Finnick Odair (youngestvictor) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-12-17 20:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, annie cresta, finnick odair |
Who: Odesta
What: Dream Talk
When: Backdated: Monday, December 5th. Evening
Where: Annie's Apartment
Rating/Warnings: Mostly Family Friendly. Hunger Games Talk
Status: Complete!
The weekend had been an interesting one for Finnick; to say the least. He’d gone on his first hunting trip, which in a way had reminded him of the Quarter Quell only without the various traps and no one had been hunting him. Throw in the fact that his dreams had picked up again only to have him end up dying and it was an interesting weekend indeed.
When it came to the dreams, he’d spent some time talking to Peeta about them and had realized that the reason Annie had acted so shocked to see him when they had first met was likely because she had already dreamt about his death and he had been the last person she’d ever expected to bump into; literally.
Having gotten home late Sunday night from the hunting trip, Finnick had sent Annie a text just to let her know that he was back and asked if he could came me by the next night. He needed to talk to her about the dreams.
The next evening, he headed over to her place and after a few moments of waiting outside to see if anyone would come in or out, he pressed the buzzer for her apartment.
Another December, another snow. It was one of the things Annie had thought she would miss when she had moved to California, yet here it was. She was just hoping that incidents like last year didn’t happen again. Any sense of loss of control, no matter how much she trusted a person, and it made her on edge and fidgety. Or the evil Christmas characters. But it was Orange County, so it was always best to prepare for anything even as she avoided fighting when at all possible.
When she had gotten Finnick’s text, she’d been both confused and concerned, but it wasn’t as if she would have said no he couldn’t come over to talk. It was just, she had a very good feeling on what it was he had wanted to talk about and while she had always said she would talk to him about it, answer questions, it didn’t mean she was exactly looking forward to it. But, it was something that was bound to come up eventually and Annie had a feeling that time was now.
As she waited, Annie sat curled up on her couch, holding a mug of hot chocolate in hand. At least until she heard the buzzer. Placing the hot chocolate to the side, Annie detangled herself from the throw blanket she’d had on her lap and went to answer the door.
“Hey.”
Finnick had thought about what he was going to say during his drive to Annie’s, part of him not wanting to bring up the dream right away, but as he watched her once she’d opened the door, he couldn’t think about anything else and he suddenly felt the fear and terror that he’d felt when trying to escape the Mutts and he wasn’t thinking about anything else as he took a step towards Annie, “I...I dreamt that I died.” His gaze was on Annie’s, “And you’ve known. This whole time.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, but sad, because this whole time Annie had had to carry that with her this entire time.
Not giving his actions a second thought, he stepped forward again, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek as he leaned forward to kiss her.
And she was right about what Finnick had wanted to talk about. Did she wish they could have avoided it a bit longer? Perhaps, but it was out in the open now. And while she knew Gale had seemed to think she should have said something before… well, too late for that now. Besides, she’d always been upfront that if Finnick had wanted to know the future, he could ask.
“Yeah, I dreamt it the day I ran into you.”
Because that timing had been astounding. The heartbreak. The panic. The complete flailing because he was right there and she had just learned about his death and then… then Finnick was kissing her. Oh. Okay. So she just returned the kiss before tilting her head to the side some.
“Um. Right. Come in.”
It wasn’t until Annie invited him in that it occurred to him what he’d just done. He’d been wanting to kiss Annie for a long time now and judging by the fact that she had kissed him back and not hit him or anything like that, he figured it must have been okay. “Right. Thanks.” With his free hand, he reached out for one of hers and squeezed it as he stepped inside then turned back to face her, “I kind of figured that you had. I mean, when I started thinking about it, you looked like you’d seen a ghost when we met.”
Yes, it was okay. Annie just didn’t trust her reading of situations as a rule, and not that assertive. She was comfortable and okay with how they had been but it wasn’t as if she’d have been averse to kissing Finnick before either. Apparently it just took dreaming of death to make overthinking no longer an issue. Which made sense in its own way.
