one upon a time, adonis had fumbled with the controls of the wireless communicator, distorting his image to the other person or hanging up the call prematurely altogether. during one of the calls to his sisters, they said the hologram of him was deformed slightly. that was, of course, during his first year of being a victor and now some three years on, he had gotten the hang of it.

sitting on the edge of the bed after requesting a call with lincoln, adonis waited patiently. though he would’ve much preferred the two speaking in person, hyper-realistic holograms would have to do until they were in the capitol.

adonis hadn’t known what had gotten over him. one moment he was replaying his morning in his head and the next he was shouting and, more than likely, terrifying the tributes he was supposed to be accompanying to the capitol. he glanced around at everyone in the room who had been watching him; the tributes, the escort - enobaria before making his way to the door and to his room.

he laid back on his bed and groaned. he didn’t mean to have an outburst, not in front of the tributes at least, but he had gotten so worked up over reliving the scenes of his parents berating his younger sister for not volunteering. he was as pro-games as any other district two person and he loved his time in the capitol but that didn’t mean he wanted his sisters to go through the trials and tribulations of the games to get there. kicking his shoes off, adonis had no plans to venture outside of his room. not for the rest of the day, at least.

“it’ll hit soon, i promise,” enobaria murmurs. she wants to reach out and touch him — her victor, her boy — to pat his back and comfort him, but she knows how hard touch is after the arena, so she restrains herself. there’s a long silence, and enobaria is normally comfortable with silence, but not here, not like this. it worries her, hangs heavy over her like a storm cloud and makes her insides twist as though they’re made of worms, so eventually she says, “you did good in there.”

what she does not say is: i saw you killed your district partner and i still love you anyway. i saw what you did in there and you were brutal and brave and smart. i saw what you did in there and none of it matters because you came home. you’re alive, and that is all that matters. 

"how soon?” adonis asked after a few seconds of silence. he hated feeling this vulnerable - it was as if he was still in the arena and that the enobaria before him was a perfectly crafted muttation. whilst he wanted the feeling of victory to hit him to get rid of the numbness, he also wanted to experience the euphoria of being a victor. the pride he’d undoubtedly feel. he knew, without a doubt, that he’d made people at home proud and he wanted to be happy with that. instead? he found himself struggling.

“i did?” he sounded unsure of himself, as if his achievements in the arena hadn’t really felt like much. of course he was, at that moment, oblivious to knowing that seven kills had been a massive amount for his games or that the other tributes were just as vicious as he was. “did the capitol like it?” 

he knew he shouldn’t care what the capitol thought but something one trainer had said stuck with him; if the capitol didn’t like the victor then said victor had to work even harder to protect himself. he hadn’t known what it meant back then but now he had an idea.

if there was one thing adonis had come to love about his status as a victor, it was the attention he got. there wasn’t many capitolites who didn’t want to speak to him, didn’t want to hear a firsthand account of surviving in one of the arena’s that caesar had dubbed as a favourite of his. with that came a large amount of capitolites who were willing to fulfil his carnal desires. adonis was no lothario, not really, but he liked to indulge in what the capitol had to offer to him.

it was in one of the capitol’s clubs - adonis couldn’t remember the name of it for the life of him - and he was talking to a capitolite girl. the nature of the conversation was flirtatious and was definitely heading to a night in the tribute tower. focused on his latest escapade, adonis was oblivious and unaware of both those who were next to him and what was happening around him.

enobaria had gone down to the infirmary just to be told that adonis had been released. why they couldn’t have told her that before she’d made her way all the way there, she had no idea, but she’d finally made her way back to the suite, entering to see adonis seated on the couch in the common area.

she’s sure to be loud — closing the door with a half-slam and clearing her throat — because if there’s one thing ever victor knows, it’s that you don’t sneak up on virgin victors unless you want a knife to your throat. or worse. 

“addy?” she asks softly. “how are you holding up? be honest.” enobaria remembers the weeks after her first games, the blood and the ache and the house upon hours of nothingness created by drug-induced sleep. she’s just glad that adonis hadn’t come out of the arena to discover his body had been altered the same way she had.

adonis visibly flinched at the sound of the loud noise. in between the image of the girl from district three, huxley, still being ingrained into his head paired with an aversion to loud noises since an explosion in his arena on the third day, he was jittery and on edge. he hoped it was an avox, not trixanna or enobaria. he still didn’t know how he’d face them after slitting alana’s throat. that’d been a recurring thought; what would his mentors think?

with the nickname that had been given to him during his time in the capitol, his head eventually moved to look at enobaria. for whatever anxiety he had regarding her judgement of him, he couldn’t deny she was a reassuring presence. she also served as a reminder to him that he had won; he was going home.

adonis offered her a smile before shrugging. “i feel numb,” he said, voice somewhat croaking. he hadn’t used it in the past few days between the arena and the capitolites talking over him when he had gotten out. “like, it hasn’t hit me yet.” he was sure, when it did, he’d be ecstatic and elated. but for now? he felt like he was in some weird limbo.

