Work Text:
Floor Five has nothing holding it together.
It never has. It didn’t when it was only Phil, huddling on a couch and waiting for somebody to find him, and it didn’t when Niki took her flaming crown by force and by wit. The beginning and the end, the two most stable bookends that a cheering crowd could ask for, and still it will never be enough.
There is something rotting under these floorboards.
Five years later, already on the verge of being forgotten, an invented family and a trio of heavenly beings try to put it into words.
///
“It’s unfair,” Niki says, scrolling idly through pictures of ballgowns. She has a new stylist, a young woman named Jenny, who wants to “reinvent her brand” and as such has given her homework. It will never work, but Niki smiles and nods along, because if she pretends that it’s normal then maybe it will be.
“What is?” Angel already knows what Niki is going to say-- she says it at least once a year-- but some things need to be put in the open despite this.
“Between us, you always have to wear the worse outfits. Usually, even your wings are smaller than mine.”
“I get to do faceless streams, too. I count my blessings.”
Minx is somewhere on the other side of the floor, already being molded into who the world wants her to be. It always takes the full day before a Gala for her Stylist to be satisfied with her appearance-- her hair redyed, her fangs sharpened, and imitation blood staining every corner of her bedroom.
It has seeped into her black walls by now, which neither Niki nor Minx comment on when they stay up too late drinking on her bed.
Angel doesn’t like it when they do that.
Both of them would go back into the Arena for her, but neither are young enough anymore to listen to her when she tells them how to live.
Angel sits down next to Niki, smiling. “After the Gala tonight, I think you should go to bed right away. You have to stream tomorrow, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“If you need to get out of anything tonight, just wave at me. I’ll be right over.”
It’s an offer that the three of them have had since their first Gala together, the girls of Floor Five and the youngest women sponsored by Twitch even now, five years after Niki was made a Partner. It has never gone unspoken, even though it has never been forgotten.
Too many things go unspoken here. They-- the three of them, alone in a world where every tilt of the head matters-- will never let themselves be one of them.
“Of course,” Niki says, wrapping an arm around Angel. “The same goes for you, yes?”
Angel nods, and then she is gone. She talks more to Niki than she does to almost anyone else on the Floor, but that doesn’t mean that the conversations ever end neatly.
The three of them enter their rooms at different times, ready to become the version of themselves that a crowd can recognise, but they leave all at once.
///
In his quietest moments, Tommy almost seems to act his age.
It’s hard for him to forget that there are cameras on him at all times, even when they aren’t broadcasting anywhere, and he was born to play a character.
So he does, and he never stops to breathe.
Today, he sits at the edge of the pool, kicking his legs in the water.
He turned 18 over six months ago and the words still feel alien on his tongue.
Most Victors get a party when they become adults, with double the usual amount of cameramen and a giant cake and gifts from important Capitol citizens. If they’re good enough, they even get a surprise video message from their parents. Tommy doesn’t know of anyone who enjoyed it-- not even Wilbur, and he got a new guitar, the type that he had wanted since he was 10.
Tommy didn’t get any of that, though, not even the stupid and annoying things like the extra cameramen. He thinks that he might have wanted them.
Here, in the pool room with no eyes at all on him, he is allowed to say that.
The door opens. Tommy sighs and slouches down into the floor.
“Sorry, should’ve knocked. You can drop the fuckin’-- pose thing.”
“Thanks, Wil.” But he doesn’t. Instead, he gives the water the biggest kick yet, like a child would. Like a child does .
“Do you want me to leave?”
And Tommy does, a bit, because Wilbur is the one that is reminded of home by this place and Tommy wishes that he knew what that feels like. Or maybe he doesn’t, but that’s the sort of conclusion that an adult would come to, so he drops the line of thought.
“I don’t mind. Come on in.”
“Thanks,” Wilbur says. He lets the door close with a slam and moves to sit directly beside Tommy. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing much. Why are you here?” The words come out sharper than Tommy intended. It’s what he deserves, perhaps, for forgetting how to stay quiet.
“Would you believe that I was worried about you?”
Tommy considers the concept for a few moments.
