#i want to write the longfic in finnicks pov so bad but i feel like it would be repetitive

[solar-halos]

POV – something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

no (writing) excuses askbox game

first of all, thank you for this ask! <3 it was so fun esp since ive been playing around with this scene for a whileee

second of all, i got carried away! in my odesta longfic annie isn’t very happy about finnick wanting to be on the star squad so i chose to write the scene where he breaks the news to her in his pov. fair warning though this is so majorly long and at first i was only gonna include the last section but then i remembered nothing is ever that serious so here's like 3k words of angst + slight sprinkling of fluff at the beginning

with that being said, i feel like this one warrants some warnings: there's referenced non-con (for annie's capitol imprisonment specifically), hurt NO comfort (yet! there’s comfort in the longfic), and annie just overall isn't very fucking nice to finnick. so without further ado here it is under the cut

🤍 DO NOT DISTURB, PLEASE! 🤍

Finnick helps her tack the handmade sign up on their door. Since their fingers are laced together (they never intend on letting go, either), it takes a bit longer than expected. 

Finnick glances down at Annie, who is practically squirming out of her skin in excitement. The strap of her wedding dress falls down one shoulder. Her frizzy curls fluff up around her head like a wreath. 

“You’re so pretty, Annie.” He tucks a piece of hair behind her ear because he knows that’ll make her lean against his palm. He takes a moment to admire her, so kind and genuine and wonderful. Love and being loved by her feels surreal. Like the odds really are in his favor. 

Her eyes light up. He smiles.

“You’re pretty,” she insists, her hand inching toward his shoulder. He slouches a bit so she has an easier time hooking her arm around him in a hug. 

He takes this opportunity to sweep her off her feet, carrying her back inside. He’s rewarded with a giggle and a kiss on the cheek. 

“I love you,” says, sighing against his chest. Warmth courses through his veins. “We are so forever.”

And they call Finnick a poet. He ducks down to press a kiss to her hair.

Annie is love. Annie is life. Annie is forever. Permanent. 

“You and me,” Finnick agrees. “Forever.”

They seal the promise with another kiss.

———————

Finnick’s concentration problems are catching up to him. Maybe they never left him alone in the first place.

He’d been training in 13 ever since he managed to shed off that hospital gown, but they weren’t teaching him anything groundbreaking. So, when President Coin tells him that she’ll send him straight to the Capitol if he manages to pass a series of tests, it’s an offer he can’t refuse. 

It’s not like he’s being cocky about it. He knows what he’s getting into. In the arena, there was always one guaranteed survivor. If he goes out on the battlefield—if he finally takes down President Snow—there’s a very real possibility that none of them will come out alive. 

That won’t be a problem for him. Again, he’s not being cocky. He just knows his strengths. He’s already familiar with hand-to-hand combat—real hand-to-hand combat, the stuff that people in District 13 can’t really train for—and that’ll make him a real big asset to the team.

Anyway. What was he saying?

Oh, right. Concentration problems. Training, too.

He remembers that he has to wake up early the next morning, and he remembers which room he has to report to. He even remembers to set his alarm clock for the right time. But then Annie comes back from her therapy session, and he’s enveloping her in a hug, and suddenly it’s like he’s only capable of conjuring up Annie-related thoughts.

She falls asleep in his arms. He wakes up to the sound of her cussing out his loud fucking alarm clock. He takes a moment to admire her fiery, effortless passion, ‘cause she’ll curse at just about anything if it’s early enough. 

“Sorry, my love.” He kisses her cheek to pacify her. She melts back into the bed. “I have to train today.”

“No, you don’t,” she says, which is mildly confusing, but then it hits him:

He forgot. He forgot to tell her. Something heavy settles over his stomach as he rushes through his explanation, but he already knows she’s not happy with him. It’s written all over the crinkle in her brow, the frown on her face, the small crinkles over her nose.

