MIDDLEMAN.

The first thing he does after Robyn finishes with him and moves onto Twig is make tea. They don’t have time for things like that, and his hands are shaking, his thoughts racing, but he knows that he needs to be here once Robyn is finished talking with Twig and Ivory, that both of them, in their own ways, are going to be ready to make decisions without their own safety in mind, to try to help others, because that’s who they both are. There are dozens of things to do before the time comes, his body keeps telling him to run to Slate, but Seven needs to be his first priority, making sure they both know that they don’t have to be martyrs to help make this happen. So he’s drinking his tea, pacing, when Twig does reappear, and it’s clear that he’s thinking exactly the way Dawn expected.

Dawn crosses over to him, and puts a hand on his arm, grounding. “I know, it feels impossible. But there’s still time, we’ll do as much as we can, before doing anything else,” he says, frown deep. “But, Twig, we can’t wait too long, you know that.” He lowers his voice to barely a whisper, hopes that it’s quiet enough no one who could be listening can hear. “What’s it all for if when they get him––because we’ll make sure they do, we’ll do everything we can to set him up to survive, just like we have been––if you’re not there, too?”

--

Dawn’s drinking tea. If Twig was thinking about anything at all besides this harebrained scheme unfolding in front of them, he might have guessed that. Dawn was a creature of habit, always comforting in his familiarity. He probably could have guessed what Dawn would say next, too: there are probably those, in the Tower, who would make the trade of Twig for Harbor with barely a twinge, but not Dawn. Dawn’s always been on Twig’s side. Dawn’s always been Twig’s person.

He listens to Dawn. Leans into the weight of his hand and stills, for a moment. But—his first reunion with Harbor was nothing like he might have dreamed it would be. There was no forgiveness. There was no recognition. There’s no reason to think that a second reunion would go any differently. If they reunited once again. But his guilt goes deeper than that. “He was the one who wanted all of this. Who wanted to fight for it. And I—I didn’t believe it was possible.” And he left Harbor over it. Robbed himself—robbed them both—of time they could have had together. Time they’ll never get back, not now. Time that he mourns, but doesn’t think that Harbor does. “How is it fair that my way out is guaranteed, but his—we’ll just have to put it someone else’s hands and wait and see.”

For his entire life, there’s been nothing but the Capitol. There’s been no way out. Or—there wasn’t one that he could see. Now he’s only hours away from uncertain freedom somewhere the Capitol can’t touch and he—he can’t even begin to wrap his head around it. Can hardly imagine it. He knows one thing, though: the idea of leaving while Harbor is in the Arena, far from the escape that’s brewing, feels unfathomable. Why does Twig get to go to safety? What has he done to deserve that?

And so he won’t. He can’t. Not without one last attempt to make sure Harbor makes it with the rest. If that doesn’t work, he doesn’t—he doesn’t know what he’ll do. “I have to do something. How are we supposed to just—” go, he almost says, but thinks better of it, lips moving around the word but no sound coming out. Dawn will understand. Dawn always has. “I can’t do anything else without knowing that I—I did everything I can. No matter how little or late it all is.”

He never thought that he was unaffected by the Games. That, while he never wore his heart on his sleeve like Dawn did, that he cared for each of his Tributes, carried each year’s losses with him. And maybe he did, in his own way, but it’s nothing compared to now, to seeing Harbor in the Arena, the Overgrove boy’s spear heading towards him and Wren. This feeling in him now—(this pit in his stomach, the way he feels like he’s always teetering between blind rage and inconsolable grief)—feels like it’s laying bare to him just how numbed he had allowed himself to become. How callous.

He’s not sure what to to do with that. Like he could only keep going, all these years, if he didn’t let himself see exactly what he had become. Exactly what he had lost. He’s not sure how he’s meant to go on now.