“Maybe,” he says. It’s better than he’s used to.
Wilbur smiles. “Good enough for me.”
///
Angel hasn’t uploaded a video in months. She has streams to pull from-- she still does one every week or so-- but the editing programs on her computer sit open, untouched, impossible to think about.
It’s not much to show, but it’s something.
Niki comes into her room as she’s working. “Don’t worry,” she says, “you’re trying, and that’s what counts.”
It sounds like exactly the sort of thing that she would tell a donator, some Peacekeeper-in-training from District 2 who wishes that this was not their life.
The sentiment rings exactly as false here.
“It’s fine,” Angel says. “I’m just tired.”
She’s been tired for the past month, and as some unfortunate PR representative of the Capitol once put it, her fans are getting impatient.
“Can I do anything for you?”
Angel sighs. She wants water and ibuprofen, she wants to beg Niki to do all of her work for her, she wants to tear the neon paint off her walls.
“Can you sit with me for a while?”
Niki nods.
This is what it is easy to think: Charlie Slimecicle lived. He is funny, and he is kind, and he is deserving of so much more, and Angel can whisper all of these things to herself because she does not have to do so in the past tense. She will never again have to act as Mentor. When she makes Charlie a wooden figurine for his birthday, she will not need to explain the symbolism behind it.
This is where the truth lies, behind it all: Angel will never be allowed back to Seven again.
Angel smiles at Niki and begins her work. It’s an easy thing, to cut the empty space out of a stream and make it flow together, and she’s done it a thousand times before. Niki rests her head on Angel’s shoulder and doesn’t try to start a conversation.
It isn’t enough, but it could be.
Angel rests one of her hands on top of Niki’s. “I haven’t been part of them for a long time, anyways.”
Niki’s only response is to squeeze her hand. Maybe life is better that way.
///
Wilbur wants what Technoblade has, and Tommy wants what Wilbur has, and all of Panem wants what Tommy has.
This is Phil’s to manage, just as everything else is.
He fails to manage it.
Wilbur shakes the thought away. It’s unfair, he knows, even as Phil teaches Tommy how to moderate a chat with bots and spends all night on the balcony with Techno or Angel. There are more important things for both of them to worry about than whether Phil has put together the details of his mannerisms.
So he makes things easier for the rest of them. He smiles and says that he’s fine, and when he cannot bring himself to do that, he spends the whole day in his room.
Wilbur Soot is a fucking saint.
(He spends many, many days in his room.)
He has three guitars, each more expensive than the last, because the Capitol cannot seem to think of any other gifts to give him. He likes to rotate between them, although he always records his songs with the most recent one because the alternative is impossible.
On stream, though, he only uses the oldest.
There is a knock on his door. Wilbur jumps.
“Come in,” he calls out.
The words have lost all meaning by now, anyways.
Techno opens the door, but he does not enter. He stands in the doorway and gives Wilbur half of a smile.
“I have to leave for a few hours tomorrow,” he says. “Some joint photoshoot, I think.”
“Didn’t you just have one, when you won MCC?”
Techno just shrugs. “This one’s with Quackity.”
And of course it is, of course, because if there is anyone on Floor Five that is not allowed to be forgotten then it is Technoblade. Until the end, he will be cast in the starring role.
Wilbur sighs. “Shit, wait-- I thought you had a stream scheduled for tomorrow?”
“I did. Not gonna reschedule it, in case you were wondering.”
“For some reason, I didn’t feel the need to ask.”
“My fans are long-suffering.”
Wilbur laughs. “I can cover for you tomorrow. I’ll go live, maybe play a snippet of my new song, and you can Tweet something snarky once it’s over.”
“Thanks.”
“And hey, once you’ve taken off all of your shit, just show up in here. God knows I won’t be anywhere else.”
“I think I’d like that.”
Techno waves awkwardly and closes the door behind him.
Wilbur spends the rest of the day with his guitar, trying to add just enough lies to his new song that the Capitol will approve the lyrics.
///
“Sometimes,” Niki says, “I’m afraid of being forgotten.”
