La paz llegará, el amor siempre vivirá—No me ames, mas quedate otro dia

[candor1]

WHO: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Bodhi Rook, Finnick Odair (independent threads)
WHERE: Cabin 56, the woods, the spring, wherever else happens
WHEN: Feb 6 through now. "Ten days in the [new] life".
OPEN TO: Jyn, Cassian, Bodhi and Finnick
Quick apology for what a first-love middleschooler I've been being IC and OOC, with me neglecting and Cassian unable to gear shift at all away from Jyn! (Turns out we're super OTP, quelle surprise) Thanks for forebearance, and sorry, guys…!
This might help with moving back into the rest of the game from that first obsessed flush of her arrival. Mainly prompts for kestreldawn and I to multithread several CR developments in a single post, rather than a slew of logs.
WARNINGS: PTSD (both helping and triggering one another—and worrying about that), exchanging war/life/traumatic stories, issues they haven't thought about in decades resurfacing 'cause this is so new and everything's getting unlocked, smut (though surprisingly happy/healthy), treating physical injury (possible self-harm convo), reproductive choices, panic attacks
STATUS: Open

1. the next moment (Jyn and Cassian in their cabin)

2. that night (same)

3. in the next few days (Finnick and Cassian at the spring)

4. in days following (Bodhi, Jyn and Cassian TBD)

5. today (Jyn and Cassian, cabin and forest)

Comments

[candor1]

Good start.

Being half-dead and disoriented and on the verge of hypothermia hadn't been enough their first meeting—but it had been involuntary. This offering was self-aware.

Cassian held out his injured hand.

"Will you help me re-bandage this? It's less effective, doing it myself. …After I get dressed. I'm freezing."

[fishermansweater]

Allies.

The word comes back to mind, because it goes with the question. Not that it means it's what Cassian's asking him for, though he wanted it and wants it and has been trying to persuade Finnick to see the value in his allegiance. In the arena, it's not the sort of thing you do for anyone but your ally.

Most of you will die of natural causes. 10% from infection... He knows the statistics, he's been over them time and again, strategizing and planning and studying, as Career and tribute and mentor.

In the arena, you want the others to die. But he's already stepped away from that, hasn't he? He'd ... not cared for, but helped Cassian when he'd arrived. He'd brought him Jyn. He's linked to the man whether he wants it or not. And ...

He's a Career, and he'd expected to be back in the arena for the Quarter Quell, having to kill people he knows, for the revolution that's running an undercurrent through the center of the Games. But he doesn't have the same unthinking cockiness about death that he did when he was fourteen. He's not going to kill without provocation here, not unless the village's alliance breaks.

His eyes flick to Cassian's hand, open and empty of weapons, and he nods.

"I have medical supplies in my backpack. I'll get it."

When he heads back for his clothes and backpack, he swims, both for the warmth and the feel of the water over his skin, washing away that prickling sensation of fear. Back on the other side, he dries himself off with a spare shirt, then pulls his shirt and the pants and green sweater Jess had given him, slips on socks and boots, then shoulders the pack to head back to Cassian.

Already, the panic has subsided.

[candor1]

Cassian had supplies as well, feels a bit dismayed to deplete some of Finnick's, but decides not to protest. Finnick's granted him the concession; Cassian will proceed Finnick's way.

Taking the time on his own, Cassian finishes drying what the air hasn't yet and is all-but dressed, minus jacket and boots, by the time Finnick returns.

[fishermansweater]

Logic suggests that Cassian has his own supplies, but it hadn't been an unthinking offer. Finnick owes his life to medical supplies delivered to him in the arena, provided by Mags and the sponsors who'd wanted to buy his beauty for the future with their support. He knows how valuable a commodity they were here, but he also knows that he and Annie have pooled their supplies, and for now, they have enough they can afford a small amount of generosity.

It's a small gesture, but it's important that he be able to make this small stand in the face of a man against whom he's been so completely incapable of any sort of self-assertion.

It's also a chance to recover. To get some soothing water and some distance between them for long enough to repair the walls Cassian is so good at breaking down. By the time he's made it back around the pool, Finnick's expression is as impassive as it had ever been. It's easier, with something practical to focus on.

