Work Text:
Sometimes, when Schlatt is sleeping, he can feel his heart in his chest racing. It jolts him along as his feet touch the ground, running from the demons in his dreams. He can never stop moving, never stop trying to get away from the inevitability of a nightmare.
Even here in Victors’ Tower, Schlatt still has the same nightmares that he had back in district 12. He thought experiencing the fresh horrors of the arena and the Capitol would change that, but it doesn’t that much. Most of his nightmares still remain the same.
Schlatt’s most common nightmare comes to him almost weekly, but its startling effect has still never worn off.
In the dream he is stuck in the mines, the elevator that stretches deep into the earth gone. He’s down here and he’s never going to get back up.
The worst part is that he’s not stuck down here alone. In the nightmare Ty and Connor are always beside him, staining their hands red grasping at the cavernous walls in search of escape. There’s no getting out of here, but that doesn’t deter them from trying.
Suddenly the earth beneath his feet shifts and in a moment everything around him is erupting. Rocks fly from the wall, layers of stone shattering around him as the mind bursts in an abhorrent display of explosives.
There’s something about dreams like those, those which are so near to a reality he was so close to living out that hurt the most. There’s something so painful about them, about watching his friends be torn away from him in a very typical yet violent display of the true terrors of district 12. That was the life he was slated for, doomed to live out. Now he will no longer ever have to think about mine shafts or explosions ever again.
In the dream he cannot see, the mines are so dark now and the stirred up dust so thick, but he can hear his friends in the darkness. He listens as they wheeze and cough until finally their lungs give out and they fall silent.
In some sickening way now, something about the dream almost brings Schlatt some semblance of comfort and it makes him feel revolted at himself. He hates the thought of his friends dying beside him with every ounce of his being, but something about seeing their faces, of standing right beside him is almost comforting to him. The slick touch of cold stone, the coal dust that paints their faces, there’s something so poignant in it all.
The only time Schlatt ever gets to see his home again is in nightmares where it’s all being ripped away from him.
When the fire overtakes him and Schlatt feels his life fade from his body, he shoots up in bed.
, Of course, it’s totally illogical to think he would be there in the mind, shrapnel littered around him, but it takes Schlatt a minute to come to. With wild eyes he searches around, taking in the all-white room that seems so bright even in total darkness. He sees the computer monitor on the desk in the corner and the door to his personal bathroom, luxuries he would never be able to afford back home, and they reassure him he is alive and breathing.
You’re not there, his mind sings to him in the dark. You’re okay, you’re not in district 12, your friends are okay.
Schlatt pulls his knees to his chest at the thought of his friends.
How he misses them. How sure he is they don’t miss him.
The thing is, as much as he reassures himself that they’re okay, he has no real way of knowing.
(Sometimes when it’s really late and his darkest thoughts begin to bud like flowers in the back of his mind, Schlatt thinks about how they could be dead and he would never know. They could have died months ago, something bad could have happened to them the very day he was reaped and he’ll never have the ability to know otherwise. Without contact with the outside world, he can only ever hope they’re doing fine.)
He has to hope they're okay, believe that no harm has come to them and that they are doing well. It’s the only way he can keep his remaining sanity; they have to be okay.
Now that he’s up though, thinking of Connor and Ty, Schlatt no longer wants to go back to bed. If he lays down again, he’s only going to see their hungry faces plastered across his mind again and so instead he pushes himself up, standing in the mess of blankets he sleeps in on the floor.
Schlatt gets up and pushes the door of his room open, shielding his eyes at the bright lights of the hallway.
At night they always leave the hall lights on, it’s been that way since Schlatt got here. He has a feeling it has to do with some unspoken agreement, like they leave it on so that whenever one of them inevitably gets up and stumbles out of their bedroom in fear from the horror that plays out behind their sleeping eyelids, they won’t have to stumble their way blindly through the hall. The light will already be on, waiting there for them.
It’s helpful for a night like tonight when Schlatt feels he can no longer stay in his room. To stay in his room would allow him to only continue thinking about the friends he left behind and he would give more than anything to do that.
Schlatt makes a beeline for the common room. Most nights he prefers the balcony or the pool, something about them both gives more of a sense of freedom than any other room in this prison. Tonight, though, Schlatt opts for the common room because out of all of the rooms on the floor, this is the one that feels the most like a home. It’s the room where the hand of the Capitol can least be seen. There are empty bowls and dirty socks in there, the couches and chairs pushed into some unidentifiable pattern, games and movies stacked up around the screen. It’s messy in a more comforting way than any other room because it’s so clearly been lived in, so clearly been loved.
The soft glow of the common room at night reminds Schlatt of the view of the city below. There aren’t any windows on floor 6, but Schlatt can see it every time he steps onto the balcony.
The Capitol is a bright place, a blazing city sprawled out for miles in front of his balcony view. Sometimes at night he’ll sit out there and watch the city crawl before him, vehicles tracing roads and paths like little ants, laughter and shouts rise up from the streets.
