Chapter Text
“Colt Grace-Seavers!”
Ryland feels like the air has been punched out of his lungs. He feels his brother tense next to him, and then feels the gentle pressure of Colt peeling his forearm out of his grip. He feels hot, stinging tears welling in his eyes.
He feels a lot of things, right about now.
Two Peacekeepers flank Colt as he steps out of the pen. Ryland’s vision is tunneling, he’s panicking, suffocating amongst his fellow potential tributes as his brother trudges forward. They can’t, they can’t take him, he can’t go he can’t-
“I volunteer as tribute!”
Oh my gosh, Ryland thinks, slapping a hand over his mouth, someone volunteered. He doesn’t have to go.
Colt whips around to stare at him, looking stricken. People are gasping and whispering, the sound builds until it sounds like roaring thunder. Disorienting and deafening.
Oh, Ryland realizes as a heavy hand finds his shoulder. His heart pounds in his chest. I volunteered.
He doesn’t hear whatever Colt’s yelling, because now something inside his own mind is screaming as his brother is being held back and reaching for him. Colt is dragged backwards into the assembled District 3 citizens, just difficult enough to cause problems but miraculously not making enough trouble to be put down - they’ve done that before. Ryland barely has the strength to walk to the podium, he’s shaking like a leaf. The Peacekeeper to his left has to hold him up as he stands on the stage. Now Catalina Elm, their district’s Capitol escort, is calling something out to the crowd, now hands are on his shoulders again. He’s hyperventilating.
Nothing comes back into focus until he’s in the Justice Building and Colt comes barrelling through the door. Is he going to hit him? Call him names, yell at him? Ryland doesn’t know what he’s expecting… but instead he is pulled into a bone crushing hug as his twin just keeps whispering, “why, why? Why would you do that? Ry, why?”
“I don’t know!” He sobs, clinging back. He clutches Colt’s jacket, bawling into his shoulder and croaking out apologies as his brother shushes him.
“Ryland, you have to promise me-”
“I don’t want to go-”
“Ryland, please-”
“I can’t, they’ll -hic- they’ll kill me-”
“Ryland!”
Colt grabs his head, bringing their eyes up to meet. Ryland feels his lip quivering and he tries to get himself under control. Focuses on the feeling of Colt’s fingers pressed against his skull, holding him in place, holding him together.
“Colt, I’m so sorry-”
“No. Promise me you will come back.”
“Wh- what?”
His brother’s blue eyes are boring holes into Ryland’s. “I don’t want ‘sorry’, I want a promise. You have to come back.”
Ryland’s face crumples again and he whimpers. “I can’t! How am I- I don’t know how to- Colt they’re going to kill me.”
“No!” Colt snaps sharply, and Ryland flinches. Then the older twin breaks and they’re both staring at each other with tears streaming down their faces.
“You have to come back.” He begs as he rests his forehead against Ryland’s. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Please promise you’ll come back.”
They grab onto each other, sinking to the floor in a pile of tears and awkward teenaged limbs. It feels so wrong to give him what he wants, because Ryland knows it’s a lie, but he still says it as he buries his face in Colt’s shoulder.
“I promise.”
At the end of the hour, Colt wraps his thick cardigan around Ryland’s shoulders and steps back when the Peacekeepers collect him. Again that roaring sound fills Ryland’s ears and he stumbles, numb and shaken and not feeling but feeling too much, to the vehicle parked out back.
The girl next to him is a few years younger than him. Olesya, that’s her name. He knows she’s smart, and a little sarcastic at times. Her jaw is set and her eyes are blazing as she glares at the Peacekeeper keeping a tight hold on her arm, never losing step with him.
Ryland wonders if she’ll tell Colt what happened to him when she gets back.
They’re dumped unceremoniously into the seats and the door is slammed behind them. Olesya spits at the door and then looks over at Ryland, her face softening and breaking with fear. Ryland buries himself in his brother’s jacket and stares at the floor of the small space.
The ride is short, and then they’re dragged out of the silence onto the train station. The Peacekeepers escort them into a furnished train car, where a woman with loose reddish blonde hair seems to be waiting. Ryland knows this is Eva Stratt - she’s always been a strange beacon of the district, wickedly intelligent and seeming to hold no capacity for remorse. She shouldn’t be alone though… he glances around the train car for their other victor and sees nothing.
Eva glances over the two of them briefly and then gestures to the next car down the line. “Your baths are waiting. We will talk after.”
