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[65th_victor]

They were supposed to be watching the announcement for the Quarter Quell. But they weren't. Instead, they were in the house in Victors' Village that they practically claimed as their own, filling up more and more of the living room over the years went by. There was still little there that marked it as personal, but it was certainly comfortable now, especially compared to when they had first started breaking in, sitting on the ground with only a blanket.

Finnick knew they would get into trouble if anyone found out that they weren't planted in front of the televisions with the rest of the country, listening intently to the president's announcement. He could feel these games cresting upon them both already, threatening to drown them. He didn't know why -- perhaps it was because this was the first Quarter Quell that he was old enough to be involved in, or perhaps it was because it had now been 10 years since his own games (17 dead District Four tributes and Annie), or maybe it was really because of Katniss Everdeen. He'd watched with a cold sense of disbelief from a club as she won her Games. He'd been waiting for the boy from One to kill them both, because it was too much to carry someone that injured through so much of the Games, and Twelve never beat One. It had been such a mathematical certainty in his head, that he was certain he had been more surprised than the rest of the country when they managed to not only outlast One, but then to trick the Capitol.

But it wasn't really a trick, because they all paid for the things they took. You never stole from the Capitol. You took your life from the Games and you spent the rest of it paying in kind. That was the unknowing deal they made. So, yeah, maybe he was dreading seeing this couple show up in the Capitol this year.

And maybe they were only putting off the inevitable of whatever horror this announcement was going to bring. (It brought a cold chill to his insides to think of mentoring four kids versus two), but he would take that small amount of time with Annie, where they were will protected and with each other.

He was balanced in between Annie's legs at the moment, mostly teasing her with his tongue, fingers balanced underneath her knee and on top of one of her hips.

Comments

[themadgirl]

The Games were the absolute last thing that Annie ever wanted to think about on any day, but it seemed especially so on a day like this one. The Capitol would have them cower and kowtow, would have them sit calmly while they were again forced to acknowledge their own powerlessness. As if Annie wasn't already intimately acquainted with the bleakness of her reality every time Finnick got on that damned train.

He'd be back on that train soon enough, back to the Capitol for whatever hell they'd concocted for that year's tributes. Now, though, she didn't want to think about where he'd be in a day or a week or a month, she only wanted to think about him here, now, with her. Forced denial and living in the moment were the only ways she stayed sane, the only things that let her forget even for a little while. She knew; she'd had lots of practice.

The small fantasy they'd begun when they'd first broken into this house had grown, become a whole separate world. Here, she could step through the door and be a different person. Here, there was nothing but the two of them.

Leg hooked over Finnick's shoulder, she arched back, fingers tangled in his hair, not bothering to quiet her breathless little whimpers.

[65th_victor]

This was the perfect use of his time, Finnick was fairly certain. In the years they had been together, he had never gotten tired of watching Annie. He loved the gentle pull of her fingertips against his scalp, the shift of her leg against his shoulder. The light was low coming in the window of the house, and he could just see her silhouetted, hair sprawled around her head. He flicked his tongue with more purpose, one of his hands dragging along her thigh.

It was enough to forget that, somewhere, President Snow was fucking with their lives again.

Or, at least, it should have been. Instead, Finnick's attention was roughly pulled away from Annie by the sound of voices -- that sounded quite near. He couldn't tell if they were excited or upset, but he was certain he could hear shouting. He lifted his head, frowning.

[themadgirl]

Lifting her head, Annie looked down the length of her body at where Finnick was tucked between her thighs, his eyes bright and attentive, his mouth tugged down in an uncertain moue. Her mouth opened to question him, but then she heard it herself, the scuffling of many feet and sound of raised voices filtering in from the square.

Had she been anywhere else, her reaction might have been more violent, more abrupt. But her mind was so well trained, she simply couldn't fathom the breach of their boundaries here. This was the one place they were safe, free to be together. It was their sanctuary.

"Finnick…?" she said, drawing away to hastily pull her dress back on, attention swinging from him to the noises outside and back again.

[65th_victor]

"It's all right," Finnick answered automatically, one of his hands brushing reassuringly over her waist. He pushed himself to his feet, eyes scanning the nearby windows. The crowd was in Victors' Village, but they weren't near this house -- closer to his and Annie's from the sound of it.

"Stay here," Finnick said, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead, before heading back toward the door.

He didn't know what he expected when he opened it. He was surprised to see that there were more people than he had anticipated -- it looked like half of the nearby town had trekked down the beach. It had to have something to do with Snow's announcement, but what? He had only made it to the bottom of the steps, stepped foot on the sand when someone noticed where he was. The shouting grew infinitely louder; it was strangely like being back in the Capitol, although he wasn't sure why he drew that comparison. The crowd turned toward him, but one figure broke out at sprint, racing across the sand with an obvious desperation -- Coral.

