007. (and the sky falls into burning flames)

And there's that tender, almost playful way that he loops an arm around her shoulders, murmuring something with his lips against her hair, and how she smiles just as he starts to turn away and the camera flash goes off. Their photographer walking away and fading into the party's crowd, she tilts into him more, his arm slipping lower. "Well," he says finally; "the Tour could be going worse, at this point." She looks up at him for a second longer than he thinks this deserves, then blinks, reaches up to fix his suit collar with one hand.

"Yes," she says, a bit suspicious, a bit questioning.

He doesn't answer right away, instead throwing a quick, fleeting glance towards the invisible barrier between them and the festivities. He seems to tense at something. Then, slowly, measured: "I think," his words begin, "we should be joining the guests of honor. Shall we?"

Those familiar, calm eyes of his fix on a point in the distance, and he lets go of her, only to twine up their fingers and squeeze her hand, suddenly closer. His thoughts still come too slowly to really process, blurred by exhaustion and too many hours staring absently into firelight.

They slip into the crowd mostly unnoticed, weaving between whoever is important enough to be invited. He seems set on something, and she doesn't know what that is, isn't sure he knows, himself. It's not really joining the guests of honor, and they both know that. But when he nearly runs into someone they don't recognize and apologizes, he seems to get lost for a second.

"What is it?" she mumbles finally, half against his cheek.

"What?"

"You're looking for something—" they're walking again, a bit more aimless "—or someone."

"Nothing in particular," he says, a bit dismissively, and she stops, turns to stand in front of him.

"Cinna."

"Sorry, sweetheart." He lets go of her hand, uses it to hold her still while he kisses her instead. She pulls away first, and watches him. "Just overthinking some things."

"As usual."

He nudges her shoulder; she rests her head against him for a few seconds, listening to his faint heartbeat, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing, his warmth. She turns into him a bit more. "Fine." He tangles his fingers through her hair, stroking his hand through it. They shuffle somewhat out of the way of a group of people trying to make their way past them, his grip on her instinctively becoming more protective.

He stops. It's funny, he thinks, how obsessive he is about her now. He'd never thought of himself as the type of person to be interested in love before. It wasn't that he was a cold person, but that he liked being alone enough, and couldn't imagine being so comfortable with someone.

(Then he met her, their second year of college.)

It started off so simple it was complicated—one of his friends had roped him into going to a party, one of those, where it was at someone's house, practically a mansion, he'd thought, and every ounce of sound became a solid wall of noise against his ears, lights nearly blinding him. He hadn't heard good things about the guy throwing the party, not at all.

So he wandered around, alone, and tried to find ways to pass the time. There were tables set up all over the place, but there were none empty. The one closest to it was in the corner of the main room by a window that looked out on a nearby parking lot. One person: her. He asked if he could sit down, she said yes, and he did.

He'd sat there alternating between staring at a blank page of his sketchbook and out the window at the streetlights, while she had glanced at him repetitively over the top of her homework binder, dark hair purposefully falling into her eyes. He vaguely recognized her from school—

"We should move," she suggests now, pulling away from him, and he nods. They do.

—But he didn't have any particular memories of her, except in a few of the design classes. So he asked her about that, and didn't miss the way she jumped when he first spoke up, eyes widening a bit, almost like she was scared. They talked about the latest homework for far too long until the party-thrower—Luke, he would find out his nickname was later—dragged her out to a dance floor further away. She didn't look happy to go with him. He would find out about that later.

They talked a lot, later that night, after they were both more tired and relaxed. She told him about how her parents wanted to have at least one perfect child, and that was supposed to be her sister, but she decided to become a Peacekeeper and got assigned to District Twelve and ended up marrying one of the town boys and staying there. So it became her responsibility instead, and later that meant having the rich, "handsome" boyfriend (whose eyes were a scary shade of blue that artificially glowed) that she didn't want: Lucius Cromwell.

Who, although she would never say the word, he found out, was abusive.

But their parents wanted them to be in love, so to them, they were.

He liked her, he decided, a lot, really. She was kind, and smart, and sweet, and pretty, (and talented and hard-working and—) maybe she'd been hurt before but she didn't seem so broken yet, strong. (Maybe.)

