Fic: Saving Brutus
For lorataprose
Title: Saving Brutus
Characters: OCs and a cameo Brutus
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and mostly-offscreen violence
Summary: Most Peacekeepers are from Two, trained by the same Program that produces the Careers. When these same Peacekeepers are then called upon to run security for the Third Quarter Quell and walk two of their Victor-classmates back into the Arena, well. Some of them aren't too happy about that. Takes place during the second half of Catching Fire.
A/N: This is me playing in lorataprose's lovely District Two Careers-verse and putting my Peacekeeper OCs in it, because there's got to be more to them than what we see in the books. (Or possibly just Peacekeeper-as-former-tribute-trainees meta thinly disguised as fanfiction, and my not wanting Brutus to die.)
Many thanks to penfold_x for the beta! All remaining mistakes are my fault, not hers. :D
For most people, the Games start at the Reaping. That’s when everyone comes together, after all; when the mandatory viewing broadcasts start; and for two families in every District, when the nightmare begins.
Not so for the Peacekeepers - and especially not for those in the Scouts division.
During the year, the Scouts rotate through various duties in and around the Capitol - street guard, border patrol, “special detached duty” - but come spring, the machine that is the Hunger Games starts up and all the Scouts are recalled back, first to serve as guards for the Gamemakers setting up the Arena, and later as handlers for the tributes and mentors streaming into the Capitol. It’s a well-oiled machine, by now, with familiar faces and familiar roles to play: indeed, in many years the only new people are the tributes.
Last year, the 74th, was Selene’s first as a Peacekeeper. The atmosphere was not exactly happy, nobody who isn’t Capitol enjoys the Games, exactly, but brisk and businesslike, and it’s also the only time each year all the Scouts are together so it had a weirdly festive vibe. She and Dash and the other newbies were guided through their duties by the senior Scouts in their squads, and everyone got through it alright.
This year, though … this year is different, because the tributes aren’t just tributes, they’re Victors.
And here’s the thing, even if they hadn’t spent the last however many years watching and guarding the Victors as they came to the Capitol every year, most of the Peacekeeper Scouts are from Two. Not only that, they are overwhelmingly comprised of former Seniors from Two’s Centre program.
Meaning Selene isn’t the only one who was a Victor’s backup.
And while none of them have so much as spoken with their Victor classmates since their paths diverged at graduation, none of them want to see “their” Victor go back in. Watching your classmate go into the Arena once is bad enough. To be the one to escort them to the Arena for another round … that would be more than a little horrifying.
By the time Reaping-time rolls around and all the Scout teams have returned to the Capitol, the atmosphere is tense and grim. Everyone who isn’t on duty gathers in their headquarters to watch the Reapings. Cashmere and Gloss, Brutus and Enobaria (Selene hears Melanie swear under her breath; she was in Enobaria’s year) … the Reapings are a depressing litany of names and faces that they all already know. Some are surprises (Mags, for instance), some are defaults, but none are unfamiliar.
“Alright, everyone,” Emin says at last when the Capitol seal goes up at the end. The Commander uncrosses her arms and straightens from where she’s leaned on a wall at the back of the room. Emin’s face is grim and unhappy, like it has been since the Quell was announced, and Selene abruptly recalls that the Captain is about Artemisia’s age, maybe a year older. “We have our tributes. They’ll be here tomorrow. Get some rest, people. We’re going to need it.”
“Brutus and Enobaria,” Dash says, softly, as they reach their quarters on base.
“Mags and Finnick,” Selene returns in much the same tone.
Dash shakes his head. “Shit, I just. I didn’t know Finnick, he didn’t come around often when I was in training, but Mags, though. She’s like everyone’s grandmother. She was … kind to me.”
Selene nods. “We didn’t see much of either Brutus or Enobaria, as trainees,” she said. “But - “
But they’re heroes, she wants to say. Brutus mentors every year he can, or close to it, and Enobaria - Selene still remembers watching Enobaria’s Games as a child and deciding there and then that that was who she wanted to be when she grew up. They’re Two, they’re ours, and the Capitol is taking them -
“Everyone knows them,” is all Selene says, in the end.
“Yeah.” Dash kicks off his boots and drops down onto a chair. “I just -“
“Stop thinking about it,” Rigel advises, as he and Marius enter. The two senior Scouts are wearing identical glum expressions, but Rigel’s tone is businesslike. “They’re tributes, and that’s that. Now get some sleep, both of you. We’re on Seven’s train at dawn tomorrow.”
