Chapter Text
Before the summer of the 66th Annual Hunger Games, twelve-year old Lavash Mellark - clinical, cool, methodical, ambitious, and above all, practical - might have defined himself (purely out of practicality again) as a situational Capitol loyalist.
He might have had plans to use his quite astonishing intellect and analytical skills to make an impression on a visiting Capitol contact or two. He might even have decided (Lavash scorned such deeply unreliable facilitators as hope) that that impression would lead him into a sponsored position as a bookkeeper outside of District Twelve, possibly with a best friend and a brother or two in tow, and from there, to an eventual job as a cut-throat, top-level investment financier in the Capitol itself.
It wouldn’t be an easy road, he knew: getting there or when he arrived. But he had the brains, the drive, the necessary focused charisma and, above all, the crucial financial talent. The only thing he didn’t have control over were the Hunger Games.
And when he turned thirteen, the best friend was Reaped, and in an instant, situational loyalty turned to absolute, impervious and defining hatred. Lavash Mellark watched as Mark Tucker, two-thirds his size with soft, delicate features, eyes like purest molten moonlight and hair the color and texture of fine, dark sifted soot tinged with silver ash (the boy he’d secretly loved at first sight, as his brother Peeta would love Katniss Everdeen, and their son Rye would love his future husband, one Baz Al Itani), was dragged roughly by the arm, shell-shocked and unresisting, to his death.
He didn’t scream. Lavash did, but only internally.
From the moment Mark Tucker’s name was called, Lavash Mellark had never really stopped screaming.
He’d gone to see him at the Justice Building, of course. His father didn’t go in with him. He’d just shoved the regulation cookies in his eldest son’s hand, and, head down, had plodded away after his wife, a distressed little Brio and silent little Peeta in tow. Left to his own devices, Lavash had made his way up the great stone steps, slipping in behind the boy’s aunt and uncle, and hovering in the hallway till the last before darting into the finally empty room. Mark was sitting awkwardly on the very edge of a rich velvet sofa, staring at the wall. Lavash sat beside him, and took his hand. They clutched at each other wordlessly, eyes fixed on the wall together, till a Peacekeeper had come and jerked his head brusquely.
Lavash hadn’t been able to bear saying goodbye. They both knew it was goodbye. It could be nothing else. He’d leaned in instead, quickly as a mockingjay taking flight, and pressed his dry lips to Mark’s damp, chapped ones.
Then he’d left him, the fragile paper packet of cookies his father had pressed in his hand crushed between his fingers, and the sweet, ruined crumbs trailing behind him.
It was not, unfortunately, the last memory he had of the boy that he’d secretly planned to marry one day.
Even that though, was not his defining moment. His self-defining moment.
No, that came eleven days later, when he lay, drugged half out of his mind in his bed, and listened to his mother hum through the wall, and remembered, even through his haze, every one of the narrowed, disdainfully repulsed looks she’d always given Mark. It was the same look she wore with all the Seam children, he’d thought at those times. That he’d told himself.
Until he realized with crystal clarity through his drugged haze that night, via the pleased humming through the wall, that it hadn’t been.
Lavash never spoke of his suspicions to anyone. He barely managed to keep them at bay in his own mind, in the years afterwards. Those suspicions that he could no longer deny the summer Peet was sixteen and Katniss Everdeen was attacked, when he came to work the very day it happened, and heard that same pleased humming emanating from the upstairs apartment. The same song, even.
And then Peet was Reaped. His mother had known he planned to volunteer - the whole family had known - as soon as it became clear that old Cray officially had it out for Katniss, but his mother obviously wasn’t taking chances there, Lavash thought at first, and was planning active matricide before the echo of his youngest brother’s name had faded from Effie Trinket’s lips. It was a perfectly logical interpretation of events; Flo Mellark hadn’t so much batted an eyelash over the thought of Peet going into the Games, and wouldn’t have, even without his recent fist in her face and the family coup that followed. She’d always hated her youngest son, the spitting image of her husband, as much as she hated Katniss’ own mother, Clara Everdeen.
