Work Text:
That Which We Never Shared
Back then, you had always fought your father tooth and nail about everything, and your mother had been of no help either. When you had run to her with complaints of everything that your father had forbidden you from doing, despite the fact that all your other friends had been allowed to do the same, she had only given you one of her flighty smiles and ran a calming hand through your hair. Sometimes you had wondered if she wasn’t stuck at a point in her life where you were forever a toddler and just a simple stroke of the head was enough to make the world better. She had been convinced that you were just over exaggerating your adolescent issues with your father. In her eyes, your father had been different, a break from the norm, and that had been why she had loved him. Ironic how the very traits that had caused her to fall in love with him were the very traits that had made you butt heads with him.
Looking back upon it now, it was fair to say that you had perhaps over exaggerated a few too many issues, but you hadn’t been completely unjustified either. There had been honesty in your words when you had claimed that your father would not allow you to do that which your friends did, and in reality, this had been true for the majority. While your friends had been allowed to dye their hair to match the fashions and design their bodies with various tattoos and piercings, you hadn’t been allowed to touch a single bit of that life. Of course, it hadn’t stopped you from trying, but your father had found out every single time, and when he had, he had forced the changes to be reversed. You had rarely been allowed to go out to parties, and if he had ever found out that you had thrown up in order to have the stomach room to sample all the dishes there, he would have thrown an absolute fit that ended in near violence.
For all that you had fought with your father, your worst argument had been over the Hunger Games. It had been what everyone in District 1 had looked forward to every year, and for every year up until you had turned thirteen, your father had not allowed you to have anything to do with it. When he had discovered that you had been watching the Hunger Games behind his back, he had said nothing. All he had done was stare at you, in silence, for nearly an hour, before turning his face away. There had been no punishment or yelling, and yet you had wished he would have screamed at you rather than stared at you with those disappointed eyes. You had never been able to understand why he had deemed it suitable for him to watch the Hunger Games with his friends, but you had not been allowed anywhere near it.
The next day, when he had come home from work to find you watching Caesar Flickerman’s interview with the winner, he had ignored your presence. The stubborn mule in you hadn’t allowed you to recognize that he had been snubbing your presence, but the child in you had been deeply hurt by the fact. He had been your father, and as such, he was supposed to have loved you unconditionally. It wasn’t as if you had run off to partake in the games yourself or dyed your hair an offending color. If ever he had been going to begrudge you over anything, you had assumed it would have been over something more extreme. After that incident, things had become tense in your household, in a way they hadn’t been before, and for nearly three years, this had lasted.
Time had passed on, and while you hadn’t necessarily matured into a young woman quite yet, your love for your father and longing for his approval had won out. By silent compromise, you had watched the interviews but never the actual games themselves. That had been two years before he had come to your house on that quiet evening, and six years before you had come to understand your father’s thoughts. As it had turned out, your father had been justified in everything that he had done. You might not have seen it at the time, but your father had truly and honestly loved you.
Sometimes you would catch yourself wondering, in the early evenings when you were left alone, what your life would have been like if he had not stepped into it. Would you have come to terms with the life that your father had been trying to give you? If you hadn’t fallen in love with him, what kind of person would you have grown to be? Those questions would never have answers. Like everything else from your adolescent years, they were better left buried in the past. Other times, when the evening came, you would find yourself overcome with recollections. Sometimes, the memories didn’t feel like your own, as if they had come from a storybook you had been read many years ago, and at others, it felt as if everything had occurred just yesterday despite the years that had gone by. Depending on the kind of day you had been having, it was pleasant to remember. Your heart was capable of beating without the pain of longing, though it was always there like a phantom limb. On this particular afternoon, you found yourself slipping back to the very beginning of your story with the man you had fallen in love with.
You had been sixteen and bewildered when you had come down the stairs that morning to find last night’s dinner guest already in the kitchen with your parents. Three faces had twisted towards the doorway where you had stood with a curious expression. It had been then that your father had explained to you that the dinner guest had been more of a temporary resident for the time being. Apparently, he had been a running candidate for a position as a Designer in later Hunger Games, but seeing as he had come from a different District, he would have stayed with your family until his future had been decided. While it would have made more sense for him to live in the Capitol itself, he would not have been allowed to do so as he had yet to earn his way into the elite city. In all fairness, you hadn’t been about to argue against his presence in your home for however short a time.