And so it goes, day after day.
Selene usually likes being a Scout. They’re given a lot of freedom and autonomy, compared to the district guards, and although she still has to follow orders it’s not like the constant trainers-breathing-down-her-neck she underwent in Residential. But this - to stand guard on doors and escort the Victor-tributes around as they move through the Games complex, and do their best to Not Think About it and pretend it’s just like last year where the tributes were unknown children and not heroes - this is a special kind of hell.
They’re all too well trained to reveal anything, but everywhere Selene looks she sees tense shoulders and heavy steps where last year was brisk professionalism, and she knows she’s not the only one. At least their expressions always hidden behind mirrored helmets.
--
Finally, it’s the day before the start of the 75th Hunger Games. Most of the Capitol citizens are at Games-parties; they’ll cluster in bars and hotels and houses and drink and watch recaps and work themselves into a titter. Those in the Districts will be more careful; they’ll be watching the broadcast at home, maybe in the Reaping Squares if they’re keen, but they’ll be watching.
The tributes will be preparing, trying to get some sleep; the mentors will be trying to work out last-minute strategies, cutting sponsorship deals, anything to give their friends an edge.
The Scouts are prepping, too, but in an entirely different way.
The door bangs open and Emin strides into the briefing room. Her expression is tight and unhappy - just like it’s been for the last eternity since the Games season started and all the Scouts were recalled to the Capitol.
At Selene’s side, Dash shifts uncomfortably. This is only their second Games as Peacekeepers, and maybe that means they lack perspective, but the atmosphere at last year’s pre-Arena briefing was … brisk, businesslike. Not like this. Selene glances sideways at Rigel and Marius, her team’s senior scouts; their expressions are similarly grim.
“Assignments for tomorrow,” Emin announces without preamble, which is also not like it was last year. “First up, tribute duty -“
She taps the console; a display springs to life.
Twenty-four light craft will go out tomorrow morning to take the Vic- tributes, they’re tributes - to the Arena, the biggest simultaneous undertaking of the year. Each craft has a number and letter designation marking the tribute it will carry.
By tradition, there are no names, which in a normal year is healthy distancing but this year is an especially important touch for a room full of ex-Careers who have idolized the Victors their whole lives.
“Those of you with your name next to a craft, report in at oh-five-hundred tomorrow.”
Selene registers that she and Dash are in one craft, Marius and Rigel in another. The four of them are usually sent up together, but for this transport duty - and given the number of Peacekeepers required to man craft - they’ll be split up, at least for the first. Later on, when they run cover duty, they’ll be working together again.
The ones assigned to 2M and 2F are amongst the steadiest, most senior Scout pairs in the room. Brutus and Enobaria won’t know the difference, but Troy and Mark and Hector and Evan will, and they’ll remember this for the rest of their lives. Selene can’t decide if it’s supposed to be an honour for them, or … what.
“First shift -“ Emin taps another button, and another set of names flickers onto the screen. “Dag, Brin, Lena, Melanie, your teams will be on standby for the start,” Emin continues - and that’s deliberate too. Those are the most experienced Scouts in the division, with not a Peacekeeper under ten years’ experience in any of those four-man teams.
Selene doesn’t envy them. They’ll be the ones pulling bodies out of the bloodbath. Familiar bodies.
Emin continues, “Given the … state of things, it is imperative that tomorrow goes off as smoothly as possible.” From the tightness in her expression, the wording isn’t her own. “Following that, we’ll rotate by shifts, as usual.”
Everyone nodded.
“Report to your stations. And -“ Emin hesitates, then says, very softly. “I won’t pretend this is just another year. But - we have our duty. Do it, do it well. Let’s go, people.”
--
A few days later, the Games have settled into an uneasy rhythm. They’re on night duty - “because we got the afternoon shift last year,” Marius says with a wry smile - and so far it’s been pretty boring. In most years the night shift is when the action happens, because that’s when the Careers hunt, but this time the main alliance has done most of its movement during the day.
But tonight -
“Something’s happening tonight,” Dash says, frowning at the scanner. It’s linked to the central console the Gamemakers use, showing where everyone is, and is how they know where to pick up tributes when they fall. “Look here -“ he taps the screen as Selene leans over, enlarging the view “- they’re on the move.”
“Back to the tree?” Selene asks. (At the hand-over, the afternoon shift had reported the sort-of-Pack had gone haring off to the big tree nearest their station, but had returned to the beach in short order.)
Dash nods. “And B- the Twos are on the move, too. Intercept course, looks like.”
