being

[gamemaker kelsier]

b a i l e y .

"i hope I connect
i'm not at my best but
i put my best foot forward"

They spend the first week patting him on the back.

"That's fucking cool about Wes, Bay."

He smiles and he nods and after the first few times it feels like someone else is doing it for him. Someone's in a quiet room watching him through a camera and when they hear the magic words, they make him smile, so bright his eyes crinkle up with it. "Yeah," he says with a nod, "I'm proud of him."

He must be.

Skin feels thicker than normal, it's hard to feel through it. His hands ache from sweeping up the gym after training and blisters form and break in the weak afternoon light coming in through the skylight. He gets blood on the broom handle. It drips down the wooden shaft and slides down the bristles and leaves drops all over the gym floor. So he mops next.

School on monday is a circus. Bay gets a wide birth everywhere he goes. Some of the other careers congratulate him and he's not sure why but he says thanks. Other kids didn't like Wes much. Someone sticks a really shitty drawing of him with a spear through his chest and crossed out eyes on his locker. He finds it between 4th and 5th period.

For a moment, it's like he can't see it. He's standing there, trying to look but his vision's gone all blurry and he can't focus on it. The bell rings and the hall fills and empties again and he can't move, can't connect those dots.

So he just turns around and leaves his lunch to rot.

At dinner his mom make a point of saying how enormous all of it is for Wes and his family and how Bailey should celebrate his best friend's training score.

So he does, that night.

Wraps his fingers up in tape and takes the drainpipe down the side of his house. Tonight the fight is being hosted in the Rathbone's basement.

That always draws a large crowd.

He pulls his hood up, eyes on the street as he walks, hands shoved deep into his pockets. It's a cold night for summer but Bailey hardly notices it. He can't stop thinking but at the same time he can't think at all. His brain keeps trying to tell him something but he keeps losing his train of thought.

Nothing's sunk in yet.

The games play on every street corner. Bailey knows he should be watching, Wes is up there on those screens right? So close, but stupid-far all at the same time.

Part of him wants to believe that he's alright with all of this. It's good. His mother's voice rings through his ears as he moves through the night, "He trained at our centre after all, we're going to get so many new recruits this year!"

That's a really good thing. His father has been wanting to build a sunroom for years now. Maybe because of Wes they'll finally have the money.

He knocks once on the Rathbone's back door, then two light taps. The door opens and Bailey enters a dimly lit hall. He can hear the noise from the ring all the way from there. It's always like that. He remembers his first one two years back. He'd split his forehead on a Strauss boot.

Wes had given him stitches in the morning before homeroom.

Bay's fingers reach up to brush the scar.

"Adams, you're late."

He's being pushed through a group of people, older and younger. Money gets passed around, rippling through the crowd like wildfire, everyone knows who he is. Takes a lot of hits but always gets back up, kind of like a puppy, people feel bad for kicking Bailey.

They pit him against Tiernan first, a heavy hitter. Fists like meat hooks but bruises already forming on his face, this isn't his first fight of the night. Bailey stands a chance. His odds are better than normal and maybe that's what has more money passing along than usual.

He slides a foot back, holds his fists up in front of him. The room seems to hold its breath. In that small sliver of time between the noise, a thought finally forms.

Wes is gone.

Distantly, a bell rings.

A fist connects with his side and bailey doubles over, hands hovering over the spot as he sucks in a breath. The room spins, before he can straighten, a fist rains down on his back and suddenly, Bailey is on the floor. The foot comes next but he rolls to his left and scrambles to his feet again.

His dance partner leers at him, and Bailey shuffles to the right to avoid his next punch which lands on a bystander's face instead. "Stop running, coward!" someone yells.

The next punch comes out of nowhere and connects with Bailey's cheek. It sends him staggering to the left and he lets out this soft moan of pain. His hands raise too late to defend himself. His mouth tastes of blood and his ears ring. A fist in his side again, his cheek, his chest, Bailey falls to his knees.

And Bailey thinks of Wes, sitting on the training mats with bandages and wipes scattered around them. Bailey's head in his lap, staring up at Wes's face from such a weird angle.

"Next time I'll be better at dodging," he'd told him.

Tears of pain form in the corners of his eyes. The crowd screams at him to do something. To do anything. He's being useless. As useless as last week when that boy pointed at Wes in the crowd and they took him to the Capitol.

"What if there is no next time?"

Bailey smiles. He spits spits out a clot of blood. His tooth stares up at him from the centre of it in the bright basement lighting. "There's always going to be a next time, right?" he whispers.

Tiernan's fist finds his jaw and the lights go out.