Title: N/A
Ratings: PG-PG13
Pairings: Haymitch/Katniss, Finnick/Annie, Gale/Johanna
Summary: Assorted short fics based on prompts given by Tumblr followers.
001. we bring it in but we go no further (haymitch/katniss)
War, like the Games, never ends. It sleeps in your bones, seeps into your soul. You know it, don’t you, sweetheart? But you pretend, because you’ve learned it’s the way to survive. The only way.
Play house with the boy, then. Dress yourselves as pioneers building a new world. But when your children dance on a graveyard, you’ll know that there are never new worlds, just worlds built on top of each other. Maybe it’s the only way to reach heaven, through blood and toil and despair.
And we both know - don’t we, sweetheart - that when the demons come at night - when his eyes go empty and dark - that you’ll come to me.
You’ll be the world I build, the thing whose roots are ghosts, and your darkest nights will be my only days.
002. and if i listen real close (finnick/annie)
Her earliest memory is following her mother to the shore, waiting for the boats to come in. By the time she's ten, she can spot her father's boat miles from shore.
Waiting is something Annie's learned to do well.
Finnick isn't who she imagined he was. Beneath his charm and wit, he's scars and fear. She doesn't see it until the night before her Games. She doesn't let him know; he's tried too hard to hide it from her.
He loves her.
He keeps that secret too.
Funny, she used to think Finnick kept secrets well, but Annie sees through him.
The thing about waiting is that Annie does it without realizing.
The other thing about waiting is that there's always something on the other end of it.
Finnick comes home after the 74th Games. The stars come out one night, after nights and nights of cloud-laden skies, and they go the shore. There are lights in the distance, boats with restless fishermen.
A train steams through the district, on its way to the Capitol to deliver what has been stolen from the people of Panem. The Capitol steals so much, Annie thinks, trying to remember what Finnick was like before he went to the Games.
She waits again, sitting in the sand.
When they come for her, she knows Finnick waits on the other side.
003. we could see what was underneath (gale/johanna)
The Capitol is dying. Bleeding slowly from a single arrow driven into it by Katniss. Its people are weak and useless. It's only been a few months, but they're already discovering how much their survival depended on the Districts.
Johanna can't help her smile. Thousands of lives, you've taken, she thinks, this is the price.
Gale Hawthorne laughs. "You don't believe in subtlety, do you?"
"Don't pretend this isn’t gratifying for you too. You'd be settling into a cozy little life with Katniss Everdeen right now if it weren't for the Capitol."
He doesn't reply, but Johanna knows how Katniss affects him. It's a knife she can drive into his heart when he's gotten too far under her skin.
They find a room for the night, tearing at each other's close and skin. She keeps her eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
After, he says, "You're happy, aren't you? You think it's better you aren't the only one alone." Gale has his own weapons, ways to cut. But this is just their way.
"Am I? Alone?" The room is unlit, and this is the closest she'll come to asking him for something.
"Only if you decide you are."
This time, they move together, Johanna closes her eyes and drifts.