farsickness | have we ever thought that being lost is our destination?

Entry tags:

have we ever thought that being lost is our destination? | Locked + OTA

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHEN: 28th February, first part of March
WHAT: Arrival
WHERE: Gazin
WARNINGS: Anxiety attack in Arrival section + general anxious thinking in other threads. Will add if anything more shows up.
NOTES: Feel free to add a wildcard situation if you want! Annie will be scoping out Gazin a lot.

ARRIVAL | Locked to Lyanna Stark

She wants to be anywhere else. She wants to be somewhere away from the television, away from her house, away where she can't be found at all. No one. No journalists to ask her awkward questions because oh no, oh no, it's the Quarter Quell and the arena will soon be down to the final eight. And Finnick will live. He'll live past that. And then Annie is going to be in world of trouble because... Because...

Because they made the jabberjays scream in her voice. Because Finnick had been mad with desperation.

Because Snow had made the rules very clear and then he'd given the nod to force whats-his-name, that fucker of a Gamemaker whose name she can't remember right this very fucking second, she's so fucked, they are so fucked, and they hadn't done anything wrong. And now, and now there'll be journalists asking questions and Annie had bolted from the living room as soon as her feet let her. Bolted where? She doesn't know.

She just wants to be somewhere else-

The cold shocks her. Her feet trip as snow suddenly clings to her ankles, and Annie stumbles onto the ground. The cold, wet, snowy ground. Her gasp pulls cold air into her lungs and she starts to cough at the sudden icy conditions. Maybe it's a good thing: it stops her from screaming.

In a daze, Annie reaches out to push herself up from the ground, her other hand still clutching her shawl to her chest. She'd. She'd been running through a doorway, down her hall and, and had something blurred? She can't remember. But she can't have been drugged. Her steps had moved smoothly from one to another. No pause. Just suddenly... This.

Snow. A forest. A wooden crossroads and a cold wind chilling her through the thin cotton of her blouse.

Now I really have gone completely insane, Annie thinks, and she starts to laugh.

LATER | OTA

Gazin is strange. Annie can't make sense of it. She has a room now, on a loan from the tavern. She'll have to pay for board in a week. She has clothes. The faded dress is too big, the stockings patched and mended, the boots will need a repair soon, the cloak smells musty. But they are clothes and if she puts them over her own blouse and skirt, she's warm enough. It's enough. It's enough to be another data point because oh, no, the Capitol would not put her in such things. She knows how the Capitol works, how the arena fashion works, and none of this is what they'd do with her.

She's worn out from her bout of hysterics in the forest, so for a few hours that first night, Annie can be found in the tavern's main room listening in on conversations. Watching the dynamics at play. Trying to work out what, actually, is going on.

(When she goes to bed, she makes sure the door is blocked and she already has an idea of where to run if she has to climb out the window.)

The next few days, Annie can be found walking around Gazin. She's put on that old cloak but only sometimes wears the hood up. It restricts her vision and she is still jumping at shadows. Maybe this isn't all some new and excitingly detailed hallucination, but she's on edge enough that she's risking the cold to broaden her field of vision.

She visits shops, including a jeweller to get a price on the bangle she's least attached to. Not that she trades it in just yet. You only do that if you can't afford to bargain, and Annie has a week. She can look around to see where she'd get the best price. Once she can talk without nervousness, without her awkward laugh. She walks around the market, still watching, and one day, she even ventures out to the river. If she's to pay the loan, she'll need money, and trading bangles will only last her so long. She can fish. She can.

She'll just have to work out what she can fish in this ridiculous weather.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She knows what he means. Of course she does: he knows she must have been watching. Not because it's compulsory, but because he was there, and Mags was there, and they were family to her. So she'd seen it. Seen him screaming for her, seen him collapse under the weight of the agony of hearing her like that. Those sounds had ripped into his heart, but he can feel that heavy wound healing, soothed by her assurances.

He'd wanted to believe it when Beetee had told him it was a trivial thing to manipulate the sounds he'd heard, but it had been so real.

