Worth it | F.O.

XXV

She didn't think she had ever seen anything more pathetic.

For when she found Crop after a near whole day wandering through the marsh after a rather hostile send-off, she found her district partner passed out beneath a thicket of branches dead and drying. Every inch of him, clothes and skin alike, was covered in some degree of thick blood so obviously not his own, caking brown and crimson in the humidity, cracking on still skin. 

She stood above him, looking down with analytical eyes at his splayed fingers stained with mud, nails black with it clearly having dug into his palms when whatever happened happened, little crescents of clean skin reddened clear amidst all that wasn't. His hair was flat against his skull as if crimson had melded the two, a stench hovering somehow worse than what Nivea now carried wherever she went. His tears shed were painfully obvious dried on his crimson cheeks and when she saw the great puddle of vomit mixing in with all the blood, mud, and water around, notably the origin of the stench, she nearly flinched. 

Nearly. 

What had done this? 

She wondered briefly what state the victim must have been in and how in the world Crop had gotten mixed up in it. It couldn't have been pretty and she was certain whatever had gone down had really had nothing to do with him. He had just been in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. 

Crop, no matter how the games tended to change people, had never had the potential to shed blood, and most certainly not to this extreme. She had seen his weakness from that moment the crowd parted. But that didn't mean he wasn't a worthy opponent. Which of course had solidified her decision the week before that felt as far gone as a year. 

His death would come by her hands and she knew just how she would do it. 

She didn't have the time to dawdle over it, though, and stepped forward to kneel by his side, something glinting in her hand. It was so very tempting, to get it over with then, but she couldn't follow through with it, not when her hand jolted and a sudden burst of brief sun broke through the clouds to light up the scene of breaching betrayal in a searing heat she accounted for shame before it was gone just as quickly. 

So that glint disappeared once more and her hand found his shoulder. 

Nivea leaned close to inspect him for any wounds, muttering under her breath all while on the stupidity of this boy for allowing himself to pass out in such plain view without finding somewhere more secure to hide where, perhaps, a "career" like herself wouldn't find him with such ease. Where in the instance where she was considered an actual career, she wouldn't have hesitated to kill him with those looks bearing down on her. How fortunate he was that that was no longer the case at that point.

She had just reached the wound-free verdict when he began to stir, lashes heavy and melded with blood fluttering on his cheeks. Her grip on his shoulder tightened unconsciously to support the clearly shaken boy and she waited until she found herself looking into those dark eyes with an innocence absent to say anything. 

And, the next thing she knew, he was… hugging her? 

Of all things. 

Nivea couldn't remember the last time she had been hugged. No one had dared to hug her as a kid. No one had cared to hug her when she arrived to District 11. No one had cared enough about her for the years she had lived in that orphanage to embrace her, let alone fabricate and maintain any loyalty to the quiet, brooding girl. Warrun certainly hadn't given a shit about her, he never had. 

So this was the biggest surprise Crop could have possibly given her and Nivea could only say she had nothing to say. She was speechless. In his thin and grasping arms, bloodied and shaking, she didn't know how she felt about it.