❦

𝑇𝑊𝐸𝐿𝑉𝐸
ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴏn ᴄᴏᴍғᴏʀᴛ

❦

Sleep did not come to him.

Each time his eyes closed he thought of his own games. Of the people- children- he'd killed. He thought of what he was coaching these tributes to do. Of what he was allowing. All of what he wasn't doing.

The cool air was welcomed. Up on the rooftop, privacy was imagined yet still accepted. Finnick sat across from the forward, legs hanging over the edge, feet pressed against invisible barriers. When Cillian stepped out to join him, a familiar voice finally became audible from somewhere behind the rose bushes.

Throwing his legs over the side, he sat by Finnick, sparing no greeting. The other mentor only nodded, deep in thought. His face was still flushed from the brushing of the wind and he still wore the thin shirt that he had during the day.

"Is that Johanna?"

Finnick took a moment to respond, shaking his head as if brushing away the thoughts. Cillian knew that movement well. "Yeah. I'm not sure who with. I don't recognise the voice."

He had not heard who she was with and had almost assumed she was alone, talking away her fears to the sky and the stars. Johanna was not one to stay quiet when she had something to say. The Capitol would hear all they said anyway and more often than not it was Snow himself that she wanted to get her words across to.

"No cigarettes?"

Cillian noticed the smirk on his face and shook his head, chin raising smugly. "I don't smoke." The words fell falsely from his lips.

For a moment, they were quiet again, looking out across the sea of skyscrapers that polluted the night sky. Lights lit up the horizon, spanning as far as the eye could see. It almost looked like an illusion, like a mirror in the far distance making the Capitol look far larger than it was- making it look hopelessly inescapable.

"You know, Giselle said this view is the only good thing about the Capitol," Cillian said. "I wonder what District One looks like to ever think this is a pretty sight."

Even the scenery of District Seven was better. There was something arguably beautiful about the forests of trees and the way the sun peaked through the branches, even on the coldest and cloudiest of mornings. There was a wistful smile on Finnick's face, making him look calmer than he ever had before.

"Nothing can beat the ocean."

Cillian watched his face, the way his eyes lit up and his shoulders soothed. He wished to love a place as much as he did, one day. Perhaps it would be somewhere his family found, far past the boundaries of the Capitol and the districts, where no dictatorship could hold them.

"I've never seen it."

"You will, one day," Finnick said, and it seemed like a promise, something far too strong for the feelings that had brewed between them in the past weeks.

He observed him then, with a newfound interest. Finnick, despite his similarities in situation, was too complex to ever truly know. It seemed impossible to think he would ever be able to understand him. From the beginning of their working relationship, the other victor had never once seemed bitter nor resentful, and yet Cillian had been both. He wanted to learn his secret, to know how he'd lasted so long and yet still kept his pretty smile.

"You ever wonder why it was us they picked? Why they chose a rivalry over a friendship or love?"

"You know why," Cillian said, expecting Finnick to dog along in saddened agreement. But his sea-green eyes were trained on him as if searching for an answer, making him elaborate. "There's a sense of power in the districts' togetherness. Rather us be pitted against each other than be able to help."

Finnick knew that, of course. He closed his eyes and sighed as if he'd mulled it over too many times before.

"You'd think they see enough fighting in the games to want to see something more romantic outside of it," he said, eyes still closed. Cillian's mouth opened to say something, anything, to make him look up again, but he silenced quickly. "Don't we do enough?"

Their conversation was swiftly bordering something dangerous, something punishable and Finnick seemed too tired to care. When his eyes finally fluttered open again, he held that same electrifying expression he had the day at the interviews, with Johanna spouting her anarchist views. Something in that expression was comforting.

With a sigh, Cillian closed his eyes, drawing in another short breath. He was in a constant state of fatigue- both mentally and physically. Nothing could be easy, in the Capitol or back in District Seven. They were always watching, even when it seemed as if they would not, making each and every conversation exhaustive to censor.

How easy it would be Finnick's friend- Cillian could not help but think of the fact. He's established easily that they were rivals, competing for the Capitol's affection, but Finnick had been right: the cameras did not need to see the truth, only a performance. Perhaps that could be his next moment of rebellion. Warming his coolness toward the District Four mentor seemed so undaunting in comparison to the smuggling of his family past the borders.

Cillian shook the creeping thoughts of his family swiftly from his mind. He longed to hear from them, to know that they were safe, but doing so would only endanger them. Instead, he watched Finnick again, scanning the deeper creases of his skin, noting how the stress had only made the crevices on his tanned face worse. It seemed to be a constant feature of the victors. Those early-aged wrinkles could only come from heavy trauma. Serene tried her best to hide it, but as the months turned into years, it grew to be an impossible task.

"You're staring," Finnick said, a smirk forming on his lips. It was as if his whole personality had shifted within a few moments, his face morphing from an expression of sadness to one of smooth amusement. It was a face he used with the Capitol favourites. It was an expression Cillian knew he would grow to hate.

"I'm thinking," he said, never batting an eye at the seductive take on Finnick's face.

"Care to share?"

"You're right," Cillian said, dark eyes looking below lashes to the man beside him. "The cameras don't need to see the truth."

"I'm glad you've come to agree."

He held out his hand then, letting it hang in the small space between them. Cillian took it, shaking with the vaguest hint of a smile.

The sickness seemed to become more frequent yet with no solid cause.

But days persisted, no matter how ill Cillian felt and today was more important than most. The bags under his eyes were dark and heavy but Eirlys had him cover those before he and Johanna left the District Seven apartments to head toward the Games Centre. Freyja and Otis would already be there, dressing in their specially-made suits with Felix and Selene. They'd said their final words of luck and each one of them had felt pointless.

Only one, if any, could return.

The knowledge of such a rule only made his sickness feel worse. Johanna looked no better. Her usual anger was replaced by a solemness that had her looking pale and damp. Eirlys' insistence on presentability had no effect on Johanna: her hair was unbrushed, spiking up at odd angles, and the grey blemishes on her skin were untouched. The escort grimaced when she saw her and hesitated not once after they left the apartment.

But Johanna did not need makeup to fool people. Sometimes Cillian forgot her skill of manipulation. She'd lost the innocent edge- they all knew what she was capable of, that she was a killer- but she was still adept at sly and clever tricks. Johanna, when not in her sullen, angry moods, was sarcastic in a way that only she could make endearing. But there was one thing in which Cillian had not been fooled. Her favouritism towards Freyja was obvious.

He could not fault her, however. By the end of the day, as the darkness of night bled through the sky as a crimson swathe, they'd accumulated more sponsors than any of them had expected. It helped that Cillian knew some of them. Floriana clung to him, battering her wirey, purple lashes. It took all of ten minutes to have her pledging her full support to district seven and only district seven.

There were large screens across the walls of the room, showing the faces of the tributes. The games were beginning soon. Screams of excitement gave the area an electrifying buzz. A countdown, red and blaring, hung in the centre.

Five,

four,

three,

two,

one...

Not a very good chapter but I'm so ready to get into the main plot from here! Let me know, how much detail do you want to see of Otis and Freyja? Would you prefer more or less?