holland

“What’s so intimidating about sex?” he offhandedly spoke, though his tone was careful, almost guarded. He knew what it was. But then he chuckled, feeling so similarly it couldn’t be said any other way than with a dash of healthy arrogance. “My sister, believe me, this is me addressing it so it doesn’t get weirder. If it can get weirder.” He grimaced, mainly to himself. Cringe. “Yeah, no, I think I’m into something else entirely, sorry.”

TASK 012 // SUPPORT PLANS

“And is that okay?” Pluto asked, her lips pressing into a thin line, eyes softening. She knew the clinical psychology behind what Holland was going through, but she had a promise to live up to – she wouldn’t tell her to go to therapy, she wouldn’t try to psychoanalyze her. That was her vow. “I can only imagine how you’re feeling,” She said softly, walking carefully around the subject.

.

“Yeah, I don’t even know how I’m feeling. Sort of like there’s a storm of emotion in my chest.” She pressed her hand to it. “Weirdly, I’m feeling... relief? That it’s all in the past? But also like, it’s settling in that this is just life now. I’m always gonna live in the after.” The memory of Aspen with her always. The memory of the limbs as she sawed them from one another. So opposite, and yet intertwined in a way she detested.

“Anything,” Banshee replied meekly. She had never quite been able to feel comfortable in the squeaky clean, brightly lit Tower. Outside look different - darker, with more sporadic, flashing lights. She imagined the pavement was rough, something she missed under her feet. “All of it. The President’s mansion, what a house looks like here, a school, a… a cemetery, a market.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head down to force herself to stop rambling.

.

“So you thinking of going out there?” Holland asked, blunt, getting straight to it. “I’ll issue a warning: don’t get in anyone’s fucking car.” But she regarded her for a moment, then softened slightly. “If you want to see a Capitol cemetery, I can take you to one. Just promise not to get me in trouble?”

“Yes, hot,” he concluded in a deadpan, as if he hadn’t had sex on sweaty old mats perfectly well before. Carol cleared his throat and nervously gave his shoulder a couple of scratches as he got closer to Holland, enough to look her in the eye but not stepping into her personal space. “Want to talk about murder or about how we hooked up? Or something else entirely as we bury the shitshows?”

A warm chuckle came from the back of Pluto’s throat, given Holland’s rather pitiful excuse. It wasn’t like she was going to get Holland in trouble or anything of the sort. If favoritism from Pluto played a part with any of the tributes – past or present – it would certainly be reserved exclusively for Holland. The girl felt more like a daughter to her than her own – that was its own complicated can of worms to open on another day, though.

“Holland, darling, I don’t take you for a proud trainer,” Pluto said, her arms crossing over her chest. The amusement fell off her face and her brows furrowed down as she continued, “If you don’t want to tell me what you’re up to – are you at least okay?”

.

“I’m not up to anything,” she said, genuine though her voice wavered slightly from emotion. The fact was that she wasn’t really up to anything at all, but was rather hiding from lots of things. “It’s just been a year. You know?”

TASK 011 // A TIME AND A PLACE

“Who told you that? It’s true, you’re terrible company,” Carol deadpanned, and his eyes searched for hers. There was a sinking feeling in there somewhere. It was too on his mind not to come up. It only took a second of guard off. “So… you do want to have sex again, right?” he continued, serious and approaching the elephant in the room subversively, with a casualness he was actually squeezing out of deep lack of comfort. By the end of it, he burst into a chuckle. 

“It’s just me,” Pluto assured softly, a tense, cautious smile cropping up on her lips. She crossed the distance to Holland, noting the near deafening sound her shoes made as it hit the floor. “I actually was going to check to see if there were any tributes who had snuck in - drew the short straw,” She joked giving a gentler smile, “And it seems I found one – what are you doing here Holland?”

A little eerie, and it made him sick to his stomach how distance snowed overnight between them, but he wasn’t going to comment on that. Instead, he tried for a small smile. Funnily, he knew too well what day it was and what it meant to Holland, and he did send her a text a few minutes ago, despite the three-month radio silence they both entertained. But here, he hadn’t come for her. Here, he came for himself. Funny how things tied up together. “I wrote you tonight. Happy one year of trauma, I said.”

He removed himself from the District Six floor with cattish tiptoeing and a strange, sobering pit in his chest, as if they’d gone too far joking. As if she was the oddest thing he’d ever done, tame and clumsy and new and frightening as it had been, despite all the fucked up and trigger warning and they’d-straight-up-call-it-abuse he’d had before. He’d fasted, almost accidentally, after that night. Took his time, relished in the weakness of distance, missed her, missed her, missed her. It was easy after a little and, in the Capitol, he found other games to play, but he still missed her, missed her, missed her. It was odd and scary how love and desire were not conjoined from birth.  Carol had to let that sink for a little.

“I know. I know I’m too late. Let’s hang out anyway.”

.

She had wondered if they’d spend the whole Games avoiding each other. Even now that Hazel was here and digging up lots of things that should have remained peacefully buried, she wasn’t able to approach him. She felt more than naked around him now, walking and feeding and cleaning up after Mia on her own like she had never belonged to both of them, only Holland.

She had wondered if they’d pretend nothing happened, but time would still tell. She hoped they would and hoped they wouldn’t. She was never too good at pretend, that was the thing, but she also wasn’t good at facing the past.

TASK 007 // TAGLINE

TASK 005 // THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE

Holland killed her mother.

Well, she didn’t really. And she’ll maintain that she knew the trick the whole time, that it was a mutt and not her real mother. But she and her mother both know that’s not true, that she didn’t care and was willing to take the risk to kill her mother to save herself.

It may be because Holland is at her core selfish — which is possibly true! But it may also be that her mother never understood her, always held her at an arm’s distance, that in the Arena when she was soft with her, Holland knew that it couldn’t be her real mother, or that if it was her real mother, this revelation alone — this false softness — was enough for her to do what she needed to do. To kill her and deal with the guilt later.

TASK 010 // NATURAL PHENOMENA

Bioluminescent Plankton

Hazel nodded, more to herself than to Holland. This was an understanding – it almost satisfied her morbid curiosity about how Holland really felt about Aspen. If she even cared. Hell, it made her twist in knots that there was a part of Aspen’s life she couldn’t account for – a puzzle for which she was missing pieces. If only she could find them.

She swallowed hard, ensuring she let Holland finish speaking, truly attempting to listen to what the woman had to say. Hazel’s voice felt froggy as she sputtered for the right things to say, “Yeah, but you still do,” She fumbled, “That’s like – shit, dude, I don’t know I think that’s what matters at the very least? It’s not like –” A heavy sigh slipped away from her lips, “It’s good. Not good. But – it makes sense.”

Hazel allowed a second for her to sit on the thought before blurting, “ I think she’d probs miss you too, she was such a fucking sap, god.” The laugh that immediately fell after was involuntary but she felt a little lighter, “What were you guys even gonna do if you got out? I mean – Panem’s kinda fuckin’ huge.”