Fic; Drowning
Long time no fic.
Title: Drowning
Character/Pairing: Finnick, Johanna, some Finnick/Annie
Word Count: 880
Rating: PG
Summary: Finnick watches Annie's Games, and faces some hard truth.
Author’s Note: I hate the title tbh. I might change it at some point. This also hasn't been edited at all. And it could eventually become part of a longer work, because suddenly I just have so many Finnick feelings.
No one could have saved her, least of all him.
That is the only thought that Finnick can hold onto as he watches the arena flood. The tide is strong enough to bury everything, and he wonders if it was the Gamemakers’ intentions to have their perfect creation become one vast, angry ocean. It does its job - taking out the Career pack, who had been a little too reluctant to turn on each other - but it’s quickly getting out of hand. There’s too much chaos for the cameras to follow. It’s jumping around, making him sick, and so he shuts his eyes and lets the roar of the water fill his ears. There, now it almost sounds like home.
“Finnick,” he hears Johanna say beside him, and feels her nails dig painfully into his arm. “Finnick!”
He opens his eyes.
And there’s Annie, her head finally breaking through the water. The cameras zoom in on her instantly, capturing the wild look in her eyes, the blood mingling with her dark hair from the wound on her forehead that’s reopened. She thrashes, fighting the current, which is an effort even for a girl who’s grown up in District 4. Twice she disappears again under the waves, reappearing after long moments. There’s nothing for her to hold on to and no end to the sea that the arena has become. There’s nothing for her to do but keep swimming.
“See how they use the ones you love,” Johanna suddenly says, her voice wooden.
“What?” He barely manages to tear his eyes away from the screen to look at her.
“You don’t think they did this just to take care of the Careers, did you?” she asks. Finnick stares at her. “They’re just playing with her now. Or, playing with you, I should say.”
Finnick feels a pinch of dread in the pit of his belly. Of course. Of course they were playing with him. Because this was all just a game.
“She was never going to live,” he says hollowly, his eyes going back to the screen. “She was dead from the moment her name was drawn.”
Johanna shakes her head. “No. She was dead from the moment she mentioned you in her interview. All of Panem may have loved hearing about the real Finnick Odair, but your fancy lovers here sure didn’t.”
Finnick’s nails dig so hard into the silky fabric of the couch they are sitting on that he is surprised he doesn’t tear holes in it. “So they’re doing this to her because of me. Because of their own petty jealousy over someone who doesn’t even belong to them.”
She gives a humorless laugh. “But we do belong to them. I’ve only been here two years and I know that. If they didn’t, what would force us back here every summer to send kids from our homes to their deaths?”
She’s right, and he knows it, too. He’s known it since his own victory, when Capitol officials came to him after his tour and threatened to slaughter everyone he’s ever cared about unless he agreed to volunteer his services in their candy-colored city. Even victors are not free from the Games. They’re free from the reaping, but Finnick isn’t sure now which is worse: being a victor, or still living in fear of becoming a tribute. At least the latter are allowed to have families.
Even after promising to be President Snow’s whore, Finnick came home from the Capitol to find his parents and younger sister dead. Drowned. It had looked too neat for it to have been of natural causes. And there had been nothing natural about the makeup that had made his nine-year-old sister look like a ghost from the sea.
Now Annie will die too, because her name being drawn in the reaping was no accident. Not when her name has become inseparable from his, even though he’s tried so hard to keep it from them. They will watch her death unhinge him, and then they - those fancy lovers of his - will all clamor for the pleasure of being the one to put him back together.
And Finnick will make sure they know that nothing they can do will fix him.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. Annie wins. Her last struggle with the boy from District 1 is quick and disappointingly bloodless by the Capitol’s standards, but the boy has gone too long without food and all she has to do is push him into the unnatural ocean - the one that drowned his district partner. The Capitol can’t even drag out his death; he’s so weak that he drowns in minutes. When the cannon fires and Annie is collected by the hovercraft, Finnick allows himself to feel relief, because she is alive. There’s no way they can kill her now, even if they wanted to.
But the Capitol never runs out of ways to torture people, and when they are finally reunited, Finnick realizes they’ve taken the girl he loves and given him a shell. In their own way, they’ve killed her after all. Her body is warm and alive, but nothing he says or does will put the ocean back in her eyes.
