Hi! Here is yet another new perspective to view the world from!!!!

A little self-denial never hurt anyone right? 

It's been two years since Finnick won his own games; Let's see how Finnick's doing as a mentor!

Remember to like and vote and comment! I'd love to hear from you!

Stay safe and take care! ~CANGEL

***

Finnick Odair

     Finnick had a problem.

     As he sat on the couch, staring at the boy and girl that sat opposite him, he swirled the glass filled with brown liquor, and he thought about his problem.

     The problem came in the form of two dark-haired, pale-faced, skinny twelve-year-olds from District 14.

     The wild and overtly aggressive—and apparently decently skilled little girl who had made it beyond clear that she wouldn't ally with anyone going into that arena—not even her own brother.

     And the silver-tongued little boy who had somehow convinced Finnick's tributes that it would be in their best interest to attack the Careers in the midst of the bloodbath. Were his tributes just stupid? Or was that little boy just so fucking clever that he could make a bad idea sound good?

     Because allying with a twelve-year-old over the Careers and attempting to take on the tributes, outnumbered and out skilled, was the dumbest thing that he had ever heard.

     "Why?" He finally asked.

     Mags sat next to him, silent, of course. She'd lost her ability to speak sometime before he'd been born, but still communicated through sign language. Normally, she was calm, a steady and constant stream that helped keep Finnick and everyone around her level and even keeled. But he could tell that even she was frustrated with the tributes in front of her. Finnick watched as she expressed her disagreement with their tribute's new strategy, and he watched as their tributes rebuffed even Mags' suggestions.

     "They don't want to ally with us." Roe said, her face scrunching up in a pout as she crosses her arms. "And they don't take us seriously. They spent the whole day yesterday ignoring us. And today they told us to our face that we weren't joining their alliance!" At sixteen, she was the same age as Finnick, but it felt as if she were just a kid he was trying to corral.

     "I talked to their mentors." He said as calmly as he could, "they would have taken you into the alliance."

     "They're all older than us and more skilled, Finnick. They'll kill us the moment we are no longer necessary." Loach, the male tribute of District 4 said. He was a year younger than Finnick, at fifteen, but nearly just as troublesome as Roe. He wasn't as impulsive, but he was more than content to just sit back and watch as Roe did whatever came to mind.

     "Then you kill them first." Finnick says. "After the bloodbath." The way it's done every year. He thought silently in his head. Honestly, he couldn't believe the words coming from his tribute's mouths. Did they think they'd enter the Arena and stay allies to the very end? It was a fight to the death. Alliances only went so far.

     "Or we can kill them during the bloodbath. With Crimson."

     Idiots. Complete morons.

     He swallowed the remainder of his drink, letting the contents burn on their way down his throat and heat his stomach. Finnick glanced over at Mags, his former mentor. Two years after his Victory, Mags was the closest thing to a mother he had and someone he would trust with his life.

     Her blue eyes, wrapped in wrinkles and soft skin stared back at him, resigned. How she'd been a mentor for as many years as she had been without losing her mind was beyond him. This was only his second year being a mentor. Only the second year he'd escorted tributes from his district and only the second year that he would be forced to watch them die.

     Because these tributes were going to die. He would do his best to help them, and he would never tell them, or say those words aloud, but inside, he knew that neither of them were going to be Victors.

     Finnick just couldn't understand the two in front of him. Finnick had listened to every single thing that Mags had told him. He had done everything that she had suggested.

     And he had won.

     Finnick might have been able to understand them if they had ignored his advice, seeing as they were the same age, but Mags? How many years has Mags been a Victor—a mentor? How many Victors had she helped get back home to District 4? But they continued to argue over every single suggestion made, determined to go their own way.

     There was only so much that Finnick could do to help them, when they were this determined to make their own choices.

     He let out a breath and flung his hand out at the two tributes sitting across from him. "Go. Get. We'll discuss this later when I can stand to look at you again."

