Day After the Tea Party, Outside the Training Center (@deezeeashfrostââ)
The Training Center is crawling with Peacekeepers. Theyâre there, around every corner, and itâs hard for Hudson to not shrink away when they see them, like they arenât halfway afraid that they know everything already, that they can look at them and just tell.
The biggest cluster of them is outside of the Training Center, and Hudson isnât sure if thatâs because of the Tributes inside or because DeeZeeâs there, too.
Theyâve been meaning to talk to him. Theyâve been meaning to patch things up with Gage. Now the Games are here and itâs almost too late for both of those things and itâs their fault because they wasted so much time, because things with their family always felt hopeless and so the Games felt doubly hopeless and so they waited and they buried their head in the sand and hoped that something would happen, that they would suddenly know what to doâ
But the Games are here, and they still donât. If they think back to the dry-eyed goodbyes with their family in the District 12 Justice Building, they canât remember what Gage said to them, what he thought his last words to Hudson would be. All too soon, theyâre going to have to say something to Gage that could be the last words they ever say to him. How do they even begin to figure out what those will be?
And despite their audience, despite the fact that DeeZeeâs always been one of the kind of Victors that Hudsonâs intimidated by, the kind that they canât imagine seeing much value in them, itâs easier to find words to say to him: âDo you have a moment? I wanted toâI wanted to say thank you. For what youâve done for Gage.â














