Silver Treble Clefs

Chapter 30: Back to his Roots

Back in District 9, Blaine gets assigned is own house and completely ignores it. He stays in the familiar house with Cooper and his parents. Quinn had warned him, as much as he wanted to offer the house to Tish's family, to not do it. If he did, she warned, they'd be dead in an instant. Another explosion at the factory or a terrible accident with the oven catching fire, burning down the entire house. No, families of tributes should not be shown any mercy or they'd die. Blaine assumes it has to do with making the Capitol look bad, making those people into people instead of simple pawns in their games of repression.

Being a victor, it's a terrible thing to be. It's as if things get worse, instead of better. His nightmares frequent, and even during the day he constantly feels as if he needs to be on his guard for any killers. Every little girl he comes across turns into Pennie, every teenage girl suddenly looks like Tish. Boys are scary, and when they get to close their faces turn blistered and murderous. He's yelled in innocent people's faces more than once.

With Cooper and Quinn's secret out to Blaine, he suddenly notices how quiet the house is at night. Cooper's room goes unused, mostly, as he spends his nights at Quinn's. For his own house, he makes sure the place looks like it's lived in and not suspicious to Capitol visitors. Not that they get many, Blaine watches his mother and father's every step, waiting for them to drop dead for his survival but they don't. His father remains distant, his mother has changed into an emotional wreckage.

She hugs him tightly every night before he goes to bed, he leaves the living room the same time every night, around ten o'clock, and pretends to be asleep when she comes to check on him. She never checked on him before he went into the Arena. He feels stupid, his nineteenth birthday is coming up and his mother checks on him before she goes to bed. He doesn't say anything, though, he patiently awaits her gentle kiss on his forehead every night. It's like a charm, like he cannot fall asleep until she's given him that one kiss.

There are times where he feels like a small child again, banging on Cooper's door and begging for him to come out of it. Cooper comes, Cooper always comes for him and holds him close when things get too much. During the day.

At night, Cooper is never there and Blaine knows why, knows he's with Quinn because they are the only ones who can keep each other sane. His mother sometimes comes in when he thrashes and screams through fast dreams, but her arms are never as strong and never as understanding as either Cooper's or Quinn's arms. He gets to know his brother and his brother's girlfriend better now he knows them. Knows about them and knows all the horror they have lived through. He knows their fears and their dreams, the feeling of being trapped in a place and not able to get out. He knows the anger and the hurt, the frustration of knowing how much someone means to you and not able to tell a soul.

He calls Kurt, daily, but hangs up the phone before he can reveal that it's him. He thinks Kurt knows its Blaine, Quinn has told him they speak to each other sometimes. He calls Kurt every night, half an hour after he's left the living room and half an hour before his mom comes in to check on him. Kurt must know, or he would stop picking up.

That moment of the day, it is the moment he looks forward to the most. It's an easy moment, a moment where instead of a Hunger Games survivor, he can be a teenage boy with unexplainable hormones. A young boy who met another boy he likes, who doesn't know how to tell the boy. But then there's always that moment where he realize the phone can be tapped, that if he tells Kurt how much he cares he will be in danger and he can't do that. Nothing happened to his parents yet, but there's this dreading feeling and the way his father looks at him, he knows there's more to the story than Cooper and Quinn have told him.

"Being beautiful is a curse, Blaine," Cooper once told him, "the Capitolwill want you to sleep with all these men and women and if you refuse they hurtthe people you love. I refused, they tried to kill you. You haven't refusedthem anything yet, so don't worry too much."

But they failed, they tried to kill Blaine by throwing him into the Arena andthey failed. He knows they won't let it rest, whatever it is they are punishingCooper, Quinn and his father for. He knows his father is in on it as well, andhis mother is deliciously oblivious. More than once he tries to ask his father,tries to ask Cooper or Quinn but neither answer him. Cooper warns him not toask again, tells him he will know in time and to just focus on dealing witheverything he's been through in the Arena.

He asks Cooper then, how though? How do you deal with everything, and Cooperhas no answer other than you try.

He does try, day in day out he tries to drown out the horrors and focuses ondaily tasks. He takes up singing, buys a gorgeous grand piano off the Mayor anddecorates one of the many unused rooms in his unused house as a music room. Heplays the piano day after day, sings songs that come to him. Sometimes Quinnjoins him, her angelic presence soothing and her voice blending perfectly withBlaine's. Cooper, too, joins them sometimes and when it's just the three ofthem they're carefree with each other. Blaine sees them hold hands, Cooper hugsQuinn from behind and she leans back against him. It looks so natural, sonormal and it looks like everything Blaine needs to keep him grounded.

He goes into town, into Tish's father's shop, five months after he gets backfrom the Arena. He can't offer them money, has made sure it's absolutelyagainst the rules to give them any charity, and so instead he brings him food.He gets them bread and meat, some days even pudding. He tells them he's sorry,wishes there was more he could have done and Tish's father ensures him it's alright.He's happy Blaine lived and yes, they really miss Tish and grieve for her, but it's not Blaine's fault. 

He wished he believed them.