Spoilers: Major spoilers for Hunger Games
Disclaimer: It's still not mine. Please don't sue. You won't get much.
A/N: As always, I thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.
Spectator
The 60th Hunger Games
The 60th Games are rough. Rougher than usual, anyway, and that's saying something. Part of it is because it's been ten years now, and the number shouldn't really matter, but somehow it does.
The kids don't make it any easier.
The girl is thirteen, a tiny little thing with no chance at all, and she just can't seem to stop crying.
The boy is sixteen and angry that he's about to die, and the girl's tears just make him angrier, which just makes her cry harder, and in the end, Haymitch has to keep them apart every minute just to preserve his sanity.
What's left of it, anyway.
When it's time for the interviews, the girl breaks down on stage, sobbing, and Caesar tries to turn it into sympathy votes, but Haymitch is pretty sure the Capitol only finds her pathetic. (She's not, because she's just a kid who doesn't deserve any of this, but if the Capitol could see that, then none of them would be here in the first place.) The boy doesn't fare any better - he's practically yelling at the audience by the time his interview wraps up, and Haymitch knows this won't end well.
It doesn't.
In the arena, the kid's platform blows up right after the gong sounds, and the announcers speculate that he must have stepped off of it a fraction of a second too early, but it's obvious what it really is.
A warning.
The girl dies only half a minute behind him.
The 61st Hunger Games
Months before the 61st Hunger Games even start, Haymitch decides that he's taking this year off (as much as he can anyway).
He drinks his way through it.
He barely speaks to his tributes, and when he tries, his words are so slurred that they probably can't understand a thing he says.
Haymitch can't understand a thing he says.
In the end, he can't even remember how it happened, but he knows the kids died. They always do.
It's funny, though, because he'd thought that being drunk out of his mind would make it better.
But it doesn't.
It makes it worse.
The 62nd Hunger Games
For the 62nd Games, Haymitch doesn't drink as much as he did the year before.
He's seriously tempted, though, because this is the year that the Capitol assigns him a new escort.
It's not the first time that's happened. He's had a string of escorts since he won, but none of them were quite like Effie Trinket. She's in love with manners and schedules, her voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard - at least it sounds that way in Haymitch's mostly hung-over state - and she's ridiculous from her four-inch heels to her neon purple wig.
But, arguing with her winds up being pretty entertaining - when he's sober enough to manage it - and that's a welcome distraction from the fact that he's got two more Seam kids - fifteen-year-olds this time - to lead to their deaths.
Trinket, on the other hand, doesn't see that they're doomed. No, she's convinced that this year, Twelve will have another winner. She's even perky and cheerful about it all, right up to the end.
She cries when the kids die, though - not crocodile tears either, but real ones - and try as he might, Haymitch just can't find it in himself to hate her. Not really.
The 63rd Hunger Games
This year, there's a fourteen-year-old boy that glares sullenly at everything and everyone, and a sixteen-year-old girl who keeps asking questions with a desperate sort of determination.
The boy might stand half a chance if he could channel that anger into something productive, but right now, he's coming across as a pouting teenager rather than a dangerous opponent, and if that doesn't change, he won't last long.
The girl, though, corners Haymitch on the train that first night, desperate determination still shining brightly in her eyes.
"Tell me how to win. You did it. Tell me what I need to do."
He squints at her blearily, one corner of his mouth quirking wryly as he studies her.
"You sound awfully eager, little girl. You gonna tell me that you would've volunteered if you weren't reaped?"
The girl shakes her head quickly in refusal. "No. I didn't ask for this. But I figure, if I win, it'll solve a lot of problems."
Haymitch barks a sharp laugh; a sober corner of his brain realizes that it sounds vaguely like a sob.
"Take it from me, kid," he says. "If you win, your problems are just beginning."
The boy dies on the second day, still glaring sullenly at his killer, and the girl…the girl doesn't win, so none of it matters.
(But of course it does.)
TBC
A/N: The next part should be up again soon. As always, please let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading, and take care and God bless!
Ani-maniac494 :)