Union of the Stars: The 220th Hunger Games
Side Stories
10: Tacking - Marlan Hendriks
Marlan's mother always told him: it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
(warnings: implied child abuse & victim blaming)
tacking: the act of making quick, temporary stitches that will later be removed
Violent winds batter the rickety windows of their apartment and the lights are still flickering weakly, spilling warm yellow light across the walls and floors before dying out with a click. Outside, the storm howls through the tall buildings of District 8.
Marlan flops on his bed located in the main living area of their two-room apartment. His mother is fumbling with a candle and matches while his father is taking a shower after getting off work.
"Come over here and help me," his mother says when she finally has the candle burning steadily. Marlan eyes the round globe of light it casts on the kitchen table dubiously. There's no wind in here, but the flame flickers wildly as his mother crouches over a piece of fabric, her breath just enough to disturb it.
"I'll stab myself," Marlan complains as he gets up and goes over nonetheless.
He picks up a shirt and selects a needle and thread from the basket, then sits across from his mother to start sewing. It's much faster when they work in the factory, since they have machines there, but his mother likes to take home some work for extra cash.
"Just don't rush," she cautions, not looking up at him.
Marlan frowns. He continues his work, though, zoning out as starts sewing the hem. The light is unsteady, but it's enough to see by.
They sit in silence for a while. Marlan is halfway through the collar when he hears a knock at the door.
"It's Leo!"
He immediately stops, pushes the shirt into a basket and the needle back into the pincushion, and runs to the door.
Sure enough, it's Leo waiting there. Marlan can barely see his features, but he can recognize his best friend anywhere.
"Leo!" he says, darting an arm out to drag Leo inside.
Leo laughs, but it's sort of strained. Marlan freezes. There's a sort of tension to his voice, a twinge of something that makes Marlan's heart speed up and steps slow. He turns around, insistently pushing the thought expanding in his head that something is wrong.
"It- it's awfully windy out tonight," Marlan says awkwardly.
Leo urges him to keep walking, so Marlan does, leading Leo to his bed.
"Stay," Marlan says, smiling even though Leo can't really see him. "I'll get the kit."
As he turns around to find the medical kit under the kitchen sink, a cold metal box is placed in his hands. He looks up at his mother, who is already returning to her work.
"Thanks, mom!" Marlan calls. He turns back around just as the lights flicker on.
In that brief moment, Marlan is struck with an awfully strong sense of pain. He bites his bottom lip, unable to move past the ache in his chest.
"Doesn't that hurt?" he asks, stupidly, as the lights die and he can move again.
"It's just a little sore," Leo says, acting as if this is a secret he is shamefully admitting. But it's not even the whole truth. Of course it isn't.
Marlan doesn't ask. He sits next to Leo on the bed, crossing his legs as he sorts through the medical kit, pulling out ointment and bandages.
"You don't have to waste all that. Just rubbing alcohol to clean it will do."
Marlan scoffs.
"Leg," he says, patting the bed next to him. Leo slowly places his leg on the sheets. As he cleans the wound, he thinks, and finally he says, "…Are you really gonna let him beat on you forever?"
"Marlan!" his mother hisses.
Even though he isn't facing her, he can see the way her movement disturbed the candle, creating ripples in the halo of light against the table and floor, distorting the shadows against the walls.
"Sorry…" Marlan mutters.
Leo takes the roll of bandages and does that himself.
"He only gets this bad every now and again. It's fine. There are worse things."
"Worse things?"
"Like…" Leo leans in close, his breath warm against Marlan's ear. "Like the Games. Like getting into a factory accident, like-"
Marlan stiffens.
"The Games?" he hisses, glancing backwards at his mother. It looks like she didn't notice, though.
"But you agree with me. That the Games are cruel."
In fact, it was Leo's idea to begin with. But once he suggested it to Marlan and explained himself, Marlan ended up adopting it as his own.
He nods. Careful to speak in a low tone, he says, "I do. Even if they aren't human…it's still a horrible way to die."
Sometimes, Marlan thinks that Leo's occasional bruises and cuts are the reason why he even realized the true nature of the Games. Marlan always loved to watch the recaps, the highlights of the epic fights between Mu of equal strength. It was better than any abstract fairytale his mother used to tell him at bedtime.
He never once thought that it was strange until the first time Leo stumbled downstairs and asked if he could stay the night. And even then, it had taken half a year of mulling over Leo's words and the recent Games he had watched.
'I'm fine,' and 'He didn't mean it,' and 'It was my fault for forgetting to lock the door'. And, lastly, remembering that one tribute from District 11. That one girl who asked her own ally to kill her, because she couldn't handle being a Mu. How she had accepted that she had to die, freezing, alone, and bleeding out of a messy stab wound, because she was born a Mu and this was their fate.
It didn't align exactly, but Marlan thought a lot about those two incidents.
As he finishes patching Leo's wounds up, Marlan flashes him a smile in the brief moment between the lights returning and fading again.
Marlan is a problematic child. To be more accurate, he just really acts his age. He's younger than 14 in this ficlet, probably 11-12. I created him to be a rather normal, average preteen boy. He's selfish. He doesn't always see things from others' points of view even though he tries and has a kind heart inside.