Chapter Text
A 3rd person edited account from the journal of District 1 tribute Logan Sargeant.
Logan Sargent didn't have any friends growing up. Only his parents and his brother. But he supposed that was for the best after all. The kids in school all said he was weird and untalented, that he had no purpose for anything. His brother, Dalton, always told him that wasn't true. But he had difficulty believing it most days. However, on days like the reaping the kids in school would leave him alone. Then nobody would tell him he's untalented or useless because they were all equals in this dangerous game.
"Logan come on," his mother called to him. "You can't be late to this."
"Just give us a second," Dalton called back. "Logan look at me. No matter what happens you'll be alright," he tells his younger brother as he fixes the younger's tie.
"Easy for you to say," Logan quipped back. "You're good at stuff."
"And so are you," the older brother corrected as he fixed Logan's tie. "People just don't appreciate the stuff you're good at." The pair did their handshake and nodded before their final salute to each other. The salute began as a small joke because of their last name but ended up staying as a sign of affection.
They did it every year, before Logan was even eligible to be reaped they did it. It was Dalton's good luck action in the same way Logan's was having Dalton do his tie for him.
"Boys come on." Their father called.
Logan took one look at his brother with a smile. "Race you to the town square."
"You're on."
The pair raced down the stairs and past their parents as their laughter filled the air and their parents took their time with a walk behind them, hand in hand, as they watched their two boys chase each other down the streets.
Logan beat Dalton to the line up where they patiently waited for their parents.
"Told you you're good at stuff," Dalton grinned as he caught his breath.
Logan scoffed. "You let me win."
"I'd never do that. We both know I'm too competitive."
Their parents caught up to the boys and bid them both good luck and a short see you after a promise for ice cream after.
Logan stood in front of Dalton in the line as they waved their parents off.
"I wonder if they know I've grown out of ice cream?" Dalton questioned.
"You'd never do that."
The older brother sighed. "I suppose you're right."
As always, Logan hissed in pain when his finger was pricked with a needle and muttered a few cursed under his breath whilst he waited for Dalton.
"Come on you'll get over it," the older Sargent brother said while he pushed his younger brother forwards towards the crowd of teenagers. "Alright this is where we split," Dalton said when he reaches the section of the boys for the 17 year olds.
"You'll be fine. I'll meet you at 4th with Mum and Dad afterwards and we'll get ice cream like always," Dalton said as they do their handshake one last time before Logan walked away.
He'd only take a few steps before he hears the familiar call of his name. He turned around and gets hugged by his brother. "What's this for?" Logan asked as he reciprocated the action.
The two brothers rarely hugged each other unless one was frightened or afraid. Their quick signature handshake was the most affection they would get.
"It- I- well- I just-," Dalton stumbled over his words. "Something just doesn't feel right about this." He hugged his younger brother a little tighter.
"You'll be fine," Logan promised and hugged him a little tighter. "You're always fine."
He let go and walked away again with a large smile and a small wave. Logan took his steps away from his brother and towards the other boys in his district that were his age. A few cast him odd looks and shoved past him ever so slightly.
He stood beside some people who weren't weirded out by him or didn't seem him as less than. The heat made it awkward and uncomfortable in the long sleeve shirt he wore and the thick material of the trousers just made him sweat even more.
But then the escort graced the stage. Since the rebellion the opening presentation had changed, a new message needed to be sent to the districts. One that would show the districts' places once and for all.
"People of District One," the escort, Elijah, called to the people. "The people of the Capitol send you a message. A reminder of the freedoms they gave you. Freedoms from the restrictions of the old ways. Freedoms from the villainous Snow," she cried dramatically. "But now, like the citizens of the former District 13, you have the chance to become a Capitol citizen. You have a chance to earn your way into wealth and comfort. As a reminder that hard work and struggle is rewarded, by winning the Hunger Games you and your family are transported to glory and beauty for a life in the Capitol."