Especially not now that Harbor is alone. Without Wren, who could have been a shield. Without Birch, either, who for a moment in that Arena looked like—something. Something Twig hadn’t seen coming. And that is what has him seeking out Aldera, though he can’t say he ever has before. “It looks like we might be allies now, you and I. I confess it comes as something of a surprise to me, otherwise I would have—done more, sooner.” 

“HE JUST HAS to stick with Wren. He has to know how important it is to.” Robyn wills himself to believe that. He has to trust that Harbor knows it, has to trust that his wisdom won’t leave him in the panic and horror of the Games. Being with Wren, an obvious, undeniable crowd-favorite, means he’ll get to share in whatever comforts she might end up receiving, and Harbor would be squandering his chances if he left her. Which he wouldn’t, being one of her most treasured, cherished friends in this arena. They have to remember that, and they hope he does too. They’re not as ready to answer Twig’s question about their parents, though, when the topic alone is enough to elicit a number of mixed emotions from them. Thinking of them upsets Robyn, and bothers them, saddens them and frustrates them too, all at once.

“The last time we saw one another was… almost a month ago, before I left home to live with Swann’s family for a while, in Four. After the Quell announcement.” The rope was already taut then, their parents pushed very dangerously close to the edge, not at all knowing how to handle news of their son not only being revealed to have been alive all this time but spat back out from who even knows where the way he is now, voiceless, lifeless, looking almost nothing like them at all, and as a Tribute, no less. When it’s people from the Districts, being chosen as one is seen cruelly as an honor, but it’s something else entirely for Harbor’s unique case, having once been from the Capitol. The incapability of speech alone is enough to mark him as an unmentionable. A pariah.

“Then I had two supervised, heavily monitored calls with them since arriving in the tower, and mother has been… very sick. Father hasn’t been much help either.” Sick, they think, is putting it lightly and adding a different spin on it; the proper term here is that Trink Gazel has gone completely hysterical, spiraling almost completely out of control while her husband, Pluto, becomes more and more of a recluse with each passing day. “If I’m allowed another chance at talking to them, I should be able to convince them to shell something out.”

--

Pluto and Trink Gazel are strangers to him. Much in the same way that Robyn was, before all of this forced them to find an understanding with one another. His closeness with Harbor had never included Harbor’s family. What they had existed separately from all of that, and it never felt like a loss, like anything that Twig was missing. Their lives were full of artifice, full of bullshit and expectations and roles they had to play, and only when they were alone together were they separate from all of that.

And besides—it’s not like Twig could share his life in District Seven with Harbor, what little of it there was that remained there. A neighbor who hated him. One old friend who still came to call. Their lives weren’t their own, and so much of them were separate: Harbor in the Capitol, Twig in District Seven. Twig couldn’t always easily get on a train to the Capitol, not without a reason that the Capitol would accept, not without some way of making himself useful there. And Harbor could hardly go to a District that wasn’t the one he was assigned—not unless, of course, one of his Tributes won. 

He doesn’t know Pluto and Trink Gazel, and he doesn’t have much sympathy for them now, either. How nice, for Pluto and Trink Gazel, to be cloistered and sick and useless. Twig doesn’t have that luxury. Robyn doesn’t either.

“Right,” he says, knowing it’s more brusque than sympathetic. Maybe Robyn will understand that he doesn’t have any to spare. Or maybe they won’t. He doesn’t have much concern to spare for that, either. “Well, I think we need them. Now’s not the time to be helpless. What good is all of your Capitol wealth if not for right now?”

AS SOON AS Swann gives them leave to go, Robyn moves straight out of Four and heads immediately for Seven. The elevator ride is tortuously slow, allowing them time to ponder on what’s become of the Tributes post-bloodbath. It rouses in them some sense of panic, to see Marina and Abe separate from one another, but there’s relief in knowing Abe is with Sage, and he can keep her safe. Zero, on the other hand, is away from either of them, and Harbor… Harbor is with Wren, at least, and they can hold on to that. They never want the two of them to be away from each other again. They know they’ll have to go to Twelve after this too, speak to Fava and talk strategy so the two of them can be given the support they need.

