This is No Game

Summary: Belle French volunteers to save her best friend from the 71st Hunger Games, and finds herself dragged into a terrifying world were even the victors are not winners. Her only companion is District Twelve's pariah, the bitter and damaged Rumple Gold, who tries desperately to save her from the hell that comes after winning the Games. Rumbelle with some other pairings.

Be warned: a very dark fic presented in snapshot format. Many thanks to deathmallow for the use of her Office of Victor Affairs other various concepts regarding victor dynamics. Warnings for Torture, Rape/Non-Con, and Emotional/Physical Abuse.

Featuring the following characterizations:
Rumple Gold as Haymitch Abernathy
Belle French as Katniss Everdeen (with a splash of Peeta Melark)
Killian Jones as Finick Odair
Tinker Bell as Effie Trinket
Aurora as Annie
Archie Hopper as Cinna
Regina Mills as Plutarch Heavensbee
The Blue Fairy as President Snow
...and many others

1.

Belle was never quite sure when she noticed that he only used the cane when someone from the Capitol might be watching, but at some point that realization sunk in. She remembered seeing him around Twelve from time to time, walking without the cane in his quiet way. He was always angry and often had a drink in his hand, but his eyes were always sharp and his words more sarcastic and clever than not. Sometimes, even as a teen, she wondered if the drunkenness might be part of an act, but she really didn't have any desire to dwell on it. District Twelve's lone resident victor (as if anyone could forget that there was another victor, and it was this man's son, and he lived the high life of luxury in the Capitol) didn't associate too much with anyone. He came into town to buy food and supplies, and an awful lot of that horrible white liquor that was sold in the Hob, but that was about all anyone saw of Gold. Belle watched him from time to time, but it was only out of curiosity.

When she wound up in the Games, she found herself wishing that she'd watched him a lot more. Unlike Gaston, the mass of muscles and short-sightedness that he was, she realized that Gold actually knew how this worked, and that there was a sharp mind hiding behind that languid sarcasm. There was anger, too, and something broken, but she would only figure that out later.

When the morning of her final Reaping dawned, the last thing Belle French ever expected to do was volunteer. Robin had promised to have others take care of the hunting that day—he was ten years older than her and way past having to worry about being thrown into the Games. Robin Loxley was the unofficial lead hunter in Twelve; he taught his band of "Merry Men" (and women) to hunt in the woods beyond the fence line. All in all, there were about fifteen people who hunted to put food on various tables within the district, and Belle had been one of those ever since her mother died when she was fourteen. Her father had a mild case of blacklung and his long shifts in the mine were doing him no favors, and Belle's younger brother Alan was just twelve, too young to do anything other than survive. Robin, Belle's teacher and friend, had been hunting practically since he could walk, and although he was technically a blast captain in the mines, he somehow managed to find time to hunt as well.

Belle had intended to go hunting that morning, anyway, right up until the time Webster dropped by and mentioned that Babette was sick. Webster was one of Alan's best friends, just as Babette was Belle's, and Belle rushed over to the ramshackle house next door to the French family's own home. There she found her best friend coughing up a storm as Babette tried to wave off her younger brother's worries. Technically, Babette and Webster should have been in the group home; their parents were both dead, and Babette wasn't yet eighteen. But Babette had somehow talked the head of the housing committee into letting them stay, promising all kinds of things (and sleeping with the old sleaze ball to make it stick). They never would have survived without both Thompsons taking tesserae and without Belle's hunting, even with Babette taking in mending for everyone every chance she got. The Thompsons were undoubtedly some of the worst off in the entire Seam, and Belle did her best to help her friends.

"You look terrible," she said to Babette, who stopped coughing and started sneezing.

"It's just a bug going around. I think I caught it from the Darlings," her friend wheezed.

"Babs was looking after their kids last week," Webster explained as Belle helped Babette to her feet. Mr. Darling was the town tailor, well enough off to pay someone a pittance to care for his children. Hearing that, however, made Belle's heart sink. The eldest, Wendy, was obviously old enough to care for her siblings—and usually did—and if Wendy was sick enough that Mr. Darling brought in Babette, the sickness had to be really bad.

"You need to be more careful," she told Babette quietly, shooing Webster out and helping her friend take a sponge bath. On any other day, being this sick would even get Babette out of school, but not on Reaping Day. Today, Babette had to look her best no matter how awful she felt, so Belle got her dressed and ready, and then made sure Webster was presentable as well. Fortunately, Alan showed up while she was doing so, wearing a baggy old dress shirt that used to belong to their father and a set of darned trousers that had once been Robin's. He looked ridiculously undersized and weak in the outfit, but Belle smiled and told her brother that he looked wonderful, anyway.

After all, it wasn't Alan's fault that the Frenches never had enough money to buy new clothing. None of the Seam kids ever looked better than halfway presentable. Belle was wearing an old blue dress of her mother's, with a hem so long that she had to pick it up to keep the white trim from dragging on the ground. Besides, today was Alan's first Reaping, and Belle wasn't going to make him nervous.

"Ready?" she asked the other three, and they headed towards the square together.

It was a walk that never took long enough; the growing crowd of children couldn't even lollygag, not with Peacekeepers lining the streets and silently goading them into walking faster. Belle and Babette stuck together—with the other girl still coughing and sometimes leaning on Belle for balance—until they had to split up and get into their separate lines. Belle had turned eighteen a month earlier, but Babette wouldn't turn eighteen for another nine days, which meant they could not stand together. Still, the seventeen and eighteen year old girls were always positioned next to one another, which meant Belle hung back and went to the rear of her designated area while Babette headed to the front of hers. They'd always done that as soon as the finger prick confirmed their identities, and today was no different.

It's my last Reaping, Belle told herself, trying to stay calm during the opening video about the uprising, the Dark Days, and the origins of the Hunger Games. She'd seen the video montage enough to be bored by it; Belle really wished they'd change it every year so that at least she'd have something to focus on. Of course, she had more slips than ever in the bowl this year—twenty-eight times—but she'd been lucky so far. Surely she could survive just one more.

Desperate for distraction, she glanced up at the stage, seeing their district escort, Mirabella Tink, dressed all in glittering green and wearing a bright smile. Mayor Midas sat not far away from her, looking glum; his youngest daughter had died in the Games last year, so Belle could imagine that the entire ceremony was only a terrible reminder of that. To his right sat District Twelve's lone resident victor, Rumple Gold, looking angry in a perfectly tailored black suit that so obviously set him apart from everyone else. Looking at him made Belle's eyes narrow; the commentators always called him brilliant during the Games, but she'd never seen any evidence of that here in Twelve. He was the district pariah for so many reasons, and not all of them were because his son lived in the Capitol and Twelve's only other victor was dead.

"Ladies first!" Tink announced, interrupting Belle's thoughts and making her heart hammer into her chest. There was a lengthy pause, followed by: "Babette Thompson!"

Horrified, Belle turned to face her best friend, who had gone stark white. But even Babette's shock couldn't keep her from another coughing fit, and her fear probably made it worse. Instinctively, Belle reached across the rope line separating them to catch Babette before she could fall, her mind full of the knowledge that there was no way her friend could survive the arena. Even under normal circumstances, Babette was one of the kindest and sweetest people Belle knew. She'd never gone hunting, never even snuck around after dark unless it was to find a Peacekeeper who might pay for her, and she was so sick that she could barely stand.

Purpose crystallized in her mind even as the words left her mouth.

"I volunteer!"

A/N: Next up: Belle and Gaston head towards the Capitol, and Belle finds that her district partner really is a meathead. In the meantime, please let me know what you think!