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It's been nine long years since he won the Hunger Games, and Wilbur Soot is tired of it.
There was once a time, distant now, where his worst fear was irrelevance. He would wake up screaming from nightmares of a distant future, a Panem where nobody remembered him past textbooks and forgotten VODs. Now he's twenty-four, and that's not so old, but if you told him he was to be forgotten he would weep with the joy of it.
Technoblade is a brilliant writer. Each of his books is beloved the nation over. This does not make him, in the moment, an especially engaging speaker.
"The way you write a story," he proclaims into the lens, gesturing, "is intensifying. Something bad happens, which encourages success. Then something worse, and so on."
Lucky, the two of them are extremely lucky that their 'interests' are things they actually enjoy. Not all Victors are so fortunate.
"It should get so bad that your characters, they like, look at their situation and say, 'You know what? I miss the first bad thing that happened, because it could never compare to this.' Right?"
Wilbur's used to these semi-rebellious rants by now, so he hums in vacant agreement and looks pretty on the other end of the sofa. One night it'll be his turn to talk about music theory and it'll all even out. Who is Techno even kidding? Maybe half of these videos will ever see the light of day, but it's the thought that counts.
"That's the problem, Wilbur. It's not sustainable. They can make the Games as shitty as they want-"
"Ahem," the camerawoman snaps. The Avox by the microphone jumps, and Wilbur quickly signs them a reassurance. "Fuck's sake, idiot."
"Sorry! Sorry. Edit that out. Like I was saying," Techno's eyebrows knit together as footsteps sound outside, "an author can make a plot point as shitty as they want, but there comes a point where the risk is saturated. If there is no greater risk for the protagonists to take, the audience grows bored. And what then?" A heaving breath. A dramatic pause. "Stagnation."
"You're fuckin' depressin' me again," Rebecca croons melodiously, reaching over to turn off her camera. Wilbur swears. "This is never gonna get aired. Come on, lads. The new year is a-callin'."
"I'm hanging up on it," Wilbur deadpans. "Are we all still invited?" With impeccable aim, his newest gorgeous woven hat lands in the bin.
"Pessimism does not become you, darling," Josh says from the doorway in an affected Capitol accent. "To answer your question, no. We're not quite rotting piles of dust just yet." Rebecca laughs harshly. There's an unspoken undercurrent of jealousy between all ten of them over Josh's freedom from the prep team.
"We'd better get going," Techno pipes up. "Wouldn't wanna get in trouble." The life is gone from his voice. So animated only minutes before, Wilbur almost expects him to creak as he stands up and slowly leaves.
At least he'll get to see Cooper again, maybe for the last time until the Games. They're not even from the same part of town. Their accents are different and their personalities clash at every turn. But in the limited ways available to him these days, Wilbur cares for him like an estranged brother.
"I worry about him." Josh leans to watch Techno pace away and gives voice to the general mood of the recording room. No reply comes but the distant cheerful whistle of a stylist.
Olivia and her prep team dress him like a child's doll. He has no pride left to defend, no modesty left to cover. There is no judgement here, except of his hair. Wilbur can just stand in place, tranquil, and wait, patient, and beam at the made-up man in the mirror. The man always smiles hastily back.
It's only in the lobby that tensions rise again. At first everything is normal; Niki, Angel and Rebecca size up their outfits by ridiculousness and/or blatant sexualisation. The latter wins this year; her teeth bulge out like ivory scimitars and add a heavy lisp to her banter. She pretends to spit at Tommy and he laughs weakly, adjusting the serpentine bracelets that twist around his arms. The spotlight will be on him this year, nobody says out loud. Being twenty-one only means something in the Capitol, where children don't work and adults barely need to.
"I wonder how many of us will be back next year," Vikk jokes morbidly as they wait for the lift to arrive. Nobody seems to find it very funny. "Wilbur and Pyro, obviously. Techno. Niki and Minx, I guess. Josh, what are our chances?"
Not again.
"Shut up," Angel says evenly from where she and Niki are sitting and comparing wings. It's been eight long years since Nihachu became the angel to Minx's demon, but neither her nor Angel have ever showed any real bitterness over sharing the role until this moment.