adonis knew he couldn’t be annoyed with the scores magnus and micah got. a nine and an eight? he knew other mentors would kill for their scores. still, their personalities were less than desirable. both were arrogant and their high scores meant that they had more of a reason to be. adonis could handle arrogant tributes - he’d grown up amongst most of the wannabe ones, after all - but trying to navigate the arrogance through the games as a mentor was a different story.

he had been pacing around the living room on the district two floor of the tribute tower, wondering how he could help. he knew he should ask enobaria. she was, after all, a more seasoned mentor than he was. still, it was his first year and he wanted to impress people; to show people that he was just as competent of a mentor as he was a tribute. he was so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice the presence of someone else, much less the very woman he had contemplated talking to.

it still hadn’t hit adonis that he had won the seventy-third annual hunger games. not really, that is. only hours ago had he been in the arena, dodging waves until he found himself back at the cornucopia. he couldn’t shake the look on the girl from three’s face; her widened eyes and gaunt features. she looked like something out of a horror movie and, with her slow but skittish movements, she acted like it too. he had made the decision to end her suffering quickly, rather than drawing it out with the brick he had kept with him for most of the games. in a matter of moments, the last thing the girl saw was his sincere smile as the knife plunged itself into her head. 

now, adonis sat in the district two floor of the tribute tower. he had been told to go there by some capitol staff and honestly? he didn’t complain. back at the floor were people he knew, recognised from back home. it’d be fun to celebrate with them. or, he assumed, it would be had he not killed his district partner in cold blood. alana. he knew it was her or him, having heard her and the boy from one conspire and plan his own death. he wondered what enobaria would think of him. would she still show in the warmth she had done before? would brutus refuse to talk to him? those thoughts raced through his head as he sat on the sofa, hands running down his thighs in hopes of getting rid of the sweat on his palms.

“yeah, a little. we only get victors once a year, right? so my momma an my poppa try to step it all up a lil. it can get a lil crazy.” she honestly didn’t know what she’d done during that rodeo, but she hoped it had been one of the great ones. he was a nice guy. and if he’d come to her home, he deserved a good show.

“ah know if ah was a victor ah’d never wanna jump off anythin’.” she smiled. “the capitol is so nice!” her eyes lit up, she was loving her time here. she was more than thrilled to talk about it. “yanno, when these people come to ten’n’all, i know they come from somewhere right purdy. but ah didn’t think it’d be nothing like this.”

“it seemed fun,” adonis said earnestly with a smile. it had been something different for him; there was something pure about the rodeo. it sure beat the fights amongst teenagers back at two that attempted to serve as ‘fun.’ “it’s much more hectic in ten than it is in two, it seems.” adonis didn’t know if the girl would take it as a compliment or an insult; he hadn’t really conversed with many outer district victors to make a judgement on his words still.

“the capitol is pretty great to look at, right?” adonis could join in on her enthusiasm for the place; it was probably one of the few things he had grown up excited for. “it’s definitely something. the thought of coming back here was something that got me through the arena.”

『  ❝ OUT OF CONSIDERATION FOR THE DISTRICTS ! ❞ 』––––––– the statement was so ridiculous that june had to hold back her laughter .  not once did the capitol ever put the twelve districts before its own needs ;  not even for the career districts .  whatever wealth the capitol had accumulated went straight into flaunting their immense opulence ( and the capitol had nothing if not too much ) . either way ,  june wasn’t in the position to complain .  she was also taking advantage to that wealth herself ;  granted that it was for more altruistic reasons .  perhaps that’s why she held her tongue more often than she did in her prior years .  after all ,  she wasn’t trying to bite the hand that was feeding her ( and her family ) .

❝ who doesn’t love parties ? ❞  june responded ,  a small sigh escaping from between her parted lips .  ❝ as i’m sure you know , it’s just that when you’re being forced to attend one after another ,  it becomes a little tiring . ❞  and why wouldn’t he ?  adonis arren ,  the capitol’s most recent golden boy .  she watched his games ;  even cheered him on throughout it despite her distaste for the whole ceremony in general .  his cockiness was irritable but charming at the same time ;  and june couldn’t decide for the life of her whether she was bewitched or repulsed by him yet .  

❝ really ?  water ?  there’s an endless fountain of champagne over there and this is what you went with ? ❞  june mused . ❝ i expected more from you , adonis .  ❞

with each day that he lived as a victor, adonis was glad he had his home back in district two to retreat to. he couldn’t live in the capitol everyday of the year; the games were enough. he could socialise with the best of them, even more so now that he craved the attention of the capitol, but his limit was always reached. last year had been fun; he was the centre of attention. this year, whilst he still got noticed, he could feel the attention dwindling slowly. it wasn’t fun, not for the boy who felt forgotten by everyone else. forgotten as being adonis, that is. “parties are fun until you go to like four in one day.”

he raised an eyebrow at her comment of his drink of choice before laughing a little. he’d drunken enough that everything was just a little hazy and everyone seemed to blend into one. for all he knew, he was talking to enobaria. “i’ve drunk too much,” he mused with a hum, shrugging as he looked down into the glass. “i need to be at least somewhat helpful for the tributes.” setting the glass down onto the table he head been leaning on, he offered june a challenging smirk. “i’ll get some if you do.” maybe getting into a drinking party with a capitolite wasn’t the best idea adonis had ever concocted but, then again, the redhead wasn’t known for his smarts.

