Chapter Text
A warm ray of sunshine slips through the curtain, slowly swimming towards his face till it pools over his eyes. Birds chirp from the open window, as the rest of the world remains blissfully silent. God is in his heaven, if either such things exist.
Dread keeps his head on the pillow like a stone as his eyes peel open. Perhaps if he doesn’t move, time will stay still too, out of politeness. A little black bird with a blue-tipped wing lands on his window-sile, its fluttering blocking the sunray.
The door swings open, a bustle bursting in. “Rise, young blot,” his Aunt Dahlia announces, though a softness dulls her tone this morning. The bird copies her melody, twittering outside the window in a one-time only show. She sets a cup of tea on the bedside table, just as she does on mornings of special occasions. She tells him once more to hurry up and dress, as she lightly touches his arm and pushes out the room with the same ado as she arrived. He remains staring at the ceiling for a few more moments. The mockingjay has flown away.
Trepidation reigns in the house. His cousin Angela is already sitting at the breakfast table, a bowl of porridge and fruit hardening under her as she fails to even move it with her spoon. She nods. “Morning, Bertie.”
“Good morning, dear Angela. Such lovely weather, what!”
“Oh, do shut up.”
Everyone has a right to be irritable on Reaping Day, Bertie supposes. He just shields his with a bright disposish is all. Eyeing the empty breakfast chair, Bertie notices that his youngest cousin’s door is still closed.
“Is he not…”
“He is,” Angela replies, though her gaze does not move from the table. Bertie glances down at it too, as though the familiarity of the dented kitchen table might help matters.
This is Bonzo’s first Reaping.
The door opens with a creak, but it is Dahlia who emerges. Her tight smile fades further as she stalks toward Angela and Bertie. The three perch at the table, all staring at the scuffs and scars in the wood.
“His name’s only in there once,” Bertie assures. “Plus, this is Two we’re in, there’ll be a thousand volunteers, what.”
Ah, the benefits of a Career District. Last year there had been about twenty volunteers on both sides; all cooped inside the Training Academy since they were but toddlers. Dahlia raised them with no such nonsense. Every year multitudes of children volunteered, and every year, in the comfort of their living room, Dahlia would pace in front of the sofa, cursing the parents in District Two, the Training Academy, and anyone else who happened to catch her eye (Bertie, Angela and Bonzo held very still during these rants). She swatted away the District Two ‘Volunteer: It’s An Honour!’ propaganda with a hard-hearted mettle.
The photographs of her older brother, Henry, scream out from the wall, but nobody acknowledges it. He was reaped in a long distant year, and actually returned alive from the Games. Though not well.
“There are no winners in the Games. Only survivors,” Dahlia repeated each year like a mantra as every screen in the District glowed with the arenas. Bertie retains vague memories of visiting Henry Wooster in the care home, the mutterings which only Dahlia seemed to understand, and the never-ending melodies he sang and hummed; the only things he ever remembered, besides his sister.
Bertie’s name is nestled in there six times, at seventeen. Angela’s as well. Yet Bonzo’s one is the least comfortable, a plague sore buried yet stinging. The rest of breakfast is accompanied only by the sounds of bowls and chairs scraping. Eventually Bonzo joins them, and when Bertie glances up to smile, the boy’s eyes are bloodshot.
Lined up by the door, Dahlia brushes off each of their clothes with a shaky hand. She looks over all three of them, before she shakes herself off and pulls them all in close.
“We will be fine,” She states, her chin resting on Bonzo’s head as Angela and Bertie’s faces remain snug to her dusty-smelling coat. “I even bought extra eggs and bacon for lunch today, so never fear.” She plants a kiss on each of their heads, and lets them go.
Bertie knows she had already given Angela and Bonzo a reassuring talk; he heard them through the walls that morning as he contemplated which vest matched which shirt. But as he reaches the doorway, Dahlia places a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“Bertie, my wee chicken, you know I love you so very much, don’t you?”
He nods.
Dahlia smiles softly, “As much as my own children, never forget that. Do you hear me?”
He nods again. “I know, Aunt D.”
“Good. Good. I love you so much, you young blot.”
She sniffles, and glances away with rapid blinks, but when she turns back to him, Bertie notices the shine in her eyes has vanished.
“Bertie, tell me seriously. In the Training Academy, how many people did you hear talk about volunteering?”
How many? The answer would have been simpler before, but the last Games had complicated matters. And by ‘complicated matters’ it means that the Games had been so brutal, so unbelievable and so unfair that it silenced the Training Academy for weeks afterward. It hadn’t mattered that the winner was from District Two; nobody could even comprehend living through that.
Though Bertie would never tell her that. Or anyone. Nor Angela. It had become a private secret they held, knowing that the usual buzz in the Academy had the sense of a wasp rather than a comforting honeybee.
