title: you bleed, we crawl like animals
fandom: the hunger games
characters: the careers - gloss, cashmere, brutus, enobaria
information: 75th hunger games | 600 words | oneshot
summary: "this year you're dealing with all experienced killers" (or: the careers of the 75th hunger games)
( they were kids that i once knew )
Gloss
After they declare Gloss victor, they quickly push him toward the open swarm of the Capitol. All the scars and bruises left from the arena are airbrushed away, the blood washed from under his fingernails.
He is scrubbed clean until all he recognizes is an eighteen-year old without a reflection and all anyone remembers is the dashingly handsome victor from District One who killed five other tributes.
He almost thinks he feels lonely at the Capitol, swathed in riches and foreign hotel rooms. One night after loose lips and heavy wine, someone makes sure he's not alone any longer. Someone makes sure, and in that moment, Gloss has never felt more powerful.
This is his first breath of glory, and this the first breath of his downfall.
-/-
Cashmere
Cashmere can't say she is surprised when she is chosen to volunteer – her brother predates her, and she is easily the best in her year. She is thrown into the arena, lights and fake personality in place, and she kills like she has never killed before.
The people fawn when she fixes her hair after slicing open the throat of the last tribute left in the arena. The Capitol is quick to adopt this look, blonde tresses streaked with coagulated red.
Cashmere tumbles out of the games and into the arms of her brother. He doesn't look the least bit surprised when they polish her and wrap her in plastic and cardboard casing.
She is a new doll for the people to play with, undress her and dress her again; she is theirs and this is her welcome wagon to victory.
-/-
Brutus
The interviewer is immediately taken with Brutus' brutality, as if that was all he ever stood for and all he ever would stand for. He isn't as handsome or nice to look at as those before him, but the Capitol loves him for his imposing figure and ominous smirks.
The first thing they ask him when he steps onto the stage with a newly tailored suit, only hours after the arena, is how it felt to crush the skull of his last opponent. Brutus plays with the question, fidgets with his fingers, but that's not what he's supposed to do if he's really as brutal as everyone says. The seconds tick down to his answer, yet all he gives is an engineered laugh and an empty mass of cartilage in his hands.
All they want from him is rough hands and an existence of destruction and violence. He delivers, because that's all he thinks he is anymore.
He doesn't remember when Brutus wasn't the name of the boy who killed all that time ago.
-/-
Enobaria
When she tears out the jugular of her district partner, she expects the taste of victory, or at least something resembling victory. Instead, she tastes hot metal burning inside her mouth. The blood drips down her chin and her teeth are still caught in his flesh, mangling his throat.
The announcer's voice booms overhead, saying she's one, but all she hears is the ghost of his heartbeat. Her breaths are heavy, choked with his blood and she can barely swallow her win.
Enobaria's teeth are cosmetically altered, and the people love it, but she can never rid her mouth of the sharp metallic taste of victory. It bitters the taste of every sip of wine, the taste of someone's skin on her mouth.
She smiles for the flashing cameras and lights, and when her tongue dances over her pointed teeth, she can almost taste his flesh again.
(author's notes:)
written on christmas. wanted to publish this on christmas.
also: obsessed with "Silhouettes" by Of Monsters and Men
Very short, but just something to compensate for the limited screentime for the Careers in Catching Fire.