DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Part I)

[trinityofone]

A soft rain had just begun to fall when they called Sam's name. Sam stiffened, his narrow back going rigid; then he lurched forward a step. A step and only a step: Dean grabbed his shoulder and held him, forced him back. The crowd had already parted, leaving a path clear between the two Campbells and the platform. Ignoring the clutch of Sam's hands on his jacket, Dean lifted his head and looked down the open aisle. “I volunteer. I volunteer as tribute,” he said.

Later, Dean would know that Sam begged him not to go, that Ellen squeezed his hand, that Bobby patted him on the shoulder. Their actual words, though—their gestures, the expressions on their faces—they blurred into Dean's dizzying walk up to the platform, the mayor and the representative from the Capitol shaking his hand. The world only snapped into focus again when he heard the second name called. Staring wide-eyed at Jo as she pried herself away from Ellen's arms and walked shakily up the human corridor: that was when Dean knew that he wouldn't be coming home again.

In the seconds after taking Sam's place in the reaping, Dean may have half-considered the notion that he might defeat the twenty-three other tributes and win himself and his brother a place in Paradise. But now Jo was climbing up the platform steps, two years younger than Dean and with no one to stand for her. “We are honored to present the tributes from District 12!” the representative from the Capitol announced, and Dean felt her hand grip his, urge it aloft. On the other side of her, he caught a glimpse of Jo, trying anxiously to snag his attention. He nodded at her, as reassuring as he could be. I'll get you through this, he thought. His volunteering had a double purpose now. It kept Sam safe here at home, and earned him passage into the arena beside Jo. He'd make certain she won the Games, or he'd die trying.

No matter what, he would die by trying.

When the hosannahs were finished and the Capitol's soldiers hustled him and Jo away from the crowd and into custody, Dean didn't once look back.



They let him see Sam one last time before the shuttle left. He came alone, an apology on his lips. “Bobby tried to get a dispensation but they said family only. So, um. He told me to give you this.”

Dean was not entirely surprised when Sam leaned forward and cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. “Yup,” Dean said, forgetting for a moment not to laugh, “that sounds like him.”

“He's proud of you,” Sam said in a whisper.

Dean swallowed, hard. “You'll make me proud, too, won't you?”

The question didn't need to be answered. Dean was already so proud of his brother it made him feel kind of sick. Beneath his floppy fall of hair, Sam's eyes were shining—he was clearly fighting hard against himself, refusing to cry. Dean reached forward and ruffled his hair, then gave in and pulled him close. Dean knew Sam was growing up, but he still felt so small in Dean's arms. At thirteen, he wasn't even at the youngest age eligible for reaping, but he was still Dean's little brother. He would always be Dean's little brother, even if everything that had happened today meant Sam had to grow up without him.

“You tell Ellen I'll look after Jo, all right?” Dean said, forcing himself to pull back; he knew their time was almost up.

Sam nodded. But then his lip quavered and he said, “It's not fair! You and Jo both! It's not fair for the Capitol to—”

“Hey,” Dean cut him off sharply, shooting an anxious glance around the “green room” where he'd been left to wait. “What kind of talk is that?”

Sam mumbled something that sounded like, “True talk.” Dean overrode him: “You're the man of the house now”—both caution and praise.

“The only of the house, you mean.” Sam took a shuddering breath.

“It's up to you to keep Bobby in line,” Dean said pointedly, forcing a grin. “Don't let him boss you around. You tell him I put you in charge, all right?”

Sam rolled his eyes as dramatically as only a thirteen-year-old can. “Right.”

“Okay.” Dean took a step back, starting the painful process of putting the necessary distance between them. Sam caught his wrist.

“Wait,” he said. “I have something for you.” He curled his fingers under his collar and pulled out a tightly knotted cord.

“No, Sammy, that's yours.” Dean stared at the little gold charm that swung between them. Dean knew it by sight, by touch: the sharp little weight that dug into his collarbone whenever he hugged Sam close. He first saw it almost nine years ago, when Sam had been “helping” Bobby make it in his workshop as a present for Dad. But they'd come from the Capitol to collect Dad before Sam could finish his gift, and after a time Sam had slowly graduated from carrying it everywhere in his fist to wearing it around his neck. It was practically a part of him.

“You're allowed to take a token into the arena,” Sam said. “This can be your token.” He pushed it at Dean's hand. “I want you to have it. Please.”

Like Dean would refuse Sam anything. “Okay. If you're sure,” he said.

Sam nodded, then watched carefully until Dean lowered the necklace over his head and let the charm fall with a soft thud against his chest.

The door opened behind Sam and Dean knew it was time. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he just managed a “Thank you” and a final nod, urging Sam to go with the guards without having to be physically removed. Sam kept his head held high and made it all the way to the door before he broke. Dean heard Sam shout, “Dean!” before the door slammed closed on his brother, and his old life, forever.



Dean had thought himself resigned, but as the shuttle lifted off, he felt a slippery worm of panic uncoil in his gut. “Hey,” Jo said from next to him. “Are you all right?”

He glanced over at her—her eyes were rimmed red and her cheeks looked blotchy from crying, but she seemed more composed, now, than he felt. She also looked suddenly, shockingly young. Yesterday, he'd been happy to duck Ellen's glares and flirt harmlessly with her—his almost-cousin who was becoming a woman, who was growing up. But today she looked like a child: still round-faced, apple-cheeked, her sweeping blonde hair not long out of pigtails. Had the reaping turned him into an old man? Intellectually, Dean knew that he himself was not much older than her, but all at once it felt like a lot. At seventeen, he'd be one of—if not the—oldest tribute in the Games. If Sam had been reaped not this year but next, Dean wouldn't have been allowed to stand for him at all.

