Annie Cresta | Victor of the 70th Hunger Games (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
treadswater) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ten_fwd2015-01-22 08:56 pm
treadswater) wrote in ten_fwd2015-01-22 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
entrance
[Personal Log:
“For those of you just tuning in, shocking revelations about Capitol hearthrob Finnick Odair...”
Some dialogue + scenes taken from Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. CW: Panic/anxiety attacks, non-consensual drug use, brief violence, references to violent televised death and forced prostitution]
There is a flash of light and a young woman appears. Small, with a face more interesting than pretty (despite the artful, occasionally artistic make-up), wearing a knee-length blue-and-green dress with a crinoline; visually, the only thing eye-catching about her is her hair. Her hair – long, thick and very red – has has been pulled up into a square knot on the top of her head with loose ringlets falling this way and that. She's clutching something in her left hand, something that occasionally catches the light, but it's not easily seen.
No, to the casual viewer, what would be strange about the woman is that apart from a brief, startled giggle, she doesn't look terribly concerned at all to being transported to a strange place.
From the woman's point of view, her arrival is a bit different.
for hours, but the current has shifted.
It's tugging her, clouding her vision until everything is dark, blurry, strange halos around things. Objects.
Not her kitchen. Not her house. She doesn't think. Too many legs. Tables, chairs; people, she guesses. But she can't focus. She's awash with not feeling afraid. She feels
w o n d e r fulandherheartgoes
until she's nothing
n o t h i n g
but her heart. Not even the almost-post-sex glow any more (brief, so brief, that'd been so brief and odd, odd, odd even in the cloudy water that is reality), she's just her thudding heart and an absence of caring.
It's....nice.
Annie's dimly aware of her fingers starting to shake, of the blood moving fast-too-fast and irritation is beginning to spiral through her mind like the poisonous tendrils of a jelly-fish. If she could just focus. Just a little bit. Toes-in-the-sand levels of focus, leaving the rest of her to drift.
Peacekeepers in her house. And reporters. Have to watch them, like you watch all predators.
But she can't see them.
[ooc: locked tofishermansweater and asklepian: she'll have an open post soon, but feel free to have your character notice this one!]
Some dialogue + scenes taken from Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. CW: Panic/anxiety attacks, non-consensual drug use, brief violence, references to violent televised death and forced prostitution]
There is a flash of light and a young woman appears. Small, with a face more interesting than pretty (despite the artful, occasionally artistic make-up), wearing a knee-length blue-and-green dress with a crinoline; visually, the only thing eye-catching about her is her hair. Her hair – long, thick and very red – has has been pulled up into a square knot on the top of her head with loose ringlets falling this way and that. She's clutching something in her left hand, something that occasionally catches the light, but it's not easily seen.
No, to the casual viewer, what would be strange about the woman is that apart from a brief, startled giggle, she doesn't look terribly concerned at all to being transported to a strange place.
From the woman's point of view, her arrival is a bit different.
Annie's been feeling as if she's underwater,
It's tugging her, clouding her vision until everything is dark, blurry, strange halos around things. Objects.
Not her kitchen. Not her house. She doesn't think. Too many legs. Tables, chairs; people, she guesses. But she can't focus. She's awash with not feeling afraid. She feels
thud-thud, thud-thud
n o t h i n g
but her heart. Not even the almost-post-sex glow any more (brief, so brief, that'd been so brief and odd, odd, odd even in the cloudy water that is reality), she's just her thudding heart and an absence of caring.
It's....nice.
(She thinks.)
Annie's dimly aware of her fingers starting to shake, of the blood moving fast-too-fast and irritation is beginning to spiral through her mind like the poisonous tendrils of a jelly-fish. If she could just focus. Just a little bit. Toes-in-the-sand levels of focus, leaving the rest of her to drift.
But she can't see them.
“Oops,” Annie says, and bites her bottom lip.
[ooc: locked to
fishermansweater and asklepian: she'll have an open post soon, but feel free to have your character notice this one!]
[ tw: suicide references ]
He has Katniss' rope, and it's all he can concentrate on. It's not a long piece, but it doesn't have to be.
(When he'd first learned to use tying knots over and over to soothe his thoughts when nothing else could, he'd been restricted to a piece of rope too short for a noose.
There'd been a reason for that.)
His fingers are moving quickly along the rope's length, in and around and over and through and there's a knot there, firm, strong, until he tugs at it just right and it unravels, and he can start over.
Focus on one thing at a time.
One thing, and move forward.
no subject
her fingers won't let her.
