The Unexpected Tribute

Chapter Six

by Technomad

From the unpublished writings of Haymitch Abernathy

I had not looked forward to my upcoming ordeal under the hands of my prep team. I knew they had an uphill fight ahead of them, and I forced myself to relax as they came in to take me to where they would work their arcane arts. To win sponsors, and see that Katniss got home safe and alive as the winner of this year's Hunger Games, no sacrifice was too great. Particularly not my dignity. It wasn't as though I'd worried about that in many years, after all. What could the Capitol do to me to make me look a bigger fool than I had done myself, back in District Twelve?

My previous stint as a Tribute had been twenty-five years ago, and I had known that my previous prep team had long since retired from the field. Competition for a slot on a prep team was fierce, and even longtime prep team members could be displaced by a promising up-and-comer who did well in the competitions held every year. Many of the Capitol's fashions were started by an ambitious young man or woman who longed to serve on a prep team, and whose creations in the competition had caught the Capitol residents' jaded eyes.

You can imagine my surprise when Sulla, the head of my previous prep team, came in, followed by Drusilla and Pulcher, the other two members. They'd aged…I hadn't seen them, the last few times I'd been to the Capitol…but they were still quite recognizable. Sulla came forward, clasping my hand in both of his.

"We were very surprised when you stepped forward to volunteer, Haymitch," Sulla said. He sounded like he was choking back tears. "We'd never have expected it of you!"

"You made us very proud, Haymitch," Drusilla breathed. She leaned down and gave me a kiss. That was the first kiss I'd had in more than a quarter of a century. The girl I'd loved before my Reaping was dead by the time I got home, along with my family, as the Capitol's little payback for me making them look like fools. I was rather startled by it, and Drusilla's eyes went wide. "Oh! I didn't mean to offend you, Haymitch!"

"I'm not offended," I assured her. "And I'm glad you've come to see me. I've neglected you, these past few years, I think." I winked at her. "You've held up better than I have!" Drusilla gave me a watery smile, and Sulla and Pulcher both grinned. Capitol people are so vain. "Look, I'd love to catch up, but I think my current prep team is itching to show off how they can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!" They waved as I was wheeled off to the preparation chamber.

The indignities I suffered, I prefer to pass over in silence. I submitted to the ordeal with grim determination, no matter how much I longed to make a scene and rebel. I kept one thought firmly in the front of my mind: my goal in this was to get Katniss Everdeen safely back to District 12, at any cost whatsoever. It was for that that I had foregone drinking, no matter how much my body cried out for the alcohol it had become acclimated to since my previous victory in the Arena. It was for that that I had pushed myself forward, sidelining Peeta against his will. And it would be for that that I laid down my life in the upcoming Hunger Games.

I did not regret the near certainty of my upcoming death. Life had long been a dreadful burden to me, and I would not be sorry when it came to an end. I had been, half-unconsciously, trying to kill myself for twenty-four years, but no matter how much white liquor I poured down my throat, my body stubbornly refused to give up.

Katniss was, in all ways, my exact opposite. Where I was ugly, she was beautiful, for all that she refused to play it up the way some other girls in District 12 did. Where I was weak, hiding in my house and trying to dive down a bottle, she was strong; strong as steel. She'd been the main support of her family ever since her father's death, and had to step in to be a mother to her little sister Prim as best she could. And she had done a great job, at least as far as I could judge.

Katniss deserved to live if anybody in this hell-country did. Far more than I did. No matter what it took, I'd see her safe home.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't catch my prep team telling me that they were done. When they stood me up and brought in a full-length mirror, my eyes went wide. I hadn't looked that good in years! I was used to seeing, on the rare occasions that I needed to check a mirror, a puffy, bleary-eyed face framed by lank hair and covered with unshaven stubble. Instead, I looked distinctly like the young man I had been when I was first Reaped.

"I'd have said this was impossible!" My delighted smile told my team all they needed to know. "You must be magicians! I'd have never believed it if I hadn't seen it!" I shook their hands. "You're geniuses!" They smiled and smiled. While I do have the reputation of being a surly drunk back home in District 12, I've been to the Capitol more than enough times to know how to deal with Capitol people. Many of them are as hungry for approval as so many puppies. And they, along with their families, would be watching the Games. If a few well-deserved compliments for their skills meant that they might send Katniss and me things we needed in the Arena, it was effort I was glad to put in.

"You're looking good, Haymitch!" I turned, and there was Cinna, looking me up and down. While I knew that some men in the Capitol liked other men, Cinna had never given me that impression. Instead, his look was cool and professional. To him, I was a subject for his art. "I've got your suit right here!" He held out a black one-piece garment, made of some slick material I couldn't identify.

As I struggled into the tight-fitting garment, I asked: "Flames and all?" Along with the rest of Panem, I'd been startled and delighted with the heatless flames that had come from Peeta's and Katniss' costumes the previous year. I wondered how the effect was done, but knew I wouldn't have the time to find out.

