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When Yvonne exits the arena, she's angry.
She survived on spite and broken confidence, and she'd be damned if the same wasn't going to keep her alive afterwards. She sits through the Welcome Gala with bile in the back of her throat and a glare on her face. She pushes everyone away before they have the chance to try and make agonizing small talk.
Yvonne spends her first sunrise in the Tower alone.
~*~
cora!! (IS FREAKING OUTTTT) @sapphicDiadem
i cant TAKE THIS!!!! really really early games, yvonne winning, and then her birthday is NOT EVEN A WEEK AFTER???? IM????? BYE I CANT TAKE THIS ILL SEE YOU ALL AFTER I STOP CRYING D10 STANS STSAY WINNING
~*~
She stands on the balcony, pressing herself against the cold railing, and she listens to the ambience of the Capitol around her. She tries not to think about her family back home. About what they were doing in her absence. About how they felt about her not spending her sunrise with her loved ones. She's sixteen now. Most kids her age would be so excited to finally learn how to take care of the larger animals, to keep the cows happy and the goats well-fed. So excited to spend this milestone with their family.
But she's in the Tower now. None of that would be here. It's kind of sad, but it's what she has to do. None of the people in the Tower would be 'family' any time soon, and you couldn't pay her to give any of them the time of day.
So she doesn't tell anyone about sunrises. That doesn't make the hurt of having no one there go away, but it helps to justify the lack of people there.
Looking out over the horizon of the city she had grown to hate, she imagines what their lives were like. What did they do for their birthdays? What kind of celebrations did they have? She was glad that none of them woke up as early as she did, though, because she really didn't want people to see her this early. Or at all. Solstices, she was a public figure now. She had to watch what she did and everything.
A knock came at the door, snapping her out of her thoughtful stupor. She jumps a bit, but waits for the sun to finish rising at least an inch above the horizon before turning around and facing the person who knocked on the door.
Oh. Sean.
She waves hello, which prompts him to open the glass door and stand next to her. "You're spending your sunrise alone?" He asks. "You sure?"
She nods. "It's only been a little bit since the games and, well, I honestly doubt that I'm gonna care about them that much."
"I s'pose. Early games this year. But hey, you never know." Sean lightly hits her on the arm. "Close proximity to other people causes you to care for them, no matter what you feel about it."
She sighs and turns away, glaring into the streets below. "Whatever. I'm allowed to be stubborn."
"Yeah, you are. But don't be too upset when you care for them at least a little bit."
Yvonne shrugs. "I don't- I don't know. Why are you here?"
"Oh, did they not warn you? I mean, if you're avoiding them, then I guess they wouldn't have had a chance. Well, they're going to make a staple out of your birthday. Big, big public event. Typically your floor celebrates the day of, but the day before is better for a lot of people."
Yvonne buries her head in her hands. "Can I not have one good day in this solstice-forsaken tower?"
Sean laughs. "You get used to it after a year or two. It's a routine, and even though it's not a fun one it's easy to follow. Wake up. Get ready for your birthday. Pretend to be more excited than you actually are. Stay 'in character,' so to speak. Relax once the cameras are off."
She turns around to face the doors. "If that's an easy schedule I don't think I'll like your other ones."
"It's not so bad," Sean says. He holds out a hand and begins to count. "You wake up, scroll through Twitter, stream for a few hours every couple days. Then you can do whatever you want."
She snorts. "Easy for you to say. You've probably got it all planned out for you, you're the first Victor on your floor."
Yvonne watches as his eyes shift from warm and friendly to something hard and regretful. He exhales a bit heavily and drums his fingers on the railing. "I wouldn't say that," He hums finally. "It's less of having it all planned out for me and more of having to play it all by ear."
"O- oh. Sorry."
"Nah, it's alright you didn't know."
Yvonne looks at her hands and fidgets with her fingers. "So why aren’t you taking me inside, again?"
"I wanted to talk to you. As a fellow District Ten victor. You know?."
He faces her. Yvonne wants to look away, feeling a bit awkward, but she holds her gaze. This feels important.
"Before me, there were nine victors." He pauses and clenches his fists while Yvonne takes that new knowledge in. "You know this. But- uh. With the way that they're going, I'm not sure if they're gonna be around much longer. So, I have a list of their birthdays. I go out and, you know. Watch the sunrise for them. Honoring them is the least we can do, you know?"
Yvonne tried to wrap her head around it. Why did the almighty JackSepticEye of all people make a point of giving her this information, especially for something he wasn't sure was going to happen?
"So why are you telling me this?" She manages to stutter out. "What do you want me to do with this information?"
