Koyaanisqatsi - Part Two (2/2)
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and certain characters belong to Suzanne Collins, Lionsgate, et al. No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
Title(s) from the 1982 film of the same name.
***
Best pals in the whole world they are not, and she still can't stand to be around any of them for more than an hour straight. Haymitch isn't even here; Finn's already trashed; and this is all pointless anyway. Big day's tomorrow, big show of welcome to the newest doomed. It's time for a new round of slaughter, and this year there's no point even going in to the Sponsor Center. Not like they'll be doing anything there, not even playing at it like they usually do. No, this Games they're all just glorified chaperones, leading their Tributes to the killing grounds. Only reason to show up at the Center is to have a front row seat to the executions.
They're all required to be present. There's an 'or else' implicit in the so-called invitation, but what the 'or else' actually entails is irrelevant. They'll go, and they'll watch; they'll see and know what's really going on. That's the point. The 'or else' can't be any worse than the command itself because it's already the threat.
The Victors, they're the 'or else,' and their 'or else' is seeing others turn into them.
"It does not look good," she'd told her two Tributes in lieu of any formal introduction. The boy looked terrified, about to wet himself, and why not, considering he's a soft 13 and soft around the middle too. The girl was better or just a better liar. She'll probably go towards the beginning, be overconfident in her strength and cunning and piss off the wrong Tributes, and the boy is guaranteed a first slot. After all, that's what she'd do, what the others are likely telling their Tributes to do. If it were Jo back in there, back for a second round and no playing around, she'd go for the soft ones, the unlucky and stupid ones, the proud ones, the ones everyone liked, leaving the tough guys, saving the real bastards for last. By then, she wouldn't care about the outcome. None of them would. Run down enough targets, cut enough throats, bash in enough brains, everything looks the same-red.
Her kids won't make it, and the lack of supplies has little to do with it. It's looking like another Career year, if it's anything. They're being all hush-hush about it, but if the Big Plan doesn't pan out, which it likely won't, then they're all pretty much dead anyway, and who's going to care at that point what little psycho won this year when faced with a Victor mutiny and mass defection to fucking 13? It's all crazy and optimistic, and every time she helpfully points out that even if they do succeed in escaping and making a big show, a huge example of it, they won't be done because there will still be the little matter of, oh, a war with The Capitol ahead of them-everyone just tells her to shut up, that that's not the point, not on the agenda, comes later, etc.
So, here they are drinking and not even faking making fucking merry, and tomorrow night they open up shop again. Supposedly, she's got a Date tomorrow night, although the only leverage Snow's got against her at this point are her Tributes, the ones pretty much a sure thing to go down first, so she's not sure yet if she'll give in and spare the runts another week, or if it's better to just give Snow a reminder of her position in the scheme of things and have the two kids dead in their beds and out of it before it really gets nasty. It wouldn't be painless, either way, but maybe being murdered dispassionately by guards is easier to swallow than another kid breaking your neck or stabbing you with a sharp rock right in the jugular or even gutting you and just making off with your stuff while you lie there for hours and hours just begging to die.
Tough call. She's the bad guy no matter what, but she's always the bad guy. Not like they're her kids, after all. Who puts any stock in her compassion? If she'd been in the Arena again, she wouldn't hesitate.
Probably.
Looking around the room at her peers in their cups, some more than others, she's pretty sure they all feel the same-a couple exceptions maybe. Get it over with. Enough foreplay. She'd like to see how it played out, know who in the end was the real Champion. Her stake would be the Wonder Twins. It'd come down to Cash and Gloss, and then they'd just stab each other and die. Then Snow would start all over, a fresh crop for the next Games, a new slew of losers-oh, wait, Victors. They win. That's right: losers die, and Victors win. She's always getting that mixed up. And, snorting at Finn as he stumbles and takes a header facedown into the floor, Jo lifts her glass and shouts over to Haymitch's blond boy, "So this is what victory looks like!"
He doesn't laugh.
He'd be first on Jo's list if they were back in, the girl attached to his side second. Let those watching suffer as the Tributes suffer, the murderers, the murdered, all hands collectively curled together around the hilt of the sword, axe, knife-trident. She'd still leave the tough ones for last, those in disfavor like Brutus and Chaff and the Twins. The others would gun for Haymitch maybe, remembering his Games and the fact that every time someone underestimates him as just another fall-down drunk he still somehow winds up on top. He'd go down eventually though. Talasi would be next on her list, Talasi or Annie Cresta, both of whom would stand there and wait for it, thank her and forgive her as she met their eyes and swung. Some of the others might band together like the old days, but she wouldn't. Finn would try, would follow behind her or outpace her and clear the way, but what's the long term outcome of that? The two of them against each other? No, thank you. She'd push him aside and wait to hear his cries across the Arena as one of the others smashed in his beautiful face. Finnick wouldn't make it out. He'd hesitate or play the martyr or be that Tribute unfortunate enough to fall into one of the Gamemakers' traps. The people would cry for him, cry for the kids from 12, and then they'd be left with the nasty ones to root for. See how satisfying that was for them to swallow.
