The Judas Goat

a Hunger Games fanfic

by Technomad

Haymitch Abernathy looked at the new Reaper. She was a change from the woman who had Reaped him. This Effie Trinket was younger, and, he had to admit, not bad looking under the Capitol makeup. He was already fuzzy from drink, but under the alcohol, he wondered how she could make herself believe that such grotesquerie was attractive.

Like the last Reaper, she had burbled "Ladies first!" before plunging her hand into the bowl full of slips of paper, pulling out the name of the latest girl to be sacrificed to the Capitol. Once the trembling Tribute had come on stage to be introduced, Effie then pulled out the name of her male fellow-unfortunate.

After the usual rigmarole, the Tributes were left alone to say farewell to their families, leaving Effie and Haymitch alone together for the first time. Haymitch poured himself another drink, while Effie looked out of a window, her back to him.

Before he could stop himself, Haymitch asked: "So…how does it feel to be a Judas goat?"

Effie had been moving slightly, but at Haymitch's words she went very, very still. Then she slowly turned around to face him. Effie just stared at him, utterly expressionless. When their eyes met, Haymitch shivered. He had seen eyes like that before. When he was in training or in the Arena, for the Quarter Quell. The last time he had been looked at that way, it was by other Tributes who were fully planning to kill him. Involuntarily, he put his drink down and backed up slightly, until he felt the comforting solidity of a wall at his back. He felt like his blood had turned to ice water.

Oh, crap, he thought. I think I may just have put my foot in the butter churn this time!

In a low, even voice, utterly unlike her usual bubbly tones, Effie asked: "And what, Haymitch Abernathy, made you think that I ever asked for this job? Or that I want to be here, doing this?"

"I…I thought you volunteered for this…" Haymitch babbled. To be sure, he really hadn't thought much about how Reapers were chosen, or who they were. He had seen the woman who Reaped him, and the ones in the other Districts, as undifferentiated enemies, no different from any other Capitol citizen. It had never occurred to him to wonder about their lives.

"For your information, Mister Abernathy," Effie went on, her voice still perfectly even and her eyes skewering Haymitch, "we aren't volunteers. I was told that I had to do this. Care to know what happened to the woman who was here before me? Or doesn't her fate interest you?"

Haymitch nodded as hard as he could. "Go on. Tell me." While he had despised Tiffy Bijou, and she had sneered at him every minute they were in private together, they had been constants in each others' world ever since he had been Reaped.

Effie's mouth twisted in what nobody sane would call a smile. "Well…Tiffany Bijou made the mistake of openly questioning the necessity of the Hunger Games, after last year's fiasco. Two District 12 twelve-year-olds dying in such gory ways were too much even for her." Effie's face went utterly blank. "She's now an Avox."

Despite himself, Haymitch felt sick. He had seen Avoxes whenever he went to the Capitol, and they creeped him out. He never knew what they had done to be punished so, and he often wondered what would happen if someone who'd been made an Avox was later found to have been innocent. In District 12, they had the "cooler," a jail where miscreants were confined, but more severe punishments almost did not exist. Even the whipping post had gone out of use; the local Peacekeepers were lax and corrupt, preferring to accept bribes than exert themselves to punish offenders.

"I…I'm sorry," Haymitch stammered. And he was. The thought of bouncy, slightly spacey Tiffany turned into a voiceless slave made him sick in a way that all the alcohol he swilled down never had. "I didn't know!"

Effie moved forward slowly, until their noses were nearly touching. He hadn't been this close to a woman since before his Reaping, but he felt no attraction. Only fear. He had not thought that Effie…that any Capitol resident…could be as angry as Effie clearly was. He had always thought of them as airheads, without normal human feelings…what sort of human could watch the Games, year after year, and feel nothing? A thought struck him: The Games aren't just to overawe the Districts!

Still in that same flat voice, staring directly into his eyes, Effie said: "I was told I had to do this. If I don't, not only will I go the same route that Tiffy did, but so will my family. Or go to something worse. You do know what happens to pretty Victors, don't you?" Haymitch nodded, feeling slightly sick. "What makes you think that sort of thing can't happen to a Capitol citizen? Even if I were willing to risk myself, there's nothing at all I won't do to protect my family. Got me, Haymitch?"

Haymitch nodded wordlessly.

"They tell me I have to be bubbly and bouncy around the Tributes at all times. I have to be not just a Capitol citizen, but the epitome of a Capitol citizen. If I falter, if I fail, if I show how I really feel…well, then there'll be a new Reaper in my place next year. Wouldn't that be wonderful?" For the first time, her voice lost that dangerous, deadly flat tone that reminded Haymitch of the Tributes he had faced in the Arena. He wasn't sure he liked the artificial bounce and cheer she had injected into her last few words any better. "I'm only smiling on the outside, and my smile is just skin-deep," she intoned, as though she were quoting. "If you could see me on the inside, you might join me in a weep!" She smiled that predatory smile again. Haymitch shuddered.

"We're just as much trapped by the Panem system as any District citizen, Haymitch," Effie went on, her voice low and intense. "Our lives may be easier, but any of us with drive and ambition tend to go crazy. We drug ourselves with pleasure and luxuries to forget what happens to any of us who dare to question why things are the way they are. But in the long watches of the night," Effie's voice went to a low hiss, "sometimes, when we can't sleep, we wonder why things have to be this way. But none of us dares speak out."

"Isn't it President Snow's fault? Couldn't he stop the Games?" Haymitch had never looked at the world from this angle, and he found he didn't really like it.

"Snow is a symptom, Haymitch. A healthy society would never let that sociopath anywhere near a position of power. If he were got rid of, someone just like him would soon be in his place. Or someone even worse. Snow took over from the founding President of Panem, and from what I've been able to glean from the archives, the man he replaced made him look like the kindly grandfather he pretends to be in public."

Suddenly, Effie sighed. The parents and families of their two luckless Tributes were filing out, weeping. She plastered a big artificial smile onto her face. "Come on, Haymitch. It's showtime. Mask up, smile on. All the puppets have to play their parts." When she stepped in to where the Tributes were standing, her public persona was back in place. Nobody seeing her would have dreamed that anything was wrong.

She had given Haymitch a lot to think about. He had never considered the idea that many Capitol citizens hated the whole system, or what means were used to keep them in line.

After that day, things were never the same between Haymitch and Effie. Oh, they still snarked and snarled at each other, and Haymitch made a specialty of getting her goat in little ways. With their very different backgrounds and outlooks, they couldn't help striking frequent sparks off each other.

But when their Tributes died, they would both hold each other and cry, releasing what little they could of their grief and guilt at the parts they had to play.