Minor TW: Mentions of workplace child abuse in the first PoV. Nothing is explictly shown, just mentioned.
Shea Sinclair, 18, District Seven Female
May 29th, 19 ADD, 8:23pm - a little over one month until Reaping Day
The sunset always was her favorite part of the day. When she was a kid, it was all about the pretty colors - reds fading to oranges fading to indigos as the sun settled beneath the horizon and the moon rose to replace it. Father had always taken her up a tree (small enough to not worry her mother, but tall enough to get a good view nonetheless) to get a good look back in the day.
For Shea Sinclair, this particular part of her evening routine remains unchanged to this day, even if almost everything else about her life couldn't say the same.
"How was work today?" Example one: Father's no longer the one to join her tens of feet off the ground, that role instead claimed by Orion, despite her insistence that it wasn't necessary. That request, in what was equal parts annoying and relieving, was ignored - at twenty, the quiet stubbornness that her older brother inherited from their mother meant that five out of six work days, he'd end the day by making the trek from his own neck of the woods to join her as opposed to heading straight home. Never mind that her own favored haunt is no longer the maple tree next to the family abode that Father used to guide her up, never mind that the sturdy oak near the mills is nearly twice as long a trek after what Shea knows almost firsthand is far from an easy job in its own right. No matter how much wood Orion splits, no matter how tiring his lumberjack career might be (there was a reason she'd chosen the mills instead of the woods when offered the choice, after all), she hasn't yet figured out a way to shake him off.
(Not that she really minds, as she's already said. Solitude has never been one of her preferred states.)
"Oh, you know how it is," Shea replies after a moment and a long sigh. "Long. Difficult. Tiring. Hawthorn's still a dick, but for whatever reason Cedar's the one that's drawn his ire this week so I've been mostly left alone, so." She shrugs. "Could be worse."
"Could be worse," Orion echoes. "The offer's still open if you ever-"
"-want to give chopping trees down a try, I know," Shea finishes, barely suppressing a smile. Every time she brings Mr. Hawthorn up, Orion always, without fail, extends an olive branch out. And every time, Shea gently turns him down.
(He's the only one that really knows what Hawthorn is like, after all, and yet he never pushes the way she knows Mother would. As for Father, well…)
"Can't know for sure if I don't ask," Orion shrugs, his own attempts at suppressing a pained grin largely failing.
"I know, and I'm grateful for that." She turns away from him, focusing back on the dying rays of the sun. Golden hour, Father always used to call it, and for good reason, too. "You're probably better off trying to convince the twins at this point, though. Or getting Mother on your side to convince them, or something like that."
"I've tried, believe me," Orion sighs with the weariness of a man thrice his age. "It went about as well as you'd expect from trying to dissuade naive fourteen year olds to follow in their beloved father's footsteps."
Shea grimaces. "I was afraid as much."
They sit in silence for several minutes, watching as the sun gradually dips beneath the horizon. It's only when the first stars begin twinkling above them that Orion breaks it. "Mr. Hawthorn doesn't…discipline kids that young like that, does he?"
Shea's chuckle in response has no mirth behind it, only bitterness. "Nah. If he did that, he'd've been kicked out years ago, because unfortunately, he's smart about it. He always eases up on us for the first few weeks after a new kid joins, making sure to teach them the ropes, give them the impression that he's tough but fair, the usual. By the time he starts smacking them, he's already convinced them that it's not his fault, it's theirs for one reason or another - not learning fast enough, making too many mistakes, being a bit too slow, you name it. Then when he brings out the stick, well…" Her hand almost instinctively brushes over the left side of her ribcage, where a partially healed bruise still aches. "At that point, it's so ingrained in our heads that we just accept it as a part of life." She turns back towards Orion, who, as always, is blissfully, reliably silent. "You know what I was like during those first few years. I didn't even think anything was wrong until you told me you never got beat for messing up. How is a fourteen year old desperately hoping to support their family supposed to know any better?"
It's a rhetorical question, and they both know it. After all, wasn't that why Orion, at twenty, had six years of experience under his belt? Wasn't that why Shea, fourteen and equally as naive as the twins, had all but jumped at the chance when Father had offered her a job where he worked?
"And there's no way this can be avoided." There's no sign of a question in Orion's resigned admittance this time - they've had this conversation before, after all, and few things are different from then.
