With thanks to AbbyCoraby123 and Glassgift for your reviews of the last chapters. :)
The day drew on in an endless turmoil. Alec was starting to worry Ganymede had noticed the constant flicker of his gaze towards the television screen- while Alec had always been a Hunger Games enthusiast, and especially in quieter moments of solitude such as the training (the killing always turned his stomach), he had never been this focussed before.
He had broken three glasses this morning trying to pour drinks into them, and with the high-class clientele they attracted Alec simply couldn't afford to be clumsy.
But he couldn't tear his eyes from the screen anymore than he could switch off his own treasonous brain.
He knew a tribute.
No, he didn't. Alec jerked his head to the left, the silence making even the creak of his vertaebrae sound audible. He didn't know a tribute, he had just seen him, and-
You gave him your money. You knew that was illegal interaction with a District citizen. You knew what you were doing was akin to smuggling, and you know what the penalty for that is.
Alec dropped another glass, and Ganymede sighed sharply.
"There's nobody even in here anymore, Al. Can you stop breaking our property for one second?"
"Yeah, I- sorry." The edges of Alec's deep red tattoos were just visible underneath his jet-black waistcoat collar, and they were beaded with sweat. He bit his lip and knelt to pick up the shards of glass, and Ganymede stooped to help.
"Look." Ganymede murmured, where they crouched underneath the bar in the empty noon. Dust motes stilled in the air. "I don't know what the hell you've seen on the Games-" Alec reacted too quickly- "-Yes, I know it's the Games, I'm your boyfriend not your customer so don't pretend I don't know anything about you. I don't know what you've seen or what's going on but you need to answer two questions. Can you do that?"
Ganymede's hair matched Alec's waistcoat. Alec's hair matched Ganymede's crimson waistcoat. They complimented but did not match, and Alec loved that more than when they matched. He nodded softly, feeling slim fingers caress his.
"Question one." Ganymede's voice was barely a breath, as if hushed by the tones of Caesar Flickerman above them. "Is what happened against the law?"
I gave him money, Gan, I knew what I was doing the whole time and now he's on TV and I'll be next facing my punishment, I'm sorry. But Alec didn't say any of those words.
Alec nodded.
Ganymede's fingers flexed and tightened around Alec's wrist. The pads rested on Alec's erratic pulse. The second question was slightly, just slightly, louder; but it was said even closer to Alec's ear.
"Do you love me?"
They had met when they were just teenagers, had owned the bar together for almost a decade, had lived together for months. But Ganymede had never truly asked that question. When they were younger, there were too many separate love interests for them to be interested in each other; but they had settled, found each other, found a rhythm that completed them.
And now, in a moment of fear over broken glass, hiding beneath a bar, Alec found his harsh pulse settling at the wash of the words he could answer without thinking.
"Yes."
Ganymede and Alec shared a smile; and then they shared their lips, their souls, their secrets hidden but their hearts laid bare. In that moment they were trusting and trustworthy; Ganymede loved Alec and did not care what had happened as long as he was safe- Alec loved Ganymede and did not mind what consequences happened so long as he was always with him.
Ganymede loved him; he loved Ganymede. Nothing else could matter.
"-Hello?"
The two pulled apart- too quickly, as Alec overbalanced on his crouched stance and put a hand backwards into the broken glass. He yelped, tried to stand, and abruptly slammed his head on the bar above him as he did so.
Ganymede stood with the same smooth gait he always did, and pretended not to watch Alec as he swore and whimpered into a standing position.
Sisyphia Maurice stood at the bar. "I was wondering if I could get a dri- oh my gosh, Alexander, your hand!"
Alec saw his hand was bleeding, and mumbled a curse, watching the minute shards of glass tip from the bloodied cut on his palm. The stained glass shot tiny glints of red light in the dull shine from the tinted windows to the Capitol outside.
"Back in a mo; I'll just grab some bandages." He said, whipping out of the bar to the back room.
"Need some help?" Ganymede and Sisyphia called in unison. Alec stuck his head back out of the door.
"You're a customer and you own a bar. Other things need to happen; order drinks, sell drinks, drink drinks! I'll be back in a second."
Alec wound bandages around the small cut like he was trying to bandage his entire hand; but it was rare he injured himself, and he had been over-excited about buying med kits for the bar some years back, and had bought far too many bandages. When he came back out, it appeared that Sisyphia had bought the contents of the bar.
"My god," Alec said with a raised eyebrow. "It's the middle of the day, Sisy; what gives with the drinks?" Sisyphia was hardly an unusual sight at the bar, especially not since her elevation to escort status, but she was the plague of every high-society bar- the one-drink wonder who could nurse a glass for hours on end. Now, it seemed, Sisyphia was making up for lost time.
She inspected the dust motes floating into her drink in the stillness of the afternoon air. "I suppose you saw what happened."
Ganymede frowned, leaning down onto the bar table. "Which thing, the chariots or the accident?" Both had been the talking point of the bar last night and the night before- Alec felt sorry for the girl, given it was her first time escorting. Some District kids really had no manners.
"It wasn't an-" Sisyphia stopped herself, her eyes blown wide, her throat gurgling from hastily stopped sounds. As if desperate to drown the words bubbling in her mouth, she downed the drink with feverish aplomb.
The look of teetering on the edge of truth was one Alec had started to know well in the past few days, and he felt a nasty, knowing coolness in the pit of his stomach. Someone else knew the void of something they could not say, and it was burning them the same way the Seven girl's paper dress had scorched the horses.
Four golden coins, heavy and hot in Alec's hand. He clenched it and hissed in pain when he realised his injury was still there.
Sisyphia had drained her drink now and seemed to want it filled with more, as if to give her distraction from the words she had hastily drowned. Ganymede refilled her glass without asking, and down the liquid went, a single bead of the blue alcohol trickling down makeup and smudging glossy lips as it went.
She sighed as she came up for air. "Look, I- I can't tell you boys, okay? Escort duties and such. But I- these children, they're- they're not bad, not really, they're just scared, and I-" Sisyphia teetered on the edge of truth and found it too terrifying to contemplate. She drained another shot of alcohol.
"-What if I can't help them?" She croaked.
That wasn't what she had wanted to say. That wasn't what Alec wanted to say, not about Quint, not really. As Ganymede leant in to console Sisyphia, Alec and her eyes met, only for a moment.
They saw the voids that had carved themselves into their pupils. They came to thick realisation of one another; that the drink in Sisyphia's hand was just the same as the bandages wound around Alec's.
They had seen something in a tribute and now they were concerned for their own safety in talking about it, even in passing - and it was such a terrible, damning thing that they could not speak when they had done so for so long.
But they knew now, they knew, that they had always known they couldn't talk.
They couldn't talk.
Alec felt nauseous again.
I'm extraordinarily tired today and bashed this out in under an hour- thankfully, my plan kept me from sinking under too far, so hopefully I've remained coherent in my recounting of what I needed to put forward.
Speaking of my plan, it now puts Jacquerie at being halfway to completion, if I stick to the planned chapters. And, if everything goes to plan, we should be in the Games before the weekend's over.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.