CHAPTER IX: DISTRICT SIX


Juno Rovensteine, 17;

District Six Female, SHE/HER

- A WEEK BEFORE -


"I'm home," Juno announced somberly into the dimly lit den. Her voice dissipated in the dusk, receiving no reply. The household was uncharacteristically silent, save for the drip, drip of the leaky kitchen faucet their family couldn't afford to fix. With a deliberate movement of her wrist, Juno flipped the light switch on. The industrial lights buzzed to life, casting a faint, chartreuse glow around the room, drawing the moths out of their hiding places in their nightly dance.

Like most houses in the slums of District Six, the Rovensteine house was built from all sorts of different machine parts. The two lights illuminating the house were really just a pair of headlights that had been stripped from a car and strapped onto the ceiling. A couple months ago, Juno had taken them from the automobile factory she worked at without permission, and her father had transformed them into living room lights. He connected them to the biggest battery pack he could find, wires trailing from the ceiling to the ground, to create a working light under the Rovensteine roof. The finished product wasn't amazing, but it was miles better than the alternatives. Juno wouldn't take the shitty lights for granted as long as the days of kerosene lamps and handheld flashlights were behind her.

She set her pack on the rubber flooring with a dull, suppressed sound. It truly was strange. Her parents would usually be home by now, fixing up food for Juno's four demanding, rowdy younger siblings: Vesta, Lars, Raisa and Arthur, next eldest to youngest, respectively. If her mother and father weren't here, it was likely they were working extra hours to make up for the fact their normal shifts were barely enough to carry their family's living expenses. Still, it didn't explain why the house was void of her siblings' carelessly loud footsteps.

Juno frowned. She stalked deeper into the house to investigate the whereabouts of her siblings. She checked the teenagers' rooms for Vesta and Lars first, but was only met with Lars's slumbering form in the chair beside his bed. His figure was lit by a flashlight, still turned on and clutched (albeit loosely) in his hand. He cradled a textbook in his arms; most likely, he had fallen asleep studying.

She approached him silently, taking care to not step on anything that would cause a sound. "Lars," she whispered. "Lars?"

Despite Juno's prodding, he did not stir. Juno exhaled; she would probably just have to move him herself. She maneuvered her arms underneath his frail body, the same body all the elder Rovensteine kids had. They all looked scrawny and not in the slightest healthy, a side effect of not having enough to eat despite having three full-time workers in the house. Thankfully, Lars was already taller than her. At least malnourishment didn't stunt his growth severely the way it did Juno's.

Out of all the siblings, she got along with Lars the best, though only because they didn't speak to one another all that often and thus didn't have reason to argue. In fact, Lars was somewhat similar to Juno; they were both quiet and clever, but Lars was definitely more of an academic compared to her. Ever since… well, ever since the events that transpired a year prior, Juno had started trying to make an effort to get closer to him, stepping out of her own comfort zone to step into his. Progress was so-so, but last week, he had told her about the personal project he had been working on, something about robots and sea monsters. Juno had smiled and listened attentively, unsure exactly what he was saying but wanting to encourage him nonetheless. It was good that he had something he liked. Juno had never been afforded that privilege when she was his age, but she was sincerely happy seeing her teenage brother enjoy the things she couldn't.

She set down Lars's sleeping form onto the misshapen futon, outstretching each of his limbs out in a way she could only hope would be comfortable for the boy. Once she figured he looked snug enough, she took the discarded, unfolded moth-eaten blanket and draped it over Lars.

There. Now to find the others.

Juno drifted next door to the babies' rooms, but found that it was completely abandoned and empty of both Raisa and Arthur. Typical. They rarely frequented their own room, choosing rather to crash in their parents' bedroom. Poking her head into the room next door confirmed Juno's hypothesis; sure enough, her youngest siblings had passed out on the lint-covered, king size mattress, snoring and splayed without a care in the world.

