━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━

TW: depictions of domestic abuse (physical & verbal), mentions of suicide and suicidal thoughts

    TIME CONTINUED to pass, and Jupiter continued to pretend she didn't see the tensions growing worse. She continued to pretend she didn't see the Peacekeepers flooding out of her District everyday, or that there seemed to be less and less money in the system, or that shipments were being missed and stock across all her favourite places was low.

    Jupiter ignored it because she didn't know what it meant, and the last time she had asked too many questions she had been threatened. Granted, she knew that meant asking questions was what Snow didn't want, so there was definitely something to know. But did she need to know so desperately that she would risk her routine, however miserable it was? No.

    But Fawn knew, and Jupiter was starting to believe Finnick did, too. She hadn't seen him again since the theatre opening, which was frustrating. Snow had only had her go in for big events, to the point even if Finnick was there she doubted she would be able to find him. A part of her wanted to ask him because he wouldn't threaten her for asking questions, but another part of her just wanted to hold onto him.

    Things were growing tense and confusing and in the midst of it Jupiter felt like a hug would solve about eighty percent of her problems.

    Brutus had done his best to sympathise with Jupiter's recent moods from the shifting environment, but he had never had children for a reason. He wasn't very good at any advice that differed from "just get over it" or "that's stupid– you can't know everything."

    Still, he had grown to appreciate that she spent more time at the Academy nowadays and used him as a sparring partner. Partly to release and focus on the confusion and frustration bubbling, but also to get away from home.

    Amongst the tense train rides to the Academy, the Peacekeepers patrolling the street while armed and business growing closer and closer to shutting down from lack of stock, somehow Mars still found a way to make it about him. Jupiter had simply started using the Academy as an escape from him, and a way to explain away the bruises he left on her when she spoke slightly out of turn.

    "You're home a lot these days," Mars had mused one morning as they went through the mail, Jupiter desperately searching for something from the Capitol, or Snow, or an invite of any kind. None had come.

    Mars' face had told her that he knew that, and was smug about it. She had clenched her jaw and ignored him, trying to focus on her cereal as his air of superiority he always carried sunk into her.

    "Maybe the Capitol doesn't like you anymore," Mars had told her.

    It had taken everything in Jupiter not to snap something back, but she knew the consequences and the risk. It wasn't worth it, she told herself over and over. It also wasn't worth believing anything that left Mars' mouth– nothing he said was ever not meant to hurt her. It had been like that since they were kids.

    It all exploded one night in early March.

    Jupiter hadn't been home all day, killing time at the Academy and beating a bag until her knuckles split as had become her new routine. Brutus hadn't been in that day so she had been forced to figure it out herself, which left her less sore as she finally packed up and left the gym behind.

    The train ride home was the usual level of tense nowadays, a pair of Peacekeepers patrolling through the carriages as they went. Jupiter's bag was checked there and back, at both ends, and she was finally off and heading home. It was busier that evening– people coming home from work, people from the Academy leaving after a day of training, the usual commuters.

    Lowlight was flushing from the windows as Jupiter headed up the stairs of her house; the courtyard of the Victor's Village was very quiet that night. She fumbled with the key through swollen fingers and pushed herself inside. The TV noise was low in her senses as Jupiter turned into the living area, where the lights hadn't been turned on, bathing Cassia in the cold glow of the screen.

    Jupiter sighed as she dumped her bag loudly and flicked a lightswitch on, Cassia hardly reacting to the new stimuli. Heavy footfalls and Jupiter looked up sharply as her brother entered the room, walking with a purpose he didn't usually have.

    "Well?" he demanded.

    Jupiter only blinked at him. "Well, what?" she asked.

    He stormed past her, Jupiter moving out of his way as he slammed a hand on the counter, hand laying beside a pile of letters. The Marrow girl only looked down at them coldly, the symbol of the Academy staring up at her. There was a reason she hadn't acknowledged the growing pile of mail– even if her brother had strategically placed them for her to look at.

    "Read this," Mars snapped.

    Jupiter lifted her eyes back to his. "No," she responded.

    Mars looked stunned at her outright refusal. "No?" he asked lowly.

    "No," Jupiter repeated. "It'll just be the Council wanting me back again and–"

    "I've been asking the Council to," Mars hissed.

    Jupiter went very still. "What?" she asked quietly.

    Mars scoffed. "Fuck, you're stupid. I've been bribing them for months to induct you but stubborn as you are– you haven't gone," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. His tone indicated that he had done her a favour and she had spat in his face.

    "I didn't ask you to do that," Jupiter said quickly, mouth going dry at his interference. "I don't want that."

    "Someone needs to do better than dad and fuck if it has to be someone than it needs to be you," Mars told her.

    Again, Jupiter went very still, eyes widening as she tried to make sense of what her brother was saying. "Better... than dad?" she asked slowly; unsure.

    "He disgraced us," Mars said firmly, genuine anger seeping into his voice. "We're legacy, J."

