#x reader fanfic
Pairing:Bucky x Reader
Warnings:language, mentions of injuries, etc.
Summary: He remembers that they’d gotten to know each other well, as those summer days rolled on in the past. The more Raynor asks, the more he talks about her, the more clearly the memories come back to him.
A/N:Another chapter!! Let me tell you guys, something about this fic has set me on a roll. As always, I hope you guys enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to shoot them my way!
Chapter One: Shouldn’t Have Gotten Shot
June 3rd, 1944
Two hot, sunny days roll by before James opens his eyes again.
It’s strange, that it makes a difference to you one way or the other. In this violent, bloody line of work of yours, becoming used to the idea that half your patients –– even more, at times –– will fall unconscious with no great chance of ever waking again is a necessity. Two years as an army nurse and running, you’ve lost more soldiers than you could possibly keep track of.
But it’s different, this time. Something about James, something about the misshapen ball of lead burning a hole in your shirt pocket, is different.
You’re not sure why that’s so difficult to admit to yourself, why you insist that you’re only being a good, diligent nurse each time you walk by his cot to check up on him –– which is about four or five times more than you’d usually do in a shift. And that isn’t even including all of the other, more discrete glances you sneak at him to see if he’s awake yet, when you’re standing over Sally’s shoulder as she runs you through the details of another soldier’s injuries for a second opinion on treatment, or when another of your girls, Nora, asks you to bring her more thread for the set of stitches she’s working on. It’s only getting worse, now that you’re nearly all the way through day two of his unconsciousness and coming up on the third. More frequent.
There’s no rhyme, reason, or logic to it, but you know. Each time you pass him by, each time his face shifts or his fingers twitch at his sides and you find yourself eagerly waiting to see if then will be the moment he finally wakes, you know.
And, apparently, Sally does too.
“Your fella’s awake,” she announces in a singsong voice, poking her head through the flap of your tent. Her dark curls flutter around her shoulders in the stiff summer breeze, and you note the lighthearted smirk toying at the corners of her mouth.
You glance over at her from where you’re lying on your cot, trying and failing to relax enough to get some sleep. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the sun’s blazing down outside in all its fiery glory, but the majority of the soldiers injured in the skirmish from the other night –– the ones who could be saved, anyway –– have been seen to and dealt with, leaving you with nothing to do for the time being aside from trying to rest and recuperate to get your hands steady for the next bout of work.
Though, the way your heart leaps into your throat as soon as you hear the words fall from Sally’s lips, you find yourself wide awake, all progress towards rest effectively swept away like sand in the wind.
“‘My fella?’” you prompt, arching a brow. It’s a stupid sidestep. You know who Sally means, and she knows that you do.
But you don’t want to get your hopes up.
SallyMhmm’s, settling her hands on her hips as she dips her chin in a single, nonchalant nod. “Mister baby blues. Nora tried to see to him, but he wouldn’t have any of that. Just waved her away and kept askin’ for you. Little stupid of him if you ask me, and kinda bold, considerin’, but hey, if he walks like a soldier and talks like a soldier.”
The excitement you feel is difficult to squish down, but you manage. Sally’s words have piqued your curiosity. “Bold how?” you question, giving your legs a quick stretch before you plant your feet on the ground and stand.
“Kept sayin’ you had somethin’ for him,” Sally elaborates, shrugging a shoulder. Her casual tone doesn’t do much to fool you. You love the girl to death, but she’s notoriously nosey. Even if you attempt to tell her that two nights ago was the first time you’d ever met James Barnes –– his last name picked up from the tags worn on the chain around his neck –– you know you’ll be hard pressed to get her to believe you the first twenty times you insist. “So I said I’d go and find you, ‘cause my bet’s that you owe him a kiss, way you’ve been mooning over his cot and all.”
A teenager. Sally Macintosh is a damned teenager.
