times being what they are

“Seems we have something in common now.” Teal begins, shoving a grape into her mouth. “I watched my sister die, you watched your brother die.” Her lip twitches upward just the slightest, looking over your form. “I mean, at least your brother played the game right. My sister was a complete fucking moron.” rolling her eyes, she takes a step closer to Hudson.

“While you’ve been busy crying, I’ve been watching your little family, Hudson. I hope you remember what I told you before. I’m not going to let you ruin everything for me.” She eats the last grape in her hand, then presses her finger firmly into your chest. “I always hold true to my word.” Her bold eyes stare, burning inside of you, and then she pushes back, bringing her smile with it.

“I think we’re going to spend a lot of time together, Hudson.” She says, patting your cheek before trotting off. You don’t realize until then that your cup of water is on the ground, and the water has covered half of your pants.

Gage is dead. And while before they couldn’t imagine themself looking away from the screens, now they can’t imagine continuing to watch, and so they obey Nelly’s instructions with numbed compliance.

That’s where Teal finds them. It feels too much like the last time: like Teal is some kind of predator waiting in the reeds; like, unbeknownst to them, she’s always watching—and she’s watching them. And like she’s too smart to let them play stupid; too angry to not see that they’re angry, too, a simmering fire somewhere inside them that won’t let them forget for a moment how wrong this all is. She sees them, and from her it’s a threat.

“I’m just one person, Teal. Whatever you’re trying to blame me for—” they say, and while it sounds like an entreaty, it’s partially a threat of their own. They’re the one she’s cornered, but they’re not alone. What’s happening now, it’s bigger than them. They couldn’t stop it if they tried.

It doesn’t matter, though. She’s gone, but her threat stays behind. The chill running down their spine remains.

They feel like they haven’t moved since the cameras cut away from Gage and Chrysanthe. Barely blinked. No news has to be good news, they told themself. If someone was hurt, if someone was dead, the cameras would have to show it. But, if they didn’t, then maybe if meant that Chrysanthe was able to do what Hudson wasn’t. Maybe they were able to get through to Gage.

But then the cannon fired.

And still, the cameras show nothing. They see Wren, running into the arms of Tilsee and Darby, safe once more, but still no Gage. Has he died? Has he killed? They’re not sure how they’re meant to bear either one. Not when the image of the spear flying from his hand still makes them feel sick to their stomach. He missed, then. Was it just that his aim wasn’t true, or was his heart not really in it? They don’t know if they’ll ever know.

The cameras cycle again, but still no Gage. They grip the arms of the chair they’re sitting in, knuckles white until they hurt. When they speak, their voice comes out too loud, turning curious eyes their way. “Are they just not going to show him?” They demand, but they don’t know who from. “Not anything?”

They can practically see Hudson’s thoughts running wild with the information. It makes them wish they had found a way to share it sooner, that it hadn’t been thrust on them so unexpectedly, first with Citron’s revelation, then from Gage, apparently, probably with just as little information provided about what actually happened, if he knew the details at all. There’s a letter, tucked into one of their many notebooks, unfinished, written to Hudson, with that information in it, but they never got the point of needing to find a way to pass it on, although now they wish they had, they wish someone had gone through their notebooks and passed out that collection of letters when the Capitol took them after the wedding reception. 

There’s no use in wishing to change what they cannot, though, and so they focus on giving Hudson that confirmation, and any information they can, now. It seems that Gage gave them a general picture of it at least, as they quietly, hesitantly go on. Traitors in every sense of the word. It’s difficult to hear, difficult to consider without judgement or anger, but they know someone else with a similar label, and they know the struggle Aven went through, is still going through. They have to imagine the Overgroves were given the choice between protecting their family and protecting the underground of Three, and chose the former.  

“Yes. It’s the truth,” they say quietly, after a moment. And then it’s near impossible not to keep going, to give Hudson the little they do know from their own lifetime in Three. “I’m not surprised it wasn’t spoken about once your family was in Twelve. It’s a precarious position to be in, and being given the punishment of a new home in a higher District is much less harsh than most in their position face, the sort of punishment I believe my parents may have faced. They wouldn’t want to risk anything to jeopardize that.”

They turn over the knowledge in their mind, trying to decide if there’s any safe way to explain things, what the Capitol labelling them traitors in the first place had been about, not the sort of treason that Silver themself had been punished for in the least, but they’re not sure how possible it is. Perhaps what’s important at the moment is simply being able to confirm this for Hudson, after what they can imagine has been a lifetime of questions about what had led their family to Twelve in the first place. 

