undergrounds | if music be the food of love

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if music be the food of love

who: Britain's sweethearts
what: Finnick bought a harp. Annie plays harp. nothing will go wrong.
where: Chateau Odair
when: Oct 19
warnings: two mentally unstable kids with a harp that causes depression and grief. you tell me.

The harp had been installed, as Annie suggested, by the window that looked out into the back garden. The late October sunlight filtered in through the blinds, bathing the new acquisition in light. I was almost perfect, Annie decided immediately upon seeing it.

with that in mind, she sat at the stool and, after a few moments of admiring it from this position, she began to play. hesitantly at first, then she picked up, humming along to the song as she played. while the song itself was supposed to be joyous, it took on a melancholy tone in the sun-drenched room. Annie's face held no light, however, as her humming dropped off and each note from the harp seemed to take more energy from her. she kept playing, even as tears stung her eyes.

she was just crying, she reasoned, because the song always reminded her of her father. but that wasn't it. not by a long-shot. if he were here- if she hadn't insisted on going to that damn school, he would have been here. him and maybe so many others too. the entire school had been murdered and she alone had survived. a waste of a survivor. A waste of a daughter, of a woman.

she should have died there. she should have bled out. she should have bled out twice. but she remained here, to play a haunting melody on the harp until she couldn't summon the energy to do anything but sit there, hands poised to play, but unable to pluck.

she didn't deserve to make music when so many were dead.

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Finnick was in the kitchen when he heard the notes float in from the living room. It was a romantic idea, perhaps, to buy the harp, but he wanted to give Annie something to do. He wanted to give her something to focus on, and if that something happened to be beautiful music that would serve as a distraction for himself too, that was all the better.

He smiled when he heard it start, but after a moment he realized there was a nagging feeling at the edge of his mind. Frowning, he tried to pinpoint the feeling, and as he followed it toward the music he realized that Annie was crying.

He was at her side immediately, soothing hands on her shoulders. "Annie," he said in a gentle voice, "come away from the harp."

She hadn't gone away. Not yet, but she was hovering on the edge of that abyss, hands still in the air, a few wrapped around strings, just waiting. Just ready.

The tears, by now, were coursing down her cheeks, falling on to her lap, when she felt Finnick's hands. But she didn't look to him. "I want to play," she whispered, as though she still was. There was something comforting in it. In these feelings that the music brought about. It was warm, welcoming. She knew these feelings so well, that it was so easy to wrap herself in them once more.

Moments like this made her realize how much she missed those dark feelings. That made her hate them, just as much as she clung to them.

Finnick pressed a kiss to the top of her head, trying to be soothing, to keep her present.

"There's magic, Annie, there's a spell..."

He reached around her to take one of her hands, still gentle.

"It's music," she starts to say, but his hands eclipse hers, and she hurriedly pulls them away. The touch wasn't good. He was taking her away from the harp, from the awful, but so familiar feelings. The rest of it- she didn't know happiness. She didn't deserve happiness. She needed to play for all of the dead. To bask in all the hurt she's caused.

"Let me play!"

He didn't know what the harp was doing, but he knew it was bad. Was it drawing her to it, or was this just Annie? He put his hand back on her shoulder. Patience. He was good at that.

"I don't want the magic to hurt you," he said. He didn't know what else to say because he didn't know what she was feeling. The compulsion to play could be a coping mechanism or a component of the spell, and he didn't want to mess with either of those things. If he had to, he would pull her away and deal with the result, but for now he'll try the gentler approach.

It was all her. The embrace of the darkness came from the music, from the tears, from the feeling inside of her, the feelings that scared her and made her want to do so many awful things to herself.

"It doesn't hurt me," she tells him. "It lets it come out." All the pain that she couldn't hide, but tried so hard to. The pain she didn't want Finnick to know she was constantly in, because he needed her. And she needed him.

"Sit. Listen." Her hands find the strings again, and she plays another few notes, trying to hum along. But her voice is cracking, and she has to take one hand off of the harp to wipe at her eyes.

"Annie," Finnick says again, pulling away so that he can kneel beside the harp. He searches her face, trying to make eye contact, a pleading look in his own eyes as he does.

"It's magic, and it's bad magic - it's making you feel bad. If you don't come away from it I'm going to have to pull you away and I don't want to do that."

"It's a harp," she tries to protest, even as she meets his eyes. His beautiful, bright blue eyes. It was her favorite feature of his. More than his smile, or his chin, or cheekbones, or anything. Just his eyes. She could look into them for years, if anyone let her.