At first, you had been surprised that your father had allowed this young male into the household, but it had occurred to you later that he might have been told to do so rather than having volunteered for it. People in District 1 would have preferred to take in someone with a little more potential, and he wasn’t exactly appealing to the aesthetic desires of the citizens there. As far as you could have seen, he had absolutely no tattoos or piercings that had been a common sight here. His hair had been a natural dark brown shade fashioned into a close crop. The individual locks had turned up slightly, and had given no indication of having been dyed before. Even in terms of his clothes, he hadn’t worn anything eye-catching. He had worn a simple, black short-sleeve shirt that accented the almond-beige coloration of his skin, and warm brown slacks. There had been absolutely nothing about him that had suggested he had belonged to the lifestyle associated to those who took up major roles in the Hunger Games.
But as you stood at the entrance into the kitchen, staring as subtly as any sixteen-year-old girl with a possible interest could, you had observed the more subtle details that could have taken him this far. For all the talent in the world, no one could have gone very far in a place such as this if they hadn’t had the personality to compensate for a lack of looks, and vice versa. While the elder male sitting at your kitchen table hadn’t necessarily lacked the potential for both, there had to be something else that had made him stand out among the hopefuls. Appearances had often been what set the standard for any upcoming trials and comparisons.
Visually, you had started from the bottom and had made your way up with impeccable scrutiny. His feet had been of average size and had been adorned in leather shoes you had known to be common to poorer Districts. His clothes had not been distinct enough for you to have distinguished what District he could have possibly come from, but in an attempt to ignore his clothing, you had focused more on what he had been without the drab outfit. The curve of his nose had been subtle and upturned only slightly, falling gently into lips that had encouraged a quirky smile that left the suggestion of a warm impression. Looking closely, you had noted clearly defined cheekbones that had given him a youthful appearance that had fit well with his deep-set eyes and thin eyebrows. He had been handsome in an uncommon way. Everything about him had been natural; it had not been something you had been used to seeing outside of your home and the households of a few other families.
“Cinna.” The absence of a surname hadn’t slipped your attention, but you had thought nothing of it as he stood and offered you a friendly handshake. Soft palms pressed against his more calloused ones, you had been startled to find that his touch hadn’t been as gentle as you had imagined a Designer’s would have been. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss. Your parents tell me that you follow the fashion of the Hunger Games adamantly. Perhaps you could help me out as a tradeoff for staying in your home for the next few months. I’d enjoy a new outlook to help me in my work.” With a firm squeeze of his fingers that spoke of a friendly confidence, he had withdrawn his touch and had left you with that much more clarity into his character.
In this one greeting, you had found the source of what must have brought him this far from whichever District he had been born in. There had been an obvious charm to him, but a genuine honesty behind it, as if he had been truly interested in what you had to say. The reality of the situation had been that he hadn’t needed your opinion whatsoever when it came to designing, or he would not have been sitting in your kitchen at that very moment. Fashion in the world of the Hunger Games hadn’t followed trends, but had set them instead. That world had required originality and uniqueness; there had been no doubt in your mind that he had been well aware of that. To suggest that you could have provided any insight into that alien place had been a kind gesture on his part. You could have only imagined that his ability to make one feel special had carried on into his work.
“I’d like that,” you had murmured in a soft reply as you had moved to take a seat across from him. One of the servants that had been standing ready at the side had hurried forward to lay out your usual breakfast, and you had begun to pick quietly at the eggs while contemplating your situation. After years of watching interviews, you had begun to dissect them from the inside out to keep yourself from being bored by them. People at your school had always raved on and on about who had done what during the Games and from there you had begun to make a little game out of trying to interpret the personalities of the Tributes from the small things. It had been fun, in a sense, to see what you had been right and wrong about. Soon enough, you had moved from Tributes to the Designers and other figures related to the Hunger Games. So long as you had kept this private game up, you could have kept yourself distracted from the actual Hunger Games.
A potential Designer to the Hunger Games living in your household for however long had been exciting. Even in the case that he had turned out to be some superficial country bumpkin, it would have been something, at least. For years, your peers had teased you from time-to-time about the way that your father had attempted to control you. You hadn’t had nearly as exciting a time as they had, and while you had usually took it in good stride, complaining along with them and playfully agreeing to their statements, you had enjoyed the right to boast about Cinna. He had been something new and unique that not even the most privileged of friends could have laid a claim to.
