Jackson wasn’t good in the training room. He never was. While his body was built as though it were good for physical combat, he was never the person who was able to run an obstacle course in record time. Graham had taught him the basics of self defense and how to hold a knife and other useful weapons and that was the extent. Other than that, Jackson was all mental games. He didn’t discover that about himself until after the arena and then he tried to burrow it down deep.
However, after the chess game with Lysander Vultur and realizing just how odd he truly was in the midst of others Victors, he found himself isolating himself in a viewing room and playing over other mentor’s games. He purposely avoided his own and Oakley’s simply out of his own anxiety, but he started from the 80th and continued on with the highlight reels. He had just gotten to the 87th while jotting down notes on different sheets of paper in a notebook when he heard the door slide open. He glanced over to the person entering the room, putting his finger to his lips to silence them before they could speak, and finished listening to the rest of the recap and analyzing the scene-by-scene replay from Stone’s games before pressing pause.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his expression deadened. “Needed to hear what they said.”
Each second in the training room had been more exciting than the last. Despite what he was here for, Graham nearly found himself enjoying the training, warming back up with all the weapons he used to train others in. It had been a decade since he had last trained anyone, but he didn’t find himself to be all that rusty. It filled him with the confidence he needed to set down the sword for a few hours to focus on something else. His biggest threat was all of the other tributes, all former victors it felt like.
When he stepped into the viewing room, he wasn’t surprised find Jackson in there. The man had been working day and night when he wasn’t with his family. Making sure Graham won had seemed to consume him, which the tribute couldn’t feel so bad about it. His faith had been well-placed, clearly. But, he was sure the victor was sacrificing his own mental health for the sake of him, and that he didn’t enjoy that thought. But, there was only so much he could do help him. He stayed quiet until Jackson broke silence, watching the recap for Stone’s Games with the same level of attention, though he wasn’t sure he saw what Jackson did.
“No problem,” he says warmly, patting the younger man on the shoulder before sitting down, “I’m just glad I don’t have to go in with Stone.” It was a joke, and he laughed bit, even though it was also true.