“Orange County timing.”
It was the only way she could really explain it. And then the panicking and worrying that she’d gotten pregnant from a dream. Yeah. Annie had been a bundle of frantic energy and stress that day.
Closing the door behind Finnick, she brushed her hair behind her ear.
“Can I get you anything?” Not that she had much. A variety of teas and then cocoa given the snow and season. But it was still something if he wanted. “Or we can just talk. Whichever.”
Finnick had always wanted to respect Annie’s boundaries so he’d never tried anything that he thought she might have been uncomfortable with. He knew from the dreams that his best bet was to be patient and that’s what he’d been doing, but after all of this, he couldn’t not do it. If the dream had taught him anything it was that life was short.
“Tea would be great actually.” It would probably help to calm him down enough to talk about all of this. “If you don’t mind of course.” She wouldn’t have offered if it was an inconvenience, but he still wanted to make sure.
Life was too short. Anything could happen and while Annie really did prefer things she had some sort of control over, life wasn’t that. People died. They left. It was something she at least had made peace with. So long as they didn’t try to fake their deaths, that was a bit harder for her to reconcile given her stance on honesty.
“Tea it is.” Lucky for FInnick, Annie had a variety a teas, and given her own issues, there were blends specifically for PTSD or dream related issues. Moving to the kitchen, she set up the kettle and got everything together. The great thing about her kettle was that it brewed the tea at the same time so that some time was taken off. Tea done, she moved over to Finnick and gave him the mug before settling back on the couch.
“Thanks,” Finnick said as he took the mug from her then followed her into the living room and sat down on the couch beside her. “I can’t believe you’ve known that this whole time. That you’ve had to look at me and know what happened.” He knew that he could have asked her or Peeta about the dreams at any time, but he’d wanted to dream it for himself, “It must have been hell for you.”
Picking up her neglected hot cocoa mug, Annie stared into it for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly to say. It had been hard. The knowing what happened, and more, knowing that eventually he would dream about it. She hadn’t been there, she’d been left behind in District 13, waking up to learn he had decided to go fight with the others so that they had an actual future to raise a child in. She had just heard. The fake death first. Then learning it was real unlike the mind tricks they had played on her when she’d been taken by the Capital.
Finally she shrugged as she took a sip of the hot cocoa before finally responding.
“In a way. But I also know that we have a chance at lives here as well. That even if in the dreams….” Okay so finishing that sentence, not so easy, “Even if things went wrong in the dreams, that they aren’t some sort of vision to our lives here. I held onto that.” Especially on the days it was harder than others. It was why she always wore the charm bracelet he had given her in the dreams. Even if it had shown up from the dreams, it was still grounding.
Finnick had recognized the bracelet some time ago, but he’d never really commented on it. He may not have given it to her in the waking world, but knowing that she wore something that he had given to her in some manner still felt good. “No, they definitely aren’t. I just hate thinking about how you’ve had to hold onto that all this time, but like I said, it makes sense now why you looked like you’d seen a ghost when we first met. Fucking Orange County and it’s god awful timing.”
Nodding slowly, Annie looked down at the bracelet before sighing.
“It was more than that. I mean…” There was a lot that Annie didn’t talk about when it came to the dreams. Mostly because she had enough issues with reality as it was. Thinking about the dreams, what had happened, that just added to it. But Finnick did deserve to know, especially as it did initially influence her reaction to meeting him. “When they Capitol had me, they would make me think you died, and then tell me the opposite. There was a lot of psychological lies…” Johanna had been physically tortured, Peeta hijkacked and Annie psychologically tortured when physical torture didn’t work, assumed to know more about the rebellion but she hadn’t broken like they had wanted.
Absently, she fiddled with the bracelet.
“So it wasn’t like I was trusting my ability to know reality was at a strong point.”
Shrugging, Annie focused on the main issue at hand. Her past with the dreams really didn’t matter. They’d been over with for over a year, now all she had was repeats.
