Chapter 2

He knows it’s crazy. He really didn’t even know what it was. Probably nothing.  He was just imagining things.  The blue-eyed boy was just another competitor. Nothing. Nothing at all.  For God’s sake, it was only a five second glance anyways.

Yeah, it was nothing.

After President Snow made his typical “Welcome to Panem” speech (utter crap if you asked Blaine) the tributes were whisked to the tower where they would sleep and eat until the games.  Blaine made his way into his room across from Cindy’s and looked around.  It was huge! Much larger than any room he’d ever been in.  He had a decent view, despite the fact that their floor was only three stories up.  It was very high-tech as well.  There was a station in the corner that could give you any food you wanted in a matter of seconds and a closet that seemed to already have all of the clothes Blaine would need for the next few days (though he didn’t think he’d be dressing himself).    

He had time to jump in the shower; he needed one just to get rid of the gross lotions and grimy make up on his skin.  Even the shower was high-tech.  It was ironic, seeing all the technology.  Though District 3’s specialty was technology, Blaine had never had much of a chance to use it.  Of course, he knew exactly how to work it all, he’d grown up designing it, but it was still a new experience.    He’d never really been allowed to know exactly what happened to the products made in District 3.  Which, to be honest, was strange in and of itself, why wouldn’t they be allowed to know?  It seemed wrong to him, that all of it would end up here even though the people of Panem did nothing for it.

When he was done showering, he jumped out and grabbed the nearest towel.  He walked out into the bedroom and realized he had no idea what to wear.  He’d never had so many options.  He found the safest red t-shirt he could find and a pair of khakis.

Blaine plopped down on the bed and sighed.  He didn’t think about anything.  He couldn’t allow himself that luxury, not now.

A few moments later, there was a knock at the door followed by a high-pitched voice that he recognized as Caesara’s.  “Blaine, honey, come out for dinner!”

Blaine groaned, and slowly got to his feet.  When he made his way to the dining room, he realized everyone was already sitting around the table, Cindy, Caesara and Gilford, their mentor.  The meal was laid out, some fancy dish Blaine knew he’d never eaten before.

They ate dinner while Caesara and Gilford chatted about how the chariot parade had gone. Blaine and Cindy remained quiet.  As Blaine half-listened to the conversation, he heard Caesar’s implication that the District 3 performance hadn’t been quite as exemplary as she’d hoped.  Blaine knew that he had to do well in presenting himself the next few days if he wanted any hope at winning, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care.  Everything seemed moot at this point.

After dinner they watched the broadcast of the parade, and then they all headed for bed.    

Blaine couldn’t sleep.  Thoughts of the games and his home were racing through his mind and he just couldn’t do it.  He remembered that he could get on the elevator whenever he wanted, so he quietly climbed out of bed and left his room.  The elevator opened quietly, fortunately, and he got in.  The only place he could think to go that would clear his mind is the roof so he pressed the button.     

When he arrived at the top, he walked out into the expanse and just felt the night air.  It was nice.  The fresh air made him feel invigorated.  After the exhilaration subsided, he realized he wasn’t alone.

The boy with the blue eyes.

Why was he up here?  He was standing near the edge of the rooftop, holding something in his hands.  Against his better judgment (which told him to turn away and go back downstairs), Blaine walked closer.  The boy was saying something, quietly.  What he was holding looked like some sort of bracelet.  It shone slightly under the light of the moon.  Blaine was about ten feet away from him, but decided it wasn’t close enough; he wanted to hear what the other boy was saying. He was curious. 

Suddenly, Blaine felt an overwhelming need to sneeze.    He couldn’t do anything about it, or hold it off long enough to get back to the door.  Oh, come on, he thought, Now? Really?

It happened, and the effect is immediate.  The boy turned around quickly, with a shocked look on his face.  Though, almost as quickly as it happened, the look disappeared, replaced with a cocky smirk. 

“So is this your way of spying on the competition?  You’re very good at it, I probably wouldn’t have even known you were there, if it wasn’t for all the noise,” he said, sarcastically.  Blaine saw something in his eyes, hinting that the sarcasm was familiar to him, but there was also emptiness.  His heart wasn’t in it.