Her words vanish into the night sky around them. Wilbur stares at her, his eyes so wide that the entire world is reflected in them, and then he blinks.
“You know,” he says, “I could do another You Laugh You Lose with you. It would get a lot of viewers, and Twitch might feature you if you get donations, and I always really do enjoy--”
“I can’t.”
“What?”
“I can’t do that again. Thank you, Wilbur, really, but I can’t rely on you for everything.”
“This wouldn’t be fucking-- it wouldn’t be everything! It would just be one collab, but maybe a little help wouldn’t be the worst, you know?”
Even after all of these years, Wilbur’s smile still rings true, and Niki thinks that maybe if the two of them had met in another world she would have followed it anywhere. It is no wonder that, out of all of them, he is the one who the cameras still focus on at events. He probably will be for many decades to come.
She is silent for a long, long time. Her own heartbeat echoes in her ears.
“No,” she says finally. “We’re on the SMP together. I don’t want to be on camera in the same room again.”
“Why not?”
Niki sighs. “I don’t want to deal with everything that comes with it, Wilbur.”
“Oh.”
It is a lie, and it isn’t one, and both are true at the same time. Niki turns away and closes the balcony door behind her.
She tries to smile at Wilbur before she leaves. She is not able to.
In her own bedroom, she stares at her ceiling and tries not to consider what else she meant to say.
I’m afraid of being forgotten, but I do not want to be remembered for this.
///
“You know,” Minx says, “I would do fuckin’ anything for you guys. I would end the world.”
“Don’t,” Angel says, which means don’t end the world for us .
“Don’t,” Niki says, which means don’t talk about this now-- millions are watching.
Sometimes, the three of them disagree. When they do, it is only about the most important things.
Minx sighs. “Fine,” she says, “I get it, okay? Let’s just-- let’s just play a game on Tuesday and not leave our rooms on Wednesday. Would that make you happy?”
It wouldn’t, and yet they do it anyways, and it almost does.
///
Philza was born to live in the presence of others.
And yet he is only comfortable in his own skin when he plays on a singleplayer world. He locks his door and spends hours alone, letting his chat tell him everything that the people he is supposed to protect will always keep a secret.
“Stop watching me and do your homework,” he tells yet another Capitol child, laughing. He’s lost count of how many people he has been asked to pretend that he knows anything about.
Wilbur and Tommy join his call sometimes. That’s a good thing, Phil tells himself, because it reminds him that there are others with him now. People who he can rely on, and who can rely on him, and-- well, usually he wouldn’t go any further than calling them people, but that’s better than what he got used to.
Still, after every stream where someone else on Floor Five joins him, he only feels ready to face the world again after he spends hours staring into nothing at all. Tonight, it is cool but not cold, and so he is on the balcony. He leaves the door open, so that if anyone needs him, they know where to look.
There are footsteps behind him. Phil turns.
“Hello,” Techno says, drawing the word out. “Want some help?”
“I’m good,” Phil says, but he moves to the side and makes room for two on the railing.
Techno stands close to him. “How’s the hardcore world going?”
“If I ever have to hear Tommy make another joke about coral again, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.”
“It would be ideal for you to not do that, if you could manage.”
“I know, I know. I’ll be fine.”
The two of them stand together, shoulder to shoulder. Phil doesn’t turn to Techno, and he knows that Techno isn’t looking at him. He doesn’t mind.
The stars are far brighter than either of them will ever be, after all.
“I’m worried about them,” Phil says finally, because even after years spent here he has not unlearned how to be honest.
“What?”
“The rest of the floor. I’m supposed to protect them, right? I’m supposed to know what’s going on. But then I try, right, and they don’t fucking listen.”
“You can’t control that,” Techno says. Phil has rarely heard his voice so quiet. “They’re going to make things harder for themselves if they want to. That’s their own right. They trust you to help when they want you, and that means you’re doing something right.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Would it ever be?”
Phil stills.
In District Nine, nothing at all got in the way of the stars. The fields of wheat that stretched for miles were flat as far as could be seen, and none of the houses in town were tall enough or bright enough to be noticeable if Phil just looked up.