Well. Good timing then.

“I'm fine,” Dean said, clutching the edge of the seat and taking a deep breath. “I just don't like flying.”

Jo didn't challenge him—at least not on that. Her eyes were clearly drawn to the gold charm pressed against his chest. “Sam gave that to you?” she asked.

Dean nodded.

“Mom gave me her pin,” Jo said, fiddling with the small silver object nestled against her collar. Dean had seen the pin before: a tiny disc depicting a bird with large, extravagant wings spread in flight. “Do you think...” Jo bit her lip, then started over. “Do you think they really have birds like this in Paradise?”

Dean stopped himself before he could say, They sure don't have them in New Eden. “I don't know,” he said instead, taking another measured breath. Then he turned and looked at her with a promise in his eyes: “But I bet you'll find out.”



The house—the mansion, Dean supposed, although until now he was only familiar with the word through Bobby's books—that the tributes were all brought to was architecturally very similar to the room where he'd had to say goodbye to Sam. The walls were impossibly white and edged with gold; the furniture was more of that same spindly stuff that made Dean nervous, like he might break a chair just by sitting his butt down in it. He and Jo were led up to a pair of chambers with a shared “sitting room” between them; each room was by itself bigger than Dean's whole house. He left Jo bouncing from her big, regal bed to the long, low sofa and shut the door to his own room. The other tributes were likely close by. Dean was not anxious to meet them.

To his relief, dinner that night was brought to their rooms. And what a dinner! There were fresh vegetables and fruits Dean had never seen before, and single pieces of meat bigger than what he was likely to eat in a month. It wasn't squirrel or chicken or rabbit, either, but something decadently fatty and rich. Dimly, Dean became aware that he and Jo were both emitting moans and groans, smacking their lips like animals. The staff made no comment, however. The pair of them stood against the wall by the door, staring off into the middle distance. Almost as if they couldn't see anything at all.

It might have killed Dean's appetite, but with food like this in front of him, nothing could.

When they woke him the next morning, he felt heavy and sluggish, but he still couldn't say he regretted it—nor did it stop him from attacking breakfast with similar gusto. Fresh berries! Sausages! Some sort of sweet syrup to pour over the porridge and pancakes—and hell, the sausages and berries, too. “Oh,” said Jo at one point, her mouth impossibly full. “I wish that Mom—”

She stopped; for a moment they both stopped. When he wasn't chewing, it was dangerously quiet in Dean's head.

They didn't speak for the rest of the meal.



After breakfast, Dean and Jo were separated, each taken to be made ready for the introductions and interviews that afternoon. Dean knew that he'd be seeing Jo again in a couple of hours—that she was the safest, at least for right now, that she had ever been in her life. It still made him nervous, and he was distracted and twitchy the entire time he was being poked and prodded and made-up and dressed. Dean knew he should feel humiliated—he was not some little girl's cornhusk doll—but could barely bother. He enjoyed the hairdresser’s unsatisfied frown: “You're not really giving us much to work with.” They would have had a lot of fun with Sam, Dean thought, smirking a little. Tough.

When whoever was in charge decided that Dean looked sufficiently ridiculous, he was reunited with Jo and the two of them found themselves herded into a little open-air chariot. Dean started: apparently, it had been someone's bright idea to shove Jo into a tight red dress that was much too mature for her. He blushed and glanced away. Theirs was the last carriage in line, so he only had the backs of the two tributes from District 11 to look at. It was a boy and a girl, of course, both of whom looked about fifteen or sixteen. The boy had his arm around the girl's shoulder: as Dean watched he leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and her face turned up toward his in a smile. Dean was glad when the carriages started up and gave him some new scenery to look at.

Like the food, the architecture of District 1 was a feast. The buildings were tall and vast and shining. They clung nobly to the sides of the hills and spilled like a gleaming marble waterfall down to the center of the Capitol, up whose main avenue the parade of tributes was being led. It was a lot to take in: on several occasions he heard Jo gasp, and he himself may have sucked in some heavy breaths. They could see people lining up on either side of the road to watch them pass: stoic faces watching from windows, orderly queues of citizens taking their turns to come to the front of the crowd and look out. No one pushed or jostled one another. They passed through the city in polite silence.

“Do you think your dad...?” Jo whispered at one point.

Dean said, “Shh.”

The chariots came to a stop in a broad arc before the Citadel. Attendants and various Capitol representatives of higher standing—Dean recognized the woman who had performed District 12's reaping—led the tributes onto a vast, elevated stage. There were twelve seats arranged in a curve on each side, and an additional two in the middle. Dean had watched the Games every year of his life—it was mandatory—so at least he had a passing familiarity with this part. Yet despite the danger of being eligible for reaping, every year for the past five...in his heart of hearts, had he ever really expected that it would be him, up here?

As usual, the tributes were arranged by district, so once again he and Jo were on the far end. Dean could see her stretching her neck, trying to get a look at their competitors. Dean had no desire to look at all. If at all possible, he'd prefer to be rendered entirely deaf for the duration of these interviews.

The crowd rose and issued a set of perfectly-timed hosannas, and in an eyeblink the Prophet appeared at the center of the stage. The Prophet had always been a puzzle to Dean: unlike everything else in the Capitol, of the Capitol, he wasn't polished, wasn't perfect. Some of the older people in Dean's district complained that the interview segment of the Games had been better under the auspices of the last Prophet, but Dean had to agree with his mom. “I like how human he is,” she had said once—one of the few comments he could remember her making about the Games. Mandatory or not, Dean's mother had always seemed to find a way of watching less of the festivities than most.