With a shake of your head and a roll of your eyes, you offer Sally a word of thanks, no less sincere despite your mostly feigned show of irritation. All jokes and banter and teasing conclusions aside, it means a lot that she would hightail it clear across the expanse of the unit’s territory to come and alert you to James’ state. You know she’s noticed your behavior these last two days, the glances you’ve been stealing and the bottom lip you’ve been worrying. What she’s done for you is a kindness all its own.
Sally waves you off, calls for you to get a move on and go.
So, you do. And you don’t stop until you’re ducking your head beneath the flap of the med tent’s entrance.
It’s near empty now, not half as many pained soldiers holding their wounds, moaning and groaning and searching for any ounce of relief they can find. The bulk of them had been dealt with the night you’d seen to James, the remainder being sorted in the early hours of the following morning. Now, only four cots are occupied. One by a blonde boy who looks barely more than a teenager, a bandage of white gauze wrapped around his head. Another by a balding man, who’d suffered severe burns due to an incident with gunshot powder in the field –– Nora looks up from where she’s stooped over him, offering you a tentative wave as she notices you enter. The third cot is taken by a redheaded man, chest rising and falling in the even throes of healing sleep.
And the fourth cot, furthest back from the entrance and your current destination, is taken by James Barnes.
His eyes light up when he catches sight of you –– though you can’t very well say whether that’s due to recognition, or something else you don’t know the name of. Whatever it is, they’re bright and awake, and the smile he offers you is weak and small, but it remains a smile all the same.
“Hey there, nurse,” James greets you, voice strained from screaming and two days of disuse. “Don’t suppose you might be able to help a guy out by telling him what year it is?”
The words win a laugh from you, make you shake your head as you momentarily cast your gaze to the ground. It’s small, and it’s quiet, but James seems pleased when you let his eyes wander back up to his face. “Awake and in the mood for jokes,” you muse, stepping closer as you clasp your hands together in front of you. “Seems like a good sign to me.”
“Well, I tried to tell that other girl who went and found you that I felt fine enough to get up and do it myself,” he chuckles, wincing against a shrugged shoulder. “But she ducked out of here pretty quick before I could even finish with that.”
“And she was right to,” you counter, scanning his torso up and down. Bare chested, save for the gauze covering his healing wound, you’re afforded a free look at the manner in which he breathes. His chest doesn’t expand as far as you know it should, his breaths shuddering out shallowly towards their end. Not great, but you’d expected as much –– if not worse. “You pop a stitch, you’ll have hell to pay. And not just because it took me forever to close up that wound in the first place.”
James’ grin only grows wider. “Doesn’t bother me none,” he sighs as he attempts to shrug a shoulder. “I’m not exactly what you’d call the religious type.” He’s nearly successful at concealing the wince he reflexively gives against the stretch his movements cause his stitches. Nearly. “Don’t worry, though, I’m not planning to ruin your hard work or anything. I do that, it means we’re even, and I don’t think I’m ready to settle the score quite yet.”
The tone with which he speaks is familiar. One you hear fairly often, actually, coming from the lips of the soldiers –– boys and men alike –– that you treat on a regular basis. They tend to get flirtatious, your patients, on account of the fact that they’ve been away at war for so long and you’re one of the scarce few women they’ve actually seen since enlisting, or drafting, or however it is that they’ve come to be here. At times, they can be crass about it. Not all of them, not always, but it happens. But as a result, you weren’t long into this job before you’d decided that, rather than risk any unnecessary complications, you’d forego it altogether and shut down any attempted advances from the safe distance of an arm’s length.
But there’s an innocence to James’ words that catches you off guard. Or, if innocence isn’t the correct description, perhaps charm is. Either way –– whatever his intention, it doesn’t strike you as impure.
Maybe, just this once… there wouldn’t be any harm in playing along.