Robyn arrives at Seven’s common area looking a little frazzled, unsure where it is they should be looking for Twig, but he saves them the trouble, thankfully, and approaches them himself. Maybe they still aren’t friends at this point, and Robyn isn’t sure if they will ever find any real comfort in one another, but there’s no denying the sigh of relief they let out upon seeing him. They’re thinking the same things, about Harbor, about Wren.

“Yes,” Robyn says, nodding repeatedly, willing themself to focus on the positives. There are things to be thankful about, even in the midst of so much pain and fear. “Yes, I’m glad they’re together. They understand each other well, they’ve — they’ve gotten so close over training.” They think about Harbor’s stories, of what he’s told them about the time spent in training, about the friends he’s made, Wren the closest, most precious one to him of all. They think about seeing the two of them at the reception, then at the tea party, the comfort there. “They’ll keep each other safe.”

--

In truth, he hadn’t known what to expect from Harbor in the Games. Seeing Harbor so quiet and calm during training, part of him had feared that he would just—give up, not fight. The Harbor that Twig knew was all fire, but how could Twig know if everything he suffered in the years since his disappearance had sapped that fire from him? He couldn’t. Not when Harbor wouldn’t show him. Not when Harbor didn’t trust him.

But seeing the way Harbor immediately gravitated toward Wren in the Arena, he can lay those fears to rest. He’ll take care of her; he won’t leave her alone. Though, of course, that begs the question of who will take care of him, frail as he is. Twig isn’t sure that Chrysanthe is up for the task, not against Gold and Saffron, at least.

He’s not sure if he’s up for the task, either. Not sure that he’s ever been what Harbor deserves. But, once again, he’s what Harbor has, so he has to try. At least now he has something on his side: those in power in the Capitol may have grown wary of their star-crossed lovers, but it’s precisely because they’re so beloved around Panem.

“I thought that we’d be hopeless when it came to sponsors, but maybe that won’t matter if they’re lining up for Wren,” he says. They’re talking business, but he still feels far from businesslike. Instead, every word out of his mouth feels like grasping at straws. “Unless—your parents, where are they in all of this?” 

He watches Harbor in the water. As long as he can, until the cameras move away. He’s alive.

He’s alive, but Twig knows how little that has to do with him. He couldn’t count on his oldest friend in the Capitol to be a sponsor. He couldn’t help Harbor on the interview stage, when he raged backstage at every Capitolite standing by while Harbor sat on stage, hands moving but no one giving his words voice. Why did you even reap him? He’d demanded. If you aren’t going to let him compete? No one answered. He hadn’t expected them to.

And now he watches.

He finds himself gravitating, again, to Robyn. He doesn’t know if they can be a comfort to each other, but he knows that—now, at least—they feel the same. That, after all these years and all this distance, this is what it took for them to reach an understanding. “It’s good that he’s with Wren,” he says, though he can’t say how convinced he sounds. “He’ll protect her. And she—she’s well-liked. That’ll protect him, too.” 

It’s almost poetic. One of the most well-loved of this year’s Tributes, teaming up with one of the most hated. Though, if this Quell has taught them anything at all, it’s that love doesn’t always keep someone safe.

WELCOME TO EMBERS HIGH....TWIG ELPHINESON!

Twig Elphineson never meant to be a teacher. He grew up in the woods, with parents who taught him the basics of metal forging and woodworking and with a rotating door of foster siblings, but he always had his sights set on more. At first, he thought it’d be professional soccer, and he spent a few years after graduation toiling away in the minor minor leagues before realizing that wouldn’t happen for him. After that, he spent some time backpacking—read: partying—around the world until he ran out of money and his parents wouldn’t foot the bill anymore. He became a teacher after coming home: it wasn’t something he ever dreamed of, but it was the first steady job he had, and a long time later, he’s still doing it. Teaching students how to make lopsided birdhouses isn’t a full-time courseload, so he picks up a ton in the way of extracurriculars: coaching boys soccer, building sets for the school plays, assistant coaching for any sport that needs it in the spring. And if anything breaks around school, he’s also a passable handyman.