In the early hours of the morning, when he thought that he really needed to get back to his dorm for homework and class, he'd said something vague and asked if they could meet again sometime. (They couldn't, but.) She said yes; it'd gone from there—

Now he starts to guide them through the sea of people, suggesting they go outside for a breath of fresh air. It is stuffy in the room, but that doesn't seem to be what he's concerned about. They reach the doors where there are Peacekeepers stationed—and that makes him a bit sick to his stomach—then proceed out into a garden typical of District Eleven. There are more Peacekeepers just outside the gate marking the perimeter.

It's cool out, but it has nothing on the cold in Twelve or the Capitol. There are stars clearly visible, a refreshing sight since they live in the light-up metropolis of the city, which is never still, never quiet, never peaceful like this. She sighs. "Isn't it beautiful here?"

"It is." His hands move to smooth the fabric of her dress.

"Almost wish we could stay," she says, slightly wistful. (Of course, she would.)

He's silent. They can't, and she must know that. But there had been a lot of things in their past that they weren't supposed to be able to do, either, that they had. This probably won't be one of them, no matter what they want.

"I know," she adds. "We can't."

He nods a bit stiffly.

He thinks that maybe they are young and in love, but it's hard to tell which would be easier to deny. They're too logical for either. It's the world they live in, and what it's done to them, and what it's done to Katniss and Peeta and even Haymitch.

He twines up their hands again and stays quiet.

—They were both intolerable to live with for most people, they found, and so became roommates for their junior year, the perfect match. They started almost spending too much time together, enough that Luke gave up on the act, and the friend that had convinced him to go to that party stopped speaking to him, because he only had attention for her.

He'd just started thinking about her too much, found conversations with her going on in his head when he was unfocused in class, stopped caring so much about anything else.

It took a longer time for things to start going the romantic route—they had graduated, become stylists for the Games, and they were close but they both still had problems with trust; she was still jumpy, and still afraid, and still hurt so easily, delicate. And beside that, he kept thinking that he had to find the conspiracy going on in the Capitol that his parents had died for, leaving him with the strict and hateful grandparents, but he didn't want to drag her in with him. He couldn't do that to her, couldn't hurt her like that, couldn't betray her trust.

Their relationship was a bit strange at that point, he thought. His protectiveness over her could've been taken to be something almost like the relationship of siblings, but it went just a tad too far for that. He would always come up with different excuses for it, said he was discouraging her from being outside late at night by herself because she would "become ill", or that he only spent half of his nights in her room instead of his because the window's view was more inspiring (when in reality, he was watching her sleep, waiting for the flashback-nightmares to wake her)—

"It was just a thought," she says, about the idea of staying in Eleven. He wishes for a second that she would let the conversation go.

"Hmm. Should we head back inside?"

"All right."

He tightens his grip on her and they go back in, and he thinks that he didn't realize just how cool it actually was outside until they're back in the warmth of the room. One of the members of Peeta's prep team, Perdita, approaches them, looking somewhat delirious. "Isn' it l've'y h're?"

Perdita stumbles around over her own feet, probably drunk, he thinks, but still speaking with ever-so-slight coherence.

"Just marvelous," she says, dry, amused.

Perdita starts to stumble away. "N'ce t' see ya two."

They muffle their laughter into each other, unconcerned, and then he suggests that they go find some food, and she agrees.

—When their relationship had taken a different turn, it was when they were still working on their tributes' outfits, rough sketches and bad ideas as jokes, especially as it got later and later at night. They had a theme in mind, but hadn't been able to come up with anything else, were waiting for inspiration to hit. There was a mostly burned-out fire in front of them, but neither of them was in the mood to get off the couch and relight it. It was fairly cool in the apartment—the Games would be in the summer and they were six months out—so they were sharing a quilt, her head on his shoulder.

And he was overthinking how this situation would be looked at from an outsider, which was the same view that maybe he wanted to be the right one. Maybe? Who was he kidding; it was definitely what he wanted.

He sat there, tense, and debated with himself for several minutes. He would never force anything on her, and he didn't want them to have a relationship like that, would never even want to consider doing something that might hurt her, and tried to shove the thought away, even as she looked up at him with those wide gray eyes through her eyelashes, and asked what was wrong, sweet, innocent, and he'd finally given in to temptation.

