blood petrol, burn my soul // gavin&altair

Here, it's brighter than what he's used to. 

Altair doesn't see the sun of his first day in the Capitol, they carry each player on a different train. Alone, supervised and prodded, the interview's come like needles, sucking at the bone marrow, very essence of who he is. After each one, he wonders what they do with the information, if Altair will get to see the product of his veins. 

What comes out of him, the pieces of life they decide are the best parts of him. Like his genetics are political and they're cutting the fat, using his existence as a character in their show -- if he isn't the main character, does he matter less? Is he at risk? There's so many dangerous hypotheticals that he plays over in his mind, those painful thoughts of what he's gotten himself into. 

It's appealing, appalling; soon, it'll be all he has. 

Comfort to some extent, it's hard to shake the worry that he'll be a reflection for his parents. A boy who can't even die on television, his father told him not to embarrass him before he left. It's the last concern he hears. This isn't the Hunger Games, this was just an escape; why does it worry Altair so much? Why can't he just give it up, just not fucking care. 

The first text comes and Altair over thinks every word of it. 

There's got to be more that matters then winning, there has to be. Altair is escorted to the train station; eyes follow him like lights. They hover across the street, he sees them on the corners of buildings and under the overpasses -- the Capitolites don't watch him, the fucking cameras do, and they're everywhere. He starts too late to keep a count, but he makes a note to on his way back. 

Cold, is the way he'd describe the capitol. Concrete passes, streets that don't even feel human - everything is impractical. All he knows is efficiency, but the Capitol is built from waste. Maybe that's all extravagance is: a waste. They flaunt how little they struggle, how easily they can afford these sculptures of buildings. 

People who are excited to replace what they don't need, he overhears the conversations at the train station. Thirty minutes of it as it wears on his grit; there's a woman who replaces her garments every time she wears them. She was talking to someone else, talking about how her pet mutt wears dresses that not even Altair could afford; when there's mud on it, she throws it away. 

The jobs they work aren't any different from his, aren't any more difficult -- there was a man who critics belts for a living. Altair pictured the leatherworkers in the factories, but this man only talks about the fashion of it. Somewhere there's supposed to be just a normal guy, another person like Altair himself, in the middle of all this ridiculousness. They all just talk about nonsense, how unproductive they can get away with. 

These people are insane. 

And that's where the idea comes from. 

There's this constant monorail, nearly silent in how it makes its rounds and it doesn't even feel real. Like it's sliding on glass, some type of projection, the train in nine is haunting in how it squeals. The sound of the brakes halting would echo to the corners of the district, there was no escaping it -- Altair rubs his hands together as he stands closer to the monorail's tracks, inspecting it all. 

Glass, of course, shining bits of railing, it's opulent with the little sunlight it catches. 

"Oh- oh my Snow, give me one second," a girl near him says on her phone before coming closer to him, "your outfit is so... humble! So vintage, I love, love, but," she trails off and Altair squints at her. Her hair wired like coils, the black ringles wrapped in bows of soft glass, and her turtleneck expands like spandrels around her jawline. Almost alien in how she towers over him, how small she makes him feel; how do they look like this? 

These are the people we die for? 

Altair checks his ringer, reading the text over without paying her much mind. "This knit sweater is so homely, you're giving very much Paul Smith vibes! Where on fashion street do you shop?" 

"Oh, fuck me." 

"Hmm?" 

He exhales, clutching his fists and closing his eyes. Thinking over how to proceed -- and he can't, he can't move on until this guy pops up. This magical, humble guy, without scale transplants or cosmetic disfigurements, you people are crazy. It crawls on his neck and seeps into him, how homesick he feels; District Nine is supposed to be the pits of hell, but god does he miss that warmth. 

There's a second he rocks, one foot infront of the other, "oh you can't-"

"Watch." He rocks onto the monorail tracks. 

To see what happens. 

To see their reaction; 

but it sticks. Like a glitch, the tracks cover themselves and the monorail lights flicker. "Get off the tracks, sir!"

"Oh, how rude," the crowd isn't concerned, he stands fine as the floor finds a way beneath him. 

"Wha-?"

"GET OUT THE WAY!" It blares in his ear, the wall behind the monorail tracks flashing a red text in his eyes. A fail proof, a system built around him; maybe this is where Nerve starts, the game starts. It's almost as if they've planned ahead, a mouse trap he has to figure out. 

A monorail worker approaches him, pulling him from the tracks and Altair can only help but to watch as the tracks sink below again, the lights fading back as another monorail proceeds. Someone whispers about how they'll post about this, these people think him poor at worst. 

These people aren't real. 

"You could have seriously slowed things down. What's your address?"

"Altair Q-wait, what?" 

"Where are you from? The bill has to go somewhere."

"Uhh- er, 4th 25th east," scratching his head for any address he remembered on the way here. 

"The Mutt Groomers?" 

"I just moved in." 

"We can tell!"