"Not really," Shea agreed. "You know Father won't do anything about it. He's always too loyal to his friends, even when they're pieces of shit like Hawthorn. And if I tell Mother-"
"-at best you'll be confined to house arrest to watch over the twins and at worst we'll become orphans because there's no way she'd let Father live if she knew. I remember." Orion's smile is gone, yet the pain in his expression remains. "And the twins are like you - they'd rather do what Father does than break their backs against trees six days a week."
"Maybe they'll be more open to switching before it's too late than I was." Orion opens his mouth to respond (most likely a contradiction that it's not, in fact, too late, if Shea knows him at all) but she doesn't give him the chance. "Hey, if I'm lucky, I'll only have to deal with him for another year or two before I'm old enough to get transferred. And not every overseer has to be as bad as him, right?"
Orion's mouth snaps shut, and grudgingly, he nods. That's what Shea always appreciates the most out of him, really - at the end of the day, he doesn't argue for the sake of arguing, he argues because he cares. And, more importantly, he trusts Shea to take care of herself.
Shea sighs, turning back to focus on the horizon as the last rays of the sun disappear beneath it, painting the world in indigo. "I'll talk to the twins on my next day off," she promises, for his sake if not her own. "Worse comes to worse, we'll just keep an eye on them like you keep an eye on me."
"I hope it doesn't come to that, personally." Another weary sigh, another begrudging acceptance. And Shea gets it, she really does. How is one supposed to watch her younger brothers repeat her mistakes and not be able to do anything about it except watch from afar?
"Me either," she agrees. "But at the end of the day, it's their choice, not ours. And sometimes, all we can do is watch and help as much as we can."
"Yeah." A beat passes. "At least they'll have us, if no one else."
"Mhm." The best consolation prize of a lose-lose situation - at the end of the day, the Sinclair siblings would always look out for each other. "At least they'll always have us.
No matter what.
Oisin O'Donnell, 14, District Seven Male
February 27th, 19 ADD, 6:58am - a little over four months until Reaping Day
The first sign that Oisin O'Donnell's day would be anything but normal revealed itself roughly thirty seconds after he arrived at work.
"Why're you here today, kid?" A valid question in some circumstances, he figured, yet quite frankly a confusing one given that, one, it was halfway through his five-day work week, two, he was, as mentioned, quite literally at his check-in location, and three, said question was uttered by none other than his boss.
He blinked, the absurdity of it all failing to register. Was this some sort of prank? Potentially, if it was one of the other lumberjacks-in-training asking him, but in the four months since he'd turned fourteen and set out into the workforce, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen his boss - a burly, round-bellied, silver-bearded mountain of a man named Mr. Douglas, who even in his fifties could chop through a tree faster than anyone Oisin had ever seen - so much as crack a smile, let alone make a joke.
When that fact did not change after a moment and Mr. Douglas's expression remained every bit the ironwood-faced grimace it always was, Oisin stumbled for an answer. "Uh, I usually work on Wednesdays, right, sir?"
"Aye, you do. Usually." Oisin's confusion only grew as Mr. Douglas, far from barking at him to get his gear ready and get to work, instead pinched the bridge of his nose in what was almost…annoyance? "Damn Eoghan, can't be trusted to remember shit this time of year," he muttered, almost to himself, before refocusing on Oisin with an almost weary glance. "You've got the day off, kid. Unique circumstances and all that."
Oh. That made sense, sorta. It wasn't surprising that Mr. Douglas would know that, given his long friendship with his father. And yet, that did little to assuage Oisin's nerves. "Thank you, sir," he responded, dipping his head so far forward it almost became a bow. "But, uh, respectfully, sir, I'd-"
"Nope," Mr. Douglas stopped him in his tracks, gently but firmly in a way that offered no further argument. "Not happening, kid." He crossed his arms, and not for the first time, Oisin was all too aware of just how intimidating his boss could be without even really trying. "As I said, unique circumstances. You have today off with full pay due to a 'family emergency', and you'll return tomorrow at seven am sharp just as scheduled. And yes, I already told your father, even though he…" He paused, appearing to choose his words carefully. "...forgot to inform you, so if either of your parents have issues, just send them my way."