Jo looks up just in time to witness The Capitol's golden boy, in all his drunken glory, get up on his hands and knees and do his best to crawl over to the nearest sofa amidst jeers and morbid laughter. Now's normally when Jo would stomp over there and bend down, drag him over to wherever Haymitch is already passed out, and force him to lie on his side so he didn't choke on his own vomit. She'd sprawl out next to him and keep the others away, and when he came to he wouldn't thank her, just slink off and try again a few hours later. Someday, she'll hear Finn finally succeeded in getting himself killed-took a header down some stairs, fell over a balcony without a force shield, was thoroughly beaten and never said anything and bled out internally, overdosed, overdosed, overdosed, stabbed himself in the neck or arm like before and managed to hit an artery or vein this time, pissed off the wrong person, or made himself too big a nuisance, died for Annie, died for his family, fucking died for Johanna for all the good it would do any goddamn person.
Finn makes it to the sofa without her help, drags himself up onto it, and throws an arm over his eyes. He won't actually cry or sob, but that's basically what he's doing. Jo turns her head, finds that blond boy from 12 again, sees his girlfriend next to him. They're looking at each other, and she stares until the girl notices, until she looks back, until the boy notices and looks back. They look at her, and she drinks, and Finn tearlessly weeps, and they are none of them actually real.
Yeah, she'd take the boy out first, but then the girl would take her out, and then she'd fucking win or lose, depending on how one looks at it, and it would be over.
***
The waiting is what's hardest. And it's not even that he'd really be any good at handling whatever bad is coming. He just can't stand the constant anxiety and fear as it ratchets up every day, higher and higher, tighter, constricting, binding-suffocating the life out of him. The anticipation-it's worse in some ways than standing on that pedestal, watching the seconds tick down, knowing, knowing, knowing they're gonna die; they're gonna die; they are going to die when it hits zero.
He puts on a brave face nonetheless. He's not stupid, and whatever else he is-weak, useless, naïve, not good enough, not the right one-he's no coward. Now's the time for strength, and he's got that. He can do stable, and he can do smart. He's good at planning, improvising, maybe not the best, but. . .
And his-quirks are quieter than others'. Dreams are pretty horrible, but his are thankfully muted. He'll sit up with a gasp, but he doesn't scream or thrash around. Pretty sure someone would have mentioned it if he were obvious like that. The people around here are not subtle, and privacy is something he's heard about but never really experienced. Back in 12, everything is right there for everyone to see. Every single thing he did, every word he said, probably most of the thoughts in his head, all were common knowledge, dismissed like-well, like he was. He always kind of thought of himself as wallpaper, not the fancy kind or the hideous kind that's peeling, just the plain stuff that's in the background, day in and day out, unremarkable, all but invisible.
Ok, so he's maybe bitter about being overlooked and underestimated his whole life, of always, always being second best. That's the way it is, and he's not fucking perfect. He has feelings. He's not just some machine.
And that's maybe supposed to be one of the better parts about being in The Capitol-the fact that he's not back there in 12. And he's someone here. People look at him and want to talk to him now, and that never happened in 12, never. It comes with a price of course because everything does. Nothing's free, not even kindness.
He's quiet in some things, silent, and he's still overlooked, but that's good in a way. It's good because he likes the privacy now, the space between him and everyone else. He's even sort of mysterious apparently. Someone said that to him, some woman with scary makeup and hair. He likes the idea of it, being puzzling and enigmatic. Better than being boring old wallpaper.
But what he pays isn't worth it. It's too much, the pressure, the horror. It's almost separate, like an actual person. He sometimes finds himself talking to it in his head, wheedling, trying to bargain for more when he knows it's a waste of time. "Please," he'll whisper, and he'll sometimes dare to set his hand on her shoulder, just rest it there before shaking her awake, "please, what more is there? Haven't we given enough? What else? Please. . . " And his eyes will start stinging, but he stops before he cries, shakes Katniss out of her nightmares and keeps his privacy. He's strong, not some weak fool who cries because he's so scared, so so so scared of what's happening. He doesn't speak of it to her either, only to the gloom, the fear, the terror.
