Hunger Games: Brutus & his Victor
Title: It's Time To Begin, Isn't It?
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of past Arena incidents
Characters: Brutus, OC Victor (Devon)
Summary: Brutus has pulled himself a second Victor, but mentoring doesn't end with the trumpets. The best part is helping them decide the person they want to become after they wash away the blood.
Author's Notes: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO
penfold_x! Sorry it's so late ... I'm still trying to get back into writing after the move jarred me loose. Hope you like!
The weather's gone chilly up in the village, frost crackling on the tips of the grass and the edges of the fallen leaves when Brutus takes his morning run. If he looks back behind him his footprints leave a dark trail across the silvered lawn, his breath huffing white in the air. Soon the trees will crackle from the weight of the ice on the limbs, but for now Brutus jogs underneath them without bothering to watch for fallen branches, staring up at the cloudy grey sky overhead.
Most people hate winter -- they do in the quarries, since ice coats their equipment and snow fills the mines and slows down the machines -- but Brutus doesn't mind it. Now that he's not being dumped in frozen lakes or getting shoved up a mountain with nothing but a backpack with canned goods and a tinder box, winter is kind of nice. It keeps the Village isolated and protected, and nothing reminds him that he'll never go back to the Arena again like the sound of ice pelting helplessly against his bedroom window. (Over ten years out, but some things never go away.)
Late fall is nice every year, the weather cooling off from the inside of a dog's mouth heat of summer, still far away enough from the madness that is the Victory Tour, but this year it's special. This year Brutus gets something he hasn't seen since 52; this year, late fall means a Victor tapering off his meds, the haze of mood stabilizers and nightmare drugs burning away to reveal a bright-eyed, curious kid who just figured out he's got the rest of his life to live.
Brutus knocks the dead leaves from his shoes before opening Devon's door and stepping inside. It's too early in the year for a coat, and Brutus ran the length of the Village in his t-shirt, arms bare save for the colourful rows of thread that his boy twisted into bracelets for him; now instead of hanging a jacket he stops and goes through the checklist in his head. Eight years since Emory and Brutus still has the instinct -- sweep his gaze for anything knocked over or smashed or sliced to pieces, listen for screaming or crying or breaking glass -- but Devon has been fine for days and today nothing twigs Brutus' alarms. "You up, kid?" Brutus calls out. "Got something for you."
Devon shuffles out in one of Brutus' sweaters, oversized and baggy with the sleeves hanging down over his hands. He's looking better and better, the hollows under his eyes and cheekbones filling out, and he leaves his arms at his sides instead of crossing them or clenching his fists. "What is it?" he asks, and Snow be praised he's smiling; his eyes aren't full-on crinkled like in his early Centre photos pre-Residential but they'll get there. There's no suspicion, at any rate; the first time Brutus brought him a little something -- a wind chime he'd fashioned from sea glass and bits of shell he'd bargained off of Mags in exchange for a solid oak end table -- Devon held back, afraid of what he'd have to do to earn it. The wide-eyed look he'd given Brutus when he didn't have to still sits in Brutus' memory like a beam of sunshine against his back.
"First things first," Brutus says, raising his eyebrow. "Where'd you get that sweater?"
Devon's eyes go shifty. "Misha got it for me," he says, twisting the sleeve between his fingertips. "I -- sorry, I didn't ask her to, she just said she used to steal Lyme's and I said maybe I could have one of yours and she ... brought me one."
Brutus slaps his hand to his forehead and drags it down his face. Lyme's Victor has a mind of her own, and that's putting it nicely. "Your friend and her klepto tendencies aside, let's go in and have breakfast and I'll show you what I got you. Without stealing, mind."
Devon ducks his head and flushes, but he's grinning, and Brutus can't find it in him to scold. Instead he cuffs the back of the kid's head, turning it into a hair ruffle while tugging Devon against his side for a second before shoving him back. Devon's full-out beaming by the time they hit the kitchen, and Brutus keeps an eye on him while he cuts a tomato with a flat plastic knife but the kid doesn't so much as flinch when the blade slices through the soft flesh. They eat toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches and wash the dishes in companionable silence, and when Devon puts the last plate back in the cupboard, he glances at Brutus.
"What did you get me?" he asks, and good, that's a good sign. He's still learning to ask for things, to remember he's allowed to have any luxuries at all after the Centre, and part of the recovery process involves Brutus engineering opportunities where if he wants something he's gotta ask his mentor for it.