WHERE YOU CAN FIND HIM: Covered in sawdust in staff meetings, constantly forgetting to take off his protective eyewear when he’s not in his classroom, schmoozing the principal to try and get better equipment for his class (and not at all because he wants to use it himself).

WHAT IT’S LIKE IN HIS CLASS: Twig has one rule in class: Safety First. Some people think he’s stern, some people think he’s boring, but he’s not fucking around when it comes to teenagers and power tools. He’s also not trying to tell his students anything about his personal life. The soccer team knows him best, because he can’t keep his competitive side under wraps. Among them, he’s known best for his rivalries with other area coaches, and how colorfully he can curse when they lose.

“MAYBE.” TWIG ASSUMES Harbor is proud of Robyn, and perhaps anyone else who knew the two of them would too, but Robyn isn’t so sure. He’d checked on them after the interviews, and they’ve spoken at length about many other things since, but not so much on that. Hard to put one another in even more danger than they already have, harder to talk about difficult things when the terror of the Games is fast approaching. They want so much to believe what Silver had told them, about the rebels and their plans, about the Tributes being saved, but they just don’t know. There’s no one they can talk to about it, not even Silver when they don’t know the specifics themself, not when they would have to keep finding safe places just to discuss it — not when there’s no time left.

“He says his plan is to just do what feels right in the moment. I didn’t press further. I didn’t give him suggestions,” Robyn adds afterward, looking down at nothing in particular, hands finding their way into the pockets of his trousers. “Impossible to predict how things will go for the Tributes anyway.” Caesar is nicer to the Tributes, always has been, but Harbor is different. He used to be one of them, and then they threw him out the second he started showing signs that maybe he wasn’t. Robyn wishes they could be up there with him, just to be with him every step of the way. Maybe hold his hand through it. 

Before they can stop themself, they continue. “I know this goes without saying Twig, but…” Robyn inhales sharply and moves closer to Twig, looking up at him. “Promise me you’ll do your best for him. I can only do so much, having Tributes of my own in another district. I know it seems impossible now, and I know I’m in no position to beg after how I’ve treated you the past years, but just…” He feels the heat begin to crawl up his face and neck, and he looks down again, away. “Please.”

--

Back on the train, he made Harbor a promise. I know you have many reasons not to believe me, but I will do everything I can to keep you safe. As long as you want me to. He made that promise, anguished but with his whole heart, uncomprehending that, however much the words meant to Twig, they couldn’t mean the same thing to Harbor. Because Harbor didn’t remember. Because he could never know how much those words cost him.

That promise feels arrogant to him now. And there’s no way for him to know if it was any comfort to Harbor at all, if Harbor thought of it a single second after Twig said it.

But he made that promise to Harbor still. Because of what Harbor was to him once; because of what Harbor is to him still. The person who holds the most of Twig’s love, and also most of Twig’s regrets. He didn’t need Robyn to beg him to do it, but here Robyn is, begging him. Laying another burden at his feet; reminding him that, no matter how many times he wished it, it’s never been just him and Harbor.

That, if he fails, it isn’t just him that will have to live with it.

He doesn’t know what Robyn thinks that he can do. The interviews are tonight, the Games tomorrow, and they’ve both seen how futile the search for sponsorships have been. They’ve seen, too, how little Harbor wants their help or their counsel. But, then, it’s rare that Robyn wants anything at all from him. It’s rarer, still, that Twig is in a position to give it. He can give Robyn this promise much more easily than he was ever able to give Robyn his grief.

Though maybe, in the end, Robyn got that anyway.

“I already promised him that I would,” he says. “The very first day on the train. I’m not wavering from that now. I will do everything I can for him, for as long as I can.”

