#thg prequel

You were only sixteen. Still a kid, though you weren’t sure you could ever go back and find the youth in you that there once was.

At the train station, your mother welcomed you home with wide open arms and wet cheeks. Her fishhook bitten fingertips traced your features, laughing with relief. Once you were securely wrapped up in her embrace, she muttered her pride in you— you definitely didn’t feel proud. When you stooped to your knees to scoop your little brother into your own arms, you certainly didn’t feel like the rock his eyes mirrored when he looked at you.

There was a small crowd, mostly people from your hometown— you held a strained smile. Searching for one face in particular.

He wasn’t there, your sweetheart.

When you moved into the victors village, the windows of his house on the coastal lane were dimmed. For days, actually. You worked up the guts to ask your mother where he’d gone, she shrugged.

“He left a few days before all the publicity,” your mother hummed, her eyes on the rag she dragged across the new kitchen counter. It wasn’t as cozy as your old home, a quaint cabin further north on the shore. There, sand was perpetually scattered across the floorboards, and wind chimes twinkled on the porch. You hadn’t had a chance to put up those chimes yet, on your new and only technically improved porch.

But you supposed the house was nice enough— it smelled of the same sea-salt, and it was large enough that you didn’t have to share a room with your brother. Still, you asked him to lay in bed with you most nights since you got home— he was one of those kids who couldn’t shut up. Maybe that used to annoy you; now, you let him rattle into the latest hours of the night, just grateful to have his little back rising and falling under your palm as he laid on his belly. Girolamo made surviving the games feel a little more meaningful. You’d clawed your way through for him, for your mother, for Finnick.

You were almost frustrated with Finnick, though conjuring up the image of the sun-kissed blonde tended to soothe your nerves. You made him promise to take care of your mother and Giro if you didn’t make it out— and you were sure you wouldn’t. And yet, where was he? What if you hadn’t won the games? Where would your family be?

All the bitter questioning was dispelled when one night, the lights in the soft-blue paneled house across the lane clicked on. You resisted the feeling to go and knock at his door, pound your open palm until he had to let you in. You thought you were allowed to be a little desperate, seeing as you just survived a government-run murder-machine.

But you didn’t. No, you tucked your knees to your chest, and stared out the window as if waiting for Finnick to come outside, wave his hands and jump up and down on the front steps. Eventually the lights clicked off again. He always was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type of boy.

The next morning, you stepped barefoot through the sun-warmed sand downhill from your new house, a rolled beach towel tucked under your armpit and a small cooler in your other hand. You watch Girolamo as he sprints to the shore, his tan and wiry back gaining some distance on you. With a nervous bite out of your inner cheek you keep your eyes on him.

Even as you’re laying the towel down, tucking the corners under the sand against the whipping sea breeze, you think of Finnick. Where could he possibly be for two weeks? Why hadn’t you heard even a whisper from him, much less a letter?

You’re settling down on the rough, colorful material that felt nothing like the smooth, handwoven mat your mother had to trade to scrounge up some money (along with the rest of your hometown) to send you some fresh bread in the arena. To be fair, the pick-me-up paid off. Internally you hold yourself to weaving a new one later, but the promise is interrupted by a familiar voice calling out for you in a tone that makes you wonder if the boy it belonged to knew no other names besides yours.

Tossing your head over your shoulder and pushing yourself from your elbows onto your palms, your eyes settle on the source. Finnick. Your Finnick.

You’re practically scrambling to your feet, clawing at the sand around your towel to spring up. “Finnick!” You call back to him, wishing your voice wasn’t so raspy with desperation. Maybe he repeats your name, a songbird returning your notes in reply and recognition, but you can hardly hear over the sound of blood rushing in your ears.

Finnick was bounding downhill, kicking up sand, casting a grainy veil between you and himself as it blew with the salt in the wind. He stumbles, and you almost find it in you to laugh at the notion that he’s falling over trying to get to you. Maybe it is silly, maybe you are just stupid teenagers sick with love. But it really just manifests in watery eyes as you run towards him with the same adrenaline that’s been blowing a whistle down your veins, nonstop since you’ve been reaped.

It’s not until you throw yourself at Finnick and he grabs you into his arms like you’re lighter than seafoam, that you remember this isn’t life or death.

Your fingers are pushing through his golden curls, his are smoothing over your dark tresses, his nose in your collar as he lifts you off the ground. A sound of surprise gets past your lips, but now you feel light enough that it delves into a real laugh.

“Sweetheart— baby— God, I knew you could do it,” Finnick praises as he finally lets your feet hit the sand, setting you down like you’re made of sea glass. His hands rove over your cheeks, your neck, shoulders, astonished laughter punctuating his words. “I knew you were strong, I knew you were.”

You know what he’s trying to say, yes, but God, you feel anything but strong. You don’t even realize tears were trickling down your cheeks until Finnick thumbs them away, and draws you back into his arms with a soft sound. A sob peals like a bell as it comes from your lips and directly into his shoulder. You clutch at his back, your fingertips threatening to tear into his loose navy shirt. His own hands, steadfast and fishhook-bitten, rub up and down your upper back.

“I know,” Finnick mutters, filling the silence and giving you something else to listen to besides your crying and the breaking waves. And, for the first time since you’ve been in District 4 since the games, you know it’s the truth. He does know. He’s one of the few who do.

“Finn,” you breathe, wiping your eyes on the fabric of his shirt. He hums as if he hears you, but you know he’s beckoning you to speak. He squeezes you tighter at the sound of your voice, smoothing over your hair again and looking out at your brother as he wades in the ocean to his knees. Looking out for him, as an extension of looking out for you. “Finn, it’s been terrible,” you manage to sob.