"We're all stressed, Vikram," Niki agrees, fixing Vikk with a piercing gaze from under her eye makeup. "There's no need to be cruel about it."
Privately, Wilbur thinks he has a point. Excepting Pyro they're all past the halfway point of a very limited shelf life. Which is hilarious, really, because he's older than all of them.
"The Victor's not even one of ours!" Vikk snaps back, looming over the three of them. It's out of character. Josh's eyes find Wilbur's, and the old sickness of anxiety tumbles into his stomach. It was never an even playing field for some of them. "For the first time. That's it, angels. That's the beginning of the end. The next one from District 10 will be Nivison's. The next one from District 7 will be her," he jabs a thumb at Angel accusatorily, "precious Charlie's. And on and on and on, until, Floor 5? No sir, not even on the roster."
She sucks in a breath but doesn't reply. Michael sighs as Niki mutters something unprintable under her breath into Minx's elbow, adjusts his bowtie.
"Maybe you're right. I dunno. But at least some of us are trying, Vikk," he says with none of his usual incendiary flair. Easy for him to say.
"Trying what? You've all given up! Even T-"
"That's enough," Pyro interrupts quietly. It used to be him that started these pointless fights. Now he buttons up his fuschia jacket, buffs his shoes with one sleeve and reads silently from a sheaf of golden cards. Vikk stares at him, and then at his own clenched fists, like he's seen a ghost.
The lift has arrived.
"Yeah," he says, lost. "No, yeah, I'm sorry. That was...Haha, wow."
Sensing the tension, the Peacekeepers outside the lift rattle their holsters rather more menacingly than necessary. They needn't have bothered. Not a single person in the room is even slightly intimidated by the prospect of brutality; three or four seem downright interested.
After that the schedule runs without incident. They're sinking past Floor 3 before Wilbur realises that Techno, bedecked in flamingo-pink feathers and a silver interpretation of his diadem, hasn't contributed anything at all.
It's mortally satisfying to see Cooper in the flesh again. Wilbur wants so badly to reiterate how proud he is of him, how sorry he is about the last Games.
"You shouldn't smoke so much," he says instead, "unless you're planning to keel over at thirty."
Leaning against a pillar with both eyes closed, Cooper acknowledges him with a languid shrug and doesn't answer for a minute or two. They don't have long until respect collapses into boredom, until the both of them are swamped with questions and requests and uncomfortable confessions.
"You shouldn't talk so much," he says tiredly when the first politico starts to stride over, and Wilbur isn't quite sure if he's joking. "Unless you're planning to make it to eighty." He titters anyway. Cooper doesn't, won't meet his eye. "Look, I'll be around."
Maybe he'll get to hug Cooper again before he turns twenty-one. Probably not. He settles for a terse nod and returns his arms to his sides. Almost too quietly to hear over the hubbub, he hears his charge say, "Happy New Year."
As soon as he turns away some lanky Capitol youth barrels into him, almost falling. Wilbur steadies them and they lock eyes; the boy doesn't recognise him.
“Woah, there-” He chokes mid-reassurance, because a lack of recognition at these events is something novel, but the kid doesn't seem to notice. Surely he's a Victor. The Victor. Oh, no.
"The nerve of those people." And just like that, Wilbur understands the persona the boy has chosen. A brave choice, but a lonely one. "Don't they know who I am?"
He's not lanky at all. He's skinny, still a skeleton in a suit. It never quite goes away, for the poorer Districts. Even now, Wilbur couldn't maintain a paunch if he tried.
"Who doesn't?" he says agreeably to further the joke. He thinks about being forgotten.
"Exactly," says jschlatt, Victor of the 66th Hunger Games, with a strained smile. "And who might you be?"
The question gives him pause. It hasn't been asked of him in a long time, and he considers it in the moment with detachment. Who is he, now? What's left of Will sits eternally under the pier in District 4, gathering seashells and moping uselessly. William Gold haunts a disused arena somewhere, watching it all happen again and again and again. And of course, Wilbur Soot is trapped in the annals of the internet by now. He misses that terrified young man sometimes, clad as he was in all the trimmings of a monster.
