#finick

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

Featuring Carrion, Finick, and Seafoam!

Finick and Hadeon my favourite darlings.

Name: Until the End

Warnings: Hunger Games violence, blood, death, grief, suicide, doomed yuri, angst, tragic ending

Summary: When the Quarter Quell twist forces two female tributes from District 2 into the arena, Y/N is horrified to hear Clove's name called beside hers. In the Capitol, they hide their love behind sharp words and stolen moments, but once the Games begin, survival tears them apart. When they find each other again, they decide to face the arena together, no matter how cruel it becomes. In the end, love is the one thing the Capitol can never truly control.

Pairings: Clove Kentwell x fem!Reader

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The first time they call my name, I don't react.

I just stand there in the heat of District 2 with my hands locked so tightly together that my knuckles ache, staring at the stage like if I don't move, maybe the words will float back into the microphone and disappear.

"Y/N L/N."

The name echoes through the square.

Around me, girls shift and whisper. Someone sucks in a breath. For a second, all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart.

Then I hear my mother cry out.

My body moves before my mind catches up. I step forward on shaking legs, my eyes fixed on the stage, on the polished wood, on the woman waiting beside the glass bowl with a smile too bright for a day like this.

This year is different. President Snow himself had made the announcement weeks ago. Twice the tributes. Twice the bloodshed. Twice the entertainment.

District 2 had acted like it was an honor.

I had not.

I climb the steps, trying to ignore the way my stomach twists, and take my place under the brutal sun. My skin feels too tight. My breathing comes too fast.

Please, I think. Please not her.

The escort reaches into the second bowl with a dramatic flourish. "And our second female tribute is... Clove Kentwell!"

Everything inside me drops.

A strangled sound escapes my throat before I can stop it.

Clove.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her moving through the crowd, chin high, shoulders squared, every bit as composed as she always is. Most people in District 2 know her as lethal, sharp-tongued, impossible to intimidate.

I know her as the girl who sneaks into my room after curfew and steals half my blanket.

The girl who kisses me like she's daring the world to stop her.

The girl I love.

When she steps onto the stage beside me, she doesn't look at me right away. She knows better. There are too many eyes on us. Too many cameras. But our hands brush for half a second, and that's enough to make my chest hurt.

"Don't panic," she murmurs, barely moving her lips.

I stare ahead. "You're asking a lot."

"I know."

The escort keeps talking, smiling, celebrating, but I don't hear a word of it. All I can think is that the Capitol hasn't just sentenced me to death.

They've sentenced her too.

And somehow, that feels worse.

The Justice Building is a blur of tears, pale walls, and voices breaking under the weight of too little time.

My mother clings to me so tightly it hurts. My father stands behind her with one hand over his mouth, like if he lets it slip away, he'll fall apart completely.

"You come back to us," my mother says, gripping my face between both hands. "Do you hear me? You come back."

I want to tell her I will. I want to say it with certainty, with confidence, with something strong enough to carry her through this.

But all that comes out is, "I'll try."

When they're gone, I get only a few minutes alone before the door opens again.

Clove slips inside.

The second I see her, the tight control I've been holding onto cracks. I cross the room so fast I nearly trip, and then she's there, catching me, her arms wrapping around me as I bury my face against her shoulder.

For a moment, neither of us says anything.

We just hold on.

"I was hoping they'd let me see you," I whisper.

"I would've found a way in even if they didn't." Her hand slides up my back, steady and warm. "You know that."

I pull back enough to look at her. Her dark eyes are locked on mine, fierce as ever, but I can see the fear buried underneath. Clove doesn't show fear to anyone.

Anyone except me.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," I say.

"No."

"We were supposed to have more time."

Her jaw tightens. "I know."

I let out a shaky laugh that turns into something too close to a sob. "This is such a nightmare."

Clove lifts a hand and wipes beneath my eye with her thumb. "Listen to me. We get through training. We get sponsors. We survive as long as we can."

"As long as we can," I repeat.

Her expression changes, softening in a way only I ever get to see. "And if I can get you out of there alive, I will."

"No." I grab her wrist. "Don't say that."

