THG fic: "Moss On The Ruins" [5/5]
Title: Moss On The Ruins
Author: trovia
Characters: Finnick Odair, also featuring Haymitch Abernathy, Johanna Mason and Mags, as well as an ensemble of victors and OC
Pairings: Finnick/OC, Haymitch/OC, Johanna/OC - pre-Finnick/Annie
Warnings: forced prostitution, dub con / non con, explicit non-consensual bondage & spanking, depression, PTSD, alcoholism, suicide of minor characters and discussion of suicide, Games-related violence
Rating: adult / R / M (for the sex, but this is still pretty much gen)
Wordcount: ~ 20,000 overall
Summary: At the 71st Hunger Games, Finnick Odair is ordered to mentor a boy he isn’t even sure he wants to bring home. With Johanna Mason alienating her friends and Haymitch Abernathy falling off the wagon, he finds himself struggling to not lose the last shreds of his sanity and soul.
A/N: Again, thank you very much, millari, for the beta, and I hope you and deathmallow will enjoy all the shout-outs to your fic and head canon.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4
Epilogue
Ralda Cavalera was dead.
The call had come two days after Finnick and Mags had returned to Four.
“Haymitch Abernathy is on the phone for you,” his mother had informed him in a strangely neutral voice and he had known the reason why the moment he heard Haymitch speak. It was quite clear that Haymitch was as plastered as Finnick had ever seen him be, and scheduled to sleep it off under the kitchen table. He was barely sober enough to inform Finnick Ralda had been found dead in her compartment when her train arrived in Six. She had cooked herself a meal of moonseed, the plant she had used to poison all those children in her arena fifteen years ago, and eaten it all up.
Spending the morning on the living room couch and staring at the Capitol gossip news flickering across the television screen, Finnick thought of how that woman had always stared at food, and been anxious about everything, and how it was probably for the best. She’d seemed relieved when she made her goodbyes at the train station, hugging the others and smiling, her mind made up and clear. She’d already have to have bought the moonseed at that point, if she hadn’t just always carried some of it around ever since her victory.
We all have that choice, Finnick thought, looking at a recap of himself dancing at a club with Secretia Colbert, who had apparently just been contracted for a new film. She wasn’t from Thirteen, Finnick knew now, she just worked for them, but others were. She’d told him Plutarch Heavensbee, the Gamemaker in charge of mutt design was from Thirteen, for fuck’s sake, and it looked like Finnick should expect him amongst his regulars during his next visit to the Capitol.
“So what happens next?” Finnick had asked, and Secretia had shrugged.
“We wait for a chance, my sweet boy.”
“I can’t believe you’re still watching that stuff,” a voice said. Finnick looked up to see Keanu, his brother step into the room. Keanu was three years older than Finnick and a little pudgy, awkward like big men sometimes got despite the hard labor on the boat. When Finnick’s name had been called at the Reaping, everybody had known that fourteen-year-old Finnick would still stand a better chance at winning than seventeen-year-old Keanu, because Finnick generally succeeded at most things and Keanu… didn’t. It still had filled Finnick with an ever so slight sense of betrayal sometimes, left to fight for himself.
Now Keanu was staring at the parade of Secretia Colbert and Hersilius Butterbulp and Septima Coddlebrick celebrating the post-Games events on the screen, a badly veiled expression of distaste on his round face.
“Scouting your next lay already?” his face said, although their relationship hadn’t devolved as far as to make him say it aloud. Finnick was a victor after all, and in Four, you didn’t question victors. Mags and the other early victors saw to that. All of Finnick’s family knew how being victor wasn’t as good a thing as the media wanted them to believe, and Finnick could see them struggling, every day, to try and understand about women like Secretia and not speak up.
They’d never expected Keanu to volunteer for Finnick. Finnick never had, not really, not Keanu with his unorganized limps, not when Finnick had been harboring ideas of becoming a volunteer himself when he turned eighteen, because what else could a boy like he be. Even at fourteen, he’d had a slight sense that his family was his to protect.
The thought of Keanu up there on the screen instead of him was so unbearable that it hurt.
Maybe he’d still become a volunteer after he won, Finnick thought.
Protecting his family and withstanding what they believed of him, that was his choice. A matter of weighing risks and not much of a choice, honestly, but just because he couldn’t imagine doing it differently probably didn’t mean it wasn’t a choice at all. So that was a sacrifice, after all, just like the one of the district volunteers.
