Title: Bleed
Summary: When Ptolemy Beckett - the absolute love of Dana's life, and crippled with Haemophilia B - is drawn at the reaping, it takes less than a second for her to make the decision to join him. 75th Games re-write. Katniss and Peeta included.
Rating: M for Hunger Games gore and teen sensuality. Will be references to sex and similar mature topics, but no graphic descriptions.
A note on names: Dana is pronounced as if it rhymes with 'car-na.' Not 'day-na.' Ptolemy is spelt with a silent P, and is thus, 'Toh-la-mee.'
IMPORTANT information about Haemophilia B:Haemophilia B is a blood clotting disorder caused by a mutation of the Factor IX gene, leading to a deficiency of Factor IX (The blood clotting factor). People suffering from Haemophilia B have to be incredibly careful about what they do – one cut, one scratch, a nosebleed or one little bump of the knee can be fatal. Internal bleeding as a result of a bump, and the subsequent swelling and pressure on nerve endings, is agonising, and incredibly hindering. It can leave a sufferer without the ability to walk for, in some cases, years. Nowadays there is a cure, but it used to be as late as the 1930's that Haemophiliacs would not often live past adolescence. I believe this would also be the case in District Eleven around the time of the 75th Hunger Games.
My information regarding Haemophilia comes from reliable sources, and is knowledge pre-existing the writing of this story.
Random fact for those interested; Alexei Romanov – the last Tsesarevich of Russia and son of Tsar Nicholas II – suffered from Haemophilia B.
Word Count (Story only): 2449
My first Hunger Games fan fiction. Please be gentle.
.: Chapter One – Haemophilia:.
I am out of my house and up the road as soon as I hear the news.
Ptolemy doesn't live too near to me – about twenty minutes walking distance – but my pace is one of a sprint regardless, my feet pounding against the dusty dirt track to the same beat of my galloping heart. I'm not unfit - far from it on the contrary; I have always made good care to keep myself in shape for when occasion calls for me to be. For times like now, for instance, when Ptolemy has one of his attacks.
I gather about me a lot of attention as I run, as few people do in District Eleven if they can help it. It only worsens the hunger pangs, but I am beyond caring. The thought of Ptolemy's certain agony is more than enough to keep me going.
I can hear his cries even as I stagger up to his front door, crashing through without even need to knock. The pale face of Kernel Beckett, his younger brother at fourteen years old, snaps anxiously towards my entrance, his eyes ringed with red and brimming with tears.
"What happened," I gasp, fighting off near asphyxiation as I feel my lungs shrivel and the blood throbs in my head. My long blonde hair, free from it's usual tight ponytail, sticks to my sweaty cheeks and forehead, and my tongue lies heavy and dry in my mouth. I hadn't bothered to grab any water before I left.
"He tripped down the stairs," Kernel snivels, wiping at his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. "Yesterday. We thought he was going to be okay but the swelling started this morning…" He trails off, lower lip trembling.
I push past him and into what the Beckett's cynically deem their 'living room,' where I can hear a commotion.
Ptolemy lies sprawled across what looks like a scraping together of all the sheets, pillows and mattresses that the Beckett's own – which is not particularly many– his parents kneeling at his side. His face is white and bloodless, sheered in sweat, his lips a chapped and waxy yellow. His gaze fixes unseeing on the shabby ceiling, eyeballs rolling further back in his head as he contorts in agony, his hands fisting tightly into the sheets either side and his mouth twisting as he shrieks. He is completely naked apart from a semi-translucent cloth thrown over his groin, and his right leg is braced awkwardly straight, an immense ball-like swelling and bruising around the knee already apparent to me from the doorway.
"Oh Ptolemy," I moan quietly, hastening to his side and dropping to my knees. "Oh baby, come here."
I gently wind an arm around his sweaty and shuddering neck and attempt to sit him more upright, pulling at surrounding sheets to support him. He hisses at the movement, spittle bubbling at his lips as his face scrunches in pain, and I feel his mother grab at my arm.