"Y/N."

"No, Clove. I'm serious. Don't you dare decide for me that your life matters less than mine."

For the first time since the reaping, a tiny, crooked smile touches her mouth. "Still bossy when you're terrified."

"I'm always bossy."

"That's true."

I rest my forehead against hers. "I can't lose you."

Her hands tighten around me. "Then don't. Stay alive. Find me in there."

I close my eyes. "I love you."

She kisses me, quick and desperate, like she's trying to press the words back into my skin so they stay there. "I love you too."

When they take her away, it feels like the room gets colder.

The train ride to the Capitol is all polished metal, velvet seats, and food so rich it turns my stomach.

Our mentors talk strategy while the city rushes toward us.

"You two have an advantage," one of them says. "District 2 already has a reputation. Lean into it. Be memorable. Be ruthless."

Clove snorts from beside me. "That part won't be hard."

I nudge her ankle with mine under the table, and for the first time all day, her mouth twitches into a real smile.

Later that night, when the train is quiet and everyone else has finally gone to bed, I find her standing by the window in the dark.

The glass reflects both of us back like ghosts.

"Can't sleep?" I ask.

"No."

I move beside her. Outside, the world is nothing but streaks of black and silver. "Me neither."

For a while, we just stand there.

Then Clove says, very quietly, "If it comes down to it, and it's me or you..."

"Don't finish that sentence."

"You know what I'm going to say."

"I do." I turn to face her. "And I'm telling you right now, I'm not letting you throw yourself away for me."

She looks almost annoyed, which means she's emotional enough not to know what to do with it. "You act like you'll have a choice."

"I always have a choice."

Her eyes search mine. "So what, then? We both miraculously walk out?"

I swallow hard. The thought is impossible, ridiculous, cruel in how much I want it. "Maybe not. But if we die in there, we don't die because we gave up."

Clove exhales through her nose. "You always did have a flair for dramatic speeches."

"And you always pretend not to like them."

She reaches for my hand and threads our fingers together. "I do like them. Just not when they make sense."

I lean my head against her shoulder. "Then I guess you're stuck with me."

"Good," she whispers.

Training is exactly what everyone expects from District 2.

We dominate.

Clove is merciless with knives, all speed and precision, every throw landing dead center. I focus on close combat, snares, and survival skills, forcing myself to stay sharp even when the cameras follow us everywhere.

The other tributes watch us. Some with admiration. Some with fear. Some with the look of people already writing their own deaths.

But when the sessions end and we're finally out of sight, it's different.

It's Clove dropping onto the bench beside me and muttering, "If that Capitol woman asks me to smile one more time, I'm throwing a knife at the wall next to her head."

I laugh into my water cup. "Next to her head? How restrained of you."

"I've been working on my patience."

"I can tell. You're practically gentle now."

She bumps her shoulder against mine. "Careful. I do know where you sleep."

The private sessions earn us high scores, of course. The interviews make us even more popular.

Caesar asks me about District 2, about confidence, about bravery, about what it's like entering an arena with twice as many tributes this year.

I give him what he wants at first. Charming answers. Sharp answers. The kind that make the crowd clap.

Then he leans in with that polished, hungry smile. "And tell me, Y/N, is there anyone you'll be fighting for in that arena?"

The audience goes quiet.

Across the stage, I can see Clove waiting in the wings, perfectly still.

I should lie.

I should smile and say my family, my district, my mentors.

Instead, I say, "Yes."

Caesar's eyebrows lift. "Anyone special?"

I hold his gaze. "Someone worth surviving for."

The crowd erupts.

They love mystery. They love romance. They love anything they can consume without ever having to carry the cost of it.

Backstage, Clove grabs my arm the second I'm offstage and drags me into a corner. "What was that?"

I stare at her. "That was me telling the truth without getting us executed."

Her grip loosens. "You scared me."

"You? Scared?"

"Don't start."

I smile a little. "You know it was about you, right?"

She rolls her eyes, but a faint flush creeps into her cheeks. "Obviously. You're obsessed with me."

"Completely."

Her expression softens. "Good."

