haysplumjam

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 13

an: part 13! PLEASE comment/message me suggestions/critiques!! it will make this better!!!

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

The games are worse than I ever could’ve imagined. 

I try my best to help the boy as much as I can, but Finnick sends me to my room every time I get teary-eyed. Which is almost every time I see him. 

He takes on the role of mentor for both of them, which is better for all of us. I know they don’t stand a chance, even with two mentors. They’re underfed and undertrained. No one volunteered this year, thankfully, but these kids weren’t ready. No one’s ever ready. 

I’m watching with a massive group of mentors and sponsors in a massive room with walls of glass overlooking the capitol when they die in the bloodbath. It’s quick and because no one expected them to last long the cameras don’t linger, but the look on their faces is enough to send me into a sobbing fit. Mags takes me down a long hallway and sits beside me on the floor in an attempt to calm me down, softly speaking kind words meant to stop the tears, but they only make them worse. This was the woman meant to keep me alive, and I was supposed to keep them alive. I couldn’t soothe them or even stop crying and fidgeting and drugging myself to sleep long enough to offer comforting words. 

Eventually, Mags takes me to my room in the training center. It’s not a long walk, but it’s a painful one. I hear people whispering my name in hushed voices as I pass them with tear-stained cheeks. I try not to cling to their words, but I do, even when Mags closes the door and leaves me alone in my room. The only way to calm myself is to cover my ears and bury myself in blankets, rocking back and forth curled into a ball desperately trying to silence the noise that’s only in my head. The screams of the children. The excited chatter of the capitol citizens as they watch, bloodthirsty. 

I don’t know how long I’m rocking before my door quietly opens and shuts. The smell of capitol perfume and champagne reaches me before his arms do, but Finnick pulls me into his lap nevertheless, stroking my hair and whispering softly to me.

His promises that everything will be okay begin to feel more and more true and my hands retreat from my ears. 

“It’s not your fault, Annie, this is how it is. This is how the world is. You didn’t make the choices that led to this,” he repeats softly, stroking my cheek with one hand and my arm with the other. 

My sobs turn to silent tears, now. 

“Tomorrow, we’ll go down there and stay with Mags, okay? I’ll be with you as much as I can be. You just have to be safe, okay? Take deep breaths. Try not to cry if you can help it.” 

“Okay,” I answer softly. 

“I’ll be with you,” he promises, stroking my hair over and over again. 

When I wake in the morning, my head is still in Finnick’s lap and Glarius has just flung the door open, screaming at both of us before Finnick can even open his eyes. He shoves me into the bathroom to get ready for the arrival of my prep team and Finnick into the hall toward his own room before I can thank him for granting me rest. 

I scrub my body raw, desperate to remove the feeling of yesterday from my skin. Thankfully, my prep team doesn’t talk to me much, they just speak about what people are wearing and which dress they’ll put me in today. My hair and makeup are simpler today than they were yesterday, thankfully. No cameras will focus too long on the mentor of a dead tribute, even if I am the most recent victor. 

I don’t have to ask to be dressed in dark colors. Even the capitol follows the mourning ritual. I didn’t know him well, and I was a terrible mentor, but Marek was from home. A child who was far too young to be sent to his death, much less killed so brutally. 

Finnick is in a similar dark blue, and he’s finishing breakfast when my team is finally satisfied with me. 

“Good morning, Annie,” he says softly, setting his fork down to stand and pull out the empty chair beside him. The sun is barely beginning to rise, and the orange beams of light make his copper hair even more vivid. 

“She doesn’t have time, she woke too late,” Glarius rises quickly, pushing the chair back in. “We must be going.” 

“She has to eat something, Glarius,” Finnick sighs, rising begrudgingly from his own chair. 

“She can take a piece of toast,” he shoots Finnick a look. 

Finnick hooks his arm in mine, grabbing a roll from the table and offering it to me. I take the roll in my hand, feeling the warmth radiate through my arm. 

“Eat before you’re in the elevator so they can fix you,” Glarius nods toward my prep team. 

I shove the bread in my mouth as quickly as I can, offering Glarius a chubby-cheeked smile as I attempt to force it down. Vesper touches up the makeup on my lips and brushes a piece of hair out of my eye before giving Glarius a nod of approval. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “Let’s go you two. You have early meetings.” 

Finnick is gone almost as soon as we exit the elevator. Swept away by a group of beautiful women who Glarius tells me are sponsors. 

I sit quietly on the edge of a couch by myself, waving away a familiar avox who offers me a glass of champagne with a quiet ‘thank you’. 

“You don’t have to talk to them, you know,” one quick look and I know it’s Cashmere, another victor. “It’s not like they’re going to respond.” 

“Habit,” I smile softly at the woman, hoping that my short reply will get them to leave. 

“I’ll never understand why they insist on serving alcohol before the sun’s risen,” another woman sits down beside her. She’s in a black slinky dress, perfectly matching her long sleek hair, but it’s her sharpened teeth that remind me of who she is, “I tried to order a coffee and they brought it to me loaded with liquor.” 

“A coffee would be wonderful right now,” I sigh. I hate the stuff without a million too many sugar cubes, but it’s useful for waking up. 

“I’ll hunt down an avox,” Enobaria smiles slightly, just barely showing her teeth.

“Oh, no,” I say softly, rising from my seat. “I’ll go. Cashmere, would you like one?” 

“I’d love one,” she smiles her signature smile, tossing her long hair over one shoulder. “Gloss will want one too, if you don’t mind asking.” 

“Of course,” I answer, desperate to get out of the wolves den I’ve somehow ended up in. It takes some weaving through the crowd, but I find a group of avoxes surrounding the main set of sofas where Finnick and his group have settled. A bearded one approaches me quickly, looking to me with attentive eyes. 

“Hello, may we have some coffee and mugs at the couch in the corner over there?” I gesture toward the emptier side of the room where more victors appear to have gathered. “I’m not sure how many cups… a lot, I suppose?” I attempt to look over the heads of the crowd and count, but I’m unable. 

He smiles in a way that implies a laugh, nodding before gesturing me to cross infront of him. 

“Thank you,” I bow my head. 

I retreat to the now crowded area I once occupied alone. The avox man has brought a cart of coffee, tea, mugs, and anything anyone could possibly want to add to their beverages, including bottles of liquors I’ve never seen before. 

My seat is occupied by Cashmere’s massive brother, who laughs with Augustus and the other District One victors. Thankfully, the coffee cart is nearly empty, aside from an older woman I don’t know. 

“Here, Annie,” she offers me a mug, grabbing another one for herself from the opposite side of the cart. 

“Thank you…” 

“Seeder,” she answers with a warm smile. 

Seeder. I remember the name. A victor from Eleven. Finnick said her children were at the dinner there on the Victory Tour his year. 

“Right, I’m sorry,” I shake my head, turning the spout on the large vessel engraved ‘coffee’. 

“Don’t be sorry. It’s your first year, it’s always a challenge,” she shakes her head, fingering through the tea bags to select one of the many offerings. 

“So it gets better next year?” I ask, only-half joking. It might be because I recognize that she has children, but there’s something maternal about her. Something that feels safe.

“I can’t promise that,” she laughs, and it carries through the room like a warm breeze. It’s genuine. Natural. Nothing like this place. “But I’m more than happy to give you a few tips. Your mentor seems to be occupied, and I’m not very busy anymore.” 

“I would be grateful,” I try my best to drop the sugarcubes into my coffee without making noise, but still, I manage to grab her attention. “I can’t seem to develop a taste for it,” I answer before she can ask. 

“Neither can I,” she spoons some honey into her cup, stirring it gently. “Helps when you can’t sleep, though,” she sets the spoon down silently on a saucer, stepping beyond the cart and gesturing her head for me to follow her into the crowd. 

“Is it that obvious?” I ask her. My prep team does miracles with makeup to cover the circles under my eyes, but I must still be showing signs of my restlessness. 

“No, dear,” she shakes her head, “I’ve been in your place before. I remember how hard it was.” 

I nod my head, sitting beside her on a near-empty sofa. An older woman sits on the opposite end talking softly to a man with glasses, and a group of men sit in the chairs opposite us, laughing loudly at something we missed. 

“Chaff, you remember Annie,” Seeder interrupts and the men stop laughing at once. 

“It’s a pleasure,” he smiles, offering me a hand, which I shake. 

“The pleasure’s mine,” I nod my head. 

“Career table’s that way,” a white-blond man with a beard nods his head toward the large group that have formed around Cashmere and Gloss. 

“I’m not sure they’d take me,” I try my best at a joke. It works, and the men laugh, but I’m pretty sure it’s because of the liquor clearly occupying their near-translucent juice glasses. 

I can’t help but take a liking to the group of older victors. They’re mostly all drunk and miserable, but they speak their minds rather than minding capitol customs and niceties. They have lives, children, stories from their home Districts, and drinking problems, too, but they help pass the time we’re all expected to be gathered and watching as more children die. 

Dusk has fallen when Finnick finally appears in the corner the rest of the victors have gathered in. 

“It’s good to see you, Haymitch,” he offers a hand to the man from Twelve who’s consumed nearly an entire liquor bottle on his own since noon. 

The man accepts gratefully, “you too, kid. Is Mags up here?” 

“I haven’t seen her yet today,” Finnick shakes his head. “She was tired yesterday. The first is always hard on her.” 

“Hard on us all,” Seeder nods her head, taking a sip of a translucent pink liquid from her glass. 

Finnick sits down beside me on the couch, taking the mug of coffee from my hand and inspecting it closely. “You already have trouble speaking, Annie.” 

“And we have a long night ahead of us, Odair. At least she hasn’t turned to liquor,” Haymitch, the man from Twelve offers. 

“A smarter woman would’ve,” I can’t help but interject, stealing my mug back from Finnick and taking a sip. 

“Tell it to my headache,” Chaff groans, flopping back in his chair. It’s a funny mix of people in my corner, now, victors from all over Panem. Victors whose tributes have already been killed. Cashmere, Woof, Chaff, Seeder, Finnick, Haymitch, Wiress, Beetee, Enobaria, and I. The others still mingle with the sponsors in Finnick’s previous area of the room, desperately hoping to help their tributes in any way they can. 

“No signs of stopping tonight,” Enobaria leans against the couch above Finnick’s shoulder. “Care for something to help you stay up?” She offers a tiny glass of electric blue liquid. 

“Better to share it with Brutus,” Finnick gestures to the yawning man on the far sofa. “He has work to do yet.”

“And you’re going to sneak off to sleep? You think people won’t miss your company, Mr. Odair?” She continues, smiling a toothy smile. 

“I think I can get away with it tonight,” Finnick gestures toward Augustus with his own glass. The man is surrounded by what must be dozens of admirers. Despite not having a tribute to mentor of his own, he’s plenty busy. 

“Don’t be silly, Odair,” Cashmere chimes in. 

My attention is snapped away from the conversation by the boom of a cannon. Then another. Then another. Some sort of lizard mutation has killed three tributes with ease. Both children from ten and another from eight. Dead in an instant. 

I can’t help but cover my mouth as the cameras zoom in on the bodies. The children are torn apart, limb from limb. 

“Don’t look,” Finnick says softly, turning his body to block my view of the screen. The images are imprinted on my eyes nonetheless. 

“I–” I cover my face with my hands. 

“I know,” Finnick says softly, “breathe.” 

I try my best to take deep breaths, but they come out jagged and hardly allow for any air to fill my lungs. 

“Annie?” Seeder asks softly. I feel her hand on my leg. 

“I’ve got her,” Finnick answers, taking my arm. “Annie, let’s go get some air, okay?”

I nod my head, tears still pouring from my eyes as he leads me like a child through the room. The stares only intensify as we head for the exit. 

“I’m sorry,” I manage. 

“Never be sorry for feeling bad for dead children, Annie,” Finnick says softly, guiding me into an elevator. He holds me to his chest as we move, whispering words I can’t seem to focus on. 

“Breathe, Annie,” he says softly as the elevator opens. 

I can’t. I can’t breathe. Not when they can’t. Not when all of those kids are dead and they’ll just keep dying year after year. Not when I’m not sure I’ll always be able to remember all of their names and faces and the sound of their voices. 

“I know,” Finnick holds my head as I sob into his chest. After a moment, I notice he’s crying, too. 

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 12

an: part 12! PLEASE comment/message me suggestions/critiques i can take it and it will make this better!!!

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

It’s noon before I roll out of bed and head to the orphanage. The woman at the desk has been there for my entire life, but she still asks me my first and last name when I arrive to see the kids. 

The creaky old floors are just the same as they’ve always been, and Mariana is kicking her little legs on the wooden swing when I arrive outside just as she always has. 

“Annie!” She jumps into the grass, landing on her bare feet and running to hug me. This gets Navy’s attention, too, and she lifts her head from the garden, wiping her hands on the grass before coming to greet me. 

“Hey guys,” I tuck a stray piece of Navy’s hair behind her ear. “What do you say we go to the market?” 

Mari is immediately thrilled, but Navy hesitates. 

“Where’s Cas?” I ask her, almost certain she’s worrying that he’ll come back to the two of them gone and worry. 

“He took up some work on the weekends at the docks,” she wipes her hands on her pants, “he usually gets done around five, can we be back before then?” 

“Of course,” I nod. Truthfully, my only plan is to take the girls to buy their fill of sweets and toys and clothes, which will be easier without Caspian’s objections, anyway. 

Navy washes her hands under the water pump before we go back inside. The woman at the desk narrows her eyes at me as I sign them out, but I don’t care. We’re on the path to the town square before too long, and Mariana explains the difference between the different kinds of fish native to our waters for the entire way. She skips a little as she walks, like Navy used to. She’s much more somber, now. More responsible. 

A twelfth birthday is a big deal in Four. You can begin working for real money rather than just what’s slid under the table by less nimble fishermen who need tiny fingers to mend their nets, but Navy’s not one to celebrate. Especially not today. 

“This is pretty,” I pull a dress off of the rack at the clothier’s, swishing it a little bit to watch the blue fabric move in the light. 

Navy stares at the fabric, enamored. It was clearly manufactured in Eight and not made by a local seamstress. It’s expertly stitched and the fabric is too nice for anything we have access to here. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes. She takes the dress from my hands and holds it in her own, rubbing the fine fabric between her fingers for a while before placing it back on the rack. “Dresses are for reapings,” she shakes her head, staring down at the wooden floor. “I have yours, I don’t need anything special.” 

I gave her all of the old clothes I had that didn’t belong to Atty mama or dad the second I returned home from the capitol. I don’t like their clothes much, but their money allows me to buy whatever I desire, and I do. Since the end of the tour, I’ve received nearly a package a month with clothes from the capitol, too, courtesy of Tigris.

“How about these?” I offer her a pair of denim overalls that match the ones I always wear, and this earns a smile. “Better,” she answers, taking them from my hands to examine them. 

We leave the clothing store with Navy’s market bag full of clothing. Practical wear for her, along with a few ribbons and the dress she swears she doesn’t need. Mariana gets a new dress too, along with a pair of overalls that match her sister.

The sweet shop is the next stop, and Navy seems to lose her resolve the second we step inside of the brightly colored room. I feel bad for the poor old man behind the counter, who’s practically assaulted with questions by Mariana. He has everything the girls want, and I buy far too much for the other kids at the orphanage, too, my own bag stuffed to the brim. 

“Anywhere else?” I ask the girls as the bell rings on the slamming chop door. Mari’s tongue is already bright blue from the dyes of a lollipop she insisted on trying as soon as I paid. Navy seems to perk up a bit as our bags fill, but the sugar can’t hurt, either. 

Navy seems to think for a second before speaking up, “Cas is outgrowing his boots. That’s why he started working. Do you think we could…” 

“Absolutely,” I nod, allowing her to lead me to the cobbler’s. 

Navy pulls a little piece of paper from her pocket with measurements scribbled on it, speaking to the man with such poise and directness I could mistake her for an adult if she wasn’t so small. She settles on a pair similar to what he wears now, and I buy a few extra pairs of laces and socks, too.

Our hands are far too full on the walk back to the orphanage, and even Mari has to help carry some of the clothes. 