     Tomorrow was Individual Training Assessment. Roe and Loach should get 8's or 9's there. As long as they held that score and didn't do anything stupid, like announce that they wouldn't be allying with the Careers to anyone, then he'd have some time to try to convince them to go with the original plan and to talk to their mentors again.

     The two of them got up and walked out of the room without protest. He didn't care where they went, as long as they left him alone.

     How could he get them out of there alive, when they all refused to listen to him? Finnick didn't want to walk any more of the tributes down to the Arena with a plan he knew would get them killed. And he didn't want to watch anymore of them die from the screens of the Capitol.

     Finnick was popular with the citizens here in the Capitol. He could get his hands on so many sponsors and gifts. He could give his tributes anything in the Arena. They just had to stay alive.

     But he couldn't seem to get them to trust him. He couldn't get them to do what he told them to do. The Capitol ate out of the palm of his hand, but his own tributes refused to listen to him.

     They all had ideas. Plans. Strategies. And they always seemed to think they knew better than he did.

     Mags patted his hand with hers, pulling the glass from his fingers. He didn't look at her as she got up from the couch and walked away from him. But as soon as she was out of the room, he grabbed the bottle from the coffee table and raised it to his lips, taking another swallow.

     Mags was worried about him.

     She was right to be worried.

     But not for the reasons she probably thought she should be.

     She was worried about the constant drink in his hand. But drinking wasn't the problem. Finnick took another swallow as if to prove his own silent point. 

     No, it wasn't the problem. It was the answer to almost all of his problems.

     The dying tributes.

     The Capitol's desire for Finnick now that he was of age was never ending and unquenchable. The more he gave, the more they wanted. But if he tried to give less, then he would lose other pieces of himself. The pieces of him from District 4. Finnick had his father and his brother. One false move could spell disaster for them. Even if they looked down on him for what he had become in the public eye, he loved them and he knew that they loved him still. 

     He'd never thought it was possible to drown out of water. But each breath of air Finnick breathed seemed to cause the pressure in his chest to grow and grow and grow.

     Finnick took a long pull of the alcohol laced contents of the bottle in front of him. If he drank enough, he might be able to find a few hours of sweet oblivion before he woke to the troubles of today becoming the troubles of tomorrow.

     Then he turned on the television replaying the Reaping's.

     Alcohol helped with some of his problems. But unfortunately, it couldn't erase the biggest problem he faced right now.

     He watched the tributes as they volunteered from District's 1 and 2. He watched them all until their faces came onto the screen. He paused the television screen.

     Scarlet and Crimson Wolfe.

     They had both volunteered for their older siblings, taking their place in the Hunger Games. Scarlet had volunteered before Crimson. Finnick couldn't guess the reasons that led Scarlet to volunteer. Be it love, duty, or a want of glory, but her reasons were not what concerned him.

     Crimson had volunteered after Scarlet had already taken her place as the female tribute. He had volunteered to go into that Arena with his twin sister. Finnick had thought at first, sure, perhaps he went in to make sure she won. To protect her. To give his life to help her escape.

     But Crimson wasn't playing it that way and neither was Scarlet. They were not working together to better the odds of either of their survival, they were working separately, pursuing entirely different lines of strategies to ensure their own survival.

     Which meant that when Crimson had volunteered to take his older brother's place, he had volunteered knowing that Scarlet would have to die in order for him to live. And he had accepted that fact.

     Finnick stared at the smiling black-haired boy on the television screen as he gripped his sister's arm on the stage of District 14. His eyes followed their linked grip until he was looking at the smaller girl with wild hair and blood frozen on half her face.

     If Scarlet was afraid, standing on the stage with her brother, facing an uncertain future, it didn't show. Her eyes were fierce and determined and she returned her brother's smile with one of her own.

     Neither one of them would give their life for one another.

     The look on their faces said that they'd both accepted the fact that one of them would have to die for the other to live. And neither of them wanted to be the one that died.