For the most part, Dean was glad she wasn't going to have to watch him take part in them now.

The Prophet waved to the crowd. Up close, Dean could see what, back home, he had gotten glimpses of on the screens: the motion was slightly awkward, the smile on the Prophet's face sort of weirdly forced. He did everything that was required of him, though: welcomed them all to the annual Games, gave a brief speech about sacrifice and the covenant the Games represented, then ambled back to one of the two center seats. The first tribute, a slim, dark-haired boy from District 1, crossed the stage and sat beside him. The interviews began in earnest, but Dean did the best he could to tune them out.

He caught bits and pieces, however: inevitably, inescapably. The girl from District 2 who spent her entire interview close to tears. The scarily intense guy from District 7 who revealed that his sister had been a tribute in the Games two years before, and that he planned to win to avenge her. The girl from District 8 who flirted with the Prophet shamelessly and had Dean rolling his eyes—until she was stopped on the way back to her seat and it became apparent that she had somehow lifted the Prophet's notecards. And the couple from District 11, the ones Dean had seen in the carriage in front of him and Jo. They really were a couple: “We just got married,” the girl, Tamara, announced, smiling radiantly, flashing the small silver band of her token, her wedding ring. “Despite everything,” said her husband, Isaac, “we feel like we've been blessed by cherubs.”

It was a hard act to follow. Dean didn't really care about what he knew he was supposed to be courting with these interviews: people's prayers, a little extra help and power and luck in the arena. He felt numb, dead inside, and he didn't care what the people of the Capitol, what all of New Eden, might think of him. But he couldn't go to center stage scowling. Sam was watching. Sam would see.

He straightened his shoulders, held his head high, forced a grin. “I'm here for my brother,” he confirmed, when the Prophet pointed out that he was the only tribute this year who had not himself been reaped, but was standing for someone else. “And I'm here for Jo,” he added, finding it hard not to be honest under the weight of the Prophet's stare—though up close his twitching was even more visible, and he smelled like the still Ellen thought he didn't know she kept in the basement.

It dawned on Dean, sudden and fast, that his face was everywhere just now, across all of New Eden: everyone he'd ever known and everyone he could ever possibly hope to meet was watching him right this minute, perhaps hearing evidence of the noticeable lump in his throat. He forced his grin wider. “And for those little meat sandwich things they served at dinner—have you ever tried one of those? Man. I can see why we don't have those out in District 12. They're like sin in the making.”

The crowd had already been maintaining a respectful silence, outside of appropriately-timed hosannas, but now Dean would swear you could hear a pin drop. The girl from District 8 leaned forward and winked at him.

“Of course,” Dean heard himself say—surprised at himself, but also sort of pleased; after all, what did he have to lose? “We don't have much of anything in District 12...”

Dean grinned and grinned as the Prophet coughed and quickly changed the subject.

The interview did not continue for much longer after that. Jo raised an eyebrow at him as they passed each other on the way to and from their seats; she also brushed her fingers, gently, across the skin of his wrist.

Jo's interview was much more traditional than Dean's, but Dean could not have been prouder of her, or more honored to be in her company. She came off as strong, but not cocky; mature, but still girlish. She made fun of the dress they had stuck her in: “I hope they give me something else to wear in the arena. Or at least put all the boys in these, too.” Dean watched her, smiling bravely in that skimpy red thing, and thought that if that was the worst surprise planned for them, they should all consider themselves lucky.

After Jo returned to her seat, the Prophet thanked them all, gave a short closing speech, and then vanished. Dean stared at the Prophet's face in the moment before he was spirited away. He wondered if he already knew: which of them would be the first to fall; how many of the children on this stage would die by the end of the first day.

It was almost all Dean could think about as they were whisked back to the mansion and conveyed, all twenty-four of them, to a large room with a long table at its center. The table was overflowing with food. Most of the tributes didn't hesitate, but descended on the bounty like a plague of locusts. Dean couldn't stop seeing everyone around him as a room full of walking corpses, but even he didn't hesitate for long.

Dean heaped a plate with food, including those meat sandwiches he'd liked so much, and retreated to a corner. He was sitting there, stuffing his face, when Jo tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “Let's mingle.”

“Mingle?”

She nodded. “We should get to know everybody.”

Dean wiped sauce off his face and stared at her. “Why would we want to do that?” he hissed.

The careful smile she'd been wearing dropped off Jo's face. “Know thy enemy, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. He kept telling himself that in the arena, he was going to protect Jo, that his one job would be to look out for Jo. But here she was, already looking out for both of them while he hid in the corner. He felt ashamed.

He took a deep breath and bobbed his head. “Yeah, okay.”

Jo took the plate out of his hand and left it on the seat he'd been using, then took Dean by the elbow and guided him across the room to where a pretty, smokey-eyed girl was waiting. “Pamela,” Jo said, “this is Dean. Who I was telling you about.”

The look Pamela gave him was frankly terrifying coming from a fourteen-year-old. “You weren't exaggerating.”

Dean shot Jo a startled look. Jo rolled her eyes, seemingly content to ignore them both. “Pamela's from District 1,” she said, elbowing him gently.

He'd been paying more attention during the interviews than he'd thought: “Right, you're the psychic,” he said. Then before he could stop himself: “Does that mean...”

Pamela rolled her eyes just like Jo did—like teenage girls everywhere did, it seemed. “That I know who's gonna win? Of course not. If I were Prophet material I wouldn't be here, would I?” Her breath hitched a little between the last two words, but that was all: he had to give her credit.

