just a kid // the night before

There were many things that Storm considered himself, both through intense self reflection and outside input from other sources, biased as they might be. Headstrong, reckless, funny, a little shit, the list went on and on to the point that he didn't really bother keeping track. He was Storm, first and foremost. The rest was just details.

Yet despite that, one of the lesser known yet most important of these traits was pride. He was proud, even if he rarely showed it, often to a fault. Proud of his family name. Proud of his family. Most importantly, proud of himself. It took a hell of a lot of self confidence to get this far, after all - after all, how often did one volunteer for the Games outside of the Career districts for any other reason other than to save a loved one or satiate a martyr complex? And above all, Storm was proud of himself. He may be the youngest tribute this time around, but age was just a number when it came to the Games. Ask Flynn Garner. Ask Kassandra Nerys. Hell, go back thirty six years and ask Aranica Petros. There was no reason why he shouldn't be able to make it all the way to the end and win, right?

Right?

...Right?

Well.

If all of that was true, then, well.

There wasn't a reason at all why he was standing right outside of the door to Avriel's room in his pajamas at half past two in the morning on the day of the bloodbath with tears pooling in his eyes and an ugly old ball of fear sitting heavy in his gut. Nope. None whatsoever. Right?

It was just a momentary lapse. A second's worth of weakness that crept through his cheery, confident persona. All he had to do was suck it up and it'd be fine, right? His siblings had gone through their trials and had emerged fine on the other end without a single complaint. They were all paragons of strength, exuding confidence and competence at every turn.

So why was he here? No reason at all, surely. Just a moment of weakness.

A moment of weakness that turned into several as the ball of fear surged into his chest and he found himself utterly incapable of suppressing it.

He sniffed and squeezed his eyes, as if he could the tears back into their ducts and the fear outside of his body through sheer willpower alone.

Spoiler alert? He failed.

What was he even doing out here? It's not as if Avriel had said more than a handful of words to him in the two weeks since the fateful morning of the reaping. It's not as if Carly had given him a second's worth of notice since stepping off the train, instead preferring to spend her time with the two lower-district tributes in the meantime. Hell, if there was one thing that Storm had completely and utterly failed at in his time at training, it was making any sort of meaningful connection whatsoever.

His mentor? Repulsed by a self-inflicted vomiting session due to his own inability to control himself. His district partner? Repelled by an inability to save her life because his nerves had failed him the first time he'd tried to volunteer. Any one of the other twenty two tributes that populated the arena? More concerned with themselves or each other than him. Hell, to them, he was probably that weirdo who'd nearly drowned that very first day in the pool and then had spent the majority of his time memorizing plants. Like, man, how lame could he get, looking at plants?

It hit him right about then with a partially suppressed sob. He was Storm Adroxis, yes, and yet he was two weeks detached from the unconditional love his parents and siblings had smothered him in for fourteen years and had proven himself utterly incapable of finding something, anything, even remotely resembling a replacement. He was the youngest kid going into an arena of twenty four where only one would emerge, and he had no allies, no mentoral support or advice, and not even a unique private training score to boast about. He'd gotten a 9, same as Nowles. And where was Nowles now?

Buried six feet under, just like Storm would be in a matter of days, if not hours.

The next sob breaks free of the restraints, yet before he can dissolve into tears entirely, the last ragged remnants of Storm's pride reassert themselves. He sniffs again, wiping a stray tear that had managed to break free of its confines off of his cheek.

For so long, he'd been living a facade. And now here, a quarter till three in the morning, he finally realized the truth.

Storm Adroxis was a fraud, because there was no way he was as good as he claimed. Not when other tributes scored higher than him, not when he couldn't even make his mark as the highest scoring individual from his own family. Storm Adroxis was an idiot, because yeah, no fucking wonder there were so few volunteers in the arena outside of the martyrs and the sacrificial siblings. And Storm Adroxis was a coward, because, faced with the consequences of his own actions for the first time in his entire sheltered life, he was one thread away from breaking and sobbing all over the fancy Capitolite carpet outside his mentor's door.

Not that he'd never cried before, or never had a grand plan blow up in his face. It'd actually happened quite frequently, to be fair, but that was back home, where he could run to Eve and she'd get rid of the problem plaguing him, or run to his mama where she'd wipe the tears out of his eyes and envelop him in a loving hug. But he couldn't get their comfort here, hundreds of miles away from home.

That left one option.

Before his nerve could fail him, he knocked on Avriel's door, once, twice. Then, after a second (because Storm was never been inclined towards patience to begin with, and the fear fraying his nerves cut that already slim resource in half), he called out, softly, hesitantly, voice wavering with the effort to hold his tears back;

"Avriel?"

A pause.

"I'm scared."

Another pause.

"I-I think I messed up real bad, and I-I- don't know..."

Alas, poor Storm. His efforts to keep the waves of fear at bay failed him at that very moment, as did his last barrier before the waterworks blasted at full blast.

Because in the end? He wasn't some grand prodigy, here to conquer the Games and rejoin his siblings back home having successfully conquered a trial he was in no way, shape, or form ready for.

He was just a kid, fourteen years old, who had just realized for the first time that he was about to die.