A/N: Wow wouldja look at that, two chapters in the same calendar year? Who am I and what have I done with Mae? Welcome to District Nine, please keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle, and enjoy the ride.

Sonny Louis Jackson, 15

June 30th, 118 ADD

He savours the walk home, head thrown back, eyes shut against the bright yellow sunshine that splashes across his cheeks like sweet lemonade, drinking in the crisp, barely warm spring air, the breeze that sweeps gently across the plains, fondly caressing the amber stalks of wheat and carrying the last frosts of gloomy April drizzles away with it. He takes in long, deep breaths through his nose, relishing the westward wind and wondering where else it had been before filling the empty spaces in his chest; daydreams of being as free as the oxygen that's sliding down his throat because when it is slipping gracefully between branches of tall trees in Seven and picking up the salty brine of Four and drifting off to sea he will still be here. He is always here.

Sonny jerks harshly back into awareness with a sneeze, the sheepish grin of apology he flashes at his best friend beside him turning into a glare when he catches sight of the fluffy head of the wheat stalk James is clutching in his hands and the too-innocent smile on the older boy's face that doesn't quite cover his amusement.

"Jerk," Sonny shoots the insult at his friend with no heat, shoving him playfully off toward the side of the dirt road with his shoulder.

"Wimp," James calls back, not bothering to hide his own mischievous grin anymore, "I tickled your nose, princess. What would you rather I do when you drift off into happyland, punch you in the face? Because that can absolutely be arranged." Sonny rolls his eyes but has to admit that James really couldn't have been much gentler.

"Okay, point made. Sorry for zoning out, it's just… it's so nice out. I'm enjoying the day."

"You enjoy every day." James shoots back with bemused annoyance, as if offended by the simple ease with which his best friend finds joy.

"Yeah, well, suck it up, buttercup," Sonny teases, long legs carrying him a few steps ahead until he can turn and walk backwards in front of his friend, both of their backpacks draped over his broadening teenage shoulders.

"Keep calling me buttercup and I won't warn you before you run into a tree."

"Please, we've walked this exact same route twice a day since kindergarten, I could do this in my sleep with my eyes closed."

"Do you usually sleep with your eyes open?"

"Shut up."

He lingers at his back door for a long moment, watches James keep going, headed further into town. He takes one last deep breath and steps inside, his grin widening at the sight that greets him in the small office.

"Well, how are my two favorite ladies this fine afternoon?" He asks as he leans over the heavy oak desk to plant one kiss on his mother's cheek and another on his little sister's forehead.

"Oh, you know, the usual. Doing businessy stuff." Lexa replies with a smile, the twelve-year-old's eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Ah, 'businessy stuff'. Sounds very important." He teases, and Lexa pouts dramatically, her mouth opening to retort when their mother cuts them off with a roll of her eyes.

"It is important, as a matter of fact," Annette admonishes her middle child, "your sister here just saved me a lot of money. She gets any smarter and she can start handling the books and vendors herself, I'll gladly trade for some middle school homework."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, mom," Sonny drawls, sending his little sister a conspiratorial wink, "I'd like to see you try and handle some of those worksheets after this many years out of practice."

"This many year- exactly how old do you think I am, mister?"

"There is no such thing as a good answer to that question," He replies with a laugh, dodging out of the way of the throw pillow his mother aims at his head as he ducks through the doorway into the kitchen, Lexa's infectious giggles following him out of the office.

His own laughter is cut off in an incredulous snort as he takes in the room before him. His older brother Marley, seventeen years old, full of himself, and often full of shit, is leaning over the stove, and more importantly, leaning over the woman standing at the stove. Jonie, a year Marley's senior and a recent addition to the kitchen staff, living proof of the fact that the combination of food and a pretty girl is indeed sufficient motivation to get Sonny's brother to do just about anything, up to and including actually helping with the family business as he's doing now.

The younger brother rolls his eyes as he squeezes behind them to get to the other end of the galley kitchen, unable to get on board with Marley's open flirting and Jonie's positive reception of it as she patiently (because dear goodness his big brother is not naturally gifted in the kitchen, that's for sure) teaches the other teen to cook. In all fairness, though, Sonny grants as he shakes his head in mock disappointment at the wink Marley sends his way, the older boy has now been consistently attending Jonie's "lessons" longer than he's ever stuck with anything in his life, past girlfriends included (the seventeen-year-old is much more the love 'em and leave 'em type), so maybe he actually is developing an interest in a productive activity for once.

Thoughts of his brother leave the forefront of Sonny's mind as he breezes through the swinging saloon doors into the inn's main lobby, a wide grin spreading across his cheeks as he relaxes into his element, guests mingling and the buzz of soft chatter. He sidles up next to his father as the older man finishes checking a middle-aged couple into their rooms, and warmth soaks Sonny's chest as his Dad drapes a muscular arm across his son's shoulders, pulling him into a quick side hug.

