dying |young| -AmbroseOneshot-

Reaping day.

The sixty-third annual reaping day to be exact.

And the thirty-first reaping that he had attended since the age of twelve.

When he was a child things had never seemed to change. A pair of tributes would be marched off and he and his brothers slowly grew older until they weren't in danger of leaving this world via the Arena. Career training had experienced quite a boom thirty years ago , growing in popularity with every win that the district pulled out; though it had never held much appeal to Ambrose. Of his three brothers, he was the thinker, Todd the speaker and Damien the doer. He could honestly say that he wasn't a failed career because in truth, he had never truly been one in the first place. These things had held true for them up until their young adulthood when gang violence had claimed Damien's life. Todd had never been the same after that, and sometimes Ambrose wondered just how much he had changed since then. His younger brother's death had caused him to straighten up, looking for respectable work and successfully courting and then marrying his darling Laurna.

Todd, on the other hand, had continued on a downward spiral, his bitterness fueled by his raging addiction to alcohol. It came as quite a shock when Todd had wound up with a Lightwood, given his tendencies, but some people said it was to be expected of the middle child of the Dempseys boys. Even then, people had whispered things about his family. Some were true, others fiction, but people talked about what they wanted. Things seemed to move at a faster pace as time wore on, and when Moira had been born to Ambrose, he was hit by the sudden realization that he was now on the other side of the fence. Instead of having a parent worry about him, he was now the parent doing the worrying. Todd had had a child the following year, a bouncing baby boy; but even then, gossip wormed its way past peoples lips like a flowery scented poison, eventually reaching his ears.

In those days, he had told himself everything was going to change, that things would get better when people saw where the Dempsey name was going. Cora was born next, followed by the twins and the Aurora. As his daughters grew, his nephews visits came more frequently. He should have known Todd beat the boy, but he wanted to believe his last brother was better than that and so love had blinded him until Kendra had been driven to an early grave. He couldn't turn a blind eye after that, and had tried to distance his daughters from their extended family; something he deeply regretted now, because in doing so, he had turned his back on a youthful Kaelen as well. The year of the fiftieth hunger games, Ambrose had buried both of his parents, grateful that they had lived long enough to see his little surprise in the form of his sixth daughter, Blair.

Things changed. Got better; though people still talked about his brother from time to time, not a word was said about his precious angels, the daughters he loved so very much. When had things changed for the worse? Some small part of him believed it had been during the year of the fifty-ninth. The year itself was not a good one for the district, not with both of the districts tributes during mere minutes into the bloodbath, the victors sister slain by her own district partner. Todd had died that year too, with the peacekeepers ruling it as a suicide. As the number of those interred on the family grave plot continued to rise, Ambrose had begun to wonder what would happen next, yet daring to hope that things could only get better from this point on. The gossip of others lingered in the recesses of his min, caught somewhere between what he wanted to believe and what he knew to be true.

And then fate had intervened once more, with his missing nephew being reported dead. Oh, that saddened him when he had the time to think about, but he had been shocked and infuriated when Kaelen's activities had come to light before that. He should have known that Todd hadn't been any sort of a father to the boy, but he hadn't thought it could get as bad as it had. The number of victims was shocking; but what wasn't shocking was what people said, how they claimed that they knew only too well that nothing good could ever come of the Dempsey name, dragging Ambrose and his daughters through the mud for the sins of another. He had lost his job that week, his boss giving him fluffy reasoning for why he was being indefinitely laid off, which was truly a bunch of thinly veiled bullshit to say that they couldn't let his last name besmirch the company. No, they had been so quick to forget all the work he had done over the actions of one hurting teenage boy.

Tragedy had already struck earlier that year, and an empty coffin had been buried to mark the passing of Siberia, lost to them in the wreckage of the earthquake. When she was interred, some small part of him was grateful that there was no mangled body, that he hadn't had to watch her get torn apart on national television. It was therefore, the last thing he could have expected to happen when Kiera chose to volunteer as tribute. Had he failed her so much? In reflection, it had never been easy for him to deal with loss, and perhaps he had not been fully there for her. True, he had lost a daughter, but she had lost a twin. Was that not tantamount to losing a part of oneself? To be bereft of a kindred spirit in such a manner. Could that have been why she felt the need to escape? He truly believed she had had a good chance at coming home, and had told her as much when the last time he had seen her.