Raisa slept just as she behaved while she was awake; wild, obnoxiously demanding attention with limbs cast out every-which-way. On the other side of the bed, Arthur lay in a much more organized manner. His small hands were tucked neatly underneath his chubby cheeks, and his legs were bent at the knees. Looks comfortable, Juno remarked to herself. That left only Vesta to find. Receding back into the hallway, Juno began to pull the door shut when her eye darted to the photographs that lined the inner wall of her parents' room. She hesitated for a second before fully committing, reentering the room to inspect the photographs. Juno was sure she already knew who was depicted in those pictures, but it took a closer eye to quell her curiosity.

She stood in front of the barren wall, her dark eyes skirting past the ridges and the peeling paint to land on his face. Several renditions of it, scattered across several photographs. Anders.

He'd always been photogenic. Between the two of them, her twin brother had definitely won the metaphorical lottery, both genetically and otherwise. He was exceptionally charismatic and popular, never failing to gather a crowd and attract an audience wherever he ventured. People seemed to flock towards him naturally and he relished in the glory of it all, thriving under the watchful gaze of countless eyes. Juno never understood how he could make so many friends so easily, how he didn't find all of the attention oppressive. To this day, she still couldn't, but she supposed the secret had died with her brother.

As the cliche went, she and Anders were complete opposites; it was hard to believe that they had once shared the same womb. She was the furthest thing from popular, as her sister Vesta had once put it. Juno couldn't even deny it if she tried. He went out and partied every night, whereas Juno much preferred to stay home, not socializing with anyone. People wanted to be around him, but Juno on the other hand made it all too easy to avoid her. Anders chased excitement and novelty, while Juno was content with the familiar, the known. It was that exact desire of his that led to their next parallel; Anders was undeniably, irreversibly dead, and Juno, the forgotten twin, was very much alive.

Juno was no fool. She heard all the whispers the week she came back to school, the week after Anders had passed.

"That's her, that's Anders's sister," one girl murmured.

"Anders?"

"Mhm, the one who OD'd on morphing at Kimber's party. He really overdid it that time."

"No, I know Anders. I'm saying, she's Ander's twin sister?" The other girl did a poor job at obscuring her smirking lips from Juno's view. "They're literally nothing alike. I thought that was just a rumor."

"Nope. Lo and behold."

"My god."

"Yeah, crazy shit."

"Is it wrong to wish we could trade twins out?"

The girls fought to stifle their laughter, but it didn't matter. Juno had heard everything. The thing was, Juno could hardly fault them for joking about the matter. She was sure countless other people shared the sentiment, devoid of the humor. As much as they tried to conceal it after his passing, she suspected that even her family felt the same, but there was no point in being honest about it when Anders was already long gone.

Out of everyone, Vesta definitely took Anders's death the hardest- even harder than his own twin sister did, apparently. Juno had never really been close with her twin brother the way that twins ought to be, but in Anders's eyes, Vesta was a fine replacement for Juno. Vesta and Anders actually had things in common and enjoyed each others' presence, which seemed like the bare minimum, but Juno had never been able to achieve even that.

"Hey," Vesta's voice floated through the crack of the door, drawing Juno out from her stupor. "You good?"

Juno blinked. "Yes," she said hollowly. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yes; I was just... looking at pictures."

"Okay," Vesta replied, sounding a tinge puzzled but she didn't push the subject. She leaned onto the door, letting the strip of light grow wider as more yellow light spilled into the bedroom. "You want a snack? Ya just got home, right?"

Juno had always felt awkward and cast aside when she saw how easily Vesta and Anders got along, but she really couldn't blame them. It was only her fault she was so reclusive, but ever since Anders died, she had been working to better that part of herself. And it seemed that Vesta had started to grow soft on her older sister. Ever since Juno started making an effort to reach out to her siblings, Vesta had become gentler, kinder, more forgiving of Juno's social ineptness and awkwardness. Their relationship was nothing like how it was between Vesta and Anders, but it developed a whole new brand of its own. She could call Vesta her sister and have the term feel correct. It made Juno feel content, like she was finally doing something right.

Still, it was obvious at times that Vesta still wished it could've been Juno instead of Anders. No amount of kindness could even begin to replace the bond her younger sister and her twin brother had. But that was all right; if there was one thing Juno knew how to be, it was respectfully distant.