Brutus fishes a laminated card from his pocket and holds it out. Devon takes it, eyebrows furrowed, and he turns it over in his hand for a few moments before realization dawns. His head snaps up, and his eyes are wide and his mouth falling open and Brutus will never, ever get tired of this. "Is this --"
Brutus nods. "It's your gate pass. You'll still need a senior Victor to go with you until after the Tour, but you're cleared for anywhere in the district now. Congratulations."
Devon stares at the card, a look of open wonder on his face that the Centre would've made him run laps for showing, and Brutus has to look away fast before the kid notices him staring. He almost gets caught anyway, and he grunts out something about a spider building a nest behind Devon's head.
"Can we go out today?" Devon asks, and Brutus keeps his expression neutral and doesn't let on that this was his plan all along. "I'm sorry Misha stole your sweater, if I promise not to take anything else can we go?"
Sometimes Brutus wonders what Lyme fed Misha when she was a baby Victor, because that girl was sneaking out and breaking faces with her fists and kissing girls in back alleys, all with the biggest, challenging, most unapologetic grin on her face. Meanwhile give Devon an inch of rope to hang himself and he'll confess to wrongdoings that don't even really count.
"I guess if you promise to ask next time you want one of my sweaters," Brutus says, giving Devon a look, and he breaks out into a wide smile. "C'mon then, let's take a walk into town."
Brutus grabs a hat from the rack and jams it down hard over his head, and the two of them head out. Devon flashes his pass at the gate guards, who make a big show of checking it over before congratulating him like bouncers at a bar when a kid passes his final Reaping. Brutus hunches his shoulders a bit, brings in his bulk instead of projecting, but Devon is pretty much generic good-looking Two unless he turns the Victor charm on and they make it down to town without any recognition.
"I've never been to Central," Devon says, craning his neck and gawking like a kid from the quarries on his first trip to the city -- which he is, really. All the glitz and glamour of the Capitol is one thing, but it never feels real. This is. "Just the Justice Building."
"Well now you can come here whenever you want, just so long as you find someone to come with," Brutus says. He stops by a chestnut vender, passes over a handful of coins and hands Devon the warm foil package. "Here. These come from Bright Hill."
Devon cradles it in his hands, warming his fingers, and he pops one whole in his mouth and hisses in pain, rolling it around with his tongue while Brutus pretends not to laugh. "It's good," he says finally. "You know all kinds of things, it's amazing."
"So will you soon enough," Brutus says, and he can't help it. He reaches over and fixes the collar on Devon's jacket, turning it out properly, and who is he, someone's father, but it's either that or something embarrassing like a hug.
Brutus takes them through the centre of town, past all the shops and street sellers, and he keeps a close watch on Devon but he's doing fine. Better than fine, head up and eyes wide with curiosity, glancing at anything and everything and dragging Brutus to a stop so he can watch a metalworker plunge a red-hot piece of iron into a tub of water through the giant storefront window.
They drop in at a local leather shop, where Brutus buys Devon a pair of gloves and a slim wallet to hold his gate pass, Victor ID and his stipend credit vouchers. "It's all local," he tells Devon, who slips his hands into the gloves and tugs them down, opening and closing his fingers before holding them up to his nose, inhaling the rich scent of the leather. "Fergus here shoots and cleans the deer himself, ain't that right."
"That's right," Fergus says with a proud smile. "Everything here comes from Two, even the lacing. I've got a tannery out back to do the hides. I'd take you out there but the smell ain't so great. I love it myself, but I'd hate to chase away a customer."
Devon laughs, and Brutus slings an arm around his shoulders as they head out.
They stay out all day, and finally as the sky grows dark and the sun sets behind the mountains; no sunset with the cloud cover so thick, but the air goes chill a few minutes before the light falls. "Should we head back?" Devon asks, tone trailing with reluctance.
"Let's grab some food," Brutus says, and Devon brightens. "May as well, and if you want we can pick something up for Misha, show her that civilized people pay for things." He turns to examine an imaginary stone stuck in the sole of his boot to hide his grin at Devon's delighted laugh.
He knows just where to go, too, and Brutus will never admit it but he's been planning this since the first day he tossed two slices of bread and half a block of shredded cheese in a frying pan and Devon's eyes bugged out. It takes all of Brutus' years of acting and image training to maintain his stone face when Devon sees the restaurant, a small, low-ceilinged diner with the sign 'Mac's Grilled Cheese' hand-painted on the wooden storefront. He whirls and grabs Brutus by the arm, fingers digging in hard. "How?" he demands. "I -- how?"
Back when Devon was first out, he hadn't had the stomach for much but soup. That wasn't too much of a problem for Brutus at least, as he'd just dumped a whole bunch of vegetables into a blender with some milk and protein powder and some spices, and that did the trick to keep Devon's weight on. Once Devon got a little better and stopped puking up anything solid, Brutus asked him if he could've had one thing in the Capitol not on the mentor-approved diet plan, what would it have been.
