ten_fwd_ooc | Test Drive #7 - Ten Forward and Captain's Yacht

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test drives

Test Drive #7 - Ten Forward and Captain's Yacht

Option 01. Ten Forward: The first thing you see is a bar. A large, lively bar filled with many different faces and many different smells, sights and sounds. This is Ten Forward, the Enterprise's off-duty lounge; feel free to get acquainted with your fellow travelers and try to find somebody who's in charge: this is your new home now, after all...

Option 02. The Captain's Yacht: Oooh, you sneaky stowaway! You've found yourself in a very exclusive part of the ship: Captain Picard's personal craft, used for short jaunts when a shuttle just won't do. (One must retain some decorum, after all.) It may not be as large as the Enterprise itself, but there are sure to be some surprises aboard once people start snooping.

[OOC: The Captain's Yacht is located at the very base of the Enterprise's saucer portion, so if you put someone in there you can also play them trying to get back to somewhere they know!]

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Everyone called Annie Cresta mad, crazy: she knew that.

Until now, she'd held - at least only to Finnick and Mags - that she wasn't. She jumped at shadows, she woke up screaming, she got itchy when everything was too much, she couldn't stay still unless she got lost in her head, but she wasn't crazy.

She'd spent the past few minutes huddled on a couch by the wall, trying to work out how she'd know if she was really, really wrong about that.

Not huddling.

Huddling draws attention. So does screaming and crying and hysterics and she's trying to sit very still and think very fast, before it all gets too much and she can't breathe because it's all starting to get hot in her head and thick, thick like sea-fog, so she can't think and it was because of the Games, she didn't want to watch but she had to because Finnick Mags Finnick but she'd run away in her head because she couldn't watch them die and -

Finnick.

Finnick.

Finnick's here and she can't move. He could be an illusion an hallucination and her limbs aren't listening to her head anyway and maybe she shouldn't move.

But she wants to.

Edited 2015-01-04 05:28 (UTC)

He knows that going into the Games, there is a minute, just a minute, to see everything he can about his surroundings. He'd trained in it back in District 4 before his Games, and he's stayed in practice because it's a useful skill when the Games don't end and your life and the lives of those dear to you belong to the Capitol.

Sea-green eyes are scanning the room, behind the defensive wall of Finnick's arms, looking for movement, for weapons, for tension, for threats.

For hiding spots.

Annie.

Annie.

She's there, in the corner, on a couch, why is she there? She stayed behind in District 4, like she always does, because the Capitol is too much for her, because what Finnick has to do in the Capitol is too much for her, so why is she here?

He's staring at her, across the room, his face suddenly frozen into something that looks more like fear than the moment he'd thought he was going into the arena. Is this some sort of game, some trick to bring her here, to bring him here, some punishment for them?

He hadn't even been able to say goodbye to her. The last time he'd seen her had been at the Reaping, watching her go into hysterics as her name came out, unable to go to her because this was televised all over Panem, because their relationship can never become public while Snow exacts the services he demands from Finnick.

Hearing those tears continuing as Mags volunteered for her, as his name was read, and knowing her tears were for the two people she loves most, not for herself.

Every muscle in him is suddenly straining, not to fight, but to run, to run to her and hold her and whisper those last things he couldn't say when they took away the last goodbyes. But they're still in public, still under the watchful eyes of everyone in this room, so he forces himself to move slowly, to smile at her, like he's just seen someone he knows and is sauntering over to say hi.

But when he sits down beside her, he reaches for her hand and holds it so tight the knuckles on his sun-tanned hand goes white.

"Annie."

Edited 2015-01-04 06:03 (UTC)

His hands are hot.

Hot and solid, no sweaty palms and no crooked-broken bones, he's holding her so tight her own bones-skin-muscles are starting to protest but she opens her mouth and she can breathe, she can breathe.

She can breathe and she can move, so she does, her other hand lightning fast to grip his wrist because they're in public, she can't touch his face, she can't hug him, and she can't hurt him, either, but it's either cling to his hand or dissolve. She'll apologize later. She will.

