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.

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Annie wants to kiss him for hours. They need to talk, and strategise, and she saw him get injured. She needs to make sure none of the injuries are infected, and they should be cleaned and re-bandaged, and none of that is worth risking for sex or heavy making-out. But still, there's the tiniest sigh of disappointment as he pulls away.

Instead of following him to kiss him again and again, she reaches up to cover his hand on her face with her own hand.

"It's what we do," Annie answers, just as quietly. "You'd do it for me, too."

Her fingers tighten around his hand in a quick squeeze.

"How badly are you hurt?"

She's right. He'd have done the same for her if she was making decisions based on assumptions she'd made or information she didn't have, and he's been the one to tell her when her mind was seeing things that weren't there many times. He'd been certain that the forest was safer than the town, but now that he's eaten and slept in a warm bed, and no longer has a permanent sense of cold, he knows she was right about the risks of exposure compared to the potential risks of the people around them.

He just hadn't been able to see that.

Besides, he knows how to handle the risks of a city, even better than Annie does, because he's been navigating around the dangers from the Capitol's elite for years. He's slept beside people who'd probably kill him if they had the chance; he's slept beside some of the same people who just tried to kill him in the arena.

He can handle the danger with a door they can shove a chair under and a window they can climb out.

He turns his hand into hers so he's holding her hand instead of her face, and shifts so he's lying on his side, pressed close to her.

"The burns from the fog are healing now, that stuff we got was pretty good."

He's well aware that for a while there, before Katniss and Peeta -- he hadn't been paying attention to know which it was, too lost in a haze of pain and grief -- had worked out that water drew out the poison and left just the burns, he'd been very badly hurt. And he still bears the marks in the ugly scabs all over his face, and his arms and legs where the fog had eaten through his jumpsuit. They itch, but they're not a concern any more except cosmetically, and the scabs are starting to come off now.

"Other than that, a couple of knife wounds, but one of them's pretty deep. I met someone just after I got here who bandaged them and put honey on them. I don't think anything's too bad."

Not for the arena.

Not for that arena.

The burns are going to feature in Annie's nightmares for years, for decades. She knows that already. The burns, and the swirling white that were pulled out of them in the water. That Finnick's been healing so well is something she should expect from the Capitol's technology but it's still...

Eerie.

She'd be grateful that he's healing so well, except it'd be the Capitol who had hurt Finnick in the first place. So. Fuck 'em.

"Honey... Okay, that'd work. How long ago was that? And where are you stabbed? I don't remember where all your injuries were, sorry."

Annie feels as if she should. She'd been safe, at home, and forced to watch. She's barely slept. She'd been watching. And she should remember, but thinking about on it, the Games are increasingly a blur.

They've both experienced it before first-hand how well the Capitol's medicine can make the physical wounds of the arena disappear. Before he'd gone back into the arena, Finnick's skin had been flawless, in spite of surviving the Games once before and a lifetime wielding knives and tridents. Between him, Katniss, and Peeta, he's sure they'd had enough sponsors to afford it (a benefit of having the victor of the moment in his alliance).

"Not long after I got here. Must have been a week or so, maybe a bit longer."

It's easy to lose track of time in the arena, and surviving out in the forest had been similar. The days blended into each other without any reference points beyond the pattern of day and night and the occasional contact with -- or watching of -- the strangers who came into the forest from Gazin.

He wants to nestle himself a little closer to her for a moment, but he has to lift his head to look at her when he talks, and he has to shift to lean on his good arm again so he can show her the wound.

"Left forearm, right thigh." He tugs at the sleeve of his shirt, lifting it up until she can see the now-dirty but still neat bandage on his arm. "That's the worst one. Didn't get the full blow in the leg. Enobaria missed the mark."

Edited 2021-03-24 16:44 (UTC)

"Lucky." And it was. That's so often what the arena comes down to: luck. Luck in yourself, luck in any allies, luck that your opponent stepped one way instead of another.

She'll miss Enobaria.

Rather than think of that, and the others she'll miss even more, Annie sits up and rests a hand on Finnick's forearm.

"I'll need to see. Change the bandages by now. How does it feel?"

She means, does it feel infected. If the thigh wound is lighter, the one in his arm must be bad indeed.

"I was parrying a spear from Brutus, moved out of her way."

