Chapter Text
A week of anticipation, festivities, and celebration for the Capitol, was a week of anxiety, tears muffled into pillows, and wishing to be somewhere else for you.
The week leading up to the 72nd Hunger Games.
The Reaping, Opening Ceremony, and the three days of training that followed were mostly a blur. Your body picked up on the techniques you would need to survive, and with the help of Finnick, you’d managed to commit them to memory. You remembered the way you’d been trained to sit and talk and the jokes you should slip into conversation with Caesar tomorrow night.
All of their training was working, and Finnick had told you that you had a high chance of making it out of that area. A high chance . Nothing was guaranteed at this point in your life. Which is why you needed to do a few final things.
The door to your bedroom slides open. You lift your head from the pillow and squint. There’s a little light coming from the hallway, and it backlit the figure. But even without it, you would know who was coming to see you. The only person who’d been coming to see you since the arrival at the Tribute Center.
“Hey, Finn,” you mumble, resting your head back against the pillow that’s always cool.
Finnick takes a few steps into your room, stopping to flick a switch that only turns on the lamps beside your bed, and the two ambient ones in the corners.
“Hey, sweetheart,” his voice is raspy, as if he’s tired, but not to the point of already greeting sleep. It’s a little later than it should be, you were recommended to have gone to sleep two hours ago but you couldn’t . There was too much going on in your head, too many unsaid words and undone actions. You couldn’t sleep with your consciousness this awake.
Finnick voices the matter. “Can’t sleep, can you?”
You shake your head, deciding to sit up a little, your bare lower half still secure underneath the thick comforter. Your room was always cold, and the silk sheets mirrored the temperature. Physically, you were the most comfortable you’d ever been, wearing the softest cotton undergarments, and a silk button up nightshirt, your toes warm beneath fuzzy socks. But the weight on your mind was the complete opposite.
With the way Finnick looks at your face, he can tell just how exhausted you are.
“Want something to help with that?” He asks as he sits at the edge of the bed, close but entirely too far from you. “A drink? Pills? The Capitol has it all, you know.” The way he says it is the opposite of marveling, the words laced with annoyance and frustration. His tone prompts a small smile from you.
“‘M okay. I trust my body to do what it’s supposed to.” Finnick’s head is turned down, but you see the way the corner of his lip curls up.
He lifts his head to fully smile at you, one of sympathy and pity and sadness . His hand reaches out and his palm rests over the outline of your shin. Far too many layers are between the bare skin on both of you, but you don’t say so. You just give Finnick an equally sad smile, expressing your dismay for your situation, and you begin to pick at your nails in your lap.
“What’re you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Finnick shakes his head. “No such luck for me either.” He shrugs as if he’s used to it and you remember that he’s been in this position too. Just a few years ago, a young boy, your best friend, was sitting in this bed, with similar thoughts weighing on his mind. And now his best friend was in that position.
You push the sheets back, exposing the beginnings of the skin on your thigh, and you pat the space beside you. “C’mon,” you encourage, not ceasing your patting until Finnick scoffs and slides his slippers off, crawling up to slip under the covers with you.
The bed is larger than you’d ever seen, something your escort called a ‘bed fit for a king’, but Finnick chooses to sit right beside you, the heat of his body warming yours.
“We could watch something. What plays on the television in the Capitol?” Finnick’s sitting so close to you that you can feel him shrug. Whenever you reach over to the bedside table, pulling the drawer open to grab the remote, you come back to sit even closer to him, where your arms are pressed flush against each other.
“Mostly shows about the lives of celebrities here.”
You gasp, turning to face him. “Is that rumor about you appearing on some reality show true?” Finnick’s ears redden and that’s enough confirmation that you need. Your head throws back with a hearty laugh, and you click on the TV with hopes of finding an episode.
Finnick sits quietly beside you as you click through the channels, reading the titles and watching maybe a second or two of content before you decide to try the next thing. When you’ve gone through most channels, you land on the one that will play the Games.
He says your name, as a warning perhaps, but you click it anyway, seeing that they’re talking about you .
“Now the odds of this one making it out are pretty high . She’s pretty, smart, and trained by the Finnick Odair,” a clip of you and Finnick appears, one that must’ve been taken backstage during the Opening Ceremony. He’s standing close to you, crouched down just enough to meet your eye level. You’re obviously nervous, and he’s obviously attempting to soothe those nerves, cracking jokes with a hand held to your heart, both of yours over it. “The Capitol’s Prince.” The announcer pronounces those words clearly, enunciated, making sure every late night viewer understands Finnick’s alternate title.
Clips of Finnick throughout the years show and you grow silent, watching how he commands a room better than you ever could.