“That bandage needs a change,” you tell him, an amused smile stretching your mouth as you gesture with your chin to the gauze pad concealing his stitches –– likely what Nora had tried to take care of before James allegedly shooed her away. Red seeps through the center of the bandage, staining the white with blotchy scarlet blooms. The residual blood itself isn’t much cause for concern, but there’s no telling what sorts of infections await him if you don’t keep his injury’s wrappings fresh and clean. “Think you might be okay with letting me take care of it? Or did you want to wait for Sally to come back with that nurse you were asking for?”
“Glad to see I’m not the only one apparently in the mood for jokes,” James chuckles tiredly, eyes slipping closed despite the conspicuous fight he puts up to keep them open. It makes sense that he’d still be tired. Two days of sleep isn’t much when it’s prompted by the body’s biological shutdown response to pain and trauma. “You can go ahead, long as you promise not to stick me with those tweezers again. Think I practically saw Jesus last time.”
“I thought you weren’t the religious type,” you chuckle, stepping closer to his side before gently taking hold of the edge of his bandage and peeling it up. Prepared a nurse as she is, Nora had left all the items needed to clean up James’ wound on the stool just beside his cot –– probably recognizing that his insistence of waiting for you didn’t exactly leave a lot of time before his wound would undoubtedly start trying to fester. You make a mental note to thank her for the foresight before setting to work.
“I’m not,” James crows, eyes cracking open just enough to get a look at your face before he continues with, “but I figure I better be careful of what I do and don’t deny, considering I’ve got an angel patching me up and all.”
The words are corny. Spoken by anyone else, you’d have sworn they wouldn’t have piqued your interest in anything short of a million years. But, spoken by James Barnes, with his wide eyes blue as water and the gentle way they fall from his mouth like they’re a fact, indisputable…
Christ, you can already hear Sally’s smug laughter.
You shake your head, sighing softly as you pat around the edges of his wound. The area is still an angry red, still puffy and inflated and in need of gentle care, but it looks considerably better than it did just yesterday, when you’d checked its progress as he slept. “You know, it’s been a while since I met a sweet talker, James.”
“‘James,’” he chuckles, relaxing beneath your touch. “Come on now. Angels get to call me Bucky.”
––
Present Day
“Kept me on my back for damn near two weeks like that,” Bucky sighs. He can see the scene playing out on the backs of his eyelids, remembers the pretty way your lashes fluttered when he’d dropped that particular line. An echo of pride, decades old, flares up in his chest as a melancholic reminder. “Wouldn’t hear a word about me going back into the field until my stitches came out and I could inhale a breath deep enough to finish a sentence in one go.”
Raynor breathes a quiet laugh, knowingness twinkling in the depths of her eyes. “And did you make her put up very much of a fight?”
Bucky shakes his head, the corner of his mouth lifting the barest fraction of an inch in a smile. “I pretended to,” he admits. “But that was all it was, and she knew it. It was an easy excuse for us to spend more time together, without really… y’know, having to come clean to ourselves about why. There was no… pressure, no expectations. She was pretty, and I made her laugh. I liked to make her laugh. In Wakanda, I remembered that used to be one of my favorite sounds.”
“You liked her,” Raynor muses, blinking calmly at him from where she still sits with her hands clasped in her lap. The notebook and pen lay discarded on the little end table just beside her chair, mercifully forgotten for the time being.
Bucky exhales a scoff through his nose, raising his eyes to the ceiling and tracing patterns into the lines with his imagination. “Yeah, no shit,” he breathes, ruminating. “Hard not to like someone like that, Doc.”
“Someone like that…?” Raynor trails off, tilting her head. Bucky can’t begrudge her the prying, the soft needling. This is farther than she’s ever gotten about something so close and personal to him, the most freely he’s spoken about a subject from his past in their sessions to date. It only makes sense that she’d want to know more, keep him talking. “Would you mind elaborating for me?”
Yes.
No.