"Cheese," Devon said immediately, so fast that Brutus raised an eyebrow. "It was the best part of Parcel Days, you know? We'd get a big block of cheese and my mom would put it in the fridge and shave off a little bit each day and we'd eat it every meal until it was gone." He lowered his voice, shifting his eyes from side to side. "Sometimes I'd sneak down at night and cut off a piece and just eat it, all by myself, but I always felt bad so I'd give my share to Sarah the next day."
"What kind of cheese?" Brutus asked, feigning nonchalance, and he was rewarded when Devon goggled at him.
"There are kinds? We just had this orange stuff! Nobody told me there were kinds!"
Brutus actually had to hold himself back from winking, Snow help him. "Oh, all kinds, yeah, sweet, spicy, smoked. But let's start with what you know, huh?"
They'd headed over to his house that day for lunch, and Brutus grabbed a loaf of bread and a brick of cheddar from his fridge while Devon all but hyperventilated. "Just cheese is probably a bad idea for your stomach," Brutus said, cutting a thick slice of bread. "This'll balance it out for you."
Devon's face when he bit through the crisped bread into the melted cheese made everything -- the long nights in front of the console, muscles cramping and a headache pounding behind his eyes -- worth it all over again. "I have the best mentor," Devon said, eyes all but rolling back into his head, and he slathered the next bite in thick raspberry jam before cramming it into his mouth. "You made up a sandwich for me. I totally win the contest."
Brutus didn't have the heart to tell him then, or in the ensuing months when Devon asked for one of his 'special Victor sandwiches', but now the jig is up. "I've gotta tell you a secret, kid," Brutus says. "I didn't actually invent grilled cheese sandwiches. Hope you're not too disappointed."
Now Devon's cheeks are pink from the cold, but at least his hands will be warm in his new gloves, and anyway he hardly seems to mind. "I probably should've guessed," he says, practically bouncing up the sidewalk. "I like it better this way, now I know I can ask for them anywhere and I won't get a weird look."
"That one with the chocolate in it is all yours, though," Brutus says, wrinkling his nose. Like a lot of Victors, once Devon tasted culinary freedom, he sure as hell ran with it.
"Maybe I'll tell them how to make it and they can put it on the menu," Devon says, reaching for the door, but Brutus clucks his tongue and gets it himself. Respect is one thing, but he's not even thirty yet, he can open a damn door.
"They can call it The Devon," Brutus agrees, and Devon beams.
"Misha can write the description," Devon adds. "I can see it now. 'Looks totally boring and ordinary on the outside, but sweet and a little bit weird on the inside'. That's not very catchy for advertising, but maybe I'll get her to put it on a pillow for me."
Brutus snorts. "Not too many people are allowed to call you weird, boy, and that girl ain't one of them." Not after she hand-stitched Brutus an embroidered cloth with the words 'Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off' in loopy script. He hung it by the door, though, and yeah all right, it does give him a laugh every time he sees it.
He takes Devon to a booth at the back of the restaurant, because he might have called ahead to warn the owners that a pair of Victors would be coming and not to make a fuss, but that won't help if any of the patrons notice. Brutus slides in across from Devon and stands a pair of menus up at the end of the table like a barricade, and Devon goes over the lists of sandwiches with wide eyes. It's nothing Capitol-fancy, just good wholesome food, but when you grow up in the quarries with powdered milk and vegetables from the community garden, even simple restaurants are one hell of a thing.
Devon polishes off two sandwiches with the eagerness of a kid who grew up with a big family that never had enough to go around; afterward he eyes the dessert menu while pretending he's not, and he jumps and flicks his gaze away when Brutus pushes it toward him. "Get dessert," Brutus says gruffly. "You've earned it."
Devon suddenly goes quiet. He plays with the edge of the menu, running his fingertip along the laminated edge, rubbing it back and forth over the corner. "I killed people," he says quietly, and Brutus swallows a curse but Devon's eyes aren't wide and wild and ringed with white, not yet. "And -- that's fine, I'm okay with that, only one person was coming out of there and there's no reason why it shouldn't be me. I just -- I get that winning is an honour. The house is fine and the parties and everything else, but -- the money and the food. So many people are hungry and they've done a lot more than just kill people. Don't they deserve to eat too?"
