there's so little late at night // {arbor + katelyn | day 9}

There is a pot of coffee keeping warm on the counter. The suite smells like french vanilla and hazelnut. Katelyn Persimmon sits at the table, her legs crossed and her hands folded in front of her. She has always been a morning person. Today is no exception. Not when one of her tributes has actually made the finale.

She has been up since the crack of dawn, making peanut brittle and fudge. Her apron is well-worn, well-loved and still very capable of protecting her black jeans and light blue t-shirt. She has opted for slip-ons and thinks she has gotten some corn syrup on them.

“It’s a rather well-known fact that you are one of the victors who hasn’t always had the Capitol’s best interests at heart. So I’m going to ask again. Do you know anything about the explosion in district eleven?”

She does not.

But the man in front of her thinks otherwise. She does not like the way he cannot hold her gaze. She does not like the questions or the way he shuffles the papers in front of him.
She does not like the way he has interrupted her carefully scheduled day.

“This is all a formality of course. I don’t think I’m going to get anything out of you. But here are the facts. In the late morning yesterday, around the time that Jacob Fel and Kassandra Nerys were concluding their fight, the stage in the district square exploded due to person or persons unknown. Illegal contraband was used…”

Katelyn knows this. It is the fourth time he has repeated this information and she is starting to get annoyed.

“You’re what, twenty-three? Fresh out of the academy?” The words slip out unbidden as her frosty eyes latch onto his.

“Twenty-two, actually.” He begins, but Katelyn talks over him.

“You want to understand how this happened? I’ll tell you why. It’s because our district is built on the pillars of togetherness. Of community. Family. Morality. Because the game makers forcing Rex Antilles and Arianna Taylor into killing each other broke our collective hearts. And doing it again has pushed someone or some people to the limit. Our tributes killing each other is not something that has happened in living memory. Not until last year."

Katelyn’s legs uncross. Her hands unfold. She leans forward on her elbows to look at this peacekeeper. This man. This boy. Katelyn Persimmon is a patient woman. But not for people like him. Her lip curls in disgust.

“I don’t know who set explosives under the stage and I have nothing to do with it. If you don’t have anything new to ask me, you need to either leave or shoot me because I have no intention of answering anymore questions.”

There is an uncomfortable pause for a few beats, and for a second, Katelyn considers the distance of the coffee pot and whether or not she’d be able to scald him with it before he pulls his gun.

But the young peacekeeper does not. He only sits back in his chair and stares at her curiously. She is not sure what to make of it.

She is always waiting for the next disaster to strike.

“I must have been nine or so when you won,” he begins, and Katelyn raises an eyebrow warningly.

"I remember thinking, “What’s so special about this gangling girl from eleven?” She’s boring. Sickeningly sweet and innocent. All doe-eyed and idealistic. Acting tough when she needs to. Like, come on, people don’t stay that nice do they?” he shakes his head ruefully.

They don’t, she thinks.

“Some victors though, it feels like they go off-script, you know? Like they don’t fit the narrative that the game-makers were crafting. But they make the story their own. They win.” He chuckles, and Katelyn’s fist starts to clench involuntarily.

“I thought you were so lame. But then there was that fight you and the girl from six had against those boys.”

Get away from her! Her voice is shrill, horrified eyes darting from Lexi’s severed leg to the boys in front of them. The throwing axe in her hand is already lit.

“I think that’s when I started to take you seriously. That kind of loyalty— I don’t think it can be faked. That was the real you there.” He gathers his papers and makes ready to leave. She can feel the bile rising in the back of her throat. It grates on her for him to make remarks about her life, about her so casually.

“I will be making a note of your last response in my report, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re telling the truth. Subterfuge doesn’t seem like your modus operandi. You’d stab someone in the face. Not the back.” He exits, and the last she sees of him is the curious look on his face as Arbor Halt brushes past him.

***

He looks about as terrible as she feels. Her clothes may not be as chaotic as his, but her mind is. Her soul. It’s the eyes that get her. The defeat. The acceptance. He is someone she has looked up and he is downcast. She had wanted to check in on him earlier, but there had just been so much on her plate.

In the arena, the fight hasn’t begun just yet. The final two tributes are beckoned forward by the mist. Arbor is not in a good place. He wears the blanket as if the fabric can shield him from the rest of the world. She pities him. The pain he must be going through is not something someone should ever have to deal with. She wonders if that’s why she can’t remember the last time she heard something about Lethe Turner.

Perhaps because the victor from five couldn’t deal with it.

She’s not sure if he’s spent the last few days crying, or if he hasn’t been able to because it doesn’t feel real.

“This is bad, right?” he says blearily, as Nell and Jacob die a second time on his tablet. She is quiet at first, all of her concerns and worries struggling for dominance. There is an apology to be made to Maya Fel for failing her son. Kassandra is so close to home; she doesn’t know if she will be able to bear it if she doesn’t make it.

Kirito has one foot in the grave and she still doesn’t understand why he kept it from her. There was a time when they were as thick as thieves, and now she feels like she doesn’t know him. Or Harbinger for that matter. They’ve grown apart, as people often do, but she can’t help but feel a sadness for the brotherhood they once shared. Things were so much simpler then.

Or maybe she only thought they were, because she remembers Arbor telling her to let Harbinger die.

After a moment she gets to her feet and finds her voice as her hands are starting to wring.

“Yeah. It’s bad. Snow must be popping a blood vessel.”

She wants to ask him what they— what anyone ever did to deserve this, but she leaves that thought unsaid.  Before the day is out, one of them will have a new charge to look after.

“Arbor, look I—“

don’t know what to do. There’s so much happening at once and it feels like I’m drowning.  It’d be so much easier not to care, but then I wouldn’t be me. It’s too fucking much sometimes. 

“—I’m so sorry.” She pulls him into a bear hug, ignoring what the musk of two days in bed smells like and clutching his back tightly. Right now he is a friend in need, and she has never turned those away. “Kass and Red are about to put the cherry on top of the shit sundae that has been these games, but— “she breaks the embrace and leans on the table behind her.

“I’m here for you, if you need to talk about someone other than them.”

She has always wanted to help people. But some things cannot be fixed with fudge and peanut brittle.