"Dana! What are you doing! Can't you see how you're hurting him!"
"I know, Mrs. Beckett, I know. But we need to sit him up. Improve his circulation. It might help."
Pip Beckett's hands flutter around my own as I slowly pull Ptolemy up until he is no longer laying horizontal, and wrap my arm more firmly around his back.
"There you go, baby," I murmur to him gently. "Don't worry. I'm here."
He gives a whimper and leans his weight into my own, his sweaty forehead coming to rest in the crook of my neck. I kiss it tenderly and flinch at the heat. He is burning up already.
"Dana." He rasps quietly, grasping feebly at my other hand with his own. "Dana, it hurts."
"I know," I whisper, stroking my fingers through his thick dark curls, damp with sweat, as if this would somehow alleviate the pain. "I know."
His parents watch on, their faces pictures of distress and unrestrained fear. I know we are all thinking in tune as we always are when Ptolemy has his attacks; will this one be his last?
Ptolemy suffers from Haemophilia B; a rare affliction in which his blood is missing the vital clotting factor needed in every human being to staunch a flow of blood. Cuts on the surface aren't so much the problem; no these can usually be solved with the immediate application of pressure and elevation of the part in question. The real problem is when Ptolemy bleeds from the inside – a place nobody but a doctor can reach.
It doesn't take much – a small bump is all that is needed for chaos to ensue, for instead of simply bruising like a normal person Ptolemy's blood leaks under the surface and swells until the pressure on his skin is too high for it to possibly to distend any further. At this point a number of things happen; firstly, the corrosives in his blood begin to attack his bones and muscle fibres, weakening them over time. Secondly, the pressure of the swelling on joints (where the leakage usually occurs) and his nerve endings inflicts upon him agony through which nobody should ever have to suffer. Other consequences are a rocketing fever and a near-insane stupor.
The only other haemophiliac I have known is Ptolemy's aunt, and she tells me it is more painful than childbirth and toothache combined.
What Ptolemy really needs is a factor IX treatment, which replenishes the missing clotting factor and keeps it steady for a month or two. With District Eleven being at my guess the poorest district in Panem, he doesn't see that treatment very often.
Most Haemophiliacs don't live to see the age of twenty. In our conditions, at seventeen Ptolemy is lucky to have made it so long.
"Have you alerted the medicals?" I whisper to Pip after a moment, and she nods.
"Yes. But it doesn't really matter, does it? They rarely ever come."
They used to, but I think they've grown tired of attempting to provide for Ptolemy. What is he to them anyway, but one worthless boy so easily replaced? He may be nothing to them but he is everything in the world to those that love him. His family and myself.
He shudders in my arms as a fresh wave of agony rolls over him, and his eyes clench shut. I take this opportunity to let a tear or two escape when he won't see them. I notice his parents do the same.
An hour or so later and Ptolemy has slipped into a fever-induced slumber and I use this blessing to examine his leg a little closer.
It's bad – really bad. Reminiscent of his attack about five years ago now, after which he wasn't able to walk without assistance for over a year. He was twelve then so it wasn't so hard to manage. I don't know what we'll do this time.
A swollen ball the size of an orange grows on his knee, and his skin is shiny and hard as it near splits with the pressure. He has a splint strapped to either side in an attempt to compress it, but that's only a half-efficient treatment. At this point a trained doctor would be using electro-muscular stimulation, Factor IX, and a healthy dose of Morphine, but we don't have access to any of that.
I press my palm against his forehead and take his temperature again… It might just be wishful thinking but it feels a bit cooler. I feel a twinge of hope play at my stomach.
I look up as I hear the door creak and Kernel trips in, his eyes still red.
"Is he going to be okay?" He whispers, chewing at his thumb and staring at his brother with wide eyes. I choose to nod.
"Yeah. I think so." Define 'okay.'
