THG fic: "Spin Control" [21/24]
Title: Spin Control
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse; anorexia and exercise addiction
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12 -- Chapter 13 -- Chapter 14 -- Chapter 15 -- Chapter 16 -- Chapter 17 -- Chapter 18 -- Chapter 19 -- Chapter 20
Chapter 21: How To Play The Games
The first unpleasant surprise of the Games was waiting for them after the chariot parade, when they made it to the Training Center bar.
The parade itself had been exactly as big a success as they had hoped it would be; afterwards, Games officials were still congratulating them on their way down from their floor to the bar. If this wasn’t life or death but an actual game, Finnick wouldn’t have been surprised if the victors, who all gathered here traditionally at this time, would have turned around at them and cheered in a show of sportsmanship. As it was, eyes were turning towards them from everywhere, the occasional friend reassuringly patting them on the back here and there, and apart from that, mostly suspicion, where people were trying to gauge if styling really could have changed the Games for Twelve.
Finnick didn’t focus on any of that, though. None of it mattered the moment the two of them had entered the room, when he scanned the crowd and made out the familiar faces from District Four. The wrong faces.
“Where is she? Is she alright?”
Something cold and awful made his stomach churn. The tall, athletic, dark-skinned woman talking to Caramel, with the bright sky blue Capitol tattoos drawing a pattern all over her face, wasn’t Mags. It was Calina, the first Four victor who had won with a trident, who’d been Finnick’s teacher at Games school, singling him out to shown him how to be a killer.
“She’s going to be alright, kiddo, relax.” Calina had met him halfway through the room, gripping his shoulders hard, anticipating his fear. “She’s getting a little old and she isn’t so quick on her feet anymore, that’s all. There might have been a little incident, but it wasn’t a heart attack. She’s going to have a calm, quiet life in retirement from now on, we’ve all decided it together.”
“Retirement,” Finnick repeated, not calmed in the least, half stuck on heart attack. “Mags.” Mags didn’t retire. She didn’t have heart attacks. She’d mentored and headed the Games school all her life, sixty-three years of it, since she’d won.
“More like her ordering us around like before but from a chair, alright,” Calina qualified with a good-natured eye roll, made to loosen him up. “It’ll mostly be me in the primary mentor’s seat from now on, maybe sometimes Caramel if the Capitol requests him anyway.”
“Lucky Caramel,” the man himself supplied with no trace of humor in his voice, ignoring Finnick but for an uneasy nod on the way towards Haymitch.
So Calina had taken Mags’ place in organizing the training and volunteer system. Having won the year after Haymitch, she was much younger than Shania and Clipper, but the district admired her almost as much as Mags, and Games school was practically her life. Add to that that Mags’ issues with speech would have eventually started damaging the district image of the healthy and athletic ocean people.
But Finnick, who supposed he should have congratulated Calina, ask her polite questions about how those things were working out, hadn’t yet swallowed the news that Mags wouldn’t be in the Capitol with him. She wouldn’t ever be here again. She made it out. He should have been glad.
She’d retired as a mentor - it wasn’t a heart attack - and that meant Finnick might just never see her again. It would just be him with Haymitch, from this Games on, until forever; District Four seemed so incredibly far away, these days. It was as if a pillar was suddenly breaking away, one that he hadn’t even been fully conscious had always been there. It was new and different and the Capitol would call it the end of an era once it caught on, an era Finnick had never considered could end.
***
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that President Snow chose that supposed new beginning to call him into his office and see if Finnick still remembered what a good little victor he was.
The Reaping had shown already that Snow had detected nothing in his activities in Twelve that warranted punishment. The Games school, his relationship with Haymitch, Snow knew all about that and had decided that it was tolerable or that he didn’t care. But that didn’t mean he’d ever let Finnick learn to walk off heel.
Forcing himself to take a seat across the President’s desk in a loose way, as if there was a camera pointed at him, Finnick refused to remember how Snow had chosen to make that point the last time he was summoned here.
“Well, Mr. Odair,” the President said. “It has been far too long since we last talked, hasn’t it?”
His puffy lips were stretched too tight, his smile never reaching his eyes. Something else was gleaming in them, something much more dangerous. Behind him through the windows, the sun loomed brightly in the Capitol sky. None of the skyscrapers obscured the view from here. This city had been built to bow to this office.
The brightness would have made Finnick’s eyes water, rendering Snow a dark, indecipherable silhouette, if the glass of the window hadn’t been dimmed. It had to be because the President didn’t like the sun shining onto his back, rather than for Finnick’s comfort, since he and Snow were both clear on how Snow owned this world and Finnick only attended as his barely tolerated guest.
He felt himself wet his lips, but didn’t reply, making sure not to look at Snow in a way that could be constructed as a challenge, or a provocation. They both knew there was nothing he could have said.
The President watched him for a moment, then folded his hands on the desk with a serious expression. “I’ll skip the pleasantries,” he said. “I sent you on your way two years ago with a very particular set of instructions. I told you to take responsibility for Mr. Abernathy’s past shows of disrespect towards the Capitol, as well as for his continued sobriety. I also pointed out to you how directly your monetary value is tied to your entertainment factor in the media, and how both of you are under an obligation to deliver in this regard, as well. I understand you have been very busy taking care of both these assignments, getting involved on a rather personal level, no less.”
Of course, Snow knew about the two of them - of course. But that didn’t mean Finnick didn’t run cold at the mention, which could always be followed by that kill order, “But that’s not what I meant when I said that.”
“I did what you asked me to do,” he hoarsely managed, although that wasn’t what his feelings for Haymitch were about, not on any level, and they both knew that, too.
He threatened to dissociate in a big way, feeling the whole world shake.
Snow smiled his shark-like smile again, as if he’d read his mind, satisfied by what he’d seen.
“And what a fine job you did so far.” He sounded almost sarcastic, his tone too soft and giving to be real. “Let me tell you a few things, Mr. Odair. Let me tell you some things about your family. You must be so desperate for news from back home.
“Your eldest brother Perri, it seems for example, has surprisingly found himself in the possession of a pregnant new wife, called Malana Odeen, whose last name he has chosen to take as his own.
“Of course, your parents are currently rather busy worrying about your sister sneaking about with her first boyfriend, in a move I understand they find distressingly reminiscent of your own exploits that same age.”
A holo flickered to life, starting to show Finnick all the people he’d had to leave in order to be able to protect them any longer. Talking to each other, argueing, hugging in that house he’d never seen, evicted from the Victors’ Rock after he left. Mom, Dad, Perri, Keanu, Coral, Uncle Lauro, Uncle Jaime.
Making absolutely sure that Finnick would never be able to forget.
***
The Training Week passed in a flurry of activity.
His first appointment was penciled into his calendar for just the day after the parade, the evening after his visit at Snow’s. The client was nothing special, but still felt disgusting and still hurt. Clients would be open wounds this Games, apparently. Finnick almost preferred it that way, in a sick way. It felt right, more like it should be. There was too much to do through the Training Days to think much about anything, though. In the evenings, it was quick dates in restaurants or clubs, clients as greedy for the paparazzi shots as they were for the quick romps that came afterwards. During the day, it was attending pre-Games events to chat up sponsors along Haymitch, coaching Peeta between training sessions. Peeta had quite a lot of upper body strength and an unexpected flair for camouflage, and Finnick hammered home to him, excessively, ways of using those two things to kill. Finnick planned on that boy getting a good score. He planned on getting him into the big alliance, using Katniss’ presence to make him look like he just happened to be the less dazzling of a pair of Careers, but a Career nonetheless. A Career strategy would make that apparent.
Katniss herself proved more complicated a tribute. Gritting his teeth, Haymitch went off to have a conversation with Chaff about a possible alliance with his huge Eleven male, but as they’d both expected, he just came back looking worn and unaccomplished. Making friends obviously didn’t come easily to Katniss anyway, though, and they eventually settled on more of a District Two style lone-wolf approach with her. They hoped she’d come across as the distant, determined sort. She’d volunteered earlier than planned to spare her sister. But all she wanted in her life was to win a Games.
Their two tributes together had the strangest dynamic, a mystery to Finnick until Haymitch cleared it up with his impeccable, intuitive ability to get to the heart of what was going on in people’s heads. Katniss and Peeta were nothing like Raif and Bee, who’d taken strength from the other during their last days. They didn’t compare to Aster and Rodey, either, who might as well have lived in different universes. These two did talk, at breakfast and dinner, as if they couldn’t stop themselves from doing so. Katniss would raise her chin in defiance whenever Peeta addressed her, but it didn’t seem to be just because she was wary of him as an opponent. Peeta would shoot her these furtive looks when he thought she wasn’t looking, and those seemed just angry and lost, angry at something other than her. No, they didn’t know each other well, he would mumble when asked, then look away. Yes, he liked Katniss. Everybody in the district liked Katniss. But those looks of his were filled with so much more meaning than the simple, admiring ones that Finnick’s trainees had shot the girl when she’d crashed Games class that one time, the kid in the starving district who’d figured out how to provide food.
In his defense, it had taken Finnick a half-naked kiss in a freezing lake and an agonizing sleepless night to understand how he felt about the man he was now in a relationship with, too.
It was during breakfast of the first training day, the stylists long gone to work on the interview dresses and the next surprise they’d planned for Katniss. Effie was delicately cutting pineapple toast into mouth-sized bits to guarantee minimum deformation of her cheeks while chewing. Meanwhile, Katniss and Peeta broke into an argument about the other one’s odds in the Games.
Looking back, Finnick couldn’t even determine how it had started.
“I can’t do anything,” Peeta had said, in that uncaring, self-depreciating way that Finnick would spend all week trying to train out of him. “Unless you count baking bread.”
