AN: Please, if you are not happy with something or you find errors, Tell me. I enjoy hearing opinions.
Disclaimer: the Hunger Games Trilogy and all of its characters belong to Suzanne Collins.
I don't know why I make my way to Finnick's room after my most recent nightmare. Maybe it's because I remember the sad and knowing look in his eyes when I collapsed in the hallway, overtaken by a nightmarish flashback. Maybe it's because I remember the anguished look on his face after the Jaberjays had started singing, or speaking. Maybe it's just because it feels right but, none the less, I find myself standing in front of his door, my eyes filled with unshed tears.
My hand reaches up shakily and raps weakly on the door, the sound almost to quiet to hear. I wait for a moment, my hand poised to knock again although my body is poised to take off and find an abandoned hallway to sob my heart out in. Before I can decide which one I am going to choose the door opens, revealing a shirtless but strangely wide awake Finnick Odair. His sea green eyes find mine and they soften immediately. He steps aside, an invitation for me to enter. I know there is no backing out now so I walk in hesitantly, not really sure I had made the right decision.
I gulp nervously when I turn to face the exposed bronze chest and searching sea green eyes of Finnick. I'm really beggining in to doubt my decision.
"H-hi." I stutter, my hands already getting slightly sweaty.
"Hey." Finnick's voice is gentle and serious as he looks at me, his eyes portraying the fact that he already knows why I'm hear even though I'm not quite sure I know myself.
I am suddenly reminded of a time that feels like it could have happened a million years ago. Finnick stands so close, his eyes friendly and teasing at the same time. "Everybody seems to know my secrets before I do." I seem to remember myself saying, my insides fluttering at the close proximity. Finnick had agreed and I find truth in my words now, even though I had not said them seriously the first time. Everbody seemed to know what I wanted or what I was hiding even before I did.
He clears his throat, prompting me to return to present time and I am met with the sight of his eyes, his dazzling eyes that are so very serious and gentle that I almost don't see the pain and sadness that lurks in them. Maybe, I realize, maybe that is why I've come hear instead of going to my mom or Gale. Maybe it was because I knew, whether I understood I did at the time or not, that Finnick would understand and relate better than anyone else I could think of. I realize now that I want to tell Finnick about my nightmares and I realize that right now, even though I don't know him that well that I trust him.
How much things have changed! How much time has passed since the first day Finnick declared us allies and showed me the golden bangle. I see it now, resting on a small nightstand by his bed. I stare at it, a small smile tugging at my lips despite of my attempts to push it away.
"Finnick." I say finally, my eyes turning to meet his once again. My voice must say it all, or maybe it is the tears that have begun to drip down my cheeks but Finnick opens his arms and I find myself crying silently into his chest. We stand there, my tears wetting his bare chest that I have become acutely aware of before I pull away and look up at him with puffy, red eyes. He doesn't say anything as he sits down, leaning comfortably against a wall and looking at me expectantly.
I sit down slowly, prolonging the moment I have to tell him that I've gotten almost no sleep at all since the death of Peeta, the only sleep I have had is when I am drugged into it and that the only reason I still look healthy is because my prep team refuses to let me go out looking the way I do. Hesitantly my eyes meet Finnick's and I take a deep breath.
"I have nightmares." I say.
This simple statement has my body trembling. I can't help but feel so vulnerable right now in front of this man who is looking at me as if he could stare into my soul. I've never told anyone about the nightmares except Peeta. Of course, people have found out but still I've never really told someone who wasn't Peeta.
Finnick seems to understand that this simple and obvious statement means more that it sounds because he nods and cocks his head, silently asking for me to continue.
"I-I mean. That's- It's just- They're about him." I finally manage to get those three words out and already the tears are leaking again and I can't stop them because every-time I try to think of happy things I end up thinking about him.
"Sometimes they're not even nightmares. Sometimes it's happy things, really happy things and I'm so happy in the dream and then-" I stop to gulp in air and wipe away the waterfall of tears that have been flowing freely. "And then I wake up and he's not there anymore and it hits me like a dozen tons of bricks and my heart breaks all over again, every single time."
