A/N: District Three. Thanks for all the submissions, it was a tough decision, especially for the girls :)
Trigger warning: Swearing and intense romantic scenes (no sex, but close)
I believe that your words are fateful
I believe you're the broken one
I believe that your words enable
Now somebody better hide my gun
Fujitsa LaMac, 17
Resident of District 3
Fifth Precinct Higher Grade Student
People are very narrow minded creatures. They cannot process new things, new entities, new concepts, even if they've been there all along, just hidden in the shadows. People are very routine creatures. They cannot tolerate things that rupture tradition, their time worn beliefs of right and wrong, and their schedules and timetables. People are very ancient creatures. They've been around since far beyond anyone can remember. Things, like gender, sexuality, and revolution have always burned the fringes of their minds. People think being lesbian is "a new fad." There have been lesbians since the beginning of time, except that they've always kept hidden, because people are narrowed minded creatures, routine creatures, ancient, set-in-their-way creatures. People are intolerable beings that are almost impossible to figure out most of the time. The sentiment between empty smiles, sickly sweet condolences, hidden glares, is strange and I cannot, for the life of me, understand it. If there's one thing life has taught me, it is that people are stuck in their ways. If there's another thing life has taught me, it is that even the people you think are closest to you are really often the most distant.
A warm fire kindles itself in the pit of my stomach as I slide out from beneath the cool sheets draped over my cot. Adata, my twin sister, snores on in the cot lying next to mine. Her wheelchair, squeaky and shiny, glints in the moonlight streaming through the open windows. My sister's crumpled form shifts underneath the covers, and she murmurs underneath her breath about fire and wires and mommy and factory. My heart clenches, and I stoop down to comfort her when I see that the alarm clock on the bedside table between our cots reads 10:52. I have eight minutes, and that's barely enough. I blow a kiss to my sister before scurrying out of the door, hoping that Adata will be able to deal with the nightmare coursing through her brain at the moment. She did deal with her terror without me for half of year, and longer than that when the pain and horror was still fresh, when she refused to speak to me.
I slip down the laminated hallway, reaching the front door. The hinges are well greased, like I make sure that they are. I cannot get caught doing what I am doing now. Adata is in the throes of her nightmares, and my father is sound asleep in his room. I slip on my black leather boots, which match my black dress and black leggings. Black is invisible in the smoggy pitch black night of Three's alleys and streets, and anyway, I prefer to wear black. I think it looks good with my dark brown skin and curly hair of nearly the same color. I sweep my hair behind my ears before stepping out onto the street and easing the door closed behind me silently. It clicks, and then I set off at a fast jog down the alleyway my apartment sits on. I have around five minutes to make it to the park.
I am always on time for these meetings. I am normal with everything else. Sometimes I'm a little tardy to school because I have to help get Adata ready, and I'm not a very punctual person naturally. But I go to the park at eleven on the dot every single night. I need every minute I can have in that park. Every single fucking minute, because those minutes are the only minutes that really matter to me any longer.
Soon I'm sprinting down the streets. The only people out at this hour are the homeless and the gangs. A woman peers from around a pile of dirty rags and begs for a breadcrumb, and high pitched feminine screams and the shot of a gun echo far off. I live in a rougher area of Three ever since my mother died and Adata was crippled four years ago in an electrical factory accident. Adata is in no condition to work, my father forbids me from working in the factories, and he gets a meager salary as the assistant of a prominent, stingy designer named Thorpe Cormealius. Well, rarely truly works. Mostly he takes "sick days" (dad's got Thorpe convinced that he has some chronic disease of some sort) and either sleeps in his bed or drinks the day away at the pub. He's still a depressed mess of a man. He still can't cope with mom's death. It's hard, losing a parent or spouse, but he's not fucking here for me, or for Adata. He'll never fucking be there for me ever again, I believe. He's dug himself in too deep of a hole; he's never coming out of it now. My sister's also in a deep hole as well; I know that deep down, she still blames me for the accident at the factory, even though it wasn't my fault. After all, she was kind enough to take my shift so I could take the day off since I wasn't feeling the best. If I had gone to my shift, I would be the crippled one, the one that had watched our mother die. Not that I hadn't dealt with just as bad in my life already, but still. Adata will never understand what the unsegregated prisons of Three are like. No one will ever understand.