Over the next two weeks, you had helped Cinna settle down into your household while your father had resumed his own business and your mother had gone out. He had always been friendly to you and hadn’t seemed to mind your near-constant presence whenever the two of you happened to take up the same room together. Your friends had fawned and gushed over the news, as expected, and upon coming to your home, had rationalized that his unusual appearance had only made him that much more admirable. He had been something that no one had ever seen before at the time, which had only made you hold your head up that much higher. It would only make sense, then, that you would have spent so much time with him in private and public despite how your father had scolded you for pestering the house guest. Cinna, of course, had always just laughed your father’s words off, and you had resumed your obvious fascination with the young man.
At first, your conversations had been as trivial as your adolescent values. They might have related back and been directed towards him on the surface level, but they had been more to satisfy your own tastes than they had been about getting to know him. Questions that had revolved around his trials to come this close to the Hunger Games, and the fashions he had used to be noticed, had not been uncommon. What you had been looking for, at that time, had more to do with things you could gossip about with your friends. He had been a handsome enough male, you would have admitted that easily, and you had had a slight interest in him, but you would never have considered him to be a serious thing. For your younger self, the 20-year-old Cinna hadn’t appealed to what you had wanted in a boyfriend, and for the first weeks of your acquaintance, he had been a passing curiosity.
Time had continued to move by, and you had found yourself falling into a schedule that had involved Cinna some hours, and his absence at others. Meals had been spent with one another and the occasional company of your parents as well. Throughout the week, you had attended your classes, more academic in nature because your father had not stood for you taking training classes with possible Tributes, during the day and had returned home late in the evening. Your curfew on a school day had been made to be six o’clock, so while you had only caught Cinna for the hour or so you had been awake before school, your evenings had been spent with him. The only exception to this rule had been when he had been working on sketches, in which case he had locked himself away in his bedroom.
Cinna had refused to show you his sketchbooks whenever you had asked him about them. You had known for a fact that he had at least ten, having seen one of the servants carrying a box of them up to his room. A more recent sketchbook you could have understood him refusing entry to, but you hadn’t seen why the clearly older ones had been off-limits. Nothing could have possibly been important in such old and weathered books, but all the same, you hadn’t been allowed anywhere near them. Those had been the only moments he had seemed to change in even the slightest manners. He had never been rude about it, but he had always appeared much more disconnected, stand alone and guarded, when you had tried to poke through them. The change, however small, had fascinated you, but it had been that fascination that led to what happened next.
Summer had come, and six months had passed since Cinna had come into your life. You had considered yourself much closer to him than before and had often discussed even the little things that had occurred in your life with him. Your parents had loved you well enough, and you had certainly gone out with your friends often enough, but most of your time had been spent with Cinna whenever you had been home. You had never seen him go out in the time that you had known him; if he had been leaving the house, it had to have been whenever you had been gone. That was why you had been bewildered to find him leaving your house in the early afternoon in the middle of the season. Logically, it had made sense as, at some point, he would have had to leave for his work, but you had come to know his schedule so well that the break had been bewildering if nothing else.
With your companion and father gone for that day, you had lazed about the house until late into the night but by that time neither had returned. It had been a behavior you had come to expect of your father, one that you had accepted as normal, but never of Cinna. Three more hours had come and gone before you had decided to give up the wait and turn in. Ignoring the staff that had been shuffling off to their homes and rooms, you had pulled yourself upstairs, but as you had been padding down the hall towards your room, you had noticed that his door was ajar. Cinna had always been meticulous when it had come to his room and there wasn’t a day that you could recall that his door had been left unlocked and open when he hadn’t been in it. To you, it had been one of those quirks he must have picked up from living in a poorer District, and not having wanted to put him in a state of irritation, you had moved to close it for him.
Just as you had been pulling the door back, you had noticed it. The old and torn box that had housed Cinna’s sketchbooks had been left sitting upon his desk, the cover fastened tightly upon it. Various warnings had run through your head about touching this box but your curiosity would not have let this go. Cinna had been insane to think that you hadn’t noticed how possessive of his sketchbooks he had been. He hadn’t changed dramatically but he had become more nervous and determined to distract you with something else when you had been near. You had been desperate to know though what had been inked onto those pages by his hand. What sort of fascinating designs had he captured?
Unrestrained in your desire to peek into this world so different from your own, you had pushed the door open without a second’s thought and had pulled out the newest sketchbook from the top of the pile. Before you had come into the room, the box had been covered anyways, so you had doubted that he would have noticed so long as you had put the book back on top of the pile. Nearly giddy over this, you had sat on the corner of the table and had begun to flip through each of the pages casually. Only half of them had been filled, but the things you had found there had been absolutely fascinating. Everything had been black-and-white for the most part, but some had splashes of color running along their lines and each had been different from the last. Some had reminded you of something that could have easily been worn into the Capitol, but others had gone beyond even your imagination and sense of fashion.
