We Didn't Start The Fire
by FanficAllergy & RoseFyre
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Chapter Thirteen: Everybody Hurts
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Last Time in We Didn't Start The Fire:
Caesar Flickerman breaks in, talking over the action. "And with the death of the young tribute from District Three, we now have our final eight! You know what that means, folks! That's right! Family interviews! Join me tonight at seven as we interview all of the tributes' families and get an insight on this year's Quell participants. You won't want to miss it. See you then!"
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With the Games down to the final eight, we all know that not much is going to happen for a while. The audience will be focused on the friends and families of the tributes rather than the tributes themselves. Even the tributes themselves seem to understand that now's the time to hunker down and wait to see if anything changes.
We end up taking a break from the Games to go down to check on Rooba, who we haven't seen in awhile. Violet offers to take us down, which is helpful. Going to the mentally disturbed wing is always a little disconcerting. Seeing people crying and shaking and sometimes screaming while others are forcibly restrained is never easy. I can't imagine what it'd be like being strapped to my bed, trying to get away from demons only I can see. I shudder, grateful it will never happen to me.
We enter the psychiatric wing. We're greeted by a man with black hair that's gone gray at the temples and warm brown eyes. He's still got the same pale pallor that all of Thirteen has, but if it weren't for his eyes, I could see him fitting in in the Seam. "Violet! It's lovely to see you! You didn't tell me that you were planning a visit."
"Dr. Aurelius, my daughter and her husbands want to see how Rooba Gibbs is doing."
"Ah yes! Rooba. One of my more successful patients. I have high hopes for her making a full recovery." He reaches out and places a hand on her forearm. "And please, Violet, call me Mandeep. After all, we are colleagues."
There's a slight flush on my mother-in-law's cheeks and I can see a small smile tickling at her lips. Looks like there might be romance in the air. Good for her. She's mourned Solomon long enough. She deserves to have a little happiness for herself. And if this Dr. Mandeep Aurelius can give that to her, I'm all for it.
I glance surreptitiously at my wife and notice she has completely missed the flirtatious byplay. I'm not surprised. Katniss doesn't notice things like that unless they smack her in the face. Looks like I get to be the one to give this Dr. Aurelius the shovel speech. After all, Violet gave it to me. I'm only upholding family tradition.
Our visit with Rooba goes well. I can tell she's starting to come out of her haze. She's still not fully with it. Bringing up Wyatt or Reenie sends her off into fits of vacant staring, but at least the mention of Farl or Rye or Madge doesn't do the same. It's progress.
We wrap it up and head up to meet with Fulvia to watch the interviews.
She wanted us to be present for them so we could take notes on the final martyrs - her words, not mine.
Caesar appears onscreen, hyping the crowd up like he always does before he gets to his grand pronouncements. "I know that most of you are used to having to watch these interviews on a screen, but have I got a treat for you! I have, here with me now, in this very studio, our first interviewee, Edsel Snyder of District Six!"
The crowd applauds wildly.
The man who walks up onstage is slender with a haggard face. His interview with Caesar is convoluted and disjointed, like he's not entirely there. Caesar makes the most of it and manages to get out of him that he and Chevy have been co-mentors for years and that she won her Games by staying hidden and ambushing the other tributes. His interview is not as long as most of the final eight interviews tend to be, and I suspect it has to do with Edsel's inability to form coherent sentences without drifting off and staring into space. He reminds me, uncomfortably, of Rooba.
Caesar seems to think the same thing since he's quick to wrap up the interview with, "Let's give it up for Edsel Snyder! Up next, another treat for you! All the way from District Eleven, welcome Seeder Jefferson!"
By contrast, Seeder's interview with Caesar is surprisingly eloquent. The woman is lighter-skinned than most people I've seen from District Eleven. She looks like she could fit in in the Seam. Seeder focuses her interview on Chaff's heart, how much he cares for the kids that have come from his district, how he's managed to get someone in the top fifty percent every year since he became a mentor. Surprisingly, she doesn't play up any of his strengths as a tribute, instead focusing on his commitment to making sure his tributes get out alive.
It's an interesting interview, but not quite as interesting as the one that follows.
Haymitch Abernathy staggers up onstage, greeting Caesar with a loud belch. Caesar laughs it off, saying, "Oh, Haymitch! Always such a kidder!"
"You know me, Caesar," Haymitch slurs, patting his belly. "I'm a funny and happenin' guy. So… what'd'ya wanna talk ta me about, Greenie?" he asks, making reference to Caesar's color scheme for the year.
"Chaff Chavez. He's a friend of yours."
The drunk man nods his head. "Thass right. Good drinking buddy. Doesn't let the lack of a hand stop him from double fistin'."
Caesar leans forward. "So you'd say that his disability won't really hinder him in the Games."