“Tough break,” he said. He knew as well as—or maybe better than—anyone how difficult it was to get one of the dispensations that removed your name from the reaping. Only those with truly irreplaceable Talents, or who carried very special bloodlines, could earn them. In seventeen years, Dean had only met one person who had.

He didn't want to think about that, though. Better to try to follow Jo's lead: he smiled at Pamela. “Met anyone else particularly interesting?”

She pursed her lips and looked around the room. “Well, Tamara and Isaac are both really nice, but you don't have to be psychic to know that's not gonna end well.”

“What do you mean?” Dean said—though the last thing he needed was to have it spelled out for him.

Pamela stated the obvious for him anyway. “At best, one of them's gonna have to sacrifice him or herself for the other. Still,” she mused, “maybe they were smart, getting married. At least that means that before they die, they'll get to—” And here her worldly bravado abruptly failed her. “You know,” she finished, sounding much more her age. “Do it.”

“Uh...” said Dean.

“What about the boy from your district?” Jo asked, cuddling close to Pamela as if the two of them had known each other all their lives and were best friends. “He's kind of cute.”

“Oh, Jimmy?” said Pamela, distractedly. “Yeah, I guess. I don't really know him.” She glanced back and forth between Jo and Dean. “District 1's a lot bigger than District 12, I guess.”

Jo nodded, accepted this, moved on. “What about that guy?” She pointed to a scruffy kid who was methodically working his way through a plate of food and seemingly half paying attention to the small, dark-haired girl standing next to him.

Pamela shrugged. “Want to go talk to him?”

“Sure!” Jo winked at Dean. Pausing to snag another sandwich from the table, Dean trailed after them.

The other two tributes had just introduced themselves as Andy and Ava, District 3, when a voice cut silkily through the noise. “Pardon the interruption, kids.”

Dean turned. Everyone in the room, he knew without looking, turned. An unremarkable-looking man in a formal black suit stood in the center of the room, at the head of the long table. There was not a single individual thing that under normal circumstances would have made Dean give him a second glance, but all the little details added up to something he couldn't ignore. From his place between Pamela and Jo, Dean tensed. He knew what this man was.

The man in the suit was glancing around at them, a parody of a smile on his face. His eyes raked over the picked-over display of food on the table. “So nice to see you've all had a good graze,” he said, cheerily. “Now, however, it's time to get down to business! As I'm sure some of you are slowly realizing, I'm the single most important person any of you have ever met in your precious young lives.” His voice danced playfully on the edge of sarcasm. “I am your Gamemaster,” the man said. “But we're all friends here, right? So why don't you just go ahead and call me Zachariah.”

Dean thought for sure that nobody was going to say anything; he certainly didn't plan to. But into the silence, a voice broke, practically purring: “Hi, there, Zach.” Dean glanced over: it was a girl with choppy blonde hair and a smirk—District 5, he thought. Know thy enemy. Jo was right: now they both knew to watch out for that one.

“Charming,” Zachariah said, his grin not faltering. He straightened up, rubbed his hands together briskly. “Now, I don't want to take up too much of your time,” he continued. “I'm sure you'll find that the friendships you make in this room will last...well. The rest of your lives. But just a few quick little reminders. Tomorrow morning you'll all be transported to a new, specially chosen arena. I designed it myself, just for you! And as I'm sure you'll discover once you get there, there are a lot of surprises in store. So make sure not to step out of your individual protective circles until you hear the signal that Gameplay has officially begun, or you won't get to enjoy them all! Also, remember that all of you are a team—don't be afraid to work together! Unfortunately, though, folks, only one of you can make it to Paradise. But I believe in all of you, I truly do. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.”

Zachariah glanced around the room, carefully taking the time, it seemed, to look each and every one of them in the eye. He smiled, folded his hands behind his back. “So that's simple enough, huh? Any questions?”

Dean didn't expect anyone to say anything this time, either. At most, maybe the creepy blonde girl would make another lewd remark. So he was doubly surprised when it was a quiet, but resonant male voice that broke the silence. “You enjoy this, don't you?”

Zachariah's expression darkened momentarily. Dean followed his narrowed gaze to the other side of the room. The boy from District 1 stood by himself, looking solemn but unafraid. He met the intensity of the Gamemaster's stare with ease.

“Jimmy, is it?” Zachariah said, scratching at his temple. “From our very own Capitol, I believe. Hmm. Well, to answer your question, Jimmy, I do enjoy doing my duty. But even if I didn't, I would do it anyway. It's hardly my place to question things. Don't you think?”

They stared at each other for another moment. Dean found he was strangely disappointed when Jimmy eventually glanced down, looked away.

“All right!” said Zachariah, perky again. “I leave you all to wish each other night-night and get yourselves tucked in. Sweet dreams, everyone!”

He slipped away. Silent servants swept in after him, coaxing or prodding everyone back up to their rooms. It felt very close now, all of a sudden. Almost upon them: like a great, foul-mouthed beast breathing down their necks. From the expressions on the other tributes' faces, they'd all begun to hear vast, invisible clocks tick-tick-ticking down.

Beside Dean, Jo looked rattled; she was having a hard time hiding it. The door to their rooms closed softly behind them, and in the silence she turned to him, her eyes wide, a quiver to her lip. “This could be our last night alive,” she said. “Dean...”

Images collided in Dean's brain: Isaac and Tamara, leaning on each other; Pamela whispering, Do it; Lisa and Cassie, back home, how easy it had been to exchange little looks, small touches, when they all knew it didn't, couldn't mean anything. Then: his mom and dad, on some distant, faintly remembered morning, kissing in front of the little stove, curling their fingers together. And Jo, a little girl, running beside him through the woods, watching as he checked his traps, getting holes in her clothes that Ellen yelled at him for.