He leant close to her, pushing her hair away from her face, and stopped for a second, letting their lips just barely touch to see that she wasn't backing away, pressed closer, let himself kiss her like he'd wanted to for so long, and it felt good to give in, to let his eyes fall shut and feel her lips move against his, to feel her against him like this—

They settle into a booth table off to the side, with limited food, but enough, and she slumps against him while they pick at it. "Tired?"

"Kind of."

He has to be glad that they trust each other more now, even if he is betraying it. He's found the rebellion, but isn't active, and she knows just about as much as he does. It's always weighing on his mind, what he can actually do for the cause. He watched his parents burn in his home because of it, and never really recovered, just as she won't stop jumping a foot in the air if he approaches her too suddenly or flinching away from an unexpected touch. He's scared, and he only ever admits it in his mind. There are district children like Katniss and Peeta who need his help and talent more than he needs his life, but right now, he just can't help.

If he thinks too much about what could happen, he ends up waking her in the middle of the night, with how tightly he starts holding her.

(He just thinks too much in general, she always says, even before he tries to explain.)

"Have you two been hiding here this whole time?" someone standing near their table says. They look up, and it's Effie. "It's nearly time to go. Come along." Effie gestures to the District Twelve team starting to gather near yet another exit with Peacekeepers, and then walks away with her heels clicking against the floor the whole while.

He sighs, and she slides out of the booth first, letting him stand. He offers her a dry kiss on the cheek, looks at his watch, and says, mocking Effie's voice in the way he only does around her, "Well, I suppose it nearly is 'time to go'."

She laughs at him easily, and takes hold of his arm, and they walk off, together.

001. (and the broken shall always be healed)

"Dark blue, or light blue for the middle layer, you think?"

He looks over at the two fabric samples she's holding up, and the dress frame slipping off the desk behind her.

"Light blue," they say at the same time, and then laugh.

"Sounds like a unanimous vote," she says, reaching for the catalogue with the company's number to add that to the fabric order for the commission she's working on. He always feels a pang of guilt when she does those. When Luke had decided to forget about her, so did her parents. Couldn't keep up one request, could you? So now she desperately needs money to finish school. She won't take a penny from him, not that he has many to offer, himself.

She starts talking to whoever answers the phone and the conversation ends quick enough, half because of her shyness with others, so she looks back at him. He's closer to her now, examining the translucent and glittering top layer of the dress she's in the process of making, tracing the patterns. "You've been working a lot today," he comments finally, throwing a glance at everything scattered over her half of the room. There are sketchbooks and pencils and fabrics and needles and it's chaos uncharacteristic of her, really. It shows the stress she's put on herself and is starting to regret.

"So have you," she whispers after a few seconds, and he rests a gentle hand on her shoulder, squeezes. She flinches as a first reaction. "Besides, I feel inspired."

He does something like smirk. "You're always inspired, darling."

She chooses to ignore the endearment. "Am not."

"Whatever you say," he relents, and releases her, goes back to the homework he left sitting on his bed. It's for his Needlework 101 class, and right now, he hates his (lack of) ability in basting. It's prep work, and that's not something he's good at, and the loose stitches versus his usual too-small ones mean that his hands are always in the way and he keeps pricking himself, almost staining the white cotton with the droplets of blood. It's cheap fabric, given out for the practice squares due tomorrow, and should wash easily, but it'll tear apart the baste stitches.

"Cinna? What do you—?" She stops herself, clamping a hand over her mouth. "Sorry. I'll... be quiet, if you're working. I keep interrupting. Sorry."

"It's fine," he says, reassuring.

She hesitates for another second, trying to figure out if he really means that. "What do you think of the bottom layer?" she asks finally. "I have no idea if the color's right, or the fabric type, I don't think it is but I don't know exactly what's wrong with it, either." She sounds frustrated, too wound up, too tired and stressed to even think about it.

"I think the dark blue's fine," he starts with, and then adds, cautious, "But maybe try something a little less transparent?"

She looks at him, nods, thinks, biting her tongue like she always does, and then says, "Good idea," and goes back to flipping through the catalogue.

He watches her, and thinks that she's beautiful in a way that no one else he's met is or maybe can be. There's something careless about it, and he assumes it's because of the world's constant criticism—her parents' and Luke's and that of everyone else.

