Love at Sea (Finnick Odair)

Chapter 38

"OW!" Finnick's voice echoed through the tunnel as he landed on the ground. That was the fifth time he'd fallen.

"Stay on your feet, Odair, seriously," Gloss rolled his eyes as he kept walking.

"You're doing it on purpose," Finnick accused in a whiny voice as he pulled himself up and trudged after the man.

"Oh yeah, I'm purposely slowing us down by making you fall over," he scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. Think Odair, think."

"You tripped me up!" Finnick insisted

"I have big feet, it's not my fault if you trip on them because you stand too close."

Finnick grumbled a bit under his breath but didn't say anything else to annoy Gloss. It wasn't worth the argument.

As soon as Finnick got closer though, Gloss knew it was time to strike again, with a quick flick of his foot, he sent Finnick sprawling to the ground once again.

"AGAIN!" Finnick yelled. "I saw you fling your foot back then, don't even try to deny it."

"I deny it," Gloss shut down as he put his hands on his hips in frustration. "Get up man, seriously!"

Fed up, Finnick lunged forward on the ground and made a feeble attempt to grab hold of Gloss' leg.

Gloss just frowned and lifted his foot so Finnick fell down again.

"Get up," Gloss turned around and continued walking, not even looking back as Finnick pulled himself up. He figured he'd give Finnick a little break for a bit, it wasn't worth getting into a full-on fight in these tunnels. He'd wait until they were above ground.

They'd turned a couple of corners when Gloss excitedly spotted the ladder he'd originally descended into the tunnels on.

"Here it is!" he pointed out to Finnick as he stopped in front of it. "This is the ladder I came down on. Or at least I'm 65% sure it is."

"65%?" Finnick raised an eyebrow.

"Meh, a ladder's a ladder," Gloss shrugged dismissively.

"I fell off the last ladder I tried to climb," Finnick recalled. Stupid lizard mutts.

"You fell off a ladder?" Gloss deadpanned, he was not impressed. "That's pathetic. Learn to climb a ladder man, it's not that hard. Do better," he snarked as he grabbed on and started climbing up.

"What's up your ass today?" Finnick complained as he followed after Gloss.

"What did you say?" Gloss feigned innocence as he took a step back down, deliberately standing on Finnick's fingers.

"AH!" Finnick yelled, yanking his hand back. "What the hell?"

"Oops," Gloss sniggered before he quickly sped up the rest of the ladder. He didn't want Finnick to retaliate by grabbing onto his ankle.

As soon as he got up, Gloss stood and waited as Finnick exited after him.

Trident boy blinked a few times as he looked up at the sky above him. He'd been underground for a while and was not feeling great. But at the sight of the sun, he felt marginally better. The last time he was in the open, the sky had been filled with smoke. There was still smoke now, but it was less than before.

"You good?" Gloss asked.

"Yeah," Finnick nodded. "Let's get to the hospital."

"Hang on," Gloss grabbed the man by the shoulder. "Just stand here," he manoeuvred Finnick away from the opening of the tunnel, he didn't want him falling back in.