the sun has faded

crossing the line

Alex and Debby are quite possibly the most irritating tributes Josh has ever mentored. He generally tries not to think ill of people who have been dragged from their homes and are now likely going to die in the next couple weeks, but he makes an exception just this once.

They disagree with everything he says, roll their eyes every time he turns his back, and for some mysterious reason choose to act as if it's his fault that their names got picked.

"You should have trained us better," Debby tells him as they wait for their training scores to go up. "If you'd taught me a skill I would get a good score!"

"I'm not in charge of teaching you a skill," he snaps. "Maybe you should have been smart and learned something useful over the last seventeen years of your life."

"I didn't know I was going to need to know how to kill people!"

"Oh really?" he asks snidely. "I suppose you never realized the Hunger Games were a thing, did you? You just thought two people from our district were going for a nice, long vacation every year?"

She goes bright red and looks like she would very much like to slap him.

"Shut up," Alex orders. "They're starting to announce the scores."

The careers, as usual, all receive high scores. Victoria stares at him pointedly while District 4's tens are being shown, as though he should be taking notes on how to be a better mentor. The jokes on her, seeing as he knows for a fact that Finnick avoids both his tributes like the plague.

Alex's face flashes on the screen, and then right underneath it, a nine appears.

Josh is shocked. Receiving a nine does not mean that the tribute was fast, or could camouflage himself, or could lift something heavy. A nine meant that he'd been able to demonstrate an actual method of killing other tributes.

"What did you do?" Josh asks suspiciously.

"You'll see," Alex answers smugly.

"You're not supposed to be keeping it a secret from me!" Josh is becoming more and more exasperated. "I need to know what you can do to help me arrange sponsors and come up with a game strategy!"

"I got a six." Debby interjects sulkily. "Not that either of you were paying attention. I suppose you taught Alex a skill. I knew that I would suffer for not having a female mentor. I'll have you know that I do not appreciate the blatant male favouritism happening here."

"'I'm not favouring Alex! I dislike him just as much as I dislike you!"

"Don't lie to me!" she says shrilly. "You favour boys. That's the only explanation for how you could just forgive Tyler Joseph for what he did to Debby last year."

Joshes blood goes cold. "Don't you even start you little bitch." He is dangerously close to the girl now, anger flooding his system, "Do not forget who gets you sponsors, get on my wrong side and you'll starve to death."
Fear flashes in Debby's eyes, but she quickly retaliates, "Is this how you talked to Hanna?" She mocks. Josh is ready to slap her, anything to make her shut up. Before he can reply Debby continues, " Tyler pretends to have feelings for Hanna, tricks her into thinking he loves her back, to the extent that she sacrificed her life for him! Hanna was clearly just a step in his game plan, maybe I should follow her lead." she says, glancing at Alex who was staring at the two of them a smirk playing on his lips.

His head hurts. To be honest, Josh tries his very best to never think about what happened to Hanna. In the back of his mind, however, he always assumed that Tyler and Hanna mutual crushes on each other. He had assumed that her sacrifice had hurt Tyler, not just saved him.

"You're crossing the line," he whispers before backing up, "We should be working on your angles for your interviews with Caesar."

"I could be brave and strong," Alex offers.

"I could be beautiful and kind," Debby says.

Josh laughs, they are definitely both just trying to piss him off. Debby is smirking at him. She knows he won't be able to resist insulting them now. "Alex can be rude and stupid and you can be annoying and stupid," he tells her. "I'm going for a walk."

After about an hour of searching he finds Finnick hiding under a staircase, just like last year. "Your tributes both got tens," he tells him.

Finnick does not respond.

"Alex got a nine. What do you think he did?"

Finnick shrugs. "Beats me. Your tributes are usually worse than useless in their training sessions."

"Do you think Tyler liked Hanna?"

"Yeah, of course he liked her," Finnick looks at him curiously. "They seemed to get along great."

"No...but...did he like her like her?" It was important that someone answers that crucial question for him. He needs Finnick to tell him that of course Tyler liked her liked her. He needs to be told that Hanna's death probably broke his heart. That he'll never love again.

Finnick doesn't say that. "I think you'd have to ask Tyler, mate."

"It doesn't matter anyway," he tells Finnick desperately. "I forgave Johanna for killing Joseph and Milly. I could forgive Tyler for lying to Hanna."

Finnick just nods agreeably. Useless bastard.