AN / Just a heads up that this chapter will be my last update before the holidays 2020 - I'll be travelling and quarantining and working so time will be limited in addition to finally seeing my family for the first time in 10 months! Happy Holidays no matter what y'all celebrate and see you in the new year with the second half of this story. To everyone that has reviewed and liked and followed and bookmarked, or anything in between, thank you for bringing a little bit of brightness to a very long year and I hope you'll come back again!
My challenge to you is to give your favourite writer/artist etc some love this December - it doesn't have to be here (though it's always appreciated!) but this year has been a tough one for productivity and creativity and I know I'm not the only one that gets that warm glowing feeling when I know someone takes 2 minutes out of their day to share their feelings on my work, to encourage more and just spread a little bit of love. If we have anything to learn from Coral Swan and her story so far, it's that anger is exhausting and isolating and often our own worst enemy and no matter how much we think someone else has it better, they've all got their own demons to face. They just might come in a different form than our own.
Much love, keep safe and see you in 2021, xo
Her bed, Mags' bed, creaked under the weight of a new body. Coral, still awake, shifted her head to stare at the newcomer. Finnick had his back to her, body poised for flight. Watching the door.
"This is the most dressed I've seen you in a long time."
He turned, a flash of a grin.
"I figured I'd remove temptation from the mix. Since I'm so irresistible and all that." Her sigh echoed through the room; the duvet pulled tighter against her chin. This bed was more opulent than the one she'd had in the merchant home growing up. Its brass headboard caught moonlight through the window. The pillows were so laden down with down that even laying she was still at enough of an angle to see the view. The moon glittered on water in the distance, and here in this impossibly huge room - Coral Swan couldn't sleep.
"Aveline once said people thought I was in love with you." Finnick's mouth opened and shut, face solemn for once in his life at the mention of Aveline. It was the first time Coral had said her name since the full extent of the story had emerged and even now it made her stomach burn with acid.
There were enemies within enemies in Four. Her father and his social climbing. Her mother and her choice of comfort over justice. Each and every person that had silently agreed to let Ford suffer alone in that arena for the sins of their father, to die at sixteen without a friend in the world. People who bribed and twisted their way to any advantage, leaving behind all notions of camaraderie and friendship and trust. Coral could see each facet of them now, but the strangest part of it was sitting beside Finnick Odair and accepting that maybe he wasn't one of them.
"People see what they want to see." Finnick spoke finally, his hands clasped between his knees.
"Like they see you. All swagger and sunshine when -," She didn't wish to say that he wasn't those things, because that would be a lie. There was a part of Finnick that primped and preened under the light of day, his anxieties masked beneath a world of suave smiles and flirtations.
"When I haven't had a full night sleep since I was fourteen. When I take a blade to my own skin in a moment of blind panic." Coral winced at the memory, tempted to correct him and say that she had been the one to separate skin from skin for him. Except truth was, she had no idea how often he had been driven to that point of desperation. How many times he'd already broken. "Sometimes, I wish I'd just died in the games. At least then I wouldn't have to live with myself."
The admission caused her breath to hitch, a burning sensation kicking off behind her eyes.
"When they called my name out at the reaping, a part of me was relieved."
Finnick twisted around, the duvet tangling beneath him as he did so.
"And now I'm here in Mag's house, and I don't have a family or my best friend and I'm going to spend all year waiting for another reaping. Then, if I even make it through after that, I'll spend every games waiting for you guys to come back. Alone." Coral stared straight ahead as tears spilled down her cheeks. Silently. Without hesitation. "What kind of life is that to live for?"
"It's not."
His Adam's apple bobbed, Finnick's face betraying the bleakness of his words.
"But we find things that help. We find people that help." Coral couldn't even imagine it. It had taken years for Aveline to wear her down and with her death went all that effort. All that love. The Wyndham's didn't want to see her anymore. She'd rejected her own parents. In a matter of days her world had been whittled down to two people she'd have once held at arm's length if given the chance. With nowhere else to go, she either had to accept it or give up. Which was the root of her problem. Coral had felt relief in that moment because it meant she would finally have a clear option for her future. Capitol pawn or dead body. Either was as likely as the other but both would require some degree of fighting and she had resigned herself to that. Fighting here, now, it felt futile. What was she fighting for?!
