The Sign For Drowning
THE HUNGER GAMES / 2023

So God created man in His own image;
In the image of God, He created him.
Genesis 1:27

ATLAS CHEVALIER ISN'T SURE IF HE BELIEVES IN THE OLD GODS, but in a society fraught with deplorable conclusion, where schoolchildren procure their first kill before their first kiss, and demise creeps through the districts like an inexorable famine, he knows this much to be true: in order to end, one must first begin.

B-E-G-I-N. He learns how to spell the word with his hands, just shy of three. Begin.

Synonymous, BIRTH. Atlas has no memory of such: a definitive moment of blip-quick transition, an incomprehensible tether between a nonsensical speck of black matter floating aimlessly through the cosmos and a garnished Capitol laboring suite, where Calypsa Chevalier – one of Panem's most established socialites and, more notably, consort to District Two's chief of masonry – gazes distantly at her new son, her firstborn. Mere hours old, he is silent and pink, warm and writhing, an entity round at the edges — like an organ, one might say. A stark contrast to the sharp, callous eye of the room's florescent bulbs.

This child is destined for great things, Calypsa. The doctor had proclaimed upon a brief period of observation, nodding assuredly as he scratched out a line of half-minded prose across his clipboard. Yes, just look at the way that he moves. Mere hours old, and already demonstrating the qualities of a victor. You must be so proud.

Atlas had cooed and thrashed his limbs; he'd scrunched his brow, balled his tiny hands into fists, and even let out an ear-splitting squall akin to a confident battle cry, but his mother did not break a smile. She did not turn and place her hand atop his swaddled frame. Instead, she'd remained motionless: an apathetic woman-god fallen victim to the same fate as the minerals at her husband's hand, a likeness cut from the indomitable composition of plexiglass and marble.

Had there been a mistake?

Had strength been named, for what was palpably fear?

No. Capitol citizens do not make mistakes.

For years, Calypsa repeats the doctor's words, over and over in her head. Carries them within the deepest vacancy of the lockbox-like space between her tongue and her teeth.

He is made in a man's image. He is made for victory.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.  Victory.

Atop boyhood's bittersweet crest, Atlas conceptualizes it: the standard Career Tribute's unending inclination for success. Alongside letters, and numbers, and familiar names, arises: his lack thereof.

S-U-C-C-E-S-S. Success.

On the eve of his fifth birthday, the first inkling of weakness materializes, and Atlas learns to be afraid of the things that a grown man's hands can hold. A grown man, his father – Odysseus Chevalier – gazing at him across the dinner table, his usually-vacant eyes gleaming with pride beneath the flesh-thick veil of a permanent frown line. Weighing heavy in the bend of his fingers is a gold-crested sword, nestled safely in its sheath and adorned with a velvet bow. In a swift, singular motion, — as if he's been meticulously rehearsing for this moment — he places his right extremity – calloused by decades of jobsite injuries, shock and burn scars that knit together across his skin like squares on a quilt – over Atlas' left.

This was your great-grandfather's, then your grandfather's, Odysseus explains, motioning to the newborn sleeping soundly in Calypsa's arms. A tuft of yellow hair curls across his forehead like a crescent moon. Someday, it will be his. But now, it is yours.

Y-O-U-R-S. Yours.

To be made in a man's image. Atlas considers, this must be the moment that christens it: his beginning.

He raises the weapon into the air.

Nothing has ever felt so unfamiliar.

U-N-F-A-M-I-L-I-A-R. Unfamiliar.

When he is nine, Atlas sits cross-legged on the floor of his father's workshop, freshly-nicked ear pinned against the wall, and attempts to make out the sound of his parents fighting. He can't see them, but he imagines that his term report from The Weaponry Academy divides the tablespace between the two like an enemy line; a baptismal amount of red ink douses it, he knows, like bloodshed. He listens, and fragments of the conversation arise as follows: our son is not delayed, just progressing at his own pace. / He cannot comprehend most of the phrases spoken verbally in Panem's native tongue, but he can spell any word that he is given. / He compromises by pulling the things that he loves – the stars, the sky, the sun – into practice / He is the star. / He is the sun. / Before he was born, you and I destined the district to revolve around him: our future victor. Remember?

Do you remember him?

Our shining, sunshine boy.

Atlas does not know how badly they wish that they'd cut him from a pattern. That they'd sewn vertebrae together, welded him from flesh and bone.

Our beautiful, blood-hungry son.

But in this moment, it is proven. In the way that they talk like they are trying to convince themselves of something.

In a few years, he will be old enough to volunteer.

V-O-L-U-N-T-E-E-R. Volunteer.

He is not ready. He's nowhere near ready. His brother is more ready than he; a wounded animal would be more ready.

B-R-O-T-H-E-R. Brother.

No, no. Enough of that. Cato will have his day.

C-A-T-O. Cato.

Our eldest must try first. He will bring honor to us, trust. He will bring honor to our district.

H-O-N-O-R. Honor.

All that Atlas has brought to our district is disgrace.

A-T-L-A-S. Atlas. D-I-S-G-R-A-C-E. Disgrace.

But he still has time, Calypsa. He can still be great.

Time means nothing when we run the risk of making a mockery of our family name.

M-O-C-K-E-R-Y. Mockery.

It will not make a mockery of anyone, or anything, to submit him as a volunteer.

And if it does?

Then we submit him as a sacrifice.

S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E. Sacrifice.

Seven days later — as long as it took the old gods to create the unfathomable, human paradise — four-year-old Cato severs Atlas' Achilles tendon during an unsupervised sparring match at the Weaponry Academy's training facility. His parents say it was an accident. The trainer says that he's never seen a wound so deep elicited from the hand of someone so young. District Two's only surgeon says that she's never seen someone so young survive a wound so deep. As was their beginning, this could be their ending: in prophecy.

