the mountain || oneshot

It ate her up inside, not knowing. It was a stupid thing, she knew, but some part of Elya decided that if she just kept watching the screen, everything would be alright. So long as she kept her one eye trained on him, Dan wouldn't do anything stupid, couldn't get into more trouble than he could handle. As long as she watched, he'd live. That made school all the more frustrating, of course, as all those passed over this reaping were expected to keep their heads down and do their coursework. Like everything was fucking normal. The updates given at lunch could never be enough to satiate her.

She slept in the living room, snowy television blaring, so that any cannon fire would rouse her, but the nights were quiet. Tributes needed to sleep too, it seemed. Besides, of the lot of them, Dan and his company were the only ones up for night hunting. Elya could tell. And the way her brother dragged his feet when he didn't get enough rest, she couldn't see him ever cutting into his beauty sleep.

Elya couldn't sleep at all that night, not after Claudius Templesmith's feast invitation. And especially not after the swarm of mutts engulfed the arena. The announcers had a field day, commenting on how each of the various alliances got split. Much to her chagrin, Dan had been stuck with the District Seven boy, the one he'd taken to calling troutmouth. Both Johnwaynes would've preferred to see Dan's other ally alongside him, but the muttation maelstrom had swept the mayor's boy away. So the cowboy got stuck with the fishfaced treehugger he harbored immense distaste for.

That was dangerous. Her brother's temper was the farthest thing from a secret, and undependable fighter he already hated would set him off. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It would. And Dan would need his wits about him for the feast that lay ahead. Even experienced fighters could be quickly deposed in clusterfucks like the feast. Plenty of examples came to mind without effort: Noah Ripley, from 4, the year that Cricket had brought home the crown for District Two; that Harper boy from One, the same year, and Penelope Libertine, from Four, felled by his big sister. And Dante Ramadar from their district died that day, too, the meat-brained career that was always likened to the girl since they shared the same number of eyes.

She stayed up all night, willing her brother toward the weaker crop of tributes, but had to leave him sharpening his axe. Stupid fucking school. They probably weren't learning anything interesting that day, not that she'd know. Her focus was hundreds or thousands of miles away, legs dangling off the edge of a hijacked covered wagon. Or, at least, she hoped.

Though her stomach was too knotted for hunger, Elya was the first one out of the door for lunch when the time came. She bolted down the hall, spindly legs carrying her in a full-out sprint, oblivious to the younger boy she sent sprawling with a fierce and reflexive body-check.

There was already a crowd gathered around the screen, and Elya could feel her pounding heart drop to her toes. Something had happened, that was for sure. She forced her way through the pack, catching a few murmured snatches of conversation. "...shame, really..." and "...he was so good, too..." and "...one more career down..." An icy panic crept over her, emanating from her chest and taking over every muscle to the tips of her limbs. Bracing for the worst, she forced her eye out of its thousand-yard-stare, fixing her focus on the television.

The fist of fear unfurled, frigid fingers releasing her heart. An audible sigh of relief escaped her, in synch with the cannon fire that sounded as that District Eleven boy withdrew his blade from Jem Morgan's chest. The anchors made their requisite remarks along with the replay. Her adrenaline subsided as the rest of the feast played out, with the deaths of two girls Elya hadn't given much attention. By the time the replay footage had ended, the younger Johnwayne found herself ready to relax once more.

Only then did the broadcast cut to live. There stood her brother, squaring off with every single career that still remained in the arena. Worse than that was the king scorpion. That stupid troutmouth took on as much as he could handle — a crippled and bloodied Fiver with a famous last name — and left the rest to her big brother. Oh, Dan. If there was anyone who could come out of three-plus-a-huge-fucking-scorpion on one, it was the mountain of ferocity that she'd looked out for all these years.

So she held her breath and waited for him to make the best of a dire situation. That was what he always did. When things were grim, Dan rallied and overcame. Every single time. She knew he'd manage. Even when the commentators explained that the mutt's venom was a paralytic, she knew it. Even when the sea bitch rushed him, drawing a red line down his arm, she knew he'd bounce back — and he did, catching the Four in his net.

