For roguedemon, seta-suzume & mildred_of_midgard*: Claudius & Finnick, after the war
(*and anyone else in my Finnick crew)
Two oft-misunderstood pricklies have a moment of quiet on the shores of District 4.
One minute Claudius is looking out over the ocean, letting the crash of waves and hiss of sand carry him out of himself and into a mildly dissociative state of calm. The next, something hard and wet and sharp-smelling slaps itself against his ear and cheek as a distant roaring fills his skull.
“What the fuu-” Claudius bursts out, only to slam abruptly back into awareness at the sight of plump cheeks and small, square teeth below sparkling green eyes and wisps of sandy curls. “-uuun,” he finishes, ridiculously. No points for delivery there, trainee. Not that Noah Cresta-dair notices. As long as he doesn’t run back to the beach house yelling how Claudius taught him a new word, that should be fine.
Claudius tries to turn his head, but Noah keeps both hands firmly fixed to whatever it is he has jammed to the side of Claudius’ face. The roaring sound grows louder, and the tang of seaweed and saltwater stings his nostrils. This better not be a giant sea slug the kid decided would make a cute ‘friend’. “Hi Noah,” Claudius says carefully. How the fuck is he supposed to talk to kids? When he was Noah’s age he was threatening to set his mother’s bed on fire. He decides to imitate Brutus when he’s talking to Misha, grinning with something held behind her back. “What’s that you got there?”
“The ocean!” Noah declares, beaming.
Well, that - okay. Sure. The ocean. The ocean, not that Claudius is an expert or anything, is supposed to be all that water in front of them, rushing up to the shore and cascading back in waves that could drag a guy out and drown him without trying. But in kid-logic, the ocean is whatever Noah has clamped to Claudius’ head, cold and solid and ... hollow? hm … and kids tend to generalize, so that means he’s got something that comes from the ocean. No squishing means probably not alive, but Claudius really doesn’t have the background to play guessing games all day.
The roaring noise is really, really unsettling, too.
“I give up,” Claudius says, raising his hands. “I don’t know much about the ocean. You’ll have to tell me.”
Noah stares at him for a long moment, nose wrinkled in surprise. “No,” he says, exasperated, then steps back and holds out a seashell half the size of Claudius’ head. “You hear the ocean. See?” And then he’s back, sticking the shell over Claudius’ ear again before he can tell the kid to wait.
The whooshing sounds come back as soon as the shell makes a seal, but this time Claudius can almost hear it. The rise and fall of the waves, the give and take that mimics the waves hitting the shore - there’s an eeriness to the sound that sends a shiver over his spine. “Yeah, I hear it,” Claudius says, because that’s better than saying what the fuck again and the kid is clearly going to stand there sticking a seashell in his face until he reacts. “Pretty cool, thanks.”
“Noah,” calls a voice from behind them. “Why don’t you take that inside and show everyone else? I bet they’d love to see it.”
Noah jumps back and grins, holding the shell against his chest. “Okay!” he says. “Bye!”
“Bye,” Claudius repeats, waving, because it feels vaguely rude not to, and turns around to stare up into the face of an amused Finnick Odair. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Finnick says, mouth curved into a smile. Finnick Odair smiling is not anything anyone with brains wants to see in ninety-five percent of cases, but he’s not holding a knife or wearing silky clothes that means he’s using his words in place of one, so it’s … probably fine? Fuck if Claudius knows. He’s never been able to figure Odair out. “He had you trapped out here for a while, so I thought I’d come rescue you.”
“My hero,” Claudius says, except that’s a thing people say when they’re being sarcastic and he does actually mean it, he’d started to get flashes of the two of them frozen to the sand like this forever, slowly salting over until they resembled little more than driftwood. Look Daddy, some kid in the future says. It looks like a man and a little boy! The dad nods and says something like, Yes son, isn’t nature mysterious, and they take a picture with the remains of Claudius’ calcified body and continue on their stroll. Rumour says you can hear the ocean if you stand close.
He shakes himself. “Have a seat,” Claudius says, waving a hand. The log’s big enough they don’t have to cuddle, and it’s hours to sunset still. The waves have washed a tangle of kelp onto the sand in front of his feet. Surely nobody in their right mind would think he’s trying to flirt this time.