When he makes it back to Cassian, Finnick unslings his pack and sets it on the ground, before he digs in it to pull out one of the little clear plastic cases he and Annie had split their most basic medical supplies into. Bandage. Dressing. Antiseptic. He doesn't have any of the near-magical medicine the Capitol sells to mentors, but it's far better than nothing.

Finnick tilts his chin towards Cassian's hand.

"Hold out your hand."

[candor1]

Cassian's found a good rock to sit on, feet braced apart, elbows on his knees. About as casually submissive, undefensive a pose as one could wish. Nor has he yet attempted to pull his boots on. Without comment, Cassian does as Finnick commands.

Rory had done an excellent job stitching up his hand. But even so, and freshly cleaned, it's still something of a sight. Like it's been smashed repeatedly under (or into) a rock.

[fishermansweater]

The thing about being good at body language is that he knows the tricks. It's part of being a good Career, understanding how to predict what your opponents are going to do, but it's also a tool to survive the longer Games, the ones the victors never escape from. Cassian has put himself lower than Finnick, positioned himself so that he'd be a little disadvantaged if it came to conflict.

That could be a genuine attempt to offer Finnick the advantage in a mark of good faith, or it could be Cassian trying to manipulate him and gambling his own skills are superior. He's seen enough to believe the man to be capable of either, and to disbelieve that a signal so obvious could be unintentional.

But if Cassian has faith in his own abilities, so does Finnick. He's bigger than Cassian, and physicality is a large part of his skill.

So he approaches, sets his backpack down, and crouches in front of Cassian. That makes him more vulnerable, but ... he's giving Cassian the benefit of this much trust, at least.

"Did a good job on that," he comments as he glances at the wound. He's hardly a doctor, or a healer of any sort; the only abilities he has are those granted by the combination of his supplies and so many years of seeing what does and doesn't work played out on the television screens from the arena. But his touch is gentle enough as he sets about dressing the wound.

"Lucky if you don't have to worry about infection."

[candor1]

"Williams," Cassian supplied, crediting the previous work, keeping his good hand firmly settled behind him on the rock, and his eyes on Finnick's hands.

And just as with Rory, Cassian proves an excellent patient: never wincing or pulling away from Finnick; staying incredibly still.

They proceed a while in silence.

Until Cassian breaks it, voice mild, with: "Tell me more about being a 'victor of the Hunger Games'?"

Not only Finnick's exact words but practically his inflection. (That eidetic memory.)

[fishermansweater]

Finnick doesn't know Rory Williams, as such, but he's familiar with the man. A medical professional of some sort, and the one who'd set about cleaning up the hospital. Not that he'd particularly missed having a hospital. That's the thing about the districts. Even the richest have only a fraction what the Capitol has, and that includes medical treatment. They've always had to make do with healers who have enough herblore to help keep people alive.

At least, unless they're victors, who can, on their trips to the Capitol, seek out the assistance of a discreet medical clinic.

Finnick had never been someone with the sort of knowledge to be a healer, but he can be gentle enough when he needs to be, and for all his uncertainty about Cassian, his touch is kind enough.

He doesn't even falter when Cassian asks the question, just keeps working for a few moments. That Cassian even echoes the way Finnick had spoken, as best as possible with his accent so much heavier, reinforces that he has to be careful around this man. Those slips from their first meeting will be remembered, he's sure. The question is what Cassian will do with them.

"You know," he says, though he suspects Cassian doesn't, actually. "Fame, fortune, glory, freedom from the Reaping for the rest of your life."

Being watched every moment because you're the Capitol's property. Teaching children to go out and die. Being whored out at the President's desire to his allies.

There's so much he doesn't say, and he's careful to give no sign of the thoughts.

His eyes are still focused on Cassian's hand, but a sharp smile flashes onto his face. "Or so they said. That last one turns out not to have been true."

[candor1]

"I'm not from your world," Cassian reminds him. (With the inevitable subtext of nor are we still on it—but keeping it as read this time; painstakingly gentle.) "I don't know anything. You said…"

It's not putting something artificial on, it's taking the artifice off—forcing himself not to hide when hiding's become automatic—just because he's mastered making things look easy doesn't mean they truly are. Cassian lets his expression reflect the momentary effort of recalling previous words.

"…'a tribute paid to the Capitol by' your 'district as punishment for its part in the Rebellion.' Those are all words I know by definition but not necessarily in full context of this usage. …And I have no idea what this use of 'Reaping' means. I'd like to know, if you're willing. But we'd have to start from the beginning. What exactly is the 'Capitol', and what was the Rebellion?"

