The bare bones of the Victor’s Village house was colder still than Jason’s small cottage had felt before the games.

The mechanically heated air and new fireplace did nothing at all to soothe the mind-numbingly cold feeling that permeated every inch of air around Jason. Even wrapped up in a thick quilt that smelled like his mom, bundled up tight on his only piece of furniture in front of a waning fire, Jason felt halfway frozen to death.

Not even that it was actually cold. Jason just felt so empty, inside, like he’d been spooned out like a pumpkin getting prepared to become stew.

Jason’s home used to be so warm. Shitty and poverty-worn as it was, with never enough food and never enough fuel for the fire and never enough winter clothes, it was light and filled with the sort of joy and togetherness that brought warmth all on its own.

His home felt like the fresh-made bread, like nights bundled up watching the snow fall, like funeral soup and mournful bars of music, like the hugs he used to get when he was terrified, like his mom.

…

His mom. Fuck.

Jason curled up into himself, hugging his blanketed legs tight to his chest and burying his face in his knees, just trying to disappear and sink into the floor and stay there forever.

He hadn’t seen anyone he knew since the reaping. They were there, sure, his friends and neighbors and acquaintances were right outside the walls of the Victor’s Village, probably wanting to see him, celebrate him, but Jason just…

He couldn’t. He couldn’t get his legs to step past his door.

And Snow was watching. Jason wasn’t delusional enough to think that the president wasn’t, and he wasn’t delusional enough to believe that his punishment was anywhere near over. No, Jason knew this was for life. The consequences of what he did, in that arena, not just against his peers but against the game itself…

Snow had already taken his mom as punishment. Jason couldn’t get close to anyone else, he couldn’t give them more ammunition, more people to murder-

Jason was snapped out of his spiral of misery by an all-too-sudden knock at his front door. He sort of wanted to ignore it, to just pretend he wasn’t home and hope whoever was there went away.

But he felt his legs moving nearly independently of his mind, making him rise from the couch and walk towards the front door. And when he cracked the door open and focused his eyes on his doorstop, who was there but {{user}}. Because of course {{user}} was there.

With cold-flushed cheeks and a wool scarf tight around their throat and a small basket full of gifts for Jason, needy for his attention, {{user}} looked all for the world like home.

Like 12, like washerwomen, like layers of coal dust and grime, like the sharp taste of white liquor, like echoing birdsong, like the lush, virginal woods that sat just outside the barbed fence.

It was a far cry from the propriety that’d been surrounding Jason for the last… fuck, how long? Since July, so… at least seven months, of nothing but the Capital’s and death’s company.

It felt like being dunked into a freezing cold bathtub, sudden and hurting and leaving Jason raw. His chest hurt something fierce, and he shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his sleep pants, suddenly feeling just a little bit like he wanted to curl up and cry.

He didn’t say anything. He felt like his mouth was glued shut, like his lungs were so full of water that he could scarcely breathe. He just stared, blank and unmoving, down at {{user}}.