Then the hovercraft comes for us, and there is no more pretending.

The arena is a forested mountain valley, thick with pines, rocky ridges, and a river cutting through the center like a wound.

The air is cold enough to sting when I inhale.

I stand on my metal plate and count the seconds until the Games begin.

Across the clearing, I find Clove.

She finds me too.

There are twenty-four of us this year. Too many faces. Too many bodies. Too many ways to die.

The gong sounds.

Everything explodes.

I sprint for the Cornucopia because that's what District 2 tributes do. There's shouting, steel, blood, the wet thud of bodies hitting the ground. I snatch a pack, slash at a tribute from District 9 who lunges too close, and duck as something whistles past my ear.

Clove is a blur to my left, knife in hand, terrifying and brilliant.

For one breath, our eyes meet.

Run, she mouths.

I run.

The first two days pass in violence and exhaustion. We stay with the Career pack because it keeps us alive, but there is tension under every alliance. Double the tributes means double the paranoia. Every conversation feels like a test. Every shared fire feels temporary.

At night, when the others finally sleep, Clove inches close enough for our shoulders to touch.

"You okay?" she whispers on the second night.

I stare up at the tree branches overhead. "No."

"Honest answer."

"You asked."

Her hand brushes mine in the dark, hidden under the edge of our blanket roll. "You're still here. That's what matters."

"For now."

She goes quiet. Then, "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Talk like you're already gone."

I turn my head toward her. The moonlight catches the sharp line of her cheek. "Then don't get killed before me."

A quiet huff of laughter leaves her. "Bossy."

"Always."

On the third day, everything falls apart.

It starts with supplies.

It always does.

One of the other Careers accuses a boy from District 1 of hoarding food. He denies it. Voices rise. Weapons come out. In the chaos, a trap detonates from the tree line, one of the Gamemakers' little surprises, and the ground erupts beneath us.

I hit the dirt hard enough to lose my breath.

Someone screams.

When I look up, the alliance is scattering.

"Clove!"

I catch a glimpse of her on the other side of the smoke and flying dirt, but then another tribute slams into me and we both go tumbling downhill. By the time I fight free and scramble back up, she's gone.

I search until nightfall.

No sign of her.

No voice.

No body either, which should comfort me, but somehow doesn't.

That night is the longest of my life.

I hide in the hollow of a fallen tree with a stolen canteen clutched against my chest, listening to the anthem play and watching faces appear in the sky.

Not hers.

I let out a breath so shaky it almost hurts.

"You're alive," I whisper to the darkness, as if she can hear me.

Then I cry as silently as I can, because in the arena grief is just another weakness waiting to be exploited.

By the fourth day, hunger and lack of sleep make everything feel unreal.

I move carefully through a rocky section of the valley, trying to stay out of sight. My leg aches from a cut I got during the explosion, and every rustle in the trees makes my pulse jump.

That's when I find the supplies.

A small cache hidden behind a cluster of boulders. Water purification tablets, dried food, bandages, a short length of rope. Probably meant as a trap or a temptation or both.

"Of course," I mutter. "Nothing's ever easy."

Still, I kneel and start stuffing what I can into my pack.

Then I hear it.

"Y/N."

I freeze.

My head snaps up so fast my neck protests.

For one terrible second, I think I'm imagining it. Starvation. Stress. Hope turning my mind against me.

Then I hear it again, rough and strained.

"Y/N."

"Clove?"

I scramble to my feet and round the rocks.

She's there.

She's alive.

She's also bleeding from a gash near her side, dirt smeared across her face, one leg dragging slightly as she tries to stay upright.

"Clove!"

I reach her in seconds, grabbing her before she can collapse. She makes a sharp sound between a laugh and a gasp and leans into me with more of her weight than she'd ever willingly admit.

"Wow," she says weakly. "You look terrible."

A sob bursts out of me, half hysterical with relief. "Shut up."

"Missed you too."

I hold her face in both hands like I need the proof that she's real. "I thought you were dead."

Her eyes soften. "I thought you might be too."

I pull her into me, and this time neither of us tries to pretend it's just for balance. She buries her face against my neck, and I can feel how tired she is, how much pain she's in.