"I want you to watch their sunrises as well, Yvonne." He places a hand on her shoulder and presses a slip of paper into her hands. She opens it, a list of names and birthdays scrawled in smudged pencil. "I know it's a lot to ask, but honestly you don't have to. Just- think about it, okay? I'll tell them you're coming in soon."
She watches Sean as he takes his leave, gently opening the doors and slipping through, being as quiet as possible. He gives her a nod, and then he disappears down the corridor.
Yvonne breathes in. Holds it. Breathes out. Then, against her better judgement, she decides to go in and celebrate her birthday in the most backhanded way that she could ever imagine.
~*~
Well. That was a disaster.
Yvonne slams the door to her room, furious. Not that she wasn't already seething the whole day as these people pretended to care about her. The plastic crystals hanging from her ceiling swing dangerously and Yvonne wants with all her heart to rip the stupid things down. She would have restrained herself even if she was tall enough to reach them, though, so instead she throws her blankets back and sits on top of her sheets.
She draws the duvets around herself in a sort of cocoon of comfort, burying herself in the fabric that's way too soft.
After about fifteen minutes of sulking, small tapping at the door floats into the room.
"We- uh. We made you a mug cake."
It's Poki's voice.
"You seemed kind of upset, and we didn't really have time today to make an actual cake so we decorated this one? We would have put a candle on it but I don't think you're allowed to have them so, uh, it's mostly just a brownie with sprinkles on it, uh..." She trails off and there's a moment of silence.
"Listen, celebrating on the exact day doesn't work for everyone," Mat continues. "If you want to celebrate the day before or after, we get it. We'll get you your real stuff tomorrow, we just hoped this would cheer you up a little bit."
Footsteps fade down the hallway, and Yvonne creeps out of her blankets and slowly opens the door.
It appears to be as Poki said, a little chocolate mug cake with hastily made frosting. It had a few sprinkles on it, pink and blue and silvery pearls. A letter sealed with pink stickers sits next to it, and Yvonne picks the both of them up. She brings them both into her room, and re-settles into her comfort cocoon before cracking open the envelope.
Hi Yvonne!!
We haven't had a chance to talk, really, but if you're willing we're eating dinner together tomorrow!! Mat's making pasta, so it's not going to be as bad as you'd think! (Don't tell him I said this, he'd never forgive me. He's actually a really good cook. Don't tell him I said that either). Anyways, we really do want to get to know you, Yvonne. You're going to have to start creating content by January regardless, so we're gonna have to talk to you in order to prepare you for that. In the meantime though, feel free to come to us with anything on your mind. I promise you, we will probably understand :)
-Imane (Poki!!)
P.S.- Sorry for not warning you about the birthday thing, we didn't really make an effort to catch you. Our bad!!
Huh. How about that.
Yvonne doesn't come to dinner, but she leaves a thank-you note at the spot of the plate they set out for her.
She hates to admit it, but eating food made by other people again brings tears to her eyes.
~*~
Two weeks after Yvonne eats the spaghetti, she runs into Mat in the common room. It's very late, nearing three in the morning, and it was very, very uncommon for both of them to be in the same room at the same time. They had interacted maybe five times in total before then, but Mat still gives her a kind smile.
"Hey, Yvonne," he says. She gives him a tiny nod of acknowledgement and walks past him. He seems a little disappointed but not surprised, accepting that she wouldn't be talking to him much more that night. He's holding a camera and Yvonne knows he's going to do something weird on camera. She quickens her pace, but then she pauses in the doorway.
"Uh- Mat?"
"Yeah?" He turns around, a bit of a stunned look on his face.
"Does- uh. Does it ever get better?"
Her voice is small and meek and she hates it, but Mat comes up to her and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Yeah. It does. It sucks, but you've gotta try and make the most of it," he says with a laugh. "Talking to people helps with- you know- feeling sane. That's why me and Poki spend a lot of time together. We're just people. Just a handful of traumatized children, you know?"
He pats her shoulder and starts to draw away, but Yvonne grabs his arm and pulls him into a hug. It's the first hug she'd had since before the games, she realizes, but that doesn't really matter at the moment. All she's focused on is Mat and how he doesn't hesitate to draw her into a more heartfelt embrace, allowing her to lean into him and sink into the arms of someone who understands .
"We're going to be alright, Yvonne. It'll be okay."
She takes a step back and he pretends not to notice as she wipes away tears. She gives him a small smile and he holds up the camera.
"You've gotta learn how to film and edit at some point, want to film me doing dumb stuff as opposed to me just propping the camera up on some cans?"
She sighs. "Better late than never, I guess."
He grins and grabs her wrist, dragging her to the kitchen. "Alright, so what we're gonna do is..."