“Are you okay though? Really okay I mean?” He’d dreamt about dying. There was no way someone could just...walk that off.
As Finnick listened to Annie, he set his mug down and reached over, placing his hand lightly, but comfortingly on her hand, “It’s too bad I didn’t know the things I know now. You could have asked me, real or not real,” He hated knowing that she had been so conflicted simply because they had run into each other, but he was glad they had met.
“As for me, I’m okay. I wasn’t when it first happened.” He was glad that Peeta had been there for him to talk to, because had he had the dream alone, at home, he wasn’t sure how he would have coped, “It happened during the trip, so Peeta was there, which helped.”
A flicker of a smile was the response to the comment on how she could have asked real or not real had he known. But it wasn’t like she had wanted him to dream all of this. She was of course happy that they had met. She just didn’t know if the cost was worth it, not like there was much that could be done about it now. And well… Finnick was at the end. There would be no more waiting and worrying for the day he dreamt of his death. It had come.
So she nodded some as he spoke about being okay, but how he hadn’t been at first.
“I’m glad you were with someone who understood when it happened.” The way the dreams had played out for them, everyone had been close to one another, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. But they hadn’t gone through the dreams alone. No one should. Sitting quietly for a moment, Annie stood up and went to her room before coming back out with the picture before just handing it to Finnick.
“You never got to know in the dreams.”
“Me too. While Winston is great, I don’t think he would have been able to help me with this one,” Finnick smiled, squeezing her hand just before she got up. When she left and went to her room, he sat there, wondering what exactly she was doing and was even more confused when she came back and handed him a picture.
It took him a moment, as he looked at the picture, to realize that it wasn’t Annie from the waking world, but Annie from Panem and she was holding a baby. As he continued looking at the picture, he inhaled sharply as he realized what it meant and he turned his gaze up to Annie, “You were pregnant?”
Oh Winston. She had made sure to go and check in on the cat while Finnick had been away that weekend. The poor cat was so needy. And to make sure he didn’t gorge on his food while Finnick was away because since when do cats know how to pace themselves when it comes to food and their human suddenly being gone. “No, probably not.” Cats could be exceptionally calming, but sometimes….
As Finnick took into account just what the picture represented, Annie remained quiet and forced herself not to fidget. Which… really wasn’t as easy as it should be. But it was there, and she could tell when the realization hit. So all Annie could do was nod.
“Apparently so. I found out the same day they told me about you…”
“Oh, Annie.” Getting to his feet, he reached out and wrapped his arms around her in a tight, comforting hug. He may have been the one who had dreamt about dying and who just found out what he’d missed out on, but Annie was part of this too and he couldn’t imagine what this had been like on her; both in and out of the dreams, “Snow really screwed us, didn’t he?” That was the understatement of the century.
The hug startled her, but Annie returned it. It had been how long since she’d had the dream? And yet she hadn’t realized how much she had needed a hug. This particular hug. Peeta had been great, Portia… but given her connection to Finnick, it hadn’t been enough. In her own way, she’d been carrying that information and knowledge for so long it was as if it were part of her entire being. So she just nodded against Finnick’s shoulder.
“Yeah… yeah he really did.”
Especially when the rest of them had been dreaming, before the Panem numbers had gone down some, conversations of Snow would come up, the fact that he wouldn’t even survive getting to his first dream because of how much he had hurt and taken from all of them.
The hug felt natural and like something Finnick should have done sooner; like the kiss. “At least here we don’t have to worry about him.” Finnick refused to think about what would happen if the man ever ended up being real, “Here we get a second chance.” And so far their second chance had been a good one.
There really wasn’t much else to say to that. Because it wasn’t like they could change the course of the dreams. Those were set in stone, over and done for all of them. Finnick knew both what happened and what he missed out on. But at that wasn’t here. They were alive here. “Yeah. We do.”
And in the end, that was what mattered. Their lives here.</center>