If he could kill a kid caught in a net and still retain a soul, if he could clench his teeth and be fucked by a Capitol man, he had to be able to deal with his brothers thinking that of him. He had to.
“It’s good to stay informed,” was all he said in answer to both his brother’s spoken and unspoken words. There wasn’t a reason to tell Keanu about Ralda and how that made him feel, either. It would hit the media soon enough, and the victors weren’t part of his family life. No reason to mourn that, when it was just the way it worked. He might go and talk to Mags about it later. She might need somebody to talk about it, too.
Finnick shut off the television, and stood up. “Did dad say he has any nets that he’ll want us to repair?”
He never would be able to explain, no, Finnick thought, remembering Johanna, all alone in Seven alongside only Blight. Keanu and the others would just never know that Finnick didn’t want to be that person; it would have to be enough that he knew that himself. Meanwhile, maybe he could lend a hand on the boat and help haul in some more shrimp, be useful to his father and the crew. At least, there would always be that.
“Going out,” he told his mom and pressed a kiss on her cheek. “Probably back in time for dinner, but don’t be surprised if I’m not.”
“But Games school is closed today,” his mother pointed out with that soft voice of hers, and that look of concern. I know you never make it to Games school when you say you will, her eyes said. I know you just sit at that bay all day long, and I don’t know why you do it, but I can see that it’s not good for you, because I’m still your mother. It was so similar to how Keanu communicated, the Odair method of leaving things about Finnick unsaid.
“I know,” Finnick replied, not in the mood for a suggestive quip that he might otherwise have made. Something to set her at ease, although they both knew how that wouldn’t work.
Maybe he just wouldn’t do that with his mother today, and see how it went.
The resolution made him feel strangely adrift.
The door fell shut behind Finnick. Harsh wind blew through his hair when he stepped off the porch, leaving the windbreak of the house behind. There was Caramel’s house to the left of his, Calina’s on the other side. His house lay on the highest steep of Victors’ Rock, and he could see all of the twelve colorful victors’ cottages unfolding from up here, rising in front of the wide panorama of the Middletown slope. The coast snaking along the edge of his vision, heavy smell of salt in the air and the rush of the breakers hitting the cliffs behind him.
Games school, Finnick thought. He didn’t know if he could do Games school just yet, honestly. It still was hard to get up, as if everything just exhausted him too fast; he had to think of Haymitch and Heavensbee and Thirteen and remind himself how there was a point to getting up today, how there was a job that needed to get done. But he had a feeling that it might be getting better. He felt almost giddy to return to the Capitol - scared like always, yes, still dreading it, still wishing he wouldn’t have to - but also strangely giddy. No way to start a rebellion, sitting still on the Victors’ Rock.
They’d held a service for Niko and Corina at the Games school, on top of the district ceremony conducted by the mayor, when Niko’s name had finally been carved into the Monument; there’d been a private funeral he’d been invited to as well. He’d spoken to the Generos when he brought the body home, knowing there would be nothing he could ever say to make it right. But Niko’s mother had taken his hands in hers for a long moment and squeezed them, as if she supposed he had a right to be consoled just as she did, and thanked him for having tried.
Finnick had told her that her son was a hero, who’d had every right to believe that he could win. It wasn’t that she didn’t know, but Finnick still thought she deserved to hear it a lot.
He didn’t know if there was anything he could tell those kids at Games school who all wanted to use a trident these days although that was a terrible weapon, he’d be the first to tell them that. It would be hard, training them to use a trident or spear or a net, and lecturing them on survival skills, learning their names and seeing two of them picked off every year. But somebody had to do it. Mags was right. She wouldn’t be around forever, no matter that she felt eternal now.
So maybe he wouldn’t be doing Games school this month.
Maybe next, though.
Mags would probably inform him that they’d managed without him for sixty-five years anyway. He could picture it perfectly.
The thought made him smile just a little.
One step at a time, he reminded himself.
Annie Cresta’s cottage was located all the way across the Rock, painted a bright blue with white beams. He could see it from here, behind old Rory Colson’s hedgerows. It had gained a little garden with herbs in place of the front lawn since the last time he’d bothered to study it, and Finnick could see a willowy figure moving around in it now, tending to the plants, while her long open hair spun wildly in the breeze.
