Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1829296.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      South_Park
  Relationship:
      Kyle_Broflovski/Eric_Cartman, Stan_Marsh/Wendy_Testaburger
  Character:
      Kyle_Broflovski, Eric_Cartman, Stan_Marsh, Bebe_Stevens, Wendy
      Testaburger, Sheila_Broflovski, Gerald_Broflovski, Ike_Broflovski, Lisa
      Berger
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Hunger_Games_Setting, Aftermath_of_Violence,
      Character_Death, Past_Torture
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-22 Updated: 2015-02-07 Chapters: 7/? Words: 12023
****** Abraham's Son ******
by Satine89
Summary
     The Broflovski family, for refusing to watch the 47th Hunger Games of
     Panem, was exiled to District 12, home of the 47th Games' highly
     controversial and unpopular victor, Eric Cartman. Now, a year later,
     the Reaping for the 48th Games has named Kyle Broflovski as District
     12's male tribute, and Kyle has to embody everything he hates about
     the Capitol, its violence and decadence, and the Hunger Games to save
     himself and live to rebel another day...
     Trigger warning: contains major character death, graphic violence
     including torture and sexual assault, and is based on the Hunger
     Games so obviously this isn't going to be cheery at all.
Notes
     Hello everyone! I'm still working on my other Kyman fic, but I've
     been writing this one nonstop because the inspiration's hit me very
     hard. I hope everyone likes this!
     As the author's note says, this fic is going to be very violent, as
     it is based on one of the more violent franchises in recent literary
     history, so please be aware of that.
***** [one.] *****
The banging on the door got louder and louder.

All of them knew this was going to happen at some point, but their rebellion
was noble. It was sick, what the Capitol was becoming - its decadence
threatened to overwhelm the entire continent, and everyone was just sitting by,
playing with their new hair plaits, fiddling with new electronic devices,
watching that... that...

Kyle Broflovski didn't understand what was happening, entirely. His 'friends'
(the boys who let him hang around them, even as they mocked his weird parents
and the fact that he didn't have much in the way of fancy clothes) all spoke
about the Hunger Games at school, in excited tones. Their money had all been on
a Career who apparently murdered a helpless girl from District 12 yesterday.
Kyle was ashamed that he even knew what a Career was - the fact that he could
imagine what a Career might look like, and what district they'd come from, and
what he probably did to that coal-miner's daughter, made his face burn.

He hid in one of the rooms of his family's apartment as the state police
Peacekeepers burst through the door, barking orders. They'd been found out.

You had to watch The Hunger Games. Why would you not be amused? Not watching it
was seditious - dangerous - unnatural. And punishable. Very punishable.

There was too much going on before Kyle. He desperately buried himself
underneath one of the beds, clutching his younger brother's hand. His younger
brother, Ike, didn't make a sound, curling his fingers into Kyle's as their
parents argued vociferously with the President's guard. It wouldn't do them any
good, but they believed as Kyle believed. The Hunger Games were barbaric
spectacles.

Kyle was so wrapped up in the screaming and the arguing that he didn't even
feel Ike's hand slip out of his.

Ike's wailing reached his ears quicker than he was able to cry out. Someone
yanked on Kyle's leg, and slid him out from under the bed, ginger hair spilling
onto the pristine carpeting. Kyle couldn't make any noise, not even when he was
yanked off the ground and pushed into the family sitting room. Ike continued to
wail impressively loudly for a five-year-old, while Kyle's mother Sheila, done
up in mock-ups of the finest Capitol fashions, screamed at the Peacekeeper
holding him to let him go. The Peacekeeper didn't oblige, instead shoving Kyle
in front of the family telescreen, on and cacophonous in its volume.

The words being screamed back and forth between his parents, having their hands
pulled behind their backs and led away, and the guards, shuffling between
forcing the Broflovskis out and watching the look on Kyle's face change, were
nothing more than background sounds. Kyle, raising his head, let his bright
green eyes rest on the imagery before him.

The noise wasn't from the screen, he realized. It was the collected gasping
horror and dismay of the Capitol, streaming in from outside the apartment. The
image itself was silent - which only made it worse.

A boy Kyle's age was soaked in blood, standing over the bodies of five other
teenagers. The viscera barely seemed to move him; on the contrary, he was still
focused on the body closest to him, a male who looked like he used to have
blonde hair.

He also used to be in one piece, Kyle presumed.

The boy leaning over him flipped a small hunting knife in his hand, over and
over again, almost compulsively, lip twitching as his blue eyes glared down at
the body beneath him. He was heavy-set, the kind of person that would be
shunned in this fucked-up society of Panem, and Kyle could see that he was
doing everything in his power not to keep tearing apart the dead kid beneath
him.

Over the din growing in the Capitol, the television announcer finally spoke.

"The winner of the 47th Hunger Games... is Eric Cartman of District 12."
 
                                     . . .
                                one year later


"The reaping is tomorrow."

Kyle Broflovski's life hadn't been easy this past year. Being forced to move
away from the Capitol of Panem, into a reeling, confused District 12, home of
the most recent - and one of the least popular - Hunger Games victors ever, was
strange. There wasn't really a place to go to school, considering that the
Panem-run school was constantly losing students to families who needed to put
their kids to work in the mines or the squares; Kyle basically taught himself
basic curricula from the books his father was able to buy under the table in
the marketplace. Where Kyle was used to people being incredibly false and
shallow, the need to survive made people in District 12 desperately open and
honest - Kyle actually found himself with a few friends.

He didn't need to be reminded of the reaping by one of those few.

Stanley Marsh stayed in school about as long as Kyle did. He lived next door to
the Broflovskis, and the Marshes were one of the few families that didn't think
of the Broflovskis as Capitol spies. Once Stanley befriended Kyle and began to
show him how to hunt and defend himself, the rest of the town eased up on the
Broflovskis and began to share more of their stories, their lives, their quest
to live with them.

The reaping directly interfered with that quest to live. Kyle, sitting on the
edge of a polluted riverbank with Stan, bow and arrow quiver resting in his
lap, frowned. "You've got to try not to think about it."

"Karen McCormick is reaping age now. So's Annie." Stan stared at his heavy
boots, dark hair falling in his face. "They'd never make it."

"Stan, you realize that the Capitol does this for a reason? The President and
his cronies parade this violent bullshit around to inspire the fear of an
unjust God in you," Kyle seethed.

Stan blinked at him. "...you sound like Eric."

Kyle's turn to blink. Kyle didn't really know a lot about Eric - every once in
a while, Stan and Kyle ran into him while hunting. He was pretty good at
hunting, from what Kyle could tell, but every time Kyle looked at District 12's
only Hunger Games victor, all he could see was Eric's face clouded with blood.
Eric could probably tell, because he got inhumanly awkward whenever he saw Kyle
and generally ended contact quickly. Eric and his mother lived separate lives
from most of District 12 anyways, since they were forcibly relocated to the
Victor's Village, so there wasn't much chance for Kyle to try and smooth their
weirdness over.

Kyle could only imagine how paranoid and haunted participating in a Hunger
Games would be, though. Human interaction after witnessing so much horror -
after causing so much of it - would probably be grueling. Kyle was plagued by
nightmares just by seeing Eric soaked in someone else's viscera, staring down
at the intestines he'd torn from another teenager. Actually being pushed to the
point of doing something so violent... Kyle was an outsider, and he didn't
understand why Eric did what he did. District 12 seemed to, though. They
rallied behind Eric. They might not like him, but they were often quick to say
that he did what needed doing in the last Hunger Games.

"That's not a bad thing, dude." Stan interrupted Kyle's train of thought,
causing Kyle to snap to attention. "I know you don't really know him..."

"I was just thinking," Kyle said, redirecting Stan's words. He wasn't really in
the mood to hear more about how 'he did what needed to be done'. "It's a good
way to think. They're going to draft two of us to kill a bunch of kids. If we
recognize it for the fascist suppression tactic it is, there's no fear of it."

Stan glowered at him. "I can't be angry about it?"