“Okay.” Rigel runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. Keep an eye out and be ready to go when something happens. They’re planning something tonight; we’ll need to respond fast.”
Marius nods, unhappily. So do Selene and Dash.
Despite that, a few hours pass without incident. They all abandon all pretence of waiting calmly and hover around the scanner, watching the dots move around. And then -
“Eleven Male is down.” Dash announces unnecessarily, as the cannon booms over the Arena. “Just inside our sector.“
“Call it in,” Rigel says instantly, snatching up his helmet. They don’t need to go yet - they usually wait for the dust to clear before going on a pickup - but honestly any excuse for being in the area is a good one, especially since the tag nearest 11M when it winked out was 2M.
“Yes sir,” Selene says, grabbing her own helmet.
They’re up in the air in under a minute, Rigel at the helm, and are halfway to Chaff when another cannon fires. Marius swears, loudly. “Fuck!”
Selene’s on her feet before she quite knows what’s going on. Marius - big, quiet Marius - almost never swears. Dash, surprised but not being possessed of such reflexes, merely looks startled. “What -” Selene begins.
“Brutus just went down,” Marius snaps.
Selene’s world freezes. Brutus? Solid, strong Brutus who has been a mentor since before Selene was even born, who they all thought - secretly, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to say it out loud - could be the one to win this and be the one to come home -
“Changing course,” Rigel says grimly.
The craft tilts abruptly and dives, Rigel throwing it onto a new course for their Victor - their Tribute - no, Brutus is and has always been their Victor - because the least they can do is bring him home, for the cold comfort it is.
Selene grabs at the controls for the claw, spinning it up even before they swing into position. Dash pulls up Brutus’s last position on the scanner, and she closes it on him as gently as she can.
Marius unbuckles his restraints and lurches into position next to the hatch. It isn’t standard procedure, and Dash gives him a startled look, but Selene’s glad for the help however ceremonially Marius means it because Brutus is twice her size. Together, they swing the claw down to the deck, lower their dead Victor’s body gently to the floor -
- and then abruptly Brutus inhales, thrashing against the hard metal.
“Shit!” Selene lunges for the claw release even as Marius jumps to pin Brutus to the floor.
“The hell -“
“Dash, grab the medkit!” Marius orders as Brutus goes limp again. That’s right, the medkit, which comes standard on all the hovercrafts in case the Peacekeepers on board run into trouble. It’s no trauma centre like the Victor pickup hovercraft has, but it’ll do in an emergency. “He’s still alive!”
The kit appears at their side, along with a wide-eyed Dash. He cracks it open and starts pulling out stuff, and then it’s chaos:
“He’s stopped breathing!”
Dash pulls an oxygen mask from the emergency kit and slaps it on, hooking the strap around Brutus’ head, as Marius throws his weight down in chest compresses. The big man left the Centre at eighteen over a decade ago, and he’s kept in shape since; Brutus’ large chest visibly deforms under his weight.
“- might have been poisoned too, give him the antidote, over there -“
Brutus is slippery with blood and has fragments of the jungle still stuck to him, Selene registers distantly, as she plunges the hypo into his neck. It’s broad-spectrum, not targeted, so who knows if it’ll help but it’s better than nothing - Selene considers, trying to remember from training what else would be useful, then swaps hypos and gives him a shot of adrenaline too -
- and then, miraculously, Brutus spasms off the slippery deck, gasping for breath.
“Shit,” Selene says, with feeling, collapsing back onto the deck.
Marius only nods and moves to scrub his face, then reconsiders, given the state of his hands.
"He's alive," Dash whispers. “We saved him.“
Marius fixes Dash with a steady look and rumbles, "Imagine if it were Finnick."
"True," the boy from Four sighs. And to his credit, he's behaved as if it were his District's Victor on the deck and not Brutus. Dash looks a bit green, like he wants to collapse back too, but he's holding the oxygen mask in place with one hand and is monitoring Brutus’s pulse with the other; Brutus, after that burst of energy, has subsided back into unconsciousness.
But he's not dead. He should be dead, but he's not, because … because they saved him. They saved him even though they weren't supposed to, and now they’ve got a live Victor in their craft when they should have a dead tribute.
What now?
In the midst of it all, their comm crackles to life.
--
For a long moment, nobody moves.
Then Marius abruptly heaves himself up. “Watch him,” he says, nodding to Brutus, and goes back to the co-pilot seat.