The hours must have slipped by you because, by the time the clearing of his throat had sent you jumping up, you had nearly reached the end of the book. Frightened, you had slapped the book shut forcefully and nearly stumbled away from the desk. After months of having warned you away from the books, you had known that he had to be furious, an emotion you had never seen him suffer under, for this had been a violation of the one rule he had set for you. Guilt had risen like bile in your throat but it was of the temporary kind. You had been like a child that had been caught stealing from the cookie jar without permission. You had felt the temporary guilt of a daughter scolded that would have been forgotten the next day. No, if you had been going to go to be miserable, it would have been because of what he had said next.
_Eye Color_ irises had peeked at his figure standing at the doorframe from beneath your bangs, your breath held in anticipation of the tongue lashing you had expected to come. When his hand had come up instead, fingers just barely brushing against your soft cheek, you had tilted your head up towards him. It was an action that had nearly broken your heart and had plagued you with the true guilt that came from betraying the trust of someone so dear. There had been something in his eyes that had caused a flutter in your heart that had nothing to do with how close he had been standing next to you. The malachite coloring to his eyes had been darker than usual; the normally cheerful uplift to them had gone, only to have been replaced by a disappointed droop. There had been something unsettling and foreboding in his eyes. In that moment, you hadn’t been able to speak for a single thing that he had been thinking, but you had known that you would have done whatever he had asked of you if he would have just stopped staring at you with such pity. You had felt as if you had been all his disappointments in this world mixed up into one person, and it had felt all the worse because he had always made you special.
Between his lips, a sigh had gently kissed your cheekbone, and just like that, the look had vanished. Evidence of the displeasure had remained, but you had no longer felt his pity. He had gone from a man with a broken heart to a scolding parent. The calloused fingers that had traced your cheek had run up to your head, and casually, he had ruffled your hair just as if you had been a child. From your hands, the book had been taken, but instead of putting it away as you had expected him to, he had flipped to the last few pages that you hadn’t gotten to. He had been casual and calm, but you had been confused and speechless. Even as he had gently torn out a page that you hadn’t been able to see, you had only watched him as he had pressed it back into your hands.
“I suppose this is partially my fault for leaving the door unlocked and my sketchbooks sitting out,” Cinna had whispered as he had wrapped your hands around the sheet. “But I guess now is as good a time as any to give you this. I designed it with you in mind, so really it was something inspired by you. I was going to save it for your birthday next month, but you never know when I’ll get that invitation from the Capitol.” Speechless, your heart had taken on an even more erratic beat, but from a shy warmth that time. At that point, you had certainly considered yourselves close friends, but the thought of his fingers bringing something into this world because of thoughts of you had been a far more intimate gesture than you would have ever expected.
“Thank you.” You had beamed at the male, holding the paper close to your chest as he had moved back to put away the sketchbook in the box. It had not escape your attention that he had moved the box from the top of his table to beneath his bed, but you hadn’t been bothered by it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” It hadn’t even crossed your mind to ask him how his business had gone or where he’d been all day. You had been far too enraptured by this small gift of his to feel insulted or guilty. That small, obvious crush on Cinna that you had developed over the past few weeks had grown into a fat, sated cat after a hefty meal. In that state, you had been more focused on getting up into your bed and hanging the drawing up before girlish giggles burst from your throat.
Two weeks had passed, and not a single morning had gone by that you wouldn’t pull Cinna’s drawing down from the wall. You had been fascinated by the twisting and twirling lines that danced along the material that had quickly lost its white coloration. Like many of the other designs you had seen in his sketchbook, he had added a splash of color to the page, but knowing that this was done with you in mind had made your heart beat all the more faster. He had chosen to design a dress that flared from the hips down, a cut running up the length of the left leg to reveal long stockings. The form-fitting corset had small tears in the fabric and ruffles that had run down in a wave-like pattern across the chest. Gossamer sleeves had been unattached and hung loosely off the shoulders, only to wrap loosely around the middle fingers. The colors had been serious and much closer to shades of gray, but you had found them pleasant.