[fishermansweater]

It smarts, a little, because it's a mistake, the sort of mistake that you can't really afford to make in an arena. Yes, this isn't the arena as he's used to it, not the arena of the Quarter Quell, but he's still not so sure that this isn't some sort of trick by the Capitol to lure him into an unwary confession of the sentiment he feels but can't express.

There's something about Cassian that makes it hard to believe he's lying now, though. Not because he couldn't or wouldn't lie, but because he'd clearly be so very capable of it, but now is speaking so gently.

Finnick takes in a deep breath, pauses to open a new bandage packet, and start wrapping the dressing he's places on Cassian's hand.

"The Capitol is the capital city of Panem. District Thirteen led the other districts in an uprising against the Capitol's rule. The rebellion started a war across the whole country. We ... call it the Dark Days."

The horrors of that war, particularly the horrors committed by the rebels against the Capitol, are a daily staple in Panem's classrooms. Even a victor who'd left school at 14 knows the story: sabotage, massacres, cities and districts firebombed, cells betrayed, animals mutated and manipulated to use as weapons.

A district obliterated, or so they'd said.

Finnick's voice is carefully flat as he continues speaking, and some of his words have a quality of rote learning to them, like they're phrases he's heard over and over again. (In school, and every year since as the history of Panem is recited for the Reaping while he sits on stage, pretending not to hate himself for the part he plays in enabling all this to continue.)

"The rebels were defeated. District Thirteen was destroyed. The Capitol and the other twelve districts signed the Treaty of Treason. The treaty re-established Panem, and established the Hunger Games. Each year, a boy and girl from each district are selected at a public Reaping to be sent to the Capitol as tribute for the Games."

[candor1]

Across the whole country. That answered Cassian's unspoken question as to the nature of Panem. Country, continent, or planet.

He hadn't asked that of the others here who use place names as if everyone should know them (New York, Seattle, several others). Usually, it makes no difference. And is an answer in of itself. Anyone from a spacefaring civilization simply wouldn't use a name that way. It's a mark of living on a smaller scale, to be able to assume. There's nothing wrong with it—it's very helpful in gauging bases of reference and best levels of information sharing. There is no such thing as a unified level of technology. Not in the universe, not within a solar system, not even within a single city in a country on a planet. There's no such thing as time travel (or there isn't for beings of his level; possibly there is for their captor/host "Observers") but traveling in space, from one society to another, can amount to the same thing.

In this case, it does make a difference that Cassian wants to know about.

It makes a difference in terms of power.

What level is required for how much territory. What natural, geological or cosmic, forces do or don't require overcoming to consolidate it. And how invasively and intensively it can be applied.

The Empire seeks to dominate galaxies. They can do much, so much damage.

But they could never pull off a trick like this on someone who's been outside a planetary atmosphere. And, much as they'd try, even with Force-users of myth, they could never have the all-seeing eyes Finnick and Annie seem to feel still on the backs of their necks.

Based on Finnick's stated (and obvious) continued feelings of dread and violation, Cassian suspects Panem is no more than a country.

There… that situation was suddenly, horribly possible.

That had been unthinkable to Cassian initially. Sometimes having the wider view, living on the broader scale, is not an advantage. It blinds one to what can be happening to the individuals in the communities on the planets you merely flit on and off again.

But they're the ones you're supposed to work for.

So Cassian has managed to remind himself not to dismiss.

And is very slowly, faintly, grimly, starting to get the idea of Finnick's actual hell.

…But possibly also a way to help Finnick see something outside of it…? if Cassian could actually achieve it…

No. Don't form conclusions or assumptions. Too early still.

Low-voiced, clearly honoring the gravity of what Finnick's telling him—and keeping any outrage from building (not yet), Cassian slowly nods and says what's required next. "And what exactly comprises the Games?"

[fishermansweater]

It's as strange to Finnick to have to explain the Games as it is to consider people from another world, as Riza had put it to him when he first arrived here. Really, it's the same thing. Panem, he's been told over and over again, is all that remains that is habitable on what had once been an entire planet. They're all that's left. To Finnick, world, continent, nation, are all the same thing, because the disasters that led to the districts unifying around the Capitol also destroyed what else was left in the world.