"That's what I'm sayin'!" He tries to pound his leg for emphasis but misses and ends up smacking the chair. "He can throw 'em back like a Career. He even drank Brutus under the table. No one can catch Shaft… 'cept maybe me. Knows how to pace himself."
The interview with Haymitch is almost painful. The man is clearly deep in his cups and he keeps repeating that Chaff is a good drinking buddy and a good friend. He manages to speak a little positively regarding Chaff's strengths, but that's more in terms of how well he can hold his liquor than anything else.
Beside me I hear Katniss sigh. "They wonder why no one from District Twelve's ever won the Games. There's your answer."
"I don't know," Gale says slowly, frowning at the screen. "I don't think he's as drunk as he's pretending to be."
"What makes you say that?" I ask.
"I've seen him drunk. A lot," he explains. "Anybody who trades in the Hob has. He's not falling down and his movements are too precise, too over the top. When Haymitch gets drunk, really drunk, he gets more relaxed, not sloppy like this."
Katniss purses her mouth, peering at the image of our lone Victor. "I think you're right. He's still drunk though."
"Not saying he isn't," Gale says. "I just don't think he's as drunk as he's pretending to be."
It gives me something to think about. Why is Haymitch pretending to be drunker than he is? What's his reason?
By comparison, the interview done remotely with Chaff's sister is almost boring. She doesn't have anything to add that we haven't already heard from Seeder or Haymitch. It's clear he hasn't kept in touch much with his remaining family since he won his Games thirty years ago. I wonder why.
The next few interviews pass quickly in much the same vein as the usual final eight interviews. There's the members of Serge's family, who plead with the Capitolites to sponsor their girl. Then there's Bettie's husband, who's putting on the waterworks, explaining how he and his wife just got married and were trying for a baby, how all he wants her to do is come home so they can start a family together. It's heartbreaking, but not quite as heartbreaking as seeing Henry's family.
His young children are adorable, and his pretty blond wife plays up how strong he is, how good of a provider he is, and how much he loves his children and the Capitol, how he'd do anything to save them. The smallest one, a little girl, says, "Please let my daddy come home!" and the Capitol coos. I want to smack each and every member of that audience. A three year old child shouldn't be begging for her father's life.
But it's the last interview that's the hardest. We get the first glimpse of Justus's family. He's got three older siblings, two boys and a girl, together with his parents. His father's older than I expected him to be, considering he's the father of a six year old child. He's got a thick cap of gray, almost white hair, and his face is heavily lined from working in the sun.
The mother's even more of a surprise. We know her. She's one of the Peacekeepers in District Twelve, Purnia, I think her name is. I hadn't made the connection between Justus's last name and hers. We know most of the Peacekeepers by their first names, other than the Heads. I think it's deliberate.
Caesar starts off by asking if they were able to teach Justus anything special, because it's quite surprising for him to have made it so long without someone helping him. The father mentions that all children in District Two received some basic training over the last few months, mostly how to hide themselves and forage for food and water, but also a little bit on how to use a stick for protection. The number one thing they stressed to all of the children eligible to be Reaped was to get away from the other tributes as quickly as possible and stay hidden for as long as they could.
"Well it certainly looks like your boy took that advice!" Caesar gushes. "I haven't seen a tribute from Two stay in one place as much as Justus has in all my years of hosting these wonderful Games."
There's something in Caesar's voice which tells me he's not believing what he's saying. I only recognize it because the tone is similar to one I've used myself. He's putting on an act here. He's not okay with how these Games are going. I saw hints of it in the first set of interviews, I'm certain of it now.
If a man who's been so loyal, so invested in these Games, is starting to have doubts, I wonder how other, less invested, people might feel.
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The following morning Rory finds us at breakfast. "Didja see?" he asks.
"See what?" Gale asks his brother.
"Henry and Serge are dead! They died last night!"
I shake my head. "No, we haven't seen that. We don't stay up all night watching the Games," I point out.
"It's not like I stayed up watching the Games all night either," Rory argues. "It's just… well, the other guys and me, we were up talking, about girls and stuff, and they were on. It's not my fault Henry decided to wander off to go get water and Serge found him. They kinda had a scuffle and Henry won but he was injured, and then get this, the woman from Five, I don't know where she came from, but she just popped up outta nowhere and stabbed Henry in the back!"
"So what'd the rest of the group do?" I ask.
"Nothing. They heard the cannons and only got there in time to see the hovercraft liftin' Henry up. They missed seeing the other person."
"Looks like you didn't need to give us the play-by-play," Gale says, nodding towards the screen. "They're rerunning it for you."
"But no, you know what this means?"
"Down to the final six?" I hazard a guess.
"Uh huh! I bet, the way they're going through tributes, the Games'll be over today!"
"I'll take that bet," Gale says. "What do you want?"
