title: you'll never sink when you're with me
fandom: the hunger games
characters: finnick odair/annie cresta
information: pre-series: childhood to before 65th hunger games | 530 words | oneshot
summary: finnick doesn't know how it happens. it just does. everything always just happens.
( it's the first few cuts of young love that bleeds into an eternity )
She's always there by the shore, picking up seashells and various knickknacks as the wind softly runs through her hair. A less observant ten-year old boy wouldn't notice her, the wide-eyed brunette who blends into the fuzzy landscape of sand and the sea.
-/-
"Finnick," he introduces himself to her when she helps him finish the final knot on his net. His father had given him the rope along with the request not to return home until he successfully mirrored the technique partially learned the day before.
The girl nods distractedly. "It's a nice net," she says, handing it back over to him.
He smiles back in appreciation. "Thanks."
She gets up off the sand, dusting off sand particles left on her white sundress. "Just remember you have to loop it over before you continue with the rest."
Finnick gives her another smile, on the brink of inquiring for her name when she begins to walk away into the horizon.
-/-
Almost by chance, he realizes now, Finnick sees the girl sitting by herself. His feet stall in the sand, while he feels the loose grains digging into his skin and the salty breeze meandering through his bronze hair.
For a moment, he considers walking past the brunette girl with knees tucked in, meeting a new winding path of the future.
He doesn't. Someday he'll think of this as the best decision he ever made.
-/-
"Hey," he situates himself down next to her. She is working on a complicated knot, one he silently admits, he isn't sure he would be able to quite accomplish by himself.
"Finnick, remember?" He grins at her, with her head still bent down over the rope.
Her head snaps up and, almost as if she was studying him.
"You never told me your name," he remarks, staring at how her fingers shift through the thick coils of rope, falling and rising with the waves of the ocean.
"Annie," she replies softly, returning to her work.
Finnick almost misses it, the gentle syllables of her name against the curve of her lips.
-/-
It becomes tradition before either of them are really aware of the word. Annie sits, hands twisting and unwinding rope while Finnick preoccupies himself with work assigned by his father.
They talk, always—Finnick comments on the abundance of fish, Annie makes a point of correcting his knot work, and slowly, their conversation rolls over and quickly recedes into different territory.
-/-
"Are you nervous?" Annie asks, watching Finnick skin the fish at his feet.
"Nervous?" he replies. "It's only my third Reaping."
She smiles shyly at him. "They never tell us what it's like to be in the games; they only teach us about what we have to do during."
"That's nearly the same thing," says Finnick, shaking his head.
Annie pauses, thinking it over. "I hope neither of us ever find out."
"This is only your first time. Consider yourself lucky," he gives a small laugh.
She does and later she doesn't.
(author's notes)
short, not really sweet, and i was kind of not okay at all after watching catching fire (because the annie-cameo and finnick odair ugh)