THE HUNGER GAMES DRABBLE MEME

[redbrunja]

With the release of the finale book of The Hunger Games Trilogy imminent, it seems like an excellent time for a comment meme to whet fandom's appetite. (Plus I just finished my third reread of the first two books and yet still want more!)

So I present.....

THE HUNGER GAMES DRABBLE MEME

How To Play
1. Place a prompt as a comment.
2. Comment with as many prompts as you want. Seriously. Don’t be shy.
3. Reply to a prompt comment with corresponding story! This is a “drabble meme,” so no pressure to write anything more than 500 words. But I doubt any lucky OP would receive an unexpected epic with anger, right? So write whatsha want.
4. Feel free to pimp out this meme to all the communities you can think of + your flist! The more the merrier!

Prompt Examples
A lyric or quote! Katniss/Peeta, "Lend me a helping hand ‘cause I’ve been treating your heaven like a one night stand."
A word! Gale, patient.
A kink! Madge/Katniss, blindfold.
A bit of dialogue! Finnick/Annie, "I just miss you when you're gone."
An action! Prim, mending clothes.
A situation! Johanna/Haymitch, killing time at the Capital.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

(meme format totally cribbed from stainofmylove .)

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Johanna/Haymitch, killing time at the Capital.

time to kill

[joyfraser.livejournal.com]

It's four hours into the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games and both of Johanna's tributes are dead. She gets a little emotional (just a little bit, because on the train the girl had talked about her eight sisters and how they never had enough to eat, how her name had been in the reaping one hundred and sixteen times but she'd been so close to escaping it, just one year away) so she leaves the control room. They don't need her there, and even if they did Blight's more experienced and has less of a tendency to drive off sponsors. Not that they had any this year. Not with the little lovers from District 12 running around holding hands.

She gives herself twenty minutes to meander about the Training Center. There are cameras everywhere, of course, but with the bloodbath currently occurring miles away at the Cornucopia, she is not at risk of being seen. This affords her a sense of solidarity, which is a dangerous thing to have around here.

Of course she isn't alone, though, because she's nearly tripping over the very last person she wants to see. Haymitch Abernathy. District 12.

It's not the Twelve tributes' fault that they're so desperately in the love or whatever (she doesn't know what it's like, maybe it does make you crazy), but she still blames them for her kids not making it out of the bloodbath. Blaming the Capitol no longer offers her any peace of mind, it's just familiar sounds.

"Watch where you're going, Seven." He says. She thinks carefully and decides this is the first time he's called her anything besides Sweetheart.

"Abernathy." She says shortly. She's always disliked him. So many Victors arrive at the Capitol drunk or out of their minds on morphling. She thinks this the ultimate sign of weakness; they've all been through the exact same thing. Anyone who can't mask their remorse didn't deserve to win at all. "Your kids are still in it. What are you doing out here?" He doesn't even have a partner. Nobody is watching over the tributes from District Twelve.

"Killing time." He says, tipping his bottle of liquor back again.

"That's a horrible choice of words." She bites, but her voice isn't quite as reprimanding as she wanted it to be, and, okay, she might be smiling a little. Somewhere there is a line between horrible and hilarious and she lost sight of it a long time ago.

And then all of a sudden they're both laughing and he's offering her the bottle. She sits down next to him, unable to stop laughing, although she's not really laughing any more, her body is just shaking violently. She's surprised when he pats her back in a vaguely comforting fashion. It seems uncharacteristic of him. But for all the ways they differ from one another, they do share a crucial similarity. Neither of them have ever taken a tribute home with them, and it's beginning to wear them out.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Katniss, birdsong.

[akemilove.livejournal.com]

She will sing for the past, and it's something like memory, jotting back with the melody.


(It goes like this:

Once, there was a place called District 12.

Once, she'd sworn she would never sing again.

Once, she was Katniss Everdeen.)


