The Hunger Games fic: Trap, Crackle, Pop (1/?)
Story Title: Trap, Crackle, Pop
Chapter Title: One
Fandom(s): The Hunger Games
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,246
Summary: They say not all of Finnick Odair came back from his Games five years ago. How fortunate that the Capitol loves him so much they ask him to mentor and entertain anyway.
Author’s Notes: Inspired by a prompt that deathmallow gave to sabaceanbabe, who in turn let me run with it: Finnick is the slightly cracked one but still they make him mentor because the Capitol loves him so much. This could make Annie’s Games rather interesting.
Trap, Crackle, Pop
Chapter IThere are whispers about the boy with the trident, the one with golden skin and eyes green as the sea. He had begun so promisingly, all confident attitude and fingers as deft in knot-tying as they were for target practice. Odds had been three-to-one in his favor, well above Districts 1 and 2, despite the fact that they were on a five-year win streak. He allies with them, at first, until he realizes they’re dead weight and he’s better off on his own.
It comes down to the final eight, as many kills under the boy’s belt, three with his hands, the rest with his gifted trident. His odds increase to two-to-one-at least, until he finds what used to be his district partner. Nerissa isn’t anymore, having been stung and strangled by the same vines he’d repurposed into a net, and left in an eddy while river rapids beat her bloody. He goes to her anyway, wanting to at least free her from the rocks, only she’s not quite dead yet. She shoots out a hand, clawing at his eyes, then it’s over.
Not for the boy, who leaves her there and scales half the adjacent mountainside, crawling inside a partly-concealed cave hidden in the rock face. He stays there, huddled in upon himself and murmuring the girl’s name, tuning out the Games entirely and causing the Gamemakers’ assistants to step into the arena and haul him out once the remaining tributes have killed themselves off.
He committed his share of murder and has a body the likes of which no one in the Capitol has before seen, so they don’t consider his win one of chance. They care only for his beauty and not for the way his eyes focus on nothing, the way he can’t sleep beneath a sheet because it tangles him up and spits him out.
Believe you me, President Snow’s publicity and television crews earn their paychecks spinning the story of Finnick Odair.
The salt-mouthed victor from District 4 isn’t the one who comes up with secrets as placating payment. That idea belongs to Althea Wix, upon noting she’s left her best valuables in her other penthouse and besides, this piece of gossip is just too delicious not to share, just wait until you hear, Finnick, my pet. It’s just as well: he’s got a closetful of gifts from sponsors and socialites who like to tell themselves that the far-off look in Finnick’s eyes is because he’s dazed in pleasure, that the times he stops in the middle with a scream and runs into the shower with the spray on Scald are aberrations. Reminders that they’re doing this with a victor, someone who’s got a killer in there somewhere, and the danger, that’s what makes it fun.
(Rape is a vile word, a word not used since before the Dark Days. Persuasion is the way to go, now.)
He’s not forced to attend the first few Reapings after his Games-the Capitol says he’s caring for his sick mother, District 4 says he’s in the Capitol-because he’s too twitchy, might snap if he sees a girl with hair the same blue-black as Nerissa or catches sight of a child with a mouthful of (blood) strawberries. He’s there for the 68th Games, though, ramrod-straight and staring out at the glittering horizon, the voice of his district’s escort a distant hummingbird in his ear.
Mags stands by his side, not touching but there all the same, offering at once support and silent vitriol for the charade. District 4 has plenty of other victors, who all mostly get to live their lives free of the Capitol. Who wants to hear about them, after all, when you can have the poetry of a chiseled son of Poseidon and his warrior mentor?
(We’re really sorry, Finnick. We’d help you if we could, it’s just-we have families, too, you know?)
Finnick’s boy doesn’t even get all the way to the Cornucopia that year, despite Mags lending her expertise. Her tribute doesn’t win that year either.
The 68th crown is awarded to a live wire named Johanna Mason with her axe still jaw-deep in Two Boy’s head.
The year after District 7’s comeback is the all-maces year. Beetee brings home a victor and wishes he hadn’t.
Haymitch Abernathy, with hushed input from Gloss, Lyme, and Cecelia, finally takes pity on him sometime after Johanna’s victory and becomes a steady vendor of supplements and aids that don’t fix him but make him more…amenable. It slurs his speech a little, if he doesn’t pay attention to his enunciations, and occasionally his brain becomes a net like those he’s so good at weaving, making him forget bits and pieces at a time. No one ever (cares) notices, though, the lapses. What they notice is that he’s less on edge and therefore presentable.
Finnick is asleep when Mags barges into Haymitch’s room and tells him off for drugging up what amounts to her grandson.
Haymitch lets her yell and hit and curse and when she’s done, says, “That boy would’ve been dead in another year if I didn’t.”
The words of Calliope Greenwich, Four’s escort, do actually penetrate his thoughts come the next summer, although they still sound as if she’s speaking with a fishbowl over her head. It’s as this whim occurs to him that he bites his lip to stop from laughing aloud. He’s learned by now that usually things he finds amusing are not so to others, and therefore to keep those sorts of things to himself.
(I caught word from Mrs. Ionsworth that you laughed at her. Do I need to remind you of proper decorum again, Finnick? Has your family already gotten over that tragic boating accident of your brother-in-law’s?)
From the depths of the giant glass ball full of names emerges that of a wisp of a girl, twelve years old, just. Finnick recognizes her as his old neighbor’s daughter. He’d taught her how to do her first bowline knot, and what ways to properly treat coral cuts. He crams his hands into white-knuckled fists, focusing on the pain to tether himself to the present. It works, mostly. Stefania’s on the step second from the top, silent tears on her face, when Finnick’s world shifts.
“I volunteer!” calls a voice somewhere in the mass of Seventeens. “I volunteer as tribute.”
Finnick hears cry-whispers of gratitude from Stefania’s family, which he thinks is rather ironic. Four is technically a Career district, but not everyone goes through the program, and at that, it’s more structured suggestions and tips than an actual academy like in One and Two. While Fours may get more allies and sponsors than the outer districts, when it comes down to actual combat, quite often it’s a dice roll. This girl, this volunteer, had given one child an extra year to live, but, statistically, just doomed herself to the slaughter.
He catches his name through his ponderings, and realizes his brain has done the sieve thing again, that a chunk of time has been lost to him. He blinks and finds that he’s no longer on the stage, but in the lobby of the Justice Building.
