A/n: Thank you to: julietwithnoromeo, FlyWolf, honey sweet lies, applemysteries, fina5, dubalove, lsj, Terumi Okino, Guest, HGthebest, madthesaxon, natcat, ConsistentlyRandom21, MsMacbeth10, Olivia N, Monimoo6, LoLa92, and AC! Your feedback was greatly appreciated :)
I'm twelve years old and I'm wearing lipstick for the first time.
My sister dabbed it on my lips this morning before school. She's seventeen, so she can wear it any time she wants. She loves me more than anything, she says, and I know it must be true, because my father won't let me wear lipstick yet but she let me anyway.
She finishes writing a letter over her breakfast, tapping her foot along to the radio playing softly in the background, and I stand in the hallway in front of the large mirror that always frightens Arnav at night. I stare at my reflection, leaning up close and inspecting every inch of my face like I'm looking for something in particular. I lean back when I realize there's not much to find.
I've got too many freckles to be considered pretty and my hair is far too dark for my light eyes, but looking in the mirror, I think to myself that maybe I look kind of beautiful with my lips tinted red. Nothing like my sister, who is fair haired and strong, with eyes so blue she can get any guy to do anything. But okay enough in my own right.
I carefully pull my hair up, and just like that, I am years older. I'm a grown up, and I feel strong and capable and beautiful. I feel like the girl I want to be. But when I walk out of the hallway and into the kitchen, my father makes it clear that he doesn't like that girl very much at all. Fifteen minutes later, I'm sitting on the floor in the bathroom and crying, my hair loose around me, my lips raw from scrubbing the lipstick off with a damp washcloth. My dad frowns at me from the doorway.
"What are you in such a rush to grow up for, little one?" He asks tiredly.
My heart is burning with all the words I cannot tell him, all the magnificent worlds living inside my mind. The swirling chiffon dresses grownups spin around in at parties where they sip champagne, the quiet words I see lovers whispering to each other in the park, their eyes powerful with an emotion that is a mystery to me, the right to do whatever you want whenever you want to, the ability to be whoever you want and to wear red lipstick and to pull your hair up without your father telling you you're just a little girl.
No, I can't get those words out. I can only sit in them, exhausted deep in my heart and struggling without my mother.
"I want to be beautiful, too." I finally whisper, my voice thick and my eyes lowered.
My father's eyes are sad when he stoops down in front of me.
"Flashy lipstick doesn't make you beautiful." His voice is firm, decided. "Who you are makes you beautiful."
I look up at him, and I can't understand how he is so clueless. If he were a twelve year old girl he wouldn't believe that any more than I do right now.
"I'm not pretty like Coral. Or Marlene Hempsy." I tell him. "Don't lie and say I am." He sighs heavily at that.
"Well, of course you aren't." He says, and this makes me feel like an anchor was dropped in my stomach, dragging me down through the floor. He continues. "You're pretty like Annie."
At the time, it makes me feel awful. That's the response a father gives to his odd, unsightly child, who can't quite manage to focus on reality, who is being smothered between the shadow of her sister and the expectations of herself, who hides a secret fear inside of herself, a fear that no one will ever love her the way everyone loves Cora.
His next words make it even worse.
"There is nothing great about being a grown up, little one. Stay twelve as long as you can, okay?"
I'm twelve years old and I'm hiding behind the stairs in the library.
A dusty, thick book is heavy on my thighs and I'm turning each page as quietly as I can. The pages are smooth underneath my index finger as I run it down the page, tasting each word on my tongue as I read it. I like the way there is only one way to spell each word. You can't mess it up.
DEATH – the act of dying, the end of life.
I read it over and over again until my eyes blur, but still I don't understand why it is spelled like that.
My mother has been dead for ten months and thirteen days. Today when I get home from the library, I will press the tip of my pencil to today's date on our calendar, just as I have been every day since Cora walked into our mother's bedroom and failed to shake her awake. Then I'll go into my room and open my top drawer and pull my notebook free, and use that same pencil to write: ten months and fourteen days. Why isn't she back yet?
No notices I'm counting, and I don't tell them. I am supposed to Move On. That's what the adults tell me, anyway.
I like the sound L makes most of all. There are three different definitions of the word LOVE, each different than the last. I slam the cover of the dictionary shut and think about all the variations I've seen just today, and it makes me tired. There's the kind of love I have with my friend Henry at school, there's the kind of love that families have for each other, there's the kind of love that you have for a pet, or for something beautiful like a sunset. Then there's the kind of love they write books about, the kind that keeps Cora from coming home from school when she's supposed to on Fridays. What's the real definition, anyway? What's real love, anyway? If it doesn't have a true definition, does it really exist?
I'm twenty-two and I'm lying on a blanket in the middle of the floor, feeling more beautiful and loved than I ever thought possible.
