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Fic: Predator (The Hunger Games)
Title: Predator
Characters: Claudius, Eibhlin, Lyme (Gen)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violent imagery, a wee bit of foul language
Summary: Claudius doesn't know if he was born a killer or just trained to it, but he has no doubt what he is.
A/N: The ficlet is set in the chemistry 'verse, and as such cribs extensively from the work of
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lorataprose, especially Fixed to a Star and the forthcoming Divergence, Part II. No actions, thoughts, or other elements of this story are binding on lorataprose's 'verse. Eibhlin's been chattering about going to see the eagle pair that have taken up residence at the base of the mountains since Brutus reported spotting them during his last hike. So when Claudius' day off from the Center finally comes, he's surprised she isn't on the porch of Odin's house, hiking boots on, ready to go, go, go. Claudius shades his eyes to look through the screen door and locates his quarry--sitting in a cage?
Claudius raps once on the door and announces himself before opening it and stepping into the living room. He makes a beeline for the side where a three-foot high wire barrier that runs the length of the room has been set up about two feet from the wall. The bottom of the enclosure is lined with carpet remnants and towels. In the center, Eibhlin sits cross-legged, nose buried in a book, seemingly oblivious to the two--no, three--rabbits that hop around her. She seems oblivious to Claudius, too, but then, Eibhlin wears both a watch and a comm yet often has no idea how much time has passed once she’s caught up in a project, so Claudius doesn't think anything of having to remind her.
"Eibhlin, it's ten--"
Without looking up, Eibhlin raises a finger to her lips and makes a quiet 'shh' sound.
Claudius has a lot more patience than he did when he was young, but Eibhlin has an unfortunate tendency to test it. He rocks back and forth between his feet for a moment, looks around for Beetee, hoping for a clue of what to do next, then scrubs a hand over his face. Just as he makes up his mind to leave, Eibhlin draws a ribbon from the back of the book, lays it between the pages to mark her place, and finally looks up.
“Good morning, Claudius,” she whispers.
Something about the whisper kills his irritation dead. Claudius drops into a crouch and matches her volume as he returns, “Good morning, Eibhlin. Are we still going for a walk out to the eagle nest?”
Claudius keeps his amusement to himself as he watches the reminder click in her brain and Eibhlin’s mouth make a little o-shape. “I didn’t--I don’t think so. I want to see, but the rabbits. I’m responsible for them now, and I have to acclimatize them to my presence.”
Claudius is on the verge of asking why she’s suddenly taking care of three rabbits when it hits him: these are the last of the kill test animals. It’s been the better part of a year since the Victors took over the Center and started working to transition the kids who were in Residential when the war began. Claudius spends most of his time working directly with the kids; not therapy, really, but the activities he does with the younger teens give them an opportunity to see what’s on the other side of the Center, and when they’re comfortable, start asking questions. He didn’t think he’d be any good at it, but it turns out Lyme was right; it’s not so much knowing the right answers as being willing to listen.
But there is one duty at the Center he has been avoiding: caring for the kill test animals. Claudius passed his animal test first time out, no problem, but he didn’t enjoy it. Humans have done a lot of shitty things to Claudius over the years, but no animal ever hurt him without a reason. Still, Claudius picked up the puppy, moved his hands through the warm fur, and snapped the tiny neck quick and businesslike because the Center told him it was the only way to get to where he needed to go. Fifteen years later he has no regrets--if he didn’t make tribute, he’d be dead, plain and simple, and knowing what he does now, he’d kill a room full of baby animals if they stood between him and Lyme--but that doesn’t mean he wants to dwell on the memory.
Lyme’s been handling the re-homing. It would have been easier to just euthanize the animals, but killing them because the Center no longer needs them seems like the only thing worse than killing them to test the trainees. It was rough going at first; with so few supplies coming into the District, not many people were looking for another mouth to feed (and that’s before they consider where the animal is coming from). Things are much better now, but Claudius guesses it’s still a lot easier to place dogs that can provide protection or cats that can perform mousing duties than it is to place the rabbits, whose main purpose in life seems to be sitting dumbly in their enclosure and eating.
Claudius is kind of glad they’re not dead, but he still doesn’t want to spend the morning sitting on the floor, staring at them. He tries to pack his nerves away and see if they can speed this up a bit. “Well, if they need to get used to you, why don’t you just pick them up and stroke them a bit. I’m sure they’d love that.”
