IIII.

Gideon Mallory, 16
Applicant #20

There was a certain... level to the amount of bullshit Mal could handle on any one given morning.

This may just be the limit.

He was certain that not a single other kid accepted to the Program thought the same way he did, least of all not so abhorrently. Sure, nerves were a thing. Stress and anxiety were a thing. That's not at all what he felt.

Mal spends twenty minutes lingering outside his front door, angrily kicking rocks into the dirt road, before Connie wheels herself up the last of the street and into his vicinity. She slows down at the sight of him, dropping her arms alongside the wheels.

"That hill is fucking brutal," she announces, panting heavily.

He may abhor this entire situation, the mere idea of it, but this is easy. This is the most continuity he can get, when he swivels his duffel around his shoulders and takes the handles of the wheelchair in his hands, pushing her further down the road towards the Square.

The sun hasn't even come up yet, and Connie looks more tired than usual. She leans back in the car so that her ponytail tickles at his forearms, the red strands the brightest thing in the thinning woods for a mile in any direction.

"You didn't have to come all this way to see me off, Con."

"I know I didn't, idiot. But I wanted to. My best friend is leaving me by my lonesome for a few days and I want to say goodbye to him."

If there's one thing he's furious about, well and truly angry, it's the fact that he's leaving Connie. He knows that's not what his parents were thinking when they forced him to finish up the application three days before the final deadline, but they never thought about much in regards to the barest shreds of comfort he had managed to find since moving to Seven.

And it wasn't just that. Connie needed someone, it a world where it seemed like no one wanted to help.

"You sure you'll be fine?"

"What's a few days of bullying and harassment when you've been through a year of it?"

Mal sighs. "Connie—"

"What? It's true. You know - last week Gerald said my face was really nice to look at, but it was kind of dampened by the fact that I had no legs."

"I'm gonna remember you said that," he promises. "And I'm going to beat the shit out of him when I get back."

"That's really touching, but you have to stop. They had to break Ivan's jaw to put it back because of how bad you dislocated it."

It's not easy to look down at her when he's pushing her like this. It's much easier, in fact, to keep his eyes pinned on the road in front of them to avoid running into the ruts like he's done so many times before. That doesn't stop Connie from swiveling around to pin him with a look as satanic as the color of her hair, a look he feels like he's on the receiving of far too often.

"You know, they're never going to let you try out for Varsity next year if you don't stop walking into school and pummeling someone every day."

"Varsity," he scoffs. "If the great Bumpkin Tree Huggers are what school is calling their best baseball team, then I don't want to try out for it."

"I'm a Bumpkin Tree Hugger," she points out, waving a hand around like it was an oncoming threat at hitting him. "They could use someone as good as you."

Connie was the exception to the rule, though. One of the only fucking weird, backwoods people from this hellhole that he could stand, and that was only because she had been so present in his life that he really hadn't had a choice about it. He had seen the way her eyes had lit up when one of her cousins had come in to visit his father's clinic with a bouquet too expensive for anyone in her family - every shade of tulip imaginable. That was the first time she smiled since they took her legs.

And God, had he needed a friend.

She didn't lie to him, and he wouldn't ever lie to her. He didn't want to be a part of any team that involved nothing but sixteen to eighteen year old yokels, half of whom were probably related and three quarters of whom couldn't hit a fastball the first time it got thrown at them.

That had been the hardest thing to leave behind, in the Capitol. At least then he had something, a group that he felt actually valued his presence, before his parents decided it was proper time to rip it away from him.

He finally hits an unavoidable rut in the road, one that stretches all the way across, and pulls himself out of his torturous fuming. There's no fucking point to it, anyway.

At least in the Program he won't be surrounded by people like the ones here.

Hopefully, anyway. After everything he had seen here, he wasn't so sure anymore.

"I'm going to miss you, Mal," Connie says out of the blue, some five minutes later. He pushes a little slower. They still have time, and for the first time in a long while she actually sounds a little sad.

He definitely doesn't want to get there early, either.

"You too, Con," he answers. "Run over Gerald for me while I'm gone."

She laughed - that was better. Much better. There was no one else in this District that deserved to laugh more than she did, and no one else that he would bother trying for. They didn't deserve his time or effort, and they didn't deserve this girl either.

He also didn't deserve to have to leave, just when he thought he might finally be building a real life for himself somewhere so far from home. He had spent so much time trying to mentally will himself back to the Capitol, back to everything that had existed before.

