Bittersweet [Katelyn/Delroy]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Sometime before midnight Delroy had stepped outside his bedroom into the main hall of the apartment. He’d waited in the darkness for a moment and stared at the lights out the window of the living room. Skyscrapers along the horizon dotted with lights, faraway people that he imagined never gave a second thought to boys like him. And he wondered, too, standing with feet on the cool of the hardwood floor, if it was a waste of time to ever have believed they could. If life hadn’t changed in eighty-six years, what hope was there that it would ever change?

But history, as much as Delroy had studied, was marked by periods of tumult and change, even after long stretches when it felt as though not much of anything had happened at all. When he thought about this stretch of human history, he believed it would be of little consequence to them at all. Names that were etched as victors to games would hold little meaning once those games had vanished, wouldn’t they? What would remain was the terrible reminder of the sacrifice so many others had made.

He stepped out into the light, then, hand over a switch that illuminated a small corner of the hall toward the kitchen. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but as much as his nerves were getting to him, he wouldn’t mind scrounging for something. They’d introduced them to all sorts of foods he’d not heard of – pot roast and flank steak, pork chops and lobster, things a poor child from eleven saw on television and thought as fanciful as fairy tales he’d been read as a child – all here, at his fingertips.

It made his blood boil to think of all they had to go without when people in this city wasted.

He didn’t want to blame his fellow tributes, or victors, but it felt as though most of them were missing the point. Living their lives in splendor, laughing and joking outside these walls while kids like Delroy served up another sacrifice. Did living through it once meant you were forgiven for accepting everything the capitol had to offer? Did it mean that when you returned home, you got to marry and love, and go on, just so long as you preserved what had gotten you there?

Delroy had been peering down into the refrigerator when he heard footsteps in the hall. He stayed looking another moment before deciding on a bar of dark chocolate. Peeling back the wrapper and taking a bite, he closed the door to turn to face whoever else had been awake at this hour.

“Miss Katelyn,” Delroy mumbled out through the bite of chocolate. He wiped a hand over his mouth and gave a wave. “I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I figured I might treat myself to a snack. You want a piece?”

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

Staring out her window at the night sky was a terrible way to try to fall asleep, and Katelyn knew that, but she was doing it anyway. It was always hard for to sleep when there was work to be done. When she was back in this place, wondering if the years where it didn’t hurt as much were a sign that she was healing, or a sign that she was growing apathetic. There were hardly any stars to see, the illumination from the streets and city lights blotting them out. But they were still there. The stars she could see from home. The same stars she’d seen in the sixty-ninth arena.

That was seventeen years ago now, the same age she’d been when she’d won; knowing that latest tributes were younger than her week in the ice and snow made her feel very old indeed. She was history to them. Living history perhaps, but to a teenager, a thirty-four-year-old might as well have been born in the dark days. Kids like Neysa were secure in the immortality of youth and didn’t see any attempts to rein them in as help, never mind that the adults had been in the same situation not that long ago.

Katelyn had a heart to help people, though her head reminded her that she couldn’t help people that didn’t want to be helped. Some people, while not enjoying the hole they were in, could no longer fathom a life outside of it. But if she couldn’t help them out of that dark hole, the least she could do was toss them a flashlight.

Eventually, she gave up trying to sleep and decided to see if there was any tea left in the kettle. As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one seeking relief in the kitchen. Delroy was searching through the fridge for something. It was a snapshot she took with her mind, placing it next to her memories of Arabella, of Weaver and Jacob and Iain. Iona and Tamron. Rex. Remembering those kids for who’d they been before the games chewed them up and spat them into coffins.

She’d given up trying to get all their names tattooed on herself after Desimae and Drake. It never ended. The cycle of death. She would have cried, but she felt like she’d used up all of her tears on Opal and Ky. On Arabella and Cyro. It was a mistake to get too emotionally invested in her tributes, but it was a mistake she kept making anyway.

Delroy said that he couldn’t sleep, offered her some of his candy.

“Sure, thanks.” she said with a tired smile, breaking off a piece of the chocolate and popping it into her mouth. Bittersweet. As she turned the dial on the stove to heat the tea back up she felt obligated to say something. Anything. But she was so weary of being a mentor. Of being trapped in a job that chose her, that never got any easier. “You’re one of the quieter tributes we’ve had in a while,” was what she chose to break the silence with. “How are you holding up?”