“Oh, no, Claudius,” says Eibhlin, still somehow able to wedge her familiar ‘don’t-be-silly’ tone into the whisper. “The book says I need to be still and quiet, and let them come to me. It’s the most expedient method of acquiring their trust. I can’t manipulate or force them, else they’ll be afraid. They’re prey animals.”
Eibhlin keeps talking but Claudius can’t hear her over the rushing noise that’s flooding his ears, ringing those words over and over. His heart is racing faster and faster, and he squeezes his eyes closed to try to shut it down, like he’s done many times before, but before he can something inside him tears loose and he sees it: launching from the crouch, covering the distance between them in less than a second, slamming her head against the wall, then against the floor, and closing his hands over the bird bones of her bare neck. Only enough time for her eyes to widen in shock and fear before he puts the light out of them forever.
Claudius forces his eyes open as he stumbles out of the crouch and skitters back, but it’s too late. His mind overlays the images of each of his kills: knives, swords, bare hands; criminals, Careers, twelve-year-olds; blood, blood, blood. Each of the images fall one on another with perfect clarity, the only deviation from the actual moment that each body has long red hair and pale skin.
Claudius pushes backwards until his head strikes the edge of an end table, jolting him into standing. Eibhlin scrambles to her feet, then begins to open the gate of the enclosure. “What’s wrong--”
He puts out his hands, trying to ward her off. “Don’t! I--I have to go.” The room spins as he turns and pushes himself out the door.
“I need to spar. Now.” Claudius is out of breath, but it’s not from the run to Lyme’s house.
Even though he’s disturbing her from a quiet morning she thought she’d have to herself, Lyme just steps past him onto the front lawn, shucks her shoes and falls into the ready position.
Claudius comes at her harder than he has in years, trying to push all of the aggression out of his skin and into the one place he knows it will be safe. Even this doesn’t catch her off guard; showing up in the way he did must have tripped all the wires necessary to bring her mentor instincts to the fore. Lyme is ready for his swift, brutal attack, and answers him with equal force.
There’s no art in their moves, just a crash of energies as he tries to overwhelm her and she pushes him back and down. He wants to give in and let Lyme’s larger frame pin him solidly to the earth while she tells him everything’s going to be alright, to feel the familiar comfort of her weight and words, but he can’t indulge himself. There’s something oily and sick roiling just under his skin; Claudius needs Lyme to beat it out of him.
He launches again and again, using all the strengths he has, aimed at every weakness he’s ever sensed; the knee that she injured in the battle for the Capitol, the positions that give his smaller frame an advantage, even maneuvering to try to put the sun in her eyes. None of them give him more than a momentary edge, and his heart sings as a blow lands squarely and he tastes the blood welling up in his mouth.
After long minutes of going full-out, Lyme’s longer legs sweep Claudius’ out from under him, and the force of his fall pushes all the air from his body. Lyme comes down with him, forearm up and under his chin, narrowing his ability to pull it back in. Her knees are heavy on his arm and torso, but the pain is achingly reassuring.
“Tell me.”
It’s a command, overriding all of his shame. Claudius blurts, “I’m going to hurt Eibhlin.”
Lyme presses harder on the points of contact between them, puts her face in his and growls, “No, you’re not. I would never let you.”
At last, the creeping desperation washing over his mind begins to fade. When his shallow, panting breaths slow, Lyme eases back the pressure, though still maintaining solid contact. “Tell me what happened.”
Claudius walks through his morning step by step, just like they used to. When he gets to the vision his words stumble as the images return to his mind, less vivid but still striking. Lyme listens, her expression never wavering.
Without a hint of the disgust he fears, Lyme asks, “She missed your appointment, then blew you off. How angry were you?”
The constant pressure of her weight gives Claudius a sense of reassurance that allows him to revisit the emotions of those moments, to color in the bare facts of what he saw and said and did. After a few moments of searching consideration, he’s surprised when he concludes, “Not very. I was irritated, at first, because she wouldn’t answer me, but--”
“Did you want to hurt her then?”
“No.” Claudius is surprised at how strongly he feels it. When he was fresh out of the arena, all kinds of small things would trigger his rage--sidelong looks from civilians, inane remarks from the escort or prep team--but this morning was nothing like that. It was awkward and kind of annoying, but when she finally looked up, even that had already melted away. And besides, the Threes’ comical reactions to being caught in error--by cave-dwelling Twos, no less--are generally worth whatever inconvenience comes with them.
“So, you didn’t feel it until...” Lyme’s prompting leads him through the rest of the encounter; he feels the echo of the stress building to anxiety and then panic, but nothing of the fury that powered his so many of his violent incidents.
