THG/Cabin in the Woods Crossover: Civic Participation
Title: Civic Participation
Rating: R
Warnings: Adult and sexual themes, potential triggering situations, language, and violence
Summary: What is the meaning of Sacrifice? The Whore, Warrior, Fool, Scholar, and Virgin in the 74th Hunger Games. You will need to have seen Cabin in the Woods.
~
The Hawthorne home was a place of noise and mess and love. Though there was no denying that Hazelle had her hands full with the four boys and little Posey, everyone tucked in where it counted. Rory and Vick ran baskets of laundry back and forth through the town. Gale hunted, and as much as it worried their mother, they could always use the meat. And the oldest, Curt, did odd jobs for the mayor; the pay was enough to keep him out of the mines and gave him enough freedom to check in on the little ones when his mother needed him.
Gale came in through the back of the house and deposited his game bag in the kitchen. In the front room, Curt was already helping their mother set up the projector.
"Well, look who’s back from the woods with Catnip. You two spent so long sparking in those woods we were worried you wouldn’t make it back through the perimeter before the power came on.” Curt pursed his lips dramatically as Gale punched his shoulder.
“Oh,” Curt massaged his shoulder. “Is that your lady, Catnip? Meow…Meow…”
“Knock it off,” Gale said, swinging with both arms. One fist connected with his brother’s middle. Curt caught him around the neck. The two scuffled and almost upset the projector.
“Boys!” Hazelle shouted. “That’s enough.”
The two separated and Curt brushed off the front of his shirt. The fighting was nothing new. Only a year apart, the two spent as much time tussling as they spent taking up for one another.
“At least she’s Seam,” Gale said. “Not like Jules, the mayor’s girl.”
Curt stuck his thumbs in his chest with false bravado. “Can’t help it if I’m respectable. The mayor says I’m bona fide.”
Gale shoved him gently. “Only because he hasn’t figured out that you’re sneaking around with his daughter yet. Speaking of, what are you doing home?”
“Got the day off early,” Curt said. “Today’s programs are mandatory viewing.”
“Wonderful,” Gale flopped onto the threadbare sofa and pulled Posey up onto his lap. “Just what we need; more television.”
There was nothing Gale hated more than the Capitol. Unlike Curt, he wasn’t interested in working the system, or making nice; at least at home, like in the woods, he didn’t have to conceal his contempt. If it weren’t for the little ones, he might have done something about it, whatever Curt had to say about ‘going along to get along.’
The transmission ran, full of the Capitol’s usual drivel, showing off the stylist’s preliminary fashions, interviews with the gamemakers, and a speech from President Snow. There was nothing that should have made it mandatory viewing in the districts, right up until the very end.
“And finally,” Caesar Flickerman announced. “There will be a modification to this year’s reaping. Henceforth, the government-sponsored tesserae program has been eliminated and each district must produce two volunteers to participate in the 74th Hunger Games. Again, this year’s tributes must volunteer.”
The power cut off and the screen turned black.
“What?” Gale lifted Posey from his lap and set her on her feet.
“Are they running out of money?” Hazelle pondered aloud. “They can’t offer families tesserae, even at the cost of putting their children’s names in the reaping pool?”
“It’s not about the money,” Curt said. “They have the power, they have money.”
“Then why ask for volunteers?” Gale said.
“Because they don’t just want to control us,” Curt said. “They want us to participate.”
“That’s bad,” Gale agreed.
“That doesn’t scare me as much as what they’re not saying,” Curt said. “What happens when no one volunteers?”
---
At first, Curt was glad that at least it wasn’t raining, but as time wore on, and the sun rose higher in the sky, he longed to see even a single cloud and tried not to think about the growing redness of his face and neck. He had already sweat through his own shirt and the smell of the crowd was revolting. The mayor and his wife sat on the stage fanning themselves, sipping water, and Effie Trinket retreated into the Justice Building at half-hour intervals.
They had brought in extra peacekeepers for the day, from outside the district. The first one to pass out, a little girl, they roughed her up pretty badly and forced her back on her feet. The parents, too, were forced to stand by, many of them with younger children, like Posey.
From a few rows up, Gale eyed him critically, nodded toward the front of the crowd and averted his gaze as a peacekeeper passed by. At the front of the group, a few of the young boys were faltering, even some of the older children looked as though they wouldn’t be able to stay on their feet much longer.
One of the boys at the front dropped and the peacekeepers shoved him back in to place so that a handful more toppled over. A scuffle started, boys shoving one another, stepping out of line, and peacekeepers pushing back with batons and big guns, and Rory and Vick caught somewhere in the middle of it. It was only a matter of time. It had to end; someone had to end it.