Well that's a minefield Brutus didn't expect to navigate today, and he flattens his fingers against the table to stop himself from fiddling with his beer. "People get what they work for," he says finally. "How much they get depends on what other people wanna pay, I guess, which is why everybody needs rocks but quarriers get paid shit compared to artisans. But the good thing about Two is that nobody gets left behind. There's tesserae for anyone with kids so the kids can contribute; there's the Program so families can get money and food that way. If you work hard, the Capitol will provide."
"It just doesn't feel like it was that hard," Devon says, but his shoulders unclench just a little. "I mean it was three weeks!"
"You worked for ten whole years to get to those three weeks," Brutus points out, eyes narrowing. Nobody is gonna talk shit about his Victor, including his Victor. "It's not like you just strolled in and got lucky with a few hammer swings. You didn't cheat and use a fucking forcefield to take the competition out for you, or just take longer to starve than anyone else. Anybody who wins deserves respect for that, whether they won by combat or default or what, but don't knock what you did. You won because you've been training for this since you were seven. Don't make it less than that."
"But --"
"Rule one," Brutus says sharply. "What is it? Tell me."
Devon sucks in a breath. "It's never over."
"That's right. The house, that's what you got for winning and all the training you did to get there. The Parcel Days, that's your way of paying back the district that made you and fed you and supported you. Your stipend from here on, you're gonna earn that."
And the thing is, Brutus has the best kids in the Village, because where others might whine or get entitled, Devon brightens. "Really? How?"
"Lots of ways. Mentoring, getting sponsors." Brutus leans back in the booth, studying the lanky eighteen-year-old sitting across from him, mouth shiny from butter grease. "You can come do recruiting with me, go to hospitals and schools and orphanages and tell kids about the Program, how they can get stipends for their families. The more kids you get to join the Program, the more parents get to feed their kids. There's lots of things you can do to help people that ain't running through the streets throwing money at their heads. But I don't wanna hear you say you don't deserve what you get, because you do. You earned it by walking through that gate, and you could sit on your ass for the rest of your life and still deserve it but I know you won't."
"No!" Devon sits up, rearing back so hard he nearly smacks his head against the booth. "What? No! No, I want to work. It wouldn't be right just to sit around and only work one month a year."
This time Brutus does smile; he said the same thing to Odin back in the day, and Odin gave him the same amused, indulgent look he's likely shooting at Devon now. "Kiddo, mentoring ain't just one month a year. Even without all the recruiting stuff, mentoring is a full-time job. There's sponsor deals and exposure and all kinds of things year-round; you build your brand and you work to sell yourself just as much as the tributes; if you do it right, sponsors will line up for you before they ever see your kid because they'll want to work with you." He grins, sharp and predatory. Fewer pleasures in life rank with taking money from someone dumb enough to use it to stick peacock feathers in their ass and saving a kid's life with it instead. "I bet you could fleece 'em all and they'd thank you for the privilege after, with that doe face of yours."
"Me, fleece people?" Devon opens his eyes wide and innocent, and Brutus laughs out loud. Devon smiles, and once again Brutus' chest tightens. Devon kissed the One girl and slid a knife between her ribs while she sighed against his mouth, then convinced the rest of the Pack one of the outliers must have done it while they slept; the next night he slit the Four boy's throat as they lay tangled together by the campfire. Now he sits in an oversized sweater with the sleeves pulled down and stares at a list of ice cream sundaes. "Thanks," he says. "I feel better."
Devon won't thank Brutus two or three years from now when he sits in the sponsor ring for real and tallies up how many meals and knives and trauma kits the jewellery and cosmetic surgery around him could buy; won't thank Brutus the first time he picks a boy or girl to be his tribute and they die in the dust from a sword to the gut or a rock to the side of the head, the first time their blood soaks the grass or clumps the sand or spreads out through the water in a thick red cloud. Soon enough he'll learn that the price he paid in knives and broken necks is just the first instalment in a debt that never ends.
It's never over, not ever, and soon he'll learn there are far worse things than standing over the body of a twelve-year-old with his finger-bruises purpling her throat.
But not now; right now it's less than six months out and his boy has just started sleeping through the night without waking up in cold sweats and reaching for his knives. Now Brutus has friendship bracelets tied around his wrists that he'll wear until they fall off naturally because Devon read about it in a book. "'Course you do, 'cause you're a smart boy who listens to his mentor," Brutus says. "Now get the damn ice cream before I have to feed it to you like a baby."
"Yes, sir," Devon says, but then his eyes glint with a hint of the wicked light that made the sponsors fall over themselves for him even if his kills were clean and not flashy. "So does that mean you would feed it to me, hypothetically, or --"
"Don't push it, boy," Brutus warns, flattening his eyes, and Devon grins, picks up the dessert menu and orders the biggest, most ridiculous sundae in the restaurant.