Back then, he could see the edge of the galaxy.
“Just tell me I’m right,” Techno says, and nudges Phil.
Phil starts to laugh. Techno seems to take that as answer enough.
///
Floor Six is only five years of age, and it is already more stable than Floor Five ever was.
All of them started a podcast, together , and it’s so popular that the Capitol encourages them to make it. They’re barely ever asked to change anything, and when they touch on risky territory, they giggle and tell the editor to cut it out.
Wilbur knows this, because he is one of their editors. He knows the way that they lose the thread of their conversation like it’s easy to talk about anything, and he knows the smile in Quackity’s voice when he calls himself the king, and he knows the pause after one of Charlie’s puns where everyone is feeling the same thing.
He keeps every single unedited podcast.
He doesn’t tell anyone else on Floor Five anything about them.
They can see as well as he can, anyways. They know the way that the cameramen have to poke at the ten of them in group photos, separating Niki and Minx and pushing Tommy to stand next to Angel instead of just near her. They can watch Floor Six come into the studio behind them, Ted and Charlie giggling at their own side comments while Quackity lectures Fundy on his own persona.
Cooper never joins them, and Wilbur pretends not to notice, and he pretends at the same time that it makes him any less jealous.
///
Techno doesn’t know what started the fight.
Sometimes, it’s easier to avoid keeping track of what the people around him are doing, and Techno is reading in his room when he first hears the yelling. Because he can tell that Phil is involved, he gently sets down his book and ventures out of his room.
Tommy is screaming so loudly that it echoes, and then Phil snaps something in response, and then Tommy is demanding a fight even though he looks like he’s on the verge of tears.
Everything is a blur.
Techno walks into the room and stands behind Phil, his arms crossed. “Any problems here?”
“Yeah, just that Phil’s a fucking terrible person and a horrible excuse for a guardian--”
“Christ, Tommy, you’re 18! You can make your own lunch! ”
“It’s not about the lunch, you idiot , it’s that you said you would, and you can’t seem to keep a single promise that you’ve ever made!”
The entire ordeal is almost certainly being filmed somewhere, and so Techno gives an exasperated look to nobody in particular. He begins preparing a speech, in case he has to do anything more, but Phil squeezes his shoulder and gives an exaggerated sigh.
“Do you want a sandwich, Tommy?”
“I do, I do! Thank you so much for thinking of me, Phil!”
The two of them go into the kitchen together. Techno stays in the living room and says nothing for a few minutes, which is hopefully boring enough that the broadcast ends.
Tommy and Phil come back carrying two sandwiches. They sit close to each other on the couch.
Techno stares at his own reflection in the TV screen. “So. Was that thing faked?”
“It wasn’t, until you walked in,” Tommy mutters.
“Glad I did, then. It’ll be all over Twitter tomorrow.”
Phil groans and wraps an arm around Tommy. “You ready for that?”
“Oh, you know I like to be talked about.”
It’s almost true, and it’s almost a lie, and Techno doesn’t want to think about what drove Tommy to say it.
“You’re the-- you’re pretty much my father, right, Phil?” Tommy whispers.
“Fuckin’ lies, and you know it.” Phil pulls Tommy onto his lap and smiles down at him. “I’m mediocre at best. It’s everything else here that’s getting to you.”
“What-- are you saying I have Stockholm Syndrome? Me? ”
“Bad case of it.”
And Phil is laughing, and then Tommy is laughing too, because even with nobody watching life is nothing but a series of jokes. Techno knows, even after he’s spent almost a decade without a sharpened blade in his hands, how to recognise all of the little signs of weakness that they have around each other-- Tommy’s hands around Phil’s neck, Phil poking Tommy’s stomach, the two of them closing their eyes at the same time.
Techno never did have much of a sense of humor.
He sighs and turns away, because somebody needs to tell Wilbur about the fight before it’s recommended to him on YouTube, and clearly Phil is otherwise occupied.
When he returns to the common space, five hours later and exhausted from streaming, Phil and Tommy are still on the couch. They’re deeply asleep, curled around each other, and Phil’s hands are in Tommy’s hair.