They are all dead and gone, he supposes now, and what remains is simple self.
"Wilbur," he decides to say, and it's completely true, "fifty-eight." The missing syllable dangles from the back of his throat, insidious, choking. On reflex he sticks out his hand, and the kid stares at it like he's Pyro in disguise.
But he's forgetting himself. Time blunts the guilt, but does not heal its wounds. He waits, patiently as a doll being dressed, and hopes that their combined reputation for the eerie will hold off the crowd a while longer. It pays off.
"Schlatt," the boy says unnecessarily, warily, finally, and takes Wilbur's hand.
"Very nice to meet you," he ventures, not letting go, and despite everything it's the wrong thing to say. Schlatt shrinks into his smart suit and his huge boots and his manic smile, and straightens as if nothing happened.
That's alright. They're all a little crazy. This one's just early to the table.
“You as well, you as well.” The kid's barely listening, and the avid way he swipes a handful of hors d'oeuvres from a passing tray reminds Wilbur that Schlatt is from District 12. Which is statistically almost impossible, if Techno's muttered ramblings about 'the system' are anything to go by.
Energy for rivalries or grudges is beyond him now. So when he says that Schlatt is someone to watch, he means it in the kindest way possible. Wouldn't want a repeat of what happened with Techno.
"How are you finding Floor 6?"
He fiddles with the hem of his jumper and reflects on how viciously he had wanted to attack the Floor 4 Victors who had asked him that same question all those years ago.
"Oh, it’s good." After each word, Schlatt nods mechanically. Victor or no Victor, he needs to get better at lying if he's going to retain that hard-won Capitol favour. Wilbur notices this clinically, from a distance, without sorrow. "Except for the other Victors, you know," he looks up at Wilbur with an aura that's bitter and blazing, "but that’s the price we must pay."
A joke, but a dangerous one. There's no room or time or opportunity to shake this oversized teenager by his shoulders and beg him to stop trying, it's not worth it, it'll break you to go on caring. So he laughs and keeps on laughing. Like it's the funniest joke in the world. In fact, it is!
"Really?" It's so fucking funny he could laugh himself to death right here on the waxed ballroom floor. "You’re that much of a loner." Yeah, that'd be a fucking show and make no mistake.
"Mm." Instead of elaborating, the kid bites down on his pastry and winces at the taste. "'oo kno' me." And he does know him, Wilbur realises sadly. He's like Slimecicle. He's like Rebecca. He's like Hugbox. He's like Cooper. To some extent, he's like Wilbur himself. Someone fueled by defiance, someone who saw through it all before or during or just after the Games, someone who slipped through the cracks.
Look at him now. Wilbur can't even think about rebellion. Not anymore.
'Seems like everyone does," he points out, and the kid full-on glares up at him with naked curiosity. He looks back, and wonders what waits underneath this particular charade.
It's not always like this. With traves, for example, it had been easy. From the perspective of a Victor, he had been destined to win since the moment he was reaped. Tommy knew that. Techno knew that. Wilbur, waiting to meet Cooper's third doomed tribute, knew that. Maybe Cooper knew that too; he dares not ask now.
A surefire stroke of genius on Tommy's part was the name. It meant there was never any character for Travis to play, except that of someone genuinely happy in their role. The sponsors fell over themselves.
"Tell me about yourself, Will," Schlatt says suddenly. Something about the request feels off, but he can't quite pick it out. "What's your business?' Huh.
"My business?" That's a funny way of putting it. Of course, 'how do you deal with your lifelong indentured servitude?' doesn't have quite the same ring to it. “I sing, I suppose." His childhood dream, at a much greater cost than the guitar he had once coveted. "And stream," he adds like it's optional. "Make the occasional video.”
It sounds like nothing at all, laid out. A less impactful life than the miserable fisherman he should have been.
“Really?” Every year it gets harder to watch someone fall into character. “You know, I stream too. What a coincidence." The hauteur, the laissez-faire disdain, the sheer Technoblade of Schlatt's stance is like a punch to the gut. That poor man. This poor boy.