(Annie breathes.)

"I broke into your house," she says, winces, tries to make her voice a whisper. But it's hard, with loud everything is and how small her throat feels. "My television wasn't...It wasn't working."

She couldn't sit in her parlour. Not alone. His place smelt of him, even if she'd lost her key and had to break one of his windows. She'll replace the glass with something nicer.

"Finnick. I- Oh, shit, sorry," and she's gasping, letting go of his wrist to press her hand to her mouth because if she goes into hysterics he's going to get even more freaked out than he already is.

No matter how many times he's seen her like this, on the verge of panic, it never gets easier, because there aren't many people in this world he cares about left, and Annie is the single most important thing in his life, and he can never stand to see her hurting. But hurt she does, every moment, every day, like he does, like any of the other victors do, but at least she doesn't have to make a spectacle of herself every year like he does, like Mags and the others do.

Mags. She was meant to be in the arena with him, but where is she? She's not here and Annie is, Annie, who should have been as safe as she could be, for what little that mattered when she was having to watch not just kids she didn't know from their district, but Mags and Finnick go into the arena.

Annie's palm is sweaty under his hands, but he can't hug her, can't kiss her, can't pull her to him and whisper into her hair like he would if they were alone, if this were his house in the Victors' Village and they were enjoying the only privacy they can ever have together. That's why his hand is holding hers so tightly, why he doesn't care how hard her slender fingers are grasping at his wrist, because he knows that look on her face.

She's trying not to panic. She's trying not to panic, and he's already shaking his head to tell her that he doesn't care, that she can break into his house if she wants to because she's always welcome there, that none of that matters, but then her hand's gone back to her mouth and he can hear her breathing grow faster, hear her words break, and he knows he's the only one who can help her, but there's so little he can do just sitting next to her.

"Annie." His voice is quiet, low, so nobody can hear them, and he can't bend his head too low, he can't let his expression get too fond, but there's a combination of hurt and love, all the love he can possibly express without doing anything to give them away, in his eyes.

"Annie, it's okay. It's okay, I can get it fixed, whatever you broke."

There's nothing in that house anywhere near as important to him as her.

But it's not the house, and it can never be the house, because when he's going back into the arena, the security of his house, the broken door or window or whatever it was she used to break in, doesn't matter. Annie thinks he's going to die, and maybe he is. He'd agreed to die to protect Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark if he needed to, even knowing what losing him would do to Annie.

(If he does die, that's the one thing he'll regret.)

"It's okay, Annie. It's okay. I'm here."

He's not in the arena.

It's all he can say, and he knows it's a lie. Because if he and Mags die in the arena, okay is the last thing she'll be. There's nothing he can do to protect her from that except try to keep them alive until the rescue. But she doesn't even know about that hope, can't, because of the danger she'd be in.

He doesn't know why he's here, or why she's here, and the one thing ... if anything happens to her because of this plan, he'll never forgive himself.

It's just glass. She's good with glass. Glass statues, anyway. Vases. Glasses. A window shouldn't be to hard, and she'd been careful. She doesn't say that. He knows. I can fix it, she says silently, managing a tiny pointed scowl at him around the not-quite-set-in panic.

See, Finnick, she's fine.

Completely.

Utterly.

Fine.

"Okay," she hiccups. "Okay. Finnick. Whe-where's here?"

Facts. Information. A plan. Things she can hang onto, so she can do something.

He does know. He knows she'd never do any malicious damage to anything of his. Not that he would care. The only things that really, truly matter to Finnick are Mags and Annie, and Annie is right here, right at his side, her hand in his, grounding him into this moment, this impossible moment when instead of facing some of Panem's most skilled fighters, he'd found himself here, with Annie, Annie who he'd never had a chance to whisper any last words to before they'd parted.

He moves his hand, shifting the way their arms sit between them so it looks like they're sitting with their arms next to each other when, really, their forearms are pressed against each other, all the contact they can risk when they don't know who might be watching. They've kept their secret from public view for years, though they couldn't keep it from the Capitol. Only from the public, from Finnick's clients.