“Stay with me for a few minutes,” she says, so he does. Of course he does. He’d light himself on fire to keep Annie warm. (She does not ask him to set himself on fire.)

A few minutes turns into half an hour. Finnick is starting to get antsy, because if he misses this first training session, then they might just drop him from the program, and then he’ll never get to Snow, and—

“Finnick.” Annie’s voice is hard. Unhappy. His stomach twists. “Are you training today, or not?”

“I have to, my love.”

My love. My love. My love. She’s his love, so he doesn’t ever want to make her unhappy, but he’s not doing a very good job. She huffs at him.

“No, you don’t. The whole point of District 13 is that we don’t have to do anything. If you want to train, just tell me that.”

Yeah, Finnick couldn’t just tell her that. She’s already so upset with him, so he should just stay put and wrap her up in his arms, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to, either, but don’t you dare fucking tell her that, because the only reason he wants to go at all is so that he can take down President Snow. Then, they’d be free to do whatever they want whenever they want. A moment of torture away from her is worth a lifetime of happiness in her presence.

Annie understands that. She understands that they need to take down Snow, and she wants to take down Snow, but she also hates the military industrial complex. And Finnick would hate it, too, under normal circumstances, but how else was he gonna fight for his freedom? The Capitol took a lot from him, but he couldn’t wait to show them just how proficient he was at turning the odds in his favor. In the country’s favor.

Annie is glaring at him. He decides to stand his ground.

“I want to train.”

She blinks at him. Wrong answer. He tries to backtrack, but the damage has already been done. 

“I’m going to visit Johanna today.” Then, before he can ask, she adds, “Alone. You can do whatever you want.”

The pit in his stomach is overwhelming. He never planned on attending every single session—just the ones he needed to. Like the ones about assembling a gun (the arena never had anything like that). He also shows up to schedule a time for his exam.

“I’m a bit nervous,” he tells Annie. She glances over at him before promptly returning to whatever she was drawing, almost like she’s making a point to ignore him.

Almost. He and Annie don’t ice each other out. It’s not their thing.

“Annie?” he repeats. He knows that she was upset with him for leaving, but they already talked it out, and she already said she forgave him. If they're not okay, then he understands, but he just wants to be on the same page. It'll make trying to fix things much easier. “Are we good?”

Sometimes, Annie ignores him when she’s working on a drawing, but it’s nothing personal. She ignores everything—even her own appetite—but she usually multitasks whenever she doodles. 

She looks at him. Finnick lets out a breath. “Do you want to play a card game?”

He thinks about repeating himself—he’s nervous, and he wants to know if they’re good—but he doesn’t want to risk upsetting her again. It’s not her fault that he’s putting his life at risk.

“Okay,” he says. She grins at him. He forces himself to grin back.

——————

“We need to talk about it,” he says, because they do.

She knows exactly what he’s referring to. It’s why she doesn’t answer him.

“Annie.” He sits right beside her. “I meant what I said. I’m not leaving you. The mission is still in the planning stages. We don’t even know which route we’re gonna take.”

She’s locked in on another drawing. He sighs. He can feel himself getting frustrated—he’s not leaving her, because he’s incapable of living without her—but getting snappish isn’t going to fix anything. Especially not with Annie. Her parents fought a lot, so he doesn’t want to risk setting her off. She’d never treat him that way—would never scream or throw anything at him—but she’s naturally very expressive, and that doesn’t bode very well for any of them when she gets angry.

She stares at him. He knows what she’s gonna say before she even opens her mouth. 

“Wanna play a card game?”

“Annie.”

“What?” she’s not yelling, exactly, but she’s being firm. Too firm, considering that all he wants to do is talk to her about something important. “Dr. Aurelius taught me how to play. It’s fun.”

“Can we talk about the mission?”

She makes a move to get up. He relents, even though he really, really shouldn’t, but he can’t stand the possibility of sleeping in separate beds tonight. 