Everyone knows. Everyone alive has grown up with the Games, except the very oldest, and even Mags and the very oldest of the fisherfolk were the children whose names were in the very first Reapings.

"The tributes are chosen randomly, or volunteer. They're sent to the Capitol for a week of training and preparation. Treated to luxury they've never seen before in their lives. They work with a mentor and a stylist to prepare them for a public parade of the tributes, then they get three days to learn the skills that are going to keep them alive. They do a public interview on the last night before the Games, to properly introduce them to the nation so sponsors can pick who to support."

Finnick's voice is far too calm for what he's describing, but he's spent years being expected to talk about the Games, and never to speak out against them. He's not like Johanna, entertaining for her fury, or Haymitch or so many of the others, too drunk or high or wasted to be worth interviewing. He's a star, uncomfortably aware of just how much a part of the whole lie he is. Volunteer, and win, and you could be like Finnick Odair: rich, famous, he could date anyone he wanted.

They'd said that, within District Four, when they were selling the profits of victory to the trainee Careers.

He's careful to keep looking at his work rather than Cassian, because he suspects there's a bitter anger burning deep in his eyes.

"The tributes are taken to a secret location where an artificial environment has been set up. The arena can be anything: a forest, a desert, a ruined city. Mine was a savanna."

Another deep breath.

"The tributes are all placed in the same area to start. They can't take anything in with them except a small token from their home. Anything they want, they have to find, make, or get as a sponsor gift. There's a big pile of supplies and weapons for them if they're ready to fight to get to them, but so many of them die fighting there that a lot of them don't bother.

"Basically, the tributes fight to be the last one left alive. It's all televised, so there's a lot of strategy in trying to win over sponsors, because they can donate money that the mentors can use to send food or medical supplies or weapons. Some tributes just try to last it out, but a lot die just from the arena. Most of the victors are the ones who fight."

[candor1]

Cassian, again, only nods.

Grimly. But… not surprised.

Gladiation.

And the "Capitol"'s overall tactics…

…are…

…classic.

The best way for a minority to retain power over a majority is to turn them against each other. If they unified there would be no contest. But there are devastatingly effective ways to make unifying unimaginable, or actually unfeasible.

Doing so with overt rather than unrealized/underlying competition… it's audacious… risky… but if effective: obscenely elegant.

What Cassian hates that he knows:

In one-on-one violence as well as political or social control, step one is the psychological capture.^[*]

Make people afraid. Make them feel helpless, frozen, in danger of their lives. That's what renders them less capable of defense or escape.

Superior strength or force or violence of course will win regardless. It's by no means up to the victim to determine the outcome. Too often, there's nothing they could do.

But also surprisingly often, escapes could be made, fighting back could be more effective, if the intended victim could circumvent psychological capture. In order to react in an unexpected way. Lower their assailant's guard to create an opportunity and/or have an element of surprise. …Since most assailants, as much as their intended victims, rely on that involuntary moment too. It takes a level of training (if not abnormal immunity) to overcome expectation in either direction.

It's hard-coded into nearly all biological sentients. Even many technological life forms. Those who lack it… demonstrate why it is in fact a survival mechanism by tending to die young.

But it's indiscriminate. It wasn't meant…

…no. Nothing's meant. There is no design.

Too few are taught that. Too few are taught to control their own functions—that it's possible let alone how—rather than be controlled by them.

But even if it's just as few, it's too many who are taught to control the functions of others.

"And the victor, the last alive," murmured Cassian, "no doubt wins something for their district, too? Some benefit or protection?"

(Because that's the way to keep them invested in considering the other districts rivals or enemies.

Because negatives are less powerful than positives.

Fear of punishment isn't enough to keep such a system so powerful.

It's love, loyalty, wanting to help and serve and maintain—hijacking and redirecting those. Making them part of the process. Is what makes it a perfect trap.

Force people to uphold the system themselves to try to help and save their loved ones.

…Classic.

If he could, he would have gone to Finnick's Panem and Capitol and assassinated every one of the Games's architects and implementers and maintainers.

Not that it would be possible even if parts of it were. And doesn't even necessarily work.

Nor would he necessarily find it a palatable, let alone satisfying, prospect if he actually could and it would.

But while sitting here with Finnick, Cassian can think it.)

[fishermansweater]

"Food."