Instead of clamping up and refusing to participate in the conversation like Finnick would have expected, surly Katniss used that opportunity to point out that she, like Finnick, had seen Peeta carrying all those heavy flour bags at the market. His self-perception was plain off.
“Peeta can wrestle,” she informed Finnick, almost daring him to disagree, as if it was a race. “He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother.”
“Is that so?” Finnick had contributed in interest, about to throw Peeta a look of See? Even another tribute says that but like so often, Peeta’s attention was all on Katniss.
“What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?” There was such obvious self-loathing in his voice that it made Finnick flinch in uncomfortable recognition.
“There’s always hand-to-hand combat,” Katniss bristled. “All you need is to come up with a knife, and you’ll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I’m dead!”
“But you won’t get jumped!” Peeta leaned back in his chair, forgetting about his food with a dark, hopeless, frustrated look on his face. “You’ll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows! You know what my mother said to me when she came to say goodbye? As if to cheer me up? She said maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized, she didn’t mean me, she meant you!”
Across the table, Haymitch grimaced around his fork in sympathy; catching his eye, Finnick returned the expression. He wished he could reach out to that boy in some way that would do any good at this juncture, when the kid would probably be dead, no matter his odds. Everybody in District Twelve whispered about what went on in the Mellark household, even Finnick had heard.
Peeta was on a roll, anyway, face tight and pale.
“People will help you in the arena,” he told Katniss. “They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you.
“She has no idea.” He rolled his eyes at the adults in a well-timed, scathing gesture full of ancient anger and frustration. “The effect she can have.”
Which was when Haymitch looked at the two of them, saying “Well, then,” followed by, “Well, well, well,” and when the children had left for the training session shortly after, only the two of them left, he turned to Finnick and said, “That boy is madly in love with that girl. Not that she’d notice if you waved it in front of her face.”
“What?” Finnick replied, startled, automatically looking in the direction they had left, although there was nothing left to see but the closed door. “How do you know?”
Haymitch threw him a look that said he thought Finnick was immeasurably dense sometimes.
“They barely know each other,” Finnick defended himself. Haymitch at least had had a girlfriend at that age. All Finnick knew was how to teach children swimming and killing each other with spears.
They’d never much discussed it in detail, but Finnick had gotten a distinct sense that Haymitch himself had known right away how he felt about Finnick, the second it hit him first. Knowing Haymitch, he had then probably proceeded to bang his head against something hard.
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, burying his hands in his pockets. “I’m not saying it makes any more sense than my developing a crush on my mentor just because she happened to be present. It’s not like the two of them have grown up as best buddies, right?
“What I know,” he added after a moment, contemplative, “is that the audience would see it, too, if we found the right way to club them over the head with it. They’ve got a nice chemistry, you gotta admit. Very visual, all those looks and whatnot. Lots of sparks. Not that the girl has any idea. And not that she’d listen if I proposed that kind of spin.”
“How would that even help them in there?” Finnick said after a moment. A frown had appeared on his face when he sat down on a chair, trying to think it through and switching back into Games mode himself, checking out the different angles.
Love had been played any number of times, obviously, it was such a self-evident twist in a game show full of teenagers. Professing love for another tribute just made you look weak, though, except if you went to prove that you’d fight your beloved to the death. But you could only play that strategy if your tribute was properly briefed. It was a Career move, one that the outliers with their untrained tributes rarely employed - Finnick’s only ever Four tribute had explored it on his own initiative, as it were. Ultimately, asking a child to befriend another just to kill them in the ugliest way possible was too cruel a thing, at that age when those feelings were so precious. The Careers did it because they’d been properly taught that what you did in the arena meant nothing outside of it.
Haymitch knew all of that too - better than Finnick, probably, after all those years. He looked unhappy now when he grimaced. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I guess let’s just keep an eye out.”
***
Four was the expert district on how to make a great impression; it had come into power at the Games not because it was less starved or because it was more deadly, but because Mags knew how to charm a crowd with the best marketing tales. And Mags had taught Finnick, who reminded himself now that he’d been working without Mags for two years, so her sudden absence from his Capitol life shouldn’t make a difference.
So Peeta was all flair and smiles in his single training session - and if Finnick had encouraged him to flirt with the Gamesmakers a bit in a way that would, to some, be reminiscent of the camera play Finnick himself was known for, the boy would never need to know that he’d just made a promise with that. Leave me alive, I’ll fill your treasury if you do. He scored a solid nine. It sealed the agreement with Calina and Cashmere for Peeta to join the Careers.
Katniss almost gave him a heart attack when she returned from her session in tears. She’d apparently chosen the most inopportune moment of her whole life to lose her temper and fire an arrow at the Gamesmakers’ lunch boar. The only good thing about that, Finnick faintly thought when he heard, was that at least, she hadn’t missed.
That was, until her eleven score was announced. From that moment on, when Haymitch and Finnick left the Training Center to go anywhere, the paparazzi weren’t trying to get shots of Finnick anymore. They were aiming for Haymitch, bombarding him with questions about the girl who seemed to be on fire in more than the literal way. It was less than half an hour after the score announcement that a summons to Flickerman’s show rolled in for both of them.
The Capitol was in full Games swing. An eleven for the upstart district was exactly what everybody had been hoping for to make things more exciting. Twelve had joined the big league this Games. It was an altogether different kind of Games to play, though Finnick didn’t fool himself into thinking that different meant better or easier to win. More attention meant that you would make a bigger target. Everybody in there would be wary of Katniss specifically.
An anonymous inside source tipped the press off about how the tributes from Two had been friends growing up, unexpectedly entering the arena together when the girl volunteered a year too early. Discussing that tragic circumstance on camera with Flickerman, Finnick listened to the soft cries of pity from the audience, almost feeling the sponsors sliding out of his hands when they made their way back to District Two.
He should have known that Katniss and Peeta were a little too old and a little too smart to let Finnick and Haymitch become the architects of their fortune without bringing any ideas of their own to the table - even if they turned out to be terribly dangerous ideas.
“Do you have a minute?” Peeta asked, uncomfortably hovering in the door to the Twelve lounge.
It was the morning after the score announcement, the off-day between training and interviews, used for excessive performance coaching and the last strategy sessions. Effie would swipe both kids away later to teach them how to look better on camera. But neither she, nor the stylists had made an appearance yet, and Haymitch would be undertaking his first shower of the day, his own little display of nervousness and stress. Bright pink dawn sky was illuminating the Capitol skyline outside the windows, breakfast an hour away.
“Sure, come on in,” Finnick said, looking up from his armchair, where he’d been following a tribute analysis on a morning show. Managing a smile, he tried to chase away the restlessness that came with skipping his morning workouts while he was in the Capitol.
Peeta closed the door behind himself, looking like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked sickly, as if he’d spent the night awake. Not that Finnick had ever met a tribute who slept soundly at this time.
Finnick waved at him to take a seat in one of the other chairs, muting the television.
The baker’s boy sat down uncomfortably, looking like he was very carefully choosing the words he’d outlined in advance all through the night.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, thoughtfully looking at his hands. “About our strategy. About what I’m going to do when I’m in the arena with the pack. I know it’s a little late for a change of plans, but I’ve made up my mind. I want to do it differently.”
“Okay, tell me all about it, and we’ll see,” Finnick said, who wasn’t much fazed by late changes of plans. Barely any Games plan lasted longer than the start of the broadcast, as had last been emphatically proven by Raif and Bee.
Nodding in gratitude, Peeta’s whole body posture changed ever so slightly, as if he’d only now dared to exclaim a whole breath.
“I get what you’ve been trying to do when you put me with the Careers,” he continued softly, then added almost in a hurry, “and it’s a great plan to improve my odds in there.” Finnick suppressed a snort at him at that - his feelings didn’t have to be spared by a tribute. “But now that I’m in the pack, I think I know a better way of using that to our advantage. Cato - that’s the Two boy - he said after the score announcement that we need to track down Kat right away. I told him I can probably help with that. But I lied. I mean, I guess I could, I know well enough what she’ll probably be good at doing. But I don’t want to do that.”
He paused to lick his lips, while something very unpleasant spread in Finnick’s belly. He leaned forward in his chair. “Peeta,” he said in a warning tone, “what did you do?”
“Nothing.” Peeta rolled his eyes at him. “What else should I have said? That I have no idea how to find her and look incompetent? Anyway, I’ve been thinking ever since. I could lead them to Kat, but I could lead them anywhere else, too, couldn’t I?”
“Absolutely not,” Finnick immediately said. “You’re not in there to help her. That’s not your job, when you’re not in an alliance with her. You know they’ll turn on you at the first excuse. You’re their in-pack prime target. We’ve talked about that. It’s much too dangerous.”
Peeta firmly shook his head. “No, listen, it’d be almost perfect. How would they ever know, right? I could tell them anything, I could just send them in another direction. If they manage to find her, I could even attack them and distract them so that she can get away, maybe.”
“Yeah, I’m still at ‘absolutely not,’” Finnick said, considering Peeta’s crazy idea of a scheme had just taken a turn from naïve to openly suicidal.
The first spark of annoyance flashed in Peeta’s eyes. “You said that you and Haymitch work together. Don’t you want to save her life?”
“I want to save your life more,” Finnick replied immediately. “That’s the goal here, Peeta.”
“Great. Now somebody is making that his business,” Peeta muttered. Then he looked up at Finnick again, his face frighteningly determined and clear. “I think you should be all for the idea. It’s true what you and Haymitch have been saying on the television, right? You want to make things better for Twelve. You want more tributes to win.”
“Of course, we want more tributes to win…” Finnick said, a little edgy himself because he was growing so tired of having to repeat that, and also this conversation was ridiculous, but Peeta wasn’t finished.