They could have come out much, much worse from that fight. They'd lost Wiress, because the other Careers had attacked stealthily, from the water. But it could have been worse for them, if Finnick hadn't defended Peeta from Brutus, if Katniss and Johanna hadn't been so quick to kill Gloss and Cashmere.

He's been trying not to think about that, about the fact that he'd have killed them, too, to protect Katniss and Peeta. They'd been the victors the two years before him, and while they hadn't been exactly friends, they'd been Career victors, caught in the same Capitol traps that he was caught in, and having Cashmere around had been a comfort he'd never really admitted on some of the worst nights of his life.

"I think it's okay," he says, softly, understanding her implication. They've both studied the Games at length; they both know how much of a risk infection is. And, if he's honest about it, he hadn't been exactly careful about contamination when he'd cut out the tracker, though getting it cleaned and dressed probably did some good.

"I haven't felt feverish, and it doesn't hurt more than I'd expect."

He leans towards her, resting his head on her shoulder briefly.

"You can."

As Annie said, lucky. It always comes down to those moments. If you chose to step this way instead of that, if someone else decides to toss a weapon one way instead of another, if the wind is right, if the sun is at an angle to blind anyone. If, if, if. You could drive yourself mad contemplating all the random chances that keep one person alive and kill another.

Annie suspects she kinda has driven herself insane over it, even if it's hardly the first thing that set her off.

"Okay," Annie says, just as quiet. "I'll get some alcohol though. Just, um. Just to be sure, yeah?"

He's Finnick. She can't let him go. And she's going to do everything she can to keep him alive.

It's harder than she'd ever want to admit to untangle herself from the bed and him and get up, walk over to the door, and leave. She has to kiss him before she goes. Just. She has to.

Annie is as quick as she can be, and it's probably hardly any time at all before she's back with a cup. She knocks first, and says, "Hey it's me." Just to make sure.

The city might be safer from the elements, but they both know the risks of people.

He feels suddenly bereft when Annie reluctantly leaves, even though he knows why she's left and that she plans to be back. Alcohol is as good a makeshift treatment as they have, and he's happy to take whatever she wants to do to look after his injuries in a good spirit. He could have been looking after himself better, but with just the one encounter with the girl with the bandages and no sponsorship money to buy medicine he'd been limited in how he could look after himself.

To do what little he can to help her, Finnick slips his borrowed shirt off over his head and drops it on the foot of the bed. It's warm enough in the room that he can be comfortable without it, and she'll need proper access to his arm.

"Hey," he says, giving her a crooked smile as he opens the door to let her back in. Then he retreats, grabbing the chair they'd been using as a table and setting it by the bed again in case Annie needs to put something on it.

"Welcome back," he says as he sits down on the bed, his arm held ready for her to take.

If he looks a little nervous about what she's about to do, it would take knowing him as well as Annie does to notice it.

If Finnick looks nervous, well- Okay. This will hurt. Disinfecting wounds is never fun. It will sting. But the expression is strange. He is neither being stoic nor dramatically apprehensive. She glances at him but doesn't ask. Yet.

After all, it will sting.

Carefully, Annie unwinds the bandage and inspects the injury. Even with Finnick's assurance that it doesn't feel infected, she's relieved to see that it looks like it is healing well. Still, it needs to be cleaned again.

And it is... deep. Strange. And that position.

Annie opens her mouth to ask if the Capitol tracker was damaged, if she needs to dig the shards of it out, and then stops. Changes direction.

"This will sting," she says, and swallows the rest as she starts to pour the alcohol over her lover's arm.

"I know."

He nods, a signal to Annie that he's ready for her to do what she has to. He's not sure how much she'd seen on the coverage, whether she'd slept at all over the nights when he'd slept, while his allies were on guard. He hadn't slept well, but he'd slept some, and he suspects that Annie might not have. He probably couldn't have if it were her in the arena.

He never even sleeps well when he's mentoring, although he knows that he'll be woken if he's needed. But if it were Annie in the arena, Annie as he knows her now, his lover and not his tribute, he'd probably be unable to sleep. She might have seen more of his time in the arena than he had. She'd said she couldn't remember all the injuries he'd had, but ... whatever she remembers, she's observant enough to know the knife wound she's looking at isn't the sort of thing that would happen in the arena.

It's deliberate. Not a slash or a gash from a knife that was aimed somewhere else, or thrown, and obviously so.

It's not that he wants to hide what happened from her, but he isn't sure he should admit what he'd done out loud, when he still doesn't know what this place is.