The words pour out, unfamiliar at first, then smoothing out into tunes of the things she will not, cannot say. There is something like her father and Gale and Peeta, and then every person in District 12. There is something about existence before the aftermath, because in the remnants of destruction, in the centre of the smoke and ashes and fallen memories, she is there and that’s the thing with aftermaths - you can only continue on when all else is gone.

She will sing because there is no one left - and what is left is not the same.

And she becomes the mockingjay, keeper of retained memories, whispered through song.

And so the mockingjay sings.

[akemilove.livejournal.com]

katniss/gale; the space between their words unspoken.

[poppypickle.livejournal.com]

They talk about frivolous things. Greasy Sae. A new snare technique. Prim’s goat. Silly, inconsequential things. Because it is too hard to find the words for those other things --


Sometimes I wish that there had been a cannon for me.

I’m going to die in those mines, just like my father did.


Katniss pierces a squirrel expertly through the eye with an arrow, and they discuss the kill at length. Far too long, really. Anything to fill the silence. To prevent their tongues from spilling out things they can’t take back.


Does God forgive murderers?

I hate the boy with the bread.


They take off their shoes when they reach the stream, dipping their toes in the cool, clean water. It seems strange in its normalness, but not unwelcome. Katniss smiles, remembering the time that Gale tripped over one of his own snares and ended up drenched. Gale rolls his eyes, and in the space that it takes him to think of a retort the unspoken begins to seep in.


Forgive me.

I ached without you.


When he finally kisses her, it somehow feels impossible and inevitable at the same time. They had never been talkers. A dart of the eyes, a tensing of the shoulders, a silent footfall on a forest floor -- that had always been their language. And so it is no surprise when their lips meet that their tongues somehow know to tie together into a knot of words unspoken.


I am broken. Please fix me.

Nothing will ever be the same between us.

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

Katniss/Peeta/Gale, sometimes you have to compromise.

[viirivehka.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have her completely, but then again, so couldn't Gale. We both had pieces, tiny little pieces, and sometimes it was enough. Sometimes it wasn't.

When she kissed him, my heart skipped few beats, but soon I learned to turn my face away when she leaned forward, when her eyes asked him to touch. And during the nights she was mine, because as much as Gale tried, he couldn't keep the nightmares away.

That was my gift. It made Gale jealous and sometimes even furious, but he never said it out loud. We had kind of an agreement.

Most of the time I yearned for more,and so did Gale. Still, we couldn't ask her to choose, because that would have broken her heart. Half of the heart was mine, half of it was Gale's. And you can't live without the other, it would tear the heart apart.

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

Annie/Finnick, please don't let me go, I desperately need you.

[angel-gidget.livejournal.com]

Katniss/Peeta, The first dream she had while asleep in his arms.

[angel-gidget.livejournal.com]

Haymitch, going sober for their sake.

Going sober and back again

[blankculture.livejournal.com]

People like to think that going sober takes only little spunk and willpower. That you just need to admit that you have a problem and deal with it. Maybe take that program with 12 steps.

They don't know shit. Haymitch does.

Withdrawal is just a term. No one can imagine what it feels like without experiencing it. Delirium tremens is just a term too. It just sounds more sophisticated than saying that you go shit crazy when you stop drinking. Haymitch doesn't want to go crazy. He doesn't want to feel anything at all, and that's why he drinks. Vomiting and falling on sharp objects on a regular basis is more peaceful than breaking his heart every time he has to lead a new pair of these ragged kids to their early deaths.

Then came the latest pair. The girl almost stabs Haymitch's hand, and the boy takes a fist to his face like he is used to it. Neither of these things is good. They only tell what kind of lives these two have led, what kind of place District 12 is for its children.

It also means that maybe, just maybe Haymitch has got a pair of fighters this year. Haymitch isn't sure if he is supposed to be delighted with the fact or not. It means that he has to start fighting too.

[angel-gidget.livejournal.com]

Finnick, the rumors he heard about the lovers from district 12, both disproved and confirmed.