"Annie, I..." His voice trails off, because he's not sure what he wants to say. There's too much. Things he'd wanted to tell her before the Peacekeepers marched him straight to the train. Things he'd been thinking of in the arena, when he couldn't get her out of head. The simple fact that he missed her too, that he loves her.

"Missed you too. But. Someone could be watching."

Be careful is another thing he doesn't say.

It isn't exactly like a dash of cold water, or a wave making her stumble. No, it's more like a higher wave than expected. Just letting her know the tide is rising. It is enough to spoil the sheer pleasure at seeing, at holding Finnick.

(He's alive, he's alive, he's alive and he's here.)

"So?"

But now Annie feels exposed, and like she's making them a target. If they need to run, they both do better if she can keep pace aside Finnick, not carried by him. Reluctantly, she drops herself lightly to the ground and just looks up at her lover.

"I don't care. Not about cameras, or spies, or any of that rotten fish shit. I really don't." Her voice is quiet, puzzled, and she's making no attempt to hide any of her words.

"Annie, you saw what they did..."

It's always been his darkest fear, ever since he first realized he'd fallen in love with her. That he'd step out of line and she'd be punished for it. And their relationship had always come at the price of secrecy. Not from Snow, because Snow had made it very clear that he'd known about them. But from the public. Never being in any stable relationship was a necessary part of the role Finnick had to play for his public. That way, everybody could keep pretending his patrons were real affairs, that he had some choice, when the only person he'd choose was the one person he could never admit.

And they'd attacked him with her in the arena.

He closes his eyes, trying to stop tears from appearing in them. His arms press against his chest, because if they don't, he'll want to reach out to her again, and he couldn't pass that off as the gesture of a friend.

"We have to care."

He closes his eyes and she keeps hers wide open. It's what they were trained to do, when they were a pair of baby Careers at the Academy. You train as a group to work as a group, to always have a person on watch. Always.

(It's always depressing how often the Careers forget this once the excitement of the arena hits.

She never forgot.)

"I saw. I saw the rest of the Games, too." But even as she says it, she knows she should shelve it. They aren't safe. They are out in the open, in a strange place, and this is not the time to have what promises to be an argument.

"No, I mean. We can discuss that later. Finnick. I, I have a room, in the city. Where have you been staying? Um, and how long have you been here? I had no idea..."

Days. She's been sick with worry for days because as horrific as it had been watching on the television, at least she could see him. But then suddenly, all her access had been cut off.

"You've been in the city?"

He opens his eyes as he's pulled suddenly from his thoughts about the danger they're in if they show too much affection in public to another danger he's been more preoccupied with here.

The people. The town. He's been wary, too wary to even go into the city, not trusting that it could be anything other than a trap, and preferring to stick to the woods, where he could avoid contact with the threat posed by other people.

"A few days? A week, maybe a bit longer? I've. I've been in the woods. Moving around. Didn't want anyone to find me."

He's surprised that she'd gone into the town, and it shows in the slow, careful way he speaks and the faint frown on his face. The whole situation is dangerous, and until now there'd been nobody here he could trust.

"The woods? Finnick! Why-"

No, no, she knows why. Well, she can guess. She remembers how she came out of her arena, remembers how the other victors mentioned they came out of theirs. They none of them trusted anything in case it was another arena-trick.

And Annie knows how well she behaved at the very sweet Lyanna, and all she'd been doing was watching the Games.

No, 'why' is the wrong question.

"How? Are you, are you okay, do you have frostbite? Or, or gotten more hurt? Finnick..." She's almost frantic again, wanting to step closer and make sure he's okay, he has to be okay, she's just found him again and he has to be okay.

She doesn't finish the question, seems to realize the answer that's behind the flatness in Finnick's expression as she asks. She knows as well as he does what it is to be in the arena. She knows the fear. The reaction to the environment as it changes, the threats it can bring.

The arena killed most of the tributes left in Annie's Games when the dam burst. She survived because she reacted, and because she knew how to outlast the others in that environment. And the Quarter Quell arena had been designed to kill. Not when the Gamemakers got bored and decided things needed shaking up, but as a feature.