“I volunteer!” He pushed his way toward the stage, to be seen, to make his voice heard. “I volunteer!”
“Hey!” He bellowed like the whistle calling workers to the mines and the crowd stilled. “I volunteer!”
Effie Trinket emerged from the Justice Building in time to beckon him on to the stage in front of the cameras.
“Wait.” Another voice called out, and Gale pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “I volunteer, too.”
“For crying out loud, Gale,” Curt growled to himself, pushing his way past the peacekeepers to meet his brother at the front of the crowd. Conscious that they were still in full view of the camera, that Capitol audiences would be treated to every moment of drama, Curt grabbed his brother’s neck and pressed his lips close to Gale’s ear.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.”
“Let me go,” Gale pressed against him. “Let me go instead.”
“Gale, sometimes I think I’d like to kill you myself,” he said. “But not like this. I’m still your big brother. I take care of you; you take care of them. You can’t change people, Gale. You can’t make them do anything, but you can set a fire under them-you make sure mom and Rory and Vick and Posey are okay-and then you light this place up.”
A couple of peacekeepers pulled Gale away; he didn’t resist as they shoved him back in line.
“It’s going to be okay,” Curt said at last. “I’m bona fide.”
“Well now, ladies,” Effie Trinket said as he stepped on to the stage. “You’re not going to let the boys have all the fun, are you?”
With a look of horror on his face, Mayor Undersee held a glass of water to him as he stepped toward the microphone, but Curt pushed it away.
“Now what’s your name, Handsome?”
“Curt Hawthorne.” His throat was dry and he did not feel very handsome as he spoke.
“Well Curt,” he grimaced as she put an arm around him, her sequined jacket scraping against the raw skin at the back of his neck. “Maybe if we work together we can get one of these beautiful ladies to accompany you to the Capitol.”
“I’ll go.”
Curt’s stomach fell and the Mayor’s wife let out a scream from behind him as they saw the blonde girl who stepped out of line. Even with her face flushed red and beads of sweat pooling on her neck and chest as she mounted the stage, she was beautiful.
“Jules,” he said sadly.
Effie did not even have the chance to ask her name as she moved past the peacock-colored woman and pressed her lips full against his.
“You can’t,” he protested.
“It’s already done,” she whispered against his lips, holding his sunburnt hands in her own. “I would rather spend a few more days with you, than have to live the rest of my life without you.”
He thought for a moment that he never would have spoken up if he had known this would be the result, but then again, if he dad to die, there was no one else in the world he would rather have beside him. That was how they went to the Capitol: no Seam, no merchants, just youth and beauty.
---
They decide early on that they should be partners; neither one is interested in returning home alone. Recognizing that they have no chance for victory, they thought they could still be important. It is her job to give the audience what they want, and his job to take it away. Haymitch said it would be alright to play sexy, as long as they had no intentions of surviving, and everyone loved a love story.
Jules plays her part exquisitely. Even Caesar Flickerman seems charmed by her, with all his years of experience.
“Tell me, Jules,” he asked, taking her hand in his. “What do like most about the Capitol?”
“Well, there are grapes,” she said with a sly little smile. “And chocolate, lavender bubble baths, silk undershirts, and feather pillows.”
“So you and your partner are having a nice time?” he asked.
Jules leaned forward clandestinely, she even manages to blush. “We certainly are enjoying ourselves, I can tell you that much.”
Caesar Flickerman tilted his chin and laughed at the suggestion. “Can you tell us more about your partner? I think we’d all like to hear how you know one another?”
“Well,” Jules said. “He started running errands for my father, delivering letters, going to the shop, and I started eating a lot more candy. Can you tell?”
She rose from her seat and spun in a circle in her long, backless dress, to a roar of approval from the audience.
“I distracted him so often, my father had to give me a stern talking to.”
“Now, I must ask,” Caesar Flickerman said. “How did your father feel, that you volunteered, to be with the one you love?”
“He wasn’t happy,” Jules sniffed, and wiped her eye carefully, the picture perfect daughter in distress. “But someone had to make the sacrifice. Why shouldn’t it have been me, for whom the grief would be so much less, because I would be with someone who loves me?”
“Thank you.” As she rose to leave, Caesar Flickerman put his arm around her. “And bravo, for your courage.”
Where Jules made love, Curt waged war.
“Welcome, welcome,” Caesar Flickerman beckoned him on to the stage. “We just said goodnight to the beautiful Jules. Would you care to say few words about her?”
“I would prefer not to,” Curt said frostily.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Caesar Flickerman said nudging his arm good-naturedly.
“I’d rather not talk about it because I love her, and we’ll most likely be dead in a few days. Kind of puts a damper on the conversation, now doesn’t it?”
