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happyhauntt · 5 months

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BURIAL GROUND, a hunger games fic.

─── summary: In District Four, they teach you how to survive the Games. They don’t teach you how to survive what comes after. ─── warnings: this story contains triggering themes including sexual assault & rape, prostitution, self-harm and thoughts of suicide, death and canon-typical violence. these themes, along with others, are prevalent in the hunger games universe and will come up in this story, so please don’t read if these things affect you! ─── fic tag. read on ao3. fic masterlist.

CHAPTER ONE ─── the uglier truth (3.8k words.)

YOU WOULD THINK, by the way people in the Capitol talk about Nimah Caplan, that she was some kind of deity. That she wasn't born human, but instead rose from the sea foam crashing onto the shores of District 4 one day, skin glowing like the inside of a buttercup and eyes greener than the freshest grass.

The Capitol likes to forget the uglier truth ━ that she was never some goddess that appeared out of the blue one day, some beautiful woman to be at the center of President Snow's glistening parties.

Nim hates to disappoint, but her life certainly didn't start out that way. She was a child, once, a long time ago. They drag it up every year, her adolescence reduced to nothing but a newsreel; it hurts to look at the films and see how young she used to be, still soft with innocence. She grew up a feral child, practically born with a knife in her hand, and yet still, before the Hunger Games, she'd been... something else.

On mornings like this, though, she wishes she were born of the sea. Dragging herself out of bed, the silken sheets still tangled around her legs, she stumbles into the bathroom across the hall. She runs the tap and holds her hands beneath the freezing water for a moment before splashing it onto her face, hoping the chill will wake her up faster.

Nim is fairly certain that goddesses don't get hangovers.

She groans, drying her face off with a towel. A mirror hangs above the sink, large and oval with a silver-painted frame. The sheet she threw over it years ago, in an effort to ensure she never saw her own reflection again, is loose at the edge. For just a moment, she catches a flash of blue-streaked curls, desperately in need of brushing.

She holds her breath and tugs the sheet back into place.

The clock says it's late. Later than she should be waking up, anyway, on market day. She learned a long time ago that alarm clocks weren't the best way of rousing her from a dead sleep, and Nim had destroyed more than enough of them in a panicked haze to prove it.

Heading back into her bedroom, she tugs on the nearest pair of black slacks she can find and grabs her tan wool-lined jacket from where it is draped over the foot of the bed. The empty bottle sitting on her bedside table glares at her until she grabs that, too, taking it downstairs with her and tossing it into the trash.

Her boots, slippery black leather, slide on too easily over her narrow shins. At the door, she pauses. The nausea comes quickly, an unpleasant burn lingering at the back of her throat, and Nim presses her forehead against the glass until it passes.

It isn't always so bad.

Most of the time, these days, she doesn't need to drink. At night, she can take her sleeping pills and drift off to a dreamless netherworld where little can trouble her, and the nightmares cannot fight their way into her subconscious to tear her brain apart. Nim is happy to survive in this way, half-rested, as long as the terrors stay safely trapped in the lining of her bones where they belong.

There are the bad days, though. Less now than there were a few years ago, when the Games were still fresh and the trauma was new, but they still happen. Those days, she cannot sleep without a bottle in her hand and enough alcohol in her system to tranquilize an elephant.

Those days only come when she knows the inevitable is coming. A fast train to the Capitol, a few nights clinking glasses with society's elite, a shining example of what a young woman should be, with the right stylists, escorts, manners ━ and a particularly memorable stint in the Hunger Games under her belt.

The thought of brushing shoulders with Capitol folk again always makes her want to crawl inside a bottle. The thought of what happens when the lights go down and the party is over makes her want to never come back out.

She swallows the bile back down and breathes deeply until her headache subsides a little, but the static on her skin never goes away. The hangover is only half of what makes her so sick; leaving her house in Victor's Village always feels like treading through a minefield. The wide open spaces, the eyes peering at her, judging her, reducing her to nothing but a tiny grain of sand...

Nimah can be confident. She can fake it with the best of them, hold her head high in the Capitol and wear her dazzling smile and bat her eyelashes, because when the cameras are out there is nothing else she can do. This was the part assigned to her when she won the Games, and it is the role she'll play for the rest of her life.

In her home district, though, Nim just wants to be invisible. Every pair of eyes on her feels like a dagger in her back. The navy streaks in her hair and the inhuman green of her eyes mark her out as a creature of the Capitol, now. An outsider.

Steeling herself, she wrenches open the front door and steps out into the street.

Nim used to think that Victor's Village was pretty. As a child, she'd stand at the gates and press her face between the bars, looking at the long row of a dozen white marble mansions, six on either side, dreaming of the day she'd get to live in one.