“I’ve heard quite a few, Aunt D.”
Dahlia’s bottom lip trembles as she pulls him close to her again and sighs. Bertie can still feel her shaking hands on his back.
“Thank god. Let those brave little idiots and their bloody stupid parents deal with these Games. We shall have tea and bacon and eggs and cake.”
“And cake?”
Dahlia pulls back, holding Bertie by the shoulders, and winks. With one final sigh, she places a hand on his back and pushes him out the door.
Herds of people pour along the streets, Peacekeepers like sheep dogs along the edges. Angela and Bertie hold one of Bonzo’s hands each, while Dahlia marches ahead of them with her dark sunglasses to match her coat. She is above these Games, and everyone knows it. It also makes it easier for her to hide her tearful eyes when another child only an inch shorter than her walks up on the stage.
The stage in District Two is rather extravagant. Glittering under the sunshine, Bertie has to squint as they approach, the distance ahead of them being blurred by sun rays thrown at every possible angle.
As they reach the pens of people, Dahlia gives them all one last hug, the dread setting her muscles in motion to squeeze her children ever so tightly, like she could shield them from it all. She is shoved away by a Peacekeeper, disappearing in the herd toward the adult audience.
Angela kisses Bertie lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you later. Don’t do anything stupid, like get picked.”
He smiles. She smiles. They try to pretend it is fine. Angela leaves them for the girls section.
Two remain. Bertie holds Bonzo’s hand as he guides him toward the youngest boy's pen. It is clammy. His grip on Bertie’s arm is iron-tight, a manacle, and his heart breaks. Nobody enjoyed their first reaping, nobody. Being twelve, the knowledge that you, or a sibling, or a friend, could be sent away to an almost-absolute death, burning in your head as you look at faces you see every single day now with dazed expressions.
Bonzo drags Bertie to the side, out of the moving people, a setting for their own personal massacre. “I don’t want to die, Bertie,” Bonzo admits quietly, his grip on his cousin’s arm tightening like a frightened snake, “I don’t want to be reaped.”
“You won’t be, I say,” Bertie affirms, pulling him in for a final hug, “You won’t be.”
Whether Bertie sounded confident was debatable, but Bonzo nods, and with red-rimmed eyes, walks into the pen to find his friends. God, most of the kids don’t even stand to Bertie’s elbow. But he follows suit, and encases himself inside the other seventeen year olds. He spots Bingo immediately, the boy standing with his foot tapping incessantly. They nod to each other, and even smile. Bingo could never let a silence linger however, and starts quietly rambling about his morning so far, the faces he had seen, who he thought would volunteer, if anyone. Bertie, not one to remain silent either (much to their teachers' chagrin in class), added what an eyesore the stage is this year.
Sat upon it is the District Two escort, Anatole (Bertie never learned his last name, but it’s not as if there were many Anatole’s running about here). The two boys continue their chatter, a dampening to nerves. Who let him out of the Capitol wearing that ? The suit jacket is bright yellow, tufted with feathers at the neck, like an unnatural flower. Bertie thinks he looks like a sickly peacock. Clearly no one had told Anatole the colour of the District Two stage this year, since the shimmering golden backdrop swallows him, with rays of sunshine dashing out from all angles, forcing the District children to squint up at them. Even his moustache is yellow. Did they glue it to keep the twirls up at the ends? How does he smile in such a way that looks like he’s holding sharp rocks in his jaw?
The mayor makes his way on stage, followed by Tuppy Glossop. Winner of the seventy-third annual Hunger Games, nephew of District Two’s richest and most notorious doctor, and chum who Bertie knows from the Training Academy. Tuppy also used to live in one of the massive houses on Mills Avenue, and everybody knows exactly who lives on Mills Avenue. Boyfriend of Angela, though Aunt Dahlia will always mutter about “her better judgement” whenever he is brought up. He is acting as mentor this year, and Bertie quite likes him.
If we ignore the one time he tossed Bertie into the Academy swimming pool through a rather nasty trick.
Bertie and Bingo are silenced by the mayor’s usual droll beginning. The same speech every year: the greatness of the Capitol, the honour of the Games. Bertie scrapes a tic-tac-toe square in the gravel with his foot, so he and Bingo could play, since from experience these speeches take longer than the First Rebellion.
“Happy Hunger Games!”
Bertie snaps back to reality. Anatole has taken centre stage, hands out with a flourish.
“And may the odds be ever in your favour!” Such an irritating voice matches such an irritating statement. Bertie finds no comfort in the words, and he isn’t sure anyone else does either.
Yet he watches with bated breath as Anatole approaches the female tribute bowl, dipping his hand in with a grin. Angela is only in there five times. That’s nothing really, when you consider the volume of people in District Two. Really nothing. Nothing.