"I have a fire and blankets. I'm -"

He's about to say fine, but he knows that's not true, and he owes Annie enough respect to not say something so outright stupid. He's hurt in ways that have nothing to do with his physical injuries, ways that crawl under his skin, that make him startle and take cover at unexpected noises. That make him so wary of everything here that he'd decided the forest was safer than anywhere people were.

But she can probably guess that, and it's not what she meant, and he can hear her voice getting more frantic, see the fear in her face.

"Nothing serious."

She wants to hug him. She wants to hold him close and run her fingers through his hair until the flatness and the fear goes away. Instead, she steps forward and places her hand against his. It can be a brief touch, or it can turn into a hold. It depends on how he reacts. But she has a deep, almost instinctual need to touch him.

He's here.

"All right," Annie says, quieter now. Relieved. He wouldn't lie to her. "Like I was saying, I do have a room. At, at an inn? It's secure enough. And safer, if a storm rolls in."

They know what the cold can do to people.

Finnick hasn't trusted anything here.

He'd accepted help from a few people who he'd met in the first few days, let the girl he'd met dress his wounds and Bucky give him food, blankets, and a knife. Mostly, he's been in hiding. Moving around, covering his tracks and his fires better since Bucky had warned him about other people in the forest. He's been waiting for traps, to see if there was some sort of timer here like there had been in the jungle, that would unleash death with no warning.

He's exhausted, cold, hurt, but there's a reason he's out here and not in Gazin. Gazin doesn't feel safe, not when he's afraid of every unexpected or unnatural noise.

But he trusts Annie like he trusts nobody else. Trusts her with his heart, his body, his mind. Trusts her so she can sleep next to him without the dread that crawls through him whenever he sleeps with anyone else. Trusts her enough to let her see the wounds in his mind, in his sense of self and being, left by the things the Capitol has done to him.

He trusts her that she wouldn't lead him into a trap, wouldn't tell him it was secure if she didn't believe it was, but he can't trust this place.

He turns his hand against hers, lets his fingers close tightly, quickly, over hers. A squeeze, like a friend might do for comfort.

"How can it be safer?"

He doesn't mean to question her judgment, but he can't understand.

"Four walls, a door where I can jam the handle with a chair. A window to escape and it's not too big a drop to the street."

She'd thought about it as soon as she entered the small room, and has been testing it ever since. Except for the drop, because she doesn't want to give her athleticism away. For about ten seconds, she'd even debated dragging the bed over every night to block the door... Except it's not practical, or safe. Everyone would hear the dragging of wood furniture on wood floor, and the door isn't so sturdy that she'd want to trust it against a determined axe. So the chair it's been.

"Communal eating, so if the food was poisoned, it'd poison everyone. And, um. Access to information. Equipment, with the market. We're not... I don't know where we are, but I'm pretty sure it ain't Panem? So. We need information."

"You believe them, then?"

The first person he'd met here had told him she'd never heard of Panem. She'd said she was from Exandria, and that she didn't know what he meant when he said 'arena'. But he's been so uneasy, so wary, that he'd refused to believe her, had challenged what she'd said about her home. But if Annie's been closer to the people, she'd probably have heard more about them and about this place than Finnick has, focused as he's been on pure survival.

"What they say, it shouldn't be possible."

But he says it almost plaintively, without the aggressive certainty he'd had when he challenged the first girl he met here. All he knows is what he's learned in Panem, and most of that came eventually from the Capitol. They'd learned in school that Panem was all that survived the chaos, disaster, and wars that engulfed the world back when Panem was still North America. But what they'd learned in school was what the Capitol wanted them to learn. Until now, he'd never had much call to question whether anywhere else was habitable.

Occasionally, people wondered if it was possible to sail out past the edges of the Peacekeepers' control, sail to freedom and escape Panem. But they never really talked about it, not openly, because that was treasonous.

Annie makes a face, cynical and frustrated all at once. Cynical, because why wouldn't she be? She's a woman from the Districts who'd been sold to the Academy to cover the repairs cost of her momma's boat, and then seen some of the worst the Capitol has to offer their toys. Frustrated, because her lover is right, and for a week she hasn't been able to make sense of anything.