[wrldpossibility.livejournal.com]

He's pretty sure he's heard it all. Capitol parties aren't exactly known for their discretion or restraint (or their lack of pettiness in any regard, for that matter), and the gossip runs as freely as the booze. But District 12 on everyone's lips? Whispered words about Seam kids snapping with a thin line of electric excitement which whips haphazardly from one extreme to the next, reaching every corner of every room?

This is something new.

He hears their names long before he sees their faces for himself. Peeta Mellark. Katniss Everdeen. Tragic lovers? Game players extraordinaire? Victims? Movers and shakers in the Game?

They all look to him for insight, from the ridiculous Capitol girls spilling their drinks all over his arm to Caesar Flickerman, hoping for a sound bite, and he doesn't need to meet the kids from the coal district to know the answer is all of the above...without asking for any of it.

After all, Finnick should know.

[angel-gidget.livejournal.com]

Caesar Flickerman, 5 ways Peeta Mellark was the different from the District 12 tributes before him

"You Could Be Immortal"

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

[ETA: this doesn't really fit your prompt, sorry.]

District 12's boy knows how to work the cameras. He smiles, half at Caesar, half at the audience. When he speaks, his voice is clear and low and intimate and Caesar feels the whole room leaning closer.

If this was an interview tape, he'd have Mellark hosting one of his networks double-handful of morning talk shows (that Cranberry girl was getting lame ratings these season anyway), ease him into commentary circuit, make him a household name within three years. But this wasn't an interview tape and like 96% of the people Caeser interviewed, Peeta wasn't going to live out the week. If Caeser was a betting man (which he wasn't; it was against contract), he'd place money on this golden-tongued boy dying in the first melee - probably about ten minutes after his Katniss.

It was a damn shame. Caesar could have made that boy famous.

[wolfpacklove.livejournal.com]

Peeta used to dream. He used to be an optimist, always seeing the silver lining, all that bull. Problem with the silver lining is that it's no replacement for a sunny day.

His heart had stopped the day he saw the ring on Katniss's finger. He'd always wanted to see a ring there, but only if it was from him. And this ring wasn't from him. Gale appears, kisses her lightly on the lips and they walk away, arms linked and completely oblivious to Peeta standing broken-hearted only a few yards away.

Peeta doesn't show up to their wedding. He knows it killed Katniss, not seeing him in the crowd, but he just couldn't take it. He'd send his congratulations later.

Peeta doesn't dream anymore, because she let him down. It's hard to dream with a broken heart.

[greenconverses.livejournal.com]

Finnick/Johanna, someday

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

--

Johanna Mason is not the kind of person who gives up easily, but Finnick Odair is not the kind of man you can win. (Not even if it is something you want, more than you have wanted anything since you were in the Games and you wished you wouldn't die. That is just how things go, you know.)

She knows Annie Cresta, knows the curve of her smile, knows the madness that's taken up shop in the back of her head. (After all; it is in Johanna's mind, too. She just knows how to ignore it.) She knows Annie Cresta, and she loves her, in that quiet solid way that all the Victors love each other. She kind of, sort of, even understands why Finnick loves her; a mix of masochism and pity both, and something else, deep and dangerous, buried at the heart of that love.

This does not stop Johanna wishing, sometimes (not often) that he would be thankful that he is still holding together, that she is held together, even if Annie is not.

--

"Hey," he whispers, hand on her wrist, reassuring; "Johanna. Someday they'll fall. Someday we'll be free."

They are on their way to the Seventy-Fourth games; she is feeling sick, like she will throw up. She finds herself swallowing, finds herself saying. "I wish it would be someday soon."

Here is the thing: she does not love him like the Capitol loves him, does not love the projection of him that he shows everyone, the laughing charming beautiful man who is shallow because that is the only thing he knows how to be. She does not love him for the blood on his hands, but she understands it, because it is on hers too.

(Here is the thing: she trusts him. and that is something you are absolutely never supposed to do.)

--

They have learned each other's harshnesses, broken places; he loves his mad girl, and she has lost everything she has ever loved. It is not something she has ever told him, but he has looked in her eyes and understood her darkness. There is something like continuity, running between the two of them. She knows for him it isn't love.