For the second time in as many minutes, Oisin found himself rendered speechless. Mr. Douglas was a fair boss, yes, but a strict and tough one, too, and something like this was so far out of character from what he'd been able to pick up that he wasn't quite sure what to think. Sure, it wasn't totally unexpected - there'd been that one time where Hazel had broken a finger and he'd been uncharacteristically lenient in allowing her to return to work at her own speed, and when Palmer's grandpa had died last month he too had been allowed a day of mourning free of work, but both of those had been real and sudden, not-
No. He'd been taught not to question acts of kindness from trusted sources too much, and hell, for as tough as Mr. Douglas was on him sometimes, he'd never been needlessly cruel. "Thank you, sir," he opted for instead with another dip of his head, further words proving momentarily unobtainable.
"Don't mention it." For the first time, something behind Mr. Douglas's iron gaze softened. "Give Eoghan and Mairead my regards when you see them, too."
"Will do. Sir." A third nod - repetitive, properly, but this was the longest non-work related conversation he'd ever had with his boss. That, and, well, he'd just handed Oisin his version of a gift, too, and he'd always been taught to be respectful.
"Now get outta here, kid." And with that, he turned and left Oisin wondering what the hell just happened?
But only for a moment. After all, Mr. Douglas rarely gave instructions without any reason, and even if every part of him that'd been coerced through four months of habit complained otherwise, he'd gain little from ignoring them.
(After all, knowing his boss, Oisin wouldn't put it past him to quite literally carry him back home personally if it came to it.)
It's not a long walk from the O'Donnell residence to his work site (the other part of the reason that his father recommended he work there), yet for once Oisin found himself dawdling. He knew Mr. Douglas meant well, he knew that today of all days was going to be a weird one by normal standards and that by giving him the day off was a gesture of kindness, and yet…
He huffed, allowing frustration to creep into his system for the first time (he'd found out the easy way that anything less than ordered discipline wouldn't fly with someone like Mr. Douglas, especially while on the job, thanks to another kid finding out the hard way) as the weight of the situation sunk in. He'd actually been kind of looking forward to working today, as it meant he'd have a valid excuse to stay away from the house for the first time, and yet here he was, being sent right back home where he'd have to endure for the fourteenth time in a row.
And then no sooner had the thought hit his brain did a wave of guilt chase after it, because, jeez, man, it's not like his parents were like this every year for no reason. Even if he couldn't quite understand it after fourteen years, that didn't mean he disagreed. Not entirely.
(Even if it was suffocating sometimes to live in a shadow he knew he never quite would replicate).
It takes fifteen minutes instead of the usual ten to make the trip back home (and on the off chance that it's noticed and or called out, Oisin's fully prepared to just say that he spent that extra time trying to argue with Mr. Douglas as if he wasn't, in fact, still too intimidated by him to disagree more than once) and when he enters without knocking, both of his parents are exactly where he left them - facing across from each other at the square dining table, a framed photo placed in between them.
"Oisin?" his mother asked first, and damn, another reason he hadn't been looking forward to this, because even in that one word it's almost too easy to pick up that her voice is already slathered with grief and pain. "What's wrong? Why are you home already?"
"Mr. Douglas gave me the day off," came the answer as he shrugged his work boots off. "Cause of the, uh, 'unique circumstances. Apparently he told Dad, but…" His voice trailed off, because even now, implicating his dad (on today of all days) felt, just, wrong.
"Shit," was his father's only response. "He did, last week, and I completely forgot. My apologies, Oisin."
"It's okay." And, surprisingly, Oisin realized he meant that. Any frustration that had built up over the trek home had evaporated the second he'd heard his mother's voice. "We both understand."
His father gave a wan smile in response. Not that Oisin was surprised - this was their yearly tradition, year after year. Sit together with a memento and silently mourn. This year was a photograph, one that he'd seen enough that he could practically picture it from memory - a candid shot showcasing a slender teenager with a megawatt smile, sporting features that, as Oisin aged, he realized were eerily similar to his own.
"We'll have to send Jeff a thank you gift tomorrow," his mother said. "Making sure our family is together on today of all days…"
"Nineteen years," his father continued when his mother trailed off. "He's been gone almost as long as he was around now."
And oh, only now did the metaphorical lightbulb click on over his head. To him, last year, this had been stifling. But now…
God. How could he ever have been so immature?
A surge of emotion swelled up within him, and suddenly, he found himself at his father's side, locking him in an embrace.
