For the Challenges by the Dozen challenge at Caesar's Palace. Level one: write about my OTP.
FinnickAnnie AU: Annie is the soon-to-be-betrothed daughter of the Queen, and Finnick is a suitor.
She kind of didn't want to admit it, but she was totally bored. The boy in front of her was picture-perfect gorgeous, but he was stumbling over his jokes. She chuckled at the punchline (which wasn't even that funny) and stood, her sea-green dress trailing behind her. She had to try hard not to stumble.
It was the time to tell this man, as she had told all the ones before him, that they were not to be married. He knelt down on one knee and she extended a hand to him. "My lady, if you would accept my hand in marriage," he said, taking her hand gently. He laid a kiss with soft lips on the back of her hand and brought his hand to his chest. "I would be honored more than if you gave me the earth."
And she felt sorry for him. He would find a wife, but it was not her. But then again, maybe she did want him. . .no, there were other men in the line and she would choose one of them. Not him.
She smiled. "As honored as I am, Sir Isaac, I cannot accept." She closed her eyes. There was that face. The face that all the men before him had shown. She closed her eyes, the same feeling of guilt flashing through her.
She curtsied as he left the room, his head bowed in shame. She turned around, her dress sweeping the floor as she sat back in her silver throne. She'd asked for it to be silver. She hadn't asked for a throne. Annie didn't like being the center of attention, but she was the daughter of the Queen. She didn't have an option.
Annie didn't want to say the next suitor was different, but he was. He just was.
For starters, he didn't start off with the "My lady, you are stunning. My lady, you are-" bullshit the rest of them had. He just took his hat off and said, "Lady Annie, your dress is the same color as your eyes."
And that made her smile. A real smile. But it was so unfair! He'd said one thing and she was already falling in love with him.
But then she remembered what her father said. "What do you know about love? You're hardly sixteen and you've never even touched a boy." She fumed. It wasn't like he'd let her out in the real world, wasn't like she was allowed to look at the servant boys for more than a few seconds. "Just- just pick the right one. Not because he's beautiful or because he can tell you a fact or two about squirrels you didn't know before." So her father didn't know she wasn't obsessed with squirells anymore. "Because he's fit to be a ruler."
So she wasn't falling in love. But he'd made her smile! The rest hadn't accomplished that much. But she couldn't help thinking how unfair it was.
She ran her tongue over her teeth and smiled an awkward smile. "What's your name?"
"Finnick."
The syllables danced on her tongue. It was unique. She'd never met a Finnick before. "That's a lovely name. I'm Annie." More smiles from the both of them. "How old are you, Finnick?"
He looked . . . about twenty-six. Old for her - he would die before she die and Annie wasn't good at dealing with grief.
"Nineteen next month," he said as she pulled her hair back behind her shoulders. How young!
At first she thought he was lying, but her father had told her how useless lying was. "Lying is worthless. Won't get you anywhere," he'd said, then took another swig of vodka.
Lying would get her somewhere, he'd said. Too pretty to have to tell the truth. And that was the moment she knew he was drunk. The father she knew didn't say things like that. He said things like "you're useless" and "choose right if you don't want your kids to grow up in the slums.
She smiled. "This is a question I ask everybody. Why do you want to, um. . ." she cleared her throat. "Marry me. Why do you want to be king?"
Some exemplary answers had included "power, of course" and "you're just so damned pretty" and, of course "you'll bear the most beautiful children" with a sick smile.
So, right now, he was the best option. A lot of it rode on this question, of course. The "you're just so damned pretty" man had been polite and handsome and sweet and humble until that comment. And the comment about her children-bearing had been from a man who had come in, knelt, and kissed her hand. She was totally considering him until that line.
"Your grandmother, as I recall, didn't choose right. Maybe. . .she just didn't have enough options? But the king plunged our country into turmoil it hasn't recovered from. I can help us recover." He pulled out a few maps, and it was then she was glad her father wasn't in the room. She knelt in front of them and glanced at his neat penmanship, articulate letters with serifs and neat little swirls on some of them. They showed recent battles with the Euro armies and the Korea militia force - all losses - and what we could have changed, and. . .they all seemed just so right. Valid. You couldn't go wrong with Finnick. . .damn, what was his last name?
What a . . .brilliant answer. Before him, her best choice was a man who had said "you will be a radiant queen and being the king to such a capable queen would be an honor above any other." Which was also a good answer, but it wasn't the same. He hadn't brought maps on how the country could defend better. But Finnick had.
"Wow. These are. . .amazing. When did you draw them?"
He smiled. "Thank you. I drew some of them-" he held up one with 'Germanica' scrawled across the top of them. "-as they were happening. And others-" he held up one with Korea written in neater letters with serifs. "-years after."
Another 'wow' from Annie. These were the things her father was talking about. He was just so diplomatic and smart and funny and. . .cute. Before there was only 'handsome', never 'cute' or anything more than 'attractive'. She'd heard the servant girls gossipping about boys, though, using words ike 'hot' and 'adorable' and other things.