Finnick quirks an eyebrow at him, but when Claudius narrows his eyes in a glare his grin sharpens and he drops down onto the log, movements calculatedly lazy. “Enjoying yourself?” he asks. “Or did we scare you off?”
“No, I’m just.” Claudius waves a hand. “Communing with nature.”
They fall silent for a while, letting the screech of the gulls and gentle roar of the waves cover the silence. Claudius traces a finger across the grain in the driftwood, trying to figure out what topics are safe to say. They never crossed paths in Thirteen, Odair mostly in the hospital and Claudius sequestering himself away, and the spectre of Odair’s brutal flaying of his deepest secrets in service of the rebellion only served to widen the divide between them. What reasons did Claudius have to join the rebellion really? Finnick was beautiful, deadly, and survived a world that did its best to destroy him. In their early years he’d hated Claudius for the privilege of district and appearance that let him live a life of safety and shelter. For his part, Claudius had been content to nurse his hurt feelings and retreat to the Village rather than make any further effort at connection.
Claudius glances back at Noah, navigating the rise at the top of the beach with remarkable aplomb considering his short legs. “You ever look at him and think -”
“Someone like me has no business raising a child?” Finnick finishes for him, that patented Odair blend of airy and dangerous. It’s like watching a butterfly get blown about on the breeze only to get slammed hard into a concrete wall. Most people never see it coming.
Claudius knew better at nineteen with little more than a tribute’s over-developed threat response, and he sure as hell knows better now. “The fuck? No! I was going to say, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’. Mentoring is hard enough, and at least there you don’t have to teach them language or worry about whether or not everything you do is going to come back to their therapist in twenty years. And if you’re really stuck you can ask your mentor or someone else’s what to do.”
Finnick studies him for a long second, eyes slightly narrowed, but then the intent look clicks off and he lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “Touche. Hey, though, no offense, but - you do know about parents, right? Like, people have them, communities have lots of them? When you have questions about how to raise your kid, you can just … ask your parents? Or anyone else who’s had a kid and would be happy to give you advice? There’s tons to choose from when you don’t live up on Murder Mountain.”
His teeth flash in a grin, and Claudius flattens his eyes. “Wow,” he says. “That’s great. Thanks, man. I’m so glad to see fatherhood has mellowed you out, asshole.” He flips Finnick a rude gesture, but like Odair he can’t help turning it back on himself a little. “I’ll have you know I have actually met one whole set of parents who aren’t mine.” The Valents also aren’t Victor-parents, but with Selene they may as well be, so you know what, good enough.
Finnick snickers. “Good for you.” He flashes Claudius an exaggerated thumbs up. “That is a normal amount for a thirty-year-old and definitely does not confirm any stereotypes whatsoever.”
“Oh fuck off,” Claudius shoots back, picking up a piece of driftwood and throwing it at Finnick’s head. “Yes, I forgot other parents exist, so sue me. You’re the one who went straight to ‘poor me, he thinks a Victor does not deserve to raise a child’ when the Capitol exists. So we were raised to kill people, who the fuck cares? They’re the ones who set up the system in the first place. If anyone should be doubting whether they’d be shitty influences on a developing mind, it’s them, not us. But I guess that’s the way it always goes.”
“Ha,” Finnick says appreciatively. “You know, it’s too bad you didn’t show more of a bite on your Victory Tour. We might not have written you off as such a baby mouse.”
Time slows. Noah may as well have come and slapped shells over both Claudius’ ears again. He focuses on the least objectionable part of the sentence and tries not to hear Selene’s hoot of laughter from all the way across the country. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Cash, Gloss and me. You know, the Career Pack of the 60s.” Finnick’s eyes go distant. “We were shitty to you, sure, but we’re all Victors here. If you’d shown some teeth we would’ve let you in, especially once we knew you hated the Capitol as much as we did. But you ran back to your mentor for hugs and kisses, so we figured you were soft. Better not to break you.”
“Oh my god,” Claudius says faintly. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. Again.”