The colors are brighter here and the shadows darker, the people too. The words are different, as are the people saying them. These people don't know him, none of them really. They look, and they see what they want to see. He is Peeta Mellark, Victor from 12. He is strong and clever, and he's important.
It's bad that he enjoys that but maybe smarter than him wishing, pleading, begging to go back to how things were because at least he knows those things, and that's cowardly. That's what weak people do, cling to things, even stupid, hurtful things just because they're familiar. But how is what he has now any better than what's back in 12? There, it's always picking and mocking and hitting, and no one sees anything, but they all fucking know, don't they? Here, though-here, it's just as lonely, and he's just as- just as angry and afraid, only differently because he's got something to lose now.
Someone.
And he's a bad person because he looks forward to nights when Katniss screams and moans, when she twists and turns under the covers-because he's here to see it, and he wakes her up, wraps his hand around her shoulder and pulls her out to safety. She's the difference, in the end, between 12 and The Capitol, and he's not stupid enough not to know she's the best part of all this. The fake privacy, the horrid attention, it's all worthless meaningless garbage. Katniss though is real. And she's so much trouble and so incredibly vulnerable. And she has no idea. She's clueless, calls Peeta an idiot, but she's the one oblivious.
If he says the wrong thing or doesn't say the right one or looks when he shouldn't or isn't there at the precise moment he needs to be, she could be gone, taken, killed, murdered, just like in the Arena, and it would be his fault for failing her, for letting down everyone else who isn't in The Capitol and can't fight this battle. Katniss is more than another Victor, more than this person he feels so much for. She's- she's hope and change, and it's his job now to make sure she's ok. That's on him more than anyone else because that's what comes with owning up to his feelings for her last year in front of everyone in Panem. He volunteered for this.
Back in 12, he looked after himself because no one else was going to, maybe his dad the best he could, but there it's different. Here, people he doesn't even know and will likely never meet are counting on him, praying for him to change something-everything. He can't do that himself, but he can sure as hell help and protect the best he's able the person who will. And maybe that's the real price for coming out of the Arena alive. Everyone else sees Katniss as his, his girl, his love, but she isn't really, or if she is then he's not really hers. Or maybe he is, and she just doesn't know it, and maybe that's the price of loving her right there-not being loved by her in return.
The truth is if it keeps her alive, then he'll gladly pay it a thousand times over, and whether that's strength or weakness doesn't much matter, does it? It's simply the truth; it's just the way things are.
***
Masks, rotting fruit or steel underneath, slick and hot and foul at the core-people are all the same when it comes right down to it. Empty or full, they're all meat waiting to be snacked on by the carnivores here in The Capitol, and Victors, Tributes, they're the veal, the tastiest morsels. Some of 'em, anyway, like Haymitch's foundlings and the Crazy Coalition of Finn and his lady love, just make it too easy. Others, like her and Haymitch himself and good ol' fucking Brutus and Chaff over there, they're the gristle, the parts that get stuck in people's throats, lodged in their teeth. They're what Snow reaches into that bloody maw of his and drags out with his neat little fingers, what he shoves to the rim of his plate with a screech of hard cutlery, what ruins his fucking appetite. Jo takes what pleasure she can from that thought. Let him grow his fucking roses. Next time he pricks himself, he can name the offending thorn after her. That would just about make her fucking day.
***
He's around this year's Tributes more than Katniss and Haymitch are, probably on par with Effie or the stylists in terms of every day interaction. It's not really that surprising. Going into this year's Games, he'd expected this sort of thing from Katniss, this distancing, this withdrawal. It's what she did last year, what she did during the Victory Tour, what she does with everyone. And people always fight the most with those who remind them of themselves-like to like. For all that she doesn't seem to recognize it, Katniss is a lot like Haymitch, and Haymitch blinds and distances himself from the Games as much and as often as he can. That first day on the train, a year ago now, that was a pretty good summary of who Haymitch is as a person.
Katniss is so like him it's scary. What's going to happen to her, what already is, that's what's really terrifying. It's not that they care too much; it's how they're unable to show that care that's the problem. Katniss is good, but it's like she's afraid to be kind.
It doesn't make sense. It's just stupid. Life is-so short. Why make things harder and tougher? Why not be nice?
He's actually kind of glad it was Lara this year Reaped as the girl Tribute from 12. Someone else, a female version of their boy Tribute, would've meant at least another year of beating around the bush. It's hard to ignore something when it's right there. Lara's right there, right in front of everyone in The Capitol. People learned a lot about 12 last year because of Katniss. They remembered Haymitch. They saw what it really meant to live in the Districts: the Reaping, when Katniss stumbled out of line, screeching at Prim, when she shouted that she volunteered-the recaps love replaying that. People here and all around Panem see that moment a lot. They see what the Games really are, and maybe this year it will truly sink home. That's what he's trying to do, just make it so they understand, so they really get what this freak show is doing to people. If people understand, then they'll either help and fight or sneer and fight against, and at least then they'll know where everyone stands. It's the ignoring, the apathy that prevents anything from changing.
