(tw: brief mentions of suicide in this chapter)
THE NEXT TWO DAYS OF TRAINING ARE GENERALLY THE SAME, AND THE FINAL DAY OF TRAINING IS THE DAY OF THE PRIVATE SESSIONS.
Before any of that, though, the morning was to be spent preparing just like any other training day— only Drea and Finnick were on time to this one. Finnick had been taking an hour of archery from Katniss in exchange for an hour of trident lessons, which left Drea alone for an hour of each day. Lots of times she spent it sparring with Johanna, but sometimes Johanna liked to spar naked and oiled up, which was not Drea's cup of tea.
So on that last day, when Finnick was busy showing Katniss how to stab and slash and all that, Drea found herself at the camouflage station, watching Peeta Mellark talk quietly with the morphlings from District 6. She couldn't see what he was painting, but it enthralled the District 6 tributes to no ends, so she had to have a look.
Upon further inspection, Drea realized it was not camouflage at all but rather a painting. A painting of a meadow, slightly hazy because it was on Peeta's forearm instead of a smooth canvas, but beautiful nonetheless. The colors were vibrant and the images so lifelike, Drea would have believed you if you told her it was a photo.
"Wow," she awed, staring at the painting. She remembered how skillfully Peeta hid himself in the arena the year before, but she underestimated his talent. "This is amazing."
When she glanced up at him, the tips of Peeta's ears went red. "Thanks, uh... It's a meadow, from back home," he explained. "I've never actually been there, it's just what Katniss has told me about it."
"It's beautiful," Drea assured him, smiling lightly.
The female from District 6 tugged on Drea's hand, pulling it into her own and urging her to place it on the table top. "Oh, I..." she began to protest, but then she glanced at the woman, with her usually dull eyes shiny for once, and stopped.
What else did she have to do until assessment time? Drea smiled warmly. "Paint whatever you'd like."
With Peeta's help, the morphlings from District 6 painted Drea for hours, just her hand and forearm— but when they were finished, it was enough to bring tears to Drea's eyes.
They'd painted her skin the same color as the ocean, carefully highlighting and shadowing her to look just like the waves, or a pool of water with a ripple in it.
Drea's throat felt scratchy looking at it, a lump settled there. She frowned at Peeta, her brow furrowed slightly. How did he manage to replicate the ocean so perfectly, when it was likely he'd never seen it? "How do you know...?"
"I remembered the color from the Victory Tour," he answered, already anticipating her question. "The rest... I guess we just kind of figured out. How did we do?"
"It's..." Drea shook her head in awe, tilting her arm every which way to focus on the illusion. "Just like home..." she whispered.
Memories of home brought up memories of Annie, and where before it might have hurt to think about the ones she'd be leaving behind, seeing the ocean on her skin made her bittersweet.
She willed her tears to go away, swallowing the sorrow, and smiled gratefully at Peeta again. "Thank you."
He nodded with a half-smile of his own.
Lunch rolled around, and Drea gravitated towards Finnick immediately, curious to know what he was going to do for their private sessions with the Gamemakers.
Come to find out, this was a common query amongst the tributes, which led to a lot of joking around. Some said they'd sing a song, or dance or strip, tell jokes. Most had no clue what they'd do to impress or surprise the Gamemakers, Drea included.
The joking around helped to set her at ease, but once they began calling them in for assessments, beginning with Gloss from District 1, the dining room faded into tense silence.
The silence was the worst part, because Drea was allowed to get too much into her own head, and when that happened, she often remembered.
Right then, she was remembering how it was to sit here, in this same room with her thirteen year old brother at her side.
The memory was smothering, suffocating. It constricted her throat and cut off her airways, causing her heart rate to spike. Her leg bounced under the table. She flinched when they called for Brutus, District 2, and Finnick noticed.
Tobias Moreno, District 4, please report for individual assessment.
Drea clamped her shaky hands over her eyes, leaning her elbows onto the table in front of her. She tried desperately to breathe, to remember how to breathe— but all she could remember was the fear on her brother's face as he left her side for the first time since the Reaping. All she could remember was Tobias leaving her side at the Cornucopia at the end of the games, when it was just them and one other person left, the fear on his face when Drea turned, just in time to see him—
"Beetee Latier, District 3, please report for individual assessment."
It took Drea a long moment to realize Finnick was next to her and saying words— words to her. Her name. "Drea," he said softly. His brow furrowed. "Drea?"
"I'm... I'm okay," she breathed, fingers shaking, but her head continued to ring.Tobias Moreno, District 4, please report for individual assessment. A few others were staring, Katniss Everdeen amongst them, but plenty of the others had lowered their heads, out of respect, pity, relation? She wasn't sure.