Mal didn't want to go, so of course he had to.

Verity Alameda, 13
Applicant #3

"Honey! Hurry up!"

"Just give me a few more minutes!" she calls back, tromping through the mud. Her boots are flecked with the stuff; they're the only thing she's still required to wear now that it's moving into summer, if only to keep her feet from becoming so dirty. All of her layers - the hat and the scarves and the gloves - are tucked away until the snow starts falling again.

Which knowing Alaska, won't be that long at all.

Her mother is staring out the back window at her as she comes tromping past the backyard to the kennels. There's really no rush. She's so remote they're sending a car just for her, and there's at least twenty minutes before it's schedule to arrive. Provided whoever's come to pick her up doesn't run early, she has plenty of time.

Zeus starts up his howling the second he sees her, trotting up to the fence to greet her. Louie follows suit with Scout on his heels, Willow not far behind them. Her puppies are getting big enough now that she's started to leave them to toddle about on their own, but it's only a matter of time until the whole pack comes squeaking after her, tripping over their own paws. Especially when they notice a human presence.

"Hey buddy," she says, scratching behind Zeus' ears. "How are you today?"

He howls again, although this time it's quieter. She wonders if he can tell her ears are more in danger now.

She opens the gate and crouches down; Scout nearly bowls her over once she's on eye-level with them, and suddenly his big blue eyes are right in her face, tongue slobbering over her cheek.

"Okay, okay, I get it," she insists. "Down."

He obeys, although it looks like it's with some reluctance. His brown and gray fur is splattered all over with mud the same way her boots are but it doesn't appear to have dampened his spirits at all, ears pricked curiously.

"No treats today, sorry," she apologizes. "Just come to say goodbye. I won't see you for a bit."

He cocks his head, almost like he can understand her. Business is understandably slow in the summer months for a family that runs a sledding business, so it's mostly up to her to keep the dogs entertained and happy. Sure her father is up at the early hours of the morning to feed them and her mother and brother keep up with training them, but she has no doubt that they like her the best.

Today is the exception, but she does usually have her pockets full of treats.

Willow finally arrives, somehow managing to look more pristine than the rest of the group, herself included. Nearly tripping over her is Piper, one of the smallest of the litter. Her coat is almost entirely white, even today, and Verity scoops her up into her arms, trying to keep her away from the worst of the mud.

"Pretty girl," she coos, and Piper licks her face. She's going to have to wash her face before she gets in the car, lest whoever comes to retrieve her think she doesn't know how to shower, or something equally horrible. Just because she spends ninety-nine percent of her time outside, dirty, in the mud, doesn't mean she doesn't know how to be clean once in a while.

But only once in a while.

"Mom's gonna lose it if you don't come in soon!" Braxten yells from the back porch, and the dogs start howling again at the boom of his voice. She scratches at Zeus' ears again, rubs Louie's nose, runs her hands through the coarse fur along Willow's back.

She kisses the top of Piper's head and places the puppy back down by her mother's side. "Be good while I'm gone!"

She locks the gate and takes off for the house, splattering her brother with mud as she goes tearing into the back-room. He glares at her half-heartedly like he always does, rich for someone who's often covered in as much dirt as she is. They all need to take a breather - she's been fully packed for days, nothing but the boredom of the long, sticky summer months to keep her company. It hadn't been hard to force herself to pack.

"You're all dirty again," her mother complains.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm fine, mother. Don't worry about me."

"That's a mother's job," she replies. "I made you some hot chocolate for the ride - I know it's not so cold anymore, but it's your favorite. I thought you could use it."

As always, there's something ready for her. A willing, helping hand. Someone making her hot chocolate in the early afternoon to warm her up, even when she doesn't need the heat.

She scoops up the cup and takes a gulp. It scalds her tongue and the back of her throat all the way down but it's worth it, for the creaminess and the sweet syrup of the chocolate drizzled over the top, the little marshmallows that haven't melted their way into oblivion. She's still sipping away at it, a mug that will be empty by the time she gets anywhere of importance, when the car pulls up the drive.

The whole kennel starts up barking again at the sight of it. She can't see who's inside. It looks like a car fit for someone that means something in the grand schemes.

And surprise surprise, she still hasn't washed her face.

It looks like she'll be keeping up her regular appearance after all.