I take the girls upstairs to what used to be our shared room and sit with them on the floor as they bicker about which candies they’ll share and which they’ll hide from the other kids. 

There’s a new brother and sister that share the corner Atty and I used to occupy. Navy tells me in a hushed voice that their parents worked on the same ship and died in a storm. According to Mariana, they’re nice enough, but she won’t be sharing her peppermints with them. 

We’re discussing a book Navy is reading for school when Cas arrives, silently sitting on the floor with us and popping some of the candies in his mouth. I told Navy not to mention the boots until I was long gone, but I can see that she wants to. 

“Would you like to come to my house for dinner?” I offer. Food at the orphanage is scarce and tasteless. Thankfully for my sake, Navy loves to cook. I can assist her, but she prefers to do it on her own, which is better for all of us. 

“We have to cook tonight,” Cas sighs, clearly disappointed. 

“I have to cook tonight,” Navy corrects him. “You work. I cook.” 

It’s sad how much she’s grown in the past year. She’s taller and her voice is clearer, but that’s not what’s most noticeable. She’s stepped into Cas’ place as Cas stepped into Cove’s, and I hate it. 

“And we need to get started,” Cas glances at the old clock on the little table beside us. 

“I’ll leave you guys be. See you in a couple of weeks?” I rise from my spot on the ground, and so does Mari, clinging to my waist. “You can go to my house whenever you want, okay? Just make sure you’re back by curfew. I leave the back door unlocked. Take whatever you want.” 

Cas nods, standing up, too. “Thank you, Annie.” 

I’m taken by surprise when he hugs me. The last time he did was before I left for the games last year, and I think that was only because I promised I would get Cove home. 

I hug him back. 

I pretend not to notice that Navy is crying when she hugs me, I just hold her body to mine for a little bit longer than the other kids. 

“I’ll be back in a few weeks. If you need anything while I’m gone just take it, okay? Promise you will?” 

Cas nods his head, and Navy murmurs a promise. 

I press a small pouch into Cas’ hands, and he immediately objects. 

“Give it back after if you don’t need it. Just in case, okay?” I interrupt him before he can argue the coins. “For my own sake. Go to the bakery and get something good tomorrow after, okay? The rest of it is just in case there’s an emergency.” 

Caspian sighs, but he nods his head. 

“I love you guys. I’ll see you soon,” I step away from the trio. They all look just like Cove, in their own ways. Caspian is practically a carbon copy, but Navy has his eyes and Mariana his determination. I can’t look at the three of them together for too long, though, not with one so obviously missing. 

“Love you, Anne,” Navy says softly. I almost grimace at the nickname, but I control my face. I can’t do that to her on her birthday. Can’t remind her of the dead the day before the reaping. Mari waves as I leave, but I can’t bring myself to look at Cas, because looking into his eyes is just like looking into Cove’s. 

The walk from the orphanage to Victor’s Village practically spans the entire city, and takes me almost an hour. I pass by dozens of people with a look of dread on their faces. I’m sure I don’t make the feeling any better– a constant reminder that the best thing that could happen to their child if they’re reaped tomorrow is near-insanity. 

I make it home just in time to watch the end of the sunset from the beach directly behind my house. I don’t mind the sound of the crashing waves anymore. Not like I did when I came back from the capitol for the first time— or the second. 

The pills have dulled the nightmares into a distant memory, and it’s Cove’s death that haunts my waking memory, not Jewel’s. Caspian is growing into the spitting image of his brother, and Navy has his eyes. I still haven’t adjusted to spending time with them again, but I try. 

The pills help. 

Mags doesn’t approve, but she can only tell me to stop, as she’s unable to walk upstairs anymore without her cane and a significant amount of time. I hide them when she comes for dinner, anyway. 

We usually eat at her house, which helps my case, and our dinners have slowed to once or twice a week— rarely ever with Finnick. 

He’s in the capitol more now than before the tour, and when he’s home he’s always either holed up in his room or in the water. Mags worries, and so do I, but there’s no speaking to him about it without starting an argument that only hurts her more. 

I can see Mags sitting on her back porch watching the waves and weaving something down the long line of houses, but there’s no sign of Finnick next door. Once the sun descends and the wind picks up, I finally go inside, resenting Mags’ wish to eat alone tonight. I understand, of course, I can’t stomach the thought of food at all. Not when tomorrow night’s dinner will be spent on a train taking two kids to their certain death. 

I watch the night grow darker over the water from the comfort of my dining room table, the only place in the house I’ve been able to make feel like home. I have to force away thoughts of Caspian or Navy being reaped tomorrow. They don’t have to take tessarae, not since I paid the orphanage twice the amount the grain and oil would cost. Their odds are no worse than any other twelve and fourteen year old. 

Still, the thought of them on that train sends my mind in a million different directions. What if it was both of them instead of just one? How do I help both of them when one will certainly die? I swallow hard to push down the bile rising in my throat. There’s no reason to think about it because there’s nothing I can do to change it if it happens. I have to remind myself that over and over and over again until rays of the sun begin to peak over the horizon. 

The sun’s nearly risen when there’s a knock at the door. I’d know the pattern anywhere, but he still takes me by surprise when he enters the house. “Let’s go swim,” he practically demands. 

“Finnick, I thought you were in the–” 

“I was,” he cuts me off, speaking breathlessly, “I’m not anymore, at least for the next twenty hours. Swim with me.” 

 “Were you running?” 

“Sure was. Come swim,” his eyes dart to the water. He’s fidgeting his hands, too, which is incredibly unlike him. Not that I’m really sure what is like him, lately. 

“Sure, fine,” I shake my head, pushing my chair back and meeting him by the door, unsure of why I’m listening to him before five in the morning. “If I was asleep were you just going to wake me up?” I ask as we walk down the beach. “Probably,” he nods, pulling off his shirt and tossing it into the sand. I hate myself for staring, but I do. I toss my own clothes to the ground and thank myself for wearing proper undergarments before following him into the water. He’s gone under in a second, of course. 

We can all swim in Four, but I’m nothing like Finnick. Near the end of his games they sent capitol cameras to the school and asked students about it. ‘Can you swim like that?’ and ‘is this normal for District Four?’ I still remember Callie Westward’s voiceover as they showed shot after shot of Finnick diving into the water, “no, Finnick is just extraordinary.” She said it like she’d just learned that word in school, and she probably had, given her slow wit. 

I lie on my back and allow the waves to push me around as Finnick springs up in different places before diving back under. It must be half an hour later when he finally surfaces beside me, laying back and staring at the sky as it brightens. 

“Are you okay?” I ask him. 

“As okay as anyone is today,” he answers, splashing water onto my face. 

“You’ve been gone a long time.” 

“Six and a half days,” he answers, “and now two more weeks.” 

“I haven’t seen you in a lot longer than six and a half days,” I speak up after a bit. I regret it almost instantly, but I can’t help it. 

“Only two days between that and the time before,” he answers, flipping under water and smoothing his hair back, treading water as he speaks, “I wasn’t feeling well when I was home.” 

“Mags misses you,” I continue, “dinner’s been quiet.” 

“She’ll get enough of me, don’t worry about her.” 

“I worry about everyone,” I allow myself to flip under water, smoothing my own hair back before returning to my floating. 

“I know you do,” Finnick joins me, taking my hand in his and floating beside me. 

I stay quiet, knowing the words I want to say are childish and ridiculous. At 18 years old I shouldn’t be so worried about someone that I can’t sleep even with the help of nearly twice the amount of pills, much less someone who does so well in the capitol. “I’ve got to go. No prep team to get me ready this time,” I allow myself to slip under water, swimming quickly to shore. I slide on my overalls, not bothering with my tank top as I retreat to my house, leaving Finnick bobbing in the water.

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 11

an: part 11! as always, message me/comment w critical feedback i need it

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

It’s quiet at home with Finnick not around. 

Dinners with Mags are the only socialization I get, and while it certainly improves my ability to use the hand signs, I miss Finnick’s too-loud talking and endless storytelling. 

I take to swimming by myself. Going out as far as I can without developing the familiar pit in my stomach and diving down until I hit the ocean floor. I try to collect a shell each time, but they’re all chipped. Still, I put one in the little bowl on my back porch every time I come in. When it fills, I empty them into the bigger bowl at the center of my table. Once that one fills, I begin turning them into my terrible attempts at jewlery. Necklaces, bracelets, and the tiny ones become rings. They aren’t pretty, but I still add one to Finnick and Mags’, just happy to wear one of my own, no matter how ugly. 

It’s May when I finally try to sleep without the pils again. Instead, I just stare out of my window into the unseasonably hot evening. It must be early morning when the light flips on at Finnick’s house. He’s only been to dinner twice since the tour, and even then he didn’t speak much. No funny stories or insight on the capitol’s newest trends. Just me and Mags with an occasional nod or grunt from him while he stared at the stew spilling off of his spoon. 

The light stays on for hours, and I’m sure he’s fallen asleep, exhausted from his trip to the capitol. At least that’s where I think he went. I drift between sleeping and waking, interrupted by dreams of Cove and Jewel– and worse, Navy and Caspian in the arena as my mentees. After I see them die in a dozen different ways, I just stare at the warm light a few yards away until the sun rises. 

When I finally drag myself out of bed, I’m plagued by the idea of checking on Finnick. Making sure he’s okay. Asking about his trip. He always seems to be ill when he returns home, probably from the travel. I’m not much of a cook, but my mother wrote down her recipes, and I’m sure I could follow one well enough to make some chicken soup. 

It takes an hour of pacing and a steaming hot shower for me to come to my senses. He wants to be left alone, so that’s what I’ll do. If he’s sick he could spread it to me, anyway, and I’m practically useless when I’m ill. That would be no good. 

Instead, I take a pouch of coins from the drawer where I store all of the money the capitol insists on me having, and had to town. I stuff my basket with candies, clothing and durable cloth, bread rolls from the bakery, and even herbs for Mags, who insists she has enough but always smiles when she sees chamomile. They’re expensive, but I don’t mind– no better way to waste the capitol’s money than helping a woman they’ve hurt so much

I head off in the opposite way of home, taking the familiar dirt path toward the orphanage, instead. The kids will be at school, which is probably for the better. Every time I see them I have to excuse myself with some poor excuse and lock myself in my room for days as I remember the last time I saw Cove. Instead, I’m able to sneak up the creaky steps and leave the candies and fabric and socks under Caspian’s blanket. He’ll delegate them to the girls, and people are more afraid to steal his things than theirs.

It’s a long walk home, back through the square that’s grown busier as the sun has risen higher in the sky. I answer a few polite nods with nods of my own, but most people just give me a pitying smile, which I just keep my head down for. I stop to see Mags first, giving her the herbs and promising to try to get Finnick to come for dinner. 

I’m nervous as I approach his house. I knock the familiar knock I’ve come to know him for, but there’s no answer. I knock again, no answer. I finally just push the door open, revealing his clean but incredibly empty house. “Finnick?” I don’t dare shout. 

No answer. 

“I’m leaving something on your table. Mags wants you over for dinner,” I raise my voice a bit more, setting the box of rolls on the center of his dining room table and leaving as quickly as I came. 

He wouldn’t be mad. He’s never been mad at me. The second I close the door I regret not checking on him. He’s never had any issue checking on me. 

I go home anyway. 

Dinner with Mags is quiet. I talk, she talks a little bit, her voice improving each dya, but mostly she just stares at the door, waiting for him to show up. 

He doesn’t. 

I follow her up the stairs as she retreats to her bedroom, terrified she’ll fall, even though she says over and over she won’t. She insists I take a plate to his house on my way home, and I do.

I knock once before turning the door handle, surprisingly, Finnick is the one to open it. He stares at my face, then down at the plate. 

“I’m so sorry,” he shakes his head. “I lost track of time.” 

“She wanted to make sure you ate,” I answer blankly. I hadn’t planned for him to actually answer. I’d hoped I would just tuck it in his refrigerator and return to my bed. 

He sighs, sliding on a pair of sandals beside the door and staring into the blue-black night, “I should go apologize.” 

“She went to bed,” I stop him before he can leave. “Go see her tomorrow,” I offer him the plate, which he finally accepts. 

“I can’t d–” 

“She’s worried about you. Go see her tomorrow.” I know it’s mean. I know I shouldn’t be demanding things from him, but I can’t help it. A door slamming and a light flicking on aren’t enough to know he’s safe, not for Mags. He looks sick, too. The bags under his eyes are dark and he’s fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. She’s going to be upset. More upset than she has been that he looks so fragile. So hollow. 

“I will,” he nods. 

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask as I take a step back, allowing the threshold to separate us. Part of me hopes that he’ll slam the door in my face. 

He seems like he’s about to speak up, but he hesitates.

“Anything, Finn. Always.” I regret using the nickname. Especially now. That’s Mags’ nickname. It only belongs to me when I’m hurt or sad or looped up on capitol medicines that make me do stupid things I want to do even when the medication hasn’t impacted my brain. 

“Stay for a little bit?” He hesitates, “it’s good to see your face.” 

“Of course,” I step back inside, closing the door behind me against my better judgement. I know that if I stay I’m going to say something stupid. Something that I don’t mean to say out loud. 

“Thank you for the bread,” he sits down at his table and I sit in the chair beside his. “My stomach has been bothering me, I’ve hardly been able to eat.” 

“I can go to the apothecary,” I offer, “I’m sure there’s something that can help.” I’m not familiar with the apothecary, but I know it’s where I’m meant to go when people are as sick as he looks. I can pick up a dozen bottles as soon as they open in the morning and allow him to try them all. Anything to make him better than how he looks now. 

He waves away the offer, tearing into one of the rolls, “I’m okay, Annie. Thank you. Have you gone to see Cove’s siblings?” 

“A few times,” I nod. “They’re doing well. Navy’s birthday is July third. She’ll be twelve.” 

“Bad luck,” he shakes his head. “Is she alright?” 

“As alright as anyone can be,” I answer, unable to keep the memory from my mind of my first  reaping. Or any reaping after that. It would be my last this year, and Cove’s first year free from the bowl. 

“How many times is her name in?” He asks, tearing little pieces of the bread and popping them into his mouth. 

“Hers is in once, Caspian is in three times,” I answer, tapping my fingers together with their match on the opposite hand. 

“They’ll be fine, Annie,” he takes one of my fidgeting hands between his. I don’t notice how cold I am until I feel the warmth radiating from his skin. 

“It’s a hard thing to be rational about.” 

“No one would expect you to,” he shakes his head. “It won’t be them.” “Even if it’s not, it’ll be kids just like them,” I finally look him in the eye. He looks worn. Tired. Awful. 

He just nods. “I walk by the docks sometimes, just to watch them spearfish and throw things and pray none of them volunteer.” 

Pray is a funny word. Mags uses it a lot, but it’s not something young people say. I’ve figured it means hope. “Did you do the same last year?” 

“I’ve done the same every year since I left the arena. Let bad luck be the reason they go to their deaths, not false confidence.” I can’t help but feel his statement is pointed. There have only been two volunteers in the four years since Finnick’s games. Odysseus Harp and me. Odysseus died in the bloodbath. I was stupid enough to survive. “I didn’t have false confidence,” I defend. “I planned to…” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t bring myself to say the words, not when I’m alive and Cove isn’t. Not after I killed people. 

“I don’t mean you, Annie,” he turns to face me fully. “I…” I think a million thoughts as he trails off. My mind can’t focus on one before he speaks again. “I understand.” 

I hesitate for a moment as I always do, but this time I speak of what I’ve always decided wasn’t worth the risk. “Finnick, why won’t you talk about it? We’re home, we’re safe from them.”  

“We aren’t safe, Annie. Not here.” 

“Then where?” I ask, tears pressing against my eyelids as I tilt my head back toward the ceiling. It’s been over a year since plans were made in darkness. Whispers on the very edge of Mags’ dock where the crashing waves made sure nothing could be heard. I failed. We failed. They killed Atty for my failure. 

“Nowhere. Not in Panem,” he sighs, taking my other hand in his. “I’m doing my best to keep you safe, Annie. Let me.” 

I look out at the water, the moon blurred by my tears as it rises over the beach. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with this. Not while you aren’t feeling well,” I take my hands from his, rising from the chair and wringing them out. 