Finnick's head is resting on my stomach, and he keeps saying he's going to behave and he's just lying here to take a rest, but I can tell by the way his fingertips draw restless lines on my thigh that it's only a matter of time before that statement becomes untrue. I'm gazing at stars that aren't really there, but are shining in front of my eyes nonetheless, tidying my husband's hair with my fingers and then messing it up again.
"What are you thinking about?" He asks me, his eyes trained on the ceiling as well. The sky isn't really the sky, but it's inky and dotted with glittering stars. You can see anything in anything if you stare at it hard enough.
"All the things I know now that I wish I would have known when I was twelve." I respond. My thoughts make more sense out in the open air, where Finnick can pull them into his hands and make sense of them for me. They feel cramped and stifling inside of me.
Finnick makes a sound of interest. He turns his head to the right, his fingertips still drawing line after line into my skin, and blows gently, his warm air skating down my abdomen. I jump immediately, heat scampering over my skin and my breath catching in my throat. I don't have to lift my head to look at Finnick to know he's grinning. I swat at his head, but he knows I'm not really angry or uncomfortable, just like he knows I knew he wasn't quite of fully innocent intentions when he slid over to me.
He seems interested in what I mean, though, because he turns his head to the left a moment later. I lift up on my elbows a bit, peering down at him, and he gives me a smile so sweet I don't really know what to do with it. It's that smile and the constant upward progression of his hand and the warmth of his breath and I'm left staring blankly at him for a couple of seconds, unsure if I want to pull his lips up to where mine can reach them or press his shoulders down into the blanket that's also a beach mat.
"What kind of things?" He finally asks, and I can tell my sudden urge has not gone unnoticed by the way he asks this. Like he had a question, but he waited too long to ask it, and now he's speaking it only because the words had already begun tumbling from his lips when he realized he won't be getting a response, at least not any time soon. I reach down and push on his shoulder, and he sits up after pressing a final kiss to my stomach. I pull myself up into a sitting position and he anticipates my next move, crossing his legs and opening his arms for me, his eyes bright. I move into his lap so we're facing each other and his arms wind around me automatically, his fingertips trailing down and up my back, his eyes studying mine. I'm fumbling for words, but all I can grasp is a smile, and then his right hand is sliding down from my back and moving to the outside of my thigh instead. This has my mind stopping and starting again, and then I've got my hand on the back of his neck and I'm pressing my lips to his and this was definitely the right choice.
There are exactly three definitions for love, as reported by the dusty dictionary in the District 4 library:
One: A deep, tender affection for another person.
Two: Feelings of warm personal attachment to another person.
Three: Sexual passion and/or desire.
I'm pressed again Finnick and thinking of everything and nothing all at once as I understand that one of those definitions isn't the "true" definition of love. They're all real, and each kind of love is separate. But there is only one definition for true love, and it's some sort of combination of all three of those. That's what I have with Finnick. And it's too deep underneath my skin to pick apart, not that I would even want to. But there is no doubt in my mind that I know what I did not know at 12: true love is consuming. It has a life of its own. You can't define it using a book or capture it with red lips and dewy eyes.
I press my cheek against Finnick's as I catch my breath, suddenly overwhelmed by my own feelings and every sensation and the way I love him so much I sometimes have no control over myself at all.
Finnick's voice sounds deeper than normal when he speaks up, and per usual, he's carrying with him the trailing end of a conversation I forgot about.
"I would hope you didn't know how to do any of this when you were twelve." He says, a small smile on his face, and then my mouth is back with his. Everything is always too much, too much, too much, and this is no exception. But it's a good too much. I grip his hair and think to myself that my lips spend more time on his than they do talking in general. But then his hands are low on my back and his mouth moves to my neck and I'm glancing up and counting the stars, my lips parted and my heart racing, and I'm not thinking much at all. Cora's friend used to say that an empty head and a full heart was the key to happiness, and I never got what she meant, but perhaps now I do. For someone whose mind is more alive than reality most of the time, it's nice to feel like my body is more alive than my mind for once.
Finnick's still in the habit of asking me at least three times if I'm sure I want to each time we're teetering on the edge, gripping each and both certain that we've let this escalate to a point where the only place to go is down. I know he does it out of concern and love, and I am glad that he does, because I've yet to think about the Capitol while I'm with him but if the thoughts were to creep up, I think being asked so kindly and patiently would have them running away full speed. But sometimes, like right now, I wonder how he can even doubt that, especially considering I was the instigator this time. Although Finnick can be blamed, too. I have no words to give him, so I make a sound that at least sounds positive, and then my hands reach down between us and find that spot on Finn's stomach that makes him jump. I run my fingernails over it lightly, and that seems to seal his decision pretty quickly.