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of past Arena incidents
Characters: Brutus, OC Victor (Devon)
Summary: Brutus has pulled himself a second Victor, but mentoring doesn't end with the trumpets. The best part is helping them decide the person they want to become after they wash away the blood.
Author's Notes: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO
penfold_x! Sorry it's so late ... I'm still trying to get back into writing after the move jarred me loose. Hope you like!
The weather's gone chilly up in the village, frost crackling on the tips of the grass and the edges of the fallen leaves when Brutus takes his morning run. If he looks back behind him his footprints leave a dark trail across the silvered lawn, his breath huffing white in the air. Soon the trees will crackle from the weight of the ice on the limbs, but for now Brutus jogs underneath them without bothering to watch for fallen branches, staring up at the cloudy grey sky overhead.
Most people hate winter -- they do in the quarries, since ice coats their equipment and snow fills the mines and slows down the machines -- but Brutus doesn't mind it. Now that he's not being dumped in frozen lakes or getting shoved up a mountain with nothing but a backpack with canned goods and a tinder box, winter is kind of nice. It keeps the Village isolated and protected, and nothing reminds him that he'll never go back to the Arena again like the sound of ice pelting helplessly against his bedroom window. (Over ten years out, but some things never go away.)
Late fall is nice every year, the weather cooling off from the inside of a dog's mouth heat of summer, still far away enough from the madness that is the Victory Tour, but this year it's special. This year Brutus gets something he hasn't seen since 52; this year, late fall means a Victor tapering off his meds, the haze of mood stabilizers and nightmare drugs burning away to reveal a bright-eyed, curious kid who just figured out he's got the rest of his life to live.
Brutus knocks the dead leaves from his shoes before opening Devon's door and stepping inside. It's too early in the year for a coat, and Brutus ran the length of the Village in his t-shirt, arms bare save for the colourful rows of thread that his boy twisted into bracelets for him; now instead of hanging a jacket he stops and goes through the checklist in his head. Eight years since Emory and Brutus still has the instinct -- sweep his gaze for anything knocked over or smashed or sliced to pieces, listen for screaming or crying or breaking glass -- but Devon has been fine for days and today nothing twigs Brutus' alarms. "You up, kid?" Brutus calls out. "Got something for you."
Devon shuffles out in one of Brutus' sweaters, oversized and baggy with the sleeves hanging down over his hands. He's looking better and better, the hollows under his eyes and cheekbones filling out, and he leaves his arms at his sides instead of crossing them or clenching his fists. "What is it?" he asks, and Snow be praised he's smiling; his eyes aren't full-on crinkled like in his early Centre photos pre-Residential but they'll get there. There's no suspicion, at any rate; the first time Brutus brought him a little something -- a wind chime he'd fashioned from sea glass and bits of shell he'd bargained off of Mags in exchange for a solid oak end table -- Devon held back, afraid of what he'd have to do to earn it. The wide-eyed look he'd given Brutus when he didn't have to still sits in Brutus' memory like a beam of sunshine against his back.
"First things first," Brutus says, raising his eyebrow. "Where'd you get that sweater?"
Devon's eyes go shifty. "Misha got it for me," he says, twisting the sleeve between his fingertips. "I -- sorry, I didn't ask her to, she just said she used to steal Lyme's and I said maybe I could have one of yours and she ... brought me one."
Brutus slaps his hand to his forehead and drags it down his face. Lyme's Victor has a mind of her own, and that's putting it nicely. "Your friend and her klepto tendencies aside, let's go in and have breakfast and I'll show you what I got you. Without stealing, mind."
Devon ducks his head and flushes, but he's grinning, and Brutus can't find it in him to scold. Instead he cuffs the back of the kid's head, turning it into a hair ruffle while tugging Devon against his side for a second before shoving him back. Devon's full-out beaming by the time they hit the kitchen, and Brutus keeps an eye on him while he cuts a tomato with a flat plastic knife but the kid doesn't so much as flinch when the blade slices through the soft flesh. They eat toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches and wash the dishes in companionable silence, and when Devon puts the last plate back in the cupboard, he glances at Brutus.
"What did you get me?" he asks, and good, that's a good sign. He's still learning to ask for things, to remember he's allowed to have any luxuries at all after the Centre, and part of the recovery process involves Brutus engineering opportunities where if he wants something he's gotta ask his mentor for it.
Brutus fishes a laminated card from his pocket and holds it out. Devon takes it, eyebrows furrowed, and he turns it over in his hand for a few moments before realization dawns. His head snaps up, and his eyes are wide and his mouth falling open and Brutus will never, ever get tired of this. "Is this --"
Brutus nods. "It's your gate pass. You'll still need a senior Victor to go with you until after the Tour, but you're cleared for anywhere in the district now. Congratulations."