The teen thinks for a moment. "If I win, you gotta make a cat tower for Prim."
"I don't know," Gale says with a shake of his head. "I don't think Thirteen'll let us use their precious supplies for something as frivolous as a cat tower."
"You don't have to do it now!" Rory rolls his eyes. "When we get back home!"
"Fine," my husband agrees. "When we get back home, if you're right, I'll make Prim a cat tower. But if I win," Gale smirks, crossing his arms, "you've got to be on latrine duty. For a whole month."
Rory wrinkles his nose. It's no one's favorite task, and the teenager spent a lot of the last year trying to avoid it as much as possible. If Gale wins this, I worry for the status of our shithole.
"Fine," Rory says. "But I'm gonna be right, just you wait and see!" He heads out, leaving the three of us alone. Or as alone as we can be in a Thirteen cafeteria.
We don't really have much else planned for the day, other than Katniss feeding our son. We're on very light duty and most of what we're scheduled to do at this point is watch the Games.
Madge is supposed to film her propo at one, and Katniss plans to be there, but Gale and I won't be going. I knew I didn't want to be there to see my friend put through the wringer, but when I offered to sit in on the propo instead of Katniss, my wife refused. It was her duty, she said, she had to be the one to bear it. I'm proud of her for making that choice.
We rewatch the fight between Henry and Serge and the woman from Five, Lux, backstabbing the young man from Six as he stumbles back towards his alliance. Rory was right, she came out of nowhere, and I can see she's painted herself with mud and other things so that she blends in more with the jungle. It's pretty effective and I'd all but forgotten about her, which is obviously what she wanted.
It's also clear from Chevy and Chaff's conversation that they don't know who the other tribute was, or what killed Henry. They know the Arena well enough by now to know it's probably not a Gamemaker kill. They were camping in the four o'clock section, since the jabberjays won't actually kill them, and Henry died around midnight. They know he didn't travel four zones to find water.
Which means it was likely the other tribute who died. But they still don't know who that is.
At ten o'clock, Ashley Pitts from District Seven dies when a tidal wave sweeps through the zone he's currently in. The young man's been hiding in the branches of various trees, moving from zone to zone, eating nuts and berries and other plants. He's even found a few large green nuts that have some kind of water in them that he's been using to slake his thirst. He's been lucky so far, but unfortunately his luck's run out.
As before, Chevy and Chaff don't know which tribute died and they keep asking, "Who's still alive? Who's left?"
The minutes tick by slowly. A little before noon, Bettie, the woman from District Nine, attacks. She's been skulking around the edge of the beach, waiting to see if Chevy and Chaff would move down towards her so she could attack. When they don't, she clearly gets tired of waiting and charges.
The fight is vicious. Bettie has somehow managed to acquire a scythe and she knows how to use it. She wields it viciously, whirling it around to form a protected zone around her. Chevy and Chaff, for all of their experience, aren't able to flank her. So Chevy makes a fatal decision. She steps forward into range of Bettie's scythe and the weapon slices into her gut. Then Chevy, as if she planned it, grabs hold of the weapon's handle and refuses to let go.
It's the opening Chaff needs. With his own scythe, he steps forward and cuts Bettie nearly in half. Chevy lets go of the weapon and both female tributes fall to the ground.
But only one cannon goes off. Bettie's.
Chevy's down, badly hurt, and I can see that unless a miracle happens in the next few minutes, she's a goner. There is no miracle.
"I'll take that morphling now," she gasps.
Chaff barks out a laugh. "If we had some, I'd give it to you, but we used it up on Valli."
"Stuff'll kill you," Chevy says weakly.
"Yeah. A lot of things'll kill you."
She clutches at Chaff's hand. "If he's not dead, make sure the kid wins this."
"I'll do my best, but I'm guessin' he's a goner. Probably died in the wave, if nothin' else."
"Yeah." She takes a deep breath. "If not him, I want you to win this."
Chaff shakes his head. "I ain't got no plans on winnin'. Once was enough for me. Let somebody else get the glory."
Chevy smiles weakly. "Once was too much." She closes her eyes, resting. There's no cannon, so she's not dead. Not yet.
Chaff stares down at his fellow Victor. He's already mourning her loss. I wonder how close they were before these Games. I wonder how it'd feel to go into the Arena against someone you cared about, or even loved. I'm glad I don't know, and if this rebellion succeeds, I'll never know.
Katniss gets ready to leave to join Madge for her propo, but before she actually goes, Coin's aide comes by and tells us the propo has been put off until tomorrow, due to the circumstances of the Games and the likelihood of them ending today. I exchange a glance with Gale. My husband doesn't seem upset that he's almost certainly lost his bet with Rory, just happy that Katniss doesn't have to leave us right now. I'm right there with him.
