Author: thecivilunrest
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Story Title: "Don't Drop Your Arms"
Summary: At least it's a beautiful place to die. /Or, twelve moments before, during, and after the Games.
Characters/Relationship(s): Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Effie Trinket, Mrs. Everdeen, Seneca Crane, Prim Everdeen, Gale Hawthorne, Caesar Flickerman, Glimmer, Cato, Clove, Rue, Thresh, All Canon Pairings
Rating: T
Warnings: Hunger Games stuff, mostly. Spoilers for the movie, definitely.
Story Word Count: 1000+
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games or any related titles.
Notes: Hello, Hunger Games fandom. It's nice to be back. Maybe I'll stick around awhile. (:
Don't Drop Your Arms
Katniss barely lets Mrs. Everdeen touch her. It's all that Katniss can do not to pull away while her mother does her hair, and Mrs. Everdeen knows this. She ignores it, though, because it makes everything easier.
Every time Mrs. Everdeen does her eldest daughter's hair she is reminded of her husband. His hair was the same shade, the same texture, thick and wavy and beautiful.
"There," she says, attempting a smile. She doesn't know how well that works, though, because starvation and tragedy have carved lines on her face and she doesn't know if she can bear the weight of another one there. "Now you're beautiful too."
Katniss ignores her, purposefully squaring her shoulders away and focusing on her younger sister. It hurts, and it's not fair, but maybe it's nothing less than she deserves.
.x.
Effie Trinket does not like District 12. She doesn't like the way that coal dust lingers in the air, coating her lungs (and best suits!) with black dust. She doesn't like the way that nothing is paved, all dirt roads all the time.
This year isn't too bad, as the ground is hard and doesn't make her shoes sink into the mud, but she still doesn't enjoy this place. She was hoping to be promoted this year, and that didn't happen.
Nothing interesting ever happens in Twelve. The people are sickly and unexcited about the games—which is something that Effie just cannot fathom. They should be excited! Being taken to the Capitol, their faces getting shown all over Panem if the odds are in their favor.
And District 12 never, ever wins. The last time that happened was back with Haymitch Abernathy, and everyone knew how that had turned out. Even Twelve's victors just grow up to be disgusting.
But all the same this is Effie Trinket, and this is her job and this is what she loves doing. She just wishes that things were a little more interesting.
.x.
There's always a beat of silence after someone's name is called. It's the sort of silence that is loud, shrieking with things that have to be left unsaid. Everyone in the audience can hear them, but the Capitol can't and perhaps that is why the silence is there at all.
Peeta can hear Effie's voice, insisting that he comes up, and he does eventually.
He's still a little dazed to have just watched Katniss Everdeen—Katniss Everdeen—volunteer for her sister Prim, but to know that he has to go to the arena with her? All of the bad things about Reaping Day just keep multiplying.
But for half a second he wishes that someone would volunteer for him, too. But of course they won't. And so he's going to go to the Capitol with Katniss Everdeen and pretend that he has a shot of winning.
.x.
Prim will never forgive Gale for pulling her away after her sister volunteers.
Eventually she starts sobbing, as well as screaming her sister's name, but Gale still refuses to let her down until the the boy—the boy who is not him thank goodness—is called. Then he puts her on the ground and stares at her until she just glares back.
Gale grabs her shoulders, and she can feel every single one of his fingers digging into her skin.
"Would Katniss want you to cry?" he asks.
"No." She's given up on crying and screaming, now that his face is so close to hers and his eyes are so intensely blue.
"He grips her shoulders tighter. You need to tell her to win. For you. She'd do it for you. She'd do anything for you."
Prim nods and bites her lip. Because of course her sister would do anything for her. That's completely obvious now.
.x.
Caesar Flickerman hates the Hunger Games.
During his interviews he feel like he gets to know the tributes while he interviews them. He's one of the last people to listen to them and really care.
He hates the Hunger Games, but he couldn't bear to see anyone else hosting them.
.x.
It was in the training center that Cato notices Glimmer.
She's gorgeous and fierce and a career, which meant that she was perfect for him in every way. Or, would have been, if they weren't eventually going to kill each other. Cato thought that Glimmer was beautiful, but he'd still kill her, shred that pretty face into a thousand ribbons if he had to.
"Oh, Cato," Clove tells him, smirking as she watched Glimmer watch him. She is younger than most of the people that volunteered from District 2, but she had been the first one to try and that alone made Cato respect her, for however long she lived. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"More like I'm going to hurt her."
Clove laughs.
.x.
Gale feels like throwing up every time he sees Katniss on the screen with Peeta.
He knows that they're district partners, he knows that it's most likely a front, he knows that they have no choice before the Games to act like they like each other because they have no one else. He knows that.
But when Peeta Mellark says, with the utmost certainty, that he loves Katniss Everdeen that Peeta Mellark is telling the truth.
.x.
The Hunger Games light a fire in Seneca Crane's veins, ones that last for months after the Games end. The embers of that fire burn slowly all year long when the Games are dormant, or when he's planning out the arenas angle by angle, but they're still there.
But when the bloodbath at the Cornucopia begins that's when gasoline is poured onto the fire and there's an explosion in his bloodstream and he is once again in control of twenty-four people's lives, and no one can stop him.
Who could have known that the only thing that would be able to finally extinguish the flames would be the juice from a small, black berry?
.x.
To Rue, the Arena is beautiful. There are plenty of trees to scale, and plenty of food if you know where to look.
She knows that she's not going to win. There is no way for her to win. Once the Careers corner her, once her feet touch the ground the fingers of death will grab her.
But at least she has a beautiful place in which to die.
.x.
Thresh does not feel bad when he kills the girl from District Two.
Maybe he should. She was a delicate little thing, a face full of dark eyes and a killer's intent, younger than him, but he doesn't care. She willingly paid a part in these Games. She wanted to kill the girl on fire, the same way that she had probably wanted to kill Rue.
He had read it on her freckled face, the bloodlust out in the open for everyone to see.
So when Cato comes to kill him, and he sees the same hunger for blood in his face (everyone from District 2 must have it) he knows that he's going to die.
.x.
Katniss Everdeen does not feel at home when she gets back to District 12.
There are lies floating beneath her skin, on top of her skin, so that her old life feels like she's wearing one of Prim's dresses instead of one of her own.
The place looks the same. Dusty and filled with soot and coal dust and the hunger of people, but nothing is right anymore.
"Peeta," she eventually says to him, because she doesn't want to keep all of these lies inside. She has to at least tell him of all people the truth. He was part of the reason that she survived. She looks into his brown eyes and tries to bury everything that happened during the end of the Games, after them.
"Yes?" He squeezes her hand in tandem with the squeeze on her heart.
And she can't do it. Not yet. She can't tell him that she doesn't know if she's in love with him the way that he's in love with her, tell him that the only reason she's kept this ruse up so long is because her family won't live otherwise.
"Never mind," she lies, and squeezes his hand back. Maybe she'll get through this.
Maybe.