don't try this at home / roe, day 4

They're still pissed off enough to give him kitchen duties. Roe skulks away, bypassing the vending machine for once because absolutely fuck that thing.

He doesn't know what Mateo and Vin are doing in the training room. He doesn't want to know. He wants to crawl into that oven right there and turn it on and feel warm for three seconds before his body burns and all the skin melts off his bones.

That's the devotion in him.

There's shelves and shelves of cans and tins and little colourful packages. The fridges here are all stocked. He doesn't even recognize the shit that comes out of that coffee machine. There's something sad in the fact that the amount of food he's seen in the arena is more than any amount of food he's ever seen in Twelve.

Still, that pavement, that smear on the streak - maybe that would be kinder.

There's that devotion again.

He slides to the floor, shoulder rattling against the hum of the freezer. The duct tape pulls funny. He'd used the bedsheets of the bunks to wipe away most of the blood, but he can still feel a sort of tackiness along his spine.

He's so stupid, his head lolling back to stare at the fluorescents. There's cobwebs up in the rafters, there's dust under the prep counter. Rock kicks an empty can and watches it roll into a puddle of dishwater.

It's not as glamorous as it seems on tv.

Maybe that's why he reaches back into his bag, past the food he's bringing back, past the cans of barely-flavoured carbonation. He pulls out the little case from the Gamemaker's room, instructional pamphlet long gone.

He taps his fingers against the vial inside.

Adrenaline, it had said.

His knee twinges. He's got his own blood stuck under his nails.

Can't be that bad.