It takes Chevy a long time to die and Chaff sits with her, holding her hand, talking to her, keeping vigil the whole time. Most of the time her eyes are shut, resting, preparing for the end. But sometimes she manages to open her eyes and weakly respond to whatever Chaff's saying. It's painful to watch and I feel Katniss's hand slip into mine. I squeeze it gratefully and look over to see that she's done the same to Gale.
I turn my eyes back to the screen and I notice a flicker, like someone's moving through the shadows. I wonder if my eyes are playing tricks on me when I see it again. Behind Chaff, one section over, I can faintly make out a human shape.
Lux. The woman from Five has made an appearance.
She stalks closer, careful not to make a sound. Chaff's back is to her as he talks to Chevy about how one time Haymitch hit on some Capitol woman with bright pink hair, and how the woman, amusingly, didn't smack him for his comments.
He's working up to a punchline when Chevy opens her eyes and looks around. I can tell the moment she sees Lux and she cries out, "Behind you!"
To his credit, Chaff doesn't even ask what, he just turns, slashing out with his scythe, and catches Lux off-guard. The weapon slices into her thigh and I hear the woman scream for the first time. She lunges at Chaff with her knife, but the man's ready for her. He deflects it with his stump and swings his scythe again.
It connects, leaving a gaping wound in Lux's chest.
Overhead, a cannon booms and Chaff leans down, dropping his scythe with a knife drawn to make sure Lux is the one who's dead. She is.
He turns back to Chevy. "I guess that answers one question. Thanks for the assist."
"Who's left?" she rasps.
"Don't know. Could be the kid, could be the boy from Seven or the woman from Eight. If it's the one from Two or Seven I'll do what we planned, but I can't let a child-killer win these Games."
Chevy nods weakly. "You gotta wait 'til tonight. The announcements. Then you'll know."
"Hey, you'll be here with me."
"Optimist. I'll be goin' soon." She closes her eyes and doesn't say any more.
Chaff holds her hand and waits.
A little before sunset, with the sky tinged in orange, the cannon goes off. Chaff reaches out, placing his fingers against Chevy's mouth, feeling for her breath. Then he bows his head. Chevy's dead.
He gets up and moves away from the body so the hovercraft can come and do its grisly work. He's got less than an hour before the announcements, so he settles a little bit down the beach to wait, still holding his scythe just in case. He doesn't need it, not with only one tribute left and that tribute being a scared six year old child, but he doesn't know that. Can't know that.
The camera splits, showing Justus.
I bring my hand, the one not holding Katniss's, to my mouth. It's a terrible sight.
The kid is dying. His lips are cracked and his belly's distended. His face is shrunken in and there's blood streaming down from his nose. He didn't look this bad yesterday. I guess drinking the seawater and the lack of fresh water really did hurt him.
It's heartbreaking and I feel Katniss squeeze my hand again.
The boy is shaking and every so often he lets out a thick mucusy cough. One of the coughs seizes in his throat and the microphones pick up the sounds of him struggling for air.
To no avail.
Justus dies a few minutes later of dehydration.
It's a horrible death, one of the most cruel things I've ever seen. And the fact that it was experienced by a six year old child somehow makes it even worse.
Back on the beach, Chaff is on his feet, asking, "Who is it? Who died?"
But instead of an answer, the trumpets blare and Claudius Templesmith's voice comes over the loudspeakers. "I present to you the winner of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games, Chaff Chavez of District Eleven!"
Chaff looks around. "What just happened?"
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AN:
Written: 5/3/15
Revised: 9/17/15
Revised 2: 9/22/15
The title of this chapter comes from the REM song "Everybody Hurts." The song really kind of fits because well… everybody hurts. Including us. This was not easy to write, let us tell you, and it was a bit draining. In fact, it was so draining that we promptly took a break from this fic and started two much happier modern AUs. Believe us, we needed it.
Death by dehydration isn't pretty and it's a horribly painful way to die. Justus was six and had drunk seawater and hadn't had any fresh water in over three days. So his death was hastened by both his age and the fact that he made his dehydration worse by trying to slake his thirst by drinking seawater. We're sorry. We really, really are.
Things We Randomized:
- The order in which the tributes perished and what days they died and who the Victor was. And yes, Justus, with only a 2% chance of winning the Games, managed to come in second.
- If Justus was related to any other District Two characters that we knew (30% chance, rolled high). We then rolled for female or male and it was female. At that point we randomized between Purnia, Enobaria, and Lyme, and Purnia got picked.
- If Mrs. Everdeen would be interested in another relationship (we were debating percentage chances, then we rolled and she got a 99, so that was a hell yes from her) and who she would be with (we had a list of 15 options and Dr. Aurelius got picked).
Thanks for reading! We're really sorry and we hope you stick with us!
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Please let us know what you think. This chapter was really hard to write and it helps to hear from our readers.