It's just not fair, but he would laugh at anyone who said that aloud.

She's on the phone, again, brief, and with a shake of his head he forces himself to go back to the baste stitches. He feels even less determined to finish them, now. He does still have other work to do. So he opens up his planner and starts moving things around so that he only has the two crucial assignments for tonight, and scolds himself for it, but not too harshly. The thoughts of his parents and how they were much harder workers than he is come to him and he tries to suppress all of the feelings that come with them, back to the stitches, forming faster and faster now.

"Something wrong?" she asks him, a bit wide-eyed.

His hands still. "No," he says, and sighs. "No; I'm fine."

"Okay," she says, sounding unconvinced, and turns back to the dress.

He takes a few seconds to calm down, slowly, slowly, until he feels less like his blood is flowing at ultra-speed and he unwinds a bit. He feels all right again, even if it will only be for a few minutes.

;,;,;,;

That night, he's drifting somewhere between dreams and reality, not completely sure of what's from his memory and what he's hallucinated. His body feels heavy and doesn't respond to his commands to roll over or pull the blanket over himself or move so that he's not smothering himself with his pillow, and his eyes just won't stay open.

He just feels lazy, again, and he's even still almost fully dressed, putting off actually getting ready for bed since he just wants to sleep. Somewhere, he hears what sounds like ragged breathing and choked noises, and starts floating more towards reality, a dim light pressing against his eyes. He gets himself to sit upright, and something in his mind finally connects and then he's on his feet and pulling a chair next to hers at the desk and has her cradled tightly in his arms. "Shh, shh, you're okay..."

She shakes her head and seems to struggle against him, hyperventilating worse, gets out something like let go of me, and he does. She grips the edge of the desk and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to control her breathing. He starts asking about things he can get her. No, no, no, she answers to all of them. No water and no paper bag and nothing else, either. So there's nothing he can really do other than sit and wait and watch, and he feels nauseous even as the attack ends and she breathes again, face in her hands, fingertips against her eyelids. She's still shaking and sniffling and there are still tears.

Tentative, he reaches out and just strokes her hair, asks yet again if there's anything he can do.

She swallows hard and then shakes her head, but leans against his shoulder and lets him hold her this time. He stretches to retrieve a box of tissues off a nearby shelf and presses it into her hand. She takes some to wipe away the tears and blow her nose a few times, pulling away from him. Still, she doesn't clean up so well, face still fairly red and all.

He feels bad when the thought crosses his mind that he still just wants to sleep. He might have been able to if this was just crying, but the actual panic attacks generally leave her in a worse state of mind. He can blame Luke and her family and a few others, but blaming people hasn't ever helped him yet.

"Okay?" he asks, and she nods.

And even with that, he knows that this is the reason why he always feels guilty if they're apart, because what if... this, happens again? He hates the idea of her trying to recover by herself. Besides—well, that's not the only reason, and he knows it. But it's one, and probably the most logical-sounding.

"Do you want to get some tea or anything?" he tries, flailing for something comforting as if it could do anything.

"Sure."

002. (and it might rain tonight, darling)

It's been about a month since they graduated, and they still talk every day, and things are almost just like they used to be, other than the living arrangements. He finds an apartment and his grandparents barely keep in touch; but, for whatever reason he doesn't understand, she's at home with her mother and father most nights, with the glares and lectures and tears and lack of help. Sometimes, if she's come over, she leaves and won't quite say she's going home, so he doesn't know where she is, then, despite his attempts to. He probably doesn't want to know. Her parents don't always even want to see her. They're over wanting to forget her, but this stage is almost worse. Some nights, she stays with him, and she always apologizes even though being able to watch her sleep—peacefully or not—is a relief more than a trouble. Whenever she shows up, they talk and laugh, and he makes her eat something and get some rest.

In the rest of the time, there's internships and the occasional class or two and odd jobs and commissions and the trying to get prep team spots but great Panem, why do they have to be so picky about experience, how are we supposed to get experience if no one will hire us?

(Apparently she only had the kind of work experience that the design teams weren't interested in.)

003. (and dreams of above are soaring upwards)

They have their interview to be stylists not too long after she moves into the spare bedroom in his apartment. It was yours anyways, he says simply when she thanks him again, with a half-hug and chaste kiss on his cheek.