She gives him the tiniest of frowns, and he gives her a smile back, like he believes she's really okay, like he's just being charming, like this isn't breaking his heart.

"I don't know," he says, reluctantly looking away from her to let his eyes flick around the room again, looking for threats. Nobody's even looking at them. Why is nobody looking at them? Even if people might have forgotten Annie's face by now, he's Finnick Odair.

When he looks back at her, it's with a tension in his face showing in a stress-induced crease between his eyes.

"How did you get here?" he asks, his tone urgent. "You were ... you were at home. Did they..."

But the thought of the Capitol snatching her from her home is too much for him to voice.

My love, he'd said on Terrible Ceasar's show, and then a dozen other ridiculously flowery things. She'd watched the show: it might have been the last thing she'd ever hear him say out of the Arena, of course she damn well watched. She knew something - not a lot - of what happened in the Capital and she hated, she hated so much all of those people who hurt him. But even as she'd been pettily pleased at the guilt and despair Finnick was playing with their hearts, she'd heard the truth in his words. She knew who he was talking to, and it hadn't been any of them.

(Annie had been so pretty, the Capitol's little mermaid girl, but in the end, she hadn't attractively fragile. There was a form of safety in visible madness.)

My love, she tries to say back, pressing her arm against his, risking a press of her boot against his. He's here. He's...not in the Arena, she'll count that as 'safer than before', they are together. She can provide a distraction, if they need to get out or if he needs to get a weapon. She's good at that, she's the best. I practice screaming every night, so of course I'm good at it, she thinks, and then bites down hard on her bottom lip to keep laughing.

"I don't know. Um. No, I don't know what they did, because I don't think they, they did anything? My watch is fine, it's not even been fifteen minutes. Look?"

Her watch, a sturdy, elegant thing that also tracks the moon; her watch, with the strand of hair she so carefully wound around dial unbroken. If they had tampered with it, the hair would have been broken and gone.

He'd spent so long not wanting to talk to her about what might be to come. With a tiny pool of victors to cull from, the odds had never been in their favor. They'd both known there was a chance one of the other of them would go in, though Finnick had also known that, if Annie's name was called, Mags would volunteer in her place. It hadn't been his idea, but he'd been grateful. Grateful to send the woman who was the closest thing to a mother to him into the arena for Annie's sake. It was a terrible calculation, but it was the sort of terrible calculation every victor knew.

Except Annie, who'd won on her swimming skill, not on choosing to kill. Not like Finnick.

Finnick had known nobody would step in for him, had known that of anyone from District 4, he stood the best chance of, if not winning, at least keeping Peeta and Katniss as safe as he could. But he'd been reluctant to bring it up, to feed his own potential death into the fears running through Annie's mind.

He couldn't stand the thought of the pain she'd be in, just worrying about him, even if it never happened. And ever since he left District 4, she's been facing that on her own. There's nobody left for them, nobody who matters, though all the victors know each other. Keeping their love secret from all but their closest friends means little comfort for Annie, not the close-knit family gatherings other tributes' loved ones would usually have. To the people in the district, they are friends, no more.

Her foot presses against the strangely constructed shoe they'd put him in for the arena, and just for a moment, he lets his calf press against hers before subtly shifting his leg so only their feet are touching.

Finnick's other hand reaches to touch her watch, to check what she'd said.

(His fingers brush against the back of her hand, like a casual accident.)

"You were there? At home?"

Now his bright green eyes are narrowed in thought, and he looks up again, looking for and not seeing any sign they're being watched, any sign of any other tribute, or victor, or anyone from the Capitol. He tries to keep the anxiety out of his expression, but he can't, and his voice cracks, just a little.

"I was in the launch tube," he whispers.

He should be in the arena, fighting for his life. His fingers had slackened around her hand, but they tighten again. This is wrong.

In a way, it had been easier to weather with Mags gone. Annie had been able to take her little boat out on the sea and scream and scream, and she could wail about Mags and be hysterical about Mags and it'd been all poor dear, losing the woman who'd been as good as her ma. Which she had, which she was going to, Mags was going to die for her. But even in her grief, she had to lie.