One step forward. Carefully, carefully, the heels are new and the current is tugging at her ankles, but she moves another step and another.
Annie drifts, t r a i l i n g impatiently jittery fingers over the tops of chairs until she pauses, finger-tip on a table. She
stares.
Bronze hair. Tousled. Not as much as normal, but like he's rolled out of bed. Bronze hair and rope and she knows those hands, knows the restlessness of knots done over and over and over and she's lost.
He shouldn't be here.
Her house has changed, changed until she can't recognize it, but Finnick was on the television, not safe in her house. But.
But.
"Finnick?"
no subject
His fingers jerk and everything about him stops.
The voice cuts through the fog of his mind, through the narrowed focus of his gaze, through everything, and he can't believe he's hearing it.
But he has to believe he's hearing it, and his head jerks up, his hand clutching so tight around the rope he can feel the half-tied knot digging into his palm. His head jerks up, and his eyes are wide, wild, his heart thumping so hard it's painful.
It's her.
It's her, she's right there, in a dress he's never seen her in, but with her hair tied up like a girl from their fishery dressed up for a dance.
"Annie!"
And then his voice catches, painful, at the back of his throat, turning into something like a half-strangled sob, and he's up, on his feet, and he's going to her, like there's nobody else in the room, all thoughts of cameras and surveillance and Capitol tricks gone from his mind, because she's here, she's alive, and there are tears in his eyes by the time he's gotten to her and all he can do is bury his face in her shoulder, because she's here.
"You're alive."
no subject
Annie.
The Capitol can mimic voices; she heard them, she heard them making her scream. But that doesn't matter. They can mimic him. Not how he says her name. They've never heard it.
"FINNICK!" Her voice is piercing, a shriek of pure, almost terrible joy, and she doesn't remember running towards him, doesn't even remember him picking her up but he must've, he must've, because she's in his arms, legs and arms wrapped firmly around him, clinging to him.
"Finnick, Finnick, Finnick," she whispers, moving her right hand only to try and get him to look up at her. Her left is still holding the broken bottle neck, and she can't remember why that's important, because he's out of the arena, he's here he's
safe.
"Finn, Finnick, stay with me, okay?"
no subject
Annie.
The rope is held so tight in his hand that it hurts, so tight his knuckles turn white, and he can't look up, he can't do anything but bury his face in her, feeling her, smelling her, smelling of some sort of perfume she doesn't normally wear, but underneath it, there's sunshine and salt and Annie.
He lets out a sob, gasping, into her shoulder, and she's wrapped around him so tight it's almost constricting, but it's like the warm embrace of the sea baked in sunshine, as essential a part of him as air and water. She's life, she's light, she's everything, everything he's thought was gone, but she's here, he's holding her, and her hand is pressing to his face, pushing at him until he takes another deep breath of her and lifts his head, eyes far too bright, far too green, his breath heaving, unsteadily, and then he's staring at her, staring because he knows it's true, knows it's her, this time.
The last time he'd heard her voice, it had been screaming, over and over, in the arena.
"Annie. Annie."
He lifts a hand from where it clutches at her back, lifts it to her head, presses it into the masses of her red waves of hair, burying his fingers there, desperate to feel her.
"I'm here. I'm ..."
There's so much to say to her that his voice fails him again, and all he can do is shake his head.
He'd never had the chance to say goodbye to her, but it doesn't matter now. She's here, with him, and nothing else matters.
no subject
So she kisses him and tries to say everything she's having trouble thinking with it.
no subject
my last thought will be of your lips
my last wish will be for your touch
my last breath will whisper my love
into the darkness
They'd been the stupidest words, but they'd been the last ones he'd had the chance to give to her, and he'd had to give them on national television. He'd meant to toy with the hearts of every single one of them there in that room, all of them who'd had him and all of them who'd wanted him but hadn't known the rules.
But in the end, the only person he could talk to in those moments was Annie.
He's not dying. Wherever he is, he's not in the arena. But her hand is on him and her lips are on his, and he's kissing her, his hand tangling in her hair, probably holding her too tight, probably kissing her too hard, but he can't not.
He'd been so convinced Snow would kill her, so convinced she'd been hurt, hurt to torment him, like he knows Snow is capable of because threatening Annie is the only way to keep him under control. Fear. Fear for Annie (and Mags, but Mags is gone, gone in the fog) has been all that's kept Finnick caught in the net until the revolution gave him the chance to escape all that.
She's the only thing left in the world that he loves, and kissing her another time he never thought he'd have is like kissing her for the first time all over again, when he'd been a broken-down shell of her mentor and she'd been trying to learn to live as a victor.