Now, as she treks down the path, gravel crunching beneath her feet, the mansions aren't so pretty anymore. They line up like pale tombstones on either side of her, empty windows leering into the street. At the very end of the road, six of the houses sit dark, with no one inside to make them into homes. Every other mansion in the village bares the flaws that Nim was blind to as a child; the cracks in the paint, the wrinkles in the skin of a Victor, the proof that the Games are not all they are made out to be.

Mags' home is nearest to the gates. Orange chrysanthemums blossom in the window boxes ━ gardening was the talent Mags chose when she won her Games around sixty years ago ━ but her gnarled hands haven't touched the soil in years. These days, the caretakers are the ones keeping the village looking perfect.

Annie Cresta's house sits across from it. There are little stars and hearts carved into the front door, from when the pair of them sat on the doorstep one day a few summers ago, intent on letting the world slip by for once. They'd been able to hear the voices from the square, where the rest of the district had gathered to watch that year's Victor on their victory tour. They were both supposed to go, but Annie's breakdown prevented her, and Nimah volunteered to stay behind and sit with her friend.

She'd stolen knives from the kitchen and they'd sat in silence, gritting their teeth, carving happy symbols into the wood, forcing their anger out in a way that was more productive than smashing things. The caretakers painted over them, but when Nim goes to visit her friend, she runs her fingers over the marks left behind by their knives. It reminds her of a solitary, pleasant memory in the midst of so much bad.

Next to Mags' house is Cowell. Winner of a Games that had long-since past, the windows of his mansion were broken years ago in a fit of rage, and boarded up with wood. Sometimes Nim can see the light from inside peeking through the gaps in the boards, but she doesn't see Cowell often. She doesn't mind. There is a haunted look lingering in his eyes, the kind she knows is mirrored in her own, and she hates to be reminded of her failures.

Hobbs lives next door to Annie. Almost as old as Mags, his door is always open for anyone who needs to talk. When Nim first returned from the Capitol after winning her Games, it was Hobbs she ran to when she could no longer stand the quiet in her own house.

Finnick and Nimah live opposite one another. She has been inside Finnick's home enough times to know that he keeps it immaculately tidy, as if cleaning up a physical mess is his way of sorting through the trauma he keeps buried. He always needs to keep his hands busy.

Nimah sleeps with every light on in her house. Before she goes to bed, she treks through all the rooms and closes all the curtains, only to turn on the light before she leaves. If she wakes up in a darkened room, terror clogs her throat until she can't breathe. Her screaming wakes up the whole street. Even now, at midday, if she looks back over her shoulder she'll find her bedroom window glowing with golden light. It's how she finds her way home.

When she reaches the gates, Nim pauses. Just beyond, down a long pathway, she can hear the bustle of the docks. From her window she can see the beach, the sea rising up in raucous grey waves to crash against the sand, and all the fishing boats bobbing in the water.

Her old house, a brown shack with only a few rooms and a leaking roof, isn't near the beach. It sits in a long row of other shacks, all different shapes and sizes, in the shadow of the huge fisheries. Her parents used to work on the conveyor line, sorting the fish. Nim grew up in a house where the scent of rotting fish permeated everything, and she shared a room with her brother, and her grandparents lived in the room next door. There were six of them in that house. Her family wasn't poor, they earned better wages than many in the district and Nim and her brother never had to take tesserae, but every spare bit of her parents' money was spent sending their children to the combat academies.

They didn't want the Hunger Games to take their children away.

At least not without a fight.

"Nim!"

The crunching of gravel creeps up on her, and she turns weary eyes upon her new companion, offering him a small smile. "Finnick. I thought you had left for the Capitol already."

His throat bobs as he comes to a stop beside her, holding the gate open so she can go through ahead of him. "Tomorrow." The smile he offers her in return is dazzling, white teeth gleaming like a shark's. "I've got business to attend to before the party next week. Are you going?"

His voice dips, and for a moment it vanishes in the cool wind blowing in off the sea. Nim can't help it; she shivers. The party in question is the Victor's Ball, held at the Presidential Palace for this year's newest winners, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Former Victors have always been invited, but most of them don't bother to go; Annie hasn't been to the Capitol for years, not even as a Mentor, and Cowell never passes the threshold of his front door these days.

For Finnick and Nim, though, their attendance is not optional.

Nim grimaces at his question, knowing he is only asking to be polite. "I'm putting it off until the day before. I've no desire to be in the Capitol any longer than required."

Part of her likes it. The mindless gossip, the glitter and the gold, all the strange people and the way it distracts her for an hour or two. Her prep team dolls her up, and Nim has always shone as the center of attention, able to command a room with little effort.

The days after, though, she has to bury herself beneath the covers and cry. To be so outgoing comes at a cost. To allow strangers to touch her, to rub shoulders with them and laugh with them, takes all of her energy. At one of her first parties after winning, someone grabbed her wrist when she wasn't looking, and she nearly clawed their eyes out.

Surviving them takes everything she has.

