With thanks to Glassgift and AbbyCoraby123 for your reviews of the last chapter.
He sat heavily in the silent apartment for District 9, as he had for endless years before. On some years, he would arrange with other Victors of a similar age to himself, and travel down to another apartment for a drinking and catch-up session. Over the years, however, the sessions blurred together and nobody could tell what had or hadn't happened anymore.
While it was doubtless that this year they had something to share, this year they had not been given the leisure of escorting themselves to their apartments. Peacekeepers had rounded up and apprehended a large number of escorts, mentors and tributes; the girl who had burnt her costume was flanked by the black of the President's personal security team, while a surprisingly sober Haymitch sleazed with and snapped at the Peacekeepers surrounding him until they had permitted the injured male tribute for 12 to recieve medical attention.
Rufus had been surprised at the only Twelve mentor- he had never seen him elicit any concern for his tributes before. He had respect for the mentor, but since the boy had won half a century before in the bloodiest Quarter Quell he had ever seen, he had been withdrawn within himself with alcohol and grief.
Haymitch had been clever. Too clever for the Capitol's liking.
Rufus knew what that was like.
The apartment door opened with a sharp crack of wood; while his left ear was deaf, Rufus had good enough hearing in the other and good enough vision despite the drink in his hand to notice the black-clad Peacekeepers entering his apartment. They surrounded him in a malicious cloud; one removed the drink from his hand, two others grabbed him by the shoulder and walked him to the door. The fourth had a gun held ready in his hand.
This was an unprecedented taking and an ominous use of force. Rufus did not resist- he was almost eighty, what good would come of struggling?
A car waited for them outside, windows tinted black, engine humming near-silently. They drove in a long oval around from the Training Center to the President's mansion, a stark building of white and grey marble, the ride silent. Rufus felt a palpable tension, in the car and beyond- he could see scorch marks on the pristine stone flags of Victory Walk, hastily vacated seats left and right. Everything was silent, outside and in; almost unsettlingly so.
Even District 9's meagre Victor's Village had more life than this. The Inner City was dark, bereft of lights.
They arrived at the President's mansion and he was escorted through a side door, walked through a silent, stumbling expanse of shadowed foliage.
Then, he was inside again, and he squinted against the light as his eyes adjusted to it.
It didn't take long to make out the figure that sat observing him.
"Rufus Warnke." President Snow said cordially. A board with checked squares sat in front of him; he began setting out small marble pieces upon it. "Victor of the 14th Hunger Games. You were the last Victor of the original Games, after the former President Sanchez' unfortunate death."
"I remember." He remembers a boy taking the helm of the ageing and then dead President; a boy barely old enough to shave, but with a peppering of blood on his mouth and a sheer absence of emotion in his eyes.
The boy was older now, blood scourged from public sight with trained efficiency, but the unsettling abyss of his soul still remained behind pale blue eyes.
President Snow gestured carefully to in front of him. "Please."
Rufus sat, aware of the opulence of the room he sat in. On the far end sat a desk. He wondered if this was Snow's office.
A quiet settled over the ageing men as they surveyed the board in front of them. Rufus, recognising his place set to white, moved a pawn carefully two spaces forward.
"Can I ask the occasion, President Snow?"
Snow matched his pawn a single space across to his right.
"We both know the answer to that, Mr Warnke."
Rufus played little, but he played well. A second pawn moved forward with precise care.
"And so late in the day?"
Snow elected not to move his pawn but the bishop behind it. A more senior piece entered the field than the two pawns Rufus had sent out.
"Unfortunately, essential work was required that took up my time. I assure you, I had no intention of disturbing you at this hour."
"Which, I guess, means you're as shocked as the rest of us; this isn't a publicity stunt to follow up a Quell, is it?" Rufus moved his second pawn a step further.
Snow flicked his eyes up to survey Rufus, before placing his gaze back to the chess board. He pushed out a pawn, his aim clear to release the knight and the rook behind them.
"If you expect me to be entirely candid, Rufus, I believe you are in the wrong room, with the wrong indication of who you're talking to." He had the skills of a statesman, but he was accustomed to speaking in riddles to Capitolians; Rufus was a Victor, and a citizen of District 9, and far too old to twist words when they weren't needed. Rufus considered the chess board carefully.
"The hell am I going to talk to? I'm one of three Victors in almost eighty years in the bread district." Rufus slid forward another pawn and looked up at Snow. For the first time, he noticed the minute twitching of the President's eye. "And neither of us are getting any younger; what's the odds either of us are around in a decade?"
"Strange to hear a District person speak of odds, when they know theirs are far lower." Snow released his knight and set it apace from his pawns.
"Not as much as you'd think." Rufus matched the knight with another pawn, setting a small front of them across the board. "We find our ways."
"You have made that abundantly clear tonight." Rufus could barely make out Snow's response, but he couldn't help letting a low chuckle out at it. Capitolians never understood how transparent they made themselves.