Devon stares at the card, a look of open wonder on his face that the Centre would've made him run laps for showing, and Brutus has to look away fast before the kid notices him staring. He almost gets caught anyway, and he grunts out something about a spider building a nest behind Devon's head.
"Can we go out today?" Devon asks, and Brutus keeps his expression neutral and doesn't let on that this was his plan all along. "I'm sorry Misha stole your sweater, if I promise not to take anything else can we go?"
Sometimes Brutus wonders what Lyme fed Misha when she was a baby Victor, because that girl was sneaking out and breaking faces with her fists and kissing girls in back alleys, all with the biggest, challenging, most unapologetic grin on her face. Meanwhile give Devon an inch of rope to hang himself and he'll confess to wrongdoings that don't even really count.
"I guess if you promise to ask next time you want one of my sweaters," Brutus says, giving Devon a look, and he breaks out into a wide smile. "C'mon then, let's take a walk into town."
Brutus grabs a hat from the rack and jams it down hard over his head, and the two of them head out. Devon flashes his pass at the gate guards, who make a big show of checking it over before congratulating him like bouncers at a bar when a kid passes his final Reaping. Brutus hunches his shoulders a bit, brings in his bulk instead of projecting, but Devon is pretty much generic good-looking Two unless he turns the Victor charm on and they make it down to town without any recognition.
"I've never been to Central," Devon says, craning his neck and gawking like a kid from the quarries on his first trip to the city -- which he is, really. All the glitz and glamour of the Capitol is one thing, but it never feels real. This is. "Just the Justice Building."
"Well now you can come here whenever you want, just so long as you find someone to come with," Brutus says. He stops by a chestnut vender, passes over a handful of coins and hands Devon the warm foil package. "Here. These come from Bright Hill."
Devon cradles it in his hands, warming his fingers, and he pops one whole in his mouth and hisses in pain, rolling it around with his tongue while Brutus pretends not to laugh. "It's good," he says finally. "You know all kinds of things, it's amazing."
"So will you soon enough," Brutus says, and he can't help it. He reaches over and fixes the collar on Devon's jacket, turning it out properly, and who is he, someone's father, but it's either that or something embarrassing like a hug.
Brutus takes them through the centre of town, past all the shops and street sellers, and he keeps a close watch on Devon but he's doing fine. Better than fine, head up and eyes wide with curiosity, glancing at anything and everything and dragging Brutus to a stop so he can watch a metalworker plunge a red-hot piece of iron into a tub of water through the giant storefront window.
They drop in at a local leather shop, where Brutus buys Devon a pair of gloves and a slim wallet to hold his gate pass, Victor ID and his stipend credit vouchers. "It's all local," he tells Devon, who slips his hands into the gloves and tugs them down, opening and closing his fingers before holding them up to his nose, inhaling the rich scent of the leather. "Fergus here shoots and cleans the deer himself, ain't that right."
"That's right," Fergus says with a proud smile. "Everything here comes from Two, even the lacing. I've got a tannery out back to do the hides. I'd take you out there but the smell ain't so great. I love it myself, but I'd hate to chase away a customer."
Devon laughs, and Brutus slings an arm around his shoulders as they head out.
They stay out all day, and finally as the sky grows dark and the sun sets behind the mountains; no sunset with the cloud cover so thick, but the air goes chill a few minutes before the light falls. "Should we head back?" Devon asks, tone trailing with reluctance.
"Let's grab some food," Brutus says, and Devon brightens. "May as well, and if you want we can pick something up for Misha, show her that civilized people pay for things." He turns to examine an imaginary stone stuck in the sole of his boot to hide his grin at Devon's delighted laugh.
He knows just where to go, too, and Brutus will never admit it but he's been planning this since the first day he tossed two slices of bread and half a block of shredded cheese in a frying pan and Devon's eyes bugged out. It takes all of Brutus' years of acting and image training to maintain his stone face when Devon sees the restaurant, a small, low-ceilinged diner with the sign 'Mac's Grilled Cheese' hand-painted on the wooden storefront. He whirls and grabs Brutus by the arm, fingers digging in hard. "How?" he demands. "I -- how?"
Back when Devon was first out, he hadn't had the stomach for much but soup. That wasn't too much of a problem for Brutus at least, as he'd just dumped a whole bunch of vegetables into a blender with some milk and protein powder and some spices, and that did the trick to keep Devon's weight on. Once Devon got a little better and stopped puking up anything solid, Brutus asked him if he could've had one thing in the Capitol not on the mentor-approved diet plan, what would it have been.
