Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

No one is surprised when Party Poison’s name is read out on reaping day. They’re a killjoy sympathiser, it was only a matter of time.

In Zone 3 the rebellion is an open secret. It was supposed to have died out years ago, when the Helium Wars ended and they wiped Zone 7 off the map. It was supposed to have ended when Better Living Industries set up the yearly Hunger Games, to remind the Zones that Battery city is the only thing standing between them and total annihilation. But annihilation comes in many forms, and keeping a dying animal breathing isn’t necessarily a kindness.

Everyone here knows someone who knows someone who used to be a killjoy. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who still has a mask and a gun hidden under their pillow. But you don’t talk about that. You forget your parent’s war. You call the dead by their real names, and maybe you remember their colours, but you don’t paint them. You certainly don’t wear them. Wearing them gets you killed, or, if you’re not quite old enough, you end up with Better Living peacekeepers knocking on your door to drag you off to a holding cell.

See they can’t execute a child. Even if said child refuses to be called anything other than Party Poison, regularly wears a mask in public, and was caught hanging up Mike Milligram’s jacket in the town square last week. But you know what they can do? They can use the Hunger Games.

Better Living takes twenty Four kids every year, two boys and two girls from each of the six zones. Ships them to Battery City, makes ‘em look pretty, and then has them slaughter each other in a televised battle to the death.

It’s a punishment, to remind the zones of the disastrous killjoy rebellion, and it’s also prime entertainment, and a convenient way to get rid of anyone Better Living doesn’t like. All they’ve gotta do is march you out in front of everyone and act shocked when your name comes out of a death lottery everyone knows is rigged.

It’s an open secret that tributes aren’t chosen by accident. Sure, in some zones they might be. But not here.

Kobra Kid watches as the peacekeepers march Party on stage to stand alongside two other teenagers. It's the middle of the day and he can feel the radiation searing the back of his neck. He sees Party squinting. He's glad he wore his sunglasses.

It’s been five days, three hours, and forty one minutes since Kobra Kid last saw his sibling, and they’re a sight to behold.

Party looks paler than usual. Some combination of lack of food and being locked out of the sun for a week. It’s pretty dark in the cell down at the station, Blue says they do it because colour gives people hope, and when it gets that dark you can’t see it anymore. Poison says it’s ‘cause they wanna make you feel pathetic, and when someone’s eyes adjust to the darkness they trip over their feet when they’re finally brought back into the sun. Which is true, it’s happening to Party right now, but Kobra thinks it’s not that deep. Bli don’t wanna waste the electricity.

They’ve got Poison all dressed up in corporation white, which just serves to make their bright red hair all the more noticeable. A nosebleed that some kid with dirty fingers and too-pale-skin kept smearing round their face just ’cause they liked the colour. Specifically designed to give teachers, parents and any decent person a heart attack.

As far as Kobra can tell, Party’s not injured, but there’s an actual blood stain running down the front of their jumpsuit. Not theirs, which would explain why the peacekeepers are holding them up by the arms as though they’re some kind of animal rather than a puny teenager. Poison does a pretty good job of appearing fucked up and barely human, but however bad they look, Party’s got nothing on Cherri Cola.

Poison throws back their head and blinks the sun out of their eyes. “Hey Cherri! Long time no see. Did ya’ miss me?”

Cola doesn’t look up at them; he’s sitting on the side of the stage reserved for zone three’s victors, of which there are only two. Cherri Cola, and a woman Kobra’s heard Blue call the Phoenix Witch.

If you really could melt things by staring at them long enough, the floor under Cherri’s chair would be having problems right now. He seems to be seriously considering dissolving into it. The guy hasn’t left his fancy new house since he won last year's games, and if the horrifying state of his hair, face and clothes are anything to go off he hasn’t slept once.

Kobra knows Party hasn’t, same way he knows it’s been exactly three hundred forty seven days. They’ve been counting.

Party laughs. “You really got nothing? Your loss, ‘m sure you could write some great poetry about me, put it in your books and send it to battery city”

Cherri twitches, and The Witch glares at Poison from under her stringy black hair, but he still doesn’t look up. To someone who doesn't know better, it seems like they’re just making fun. Spitting out last ditch insults before they get carted off to the arena to die.

Unfortunately, Kobra does know better. Before the games, Cherri and Poison used to be something. Afterwards… Well, Kobra’s spent enough sleepless nights dragging Party home from pounding on Cherri’s door at three in the morning. Shoving letters through the crack under Cherri's window. He won’t fucking talk to me, fuckin' wave head. Writing mirror text on his windows in permanent marker, so it’d read from the inside. LET ME IN - XØ. Crying themself to sleep.

Cherri Cola never came back from the Hunger Games. Pick your Poison, they say, and the new Cherri chose drugs over Party.

“The tributes will remain SILENT” screeches the man reading the names. Kobra hates him. He's probably mad Party's embarrassing him on national television.

“There will be plenty of time to talk with your mentors on the way to Battery City. Now. Before we move on, would anyone like to volunteer?" The guy sneers at the crowd, daring anyone to raise their hand. It's a formality they go through every year, and no one ever does. Who would, after all. Three isn’t a career zone, where kids train their whole lives for the hunger games.

There has only ever been one volunteer tribute in the zone’s history. After today, Kobra intends for there to be two.

Party seems to sense what Kobra’s about to do and turns to glare at him, No. He tilts his head, scrunches up his nose, I could win this. Party shakes their head, I’m not letting anyone die for me, not again, and Kobra supposes Poison’s earned that right.