“Annie–” 

“Just make sure you see Mags tomorrow, okay?” I make hurry toward the door, bumping into and straightening a chair on my way. 

“Annie, you aren’t bothering me. I–” 

“Feel better, Finnick.” I fling open the door and slam it shut behind me, shocked by the sudden chill of the air. Still, I don’t let myself linger on the steps. I practically run home, slamming my own door behind me before I descend into a sobbing lump on the floor.

[haysplumjam]

how do y’all think haymitch felt when katniss came back to him all “i want wiress, beetee, and mags as allies” in catching fire? hand-picking his two and a half men(tors)!!

“of course you do” as his response now means so much more bc he’s not just exasperated he’s like “you really are me with a braid”

[haysplumjam]

something I'm kinda sad they omitted from the catching fire movie:

when finnick and katniss get the salve after the fog and cover their faces in it and prank wake up peeta by scaring him

ik its doesnt fit the 'theme' of the movie and yknow fighting for survival but it's so silly and goofy and truly just a nice little moment between them right after mags and the district 6 woman's death to let off some steam

like in 24hrs finnick goes from katniss' kill list, to unwanted ally, to lets be silly and prank peeta. like yes this is what a 17yo and a 24yo would do in a moment of whimsy just because why not

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 10

an: part 10! feeling a bit like suzanne in sotr w these cameos but i LOVE writing themmmmm. as always, message me/comment w critical feedback i need it

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

I hear the party what must be miles before our car arrives. My prep team is just as excited as Finnick’s, buzzing with gossip and compliments on each other's work. Finnick and I sit in silence, until I can hear the music. 

“Is that…” I trail off. 

“Mmhmm,” he nods. 

We drive for what must be fifteen more minutes before we arrive. Glarius sends us out one by one in an order only he understands, but what I do know is that I’m saved for last. 

“Finnick, you’ll escort her,” he says, waving away a confused look on the boy’s face. “A request from the President himself. He must recognize how handsome of a pair you make.” 

The feeling I experience is reflected on Finnick’s face for a quick second, but he wipes it away in an instant. “Usually the escort will walk the victor in,” he explains to me.

I nod my head, desperately combing my thoughts for any sort of reason Snow would want Finnick and I together. Maybe it’ll earn me capitol favor? Or Finnick? Helping the crazy girl certainly looks good. “I don’t know either,” he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” He rubs my the back of hand with his thumb. 

“Finnick, thirty seconds,” Glarius says as he exits the car. 

Finnick checks his watch, nodding to himself. “Everything will be fine. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” 

“And who protects you?” I ask him. 

“I do,” he says softly. “Let’s go.” 

The walk to the mansion is long and carpeted in turquoise. Finnick and I take it slowly and silently, following behind Glarius and walking in perfect step, just as he would want. I don’t see the massive crowd of people until we’ve reached the top of the long flight of stairs, but they’re a sight to behold. 

Finnick doesn’t speak up until he issues a whispered warning, “they may try to touch you, don’t flinch, okay?” 

I nod my head in understanding, doing my best to keep a polite smile plastered to my lips. 

Once the initial cheering has ended, people begin to approach us. Finnick keeps his arm tightly hooked in mine as he shakes hands and kisses cheeks and makes excuses for my obvious nervousness. 

I meet what must be hundreds of people whose names I’ll never remember, but Finnick is sure to make a point of telling me if someone is a sponsor or a face I should remember. It’s not until we meet a distinctly un-capitol looking man that he actually brings me into the conversation. “Annie, Plutarch is the one who gave us the sign book after Mags’ accident. His family has a wonderful library in their home.” 

“Thank you so much,” I say, not faking my sincerity for the first time since we stepped out of the car. “It’s really helped.” 

“Have you learned much?” His eyes light up, “I always meant to learn as a child, I thought I might use it to cheat on my math exams in grade school, but that would’ve required other people, learning it, too.” 

He’s an odd man, but the conversation not focusing on my dress or Finnick’s bare chest is a relief. “We have,” I look to Finnick, nodding. “We try to learn more words every day, but we use the alphabet for almost everything.” 

“Incredible,” he beams. “I’ll search the shelves to see if we have anything else and send it to you in Four.” 

“You’re too generous, Plutarch,” Finnick is sincere, too, almost completely dropping the slow and raspy voice I’ve only ever heard him use on television during mandatory viewing, and now, here at the party. 

“I have no use for them, and I’m certainly the last of my bloodline,” he chuckles, “better to you than to the University.” 

“Thank you,” I add. It’s a bit morbid to hear such a young person talk about their death, especially in the capitol where everyone seems to stretch their lives for centuries. 

“It’s the least I can do,” he waves away the comment. “I’ll let you two get to mingling with your adoring fans,” he smiles. There’s sarcasm in his voice that I appreciate deeply. 

“We’ll see you around, Plutarch,” Finnick says as the man turns to walk away. 

“You certainly will,” he raises his glass in our direction before slipping into the crowd. 

“I like him,” I say to Finnick as we pivot and he directs me to pick up a stemmed glass from one of the million white-clothed tables. 

“He’s interesting, for sure,” Finnick sighs, grabbing a glass himself. “Drink it slowly.” 

I nod, knowing better than to ask why. I busy my thoughts by counting how many whiskered people are at the party. I wonder if Tigris started the trend, given her name, and if this many people still choose to have such a distinct mark of her face on their own. We’re at ten whiskered faces when Finnick pulls me into a relatively empty area. 

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks, unhooking his arm from mine. 

“I’m fine,” I nod. 

“There you two are!” Glarius shrieks. Finnick and I both let out an involuntary sigh of displeasure as he approaches us, bringing with him a crowd of people we haven’t yet greeted. “How are you doing, Annie?” He puts on an air of true consideration that I’ve never experienced from him. It’s not until the group behind him begins to fawn over him that I understand why.

“She’s doing well, Glarius, thank you,” Finnick answers on my behalf, linking his arm with mine again. 

“You’re a wonderful mentor, Finnick,” a woman with what must be a foot of hair atop her head speaks up. 

“Thank you, Effie, but Annie makes me look good.” 

The group swoons and chatters away and Finnick excuses us, apologizing profusely and leading me to a table where a group of people in matching uniform coats and tall white hats stand behind mountains of delicate cakes and pastries. 

They babble their thanks and begin to explain each one. Finnick cuts each of the small ones in half and forces it into my hand. I can’t look at the people who made the cakes and deny them, despite the bubbly alcohol swishing around in my stomach, so I accept. 

The cakes make me change my mind about capitol food. 

They’re full of fruits I’ve never tried and chocolate so rich I could drown in a bite. Eventually a crowd gathers around us, which just excites the chefs more, and it seems like everyone at the party is tasting cakes around the little table. 

There’s a pink one with a berry filling that I can’t help but eat more than one bite of. It’s rich and tart and wonderful. “I have to say this one is my favorite,” I say to the chef with light pink hair standing in front of me. She practically bursts with excitement, the blue tattoos above her eyebrows nearly completely receding into her hat. 

“Thank you so much,” she beams. “I made that one myself.” 

“It’s wonderful,” I say to her, “truly.” 

It’s mere seconds before the pink berry cake is in the hands of almost everyone surrounding the small table. Finnick just shakes his head, a small smile on his lips. 

We’re drawn away from the table by the sudden increase in the volume and a brightly-colored illumination of the sky. The fireworks are just beginning when a rather plainly-dressed man whispers something to Finnick and his face grows pale. 

“I’ve got to go,” he says to me softly, the man tapping his foot as he waits impatiently beside him. “Do you think you can find Glarius on your own?” 

“I…” I trail off. “Is everything okay?” I’ve been on my best behavior all night. No tears, hardly any shaking, are they still mad at me for my behavior this evening? Is Finnick going to be punished for my inability to control my tears? 

“Yes,” he answers instantly, “nothing to do with you. I’ll see you on the train, okay?” 

I nod my head, and he disappears into the crowd. 

I take a deep breath and close my eyes before forcing a polite smile to my lips. I say hello to everyone who tries to talk to me, but I continue searching for Glarius. 

“Are you alright?” A familiar voice stops me. Plutarch. 

“Just trying to find my escort,” I sigh, “he seems to have run off.” 

“Your mentor, too?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“He had business to attend to, I guess,” I answer honestly. 

Plutarch’s smile fades into something sadder. “Let’s find Glarius then, shall we?” He offers me his elbow, and for some reason I accept his escort. He’s polite, but he ignores most of the gawking attendees, politely navigating the crowd and pointing out funny details about the personal lives of the guests to me as we search for Glarius. 

“There you are,” Trulia appears out of thin air, breathing a deep sigh of relief as she takes my hand. “We have a train to catch, dear. Where’s Finnick?” 

“He was summoned for some business,” Plutarch answers in a funny tone before I can even put the words together. 

“Oh,” Trulia raises an eyebrow, “nevermind. He knows his way back. Thank you for taking care of our girl, Mr. Heavensbee.” 

“It’s a pleasure,” Plutarch smiles. “It was wonderful to finally meet you, Annie.” 

“It was wonderful to meet you, too,” I give him a small smile and a wave as he disappears into the crowd. 

“Come on, Glarius is going to kill us,” Trulia huffs, leading me out of the chaos and toward the turquoise carpet. 

Glarius is fuming when we slide into the car, “where’s your mentor?” He asks me sharply. 

Trulia shakes her head, “business.” 

The word seems to suggest something more to everyone else in the car, who turn their conversations to the food they ate and people they danced with. No one really bothers to talk to me, which I don’t mind. Vesper begins pulling pins from my hair while continuing to chatter away, letting the perfectly placed curls fall into my face as the car glides down busy capitol streets. It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning, but if it weren’t for the darkness of night, I would believe it was mid-day. People are out and about, dancing in brightly-lit rooms and chatting at tables on sidewalks with funny little animals in their laps. 

Complaints of exhaustion and cramped hands and sore feet fill the car as it begins to slow, and Glarius instructs me to go straight to bed as we slip from the car onto the train. We’ll be back before midday tomorrow, but there’s still the District Four ceremony to contend with. 

I scrub the makeup off of my face and settle for the shower over the bath, scrubbing the product from my hair with the liquid shampoo and settling on drying it with a towel rather than the capitol contraception, which I’m sure Vesper will scold me for tomorrow. 

I can’t help but think about what I’m supposed to say to my own district. I’m not proud that I won. I’m not proud that Cove is dead. He’s more well liked than I am, anyway. Will they chastise me for crying as they did in One and Two or show me the empathy of Eleven? Are they going to put Mariana Navy and Cas on a platform under a giant photo of Cove’s face? 

I attempt to slow my breathing as I settle on the floor of the observation car. The view from the train station isn’t a pretty one, but at least the impatient passengers waiting for their train can’t see me as I can see them. 

I pull the heavy blanket from the sofa and onto my lap, wrapping myself in the thing and staring out at the capitol, desperate to think of anything other than the speech I’ll have to give tomorrow. None of the other victors will be allowed at the dinner at home, just as none of them were allowed in the other districts. Finnick told me that on his tour he got to meet them, but the mayor of Twelve told us they changed protocol this year, for what reason I’ll never understand. 

Part of me is disappointed that I’ll have to return to my house in Victor’s Village tomorrow and not get back on the train, but only because of the rest I’ve gotten on the tour. Despite the daily reminders of the games, I’ve had no nightmares. I know when I’m back at the house I’ll have to resume my routine with the pink and green pills. The numbness that comes with them is comforting, but knowing I’ll hurt Finnick or Mags or the kids in some way is hard. 

I’m watching the deep blue of the sky begin to lighten when an avox appears and offers me a steaming mug. It’s not until he’s gone that I notice it’s tea from home and not the capitol. I sip it slowly, grateful for the comfort. The sky is pink and purple by the time the train begins to move. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and my eyes grow heavier as I struggle to stay awake. 

The door startles me as it closes behind Finnick, his suit jacket unbuttoned and hair mussed. 

He slumps down beside me, eyes heavy and head hung. He flinches when I move to pull the blanket onto his lap, and I quickly move my hands away. 

“I’m sorry,” he shakes his head. “You should get some rest, Annie.” 

“You too,” I say softly. 

“I’m going to go to my compartment. You should too,” he rises from the floor, turning toward the door before I can even wipe the surprise off of my face. But it’s not surprise, it’s concern. 

“Finnick,” I call as I stand. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” he turns to look at me and for a second I swear I see a tear in his eye, but he blinks before I can really look. 

“Talk to me about it?” 

“You should rest, Annie. Home tomorrow,” he pushes the button that closes the door, leaving me alone in the observation car as the sun rises. 

I stumble back to my compartment with the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, digging through the small bag of clothes I brought with me for my father’s shirt. In the front pocket sit the little green pills, desperately waiting to be used. 

I take all five and drift off into blissful nothingness.

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 9

an: part 9! fav part yet enjoyyyyy

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

I wake with my head in Finnick’s lap and Glarius’ ear-piercing scolding for what must be the millionth time on the tour. It’s ritualistic, in a way. Finnick talks for hours about something I know nothing about, I fall asleep, and we’re awoken as the sun rises by our furious escort who claims I should’ve been in the bath hours ago. 

“At least let Finnick sleep, Glarius. He doesn’t take as long to get pretty as I do,” I rub my eyes and rise slowly from the carpeted floor of the observation car. 

“Well if you two didn’t insist on sleeping together every night like an old married couple, maybe he’d get to,” Glarius hisses. My cheeks are beet red, I’m sure, but I just walk silently to my bathroom, eyes still heavy with sleep as I sink into the tub. 

Vesper and Trulia start on my hair as soon as the machine has dried it. 

“Today’s a big day, you know,” Trulia says as she repaints the plastic nails they glued to my real ones. “The biggest party of the year. Everyone will be there, and the food will be divine.” 

My stomach turns over on itself at the mention of food. Since I saw the crowd of scrawny District Twelve children, I’ve had trouble keeping anything down. Finnick had them make bread with the recipe from home, which is the only thing I’ve been able to choke down aside from the stray oyster or berry– a weakness of mine I discovered before the games. 

“All for you!” Vesper adds. 

All for me. 

They’re almost complete with my makeup and chatting about one of Vesper’s neighbor’s personal lives when I hear muffled arguing between Glarius and Finnick. 

“I’ll deal with it,” Trulia sighs, leaving the room in a hurry. Their fighting quiets almost immediately, and Vesper tries to distract me by asking my opinion on different shadows for my eyes and attempting to coach me on makeup. 

Eventually, Trulia returns looking significantly less chipper than usual. 

“Is everything alright?” I ask her. 

“Oh of course dear, nothing to worry about. Just some issues with your dress for this evening and your dear stylist,” she huffs. It’s always my stylist with them– not their boss or the stylist, my stylist, and only because of how much they dislike her. 

Finnick explained that he had a different stylist during his games, but she retired three or so years ago, meaning Four has had a rotating group of stylists no one else wants since. 

Vesper and Trulia rant about Decima Sickle for what must be hours before they’ve completely redone my hair and makeup. From what I’ve pieced together, Decima sent a white dress, which everyone knows isn’t in my palette. Glarius thought it would be a good way to make a statement at my big event, Finnick said it was dumb, and Decima didn’t have another dress. After some rather unkind and uncharacteristic words about Glarius, Vesper explained that Finnick called his old stylist and she’ll be bringing options to the train once we arrive in the capitol. So, my hair went from straight to curled, and eyes went from dark to light. For what reason I’ll never understand, but it also means new jewelry and nails and basically ruined Trulia and Vesper’s lives forever. 

Fortunately, Finnick is able to convince the two of them that they need to take a break before we arrive in the capitol to prepare themselves for the party, giving me a moment to breathe. Finnick’s hair is styled in the way it usually is when we’re in the capitol, perfectly mussed and gelled away from his face. I almost think there’s makeup on his arms, something making him shiny, but I don’t allow my eyes to linger for too long. 

“This is the easiest part,” he leans against the bathroom counter, facing me. “Just say hello and be polite. There won’t be much mention of the games, just people fawning over you. Let them, and move on. I’ll be with you as much as I can, you just have to remember to breathe.” 