“Finnick,” Calliope prompts again, one repetition away from stomping her foot. “The train is waiting on you.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He allows her to hurry him out the back and up to the station, making impeccable time in spite of the six-inch spikes beneath her heels. The train zooms to speed as soon as they step inside, and the escort ushers him to a table, where both tributes sit stoically, Mags speaking to them in the kind of calming tones Finnick knows well.
“Finnick Odair,” he introduces, sitting down next to Mags and doing his best to play catch up.
Mags covers efficiently. “I tell you time and time again, boy, one of these days you’re going to forget your own mother if you don’t pay attention.” She means, Are you all right? and he gives her an appropriately chastised nudge with his shoulder. “This is Marin Velasquez, and Annie Cresta, who volunteered for Stefania.”
Finnick slides his eyes from Marin, sixteen and about a hundred pounds soaking wet, to Annie. She’s a beauty-won’t be hard to find an angle for her stylists to emphasize, with chestnut hair that falls past her breasts, lithe muscles, and eyes the color of the sea just before sunset.
“Have a death wish, do you?” he asks her, without meaning to. Mags squeezes his knee warningly under the table.
He’s about to backtrack, when Annie snaps, “No, I’m ready to fight, and that little girl wasn’t. But if you’re not going to help, Finnick Odair, then you can just fuck off.”
In that instant, Finnick’s head empties of all the cobwebs it normally houses, clarity reigning. The colors on the train brighten, he can hear the sounds of the wheels squeaking along the tracks, can smell the food cart behind them. It alarms him, some, this level of sensation he hasn’t felt since prior to his own Games, and he clutches onto it with all he has.
“I apologize, Annie,” he says, flashing her a smile earnest in its sincerity. For a moment, her face registers surprise before falling back into its scowl. “We’re going to do everything we can to bring you home.”
Seconds hang in the air as she considers his response, and it’s broken by the boy to her right. “Me too, though, right?” he asks.
“Of course,” Mags soothes, patting Marin’s hand. Finnick can feel her cautious glare, but he doesn’t move his gaze from Annie. He’s not sure he could even if he wanted to.
Annie nods resolutely, agrees, “Well, okay, then,” and that’s that.
Mags does most of the explaining on how everything will work: first, Remake Center; second, tribute parade; third, dinner in the Training Center and discussion of strategies; tomorrow, first day of training. Annie and Marin soak it all in with few questions, just resignation. They both gape out the window when the train slows in its arrival into the Capitol, entranced as they enter the glittering jewel.
Finnick doesn’t, merely toys with a steak knife among the remnants of lunch. He’s scarring the wood table, but neither Mags nor Calliope chide him for it. Calliope may not be the sharpest hook in the tackle box, but even she knows not to pester him beyond a certain point. She does, however, jostle his shoulder when he doesn’t realize the train has stopped. He gets up, leaving the knife behind, and walks alongside Mags to work their way through the greeting crowd.
He keeps his grimaces internal at the flashbulbs that go off in his face, at the countless cries of his name, requests for pictures, proclamations of love. Judgment effuses off his tributes in waves, and he hastens to evade their eyes. As one of the Capitolites breaks from the crowd to drape on his arm, his ears begin to ring, her manicured nails morphing into Nerissa’s claw-like death grip. Finnick bites his tongue until he tastes blood, praying she’ll let go, knowing it wouldn’t be prudent for him to strangle her like he wants.
Calliope, of all people, comes to his rescue. “Ah ah ah,” she hisses at the woman, prying her talons away. “No touching. We are on a schedule.”
He tries to catch her eye as the ringing slowly recedes, but she’s smiling and waving at the spectators as if nothing had happened.
The rest of the trek passes without incident, and when they enter the Remake Center, they hand off Annie and Marin to their respective prep teams. When Annie’s stylists see their project, they squeal. Finnick can’t blame them-District 4’s tributes tend to be average in countenance; Annie, certainly, will make their jobs significantly easier. Although she’s not as sculpted as Ones and Twos, there’s no denying her loveliness. Marin’s not unfortunate, except for his scrawny frame.
After that, there’s nothing to do but wait while the two of them get poked and gilled like a common bass. He plays a few rounds of Hearts and Blackjack with Mags, who wipes the floor with him all but once. When he was younger, she’d let him win, purposefully keeping the Queen of Spades until the end or hitting when she knew she’d go over twenty-one. Now, she’s ruthless, informing him that if he doesn’t lose he’s not going to learn.
Hours later, the loudspeaker announces that the parade is to begin in fifteen minutes’ time, so Finnick gladly abandons the round, to Mags’s self-satisfied chuckle. They take the elevator down to the stables, carving a path through the group of stylists, prep teams, and tributes. There don’t appear to be any surprises among the costumes, each district sticking to its specialty. Haymitch is nowhere to be seen, he notices, though he can’t really blame him: as always, District 12 is caked in black dust and scraps of clothing, adorned with a bedazzled headlamp. Finnick thinks he’d probably avoid the parade, too, if that’s what he had to look forward to.
Of course, he’s not really in a position to judge, considering every year Four’s stylists go with a nautical theme, more often than not mermaids or some kind of marine mammal. To be sure, they usually don’t have on much more than District 12 does. Finnick remembers the broadcast for his own parade had been one costume malfunction away from needing censorship, given how little he wore.
It’s this expectation that grinds him to a halt when the District 4 chariot comes into view. They’re not mermaids this year, or dolphins. Annie is something else entirely, draped in a gown tight to her waist before cascading into bolts of fabric in a thousand shades of blue and green. Diamonds litter the hem, drifting farther apart as they move upwards until they peter out at her knees. A gold circlet lies atop her head, holding down hair that shimmers with glowing strands of light. She is the ocean, sun-rimmed and exquisite.
A sharp pinch on his side careens him out of his trance, and he looks at Mags to see a mix of amusement and caution there. He shrugs, sheepish. Marin is Annie’s opposite, dark where she is light, reminiscent of moonlit nights spent in the middle of the sea with nothing around for miles.
“You guys are incredible,” Finnick says, ensuring that he includes Marin as well.
Annie tugs at her dress, trying in vain to loosen it. “I feel ridiculous,” she says. Her eyes spit rancor beneath the indigo and plum shadow that surrounds them.
“You feel ridiculous,” Marin complains, gesturing to his bare, contoured chest. “You feel ridiculous?”
Annie manages a smile at that. “Tie for first.”
Marin’s inevitable objection is interrupted by the loudspeaker, which urges all the tributes into their chariots, announcing the parade’s momentary commencement. Finnick offers Annie a hand up, which she refuses, regardless of the precarious heels strapped to her feet. Mags chortles again, and Finnick shoots her an exasperated glare.