    "Don't call me that," she snapped immediately.

    Mars continued as if she hadn't said a thing. "They fear you. You can make them respect you and show strength."

    "I showed strength," Jupiter hissed, knuckles braced against the kitchen counter. "I survived and I came home."

    Mars looked very put out at her refusal to see his point of the Academy, and his face twisted into a scowl. "Well, that wasn't enough, was it?" he said lightly. Jupiter bit the inside of her cheek. "And then if you keep reading, you'll see I'm being conscripted," Mars added, jabbing a finger towards the pile of letters.

    Admittedly, that caught her off guard. "Conscripted?"

    "They're making me a Peacekeeper," Mars said simply. "But not you." She turned away from him, head low as she made to leave the room. "I will not be a Peacekeeper!" he yelled, the volume causing her to jump and stop in her tracks. "I was meant for more than this."

    Jupiter turned back to him. "That's not my problem," she said softly. If she was less worked up she would have added conscription of citizens to her list of weird things.

    "No but it's your fault," Mars continued, voice tight.

    She narrowed her eyes at her brother. "My fault?"

    Mars took a step towards her, but she didn't back down. "It should have been me. I should have been chosen and I should have carried on dad's legacy and done better than him."

    "That's not my fault," she repeated softly.

    "Keep saying that," he said lowly. Jupiter couldn't meet his eye– he looked too much like their father. "You are everything I want to be, J, and you don't even give a shit. You dodge the Council and any of their duties, you suck up to the Capitol and you're a coward– just like dad."

    Jupiter struck first, a single fist clocking her brother in the jaw and forcing him two steps back from her.

    The sound echoed in the relatively silent room, her brother placing a hand to his face as his mouth fell open. Jupiter took a deep, shaky breath as she stared at him, wishing she could do it again.

    "Dad would hate you," Jupiter spat. "You are everything he didn't want to become."

    "And how would you know that?" Mars demanded.

    Cassia had turned away from the TV now at the commotion. She said something, but the words were almost blocked out by the blood rushing in Jupiter's ears.

    "Dad never would have been angry at me for surviving," Jupiter said hotly, feeling as if she had grown a pair of fangs capable of venom.

    Mars shook his head. "You think he would be proud of you?" he asked with a sneer. Jupiter's glare only darkened. "You are a disgrace to the District and I never would have won the way you did. You took everything away from me– I was meant to be a Victor!"

    "I wish you were a Victor!" Jupiter screamed back. And she liked the look on her brother's face– shock that she had raised her voice for once. "Maybe it would have taught you to be human, or maybe you'd be dead!"

    Mars lunged at her, and Jupiter predicted it as she skipped back, her knees knocking the corner of the kitchen island. She ignored the jarring pain as her brother's fists came for her, one catching the edge of her own jaw and sending her world slightly spinning. She got under his arm, twisting it roughly and slamming him against the wall, which shook from the impact, the photo frames rattling.

    Cassia didn't scream– ever since their father had passed away, she didn't scream or raise her voice or fight anyone on anything. For most of her life Jupiter had simply seen her as a placeholder for a mother, a woman with no fight left in her with empty eyes and empty words. But she was fighting now, on her feet and screaming at her two children to stop, face contorted and tears gleaming in her eyes.

    Mars and Jupiter did not pay attention. There was blood now– she had broken his nose. Equally, he had split her lip and bruised a rib, maybe even broken one. He had always been larger than her, but Jupiter's edge was her training and the rage.

    Pent up from years of shame and abuse, and not just from her brother, it bubbled to the service and seemed to leak from her skin. Her ears were ringing and the blood on her lip felt hot.

    Mars threw stuff, and Jupiter threw stuff right back. Amidst the chaos and the yelling (from three ways), something shattered loudly, glass now littering the kitchen floor. Jupiter paused for a moment, seeing the glass frame holding her victory knife had been struck when she had thrown a butter knife at her brother.

    And then Mars reached through the broken glass and into the frame, dismounting the golden blade Jupiter had won her games with and gripping it tightly.

    Mars came at her with renewed ferocity, knife slashing through the air, a look in his eye that Jupiter knew well from her time in the arena as she struggled to duck and block the moves in the limited space. Cassia's voice was a distant drone in her ears now as she made a dash for the front door, not caring that she had nothing on her.

    The anger was still thrumming in her veins but it was not worth this.

    "You're not going fucking anywhere," Mars snarled as she grabbed her ponytail as she fled, pulling her back painfully. As soon as she was within striking distance, he backhanded her over the face, sending her sprawling.

    Her knees split as she crawled across the glass littering the floor, and she could feel hot, angry tears leaking down her face. Mars stepped around so he was to the side of her, shadow falling over her.