I look into my lap, focusing on a loose thread in the hem of the silken pajama pants. The second I stepped on stage in Twelve, I began to cry. They had big screens showing the faces of the dead children, with their families positioned just under them, their faces still grief-stricken. I didn’t kill the tributes from Twelve, but my being alive is the reason they’re dead, and their families know that. I could barely make it through the speech Glarius wrote– I cried the entire time and my voice kept breaking. Finnick tried his best to calm me, but I couldn’t breathe for hours after the ceremony. I just held my knees to my chest and sobbed while he attempted to get me to stop. I couldn’t. 

The other districts went similarly. 

By Seven, Finnick’s breathing tricks had begun to work, but I know it only made me look crazier– stopping mid-sentence to inhale deeply and hold by breath in an attempt to hold back tears. It was District Two that really broke me. By then, there was no amount of breathing that could help. 

I nod, knowing too much time has passed before my response for Finnick not to worry. “I’ll be fine,” I attempt to reassure him. 

It doesn’t work. 

I recognize the way he looks at me, and I feel a pain in my chest. It’s the way people look at a starving dog or a group of children returning to the orphanage from school. The way the people in the square looked up at me as I stepped onto the reaping stage. 

Thankfully, a capitol attendant comes to take Finnick to his own prep team who want him dressed before we stop in case cameras catch him at the train station. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?” 

I nod, staring down at the loose thread once more. 

I’m grateful for the silence, but I feel the train begin to slow nearly the second Finnick closes the door. Dress and shoes and jewelry and dancing and too much food and a party to celebrate children’s deaths. 

“She’s almost here!” When Trulia rushes into the bathroom, her turquoise hair all rolled up around little plastic tubes and her face as white as a cloud. Her brown eye is wearing mascara, but the one that perfectly matches her hair isn’t, yet. 

“Trulia dear, you need a drink,” Glarius huffs. “Annie, she’ll be dressing you here, just try to remain calm.” 

“Remain calm?” I shake my head in confusion. Is she half snake? Does she look like she’s made of fire? What is there to panic about? My breath hitches and I feel myself begin to get dizzy. 

“Oh Trulia, she doesn’t know,” Vesper sighs. “Finnick’s former stylist is a bit of a celebrity in the capitol, darling. She was the first ever stylist for the hunger games. She’s become a recluse since her retirement, but she still helps Finnick from time to time. You’re very lucky.” 

The first person to ever pretty up the lambs for slaughter. 

I feel as though I’m going to be sick. 

Vesper and Trulia continue to fuss over the fake eyelashes they glued on top of mine as the room spins around me. Why would Finnick call in a favor from such an evil woman? Or is she like Vesper and Trulia, innocent– for the most part. Maybe she doesn’t understand all the harm she’s done, either. 

Glarius reappears in the bathroom and I realized I never noticed that he left, “she’s coming. Get out,” he demands of my prep team. The three of them scurry away, heeled shoes clacking down the hall as they make themselves scarce, undoubtedly going to finish their own beautification. 

“We’re beyond appreciative,” I hear Glarius’ voice in the distance. 

“Well, Decima’s never been particularly perceptive,” a slow, gravelly voice answers. 

I only realize I’m holding my breath when I let it go as Finnick’s voice joins the two of them, “we’ll take it from here, Glarius. Thank you.” 

I hear the door to my compartment open, but I’m frozen in my chair. Finnick wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. 

“Annie?” He knocks on the door twice. 

“All good,” I answer. My voice comes out sounding like a child’s and the door whirrs open. 

Standing beside Finnick is a tall woman, I think. I would believe it if I was told she was one of the capitol’s mutations. Her face is orange-ish brown and covered in lines that mimic the pattern of an animal from a children’s book my mother used to read to us. Whiskers protrude from her cheeks, and she dons a large fur hat and a matching coat. I bite my tongue to ensure my face doesn’t show my terror. 

“Annie, this is Tigris. She was my stylist before retiring a few years back,” Finnick says, stepping into the bathroom. He’s in a deep blue suit that shimmers in the light and he wears no shirt beneath his jacket. “She’s a dear friend.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I try my best not to sound scared, but I take comfort in knowing the woman probably already thinks I’m crazy, so a little fear must’ve been expected. I don’t realize I’m gripping the arms of my chair for dear life until Finnick takes my hand to help me up. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, dear. I’ve heard much about you,” her voice is hardly human. Too low, almost a growl. I wonder if they can enhance their voices like they do their bodies, or if this is actually how she sounds. “Let’s get you dressed.” Finnick doesn’t seem to notice my begging him with my eyes to stay as he steps out of my compartment, leaving me alone with the cat woman. She begins to unzip long black bags, revealing beautiful shimmering gowns. 

“If Decima had decided not to do her job earlier I’d have something custom, I apologize,” she shakes her head slowly. “Blues and greens, no?” 

“Yes,” I nod my head in agreement. “And we need something that will compliment your beautiful jewelry,” she takes my hands in hers, examining the rings Finnick and Mags made. Her hands are distinctly human, and worn with age. They look like Mags’, other than the tattoos. I decide to take comfort in them. 

“It’s okay,” I shake my head, nearly laughing, “I didn’t make them anyway.” 

“No?” She raises one of her tattooed eyebrows, clearly a bit amused, “isn’t it your talent?” 

They filmed my table covered in jewelry before we left four, and I was given a few scripted lines to read about how much I love making it, despite only wearing the two rings and a few necklaces I certainly didn’t make in the shot. 

“Finnick and Mags certainly seem to have a talent for it.” It’s not particularly funny, but it earns a slight smile from Tigris. “I always thought the talent thing was a bit cliché,” she sighs. “But you’ll need to be bejeweled nonetheless.” 

She begins to sift through the bags that hang before her, carefully examining the dresses before her, pushing some to the side to get a better look at others. “Do you have a preference?” She asks, not turning to look at me. “These are some of my favorites.” 

I stare at the three dresses she’s deemed acceptable. They’re the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. None of them too revealing or too sparkly, and none seem to have the usual capitol embellishments I despise– feathers or studs or live accessories. 

“They’re all beautiful,” I shake my head, “I don’t really have an eye for these things.” 

“Which will make you feel the most beautiful?” She asks. 

It’s a simple question, but it still catches me by surprise. I’ve never really cared to feel beautiful. The only times I’ve ever worried about my appearance have been the reapings I’ve been a part of, and that’s only because we have to. 

I just shake my head. 

“Finnick,” she doesn’t shout, but she certainly speaks louder than I’ve heard her dare to. “Come in, please.” 

The door to my compartment opens and a small smile presses to Tigris’ lips. “Any thoughts?” 

“What do I know about dresses?” Finnick chuckles. “You’re the genius, and they’re all amazing,” he runs his hand over one of the dresses, a pale turquoise that sparkles in the light. 

“I’ve taught you better,” she rolls her cat-like eyes. 

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re going to put her in and I’ll bring you her jewelry?” Finnick offers. 

TIgris nods, checking a tiny wrist-watch that seems to come from out of nowhere. “Either the left or center,” she sighs. 

The pale turquoise or the navy blue. 

“The one on the left will match the jewelry we brought better,” I speak up. I don’t dare to say the color name, because I’m certain there’s something much more specific for the shade that will make me sound like an idiot to a designer, and I can’t be crazy and an idiot. 

“Good,” Tigris smiles. “That was my choice, too.”

Finnick nods and darts off, heading to the car dedicated to the jewelry I didn’t really make, and Tigris helps me into the dress. 

“I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you, Annie,” she says softly as she makes final adjustments, standing behind me and allowing me to look in the full-length mirror. 

The dress is beautiful. It complements the hair and makeup Vesper and Trulia have changed a million times perfectly. The neckline plunges to the waist, that’s marked by fabric ruffles that give way to a long flowing skirt that moves like the sea. 

“Thank you,” I’m taken aback by her honesty. Her understanding. Maybe this is why Finnick called her, to prove to me that they aren’t all evil. 

“You don’t deserve any of this, neither of you do,” she looks to the door out of the corner of her eye, and Finnick is standing there holding a large box. 

I have no idea how I didn’t hear his footsteps, but given the movement of his jacket, he’s only just arrived. 

“Thank you, Finnick,” Tigris says as he sets the box on the small table beside her. I begin to take off the rings I’m wearing, but she stops me. “You wore them the whole tour, no?” 

I nod. 

“Keep them on,” she insists, taking the hand that holds Mags’ ring and holding it to Finnick’s face, “a matching set.” 

I examine the ring myself, never having noticed the indistinguishable colors of the artificial stone and his eyes. 

Finnick offers a few more rings, which Tigris accepts. They’re silver, too, all matching the cool tone of the dress and my other rings. She decides on silver bangles over necklaces, but she hesitates to remove the black-brown corded bracelet from my wrist, simply pushing it down and adding another bracelet to ensure it’s covered. 

By the time they’ve decided I look satisfactory, Glarius is standing at my compartment door practically frothing at the mouth, the tips of his pointed ears bright red. “We’re going to be late if we don’t leave within the next few minutes. Tigris, would you like to ride in our car?” 

“I don’t attend parties,” she growls. “Give me a moment.” 

Glarius begrudgingly presses the button that closes the door to my compartment, leaving me alone with Tigris and Finnick. 

“You look wonderful,” one of her long nails pats shimmering powder onto my cheekbones. “Stay with her this evening if you can,” she instructs Finnick. 

“Always.” 

“Good,” she nods. “You make a wonderful mentor, Mr. Odair.” 

“Thank you,” he smiles honestly. He doesn’t speak to her like he does Glarius or Trulia. He talks to her like a friend, not a capitol citizen who needs to be coddled like a child. “We’ll see you soon.”

Tigris smiles, rolling her eyes, “I suppose I can handle another client,” she squeezes my hand. “But I must go before your escort has me taken out in handcuffs.” 

“Thank you, Tigris,” I say as she turns to leave. 

“Don’t thank me, Annie. It’s the least I can do,” she slinks out of the door, Glarius practically chasing her down the hallway before coming back for us. 

“In the car, now,” he demands. 

Finnick and I exchange a look, for the first time on the tour, both of us nervous. He simply takes my hand in his, and we make our way toward the door.

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 8

an: part 8! short one (sorry) but it's necessary i promise! please pease PLEASE comment/message me suggestions/critiques i can take it and it will make this better!!!

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostitution, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

I pace the train for what must be hours after everyone retreats to their own cars. The train ride to Twelve is long, but looking out of the window as the country flies by helps to pass the time. I think about visiting Finnick’s compartment and asking for tips to kill more time, but I know he’s long asleep. 

Instead I settle in the car covered in windows, allowing a near complete view of whatever district we’re passing through. I think it’s Five or Two, but there’s no way to be sure when it’s so dark. I wrap my arms around myself and lean against one of the plush purple couches, just watching as land flies by. This is one of the only times on the tour I’ll be able to sleep, I’m sure, so of course I won’t. I’ve tried to prepare myself for how awful it will truly be, but being tired will only make it worse. I only brought five of the green pills and two of the pink in an ill-fated attempt to try to get myself to actually sleep, as if that’s something I’ve done without pills or nightmares in the past six months.

Wherever I am, it’s a pretty district, but I just watch the stars. They’re the same as at home, but different from the ones in the arena. They were all wrong– the constellations in different places and patterns and no directional guides. These are my stars, even if they belong to Five or Two or whatever in-between we’re practically flying through. 

A capitol attendant comes in to check on me, clearly startled by my presence, but I just wave him away. 

I see a group of lights in the distance that must be a district, but which I can’t tell. I return to my staring at the stars once the squinting starts to hurt my head. They’re so steady. So unmoving. 

“Are you okay?” Finnick’s voice startles me. 

“Of course,” I answer, looking at him rather than the stars. 

“You should at least try to sleep,” Finnick settles on the ground beside be, looking up at the sky. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” 

I just shake my head, “the nightmares aren’t worth it.” 

His face falls, “you have to at least close your eyes for a while.” 

I shake my head again and return my focus to the stars. 

“Annie,” he sighs. “Please at least try.” 

“Do you not get them?” 

“Of course I do,” he sighs. 

“Every time you close your eyes?” I look down from the stars and meet his eyes. 

He shakes his head, “not anymore, but it won’t stop without sleep, Annie. How do you get on?” 

“Coffee,” I lie. I want desperately to take the pills and rest, but I know I can’t waste them now. Especially not now that he knows I’m still awake. 

“Nothing helps?” 

I rack my brain for any memory of a time I’ve been able to sleep without nightmares or pills since the arena. Once, when I fell asleep at my kitchen table immediately after visiting the orphanage, and once more when I fell asleep while Finnick tried to explain strategy just before the tour. “It has to sneak up on me,” I answer, attempting not to laugh at how silly it sounds. 

He nods, but he’s more concerned than amused. 

“I’ll be okay, Finnick,” I attempt to reassure him. “Do you know what district?” I point to the cluster of lights far in the distance. 

“Five,” he almost cracks a smile. 

“Do you know any of the victors from there?” I ask him, desperate to get away from the topic of my sleeplessness. 

“Not well,” he shakes his head, “there’s a woman named Porter. She’s kind, but quiet. A few others, too, but they never come to anything.” 

“What districts are you closest to?” I ask him. It’s a strange question, given the imminent death of twenty-three of their mentees. 

He pauses for a moment, “there’s siblings from One that won right before I did and another who won pretty soon after.” 

Of course, Jewel was the mentee of one of his closest friends. 

“A few from Two as well. Mags is close with a woman from Three, but she’s a bit hard to talk to,” he looks puzzled for a moment, but quickly moves on. “Everyone from home, of course. All of the victors are cordial, but most of them aren’t exactly friends. It’s a… challenging dynamic.” 

I nod, squinting at the blurry lights of Five in the distance. 

“There’s a dam there that’s really a sight to see. They’re the only other district that really has water.” He goes on and on about a visit he paid to the dam once. He knows exactly how much electricity it produces and how many workers it requires and how much water flows through it each day and somehow, his words that mean next to nothing lull me to sleep. 

When I wake, the sun is far too high in the sky for my liking, and my head is on Finnick’s shoulder.

 “The very end of two,” he points out at a distant city. 

“You should’ve woken me,” I quickly move my head from his shoulder, desperate to keep my embarrassment from showing. 

“You needed the rest,” he counters. 

“I’m fine, Finnick,” I sigh. “I’ve disrupted enough of your sleep.”

“I slept well,” he shrugs. 

“I promise I’ll do my best to keep myself alive, Finnick. You don’t have to take care of me.” 

He hesitates for a moment before standing, taking my hands and pulling me up from the plush carpeted floor, “I’m not going to leave you alone, Annie. The sooner you accept it the better for both of us.” He lets go of my hands, “breakfast. Come on.” 

I huff, but I follow him anyway. 

Glarius and my prep team are chatting excitedly and drinking pink liquid with bubbles out of long stemmed glasses when we enter the dining car. Of course, they immediately soften their voices when we join them. 

“Tired today, are we?” Glarius asks, earning giggles from the rest of them. 

I just nod, placing the simplest-looking pastry from the tray in front of me on my plate. 

They resume their regular volume quickly, paying no mind to Finnick and I as he attempts to prepare me for District Twelve, despite the fact that we won’t arrive until tomorrow. Their mayor is kind and quiet, and he has a young daughter who enjoys playing the piano. 

“It’s one of the worst you’ll see. You have to know that,” Finnick says, putting another pastry on my plate beside the untouched one. 

“What do you mean?” 

“People starve to death there. Often. Everything is covered in dust, it’s… it’s scary.” 

I nod my head, thinking of the tiny District Twelve tributes. They were older, if I remember correctly, and not too short, but they were skin and bone. 

“Eight, and Six are like that, too. Sometimes Three, Five, Seven, and Eleven, but it depends.” 

“Everyone who doesn’t have a way to sneak Capitol food,” it takes me longer than I’d like to put it together. 

“Yeah,” he nods. 

“Why Eleven?” 

“Their peacekeepers are brutal,” he shakes his head. 

Ours are bad, of course. Disrupting work and beating and sometimes even hanging people who take enough from their catch for the officers to notice, but they let things slide. Especially when it comes to those who work the docks or fish for their dinner after working hours. 