"That's what you have to be. Not afraid. Angry." Kyle sighed, standing up and
picking up his bow and slinging the quiver over his shoulder. "If we want to
actually eat tonight, we should start hunting."

Stan stood up with an equally frustrated sigh. "I don't want to lose another of
our women."

The two of the moved into the forest, Kyle not asking why it was important not
to lose another woman. Apparently District 12 had absolutely rotten luck with
women in the Hunger Games. They had rotten luck with everyone in the Hunger
Games, but women of marrying age (16) kept getting put into the games, not to
mention beloved women who excelled in things that might get the District out of
their quagmire of poverty. Two years prior, there was Porsche, who had the bad
luck to be reaped with her boyfriend. They'd opened up a bakery. They were both
killed in minutes.

That was the nicest thing that happened to a woman from District 12 in recent
memory. Kyle got the feeling that the Career-oriented districts were insanely
sexist and misogynistic, in addition to being general fuckheads.

Stan slipped into some brush, while Kyle, in his usual mode, climbed up a tree,
covered by the heavy leaves around him. The forestry in District 12 was
beautiful. Surely the Capitol didn't intend for it to be - the main parts of
the city were dusty and unkempt - but the Peacekeepers in District 12 were much
less aggressive than those in the Capitol. They let the forest live, instead of
burning it down, and let the people of the district hunt and learn to forage
for sustenance. Kyle wasn't really buddy-buddy with the Peacekeepers the way
some people in town were, but the Peacekeepers seemed to get it. One of them
often expressed annoyance with the Broflovski's situation to Kyle's father in
passing.

Kyle waited for moments, noticing a deer crossing his path. He didn't know
where Stan had gone, and couldn't rely on him. Drawing his bow, Kyle pulled
back the string, aiming stealthily at the deer, and, with a sharp inhale,
loosed the arrow.

It hit the deer's flank, felling it, but not killing it.

Kyle groaned, jumping out of the tree. Stan was already on it, quickly
dispatching the deer with a hunting knife.

"Your aim..." Stan began.

"I know, I know," Kyle said, frustrated. His aim had always been an issue. He
wasn't like the others in town, blessed with preternatural hunting abilities.
He sheathed his bow and began to help Stan dress the deer, blowing some ginger
hair out of his face.

If only his Capitol 'friends' could see him now. Dressing a deer and killing.
They'd probably love him, flesh-mongering miscreants that they were.

The reaping was tomorrow. They'd love that shit.
***** [two.] *****
Chapter Summary
     The reaping occurs. It goes poorly.
Chapter Notes
     Thank you to everyone who's been reading this, and a big thank-you to
     all of the people who liked my idea to post this on Tumblr! I'm going
     to actually start posting the whole fic on Tumblr as well, so if
     you'd rather read there, hit up djhaleyfresh and read on dears.
Everyone had to dress their best for the reaping. It was another goddamn head
game. Kyle said as much to his mother when buttoning his shirt and tucking it
into his slacks. She had pulled out some fashions she'd made herself, for some
of the girls in the neighborhood who couldn't afford to wear niceties, and was
going to distribute them in just a few moments.

Kyle knew he shouldn't have said anything seditious about the Panem government
to his mother. Their sedition had cost her a lot of sanity and ease of mind.
Her once fabulous red beehive now hung limp and long around her collarbone, and
her reasonable facsimiles of Capitol wear were now smeared with the dirt and
grime of District 12. But Sheila Broflovski was strong. She preferred District
12, she said. You went appreciated in District 12.

"Kyle, don't you dare say anything in front of the cameras," Sheila snapped at
him. Ike was, thankfully, still too young for reaping, but he still had to
dress well. Six years old and eternally scared of life, Ike wasn't fussing at
all as Sheila adjusted his tie.

"I won't," Kyle insisted. Like the cameras would want anything to do with him.
He was a Capitol exile. It would be more "fun" to watch people who'd lived
their whole lives together be torn apart, sobbing and not ready for their
inevitable deaths.

Kyle's father appeared from his small study, dressed remarkably similar to
Kyle. They had a lot of similar features - same eye color, same iron-set jaw,
same dappled freckles. It was easy to see that they were father and son.
Glancing between his wife and his eldest son, eyes were filled with concern, he
sighed. "Let's just keep our heads down today, all right?"

"I just told mom that -" Kyle protested.

His father put a hand on his shoulder. "Kyle, you understand that we're exactly
the kind of scandal that the Capitol will eat up? Disgraced former citizens?
It's the perfect sob story for them to exploit."

Kyle frowned. Really? He was so certain that the Capitol wanted them forgotten
about and swept under the rug. "...okay."

"Please don't start telling anyone about... well. What you tend to talk about."

"All right, dad."

"Once we get through this, we can come back here and rant about the barbarism
and all of that stuff. Okay?"

It sounded like a good promise, but Kyle was too incensed at the situation to
grin. "That sounds nice."

"That's my son." He turned to Sheila and Ike, and, wordlessly, the four of them
left the house.

                                     . . .


The escort was dressed in the most ridiculous bullshit Kyle had ever seen.

Settling into a large grouping with all of the reaping-age children, Kyle
couldn't tear his eyes from what lay before him. A large telescreen had been
erected in their main square, the temporary shopfronts all removed (by the
people of District 12 themselves - they weren't stupid enough to leave those
shopfronts out when the Capitol goons came calling) and replaced with a large
square stage. Atop it was the ridiculous escort person, a mildly overweight
girl dripping in tinsel and elaborate wigs and baubles, and two large
fishbowls, where the names of all the potential Hunger Games victims lay,
divided by gender.

Behind the stage, Kyle noticed Eric Cartman lingering, dressed in muted colors.
He looked like he didn't want to be noticed. Kyle didn't blame him. He'd have
to try and prevent whoever got drafted from dying, and he was barely sixteen.

"Hello, District 12!" the effervescent Capitol escort greeted. If she expected
to get a response, she was delusional. "And thank you for being here for the
start of 48th Hunger Games!"

Like they had a choice. From beside him, Kyle's other neighbor, Red Towwood,
made a distinctly irritated noise, clicking her tongue at the escort.
Thankfully, no one heard her.

"I know that the last Hunger Games was extremely eventful for your District,
and I am hoping that this year promises more of that same kind of enthusiasm -
"

Eric looked like he was going to vomit from his hiding place.

" - and inner strength that characterized the last games!"

Kyle frowned, out of confusion for once and not spite. The Capitol hated Eric's
victory, didn't they? They'd been shaming District 12 for months. Inner
strength? That didn't sound like the words someone would use to shame a
district into keeping their heads -

Kyle managed to miss what the escort had been saying, since she dipped her hand
into one of the fishbowls.

"...the female tribute for the 48th Hunger Games will be Berebeth Stevens."

Kyle heard Stan swear, but, from behind them, a woman with heavy blonde curls
and a bodybuilder's physique strode past them. Kyle recognized her in passing -
she was the butcher's daughter, and often was seen working the store, violently
hacking at meat. She'd probably do well in the Hunger Games, but, again, she
looked older, mature. Clearly she was well-loved, too; girls of all ages
stopped Berebeth as she passed them, tears in their eyes, begging her to be
careful and wishing her well and worrying.

Kyle sighed, watching Berebeth take her place on the stage. Her face was grimly
determined, but her eyes told another story. She was terrified.

Moving to the next fishbowl, the escort pulled out a slip of paper, the
telescreen zooming in on her mildly startled face. The emotion flitted away
from her quickly.

"And the male tribute for the 48th Hunger Games will be Kyle Broflovski."

                                     . . .


Kyle didn't remember much of the ensuing moment.

Kyle barely heard anything over the pounding of his own blood in his ears as he
walked up to the stage. Red watched him with wide eyes; he heard Stan yell
something that suspiciously sounded like "rigged" before a Peacemaker sidled so
close to him that his nerve died; his baby brother started wailing to create
even more tension. Otherwise, every person he'd met during his family's exile
simply stared at him.

