all our ghosts ｡°✩ flynn &. andal [95th, pre top-8]

FLYNN GARNER

Every day in this hotel is molding into one. Waking up in the same bed, spending the same twenty-four hours in this building. All the sponsors want to see him in the hotel, there has been no reason for him to leave. They’ve not let him. Only one thing looks different every morning and that is the darkness under his eyes when he meets his reflection in the bathroom.

Suppose this routine is a safety net, the longer it goes on, the longer Nessa is alive. It’ll just have to be his daily punishment that he must endure just so she can go on.

Flynn sits on a leather foot stool as he ties bows in his laces. He could try and be spontaneous today, maybe knock on Andal’s door on his way to the viewing suite. That is if the Peacekeeper is not posted outside, the one who delivers is breakfast laced in the relaxant drugs. They do nothing for him though, just like the tablets that he was weaned from. His cracks are too big to cover with band-aids. He will just have to be the one to hold everything together, before they bring in a wrecking ball.

Contemplation stalls him, he just stares down at the laces that he has tied and untied several times. He stalls starting another day that may be the one that is engraved on her headstone.

A knock on the door gets him up onto his feet. The voice behind it is a welcoming one but the face is a ghost from a memory. The face that he once hoped Izzy Rodriguez would kill just so he could finally bring one of them home.

But it is still him, it is still Andal in there. It is not the same face he confessed to just a few days ago. This is all Andal, the real one. Not the one manufactured by them and he is ready to confess to this face too.

But he has learnt not to ever trust them, he knows they can go far with their tricks.

Instead of taking the flowers from ’Andal’, his hand reaches the other’s cheeks. His fingers run across his nose and down his chin. It all feels real. ”This is you? The real you?” But there is a nipping at the back of his neck that just needs to be sure. ”I always have an hour spare for you but,” Flynn looks down at the purple flowers, they’re gripped by the same ungloved hands he danced with that very night he repeats in his mind. He takes them, their aroma is hypotonic as he breathes it in.

”I just, you know, need to be sure about it actually be-“ He is stalling again, he doesn’t want his doubt to hurt Andal but he is carrying so much trauma from them, even a plastic surgeon couldn’t cut it out from him. ”What did I say to you on the bed behind me a few days ago?”

FLYNN GARNER

”Before we go, there is one thing…” Suspicion inside of Flynn is washed a way by a warmth that prescribes some health to his cheeks. He’ll punish himself later for even doubting Andal. That should not have been his first reaction to seeing his love now having a part of himself back.

Flynn squeezes Andal’s hand, holding him back in his room for just a moment. ”I just want to say it to these eyes, to these lips and wow…to that jaw.” Luck has always been a slippery road for Flynn but being able to call Andal Searley his now, if that is where all his luck has drained he will cherish it. He is frozen in admiration; this natural face is just so much more. ”I love you and you and I am sorry I doubted you.” Flynn inches up slightly on his toes and plants a kiss on Andal’s lips. Kissing him like this makes him feel so much closer to Andal.

”Okay, lets go before we’re dragged away by sponsors.”

The pair of them are experts at slipping together out of sight. Their first months before Flynn revealed their secret tested them on the art of being incognito.

Finally, the hotel is behind them and they’re across the city that Flynn will never feel comfortable in, no matter what street or building he walks in. Flynn doesn’t ask where they’re going, he is just relishing this memory of traversing across the Capitol with Andal’s hand as support. It feels good to be out somewhere with him. It feels right but not homely enough. The only other place besides the Capitol that they’ve been together was that hour at the Diner in Six. Flynn has never seen Andal’s home, but it feels like the wrong thought to have given who he has been trying his damn hardest to bring home.

”Do you think after these games we could go somewhere? I could come to Ten or you could come Six. I’d like us to be somewhere together that feels like home.”

Flynn stops on the pavement as they reach The City Circle area of the Capitol, he nearly loses Andal’s hand as the other is slow in following his abrupt halt. ”But it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to. A lot is likely to happen after these games…”

This hour with Andal, he needs to take it as a break from it all. It is time to push the Ninety-Fifth to the back of his hand.

”Lets keep going.” Flynn hurries forward, he can see his laces coming undone but he ignores them. ”Where is it we’re going?”

FLYNN GARNER

Flynn squeezes as tight to the stem of the gifted wildflower as he does the other’s hand. Being in Andal’s company grounds him. Ever letting go of Andal is just going to take him to a dark place. It is not the needles or the tablets he needs, it’s him. It has just been proven in the minutes that have passed. No stylist could paint the smile and turn a light in his eyes that he is carrying now. No therapist could switch on his beating heart and the constant rush of serotonin that he is feeling. Andal really is the best remedy.

Flynn fiddles with the yellow flower between his fingers and slips it into his trouser pocket. His hand slips from Andal’s and he stalls. This time at the gates that dwarf him. He looks up at the iron bars, the prison of the dead. Now this is a strange setting for a date, he thinks.

”If you want to meet my family, I guess we’ve come to the right place.” A fake laugh trails after Flynn’s words.