He holds the little name slip in front of his face, long claws in a vice pinch, opening it with a cruel slowness.
“Honoria Glossop!”
The name rings out through the square. Bertie lets out a breath as Honoria pushes her way through the crowd and toward the stage.
Bertie knows Honoria. Everyone knows Honoria.
Bertie is also scared of Honoria, but then again, everyone is scared of Honoria.
She is the top female student in the Training Academy- not that Bertie interacts much with the top students, but her name accompanies a sense of lethalness. He’s seen her displays with throwing knives: she was certainly precise. Even as she makes tracks to the stage, her power is evident. With those shoulders and those muscles, if she had wanted to tackle a handful of Peacekeepers on her way, she could bally well get away with it.
“Before we carry on,” Anatole announces, “Do we have any volunteers?”
A laugh ripples in Bertie’s mind. Good luck to anyone even trying. Honoria would have them knocked unconscious before they even set foot on the stage. Good for her, he thinks. If the Hunger Games must go on, let the strongest girl he knows partake in it. God help the other tributes.
The sky is a rummy, misty grey. Like a drab fabric, thin and moth-riddled, draped over the clouds. Bertie can feel a stone in his shoe already. By his toe. They could really do with adding music to this shin-dig, or what. A spot of the banjolele perhaps; that’s always the big hit at the bars the Drones certainly don’t attend. A banjolele, a piano, and a songbird.
Anatole’s claws ripple in the other bowl. Tapping the paper, the glass. Shifting from one foot to another, Bertie just wishes for this all to be over. Five minutes, and that’s that.
“Bonzo Travers!”
The earth swims under his feet.
No.
It wasn’t possible. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.
He hears a vague cry from the adult audience, one he recognises as Aunt Dahlia’s. His Aunt Dahlia.
“Bonzo Travers, where are you?”
The boy’s name was in there once. Once! Bonzo stumbles out of the crowd, slowly into the centre of the path. As Bertie raises his head to see the little thing that is his cousin, he also spots Angela being held back by her friends, or perhaps held up, as tears pour down her cheeks. Bertie realises tears blur his vision as well. He turns the other way, and sees Aunt Dahlia, sunglasses fallen to the ground. There is no hiding her distraught, her grief already overwhelming her.
His Aunt Dahlia.
Bertie throws himself out of the pen, striding up the path towards a slow-moving Bonzo. Peacekeepers block his way, casting a dark shadow over him, and his attempts to push by go futile. He hears himself shouting, though he doesn’t know what or to who. Bonzo’s face, stock-still, turns to Bertie, rooted to his spot before the stage.
“I volunteer!” He gasps, “I volunteer as tribute!”
There’s some confusion on stage. “Lovely!” says Anatole, “But I do believe there’s a protocol-”
“What does it matter?” The mayor states, and faces turn to Bertie. Eyes unsquinting as they glare. Bertie could spot a few Drones agape mouths amidst the scowls, but none of that matters. He lunges forward and wraps an arm around Bonzo, wiping tears from the little boy’s eyes.
“Go find Dahlia, okay?” Bertie assures, but the boy’s eyes retain a blankness.
Bertie barely blinks as the Peacekeepers guide him towards the light, headed straight into a serene sun ray. It remains hidden by that drastic glare until Bertie stubs his foot against the steps to the stage, and he climbs with a heavy trudge. Voices speak. Watching and unmoving, Bertie notices, now he is up close, that the skin around Anatole’s moustache is also stained yellow, that the makeup seems to be melting away.
“Well, bravo!” Anatole gushes, his hand resting on Bertie’s shoulder like a hawk’s talon. “And what is your name?”
The crowds from up here are barely distinguishable. He swallows hard. “Bertram Wooster.”
“And what compelled you to volunteer, Bertram Wooster? Hunting for glory?”
“My-“ Bertie searches the crowds for Aunt Dahlia, just to ensure Bonzo has found her okay. “Bonzo is my cousin.”
The smile that creeps onto Anatole’s face is so enthusiastic, under certain lights it is sinister. “Don’t want him to steal all the greatness, do we? Come on, everybody! Let’s give a big round of applause for our newest tribute!”
A splattering of applause begins in splotches, but soon spreads to the rest of the crowd. Like a rash. Bertie looks down at them, all squinting up, all barely sure if they recognise him or not.
He glances to his right. Tuppy, who was once sitting down in his chair with an indignant frown, is now standing, his arms and legs braced for something , staring at Honoria. For her part, Honoria is looking at Bertie with an expression he can’t make out. Something like rage or boredom, with a country-mile between them. Bertie looks away.
He still can’t make out faces in the crowd.