They were too shocked to give Kyle what they gave Berebeth - their well-wishes
and tears and fears. They were scandalized.

Some of them probably had the same thought Stan had - this was rigged, and the
Capitol was dragging the Broflovski family through more punishment.

Kyle's eyes looked for Eric. He'd vanished.

Kyle took his place next to Berebeth. She looked at him through her curtain of
hair, lip twitching. They didn't have much time to talk - after the escort did
some pretty talking for the benefit of Capitol viewers, the two of them were
ushered away from the square and into the Hall of Justice, in the center of
District 12. The irony wasn't lost on Kyle.

Both Berebeth and Kyle's families were waiting there for them. Berebeth's
father and mother ushered her out of sight of the Broflovskis, probably because
they all looked about ready to burst into tears and didn't want to make the
Broflovski's parting any worse.

Sheila couldn't even look at her son for a few moments, overtaken by emotion
and fear. Ike immediately latched onto Kyle's leg, burying his tear-streaked
face in his knee. Kyle felt so sick looking at him - he was six. He shouldn't
have to fear his brother being murdered. He shouldn't even know what murder
was.

Kyle rubbed his head reassuringly. "It's gonna be okay, Ike." The words sounded
so unlike something he'd say, and Ike knew it. Ike sniffled, grabbing at his
slacks and staining them with tears.

"No is not!" he mumbled into the fabric. "No is not! Ike should volunteer for
Kyle!"

Kyle, while touched at his brother wanting to take his place, was also deeply
disturbed by it. His dad, thankfully, took over before Kyle could even try to
formulate an answer, pulling Ike off of Kyle's leg

"Ike, like it or not, Kyle got chosen to be a tribute. We have to move on as
best we can." Kyle could tell his dad was using mild language to dance around
the fact that he was almost guaranteed to die.

Sheila pulled Kyle into a crushing hug. "Gerald - Dad - Dad and I will have to
watch. To make sure our little boy is safe."

Everything felt like it was tearing Kyle apart - his brother crying and
reaching back at him again, his father looking at him as if trying to memorize
his features in case he never saw them again, his mother's light perfume
winding around him as she tried to convince herself that she could make sure
Kyle was safe.

"Mom, I -"

But time was up. A few Peacemakers arrived, as did the escort, looking even
more inappropriately upper-class up close than she did far away.

"...I have to take him," she noted. Again, her tone seemed inappropriate for a
Capitol representative. It almost sounded like she regretted having to take
Kyle from his family so quickly.

Sheila let go of Kyle. Kyle looked back at the escort, then to his family,
helplessly moving to follow the Capitol woman. He heard Ike wail a little
again, before Gerald quickly silenced him with a few words.

"Now we pray for him, Ike."

Kyle finally felt the bile leave his throat and a few tears cloud his eyes as
the escort lead him away from the Hall's atrium and into a back room.
***** [three.] *****
Chapter Summary
     Kyle meets Lisa Berger, who is unpleasant, and Eric Cartman, who is
     anything but.
Chapter Notes
     I want to thank everyone who's enjoying this so far, whether you be
     from Tumblr or from this site right here! I'm very happy to get into
     the meat of the story, going back to the Capitol and meeting all of
     our other players. I'm also thinking of making a soundtrack for this
     story, so if I do that, I'll be sure to post a link.
[three.]

Berebeth was already sitting on an ornate couch in the smaller side room when
the escort and Kyle arrived. Kyle quickly blinked away his tears, even though
he didn't need to. He could see that Berebeth's eyes were raw and puffy. He
took a seat next to her, unsure of what to say; the escort bustled out just as
quickly as she'd arrived, telling both of them to stay put for a few minutes
while she found the other guy.

Kyle glanced over at Berebeth. She looked nice, in a plain blue linen gown, a
small flower embroidered in its corner. Kyle could see the muscles in her arm
twitching as she took in the bright cream-colored room. All Kyle could think
about was that this room probably cost more to clean and maintain than most
District 12 residents made in a year.

"...this is crazy, isn't it?"

Berebeth's voice was a lot deeper than Kyle expected. Jolted from his thoughts,
he folded his hands and placed them in his lap, eyes skimming over the patch of
salty water on his kneecap.

"Yeah. Crazy and wrong," Kyle mumbled. "...I'm Kyle Broflovski."

"Berebeth Stevens." They didn't need to say their names, but they had to cling
to some sort of normalcy. They had to pretend they might not be forced to kill
each other for sport. "My friends call me Bebe."

"Berebeth is a pretty name, though," Kyle commented.

"It's an old-fashioned name," Bebe noted. "A very old District 12 name. The
first winner of the Hunger Games was named Berebeth. My parents thought it
would... give me strength..." She paused before tears lined her eyes again.
Kyle comfortingly patted her back.

"If it makes you feel better, crying isn't a sign of weakness. It shows you
have emotional strength," Kyle said. His father told him that once, back when
they lived in the Capitol and some kids at school threw him into a trash
compactor. When Kyle finally got home, crying and insisting that he was
useless, his father told him that kids who did nothing but hit and fight were
the weakest of them all - they used their fists to express themselves, which
meant they had little else to express themselves with. The strongest, Gerald
told him, were the people who knew when to cry and when to fight, when to flee
and when to stay.

Bebe wiped her eyes, smiling lightly. "Stan did say you were smart."

"You're a friend of Stan's?"

Bebe's face darkened a bit. "I was."

Kyle didn't have time to ask. In that moment, the escort bustled back in, with
a surly Eric Cartman in tow. She looked flustered and annoyed, taking a seat in
the rococo-style chair opposite the gilded couch Kyle and Bebe sat on. Eric
stood, ignoring a similar rococo chair next to the escort. Her glaring didn't
dissuade him, so she simply sighed, offering her hand to both Bebe and Kyle in
turn.

"I'm Lisa Berger," she introduced herself, shaking hands. Kyle noticed that her
grip was weirdly strong. She was probably a veteran gladhander. "And the next
couple of weeks are going to be interesting."

"You make it sound like a summer holiday." Kyle was pretty sure this was the
first time he'd heard Eric say a full sentence in his presence. His voice was
weirdly nasal, for someone so physically imposing.

Lisa glared at him again. "We'll be leaving by train for the Capitol as soon as
the Peacekeepers arrive, and from there you will begin training for the games
themselves in our Training Center. You'll also be meeting your stylist -"

Kyle, having not watched a Hunger Games in God knows how long, was at a loss
for why he needed a stylist. Berebeth subconsciously grabbed at her long locks,
probably fearing that they'd be chopped off for no good reason.

" - and preparing for your live introduction to the Capitol before the games."

"Can't I just... not?" Kyle asked.

Bebe gave him an odd look, while Eric almost looked like he was smirking.
Almost. Lisa frowned.

"You used to live in the Capitol, yes?" Lisa asked.

"Yes."

"Here's a heads-up for you, Kyle. Your open disdain for the Hunger Games won't
get you anywhere with the people of the Capitol. Disgusting as you obviously
find us, considering that you've been glaring at my clothes and my hair and my
jewelry since you saw me, you won't get anywhere unless you can win over the
population. They'll send you gifts and helpful items in the arena if you endear
yourself to them. Bebe will have no trouble with that - she's pretty and smart
and photogenic and strong."

How Lisa knew what Bebe was like with a glance was beyond Kyle's comprehension.


"You will, because as far as Panem's concerned, you're a traitorous ginger
fuckwit" (Kyle felt his eye twitch - did the escort really just call him a
fuckwit?) "who needs to be murdered immediately for sins your family committed.
And that's before you factor in what Eric did to a cadre of Careers last year.
Basically, Kyle, keep your rebellious thoughts in your damn head and you might
have a one-percent chance of winning this thing."

Kyle, eye still twitching, simply nodded in response to her. He wasn't quite
sure how he felt about Lisa just yet. He certainly didn't appreciate being
called a fuckwit.