Without another word, the pair of them start the slow trudge down the path towards the town square. Nim pulls her jacket tighter around her. In mid-winter, the weather in District 4 is mild. It never snows here, but on the coldest days, the wind coming from the sea nips and bites.

Her earliest memories are of summers spent playing on the beach with her brother, digging her toes into the warm sand. Those days were few and far between ━ the peacekeepers only opened the beach up to the public on holidays ━ but Nim's fondest memories are of chasing her brother into the surf and jumping over the waves.

Every one of those moments feels tinged with red, now. The salty tang in the air reminds Nim of blood on her tongue.

"What do you need from the market? I'll get it for you." Nim already has a list for Annie and Mags tucked into her pocket. The old woman had tried to insist that she was perfectly able to buy her own bread, but Nim had refused to listen.

Finnick shakes his head. "You look like you need the company." He looks at her, his eyes lingering on the plain silk eye patch and the dark circles beneath her uncovered eye, her unruly curls and the odd pallor of her skin.

Nim turns away. "I don't..."

She leaves her sentence unfinished and lowers her eyes, careful to ensure her steps are even, one boot in front of another. Part of Nim craves silence; where Finnick must always keep his hands busy, must always have something to do, Nim adores nothing more than the quiet rooms of her too-large house, legs crossed in the middle of the plush carpet, trying her best to breathe.

The small, traitorous heart of her, though, needs the company. Not to be surrounded, but to just exist with someone else, in the little moments of peace. To breathe with them. To be reminded that, no matter the horrors she has endured, there is someone else in the world that bleeds the same way she does.

That doesn't mean she appreciates it. Finnick Odair, the Capitol's golden boy, hovering over her shoulder like she's a fragile thing about to break. Him and Mags and Hobbs, all watching and waiting for her to snap again. Wondering if it will be worse than last time.

The pair of them walk on in silence, until they reach the town square. On market days, the square in front of the Justice Building fills up with stalls selling all kinds of goods. Peacekeepers mill through the crowd, white-gloved hands ready with their guns. They used to chat with stallholders, gossip and buy their bread without much trouble, but since Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark came through last week on their victory tour, things have been different.

There is a tension in the air that wasn't there before.

The shouting batters her ears. Nim closes her eyes for a moment, struck by the sudden rise in volume. Without a word, Finnick presses closer; not close enough to touch her, but she can feel the warmth of his hand hovering over the small of her back, close enough to shield her from the noise.

Releasing a slow breath through her nose, Nim heads over to the first of the long line of stalls. Drawing the crumpled list from her coat pocket, she passes it over to the stallholder, who sets to work putting a series of glass jars into a basket.

Finnick leans over Nim's shoulder. "What is Mags cooking up that requires that many jars?"

Nim shrugs. "Ask Mags."

They move along the line of stalls. Nim keeps her head low, eyes intently focused on the movements of her hands ━ passing the money across to each vendor, inspecting her purchases before carefully putting them into her basket. She can feel Finnick at her back, only a few inches taller but feeling infinitely more like a human shield the longer she spends in the midst of a crowd.

She hates this. Every time someone she doesn't know accidentally brushes past, she flinches away. A vile feeling coils in the pit of her stomach like a viper waiting to strike; an urge to run coupled with the instinct to attack first, to drive a knife through someone's throat before they can get her.

Her muscles tense. She keeps a tight grip on the basket, lime-green eye darting from stranger to stranger, her pupil narrowed to a tiny black pinprick. Everyone is an threat, even the people she recognises ━ a girl she went to school with lingers by one of the many shellfish stalls, hardly paying attention to her surroundings, but when Nim blinks, she sees a flash of bare teeth lunging for her neck.

To be that ignorant, she thinks, pushing the obtrusive thoughts away. It does not stop the horrible prickling of her skin, but she loosens her shoulders a bit. Even with the Peacekeepers wandering around, everyone in the marketplace seems so carefree in comparison to the thundering of her heart. None of them know what it is like to have blood on their hands; to feel the slick warmth of it as it runs up their wrist, to scrub and scrub until their skin is raw and still feel no closer to clean.

The girl ━ her name tugs at the edge of Nim's memory, but Nim hasn't thought of her old schoolmates in so long that it feels like that life belonged to someone else ━ moves along. Nim tracks her movements like a predator until she has moved just out of view, and suddenly someone else, someone heartbreakingly familiar, crosses into her line of vision.

She can feel Finnick looking at her, wondering why she froze like a deer caught in the sights of a hunter, but with one look at where she is staring, he understands.

Her grandmother hasn't seen them yet.

Distantly, as if she is underwater, Nim can hear the irritated mutters of people as they step around her and Finnick, annoyed that they've stopped in the middle of the path. Finnick wraps his hand around Nim's arm and gently tugs her out of the way. Almost automatically, she tears herself out of his grasp, shocked out of her haze.