He loved her. Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo: these were the people that he loved, that he would die to protect. His family.

She had taken his hand, curled her slim fingers around his wrist. She looked him in the eye. “Dean,” she whispered. “Please.”

He shook his head, drew back a little if not all the way. “Jo, I can't. You're like a sister to me, I—”

Her eyes went suddenly wide. She let go of him, her hand leaping to her mouth. “Wait, you thought— No! No no no no no, Dean! Dean.” She took his hand again, twined her fingers through his as he stood there, staring. “I just don't want to be alone.”

“Oh,” he said. Then he shook his shoulders, straightened them. “I was just saying, you know—only if you don't snore.”

“I don't snore,” she told him, mock offended.

“That's not what I hear...”

He followed her into her room, watched her sprawl across the big white bed and then crawled up awkwardly beside her. The bed was so large that they could lie side by side on the pair of fluffy white pillows and not even come close to touching. But that was hardly the point of this. After a moment's adjustment, Dean gave her the nod and Jo inched closer, nestling her head against his collar bone. Dean had held Sam just this way, he thought: after their father was taken, the night their mother died.

“Don't do anything stupid tomorrow,” Jo whispered, her breathing slowing against his neck. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” Dean said. He didn't think for a second that there was anything stupid about saving her, about dying so that she and Sam could live. He was at peace about it.

Peaceful enough that he slept through the night, him and Jo: curled together so tightly it seemed like nothing could tear them apart.



The morning came too quickly; of course it did. Dean and Jo were woken, given plain work pants and drab t-shirts, and told to put them on. “I'm glad they didn't take your suggestion about the dresses,” Dean called over his shoulder as he was escorted, with only the mildest of reactions, back to his own room. He put on the clothes quickly, because there was nothing else for him to do.

He expected they'd be taken down to the carriages next, driven to another shuttle and from there to the arena. But instead Dean finished dressing only to turn around and find Zachariah standing there. The Gamemaster grinned. “Dean Campbell, District 12,” he announced, like this information might be new to Dean. “Let the Games begin!”

Then before Dean could speak a single word, the Gamemaster reached forward and tapped him lightly on the forehead.

Suddenly Dean was somewhere else.

He lurched slightly in place before catching himself: the blood-red sigils that circled his feet gave him no room for such carelessness. Doing his best to calm his breathing, Dean straightened up and looked around him. Unlike last year, when the Games had taken place in a densely-wooded forest, or the year before, when they had been conducted on a small island, this arena appeared to be a town. A long-abandoned town: the wooden buildings that surrounded him looked rundown to the point of decomposition. Window frames were lined with spikes of shattered glass; the buildings' walls were patchy, their boards splintered and warped. An old windmill loomed over the far end of the square, its arms creaking and turning, even though the air felt stagnant and still, without a hint of a breeze.

The square itself was mapped out with a ring of twenty-four circles identical to the one on which Dean was standing, and when Dean glanced back down, he saw that other stunned, wide-eyed tributes had appeared inside them. A few yards away, closest to Dean on his left, the tall male tribute from District 2 stood with shoulders stiff, like he was waiting at attention. Two was a district of soldiers, Dean remembered. He would veer away from his left when the signal came, he decided; although no tribute had yet appeared in the circle to his right, so for all he knew he could be running toward something worse.

Forget the other tributes: he'd run straight to Jo once the Games began. He could see her now, directly across the ring from him, her chest heaving but her head held high. They made eye contact and Dean felt a small bubble of relief rise effervescent in his chest. They could do this. He could: he could run straight to her and—

The air in the center of the ring shimmered, mutated, took shape. Suddenly, where there had once been a patch of empty, dusty ground, there was a massive pile of weapons. Dean could see knives of varying lengths, swords, spears, a bow and a quiver of arrows; deadly instruments whose names he didn't know, or that he'd only ever seen referenced in Bobby's books. He knew without looking that the eyes of every tribute in the ring were on them, too: assessing them with anticipation or with fear. Across the circle, he could see Jo biting her lip. He wanted to scream at her: It's not worth it; it's going to be a bloodbath for anyone who goes to the center of the circle. Run and hide; I'll get us some protection and find you... But the circles of sigils on which they all stood, he knew from previous years, were noise-sealed. All Dean could do was shake his head, hope Jo saw him and understood.

What was taking so long? Dean clenched his fists at his sides. All the tributes were here now, but the signal hadn't come. Was the Gamemaster trying to see if any of them would die merely from anticipation? Dean told himself he was fine, he was calm and in control, but his heart was racing in his chest. Let's just get this over with!

A sudden movement at his side drew his eyes. The soldier from District 2 had his mouth open, was screaming something wordlessly. Dean followed his gaze across the ring just in time to see the girl in the spot next to Jo raise her face to the sky before deliberately stepping beyond the circle of sigils and onto the open ground.

Her feet never even touched down. A crackle sounded across the silent square and the girl erupted into flames. One second she was a column of screaming fire; the next she was ash.

Lily. That had been her name. Dean remembered her from the interviews, teary-eyed and shaky-voiced through every one of the Prophet's questions. Just yesterday, Dean had watched her stumble back across the stage to her seat next to the soldier boy, who was now standing next to Dean with shock cracking briefly across his otherwise stony features. And now she was dead.

The signal sounded, a horn blowing long and low out of nowhere and everywhere. It didn't come as the relief it might have a few minutes ago. The sigils dissolved at Dean's feet, and he tensed, shook himself. He had to get his head in the game. He had to move.