The waiting room isn't packed but isn't empty, and they manage to find seats together in a corner. They don't talk much. He reads, but she just sits nervously, shuffling their interview forms in her lap. In theory, if they don't get jobs this year, they can apply again. And that would be fine—she's content, right now, to wait. But that's "in theory". In reality, applicants who are being interviewed a second time are rarely even considered. This is their one real shot.

And they can't waste it.

004. (and comfort may be your luxury, part one)

"Gah, my pen always runs out of ink when I'm using it," she says, shaking the ballpoint in her hand, tapping it against the sketchbook on her lap.

"Well, it'd be hard for it to run out of ink otherwise," he answers, clearly amused.

She gives him a deadpan look in response. "Funny. Very clever."

"I try."

She smacks his shoulder ever so lightly, then leans against him, looking up and batting her eyelashes. "Have I mentioned how much I love you lately?"

"Sweetheart, I'm not getting up to get you another pen if you're going to play that game with me." An entertained smirk plays around his lips. They're both in that sort of mood now.

"Fine," she mock-grumbles, getting up purposely slowly. "I'll get it myself."

"Oh, don't." He laughs at the indignant look on her face as he gives her a gentle push back towards the couch and stands. Just for effect, he kisses the top of her head. "Love you."

005. (and knowledge is a costly thing)

They want them to teach. A class. A design class. At the same college they went to. It's a completely insane idea, but they always like those.

So they say yes.

006. (and comfort may be your luxury, part two)

They're re-watching the opening ceremonies of past years, a fire burning in the fireplace, too, habit now, and they've only been through three and a half when she shuts off the television abruptly. "This is sick," she says, uncharacteristically angry, nearly slamming the remote back down.

"Yes," he says, voice even and watching her carefully, as she exhales and runs her hands over her face, fingertips pressing her eyes shut for a few seconds.

"It's just wrong."

"I know."

"And we're part of it."

"I know."

"And we like it."

"I know."

"Do you not have anything else to say?" She sighs again, looks up a bit and lets her hands fall, gray eyes wide, like she's scared. "Sorry."

"It's okay." After a few seconds he covers her hand with his and runs his thumb over the back of it gently. She flinches at the touch at first, and then relaxes. His fingers flit towards her wrist and she withdraws, then. He leans over and presses a dry kiss to her cheek, and lets her rest against his chest.

"It's just not right," she mumbles. "We should… do something. We should—"

"—Portia." He wraps both arms around her and pulls her back against him, soothing. "Shh." He kisses the top of her head and caresses her neck, chest, shoulders, until he can feel her unwind under his touch. What burns in the back of his mind is the thought that they can only say those kinds of things here, can only really hurt when they're alone. And that's not right, either.

"We're dressing them up for death again—"

"—Sweetheart—"

"—We can't just let them die, can we? Can't even let them have that? Dignity?"

"Shh." She goes quiet again.

"We're giving them another chance, too, with what we do," he tries.

"And giving them a dream to be destroyed."

He sighs. "Yes. We are."

"They're burning before they even go off to hell," she says, and then bites her tongue, feeling like she's unstable.

"Literally, anyways." She adjusts the way she leans against him to be more comfortable, her head on his shoulder. After a few seconds, he pulls her into a kiss that's too long, and once they both pull away, they exchange more caresses and kisses until they both lose focus or energy a bit, and look at the fire gradually more and more. She thinks that everything they do like this is give and take, unlike the old "give, give, give" routine she was used to with Luke.

Finally, she has to talk again. "I just keep thinking that they both have so many people that love them, and that makes the deaths worse."

"The love's not the problem, the death is."

She reaches up to touch his face as a distraction. "It's just—have you seen the coffins they've sent some of the others back in? They shouldn't even make coffins that small." The look on his face is hurt, so she adds, "Sorry," again.

"It's okay."

"No," she whispers; "it's not."

008. (and living like it all depends on you)

It starts with a dream not too long after the Quarter Quell announcement.

She's thinking about the wedding outfits they're modifying slightly for the interviews before she goes to bed, and they creep into her subconscious. In the dream, they're sitting in the audience for the interviews with no one else there, and Katniss is alone on the stage, spinning across it dizzyingly.