There is something uneasy about the Capitol memorializing the deaths that they caused. Flynn only ever visits their graveyards back in Six, there is one in particular that he is sure he is the only visitor of.

He rubs his neck, unsure of stepping into this territory he swore to never visit before but Andal is right here, pushing the gate open for him. Fuck it just follow Andal, you don’t need to see his statue! Flynn exhales and follows Andal through the gate. He reaches out for his hand, holding him will be his only comfort while being in here.

”I have never actually been in here before,” Flynn admits as the statues of the earlier games begin to surround them, ”It is not someplace I ever thought of coming too. I don’t know. I am just glad my first visit is with you.”

Flynn meets the bronze faces of his history, lives immortalized in this small corner of the Capitol. Now they’re a tourist attraction, somewhere for the sponsors to shake their fists at over their wasted money.

”Do you come here to visit them, the ones from your games?” Flynn shudders at the thought of coming face to face with Lorraine again but there is definitely a hope in him to finally meet Nanette Carter’s statue.

FLYNN GARNER

Flynn steps back almost, silent as he follows Andal through the Ninety-Second Garden. Another floral gift is handed to him, something for his hands to fidget with. It helps with the throbbing pain in his fingers, the cold has always bothered them, and he can see the gloves he should’ve worn left rolled up in his sock drawer. Enough about him. Andal’s kissed enough of his wounds, it is time to repay the favor.

Each name and face, he remembers them well from the strategy planning three years ago. The ones he warned Kiko and Isabella about. Petunias are laid at Izzy’s feet and her face is the one Flynn takes longer with. Time to let this one go. The universe knew which one was meant to leave that arena, the one for him.

Andal ends his ceremony and Flynn reaches out to help wipe his tears, but Andal is too quick for him. Emotions sealed up with a smile. Andal has just opened up a part of him to Flynn and he feels grateful. Almost surprised to be trusted. ”Thank you for showing them to me. Their memorials look so human, you did right in getting involved.”

He has been silent this whole time but now it is his turn.

Flynn looks down at Andal’s outstretched hand, hesitancy has been infecting him all morning. ”Uhmm…how much of the hour do we have left?” The chuckle is just a part of the grief, he takes Andal’s hand and walks through five years of gardens to start at the first one.

The Eighty-Seventh Garden looks almost unkempt, a lifeless tree is at its centre, one that matches the spikes from the nuclear waste field. Being here takes him right back, there’s even a sudden thumping pain across his forehead. As if the radiation levels inside of him are on the rise again.

He can’t stay here long. Flynn hurries through this procession of familiar stone faces, pulling along Andal at some pace.

He is glad to see the first two next to each other, where he imagined them. ”Langley, my ally from Ten and Revan. I lost them too early.” Flynn brushes past his District partner, Syren, the one Lorraine tried to taunt him with. Syren is one that is so buried so deep in his mind, it is hurting just to drag her back to the surface, so he doesn’t stop to say anything.

There is only one he wants to see here, and she is stood near the ones he wanted to avoid. He see’s Silk first and then, ”This is Nanette, my other ally. I wouldn’t be here without her.” Flynn places one of the stems that Andal gifted to him into her stone hand. ”I met her brother on my tour, I wish I could speak to him again.”

And then the one that sends phantom pains in his prosthetic ear, Lorraine looks just as powerful as a statue than she did alive. ”This is Lorraine, she is in all of my nightmares. Everyone wanted her but they got me. They wanted her too.” Flynn points over at Silk Le Roux and to more, to Castor, Kyler and Lennox. Everyone but himself.

”Lets keep going, there are more in other gardens.” He is on a mission now, marching along the cobbled paths. He needs to see them all. His face is riddled with neutrality. There are not enough tears left in his reserve, they’ve all had his share.

To the Eighty-Ninth where a best friend lies under volcanic ash. She is one of the first statues, forever immortalised as a fifteen-year-old. ”This is Aurora, she was the first new friend I made after leaving the arena. I went back to school, and she didn’t treat me any different. She knew I was a dickhead and she was one of the best friends I ever had.” Flynn lets go of Andal and places one of the stems in Aurora’s.

”Okay, to the next one.” Another game to skip by, Flynn doesn’t even let himself breathe as he lets determination take over. Not even sorry if Andal cannot keep up. Pieces of Flynn have broken from him whenever he has lost each of them, it feels like he is picking up the rubble seeing them again. He prefers the headstones with their names, the ones that are actually tended by those that love them. Maybe he owes it to them now to keep visiting these gardens, be the only that comes here and cares.

To the Ninety-First where his cousin is immortalised in a fantasy land. She looks so young, fifteen forever. ”This is Quinn my cousin. We were never close; my family aren’t exactly tightknit. Even with Jimmy’s side…It is something I want to change though. I bet your family is close?”

Flynn places another stem in Quinn’s hand, but he is not so quick to carry on to the next one. That hesitancy again.

Flynn rubs both of his hands against one of Andal’s, trying to catch some heat from the other’s skin. It doesn’t feel right to take him to the next. Flynn doesn’t trust how even himself will react seeing that face again. ”I think you know who the next one is, do you want to meet him?”