But as you had continued to take down the picture more and more, your finger running along the art piece, something had begun to change. On the surface level it had been a wonderful gift that could fill you with pride, but inside of you, a small part had been growing uncertain. It had been just as beautiful as it ever was, but there had been something more disturbing to it every time you had looked at it. There had been this subtle tone to it that had made you feel that while it had been perfect in what you had considered to be all the right ways, it had been wrong as well. In a way, it had been like how a person could believe so earnestly in mercy killings when it was so obviously wrong. You hadn’t known how and when these thoughts had begun, but once planted, they had plagued your mind more and more.
One evening, in the autumn, you had finally confronted Cinna about his then early birthday gift. Before, you had let the subject go, pushed it to a corner of your mind out of a sense of formality, but after all the time that you had spent together, you’d become comfortable with him. It hadn’t been unusual that you had asked him to work with you on various school projects or that you had spent hours together talking about whatever had come to mind. Your conversations with him had moved from the superficial to things that had been more about getting to know one another as two people. There had been even evenings when you would be watching movies and he would come to sit next to you, your arms touching comfortably with one another. You hadn’t noticed it, but your parents and friends certainly had seen how you had begun to devote more time and attention to Cinna. Some weekends, you had even picked to spend quiet hours with him instead of going out to parties like you once had several years ago.
The truth of the matter was that you had begun to enjoy all the time that you had spent with Cinna. It hadn’t been just his ability to make you feel special, you had been truly and honestly happiest in his company. Your father had loved you well enough, but his work had usually kept you away from him, and your mother had enjoyed taking you out shopping more than she had talking. Your friends had still been dear and precious to you, but even before Cinna had endeared himself to your heart you, had been disconnected to them. There had been just too many differences in your lives and the ways that you had been raised. For Cinna to have taken a rank above them had not been extremely difficult. He had been kind and gentle, and he had been opening your eyes to things you would have never considered before. He had spoken of subjects and morals you had never considered, and it had fascinated you to delve into that world of his. The potential Designer had been…he had been someone that you had wanted to know better.
Sketch in hand, you had curled up next to Cinna on the couch in the living room, your head dropping onto his shoulder affectionately. He had greeted you by running his fingers through your hair once, before focusing once again on the television screen. President Snow had been giving some type of speech that you hadn’t particularly cared about, and having known that it would be aired again later, you had tugged on his sleeve. Normally, you had left him alone to watch the program that was on, but when you had wanted his attention, he would give it to you. “Cinna?” Malachite flecked with gold had torn themselves away from the screen to focus on you. “The birthday gift you drew for me…what was going through your mind when you drew it?”
Silence had answered your question, and you had watched the subtle changes to his facial expressions. They had been small flags to his thoughts that you would never have noticed four months ago, but you had begun to learn how to read Cinna. It had been impossible, after all, to not recognize who he was after living with him for over half a year. You couldn’t read everything, but you had recognized just enough to know that he was moving from an instant recognition to, perhaps, a nervous hesitance, as if something ached a little. That nervous look from when he had caught you in his room was beginning to emerge, but it was mixed with another emotion that reminded you of a regret that you could not name. Just as you began to think that he wouldn’t answer you, his paper was taken from your hands and you had found him moving closer. Warm air had been breathed into your hair, and his lips were pressed against your ear as his hand had pressed your neck closer.
“I’ve always put my emotions into my work, _your name_. It doesn’t matter what kind of emotion it is that I’m experiencing. All of it always goes into the designs that I make. That’s the way that it’s always been.” Your stomach had dropped at the words, immediately squashing the little butterflies there. If what he spoke was true, and he had never spoken anything but the truth before, then the emotions that you felt in his drawing were the very same that you inspired in him. Repulsed, you had tried to pull back, but before you could, his hand was stopping you. “I never thought you would see it, but you’ve changed a lot from the girl that I first met. I didn’t think you would…grow like this, but you have, and I doubt that what you see in this sketch is beautiful like it should be.”
Pain and disgust for yourself had cracked your heart. How was it that he could have felt that way about you for all these months and you had never noticed it? You had always thought you were good at reading people, but such a thing couldn’t be true if this had slipped by you for so long. It had only made you feel worse when you had taken into consideration that you had thought he had been one of the closest people to you. You hadn’t wanted to hear any more at the time, but his tightened grip on the back of your neck had not allowed for any movement, and it had been all too clear that he wouldn’t have let you leave until he had finished speaking.
“When I first met you, it broke my heart. None of it was your fault, though. You had been raised in a world completely different from my own. The things you knew were different from the things that I had been taught. Who you were? None of it was your fault, and that was what hurt the most, perhaps, but at the same time, you were friendly. You were still good in many ways. I was disappointed with what the world had done to such a sweet girl, but I couldn’t ever tell you that. You were never supposed to find that drawing, but when you came across it, I saw no harm in letting you have something that would make you smile. It was when you smiled that I saw a hope for what I was doing. I’ve always put my emotions into my work so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone around me, but I was glad to give you that small gift.”