He took off toward the center of the ring, the cache of weapons. Fortunately, most of the other tributes seemed shaken, as well—not as fast off the block as they might have been. Dean tore forward, trying to keep an eye on the people closing in on each side: soldier-boy and a tiny pigtailed blonde, whom Dean remembered only as the youngest tribute in the games. Her small legs were pumping furiously, determinedly; Dean tried to imagine reaching the weapons first and turning one on her, but even as a fantasy, he couldn't see it through.

There were twenty-three of them now. Twenty-one tributes between Jo and Paradise.

Dean ducked low as he reached the cache, snatching up the bow and arrows with one hand, fumbling with the hilt of a knife with the other. Weapons in hand, he rose from his crouch and attempted to spot Jo. Before he could see anything, though, someone crashed into him from the side. Dean caught a glimpse of the male tribute from District 4's wild, red eyes before he flailed out with his elbow, catching the kid in the throat. Only then did Dean notice the axe blade embedded in the ground right next to his head.

Shuddering, Dean pulled himself back to a crouch. It was chaos all around him: tributes attempting to snatch weapons and then flee; others attacking here and now, snatching up a spear and driving it immediately into the ribs of the person beside them. Dean looked around for Jo, but he couldn't see her anywhere. Maybe she had understood him: had run for safety, and was now waiting for Dean to find her. The red-eyed, red-haired kid was still gurgling at Dean's feet, his fingers groping along the ground for the handle of the axe. Dean clutched his knife in his sweaty hand. Either way, he had to get out of here. He'd be no good to Jo dead.

Not yet, anyway.

He kicked the axe away and took off toward the nearest building. He was afraid to go inside—that was a good way to get cornered—but it didn't seem much safer out in this free-for-all. Pausing to peek around the corners, he snuck to the back of the structure, then leaned against the rough wooden wall and tried to regroup.

He'd only been there a few seconds when he heard the scuff of someone's boot on the sandy ground. He looked up, tensing, and once again, just barely avoided the flash of an axe blade coming toward his face. The blade skidded across the wall, sending splinters flying into the air. Dean dropped his bow, stumbling back. The red-haired kid recovered from his strike and lurched toward Dean again: his eyes were runny with tears, his nose streaming snot, but he seemed determined to finish Dean off. He swung again, wild. “Hey,” Dean panted, holding up one palm while keeping the other gripped tightly around his knife. “You don't have to do this. We don't have to—”

“Yes, we do,” the other tribute spat, half-hiss, half-whine. “We don't have a choice!”

Before Dean could think of a suitable response, the kid swung his axe again. This time Dean stepped toward the blow; moving almost without thought, he grabbed the short handle and shoved. He followed his fellow tribute as the red-haired kid's back connected with the wall; he followed with his knife-hand, too: stabbing upward and letting out a gasp when he felt pressure on the blade, felt it sink in, sharp edge parting the soft skin and stringy muscle it came in contact with. Briefly, Dean's mind flashed to killing rabbits, the occasional deer; he twisted the knife, jerked it free. His grip on the axe became easier to maintain.

The red-haired kid—he was probably fourteen or fifteen, Jo's age—coughed, his lips suddenly as red as his hair, as his increasingly vacant eyes. Even without Dean pressing him there, he seemed glued to the wall now, leaning against it. He gurgled, slowly sinking down.

Dean wanted to turn away. But he had to look. He had to be sure: and besides, he figured he owed it to, to...

The other tribute was staring back at Dean, his gaze unwavering even as it narrowed. He didn't say, Told you—or anything at all. He didn't have to.

Dean wiped clean his bloodied blade and tried to think. His mind wouldn't focus, however. He kept picturing Sam, watching the Games back home, Bobby and Ellen and likely many others around him. Had they seen, had Sam seen? Not yet, Dean decided: the feed was probably still focused on the chaos at the weapons cache. But that night, when they did the daily recap: they would definitely show Dean's fight with the red-haired tribute then. And Sam would see.

Dean swallowed heavily. There was nothing he could do; he had to tell himself that Sam would know Dean was only doing this, fighting and killing—and soon, dying—so that Sam himself didn't have to. Under these circumstances, Sam would have to forgive him. Wouldn't he?

The dead kid in front of Dean had been right: none of them had a choice.

But there was still something Dean could do, and that was find Jo. But first he had to get out of here: he was far too close to the center of town, and the other tributes fighting over the cache would have to leave soon, if they hadn't already. Dean tucked his bow and quiver over his shoulder, adjusted his grip on the knife. He was conflicted about what to do with the axe: all three weapons together seemed cumbersome. And yet, he didn't want to leave it for someone else to use against him. After a few seconds' thought, he put his boot down on the axe's handle just below the head, then jerked the wooden handle up until it snapped under his weight. The blade was still sharp, of course, but it would be much harder to use like this. As an added precaution, Dean kicked some dirt over it.

The town where the Gamemaster had dropped them wasn't much more than a small cluster of buildings lining the square and the weapons cache. In front of him lay a small wooded rise. Dean thought about the days, the weeks, the years that he and Jo had spent navigating terrain just like that, feigning play and hunting food for their families on the sly. That's where she would head, he knew with sudden certainty. He tightened his grip on his weapons and headed into the trees, trying to pretend he couldn't feel bloodshot eyes beating into his back.

Dean was sure-footed in the woods, soft on his feet. He'd always been attuned to the sounds of the forest, able to detect the presence of animals while keeping his own presence hidden from them. He should be in his element here, but he felt twitchy and paranoid, overreacting to the slightest noise. If he wasn't careful, he'd give himself away.

