you're dying a legend, darling
finnick/katniss, gale, haymitch (finnick/annie, katniss/gale, katniss/peeta)
pg-13; swearing + mentions of sex + character death (offscreen)
title+cut-text from empires' bang!, characters + setting from the wonderful suzanne collins.
in district thirteen, katniss and finnick wait for the revolution to take flight.
"welcome to the end of the world," finnick says. he's staring out his window, eyes beautiful and mournful. the world stretches out below him.
standing in his doorway, she says, "you haven't been at dinner."
"annie's dead," he says. his breath hitches, an audible sad sound low in his throat. "what the fuck am i supposed to do now?"
she steps forward, puts her hand on the glass. "avenge her," she says, thinking about peeta, about the colour of his hair in the sunlight, the curve of his smile. the red of his blood on his breast. "that's all anyone can do, anymore."
"we're out of things to live for," he says, dully, looking away.
she slaps him. the sound of it rings through the room; she almost shivers at the noise.
he raises his head to look at her, still empty-eyed, still lovely. the red mark on his cheek is livid, bright, like a splash of paint. "katniss."
she closes her eyes. "they're not coming back, finnick. we can't do anything but this. it isn't fair to not. you can't just let her memory be worth nothing."
the brush of his lips on hers is tentative, cautious; bruising nonetheless.
she doesn't open her eyes when she kisses him back.
gale can't look her in the eyes. he pushes food around on his plate and makes awkward stilted conversation about the weather, and she fucking hates it because this is gale, who has only ever been another piece of her.
she turns to haymitch, says, "i'm done," and gets up and leaves.
he follows her out; it's gale.
"hey," he says. he is staring at the floor. "catnip--"
"everything's so wrong," she whispers. "so wrong." she thinks about how finnick's mouth felt on hers; sad and electric and she wasn't thinking about him, but he wasn't thinking about her.
he puts his hand on her shoulder. it feels too heavy, like a brand. "i will always love you," he says.
"i don't know how not to," she says, so soft she can barely hear her own words. "but this isn't any kind of place for love."
"or any kind of time," he says. he looks up, catches her eyes. the pause is notable because neither of them breathe in it. "it's never going to be the right time."
she shakes her head; she hasn't cried in years, not even when peeta-- because it would have hurt too much. she can feel them pricking at the backs of her eyes and she blinks, rapidly. "gale, i."
he's crying, a little; shakily she raises a hand to smooth away the tears. he catches her wrist and murmurs, "don't."
she thinks that of all the damage they have taken, all the death they have seen, this is not the thing that they should be crying about; she drops her head on gale's shoulder and soaks it through nonetheless.
he puts his arms around her, and just for a moment, she lets herself believe they're strong.
"i miss her," finnick says. his knees are drawn up to his chest; he is watching the landscape again. the sunset settles across the horizon, a brightly coloured beautiful blanket. he looks very young; the side of his face is purpling.
she sits cross-legged beside him. "i know," she says. she can feel peeta's absence (and rue's, and cinna's, and her father's) like a hole in her heart; it hurts every second of every day.
"she was crazy, you know?" he muses, eyes distant, remembering. "they took everything from her, and i thought it would be enough. it wasn't."
"it never is," she says. "we're running on anger and adrenaline, you know. what happens when it runs out?"
the set of his mouth firms, solid, sharp. "they win. so we'd better not run out. mockingjay." the way he says it sounds like a curse; she knows, because that's how she says it. "you're the centre of the goddamn universe, everdeen. you better be worth it."
this time, she bites his lip so hard she can taste copper, to wash out the sound of that title.
"it's funny," she tells haymitch. "we're victors. you'd think death wouldn't faze us."
he smells like alcohol when he leans forward and says, "when that happens, we become them, and we lose the war."
she says, "this is the shittiest excuse for a war i've ever seen."
he laughs, a hoarse braying sound, harsh on her ears. "and that," he says, "is why i drink."
she takes a bottle of something strong to finnick's room, sits on the edge of his bed and watches him stare out the window like there's an answer he can find in the ravaged spread of trees that comprises district thirteen.
"she's not going to emerge out of the forest," she says, at last, "ragged and tired but alive nonetheless. this isn't a capitol drama."
he coughs a laugh. "are you sure?" he mutters, "all the fucking world's a t.v. set."
she passes him the bottle, the taste burning through her mouth, scalding down her throat. "drink this," she says.
"you think i haven't tried?" he asks bitterly, but the line of his throat as he swallows is long and lean and gorgeous.
she stands up and puts her hand on his shoulder. "we're alive," she murmurs. "we're alive. we have to be alive, so there's someone to remember them."
"you don't know he's dead," finnick says, caustic.
she closes her eyes, feeling sick and empty inside. "i didn't tell anyone," she says. "they sent me a feed of his execution."
"fuck," finnick spits. "katniss, why the fuck wouldn't you say? if they know where we are--"
"snow doesn't work that way," she says. "he wants to play a game."
they sit in silence for a while; and then he kisses her so hard she can't breathe.
they fuck. she bleeds, stark red against his white sheets; she thinks about peeta, thinks about the way his blood looked on his skin and the way his hair fell into his eyes, the way he murmured, i will always love you to a camera that couldn't say i love you too and the way she can't do anything but wish it was her dead, not him.
gale slips her hand in his. "c'mon," he says, wry, no mirth;. "time to start the victory tour."
she laughs, feeling like a lost bird, tangled in barbed wire. "cause i'm the motherfucking mockingjay, right?" her hair is braided messily, out of her face, away from her eyes. there is a scar on her left cheek. she is a world away from the girl who was on fire, and yet. this is what she must become.
"cameras in three!" someone shouts.
she closes her eyes and lets go. "that's my cue," she says, spinning away from him; there is nothing beautiful left in her, just the dynamo of the heart of a star. she sets her mouth for the camera, and speaks.
my name is katniss everdeen. some of you called me the mockingjay; some of you may know me as the girl who was on fire. a boy named peeta mellark was in love with me; he was the kindest most beautiful person i have ever known and for this, the capitol killed him. the capitol will never stop taking the people we love: not unless we do something about it. districts of panem, i am calling on you to rise up; i am calling on you to bear arms.
this is a revolution, and we are going to tear the capitol down.