“You’re the one who made the most iconic moment of his Games sharing chocolate with a twelve-year-old,” Finnick reminds him, twisting the knife. “I still don’t know how you got away with it. Say what you want about Lyme, but she programs a Victor story like nobody’s business.” He leans back on his hands and clicks his tongue. “I shouldn’t make fun, though. Now that the war’s over and everyone’s seen the broadcasts, that’s all I am anymore. No more Golden Victor, hello Broken Tragedy. Poor Finnick, he’s suffered so much. Poor Finnick, isn’t he brave. Poor Finnick, doesn’t he make you want to cry?”
Claudius winces. “It’s never all of one thing or the other, I guess is the weird thing nobody ever really understands,” he says. “We grew up learning how to kill people, it still doesn’t mean we walked away clean. You went through more shit than most people, it doesn’t mean you never -” He waves a hand. “A person doesn’t have to give up all agency in their life to get sympathy, right? Your story doesn’t stop being shitty and tragic if you ever had a moment of power or control for yourself.”
“Is this what people sound like when they live in an island of mentors instead of parents?” Finnick drawls.
“Fuck off-”
“I mock, but you’re not wrong.” Odair leans down, picks up a flat stone and skips it into the ocean, expression flat as it bounces across the top of the water. “So many years screaming on the inside, being the perfect, pretty, posable Victor, the perfect lover. And then they wanted me to play the camera-perfect victim, too. They still get off on pain, it’s just this time there’s no blood to fancy it up.”
“It was a shitty thing to ask,” Claudius says. It’s one of those things that feels stupid and useless to say but worse to ignore just because it’s awkward. “You’d already paid more than you should have.”
“Recovery has been a fucking nightmare,” Finnick says with feeling. “Cash and Gloss and me, we all took pride in how fucked up we were, in a way, it’s how we got through it. Like it was some kind of competition. And then they died and I fell to pieces and Annie and I had to figure this out all on our own, and it’s been really hard, but we’re doing it. And still I know if we ever went near a television camera again the whole thing would be about how amazing it is that we ever stop crying long enough to change Noah’s diapers. When really it’s like yeah, sometimes it’s crying, but sometimes -”
“You want to teleport to the Capitol and start ripping people’s eyes out?” Claudius suggests.
Finnick’s smile is sharp and tinged with the scent of blood. “Throats, maybe. Enobaria was on to something.” Then he laughs and pushes a hand through his hair, the gesture somehow completely unself-conscious and affected all at once. “God, what am I doing raising a kid, huh?”
“Your best,” Claudius says in his best Brutus impression, making Finnick snort. They sit for a bit after that, letting the silence weave between them, as a question percolates in the back of Claudius’ mind. Finally it crystallizes, striking him full on, as though standing in the shadow of a tree when the sun hits bright and startling between the waving branches. “Do you think we might’ve been friends faster if I hadn’t been ugly?”
Odair hisses a breath out through his teeth. “You’re not ugly, the Capitol decided it was useful to see you that way, to take you down a peg. There’s a difference. If you hadn’t been Two, they might have billed you as ‘striking’ and ‘unconventional’ and ‘unique’ and sold you to everyone who’d already had the rest of us as a breath of fresh air.” At Claudius’ sharp intake of breath, Odair spreads his hands. “Obviously they could never, but that was the point. You were Two. You were safe. It was never about what you looked like, not really. But it bothered you, and we smelled blood, so we went for the kill.”
“Fuck.” Claudius leans forward heavily, dropping his hands to hang loosely between his knees. “They really played us, didn’t they.”
“Didn’t have to. They set up the board and we played ourselves.” Finnick looks back over his shoulder at the gathering, still going strong. “But hey, brave new world and all that. We’re not all dead. I’ve got a kid who will probably not grow up to kill anyone, at least not for entertainment value. And now you know about parents! Isn’t life grand?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t get to be friends with you as a teenager,” Claudius says dryly. “Look at what I missed.”
Finnick tosses his head and flashes Claudius a picture-perfect smile with just too much glint to be genuine. “Excuse you, I’m delightful,” he says. “But we should get back before ‘two guys having a chat by the ocean’ starts looking like ‘sharing an existential crisis’.”
