a smile made for war

“The way I see it, I’m offering you a leg up here,” he countered. “And there’s no underlying motive.” Mostly, because they were sort of playing different Games. Cain’s tributes had training to fall back on, and maybe that left a little more room for experimenting and seeing where things landed because of it. “I’m thinking out loud. It’s really not that deep,” he shrugged.

.

Shiloh was impatient with the damn speech, trying to interrupt him multiple times but Hunter just continued talking. “Are you fucking done?” he asked, his eyebrows raised, unimpressed. “I don’t care that you, a fucking psychopath, don’t care about your sisters being killed. So what? That’s not relevant to me. Or Indy.” He glanced at her, trying to steel his gaze, trying to get her to stay in this with him, to not waver. “If you have better last words than those you can say them now.” They had him cornered, didn’t they? No matter that he hadn’t been able to stab him right away.

@indyofit​

.

To feel nothing over his own sister’s death was so terrible, so unthinkable, that the cold rage was no longer too far away to reach. She barely knew Shiloh and if someone were to kill him– Her grip tightened around the hilt of the knife, knuckles going white. This selfish, pathetic man, even when face to face with the horrible things he’d done, he still saw their father’s death as amounting to the unfortunate collateral of a game. Not a person. “We’re not playing a game,” she snarled coldly, closing the distance now, breathing heavily. She pressed the knife to Hunter’s pale throat with trembling hands, angry tears beginning to bud at the corners of her eyes. He still didn’t understand. He still didn’t realize that he’d taken away the one person in her world that had shown her what it meant to love and to be loved. “I already understand what you’ve done to us just fine. You took everything away from us and you don’t even care. Don’t you understand that?! How come my father’s life was part of a game but yours, yours is worth saving? You’re a worthless, pathetic piece of shit, do you hear me?” Her voice was raising dangerously now, and the blood was beginning to well up near the edge of the blade.

She should do it. She should just fucking do it, she was right there. She put a little more pressure on the blade, but the adrenaline surged and her muscles froze. Why the fuck was she freezing up like this when it mattered most? @huntedhunter​ 

.

The extents of his sisters’ deaths were none of his business, and he knew that even on his death couch. He clicked his tongue, even, but the sound came undone. And they were threatening, ready to put full stop to such a story. Hunter wanted nothing but to roll his eyes at their audacity. Still, he was too tired to.

Instead, he reached in his pocket and his hand found its way to his lips, to bring a cigarette to it. He took his time -- as much of it as he could without talking. Last words? Were these kids mental? Have they not been paying attention.

Last words he’d deliver. “You’re not going to kill me.” Not in any way that matters. “We’re just having a private interview. Do you want to talk about daddy, share some treasured memories?” 

They were more nervous than he was, but that was only because he was too weak to emote, to clouded to realize how hanging by a thread he’d gotten. 

He could only muster a half smile and a short laugh at Hunter’s comment. Allard wished he could go to his hotel and drink at the bar there instead, where he’d curated everything to his aesthetic and desire. “A planner, as in…” Allard lifted up his phone and shook it, “a calendar, or a person who does planning? I have the first for the Games now, the second for my business.”

.

“Oh, you’re all set, you don’t need any advice from me,” Hunter displayed his teeth into a grin, not really ready to make jokes and be best friends with the man whose voice called out for Jeannie to go, for the third time, into the Games. Still, he knew how it wasn’t his fault -- he knew that enough to be cordial, to even smile. “But I appreciate you asking an amateur of planning.”

Caught off guard, she raised her head again, watery eyes fixing on her brother. He laughed right after he said it, and incredulously, Jeannie followed along. You’re my child. “What the hell are you on about?” Maybe it mattered, though, that he’d made her feel something other than sorrow for a moment. 

.

“Fuck if I know,” his laughter hovered ghostly into the air. “You’re young enough to be. And you died last, which felt like a redo of losing everybody. And, Jeannie -- I don’t know, I’m not good with this shit, just take it and judge me for being an old sappy man, if you want, but take it.”