"Sit down," I say immediately. "Now."

"You get weirdly bossy when you're emotional."

"Clove."

"Okay, okay."

I help her down behind the rocks and tear open the bandages with shaking hands. The wound in her side looks angry but not fatal.

"How bad?" she asks, watching me.

"Bad enough that I hate looking at it, not bad enough that you're dying right this second."

"Comforting."

"I'm trying my best."

While I clean the wound, she tells me what happened after we got separated. Another tribute attacked her near the river. She killed him, but not before he got a blade into her side. She's been moving ever since, trying to circle back.

"I heard you before I saw you," she says quietly. "You were arguing with the supplies."

I glance up. "They were suspicious supplies."

One corner of her mouth lifts. "Yeah. That's my girl."

My hands still. Even after everything, that simple sentence hits me right in the chest.

When I'm done wrapping her wound, I sit back on my heels. "I don't want us apart again."

Clove studies me for a long moment. "Then we don't separate."

"Even if it gets dangerous?"

She gives me a look. "Y/N, everything is dangerous."

I laugh softly, because she's right and because hearing her sound like herself again feels like breathing after nearly drowning.

Then her hand finds mine.

"I meant what I said before," she tells me. "We're in this together. Until the end."

I squeeze her fingers. "Together."

After that, the Games become less about winning and more about surviving one moment at a time.

We move through the arena as one.

We steal when we can. We hide when we must. We fight when there's no other option.

At night, curled together in caves and thickets and the shelter of overhanging stone, we talk in whispers about everything except the obvious.

District 2.

Our families.

The first time we met.

"You hated me," I whisper one night.

Clove, half asleep beside me, cracks one eye open. "I did not hate you."

"You threw a training knife at my head."

"Near your head."

"That is not better."

She smiles against my shoulder. "You caught it."

"Because I value my face."

"And then you smirked at me. It was annoying."

"You were impressed."

"Maybe a little."

I grin into the dark. "So that was the moment you fell in love with me."

"Don't push it."

But her arm tightens around my waist, and that answer is enough.

The audience must love us, though the Capitol still doesn't know exactly what we are to each other. Or maybe they do know and just think it's more entertaining to let it unfold. Sponsors start sending gifts. Ointment for Clove's wound. Bread. Water. A blanket.

Hope, packaged up with ribbons.

It makes us dangerous.

It also makes us targets.

By the final day, there are only a handful of us left.

The Gamemakers force us inward with fire along the tree line and mutts in the hills. The valley becomes a killing ground.

"They're herding us," I say as smoke curls through the air.

Clove checks the edge of one of her knives. "I noticed."

We move toward the river because open ground is better than burning alive. I can hear the muttations before I see them, snarls and snapping jaws echoing off the stone.

The remaining tributes crash into the clearing from different directions, wild-eyed and desperate.

Then all hell breaks loose.

A mutt launches from the rocks to my right. I dodge, slash, stumble. Another tribute screams behind me. Clove buries a knife in one creature's throat and spins just in time to take down another.

"Stay with me!" she shouts.

"Trying!"

We back toward the river, shoulder to shoulder, but there are too many of them.

One mutt lunges low.

I don't see the second one.

Pain tears through my side so suddenly that the world goes white.

I hit the ground hard.

For a second, I can't breathe.

Then I can, and I almost wish I couldn't, because it hurts that much.

"Y/N!"

Clove is there instantly, screaming my name, slashing at anything that gets close. I try to push myself up, but my arms give out. My hands come away slick with blood.

Too much blood.

No.

No, no, no.

Clove drops beside me the second the mutts pull back, either called off by the Gamemakers or distracted by easier prey. Her hands press desperately against the wound in my abdomen.

"Stay awake," she says, voice shaking for the first time since I've known her. "Do you hear me? Stay awake."

I look at her and know.

I know from the panic in her face.

I know from how cold I'm suddenly becoming.

I know because some part of me can already feel my body letting go.

"Clove," I whisper.

"No. Don't do that. Don't say my name like that." Tears spill down her cheeks, and the sight of them shatters me more completely than the pain. "You're okay. You're going to be okay."

