alessandro hargrave ; district six done

”A man never forgets his first love.”

Sandro is twelve, sitting cross-legged in front a black bricked fireplace. It looms over him like a shadow as he closes his eyes against the flames rolling within its gut. It’s too hot to be comfortable, on the edge of unbearable. He counts the minutes he’s been sitting there with fingers tapped against his thigh. He aims for a number higher than he knows how to count.

His father’s voice comes from somewhere behind him, soaked in whiskey so it’s softer than usual. Gooey caramel like the liquid sloshing in his crystal tumbler. His grip is gentle like it only gets when he’s halfway through a bottle, sentimental because this is the only time he seems to remember he’s a father.

There’s a lapse in the conversation where Sandro is supposed to reply. He doesn’t. His father keeps talking anyway. ”She was beautiful, Al.” That’s not his nickname. It irks something inside him but he knows better than to waste his breath on yet another explanation of that. The feeling doesn’t go away until he’s clenched his jaw so hard an ache begins to build the base of his skull. His fingers dig into his thigh.

Fuck.

He lost track of his minutes.

So he starts over again.

”...was still in high school when I met her. I was a little older than you but not by much.” And his voice rumbles in his chest, like he’s straining to make it take up the whole fucking mansion. His father crows like a rooster, desperate to make himself as big on the outside as he is in his head. ”Everyone in school wanted her. ‘Course, she only had eyes for your old man.”

It’s funny to suggest the stranger sitting at the kitchen counter has ever belonged to Sandro when he hardly even belongs to himself.

Another pause to prompt Sandro into reading from his script. His skin stings – he’s tapped his thigh four times. He remains silent. ”You’ll never stop loving her either, you’ll understand that part when you’re older. Guess I got lucky she’s still in my life.”

His voice is razor sharp, live bait writhing on a curved hook.

And finally, Sandro bites. The metal sinks through his cheek, his father reels him in until their eyes meet. Empty against empty save for the way the hearth now dances in his father's gaze. ”I didn’t think you met Mom in high school.” The accusation is tepid, carefully weighed and then forced off his tongue. His weaves his words from silk because they feel gentler to knot around necks.

His father smiles the same humorless smile he passed down to Sandro, tapping his finger against his lips and raising a challenging brow. ”I didn’t.”

He slides the half-empty glass toward Sandro, more threat than gift. He’s placed a bullet in the chamber and placed Sandro's finger on the trigger. He could ruin them if he wanted, if he was willing to be ruined alongside them. ”That’s a secret best kept between men, Al.”

He isn’t willing. His father knows that.

”I’ll take it to my grave, sir.”

Not that he plans on having one of those.

---

Turns out his father was right, though. It's unfortunate because pathetic things don't deserve to be.

His first love was not as sweet or as gentle as his father had described. It was the kind of falling that wanted to leave scars, the kind you couldn't escape even if you wanted to.

Love found him during his first bar fight. An act of rebellion that had made a lot more sense to a grief-addled fifteen year old than the jaded shit-head he'd become four years later.

He was drunk on too much whiskey because somewhere over the years the putrid taste had become a comfort. The stinging in his throat always reminded him of that yawning fireplace.

They were playing the election results on some dingy television mounted on the far wall and a blonde guy with cornflower eyes was draining his glass and lamenting the Hargrave legacy with a smile that was all bared teeth.

They took out another mortgage on that mansion of theirs to afford his Campaign, y'know?

He can't breathe he's laughing so hard. Gasping for air as he pounds his fist on his knee.

All for less than five percent of the vote!

That part was true.

I'd never show my face 'round here again. How fuckin' embarrassing.

He and his mother were living in an apartment now, Sandro never did get to ask his father if he really regretted the whole thing or had had his fun playing pretend.

Rumor has it he's shacked up with his secretary now.

Sandro never told mother he knew, oaths were regrettably binding. He wasn't one for disobeying orders.

Ain't that his kid? Slumped on the bar over there. Hey Benny! You should ask for an autograph!

His memory gets fuzzy from there on out. He can pick out bits and pieces - a stinging pain on his left side and the sound of something in his chest snapping. It was not so pretty or performative as the shit he'd seen in the Games, violence must get diluted through television static. They played dirty, all nails and teeth and the taste of blood. Though none of that really mattered in the end.

It was after the fight ended, with his fingers wrapped around his opponent's throat as he shoved his skull into vomit-stained carpet. The guy was crying, Sandro probably was too. His lungs burned and he coughed until a dislodged tooth landed on the ground next to them. He felt the stranger's pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips and so he squeezed until the guy couldn't beg anymore.

All the white noise stopped, the blood roaring in his ears quieted to a gentle purr. This boy's fate lay entirely in Sandro's hands.

Warmth bloomed in his chest and then-

he fell in love.

He didn't let the guy pass out, that would have been far more trouble than it was worth. Cornflower eyes ran off with his tail between his legs and every time Sandro went back to that bar everyone looked at him different. Their gazes were warmer - full of respected because he'd fucking earned it.

So when he was asked to uproot his life for the sake of rebellion? It was a no fuckin' brainer, pardon his french. He's got no love for a system that rewards people like his father, that lets pitiful men grow fat on their platinum thrones. The only way to fix Panem is to start over again, to turn it to ashes and build up from there.

Who wouldn't want a say in the shape it'll take? Especially an empty boy like Sandro Hargrave. Chasing security, chasing a sense of control. Chasing that same sensation of anothers' pulse pounding beneath his fingertips but more. The whole fucking world's if he can manage it.

After all, a man never forgets his first love.