Chapter Text
When Finnick gets home, his little sister meets him at the door, hands clasped together as if she’s praying, and asks Finnick to tell her about the Capitol, about the pretty men and women he met there, pretty please.
Finnick can’t bear to look at her. He looks past her instead, and accidentally catches the eye of his older brother. He’s looking at Finnick with a strange sort of expression. Finnick wonders what they’d heard. If pictures had been published, or videos plastered across the television screen.
Atlas looks away first, and scuffs his boot against the floor instead. He’s only three years older than Finnick. He’ll still be eligible for the Reaping this year. Piper is ten, so Finnick doesn’t have to worry about her yet. But he will, soon.
Snow had made that very clear.
Finnick swallows, and pats Piper on the head without quite managing to look at her. Atlas is leaning on the door frame. It’s very quiet, and suddenly Piper seems to notice. She frowns and pushes out her lower lip like a toddler. In two years, she could be made to kill others, to die at the hands of an older child. If Finnick misbehaves, he could be the reason she’s put in that position.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asks him. “You’re being quiet. You’re never quiet.”
Finnick swallows, and nods. He forces himself to look at her head-on, and then his gaze slides past her again. He doesn’t mean for it to happen. It just does.
“Just—tired,” he says gently. He’s aware of his bag still slung over his shoulder. The strap’s digging into his skin. It’s the only thing he seems to feel. “Where’s mom and dad?”
Atlas says, “Mom’s at work. Dad’s out on the boat. They’ll be—they’ll be glad to see you.”
Finnick nods. He’d gotten held up at the Capitol. Had had to stay a few more days than even Domitia, the District Four escort, had expected. Even Mags went home before Finnick, though only at his insistence. She hadn’t liked it, had ordered him to call her every day, but her back was killing her and her husband wasn’t doing well. So she went, and Finnick stayed for another three days. He was due home a week ago, and he’s only just gotten back.
He knows he could’ve called home—they have a telephone now, they live in a Victor’s house, because that’s what Finnick is, now—but Finnick hadn’t wanted anyone to meet him at the train station. When the train had stopped, Domitia had hugged him a bit too closely and tightly for comfort, Finnick had gotten off with his single bag and stared at the exit for so long that the sun was in a different position when he’d finally gotten himself to move forward.
He felt like a hollow glass in that moment. As if someone had poured all his contents out. It’s not the first time he’s felt like this, but in the Arena he had been able to ignore it, to keep pushing forward, until Mags gifted him the trident and Finnick knew, suddenly, that the Capitol wanted him to win, that it would do everything it could to make sure he could go home.
At the time, it felt like a promise of life. Looking back on it, Finnick should’ve known there was some horrible underbelly to it. The Capitol never gifts things without an expected exchange. He should’ve known.
He should’ve known.
And now it’s all he can think of, standing in front of his sister and brother like this. He should’ve known. If he’d had any sense at all he would’ve stabbed himself with that trident in the Arena. No, he should’ve gotten someone else to do it for him. Snow had made that very clear as well. There is no escape, not even in death. Not if it means someone else gets killed for his mistakes.
Finnick shivers. Piper stares at him, mouth slightly open, like a fish gasping for water. Atlas runs a hand over his face and says, “Finnick, are you feeling well? You look a bit tired.”
Finnick nods slowly. It’s an out. Atlas is giving him an out.
“I’m a bit tired,” he parrots. He readjusts his bag across his shoulder. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna sleep. For a while. I think.”
“Oh,” says Piper. She looks over at Atlas.
Finnick tries to look anywhere but at the floor, and thinks that maybe he’s failing.
“Feel better,” Piper says, and Finnick nods slowly, and heads for the stairs.
Before he reaches the first step, Atlas reaches out and puts a hand on Finnick’s shoulder, and Finnick purposely doesn’t react. It’s been trained out of him this past week.
Then, when Atlas pushes Finnick to face him, Finnick wonders, dimly, if he should’ve reacted, after all. He’d been more or less normal before the Tour, he knows. One of his old friends from Training had called it borderline sociopathic. But there were the nightmares, and there was the fact that everyone who touched him had a knife pulled on them for the first few months, and he still wasn’t great about touch.
Until now. Now, Finnick thinks anyone could touch him and he’d let them.
