fit for purpose. { twelve, 92nd }

You shift your weight between your feet, rocking in place, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, unsteady and unsettled. You run your hands over your face, tug at your own skin and try to kneed out the pressure behind your eyes, but it's useless. Hand cupping the back of your neck, you run your palm over the black silk durag and fuck up the knot Nessa had so kindly taken the time to wrap for you this morning. You fumble with it clumsily, trying to fix it with hands that don't want to work for you. 

A decade of not doing enough and everything to prove it. That's what you have under your belt. You watch the numbers in front of you shift, going up as the elevator rises higher and higher with each passing floor. It's a ride you've taken a million times at this point. It feels harder every year though. You used to be able to make the trip without even remembering it, stumble in through the front door in a dirtied velvet suit with wine stains that would makes Jenas want to jump off the roof. You liked it better when you didn't think about it so much. Two years off alcohol and the stress still makes your fingertips itch for the neck of a bottle, amber liquid hot in your belly to keep you warm in a world that feels frozen over sometimes. A nip would make everything easier, make you calmer, make the world a better place, right?

You shiver.

Wrong, Nico. Wrong.

"ALRIGHT, TWELVE!" You shout, charging into the top floor suit of the Training Center. Bravado all over, you clap your hands as loudly as you can, voice at the top of your lungs. "TEAM MEETING! Get your asses out here now!"

Your tributes this year have death wishes. Good. You can use that, you suppose. At least they'll fight.

It also means you really want to rip your waves out of your head rather than try to speak to either of them. You've had your time with teenage arrogance, and you never handled it well.

Finn Davies is someone the district knew better than to reap, but here he is, having jumped at his own death head first and without so much as a single glance back. You half want to punch him yourself, but you'll leave that to the other tributes. Anika Khan is brash, a girl in a center of attention of her own making. They forgot to read her last name off the slip when the reaping happens, but a crowd of people turned to look at her anyway, commanding attention, the only Anika in Twelve that could matter, apparently. Something bites in your belly and you want to have a kid and name her Anika now, just to be a petty cunt about it, but then you realize that would have to involve Nessa having to pop a baby out of her vagina, and that thought terrifies you.

What the fuck would you do with a baby?

You witnessed more than one of Quinn Emberstatt's tantrums when she was younger, and those managed to persist well past her toddler years. The first sign your child showed of having a problem that you didn't know how to solve, you'd throw your hands up and walk away.

Boy turned man, you're still working on learning to sit still.

You stand in front of the television, arms crossed. Impatient, you tap your foot on the ground, your black loafer making small a tap, tap, tap, tap noise that only keeps winding you up. Jaw clenched, Twelve should've known better than to let one of the Davies anywhere near an arena, but now it's your job to try and force the foolish asshole to go home again.

"DAVIES, YOU TOO! GET OUT HERE!"