"Hey, kiddo," Rodney greets in his warm baritone, "here to relieve your old man of duty?"

"Yeah, thought I'd come tag you out for a couple hours. I'm at the Hardwicks' for dinner tonight, by the way."

"Alright, thanks for letting me know. I'll see if I can have your knucklehead brother wrap your plate up for leftovers." Sonny's Dad smiles affectionately at the mention of his oldest son, practically his own spitting image, as he hands off the inn's front desk to his ever-responsible middle child.

As the sun begins to sink in the western sky, liquid and golden as the endless seas of wheat across which it casts its late afternoon glow, Sonny chats up guest after guest with gregarious ease, his bright smile and inquisitive nature endearing harried businessmen and weary travelers to the teenager the same way it has since he stood no higher than their knees. The fifteen-year-old shakes hands and flashes kind smiles with all the grace of a campaigning politician, managing the Jackson family's inn with a mastery that belies his age.

When a familiar form strides through the front doors, clad head to toe in dazzling shades of teal and gold and radiating the expensive flair of the Capitol, Sonny lights up, making an immediate beeline for one of his favorite regulars.

"Alaban," he calls warmly as he extends a hand to the tall man, "don't tell me it's that time of year already?"

"You know I could never lie to you, Mr. Jackson," Alaban replies with a sly smirk, his slightly accented voice smooth like honey. Sonny returns the smile with his own beaming one as he walks to take a seat at a nearby table in tandem.

"So, what's it like out there?" Alaban laughs and shakes his head good-naturedly.

"The same as the last ten years you asked me, squirt." Sonny makes a face at the nickname but his smile doesn't fade.

"Tell me again anyway?" the other man feigns exasperation as he pulls a slim envelope from an inside pocket of his elaborate jacket, carefully extracting a stack of glossy photos from within and handing them across to the teenager.

Sonny cradles the prints in his hands with something close to reverence, gasping softly in awe as he gazes at the images, his eyes shining with pure fascinated joy as he takes in every detail. Alaban smiles indulgently, patiently watching the boy, something warm and fuzzy tugging at his own heartstrings because even if he'd never admit it he spends the long months of every year looking forward to this moment just as much as Sonny does, takes meticulous care in preparing, in the way he always keeps his eye out for something beautiful to capture in his camera's lens and bring back to this kid that he's spend a decade becoming unwillingly attached to. This kid that looks at the rest of the world with a wonder that's begun to infect Alaban as well, the dull tediousness with which he used to view his job fading away as he forces himself to see his days through Sonny's eyes for the sake of the strange need he feels to please the teenager when Sonny asks him at the end of every June to tell him all of the best parts of the year that's passed them by.

He leans across the table to explain details of the photographs, to spin anecdotes for the curious teen about what it's like outside of Nine. He savors every moment of their visit because he knows that the week he spends in this District every year will only get worse from this point; because he knows that in just a few days he will have to get on a train where the air is heavy and suffocating with grief and fear, will have to pretend that he doesn't see anything wrong with taking two kids back to the Capitol to die, will have to act the perfect Escort every painfully long moment until he can come back here again, to this inn, to this kid who still looks at the world with something like hope in his eyes, to this table where he gets to be human for a while.

Sonny fidgets with his borrowed cufflinks, tugging gently and uselessly at the ends of his too-short sleeves (he hopes he's done growing so that the next nice jacket his father buys for him can be the last) as a formal silence continues to blanket the long wooden table. He feels a nudge to the side of his foot and glances over to James, his best friend shooting him an apologetic grimace. The smile Sonny returns is reassuring; James may have been prepared to beg him to come to this dinner, but he didn't have to. Sonny honestly doesn't mind accompanying his friend to these boring state dinner things, it's kind of cool to be a fly on the wall when James' father is doing some of his more glamorous mayoral duties, entertaining high society capitolites and wining and dining his way through difficult negotiations. James, and by extension Sonny, are there more as a strange sort of decor than as an actual part of the meetings, but he's happy enough just to be in the presence of these people who travel between the districts like it's nothing; he doesn't need them to acknowledge him.

James rolls his eyes covertly at the way his friend hangs on every word that falls daintily from the mouths of the Capitol visitors, but he's glad to have Sonny here; it would be infinitely more boring to sit through his Dad's snooty, fancy functions alone. Besides, he thinks he might be able to wheedle his way into escaping this one before the next course, and there's some sort of traveling circus in town that Sonny's been wanting to take him to see.