"I won't say no to a snack," Juno said. She followed her sister out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door with a soft click. Vesta led Juno into the kitchen, yanking the tarnished handle of the mini-refrigerator out to fetch something inside. The cool air that emerged tickled the exposed parts of Juno's skin. That rusted cooler was the only real luxury they could afford, and Juno was thankful everyday that she lived in a District where technology like that was relatively accessible.

Wordlessly, Vesta handed her a hard boiled egg and a bottle of discount soy sauce from the fridge. From the mostly sparse cupboard, Juno took out a small stainless steel bowl and a fork. She cracked the eggshell at the top, and gingerly began peeling it off the rubbery egg. Once it was bare, she set it in the bowl and drizzled an inkling of soy sauce, enough to coat the egg in a thin layer of brown liquid. Dinner.

"How was work today?" Vesta said, sitting on the floor. Juno mimicked her movements, her bones groaning in relief as she sat for the first time in what had to be hours.

"Fine," Juno answered. There was never really an exciting answer for that sort of question. She did the same thing everyday. "Where's Mum and Dad?"

"They took the late shift." Vesta replied. Just as Juno had assumed.

"Now, let me tell you about all the shit that happened today…" Vesta launched into a spiel of mindless gossip, Juno barely able to follow along. She tried her best to stay engaged, even as much as it drained her to keep up with the way her younger sister spoke a mile a minute. Juno found it endearing to see Vesta so fired up about something.

When Vesta finally stopped to take a breath, Juno spoke. "That sounds… not preferable," she agreed, her mouth full of egg.

"Don't even get me started!" Vesta groaned. "I'm going to the party on East End with Akarsha and Viel to settle the score. I'll tell 'em what the fuck is up."

Juno promptly stopped chewing at once. "The party on East End?" she echoed, remembering where the police had found Ander's body last year. "To… tell her what the… what is up?" The slang sat uncomfortably in her mouth.

"Uh-huh!" Vesta shook her head up and down energetically. "Juno, please please please say you'll cover for me when Mum and Dad get home. It's actually urgent."

"To you, going to this party is urgent?" Juno repeated. Her younger sister nodded furiously in response.

"I… I don't know," Juno set down her bowl, the spoon clinking gently against its metal surface. "I can't stop you from going… but I can't in good conscience just turn a blind eye to it. You know what happened to An-"

Vesta screwed up her face harshly. "Of course I know what happened to Anders," she said, her voice dangerously close to a snarl. "What, did you think I'd forgotten? I was the one that was hit the hardest after he was gone, you know."

Juno swallowed thickly. She knew that Vesta wasn't stupid enough to pick fights for no reason, but "settling the score" and "telling 'em what the bleep was up" didn't exactly sound smart, either. While it was true that Vesta probably wouldn't go to a party to make a grave mistake like Anders had, Juno couldn't completely rule out the possibility. Vesta and Anders had always been similar in a lot of ways, and if for some godforsaken reason her younger sister went down the same path… well, Juno simply couldn't afford to lose her, too. She wanted to voice these concerns, but at the same time, she really didn't want to subtract any potential cool points Vesta might have given her in the last couple months.

She grappled with herself for a couple moments longer before her paranoia eventually won out. Juno let out a long exhale before issuing her verdict, knowing that it wouldn't be well-received. "It's not safe," she said, averting her eyes. "P-people are crazy."

Vesta stared at her pointedly. "You mean you don't trust me."

"That's not what I said," Juno tried to plead, but she knew it was futile.

"Thanks for the advice, Juno, but you already know I'm going to go regardless," Vesta said coldly. She abruptly got up off the ground and stalked to the front door, armed with nothing but a small pack. Juno could only watch her.

"I'll be back sometime after midnight. Don't wait up for me." Standing there in the open doorway, Vesta seemed to hesitate before speaking to Juno one last time.

"You know," she said, "before Anders died, you never tried to act like an responsible older sister- so for the love of Panem, don't start now. If you really wanted to be one, you'd help me instead of trying to hold me back." With those words, she departed the house with nothing but a light door slam in her stead.

The meaning behind her words wasn't lost on Juno; it never was. Vesta never had to say it for Juno to know what she was thinking: I wish it had been you instead.