But did she want to look at other options? Probably not. She just felt like this was it. This was the boy she wanted to marry. But give him a chance to screw up (she'd never thought about it like that before) - some of the men who answered the "why do you want to be my king?" question had been right on the brink of her calling in her maid to present the two engagement rings.
"How are you this fair evening, Lady Annie?" he asked. No one had asked her that in a long time. It made her smile. She loved how he used her name, not just 'my fair lady' or some variant. 'Your highness' was the worst.
"I'm doing well. I'm talking to a very. . .cute boy right now and he's making me smile."
He laughed. "That's lovely to hear." God damn, was he ever sappy. But it didn't really bother her because he was 'cute'. 'Hot', as the servants would say. Attractive.
"How are you this fair evening, Sir Finnick?" she returned.
When he told her she wasn't listening. She was staring at him. Nodding, smiling, chuckling when he chuckled. It was so easy to be friendly but none of it really mattered. Not to her.
She was here. Right here. Right now, engrossed in his words she never really heard or understood.
"So, what do you think?" he said with a smile.
"Hmm?" she said. Her face flushed with red embarrassment. Green wasn't the color of embarrassment as her maid had told her when she was a girl - it was red, for the color of your cheeks. Red was also the color of love, and of danger. This was dangerous but maybe it was also love. And it was definitely embarrassment.
"Will you marry me, Lady Annie Cresta? It would be an honor."
And she wasn't thinking. Not consciously, at least, when she stood up. Her dress brushed against her heels and she extended a hand to him as she had to Isaac. He gently laid his lips on the end of one of her fingers. She smiled, and he smiled back at her.
She was thinking even less when she knelt to his level, put her lips to his cheek, and said, "Yes, of course," with a small smile.
Her maiden danced in, an expression of euphoria on her face. She presented a ring first to Annie, which she slid onto her finger, and next to Finnick, who inspected it for a moment before easing it onto his ring finger.
"By the way, my name is Annabeth," she breathed into his ear.
"Sorry," he mumbled back, taking her hand.
"There's a reason no one knows that. Because I hate it," she said, linking his arm in hers.
For a long while, they thought fate was what brought them together, but after that, they knew it was just love. And embarrassment. And maybe a little bit of danger.
xx
She cried giving birth to their daughter, digging her fingers into the sheets of her bed, leaving marks of her nails on Finnick's arm. Her maid had told her not to let him watch, that a husband was not supposed to see such things, but she'd been holding back screams already and just wanted him by her side.
Finnick had wanted it to be a boy but was pretty sure it wasn't, and Annie was the complete opposite.
Annie's nurse was telling her to take slow breaths, deep breaths that would make her feel a million times better. "It's not helping," she said through clenched teeth.
She felt so vulnerable with her legs spread and her nightgown pulled up to her hips, but she always felt so vulnerable - in the carriage with the blacked-out window shades on rides through the city, when she stood in the general store, her maid brandishing a knife. It wasn't easy to be an almost-Queen (but she'd been a real queen for nine months now). She hadn't felt vulnerable during the conception of the damn thing now ripping her apart - Finnick had made her feel safe. Finnick always made her feel safe, and it wasn't just her. Nights when her little sister was alone in her chamber, he would wait at the door sometimes and tell her everything was going to be okay.
He was everybody's sanity rock, Annie thought sometimes.
Annie held her child to her chest a few moments later, still reeling from screams, tears still staining her cheeks, the nail marks in Finnick's arm still fresh.
They both chuckled about how the gunk (the nurse had called it some sort of fluid) dirtied her gown.
"Let's name her Amber," one of them said (they didn't remember which afterword and decided they didn't really care).
"I like Elizabeth better," the other said, and they both laughed. Annie sniffled and looked at the little thing. Its eyes were squeezed shut and it was crying a little bit.
"That means it can breathe," the nurse said, still knelt in front of the bed.
"Name her Caroline. After Finnick's sister," said Annie's little sister, now almost thirteen.
"Come on now, love," said her maid, ushering her down the corridor. "Such things aren't meant for young eyes."
"Let's," Finnick said, nestling the baby's small hand in his.
"Let's what?" asked Annie, still holding the thing to her chest.
"Name her Caroline," he said back. "She does look like a Carrie."
"Caroline," she said, scorning him. "Carrie is your sister's thing. But yeah. She does look like a Caroline."
He laughed. "Can I hold her?" he asked, putting a gentle hand on Caroline's back.
She carefully lifted her and Finnick took Caroline in gracious arms, holding her gently to his chest. She sat up - wincing - and pressed a kiss to both of their cheeks.
"I don't ever want to do that again."
"I won't make you."
"I might," her maid said from the other side of the room.
xx
On Caroline's first birthday, it was like the whole nation was celebrating. Caroline was crawling around, sitting up, and walking with her mother's fingers in hand.
And, even at eighteen, Finnick claimed she was the best mother he'd ever seen.
"She's really grown," her father remarked to her with a glass of wine in his hand - and on his breath.
In one way, Annie was glad she'd listened to him, but at the same time she didn't see why she'd listened to him all those years. He was just a drunkard.
"This is my child. You're not king anymore. I made this thing. Not you," she said loudly. From her position on Annie's hip, she grabbed her mother's hair in one hand and made a wild swipe at her grandfather's face with the other.