They learn each other with sharp words, cutting to the quick; they do not pull punches but this is how they are. Soft is not something Johanna has ever been; it is not something he would ever want from her. When they kiss they draw blood; when the fuck they wear bruises for days afterwards.

This is how it goes.

(Someday, she thinks. Someday she will be able to let her guard down; someday she will kiss him and it will not hurt.)

--

[clotpoles.livejournal.com]

Peeta/Katniss, we are basic lies

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

--

it is, after all, nothing new. he loves her. she does not love him.

it's how half the stories go. (the ones with the tragic endings, or the ones where he is a secondary character.)

she says, i love you.

he says, i can live without you.

lately, all they can do is lie to each other.

--

sometimes he thinks of himself as a creature of habit, wonders if he is running on that; if that is the only reason he has not listened to his better angels and let go. he sometimes thinks he is a badly-fired clay shape, with one phrase echoing around his head to define him, i love katniss everdeen.

the thing is: they fit together, too well. they can finish each other's movements if not sentences; he knows when she is feinting, when she is shooting. he knows when to duck.

this is how he feels the faintest flinch as he is kissing her.

this is how she feels him tighten his grip, before he lets go.

both of them are running on this: things they do not say, things both of know. truths that stick in both of their chests.

he wonders if one of these days he will be brave, if he will say, everything i do is because i love you. he wonders if she will say, you and i do not fit together.

somehow, he doesn't think so. he has gotten much better at lying, since he started to understand her.

--

[viirivehka.livejournal.com]

Katniss/Finnick, both have lost something precious

[viirivehka.livejournal.com]

Quote: Don't go. I'll eat you up, I love you so.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Anyone in particular you'd like this to be about?

[jakia.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I've only ever read the first one, but I'll take a Katniss/Gale, "If you kissed your cousin like you kiss me, we may have problems."

[akemilove.livejournal.com]

haymitch/maysilee; things you don't forget.

[paper-pinwheels.livejournal.com]

Drinking is supposed to make things better—fade out the memories, dull the pain that’s always there, dull the thinking that doesn’t ever stop. But, the alcohol only sharpens what’s already there.

Three drinks and it’s almost okay.

Seven and he can see her clear as day, clear as if he were there again, holding her hand again, watching her die again.

Maysilee was a pretty girl (but he can hardly remember how pretty she looked now).
He didn’t love her, but he didn’t want her to die. He didn’t love her, but he used to think she was so pretty when he saw in her school, used to dream about touching her hair and kissing her pretty mouth.

Now he only dreams of her in those last few moments. Blood on her face. Blood in her hair. Blood bubbled and frothing out her open mouth.

He dreams her dying every night and no amount of drinking will make him forget.

--

[paper-pinwheels.livejournal.com]

gale/madge, left behind

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

[sorry, this is capital-letter free :/ and kind of rushed :/]

she asks him, do you love me because i am not the one who died? her hair is streaming across the pillow. her eyes catch his, and do not let go.

the moonlight is filtering in through the window; it falls silver across her shoulders, across her mouth and her eyelashes. he cannot help thinking that she is something delicate, something to be protected.

of course not, he says. he does not think it is a lie, but these days, he is never sure. i love you because you are you. he thinks, i love you because you survived.

sometimes he thinks he does not know who he is, without the girl on fire. this is not madge undersee's fault; it is something that happened. this is something he does not want to fall to pieces, like everything else he has touched.

he leans forward and presses his mouth to hers.

[thankthatstar.livejournal.com]

peeta/katniss, i'd take down the stars just to be in your arms

[mellowdee.livejournal.com]

"It's not because we won."

Her voice is strong.

"I know," he answers.

"And it's not because it's all over now."

He sees her tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear (loves the delicate flow of her fingers and wrist). He nods, leaning further against the tree trunk.

She's standing over him, crossing her arms in a way that reminds him of the girl from his childhood (the one who wore a scowl more often than not).