Selene only nods, staring at Brutus. This is, come to think of it, the first time she’s actually seen him up close in person; sure, she’s seen him on TV and in passing last year when he was Clove’s mentor, but this year Emin had made sure all the juniors were assigned to the “easy” tributes and she spent most of her time walking around after the morphlings from Six.
He’s bigger than she thought. Selene always thought Marius was large, he left the Program at eighteen and they juiced him pretty good, but he’s still a good five or so centimetres shorter than Brutus and a good deal less muscular. And this is, what, Brutus over twenty years after his victory. He must’ve been even bigger as an eighteen-year-old tribute.
And he’s Petra’s mentor. Selene wonders, not for the first time, how her old classmate is handling this. If it’s bad for the Peacekeepers, it must be a nightmare for the other Victors… Odin and Nero could come back with their old tributes and she saw Lyme in the corridors so she somehow talked her way in too, but they’re the only ones with that option. Petra and the rest of them could only watch. On television.
Just like the Peacekeepers were supposed to only watch.
Dash breaks the silence first. He’s still pumping the oxygen bag by hand, making sure Brutus’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, but his eyes are still wide and cautious. “What do we do now?” he whispers.
“I don’t know,” Selene says, her throat tight. “He was dead when we pulled him out - or at least they thought he was, I dunno - and now he’s not, because we saved him, but he’s supposed to be dead. If we bring him back alive - I don’t know.”
The hovercraft changes course. Selene looks up, frowning - she can’t see Rigel from this angle but Marius is hunched over the comm, his body language ratcheted tighter than she’s ever seen. Out the window, the ground is receding at a brisk rate - they’re going up - but where are they going?
Not the Capitol, that’s for sure. This isn’t the way they came.
What are they doing?
Marius returns, a new tension in his frame.
“Where are we going?” Selene demands, before he can say a word.
“We have,” Marius says heavily, “been issued an invitation. As I’m sure you two have figured out, we can’t just fly back to the Capitol and demand medical attention for vee-four-nine.” Meaning Brutus, Victor #49 - they’ve officially dispensed with the fiction of calling him Tribute 2M, then. “They’ll just kill him all over again.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Dash attempts a smile; it comes out pained. “After all this effort?”
Marius just grimaces. “Yes, well. Instead, we’re taking him to … I don’t even know, just coordinates, but they’ve promised us safe harbour.”
Selene swallows. Safe harbour is for traitors, defectors from the enemy. “Marius - are you sure?”
“Who’s they?” Dash adds, ever wary. “How do you know we can trust them?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Marius says, bluntly. “Brutus needs medical attention or all of this will be for nothing, and we’re as good as fugitives now, by saving him… we need them. And I think they need us, too, so we can be sure of our welcome. They were quite … happy … to hear from us.”
Just this morning, they were Peacekeepers - perhaps not happy with their current duties, but that would have passed. It’s not too late to go back, Selene wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. Find a discreet doctor, drop off Brutus, and then … what?
They can’t abandon him now.
And yet.
When Selene was thirteen, she swore an oath to serve the Capitol until the day she died. When she was formally inducted into the Peacekeepers, she repeated that oath, this time to protect as well as to serve. Selene might rail against some of the orders they’re given and bend the rules whenever she can, but even in her most rebellious days she’d never thought of defying the Capitol.
To just - betray it, like this, even if the Capitol did it first by sending Brutus and Enobaria back into the Arena - it’s -
Marius gazed steadily at her and Dash. “You’re both new,” he says, and Selene winces because was she that obvious? “You haven’t seen what Rigel and I have seen. I’ll explain more later, but I need you both to trust us now that this is the right way forward. The only way forward.”
There’s a long moment, and then Dash nods. Marius nods back, gravely, and switches his gaze. “Selene?”
Selene feels like she’s teetering on the brink of a precipice and Marius is telling her to jump. It’s crazy, and insane, and it’s just - if it were anyone but Marius she’dve told them to go to hell but it is, it’s Marius and Dash and Rigel and they’re her people, and she might not trust whoever is over the comm but she trusts her people.
The only way forward.
“I trust you,” Selene says, finally.
And just like that, something loosens in her chest - a tightness she hadn’t realized was there - because it is the only decision. In a way, it's the decision they’ve already made, back when they saved Brutus a minute and a lifetime ago. Or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s really, they had to make a choice between loyalty to their district and to the Capitol, and they chose their district.