It doesn’t matter what hour it is, how late into the night Schlatt steps out onto that balcony, there’s always a hazy glow settled over the Capitol. There’s a light gray tint that glazes over the sky, killing off all the stars. Back in district 12, the stars were uncountable, more numerous than grains of sand. They were speckled everywhere. Like how coal dust covered every inch of every surface in 12, the stars sprinkled the sky in such numerous fashion.
Schlatt didn’t think there was a place on earth that couldn’t see all the stars before he got here. He forgot to realize how breathtaking the sight was before it was ripped away from him. Now he can only ever see it again in the blurred images of memories in his head.
The common room is not empty as Schlatt slides the door open. Bundled up on the couch is Travis, wrapped tightly in a pink blanket, his knees to his chest like a scared child. He blinks up at Schlatt with wide, brown eyes and Schlatt feels so out of place standing there under his scrutiny.
He’s lived here for several months now, but every time Schlatt walks into a room that is already occupied, he feels so damn out of place. He still feels like a visitor here, like he doesn’t really belong to this floor. This is their home, their space; he’s just an intruder here. He doesn’t belong among their ranks.
Normally at night when Schlatt gets up, no longer wanting to sleep, he always tries to find an empty spot. If he does so happen to run into anyone, he always turns and leaves to huddle up somewhere else before they spot him. This time he can’t; Travis has already seen him.
Schlatt clears his throat. “Do you mind if I chill here,” he asks, not wanting to invade his space.
“Sure,” Travis says so quietly that Schlatt almost doesn’t hear him.
“If you don’t want me to invade your space, don’t worry, I can go somewhere else. You don’t have to say yes just because--”
Travis cuts him off though. “It’s okay, I don’t mind the company.”
He looks so small here, so scared and fragile. Like this, he isn’t the strong Victor they try to make him out to be. This kid isn’t a winner, he’s nothing more than a mere survivor of tragedy. He didn’t ask for any of this, doesn’t deserve any part of this horror.
Sometimes it’s hard for Schlatt to remember the kid is a year younger than him. He seems so much more experienced at playing this Capitol game, yet somehow so much more innocent. Schlatt hurts for this child who didn’t deserve to be a pawn in this cruel, cruel world.
They sit there like that for a while, waiting in silence, lost to the thoughts of their own heads. Schlatt tries to quiet his mind, but he can’t seem to do so. He still sees the horror-struck faces of his friends dance around his mind as the mine explodes around them. He watches as the rocks pummel to the ground, pinning them to the bottom of a mineshaft and burying them beneath masses of sediment.
Schlatt doesn’t need to ask Travis why he’s up this late to know. It’s the same reason he is sitting here on this couch well past midnight. They all suffer from the same silence.
Travis’ eyes are glazed, focused nowhere at all and Schlatt can tell whatever he’s thinking about is really bothering him. He’s too young for this, is all Schlatt can think, like his sixteen to Travis’ fifteen is any better.
Finally after what feels like an eternity, Schlatt breaks the silence of the room. He doesn’t break it because he finds the silence awkward, in fact quite the opposite. There’s some solace in knowing he isn’t alone in the things he feels. Instead, Schlatt breaks the silence because he can’t stop the words from bubbling out of his mouth.
“Does it ever get better?” he asks in a hushed tone, quiet enough so that Travis can just pretend he never heard it if he doesn’t want to answer. But Schlatt knows the younger boy hears him. He doesn’t have to elaborate on what it is that he’s talking about, Schlatt knows it’s already well and obvious to Travis what it is.
Travis doesn’t answer at first, and it’s only when Schlatt thinks he’s not going to ever get one at all that Travis speaks up.
“I don’t think so,” he says, eyes never moving away from the wall ahead of him, never looking over at Schlatt. “I haven’t been here long enough to truly know the answer to that, but I don’t think it ever does. I think you can only make room for it. You can get used to it, but it’s never really going to go away.”
Hurt, maybe that’s the best word to describe what they’re talking about, but even then that seems to understate it. Hurt does not account for all the scars of the Games, not just the ones across their skin but across every inch of their mind. Hurt doesn’t represent the trauma of leaving your entire family and world behind, of being dragged away against your will like a calf being pulled away from its mother to be slaughtered.
They never had any say.
Schlatt thinks that will be the end of the conversation there, that they will continue to sit silently with their haunted eyes never meeting until the sun rises when they will get up and make breakfast like nothing ever happened, but Travis keeps going. He looks at Schlatt now, his brown eyes so painfully sad.
“But there are things you can do to help make it better. They’ll never get rid of it, but sometimes they make it go away for a little while.”
“Like what?”
He looks down, so meek bundled up in the giant comforter.
Travis shrugs like he’s unsure of himself. “I don’t know, but sometimes talking about it helps. At least it’s always helped me, anyway. When I first got here I could never sleep and Cooper told me to focus on the good things, but I couldn’t do that either so he asked me to talk about them instead and that helped get my mind off the bad stuff.”
Schlatt considers it for a moment. He isn’t sure it would help him, but it’s as good a thought as any. All the good that happened to him was back in district 12, though, not the things he has seen since. The best part of his life was spent mucking about, starving and impoverished, with Ty and Connor in the lake, chasing each other along the dirt paths. They were the good in his life.