Half of the things he had been saying had made no sense to you, but your mind had barely registered that fact. “But you’ve changed from that District 1 girl I met all those months ago. You’ve grown as a person and are proof to me that there is more than enough reason to hope. Part of me regrets the things I saw in you and how those things I saw saddened me, but that’s what makes me appreciate who you are now so much more. This drawing represents the things that I used to feel when I looked at you, but they are nothing like the things I see when I’m with you now. You may not believe me, but you’re a good deal of the reason why I’m still here. This young woman that you’ve become…she’s turned into my muse. I don’t think you will ever understand how that has kept me going.” And then, before anything could have settled in your mind, his lips had pressed firmly against your own. There they had remained for only a second, and then he had been gone.
Neither of you had said anything when you had seen each other at the dinner table or in the weeks following that. Nothing in your schedules had changed, but you had never brought up the kiss and he had never brought you his sketch. Reflecting upon it now, you couldn’t say why the two of you never spoke of what had occurred on that chilly afternoon, but what you did know was that something had changed. It was obvious that his conversation had meant more than you could find on the surface level, but that day had been nothing if not proof that there had simply been some things that you couldn’t have asked him about. For you, that day had opened up something new that you had never seen before, but there was more to it than that. He had kissed you and told you that you had become his muse. You never responded to what he had said, but there had been times when you had found his arm wrapping around your shoulders or your face pressing into his neck. What had been said that day had never been shared again, but it had added a completely new dynamic to life with Cinna.
In the morning, you had woken up at seven on the weekdays, and ten on the weekends. You had left for classes, coming home only for a short lunch with Cinna, and had not returned home until four in the afternoon, or six at night, on Mondays when your club would hold meetings. For half an hour, you had just relaxed in your room before taking your homework to wherever Cinna was. After that, you had dinner with your parents, one who had been becoming increasingly worried about how your relationship was changing but had been powerless to do anything about it, and the other content with her life. Once dinner had been finished, your father had returned to the office, your mother had moved into their bedroom, and the two of you had moved back to your living room. Whatever homework was left, Cinna had guided you through it. With freed up time, the two of you had done whatever had caught your interest that night. On weekends, you had gone out with your friends, but more often than not, you and Cinna had left for the day.
During your outings, you had sometimes held hands, but even when you hadn’t, you had always walked close enough to one another that your arms had constantly brushed. Sometimes he had kissed you when no one had been looking, and when he hadn’t been paying attention, you would had stolen your own pecks. Movies had been your favorite because you could have curled up in his arms without feeling strange. In a sense, the label for these small events would have been dates, but they hadn’t been quite that. A date was something between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, but the two of you hadn’t exactly been a couple either. You hadn’t known what the two of you had been but there had most certainly been a connection there. Had you loved him? Not yet, but you had been walking down that path.
This had become your new style of life. At first, there had been a few bumps in the road, but nothing that hadn’t been smoothed out. Your friends had found it annoying how you had been slowly losing touch with them and their lifestyles. You had no longer colored your hair some outrageous shade or insisted on partying as hard as they once did. As a group, you had still kept in touch, but you hadn’t been as eager to spend your days like they did. They were a fine group of people, but they weren’t Cinna. When they had eventually come to terms with letting you go, your parents, more specifically your father, had become increasingly worried. He couldn’t have called you and the house guest out on anything, because not even the two of you had ever worked it out, but it had been clear that he didn’t like it. Even if you hadn’t been as close as you used to have been, you had still been his little girl, but there had been more to it than that. His concern had gone beyond what a father felt for his daughter. It had been impossible to not notice how everything had seemed to be something else beneath the surface, but you had learned to let it go a long time ago.
Over the course of the next year, life had been good and it had only gotten better, but everything had changed with your father’s announcement just three months following your eighteenth birthday. Dinner had been one of your favorite dishes, and beneath the table, Cinna’s fingers had interlaced with your own and your feet occasionally brushed together. Between the two of you, there had been a private smile despite the fact that you hadn’t been looking at one another, but that cheerful mood had become more tenuous as your father stood up. “I’d like to make an announcement.” Rather fanciful considering it had only been your family, Cinna, and the servants, but you would let your father have his moment. “I would like to give congratulations to Cinna. The Capitol contacted me just this morning and you have been accepted as a Designer for upcoming Hunger Games. They’ve fallen in love with the pieces that you have been sending them these last several weeks. After taking a vote, it was unanimous that you would be allowed entry to the games, and I couldn’t be prouder.