Bucky sighs, glaring even harder at the ceiling as he traces the shape of a dragon into its mottled surface. He knew it would be a gamble, speaking about her, breathing life into his memories from so damn long ago. That day in Wakanda he’d woken up remembering her, her face had been fractured, incomplete. It took three long days of hard labor to busy his body and concentration to piece it back together in his mind, and twice that length of time to recall which letter her name began with. By the time Thanos and his cronies had come to wreak havoc upon Wakanda and, shortly after, the rest of the universe, Bucky had worked his way up to remembering the sweet curve of her smile as she teased him, the cute way her tongue poked through her lips as she concentrated on stitching him up, taking care of his wounds and battle injuries.
Funny then, that the first thought to cross his mind as he’d rematerialized into reality was the sweet pitch with which his first name had always fallen from her lips, and the feeling that sound used to inspire in his chest.
And now he’s speaking about her, he’s beginning to remember even more. He thought he was ready…
But when, in his life, has he ever truly been ready for anything?
“Someone good,” Bucky eventually lets out, abandoning his mental drawings and tipping his chin back down. “Someone sweet, unselfish. She was a war nurse, you know? She took care of people. And not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Two years of service and counting, she could’ve left at any time, but she didn’t. Said it was important to her, to help people who needed it, to make any kind of difference she could, even if it was only a small one.”
Raynor arches an inquisitive brow, chewing the inside of her lip in thought. “You talk about her like she’s something of a kindred spirit.”
And it’s hard not to laugh at that, hard to contain the harsh bark of bitterness fighting its way out of his throat, but he manages. That’s laughable. The thought that he could look at his memories of you and see someone so low down on the totem pole that he holds them in the same regard as he does himself. But that isn’t something he can just say, especially not in front of Dr. Raynor.
“That’s not what she was to me,” Bucky settles on instead, swallowing hard against the uncomfortable lump of emotion in his throat. His mind ticks down the twenty three minutes left to the end of session. He can make it, he knows he can. He’s just got to hold on a little longer.
Raynor taps her thumb patiently against the back of her wrist. “Okay, James,” she murmurs. “Then what was she?”
––
June 22nd, 1944
It goes like this.
The days following James’ –– or, Bucky, as he keeps insisting you call him –– eventual release from the med tent see him constantly and consistently planted by your side as you work. In truth, this confuses you. As little time as the soldiers possess in the day for themselves, when they aren’t required to be honing their skills, fighting battles against foreign soldiers, or participating in the three mile morning run their unit leader mandates, it makes the moments they do have to spare all the more precious. Fleeting, even.
Which makes it that much harder to understand why in the world Bucky would want to spend all of his watching you do inventory of medical supplies on a daily basis.
“You saved my life, didn’t you?” he responds once, after you’ve worked up the courage to throw caution to the wind and actually pose the question, subconsciously thumbing the pocket in which he keeps the bullet you’d offered to him his last day of treatment, just before discharging him. “Figure the least I can do to pay you back is keep you company.”
Never mind the fact that you’re never truly without company, considering the several other nurses you work beside each day.
Not that you’re at all inclined to point this out to Bucky.
He gets quite chatty, as the days roll on. This isn’t anything new, not to you. As the one nurse around he’d actually let see to the care of his wound, much to Sally’s shit-eating delight, he’d run through all kinds of seemingly unrelated topics while you cleaned his stitches, changed his bandages, administered painkillers when you actually had some to give. At first it’s all small talk, pleasantries and niceties that, in contrast to conversations you’ve had with other people, come across as genuine and sincere. Like he actually cares to know the answers to the frivolous, inconsequential questions he asks.
It’s in the days after he’s finally finished his time as a patient that the topics of conversation he broaches seem to turn more towards… well, you. Your home life, your relationship with your family, where it is you’re originally from. Why you’re here, in a foreign land you don’t know, working as an army nurse when you could be back home doing something less depressing. Someone less receptive to Bucky’s unique charm might consider his line of questioning invasive, nosey even. But to you, it’s a special kind of amusing, and grows to be one of your favorite parts of the day.