Crossland Vectra, 18;

District Six Male, HE/HIM

- A WEEK BEFORE -


It was 9:32 PM, and there was still shit ton of scrap metal to move before Crossland could go home for the night. The cool air that was wafting in through the open wall did little to quell the perspiration dripping down his face. The garage was wide and spacious, three metal walls yawning with the pressure of the wind outside. A half-burnt out lightbulb in the center of the room cast a dim light against Crossland. The air was tangy with oil and gasoline, a smell that had become synonymous with oxygen for those living in District Six. His hands were calloused and blistered beyond repair; lifting huge chunks of scrap metal for close to fourteen hours a day would do that to a person.

Crossland's entire body ached with fatigue, but the motor inside of him refused to stop. He was a machine stuck inside a fleshy, beating prison. He would keep working until either there was not a shred of scrap metal left in the garage or he collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

From across the room, his co-worker yawned. "God, how long are they going to keep us here?" she said, badly-concealed impatience bleeding into her voice.

Crossland knew what she was trying to do. "Go home, Akarsha," he said. "I'll take up the rest of your shift."

She feigned shock, clasping her hands over her mouth. "Seriously, Vectra? You'd be okay with that? All for me?"

All for you? he thought to himself, amused. He didn't bother correcting her. "Don't worry about it."

Another one of his co-workers popped his head in and smiled. "Me too?"

"Yeah, go home, Xiel. Enjoy your night."

"Fucking sweet! See you!"

With a spring in their step, Akarsha and Xiel gathered their belongings and left the garage, leaving Crossland alone and completely surrounded by colossal piles of scrap metal. The dim light made him look small against their domineering silhouettes. It looked like it would be another… three hours of work or so, maybe even more, now that Crossland had taken it all upon himself. But Crossland didn't mind; he liked working, liked the mindlessness of moving metal from one point to another. He thought about the way that Akarsha and Xiel had laughed as they exited the building, jostling each other roughly as their laughs echoed around the garage and into the night sky above. Crossland wondered what it was like to be carefree like that, so eager to reach the prospect of a new day, taking for granted the sanctuary that mind-numbing, thoughtless work provided.

Crossland knew he wasn't exactly popular in the traditional way among his co-workers, but that was fine with him. He picked up the work for them, and they liked him for the convenience he offered. But it wasn't as if he did it out of the generosity of his own heart. No, it was as much for his own benefit than it was theirs; a system of mutualism, even if they didn't even know what they were giving him from their end of the deal.

Looking at the scrap metal, he grunted softly before diving right into his workload. As he hoisted the metal into organized piles, the bulb above him flickered. A memory darted behind Crossland's eyelids…

"Mama," A young boy whispered, tugging at his mother's limp arm as he tried to rouse her out of bed. The lightbulb cast a garish, white glow against her face. She only croaked in response, a throaty sound that made the bile rise up in the boy's throat. That boy was Crossland, but it had been years since he'd looked so young and fresh and naive. There had been beginnings of a stubble around his jaw, and his eyes hadn't been so dull. His cheeks had been fuller, and his skin smooth and warm. He had once looked youthful.

Fourteen year-old Crossland tried again. "Mama," he urged, and when his mother did not stir, he sighed and peeled the blanket off her thin frame gently. When it was fully off, the woman in the bed looked less like a mother than she did a skeleton. She was frail and her skin was grey, the clothes she wore tinged a sickly, mildewy yellow. Crossland cupped his arms under her neck and her knees, trying to ignore the way her bones jutted uncomfortably into his palms. Grunting, he hoisted her up slowly and maneuvered her outside the bedchamber and onto the back patio where the basin was, the ashy wood creaking wherever he stepped.

It was a handsome-looking house, functional and practical, and much, much better than a lot of the houses in the Six slums. His family was able to afford it because both Crossland's mother and father worked high-paying railroad maintenance jobs. It was smooth sailing until there was an accident at work, and it cost his mother her legs. She could no longer walk or work. From the outside, their household seemed fine, but little did everyone know that the foundation was crumbling from the bottom up. For the first time, Crossland had to take tesserae for his family. His father began working longer and more treacherous hours, darting in and out of the house like a ghost. Crossland had to start working as well to make up for his mother's lack of salary, but his miserable wage didn't even come remotely close to recovering what they once had before. Scrubbing and polishing the floors of the factory from four to eleven stained his hands and knees black. No matter how much he washed them, Crossland would always see the dirt, grime and ash permanently ingrained in the ridges of his skin.