He thinks he should extend some kind of advice on how to behave during the parade itself, but can’t make his mouth work. A terse nod is all he can give, and in the next instant, their horses lurch forward behind the neon that engulfs the tributes from Three. Finnick looks away, convincing himself it’s due to the afterimage of Three’s intensity.
One earns the loudest cheer, no surprise there, with Four trailing them by a hair. Finnick isn’t shocked, based on his own reaction to their getups, but it’s still good news. If the Capitol likes their appearance, they’re more apt to sponsor, and if they’re more apt to sponsor, Four has better chances of making it through to the end. Well…one of them, anyway.
Twelve brings up the rear as the chariots assemble themselves in the City Circle and President Snow starts his address. Finnick steps aside, injecting himself in a conversation between Chaff and Brutus, the men’s deep, resonant voices drowning out most of Snow’s oily speech. To the credit of the victors from Eleven and Two, they don’t ask why he’d joined them, simply integrate him into their discussion-who has it worse, Eleven’s summers or Two’s winters-without hesitation.
Soon, Beetee and Wiress wander over to contribute their opinions-well, what about our high desert?-and are followed by Johanna dragging a bemused Blight and Seeder, and the whole thing melts into conversations on top of one another, everyone interrupting everyone, and Finnick thinks that sometimes, being a victor isn’t so bad.
Enobaria’s got shark teeth and a personality to match, and Finnick knows she’d take a bullet for him anyway (maybe). Cecelia sends him regular photographs of her children as they grow, to show him victors can create, too, not just destroy. He doesn’t know anything more than the names of District 6’s mentors, Telluria and Galvan, but Telluria had in separate turns painted a garden of chrysanthemums, a sky glittering with stars, a field of poppies, and a forest of trees, unbowed and unbent, on Finnick’s arms to provide an anchor during his episodes; Galvan had shared his morphling stash after Finnick stumbled onto the wrong floor after his first client.
(People say Six is crazy. But then, plenty of people say he’s crazy, too. He’s still here and they’re still here, so what is madness, really?)
They’re all in their own personal hells, here, everywhere, but they’re in it together, and that’s enough.
Upon receiving praise from their stylists and prep teams when the parade ends and the tributes are shooed into the Training Center, they file into the elevator and shoot up to the fourth floor surrounded by crystal. Annie and Marin immediately dart off to their quarters to change and scrub off their makeup; dinner is in the process of being served by the quartet of Avoxes in the dining room, grub a smattering of Capitol finery as always.
Finnick heads to the balcony to rid his senses of the lingering scent of horse and perfume. It’s a comfortable evening, warm and without the stickiness of home. Mags follows suit, standing next to him with her arms resting on the railing. He wonders if, in fifty some-odd years, he’ll still be here dolling up tributes just so they can die. How Mags hasn’t pulled Haymitch’s antics-disappearing, drinking, not caring (caring too much)-after all this time baffles him.
So, he asks her.
She pauses for awhile, the sounds of the Capitol’s nightly rush filtering up lazily. “Because sometimes I can save one,” she says. “That’s worth it, for me.”
Not for the first time, Finnick determines Mags to be a better person than all the rest of them combined.
Words run out between the two until Calliope beckons them inside for dinner. Marin has successfully located clothes: principally, a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the hilt. Most of Annie’s makeup has refused removal, though judging by the vague red streaks, it wasn’t for her lack of trying. Clucking, Lucinda passes her a glass bottle and swears its contents will work wonders. Annie tucks it in a pocket for later, dubious.
Finnick ladles himself some soup, a thick concoction of stock, lamb, chicken, and an assortment of vegetables. He forgoes the proffered wine in favor of a mug of hot, honey water, and drops in a wedge of lemon. The Avox bearing the wine must be new, he guesses-the others have been around long enough to know he can’t stomach the drink.
(It’s classy, Finnick! Oh, you simply must try this CabernetChardonnayPinotRieslingMerlot, it’s utterly divine!)
“Now, I have to say, you two were absolutely delightful out there!” Calliope trills, already halfway through her goblet of wine. “I was speaking with some potential sponsors, and they said-pay attention now-they said that you’re the team to beat. You laid a good foundation today, now we just need to talk about your training and interviews…”
Finnick pulls from his jacket a small orange pill of Haymitch’s and, while the others are lending at least semi-rapt attention to Calliope’s monologue, he swallows it quickly, washing it down with a gulp of his water. Calliope’s voice twists and gallops into song, and the edges around all of the table guests blur, smudging their faces. He smiles and tiptoes into the sea.
They all turn in around midnight, and Finnick wakes at three screaming.
Even at seventy-five years old, Mags can still run, and she bursts into his room with panic on her wizened features. She’s heard his screams before, has heard countless victors’, but she always comes, for this particular boy especially. It was exceptionally bad tonight, the nightmare, she can see that from a distance with only the moon lighting his room. His skin is sweat-slicked and he curls up into a ball, his hands seeking to crush his skull, unwilling to settle for anything less.
The mattress dips as Mags pulls him into her arms. He is tense as a bowstring, and she knows in a few hours he will ache from the strain. She hums a melody her grandfather taught her long ago, in the old tongue of District 4, lyrical and forbidden. In between verses she murmurs platitudes, meaningless but continual and in the same even tone. Sometime after five, he begins to relax, unfolding himself and finally looking over at her with tears staining his cheeks. She smoothes the bronze curls from his forehead.
“There you are,” she says with a sad smile. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, glancing away and unsticking his clenched jaw. “I didn’t mean to.”
Mags takes his hands in hers, squeezing until he meets her eyes again. “Do not apologize, sweet boy,” she says harshly. “Not one of us has a single day go by when we don’t see…things.”
Finnick catches her allusion easily. It was said as an afterthought, but he abruptly feels dirty. He doesn’t like that she knows what he’s made to do, even if it’s not expressly a secret among the victors, even if he’s not the only one. Suddenly, the drying sweat on his skin reminds him of there, and he scrambles off the bed, eking out something about needing to shower and decompress.
From the expression that opposes him, Mags doesn’t believe a word, but if there’s one thing at which she excels it’s knowing when not to prod. She stands and crosses to him, cupping his face in her hands. “I love you, Finnick,” she says. “No matter what.”
He doesn’t answer, and she leaves a moment later, shutting his door with a click. He exhales and retreats into his bathroom, turning on the shower with the temperature display as high as it goes. He avoids the mirror above the sink, instead glaring down at the tiled floor, until the room fills up with steam and it’s safe to tear his eyes away. He strips and steps under the spray, letting the water sluice off the sweat and the shame.
