ψ everybody's waiting for you to break down ...

[fishermansweater]

WHO: Finnick Odair
WHERE: Somewhere in the woods north-east of the village aka Finnick and Annie's campsite
WHEN: September 10
OPEN TO: Annie Cresta
WARNINGS: Panic attacks and anxiety are likely. Possible other mental health issues and cursing.
STATUS: Open

---

It's probably dangerous to have stayed in the same place as long as they have, but Finnick and Annie are still camped where they'd set themselves up on the first day they arrived here. Their shelter is built on a frame of fallen branches, covered over with mats tightly woven from grasses and reeds they'd harvested. Their bedding is a base of rushes covered over by dried ferns they'd found on the lower layers of the dense undergrowth in the woods. They've largely avoided fire; it's warm enough at night, and the coats that had been in their backpacks have served them fairly well as blankets.

Still, it's making Finnick nervous to be so static. He's done his best to set up improvised snares around the camp to keep them safe, but he's well aware that the vines he'd used as rope could be limited and that he needs to use them for nets so fish with, as well as for rope. If they're here much longer he'll need to see if he can work out how to make some rope out of some of those rushes.

As time goes on, it's been more and more like surviving in the arena. They'd had no food, no water, and they've had to provide for themselves. Fortunately, they both know at least some edible plants thanks to years of watching the Games, and they're camped close enough to the river that a makeshift net can find them at least one good meal a day.

They've just finished that meal when they hear it: a low, deep rumbling.

It only takes a moment to work out what's about to happen. Unfortunately, it's the moment between the sound and the shaking.

"Annie! Get down!"

Comments

[treadswater]

She doesn't get down. Not enough time, never enough time between yell and the wave crashing over you. Under you. Making the ground shake and heavy and she knows this, she knows this, she knows this and she can't move, no she can't.

She knows this.

She knows she can't do anything - the earth will buck and quiver, the dam will break, the water will come.

She can't outrun.

Can't outswim.

Can't-

Can't.

A branch falls, or is it a tree? It falls. Shaken loose. Falls and crash, shatter, there goes their shelter, there goes the water supplies everything but she can't.

She can't move.

She can't lift her eyes, she can't speak. She can't cling to Finnick. She can't ask if he's okay, if he's safe. She can't ask him to hold her.

They are in an arena and the ground is shaking, and all Annie can do is one thing.

Very softly, she starts to laugh.

[fishermansweater]

"Annie."

This time it's frantic, urgent, she hasn't moved, she hasn't moved at all and the ground's started to lurch and shake all around them, and they'd set up camp near the trees for the cover, but that's not a good place to be in an earthquake. He looks up, around, sees the way the trees are swaying, but when he looks back at Annie, she still hasn't moved and under the sound of the trees rustling and the earth breaking and something crashing in the trees, somehow he can still hear that laughter, the same sickening, terrifying laughter she'd given in the arena when her mind had revolted against what was happening around her.

It's wrong, it's wrong, and it's not like the high, worried way she laughs when her nerves run over, it's like laughing in the face of a hurricane because there's nothing you can do in its power, and when he'd heard that laughter for the first time when he'd been so focused on the screen during her Games, he'd thought it was one of the most awful things he'd ever heard.

It still is, but it's worse now, because the rumbling is all around them like and the ground is lurching like a ship thrown in two directions at once on a breaking wave and he doesn't have time to think, he throws himself to the ground and grabs at Annie and pulls her with him.

[treadswater]

She's knocked to the shaking, shaking ground: the only reason why she doesn't kick out in Career-trained-panic is other training. Her prior training, on ships and boats. Someone knocks you down, they want you out of the way of something. Don't move. Stay still, until whatever it is has gone, gone away.

Then she realises it's Finnick. Finnick. Finnick who is safe. It's all useless, of course. She knows what happens with earthquakes. But if she's to drown, be shaken to pieces, she wants to with him.