The old woman stops at one of the stalls further down, clutching the hand of a young child. Something stony and cold ripples through Nim as the little girl, no older than six, chatters happily away. Beneath the eye patch, the marbled scar over Nim's eye burns.

"Have you talked to her recently?" Finnick's voice is soft in her ear, but Nim wants to reach up and rip his tongue out. Finnick, darling of the Capitol. Finnick, who, in the eyes of the world, seems never to have done anything wrong in his life ━ except save her.

Nim scoffs. "What do we have to talk about?"

He grimaces, a poor attempt to hide his loathing of the old woman. He has never been so good at biting his tongue when it could get him into trouble with Nim, but these days, he knows better than to push her where her family is concerned.

Her grandmother buys a loaf of bread and carries on walking, pulling the little girl along beside her. The child tosses her head back to giggle, a wave of brown curls cascading over her shoulders, before suddenly she looks back over her shoulder, beaming a bright smile at no-one in particular.

"I'm not a masochist," Nim says through gritted teeth. Jaw clenched, she watches as her grandmother and the girl press on, eyes lingering on them until the crowd swallows them up and they vanish from sight.

#* fic: burial ground.#* chapter update.#the hunger games #the hunger games fanfiction #finnick odair #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair fanfic #thg series #* ch: nimah caplan.

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happyhauntt · 5 months

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BURIAL GROUND, a hunger games fic. ─── summary: In District Four, they teach you how to survive the Games. They don’t teach you how to survive what comes after. ─── warnings: this story contains triggering themes including sexual assault & rape, prostitution, self-harm and thoughts of suicide, death and canon-typical violence. these themes, along with others, are prevalent in the hunger games universe and will come up in this story, so please don’t read if these things affect you! ─── fic tag. read on ao3. fic masterlist.

CHAPTER TWO ─── pretty things (5.1k words.)

LONG AGO, BEFORE THE GAMES clawed their way into Nimah's life, she dreamed of being the guest of honour at one of President Snow's glittering pageants.

She remembers being a seven year old girl, crouched right in front of the television in her old house. Her mother bustling in the kitchen, her father at the factory, her grandparents sitting on rickety wooden chairs behind her. They were chattering to one another in hushed voices, pretending not to watch the broadcast.

Her brother, Caspian, had been at the combat academy. Months before had been his first reaping. He'd been twelve and terrified, with trembling hands he'd balled into fists to hide the tremors. He'd worn his best shirt and their mother had combed his hair, and he'd stood in line with the rest of the children to await his fate.

He hadn't been chosen. Both Nimah and Caspian were born with knives in their hands and sweat on their brow, but she'd still been a child then, too. She still had chubby cheeks and shining brown eyes, and she'd leaned in so close to the television that every breath made the image flicker.

Nim's parents spent every bit of money they had to send their children to the combat academies. Nim learned to fight as soon as she could walk, and yet, with her knees pressed into the grimy carpet, the horrors of the Games never reached her. Only the glamour of the Victors, bathed in riches beyond all imagining.

She had dreamed of Snow's parties. The champagne, the glitter woven through her hair, dripping in jewelry and adored by the nation. On television, the Presidential Palace stood proud and pale, seeming to shine beneath the lights. Nim had wanted to be there. She'd so badly wanted to have that life.

She had not known what her naivety would cost her.

The diamonds wrap around her throat like a noose. Jeweled bracelets layered upon bird-like wrists feel like shackles weighing her down. The lights that had made the mansion shine on television are blinding in real-life, technicolour flashes painting rainbows across the party.

Everyone else is made to shine, too ━ skin splashed with gold-and-turquoise body paint, gems of every kind adorning every surface of their bodies, everyone draped in expensive silks and brocades. Each and every Capitol citizen trying to outdo one another, to look more outrageous than the next, trying to grab the attention of the cameras, the president, anyone worth something.

Unfortunately for them, all eyes have been on Nimah Caplan since the moment she won her Games.

President Snow's mansion has always been a sight to behold; whether she is seeing is through a television screen or in person, the grandeur of his home never fails to take her breath away. Tonight, the ballroom has been transformed into what Nimah assumes must be intended to imitate Mount Olympus.

High above her head, stars twinkle where dozens of chandeliers used to be. It must be an illusion, some trick of the light or a clever projection, but the dark abyss of the night sky stares back at her. In spite of the bright stars and pretty constellations, it feels as if it is trying to swallow her whole.

All around, there are guests lounging on soft sofas and large, fluffy cushions. There are fireplaces and gardens and small ponds filled with exotic fish, and the faint scent of honey lingers on the air. Everyone here behaves as if they belong; as if they truly are gods resting on their mount in the heavens, ruling over the unfortunate mortals below.

Nim is too used to playing the role of goddess.

