{ bruce johnwayne : district 2 }

district: 2
gender: male
age: 16 (born during the year of the 54th games)
name: bruce walker johnwayne

Family Tree, Abridged:

clint johnwayne, father, 73
gracie johnwayne, mother, 35
cowboy dan johnwayne, half-nephew (father's side), tribute in the 67th hunger games, died at 18
elya johnwayne, half-niece (father's side), tribute in the 70th hunger games, died at 18
john johnwayne, half-brother, dan and elya's father, 46
wayne johnwayne, half-brother, a miner, 44
william "billy the kid" johnwayne, half-brother (dan's son with bruce's mother), 2 in the 70th games

His is the sort of face you don't feel bad about decking. At least, that's what Dan had always told him growing up. Between Bruce's square jaw, bright grey eyes, and lips perpetually parted in an arrogant half-smirk, his nephew hadn't been wrong. His face is the cocky sort of handsome that the cowboy had always taken pleasure in seeing brought to ruin.

Although he'd never been dumb enough to make good on that threat, Dan Johnwayne is to blame for the missing lower tooth — directly beneath the gap that the infamous Cowboy of District Two had sported in life. Well — Dan's death is to blame, even if it was his sister who threw that punch.

It took three years for Bruce to realize he deserved it. He'd been a mouthy little shit of a kid, entirely too full of himself — the way that Careers tend to be when they spend the first decade of their life hearing how they're special and every year after that being told they're worthless unless they prove it.

For what little it's worth, he was never a bad fighter. He wasn't quick enough to employ Dan's deceptive tactics with any great success, lacked the discipline that had put Elya leagues above the rest in her prime. But he was a bull in battle: strong and stubborn and given to rage, enough to outmuscle the majority of his opponents the majority of the time. Like his half-brother's kids, Bruce is unpredictable in combat — though not for the calculated tricks that earned the other Johnwaynes their double-digit training scores. He goes blind with fury and gets lucky.

When Dan died, the tensions in the Johnwayne households reached a tipping point. Bruce's parents fought more — or, rather, his father yelled and his mother cried. Without the cowboy as a live-in scapegoat, Bruce took more heat for every incident. It took him a full year to take his cues from Dan, to take his leave from Clint's domain and stumble home roaring drunk, fists bruised and face bloodied. His father had thought to put an end to that, but somehow the lock on his door and window never seemed to stay latched.

Growing up had been lonely for Bruce. His half-brothers were much older, with no interest in their father's life or new family. Their children had been quick to adopt the biases of their father, leaving no room for their solitary uncle-by-half. They were less his niece and nephew, and more like cousins — or older siblings across a divide he could never hope to bridge.

At best, they didn't have time for the tag-along Johnwayne, whatever his relation. Forced to interact, it was always two-on-one — even if only one of them was present. If he thought about it for long enough, Bruce would've had the sense to be jealous, to despair his upbringing. Elya and Dan had had one another; Bruce had only the hope of his father's favor.

He'd had his mother, but she'd had him too young, not experienced or shrewd enough to hold her own against his father's sixty-some years spent domineering. She couldn't shield Bruce from his old man's agenda.

Clint Johnwayne had wanted what was best for his third son — the first two were Failure and Fuckup respectively, and he'd grown old enough to be concerned with his legacy. But even if his intentions were good, his words intented to inspire and bolster, they served only to coat insecurity with arrogance. Bruce Johnwayne was expected to measure up, but it was never clear to whom.

So he made his best guess and placed himself in direct competition with his niece and nephew — even if Failure's kids never saw him as a rival. If he'd been asked, Bruce couldn't have come up with what he was competing for, or what it would look like when he won.

He'd never best them, though, not by any metric. Dan always made sure he knew that — and when he died, his sister assumed that responsibility.

It seemed as if they had infinite ammunition to shoot him down with every time Bruce tried to place himself above them. When he'd bragged about finishing first in his grade's wrestling tournament, Dan had been quick to dismiss it with a casual "I'm not your dad, bro, I'm just banging your mom."

He hadn't taken the jibe seriously until years later, when he'd woken up on his couch in the middle of the night and asked the silhouette in the kitchen for a glass of water. That same quip out of Elya's mouth startled him upright. Between the hour and the unclasped buttons on her shirt, Bruce had no choice but to believe it.

For the next month, the incident had left him blushing and spluttering every time he met her eye — which only served to stretch her triumphant smirk.

