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Orange and yellow and blazing gold dance frenetically, licking up into the chimney. Deeper orange and red smolder beneath, waiting to reignite and add to the light and heat that keeps the cold at bay. The wind moans and occasionally howls around the eaves, rattling the windows in their frames and causing the flames to gutter, accompanied by the scattershot of sleet on glass.
In spite of the heat from the fire, Annie shivers and Finnick tightens his arms around her. Her hands feel like ice when she pushes them into the arms of his sweater, closing her fingers around his wrists, and it’s his turn to shiver.
“I knew it,” he murmurs against her neck. A log drops, its base burned away, sending sparks up the chimney, bright flecks of blazing orange and gold.
“And just what do you know?” Her voice is soft.
“You’re some kind of heat leaching mutt.” She snorts and jabs an elbow into his ribs. “Hey!”
“My hands were cold.”
“No kidding.” He leans back against the couch and shifts his legs to get more comfortable. Annie’s hands are warmer now, and she pulls her right from his sleeve to reach up and curve it around his cheek.
“You love me,” she whispers, smiling up at him.
“I do.” He shifts again so that he can lean down and brush his lips over hers, but when he starts to pull away, she holds him there, turning that light kiss into something deeper. He stiffens, a frisson of almost panic sending a different kind of icy fingers dancing down his spine. This is Annie, he tells himself. She’s not going to hurt you. He forces his muscles to relax, and instead of pulling away from her, Finnick opens his mouth over hers, inviting her in.
Her warm fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, her nails scraping lightly over his skin. He doesn’t think she noticed his moment of hesitation, and he lets himself sink into her embrace, into the feel of her in his arms, the taste and scent of her. His body takes over. He shifts again and the heat of the fire warms them both from head to toe. She’s on her back, and he fits between her legs like he’s a part of her, like he’s always been a part of her and she of him, neither of them entirely whole without the other.
And yet…
Her hand slips beneath the waistband of his jeans, his underwear. Too close to the Capitol in time, if not distance, his heart begins to race, pounding in his chest harder and faster in sudden fear. A thousand insects buzz in his ears, drowning out the soft sounds of Annie’s sighs and replacing them with the guttural moans of the man he was with three days before, the woman he was with the day before that, the couple he was with a week ago. He can’t stop the whimper that escapes him, muffled against Annie’s lips. Her nails scratch his skin as she draws her hand up his spine. She sucks at his neck, curls her fingers again into his hair, tugging, pulling, bucking her hips up against his, and all he can see, all he can feel and taste and smell are those others, the ones who don’t give a fuck about him, who only want to use him, a living blowup doll whose only purpose is to get them off.
With a panicked cry, Finnick throws himself off Annie, scrambling away from her. He can barely see through sudden stinging tears. The insects keep buzzing in his brain. He sees Annie’s shocked eyes, hears her voice as she begs him to tell her what’s wrong, but it’s all twisted and tangled up with those other voices. Finding himself backed into a wall, desperate to make it stop, he slams his head against the hard surface once, twice.
“Finnick!” Strong hands grasp his head between them, preventing him from hitting the wall a third time. “Stop! Please stop.”
Eyes wide, Finnick stares at Annie. Focusing on eyes as green as his own, he reaches up, closes his fingers around her wrists. She gasps and he knows he’s squeezing too hard, his fingers digging into muscle and bone, but he can’t make himself let go, not until she gasps again. “Finnick, you’re hurting me.”
He abruptly releases her and she rocks back, away from him. He thinks she’ll leave then, leave him here alone – it’s only what he deserves, after all. He’s a fucking mess and a fucking whore and she can do so much better than him. He’s not fit to touch her. Sooner or later, the things he does, the things they do to him will taint her, too, stain her just like him and—
A sharp crack breaks the flow. Finnick’s eyes fly open – he doesn’t remember closing them – to the sight of Annie on her knees in front of him, her hands palms together in front of his face. She’d clapped them to get his attention, and it’s only then he realizes he said all those things aloud, vomiting words like bile, sour and acidic, burning everything they touch. Burning him, burning her. But she hasn’t left him. She’s still right here.
Annie lowers her hands, reaches toward him as though to caress his face but then stops, dropping both hands into her lap. There are tears in her eyes, tears that he put there. He closes his eyes again, unable to take her pain away but not wanting to see it. He leans his head back against the wall and wishes he could take it all back, everything, right back to that first kill in the arena, when he’d taken a boy’s life to save his own.
“Finnick, look at me.” Annie’s voice shakes. Reluctantly, Finnick opens his eyes. “I’m not them. What we do isn’t anything like what… what they do to you.” Her face crumples and her voice catches when she says, “Finnick, I love you. I won’t ever hurt you. Not like that. Not like anything. I love you.” She swipes at her tears impatiently, draws in a shuddering breath. “If you don’t want… well, if you don’t want me, I understand.”
“Annie.”
“Just please don’t shut me out. I don’t think I could—”
“Annie, stop.” She stops talking as though he threw a switch, and he almost laughs, though it would be a weak and brittle thing if he did. It would hurt her again, too, and he can’t do that. Leaning forward, he catches her hands and pulls her toward him.
“You’re still here.” He can barely wrap his head around that simple fact. She’s still here. He’d told her what his life was like, but now he’d slipped up, let her catch a glimpse of it for herself in all its ugliness, and yet she’s still here.
“I thought you were going to leave me, that after those things I said you would just walk out.” He raises one hand, kisses her knuckles. “You should, you know. I’m not worth—”
She pulls her hand from his and presses her fingers against his lips. “Don’t. Don’t you ever say that. You are worth everything, Finnick Odair.” Lowering her hand once more, she twines her fingers with his. “I’m not them,” she repeats. “And that isn’t you in the Capitol. None of that is real, Finnick. This” she squeezes his hands “is real. You and me. What they do to you there can’t touch you here. I won’t let it.”
“You almost make me believe that,” he whispers.
“Well, then I’ll just have to keep telling you that until you do, because you’re stuck with me, Finnick Odair. I’m not going anywhere.”
The tightness in his chest eases, the buzzing Capitol voices in his brain fall silent, and all that remains is Annie.