"Cheese," Devon said immediately, so fast that Brutus raised an eyebrow. "It was the best part of Parcel Days, you know? We'd get a big block of cheese and my mom would put it in the fridge and shave off a little bit each day and we'd eat it every meal until it was gone." He lowered his voice, shifting his eyes from side to side. "Sometimes I'd sneak down at night and cut off a piece and just eat it, all by myself, but I always felt bad so I'd give my share to Sarah the next day."
"What kind of cheese?" Brutus asked, feigning nonchalance, and he was rewarded when Devon goggled at him.
"There are kinds? We just had this orange stuff! Nobody told me there were kinds!"
Brutus actually had to hold himself back from winking, Snow help him. "Oh, all kinds, yeah, sweet, spicy, smoked. But let's start with what you know, huh?"
They'd headed over to his house that day for lunch, and Brutus grabbed a loaf of bread and a brick of cheddar from his fridge while Devon all but hyperventilated. "Just cheese is probably a bad idea for your stomach," Brutus said, cutting a thick slice of bread. "This'll balance it out for you."
Devon's face when he bit through the crisped bread into the melted cheese made everything -- the long nights in front of the console, muscles cramping and a headache pounding behind his eyes -- worth it all over again. "I have the best mentor," Devon said, eyes all but rolling back into his head, and he slathered the next bite in thick raspberry jam before cramming it into his mouth. "You made up a sandwich for me. I totally win the contest."
Brutus didn't have the heart to tell him then, or in the ensuing months when Devon asked for one of his 'special Victor sandwiches', but now the jig is up. "I've gotta tell you a secret, kid," Brutus says. "I didn't actually invent grilled cheese sandwiches. Hope you're not too disappointed."
Now Devon's cheeks are pink from the cold, but at least his hands will be warm in his new gloves, and anyway he hardly seems to mind. "I probably should've guessed," he says, practically bouncing up the sidewalk. "I like it better this way, now I know I can ask for them anywhere and I won't get a weird look."
"That one with the chocolate in it is all yours, though," Brutus says, wrinkling his nose. Like a lot of Victors, once Devon tasted culinary freedom, he sure as hell ran with it.
"Maybe I'll tell them how to make it and they can put it on the menu," Devon says, reaching for the door, but Brutus clucks his tongue and gets it himself. Respect is one thing, but he's not even thirty yet, he can open a damn door.
"They can call it The Devon," Brutus agrees, and Devon beams.
"Misha can write the description," Devon adds. "I can see it now. 'Looks totally boring and ordinary on the outside, but sweet and a little bit weird on the inside'. That's not very catchy for advertising, but maybe I'll get her to put it on a pillow for me."
Brutus snorts. "Not too many people are allowed to call you weird, boy, and that girl ain't one of them." Not after she hand-stitched Brutus an embroidered cloth with the words 'Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off' in loopy script. He hung it by the door, though, and yeah all right, it does give him a laugh every time he sees it.
He takes Devon to a booth at the back of the restaurant, because he might have called ahead to warn the owners that a pair of Victors would be coming and not to make a fuss, but that won't help if any of the patrons notice. Brutus slides in across from Devon and stands a pair of menus up at the end of the table like a barricade, and Devon goes over the lists of sandwiches with wide eyes. It's nothing Capitol-fancy, just good wholesome food, but when you grow up in the quarries with powdered milk and vegetables from the community garden, even simple restaurants are one hell of a thing.
Devon polishes off two sandwiches with the eagerness of a kid who grew up with a big family that never had enough to go around; afterward he eyes the dessert menu while pretending he's not, and he jumps and flicks his gaze away when Brutus pushes it toward him. "Get dessert," Brutus says gruffly. "You've earned it."
Devon suddenly goes quiet. He plays with the edge of the menu, running his fingertip along the laminated edge, rubbing it back and forth over the corner. "I killed people," he says quietly, and Brutus swallows a curse but Devon's eyes aren't wide and wild and ringed with white, not yet. "And -- that's fine, I'm okay with that, only one person was coming out of there and there's no reason why it shouldn't be me. I just -- I get that winning is an honour. The house is fine and the parties and everything else, but -- the money and the food. So many people are hungry and they've done a lot more than just kill people. Don't they deserve to eat too?"