Lavash watched the train pull out, his arm around his new wife’s shoulder, and when it was out of sight, looked down at her. She wasn’t looking after Peeta; her head was turned toward the bakery, and her mother-in-law. Then she turned back to him, and she looked up at him, and they shared a moment of perfect, shining mutual understanding.
“Flip you for it,” Molly Allen Mellark offered. Lavash snorted. He absolutely adored her quiet, dark sense of humor. It was quite nearly as warped as his own. More so, on the particular subject. He hadn’t even had to tell her his suspicions on Mark’s Reaping - she’d figured it out before they were ever formally engaged, when he’d warned her what she would be getting into with his family. She was a Merchie too, so she hadn’t been terribly concerned about Flo’s efforts to sabotage her, either before or after a toasting, but sometimes he thought she’d married him in part because she hoped one day to have the opportunity to make the bitch pay herself. She hadn’t known Mark as anything more than anyone else in the District had - as his former best friend - but after she’d realized the truth, she hadn’t had to. Her ‘Vash had loved him, and that was more than enough for her.
Together, he’d promised her, as she’d promised him, when he had confirmed her suspicions. Not right away, though. We’ll have to manage it discreetly, so no one ever suspects. Well, except for her, of course. At the very last. He still remembers her response, too. No one will give a damn, ‘Vash. Hell, they’d probably throw us a party and parade for service to Snow, District and Country. And what about your Dad?
Lavash had grimaced at that. Again, they both knew, as surely as they knew their own names, that if Flo Mellark had bribed Cray to put Mark Tucker’s name in the Reaping ball, that Rye Mellark had to have known. Cray was nothing if not self-interested, and as Rye and Flo were among the wealthiest District citizens, he would have accepted nothing but cold, hard coin for his trouble. In advance again, and a load of it. More than Flo could ever have justified as a clerical error or a payout for bakery supplies that had somehow missed their incoming train.
Peet and Brio didn’t know, of course. Their feelings for their father, at least, were indifferent. Lavash’s…. Weren’t. Molly’s definitely weren’t. She despised her father-in-law even more than she hated Flo. Above all things, Molly Allen Mellark hated a spineless, weak man.
“He’ll die without her,” she’d predicted. “He’s an empty apron without her to force him to stand upright and make her money.”
“He’s in good enough health,” Lavash noted. She’d just shrugged.
“You’ll see,” she’d predicted again. “We’ll bury her, and he’ll moon about stupidly as the bereaved, sad-eyed, hapless widower till he finally processes that Dane Everdeen was never the reason that Clara Everdeen refused him. Three months, max, and then he’ll lie down with the pigs out back in his self-assigned wallow, and won’t get up again.”
It was, Lavash conceded as they walked back to the bakery, distinctly possible. Brio walked beside them, slowly, huge shoulders hunched, hands shoved in his pockets and fighting back tears. Lavash reached out and pulled one out of its hideaway, wrapping his own long, slender fingers through it.
“He’s not coming back,” Brio said. “Is he? He wouldn’t have gone in for her, if he’d intended to come back.”
“Brio,” is all Lavash said in an undertone, after a quick, prudent glance around.
“Yeah?”
“Molly and I are going to kill Mom. We reckon Dad’ll go within three months afterwards, so if you’re right, and Peet doesn’t make it out… And I’m not saying I think there’s no chance there, I’m only putting it out there - it’ll just be us. You in?”
Brio stopped in his tracks and stared at him.
“For real?’ he asked uncertainly.
“Yes.”
Brio wasn’t really handsome at all, Molly thought - not like Peet, or ‘Vash himself, but when he was truly happy, he had, quite possibly, the most gorgeous smile in Panem. It cut right through the constant, dank, and repressive shroud of coal dust as a radiant, and in this instance at least, beautifully vicious, sun.