“Umm…” Blaine attempted. He wasn’t really sure how one responded in such a situation.

“Okay, well, anyways,” the boy continued, “Kurt Hummel, and you are?”  He reached out his hand.

“Blaine….um, Anderson,” he hesitated before grabbing the other boy’s hand.

“Well, Blaine, Um Anderson, it’s nice to see you can speak.”

Blaine finally gathered the courage to ask what was on his mind. “Why are you up here?”

Kurt seemed taken aback, but responded, “I guess the same reason you are…You know, fresh air and such…”

Blaine wanted to ask what was in his hand, and why he had been talking earlier, but he decided to just let it pass.

“Well, come sit down,” Kurt said, gesturing towards a slightly raised platform on the roof.

They sat in awkward silence before Blaine spoke up.

“Are we supposed to do this? You know, fraternize with the enemy?”

“Well at the moment, we are not trying to rip each other’s throats out, so I don’t see a problem with it. Besides, I don’t think they even have cameras up here.”

“How do you know?”

“Have you ever seen videos of the tributes on the roof?”

“Oh, well no…I guess not”

Silence, again. 

“I wonder what the arena will be like,” Kurt, finally said.

“Probably somewhere cold, I hate the cold.”

“Nah, they wouldn’t do that, not again.”

“Why not?” Blaine asked, confused.

“Remember that one year, in that barren cold wasteland? They all went insane, and most of them froze to death, not much fun for viewers.” For some unknown reason, Kurt smiled at this.

“Oh, true, can’t have people dying of their own accord. There must be murder!”

And for some reason, Kurt started laughing, despite the severity of the topic.  Despite their current situation. And despite the fact that it wasn’t even funny.  Kurt laughing made Blaine laugh. So there they were, both laughing. 

And everything seemed fine for a few minutes.  Even when their laughter died off, Kurt continued the conversation to other years of the games they had both watched and they talked for a good hour.

“It’s nice, you know, talking to someone,” Kurt ventured, once their conversation had basically come to a close.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Much better than attempting conversation with that wretch from my district.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah well, she’s just one of your typical snobs.  Even though, really, people from the Districts have no right to be, our lives kind of suck in general.  I’m almost kind of glad she’s in the Games,” Kurt added with a slight grin.

“How- how can you even say that?” No one deserved to be here, no matter how horrible a person they were.  No one deserved to be put in an arena to be slaughtered for fun.  How could someone even think like that?

He stood up, abruptly and began to walk away.  His nerves were on edge anyways, the last thing he needed was someone acting like this was all just some little game of Karma.

He heard Kurt’s voice from behind him, “No, wait!  I- I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just, I mean, we’re all going to die anyways right?” Blaine turned around and saw that Kurt looked sad.  It was the first sign of remorse he’d seen from the blue-eyed boy, and so he stopped walking.  Kurt continued, urged on by Blaine’s attention. “We might as well look at it as retribution.  I’m probably going to die just like she is, who knows, she might even kill me.”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know it just seems like, there isn’t any fate in this, it’s just…well it’s just a game.  A mistake, a whim.  And no one seems to care.”

“But that’s just it isn’t it?  No one does care and there’s nothing we can do about it, except see it how we want to.”

Blaine thought for a minute, and then decided the conversation needed to be over. “We should go to sleep.”

“Yeah.”  They walked toward the elevator together.

The ride down was quiet, but not awkward and when Blaine had to get out, he said simply, “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

He saw Kurt nod before the doors closed and he walked toward his room. He fell onto his bed, and tried to go to sleep.  One thing was for sure, the Games and home weren’t on his mind anymore, but what was, was equally disturbing.

What was he doing, making friends? He knew he shouldn’t get attached to people, that was dangerous.  And who knew what would happen when they got into the arena.  Kurt could be a blood-seeking killer, then what? 

On a different note, Blaine had had plenty of friends in his lifetime.  But this didn’t feel like any of those, but it couldn’t be anything else, right? No, of course not.