"Love you, dad," he whispered. Then, he walked over to his mother, and repeated the action. "Love you, mom."
Finally, once he'd detangled himself from her, he stood up tall and took a good long look at the picture. "Love you, Lorcan. Happy birthday."
The memento of his older brother, gone before he'd ever been born, only grins up at him in response.
Elwood Flume, Victor of the Fifteenth Annual Hunger Games
July 4th, 19 ADD, 9:50am - Ten minutes before Reaping Day
"You look like shit, boy." Five seconds in and Elwood Flume's plan to act and appear as normal had already shattered to pieces around him.
(Then again, perhaps the joke was on him for thinking he could outwit Silas Linwood on today of all days).
Still, he wouldn't go down without a fight. "Man, and Lilac said this shirt looked good on me," he replied with a chuckle, looking down at the (admittedly nice) white button down.
Silas raised an eyebrow, and Elwood grinned, leaning forwards to whisper in his ear before he could respond. "Between you and me, I think she's a little biased."
"I wasn't talking about the shirt, boy." Damn. Silas, 2, Elwood, 0. "And we both know she's a lot more than 'a little' biased." Silas, 3, Elwood-
"It's the hair, then, right?" In one smooth motion, he ran a hand through it - slightly damp, yes, but that only added to the intended effect. "Thought I'd try something different this year, give the impression that us Sevens can be both wild and rustic while also appearing classy as hell."
"When's the last time you slept, Elwood?" Shit. Fuck. Really, Silas, that's just low.
"Yesterday?" he squeaked, in one last ditch effort to avoid the inevitable.
"Naps don't count." Sigh. Alright then.
(Winner: Silas. Again.)
"...three days ago," he relented. "Don't worry about it, though, I plan on taking a nap on the train after I've met the kids and-"
"Or, let me guess, after you meet the kids and psychologically analyze them, you'll seclude yourself in your quarters until you've plotted out at least three different ways you can get them to win." Not a question, just a statement.
New plan: changing my routine every two years isn't enough. From here on out, I'll change it early.
"You don't know that for certain," Elwood mumbled.
"No. But I know you well enough, boy. And no matter how many energy drinks you consume or how much makeup you put on, I know you." Silas paused, and, much to Elwood's surprise, actually broke eye contact first. "And I know how rough the first few years are, and how much you're still kicking yourself over the last three years no matter how much you and I try otherwise."
"I don't need your pity, old man," Elwood grumbled as a spark of annoyance flared to life within him. "I know what I'm doing, and if I don't do everything I can to help the poor boy and girl who're about to have their futures ruined-"
"They'll be fine if you don't interrogate them like a hovercar parent for a few hours, boy." Damn Silas and his unflappable nature - just once, some small petty part of Elwood would love to elicit a reaction out of him that wasn't pity. "You, on the other hand and contrary to popular belief, are still quite mortal. You can't solve every problem the Games will throw at them, and you'll do them no good if you pass out halfway during the chariot rides tonight."
"I wouldn't pass out-" Elwood attempts to interject, but as he's unfortunately, frustratingly learned over the last few years, there's no stopping Silas once he gets started.
"Or if you show up at the train station looking more disheveled than Balderic after three beers," the man in question continues. "Or if you scare the tributes because you get too personal with your questions too quickly because you forgot to set them at ease first, or if you spend so long trying to analyze each and every other tribute that you forget to eat, or-
"Okay, okay, I get the point, I get the point." Damn. He wasn't so blind as to not recognize that Silas meant well, but man, he'd never learned to appreciate the fact that the man had the subtlety of a falling redwood. "But you can't just expect me to sit around and do nothing, right? Look at how well that worked out for you."
He regretted the words as soon as he said them - it was no secret that Silas had been all but inactive as a mentor in the years leading up to Elwood's victory, and to Elwood himself it was no secret how much he regretted those years now with hindsight. Still, the only reaction he got was a raised eyebrow.
"Point taken," he relented for the second time in as many minutes. "I promise that as soon as we're on the train, I'll go straight to my quarters and attempt to sleep, and I won't come out until we're an hour away from the Capitol." A beat passes. "And I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted." Simple. Easy. Just like that. As if it was just a comment on the weather instead of a personal jab. "And I'll do my part, too, boy. I'll take care of the kids and make sure they're not just wallowing and sitting idle on the train."
