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[prodigaljaybird]

He hasn't come here since the snow melted.

Hasn't come here, in fact, since those fractured days following Bruce's arrival, feet bringing him here like they could step from sand and into memory, back to a time when Tim was here to tell him what to do.

Staring at the aging wooden structures of the outdoor gym now, Jason finds their delipidation sad. Stupid, for it's not his Tim that built it, but it feels like a legacy all the same. He should do something. Tear something of Tim's down again, but this time, with a mind to rebuild it. He doesn't have the tools, but -

"Hell, now's as good a time as any," Jason murmurs, crossing from the parallel bars and into the closest copse of trees. He lets a batarang fly before him, sharp edges catching the center of a trunk, and Jason arrives in front of it with his leg already outstretched. He feet catches the trunk just right, and with one short, sharp crack, the tree splits down the middle.

Felling trees for lumber might be easier with a saw, but it's not nearly as much fun.

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[victorofthe65th]

Letting out a quiet huff of a laugh, Finnick takes one of the vines from Jason's hands and tugs, testing its strength and resistance before dropping one end and working a quick knot into the other.

His smile wavers a little as he focuses on the movement of his fingers and not the memories that suddenly want to clamor to the front of his mind. "I threw what I had," he says, pulling the loose end of the vine through his hand and dropping the looped end to the ground. It's a simple noose, meant to ensnare any wayward foot. "This won't hold much," he says, nodding at the vine. "Good at catching game, though."

'And the smaller kids,' he doesn't say, pushing the vile thought into the back of his mind.

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason knows enough to hear what he's not saying, and he looks down at the vine, at the noose, imagines it around a skinny ankle or a throat and Christ, he was only fourteen when he died, and he was all alone, to look up and see another child standing over you...

He's breathing hard, the scar that runs almost the length of his scalp throbbing in nauseating little pulses, and try as he might, quick as he flew there, Jason can't seem to come back down. "Aren't you angry?" he says, breathless. "All the things that happened to me, I'm so angry, I - " Jason swallows. "Aren't you angry?"

[victorofthe65th]

The change in Jason's demeanor is quick, his expression morphing right before Finnick's eyes from mild interest to a simmering rage. Though startling, it doesn't feel threatening and Finnick tries to focus on him, on Jason, and not the question.

"What happened to you?" he asks, brow furrowed as he swings the vine back into his hands and unlooping the noose.

[prodigaljaybird]

"I was taken, like you, I wanted to fight, I - " Jason pushes his hands into his short hair, tugs hard at the streak of white and breathes in. He can hear himself, as fractured as they all say he is, as broken, but he can't help it. All he can do is wait it out.

"A man took me in from the streets when I was eleven. He was a hero, he taught me to fight, how to help people, he thinks he ruined me, taught me violence, but he saved me. But I died, I - his greatest enemy, he killed me, but I came back. Katniss called me a mutt, but I'm not, I'm still me, I - "

Jason lets his hands fall. He could kill Finnick in twelve different ways without telegraphing a thing, and still he feels vulnerable. Cracked open and bleeding out, all these little pieces that won't go back together, why must it always be like this? "I don't know why I came back, but I'm stronger. I know more. I won't - I won't let bad people live to hurt others."

[victorofthe65th]

It's more than Finnick expected, a veritable flood of emotion he really hadn't seen coming. Jason has felt something like a kindred spirit since his first day here, beyond a simple mutual respect of Katniss. He hadn't put too much thought into exactly why.

It feels alarmingly obvious now.

He wraps the vine around one finger and tugs tight, focusing on the way it cuts into his skin.

"If you died, how did you..." he asks, his voice quieter. "How is that possible?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"I don't know." Jason's shoulders round, the adrenaline fading as quickly as it came. "I was dead a while, a year, I think? I woke up in the ground, still had all the injuries I died with, so it's - "

Jason waves a hand like he could pull the memories back together, but of course he can't. "Muddled. I don't remember the first year back." Little things, just impressions. Cold ground and harder fists, then sudden warmth, bodies pressing in on him and forcing him to fight, smooth hands pulling him away again. Dipping him in water that burned and brought everything rushing back. Talia.

"But someone helped me."

[victorofthe65th]

A year? Finnick's heard of people dying for minutes before being brought back. And he's endured some pretty horrific injuries himself that the Capitol was able to erase the minute he became a victor. But he's never heard of anything that could bring someone back after a year without life.

He's starting to agree with Katniss's assessment - Jason's a mutt. There's no other explanation.

Discomfort coils tight in his belly and his muscles tighten, but he stays as he is. Not for the first time, he regrets leaving his trident in his beach hut.

"A doctor?" Finnick says, trying to find some other reasoning. One that makes more sense, one that means Jason isn't a monster. "Or maybe... maybe you weren't actually dead."

[prodigaljaybird]

"I was beaten to death with a crowbar," says Jason, his voice flat. "And left in a room with a bomb for good measure. I was dead."

He steps back, away from Finnick whose eyes are full of dread, real or imagined, Jason can't tell, but it doesn't matter. He's so used to seeing it it might as well be there.

"My grave is here. I woke up in it. Again. You'll get something awful, too, we all do. Reminders of home."

[victorofthe65th]

Jason's not the first to warn him of the island's cruelty. But given that he's still not convinced this isn't all in his head, he hasn't spent too much time worrying about it.

But for the first time, he does just that. There a million horrifying things this place could bring from home. Mutts and trackerjackers. President Snow himself. Nearly every rich patron he serviced back in the Capitol, the ones who wanted to break him as much as fuck him, and every kid he killed in the arena. Annie with her mind shattered, victorious and alive but torn to pieces inside and out.

