Kurt hesitates, curling his hands into fists and taking one last look around the arena before the klaxon sounds. He has a plan of action already formulated, and he looks to the female tribute from his district, Mercedes, quickly before the landmines are disabled and the games begin.
"Let the 69th Annual Hunger Games begin, and may the odds be ever in your favour!"
And with that, Kurt leaps from his starting circle and runs to swipe the bow and quiver full of arrows that sits around twenty feet away from him. He's tugging the quiver over his shoulder when the cannon fires, signifying the first death in the games.
He turns to see Mercedes tugging a blade away from the chest of the female tribute from District Six, a girl whose name escapes him. He takes in a shuddering breath, pausing for a fraction of a second until he hears a tell-tale shriek from behind him. He wheels around and finds the crumpled form of the girl from District Twelve at his feet, a throwing knife stuck in the back of her head. The cannon fires again.
Kurt barely has time to ready his bow when he hears a growl and looks up to see the angry face of Blaine, the other District Twelve tribute, with a knife that is no doubt ready to smash into his ribcage. Kurt is ready to shoot until the other boy is distracted by the blonde boy from District Six bearing down on Mercedes and killing her with a swift slide of his knife. Kurt takes his opportunity to run, then, in the middle of the chaos and pursues the boy across the Cornucopia. David from District Five tries to get in the way and bury a heavy punch into the side of his skull, but Kurt is too quick for him and sends an arrow into his throat.
By now Kurt is at the outskirts of a woody area, and is left with no idea where the blonde boy has disappeared to. He slides past the tributes from District Seven, Jesse and Becky, as he leaves the Cornucopia. They fail to notice him, as they seem much more content in trying to kill each other than anyone else.
Kurt is nimbly weaving between trees a few moments later when the cannon fires, and he turns to see Becky's face flash up onto the screen. Another cannon sounds seconds later, and the face of District Ten's Finn Hudson appears on screen for a moment before disappearing.
A few minutes pass, and the cannon fires only twice more, so Kurt holes himself up in a tree and surveys the damage. He appears to have only sustained a few minor cuts and bruises so far, but the games barely started half an hour ago.
An hour or two passes, maybe more, before the cannon fires again, signalling that some other unfortunate soul has died somewhere in the arena. Kurt sighs at this realization, before readying his bow again and taking a shot at the rabbit on the ground. It hits perfectly, and Kurt smiles. By now he has a few rabbits stowed in his jacket pockets which, while unsanitary, will provide excellent sustenance should he survive further in the games.
When the cannon sounds again, night has fallen and Kurt has settled up a tree once again. He moved a few miles throughout the day, and is now a good distance away from the Cornucopia and where the Careers have most likely made their camp.
The anthem plays suddenly, and the screen lights up, illuminating the arena with bright white light. The names and faces of all the fallen tributes play out across the screen. Kurt bites his lip when he realizes he saw most of them die. The two girls from Districts Twelve and Six. Mercedes. David, the boy he killed with his arrow. He swallows, almost nervously. Becky, Finn, and then Jesse. Kurt can only assume one of the Careers must have gotten to him. Tina from District Ten, Rory from District Eleven and Lauren from District Five.
The anthem plays out again and Kurt pauses to count how many tributes are left. He realizes fourteen after a few moments of hurried mathematics, which was never his strong point, before remembering he should probably do something interesting to entice some sponsors. Especially now that Mercedes is gone.
He leaps from the tree and begins to search.
He ends up leaving a trap of poisonous berries in the middle of the path, praying silently that the girl from District Eleven doesn't come along and foil his plan.
Clearly she doesn't, as Kurt is awoken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of a cannon and looks to the forest floor to see the limp form of Brittany from District Nine.
The sound and movement of the aircraft that comes to take her body away obviously alerts one of the other tributes, since there's a cracking of branches underfoot that follows no less than a few minutes later.
Kurt peers down from his tree to see Blaine tramping through the forest with a level of clumsiness Kurt was unaware a human being could reach. He is about to load his bow, swoop down and deliver a swift arrow to the back of his head until the blonde from District Six comes in to view, knife raised and waiting.
The boy must sense him, sense the arrow aimed at the back of his neck, because he looks up, eyes clashing with Kurt's for a fraction of a second before raising a finger to his lips. Kurt frowns –he swore he wouldn't make friends in the arena, unless it was with Mercedes- and watches as the boy kills Blaine with a few quick slides of his knife through his chest.
After the cannon fires, Kurt leaps from the tree and confronts the other boy. He has just had chance to read the name printed above 'District 6' on his back. Sam.