Lisa smoothed out her triangular skirt and went back to business. "Eric will be
your mentor. Despite his rather atrocious personality" (Kyle had to assume Lisa
was just like this all the time) "he will probably be able to help you with
strategy. He's got a bag of cats for brains."

Eric pointedly avoided looking at Lisa, probably to cover up the fact that he
was giggling at her assessment of him.

Bebe leaned back into the couch. "Lisa, what does the competition look like?"

"We won't know until we get to the Capitol. Things are purposely organized that
way."

"Surely you must have some idea if any of the Careers volunteered as -"

But the Peacekeepers arrived to escort all of them to the train at that moment.
Bebe stood, following Lisa closely to try and badger her about some of the
Careers that may have volunteered. Kyle took his time in getting up, Lisa's
words echoing in his head. He was going to have a giant target on his back from
the moment he entered into the Capitol. Everyone would be gunning for him. His
story as a traitor to Panem would be broadcast over the twelve districts, if it
hadn't already.

"Don't keep your thoughts to yourself."

Kyle jumped a bit before noticing Eric was right beside him.

"What?"

"Don't listen to her," Eric said, walking towards the door, voice low.

"Wasn't planning on it," Kyle responded. "You know this is the most you've ever
said to me?"

"Didn't have much reason to talk to you before," Eric admitted. "Didn't want
you to lose any animals you might be hunting by chatting you up."

He had a point there. The two of them headed after Lisa and Bebe.

"They'll paint me as a traitor, then," Kyle muttered.

"Of course. The bloodsport only works if everyone participates. They had to
eliminate you."

"You think -?"

"Don't say it out loud. But yes."

As they entered the hallway, Kyle felt himself going green.

"I can tell you exactly what those Careers are thinking," Eric noted, watching
Bebe with a detached air, like her plan was clearly inferior to his.

"And?"

"You're from the Capitol. You never watched a Hunger Games. They'll think
you're weak and spineless and have nothing protecting you. They'll kill you in
the Cornucopia and move on to splitting each other apart."

"Cornucopia?"

Eric paused. "On the train, you're going to watch the last Hunger Games."

"No I'm -"

"Yes you are. If you don't, you'll fucking freeze out there, and then you're
really dead, and you can't die."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Why can't I die?"

Eric grinned at Kyle, and his blood ran cold. That grin was inhuman. Unnatural.


"I started the rebellion. You and Bebe have to continue it."
***** [four.] *****
Chapter Summary
     Kyle finally sees a Hunger Games (part one).
Chapter Notes
     After a short hiatus, I am back! Still working on that fic
     soundtrack, too. :) Things are going to start getting bloodier from
     here on out, so I'm going to put a trigger warning here for gore,
     blood, and death. Also a fair warning, chapter five will be flat-out
     gruesome.
No one felt very much like eating once on the train, so Eric slipped Kyle a
copy of the last Hunger Games, procured by a Peacemaker and given to Lisa, and
told him to go watch. He sure was odd, a weird mix of completely insane and
completely comforting. Stan was right about one thing - they did seem to speak
the same language.

"I started the rebellion. You and Bebe have to continue it."

At least Eric had some faith in him, too. Seemed the entire world would be out
for his hide.

Kyle's bedroom was bigger than his bedroom had been in the Capitol, and this
was on a train. The overt luxury of it all sickened him - everything was a
bleached white color, a color that couldn't be created without intense effort.
There was no doubt that it'd been imported from a district known for its
linens, after forcing its citizens to create such a rich fabric. Kyle almost
wanted to sit on the floor to protest it, but the floor was a rich shade of
blue, equally difficult to create from dyes. Everywhere Kyle looked, there was
something that was made by extortion and lies. Kyle indignantly sat on the bed
after popping the small little disc of data into the telescreen, a knot growing
in the pit of his stomach. He didn't want to watch this at all.

Things started chaotically.

And grotesquely.

The announcers were so smugly chipper that Kyle wanted to put his fist through
the screen, for starters. The fact that they were so smugly chipper about the
pointless death of five children right off the bat was appalling.

The Cornucopia was a large horn in the center of the arena, which appeared to
be designed as a barren desert wasteland. There was nothing but dead air for
miles around, and patches of trees and shelter in strategically-placed areas
far off the reach of the twenty-four tributes, who stood on platforms that
slowly lowered as the announcers counted down the start of the Hunger Games.
All of the tributes were dressed in skintight black suits, with lace-up boots.
So he really didn't need a damn stylist, they were just going to put him in a
jumpsuit.

In the Cornucopia, there rest a line of backpacks. None of them had symbols, or
any indication of what was in them; it was simply something to fight over.

Kyle's eyes scanned the line of tributes. He picked out Eric rather easily;
much as Kyle hated to say it, he looked far more out of shape than the rest of
the tributes. The others he knew next to nothing about -

And the Hunger Games began.

A mad dash for the Cornucopia began. Eric managed to beat out the rest of the
tributes, picked up two backpacks of something, and threw one to a girl with
flowing dark hair and noticeably looser clothing than the rest of the tributes;
the two of them ran off quickly. Kyle wondered why no one was trailing them...
until his eyes adjusted to what was happening around the other backpacks.

He witnessed a older teenager grab a rock and split open a twelve-year-old's
head, grey matter and blood splattering all over the orange chalky wasteland.
That older teenager was stabbed by a preteen with a knife, newly acquired from
her backpack, and the preteen girl with braided hair dashed off towards one of
the areas of shade, just to be shot in the back with an arrow by a blonde woman
who'd somehow climbed to the top of the Cornucopia. The braided haired girl
kept running, yanking the arrow out of her back and simply stuffing it in her
backpack, blood dripping down her uniform, matting her skin.

The announcers recounted all of the activity with glee.

"And it looks like both of the District 11 tributes have been eliminated in
quick succession - the twelve-year-old sweetheart Pegen from District 4 is also
dead, murdered by Career favorite from District 1 Moss - "

Kyle could feel sweat dripping down the back of his neck. He felt so sick. So,
so sick. A man just giddily told him that a sweetheart child was murdered by a
'favorite'. A 'favorite'.

What the fuck did Eric do to get these monsters to hate him so much?

By the time the Cornucopia was cleared of living tributes, seven people, not
even at adulthood, lie bloodied and broken in a hot desert hellscape. One of
them still clutched the remains of a backpack - one ripped-off strap.

                                     . . .


Kyle felt like he had to eat after that. Why, he wasn't sure. He knew he wasn't
going to be able to keep it down, but he hadn't eaten all day.

Sneaking through the darkened train at night, heading towards where he assumed
the kitchen was. He didn't remember much of the layout of the train. He
probably should've actually explored a bit before going off to watch the
Torture Porn Olympics.

He managed to end up in Bebe's bedroom (she said hello while making a
needlepoint to calm her nerves), Lisa's boudoir (where she wasn't present, but
all of her ridiculous clothes were - she was apparently going to be wearing a
working model of the solar system tomorrow), two toilets, and a walk-in closet
before he found the dining room and the attached kitchen.

The dining room was familiar to him, very similar to the one his family had in
the Capitol. Sheila always believed that families should eat together, so they
spent a lot of their money on food and cooking utensils. Sheila taught him and
Ike how to make simple foods when they were younger, and progressed on to more
difficult dishes with Kyle once he entered his teenage years.

That didn't stop when they got to District 12, either. When Kyle started
hunting, Stan taught him how to dress food, and Mrs. Marsh helped Sheila make
meals that took the best use of what their sons had hunted and gathered. The
Marshes and the Broflovskis ate together often.

Maybe they were eating together now, bonded in grief.

Kyle opened up a small drawer and found that it froze from the inside. A little
freezer box? Technology had grown since he left the Capitol. He pulled a small
little ice cream bag out and opened it. Inside were small little bulbs of ice
cream. Kyle scavenged for a spoon, knowing he couldn't eat this with his hands.

"Left drawer."

"Thanks," Kyle said before turning around.

Eric was up.

"How far did you get?" Eric asked.

"...the end of the Cornucopia slaughter."