My thoughts of my distant, spiteful father, crippled, bitter sister, and long dead mother disappear as I spot the lush green paradise of the park ahead. It's one of the only parks in the District, on the border between the dirt poor streets of the Fifth Precinct and the richer avenues of the Fourth Precinct. She's already waiting on our bench, a smooth one made of oak imported from Seven. I jog over and plop myself down next to her, breathing hard.
"A minute late. I thought you were better than that, LaMac," Cartenya jokes softly, her quiet voice unheard by all excepting myself.
"Oh, fuck you, Daynes. Kiss me." I pull her close, and let my lips collide against hers.
"I missed you," I rasp when we break. She sighs with a smile and leans her head against my chest.
Cartenya's parents are old school, like most of Panem, especially the Upper Districts. While Adata's known that I am lesbian since we were ten, and my father's either too drunk or drowsy to give a crap about my sexuality, Cartenya's parents would tan her hide if they found out that she liked girls, not to mention that she was sneaking out of the house every night at eleven in the dead of the night to go meet her. I am also black, a bit emo, was in jail for six months, and live in the Fifth Precinct. If her parents ever found out about us, we would be done. That can never happen. I can never lose Cartenya. She's the only thing besides Adata that's tying me down, keeping me centered, balanced, keeping me moving forward.
"I have a gift," Cartenya whispers after we've been sitting there for a while, talking about useless things. Her eyes sparkle tantalizingly, and I cannot imagine what her gift might be. I open my mouth to start guessing, but Cartenya's already rolled the silvery ring into my palm.
"I love you, Fujitsa. I realized a week ago that in a couple of months, we'll be eighteen. I don't give a fuck what our parents or Three or even the entirety of Panem thinks! Same sex marriage is legal, even if it is frowned upon. When we turn eighteen, I want to marry you, Fujitsa LaMac. I need you to say yes."
"I already said yes a million times in my head, Cartenya, and you know it," I whisper hoarsely, my eyes crowding with tears. I push her down against the bench and start kissing her hard, until the night skin blends us together and all I know is that I love this girl, and that she loves me.
Places, places, get in your places
Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces.
Everyone thinks that we're perfect
Please don't let them look through the curtains.
Millard Vaith, 18
Resident of District 3
Third Precinct Higher Grade Graduate
I hum quietly to myself as I comb my wavy brown hair into a perfect configuration atop my head. I smile at myself in the mirror, tighten my striped bow tie, adjust my collar, check my fly, and then I step out of the bathroom. I walk through my bedroom, out into the hallway, and down the swooping stairwell, dragging my hand across the smooth oak banister. My mother and father wait at the bottom of the stairs. My mother is dressed in a tight white dress, my father in a suit similar to mine. They both look impeccable, just like I do. I am perfect.
Lying to myself always helps me play the part.
The phone in my pocket buzzes. I draw the small slab of glass and metal from my pocket and swipe across the screen, unlocking it. My messages burst onto the screen. A couple texts on the chat called Party Gals, as well as one from Connor. My throat dries up when I see the name Connor with a little red bubble proclaiming "1 message" next to it. A shiver runs down my spine. I quickly check the Party Gals chat. My party girlfriends (girls that are friends. I don't like girls) are on this chat. They're heading to a party in the Second Precinct, a pretty run down part of the inner city of Three. Sonya is the athletic one, Jami is my best friend and the funniest girl on the planet, Hayley, the one that lives in the ugly depths of the Sixth Precinct, scrounges up alcohol and cigarettes and the best raves imaginable, and Beki, a hard drinker and a hard partier, a great guy to be with who is also gay but is going three years with a boy named Cordon. These are the people that I can be my wild, uncaring self around. I am so different with these four, standing under the strobe lights, a drink in hand, shouting at the top of my lungs. I am not the perfect, well mannered son of Garrick and Jellai Vaith who stands in the shadows and shakes hands and fades into the background, because that is what a good son does.
My finger taps the message from Connor, but my father clears his throat moodily. I take a quick look. I see the words "need you", "meet", "my house", and "parents aren't home." My heart leaps into my throat and I begin to tingle.
Connor's been my significant other for a time now. He's 20 years old, and his family would never let him date a male or a female. They're very strict, but they also work a lot in the outer stretches of Three, so sometimes he's home alone for a night and invites me over. For now, we're really simple friends with benefits, but I really have feelings for him, and I think he has feelings for me too. I type a response as I stagger out of the door behind my mother and father.