“It was…a different sort of betrayal. A betrayal that many people in Three are guilty of without perhaps possessing truly…radical intentions. And then a betrayal of those people. I wish there was a simpler way to explain it.”

--

All at once, they feel the walls closing in on them: this place, everyone who’s listening, watching, making it so they can’t talk plainly, that Silver can’t give them the answers they know that they have, that Hudson can’t ask the questions that they’ve had for their entire life without wrapping them up in layer after layer of obfuscation. It frustrates them. All at once, they feel like they could cry. Or scream.

Their parents could have spoken plainly, though. Their parents could have told them all of this at any time, been honest and true, if they only just wanted to. But they didn’t. Gage could have told them, too. Could have done it at any time in their parents’ house in Twelve, or he could have tried in the Victors’ Village, or any other moment before the moment that might have been the very last one they’d ever have together, the one that was supposed to be a goodbye.

They want to believe it could have changed something, if they’d known earlier. Maybe they would feel like they knew their own parents, maybe they’d feel like they belonged in their own family, instead of held separate by this great thing they were on the outside of. Maybe, in the Tower, they would have been able to understand Gage better. Maybe they would have been able to reach him, before he ran into the Games on his own, leaving Hudson fearful for what he’d do in there.

“They never said anything. They were just—afraid, I think. And angry. All the time,” they say. They don’t know what it means that Silver is implying that their parents didn’t have radical intentions, what it means that they head instead, and whether Silver thinks that makes them better or worse. It sounds worse, they think. Maybe it’s easier to betray a cause you don’t believe in, but—how could they not believe in it? How could they see that rebellion was there, and possible, and turn their back on it? What did they believe in instead?

And maybe they don’t have something in common with their parents, like they hoped, but Silver says something else that catches their ear, makes them ask: “Your parents? They—they met a different fate?”

In a rare moment, he’s not sure what to say to Hudson, or how to help. Slate wasn’t allowed to feel unsure or sick when he took his first year as mentor. He was trained for it his whole life. Even if he felt those things deep down, he wasn’t allowed the think it. And it was so long ago, and he was so young, he’d be no help now.

“You’ve got people around you. Thankfully you don’t have to know how to do this as long as you know you have them as a resource.” Maybe he’s one of those resources for Hudson, but they have their Twelve family for certain, and they’re probably much better at this than him.

--

“I’m lucky,” they agree. “To have my team in Twelve. To have—all of my friends outside of Twelve.” Which, maybe against all odds, Slate is among. Something Hudson never could have expected, when they only saw Slate on television once a year, only knew him as a Career Tribute turned fearsome mentor.

But who does Slate have? Slate’s co-Mentor is Teal Pittsmith, someone Hudson can’t think of without feeling a chill down their spine, the strength in her small frame as her fists tangled in their shirt. Slate sent Terra into the Games, and she’s not coming out. Hudson has Slate, and that probably means more to them than it does the other way around, that Slate has Hudson—but he does. Hudson wants to help.

But that doesn’t mean they know how.

“I’m sorry about Terra,” they say. “She seemed very kind. Maybe it doesn’t mean much but I wish—I wish it could have been different. That so much of this could have been different.”

There are a dozen different ways that their mind is being pulled when the bloodbath comes to an end at last, and they’re down one tribute of their own, even more in the grand scheme of things, the grand hopes of getting them out somehow. They don’t think they can stand to look at the screens for any longer just now, even if it always feels as if there’s no true escaping them in the Tower as it is. Silver doesn’t bother to excuse themself from the spot they had been watching with part of Three’s team, no desire to interact with any of them anyway, or listen to their disappointed, but expected sighs about this year being no different for Three. As always, they miss the point entirely, and this year, Silver’s eyes are opened wide enough to acknowledge how willfully unaffected they’ve forced themself to be in the past. That feels impossible now.

They won’t soon be able to wipe the image of Citron’s death, Terra’s death, from their mind. It’s always been cruel that way, holding onto the painful memories in stark detail, static taking over the kinder ones. They need to plan, but they need a clear mind for that, so they start down the hall, intent on searching for some air, but they notice Hudson before they get very far, and they meet halfway. Seeing them makes them wish they had found the time to speak to them with Citron after the interviews. Their words only confirm that regret, and they frown, looking down briefly, trying to keep themself composed.