I nod, suddenly feeling even less inclined to eat the pastry than I did before. I can’t help but think about the packages the Capitol has sent everyone in Four monthly since I won. Grain, oil, canned vegetables. There are certainly people who need it, but people starving in other districts need it more than those of us who have plenty of food in our backyard. Districts that rarely win. No one from Eight or Six in my lifetime, and definitely not Eleven or Twelve. The sheer number of victors from One and Two, districts that always have enough food to fill their bellies. They don’t need the parcels, either. 

My stomach churns at the thought of children starving to death while the colorfully-dressed people across from me take one bite of something and throw it away. While they starve themselves by choice out of sheer vanity. While my own cabinets are full of food. While I’ll spend the next two weeks being presented with meals in the same districts people are dying in because they don’t have enough to eat. 

“I’m not hungry,” I say to Finnick, excusing myself from the too-full table and retreating to my own car. 

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 7

an: part 7! i have nothing particularly insightful to say here, but welcome to the victory tour

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, prostituton, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

I don’t understand how I manage to remain to terrible at jewelry making when Finnick and Mags improve so consistently. My twists and knots are fine, of course— it’s close enough to nets and ropes and the things I’ve spent my life making. The pieces I make are just flat out ugly. I take to wearing a ring on each hand. Mags’ on my right, Finnick’s on my left. They’re beautiful, and nothing I make myself looks even halfway decent next to theirs. 

By the time the eve of the tour rolls around, my dining room table has been turned into a factory of sorts. I twist the metal, Mags selects the stones— her hands firing too easily to make as many pieces as Glarius has demanded— and Finnick finishes them off, setting the completed pieces in neat rows. 

After a near week of no swims in the sea of fishing on the dock— just work— Mags yawns and does the sign with her hands for sleep, pointing at both Finnick and I. 

“I’m okay, I promise,” I shake my head, toying with the idea of honesty. “I’m too nervous  to sleep.” 

Finnick and I have made a habit of keeping the bad things from Mags. Sugar-coating them, as he calls it. She worries too much about both of us, and with her fragile health, she can’t take any more worrying. She needs laughter and meals together and swims in the water summer provides, not the harsh winds and scary thoughts and impending dread late autumn has given to Finnick and I. 

She takes one of each of our hands in hers, pressing her lips to the backs of our hands as tears well in her kind eyes. She’ll see us off at the train station tomorrow, but that’s as far as she’ll go, given explicit orders that because she wasn’t my mentor; she has no place on the tour. Undoubtedly, this is another of Snow’s punishments: I don’t know if it’s meant to hurt her or me or Finnick, but it succeeds in wearing on all of our hearts. 

“I’ll walk you home,” Finnick rises from a chair, giving me a look I know to mean he’ll be back. 

Mags kisses me on the cheek and I give her as much of a smile as I can muster as the two leave me alone in my too-big house. I pack up the jewelry supplies, tucking them into the cabinet beside the fireplace I’ve designated for their storage. 

The pieces on the table are beautiful, but nothing compares to the two I refuse to take off. Finnick’s holds a stone I now know to be turquoise, and Mags’ a sea-green one that almost matches. That stove is artificial, manufactured in One rather than dug from a mine in Two, but the comod forces me to forgive it. The beautiful shade of the water that day in the early fall when I decided that the capitol isn’t allowed to take the memories I have of my family. 

Glarius will be happy with my talent. He preferred painting, but Finnick convinced him it wasn’t my best choice. Of course, I have a talent for neither. Finnick and Mags do it for me as they do everything else. Even if I was able to handle myself, Finnick hasn’t been in the capitol in a month, meaning it’s been about as long since I’ve slept. 

He’s much happier, which helps me breathe a little easier, but he’s always around, meaning there’s no time for the green pills that bring me relief. I tried the pink ones for a while, but gave up on them when I found myself irritated with Mariana’s after-school ramblings. Staying awake is one thing, but it’s not worth the chance of hurting them. 

When night comes, I turn on every light I can and play music on the capitol record machine. Glarius would send new records if I asked, but I like the familiarity the songs bring. There are no words, but I make some up for my favorites. Song them softly to myself while I read a book of subject t myself to the awful television programs on late at night. Just one pill only makes me unable to open my eyes— keeps me trapped in fuzzier versions of the nightmares. While my tolerance is nearly gone, two pills don’t do it, either, they just make the nightmares stranger. Three pills is a guarantee I’m asleep when Finnick arrives at my house mid-morning. 

So I don’t sleep. Or allow myself to sit in the dark. Or blink for too long. Still, my conscious daze is close enough to sleep for me to start when my door opens again. 

“You need to get some sleep, Annie. This is going to be hard,” he sits down across from me. 

“Sleep won’t make it easier,” I shake my head. I know he understands what I mean. He has nightmares too. We’ve only talked about it once, but that’s all we needed. 

“What helps?” 

I can’t tell him about the pills, or he’ll undoubtedly demand the doctors stop sending them. I won’t be able to live a life outside of the games if I can’t go in the water or fall asleep on my own, and he won’t allow that. “Nothing.” 

“Then let’s at least sit somewhere more comfortable,” he rises from his chair, offering a hand that I accept and leading me to my sofa. 

He tosses a blanket toward me, and I catch it before it can hit me in the face, spreading it across my lap. I can tell what he’s going to ask me by the look on his face. He doesn’t want to do it just as much as I don’t. 

“Names,” he sighs. 

“Twelve. Eleanor Allister and Nathan Chance,” I begin. These ones are easier, comparatively. Both kids passed in the bloodbath and I never met either. 

Finnick nods. 

“Eleven. Meadow Loomy and Farro Whittaker,” I continue like this in the order of the districts we’ll be visiting, saving Cove for last. I didn’t know all of their full names until after the games, but there’s no world in which I could ever forget them now. 

“You just read off of the cards, okay? Glarius did a good job. I read them. Did you write anything for anyone?” He asks. 

He’d offered me the opportunity, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The only ally I had that I didn’t kill was Cove, and no one in Four needs pretty words to know how much I loved him. Anyone who knew him already knows that. “No,” I answer honestly. 

He nods his head, “anything you want to go over again?”

“I’m okay. You should get some sleep,” I offer. As far as I know, Finnick really does sleep, somehow. Maybe after five years the memory fades some and the dreams become less vivid. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he shakes his head. “Not if you’re not sleeping.” 

“I’ll try,” I regret my words. I should’ve just lied like I usually do. “I just wake so often and the dreams are so horrible, I…” 

“I understand,” Finnick speaks before I can even find the words to finish my sentence. “Why don’t you just close your eyes for a bit and I’ll be here when you wake up?” 

“Finnick,” I sigh. “It’s really okay. I’m used to them.” 

“I want you to rest before the tour, Annie. You look exhausted.” 

There’s nothing like a perfect specimen of a human telling you you look terrible on the eve of your every moment being documented. My dinner attempts to come back up as I think about the tour. The cameras. The families of the tributes. It’s too much, and I lose my breath, gasping for air. I know there is plenty, but I can’t find it. 

“Annie,” Finnick is scared again and I hate it. The look in his eyes terrifies me more than my inability to breathe ever could. 

“I’m okay,” I say shakily. Images of the bloodbath flash though my mind. Of Cove. Of the kids I killed. Of speaking to their families on the tour. 

“Annie,” Finnick takes my face in his hands. “You have to breathe, okay?” 

I nod my head, trying to focus on his warmth rather than the feeling of falling that’s overwhelmed me. I don’t realize I’m crying until he’s wiping my tears, speaking softly in an attempt to calm me. Eventually I rest my head in his lap, staring at the ceiling as he strokes my hair. The images fade slowly, and I’m able to concentrate enough on my breathing to stop gasping for air. 

“You’re okay. You’ll get through this,” he repeats over and over again. 

I cling to his words desperately. He got me through the arena. He can get me through this. He has never lied to me. He would never lie to me. Even more than that, he would never hurt me. “How did you make it through yours?” 

He shakes his head, “barely did. Mags got me through it.” 

Great. 

“You’re going to make it through just fine. Just read the cards,” he continues to stroke my hair, peering down at me with his sea-green eyes. They really are unlike anyone else’s I’ve ever seen. I could almost be convinced they were an enhancement from the capitol if I hadn’t known him for so long, but there’s nothing unnatural about them. That color is distinctly his. 

My eyes grow heavy as the night grows darker. Finnick keeps talking about tour. Only the good parts, of course— the food he thinks I’ll like and the victors he’s friends with and getting to see the other districts, but I just focus on his eyes and the sound of waves crashing just a dozen or so yards away, and eventually, I doze off. 

When I wake, the sun is up and my head is still in Finnick’s lap. I have to look at the scars on my left hand to ensure it’s real life and not a dream, and sure enough, they’re there. Finnick is sound asleep, hand still in my hair. I attempt to sit up without waking him, but he practically jumps the second I move my head. 

“I’m sorry, everything’s okay,” I promise him. “Go back to sleep.” 

“No,” he rubs the sleep from his eyes, “we promised Mags breakfast, remember?”

Of course, he’s right. I’m dumbfounded by the fact that I fell asleep, much less slept through the night— much less in Finnick Odair’s lap. My cheeks get hot at the thought. “I’m going to go change, I’ll meet you at Mags’?” 

“Yeah, sure,” he nods. 

I run up my stairs before he can even close the front door and stare at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are bright red, and my hair is full of dozens of tiny braids of all different types. My cheeks grow redder as I begin to unravel one closest to my face. 

I splash my skin with cold water from the tap before brushing my teeth and tying my hair into a crude knot on top of my head. My face has almost returned to a normal color by the time I’ve changed. Denim pants and a too-big sweater that belonged to my dad and then Atty and now me with my usual boots. 

I don’t bother locking the door as I leave my house, I just rush to Mags’, knowing Finnick will undoubtedly beat me. 

Mags is practically at the door with open arms when I arrive, her smile bright as ever. There’s a sadness in her smile, but I ignore it for just a few seconds as I hug her. “We’re going to be okay, promise,” I attempt to reassure her. 

“Eat,” she responds. Not exactly a vote of confidence, but her way of trying to make things feel a little bit better. 

I sit down at her small kitchen table with just three chairs to a table full of food. She has a massive dining table, but this one is from her home from before the games, so this is the one she uses. Finnick has changed, but his eyes are still heavy with sleep. I’m sure our shared stylist has something prepared for him from his team of dozens in the capitol. He’ll be back to perfect in no time. He sips a cup of black coffee, undoubtedly having already added a few dozen too many sugar cubes. I gladly accept a mug full of the stuff from Mags, adding a splash of milk to mine. 

“I don’t know how you drink it like that,” Finnick grimaces as I take a sip. 

“Normal,” Mags says as loudly as she can. She insists on talking, despite the three of us having learned as much as the capitol book had to offer of the hand signs. She’s a bit better now, though. I’m not sure about medically, but she sounds more herself. 

“Disgusting,” Finnick shakes his head, taking another sip of his. Mags has prepared far too much food, as usual. This time, it’s all distinctly District Four. Our salty bread and what must be a dozen fish and rice based dishes. 

“We’ll be home in two weeks, Mags, you didn’t have to do all of this,” I sigh, heaping my plate with small scoops of every dish and breaking apart one of the steaming rolls. 

She moves her hands slowly, allowing us to follow her words. ‘Leave home hard’ she signs, ‘how long no matter’. 

Finnick nods, squeezing Mags’ hand, “thank you.” 

We eat in relative silence. Finnick doesn’t bother me with the events of the day or the next few weeks, thankfully. He talks about water temperatures and how the changing seasons will affect trapping. Mags nods along with the conversation, contributing in her own way. 

By the time we clear our plates, Finnick’s nervous glances at his watch indicate that it’s time for me to start making myself pretty. Mags tells us to go, but we wash and dry her dishes and relish in her hugs for a bit too long. I hadn’t thought about how bad this was going to be for Finnick as a mentor. How different and somehow more terrible it will be. Mags ties another knot in my bracelet, kissing my cheek as she forces us out of her door. She’s teary-eyed, too, but she just tells Finnick he smells bad and insists I get the little braids out of my hair before my prep team arrives. 

Finnick walks me to my door slowly, staring at the pebbles beneath our feet for the entire journey. “I’ll wait with you for them to arrive,” he offers as we dwell at the bottom of my steps. 

“I’m okay,” I shake my head. “I’ll see you on the train?” 

“See you on the train, Annie.” 

While my last train ride to the capitol was to fight for my life in the arena, this one feels infinitely more deadly.

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 6

an: part 6! short chapter, but i LOVE it, definitely moving more toward what this story is going to look like in the future! glad to finally be done with those back to back conversational parts haha

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

Finnick’s constant checking on me interrupts my routine with the wonderful sleeping pills. I manage to cut down on them, but allow myself to indulge when he’s in the capitol, which becomes more frequent as the tour draws closer. 

Caspian won’t allow the kids to take food or large amounts of money, but I get Navy to tell me what they need and bring toys and sweets and books. I even make Finnick bring special things from the capitol sometimes. Boots for Cas, books for Navy, a beautiful soft doll for Mariana.

Mags decides that my cord-tying warrants a talent for jewelry making, and we do it together for days straight during one of Finnick’s unusually long trips. It’s ugly at first, but Glaruis sends Finnick home with beautiful gems and dainty wire and he’s somehow better than either of us by the end of his first attempt. A ring with a blue stone that he slides onto my pinky with a grin. Of course he’s good at this, he’s good at everything. 

I don’t sleep when Finnick is home. I don’t trust the pills to allow me to wake without suspicion and I don’t trust my nightmares to stay mild enough to be tolerable. I tell the capitol doctors I’m struggling to stay awake on their weekly call and they send pills that force my eyes open. I alternate based on Finnick’s schedule, drugging myself awake for weeks and asleep for weekends, usually. 

My tolerance to the little green pills has grown too strong to take just three of the pills, meaning I take six and sleep less frequently, but sometimes days at a time. Sleep is warm and inviting and blissfully empty. No nightmares, no pain, nothing at all. 

I wake every once in a while for a drink of water or to use the restroom or take more pills, but otherwise it’s just sleep. I suspect Mags does the same, but we leave each other alone when Finnick is gone, probably because he insists we spend every second together when he’s home. 

I know he’s due home today, but I allow myself to indulge in a few green pills anyway. He keeps to himself the first day or two he’s back, probably exhausted himself and unwilling to tolerate my helplessness on such little sleep. 

I’m startled by the sound of my front door slamming shut, but I don’t allow it to rouse me from the comforting embrace of the green pills. The grocer’s assistant brings food weekly at his convenience and the cleaners come often enough, too. Launderers and florists and all of the people I pay to do things I could easily do myself know that I leave the front door unlocked for them, and I often stay in bed while they’re here. 

I tuck the pill bottles into my nightstand  just in case, and thankfully so, because Finnick’s familiar knock echoes against my door as soon as I close the drawer. 

“Annie?” His voice is soft. 

“Yeah?” I sit up in bed, wiping the evidence of sleep from my eyes. 

“Did I wake you?” He opens my door, not allowing himself to step over the threshold. 

“No, no,” I shake my head, grabbing the unopened book from my nightstand and showing it to him. 

“Good” he nods rapidly, wringing his hands. 

“Come sit,” I pat the bed beside me. “Is everything okay?” 

He nods, but his head moves too quickly and he swallows hard as he does so. As he gets closer, I can see his eyes are red. Has he been crying? 

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, sliding closer and attempting to free myself from the grip of the green pills. “Was everything okay in the capitol?” 

He hangs his head and shakes it twice. 

I take his hand between both of mine, and he jolts, pulling his hand away completely and wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m sorry, I don’t…” he trails off, and I recognize the space look in his eye. I know that feeling. 

I move closer to him, forcing him to look at me instead of the carpet on the floor, “what happened Finnick?” 

He takes a shaky deep breath before tears begin to pour from his eyes. He doesn’t sob. Doesn’t make a sound, really, he just cries. 

I don’t know what to do. How to react. I know his being hurt hurts me, deeply. I can feel a piece of my heart snap right off. Something tells me not to touch him, though. Not to hug him like my instincts want me to. Not after he pulled his hand away like that. 