“You mind if I ask you something personal?” Bucky prompts one muggy evening as he walks you from the med tent to your own, a little over three weeks since the first night he’d come stumbling into the med tent with a bullet stuck in his abdomen. He’s looking better and better each and every day, and it’s getting to the point where you have to be careful how long you allow yourself to stare, lest you lose your train of thought or momentarily forget how to speak.
Even dying, he’d looked handsome. Now that he’s just about back to full health and you’ve got the concentration to spare, his looks are enough to rob you of breath and leave you seeing stars. Something tells you he knows that, too.
You snort, shaking your head as you offer him a playful roll of your eyes. “Isn’t that all you know how to do?”
Bucky presses an affronted palm to his chest, mouth popping open in shocked delight. “Ouch,” he gasps, blue eyes turned a murky gold by the rays of the setting sun. “God damn, darlin’, any chance you could let a fella live?”
“Honey, we’ve been there and done that,” comes your easy reply, the words falling from your lips before you even properly register that you’re speaking. Yet another thing about Bucky Barnes that, were he anyone else, might concern you. He makes it too easy to speak, to laugh and joke, which in turn makes it all too easy to forget yourself, your established boundaries, the fact that you’d not known his face up until the start of June. Too easy to forget the situation in which you both live. “No, Bucky, I don’t mind if you ask me something personal. What is it that’s got your head rolling?”
“Well, see, I’ve been thinking a lot,” he answers simply, peering at you sideways through his lashes. The bend of fondness curving his mouth into a smile makes it clear that he’s got more to say, but for whatever reason, Bucky holds back, caging the words by biting his lip.
This alone is enough to strike you as odd. If there’s one thing you’ve learned in the last few weeks, it’s that Bucky Barnes never shies away from speaking his mind.
“What about?” you question, electing to play along.
“You.”
The admission is soft, simple. He makes no big deal out of it, only smiles to himself as he continues walking along and looking down at you from the corner of his eye. Clearly and intentionally leaving an out for you to take advantage of if at any moment you become too uncomfortable, or aren’t sure how to turn down his advances.
Instead, you elect to remain silent, marvelling at how warm your chest grows in response to that single, simple word.
“I realized the other night,” Bucky goes on, that bashful smile still turning the corners of his lips toward the sky, “that when you talk about home, you talk about your family, and the friends you grew up with. But I’ve never heard you say anything about having a fella waiting for you to come back to him when all this is over. Now, I know that doesn’t mean you don’t have one, so I figured the smart thing to do would be not to get my hopes up until I got the chance to ask you.”
Embarrassing as it is, it takes you a few moments to put together what Bucky’s saying, to string the words along into coherency in your mind. Part of you wants to blame the sun, its heat, for your slow understanding, but it’s evening now, and those golden rays have been sinking down beyond the horizon for more than a few minutes. Another part, for some reason, flashes Sally’s face in front of your mind’s eye, the vision of her knowing eyes and smug grin confirming your suspicions as fact.
“Oh, that look on your face,” Bucky chuckles, raising a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. The gesture is casual, fluid. You would never be able to recognize the nervousness which underscores it if you hadn’t grown so friendly with the man walking along beside you. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to start propositioning you or anything. Like I said, I’ve just been thinking a lot. About you, and how I think I’d like to take you dancing someday, if we get the chance. But I know I wouldn’t be too crazy about the idea of some other punk taking my girl out dancing, especially if––” He cuts himself off, grinning wide and shaking his head. “Well, anyway. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t causing any problems, if I asked you to go dancing with me sometime.”
You mull his words over in your mind as the two of you continue walking, still embarrassingly slow to piece together what it is Bucky’s asking you. The words flowing out of him are innocent, genuine. Just like they always are, when he talks to you, and always have been. He’s not teasing, he’s just… saying. Just asking. And by the hopeful little glances he continues shooting at you, he means it all.