“just don’t get too attached to any of the tributes and you’ll be fine.” what she’s saying is impossible. there’s always one. a tribute that you can’t help but feel connected to. enobaria knew she was lucky. adonis was that tribute for her, and he’d come home not in a wooden coffin, but alive and well. or. as well as a victor could be, she supposed. 

she takes a seat in the couch next to him, stretching out her legs and slipping her heels off. “oh, and remember to play nice with sponsors and just… avoid the gamemakers all together.”

“how?” adonis asked earnestly, head tilting a little. these few years mentoring would be hard; most of the tributes had been ones he had trained with back home before he became a victor. some were no doubt his friends, or friends of his sisters. would he just have to see them as a means to an end? to not take notice of them until they won? “you got attached to me though, right?” ever since coming home adonis had been transfixed on other people’s thoughts on him, wanting to decipher if people really liked him for him.

he offered her a goofy grin as she sat down before nodding, taking note of everything. he didn’t have any plans to go near gamemakers if he could help it; why entertain those who had tried to kill him through the arena? “can i tap out of mentoring at any point in the future? or am i stuck here forever?”

“yeah. but you’ve been to mah rodeo!” she said, excitement lacing her tone. she smiled. looking into his face and trying to get him to remember.  he had been to a night at her rodeo during his victory tour, as exposure to ten. “yanno… have a rootin’ tootin’ day?” 

she was surprised that they weren’t careful about their victors. “but you already almost died… maybe they trust ya to take care of ya’self.” Shiloh would trust that victors could succeed in not-dying.

adonis raised his eyebrow as he tried to remember attending a rodeo. it’d been so long since he had set foot in district ten but it sounded familiar. he’d take her word for it, only so he could buy himself some time as he tried to recount some of the finer details. eventually it came back to him and he let a comfortable smile settle on his features. “i do vaguely remember a rodeo,” he said with a chuckle, “a little hectic, if i remember right?” such a thing wouldn’t happen in district two, adonis knew that much.

“maybe that could be it,” adonis said with a shrug, “or no victor’s ever tried to jump off so we don’t know.” he didn’t doubt for a second that there was a similar force field but it was always about the tributes. they were the ones most likely to try and get out of their situation. “are you enjoying the capitol?” he asked, wanting to change the subject slightly. “everything you thought it’d be?”

Arista had to laugh softly when he asked if her horse was big. “Yes, she’s average size or about sixteen hands.” Her horse was pretty typical in size if she wasn’t all that typical in color. “Her name is Soleil and she’s a golden color. It is certainly hard to find her in a full wheat field if she decides to go for a little walk.” Her horse was one thing Arista could talk forever about. It might seem silly to others, but back in District Nine, her horse was her best friend.

“We shouldn’t have Avoxes,” Arista pointed out. A society that did such things to people was something that shouldn’t be allowed. Then again, they at least had a quieter life than they did as Victors. They each had their loads to carry but they were very different ones. “The odds are in someone’s favors but it’s not most of them.” The Careers yes, but most of the tributes, no. “I have time for a walk.”

"sixteen hands?” adonis repeated, eyes widening a little. he was sure it made him sounded so lame... so inept. what victor hadn’t heard of horses before? him. that’s what victor. “that’s a nice name.” for a moment, adonis let him wonder what he’d name a horse if he had one. maybe apollo? apparently in the ancient world the name apollo was connected to horses. “is she fast?” 

“we shouldn’t do a lot in this world but we do,” adonis said with a shrug. he was indifferent to the presence of avoxes. sure it was barbaric on what happened to them but what if they did deserve it? that made things a little murky for the redhead. “maybe not,” he sighed with a shrug. he seemed to brighten up at the prospect of a walk and smiled. he held out his arm; she could take it if she wanted, but adonis wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. “anywhere you want to go? i don’t know the capitol too well, though.”

it’s only been a year since adonis’s victory. enobaria remembers the years after her victory as being particularly tough, and she’s worried. there’s a part of herself that she can see in adonis, fractured off from the rest of her like a mirror, so when she sees him in the living area of the district two suite, she approaches. 

“how are you holding up?”

// starter for @ofadonxs·

adonis hadn’t particularly changed too much following his games; not yet at least. he was still the goofy boy-next-door people remembered him as. that wasn’t to say he wasn’t without his changes, however. with the realisation his parents viewed him more as a trophy than a son paired with things he couldn’t do because of his arena - like listen to loud, sudden noises or be near too many bugs at once - adonis hadn’t been immune to change. still, he could hide all of those things. he only entertained telling enobaria about them since she was his mentor; she had seen him through.

his head turned at the sound of her voice and he let a smile settle on his features. “there’s too many parties,” he said, laughing a little. this time last year, adonis had been raving about the parties, as if he couldn’t get enough of them. “too many people who want to talk to me.” he got up from the sofa and turned to face her a little better. “you? can i look forward to getting used to this?”