As sure as she is with a knife in her hand, temptation is the game Nimah was truly born to play. Her eye patch is bedazzled with emeralds and held in place by a stiff golden braid, and her hair, left to fall down her back in sleek curls, is speckled with rhinestones. Her stylist chose a forest-green dress, simple by the Capitol's standards ━ swathes of silk pool around her ankles, a sweetheart neckline guards her modesty, and the sleeves come all the way down to her wrists.

To anyone who looks ━ and all eyes are on her, the belle of the ball ━ she is the very image of an angel. Saintly and demure, she floats through the ballroom, gracing familiar faces with a pleasant, welcome smile. But when she walks, those watching will catch brief flashes of smooth skin, courtesy of the thigh-high slit in her dress.

She knows how best to get them talking.

Someone taps her shoulder. For a moment, Nim's whole body stiffens, her muscles coiled to strike out at the stranger. Within seconds, the facade slips seamlessly back into place; she turns on her heel and greets the man, someone she recognises vaguely from other Capitol parties, as an old friend. She allows him to take her hand, lets him lead her into the center of the dance floor.

He twirls her slowly, his grip on her waist too tight to be polite. Her senses scream at her to run ━ to peel his roaming hands off her body and snap his fingers like twigs ━ but she carries herself as she always does. She lets him touch her, tossing her head back to laugh at every word he says, more of a showpiece than a person tonight.

That's all he wants. Everyone to watch them, him dancing with her. To watch his light fingers wandering dangerously close to inappropriate places, to know that he got to touch her, the Capitol's darling.

When the song ends, he finally releases her. She gives him a coquettish smile and promises to save him another dance for later in the evening. No sooner has he left that someone else arrives ━ a woman this time, who kisses both of Nim's cheeks, her spidery lashes fluttering against Nim's skin in a way that makes her stomach churn.

Her skin burns, but the mask never slips. Not for a moment.

In the Capitol, Nim becomes someone else so easily, it's like she never existed before. The moment she steps off the train, her sharp heels clicking against the pavement, the cameras flashing, dazzling her, she is a shapeshifter. A woman once dead, come alive again.

When people are watching, there is nothing else she can afford to be. She'll paint her lips red and flash her smiles, make them all swoon for her; the performance, the persona she slips into, did not come easily at first. Now she is a well-oiled machine, a doll the Capitol gets to play with, to dress up or dress down, to play with and then discard. The mindless gossip, the glitter, the constant reaching hands, all of it is precise.

She can play her part better than anybody else, but it leaves her reeling for weeks after.

Some of the others don't play their parts as well ━ and some of them, the unlucky few, have very different roles.

Cosmo Byrd lies slumped over one of the sofas in the corner of the ballroom. There are some who earned their victories, like Nimah and Finnick, with blood and guts and lifetimes of guilt to show for it. They parade around with their crowns forged in death. They are society's glittering elite ━ the ones who fought. The ones who earned it.

Then there are the ones, like Cosmo and Annie Cresta, who were lucky. They snatched their lives back from the jaws of death through sheer circumstance, and now they must live with the trauma of it. He was seventeen when he became the Victor of the 60th Hunger Games, and all that time he was just a boy running scared. The last one standing.

In the fourteen-and-a-half years since that moment, he has never stopped running.

There is a boy attached to his neck; in the hazy light, Nimah can just make out blue-painted nails and hair slicked back with green paint. Cosmo lifts a hand and greets her with a lazy smile. She wonders if he knows who he's waving at, or even where he is.

A presence hovers near Nimah's elbow as she finishes dancing with another Capitol citizen. It is strangely comforting, the way the man's pink irises flicker between her and the girl at her side. He bids her goodbye, stuttering as he does so, before swooping back into the crowd that huddles at the edge of the dance floor.

With a gentle smile, Nim turns to greet her old friend. "Derry. Enjoying the party?"

If Nimah is the bright shining light at the center of a room, attracting glossy-eyed people like moths to a flame, then Alderry Minette is a lightning strike in the middle of a forest. Something about her has always screamed DANGER ━ from her sharp jaw to the curve of her lips, the devious look in her eyes and the strange quickness with which she can move, standing at Alderry's side has always felt more like handling a pit viper.

Perhaps that is why, after all these years, Nimah feels more at ease when Derry is in the room than anywhere else in the world. With Derry near, everyone else seems to steer clear; they know who she is, how she won, what those quick little hands are capable of.

She won the 68th Hunger Games, two years after Nimah. She was sixteen.

She was one of the ones who earned it.

Derry flashes a quick grin. "As much as I enjoy any other party. When do you have to leave?"

Nim clenches her jaw for a split second, the only flaw in an otherwise perfect performance. She glances quickly at the edges of the room; the doorways are cloaked in shadow, almost giving the impression that there is no escape from this decadent illusion. Something about that reminds her of the arena so suddenly that her lungs constrict painfully.

If Alderry notices, she doesn't remark on it.