“No way," Wilbur emphasises, feigning shock. Distinctly aware of the growing crowd, he smirks so widely that it hurts his nose. “We have so much in common already," he says, and to anyone but a Victor that would be the most innocent statement in the world.
"Yeah. How many views do you get?"
It's strange, but Wilbur sees this malnourished pipsqueak in a suit gesturing a Danish and trying to joke and he all he can feel is respect. It's an unteachable gravitas. Techno has it, Pyro has it, little Carson King even has it. Wilbur has never had it. And Schlatt does. Good. Maybe it'll keep his family safe when he inevitably acts out.
“A few million." That's all there is to it. He shrugs faux-casually, tries to downplay it, but it's a colossal number. Especially for someone who isn't even from Floor 6. There are reasons for that, of course, and it all makes him ill to think about so he doesn't.
Instead he looks at himself through the eyes of this angry child, manicured and put-together and entirely controlled, and he hates the absence of a person he sees.
"Ah. That's better," Schlatt says without audible sarcasm. What a fascinating character. "I'll accept your offer, but we split the profits 80-20." Wilbur is tired. He doesn't want to play the clown, but there are socialites crowding around - so he forces a laugh and sets up a punchline.
"My offer? What offer -"
"Listen, Will." He sets it up, Schlatt knocks it down. The kid's a natural. But again, something about the way he does it sets Wilbur on edge. "I’m being extremely generous, here," he deadpans, and it's like the good old days, solid months of bitting with Tommy until there was no more air for laughter. "A streamer of my size doesn’t often collaborate with folks like you."
That one actually does make him laugh. It's an unfamiliar sound in its realness.
"Got it, right. My apologies."
"Glad we're on the same page."
He loses the thread there, cowed by the growing assemblage around them. Wilbur feels a bizarre responsibility to pick it back up.
"Just," the kid's head snaps back to him like a gun recoiling, "one thing, Schlatt. I think 80-20 seems a little unfair for what I'm bringing to the table." Smirking, the two of them fall into an easy back and forth that keeps the crowd entertained and more importantly, keeps Schlatt smiling.
"What?" Schlatt squawks at one point and like his shadow, Cooper appears from the throng. "No. It's perfectly fair." Wilbur blinks a few times as if unimpressed. "This is a great opportunity for you, Will," Schlatt reiterates, and as Cooper splutters around his own appetiser continues, "I suggest you take it."
It's the third time that he recognises exactly what has been raising his self-tamed hackles this entire conversation.
Will. Not Wilbur, Will. Cooper, who never has been quite so skilled with such matters of diplomacy, stiffens defensively at the word and almost crushes a sweet roll in his fist. Normally he'd intervene before his mentee snapped. This time it's enough to splinter even his own façade. Not a soul in Panem has called him Will in over eight years, unless you count-
"You know?" he barks, rather too loudly. "We can talk about it later." Careful, careful, there's an audience here. There's an audience everywhere, Wilbur. He pats the new Victor on the shoulder with enough force to push the two of them a pace apart. "I look forward to it." He does, in a sad way. Variation if nothing else is something worth the wait. But it's a clear dismissal.
"Yeah," the kid echoes. It's smaller than he probably thinks. "Lookin’ forward to it." Wilbur flicks his gaze up towards his protégé warningly whilst Schlatt's distracted. It's not the time.
As soon as he can politely justify, he twists back into the crowd and pretends to enjoy the resulting overlap of conversation. Cooper shoves past him to badger Schlatt. Wilbur decides it's about time to get a drink.
One corner of the ballroom is dedicated to a sumptous lounge, all soft chairs and bright liquids in colours Wilbur couldn't name. It wouldn't help his image to be seen drinking alcohol. Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of the Capitol's finest, he orders a glass of orange juice and softens his sulk to a fading frown.
"How's about this one?" Pyro says gruffly, sliding into the stool next to him. "A fox, a prince, a king and an arsonist walk into a bar."