These past two years have been a blessing in our lives, and we wish you luck next year. When you first came into our house, you were a surprise that no one expected, but it became quickly obvious that you fit in well here. You are a strapping young man, headstrong and kind in your nature. You have fought hard for his position, but you have changed our lives in more ways than one. You are the perfect example of how with hard work anything, is possible. I have learned many things from you, but I’m not the only one whose life you’ve changed. My daughter has grown into a beautiful young woman, and I feel that you played a role in that. You may not be with us this time next year, but we will forever remember our time with you. May the odds be ever in your favor.”
You hadn’t run away. You hadn’t kicked and screamed. You had barely even registered the words or what had happened for the rest of the evening. Everything had blurred together in one tumbled mess. Vaguely, you had recalled Cinna asking your father when he had to leave and your father responding that he was set to leave for the Capitol next week. Congratulations had been passed around from everyone but you. All that you could remember was the firm warmth of his hand. Not once in those hours had he let you go or even loosen his grip. It had been you that had disentangled your fingers late into the night and made your way upstairs. Once in your bed, you had not cried, but for the first time in years, you hadn’t moved once in your sleep.
When a day had come and passed and you still hadn’t come out of your room, Cinna had called your name, and followed with a firm three knocks. You had ignored your parents when they tried to coax you out, and the numerous servants that had attempted to enter, but just the sound of his voice had been enough to pull you out of bed long enough to unlock the door. Without hesitation, he had stepped in after you, kicked the door shut, and crawled into bed with you. His calloused fingers, fingers that you had taken one night and laid gentle kisses upon, had brushed your hair away to expose your neck for his lips to rest upon. Before he had come, you had been able to keep the tears from bursting forth, but the loving touch broke down everything you had attempted to hold in.
Grasping your thick comforter, you had buried your face into it and allowed the sobs to come out without holding back. Logically, you had always recognized that someday he was going to go away, but it had always felt so far off in your heart. He had been living in your household for nearly two years now, and in that time, you had always forgotten that he could disappear so easily. Cinna’s presence had become so constant, so reliable and reassuring, that you had trouble remembering a life without him. You hadn’t even wanted to consider a life without him, even with his departure just beyond the horizon. He had been yours. You had been his… You had been in love with him, truly and honestly in love with him after all this time, and he had been about to go away.
For whatever promises he might have tried to comfort you with, they had not amounted to much. Both of you had known that he could have made you every promise that could have been made in the world, but it would never have provided the certainty a relationship like this would have needed. Life would have changed and he would have been swept up so firmly into the Hunger Games that there would have been no way back to you. It wouldn’t have been anything purposeful or something that you could have controlled, but it had been inevitable. Even if the Hunger Games committee had chosen to send him back home you had been sure that a relationship between the two of you would have worked out. Your father would have pulled strings for him and he would have stayed with you. You would have had a life together, but by that time next year, he had been gone and there had been nothing that you could have done about it.
“I love you.” No promises. No hints that it would have worked out between the two of you or that someday he would have come home. “I love you, _your name_.” This had been the first time that he had ever said those words to you and it had been less than a week before he had to leave and you had been too busy crying to respond. His arms around your body had been the only things keeping you anchored to the world. “I love you more than I can say, and if I could stay, I would.” You had closed your eyes and had desperately taken in his husky scent in an attempt to imprint it inside of your heart. “But there’s more to this than you and me. There is something I have to do, and right now, I have to go to the Capitol and become a Designer, but I will never forget you. I will always carry you in my heart and into my work, no matter how much time passes by us…I promise that I will never forget that I love you.”
By the time his words had come to a gentle end, your sobs had quieted into little hiccups. He had not let you go, but instead stroked your hair and murmured loving words as you finally calmed enough to turn in his arms so that you could meet face-to-face. You had doubted that after so much crying you had looked pretty, but it had not stopped him from kissing you with a passion you had not felt before. It had been impossible to not recognize this moment for what it had been. In two years, the two of you had become this, but with the knowledge that it all had been coming to an end too soon, you had both been desperate. Your time together had been limited and you had wanted all that you could have taken from him, so even as his lips had been tracing the curve of your skin, your own had been doing the same. He had not left your side for the days leading up to his departure, and not even your father had dared to protest against it.
