Spoilers: Things about Finnick revealed in Mockingjay.
Warnings: Strong sexual themes (Finnick is a sex worker, yo!). Other warnings to come for later chapters, I think.
I wrote this story in first-person present tense, in the hope of keeping with the way the Hunger Games canon is written.
For Whose Sake
It's hard, sometimes, for me to keep sight of what exactly I have become. Am I a person being used for my assets? Am I a pretty bauble who was brought into this world just to be enjoyed? I don't always know which is better. Whatever I am is passed from hand to hand, always finding a smile and a kind word for a stranger who only knows my name because they could not look anywhere without seeing it. I don't hold that against them, because I certainly won't remember who they are once they've gone.
Annie is the only thing of which I am constantly certain. I know that by attending parties with this nobleman or that Duchess, by posing for cameras and laughing often enough, Annie is safe. When I think of Annie, I know exactly who I am: I am Finnick Odair, Victor from District 4. I am healthy. I am happy. I really am happy. The smiles are not forced, nor are the jokes fabrications. I enjoy what I do, only I feel that it is all misplaced. I should be happy with Annie, not the people who pay for my time and do not care for me. I resent even the few genuine, enjoyable moments I have with my clients because I cannot be happy without thinking of Annie. I cannot think of Annie without thinking of President Snow, or of how he could kill Annie with a snap of his fingers. I have nightmares about Snow's fingers.
Sometimes I see Snow's fingers in the dark, when a client is above me, touching me. Sometimes I imagine Snow's lips where they are not, where there is only a well-meant smile from the latest Capitol citizen who has come to admire my beauty. When these phantoms of Snow come to me, I have to leave reality and go elsewhere while I am touched in the most intimate places, where even Annie has yet to go. It is not my clients' fault that I sometimes see the malevolence of Snow in their faces. They don't care for me, but that's not their fault. They don't know better. They think I want this as much as they do, that I enjoy frivolity, and I am the one who tells them that. The Capitol people are raised in such a disgusting way, I know it would be a waste of time to tell them if I am unhappy. I grin for them; I caress them; I kiss them and stroke them; I reassure even the ones who ask, "may I kiss you here?" that they can do whatever they'd like. They cannot hurt me. When I need to, I can go somewhere far away with Annie. My clients' depraved indifference and Snow's phantoms can't touch me when I am with Annie.
I am ready to do this for as long as Snow wants, because it is what he wants. Because it is best for Annie. The idea that I might never see Annie again, that she may never be whole, is enough to fill my heart with ice. The still-worse alternative is that I stop this and Annie is killed, and Snow lets me live-because he will let me live-and I spend the rest of my days living my own life but living it without her. A life devoid of Annie Cresta's eyes or smile, or the possibility of seeing them again, is no life at all. But then, nor is a life where I am pliant to the will of anyone who has enough coin to claim me. In either life, I have no friends, and my memories of Annie both comfort and haunt me.
I do not expect this to change. Who would, in my place? Weekly, nightly, I am assigned to a new client, and my duties do not change. This is a patten that has kept Annie and me alive, if incompletely.
I am twenty-one, in my third year of playing the role of pretty bauble, when my handlers tell me to wait at one of my usual hotels for a male client who wants my time. I've spent an hour reclined on the velvety bed when he walks in. He is a man who looks to be my age, and whose skin is a natural bronze, free of any of the Capitol's ridiculous dyes or tattoos. Even in the dark, I can see that he is lean, maybe even healthy. He is unusual for the Capitol, but he has paid for me nonetheless.
"Hello," I croon in the voice I mastered for nights like this.
"Oh, you don't need to-"
I've taken off my shirt (more fine Capitol fabric) before I process his stammering. He does not want intimacy, at least not yet. This, too, is confusing, since the clients who want conversation usually spend the day with me, rather than the night. Still, I comply and leave my shirt half-hanging from my body. The man watches me, and I watch him.
After a minute of this, he reaches out with a warm hand and touches my shoulder. There is no desire under his skin; just concern, and perhaps even gentleness.
"I'm so sorry," he says.
That's when I begin to cry.