The cold fear that had been twisting inside Finnick grew tighter. He knew that he should move to meet here, but he remained where he was, planted to the spot in front of the house he shouldn't have been in. Coral practically flung herself at him when she finally reached him, her hands twisting around one of his forearms. She kept saying his name over and over even though she hadn't caught her breath yet.

"Calm down," he said easily, his voice betraying his own sense of dread. "What's wrong?"

"They're picking tributes from victors," Coral finally managed to say, spitting out the announcement in one high-pitched breath.

[themadgirl]

Framed in the open doorway behind him, one hand still clasped against the knob, Annie stilled. The crowd had turned and was swimming around the stoop now, upturned faces of anger or sorrow all looking at the two of them, Finnick still clutching his sister and Annie, barefoot and suddenly pale, the thin fabric of her skirt fluttering in the breeze.

"No," she said, the word pushed roughly from her throat, her fingers tightening against the doorknob the only thing keeping her upright.

It couldn't be right, her brain insisted. It couldn't be right, they'd promised, you go into the Games and if you come out you get to live in peace, you get to live in peace, you get to live—

"Annie, are you going to volunteer for Mags?" came a shout above the fray, and she startled, frozen in place like a cornered rabbit, dozens of eyes turned her way.

[65th_victor]

He should have known how to fix this. But he was frozen, staring at Coral as her news suckerpunched him. She hadn't said it, but he felt it all the same. He was going back in. There were four male tributes alive in District Four. Better odds than plenty of other victors. But it was him.

And he knew how the Capitol worked. This whole thing -- this whole damn thing -- was rigged. He didn't need to speculate. He knew. Katniss Everdeen couldn't steal her life from the Games, so they were taking it back. Taking them all back, reneging on the one promise they all held close to heart. He was too popular, too well-known not to be reaped.

You volunteered for this, a cold voice in the back of his mind that sounded eerily like President Snow's sneered.

A desperate voice punched him out of his stupor. He twisted about sharply to see Annie stranded at the top of the steps.

Annie.

Because far worse was the fact that there were only two female victors for District Four -- Annie and Mags.

He felt a desperate need to lash out at the crowd, at whoever had yelled, because he could feel a noose tightening around his neck. He pulled away from Coral, going back up the stairs, wrapping one arm around Annie's waist, the other pressed against the side of her head, as if he could hide her from the too curious crowd. (He understood now, the split in the emotion. Half of them were excited to see a favored victor back in the arena. Half of them were aware of what they were about to lose.)

"You're all right," he whispered into her hair. "You're okay."

She wouldn't go back in. He was certain of that. Mags would volunteer for her. Mags would have volunteered for all of them a thousand times over if she had been able to before.

[themadgirl]

There was only one other time in Annie's life when she'd been further from okay, and it took every ounce of strength within her to not react now as she had then, to scream and then bolt. Her entire body was quaking beneath the protective shield of Finnick's body, her muscles stiff with tension and eyes squeezed shut.

It couldn't be real, it couldn't be real, it couldn't—

More voices began to shout in the crowd below, shouting their names, shouting at each other, and Annie's eyes snapped open with a start as she stumbled back half a step, staring in wide-eyed horror at Finnick.

He was going to die. He was going to die, and she was going to die, and it was going to be just like her dream—

Spurred by pure instinct, she wrenched herself away from him and fled, knocking through the meager home they had made for themselves and out the back door, her bare feet kicking up sand as she ran across the dunes.

She had to get away, she had to hide. Somewhere high, somewhere safe.

[65th_victor]

He let her flee. It seemed pointless to try and stop her. There were too many people, an overwhelming scene even without the added layer of Snow's announcement. Why subject her to any of this?


He let Annie run and, in turn, did what he was best at. He smiled broadly at the crowd, holding his hands up so that they finally fell silent.

"I will, of course, be overjoyed to represent our district if I should be reaped." He figured there was little harm in saying it. He'd told bigger lies. And, after all, he'd just made it clear that he had no intention of volunteering again. A few people in the crowd seemed to cotton onto that addendum. Coral looked up at him uncertainly.

"Go home," he told her in a low voice before turning and following Annie. It was easy enough to find her footsteps in the sand. Only as he walked did he start to sort out together everything else that this meant. Katniss going back into the arena was a certainty. And then Peeta or Haymitch.