"Yeah." All of the energy drained out of him almost at once, and he slumped. "I know. It's just…frustrating, that no matter what I do, I can't seem to help these kids live."
Silas snorted. "Boy, why do you think I walked away after the Eighth?"
"Because you thought that exact same thing once, I know."
"And yet the only thing we can do is keep trying. And no," Silas raised a finger to cut Elwood's attempted interruption off. "That does not mean working yourself to the bone before you even know who or what you're working with."
"You got it, old man." Truthfully, Elwood wanted to argue the case more (if only because Silas usually knew how to get him out of his own head enough to reassure him), but at that very moment, the mayor stepped onto the stage for his speech. A moment later, the Capitolite escort - a woman dressed in green from head to toe named Penelope - stepped up to take his place.
Just because you've won the battle doesn't mean you can stop me from planning the rest of the war, old man, Elwood thought as he leaned forwards. Once two of the greatest unknown factors in the tributes themselves were revealed, the rest - be it analyzed on the train or in their apartments - would be significantly easier to handle. There's a lot that can be picked up in the first minutes alone.
What he picks up is this - when Penelope's voice rings with a declaration of "Shea Sinclair!" as the female tribute, Elwood's blood runs cold when the girl, far from crying out or showing fear, almost laughs instead. Because in his experience, laughing means one of two things - either she's a psychopath, or she's already given up the fight before it's even begun.
(And if the way she stares off into space after stepping onto the stage in a simple but elegant white smock dress is anything to go by, Elwood's at least eighty nine percent sure it's not psychopathy).
What he picks up is this - when the second tribute's name of "Oisin O'Donnell!" rings out a moment later, it's an agonizing minute of silence before a boy finally stumbles out of the fourteen year old's section - and fuck, those odds are terrible to begin with given that only a whopping two tributes under the age of fifteen have ever won.
(And the fact that, despite the boy's best efforts otherwise, he's quite literally trembling with what Elwood knows is pure, unadulterated fear, does little to assuage him that this boy has any chance of being the third.)
It's a terrible showing, statistically - his worst one yet, across all four years, actually. But if there's one thing that Elwood has never cared about, it's statistical improbabilities. Hell, he'd been one way back when, when he'd knitted an unlikely alliance with his district partner and the chosen girl from Two and used it to propel him to the very end.
And hell, no matter what Silas says, no matter what the odds end up being, one thing is guaranteed not to change - he'll fight as hard as he can for both of them to find a path to victory.
And if there ends up being none, then he'll make one, instead.
Once again, welcome back to An Illusion of Instability! Today we bring a rather depressing chapter from a pair of tributes who, for different reasons, find themselves struggling through the day-to-day of their otherwise ordinary lives - before the Hunger Games arrives, of course, and adds a completely different set of problems for them to worry about. As always, many thanks to recklessinparadise for Shea and to ace-0f-sw0rds for Oisin!
For District Seven, as stated before, both of our protagonists have quite noticeable shadows weighing down heavily on their otherwise ordinary lives. For Shea, she endures the burden of a job where her boss is rather cruel with his disciplinary methods to the point of, well, pointless violence, which while she might have gotten used to out of necessity, nevertheless presents a very real fear with regards to her two younger brothers who seem all but destined to follow in her footsteps, for better and for worse. Though she has her older brother in her corner, how much does the relative indifference of her father truly affect her? For Oisin, there's a yearly reminder of the specter that always hangs over his head, of an older brother long deceased well before he was born and his annual date of birth, and though he doesn't quite understand why, exactly, he's so important, he's nevertheless able to empathize and even feel part of the pain himself. Though he might try his best to live up to this mysterious brother's memory, is there more to the story than he realizes? These shadows likewise hang quite tightly onto our point-of-view victor as well, the charismatic and handsome Elwood Flume who, after three years of failing to bring a tribute home, is growing increasingly hopeless and desperate in equal measures regarding whether or not that will change. Will fourth time be the charm for him this year, or will this increasing obsession with correcting his failures have far greater consequences? Guess y'all will just have to wait and see!
Next on our list is District Eight and its factories, which also just so happens to be the second district we visit without a victor. We'll meet our next two tributes there, along with our first glimpse at our second Capitolite assigned mentor and what, exactly, makes him tick...anyways, before I reveal too much, see y'all next time!