A/N: My very first fanfic that I'm publishing! I hope you enjoy it, please R&R - it'll make me smile!
Disclaimer: Oh how I would like to own Peeta and Cinna....but I don't.
'May the odds be ever in your favour!' Caesar Flickerman paused, just for the briefest moment to ensure a flattering photo would be taken of the moment the Hunger Games really began. That move he had perfected. He used to be dazzled by the flashes and the screams of the adoring audience, it was a heady combination when he was younger, it would make him feel euphoric for days.
Now, Caesar just felt nauseous. The novelty of being the face of the most popular annual television event had worn off, and he was able to see clearly the atrocity of the Hunger Games. Being the face of the games did have its perks however; he was currently reclining in a fabulous bubblebath in his private and luxurious dressing rooms, he would dry his blue skin on on of the softest towels the Capitol had to offer before having someone attend to his hair . However, an even more important an advantage was the fact that the position gave him power! Caesar had his own, subtle manner of influencing day to day life in Panem, he was good at it, nobody seemed to notice the way he could sway people's opinions and alter people's views with, merely, his presence, his choice of words and his inflection. Caesar gained a lot from his ability to twist people's opinions and decisions to suit his own needs – he was like a spider weaving a intricate and delicate web, if anyone noticed his subtle manipulation, life would be very different for Mr. Flickerman. Companies begged him to endorse their products, he had signed lucrative deals which brought him in a lot of money when all he had to do was draw a slight amount of attention to their product on television – he was in a prime position for this, as the Hunger Games was compulsory viewing. The opportunity for the companies was so fantastical that they pressed money and products (his favourite was the skin pigmenting injections - he adored being powder blue, it just felt right) whilst promising not to tell of the deal they had done.
Caesar lay back a little further in the mound of bubbles and allowed a spasm of pain flicker across his sculpted features, the expression looked a little out of place there, a face that screamed 'fashionable!' shouldn't show an emotion so raw. For the moment, seeing as he was alone, Caesar decided to forget about that, there was so much more in life than him. The thing that pained him was his inability to alter the one thing he wanted to change more than anything else. He couldn't stop the Hunger Games. He couldn't show any distaste for the show as, not only was he the host, but he could also be killed, it was going directly against the Capitol and everyone knew that was not a good idea. He briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a martyr and dying for his cause, he could show the world how awful their favourite tradition was and hope it ignited the tinder of the oppressed districts. He quickly dismissed this idea, if it failed and the message never reached the citizens of Panem he would have died for nothing. Caesar Flickerman was more useful to the tributes alive than dead.
Every year he would lie back in his bathtub and try to block out reality with the weight of the scented water pressing down on him. He always convinced himself, eventually, that it was not his duty to stop some children getting killed and they were probably all rude and unpleasant at home anyway. Did the districts not deserve it after the rebellion anyway? This year was different, he couldn't buy himself the peace of mind to relax with an unconvincing lie, he, like the whole of Panem was too affected. The tributes this year really were outstanding, but he'd stood there and quizzed corpses. That was essentially what they were, even the one who would come out alive, they would belong to the Capitol then. Every year it hurt him to realise that the vibrant and often witty individuals that stood in front of him were going to be publicly murdered and their deaths celebrated. What stung even more was the knowledge that the nervous tributes were going to die too, it hurt more because he knew that they weren't Careers, they didn't want to be in the games at all.
He lay back and thought of the lives that the timid tributes would have led before ending up on stage being interviewed by the most famous TV personality in all of Panem. They were probably poor, the districts weren't like the Capitol at all, he knew that by just observing the reactions of the children when they saw things that he took for granted. To them, pigmented skin and facial tattoos were scary and unnatural, powder blue hair was strange and every bodily alteration was a disfigurement, he could see some of them looking almost disdainful, as if they couldn't believe people could spend money on their image whilst thousands of people in the districts were literally starving. They would have taken tesserae, Casear decided of the tributes he'd interviewed, they would have needed to feed their family as best as they could. They had likely never had a proper days worth of food in their lives. This was unthinkable to someone who had been raised in the Capitol, where every whim was catered for and wasting food was fashionable.
His mind wandered back to memories of the evening onstage. The first tributes were pretty ordinary, he thought he'd seen a winner in Thresh from District 3 but then the Careers looked pretty strong this year too. Even though he sparkled for the cameras, Mr. Flickerman was slightly bored. He'd done this job for so long so he didn't think any spin or tactic could interest him, he'd heard them all and, unlike the general public, he found it a lot harder to forget the interviews of years gone by. It was only when District 12 came up that he became interested. The girl – Katniss – was compelling to listen to but it was Peeta Mellark that blew him away. He had everyone wrapped around his little finger and then he just...dropped them when he announced his love for Katniss. It did cross his mind that this was a complex game plan, but she did genuinely look surprised to hear the confession. Besides,he was stood next to the boy and he seemed sincere, Caesar was usually a good judge of character.
It just wasn't fair. Even if Peeta won he would lose. Lose the one girl he loved, and lets face it, Katniss was pretty special, she'd actually volunteered from District 12. Caesar admired her courage, he could never have done it, just like he couldn't make a move against the games. The whole of Panem was going to be even more excited about the games this year with the 'star-crossed lovers' angle. Flickerman wondered, because of the excitement shown about the lovers, if the population would really want the games to be cancelled. He concluded, after a rinse of his hair in blueberry shampoo, that they would – after all, who wants their children to be sent into an abattoir and and have to watch them die an often agonising death?
He knew he wasn't going to get any respite from his niggling conscience tonight so he heaved himself out of the bathtub. The situation kept turning itself over in his mind, since this was the 74th Hunger Games, 814 tributes would be dead by the end of this competition, and 74 victors would have been crowned. He had met some victors and had found them barely recognisable from their introduction interview, they deeply unsettled him. In all, counting the victors (but not any tributes' families – who were bound to be affected), 888 people would have had their lives directly ruined by the Capitol's punishment for a rebellion so far in the past that there was barely anyone alive who remembered it.
Caesar Flickerman pictured Katniss Everdeen and he pictured Peeta Mellark; he could not see any future in which they could be together and that sickened him. Everyone deserved love. Everyone. A sense of resolve steeled inside Caesar and settled in the pit of his stomach – he had to find other people who hated the games, he had to do it carefully (if he chose the wrong person to talk to he'd be dead) and he had to do it now.
A/N - Well? I hope it was okay :)