"Flames and all, Haymitch," Cinna assured me. "Katniss has the control. She'll know when to use it." We exchanged nods. "Good luck, Haymitch," Cinna murmured, as I went out to get ready for the Tributes' Parade. "Remember: No smiles, no waves to the audience. Act like they're totally beneath you." I figured that was instructions I'd have no problem following. While I did know a good few Capitol citizens, my impression of them, on the whole, was that they were pampered and weak. None of them would have survived long in the Districts.

When I got to where we were to mount our chariots, I saw my old friend Finnick Odare, trying to weave his spells over Katniss. Katniss, I noted proudly, wasn't buying his act for a second. He was trying to dazzle her, but for all the success he was seeing, he might as well have been trying to charm a statue. I made my presence known, and Finnick and I exchanged pleasantries. Then the signal sounded for us to mount our chariots for the Tributes' Parade.

We rolled out into the bright sunlight. Every time they hold the Tributes' Parade, it seems, the weather cooperates. I've seen many of them, and never once, to my best recollection, has the weather been overcast, much less rainy or foggy. I've wondered if the people in the Capitol can even control the weather, or if they're just careful to time these things for times when the weather's predicted to be perfect.

As the notes of the national anthem sounded, with the crowd singing along and drummers beating drums in perfect time, we proceeded down the path to the roundabout where President Snow waited for us in his raised stand. I have to admit, I rather enjoyed the ride. The horses they use for these parades are very well-trained, and the ride was smooth. I was gratified to hear a loud gasp from the crowd when Katniss hit the control and the heatless flames burst from our costumes.

We reached the end, making our turn around the pylon with the rest of the Tributes, and stopped to hear President Snow's speech. I had noticed that he had given us a very odd look when we came in, and I wondered what that sociopathic swine was thinking.

I knew that having me, instead of Peeta, in the games had to have thrown his calculations off. He hadn't forgiven Peeta or Katniss for making his previous Gamemaster look like a fool. I hadn't spent as much time in the Capitol as I had without learning something about how Snow operated. He had something planned…something sneaky and underhanded, probably.

At least I knew I was personally reasonably safe until the time that we hit the Arena itself. The rules of the Games were clear: each District had two Tributes in the game. No more, no less. Peeta was a Mentor, and could not be touched. Re-designating him as a Tribute, particularly after I had volunteered, would be as much a violation of the usual rules as the changes they had done to "spice up" the last Games. Once I was in the Arena, I, just like Katniss, would be a particular target, but until then I was safe enough.

While I was sure that President Snow was furious, you wouldn't have known it from his speech. He gracefully welcomed us Tributes, saluting our "sacrifice," and announced that the Games would go on. When he was done, our chariots' horses began to trot again, taking us back to where we had come. Once we were back in the cool shade, I dismounted, helping Katniss down like a gentleman. She gave me a rather startled look. Peeta came up to see to our needs.

"Right now, I want a drink," I announced. Katniss and Peeta both gave me narrow-eyed looks. "Oh, I don't mean white liquor, or anything alcoholic!" It had been hot out there, and that costume held in heat very well, for all that the "flames" were some sort of illusion or trick, not real fire. I wiped sweat off my brow. "Right now, I'd give anything for a big pitcher of icy-cold lemonade!" I'd never had lemonade before coming to the Capitol, and I loved the stuff.

Peeta and Katniss exchanged glances. Some message passed between them, one I could not decipher. Then Katniss came up to me, putting her hand gently on my chest. "Thank you, Haymitch," she said softly. "We know this is really hard on you. Particularly at your age!"

I was torn between being touched and amusement. "Hey, now, Katniss, don't count me out quite yet!" I gave Peeta a wink. "I'm older than you are, but that doesn't make some sort of helpless grandfather!" Clearly, Katniss and Peeta had thought of me that way; the comic amazement on their faces was balm to my soul. "When we get a chance, you need to see the vids of my win in the last Quarter Quell!"

Talking together in friendly wise, we went toward the elevators back up to where we were staying. As we got into the elevator, Johanna Mason came up, in a tree costume that I privately thought looked utterly ridiculous on her.

"Hi, Haymitch!" she said, utterly at ease. She gave everybody a sunny smile. As the elevator went up, she began unfastening her costume. "My stylist is the biggest idiot in the Capitol! Every year, he has the Tributes from my District dressed up as trees! I wish we had Cinna instead!" The elevator started up, and she casually started stripping off, leaving herself naked except for a pair of slippers. The tree costume was left, scorned, on the elevator floor and she paid it no more mind. As the elevator went up, she chatted to us, completely unconcerned…at least on the surface.

I was amused, but used to this. Johanna had always made a point of stagily trying to seduce me. While I will admit that I enjoyed the show…I am a man, after all…I'd never taken her up on any of her offers. Not only was I not sure that she really meant to go through with it, but after all those years of white liquor and neglect, I honestly wasn't sure if I could have come through with my end of things.