    "Look at me!" he shouted. Jupiter didn't, staring at the floor, a hundred reflections looking right back at her. Her fingers closed around a large shard of glass, and she felt her nose drip as she deliberated. Grass crunched under foot as Mars grew impatient, and she involuntarily flinched. "Ma, quit your whining! J's deserved–"

    In the second he was yelling at their mother, Jupiter sprung to her feet, glass grazing the side of the hand holding her golden victory knife. Mars let out a surprised yell as he dropped the weapon, and as second late was slammed by his younger sister.

    She hit his face, she blocked and twisted his arm, and she drove her elbow and shoulder into his stomach and forced him to the ground, where the back of his head slammed harshly against the wall. He hadn't even been given a second to recover when Jupiter was on his level, wild golden eyes locking with his.

    The glass pressed at his artery, begging to be pressured, and Mars whimpered and his breaths shuddered. He met her eyes, and with a grunt Jupiter kicked off him.

    He did not move, staring up at her with a more familiar look: fear. She had seen it during her Games, and sometimes after. It was the one time she was glad to see it, as she glared down at him. She tossed the glass shard to the side where it shattered, cutting through the sound of their mother's quiet sobs.

    "You should be glad it was me who got the Games," Jupiter hissed. "You wouldn't have survived."

    And with that she left.

━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━

    MARS MARROW had always hated his sister. At least she found that easy to believe.

    There had always been competition between them, in a way that only Mars seemed to see. Jupiter had never understood. They weren't in the same year at the Academy, so they had no reason to fight the way they did, but as they grew older she had gotten used to it as their relationship, if it could be called that.

    She had never been sure if it went beyond typical brother-sister rivalry. Not many people in the Districts had multiple children out of fear of the Reaping, and it was a hard question to ask strangers at school. Her father trained them both together, and he praised them just as equally, but there was always an anger in her brother's eyes.

    "You look like dad," Jupiter had said offhandedly when she was ten.

    Mars hadn't taken it as the compliment she had intended it to be. She hadn't understood why at the time– their dad was the nicest person she knew and had a wide smile and dark eyes that were so full of warmth in spite of everything he had gone through.

    Sometimes her brother was happy– when he came home from the Academy filled with praise, when he went to the monthly markets and in autumn as he crunched through the leaves and he threw Jupiter into a pile of them. There was a hiking trail in the mountains, not a long walk from the Victor's Village, and as a child their father had taken the whole family up there when it got warmer, weighed down by a picnic Cassia had lovingly prepared.

    But most of the time she saw anger in her brother's face. His eyes would grow hard and his features would lose the warmth their father's glowed with. And still she would chase after him and smile, still she would call him her big brother and ask to play with him and to help her and gossip about school with her. Trivial things he obviously didn't care for.

    When Jupiter was thirteen he had hit her.

    They had trained together for years by that time, legacy children expected to fill their father's shoes and bring more glory to their house. Jupiter had known more about using a knife by that age than how to manage a household like her mother. So, of course, they had dealt blows before. But they had been controlled and tactical– she had expected them.

    Her brother had gotten angry. Brutus, one of their instructors, had gotten the better of him that day. To Jupiter that was obvious– Mars was only fifteen and much smaller and frailer than Brutus. But Mars had not enjoyed feeling like he had lost, and Jupiter had started a ramble about the swimming pool at the Academy.

    "I don't care," he had hissed as they walked home from the train station.

    Jupiter looked indignant. "Okay? I'm just telling you."

    "Well, I didn't ask," Mars snapped back.

    Jupiter had sighed. "It's not a big deal that you lost."

    Mars had hit her the second the last word left her mouth, and in the shock she had stumbled to the ground, catching herself on her knees. She had stared up at him in thinly veiled shock, holding her cheek, eyes wide. Words died in her throat and it was the first time she didn't see her father in him.

    "Just stop talking," Mars muttered as he trudged past her.

    Jupiter had pulled herself together and gotten to her feet to follow him, but she did not utter a single word on the way back. It was perhaps the quietest she had ever been, and maybe the only time her brother had ever seen her look fearful.

    Mars would apologise for it days later, say he had overreacted and taken it out on her. Jupiter would accept the apology because she had already put the incident to the back of her mind. Mars would sit beside her and comfort her as best he could, and Jupiter would feel icy.

    As they arrived home in silence, Cassia had looked at them with barely-concealed grief. Mars had dropped his bag and Jupiter had forgotten all about the throbbing in her jaw.

    That day, Saturnus Marrow slit his wrists. The coward's way out. Not a District 2 way to die. No guts. No glory. A shameful way to die.

    Jupiter wished he could have seen her. Maybe she would tell him that she understood now.

━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━

so,, this was a heavy chapter

you're supposed to hate mars to the ends of the earth, but he's also intended to be a violent creation of the district and the games. he gets his way and feels in control through power and violence. also it was fun to write jupiter standing up for herself even if it was incredibly bad timing and problematic

no finnick this chapter because it was a jupiter development one, but we get cute baby finnick/jupiter in the next! no clue what their ship name is because both their names are weird. also that chapter will be coming later to make up for this one <3 cheers