     If a person wouldn't risk their life for their sibling—their twin—then there was absolutely no way that they would be willing to risk their life for another tribute from another district that they had only known for a few days.

     Whatever Crimson was planning, Finnick knew with certainty that it wouldn't end good for his tributes. He knew that if his tributes followed Crimson into that Arena, they would be led straight to their death.

     Finnick could think of fifty reasons why Crimson would want District 4 away from the Careers, and they all benefited him. He could not think of a single reason why his tributes should choose Crimson over the Careers.

     Loach wasn't wrong when he said that the Careers were older and much more skilled than they were. And Roe likely wasn't in the wrong when she said that they looked down on them.

     But a lack of respect wasn't a problem. His tributes should be grateful for it. All that meant was that the Careers wouldn't be jumping at the first chance to slit their throats.

     How could Crimson be such a silver-tongued snake to convince them so whole-heartedly that his way was the only way?

      He stared at the two of them. Two halves of one whole.

     One charming.

     One—not. Finnick chuckled to himself as he recalled each of their interactions. Even though they had nearly all ended poorly, he couldn't help but look forward to the next one.

     Scarlet had a way about her. She was beautiful—or she would be when she was all grown up—but more than that, she was magnetic and daring and acted in a way that drew attention—and once she had you wound up inside her little web, she opened her mouth—and it became crystal clear why most everyone seemed to hate her. She was abrupt, rude, presumptuous, and hostile. And she seemed to genuinely love pissing people off. 

     She was a wolf. A little fucking wolf.

     Finnick figured that maybe somewhere in the womb of their mother, her brother had absorbed all the happiness and sunshine and left her with all the bitterness and ice.

     Laughing to himself, he took another drink from the bottle.

     Regardless of the boy's questionable morals or the girl's poor temperament, he couldn't deny that both of them were shaping up to be real competitors in this Hunger Games.

     The Gamemaker's may still not be giving them full credit, and the Capitol might still doubt their ability, but amongst the Mentors, there was talk. There would be no discounting them any longer due to their age or small size or the poor district they came from.

     Finnick presses the play button on the remote.

     "One Wolfe goes home." Scarlet's voice echoes in his ears, steady and calm, no trace of hesitation.

     Followed by Crimson's. "One Wolfe goes home."

     What Finnick had once dismissed as foolish hope or wishful thinking, may actually come into fruition.

     One Wolfe could very well go home this year, becoming District 14's first Victor.

     He watched Scarlet leave the stage of District 14 with Crimson following behind her before turning off the television. Finnick stared at his reflection on the black screen.

     If he couldn't convince his tributes to ally with the Careers, they would die—likely by the Careers, or even Crimson himself. If they managed to survive the bloodbath...they weren't prepared to survive outside the cornucopia.

     Scarlet wasn't the only wolf going into the Arena this year.

     She was the one that didn't hide. She was the one that stood straight and growled at her enemies, warning them of what would happen if they dared to get too close.

     Crimson was the one that hid in sheep's clothing. Playing a friend until the exact moment he needed to become a foe.

     Finnick took another drink. The alcohol heated his belly but no longer burned his throat. That was good, at least. Though the alcohol was doing nothing to help him forget the reason he was drinking in the first place.

     He didn't have a problem.

     Finnick had so many.

     And he had no idea how to deal with any of them.

---------------

I, personally, feel like it's easy to forget that Finnick is only 16 years old. 

He won his games at 14 years old and instantly took on the role of a mentor, trying to get even more Victors home to District 4.

On top of being responsible for the lives of 2 tributes each year, Finnick is now dealing with public advances and romantic entanglements (that are likely not all of his own volition).  

He is sixteen. Now, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but from my research--yes, research--it seems that in Panem, the age of consent is 16. (There is nothing wrong with a 16-year-old exploring their sexuality, but the fact that he likely doesn't have a choice makes this extremely disturbing and awful)

Kindly, remember to like and vote if you are enjoying this story!

Stay safe and take care! ~CANGEL