title: as we drown
author: alex (maraudings)
rating: t
word count: 1,655
disclaimer: the hunger games and its characters belong to suzanne collins. written for fun, not profit.
prompts: shadows, doll house, under the weather, butterfly wings
a/n: johanna! i really hope you like this. it's a little different from what i had originally planned/written, but y'know, given the circumstances i think it turned out pretty well. it was meant to be fairly heavily odesta, but i think it went more finnick centric. it's still there though, promise.
(also, as a general notice- i confused myself with tenses while editing this, and am not 100% sure i fixed them all. sorry if that becomes glaringly distracting.)
- as we drown -
It is her first reaping.
This was a fact not difficult to figure out. She bumps into him as they are all being shepherded into their separate lines. She won't look anyone directly in the eye. She shies away from peacekeepers, even the ones who regularly stand in the town center passing out bits of salted bread to school children. He knew the symptoms. He very recently discovered that they did not subside completely by the second time around.
But it is for naught. They both make it.
In the throngs of children returning to the safety of her parents arms, he spots her off to the side. She is alone, walking slow with her head bent downward. It's a near pathetic sight that is oddly drawing. He promises his father he would be home before nightfall, and weaves his way through the groups of families to get to the girl.
Her name is Annie, her smile is timid but bright, and when she does look at him he notices the green ribbon in her hair matches her eyes near perfectly.
-x-
It is his third reaping.
He is just starting to get the hang of his nerves. He entered the square composed. He lined up with a clear head. But the moment he sees the bowls full of names it all goes to hell.
And it is worse than it had been the two times before. His vision is starting to blur. His head is dizzy and light. And if he didn't put some distance between himself and the stage he was afraid he would run out of oxygen.
She manages to catch his eye just as the ceremony begins, the green ribbon causing her to inadvertently stand out in the lines of thirteen-year-old girls.
His thoughts are taken back to a day spent on the shore. The sun hung low in the sky, and the light of its rays catching on the wings of butterflies bouncing from brush to brush on the cliff side. The water lapped impatiently at his ankles, reminding him that they should soon climb back up the cliffs to allow the tide to return.
But he couldn't let her win. She was hidden somewhere among the rocks, and he was going to find her.
"Ladies first." (The crinkling of paper is near deafening.)
She was a little too good at this, but his pride prevented him from giving up. The water now reached his shins, but he was going to get to her.
"Now for the boys." (The voice could have been imaginary.)
He had checked the small alcove near the pile of seaweed three times already, but he was growing irritated. He was never going to play this with her again. She had only picked it because she knew she was better at it. She knew she would beat him.
He called out her name, promising to teach her how to weave a net if she would come out. She isn't falling for that, she informed him with a laugh. But her response was enough to point him in the right direction. And damn, was her hiding place clever.
She teased him relentlessly as they started the accent up the rock. He had just got beaten by a girl. He was the worst at hide-and-seek ever. He should just give up on games completely and stick to weaving nets for the rest of his life like an elderly person.
And all he does is smile, shake his head, and remind her they weren't allowed on the beach when the tide was in so hurry up.
"Finnick Odair."
The waves reach his chest, his neck, his head, and then he is gone.
-x-
It had been his third reaping.
And here he sits, in a side room of the justice building, waiting to be taken away.
She comes to say goodbye after his father. The ribbon is missing from her hair, and without it he could almost convince himself that this was some other occasion. Almost.
The shadows cast in the room from the overbearing sun puts half of her face in darkness. And as she's speaking with a low and hurried tone (telling him to stay sharp and align with the careers until the numbers dwindle and weave nets out of grass if he has to), he finds something in him dies right then and there when he realizes this is likely to be the last time he will ever see the little girl he met just one year ago.
He is young, and the young never survive.
-x-
It is a celebration for the youngest survivor and victor of the Hunger Games.
People dressed to the nines in garish clothing reach out to touch the shoulders of his suit as he passes through the crowds and crowds of people. Their own little television star, overcoming the odds stacked against him to achieve a feat thought impossible for someone so young. He knew everyone thought it would have been an older, more trained Career they would be celebrating in this moment.
No one could have been more surprised than himself.
No one could have been more disgusted than himself.
His mentor, a kind old woman who spoke strong, had been the first to embrace him after he awoke in the medical bay. He had sobbed in her arms like an infant, the dying faces of all those he had killed very much present in his mind's eye.
Something told him they would never leave.
The president is just as cold and vile as he appears, but there is something behind the sickly smile that does not settle well.
His rubs the green ribbon sewn to the inside of his lapel between the pads of his fingers. Home is soon.
-x-
It is a doll house.
At least, that is what this new house feels like.
The furniture is stiff and unlived in. The stairs are lacking in creaks. It's deprived of any characteristics that give it a personal touch. It's all generic, made to fill the needs of whoever is living there.
It is not, at least, entirely lonely. His father moved in with him. Mags is only a few houses down. The other victors were welcoming enough. And Annie visits near daily.
But no company can stop the bouts of insomnia and night terrors that plaque him. The unfamiliar bed only adds to his discomfort. For the first few nights, he sleeps on the floor.
Part of him wishes he had never won.
-x-
It is her third reaping.
He sits on the stage, clutching the sides of his chair as if it were his only tie to the surface of the earth. He knows now that he will never get over how the reapings make him feel. Not as long as one of those slips bears her name.
He senses her trying to make eye contact with him. The side of his face burns with the heat of her gaze. But he does not go to meet it. He doesn't want to be reassured that everything will be okay. Because it wouldn't be. Even if she isn't called, even if two of the adolescents who train in the bowels of the shipyard did volunteer, it wouldn't be okay.
Her name is not called.
Despite the anguished cry from the mother of the girl who was selected, he can feel his posture slump with relief and the tension leaving his body with every exhale. He feels the slight pressure of Mags' knee against his. It is not out of a shared joy.
She is reminding him not to show he has favorites. He is on television. His every move would be scrutinized. He cannot show that he has a weak spot, no matter what it may be.
At this, he fails.
-x-
It is a white rose.
It sits on his dining table in a tall, sleek vase.
It doesn't take long for both to end up thrown against the wall.
-x-
It is her fourth reaping. It is her fifth, it is her sixth.
And still she is safe.
Year after year, her name fails to be read aloud. And he couldn't help it—he became hopeful. Hopeful that perhaps it would all work out for them. She wasn't going to be reaped. She would make it, she would be safe. And then maybe, together, they can find a way to block everything out.
He forgets that hope is a deluding concept.
-x-
It is her last reaping.
They met up before hand, her in a simple white dress and him in the slacks and dress shirt his victor's winnings could easily afford by the handful. They talked of what would come after, and what they would do after, and anything and everything to do with after because it was so close and they were going to reach it.
They would be safe.
It was so close.
A hand enters the bowl, a slip of paper is chosen.
And the odds were ever in the favor of everybody else.
The only thing he can think, the only thing his brain can muster, is more blind hope that somebody will volunteer. Out of the children that do train for this, one of them will step up. The thought is crushed with every step she takes towards the stage, the echoes of her footfalls resonating down to his very core.
They aren't going to do it.
He can feel the tides lapping against his legs, rising fast. She was so close. So close.
She doesn't look up as she climbs the steps, passing right in front of him on her way to the microphone. The green ribbon is limp in her hair.
When the doors close behind the two new tributes representing District 4 in the 70th Hunger Games, he drowns.