It’s what he’s meant for.
Atlas frowns at whatever he sees on Finnick’s face. He tugs until Finnick is up against his chest, arms loose, the bag still slung across his shoulder.
They never hug. It’s not their style. Finnick almost wonders about it for a moment, before Atlas is saying into Finnick’s ear, “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be checking on you, okay? You’re not going to get away with it. So just—just don’t.”
Finnick swallows. He doesn’t know what Atlas means—if he thinks Finnick is going to sneak out, or off himself. Either way, Finnick won’t do anything. He can’t do anything. He barely has the energy to keep himself breathing, and that’s only because he knows he needs to.
Finnick nods against Atlas’s shoulder. Atlas releases him, and then cups the back of Finnick’s head for a moment. Like their dad always does after something bad has happened.
“Go get some rest,” Atlas commands. So Finnick does.
***
He ends up sleeping until the following day.
He knows because pillars of sunlight keep stabbing at his eyes from the east-facing window. At some point, it takes more energy to try and fall back asleep than it would to simply be awake, so Finnick chooses to be awake instead. He stays in bed and stares at the ceiling, even when he hears the bedroom door creak open.
Atlas says, “Oh, you’re awake.”
Finnick hums. Then he says, still staring at the ceiling, “You kept checking on me?”
“I told you I would.” He shifts from foot to foot. Finnick can hear it through the floorboards. “Mags is downstairs. She brought breakfast rolls with her.”
“Is it still morning?”
“She’s been here for a while,” says Atlas. “You’ll come say hello, won’t you? It’s Mags. You love Mags.”
“Yeah,” Finnick says softly. The ceiling is tiger-striped from the way the sunlight slants across the room. The borders of the stripes are fuzzy. He keeps tracing the outline with his eyes.
“Finn,” his brother says.
He hasn’t tried a nickname on Finnick in years. Not since Finnick was accepted into Training, at least.
It’s what finally gets Finnick to sit up and look over at Atlas. So if it’s some sort of tactic, it’s an effective one, at least. Complete with Atlas looking as if he’s going to cry.
Doesn’t he know that Finnick is a killer? That in many ways, he’s much worse than that? Finnick feels like someone should tell him. It would only be fair.
“Please come downstairs,” Atlas says quietly. “Mom and Dad are really worried about why you haven't come to say hello. And there’s Piper, too, not to mention Mags.”
Finnick blinks at him. “I’m not going to do anything,” he says. It feels strangely plain, as if he shouldn't say it, even though he knows he needs to. “I wouldn’t. Not to you.”
For a long time, Atlas doesn’t say anything. And finally, he says, “Okay. Yeah—yeah, okay. Of course you won’t. I know that.”
“Yeah.” Finnick scrubs at his eyes. Once he’s done, Atlas is somewhat back to normal. Stoic and sure of himself. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Atlas looks at him.
Finnick shrugs. “I brought presents. I have to get them. That’s all.”
***
Finnick doesn’t know why he thought he’d have more freedom in the Capitol as a Victor than as a tribute. Of course they’d still be tracking his movements. Of course he’d have appointments and meetings to attend.
So he’d had to ask Domitia and his stylist, Albina, to get the gifts for him. He’d had to be specific—nothing flashy, nothing gold-covered, especially nothing overpriced.
Before Finnick joined Training, his family hadn’t been horribly poor. But there were still days when they couldn’t eat dinner, when his father put his face between his hands and breathed long and slow so he wouldn’t cry out or curse the Capitol. His father had been in a shipwreck a few years before Finnick was born. He’d never been told the details, but it left his father with noticeable, thick scars running down his left arm and leg, and he had reduced mobility on that side of his body. He worked as hard as he could, but he had to take more days off than most boat captains liked. He’d have to switch jobs every so often, and the lull in between work would mean leaner weeks or months for Finnick’s entire family.
His mother was a competent fisherman and an even better sailor than Finnick’s father. But that’s the thing about Four—as soon as a woman becomes a mother, that is who she is. A mother, a Victor, or a spinster, as Finnick’s mother would mutter to herself every so often. She’d eventually landed a part-time job at a bakery downtown, and sometimes would sell her knitting in a stall at the black market. But until Finnick joined Training, there were still thinner, leaner times for the family, and times when Finnick or Atlas would have to miss school because they didn’t have any wearable shoes anymore.
