Title: Monopoly
Summary: Katniss had always been selfish. She wanted things to herself, even if she did not show it. She'd always been a possessive girl. KatnissFinnick. AU.
First part of the 'Rise Over Run' trilogy.
Prompt fill; Hunger Games, KatnissFinnick, Mad Scientist AU
Part I: Monopoly
"One day, I want to own the world," Katniss says. Her eyes are full of stars, with dreams and nonsense.
Someone coughs in the lab, and she turns to face them.
"You just see," she says to them, but they can't hear her. They never do. "One day, I'll have the answer. We'll all have the answer."
Unsurprisingly, they don't turn around to argue.
"Finnick, how do I own the world?" she asks.
It's not a hard question. It really isn't, he thinks. But she is so hopeful and clouded that he can only look at her, and tell her something her young ears want to hear.
"You own the world," he whispers, "through our hearts."
When he takes her hand to place it on his chest, she doesn't argue.
Katniss thinks of what she will do when she does own the world. She'll have a king to rule with her, of course. That part will have to be filled, she decides.
But who, though? Finnick, who has helped her through the years? Finnick, who is the definition of perfection? She shakes her head. Maybe her dear friend Gale, then, her mind decides. Gale hunts bacteria with you in the lab all the time, her conscience adds. You two could be great. Katniss smiles at the thought. But then, in the nook of her brain, an image appears, of shiny gold hair and a soft smile under a hat. Peeta. With this, she frowns.
The decision would be hard.
"Katniss-hey! Katniss!"
"Finnick! What do you want?"
His breaths come out in pants, as if he ran the whole way from one end of the campus to the other. In his hand, he holds a vial.
"I think I found the answer," he says, with a stunning smile. "The answer to your question."
"This chemical has the power to manipulate a person's thoughts, Katnnis. It's a miracle in the area of science," Finnick explains, excitedly. His eyes are a little wide and strained, with bags underneath. For a second, Katniss almost feels guilty for making him go create something like this.
Instead, she smiles, and opens her mouth.
"Shall we test it?"
Gale is angry. He really is.
"What the hell do you think you're doing out there, Katnnis?" he shouts angrily, one hand shoved on the wall behind her. She never noticed how tall he was, until now. The thought makes her curious and afraid, at the same time.
"I'm simply changing the world, my friend," she says, looking him straight in the eye. Gale stiffens, and glares at her even more.
"What you're doing is not changing the world for the better," he mumbles. A softer look appears in his eyes.
"Stop what you're doing, Katniss. It's…it's…"
"It's what?" she demands.
"It's…it's not right, Katniss," he says. A pause. Then, "Even Peeta says so."
Katniss scoffs. "Peeta? What does he know? This is going to change the world, Gale. You hear me? It's going to change. The. World." And with that, she walks off into the lab, with automatic doors taunting and mocking.
"If you say so," Gale says to no one in particular.
From the nearby alley crouched a Finnick, with a knowing smile.
Following Gale, who walks the other way to his office with a confident stride, unknowing of what danger lurks behind, Finnick smiled, and took the vial out of his coat.
"So are you going to join my project, Peeta?" the taller figure questions.
"I…don't know," the one addressed says. "I think I would join if Gale did."
"I see," Finnick says. The disappointment is obvious in his voice.
"It's a maybe, for now," Peeta says with an apologetic smile. "Could you still hold a place for me?"
If you like," Finnick says, staring at the glass. It's clear, like the window before fingerprints. Like a paper before a sketch.
An alibi before the murder.
"So, this thing you're making," Peeta says, casually. "I don't really think it would work, you know. Just saying."
"You really think so?"
"I know so," he replies. "Think about it," he adds, and looks back. "It's like someone's sanity, but hanging on that windowpane. You won't know when it goes back, or when it falls off."
"Well, I see, Peeta," Finnick says. "That's just too bad, then." Blocking Peeta's view, he sneaks his hands behind his pocket, and takes out something.
"Sorry, Peeta. Katniss needs her world."
"Oh my god, Finnick, you actually did it?"
"Of course I did. You didn't doubt me, did you?" he teases, and she punches his shoulder. "I'm brighter than I look."
"Okay," Katniss laughs. Her laugh is nice, Finnick decides.
It was right to get rid of unnecessary pests, after all.
"So, do Gale and Peeta know of this?" Katniss asks casually, smile still plastered across her features.
It disappears once she sees the look on Finnick's face.
"Finnick…?"
"S-stay away from me," she says, with a tremble in her voice. Her back hits the wall.
"Katniss, that hurts," he says, with a maniac glint in his eye. "Weren't you the one who wanted this?"
"I did want it," she whispers, as he advances with the vial. "But not like this-never like this."
"And why, is that?"
Finnick's fingers close around the vial's cork.
"It's too painful," she says, unable to look at him. "Look what you've become, Finnick."
"That's just too bad then."
A pause.
"Pain," he says, "is just an excuse," with a voice all-knowing. It's soothing, like the back of her mind. Deep, like the abysmal ocean.
"It's just like when love is," he smiles, "something dipped in poison."
He pops open the cork upon the vial.
"So then," he says to the body. "What is your decision now?"
Katniss is just still, eyes glassy and looking into space, as if she had been in one position all her life. Unmoving.
Dead.
"That's better," Finnick says, with a dazed smile. He picks her up, bridal style, and walks into his room.
Three tanks line the wall, filled with the same liquid as that in the vial.
"You have your world now, Katniss," he whispers as he places her in the tank. "This is the best way I could've given it to you."
Others swarm around Finnick, giving congratulations, patting him on the back.
"My peers," Finnick says, triumphantly. "Let us celebrate the three that will go to the future."
When the room empties, Finnick walks to the three tanks.
Peeta, Gale, and finally, Katniss.
"I wasn't fit for a king anyway," Finnick says to Katniss' sleeping body.
His eyes twitch as he senses movement in the background. Then, it went dark as his senses were smothered with something that made him feel light, and woozy. Almost sleepy.
He was picked up, and thrown into cold liquid.
The last thing he heard was a voice.
"Sorry, Finnick. But we can't let you out anymore. You know too much."
"Well, what do we do now?" someone asks.
"We prepare, for the Hunger Games."
The lid closes, and Katniss' laugh fills his ears.
Note: This is Part I of a trilogy I will write, called 'Rise Over Run'. More of this shall be explained in the following parts.