He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was already watching him, though. Creeping quietly over the carpet of fallen leaves, he passed from narrow trunk to narrow trunk, ducking under branches and casting nervous glances over his shoulder. The air still felt stagnant and hot, but Dean would swear he felt a brief breeze like someone's cold breath on the back of his neck. He couldn't stop himself from touching a hand to the flushed skin: of course there was nothing there.

He focused his gaze forward again and now someone was.

It was a girl. Dean didn't recognize her as one of his fellow tributes, all of whose faces he was far too well acquainted with. In fact, there was something decidedly off about her, above and beyond her presence here. Instead of a shirt and pants, she was wearing a long grey dress. Her skin, too, had a greyish tinge to it. And her eyes...

They fixed on him, suddenly, an intense, penetrating stare. Then the girl—her whole body flickered, and then she was gone.

Dean stared at the spot where she had been for several seconds, too stunned to move. Then something cold as ice seized him by the back of the neck and lifted him up. Dean kicked out with his feet, flailed out with his knife, but none of it seemed to have any effect. He was shaken like a ragdoll, then hurled across the forest, his head escaping a sharp introduction to a tree trunk by only a fraction of an inch.

He lay in the moldering leaves, panting. The air in front of him seemed to jump and skip, and then the girl was leaning over him, her face twisted into a horrific sneering mask. Dean realized with growing horror that he'd dropped his knife at some point in the process of being tossed like a bale of hay; worse, he seemed to have landed on his bow when he fell, snapping it in half. Desperately, he scrambled to pull an arrow from his quiver, brandishing it in front of him like the world’s saddest spear.

The girl advanced, completely unafraid. Her outline flickered and blurred around the edges, but Dean knew by now that those reaching fingers were all too solid.

Then, with an impossible, inhuman shriek, they evaporated, the girl vanishing as if she'd been torn right out of the air. Dean let out a shocky breath and stared through the place she'd been. The male tribute from District 1 was standing in front of a tree a few yards away from him, pulling red-stained fingers away from the bark, which had a still-wet pattern of sigils drawn upon it. Dean's tongue stuttered in his mouth. “What— How did you—”

“That was a spirit. I don't like them.”

He looked both irritated and calm, or perhaps somehow resigned to his irritation. Dean remembered him—Jimmy, a name that didn't fit all—facing down Zachariah in the banquet hall. He was skinny as a rail and looked completely unimposing, but Dean knew without a doubt that he was one to watch out for.

But now he just spat “A what?” and struggled to his feet.

“A spirit,” Jimmy said, turning his back like he didn't care that Dean had a knife (somewhere). “A soul trapped between this world and the next. One of Zachariah's little 'surprises.'”

“How can—” Dean started, feeling overwhelmed by all the questions he wanted to ask—foremost among them needing to be, Are you going to try to kill me anytime soon? But then he heard a scream, a much more human scream. “Jo,” he breathed, dropping down on his knees again, scrambling among the fallen leaves for his fallen knife. The second his hand closed around the hilt, he was up and running.

Jimmy didn't follow, and Dean didn't much care.

He tore through the forest, as careless as he had recently been careful. Part of his brain tried to remind him that he didn't know what he was running into: he didn't even really know that it was Jo who was in trouble. But at some point in between stabbing someone in the chest and being attacked by a spirit, he'd let a tense animal panic work its way under his skin. Careful, rational thought had gone out the window.

It was a sloppy, irrational creature that followed a feminine scream into a clearing only to find the tribute who'd flirted with Zachariah standing by herself, crying bloody murder at nothing. She stopped as soon as she saw him, the scream cutting off and turning itself into a lazy yawn. She grinned at him, a mean, crinkle-nosed smile that made Dean's blood turn to ice. “Well, look at you. Seems we caught ourselves a hero, Tom.”

Dean's shoulder exploded. He fell to the ground, a cry of pain erupting from his throat. He rolled onto his back and tried to scoot away. The other tribute from District 5 loomed over him, thwacking a cudgel of some kind against his palm. Then he was striking out again, aiming at Dean's head. Dean attempted the same move he had made with the axe, darting up to meet the weapon, but his body wasn't moving right and he took another blow to the chest, tumbling back. He tried to get right back up again, but his lungs refused to take in enough air.

The girl was circling him, tisking to herself. “This is sort of sad,” she said. “I mean, you almost made it too easy. I'm not sure if I'm going to find this very satisfying.”

“I'm satisfied,” Tom said. He jabbed his boot into Dean's stomach.

For a second Dean was outside himself. He could see the way this would look, how it would look to Sam, back home, watching it, having to watch as his older brother lay curled on the ground, getting kicked to death. He imagined Sam watching, having this be the last image of Dean he'd see.

Something in him shorted out. Maybe it almost helped that he hurt so bad, because the pain of the cudgel against his already beaten shoulder barely registered when he lunged into it. He didn't try to grab it this time, but concentrated on throwing himself past it, past Tom entirely. He focused on the girl, reaching for her, howling. Somehow he managed to hook his arm around her throat, jerking her down to the ground with him. She clawed at him and bit, but he held on tightly, squeezing his bicep against her jugular. She was hurting him but he was already hurt. There was nothing to be gained by letting go.

He had an advantage of size and of weight: she was tiny and skinny, sixteen years old with a figure like a ten-year-old boy. His eyes on Tom, Dean dragged her backward and squeezed, squeezed and dragged her back. “I'll kill her,” he said. “Drop the weapon or I'll kill her.”

Seconds passed. They felt like hours. The girl made a choked noise; the pressure of her nails digging into Dean's arms was lessening every moment. Dean could feel Tom looking at him, then looking at her. He shrugged.

