Please be advised before you read this that it is not a happy fun fic. It includes rape and character death. Please don't read it if either of these might be a problem for you, because no one wants that. 3
Be Careful What You Wish For
I.
While the other kids seem engrossed in the lesson, Finnick watches the clouds drift by, cottony white against the blue, blue sky beyond the window. The afternoon classes will be better, held as they are outside this time of year, but the morning is pure torture. He absolutely hates being stuck in a classroom going over numbers or sentence structure or the history of Panem.
"Mr. Odair, would you care to answer the question?"
Half his attention still outside in the fresh air and bright late-spring heat, Finnick turns to face Mrs. Juarez. He knows she's expecting him to fumble around, maybe ask her to repeat the question, because she thinks he isn't paying attention to her. But he knows the answer. He turned twelve a few weeks ago. He's old enough now for today's lesson to be relevant information even if his family is better off than a lot of others in the district. Thomas and Jenna Odair still need help, especially since Finnick's sister and her family moved in with them.
"Tesserae may be claimed for each member of a potential tribute's family, one tessera per one additional chance at being picked for the Games." He doesn't add that, as the only eligible member of his family, he'll have his name in the reaping bowl a total of four times his very first year: once for himself, of course, and three more times for his sister, her husband, and their baby. No one else in his family even knows that he did it; he forged his dad's signature on the authorization forms.
Satisfied with his answer, Mrs. Juarez drones on about the history of the tesserae and Finnick's attention drifts once more to the blue sky and sunshine beyond his window. Maybe they'll get to practice combat swimming this afternoon….
II.
Finnick stands in the middle of a circle of fourteen year olds, all staring at him. Everyone is staring at him. No one speaks. It's as though every person in the town square holds their breath, waiting for the words "I volunteer" to ring out from among the older kids. A light breeze winds its way through the crowd, touching sweat-damp skin here, lifting a stray lock of hair there, not staying anywhere long enough to be a comfort in the sweltering heat. Finnick tries to swallow past the collar of his dress shirt and the tie – noose – his mother made him wear, doesn't quite make it and ends up coughing. A whisper starts somewhere in the sea of faces, swelling like a wave in a freshening sea, but he can't make out any words. No one has any words. Not even those who should.
District 4 takes care of its own. He's heard that so many times that it's ingrained in his bones. There hasn't been a kid under the age of fifteen sent to the arena since the last Quarter Quell.
Feathery Phineas LaSalle, the Capitol's representative to District 4 for as long as Finnick can remember, clears his throat uncomfortably and calls Finnick's name again. Finnick takes a step toward the stage and the other boys surrounding him shift to create a path. Marco opens his mouth to say something but shuts it again, leaving the words unsaid. When Finnick reaches the bottom step of the stairs he straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin and forces the muscles of his face into something that at least feels like a grin, if not a full-blown smile. He can do this. He can.
As he takes that first step, all he can think about is that morning, when he went out on the seiner with his dad for the last time. How all he wanted was to finish for the day so he could get the reaping over with and hit the beach with Trevor and Marco, safe for another year. When one of the nets was tangled so badly that it tore, Finnick had denied responsibility for it, but he and his dad both knew that it happened because he was distracted, woolgathering. His father had yelled at him, said he couldn't go out with his friends until he fixed that net and Finnick had mouthed off, said something stupid about it being Reaping Day and how a stinking net was more important to Thomas than his owns son's happiness.
In silence Finnick ascends the stairs to the stage, joins the female tribute, Luisa Hennegan, a girl three years his senior. Finnick meets the bird-like black eyes of Feathery Phineas, shakes his hand and keeps the cheesy grin plastered to his face. He doesn't want to embarrass himself or his family or even the district, so he blinks back the tears that threaten and hopes LaSalle didn't notice. Finnick wants to give them all a good show, acts with a confidence he doesn't feel.
But he'd give anything to be on the beach at home, splicing together the torn ends of that net.
III.
Finnick slashes wildly with his knife, slicing at vines, cutting through the fibers easily, but each cut only brings more into play. He's starting to get light headed, can feel his blood leaving his body through the thousand stinging holes chewed into him. It stings wherever the vines touch, the pain growing until every inch of his skin is on fire as the tiny, blood-sucking mouths grab hold; even after he cuts them away from the main vine, they don't let go until they're swollen and red with his blood. Like mosquitoes or leeches.
Sweat drips into his eyes. He keeps slashing at the vines. He won't give up, won't just lie down and die, no matter what the stupid Gamemakers want. He doesn't want to die, to disappoint his dad again, or Mags.
The sun is low in the sky when Finnick finally notices that there are no more new vines attached to him, that many of the ones that he cut before have fallen to the dirt in thickened, bloody ropes or fibrous green strings, barbed with needle teeth. His skin no longer burns except where there's a cold fire from the slices he made with his own knife while trying to save himself from bleeding to death. Looking at the cuts now, at how much blood leaked from them along with that sucked out by the vines, Finnick laughs at the irony. Great whooping guffaws tear free from his throat.
"You can't kill me!" he shouts to the skies, to the cameras hidden in the leafy canopy above his head, to the Gamemakers in their high-tech cave in the Capitol. "I won't let you!"
As night falls and the temperature drops, Finnnick tears his shirt into thin strips and uses those to bandage the worst of his wounds, most of which are self-inflicted. And when he's done with that, under the light of a gibbous moon, he weaves the barbed vines into a net. If nothing else, he can use that to delay any attackers while he moves in close enough to kill them with his knife.
But even as he has that thought, he knows he won't have to get that close as he watches a pair of silver parachutes drop from the sky, bearing between them a trident of gold.
IV.
Teeth scrape along the back of his neck. Hot breath, a guttural grunt, the beginnings of a beard rasp over his ear. The edge of the desk cuts into his hip bones with each thrust. He's never known pain like this, not even in the arena. The man bites down hard on Finnick's shoulder, though not hard enough to break the skin. He pushes harder, faster, and Finnick bites down on his own lip, tastes the coppery tang of blood and tries not to cry.
When he realized what was happening, he tried to fight. He lost. Now there's nothing left but to get through it. His eyes focus on the laser-cut lettering of a crystal trophy less than a foot from his face as the man fucks him. "…awarded to Assistant Gamemaker Seneca Crane for outstanding achievement in design for the 65th Hunger Games…"
Happy birthday to me, Finnick thinks and lets the tears fall.
V.
Whispers fill his ears. Katnissss! Katnissss! A reptilian stench fills his nose, overpowering the natural fetid odor of the sewers.
"Run!" he shouts at Gale, who's close enough to the ladder to save himself, if he'd only run. Nothing can save Finnick now. There are too many of them and they're too fast. It may be Katniss' blood that they want, but it's all too clear that his will do.
Gale runs.
Finnick fights them for as long as he can, the mutts, until he runs out of ammunition, has to resort to the knife at his belt and then to his bare hands. The pain passed long since from intense to excruciating and on into nothing. A distant part of his brain acknowledges the mutts tearing him apart, the teeth sinking into his throat and biting down, cutting off his air, cutting off his life.
He hears Katniss' voice from somewhere far above, but he can't make out the words. There's a metallic clang and then all he hears is a high-pitched whine and the hissing vocalizations of the mutts.
"Annie, I'm sorry." He doesn't think it comes out as words, that it's possible anymore to form words with his mangled face and throat. "So sor