“Can I hug you, Finnick?” 

This just makes him cry more. 

“I’m so sorry, I—“ 

“No, no I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I just didn’t want to bother Mags and I—“ 

“Finnick. You don’t make me uncomfortable,” I cut him off, “and you’re never a bother to me.” I’m scared to touch him, but it’s the only way I can think to comfort him. It takes me too long to climb out of bed and open my nightstand drawer, offering him my length of rope. “I tie knots when I can’t…” 

He accepts. He keeps crying, but his hands are busy. 

I’m afraid to talk to him. The worst thing I can do is make him cry more. His jaw is clenched tight and his brows furrowed together. He looks so uncomfortable. So unlike himself. He ties and unties knots for a few minutes– or hours, I’m not sure. I just know eventually he moves closer to me, his leg pressing against mine. When he finally sets the rope down, he takes my hand in his. 

“I’m sorry,” his voice breaks. 

“There’s no reason to be sorry,” I shake my head, careful not to move too much. “I’m here for you too, you know that, right?” 

“I know,” he nods, squeezing my hand. 

I want to ask him if he wants to talk, but I know that’s too much. I wonder if this is how he always feels with me. My crying and panicking and locking myself in my room all the time. 

“The knots are good,” Finnick nods toward my rope. “Good idea.” 

“They taught me in the orphanage after… when I was twelve or so,” I nod my head. 

“That was your token,” he seems to be thinking it through, “I didn’t think you took it off your wrist?” 

“I’m glad they didn’t show it,” I can’t help but laugh. “After Cove I hid in a tree for a whole day. Maybe not a real day, just a games day, but I just sat there and tied knots. They probably thought I was going to hang myself and didn’t want to the capitol to have to watch.” 

“I never thought about it as an option,” he shakes his head. “Doing it myself.” His mouth takes a while to find the words, as if he can’t bring himself to say it. 

I shake my head, “you were so young during your games.” 

“Only five years ago.” 

“A lot can change in five years.” 

He nods. 

“I’m glad you’re alive.” 

“Me too.” 

I rack my mind for anything that could possibly make him feel better. Safer from whatever’s haunting him. 

“Do you want to go to the water?” I try my best to ignore the feeling in my gut telling me to do anything but that. I know deep down the only way he’ll help himself is if he’s helping me somehow, too, and he’s been trying to get me to the ocean for months. 

“You sure?” He perks right up. 

I nod. 

For some reason I don’t let go of his hand as I rise from my bed, sliding on my well-worn brown sandals. He doesn’t let go, either. He allows me to lead us downstairs, and I swear I see him smile as I turn left and begin to walk behind the house instead of right toward Finnick’s or the shops or anywhere I’d much rather be going. 

While I resent the effect the green pills still have on me, I know the serenity I’m somehow clinging to isn’t natural, so I guess I should be grateful for them. Finnick squeezes my hand, forcing me to realize how much I’ve slowed down. 

“Sorry,” I shake my head, staring out at the massive blue-green waves. The seasons have changed, now, and the water is angrier. Better for redfish and flounder, worse for me. 

“Take your time,” he squeezes my hand again. I can tell he’s forgotten completely about himself. He’s watching me like a parent watches their child. He’s worried. 

“I’m okay,” I shake my head. “Really.”

He nods, but I know he doesn’t believe me. “Take your time,” he repeats. 

The sand gets wetter as we get closer to the crashing waves, and everything in my being tells me to run. I know this is not the water from the arena. It’s the saltwater I've spent my entire life in. It takes, yes, but it can’t be dammed like the water in the arena.  Can’t be controlled or tamed like my fires. This water is not theirs. 

Still, I jolt as the waves lap at my feet. Finnick’s calloused thumb rubs the back of my hand. 

I have to do this. For him. This will distract him from whatever’s eating at him well enough. I can’t see him cry again. Not when I don’t know how to comfort him. 

“Bad day to decide I want to swim,” I rub my arm with my free hand. My goose flesh isn’t from the mild breeze, but he doesn’t need to see me as any weaker than he already does. 

Finnick lets go of my hand for just long enough to peel off the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing over a thin undershirt. 

I shake my head in objection, but he ignores me, raising my arms like I’m one of Mariana’s new capitol dolls and pulling the shirt on over my thin cotton tee-shirt. As we move forward bit by bit, water now lapping at the back of my knees, I’m incredibly aware of how vulnerable I am. 

I know if it came down to it Finnick would kill me– I wouldn’t kill him. It brings me peace, in a way, knowing I would die rather than take another life. He wouldn’t, of course. Despite the violence I know he possesses, I know deep down he’s the last person in the world who would ever hurt me. Even when we were just silent dishing partners, he was barely second to Cove. Now more than ever, I know I am safe with him. Out of all of the nightmares I had before I gave in to the pills, he never starred. Not even once. 

“You okay?” Finnick asks softly, thumb rubbing my hand again. 

I nod, staring into the water and allowing myself to feel its pressure as it pushes and pulls against my weight. 

The smell of salt helps. I will my heartbeat to slow as I think the same string of facts I’ve thought every time I’ve so much as turned on the tap since the train. This is not the water in the arena. This is water from home. This is salt water. The water that’s kept me alive for nearly eighteen years. This water is not the water from the games. It is mine. 

I open my eyes, staring at the vessels on the horizon just like Atty and I used to when dad was gone for what we deemed too long. They have taken everything but they can not take the memory of what I had. They can not take my home. 

Finnick’s hand in mine gives me some sort of courage that even the memory of my family can not. It’s not just my family I can’t fear the water for, but him, too. Whatever’s haunting him can only be improved by helping others. Helping me. Stupid selfless boy. 

I manage to toss Finnick’s shirt to semi-dry land, looking at him and nodding before wandering deeper into the water alone. He follows, of course, but not too closely. This is mine and mine alone, and he knows that too. 

I take a shaky breath, but a deep one, and I dive underwater. 

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 5

an: part 5! so i lied about not making this chap conversational. i promise i'm trying to get better at this ty for sticking w me

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

“Annie,” I’m pulled from my blissfully empty slumber by Finnick’s voice and the sound of his footsteps coming upstairs. 

“I’m awake,” I say as loudly as I possibly can, dragging myself out of bed and combing my fingers through my hair. “Just a minute and I’ll be down, promise.” I’ve already managed to sleep through two of the painting lessons Finnick’s scheduled for me, another ill-fated attempt at finding me a talent before the tour. We tried instruments, cooking, writing, and knitting, but painting is his new choice. He thinks it’ll be easier because I don’t need both hands, and considering how terrible my hand has felt since the capitol drugs wore off, I almost believe him. 

I pull on a brown sweater and denim pants, tossing my pajamas atop the pile of dirty laundry. The pants are new, courtesy of Mags, but they remind me of my old ones that are inevitably still sitting in my drawer at the orphanage. 

I pull my hair into a knot and tie it with the piece of braided cord I keep beside my bed to fidget with until the pills take effect. 

“Annie!” 

Finnick is frustrated. He should be. Every time he tries to help me I mess it up somehow. Too many of the green pills means I’m not awake when they arrive, too many pink and I’m cruel, and two many of the white ones means I can’t focus long enough to learn anything from the poor people of district four he corrals weekly to attempt to teach me how to be useful. When he had the baker’s son come, I took an extra purposefully, knowing he’d release me to my room and allow the poor boy to leave. 

He should’ve known I was a lost cause when he gave me a week’s notice that the old woman who sells her crochet wares at the clothing store was coming and I didn't wake to her knocking. That’s when he started scheduling them only when he’s in four and not the capitol, which is probably for the best. 

“I’m sorry,” I run down the stairs to find Finnick attempting to make small talk with a man setting out a million different paint colors. 

“No worries,” Finnick shakes his head, “are you feeling alright?” 

“I’m well, thank you. How was your trip to the capitol?” I stick my hands in my pockets, searching for a length of rope that isn’t there. 

“It was fine,” he turns away from me, grabbing a glass and filling it with water from the tap. “Can I get you anything?” 

I shake my head, joining the artisan beside the canvas he’s set out. 

I follow instructions, the one part of all of this I’ve been good at. I find myself knotting my bracelet while he explains how to mix different colors and how long to let things dry or different results. I watch the canvas as he demonstrates how to use the different brushes for different textures. My wrist starts to cramp as I continue knotting, but I keep going anyway. The doctor calls the telephone in the house once a week and reminds me to pick things up and move my fingers in certain ways to help it heal. I answer, but only because they don’t send the pills if I don’t. 

“Annie?” Finnick taps my arm. 

“Mmhmm,” I answer. 

“He asked if you want to try,” Finnick tries his best not to seem agitated, but I can tell he is by the way he raises his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, of course,” I answer, taking the paintbrush in my involuntarily shaky hand.

“Paint whatever you want. I recommend something you know well,” the man instructs. I feel bad for not asking his name, but it’s too late for that. 

I pick up a large brush and dip it in a shade of blue, swiping broad strokes across the entire canvas. I allow it to dry for a while before painting the bottom half a darker color, allowing the paints to blend together. I add a few blue-black pine trees on the line between the colors once my background has dried a little bit, dotting the sky with a few grey-blue clouds. I’m painting fallen trees in the water before I recognize the place on the canvas. 

“That’s enough for today,” Finnick says, taking the brush from my hand and setting it on a small plate covered in shades of blue.. 

“She’s doing wonderfully,” the man comments, a look of confusion on his face. 

“She just needs to rest for a bit, I’ll be in touch if Glarius thinks this is workable,” he gestures toward the canvas. “Your payment,” Finnick presses some money into his hand. I’m sure it’s too much, but he always pays too much. They need it more than we do. 

The man packs up quickly and near-wordlessly, and Finnick takes me by the hand and leads me to the sofa, where I sit as tears well in my eyes. 

When the door closes, Finnick sits beside me.

“I’m sorry,” I say as soon as I feel the cushion beside me sink. “I didn’t mean to, I–” 

“Annie,” he cuts me off, “I do the same thing. Always have, probably always will. I know it feels awful, but it’s normal. As normal as this can be, okay?” 

It’s not okay. And it’s not normal. The image I know best is the one that haunts my nightmares every time I close my eyes. I’m shocked I didn’t paint Jewel’s face as I force her under water, the blood from my hand mixed with her own, clouding the look of terror in her eyes. 

“Thanks,” I wipe my tears, rising from my seat. I want nothing more than to lock myself in my room and take a handful of green pills. Make it all go away. “I’m okay. You can go now, I know you’re busy.” 

“Actually, I was going to go fish for a bit and I was hoping you’d come with me. For old time’s sake?” 

Old time’s sake. When Mags allowed me to use her dock to fish and feed the entire orphanage. Finnick helped me carry home the heavy buckets of shrimp and snapper day after day. Mags’ dock was so rarely fished that they didn’t even know to avoid my too-old nets and hook made of a paperclip I’d stolen from my teacher’s desk. When I didn’t show up to the dock after school one day, he waited on the orphanage steps until well after dark, fishing pole in hand. He didn’t ask for an explanation, but he hugged me when I finally showed up. I tried to tell him that I had taken on some work from one of my mama’s old customers, but he didn’t let me speak, he just hugged me. We weren’t friends, but we cared for one another in a way neither of us understood. Part of me thinks it’s the reason he kept me alive in the arena. The reason he cared so much. The reason I can’t be around him anymore without feeling like a terrible mentee, and a terrible friend, or whatever we are. 

Anyway, I can’t remember the last time I went outside, and I’ve avoided the water for the past four months. Just like I’ve avoided the orphanage and the market and the school. “I’m tired, I think I’ll just go back to sleep.”

“I need the company,” Finnick sighs, rising from his own seat, “come on.”

It takes me a while to find a lie that will convince him to leave me be, something I can never seem to get him to do. ”I don’t feel well, I—“ 

“You owe me. I kept you alive, remember?” 

He’s right. 

I walk to the door and slide my feet into my sandals. “You’ll cook dinner after?” It’s not as much a question as it is a demand, but a slight smile presses to his lips and he nods, following me into the too-warm autumn air. Mags’ dock is no different than either of ours, but we still elect to take the fishing poles and nets from Finnick’s house to hess rather than staying closer to our own homes. 

“I can’t argue the whole life-saving thing, it’s not fair,” I finally speak up as he baits our hooks with tinned fish. 

“Which is why it’s so effective,” he casts his line, wedging his pole between a few boards nailed into the dock for that purpose. I imagine he put it there himself, probably years ago, given the wear of the wood. 

“Can fishing be my talent?” I ask, casting my line as soon as he’s baited it. 

“Fishing is a job, talents are meant to be relatively useless,” he ties a quick knot in the excess rope of one of the nets. 

“What’s yours?” I ask. I’m surprised it took me so long to ask, but with the ups and downs of the medications, my thoughts haven’t been my own. 

“Poetry,” he sighs, clearly not too pleased by it. 

“Really?” I nearly laugh. 

“I like it,” he defends. “The words can mean different things. Different messages for different people.” 

I can’t help but huff, shaking my head and dropping a net. I wince as the water splashes my bare foot, taking a step back from the edge. 

Finnick tilts his head in confusion, but says nothing. 

“I haven’t been to the water since…” 

“Saltwater,” he reminds me. “That wasn’t salt water. Not our water.” Of course he remembers our conversation in the bathroom on the train. He remembers everything. 

I nod my head, staring into the clear deep blue. Tiny fish swim in circles near the posts that keep the dock above water. Nothing you’d want to catch for food, but they make good bait. The sound of tugging on a line claims my attention, and I watch as Finnick reels in a large snapper. 

“Dinner,” he smiles, tossing his catch in the large bucket we’d carried the nets in. 

“Where’d you learn to cook?” I ask as he casts his line again. 

“My father worked on an overnighter. He was their cook,” he answers. He’s been orphaned as long as I’ve known him, but the glint in his eyes make it seem like he’s seeing his father standing before us now. 

“My father couldn’t cook to save his life,” I shake my head, practically tasting the burnt fish as I speak. “He didn’t understand seasoning like my mama.” 

“No capitol food will ever taste as good as theirs,” he smiles, but his eyes are sad. 

“Or good at all,” I grimace, recalling all of the fancy dishes I tasted and hated, relying on briny bread made with the same recipe we use at home and the rare dish I recognized  to sustain me.

“Your stomach plays tricks on you when you’re scared, there will be things you like.” His statement is innocent, but I feel my stomach churn as I’m reminded of my impending return to the capitol. On the way, every single district, where I’ll look in the eyes of the families of the twenty-three kids that died so I could live this miserable life. 

“Is that why you visit so often? The food?” My joke is innocent, too, but I can tell by the look in his face that it went over about as well as his did. 

“I don’t visit on purpose,” he swallows hard. 

I’ve heard chatter at school about his modeling and television appearances in the capitol. The rich girls watch his interviews and recount every word during free time between classes. 

“I’m sorry,” I say softly, not knowing why but knowing my words hurt him. I would hate having to go back so often. He’s there at least once a month and sleeps for days when he comes home, exhausted. 

“Not your fault,” he shakes his head, taking my pole from me and recasting my line. 

“It’ll be me, too, soon enough,” I offer an attempt at consolation, “I’m not as pretty as you, though, so they’ll probably keep me off of television.” 

“No,” he answers sharply. “It won’t be you, and you’re very pretty.” 

“Because I’m crazy,” I begin to draw up one of the nets, desperately trying to focus on the fish rather than the fact that he called me pretty. He’s not Finnick Odair to me, not like he is to the girls at school, but there’s no denying he’s handsome. And kind. Kinder than anyone has ever been to me. 

“You’re not crazy, Annie,” Finnick’s line snags on something and he begins to reel it in. 

“They think I am,” I grab the pole from Finnick’s makeshift holder as that one catches on something, too. 

“And it’s not a bad thing,” he expertly removes the fish from his hook, tossing it in the bucket. “They don’t bother you. You can stay home. Have a life between games.”

“There’s no life for me anymore,” I toss my smaller snapper in with the others. 

“You have to make one,” he begins to pull in one of the nets. “Have you seen Cove’s siblings? The kids at the orphanage?” 

I shake my head. “They’ll never forgive me for letting him die.” 