“Whatever. Saves me from having to do it later.”

For a second Dean's grip slipped. The girl let out a gasp: whether it was merely the result of air rushing back into her lungs or an expression of betrayal, Dean would never know. She took advantage of Dean's moment of distraction and elbowed him sharply in his already bruised ribs.

Dean let her go. Tom started forward. Then a whirr, followed by a wet thunk: suddenly blood was spraying down on Dean and the girl both. Tom dropped the cudgel, his fingers fumbling at the arrow sticking out of his throat. Then Tom dropped too.

The girl darted toward the weapon. “Stop.” She stopped: the voice was commanding, the loaded crossbow Jo held in front of her as she stepped into the clearing even more so. “Put your hands on top of your head and back away,” Jo said.

For a second, the girl hesitated. Jo adjusted her aim, stared her down. The girl cast one last look toward the ground—at Tom or the weapon, Dean couldn't be sure—before backing up, glaring like she was convinced she might any second develop the ability to hurl Jo back against a tree with the power of her mind.

“Stay there,” Jo told her. She kept the crossbow up but started toward Dean. Dean didn't see it happen, but there must have been a second when she took her eyes off the other girl. Dean pulled himself into a crouch in time to see her taking off through the trees at a run.

Jo had her crossbow aimed at the girl's back, but she never pulled the trigger.

“Sorry,” she said when she finally tore her eyes away, offering a hand down to him.

Dean took it, mostly to feel the truth of the fact that she was real, she was safe, she was here. “You're apologizing to me?” he said. He cast a glance toward Tom's body, crumpled at the center of the clearing with Jo's arrow protruding from its neck.

But Jo just shook her head, staring off into the forest in the direction the girl had run. “I should have followed through. We can't afford to be weak.”

Another bolt of pain twisted its way through Dean's body as he tried to orient himself again. He did feel weak, and stupid, Jo a cool pillar of competence in comparison. Dean bit his lip and bent over to retrieve his dropped knife—again—sucking back a gasp when he felt his ribs grind. “Nice grab on the crossbow there.”

“Thanks.” The smile Jo shot him was somewhat perverse; the last time he'd seen her make that face, he'd likely been complimenting a new scrap of ribbon she'd woven through her hair. “Is that knife all you've got?”

She was clearly trying to keep the judgment out of her voice, but Dean still didn't volunteer the information about the broken longbow, the abandoned axe. “Got this now, too,” he said, bending down again with another suppressed sigh of pain and snagging Tom's cudgel. He glanced up through the trees: the light, shifting through the branches, suggested that it was afternoon now, pushing toward early evening. “We should probably find somewhere to hole up for the night.”

Jo nodded. “I think the woods are probably safer than the town.”

“I don't know about that...”

Dean told her about the spirit while they took the precaution of putting some distance between themselves and the clearing. “That's messed up,” Jo concluded. “And I still think it seems like cheating: it's bad enough that we have to fight each other, but now we've got to look out for these spirits too?” Neither of them were naïve enough to believe that there would only be one.

“Least it's not like a couple years ago, when there were those...things in the water. Sam had nightmares for weeks.” Dean wasn't going to admit it, but he had, too.

Jo shifted her grip on her bow. “Yeah, speaking of water...”

Dean frowned. He'd been trying not to think about it, how hungry and thirsty he already was. Suddenly the huge meals they'd been served at the Capitol seemed twisted and cruel: a way to make everyone's used-to-deprivation bellies start to anticipate fullness, only to plunge them into a situation when the want would be worse than ever. “I haven't seen any animals in these woods,” Dean said, and he could tell from Jo's face that he was only confirming her observations and fears. “No evidence of water, either.”

“There's got to be something somewhere,” Jo said, although they both knew that wasn't true: there'd been a year, when they were much younger, when the arena had been a seemingly endless maze made of plain white walls with nothing in it, save the tributes. At least as many had died of starvation or thirst as had found ways to kill each other with their bare hands.

Eventually, Dean cut a couple of pieces of bark from the trees and they chewed on them as they walked, sucking out what little nutrition they could, but mostly out of a desire to fool their mouths and hopefully their stomachs. Dean did his best to stay alert, but to his surprise, hours passed without them encountering anybody else. Maybe all the other tributes had achieved what they hadn't been able to: found sustenance, found shelter, gone to ground.

“I hope Pamela's okay,” Jo said abruptly. At Dean's look of confusion, she shrugged. “I didn't see what happened to her after the signal went. And I guess...I really did like her.”

Jo hunched in on herself, suddenly a world away from the girl who had confidently proclaimed, We can't afford to be weak. “It's stupid, I know.”

“It's not stupid,” Dean said. “I liked her, too.”

He had. He really hoped someone else would kill her, so that he wouldn't have to.



Masterpost / Part II

Comments

[jujuberry136.livejournal.com]

Oh god, the awesomeness! It burns!

Zachariah as the gamemaster! Chuck as the interviewer! Dean and Jo in the games!

So happy for the next parts!

[eleanordarling.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE AMAZING!!! Just finished this story and was blown away. I haven't read Hunger Games, but sounds it sounds a bit like Battle Royale and if so, you captured the brutality and desperation of the situation beautifully. Given your talent, you must write professionally... Anyway, I am a huge D/C fan so, I'll be checking out your other works. Can't wait!

[100yeargirl.livejournal.com]

I haven't read The Hunger Games, but you're making me want to!

[arora-kayd.livejournal.com]

Instead of leaving a coherent comment, I'm just going to flail with joy at you.

*flail*