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guesswhojusttt · 10 months ago

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when I’ve learned how to love

Covey!Reader x Sejanus Plinth

Summary:

Lucy Gray is Reaped. The Covey each handle it in different ways.

When she comes back, you're all not sure how much of her she's left behind.

You are nothing but hatred and anger and desperation- a tall boy with soulful brown eyes somehow carries the same anger, but kindness, too.

AO3

Chapter 1: one foot in the door

Word count: 6891

Summary: When the first punch flies, it’s you who pulls the plug and kills the lights.

“Still awake?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Lucy Gray-“

“Let it go, sweetheart. There’s nothing any of us can do and we all know it.” What killed you was the resignation in her voice: while you knew her voice when she wasn’t on stage, while you knew what she was like when she wasn’t flirting or charming or singing, she rarely sounded so defeated, so utterly deflated. But under the black veil of this cold night, where you both huddled under a scratchy green blanket while CC snoozed on the couch and Barb Azure curled up on a yellowing mattress, there was no need for pretense.

Still.

Still. “Still, you could just go hide out at the lake house and-”

“And what? And let someone else get reaped? Maybe- maybe someone younger? Maybe Maude Ivory? Is that what you want, for Maude Ivory to be carted away-?”

“Of course not,” you hissed, clutching your threadbare pillow like it was a stuffed animal, “I just meant, it’s stupid how it’s rigged, all because of some petty love triangle.”

She scoffed, her dark locks pooling round her head while she stared up the ceiling. “No love there. Besides, I only think Mayfair’s tried to do me in. It’s just a hunch; I don’t actually know. I could be wrong.” You weren’t sure if she was trying to convince you or herself.

“Hm. At least if you go hide away- let me finish!- then whoever’s reaped, it won’t be because of some privileged mayor’s daughter, it’ll be a random name, a slip plucked by chance, at least it’ll be fair-“ but you bite your tongue, and she didn’t say it and neither did you: the word fair was a cruel joke, now. Always was, really. “I just… I don't want you to die, or to come back traumatized for life. It’ll be bad either way, you know? Death or a life plagued with nightmares.”

A silence stretched out over you, the only sounds of sleep were Clerk Carmine’s near-inaudible snores, Tam Amber’s head shuffling on his pillow, and Barb Azure’s soft puffs of air out the nose, Maude Ivory curled next to her. You wondered if Lucy Gray had decided to sleep now, too- until she poked you just below your rib cage.

“Thank you.”

“For worrying about you? We’re all-“

“For so naturally assuming I’ve an equal chance of living as of dying. For not speaking of me as if I’m already dead. For even considering that there’s a possibility I might survive this.”

“Well, of course you do,” you said obviously, “we’ve survived District 12.”

The next day, there’s this silent, mutual agreement amongst yourself and the Covey that Maude Ivory shouldn’t watch the Reaping- she never does; you can’t let her. Once when you were 6 or 7 this woman was reaped but refused to go- the Peacebreakers (Peacebreakers, you call them) had dragged her, kicking wildly and screaming ferally, and when they’d dropped her in a heap on the stage she’d try to run off only for them to yank her back. She’d shrieked and lashed wildly, swinging her arms in haphazard attempts at self defense- and no matter how they beat her, she wouldn’t succumb- until she did. Until they had to call up another tribute, and her mangled corpse, beaten to a raw pulp like a smashed pumpkin, was dragged silently away by her husband.

So, no. You wouldn’t let Maude Ivory see the reaping.

“Hey, I’m actually feeling a little nauseous,” you said tenderly, “could you stay, please? It’s too scary for me.”

“You’re such a scaredy-cat!” Maude Ivory giggled, but stayed with you the same while Barb Azure and Tam Amber and the rest went to the Reaping. You kept her entertained by teaching her how to do a fishtail braid.

It really all was less than a theory, a paranoid guess. It was natural to assume Mayfair would use her position to harm Lucy Gray, but would she really go this far?