He and Twig don’t exactly have the same history as he and Silver do. While the two of them had gotten caught up in the tangles of the Capitol, there was a lot of respect and care deep down, they had had the time to get to know one another for support. Here, with Twig, they don’t have it to the same degree, but he can still see the struggle in the other from his interview. They’re all cracking, or have shattered completely.

“I think things generally are a shit-show.” He sighs, moving to tuck his cane under his arm. “But I haven’t been able to check on you recently and for that I apologize. I wanted to make sure that since the reaping… you’ve been okay.” He lets out a long breath, then casts his face downwards.

The words given back to him, of his shift, don’t go unnoticed. He hopes for his sake, too, that he’s not completely fucking this up. He could be. He could wind up dead. But Slate has to hold onto his confidence. “I believe I’m doing the right thing for myself, and everyone around me. We’ll just hope that I’m able to get on the good side of the Capitol again.” It’s all the truth, Slate’s trying to hide his truth in his words, or by the things he’s not saying. Though he’s not sure he’ll have enough opportunity with Twig to make it clear, or if that’s the brightest idea. He’s still not certain where Twig fully stands.

--

For years, Twig has tried to be placid. To do what he needed to do, and let none of it touch him. He kept going after the Games. He kept going after they took Harbor from him—though, of course, he was the one who left Harbor first.

A year ago, of course he would have said he was okay. Despite everything he lost, and everything he gave up, he had no choice but to be okay. It seems almost unfair, then, that the Capitol giving back Harbor back in the way that they did is enough to undo him. To render all those years of compliance, of smiling in public and only showing the gritted teeth and the strain in private, completely meaningless.

A year ago, Slate was proud, too.

“I’m not,” he says, and it’s funny how little the admission costs him, now that he’s admitted to himself that he’s not fooling anyone anymore. “Look at us, neither of us are okay. I don’t think any of us are.”

He thinks of Robyn pleading with him. Dawn holding onto him in their suite, because he doesn’t have Slate to hold onto anymore. “If you let me give you some unasked for advice,” he says, unsure if he’s being wise or just being a hypocrite. “You can’t always save people, but you can steal the last moments you could have had with them. From them, and from yourself, too. And you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

To no surprise, the moment Twig meets the embrace, Dawn can feel the tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall. It hasn’t been that long since he’s had that sort of warmth from someone else––it was only yesterday, after all, that he and Slate said their vows and then their goodbyes, and he’s always been able to count on Ivory to share a softness she doesn’t often given anyone else with him––but it means something different coming from Twig, it always has. 

They’re so different in their ways of being, and Dawn knows it’s never been easy for Twig to be vulnerable, and yet it’s never stopped him from giving so much to Dawn. And it means even more, in a way, because of that, because it means over and over for years, even though they were forced back together by the Capitol after the brief time in Seven together, he’s chosen him, chosen to let him in, to give him warmth and comfort, understanding. The reminder he gave the Capitol last night, that they could have grown up as brothers if things had been different, wasn’t entirely true. They had a later start, a crueler start, but Twig is his brother. 

And he knows it’s more important than ever to hold onto that now for both of them, when it feels hard not to sink into despair, not to believe they’re utterly alone.

When he pulls back, he keeps his hands on Twig’s arms, strong, grounding, and gives him a sad smile at the truth to his words, tears still there, not quite falling yet. “Misery loves company,” he says, the same smile on his lips. “I trust you; I know it’s not what you mean, but you’ll always have my trust…I wish I could tell you I knew anything, either, but I’m in the same place. I wish I could change it, Twig, all of it. Give you more certainty, give you more time…”

He wishes he could talk honestly without risking all of their lives, wishes he could tell him that he could talk to Griffin for him, or Silver, make sure someone knows that Twig is on the right side of things, too, in case they don’t already. He wishes he knew what might help with Harbor, when he knows nothing is going to undo the past, or change the future. All he knows is that he won’t let Twig stop fighting now.

“But we can’t give up now, right? Or else what’s it all been for?”