I have to go to a party with the Capitol liaison and the Mayor and all, you know, boring elite party. xD I want to come over so bad. I'll try to be over ASAP but it won't be for a couple of hours at best, okay? love ya :)
I hit send, and then I shuffle after my parents in the stiff dress pants and confining suit that they've put on. They don't know about my dissent, about my parties, about my sexual orientation, about the real me. They think I'm a perfectly dull young man who goes out on "peaceful afternoon strolls" (damn, are they gullible) and listens and is definitely not gay and is the best son a man and woman could ever have. It's all about appearances. Appearances, appearances, appearances. They're the only thing that's kept my two worlds from colliding in a presumably messy way.
Our house, in the center of the Third Precinct, the very center of District Three, is on the same street as the houses of the Capitol Liaison, the Mayor, the Head Peacekeepers, and two dozen other affluent families. The Vaith's were extremely wealthy before the inception of Panem, and even through the Dark Days we retained our wealth, honor, and prestige, siding with the Capitol nearly from the beginning of the rebellion. We were rewarded heavily. I am not a Capitol loyalist in any way. I sort of waver in the middle. The Hunger Games are terrible, but the Capitol cares for my family well, but then again, I look at my friends and at the streets and see how the Capitol treats the common person, and I cannot find myself condoning anything they do.
We stroll down the street. It's drizzling, but we walk through the rain, ignoring it, like a bubble is suspended around us, blocking out the light rain and keeping us as perfect as ever. Sometimes I swear my mother does have a magic bubble around her. Her makeup never smudges, her hair is never out of place. She is never red faced, she never cries, she never laughs too much. She is always, well, perfect. I've never seen her break. Same thing with my father. Neither of them ever get overly emotional, and when they do they easily disguise it. They are the idea of the perfect, rich couple. To keep up my image, to keep up the charade, I have to be up to par with them. So, I guess that means that whenever I'm around them or around rich people like the Mayor, I am perfect as well.
The door of the Mayor's house is thrown wide open, and soft classical music and the murmur of nearby mundane conversation floats from the house. I always hate parties at the Mayor's house. First off, my parents will never let me drink, and in public, I'm not allowed to question them, even politely, why. It's just a breach of etiquette. Second off, Mayor Chipin has a daughter a year older than me named Odette, who is unmarried. Our parents have been trying to push us together since we were toddlers. I am secretly homosexual, and Beki (he's also a good gossip) has told me that Odette's been caught sneaking around with a thirty six year old man from the Fifth Precinct two months out of jail. So neither of us is interested in each other, but we have to pretend we are for the pleasure of our parents and everyone that is going to the party. Whenever I talk to Odette, I often hear offhand comments from nearby elderly women about "love blossoming." I always scoff at that. Odette's nice enough, and we're okay friends. I just hate being pushed at her like a cow up for auction. "Hey, look! Buy this dude to be your husband! You can go and be sleazy and have affairs with dirty rats of men in the Fifth Precinct, and he'll pretend to be faithful and steady while he's really rutting with a dude named Connor Ulrich! Hahaha! Isn't life just such a swell affair!"
I step into the Mayor's house, sliding on my mask. I spot Odette immediately, and after greeting some people including Mayor Chipin, the two of us "are given space", with everyone leaving us to stand alone in a room. Do they think we're going to have crazy monkey sex or something just because they've moved five feet away? They all stare at us with interest, and Odette and I share sickly sweet fake smiles that both convey the same message.
Help.
A/N: Thank you, GaelicPassion and LokiThisIsMadness, for Fujitsa and Millard! This was our longest Reaping yet, and for good reason; this is a special pair of tributes. :)
Hi everyone! Thanks for reading! One note before I ask questions: you guys don't have to do the charts if you want. It was just a simple suggestion. A lot of you said you were doing it because I wanted you to. It was just a suggestion if you guys needed something to help organize your opinions and all. I like the charts, but don't feel pressured to do them at all.
And also, I am going to make another note. Yes, we do have a lot of homosexual or bisexual tributes so far, but I did ask for diversity. I would rather write a story about 24 homosexual tributes than 24 heterosexual tributes. Diversity is appreciated, and I love writing it. I think this chapter really was very diverse, with Fujitsa being the African Panemian (is that how you would say it?) lesbian and Millard being the prim, proper, in-the-closet gay. Just a thought I had. :)
Who did you like better, Fujista or Millard? Overall thoughts on this pair? Predicted placements? Thoughts on the writing?
Until Next Time,
Tracee