“Never mind,” he says, placing a slow, gentle hand at her hip. He’s testing the waters. She dives straight into his arms. Thank goodness. “What’s the card game?”

“It’s a bit tricky at first,” she replies, reaching over to shuffle the deck. "But you're good at stuff like this. I think you’ll really like it, ‘cause there’s so much strategy in it.” 

Conversations about the mission were easy to avoid when they were still in the early stages of planning. The last time Finnick brought it up, Plutarch and Coin were still negotiating if they needed to add another member, but it’s an inescapable part of his life now. He gets the stamp, attends all the meetings, and introduces himself to everyone else on the team. They’re even calling themselves the Star Squad. 

They examine the holo splayed over the table, where everyone squints at a battlefield riddled with mutts and traps. It hits a little too close to home.

His gut twists. What’s he gonna tell Annie?

“Nothing,” Katniss answers, because apparently Finnick said that out loud. “That’s what my mother and sister will be hearing from me.”

Fair, but Annie isn’t his mom. Or his sister. She already forgave him for not telling her anything about the rebels, and he promised to tell her everything that he knows from now on, so he had to tell her about this. He had to, or else he’d make everything worse.

His mind is in overdrive throughout the entire meeting. Words usually came to him so easily, but things are different with Annie. He doesn’t love anyone or anything nearly as much as he loves her.

He decides to just play it by ear. The meeting already ran long, so he doesn’t want to keep her waiting. 

He steps inside their compartment. She was pacing around the room, but she stops dead in her tracks the moment he closes the door. She wrinkles her nose at him.

“I’m sorry.” He is. He’s sorry about a lot of things, actually, but maybe if they talk about it for a bit, everything will be okay. Annie loves him, so that’s already a huge source of comfort. “I’m sorry, Annie. The meeting ran long.”

He can’t tell if she’s giving him the silent treatment again—because that’s apparently something they do now—or if she’s just thinking of a response.

She frowns at him, obviously very unhappy, but they don’t have another choice. They don’t have time. If it took them this long to breach the subject, then that already means they’re in trouble.

“I don’t even care,” she lies, but Annie’s emotions have always been stamped so clearly across her face. And, right now, her face tells him that she cares a lot. “Let’s just go to bed.”

They can’t. They can’t. They can’t. He stands his ground, and she relents. He takes that as a good sign.

“District 13 is organizing a mission where we finally infiltrate the Capitol. And they’ve invited me to go.”

“Well, you’re not.”

It sounds final, they way she’s saying it. Finnick forces himself not to give in. He had to do this. He had to get to Snow. 

He stands his ground until she snaps at him. His heartbeat spikes.

“You goddamn fucking liar! You said you wouldn’t leave me again!”

He’s not. He never could, and he tries to explain that to her, but his mind goes absolutely blank. She’s never called him a liar before, but he supposes that’s the truth, isn’t it? He didn’t tell her about 13, but the Capitol captured her anyway, so she’s well within her rights to get upset with him. He just wishes she wouldn’t yell.

“You promised me you’d stay, but now you’re suddenly infiltrating the fucking Capitol?” she demands, which doesn’t sound right. “Did you make that decision before or after they locked me up?”

No. No, that doesn’t sound right at all, because that’s not what happened. He made that decision a long time ago, but whenever he’d try to tell her, she’d pretend that he wasn’t even talking to her. That hurt, but he didn’t address that concern with her—he’s not even addressing it with her now—because he knows that this must be hurting her harder.

Finnick can be cocky—even now, especially now—but he’s well aware of the risks. Nothing is ever guaranteed, and 13 is no exception. But if they both agree that they need to take Snow down, and if they both agree that Finnick dealt with the brunt of all his cruelty, then why aren’t they reaching the same conclusion? 

“So sorry, then, Finnick, that I’m not as important as your stupid fucking trident.” She’s angry with him. Finnick wracks his brain, trying to think of ways to coax her into liking him again, but nothing makes sense to him right now. Annie’s never yelled at him like that before, ever. “I bet the Capitol is gonna love seeing you with one again.”