“Well, everybody keeps saying that Twelve hasn’t ever had a tribute with Kat’s odds, right? Even Effie has said it to me, and Salacia, she’s the one who does my hair, she has, too. It would be stupid if you didn’t do all you can to get her home, and I can help you with that. I know I’m not that great a tribute. You keep telling me I am to make me feel better, thanks for that, but I don’t deserve a victory the way she does. I’d rather help bring her home than survive.”
His voice had wavered on that last bit when the impact of what he’d just said seemed to really hit him - he was talking of dying, at sixteen, when his life had barely started - but his face remained firm. Finnick had a sudden flashback to Aster, although she’d been just the opposite of this boy with his open face and his concern about other people. She’d asked in her weird, emotionless way what would help Twelve the most apart from a victory. Make a splash. But she’d really stood no chance at winning; nobody had expected her to get even as far as she had. It was disconcerting how these two children could be so different and still somehow arrive at this point where there wasn’t any hope, in that cold-hearted way.
Although Finnick remembered all the things Haymitch had said about Peeta, so now he had an inkling that Peeta was thinking in an entirely different direction from Aster.
“Peeta,” he said softly, feeling wildly out of his depth. “Peeta, I know you have a bit of a thing for Katniss, but that isn’t a reason to throw away your chance to survive.”
Peeta had glanced up at him abruptly at the admission, a faint blotchy blush appearing on his face. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “You don’t understand,” he said. “No, you don’t understand at all, I…”
“You barely know this girl, Peeta,” Finnick fiercely said.
The blotches on Peeta’s face turned a shy kind of crimson.
“You don’t understand,” he repeated. “I’m in love with her.”
Finnick just looked at him for a moment, disbelieving, no words coming to mind.
You didn’t have time to notice a girl’s pretty eyes in the Games; Haymitch had said that to him on the train ride. But that one, Finnick was sure about all by himself, remembering the goosebumps on his skin, the cold, dark corners in his own arena.
Finnick tried to recall the few things he knew about this young man, his relationship with Katniss - there was some kind of story there no matter what, there had to be. But maybe Peeta had no better luck figuring out why he thought the felt that way than Finnick. Finnick tried to picture living in that family, but his own parents had always been great, and the Twelve bakers were that ominous black box that everybody only looked at askew from the outside, never knowing what went on exactly. Maybe the Mellarks bought Katniss’ game. Maybe Mrs. Mellark hit her son, then served him turkey shot by that pretty girl who nursed her sister.
Maybe Peeta hated his life just as much as Finnick had used to hate his, and now he saw a chance to be a hero. Finnick hadn’t been a volunteer in his Games; his name hadn’t been carved into the Monument of Sacrifice, and there’d been a time when he’d been so jealous of those names of those dead people who’d saved somebody’s life. If he’d had a chance of dying as someone’s hero, he would have taken it, two years ago. But that had been then.
It just meant he couldn’t send Peeta in there just to let him die now.
There was nothing about that sketchy, dubious plan that Finnick didn’t hate on first sight. Peeta or not, all his instincts screamed ‘no’ at the whole idea. This wasn’t how you played the Games, you learned that quickly as a victor. Not following the rules had terrible consequences in this life that they led; Peeta had no chance of knowing how terrible.
Finnick took a deep breath to cool himself off, refusing to picture Snow’s long fingers folded on the top of his desk.
“Have you ever even talked to Katniss before this Games?” he asked, tightly controlled, not ready to stop arguing that point because this was so ridiculous.
Peeta shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does,” Finnick said. “You want to throw your life away for a girl you’ve barely ever looked in the eye from up close.”
He wanted to tell him, That isn’t love, that’s just delusion. But he couldn’t get himself to say that to a boy whose time might be running out.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peeta repeated, practically breathing it out as if to remind himself.
He wasn’t looking at Finnick anymore, determined in that forlorn way - with a quiet dignity that was unexpected and all the more startling for it.
He was keeping himself intact. The Games hadn’t even officially started, and already he was working on keeping himself intact.
With a ludicrous plan that could get his whole family killed, if it didn’t kill him first, and Finnick and Haymitch along with it.
Abruptly, Finnick stood up, unable to look at him any longer.
“I’ll do you the favor and talk it through with the person who’s actually responsible for bringing Katniss home, unlike us,” he said. “And if Haymitch tells you that we don’t coach tributes to commit suicide, too, we’re going to put this to rest and never talk about it again.”
***
Haymitch leaned back in his chair, rubbing his freshly shaven chin.
“As ways of improving the odds go, it’s not the worst strategy I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Finnick said.
He gave the other man a disbelieving look, before plopping down on Haymitch’s fancy Capitol four-poster bed. Right now, he didn’t care about who recorded what. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself grimly. They were just discussing their tributes, as proper mentors should. They were yet again doing everything right.
Also Haymitch, who’d needed the whole two years of their acquaintance to get comfortable with the Games strategizing that he was so good at, had chosen this very moment to switch into full-blown marketing mode, apparently, so who knew which way was up and which was down.
As if too busy contemplating the many ideas appearing in his head, Haymitch just shrugged, seated on the desk chair at the other side of the room, paying him no mind.
His shirt was half-buttoned, the lapels of the new jacket Portia had designed for him hanging loose; Finnick’s brain chose this improbable moment to notice how attractive he looked, mind at work, like he couldn’t care less who studied him or what they’d think of what they saw.
“This would be a complete change of plans, obviously,” Haymitch said. “We’d have to figure it all out real quick. Wouldn’t want to contradict something we’ve already established. I mean, we’d have to find a way of explaining to people what’s happening in the arena while the boy’s doing his thing, so we’d need to set it up in the interview.”
“Would we now,” Finnick faintly said, looking at him in bewilderment.
This plan wasn’t how the Games was supposed to be played.
Haymitch gave him an unhappy smirk that said that no, he didn’t actually think this was funny. There was nothing positive in this whole strategy premise, but he was willing to consider it anyway because last year, he’d promised Finnick that that would be what he’d always try to do. Which meant he had to do it all the way to get it right.
A strangely determined look had crossed his face, one that Finnick had never before seen on him - as if a light had been turned on, making everything harsh and easy to see.
“Think about it,” Haymitch said, hunching forward in his chair, clasping his hands together. “Think about it,” he repeated in a mutter to himself before continuing with a stronger voice. “We send the boy to give the interview as planned. All smiles and honesty. Then he goes into the arena sneaking about with ulterior motives, looking shifty. Not gonna work. At best, nobody gets what he’s doing, which works fine for the likes of Johanna, but not for a tribute who actually stands a chance at sponsors.”
“And at worst?” Finnick asked, not quite willing yet to follow that train of thought on his own initiative.
“At worst, somebody cries foul play. People in charge get nervous, rumor makes the rounds we rigged the Games, sending in a tribute to fight for another.” Something flashed across his face for a beat, making him look faintly sick. “We really don’t want that.”
“No kidding,” Finnick breathed. “Just another reason to not let the boy commit fucking suicide.”
“It’s the Hunger Games, you have to reconsider that whole concept,” Haymitch said very sarcastically. Then he took a long breath and continued outlining the situation. “No,” he said. “That’s why it’s so perfect. You gotta announce the whole plan in advance, play it out in the open, right? But then, the Careers learn what he’s up to, too, and that’s that with the alliance, they’d team up and kill him at the bloodbath just to make the point. So instead, we get him up there on the stage with Flickerman, have him talk about how much he loves the girl. Careers will think it’s a ruse. It’s always a fucking ruse. Capitol will eat it up like candy because they always do that, too, and we’ll even have a real story to compete for media attention.” Again he paused, considering. “And now think of how pretty the shock will look on Katniss’ face, real emotion and all instead of that slug impression of hers. Camera close-ups, all of it, beautifully. Reaping Day all over again. She’s honestly nonplussed, she can’t fuck it up.”
“That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard!” Finnick exclaimed. “You’re still talking about letting a tribute with a nine score walk into a death trap!”
“You’re the one who keeps preaching that we need to play the fucking long-term strategy!” Haymitch shot back, just as harshly, and it was a testament to how well they knew each other and how long they’d been doing this already how Finnick was able to hear that there wasn’t any actual malice in his voice.
Finnick informed him with a look about what he thought of Haymitch’s mental health right now. “Score of nine,” he repeated, very slowly, so that it would penetrate Haymitch’s unexpectedly thick skull.
Haymitch clenched his jaw.
He looked at his hands, as if studying something, visibly swallowing down a lump.
Much later, Finnick would think he’d traced Maysilee Donner’s blood dripping off his fingers.
“We can get that girl home with that plan,” he said, grim and resolved. “Think about those odds. She’s got a score of eleven. Sponsors lining up so we can send her that bow, she never needs to get into the bloodbath. Add to that, we’ll startle an actual on-camera reaction out of her. Then, the boy working on saving her, too, but from the inside. Out of fucking love, so what’s Snow gonna do about it? We can get that kid home.”
“We can get that boy killed.”
“One of them will die, either way!”
Haymitch stood up, abruptly, angry. It was so similar to that evening at Swagger’s, when Finnick had told him all his dirty secrets and Haymitch had exploded into fury, too. It made Finnick startle now, too. Except he’d been in hysterics then, thinking he had lost Haymitch for good. Now, despite the discomfort eating at him, he could see that Haymitch was plain upset. Things were happening that he didn’t like, and there was nothing he could change about it. He could just get angry, because everything was out to get them all the time, because he’d allowed himself to care and it hurt. That evening, it had meant he cared about Finnick. Now, it meant he cared about both these children, but it was the Hunger Games and only one out of the twenty-four, each of them beloved to somebody, would get to go home.