Haymitch and Katniss don't get that. Maybe they don't know how or can't decide what way is best to help change things, but the waiting is killing them. It's killing everyone in the Districts, but it's really killing what's inside them, what makes Haymitch a good man, what gives Katniss that fire inside her, what once probably set all the other Victors apart. Apathy is awful. Peeta knows that now, and it's one thing to play the game in order to win. It's another to just play the game.
***
First time she kissed someone on the mouth, it was her grandmother, and it wasn't like that. Just how it was where she grew up. People showed how they felt in ways that mattered. Words weren't it; it was action. It used to be, for her, that all it would take to make her smile was someone else smiling at her first. She likes thinking about that, likes remembering and twisting the knife deeper in her own breast. Someday, she'll make it all the way through her childhood, through the whole family, and then she'll be as crazy as Crazy Annie, but maybe she'll find something there too in those memories. Maybe that's what being at peace means-being fucking nuts.
Little Jo had been such a nice girl, always smiling and making treats with her grandma and helping the little kids. Little Jo was practical and smart, but she'd only ever done good for good. Jo, on the other hand, doesn't know what the fuck good is, and she sure as hell isn't giving it for free to someone else. She's smarter than that now.
Besides, Little Jo couldn't hack it out in the real world. Turns out, that kid was just surface-deep, lasted about five seconds after the countdown ended in the arena. Still, Jo kind of misses the kisses and hugs and baking and laughter, the laughter most of all. It's not like it is today, with teeth and rattling and stink hovering over everything. Fire burned what was left. The fire scattered Little Jo's ashes as it cremated Grandma and Dad and Mom and Uncle Joseph and those little twins who always whined too much but sure knew how to make a girl feel like a god. Uncle Joseph was the worst, didn't die like the rest di- like she pretended the rest did, maybe in their sleep from the smoke, of asphyxiation, maybe clawing at their necks and trying to keep the little ones down in bed, covering their mouths so they wouldn't breathe in and maybe accidentally killing them on purpose there towards the end. Sick, terrible, but better than Uncle Joe.
Uncle Joseph, Uncle Joe, he was everybody's favorite. It was that way before he got hit in the head by the Peacekeepers, and it was that way afterwards too. Dad had two brothers, but Uncle Joe was his favorite, named his oldest kid after him, took him in when he got hurt. And Uncle Joe was funny. All the kids around loved him, looked after him and out for him just as much as he did for them. Strong, silly, good down to the core, that was Uncle Joe, and, when they started setting fire to the area, Uncle Joe was the first to come out and the last, the only. Peacekeepers finished what they'd started 20 years ago, and it was Uncle Joe who served as the example. No bodies in the streets, just one, and even then it wasn't whole.
Little Jo and Big Joe, that's what Dad and Grandma had called them, smiling and laughing and pecks on the lips and hugs so tight she couldn't breathe, little swirls of icing on tiny cakes and pine cones in her bed when the twins started running and bringing things back inside with them, and all of it just as sharp now as the strongest knife. She wields this blade though. That's the difference. They crafted it for her, in the fire, tempered it and heated it till it was perfect. Now it's hers, made especially for her, made only for her, a gift from them, they, The Capitol, the Gamemakers and Peacekeepers and Rulers of Panem, the President, Snow, his hand in every pot, his voice in every head, his eyes everywhere, everywhere, everywhere but in her head. He used that life she'd had against her once and once only.
He kissed her once too, a peck on the cheek when she'd won. "A job well done," he'd told her, amused, laughing in that head of his, laughing at those who'd died, those kids she'd strangled and stabbed and pushed off the cliff top and hacked up. Kisses and hugs she'd aplenty since then, but that one from Snow is set apart. It means more.
Let him laugh when her knife is in his throat, the knife he made her, gave her, pointed for her. Maybe then she'll return that kiss of his, but she'll give it real feeling, none of that half-assed cheek stuff. It'll be lips to lips, and she'll give it to his corpse or maybe a nice sendoff for him, steal that last breath, take it in. Uncle Joe would laugh at that-because Uncle Joe had laughed at almost everything and never hurt a fuckin' soul.
***
It's supposed to be a bigger deal. He's been building it up in his head as some kind of bridge he has to cross, they have to cross, the stuff from stories, with fire and monsters below and maybe something on the other side they have to get to. It will be better once it's done; that's what he told himself.
