Quick Author's Note: For those who have commented and asked about Minho, i can confirm that Yes, he will be making an appearance once the boys are thrown into the Arena! I've already skipped ahead and written his entrance, and several scenes with him, so i hope when we eventually get to them they live up to expectation!
Thanks to those who have reviewed so far! Comments make my day!
Happy Reading!
Chapter Five
Thomas was trying hard. He was. But lining up like sheep, dressed in ridiculously fancy clothes so that some Capitol freak could ask him mindless questions before they threw him to the wolves was not his idea of fun. He had suffered through the ministrations of his "Prep Team" in relative silence, doing his best to keep his snarling to a minimum. He'd been shaved, scoured raw from head to toe, polished and plucked and brushed and doused in so many stupid-smelling concoctions that his head hurt.
When they'd finally ceased the torture in the bathroom they had returned him to his bedroom with a flourish so that some bizarrely-dressed woman could begin her own form of torture. The whole thing had taken hours and Thomas was sure he had been traumatised by it all. He was decked out in a strange, shimmery material that was admittedly soft against his still tender skin. The prep team had bickered over it an unbelievable amount, and Thomas had found it difficult to conceive just how much they seemed to value klunk like what colour he wore, how his hair sat, the way they rounded his nails. It was downright sickening.
In the end they'd agreed, setting to work like a bizarrely well-oiled machine, and Thomas had closed his eyes and done his best to survive it. As he joined the growing line of tributes and found his district's spot halfway down he looked down at the shades of pale blue they'd finally settled on, claiming it matched his skin tone and made his eyes "pop". Apparently a lighter, "cool" colour made his hair look better, "warmer", however the shuck that worked. It was all matched, from a medium blue in his trousers to the cornflower of his jacket and the duck egg of his shirt. He sighed and deliberately leaned against the wall of the corridor they were waiting in. The prep team had reminded him several times as he was leaving not to wrinkle his suit jacket by brushing against the wall. He was smiling to himself as he imagined how annoyed they'd be when he felt a hand brush his arm. He looked up in surprise.
"Hey Tom. Looks like we match, huh?"
Teresa stood beside him, looking at him with a wry sort of smile. Her dark hair had been teased and tamed, half of it pinned back loosely and the under-layer floating around her shoulders like dark sea water. Thomas saw that her own prep team had done an amazing job with her, as much as he hated the shallowness of it. The dress they'd put on her clung to her lean form in a way that made her look gorgeous. It hung from one shoulder, dipped into a sharp neckline, brushed her hips and dropped down, slitted on one side to reveal a daring amount of creamy pale skin. The fabric was glittering as she moved, the exact sapphire shade of her eyes. Teresa caught him looking and looked up at him slyly from under smokey grey eyelids and long black lashes. Her smile widened coyly.
"Like what you see?" she teased, and Thomas couldn't think of a response because her cavalier attitude was so unexpected. He felt himself blush as he watched her flutter her eyelashes suggestively.
Teresa sniggered, leaning against the wall beside him and scuffing the toes of one blue high-heeled shoe along the concrete floor in a long, elegant motion. Thomas raised his eyebrows as he finally found the ability to speak.
"If your team are anything like mine, I doubt they'd be happy to see how you're treating their precious shoes."
Teresa laughed out loud, a proper laugh that contrasted vastly with her harsh snigger from before. She looked up at him again with gleaming eyes and he laughed too, the mischievous twinkle putting him at ease.
"You have no idea. I bet that no matter what they did to you mine were a hundred times worse." She laced her voice with a heavy Capitol accent, wrinkling her nose. "Terreeeeesa playyz, daahh-ling. Do stennd steel."
Thomas covered his laugh with a cough, unable to hide his startled grin. Teresa looked pleased, repeating her leg motion with the other foot.
"What's all the hilarity about? And is that Thomas Greene? Actually laughing? My My, the Games do wonders for a boy's disposition, huh?"
Thomas looked up in to see the girl standing before him and he straightened automatically. Brenda grinned at him, moving closer to stand as the third point of their little triangle. Teresa sniggered again.
"You'd think he'd never seen a girl in a dress before the way he stares, oh dear me."
She sounded awfully put out, winking at Brenda when the shorter girl giggled. Brenda had been dressed in a deep orange dress that ruffled low on her shoulders, curled at the neckline and sectioned into a bodice, a hint of a hip to it. Where Teresa's dress was clingy and sparkly Brenda's was light and floaty, reaching just below her knees at the front and dipping slightly lower at the back. They had teased her short brown hair into stylish flicks and layers, and her caramel skin gleamed against the burnt orange. She grinned up at Thomas with her milk chocolate eyes and when she blinked the burnished brown-orange on her eyelids flashed like fire.
The different blends of shades in the material flickered like firelight under the dim fluorescent lighting and somehow Thomas knew that when she was under the spotlights on the stage it would almost crackle as the colours danced. He was impressed, and he had never expected to feel such a thing from any aspect of the Games. He had always resented the tributes being dressed and scrubbed like lambs before slaughter and yet right then he was looking at the two most beautiful girls he had ever seen in his life. He shrugged as Teresa teased him again.