She's dressed in the wedding gown he made for her, but fire breaks out from no apparent source, not harmful, and when it fades away she sees that Katniss has changed partially into a bird, a mockingjay, the Mockingjay.

There's more, but the rest is fading from her mind. She wakes feeling a bit breathless, resisting the urge to get up and get some of that down on paper, because, well, the concept of changing Katniss' interview outfit to something like that is ridiculous—she's not even her stylist. Finally she gives in, stands so she won't wake him, and flips to a page towards the back of her sketchbook and doesn't even draw anything, just writes down Katniss, interviews, wedding dress, fire, mockingjay. Then she gets back in bed and falls asleep again.

;,;,;,;

In those spare seconds when they're not together, after he's fallen asleep or before he's woken, the sketches start. Whimsical and basic drawings at first until details start showing up and soon, just to appease the urge to get this stupid, damn idea out of her head, there are ideas for what type of fabric would hold the feathers best, and the color of thread, and chemical formulas for the new synthetic fire, and what parts of the wedding dress to keep after the transformation….

But she's not a good liar. She never has been.

So when she's sketching madly at the desk in their room one night, and she hears his quiet voice behind her for one second of warning before his arms wrap around her from behind, she doesn't even try to explain as he flips through the sketchbook, looking at the idea.

"It's beautiful," he murmurs finally, tracing the drawings on the page.

"But…?" she prompts.

"But nothing," he says, exhaling. "It's a brilliant idea."

The grin crosses her face before she can stop it.

;,;,;,;

They start working on it together, and she feels bad that they've abandoned Peeta's outfit as of the moment. He has a lot to contribute to it, and that's comforting in its own way, she's not in this alone anymore.

But it scares her, too. She scarcely sleeps, mind racing, heart pounding. He's always still beside her, calm, yet he always looks just as tired in the morning as she does.

She has to bring it up one day.

It's late again, and they're sitting on the couch, her head on his shoulder, the start of the dress across both of their laps. "We're going to die for this dress," she blurts out finally. "We have to."

He takes a long time to answer her. "Yes." He loops a protective arm around her waist, kisses her on the forehead, whispers that they'll be fine, anyway.

;,;,;,;

"Do you even care?" she snaps at him one night, when all the pressure seems like it's just not even bearable anymore and she's lashing out at him for it.

He sighs through his teeth, clearly agitated, tensed. "Of course I care," he answers, voice calmer than hers but still frustrated.

"Well then, act like it—you…." Her breathing shakes. "You seem like you don't. We're going to die and you don't even seem like you mind."

"Sweetheart," he starts, approaching her, taking her face in his hands even as she looks away from him. "I do care. I'm sorry if it seems like I don't. It's just… a lot to process." He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "All right?"

"All right," she mumbles, wishing he would stop ending arguments like this, and he kisses her, once, brief, and she lets him. He pulls her into his arms and they cling to each other for a few minutes, shaking.

;,;,;,;

They go out to dinner a night not too long after that, and people recognize them, of course, but they're not bothered too much. They eat, mostly quiet in the view of people around them, but chatting and almost managing to laugh. It's relatively peaceful, if nothing else.

It's almost as if they were just two young lovers on a date, with no death penalty hanging over their heads, or Hunger Games approaching, or an illicit dress sitting back in their apartment. Almost as if they were normal, sane, blissfully ignorant, loyal citizens of the Capitol.

;,;,;,;

They present the slightly-changed makeup and other plans to the prep teams on a Monday. Their co-workers seem oblivious to any deeper meaning and instead coo, Oh, what a lovely color.

She thinks that she was like that once, that clueless, before she started understanding what the classic sound of a cannon-shot really meant. Then her thoughts on her home city could never really go back to the way they were, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't look at any "normal" Capitol citizen the same way again.

After the prep teams leave, she feels agitated, clutching the edge of the conference table so tightly her knuckles turn white, breathing a bit unsteady. Just that meeting gave her a headache. He tries to soothe her as always, but mostly she just presses her eyes closed and tries not to think too much until she calms down.

;,;,;,;

When the interview outfits are done, in plenty of time for the Reaping, they stop talking about them directly. Sometimes one of them makes a vague hint at it, or they exchange a sad look when someone asks them about what'll happen for them "after the Games", when they both know they'll be long dead, but that's as far as they go.

They'll be paying for this later. But they still have the present.