Laurel Park (sevenislucky) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-03-24 11:38:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! backstory, victor: 5th grim ballard, victor: 7th laurel park |
WHO: Laurel Park and Grim Ballard.
PROMPT: Chocolate
WHEN: The 8th Hunger Games; the Victory Tour for the 16th Hunger Games; the end of the 56th Hunger Games.
WHERE: The Capitol and District 9.
STATUS: Complete!
Afterwards, Laurel sat with the sheets wrapped around her waist, her long legs crossed at the ankles, eating truffle after truffle and humming something tuneless and cheerful as she relished in the feeling of Grim’s hands, against her hips and her back and everywhere. “Chocolate really isn’t something we have a lot of in Seven,” she admitted, sucking a bit of melted chocolate from the tip of her thumb. “And it’s not my favorite thing, but these truffles are amazing. Where’d you get them from again?” “Got paid to beat the shit out of someone’s ex. They were on the counter,” he replied, craning his neck to suck one of Laurel’s long, manicured nails. He doubted they looked like that most of the time, but his tongue was thankful. “I’m thinking I’ll just skip the song-smithing and just do that for my talent. I do love to take tables to insolent Capitolites and they love to see it done. Win - win,” he snickered as he held up a chocolate to her. “You wanna taste this one?” he asked, then, popped the chocolate deviously into his mouth. “Pucker up.” Laurel snickered and shifted, the sheet falling from around her waist as she did. “As if I’d need bribery for that,” she pointed out and leaned over to meet Grim’s lips, gladly tangling herself up with him once more. After a moment, she drew back and leaned against his shoulder with a frustrated sigh. “Your sponsorship duties are so much more fun. All I’m ever asked to do is to come here or go there and look pretty and let old men paw all over me. I’d give anything to go and beat up someone’s ex.” Grim smiled at her, chocolate staining his teeth and making some of them appear knocked out. “Just try it, darlin’. Just once. All of them deserve a good beatin’,” he egged her on, then thought better of it. “Just not right now.” With a sudden move, he dived onto her and set the remaining chocolates tumbling off the bed. Her first instinct upon arriving in District Nine had been to run straight for Grim, but that was impossible. Juniper had to give her speeches, and then there was the dinner (and all of that beer she couldn’t drink), and by the time they were able to steal a moment alone, she barely had any time at all. The train would depart shortly for District Ten, and they’d be apart again until everything was all said and done. And Laurel, for all the strength she always had, was too weak to allow that. “The baby is healthy,” she said in a low voice, dropping one hand from his arms to touch the small rise in her abdomen. “A strong heartbeat, they tell me. I haven’t felt any movement yet, but they say that soon enough…” She swallowed hard and trailed off. “It’ll be kicking the shit out of you - yeah, I know how it goes,” he said gruffly, his mouth a worried and harsh line. “Bet he’ll have his momma’s long legs and pointy ass feet.” A boy, he thought. A strong boy that would grow up in the slightly richer District 7, not waste to nothing in the wheat fields here. A boy that looked like his nephews but for Laurel’s red hair, swinging axes with that yo-ho-ho voice Clint put on. Someone that was barely alive now, but would be pink and squawling soon enough, in someone else’s arms. “Or she’ll have your eyes,” Laurel suggested, her lips turning upwards in the most pathetic attempt at a smile yet known to man. “And your smile.” For just a moment, she imagined no one could overhear them or that it didn’t matter, and that things were as they should have been. They’d go home together, Clint would carve them a beautiful cradle, they’d watch their child clambering from pine to pine or running carelessly through the fields. The idea made her throat ache, and she tried to laugh. “You know, it’s funny, but I’d kill for some chocolate about now. It’s the only thing I’ve craved at all this entire time.” The thought that the baby would have his anything, marking him (or her, as Laurel seemed intent on) as his kin, left a sour taste in his mouth. The thought itself was hard, it was cruel, but it was the way of things. They wouldn’t hardly wait to put their child on the starting block and it would be his own eyes what gave ‘em away. Or his smile, for as little as anyone saw it. He pulled away from her and went into the cupboard for a minute. When he came back, he had a bottle of beer marked ‘dark dark chocolate’. He nailed the cap on the edge of the table and handed it to her. “Couple o’ sips ain’t gonna hurt.” Early morning steam rose from the trains; another year had passed and they had another four bodies to bring back with them to their respective districts. A familiar numbness had replaced the initial pain of losing Cypress and Amelia, and Laurel was distracted by another ache that she knew all too well. Her arms wrapped around Grim in an attempt to brace against it, but it still tugged and pulled the closer their departure grew. “I don’t know how I’ll sleep without you kicking off the blankets halfway through the night,” she remarked into his shoulder. “You’d think I wouldn’t get used to it in less than a month, but I always do.” He always wondered these days if this moment was the last moment he’d see her, feel her wrapped up against him. He kissed her cheek, his beard scratching up against her cheek and trailing behind her shoulder. “And you always get over it, too,” he said. Reaching into the folds of his long cloak, he dug out a small box out of his pocket, red and perfectly square cardboard. He offered it to her, some mirth in his eyes. “Here.” “I don’t want to get over it,” Laurel argued, but just the same, she leaned back to accept the small box from Grim’s hand and open it. A single Capitol chocolate lay inside in a nest of black and gold paper--after all, black and gold were very in this season. Laurel let out a choked, thick laugh and shook her head; she couldn’t help it. “The book comes out the month after the Victory Tour,” she said, brushing a tear that hadn’t even fallen away from the corner of her eye. “Things are going to change.” “I love you girl, but you’re an old girl. Probably ain’t gonna change as much as you think,” Grim snickered, his mouth an old grimace on an old face. He hoped to god it was true. “Let me be the first to say it - Happy 50th, Laurel.” |