He squats down and shuffles over, before gently taking Ptolemy's left hand – the right still clammily encasing my own. He sniffs repeatedly.
"Here," I mutter, passing him a piece of cloth to wipe his nose with. He takes it gratefully.
"It's the reaping soon," he comments unnecessarily, after a moment, and I wonder why he thought that would be a good topic changer.
"Yes."
"Have you taken out a tesserae?"
"Of course. Have you?"
He nods. Usually the younger kids wouldn't have to do this as it's usually the responsibility of the elder ones. Mr. and Mrs. Beckett hedge that Kernel would have more of a change if he were called up than Ptolemy, which is probably true. The fact that Ptolemy is entered into the draw only six times out of a possible twenty-plus has me breathing a little easier each time the reaping comes round.
But then Kernel says something else.
"Ptolemy's got one this year too."
"What?" I snap, glancing in his direction sharply.
"Yeah." He mumbles. "Mum and Dad put him up for one."
"But…" I shake my head. "But you manage with just yours, right? I mean, I know it's hard but…" I search for the words. "If Ptolemy gets called up he has no chance.Your parents know that, right?"
"They do," he nods, looking uncomfortable. "But… I mean. They just said that it was unfair for me to have such a high chance every year."
"But you're not ill," I emphasise, and I feel a little bit guilty. It ishard on Kernel to have so many tickets in the box every year, but he doesn't have haemophilia.
Kernel looks at me a little bitterly.
"I would still die, Dana. And I don't want to die yet. I know you don't care for me like my brother but I shouldn't have to bear all the responsibility. I'm only fourteen."
"It's not that I don't care for you…" I protest, but he has sort of hit the spot. I do love little Kernel as my boyfriend's brother, but not like I love Ptolemy.
We had always been best friends – since we were little ones ourselves. Being a haemophiliac Ptolemy could never join in the fun and games with the little boys his age, and so was almost always on his own. I remember how he used to sit under the withered old apple tree in the school garden, watching on enviously as us other kids played around with a ball or wrestled together in the dirt. It was an impulse decision of mine to join him one afternoon that led to where we are now. I taught him how to make 'daisy chains,' (or weed chains as they often were) and he taught me how to imagine other worlds. I read to him during his attacks, and even made him his very own walking stick out of broken field-tool. Then, about two years ago, everything changed when he kissed me so sweetly on the scrubby patch of grass that counts for his 'garden,' round the back of his house, and we've been kissing every since.
Of course I'm not foolish. I know that, as dreamlike as it sounds, Ptolemy's relationship and mine is hardly the thing of fairytales. I'm always consciously aware of how easily he could be taken from me, and how more and more likely that grows as the months go by.
I know that, even if he does manage to live to a ripe old age, the prospects of having a family between us is near impossible. In fact, our relationship would most likely never be able to progress much further than kissing and a bit of heavy (but very gentle) petting.
We could never have sex – not with his condition. It's a risk that I would never be willing to take. It's not much of a problem as of yet seeing as we're still relishing in the pleasure brought about by a bit of passionate (but again, very gentle) lip action, and I don't particularly think it ever will be.
Ptolemy knows his limitations and so do I.
I drift out of my musings to find that Kernel has slipped away. Unsurprising considering the nature of our conversation. I sigh, and pull my fingers through Ptolemy's black curls, watching as his eyelids flutter with the disturbance.
"I love you," I whisper, grazing my lips over his cheeks and forehead, before settling for a very light kiss. "I really do."
The idea of Ptolemy having a tesserae disturbs and angers me, but it's not too bad when I think about it. This is only his first time with one, and so his name is only going in the draw… seven times in total. Six for every year he has been a part of the reaping, and one for a tesserae.
Seven. It's nothing, not really. Seven slips of paper out of thousands of thousands. Statistically, it's almost safe to say that Ptolemy doesn't even have a chance. I'm worrying for nothing – upsetting Kernel for nothing.
The odds are in Ptolemy's favour, and that's what I have to keep telling myself.
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