“I... I,” Claudius gropes for the missing piece, but comes up empty. Lyme eases back, lifting her arm from under his chin.
“You’re not going to hurt her because you don’t want to hurt her,” she says, voice quieter but no less firm. She slides a hand to the back of his neck and gives it a squeeze before flipping herself on to the grass beside him.
Lyme does a quick scan of the yard, then fists her hand in Claudius’ collar and without warning, drags his still-sprawled body over to the nearest tree. Before he has time to protest, she slides down its side and, with one more quick yank, arranges his head in her lap.
Lyme’s covers his breastbone with her left hand, pressing down to slow his breathing, while her right cards through his hair, massaging his scalp in the way that usually calms him quick. Claudius closes his eyes and lets the light breeze rustling the leaves above cool his sweaty skin. When Lyme judges him settled enough, she tugs at his hair, prompting him. Claudius fists the grass at his sides as he fights to find the words.
“I just... I’m not doubting you, but, if I didn’t want to hurt her, why would I imagine that? I’m not fresh anymore; I shouldn’t need to be drugged not to be a danger.”
Lyme forces a heavy breath through her teeth, then runs her hand through his hair again. “D, we’re all fresh out. We were in an arena that went on for months rather than weeks, watched our friends get killed or maimed and... Dammit, I think I got more sleep in the arena than I did in Thirteen.”
The breeze is warm and gentle, but Claudius still shudders. He has a lot of bad memories from the war, but Thirteen was the worst. From the minute they arrived, their ‘allies’ made it clear Lyme and Claudius were there on sufferance, no better than the Capitol forces the fought and only tolerated because someone familiar with Two’s defenses and strategies would be needed to break the Capitol’s key resource. Every failed raid or downed ship was deemed Lyme’s fault, and any information that didn’t pan out made their loyalty suspect (as if giving up everyone they ever cared for to live in that gray, dank, Games-damned hole in the ground wasn’t proof enough). Claudius was even made to recite he was a killer each time he picked up meals or supplies. Only knowing that he needed to keep it together to get his mentor through the ordeal kept Claudius from demonstrating how right they were.
Lyme’s fingers move to rub at the crease between his brows; he must be scrunching up his face in disgust. “I know it’s frustrating. I get angry, too, sometimes, at little things that would have rolled off me before, but... When you think about how long it took to get straight the first time, and how much longer and...” Lyme presses hard on his forehead, like she’s trying to shove all her thoughts in his head the direct route. “It just doesn’t surprise me that we might find a few new triggers here and there that need to be smoothed out. It's not a permanent condition, it's just going to take some work.”
It's not a physical blow, but it knocks him all the same. Claudius pushes all the stale, contaminated breath out his nose, and waits as long as he can before filling his lungs with the fresh, new air. He’s beaten this before, he can damn well do it again, especially without the Games and the lies and watching Lyme get torn down by the death of her kids year after year. Still, he can’t open his eyes until he asks, “Should I hold back on hanging out with Eibhlin, ‘til we’re sure?”
Lyme’s hands still for a moment, and Claudius appreciates that she’s genuinely considering instead of dismissing him, even if he’s been acting like a kid. He keeps his concentration on his breathing until she answers.
“I’m pretty sure this was just a one-time flashback. You walked in, not expecting to see her holding a kill test animal, and she starts talking about prey, and with the way Thirteen drilled that killer talk into your head, and not really seeing her Games...”
Life’s just full of happy memories for Claudius today. No, he didn’t watch Eibhlin’s Games. That was the year Lyme’s was being punished for everything she pulled to get him out of the arena. The death of her next tribute was the price. Lyme asked him not to watch, and after everything she’d done for him, he could hardly defy her.
He knows there were chemicals and traps, and yeah, Eib’s a genius. But he was also raised to see outliers as meat tributes. As prey.
He grinds his teeth as the last piece falls into place. Lyme resumes stroking his hair, and doesn’t even comment on the fact that she was already at the Cornucopia while he was still on the platform, picking his nose.
“I’ll call Beetee and have him let Eibhlin know you’re not feeling well--”
Claudius snorts, but Lyme talks right over him. “And see about setting up a mentor-victor dinner for tomorrow. I don’t think your head’s going to go there again, now that you’re consciously aware, but just in case.” Lyme gives his shoulder a firm squeeze. Claudius opens his eyes and catches her warmest, most affirming expression before she looks up at the boughs of the tree sheltering them.
“Besides,” she continues, “I’m dying to see how Beetee is adapting to a herd of wild beasts taking over his living room.”