This was the deal: you kept her occupied during the reaping, but when they came back, when she asked where Lucy Gray was- and none of you would lie to her, you would not keep her in the dark because honesty, honesty and communication fix half the world's problems- but the deal was, since you kept her occupied, you wouldn’t have to explain what had happened to her. Instead, you went to a client’s house in the Seam, to a little 5-year old named Nathaniel, to play with him and feed him and keep him company while his father went off to work in the mines. Mother long since dead, birthing what would’ve been his little sister. Honestly, you felt guilty for charging money for spending time with children, as if you did it only for pay and saw them as a product rather than as human beings you genuinely cared for. But this line of thinking was ridiculous: you needed money like anyone, and you were able to earn it while helping parents too busy to stay home and raise their kids.

After him was a bright 10 year old, Makayla, who needed tutoring since, despite her teacher’s efforts, nothing she learned in school stuck. Truly, it wasn’t her fault: she just had a hard time paying attention or absorbing information on an empty stomach.

And everyone here lives on an empty stomach.

None of the Covey so much as suggested playing at the Hob, or anywhere else. It was sort of like you’d all lost a tooth and were constantly running your tongue over the gap, and chewing always feels strange, now. You pick up more shifts, keep yourself busy every hour of daylight, both to avoid sitting with your thoughts and to make an income to make up for the lack of any performance.

“And how’s everyone’s favorite lost soul doing today?” You plopped next to Tam Amber, who was polishing his tear-drop shaped mandolin with a threadbare rag that had been oiled and used again and again- used to be part of a loose white shirt. And here was the thing about quiet people- around the right person, they’re more talkative than anyone.

“Thinking.”

“About?”

“Wish I had some oil for the doors, and olive oil for my hair would be nice.”

“Is that really what’s put your face in a permanent frown?”

He heaves a sigh. “If I’d been reaped. What I would do, how I’d survive. And I’ve played it out in my head again and again and come to the same conclusion: I wouldn’t.”

“No? But you’re faster than any of us.”

“Sure, but I haven't got any muscle. None of us do, so the victors are probably going to be someone from districts one or two. Three or four, barely. You?”

“Me…” you reclined next to him, crossing your ankles before you, “I’d hide, if there’s a place to hide, but I’d probably get caught and killed before that. I wouldn’t kill anyone, though. Or at least I like to think I wouldn’t. Not because I’m a good person or because killing is wrong- because it’s self defense and it’s an arena and all but one will die anyway - but because I feel like if I did kill someone I'd be giving in. I’d be giving them what they want: a show, a bloodbath. I know it won’t mean a thing to anyone watching, I know being one of the many to die in the battle royale makes me insignificant at best, but I’d like to know I died without succumbing to their wishes. You can drag a horse to an arena but you can’t make it run.”

He nods silently. Pinched the rag over the mandolin’s first string, running it down its length and back again. “If Lucy Gray doesn’t live, what’ll we do? Keep doing what we’re doing now? How will we explain it to Maude Ivory?”

“Maybe she’ll live,” you shrugged, “maybe we’ll all storm the Capitol-“

“Not this again-“

“There’s more of us than there is of them-“

“But they have more weapons, more food, they’d outsurvive-“

“They’re privileged and pampered, they wouldn’t last a week-“

“The rebellion’s still fresh in their minds, there’s military men and not to mentioned trained Peacebreakers-“

“Then we’ll all go on strike-“

“Oh, yes, that worked out so well for District 8-“

“What else, Tam Amber? You know full well the only thing keeping me sane is devising increasingly elaborate strategies of overthrowing the Capitol! It’s not impossible,” you added eagerly, “you know what else seemed impossible to abolish? Divine right. Did you know, thousands of years ago, there were kings and queens that ruled over nations and credited it to divinity, so they could assert control and no one could do a thing about it.”

“Sounds like what we have now.” Tam Amber grumbled, now polishing the long, elegant neck of his mandolin. “We didn’t get rid of it, we’ve just replaced it.”

“Not quite, because now, anyone- I mean, anyone in the Capitol who gets an education and has connections and wealth- can become President. It obviously doesn’t include any of us, but at least it leaves the ground open for us to do it, unlike divine right, which keeps authority within the bloodline.”

“So what do you say? We stage a coup, guillotine the Capitol sheep?”

“At least it would be some thing,” you fumed, “every day of my life feels like a waste, you know? What’s the point in babysitting and tutoring these kids who are just going to grow up to be even more miserable and malnourished than they are now? Remember that girl I spent two years looking after, only for her to be Reaped? You know what we need.”

“No.”