It's a simple answer, and Finnick risks a flick of eyes up, then down again, to see if he can read anything in Cassian's face about the man's thought processes, what he's thinking and learning as he asks these questions. Nothing obvious, beyond the stern set of his mouth.

"A year's worth of extra supplies for everyone in the district."

In some ways, it's more complicated than that. They get to have one of their children back, instead of two coffins. They get the glory, which matters more to districts like One and Two that are closer to the Capitol. They get the Harvest Feast paid for and laid on for the entire district by the Capitol, and get their celebrations to be the most spectacular of any of the districts.

The thing that really matters, though, is the food. Food means fewer people starving, fewer children taking out tesserae to support their families. Food means that everyone can live just that little bit easier for a whole year. Food makes the victor, literally, the savior of some parts of their district. Even in Four, where most people in the fisheries can manage to fend for themselves at least a little, it makes a difference.

It makes enough of a difference that it's what the Careers believe in. They know why they do what they do: to protect the other children in the district from the Reaping, and because they have a better chance of winning that year's worth of food.

Finnick had other reasons for volunteering when he did, so audaciously young that his opponents would write him off as a non-threat. He'd had a family he wanted to help, who could benefit from the money he'd get for winning. He'd wanted fame, glory, a chance to be something more than just a fisherman's son. But he'd also known that if he won, life would be better for everyone in the district for a year.

"The districts don't have much, most years."

[candor1]

Cassian nodded, with the clear air of reproving himself for missing an obvious detail. "'Hunger' Games. And the resources are limited enough that the Capitol controls their distribution. And everyone signed the treaty because the Capitol could destroy everyone if they didn't… because the Capitol is so powerful? Or because continued existence in Panem is that precarious? Or both?"

The way Finnick spoke about Panem, a country as if it were the whole world, Cassian was leaning toward the second. A planet that had experienced a sudden change. Near-apocalyptic to its inhabitants. Other countries than Panem most likely existed but they may as well not as far as Finnick or his fellows were concerned because all pockets of population would be utterly isolated from one another.

He wished he could learn the name of the planet. Then reminded himself it wouldn't matter either way. Finnick's name for it might not be its designation on any map Cassian had seen. And given the even broader scale they were now on, that was to Cassian's perception as his own was to Finnick's—adding not just space but dimensions—probably not even a map Cassian could have seen.

He kept it perfectly contained; no outward sign; but there was a flash in his throat and mind of blazing conflict. All the insubstantiable, useless, but inevitable feelings and theories about the Observers and this place and the intent of any of it, ranging from Thank you to Damn you. And feeling once again the echoing chill of possibly being now outside dimension, time, and space. That difficult to resist notion of 'afterlife'.

But we get to be here together, and that's the point for me.

And why he wanted to follow these thoughts through for Finnick.

Because as little as Cassian may have believed them himself, scorned them even, he knew too many stories from too many worlds about the concepts that boiled down to "heaven" or "hell". And a surprising number of them had the same conclusion: they were the same place. Which aspect it assumed, the experience one had of them, was not inherent to the place, nor handed down by external judgment; but created by the person.

Finnick hadn't asked Cassian to try and "save" him. But Cassian's life had been about trying to combat Hell in life and salvage some hope of giving anybody a better chance of achieving something closer to Heaven. Why would his afterlife be any different?

[fishermansweater]

"The Capitol has weapons the districts don't. They'd have wiped out another district if they didn't sign."

He's seen what it looks like, now, the suppression of an uprising in the district. Seen in in his own district, his own city. And that was a warning, not the elimination the Capitol teaches happened in District 13. A city bombed into submission, starved to the edge of breaking, and its people could do nothing, because the Peacekeepers had the guns and the hovercraft and the watchtowers.

It's hard to forget that, the first real shutdown of unrest he'd ever seen in his twenty-four years of life in District 4. Hard to believe the reassurances that it won't all have been for nothing, that the revolution really can support uprisings, when the time is right. He has to believe that, though, for all those reasons that Cassian gave him with such impassioned words.

"But it's both. The districts and the capitol need each other." He glances up, studies Cassian's face which is still so unemotional, then shrugs and reaches down to find a fastening for the bandage in his miniature medical kit.

"It used to be different. There were other countries, other people. But the world burned and drowned and disasters ruined a lot of the land, so all that's left is Panem. Even with all the districts working together, there's barely enough to get by on now."