"I'll go when the party's over, and not before," Nimah says finally, when the panicked feeling passes. It leaves behind that prickling static that dances across her skin; it never really goes away. She spares a glance around the room, wondering if her client for the evening is among the guests, or whether she'll find them waiting at her apartment. They might be eager to begin with her, but they'll have to be patient. President Snow likes her to stick around until the end of the festivities, showing off. "Was fight club before the party, or after?"

Derry gives an unpleasant snort. Her faces has been splashed in rouge and shadows; her eyes streaked with black liner, her cheeks and lips painted pink to highlight her porcelain skin. Her hair is sewn with quartz crystals. She looks more like a doll than a killer.

"They'd never risk bruising my face before the party," says Derry, a cold smile curling on her lips. She swipes two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and offers one to Nimah, who accepts it gladly, downing the contents in one mouthful.

They all have their parts to play. Nimah and Finnick, the Capitol's darlings. Cosmo, a cautionary tale. Alderry Minette, a bloodthirsty girl, forced into underground fighting rings to earn money for sponsers.

And Katniss and Peeta, Nimah thinks, as they enter the ballroom together. She wonders what roles they will have to play.

All attention shifts to the newly-engaged couple, and Nimah slumps for a moment, taking the opportunity to catch her breath. Most of the time she can make herself love the lights, the glitter, the attention when it's happening. She can regress to the starry-eyed child who wanted to be there, shining ━ but not at the cost of who she is.

These people, all of them, think they know her because they watched her transform from an innocent girl to a teenage killer on a television screen. They don't know half the shit inside her head. They don't know half the shit she went through. It sticks to the inside of her skull, messy and black and congealed. She tries her best to deal with it, but the more she scrapes and claws at it, the messier it gets.

Her whole body is a cage. Her skin holds back a tide of black matter, of rage and ruin; it wants to escape. It wants to stain everyone it can, to blacken everything Nim touches, to make the world as dark and messy as she feels.

She can smile, and smile, and flatter and shine, but her fingernails still bleed when she scratches at her bedroom walls. The inside of her throat is still raw from screaming, from the alcohol she swallows to fall asleep at night, to keep the nightmares at bay.

Nimah catches her reflection in her champagne glass. Just for a moment, her gaze lingers. Someone strange stares back at her; a green-eyed, eye-patched girl she cannot be now. She wrinkles her nose, bile rising in the back of her throat, and she passes it off to another waiter. Her hands tremble; she closes them into fists and prays for the shaking to pass.

"I feel sorry for the poor kids," Derry mutters, taking a sip from her own glass.

Katniss and Peeta are sixteen, just teenagers, their faces fresh and pulled wide with smiles as they circle the room, led by their escort. Their eyes are shiny and bright, they kiss the cheeks of those clamouring to meet them, but there is a tensity in their shoulders that Nimah knows only too well.

She frowns. "All of us were those kids."

And none of them are kids anymore.

She shakes herself out of her daze, plastering a pleasant look on her face as the other guests flock back to the dance floor.

Gently, she taps Alderry on the shoulder, leaning close to murmur in the woman's ear. "Check on Cosmo before you leave for fight club, please?" She spares a glance at their barely-conscious friend. She wishes she could spend her days in a similar state of numbness. "Another public overdose is what none of us need."

Alderry nods. Nimah leaves her, disappearing back into the crowd as stretching hands reach out to brush over her shoulders, her face. A million tiny spiders scatter across her skin.

She finds Finnick at the other end of the ballroom. He stands tall, like a statue made of bronze, copper hair glowing beneath the dim lights. The crisp edges of his suit are bedazzled with precious gems; when she reaches him, emerging from the crowd of admirers like a rose blooming in the summertime, he greets her with a gracious, slightly-relieved smile.

"Dance with me?" It is more of a demand than a request. She stands too closely to him, trailing the tip of her finger along the sapphires on his lapel. She leans in and murmurs, "It'll look good, like the king and queen dancing. That's always great publicity."

The corner of Finnick's lip twitches with the hint of a frown. He always struggled to understand the difference in Nimah, when she comes to the Capitol. As a snake sheds its skin, she sheds her insecurities and twirls in her sparkling dresses. At home, she cannot sleep without a light on in every room. She is frightened and fierce, two entirely separate entities. He always wondered how two creatures like that could live inside the same body.

But now he sees the anxiety flickering in her eye. The nervous flick of her wrist as she flattens down his lapel. They're watching us. He can feel their eyes, too, all of them, like a burial shroud. Without another word, he leads her into a dance.

Most of the time, he's used to it. Someone is always watching. You get used to the burn that comes with eyes staring at you. Like an unfamiliar smell in your bedroom. At first, it's all you can think about ━ how different everything feels. But if you live with it long enough, it becomes part of your life. Another thing to carry.

His fingers hold tightly to Nimah's waist, their hands clasped together. She lets him lead, for once. The song changes to a light, airy tune, floating down from above them. The other dancers seem to distance themselves, making space for their golden Victors in the center of the dance floor.

