Ficlet: Hunger
Title: Hunger
Characters: Kara, Leoben
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing
Disclaimer: not mine
Word Count: 272
Note: Written for hidinghermit as part of help_japan
She doesn’t eat the food he brings her.
“You think it means something,” he tells her on the fourth day, her plate sitting untouched on the table. “You think your suffering is a gift, but it’s not. You’re more than that, Kara.” He pauses, cutting up his own dinner. “More than what she told you.” Chews. Swallows. “More than what you see in the mirror.”
He might have kept going, but she hurls the plate at his head, admiring the smear across his face, the graceful shattering against the wall. He says nothing, and on the fifth day she still doesn’t eat.
When they first met, he said that when you’re starving, anything tastes good. Kara can barely remember food that didn’t taste like ash in her mouth, but she can smell the fruits he places before her. They smell like fruits of Elysium. She turns her head away and tries not to gag.
On the eighth day, she breaks. A few minutes later, she is slumped over the toilet, coughing up the meager contents of her stomach. He kneels behind her. When she lifts her head, she can see a fragment of the tableau in the mirror above the sink.
She once thought hunger was for humans, but it’s hard to convince herself that the look she sees in his eyes isn’t real, or that the craving is simply for food.
She swallows against the bile and tries not to lean into the comfort he offers, the comfort she refuses to take even as her body trembles. It’s not real, she tells herself. When you’re starving, anything tastes good. That’s all.
Characters: Kara, Leoben
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing
Disclaimer: not mine
Word Count: 272
Note: Written for hidinghermit as part of help_japan
She doesn’t eat the food he brings her.
“You think it means something,” he tells her on the fourth day, her plate sitting untouched on the table. “You think your suffering is a gift, but it’s not. You’re more than that, Kara.” He pauses, cutting up his own dinner. “More than what she told you.” Chews. Swallows. “More than what you see in the mirror.”
He might have kept going, but she hurls the plate at his head, admiring the smear across his face, the graceful shattering against the wall. He says nothing, and on the fifth day she still doesn’t eat.
When they first met, he said that when you’re starving, anything tastes good. Kara can barely remember food that didn’t taste like ash in her mouth, but she can smell the fruits he places before her. They smell like fruits of Elysium. She turns her head away and tries not to gag.
On the eighth day, she breaks. A few minutes later, she is slumped over the toilet, coughing up the meager contents of her stomach. He kneels behind her. When she lifts her head, she can see a fragment of the tableau in the mirror above the sink.
She once thought hunger was for humans, but it’s hard to convince herself that the look she sees in his eyes isn’t real, or that the craving is simply for food.
She swallows against the bile and tries not to lean into the comfort he offers, the comfort she refuses to take even as her body trembles. It’s not real, she tells herself. When you’re starving, anything tastes good. That’s all.