Johanna. Another certainty. He imagined her in District Seven hearing the news. He imagined being in the arena with her. It had been hard enough the first time, but this -- this was going to be impossible. Killing strangers, people he had barely known had destroyed him. But this would be friends. People he had known for the last 10 years of his life. People who had helped him. And, of course, people who disdained him. Everything was personal here.

"Annie," he called quietly, stopping in the sand, not going all the way. He wanted to make sure that she wanted to be found.

[themadgirl]

The trees dotting the shoreline where sparse and thin, too long spent leaning against the salty ocean breezes. Instead of climbing, Annie had wedged herself behind a low jut of weathered rock, knees pulled up to her chest, hands twisted into the mess of her hair as she gulped in fast breaths that made her lightheaded. Over the roar of the waves, she could hear Finnick's voice, quiet yet heavy, the weight of the world suddenly threaded through the sound of her name. Chest hitching, a sob bubbled up from her throat and she shook her head, eyes squeezed shut, pulse hammering in her ears.

It couldn't be real. None of it could be real.

She'd known, deep down, that it would someday come to this. That they'd never let them rest. But it couldn't actually be happening.

[65th_victor]

He could just hear her crying over the sound of the waves, which somehow seemed a thousand miles away. He walked slowly to where Annie was almost half-hidden and knelt down in front of her, all of his actions measured.

His own insides were screaming even as he pressed a gentle hand to one of her knees. (I'm going back, was all he kept thinking. It was a singular thought that had become a mantra in his head. It still seemed like an impossibility, but now it also seemed as if nothing else existed, as if there had been no other path for the Quarter Quell to take other than this one. Of course they were going to reclaim all the Victors.)

"Do you want me here?" Finnick asked, voice low. He couldn't imagine that she would send him away, but maybe she would.

He wanted to reassure her, to promise her, that he was going to do anything and everything to protect her. He'd done it before, and he'd do it again. But that wasn't enough anymore. Because the simple truth of the matter was that the odds were against both of them surviving this. That seemed to be a miracle beyond Finnick's making.

[themadgirl]

She clutched at him instead of answering, the movement stilted and abrupt, fingers tight in the fabric of his shirt and face buried against his neck as if she might hide well enough there to avoid her own tragedy. The scent of Finnick's skin mingled with the tang of the sea air, and she let out a loud and wretched howl, her shoulders shaking with the force of it.

An older her might have looked for some small strain of hope, might have thought of something drastic like escape in her naivete. This Annie, though, knew only the bleakness of certainty.

They'd not both make it out of this alive, if either of them made it out alive at all.

[65th_victor]

He wrapped his arms around her the moment she was pressed against him, enveloping her as if he could protect her from the world. From everything that was happening. He buried his face against the top of one her bare shoulders and pressed a soft kiss to her warm skin, able to feel her shaking and crying against him.

He'd always thought about the cruelest thing the Capitol could do to them. It had plagued his thoughts for years. But this had never come up.

The Capitol had made them these monstrous things -- too violent, too crazed, too addicted, too pretty -- all belonging to the outskirts of their districts now. They had no homes to come back to. Belonged more in the Capitol than here, but not fully in the Capitol, because they were entertainment, not people there. They had been kids when they had gone into the arena, and now they were something else -- something haunted and defined by that single moment in time. And now most of them would go back.

He held Annie too tightly in return, moved to kiss the side of her face through her hair, his hand framing the other side of her face.

[themadgirl]

It seemed as if a lifetime had passed since Annie had been the girl capable of imagining they might someday have a real life together, so much changed since that she couldn't even properly recall what it had felt like to be that person. The memory was glossy and surreal, as if it were a beloved story instead of someone she had once been. Another lifetime, another her. She could not now conceive of allowing herself even the slightest fantasy of stability or family–They glittered but were sharp, and they cut into the flimsy, patchwork happiness they'd actually managed.

A happiness which was now, with the passing of a mere moment, lost entirely forever.

If she lived through this, she would not survive it.

All awareness of time had gone, and when Annie's cries finally tapered off and her shaking had eased, she couldn't have said how long she had been that way, pitched forward into Finnick's strong arms, clinging. Another stretch passed as her breathing calmed, and then a long, eerie period of stillness, the only sound the whistle of the wind.

"How long do we have?" she finally asked without moving, the words softly scratched from a throat sore from sobbing.

[65th_victor]

Finnick held her wordlessly. He stared out at the pitching ocean in front of them, nearly invisible in the darkness that had descended.

This all felt so inevitable now, that it seemed hard to believe that there had ever been a time when he hadn't known about the Quarter Quell. It was as if every moment of his life had naturally progressed to this. Of course. Of course he was going back.

