proving human;

He thought he kept the universe alone; For all the voice in answer he could wake Was but the mocking echo of his own Gatlin Hazer | D10 Tribute | 129 Games

[gatlin-hazer]

summer-hazer​:

At the acknowledgement of the year she’d spent behind bars, her wrists began to ache again, even if they were tightly pressed against her chest. Numbly, all Summer could do was nod, before she harshly wiped at the tear that had dripped from her lashline. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. It seemed horribly vulnerable when he only now seemed to soften up a little in her presence, when she hadn’t seen him in over two years. They were both different people now than when they’d parted, both having led vastly different lives. 

It’s not your fault, Summer. 

It might not have been, but it felt like it. After Gatlin, she’d been the oldest, though she’d never taken it as seriously as she now knew she should’ve. Summer had stubbornly lived in a bubble of optimism, and it had been popped harshly, and without regard for anyone. 

Before she could respond, he had pulled her into a hug. 

The rest of her resolve cracked as she held onto him tightly, squeezing her eyes shut as more tears fell freely. “I should’ve taken better care of them. I’m sorry,” she croaked out, tiny little gasped sobs betraying that she was crying. “I wanna see ‘em again so badly, Gatlin.” All the while she knew she might never again. Until he found them, Summer might already be six feet under. “I don’t- I don’t wanna-” die.

.

“I was supposed to be there. This wasn’t supposed to be on you,” he told her against the shudders of her sobs. Supposed tos and should have covered his life like pox these days, and Gatlin couldn’t shake the weight of them. He was supposed to go into the wilds with them, supposed to fight in the rebellion, supposed to volunteer for Marley, supposed to lose the Games. He’d failed the people he loved in every imaginable way, and he wondered all the time if he’d done any one of the things he was supposed to have done how much would be different today. Instead, he’d abandoned each of those things when they’d gotten hard.

“You’ll see ‘em again,” he insisted, but his stomach rolled with the words. He was supposed to get Summer home-- had to get her home-- and he was so afraid of failing her again. Gatlin hardly knew how he got out of the Arena most days, and he didn’t know how to get Summer out, didn’t know how to save her. Gatlin had been angry every day of the last six months, but today, he was scared.

“You’re gonna get out, and they’re all gonna be here waitin’ for you, I promise.” He’d put things back together again, the way they were supposed to be. “Hey, I want to hear about the wilds,” Gatlin said working to sound more positive than he felt as he released Summer from the hug. “‘Cause I want to hear everything from you before the twins start tryin’ to tell me bullshit stories.” Two years felt like a lifetime, and he wanted to hear about who Summer was now.

[gatlin-hazer]

maverickmontana​:

It was always interesting to see what new mentors did, what their approaches would be. He was willing to work with just about anyone, and always wanted to form a positive relationship with the other mentors and trainers. “They did, yeah,” he said, “I’m not quite sure why just yet, but… well.” He shrugged a little. “Sometimes it works out, right?” A brief nod towards Gatlin’s own Victory. “How are yours?”

Gatlin nodded passively, “I’m sure sometimes it does.” He couldn’t imagine how it would ever work out that two people could enter the Games together, and definitely wouldn’t say it had worked out for him, but he wasn’t there to pick fights. “My one tribute is my sister, so I think that pretty much tells you how things are goin’,” Gatlin shrugged as if to say they weren’t going well, to say he was scared shitless for Summer, to say that things had gone all wrong in so many ways. “Not so sure about the other,” he admitted as he realized he hadn’t even bothered to learn their name and couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about that.

[gatlin-hazer]

pepper-it-in​:

Pepper wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react to another mentor coming up to her. In one hand was a hand axe, and in the other a book with more medical knowledge than the entire library in her section of Seven - how to non-invasively identify internal injuries, how to use electrical charge to restart a heart, how to brace compound fractures, what to do about crush injuries. She was planning on dedicating her morning to this, to cramming all of it into her head that she could before she got back to weapons training, testing it out and seeing what she could learn. “Oh, um, I was looking for the realistic dummies,” Pepper said after a moment. “The ones with the, uh, blood and um, bones and stuff.” 

.