That last part is a lie, but it's the Capitol's lie, the one he'd be expected to repeat. There's barely enough for the districts because the Capitol takes so much, and he doesn't know if there really is enough for the whole country to be secure.

[candor1]

Except that the Capitol can 'treat the tributes to luxury they've never seen before in their lives'. So clearly some districts are getting more than others.

As before (and before and before), Finnick hides it well, but not from Cassian. He's clearly suppressing that exact knowledge. So Cassian doesn't give it voice either.

Nearly all the pieces are there. Cassian runs their conversation back through his mind to see which still need picking up and putting into place. Two reassert themselves.

The tributes are taken to a secret location where an artificial environment has been set up. The arena can be anything: a forest, a desert, a ruined city. Mine was a savanna. and It's all televised, so there's a lot of strategy in trying to win over sponsors, because they can donate money that the mentors can use to send food or medical supplies or weapons.

Cassian isn't quite sure how to phrase his question. What technological level does the Capitol demonstrate in 'setting up' an arena? How fine a control do they have? How detailed is the surveillance?

Putting it together with Finnick's and Annie's sense of always being watched… and the designation 'Games' stipulates there must be an audience… (Of course there would: the point would be spectacle. Psychological capture. Keeping everyone broken. Not just in their own pain of sending their children, but their own participation in the system; keeping the districts antagonistic to each other by having their champions murder one another…

An elegant system.

Whoever thought of it should be castrated and lobotomized and vivisected and—)

…Focus.

Perhaps that answer can be gained from Cassian's other question. Possibly the last simple one. Before he can feel confident he's put things fully into place.

And then actually get to work.

Cassian said mildly, "And what is 'televised'?"

[fishermansweater]

Many of the things he's not saying are there to be read by someone intelligent and insightful enough to draw the connections between bald fact and unstated implication. It's an art -- a game, even -- in the Capitol, speaking in arch clichés and sarcastic quips, and expecting anyone sympathetic to your views to understand the oblique criticism, let you read the equivalent into their response.

It's the only way to avoid the Capitol's surveillance without finding a certain blind spot. This way, even the President can't fault him on his words. Snow could know the hatred Finnick holds him in, can and does know it, but he can't accuse him of treason, this way. Not in his words.

(In his mind and his thoughts and the slow, careful collection of more of Snow's secrets than the president could ever imagine, in his promises to the revolution hidden in the hearts of the Capitol, yes. In his words, no.)

He doesn't know if Cassian can read those subtleties, though he has no doubt the man is insightful enough to play this game. So much of what he's said has shown how much he doesn't understand about what are the basic facts and situations of Finnick's life, or of anyone's in Panem.

Like the question Cassian asks.

Finnick picks up a fastening and takes Cassian's hand in his to hook the bandage closed.

"Broadcast. Live, mostly, from multiple cameras, though there are recaps and highlights shown throughout, and reruns after the Games are over. Everything in the arena's recorded."

That, he lets hang, because it's important, it's the thing so many people here don't understand.

[candor1]

Cassian frowned. There's important technical detail in there, but there's a divide in terminology. (Unless in this one instance, Panem is advanced enough to be beyond Cassian's immediate knowledge…?)

"I'm sorry," said Cassian, "I don't understand these words. 'Televised', 'broadcast', 'recaps', 'highlights', 'reruns'." This usage of live though he leaves that one off.

He seems unabashed at his ignorance. That sort of humility is easier (and necessary) to develop in travelling. Learning how to ask is far more useful, and if not perceived as more intelligent, at least more respectful, than being afraid not to know.

'Recorded' he knows, obviously. 'Camera' is also known to him, though a bit obscure. …obsolute? It might yield a clue, though. The words may be strange but the tech may be comparable to holovid transmission, open channel on a network…

Cassian is tempted to suggest possible points of reference or comparison, but holds off. Always best not to try and influence the answer before it's given, not try to pre-fit into his own framing, if he wants the clearest idea.

[fishermansweater]

It's a difference between the two of them: Cassian asking so many questions, Finnick so careful not to admit ignorance. He's used to being ignorant, being the one who is so backward he's treated as entertainment, no more real or human than the Games themselves. For years he'd been an exciting novelty, expected to be amazed at the world around him, though he's become the jaded sophisticate. Here, though, he's been careful not to show what he doesn't know, in most situations. Some questions are safe enough, like finding someone to ask what those birds that aren't goslings are. But anything that relates to their situation, what it might be and what it might mean, he's tried to offer an opinion, let others opine, even encourage them to do so.