Trojan Geomantra, 18
Applicant #22

Trojan only had one goal in mind for the day, that being to get drunk enough that he was still the right amount of hungover the next morning in order to sleep right through whatever bus bullshit they intended to put him through.

It's not as easy as you'd think.

Tira and Vector have been arguing loudly enough across the room that he can hear them even from his position half-flopped over the edge of the couch, letting his fingers brush against the concrete floor. He's not sure about that. The two of them never argue about anything sensible and Vector adamantly refuses not to hit a girl, even though she'll hit him.

Anders took one look at him when he walked in this morning and went off muttering something about useless kids all the way to his office. Twenty minutes later Jessie and Tag got sent to run the job he was supposed to do in three days. He couldn't remember for the life of him what it was. Something about a rich family that owed Anders money after he cleaned up the evidence of the patriarch's multiple affairs.

He had been at some of those clean-ups. It hadn't been pretty.

At least the gang work in Two was easy. Rule-like, almost.

No one here knew what the word rule even meant, anymore.

But they feed him if he goes out for them and give him shitty grain alcohol that Jessie makes in barrels in the back shed and frankly, that's good enough for him. He's got a roof over his head when it's too cold outside to wander about without something shriveling up. Anders doesn't totally hate him and usually gives him jobs that don't end in every article of clothing he owns being stained.

Usually.

He hasn't even gotten through his first glass when Jessie and Tag come stomping back in through the door with a bag. It's been hard to focus, anyway. Tira's got the lungs of a parrot and Vector just starts kicking things when he's angry. Jareth is throwing a metal can at the wall and letting it roll back to his feet ten feet away. Whoosh. Clank. Tinker all the way back to his feet. Repeat.

"What kind of name is Barnaby fucking Milivandi," Tag asks, and throws himself over Trojan's feet. He kicks him away and shoves his toes into Tag's side. "Guy's a prick."

"But his wife is still with him," he points out.

"She's a prick as well."

He's inclined to agree with that. He doesn't know the couple beyond the personal details that have been so helpfully and readily supplied to him, but they do seem like pricks. He's surprised they didn't come from the Capitol too.

"How's the drink?" Jessie asks.

"Terrible as always," he says, raising his glass to her, and she smirks as she spreads herself out on the floor. "How'd the job go?"

"Oh, you know. We argued with two security guards at the gate for ten minutes before they let us in, but the one couldn't figure out how to open the side entrance. Tag climbed the hedges before they got it open. Way too much work for a city boy such as yourself."

Tag goes off cackling, which adds to the cacophony of noises spreading around the room. Tira storms off and out the door - the metal slams back into place and shakes the whole foundation. Vector kicks the edge of a table and sends it skidding three feet across the room before he goes after her.

"Trouble in paradise," Jessie sighs. "Shame."

"Oh, who cares?" he asks. "That's how relationships go. Someone fucks something up and someone else gets angry and then that's how it ends. Evolution isn't making us any smarter in that regard."

"Christ," Tag mutters.

"What?" Jessie asks.

"Fuckin' Isaac Newton over here is off spewing about the natural evolution of mankind—"

"That's Darwin, genius."

"Fuck you, Jessie."

It was true, though. Things here had a pattern. Maybe it isn't the same for the rest of the world, but he has yet to find that particular place. Maybe no one really has. All he does know is that things follow an order. He does a job, he gets paid. He gets to keep the roof over his head and the terrible alcohol and his even more terrible friends.

He gets to satisfy the odd, inhuman little creature inside of him without it getting too dangerous. Anders always goes on the worst ones by himself, boss work. They never get involved. But he still gets to do other things. Crack someone's jaw open. Knock a few teeth down the back of something's throat so hard they cut the esophagus on the way down. Curl a few fingers back almost to the point of breaking.

Sometimes beyond it.

The normal, human side of him has no idea why the fuck he agreed to this; has no idea why he willingly chose to take part it in. He was the one that filled out the application and sent it off, on his own time and of his own volition.

He ignores the bickering now going on to his left to take his longest swig yet. It burns all the way down like he just swallowed rubbing alcohol, but it's not a surprise and he doesn't so much as grimace. He wouldn't put it past Jessie if that so happened to be the main ingredient.

No, Trojan knows what part of him filled out that form.

It was the part that wonders.

And that part is usually the most dangerous one.

Jupiter Valentine, 18
Applicant #9

Jupiter had made a pact with themselves a year ago: they wouldn't step foot in the hospital again unless absolutely necessary.