“No,” you answer eventually, stopping the two of you walking and turning to catch Bucky’s gaze face to face before you make it to the final destination of your tent. It’s a few feet away, but you know Sally’s bound to be sitting inside, waiting for you. The last thing you need is her overhearing this conversation.
Bucky’s face falters, and though he tries to get a handle on the disappointment cracking his expression, he doesn’t succeed. “Oh,” he breathes, eyes falling to where his feet are firmly planted on the ground. “Okay, then. Uh, sorry–– sorry for being so forward with you, then, I didn’t––”
You shake your head and sigh a laugh, stepping forward so that the toes of your shoes bump against his. Gently, you take his large hand in yours, marveling at its warmth and finding an odd comfort in the way his callouses rub against your palm. “No, Bucky,” you tell him, smiling softly. “I meant no, I don’t have anyone waiting for me back home.” You punctuate your sentence by giving his palm a reassuring squeeze, never once breaking the eye contact you hold. “I would love to go dancing with you sometime, given the chance.”
In turn, this affords you a look at the exact moment that realization dawns on his expression. “Oh,” Bucky breathes again, disappointment melting from his features in order to give way to awe. He glances down at your joined hands, then back up to your face, then repeats the cycle one more time before again murmuring, “Oh.”
Funny. In all these three weeks, even so close to being on his deathbed, you’ve never known Bucky to be the type easily rendered speechless.
You squeeze his hand once more before letting it go, stepping back from Bucky and offering him a wave of goodnight. “Just let me know when,” you tell him, taking a moment to marvel at how much he looks like a bashful schoolboy before turning back toward your tent. “Goodnight, Bucky Barnes.”
“G’night,” you hear him respond dazedly.
One last glance over your shoulder before entering your tent reveals Bucky with his back turned to you, excitedly punching his fists into the air as he walks back toward the soldiers’ camp. All you can do is shake your head in amusement, pondering the flood of light, iridescent emotion pooling in your chest as you walk into your tent to find Sally’s wide, expectant eyes peering up at you from where she’s perched on your cot.
––
I think I Wanna Marry You…
One shot #55
Summary: the Quarter Quell takes a toll on everyone, but especially on lovers…
Pairing: Finnick Odair x reader (the reader is referred to as female for the purpose of sticking with the themes but it is not concretely finnick x female!reader)
Warnings: angst, mentions of murder, reader throws a vase so I guess violence
Finnick it’s about to start!” You shout from the sitting room anxiously, watching the symbol of the Capitol float on the screen, hugging a pillow to your chest tightly.
Ever since the fateful year his name was called on that stage, your stomach carried a knot the size of your head whenever you heard the Panem anthem, especially when the time came for the annual hellfest. Yours had once been called too, you were the victor of the games directly following Finnicks. the two of you had met in victors village and fallen in love, though no one really knew about it.
“Did I miss anything yet?” He asks, sitting down next to you and pulling you in towards him. You snuggle up to him, holding onto him for dear life.
“Nothing yet. The reaping hasn’t started yet.” You murmur, biting at your lip. He tugs at your chin gently, pulling it up to look at him.
“Hey. It will be ok. I promise. We’ve both been called already, we’ve both been through this. They can’t do it to us again, ok?” He assures you.
“Finnick we agreed not to lie to each other. We both know that Snow never keeps a promise. Nothing is set in stone with him.” You sigh, a stray tear rolling down your face.
“I know… I just can’t stand to see you upset.” He sighs, rubbing it away with his thumb.
You nuzzle up close as possible to him in response, watching as president Snow starts his yearly speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the 75th year of The Hunger Games and it was written in the charter of The Games that every 25 years, there would be a Quarter Quell to keep fresh for each new generation the memory of those who died in the uprising against The Capitol.” Snow begins, addressing the nation with a voice meant to invoke a fear like no other.