He could still remember quite vividly the day of the bloodbath, watching as she and her chosen allies decimated a group of unlucky tributes. How could he forget that day? How could he forget that the prodigal son had returned without so much as an apology? Kiera had made twelfth place before dying in a chemical fueled haze and as she lay bleeding to death with her senses returning his heart had been stabbed with every scream and sob until the light had faded from her eyes and the canon fired signaling that yet another Dempsey had fallen and would never rise again. Something in him had broke that day; or perhaps it was his poorly bandaged former hurts re-opening and spilling forth in a cascade of feeling. Her funeral was paid for by the Capitol and while the father in him wept, the pragmatic in Ambrose was bitterly reminded that even with Laurna's shop, he simply couldn't afford to bury another child, and he shuddered to think what might happen if he had to.

And so for several weeks, he had left that bitterness consume him, hiding away from the world, trying whiskey and cigars again to see if they could help him feel less; they did not, and he had eventually stopped using them, though he still enjoyed the occasional smoke. In the wake of Kiera's death, the family had started to fall apart, and he had wondered briefly if it was because of the things people were saying about Kiera. Both Moira and Blair felt the need to run away. He hoped they would return one day, as the peacekeepers had been unsuccessful in finding either one. And so his feelings had ruled him. What he hadn't expected was to find similar feelings in his nephew, a change in nighttime ventures that he was willing to be a part of. This current day, Kaelen was hiding somewhere avoiding the mandated attendance for every single reason in the book. Ambrose and Laurna were together, with Cora and Aurora somewhere lost in the shuffling of the crowd.

Gentry Morgan, the districts current mayor, stalked across the absurdly ornate stage with what Ambrose felt was a practiced relish and selected a slip of paper from the girls bowl. She was a woman that he and his brothers had attended school with, a former career. He felt his stomach clench by itself, a cold roiling in his gut that he hadn't felt in years. The Dempseys had never been tributes before even though they were fighters, and before Kiera had volunteered he had never really thought that anyone in his family could in fact wind up in the arena, not really. But like so many other things in his life, that had changed. The name rang out clear and strong in the air. Emerald Shore. One of the more prestigious families in the district as evidenced by the clapping of some empty headed people. But it was what happened next that surprised him. Another girl volunteered for her, one he could recognized as one of the other Shore siblings. He watched the girl take her sister's place thoughtfully, wondering is she cared about her sister or was only spurred on by self-motivation. Was it too much to think that even careers were incapable of feeling human?

The boy was Viridian Harper, brother to the Stark Harper that so many had been sure was going to win two years prior, a girl that had managed to pull fourth place before expiring. The whole thing was sickening, but he breathed easier in knowing that his daughters were safe for one more year. Some part of him wished the Harper and the Shore a measure of good luck, but mostly, he just wanted to get far, far away from the district square before people started to talk about betting and odds; all the things he cared nothing about and was tired of hearing every year, especially as the last year had involved people betting on one of his children, a thought that made his stomach churn with indignation and a cultured sense of annoyance. Laurna's arm found his and he held her close as they walked home, more in relief than anything else.

The rest of the shuffle home was a quiet one, and as soon as the door was open, he decided it was best to leave the women in his life to their own devices as they disappeared far faster than any suggestion he could make A quick kiss on his wife's lips and he had entered the kitchen, throwing together a pastrami sandwich on wheat bread with a slice of cheese and a few squirts of mustard. The food he wolfed down as he climbed the stairs, feeling each step creak with age as he walked and making a mental note to have them reinforced. Once in his bedroom, he had changed his clothes, hanging his best suit in the closet and choosing a more relaxing outfit comprised of slacks and a polo shirt. As he combed his hair in the mirror, he noticed a few streaks of grey he hadn't noticed before and studied them thoroughly. Ambrose supposed he was getting older without even realizing it, as evidenced by the wrinkles starting to form around his eyes.