That part always made Logan and his family scoff and roll their eyes. Murder and trauma with a 23 in 24 chance of death for a better life? He'd rather stay where he is. Many mentors had a similar thought process to Logan, stay at their home districts, don't leave for the Capitol. Some even chose to move to other districts, quieter ones where less people would bother them.
"In order to enhance the chances of becoming a beautiful citizen of the Capitol," Elijah began. This was the big announcement, the big reveal of the Quarter Quell twist. "There will be double the amount of tributes. A total of 48 tributes. However a reminder must remain to remember what kept the Districts divided in the past. Therefore there shall be two arenas, one for the boys and one for the girls. The bowls will be separate and the everyone’s slip numbers will be doubled.”
Oh. Well that wasn’t good. His chances of death were doubled. Dalton had been right to worry. Logan should’ve started to panic sooner.
Logan had done the maths before, a total of 2295 people between the ages of 12 and 18 had lost their lives in these games. Now a further 47 people would. What was done to deserve this fate?
"The boys and girls will be kept separate and will remain unknown to each other," Elijah explained as the Peacekeepers began to take the girls away into the town hall away from prying eyes. The final slam of the door well and truly bought the severity of this situation to Logan's attention.
If this was prior to the overthrow of president Snow, Logan would've been laughing. He knew his district had a blood thirsty history. A former love of the games that had been blown out like a candle. But since Coin has taken over, any academies had been shut down and did annexed. Preparing for the Games was well and truly illegal instead of overlooked like it had been. Since then people had almost stopped volunteering to go in.
Instead Logan is trapped with worry, a rule had been put in the quarter quell bowls were to be mixed but any amount of a person's name was to be doubled. Usually his name was only in six times but now it was 12 with larger odds of his name being drawn out.
"Now for the lucky names to be selected,"Elijah called with her stupid green and blue curly wig bouncing around as she walked towards the bowl and plucked to pieces of paper as carelessly as Logan might pick up a pebble.
"Our first tribute, Lance Stroll," Elijah called.
Everyone knew Lance Stroll, son of mayor Stroll. He was a year older than Logan and his dark brown hair bounced up and down as he nervously walked out of the crowd. Nerves must've overtaken the older boy, he trembled more and more with every step that he took. Anxiously, he cast glances around from the top of the stage. It was almost as if he was trying to send a silent plea for help.
"Lovely to meet you, sweetie, and our second name is," the paper began to unfold in her hands and Logan held his breath. He was so close to freedom. "Logan Sargeant."
Fuck.
An icy chill made its way up Logan's veins and down his spine. His heart had sunk to his stomach but the bile in his throat began to rise and his his heart began to race as the boys beside him began to clear space for him to move up. Nervously, he began to walk towards the stage and up the stairs. The square was silent aside from a few snickers at the way he stumbled.
Thoughts rushed from edge to edge in his brain as endless possibilities of a cruel and undeserving death creeped in. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes but he managed to keep them at bay, barely. His breathing was shaky and unpredictable and his legs felt like someone was repeatedly hitting the backs of his knees with a hammer, trying to get him to fall. But he couldn't. He had to stand strong. For his honour and his image in the Games.
When he finally made it onto the stage, Logan locked eyes with his brother and shook his head. He wasn't going to make Dalton give up his life for Logan's stupid luck. But Dalton stuck his hand up and began to utter those foolish words.
"I vol-."
"I revoke," Logan said and grabbed the mic out of Elijah's hands. A new law, that Logan was now grateful for, stated that volunteers could be revoked by the original chosen tribute. "I revoke his volunteer and choose to go into the arena as a tribute of District One."
Dalton looked heartbroken, like someone had pulled his heart from his body and torn it in two right in front of him.
"Well then District One's two volunteers. Lance Stroll and a victory-keen Logan Sargeant," Elijah said and raised the hands of the two boys in the air as she led them away towards the town hall where they could say their final goodbye, guiding them with a hand on their backs.
Logan wanted to shove her hand away, like it was made of a scalding hot iron that burnt him at the touch. He didn’t want anyone to touch him. He just wanted his family.
"Victory keen" Logan thought. Victory meant nothing in comparison to the safety of his older brother.