Anxious and miserable, Finnick glanced up and watched him pace the room, back and forth before he seemed to realize how useless that was, coming to a halt and rubbing his palm across his face in a resolute gesture.
He turned towards Finnick, towering, although Finnick would have a whole foot on him if he stood up. He didn’t want to stand up, though. He’d never wanted to loom over Haymitch less.
“It’s not a suicide plan,” Haymitch told Finnick, calmly. “If the girl dies, everybody who sponsored her will jump ship and leave the money with him. It’d be like a substitute victory. All he has to do is two-time the Careers and the audience for a couple of days. The moment it gets hot, he gets out. Bit more dangerous than we planned, but basically still the same imperative. He’ll be on his own, out there still trying to help Katniss, everybody will take it for that grand romantic story.”
“You’re expecting a lot from Peeta, playing everybody like that at once. He’s not a Career. He doesn’t have any camera training.”
“Tell me honestly that you think he couldn’t pull it off.”
Finnick sighed.
“What if Katniss decides to get rid of the threat and take him out by herself?”
They couldn’t let her in on it, that much was for sure. She just couldn’t work with a script. Never mind that she would rightfully hate everything about that plan, and Finnick was very much with her on that.
But Haymitch was shaking his head.
“She won’t.”
“And you would know that because…”
“Couldn’t ever show her face again in the district if she makes it home, and she knows it.” Then he muttered, incomprehensibly, “Too great a debt.”
Finnick buried his face in his hands, gripping his hair for a moment in an attempt to chase that horrible headache out of his temples that was suddenly creeping up. Really? That’s what I get this Games, headaches? He’d had worse reactions. But he also still couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. There was no single bit that he liked about it.
It wasn’t even because it was Peeta, who’d smiled at him on the street. It was the whole plan. It made his skin scrawl.
“Listen to me, Finnick,” Haymitch said. “This is exactly what we’ve been trying to do. Start going somewhere with those kids. Now we have this chance of going somewhere big. I’ve been doing this for twenty-four fucking years. This is the best odds it gets. We have a shot at a fucking romance. Everybody always wants a romance. And it ain’t the Careers where it’s all fake and they’re just setting up their final kill, it’s gonna be real.”
Glancing up at Haymitch again, Finnick looked at him, really looked - how sure he was of himself suddenly, how absolutely he knew that there was no flaw in his logic. He’d thrown himself at it for real and he knew this game, inside out. He’d opened himself up to that again, because Finnick had asked. And he was doing it sober. He hadn’t even been able to talk about the tributes’ meals one-and-a-half years ago without needing a drink.
He didn’t look like there was enough free space left in his mind right now to remember his longing for alcohol.
Finnick hated everything about this. It went against how the Games was supposed to be played, even if it wasn’t cheating, strictly speaking. But Haymitch using the force field to survive hadn’t been cheating, either - strictly speaking. He knew, objectively, that Haymitch was right. Snow wouldn’t do anything about something that the Capitol fell in love with. But that wouldn’t automatically make Snow a fan.
It left a dark, foreboding, sick feeling in his stomach. He knew he wouldn’t veto it. But a big part of him kept demanding that he should.
***
The star-crossed lovers of District Twelve.
Effie and the stylists were still celebrating when Haymitch and Finnick made their goodbyes, the children off to lie awake in bed before the big day long since. The interviews had been a perfect success, topping even the parade. Cinna’s dress had transformed Katniss into all the fashion scene would talk about all summer season, exactly the right mix of exotic and dazzling and fierce for the audience to nod along when Peeta revealed how he felt about that girl. Of course. That makes sense. She’s meant to be loved.
Every screen was dominated by Peeta and his declaration of love, by Katniss and the jolt that had run through her that moment, eyes wide, stopping herself from raising from her chair. Other catchphrases were making the rounds. The Girl On Fire. District Twelve’s Doomed Love. Haymitch had been right. The Capitol had eaten it up. Meanwhile, Calina had released the news of Mags’ retirement from the Games, and everybody was talking of how they were witnessing a new generation starting to bloom, of how Finnick and the changes he’d prompted in Twelve might be the first glimpse at an entirely new kind of Games.
Haymitch had slipped into Finnick’s room alongside him instead of his own. Everybody would think they still had Games prep to finish - still a good excuse. He sank on the chair at the small desk, rubbing his face.
“Fucking dirt of the districts,” he muttered, withdrawn and shaky and like he hated carrying all that responsibility already, because the press had it wrong - this was his brain child, Finnick just looked better on the posters, tagging along. All his life, Haymitch had dealt by retreating, but he’d closed that door for now.
“Would you…” Finnick started saying, uncertain, because everything about this was leaving him anxious, agitated, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He trusted Haymitch that he knew what he was doing, he told himself. He did.
Haymitch glanced up. “I could probably stay an hour or two, none of them would think anything of it tonight,” he said.
“Yes,” Finnick said, and Haymitch followed his eyes to the bed with an expression that seemed uncertain in a different way.
They undressed, slipping under the covers together. Finnick wasn’t even sure why he wanted this right now. They’d never done much with each other in the Capitol before. There were too many bugs and even cameras, everywhere, and he could constantly feel the touch of his clients’ hands on himself, lingering, never quite going away. His own hands on himself, that night back when with Snow. Haymitch hadn’t made any move like this last Games. But Finnick was uneasy, and he was hurting, and he wanted it gone. He wanted home and Haymitch back.
“Touch me more?” he asked, because he couldn’t get a clear read on his own feelings right now. But it was Haymitch who leaned in, kissing him another time and replying, “No. Don’t do that. You do your thing. You make the calls.” And after a moment of hesitation, “Please. I want that, too.”
Yes, it was arousing to hear, sharp like a blade, that sudden, unexpected I want. Haymitch had never asked for anything before. Immediately, a dozen questions appeared in Finnick’s mind. What did he like about it? What did it mean to him? There were a thousand different kinds of submission, and Finnick was intimately acquainted with all. He could find something to deliver for any. Did Haymitch want him to push him around? Did holding still for Finnick remind him of being restrained? Did he want to be ordered or asked, did he want to be made to beg? He’d said please.
But it was the first time Haymitch had asked, sounding just as needy as Finnick felt, so this was not the time to talk, and they’d done this many times before. No matter that he didn’t understand where such a preference could be coming from, when it would have twisted something in his guts if the situation was reversed.
He pushed Haymitch into the sheets underneath him, rubbing himself against him and kissing him and clutching his hair the way they both liked, listening for Haymitch exclaiming those deeper breaths that were almost moans. He was just as eager to answer the kisses. His hand fell on Finnick’s upper arm to run up and down in that way he sometimes did, but it just froze after a while, as if he forgot about it.
“Turn around?” Finnick whispered, breathlessly, never quite letting go when Haymitch turned to face the wall, so Finnick could press up against him from behind, rub his cock against the crease of Haymitch’s ass in that low-friction way that he’d found out he favored the most. “That good?” Haymitch made a helpless sound, muttering “Shit” when Finnick reached around to tug at his cock, fully hard and leaking precome. It was a great way of touching a lot at once, which always did it for Haymitch and which Finnick certainly appreciated, too. It was a great way of feeling in control of everything.
It was a way of losing sight of who your partner was, facing away, only hearing him breathe into your ear - it could be anyone, from the past. It was in the Capitol, soft and smooth mattresses and expensive, feather-light blankets, delicately scented in that distinctive way.
“Shit,” Haymitch was suddenly muttering, as if his breath was becoming too short, and that wasn’t an expression of desire anymore. “Shit, I need to… fuck.”
He’d scrambled away from Finnick in the same instance, an instinctual motion meant to push Finnick of him and to put space between them at the same time; Finnick let go as if he’d been burned, all arousal dying off, replaced by a jolt of adrenaline and shock.
“Did I… is everything alright?”
“Yeah, everything’s fucking peachy… Fuck.”
Haymitch’s swearing was a well-measured cadence, often partly meant for his own amusement. Finnick could see that something was awfully wrong from how it had turned so repetitive and violent. Haymitch was breathing harshly, holding onto the pillow he’d found himself lying on, desperately trying to get a grip.
“I’m so sorry,” Finnick breathed, near panicked. He wanted to reach out, then stopping himself when he realized how shitty an idea that could turn out to be.
Haymitch had always claimed he didn’t have reactions like this. But that had obviously not figured into the equation Finnick’s immense stupidity of not applying his brain. He’d never quite bought into that.
Shit, he was so stupid, he should have somehow seen this coming.
“’s fine,” Haymitch muttered, rapidly reclaiming control over his breath, already looking less shaken than he had a second before. The sex was done with, though. That much was clear. “Shit. Didn’t see that coming. Bit of a scare. Fuck.”
Now he mostly seemed annoyed, dropping his face into the pillow for a bone-tired, frustrated groan.
Finnick sat up in bed, the sleek Capitol blanket sliding off him. He watched Haymitch, on high alert, watching for the smallest sign to propel him into action and help. He felt sick. He didn’t understand how this had happened without him seeing it come. His own experience made him hesitant to just reach out, knowing if there was any time when he needed to wait for Haymitch to give him a signal first, it was now.
This was where you sat it out, waiting and seeing if there woud be shaking and vomit, once the adrenaline wore off, or if it would just fade away. Anything could happen. That was what he knew for sure. And he just hated that he knew so much about how those things worked.
In a corner of his mind, he’d been thinking that being together like this would make things feel less terrible, in that supposed new era with that scary new strategy, where he felt like he was falling, and he didn’t know where they would land. He didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, at the Games. He had no idea.
Instead, Finnick just felt more lost, unable to help Haymitch, while that feeling that they were making some sort of mistake just kept growing in his chest.