He's kissing her, and he thought he'd never get the chance to kiss her again, and it's long and hard and deep and desperate, like it's been months instead of days, because they'd been going to die.
no subject
He tastes the same: the Capitol couldn't manage that, but it's a confusion that manages to tumble through the tangled seagrass jungle of her thoughts.
Capitol tricks, tricks, mutts aren't the same
he's Finnick
they stole her voice but sounds deceive
in the arena.
Which is...
"I'm, I'm still really confused," she says, distractedly pulling her head back enough to peer at him. "I...
Finnick?"
She was going to ask him something,
something really important.
Instead, she reaches up with her free hand and frowns as she traces out the edges of where the acid burn should have been.
no subject
The elaborately beautiful patterns around her eyes that look so familiar. The roving gaze, the tiny pupils, not right for the dim lighting in the bar. The breathlessness when he knows she can hold her breath as well as he can on most days, because they've made games out of that when they're hiding in the lee of the islands off the shore, in their secret places away from the eyes of District Four.
The way she seems to drift, and it's not quite Annie. He knows; he's seen her moods, watched them ever since she came out of the arena, as her mentor, as her friend, as her lover.
Annie had been about to ask him a question, but her attention's drifted, her hand wandering to caress where Doctor Bashir had healed the burns on his face.
"I'm okay," he says, a lie, but a lie that's true enough for now. Physically, he's fine. Mentally, emotionally ...
Better than he was. Better for having her here.
Not for the odd way the light catches those shrunken pupils.
He's seen that look on too many other victors' faces.
"Who drugged you?"
no subject
on this thought and that one.
Annie frowns.
That wasn't her question. It was something else, something else important but she can't, she can't remember
it's g o n e.
"Uh, um," she says and shakes her head sharply. It doesn't help. Everything is water and she can't see clearly, can't move through the current. Making a small, annoyed sound, she buries her face in the crook of his shoulder and neck, breathing him in and trying to remember... Remember anything.
Who drugged you?
She can...she can answer this. Her hands twist, and she taps the lip of her broken bottle neck against his back as she thinks, but who drugged you is simple.
"Clodia's....her, her stupid bottom-feeder assistant. I really don't like him," she adds, and even with the room spinning inside her skull, she can manage a passable Capitol accent.
[ cw: prostitution, assault, drug use ]
He'd recognized Clodia's handiwork in the paint on her eyelids. He could hardly have worked so closely, so intimately, with Clodia for so very many years without being able to recognize her work when he sees it, and she'd gone all out on Annie, the makeup and hair highlighting the subtle beauty in her face.
Clodia must have gone to find Annie to prepare her before the media storm around the final eight tributes crashed over her.
His hand lifts from her hair to brush against her cheek, his eyes blazingly intent on her face, and suddenly very hard.
Valerius Cat has doped him up on morphling in the past, but he's done it so Finnick could function through pain when Clodia had to paint over the bruises left by patrons who wanted to take their power games out on a victor who could have killed them in an instant but was helpless to fight back.
(He is never going to stop owing that woman: people underestimate a stylist. Clodia's pieced him together when nothing else could, used beauty as a devastating mask for him to hide behind.)
But Finnick's been high on morphling, seen other victors high on it, plenty of times himself, before Annie came into his life and he had someone to be responsible for. He knows the signs.
"He gave you too much. But it's okay, there's a doctor here. He can help."
no subject
she can't-
His eyes are pretty. Clear, clear like the sun over the sea-green water, not jade or old copper like sometimes the Capitol wits try to get creative about but
water.
B u t he's staring like she needs to do something and she can't, she can't remember.
Doctor, doctor. That's important. Too much morphling, she overshot the mark. Coffee, too? Maybe that's important. But Finnick says help and there's only one thing she'd like help on.
"He...can make me not afraid? I liked that bit. It's going away."
[ cw: drug use ]
Victors are always afraid. Finnick's always afraid, Annie's always afraid, and he knows what it's like to soar before the winds of the drug, skimming over the fear like it can't touch him, like he can just leave it behind, escape the feeling of being cornered in the Capitol's cage like a prized beast and be free.
But he knows what it's like for that wind to drive him to the rocks, too, to send him crashing back into a fear far worse than before, until the only possible solution seems to be to soar again.
That's why the victors take morphling.
"It always does," he says. "Nothing can make you not afraid."
They're victors. They've lived all their lives under the shadow of the Games, even before they went into the arena. And they're marked, now, marked because of what they are to each other.