So Finnick breaks anyway.
Title: Drowning
Character/Pairing: Finnick, Johanna, some Finnick/Annie
Word Count: 880
Rating: PG
Summary: Finnick watches Annie's Games, and faces some hard truth.
Author’s Note: I hate the title tbh. I might change it at some point. This also hasn't been edited at all. And it could eventually become part of a longer work, because suddenly I just have so many Finnick feelings.
No one could have saved her, least of all him.
That is the only thought that Finnick can hold onto as he watches the arena flood. The tide is strong enough to bury everything, and he wonders if it was the Gamemakers’ intentions to have their perfect creation become one vast, angry ocean. It does its job - taking out the Career pack, who had been a little too reluctant to turn on each other - but it’s quickly getting out of hand. There’s too much chaos for the cameras to follow. It’s jumping around, making him sick, and so he shuts his eyes and lets the roar of the water fill his ears. There, now it almost sounds like home.
“Finnick,” he hears Johanna say beside him, and feels her nails dig painfully into his arm. “Finnick!”
He opens his eyes.
And there’s Annie, her head finally breaking through the water. The cameras zoom in on her instantly, capturing the wild look in her eyes, the blood mingling with her dark hair from the wound on her forehead that’s reopened. She thrashes, fighting the current, which is an effort even for a girl who’s grown up in District 4. Twice she disappears again under the waves, reappearing after long moments. There’s nothing for her to hold on to and no end to the sea that the arena has become. There’s nothing for her to do but keep swimming.
“See how they use the ones you love,” Johanna suddenly says, her voice wooden.
“What?” He barely manages to tear his eyes away from the screen to look at her.
“You don’t think they did this just to take care of the Careers, did you?” she asks. Finnick stares at her. “They’re just playing with her now. Or, playing with you, I should say.”
Finnick feels a pinch of dread in the pit of his belly. Of course. Of course they were playing with him. Because this was all just a game.
“She was never going to live,” he says hollowly, his eyes going back to the screen. “She was dead from the moment her name was drawn.”
Johanna shakes her head. “No. She was dead from the moment she mentioned you in her interview. All of Panem may have loved hearing about the real Finnick Odair, but your fancy lovers here sure didn’t.”
Finnick’s nails dig so hard into the silky fabric of the couch they are sitting on that he is surprised he doesn’t tear holes in it. “So they’re doing this to her because of me. Because of their own petty jealousy over someone who doesn’t even belong to them.”
She gives a humorless laugh. “But we do belong to them. I’ve only been here two years and I know that. If they didn’t, what would force us back here every summer to send kids from our homes to their deaths?”
She’s right, and he knows it, too. He’s known it since his own victory, when Capitol officials came to him after his tour and threatened to slaughter everyone he’s ever cared about unless he agreed to volunteer his services in their candy-colored city. Even victors are not free from the Games. They’re free from the reaping, but Finnick isn’t sure now which is worse: being a victor, or still living in fear of becoming a tribute. At least the latter are allowed to have families.
Even after promising to be President Snow’s whore, Finnick came home from the Capitol to find his parents and younger sister dead. Drowned. It had looked too neat for it to have been of natural causes. And there had been nothing natural about the makeup that had made his nine-year-old sister look like a ghost from the sea.
Now Annie will die too, because her name being drawn in the reaping was no accident. Not when her name has become inseparable from his, even though he’s tried so hard to keep it from them. They will watch her death unhinge him, and then they - those fancy lovers of his - will all clamor for the pleasure of being the one to put him back together.
And Finnick will make sure they know that nothing they can do will fix him.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. Annie wins. Her last struggle with the boy from District 1 is quick and disappointingly bloodless by the Capitol’s standards, but the boy has gone too long without food and all she has to do is push him into the unnatural ocean - the one that drowned his district partner. The Capitol can’t even drag out his death; he’s so weak that he drowns in minutes. When the cannon fires and Annie is collected by the hovercraft, Finnick allows himself to feel relief, because she is alive. There’s no way they can kill her now, even if they wanted to.
But the Capitol never runs out of ways to torture people, and when they are finally reunited, Finnick realizes they’ve taken the girl he loves and given him a shell. In their own way, they’ve killed her after all. Her body is warm and alive, but nothing he says or does will put the ocean back in her eyes.
So Finnick breaks anyway.