Coral flinched when Finnick's palm met her cheek, long fingers splayed out as he angled her head back towards him.
"I know you don't care for me. I know you don't even want to be my friend -" She opened her mouth to protest. Shut it again. It would have been too much of a lie even for her. "You don't deny me the truth Coral. You're honest in a brutal painful way and because of that I feel human again. I can be broken and vulnerable with you because I know that you won't weaponize that against me without telling me first. With you, I sleep. I don't even dream."
The blankets sank beneath the weight of him, Finnick having reached across to her side of the bed to touch her. His hand pulled back, taking with it his warmth.
Coral couldn't detect malice in his admission. Misdirection. Finnick looked utterly sincere and she hated him again for it. Her anger was a finely cultivated object within her. It had been her fuel and guiding light for so long that to see the very object of it bathed in moonlight with nothing but faith in his eyes; it made her want to throttle him.
"So maybe someday, you'll find someone that offers that for you."
It was too simple. Too easy. He spoke of trust and vulnerability as if they were straightforward to offer up. For all he might place his in her, Coral knew it was misplaced. Foolish even.
Exhaling, she met his eye and nodded. He smiled.
Coral didn't have the heart to tell him it was a lie. After all she'd learned, after all her father had done – who was she to think she deserved anything like that?
Aveline once said people thought I was in love with you.
Finnick lay with his hands clasped across his chest, listening to the soft sounds of Coral breathing beside him. He'd attempted to sleep more than once and instead his mind had circled those words over and over. Mags would nag him tomorrow for falling asleep here anyways, though he was somewhat uncertain of that eventuality. Flanagan had a tendency to surprise him, especially when it came to one Coral Swan.
Over the years since his win, Mags had become the backbone of his world. She kept him on the right track. Reminded him of the more human parts of their lives. People thought the Victors were untouchable. That they had done their duty. It was the biggest fallacy of all. Even those who shed blood just to gain a victory in the games were never truly free. For Finnick, that meant they needed to find pockets of normality. Cove found it in her wife. Medea with her husband and kids. Mags, well, Mags found it in little acts of kindness. They were ways to put each year of games to rest. To wipe them from their minds.
Finnick, right from the start, had found those pockets in Coral. The girl herself shifted in bed, sleep restless and agitated. When she rolled into his chest it was second nature to let her head fall against him. To tuck his chin against her crown. She smelled of fresh air, herbs, and the sea, a mixture of the events of their day. In sleep he saw the tension seep from her face until she was hardly more than the girl she'd been when they'd first met.
He knew she didn't recall it. She'd have mentioned it before now if she did. Finnick had the memory filed away, buffed and shining for him to examine at will. The Reaping line at age twelve and the blonde-haired girl ahead of him who had reached out and put a hand against his arm. Who leaned forward with a smile full of quiet confidence and told him, "Breathe. It's all going to be okay."
He'd never seen her before, they weren't even in the same school but in one single moment she'd grounded him. She had smiled and pressed skin to skin in the way his mother should have that morning. It was a kindness he couldn't have offered anyone else. A kindness he knew must be seldom seen in the middle of a reaping line. Finnick found himself taking a deep breath at her instruction. Returning the smile that she bore, wide and unconcerned. It was an attitude unlike any of their fellow citizens, the fear already tangible and metallic in the air. Except for this single solitary girl.
The sun turned her hair to bright gold. It made her green eyes reflect like the ocean on a cloudy day. Before he could get her name, she was gone and then so was he, shepherded to his own group without fanfare or comfort. He'd sought her out in the crowd as she'd smiled. As the look vanished from her face when the male tribute was called. Between Finnick's palpable relief and apprehension was the awareness of that girl turning pale. Of her reaching out and calling to the terrified looking boy who stalked his way to the stage amidst a sea of silence.