Sleep no longer an option, Finnick throws on a sweatshirt and heads up to the roof, anticipating the cool breeze and twinkling wind chimes. The barest hint of light peeks out from the horizon, promising to transform the city into pastels of pink and orange within the hour. While it’s nothing like watching the sun rise over the ocean, there’s something breathtaking about ignoring the cityscape and waiting as the mountains paint themselves in color. Snow won’t arrive for many months yet, but they’re majestic even rock-capped as they are now, standing stalwart in the midst of wars and strife and political bullshit, never erring, never moving, constant.
He chooses a bench and closes his eyes, letting the chimes sprinkle over him and listening to the warbled sound of early-rising Capitol citizens. The majority of the city doesn’t wake until after ten, but there are a few dozen that use the dawn as their alarm clock, going for a jog before they make themselves up into a caricature, or getting an early start on their work day.
Finnick likes to pretend they’re not as bloodthirsty as their peers, likes to contrive mundane stories about their lives. One is a chef, her forte bacon and eggs over-easy accompanied by plain black coffee. Another is a banker with two graying Labradors who spends his morning laughing over the comics section of the newspaper. Yet another labors over an unfinished novel, searching for inspiration in his cramped apartment and subsisting on orange juice and half-stale saltines. The woman taking a leisurely stroll in the park is dreaming up a companion for herself, beautiful and kind and generous and well-off, ready to swoop in and save her from her current, disastrous relationship.
Intellectually, he knows none of that is true, but it’s nice to think that it is. He’s not sure he could bear a lifetime of his struggles without being able to believe that there are some good ones out there. The districts are replete, even One and Two have their share of morally-centered folk, and Finnick is inclined to trust that the Capitol has a handful amongst its ranks. Certainly he hasn’t seen proof of that, a fact he attempts to ignore. His stylists are less irksome and ethically bankrupt than many, except that they, too, enjoy the sport of the Hunger Games and dye themselves every hue of the rainbow.
Under the illuminated guard of the former Rockies, Finnick lets the growing pain in his muscles leach away and does his best to forget his nightmare, all the blood and rushing water and squelch of trident against ligaments. After a time, he tosses it into the box that contains his worst memories. It comes undone, sometimes, and each occurrence makes it harder for him to sew himself back together, and yet he has. No matter how bad, he’s still here. He supposes that has to count for something.
“Oh,” reaches a soft voice from behind him.
He jolts, snapping his eyes open and clambering off the bench to face the newcomer, tensed for a fight. He carefully urges his heart rate down and his fists to unfurl when he recognizes who it is. He doesn’t, however, have the energy to school himself into the veneer of smirking perfection normally required of him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was up here,” Annie continues. “I can go.”
Finnick appraises her. Clearly she hadn’t gotten any rest either, evidenced by her long hair drawn up into a loose bun, her body disguised by formless pajamas, and her eyes red-rimmed in either sleep deprivation of tears. Maybe both.
“No, it’s all right,” Finnick says, “I don’t mind.”
She approaches him warily, for a reason Finnick can’t comprehend-possibly she’d noticed his previous, reflexive willingness to brawl-and sits down on the bench he’d vacated. Taking a gamble, he joins her. She wraps her arms around herself but doesn’t give any other indication of discomfort.
“It’s not a bad view, is it? From up here,” she offers, looking at the mountains and not the city just as he had.
He smiles, not of his own accord, and hesitantly uses her hand to point at a summit in the distance. “The Capitol calls it something different now, dedicated it to some politician, but that used to be named Mount Evans,” he claims. “And over there, Pike’s Peak. They don’t really use them anymore, but these mountains were once a great place for skiing.”
“Skiing?” Annie asks. She hasn’t pulled her hand from his grasp, which he deems a positive.
“It’s where you’re attached to these two thin boards and slide down the snow,” he explains. “More or less.”
Annie looks at him skeptically. “Never heard of it,” she says. “How do you know that?”
“Mags,” he replies simply. “She has lots of stories from before. Panem used to be great, a long time ago.”
He knows he’s bordering on treason, that his voice isn’t kept low enough to avoid being picked up by the microphones that border the rooftop, only right now he can’t find it in him to care. He’s tired. Just done. He drops Annie’s hand back in her lap and inhales. The air is much thinner in the Capitol than anywhere else; it used to bother him, make him dizzy, but he’s since taken a liking to it. It resets his head to zero.
“My gran had a bunch of stories, too,” Annie says. “Mother hated it when she would tell them, because she thought it was dangerous, but I always loved it. I probably won’t get the chance to pass them on, though.”
Finnick frowns, having for a few minutes forgotten the Games entirely. And now that she’s mentioned it, he realizes that there’s a better than decent chance she’ll be dead in a week. He steadily controls his breathing the way Gloss had taught him, staving off the red that threatens to obscure his vision.
If Annie notices his reaction, she doesn’t mention it. “Sure you will,” Finnick says when he settles. He nudges her knee with his. “Trust me.”
“Trust you,” she laughs. Finnick decides he likes her laugh. Wishes he had more occasion to hear it. “Trust Finnick Odair.”
He doesn’t take offense, mainly because if he does, he’s not sure he could handle the open disdain. “I’m your mentor,” he says. “You sort of have to.”
“My mentor?” she says sharply. “Isn’t Mags mine?”
Finnick kicks himself. Mentorship isn’t always gender-based, especially in districts where they don’t have both available, but usually it’s preferred. “Yeah, of course,” he corrects. Then, before he has a chance to stop himself, “If you want.”
She’s silent for so long the sun has time to throw the entire city into relief. “Marin might need more help,” she says finally, quietly. “Mags is his best bet.”
He can’t dispute that assertion. Mags has brought home more kids than any other victor. She’d brought him home. Maybe not all in one piece, but he’s alive in large part due to her. He’d have withered long ago lying on a rock with poison seeping through his veins and welts covering his legs if it weren’t for the medicine and suturing supplies she’d sent.
“You’re not going to die, Annie,” he vows, uncertain of where his determination originates. “I promise.”
Annie nods. He doubts she takes his pledge to heart, she has too much realism for that, but she looks like she wants to. She opens her mouth a couple times, mulling over something to say, before blurting, “I heard screaming earlier. Was that you?”
Finnick considers fibbing to her. But he’s just sworn something no mentor should ever do, and lying would defeat the purpose. “Yeah. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” she assures. Then- “Is that what I have to look forward to, if I win? Nightmares?”
He doesn’t say, That, and more, because if it’s the last thing he does, he’s going to spare her his own fate. “Yes.”
“Okay,” she murmurs.