"Are you okay?" Peeta asked, dipping his head to speak to her.
Drea tried to answer, but she couldn't make her mouth move. A warm hand took her own, and a warm voice began to bring her back down.
"She's all right," Finnick said softly, squeezing Drea's hand firmly. He rubbed her knuckles, the ones stained with sea green from the paints that Peeta and the morphlings used to paint the ocean on her skin— sea green, like Finnick's eyes.
His lips pressed to the shell of her ear, thumb still working over her knuckles gently. "You're okay, Drea," he whispered. "It's all right. It's me, Drea. Just me..."
Slowly, Drea drew in a tense breath, keeping her eyes wrenched shut. She was there, at the 75th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, with Finnick— with Finnick. Tobias was dead. Tobias had been dead for six years. This will be the sixth year that Tobias has been dead— six years he's been dead while the Capitol goes on living.
Finnick's voice and warmth calmed Drea down, slowly but surely, so that by the time he was called to report for assessment, she was back to breathing steadily, though her cheeks were still wet with tears.
"You all right?" Finnick asked quietly, holding both her hands in his.
Drea nodded numbly, and he kissed her forehead. "I'll see you in a little bit, okay?" he said softly, before squeezing her hand and slipping away.
Drea pressed her lips into a thin line, staring at the table before her. She could feel Katniss staring at her still— but she just ignored her. The fifteen minutes separating Finnick's call to report and her own seemed to fly by like the blink of an eye, and soon she was standing anyway, walking out of the dining area and being led to the room where they'd pretty much determine her fate.
But they'd done that a long time ago, hadn't they? They determined Drea's fate the day they pulled her brother's name from the bowl at the Reaping.
Walking into the room, Drea thought about her brother with a much clearer head now. Six years he's been dead, but the Capitol goes on living.
The Capitol goes on living.
In an instant, Drea's panic and sorrow turned to anger— hot, blinding, itching anger, anger that threatened to burst from her chest at any moment. Her blood rushed so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear what the Gamemaker, Plutarch, said for her instructions. She was too angry, too absolutely livid, and too busy forming a plan.
Haymitch said to keep Katniss alive, which, given how stubborn and willful Katniss Everdeen was, proved to be a difficult. She'd have to step up, take some of the attention onto herself. And Drea figured there was only one way to keep the target off of Katniss's back...
Before Plutarch was even done talking, Drea was ripping a jagged edged throwing knife from one of the weapons displays. She gripped it tight in one hand and, in one slick motion, jerked it across the palm of her other. White pain sliced her skin open in time with the knife, and hot, thick blood immeditately pooled in her palm. She didn't feel the pain, though. She didn't care to. All she could think was how the Capitol was living and her brother was not and soon enough, Finnick might not be living either—
With anger lighting her path, Drea smeared her blood onto the nearest target, dragging the crimson painted hand over the face of the cutout, down its front and over its chest. With her clean hand, she carved the words into the wood: The Capitol. And with one final angry motion, Drea jabbed the knife in the center of the target's chest.
She didn't look at the judges. She didn't look at Plutarch. She turned to leave the training room, and simply lifted her hand high over her head, three bloodied fingers shown to the judges. A symbol. A message. Rebellion was imminent.
The best way to keep the target off Katniss's back, in Drea's opinion?
Putting it on her own.
｡･:*:･ﾟ★ ｡･:*:･ﾟ
FINNICK WAS ANGRY when he found out what she'd done. Angry was perhaps the wrong word, though, because all though he was seething and wore a perpetual scowl all throughout dinner, he didn't yell or even say anything for a very long time. He just stared at the white cloth napkin she had wrapped tightly around her still-bleeding palm.
After she'd refused a trip to see Capitol medics for the tenth time, Mags gave up and disappeared into the elevator. Their escort gave up on getting Drea help long before that, disgusted by her brutish behavior and resigning to eat dinner alone in her room. Leaving Finnick and Drea alone at the table. Leaving Finnick a window to finally say something.
"Do you have a death wish, Drea?" he asked, staring at her.
Drea laughed. "Would it matter if I didn't?"
It was a joke, or a lame attempt at one, anyway, but it made Finnick tense. He was quiet for another long moment, and he hated it, but he was trying to be careful with his words, trying to not bring up that time, all those years ago— the time he'd seen her out in the ocean, the time she'd almost—
He didn't like to think about it. Nothing he'd seen in the games was as scary as when he'd seen her, fighting the waves. Nothing was as scary as seeing her lose against them. Nothing was as scary as thinking that he saw her give up trying. He didn't like to think about it, but he had to, even now. After her panic before individual assessments and her lack of remorse for the very dangerous and self-flicted thing she just did, Finnick had to think about it. And he had to wonder: Drea volunteered for Annie, certainly because she wanted to keep Annie alive. But could it also be because... Because Drea wanted to die?