Eric grimly nodded. "Wendy cried for hours when she saw Pegen's face in the
sky."

"Wendy?" Kyle asked before thinking. "You threw the backpack to her?"

Eric grimly nodded once again. "Wendy Testaburger. She was the other District
12 tribute from last year."

Kyle knew she didn't make it, clearly. He didn't know how to breach the
subject, listlessly stabbing at his pouch of ice cream. "...you two teamed up
for a while, then."

"She and I were the last two left who weren't Careers," Eric affirmed. "We had
a plan. If it was both of us at the end, I'd just ask her to kill me. Simply."

Kyle blinked. "...huh?"

"It was more important that she live."

Kyle frowned. "What, did someone convince you both that you were worthless -?"

Eric sighed. "I forgot you don't know anything." For some reason, that made
Kyle's blood boil.

"Maybe I don't want to know anything!" Kyle admitted angrily, forcing some ice
cream into his mouth. "Maybe I'm better off not watching you off a bunch of
people and being manipulated by Panem's puppet masters!"

Eric glared at him. "Wendy was pregnant, you self-righteous dickwad."

Kyle had shoved another spoonful of ice cream bulbs in his mouth, but didn't
chew for a few moments. He'd quite lost his anger at what Eric said. Swallowing
slowly, he lowered the spoon and felt his face color in embarrassment. "...oh."

"Yeah, oh." This was obviously a touchy subject.

"...I thought you meant -"

"I know what you thought I meant. Stan was right about you, you're like me."

"...you talk to Stan?"

Unlike Bebe, whose face darkened at the mention of Stan, Eric remained neutral.
"Yeah. Sometimes. It's harder to now, than before the Games."

"Because you're living in the Victor's Village and he isn't?"

Eric inhaled sharply, like he didn't want to say the real reason. "...you
should finish watching the Games."

"How long are they?"

"They were one of the shorter Games. Only a day and a half. I'm guessing you
don't sleep much anyways."

"How'd you -?"

"I don't either."

And with that, Eric left the kitchen.
***** [five.] *****
Chapter Summary
     Wendy and Eric could make it.
     Until they didn't.
Chapter Notes
     First of all, massive trigger warning here. There's death,
     dismemberment, and sexual assault in this chapter. I tried to present
     it as matter-of-factly as possible - there are no loving
     descriptions, because what happens is disgusting and describing it in
     detail would make it wildly inappropriate. The horror of the Hunger
     Games is on full display here, so this is your warning.
Wendy and Eric did not compliment each other well.

The announcers often made it clear that Wendy's child was not Eric's, but that
much was obvious from the way they interacted. Eric would think of a plan and
immediately start working on it; Wendy was never pleased with this and often
argued with him. Kyle got the feeling that if she wasn't pregnant and prone to
morning sickness, she would've offed him early on in the games.

They worked in a weird way, though. Wendy was far more in tune with nature, and
knew when things would change in the arena. Her quick thinking saved both her
and Eric from a torrential acidic rainstorm, by using a sheet of a tent that
was in one of their backpacks as a cover. That particular twist killed three
tributes, including one Career from District 4.

Eric was definitely more of the hunting type. He set traps almost everywhere
the two of them went, and didn't seem to care if they caught a human or an
animal. One time it did catch a human, who was already so injured that the
simple claw trap, snapped around their ankle, was the last straw, killing them.
When the cannon went off, both Eric and Wendy stared at the dangling body
they'd caught, and, wracked with guilt, took it out of the tree and tried to
give him a proper burial. He was from District 10.

Kyle noticed that most of the other tributes would get little canisters with
useful items inside of them parachuted down to them. The announcers described
them as gifts from 'sponsors', people who paid to send items to the tributes
they were rooting for. Before the trap went off, Wendy and Eric didn't get any
gifts.

Right after they attempted to do right by their accidental death, they received
the gift of nausea medicine, from District 10's doctors, for Wendy's morning
sickness. The announcers said that a gift from one district to a tribute not of
their district had never happened before.

Kyle, forgetting that he knew how this would end, allowed himself some hope.
They could make it. Wendy and Eric could make it.

                                     . . .


Wendy and Eric were the last people left in the arid environment.

Pieces of it had been covered in thick underbrush, and that's where they'd been
lingering, laying traps and making sure that Wendy was still cared for, despite
being in the worst possible environment for a pregnant woman.

They took turns going towards the only place where freshwater could be found,
near the Cornucopia, by a river that had spouted out in the middle of the
Games. They always took weapons.

Wendy went out for water.

And didn't come back.

                                     . . .


They showed her death in loving detail, a desecration of everything she stood
for. Kyle felt like she'd gotten to know her, or at least a shadow of her, in
watching the Games, and nothing about her death was human at all.

She was ambushed by three male Careers, the only three male Careers left. The
two females stood out and guarded the Cornucopia's goods, laughing about what
was happening not feet from them.

One Career dropped a rock on Wendy's head to fell her and get her away from the
freshwater. She collapsed and was quickly picked up by the other two male
Careers, who began to drown her. Kyle hoped that her fate would be resigned to
drowning.

It wasn't.

They took her innocence, took their turns with her, even as she gouged one of
their eyes out. They pierced her skin, her heart, her head. Eventually she
didn't have the strength to fight their grotesqueries. She didn't have the
strength to even scream when they pushed a knife through her gut.

Kyle vomited watching it happen.

In the end, she was left floating in the river, her blood soaking through every
pore of the landscape. Her entire stomach was ripped out and, floating beside
her in the water, her barely-formed child lay curled near her face.

"At least she got to see her child," one of the completely disgusted announcers
said, otherwise allowing the moment to lay still, the only sound from the
telescreen being the cannon announcing her death.

The only thing worse than seeing her die was seeing Eric find her.

He didn't lose it. He didn't start crying, or screaming, or anything of the
sort.

Eric simply twitched and walked straight into the Cornucopia.

Eric used a bow he'd scavenged to pick off the two female Careers quickly, his
aim steady and sure, just as Kyle had seen him picking off animals in the
woods. They died in minimal pain, which was obviously his intent. With them
gone, he shot at the male Careers, hitting non-vital targets, for some reason.
It became clearer to Kyle, with the more time that elapsed, that he was doing
to them what they did to Wendy.

Eric proceeded to torture the three boys for the better part of an hour.

It was almost worse, seeing Eric degrade to their level. Maybe it was his
tranquil fury, the way he never raised his voice to any of them, silently
digging a knife into them, severing arteries that would keep them alive but
keep them in such pain that they could barely move. It was the way he expertly
destroyed three complete monsters with little more than a bow, a knife, and his
presence.

Two of them bled out without Eric having to deal a final blow. The third,
though, actually asked him why he did this.

Eric turned to him. He was the one Wendy stole the eye from, the one who was
most vicious and heartless with her.

"This is why."

And he vivisected the boy's stomach.

                                     . . .


No one was exactly surprised that Kyle spent most of the rest of the day
looking green in the face and drinking enough water to drown his lungs. Almost
everything about what he didn't know about the last Hunger Games made sense.

The Careers would've gone down as the worst tributes in history had Eric not
sunk into their level of moral morass - and then Eric went and cut a living
teenager into pieces right before his eye. Panem was already outraged, and Eric
made it easy for them to continue to be outraged. Their feelings of disgust
weren't purged. Life didn't work like the fairy tale it was supposed to. For
the first time in history, the Hunger Games had caused outrage, not put a lid
on that same outrage.

Bebe sat with him the next afternoon, after they'd discovered that they only
had a few hours left until they reached the Capitol, giving him some water.

"You saw," she said.

"I saw," Kyle repeated. "I get why District 12 respects Eric. Jesus Christ,
though."

"...Wendy was my best friend," Bebe admitted. "We all grew up with her. She was
so smart. And we all thought it was kind of funny, the way she and Eric used to
scream at each other. They hated each other. And that only got worse when he
dropped out of school and she didn't. She used to wait for him outside of the
woods so she could lecture him about going back to school because he was
smarter than he gave himself credit for."