I can hear Finnick's sharp intake of breath and I stare at him as his eyes cloud over with a whole new kind of emotion, pure, raw, anguish. I know he is thinking about Annie, precious, precious Annie who has created a shell for herself, nobody in and nobody out.
"Annie." He mumbles, his eyes glossing over and I see a tear fall down his cheek.
I can't help but scoot closer to him and I feel like I need to comfort him because this is something that he would have, and has, done for me. I let him pull me against him, my back resting on his bare chest. His arms wind around my waist and he holds me, more out of instinct than affection, I think.
I remember Peeta so well, I can almost see him, his blonde hair and bright smile with those wonderful eyes and comforting warmth. I try to ignore the images of his death, I try to ignore the brutality of Snow as he broadcasted it to all of Panem.
"Let it be known." I can imagine his voice, the sickly sweet smell of blood and roses surrounding him as he stands behind Peeta, facing the camera. "Let it be seen that no matter what happens, no matter what anyone thinks-" He pauses as a little girl with her hair in a side braid, just like mine, approaches holding a ornately carved wooden box. Snow opens it and lifts an old fashion revolver the color of the sky at midnight out of he box. "There. Will. Be. Consequences." He cocks the gun as he says this and, as soon as he's done he points it straight at the bound and gagged Peeta and he shoots.
The blood splatters against the camera lens and I hear Peeta's last words, barely more than a whisper. "Katniss." And His body falls onto the floor as the screen ends in blackness. My screams are the loudest and they last well into the night, making sure that no one sleeps.
I force myself to come back to the real world where I am in Finnick's arms as he cries silently.
"I can't stand it. It's killing me, Finnick. I'm dying from the inside." I whisper as my own tears splash down my cheeks.
Even now I can feel my heart breaking little by little. The throbbing in my chest persists, day in and day out. Finnick's arms squeeze tighter around me and I know he knows what it feels like. Maybe Annie wasn't dead but she wasn't really alive either. Normally his embrace would discomfort me, an embrace this intimate from anyone except Peeta would, but the tightness of his arms around me is strangely comforting, the scent of salt so unfamiliar and so unlike home that it takes me away from reality.
Finnick's arms squeeze tighter still and I know that it's more to comfort himself than me. He burrows his face in my hair and I can't hear him but I know that he's crying silently, suffering in silence like I always have. Even now, with my heart shattering I get up and I do what I always have done. My own tears fall on the floor with tiny, almost inaudible plops. I sag into Finnick's chest, the strong façade dropping. His arms, still wound around my waist and gripping like an anaconda, only tighten more.
I think, given any other circumstance I would be extremely uncomforted by the increasing tightness of his arms but knowing that it helps him makes me unaware of how it should have been uncomfortable and much ton intimate. Instead I find myself scooting back, closer into his chest. His feet are splayed out in either side if me, his back resting against a concrete wall as we sit in the pitch black room. I find that I don't really mind.
Finnick has been silent for a long time, never really responding to my statment. Finally though ahead lifts his face from my hair, breathing in slightly.
"I know Katniss, I know." His voice is so full of raw and unrestrained emotion that it hurts just to hear it.
I can tell immediately that it's true and that they weren't just words of comfort like Gale or Effie or any other people of the sort. I remember Haymitch's look when he saw me in my pitch black room, huddled in a corner against the cold concrete floor and sobbing. He did not give me sympathetic looks like Effie and Prim do. He did not glare at me like usual. Instead his eyes seemed to soften and, in a voice filled with raw emotion, much similar to Finnick's voice now, he said the same thing. "I know." And then he left without uttering another word. I did not know how he could have known, how he had ever felt, what I was feeling but it seemed as if he too was telling the truth.
Finnick's steady breathing jolt me out of my musings and I panic before remembering where I am. Finnick's breath tells me that he's sleeping although his arms have not released their anaconda grip, if anything it had gotten tighter still. I don't mind, I don't think that I would mind even it was uncomfortable because in truth, it is helping me as well.