“Just hear me out-“

“We do not need a rabies-“

“Outbreak! That would fix everything.”

“We’d all die out while they hoard their precious resources. They have better access to medication than we do.”

“No, because it would only happen there, not here.”

“Then District 1 would replace the Capitol.”

But you went to bed like you always did, except you shared the scratchy green blanket with Barb Azure tonight instead of Lucy Gray.

When the feed was finally rigged up with a makeshift antenna-foil contraption, and the interview flickered to life, you huddled on the couch next to Tam Amber, while CC and Maude Ivory sat criss-cross applesauce[1] before the screen and Barb Azure sat aloft on the couch arm at a careful, if awkward, angle. She could sit next to you, but chose firmly to be on the other side, and you were equal parts guilty and indignant because you knew the fight was, admittedly, mostly your fault.

“She’s alive,” said CC breathlessly.

“She looks awful,” you muttered, unsurprised by the raw heartbreak in your voice, “it- I don’t know why, but I assumed they’d give them enough food and water to make it into the tournament?”

Tam Amber heaved a sigh. “Enough for them is just barely to keep them from collapsing. Remember, we’re less than animals to them.”

“Her dress! She’s still wearing her mom’s dress!” Maude Ivory leaned closer to the screen, wide grin pinching her cheeks into dimples. Even in her cheer, what was between the lines wasn’t hard to miss: she’d thought, at least a little, that they’d take it away from her.

But her hair was matted and knotted- and that must be killing her, more than it would you, considering how she values her appearance- half-crescents stamped beneath her weary eyes. You could tell she’d cleaned up, she’d washed her face and hands and had likely smoothed out her rainbow ruffles a dozen times and a dozen more, but the sallowness of her cheeks, the peeling of her parched lips- even with all the energy she put on before the camera, you wondered privately if sleep deprivation or raw thirst and starvation would crumple her to her knees before the audience.

“What’s with that guy?” Barb Azure’s eyebrows tugged to a frown, the same tone of “what’s with that garbage?”

“The one with a funny mustache, I think he’s there to add some entertainment.” Stated CC thoughtfully.

“No, the one staring at her, right? He reminds me of someone but I can’t put my finger on it.” You mused.

“I don’t like it.” Tam Amber agreed.

“He looks like he adores her.” Said CC.

“Like he’s proud of her!”

“No, like he thinks he owns her.”

“I don’t know, those eyes seem pretty passionate either way. You don’t think they…?”

“I think he’s nervous. Like if she does poorly it’ll reflect on him.”

“Well, now I hope she does do something embarrassing just so it does bring shame on him. I mean, what are they gonna do, kill her?” When she sings, you find yourself first relieved she has her voice and second, a near-imperceptible twitch of your fingers, running to pick at the blemishes on your face, and- as soon as the broadcast cut off- stated you were going out to get some water.

Your thoughts came one after the other, like a necklace whose string was cut and now the beads all slipped away:

I don't know who I want to kill first, but I guess the order doesn’t matter if it ends with both their corpses in a ditch.

Or the lake- no, can’t subject the poor fish to such rotten meat.

Since Billy Taupe is CC’s brother, we can’t actually kill him, can we?

No, but we sure can traumatize him.

This is why, you know? Why I’m so angry at Barb Azure for- for seeing that girl. Hasn’t she seen what romantic relationships do to people? All the fighting, the arguing, the yelling- how quickly their love turns to loathing!

You trudged down the Seam, eyes ablaze. The clouds above you are dusted pink and orange- with the sunrise came a dark night, all the better for paranoia, for jumping at the slightest sounds.

All the better to avoid being caught.

I’ll get them back.

I won’t. I can never truly- even if I tear them limb from limb- it’s not enough, nothing will ever make up for losing her- she’s a piece of us and no amount of revenge-

I can take a long white string, tie it around a tooth, tie the other end to a doorknob and slam the door and rip their teeth out one by one from its roots until their gums are loose and gushing and- why bother? Nothing, neither torture nor death, undoes what they’ve done. And that’s the issue with revenge, isn’t it? It’s just not satisfying enough. Nothing is.

Except Lucy Gray coming back?

No, because there’s a chance one of us will be reaped some day. Again and again until we’re too old, but if any of us have kids we’ll live with that fear just the same. It’s a cycle and the only way out is- is- to fix it or to flee.

