The Starvelympics: A Hunger Games Crackfic

By alidazzles

Chapter 21

Dinner is a quiet affair, as the reality of tomorrow starts to sink in. We watch the interview recap show, all either too exhausted or too uncomfortable to look each other in the eye. Seeing myself on the screen, I look like a bubbly Chloe Moretz, dolled up in my flowy dress but also snarky and charming. Peeta looks like a sweaty Ryan Gosling compared to me. The crowd is fixed on his flowing golden locks and I swear panties are dropping nationwide.

The room is silent when the show is over. Tomorrow is the big big day, as Effie would say. Tomorrow will likely be the last day of my life. There is suddenly not enough air in the room. In the world. I take a furtive look around at my companions, my little team, the sort-of family we've become over the last week. We won't see Haymitch and Effie after this; they'll be at Games HQ, telling everyone how awesome and sexy we are in a mad rush to get sponsors. Cinna and Portia will be with us until the last minute, always on hand to touch up our makeup in case we suddenly burst out in tears just before showtime.

So this is goodbye.

Effie stands and takes both of us by the hand, all teary-eyed, wishing us the best in the Games. I bite my lip. I mean, I know I've spent the last week calling her a pasty bimbo with instant noodles for brains and a promising future in cheap porno, but she's kissing our cheeks and telling us how she'll never forget us and it's kind of killing me inside. A little.

Haymitch, true to form, crosses his arms and smirks at us.

"Is this where you tell us to be ourselves and try our very best?" asks Peeta.

"This is where I tell you that if you don't run straight for the woods as soon as the gong sounds, they'll be sending you home in pieces. Neither of you is up to the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, so you're better off searching for water."

"And after that?" I ask.

"Don't get dead," says Haymitch.

..

The hot water in the shower is glorious. The gold paint, makeup, and perfume all melt from my skin, revealing my smoldering pink flesh beneath. I leave the flames on my nails, cause they'll remind the audience of the flowy dress and possibly get me some sponsors. That, and if I have to die, I want to leave a gorgeous corpse.

Sleep is obviously not going to happen tonight. Drowsiness is pretty much a death sentence in the arena, but how am I supposed to just close my eyes and count sheep at this point?

I lie in bed as my mind races erratically, refusing to calm down. I think of the terrain in the arena. Who'll target me first. How many episodes of Jerry Springer I'll miss. I have to sleep. I can't sleep. I have to sleep. I want to cry. I wonder if the other tributes are lying awake too. Is this what the Capitol wants? Twenty-four children mentally destroyed for the entertainment of the people?

It's about three a.m. when I give up on sleep entirely. I slide out of bed, tip-toeing into the hallway. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, but I follow the hall until I reach the door to roof. To my surprise, it's open.

The wind instantly throws my hair into disarray. I imagine years of scared tributes climbing up to this very spot, hoping to jump to their deaths only to be caught by the energy field below. I, of course, am not up here to jump. I thought – and don't laugh okay? – that maybe if I could see the stars up here, I'd feel closer to District 12 and my shitty mom and Prick Duck Prim and all those people I hate but I guess not really.

I see Peeta immediately. His silhouette sits hunched near the edge, overlooking the Capitol, which continues to buzz and party despite the time. He's rocking side to side a bit, and at first I think he's crying again. It's kind of awk and I'm about to tiptoe away when I see the headphones in his ears.

"What is that?" I ask. Peeta stiffens, but relaxes as I step into the light.

"Oh," he pauses his iPod. "I was talking to Rue at training the other day," he shrugs. "She recommended this Flo Rida song, and it's been in my head ever since."

I sit beside him, taking an earbud and sampling about 30 seconds of the song. There's a heavy focus on brand-name jeans and "hitting the flo'", but the beat is awfully catchy, and soon the lyrics are in my head, too.

The music is a comforting excuse not to talk about the upcoming horrors of the Games, but the thoughts creep back in as the song fades out. Was that the last song I'll ever hear? Will any of these lyrics be of help in the Games? Maybe there'll be a poisonous limbo stick, and I'll have to "get low" to get by? Will I be humming this to myself as I cut through dense forests or swim across coursing rivers?

As the city roars below, our silence betrays our fear.

"So this is our goodbye party." Peeta sweeps a hand across the scene below, tiny ants milling through the square, hollering and whooping or staring at the giant screens recapping tonight's interviews, placing bets and calculating odds. Each of them sucking more than the last.

"Some party, they're having all the fun."

Peeta's chuckle is weak and mirthless.

"You know, I really am sorry about kicking you in the chest. And grinding your face into the ground—"

"And stepping on my fingers?" he asks, waggling one bandaged hand at me.

"No, you deserved that," I laugh.

"Well, I'm probably gonna croak the first day, anyway," Peeta shrugs. "So it's no big deal."

I punch him lightly on the arm. "Psh, I'll be dead in the first hour. Nah, strike that, I bet fifteen minutes."

Peeta points far below, at an ant with spiky green hair. "See that guy? He's betting fifty bucks that I fall off the platform before the countdown even ends."

I circle a group of bouncing red dots by the giant screens. "Those bitches are pooling their life savings to bet that I suffocate in the tube."

"Hey!" Peeta screams down at the crowd, lightyears away. "Have some respect! Fuck you!"

"Fuck the Capitol!" I join in, giggling.

"FUCK THE GAMES!" we chant together, in stitches, sighing after a full minute of snorty guffaws. How can Peeta and I transition so seamlessly from enemies to friends? Is it his hair?

"Katniss, I." He stops, the restarts as the silence closes in on us again. "Remember last season of Survivor, when they tried to make that guy eat this wriggling lizard, and they said they'd execute him if he didn't because ratings were in the toilet that year and that's President Snow's favorite show?"

No. "Yeah."

"Well, after a while he was like 'Fuck that noise' and he marched right off a cliff rather than eat it."

Oh, I do remember that. Because I recall thinking that Survivor: Yosemite was their dumbest idea yet. I nod along to Peeta's story.

"Well, sometimes I feel like that guy. These Games are meant to take the humble children of Panem and turn them into bloodthirsty monsters before painting a cage of horrors with their blood. I don't want to die a wild animal, foaming at the mouth just for the Capitol's entertainment."

Someone's been listening to My Chemical Romance before bed, I can tell.

"What, are you saying you won't kill anyone? Just cross your legs and meditate on your platform while the rest of us go at it?"

Peeta grumbles, "No, I'm not stupid. I just, I don't know, want to show the Capitol that they don't own me. That I'm not just another piece in their games."

I raise an eyebrow. "But you are."

"I know," he sighs, "But I'm not—"

"You are, though."

"But I—"

"We all are."

"But—"

"Peeta."

"But—"

"You're a piece."

Peeta rolls his eyes, pulling at his glorious hair. "You know, you'll probably do just fine in the arena. You've got a killer instinct and you're kind of a trip. Give my mother my best when you get back home. Or don't. She's a total bitch, too." Peeta opens his mouth to spit some other insults at me, but instead just grumbles, "Have a nice life."

Peeta stomps off the roof. I consider calling him back. This is, after all, the last time I'll see him before we're in the arena, and I don't need another enemy. But by the time I can swallow my pride and call out to him, he's long gone.