“Let’s go back then,” Caesar Flickerman continued, undaunted. “What was going through your head when you volunteered at the reaping, thinking that you would have to leave her behind?”
“You can’t understand,” Curt said. “The way they cut the footage for viewers here in the Capitol; we were out there for almost eight hours in the heat, no food, no water, children as young as 12 all crammed together like animals. Someone was going to get hurt unless somebody came forward.”
“That would be truly harrowing,” Caesar Flickerman nodded. “As I recall, it was your brother, wasn’t it, who tried to stand up for you at the reaping. What did you say to him before you left?”
“I told him that people don’t change,” Curt said. “That if things are ever going to get better, people have to want it, enough to fight for it.”
“And the sponsors are dying to know, are you prepared to fight?” Caesar Flickerman asked.
“I’m prepared to die,” Curt said with a grin. “I’ll leave the fighting to the grownups.”
In the arena, they form their own alliance. Both tributes from 8, and the boy from 6. They go into the woods together. They look out for one another, make each other laugh, and try not to think about what will happen when the Careers catch up to them, or worse, what will happen if they are the last ones left. They are all smart and beautiful and young and not ready to die. They stood up because someone had to.
---
President Snow made a surprise visit to the control room. Under Seneca’s nose, Sitterson and Hadley scrambled to appear presentable.
Ties are straightened, small bottles of vodka and rum clatter as they’re shoved into desk drawers. It’s not an easy job, and they all had their little peccadillos. Lin sat back uneasily; the only thing she had to hide was her disgust.
Still, she felt a bit like a fox’s quarry as President Snow leaned over her work stations.
“These two,” he said, pointing to the screen where the girl from 12 is shaking her partner awake in the dark.
“Curt,” the pretty blonde whispered. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Alright,” the boy sat up and stretched.
They hold hands as they walk away from the group together.
President Snow breathed on her neck. “Can we have them make love?”
“I, um,” Lin’s hand hovered over the hologram; the suggestion had caught her off guard. They were just kids, after all, with families at home watching and waiting, maybe even praying.
Seneca pat her on the back and laughed, pulling her out of her imagination. “You think all we know how to do is make them kill one another?”
“The chemistry department has a few tricks up its sleeves,” Lin’s hands slid feverishly over her touchscreen, filtering through the substances at their disposal.
Their names comforted her, understanding their effects on heart rate, blood pressure, cognitive function, and libido.
“There’s no proven way to manufacture feelings of affection,” she said. “But combining adrenal response, olfactory stimulation, phenethylamine and other psychoactive stimulants help boost the production of dopamine and oxytocin in the brain; there are a number of factors we can influence to…set the mood.”
“Very well,” Snow nodded, stepping back in satisfaction as she worked.
On the screen to her right, the boy and girl from 8 sat huddled close to the dying embers of a fire. The boy from 6 ignited one end of a wad of rolled-up leaves and pretended to puff on it exaggeratedly, and they all laughed.
“Tell me,” President Snow said, pacing across the bridge. “Why not just kill them. I mean, it used to be ‘you could just throw a girl into a volcano.’”
The sharp, blue eyes slid toward Hadley, who balked and returned his attention to the monitor.
Only a few yards away from the fire, the pheromone mist was doing its work on the tributes from 12. They stumbled in the dark, panting, their bodies pressing close together. The control screen showed that the Career pack was approaching as the boy laid her down in the moss and set his lips against her neck.
“We have to degrade them first,” Seneca offered.
Lin found that she could not turn away from her monitor, showcasing all her hard work. The Career pack caught the two lovers in the dark. They made the boy watch while they cut the girl open and she screamed his name.
The boy from 12 pulled a knife out of his own shoulder and killed the one from 2. He ran back to the fire, roused the others, made them run, pushed the girl from 8 in front of him.
The Careers were close behind when they reached the edge of the arena. Oblivious to the invisible force field, 12 tried to leap over the ravine. The girl cried, when he died. The boy from 8 pulled her back at the last moment, pointed out the chinks in the electric fence. At least it was quick, and the Careers were closing in. In the control room, they sat back and told one another that it would be over soon enough.
“Do you know the meaning of the word sacrifice?” President Snow quipped. “Giving up that which is good and prized. The lover, faithful and loyal. The warrior, who protects his friends. The scholar, whose cleverness keeps them alive. The fool, who keeps them sane. And the maiden, innocent and pure.”
The far monitor showed the girl’s heart rate spike. One of the boys’ had already stopped and the other was fading quickly.
“We don’t make them less, before we kill them,” President Snow said at last. “We make them perfect.”