I can't help it though, my neediness and vulnerability at this moment. It's wrong, feeling so comforted by being in another man's arms but, as I have mentioned, I can not help it. I can not help the sleepiness and warmth that fills me while Finnick's strong arms are around my waist and I can not help the fact that it is not Peeta's fresh bread kind of scent that finally lulls me to sleep but Finnick's salty, oceany scent. Like I said, I can not help it.
I don't know if I am disappointed or relieved that Finnick is not present when I wake. Maybe I am some of both but I can't really think straight with the light blinding me. I groan and roll over on my bed.
No, not my bed, my bed was not this soft. I bolt up, my eyes wide as I take in my surroundings. Concrete walls as blank as the eyes of a dead rabbit and two little lights on night stands. Not my room, definitely not. Then I remember the nights events and I let myself fall back on to the bed, to tired to get up. The throbbing in my chest intensifies but I realize that I did not have nightmares while I was sleeping and this alone distracts me.
Well, maybe it is the guilt that has distracted me because it crashes over me and drowns me in its bitterness. It might have been because I was with Finnick last night, warm in his embrace. Or it might have been the fact that I had no nightmares for the first time since Peeta's death, My chest throbs at the though of it, and that was based solely on the fact I had fallen and probably slept the entire night with Finnick.
The door opened slowly, snapping me back into the real world. I burrow deeper under the covers, afraid of what people might think finding if they found me in Finnick's bed so soon after Peeta's death.
"Katniss?" I immediately match the gentle, deep voice to the sea green eyes and smiling face of Finnick and poke my head up from inside the covers to see the shining green eyes and bright white teeth smiling at me as if nothing had happened the night before. 'Because nothing did.' I think, although the guilt doesn't not leave.
The next thing that hits me is the smell of food and I realize that I am starved. My stomachs voices it's agreement and Finnick chuckles, prompting a half smile to flit across my face and disappear as fast as it had come. Finnick has seen it though because he smiles bigger and sets down a plate with a steaming bowl of soup and a few rolls of some kind in front of me. I look at him, gratitude shining in my eyes, he shrugs nonchalantly and plops himself beside me, still smiling.
"I figured you might be hungry." He says, a knowing look in his eyes.
I want to thank him for comforting me last night even though it was a completely inappropriate way of comforting. I feel the guilt crawling around in my stomach. He has Annie, no matter how crazy, as rude as that may sound, and unresponsive she is and I am still in love with Peeta, no matter how dead he is. Beside that fact there is Gale who I have no idea what to say to anymore because I have mixed feelings for him.
It's not as if I even like Finnick. It was more of a spur of the moment thing and it wasn't as if we had kissed. Unfortunately I am not comforted by that notion and instead I begin to sulk while eating my food, repeating silent apologies to both Annie and Peeta.
"Katniss?" Finnick gives me a quizzical look, obviously sensing my unhappiness.
I shake my head, not really in the mood for more sharing I case we have another spur of the moment thing and end up kissing this time.
'I'm sorry Peeta. I'm really really sorry.' I say silently, hoping that somehow he will forgive me.
"Listen...Katniss. About last night-" Finnick begins, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
He is cut off by the sound a door slamming open and my eyes travel to the tall and muscular form of Gale. He looks angry, I think. His eyes are hard and his jaw tense as he takes in my form. I realize what it must seem like, me with the blankets huddled around me while Finnick leans in towards me, looking like he was going to kiss me even though he was about to say something about last night... Had Gale heard that part? Shit. My eyes flicker from Finnick to Gale.
'Peeta, if you can hear me, I could really use some help.'
AN: Alrighty, exciting stuff in the first chapter, Aye? So, in case you were like 'Damn, Katniss is totally just gonna be like 'OMG Finnick I loves you soooooo much, I never realyy dids love Peeta but I loveeee youuuuu.' And then Finnick is like 'Lol, Katniis I has loveeee youuu since 4eva and I don't need Annie bcuz I loooooove youuuuuuu.' Well, it's not gonna go down like that. Katniss still has strong feelings for Peeta not to mention all those feelings for Gale and then to throw it all together there's the whole ' Don't want to let anybody in because I have to protect my family thing' so yeah. Expect some difficult feelings and confusion on these guys' parts.