The next morning, Blaine woke up and walked into their dining are to find everyone already sitting to breakfast.

“Oh, there he is, we didn’t want to wake you, darling!” Caesara said, a little too excitedly, as he took a seat at the table.

“Mmmm,” Blaine acknowledged.

“Well today’s going to be a big day!” Caesara continued. Soon she was engrossed in a conversation with Gilford and their stylist, Hortia.  They were discussing the children’s out fits and how they should hold themselves throughout the day, as well as how they should speak when spoken to.  They were talking so enthusiastically about things that seemed so negligible to the circumstances. Cindy looked up at Blaine with a smile.  Blaine smiled back and they shared a knowing glance.  Their shoulders shook with silent laughter at the ridiculous conversation and they both looked back down at their food.

Next up was the first training session.  When he and Cindy arrived at the arena, hardly anyone was there, which was to be expected.  Caesara had told them it was better to be punctual, so she had sent them down half an hour early.

As people slowly trickled in, Blaine was subconsciously searching their faces for the one he wanted to see.  When Kurt finally walked in, he joined the small subgroup of “careers” reluctantly.  When everyone had arrived, the head trainer told them to form a circle, and then she began to speak.

Welcome to training,” she said. “Here, you will be able to sharpen your skills before your arrival in the arena. We hope that you will take advantage of all of the stations set up.  There will be no fighting between tributes, you will have plenty of time for that later.”  She proceeded to read a list of stations and then let them go. 

Blaine led Cindy toward the least lethal looking station.  Camouflaging.  Cindy took to it pretty easily, claiming that she had been enrolled in the art class at District 3.  As they made their rounds to other stations, Blaine was beginning to realize that he didn’t have much of a skill.  Of any kind at all.

This could not be good.

When lunch rolled around he and Cindy sat at a table in the corner.  Most of the other districts sat alone as well, some tributes not even with their fellow district member, but the careers all sat together.  Districts 1, 2 and 4.  Blaine had never really understood why District 3 hadn’t been a part of the cliquey group.  He supposed it had something to do with the fact that District 3 had been one of the more rebellious districts back during the rebellion, so many years ago.

He felt a tap on his should and jumped.  He turned around to see Kurt eyeing the seat next to him. 

“Can I sit?” he asked nodding toward the chair.

“Um, yeah sure I guess,” Blaine said, confused. “Why, though?”

“I just don’t want to be over there. Do you mind?”

“Er. No, I suppose not.”

“Good, so we can move on?” Kurt snapped, before turning to Cindy who was adamantly ignoring the pair, while twirling her fork through the food on her plate. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself.  Kurt Hummel, District 2.” He, once again, held out his hand in her direction.

Cindy looked up, and stared his hand before excitedly grabbing it and saying, “Cynthia Trevish, um District 3.”

Blaine started at that, “Wait, your name is Cynthia?”

“Yeah, I just go by Cindy, I don’t like Cynthia very much.”

Blaine felt bad, sure, he hadn’t known her very well, but he had known her before coming here, and should at least have known that. Hadn’t they even said Cynthia during the reaping?  How could he be so ignorant?

“Kind of ignorant, isn’t he?” Kurt said, with a smile.

Cindy- Cynthia- giggled and said, “He really didn’t have a reason to know that, it’s okay.”

Blaine decided that it wasn’t that big of a deal, but he still felt guilty.  He also realized that he didn’t want Cindy to die.  Why did she have to? She was such a sweet girl.  He’d have to do whatever he could to keep her safe.  But how could he?  Only one person would come out of this thing alive.  He really needed to stop getting attached to people. 

Kurt and Cindy continued talking and Cindy was laughing almost the whole time.  Kurt was good with her, made her feel comfortable, it seemed. 

When they went back to training, Kurt followed them to each station, much to Blaine’s surprise.  Why was Kurt so opposed to the careers? He had grown up as one after all.

As the day draws to a close, Kurt asks Blaine to meet him on the roof again, just to talk. After consideration, Blaine obliges. What could be the harm in one more little chat?