--

It’s an unsettling feeling, this powerlessness. The realization that he’s spent decades of his life playing his cards all wrong.

By all appearances, he sided with the Capitol. He held onto his beloved status by being everything that a Victor was supposed to be, by doing everything they needed him to do. He thought it was his best option: to keep himself safe, to keep those around him safe, to let his parents live to see the end of their old age.

It had its price, and he paid it over and over again. He feels like a stranger in Seven, now, like he goes home and there’s nothing and no one left there for him. Against all odds, he found Harbor, and yet he still ripped his own heart out of his chest and walked away when he feared that Harbor was getting too dangerous, that he would upend the careful balance of Twig’s life: who he was in the public eye, and who he was behind closed doors that only a select few had ever been able to see.

He wanted to be safe. He wanted to have options. He saw the Capitol’s might and the Capitol’s cruelty, same as so many others, but it felt so vast that he couldn’t imagine standing against it and winning.

Call it a lack of imagination. Or maybe just a lack of fight, like he’d used up all of his in the Games.

And this is where it’s left him. The storm is coming, with or without him. All of those years spent trying to be a player, and he’s still just another pawn.

There are so many things he wishes he could have done differently. For himself, for Harbor, and for Dawn, too. That he could protect them all, but he’s not sure if he can protect anyone, anymore. “I made my own choices. I made my own mistakes. But it means everything, to know that I still have your trust,” he says, meeting Dawn’s shining eyes, though the sight of them makes his own sting. “As long as I have that, I haven’t lost everything.”

TWIG ISN’T WRONG, of course, and Robyn’s considered that too, knowing full well they’ll be needing those same Capitolites’ support anyway once the Games actually begin; it’s cruel. They want to make a comment about how grabbing and pushing Cyprian Stack against a table of refreshments certainly couldn’t have scored him points either, but then Twig smiles. It must have felt good, he surmises, and for a moment, Robyn looks at him, watches and vaguely searches for what Harbor must have seen in him once upon a time. They don’t mean that in a derogatory way, of course, like they may have in the past every time they chanced to see him. Now, they’re mostly curious. He’s so different from Harbor, so much more reserved and careful. In a way, Robyn might have been too, a long time ago, but they’re past the point of hiding now.

“It did feel good,” they say after a moment, aware that it may have hurt some of their chances but just as aware that they wouldn’t have taken it back. They let that sit for a moment, gaze lowering as they think about how much their words will, in fact, affect how people view Harbor, but from the very beginning, no one from the elite would’ve wanted to support him anyway. Stack made that clear the night of the reception. The learning process has been gradual, but if there’s something Harbor’s taught Robyn all these years — and Harbor’s taught them plenty — it’s the importance of remaining steadfast in your convictions.

Without turning their gaze back up at Twig, they continue. “Harbor doesn’t talk about what happened to him, and we rarely discuss things that could be upsetting when the Games are already so close.” Robyn wishes they would, sometimes. “But the night of the reception, he allowed it for a moment and asked me something.” Slowly, they raise their hand and begin to sign exactly what Harbor had asked them that night; simultaneously, he gives voice to it with words. “Are you angry enough yet?” Their mouth twists in a wry half-smile. “That’s what he said. I still think about it a lot.” 

--

Twig remembers Harbor’s anger. For a long time, he worried that he had done too much to encourage it, with the way he confided in Harbor, all the things they said to each other behind closed doors because Twig thought they both understood that they would have to stay behind closed doors.

But it appears as though he’s been giving himself too much credit: Harbor doesn’t need to remember Twig at all to remember his anger. Or to remember how his anger left his twin behind as it grew, even if it left Twig behind, too.

He’d thought that he’d long gotten used to this world’s unfairness. That he’d understood from a young age what his role and his lot in life was. But this still feels bitter. In the existence he scraped out for himself in the years since his Victory, Harbor was one thing that he wanted. One thing that he chose. But he ruined that. And while Harbor’s reappearance in the Quell had initially filled him with some kind of hope for reconciliation, for him to make amends, he sees all too clearly now that won’t be coming. Not for him.