She might be more mad than Finnick believes she is, but she knows when her brain works, she can provide sound analysis. And here, she's got nothing.

"I believe 'em when it comes to this not being Panem. There other people like us, who have just appeared? And they kinda... Stand out a little. Accents and bearing, you know? And there's too many details for this to be like, a living story. No one's slipped.

But I don't... know. How much else to trust."

Her fingers tighten around his in an answering squeeze.

"I need your help with that."

Holding her hand isn't enough.

He wants to hold her again, to cling to her and let the pain and fear and grief of the past few weeks pour out, to sleep in a bed, with her watching over him. To stop worrying what's going to come out of the forest, or who might attack. He wants the comfort that only she can offer, but only she can offer it because it's something only a lover could ask for.

So all he can do is hold her hand. That's something a friend could do, especially a friend as close as a mentor to his victor who's almost his own age. Even the help she's asking him, working out how much to trust, is something she could ask him as the friend who'd once been her mentor.

It's the sort of thing she had asked him, back when they were just friends, when he was just the person trying to help her work through her new life as a victor. And he's good at it, at reading people to tell what's the truth and what's a lie, or a half-truth. He'd had to learn that to do what he does in the Capitol, gathering their secrets and keeping them locked away in his mind.

"I think I know what you mean," he agrees, slowly. "But I haven't seen enough people here to be sure." Which means, of course, that if she needs his help, he'll need to be with her, in the city, observing people.

It's not like he's never stayed in a city where everything around him is a threat. Whatever Gazin is, it's not the Capitol.

He doesn't like the thought of abandoning the shelter offered by the size and comparative emptiness of the woods.

"So you want me to come into the city."

It's her call. This is what it is coming down to: it's her call what they are going to do. She could go into the woods with Finnick, or she could bring him into the city. Which is... Which is fine, they both make calls all the time. Separately and together. And she's never been someone to put all her life choices in another's hands.

But there's a weight to it here. In this weird, strange arena that isn't an arena. There's a risk to being around strangers. But also, there's a risk to being out in the wilderness.

Annie lets out a breath, lifts up her other hand to wrap it around his, and nods.

"Yes. I do. At least... At least until the weather clears. We can get supplies, information. And we'll be safer together."

Unspoken but understood is that she's already weighed up the risks of the forests, and the city is what she has chosen.

If it was anybody else, Finnick would brush off the request, trust his own judgment and return to the stash of supplies he'd left in a hollow tree nearby and move on to a different camp, like he'd planned to do. But it's Annie. She loves him, and she'd never try to persuade him to do something that she thinks would be more dangerous than what he's already doing. And he trusts her judgment when she's not lost in the confusion her mind can create for her.

More than that, she understands him. She knows when he's making the wrong decisions, even when he doesn't. It's that knowledge that makes him trust her assessment of the dangers of the city against his own.

"All right. I ... stored a few things nearby, just let me get them and I'll come with you."

Annie could be wrong. She could be. She's sure of so little here. But if it's like an arena, then resources are the difference between life and death. And the city has the resources. It has information, equipment, food, proper clothing.

They can always run later, when the weather improves. When they have better clothes and when they know what the fuck is going on.

But, Annie reasons, at least now they are together. And she's not waiting behind for Finnick to move out of her sight again.

So she follows him to the hollow tree and accepts a knife and a trident for him. It makes her feel better. Not that she thinks she could use the weapons on a person, but the trident can be a spiky walking stick to help her through the snow and the knife at her belt makes her feel better.

"Okay. I'll explain Gazin more as we go."

And she does. Not that she knows that much, but she's been the one who has been talking to people (a little) and he's the one been in the woods. It's weird, honestly, but it is what it is.

They aren't attacked at the gates. They aren't attacked on the streets, although they do get curious looks. No recognition, but curiosity. No recognition until Annie steps into the inn and walks quickly over to the innkeeper to quietly ask for a tray and some food for two. Her hands now full of tray rather than the spear (given back to Finnick), she leads him up the stairs and down the hall to the little room she's renting.