I wouldn't tell my twelve year old self this, because I love the way that I came to figure it out, but there isn't a lot in this world that's lovelier than making love with someone you love with all your heart. If the only thing I ever did for Finnick was show him that truth, I have done more than I could have hoped, because everything about this is wonderful. It's lovely to be doing something together, just the two of us, that only we can share. It's lovely to hear the quiet words that slip past lips when our minds are otherwise spinning far and wide. The guiding touch of his hand and the smoothness of his skin on mine, the way he catches his breath, his disjointed kisses and soft, desperate words, the thought-devouring physical sensations that make eyes shut and heads tip back and backs arch and toes curl and mouths gasp. The few minutes of spinning nothingness when we fall apart, bodies shaking and skin damp and lips swollen, holding each other and saying nothing because nothing has to be said at all. Especially not I love you, because that is said every time our fingertips brush each other's skin. It's wordless and simple and beautiful. And I will never do anything like this with anyone other than Finnick. I know it with a certainty I don't know anything else. Even if somehow we were to part, I would just be an Angelfish or any other creature that mates for life, because I won't love anyone else. Not ever to the emotional or mental depth that I've loved Finnick, and because of that, never to the physical depth, either. Even the thought makes my mind sick.
I'm thinking about circles and how I showed Finnick a truth that he eventually had to reteach to me, and then he's speaking, his voice breaking the air that should feel stale but doesn't. It's salty and there's a breeze, because somewhere, we are on an island. Just because it takes extra effort to see it doesn't mean it's not there.
"We're going to starve to death." He says, but he doesn't sound very upset about that. The opposite, actually. I'm confused as to what he means, but then I glance at the clock, and I realize we've missed lunch. We missed breakfast this morning, too. Slept right through it. In a way, I'm glad, because I feel like leaving this room would be disorienting. I keep forgetting I'm in 13, and if I leave this room, I'll remember again. It would be strange. Plus, it's nice to be here alone, where we can touch each other whenever we want. The same can't be said for being in public.
"Okay." I say easily, and this makes him laugh.
We're lying on our backs beside each other, observing the sky once again, and I can feel his glance the minute he turns his head to the left. I turn mine to the right and meet his eyes, and immediately I'm smiling because his eyes are overflowing with love, again.
"We will go to dinner." He says, but it sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than anything. He nods once, decidedly, and I'm biting back laughter.
"Right. Dinner." I agree, nodding my head as well.
I'm looking back up at the ceiling, my smile still in place, thinking that this is probably the longest I've gone without his hand at least in mine, when he's reaching over and trailing his fingers down my forearm absentmindedly. It's innocent and loving, but I feel a comment bursting through anyway. I turn back to look at him, and his head is still turned towards me.
"I thought you wanted to go to dinner?" I joke, glancing pointedly down at his hand.
The corners of his eyes crinkle as he grins.
"Well, we've got a while until dinner." He points out, his voice cheeky.
I close my eyes and I'm quiet for a minute or two, letting my mind imagine the sound of waves until I can hear them faintly. Then I really am on the beach, warm in the sand with Finnick's fingers caressing my arm because he can, because he's my husband, because he's here with me and that's exactly where he should be.
"We thought that about lunch, too." I mutter, and Finnick's laughter sounds much lovelier than the sea ever has or ever could. His voice is teasing when he speaks next.
"I was behaving myself, Mrs. Odair. You we—"
I sit up at that, my eyes opening and my words cutting him off.
"Yeah right!" I say, and he has to purse his lips tightly to keep from laughing, the corners of his mouth already twitching to rise into a smile.
"I was just lying with you," He says innocently. A sweet smile covers his face and I'm sure this is the same smile that he used to use as a child to get out of trouble.
I sit up and slide over to him, laughing at his sudden suspicious expression.
"Here, let me blow across your stomach and you can tell me on scale of one to ten how innocent it feels to you," I say.
We keep our eyes locked for a moment, my hand drifting over to his stomach, his expression one of forced neutrality.
He shrugs.
"Go for it. It's totally innocent." He claims casually.
I raise my eyebrows at that. I slide back a bit and then lean down over his stomach, taking extra care to let my hair brush his skin as I do because I know it drives him crazy. Sure enough, his stomach jumps a bit, but when I turn my head back to look at him he's peering nonchalantly at the ceiling, his arms folded behind his head.
I lower my lips to what I've decided is Finnick's very own Achilles Heel, and I've only pressed the briefest of kisses to his skin when he sets his hand on my back.
"Okay, that's a kiss." He tells me, but I'm grinning into his lower stomach because his voice is pulled tight.
"Oh, sorry, my mistake." I apologize quickly, and I just know he can hear the amusement in my tone.
I've barely exhaled out across his skin when his hand is on my shoulder.
"I'm going to have to go with a one." He relents, his voice tense. He lifts his hand from my shoulder and gathers my hair into his hand, pulling it over my back. I kiss him a final time and then sit back up beside him.
"Exactly." I tell him. But his smile is looking a bit wicked, so I know he's got something to add.
"But if you knew what I had been thinking of, you'd agree that what I actually did was very innocent in comparison." He winks, and his voice does that thing it does when it gets deeper and smoother, and I just know he does it on purpose.
I'm blushing wildly, my heart picking up pace again, and then I'm turning and reaching down near the bottom of the blanket and grabbing one of the pillows. I move back over to Finnick and smack him in the chest with it, and he falls into laughter immediately.