“Annie,” Finnick sets the pole down. “You did everything you could.” 

“Not enough.” 

“More than enough. Everything you could. They saw just like everyone else did.” 

I bring in another net, tossing the small fish back into the water. “This is too much to eat.” 

Finnick nods, dumping the other net back into the sea and reeling in the lines. I slide my feet out of my sandals and sit on the dock, feet hovering just above the water. He sits down beside me, his feet hitting the water and scattering the little bait fish. . 

“You have to go see those kids, Annie. Get your things. You have money you can give them. I’ll go with you.” 

I stare into the water. 

“It’ll only be harder after the tour.” 

He’s right. I know he is. After the tour is the games, where I’ll have to watch twenty-three more kids train for their deaths. 

“Can we go tomorrow?” I ask. It comes out weaker than I want it to. I’m not asking my mentor, though. Not asking Finnick Odair from the television interviews. I’m asking the fourteen-year-old boy who sat on the orphanage steps and waited for me for hours because he knew I needed him to survive.

He nods.

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 4

an: part 4! heyyyyy back again. very conversational chapter which isn't my strong-suit (forgive me), but i promise it's for a reason!! won't make you suffer through so much of my awful dialogue next chap

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions, substance abuse

______________________________________________________________

Mags’ hands tug at her own braid and she gestures to my hair, furrowing her eyebrows. The capitol machine made it too straight when it dried it, and it’s unlike me to have it down at all. Especially at home. 

“I can’t,” I raise her my gauze wrapped hand, wiggling my fingers as quickly as I can– but still too slow. 

“I can,” Finnick rises from his chair quickly. 

“Don’t,” I shake my head, “It’s okay, I–” 

“You’re home. You’ve gotta be the real you, not their version of you.” 

I can’t tell the difference between the real me and their version of me, anymore. The real me, allegedly the soul in my body right now, is scared of the water. The real me lost her brother. Again. She almost died. She killed people. 

“Annie?” Finnick asks softly, snapping me out of my thoughts that never would’ve belonged to the me that had never left four. 

“Thank you, Finnick,” I nod my head once, staring into my lap and allowing him to braid my too-straight hair.

He never had any sisters or a mother, but tying a braid is just like tying a knot, which we learn before the alphabet at school. And he didn’t drop out until he was fourteen, so he had a lot of knot-tying practice. I manage to unknot the small piece of braided cord on my bad wrist and hand it to him as he nears what I expect to be the end.  

Mags nods her head in approval as he ties the braid off, and I finally look up from my lap as I see the docks. 

Tears fall involuntarily from my eyes and I cover my mouth as the afternoon sun beats down on the guys unloading the shellfish before the start of second shift. I know the motions as well as I know how to breathe. I used to watch dad do it for hours while I helped mama tie the flimsy ends of her perfect nets. 

“Annie,” Finnick’s hand rests on my shoulder, and I’m made aware of the gooseflesh covering my bare arms. 

“Home is hard too,” Mags says, barely whispering. 

“Pictures at the train station and then we’re done, okay?” Finnick asks. He’s not asking, but the concern in his voice makes it feel like he is. I know he genuinely cares, but the slowing of the train makes my heart beat the exact same way it did when my platform rose into the arena. The same way it did when I walked to the stage at the reaping. The same way it did when the peacekeepers showed up to the orphanage and told me about Atty. And when they showed up to the house and told me and Atty about mama. And when they showed up to the house and told mama and I about Dad. 

“Annie,” Finnick repeats.

“Pictures and we’re done,” I repeat back to him. 

The train gets slower and slower, and Finnick crouches beside me, his eyes meeting mine. “Breathe in slow for eight seconds and out for sixteen, okay?” 

The doctor that comes by the orphanage tried to teach me this once. Right after Atty died. 

“I don’t think that’s going to work, Finnick.” 

“Try,” he demands. 

And I do. 

I breathe just as Finnick tells me to until the train comes to a complete stop and my tears dry. Mags adjusted the strap of my tanktop and gives me an approving nod before stepping away from between me and the train door. 

I breathe Finnick’s way again. Caspian, Navy, and Mariana are waiting on the other side of the door. They’ll have them right in the front so the cameras can see them. They need the money the capitol will give me. I know I can’t take care of them, but I can give them money. Food. Whatever they need. 

“Ready?” Finnick asks, finger hovering over the button that will open the door to salt air and home. 

I nod my head, taking one last deep breath before he opens the door to salt air and water and a home I don’t know anymore. 

The kids are right in the front. All of the kids from the orphanage are. The capitol cameras are closer to the back, which is nice. I try to keep my breathing steady as I look through the crowd. A few of dad and mama’s old coworkers. Kids from school and the orphanage. Victors. Faces I’ve seen but don’t know. 

“Annie, how does it feel to be home?” The mayor asks, eyes not peeling away from the cameras. 

Head down, fires subdued, give them what they want. 

“Wonderful,” I answer as convincingly as I can. 

“And it’s wonderful to have you back,” he puts his arm behind my back, taking a step closer and smiling at the cameras for a photo. I muster a barely-there smile and step away from him as soon as the cameras stop flashing. 

“Thank you all for coming,” Finnick waves to the crowd, earning some cheers. 

I can’t bring myself to look the kids in the eye. I just follow him to the peacekeeper truck waiting for us beside the platform. 

“Good job,” he says as he closes the door behind me. The backseat of the truck is cramped, but it’s comforting in a way. Me him and Mags. Three killers. Three people who understand each other better than anyone else in the world will ever be able to. “Do you want to go get your things now? Or would you rather see your house first?” 

“I’ll go get them later,” I shake my head. I need time to think about what I’ll say to the kids. How I’ll apologize for letting their brother get killed. Do they hate me for it? Are they afraid of me now? Now that they’ve watched me hurt people like that? Kill people? 

“I’ll go with you,” Finnick nods. 

“I’m really okay,” I shake my head. 

“I know. I’ll still go.” 

Victor’s Village isn’t far from the train station. Probably out of convenience for the capitol people who have to trudge all the way down here from the mountains. The car begins to slow as the gate comes into view. The black iron is out of place here where everything is wood and rope. A stark reminder of who I am now. Iron, not wood. Capitol, not four. A killer, not a girl. 

“I’ll get her settled, Mags,” Finnick says as he offers his hand to the woman, helping her down from the truck. “You get some rest before dinner?” 

Mags gives FInnick a look, but eventually nods her head as we near the first house past the gate. She pulls me in for a hug before I can prepare myself, kissing me on the cheek and doing the same to Finnick, who walks her all the way to her stairs. 

She makes her hand into a fish, thumb pointing up, and wiggles it in my direction. Another gesture follows, but I don’t understand it. 

“Dinner at your house,” Finnick explains. Mags nods, and so do I, despite the fact that I want to say no. 

“Thank you, Mags,” I say as she opens her door. 

She holds her hands to her heart and nods, waving a ‘goodbye’ before closing the door behind her.

“Travel’s hard on her. Especially there,” Finnick explains, continuing down the gravel row of houses. Most of them have lights on. I know they’re in order. So Mags, then it would’ve been Reed, before he died. No lights there. Argo has a family. His lights are on, curtains wide open revealing his kids running around a living room identical to Mags’. 

“This is me,” Finnick gestures toward the ninth house in line, “and this is you.” 

He leads me up the steps to the tenth house– identical to Mags’. When he opens the front door, I realize the inside is, too. The furniture is a little different, but otherwise everything is the same. I can tell no one’s ever lived here, but I can tell by the uniquely Capitol scent that someone’s been here recently. 

“Yours is just like Mags’,” Finnick walks around the living room, shiny capitol shoes clacking against the freshly-cleaned floor. “There’s some food in the refrigerator,” he opens the refrigerator in the kitchen, revealing a glowing light inside. We had an ice chest when mama and dad were alive, but it was almost always empty. Everything we ate they brought home that day, and breakfast was always fruit or bread, which stayed on the little counter beside the window. I wonder if I’d be allowed to buy our house from the family that lives there now, or maybe we could just swap homes. They’d be happier here, I think. Two adults and four children. They’d fill the space better than me. 

“Is there anything I can get you? I know it’s a lot, but–” 

“I’m okay, thank you,” I mutter to Finnick. 

“Would you like to rest? Or we can talk about what’s next? It’s a little early for that, I know, but I want you to be prepared.” He sounds nervous. I don’t think I’d ever seen him truly nervous before the games. 

“What’s next?” I ask him, practically floating to the dining room table and taking a seat in the chair. It’s a good chair. Not too capitol. It reminds me of a nice one one of the dockmasters would have. 

Finnick sits down across from me, and I can see the worry on his face, which isn’t exactly reassuring. “You’ll be home for the next six months,” he takes a breath, “then the victory tour. You’ve seen them on television right?”

“I remember yours,” I answer, avoiding reminding him that no one east of the docks has a functional television. 

He nods, tracing a knot in the wood on the table with his calloused finger. “It’s hard, but you’ll be fine. You just read speeches from cards and go to dinners. I’ll try to warn you about the people in each district, but I don’t remember very well.” 

I feel even worse for being so angry when he was telling me about them on the train. He has good intentions. He wants me to make it through this. 

“The last stop before home is the capitol, which is a big party at the President’s mansion. It’s a lot, but we’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time, so will Mags.”

I nod my head, incredibly aware of his foot tapping against the floor. He’s nervous. 

“Thank you for being such a good mentor,” I say softly, finally meeting his eyes. 

He shakes his head, “I’m not. Mags is our mentor, I'm just your friend.” 

“You kept me alive in there, Finnick. You’ve kept me alive out here, too,” I feel tears falling down my cheeks before I can even think about why they’re there. 

“Don’t cry,” Finnick rises from his seat, leaning across the table and wiping the tears from my cheeks before gently taking my face in his hands. “Don’t. You’re home. You’re alive. I’m going to keep you as safe as I can.” 

I nod my head. 

“Do you want to rest, or do you want to talk more about what we do now?” He sits back down in his chair. 

“What do I have to do?” I ask him. I want to make sure he doesn’t  have to come back and deal with this again. With me again. Until the victory tour at least, I can be out of sight and out of mind. 

“Nothing right now,” he says, looking me dead in the eye. I can tell he’s searching for something, but I don’t know if it’s something within me or something within himself.

I look away. 

“You’ll have to have a talent before the victory tour. Something to show off for the cameras,” he sighs, “it’s silly, but they want to see you occupying your time. Do you have anything?” 

“Nets, knot tying, fishing… just real skills. Not things they’d want to see," I pull the bracelet from the end of my braid and tie one-handed knots in the small piece of cord. Something Atty taught me to do after Mama died to keep my mind busy when I couldn't help but cry.

He smiles a little, “I’ll try to figure something out. You don’t actually have to be good at it, just have to be able to talk about it.” 

I nod. 

The knock at the door disrupts the silence, and Finnick answers it before I can. 

“Just some of your things from the train,” he says, closing the door just as quickly as he opened it, placing two large bags on the kitchen counter. “I’ll let you get some rest now. Is it okay if I come back and cook dinner here in a few hours?” 

“Of course,” I nod. Something in my chest tells me not to let him leave. That there’s something waiting to hurt me in this too-capitol house. “Thank you, Finnick,” I say softly as he turns toward the door. I’m trapped in my chair, unable to move as I watch him leave. 

“I’m always here, okay? Right next door.” 

I nod my head. 

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” he closes the door behind him, and I’m alone. 

When I finally rise from the chair, half of me wants to run to the door and find Finnick or Mags, but I don’t.

The bags from the train are all of the clothing they had in my car on the way back and then some. Nothing I’ll ever wear here, if I can help it. At the bottom of the larger bag, I spot a box with ‘medication’ stamped on it. I’m sure there’s something I’m meant to be doing to take care of my hand, but I don’t bother looking for any sort of instructions. I just haul the bigger bag up the stairs with my good hand, dropping it on the floor the second I cross the threshold of the bedroom on the right. I’ve always slept on the right. When Atty and I shared a bed when we were kids I was on the right. Same in the orphanage. Same in the arena, with Cove. The last time I truly slept. The other rooms are larger, but they don’t feel the same. Too much space. Too many closets and nooks and crannies for bad dreams to hide in.

The closet in the largest bedroom is full of clothes meant for me, and so is the dresser. I take my time moving them to my little room on the right, carefully examining each piece. Nothing white, which Finnick insisted to my prep team looked awful on me the second we got to the capitol, nevermind my white reaping dress. Blues, greens, and browns. I don’t mind most of it. Some of the things are pretty, even. If I can bring myself to bother Finnick again I’ll ask him how to access the money the capitol says they pay the victors. Navy would like the green clothes, and Mariana’s shoes have been too small for her since before I left. 

Once I’ve changed into linen pants and a matching shirt, I climb under the quilt in the too-soft bed. It’s early afternoon, but my body begs for sleep that I can’t allow. Not without seeing them. All of them. Atty’s sunken face haunts me every time I blink, allowing sleep would be allowing myself to feel his thin body refuse to embrace me. Allowing myself to hear the gunshot. Losing him over and over until I wake and feel the emotions of losing him again as if I haven’t already spent years mourning. 

I pull the blanket to my chest, leaning against the heavy wooden headboard and staring through the window to my left. My view is of the closed curtains of Finnick’s house and the small grove that separates us, but I can hear the ocean. I’ve spent so much of my life loving and hating it for giving and taking so much that I’m not sure which to choose, even now. 

I count stitches on quilt squares and window panes until I can’t stand the numbers swirling in my head alongside the blood and tears and heartbreak, focusing instead on a painting of a little bird across from my bed. I don’t know the type but it doesn’t matter, I find the thing comforting. I’m sure birds lose their families, too. Face challenges that test them. But at least they get to fly away from it all. Leave and go wherever they choose rather than facing the bad things again and again. This little bird gets to go rather than face Atty and Cove and Jewel and Snow. Go wherever it chooses rather than being caged in a house that will never be a home. At least my cage is beautiful. 

I rise from my bed after a long time, digging through the bag of clothes for something that’ll keep me warm enough to get rid of my perpetual gooseflesh. I swap my shirt for a heavy cable-knit sweater at the very bottom of the bag atop the medication box. Reluctantly, I remove it, placing it on my bed and attempting to sort through the pills and creams and carefully written instructions until something catches my eye. One of the pill bottles is riddled with tiny print, but in bold letters on the cap it says ‘sleep’. If it’s anything like the medication they gave me in the hospital, there will be no nightmares. No fires, no cages, no death, just emptiness. 

I set the box on the ground, rattling the bottle until two of the pills fall into my hand. I swallow them. And another for good measure, lying down in the bed and hoping for emptiness rather than anything I’m feeling now. 

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

part 3

an: hey guys! here’s part 3 of the finnick/annie thing! steadily working on it, i promise!!! as always, feel free to message w comments/critiques/TITLE IDEAS

tw: normal hunger games stuff, torture, violence, gun violence, gore, suicide/suicidal thoughts and actions

______________________________________________________________

When I wake, I know I’m not dead, and I’m not happy with it. There are tubes and wires in my arms and my wrist and hand are wrapped with fresh gauze. I can tell by the searing pain that they’ve done something to it. Probably surgery. 

My brother is dead again. I should be dead, too, but Snow’s promised me that killing myself will ensure a fate worse than death for the kids. If I can get them to give me whatever they’re pumping me full of now, I can manage. The dreams feel less real when the tubes are pumping me full of whatever capitol medications they think I need. I can live like this. Pump myself full of drugs three hundred and sixty four days of the year, show up to the reaping and let more kids die, have Finnick mentor them, drug myself again and repeat until I’m old enough to die of ‘natural causes’. 

I’d take up deep-sea diving or some other terribly dangerous hobby at home if I could even look at the water without freezing up. That would make it more realistic for me to die sooner. 

The door opens to reveal Finnick. Again. I close my eyes and hope he’ll think I’m still knocked out and leave, but when I hear a chair dragging across the floor and plant itself beside the table, it takes everything in me not to tell him to get out. A sleeping person would not be yelling at someone beside her, though. 