But you were wasting your time: you always were. While at first you were naive enough to voice your views, idealistic enough to think that it was so obvious that once you explained it, your friends… would what? Agree? Yes, you had even thought one would side with you and be angry on your behalf. Would defend you. But they didn’t, ignorant and stupid and selfish as they were, privileged as they were- no. Where were these thoughts coming from? You love them. They’re your family. Not one of them is selfish, not one of them is ignorant. What kind of thoughts are these? You don’t believe them, yet they intrude as the most unwelcome of guests: They don’t care about you unless you don the tightest mask. They’ll never understand you; how could they? You could not speak of your passions, or your beliefs, of your values or-

“Stop.” Stupidly enough, you did- and it was Barb Azure who whirled on you. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing.” You said, and before Barb Azure could roll her eyes, you added hastily. “Oh, come on, I haven’t done any harm! I just wanted to give them a good scare, not actually hurt them- just give them paranoia so they can’t sleep at night like the rest of us. It’s only fair.”

(There it was, that cruel word again, the same one when talking to Lucy Gray that night: fair.)

(What is fair, anyway?)

Barb Azure worried at her lip, and you took her in: worn sooty shoes, a dress that hung several inches over her ankle because she was taller than you but thinner so sharing dresses meant what you borrowed you was tight around the waist and what she borrowed- like this pretty chocolate-brown dress- had sleeves that hugged just below her bony elbows. Her lips, despite always being chewed up from constant worrying, were still thick and plump and, like everyone and everything, just a little dehydrated. Her eyes, big and brown and always warm, had recently taken on a pesky little shine that she refused to admit was due to a certain someone she’d started seeing.

As if she’d ever put so much effort into smoothing out her hair, before now. Even going so far as to tie Lucy Gray’s cerulean scarf like a bandanna, knotted at the base of her neck and weaving up to the top, her dreadlocks flowing to between her shoulder blades.

“I don’t care about them, I care about you. Who do you think the Peacebreakers will side with, the mayor’s daughter or some-“

“Some performers that you know they like more. You said, at the Reaping- they cared more about the mayor hitting Lucy Gray than about the snake that had bitten Mayfair.”

“Mayfair,” Barb Azure said firmly, “has too much influence. I know you’re hurting, and you want revenge, and that’s fine, that’s normal. It shows you love. But it’s not safe to do anything- not as long as, in the eyes of those who hold the guns, we’re not equals.” The underlying We never will be. didn’t need to be stated.

“Come on,” she said softly, “come now. Lucy Gray wouldn’t want you to get shot for this.”

“Don’t you? Aren’t you mad at me for- for not being supportive of whoever it is you’ve started seeing?”

“You’ve never been supportive of a couple in your life,” Barb Azure quipped, and you began to head back, arm-in-arm, “I honestly didn’t expect you to start now. You’re protective, and… and since I’m practically the mother of the group, it’s nice to have someone looking out for me. Really.”

And that was it, the last push to drag you back home, at least for now. That night- having seen her sing, alive but dehydrated and exhausted but alive, she’s alive - you curled up in your bed and smothered your face in your pillow and, for the first time since she’d been reaped, let yourself sob and shake and weep, because she was so hungry, so tired, and all the confidence you’d had that she might win had gone out like the most fickle of candles.

Clerk Carmine lays out breakfast- and a plate for Lucy Gray. Always, a plate for Lucy Gray. “It’s not like the nuts or bread will go bad,” he’d argue, when Tam Amber wanted to have a bite, “the Games should be over in what, a week? She’ll need plenty of food to recover.”

You liked babysitting Nathaniel, really. He was such a sweet boy, so excited, so full of life. Quick to burst into tears but quick to race and play, you always felt his head was a bobble head, and when he said the kids he played with made fun of him for having a big head you’d poke his cheek and tell him it’s because his brain is so big.

He says he’ll use his brain to invent a forcefield.

A forcefield for what, Nathan?

A forcefield to keep the Peacebreakers out!

You spend a good while finding long sticks, then pretend sword-fight with them, then use them to review his counting (he was capable of counting if he did it all in a row- 21, 22, 23- but had a very hard time counting from memory- what number is before 20? , for example, would take a little bit. But he was getting there, and quickly, too.)

