I didn't like writing this anymore than you guys will like reading it, but honestly, it's been bouncing around in my head and I need to get it on paper, so here you go! Enjoy!
WARNING: TRIGGERS FOR SELF-HARM AND POSSIBLE SUICIDE. Please, the last thing I want is to trigger one of you, so please, read on at your own risk.
Finnick Odair. District 4 mentor. Winner of the 65th Hunger Games. Extraordinarily handsome. Rich. Happily in love.
Things like that seem to describe a successful man whose life couldn't be better.
How far they are from the truth.
The truth is that Finnick Odair is a mess. Beneath his cocky, humorous, attractive exterior, is a man who is far past broken.
And it was all President Snow's fault.
After he became the victor of the 65th Annual Hunger Games due to his handiness with a trident, his good looks backfired on him. When Snow hadn't let him leave the Capitol after the Games, he was certainly confused.
It was only when he was shoved into a bedroom and discovered a naked woman waiting for him that he realized that he was being forced into prostitution.
The first night had left him shaking after the strange Capitol woman with tattooed breasts and neon-pink hair had left with a smirk, running her thumb over her large lips. He had wrapped his arms around his legs and drawn his knees to his chest, sobbing into them. Every touch and kiss on his skin felt disgusting. He felt disgusting.
Each night after that was worse and worse. He remembered walking around the Capitol streets with multiple hickeys on his neck and feeling the lustful stares of many women and even a few men. He would shrink under their gazes, just wanting to get smaller or just disappear entirely. He felt dirty and worthless, just another piece in the President's games.
And finally, finally, after a year of forced prostitution, he was allowed to return to District 4 when the winner of the 66th, a girl from 6, would take his place. He saw her before he left, and tried to convince himself to yell at her to run, to get away, to do something.
But he couldn't. And the guilt had been eating him alive since.
And then Annie came into the picture.
He couldn't even fathom how Annie loved him. He was dirty, tainted. He was just a Capitol plaything!
But she convinced him he wasn't. She convinced him he was her world, a wonderful man who she was lucky to find herself in love with. And he loved her too, with all of his heart.
And then he had to watch her get reaped for the 70th Hunger Games. He had to be her mentor, give her advice on how to kill people, watch her enter the Arena and realize that she could never win. If she lost, she died. If she won, she was a prostitute.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he watched his beloved Annie scream on screen as her fellow tribute, Malcolm, was beheaded. Even on film, he could see that something in her beautiful green eyes broke.
Thank God she was good at evading, though, because she was eventually crowned the victor. Finnick watched with shaking hands as the crown was placed on her head, knowing what was coming next and worrying what the man in that locked room would do to her.
But then he realized that everyone thought she had gone mad, and no one wanted a prostitute who was out of her mind. As cruel as it sounded, Malcolm's death actually did some good.
Finnick was now home in District 4 with Annie, loving her, holding her during the nightmares when she woke up screaming, kissing her tears away.
But he wasn't strong like her. Even with her mental problems, which weren't as serious as the Capitol rumors made them out to be, she was brave and strong-willed. She wouldn't break completely.
But Finnick would.
Finnick did.
When he woke up from nightmares, varying from his experiences in the Arena to his nights with strange Capitol women, he'd never wake Annie up. He'd wrap his arms around his legs and sob quietly into his knees, trying to forget the unwanted touches and the screams of his victims as he drove his trident through their torsos. His chestnut hair would fall in front of his eyes and get soaked with his falling tears, but he wiped them away quickly so that if Annie woke up, he could just claim insomnia.
He wished he could tell someone. He wished that he had a shoulder to cry on, a hand to wipe away his tears, fingers to pry his silver razor from his fingertips before he could cut himself.
He was ashamed of it, really, but it was something he needed. Pain wouldn't control him or his life; he would control the pain. Finally, President Snow wasn't in control of him, because this was a type of pain that President Snow wasn't in charge of.
But Finnick knew the truth. The old scars and fresh cuts on his wrists, thighs, and hips, wouldn't change the fact that President Snow would always be in control. He'd always be the cause of his pain, always be the one who forced him into prostitution, and always be the one who created the Hunger Games.
Because in the end, the ones wearing the crowns weren't the victors. Neither were the victims, or the citizens forced to watch, or even the Capitol citizens.
Just Snow. It would always be Snow's game, and Finnick would always be just another pawn.
…This depressed me.
Review?