"Stop! Stop seducing me!" I yell, half joking and half kidding, "We are going to die down here because I'm never going to leave!"
I lightly bring the pillow down on him one more time, and then he rolls over suddenly, freeing himself from my line of fire. He sits up and reaches up over the edge of the bed, pulling another pillow free, and we're both laughing when he smacks it into my hip.
"It's not my fault you're beautiful!" He defends himself, and that earns him another hit in the chest.
"There you go again!" I say in pseudo exasperation.
And it isn't actually his fault that he drives me mad, because really most of the time that he does is when he's not even trying to. When he's brushing his fingers through my hair and telling me good morning, or when he's staring intently at a piece of paper, or when he's singing in the shower. But smooth-voiced suggestive comments and well-placed exhalations don't exactly help, either.
We fling the pillows around wildly for a few more moments, and then I'm pressing my hands into his shoulders and pushing him down on his back. I sit on him and confiscate his pillow, throwing it down near his feet. He's grinning as I press my index finger to the tip of his nose.
"I love you too much, that's the problem here." I tell him seriously.
He nods gravely, forcing his smile off his face.
"You should probably not do that." He tells me. I can feel the intensity of the prior moment drifting away though, leaving something softer in its wake. I touch his cheek with my fingertips and give into the smile that's creeping up on my face.
"I'll be sure to stop…starting never." I reply, and this makes a gentle smile cover his face, too. He keeps his eyes on mine as I trace over his face, remembering suddenly with strong emotion just how much I love the line of his jaw and the slope of his nose.
"We should just give into our mad desires," He finally says, his voice coming out dramatically. "Who needs food?"
"Not the King and Queen of Crazy Land," I answer.
He sets one hand on my back and one on the floor and pushes himself up into a sitting position. He takes my face into his hands and kisses my nose, which only makes my smile widen.
"Only the peasants need food," He agrees.
But when dinnertime rolls around, we're walking hand in hand to the cafeteria, accepting the fact that royalty does not equate to immortality.
We sit down at our usual table, and I'm grateful for the fact that no one else is sitting near us. My mind feels clear enough to manage a conversation with someone who isn't Finnick, but that doesn't mean I necessary want to have one. Finnick keeps a grip on my hand as we eat, and it's quiet for a while because we're both extremely hungry. I'm not even entirely sure what it is that we're eating, but everyone around us seems to be okay, so I can only hope that it's not something too odd. There is a lot though, because 13 calculates the exact number of calories each person needs and makes sure they consume that in a day and we missed breakfast and lunch, so I have to take a break halfway through. I set my spoon against the tray and lean against Finnick's arm, because it does feel odd to be so separate from him. I feel like I've been in his arms for years now, which I guess I technically have, with bursts of separation in between. In a way I suppose it's like losing a tooth: you get so used to having that tooth present that when it's gone, it throws you. Not being in Finnick's arms throws me.
I can sense that my mind is about to head down dark streets that I haven't visited in a while, because I'm starting to feel that same devastatingly terrified emptiness in my chest that I used to feel whenever I'd have nightmares of Osmium hacking away at Finnick's neck. I'm closing my eyes and repeating to myself in my mind over and over that everything is okay, with little result. A second later Finnick's arm is wrapping around my shoulders and he's kissing the top of my head and why are you scared, Annie? I don't know. I don't know.
When I finally glance up at Finnick, he looks deeply concerned. I mutter Osmium's name quietly so he'll understand what it is that's haunting me. He's told me that it's important for him to know whenever possible, because he knows that he can't always help the same way. Different nightmares require different comfort and different worries require different words. In the case of my arena, we've gotten to the point where it's best to just take my mind off it.
"What kind of things were you thinking about earlier? That you wished you would have known when you were little?" Finnick asks.
I'm back in those memories for a moment and then I'm glancing down at my knees. For some reason the words felt perfectly normal to say out loud in our compartment, but they feel strange to say out loud here where the ceiling is just the ceiling and the floor is just the floor and not everyone in the room knows me inside and out. But I've told Finnick far stranger things about myself than the woe and crises of being a preteen.
I glance back up at him, and immediately I'm wondering with a forceful curiosity what Finnick was like as a preteen. Before his Reaping, that is. I wonder how he handled being twelve without his father. He's never spoken of those years of his life before, and I always assumed it was just because eleven, twelve, and thirteen are too close to fourteen for comfort. Fourteen wasn't a good year.
I sit up straight and turn towards him.
"What were you like when you were twelve, Finn?" I ask curiously. He doesn't seem to notice or care that I've jumped topics again. He merely grins widely and runs his thumb over the back of my hand.
"Oh, I was a little shit." He tells me easily.
I immediately regret taking a sip of water, because the moment those words leave his mouth, I'm setting my drink on the table and coughing. Finnick pats my back and once I've gotten the water free from my lungs, I'm looking back up at him.