He's dragged suddenly from his unease by the feel of the alcohol on the still-healing wound. He winces, gritting his teeth and letting out a hiss as he takes a sharp breath in. But he tries his best to hold his arm still, instead of snatching it away in the immediate reaction to the pain.

After a moment, he can steady his breath and untense his body.

"Okay," he tells her. "Okay."

The logical, simplest explanation for Finnick's injury is that he dug the tracker out himself. There are various forms of complexities and possibilities beyond that, of course. Someone else did it. Someone else not the Gamemakers, because they'd never make such an unhealed mess of it.

But. Why. He ran into the woods, he's still got that feral, tribute-air to him. And messing with the tracker is such a big no.

Once she's finished with the alcohol, once she's sure he's okay, that he's actually okay and isn't just saying it, once she's finished giving him a breather before she wraps the bandage on, Annie gives him a sharp look.

And holds it.

Just long enough that he knows she knows and she's not asking (yet), but she knows he's done something.

"The person who patched you up. Do you trust them enough for them to do it again?"

He hadn't been thinking as clearly as he is now when he'd taken the knife to his arm. Something strange had happened and he was no longer in the arena. It was ahead of schedule and not what he'd been told to expect, but he'd assumed that being tracked could be dangerous, that something might have changed and he needed to make himself safe to rescue. He doesn't entirely regret doing it, but he hadn't considered trying to explain the injury to Annie without admitting out loud what had made him do it.

She doesn't say anything about it. But she does study it, and after she re-bandages it, Annie meets his eyes with a sharpness in her expression that says that she's noticed it's not the sort of wound he'd have gotten normally in the arena.

He keeps his expression impassive, but he does give a tiny nod to acknowledge that he gets the message.

"I think so. She offered, but she didn't push hard enough to be suspicious."

Finnick nods and Annie's mouth curls into a tiny, wry smile. So. At some point, when they are alone - more alone, and feeling more secure - they are gonna have to talk about what happened to his arm.

But not tonight. Not now. He'd have offered, otherwise.

Annie suspects she's not going to enjoy the explanation, but that's for the future to deal with. Annie in the present just keeps on re-securing the bandage.

"Okay. It's, it seems okay? Like you said. Um, but, uh, I wouldn't want to rely on just me for this. There's a clinic in town, too. I had a look outside.

What's her name? The woman who fixed your arm?"

"Okay. Good."

He trusts Annie more than he trusts anything or anyone here. He hadn't known there was a clinic, because he's been out in the forest while Annie's been here in the city. But he's not sure how much he'd trust anyone in a clinic here. Not that he hasn't been treated by doctors he didn't know or trust before; he doesn't know who any of the doctors who repaired the damage to his body after his first Games were, but ... he doesn't trust strangers as easily now as he once did.

"I didn't get her name." He looks discomforted for a moment, and shifts where he sits. "Wasn't as sociable as I could have been. But she told me how to find her again, and you'd know her if you saw her. She was small, shorter than you, with dark curly hair that had white streaks in it, even though she was young."

"I've seen her around," Annie confirms. The height had been striking. For District Four, while Annie is on the shorter side, she's by no means tiny. It's just a quirk of proportions that makes her look it. But outside her home, at the District and here, she's been feeling very small indeed. So anyone her own height, she tends to notice.

And the white streaks had been the most Capitol looking thing she'd seen since Bucky's arm.

"I think that could be a good idea. In a day or so? Just. Just to make sure you're healing right."

Annie bends her head over Finnick's arm as she takes his hand between hers, and kisses his knuckles.

"I'm keeping you in one piece, Finnick Odair."

"If you come with me."

He wants her there.

He's never had the chance to really have Annie by his side in a real situation when he needs to use his skills and judgment to protect himself, to make the sort of assessments they're going to need to make to understand what's happening here. They've worked together watching over replays of old Games, discussed potential strategies, trained together for the Quell while the fear of actually going back into the arena hung over them. But she'd been at home, far away and unreachable once he left for the Capitol, and she always was. The most he's ever been able to do is sneak a phone call for the sake of just hearing her voice while he tried to keep himself together around his patrons and his tributes.

Now, this place is unknown, dangerous, but she's here, and that is a luxury he's never had before, so he wants her input on everything.

He squeezes her hand, and reaches with his free hand to cradle the back of her head.

"I'm glad you're here," he says, his voice catching on the words.

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

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