"It's not magic." She was just a worthless human. "You- don't like my playing." That was it. She hadn't played as often as she once had. Her eyes grew wide, her bottom lip quivering. "Don't like my playing. Shouldn't have bought the harp." She turned her eyes away from his at last, looking at the floor, her words becoming more frantic as her sentences grew shorter. "Stupid gift for a worthless girl."

"I love your playing," he says, voice pleading with her to hear him as he leans forward to gently hold her face and wipe away any stray tears with his thumbs. "And I will love to hear you play all the time once I take this harp and have the curse removed."

Her eyes aren't focused as she looks at him. Her poor, upset love. And she'd made him upset, because she was playing. She looked down, moving her hands from the harp to try to get to her hair, to pull for now, until she got time to herself later. Annie shook her head. "Shouldn't have. Shouldn't."

Finnick takes the opportunity to move the harp away from her, picking it up and resisting the urge to break it in two as he moves it a few feet away. When he returns, he kneels back down on the ground and wraps his arms around her.

"Shh," he says, quietly into her ear. "I'm still here. Stay with me, Annie."

He moves it so easily, but Annie doesn't notice. Instead, she looks at her hands, before she finds herself enveloped in Finnick's arms. He has her. She knows his voice, his touch. She has to stay, as easy as it is to close her eyes and drift. She needs to stay. He wants her to stay.

She leans against him, closing her eyes, resting her head on his chest. Give her a few moments, to feel him, to remember, and to stay.

He stays there, holding her firmly until he feels her start to relax, feels her heartbeat slow a little. Then he pulls back, brushing her hair out of her face and his fingers over her cheek.

"Better?"

It takes a few minutes, but it happens. Slowly, she returns, faster than it could have been by far, given, well, everything. She looks up at him, meeting his eyes, and nods meekly.

"Better... The harp...?" What were they going to do about it?

He looks over his shoulder at the offending object, his expression cold. "It'd be a shame to get rid of it," he says; something in his tone implies that he'd really love to throw it off the balcony.

His eyes soften again when he looks back at Annie. "I'll find someone to take off the enchantment. It's witch magic... messy. Concealed well, though."

"Not real." She says, almost accusatorially, looking up at him. His words and his tone didn't match up, and it could be incredibly confusing if she didn't call him on it. Especially when she was still coming back.

Witches. She pales. "No- don't ask. You don't like witches." And she didn't, either, by proxy.

"I want the harp," he says, gentle but firm. "I'll put up with a witch for a few minutes if it means I can bring this harp back safe and sound for you to play. They can't take me if they don't know my name."

She bowed her head. He was right. "I'll go with." She didn't want him alone with a witch. Besides, it could take more than a few minutes.

Annie draws her legs up, and gently nuzzles Finnick's neck. "I'm sorry." SHe always was, when things like that happened. It didn't matter if it was the harp or not, it had gotten as bad as it had because of her. Because of what was wrong with her.

He wraps his arms around her again, rubbing her back. "It wasn't your fault," he says, and his voice is soft again. "The harp made you have bad thoughts, it won't do that again."

"It's not the harp," she said softly, leaning further into him. "It's me." Sure, it pushed the thoughts out, but she still had them. They were all hers to begin with.

"The harp made it so that you couldn't deal with it for a moment," he says, pulling away to look into her eyes with earnest.

"You've seen so much, Annie. Anyone would hurt if they had seen what you have, but you do such a good job of continuing on every day... the harp just made that harder for a little while."

He always understands. He says the right words, at the right time. He had a way of phrasing things that made it so she, too, could understand. "And I wanted the harp," she says, looking up at him with big, tearful eyes.

"The harp made me want-" she cut herself off, shaking her head. She couldn't say it.

"I know," he says quietly, like he really does. "Just remember everything you have here, and if you need reminding I'm right here."

"I try." But sometimes her mind went blank, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember anything. At least, anything bright. She'd become trapped in her own mind, thrown back to the attack, reliving it over and over, and the dark days afterwards.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," he tells her, and it's that same firm and gentle tone. The one that could almost be reprimanding, but it's only conviction. He gets up from his knees, leaning forward to kiss her forehead as he goes, and he doesn't take his hands from her shoulders and won't until she shows him that it's alright for him to step away.

"Let me put this thing away. We can lie down if you'd like."

She drops her head again. "I know." She takes a breath before looking back up at him. She gives him a quick squeeze, before loosening her hold on him. He was free to move, though she was content on the floor.

"Okay. I'd like that." Things were always better when Finnick was holding her.

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if music be the food of love

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