Chapter Text
At the end of the day, it's not about him. It's about Charlie, shivering accentuated in silhouette above the bay. He isn't dressed for the weather up on the rocks, because nobody is. The Reaping of District 4 never takes long, after all, and until his best friend's name is called the only thing on Will's mind is the evening's fish stew and the dawn shift he has tomorrow. Panem's formation is a story he's heard before too many times (a thin veneer of placating splashed over the great unspoken war) to even bother listening to. In a District where to be Reaped means only temporary inconvenience and a story, there's nothing to worry about. The paltry Careers programme takes enough of the precious little money around to keep everyone else safe.
And then the escort says his name. Not his name, but it may as well be for how long they've spent together as brothers in all but blood.
So briefly, naturally, all logic slides away. The lucid horror of Charlie's being chosen, the stiff and robotic march he takes to the faroff stage, his hitching breath amplified by the microphone - all of it presses against Will's ribcage in a roaring riptide of fear. He can't. He can't go.
But of course he won't have to. That's not how this works. Any moment now, this year's Career will volunteer. She's a stocky young woman and a favourite of the racketeers. Although she has never been kinder than haughty to Will, he respects her sacrifice like everyone else. In the town's mind, she already stands proudly beside the grateful waif of a teen she's replaced. This year, it just happens to be Charlie.
And nothing happens.
What?
And nobody volunteers.
Where is she?
And finally, with dawning panic, he realises that the Career isn't here. The crowd and distance make the Justice Building's stage hard to inspect, but in a rapid corruption of roles the Mayor appears to be dithering whilst the escort is oddly still. A Peacekeeper motions harshly for the tributes to step away from the glass ball of unchosen names. Ever deferent, Charlie turns obligingly towards the Justice Building, away from the sea, away from Will and away from all of them and-
Away from the strangled sound that tears itself out of his throat. It is inhuman, it is broken, it is a clear-cut crystal agony that spears him cleanly through. It is echoed six times over throughout the crowd of District 4.
"I volunteer!" he screeches on the third try, blundering up over the spray-soaked rocks with heedless abandon. Calloused hands bear the brunt of the improvised stairway, but he must leave at least the skin of his knees scraped across the boulders. In a different and equal way, he leaves his heart strewn over them too. "I volunteer, please, please, I volunteer as tribute!"
The last time he was this scared was a long, long time ago. Even then they were always together in their mischief. All eight of them had been sprawled out on the beach, nominally gathering handfuls of mussels for dinner. In reality, they were children.
He was halfway buried in the golden sand, singing with Rhianna again. The effect was hardly prodigious, but their simple melodies were pleasant to the ear and fun to perfect. The distant twin figures of Jack and George had been chasing each other up and down the sandbar for hours. Like everyone else, they spent their mornings reveling in the limitless energy of a bountiful summer.
Matt, ever the contemplative type, he remembers was presiding over David and Dan's latest argument in serious tones. And then there was Charlie. Alone by the sea, toddling through the pebbles and noticing something strange in the water.
Jellyfish blooms are quick and nasty buggers.
Those days were the worst of his life. Venom-wracked and sun-sick, Charlie's slow recovery broke them all in little ways. Rhianna wouldn't sing with him anymore. Matt's sarcasm bit more savagely, more often. George took home so many shellfish the first week that every kid on their street treated him roughly for months in memory of the chowder. If it took them all so long to recover without his grounding presence and uncomplicated enthusiasm as children, then...well, Will's decision was made the moment those manicured fingers touched paper.
They will mourn without him, but they will wither without Charlie.
The spray of the sea is aggressive today, spitting its invasive saline solution in his mouth and in his eyes. It's almost a good thing - if he doesn't know whether or not he's crying then the cameras certainly won't. Seven sobbing teenagers sprint after him, but all know the rules and one by one all are held back. He doesn't want to remember much of what happens after that, so he retreats into the embrace of a secluded daze.
About three steps into the train station, a little-used and well-rusted affair, some huge presence clutches the front of his coat and holds him up to the brick wall. Spit and surprise flood his mouth.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" she yells, too close to his face, his best and only starched collar bunched irreparably under her hands. The Career. "Years of planning go into this, you fucking moron! I was waiting!"
His feet aren't even touching the ground. The escort whimpers feverishly in the doorway like a kicked dog, and he hates him all the more for it. Then what she says ticks over in Will's brain, and to her eternal credit she doesn't mock his expression.
"There is no honour in a volunteer's failure, Gold," she spits after a second, nodding complacently to the Peacekeepers stomping onto the platform. Before they can reluctantly restrain her, she drops him with a rough snort. The fear in her eyes is not for him. "You're going to lose for nothing and for nobody. I hope you're proud of yourself." When she leaves, it is in the stalking manner of a predator who knows they will outlive their prey.
She's halfway there, Will reflects as the green-haired little escort fusses disproportionately over his crinkled shirt. He won't lose for District 4, for the Capitol, for rich merchants and their vainglorious bloodsports. He'll lose for his friends, and maybe that'll be enough.
The first day passes in a whirl of business, the reinvention of his body a priority. Every defining mark of effort and injury is stripped and sanded back; with the loss of his calluses comes the inane urge to weep. Years of labour melt away, and he is as soft and useless as a child born here. It's not like his mentor wants to touch him, especially after the fateful visit of...well. Her. Instead he spends most of the night plumbing the depths of Twitch. But never the Games. Never the Victors' channels.
Life can't stay like that forever, though. The head trainer is a freckled teenager called Dave, ropy but slight, who speaks with a kind of eloquent gravitas. Even the real Careers are openly afraid of him, so Will assumes he's some dangerously famed Capitol personality. Whilst taking out his frustrations on a dummy with one of the peculiarly balanced tridents, they lock eyes. He's symmetrical and tired-looking with a ludicrous cowlick and piercing gaze. Will has bigger problems than a dick-measuring contest with some posh twat, though, so he looks away and stabs the weapon through an eye with better form than normal. Dave moves on and the room lets out a laughably bated breath.