The beginnings of a smile peeked onto her face, if only for a brief moment. But the storm cloud that was Elya Johnwayne's perpetual expression rolled back in the moment she heard the acerbic bite of her quote-unquote uncle somewhere on her blind side. Bruce Johnwayne was the second most distasteful person in her entire fucked-up family tree, only behind her grandfather, who'd sired the whelp when Elya was a toddler.

"Aw, nephew Dan, at least try to get out of the way!" The fourteen-year-old's voice grated. Both Johnwayne siblings detested when Bruce referenced himself as their uncle; after all, he was only their uncle by half. His mother sure as shit wasn't related, aside from being the future mother of Dan's bastard. But it was the way Bruce said the words that boiled her blood. As if the little shit knew better than her brother, as if he'd last a hot fucking second in Dan's position.

It was the explosion that jarred her. Her brother was flung once more to the ground, red torrent pouring out of his face. For a moment, she was terrified he wouldn't rise again. But this was her Dan, and he always pulled through. Rally, she willed. And rally he did. Clearly unsteady, he pulled himself up to his knees, to his feet, hollering curses at one of the Head Gamemakers. Glamour Kinkade, she thought, filing the name away for later, though she didn't know when she'd need it.

Both the cameras and the tribute became aware of the ruin of Dan's face at the same time. A large fragment of steel embedded itself in his right eye, drawing a sympathetic wince out of his little sister. The television grew harder and harder to watch by the second, and yet Elya Johnwayne found herself unable to tear her one steely eye away from the horror scene. If it were even possible, her stomach clenched harder as her brother extracted the metal shard, his wounded howl cutting through the commentary that didn't quite reach her ears.

She stared hard, eye glazing over as she tried in vain to stuff the year-old memories back beneath the surface. Elya could not, would not contend with them when every ounce of her focus belonged on Dan. If she was looking, he couldn't die. He wouldn't die. Not while she watched, he wouldn't die. He wouldn't.

If she repeated the mantra enough, she almost fooled herself into thinking that she believed it. But the world-weary sixteen-year-old was too much of a realist to pull the wool over her own eye, much as she wanted to kid herself. As desperate as she was to be proven wrong, she knew he wouldn't pull through. Not this time.

"Hey Elya." She snapped back to attention. Dan's address, paired with his stupid grin, were exactly what she needed, so much so that the younger Johnwayne would've sworn her brother was standing right in front of her. Elya couldn't help it; she returned his smile with a weak one of her own. "We match," she mouthed back, though the words caught behind the lump in her throat. The beginnings of a tear welled up in her eye, but the stony career girl willed it away. She wouldn't.

But it was so hard not to. The way he spoke, she could tell that Dan knew. That was it for him. He was done. She remembered to breathe, a sigh of resignation pushing all of the air out of her lungs and then some. If he was done, she would be too. Oh, Dan. Her one eye dropped shut, forcing the unfinished tear from the corner where she'd been saving it for later. She wished she could close her ears, too, so that she wouldn't have to listen to the play-by-play as her brother swiped at the District One girl before staggering right into the claws of the scorpion king.

She wished she could close her ears to the crunch and snap of splitting bone, to the caterwaul that could only belong to her older brother on the receiving end. But she couldn't.

She wished she could close her ears to the collective groan of her classmates as District Two was all but out of the running yet again. But she couldn't.

She wished she could close her ears to the narration of Dan's last, so she wouldn't have to know how he dragged himself through the dirt, back to the wagon he'd stolen from the cornucopia on that very first day. So she wouldn't have to hear the cannon fire. But she couldn't.

She wished she could close her ears to her quote-unquote uncle's jeers and derisions, to his remarks that he'd've done it better, to his insincere apology on behalf of the worst Johnwayne, to his suggestion that her brother was incompetent and stupid and everything he wasn't.

She couldn't. So she did the next best thing, and decked him square in the mouth.