They'll never not be afraid.
Finnick's mouth tenses, sadness pulling at its corners, shadowing those bright eyes.
"I'm here," he whispers, brushing hair back from her face. "I can protect you."
no subject
safe never ever ever safe except he tries and she wants
(she doesn't know what.
everything)
"Make it stop," she whispers. "I want everythin' to stop."
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He knows sometimes it's not real. Knows sometimes she plays to her audience's expectations of madness as much as he plays to their expectations of seduction. He'd taught her that, to use the Capitol's expectations as a shield, and she'd managed to escape the worst of their attention because of it.
This isn't that laugh. This is Annie teetering, anxiety and morphling melding to leave her on the edge of genuine hysterics, the hysterics that are painful for him to see, like when he'd last seen her, sobbing uncontrollably as first she, then he, was called for the Games. As Mags went in her place. As he hugged the woman who's been like his mother and as the peacekeepers led them to the train with no hope of goodbyes.
(She'd looked like she was crying for Mags. Mags, who died for them.)
His face twists for a fleeting moment before he gets it under control again, controlled for her, strong for her.
What happened to her, while he was in the arena? While he was here?
"Okay," he says. "We'll get you help. I'm going to let you down, and we'll go find the doctor."
no subject
"Okay," she echoes.
She can go down. Grab the next person, make a chain, that's what you do in floods and tides and hurricane-evacuation and this isn't that bad. It's just water she's moving in. Not that fast.
"Okay."
Carefully, Annie unhooks her legs from around him and slips down to the floor. C a r e f u l l y, clutching his arms until her feet find the floor. It's hard to keep her hold: her fingers are shaking, and she still has the bottle neck.
Annie swaps slightly, opening her hand to look at the piece of jagged-edged glass even as she sways in and leans her head against his chest. Good Finnick. He's useful. Solid. Alive, heart beating (but not as loud as hers, hers is drowning out everything). And, and she remembers.
"I... protect you, too," she says, but sound isn't very good underwater. She can't hear herself. But he has to hear her over the thud-thud, thud-thud and-
"Wait!" Annie says, her head jerking up as she takes a step back.
"Peacekeepers? You gotta be...careful."
no subject
Annie's small in comparison to him, in weight, in height, in build, but she's strong, and she's holding herself up as much as he's holding her. Likewise, she lets herself down, with his help, leaning on his arms, until she has her feet on the ground again and she leans forward, like she's drawn by a current, to press her head against his chest.
He drops his face to kiss the crown of her head, and as he does so, he finally lets himself lift his gaze to the rest of the lounge.
Of course they're being watched. The security personnel with their holstered weapons are eying them, but making no move. Others are just staring.
He hadn't even thought about the fact that they were in public; he simply needed to get to Annie, and now, he simply needs to take care of her.
He wishes he could ground her better; he knows the trip when he sees it, knows that lost and distant look on her face, like but unlike when her anxiety drives her from the world. But just as he's about to slip an arm around her, she speaks, and he makes a hushing sound at the hesitation in her voice.
It gets worse; she steps away, suddenly fearful, and he shakes his head.
"No, they're not," he says, ducking his head so that he can look straight into her eyes. They're panicky, now, and he can feel the situation slipping away from them, reaches for her hand, the one that doesn't, now that he really pays attention, have what looks like some of her glass clutched tight in it.
"There aren't any," he says, keeping his voice as calm as he can, though it hurts everything in him to hear her like this, to see the look on her face. "I'll tell you later. The doctor, remember?"
no subject
But even she knows she's not sober.
Hasn't been for hours.
And she can't, she can't see straight, everything is shifting and the only things feeling remotely real are Finnick and the too-fast beating of her heart. She can hear him say,
and it's all getting too much, things are scratching back into being real like her sandals, the stickiness of her scalp under all her hair and she wants things off so she can cool down but he says, later.
"A'right," Annie manages, and clings not so much to his hand as his arm. He wouldn't lie to her. "I can't...
tell me if I'm gonna trip."
no subject
There are eyes on them and he knows that they've just done something impossibly dangerous. But he'd been too worried, too relieved, to think about that. To think about anything but Annie.
Their secret's shattered, and now they've just reinforced that. In the most public place here.
So when Annie clutches at his arm, Finnick presses his hand to her back, like he'd do in private on a bad day back in District 4, when she needs help to ground herself in here, in now, in home instead of the arena, in Finnick instead of the circling Capitol sharks.
"I promise," he says.