Gently, Crossland undressed and lowered his mother into the basin, the water fortunately still warm. She sighed as the water enveloped her body. Her eyes were open but unseeing as Crossland took a brush and began scrubbing at her skin, much less rigorously than he did at the factories.

It was the same each day. Go to school and scrub the chalkboard. Go home and scrub his mother. Go to the factory and scrub the metal. And then go back home and scrub his eyes until he fell into a dreamless slumber, exhausted but unable to truly rest.

When Crossland decided she was clean, he brought his mother back to bed. Usually by this time, she would be awake enough to mutter a few words, to have a conversation. But it seemed that she only had the energy to say one thing.

"Morphling," she whispered, and Crossland had to pretend he was happy to oblige as he went to the bedside drawer and procured a syringe and a jar of milky white glaze, less than halfway filled and quickly receding. Her eyes rolled back as Crossland injected the drug into the crook of her left elbow, and he pretended that he wasn't just seeing his mother as the shadow of her former self.

That was his life: monotonous. Thankless. No end goal in sight.

Until he met him. Crossland was sixteen and lost, sixteen and searching, sixteen and impressionable and vulnerable and desperate for an exit that seemed to bound just slightly past his reach. So when a beautiful boy reached out and whispered tales of an escape, Crossland couldn't find a reason to say no.

Zhaust Fekete. He was two years older than Crossland at the time, mature and alluring. Crossland didn't question how Zhaust was already so well-off at eighteen; he was just enthralled with the man that seemed to be the first person to care about him. His attention and affection was addicting- intoxicating, even, and Crossland remembered wondering if this was how his mother felt every time she got her dose of morphling. If so, then… he couldn't even blame her for craving the high so desperately. He was too distracted to pay attention to much else than the beautiful boy whose arms he was in, the beautiful boy whose bed he was in.

Zhaust took care of Crossland when he was at his most vulnerable, his most susceptible. He was the light at the end of the tracks after a tireless day of migrating between work, home, and school. Crossland felt that he actually listened and that he actually cared when he would vent and Zhaust would comfort him, telling him that he shouldn't have to be burdened by his mother, shouldn't have to rush back and forth just to check if she was still breathing. His father was selfish for leaving all the responsibility on Crossland's shoulders, and his mother was leeching on Crossland's money, attention and energy. He didn't deserve to be subject to that fate, Zhaust had said.

Zhaust was seductive not only in body but in vernacular as well. Eventually, there came a time when Zhaust started pleading with him to spend the night in lieu of attending to his mother.

"Stay with me," he said in that strangely irresistible way of his. Zhaust's eyes shone with gold flecks, reflective in the kerosene light. "She'll still be there in the morning."

Once again, Crossland could find no reason to say no. And sure enough, just as Zhaust said, when Crossland had went home the next morning, his mother was still breathing.

He remembered feeling nothing. Less than nothing, even- a little bit emptier, like he was expecting something that hadn't been given to him after all.

After the first time, staying over at Zhaust's became a regularly repeated offense. Soon, one night stretched into multiple in a row where Crossland would neglect to return home. And one morning Crossland came back to find his mother's corpse in bed, slumbering in a different way entirely. She was already turning yellow, caked in days of filth, and her glazed eyes had lost all their moisture. It was a horrendous sight to see, and all Crossland remembered was a dull thought pulsing in his brain: Had I really been gone for that long?

Crossland's neglect had killed his mother, and yet all he could feel was an immense tidal wave of relief. Death had come and gone, relieving Crossland of the chains that had been weighing him down for the last three years of his life and dragging them back into the depths of a gasoline ocean. They let out one last rattle and disintegrated into ash, and at last Crossland was a free man. And so, without even stepping foot into the room, he left. He pivoted on his heel and went straight back to Zhaust's house. Crossland paid no mind to what his father would think when he discovered his wife in the state she was in; he would leave the consequences to him, just like he had done to his son for three years.