"Weeks," Finnick answered. Long enough to start training again.

He lowered his head again, his hand still moving gently through her hair.

"Can you look at me?" he asked softly, mouth near her ear.

[themadgirl]

The face that Annie turned up to Finnick was not one of abject misery, but perhaps more shocking for its bone-weary resignation. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing any of them could do, and as much as it hurt to look at Finnick, to see that perfect face painted in shadows and sorrow, she could not now pass up the opportunity.

Weeks. It sounded like a lot. It wasn't.

Body limp against him, she opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. Some small sliver of selfishness wanted to demand he move in with her, that he spend every moment he could with her before the inevitable, but it was no good. Annie had no one to leave behind but Finnick; Finnick had an entire family who were going to have to go through the hell of watching him in the games yet again. This tragedy was not simply their own. She feared he'd not have agreed anyhow: All those years of him bowing and scraping in the Capitol, carefully hiding her away, only have it be for naught? No, it wasn't fair, and never mind the irony of his popularity now ensuring that he would be chosen.

She felt numb, hollowed out: A thin shell the only part of her left and already spiderwebbed with cracks.

"I can't do it again," she whispered. Not a statement of defiance or denial, but rather a frame for his expectations: Should it be her name drawn, she would die, and quickly. She did not have it within her to support the psychological burden of the arena.

[65th_victor]

He kept his arms wrapped around her, but sank slowly down so that they were seated on the sand. His legs still felt weak beneath him, and he didn't know how long they were going to be out here. Probably awhile longer, because he didn't want to let go of her. Someone would fine them eventually though. Someone would come looking. Someone always did.

"I won't let that happen," Finnick answered, his voice absolutely. He ran his fingers gently through her hair, hoping that it was calming. "You believe me?"

He leaned in, burying his face against her hair, pressing quiet kiss against her neck. He breathed slowly, trying to commit everything about her to memory. Tried to capture everything about her in essence: the tangled-swept feel of her hair, the smell of her skin, and the dip of her waist underneath his fingertips.

"Can you forgive me for what I'll do?" Finnick asked softly enough that he wasn't sure she could hear him. And even then, it wasn't the question he meant to ask: Can you still love me for what I'll do?

They both knew, all too well, that what went into the arena was never what came out. And he knew this time would be no different. This time, if anything, would be worse. He was known as the boy who betrayed his career pack, but this time he knew everyone who was going in. What kind of man was willing to kill his friends, people he had known for years, people who had often played a bigger role in raising him than his own parents had. He knew what he was taking away this time when he killed; last time, they had been all but strangers, blank slates with no backgrounds. This time, he knew who had children, and who had lost their families to Snow. He knew their own struggles after their Games, knew what hey had been forced to do inside and outside of the arena.

[themadgirl]

At first Annie couldn't reply, her throat closed by the sudden weight of her sorrow, eyes filling with hot tears and head tipped back in an effort to contain them. Heart thudding in her thin chest, she stared at the darkening sky but found no answers there.

"Just come back to me," she managed, voice ragged and faint, her hand lifting to push into Finnick's hair where he was nuzzled against her neck. She hated herself a little for asking so much of him, but the words were compulsive, undeniable. It would be cold comfort to know that he had died a martyr; she could not find it in her to be noble, not about this. She could forgive him anything, she thought, except for leaving her in this hell all alone. She would rather go into the arena a hundred more times.

Twisting, she reached suddenly for Finnick's face, fingers pushed up under his chin to force his gaze back up to hers. "Come back to me," she repeated, more forcefully, and leaned in to press a fierce kiss to his mouth as her tears finally overspilled.

[65th_victor]

He didn't move as she answered him, kept his face pressed in against her skin, felt the weight of her fingers in his hair. The words bound him though. As he heard them, he knew he would do absolutely anything to get back to her. It didn't matter who he was going into the arena with. He'd betrayed them all already, even Jo.

"I'll come back to you," he repeated, looking up at her. He kissed her with the same intensity, able to taste the years that were streaming down her face. His hands tightened against her back as if holding her closer would do anything to protect them against what was going to happen, against what they were feeling.

He tried to blank out his mind again -- stopped trying to sort out who was going to go into the arena and what he knew about them. He stopped trying to calculate his odds and who would be likely to sponsor him again. What was waiting for him at home and the ridiculous mask he was going to have to wear to even comfort his mother and sisters a little bit. Instead, he tried to concentrate only on Annie, trying to pretend that they were only two people in all the world.

"We'll be all right," he murmured against her mouth, rubbing a thumb warmly over her damp cheek. Another lie, but there were always the only thing that kept Finnick going, so what was one more?