She’s the one to grab his hand this time. He closes his eyes.
Next
Chapter Title: One
Fandom(s): The Hunger Games
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,246
Summary: They say not all of Finnick Odair came back from his Games five years ago. How fortunate that the Capitol loves him so much they ask him to mentor and entertain anyway.
Author’s Notes: Inspired by a prompt that deathmallow gave to sabaceanbabe, who in turn let me run with it: Finnick is the slightly cracked one but still they make him mentor because the Capitol loves him so much. This could make Annie’s Games rather interesting.
Trap, Crackle, Pop
Chapter IThere are whispers about the boy with the trident, the one with golden skin and eyes green as the sea. He had begun so promisingly, all confident attitude and fingers as deft in knot-tying as they were for target practice. Odds had been three-to-one in his favor, well above Districts 1 and 2, despite the fact that they were on a five-year win streak. He allies with them, at first, until he realizes they’re dead weight and he’s better off on his own.
It comes down to the final eight, as many kills under the boy’s belt, three with his hands, the rest with his gifted trident. His odds increase to two-to-one-at least, until he finds what used to be his district partner. Nerissa isn’t anymore, having been stung and strangled by the same vines he’d repurposed into a net, and left in an eddy while river rapids beat her bloody. He goes to her anyway, wanting to at least free her from the rocks, only she’s not quite dead yet. She shoots out a hand, clawing at his eyes, then it’s over.
Not for the boy, who leaves her there and scales half the adjacent mountainside, crawling inside a partly-concealed cave hidden in the rock face. He stays there, huddled in upon himself and murmuring the girl’s name, tuning out the Games entirely and causing the Gamemakers’ assistants to step into the arena and haul him out once the remaining tributes have killed themselves off.
He committed his share of murder and has a body the likes of which no one in the Capitol has before seen, so they don’t consider his win one of chance. They care only for his beauty and not for the way his eyes focus on nothing, the way he can’t sleep beneath a sheet because it tangles him up and spits him out.
Believe you me, President Snow’s publicity and television crews earn their paychecks spinning the story of Finnick Odair.
The salt-mouthed victor from District 4 isn’t the one who comes up with secrets as placating payment. That idea belongs to Althea Wix, upon noting she’s left her best valuables in her other penthouse and besides, this piece of gossip is just too delicious not to share, just wait until you hear, Finnick, my pet. It’s just as well: he’s got a closetful of gifts from sponsors and socialites who like to tell themselves that the far-off look in Finnick’s eyes is because he’s dazed in pleasure, that the times he stops in the middle with a scream and runs into the shower with the spray on Scald are aberrations. Reminders that they’re doing this with a victor, someone who’s got a killer in there somewhere, and the danger, that’s what makes it fun.
(Rape is a vile word, a word not used since before the Dark Days. Persuasion is the way to go, now.)
He’s not forced to attend the first few Reapings after his Games-the Capitol says he’s caring for his sick mother, District 4 says he’s in the Capitol-because he’s too twitchy, might snap if he sees a girl with hair the same blue-black as Nerissa or catches sight of a child with a mouthful of (blood) strawberries. He’s there for the 68th Games, though, ramrod-straight and staring out at the glittering horizon, the voice of his district’s escort a distant hummingbird in his ear.
Mags stands by his side, not touching but there all the same, offering at once support and silent vitriol for the charade. District 4 has plenty of other victors, who all mostly get to live their lives free of the Capitol. Who wants to hear about them, after all, when you can have the poetry of a chiseled son of Poseidon and his warrior mentor?
(We’re really sorry, Finnick. We’d help you if we could, it’s just-we have families, too, you know?)
Finnick’s boy doesn’t even get all the way to the Cornucopia that year, despite Mags lending her expertise. Her tribute doesn’t win that year either.
The 68th crown is awarded to a live wire named Johanna Mason with her axe still jaw-deep in Two Boy’s head.
The year after District 7’s comeback is the all-maces year. Beetee brings home a victor and wishes he hadn’t.
Haymitch Abernathy, with hushed input from Gloss, Lyme, and Cecelia, finally takes pity on him sometime after Johanna’s victory and becomes a steady vendor of supplements and aids that don’t fix him but make him more…amenable. It slurs his speech a little, if he doesn’t pay attention to his enunciations, and occasionally his brain becomes a net like those he’s so good at weaving, making him forget bits and pieces at a time. No one ever (cares) notices, though, the lapses. What they notice is that he’s less on edge and therefore presentable.
Finnick is asleep when Mags barges into Haymitch’s room and tells him off for drugging up what amounts to her grandson.
Haymitch lets her yell and hit and curse and when she’s done, says, “That boy would’ve been dead in another year if I didn’t.”
The words of Calliope Greenwich, Four’s escort, do actually penetrate his thoughts come the next summer, although they still sound as if she’s speaking with a fishbowl over her head. It’s as this whim occurs to him that he bites his lip to stop from laughing aloud. He’s learned by now that usually things he finds amusing are not so to others, and therefore to keep those sorts of things to himself.
(I caught word from Mrs. Ionsworth that you laughed at her. Do I need to remind you of proper decorum again, Finnick? Has your family already gotten over that tragic boating accident of your brother-in-law’s?)
From the depths of the giant glass ball full of names emerges that of a wisp of a girl, twelve years old, just. Finnick recognizes her as his old neighbor’s daughter. He’d taught her how to do her first bowline knot, and what ways to properly treat coral cuts. He crams his hands into white-knuckled fists, focusing on the pain to tether himself to the present. It works, mostly. Stefania’s on the step second from the top, silent tears on her face, when Finnick’s world shifts.
“I volunteer!” calls a voice somewhere in the mass of Seventeens. “I volunteer as tribute.”
Finnick hears cry-whispers of gratitude from Stefania’s family, which he thinks is rather ironic. Four is technically a Career district, but not everyone goes through the program, and at that, it’s more structured suggestions and tips than an actual academy like in One and Two. While Fours may get more allies and sponsors than the outer districts, when it comes down to actual combat, quite often it’s a dice roll. This girl, this volunteer, had given one child an extra year to live, but, statistically, just doomed herself to the slaughter.
He catches his name through his ponderings, and realizes his brain has done the sieve thing again, that a chunk of time has been lost to him. He blinks and finds that he’s no longer on the stage, but in the lobby of the Justice Building.
“Finnick,” Calliope prompts again, one repetition away from stomping her foot. “The train is waiting on you.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He allows her to hurry him out the back and up to the station, making impeccable time in spite of the six-inch spikes beneath her heels. The train zooms to speed as soon as they step inside, and the escort ushers him to a table, where both tributes sit stoically, Mags speaking to them in the kind of calming tones Finnick knows well.