Nim plasters a deceptive grin on her face, one that must be convincing to everyone in the room except him. Finnick cannot tell whether it is a blessing or a curse that he knows her so well.

"I hate this," she murmurs, so quietly that he almost doesn't hear her. Her lips hardly move, the words breathed between her teeth as if they are some secret, revolutionary covenant that cannot ever be heard by prying ears.

Finnick gives her waist a gentle squeeze. Nim can't tell if it's because he has one more year of this under his belt than her, or if the looseness of his shoulders comes naturally, but his smile is too easy. He is all charm.

Is it easier for him? Did he just... adjust better than she did?

Their hell will last for only a few hours more, at most. By midday tomorrow, they'll both be on a train back to their district, and the decompression will begin. Nim will lock herself inside her house for days, hiding beneath the duvet with all the lights turned on, an empty bottle resting on the pillow beside her. Hobbs might try and break the door down again, if he doesn't see any movement through the windows.

"It won't be like this forever." The words taste stale and false on his tongue.

Nim scoffs. She looks up at him through her lashes, her lime-green eye narrowed scornfully. The emeralds on her eye patch wink. "You're too smart to believe that."

He doesn't try to correct her.

When the song ends, morphing into another ethereal melody, Nimah peels herself away. The few minutes of peace she earned with Finnick vanish as she slips back into the sea of guests. Various excuses spill from her lips as she makes a beeline towards one of the tables lining the walls, an array of stunning food laid out to be sampled.

She plucks a small, rose-shaped pastry from a plate and pops it into her mouth whole, careful not to smear her lipstick. A delighted moan springs from someone nearby, and her eye wanders to find Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire and the Capitol's newest obsession, with another pastry caught between her fingers.

"Congratulations." Nim's heel-clad feet carry her toward Katniss before she truly knows what she's doing. "On winning your Games."

Katniss looks startled, choking on a stray flake of pastry for a moment. She swallows quickly, a strange frown overtaking her features as she realises who spoke. "You're Nimah Caplan," says Katniss. "You, uh..."

The younger girl struggles to find the right words. Nimah chuckles. "You can say it, you know. I killed my brother." The wet squelch rings in her ears; her brother's dying words float through her brain. She thought it would hurt less, almost ten years later. When someone dies so you can survive, though, that pain stays with you like an open wound.

Still, she presses her lips together in a grim smile. "My favourite response is usually your Games were very memorable. But not more memorable than yours, hm? Two victors." It isn't bitterness that colours her voice; it's almost wonder. "Star-crossed lovers."

Katniss narrows her gaze for a moment, as if trying to decipher whether Nimah is mocking her. In spite of the scorn curling up in her ribs, though, Nimah wouldn't mock Katniss. Not for such a clever move. Not for pulling one over on a system designed to make them suffer.

"You're not very good at masking your feelings, are you?" Nimah mutters, observing the uncomfortable tension in Katniss' jaw. Nim keeps her features locked in a steady smile, always ready for the cameras. "You'll learn to. You'll have to. But you don't love him, huh?"

Katniss doesn't respond.

Nim almost doesn't expect her to; denying it would be an outright lie, and both of them know better to tell half-truths in the Capitol, a city built of pretty falsehoods.

The muscles jump in Katniss' cheek. Nim fixes the younger girl with a piercing eye. "There are worse things," she says quietly, turning back to the dessert table. She surveys the pastries, one ring-laden hand lingering over some chocolate tarts. "There are roles we have to play for the rest of our lives. Most of us would kill to be in your place, Katniss. Can I call you Katniss?"

The District 12 girl blinks. Nimah wonders if Katniss is imagining lodging a knife in her throat.

"Playing happy families is a dream compared to what some of us have to do." Perhaps she is being cruel, but it's not her intention. She was thirteen, but she could've been sixteen; she could've fallen in love, or pretended to, just to get out of there alive.

Nim has too many regrets, but there is only one thing she would do differently.

Her brother would be standing here, instead, if she could make that happen.

The silence between them stretches on as Nim chooses another pastry, the otherworldly music wrapping around them like silk, swallowing them whole; insects caught in a fantasy, something soft and warm to keep them happy while they are digested.

Then Katniss says, "What happened to your eyes? I don't recall hearing about any head injuries in your Games..."

Nimah swallows roughly, her smooth facade chipped slightly at the edges. She turns to face Katniss, and finds the younger girl staring at her through narrowed eyes, triumph dancing through her expression.

Perhaps, Nimah realises, Katniss is better at this game than she thought.

"It happened after."

She hardly remembers it; the hilt of the kitchen knife clutched in her hand, digging into her skin. The white-hot flash of pain and the blood and the screaming. The memories of that awful morning stay hazy and pale at the edges of her mind, and she is thankful that she cannot remember the true horror of it.

"A few years ago." She wipes the discomfort from her eyes, paints the simple smile back onto her face as if she is some perfectly-poised doll. "It was an accident."