Tbc.
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse; anorexia and exercise addiction
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12 -- Chapter 13 -- Chapter 14 -- Chapter 15 -- Chapter 16 -- Chapter 17 -- Chapter 18 -- Chapter 19 -- Chapter 20
Chapter 21: How To Play The Games
The first unpleasant surprise of the Games was waiting for them after the chariot parade, when they made it to the Training Center bar.
The parade itself had been exactly as big a success as they had hoped it would be; afterwards, Games officials were still congratulating them on their way down from their floor to the bar. If this wasn’t life or death but an actual game, Finnick wouldn’t have been surprised if the victors, who all gathered here traditionally at this time, would have turned around at them and cheered in a show of sportsmanship. As it was, eyes were turning towards them from everywhere, the occasional friend reassuringly patting them on the back here and there, and apart from that, mostly suspicion, where people were trying to gauge if styling really could have changed the Games for Twelve.
Finnick didn’t focus on any of that, though. None of it mattered the moment the two of them had entered the room, when he scanned the crowd and made out the familiar faces from District Four. The wrong faces.
“Where is she? Is she alright?”
Something cold and awful made his stomach churn. The tall, athletic, dark-skinned woman talking to Caramel, with the bright sky blue Capitol tattoos drawing a pattern all over her face, wasn’t Mags. It was Calina, the first Four victor who had won with a trident, who’d been Finnick’s teacher at Games school, singling him out to shown him how to be a killer.
“She’s going to be alright, kiddo, relax.” Calina had met him halfway through the room, gripping his shoulders hard, anticipating his fear. “She’s getting a little old and she isn’t so quick on her feet anymore, that’s all. There might have been a little incident, but it wasn’t a heart attack. She’s going to have a calm, quiet life in retirement from now on, we’ve all decided it together.”
“Retirement,” Finnick repeated, not calmed in the least, half stuck on heart attack. “Mags.” Mags didn’t retire. She didn’t have heart attacks. She’d mentored and headed the Games school all her life, sixty-three years of it, since she’d won.
“More like her ordering us around like before but from a chair, alright,” Calina qualified with a good-natured eye roll, made to loosen him up. “It’ll mostly be me in the primary mentor’s seat from now on, maybe sometimes Caramel if the Capitol requests him anyway.”
“Lucky Caramel,” the man himself supplied with no trace of humor in his voice, ignoring Finnick but for an uneasy nod on the way towards Haymitch.
So Calina had taken Mags’ place in organizing the training and volunteer system. Having won the year after Haymitch, she was much younger than Shania and Clipper, but the district admired her almost as much as Mags, and Games school was practically her life. Add to that that Mags’ issues with speech would have eventually started damaging the district image of the healthy and athletic ocean people.
But Finnick, who supposed he should have congratulated Calina, ask her polite questions about how those things were working out, hadn’t yet swallowed the news that Mags wouldn’t be in the Capitol with him. She wouldn’t ever be here again. She made it out. He should have been glad.
She’d retired as a mentor - it wasn’t a heart attack - and that meant Finnick might just never see her again. It would just be him with Haymitch, from this Games on, until forever; District Four seemed so incredibly far away, these days. It was as if a pillar was suddenly breaking away, one that he hadn’t even been fully conscious had always been there. It was new and different and the Capitol would call it the end of an era once it caught on, an era Finnick had never considered could end.
***
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that President Snow chose that supposed new beginning to call him into his office and see if Finnick still remembered what a good little victor he was.
The Reaping had shown already that Snow had detected nothing in his activities in Twelve that warranted punishment. The Games school, his relationship with Haymitch, Snow knew all about that and had decided that it was tolerable or that he didn’t care. But that didn’t mean he’d ever let Finnick learn to walk off heel.
Forcing himself to take a seat across the President’s desk in a loose way, as if there was a camera pointed at him, Finnick refused to remember how Snow had chosen to make that point the last time he was summoned here.
“Well, Mr. Odair,” the President said. “It has been far too long since we last talked, hasn’t it?”
His puffy lips were stretched too tight, his smile never reaching his eyes. Something else was gleaming in them, something much more dangerous. Behind him through the windows, the sun loomed brightly in the Capitol sky. None of the skyscrapers obscured the view from here. This city had been built to bow to this office.
The brightness would have made Finnick’s eyes water, rendering Snow a dark, indecipherable silhouette, if the glass of the window hadn’t been dimmed. It had to be because the President didn’t like the sun shining onto his back, rather than for Finnick’s comfort, since he and Snow were both clear on how Snow owned this world and Finnick only attended as his barely tolerated guest.
He felt himself wet his lips, but didn’t reply, making sure not to look at Snow in a way that could be constructed as a challenge, or a provocation. They both knew there was nothing he could have said.
The President watched him for a moment, then folded his hands on the desk with a serious expression. “I’ll skip the pleasantries,” he said. “I sent you on your way two years ago with a very particular set of instructions. I told you to take responsibility for Mr. Abernathy’s past shows of disrespect towards the Capitol, as well as for his continued sobriety. I also pointed out to you how directly your monetary value is tied to your entertainment factor in the media, and how both of you are under an obligation to deliver in this regard, as well. I understand you have been very busy taking care of both these assignments, getting involved on a rather personal level, no less.”
Of course, Snow knew about the two of them - of course. But that didn’t mean Finnick didn’t run cold at the mention, which could always be followed by that kill order, “But that’s not what I meant when I said that.”
“I did what you asked me to do,” he hoarsely managed, although that wasn’t what his feelings for Haymitch were about, not on any level, and they both knew that, too.
He threatened to dissociate in a big way, feeling the whole world shake.
Snow smiled his shark-like smile again, as if he’d read his mind, satisfied by what he’d seen.
“And what a fine job you did so far.” He sounded almost sarcastic, his tone too soft and giving to be real. “Let me tell you a few things, Mr. Odair. Let me tell you some things about your family. You must be so desperate for news from back home.
“Your eldest brother Perri, it seems for example, has surprisingly found himself in the possession of a pregnant new wife, called Malana Odeen, whose last name he has chosen to take as his own.
“Of course, your parents are currently rather busy worrying about your sister sneaking about with her first boyfriend, in a move I understand they find distressingly reminiscent of your own exploits that same age.”
A holo flickered to life, starting to show Finnick all the people he’d had to leave in order to be able to protect them any longer. Talking to each other, argueing, hugging in that house he’d never seen, evicted from the Victors’ Rock after he left. Mom, Dad, Perri, Keanu, Coral, Uncle Lauro, Uncle Jaime.
Making absolutely sure that Finnick would never be able to forget.
***
The Training Week passed in a flurry of activity.
His first appointment was penciled into his calendar for just the day after the parade, the evening after his visit at Snow’s. The client was nothing special, but still felt disgusting and still hurt. Clients would be open wounds this Games, apparently. Finnick almost preferred it that way, in a sick way. It felt right, more like it should be. There was too much to do through the Training Days to think much about anything, though. In the evenings, it was quick dates in restaurants or clubs, clients as greedy for the paparazzi shots as they were for the quick romps that came afterwards. During the day, it was attending pre-Games events to chat up sponsors along Haymitch, coaching Peeta between training sessions. Peeta had quite a lot of upper body strength and an unexpected flair for camouflage, and Finnick hammered home to him, excessively, ways of using those two things to kill. Finnick planned on that boy getting a good score. He planned on getting him into the big alliance, using Katniss’ presence to make him look like he just happened to be the less dazzling of a pair of Careers, but a Career nonetheless. A Career strategy would make that apparent.
Katniss herself proved more complicated a tribute. Gritting his teeth, Haymitch went off to have a conversation with Chaff about a possible alliance with his huge Eleven male, but as they’d both expected, he just came back looking worn and unaccomplished. Making friends obviously didn’t come easily to Katniss anyway, though, and they eventually settled on more of a District Two style lone-wolf approach with her. They hoped she’d come across as the distant, determined sort. She’d volunteered earlier than planned to spare her sister. But all she wanted in her life was to win a Games.
Their two tributes together had the strangest dynamic, a mystery to Finnick until Haymitch cleared it up with his impeccable, intuitive ability to get to the heart of what was going on in people’s heads. Katniss and Peeta were nothing like Raif and Bee, who’d taken strength from the other during their last days. They didn’t compare to Aster and Rodey, either, who might as well have lived in different universes. These two did talk, at breakfast and dinner, as if they couldn’t stop themselves from doing so. Katniss would raise her chin in defiance whenever Peeta addressed her, but it didn’t seem to be just because she was wary of him as an opponent. Peeta would shoot her these furtive looks when he thought she wasn’t looking, and those seemed just angry and lost, angry at something other than her. No, they didn’t know each other well, he would mumble when asked, then look away. Yes, he liked Katniss. Everybody in the district liked Katniss. But those looks of his were filled with so much more meaning than the simple, admiring ones that Finnick’s trainees had shot the girl when she’d crashed Games class that one time, the kid in the starving district who’d figured out how to provide food.
In his defense, it had taken Finnick a half-naked kiss in a freezing lake and an agonizing sleepless night to understand how he felt about the man he was now in a relationship with, too.
It was during breakfast of the first training day, the stylists long gone to work on the interview dresses and the next surprise they’d planned for Katniss. Effie was delicately cutting pineapple toast into mouth-sized bits to guarantee minimum deformation of her cheeks while chewing. Meanwhile, Katniss and Peeta broke into an argument about the other one’s odds in the Games.
Looking back, Finnick couldn’t even determine how it had started.
“I can’t do anything,” Peeta had said, in that uncaring, self-depreciating way that Finnick would spend all week trying to train out of him. “Unless you count baking bread.”