Now his focus has shifted from the all-encompassing need to be with her, in her arms, holding her, proving she really is here, his eyes aren't so intently focused on hers. They're darting from spot to spot, surveying the room, looking for threats, because now it's not just him he's protecting, it's Annie.
He's protected Annie ever since she was reaped, protected her in more ways than she's ever going to know.
"Just come with me," he says. "It's not far."
no subject
One step and then another, and another.
If he promises, he'll go through with it. If he says there aren't any Peacekeepers, she'll believe him. He's never treated her like she's stupid, like being sometimes mad means she can't think, he's not gonna start now.
Nothing, n o t h i n g makes sense and she can't stop shaking, there's too much noice in her head and out of it and she can't go anywhere else because her heartbeat won't let her she's stuck, she's stuck, she's stuck if she shuts her eyes she's going to fall down and lose everything and she can walk, she has to walk.
Apparently the sickbay is two floors up. Elevator, not stairs. She wants stairs, she wants room, she wants air, she wants-
Annie gives up, shuts her eyes, and clings to Finnick because he's the only anchor she has.
no subject
Feel it in how tight she holds him.
She's made up and dressed up, with glass in her clothes and her hair and half some broken glass clutched tight like it's something important, and his stylist's assistant doped her. He doesn't know what that means, and he doesn't want to think about it, but it gives him an uneasy feeling so deep it's almost sickening.
He also knows he's not going to get any answers until she's sober.
Annie's trembling under his arm, and they're walking slowly, too slowly, because he just wants to get her help.
In the elevator, she leans into him, eyes closed, hand tight on him, and he turns, for a moment, wrapping her in his arms, dropping his head to kiss her hair again, struggling to control his face.
(It wants to crumple, because she's so lost, so hurt, and whatever's happened, he brought it on her, Clodia's involvement is proof of that.)
He doesn't even know what he whispers to her through his worry: soft little words of comfort and love are all he has in that moment, but they're a support he'll always be able to give her.
"It's not far," he tells her, when the elevator arrives, wondering if she can even tell through the morphling haze how very different the ride just was from the elevators in the Capitol or the more important buildings in District 4.
They keep going, slowly, and when they make it into the sickbay, Finnick still has his arm around her, holding her at his side.
He takes a deep breath as he looks around; it's one thing to trust Doctor Bashir to heal his wounds from the arena and take the tracker out of his arm, but to put Annie's safety in his hands is something else entirely.
There's just nobody else he can turn to.
"Doctor Bashir?" he asks. "Can you help her?"
To Annie, he drops his voice again, his head bent low to whisper to her, but his green eyes keen on the medical staff around them.
"Doctor Bashir fixed me up after I got out of the arena."
no subject
But, it seems, there's a catch. A reason he's here. To search out help for someone else.
There's a woman with Finnick, a petite one with bright red hair and wearing a dress--and, if he's any judge, drugged nearly out of her mind.
"Yes, of course," he says, because he's here to help. "Do you know what she was given?"
Because it's quite obvious to him she was given something, even after only a brief moment of observation.
no subject
She can hear him, a thread of
comfortsecuritylove through the ever-louder thud-thud and roar of heart and blood in her body. No words just emotion and mood and Annie tries to concentrate on it. It's a lifeline when everything is swaying, refusing to focus.
Cresta, mixing it up doesn't work.
Another voice. Weird accent. Not as strange as Clodia. Male.
She can't look up, if she looks anywhere but the floor she is going to lose her grip on the floor and be carried away, but the words filter through and she scowls.
"I'm still here," Annie mutters as the strange doctor's words are aimed over her her head. She has a brain and ears and a mouth with which she's gonna answer, not gonna laugh or scream or do anything else.
"Coffee. But I made it. Had to wake up before the sharks."
no subject
He's not letting her go now.
"It's okay, Annie," he tells her, head still bent low, and he increases the pressure of his hand on her waist for the briefest moment.
When he looks back up, his eyes have more fear in them than they did even when he'd been pulled here straight from the arena, because now the fear is for Annie. Annie, who is the last good thing left in his life. Annie, who he'd do anything to protect except stay out of the conspiracy that put his life on the line in the arena.
Annie's annoyed at being talked over, but she's also not lucid enough to be able to actually answer the question herself; Finnick's had to piece together what little he does know about what's happened, and the answer she gives is only a small part of the picture.
"Morphling," he says. "More than she should have had. Someone drugged her."
For all his suspicions, he does remember Doctor Bashir's apparent disgust at the tracker, his unfamiliarity with the Games, so he volunteers more information: it'll save time if that familiarity was an act, and it'll help if it wasn't.