“Good.” Marius exhales, some of the tension leaving his frame. “Good. Okay. Here’s what we have to do. First we need to get rid of his tracker …”
Title: Saving Brutus
Characters: OCs and a cameo Brutus
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and mostly-offscreen violence
Summary: Most Peacekeepers are from Two, trained by the same Program that produces the Careers. When these same Peacekeepers are then called upon to run security for the Third Quarter Quell and walk two of their Victor-classmates back into the Arena, well. Some of them aren't too happy about that. Takes place during the second half of Catching Fire.
A/N: This is me playing in lorataprose's lovely District Two Careers-verse and putting my Peacekeeper OCs in it, because there's got to be more to them than what we see in the books. (Or possibly just Peacekeeper-as-former-tribute-trainees meta thinly disguised as fanfiction, and my not wanting Brutus to die.)
Many thanks to penfold_x for the beta! All remaining mistakes are my fault, not hers. :D
For most people, the Games start at the Reaping. That’s when everyone comes together, after all; when the mandatory viewing broadcasts start; and for two families in every District, when the nightmare begins.
Not so for the Peacekeepers - and especially not for those in the Scouts division.
During the year, the Scouts rotate through various duties in and around the Capitol - street guard, border patrol, “special detached duty” - but come spring, the machine that is the Hunger Games starts up and all the Scouts are recalled back, first to serve as guards for the Gamemakers setting up the Arena, and later as handlers for the tributes and mentors streaming into the Capitol. It’s a well-oiled machine, by now, with familiar faces and familiar roles to play: indeed, in many years the only new people are the tributes.
Last year, the 74th, was Selene’s first as a Peacekeeper. The atmosphere was not exactly happy, nobody who isn’t Capitol enjoys the Games, exactly, but brisk and businesslike, and it’s also the only time each year all the Scouts are together so it had a weirdly festive vibe. She and Dash and the other newbies were guided through their duties by the senior Scouts in their squads, and everyone got through it alright.
This year, though … this year is different, because the tributes aren’t just tributes, they’re Victors.
And here’s the thing, even if they hadn’t spent the last however many years watching and guarding the Victors as they came to the Capitol every year, most of the Peacekeeper Scouts are from Two. Not only that, they are overwhelmingly comprised of former Seniors from Two’s Centre program.
Meaning Selene isn’t the only one who was a Victor’s backup.
And while none of them have so much as spoken with their Victor classmates since their paths diverged at graduation, none of them want to see “their” Victor go back in. Watching your classmate go into the Arena once is bad enough. To be the one to escort them to the Arena for another round … that would be more than a little horrifying.
By the time Reaping-time rolls around and all the Scout teams have returned to the Capitol, the atmosphere is tense and grim. Everyone who isn’t on duty gathers in their headquarters to watch the Reapings. Cashmere and Gloss, Brutus and Enobaria (Selene hears Melanie swear under her breath; she was in Enobaria’s year) … the Reapings are a depressing litany of names and faces that they all already know. Some are surprises (Mags, for instance), some are defaults, but none are unfamiliar.
“Alright, everyone,” Emin says at last when the Capitol seal goes up at the end. The Commander uncrosses her arms and straightens from where she’s leaned on a wall at the back of the room. Emin’s face is grim and unhappy, like it has been since the Quell was announced, and Selene abruptly recalls that the Captain is about Artemisia’s age, maybe a year older. “We have our tributes. They’ll be here tomorrow. Get some rest, people. We’re going to need it.”
“Brutus and Enobaria,” Dash says, softly, as they reach their quarters on base.
“Mags and Finnick,” Selene returns in much the same tone.
Dash shakes his head. “Shit, I just. I didn’t know Finnick, he didn’t come around often when I was in training, but Mags, though. She’s like everyone’s grandmother. She was … kind to me.”
Selene nods. “We didn’t see much of either Brutus or Enobaria, as trainees,” she said. “But - “
But they’re heroes, she wants to say. Brutus mentors every year he can, or close to it, and Enobaria - Selene still remembers watching Enobaria’s Games as a child and deciding there and then that that was who she wanted to be when she grew up. They’re Two, they’re ours, and the Capitol is taking them -
“Everyone knows them,” is all Selene says, in the end.
“Yeah.” Dash kicks off his boots and drops down onto a chair. “I just -“
“Stop thinking about it,” Rigel advises, as he and Marius enter. The two senior Scouts are wearing identical glum expressions, but Rigel’s tone is businesslike. “They’re tributes, and that’s that. Now get some sleep, both of you. We’re on Seven’s train at dawn tomorrow.”
And so it goes, day after day.