"You think this is all some giant conspiracy to overthrow you or something? A bit of paper?" Rufus, for the first time, moved one of his back row- the queen slid across the board. "They're kids. If we're gonna talk odds in the districts, a quarter of their parents won't have made it to see them past Reaping age. I guarantee you the Seven kid's got something to prove and nothing to do it with, and thinks they're being clever."
"And you would say that if it was the truth?" Snow asked, sliding his own queen onto the board with haste to match Rufus. And for the first time, Snow had revealed himself, and it was almost sad. Rufus smiled, shaking his head.
"You poor son of a bitch." Behind him, nigh-imperceptibly, armed guards bristled. Rufus chuckled, leaning back in the plush chair. "You really believe that, don't you?"
Snow clearly didn't appreciate being mocked, and especially not being pitied. He flicked his gaze to his guards, as if placating himself in his security.
"You are not in friendly company, Mr Warnke. I suggest you remember that."
Rufus shook his head again. "If you think I don't- well, that's your problem, President Snow. You saw a kid set her dress on fire and you think someone planned it. You think anyone plans anything? I was born in the Dark Days, same as you. I saw first-hand what happened to people that resisted being taken back under control. Who doesn't remember seeing the footage of District 13 when your people bombed the hell out of it?" Rufus had forgotten the chess board now. He had figured out why he was here, and he couldn't help but laugh at the assumption. "You've called me in because you wanted someone who wouldn't care about fencing any information on rebellion. Because you honestly think there is one." He would have laughed, but he couldn't. "I see kids dying every day. I see kids lashing out trying to get food in their stomachs. There's no planning, there's no rebellion- it's just fear. People are cornered and hungry and afraid. If this was controlled, they wouldn't have ripped their clothing apart to light that fire. If this was controlled, the girl in my district wouldn't be going into training with a broken arm tomorrow. If this was controlled-"
He surveyed Snow. "You think it is."
Snow, for the first time, seemed every inch the strange, terrifying boy flecked in blood that had announced himself President. "I know it is."
Rufus shook his head. "Then you're the only one who knows that. I've come back here for almost as long as the games have been going, and I'm old now but I see things too. And you've changed your security. You sent four guys with guns just to escort me here- what the hell am I gonna do? I'm seventy-goddamn-eight!" A younger man would be more careful, but he wasn't young anymore. "You're getting paranoid in old age and think everyone else is coming for you- and you're making everyone else edgy. You might think you're stopping a rebellion, but-"
Silence fell. Rufus looked Coriolanus in the eye.
"The arena."
Coriolanus was stripped bare of defences, and all he held was a chessboard and armed guards that could do nothing against the truth. He stiffened under Rufus' realisation.
"You've tried to step up the arena, didn't you? You wanted to make sure the districts didn't push out of place after a Quell, but-" Rufus looked back down at the chessboard. All the large players had been taken out by Snow before he could even move his pawns out of the way, and he had created a muddied strategy. "You've made something worse, and it's too late to pull out. And now you're afraid."
Snow's voice was sharp, but seemed brittle. "You're not a stupid man, Mr Warnke. And Seven's Victors- I hold them in considerably less regard than you. Johanna Mason is a loose cannon, and if I discover she has been pushing her tributes to any treasonous activity-"
"-You won't." Rufus said, voice low. "We're too busy keeping ourselves alive to worry about a coup. I think we've wasted both our times here."
But he shifted his queen, just enough to place it within grasping distance of Snow's king. And with that, he stood as Snow did, inclining his head respectfully, permitting himself to be escorted from Snow's mansion by four armed guards.
Snow was left alone, protected by armed guards in all directions.
He picked up a decanter of Scotch. He held it in his hand. Then he threw it at the wall. Glass and liquid exploded everywhere, dripping on the carpet, littering the ground. Coriolanus stood there, observing the destruction he could create. He thought of Rufus stripping his intent bare; a crow, pecking an eagle.
Then he turned sharply to his guards.
"Well?"
One left the room and promptly returned with an Avox who began to clean the broken glass. Coriolanus watched, trying to exact a savage pride from the petty action but feeling nothing more than the slow burn of adrenaline in his veins.
He could taste blood in his mouth.
Rufus Warnke was submitted by Katrace- thank you for your submission, and for being so patient as when you would see him. :)
Ugh. This chapter was a bear to write. Not because of the characters, but- uggh. I'm on every drug known to man to try and get rid of my cough, and I've missed four chapters in the gap. I'll make up for them, and I'm getting better so I'm going to go back to a chapter-a-day format from here on in.
Also, I wrote half of this when I was on the strong drugs, and I'm not entirely sure they didn't affect this. If you see a sudden deviation in plot in which Snow decides to turn purple and become a plane; just count it as a typo and move on.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.