“If she were to make it out, I’m sure she could become the Capitol’s Princess, right?” The announcer smiles just as the remote is snatched from your hands and the TV is clicked off, ridding the bedroom of the colorful hues and leaving you and Finnick with the yellow light from your lamps.
“Why did you–?” Finnick’s interrupting. He’s thrown the remote to the side of him and he’s turned to face you.
“I want you to make it out of the Games, I really do.” You nod, watching the way his chest rises and falls with breaths that fill the hesitant silence. “But, I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you .”
“What do you mean? You don’t want me to be loved and adored by the Capitol?” You say it a tad bit sarcastically, but your tone dulls down when you notice how serious his face is.
He shakes his head. “No, I really don't.” You scoff, beginning to get upset over the idea that a night that was turning peaceful, began to turn on its head. “Because everything comes with a price here,” he says your name, making sure you’re listening. “The ‘love’ the Capitol has for me is ingenuine, they love me like I’m an object. Not a person with thoughts and feelings.”
“Finnick, I don’t think I understand.” But you do, you really do.
He tells you as much, that same sad smile from earlier on his lips.
Before you can speak, he does. “Look, I came in here to ask you what you want.”
Your eyebrows furrow.
“Before the Tributes I mentor get sent off, I like to fulfill their wish. In case they don’t…”
“In case they don’t make it back.” He nods. “So a dying wish?” Another nod.
“So, what d’you want?”
You know what you want. You’ve wanted it since you were a teenager, watching Finnick, the most loved victor, leave for the Capitol and come back weeks later. Since you watched him train Annie Cresta and everyone, including yourself, believed there to have been something between them. Since he walked into your room just 20 minutes ago.
“What I want, I don’t think I can ask you for.” You speak low, your voice a whisper. Your head rests on the headboard behind you, turned to face Finnicks.
He shakes his head gently. “I have connections. I can guarantee almost anything.”
“No, Finn.” You don’t think you can ask him for this. Especially with what he’s essentially just told you. It would be selfish, it would be insincere, it would ruin the friendship you have between you two.
“I can’t.”
His head’s already facing yours, and he brings one of his hands up to cup your cheek, his thumb caressing the skin.
“Yes, you can.”
“No, Finn, I can’t .” Your eyes sting, as does your nose, and you know there’s no use in pretending the tears aren’t there. He’s seen them, he’s acknowledged them by swiping his thumb under your eye, catching the first drop.
“I would do anything for you. Just say the word.”
You search his eyes, his face, the tip of his ears, his Adam’s Apple. You’re looking for his tell. But it’s not there. It’s just Finnick. Your Finnick. And he wants the best for you.
You’re the most vulnerable you’ve ever been at this moment; sitting in a bed in the Tribute Center, just two days out from the Hunger Games, a period of uncertainty that is life or death; your best friend, and unrequited crush, as your mentor, having to hold your pieces together at least until the end of this.
There’s no point in hiding anything. You know you need to lay it all out. So you do.
“Even take my virginity?”
The air is still. Stiff. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t breathe. His thumb halts. He doesn’t blink.
You sit there, watching him, holding in the sob that threatens to wrack across your body.
“Forget it. I’m sor–”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
There’s a moment where you don’t act. A moment where disbelief trickles down your body like the tears from your eyes do on your face.
“ Finn …”
“I would do anything for you. I have wanted you since we were young, but I thought…”
“Doesn’t matter what you thought then. Not anymore. We go from here now.”
And there is the nagging possibility that all of this could be because of your potential fate. Maybe he’s humoring you, or letting you in on that final step of human intimacy before your life ends. You prefer not to think about it. Especially whenever Finnick’s moving closer to you and you can feel his breath on your lips.
Your lips are almost touching, the tanned skin of his face is right in front of you, the same goes for the pink of his lips. He’s almost there, then he says, “Are you sure?”
“‘M sure.” And Finnick is kissing you. Finnick Odair is finally kissing you.
He kisses you softly, sweetly, with precision and a gentle nature. As if he’s afraid that he’ll do something wrong and hurt you.
You kiss him back in a similar fashion, just with added timidness that Finnick doesn’t possess.
Your hands raise slowly, in choppy motions that are both due to your uncertainty, and the distraction of finally having the man of your dreams kiss you like you’re made of porcelain. But you manage to get your hands to Finnicks torso, palms pressed flat against his thin shirt so that you can feel the abs along his torso.
You’ve felt them before, in time of play fighting, or whenever he would have you replicate his breathing or form. But touching along his torso in this circumstance is different. Now, your touch ignites a fire within you. It makes Finnick grip the back of your neck and pull you closer with one hand, the other sliding the covers away and hooking his hand at the back of your thigh, pulling your left leg over your right.
Your hands slide down to the hem of his shirt, slowly starting to slide it up until he gets the hint and pulls away just enough for you to slide the shirt between you two, up and over his head. Then he’s back on you.