“They’re toward the back,” he answered, pointing back toward where she could find the dummies. Gatlin still didn’t know everything in the Training Center, couldn’t tell one station from another most of the time, but the dummies were easy to remember-- things like that left an impact. “Is that what you’re practicin’ with?” He asked, eyeing the axe in her hand. He could only assume it was, but didn’t have much else to offer. “I can walk you back there and get you set up, if that’s what you’re lookin’ to do.”

[gatlin-hazer]

summer-hazer​:

“Like, a year ago?” She’d lost track of time while in the prison. Only once her birthday had rolled around, had she regained some of her senses. “Maybe… maybe a little over a year.” Her arms remained tightly crossed in front of her chest in a protective gesture, while worry for  Winnie began to overwhelm her again. She didn’t know what happened to her. Summer didn’t know what had happened to anyone. 

“I don’t know where they are,” she choked out. “I don’t know if Winnie’s okay. They put me in prison.” 

His soft apology cracked another chip into her resolve and she shuddered out a breath. “I’m sorry, I did an awful job at protecting them. I don’t know where they are. I’m sorry.” 

.

A year. His family had been back for a year, and he hadn’t known.

Before he’d even gone into the Arena, his family had been back in Panem. Gatlin swallowed thickly against the hoarseness of his throat. He closed his eyes against the room as it started to spin, and even then felt like he might have been underwater.

“They put you in prison?” He asked, his voice pitching up with terror. If they’d put Summer in prison, what did that mean for their parents or for Laurel? Heat pricked up in his chest again, and he thought he’d be willing to kill anyone that had anything to do with putting Summer in prison without a second thought. “I’ll find Winnie,” he promised. “I’m gonna find everyone.” Now that Gatlin knew they were back, he wouldn’t stop until then.

“It’s not your fault, Summer,” Gatlin moved across the floor to pull Summer into a hug-- what he should have done when she’d walked through the door. “We’ll get ‘em all back, alright?”

[gatlin-hazer]

@pepper-it-in​

“What’re you workin’ on?” Gatlin shuffled over to the nearest training station. Summer was working on something, and Gatlin needed to put his mind on something else for a little while, do something with his hands. And if he could see the other tributes in action while he did, that’d be even better. “Need any help?”

[gatlin-hazer]

@maverickmontana​

“Your tributes volunteered together, right?” Gatlin asked, approaching the trainer. He was trying to size up the tributes from each district, so he might get a better idea of who Summer could work with. He only hoped Maverick couldn’t read the desperation off his face. “They’ve got to be a tight duo to get yourself two volunteers from Seven, huh?”

[gatlin-hazer]

summer-hazer​:

I was hopin’ it’d be anyone else coming’ through that door. 

A bare little flash of hurt flickered across her features. Just as she’d opened her mouth for words that had now fled her mind, Gatlin had already spoken. Only thing that left her mouth was something akin to a huff and a pained whimper. Emotions twisted and coiled in her chest, winding tightly. 

What are you doin’ here, Summer? 

Her mouth opened again, but this time, truly nothing came out. She didn’t want Gatlin standoffish like this. Summer wanted a hug, Summer wanted to know how he’d been, wanted to find out what his life had been like while she’d been in the woods and then behind bars. She wanted some time with her brother before she’d be gone again. Just a little bit. 

Y’all were supposed to be long gone so this would never happen. 

Finally, she found a volume to speak with again. “Winnie got sick,” she offered, hoarse and shaky. “And suddenly, the rebellion was over. That was so… quick.” Her voice didn’t gain more strength, but she struggled through the words. “Winnie got sick, and I haven’t seen her in so long. I-” Summer shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest tightly. 

.

Summer was offering Gatlin puzzle pieces he couldn’t seem to put together. In his mind, his family had been frozen in time, safe and far away, while he was here fighting for his life and for Marley’s. He didn’t know how to reconcile with the idea that their lives had changed too. “When? How long ago?” He didn’t know what to do with himself, his hands. He could only fish for more information in an effort to make any of it make sense. “Do you know if she’s okay? Or anyone else?”