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

“Just fine. Thanks.” Delroy replied with another bite of the chocolate. He looked Katelyn Persimmon up and down. In his sixteen years he’d heard this and that about each of the victors, but what little he had was passing gossip from older folks in the fields. His friends couldn’t be bothered to take in Harbinger, Kirito, Katelyn, or Kass. Yeah, he could celebrate that they’d won and brought some honor back to eleven. Was he supposed to feel some pride that they grew up in eleven? It wasn’t as though he thought any of them grew up like he did. He doubted she knew where his family farm even was.

“I don’t need to say a lot to get my point across.” He leaned back against the fridge as he spoke. Mrs. Delores Wickersham had taught her son that he’d need to be clear in how he spoke to ever be heard. That meant having patience and not jumping out with the first thing that shot through his head. And, it meant not letting any of the feelings that might’ve bubbled underneath his skin erupt out. Not if he’d wanted to be taken seriously. Especially if he wanted to be believed.

He looked at Katelyn then, thirty-something and on the next chapter of her life – bakery in the district, someone on her arm, a future in politics (if the rumors about how close she and the mayor were true) – all this must’ve been perfunctory. Get to know who he was, teach him how to live a day or two, and pray that maybe he’d get through hell and come home like Kass had.

How long, he wondered, would they keep living in this apartment? Did she think she’d ever bring her children here, if she ever had any of her own? Would she look out the same window at the skyline and think of happy memories in the capitol, as though it didn’t make her a traitor to her own people?

When he looked at Katelyn Persimmon, Kirito, or Harbinger and Kass, all he could see was an empty shell, ready to be cracked open by the capitol whenever they wanted. Sure, they’d been painted over as happy shiny people, but the cracks still showed. And they seemed scared as hell to ever lift a finger against it.

“So why do you do this?” He asked. He tilted his head and furrowed his brow (and held back the sneer that could've followed, if only because she hadn't revealed herself yet). It could’ve been he was brave under the low light of the kitchen and the early hours of the morning. But more it felt as though he wanted an answer to keep in his heart before he entered in the arena to his death. Better to know who he was fighting for, and what he was fighting, than to put his hope and faith in someone bound to break his heart.

“It’s not like you have a choice. But it just feels like you all think this’ll change anything.”

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

There was an undercurrent of bitterness is his tone. She didn’t blame him. But it was a loaded question. More loaded than he might have thought. Over the years she’d mentored more than a few idealistic tributes. Some going so far as to take vows of pacifism. That never lasted. In the heat of the moment, when faced with life and death, everyone chose their own life. Sometimes, like with Kirito, it worked, even if it shattered them in the process. Other times, like with Rex Antilles, it drove them to suicidal despair.

What was about eleven that bred martyrs so young?

“The short answer? Mentoring could mean the difference between riding home with one coffin instead of two.” Vasco knew how to inspire people with words, all she knew were hard truths. “The long answer?” Katelyn sighed. “Sandwich?” After he gave his affirmation, she set about getting all the ingredients out. Lettuce, tomato. A good sharp cheese, etc. The works. Put some bread in the toaster. Club sandwiches were a classic and if she could keep her mind on task, maybe she could get through spilling her life story to this kid without making a fool of herself.

“Pushing for change has…consequences.” She said it delicately, wondering if the bugs definitely hidden all over the apartment had video as well as audio. “I used to think one person could change the world. They don’t—“she cleared her throat when the bread popped up, slightly warm, crisped. “They don’t air my interviews from the early years anymore. Victors that become a problem are dealt with.” The spicy brown mustard usually had a good kick. She squirted a few dollops onto all the pieces of toast.

“I don’t know if you’re even old enough to recognize the names of these victors but, Arbor Halt? Patricia Valfierno? They took and took and took from him until he was a shell of the man he once was.” Cheese on the bottom. Slices of tomato next? Yes, then the meat on top. A nice good cut of pastrami. “Patricia vanished from the public eye for a couple of years. She's back but her fires gone out and there's hollowness in her eyes. Kirito lost a cousin about, hmm. Thirteen years back now?” Lettuce? Fuck. Iain would have been twenty-seven.