“Don’t say that to me.” The implications of that don’t hurt. Finnick had thought a lot about that, too. The last time he had been so eager to prove himself to anyone was when he was enrolled at the Academy, desperate to show off his expertise at all the different stations. 

But this is different, both literally and fundamentally. And he knows that Annie knows that, so he doesn’t really appreciate being branded as a Capitol puppet.

“But it’s true,” she says, even though they both know it’s not, and Finnick doesn’t understand why she’s doing this to him.

He’s not an idiot. He knows that she’s worried about him leaving, just like how Mags left them, but he doesn’t like how she’s framing this like it’s a choice he’s making. Like he’s walking away from her. Like he’s engaging in something inconsequential for the sole purpose of hurting her. Like he doesn’t love her, when that’s the only thing in his life that he’s ever been sure of. 

Finnick doesn’t want to hurt her, but he understands that his intentions don’t match up with reality. He understands that she has the right to be angry with him. He understands that she’s upset about how secretive he was about the rebel plan, because their relationship was supposed to be built on a foundation of trust, so—

“Is that why I got captured, then?” she asks him, and she’s right, but she’s also not. The Capitol would have captured her no matter what, but he could have done more. He could have pushed Plutarch harder about rescuing her from Four. He could have encouraged 13 to execute their rescue plan a lot sooner. He could have neglected the rebellion entirely, because at least he’d know that Annie would be safe.

Finnick should have just done that. He got all in his head about how he wanted to be safe, too, but it’s not worth it to have Annie yelling at him right now. 

Moldy food. Capitol cells. Rape.

If it was hard to articulate his thoughts before, there’s no hope for him right now. He always knew what they were doing to Annie, even before she told him herself, but now that she’s not holding back—rape rape rape rape rape, just like how they raped you—he’s trying his best to just remain coherent. His memories in the Capitol were always so hard to suppress, but the thought of the same thing happening to her makes his body revolt against his mind.

Annie is always so sweet to him. Always used to remind him that nothing that happened in the arena or in the Capitol was ever his fault. But if she’s saying all this now—rape and pills and you let Mags die I stayed with you throughout everything never even thought about leaving you most miserable bitch I’ve ever met just fuck off and die already—

Fuck off and die? Isn’t that why they’re having an argument in the first place?

Finnick doesn’t know. There’s not enough oxygen circulating to his brain, and his heart is beating too hard to overcompensate for that, but it’s not like he can feel sorry for himself when Annie was in Capitol cells and Peacekeeper clutches and beatings and rape and all you did was sit here and wait for it all to be over, you fucking asshole.

“Stop pretending like you’ve ever cared about me!”

It’s the last thing he can remember her saying before they’re interrupted by a knock at the door. Maybe it’s someone complaining about the noise. It wouldn’t be the first time he and Annie received that sort of complaint, even though the circumstances back then were kinda different.

The thought of being separated from Annie still makes his stomach plunge to his toes. She’s saying a lot cruel things to him, yes, but it’s not like she actually means them, and it’s not like she doesn’t have a reason to be upset, and—

She grabs a marker. They both ignore the banging on the door, staring at each other instead, because what she does with that marker is going to predict the trajectory of their relationship. Her parents threw things at each other, yes, but they’re not her parents. He can overlook the yelling, but there are some things that he won’t even forgive Annie for, and this will be one of them.

She sets the marker down. The District 13 guards let themselves in. They start walking toward Finnick at first, but maybe they can sense that reality is very blurry for him right now, because they promptly ask Annie to remove herself from the room. She goes without a fight, but if there’s one thing about Annie Cresta, it’s that she has to have the last word. 

“I don’t know why I love you,” she says. “I don’t know why anyone would love you.”

The door closes. Finnick finally gives himself permission to melt onto the floor, curling his knees into his chest. 

I don’t know why anyone would love you. That makes two of them.