Claudius snickers. “Can’t have that,” he agrees, pushing himself to his feet, and together they make their way up the beach.
Two oft-misunderstood pricklies have a moment of quiet on the shores of District 4.
One minute Claudius is looking out over the ocean, letting the crash of waves and hiss of sand carry him out of himself and into a mildly dissociative state of calm. The next, something hard and wet and sharp-smelling slaps itself against his ear and cheek as a distant roaring fills his skull.
“What the fuu-” Claudius bursts out, only to slam abruptly back into awareness at the sight of plump cheeks and small, square teeth below sparkling green eyes and wisps of sandy curls. “-uuun,” he finishes, ridiculously. No points for delivery there, trainee. Not that Noah Cresta-dair notices. As long as he doesn’t run back to the beach house yelling how Claudius taught him a new word, that should be fine.
Claudius tries to turn his head, but Noah keeps both hands firmly fixed to whatever it is he has jammed to the side of Claudius’ face. The roaring sound grows louder, and the tang of seaweed and saltwater stings his nostrils. This better not be a giant sea slug the kid decided would make a cute ‘friend’. “Hi Noah,” Claudius says carefully. How the fuck is he supposed to talk to kids? When he was Noah’s age he was threatening to set his mother’s bed on fire. He decides to imitate Brutus when he’s talking to Misha, grinning with something held behind her back. “What’s that you got there?”
“The ocean!” Noah declares, beaming.
Well, that - okay. Sure. The ocean. The ocean, not that Claudius is an expert or anything, is supposed to be all that water in front of them, rushing up to the shore and cascading back in waves that could drag a guy out and drown him without trying. But in kid-logic, the ocean is whatever Noah has clamped to Claudius’ head, cold and solid and ... hollow? hm … and kids tend to generalize, so that means he’s got something that comes from the ocean. No squishing means probably not alive, but Claudius really doesn’t have the background to play guessing games all day.
The roaring noise is really, really unsettling, too.
“I give up,” Claudius says, raising his hands. “I don’t know much about the ocean. You’ll have to tell me.”
Noah stares at him for a long moment, nose wrinkled in surprise. “No,” he says, exasperated, then steps back and holds out a seashell half the size of Claudius’ head. “You hear the ocean. See?” And then he’s back, sticking the shell over Claudius’ ear again before he can tell the kid to wait.
The whooshing sounds come back as soon as the shell makes a seal, but this time Claudius can almost hear it. The rise and fall of the waves, the give and take that mimics the waves hitting the shore - there’s an eeriness to the sound that sends a shiver over his spine. “Yeah, I hear it,” Claudius says, because that’s better than saying what the fuck again and the kid is clearly going to stand there sticking a seashell in his face until he reacts. “Pretty cool, thanks.”
“Noah,” calls a voice from behind them. “Why don’t you take that inside and show everyone else? I bet they’d love to see it.”
Noah jumps back and grins, holding the shell against his chest. “Okay!” he says. “Bye!”
“Bye,” Claudius repeats, waving, because it feels vaguely rude not to, and turns around to stare up into the face of an amused Finnick Odair. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Finnick says, mouth curved into a smile. Finnick Odair smiling is not anything anyone with brains wants to see in ninety-five percent of cases, but he’s not holding a knife or wearing silky clothes that means he’s using his words in place of one, so it’s … probably fine? Fuck if Claudius knows. He’s never been able to figure Odair out. “He had you trapped out here for a while, so I thought I’d come rescue you.”
“My hero,” Claudius says, except that’s a thing people say when they’re being sarcastic and he does actually mean it, he’d started to get flashes of the two of them frozen to the sand like this forever, slowly salting over until they resembled little more than driftwood. Look Daddy, some kid in the future says. It looks like a man and a little boy! The dad nods and says something like, Yes son, isn’t nature mysterious, and they take a picture with the remains of Claudius’ calcified body and continue on their stroll. Rumour says you can hear the ocean if you stand close.
He shakes himself. “Have a seat,” Claudius says, waving a hand. The log’s big enough they don’t have to cuddle, and it’s hours to sunset still. The waves have washed a tangle of kelp onto the sand in front of his feet. Surely nobody in their right mind would think he’s trying to flirt this time.