It won’t be long before you can add, Nathaniel. I’m so proud of you.

When his father comes home, you’re extra nice, always telling him Nathan was very good and polite and smart and anything you could muster up to keep him from beating his son, which you know full well he does whenever, like today, he has a drunken little step to his feet. Maybe you’ll stay to serve him dinner, just to delay it longer.

Maybe you’ll take the long way home, just to have the time to slouch and frown before you get home and put on the mask, the same one you have to put on before Maude Ivory and CC of cheer and strength, a bright pillar, because it wasn’t fair to leave all the mothering to Barb Azure and all the responsibility on Tam Amber. The mask of semi-maturity had to be worn for Barb Azure because she got stressed if you were too serious about the things you wanted to do- the bad things. The mask of strength in front of everyone, even Tam Amber, who shared your burning loathing for the Capitol and the reaping and the Games, but before whom you couldn't be weak and pathetic- you could, technically. You know these people and they are good and kind and they’ll probably be okay with you acting like that, quite honestly they probably wouldn’t even think you pathetic and would probably appreciate your transparency. Probably.

But probably just isn’t worth the risk. You still felt guilt gnawing at you for those vile thoughts you’d had the night you’d all watched Lucy Gray’s performance. How dare you think poorly of them? Why do these thoughts, that you know full well you don’t mean or believe, intrude on you?

Nathaniel’s father shoves a meager payment into your palm, and is quick to usher you out: “You’ll be glad. Your pretty friend’s back.”

And you abandon any thought of taking the long route home and run and sprint until you’re back and there she is, there she is in the same rainbow dress, in all her songbird glory, and you’re pumping your legs and she sees you, mid-crouch to be eye-level with Maude Ivory, and a grin nearly splits her face and then she’s running too, and you’re not sure which one of you reaches the other first but you do, you finally do, and you’re flinging arms round each other and pulling each other in and she’s burying her head in your shoulder and you’re grasping fistfuls of the back of her dress, and she’s gasping sobs and you’re heaving “you’re alive you’re alive you’re alive.”

And then Barb Azure’s wrapping her long arms around her from behind and resting her head in the crook of her shoulder and Tam Amber engulfs you both, and drags Clerk Carmine in, and you grasp blindly for Maude Ivory and pull her in too.

Rather than celebrating with generous food or going to the Hob or catching up, the moment she enters the wooden home her eyes widen and she kneels and picks up a pillow- the same one you’d sobbed into a few nights ago. She kisses it all over until CC mumbled to save some kisses for the rest of us.

“A pillow,” she said breathlessly, “my head has touched nothing but metal and hay and rock since their pillow.”

“Hay?” Tam Amber said dubiously, “they treat you like barn animals?”

“At least animals are fed.” Lucy Gray mumbled, then cocooned herself in a blanket- despite the unforgiving heat, she burrowed into it. “All that rain, cold enough to kill the snakes. And nothing but this dress to warm me. Oh, I didn’t think I’d ever touch a blanket again.”

And touch it she did, running her hand over its weave and trailing her fingertips over it as tenderly, as reverently, as she did with her guitar. Finally, she lay down to sleep, and you all followed suit although it was just barley past sunset, and that morning while you all ate breakfast still she slept, and when CC and Maude Ivory went out to get water she slept and when you went to babysit and came back still she slept, catching up on the exhaustion of the past two weeks.

When she wakes up, you run a wooden comb through her hair while she talks animatedly of her time in the Capitol, cherry-picking the tiniest details to expound upon in great earnest but leaving out anything big that would normally be included. She doesn’t mention anyone she killed, the if or how, but she does describe the little girl who gave her food through the bars while a melted popsicle ran down her arm. She doesn’t tell you a thing about her time in the arena but she does tell you that she thinks Jessup and Lysistrata definitely had a little something-something going on. But then the mention of Jessup clams her up until you ask her to please teach you to pronounce Lysistrata and then she’s back, and so it goes. Any time she approaches a big or serious event, she quickly ricochets off it and clings instead to a minor, light-hearted detail.

Barb Azure comes in with a shallow well of golden, glistening olive oil.

“Oh no, I can’t-“ Lucy Gray begins.

“It’s barely enough for one slice of bread,” she says gently, placing it on the ground and sitting cross legged, “we won’t miss it, really.”