Instead of clamping up and refusing to participate in the conversation like Finnick would have expected, surly Katniss used that opportunity to point out that she, like Finnick, had seen Peeta carrying all those heavy flour bags at the market. His self-perception was plain off.
“Peeta can wrestle,” she informed Finnick, almost daring him to disagree, as if it was a race. “He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother.”
“Is that so?” Finnick had contributed in interest, about to throw Peeta a look of See? Even another tribute says that but like so often, Peeta’s attention was all on Katniss.
“What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?” There was such obvious self-loathing in his voice that it made Finnick flinch in uncomfortable recognition.
“There’s always hand-to-hand combat,” Katniss bristled. “All you need is to come up with a knife, and you’ll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I’m dead!”
“But you won’t get jumped!” Peeta leaned back in his chair, forgetting about his food with a dark, hopeless, frustrated look on his face. “You’ll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows! You know what my mother said to me when she came to say goodbye? As if to cheer me up? She said maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized, she didn’t mean me, she meant you!”
Across the table, Haymitch grimaced around his fork in sympathy; catching his eye, Finnick returned the expression. He wished he could reach out to that boy in some way that would do any good at this juncture, when the kid would probably be dead, no matter his odds. Everybody in District Twelve whispered about what went on in the Mellark household, even Finnick had heard.
Peeta was on a roll, anyway, face tight and pale.
“People will help you in the arena,” he told Katniss. “They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you.
“She has no idea.” He rolled his eyes at the adults in a well-timed, scathing gesture full of ancient anger and frustration. “The effect she can have.”
Which was when Haymitch looked at the two of them, saying “Well, then,” followed by, “Well, well, well,” and when the children had left for the training session shortly after, only the two of them left, he turned to Finnick and said, “That boy is madly in love with that girl. Not that she’d notice if you waved it in front of her face.”
“What?” Finnick replied, startled, automatically looking in the direction they had left, although there was nothing left to see but the closed door. “How do you know?”
Haymitch threw him a look that said he thought Finnick was immeasurably dense sometimes.
“They barely know each other,” Finnick defended himself. Haymitch at least had had a girlfriend at that age. All Finnick knew was how to teach children swimming and killing each other with spears.
They’d never much discussed it in detail, but Finnick had gotten a distinct sense that Haymitch himself had known right away how he felt about Finnick, the second it hit him first. Knowing Haymitch, he had then probably proceeded to bang his head against something hard.
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, burying his hands in his pockets. “I’m not saying it makes any more sense than my developing a crush on my mentor just because she happened to be present. It’s not like the two of them have grown up as best buddies, right?
“What I know,” he added after a moment, contemplative, “is that the audience would see it, too, if we found the right way to club them over the head with it. They’ve got a nice chemistry, you gotta admit. Very visual, all those looks and whatnot. Lots of sparks. Not that the girl has any idea. And not that she’d listen if I proposed that kind of spin.”
“How would that even help them in there?” Finnick said after a moment. A frown had appeared on his face when he sat down on a chair, trying to think it through and switching back into Games mode himself, checking out the different angles.
Love had been played any number of times, obviously, it was such a self-evident twist in a game show full of teenagers. Professing love for another tribute just made you look weak, though, except if you went to prove that you’d fight your beloved to the death. But you could only play that strategy if your tribute was properly briefed. It was a Career move, one that the outliers with their untrained tributes rarely employed - Finnick’s only ever Four tribute had explored it on his own initiative, as it were. Ultimately, asking a child to befriend another just to kill them in the ugliest way possible was too cruel a thing, at that age when those feelings were so precious. The Careers did it because they’d been properly taught that what you did in the arena meant nothing outside of it.
Haymitch knew all of that too - better than Finnick, probably, after all those years. He looked unhappy now when he grimaced. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I guess let’s just keep an eye out.”
***
Four was the expert district on how to make a great impression; it had come into power at the Games not because it was less starved or because it was more deadly, but because Mags knew how to charm a crowd with the best marketing tales. And Mags had taught Finnick, who reminded himself now that he’d been working without Mags for two years, so her sudden absence from his Capitol life shouldn’t make a difference.
So Peeta was all flair and smiles in his single training session - and if Finnick had encouraged him to flirt with the Gamesmakers a bit in a way that would, to some, be reminiscent of the camera play Finnick himself was known for, the boy would never need to know that he’d just made a promise with that. Leave me alive, I’ll fill your treasury if you do. He scored a solid nine. It sealed the agreement with Calina and Cashmere for Peeta to join the Careers.
Katniss almost gave him a heart attack when she returned from her session in tears. She’d apparently chosen the most inopportune moment of her whole life to lose her temper and fire an arrow at the Gamesmakers’ lunch boar. The only good thing about that, Finnick faintly thought when he heard, was that at least, she hadn’t missed.
That was, until her eleven score was announced. From that moment on, when Haymitch and Finnick left the Training Center to go anywhere, the paparazzi weren’t trying to get shots of Finnick anymore. They were aiming for Haymitch, bombarding him with questions about the girl who seemed to be on fire in more than the literal way. It was less than half an hour after the score announcement that a summons to Flickerman’s show rolled in for both of them.
The Capitol was in full Games swing. An eleven for the upstart district was exactly what everybody had been hoping for to make things more exciting. Twelve had joined the big league this Games. It was an altogether different kind of Games to play, though Finnick didn’t fool himself into thinking that different meant better or easier to win. More attention meant that you would make a bigger target. Everybody in there would be wary of Katniss specifically.
An anonymous inside source tipped the press off about how the tributes from Two had been friends growing up, unexpectedly entering the arena together when the girl volunteered a year too early. Discussing that tragic circumstance on camera with Flickerman, Finnick listened to the soft cries of pity from the audience, almost feeling the sponsors sliding out of his hands when they made their way back to District Two.
He should have known that Katniss and Peeta were a little too old and a little too smart to let Finnick and Haymitch become the architects of their fortune without bringing any ideas of their own to the table - even if they turned out to be terribly dangerous ideas.
“Do you have a minute?” Peeta asked, uncomfortably hovering in the door to the Twelve lounge.
It was the morning after the score announcement, the off-day between training and interviews, used for excessive performance coaching and the last strategy sessions. Effie would swipe both kids away later to teach them how to look better on camera. But neither she, nor the stylists had made an appearance yet, and Haymitch would be undertaking his first shower of the day, his own little display of nervousness and stress. Bright pink dawn sky was illuminating the Capitol skyline outside the windows, breakfast an hour away.
“Sure, come on in,” Finnick said, looking up from his armchair, where he’d been following a tribute analysis on a morning show. Managing a smile, he tried to chase away the restlessness that came with skipping his morning workouts while he was in the Capitol.
Peeta closed the door behind himself, looking like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked sickly, as if he’d spent the night awake. Not that Finnick had ever met a tribute who slept soundly at this time.
Finnick waved at him to take a seat in one of the other chairs, muting the television.
The baker’s boy sat down uncomfortably, looking like he was very carefully choosing the words he’d outlined in advance all through the night.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, thoughtfully looking at his hands. “About our strategy. About what I’m going to do when I’m in the arena with the pack. I know it’s a little late for a change of plans, but I’ve made up my mind. I want to do it differently.”
“Okay, tell me all about it, and we’ll see,” Finnick said, who wasn’t much fazed by late changes of plans. Barely any Games plan lasted longer than the start of the broadcast, as had last been emphatically proven by Raif and Bee.
Nodding in gratitude, Peeta’s whole body posture changed ever so slightly, as if he’d only now dared to exclaim a whole breath.
“I get what you’ve been trying to do when you put me with the Careers,” he continued softly, then added almost in a hurry, “and it’s a great plan to improve my odds in there.” Finnick suppressed a snort at him at that - his feelings didn’t have to be spared by a tribute. “But now that I’m in the pack, I think I know a better way of using that to our advantage. Cato - that’s the Two boy - he said after the score announcement that we need to track down Kat right away. I told him I can probably help with that. But I lied. I mean, I guess I could, I know well enough what she’ll probably be good at doing. But I don’t want to do that.”
He paused to lick his lips, while something very unpleasant spread in Finnick’s belly. He leaned forward in his chair. “Peeta,” he said in a warning tone, “what did you do?”
“Nothing.” Peeta rolled his eyes at him. “What else should I have said? That I have no idea how to find her and look incompetent? Anyway, I’ve been thinking ever since. I could lead them to Kat, but I could lead them anywhere else, too, couldn’t I?”
“Absolutely not,” Finnick immediately said. “You’re not in there to help her. That’s not your job, when you’re not in an alliance with her. You know they’ll turn on you at the first excuse. You’re their in-pack prime target. We’ve talked about that. It’s much too dangerous.”
Peeta firmly shook his head. “No, listen, it’d be almost perfect. How would they ever know, right? I could tell them anything, I could just send them in another direction. If they manage to find her, I could even attack them and distract them so that she can get away, maybe.”
“Yeah, I’m still at ‘absolutely not,’” Finnick said, considering Peeta’s crazy idea of a scheme had just taken a turn from naïve to openly suicidal.
The first spark of annoyance flashed in Peeta’s eyes. “You said that you and Haymitch work together. Don’t you want to save her life?”
“I want to save your life more,” Finnick replied immediately. “That’s the goal here, Peeta.”
“Great. Now somebody is making that his business,” Peeta muttered. Then he looked up at Finnick again, his face frighteningly determined and clear. “I think you should be all for the idea. It’s true what you and Haymitch have been saying on the television, right? You want to make things better for Twelve. You want more tributes to win.”
“Of course, we want more tributes to win…” Finnick said, a little edgy himself because he was growing so tired of having to repeat that, and also this conversation was ridiculous, but Peeta wasn’t finished.
