"The fallen angel" and "the devil in disguise"
Two names Ares Aristo was known for, a boy who had more to him than originally met the eye. Charming the capital with his kind facade, it was only in the games did they realized just how far an angel ca...
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧.
( sweet like sugar )
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Ares' mind drifted into a pleasant haze as he trailed Finnick out of the washroom, his gaze drawn to the tousled mess of hair at the back of the boy's head—a distraction from whatever doom he'd surely brought on himself by following this particular District Four Victor out from the party and into the abyss. He barely knew the guy, but somehow, one breakdown witnessed in a washroom, a consequential pep talk, and a cleaned wound were enough to set aside his reservations.
Ares suspected he was walking into a trap, though he couldn't tell if that was logic talking or just paranoia.
At some point, those two things felt like one and the same.
But he took a deep breath and tried to let his mind stay a little fuzzy rather than agonizingly sharp, focusing his gaze singularly on Finnick as if he were the light guiding him out of a dark and deep tunnel.
So Ares ended up staring. At the tufts of Finnick's hair sticking out at odd angles, like he'd been running his hands through it all night, out of boredom or habit. At the thin, slightly sheer fabric of his dress shirt stretching over his back, his suit jacket discarded somewhere at the party, which probably told a story Ares couldn't figure out yet. At Finnick's sleeves, rolled to the elbows with careless charm, and his silver tie that made his ocean eyes all the more alluring hanging loosely around his neck. All these small, rebellious details added something unspoken, a realness the Capitol's glitzy facades seemed to lack. Here, everyone else had gone to painstaking lengths to look flawless—doll-like, robotic. Yet Finnick stood apart, less posed, more. . . real.
The only other ones who'd broken the mould tonight were the drunk Victors, like the man from District Twelve who'd clapped Ares on the back five times too many and praised him for his "underdog" victory over Fox. Even Ares had followed along like the good Victor he was made to be, sitting through the speeches and smiling when prompted. He wished he'd thrown back the shots Haymitch Abernathy kept trying to hand him during the night. Maybe that was the man's very own attempt at helping. Maybe it was an apology.
But being drunk and out of your mind was different from being sober and stubbornly independent. And in a place where everything and everyone was polished to perfection, Finnick's bit of disarray felt oddly meaningful, and Ares realized, he liked it. He liked it a lot.
Maybe that was why he was following along after all. Finnick wasn't just a light at the end of a dark tunnel. No, it was more like he was a flickering light following Ares in a bottomless pit he was currently stuck falling in. A light that had weathered its own storms yet persisted. A light hoping to provide some comfort in the inevitable darkness.