While training schools typically aren’t allowed, and certainly aren’t able to pay those who join, they still manage to give back in some ways. Gifts of hand-me-down clothes, casserole dishes passed between Training families, sometimes a new fishing net or pole. That’s what made it enviable. And not everyone could join. But Finnick could, and even though his family didn’t want him to, he did.
And now they live in the richest section of town, and his parents wouldn’t have to work at all, if they didn’t want to. And his father doesn’t, under strict orders from his mother, but his mother still goes into work four days out of the week. And they’re picky—they won’t accept cash from Finnick, and they won’t give interviews to the Capitol unless needed, and they hardly turn on the television or radio at all whenever Finnick’s home. It’s really just Piper who wants to know more—who’s a bit dazzled by the glitz and glamor of the Capitol.
So even though he’s brought back gifts for his family, even though he had to ask Domitia and Albina for their help to do it, he’s careful about what he’d requested for them. When they’d returned with the gifts, they’d gotten all of them wrapped in decorated, gold foil paper. Domitia had squeezed Finnick’s cheeks, telling him how generous and kind-hearted he was.
On the train back, Finnick had mechanically ripped all the paper away and wrapped the gifts in lavender-scented pillowcases he’d stolen from the train’s linen closet.
Now, when he sets the lumpy packages on the end table next to his mother’s armchair, she steals a quiet look at him, before saying, “Finnick, please. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
Finnick shrugs, and takes a seat on the floor across from her. The couch is occupied by Piper and his father, and the other armchair—the one Mags is settled into—is the one he’s now leaning up against. He feels Mags’s knobby fingers begin to card through his hair, and he purposely relaxes into it.
“Call it an apology,” says Finnick. “For staying all those extra days at the Capitol.”
His mother grimaces, but doesn’t say anything. It’s Atlas, entering the room with a plate full of food, who says, “You don’t have to apologize for that, Finn.”
There’s a strange kind of tension in the room for a moment, where Finnick can feel Mags pause and look over at someone—Atlas, maybe, or his mother, or his father, Finnick has no idea—before she quietly continues combing her fingers through his hair.
Atlas hands the plate to Finnick, who accepts it with a quiet surprise. He hadn’t known that that’s what Atlas had disappeared into the kitchen for. In a way, Finnick almost feels queasy about it. His family shouldn’t be waiting hand and foot on him. Atlas shouldn’t feel like he needs to do something like make up a plate for Finnick. Finnick’s the whole reason why Atlas is in a precarious position now. He’s the whole reason that Atlas might die. If Finnick had just given up in the Arena, Atlas would be safe.
But that also means that Finnick owes Atlas—and Atlas did go to the trouble of getting food for Finnick. So he looks down at the plate. Atlas had piled three of Mags’s rolls together, plus a healthy dollop of jam and a half of some kind of fruit that Finnick had never had before. It’s green, oval-shaped and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Atlas has stuck a spoon in it for Finnick already. Finnick’s family now have all sorts of money for new produce and foods they’d never tried been able to buy before. This must be something that one of his parents had picked up at the market, while Finnick was gone.
It’s a lot of food. Finnick is suddenly overwhelmed by how much food it really is. Finnick sets it on the hardwood floor next to him, and pinches off some pastry from one of Mags’s rolls. He dips it in the jam, and then pops it in his mouth.
Mags is a good baker. It doesn’t change the fact that her baking tastes like sawdust in his mouth, right now.
Finnick swallows it down and turns his head slightly up to look at Mags. “It’s great,” he tells her sincerely. “Like always.”
“Sweet boy,” says Mags. There’s a touch of something there—some stained-blue sadness that’s dripping into her voice. Finnick tries not to let his face fall.
From the couch, Piper claps her hands together. “I feel like we’re ignoring the fact that Finnick got us presents, ” she says. “Come on, come on, come on! I wanna see what he got us, please ?”
Everyone is quiet for one moment longer. Finnick finds himself resenting these moments, these strange tensions. He knows he’s the cause of them. If he could fix them, he would. Lately, everything feels more and more like it’s his fault.
His father breaks the silence by saying, “Well, you heard the little lady!” and so Finnick stands up, chewing on another bite of pastry tastelessly, and distributes the gifts by how they feel in his hand.
