HA (dgaf) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-01-19 01:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! backstory, - districts, victor: 48th fawn aras, victor: 50th haymitch abernathy |
WHO: Fawn Aras & Haymitch Abernathy
WHAT: Fawn & Haymitch meet for the first time.
WHEN: 50th Victory Tour
WHERE: Justice Building, District 10. Mostly on the roof.
STATUS: Complete
This log was meant to cheer Ruby up, so naturally it includes WARNINGS for general talk/insinuations of suicidal thoughts, assisted suicide, attack by knifes, and general losing of shit and having attacks of PTSD.
He’d found somewhere to go in Eleven, too. Some nook of a place high high up in the Justice building when he was meant to be taking a piss. That had only bought him a few minutes. But this? This would give him longer. He’d locked the ‘only locks from the inside’ bathroom from the outside with a hairpin, had in his pocket one of the Prep’s hi-hi tech phones muted on an open line to the one he’d snatched from Pickles herself, left on speakerphone by the door of the pisser. All he had to do was growl obscenities at Pickles or the Bitch once in a while, and they’d never know he wasn’t there in person. Probably Pickles would be as impressed by his cleverness as she was terrified by it; like it was hard to get away from her and the rest of the Capitol. Haymitch scowled and wished he had some more of that clear white stuff to knock back. Vodka straight. Sharp and hard and he hated it so fucking much, even more that he didn’t have any. But he was wearing all red for a reason. Head lowered, hands light at his sight, steps purposeful and sober and docile. He passed people -- that’s the part normal people would find it hard to believe, that the Quell’s shiny new Victor could pass unnoticed in a Justice Building on his very own Victory Tour -- but body language was everything. Psychology of color was everything. Red meant Avox. It was tempting fate, but so fucking what? They could cut out his tongue if they wanted. He’d like to see them explain that to the audience back at home. After a while, he even started following the Victor from 2 years ago, the girl Fawn who had won him more money than any other Games bet had. His eyes were sharp underneath his eyelashes, sharper still when he realised she was heading up, towards the stairs instead of a lift. It was something to do. Following this Victor who was drifting towards aloneness. Up, up, up. The lift didn’t have an opening to the roof, but the stairs did. The sixteen year old Victor kept moving because, if she stopped, everything would flood back at once. After two years of mentoring, Fawn had already lost six tributes. Five of them had been her age or older, three of them had gone to school with her, one of them had been a good friend. The Capitol had numbed her, but she was off that stuff now. She faked it long enough to let the apathy become a part of her, no drugs needed. The 48th Games may have produced a fluke Victor, but with twice as many tributes for the Quarter Quell, Fawn refused to believe that Haymitch’s victory was due solely to luck, but she couldn’t say that he deserved this ‘win’ either. That the survival instincts of the Twelve boy had made him Victor, but he had already lost so much more than any of them. And while the Capitol had their own versions of the story, the message was quite clear to Fawn: we made you fight for your survival, but it doesn’t end there. Puppets, they were puppets, and while the thought had occurred to her before, the deaths surrounding Haymitch only cemented the fact that they were helpless too. Helpless if they still cared about anyone or anything. They still had power over them outside of the arena; the traps still existed. And so, for the past several months, Fawn proceeded to cut ties with friends she still was able to connect with, with old neighbors and family friends, with her parents. But to say it was done purely for their own good would have been a lie. It was easier to detach. If she didn’t care, it would be a win-win for both parties. Everyone would leave her alone, and the Capitol wouldn’t bother them. And even if they did, it wouldn’t matter to Fawn, would it? Because she didn’t care. Because she could feel nothing by flipping that switch in her mind. And yet she still spent every night dreaming about losing her parents, her friends, her tributes, her district. It was the only time she allowed herself to feel anything. Pushing the door open to access the roof, her face was met with the brightness of day, but the shelter of a cloudy sky. The door remained propped open for whoever was behind her, the boy in red. Avoxes never followed her around in her own district. A part of her wondered if he was from the Capitol; perhaps he was here to kill her. The useless Victor. Fawn calmly realized that she didn’t mind. The roof was empty with gravel on the floor, surely not a comfortable place to sit. The girl didn’t stand too close to the edge, not due to safety purposes but because she didn’t want to risk being seen. It’s what she did best: disappearing. Her arms crossed as she looked toward the green hills of District Ten, her eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. How was she going to do this for the rest of her life? No big surprise that she’d left the door open for him. The rest of her reaction Haymitch couldn’t be bothered to read into either. Right now was for registering it all, like it or not. Later he’d consider her quietness and the way she held back from the edge. He moved towards her, soft and staring, butter knife pulled from his boot in one fluid movement. The knife he palmed from one hand to the other. His eyes stayed fixed on the swoop of her hair over her neck. It wouldn’t be easy to kill her, not with the blunt blade of a butter knife, but it was definitely doable. There might even be the same forcefield around here that there was around the training