“Finnick Odair,” he introduces, sitting down next to Mags and doing his best to play catch up.
Mags covers efficiently. “I tell you time and time again, boy, one of these days you’re going to forget your own mother if you don’t pay attention.” She means, Are you all right? and he gives her an appropriately chastised nudge with his shoulder. “This is Marin Velasquez, and Annie Cresta, who volunteered for Stefania.”
Finnick slides his eyes from Marin, sixteen and about a hundred pounds soaking wet, to Annie. She’s a beauty-won’t be hard to find an angle for her stylists to emphasize, with chestnut hair that falls past her breasts, lithe muscles, and eyes the color of the sea just before sunset.
“Have a death wish, do you?” he asks her, without meaning to. Mags squeezes his knee warningly under the table.
He’s about to backtrack, when Annie snaps, “No, I’m ready to fight, and that little girl wasn’t. But if you’re not going to help, Finnick Odair, then you can just fuck off.”
In that instant, Finnick’s head empties of all the cobwebs it normally houses, clarity reigning. The colors on the train brighten, he can hear the sounds of the wheels squeaking along the tracks, can smell the food cart behind them. It alarms him, some, this level of sensation he hasn’t felt since prior to his own Games, and he clutches onto it with all he has.
“I apologize, Annie,” he says, flashing her a smile earnest in its sincerity. For a moment, her face registers surprise before falling back into its scowl. “We’re going to do everything we can to bring you home.”
Seconds hang in the air as she considers his response, and it’s broken by the boy to her right. “Me too, though, right?” he asks.
“Of course,” Mags soothes, patting Marin’s hand. Finnick can feel her cautious glare, but he doesn’t move his gaze from Annie. He’s not sure he could even if he wanted to.
Annie nods resolutely, agrees, “Well, okay, then,” and that’s that.
Mags does most of the explaining on how everything will work: first, Remake Center; second, tribute parade; third, dinner in the Training Center and discussion of strategies; tomorrow, first day of training. Annie and Marin soak it all in with few questions, just resignation. They both gape out the window when the train slows in its arrival into the Capitol, entranced as they enter the glittering jewel.
Finnick doesn’t, merely toys with a steak knife among the remnants of lunch. He’s scarring the wood table, but neither Mags nor Calliope chide him for it. Calliope may not be the sharpest hook in the tackle box, but even she knows not to pester him beyond a certain point. She does, however, jostle his shoulder when he doesn’t realize the train has stopped. He gets up, leaving the knife behind, and walks alongside Mags to work their way through the greeting crowd.
He keeps his grimaces internal at the flashbulbs that go off in his face, at the countless cries of his name, requests for pictures, proclamations of love. Judgment effuses off his tributes in waves, and he hastens to evade their eyes. As one of the Capitolites breaks from the crowd to drape on his arm, his ears begin to ring, her manicured nails morphing into Nerissa’s claw-like death grip. Finnick bites his tongue until he tastes blood, praying she’ll let go, knowing it wouldn’t be prudent for him to strangle her like he wants.
Calliope, of all people, comes to his rescue. “Ah ah ah,” she hisses at the woman, prying her talons away. “No touching. We are on a schedule.”
He tries to catch her eye as the ringing slowly recedes, but she’s smiling and waving at the spectators as if nothing had happened.
The rest of the trek passes without incident, and when they enter the Remake Center, they hand off Annie and Marin to their respective prep teams. When Annie’s stylists see their project, they squeal. Finnick can’t blame them-District 4’s tributes tend to be average in countenance; Annie, certainly, will make their jobs significantly easier. Although she’s not as sculpted as Ones and Twos, there’s no denying her loveliness. Marin’s not unfortunate, except for his scrawny frame.
After that, there’s nothing to do but wait while the two of them get poked and gilled like a common bass. He plays a few rounds of Hearts and Blackjack with Mags, who wipes the floor with him all but once. When he was younger, she’d let him win, purposefully keeping the Queen of Spades until the end or hitting when she knew she’d go over twenty-one. Now, she’s ruthless, informing him that if he doesn’t lose he’s not going to learn.
Hours later, the loudspeaker announces that the parade is to begin in fifteen minutes’ time, so Finnick gladly abandons the round, to Mags’s self-satisfied chuckle. They take the elevator down to the stables, carving a path through the group of stylists, prep teams, and tributes. There don’t appear to be any surprises among the costumes, each district sticking to its specialty. Haymitch is nowhere to be seen, he notices, though he can’t really blame him: as always, District 12 is caked in black dust and scraps of clothing, adorned with a bedazzled headlamp. Finnick thinks he’d probably avoid the parade, too, if that’s what he had to look forward to.
Of course, he’s not really in a position to judge, considering every year Four’s stylists go with a nautical theme, more often than not mermaids or some kind of marine mammal. To be sure, they usually don’t have on much more than District 12 does. Finnick remembers the broadcast for his own parade had been one costume malfunction away from needing censorship, given how little he wore.
It’s this expectation that grinds him to a halt when the District 4 chariot comes into view. They’re not mermaids this year, or dolphins. Annie is something else entirely, draped in a gown tight to her waist before cascading into bolts of fabric in a thousand shades of blue and green. Diamonds litter the hem, drifting farther apart as they move upwards until they peter out at her knees. A gold circlet lies atop her head, holding down hair that shimmers with glowing strands of light. She is the ocean, sun-rimmed and exquisite.
A sharp pinch on his side careens him out of his trance, and he looks at Mags to see a mix of amusement and caution there. He shrugs, sheepish. Marin is Annie’s opposite, dark where she is light, reminiscent of moonlit nights spent in the middle of the sea with nothing around for miles.
“You guys are incredible,” Finnick says, ensuring that he includes Marin as well.
Annie tugs at her dress, trying in vain to loosen it. “I feel ridiculous,” she says. Her eyes spit rancor beneath the indigo and plum shadow that surrounds them.
“You feel ridiculous,” Marin complains, gesturing to his bare, contoured chest. “You feel ridiculous?”
Annie manages a smile at that. “Tie for first.”
Marin’s inevitable objection is interrupted by the loudspeaker, which urges all the tributes into their chariots, announcing the parade’s momentary commencement. Finnick offers Annie a hand up, which she refuses, regardless of the precarious heels strapped to her feet. Mags chortles again, and Finnick shoots her an exasperated glare.