Well that's a minefield Brutus didn't expect to navigate today, and he flattens his fingers against the table to stop himself from fiddling with his beer. "People get what they work for," he says finally. "How much they get depends on what other people wanna pay, I guess, which is why everybody needs rocks but quarriers get paid shit compared to artisans. But the good thing about Two is that nobody gets left behind. There's tesserae for anyone with kids so the kids can contribute; there's the Program so families can get money and food that way. If you work hard, the Capitol will provide."
"It just doesn't feel like it was that hard," Devon says, but his shoulders unclench just a little. "I mean it was three weeks!"
"You worked for ten whole years to get to those three weeks," Brutus points out, eyes narrowing. Nobody is gonna talk shit about his Victor, including his Victor. "It's not like you just strolled in and got lucky with a few hammer swings. You didn't cheat and use a fucking forcefield to take the competition out for you, or just take longer to starve than anyone else. Anybody who wins deserves respect for that, whether they won by combat or default or what, but don't knock what you did. You won because you've been training for this since you were seven. Don't make it less than that."
"But --"
"Rule one," Brutus says sharply. "What is it? Tell me."
Devon sucks in a breath. "It's never over."
"That's right. The house, that's what you got for winning and all the training you did to get there. The Parcel Days, that's your way of paying back the district that made you and fed you and supported you. Your stipend from here on, you're gonna earn that."
And the thing is, Brutus has the best kids in the Village, because where others might whine or get entitled, Devon brightens. "Really? How?"
"Lots of ways. Mentoring, getting sponsors." Brutus leans back in the booth, studying the lanky eighteen-year-old sitting across from him, mouth shiny from butter grease. "You can come do recruiting with me, go to hospitals and schools and orphanages and tell kids about the Program, how they can get stipends for their families. The more kids you get to join the Program, the more parents get to feed their kids. There's lots of things you can do to help people that ain't running through the streets throwing money at their heads. But I don't wanna hear you say you don't deserve what you get, because you do. You earned it by walking through that gate, and you could sit on your ass for the rest of your life and still deserve it but I know you won't."
"No!" Devon sits up, rearing back so hard he nearly smacks his head against the booth. "What? No! No, I want to work. It wouldn't be right just to sit around and only work one month a year."
This time Brutus does smile; he said the same thing to Odin back in the day, and Odin gave him the same amused, indulgent look he's likely shooting at Devon now. "Kiddo, mentoring ain't just one month a year. Even without all the recruiting stuff, mentoring is a full-time job. There's sponsor deals and exposure and all kinds of things year-round; you build your brand and you work to sell yourself just as much as the tributes; if you do it right, sponsors will line up for you before they ever see your kid because they'll want to work with you." He grins, sharp and predatory. Fewer pleasures in life rank with taking money from someone dumb enough to use it to stick peacock feathers in their ass and saving a kid's life with it instead. "I bet you could fleece 'em all and they'd thank you for the privilege after, with that doe face of yours."
"Me, fleece people?" Devon opens his eyes wide and innocent, and Brutus laughs out loud. Devon smiles, and once again Brutus' chest tightens. Devon kissed the One girl and slid a knife between her ribs while she sighed against his mouth, then convinced the rest of the Pack one of the outliers must have done it while they slept; the next night he slit the Four boy's throat as they lay tangled together by the campfire. Now he sits in an oversized sweater with the sleeves pulled down and stares at a list of ice cream sundaes. "Thanks," he says. "I feel better."
Devon won't thank Brutus two or three years from now when he sits in the sponsor ring for real and tallies up how many meals and knives and trauma kits the jewellery and cosmetic surgery around him could buy; won't thank Brutus the first time he picks a boy or girl to be his tribute and they die in the dust from a sword to the gut or a rock to the side of the head, the first time their blood soaks the grass or clumps the sand or spreads out through the water in a thick red cloud. Soon enough he'll learn that the price he paid in knives and broken necks is just the first instalment in a debt that never ends.
It's never over, not ever, and soon he'll learn there are far worse things than standing over the body of a twelve-year-old with his finger-bruises purpling her throat.
But not now; right now it's less than six months out and his boy has just started sleeping through the night without waking up in cold sweats and reaching for his knives. Now Brutus has friendship bracelets tied around his wrists that he'll wear until they fall off naturally because Devon read about it in a book. "'Course you do, 'cause you're a smart boy who listens to his mentor," Brutus says. "Now get the damn ice cream before I have to feed it to you like a baby."
"Yes, sir," Devon says, but then his eyes glint with a hint of the wicked light that made the sponsors fall over themselves for him even if his kills were clean and not flashy. "So does that mean you would feed it to me, hypothetically, or --"
"Don't push it, boy," Brutus warns, flattening his eyes, and Devon grins, picks up the dessert menu and orders the biggest, most ridiculous sundae in the restaurant.