*insert groovy elevator music here* [chap/nora]

[arx!!]

chad chapman.

It always looked so easy on television. They walk in, they press a button, and they get off exactly where they're meant to be. Something tells me I've made it far more difficult for myself than it actually is—I tend to do that sort of thing without realizing. I'm sure Gav could've figured this out. I miss him.

I push another button because I'm pretty sure I'm not moving. And maybe I'm a little impatient when it only glows and dings at me, so I press another. And maybe I get distracted by the music they've got playing and press a bunch more to match the beat, but I mean, why make a button and expect no one to push it, right? So there's no way I can break it or anything- "Whoa!"

I latch onto the hand rail as the tiny metal box screeches and comes to a stop—no, yeah, it's definitely not moving now.

"Uh ohhh," I chuckle nervously to myself as everything goes silent.

I talk myself through my options—each of which includes Gav so I've gotta scrap them all. Okay, alright, well- I'm big. Er, I mean, the elevator feels like it's getting smaller and all I've got to offer it are thumbs big enough to fuck up elevator buttons and arms roughly the size of a- ohmygod, my arms! They've got beef, ha! Genius, duh.

It takes practically all I've got just to open the soors far enough for- well, Gav, to fit through if he were here. But all that fits through the space I've created is my head—so I smile real big when I see the tops of someone's shoes.

"Please! Hi, please, hi, can you help me? I um- I'm trying to get to Floor 5 and- wait, is this Floor 5?" I disappear for a moment to check if the elevator had told me where I was when I'd been freaking out. Twelve. Oh, am I at the top? Cool. "Nope! Sorry, anyway, I can just wait if you don't know how these things work, no big deal, but-" I try to find a way to make myself fit through the gap to no avail. "If you did know, and like could help," I make sure they can see the finger gun I offer by ducking my head out of the way to do it. "That would also be pret-ty cool."

"i wonder if you look both ways when you cross my mind."

♪

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

You make a point to learn everyone's names.

Sitting on that train to the Capitol, all their names and faces right there for the learning, it doesn't feel right to not. In strange ways, you suppose this is the singular perk that comes with being from Twelve. You can go into it armed with every name, every face, every life that you have to promise to kill or spare for the sake of your own. You, girl echoing with loneliness, at least you have this. Nico Thorne tells you that it's a good thing, a strength to know your enemies, but he warns you that it's a double edged sword, that knowing comes with a degree of burden, a degree of pain. He tells you that sometimes, the knowing is worse. That sometimes, the knowing hurts.

But he understands the not knowing would be worse.

The not knowing means guilt.

And he bears that, you think, more than you ever really realized before.

But it means that when Chad Chapman pries open the doors in front of you, you already know his name. Brown eyes stare back at you in the distorted reflection of yourself in the elevators closed doors, blurry and not quite your own, but familiar in a way that you don't have words for, and you're glad for the distraction away from yourself, especially one that comes in the form of damned in distress.

No one ever asked you to save them before.

It makes something swell in your chest.

"I—" you start, confused by whatever it is that's happening in front of you. You don't understand at first, what it is that's gone wrong, just see the doors slowly pry themselves open with a screeching noise that almost hurts your ears and send something shivering down your spine before you see just—darkness. You eyes focus, try to recognize, and then realize you see wires and cables, the inside of the elevator shaft that you shouldn't be able to see and your gaze drops to where his voice quietly echoes from. Your brows arch when his head, finally, pops out from the little crack in the door, chin plopped right there on the floor where the edge of the floor meets the elevator shaft, and you can't help the ensuing grin that spreads across your cheeks when you realize the exact predicament this foolish, foolish boy has gotten himself into. "Oh my god," you say, head tipping back as your eyes fall closed, relishing in this strange feeling. Joy, you think. Amusement, at the very least.

A lack of loneliness, to be sure.

And that you will take.

"I don't even," you fix your head back, let it settle back where it belongs and looking down at Chad. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh," you say, bringing a hand to cover your mouth, trying to stifle your grin. He's smiling too though, and it's infectious, so you drop your hand. "You just—you look so funny sticking your head through the crack like that." You shake your head, failing miserably to stifle your grin. "Let me," you say, holding up a hand as a thought occurs to you. "Give me just," you go on, thoughts a flurry as you hold up a single finger as if to say pause while you step away and find the mechanism you're supposed to use to call for help of whatever kind, be it food or a helping hand to fix an elevator you don't know how to fix, you're pretty sure they handle it all.

"Hi," you say into the little microphone. "My friend is stuck in the elevator. Could you send someone to help?"

Internally, you smack yourself for saying friend.

He's not your friend.

He's not someone to care about.

You hang up when you get a confirmation that someone is on their way to come and help, tell yourself that you shouldn't go and sit with him while he waits for help to come, but do it anyway. You fold into yourself, sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor right in front of the doors and smile at the foolish boy looking back at you.

"You should probably take your head out of the opening. We don't need you getting decapitated before we even get in the arena."

You don't really mean for it to come out like that, but it does, and you'll smack yourself for it later, but right now it just. It feels so good to smile.

[arx!!]

chad chapman.

I'm glad she's laughing or I think my heart might've raced right out of my chest and made a horrible mess on top of my already horrible mess—plus it helps the walls from feeling like they're closing in around me.  I breathe big and smile bigger when she returns to sit and wait with me.

"Huh?" I'm uncertain what she means—I think maybe I misheard something so I stick my head out further and tilt my head to look at her in the hope that the answers are somewhere in her eyes.

And then everything sort of comes to me at once, and the words all fit themselves together the way they were always meant to and I realize I'm doing the exact opposite—"Oh? Oh, oh- shoot, right."—of the not dying thing she'd so kindly suggested.

I lean back, chewing on my words and wishing I'd cursed. Blade thinks it's fucking cool and I definitely think I'd rather be cool in the eyes of the person who'd just saved my life than the idiot that broke the elevator and ruined her entire day so-

"Er, shit, I mean, heh," I smile again, reminding myself over and over to stay away from the makeshift guillotine I'd fashioned in just my size.

"But, uh, hi, I'm Chad," I lean forward, extend a hand to her. "Nice to meet you."

"But, uh, my friends call me Chap. Short for Chapman, but more fun to say in a funny accent than Chad," I smile, thinking of Gavin and the way his lips curl all funny when he'd say it. "But, anyway," I shake the thoughts free and hold them to my heart; I miss him. "You can call me Chap."

"Oh, and uh, here!" I step away from the opening and duck away from the hole I'd forgotten not to stick my head out of already oh my god- and grab the duffle bag from beside the panel that I'm pretty sure—from the none experience I have—is still broken. As fuck. I chew anxiously on my bottom lip as I turn away from it, but it's easy to smile again when I pull a bag of marshmallows from the stash it'd taken me all morning to compile.

Everyone likes marshmallows, right?

"I was getting these for s'more training that they said we had this morning," I explain as I ponder my supplies and hold a bag of them out to her. "But I hope they're alright for an apology? You know, on account of me making it impossible to go anywhere, heh."

"Sorry, I couldn't find anything except the marshmallows though," I lean forward and out of the opening again as I get to thinking about how she probably knows more than me about all this. "But that's probably something they'll teach us at the training, right?"

"It's a little confusing here."

But maybe a little less so with a friend.

"i wonder if you look both ways when you cross my mind."

♪