He shook his head and finished combing his hair out, before going over to the side of the bed and examining his gift from Laurna. Bless her heart, he had told her not to get him anything for his forty-third birthday the past week as needless extravagance was not what the family needed when he still couldn't find a place that would hire him. But she had gotten something for him anyway, the kind of gift that reminded him why he had married her in the first place. He had not opened the box until two nights ago, and when he had at Letty's insistence, he was taken aback. She knew him better than he knew himself sometimes, but to get him an easel, palette, tubes of paint, several pieces of canvas and a single brush was almost too much to bear. Ambrose had asked her where on earth she had found the extra cash to get these things and where she had gotten the things themselves, to which she had replied with a smile that she had gotten them here and there and she just wanted to get that brooding look off of his face since nothing else seemed to be working.

He had almost tried to get her to take them back to the store for the money, but she had pursed her lips in the way that he knew meant she had made up her mind about something and he just didn't want to throw her kind gesture back into her face. Maybe he would just try a little, but... he hadn't picked up a paintbrush since Damien died. All of the items he packed into a bag, before slinging it over his shoulder. Going down the steps seemed harder, as if his feet weren't willing to let him move forward. At the front door, he passed a beaming Laurna, who he informed he was "stepping out" She blew him a kiss and smiled knowingly, and he coughed awkwardly,straightening his back and passing stiffly through the entrance. The sun was shining brightly in the district as he walked, and for once, he didn't feel like all eyes were on him.

Anywhere he went, people were glued to screens, or prattling on about who they were betting on and how well they thought the district was going to do or was it worth it to start sponsoring tributes now? Ambrose tried to block all of that meaningless drivel from his mind as he strolled about, breathing in the crisp afternoon air with a sigh. He already had a place in mind; the family plot was overlooked by a hill, and it was that hill he wanted to stand on, to get a better view of the surrounding area. It was a walk without incident, event or trouble. He did not run into anyone he knew, or that knew him, nor did he stumble or trip a single time as he made his way along. The hill seemed smaller than he remembered, but he found his way to the top all the same, letting out a sigh of relief as he did so. It struck him that given everything that had happened the year of the sixty-second hunger games, his family had been largely forgotten by the district. Something that Kaelen was sure to remind them of when his plans came to fruition.

The easel folded out easy enough, and he planted it firmly atop a small grassy knoll, facing it away from the yard and selecting one of the medium sized canvas's. Ambrose stood silently for several minutes, staring blankly at the empty sheet with a mixture of wonder and uncertainty. A decade if not more had passed while life moved him along and he hadn't spent anytime at all doing what he felt like, only what he needed to do or what was expected. Within that blank canvas he saw himself as he had once been, felt old feelings stirred anew and contemplated that it might be time for another change, but this time, one of his own choosing. He uncapped the tube of blue and poured a dollop into the palette, dipping the brush in hesitantly, carefully. A single stroke of brilliant azure lit up the top portion of the paper and he studied it before adding another, and another, feeling rusty and unkempt as he added more.

Looking round the side of the easel he chose to add a few trees in the distance to the picture with some green, but it just didn't look right, so he tried to fix it by adding a little bit of yellow, but when that failed to work, he tried some brown but the whole thing just started looking muddled and he took it off in exasperation and put it down at the foot of a nearby tree and smoldered, dropping the brush and sitting by the failed painting, gazing up at the sky. He would have to tell Laurna that her plan was a failure, that he just didn't have it in him to make art like he had when they had been courting. There was just no inspiration to be found; he had starved his muse to death and he felt like there was little he could do to bring it back to life. Ambrose glumly stuck his hands in his pockets and watched a cloud shaped like a leaf go by.

When he drew his hands out of his pants, the left one scraped against a bit of leather and he drew his wallet out to look at it. It was a battered old thing and empty, just like himself he supposed. Ambrose opened it, half expecting a moth to fly out like in the old wives tale, and went through its contents, wondering why it was even in this pair of pants, for it wasn't like he had any money. He pulled out one of a creased business card bearing his name and flicked it away; there was no need to have them now. He tossed away a sponsorship receipt next and the ticket stub to a play; he would have thrown the whole wallet too, if not for the folded piece of paper hew withdrew last. Ambrose unfolded it and was stunned to see a worn photograph of Siberia and Kiera together, taken just a few years ago. Just his twins with smiles on their faces as they faced the camera, striking poses and looking like nothing else in the world but who they were.