Cassian is outright admitting that he doesn't understand what Finnick says about the Games. Given what he's said so far, Finnick doubts that's from lack of education, even technology. After all, even in the districts, everyone has a television, when even something like a car is so rare in most places.

Finnick steps back, letting his hands drop in a signal to Cassian that he's finished, now. For all his lack of expertise, he's done a neat enough job rewrapping the man's hand.

"It means they're on television. It's a device, everyone in Panem has one, because there's mandatory programming you have to watch. It shows recordings, sound and vision. They record the Games, the whole time they're on, and send the recordings to every television in every home in Panem. That's broadcasting it. The whole time the Games are on, they're showing the pictures of what's happening. Whatever happens in the arena, the whole country's watching."

There's another pause, and he glances down, fingers reaching into the grass in search of ... nothing in particular, but finding a stone to run over, smooth, warm from the hot spring.

"Highlights are a selection of the best things that happened in a day, or in a whole Game, and a recap is like a summary of what's happened in the last day, or earlier in the Games. A rerun is when they show it again, after they've already broadcast it when it was happening. They show a lot of reruns."

[candor1]

"Vid transmitted open-channel to viewscreens," Cassian confirmed, more to himself than to Finnick. Didn't think Finnick would care about Cassian's terminology, nor particularly trying to teach translation (as with Jyn and Basic to Yaval). Just (hopefully) demonstrating that he understood after all and cementing the equivalences into his own mind by reinforcing with speech. The same tech or close enough.

"So the blanket surveillance is limited to the arena… Not everywhere in Panem?"

…Which means—which makes perfect sense to Finnick's worldview—Finnick must think this is an arena.

Cassian didn't feel particularly good about it, but the sick heaviness in his chest felt like he may have cracked it.

[fishermansweater]

The words Cassian says aren't familiar, but they're similar enough that Finnick thinks it probably means about the same. Either way, it seems to have answered Cassian's question well enough for his satisfaction, except that the next question is ...

Difficult.

It's not that the Capitol watches everything. They can't, not in the districts, though it's well enough known among the people of the Capitol that the government has surveillance cameras on public spaces in the Capitol. Finnick's long thought that's the case in at least some parts of the districts, too, but it's not known there. Not to those without a reason to be particularly paranoid about the Capitol watching them.

Like victors. Like Snow's pet whose main value to Panem is his desirability to the Capitol's wealthy elite and the amount of money they'll pay for him. He's certain his house is bugged, and Annie's, and all the other victors, just as much as he is that some parts of the district have hidden cameras. There'd been a reason when he and Annie really needed to talk in private, they'd sail out to the islands where only the fishermen go, and most of them not often because they don't have the time for leisure sailing the victors do.

Nobody knows that, though, until they become a victor. It's one of those silences that comprise the grand conspiracy of victory, the lie that the victors become free of the Games when they're freed from the Reaping.

The lie he has to be complicit in.

So he looks up, and he lets a little of the fear and unease show. A flash of vulnerability, too subtle to be seen on a camera, but surely, surely noticeable to Cassian.

"Just the arena," he confirms.

Finnick Odair is an excellent liar, but this time, he's not really trying not to be caught out.

It's just another of the lies everyone in Panem tells themselves, every day, just to survive.

[candor1]

Cassian's too-sharp eyes rake Finnick's face.

Then abruptly lower to the finished bandage on his hand.

Finnick has done a beautiful job. For a bit, Cassian had forgotten any pain.

…This is a risk. It might undo the progress they'd just made. But there was a chance it might also cement it. —take the wrong Cassian had unintentionally done to Finnick from the first and make it something shared. Put it back into Finnick's hands. Not power Cassian was trying to claim over Finnick, but power they could give to one another, create together. Against common odds.

Cassian brought up his good hand to experimentally touch the fastening of the bandage. Then his dark eyes flashed back up.

He stood, put out his good hand to touch Finnick's arm. Said, "This feels much better. Thank you." And, as if tentatively, drew them together.

Turned his face as if to kiss Finnick's cheek.