He thinks he should extend some kind of advice on how to behave during the parade itself, but can’t make his mouth work. A terse nod is all he can give, and in the next instant, their horses lurch forward behind the neon that engulfs the tributes from Three. Finnick looks away, convincing himself it’s due to the afterimage of Three’s intensity.
One earns the loudest cheer, no surprise there, with Four trailing them by a hair. Finnick isn’t shocked, based on his own reaction to their getups, but it’s still good news. If the Capitol likes their appearance, they’re more apt to sponsor, and if they’re more apt to sponsor, Four has better chances of making it through to the end. Well…one of them, anyway.
Twelve brings up the rear as the chariots assemble themselves in the City Circle and President Snow starts his address. Finnick steps aside, injecting himself in a conversation between Chaff and Brutus, the men’s deep, resonant voices drowning out most of Snow’s oily speech. To the credit of the victors from Eleven and Two, they don’t ask why he’d joined them, simply integrate him into their discussion-who has it worse, Eleven’s summers or Two’s winters-without hesitation.
Soon, Beetee and Wiress wander over to contribute their opinions-well, what about our high desert?-and are followed by Johanna dragging a bemused Blight and Seeder, and the whole thing melts into conversations on top of one another, everyone interrupting everyone, and Finnick thinks that sometimes, being a victor isn’t so bad.
Enobaria’s got shark teeth and a personality to match, and Finnick knows she’d take a bullet for him anyway (maybe). Cecelia sends him regular photographs of her children as they grow, to show him victors can create, too, not just destroy. He doesn’t know anything more than the names of District 6’s mentors, Telluria and Galvan, but Telluria had in separate turns painted a garden of chrysanthemums, a sky glittering with stars, a field of poppies, and a forest of trees, unbowed and unbent, on Finnick’s arms to provide an anchor during his episodes; Galvan had shared his morphling stash after Finnick stumbled onto the wrong floor after his first client.
(People say Six is crazy. But then, plenty of people say he’s crazy, too. He’s still here and they’re still here, so what is madness, really?)
They’re all in their own personal hells, here, everywhere, but they’re in it together, and that’s enough.
Upon receiving praise from their stylists and prep teams when the parade ends and the tributes are shooed into the Training Center, they file into the elevator and shoot up to the fourth floor surrounded by crystal. Annie and Marin immediately dart off to their quarters to change and scrub off their makeup; dinner is in the process of being served by the quartet of Avoxes in the dining room, grub a smattering of Capitol finery as always.
Finnick heads to the balcony to rid his senses of the lingering scent of horse and perfume. It’s a comfortable evening, warm and without the stickiness of home. Mags follows suit, standing next to him with her arms resting on the railing. He wonders if, in fifty some-odd years, he’ll still be here dolling up tributes just so they can die. How Mags hasn’t pulled Haymitch’s antics-disappearing, drinking, not caring (caring too much)-after all this time baffles him.
So, he asks her.
She pauses for awhile, the sounds of the Capitol’s nightly rush filtering up lazily. “Because sometimes I can save one,” she says. “That’s worth it, for me.”
Not for the first time, Finnick determines Mags to be a better person than all the rest of them combined.
Words run out between the two until Calliope beckons them inside for dinner. Marin has successfully located clothes: principally, a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the hilt. Most of Annie’s makeup has refused removal, though judging by the vague red streaks, it wasn’t for her lack of trying. Clucking, Lucinda passes her a glass bottle and swears its contents will work wonders. Annie tucks it in a pocket for later, dubious.
Finnick ladles himself some soup, a thick concoction of stock, lamb, chicken, and an assortment of vegetables. He forgoes the proffered wine in favor of a mug of hot, honey water, and drops in a wedge of lemon. The Avox bearing the wine must be new, he guesses-the others have been around long enough to know he can’t stomach the drink.
(It’s classy, Finnick! Oh, you simply must try this CabernetChardonnayPinotRieslingMerlot, it’s utterly divine!)
“Now, I have to say, you two were absolutely delightful out there!” Calliope trills, already halfway through her goblet of wine. “I was speaking with some potential sponsors, and they said-pay attention now-they said that you’re the team to beat. You laid a good foundation today, now we just need to talk about your training and interviews…”
Finnick pulls from his jacket a small orange pill of Haymitch’s and, while the others are lending at least semi-rapt attention to Calliope’s monologue, he swallows it quickly, washing it down with a gulp of his water. Calliope’s voice twists and gallops into song, and the edges around all of the table guests blur, smudging their faces. He smiles and tiptoes into the sea.
They all turn in around midnight, and Finnick wakes at three screaming.
Even at seventy-five years old, Mags can still run, and she bursts into his room with panic on her wizened features. She’s heard his screams before, has heard countless victors’, but she always comes, for this particular boy especially. It was exceptionally bad tonight, the nightmare, she can see that from a distance with only the moon lighting his room. His skin is sweat-slicked and he curls up into a ball, his hands seeking to crush his skull, unwilling to settle for anything less.
The mattress dips as Mags pulls him into her arms. He is tense as a bowstring, and she knows in a few hours he will ache from the strain. She hums a melody her grandfather taught her long ago, in the old tongue of District 4, lyrical and forbidden. In between verses she murmurs platitudes, meaningless but continual and in the same even tone. Sometime after five, he begins to relax, unfolding himself and finally looking over at her with tears staining his cheeks. She smoothes the bronze curls from his forehead.
“There you are,” she says with a sad smile. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, glancing away and unsticking his clenched jaw. “I didn’t mean to.”
Mags takes his hands in hers, squeezing until he meets her eyes again. “Do not apologize, sweet boy,” she says harshly. “Not one of us has a single day go by when we don’t see…things.”
Finnick catches her allusion easily. It was said as an afterthought, but he abruptly feels dirty. He doesn’t like that she knows what he’s made to do, even if it’s not expressly a secret among the victors, even if he’s not the only one. Suddenly, the drying sweat on his skin reminds him of there, and he scrambles off the bed, eking out something about needing to shower and decompress.
From the expression that opposes him, Mags doesn’t believe a word, but if there’s one thing at which she excels it’s knowing when not to prod. She stands and crosses to him, cupping his face in her hands. “I love you, Finnick,” she says. “No matter what.”
He doesn’t answer, and she leaves a moment later, shutting his door with a click. He exhales and retreats into his bathroom, turning on the shower with the temperature display as high as it goes. He avoids the mirror above the sink, instead glaring down at the tiled floor, until the room fills up with steam and it’s safe to tear his eyes away. He strips and steps under the spray, letting the water sluice off the sweat and the shame.