Synonymous, DEATH. Atlas is not the star anymore. He's just falling debri.

Against all odds, Reaping Day manufactures a cut that's twice as deep, twisting and stretching him into a bark-tough band of something less boy and more scar tissue. Atlas has grown into the premier adolescent enigma, hardened and fibrous and seventeen, and he's trained for this. He's coerced himself into believing that he was born for this. He cannot walk without a brace, but he can hold the hilt of a sword without shaking. He will never have the future that he dreams of — taking over his father's masonry business and building structures tall enough to see the stars amidst the overzealous brilliance of District Two's city lights — but he can spear an animal, and he can hide the tears that spring to his eyes as he skins it.

It's all about balance, his father tells him. You do not know a rabbit is injured until it is still.

Do not be the rabbit. Do not be still.

Determined to defy his parents' requests until his dying day, standing alone on the rooftop of the tribute center, Atlas Chevalier is still. He won't live up to his family's expectations, but from this very point in Panem, he can identify every constellation in the night sky without looking through the lens of a telescope, and — with the finality of a severed nerve's penultimate twitch — he decides that's a sound enough conclusion for him. So, he becomes the rabbit, because he has to. He becomes the rabbit and nothing else matters. He becomes the rabbit, and it's the closest to divinity he's ever felt, and he has one foot in the cosmos and the other on the rooftop's edge — he becomes the rabbit, and a hand falters at the level of his clavicle.

His father, spoiling his plans, he thinks — but it's not a mason's hand. It does not weigh heavy with the toughness of a leather hide, it is not rough and unforgiving as Odysseus', but stronger. Softer.

A swimmer's grip upon his shoulder.

(Here is what we know to be true: the most prized man in Panem is talking District Two's prodigal son off the ledge. And he doesn't recognize him as anything beyond seaglass eyes and sand-warm palms.)

Atlas Chevalier has never been sure if he was made in a man's image.

But this?

(But this could be it, his beginning and his ending. Perhaps, a bad miracle.)

This is the first time he thinks different.

INTRODUCING.....

(🧸🧱🩹🪰) .｡*ﾟThe Clipped Wing
Lucas Till as Atlas Chevalier, D2

(🔱🌊🐚🪞) .｡*ﾟ&&& The Golden Boy
Y!Sam Clafin as Finnick Odair, D4 

&&& with . . . .
Sharon Case / Calypsa Chevalier
Eric Dane / Odysseus Chevalier
Alexander Ludwig / Cato Chevalier
McKenna Grace / Opal Chevalier
Sydney Sweeney / Chanelle (D1)
Diego Tinoco / Petrichor (D1)
Liv Hewson / Glenn Lenoir (D2)
Ella Purnell / Soleil (D4)
Gavin Casalegno / Nehemiah (D4)
Mia Goth / Annie Cresta
Ayo Edebiri / Enobaria Golding
Oak Onaodowan / Brutus Gunn
Jessie Mei Li / Clove Kentwell
Zell Steele Marrow / Young Atlas
Caleb Johnston-Miller / Young Cato
Walker Scobell / Young Finnick
Saorise Ronan / Avox Girl

Acknowledgements
when god asks me about love,
i always respond with cruelty.

Author's Note —  here are some important things to consider before you read:

✧  this book will contain violence, foul language, ptsd, disassociation, slow burn, mentions/depictions of blood, gore, character death, so on and so forth. in coordination with finnick's backstory, prostitution will also be mentioned. it should be noted that this is not a depiction of sex work as a whole and only accounts for occurrences that are against an individual's will, such as president snow selling finnick's body to citizens of the capitol. please remember to be respectful and do your research before casting judgement regarding the field of sex work. i want this book to be a safe and inclusive space <3

✧ i do not own the hunger games series or universe, only atlas & any other extended characters or plot lines. the rest belongs to suzanne collins.

✧ cover is by bae nightwvngs <3

✧ quick disclaimers about the casting — young finnick is not supposed to be in the same timeline as young atlas...if that makes sense?? like young finnick is supposed to be the age he won and young atlas is just him as a child!! just wanted to make that clear so it didn't seem like i was shipping a child and a teenager 😭 i also changed catos canon last name bc i think its ugly and its my fic so i can do what i want

✧ me posting this while i'm on hiatus:

my thesis chair watching me post this when i should be writing my methods section:

akneeways this idea just hit me and i literally have not been able to stop thinking about it. ive been trying to come up with a finnick plot i like for literal DECADES and i finally did it even tho im gonna have no time to write this and updates are gonna be slow af <3 same shit, different day, this fic will also be full of other hannah classics like religious metaphors, sibling angst (think dawsyn & dilyn from itf but BOYS), YEARNING, and unhappy endings!! :D atlas is 1). hyperlexic and 2). neurodivergent (no specific dx, open to interpretation!) and 3). he also communicates partially using sign language. i have learned a lot about these concepts in my graduate school coursework and really want to explore developmental/language delays as part of his characterization which also makes him unnecessarily (on my part) complex but i love HIM hes my babey fr and i cant wait to dive into his relationship with finn and (also cato bc as a clato truther i have been aching to write him forever) problematic brothers!!

Dedications — to my amazing beautiful talented friends fxllmoons  awfulmoons  nightwvngs  foxgIoves peoplehoods halosnite  & most especially antivenoms  whose thg fics & universe development inspire me every day !! kit single handedly keeps thg fandom alive tbh

The Works — Started 10/19/23 | Ended — | Published 10/22/23 | Status ongoing / slow updates

          © BANANAPOPSICLES / 2023
           A GUIDE TO CARING FOR THE WOUNDED BUTTERFLY