"It's a painkiller, but people use it to get high, too. If you're not familiar with it."
no subject
"I'm not, by that name, though I'm familiar with that sort of narcotic. And I am sorry, I didn't mean to be speaking over you." He directs the second to Annie, with a kindly smile.
Inaprovaline should be able to counteract it, flush it from her system, but he wants to make sure he gets an accurate read on weight and height for a dosage.
"It sounds rather like an opioid. They can be dangerous, and rather addictive." They'd stopped using it long ago, when they'd been able to synthesize better painkillers that could mimic the effects without the dangerous side-effects.
"I can flush it from your system with Inaprovaline, it won't have any side effects. Would that be alright?" He speaks to Annie, for this part, but it also has the added effect of letting Finnick know exactly what he was doing.
no subject
With effort, Annie drags her eyes up to stare at the doctor's face. She wants to turn, look up at Finnick, check in to see if the question is genuine because in all the strangeness, the Capitol never asks.
Instead, she giggles, bright and startled and uneasy, and presses herself against Finnick's side.
"Um?"
Breathe, Cresta.
"O k a y. I...likethisdress."
Lying liars lie.
no subject
"That sounds about like morphling." It sounds more bitter than he'd meant it to be, but he knows too many morphling addicts for it to be anything else. Could have been one himself if things had turned out differently, between Capitol parties and other victors and patrons who like to get high and like him to get high too (and he always does what his patrons want).
He doesn't know how far he can trust Doctor Bashir. He doesn't know how far to trust this place. But Doctor Bashir took the tracker out, healed the chemical burns from the arena, and Annie needs help.
His hand lifts from her waist and finds hers, squeezing, lacing his fingers with hers.
He can't promise her the doctor can be trusted, because he's still so unsure what to trust himself. But he can give her that silent assurance that he's here, that he's watching out for her.
"That sounds good."
He knows the doctor's talking to Annie more than him, but Annie ... she's so strung out it hurts.
no subject
Somehow, he thinks they'd appreciate having everything done in a much quieter, more peaceful environment.
Inaprovaline is one of the medicines he doesn't have to order from the replicator--it has so many uses, it's logical to have a stock of it on-hand--so he goes to the locked medical cabinet and opens it to get a vial and a hypospray.
"I'm sorry, could I ask your name?" He speaks to Annie, because Finnick didn't introduce himself either until directly asked, and it's awkward for him to not know it.
[cw: panic attack]
(yes)
"Annie Cresta," Annie manages. "That's...that's fine. I just..."
She doesn't understand. She can't understand. Everything is waving, drifting and Finnick's there, Finnick's okay but he's not enough and her heart won't stop it just beats and beats and there'll be nothing left but remains and a pulse and maybe some artistic curls of her hair when the Capitol will get to her and Annie clutches at Finnick's fingers but nothing's familiar and she can't breathe.
It's just a small shriek, but
Annie pulls herself away from Finnick, stumbles, presses her hands to her ears (still with the glass, still holding the broken glass, she doesn't know how to put it down) and clenches her eyes shut.
"Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop please make it stop."
[cw: ptsd]
He feels the tension before she moves, feels it and recognizes it. He knows that it means the fragile hold she has on here, now is drifting and she's in danger of losing hold of it and being dashed onto the rocks of panic. His hand tightens on hers, but it might not be enough, sometimes it's not enough, and he'd had a frail enough hold on what was real and what wasn't when he'd arrived here himself to still be unsure what is and isn't true. For Annie, for whom the world can be so hard to face sometimes, it must be almost impossibly worse, especially when there's morphling involved.
When she pulls away, it feels like a blow to his heart. He tries to hold onto her hand, but her fingers pull away like a current's tugged her out of his grasp, and then she's stumbling away, still clutching that glass, her hands going over her ears as her voice, rapid and soft, runs over and over and over repeating the same phrase.
Make it stop.
"Annie."
He can never make it stop, no matter how much he wants to. Nobody can, any more than they can stop him waking up from a nightmare seeing her drown in the arena instead of swimming, seeing the things he'd done in his Games, seeing years' worth of District 4's tributes slaughtered under his mentorship.
Annie staggers; she doesn't fall, but he knows if he can't soothe her, falling to the floor will be the next thing she does.
"Annie," he says, taking a step towards her, standing in front of her though she can't see him. "Annie. It's okay, Annie. It's okay."
He presses his hands, gently, over hers, just so she can feel that he's there.
Anyone looking at his face would be able to see the heartache there.