Taking a breath to keep his mind clear, Finnick headed that way.
Author: trovia
Characters: Finnick Odair, also featuring Haymitch Abernathy, Johanna Mason and Mags, as well as an ensemble of victors and OC
Pairings: Finnick/OC, Haymitch/OC, Johanna/OC - pre-Finnick/Annie
Warnings: forced prostitution, dub con / non con, explicit non-consensual bondage & spanking, depression, PTSD, alcoholism, suicide of minor characters and discussion of suicide, Games-related violence
Rating: adult / R / M (for the sex, but this is still pretty much gen)
Wordcount: ~ 20,000 overall
Summary: At the 71st Hunger Games, Finnick Odair is ordered to mentor a boy he isn’t even sure he wants to bring home. With Johanna Mason alienating her friends and Haymitch Abernathy falling off the wagon, he finds himself struggling to not lose the last shreds of his sanity and soul.
A/N: Again, thank you very much, millari, for the beta, and I hope you and deathmallow will enjoy all the shout-outs to your fic and head canon.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4
Epilogue
Ralda Cavalera was dead.
The call had come two days after Finnick and Mags had returned to Four.
“Haymitch Abernathy is on the phone for you,” his mother had informed him in a strangely neutral voice and he had known the reason why the moment he heard Haymitch speak. It was quite clear that Haymitch was as plastered as Finnick had ever seen him be, and scheduled to sleep it off under the kitchen table. He was barely sober enough to inform Finnick Ralda had been found dead in her compartment when her train arrived in Six. She had cooked herself a meal of moonseed, the plant she had used to poison all those children in her arena fifteen years ago, and eaten it all up.
Spending the morning on the living room couch and staring at the Capitol gossip news flickering across the television screen, Finnick thought of how that woman had always stared at food, and been anxious about everything, and how it was probably for the best. She’d seemed relieved when she made her goodbyes at the train station, hugging the others and smiling, her mind made up and clear. She’d already have to have bought the moonseed at that point, if she hadn’t just always carried some of it around ever since her victory.
We all have that choice, Finnick thought, looking at a recap of himself dancing at a club with Secretia Colbert, who had apparently just been contracted for a new film. She wasn’t from Thirteen, Finnick knew now, she just worked for them, but others were. She’d told him Plutarch Heavensbee, the Gamemaker in charge of mutt design was from Thirteen, for fuck’s sake, and it looked like Finnick should expect him amongst his regulars during his next visit to the Capitol.
“So what happens next?” Finnick had asked, and Secretia had shrugged.
“We wait for a chance, my sweet boy.”
“I can’t believe you’re still watching that stuff,” a voice said. Finnick looked up to see Keanu, his brother step into the room. Keanu was three years older than Finnick and a little pudgy, awkward like big men sometimes got despite the hard labor on the boat. When Finnick’s name had been called at the Reaping, everybody had known that fourteen-year-old Finnick would still stand a better chance at winning than seventeen-year-old Keanu, because Finnick generally succeeded at most things and Keanu… didn’t. It still had filled Finnick with an ever so slight sense of betrayal sometimes, left to fight for himself.
Now Keanu was staring at the parade of Secretia Colbert and Hersilius Butterbulp and Septima Coddlebrick celebrating the post-Games events on the screen, a badly veiled expression of distaste on his round face.
“Scouting your next lay already?” his face said, although their relationship hadn’t devolved as far as to make him say it aloud. Finnick was a victor after all, and in Four, you didn’t question victors. Mags and the other early victors saw to that. All of Finnick’s family knew how being victor wasn’t as good a thing as the media wanted them to believe, and Finnick could see them struggling, every day, to try and understand about women like Secretia and not speak up.
They’d never expected Keanu to volunteer for Finnick. Finnick never had, not really, not Keanu with his unorganized limps, not when Finnick had been harboring ideas of becoming a volunteer himself when he turned eighteen, because what else could a boy like he be. Even at fourteen, he’d had a slight sense that his family was his to protect.
The thought of Keanu up there on the screen instead of him was so unbearable that it hurt.
Maybe he’d still become a volunteer after he won, Finnick thought.
Protecting his family and withstanding what they believed of him, that was his choice. A matter of weighing risks and not much of a choice, honestly, but just because he couldn’t imagine doing it differently probably didn’t mean it wasn’t a choice at all. So that was a sacrifice, after all, just like the one of the district volunteers.