Gatlin’s mouth hung open, searching his mind for whatever would be the right thing to say, but he could see the hurt on Summer’s face, and it made every choice feel like the wrong one. “I- I’m sorry. I’m just tryin’ to understand,” he admitted, softening in his apology.

Everything he thought he knew was suddenly turned on its head-- his family was here, Winnie was sick, but worst of all, Summer was a tribute. How could he look her in the eyes and tell her that he couldn’t save her? He couldn’t save anyone.

[gatlin-hazer]

summer-hazer​:

Her wrists still ached from the metal that dug into her skin so often. 

Summer rubbed her fingers over the spots reflexively but at this point, it couldn’t have been more than irritating phantom pains. Was that a thing? You wear handcuffs for a few years and they become part of who you are, and once they’re off, it feels like something’s missing. Even now, when she was standing in the Tower’s lobby. Even now, when the handcuffs had been off for a good few long hours, and she had an entirely different objective on her mind now. 

She had to find her brother. 

It wouldn’t be hard, but urgency made everything seem like a hassle. He was around here somewhere, and yet, after what, two or three years of not seeing him at all, she’d be confronting Gatlin but a Gatlin who was now the Gatlin who’d won the Hunger Games. 

Summer’s steps picked up their pace. He wasn’t in the lobby, but that was fine. It was a tall building, and she wouldn’t let her heart sink in her chest just because he wasn’t here with her immediately. She avoided the elevator and instead took the stairs to the first floor, then the second, because she’d never been in an elevator, least of all by herself, and she wasn’t going to risk anything now, was she? 

She approached the third floor, already out of breath. No more stamina left in her body, but this was where the training started. She wandered up the floors, passing a few confused Capitulates as they descended the stairs, looking at her like they’d never seen someone go up, only down. 

The ache in her legs, the shortness of breath became so bad sometimes that she had to take a break. It almost made her reconsider just taking the elevator, but she was so far up already, she could go the rest. And besides, if she was honest, she needed some more time to prepare in case she did run into him right when she reached the tenth floor. That was the most logical assumption, in her head. People from Ten got to the tenth floor. The escort must’ve mentioned something of the sort, surely. 

Then, she reached her destination. 

@gatlin-hazer​

.

Gatlin didn’t know how long he’d been pacing back and forth across the tenth floor, just that he didn’t know what else to do with all the frantic energy that bubbled in his chest. His feet could’ve burned a hole in the floor if it weren’t for the sound of someone entering the room that froze him to the spot. It was like seeing a ghost. The sight of Summer immediately turned the fire in his chest to ice that spread through his veins.

Before now, Gatlin was sure that there’d been some mistake, someone who happened to share her name, or that he’d misheard somehow. And the longer he went without seeing her face, the longer he could tell himself that it wasn’t his little sister who’d be going into the Arena. Gatlin had told himself he’d never see his family again. He’d mourned that future, knowing it was for the best. He was just starting to settle into that idea, and now, everything was turned upside down again.

“I was hopin’ it’d be anyone else comin’ through that door,” Gatlin finally spoke, the words sticking in his throat. “What are you doin’ here, Summer?” He had so many questions. How long had she been back? Where had she been? Where was the rest of their family? Nothing about seeing Summer in person made any of this make more sense. “Y’all were supposed to be long gone so this would never happen.”

[gatlin-hazer]

To you I'm just a man, to me you're all I am Where the hell am I supposed to go? I poisoned myself again Something in the orange tells me you're never coming home

[gatlin-hazer]

Man’s Best Friend // Self-Para

The days had become mostly the same. Early summer heat had rolled in, and June Bugs pelted at the windows for a chance to escape it. Gatlin woke and rose and slept again in a way that made one day indistinguishable from the next. Sometimes, he ate. Occasionally, he showered. But the mansion was always empty—just him, the sun, and the walls. He never bothered to close the curtains, so day rolled into night and night into day, while he moved through time like a ghost.

Nausea rose in his throat as he sat up in bed, squinting the light out of his eyes. The sun had already dipped past its peak in the sky, and the shadows stretched across the room. Gatlin grabbed for the bottle of whiskey on the bedside table and took a swig to tamp down the feeling. He’d been warned not to let it become a habit, but habits were only problems when they got in the way of something, and Gatlin would be sleeping through the day if he was drunk or sober. He brewed a cup of coffee and slipped a dash of the whiskey into the mug for good measure, before he tucked the bottle away. When he was done, he ran cold water over his face and dug a clean t-shirt out to wear.  