“Sometimes I still talk about it, even if it’s just to myself, it makes me feel a little better.”
“What things do you talk about?” Schlatt asks, genuinely curious but also trying to give the kid a way to open up on the topic. It’s clear he wants to talk.
“Usually about my mom. I lived with her back in 8 and she’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known in my life. She was beautiful and kind and always knew when something was up with me, even if I didn’t realize it about myself yet. She always put me first.
“I never really had any friends, at least not until I met you guys, so she was basically my best friend--”
As Travis continues to talk, his face brightening more and more with each sentence about his admiration for his mother, Schlatt notices three things.
The first is the way Travis speaks of his mother. He never refers to her in the present tense. My mother was my best friend, she was beautiful. Schlatt doesn’t think he says it that way because Travis’ mother is dead. He thinks that maybe it’s the idea that even though she isn’t dead, she might as well be. He can no longer see her, never be with her again. Hell, for all he knows she could be dead, Travis would never be able to know.
But the usage of was also separates the two lives Travis has led. Was is an indication that Travis from distinct 8 is dead and buried, left behind at the district station as the train pulled away to the Capitol with a freshly reaped 14-year-old inside. traves is his replacement, a boy built for viewing. The life he left behind is gone and so he can only speak about it in past tense knowing he’ll never go back.
The second thing hits him, and the thing that perhaps makes him saddest, is Travis never had any friends back in district 8.
For Schlatt, his friends were his everything. It was Connor and Ty that kept him going, made life worth living. He has no clue where he would be now without them, without their kindness and friendship. Any enjoyment he found in life was through them.
But at the same time, maybe things are easier for Travis because he didn’t have that. He didn’t have to leave those friends behind like Schlatt did, to mourn for the still living. He was spared from that trial because of it.
And finally Schlatt notices how he is included in the friends Travis talks about now. At least not until I met you guys. Schlatt hasn’t known the kid very long, but there’s something heartwarming about being considered one of his friends.
So Schlatt listens for a long time as Travis rambles about the towering factories for 8, the sound of his mother’s sewing machine chugging late into the night. He hangs onto every detail as Travis explains how he learned to thread a needle, the first time he skinned his knees walking home from school. He listens to it all because it’s so clear how important this is to Travis, and if it’s important to him then it’s important to Schlatt too.
Finally Travis’s voice fades out and he smiles.
“What about you?” Travis asks, clearly trying to get Schlatt to participate. It’s an invitation to try it, to see if talking makes him feel a little bit better too. It’s weird to take advice from a kid who’s younger than you on something so big, but in a way Schlatt kind of gets it. Travis, in some way he can’t really explain, reminds Schlatt very much of his friend Ty from back home, someone Schlatt respects and has listened to advice from before. Maybe it’s a little something like that.
“Well--well--” Schlatt tries to start, but he can’t find where to. All he can think about is his nightmare, the fear on his friends' faces, how they deserve so much better than that.
Think about the good.
“Well back home I had the two most amazing friends, their names were Ty and Connor,” Schlatt begins and suddenly the words come spilling out of him rapidly and he suddenly can’t stop himself. Once the jar has been tipped, Schlatt can’t stop the flood.
He tells Travis about Connor, about his humor. Connor was so hardworking, always putting himself out there to do a little more, be a little better. Connor was probably the poorest of the three of them, though they were all so damned poor, but he never hesitated to give what little he had to help someone else. He was always trying to be better, dreaming of a little more but accepting what good in the misfortune he had received as gold.
Schlatt tells Travis about Ty too. About how good the kid was, how sweet the sound of his laughter. Ty was one of the most genuine people Schlatt had ever had the pleasure of knowing. No matter what, he always kept it real, always knew when to put on the breaks when things had gotten out of hand and gone too far.
There were the things they did, the adventure they went on. Schlatt tells Travis about the time the three of them jumped into the lake to try and catch fish by hand since Connor’s makeshift fishing rod proved unsuccessful and how much of a disaster that has been. He tells him about their little made up games, the business endeavors they were always poking their head into and trying to start up and get off the ground. They were the happy moments, they were his joy.
It’s only when Schlatt’s done talking about all of the great things they had accomplished together and his voice fades out that he realizes how much better he feels now than when he first came in here and found Travis sitting alone on that couch. He doesn’t feel so frightened anymore, so down and hopeless. Travis was right.
Travis smiles at him. “They sound like they were great people.”
Schlatt gives a little, tired laugh. “Yeah. They were.”
He doesn’t mention that they probably hate him now after the thing they have seen him become. He doesn’t talk about how for all he knows they could be dead. They were his world once upon a time.
Schlatt’s never told anybody about his life back home, his incredible friends, and he was never really planning to. It’s not a secret he ever would have given away during the daytime, but here in the darkness of the common room, the words slip out just a little bit easier and they make Schlatt just a little bit happier.
They return to their silence, but this time things are different. It’s not a silence born from the horrible thoughts that come with the night, but one of reminiscing about the joy that came from their bleak pasts, the good times like specks of gold or stars.
And when the sun rises, when the others on floor 6 wake up and the world turns bright, Schlatt feels just a little bit better than he did before.