Selene usually likes being a Scout. They’re given a lot of freedom and autonomy, compared to the district guards, and although she still has to follow orders it’s not like the constant trainers-breathing-down-her-neck she underwent in Residential. But this - to stand guard on doors and escort the Victor-tributes around as they move through the Games complex, and do their best to Not Think About it and pretend it’s just like last year where the tributes were unknown children and not heroes - this is a special kind of hell.
They’re all too well trained to reveal anything, but everywhere Selene looks she sees tense shoulders and heavy steps where last year was brisk professionalism, and she knows she’s not the only one. At least their expressions always hidden behind mirrored helmets.
--
Finally, it’s the day before the start of the 75th Hunger Games. Most of the Capitol citizens are at Games-parties; they’ll cluster in bars and hotels and houses and drink and watch recaps and work themselves into a titter. Those in the Districts will be more careful; they’ll be watching the broadcast at home, maybe in the Reaping Squares if they’re keen, but they’ll be watching.
The tributes will be preparing, trying to get some sleep; the mentors will be trying to work out last-minute strategies, cutting sponsorship deals, anything to give their friends an edge.
The Scouts are prepping, too, but in an entirely different way.
The door bangs open and Emin strides into the briefing room. Her expression is tight and unhappy - just like it’s been for the last eternity since the Games season started and all the Scouts were recalled to the Capitol.
At Selene’s side, Dash shifts uncomfortably. This is only their second Games as Peacekeepers, and maybe that means they lack perspective, but the atmosphere at last year’s pre-Arena briefing was … brisk, businesslike. Not like this. Selene glances sideways at Rigel and Marius, her team’s senior scouts; their expressions are similarly grim.
“Assignments for tomorrow,” Emin announces without preamble, which is also not like it was last year. “First up, tribute duty -“
She taps the console; a display springs to life.
Twenty-four light craft will go out tomorrow morning to take the Vic- tributes, they’re tributes - to the Arena, the biggest simultaneous undertaking of the year. Each craft has a number and letter designation marking the tribute it will carry.
By tradition, there are no names, which in a normal year is healthy distancing but this year is an especially important touch for a room full of ex-Careers who have idolized the Victors their whole lives.
“Those of you with your name next to a craft, report in at oh-five-hundred tomorrow.”
Selene registers that she and Dash are in one craft, Marius and Rigel in another. The four of them are usually sent up together, but for this transport duty - and given the number of Peacekeepers required to man craft - they’ll be split up, at least for the first. Later on, when they run cover duty, they’ll be working together again.
The ones assigned to 2M and 2F are amongst the steadiest, most senior Scout pairs in the room. Brutus and Enobaria won’t know the difference, but Troy and Mark and Hector and Evan will, and they’ll remember this for the rest of their lives. Selene can’t decide if it’s supposed to be an honour for them, or … what.
“First shift -“ Emin taps another button, and another set of names flickers onto the screen. “Dag, Brin, Lena, Melanie, your teams will be on standby for the start,” Emin continues - and that’s deliberate too. Those are the most experienced Scouts in the division, with not a Peacekeeper under ten years’ experience in any of those four-man teams.
Selene doesn’t envy them. They’ll be the ones pulling bodies out of the bloodbath. Familiar bodies.
Emin continues, “Given the … state of things, it is imperative that tomorrow goes off as smoothly as possible.” From the tightness in her expression, the wording isn’t her own. “Following that, we’ll rotate by shifts, as usual.”
Everyone nodded.
“Report to your stations. And -“ Emin hesitates, then says, very softly. “I won’t pretend this is just another year. But - we have our duty. Do it, do it well. Let’s go, people.”
--
A few days later, the Games have settled into an uneasy rhythm. They’re on night duty - “because we got the afternoon shift last year,” Marius says with a wry smile - and so far it’s been pretty boring. In most years the night shift is when the action happens, because that’s when the Careers hunt, but this time the main alliance has done most of its movement during the day.
But tonight -
“Something’s happening tonight,” Dash says, frowning at the scanner. It’s linked to the central console the Gamemakers use, showing where everyone is, and is how they know where to pick up tributes when they fall. “Look here -“ he taps the screen as Selene leans over, enlarging the view “- they’re on the move.”
“Back to the tree?” Selene asks. (At the hand-over, the afternoon shift had reported the sort-of-Pack had gone haring off to the big tree nearest their station, but had returned to the beach in short order.)
Dash nods. “And B- the Twos are on the move, too. Intercept course, looks like.”