Until today, they haven't. The good thing about the clinic closest to home is that they're fine with doing follow-up appointments. The doctor there is practically elderly, examining them and their charts through glasses so thick it would be a miracle if he could see anything at all, but that's fine. It's still better than the hospital, which they know like the back of their hand.

It's a maze to a newcomer - a second home to them. They know every back hallway and broom closet, the easiest way to get to the cafeteria while avoiding the crowds.

The girl at the sign-in desk is new, younger than Keely had been, but smiles politely at them regardless and foregoes pointing the way to the oncology department. Maybe that's the obvious, bit then - you don't need to point the way to that ward to a person with hardly any hair grown back. That's just silly.

They're old enough now that they'll never have to come back to the children's oncology ward. If they're lucky they'll never come back at all. They wouldn't find it so silly to suddenly be stuffed back in here, in a new department that they do not recognize with doctors and nurses that don't know them. That was the only perk, and the reason they had stepped foot back in here. Friends. Practically family. People they had grown to know so closely it had felt like growing up with them when they were the only one doing any growing.

Or maybe not so much. They had been lucky to get past five feet, but no one had ever said it was because of the cancer.

Their mom was small, too. That had to be it.

They scrub their hand clean at the wash station by the door, all the way up to the elbow like usual. They know the perils of being stuck in a place like this. You rely on everyone walking in to do the most they can to keep you safe, and luckily they had for them.

It hadn't stopped the cancer from taking their legs, but it's been four years. Some things no one can do to stop.

It doesn't matter, anyhow. With pants as long as the ones they've got on, feet stuffed into boots that go up to the ankle, no one notices the prosthetics. Even if someone did no one would ask, the unspoken rule.

It's the hand that's troublesome, the one they don't have to wash so intently because it's made of plastic and metal, like an old chair. Or maybe that means they should wash it more intently; no one really ever told them otherwise. When some of the nurses first met them they avoided talking about it like it was the threat of the bubonic plague looming on the horizon - look at that kid's missing arm and you'll lose yours too!

There's none of that now.

Audie stands up from behind the front desk at the sight of them and practically screeches, waving her hands around like a windmill. She jogs out from behind the desk and throws her arms around Jupiter, smothering them in a very tight, muscular grip, so unlike their own. But like before now Audie's arms don't feel as if they have the power to crush their ribs. Now they just feel comforting.

"Long time no see!" she cries. "How have you been, sweetheart? I saw the announcement on the news - that's exciting! You get to go away for a bit!"

Audie was like their mother when their mother couldn't be around, working long hours to pay for the chemotherapy. They don't look anything the same, it would be hard to, but they feel the warm embrace of a parent in her arms and trust it whole-heartedly. On days when they had no one else Audie was there looking in, playing games with them, giggling at their bedside, bringing one of the therapy dogs into their room to get an extra fifteen minutes in.

"I'm great," they say, and the feeling that washes over them is warm. Warm like the sun. Warm like the truth. "Really great. Really excited, too."

"Oh, you should be, dear," Audie says. "You deserve to get to go away and have some fun, make some friends."

"That's the goal," they confirm. They finally have a stepping stone to get out of this sickly rut and do something more, whatever it may be. They get to smile and feel like it's warranted.

"I'm sure everyone's going to love you," Audie insists, wrapping an arm around their shoulders. "How could they not?"

"I hope so." They smile. An eighteen year old, a year out of the hospital, smiling at the thought of finally making a real set of friends. Who would've thought?

They had, at least. They had always been hopeful even when no one else had.

"We'll have to make a lunch date when you get back," Audie says. "Me and you, and Beatrix as well. I'm sure Rae will want to come too, if we can all coordinate something. You'll have to tell us all about it."

"Sounds perfect."

Audie smiles as well, jostling them a bit, and starts to lead them down the hall. Probably off in search of someone else to spread the news to, if Audie hasn't done it already. Certainly there's someone here that deserves a bit of good news, or even a smile. Someone has to. They know it the same way they knew they'd beat the cancer, one day. They always did.

Maybe not everyone can think that way, but they can.

At the end of the day, that's the only thing that matters.

Just to be clear - Jupiter is genderfluid, and is comfortable with any pronouns, but for the sake of continuity and not confusing the masses, I'll be sticking to they/them unless otherwise specified in another point of view.

Let me know what you thought of this bunch, as always.

Until next time.