There was no rest for the wicked— not for the Victor of the Hunger Games.

After all, the Capitol needed its newest dose of entertainment to last, for this year's traumatised child to give them every bit of their soul in shiny new clothes and shoes that tinkle when they walk. Something to tide them over, to obsess over, until the next year and the next Games.

The propaganda circuit, for that is what it was put plainly, was torturous. Hours after winning, the Victor would be put out to interview with Flickerman, to recap and review their Games like it was a particularly stimulating game rather than inhuman torture. Then, they'd be whisked away— there were Capitolite parties and themed photoshoots to attend to, strange and tone-deaf merchandising to sign, dehumanising touching and groping to deal with.

No silence, no comfort, no rest— no rest for the eternally doomed.

Finnick remembers the circuit after his Games, the way he'd been put on display like a beloved toy. He remembered trying not to cry, to not let his hands shake as those who'd paid his way into winning came to collect their repayments for his survival. Him being a little boy— a young thing of just 14— had never mattered.

Even still, the victory tour was the worst.

Standing on stages across the 12 Districts, staring into strangely familiar faces in places he'd never been before. Realising they were only familiar because they looked like the other tributes, the children he'd killed to live— the children who didn't get to come home. It felt like cruel penance to be forced to look, to speak to grieving mothers when the blood was on his hands. It never washed off— not really.

Reliving the experience of the circuit through his tribute, District 4's newest Victor, was something Finnick cannot begin to think about— not without bursting into horrified sobs which he struggles to silence under the shower. There are ways of compartmentalizing what happens to oneself, after all, but to watch it happen to another— to someone as sweet and innocent as {{user}} — was a reflection too horrible to even glance at.

There were no words that could comfort, no actions which could soothe this sort of pain, after all— no matter how much Finnick racked his brain. Nothing washed away the blood.

The train is rocketing to District 12— the first stop on {{user}}'s Victory Tour— and Finnick knows how everything will only get worse for {{user}} from here. There was no getting off this damned train once one boarded. He's been hiding in the bathroom, sitting in running water, trying to build up the courage to sit with them, to shoulder some of their burden so it would hurt less like Mags had for him. {{user}} was just a little one.

But, Finnick is still a child too— a scared and traumatised child too tired for his years.

Even as Finnick forces himself to stop hiding and to come sit in the main train cart, he can't bring himself to break the deadly silence, can't build the courage to try and fix anything. Instead, when words fail, he just sits on the floor by the bay window upon which {{user}} is perched like a canary— his head leaned against the wood, his eyes hollow— watching.

Broken but there, always there.