“Okay.” Rigel runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. Keep an eye out and be ready to go when something happens. They’re planning something tonight; we’ll need to respond fast.”
Marius nods, unhappily. So do Selene and Dash.
Despite that, a few hours pass without incident. They all abandon all pretence of waiting calmly and hover around the scanner, watching the dots move around. And then -
“Eleven Male is down.” Dash announces unnecessarily, as the cannon booms over the Arena. “Just inside our sector.“
“Call it in,” Rigel says instantly, snatching up his helmet. They don’t need to go yet - they usually wait for the dust to clear before going on a pickup - but honestly any excuse for being in the area is a good one, especially since the tag nearest 11M when it winked out was 2M.
“Yes sir,” Selene says, grabbing her own helmet.
They’re up in the air in under a minute, Rigel at the helm, and are halfway to Chaff when another cannon fires. Marius swears, loudly. “Fuck!”
Selene’s on her feet before she quite knows what’s going on. Marius - big, quiet Marius - almost never swears. Dash, surprised but not being possessed of such reflexes, merely looks startled. “What -” Selene begins.
“Brutus just went down,” Marius snaps.
Selene’s world freezes. Brutus? Solid, strong Brutus who has been a mentor since before Selene was even born, who they all thought - secretly, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to say it out loud - could be the one to win this and be the one to come home -
“Changing course,” Rigel says grimly.
The craft tilts abruptly and dives, Rigel throwing it onto a new course for their Victor - their Tribute - no, Brutus is and has always been their Victor - because the least they can do is bring him home, for the cold comfort it is.
Selene grabs at the controls for the claw, spinning it up even before they swing into position. Dash pulls up Brutus’s last position on the scanner, and she closes it on him as gently as she can.
Marius unbuckles his restraints and lurches into position next to the hatch. It isn’t standard procedure, and Dash gives him a startled look, but Selene’s glad for the help however ceremonially Marius means it because Brutus is twice her size. Together, they swing the claw down to the deck, lower their dead Victor’s body gently to the floor -
- and then abruptly Brutus inhales, thrashing against the hard metal.
“Shit!” Selene lunges for the claw release even as Marius jumps to pin Brutus to the floor.
“The hell -“
“Dash, grab the medkit!” Marius orders as Brutus goes limp again. That’s right, the medkit, which comes standard on all the hovercrafts in case the Peacekeepers on board run into trouble. It’s no trauma centre like the Victor pickup hovercraft has, but it’ll do in an emergency. “He’s still alive!”
The kit appears at their side, along with a wide-eyed Dash. He cracks it open and starts pulling out stuff, and then it’s chaos:
“He’s stopped breathing!”
Dash pulls an oxygen mask from the emergency kit and slaps it on, hooking the strap around Brutus’ head, as Marius throws his weight down in chest compresses. The big man left the Centre at eighteen over a decade ago, and he’s kept in shape since; Brutus’ large chest visibly deforms under his weight.
“- might have been poisoned too, give him the antidote, over there -“
Brutus is slippery with blood and has fragments of the jungle still stuck to him, Selene registers distantly, as she plunges the hypo into his neck. It’s broad-spectrum, not targeted, so who knows if it’ll help but it’s better than nothing - Selene considers, trying to remember from training what else would be useful, then swaps hypos and gives him a shot of adrenaline too -
- and then, miraculously, Brutus spasms off the slippery deck, gasping for breath.
“Shit,” Selene says, with feeling, collapsing back onto the deck.
Marius only nods and moves to scrub his face, then reconsiders, given the state of his hands.
"He's alive," Dash whispers. “We saved him.“
Marius fixes Dash with a steady look and rumbles, "Imagine if it were Finnick."
"True," the boy from Four sighs. And to his credit, he's behaved as if it were his District's Victor on the deck and not Brutus. Dash looks a bit green, like he wants to collapse back too, but he's holding the oxygen mask in place with one hand and is monitoring Brutus’s pulse with the other; Brutus, after that burst of energy, has subsided back into unconsciousness.
But he's not dead. He should be dead, but he's not, because … because they saved him. They saved him even though they weren't supposed to, and now they’ve got a live Victor in their craft when they should have a dead tribute.
What now?
In the midst of it all, their comm crackles to life.
--
For a long moment, nobody moves.
Then Marius abruptly heaves himself up. “Watch him,” he says, nodding to Brutus, and goes back to the co-pilot seat.