The next time Finnick saw her had been after Ford Swan was already dead. After the whispers had raced doorstep to doorstep, a reminder for the people to not help this one. To let him suffer. His own father had refused to partake in the monstrosity. He'd given all they had to spare and urged Finnick to never grow so jaded that he thought a child should pay for the sins of a parent. An opinion that others, evidently, didn't share. Coral hadn't attended his school before then, an old building buried deep in one of the poorer Subdivision A regions. A school with paint peeling from the walls and teachers who did their best but lacked any real support. The kind of place that when given the choice, people picked elsewhere. Except it wasn't about choice. It was about status. After her brother died, the Swans' status was in tatters. Rumour was, Delmar Swan had sunk every last penny into trying to save his son. His daughter paid the price with her education.
They'd shared a class, though he sometimes wondered if she recalled anything during that time.
The bright and confident girl who'd reached out and left a mark on him had vanished. In her place was shell shock. Confusion. For most people, the descent into anger was a quiet and personal thing. For her, it had been violent and public. There wasn't a day that passed that first year without some foolish twit opening his mouth to the girl and earning a punch in retaliation. Finnick, for his part, had done his best to intervene. To cut the trickle off at the source before it got to the girl with the too dead eyes and fire in her belly. He couldn't have said why he did it. When he'd tried to tell Mags, she had called him kind. Except Finnick hadn't been motivated out of the goodness of his heart. Coral had given him comfort in a moment when he'd been seconds from hyperventilating with fear. She'd been a lifeline.
He didn't like debts.
So, he worked it off behind the scenes. Tried to match like for like. A few moments of comfort for Coral Swan and then they would be even again. Except somewhere along the road, he'd forgotten about the tit for tat nature of debts. Finnick watched, enviously, as Coral attracted Aveline Wyndham to her. As even in her unruly animosity she had won over the prettiest and funniest girl in their school. As the teachers praised her in spite of her stubborn resistance. His curiosity only intensified. What was it about this girl that drew people in even when she proved unworthy of it?
He wasn't blind.
One moment of comfort and confidence had long since been washed away by the callous bladed words Coral wielded with glee. If she didn't verbally eviscerate their classmates, she resorted to fists. Blonde and filled to the brim with spite, Coral was the last person anyone ought to have been interested in. The last one anyone should have trusted.
Yet, when he spoke to others - he heard only praise. Quiet of course, but it was there when one knew where to look. Old Tully on the boats. Mags. Sebastian Lynch who worked out of the bakery. Elodie Short who was a few years ahead of them in school. The consensus was the same. Coral Swan wasn't soft but she was honest. At twelve, she was stubborn and pained, but also resilient. Determined. Each task she looked at, she sought to succeed at. When Aveline broke through her defences, Coral defended and supported her in every avenue.
Until his games, Finnick had been motivated by curiosity alone. After them, he wanted familiarity. As his whole life unravelled at the seams, he'd discovered one constant. The barbed wire tongue of Coral Swan. Mags peppered in truth to the rumours that spread, reminding Finnick that Coral had never knowingly participated in her father's scheme. That there was a strong likelihood she was kept in the dark. After all, how many parents willingly shared their demons with their children? His own certainly hadn't. The consensus was one discussed in quiet, an agreement among the people he surrounded himself that children didn't deserve to suffer for the sins of their parents. Maybe it was hearing his father's words reflected, or maybe it was just stupidity but from that moment - he was lost.
For every smile he received from a pretty girl that batted her lashes, a grimace from Coral was worth ten times more. She was the earth wire in the chaotic plug of a system that now made up his life. In a world now built almost solely on deception, she was a breath of fresh air.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, he'd fallen in love with her. It had been the idea of her first. The caricature he'd created in his mind of the cantankerous, stubborn girl. He'd sequestered each interaction with her inside his mind, all the flashes of anger and tight customer service smiles she was forced to offer at her mother's stall. The feelings had intensified after Aveline volunteered. As she had relayed the secret wishes and dreams that Coral wanted to fulfil. As she confirmed their suspicions about Coral's ignorance to her father's deeds. Though it had been easy to pick out Coral's obsession with Aveline, it had been harder for him to understand if it was reciprocated.
Five minutes with Aveline had answered it.
"She's just so driven you know. She never gives up. Even when she's meant to. It's why I didn't give up on her when she tried to push me away - she deserves as much dedication in return..."