“Harbinger, several of his brothers. A sister.” Katelyn glanced at the scars on her hands, the ones that hadn’t come from the arena, running her fingers over her knuckles. “They took things from me too.” She said softly. “And they don’t just punish the victors that speak up. The careers? They’re the ones that are supposed to win, you see. Not people from backwater districts like us. And when they don’t bring their skilled tributes home, they and their families suffer just the same.”

She was quiet for a moment, and she told herself it was because she had to debate between sweet pickle slices and dill and not because she was thinking of Ky's stay in the hospital. Or Opal's missing finger. “I wanted to my survival to be worth it,” Sweet pickles it was. Maybe a sprinkle of black pepper. "Live a life that mattered for the ones who didn’t go home. I no longer think I can change the world, but if I can make a difference in one family’s life, then I’ll do my damnedest to do so.”

She stuck a pimento olive on a toothpick and gently pressed it into the top layer of the sandwich before using the knife to cut it diagonally. She slid the plate across the counter to him and went back to her kettle, pouring herself a new mug and dropping in two sugar cubes. Her own sandwich she left unsliced. It wouldn’t do to bring the secretary into this conversation. Odds were Olivia was spying on her specifically.
 
“A wise old man, a doctor who—“she waved her hand. “Ah, I don’t remember what he was a doctor of. He said that sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose.”

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

“Yeah. I could eat.”

She started pulling out all the fixings, tomato and lettuce, meats, bread, spreads, stuff he’d only seen on television and never even dared dream about having in the fridge at home. He felt the smallest bit of guilt in his belly watching her go to work preparing a late night snack for both of them, when he knew his brothers were probably lying in bed already hungry after having too little for dinner.

As she laid out her case, Delroy made sure to watch her and to truly listen to every word that she had to say. He’d learned from Ayena and his time at Iris Gate that to be an active listener was to open a new world. Too often folks went in with their head already full of their own ideas and refused to make space for anything new. Or, they were too far gone to know the surest way to human connection was to let another person be heard, no matter how much you might’ve disagreed with them. His mother had taught him that.

He wished then that he could’ve seen Delores again, at least, to see her peer through the doorway as he tucked himself into bed.

‘Pushing for change has… consequences.’

How worn out was she? All the years hadn’t been unkind to Miss Katelyn, but from the way she hesitated, Delroy could tell how careful she was choosing her words. It felt as though she didn’t believe the words herself, and less so that a boy like Delroy could hope to understand.

He found a lot of adults half-stepped toward truth when it came to kids. As though a boy of sixteen might’ve not known all the pain she’d been through in the detention center. Or that the capitol could take and take, until there was a whole cemetery filled with loved ones behind your house (if they weren’t simply disappeared).

The system had taught all of them not to trust one another. Whether because they’d been hurt, or because of fear, that lack of trust created a distance so wide between him and her, Delroy wasn’t sure if he believed either of them could cross it. Even with a sandwich stacked full of meats and cheese.

‘… sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose.’

“Damn.” Delroy shook his head. “They got in your head, huh?”

He stood next to her, then, close enough to even up the space in the kitchen. Close enough to the sandwiches in front of them to get a smell of the mayonnaise and mustard.

“Miss Katelyn, I’m sorry about what you have to go through. I hope you don’t find me too rude for saying that I can’t think that way. And trust me, I know they're going to try and tear me apart." Delroy was quiet, then, at the thought of how his whole world was about to come crashing down in a few days. “But someone told me that if I’m going to see tomorrow, if I’m going to have anyone believe what I have to say, I have to believe in myself. Not what other people might do or say. Because there’s a lot of that I’m not going to be able to control.”

Was he lecturing the victor? The one who’d brought home someone a few games ago. The same one who was willing to break bread with him.

“I’m tired of people telling me I’ll die if I raise my voice. I’m tired of people telling me there’s nothing that can be done to change anything now. That it’s too much of a risk. Well people are dying right now. People are hungry and in the streets. And we’re here, eating this food, living like kings because we’re part of this whole system.” He gave a shrug.

“If your life is nothing but bad choices, then maybe you need to start living a different life. Or ask yourself whether or not it’s one worth living.”