Gatlin’s hat still hung on a hook by the door—worn and frayed, and with a little dust on the rim, but he picked it up and placed it on his head. He walked out the door, not even bothering to make sure it was latched behind him, and he turned his keys in the ignition of his truck.

Gatlin didn’t know where he was going until he got there, but the farm looked the same as when he’d last seen it. It took walking around to realize how much the past few months had put wear and tear on the property. The fences all needed mending, a bad storm had damaged the side of one of the barns, and rats scampered freely without anyone to make sure the barn cats kept up their work. He’d never heard it so quiet before. Most of the animals had been sold, stolen, or had run away to try and fend for themselves. The few that remained were emaciated, and the sad looks in their eyes came like another punch to the gut for Gatlin. He didn’t blame any of the workers for leaving; they had families to feed too and didn’t know how to manage inventory or brokering deals with distributors. “I should’ve tried to get here sooner,” Gatlin whispered as his hand grazed the nose of an old palomino.

He kept walking out past the barns and pastures to where the satsumas grew at the edge of the property once owned by the Bowies. There was no one left to carry the name anymore, and instead, one more headstone added to the huddle, not yet weathered by passing time. “You’d fuckin’ hate the way this place looks right now. I’m sorry I let it go so long,” he told Marley—just another sorry in the string of apologies he’d given her since January, and he knew it was another apology that would only piss her off if she were still around to answer him. “I wasn’t home for a while, and I didn’t know how to come around after that,” he admitted, only to be answered by the wind.

Gatlin stood in the near silence for a while, listening to the ebb and flow of cicadas. A soft patter of feet on the dirt pulled Gatlin from his thoughts, and he turned around to see who was coming his way. “Fern,” Gatlin smiled and bent down to scratch the dog behind her ears. “You’ve been watchin’ the farm for us, huh?” He could tell the months hadn’t been kind to her either; her weight was down and fleas moved under her coat, but she was strong, and she’d be alright with a little bit of love. “We got some work to do before we go home, alright?” He told her, standing to look back at the farm and everything that would have to be done to save it. “Let’s get some fresh water in all the troughs and call in for a fresh order of feed. Tomorrow we’ll be puttin’ down rat traps and fixin’ up the fences around the east pastures. I should order some more chicken wire too, huh? We don’t need any more coyotes sniffin’ around.” It would be a long time before the Bowie farm looked anything like it once had, but it was a start. It was something more than waking and sleeping, and it was enough for now. “C’mon girl,” Gatlin called as he started back up the path, and Fern followed happily along behind him. “Good girl, Fern.”

[gatlin-hazer]

plutodosimetre​:

“Understandable” Pluto murmured. She sucked in a low chuckle and continued, “Going home when everything is different never quite lives up to expectations – I’m from Thirteen so, there certainly has been a lot of change going on as late. I can only imagine being the newest Victor is just about as overwhelming?”

.

There was a time before Marley, where he’d been alone in the little house he’d grown up. Right after his family left, he’d go home to that empty house everyday. Now, he was alone again in a mansion that reminded him of all the things he’d lost and all the loneliness that followed him. He’d loved, he’d lost, he’d lived and every piece of it had been his own fault. Pluto was right, everything had changed, and all the pieces of what used to be laid like shattered glass at his feet. “Y’all are in the mix now, huh?” He asked her, moving away from the subject of his home and focusing on hers. He wondered if it changed anything to have tributes from Thirteen, if it made her feel any differently.

[gatlin-hazer]

surya-mirga​:

“Oh, so you like pretty things?” She nodded in approval, and tapped lightly at her hair, increasingly concerned that it was going to fall out at any moment despite all the gel, hairspray, and wiring beneath the buns. “Of course. I know the Capitol isn’t for everyone, but it’s worth a short stay to get to know what life is like here. Everything you know… well, they do it ten times bigger and better. And usually sparklier.”

.