It's not. It's nothing while it's happening, something that should be important, taking his clothes off, while the woman laughs, some kind of dark wine in her glass, staining her lips, her teeth: it looks like blood. Standing as the man comes up and puts his hands on Peeta's shoulders, slides them down his arms, his stomach, laughing, laughing at the leg they put there instead of his real one, like it's funny, the two of them laughing in delight. Hands on his ass, his thighs, the woman saying with a smile, "Your turn, dear one," to Katniss, savoring the shock and unease like that fucking wine in her mouth.
Katniss can't, starts and stops half a dozen times, a baker's dozen, the whole room dark with Effie's goddamn mahogany, like chocolate, cakes, and birthdays in 12, bread tossed out to her, huddled like she can disappear, her dress around her waist, better with him now than Cray back there: that's what he tells himself as he moves out from under the man, walks slowly across the thick carpet.
"Katniss," he whispers, hand on her arm.
She doesn't look up, doesn't meet his eyes, but she almost-almost relaxes. Standing there, touching her, she slides the dress off the rest of the way, red and black pooling at her feet, blood and gore. Cinna works his magic. And he wants to not look, to look away, pretend it isn't happening and get on with it, but she's here and beautiful and hurt, and Peeta tries so hard.
"My, you two really are in love, aren't you?" the woman says, the man laughing.
And Peeta smiles at them, turns and walks over to the woman, boldly takes the glass from her hand and places his mouth where hers had been. He drinks it, drinks down all that Capitol patron wine and then throws the glass at the wall in front of him. They laugh, the man, the woman, and Peeta.
"Maybe it's you I'm in love with," Peeta says to her, staring at her eyes, too-blue and twinkling. "Maybe it's your husband."
And she grins that bloody grin that they all have here, like even their insides are too bored to stay in one place, like every part of them is slowly trying to escape.
"Oh, he's not my husband," she says wickedly.
"Your lover," Peeta drawls, only to be lightly shoved, playfully, the man coming up again and taking him by the shoulder once more.
"Try again, lover boy," he says before he swoops in and kisses Peeta, pulling him close.
It's ok. It's not nice or terrible or pleasant. He doesn't enjoy it, but it's not fire and monsters. It's just this random guy shoving his tongue inside his mouth and grabbing at Peeta's ass again.
And the truth is, he's surprised it's worked this long, a couple minutes, surprised and shocked she'd played along this well, because when Katniss does open her mouth, it's to say, "Son."
The woman laughs, and the man kisses Peeta again, and eventually there's another hand on him, his back, his forearm, his hand when it later becomes more than not enjoying it, when it hurts and the two of them still don't stop laughing and grinning and drinking their wine. But Peeta drinks a lot too, and so it's not great, not fun, not loving like he'd always thought it was supposed to be, but it's ok. It's fine. (Because at least Katniss is there: with her neck bare as the woman lifts her hair and kisses her way down, with her breasts lifting as she breathes, breathes, hyperventilating when Peeta squeezes her hand to keep from crying, with her thighs and ass and that place between her legs he doesn't touch or look at because she won't meet his eyes, and he returns the favor.)
They put on their clothes, and Peeta smiles and thanks the man and woman, and then he takes Katniss by the hand and walks out the door.
See, it wasn't awful, and if she doesn't ever really make eye contact, and if he doesn't drink wine, then that's still not fire and monsters or kids murdering other kids right in front of him, trying to murder him, hunt Katniss like an animal, and all the time laughing with their bloody mouths. (And he realizes too late, weeks, months, years later, that it wasn't a river of fire beneath that stupid bridge of his, and the monsters weren't out to get him and Katniss, that there was never anything on the other side or even an other side to begin with, that it wasn't a bridge across or even a staircase down, that it wasn't the first or last or middle or some great epiphany. It was mundane, tame for the most part, unremarkable, boring: not even a hurdle, just a chore, a drop in the bucket. Peeta will look back at that night later, and he'll wish he were back there, when it was him and Katniss and two people whose names he didn't even know, when it wasn't a big deal, when it wasn't great but wasn't awful, when he took her hand and they walked out.)
***
She went on every scheduled Date for a little more than half a year, about eight months. Most, she was alone on, just her and whoever had paid the price, but some had included others. There was Gloss a few times but only once with Cashmere. One citizen had booked her and Talasi twice a week for three months.
And there was Finnick: a great contrast; Finnick: a good example; Finnick: wonderful chemistry.
The Dates stopped when she refused one, just one, and instead wandered around The Capitol without express permission from Snow. Everything stopped then. It'd been a big night ahead of her, and she'd heard the rumors, seen the man in question in action with other people, and knew with absolute certainty that she would not go with him, no matter how much he paid.