"What's the punchline?" he asks after a jarring beat. The conversation with Schlatt has rattled him more than it should have. He's happy, now. Tired, but satisfied with the life he lives.
Satisfied with the steadily ticking timer to the day he is buried in antiquity. When's the last time he spoke to someone from Floor 4 or before?
"The point at which I finally punch someone," Techno cuts him off snidely. Carson, who everybody knows doesn't drink, snorts half-heartedly into his water and looks glum. What he's thinking is blindingly obvious even before he puts it to words.
"Do you guys ever...miss people, at this time of year?"
Instantly Techno conjures up something typically reverent about his sisters, and Pyro mutters something considerably bleaker about the responsibilities of the decade tribute. Carson chuckles at the gallows humour, but Wilbur does not, mainly because he is too busy dry-heaving over the bar.
Fuck. Three kids. Three chances, and he only made it once. Three kids, and it's just Cooper now, broken and disturbed and jagged around the edges because he couldn't even fucking save a child well enough. Cooper who must resent him, should hate him, for the duty Wilbur has passed down.
As soon as they notice, the other three stand up around him in a protective shield. The bartending Avox, gobsmacked, cringes flat against the wall for fear of punishment. Somehow, that's what pushes him to the edge of bawling.
"Get a fuckin' hold of yourself," Pyro squats to whisper lowly, but there's an undercurrent of worry that he hasn't heard there in a long time. "Come on, there's nowhere to go. They'll all see. I dunno who you're thinkin' about but it's not worth it, they're not worth it. Do it, prettyboy, push it down. For the kid's sake, if nothin' else."
And he does. Carson looks unduly horrified. It occurs to Wilbur that even Tommy is twenty-one. He thinks of the 60th Victor as an adult as much as Pyro, who's pushing thirty-five next year, but in comparison to Floor 5? He is still sickeningly fragile with youth. This is too much to burden him with.
This revelation forces him to plaster on the smile, eyes watering, and greet the approach of Ted Nivison and Rebecca with unsubtle delirium. She hugs him dramatically, the exact kind of scene that they were trying to prevent.
Time has not been kind to JustAMinx. Of course she looks the same as she always has. But, like Wilbur, he thinks that deep down she's tired of fighting by twenty-four. Those accursed fangs dig into her bottom lip as she pulls away, and it's almost enough to send him spiraling again.
"Damage control," Carson growls at Ted as Wilbur flounders. It doesn't mean anything to him, but the tall, handsome Victor at his side darts away and soon enough, a sympathetic murmur ripples through the ballroom towards them. A snippet here and there cuts above the rest.
Ah, it's Wilbur Soot. The poor thing's had some kind of allergic reaction.
Poor darling. I was always rooting for him, personally. I wonder if it's from the fire?
They're never quite right again afterwards, you know. District blood will out and all that.
Pish! As District 4 goes, the man is practically civilised.
Returning slowly to himself, he finds himself alone but for the blubbering Avox and his customary crowd of sympathetic fans. He waves them off and staggers towards the balcony under the pretence of needing some fresh air.
In the end, he doesn't even get outside. One palm pressed against the cool marble, heat leeching from his skin into the fabric of the Victor's Tower, he hears the others discussing him in low tones.
"It's really not your fault," Techno is saying to someone. It's hopeless and flat in a way that doesn't fit his voice. "He's had it coming for a long time now. 'S all there is to it."
"I've been in your shoes," Pyro reminds the same person decisively. He has lived here almost as long as in District 9, and in moments like this that softness shows. "When this happens to one of yours - and it will - you've gotta keep 'em safe."
Calm authority aside, Wilbur has always been under the impression that Pyrocynical doesn't care that much about anything. Maybe he's just had longer than the rest of them to learn how to pretend. Surely mentoring for sixteen years in a row can't do anything good for a person.
"I. I, um." That's Carson, the subject of their solace. "Shit. Why does it have to be on me?"
There's a long silence. Someone drags their feet across the gravel on the walkway. It crunches unpleasantly. Then there comes around the corner the quiet, unmistakable sound of Pyrocynical shrugging.
"Fuck if I know, kiddo. If you don't, who else is gonna care?"