“Don’t know if I’d say that exactly.” He’d enjoyed a lot of beautiful things in his life, but pretty seemed like a superficial description. “I just know the difference between what makes a good cut of meat and what gets leftover and thrown into a hotdog. You don’t spend everyday with those animals and not know what the pieces are worth,” Gatlin tried to explain, but he wasn’t sure that Surya would understand. The work meant something to him, but not because of the money-- no, that was necessary to live-- but the respect for the animal was where the pride came from. “I haven’t really seen the better part of it yet.”

[gatlin-hazer]

saph-wolf​:

“No” Saph admitted. “But it got me away from the creepy old men for a while” she added with a smirk.  “Drinking is a good distraction” she nodded. “Just don’t let it become habit, half the victors around here are drunks because of that” Saph explained.

.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” he nodded. He appreciated her looking out, but he trusted himself to handle it. Taking the edge off of a night like tonight didn’t set him up for a bad habit, and he’d grown up around home brewed liquor stronger than the drinks they were serving tonight. “I’ll make sure somebody knows to cut me off before I start dancin’ on the tables,” he joked, because he clearly wouldn’t be doing that any time soon.

[gatlin-hazer]

hollandwestbrook​:

“Ah, you’re not a fan of him or he’s not a fan of you?” Holland asked. She could only imagine what that conversation had entailed, but Carol probably hadn’t been trying to put his best foot forward — this, she thought with some affection. “Unfortunately you can’t really do anything without it being a thing anymore,” she told him.

“I think we just got off on the wrong foot,” he shrugged. Was it the chicken or the egg that came first with the two of them, and did it really matter which? “Well damn, let it be my thing then, I guess. What’s your thing, if you’ve got one?”

[gatlin-hazer]

seraphinahilt​:

“Not many teachers in Twelve.” she shrugged. “But just because they say I have to, doesn’t mean I do.” There were more important things to tend to then worksheets and book work. She could learn all she wanted from whatever books she could read. She thought about his words a moment before giving a nod. “You got it, it’s a deal.” And she stuck her hand between them to shake on it.

.

“Not in Ten either,” he told her. Gatlin had stopped going to school before his name had ever even entered the Reaping Bowl. Even the closest school to him growing up was far away and hard to get to, and there was more important work to be done during the day than school work. He was the oldest, which meant his hands were always needed for something more useful. His parents taught him what they could, but it wasn’t the same as a school. “Alright,” he agreed with a chuckle, shaking Sera’s hand.

[gatlin-hazer]

huntedhunter​:

Hunter lowered his eyelids. For a moment, he considered warning Gatlin to put the cigarette back, having plucked it unprompted and, frankly, in a way that rubbed the Eight mentor the wrong way. He almost did it, for pride and all, but he didn’t care for conflict, and this was easy to look past. Instead, he threw a huffed smile Gatlin’s way and got himself another cigarette. “Yes. But what do you like? The attention or being left the fuck alone? Because there’s more of both, depending on how you play this out.”

.

Gatlin realized in a quick moment that he had no lighter for the cigarette he’d taken, but he’d already displayed enough arrogance to put him beyond asking for one, and it left him holding the cigarette in his hand like a useless prop. “I’d rather be left alone,” he answered Hunter. There were a few people who didn’t wear on his nerves, but mostly he was already drained from all the ones who did. “How do you figure that?” Gatlin asked, genuinely curious about what the other might suggest.

[gatlin-hazer]

leanderwinter​:

“Parties?” He wondered if that was what Gatlin meant, when he said life now was pretty much always like at the victor’s ball. Leander wouldn’t exactly say that a life full of parties was bad, but he assumed he was more used to them than Gatlin was. “I’m guessing you don’t like parties?” Leander grimaced slightly, shrugging. “I have a kid on the way soon, so… stressful? Just a little.”

.

“Trains, parties, people,” Gatlin explained. He’d just been shuffled along through a Victory Tour, and now he was here. “Can’t say I do,” he admitted. If he were being honest, there was something about this particularly party that made his skin crawl. “Oh, shit. Congratulations, man,” Gatlin offered genuinely. Family meant a lot to him, so despite how little he really knew Leander, he thought it was good news. “Do you have any other kids, or is this one your first?”