Sleep no longer an option, Finnick throws on a sweatshirt and heads up to the roof, anticipating the cool breeze and twinkling wind chimes. The barest hint of light peeks out from the horizon, promising to transform the city into pastels of pink and orange within the hour. While it’s nothing like watching the sun rise over the ocean, there’s something breathtaking about ignoring the cityscape and waiting as the mountains paint themselves in color. Snow won’t arrive for many months yet, but they’re majestic even rock-capped as they are now, standing stalwart in the midst of wars and strife and political bullshit, never erring, never moving, constant.
He chooses a bench and closes his eyes, letting the chimes sprinkle over him and listening to the warbled sound of early-rising Capitol citizens. The majority of the city doesn’t wake until after ten, but there are a few dozen that use the dawn as their alarm clock, going for a jog before they make themselves up into a caricature, or getting an early start on their work day.
Finnick likes to pretend they’re not as bloodthirsty as their peers, likes to contrive mundane stories about their lives. One is a chef, her forte bacon and eggs over-easy accompanied by plain black coffee. Another is a banker with two graying Labradors who spends his morning laughing over the comics section of the newspaper. Yet another labors over an unfinished novel, searching for inspiration in his cramped apartment and subsisting on orange juice and half-stale saltines. The woman taking a leisurely stroll in the park is dreaming up a companion for herself, beautiful and kind and generous and well-off, ready to swoop in and save her from her current, disastrous relationship.
Intellectually, he knows none of that is true, but it’s nice to think that it is. He’s not sure he could bear a lifetime of his struggles without being able to believe that there are some good ones out there. The districts are replete, even One and Two have their share of morally-centered folk, and Finnick is inclined to trust that the Capitol has a handful amongst its ranks. Certainly he hasn’t seen proof of that, a fact he attempts to ignore. His stylists are less irksome and ethically bankrupt than many, except that they, too, enjoy the sport of the Hunger Games and dye themselves every hue of the rainbow.
Under the illuminated guard of the former Rockies, Finnick lets the growing pain in his muscles leach away and does his best to forget his nightmare, all the blood and rushing water and squelch of trident against ligaments. After a time, he tosses it into the box that contains his worst memories. It comes undone, sometimes, and each occurrence makes it harder for him to sew himself back together, and yet he has. No matter how bad, he’s still here. He supposes that has to count for something.
“Oh,” reaches a soft voice from behind him.
He jolts, snapping his eyes open and clambering off the bench to face the newcomer, tensed for a fight. He carefully urges his heart rate down and his fists to unfurl when he recognizes who it is. He doesn’t, however, have the energy to school himself into the veneer of smirking perfection normally required of him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was up here,” Annie continues. “I can go.”
Finnick appraises her. Clearly she hadn’t gotten any rest either, evidenced by her long hair drawn up into a loose bun, her body disguised by formless pajamas, and her eyes red-rimmed in either sleep deprivation of tears. Maybe both.
“No, it’s all right,” Finnick says, “I don’t mind.”
She approaches him warily, for a reason Finnick can’t comprehend-possibly she’d noticed his previous, reflexive willingness to brawl-and sits down on the bench he’d vacated. Taking a gamble, he joins her. She wraps her arms around herself but doesn’t give any other indication of discomfort.
“It’s not a bad view, is it? From up here,” she offers, looking at the mountains and not the city just as he had.
He smiles, not of his own accord, and hesitantly uses her hand to point at a summit in the distance. “The Capitol calls it something different now, dedicated it to some politician, but that used to be named Mount Evans,” he claims. “And over there, Pike’s Peak. They don’t really use them anymore, but these mountains were once a great place for skiing.”
“Skiing?” Annie asks. She hasn’t pulled her hand from his grasp, which he deems a positive.
“It’s where you’re attached to these two thin boards and slide down the snow,” he explains. “More or less.”
Annie looks at him skeptically. “Never heard of it,” she says. “How do you know that?”
“Mags,” he replies simply. “She has lots of stories from before. Panem used to be great, a long time ago.”
He knows he’s bordering on treason, that his voice isn’t kept low enough to avoid being picked up by the microphones that border the rooftop, only right now he can’t find it in him to care. He’s tired. Just done. He drops Annie’s hand back in her lap and inhales. The air is much thinner in the Capitol than anywhere else; it used to bother him, make him dizzy, but he’s since taken a liking to it. It resets his head to zero.
“My gran had a bunch of stories, too,” Annie says. “Mother hated it when she would tell them, because she thought it was dangerous, but I always loved it. I probably won’t get the chance to pass them on, though.”
Finnick frowns, having for a few minutes forgotten the Games entirely. And now that she’s mentioned it, he realizes that there’s a better than decent chance she’ll be dead in a week. He steadily controls his breathing the way Gloss had taught him, staving off the red that threatens to obscure his vision.
If Annie notices his reaction, she doesn’t mention it. “Sure you will,” Finnick says when he settles. He nudges her knee with his. “Trust me.”
“Trust you,” she laughs. Finnick decides he likes her laugh. Wishes he had more occasion to hear it. “Trust Finnick Odair.”
He doesn’t take offense, mainly because if he does, he’s not sure he could handle the open disdain. “I’m your mentor,” he says. “You sort of have to.”
“My mentor?” she says sharply. “Isn’t Mags mine?”
Finnick kicks himself. Mentorship isn’t always gender-based, especially in districts where they don’t have both available, but usually it’s preferred. “Yeah, of course,” he corrects. Then, before he has a chance to stop himself, “If you want.”
She’s silent for so long the sun has time to throw the entire city into relief. “Marin might need more help,” she says finally, quietly. “Mags is his best bet.”
He can’t dispute that assertion. Mags has brought home more kids than any other victor. She’d brought him home. Maybe not all in one piece, but he’s alive in large part due to her. He’d have withered long ago lying on a rock with poison seeping through his veins and welts covering his legs if it weren’t for the medicine and suturing supplies she’d sent.
“You’re not going to die, Annie,” he vows, uncertain of where his determination originates. “I promise.”
Annie nods. He doubts she takes his pledge to heart, she has too much realism for that, but she looks like she wants to. She opens her mouth a couple times, mulling over something to say, before blurting, “I heard screaming earlier. Was that you?”
Finnick considers fibbing to her. But he’s just sworn something no mentor should ever do, and lying would defeat the purpose. “Yeah. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” she assures. Then- “Is that what I have to look forward to, if I win? Nightmares?”
He doesn’t say, That, and more, because if it’s the last thing he does, he’s going to spare her his own fate. “Yes.”
“Okay,” she murmurs.
She’s the one to grab his hand this time. He closes his eyes.
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