"What do you think you're doing?" Kurt hisses warily as Sam turns to him. "You could've been killed!"
"Yeah, so could you." Sam replies with a shrug, wiping his blade on the leg of his trousers. "What's your point?"
Kurt's eyes widen at the mistreatment of the fabric, but he shakes his head and stares down the other boy.
"Kurt Hummel." He holds out his hand to the other boy, but the blonde frowns at him. "District Eight."
"Er, Sam Evans. District Six. But I guess you saw that already." Sam shakes Kurt's hand briefly before pulling back and twisting his fingers in his hair. He hesitates before he speaks again.
"That girl I killed at the start, was she-"
"Mercedes?" Kurt asks, even though he knows who Sam is talking about. "Yes, we were friends. We were in a few classes together at school. She was very talented with fabrics."
"Sorry." Sam says sheepishly.
"It's fine. She'd have tried to kill you too, if that's any consolation." Kurt tugs his quiver higher up his shoulder and begins to walk deeper into the woods. Sam follows him.
"You don't strike me as the killing type." Sam comments as he falls into step with Kurt. The other boy eyes his suspiciously.
"And why is that?" Kurt asks, clearly impatient as he narrows his eyes, focusing on setting a path in front of him.
"I don't know. You just seem too... delicate for fighting."
"It's not like I asked to be here." Kurt huffs. "I'm eighteen. It's just my luck that on my last year I get reaped and now I'm stuck here waiting to die!"
Sam grabs him by the arm and pulls him to the left, in an effort to draw them away from the obvious path.
"I don't exactly want to be here either, Kurt. But it was me or my little brother, and I wasn't about to sit and watch him get killed on television. He's barely even twelve and I'm nearly seventeen, so I took his place."
Kurt swallows. The fact that he misses his father pales in comparison.
"I'm sorry. I- I shouldn't be complaining. I just miss my dad, and my older brother and, Hell, even those stupid catty girls from the factory. I know it hasn't been that long but I've never been away from them for this long before."
"I get it." Sam says, innocently sliding his hand down Kurt's arm and clumsily holding his hand. Kurt stares at him. "I mean, I have my parents and my brother and kid sister at home. I miss them too."
Kurt squeezes his hand, and Sam looks at him and smiles.
They continue like this for at least four days, or so they assume. The cannon fires only twice. Quinn from Eleven and Artie from Nine. Sam learns that Kurt, if he wins, wants to move to the Capitol (or at least, an upmarket part of Eight) and design clothes, maybe even be a stylist for the games. For some reason, it makes Sam smile, to think of Kurt grooming Eight's future tributes into beautiful, stylish teenagers.
Sam tells Kurt that, back in District Six, he and his father work at the nearest airplane assembly factory, so he spends his days after class welding large sheets of metal to other equally large pieces of metal. He mentions in passing that he doesn't really know what he'll do if he wins the games, apart from get out of Six and move somewhere that's both smaller and nicer. Kurt laughs warmly at the other boy's clear hatred of his District and his situation.
"They'll think of something to force us together soon." Sam sighs, poking at the fire he's built under the shelter of some thick bushes. "There's not that many of us left."
"Ten." Kurt reminds him for what must be the fifth time. "Us, all of the Careers and both tributes from Three."
"We'll survive." Sam laughs, almost bitterly, looking up at Kurt across the fire. "We've gotten this far, right?"
"Sam, I don't want it to come down to us at the end." Kurt says suddenly, his eyes concerned. "I'm not sure I could go anywhere near you with any kind of weapon."
"Then don't." Sam says simply, getting up and moving to sit beside Kurt on the forest floor.
"Just because I don't want to kill you doesn't mean I want to sit by and watch you die!" Kurt raises his voice a little more than he means to.
"I don't want to kill you either, but I'm not about to let someone else try it." Sam says, almost firmly. Kurt eyes him warily, raising his eyebrows.
"So you're sacrificing yourself for the sake of a tribute from another district? Smart move, Evans." Kurt replies sarcastically, rolling his eyes for a moment before blinking suddenly as Sam leans in and kisses him. Kurt can practically feel all the eyes in Panem on them; their names on the lips of the Capitol's resident gossips. He can almost hear them now –'oh, how tragic! So in love and yet torn apart by the Games! So sad. And they were so cute!'. It makes him wince.
"Sam, we can't." Kurt pulls away, staring the other boy down. Sam's eyes are sad and almost apologetic as he grabs Kurt by the hand.