He sighed. Shifted a hand to cover his eyes and bring the ghost in his memories into sharper focus. Aveline curled into a sofa in the capitol, her shape absorbing the light and energy from the room. Creating a cyclone of fear and grief that was too familiar to him.
"I know I might die but at least I can do it knowing that my life was worth something. That because she loved me even a little, I had a little piece of sunshine with me every day. You'll tell her that right? You've got to. Tell her she's sunshine and fire and oh god when you see her smile - that real one...fuck me man, but it's a million-watt bulb. She just doesn't do shit by halves and that smile, Finnick, I'd kill for that smile. I'm going to kill to get back to that smile."
He was yet to see it. Coral, until now, had held him at arm's length, but there were glimpses peeking through. A twitch at the edge of her mouth sometimes that spoke of the sun breaking through clouds. Even seeing it dimmed was enough to take his breath away. It made his chest tight. His heart race.
To hold her in his arms was something that had been unthinkable months ago. A fantasy. He'd coveted her from a distance. Knew that if he aided Aveline's return, he'd never get her. Except it would've been worth it. If Aveline had come back, he'd have earned that smile. He'd have repaid his debt.
After Aveline, he'd been selfish. Had kept pushing her. A body flung endlessly against a solid oak door until she'd given an inch. Once she'd let him that far in, he'd clung fast. Finnick wanted to say it was noble. That he'd been motivated only by the desire to let Coral know she wasn't alone. To offer her friendship and respite. Except she'd caught him in the midst of a breakdown and his resolve crumbled. Since then, he had reaped each and every shred of comfort she was willing to give. He could count the freckles on her legs. Could tell when her ankles started to ache from holding his half-asleep weight upright. He'd already died a thousand times when she tucked hair out of his eyes while she thought he slept. Finnick did the same now, brushing blonde strands from her forehead and curled them behind her ear. Let the back of his knuckles trace the curve of her cheekbone and the line of her jaw. The soft skin of the cupid's bow above her slightly parted lips.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted her to kiss him.
He wanted her to want to kiss him.
Finnick had been kissed before. Had been touched. None of those experiences made his body respond the way it did when Coral gave him a millimetre. When she let him watch her without being checked. When she stitched him back together and brushed her thumb against his bicep with all the tenderness of a lover's kiss.
He knew there was every chance he'd exaggerated things in his own mind. That the reality would pale in comparison. Except the racing of his pulse, even now, couldn't have been in his imagination. Laying there, he let his hand hover over the fist she had curled in the duvet. Not quite touching, but if she had been awake - she'd have said he was too close. An inch between their hands and he could feel the warmth of her skin. The sunshine that lingered hours later.
Finnick curled his fingers into a fist. Released it. Flipped his hand to brush the knuckle of his left index finger over hers. Coral made a noise, soft, at the back of her throat. Her grip relaxed. About to pull away he almost jumped out of his skin when she reached for his hand. Curled it into her own. Fingers slipping between fingers until they were an interlinked chain. Her skin was calloused and warm. His heart picked up pace and Finnick took a deep breath. Forced himself to be calm. To not wake her.
"Stop being weird."
Finnick spoke it firmly to himself. He hoped that by forcing it into being that it would come true. That he could just be here for her. That in the mess of their current situation, Coral might come to trust him as much as he did her. A small, selfish part of him wanted more. For the animosity that had faded to be replaced by love. By affection.
It would've been so easy then. To try to press his lips to hers and see what came of it. Except that he knew, no matter what, Coral would have to be the instigator. Anything less, and he'd lose even this. Anything less, and it would never be enough.
He loved her.
Blindly.
With both eyes open.
It made no sense. It made perfect sense.
Finnick Odair was a survivor and a fighter and a fool. He had already proved that in the Games. Proved it after the games and his father. Yet, he liked to think that it was a positive thing, to still be willing to walk into flames with absolute awareness of the pain that might be waiting for him. Without letting fear hold him back.
He hoped - he hoped - that he was right. Coral's grip tightened against his own and Finnick let his eyes drift shut. Let her slow inhales and exhales wring the tension from his limbs. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.