The morning of Cinna’s departure had come. Your family and household staff had given their heartfelt goodbyes to the Designer the night before, leaving you his last hours in your lives. Out of his love and respect for you, your father had arranged his parting for later in the afternoon, and when you both had awoken naked and boneless, you had been greeted with a passionate kiss reminiscent of last night’s activities. Lips curled into an exhausted smile, you had returned his affection with short pecks while fighting back that heavy weight in your chest and the tears in your eyes. The last several days had been far too short, but precious in every single way. In that time you had imprinted every single trait about Cinna into your heart. You had been determined to lock away the beauty of his existence where no one could touch it.
After dressing one another, you had slipped downstairs for a late and quiet brunch. Unusually, the house had given off the appearance of emptiness, but you had assumed that your parents had departed to give this day to you, and that the servants had been moving all his belongings out. When the two of you had openly walked out of your room together just several days ago, you had made it very obvious that there was something between the two of you. Like fire, the rumors had spread among the staff, but recognizing that you had only so little time left, they had all chosen to leave the two of you to your own devices. You couldn’t have thought of a moment in which you hadn’t appreciated their consideration more than when you sat down at the dining table, only to be gathered into his arms. You had not needed to hear his words to hear his silent ‘I love you’.
Just an hour later, the telltale noise of a hovercraft landing in front of your home had interrupted the gentle kisses he peppered down your neck. Hesitantly, you had shifted your gaze towards him. In his eyes, you had seen a fear that mirrored your own, but he had been much stronger than you had been. His lips had touched your forehead one last time before he stood, pulling you after him. Far too frightened to utter anything in fear that you would burst out in tears, you had hurried down the stairs by his side. The two of you had only made it as far as the grounds of your home before you had thrown yourself into his arms. He had caught you, and for a moment, you had ignored the world that surrounded you. In that moment, it had been only the two of you and what you had built up for yourselves in the last two years. As you had gazed into his eyes, no words had come to your mind, but everything that you had ever felt for Cinna had burst forth in the kiss you had pushed onto his lips as he had been pulling away, though your fingers had intertwined desperately with his own.
And just like that, Cinna had been gone.
Eight long years had come and gone since then. You never married or met another man, but then that was understandable since, during some point in those years following his departure, you had inherited your father’s battle. Cinna had come into your life for only two years, but in that time, he had changed who you were and who that person became was someone that your father trusted in. He had pulled you aside one day, into his office, and in the conversation that had followed, everything that had ever been hidden from you came out. Your father had been one of many in a Rebellion against the Capitol, and Katniss Evergreen had been the catalyst everyone had been waiting for. Your mother had known nothing of this battle, but he had wanted you to fight with him. With that single conversation, everything that had never made any sense in your life was suddenly clear. Initially, you had hated your father for that, but there came the day when you took up next to him.
Five years ago, the Rebellion had been won and life had changed, though in your eyes, you saw remnants of that period. It was the same game but with different faces. The Hunger Games hadn’t ended and blood was still being shed, but little by little, you felt this world was changing. It wasn’t the world that you felt your father and Cinna, whom your father had revealed to be another member of the Rebellion, had wished for, but someday, it would be just that. You looked forward to that day and prayed it would come soon, not only for the two men that were engraved so deeply in your heart, but for another as well. You prayed for a day that he would grow up in the world that his father wanted.
“Mommy!” Startled, you raised your head away from the handmade memorial crafted in his memory, and towards the other end of the tree grove. A young boy, just a few months shy of eight was tumbling and running to you with his babysitter close behind, his malachite eyes flecked with gold shining in the way that only a child’s eyes could and his precious head of brown curls bouncing in time to his steps. Beaming at the little boy you opened your arms and let him fall into your arms with a happy giggle as you kissed the top of his head. “Mommy, is it time to go yet?” His voice was precious and sweet, high-pitched but you were sure that someday it would take on a smooth undertone and a gentle warmth just like his father’s.
“Just in a little bit.” Affectionately, you kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair. “Mommy just wants to say goodbye to Daddy and then we can go on a train to visit Uncle Gale. Would you like that?” You smiled as you watched his eyes light up at the mention of a friend you had made during the Rebellion. He adored Gale like nothing else in the world, and in his eagerness, he was already squirming out of your hold and running back to the babysitter. You could only laugh affectionately at his eagerness as you pulled yourself up and turned to gently kiss the marker of your departed love.
“I’ll come to visit again in a few days, Cinna. Take care of yourself till then, alright?”