"...but she hated him."

"Oh yeah," Bebe responded before giving Kyle a very sad smile. "She only tried
because Eric was Stan's best friend."

"...he... he was?"

Bebe picked up on why he emphasized 'was'. "...Stan and Wendy married young.
They wanted to beat the system, you see. They were married at fourteen, and
they figured, they could have kids, and they could be looked after, and they
wouldn't keep losing women as sacrificial lambs."

"Stan never..."

"Stan can't talk about it. It causes him too much pain," Bebe interrupted. "He
can't even talk to people who were close to her anymore - it's all he can do to
talk to Eric. He thinks the whole thing's been rigged for years, to pick the
people who could help District 12 and get them murdered. A young pregnant woman
was catnip to them, according to Stan." She inhaled sharply. "And then he had
to see her..." She cut off.

Kyle felt wildly uncomfortable, miserable for Stan. No one had said a word to
Kyle, or his family. No wonder the whole community regarded his family with
suspicion for a few months. They'd lost someone they loved, and that beautiful
girl was replaced by a family of Capitol kids. For all they knew, the
Broflovskis had celebrated Wendy Testaburger's death.

No wonder it was hard for Eric to talk to Stan. Stan probably felt grateful
that Eric destroyed the men responsible for taking his wife and his child from
him, but if Kyle knew Stan, Stan also probably felt like he'd failed that wife
and son by not being there to protect them.

"Would you have done what Eric did?" Bebe suddenly asked.

Kyle tried to imagine someone who mattered to him as much as Wendy would have
to Eric - Ike. If he saw Ike, lying face-up in a river, his entire body
mangled, sexually abused, treated like filth...

"Yes," Kyle answered unflinchingly, without missing a beat.

Bebe smiled wearily. "...you're very strong."

"So are you."

Bebe frowned. "If we make it to the final two, will you promise me something?"

"Depends."

"If we're the last two, do me the honor of a fair fight. No torture, no
sneaking up behind me with a rock, no attacking my womanhood -"

"Of course I'll fight you fairly," Kyle insisted, cutting her off before she
could get too graphic. The images of Wendy would haunt him for life, and the
idea that anyone was capable of that made his stomach knot up. For all Eric did
to torture those three boys, he killed the women quickly, quietly, without fuss
and without taking their bodies from them. Eric wasn't capable of the same
monstrosity those Careers had been.

"Thank you. Until then... until then, we should stick together."

"I don't know if you'll want me. I can't aim to save my life," Kyle admitted.

"You're better than you think," a third voice interrupted.

Eric was leaning against the wall, drinking tea, watching them.

"How long have you been there?" Bebe asked.

"Eh." And Eric disappeared again.
***** [six.] *****
Chapter Summary
     Eric knew he wasn't a spy. It was too obvious.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Kyle was not nearly as excited to enter the Capitol of Panem as Bebe was. That
made sense - Bebe had never seen the towering monoliths of pure white marble,
nor the throngs of people dressed as if every alleyway was a fashion runway,
nor the bright sunshine piercing through a cloudless sky. Unlike District 12,
there was not a speck of dust to be found anywhere, no quiet rebellions going
on beneath the noses of imposing Peacekeepers, and certainly no butcher's
daughters goggling at people through windows.

Lisa babbled excitedly about the itinerary for the day while Kyle looked at the
visage of his old home, one he'd never felt very comfortable in. The men were
just as known for their ridiculous fashions as the women in the Capitol, but
Kyle, like most of his family, was never much of one to show off. The patterns
were more intricate than before he was forced out of the Capitol, the
hairstyles taller and wider and filled with more useless accoutrements. Lisa,
every so often, would say something that took Kyle from his thoughts - 'the
training center, where you'll be staying', 'the first televised interviews will
be tomorrow night and the stylist you have -' - but most of the time, as the
train lumbered into a pristine station near to the Capitol's main hub of
activity, Kyle's green eyes glazed over places he'd been in the past.

They passed his old school, where he saw plenty of high-fashion boys and girls
lingering around each other, chattering. Some of them had small portable
screens with them; Kyle thought he caught a glimpse of a reaping from another
District on one of them, something that made him mildly ill. The train also
passed the marketplaces where his mother had bought delicate bolts of cloth to
sew her fabulous knock-offs of Capital Couture, the brand with the most pull in
Panem. It passed his father's old workplace, their old apartment complex,
streets Kyle knew by sight and heart..

It was odd how detached Kyle felt from every place they passed. Most would
reminisce about a place they'd lived most of their life. Kyle only observed,
passively, that technology had marched forward, but not much else had changed.

Bebe was awestruck by it all. "How do they afford all this?"

"They have money," Eric responded from his seat behind Kyle, fiddling with
something around his neck, silver in color.

Kyle glanced back outside, at a gathering of Peacekeepers surrounding Panem's
main governmental building, the home of President Scott, the ringleader of all
this madness. Kyle, thankfully, never had to meet him. He wondered if he'd have
to, now that he was a tribute in his demented -

"Kyle!" Lisa screeched.

Kyle jumped a good foot and a half. "What?!"

Lisa sighed. "You are going to die so quickly." Her faith made Kyle's skin burn
in mortification. "Do you have a token? I'll need to take it now so that it can
be approved to go into the arena as soon as possible."

Kyle stared blankly at her. "...token?"

Eric jumped in before Lisa could tear Kyle a new asshole. "You can take a
reminder of your home district into the arena for the games, if you want."

"...arena?"

"Dude, seriously? The place where people stab each other in a grotesque effort
to placate the Capitol's bloodlust. You think they set us loose in their town?
That'd make it too real, Kyle."

Lisa looked ready to shoot Eric, but Kyle got the point well enough. And then
almost buried his face in his hands. He'd seriously just asked what the arena
was. He needed to focus. "...I don't really have anything to take in." He
hadn't been thinking about that when he left District 12, nor did he have any
kind of sentimental object he'd want to take with him. He had often admired
Jennevieve Simons' mockingjay-pendant necklace, and wanted one of his own, but
she never got around to making it for him before he'd been drafted as a
tribute. His brother had a block set, hand-carved by his father, but that was
Ike's, not his. "Do you have -?"

Bebe pulled a small handkerchief out of her pocket, a delicate pink fabric with
blue stitching and her initials on it. "My mother made it for me when I was
little. I used to cry all the time."

Kyle's eyes trailed to Eric, who pulled on the small silver chain around his
neck. There was an arrow pendant on the end of it, miniscule and almost
unnoticeable. "The McCormicks made them for both me and Wendy before we went in
last year."

"How can you not have anything you'd want to take in?" Lisa said confusedly.

"Not exactly fond of my hometown," Kyle said, a little more forcefully than
necessary. For some reason, Eric smiled at that. For some other odd reason,
Bebe looked at him with a disbelieving smirk.

"You don't need one, really," Bebe told him. "You can't bring in anything
they'd deem a weapon, so not having anything makes your life a bit easier."

The train rolled into the station and Kyle shrugged. He did kind of wish he had
something to show District 12 that he identified more with them than he ever
had with the Capitol way of living. He did have memories.

Memories would keep him going.

                                     . . .
                                one year prior


Stan kicked Eric Cartman's new door open, because Eric didn't have enough on
his mind and the intrusion of District 12's golden boy was exactly what would
rectify that. Oh wait, that was sarcasm.

Eric was busy sitting in his new living room, staring at the barren walls,
trying to figure out what would look best on them. At least, that's what he'd
told his mother he'd do while she went to the market to buy some vegetables and
linens. He was really trapped inside his own head, replaying horrific events,
wondering why on earth he'd been given a house. He tried to give the house to
the Testaburgers, but that wasn't how it worked, according to the Peacemakers.
Only the Victor of the Hunger Games received the spoils.

One of those spoils was going on a Victory Tour in a few months.

Eric wondered if he could get away with hiding in the woods for a few months to
avoid that, but was pretty sure that he'd just end up getting accidentally shot
by a hunter.