“Heck, yeah,” he said fervently. “Just tell me what to do and say. I am there.”
“Excellent.” Lavash nodded, satisfied, and patted his shoulder.
As things fell out, Flo hadn’t been the one who’d ensured Peet’s Reaping. Gale Hawthorne had done it for her.
It didn’t change a thing in her eldest son’s mind. She might not have set Peet up, but after that sick little reveal she’d arranged for him at the bakery apartment, and especially after what she’d offered him as a parting shot at the Justice Building…
Wow. Way to be supportive. Bitch.
The charges against her account, he thought, just weren’t sustainable any longer. Back-tax season had finally come round, and Mother Dearest was about to get her notice of audit and assessment.
The Tribute Parade
The Mellark Bakery
Twelve’s new stylist, Cinna, is good. More than good: better. Better than all of the rest, together, and Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen shine and burn, and the rest of the Districts, for all that they ride out before them, eat their ashes. Madge and Delly laugh themselves sick at the expressions on District Two’s faces after the home team takes their bow and Caesar Flickerman reproves the dressed-up soldiers for Conduct Unbecoming… Delly actually falls off her stool at the new lunch counter, she is laughing so hard. The Peacekeepers just roll their eyes, but Lavash can tell they’re a bit worried. He passes off pastry bags, and raises a querying eyebrow at Darius Rooke as he frowns.
“Drill up your shaft there, Peacekeeper Rooke?’ he inquires, with his customary disarming smile and debonair aplomb.
“I’ve heard about her,” Rooke says, of Clove. “I volunteered for the Peacekeepers two years ago when I graduated from the Academy, and she was only… Thirteen, then? But she was already making waves. They kept her on because she’s a guarantee of a good show, but…”
He looks uneasy.
“What is it?” Molly looks over.
“She’s very keen,” he says evasively as his fellows eye him warningly. The jaws of every local present tighten immediately. ‘Keen’ is not a positive descriptor in Twelve. Titus Grendel had been put forth by his District as ‘keen’. The adjective has not been used in the Games since.
“What about the other one,” is all Lavash says. “Clato?’
“Cato. Oh well. We’ve all heard about him. Big, strong, talented, and a Grade A Fancy spoiled brat,” Felicity Spinel says disdainfully. No one gives her a look. District Two does not approve of spoiled brats. “Self-spoiled. He’s going in with both something to prove, and for what he thinks he deserves.”
“How’s that?” Molly encourages.
“He’s annoyed that he didn’t get called up for special training from Nero Takeuchi,” Purnia translates, lounging against the counter. “Head Emeritus of the Training Academy. He retired officially after Augustus Braun won…”
Everyone shudders collectively. Augustus Braun’s Arena had been, unquestionably, the most disgusting in the history of the Games. It hadn’t offered up any of the worst deaths on any lists, but the environment…
“But he’d still take on a private student if he thought, or if President Snow thought, it was rated. And Cato got it into his head before he ever came to the Academy that he was going to get called up the mountain,” Purnia continues. “That’s what the kids call it, when Takeuchi takes a special. He has a cottage there, up his own mountain again, and he’ll withdraw them from the Academy itself, and take them off for particular training. They always win.” She pops in a bit of coffee cake. “He’s seventeen, not eighteen, so he would have qualified for the Quell in his final, and that’s what he wanted. The guaranteed win, because Takeuchi’s picks always do win, as the winner of the Third Quell again.”
“So it’s safe to say that he’s not in a good mood?” Molly probes.
“Mm. Under all that whooping tough and bluster, everybody in Two just knows that he’s sulking like a six-year-old. Rumor’s out that he got called in after the Games last year - that he actually pre-packed his bags because he was that sure Takeuchi was waiting to carry him off - and smugged it up saying his salve-and-vales to his buddies and everything before getting told he’d qualified for the pre-show instead. Threw a proper temper tantrum, it’s said, and actually cried, once he was out of sight of the Higher Ups anyway. Which says it all right there, on why he didn’t get called for the Third, because… You’re never out of sight of the Higher Ups.” She nibbles at a chunk of her coffee cake.