Now he's here. Mags isn't, she can't see Mags, but Finnick is here and they are not taking him away from her. She doesn't know what she could do, but...

Something. Anything.

Annie focuses on a corner on the strangely Capitol-ish floor and grips his hand. She has panic still clouding up her brain but it's easier to hold it at bay now there's an actual problem to solve.

"I was at home. It was, was the countdown."

She wants to look at him, but she's worried, she's worried, that if she sees any sign of panic or worry on his face, she's going to go right back to hysterics instead of merely shaking on the verge of them.

"You're not in the launch tube now. You're here. And this...this. This isn't."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

"This wouldn't be fun to watch," Annie whispers, daring a glance at him.

Edited 2015-01-04 10:48 (UTC)

The same moment in time.

Finnick, in the launch tube, waiting, going over all the plans they'd made in clandestine meetings, whispered codewords, secrets passed between victors, a conspiracy woven of their secrets and stratagems and alliances, plans that Annie never knew about. He'd had to focus on that. Focus on the plans, instead of Annie, in District 4. They'd told her not to watch and they'd known she would, known that Annie would have been hanging on every moment he was on the screen, because if their roles had been reversed, he would have done exactly the same.

He couldn't let himself think that Annie could be watching him go to his death in the arena, because for once, he'd had to be thinking of something else: of Katniss, of the rebellion he hasn't told Annie about, of ensuring that they take the biggest chance they'll ever find of freeing Panem from the Capitol and making Annie safe.

There's a look Finnick gets on his face when he can't keep anxiety from showing: his jaw gets tight, his eyes almost febrile in their brightness, with something vulnerable in them that makes him look far younger than he usually does, and Annie knows that look better than anyone except maybe Mags. Annie's seen its shadows in the darkness of his bed or hers when he wakes from the nightmares of the arena, of the Capitol, of the one misstep it would take for him to lose her like everyone else.

She'd see it on his face now, if she looked.

He's not worried this is the arena. She's right. This isn't fun. This is torture of the sort the Gamemakers can't sell.

He glances at her, sees her looking at him, realizes, probably too late, the tension in his jaw that tells his fear.

"What if ... " He finds he can't say it, can't ask if this is some punishment, if finally he's overstepped Snow's mandates and the Capitol's going to take the one person he has left in the world whose loss would matter to him other than Mags. Can't ask if the rebellion Annie doesn't know about has brought her into danger, because the only thing Annie can possibly have done to merit the Capitol's punishment is to love him.

A man whose love is bought and sold by the Capitol.

What if they were in worse danger.

What if they were safe.

What if they were dead and this was some strange, strange afterlife that they'd found themselves in.

What if they could get out.

What if...

"We...we need to know where we are. What's going on." She can't ask him to not be scared; she's been scared ever since none of the proper Careers volunteered for her five years ago. It's been longer, for him. Worse. She managed to get out of the limelight - no one wants a pretty little mermaid around if she's not a pretty mess - but he couldn't. He's always afraid, or nearly so.

She can't do that.

But she can help.

"You're better at people. You can...you can ask someone. And, and if-if it goes bad and you need a diversion I can scream."

It's not as if screaming would be hard right now.

There's not a single face but Annie's that he recognizes in this room. When he's been in the beds of so many of the Capitol's high society, that should be reassuring. There's nobody here he's seen at the Games, or in the Capitol, or in District 4 or anywhere in ten years of being paraded through the Capitol and around Panem except the woman at his side.

He doesn't know what that means. Doesn't know how he can get from the arena and Annie can get from Four to the same place in minutes. Moments, because Annie's watch had said that it was only a few minutes past the start time of the Games. That's something not even the Capitol can do, surely.

Something that most people don't know about Annie is that she has a strength in her Finnick thinks surpasses his own: where he bends, she stands firm, even in spite of everything she's been through. Now, when he's so afraid for her, for what being here could mean, she's looking for an answer that he knows he should be looking for too.

But every moment with her here is a moment he didn't think he'd had.

