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I was carving my name into your side and you were calling me soft, calling me gentle. I do not think you were paying attention.
Trista Mateer, The Dogs I Have Kissed
Cinna wouldn't describe himself as a fatalist, despite now sitting comfortably (although shifting) as the stylist of District Twelve, after his own desires and tireless ambition. The satisfaction melted on his tongue, and left a bitter taste once entwined in the spiderwebs of bad luck. This was fate, and he knew it despite doing what he could to shun it in his denial. So it was fate, that mighty force of the world itself, that had brought him closer to what he had christened his muse, and filled his body from top to toe with a sanctity. Cinna had always been so full of love for everything he couldn't understand, but when it had come to his own people, this trait had dissipated once and re-arose from soils that he had tended to with his own blood.
He had no contemptuousness against the kind that lived amongst him as of current, that being the strange creatures of the capitol; but rather embraced their beauty, their eccentrics, every single thing that could be of abhorrence was another thing to marvel at through his eyes.
He had found beauty in everything as he observed it; which included the 50th Hunger Games, despite its darkening shadow on history, and the ignominy that it was to most. He had found beauty in the poison; the illusion of what humans deem beautiful theirselves, and how it was weaponised. He watched with keen eyes as his very muse had countered this; moved poignantly towards his own victory via the art of his own intelligence. The attraction to the victor wasn't masked by any means, though Cinna knew that in certain places, it would be frowned upon. Though his stride was never broken by the opinions of anyone else; he kept knowledge that he would someday be free to love him without fear.
And so: Haymitch Abernathy was, by Cinna's definitions, beautiful, despite having grey eyes which light had frozen over, a soul in which fractured within the consecutivity of his mentoring, and grief that spiraled from the loss of those dear to him; his resilience was attractively beguiling.
Cinna finds this beauty often when they're in bed; when his hands can roam like a calm shore against the other's body, caressing scars he had never seen the likes of; worshipping them for their contortions, for their abnormalities. Tenderly wrapping his arms around his lover and wanting nothing more but to be one with him, a singular being. Gazing upon what is referred to as "ruined, broken down," and doing all he could to normalize the uniqueness. Loving the ravage for the sake of the both of them, healing with his touch what is deemed unfixable.
Haymitch doesn't believe in any of it; he had taken time convincing himself, and any other lover or fling for that matter that they could find better, do better. Hiding himself from view of mirrors, despite not being pastured by age, and having a strongness that any male his age, or in his position could admire. But the scars make him up like a puzzle, and the branding is shameful enough when peering at it himself, looking on at physical memories of his toil and torture throughout his years. Even though being rough and jagged, there was still adoration to combat his loathsome mentality. It had took time for him to even be comfortable enough to be touched in a way that would not splinter his very being; being afraid to be bare and ridding himself from sight. But Cinna was patient, and he was understanding; and through their time together, their growth, he was finally granted the promise of consummation. His lips that touched marred skin with a silk-like touch, and eyes that gazed with an amorous, yet tender quality.
He was infatuated. And he made sure to announce it, through every whisper and glance, every notion and movement. Even if his role was only to receive, he made sure to give as much as he could; out of his own spiraling obsession. He viewed Haymitch as nothing more than art, flourishing and fleeting in it's nature, symbolic and impactful.
Though he knew, deep down; that it would take twice the love for him to accept it. And Cinna would love the both of them just about enough until his lover would reciprocate it for himself, and realise that he was thought the world of; and was Cinna's world himself.