“Each Quarter Quell is distinguished by Games of a special significance. And now on this the 75th anniversary of our defeat of the rebellion, we celebrate the 3rd Quarter Quell as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of The Capitol.” Both you and Finnick hold each other even tighter at the thinly veiled threat, staring at the screen, unable to look away.
“On this, the 3rd Quarter Quell Games, the male and female Tributes are to be reaped from the existing pool of Victors in each district.” He finally announces and you let out a loud cry, burying yourself in Finnick’s arms as he stares onward, completely taken aback by the words coming out of the snakes mouth.
Your staggered sobs continue as Snow’s voice does too. “Victors shall present themselves on Reaping Day-regardless of age, state of health or situation.” He says and both you and Finnick know that at least one of those things was an attack on at least two other past victors from district 4.
“No… no no no no NO!” You sob. “He can’t do this to us again! he can’t!” You murmur, throwing a vase off the coffee table and at the nearest wall.
Finnick holds you tighter, saying nothing at all, clearly in shock.
“I-I can’t do it… I can’t do it again, I can’t do it if you’re there, I can’t fight these people or kill anyone again.” You cry, your lip trembling in a mix of anger and fear.
“I know. Me neither. But we will find a way! We will get through this somehow, I know it baby.” He says into your hair, stroking it soothingly.
You knew he was hopeful for the uprising coming, you were too but there was no way it would come soon enough to save you from the arena. They were still preparing, no one was going to be ready to protect the victors and risk coming out of the shadows so soon. If they did, it would be an instant death sentence. No, you knew that at least one of you, if not both of you were fated to die in that arena this time around.
“Hey, hey, don’t go thinking about it too hard alright sweetheart? We’ll be ok, there’s still 2 other female victors from our district, you aren’t the only one.” He promises with a forced smile.
“But you are.” You whimper sadly, looking into his eyes with your glassy sad ones.
“And I will do whatever it takes to get out of there and back to you. But you have to trust me right? We both have to believe it. We will both be safe my love, no matter what, I promise.” He says soothingly, placing a delicate lasting kiss on your forehead as you nod quietly with a sigh.
“Finnick, I can’t bear the idea of going in there and killing our friends. We’ve known these people for years, they’ve lived through the absolutely traumatic games just like we have. Why is he doing this?” You ask quietly, playing with his fingers.
“Because he’s a snake. Because he’s scared and wants to gain control on the rebellion but doesn’t know how. Because he’s pure evil.” Finnick answers bitterly, staring at the Capitol symbol in spite.
The two of you lay curled up with each other quietly for a while, taking in the horror show that was just unleashed on you.
“Let’s get married. It doesn’t have to be anything public, just for us. I just want to be us, you and me forever. No games, no death, no destruction, no public stunt. Just concrete love between two people. Between us.” Finnick says suddenly, holding your hands in his own carefully.
You giggle in disbelief, glancing up to see his expression, only to find he is dead serious.
“You’re serious? Not public, not a play for the games… just us?” You say hopefully and he nods with a smile, beaming at your soft voice. “Ok, let’s do it. Let’s get married. Before the reaping, before anymore of this chaos.” You agree, giggling louder as he grins in the small victory, pulling you tightly to him and hugging you tightly from behind.
“Right now?” You ask, grinning gleefully at him as he nods, the smile on his own face growing.
“And when we both survive this, because we will, we’ll have such a fabulous party even the Capitol will be jealous. We deserve it honey.” He promises, kissing your knuckle.
You both get up, going into his room to change. You kept most of your clothes there, rarely spending time in your own house other than to check in on your family.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. Does this make us crazy?” You ask, still smiling.
“Maybe, but there’s no shame in that.” He says and you can hear the smirk in his voice as you pull on your finest clothes. Both of you had fairly rich looking clothes, mostly meant for public appearances. Heaven forbid you ever leave a hair out of place in the eye of Panem.