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

“Yeah, I guess I deserve that,” she said dropping her gaze to the sugar cubes dissolving in her tea. It was too late in the fucking night to start having a crisis of conscience. “Watching idealistic kids die every other year has left me jaded.” The words he said though, they sounded familiar. Almost like Vasco. What was it like, being sixteen? Before the world beat the fight out of him? She supposed that she was at war with herself. Had been for years. Growing ever more cynical. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

He was right. They’d gotten into her head, beaten the fight right out of her. And she’d gotten so used to it that every time something bad happened she crumbled quickly. Couldn’t stand firm in the face of it for too long. Her spiritual stamina was all but gone. “You’re a good kid, Delroy. I hope you live to make that change. I want you to prove me wrong, I do.” The system was broken; she wouldn’t deny that. But she was doubtful that it could be fixed, and believed even less that something better could replace it. Because the people that wanted change, no matter their good intentions, were just as flawed as the people they railed against.

“Whoever gave you that advice was right too. It rings of that old adage. Lord grant me the strength to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” She chuckled wanly. “You know, I used to be a lot better at this whole mentoring thing.” She took a bite of her sandwich and mulled over their conversation. Ideals were a powerful thing. But they didn’t stop bullets. They required action and the status quo was very resistant to change. She’d learned that the hard way.

She could have asked him what he’d done for the faceless masses that he claimed to care about so much. Could have told him that she donated the unsold product from her bakery to those in need, that she funded the orphanage that Kassandra Nerys came from. That she spent a whole hell of a lot of time trying to look out for her self-destructive victor friends. That she helped the Mayor on outlining a better tomorrow for eleven. That she helped where she could; it may not have been flashy or even newsworthy, but it was help.

She could have, but she didn’t. It was difficult to explain how changing a few lives here and there mattered to her more than trying to change the world. She felt like Vasco would have said something about starting small and getting the ball rolling. She felt like she had it in her to tear Delroy’s ideals to shreds with the uncensored version of her life’s traumas and warn him how badly he was going to fall in the arena when it came down to life or death.

But she didn’t. It was better to be kind. That was what she’d forgotten, wasn’t it? All those years of trauma. Of battling the world alone, facing her demons alone, she’d forgotten what it was like to be a teenager. How at that age, little mattered more than knowing that your voice was heard, that you were seen and acknowledged. That you mattered.

“Well, I can’t help any of those people at this very moment,” she said simply, wearing a tired but vaguely amused smile. “But I’m going to work to get you and Neysa sponsors. How can I help you prepare? What do you need from me? What do you need to know about the games? It can’t be that helpful watching me dance around the cracks of my midlife crisis.”

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

He’d wanted to keep fighting her. Push Katelyn until she admitted how wrong she was, and demand that she do something about, well, everything. That’s what he was supposed to do when she conceded that the capitol had lorded their power over her, right? And when she admitted that she wanted him to keep on living, and do something for the world, Delroy suppressed the urge to smile. It felt cheap hearing her fold down into herself with him ready to try and land another blow about how indecent the world was.

The fire in his stomach sputtered, replaced only with a grumbling. He glanced down at the sandwich on his plate, and then to the woman standing next to him. He could see through the overhead light of the kitchen that she wasn’t an enemy, much less someone who didn’t want to be on his side. It still hurt knowing that she’d choose a different path. He couldn’t put it into words, this desire to talk about the world’s problems in a way to make anyone else as upset or determined to make a change.

“I talked with the mayor and he…” Delroy felt the words collect in his throat and he struggled to put them together. He’d railed at the man in the seat of power and had been met with the same sort of resignation; one that had been on his side, but stuck moving at a snail’s pace. He’d suffered more from an optimism that felt almost toxic, as though he too met grief with acceptance and not anger. “I just want to make you all realize how it looks to people like us…”

The ones who kept being forgotten long after the dust had settled.

“Miss Katelyn, you…” He wanted to tell her she should’ve been ashamed. Giving him advice to live within the system, and to try and master his way through to some sort of… half-life. A world where he’d have to serve as a reminder for those that kept power, all with a smile. As though he would ever be able to kneel for any of that.

