I don't own The Hunger Games.
Finnick rolled over in his bed and slammed his hand down on the alarm clock. Mornings were not his thing, and today was no different. He rolled back to the centre of his bed and shut his eyes again.
"Finnick. Come on, get up." Izabelle sighed, already sitting up in the king sized bed. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and sighed again before going to stand up. Before she could, Finnick's arm shot out and pulled her back under the covers.
"Sleeeeeep." He mumbled, nuzzling her neck.
"Finnick!" She protested. "We have jobs, you know!"
"I know…" He smirked and kissed her lightly on her jaw.
"Finnick Odair get off of me right now or I'll be late. That'll make me angry, and you don't want to see that." Izabelle fumed.
"Fine, fine. Jesus Christ." Finnick muttered, releasing her. She frowned at him for a moment before visibly deflating.
"I'm sorry, Finn. I'm just really stressed right now, especially with the Lizards popping up and singling us out as rivals. Then there's the whole vandalism thing and- don't look at me like that Finnick, I know you were involved and you're damn lucky there's no evidence- and then there's the potential transfers of management and then there's-"
"Iz. Baby, you're not even twenty one yet. You've got to calm down. Take a break from the time and take some of school, just do you for a while. You'll burn yourself out." Finnick spoke in a soothing tone, as if one sharp word would reduce her to rubble. She had always been one to take on too many jobs at once, but lately it was all getting to her even worse than ever before.
"I can't." She protested. "But we should spend more time together. It would calm me down a bit I guess, and help us work better. We could do something tonight?"
"I'd love that." Finnick grinned at her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He was pleased that she was offering. After his conversation with Cato, Finnick had been brainstorming about what he could do to save his relationship. He had to bring that original spark back, knock her off her feet and get her to show him that side of her again that had been closed off for a while now.
"For once, just leave all the planning to me."
…
"Just do it."
"No!"
Do it!"
"I'll die!"
"No you won't, wimp!"
It had been a long morning. Annie felt weaker than usual- Cassidy's diet plan was hard. It involved cutting carbs which she knew was a dangerous game, as her diet before had consisted of mainly carbs to get her through practice. Johanna was trying to persuade Marvel to double back flip into the standing splits, followed by a triple front flip into the cobra and ending with the needle position on the beam that Enobaria had set up for balance training.
"It's easy!" She protested. "Watch."
She stood on the beam and performed the move faultlessly. Annie was in awe- there was no way she could do that without at least wobbling a little.
"She's good, right?" Annie glanced up at the girl who had spoken to her. Kelly, the twenty eight year old frontspot grinned at her. "She can cheer in pretty much any position- tumbler, flyer, base. Whatever. A lot of Allstar cheer squads want her."
"That's why she's Head, right? Because she's the best." Annie smiled back at her.
"True, but this her last season here. She's joining the Florida Spitfires next season. They've one the Cheer world championship for three years running."
"Cresta!" Johanna called. "You're up! Then we'll take lunch and head out to the field. We're sharing with the oafs though, unfortunately."
"But it's not their day." Clove frowned.
"Suck it up- they need the practice if they want to destroy the Lizards in a few weeks." Johanna shrugged. "Annie, beam, now!"
Annie groaned and pulled herself up onto her tiptoes on the bar. One wrong move and she could quite painfully break a limb- not that that was what she wanted to be thinking about.
"Front flip." Johanna commanded. Annie obeyed, landing perfectly still with her arms in the air and her toes pointed.
"Good warm-up move, newbie." Johanna congratulated Annie, who wasn't really all that new anymore. "Backflip into elevator- still pretty easy."
Annie performed the move without wobbling, her arms separated in the air.
"Double front flip into a split-lift." Clove called out, smirking slightly. The move hurt Annie's legs and she almost fell, but she stayed on the beam.
"Careful, newbie." Cassidy laughed. "Double backflip into a scorpion."
Cringing, Annie performed the move. The other cheerleaders looked impressed, but she was too busy trying not to die to fully notice.
"Last one." Johanna decided, and looked to Glimmer.
"Hmm…Front flip into liberty followed by a double back flip into bow and arrow." She grinned. Annie gasped in shock.
"Do you hate me? Do you want me to do die?" Annie asked doubtfully.
"Just do it." Glimmer laughed "We put mats out."
Annie glanced down at the mats unsurely. Okay, it would take a little of the sting out of the fall- but it would still hurt like a bitch. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before starting the moves. She almost completed it, but by the time she got to the bow and arrow stunt she was dizzy. She frantically flapped her arms around to try and keep her balance, but she collapsed to the floor in a tangle of her own limbs.
"Don't worry about it, kiddo." Johanna extended a hand to Annie and pulled her up. "That's real top level stuff. Took me a long time to learn combos like that- you'll get there."
"Thanks." Annie smiled warmly at the captain and they headed off to the cafeteria.
…
"Johanna…"
"No." She glared at Finnick fiercely.
"You know how much you love me…"
"No fucking way, Finnick." She snapped. Finnick gaped at her as he used his hands to cover the ears of the dark hair little boy that in front of him.