Simon stands amongst the eligible, glaring at the glass bowl with the name slips in it. He knows exactly how many times his name is in that clusterfuck - he knows his odds.
He also knows there is a group of boys, ranging ages 14 to 18, who are watching him from the other side of the tribute pens. Each stays in their respective age group, but they’re easy enough to spot. He tugs his heavy scarf a little higher around his jaw.
They call the girl first, a 17-year-old named Elsie. Her chin is high as she marches up, refusing to meet anyone’s eye and standing next to the man from the Capitol who calls out the names for District 11 every year. Simon wonders idly if he realizes that his horrendous clown makeup just makes it all the more obvious he’s starving himself to look thinner. The Capitol thinks it’s fashionable right now, not having enough to eat.
Rotting assholes.
Now the man hovers his hand over the bowl with the male tribute names. Someone in the front of the pens shouts, jeering, and there’s a scuffle. The crack of a weapon. Silence.
A single paper is plucked up between manicured fingers.
“The male tribute for District 11 is… Simon Butcher!”
Simon’s eyes snap to the far side of the pen, past the potential tributes.
They’ve always called the leader of their group the Father. It was one part a little joke, pointing to their affiliation, and one part to keep him from getting caught if one of their number ever slipped up in front of a Peacekeeper. He’s old enough now to have aged out of the Games, and as he stands amongst the spectators he grins maliciously at Simon and pulls the collar of his shirt down. The brand that Simon himself wore proudly once upon a time sees the light for barely a heartbeat.
Simon’s hand digs underneath his scarf, finding the scar where his own brand was carved out of his skin.
“At the end of it all, you’ll always be a butcher before a brother.”
The Peacekeepers have to haul him out of the pen as he tries to surge through it. That fucking bastard rigged the slips! is the only thought in his mind, until he’s cracked sharply across the back of the shoulders and hits the ground with a harsh grunt.
Breathing heavily, Simon pushes himself up from his stomach. His hair is in his eyes, there’s blood on his lips. When the Peacekeeper hauls him to his feet again he shoves the gloved hand off of him and begins to stomp over to the stage of his own will. His body is taut with rage, and he wants nothing more than to claw the face off the man who signed his death warrant, but he knows he won’t make it two steps before they put a bullet in his brain.
“What’s a Reaping without a bit of excitement, hmm?” The Capitol escort coos to the audience. Simon sneers at him when he meets his gaze. “Give it up for this year’s tributes!”
Lazy, awkward applause. The Father is still grinning.
Simon lets Elsie lead the way into the Justice Building, glowering at anyone who comes within arm’s reach.
He spends the next hour in angry silence in a private room. There’s no one to see him off, the Brothers abandoned him when the Father said so, and his family is gone. Sitting on the cushy couch that is provided, Simon tosses his scarf aside and runs his thumb over the thick leather belt he has wrapped across his chest like a bandolier. He traces the stitching in the tail of the piece.
Fischer.
Elsie doesn’t look at him when they’re taken out to be transported to the train station. Simon doesn’t really blame her - nobody has ever given a damn about him anyway. When they reach the train station, the Peacekeepers hold him back as she’s taken inside, and that is what begins to pinch a nervous pain in the back of Simon’s mind. He’s a troublemaker, sure. A problem, by most standards… but they wouldn’t just kill him outright, would they?
The door to the train car opens again. Simon is hauled inside.
The woman sitting on the couch regards him with the same amount of distaste he injects into his own expression. The heavy scarring over the left side of her face gives her a harsh glint to her gaze, but Simon doesn’t back down.
“Tribute.” She says simply.
“I have a name.” He snaps.
“You haven’t earned it.” Ava gets to her feet, spitting the words as ammunition. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are, I do not plan on making this easy for you. You can hide that scar, but you can’t hide your nature.”
“I didn’t have a choice on the scar.” He knows she doesn’t care. Ava just turns away from him to pour herself a drink from the rolling liquor cabinet against the wall.
“Clean yourself up, you stink. You and I will be getting nice and familiar over the next couple hours.”
Simon growls under his breath. “And what if I tell you to fuck off to hell instead?”
Ava doesn’t acknowledge him, but the gloved hand of a Peacekeeper lands on his shoulder. Simon shoves it off, furious, and grabs a decorative crystal off the table he’s standing in front of. It’s pried out of his hands before he can hurl it across the room, and he is dragged, snarling and struggling, into the bathing area.