The tears in her eyes worried him, along with the gash on her palm, the horrible, nasty cut that didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. The look in her eyes reminded him too much of what happened all those years ago, right when Drea came home and Tobias didn't.
He had thought she was better... He thought she was better... She had been better, hadn't she?
"Drea—"
The elevator opened, cutting his question short. Finnick and Drea looked up from the dinner table to see that it was Mags, dragging a puny looking Capitol medic behind her. Finnick would have smiled, under different circumstances. So, Mags hadn't given up after all. If Drea wouldn't go to the medics, Mags would bring the medics to Drea. Only Mags.
The medic placed his bag on the table, and reached for Drea's hand. "Let me get a look at that—"
"I don't want the Capitol's help," she snarled, pushing herself away from the table. Without another word, the dark-skinned girl stood and marched out of the dining room.
Finnick sighed, watching her go. He stood gingerly, noticing the frightened posture of the young medic. Drea was cool and calm and collected most of the time, kind and gentle— but Finnick of all people knew that when she was upset, she was scary. A stormy cloud of brooding darkness, despite her round eyed deer expression, she was truly frightening from time to time.
But he knew better than to be scared. He knew her better, or at least, he had at one time. "Leave the bag," he told the medic, tugging the strap towards him to get a better look inside. "And go."
The medic scurried back into the elevator and disappeared, while Finnick gathered a few rolls of gauze, medical tape, and disinfectant to carry into Drea's room. Mags gave him a grateful, sympathetic smile as he passed.
He found Drea exactly where he thought she'd be, sitting on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands, shaking. It had been a rough day. Wordlessly, he knelt in front of her and took her non-injured hand in his.
She tensed, and he knew she was thinking he was going to make her talk about things, things she didn't want to talk about just yet, things that made her tremble and panic like she already was. So he didn't ask about those things.
"Peeta painted you today?" he asked, running his thumb over her paint-stained knuckles.
Drea swallowed roughly and nodded. "The ocean. Looked just like home."
"Lucky bastard." Finnick grinned, but hid it behind a faux pout. "You'd never let me paint you." His thumb moved across her skin again.
Drea frowned at him. "You're not even a painter." She shook her head. He wasn't artistic, not like that. She watched his hand move over hers. "You're just trying to distract me..."
He tilted his head, curls falling over again. Caught. "Is it working?"
"What do you think, Finnick?"
He just sighed and shrugged, focusing on her uninjured hand again. "Eh. Peeta's probably better at it than I'd ever be, anyway."
"He's definitely better at it."
"Rude."
That drew a shaky laugh from her, though it sounded more like a strangled breath than anything. Finnick gently pulled her other hand— the bleeding one— towards him, and she tensed again. But his eyes, so sweet and green and imploring, eased her tension, soothed her burns, softened her edges, and she let him have it.
He kept her talking, all throughout the process of disinfecting and cleaning and bandaging, about anything he could think of that didn't have to do with the Hunger Games— Mags's clam chowder, fond memories with Annie, the ugly wig their escort was wearing to dinner...
By the time he was finished wrapping the gauze tight around her palm, Drea was done shaking but had started crying. She couldn't help it, but she needed to feel weak a moment, before she'd have to stay strong in the arena. Finnick didn't say anything about her sudden shift in emotion, as she sobbed and sobbed— he just stayed on his knees and pulled her into his arms, whispering sweet nothings into her ear and running his hand over her hair.
The undeniable truth that Drea— and somewhere deep down, Finnick, too— had to face was that Drea volunteered for Annie because she cared about her, more than anything. She loved Annie, she would give her life for her— but it was more than love, sometimes. She poured all of herself, her entire being, into helping Annie, saving Annie, fixing Annie, because she knew if she didn't have Annie... What reason would she have to keep going?
She had to stay alive for Annie. She had to help Annie— that was all she could think about. But the longer she faced the possibility of that arena again, of Tobias' memory... It only solidified the idea in her head. Finnick was better off coming home. Finnick was better off taking care of Annie than she was.
And if that wasn't enough to convince her he had to be the one, well maybe the immense love, the immeasurable desire she'd kept secretly burning deep inside her all these years would do the trick. Either way, Finnick would be the one to make it out of this arena, whether or not Drea herself did, too.
She'd made this vow before, when Tobias had been at her side, but this time— failure was not an option.
a/n:
considering a sejanus fic bc there's just not enough love for my man (rachel zegler's man) out there rn. like trust me, tom blyth? I see it. I agree, you guys, he's very very nice to look at but.... SNOW?! WE'RE SIMPING FOR SNOW NOW?? .... still, sejanus </3 my baby