a game of delusion // 93rd train

Avriel doesn’t want to stop caring, the idea of that somehow seems more painful than loss. He just wants to separate himself from it, flick it off like a light switch when it becomes too much.

He wants to stop hurting, but in the end it feels like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. It must be wonderful to live without pain, to just ignore it, drown all these deep cuts in alcohol until they stop stinging, but that’s never worked for him.

He's tried keeping his distance from his tributes, tried looking at hem analytically, like they were more just training numbers and figures in the distance than people. None of that works for him and he's never found himself able to just pretend that each loss doesn't gut him, because they always do.

Bringing Storm home should have mitigated some of that particular pain but it was like sticking a bandaid on a severed limb. Even now, when he looks at Storm he sees the kids that didn't make it home standing with him.

Each new tribute is just a reminder of one he's already lost. Mirage and her cold-quiet demeanour reminds him of Fleur. As soon as Adan opens his mouth, he thinks of Oswald. It's like a fucking knife in his lung but he's expected to just smile and keep breathing even as he starts to choke on his own blood.

Can they see the blood on his teeth when his lips pull apart in silent greeting? Can they even see his face from below the pedestal he stands on?

If either of these two want to make it home, they're going to have to survive not only twenty-two other tributes but each other as well. That's almost the hardest part. Even to this day, he can't ride on one of these trains without seeing Fleur's ghost in the seat across from him.

Avriel picks up a handful of raspberries from the table before collapsing into the train seat across from the kid, Adan. He's always had a soft spot for the boys with mouths too big for their own good, they tend to remind him of Duke.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Avriel says and pops a raspberry into his mouth, "It's Storm you've got to look out for, he's still fresh off his trauma."

It's a joke, kind of a shitty one but good enough to divert attention from the way the light hasn't reached his eyes since he arrived home late from the Capitol this past year. There's a deadness to his tone, an automative forethought to his movements, almost like he's being programmed to gesture over to the younger victor.

"Try one of these," he says and underhand throws a raspberry lightly over to the both of them. "You know Raspberries are the only fruit a robot can't pick?"

While Eleven had worked with Three to get automatic pickers in the last decade, raspberries still all had to be done entirely by hand. It makes them more expensive, good enough to be a treat for those reaped.

"They're too soft," he says, "They just get crushed inside the machine."