Poppy Fairfax, 18

June 30th, 118 ADD

The trailer is warm with the tangle of sweaty bodies crammed up against each other, voices a constant insectile buzz through the small space, glitter transferring from skin to skin as they brush past each other in various states of dress. Pre-show excitement sparks through the air, anticipation thickening the oxygen between them like an electric current. Bodies stretching up against the wall, zipping up each other's costumes, sharing makeup and gossip as they stare at their painted faces in brightly lit mirrors. Someone cracks the door open so that they won't all choke on the fumes of the sticky sweet hairspray they douse their hair in until their buns are hard as granite. They pour out of the trailer like a warm, undulating mass of energy, the air in the open field becoming heavy with the scent of the beauty products they slather their muscle-toned bodies in and the cheap cinnamon whiskey that cascades down their throats.

Poppy breathes in deep because even beneath all of that she can still smell Home. It feels like it's been forever since she was back here, in this land that stretches out flat for hundreds of miles of silky waves of amber grain. Her life may be on the road, but Poppy Fairfax's heart will always stay firmly rooted in Nine, like a compass tugging her gently back home.

Ducking under red rubber flaps into the high-top tent feels like waking up, like coming alive. The roar of the crowd rushing in her ears, the hot stage lights glinting off the planes of her skin, the high of adrenaline thrumming through her veins. She beams like starlight as she climbs into the aerial hoop, as comfortable as its familiar curve presses indents into her thighs as most people are when they sink into their own soft beds at night. She weaves herself through it by muscle memory, moving to the pulsating beat of the song she knows by heart as it blasts through the speakers. She revels in the thrill of the way the thin plastic ring of the hoop is the only thing keeping her from a two story fall as it spins lazily in the air, leans her head back far and flirts brazenly with danger the way she's done since she was nothing more than a little girl who loved to climb tall trees and hold spiders in her tiny, soft palms.

Every eye in the tent is on her and she basks in the attention, luxuriates in the way they follow her every move with rapt focus as she twists and flips through the hoop as if she is shiny embroidery thread. She relishes the feeling of an entire audience captive in the palm of her hand, in the way she can make them gasp with fear as she drops through the open air in a maneuver she's done safely a thousand times. She greedily laps up the feeling of being perceived as something incredible.

When the show ends and the crowd bursts out through the tent flaps into the night like air released from a balloon, Poppy is still riding giddily on the high of performing and of being back home, so when some of the older members of the company invite her out to celebrate she accepts without hesitation. She's a beer and a half deep by the time she gets sucked into a game of poker so she doesn't push back against the adrenaline high that beckons her closer, the thrill that runs through her veins every time she risks a little more.

There's a gaping, yawning chasm deep in her chest that's been starving for this feeling and she aches with the urge to satiate it, to address the hunger itching at her brain, because she's gotten a taste of this again, the sweetness of danger and adrenaline rushing through her veins like a drug, and she can't get enough, can't stop her own overwhelming desire for moremoremore.

Because Poppy has always moved at the speed of light, has always run headlong into danger like there's something she's trying to catch up to, like she's a shark and if she stops swimming she'll die. She's brimming with electric energy and always yearning achingly for faster and riskier and higher and further and more. Poppy is blinding starlight and the forked tongue of a lightning strike and she is living every moment on the edge of finding out what happens when starlight becomes supernova.

When she wakes up late the next morning, Poppy is still varnished in glitter and a gallon of hairspray but the adrenaline has slipped away with the rising sun, replaced with a cinderblock of nausea and regret sitting low and heavy in her abdomen. She stumbles out of her trailer to puke into dry yellow grass and slumps sideways against the cool dewy tin of the trailer's side, hoping her throbbing headache will wash away like the tides she's watched with fascination in Four.

She slides a hand into the pocket of the jacket she's still wearing from last night and breathes a sigh of relief when she feels the thin paper edges of money against her calloused fingertips. She doesn't remember all of the previous night but she knows now that she managed to avoid losing big; anything else she can deal with, can swallow the regret like bitter medicine and make new resolutions that she won't keep to stop gambling.

She knows the word for the reason her inhibitions on that topic are so easy to lower - addiction - but it doesn't feel like a word that belongs to her. It calls up images of morphling addicts wasting away in the alleyways of Six, and Poppy is worlds away from that kind of dependency to anything. She doesn't have an addiction because she can stop whenever she wants. She just doesn't want to yet.

She slinks into her parents' trailer, trying to tamp down the waves of shame and alcohol that she knows are emanating from her like a shadow, but they can tell. She sits in silence on the edge of the tub in their cramped bathroom as her mom and dad clean her up with gentle hands and something like disappointment mixing with the love in their eyes. And she tells herself again that she can stop whenever she wants to.

A/N: Thank you so much to optimisms for Sonny and to LordShiro for Poppy, as well as to the friends who looked over this chapter to help me out with it. Please leave a review if you had any thoughts, or you can let me know on Discord or wherever. See you hopefully very soon with District 10! Much love,

- Mae out xo