But, then again, maybe that is what’s fair. Maybe that’s what he deserves, even if it’s not what he wants.

“It seems like you are, now. He must be proud.” Twig’s seen very little of that old fire now, though. To him, Harbor seems almost impenetrable. Stoic. He keeps his own counsel. It makes him feel even more useless: Harbor may need Dawn to dress him, but he doesn’t need Twig for anything. And with his own display on stage last night, Twig has no way of knowing if he helped Harbor or hindered him. Or maybe, more realistically, if nothing he did mattered at all. “He won’t tell me what he plans to do up there tonight. I don’t suppose he’s given you any insight?”

It’s painful being here. He wonders if he’s going to pass glance to Dawn, and what he could possibly be doing. It’s hard, near impossible, to stay away after spending as many moments together in these last few weeks. 

He steps in and his finger twists the ring on his finger. A reminder that they will find each other again. A husband waiting, and all that.

“I didn’t think so either.” He says truthfully, but he can’t ignore Twig for the sake of his own heartache. He just hopes Dawn doesn’t find himself in the same room as them. A very rare moment he’s thankful for not having sight.

“I just wanted to check in… you know, after last night.” Slate’s not even entirely sure how he wants to phrase this. How does he intend to keep up this fake image when making sure his friend is okay, and find out what he’s thinking, if he’s meant to be a Capitol ally?

--

For all that they have in common, he didn’t expect this kindness from Slate. Maybe that is why: neither of them have gotten as far as they have by being kind.

Or by needing anyone else’s kindness, either. For years, Twig has always been polished. Presentable. Even after Harbor’s disappearance, he tried to act unaffected, like if he played up their estrangement enough, the Capitol wouldn’t come after him next. Now, in the midst of the Quell, it’s hard to say if that worked, or if the Capitol had just been playing a longer game with him.

He gave that up last night. On stage, he was something he hated to be: vulnerable. Something he kept reserved, usually, for a very select group of people that Slate had never been among.

He and Slate probably have that in common as well. Not to mention the fact that, when it comes to showing their vulnerability, the person they trust the most is Dawn. Though that’s where they differ, now. Twig still has Dawn to turn to, to lean on. Slate seems to have given that up.

"It was a shitshow,” he says, pushing ahead when his attempts to sound dismissive fall flat. “But I pretty much expected it to be. You, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what you were doing up there. I hope that you do, and not just for your sake.”

Everything seems to be clouded in a haze of physical and emotional exhaustion, but he knows there’s no time for rest, even if rest was possible now, the day before the Games. The feeling of the rings he made himself––three of them, to disguise the meaning, although one is just slightly different––tethers him to the ground just as much as the need to make sure everyone around him keeps going, too. 

He looks up at the sound of Twig’s voice, gives him a sad little smile in greeting, can already feel the warm tears threatening to swell over just looking at him. There’s a deep need to be the solid, stable thing for him, when he knows how hard it is, when the questions Caesar asked him were ruthless, but there’s comfort in knowing Twig will understand that today it’s harder.

“Yeah, I am, too… I’m sorry,” he says, and he knows Twig will understand. An apology not for anything any of them have done, but for this place they’re stuck in, suffocating in, that it feels like there’s so very little they can do to claw their ways out of it. That it’s been like this for years, only now the Capitol has decided there’s no point in keeping the cruelty quiet. 

Before he can really think about it, he’s standing, and pulling Twig into an embrace, holding on tight. It’s a small thing, but he thinks it’s something they both need. At loose ends, it’s so much more than that, Dawn knows it all too well, and he knows how much pain Twig is in, for Harbor, for their past, for the future, for feeling like it’s all too late. He wishes something as simple as that closeness, that little bit of warmth could be enough to change things, to ease all of the pain.

“I wish I knew what to do.”