"And...and it's not because everyone expects it."

"I believe you, Katniss."

Her arms fall from her chest. "Then, why?"

He waits.

She moves to him, crouching in front of him, meeting his eyes. "Why won't you be with me?"

Her voice loses strength.

"Isn't it obvious?"

(What he wants to say is, why can't you say it?)

She searches his eyes, closes hers for a second. She takes a breath.

"I don't have nightmares anymore," she starts. "As long as I look at the stars before I go to sleep."

(What she wants to say is, isn't it obvious now?)

"The stars - they remind me of your eyes. They remind me that I'm safe at night."

His fingers twitch. But he waits.

She knows.

"I love you."

He has her in his arms before she finishes her sentence.

[ldkirby.livejournal.com]

Katniss/Gale, aftermath

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

--

He says, "What are we doing?"

She bites her lip. "Hell if I know."

He wants to say, do you miss him. He wants to say, why did you choose him, in the end?

The irony of it kind of chokes him; Peeta won, in the end; it is Peeta who she wanted. But it is Gale who made it out. Now everything is fucked up.
She is kissing him, hard and fast and fierce. Her hands are behind her back, so the only place they are touching is their mouths.

He thinks it is to shut him up.

Her eyes are closed; he can see every eyelash, dark and separate against her skin. He knows she is thinking about Peeta, knows it deep in his heart. It makes him wish he had been there, to take the bullet.

--

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

[i'm sorry, this has no capital letters and may not be what you're looking for. :/]
--

"you are," he says, "so beautiful." the colour of his eyes is deep and bright and infinite, so bright it almost hurts to look at.

you are dripping, still. there is salt crusted on the roof of your tongue, stuck in the back of your nose. every time you suck in air you feel like choking. you close your eyes to shield them from the intensity of his gaze, see the red blood dripping across the inside of your eyelid.

his hand on your wrist is warm, is too warm. you are used to the saltwater, you are used to the cold. it feels like you're burning where he's made contact, it feels like you are on fire.

you almost want to go back into the sea, to be free of it. but the arena is a helicopter away, impassable, and your legs are still shaky so that dry land feels like a blessing.

you open your eyes so they will be clean, and meet his gaze. "you look like the sea," you tell him.

--

you are aware that you are not -- all together -- functional. they talk to you as though you are a small child, but you aren't; you're just tired and scared, all the time.

he is in love with all your broken places, all the ways in which you do not make a whole. he likes to sit with you and tell you stories; he likes to braid your hair and tell you that you are safe, now.

there is something about him that grounds you, that centres you; when you are with him you feel less like you are about to wash away with the tide. this does not stop you wondering why he does it, though.

he tells you it is love.

you do not want to tell him you don't understand that concept anymore.

--

he kisses you and you bite his lip open kissing back, and all of a sudden you know. it hits you like a tsunami, like a tidal wave; you tell yourself that you are not driftwood, that you are anchored. (but this is a lie; you are anchored in him.)

you say, "you are in love with the games." your voice gets pitchy, gets high, gets scared; you force yourself not to look away.

his fingertips are under your chin, tilting your face up. "oh, annie," he says, soft, sweet. "i'm so sorry."

you don't know who he's sorry for.

I Love You Like A Crime

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Katniss returns to the Capitol with blood caked under her nails, two pistols slung low on her hips, a scarred flak vest, and her bow and arrows strapped to her back. When she catches glimpses of hers reflection in the few un-shattered windows, she looks rangy, feral, like a cat that's been too long away from the touch of a human hand. Finnick, a few paces behind, has same ravaged look in his eyes.

The Capitol is a disaster; ruined buildings, shattered glass. The power is out and all Katniss can smell is the reek of spoiling food.

"So this is winning, is it, Sweetheart?" Finnick comments. "I should have turned myself in."

You should have, Katniss thought. Likely the only thing that would have changed was getting to see Annie murdered in person, instead of on live television. "Only Haymitch calls me sweetheart," she said instead. Which was like saying "no one calls me sweetheart," given that Haymitch was as dead as Annie. Both of them had been there when he died. Neither wanted to talk about it.