“Home soon, Annie,” he sounds more like he’s saying it to himself than to me, but I don’t mind, I just keep plotting my tragically early yet believable death. I could always hang myself attempting to tie a new net or something. Somehow end up in a shipping crate full of pearls just before it’s sealed and suffocate on the train ride to One. I don’t mind if it’s slow and painful, I probably deserve that, anyway. 

“Then you’ve just gotta keep your head down for six months and make it through the tour. Read the speeches they write for you and don’t talk much. You’ll be okay after that.” 

I once again want to tell him to shut up and get out, but I know that won’t go over well. He already hates me, I don’t need to make it any worse. He smells like capitol cologne with a hint of champagne. Is he drunk? Is it an appropriate time to be drunk? It takes everything in me not to wrinkle my nose in disgust.

“I think you’ll like most of the victors. They’ll understand the tears. They’ve always understood mine.” 

Now I feel bad for wanting him to shut up.

“Twelve just has Haymitch. He’s good for a drink, but not much else. Won’t bug you too much,” he pauses, “the mayor’s kind, from what I remember. He has a daughter who’s young, so he doesn’t like the party to go too long.” 

I don’t particularly care about the other murderers whose club I’ve just joined, nor the mayors of far off districts. Especially not now, when I want to bury myself in the sand and never come out.

“Eleven, too. Seeder is friends with Mags and brought her kids who are about our age to my dinner. They were nice. Briar and Bracken, I think. She was the only one who came to my dinner, but they have Chaff, Magnolia, and Reed, too. Chaff drinks like Haymitch. Magnolia and Reed are old. I think Mags is friends with them. Mayor was nice there, too.” 

He’s almost all the way through his tangent about District Nine’s mayor when I finally manage to drift off to a drug-induced sleep. 

When I wake, I’m no longer tied to the table. I’m in a different bed in a different room, still full of tubes and wrapped in gauze. Finnick is still in a chair beside me, but he’s asleep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him asleep before. He looks younger. A teenage boy rather than a force of nature. Maybe he really isn’t mad at me. 

I rub the restless sleep from my eyes and push myself into a sitting using my good hand. I’m nearly silent, but the stirring still somehow wakes Finnick. 

“Hey,” he sits up in his chair, looking at me as if I’ve caught him doing something he wasn't supposed to. “I’ll go get a doctor.”

“Don’t,” I say as he stands. 

He plops back down in his chair, and I would laugh if I didn’t feel like someone had carved my heart out of my chest with a circle hook.

“How many days?” I ask him. 

“Three,” he answers, looking out of the window beside my bed at the brightly lit evening. “There was a repair they wanted to do to some part of your hand, and your vitals got weird,” he just shakes his head. “It’s all above me.” 

I nod, moving my fingers one by one.

“Still no good?” He asks.

I shake my head. I’m sure they could fix it if they really wanted to, but Snow probably told them I didn't deserve it. I’ll never be able to slit his throat with a scalpel if I can’t wrap my hand around one. Head down, fires subdued, give them what they want. 

“When do I get to go home?” 

“Whenever the doctors clear you. Glavius told the press some things that got you out of the parties and such.” 

“That I’m crazy,” I continue before he can. District four and their crazy victors. Davey and now Annie. I can almost hear the headline in Glavius’ accent. What is in the water over there? I can't help but giggle a little. Not helping the crazy rumors, I’m sure.

“That you had emergency surgery and you wouldn't want to disrupt the festivities.” 

‘Crazy’ I mouth to him as a doctor comes in to check my vitals. His uniform is the same as Atty’s, and I feel my heart snap in my chest again. 

I want to scream at the man, but I know it’s not his fault that he’s directly assisting unadulterated evil. I barely catch a glimpse of my wrist as he unwraps the gauze before turning away. It’s disgusting. 

“Can we make sure she gets pain meds before we leave?” Finnick asks. 

“We’ll send her back to Four with a ninety-day supply of everything she’s on right now. All she’ll have to do is call for more,” the man doesn’t even look up from my wrist, just rattles it off like he says it every day. 

“Whatever’s helping her sleep, too?” Finnick asks. 

“Of course,” the doctor answers. “We’re going to have someone come in to discuss preventative care, but the medications will all be sent to her house. She’ll be released today.” 

The man exits the room quickly, leaving us alone again. The way they spoke about me like I wasn’t there was comforting, in a way. Childlike. 

Finnick looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say something, but I don’t. I just stare out the window at the brightly colored lights that hide the stars. The train won’t take long. Four hours or so, if I remember correctly. I’ll use it to talk to Mags. Maybe learn the hand symbols she’s trying to use. 

It doesn’t take long for someone in the same uniform to come into the room and start telling me all about my lovely chopped up hand. I ignore most of what she says, catching only ‘clean regularly’ ‘avoid dirt’ and ‘take the pills’. I opt for staring at the gauze, instead. The tiny little holes are perfectly uniform, just like everything else here. Nothing at home is uniform. Even the best made nets have odd patterns or different colored cord. Head down, fires subdued, give them what they want. 

“Annie?” Finnick snaps me out of it. “Got it?” 

“Mmhmm,” I nod my head, finally meeting her unnaturally colored purple eyes. 

“Great,” she nods, giving me a disingenuous smile before handing Finnick a massive stack of papers. “You’re all set to go. A guard will escort you to your car.”

As soon as she leaves, Finnick rises from the chair and offers me a hand. I ignore it and stand on my own, sock-clad feet thudding to the floor. 

I almost care enough to ask about a change of clothes, but it’s kind of funny this way. A victor in socks and a hospital gown being smuggled out of the back door of a hospital into a windowless van. 

The gem of Panem. 

When we arrive to the train station, there’s no cameras– not even a prep team. Just Mags waiting for Finnick and I with open arms that I crumble into. 

“Atty,” I say through tears that I don’t even notice until I taste them. 

“Know,” she barely manages. She’s teary-eyed too. She puts her palms together and wiggles them in the air a few times, moving them away from her body and pressing her pointer finger to Finnick’s chest. 

“Finn. That’s the sign she came up with,” Finnick says softly. “It hurts her to talk. And stand for too long, let’s go in, okay?” Finnick allows Mags to walk ahead of him, keeping a hand on my back as he guides us toward the sitting room car. 

“I think I’m going to go lie down,” I tell them as they settle in on the couches, wiping tears from my eyes. So much for talking to Mags. 

Mags shakes her head ‘no’, guiding me onto a couch where I curl into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest. 

There’s steaming cups waiting on the table between the couches, I recognize the scent immediately. Tea. And not the capitol stuff. Tea from home.

Mags wraps a blanket around my shoulders before sitting across from us and separating her two fingers before bringing them together. Finnick nods. 

“She wants us both over here?” 

“Yeah,” Finnick says, sitting beside me. “She still doesn’t have signs for some things, but we’re working on it.” 

Mags points to me before making a fist with her thumb up and wiggling it the same way she did Finnick’s name. 

“Annie,” Finnick says to me, making the same fist with his thumb up. “This is ‘A’, and this is fish,” he wiggles his flat hand in the same way.

Mags taps an ancient book beside Finnick’s remaining mug.

“Before the dark days, someone wrote this. It’s a whole language with your hands.This is what she’s been using. There’s letters, too, so you can just spell words if you don’t know the sign for them.” 

“Can I see?” I ask him. 

“I don’t know them all,” his cheeks flush bright red. 

“A,” Mags croaks, making the same fist with her hand up. “B,” her hand changes, a flat palm with his thumb tucked in. 

“You don’t have to say it,” I shake my head, making the shapes with my own hand. Finnick follows suit as Mags changes her hand again. 

By the time we make it through the entire alphabet I’m out of tears, but I’m also out of energy. 

Mags insists on going through the entire alphabet again as the train starts rolling. I can tell by the worried look deep in her eyes that she’s trying to keep my mind busy. Off of Atty and the capitol and all of the awful things they’re going to do to me, but it only makes the tears come faster. 

“I’m gonna take her to bed for a bit, Mags,” Finnick says without asking me. “Let her get some rest before we get home.”  

Mags just nods, a sad smile on her face as I wipe my tears with the wine-red blanket. I look down at my gauze-wrapped hand, and it’s shaking. The other one is too. I want to tell Finnick to give me a second or that I’m fine but I can’t. I can’t quit shaking or sobbing or thinking about Atty or Cove or Jewel. 

“Annie,” Finnick says softly, “do you want to be here or in bed?” 

I can barely manage to hold back a sob, much less tell him that I’d rather be at the bottom of the ocean than anywhere near this capitol train. 

“I’m sorry,” I manage, hands shaky as I attempt to push myself off of the couch. I barely know my name, much less realize what I’ve done when I push myself up with my bad hand. The next sob comes out as a half-cry half-scream as I collapse to the floor.

“I’ve got you,” Finnick scoops me up from the floor and carries me like a baby to my car as I clutch my hand to my chest. I can’t do this. I can’t. The peacekeepers and avoxes on the train look at me with a mix of pity and disgust. I don’t blame them. “Here we go,” Finnick places me softly on my bed. I hate this bed. “I’m going to check your hand, okay?” 

He doesn’t wait for me to say yes to unwrap my gauze. I stare at the ceiling, vision tear-blurred as I’m tended to by Finnick Odair. There are girls at school who stare out the window all day with just the hope of catching a glimpse of him, and here he is, dousing my bloody dagger-carved wrist with some painful capitol chemical while I sob on my bed like a baby. 

How lucky am I? 

Finnick rewraps my hand in the same pattern the doctors have before and covers me with a thick blanket. “What can I do, Annie?” 

“Nothing,” I barely manage, “I’m so sorry,” I pull the blanket close to my chest, yearning for my mother’s big blue quilt. I’m sure Navy has protected it like I asked her to. I just want to curl up in it and die. Slowly or quickly, painfully or peacefully, I don’t care. 

Finnick has a look in his eye I don’t like I’ve seen before. Panic. He’s worried. Probably worried I’m going to kill myself and tarnish his reputation as a mentor. As a victor, even. 

“I’m going to draw you a bath,” he says, nodding his head as if he’s sure that will fix everything. “There will be people waiting at the train station. Caspian, Navy, and Mariana. The other kids. We’ve gotta get you ready for them, okay?” 

He waits for an answer I can’t give before turning into my bathroom. The last time I was in this car Cove and I slept on the floor. Him by the door, me by the window, just like at home. We were too afraid to be alone. Especially here.

We were right. 

I stare out of the window across from my bed, watching what must be District One go by. Jewel. If my train has arrived to her home, hers must’ve been here long ago. Her body’s probably safe underground. I wonder if they drained her lungs of the water I forced into them before they buried her, or if she’ll suffer like that for eternity. Forever seventeen and choking. 

I’m sobbing harder when Finnick returns from the bathroom. He doesn’t know what to do, and neither do I. If I did I would tell him. If I knew what would make me shut up I would just do it myself. 

“Come on,” he gestures for the bathroom. 

I rise as I'm told, but the second I face the tub I’m paralyzed. I swear I can see her below the water. Her screaming face and her lips turning blue as I kill her in the worst way anyone could dream of. I stumble backwards, trading my sobbing for gasping as I attempt to take a full breath. Has she somehow gotten to me even now? Is this her revenge? Is the afterlife from the sailor songs real and has she come back to kill me as they always promise? Do unto others as you want done unto you, like Mama always said. Has she come for me after all? 

“Annie,” Finnick catches me before I can trip over the threshold. “Annie. This is not the arena. What did the water feel like in the arena? What did it look like?” 

He holds me steady as I stare into the bathtub. “Cold,” I manage. 

“See the steam? It’s not cold, Annie. Was it salt water? Did it have anything in it?” 

“Fresh water,” I stare into the tub. “Pieces of the dam and the arena. Trees.” 

“Look in the water, Annie. It’s just a bath. The same water as the showers you’ve already taken in the capitol.” 

He’s right and I know he’s right, but with District One flying by us I can’t calm my breathing. Finnick rubs the gooseflesh from my arms gently, facing me now. 

“This is hard. It’s going to be hard, and you don’t deserve this, but you’re going to survive it. Okay?” There’s such a kindness in his sea green eyes. They remind me of Dad’s. Kind but so so sad. I’ve found them comforting since I boarded this train for the first time. I trusted him then. I have to trust him now. 

“I’m so sorry,” I shake my head. “I don’t mean to make this hard for you.” 

“None of this is your fault, Annie,” he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a hug. “None of it.” 

Finnick leaves the bathroom and I float in the boiling hot water until it’s cool, careful to keep my gauze above the liquid. I shower off to wash my hair of the products Vesper’s been combing through it and rid my body of whatever oils Finnick’s put in the tub before wrapping myself in the plush robe before sitting carefully on the wobbly stool in front of the mirror. 

I look like hell. 

“Annie, we’ve got about an hour until we’re home, okay?” I hear Finnick’s muffled voice through the door. 

“Yeah,” I answer. 

I can’t help but stare at myself a little bit more. The circles under my dull eyes, my colorless face, my freckles near-gone for the first time in my life. When I leave the bathroom, Finnick has left my room and someone– probably Mags– has laid out. A plain white linen skirt and a white tank top. July in Four is unbearably hot, and I know my stylist wouldn’t have thought it through in this way.

I allow the capitol contraption in the bathroom to dry my hair, wincing as I’m blasted by hot air. My hair is always too straight when I dry it this way, but my extra time in the bath cost me any chance I may have had of letting it dry on its own. I slide my feet into the brown sandals beside my bed and give myself a quick look in the mirror before beginning my search for Finnick and Mags. 

I can tell by the blue blur outside of the window that we’re nearing home. The sky is bluer here. Mama always said it was because the sun loved us most, which feels like the truest thing in the world when you’re six. 

When I find Mags and Finnick they’re in the dining car at a table full of breads and breakfast foods I’ve only ever seen in the capitol. Mags pats the chair beside her, and I sit, gratefully accepting the mug of tea she hands me. 

“When we get there, it’s just a few pictures at the train station and a welcome at the justice building. Then we can get you settled in at Victor’s Village,” Finnick begins. “That’s it for today, though.” 

I feel tears brimming in my eyes. No more going home to a mat and dozens of little laughs. No more school or work. Just a cold empty house by the water. 

“Quick,” Mags choked out. 

“It’ll be quick, promise,” Finnick parrots. 

“Do I get to get my stuff?” I ask as confidently as I can muster. Still, there’s not much to my voice. My throat is raw from sobbing, my lips cracked and dry from refusing to eat or drink anything. My prep team would be furious if they saw the mess I’ve made of their hard work in such a short time. The red-eyed puffy-faced girl staring back at me in the sliver of silver platter not covered in decadent pastries is not the one they put on the train. 

“We can have it brought to your house.” Finnick pauses, “or you can go get it if you want.” 

“I promised Cove I would give his stuff to the kids,” I try my best to keep my voice from breaking, but I fail. 

“You don’t have to do that today,” Finnick shakes his head. 

“I want to,” I nod to myself, staring into my lap. 

Mags and Finnick attempt to get me to eat or drink or talk, but I just look down at my hands. It’s not until the bright blue of home enters my periphery that I actually look up, facing water that I know is different than the arena, but I may as well be there. 

Mama always told me that water never really comes from anywhere or goes away, it just exists in different ways. Was that water in the arena somehow the same water that killed them? Is this water the same water I almost died in? The water I sweat out as I ran from the people that killed Cove? The people I killed? The water they pumped into my veins despite my desperate fight to die after that giant claw pulled me out of the arena? 

All the same to me.

[haysplumjam]

Suzanne Collin’s just said fuck you to everyone who’s ever critiqued the Hunger Games as being a “teen girl saves the day” story. She said oh, Mockingjay didn’t make it clear enough? Here’s a book about how people have been rebelling for decades only to have their efforts suppressed and propagandized. Rebellion takes time and it takes failure and Katniss may have been the spark that ignited the wildfire but she did so standing atop the doused flames of everyone who came before her.

[haysplumjam]

KATNISS WAS THE SPARK THAT LIT THE FLAMES BUT HAYMITCH WAS THE FLINT STRIKER

[haysplumjam]

here’s a little meme I made

[1/?]

[haysplumjam]

you can hear it in the silence

finnick and annie's story flushed out in the way it DESERVES

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

part 7

part 8

part 9

part 10

part 11

part 12

part 13