Face so obscured from any likely angle—Cassian didn't believe for a moment the surveillance had followed Finnick here, but he finally respected that it mattered that Finnick did—Cassian moved his lips almost voicelessly against Finnick's cheek. "What would be required for you to speak freely to me?"

We can do spycraft together if that's what will help. Until I can figure out how to prove to you this is something else.

[fishermansweater]

He'd played this very same game with Cassian earlier, when he'd used the cover of flirtation to whisper to him. He'd played it with Annie, when they'd first taken that leap together, stopped pretending to be just friends and started pretending to be new lovers driven together by the pressures of this place and the benefits of their alliance. So he understands what's happening and plays along, instead of freezing like he might have done if Cassian had done this earlier in their conversation, melts into his touch, leans his head a little towards Cassian's lips as though craving the warmth of his breath.

Let him play this game for whoever's watching. He lets Cassian's hand stay on his arm, lets Cassian draw closer to him.

Let their Gamemakers think there's a draw to infidelity in the attraction he's blamed himself for ever since he and Cassian first met. That protects Annie.

So he arches his neck, gives a self-satisfied little smile, then turns his head back towards Cassian.

"I can't speak freely to anyone," he whispers. "Not while we might be being watched."

[candor1]

Cassian hesitates.

Betray yourself and others a little less…

I never want to do it ever again…

No more lies…

Jyn?

Why did he feel driven to… just take the cautionary tale as that… someone similar—someone so much like him—taking what could be his heaven and insisting on making it a hell… turn away from that, abandon a brother to his self-made fate, and go, be satisfied in his own heaven with Jyn.

love, loyalty. hijacking and redirecting those. to separate, compete, rather than unify

Perhaps Finnick's paranoia was contagious. Perhaps Cassian had been avoiding his own regarding their unknown "hosts". That what had been so miraculously given could be as easily taken away.

Of course it can that's kriffing life it doesn't mean ascribing intent is any less self-centredly superstitious

Force, help me

Perhaps… it was just what the Empire and indeed the Alliance had never quite been able to beat out of Cassian after all. We help and serve each other. No matter what.

For a phantom flash, it was Cassian's body language that resembled what he had read in Finnick's earlier.

Please, man, please don't make me.

…But this was important. It had to be. Just as it had been important to recruit for the Alliance.

Give him the power back. Even if…

It had never been necessary with Jyn… Neither he nor she had ever had to sacrifice or compromise their own power to respect or serve the other's…

But if anyone in any universe had mastered avoiding psychological capture, it was Jyn Erso…

what was your first time?
you were there for it…

If anyone had done to Jyn what someone—many someones—have done to Finnick… nothing would be too self-compromising to try and help.

If self-defeatingly…?

Against Finnick, Cassian trembled.

He let it happen. Pay attention, Odair. Feel it. Role reversal, now. Will you become the inflictor

It might be more triggering to Finnick now… but it would stay with him later… See if hanging on to the old code is worth the price.

Turning his face after all…



Jyn.



…No. Cassian couldn't kiss him.

No. No more. I'm done sacrificing the smaller ideals for the larger ones. That's no kind of foundation. They won't stand.

Not when the larger ideal was Jyn.

I promised to be different. This is a greater good, too. Choosing her.

…And following his own advice to Finnick.

Don't carry the games with us.

He would join Finnick's to an extent. Not far enough to not know how to face Jyn. Not enough to hurt her.

Sacrificing one's own power entirely is no way to build someone else's.

Trust goes both ways.

Don't give up what you don't even know he might take without him having to fire a shot

The start had been visible, so Cassian enhanced the change of mind—visible wince, visible fear, a slight physical withdrawal. Not to pull away from Finnick. Just to change the tenor of their embrace. There won't be a sex scene for the 'highlights'. But seeking comfort may play too.

Shaking his head once more, Cassian ducked it as if embarrassed and put his forehead against Finnick's shoulder.

His good hand could still stick to the original choreography, though. (Promise more for the sponsors, for later.) It slid up Finnick's tight-muscled arm. Worked its way around the hard topography of Finnick's shoulders and back. Found the smooth passage of his spine to neck to cranium… buried his fingers under Finnick's hair.

…And so camouflaged, began to trace a pattern against the sensitive, nerve-rich skin of Finnick's scalp.

A. B. C. D.

Heaving a deep, visible breath, Cassian raised his head once more and put his face beside Finnick's. Breathed, "Do you know this alphabet"