"What can i say," he commented in a very good impression of the man whose stage they were about to grace, "You two look divine."
He gave Brenda a deliberate once over before he smirked at her teasingly.
"You look like a fire fairy."
Brenda laughed and punched his arm playfully as Teresa snorted, and even though this was just another sickening step in the horror that was the dressed-up Hunger Games, their presence made him feel a little better. If such a thing were possible when facing what they were.
"Well, better a fire fairy than an ice-cube."
Thomas pretended to be offended and Teresa howled with laughter. Brenda preened in an exaggerated manner, pleased. They teased each other for a while, enjoying it while they could.
Thomas leaned against the wall again, letting his eyes roam over the rainbow of other tributes. The corridor was filling as the moments ticked by and Thomas was becoming nervous over the lack of Newt's presence. The girls and he made ridiculous small talk, knowing it was ridiculous and yet also knowing that they had been warned on pain of, well, something, that they had better act like perfect little ladies and gentlemen, as much as it pained them.
Eventually they received a warning of five minutes to go, an assistant of some sort with blue skin and bright pink hair and lips talking them over their instructions as he sorted them into order. Thomas stood up properly, looking around in search of the blonde. He could feel Teresa pressing against his back as Brenda stepped into line in front of him as instructed. When the assistant passed them and was safely further down the long line Thomas relaxed a little.
"Looks like your friend is going to be late. Tsk, they won't be too happy…" Teresa murmured into his ear and Thomas rolled his eyes.
"He'll be here. Shank probably got lost." he sniped back, and she hid her chuckle in his shoulder. Brenda looked back at them with hidden amusement. Just then a familiar voice appeared in the ear she had just spoken into. Thomas turned his face in relief.
"Budge up, Tommy."
What he saw took his breath away.
If he thought they'd made the girls beautiful, he was dead wrong. Newt stood beside him in the grey-wash concrete of the corridor, wearing a soft-looking shirt and suit jacket like Thomas's, his slim trousers making his long legs look like they went on forever. Where Thomas and Teresa had been assigned their own shades of blue and Brenda dominated the warm oranges, Newt had been dressed in green.
His shirt was a soft spring shade, buttoned to the very top with a rounded collar that made him look unbearably young. The jacket was a grassier summer green and Thomas's heart lurched in his chest at the thoughts of their field that the colour evoked. His trousers were in a much darker emerald and his black dress shoes were stark and neat. His blonde, fluffy hair had been teased into an incredibly textured style that made Thomas's fingers itch with a sudden sharp longing to touch it. It swept back in a curl from his forehead and gave him an interesting, tousled look that made Thomas's lower abdomen tremble. Newt's brown eyes were deep and dark against the paleness of his face and the honey of his hair.
Thomas had never had a favourite colour before, not in the normal sense. He had loved the brown of Newt's eyes since he was eight years old, had shocked himself at twelve by the way that the specific shade of pink Newt went when he was embarrassed made him feel. The golden honey of his hair had always been one, of course. But Thomas had never expected any other colour to do to him what those ones did.
How wrong he had been, because right then and there Thomas was utterly certain that the best colour in the whole shucking world was green.
"You're buggin' starin', Tommy."
Newt's nervous half-smile brought Thomas back suddenly, and he flushed when he realised his three district-mates were looking at him. Teresa and Brenda looked amused, their eyes knowing and silently laughing. Newt looked nervous, his cheeks going pink. Thomas shuffled back to let him in.
"Yeah, he does that." Teresa muttered, and Brenda stifled a laugh behind her hand. She turned back with gleaming eyes.
"We just took it a compliment to how pretty we look."
Thomas's cheeks burned as the two female Gladers laughed. Newt's smile was lop-sided and soft and his cheeks were taking on a definite pink tinge as he slotted in front of Thomas, turning to look at him. As the assistant called for quiet and the monitor hanging from the ceiling at the front of the line flickered to life, Thomas felt the warmth of Newt's fingers as his hand closed over his.
"You don't look too bad yourself, Tommy." he whispered close to Thomas's ear.
If the girls heard they didn't say anything.
"Well Hello Panem!"
Theme music and the sound of applauded suddenly roared from all around them and Thomas felt Newt squeeze his hand tightly. He twisted his grip and interlocked their fingers. Thomas felt the rush of affection sweetly filter through his chest and didn't question it. He needed as clear a head as possible if he was to present himself on the stage like Janson wanted, and agonising over why Newt was holding his hand wouldn't do him any good. For all he knew the blonde felt as nervous as he did and was looking for support. He squeezed back reassuringly.
The gathered tributes fell into silence, every pair of eyes locked on the TV screen as the famous Caesar Flickerman danced onto the stage decked from head to toe in red. His coiffed hair, his eyebrows, his eyelids lips and fingernails all blazed in scarlet and he flashed the audience his familiar disarming smile. Thomas took a deep breath, holding it before he let it out in a steady stream as Flickerman began to talk.
Here we go.