Techno smiles and lets himself watch them for a few seconds. Then, as quietly as he can, he walks over to the couch and taps Phil on the shoulder.
“You’re still in the living room,” he says. He lets Phil read the rest from his pose, the way that he looks over his shoulder every few seconds.
“Oh-- shit. Can you help me with Tommy?”
And together, the two of them manage to transport Tommy to his room, with Techno holding open doors for Phil.
If Tommy wakes up confused, then he doesn’t mention it to Technoblade.
///
Minx tries to keep herself to a strict routine.
Disquiet is in her nature. Despite that, though, there’s something about being constantly labelled as chaos, a disaster gone astray, that makes her want to separate her life along gridlines.
When she continues to wake with the sun, a lifetime away from the people that taught her about the new day, it takes everything in her to not go back to bed after breakfast.
She tells herself that it is her own rebellion to stay awake, to eat lunch and then dinner and to smile when she is called Rebecca. She cannot keep a bedtime anymore, but at the very least she still knows how to plan her days so that they blend together.
Unfortunately, this means that she often finds herself eating alone. Angel streams over lunchtime, and Niki keeps her life messy almost as studiously as Minx pulls hers together.
She knows that Floor Six has group lunches, and that there are always enough people at the table for there to be conversation. It came up in one of their podcasts a while ago, which Minx is still pretending not to watch.
(“I like to tell them what to do!” Quackity yells. “I’m supposed to keep it all together, right, so I’m all like ‘oh, let’s eat together’, and then guess what they fucking do? They fucking listen, yeah!”
And then Ted snorts. “I know this is unbelievable, but have you considered that we just like to spend time together?”
“No way,” Charlie says. “That’s-- that’s impossible! We simply bow before the might of Alex Quackity!”)
If Minx could have anything, at this moment, she thinks that she would like to have that .
“Should be Phil’s job,” she mutters to the air around her.
“What should be?”
Michael is in the kitchen, covering a piece of toast in peanut butter, which is the only thing that Minx has seen him eat in six days. If he ever leaves his room anymore, he’s much better at it than the rest of them.
Minx gestures vaguely. “You know. Fuckin’ everything.”
“Oh, yeah, the everything! I forgot that he was supposed to keep the rest of us in line.”
“It’s sort of why he’s here, and yet take a look around.”
Michael laughs. “I try not to.”
“I can tell, cunt.”
Michael just grins. “Well, then, I’m off to Floor Two! I need to show them something I’ve been working on. Should be back after my new video is uploaded.”
“Never, then? Thanks for the warning.”
“You wish, idiot.”
And with that, Michael is gone, dragging a suitcase behind him.
Minx sighs and turns back to her lunch.
Wilbur emerges from his room a few minutes later, grinning. “Did you scare him away that quickly? Unbelievable, Minx, simply unbelievable.”
“Well,” Minx mutters, “at least he’ll be back for the photoshoots.”
///
“I’ve been talking to Tubbo a lot,” Tommy says.
“Sounds good.” Techno buries his head in his hands, which is the only place in his room that doesn’t glitter with false gold. He hopes that Tommy knows him well enough by now that he doesn’t take it as a slight.
“He’s a Capitol kid, right, so I've had to teach him a lot of things. He’s strangely funny, though-- I told him to start a Twitch channel.”
“Generous of you. Would you collab?”
“I’m not sure. For now, I want this to stay private, you know?”
It’s a strange thought to have after six years in this place, naive and self-important, and both of them know it. Techno shrugs.
Tommy is supposed to stream in an hour, but for just a moment, the two of them are isolated enough to feel alone. Neither of them are dressed up for the camera. Tommy’s shirt is almost as dull as Techno’s own hair, almost as dull as the space between jokes that they are too tired to make.
“Techno.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think they’d let me go out and meet him?”
Everything about this conversation would be funny, Techno thinks, to some long-gone version of himself who knew how to survive the end of the world. To want something more, when everything was so perfectly in place?
Now, he has to swallow the lump in his throat before continuing.
“Not a chance,” Techno says. “Sorry.”