He lowers the hand he’d lifted to his side. Fine. Have it your way.

At 20, Blue’s too old to be a tribute, and with Mike dead and Cherri out of the picture there’s nobody else to replace Party.

"No one. What a shame." drawls the Better Living man, he doesn't sound like he means it. Kobra would like to rub a cheese grater over his shiny bald head.

"Aww, don't be too cut up about it. You’d have to search the whole kingdom to find someone pretty enough to replace me." Poison grins.

The guy gives them a death glare and they shut up, but Kobra sees them wink at the crowd. They’re already playing the game, posing for the cameras, ‘cause if battery city likes them, they’ll get sponsors, and sponsors mean gifts that’ll be the difference between life and death in the arena.

It makes Kobra sick.

He tries to catch Party’s eye again, and when he finally does they smile at him. He thinks it’s supposed to be comforting, but he knows them too well, with that grin that's slightly too wide at the edges and eyes too big for their face.

Party's smiling, but they’re scared out of their mind.

Chapter Text

When Kobra Kid was twelve and Party Poison was fourteen they made him swear never to take out any tesserae. It’s a choice Better Living offers everyone between the ages of twelve and eighteen, everyone eligible for the Hunger Games. Put your name in the reaping extra times, and for each additional entry they’ll give you one person’s worth of food for a whole year.

It’s barely enough to keep someone going, and the food is impressively shit. Zone kids affectionately refer to it as Power-Pup, due to the widely held belief that the blueish grey pseudo-meat was intended as dog food before the war. It comes in cans with the Better Living logo on them, and it tastes like plastic, but it’s enough to keep you alive.

You’re allowed to take tesserae for every member of your family, and you’re allowed to do it again and again, every year. Party does. Every time. Once for themself and once for their little brother, so by now they’ve got eighteen entries. Kobra isn’t supposed to take tesserae.

“That’s how they get you you know” Party’d insisted, with the air of a parent trying to impart an important life lesson. “Give you food, act like they’re being so sooo nice, saving you from starving to death. It’s fucking bullshit. You’re giving them an I.O.U.”

They’d put on a stupid voice. “Hey BLI, I promise you can kill me later if you feed me now. Bull. Shit. You won’t do it. Promise me."

“Yours isn’t enough. We’ll starve.” was what Kobra told them. They were starving already. Had been starving since Mike died, and Kobra didn’t think they could last much longer. The desert plants Party concocted into medicines to sell had finally run out, and Blue barely made enough carbons on the nights she didn’t come home to pay for clean water. There were four of them living in the house, and only two people’s worth of tesserae rations, so unless someone found a way to convert tears into chocolate cake they were going to starve without the things Mike brought back from the desert and whatever it was he and Blue used to do that made the rebellion leave carbons in their pockets.

“I don’t care." Poison had said, waving their hands around. "There’s ways to get food that aren’t a death sentence. I’m not letting my little brother into the games.”

Not little Kobra had wanted to say. Not little and if you're gonna take out tessarae I may as well do it too, because without you I'd rather be a ghost in the fucking sand. But he didn’t. He promised, and that night someone left a box of real Bat City food on their doorstep.

“Our guardian angel” Cherri’d said, and Blue laughed at him, saying that angels weren’t the only things with feathers. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Kobra still hasn’t figured it out.

Over the years, he’s tried to stick to his promise. He really has, because he knows Poison wants to protect him. Likes to think of themself as the one holding up this makeshift family, but no matter how hard they try, Party Poison can’t do this on their own. So when he needs to, Kobra picks up the slack.

The Bat City guy sticks his hand in the second ball of names, and watching the little papers swirl, Kobra thinks of the confetti Party made for his tenth birthday. Exactly twelve of those slips have his city name written on them: four mandatory for each year he’s been eligible, and then eight more. The cans of Power-Pup he got in exchange is one of the only reasons any of them are standing here right now. Cherri knew. Party doesn’t, and hopefully they never will.

The man pins a slip to the side of the glass ball with a finger, and slowly draws it out, inch by inch, like a spider reeling in a fly. When he reads the name Kobra lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It’s not him. It’s a kid called James Goldenmay, who’s eighteen, and Kobra thinks he’s seen him around school once or twice. He’s got a sister in Kobra’s grade. James looks downright terrified to shake hands with Party Poison, even though he’s almost half a head taller than them, it’s almost funny how wide his eyes go. Poison pushes off the peacekeepers and holds their arm out anyway.

“I don't bite. Well, mostly.” They say, making a funny gesture with their shoulder at the peacekeeper behind them. He’s got a bandage on his arm and is probably not enjoying being identified as the source of the blood on Party’s jumpsuit. Kobra would give a lot to see the look on the guy’s face right now, but he’s stuck with the emotionless Better Living smiley face. Damned peacekeeper masks. James looks like he’s not sure whether he’s allowed to laugh, but he takes Party’s hand and shakes it anyway, and when they smile Kobra’s about 80% sure they’re not planning to rip his arm off. Battery City commentators are probably picking apart their every micro expression, trying to figure out who’s most likely to survive the approaching bloodbath. It’s Poison. Kobra would bet money on it, if he had any.

The reaping ceremony concludes with the Better Living guy giving a speech about what a great honour it is to represent Zone 3 in the games and how lucky the four of them are to have been chosen. Luck? My ass. Kobra thinks. Poison’s a criminal, the two girls standing next to them have parents who are known rebel informants. James might’ve been chosen randomly, but no one else.