“Even they had accepted what was coming, in some ways, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” they admit, frown deepening. “I wasn’t aware they knew your parents, either…I was remiss in not trying to get more from them before they were sent off to die. My focus was selfish, with Zero, I should have done more for them, gotten more from them.” A pause, as they turn over another piece of that puzzle, though, one it feels only fair to give Hudson now, seeing that thirst for information they hadn’t realized they might have access to. “It seems that now is the right time to admit that I knew your parents, too. Or knew of them. Certainly not as well as Citron, or my own parents did, though, it sounds like.”

--

All their life, they knew something had happened in Three. Something that meant that their parents had to leave—because they hadn’t wanted to, because they certainly hadn’t wanted to end up in Twelve.

In Twelve, their parents were paranoid. They wanted to follow the rules, they didn’t want to know anybody’s business or have anyone know theirs, and they wanted to stay far, far away from the Peacekeepers. But they never told Hudson why. They were left to make up stories. To piece together a picture of Three in their mind from what little they did say, to imagine what could have happened to force them into their seeming exile in Twelve.

In the aftermath of their Victory, on the train for their Tour and seeing the inklings of uprisings in the Districts, all those old wonderings came back. What if their parents had defied the Capitol? What if, after all those years of not fitting in to their own family, they were finally doing something to follow in their footsteps?

And maybe that wasn’t exactly wrong, but—

“Gage said,” they say, and it feels like a whisper, like something they don’t want to say. Something they don’t want to be true. “That they were traitors. In every sense of the word.” Traitors to the Capitol, and then—and more importantly—traitors to the rebels they had made their cause among. “He’s never told me anything before. Neither have my parents, or Hale. Is it—is it true?”

Citron said the words on stage: This time, they were happy to die because of an Overgrove. And that meant, when the Bloodbath came and Gold came bearing down, that they owed it to them to not look away. But then, after the Bloodbath ends and the Tributes go their separate ways, they can’t stay there. Though putting distance between themselves and the walls of screen doesn’t do anything to make them feel any less sick.

They knew, growing up, that they didn’t know their parents. Three was always a mystery to them, something that seemed to exist only in their imagination. Their parents didn’t say anything about what brought them to Twelve, even if their resentment for their circumstances seeped into everything. Hale and Gage didn’t say anything, either. Or, at least, Gage hadn’t, right up until he was about to go into the Arena.

The questions of their youth had seemed so small, compared to everything happening in the Capitol. But now they’re all that they can think about. And they find themself drawn, almost magnetically, to Silver. To Three. “I’m sorry about Citron,” they say when they find them. It feels empty, but what else is there to say? “I didn’t—I didn’t know they knew my parents. I feel like I wasted so much time, here in the Tower. I could have—I could have talked to them sooner. I could have learned more.”

WELCOME TO EMBERS HIGH....HUDSON OVERGROVE!

A scholarship student at the local college, Hudson came into school knowing they wanted to major in education. As a freshman, they spent last year volunteering in the kindergarten classroom at the local elementary school. This year, however, they’ve made the leap to high school, and though Hudson themself is a teenager who gets along better with adults, they truly underestimated just how—much a school full of teenagers can be. But it’s not all bad: they’ve got a crush, and a new interest in sign language.

WHERE YOU CAN FIND THEM: Their assigned position in Griffin’s classroom, hiding in Nurse Singe’s office when the teenagers get to be too much, helping out with any extracurricular that will have them (with special interest in Robotics Club 👀), really spending way too much time at Embers High for someone who works there part-time, unpaid, and has classes and homework of their own.

Looking at Hudson, he feels a little pang of homesickness creeping through the anger. It’s not something that’s rare when he’s in the Capitol, always ready to head back to Ten the moment he’s on the train every year, but it feels a little different right now, because he feels a little certain he’s not actually going to manage to make it home, after last night. Hudson reminds him a lot of his youngest brother, his only brother who’s still willing to put up with his bullshit, even from afar, his only brother to give him the benefit of the doubt, who might’ve done the same as Hudson’s doing now; might’ve seen the spectacle with the cake and instead of being ashamed or disappointed, would’ve asked how he’s doing. 

The smile softens into something a little more genuine. “Well, I did tell Fava I was gonna make her look good, comparatively; I just took it a step further and made everyone in Eleven and Twelve look better,” he says, going with the joke, albeit maybe not as convincingly as usual. After all, besides Hudson and Fava, none of the rest of the interviews went particularly well. He thinks of Aldera’s, of Griffin’s. They may not have thrown cake at beloved Capitolites, but Caesar threw equally horrifying signs that the Capitol’s been listening to all of them at both of them, too. 