He still had a few lingering questions for her that last day, but couldn't bring himself to face her in the justice building. He'd suspected she wouldn't want to see him, anyhow.

And whatever he'd been hoping for, there had been a non-trivial part of Bruce who had assumed she'd be back in a month's time, all scowls and snark, just to remind him of his every fault and failing. It would've served him right to have her back — too much and too often, she was a negative force in his life that Bruce never expected to be rid of her for good, considering his luck.

Besides, despite Bruce's remarks to the contrary, Dan had made it to the top ten — and Elya was twice the fighter her brother was, so the math checked out, far as Bruce could figure. He'd die sooner than admit it, but she was miles better than even the Brute himself.

That fateful throwing axe split his world in two.

It wasn't about Elya — though he'd come to respect her, he seldom liked the one-eyed girl past her occasional interventions in Dan's cruel streaks and her role as a buffer between the adults in their family. It wasn't about shame or embarrassment, the way his father had spun it. It wasn't about another fleck of dirt on the name Johnwayne, which was already muddied enough to make no difference.

It was the spotlight that axe had aimed at mortality, the way that it illuminated that anyone could die. At any time. For any reason. Especially in the Games.

It was the fact that if Elya Johnwayne could fail, could fall, there was nothing keeping Bruce from doing the same.

Before then, he'd been so sure of himself. And what reason did he have to doubt? He was strong and fancied himself clever — there was no reason why he wouldn't win the Games. He'd been ready to wager his life on victory. But the dice are impartial and unforgiving — one last hard lesson he learned from Elya.

"Don't you learn?"

"If I want to," he shoots back, petulance in his blackened eyes, words choked by the blood streaming out of his nose.

"Forward," she instructs, pushing his head down before he has time to comply. Her voice suggests she doesn't have the patience for this, yet still she remains in John Johnwayne's kitchen, giving him a dishcloth and a bowl and a lecture. "Goading the two of them into a fight? With no backup? In an unfamiliar place? What the fuck were you thinking?"

He spits into the bowl, the bloody phlegm unglamorously dangling from his bottom lip and dribbling down his chin. For the longest time, there is silence. "Thought I could take a couple of girls," he offers in weak suggestion. Immediately, he regrets it.

"You really are a stupid, stupid —" she jabs his side, causing his ribs to electrify with pain. He involuntarily finishes the thought for her: "Fuck!"

She frowns, ignoring his complaint. "Not broken, just bruised. A lucky fuck, too. Apparently." Bruce's eldest half-brother is too poor for a freezer, but the water from the tap is cold enough. Elya hands him a second cloth. She leans against the counter, facing him. Bruce makes heavy eye contact with the filling bowl of blood that's resting on his knees, but still can feel her iron glare on his swollen face. "How's Clint going to take it?"

He stares harder, looking past the bowl and into the old man's open mouth, a hellfire of profanities Bruce can't hear blazing between the tobacco-stained tombstones of his teeth. It had been so much easier when he could pin the breaks and bruises on Dan. Bruce lifts his head, locks his two grey eyes on Elya's one, then drops his gaze again.

A silence hangs between them, a thunderhead as black and tumid as Bruce's swelling eyes.

"Stand up to him, one of these days." Lightning crashes. Elya rightens.

Bruce thinks he shrugs, no coherent responses kicking around in his brain.

A cloudy glass bottle is thrust in his face, the bathtub whiskey fumes burning his eyes before they reached his broken nose.

"For the pain," she explains, as Bruce tentatively pulls the bottle from her grasp. He coughs and splutters at the first hard swallow, feeling the fire all the way down. She snatches it back before he can take another. And the courage, he suspects, but says nothing.

A firm hand yanks him from the wobbly chair, the runoff from his nosebleed nearly knocked to the floor. "You're good," she half-asks, half-decides. Bruce isn't so sure. He allows himself to be led out of his half-brother's house, trying to shake off the limp he'd been dealt hours earlier. When he reaches the doorframe, Elya lets go.

"Thanks," he offers, though the word catches on the blood and the pride that's still stuck in his throat. "Why...?"

His one-eyed niece-by-half, savior-by-whole laughs, her amusement dry and rough and thrumming in his ears like a box of stones being shaken. "Why did I stop them from beating your ass too bad?" she asks. It's not what he means, and they both know it. Bruce shrugs anyhow; the other Johnwayne returns the gesture.

"Can't have people thinking my nephew's brother is a little bitch."

He hears the slam in his head before Elya shuts the door.