She hadn't seen Peeta's death but looking at the wreck of the Capitol, she had no doubt he was dead. Him, and Cinna, too, and by her hand as much as anyone. She hadn't protested when the decision had been made to gas the Capitol.

She'd been smiling when the first videos of it started to roll in, a tiny, fierce grin that made her teeth ache.

She was a murderer many times over; but no one who survived the games ever deserved to.

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

Haymitch (+ President Snow); you never know who you're working for.

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

Cinna/anyone, "you could love me if I knew how to lie"

[wolfpacklove.livejournal.com]

"I hate how I can't lie to you," Finnick sighs. They're lying together in Cinna's bed after some less-than-innocent acts; Cinna is half on top of him, and Finnick is running a hand through his hair, the other hand behind his head. Cinna's fingers are tracing loopy patterns on Finnick's sunkissed chest.

"I don't mind it," Cinna responds quietly. "It makes things a bit easier, with us both having no choice but to be honest. That way we both know there are no strings."

"I can't help but think, though. If I could lie to you, you could love me."

"Finn. It's fine. No pressure, remember?" Cinna looks at him with guarded eyes.

"Yeah. No pressure," Finnick replies and looks away, trying to convince himself that this is best; but he can't help the nagging voice in his head telling him he wants the pressure.

[electrumqueen.livejournal.com]

Haymitch + Katniss, "you, a killer killing fate."

[akemilove.livejournal.com]

cato/clove; taste of blood.

[clotpoles.livejournal.com]

Cato screams, as if the decibels could split the ground beneath them. His face is contorted with fury, lines and features jumbled up and spitting hatred. He doesn't look human, more like a bloodthirsty lion with spots in its eyes and teeth ready to bite down.

For a second, Clove just watches him. There's no need to calm him down, not really. Viewers will like this unhinged side of Cato, the killing machine - and Clove does too. She opens her coat ever so slightly and slips a hand in to run her finger over the sharpest blade she's got. This is a somewhat therapeutic motion for her. Before she goes to sleep each night, she makes a tiny cut in each digit.

But eventually she intervenes - Cato's screams have turned to anguish, and that is not the way things should be.

"Cato," she says, "You killed the boy from District 3. We have knives and swords and we'll get the rest." A psychopathic way of providing comfort, she treats the words knives and swords with extra reverence.

Cato looks down at the skinny boy who hasn't been treated with reverence in death. He snarls, and stomps on the boy's ribcage. They hear a reverberating crack, and blood starts seeping onto the ground.

---

They are on a train to the Capitol. It is not a long train ride, because they are from District 2 and the train seems to go at a million miles an hour.

As the railroad clacks beneath them (not that they can hear it), the boy tribute says to the girl; "You saw me volunteer. I'm Cato."

(Of course, names are less important than stature, how well they can kill.)

Clove nods.

"Do you think they'll have any knives in the Arena?" She asks. There is no point of keeping secrets - she is sure, whether this Cato knows about it or not, that she will slay everyone, including him, with a bloody knife.

"They might. They'd better have swords, though." He says gruffly. Clove notes the glint in his eye as he mentions a sword.

"We'd be good together, I think. We could kill them all."

Cato pauses, then grins, exposing a set of malignant teeth.

---

They are not like loverboy and his girl on fire. They are infinitely more fucked up, no matter the truth of the tributes from District 12.

After the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, Day One, the two of them are drenched in blood. Their fingers are sticky and their eyelids seem to be drawn down by blood, not sleep.

Clove's first kill, a boy from a District she didn't care about in the slightest, was a canvas of cuts after she was through with him. Cato had been impressed.

When the other Careers and the cameras were not looking, he dragged Clove to the inside of the Cornucopia and kissed her. It was not a kind kiss. At the same time, he lifted his hands to her face - and rubbed his fingers in her cuts.

Her mouth tasted like blood. He licked it clean.