It’s a good sign, though, that Hudson doesn’t fully know what happened last night. It means they’re probably safer, better off than half of the people on their proverbial side, not that he’s certain it matters anymore, when it seems like it’s all been royally fucked. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to let them in on his part of things, safely, though. He knows how frustrating it is to be in the dark, after all, and at this point, he figures it’s a little pointless to dance around what the cake was about, since the Capitol made it everyone’s business anyway.

“Honestly, for the best. The cake bullshit was just a private conversation made public, I wasn’t special, even if I’m the only one he pulled out a fuckin’ dessert platter for. I’m glad they didn’t do that to you, though, you and Fava have enough to deal with,” DeeZee nods, certain about that at least. “I’m managing, though. We gotta keep going, after all, way too late to give up now, I’ve heard.” He hopes that’s not too dangerous to say, but then he’s pretty sure just being near him is like putting a target on your back after last night.

--

A private conversation made public. It’s not a surprise that the Capitol is listening in, that the places where it’s safe to speak are few and far between. It’s one of the first things that Hudson learned in the Training Center, that the roof with the wind and the noise was the safest place for them to speak.

But just because the Capitol could listen didn’t mean that it always was, that there was someone on the other side picking up on every single word. Though while they might have been able to fly under the radar when they were a nobody from Twelve, they’d be fooling themself to think that all of the Capitol’s attention isn’t on the Quell right now, on the Victors in this Tower trying to pull off some kind of rebellion underneath the Capitol’s very nose.

They can’t remember every single word they’ve spoken: not in the Training Center, not on the train, and not in their home in the Victors’ Village in District Twelve. How can they be sure that they’ve been careful enough, when they’re talking about almost every waking moment of their day, their whole life, that could be spied upon and picked apart and used against them at a moment’s notice?

The Capitol must have enough to hang any of them, if it wanted to. And if they didn’t, they could just make it up.

They gaze DeeZee a warning, that much is plain to see. Why, though, is still a question. Hudson can’t imagine that the Capitol thinks that DeeZee would give in to a threat—he doesn’t seem the type. DeeZee was angry on that stage, but he never for a moment seemed cowed. He doesn’t now. “Delivering a threat with cake sure has flair,” they say, though they can’t quite hide their distaste. Though it’s hard to imagine it mattering now if they do or not. “I’m glad you’re not—letting it get to you today. Too many people have already taken leave. I wouldn’t want to see you among them, and not just for Gage’s sake.”

Hudson has a different kind of strength that she doesn’t see in many other people. They take everything in stride, and they still grace the world with warmth. It would be naïve, even more naïve than she is, to think they don’t struggle. Of course Hudson does not take this all easily, but yet, they remain. She’s thankful for this moment, where their tables have turned.

She reaches out to take their hand in hers, the other clasping over it to give it a tender squeeze. “Thank you Hudson.” Her lip tugs in a sad smile. “And it’s okay to get angry, but if that’s not what comes, then that’s okay, too.” She gives a shaky laugh. “I fear I got a little too angry after the interview. I was not proud of it.” Considering the subject of that anger was a man who did not deserve it. “So perhaps the cost of that anger can sometimes be too great. Maybe anger doesn’t look very good on us. Or maybe we just have to learn how to be angry in the right way.”

--

It’s hard to truly picture Nelly angry. Even when Caesar was doing his best to humiliate her, she didn’t rage, she didn’t scream. She never has, not where Hudson could see. Too often, she’s been the one to try and hold them all together. When Griffin was drunk, or Fava was angry, or Hudson was despairing, Nelly just smiled, and never gave up, and tried to make them better than they were.

Hudson doesn’t rage and scream, but they are aware every moment of the crushing unfairness of all of this. Of how much they wish for something better for all of them, even if they don’t know exactly what that might look like or how to get there. They just want it. They just try and believe, with their whole heart, that it’s out there somewhere. That it’s possible.

“It’s okay if you did something you weren’t proud of.” They say, squeezing her hand tight. “That’s what being loved means, right? That the people who love you will forgive you, even when you’re not perfect. And how could any of us be perfect with all of this going on?”

WHAT DOES IT say about either of them that Robyn had practically predicted Hudson would redirect the compliment back to someone who isn’t even here? It almost makes Robyn smile for how modest a thing that is to do, for how right they’d been to assume Hudson would react in such a way, but they don’t, their expression impassive. It becomes even harder to read when Hudson mentions Zero, and helping. It’s vague enough, of course, and says very little about what those in the know have been fighting to keep under wraps, but they do experience a brief moment of panic, hyperaware after the interviews last night and their conversations with Silver, that the Capitol might be listening, and listening close. They don’t linger on that.