I want to lie to her. I want to give her something kinder than the truth.

But we've never been good at lying to each other.

My fingers fumble for her wrist, then her hand. I hold on as tightly as I can. "Listen to me."

"No."

"Clove."

Her mouth trembles. "Please."

The word nearly undoes me.

I swallow against the blood in my throat, against the terror, against the grief of leaving her here. "I need you to hear me."

She bows her head, pressing her forehead to mine, and I feel her shaking. "I'm here."

"I loved you before this," I whisper. "Before the train. Before the reaping. Before any of it. I loved you when you pretended to hate everyone. I loved you when you stole food off my plate. I loved you when you kissed me after curfew and told me not to get sentimental about it."

A broken laugh escapes her through her sobs.

I smile, or at least I try to. "I love you now too."

"You don't get to leave me," she says.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Her grip on me tightens, desperate and painful and perfect. "I can't do this without you."

I wish I had something wise to say. Something that would make surviving me easier.

But all I have is the truth.

"Yes, you can," I whisper. "You can do anything."

She shakes her head like she can deny death if she refuses hard enough.

The sky above us is bright and cruelly beautiful.

I focus on her face. I make myself memorize it. The fierce eyes. The trembling mouth. The tears she hates anyone seeing.

My girl.

"Come here," I breathe.

She leans down, and I kiss her.

It's soft and salty and shaking and heartbreakingly alive.

When she pulls back, I'm crying too.

"I love you," I tell her.

Her voice breaks. "I love you more."

I want to argue, just to make her roll her eyes one last time.

I don't have the strength.

Everything is slipping now. Sound. Pain. Light.

The last thing I feel is Clove's hand in mine.

The last thing I hear is her begging me to stay.

Then the cannon fires.

I don't hear what happens after, but if there is any mercy in the world, I think maybe the dead are allowed to linger.

Maybe love is stubborn enough to outlast even this.

Because I know Clove.

I know the look on her face when grief becomes fury.

I know the silence that means she's made up her mind.

I imagine her rising from the bloodstained ground with my death still warm on her skin.

I imagine the Capitol announcing her victory after the final mutt falls and the last tribute dies.

I imagine her standing there alone, crowned in horror, expected to smile, expected to be grateful, expected to play the role they wrote for her.

But Clove was never good at being what people expected.

So I imagine her lifting her chin toward the cameras.

Toward the sky.

Toward me.

"I don't want your victory," she says, voice raw and fierce. "Not without her."

The crowd would go silent.

The Capitol would freeze.

For the first time, they would have no script.

And Clove, my Clove, would make sure they remembered that we were never just pieces in their game.

That we were girls who loved each other in a world that wanted spectacle more than mercy.

That we were human.

That we mattered.

Maybe that's the plot of us in the end.

Not that we died.

But that they tried to turn our lives into entertainment, and even then, even broken and bleeding and terrified, we made it into something that was ours.

Something real.

Something they could never own.

And if there is anything after this, anything beyond the arena, beyond the fire and blood and grief, I know she'll find me.

Created: August 24th, 2023

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Katniss Everdeen X Reader request

MASTERLIST

If you want to get super in the feels listen to ‘Safe and Sound’ by Taylor Swift and/or ‘Lover, Where Do You Live?’  by Highasakite

Gonna be the first to send in a request for my wifey katniss. I would love to see a relationship between katniss and a fellow district 12 person before and after she is sent to the hunger games. It can be platonic or romantic even though I prefer romantic (I’m a sucker for a gooey love story). I was thinking how either the hunger games changes their relationship for the good or bad, it either pushing them closer once she returns alive or the show she had to put on at the capital with peeta making the reader push her away. I love all your fics and your writing is so good, I would love to see what you come up with but no pressure!

In the woods, you could pretend like you two were the only creatures on the whole planet that existed. That the world was your jungle gym, where you swung carelessly and laughed freely. You wandered through the woods alone, It didn't scare you, Katniss was somewhere close by. She had promised to knap you a bunny or two so you could make a new sac for foraging.