Once you’re both changed, the two of you go together hand in hand to the center of the district, quickly finding someone you trusted and knew was an officiant. Weddings weren’t uncommon in the District but still, on a day such as this, every district was clouded with a certain bleakness. This made it shocking to your friend when you had told him you intended to celebrate your love for each other in the face of such imminent danger. Still, he agreed and walked with you down by the water, where the two of you were joined in marriage.
There was no other people around really and it wasn’t the warmest of days but neither of you would’ve had it any other way than being with the person you most loved in the place you both so loved, feet wading in the water as you shared your first kiss as a married couple.
—————————————–
Reaping day…
The love celebrations had ensued for a few days but as reaping day approached, your glee slowly faded into fear and anxiety. Finally it was there and you couldn’t help but be relieved it was finally going to be over with, despite knowing it was only the beginning.
Your districts name puller was much less flamboyant than some such as Effie Trinket, often opting to wear minimal makeup though it was still bright. She also chose to wear more muted, pastel colours. The one similarity was the ridiculous wig resting on her head, a vibrant shade of blue, probably to represent the water for District 4.
‘How clever’ you thought to yourself sarcastically, more bitter now than you had been when the announcement was first made.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of District 4 it is my great pleasure to choose your tributes for this years very special Hunger Games.” She announces in her own over the top Capitol accent.
“We will start with the gentlemen.” She states and really you’re more surprised than anything else.
You watch her anticlimactic pull from the bowl, watching the single slip that would ruin your life for good get plucked up and read out loud.
“Finnick Odair.” It reads, as expected but that doesn’t stop tears from streaming down your cheeks, watching sadly as he walks up to the stage, calm and masked as possible, avoiding your eyes.
You had both decided it would be best to act more stoic and not give the cameras the satisfaction of seeing you get emotional over each other. You refused to truly give into their hunger for a romance to shake things up, opting to be less entertainment skits for them and more for each other.
“And now for the ladies, how exciting!!” The chirpy woman trills and you have to disagree.
“Annie Cresta!” She announces and you turn a sympathetic glance to the redhead next to you. She has clear tears in her eyes as she starts to messily cry, making her way to the stage. You want so badly to volunteer, to stop her flow of tears and save the poor mad girl from the cruel fate awaiting her but you had promised Finnick if your name wasn’t called, you wouldn’t do anything selfless. And the two of you never broke your promises.
Still, Annie was a sweet girl, you knew this. The games had messed up her head more than they had anyone else’s. Her name even being in the draw at all hardly seemed fair but neither did anything the Capitol did.
Annie begrudgingly climbed the stairs to stand beside Finnick but then came along Mags, who was almost too selfless for her own good. She quickly volunteered for the girl, who fell into a heap of sobs of gratitude, tightly hugging the older woman with affection. Mags’ smile alone made you want to volunteer on the spot but you resisted that urge.
The woman on the stage announced the volunteer and you tuned out the rest of her speech, choosing to instead stare down Finnick with love eyes until she finished. She asked for applause but to District 4′s credit, not one citizen clapped even a little. The bright woman awkwardly moved on.
You waited until the square was starting to clear a bit to fully make your way to the visitors station to say goodbye but you gasped in surprise to see Finnick with a slightly busted lip and being dragged to the train.
“Stop! Let me go, I get a goodbye for godsake!” He shouts, trying to fight out of the Peacekeeper grip but they keep pulling, unphased by his argument. When he finally catches your shocked eyes in the crowd, he fights even harder, even more desperately.
“I LOVE YOU! I WILL WIN THIS FOR YOU Y/N!” He shouts, desperately needing you to hear. You nod franticly to prove you do and he shouts a goodbye your way, followed by another I love you as he’s thrown onto the train along with Mags and the chipper Capitol announcer.
“I love you too… Goodbye Finnick.” You whisper as the train rapidly pulls away, your eyes welling with tears as it takes away your favorite person, not knowing whether it would dare to bring him back again.