“What about One?” Brio ventures.
The Peacekeepers all eye the candidates on the screen, Glimmer and Marvel, judiciously.
“Nah,” Spinnaker Connell from Four decrees finally. “She’s pretty, but she’s too conscious of it. Physically. She’ll have been told every day that every move she makes is a necessary advertisement of the fact, and some girls can internalize that, but she’s not one of them. And it’s going to slow her down. Not much, but enough. And he’s not pretty enough. Not pretty at all, really, and that means that he’s there to make sure that all of One’s legacy sponsors go to her, in an effort to compensate for her weaknesses.”
“So…”
“Out of the four of them… Clove,” Purnia opines. “She’s a bit of a wildcard, sure, and Cato’s physically bigger and stronger, but she’s got the ranged advantage, in the end. She…” She stands straight as District Eleven brings in its close-ups. “Then again… Holy crap! What have they been feeding that boy?”
“Everything they haven’t been feeding their girl,” Doc Palmer says shortly as he collects his coffee and apple bun. “Alright, I’m out of here.”
The door chimes. Lavash turns back to the till, watching the television with half an eye. He continues to watch it for the next few days, as the footage of the Reaping runs over and over, along with the commentary and speculation on all of the Tributes, now in training… The training itself was never filmed, but tidbits of gossip, rumors and speculation have always abounded; fuel for the ever-increasingly wild promos for the Games themselves… Katniss Everdeen has, apparently, made a Mortal Enemy in Clove Maxwell of District Two. Cato Hanley has written up Jason ‘Jude’ Lennon of Six on his personal list for daring to outsmart him (every Peacekeeper from Two again laughs riotously at that one; Purnia was heard to say that it was probably the only entirely unvarnished rumor that ever came out of the Capitol) at one of the test stations. No one can decide whether Eleven’s big boy, Thresh Robinson is actually mute, perpetually silenced by the tragedy of his parents’ heroic, yet ultimately horrific history as Wild!Giant!Reptile!Hunters! The Capitols are in pre-emptive mourning over its two little darlings, Halyard Kanaka and Rue Duvall. Spinnaker Connell’s mouth lemons rather at the mention of Halyard Kanaka, but he doesn’t say anything on the subject... He will later, but the time hasn’t quite arrived yet.
Oddly, and most peculiarly, it’s said that Peeta Mellark from Twelve has been excused from Group Training for unprecedented private tutelage.
“Private tutelage?’ Brio wonders, his brow furrowed. “What does that mean?’
“Probably nothing,” Darius reassures him. “He probably just took an extra-long piss break, and one of the lurkers jumped on it and sold the idea for a byline. They have to come up with new angles every year to intrigue the general population, and that’s just one that hasn’t been used before.” Later, after everyone has left and Lavash and Molly have closed up for the night, they walk home together, his arm around her, and consider everything they’ve heard.
“Sounds like he’s really pissed people off,” Molly observes. “The boy from Two, I mean. They won last year, and a Career’s probably pegged to win next year at the Quell, so…”
“He’s expendable,” Lavash supplies. “They both are, after the Parade, and Flickerman’s pointed reaction. He might as well have been delivering a message: ‘conduct unbecoming’ reads as a public ‘If even Twelve gets it, I’m officially considering myself free to inform you just how much of a liability everyone thinks you two are.’ And given the pair from One - she’s pretty but slow, and as he’s nothing her side-kick...” He nibbles the inside of his cheek.
“They’ve all got to be panicking,” Molly supplies.
“They could yet do a lot of damage before they go, buteven if they do… They’ll still never make it to the end,” Lavash agrees. “The Gamemakers will take them out.”
Molly winces. “How bad do you think it’ll be?"