"As your wife, I think I definitely have the right to a few stories."
He lowers his hand from my back and looks thoughtfully at the table, as if he's thinking over something very important. After a moment he looks back up at me.
"Okay. But only because we're married. Finnick Odair: The Preteen Years is a very exclusive autobiography." He teases.
I put on my best sad face.
"I kind of thought that our marriage was also a free all-access pass to all things Finnick?" I question. I look down at my hands and sniff, tugging pathetically on a piece of my hair, and Finnick's hand is dropping mine for the sake of wrapping his arms around me a second later.
"First of all, you're way too good at that, so make sure to use your power sparingly. We can take down governments with that face. Secondly, you have access to any part of me any time you want, baby. Including my mind." He pulls back and winks playfully, and I'm letting the laughter I was suppressing fill the space between us. I slide back into my seat a moment later, taking Finnick's hand back in mine.
"We'll have our own empire! Just like we've always wanted." I joke. "Now I would like preteen Finnick stories."
He gives my hand a squeeze and then looks pointedly around at the rapidly emptying cafeteria.
"The stories will have to wait until we're back on our island." He tells me regrettably.
I spin around in the seat and rise, pulling Finnick up with me. He grabs both our trays.
"Don't think I'll forget, mister." I tell him, after he's dropped the trays off. He grins down at me.
"Oh, I wouldn't ever think that." He says.
"Just like you thought caressing up someone's thigh was innocent?" I ask, my voice lowered in case anyone is close enough to overhear our conversation. This comment only makes him smile more.
"Just like that!" He affirms.
I knock into his side, but I'm smiling just as much as he is.
Five minutes later we're back in the compartment. I climb up onto the bed and pull Finnick with me, and I'm almost overtly excited to hear his stories. He pats his lap and I lay my head in it, peering up at his face and smiling the minute I do. I love nothing like I love him.
It's almost like he's said those same words to me by the way his eyes smile as he pushes back my hair.
"Let's see, where to start…" He trails off, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "Oh yes! My twelfth birthday would be a good story."
His eyes find mine again, and I can't stop the smile that consumes my face. His eyes trail down my face and neck and shoulders as he begins talking.
"The first thing you need to know about me as a preteen was that you would have hated me. And I don't mean like when you said I would have hated you as I child. I mean you honestly, truly would have despised me. I was cocky, loud, ignorant, and frankly a little rude."
The words tumble forward before I can stop them.
"Opposed to what?" I challenge jokingly.
He laughs, sliding a hand underneath my shirt and caressing my skin. I fall into laughter a moment after that.
"Oh ho ho! Maybe you would have liked me after all, little miss rude!" He says.
I stick my tongue out at him. He sticks his out, too, and bends his head down like he's going to press his tongue to mine and I'm turning my head to the right and lifting my hands and pressing them to his face, pushing his head back up.
"Finnick! Gross!" I complain.
He grabs my wrists and presses a kiss to each of my palms, his laughter dying down slowly. I cautiously turn my head back so I'm looking up at him. He's looking at me like he's just discovered something wonderful, although my mind can't understand what or why.
"Never mind the fact that my tongue's probably spent almost the same amount of time in your mouth as it has in my own the past twenty four hours, but out of all the things that could have grossed you out, it's that. Tongue touching." He says with bewildered humor. I guess he does have a point there, but I never claimed to be rational.
"Tongue touching?" I demand. "Is that what that's called?"
He waves his hand in dismissal.
"Sure, tongue touching it is. We can do a whole bunch of things later and rename them so they all sound right together. The point is, that's really silly, and I love you." He leans down and kisses me, making a point to part his lips and run his tongue over my bottom lip. I merely open my mouth in response, because he didn't quite get what was gross about that, did he?
I roll my eyes at him when he lifts his head back up.
"Nice try, but I don't have a problem with your tongue. I have a problem with two tongues—both completely outside the mouth—coming in contact." I explain.
I think we both realize how ridiculous this conversation is at the same exact moment. We stare at each other oddly for a full second, and then we're choking back laughter.
"That's really weird, darling." Finnick finally tells me, his voice still affectionate.
I reach up and jab a finger into his chest.
"That's not any weirder than your feet thing!" I insist.
"What feet thing?" He questions defensively.
"The blanket feet thing!" I respond. Finnick's got this thing about being under blankets during sex. He doesn't like it that much. He's all right with it though as long as the blanket doesn't cover his feet, but if it slides down and covers his feet, you can guarantee he's throwing it off us a second later. I have no idea what it is about blankets on his feet in particular, but I think maybe the not liking blankets thing might have something to do with the Capitol. I guess maybe most of his lovers preferred to have their silk duvets covering them. Or perhaps it makes him feel suffocated and trapped, and having at least his feet free helps him keep from feeling that way.
He blinks at me in surprise.
"You noticed the blanket feet thing?" He asks.