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That was why he'd also picked up a sedative that would be safe to give alongside the morphine--or Morphling, whatever they called it, it was close enough to make him think even more that it was a derivative--just in case.
"I'm going to give her a mild sedative, it's safe, just to help her calm down," Julian says as he moves into their personal space, giving warning. He doesn't try to give the hypospray at the neck, instead pressing it to Annie's shoulder. There's not even a pinch as the medicine enters her bloodstream.
He follows it with another one, to get the narcotic out of her system, then he steps back. He'll wait to continue with anything else until she calms down.
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makeitstopmakeitstopmakeit
s t o p
pleseplesepleaseplease
it
stop
Annie breathes.
In.
Out.
(Hold.)
In.
Out.
(Hold.)
She breathes and opens her eyes. Her gaze still isn't as clear as normal, but given how close Finnick is standing, he'd be able to see the dark circles that Clodia's (now slightly ruined with tears) artistry. Annie hasn't slept in days, and it shows.
Carefully, she lowers her hands, twisting her free one around to tangle her fingers with Finnick. Even sober, calm, she's not going to let him go.
"I..."
Annie clears her throat, eyes darting from Finnick to the doctor to around the room before back to Finnick and then the floor.
"I need to sit down," she mutters, walking back a few steps to the nearest bed and collapsing on it far more heavily than her initial delicate appearance would suggest. Less weight (although her small frame supports a body used to a life time of manual labour) and more complete exhaustion.
"Finnick, this ain't my house."
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It's only once the doctor's stepped away that Finnick's gaze goes back to Annie. The moments seem to drag, one into another and another and another, with Finnick's hands on Annie's, Annie's breath fast and shallow, Annie looking like she's about to collapse.
Finally, finally, her breathing slows, and she breathes deeply, holds, breathes again, and opens her eyes. The makeup around them is smudged, but they look more focused now, more like he's used to, less like she's floating on morphling.
He watches her, his eyes fixed on her face, his hands on hers. When she drops her hands from her ears, Finnick drops his, too, drops them, but not far. Close enough that it only takes a moment for Annie's fingers to twist with his, and he clutches at her hand again, too tight with his strong grip, but it's a lifeline between them, and that's what matters.
She's here. She's here, and he has her hand in his.
He follows her over to the bed, perching on the edge of it beside her, his legs stretched a little in front of him.
"No," he agrees with her, softly. "It's not." It's not the arena, either.
Because he's not sure, yet, what it is, what he can and can't believe, he doesn't want to say much more in front of Doctor Bashir. But he knows how to choose his words so they give little away and yet still convey his meaning to those who need to know it.
It's a skill, one he's honed to razor sharpness since his victory.
"I found myself here instead of the arena, and Doctor Bashir took out my tracker and treated my injuries."
That's what he knows, for sure. He's ... inclined to believe that Doctor Bashir means well, but he's not going to make Annie any promises. Still, that much is more than he'd expect from a Capitol doctor if this was some trick of the Games.
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He does come slightly closer, though all that's in his hands is a tricorder, and he offers no sort of threat, just a concerned look. "How are you feeling, any better?"
For a given measure of it. The two of them both are showing obvious signs of some kind of trauma--Julian wonders if Annie had been put through the same violence he had, and almost shudders at the idea of it.
"The important thing to know is that you're safe, I suppose." Any Starfleet officer isn't going to let any harm come to their guests.
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He's the unknown variable here.
He's also the one who is making no damn sense, and Annie's inability to comprehend anything Julian has said about where the hell she is writes it plainly across her face.
Simple things, that she can do.
He asks how she is. She can answer that.
"Like I've been keelhauled," Annie says, after a moment. "Is there...um. Could, could I have anything to drink? W-water?"
She doesn't ask if she can sleep, even though she badly needs to. She doesn't even lean in against Finnick, because the temptation to just drop her head against his shoulder and fall asleep is too high.
The important thing to know is that you're safe, the doctor adds, and she scoffs.
She can't help it.
The last time she was safe in any real meaning of the word, she was eleven.
The leader of her country wants to kill her. And the man sitting next to her, who for nearly all intents and purposes is her husband.
Mags already died in agony.
Annie's not afraid, her emotions are too bruised and sedated for that, but her scoff turns into a soft, bitter laugh.
Safe in what sense? she wants to say.
She settles for: "Oh. Okay."
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He can't reassure her about their safety. He doesn't know it himself; this place is either a Capitol trick or so far beyond anything he's ever known that the waters are uncharted to him. He wants to be able to tell her what's happening, to offer her advice, to be able to tell her that yes, they're safe. He wants it to be true. But he won't lie to her.