“Mm. Of course,” is all they say about the matter before moving on, intending now to purposely turn the tables back on Hudson again. There’s an intensity to them that’s different from what they believe Fava provides, but not less by any means. Just quieter, more deeply rooted — less a bright flame that burns without pause and more a serene, unfathomable lake, extraordinary in its depth. They find it so interesting how unassuming he is when it’s clear from the way people speak about him how much he has to offer. Robyn’s thought it before, but after last night, it’s even clearer to them why the Capitol masses pay so much attention, why they listen when Hudson speaks. 

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Hudson.” Hudson, in fact, gives themself so little credit that it’s easy to mistake their reticence as shyness or even vacantness. But they’re not vacant; they’re anything but. Robyn had been guilty of that same outright dismissal once, thinking them as second to Fava, a supporting role to the symbol she was very quickly turning out to be, and even as they realize their reading of Hudson had been incorrect, they hadn’t gone out of their way to meet with the Victor. Late as it is, they’re glad to finally be doing so now. “Out of all of us last night, it was you who managed to keep it together the most onstage. You seem to know just what to say and how to say it up there.” 

--

They’ve always known what role they’re meant to play. How could they not? They created it for themself. When the got up on the stage last year, they were no one. They were from District 12, they didn’t stand out in training, and they hadn’t done anything as noteworthy as Fava volunteering for Wren. They had cannon fodder practically written all over them and nothing else, and they knew it.

So then he was a hopeless romantic, helplessly besotted with Fava—a way for him to make sure that his death would help Fava in the Arena, that it would have some meaning. Their story might not have ended where they thought it would, but their role hasn’t changed that much.

They don’t mind it. They know now, though they didn’t before, what’s just for the Capitol, what’s just for show. What’s real and what isn’t. And where it counts, they’re not second. Not when Fava leans on them, loves them, married them. Not when they have others who love them as well, more than they’ve ever had before.

They wonder what these people expect them to do, the ones that seem to be encouraging them to step out from behind the shadow that they think that Fava casts. (And it doesn’t escape them, too, that it seems to be coming from both sides, because it was coming from Caesar as well.) Who they want them to be. Because—this is who they are. If others can’t see them because they’re too busy looking at Fava—well, maybe that says more about them than it does about Hudson. 

“I just try to tell the truth,” they say. “Like you, on stage last night, talking about how much you love your twin. That was true. What lie could you make up that would be more moving than that?”

It was near impossible to get out of bed this morning. Her head drummed with everything that happened and for once, it was difficult to ground herself in the things that normally kept her going. They all had it hard. But Nelly felt defeated. Over fifteen years of her peers trying to keep her away from their status, to humiliate her, it finally worked the way they wanted it to. She felt snuffed out.

She had finally gotten up after staring at her wall for too long. She couldn’t bring herself to put on her more daring clothes, filling in her typical rob and pinning her hair back from her eyes as she had breakfast in silence. She wanted to be a beacon of warmth and support, but it felt impossible to conjure up.

It was Hudson who had spoken to her, and she turns around, holding her warm mug in both of her hands. Of course they would say something kind to her. She smiles, giving a nod to his words. “No, no I didn’t.” She’s aware enough to recognize that, “And yet it still happened.”

She sips her cup, pulling back to look into the dark liquid. “But that’s very fitting for them.” She mumbles. And Nelly has to pull herself out of it. To not stew in all of this dread and panic and depression.

“I’m very proud of you, though. You were so good up there. I know it wasn’t easy for you.” She says, pushing out a brighter smile for them. 

--

It’s hard for them to imagine how long Nelly’s been doing this for, how many Tributes she sent into the Arena before Hudson and Fava, none of whom came out alive. And even after all those years, she was still the bright person that Hudson met, the one that brought them comfort in what they thought would be the last days of their life.

She never seemed to falter. Not before the Games, and not after. Not during the whole Quell. Not until last night. And it makes the Quell, already overwhelming in its cruelty, seem even crueler. That it could do this to her, another person that Hudson loves.

“I did what I had to,” they say. And, after seeing what Caesar did to Nelly, what he did to so many of the other Victors on stage last night, they don’t feel especially adept or skilled, they just feel lucky. Like they got off easy. But even that just makes them feel more afraid, makes them wonder what the Capitol has planned for them.

“I just wish—sometimes I wish I could get angry. That I could be good at that instead. But I’m not. I never have been. But you—you stood up for yourself last night. I’m proud of you.”