So Annie clings to him, wrapping her hand around his.

But her face is still in the dirt, and she's still laughing.

The shaking stops, and she waits for the crash, the explosion. The roar of water. It doesn't come, but soon. Soon. Soon, they'll die. They did so much to avoid this, but still they are here, waiting, and she can't stop the hysterical laughter.

It is funny, though.

She'd always thought Snow would want to kill her first, to torture Finnick. And yet here they both are, together.

[fishermansweater]

He keeps his arm pressed to her back, holding her down because he's not sure what her reaction's going to be. He trusts her completely, but when she's in a panic, she's not really herself. Just like that laughter, which is so completely unlike the laugh that makes his heart flutter and soar when he hears it.

Annie's hand crawls up through the dirt to grab onto his, and he closes his fingers, squeezing hers because it's all he can do in that moment. All he can do until the ground stops shaking under them, until the branches have stopped crashing in the distance and an eerie silence settles over the woods.

Silence, that is, except for that laughter. Annie's shaking under him, and while Finnick lifts his head to glance around, she's still face-down in the dirt.

"Annie, Annie, it's okay. It's over."

Except it's not. Not the arena, not whatever this is that they're trapped in. But the earthquake.

"It's okay," he says again.

[treadswater]

"No, no, no no no no, it's not, there'll be aftershocks and the canyon will break and that's what always happens," Annie manages to gasp out. "Avoided all the decapitated heads but-"

But not the earthquake.

Not the earthquakes.

Tremors and shakes and oh, oh, the Gamemakers have lost control, haven't they, always get too big for their schemes and there's a waterfall and she knows what it is behind that, water. More water.

"I can't move."

It's a declaration, clear and firm.

"I can't. Don't make me move, I can't, we'll-" die.

Even though her current hysteria, she can recognize her insane logic. It's a familiar one: no, I can't move. If I move, the roof will cave in and the ground will swallow me up, and I'll die.

But the clarity isn't quite enough to reach through the terror that if she moves, time will start running properly, and they'll drown.

[fishermansweater]

She's not the only one scared. Not the only one wondering about that waterfall and what could happen to it. He hadn't been in the arena with her, but he'd been watching as the water swept away the arena and so many of the tributes in an irresistible surge of death. But unlike Annie, under the gentle shh, shh as he tries to calm her, he's listening. He's listening to what's happening in the distance, and he doesn't hear the rolling of an aftershock, or of a wall of water.

"Nothing's coming, Annie," he whispers, even as he lifts his upper body as much as he can while his arm is wrapped around her, craning his head to see what's happened around them. Some of the trees have come down, more have shed limbs, and one of them shed straight into their campsite, breaking through their shelter and shattering the jar they'd been using to carry water from the river.

"You can stay here as long as you need to, but it's all right now. We made it. Lost a few things from the camp, that's all."

It would, he thinks, be a little too much to run his hand down her back like he instinctively wants to do. Too much, too much. But her friend can squeeze her shoulder and stay with her on the ground.

[treadswater]

She doesn't verbally reply. There's a small, whimpering sound, almost a disagreement, but then all that follows isn't words, but her shuddering, high-pitched breathing.

Oddly enough, when he says you can stay here, it helps. If she moves she'll die, of course, but if she doesn't have to move than she won't die of not moving, either.

She can stay.

So she does. Annie stays there she's not sure how long, but enough that she feels herself start grow stiff with it, feels her neck protest the angle. So far, she hasn't died. Maybe she can...

Annie doesn't finish the thought, she just rolls before she think herself out of it. Rolls sharply, away from Finnick only because that means she can move. Roll onto her back. Blink and stare at the sky.

The sky doesn't crack.

The ground doesn't rumble or shake.

Her heart doesn't explode in her chest, nor her breath suddenly escape from her lungs. She's...

Fine.

"Finnick... could you help me up?"

Fewer steps if he's there to pull her up. It means she'll get up, not become frozen in another stage.