When you sigh blissfully into his mouth, he starts to kiss you like he’s desperate to have you close. Like he wants to engulf your entire being until you’re intertwined.
The best you can do is physically move closer to him, letting the hand on the back of your thigh guide you to straddling his lap.
It’s then that Finnick pulls away from you. Your hands trail up to cup his cheeks, moving back to play with the golden blonde locks that seemed to never be out of place.
He stares up at you, sea-green eyes pulling you even further into a state of enchantment. Whenever he tilts his head, eyes stuck on you, and kisses into your palm, you melt. His hand lifts to gently circle around your wrist, nimble fingers rubbing little circles into the skin.
After a few moments of comfortable silence, Finnick speaks. “I need you to remember that even if I’m doing the work, you set the pace. You tell me what you like and don’t like. You tell me when to go and when to stop. Okay?”
“Okay.”
And then you’re back at it. His hands circle around to your lower back, pushing into the curvature to bring your chest closer to him. He uses the position to his advantage, dipping his head to kiss at the exposed bits of your skin; your neck, collarbone, the starts of your cleavage. He quickly becomes frustrated with the lack of skin, and you bite back a smile as you gently nudge his head back and begin to undo the buttons.
He watches you in a trance-like state with a look that seems akin to awe . You can’t help but tease him just a bit, shifting in your position atop his crotch and slowing your work on the buttons.
Finnick groans and his hands leave your lower back to push your own hands away, deciding to undo your buttons himself, grumbling something under his breath about you being a tease.
When you giggle above him, Finnick has you pushed onto your back in what seems like the blink of an eye. Really, it did happen quick, but your eyes were already closed from giggling so hard, so reopening them to Finnick above you, your shirt opened and your barely confined tits in Finnick’s eyeline, is disorienting.
“ Jesus , look at you,” Finnick mumbles. And he is. His eyes are hungirly skirting over your figure, taking it all in. From your eyes, to the bra that you wear, all the way to the cotton panties that hug your hips.
His gaze stops at your lower half for a while, watching your stomach rise and fall with your breaths and the way there’s definitely a little wet patch on your panties.
“What am I gonna do with you?” He mumbles under his breath. The question is rhetorical, and meant only for him. But, in a fit of nerves, you answer anyway, needing to do something other than lay there.
“I don’t know, Finn, there’s a lot that you can do. You can go down on me, give me your fingers, your cock .”
His eyes lift to yours, shock evident within them. “Did you just say the word ‘cock’?” He laughs between the words, that perfectly pearly white smile greeting you.
“Yeah,” you say, laughing through the syllables too.
Finnick shakes his head with that smile still present.
He swears under his breath but then his fingers are playing with the hem of your panties and you’re back under, focused on what he could possibly plan to do next. He hums, eyes on you, eyebrows raised.
It takes you a second to realize what his intentions were, but you do soon enough. “Keep going. Please.”
The tips of his fingers reach below the band of your panties. He begins to pull them down, just until your hip bones and the start of your mound becomes visible. At first, you disgraced the Capitols groomers' work of ridding your entire body of hair, but you can’t help but feel a little grateful that they did. You knew that Finnick wouldn’t care either way.
You lift your hips, letting Finnick pull your panties over the curve of your ass. When they sit at the halfway point of your thighs, he lowers his head and presses his lips to the area right above the waistband. And he continues to do so, sliding your underwear down and kissing through the journey.
The last kiss he gives you is on the arch of your foot, right before he guides the garment over the remaining part of your body, throwing them off to the side of the bed.
Finnick sits back on his heels then, just looking at you, looking at your legs which are just almost crossed at the knee, your ankles together and one knee raised slightly above the other. You’re shielding the most vulnerable part of you, hiding it almost. But when his green eyes meet your center, briefly meeting your eyes, you slowly part your legs, allowing him to see you in all of your glory.
Finnick sucks in a sharp breath of air, his chest rising with it. He doesn’t let it out until your legs are completely opened and bent at the knee, inviting him in. You sit halfway up on your elbows, watching him, waiting for him.
It’s not long until he makes a move, just a few tense moments and then Finnick’s kicked into action.
His calloused hands on your knees, sliding around to the back of your thighs as he lays on his stomach, directly facing your cunt.
When he speaks, you can feel his breath on you. “I wanna taste you, sweetheart. Just for a bit. Is that alright?”
His eyes are visible over your mound, but they’re not focused on you just this once. They’re focused on your cunt, scanning it, taking it all in almost as if he’s committing this moment to his very strong memory.
You’re a little starstruck, reckoning with the notion that Finnick wants to give you head. Therefore, you sit there in stunned silence, attempting to find the words to deliver your over enthusiastic agreement. But Finnick takes your silence negatively.