Until the door is shut behind them, she's half-certain something terrible will happen to take Finnick away from her all over again.

Finnick doesn't ask many questions as they walk. He's listening, but mostly he's watching, as he has been since he arrived, and as he had been before he arrived, when he'd been on watch for his allies. Besides, he hasn't been into Gazin. So he's even more on the alert once they pass through the city gate. Two strangers carrying weapons get looks from the people, but ... not the looks that victors get. Not the looks that Finnick, specifically, gets.

He has heard about the inn before. Bucky, who'd been so unexpectedly generous, had mentioned that he could return the knife to him here if he ever felt the need to. But he doesn't see the man who'd spoken like he knew the things that only victors know. He sees a lot of people, strangers, and he waits with his back to the wall until Annie returns with the food she'd gotten from the innkeeper.

It's only once they're in the room and Finnick's closed the door behind them that he can finally feel some tension ease out of his body, tension that's been there since before he arrived in this place. He drops his bundle of clothing and blankets on the floor and collapses onto the bed, letting out a long breath.

"Bucky said there was no power here. That true?"

He lets his gaze pointedly flick into the corners of the room, hoping she understands what he's really asking without him having to say it out loud.

Are there bugs?

Bucky. The strangely generous man who had bought her boots and lunch. She'll mention it, soon. They need to compare notes and intel. They are a team again. Annie balances the tray of food down on the chair she normally braces against the door. Instead of the chair, she takes Finnick's bundle and places it by the door instead. Just to slow up anyone coming barging in. Not for long, but every second counts.

It makes her feel better, anyway.

Putting the chair with its food in front of the bed, Annie sits down next to Finnick and rests her head against his upper arm.

He's here. He's alive. For a moment, she just revels in the sheer relief of it.

Then his question sinks and she opens her eyes.

"No power," Annie confirms. "But, it's not like the lines are down somewhere or the generator's stopped working. There's not even any infrastructure for it. No switches, no motors. No radios. No screens."

No bugs.

They are, both of them, used to being watched. Constantly. Not just in the arena, not just in the Capitol, but in what should be the safety of their own district. The Capitol has bugs everywhere, but they've long received more than the amount of attention most citizens get. They're victors. They have a part to play, and while mostly what they do in their own homes or the Victors' Village goes unremarked on, it's still occasionally obvious that they're still being watched.

Snow had started to threaten Annie not long after they'd become lovers.

Annie confirms what Bucky had said, and she gives enough detail that he knows she's understood what he'd meant. They're used to blackouts, but if Annie says there's no infrastructure, that's different (and it matches what Bucky had suggested).

Of course, there was no visible infrastructure in the arena, either, and he'd been watched by cameras the whole time. But if there's no possibility of bugs, then they're safe from cameras in this room, small and sturdily built as it is.

"So we can talk," he says, quietly, and he leans towards her a little, pressing his arm against her. "Good."

There's so much he wants to say to her if it's safe. But he's exhausted, and hungry, and his knife wounds are hurting.

"We can."

It's rare for them to be so private. Unheard of in a building, and Annie isn't sure how much she trusts it. But here, it'd be.... people. Actual people, with ears to walls. Not bugs and nameless, faceless Peacekeepers somewhere else, taking records to use against them.

There's so much to say. Too much. It tangles up her tongue until all she can do is shift around so she can lean up and kiss Finnick's jaw, then his cheek.

"But you also need to eat, okay? We can talk after."

Anything pressing, he would have told her out by the river. And given how cold he's been - and still is - hot food is better than room-temperature.

He lets himself have a moment to lean into her, into the feel of her lips on his face. Even that simple gesture, a kiss on the cheek, would have been forbidden publicly, except that she said she didn't think they were in Panem anymore. If that's true, he doesn't know what the rules are. But he does know he missed her so much it was like a physical pain, and he wants to hold her, kiss her, whisper the things the Peacekeepers stole his ability to say to her, the things he'd tried to fit into that last stupid poem he'd read on stage at his interview.