"Is it still here?" he asks. "Your grave." He isn't sure why he wants to know or why it even matters, but it seems important somehow.

[prodigaljaybird]

"In the cemetery," says Jason, nodding in its vague direction. "Can't miss it, only stone angel on the block." Sometimes, Jason thinks of destroying it, too, but he never does. He needs to see it, needs to remember why he can't be the boy so many people want him to be.

"Katniss got a giant golden Cornucopia." He looks up, blue eyes catching the light like sparks. "It's gone now."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick can't hide his reaction to that, brief hitch in his breath as his blood runs cold. He's seen too many a Cornucopia in his life, both up close and on a screen, as a spectator. To anyone here, it may seem perfectly innocuous. To a Capitol citizen it is a herald of imminent delight and excitement.

To Finnick and every other participant of the games, it's nothing less than a symbol of death.

Swallowing tightly, Finnick finally manages a quick, clear nod. "Good," he says, having to work a little to keep his voice even. "It doesn't belong here."

Or anywhere else as far as he's concerned. But that goes without saying.

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason nods, short and sharp, and looks away. The Cornucopia's not all that's come from their home, but Jason can't kill a cat. No matter how much it makes Katniss weep to see.

"If you get something," he says, "we'll destroy it, too. All of it, until it stops coming."

[victorofthe65th]

It seems strange to Finnick how ready Jason is to kill, how eager. As though Jason is in the arena now, at all times, willing to do everything that it takes to be the last one standing. For now, Finnick is an ally -- not necessarily by choice, but simply due to his relationship with Katniss.

He can't help but wonder when that alliance will end.

"You care for her a great deal," Finnick says then, still watching Jason carefully. "Katniss, I mean," he adds, just in case.

[prodigaljaybird]

"She knows me." Jason looks away, his eyes full with a sudden burn. Eighteen years on this Earth, and yet he's missed so many of them, buried in the ground or in his own head, a waking coma stealing time he might have taken to learn, to mature. He's still boyish in ways Jason's yet too young to recognize, and he pushes at an eye with the heel of his hand, angry to find it wet.

She knows me and she likes me anyway. "Do you know how rare that is?"

[victorofthe65th]

"To know you?" Finnick asks, brow furrowing slightly before he shakes his head in answer. "As far as I can tell, Katniss is pretty difficult to know, too. Maybe that has something to do with it."

Jason seems so young right now, so much less sure of himself than when Finnick had first met him. Of course, Finnick had been displaced and disoriented at that time, but it still strikes him as odd right now. Jason is a mystery, a potentially very dangerous mystery.

[prodigaljaybird]

"To be known at all." Loved at all. "All of you, and for real. There was nobody for so long." Looking back, Jason wears the wet gleam in his eyes with defiance.

"Did you have someone? Back in Panem?"

[victorofthe65th]

Given the topic, he should be expecting it, but the question still surprises him, catching like a punch. But he falters for only a second before quickly recovering to paste on the slow, coy smile he's used countless times in the Capitol when asked variations of that very same question.

"I have many," he says. "Did Katniss not tell you? I have admirers far and wide back in Panem."

And he knows, even as the words leave his mouth, that he's trying too hard.

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason's eyes narrow, for smile the and for the words that follow it, and he shakes his head. "None that you wanted." To be celebrated for murdering other children, it's something to be endured, not asked for, and he can't bring himself to believe that Finnick would enjoy that. As for the others, these admirers that taught him to smile like that, flirt like that...Jason can't believe Finnick desired them, either.

"Someone that knew you."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick's smile falters, Jason's words and the all-too-knowing look in his eye seeing too much.

"No," he lies, the answer immediate. He's spent years now protecting Annie with his lies and, though she may not be here, and though he may never see her again, it feels like it's the only thing he can do to keep her safe. If he doesn't speak her name, she exists only to him; no one can hurt her.

"Not even my mother and father. Not anymore."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Me either," says Jason. He'd count Talia, but he's not sure what she is to him - mother, lover, savior, friend - so many things that he could never choose just one. "Not until here."

Despite his words, he watches the pulse jump in Finnick's throat, unnoticeable but for Jason's years of training, and wonders if this is another lie. "You should get one."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick arches an eyebrow and his lips twitch slightly, pulling into a grin to hide the immediate impulse to deny needing anyone. Anyone but Annie. "Are you volunteering?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Yeah?" Jason replies, grinning suddenly, his eyelashes fluttering in a fair, if exaggerated impression of Finnick's only moments before. "You want me to know you?"

[victorofthe65th]

He can't help his laugh then, bright and surprised. Jason is certainly a mystery, but Finnick can't deny he enjoys the man's company. "Who said anything about wanting? I just prefer to be aware of my options."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason laughs, rocking back on his heels. "My girlfriend punches people. People on crutches, I'd be careful. But you never know what will happen here," he adds, sobering.

"If there is someone from home, they could come here, too. I thought I'd be the only one here from mine for a long time, and then they all came at once."

[victorofthe65th]

It isn't the first time Finnick has heard such things, and Finnick thinks back to Effie in particular, how she told him her brother was already here when she arrived. And that he'd been here for months when, back home, he'd never been gone at all.

Finnick wants to believe that means Annie could arrive at any moment. Or maybe his parents or his brother or Mags. Any of them whole and safe. But he can't help thinking that believing that or even wanting it is only setting himself up for disappointment.

"Katniss and Peeta are both here," he says with a mild shrug. "I guess they're close enough to knowing me as anyone else." It isn't true, of course. Despite what they've gone through together, neither of them really know him. They're not intended to.

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason smiles - however easy he finds it to be around Katniss, objectively he knows she's not the warmest friend, at least not outright.

"Maybe it will be me, then. Guess we'll see."