Lance and Logan shared a few glances as they were led away from their families for what could be the last time.
Logan's "goodbye room", as he was calling it, was bigger than Logan and Dalton's shared bedroom at home. The walls were white along the patterned wood and a sea foam green on the top with a chandelier neatly spreading light around the room with the assistance of the sun that tiptoed through the white painted window frame. He was most likely around two floors from the ground.
Curiosity over took him and he looked down at the ground from the windowsill.
Would this type of fall kill me? He pondered. Would it break his neck upon immediate impact? Would it break his bones? Would he be left curled in a ball wishing for a merciful god to let him be unrecoverable so he couldn't go to the Games? Or would he be sobbing and begging a doctor not to heal him so he didn't have to go? Would this be more merciful that whatever fate he was about to face in the Games?
Logan snapped out of his thoughts when the oak doors opened to reveal his parents and without a single hesitation he ran into their arms like he did when he came home from school as a child.
"Oh my boy," his mother sobbed. "My sweet little boy."
"You have thirty minutes until the next goodbye."
This was the first time Logan had cried in a long long time and it may be the last time he cried in his life. How poetic. The first and last time he may cry it was in the arms of a parent.
"They can't make me go can they?" He sobbed quietly. "This is all a nightmare I can wake up from, isn't it?"
He already knew the answer.
"I wish it was, son, I wish it was. But it's not,"his father said as he took a step back from Logan. Both his parents were alive and in training centres when they were overlooked and in twenty five minutes, they shared every bit of knowledge they could bring to the forefronts of their mind and share with Logan.
"We have five minutes now," his father said as his mother finished teaching their youngest how to make a bandage in the forrest.
Logan didn't hesitate before flinging his arms around his parents' necks and pulling them in closely. "Please don't make me go."
If they heard, they ignored his quiet plea. Perhaps it was because they knew they couldn't save him.
"Logan we love you so so much," his mother said as tears almost spilled from her eyes.
"I love you too."
"Be brave and come home," said his father, in a feeble attempt to act like they had control of the situation.
"I will."
A promise with no guarantee of being kept.
"What about my token?"
"Dalton has it. He's coming in after us. We thought we'd give you two time," explained his mother.
Will there be enough time to say everything though? Logan wondered. Were there even enough words in his home language to express everything he wanted to?
A peacekeeper opened the door, which startled Logan, and revealed Dalton with his messy shirt and red eyes.
The older Sargeant boy ran forwards to engulf both his parents in his hug one last time with his brother. Logan couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so safe. But like his plans, that safety was brutally torn from him by the uncaring hands of a peacekeeper, who dragged his mother and father away.
"No!" His mother screamed. "Don't take him from me!"
"Logan we love you. Come home to us!" His father called and the doors closed again, taking away Logan's final glimpse of his parents.
Then there was two. The two who were still frightened and eligible. The one who would leave and the one who would stay. The one who would die and the one who would live on with the knowledge that he could've been saved.
"You fucking idiot," Dalton said and pulled his brother into a hug. "Why didn't you let me go?"
Logan tentatively wrapped his arms around his brother's neck. "I didn't want to watch you die."
"So now I'm left with the guilt of knowing I could've saved you?"
"One of us would've had that guilt."
Dalton is left without words and between them they both know that he's right. Eventually, they let go of each other and Logan noticed his older brother's tears. Dalton was never one to cry, that was always Logan. His older brother always guided him through difficult emotional times with a stronger look and a smile. It was never the other way around.
"You don't have to cry."
"I'm- I'm sorry," Dalton sobbed quietly and wiped his tears away quickly.
"For what?" Logan smiled. "I'm crying too.
"I was the one who stole your favourite pair of lucky socks when you were seven."
Logan laughed. Of all the things Dalton could’ve apologised for, stealing his socks wasn’t the one that he’d expected to hear. "It alright. They're just socks. They don't mean anything. If it makes you feel better I was the one who told Jenifer Parson you liked her."
"Why'd you do that for?"
"I thought it would end up like mum and dad's relationship where it turned out she liked you back and you stayed together for life."