But he didn’t press, not when she offered up how much she was in pain. Delroy may have had all the anger and energy of a sixteen-year-old discovering the injustices of the world, but he still had been raised in the same soil as Katelyn Persimmon. His mother Delores had raised him that the offer of a hand was a kindness few would reciprocate. Especially if that person seemed determined to figure out how you could survive.

He grabbed the sandwich on his plate and tore off a bite to chew it over.

“If I don’t want to play their game, then what do I do? What do I do to stop feeling like, being here, I’m just going to wind up showing my brothers everything that’s wrong with us?” Delroy’s voice cracked. “I don’t want them to see me do the things I can’t take back. I can’t.”

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

“Miss Katelyn, you…”

Are wrong? Are useless? Just don’t understand? Of course I understand, she wanted to say. I’ve seen both sides of the coin. Lived both. “You’re right to be concerned,” she began softly. “Killing a fellow human being changes a person. It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. But the worst part is that after the first, it gets easier. Easier to rationalize. Justify. Because it’s you or them.” It wasn’t something she liked to talk about. Though her ghosts had faded with time, thinking about them too long or too deeply never failed to put her in a bad mood.

“I killed three other kids to be here. And they all had one thing in common. Each of them attacked me first. So I killed them in self-defense. I wasn’t ready to die, but I tried to stay true to myself.” Her eyes drifted towards one of the closed doors in the hall, the one she knew her first real friend was sleeping in. “Kirito went into the games a pacifist. He told me his hands were made for healing.” She sighed ruefully.

“We were just kids then.” He was so strong now. Stronger than her. The student had long surpassed the master. “It broke him, being forced to choose between his ideals and living. It turned him into a monster. He was—unwell. For a time. Those first few years back. And Harbinger? He was the one who beat the odds because he was just too damn stubborn to die. He refused to break, but he did bend, eventually.” That had been the final straw for the people in charge. The audacity for the second lowest district to generate victors three whole years in a row. A feat yet to be repeated by any district. And to her knowledge one that had never been done prior.

“Then Kass—“ Oh boy, there was a topic she usually shied away from. She pinched the bridge of her nose. There was so much history that Delroy was unaware of. Like Arabella before him, he had his head in the clouds. Or stuck in the past was more accurate. He longed for a time when heroes fought for what was right, when the grey that bled over everything was still a stark contrast between black and white. When standing up meant rallying others to your cause instead of making people uncomfortable.

“Us three, we were unprecedented. Those early years…the whole district’s expectations, their hopes and the like. It was all riding on us. On me. But we were at that age where we thought we had the whole world figured out. Kass was only fourteen. Still searching for something to believe in. Like you, she grew up in an eleven where hope was becoming a memory. She’s angry, and she’s still lashing out, because it’s difficult to come to terms with what she did, difficult to be alone.”

But that was beginning to veer off-topic. Or was it? In her mind it was important he understand what carried each of them back home. The good, the bad and the ugly of it. “You may be willing to die for your ideals, but is your family ready to bury you? Do you think your brothers would rather watch you die or watch you kill someone and come home? If you don’t want to play their game, then lay down and die in the bloodbath, because your only way out of the arena is with a crown or in a coffin.”

That was the stark, unfiltered truth about it. He was trapped. Just like her and everyone else in the system. Sure, he could do his best to avoid tributes; a few people in the past had made it to the finale with only one kill to their name. He didn’t have to become a monster. “For what it’s worth; I’m well aware of what it looks like. I know It seems like my voice should have more weight because of my position, but it doesn’t. I have less autonomy than you might think. I’m monitored all the time. Hell, we’re being monitored right now.”

Being a victor was living in a gilded cage. From the outside it looked shiny. Every comfort available. But they’d taken so much from her.”You’re not the first kid to ask me why I don’t do more. I did. I stuck my hand in the fire and got burned. I’m not eager to repeat that experience. I applaud you for sticking to your guns, Delroy. But if that’s your plan, then the sad truth is that its better for you and anyone you care about that you die.” They’d already cut his interview because of the words he’d dared to say. If he came back still like this, she had a feeling they’d cut out his tongue.

It made her think though. Reminded her of an old saying. When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him wrong, only proving that you are afraid of what he has to say. “Tomorrow, if we have time, I’d like you give you a few pointers about self-defense. I’m rooting for you Del.” And perhaps, that itself was what had doomed most of the tributes in her care.