AN Quite a dark one, I'm afraid. Warning for attempted suicide, suicidal thoughts please please do not read if this might upset or trigger you. Inspired by the song Asleep by the wonderful Smiths, check it out. Also Dorothy Parker's Resume and Sylvia Plath's Cut. I do not own the hunger games or any of the above wonderful works of art. My writing would certainly be a lot better if I did! Reviews appreciated. xxxxx
There is another world, well there must be.
"There is another world,
There is a better world,
Well there must be."
Asleep, The Smiths.
"Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live."
Resume, Dorothy Parker
"What a thrill- my thumb instead of an onion."
Cut, Sylvia Plath.
He kissed her forehead and she woke up. Just like that. Briefly a fairytale his sister had loved as a child came to mind but vanished again as he bit it down. Kisses would not wake all slumbers and love could just as easily be poison as antidote. That was reality.
She had lost weight, weight she couldn't really afford to lose. Corpse Bride. Her eyes, that used to light up with such careless delight, were sunken, her skin sallow, even her lips were grey, Finnick hadn't seen that before, well not a living person. When she smiled, the bottom lip cracked and a thin bead of blood rested on the curve, a touch of colour in a empty face. He resisted the urge to kiss it away. She reached for him and he took both her hands in his. Thick white bandages bound her wrists, she must have meant it, he thinks, to try so hard. She sighed and closed her large eyes, leaning back to the starchy pillow taking him with her, he stretched out of his chair and put bronze head next to her brown curls his mouth on her knuckles.
Neither of them spoke for some time. It wasn't unusual for Annie to be silent, Finnick usually more than filled in the gaps she left. But it was a first for the both of them to be quiet listening to the ragged breaths of two people who could not open their mouths for fear of screaming.
"There seem to be rather a lot of tubes in me." Annie said at last, she smiled again something like the sweet insanity he was used to.
He sits up. "Should of thought about that before," He said with a light heartedness he didn't feel.
"Oh retrospect… how does it go?" She rolled her eyes up and addressed the ceiling, in a slow tired chant.
"Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live."
Finnick clasped in hands as if in prayer to God he had long abandoned as the details of planned and abandoned suicides passed over his head. He felt his eyes burning a odd sensation he hasn't cried since he was nine, his lashes when he blinked were wet, a tear rolled down his cheek and into his mouth.
"Finn," She moaned softly, as he tried to brush his tears right from his eyes. She manoeuvred around the restraints of the IV lines to take his face in her hands.
"Don't please don't cry."
He looked up into her eyes bright- brighter than he had seen them in months- with concern, tried so hard to keep his voice steady. "So are you? Going to live that is?"
She dropped her head onto his, they were completely alone but even if the room had been filled she spoke so quietly no one else would have heard.
"If you don't leave again I might."
He pushed back as if he had been shocked scanned her face frantically.
"For God's sake, I was away five minutes Annie."
She steeled herself folding her arms across her chest.
"No you weren't, I was so afraid Finnick, you have no idea…"
"Oh right! so I have no idea how it feels to be afraid for the person I love."
Annie covered her ears immediately. "Please don't shout,"
"I only go because if I didn't they'd kill you." He says more quietly. His sister who believed in fairy tales is dead, his mother who whispered them to sleep is also gone. Annie is the only one left, Annie is the hold they have, a woman with a self-destruct button at that, the irony does not escape him.
But she shakes her head like a animal in torment.
"No darling no, its not your fault you can't think, I think that. It's … there's nothing to be done they have both of us by the balls. If there was a point of this life, if we could do the normal things people in love marry, have babies, keep them safe and die of old age, then yes of course. You know being mad is so tiring, so god-awful I just want to close my eyes forever, just melt into oblivion. But I could struggle if there was a chance for us but there isn't…"
She stopped and looked down at her damaged wrists with such a furious gaze that it seemed to Finnick she intended to rip the wounds open with her eyes alone.
"How long do we have?"
"Ten minutes,"
"Good… there going to punish me for this aren't they?"
Finnick shrugged. "Who's left sweetheart?" He asked. "Who's left? I'm far too expensive to kill."
Silence again. He lies down by his mad girl, this is love, he thinks feeling every breath against his chest. Annie had saved him, a star in a dark night, a wild-flower in a battlefield and now she was going to destroy him.
" Can I ask you something?"
"Of course my love."
"What was it like?"
"Can I pass?" She asked her lips on his neck. "I don't want to make you cry."
"Just tell me."
Her green eyes narrowed with concentration holding the memory in mind's eye like water in cupped hands. "The blade hurt." She confined. "Slicing your skin does apparently,"
"Apparently." He agreed.
"There was this line: What a thrill my thumb instead of a onion, went round and round my head. The water was pretty all pink. I was very calm, and very mad. For some reason I thought everything was alright that you were going to be fine, that you were safe, that it was ok to go." She choked suddenly. "I don't know how I could have been so selfish."
"It's not selfish to want to end pain." He murmurs.
"I'd be joining you shortly anyway," He shrugs.
"Can't get safer than dead." He says with a small smile.
"Oh you can," Annie retorts. "Not to be born at all, our children are safe right here in ghostly arms that will never hold them."
He takes her in his own warm, strong arms, kisses his way to her mouth
"I'm the selfish one, I love you too much to let you go."
"It's not selfish to want the love of your life to not kill herself…" She sighs relaxing deeper into his embrace.
"Sometimes I think I'm more the torment of your life, then I realise I love and respect you too much to go away and let you live a blissfully shallow experience in the arms of the capitol."
He looks down at her with the smile that had broken a thousand hearts.
"I chose torment anyway." He says. "Far more poetic."
Annie falls asleep before his limited visiting time is over, before he goes he whispers in her ear.
"We'll make another world, just stay awake, my love and we'll see."