Tommy collapses onto the bed, spread-eagled and staring at a fake sword on the wall. “I knew you’d say that.”
“Am I wrong?”
Silence.
“Well,” Techno says, “they might let him visit here. If you’re willing to play by their rules for a bit, you know. The usual.”
“God-- not here, he can’t come here! I could deal with literally anywhere else!”
Techno ruffles Tommy’s hair. “Well, then, you should check if he has a webcam.”
///
It is Niki and Minx’s birthday, and the cameras are everywhere.
Everyone has been called out of their rooms, even Vikk and Michael, and they sit together in the common area. Since Joko and Bee have been brought up from Floor Four, the conversation stays light. Whenever Niki laughs, she brushes Joko’s shoulder, and Minx spends the hours that they are together with her entire arm wrapped around Bee’s.
The cameras focus on this, of course, when they aren’t interviewing other members of Floor Five or advertising Twitch Prime.
It is once Bee and Joko are sent back downstairs that things get more difficult.
The party is almost over. Minx sits in a pile of gifts, both hers and most of Niki’s, while Niki and Angel lean over a wooden carving of a cat.
“It is lovely,” Niki murmurs, and Angel giggles.
Suddenly, Minx stands up and begins to make her way out of the room.
She isn’t supposed to do that, and so Niki stands, too. Almost without thinking, she passes the cat figurine to Angel and takes a step forward.
Minx starts yelling before Niki can reach her.
“Fuck off, you cunts!
Niki and Techno lock eyes for only a moment. Then they separate.
“Minx,” he says, “you’re drunk again.”
Techno’s forced laugh is noticeable, but Phil’s is not.
Niki takes the opportunity to push Minx down the hallway and into her bedroom. In her black dress and spiked jewelry, Minx looks out of place on Niki’s pink lace bedspread in a way that Niki has never felt on Minx’s.
Minx buries her head in Niki’s pillow. “I fucking hate my birthday. It’s the worst day in the fucking world.”
“Look, Minx, I know, I know, but you-- you’re going to get lipstick on my pillowcase, and then people will talk when I stream tomorrow, you know that. Here--”
Niki sits next to Minx, close enough that it’s easy for her to move her head into Niki’s lap.
“Better,” Niki says. “Thank you.”
“This is the worst day of my entire life--”
“You’ll be fine. In a month, we’ll laugh about this. I promise.”
“Holy shit, I’m going to-- God, how much trouble am I--”
“We can only hope about that. We can’t handle it now.”
Minx groans. “I’m so fucking stupid, aren’t I.”
“...Not as much as the rest of them.” Niki places one of her hands on top of Minx’s. “And you should probably pretend to have a hangover tomorrow. We can stream, and we’ll both wear the cat ears the Fundy gave us, and people will forget.”
“Oh, Techno’s such a bastard -- they’re all bastards!”
Niki laughs. “They really are. They’re all bastards, they are.”
“My eyeliner’s totally ruined, Niki. Jesus Christ, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“About the eyeliner? Don’t be.”
Niki calms her breathing and sits with Minx until she falls asleep, her jewelry torn off and discarded in a golden pile next to her. Then she opens her door, as quietly as she can, and returns to the party, only slightly unsteady.
There is a streak of black lipstick on her skirt and nobody mentions it.
///
There are times when things almost fall into place-- they are few and far between, but they exist , and Angel will never be able to forget a single one of them.
She and Minx lay together on her neon bed, the unreality of their hairstyles spread together over the sheets. Purple and blue are the colours of a field of flowers that she used to hide in back in Seven. She likes that, although one memory starts to bring back all the others.
Minx can tell, or maybe she can’t and just never learned to keep her own thoughts quiet.
“You did what you could, Angel. You know how many of us would’ve dropped a kid like him? He was a fuckin’ idiot to reject your advice, but that doesn’t mean that he’s stupid enough to look past everything that you did for him.”
“He-- I trust him not to do that, you know? I just wish that he would at least contact me.”
Minx laughs, so quietly that the camera in Angel’s room probably cannot even hear it, and reaches for Angel’s hand. “He’ll come around.”