Claudius chokes out an ugly laugh, and Lyme cuffs the side of his head.
Claudius hops down the steps of his porch, two at a time, landing with a solid thunk. He turns and leans against the wooden rail, stretching out his calves before his morning run.
He hears sharp crack, like twig snapping underfoot, then suddenly his world is pain. His eyes and ears stop working or his brain stops paying attention to them, too preoccupied with the burn coursing through his flesh. All the muscles in his body contract at once, and the earth slips out from under his feet.
Claudius doesn’t know how much time passes before he can feel anything other than the pain, hear anything but his own blood rushing in his ears. He tries to move himself into posture more defensively advantageous than ‘stunned starfish’ but his muscles are out of commission, twitching with aftershocks.
Claudius commands his eyes to open, and at last, some part of him remembers how to work. A figure steps into his line of sight, the sun shining through its hair, creating a halo of fiery copper.
“Do you feel better now?” asks the figure, tone pert and imperious.
Claudius bangs his head against the ground. “What the mentorfucking fuck, Eibhlin?!”
Eibhlin’s head gets closer, and even if he didn’t feel like he’d been stuck by lightning, Claudius suspects trying to read her expression while she’s leaning over him, upside down with the sun behind her, would still make him want to puke.
“Do you need me to do it again?” Something near them makes a rapid clicking noise, and Claudius senses pinpricks of electricity jump through the air.
“No!” He shouts. “No, no, no.” Claudius tries to move a defensive hand between them. He isn’t quite successful but at least the clicking stops.
Claudius suppress the urge to let loose a stream of impressively colorful curses, and instead asks Eibhlin to explain--in small words--why it was necessary to shoot a couple thousand volts through him.
Eibhlin kneels in the grass beside him and smooths her skirt over her knees. “Yesterday, you appeared to suffer a severe negative reaction, possibly some variant of post-traumatic flashback. As this event occurred immediately after I began describing the rabbits’ behavioral habits as a prey species, it seems probable that your mind has made some connection, however erroneous, between the rabbits and myself.” Her voice hardens. “I assure you, this link is entirely unwarranted.”
For a few moments, there’s no sound but the wind in the trees and his own harsh breath. Then Eibhlin leans closer. A hand, warm and small, cups his cheek. “You don’t need to be afraid; I’m just like you.”
Claudius’ head spins and his skin flushes. The tide of anger recedes, leaving him feeling confused but strangely warm as he struggles to bring it all into focus.
Jarringly, Claudius remembers the arena, three or four years before his own, with the spider mutts. They rarely attacked directly, but the webs they spun during the day made it incredibly difficult for the pack to hunt at night; they lost at least one before they realized they need to change their strategy. When Claudius thinks of predators, he pictures bears and mountain lions. But there are other kinds, too, as deadly in their craftiness as the big ones are in their strength.
“During my time in the Village, I have observed that Two victors achieve significant in-group social signaling through personal combat. Engaging in this tradition with me will cause your neurons to form new synaptic connections, thus altering your current, errant associations.” Eibhlin straightens, tone crisp and brisk, “Shall we go again? Operant conditioning can be a lengthy process.”
Claudius’ arms finally remember who’s boss and he waves Eibhlin off. “No, no! I really feel like my brain is making significant adjustments right now. I think we should let that play out, and then see where we are.” He runs a hand underneath his head to check for lumps, and grumbles, “Or, yanno, try some talk therapy.”
Eibhlin makes a disappointed ‘hmm’-ing sound, then brightens considerably. “So we have time to hike out to the eagle nest! I’ll go get the binoculars.”
Claudius lifts his head a few inches and is overcome with a fresh wave of nausea. He’s pretty sure he can’t sit up without barfing, let alone get to the base of the mountain unless Eibhlin carries him.
“Yeah, no.” He rubs the soft carpet of grass, making the springtime equivalent of a snow angel, then pats the area between them. “Maybe we could have a rest first? What’s up with those wispy little clouds?”
Eibhlin shifts into lecture mode. “Ah, cirrocumulus! This cloud formation is composed of highly supercooled water droplets, ice crystals, or a mixture of both, and may produce coronae and iridescence in conjunction with...”
Claudius slips a hand underneath his head, closes his eyes, and lets the wave of Eibhlin’s precise yet vehement speech wash over him. Later he’ll apologize for not taking her seriously, as a victor. For now, he’s going to let the sun warm him and the grass cushion him while his brain re-wires itself for the new world.
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Thank you for your lovely comments :)
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