His vision blurred after a moment, and he rubbed at his eyes with a hand after letting out a pained sigh. He started to fold it back up when a gust of wind rocked the easel a little. Ambrose stopped, glancing at the photo and then the painting supplies again, a forgotten spark of something lighting up in his head. A fresh canvas was secured to the easel, using the clip at the top to hold the creased photo safe. The brush he picked up from where he dropped it, dusting some flecks of dirt of with the fingers of one hand. And then, he tried again. But this time, the strokes of blue he added were not the blue of the sky, they were the color of his hurt, of the bereavement that had so torn at his heart. Stroke after stroke was applied to the canvas, washing it in greens and yellow as the white background continued to vanish under his careful hand. It was not the green of the leaves, but the hue of the lives each of his daughters led.

When there were yellows it was the happiness each of them had given him; the reds the anger that had consumed him for weeks before being held in, the combined flavor of years of hurt, years of being a doormat, and where it paled it was the passion he felt for his beloved wife. The brown of the ground and the greys was replaced with ashes tipped from cigars as the orange was not the color of the flowers left on someones tombstone but the fire that burned in his heart. His hand flew faster and faster as the picture formed in his head, a part of him he thought had been lost forever blooming with new vigor like chains falling away from his heart and mind to be replaced with feelings that were truer than anything else he had ever dared to let himself feel. And throughout all of it, he kept staring back at the forever frozen moment of time of when his daughters were capable of nothing but joy. Overcome with emotion as the brushstrokes added depth and truth and so much more he felt himself begin to cry, mouthing the only two words that made any kind of sense.

"Thank you."

And as the picture continued to come to life, he found that he wasn't Ambrose Dempsey, grieving father, but he has Ambrose Dempsey, loving father and that moment suspended in time stopped looking so frozen, his daughters smiles became peals of laughter and he was laughing with them for the world was not ending it was going on and on and then they were five years old and he was carrying Kiera on his back as Siberia held his hand and he promised to never let either of them go as they walked through the storm, raindrops cascading around them forming puddles and reflecting everything he had ever wanted to be for his family, but then they were both fourteen and the picture was being taken and right there, right then is how he wanted to remember them forever, not the frightened girl collapsing on screen in a pool of her own blood and the empty casket but his daughters, the twin daughters he loved so very much. The tears flowed freely now and he almost stopped painting right then and there but something deep inside him told him to keep going and he did, a thousand memories of Blair and Moira and Aurora and Cora twirling in his mind, dancing with their departed siblings, coming to life with every single stroke.

It was liberating, enchanting to feel the years falling away, his hurt being expressed in a way he hadn't thought he would ever find again and still it came, an endless stream of memories pouring out as his emotions became thoughts and those themselves flowing down his arm into the brush that felt like nothing more than an extension of who he was, as natural a part of his body as the eyes that took in everything in the distance or the legs that were kept firmly planted on the ground beneath him. It continued to bubble up and he knew in that instance that something had shifted within him, even though it felt like the world around him had changed again he knew it was himself, that he was free, freer than he had let himself be every since he had buried the first of his family members all those years ago. A sob wracked at his chest, becoming laughter as he heaved, his arm shook but he no longer cared,for the painting was him and he was the painting. He was crying, he was laughing, he was simply overwhelmed.

Ambrose continued painting until the sun began to dip lower in the sky and the temperature dropped by a few degrees. He packed the items away, carefully putting each in their place before collapsing the easel and tucking it under one arm. The half-finished picture he stuck under the other, after retrieving the photograph and placing it back in his wallet with greater care than he had ever given anything else. And in that moment, as he started down the hill, for the first time in a long time he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of his chest and every intake of breath tasted like the sweetest thing in his lungs, and even though the sun was setting, the district had never before seemed like such a bright place to be. Laurna would require the best thanks he had to offer for being such a wonderful woman, perhaps he'd even try to talk more with Cora and find out what boy had her fancy this week, talk to Aurora and just listen, or find his nephew and invite him to play cards. And so he walked, he walked and he felt with a true and honestly happy smile etched on his face.