Chapter Text
The town square is thick with crowds of gangly teenagers and heavy with nervous energy. In the background, a constant buzz: the muted cacophony of parent’s tears and children’s wails, punctuated with the rough baritone voices of the Peacekeepers and the intermittent metallic screeching of the loudspeakers pulsing in and out.
They check in, and beside him his mother frets and fusses. Her movements are routine, almost mechanically repetitive- constantly smoothing Holly’s dress down, over and over and over again, even though it’s already perfect. In her face the tightness shows, a coiled tension wound in her jaw, escaping a little in her plastered fake smile. All teeth, no sincerity. Mike aches for her.
He doesn’t want children.
The cobbled streets continue to line with gaggles of people, families splitting apart into their designated areas as the sun rises higher into the sky. Soon it’s time to go, and all Mike can do is hold his mother tight. He hopes it reassures her, because he can’t find the words to do the job for him. Nothing he could say would ever be adequate enough.
When he draws back from her there’s a moment, a moment where he knows exactly what she’s trying to tell him even though she’s saying nothing at all. Her eyes are brimming and he wants to choke, he wants to choke on air and die right here, because just her face is enough to crack him apart. It’s overspilling with desperation and trust and love and a million other emotions and she’s begging him, pleading, to take care of Holly if anything, god forbid, does happen.
Mike gives her a nod, and tries to convey a promise with his eyes. Then he lets go, and the absence of his mother’s arms around him is instantly apparent.
He turns to Nancy. He knows he can’t hold her. To do so would be dangerous. It would push him over the edge, and he can’t afford to look weak. He needs to get away, now, needs to get in line, before he makes a scene and runs for the hills only to be shot down by the bastard Peacekeepers.
With a steadying breath, he starts to weave his way through the bundles of boys lined up in orderly rows on the left side of the square until he’s reached the designated area for his age group. In the crowd he spots his friends: Lucas, Dustin, his other classmates. He can even see Will Byers at the end of one of the rows. He doesn’t know why he makes a particular note of that.
Anticipation builds as the summer sun rises to a full beat. It’s a dry day, a nasty heat. The putrid stench of teenage boy sweat amplifies and the feeling of nausea rises in his throat. He can’t stop thinking of Holly. Her terrified eyes. The way she tried to veil them with bravery.
Eventually their district escort makes his way onto the stage. Steve Harrington. Mike hates the guy. He’s new, only started last year, and young. Handsome. Utterly obnoxious.
The video that plays every year flickers to life on the giant screen above the stage. Mike knows every word of it like he knows the names of every fallen district 4 tribute that he’s watched bleed out on TV every year of his life. He tries to drown it out but such a pursuit is futile when he knows that every word is one word closer to Steve Harrington dipping his silver-spoon fed fingers into that bowl, one word closer to the revelation of fate.
When the video shudders to an abrupt stop, Mike feels his heart start to skip beats and jutter awkwardly. Steve’s hands begin to make their way towards the reaping bowls. Time seems to stretch between seconds as he waits, the fear nestled in his ribs growing to new heights and threatening to overspill. And then:
“First- the girls!”
Mike’s eyes immediately scan for Holly, frantically weaving between dozens of fair-headed girls. He can’t find her, can’t see her, and he knows it’s entirely irrational because she’s there, he knows she is, and yet…
“Jane Hopper!”
Mike’s ears prick in recognition. He knows that name, because everyone does- Jane Hopper is none other than Jim Hopper’s adopted daughter. The adopted daughter of one of the only two surviving District 4 Victors. He’s seen her in passing before- she’s skittish and almost cat-like, sliding in and out of rooms like a ghost, all frizzy brown hair and wide eyes. Pretty, in a way.
Mike dares not to look at Jim Hopper, who he knows is on stage alongside Joyce Byers. It’s part of a victor’s role to stand there, which in itself is bad enough- to have to witness children be marched to their deaths year after year, based only on the unfairness of fate. But to watch one’s own daughter be reaped...
Still, though, he feels a perverse sort of relief. Halfway through the girls, and Holly remains safe. Only one more name to go, and then nothing else will matter.
Then Steve Harrington’s hand dips into the bowl again, and Mike’s entire life falls apart.
“Holly Wheeler!”
He thinks he screams and shouts because his mouth opens but he doesn’t hear it. All he hears is static and the pulsing of his blood and the harrowing cry of his mother somewhere far behind him.
Holly.
His little sister.
It shouldn’t be possible, it isn’t right, no- she was only in the bowl once, there’s kids whose names appear a dozen times in that bowl, no, it can’t be Holly, no- they don’t even take tesserae, they’re lucky enough to not need it-
Mike barely gets a chance to catch his breath before Steve Harrington is dipping his slender fingers into the other bowl. He calls a boy’s name but Mike doesn’t hear it, it’s all dull, because the only thing on his mind is his sister, he has to protect her, and-
“I volunteer as tribute!” The words are spilling from his lips before he has the chance to cage them and then they’re out there, hanging in the air like the electricity in the air before a late summer storm. He hears his mother cry again, but he can’t listen to it, not when Steve Harrington is beckoning him onto the stage and there’s peacekeepers surrounding him in their strong suits with their killing machines in arms, eager to escort him up there. Everything is real, solid, weighted. This is happening and it is he who took the dive.
He breaches the raised platform and the view from up here is wide and sprawling, an endless sea of heads. In the distance he sees his father and his mother and Nancy, Nancy who doesn’t break or shed a tear or even show a shred of emotion or fear. In her face there is only gratitude, sureness; she trusts him to get Holly back to them, trusts that he did what he had to do.
After a few moments that seem to last a lifetime, Steve plucks the final name out.
“Will Byers!”
Mike is almost stunned to the point of collapse. It can’t be possible. The odds…
Behind him, Joyce Byers lets out an air-splitting wail. It’s visceral. Animalistic. It goes straight through his body, piercing the heart. She’s already broken enough. It isn’t fair, Mike thinks. Both victors, now having to watch their children go through the same things they did?
He’s only mildly aware of Steve taking his hand and raising it up into the air, only vaguely of Will on the other side of him. Only vaguely aware of the expensive capitol cologne attacking his nostrils, only vaguely aware of the stricken faces of his friends in the crowd. All he can think about are the other tributes: Jane, standing resolute with a set jaw; Will, trembling from head to toe; and most of all, Holly. Scared, young Holly, standing on the other side of the stage, trying not to let her lip wobble and betray any sign of fear.
It’s only then that Mike realises it: this horrible thing he’s condemned his family to. In volunteering to save her…
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Steve purrs, “Our 4th District Tributes for the 50th Hunger Games!”