He stood out of the oaken chair and stared at Stan, who looked angrier than
Eric had ever seen him.

"...er..." Eric intelligently said. "...try not to take the door off its
hinges?"

"You know what those fuckers have done?!" Stan bellowed at Eric.

Eric felt his chest twinge painfully. "I did everything I could to keep her -"

"No, not that, they just wanna rub salt in that wound, those motherfuckers - !"

"Stan, what's going on?" Eric asked, his voice growing deeper, taking on more
menace. Rub salt in the wound? Eric trusted the Capitol goons as far as he
could throw them, and if Stan was this incensed, something was definitely up.

"Some Capitol fucks are moving in to your old house!" Stan screamed.

"...moving?" Eric questioned.

"Yeah! Probably spies, making sure that no one's saying anything about how
Wendy was murdered and that the Capitol just laid back and let her -"

"Stan, I know you're probably incapable of this right now, but you need to calm
the fuck down. You yelling about how the Capitol murdered your wife is only
going to get you hit in the face by a patrolling Peacekeeper."

"Let them hit me in the face!"

"Stan, really? You don't want to get clocked by a Peacekeeper." Eric sighed,
gesturing for Stan to sit down. He didn't.

"I wanna know what they're up to," Stan intoned darkly.

"The new neighbors?" Eric clarified. Stan nodded, making Eric sigh again.
"...Stan, if you'll go home and pull your head out of your ass -"

"I just lost my wife, you sack of shit!"

Neither of them anything for a few moments as the tense silence choked them.
Eric finally cleared his throat, face a lovely shade of chalk white. "...I know
I'm a lousy replacement. But Stan, you need to calm down and not do anything.
I'll ask around."

Stan glared at Eric. "I'm sick of people telling me to keep my head down."

"Your parents just lost a daughter. They don't need to lose a son to this
stupidity, either."

Eric pushed past him and headed out the door.

                                     . . .


Eric managed to catch a glimpse of the family when he left Stan alone in his
house (Stan was probably destroying it. Eric was totally fine with that, to be
honest) and wandered over to his old neighborhood. The houses were not well-
constructed, but they'd stood the test of time, made out of misshapen brick and
runny mortar.

The family moving in didn't look anything like the Capitol residents Eric saw
during his Hunger Games. They had a very small son, maybe five or six, toddling
after a lanky teenaged redhead with curly hair, who was spewing venom every
which way. His mother, a large woman with her hair teased high above her head,
told him to not say anything seditious - they didn't need to have the
Peacekeepers show up again and have something else to punish them for.

That answered that question. Eric doubted they were spies from the beginning;
no one left the Capitol of their own free will. The quartet was too mismatched
to be spies, anyways. A six year old wasn't going to do anyone any good on that
kind of -

"Weird, huh?"

The head Peacemaker of District 12, an easygoing man by the name of Barbrady,
sidled up to Eric. Eric glanced at him confusedly.

"I heard they moved from the Capitol," Eric said in response.

"Oh, no. They got kicked out of the Capitol." Barbrady was so loud, it was a
miracle the family didn't hear them. Eric's eyes kept following the teenager,
who was now telling his mother that there wasn't any point in keeping quiet
about how the whole government was a fascist dictatorship bent on strangling
the other districts and preventing them from breeding by killing off their
young for sport. The teenaged boy was... pretty. Pretty was the right word.
Pretty and consumed by rage.

"Kicked out? You can get kicked out?"

"Oh yeah. They did." Not bright, Barbrady. "I heard from the Capitol
Peacekeepers that brought them on the train that they hadn't watched a Hunger
Games in five years."

That caught Eric's attention as much as the teenager's freckle-coated skin.
"And they got caught... and got sent here?" District 12 was a punishment. How
nice of the Capitol to think of them as complete shit.

"Suppose so. That redhead kid sure is loud, ain't he?" Barbrady said.

Eric had to only pause for a moment to hear the teenager scream that District
13 probably did exist before the Capitol hivemind decided to tear it from
existence by bombing it back to the stone age and making all the adult
survivors eat their young.

Eric grinned.

"Sure is."
Chapter End Notes
     I know it's been quite a while! I'm sorry about that. I'm now working
     two jobs, so it's getting a little hard to get my writing time in.
     Thank you for supporting it and reading it during my time of
     hecticness!
***** [seven.] *****
Chapter Summary
     Lisa didn't think any of them were monsters. She sided with District
     12.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The Training Center, unlike every other building in the Capitol, was a sheer
black monolithic tube, with tinted windows and artistic chunks taken out of the
sides. Kyle and Bebe were ushered into it quickly by Lisa, while Eric trailed
behind them, shoving his hands in his pockets and uneasily watching the walls
as they walked.

There was no one lingering in the lobby. Kyle didn't know what he expected -
this wasn't a hotel, and most districts would be looking to sequester their
tributes for as long as possible. Lisa pushed everyone into a capsule-like
elevator, which traveled quickly up rows and rows of floors. Kyle could see the
world below through the tinted glass walls; it was obvious that people on the
street were craning their necks, trying to figure out which district's tributes
were flying up, up, up, towards their rooms and their last moments of peaceful
existence.

Kyle wasn't sure if any of them could see him, but he subtly flipped them off,
making sure that Lisa couldn't see him.

The hurtling elevator came to a stop, and dumped the four into an apartment
that was even larger than their lodgings on the train. Lisa wasn't at all moved
by it, and immediately began to chirp that they needed to start work on being
coached for their televised appearances. Eric wasn't really paying attention to
his surroundings, almost walking into a wall before sighing and saying that he
needed to attempt to sleep.

Bebe and Kyle, naturally, focused on Lisa's overly bubbly statement. (Eric
probably didn't need help attempting to sleep, after all. Wait, why on earth
was Kyle thinking that?)

"Coaching?" Bebe questioned.

"Of course. You want to be able to look natural for the cameras, right?" Lisa
asked.

Kyle rolled his eyes. "I'd rather stab myself in the -"

"Ugh, fine, I'll go with the cynic's reasoning, Broflovski," Lisa snapped,
sitting down on a red plush loveseat and crossing her legs. The solar system
dress really did accentuate her figure. Somewhere beneath all the weird
decorative crap, Capital Couture did know how to design a flattering dress,
Kyle thought. "You need sponsors. Sponsors come from every district and they
buy items to send to tributes to help them out. And these are usually things
you can't find in the arena, like medicine." Kyle immediately thought of the
nausea medicine Wendy got in the little silver box. "And sponsors watch the
televised events. They want spectacles and stories, and, if I may be frank -
" She was always frank, so what was the difference? " - your story puts you at
a severe disadvantage. You got kicked out of the Capitol. The Capitol is not
going to want to help someone who betrayed them."

Lisa turned to Bebe. "You, dear, you're easier. Your best friend was brutally
murdered in the last Hunger Games and you just want to survive in her name."

"What am I supposed to say?" Kyle interjected before Bebe, a sour shade of
green, could protest such blatantly emotionally manipulative pandering.

Lisa narrowed her eyes. "...I'll need time to think about it. But we can start
by stopping you from being such a sarcastic bitter asshole. I know that's
basically your entire personality, and I get it." Lisa softened just a little
bit. "If I was ripped from my home because someone wanted to protect me, I'd be
that way, too, I think. Anyone would. And being in District 12 couldn't have
helped."

Bebe rose out of her chair in fury. Lisa raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't deny
it, Berebeth. The Peacekeepers in District 12 are more on your side than the
Capitol's. Everyone is convinced that the Capitol is trying to blow them out of
existence for daring to try to live. You guys got a raw-ass deal last year, and
even with your Victor meting out the same kind of justice the Capitol gives to
lawbreakers, you come out looking even worse to Panem."

So Lisa didn't think that Eric was a monster. She sided with District 12. That
was odd, considering that she didn't seem to side with anything Kyle did.