So she gives your fingers a rest from working through Lucy Gray’s knots and your wrists a break from tugging through her matted hair, dipping the wooden comb into the oil to help soothe and detangle and gently encouraging Lucy Gray to continue her story.

She tells you of the blonde you all saw on TV, that he smells like roses, that he was the only good thing in the Capitol. Barb Azure gives you a look as she massages the olive oil into Lucy Gray’s scalp, a we're not going to ruin this for her look, but you’re both thinking it: she speaks of him a little bit like she spoke of Billy Taupe. The analogy, the association, makes you dislike him all the more- just as someone who’d gotten food poisoning from a certain cheese never wants to eat it again.

Everyone goes about their day as normal: Lucy Gray, reunited with her beloved black guitar, seems to be normal too, or is trying very hard to be. When she sees the food Clerk Carmine had stored up for her, she insists you all divide it in equal portions and eat together.

She is preparing this lunch, and when you walk in to help, she swipes at you with the butter knife, which scratches your arm (but, being a butter knife,) you only utter a dull “ouch.”

“Sorry! I- I didn’t mean-“ she sets the butter knife down on the counter with a clatter, a bitter laugh, “once a killer, always a killer, I suppose. Can’t look Maude Ivory in the eye since I killed a girl scarcely older than her. Can’t look anyone in the eye, really.”

“Oh, Lucy Gray, you know full we won’t think less of you. You did what you had to do.” If the first time she’d mentioned anything she’d done in the arena took you by surprise, you didn’t let it show on your face.

“Sometimes I think, I know it’s selfish of me but I wonder, what was the point of surviving? Because Reaper, he was a better person than me. Taking the weapons out of each tribute’s hands and folding their arms and covering them with the Capitol flag to give them death with dignity, lining them up for some semblance of a funeral. He said he’d kill us but never killed anyone. I killed and he showed so much more kindness to the tributes than I did and he deserved to win- or Wovey, she was too young, she shouldn't have died! She should’ve gotten the chance to grow up and- and I stole that from her. From all of them. So sometimes I wonder why I bothered to survive.”

Tam Amber pushed the door open with Maude Ivory on his shoulders, holding two feathered hats they’d been retouching for this weekend's performance. “And then I see you all and I remember what I was fighting to come back to.”

You all mutually decide not to treat her like glass. Not to walk around eggshells, nor to pretend that nothing happened. To comfort her after nightmares and when she’s jumpy and flinched in a way she never has before or gets incredibly, inexplicably, panicked over a gnat bite on Barb Azure’s neck.

You’d almost never seen her panic before.

“Would it make you feel better if I killed two people?”

“What?”

“Just- oh, it should be three. That way mine will be worse than yours and you don’t have to feel so guilty anymore.”

“Sometimes I think I’ll understand it was for survival. Sometimes I think I’ll live with myself. Then I see Maude Ivory and she’s Wovey and I realize I’ll never, ever forgive myself for the blood on my hands. It won’t wash off. And… there’s actually a third kill I haven’t mentioned. I did it with a snake, just like I did with Mayfair.”

“Why- um- why haven’t you brought it up?”

“Well. My feelings for that one are complicated. I know I should feel burning guilt for Wovey and Reaper because they did nothing wrong, never lifted a hand against me. Though with Reaper it was a mercy kill, I still feel… and Treech… was trying to kill me, and since it was self-defense, I don’t think I know how guilty I should feel. It really was self-defense, so why do I feel…?”

You clasp your hands in both of hers: you need her to understand her hands are capable of more than killing. “You’re allowed to feel as intensely as you want, or not guilty if you prefer. Whatever you feel, every one of us loves you and missed you and will continue to love you and be so, so relieved to have you back.”

She tries for a smile, but it wobbles and breaks. Still. She’d talked about her time in the arena now more explicitly than she had since she’d gotten back, and that was a start: you can’t heal a bullet wound if you pretend it’s not there.