--

It isn’t really luck that he ended up with Dawn: if Dawn was going to be a stylist for any District, of course it would be District Seven. The Capitol can’t resist a story like that. But—it still feels something like luck to Twig, anyway. That Dawn came into his life, that they’ve spent these years in the Games together.

Twig isn’t warm. He can’t blame the Games for that—he never has been. He always was better with blades than he was with people. Not like his parents, who had open hearts and an open home for every stray in Seven that crossed their path. Not like Dawn, who reminds him of them as much as anyone ever has.

Dawn seems to have always extended that warmth to Twig easily. And it’s always made him want to be—better. Someone who could deserve it. And someone who could give some semblance of it back to Dawn, who could do for him even half of what he seems to do without a thought for everyone around him.

And so, as he sinks into the embrace Dawn gives him, he hopes that his arms around Dawn in return are of some small comfort as well.

“We’re a pretty miserable pair, aren’t we?” For all their differences, it seems they’ve shared a similar fate: Dawn lost Io, only to find Slate—and now, seemingly, lose him as well. Twig lost Harbor and found him again alive but changed, only to send him into the Games. It doesn’t seem fair, how Dawn can deserve so much better than him, and still get so much of the same. “I wish I knew anything about what’s going to happen next, but I’m in the dark. The Capitol doesn’t trust me anymore, but no one else does, either. Not even Harbor.”

THE TIMING OF it all is a bit too on the nose, with Robyn speaking to Dawn after Harbor this morning, and now to Twig, just before another visit in the afternoon, but they don’t mind. There’s much to discuss after all.

They have no business telling Harbor what to do or say for their interviews, and they don’t intend to prescribe anything; that isn’t why they’re here again. Despite having already spoken with him once today, there’s an urge, an itch to check in one more time before he’s locked away for interview preparations. It doesn’t change anything, their being here a second time, and perhaps Robyn might even wager to say that Harbor’s grown desensitized to their constant displays of care and affection ( clearly they hope this isn’t the case when it feels like they still have so much love to give and so much time to make up for ), but they can’t stand not coming to see him again. And they intend to do just that, of course, but they have enough time right now for Twig. They want to make time.

“Frankly, I’m surprised he even brought it up so openly,” Robyn says as they turn to face Twig. It’s a blunt way to put it, but he’s right. Little to no direct references had been made about the disappearances in and around the tower before that question, and it was as though for a moment there, Caesar had forgotten they were both sitting in front of a live audience with little to no real knowledge about the more intimate goings on here. To ask about something so secret and so vague, then to insinuate that Robyn could be next… They shake their head. “I probably shouldn’t have toed the line so much with that answer either, but. Well.” The smile that only very briefly makes an appearance on their face is bitter. “I couldn’t let him get away with talking about Harbor like that.”

--

To Twig, Harbor’s disappearance had felt like writing on the wall. He felt like if he played his cards right, he could maybe avoid the same fate. But, at the same time, he always thought that Robyn didn’t have the same luxury. Not when they shared the same name, the same face. The Gazels had always been loved as a pair. What use was only one of them?

If Robyn thought that, he never seemed to show it. They mourned Harbor visibly, openly, like they were just daring anyone to tell them that they shouldn’t. Like he didn’t care if they all called him a traitor, too. On stage with Caesar last night, they acted shocked at Caesar’s insinuations that they could meet a similar fate to their brother, when it shouldn’t have been shocking at all, because it had already happened to one of them. Funny, after the time he spent not seeing much of Harbor in Robyn besides the obvious, this is the thing that seems almost familiar. The same seeming belief in their own invulnerability, whether or not it’s bravado. He’d always thought it was Capitol privilege, but now it feels more like conviction. The belief that some things are dying for.

They still don’t know Robyn well enough to say. And they don’t think they know enough about anything at all anymore to know if all their own caution all these years was prudence, or just paranoia.

“I can’t imagine calling the entire Capitol incapable of love scored you many points,” he says. But he’s not censuring. Instead, he manages a small smile: “But it must have felt good.”