Will's own room is cavernously large and utterly wasteful at every turn. When he realises the shower water is warm and unsalted, an egregious squandering of energy, he almost stops using it altogether. Electricity follows him everywhere he walks. Its low buzz is a sorry substitute for the scent of paraffin, the ocean's comforting din. Mute servants recommend him a vast array of fish, an edible echo of home, but all of it is overprepared and gentrified to the point of diversion. Homesickness creeps relentlessly towards him. The other tributes avoid each other relentlessly except for meals, and after a while begin to take dinner in their rooms. He's glad - being around the others is intense in all the wrong ways.
His interview comes around, as it inevitably must. The model of a District 1 tribute from years before is predictably stunning, the image of power and strength in a silver sheath dress. His stylist, a mild-mannered woman with crimped eyelashes called Olivia, doesn't think a similar ensemble will work for him. She's right.
Instead, they play up his softness, his stature, his melodic District 4 accent and mellow seaside charm. It's done so well that the boy in the dressing room mirror doesn't look like him at all. The sweater is an inoffensive yellow, his makeup so focused around the eyes as to make them seem twice the size. Exasperated, the stylist presses an unfamilar kind of hat onto his untameable hair and tells him in no uncertain terms that it will have to do. The fabric is warmer and softer than anything he's ever worn.
Outside that sanctum of soft-spoken adjustment, the bustle of the crew is insurmountable. It reminds him of dawn on the docks before a long trip, but instead of the week's fish these people are tasked with harvesting his soul in equally digestible soundbites. None of them take any notice of him. Overwhelmed and lost, he dips back into the first dressing room that might be his.
It very much is not. Spools of pink ribbon are draped over crates of clothes, bouquets of salmon blossoms heaped around the backlit mirror. A robed figure stands alone by the window and watches the rampant festivities play out below. Will hadn't recognised him before, but if the ridiculous outfit isn't enough then the hair certainly is.
"Are you Technoblade?"
The boy whips around guiltily. Huh. As it turns out he looks much, much younger in character, which seems antithetical to the purpose. Shorter than Will by quite a stretch, he commands attention nonetheless. Instead of appearing regal and threatening the furred mantle and bejeweled crown hang limply over his bony frame. It's almost academic. There's something halfway pitiable about it all, until you remember that the glittering diadem has its purpose.
"Well," he says, recovering quickly, "that rather depends on who's asking." Despite the harshness of the words, there's no real enmity behind them. Technoblade - Dave - smiles too readily for a Career, and the farcical pink fringe flopping into his eyes only consolidates the beguiling demeanour. "Oop, sorry. I don't think they used enough hairspray at the sides there," he laughs softly, like it's the funniest thing in the world. "Do they need me on set already?"
"No, no, I...I'm a tribute." Will is mortified. Dave's smile disappears.
"Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry." It's the only time anyone's apologised. Thus far, the tone has been set by the celebratory insouciance of his chattering escort. Summarily that he's lucky to be here, lucky to lose, lucky to perhaps be a footnote in the grimmest of histories. Personally he can't see the appeal.
"It's okay-"
"It's not."
Surely no victor could be that naive. Even some tradition-soiling fisherboy like Will knows no expense is spared on surveillance for the Games. They're not alone anywhere. Especially not here. Just in case, he scratches at his ear covertly and blinks. Dave rolls his eyes so hard that the pink eyeshadow all but peels off. His freckles are makeup too, Will notices suddenly - nothing about this outfit is less than engineered. The thought is a sobering one.
"Don't bother, man. What are they gonna do to me that they haven't done already?" A nihilistic chill laces the words. Even though he's clearly older, Will feels inexplicably childish next to this overdressed infant. This overdressed infant whose nails are longer than his hands and filed into claws, painted a slick and gloomy red. For perhaps the first time ever, he sees what a cruel trick the post-game personas really are. "You know, I was going to be a writer. I was, I was good, and I was trying. I had a good, respectable trade. What did you say your name was, again?"
"Um, I didn't. William Gold. Will is fine." This is insane. He needs to leave, now, before they're both caught and strung up as an example to the rest.
"Then my sincere apologies, William," Dave says. "Wouldn't want to scare you." Something less than appreciative tilts its head pleasantly in clear dismissal, leans against the dressing table like he isn't even there. "Good luck."
"Dave, I..." He trails off, forlorn. Nothing he could say would come off as better than condescending and pitiful. Dave stiffens slightly, and Will has overstepped. Costuming aside, the arch of his neck finally displays some of that monarchical mien he always has in the interviews. Almost without meaning to, he takes a step back. It doesn't escape notice.
"I don't really go by Dave anymore," he says, drawing the thick cloak around his shoulders. "You know what they say," and he's crying. Will's worst nightmare is bracing himself against the mirror, trying to angle himself to sob in such a way that his eyeliner stays sharp, and he's fucking crying.
"Technoblade never dies."
Almost exactly two years later, Panem's beloved arsonist will be trussed up like a turkey in a charcoal grey suit. There's irony in there somewhere. His interview getup will be a truly abominable creation, wreathed in fake smoke that billows in flattering puffs whenever he moves, but at least it'll be on brand.
Evidently they will be determined to drag him from isolation like this every year, the prize beast prodded and poked to wax charismatic on the virtues of the new tributes. Pure sadism. Grumbling habitually, he will stumble into Floor 5's most interesting bedroom without knocking and summon the energy for a friendly smile.
Technoblade never, ever dies. And when Wilbur Soot sees the carnage, he will be inclined to agree.