So she'd run away, run to Finn, but she imagines fleeing back home, spending the last few hours with her family fighting, shouting, half-heartedly defending herself because she certainly didn't like who she was becoming but wouldn't have been able to just outright admit that. Her mother would have looked heartbroken and disgusted at the sneer stamped on Jo's face, the clothes she wore and didn't wear, her inevitably snapping at the twins or carelessly brushing them aside. Her father would have gaped at Jo's hair, the body paint he'd think was permanent, the fact that she was home in the middle of the afternoon with no advance notice and no luggage and her hands locked into fists at her sides. She pictured their reactions when the shooting happened out in the street, when the Peacemakers came and set the fire, when everything crashed down around them. Jo's family wouldn't have looked at her accusingly, but she wishes they could have, wishes someone would. If she'd been there, she'd remember the sound of coughing all around her, hacking, full-body coughs as the smoke seeped into everyone's lungs. She wouldn't have been able to see but would still try to move, help the others, rush for the twins first because they were youngest. She would have tried-and failed and died. Or there would have been scars, horrible, disfiguring scars. She'd just given in to the stylists' opinion a week before and had her hair lacquered, and there would have been burn scars from the fire itself and burn scars from her hair literally melting across her scalp, down her neck, forehead and face, over her ears, eyelids, nose, a crown of wax-and underneath, a monster, a coward, someone incapable of withstanding anything and everything thrown at her for the sake of her family, someone who'd run and hide.
Instead, Jo went to Finnick's luxury apartment, and he'd let her in, and they got drunk, and he'd looked at her in shock because he'd known. As soon as she admitted what she'd done, even then, days before they told her, before she received the impersonal notification saying a terrible tragedy had befallen her home community, Finn had known. Maybe that's why; maybe that explains it. Jo's burnt to ashes underneath but not on top, and Finnick's the reverse, but his people are alive, and hers are dead, and she hates him for it, envies him for it, respects him for it-because he doesn't run away, didn't, wouldn't, won't, and Jo never stops, never will. They're both liars, but he's still somehow honest about it. She probably loves him, is probably even in love with him, but so what? She can't know for sure. Maybe it's there, but the door to it is locked and likely to stay that way. Good, good riddance to feelings. Rage works. Rage is productive. Love would be overwhelmed by guilt, so it just stops right there.
When her ribs start showing, when her cheekbones could cut through flesh, they call her frail. When she shaves off her hair to the root, they call her rough. When she comes and goes as she pleases, they call her wild. When she shows up, they call her weak. And she fights and obeys, is there and not there-but not really here at all, and not back home, and not even in The Capitol. There's the Arena, the Games, the hunt and hide, and she never leaves, never makes it out.
Not really, because here she is still playing.
***
Their Tributes don't go first or last, but they both go together, him defending her, his canon firing a minute before hers, both dead near the water, the Career pack strutting away down the beach, twirling their makeshift weapons and reenacting the whole scene as they laugh and shove each other. See if they're still so damn amused when they're stuck in one of the traps, drowning in blood or having their eyes gouged out by mutts or their skin and insides boiling with poisonous gas. Peeta slams his fist into the table, and hardly anyone even looks over. Katniss doesn't, sits next to him like a statue, something cold and unfeeling.
She knew the whole time, and he'd thought he did too.
"You win some," Haymitch calls out from where he's sprawled on one of the sofas, waving his bottle first at Peeta and then towards the screens, "and you lose some. Cheers, you lucky bastards!"
Peeta's staring, his fists clenched, his face doing something awful, but all he wants is to make someone hurt like he hurts because Haymitch's words just keep going around and around in his head like a chant. Pointless, useless, all of them sitting here, lying around, fucking complete strangers, and it means absolutely nothing, not a damn thing.
What are they doing?
"Shut up, Haymitch," Katniss says tiredly, like she can't even muster up the emotion necessary to fight with him, and she loves fighting with Haymitch.
Then Haymitch himself mutters, "Yeah, shut up, dumbass," which makes someone else in the room snort, and soon a few more Victors are half-heartedly chuckling, shaking their heads and blank-faced as they keep their eyes on the screens.
"This is absurd," Peeta says, not even that loudly, but more than one head turns to look at him. The older ones from 3, 11 , the girl from 5, they stare with something close to emotion, the old woman from 4 who's sitting next to Finnick Odair shaking her head at Peeta and motioning with her hands. "Why do we do this?" he then asks, still so angry, not hollow or empty like these people, like Katniss and Haymitch and the Victors who'd laughed, who'd laughed as two little kids died right in front of them and they could do nothing to stop it. Peeta's thrumming, shaking with anger and-grief.