That poem he'd written her, one of so many stupid things he's scribbled down and read to her, but this one a weapon against the Capitol and a message to her, was meant to be his last farewell to her, and now they've somehow stolen more time, he's afraid to question it, for her sake.

He's already faced the fact that he may die soon. But Annie -- no. Nothing can happen to her.

He just wants to sit here, with her, their hands wrapped together, and cheat the arena. Just a little longer. But just a little longer will never end, and Finnick's not a coward. Whatever this is, Annie's right, they have to face it.

He takes a deep breath, glancing around the room, yet again. Unchanged. No apparent threat. All visible weapons holstered. But there are things Finnick could use if he needed to fight.

He squeezes her hand. They're a team. Like they can never be back in Four.

"None of these people look like they're from the Capitol," he says, out of the side of his mouth, his voice coming quietly as he assesses the threat. "There are a few people standing on their own we can go see."

That does mean getting up. And it means letting go of her hand. But he'll do it, because she's right.

"Come on."

Edited 2015-01-04 17:53 (UTC)

If she keeps moving, maybe, just maybe, she can keep from collapsing, can stop all her terror and ignorance from crashing over her head like a wave. Keep moving, ride it, stay ahead, except to keep moving she also has to stand because she's not letting Finnick go, not ever again.

Annie lets her head fall forward, her slightly rough hair floating down around her shoulders and face so no one can see her mouth.

"Uniforms," she says. "The solid colours. They're uniforms."

They're a team, and she's sure he's already noticed, but he doesn't have to do this alone. Not this time.

"All right," she says then, and fails to move. "Just...sorry, sorry, just let me..."

Slowly, she stretches out her feet, then her knees. See, self, I can move, she tells herself, rotating her ankles to remind them that they can move. She takes a deep breath and uses his shoulder to hoist himself to her feet.

She doesn't fall, although her head is foggy enough to mimic being drunk.

"Okay. Finnick. Where are we going first?"

He knows Annie doesn't always handle being in public well. He's known it for years. Finnick had been the mentor who'd sat in the audience during her interviews; who'd stood staring intently at the screens, watching her stand alone and stare out into massive crowds gathered to hear her speak at her Victory Tour; who did what he could when he could to divert the attention of the media from the pretty mad girl from District Four to its heartthrob star.

But Annie does better at things when Finnick is there with her, and though they have to pretend they're friends, they can at least be that. They can go over to find someone to ask about what's happening together. They can't hold hands, have to drop the almost-hidden clasping of their fingers, though he feels like he never wants to, not when he'd thought that parting at the reaping could have been their last.

But he has to. He has to maintain the pretense for his patrons, for Snow, for the whole of Panem's perception of him, though the revolutionary in him wants to shout their secret to the room, would were it not for the risk to Annie.

"Yes," he agrees, dropping his head for a moment to mask the word a little, though he's still watching. "But not Peacekeepers. Or anything I've seen in the Capitol."

Annie is the one who stands first, though she has to take a moment, a moment he recognizes, when she needs to stop and just check that she can move, instead of letting her mind stop her. He waits, because sometimes that takes time, and he lets her use him to stand, before he stands, too, his movements much more graceful than Annie's, which are hesitant.

Eyes that are used to threat assessment, not just for danger, but for things that will upset Annie, and he chooses to skirt the edges of the crowd, avoid the bar, though most people new to a lounge would make their way there first, and approach one of the uniformed people standing alone, to one side.

"Over there," he says, with a nod.

He won't move until she's ready. But when they get there, he'll handle the conversation with all his classic customary charm.

It's easy to hover back at his left elbow, to keep close and look uncertain and helpless. Finnick doesn't even have to murmur, keep playing, like he did on her Victory Tour; she can remember, she can. Looking harmless is easy for her, particularly while letting Finnick hold the attention.

Not grabbing his hand? Not tucking her hand around the crook of his elbow?

That's much, much harder.

(She manages. Just.)