“I really hope so.”
“Hey, let’s go find Niki!”
And then Minx is pulling Angel up from her bed, leading her through corridors and into the main living space. She talks loudly about nothing as she does, in a way that reminds Angel of when Minx was first dragged out of the elevator kicking and screaming, almost ten years ago and impossible to let go of.
Niki turns out to be on the couch, between Tommy and Phil, watching Wilbur talk about something that hasn’t mattered in a hundred years. Phil is laughing so hard that he seems unable to talk, and Tommy is yelling at Wilbur to shut up.
Niki sees them and immediately shifts her position, but before she can leave the group, Minx aggressively shakes her head and runs to sit on the floor in front of her.
“I fucking hate you,” she tells Wilbur, and Tommy cheers.
Angel stands in the hallway, staring, before finally deciding to stand behind Niki.
To her surprise, when she does, Niki reaches for her arms and wraps them around herself.
Minx and Tommy are still both yelling, and now Wilbur is yelling too as he makes wild gestures in the air, and Techno is making side comments whenever he can. Angel doubts that Phil will ever be able to speak again.
“Oh,” she says slowly, “I think that I could get used to this.”
Over the noise, nobody should be able to hear it, but still Niki does. She rests her head on the back of the couch and smiles up at Angel.
“I’m glad,” Niki says, but because it is Niki there is something else in her words. This time, Angel is almost able to tell what it is, which means that either she’s gotten better at reading Niki or it is a message meant for her:
Do not get used to this.
///
There is something rotting under the floorboards of Floor Five, and this is what it is:
It’s the day of the Spring Gala. Each of them are dressed according to who they are supposed to be, which really shouldn’t mean anything, and yet they are just a little more confident within their costumes than they were a day ago.
The seating is assigned, with the Victors placed in groups of three. This means nothing at all, because even when the speeches are over and everyone has a bit of free time, they do not all gather together as one.
The gala seems to last forever. Each of them are joined by their own group of Capitol citizens, most probably just polite enough to avoid saying out loud what exactly they are looking for from an association with a Victor.
The ten of them weren’t allowed to leave the Tower together, but on the way back, they are herded into one car and then one elevator. Against the buzzing of the lights, they stare at each other. This close to each other, they are wearing so much makeup that they cease to seem real.
“Well,” Phil says, “that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Good job, everyone.”
It is only then, the ten of them almost pressed up against each other, that they smile as one. Niki and Wilbur even laugh.
When the elevator stops, though, they do not fall into a pile on the floor and tear each other’s costumes off in the way that they do sometimes after the Fall Gala, or in the way that Bee and Joko tell their Mentees stories of.
Instead, they each hurry to their own rooms and begin to run a bath.
///
Floor Five has nothing holding it together.
It was never built to last.
Where the windows should be, there are four walls and a door that nobody steps through. The elevator is hidden from view.
This place has a past, yes. There is a reason that there are ten people here, lined up in a row, their heads held high until they are sure that nobody is watching.
But in the present?
Phil stands in the kitchen, busying himself making too much bread for one person to eat.
Josh lays on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
Angel streams to an audience that cannot see her with her door locked.
Michael is asleep in the mid-afternoon, his call with Lily and Imane still active.
Vikk leans on the balcony railing, listening to the commotion of the world below.
Minx eats a piece of toast on the couch, saying nothing to Phil in the other room, and tells herself that this is lunch.
Techno is on his fifth hour of Minecraft in a row, wearing a skin that nobody associates with him and refusing to lower his standards because of it.
Tommy watches YouTube and waits for the Discord activity marker of his best friend, who he has never actually seen, to turn green.
Wilbur sits on the floor in the center of his room, humming a melody.
Niki rearranges her bedding for the tenth time in one day and whispers things to herself in a family language that she is not supposed to remember.
The air is silent.
Then, slowly, Niki opens her door and steps into the hallway.
“Phil,” she calls out, “can I help you make dinner tonight?”
Floor Five has nothing holding it together, and here is a secret: it was never supposed to.
But it does have a future, and perhaps someday, that may mean something.