Finnick quirks an eyebrow at him, but when Claudius narrows his eyes in a glare his grin sharpens and he drops down onto the log, movements calculatedly lazy. “Enjoying yourself?” he asks. “Or did we scare you off?”
“No, I’m just.” Claudius waves a hand. “Communing with nature.”
They fall silent for a while, letting the screech of the gulls and gentle roar of the waves cover the silence. Claudius traces a finger across the grain in the driftwood, trying to figure out what topics are safe to say. They never crossed paths in Thirteen, Odair mostly in the hospital and Claudius sequestering himself away, and the spectre of Odair’s brutal flaying of his deepest secrets in service of the rebellion only served to widen the divide between them. What reasons did Claudius have to join the rebellion really? Finnick was beautiful, deadly, and survived a world that did its best to destroy him. In their early years he’d hated Claudius for the privilege of district and appearance that let him live a life of safety and shelter. For his part, Claudius had been content to nurse his hurt feelings and retreat to the Village rather than make any further effort at connection.
Claudius glances back at Noah, navigating the rise at the top of the beach with remarkable aplomb considering his short legs. “You ever look at him and think -”
“Someone like me has no business raising a child?” Finnick finishes for him, that patented Odair blend of airy and dangerous. It’s like watching a butterfly get blown about on the breeze only to get slammed hard into a concrete wall. Most people never see it coming.
Claudius knew better at nineteen with little more than a tribute’s over-developed threat response, and he sure as hell knows better now. “The fuck? No! I was going to say, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’. Mentoring is hard enough, and at least there you don’t have to teach them language or worry about whether or not everything you do is going to come back to their therapist in twenty years. And if you’re really stuck you can ask your mentor or someone else’s what to do.”
Finnick studies him for a long second, eyes slightly narrowed, but then the intent look clicks off and he lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “Touche. Hey, though, no offense, but - you do know about parents, right? Like, people have them, communities have lots of them? When you have questions about how to raise your kid, you can just … ask your parents? Or anyone else who’s had a kid and would be happy to give you advice? There’s tons to choose from when you don’t live up on Murder Mountain.”
His teeth flash in a grin, and Claudius flattens his eyes. “Wow,” he says. “That’s great. Thanks, man. I’m so glad to see fatherhood has mellowed you out, asshole.” He flips Finnick a rude gesture, but like Odair he can’t help turning it back on himself a little. “I’ll have you know I have actually met one whole set of parents who aren’t mine.” The Valents also aren’t Victor-parents, but with Selene they may as well be, so you know what, good enough.
Finnick snickers. “Good for you.” He flashes Claudius an exaggerated thumbs up. “That is a normal amount for a thirty-year-old and definitely does not confirm any stereotypes whatsoever.”
“Oh fuck off,” Claudius shoots back, picking up a piece of driftwood and throwing it at Finnick’s head. “Yes, I forgot other parents exist, so sue me. You’re the one who went straight to ‘poor me, he thinks a Victor does not deserve to raise a child’ when the Capitol exists. So we were raised to kill people, who the fuck cares? They’re the ones who set up the system in the first place. If anyone should be doubting whether they’d be shitty influences on a developing mind, it’s them, not us. But I guess that’s the way it always goes.”
“Ha,” Finnick says appreciatively. “You know, it’s too bad you didn’t show more of a bite on your Victory Tour. We might not have written you off as such a baby mouse.”
Time slows. Noah may as well have come and slapped shells over both Claudius’ ears again. He focuses on the least objectionable part of the sentence and tries not to hear Selene’s hoot of laughter from all the way across the country. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Cash, Gloss and me. You know, the Career Pack of the 60s.” Finnick’s eyes go distant. “We were shitty to you, sure, but we’re all Victors here. If you’d shown some teeth we would’ve let you in, especially once we knew you hated the Capitol as much as we did. But you ran back to your mentor for hugs and kisses, so we figured you were soft. Better not to break you.”
“Oh my god,” Claudius says faintly. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. Again.”