"Don't swear, he's six!" Finnick hissed at her.
"I'm not babysitting for you, Finnick! I'm drowning in unfinished routines and I've actually got to lead these captain runs, funnily enough."
"Please? I can't watch him and I don't want to leave him alone."
"Um, you guys?" Stood in front of the bleachers in earshot of the argument was Annie. "Flyer training isn't for a while yet. I could take him."
"Seriously?" Finnick smiled broadly at her.
"You're a life saver." He said at the same time as Johanna said, "Hell no!"
"Annie, you are a cheerleader. You don't have to babysit his cousin."
"It's fine Johanna, seriously. I don't mind." Annie assured her. Johanna rolled her eyes and simply walked away from the situation. Finnick took the boy by the hand and walked down onto the field with him.
"Thank you so much, Annie. My aunt would flip if I just let him sit up there on his own. I seriously owe you." He gave her a quick hug before running off to join the rest of his teammates training.
"So, what's your name?" Annie smiled warmly at Finnick's cousin as she led him over to the cheerleader's bench.
"I'm Aidan. You're Annie Cresta, aren't you?" He asked, flashing her a gap-toothed grin.
"Yeah, I am. How do you know that?" Annie asked, slightly surprised. She doubted that this kid kept up with the NFL cheer blogs.
"Finnick says you're the pretty one." Aidan skipped the last few feet to the bench and sat down.
"Oh. Um, tell him thanks, I guess." Annie blushed and sat down next to him.
"What are they doing?" Aidan pointed to where Glimmer and four other girls were practicing their tumbling skills.
"Tumbling. Basically, they flip over and over again. Watch." Annie pointed to Glimmer, who took a few steps for her run up and launched into a series of front flips, walkovers, handsprings and Arabian twists.
"That's so cool!" Aidan grinned.
"So what brings you here today?" Annie asked, laughing at Aidan's enthusiasm.
"Finnick said he'd look after me because my mom has a doctor's appointment, but she doesn't know that we're here so don't tell her." Aidan explained, swinging his feet back and forth.
"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." Annie winked at him.
"Cresta! Want to get some tricks in before Cassidy gets back and hooks her thumbs into the bases?" Clove called to her.
"Sure!" She called back, and then turned to Aidan. "Come with me."
They were practicing on the top right end of the field, so she set Aidan up on the grass in front of them to watch.
"Okay, let's start with Around the Worlds. We need to get from point A to point B quicker." Clove instructed. Annie was hoisted into the air and she focused on going from a pike to a toe-touch in mid-air. If she timed it perfectly, she could get each position in for an even amount of time.
"How did it look Aidan?" Annie called to Finnick's cousin.
"Great!" He gave them two big thumbs up.
"Okay, let's run this a few more times." Clove instructed. Cassidy finally arrived, and watched as they ran through the move another five times.
"Nice of you to arrive." Clove signalled to the other bases to join them.
"Hm. Well now that I'm here, do you think we could do something a bit more complicated?" She raised an eyebrow at Clove.
"Suggestions?" Clove forced a smile.
"High twist to a basket down followed by a herkie and then into a hurdler?" She smirked. Clove nodded and Annie was flung into the air once more. She used the momentum to do a 360 twist and was then caught in the basket position. A few seconds later she propelled upwards again and she focused on straightening her left arm whilst bending her right into her hip, and straightening her right leg and bending her left. She was caught and then thrown up and into the hurdler, which was one of the first advanced jumps she had learnt at the Academy.
"That was really good!" Aiden called from where he was sat on the grass.
"The kid's right- it wasn't bad. Again." Clove commanded. They ran the sequence through a few more times and Clove promised that it would be in their routine for the next home game in two weeks time. Panem were playing away at Minnesota over the weekend, but Annie, Johanna, Marvel and a few others were being rested and were not going.
After an hour of practicing various stunts, Clove dismissed them and Annie brought Aiden back to the bench.
"That was so cool." He told her, and explained his favourite tricks.
"I thought you would have been watching Finnick." Annie laughed.
"No, you guys are way more interesting." Aiden shrugged. He pulled some sort of gaming device that Annie didn't recognize and started tapping at the buttons.
"Don't let him here you say that." She warned jokingly.
"Hey."
Annie turned around in time to see Parker jump the wall behind her. He slid onto the bench and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
"Hey, Parks. Having fun?" She asked as he took her hand.
"I am now." He grinned at Annie as she rolled her eyes at him.
"You suck." She punched him lightly in the shoulder.
"Yeah, but you love me anyway."
"If you say so." Annie answered, avoiding the question laced in his words. He leaned in and kissed her softly. Annie kissed him back, unaware of the fact that a certain quarterback was watching her every move with a newly found fire in his eyes.
IMPORTANT:
I'm thinking of renaming the Panem football team. I stupidly named them the Allstars, not thinking about Allstar cheer squads. I'm going to put a poll up to see what people's opinions on this are.
On a lighter note, I'm sorry if some of this doesn't make sense. I've been writing it for three days and I'm so tired it hurts. If you're curious about any of these stunts, google have some awesome pictures.