He thinks, from the look on her face, that she has a lot more to say than she can work out the words for too, but he appreciates what she does say. So he nods, and turns his body, a little awkwardly, so he's still touching her but can reach forward to take a plate of stew and a hunk of bread. He hasn't been eating badly -- his own skill and Bucky's generosity have seen to that -- but this is good, solid, hearty food like he hasn't had since his last dinner in the Training Centre. He doesn't talk while he eats, and he's sure Annie understands why.

There's something intense in the way he eats, a little less refined than he otherwise might be, taking bites a little bigger, waiting a little less long between them, that speaks to the hunger to which neither of them is a stranger, the hunger of having had enough to survive, but not enough to satisfy.

But the whole time he's eating, he keeps his side pressed against hers.

Just having more than enough good food to eat already makes him feel warmer, a little more distant from the snow and the woods.

There's almost nothing that could compel Annie to leave his side, and certainly nothing here right now. So she stays. She stays as he eats, only picking up her own bowl once he's well into eating his own lunch. He needs food and he needs the comfort food brings, and she wants to make sure she doesn't distract him before starting on her own.

Once the meal is finished (complete with Annie handing over her own last piece of bread because someone's been in the woods for two weeks, and it hasn't been here), she puts the tray on the ground. Then, reluctantly, she gets up to secure the door better. Chair shoved under the door handle, she takes off her boots and cloak, and goes back to bed. She's not tired, not even remotely, but she can see that Finnick is. He needs to be safe. He needs to feel safe.

And she doesn't want to be apart from him. Not for anything.

Which is how Annie winds up sitting up in bed with Finnick curled around her, using her lap as a pillow, as he falls into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Edited 2021-03-19 02:38 (UTC)

For the first time in weeks, Finnick sleeps calmly. The combination of warmth, good food, and the security of a jammed door and Annie watching over him soothe him enough that he can sleep deeply, far more deeply than he should curled half-in and half-on a bed. It's better than a forest floor or a jungle with a clock of death.

It's enough that, for a few hours, he's not caught up in the arena, the rebellion, the threats on his and Annie's lives.

It's enough that when he wakes, it's not with the jolt that's so usual for him. Instead, when he opens his eyes, Finnick blinks in confusion and sits up. He doesn't realize until a moment too late that Annie had curled herself around him while he slept; his sudden movement pulls him out from under her, and he looks down to see if he's woken her.

"Sorry."

Annie hadn't really meant to fall asleep. Doze, maybe. But just lightly. So she could wake up if someone tried the door. But Finnick is here. He's here, and he's safe, and he's here, and she doesn't have to be frantic with terror that he is going to die horribly without her ever being able to be there with him. He's here and she's not alone. So without meaning to, Annie had slid down and curled around him, and feel asleep herself.

Then he moves. Annie grumbles, the sound small but full of protest. She reaches out to grab him, trying to open her eyes to see where he is.

"'s okay," she mumbles, trying to sit up herself before giving up. Instead, she just slides further down in the bed, and looks up at him.

"You're still here."

It's warm in her inn room, warm with her curled next to him, and the warmth has seeped into his body so he no longer feels the deep chill that sank through his skin and stayed there the first day he spent in the forest here. When she settles back into the bed, he turns, leaning over her and propping himself up with his good arm, and smiles at her.

"So are you."

He's leaving a lot unsaid with those three words. Things he couldn't tell her, because they were the rebels' secrets and not his own, and they were treasonous. Things he couldn't bring himself to say because they might mean they were going to be parted forever. He'd known his chances; even with the planned rescue and the strength of his allies, there'd been no guarantee he'd ever make it out of the arena. Whatever this place is, whatever tricks these people might be playing, at least he's here, and he's with Annie.

And whatever this place is, and this strange, cramped inn room, it's not the arena. He can let himself think it, now, now that he's slept in relative peace, now that the memory is slowly returning of some of the things she'd said to him out by the river.

"I like you much better to wake up with than Katniss and Peeta."

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