“Well, everybody keeps saying that Twelve hasn’t ever had a tribute with Kat’s odds, right? Even Effie has said it to me, and Salacia, she’s the one who does my hair, she has, too. It would be stupid if you didn’t do all you can to get her home, and I can help you with that. I know I’m not that great a tribute. You keep telling me I am to make me feel better, thanks for that, but I don’t deserve a victory the way she does. I’d rather help bring her home than survive.”
His voice had wavered on that last bit when the impact of what he’d just said seemed to really hit him - he was talking of dying, at sixteen, when his life had barely started - but his face remained firm. Finnick had a sudden flashback to Aster, although she’d been just the opposite of this boy with his open face and his concern about other people. She’d asked in her weird, emotionless way what would help Twelve the most apart from a victory. Make a splash. But she’d really stood no chance at winning; nobody had expected her to get even as far as she had. It was disconcerting how these two children could be so different and still somehow arrive at this point where there wasn’t any hope, in that cold-hearted way.
Although Finnick remembered all the things Haymitch had said about Peeta, so now he had an inkling that Peeta was thinking in an entirely different direction from Aster.
“Peeta,” he said softly, feeling wildly out of his depth. “Peeta, I know you have a bit of a thing for Katniss, but that isn’t a reason to throw away your chance to survive.”
Peeta had glanced up at him abruptly at the admission, a faint blotchy blush appearing on his face. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “You don’t understand,” he said. “No, you don’t understand at all, I…”
“You barely know this girl, Peeta,” Finnick fiercely said.
The blotches on Peeta’s face turned a shy kind of crimson.
“You don’t understand,” he repeated. “I’m in love with her.”
Finnick just looked at him for a moment, disbelieving, no words coming to mind.
You didn’t have time to notice a girl’s pretty eyes in the Games; Haymitch had said that to him on the train ride. But that one, Finnick was sure about all by himself, remembering the goosebumps on his skin, the cold, dark corners in his own arena.
Finnick tried to recall the few things he knew about this young man, his relationship with Katniss - there was some kind of story there no matter what, there had to be. But maybe Peeta had no better luck figuring out why he thought the felt that way than Finnick. Finnick tried to picture living in that family, but his own parents had always been great, and the Twelve bakers were that ominous black box that everybody only looked at askew from the outside, never knowing what went on exactly. Maybe the Mellarks bought Katniss’ game. Maybe Mrs. Mellark hit her son, then served him turkey shot by that pretty girl who nursed her sister.
Maybe Peeta hated his life just as much as Finnick had used to hate his, and now he saw a chance to be a hero. Finnick hadn’t been a volunteer in his Games; his name hadn’t been carved into the Monument of Sacrifice, and there’d been a time when he’d been so jealous of those names of those dead people who’d saved somebody’s life. If he’d had a chance of dying as someone’s hero, he would have taken it, two years ago. But that had been then.
It just meant he couldn’t send Peeta in there just to let him die now.
There was nothing about that sketchy, dubious plan that Finnick didn’t hate on first sight. Peeta or not, all his instincts screamed ‘no’ at the whole idea. This wasn’t how you played the Games, you learned that quickly as a victor. Not following the rules had terrible consequences in this life that they led; Peeta had no chance of knowing how terrible.
Finnick took a deep breath to cool himself off, refusing to picture Snow’s long fingers folded on the top of his desk.
“Have you ever even talked to Katniss before this Games?” he asked, tightly controlled, not ready to stop arguing that point because this was so ridiculous.
Peeta shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does,” Finnick said. “You want to throw your life away for a girl you’ve barely ever looked in the eye from up close.”
He wanted to tell him, That isn’t love, that’s just delusion. But he couldn’t get himself to say that to a boy whose time might be running out.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peeta repeated, practically breathing it out as if to remind himself.
He wasn’t looking at Finnick anymore, determined in that forlorn way - with a quiet dignity that was unexpected and all the more startling for it.
He was keeping himself intact. The Games hadn’t even officially started, and already he was working on keeping himself intact.
With a ludicrous plan that could get his whole family killed, if it didn’t kill him first, and Finnick and Haymitch along with it.
Abruptly, Finnick stood up, unable to look at him any longer.
“I’ll do you the favor and talk it through with the person who’s actually responsible for bringing Katniss home, unlike us,” he said. “And if Haymitch tells you that we don’t coach tributes to commit suicide, too, we’re going to put this to rest and never talk about it again.”
***
Haymitch leaned back in his chair, rubbing his freshly shaven chin.
“As ways of improving the odds go, it’s not the worst strategy I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Finnick said.
He gave the other man a disbelieving look, before plopping down on Haymitch’s fancy Capitol four-poster bed. Right now, he didn’t care about who recorded what. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself grimly. They were just discussing their tributes, as proper mentors should. They were yet again doing everything right.
Also Haymitch, who’d needed the whole two years of their acquaintance to get comfortable with the Games strategizing that he was so good at, had chosen this very moment to switch into full-blown marketing mode, apparently, so who knew which way was up and which was down.
As if too busy contemplating the many ideas appearing in his head, Haymitch just shrugged, seated on the desk chair at the other side of the room, paying him no mind.
His shirt was half-buttoned, the lapels of the new jacket Portia had designed for him hanging loose; Finnick’s brain chose this improbable moment to notice how attractive he looked, mind at work, like he couldn’t care less who studied him or what they’d think of what they saw.
“This would be a complete change of plans, obviously,” Haymitch said. “We’d have to figure it all out real quick. Wouldn’t want to contradict something we’ve already established. I mean, we’d have to find a way of explaining to people what’s happening in the arena while the boy’s doing his thing, so we’d need to set it up in the interview.”
“Would we now,” Finnick faintly said, looking at him in bewilderment.
This plan wasn’t how the Games was supposed to be played.
Haymitch gave him an unhappy smirk that said that no, he didn’t actually think this was funny. There was nothing positive in this whole strategy premise, but he was willing to consider it anyway because last year, he’d promised Finnick that that would be what he’d always try to do. Which meant he had to do it all the way to get it right.
A strangely determined look had crossed his face, one that Finnick had never before seen on him - as if a light had been turned on, making everything harsh and easy to see.
“Think about it,” Haymitch said, hunching forward in his chair, clasping his hands together. “Think about it,” he repeated in a mutter to himself before continuing with a stronger voice. “We send the boy to give the interview as planned. All smiles and honesty. Then he goes into the arena sneaking about with ulterior motives, looking shifty. Not gonna work. At best, nobody gets what he’s doing, which works fine for the likes of Johanna, but not for a tribute who actually stands a chance at sponsors.”
“And at worst?” Finnick asked, not quite willing yet to follow that train of thought on his own initiative.
“At worst, somebody cries foul play. People in charge get nervous, rumor makes the rounds we rigged the Games, sending in a tribute to fight for another.” Something flashed across his face for a beat, making him look faintly sick. “We really don’t want that.”
“No kidding,” Finnick breathed. “Just another reason to not let the boy commit fucking suicide.”
“It’s the Hunger Games, you have to reconsider that whole concept,” Haymitch said very sarcastically. Then he took a long breath and continued outlining the situation. “No,” he said. “That’s why it’s so perfect. You gotta announce the whole plan in advance, play it out in the open, right? But then, the Careers learn what he’s up to, too, and that’s that with the alliance, they’d team up and kill him at the bloodbath just to make the point. So instead, we get him up there on the stage with Flickerman, have him talk about how much he loves the girl. Careers will think it’s a ruse. It’s always a fucking ruse. Capitol will eat it up like candy because they always do that, too, and we’ll even have a real story to compete for media attention.” Again he paused, considering. “And now think of how pretty the shock will look on Katniss’ face, real emotion and all instead of that slug impression of hers. Camera close-ups, all of it, beautifully. Reaping Day all over again. She’s honestly nonplussed, she can’t fuck it up.”
“That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard!” Finnick exclaimed. “You’re still talking about letting a tribute with a nine score walk into a death trap!”
“You’re the one who keeps preaching that we need to play the fucking long-term strategy!” Haymitch shot back, just as harshly, and it was a testament to how well they knew each other and how long they’d been doing this already how Finnick was able to hear that there wasn’t any actual malice in his voice.
Finnick informed him with a look about what he thought of Haymitch’s mental health right now. “Score of nine,” he repeated, very slowly, so that it would penetrate Haymitch’s unexpectedly thick skull.
Haymitch clenched his jaw.
He looked at his hands, as if studying something, visibly swallowing down a lump.
Much later, Finnick would think he’d traced Maysilee Donner’s blood dripping off his fingers.
“We can get that girl home with that plan,” he said, grim and resolved. “Think about those odds. She’s got a score of eleven. Sponsors lining up so we can send her that bow, she never needs to get into the bloodbath. Add to that, we’ll startle an actual on-camera reaction out of her. Then, the boy working on saving her, too, but from the inside. Out of fucking love, so what’s Snow gonna do about it? We can get that kid home.”
“We can get that boy killed.”
“One of them will die, either way!”
Haymitch stood up, abruptly, angry. It was so similar to that evening at Swagger’s, when Finnick had told him all his dirty secrets and Haymitch had exploded into fury, too. It made Finnick startle now, too. Except he’d been in hysterics then, thinking he had lost Haymitch for good. Now, despite the discomfort eating at him, he could see that Haymitch was plain upset. Things were happening that he didn’t like, and there was nothing he could change about it. He could just get angry, because everything was out to get them all the time, because he’d allowed himself to care and it hurt. That evening, it had meant he cared about Finnick. Now, it meant he cared about both these children, but it was the Hunger Games and only one out of the twenty-four, each of them beloved to somebody, would get to go home.