“Depends on how badly they’re reacting to the news,” he says. “Now, and between now and then. They’ll still die, but if they’re graceful about it, they’ll have it easier than otherwise. They’ll set Katniss up to take them out quickly, with her bow and arrows.”
She raises her eyebrow at him. He rolls his eyes at her. She offers him a small grin.
“Should be interesting,” she concedes. “Think anyone’s got a clue yet?”
“No. They’re all way too stuck on the knives narrative.” He considers that. “I don’t even know if Haymitch knows she uses a bow.”
“He wasn’t always a drunk,” his wife says. “And he’s the same age as her father was. They went to school together, I think. He always used a bow himself, when he went hunting. So… Yes. He does know. They’re just saving it up as a surprise.”
Lavash says nothing. Molly takes his hand.
“He might not have any experience with weapons,” she says. “But he’s strong, ‘Vash. Strong, and canny, and we can’t say, after your mother, that he doesn’t know how to choose his moments.”
“Yes well,” Lavash says, grumpy in his momentary diversion. “He could have chosen it a bit better, at least the once. I would literally kill to be able to go back in time and see him headbutt the bitch, never mind the fist in the face.”
They snigger together at that, darkly.
*
The next day, when they wake, their little house is unnaturally quiet. Flo is not there, and Lavash' smile disappears as he and Molly approach the bakery again. Familiar shrieking is emanating from within. His long stride picks up pace, and he flings the door open.
“Mom,” he greets her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
And she starts to go off again, and his jaw sets.
“Pack your bag, Brio,” he orders. Brio, harangued and backed against the counter, looks up.
“What…”
“Lavash…”
“Shut up, Dad,” he says viciously. “We told you, we told you, not just Peet, that if you let her in again, we’d be leaving? That hasn’t changed, just because he was Reaped.” His voice is one black sneer at that. “Come on, Brio. They can manage the Capitol crowds on their own, once they get here, if they’re that dedicated to the united front.”
“But…”
He just glares. Molly leans against the door and crosses her arms, regarding her parents-in-law immovably. Rye Mellark looks as if he’s about to cry.
“She can stay here,” Brio says after a moment. “I’ll come with you. Just to sleep for now; I’m not offering my hair and ears up for the cause, but…” He takes a deep breath. Brio is many things, but confrontational is not one of them. Not because he’s a coward, no, but because he’s just too big. Big enough to give the Peacekeepers pause, if they weren’t fully aware that he’s as sweet and kind as he is built, and that he’s always been extremely aware of the fact that if he got into any kind of unsanctioned fight, he’d be the one taking the official batons to the ribs, no matter whether he started it or not. “You’d best listen to Lavash otherwise, Ma, when he tells you to mind your mouth and manners on the floor here. Because Peet is coming home, and that means we will be having the Capitol crowds, and if you step out of line there… I’m on his side, not yours.”
And he disappears up the stairs. Molly straightens
“You can bring her things back here later tonight, ‘Vash,” she says, without looking at her in-laws. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee for all of us.”
“Coffee is for the paying customers, girl!” Flo snaps. Molly turns and stares at her evenly.
“Your youngest son,” she says deliberately. “Was just Reaped for the Hunger Games. I think that rates a fucking cup of coffee, bitch, and not in celebration.”
She opens her mouth again, just as Brio thumps down the stairs, stuffed schoolbag over his shoulder.
“Problem?” he inquires.
“No,” Lavash says. “Never mind the coffee, Mol. Nobody’s going to expect us to open first thing today, or even this week, for that matter. Let’s go back and get Brio settled, and leave Mom and Dad here to bond over their undoubted unspeakable grief. I don’t know about you, but I could use a couple more hours to process… Everything. Inasmuch as it’s possible, anyway.”
The chime sounds and the door slams. Rye Mellark sinks down to the floor, back to the counter and face in his big hands, and begins to cry wrenchingly.