Annie keeps quiet as Finnick is oh-so-charming, as the Lieutenant (as she turns out to be) gives them a spiel about why they were brought (it's apparently a good question) and where are they. When are they. But also where, and a Federation of Planets? And they are -

"We're on a ship?" Annie blurts out. "In space?"

Drawing attention away from Annie by his own gregarious charm: it's an old, old routine for the two of them, one he'd stepped into as often as he could as her mentor, and gotten away with more often than most would, because he was Finnick Odair and the media and the Capitol were in love with him, or what they thought he was. Any attention he drew from her was more focused on him, he who was already so deeply enmeshed in the Capitol's depravity there was no escape.

So Annie melts into the background while Finnick takes the lead, like he does whenever the victors are in public in District Four, when everybody thinks it's just Finnick Odair, unable to keep a smile or a flirtation away when he could give one.

Not a desperate man trying to protect the most important thing in his life, the one thing worth living for.

Finnick smiles, Finnick jokes, Finnick questions, and the story, an unbelievable one, emerges.

Annie's question makes the Lieutenant point behind them, as if for confirmation, to the stars out the window, and even Finnick's perfectly practiced smile falters, for a moment. Is this a mind-game? Is this the Capitol luring them into thinking they're safe so they'll slip up?

The victors had been meant to be safe and Finnick had been about to go into the arena.

He can't trust what they say. The Capitol lies. Everyone knows that, nobody more than a victor.

"That's not possible," he points out, a hardness around his eyes that hadn't been there moments before. The unspoken words are you can't fool us. They've been playing the Capitol's games for years, and they know how to play them.

It's how they've survived.

The officer holds up her hands and keeps talking. Annie can barely keep track: she knows boats inside and out, and can do basic repairs on motors, but this is...

This is far, far beyond what a fishergirl from District Four would be able to follow.

Lieutenant Follet explains more: a person called Q, so many people brought here from different times and places. Different universes, until Annie is feeling dizzy with all the things she cannot quite understand. It's enough to make her step close to Finnick, brush his elbow to get his attention, raise her eyebrows and pointedly move her eyes to a free table.

Maybe...they should regroup. Talk. Maybe ask someone else to confirm - if only to confirm if this is a game or not.

Finnick and Annie have their own little language, written in tells and unease and the tiniest of touches; they've had it for a long time, since before they meant what they do to each other now, since Finnick was the mentor barely older than his charge trying to stop his victor falling into the same traps he'd been caught by, trying to keep her together enough to make it through her Victory Tour.

Annie's giving him one of those signals now: the gentlest brush of her fingers against his elbow, easily felt through the strange thin fabric of the jumpsuit. He glances down at her, meets the eyes that are so close in color to his own but without the startling clarity that draws his admirers.

"Thanks for your time, Lieutenant," he says, with one of the brilliant smiles he pulls out for the cameras and a flash of sparkling teeth.

The brushing if his fingertips against hers is his agreement with her idea, and they make their way to the table, Finnick deliberately choosing the chair with the best view of the rest of the room.

He's still as vigilant as ever.

"This has to be a trick," he tells the table's surface, softly, as he pretends to be readjusting his seat. He leans his head on his hand, fingers placed against his cheek where they can provide a little cover to his mouth.

It's still dangerous to talk, but they have little choice.

Annie studies the table, twisting the shell on her necklace, worrying at it as she frowns. A trick, yes. It'd be logical. It'd be fucked up and logical, except...

"Traps that are too complicated don't work," she says, glancing up at him. "The fish don't bother, or they get out. Octopi like complicated, but that's because they find them fun. We don't. And..."

She looks out over the room.

"It's not weird enough. Look at them, Finnick. If it was a show, wouldn't it be stranger?"

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Test Drive #7 - Ten Forward and Captain's Yacht

tw: panic attack/lead up to a panic attack

OH MY GOD. I LOVE YOU.

:D!

These are the most beautiful broken darlings ever

they aaaaaare. forever.

you're beautiful at her :)

oh gosh thank you! and your finnick, omg <3

it's okay annie I wasn't using my heart :'(

hearts, what are they

it's raining on my face :(

annie bb stooooop

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