Dalton laughed harder than Logan did at the fact about his socks. "In my defence I was ten," Logan pointed out.
"Fine fine."
It didn't seem like much to them but to the brothers, spending their half an hour together sharing their secrets and confessions was better than anything Logan could've asked for.
"I can't believe you did that," Logan cackled at his brother's confession.
"I didn't mean to it just happened and I went with it," Dalton defended and looked at the time. "Shit we've only got three minutes, I need to give you your token."
Logan's heart dropped and his breathing began to pick up speed. It was all starting to become a little bit too real for him. But Dalton pulled him out of his panic by tapping his shoulder.
"I've got your favourite lucky socks I stole from you," he said and held the blue striped white socks in front of his brother. A simple yet quick hug was his sign of gratitude.
"Thanks for keeping them safe all these years," replied the younger brother as he began to change out of his boring black socks and into his lucky ones.
"Just prove they really were lucky and come home."
"I wouldn't wanna do it any other way."
A booming voice fills the room after the doors slam open and Logan gives his brother one last hug.
"I'll be home before you know it," he promised.
As his brother was dragged out the door by the arm, he saluted the younger of the pair and told him he loved him. The younger brother saluted back but the doors slammed shut before Logan could respond with those four important words. Once more he was alone with his thoughts and the sound of his shaky breaths.
The Sargeant family had never been particularly religious and Logan followed up on that tradition but he couldn't help but ask what God he'd pissed off to end up here.
****
Slow any bleeding by applying pressure
Rub a plant against your wrist and wait to see for a reaction. Then eat a small bit. If there's no reaction it's safe.
Just because an animal can eat it doesn't mean you can.
If-
His attempted memory test was cut off by the irritating sound of Lance's heel hitting the floor of the carriage on a rhythm.
The pounding of his heel against the floor of the carriage they were in began was hitting Logan's brain like a hammer would hit a nail. Time after time his heel would hit the floor and every time it would travel down his ear canal and claw away at his brain until Logan reached his breaking point.
"Fucking hell you stop that?" He snapped harshly.
Lance froze what he was doing and stared at Logan like a deer in the headlights.
"What?"
"You know what the weird bouncy thing."
"What?"
Logan was beginning to get irritated and was about to snap again before Lance got the idea.
"Oh my heel. Right sorry just- I'm just I-."
"Scared? Anxious? Terrified? Pissing yourself?"
"All of the above," Lance replied.
Logan nodded in reply. "Me too."
Silence fell between them again but it wasn't uncomfortable or tense or awkward. Just distracting.
A few more moments passed before Logan blurted out, "your shoelaces are untied. And sorry for snapping at you. I didn’t mean to I’m just on edge a little.”
Lance sent him a strange look then looked down to see the blond was right. "Oh. Thanks." He lent forwards to tie them up but instead of saying your welcome all Logan could think about was how easy it would be to stab him if he were in the Games with a knife at that point. Just to get a head start on his competition.
What am I already becoming?
"I think we’re both on edge right now, huh?” Lance said with an awkward smile.
“Yeah,” Logan mumbled. “Feels like someone’s about to kill me here and now.”
“I thought that was just me.”
“Nah me too.” Another silence fell across the two as they began to lose themselves in their own thoughts once more. Logan rubbed his shoe up against his trouser leg to get a glimpse of his lucky socks. This would be a real test for them now.
“Hey whatever happens with our mentor can we just stick together?" Lance asked, he bit his lip nervously. "Make a plan together on how to help each other in case our mentor is useless. Or try to help each other with our strengths and weaknesses in training? Or try to find out as much information and share it with each other when we're in our rooms? Just to get a head start?"
"Help each other out you mean?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah we can. We might not be allied in the Games but that doesn't mean we can't have a head start."
Without thinking, Logan extended his hand and Lance shook it without hesitation.
"Deal."
The rest of the trip was silent and Lance seemed to be in his own head. All Logan could think about was the gruesome thought he'd had when Lance was tying his shoelace. What was he becoming?