Bebe sat back down, the words sucked from her, and Lisa turned back to Kyle.
"You have to prove every stereotype the Capitol has about you wrong. Every.
Single. One. Both of you are going to be sparkling, sterling, emotionally open
and available bright young things. Bebe, I know that you're probably wildly
offended by using your best friend as a prop, but the Capitol expects you to be
bloodthirsty for revenge. Don't give them that. Kyle, whatever the fuck we
figure out to do with you, it's going to hinge on turning your story into
something positive."

"Well, I love District 12?" Kyle offered.

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "...well, it's not an insult, so it's a start."

                                     . . .


That night, the stylist arrived.

He was much older than Lisa, and, surprisingly, dressed in a fairly laid-back
manner for someone who was supposed to be up on all the Capitol's finest
fashions. Kyle didn't quite know what to make of him when he walked into his
bedroom, Lisa following him with a most pleased look on her face.

"This is Alfred -"

"Oh please," the man said in a high-pitched tone, "just call me Al."

Lisa pursed her lips. "...Al. This is Al. He's a very well-known stylist here
in the Capitol, and he volunteered his services to dress both you and Berebeth
for tomorrow's big coming-out party."

Al snorted a bit. Kyle stared at him incredulously for a second; Lisa,
blushing, took that as her cue to leave, closing the door behind her.

When she left, Al laughed. "She is so funny. Coming-out party? Dear me, this is
a Hunger Games, not a gay debutante ball."

With that, all the tension in the room deflated. Kyle, still sitting on the
bed, stood up and allowed himself one little smile. "...I'm Kyle Broflovski."

"Oh yes, the whole Capitol is abuzz about you," Al noted. "Banished from the
Capitol only to compete in the Hunger Games? A lot of folks find it tragic."

Kyle made a mental note to try and work on a similar storyline with Lisa. If
the Capitol residents found him a tragic figure, they could pity him enough to
make him look less like... what were Lisa's words? A complete ass-munch? "So...
what is it you do?"

Al didn't ask why Kyle didn't know about his job. It was a bit of a relief.
"It's my job to make you look your best for the cameras. A lot of it is very
theatrical - there's a parade where the tributes from each district ride
through the main square in front of the President's lodgings, and from there
you go to the biggest theatre in town for your televised introductions to the
population. And all you have to do is let me work my magic."

Kyle nodded. "...I don't really like fancy things."

"I don't blame you. I wouldn't be able to walk if I dressed like Lisa," Al
admitted. "Thankfully, the men have more leeway. What do you think Berebeth
would look good in?"

Kyle's mind flashed to a moment in District 12. "She's very attached to her
hair. Don't do anything to it."

Al nodded before smiling. "...I can tell that you're a good kid, Kyle. You
remind me a bit of Wendy."

Kyle paused.

"Lisa tells me you're a lot more like Eric, though," Al mused. "Eh. You're here
now and I'll take measurements for your outfit. You say you like simple?"

"Yeah," Kyle noted, watching Al take out a measuring tape from his pocket and
starting by measuring the length of his arms. "I like darker colors, too."

"That's an excellent call. Nothing too light. It would clash with your hair."

"...I don't know what else to say."

"It's all right," Al said. "There's probably a lot running through your mind
right now. If you want to be with your thoughts, it's fine by me."

Kyle nodded, graciously accepting that offer. He thought that Al would fuss
over every inch of him, like his mother used to when she made clothes for him,
but he was quiet, taking down notes on Kyle's measurements and occasionally
asking questions about whether Kyle preferred certain fabrics. Kyle couldn't
help but appreciate it. With Lisa's piercing words rolling around in his brain
and the fear of trying to work out some way to make himself endearing to people
who wanted to buy him things to help him survive...

God, how fucked was all of this?

                                     . . .


"You can't sleep."

Eric pointed out the obvious when Kyle, sick of staring at his ceiling, moved
into the main living area and stared out the tinted window, down into the
brightly lit nightlife of the Capitol. People danced and whirled and celebrated
and acted like they weren't about to root for children to die.

"No," Kyle responded, not moving his eyes from what lay below.

"...Lisa's really harsh on you," Eric noted. "She was harsh on me, too."

Kyle looked away from the scene below him and to Eric. Eric wore a loose shirt
and flannel pants, something that would look completely out of place in the
world bustling below them. Kyle, for what it was worth, hadn't changed out of
what he'd worn on the train. He didn't really know what he wanted to wear from
the clothes left in the apartment for him. All of the outfits seemed too
decadent for his tastes. He wanted to wear what Eric had on.

"I hate it, but she's right. I won't be of any use to anyone if I keep up... my
usual manner," Kyle hesitantly said. "Bebe and I need to make it to the end."

"I heard you."

Kyle recalled that, yes, Eric had been hiding there for who knew how long,
watching him and Bebe talk.

"It's very noble of you," Eric said. "...I know I haven't done much to help yet
-"

"You've been in my corner," Kyle cut him off. "That's been enough."

Eric blinked and said nothing for a while. That was strange. Kyle raised an
eyebrow.

"...you all right?" Kyle finally asked.

"Yeah," Eric said, sounding mildly shocked. "How'd you know I was in your
corner?"

"You made me watch those Games to prepare me. You haven't agreed with Lisa
calling me every name in the book. You... well, you keep explaining things to
me while letting me feel like an idiot, but at least you're explaining them
instead of sighing and flinging your hands in the air."

Eric ran a hand through his cinnamon hair. Through the little bursts of light
that occasionally pierced thd dark room, Kyle could see that his cheeks were
pink. He probably wasn't used to people thinking he was helpful.

"My part is coming soon," Eric said, as if he hadn't helped Kyle at all. "After
all the pageantry is done, the actual training begins."

"I can't believe they train us."

"That's a sham too. It's more that you practice for a week, but that practice
period is a way to know the other tributes and what their strengths are. At the
end of it, some high-ranking Capitol officials watch your skills and give you a
grade, 1 to 12. 12 means you're this close to murdering someone already; 1
means you're a twelve-year-old immediate sacrifice."

Kyle gulped. "What'd you get?"

"A five."

"...dude. You're the best hunter in District 12."

Eric went pink again, but continued. "It was purposeful. Wendy and I wanted to
make ourselves seem thoroughly average. She didn't let any of her intelligence
show, and I let none of my violence out. They'll see through that now, though.
I ruined it for you and Bebe. Bebe's too strong to really hide her abilities,
anyways, though." Eric paused. "I meant what I said. You're a decent shot."

"With no aim."

"You aim fine when you think no one's watching you."

Kyle narrowed his eyes. "...you've been watching me." He didn't question it.

"...er..."

"You could've asked to hunt with us," Kyle lightly admonished. "I wouldn't have
minded."

"I didn't know how much you knew," Eric murmured.

"About...?"

"About me killing those kids."

Kyle's eyes fell downcast, frowning. He'd pretended to hear his whole
conversation with Bebe; he'd only heard the end bit, obviously.

"...I would've done the same thing," Kyle said quietly.

"You were from the Capitol. I knew you hadn't been watching the Games, but it's
easy enough to hear people talking -"

"Eric, I would've done the same thing, it doesn't matter -"

"You haven't seen how much the other Districts hate me," Eric suddenly
interjected.

Kyle stopped breathing, or it felt like it. Eric's face was inches from his,
and he looked paralyzed with fear and worry and regret. Any argument Kyle could
think of died on his lips.

"...I'm not the other districts," Kyle finally whispered.

They sat in silence for a few seconds before Eric, evidently a bit too overcome
to think of a coherent response, walked away and went straight back into his
room. Kyle, curiously, followed him, opening the door just a sliver where it
had been closed seconds before.

"...I'm watching you now," Kyle said stupidly.

Eric narrowed his eyes. "No amount of you acting weird now can really make the
past different."

"If I get out of this alive, we can go hunting. And if I don't get out of this
alive, take Bebe hunting. See? Everyone wins."

Kyle walked away, but he could swear he heard Eric murmur something
suspiciously like, "your death is no win."
Chapter End Notes
     I know, I'm terrible at updating. Work! Yay. But I'm going to be
     working a lot more on this; expect updates on the weekends.
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