With one of his largest burdens gone, Crossland felt the joy sap back into his body. Finally, he could spend uninhibited time with his boyfriend without the sickly feeling of dread sticking to the back of his neck. He never had to return home if he just spent every night with Zhaust.

Crossland made his own money and had a place to stay. Education, family, social life, personal enrichment- they all became obsolete in the blazing glory of Zhaust. Crossland knew that he would give up anything for this man, so when Zhaust began asking him for money, Crossland obeyed without hesitation, though not without surprise. In the years Crossland had known him, Zhaust never seemed to be without money. But he figured if Zhaust was asking, he must've really needed it.

In hindsight, Crossland should've known where it was going. What was behind Zhaust's requests for money was the same insatiable desire that had steered his mother for years, and still, Crossland fell victim to the ploy. Just a few sprats turned into handfuls of bills, and further still. It became more than Crossland could easily offer, and with the hours of the free time he didn't have, he would work late shifts well into the night just to satisfy Zhaust's financial lust. He should've expected it when his partner started growing distant and apathetic, just like his mother had after her first couple doses. He should've expected it when he saw all of the morphling jars in the confines of their closet. And he should've expected it when he came home early from a shift one night, eager to make up lost time with Zhaust, only to see his boyfriend and a woman wrapped around his bare chest, passed out and surrounded by syringes and jars.

Crossland had already been well on his path to becoming a living, unfeeling machine, but that was the point when he finally broke. How could he have been so naive? He had been taken advantage of by Zhaust the same way he had been by his own mother. Crossland's feet found their way to the nearest Peacekeeper station and in front of the desk attendant's blank stare and monotone voice.

"You sure these are the morphling dealers we've been looking for?" she had said.

For what would be the last time in his life, Crossland couldn't find a reason to say no.

"Yes," he replied. "Make sure they get what's coming to them."

Zhaust and the woman were taken into cuffs when Crossland returned, several Peacekeepers at his side. A week later, the two were publicly whipped to death, and their flayed corpses were practically framed and boasted in the middle of District Six. Crossland only caught a glimpse of their bodies on his way to work, but it was enough to make him feel nauseated. It was hard to believe the man he thought had loved him was practically oxidizing in Town Square, his tender flesh bloodied and stained with smoke.

At the same time, Crossland couldn't help but feel righted. From the sight he got a small gleam of comfort, of justice, of vengeance for the countless hours he spent at work, trying to distract himself from his own incompetence. It was time Crossland would never get back, but he felt a tinge of satisfaction just knowing Zhaust had gotten what was coming to him…

The bulb in the garage flickered once more, and Crossland whirred back to life. It took a moment for him to attune himself to his surroundings. Silently, he cursed to himself. There were some people that could work on autopilot, but Crossland had never been wired that way. He couldn't work and just think about something else; he had to be completely immersed in the physicality of it to get anything done.

Simple. If he forced himself to work, he didn't have to think about anything. Before, Crossland had worked for the end result, whether it was the paycheck or the license to rest. But nowadays, working for the feeling of working itself was a strange sort of liberation. The distraction it granted was worth more than any type of compensation he could receive for his labor.

Crossland had no purpose, but that was fine. Purpose just ran him dry and left him feeling gapingly empty at the end of every ordeal. He was better off without it.


DISTRICT SIX REAPINGS

July 4th, 10:13 AM

Female Slot: Juno Rovensteine - 25 slips

Male Slot: Crossland Vectra - 20 slips


a/n: [falls through some portal and hits the floor like a sack of potatoes] oh.. What am i doing here? This is not state of fire verse. Oh well, i guess ill write this silly little an for my hotcock buddy boob! everyone please meet crossland and juno, submitted by uh... [looks at smudged writing on hand] twilkins and silversshade.. uhh they're really neat aren't they? yeah! i think so. big thank u to me (phobe) and goldie for beta-reading this bad boy! i think we're rather sexy for it!

anyways, uh if ive got my math right, we're gonna be meeting keesha and fio next update! good ol' d5 bay bee! i- or well. brooke will see you there i guess, i really don't know how i got here, or why im here.

pith out, your overlord pheeb phobe