lee hatchett

"Ok, this is an essential item that we have to hope there wasn't a run on because of the war. If I don't get it, I don't know what I'm going to do, it'll be a crisis."

"Does this mean you're finally going to tell me what the item is?" he grumbled in response. "Or what it is for? Or literally anything other than, 'Lee, put on some proper pants and meet me downstairs - it's an emergency'?"

"No." Linden agreed, looking at the screen. "or, if it's bad, I'm bad too. Not sure which."

What an odd place their lives had led them to, that these murderous delights might become such banality. That they could curl up in relative comfort, both opposed to the thing on the screen, but cheering them on in their own small ways, knowing it meant the end of them.

"Yeah," he said with a small sigh. "Hard to know what to root for. No winners in all that."

"Yeah. Can't imagine the Vox is breaking anyone out of their own Arena." His voice dropped in volume, recognizing there were any number of cameras and microphones around. Even their own phones, set to buzz at a moment's notice if their Tributes did anything notable, could probably hear and report on them.

"Is it bad I kind of hope it is short? Just one, quick, final Games and then we can leave it all behind us?"

"Promise." she said, looking at the screen. The boy. Willow. Then back to that poor kid from three stepping off on one, not after. blasted sky high. She was silent, as he took a sip, taking a long moment of silence and solace beside him. and then, the awkward question. "Was I your favorite?" she asked.

He leaned back in the couch, gathering the blankets around him. Images of violence flashed across the television, falling almost idly on his vision. It was as if it were the weather, the way people wielded weapons against each other. He found his heart going out to the people he knew more so than the Tributes in the Arena: Cat was out entirely, but Colton still had both of his Tributes in the running.

"I just, uh," he sighed. "Think this one's gonna be a short one." The Arena was small, historical, and packed to bursting with Mutts.

"They're alive." Linden debreifed, although Lee certainly already knew. it was evening, Elowyn playing with some kind of plastic magnetic tile toy in their bedroom, and Linden sought out lee. his advice, his comfort, his opinion. She needed him like a tree needed sun. "And I have a favorite. between them." She knew it was okay, when one was alder. was it okay when neither were old friends, when she had a favorite between two tributes she was meant to mentor evenly?

"They are," he echoed, his voice a bit cracked from stress. He shimmied one of his blankets off of his shoulders, offering it to her as consolation. The television cut between the two of them, cementing the fact that both D7 Tributes were safe, but quickly returned to the Bloodbath which was still "exciting." Twelve of twenty six; in a normal Games, it would be half over by now.

He hummed gently at her statement. "'sfine," he said, scooping up the foul-smelling tea and taking a sip. "Ultimately only one can come home, though. So if it's not your favorite, make sure you forget you had one."

"Being myself is a little hard, though," Willow commented as she gave a pointed glance to the room around them, "They have us in a fish tank, doing something that is not...in pretty much anyone's routine, right?"

"Think about it this way: almost none of the other Tributes have traveled through the Districts. You very well might be the only person they've ever met from Seven. And for any Capitolites? You're certainly the only interaction they have. So just by virtue of you being here, from Seven... That's most of the battle already."

His brow furrowed at his own words. How mortifying it must be to hear that: that she was to be a representative. A token. An avatar of Seven. "We just have to figure out how to make that Seven weirdness... work. In training, in the Arena. However we can."

"Sorry...sorry I didn't know anyone was planning on using this room." He was trying to get up out of the seat, which was proving more difficult than usual. "I don't wanna be in your way sorry."

There was an upper level viewing room that he had spent some time in the other day in a brutally failed attempt to woo what few Sponsors were around the Tower in which he had spotted a rarity: high quality, silk tea bags. They were practically a luxury in and of themselves at this point in the economy of Panem (so of course the Games staff had found a way to get them for the elite). Feeling like a cat burglar, Lee padded towards the room in his sweats and oversized hoodie, angling for some of his own.

He pushed the door to the room open and gently slipped inside. He was halfway to the drink cart when someone spoke. He yelped, leapt in the air, and pivoted fully around before he realized whoever this was was not a threat. He pressed a hand to his chest to steady his suddenly-racing heart.

"Holy shit crackers -" he gasped. "No - fuck, oh my god - no, you're fine. I just. Tea. Good tea up here and I -" He took a moment to pull a full breath through his nose. "Sorry. My bad. Didn't realize anyone would be here this late. Lights go out and all."

"What is with y'all an' the weirdos?" She asked, and the question was sincere. "Is all'a Seven jus' like that, or is your reapin' bowl rigged for it?" Their tributes seemed to regularly have some kind of intense spiritually that wasn't common in much of Panem. "Yeah, I hear ya," she agreed. "Honestly, I don't think it matters what we do," Greer admitted. "You either get a tribute who's got what it takes and gets lucky, or most'a the time, you don't. Don't think three days'a trainin' and us tellin' 'em to smile for Calix fuckin' Crystal actually matters a whole lot."

He shrugged at her continued questions. "I think it's in the air up there. No one's quite 'normal.' Though, I guess I'd actually say the rest of Panem is who's weird - Seven is just home to me. Those are my neighbors." A dry snort fell out of his nose. "Exactly. 'specially when I've apparently spent the last several years pissing off Sponsors 'cuz I was home with my dad."