He hadn’t expected the amount of strength Hunter seemed to still have in his body. Perhaps the poison was weaker than they’d anticipated, or Hunter stronger. A combination of the two. He tried to wrestle the knife from Hunter’s hand, managing to do so only as Hunter stood up and spoke, at which point he stepped back, a little afraid, glancing at Indy, sensing through her surprise, her speaking of his name, that perhaps she’d changed her mind.

“You killed our fucking father,” he spat at Hunter even as he retreated slightly, needing a new plan but knowing that they could not communicate one.

@indyofit​

.

Indy forced herself to try to recall her own righteous anger, the one that had burned in her belly for five years now, making Hunter Twill the object of her obsession. She had to do this. There were no other choices. She drew her own knife now, heart slamming against her ribcage. She couldn’t look Shiloh in the eye. Was she a coward or not? 

He doesn’t regret it, she reminded herself. Shiloh had recounted his conversation to her, and he wouldn’t lie about it. She had no need to regret bringing justice to her father either. 

She raised the knife, addressing Hunter now, trying to steel herself against what had to be done. “Tell us again how our father’s death was nothing to you.”

@huntedhunter​

.

Unable to keep his grasp on the blade, he sent Shiloh out of his reach with a push meant to destabilize him. It destabilized the mentor instead, though he regained his balance -- not enough to keep standing (but he wouldn’t just collapse on the couch now). The remark about the father was met with properly rolled eyes, but whether that was the poison or irritation, Hunter could not properly tell. Both, surely. 

Breathing heavily, he watched the girl’s knife, and suddenly, he understood. There had been some talk during the interviews, and he picked that up without imagining it’d come to this. Even in that state, his mind linked his state of dizziness to them. Drugged. Fuck. He’d been drugged or worse, and they, as some sort of freakish cult, came for blood, for revenge for a crime he’d done as the Capitol cheered. 

This was not a time to get smart. Maybe if he could keep his eyes on the girl talking to him for more than a couple of seconds, maybe then he would be able to deliver usual Hunter Twill snark, but not like this. They were armed, set to draw blood at the price of their very lives, stupid as they were, and he couldn’t just explain natural selection. He needed to emote and make it convincing.

Immediately, he raised his hands to throat level, part a shield in case of any sudden moves, part to show good intentions. He took a seat on the couch, alert but all weak knuckles. Now all he needed to do was fucking remember the father’s fucking name. Fuck. “Don’t kill me so that your father’s death means even less,” he cocked his head to a side, to reason with them with squinted eyes. This wasn’t even manipulation -- it was factual. 

“Some guy killed my sister, Addison, in 108. I didn’t hate him for it. Same with my other sister, but let’s draw the line before that, it no longer fucking applies.” The words were quick to tangle into each other, but Hunter had always made a point out of clarity. He still tried to avoid mumbling. “It’s not nothing to me. None of this is nothing. It’s just a dumb game that we all play, that you’ll understand very soon, regardless of if you kill me or not. Well--” 

He gave Indiana a skeptical look, as if counting on the fact that she was not going to. A bluff, which hid fear behind it. “You’re not playing the game by killing me. You’re answering with free-will violence to a very backdated conditioned violence, this... what I had to do, what I fucking did with no memories.”

Unprompted, he groaned of frustration. Were this kids fucking dumb? “I know you think it feels like fulfilling something, but the dead just pile up. I’m sorry. And no, of course it doesn’t mean much to me now -- you’ll see tomorrow how it feels.” Hunter tried to shake his head, but his neck wouldn’t move properly. The dizzy was taking more and more of a hold on him. “Take my word on this and if I turn out to be wrong, one of you should just come out of the arena and kill me then, after you go through what I went through, and after you underst-” The words knotted in his mouth. It was time he stopped, already too long. God, he hated it when he couldn’t speak his mind to the last syllable.

Surya was knocked back enough by the response to forget she wanted a vendetta. “She’s allowed to make friends?” The question was immediate, no hesitation as her curiosity overpowered her indignation. “I thought she wasw, well… a queen.”

.

“Friend is an umbrella term. And she is a child,” Hunter clicked his tongue, as if scolding her for not taking all that into consideration. “She’s, well, a queen,” he quoted Surya precisely with a deadpanned voice, “and for that reason, she is allowed to do whatever the fuck she wants.”