Selene only nods, staring at Brutus. This is, come to think of it, the first time she’s actually seen him up close in person; sure, she’s seen him on TV and in passing last year when he was Clove’s mentor, but this year Emin had made sure all the juniors were assigned to the “easy” tributes and she spent most of her time walking around after the morphlings from Six.
He’s bigger than she thought. Selene always thought Marius was large, he left the Program at eighteen and they juiced him pretty good, but he’s still a good five or so centimetres shorter than Brutus and a good deal less muscular. And this is, what, Brutus over twenty years after his victory. He must’ve been even bigger as an eighteen-year-old tribute.
And he’s Petra’s mentor. Selene wonders, not for the first time, how her old classmate is handling this. If it’s bad for the Peacekeepers, it must be a nightmare for the other Victors… Odin and Nero could come back with their old tributes and she saw Lyme in the corridors so she somehow talked her way in too, but they’re the only ones with that option. Petra and the rest of them could only watch. On television.
Just like the Peacekeepers were supposed to only watch.
Dash breaks the silence first. He’s still pumping the oxygen bag by hand, making sure Brutus’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, but his eyes are still wide and cautious. “What do we do now?” he whispers.
“I don’t know,” Selene says, her throat tight. “He was dead when we pulled him out - or at least they thought he was, I dunno - and now he’s not, because we saved him, but he’s supposed to be dead. If we bring him back alive - I don’t know.”
The hovercraft changes course. Selene looks up, frowning - she can’t see Rigel from this angle but Marius is hunched over the comm, his body language ratcheted tighter than she’s ever seen. Out the window, the ground is receding at a brisk rate - they’re going up - but where are they going?
Not the Capitol, that’s for sure. This isn’t the way they came.
What are they doing?
Marius returns, a new tension in his frame.
“Where are we going?” Selene demands, before he can say a word.
“We have,” Marius says heavily, “been issued an invitation. As I’m sure you two have figured out, we can’t just fly back to the Capitol and demand medical attention for vee-four-nine.” Meaning Brutus, Victor #49 - they’ve officially dispensed with the fiction of calling him Tribute 2M, then. “They’ll just kill him all over again.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Dash attempts a smile; it comes out pained. “After all this effort?”
Marius just grimaces. “Yes, well. Instead, we’re taking him to … I don’t even know, just coordinates, but they’ve promised us safe harbour.”
Selene swallows. Safe harbour is for traitors, defectors from the enemy. “Marius - are you sure?”
“Who’s they?” Dash adds, ever wary. “How do you know we can trust them?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Marius says, bluntly. “Brutus needs medical attention or all of this will be for nothing, and we’re as good as fugitives now, by saving him… we need them. And I think they need us, too, so we can be sure of our welcome. They were quite … happy … to hear from us.”
Just this morning, they were Peacekeepers - perhaps not happy with their current duties, but that would have passed. It’s not too late to go back, Selene wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. Find a discreet doctor, drop off Brutus, and then … what?
They can’t abandon him now.
And yet.
When Selene was thirteen, she swore an oath to serve the Capitol until the day she died. When she was formally inducted into the Peacekeepers, she repeated that oath, this time to protect as well as to serve. Selene might rail against some of the orders they’re given and bend the rules whenever she can, but even in her most rebellious days she’d never thought of defying the Capitol.
To just - betray it, like this, even if the Capitol did it first by sending Brutus and Enobaria back into the Arena - it’s -
Marius gazed steadily at her and Dash. “You’re both new,” he says, and Selene winces because was she that obvious? “You haven’t seen what Rigel and I have seen. I’ll explain more later, but I need you both to trust us now that this is the right way forward. The only way forward.”
There’s a long moment, and then Dash nods. Marius nods back, gravely, and switches his gaze. “Selene?”
Selene feels like she’s teetering on the brink of a precipice and Marius is telling her to jump. It’s crazy, and insane, and it’s just - if it were anyone but Marius she’dve told them to go to hell but it is, it’s Marius and Dash and Rigel and they’re her people, and she might not trust whoever is over the comm but she trusts her people.
The only way forward.
“I trust you,” Selene says, finally.
And just like that, something loosens in her chest - a tightness she hadn’t realized was there - because it is the only decision. In a way, it's the decision they’ve already made, back when they saved Brutus a minute and a lifetime ago. Or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s really, they had to make a choice between loyalty to their district and to the Capitol, and they chose their district.
“Good.” Marius exhales, some of the tension leaving his frame. “Good. Okay. Here’s what we have to do. First we need to get rid of his tracker …”