If he could kill a kid caught in a net and still retain a soul, if he could clench his teeth and be fucked by a Capitol man, he had to be able to deal with his brothers thinking that of him. He had to.
“It’s good to stay informed,” was all he said in answer to both his brother’s spoken and unspoken words. There wasn’t a reason to tell Keanu about Ralda and how that made him feel, either. It would hit the media soon enough, and the victors weren’t part of his family life. No reason to mourn that, when it was just the way it worked. He might go and talk to Mags about it later. She might need somebody to talk about it, too.
Finnick shut off the television, and stood up. “Did dad say he has any nets that he’ll want us to repair?”
He never would be able to explain, no, Finnick thought, remembering Johanna, all alone in Seven alongside only Blight. Keanu and the others would just never know that Finnick didn’t want to be that person; it would have to be enough that he knew that himself. Meanwhile, maybe he could lend a hand on the boat and help haul in some more shrimp, be useful to his father and the crew. At least, there would always be that.
“Going out,” he told his mom and pressed a kiss on her cheek. “Probably back in time for dinner, but don’t be surprised if I’m not.”
“But Games school is closed today,” his mother pointed out with that soft voice of hers, and that look of concern. I know you never make it to Games school when you say you will, her eyes said. I know you just sit at that bay all day long, and I don’t know why you do it, but I can see that it’s not good for you, because I’m still your mother. It was so similar to how Keanu communicated, the Odair method of leaving things about Finnick unsaid.
“I know,” Finnick replied, not in the mood for a suggestive quip that he might otherwise have made. Something to set her at ease, although they both knew how that wouldn’t work.
Maybe he just wouldn’t do that with his mother today, and see how it went.
The resolution made him feel strangely adrift.
The door fell shut behind Finnick. Harsh wind blew through his hair when he stepped off the porch, leaving the windbreak of the house behind. There was Caramel’s house to the left of his, Calina’s on the other side. His house lay on the highest steep of Victors’ Rock, and he could see all of the twelve colorful victors’ cottages unfolding from up here, rising in front of the wide panorama of the Middletown slope. The coast snaking along the edge of his vision, heavy smell of salt in the air and the rush of the breakers hitting the cliffs behind him.
Games school, Finnick thought. He didn’t know if he could do Games school just yet, honestly. It still was hard to get up, as if everything just exhausted him too fast; he had to think of Haymitch and Heavensbee and Thirteen and remind himself how there was a point to getting up today, how there was a job that needed to get done. But he had a feeling that it might be getting better. He felt almost giddy to return to the Capitol - scared like always, yes, still dreading it, still wishing he wouldn’t have to - but also strangely giddy. No way to start a rebellion, sitting still on the Victors’ Rock.
They’d held a service for Niko and Corina at the Games school, on top of the district ceremony conducted by the mayor, when Niko’s name had finally been carved into the Monument; there’d been a private funeral he’d been invited to as well. He’d spoken to the Generos when he brought the body home, knowing there would be nothing he could ever say to make it right. But Niko’s mother had taken his hands in hers for a long moment and squeezed them, as if she supposed he had a right to be consoled just as she did, and thanked him for having tried.
Finnick had told her that her son was a hero, who’d had every right to believe that he could win. It wasn’t that she didn’t know, but Finnick still thought she deserved to hear it a lot.
He didn’t know if there was anything he could tell those kids at Games school who all wanted to use a trident these days although that was a terrible weapon, he’d be the first to tell them that. It would be hard, training them to use a trident or spear or a net, and lecturing them on survival skills, learning their names and seeing two of them picked off every year. But somebody had to do it. Mags was right. She wouldn’t be around forever, no matter that she felt eternal now.
So maybe he wouldn’t be doing Games school this month.
Maybe next, though.
Mags would probably inform him that they’d managed without him for sixty-five years anyway. He could picture it perfectly.
The thought made him smile just a little.
One step at a time, he reminded himself.
Annie Cresta’s cottage was located all the way across the Rock, painted a bright blue with white beams. He could see it from here, behind old Rory Colson’s hedgerows. It had gained a little garden with herbs in place of the front lawn since the last time he’d bothered to study it, and Finnick could see a willowy figure moving around in it now, tending to the plants, while her long open hair spun wildly in the breeze.
Taking a breath to keep his mind clear, Finnick headed that way.