Anxious and miserable, Finnick glanced up and watched him pace the room, back and forth before he seemed to realize how useless that was, coming to a halt and rubbing his palm across his face in a resolute gesture.
He turned towards Finnick, towering, although Finnick would have a whole foot on him if he stood up. He didn’t want to stand up, though. He’d never wanted to loom over Haymitch less.
“It’s not a suicide plan,” Haymitch told Finnick, calmly. “If the girl dies, everybody who sponsored her will jump ship and leave the money with him. It’d be like a substitute victory. All he has to do is two-time the Careers and the audience for a couple of days. The moment it gets hot, he gets out. Bit more dangerous than we planned, but basically still the same imperative. He’ll be on his own, out there still trying to help Katniss, everybody will take it for that grand romantic story.”
“You’re expecting a lot from Peeta, playing everybody like that at once. He’s not a Career. He doesn’t have any camera training.”
“Tell me honestly that you think he couldn’t pull it off.”
Finnick sighed.
“What if Katniss decides to get rid of the threat and take him out by herself?”
They couldn’t let her in on it, that much was for sure. She just couldn’t work with a script. Never mind that she would rightfully hate everything about that plan, and Finnick was very much with her on that.
But Haymitch was shaking his head.
“She won’t.”
“And you would know that because…”
“Couldn’t ever show her face again in the district if she makes it home, and she knows it.” Then he muttered, incomprehensibly, “Too great a debt.”
Finnick buried his face in his hands, gripping his hair for a moment in an attempt to chase that horrible headache out of his temples that was suddenly creeping up. Really? That’s what I get this Games, headaches? He’d had worse reactions. But he also still couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. There was no single bit that he liked about it.
It wasn’t even because it was Peeta, who’d smiled at him on the street. It was the whole plan. It made his skin scrawl.
“Listen to me, Finnick,” Haymitch said. “This is exactly what we’ve been trying to do. Start going somewhere with those kids. Now we have this chance of going somewhere big. I’ve been doing this for twenty-four fucking years. This is the best odds it gets. We have a shot at a fucking romance. Everybody always wants a romance. And it ain’t the Careers where it’s all fake and they’re just setting up their final kill, it’s gonna be real.”
Glancing up at Haymitch again, Finnick looked at him, really looked - how sure he was of himself suddenly, how absolutely he knew that there was no flaw in his logic. He’d thrown himself at it for real and he knew this game, inside out. He’d opened himself up to that again, because Finnick had asked. And he was doing it sober. He hadn’t even been able to talk about the tributes’ meals one-and-a-half years ago without needing a drink.
He didn’t look like there was enough free space left in his mind right now to remember his longing for alcohol.
Finnick hated everything about this. It went against how the Games was supposed to be played, even if it wasn’t cheating, strictly speaking. But Haymitch using the force field to survive hadn’t been cheating, either - strictly speaking. He knew, objectively, that Haymitch was right. Snow wouldn’t do anything about something that the Capitol fell in love with. But that wouldn’t automatically make Snow a fan.
It left a dark, foreboding, sick feeling in his stomach. He knew he wouldn’t veto it. But a big part of him kept demanding that he should.
***
The star-crossed lovers of District Twelve.
Effie and the stylists were still celebrating when Haymitch and Finnick made their goodbyes, the children off to lie awake in bed before the big day long since. The interviews had been a perfect success, topping even the parade. Cinna’s dress had transformed Katniss into all the fashion scene would talk about all summer season, exactly the right mix of exotic and dazzling and fierce for the audience to nod along when Peeta revealed how he felt about that girl. Of course. That makes sense. She’s meant to be loved.
Every screen was dominated by Peeta and his declaration of love, by Katniss and the jolt that had run through her that moment, eyes wide, stopping herself from raising from her chair. Other catchphrases were making the rounds. The Girl On Fire. District Twelve’s Doomed Love. Haymitch had been right. The Capitol had eaten it up. Meanwhile, Calina had released the news of Mags’ retirement from the Games, and everybody was talking of how they were witnessing a new generation starting to bloom, of how Finnick and the changes he’d prompted in Twelve might be the first glimpse at an entirely new kind of Games.
Haymitch had slipped into Finnick’s room alongside him instead of his own. Everybody would think they still had Games prep to finish - still a good excuse. He sank on the chair at the small desk, rubbing his face.
“Fucking dirt of the districts,” he muttered, withdrawn and shaky and like he hated carrying all that responsibility already, because the press had it wrong - this was his brain child, Finnick just looked better on the posters, tagging along. All his life, Haymitch had dealt by retreating, but he’d closed that door for now.
“Would you…” Finnick started saying, uncertain, because everything about this was leaving him anxious, agitated, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He trusted Haymitch that he knew what he was doing, he told himself. He did.
Haymitch glanced up. “I could probably stay an hour or two, none of them would think anything of it tonight,” he said.
“Yes,” Finnick said, and Haymitch followed his eyes to the bed with an expression that seemed uncertain in a different way.
They undressed, slipping under the covers together. Finnick wasn’t even sure why he wanted this right now. They’d never done much with each other in the Capitol before. There were too many bugs and even cameras, everywhere, and he could constantly feel the touch of his clients’ hands on himself, lingering, never quite going away. His own hands on himself, that night back when with Snow. Haymitch hadn’t made any move like this last Games. But Finnick was uneasy, and he was hurting, and he wanted it gone. He wanted home and Haymitch back.
“Touch me more?” he asked, because he couldn’t get a clear read on his own feelings right now. But it was Haymitch who leaned in, kissing him another time and replying, “No. Don’t do that. You do your thing. You make the calls.” And after a moment of hesitation, “Please. I want that, too.”
Yes, it was arousing to hear, sharp like a blade, that sudden, unexpected I want. Haymitch had never asked for anything before. Immediately, a dozen questions appeared in Finnick’s mind. What did he like about it? What did it mean to him? There were a thousand different kinds of submission, and Finnick was intimately acquainted with all. He could find something to deliver for any. Did Haymitch want him to push him around? Did holding still for Finnick remind him of being restrained? Did he want to be ordered or asked, did he want to be made to beg? He’d said please.
But it was the first time Haymitch had asked, sounding just as needy as Finnick felt, so this was not the time to talk, and they’d done this many times before. No matter that he didn’t understand where such a preference could be coming from, when it would have twisted something in his guts if the situation was reversed.
He pushed Haymitch into the sheets underneath him, rubbing himself against him and kissing him and clutching his hair the way they both liked, listening for Haymitch exclaiming those deeper breaths that were almost moans. He was just as eager to answer the kisses. His hand fell on Finnick’s upper arm to run up and down in that way he sometimes did, but it just froze after a while, as if he forgot about it.
“Turn around?” Finnick whispered, breathlessly, never quite letting go when Haymitch turned to face the wall, so Finnick could press up against him from behind, rub his cock against the crease of Haymitch’s ass in that low-friction way that he’d found out he favored the most. “That good?” Haymitch made a helpless sound, muttering “Shit” when Finnick reached around to tug at his cock, fully hard and leaking precome. It was a great way of touching a lot at once, which always did it for Haymitch and which Finnick certainly appreciated, too. It was a great way of feeling in control of everything.
It was a way of losing sight of who your partner was, facing away, only hearing him breathe into your ear - it could be anyone, from the past. It was in the Capitol, soft and smooth mattresses and expensive, feather-light blankets, delicately scented in that distinctive way.
“Shit,” Haymitch was suddenly muttering, as if his breath was becoming too short, and that wasn’t an expression of desire anymore. “Shit, I need to… fuck.”
He’d scrambled away from Finnick in the same instance, an instinctual motion meant to push Finnick of him and to put space between them at the same time; Finnick let go as if he’d been burned, all arousal dying off, replaced by a jolt of adrenaline and shock.
“Did I… is everything alright?”
“Yeah, everything’s fucking peachy… Fuck.”
Haymitch’s swearing was a well-measured cadence, often partly meant for his own amusement. Finnick could see that something was awfully wrong from how it had turned so repetitive and violent. Haymitch was breathing harshly, holding onto the pillow he’d found himself lying on, desperately trying to get a grip.
“I’m so sorry,” Finnick breathed, near panicked. He wanted to reach out, then stopping himself when he realized how shitty an idea that could turn out to be.
Haymitch had always claimed he didn’t have reactions like this. But that had obviously not figured into the equation Finnick’s immense stupidity of not applying his brain. He’d never quite bought into that.
Shit, he was so stupid, he should have somehow seen this coming.
“’s fine,” Haymitch muttered, rapidly reclaiming control over his breath, already looking less shaken than he had a second before. The sex was done with, though. That much was clear. “Shit. Didn’t see that coming. Bit of a scare. Fuck.”
Now he mostly seemed annoyed, dropping his face into the pillow for a bone-tired, frustrated groan.
Finnick sat up in bed, the sleek Capitol blanket sliding off him. He watched Haymitch, on high alert, watching for the smallest sign to propel him into action and help. He felt sick. He didn’t understand how this had happened without him seeing it come. His own experience made him hesitant to just reach out, knowing if there was any time when he needed to wait for Haymitch to give him a signal first, it was now.
This was where you sat it out, waiting and seeing if there woud be shaking and vomit, once the adrenaline wore off, or if it would just fade away. Anything could happen. That was what he knew for sure. And he just hated that he knew so much about how those things worked.
In a corner of his mind, he’d been thinking that being together like this would make things feel less terrible, in that supposed new era with that scary new strategy, where he felt like he was falling, and he didn’t know where they would land. He didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, at the Games. He had no idea.
Instead, Finnick just felt more lost, unable to help Haymitch, while that feeling that they were making some sort of mistake just kept growing in his chest.
Tbc.