Outside, all grass and sunshine, Barb Azure sat Maude Ivory in her lap, braiding her hair, every girl having something to say about Lucy Gray’s mentor. “You do realize that’s what Peacebreakers do, right? They view us as primitive but exotic, that’s why you’ll hear of some Seam woman pregnant with a soldier’s child- they fetishize us, but they still don’t view as fully human-“

“I don’t think that was it,” Lucy Gray said thoughtfully, working her fingers to milk Shamus, “I think, you know, I think such a large part of it was winning the prize he gets as a mentor- meeting me on the platform just to get a leg up on his competition. That much was obvious. I can’t pinpoint when it changed, or how. Like how if you keep your eye on the sky, you can’t quite tell when it goes from late afternoon to early sunset, but it does it anyway.”

You held the dented bucket firmly below Shamus as she worked, keeping it steady.

(Once, a few months ago, it had been particularly windy and the bucket had blown over. You’d all cried over spilled milk that day.)

“It’s just all too convenient, don’t you think? That everything he did to help you just so happened to be the same things needed to get him the money? Even the fact that he stole for you or gave you that compact- is there anything he’s done purely for you? Any action, no matter how small, that he did just for your sake, no strings attached?”

“When he was hungry and he told me he once ate sticky paste-” she broke off, almost a chuckle but not quite, “I don’t think he’s like the others in the Capitol. He knows poverty, which is why he always snuck me food. He was ashamed of it, I could tell, he tried so hard to be confident and appear wealthy but he’s madly insecure. He didn’t have to tell me about his hunger, that day, but he did. He did.”

You resisted the urge to gag. The very fact that he was a mentor meant he was complicit in the Games, the very Games that kept Lucy Gray awake at night and jumpy during the day, though she tried so hard to conceal both.

“Well, he made you happy, which makes me happy!” Said Maude Ivory, admiring Barb Azure’s handiwork in the form of a newly-woven braid, sweeping it over her shoulder [2]. “You’re both making it too complicated. You were hungry and he brought you food, you were crying and he wiped away your tears. What else is there to say?”

You know she misses him, and the truth is, though you know she loves Covey, some part of you wonders if she wishes she could- could what? Have moved in with him, stayed with him? She wouldn’t do that, of courses, not even if the Capitol let her- but did she wish it?

But then again, CC misses his brother, and he’s staying here, too.

“People will be glad to have you back,” says Barb Azure, “our band just hadn’t been the same without you. But… are you sure you’re ready to perform?”

“Yes.” Lucy Gray says it with the most confidence she’s had since she’s come back, and rifles through the shared outfits to pick out a dress for the occasion. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber wear their feathered hats, Maude Ivory bouncing on her heels. “In the Capitol, I sang to impress, to win people over, to convince me I was worth being alive. I want to perform for the sheer pleasure of it- and for the happiness it brings others, too. Black or green?”

“Green,” you all said in unison, and it was enough for Maude Ivory to giggle, for CC to break into peals of laughter, and the Covey house filled with enough light and laughter to make up for the absence of these two necessary things for the past month.

Barb Azure secured the drum round Maude Ivory’s neck while you sat Lucy Gray down, smearing greasy red balm on her lips and dusting rouge along her cheeks.

“You know you could be a makeup artist?”

You scoffed, smoothing her hair down and clipping a strand back. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is, in the Capitol, sweetheart. I know because the comedian who interviewed me- remember, the one who hosted me when I did that song you watched?- he had makeup and some powder in his hair. You could get paid to do this, you know.”

“Were there coal miners there?” Asked Maude Ivory, and now that she was all dressed, she sat on the dresser and swung her legs above the ground, impatiently signaling for you all to get on with the prep, too.

“No coal miners, dear, that’s what we’re here for.”

“Were there bands?” Asked Clerk Carmine, slipping on his black shoes (which were once Billy Taupe’s, when he was his age), the heels nearly peeling off.

“No bands. No music except for once, Coriolanus sang the anthem. That was it, though.”

“No music,” Barb Azure pondered, “maybe they’re the poor ones.”

Such a statement seemed to be the perfect one to tuck away between your rib cage, and you headed out to the Hob, which had already garnered quite the chattering, drunken crowd.

Backstage- if a blanket being the partition made it ‘backstage’- Maude Ivory went out to introduce the Covey as usual. Lucy Gray shut her eyes tight, the way one would before plunging into a very cold shower.

“Hear that?” You said gently, “All these people who missed you. All these people whose whole week is brightened just from hearing you.”