“I should want that,” she agreed, though her voice was scratchy and broke at times, as she grabbed her glass a little tighter. “I should need shit like that but lately- I just- I know I’m supposed to be grown up now but sometimes I just wish-” Jeannie shook her head to herself, burying her face in her hands with a drawn out, shaky sigh. 

.

He swallowed dryly through the silence. “You’re not supposed to be a grown up,” he argued softly, always trying to adjust his tone for Jeannie. “You’re...” With one elbow prompted against the bar, he made his fingers circle in the air, as if trying to find the right word. There were no right words for a sister come back from the dead, for a teenager he doesn’t know too well, that’s the last chance at a family. “... my child.” It was ridiculous, and so he burst into light chuckle, but reiterated it either way. “My sister, of course, but my child.”

shilohgarner​:​

Shiloh and Indy had made their way as quickly as possible to the eighth floor via the staircase — because he felt like it was safer, less likely to have cameras. Not that it would matter if they got caught or not. Soon one of them would be dead and the other could be a Victor.

Or both would be dead.

He tried not to think about it, though it was what was in his mind when Hunter entered the lounge where he and Indy were lying in wait.

In his hand, a knife — the type Jeannie had taught him to throw. He had always had a flair for the dramatic, and was sure that even though this weapon was not something he was entirely familiar with, Hunter would be drugged, poisoned, and it would be easier to complete his half of the job.

He glanced at Indy before jumping out from behind the partition that separated the lounge from the kitchen and brandishing the knife towards Hunter, lunging for him, not wanting to give him a chance to speak or beg or whatever the fuck.

His death had already taken too long to arrive.

@indyofit​

.

Indy could still smell the acrid, bitter residue of the poisonous plants on her hands, despite the labored scrubbing she’d done at the sink in her private bathroom back on the Ninth floor. She’d made the concoction just before her stylists started getting her ready for the interviews, sure that their own scrubbing would get anything that remained off. Yet she still swore she reeked of poison, no matter how much soap she used or how much perfume her stylists had drowned her skin in.  She was now in a dark shirt and sweatpants, so different from her elaborate interview outfit, but the shimmer of eye shadow and smudge of eyeliner was still there as she waited, breath held, in the hall of the eighth floor. Waiting for… something. This plan with Shiloh had seemed so sure, but now she realized that there wasn’t going to be an obvious moment. Fortunately, she didn’t have to make the call. Shiloh caught her eye, flashed the knife and emerged into the lounge. Her heart raced. This was it, the moment they exacted their shared revenge for the same crime, five years later. Indy had her own knife, tucked against her side, and she drew it then, hand trembling.  In the confines of her notebooks, her fantasies, her threats, this had seemed so simple. Righteous, even. Hunter, though, was not a great monster to be slain in the belly of a fantastical cave. He was just a man. Pale, sweaty, prone, vulnerable. She started to raise her hand, maybe to make Shiloh pause, but instead she let out a surprised “Shiloh!” as he lunged at Hunter, knife raised. 

In a split second, she realized it was decided, and it was something she’d known from the very beginning. Once this was started, there was no way out. It was go through with it and maybe survive, or back down and be executed.

@huntedhunter​

.

Hunter sat up from the couch, back straightened to the point where the daze hurt and gravity anchored heavy over his shoulders. He heard the gasp, he saw it flashing how the tributes from Nine approached him, he noticed the gleam of the knife, unmissable and unmistakable. His hand boldly went to block it, grabbing it over the young man’s fingers on the handle. He started bleeding from his palm -- didn’t know how. 

With both hands holding onto the weapon, as sweat dripped from him whole. He spat the cigarette butt, still lit, towards the tribute facing him. It ended up on the floor.

“Hey! Stop!” he gasped for air and somehow still managed to sound a certain kind of bored. “You, stay there or I’ll bite your throat off,” he commanded the girl’s way. Shiloh he had right under his bleeding thumb. Okay, one moment of concentration couldn’t hurt at this point, even though everything in his mind was unclear, event though he was feeling increasingly nauseous. 