They end up painting the kitchen in multicolored splashes of vinegar and baking soda in the name of science, and when Poki wakes up in the morning she's appalled. "My kitchen!" She screeches. She turns to Yvonne in horror, breathless with laughter. "I trusted you!" She jokingly scolds. "I can't have two harbingers of chaos on my floor!"
Yvonne cackles, and as she's cleaning up the mess she thinks that maybe talking to Mat wasn't the worst idea that she'd had.
~*~
After that, Yvonne prefers to spend most of her time behind the camera, watching as Poki and Mat unboxed packages and recorded commentary videos. She painstakingly lied through an entire podcast episode, talking about her exciting experience in the Tower so far. She fosters a semi-friendly relationship with Brodin, the head cameraman assigned to the floor.
But soon enough, it's November. Poki is getting nervous about Yvonne's streaming 'career' and her being on camera. Understandably so, but Yvonne finds it so agonizing when she asks about it.
"Yvonne-"
" No, Poki."
"You have to learn sometime, you can at least do a test stream to set stuff up!"
"Poki-"
"Come on, if you don't do things on time the blame's going to fall on me and Mat, and we're all going to get punished. I can walk you through it, you can find something you don't hate, it's not going to be too bad, come on ."
"Fine! Fine, if it'll get you off my back."
Poki walks Yvonne to her room and sits her down in her chair. She takes the liberty of booting up OBS, and Yvonne is a little uneasy at how naturally she goes through the motions of setting up the stream. She pulls up a chair and sits down to Yvonne’s right.
“Okay, all you need to do is press ‘Go Live!’”
Her hands start to shake and she can't properly register the letters on the keyboard in front of her. She doesn't speak for a good minute, and Poki places a hand on her leg. "Yvonne? Honey? Are you okay?"
Yvonne opens her mouth, shuts it, and then opens it again. She draws her knees to her face. "It just feels like I'm betraying the people I left behind."
Poki is silent for a minute, so Yvonne continues.
"I'm still so mad at the Capitol, at the Games, and I just want to be home with my friends again. I don't- we don't deserve this."
Poki nods. "I get it. We're expected to sit and have fun for the cameras, but we don't really get a chance to be anything but that. That first year was terrible, when it was just me. It felt like all I was there for was content, and while that may have been true, it still hurt to not have anyone in my corner."
"So..."
"I did what I could to ease the pain. I talked to chat, interacted with them a bunch, baked bread. Baked a lot of bread, actually," she laughed. "I just tried to fill my day with things I could force meaning into, you know? And then Mat came along and it was easier and then you came along and it's getting easier. It's nice to have people on your side."
Yvonne looks up and gives Poki a little smile. "Thanks. That- that really helps."
"I'm glad you're feeling better. Now-"
Poki leans over and presses 'Go Live.' Yvonne yelps and pushes her arm away, but not before a thousand people join the livestream. Poki's grinning at her, and Yvonne buries her head in her hands.
"Hey chat! Welcome to the stream!" Poki greets. More people flood into Yvonne's first stream, and are rightfully freaking out in chat. "Yvonne's not sure what stream aesthetics she's going for, and we thought it would be fun to test some designs live!"
"How did you drag me into this again?" Yvonne grinned at her. Poki laughed and showed her the file filled with various frames for her facecam.
"Try these, come on, these look cute!"
Yvonne snorts. "Chat, tell this woman that a milk theme is absolutely horrid for streaming."
~*~
November fifteenth. Poki is already on her way to the balcony, and Yvonne is standing outside of Mat's room.
Go time.
She opens the door slowly, making sure to slide so her fuzzy socks wouldn't make any noise along the floor. Yvonne slowly creeps up to Mat's bed, and pats his face, lightly hitting his shoulder a few times.
"Mat, wake up!" She whispers urgently. "Mat!"
"Wh- what?"
"Come watch the sunrise with me!"
Mat blinks at her fuzzy eyes.
"Yvonne, it's my birthday. Let a man sleep."
"Maaaaaaat!"
" Fine! Fine, I'm up. Let's go watch the sunrise."
"Okay great, because Poki is out there and it would have been weird if it was just us celebrating your birthday without you."
"Wh- why?"
"Come on, I'll explain while we're out there!"
Yvonne bounces in the doorway while Mat groggily put on shoes. She pulls him through the long hallways and through the balcony's double doors, pushing him through and positioning him next to Poki.
"District Ten has a tradition. You- you watch the sunrise on your birthday. With family and friends. It's for people you really care about. You know?"
Poki turns to her with misty eyes. "You care about us?"
"No I don't! Shut up!"
Everyone laughs and Mat smiles at Yvonne. "Thanks for waking me up. This is better than sleeping in."
Yvonne rests her head on his shoulder. "Thanks for not completely giving up on me."
~*~
yvonne! ✔️ @yvonnie
happy birthday @MatPatGT !! :)