Katniss clicks her tongue, and mutters, "Some of us have to do what we have to do, huh?"

Nimah nods soundlessly. "Call me if you need any advice," she says, after another moment of silence passes between them. She takes a step closer to Katniss; she stands half-a-head taller than the younger girl in her heels. Her eyes bores into Katniss, almost pleading. Her voice is low when she adds, "The fight is over. We've got the rest of our lives to deal with now, and it's easier to do it together."

She spent years hiding. Growing thorns instead of skin, pushing away anyone who dared try to help her, dared to try and share her feelings. All of them are Victors. All of them won their Games.

Now they get to live with it.

. . .

THE NEXT MORNING, Nimah lies on the bare wooden floors of her apartment, in the patch of sunlight streaming in through the window. She doesn't know if the weather outside is truly good or bad; she changed all the windows to show only sunny days the moment she got the keys, and ever since, her mornings in the Capitol have been spent wishing the sun could burn her up.

President Snow pays for it. Nimah is sure he pays for all of their apartments in the city, so the Victors he chooses to use for his own gain are always shown in the best light. Expensive furnishings, silk bedclothes, he made sure these rooms were a luxurious paradise fit for a queen.

Nimah emptied out all the furniture as soon as she could.

She kept the bedroom the same; perfumed bed sheets with a thread count higher than the sky, candelabras in the corners, a rug that must've cost a fortune, which Nimah poured a bottle of red wine over out of spite. But everything other room is bare.

She wanted a place that felt safe and empty. The Capitol has never been either of these things, but in the middle of a bare room, with wooden floorboards digging into her shoulder blades, she can trick herself into believing something else for a moment or two.

A light tap at the front door grabs her attention, but Nimah doesn't move. She lays still, her limbs protesting against the discomfort of the floor, the urge to run rising as heavy footsteps thud across the floor, but then Cosmo's face dips into her line of sight.

He raises an eyebrow, a silent question. His eyes scrape over the dress she wears, the same dress from the night before, except one of the sleeves has been torn away, exposing her arm to the sunlight. One knee is drawn up, so the slit in the skirt falls away almost completely.

Nimah remains quiet, and Cosmo accepts her non-answer, lying on the floor next to her. She wonders if he cares about the dust sticking to his brocade waistcoat.

He rakes one hand through thick, curly hair before drawing a lighter from his pocket. He lights the cigarette that dangled between his fingers and takes a drag; the heady scent of cloves and some sweet drug Nimah can't identify clouds the air around them in a pale yellow haze.

She plucks it from his grip and takes a long drag. Her lungs fill with smoke, an unfamiliar sweetness sits at the back of her throat. Before she can take another drag, Cosmo swats her and snatches the cigarette back.

Nim blows smoke through her lips. She watches it swirl through the air, long tendrils curling and then vanishing entirely. "This wasn't what I thought it would be."

Cosmo turns his head to face her, blowing smoke into her face. "What, the cigarette?"

She reaches out and flicks the end of it; ash sprinkles down to powder Cosmo's face with tiny speckles of black-and-white. He rolls his eyes at her. "Go on."

"Not the sex." That's almost empowering, for Nimah ━ for an hour she can be the center of someone's world, feel the illusion of total control. She can make someone feel exactly as she wants, twist the whole world to her whims for just a little while. When, for so long, control has been something that slips through her fingers like sand, pretending to possess some is a strong tonic.

But it isn't her choice.

"If I decided to stop, someone would get hurt." Fear races, black and cold, through her bones. It leaves her shivering. "Look at what happened to you. And Haymitch."

Cosmo looks away, and takes a long drag of the cigarette. Something in his dark eyes turns murky. It aches them both to think about it; Cosmo Byrd, ten years her senior, a man who'd love to slip inside of himself and never, ever come out.

Nimah wishes she didn't know about what happened to Cosmo's family. She wishes she didn't have that knowledge hanging over her like a sword, a threat to never step out of line.

"Do you think it makes Finnick feel better?" she murmurs. Her green eye finds the window; she fixes her gaze on the artificial sun glaring through until her eye waters. "Taking secrets instead of money. If it makes him feel less used, less... dirty."

She doesn't remember much of what happened, but she recalls how it felt in perfect clarity. The knife in her hand, the way she'd driven it into her own skull. How much it had hurt. How relieved she'd been, to believe she'd found a way out of this.

"This is the game, honey. You bought a winning ticket," Cosmo tells her, glassy eyes settled on the bare ceiling, "and you get a lifetime supply of bullshit as your prize."

Above all else, Nimah wishes she'd known, as thirteen-year-old girl craving glory, that it wasn't such a pretty thing.

#* fic: burial ground.#* chapter update.#the hunger games #thg series #finnick odair #the hunger games fanfiction #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x oc #finnick odair x reader #* ch: nimah caplan.

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