"Nobody's tried to kill me since I got here," he says in a low voice.
It has the same twist of bitterness in it that Annie's laugh did. It's no way to have to judge safety, but it's their lives. Finnick walks constantly on the edge between valuable and dead, and he dragged Annie there with him when he fell in love with her.
There's more to what he's said, though. The immediate threat of death is one thing, but it says nothing about more insidious dangers that he and Annie know all too well: surveillance, threats, the sudden appearance of a white rose that says I'm watching. Constant control over who he is and what he shows to the world: that's what Snow has done.
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He hears Finnick's remark, clear as day--his hearing is better than the man might expect, Julian thinks. But he pretends as if he didn't, and files it away to gnaw at his heart because everything they say is terrible and it isn't right. He always was an empathic sort, even if he sometimes pretended not to be. No one should have to go through the sort of things these two obviously had.
"Of course." Julian excuses himself to go to the replicator in the wall, clearly requesting a glass of water and making sure that he's not blocking their angle so they can see it appear--shimmering into existence, like everything does from the replicator. He then picks it up and goes back over, holding out the glass for Annie to take.
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"Thank you," Annie manages, taking the glass carefully and trying not to gulp it down. Small sips, no matter how much she wants all of it. Small sips. Careful sips.
"Um. Is there...is there anythin' else you gotta do?"
Does she have to sign in? Get a room except no, she doesn't care about propriety, she's too tired, she just wants to find wherever Finnick's been staying and fall asleep for days.
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He's sure Annie's thinking what he had: how very like the accommodations in the Training Centre it is. (He, of course, has a wider range of experience of Capitol technology.)
His fingers wrap around hers, because there's so little of reassurance he can offer, except this: that he's here, that she's here too, that whatever happens, he's not in the arena and she's not watching him there. Not anymore.
"You have to do the ... scan, right? Like you did with me?"
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"Honestly, I'd like you to consider just getting it out of the way now. It won't be more than a few more minutes." He doesn't need to run any extended tests on her or anything.
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"N-now?"
Everyone else just makes her think of the crowds in District Four. There's an awful lot of people once you corral them all together.
Still, she glances at Finnick, uncertain. "Now, I think?" she offers.
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Bashir had made him the same offer, and he'd accepted it, preferring to get out of the sickbay as soon as he could. He'd been wary of the machines, wary of the medication, too, but he's also sat through enough medical procedures before and after the Games to know that even in the Capitol, they're not all sinister.
When Annie's wide eyes look over at him, he gives a single jerky nod.
"Then you won't have to come back. It's not much."
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He picks up a tricorder, deliberately telegraphing his movements so he doesn't catch either of them off-guard. True to his word, the scan is over in a few moments. She's exhausted, dehydrated, but there's no recent injuries to speak of. Not like Finnick had.
Then it's just two hyposprays and Julian's backing away. All told, he's done in about five minutes--he's gotten a lot of practice on the procedure lately.
"Done. Best thing now is food and rest, I'd say. The replicators are free for you to use, they'll make just about anything you request. If you think of something that isn't in the system, come find me--you can ask the computer where I am. I'll get Engineering to program it for you."
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As he scans her, as he presses those hyposprays against her arm, she watches him. Despite the exhaustion, her gaze isn't just wary, but trained in risk assessment.
And yet, despite her caution, she keeps steadily sipping her water through the whole process.
"Th-thank you," Annie says again, even though his words don't make immediate sense. Ask the computer?
(Her eyes flick up to the ceiling, scan the joints and corners. The cameras are well-hidden, she'll give them that.)
"I think. I think, um. Sleep?" She can't finish the sentence, but the way she looks at Finnick is easy enough to read: please can I go to sleep now?
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"You can come to my room," he assures her, softly. He's been told it's only temporary, that eventually he'll be given more lasting quarters, but temporary is all they need. She needs a bed and rest and food and safety, and if he can't guarantee the last, he can at least provide some of the rest.
Whatever safety he can provide her, he'll give her.
When he stands, he doesn't let go of Annie's hand. It's a comfort, but it's also a support, because sometimes she's not sure she can move on her own, and if this is one of those times, he'll support her, unquestioningly.
If, when she's standing, his arm slips immediately around her waist, that's maybe more comfort than support.
He thanks the doctor as they leave, but after that, Finnick's attention is on one thing, and one thing only.
Annie. By his side, tired but uninjured. Annie. Safe, or as safe as this place can be, and for the first time in days, it feels like he can breathe again.