“You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to, honey. Just wanna make you feel good. That’s what I’m here for.” And there are those eyes again. They’re pleading, but also making you feel comfortable, reminding you that you’re in charge.
You smile gently, nodding. “Yes.”
And the first lick has your head spinning. His tongue is warm, and wet, and he licks a long stripe from your leaking entrance to your clit. It’s slow, and methodical. He licks your juices up, but they’re coming back tenfold by the time he’s pressed a kiss to your clit.
A surprised moan pushes up your throat. The feeling has your hips pushing into his face on their own accord, your elbows slipping out from under you and your head throwing back onto the mattress.
Finnick disconnects from you for just a second to let out a pleased groan, but the absence is too much for you already. You’re wiggling your hips, searching for him.
Finnick laughs and the sound has heat rising through you. “‘M still here. Not leaving this pussy anytime soon.”
He lives up to his promise immediately. His mouth’s back on you, licking and sucking on your most sensitive parts.
It’s now that you remember how experienced Finnick is. How knowledgeable he is about the general spots of someone’s body. And he’s able to apply that knowledge to your body, with the help of your zealous responses.
You’re moaning, your back arching, your hands gripping the sheets. Your knees bend more, your legs spread more, it’s all more and more and more. You want more from Finnick. You need more.
You’re communicating that fact when you finally have enough courage to fist a hand into Finnick’s hair, and it’s like he’s rewarding you when he slyly begins to probe a finger at your tight entrance.
You’re clenched, far from relaxed, but with a deep breath, you’re loose enough for him to slide in to the first knuckle, then the second, then all the way, his single digit comfortable within your walls.
Finnick fucks you with his finger, aiding the penetration with his pretty pink lips around your pink nub. He sucks, the pressure making your head spin, your consciousness in the clouds to the point where you don’t notice another of Finnick’s deft fingers teasing your entrance.
“Another?” he asks, voice barely able to be heard due to his proximity to your cunt.
“Uh-huh,” is all the affirmation you can give.
It’s a little tight and uncomfortable at first, but once his digits are evened out and curling in you, and his tongue is lapping up your juices like it’s water, you’re riding so high in a blissed out state that discomfort is the last thing on your mind.
Your approaching orgasm becomes known to you quicker than you can anticipate. It’s like all of a sudden there’s tension in your lower abdomen, begging for your attention, begging to be released.
“Finnick, Finn ,” he hums, not stopping any of his ministrations. “‘M so close. Almost there.”
You hadn’t thought it to be possible but Finnick gives you more. His fingers fuck you faster and harder, his cheeks hollow as he alternates between sucking along your nerves and stroking his tongue is the areas that you’re most sensitive.
It feels so fucking good , a pleasure you’d never experienced in your life. You couldn’t imagine being in this position with anyone other than your best friend, someone you trusted with your entire being. It’s as if he knows your body better than you do, because sooner than you would’ve liked, your back is arching and your legs are lifting off the bed and your nails are digging into Finnick’s scalp, all signs that your orgasm is right there and you cum with a loud cry that melts into breathy moans.
Finnick pulls his fingers out of your cunt but his mouth stays on you, placing gentle kisses and kitten licks along the slicked area. When your legs have lowered and your breath has evened out, he pulls his head away from you, a wince leaving his lips.
“Darling,” he starts, receiving an affirmative hum in response. “You’re pulling my hair out.”
“Oh, shit , sorry.” Your hand lets go of his hair, your body burning with embarrassment. But Finnick’s bright laugh and content smile soothes you.
“‘S okay,” he mumbles as he leans up and presses a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. Your lips mold to his like they were created for each other, and the kiss is slow, methodical, loving.
You whine when he pulls away, but his hands have already hooked under your thighs and he’s pulling you with him as he starts to sit back.
You end up in the position you started in, sitting on Finnick’s lap, your hands on his shoulders.
Under you, you can feel his bulge confined in his pants. You shift a little over it, your throat beating with your heart rate due to the anticipation.
Finnick’s eyes close softly and his head throws back. Your hand rises to push back the bangs of his hair which lay on his forehead, in favor of resting your skin against his.
“Sweetheart,” he groans. “We …. We can’t.”
Your heart drops.
“Huh?”
“I wanna feel you, sweetheart, I swear.” His eyes open to stare at yours and you notice the sincerity in them. It doesn’t do much to lift your spirits, though. “But we can’t. Not yet.”
Your eyebrows furrow, waiting for further explanation. It comes from him quickly.
“I need you in your right mind in the Games. You need to be focused, and only thinking about survival. Nothing else .”
“You’re so full of yourself.”
He chuckles. “Maybe. But we have to play it safe.” A beat. “You trust me, right?”
And you do. Wholeheartedly.