"when you shoot across the sky like a broken arrow
you fall off course,
yeah when you hit the ground
it's hard to get to heaven when you're born hellbound"
-Broken Arrow by The Script
The lovers were side by side that night, the moon illuminating their pale faces.
They were found together, hanging by rope. His death had been hours before hers, but she'd decided there was no life without him, her lover whose only escape from an execution for his alleged crimes was to take his own life. She'd never had proof that he hadn't killed anyone, but she didn't care; she loved him anyway and could never stop loving him, even in death.
The peacekeepers had trouble prying her cold hand from his.
Silence hung in the air, threatening to suffocate the boy dressed in all black. In a sea of black, there was little separating Haymitch from the rest, except the pain he felt.
The one thing he was absolutely certain of was that he was the only human being at the funeral who felt as if a stake was being driven into his heart. It was a shame that the blood and the wounds were invisible, because it meant that he felt the pain of the dying without having the privilege of death.
Hazelle James held him as he cried, the shoulder her old black dress soaked with his salty tears. Hazelle James, the girl he'd loved, who'd promised herself to the Hawthorne boy, thinking that Haymitch wouldn't survive the games.
He'd worn the outfit many times (most of the people of District 12 had one single outfit set aside for funerals), but it felt entirely different from any other time he'd worn it. This time the clothes felt heavy on him, as if they were made of chains.
Haymitch went home to an empty house, eerily silent. He wondered how many ghosts lurked in the walls, waiting for him to join them and wondered whether his parents were there waiting for him with his sisters and brother.
The ghosts surrounded him; he could feel them breathing on his neck and wrapping around him like serpents, preparing to strike him. They whispered to him with airy voices.
Your fault.
You killed them.
You owe it to them.
You killed them.
Come join us.
You killed them.
You can end this, you know.
You killed them.
This is all your fault.
You killed them.
You killed them.
You killed them.
He stumbled over to the cabinet in which his father had kept the alcohol. Haymitch had never been drunk in his life, but he pulled out the first bottle he could find and opened it, bringing the bottle to his lips.
The amber liquid was fire in his throat. He figured that if he kept fueling the fire, it would eventually burn him up. Alcohol poisoning, they'd call it. A crude death, not heroic nor poetic, but that was the point, wasn't it? People don't think highly of those who take their own lives. He didn't want anyone to think highly of him; he was a monster.
He's saved his own life and in turn had sacrificed his family's lives. It was all his fault.
As he drank, he began to forget the pain. The fire warmed him, making his world fuzzy and his thoughts incoherent.
He finally passed out, bottle still in hand, but, to his dismay, he woke in the morning. It hadn't been enough. Nothing he ever did was enough.
At least he'd found a temporary way to dull the pain.
Finnick couldn't be a Capitol sex slave anymore; the loud moans of the Capitol citizens as he pleasured them and the feel of their hungry hands on his body haunted his dreams. He couldn't watch the girl he loved slowly deteriorate; all he wanted was to protect her, but he kept letting her slip away from him. It was all too much.
Finnick Odair was slipping away.
His bare feet felt numb against the cold marble of the balcony, so far from the ground and so close to the sky.
He was a boy of the water, but he wanted to fly.
The wind whipped through his hair, the cold sea air chilling him to the bone. He neared the edge slowly.
Finnick knew that if the situation was reversed and he was the one in need, that Annie would never leave him, but he wasn't Annie. He knew that if he kept living on, he'd eventually shatter and he would risk hurting Annie with the shards of his being.
He listened to the waves slowly devouring the shore. He couldn't see them in the moonless night, but he knew they were there. He contemplated drowning himself, but he decided it was too slow. He wanted a fast death, a quick impact, then nothing. Freedom.
He climbed over the railing, his hands and heels the only thing keeping him from dropping already. He closed his eyes.
"Finnick! Finnick!" a frantic voice was nearing his house, its owner coming into view.
Annie Cresta, her nightgown billowing in the wind, was screaming his name. It was the first thing he'd heard her say since she'd won the games; she'd even refused to speak in her post-games interview.
"Finnick! Stop! I saw you through my window! Stop!" she screamed, her breathing heavy from running from her house, which happened to be next to his.
He obeyed, pulling himself back over the railing. He was too shocked by her sudden appearance and by hearing voice to speak, so he made his way down to the beach and she was in his arms, cheeks stained with tears.
She didn't need to speak again that night. He didn't either. They spoke through their bodies, close to one another in a warm embrace. He knew her thoughts and she knew his, and neither of them thought of death as they fell asleep in each other's arms, lips to forehead, hands to waists.
They were healing together, slow as it may have been. He swore he'd never leave her again.
Johanna was supposed to be strong. Johanna was supposed to be a fighter. She'd won the games, but it was a loss.
They'd given her a choice and she'd chosen wrong. She'd kept her virtue and lost her family.
It was a game to them, a game in which they'd always win. It was a game of chess in which her side was glued to the board. Every person they murdered was just a strategy to get to who they truly wanted, nothing more. They'd killed all of them without batting an eye.
Check.
Johanna was strong. She was a killer, she might as well act like it. She'd rather take her own life than let them take it.
She held the blade vertically to her wrist.
There was power in her hands. She was in control of her own life for the first time, but the power she felt sizzling in her fingers wasn't a good kind of power, but something horrible, the kind of power that the Capitol coveted: the power to kill. Johanna was just like them.
Drops of red appeared in the knife's wake and she started to cry, sobs shaking her body. The knife clattered to the floor.
She couldn't do it, couldn't be like them, no matter what they did to her. She would stay in the corner of the board, untouchable.
She wouldn't let the word "checkmate" escape from their bloodstained lips.
The lovers stood in the light of a simulated sun, berries in hand. The berries stained their palms, like purple-red bruises.
Everything is so calm, he noted mentally. With all of the other tributes dead, it was quiet, not even wind was there to rustle the trees' leaves. The sounds of their breathing were stalled.
It seemed right. He didn't want to live without her. She couldn't bring herself to kill him.
They brought the berries to their lips.
A voice shattered the calm.
They could breathe again.
Thanks to Estoma for beta-ing this.