Eleven months, two weeks, and five days. That is how long she has gone without morphling.
More importantly, that's how long she's gone without Dirk Tautson.
It's literal torture. More often than not, the front door and the windows of her home are locked by a disapproving Bex or a glowering Flotsam. Sometimes, when Syren is drunk or Dorsal is feeling especially kind, they'll unlock one of her windows or put their foot in the back door and let her out. On those days, she runs as fast and as far as she can. She must escape that place.
Her body aches, but not for morphling. If anything, her momentary dependency is fading. No one consumes that stuff in 4. It practically is non existent in the Fishing District. She doesn't miss the needles for their bite. She misses them because Dirk's hands are always wrapped around them. She doesn't miss the euphoric rush of the morphling for their ability to block everything out, although sometimes she craves it when she's especially lost. She misses it because along with that rush is an even bigger one, with his hands on her hips and his lips against hers.
How did it ever get so out of control? she wonders to herself. How did it get so bad that they have to lock me inside my house?!
She begrudgingly admits that it got that bad long ago. Memories resurface as she steps onto the stage along with Dorsal, but she suppresses them. It is time to see their volunteers, the ones that they will fight for this year. A banner flaps above the stage, glittering and declaring that this is the Reapings for the 64th Hunger Games. As if the worried faces in the pens need any reminding. Nowadays, sometimes the Careers in 4 duck out and a random weakling is left in their place. District 4 must now worry once again.
Ibiza plasters on a false smile and a warm aura as volunteers Barnaclea and Waydeson clamber onto the stage. Their names are longer than normal, mouthfuls really. Ibiza already knows neither of them will be coming home. It's a gut instinct that shakes her down to her core. These two teenagers will be dead in a matter of weeks.
And Ibiza guiltily hopes that this Barnaclea dies early on so she and Dirk can be alone again, like they were on the fateful night of the 62nd Hunger Games. The memories swallow her before they even make it on the train. Stupid sentimental mind.
She stares Ibiza down in that signature way that only Bex Martin can. Eyebrows half furled, mouth set in a quivering, flat line, eyes glistening with something Ibiza cannot describe. Ibiza doesn't like this look. No one from the Training Center in District 4 likes this look. This look usually leads to beatings and cold meals of thick, more-gelatinous-than-usual porridge for half a month.
"Why didn't you show up yesterday, Tran?" Bex barks. "Surely, Oysteria was dead, but still. You need to learn."
"I was...enjoying myself?"
Her thoughts flash to the night before. In one of the two Victor's suites on the District 6 floor. Clothes tossed to the side, they stood before one another, bare and raw and real, and lips met lips and bodies clashed and hearts melded and euphoric grins lasted forever.
"With Dirk Tautson?" Bex asks quizzically. "You know he's an addict, right? And disgusting outlier scum that probably doesn't even deserve to look upon your face?"
"When the hell did someone give you a license to be so goddamn righteous!?" Ibiza shrieks. The words are being pushed from between her lips before she can even think about them. Bex looks upon her, horrified and quickly becoming enraged, and Ibiza's tittering mouth continues on its rampage. "He's a person too! You can't hold a frickin' grudge because he killed Anemonia and Salt in his Games! I killed the boy from 6 in my Games. Do they scream about us being useless, inferior slime because we killed their District's tributes in our own Games to save our hides? NO!"
Bex just stares at her, a little impressed by her surge of emotion. Bex hides that fact however, and instead glowers after gathering her wits.
"Go to bed."
"I'm not a child."
"Go to bed."
"I can-"
"GO. TO. BED. IBIZA."
Ibiza complies, snickering all the way, though. Bex called her Ibiza. That counts for something, right?
She blinks tiredly when Dorsal taps her shoulder.
"Yeah?" she grunts, rubbing her eyes.
"You spaced out. We're getting on the train," Dorsal replies, trying to coax a smile onto her face, onto his face. He manages a flicker of a grin. Ibiza's face doesn't move, although her heart beats rapidly as they board the train.
Red velvet and silver and mahogany and gold and perfection and memories and tears and trying to look strong for the curious tributes and trying to suppress the memories of eating dinner with Sunfish across from Mags and Flotsam. She manages to struggle through her dinner of dry sweet and sour pork and other delicacies that taste off in her soured mouth. Barnaclea and Waydeson are perfectly mannered, as they should be. She can't pick apart a reason to hate her charge, Barnaclea. Dorsal and Waydeson really connect, but Barnaclea keeps pushing Ibiza for answers to her questions while Ibiza just tries to stay in reality, in the current time. Ibiza manages to mutter out some coherent answers that satisfy Barnaclea for the time being. Then Ibiza is off like a shot, finding the room most unlike hers from the 61st Games before she falls asleep. Memories are her only dreams now. Imagination has been ripped from her mind through her trauma. The scar tissue left behind only manages to transmit memories into her head as she slumbers. She doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing.
"Are you really...serious about this?"
"Of course, Ibby."
"I'm just...it's...I...I can't..."
"Who lectured you, darling? Who lectured you about my inadequacy?"
"Bex, Flotsam, even Syren, who decided to come along for the 'fun'. They said..."
"That I'm an addict and all. Well, good news for you, I haven't dosed in like two weeks."
"Great! I was just hearing all of this stuff and I just didn't wanna make a bad decision by...by..."
"Being mine?"
"Yes. Will you...date me?"
"Of course. Though long distance is a rather turbulent experience."
Ibiza chuckles. This is the man she falls for, the clear minded, sharp, witty, sound man without any morphling sludge dripping through his veins. The man she meets from then on is a broken, dead man, not at all like this beautiful virtue of a person that she fell for. But it's already too late. She hopes against hope that they'll pull through, that he'll return to her.
She knows it's futile, but she doesn't care. Ibiza Tran doesn't just give her heart up to people like him. She...she has to prove to herself that she made the right choice.
She knows she made the wrong choice. She's just grabbing at anything she can possibly reach.
Because Ibiza Tran is a flawless girl. She doesn't have big imperfections. She especially doesn't have imperfections like this Dirk Tautson.
A/N: This one was based off of the song Mustang Kids. I hoped you enjoyed it, and please review to tell me how I'm doing! :D
Until Next Time,
Tracee