“You’re the one who made the most iconic moment of his Games sharing chocolate with a twelve-year-old,” Finnick reminds him, twisting the knife. “I still don’t know how you got away with it. Say what you want about Lyme, but she programs a Victor story like nobody’s business.” He leans back on his hands and clicks his tongue. “I shouldn’t make fun, though. Now that the war’s over and everyone’s seen the broadcasts, that’s all I am anymore. No more Golden Victor, hello Broken Tragedy. Poor Finnick, he’s suffered so much. Poor Finnick, isn’t he brave. Poor Finnick, doesn’t he make you want to cry?”
Claudius winces. “It’s never all of one thing or the other, I guess is the weird thing nobody ever really understands,” he says. “We grew up learning how to kill people, it still doesn’t mean we walked away clean. You went through more shit than most people, it doesn’t mean you never -” He waves a hand. “A person doesn’t have to give up all agency in their life to get sympathy, right? Your story doesn’t stop being shitty and tragic if you ever had a moment of power or control for yourself.”
“Is this what people sound like when they live in an island of mentors instead of parents?” Finnick drawls.
“Fuck off-”
“I mock, but you’re not wrong.” Odair leans down, picks up a flat stone and skips it into the ocean, expression flat as it bounces across the top of the water. “So many years screaming on the inside, being the perfect, pretty, posable Victor, the perfect lover. And then they wanted me to play the camera-perfect victim, too. They still get off on pain, it’s just this time there’s no blood to fancy it up.”
“It was a shitty thing to ask,” Claudius says. It’s one of those things that feels stupid and useless to say but worse to ignore just because it’s awkward. “You’d already paid more than you should have.”
“Recovery has been a fucking nightmare,” Finnick says with feeling. “Cash and Gloss and me, we all took pride in how fucked up we were, in a way, it’s how we got through it. Like it was some kind of competition. And then they died and I fell to pieces and Annie and I had to figure this out all on our own, and it’s been really hard, but we’re doing it. And still I know if we ever went near a television camera again the whole thing would be about how amazing it is that we ever stop crying long enough to change Noah’s diapers. When really it’s like yeah, sometimes it’s crying, but sometimes -”
“You want to teleport to the Capitol and start ripping people’s eyes out?” Claudius suggests.
Finnick’s smile is sharp and tinged with the scent of blood. “Throats, maybe. Enobaria was on to something.” Then he laughs and pushes a hand through his hair, the gesture somehow completely unself-conscious and affected all at once. “God, what am I doing raising a kid, huh?”
“Your best,” Claudius says in his best Brutus impression, making Finnick snort. They sit for a bit after that, letting the silence weave between them, as a question percolates in the back of Claudius’ mind. Finally it crystallizes, striking him full on, as though standing in the shadow of a tree when the sun hits bright and startling between the waving branches. “Do you think we might’ve been friends faster if I hadn’t been ugly?”
Odair hisses a breath out through his teeth. “You’re not ugly, the Capitol decided it was useful to see you that way, to take you down a peg. There’s a difference. If you hadn’t been Two, they might have billed you as ‘striking’ and ‘unconventional’ and ‘unique’ and sold you to everyone who’d already had the rest of us as a breath of fresh air.” At Claudius’ sharp intake of breath, Odair spreads his hands. “Obviously they could never, but that was the point. You were Two. You were safe. It was never about what you looked like, not really. But it bothered you, and we smelled blood, so we went for the kill.”
“Fuck.” Claudius leans forward heavily, dropping his hands to hang loosely between his knees. “They really played us, didn’t they.”
“Didn’t have to. They set up the board and we played ourselves.” Finnick looks back over his shoulder at the gathering, still going strong. “But hey, brave new world and all that. We’re not all dead. I’ve got a kid who will probably not grow up to kill anyone, at least not for entertainment value. And now you know about parents! Isn’t life grand?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t get to be friends with you as a teenager,” Claudius says dryly. “Look at what I missed.”
Finnick tosses his head and flashes Claudius a picture-perfect smile with just too much glint to be genuine. “Excuse you, I’m delightful,” he says. “But we should get back before ‘two guys having a chat by the ocean’ starts looking like ‘sharing an existential crisis’.”
Claudius snickers. “Can’t have that,” he agrees, pushing himself to his feet, and together they make their way up the beach.