"I'm sorry." He says quietly, looking down to the forest floor. "Boys like you don't come around a lot."
Kurt smiles weakly, almost as if he understands before he stands and pulls his hand out of Sam's grip. The blonde swallows until Kurt is holding his hand back out to help him up.
"What are you doing?" Sam asks warily as he takes Kurt's hand. The older boy pulls him towards the path, leaving the fire burning. "Isn't leaving that a little reckless?"
Kurt shrugs.
"We're probably going to die anyway. The careers are probably hunting us as we speak."
They've taken about three steps down the track when a huge explosion ricochets through the arena, a rumbling following only seconds later –a sure sign of an avalanche. They hesitate for a moment before the cannon fires four times. The faces of Rachel and Matt from District Four, Harmony from Two and Sebastian from District One appear on screen briefly.
Kurt and Sam remain still for a moment, waiting for any more deaths, when the cannon fires twice more. The other tributes from One and Two, Sugar and Noah.
"The careers are gone." Sam hisses nervously, looking at Kurt from the corner of his eye.
"Yeah," Kurt replies, squeezing Sam's hand, "but that means the tributes from Three are looking for us. I bet anything they were responsible for that explosion."
As if someone had heard Kurt and was determined to prove him wrong, the cannon fires and face of the male tribute from District Three –and his name, Mike- shows up on screen.
"Might have been an accident." Sam shrugs, pulling Kurt down the path in the direction he hopes is the Cornucopia.
"With so few of us left? Doubtful." Kurt replies nonchalantly, following Sam willingly down the steep slope and between the trees.
It's the early hours of the morning when they reach the edge of the forest and look out into the wide clearing that surrounds the Cornucopia. The other remaining tribute, Santana from Three, is pacing back and forth in the mouth of the horn, looking tiny compared to its huge mouth.
Kurt pulls an arrow from his quiver, readies his bow and launches it in Santana's direction. Her head snaps up and she spots them within seconds. She comes flying towards them and Sam draws his knife, running at her too. Kurt follows close behind, fumbling with his last few arrows as he loads one into his bow.
They're not quick enough, though, because Santana has buried a throwing knife in Kurt's stomach and the brunette is doubled over in pain, both hands stemming the blood flow.
Sam narrowly dodges a knife of his own as he stares in horror at Kurt, before he turns back to Santana and runs her through a few times with his blade. She collapses into a limp heap at his feet and her cannon fires.
He moves quickly to crouch besides Kurt, who has also collapsed on to the floor, and he supports his head with his arm and holds him close. Kurt whimpers at the movement, opening his watery blue-green eyes and staring up at him. Sam knows it's too late, but he curses himself internally because it shouldn't end this way, it's not fair, no no no.
Kurt smiles weakly at him, color draining from his face as he clutches at Sam's sleeve.
"It's okay, it's okay." Sam shushes him quietly, kissing the top of his head and pulling him closer to his chest. Kurt cries gently.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Sam says, almost whispering into Kurt's ear now.
And that's how it ends –the two remaining tributes curled up together on the grass beside the Cornucopia, both bleeding, both crying, but only one of them actually dying. Sam kisses Kurt again, in the last fleeting moment before the boy from District Eight falls limp in his arms.
"Congratulations, Sam Evans of District Six, victor of the 69th Annual Hunger Games!"
Sam sobs all the way through the announcement, all the while he and Kurt's body are hoisted into the hovercraft and right up until the medics are forced to sedate him to clean his wounds.
A few weeks pass between his victory and the start of the Tour. He spends most of it at his new home in the –fairly deserted- Victor's Village in Six, doing nothing other than perfecting his 'talent' (which, as it turns out, is music) and periodically crying.
He's in District Eight on the tour almost a month later when he encounters an older man and a twenty-something, both with Kurt's sad eyes and his soft brunette hair. His dad and his brother. Sam knows before he even starts his speech.
He stops to talk to them before he leaves.
"Your son," He says, eyeing Kurt's father sadly and his shoulders slump, "he was –he is- a wonderful person."
Kurt's father pats him on the shoulder and squeezes gently, blinking to fight back the tears.
"I'm sorry." Sam says quietly. The two men in front of him nod.
"I'm sorry too."
That's the last word Sam hears him say, because his district representative pulls him away and into the Justice Building immediately.
Sam spends the rest of his life writing songs and getting drunk. But sometimes, he remembers that boy from District Eight, writes another ode to a lost love to add to his ever-growing stack, takes another drink and tries desperately to move on.