"Shut up, dumbass," the girl from 7 repeats loudly, mimicking Haymitch's slurring but saying it differently, seriously, not joking.
"Look at us," he says, starts to say, but then Katniss reaches over, grabs his hand and squeezes.
"Peeta."
(It's like that every time. More heads will turn to look their way, and Katniss will sit there unmoving, unmoved, while Peeta seethes until the last, until it's over and the power goes out, and someone screams and someone grabs his hand.
It's not Katniss. It won't ever be Katniss again.)
***
They'll go after them, they say. They'll stage a rescue and bring them home, and everything will go according to plan, and no one will be hurt, and no one will be killed, and when they get there-they'll still be in one piece, no harm done.
She picks up a cup and throws it as hard as she can at the wall behind them, and some scream and shout, but most just glare at her for calling them on their lies.
"We'll all die, or most of us will," she bites out, "and there's no guarantee they're even still there."
"Peeta is not dead!" Katniss immediately snaps, and Haymitch drops his face into his hands and sighs.
What a bunch of idiots.
"I never said he was," Jo responds. She waits a moment, but the kid doesn't get it. "They don't have to kill him to get him out of the way, you moron! Just play around with his head a little, and he's a new man."
The chin goes up, and that's it. No more listening from that one. Katniss stands up from her seat and about-faces, stalking right out of the room, while Jo turns back and stares at Haymitch, who just barely glances at her before looking away again.
"It's suicide," Jo reminds him, just him. Forget the others.
Haymitch shakes his head. "We can't leave them there," he says after a moment. Then he does look up and meet her stare, and it hits her that he's dry as a desert now, sober and alert and involved in the inner workings of this place, one of the head honchos of this-uprising. He's important, and he's going to risk throwing it all away, dooming more than just himself but everyone in Panem, all for the sake of two fools who ran the wrong way.
She doesn't know what to say to that, can't find any words right away. No one else jumps in, and after a minute or two they just start getting up and leaving the room, and that seems to be the end of the meeting.
Everyone ran when the Center was stormed, fleeing like vermin and making for the nearest exit, the closest route to the ship supposedly waiting to take them all away to safety.
Some exits were clear, and some weren't. Some streets were already blocked off. Some of them were likely too recognizable to escape unnoticed into the crowds outside.
She ran and made it, and so did Haymitch, and so did Katniss, but others. . .
Fools just ran the wrong way. It probably wasn't even deliberate. They probably weren't going back because instinct takes over, habit kicks in, and it's self-preservation first, others' wellbeing second.
(She likes that explanation best, much better than the truth: Finnick and Peeta ran the other way as a distraction, as bait, as a glorious charge into what at least Finn probably thought would be immediate death because he's a romantic suicidal idiot. The best of them as good as dead, no matter what Katniss chooses to believe.
But how is that any different than the Games? It's a miracle either fool survived this long.)
***
So this is what's really going on, and he doesn't know if he's surprised. How's he supposed to feel anything inside when he hurts so bad? Breathing and shutting his eyes, he doesn't try to look deeper, leaves it alone safe underneath everything that's going on.
And no one asks him anything or even talks to him, and when they'd dragged him in front of the tub of water-he'd thought they would throw him in because he stank, like a bath. Like a bathtub. The pain is better than the water, and they know it, so they try to drown him more than they stick things in his nails or once his ear or hit him in the face and stomach.
And then he just starts talking because they're not, and he's got to say something or he won't be able to think, and maybe he was supposed to be trying to escape this whole time. Maybe it's up to him, and no one's- no one's going to come. . .
They're waiting for him, and he's just sitting here.
"It's all about the flour," he starts out and just doesn't stop.
And no one says a thing to him, but he hears sometimes. He screams, and someone else screams farther away. How many are there? Are they up high or below? Is this The Capitol or a District? District 27, the Torture District. District 33, the Hot Needle District. The Capitol, The Capitol of Pain, The Capitol of Drowning, of Silence, of Abandonment.
Or maybe they'll come for him. Or maybe that's them in the next room, screaming when he doesn't, hearing him when he does. Katniss would be better at the water.
And then they pull his head out, and he sputters wetly, says, "A- a lot of blue-recently, I've noticed. Used to-be red, but now it's blue-flowers and blue writing. I think- think I liked-the red better. More honest. You know? Kids-here, kids, eat up: blood and fire-and happy day, you're going to-die horr- horribly. How's that death flower? Taste, little Sasha? More- more- another piece of bleeding-bird, Ryan? This 's- will be the only good thing 'n your life. Eat it. Eat. Enjoy it, you poor-idiots."