She looked down, her voice soft but steady. "I was fourteen when I won. The Games have been my entire life. First surviving them, then helping others survive them - or at least trying to - so I’ve never had anything else. No other job, no other path." Her lips pressed into a thin line, her fingers gripping her elbows as if holding herself together. "So trying to imagine Panem without the Games? It’s not just imagining a different world; it’s imagining a different me. And I don’t think I know who that is."

Her eyes flicked back to him, a small, bittersweet smile tugging at her lips. "I, personally, think being a lumberjack suits you. Plus, it's comforting, in a way. To know you can see yourself outside of all this." She hesitated, glancing past him as though searching for something invisible. "I think if the Games had never existed, I’d just be…some kid from Four. Maybe I’d have worked on the docks, or helped with the kids - maybe I'd be teaching sign language." A romantic fantasy of a life that didn't exist.

He quirked an eyebrow at her as she continued. "Sign language, eh?" Another phantom passed through his brain and he instinctively held out his hand, wrapped around the cup. His other hand folded neatly into an ok sign and he dipped it into what would be his empty hand, instead bouncing it off the lid of his tea. "Tea," he said softly. "One of the few words I know. A uh, friend of mine taught me that one once."

He blinked the memory away. "Well, if this really is it... who says that can't be the next chapter of Ms. Merielle Sands?" He tried to inject some levity into his words, but like all of this conversation, the ifs and hopes hid in the crevasses like monsters in the night, waiting to snatch these would-be realities back into fictionality.

"A walk sounds nice, yeah, and trust me, buddy, I could never judge you." Grinning a little bit more, "Except I will say I think that hat suits you more than it does me. Keep it, start a new trend in Seven."

With a scoff, Lee quickly took the hat off his head and returned it to Colt's. "No, no. If I'm gonna do that, I'm at least gonna get one that fits right." He said this with a small smile. Colt had always been the overly generous type - it was something they had initially bonded over, in fact. "Plus, no one is looking to Lee Hatchett for trendsetting."

"We've got a weirdo and a recluse this time, too. Typical D7 fare, but always... I don't know. You always hope that one of these days you'll get someone who just... Doesn't know what they're in for. Or they do, and they know what to do. Not that anyone knows what to do in an Arena."

She sighed, frowning down at the floor. "But maybe that’s the problem. None of us can picture a world without them, so we just keep spinning in the same circle, convincing ourselves it’s the only way." Her gaze returned to him, and softened slightly, though her tone stayed steady. "You’re not alone in that confusion - Victor, Mentor, Rebel - none of it makes sense anymore." She hesitated, then added quietly, "What if it’s not about understanding what it all means, but about figuring out who we are without it?"

Still, he revved the engine at her question. What would he be without the Games? "I'd be a lumberjack still," he said gently. "But that's not right. Not 'still.' I never would have stopped being one." The tires of his mind were still stuck in the mud, but he was trying.

"But that's if the Games never had happened. If they stopped, for real? I can't just forget that they once existed." His head was starting to ache from the intensity of his scrunch. He pressed the warm cup of tea to his forehead in an attempt to iron it out a bit. "But if they had never happened - or, like never existed - would I have been a lumberjack? What would Panem even look like?"

Greer nodded as Lee spoke. "Nurse is probably the best thing to be, if you gotta be out there," she offered. "Doubt they're lettin' medical staff get as close to the action." Though, Greer didn't actually know if that was true. Maybe Lee's sister was right on the front lines with the soldiers. Maybe she was back at some makeshift base treating patients away from the field. Who knew? "S'a good rule'a thumb," she agreed, glad she'd managed to guilt Mahlon into at least a few letters back. "She's probably jus' real busy. Probably ain't gettin' a lotta time to sit down an' write, or call, or whatever."

She didn’t have an answer, or not one that felt useful anyway. "I don’t know," she admitted, her voice soft. "I've only ever known the Games." She resisted the pull of weariness, fighting the urge to sink to the ground in defeat. "I mean, before the recent attacks, I was teaching Capitol kids how to play hopscotch. Strange as it sounds," she added with a faint, almost bitter smile, "I almost miss it, y'know?"

He shook his head, trying to escape the thought. "I get it," he said gently. "Back when I knew what... this meant." He gestured between the two of them. "What Victor versus Mentor versus... whatever else meant. Now I'm all confused."

He leaned back against the counter for a moment. "It's not so much about being yourself as it is figuring out what version of you they want to see. But that's more for me to figure out, so don't stress too much about it. If you're weird, lets lean into that, and I'll keep an eye out for what people are saying."

He paused for a moment, with another thought in his brain. They. People. Who were these people now? Would old Sponsors reemerge, or would there be new ones, hungry to get their slice of the last pie? Or would there be no one - everyone wanting to watch the end of an institution as it purely falls apart?

"I'd appreciate it. Hell, even just a walk around the block a couple of times would help. And don't judge me if I completely disassociate when I have to walk back through the lobby on our way out."