“I know, I know,” Finnick assures again. He wants to admit that it doesn’t get easier, not at all, but that’s not what you need to hear in the least.

“I can’t.. How do— D’you handle it? How?” You’re babbling, you know it. You sniffle, pulling away just enough to make eye contact with him. Oh, how you missed him. His eyes were even greener than you recalled, than you pictured at night in the games to soothe your jaunting nerves. The creases in his cheeks as his lips pulled taught, the light shock of hair on his forehead and the sunspots freckling his cheeks.. he was undeniable handsome. But it was more than this— he was your rock when the undertow came to drag, he was the saltwater lapping at your feet while you laid in the sun.

Finnick smatters kisses over your wet cheeks, your brow, your jaw, his hand holding you strong by the back of your head. You sniffle, but your hands squeeze his arms and the heaviness in your chest is lightened just a bit. “I don’t know.”

There’s a finality, in the way he presses forward for your lips. You sigh through your nose, which presses into his cheek as he kisses you like you’re all he’s been thinking of. It takes some effort for Finnick to part from you, he can’t resist a quick peck to the corner of your mouth as you wipe your eyes. “I don’t know, but misery loves company.”

You laugh bitterly, out of the unfairness of it all. Finnick slides his hand down your arm, clasping your hand and gently tugging you towards the towel you’d laid down. “C’mon.”

Maybe you could learn to handle it, you think, as you turn and the sea breeze gently brushes your hair behind your shoulders, some kind of welcome home.

The wind breathed and whistled past the shell of your ear, this and the rolling blue at your back would’ve been music enough even if Finnick wasn’t humming into the crown of your hair.

His hands are still woven tight with yours, though you’re certain he had fallen asleep for a bit somewhere in the two hours you’ve been sitting on your back porch. His fingers had become limp twixt your own, but at your slightest shift, squeezed as if you were going to slip through like sand.

You’d told him everything. It’s just slipped from you, water crashing down a cliff side, and you can’t take any of it back, whether your vulnerability has become embarrassing or not in hindsight.

Your tribute partner’s death. Your first kill. Real, evolutionary adrenaline that had made your head spin. The sound of a wrist bone crunching under your boot, of an ally crying when he thought you had fallen asleep (as if you could, in that arena.)

The bitterness had subsided, you’d been too relieved to just see Finnick to bring up anything prickly. Pouring your guts about the arena’s stain on you felt like enough of a damper on the reunion. But it still weighed heavily on you, balancing out the featherlight feeling of being back in his arms.

“Finn?” You find it in you to lift your face, prop your chin on his shoulder. You can feel the timbre of his acknowledging hum through his ribs. Steeling yourself, though you aren’t sure why, you mumble lamely, “Where were you?”

Finnick’s brows draw together and etch a small crease twixt them. “What?” His free hand moves from your shoulder to brush against a lock of your hair, but you shake your head to try and ward off the distraction.

“Where were you, when I came home? I heard you left while I was in the Capitol. Why?”

There’s something in the shift of his shoulder beneath you, in the brief flutter of his lashes, that tells you it’s not something you want to hear, nor something he wants to say. But he can’t deny you a thing, can he? He’s never been able to, not since you were children wading in the tide pools. Not now either, as he clears his throat and glances to the shoreline, as if the ocean could lend him a hand, for once, and sweep him out to open waters.

“I’m… Signed into an… agreement. With Snow.” Finnick speaks quietly, his eyes downcast with a kind of solemnity. He lifts his brows and you get the idea that he can’t believe it himself when he murmurs, “I couldn’t say no.”

Saying you weren’t curious, that you needed no explanation— it’d be a lie. You watch Finnick wave a splayed hand over his body in gesture, his lips pulling in an expression that cracks your heart and sends whistles down your nerves. “I, uh. To the highest bidder.”

He stops himself before his voice fails on its own, no sooner than it clicks together in your head. His body didn’t belong to him. Leaving an infinite and stretching silence that felt less like there was nothing to say, and more like leaving it unsaid was easier.

In a blink you see nothing but a little boy; with a sun-kissed face unmarred and green eyes shining from a type of fear that expels all hints of forced maturity you used to see. Just a little boy, shedding all the age the Capitol has shot into him.

You find space in the quiet to squeeze Finnicks hand. Neither of your grips loosen, not for a while, and not even when he could really use a free hand to brush away the saltwater rolling down his cheeks, because as long as you’re next to him he might as well have an extra free hand. You don’t let your own tears leave the barrier of your lash line.

“What a homecoming, huh?” Finnick mumbles after a long, long time spent in that blue. You aren’t sure how he finds it in him to smile at you.“What a homecoming,” you echo, hoping your agreement will make him happy.

You knew, deep inside, your home was changing. The ground was shifting under your bare feet and kicking up the once-sun-warm sand and doesn’t everybody know it’s silly to try and place each wind-blown grain back where it used to sit?

You couldn’t go back to before. The normalcy you were hoping might breathe warm on your skin again, it wouldn’t. You weren’t the girl you were before your name was plucked from that basket and you couldn’t consult her anymore. But you figure, maybe, this was your home anyway. This is what you have to come home to, and things could be worse, they’re already well down there, but Lord, atleast you have this.

You let Finnick dry the teardrop rushing down your face with a tender sweep of his thumb, a reminder that you aren’t crying alone.