“But the last time I sang- snakes, there were so many snakes- I was singing but there were just so many of them, too many- hissing and slithering so fast, too fast- where could I run? How could I outrun them? They were nothing like my snakes here- I thought it would be my swan song-“

“But it wasn’t.” Tam Amber said, and it was so little that he said- but it was enough. Outside, cheers rang out, and Lucy Gray smoothed out her dress, tucked in a strand behind her hair- picked up her guitar, fire in her eyes, and stepped out onto the stage.

What you loved most about Performance is that everyone wore masks and then you didn’t have to feel guilty about your own. Lucy Gray was all sparkly, though you knew full well much of it was genuine, and Barb Azure’s shyness and Maude Ivory’s good cheer and everything else stayed just the same- but everyone was bigger, on stage, and brighter. When Lucy Gray gets a bottle and after she takes a swig of it, she passes it to you so her hands are free to play. You hold it with one hand, your colorful tambourine in the other.

(It wasn’t always colorful: Clerk Carmine had done the kindness of dying it for you.)

At some point Lucy Gray’s face shadowed with confusion then with raw elation, and you followed her gaze to a man who, quite frankly, looked as bland and simple as any other Peacebreaker around him.

But, no. As Lucy Gray declared this might be the greatest night of her life and went for another song, you watched him- yes, there was the smile, yes, for a moment he looked so besotted that you were convinced he was truly in love with her- but, what was that? You edged closer to the lip of the stage, needing so desperately to understand that look in his eyes- not quite hatred, but certainly not love. Almost like anger, but closer to desire…

Jealousy. You didn’t know what or why, but it was bare envy if you ever saw it- the disapproving curl of his lips, the stare that was no longer a yearning gaze but a glare. You’d seen it when Mayfair saw Lucy Gray and Billy Taupe together, had seen it back when your mother spoke of your neighbor’s wedding, had seen it most blatantly when Lucy Gray flirted and charmed and once even kissed the cheek of one of the audience- that flare of Billy Taupe’s nose was enough.

The same look the blonde-buzz cut man wore now.

But Lucy Gray was dazzling the crowd- of course, she was too busy to pause and study his facial expressions- so you would pull her aside during the upcoming duet of Tam Amber and Barb Azure, you’d go backstage and you’d tell her, because she was sharp and clever and she’d understand.

You are so focused on how to word it, how to describe it most accurately, that you don’t notice Billy Taupe’s entrance until he begins pleading to the Covey.

But you can’t focus on his entreaties- you keep your eyes on the blonde. Is he jealous of this, too? Or satisfied to see the rejection? Both?

Billy Taupe’s voice grates on your eyes, and you permit your eyes to wander over to Mayfair instead- ha! She wears the same face as the man, anger and jealousy which are both insecurity. Her hair is in a bun, her dress pretty and pressed and pink, and there it is, the hatred you’d been tending to well before the reaping- how you want to wring her neck, how you want to punish her and Billy Taupe for ruining Lucy Gray’s life- she may have survived, but she certainly has enough pain now, enough trauma, to last till the end of her days. And you fix your gaze on Billy Taupe and his drunken stupor and think how easy it would be, when he’s inebriated like this, to kill or at least severely injure him, too. He deserves it. She deserves it. Romance and love triangles are one thing, cheating and two-timing and sending Lucy Gray to near-certain death and sentencing her to a life of nightmares and flinching and guilt are another. It wouldn’t be fair for them to get away unscathed- it wouldn’t be just.

(Those words again? So deluded. Fairness, justice. You think you have the power to bring them forth?)

When the first punch flies, it’s you who pulls the plug and kills the lights.

—

Author notes: It wouldn't be right to write a story about oppression- the world tolerating and even encouraging the deaths of children- without acknowledging the genocide in Gaza right now. So, this is your reminder to email and/or call your representatives, sign a petition, donate, attend a protest, or reblog posts you see- to demand an end to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. (If you have call anxiety, don't worry- it tends to go to voicemail. And if it doesn't, there's a script you can use). Refer to my pinned post for ways to help.

[1]- 'crisscross applesauce' is a colorful expression, one I can't see the Capitol ever using- so I thought the Covey might use it in tandem with their other phrases

[2] Maude Ivory wearing a braid over her shoulder is a nod to the theory that she's Katniss's grandmother

Let me know your thoughts in a reply! The story so far, currently six chapters, below

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