"That was uncalled for," Annie heard someone's maid say. She wanted to kick that woman, right in her face.
But she didn't, because a queen was reserved, beautiful, and above all, smart. She was too good to get herself involved in a petty rivalry with a maid.
A petty rivalry with a maid. It made her sick just to know she thought about them like that. It wasn't fair - they were allowed to quit but none of them had a place to go if they did.
She left Caroline with Finnick before running off to her sister's bedchamber. "Mallory?" she asked.
"She's not here," came a sniffly voice from the closet.
Annie swept up the hem of her midnight blue dress and pulled a barely-clothed Mallory out of the closet.
"C'mon now, Duck, what are you so down about?" she asked, sitting down on the bed beside the girl.
"Everything." She folded her arms over her chest and sniffled again.
"Don't you want to get dressed? Enjoy the party?"
"No," she said, playing with the hem of her chemise.
"Why not?" Annie said. With Mallory, it was hard to. . .engage. She was so finicky (a pun which makes her laugh to this day) and not easy to get close to.
"Because it's almost my birthday, too."
It was six days off Mallory's birthday. "Okay. But you're turning fourteen and Caroline's having her first. Can't you-"
"You talk to me like I'm having my first," Mallory retorted. She sighed and whimpered again.
"Well, I'm sorry. You're getting tall," Annie remarked. "You could wear what I wore when I met Finnick."
She pulled it out of the closet: sea green and shimmering all over with no straps. The front fell to her knees but the back fell to her ankles, an elegant train of taffeta tucked under in the many folds of the dress.
"It's beautiful," the smaller girl said absent-mindedly. "Can I. . .keep it?"
"Uh. . ." Annie said awkwardly. She hadn't considered the fact that maybe Mallory wanted the dress to be hers. But then again, Mallory had always been extremely possessive like that. "Sure. It doesn't fit me after pregnancy." She put a hand to her bust and chuckled.
Mallory pressed her lips together and laughed half-heartedly. She unzipped the dress then slid it on, asking Annie to fasten the zipper again behind her. She released her dark hair and let it fall over the back of the dress. Her hair was long and curly, something Annie had always envied, but she just said. "Wow. You look beautiful."
The dress caught the gold of the stained-glass window in a light Annie didn't know the words to describe. Maybe an artist or a poet would know the words. It fell just past her knees and trailed longer on the floor. Annie tucked the trail back up.
"We got the good genetics from Mother. I hope Carrie gets them."
"Caroline!" exclaimed Annie, giving her a light smack on the cheek. She retied the white satin ribbon on the waist of her own dress and kissed her sister on the spot she'd left a small red mark. Annie dashed out of the room and took Caroline back from Finnick.
"Where'd you go?" he asked.
"Why does it matter?" she retorted, bouncing the baby on her hip.
"Because I'm incredibly overprotective of you, of course," he said, rubbing her shoulder. The translucent white fabric of her sleeves rubbed up against her arm and made a mild burning sensation.
She sighed. "And I love you for it."
Later, Caroline crammed cake into her mouth and Annie had her first-ever glass of wine - after all, this was her first party after turning eighteen six months ago. Her own party had been the day before the actual occurence, as had been customary for her for almost two decades.
Mallory sat next to Finnick and ate her cake in small bites with the smallest fork, whereas Finnick ate large bites with a massive spoon.
There weren't any candles on the cake but that didn't really bother Annie and it certainly didn't bother Caroline, who was too busy experiencing the highs and the lows of her first brain freeze and her first taste of chocolate ice cream.
xx
It was a quiet evening and Finnick, wearing no shirt, was nestled under the blankets when Annie came in in just a skimpy shirt and a pair of pajama pants (her favorites to wear when she was alone even if her maid wouldn't let her wear them otherwise).
"Hello," she said, running her tongue over her teeth and to her lips.
"Hello," Finnick said, slightly confused. "Is Caroline asleep?"
"Yes," Annie said, pressing a kiss to Finnick's lips. "Do you remember what I said that night Caroline was born?"
"Yes. You said we should name her Amber."
"No. And I said Elizabeth. Remember 'I don't ever want to do that again'?"
". . .yes," he said, guiding her onto the blankets next to him.
"I think I changed my mind. " She pressed a gentle kiss to his lips and took his hand in hers, even though hers was but a fraction of his large, soft hands.
"Wow. Okay," he said, pushing his nose carefully to hers. "
"What have you forgotten how?" she teased, poking hem playfully.
"No one ever forgets how to have -" he said the next part very clearly. "Sex." Very quietly into her ear.
She sighed . "Very true, Finnick." She smiled smartly and rolled her eyes.
"So. . .you're sure about this? Once we try, there's no going back."
She folded her lips together and nodded. She blew out the candle and pulled her shirt up over her head, kissing him once, twice, three times until he pushed the blankets off of him and straddled her, touching her face very gently. He placed his lips on hers. She was shaking but she told him not to stop.
"Annie. . .are you really sure? You don't seem sure."
"I am sure," she snapped back.
They named him Sampson, after Annie's uncle, and for a long time, everything seemed perfect.