With all the strength he had left in his veins, he stood up (hands still on the weapon), holding with nails onto his balance and lucidity, even though everything felt like slipping. Still, this was like being on unwanted drugs. He could make ends meet, despite almost throwing up, despite the hot shivers. “What the f--” He swallowed it. No, no, there was another way to approach it. His voice mocked calmness, only because he felt more and more powerless by the second. “To what do I fucking owe the pleasure?”

Surya smiled as she listened, and tried to distribute the tension as best she could: in the grip on her glass, the rise of her cheeks, the shrug of her shoulders. “And are you hoping for Jeannie to do her best?”

.

Hunter frowned slightly, not quite getting it, but doubling it with a confident, though empty smile. “I mean, of course. It means the world to her. The girl who volunteered in her place is a friend.”

“I will do my best,” Allard said, sucking in a breath before nodding and smiling gently. He wanted to show his teeth, but not to Hunter. The double victor was one of few people this side of Thirteen’s border who might have some understanding of Allard’s feelings on the developments of the last six months. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, is there a secret bar for all the team members you all have been keeping secret? I know you all must be getting something more than the spectators. After a single day of work, I understand why.”

.

“Oh, you know already. The best bars are outside this glass prison,” he dreamily sighed, as if trapped inside the Tower. Truth be told, the worst strategy for a mentor was to go out, when all the sponsors were here, piled up and so malleable with the right drink in their hand. “We have to do with what we are given. It gets better.” After a moment of silence, he cocked his head to a side. “Do you have a planner?”

“Two doesn’t do bad tributes,” Cain corrected Hunter casually. “But Eight does alright sometimes too. Sounds like you’ve got duds this time around, though,” he concluded. “I should probably take my offer back, and then you can call me when you’ve got better tributes?” He still probably wouldn’t have a decent trainer then, and would still be looking to add a little flair to contrast the usual career pack.

.

Jeannie slowly shook her head. “You’re hardly ever in Thirteen lately,” she huffed. “I’m literally all alone there. The here doesn’t help me much.” She felt immediately guilty for what she said. She was a grown up by now, and Hunter had his own life to live. It was crazy to assume he’d have the time or want to drop everything for the slightly unstable clone of his youngest sister. 

.

“I thought I’m giving you room,” he argued softly, shrugging as if faultless. “Trust, space, freedom.” But he was wrong. “If you need me around, you should tell me. I can’t read your mind, J. And I don’t know these things by heart.”

He made her skin itch and crawl and bile rise in her throat with sudden disgust. It wasn’t kindness. It wasn’t even pity. She was fucking entertainment to him. Her hands curled into fists, digging at her thigh. “Is that why you went in a second time? You were bored?”

.

At this point, Hunter figured it was common knowledge, so he shook his head. “No, I wanted to die. Changed my mind along the way.” Surely way past the bloodbath, but he knew nothing during the bloodbath, all memories wiped, everything but impulses gone. “It seems I can’t, um, die.”

Surya offered only a sour grimace, frustrated she couldn’t counter him. At least she could be honest. “No. I’m enjoying finding my own as a solo mentor. The Capitol tributes are getting better, too.”

.

“I hope you win one day. You deserve one, eventually. It’s, at this point, a little sad. Not that your mentoring has anything to do with the performances, of course.” Hunter made a face, grimace, as if something slipped off his tongue without intent. It was not the case. “I’m proud of you, though. You’re definitely doing your best.”

Indy followed, shrugging a little at his question. “I guess,” she muttered, still unable to bring herself to extend any kindness to Hunter Twill. She sank into one of the barstools, glancing around (this was the first time she’d ever been in a bar, she realized) with mild interest, despite herself. “Why are you being nice to me?” she then demanded, settling her attention back on him. It was inconvenient, and she wanted answers. “Nobody’s nice for no reason.”

.

“You’re right, but I’m not nice,” Hunter delivered his disclaimer, as if accused of felonies, arms raised in defense at chest level. “I’m not even paying for this. In fact, I’ll abandon you as soon as I find the first better thing to do. Call it boredom. Tower life can be repetitive, you’ll see.” Granted, he did not suspect her of winning, but he did like to give the impression of faith, at least.