He's let go, drops facedown to the floor, and he tries to curl up, but he's just too- too-
"And this one?" he then hears someone ask, and he opens his eyes in shock. He's so shocked he can't breathe.
Or that's just the result of the water.
"Seems about there," he hears someone else answer, and he's got to be quiet now or they'll hear him and leave.
"Good. Well, let's see what progress has been made. Bring him along."
He's pulled back up and stumbles because his feet don't stay put, so they just drag him and drag him, and he lets them. He just goes with them.
He goes.
He went.
And he sat at a table with his hands neatly folded on top.
And he took the paper and read it through once before he spoke.
And he studied the unfamiliar faces around him.
And he slept and never remembered when he woke up.
(He's screaming, drowning, talking, crying, shouting, blinking, coughing, dying, and he's not- he's not-
He's not.)
And he gestured for them to lead the way, and then there was a scream from down the hall. He stopped and turned his head towards the sound, asked, "What was that?" (even when he knew, knew what it was, who it was.
They were both idiots, stupid stupid stupid, and he wouldn't change it, won't run back, won't- won't- cos "Here we go, Peeta," he whispers, excitedly. "This is it."
Deep breath. "Now?" Peeta asks.
"Now," Finnick answers.)
And he watched the President smile and put an arm around his shoulders.
And he nodded when the President said, "That's just the wind howling through the gaps up here. Sounds quite ghastly, doesn't it?"
***
Finnick's a good kid pretending to be bad. He's self-absorbed and petty, but he has to really work at being cruel and clever. The deviousness though, oddly enough, seems to come naturally. Everyone's fallen for at least one of his lies at some point or another, but the biggest, most successful story is still the one about him being stupid. It's the face and the body, and it's the oldest trick in the world, and yet people buy it without question.
Finn's not dumb-uneducated, yes, but definitely still sharp. Too young, is all, when he went ahead and volunteered, but while a dumb kid also would've volunteered, a dumb kid wouldn't've won. Two kinds of Tributes win, smart ones and lucky ones, and Finn ain't lucky. He's good, and he's good-looking, and Jo's always kind of hated him even while loving him because he makes it look easy.
He doesn't try hard enough, folds in the right places, and that's smart too but only in the short-term. He's not hard or strong, thinks he is but isn't really. Jo doesn't bend to their will anymore, and she'd been a poor bedmate even when she had been bending over, and she's alone, but she's herself-not a great person, not nice, not good, but at least she's real. The others like Finn and the Wonder Twins, they give themselves away, and now all that's left are shells and maybe a few pieces here and there. It's sad and pathetic. Cashmere and Gloss though, they weren't good, never had been, so it's just vaguely disgusting seeing what's become of them year after year after year. But, Finn. . .
It wouldn't hurt so much if she hadn't looked up to him, if he hadn't lied to her too without hesitation. Didn't know how to stop, that one. That's what she's finally figured out. Finn's too smart for his own good. Built himself a trap he can't ever escape, and now everyone around him is stuck watching him self-destruct with no way to help. He's dangerous now, stuck in a corner. He lashes out, lashes in more often, takes stupid jobs with bad people and goes back to his District to make nice with his family, all because he's smart and good, and if he didn't take those jobs, then someone else would, and if he didn't go back to 4, then they might suspect something, and that just wouldn't do for Finnick. It's not real if it doesn't hurt: that's the lesson he's learned.
Two types of Victors, and if Finn's the smart one, then she's the lucky one-and doesn't that just about say it all.
***
(It doesn't work, not thinking about things, pretending none of it ever happened. It didn't work when he was a kid, and he doesn't even try it now, but he knows. There's saving something for later, and then there's just eating it all now, and people do either one or the other but never both-nobody but him. He's good at remembering though, especially when it comes to the way things look. His hands are good too. He gets stuff, and he can hold onto it and recreate it later, so he has his cake like that old saying, and he eats it all up, all of it, every single crumb, and then-well, and then he bakes another cake, and damned if the second one isn't better than the first. Because he remembers, see. He never forgets. He holds on to it and makes it better, makes more of it.
What's there is there to stay, and there's no changing that, no hiding from it. People don't get that a lot of times, but he does. The good and the terrible are more than just memories, moments that were and then slipped away like smoke. Everything rests on something else, a foundation, a jumping-off point. This is life. They are who they are because of what they've done, what they've seen and said and thought throughout their lives.
He is this person now because of what's happened. Take that away, and who is he?
Take that away.
-and who is he?)
And he looked up, and there they were.
And how he hated them. And how she'd suffer.
And if he heard something quiet in the back of his head scream, he knew it was just the wind-howling through the gaps.
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