AN: This fic is for Irish Luck, whose willingness to try her hand at non-linear storytelling (and the Hunger Games Universe) has challenged me to try something different as well.
This fic is rated T for violence and language.
The Train
I shake Xavier Malcovitch off the moment the doors are closed and the cameras have stopped rolling. It's harder than it sounds. He mistakes my motives and protests this sudden rejection shrilly.
But I'm used to it. Feeding lambs, chicks, piglets and calves only to walk them to their doom. I made the mistake of making a pet out of a pretty ewe-lamb once as a child. My love didn't spare her. A time for kindness, and a time for killing. I was seven, and too weak to do what needed done myself. Now I'm faced with a different scenario, where kindness and killing are one and the same.
I can't afford weakness.
No more compassion, Xavier. You can't become my pet. Once the Games begin, I have to have the strength to slit your throat.
I shove him down. Hard. "I'm not your mother. Stop being a cry-baby."
Victor Victor Klerkov, our glorious leader, ignores the entire episode. He spends a deep, intimate moment with his hip-flask.
"Some help you are," I growl once District 6's newest Game fatality has curled up on the couch in sniffling consolation. Klerkov's job is to prepare us, keep us alive…and if his efforts so far are representative, it's no wonder District 6 has such a stellar record. There hasn't been a victory here since Klerkov's own, twenty-five years ago.
The drunk shrugs, massive shoulders and belly hitching up once, then falling back down. "What to do, Petra? What can I do?" He hiccoughs. "I know a lost cause when I see one."
"So do I," I retort. "If you're in such a hurry to get wasted, at least tell me where I can feed him first."
He laughs and tuts. "Ah, ah, ah, Petra Angelovna. You're not so bad. Maybe you have a chance, yes?" He takes another swig and pulls me onto his lap. "See, you grow more beautiful already. You're old enough. Entertain me."
I misspoke when I said no man would have me.
What I meant was I could never have a man of my choosing. The only ones who show interest are the old, the drunk, the lecherous dregs who wouldn't dare make advances on a beautiful woman. My ugliness, like their liquor, emboldens them.
"You're drunk, Victor Klerkov." I stand abruptly. "I am not. And it'll take more vodka than you can afford to make me consider that offer."
Klerkov belches, and froth dribbles down into his beard. He waves me off, indifferent. "As you will, Petra Angelovna. As you will. After all, I was only being kind."
I loathed him before. Now I hate him. But it will avail me nothing to endanger my only avenue of sponsorship. Victor Ivan Klerkov is a drunken, goatish glutton, but right now he's my only hope for survival.
"Come on, cry-baby," I call to Xavier. "Let's go find some food."
The Train is posh. It's sleek, with wooden paneling. Specialty work. Probably a tessera's worth of credit went into making each and every compartment. It's good to know I grew up hungry for a reason—I'd hate for my District's tax dollars to have gone to waste.
But our foray isn't in vain. We stumble upon the galley, well stocked, and Xavier's wide eyes go huge at the sight of so many Capitol delicacies. I head straight to a bowl of fresh, farm-grown fruit and pick the largest, most succulent pear I can find. I am half-way through devouring my prize when I see an entire cart loaded with cakes, tarts, and sugar-glazed dainties of every flavor and color imaginable. I have a mind to tell him not to plow into the pastries, then I remember I am not his mother.
…I'm his killer. Let the kid eat as many goddamned cupcakes as he wants.
To my surprise, he passes them by without a glance. In the glass-walled cooling unit there's a pitcher of pure, foaming cream. I've heard the Capitol puts it in their coffee. In District 6, coffee is a brown, foul-smelling, foul-tasting drink that sustains labor camp workers. It's a staple of survival, not a delicacy. But Xavier Malcovitch doesn't care about coffee, or how many credits that pint of cream costs. He gulps it down greedily, then wipes his pointed chin and licks the drops from the back of his dirty hands.
"You'll get sick," I warn him. "You'll puke it all back up. Don't come crying to me to clean you up."
He sways, suddenly sleepy.
"C'mon, cry baby." I say reluctantly. "Let's find you a place to sleep."
A place to sleep isn't all I find. I also see Nataliya 'Tasha' Pushkina, our erstwhile chaperone, for the first time. She's sprawled out on embroidered cushions, utterly oblivious.
I clear my throat.
"Goodness!" She cries, startling to her feet while hastily covering an empty syringe of morphling. "is it that time already?" Her skin is painted a ghastly white, with full Kabuki colored alterations to her face and hands. I have no doubt they're permanent. In the Capitol I'm sure it's shocking, stylish, and a great way to hide the effects of her recreation. Here, in a dimly lit train compartment in District 6, it's simply grotesque.
Xavier Malcovitch agrees. He lets out a gasp and presses himself into my legs, eyes tightly closed. I now have a addict chaperone, a drunken, horny mentor, and a pre-teen Tribute with his face up my ass. You're fucked, Petra Angelovna, I remind myself. Completely, totally, and utterly fucked.
Tasha staggers across the car towards us. "How much longer?" She thinks we're servants, or an envoy. Our chaperone has no idea the Reaping went on without her.
I bite back my tongue and swallow my retort. "We'll be at the Capitol again in two day's time." I manage to say politely enough. Long enough for the drugs to leave your system. Capitol employees are subject to stringent testing. They're also rich enough to blackmail lower ranking officials, provided knowledge of their usage doesn't become too public.
…Too bad for Tasha Pushkina. Finally a stroke of luck for me.
"You're the Tributes!" Tasha Pushkina wails. "How did this happen!" She paces the compartment furiously, fanning herself with an elaborate arrangement of mockingjay plumes. "Svoloc'! Oh, that worthless, worthless man-!"
"Klerkov." I state drily.
"Who else?" She pulls at her ornate headdress, looking more deranged by the second. "I should have known better than to trust him with our itinerary!"
"You should've known better than to trust him with your career." I counter. "And your life."
She shakes her magnificent head ruefully. "I suppose there's no unseeing it, is there?"
"Not for me." I state. "Cry baby here, that might be a different story." She sighs, and approaches us warily. Her famous face falls.
"He's the male Tribute?" Her voice is small. I nod. "Hell," Tasha says, sitting back down on the lavish duvan, her kimono askew. "I think I'm going to need another vial."