While I was amused, I could tell that Katniss was seething. She gave Peeta a Glare of Doom, promising dire retribution if he openly expressed appreciation of Johanna's body. I struggled to suppress a smile. For all that I knew that the romance between them had been originally cooked up to try to garner sympathy in the previous Games, it seemed to have developed a life of its own. Katniss didn't need to worry, though. Peeta worshipped the water he thought she walked on, and for him, there was no other girl in the world. If Johanna thought she was going to entangle him in her sexual web, she was due for a disappointment.

Johanna, herself, knew full well that she had set the cat among the pigeons, and I could tell that she was quite amused herself at the trouble she was stirring up. When the elevator got to her floor, five floors below ours, she walked out of the elevator, waving goodbye as casually as though we met every day at the Hob in District 12. Her poor costume was all that was left of her in that elevator…that, and Katniss' seething at Peeta. What did she expect of him, I wondered?

I decided to draw her ire away from poor hapless Peeta. "She's always doing things like that," I drawled, as the elevator began to take us up to our own quarters. "Ever since her first stint as a Mentor, she's been trying to seduce me."

As I'd intended, this distracted Katniss completely. "You? But…but…" her voice trailed off as she tried to figure out a way to express her utter disbelief without sounding rude. Like all of us from District 12, mountain manners are burned into her brain. I don't think she could deliberately be rude to an elder any more than I think she could flap her arms and fly. Whatever else can be said about her, nobody could ever accuse Katniss Everdeen of being deliberately insolent. Her parents did a splendid job raising her.

"Yes, me!" Suddenly I was a little irritated with Katniss. "Okay, I'm older than you are, but I'm not dead quite yet! And just because you'd rather feed yourself to muttations than have anything to do with me in that way, doesn't mean that all women find me unattractive!" Katniss paled at the thought that she'd offended me. Peeta, forgotten for the moment, watched, wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry, Haymitch!" Katniss began to apologize, all but stumbling over her own words. "I meant no offense! It's just that I don't think of you in that way!" She blushed. "I mean, you've never shown any interest in anybody, ever since I can remember!"

I felt very, very old. "Look," I said, as we got to our floor and got out, "when we're back in our quarters, I'll tell you the whole sad tale. There are reasons why I keep people as far away from me as I can." An Avox came in to collect Johanna's costume, which pleased me in some obscure way. While I thought it was silly and stupid, I just hate to see waste, which is one of the things I detest most about the Capitol and all that it stands for.

We were silent until we were in the main living area of our quarters, all ensconced in comfortable chairs. Peeta and Katniss looked at me, like children eager for a story. For a second, I wondered what it would be like to have children as good as they were, until I suppressed that idea ruthlessly.

"Well," I said, "you've got to remember, this is quite a long time ago. Back before I was Reaped, I was kind of popular with the girls in the District." The way Katniss and Peeta looked at me, you'd have thought I said that I used to fly by flapping my arms. "Yes, I wasn't always the way you see me now. You'll see when you watch the vids of my Games, and my interview with Flickerman."

Katniss and Peeta sat together, wide-eyed, for all the world like small children about to hear a story. "Back before I was reaped, I had a girlfriend. She was a Seam girl, like me. I was doing well enough in school to hope to get a job in mine administration…keeping track of what was needed, how much coal was coming up, and things like that. She was all in favor of that. Her uncles had been killed down the mines, and she didn't like the idea of the guy she loved going the same way."

Katniss closed her eyes for a second. I knew that she could relate to that in a way that Peeta, for all that he'd grown up in District 12 himself, couldn't. For a second, I felt shamed at having to pry at old wounds this way. Then I went on:

"When I was Reaped, I was Reaped along with Maysilee Donner. You know her niece, I think. She was one of a pair of twins. I don't even remember the names of the others who were reaped with me," I admitted, slightly ashamed of myself. "I haven't thought about them in years. I try not to think about these things."

"Hence, the white liquor," Peeta said. I gave him an approving nod. While Katniss may well have more raw brainpower, I do think Peeta uses what he has better.

"Yeah," I admitted. "In any case, as you know, I was the one who came back alive. You'll see just how when you watch my Game vid. However, the Capitol felt that I'd made fools of them by using the properties of the Arena in a way they hadn't anticipated. I was crowned Victor, District 12 got a lot of extra supplies that year, all right and proper." I paused for a moment. "But my parents, my younger brother and my girlfriend were all killed a couple of weeks after my victory. After that, I just decided it was better to be alone."

"That's terrible!" Katniss gasped. I gave her a mocking grin.

"Welcome to Panem, sweetheart." Then something she wore caught my eye. "You know that mockingjay pin you wear, Katniss?"

Katniss looked a little startled. "Yes. Madge Undersee gave it to me for luck in the Games."

"Madge didn't tell you who wore it before, did she?" Katniss stared at me, wide-eyed. "Maysilee wore it first. She was Madge's aunt. Please, wear it when we go into the Arena. It'll be like she's with me, again. I never did really forgive myself for not being able to keep her alive."

With that, I went into my room. I had torn the scabs off a lot of old wounds with that story, and without white liquor to numb the pain, I did not want my partner or my "Mentor" to see me crying.