He’d gotten his mother a simple silver chain with a charm of a sailboat. The body of the ship and the sail were both set with small turquoise gemstones. Finnick had clarified that he’d wanted to get his mother sea glass-set jewelry, the same kind you could buy at the lower fishing markets in Four, but Domitia had returned, only half-apologetic, and explained that Capitol jewelry was just made “of better quality” than anything you could find in the districts.
For his father, he’d asked Domitia and Albina to get him a nice bottle of wine, which turned into a fifth of amber-colored whiskey and a label engraved straight onto the glass face. His gift for Piper remained relatively unchanged, thank god—just a small porcelain doll wearing a tulle ball gown. The porcelain was the same white that Albina had bleached her skin.
And for Atlas, he’d asked for a journal. He hadn’t thought he would need to specify—he’d been imagining the journals in Four, like with his mother’s jewelry. The kind of journal bound with excess flax fiber that had been cut from scraps meant for a ship mast. The kind with uneven papers, papers cut from someone’s old journals and the title pages of books no one is allowed to read anymore.
Domitia and Albina brought him a journal with a real leather cover that smelled like citrus and cedar. There were strips of ribbon for bookmarks and an extra line of oiled leather that could tie the journal closed. A trident was pressed into the center of the leather cover and decorated with gold-flecked beads. The papers were uniform, lined, and had an accompanying pen and inkwell.
Finnick had almost hated it on sight. The casual display of wealth, and the way Domitia and Albina were able to return a hefty chunk of the cash he’d handed to them. He’d had to hold back a frown, had had to thank both of them sincerely and let them give him full-body hugs, just hours after his last appointment and hours before his next one.
On the train, Finnick had stolen a steak knife from dinner and taken it to the journal. He ripped out all the beads and the strings attaching them to the leather, and then opened the inkwell and splashed half of it across the cover of the journal. It smeared across the surface and seeped into the divots shaping the trident, staining it black and making it look as if it was dripping with blood. Finnick took the knife to some of the pages, too, cutting off thin edges at random, and without any kind of consistency.
Now, with Atlas holding the journal, a peculiar expression on his face, Finnick wonders if he went a bit too far with it.
Piper immediately jumps up and down once she opens her pillowcase sack, though, saying, “Oh, it’s beautiful! Oh! I love it! She’s so pretty, Finnick!”
Finnick has barely enough time to push his plate away with his leg before she’s ramming into him with her full force and wrapping her arms around his neck. He breathes as she snuggles up against him. He only breathes, and he doesn’t do anything else. Then he wraps his arms around her, too.
Finnick shuts his eyes for a moment. When he reopens them, he realizes his brain had tuned out for a moment. It cuts back in, like radio waves after a storm has passed. His mother is saying “—too much, Finnick.”
“It’s not,” he manages to say. “Please, it’s not, it’s not even—just… You deserve it. You deserve these things.”
His mom works her jaw back and forth. She looks to Finnick’s father, whose hand is choking out the neck of the whiskey bottle.
“It didn’t cost you too much?” His dad says.
“No,” Finnick says. “Not much at all. I promise.”
“Okay,” his dad says, nodding once, then twice. His index finger swipes a loop around the bottle neck. Did Finnick do it wrong? What had he done wrong? He rubs at his neck, from where Piper had held him. It feels beady and uneven from the beginnings of sweat.
“Thank you,” says Atlas, a bit pointedly. His thumb is pressed over a smudge of spilled ink. “It’s really thoughtful of you, Finn.”
“Yes,” his mother says quickly. “Thank you. You just—you didn’t have to. You know that, right?”
Finnick gnaws on his lip. Usually it’s chapped, a bit windburnt, from the harsh winds from the ocean. It’s perfectly fine, now. Albina had applied balm and gloss to his lips before every appointment.
“I—you guys deserve it,” Finnick says. You deserve it.”
He lowers his eyes down to the ground, to the plate in front of him. He’s tired of everyone looking at him. He’s tired of anyone at all looking into him.
He feels Mags’s hand pushing into his shoulder. Like a reminder.
He rips off another bit of pastry, for her, and for Atlas.
It doesn’t taste any different, or any better, when he pushes it into his mouth.