"Of course I noticed the blanket feet thing!" I tell him. I reach my arm up and touch the edge of his jaw, imploring him with my eyes to lower his head. I kiss him once when he does, and I'm relieved when his lips curve up into a smile, because I'm suddenly worried that maybe he didn't want me to notice that.
When I lower my head back down to his lap, he looks just as happy and content as before.
"Well, I promise I will not touch your tongue with my tongue if both our tongues are out in the open." He swears.
I can't help but smile at that. I scoot up a bit and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my face into his stomach.
"Thank you." I tell him. "And I promise no blankets on your feet."
A few seconds tick by, and then I'm lying my head back in his lap and peering up at him.
"So, what did preteen Finnick do on his twelfth birthday?"
Finnick chuckles at that. He reaches down and begins to play with my hair. His voice is amused when he responds.
"Preteen Finnick got into a fight after school and spent his birthday in his bed, bloody and bruised." He tells me.
His words amuse him, but I'm suddenly and foolishly concerned for my husband twelve years ago. He glances at me and reads this on my face.
"Keep your time machine locked away, I deserved it." He assures me. "Little shit, remember?"
The problem is that I don't think I could ever think he deserved to be bloody and bruised, no matter what he did.
My thought turns out to be correct, but Finnick's assertion that he was poorly behaved turned out to be true as well. He was rowdy and headstrong, with a remarkable ego that cushioned the blow of any and all criticism that came to him by way of his mother or teachers. The adorable, mischievous child grew into a boy who harbored a deep resentment over his lack of a father and a deep-seated faith that he put in himself and himself only. But underneath that was what is underneath the shell of everyone: a desire to be loved, a yearning for the acceptance of those you care most about, a vulnerability that you're determined not to show. Finnick was tough and where he was weak, he pretended he was tougher. He brushes his fingers through my hair absently as he tells me he felt he had to be tough, because it was just him and his mother, and he loved her more than he'd let himself show (because to love is to be vulnerable, after all). He entered training three days after his twelfth birthday, a day that didn't quite go as planned when he get into a physical fight with two other boys over something Finnick referred to as "pride" but I translate to mean "a girl". He tells me exactly three stories from these years: the birthday story, the first time he drove a boat by himself, and the first and only time he cried between ages eleven and thirteen. I smile throughout his retelling of driving his mother's boat, because he gets nostalgic and content when he tells it, an easy smile on his face and his eyes far away as he tells me just how freeing it felt. I move closer and wrap my arms around his waist once more as he tells me about the only time he can remember letting himself cry at these ages. He got into a fight with his mother, because she didn't want him to volunteer but Finnick fully planned on it as soon as he turned sixteen, and he told her he hated her and slammed the door in her face. The thing is, he didn't hate her. But he couldn't get himself to apologize until he was running into her arms, fresh out of the arena and, in his words, an entirely different person.
I'm quiet for a few minutes after that, my eyes shut and my face pressed into his shirt, thinking about Finnick and how I long even now to take away pain that happened twelve years ago. My mother would say the love Finnick and I share is ridiculous and foolhardy, and I'm not sure I'd disagree with her. There can't be anything sane about the way we love each other. But I've never been one for sanity, anyway.
"So what about my all-access pass to Annie?" Finnick questions quietly a while later.
I hide a smile and sit up for the first time in what feels like hours. My head immediately spins, and sitting up was pointless, because a moment later I'm sitting right beside Finnick, my back against the headboard as his is and as his arm around my shoulders.
"What about it?" I ask him.
"I want to know what you were like, too." He clarifies, and I remember then that that's how we got on this topic in the first place.
I understand then why people don't talk about their preteen years much. It's difficult, because it's such a scattered time. Everything is twenty times as powerful, every bit of happiness and every bit of sadness, and nothing make sense at all. You almost always end up worlds different than the person you were at these ages. In my case, I'm very glad that I did come out differently.
"I was a mess." I finally say, and it's one of the most truthful things I've ever said.
He laughs softly at that.
"So I was a brat and you were a mess. We probably would have gotten along!" He says.
I laugh, too.
"I'd feel bad for our parents." I tell him.
He tightens his arm around me a few moments later, bringing my attention back to what I was saying before. I'm thinking about the two memories that were in my mind this morning as I continue.
"I was just thinking about it today because I was remembering a time when I thought no one would ever love me, and a time that I was really confused about love and what it really meant. And now I know that someone does love me, and I understand what love really means, and it's just nice to look back and know that I've figured a few things out."
His eyes are on me as he presses a kiss to the side of my face.
"It is nice." He finally says.
I don't tell him then, but the best things I've ever figured out have been things I've figured out with him.
I'm half in sleep and half out when I hear Finnick whimper in his sleep.
The sound nags at my half-conscious mind until I'm sitting up in a panic, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and blinking a few times to clear my vision. I relax when I see Finnick sound asleep beside me, safe and very much not getting his head chopped off by a boy that's been dead for five years, but then I'm uneasy once more, because I don't think I've ever heard Finnick whimper before. Ever. I've seen him cry, but I've never heard such a sad sound come from his lips.