center roof, the arena itself. If anyone was going to die by throwing herself into blue, it was this girl. Not him. Two feet behind her when he came to a still. Maybe less. He could’ve touched her back without shifting his feet any great distance. The Merciful Doe. A smirk snarled its way into being and he took a solid stride into her space, so close she might be able to feel his breath on her neck “Would you kill me if I asked, sweetheart?” His voice dropped low, mocking, raw as any skinned hide. “If I begged.” The dull point of the knife he pressed light between her shoulder blades. There were hearts that were so full of love and care, it spilled over into their voice. Then there was Haymitch, the polar opposite. The steely edge to the bitter words that he spoke, the strong scent of alcohol from his breath, the pointed weapon of choice against her back, and yet Fawn felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of compassion for the boy. Even after losing four of her own, she would have preferred that to them having to endure the loss of their family, the loss of their loved ones. Better to have never attained victory than to have it all ripped away. And perhaps it wasn’t her right to think that, maybe she was being selfish or this was her way of coping, but there was no alternative now. The Games were over. Fawn turned to face him, paying no attention to possible consequence, to his state of mind. She didn’t believe Haymitch wanted to hurt her, and even if he did, he would regardless of whether her back was turned or not. His question was left unanswered and no reply was given. She saw him in red, his coat from his Victory speech turned inside out, she saw him in grey, his eyes like the Seam he came from, and she saw him in black, with the darkness that surrounded him. “Someone might see you,” she said simply, referring the butter knife in his hand. He may have thought that there wasn’t much more that they could do to him, but Fawn doubted it. There was always something to lose. A knife to another Victor, no matter butcher or butter knife, wouldn’t be the best way to kickstart his Tour. The strange reaction was -- somehow -- expected, predictable, awful. Haymitch tossed the knife from one hand to the other, catching it by the blade, by the handle, with the edge of his fingers and a crackling in his head. His eyes didn’t see her eyes. What else was new? He was silent for four knife tosses, one for every person who’d been peeled away from his flesh. Only buzzed. Didn’t fumble the knife until the fifth go around. “And then they do me for treason, and I’m tortured, and then I’m killed.” The words were cut from him like the world’s bloodiest lullabye, eyes unblinking, mouth tight in a far-away smirk. “Unless I do myself in first. During my own Victory Tour. Wouldn’t that be something.” Fawn’s eyes remained fixed on his, not on his knife show. An immature part of Fawn wanted to ask him that’s it?; she had grown up with knives her entire life. If he wanted to hurt her, kill her, it wouldn’t be the knife that would do her in. Then he spoke again, and her compassion from half a minute ago turned to anger. It was Haymitch’s actions and his consequences that had taught her to detach, that allowed to cope in the best way she knew how: being alone. Not giving the Capitol any more ammo than they already had. And here he was, after teaching all of Panem a lesson, still not understanding that for himself. She wanted to punch him, slap him, but instead, she put her two hands on his shoulders (do-able, as she was only an inch or two shorter) and gave him a shake. Her brows creased together with actual emotion in her eyes. You fool, don’t you see? “You still wouldn’t win,” her voice was laced with desperation. Please, stop this. Only roused into action by the the prickling of his skin, that creeping sickness that meant someone was touching him. He choked and stumbled back away from her, something harsh keeping him on his feet, eyes clenched shut, fists and knife careening through nothing or something couldn’t tell and if he was dead he couldn’t know anymore, if he was losing he wouldn’t be alive to feel it would he? It splattered throughout his mind, tightening his lungs, that one thought he couldn’t verbalise because -- the sobs were stripped from him every single, fucking, time more oxygen forced its way down his dry throat. She watched. She watched as reality seemed to settle, or perhaps he already knew it, but it was something he had to realize over and over again. Perhaps he thought it never got better than this, but one day it would. The blanket of apathy or drugs or drinks or anything would take place of the desperation eventually, and this wouldn’t seem so terrible anymore. Fawn had hardly made it through her own Tour two years ago, but she wouldn’t even begin attempting to compare her life to his. She had lucked out, not having been too close, not having been too smart. And perhaps she was supposed to hold him, hug him, whisper something comforting, but she didn’t. After a moment, once she was certain he wasn’t going to hyperventilate or pass out, she took a few steps toward him. “You win by staying alive,” a strong emphasis on you. It wasn’t a phrase she could say to many, if any, Victors. Then, she put her hand over his, the one with a knife. Only after taking the small piece of metal did Fawn leave Haymitch on the roof. There were nine more districts to go, then the Capitol, before he went home; he would need all the alone time that he could get. Slow, hard breathes. Slow, hard breathes. In through the nose, out through his mouth. Still standing. He couldn’t stay on the roof. They’d think suicide. Haymitch combed his fingers through his curls and adopted the quiet steps of an Avox once more. He’d transform them into a drunken stumble when it suited him, let himself get caught, scowl at whoever found him as if it’d never, ever been part of his plan. |