I slide up so I'm sitting beside his pillow, my lips pulled down in a frown. I pull my side of the blanket back up over my legs, turning to the left a bit to peer at Finn. I watch him for a few moments, and I think maybe I just imagined it, but then he frowns deeply in his sleep and turns restlessly on his right side, and then his left, and when he shouts out my heart feels like it freezes for a moment. I try to tell myself to wait it out a bit before shaking him awake, because maybe the dream will resolve itself quickly, but I'm selfish because I just can't do that.
I scoot closer to him and tentatively touch his shoulder. He's on his side with his back to me now, and I don't like that I can't see his face. I give his shoulder a firm shake, and a few moments later he's gasping and sitting straight up in bed, his hands fisted around the blanket.
I watch his back rise and fall rapidly for a moment, unsure what to do because I don't know why he's upset. He used to have nightmares about the Capitol a lot, especially after my Tour, and if that's what happened I don't want to risk upsetting him somehow. I know how nightmares like that can feel now, and I remember how I jerked away from Finn the first time I had one, and I don't want a situation like that happening again.
I move down the bed so I'm sitting beside Finnick, and I'm reaching for his hand when he's suddenly got me in a hug so tight it's hard to breathe. His arms relax after a few moments and then his hands are almost frantic. He brushes my hair back and runs his hands down my back and up again, down my arms, over my hip, his fingertips shaking and my heart aching.
I'm trying to find a word to place to his panicked movements, and I never do find it, but I can place some sort of explanation to it. It's like he's checking to make sure I'm here and okay, but that doesn't make much sense because he's the one who had a bad dream, not me.
"What is it, Finn?" I finally ask, and when my voice breaks the silence, he's pressing his face against the top of my head and gripping me as tightly as he did before. I can't do much but rub my hand up and down his back and whisper over and over again that everything's okay, but it must help at least a little bit, because his grip loosens after a few minutes.
It feels like a very long time after that before he drops his arms from me. My leg has been asleep for a while now, but that seemed like the lesser of two evils. It feels like some sort of dead weight, and when I press my fingernail into my thigh, I feel absolutely nothing at all.
Finnick's quiet for a moment, peering at me, explanations perched right inside of him where I can see that they're there, but I can't read them. In the dim light he looks okay, tired, but not like he's going to cry or anything like that. I reach forward carefully and take his hand in mine.
"Are you okay?" I inquire. I lock my eyes with his so I know he won't lie to me.
When he gives me a small smile, it makes me feel infinitely better. I smile back.
"I'm fine now." He tells me, and I can't see any reason not to believe him. I look down at our joined hands and bring them to my lips, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. There is pressure inside of me and I don't want to cry, I have no reason to cry, so I'm not going to let myself. I reposition my legs instead, hoping the discomfort will take my mind off my heart.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
The question is gentle, because I don't want him to feel like he has to if he doesn't want to. Sometimes things are so dark that the only thing you can do is bury them and hope you can eventually forget. Sometimes things are so awful you can't say them out loud. I hope this isn't something that terrible, but I know those things do exist.
His hand drops from mine. He leans forward a bit and softly takes my face into his hand, and when he presses his lips to mine, I know he's really saying thank you. I hope he can't tell by my suddenly slack hands that I'm saying I didn't do anything to deserve a thank you.
When he pulls back, he hands me his explanation.
"There's not much to talk about, really. Snow came into 13. He took you again. I couldn't do anything about it. I was stuck here again like before—" He stops abruptly, like he had more to say but changed his mind about saying it. He turns his head to the left and won't meet my eyes. I lean forward and close my hands around the blanket, pulling it until it's off him, and then I set my hands on his knees. I don't know why I pulled the blanket away, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I gave up trying to understand my mind a long time ago.
I keep my hands there, wishing there was a way to pull every ounce of security from me and give it to him, because he needs it most right now. He looks back at me after a few seconds.
"It was really bad, Annie. When you were gone. The worst part was that I couldn't do anything at all to help. I knew what he was doing. I knew and all I could do was go mad over it. It was all my fault that you were suffering. I kept thinking to myself: this is the girl who put me back together again, and they're tearing her apart, and it's my fault." He stops abruptly again, most likely because his words were creeping up on hysterical near the end. I'm sick to my stomach and sick in my head and sick in my heart because the only thing worse than what they did to me is the knowledge that Finnick had to hurt, too.
I tighten my grip on his knees and look seriously at him, suddenly remembering what it was like to be seventeen with my hand fisted around his shirt, demanding that he never let the Capitol people think he's worthless. Begging for him to see himself as I do: beautiful and wonderful, the best thing there is.
"It's not your fault. Not at all. Not even a little bit. He wants you to believe that, but he's wrong, and I'm right. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, no matter what happened. He will never hurt me again, Finn." I reassure him.
Something happens inside Finnick. I couldn't tell you what, but he suddenly sits up straighter, his eyes narrowing just a little bit. His voice is decided when he replies.
"No, he won't ever hurt you again." He tells me.
I think Finnick just made me another promise.
Finnick is awake when I rise the next morning.
That never happens, so automatically I'm worried again. Worried that he had another nightmare and somehow I missed it and I wasn't there to help him, worried that he didn't sleep at all, worried about the tone of his voice when he told me Snow will never hurt me again. But when I open my eyes and peer at him, he looks like he always does. His eyes are clear and his smile is easy and radiant.
"Good morning." He tells me.
I smile and stretch my hand across the space between us, running my knuckles down his arm when I finally reach him. I'm even more reassured after that simple gesture. He's here, he's fine, we're fine.
"Morning," I say happily. I'm frowning a minute later, though, my mouth running faster than my mind for once. "Why are you way over there?"
He laughs at this, immediately sliding over and taking me into his arms. He pulls my body right against his and that's much better. My eyes shut again without my permission, and maybe we should just go back to sleep. What else is there, anyway? Why can't my life just be sleeping in his arms? Because that doesn't make sense, Annie, and it's not healthy besides. Shut up.
I'm berating the little voice in my head, my eyes still shut, when Finnick gently pushes my hair away from my ear and kisses it. The sound of the kiss fills my head for a moment, and I like it, I do. I like being here with him.
"Sometimes I wish I had a camera, because it would be a shame to forget even one detail of how you look right now." He says.
I'm thinking to myself that if we ever have children they'll be mad mad mad, because I probably look awful, but still his words leave me smiling. I slide my body closer to his and pucker my lips, too tired to go on a search for his. He complies and lowers his head down, pressing his lips to mine. When he pulls back, it leaves me feeling strange, like I'm disappointed in something, but a minute later I'm fighting through the sleepy haze and realizing I just didn't want to stop kissing him.
"Another for the road?" I ask sleepily, and after I say it I'm not really sure why I did, because I'm not going anywhere at all.
Finnick chokes back laughter and lowers his mouth to mine once again, pressing one of his slow kisses to my lips with a practiced finesse. I'm floating away then, my head in the clouds and a smile on my face.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," I tell Finnick, just in case maybe he forgot.
When he kisses me again, I know that he still remembers.
I don't wake up fully until we're in the shower, and then Finnick and I jokingly fight over the water for most of the time.
"Water hog!" I accuse, setting my hands on his back and pushing forward with all my might to move him out of the spray, but he doesn't even budge an inch. He grins down at me and makes a show of flexing his muscles.
"Natural selection says I get the water." He says smugly.
"Well I say you should have paid better attention in science class, because natural selection has nothing to do with hogging water!" I exclaim.
His arm snakes around my waist and a minute later he's pulling me back underneath the spray. I shriek immediately in surprise, but then I realize I've gotten the water like I wanted, so I turn to gloat. But suddenly I don't really feel like gloating anymore. I move my head forward a bit so the water isn't in my eyes, and Finnick's just kind of standing in front of me, his eyes trailing down my body and then back up, his lips curved up in a small smile.
I cross my arms over my chest uneasily, the echoes of the Peacekeeper's words rising from the graves Finnick dug for them.
"What?" I ask nervously.
His eyes meet mine and he shakes his head guilelessly.
"Nothing. I just love you, that's all." He answers.
His words warm me as much as the water beating down on my back. I lower my arms and smile at him, taking a step towards him. Now no one is in the spray, but I can't say I'd rather be there than in his arms.
"That's all?" I ask.
I laugh when he reaches out and pulls me against him, his hand sliding between our bodies and over my stomach. He grins at my laughter and moves both his hands to my back. His lips are wet when he presses them to mine, just like they were the first time we kissed as husband and wife.
"That's all." He affirms.
I kiss him for a while after we get out of the shower. I like the damp circles our wet heads leave on the sheets. I like the way my stomach flutters most of all. When I pull my mouth from his, my lips tingling, I hug him tightly and hope he can feel all the things he already knows in my touch.
When we break the hug, Finnick moves behind me on the bed and begins braiding and unbraiding my hair over and over again, and I'm just thinking to myself that he seems kind of nervous when he speaks up.
"I'm going to be gone for an hour today. I'm going to Command." He tells me.
I can't say I'm thrilled to hear that.
"What for?" I ask. I turn my head back to look at him, and he meets my eyes, his smile true even if it does look a little forced.
"An update on how things are going with the war. I am Soldier Odair, you know." He taps my nose as he says this, a teasing tone in his voice, but I don't like those words at all and I don't like the way they sound. I smile hollowly and turn forward, blinking rapidly and trying to sort through how I feel.
"Of course." I finally say.
He pulls the braid from my hair one final time, pressing a kiss to the back of my head when my hair is down once more. This kiss helps me to make sense of the words and thoughts flittering wildly around my brain, like butterflies locked in a glass cage. The most important thing I'm thinking is ridiculous, but I feel it all the way in my bones.
I just hope the war knows that he's my husband.