oceandust + finnick odair

.2

        And while I hadn't intended to actually keep my promise, knowing I was headed to my death, I somehow managed to make good on it. When the hovercraft came to get me, covered in blood and drenched to the bone with cold, I could only think about Aiden. How proud he must have been of me. I'd done it for him, hadn't I? Was he the source of my resilience? My strength?

        I'd done the interviews. I played dress-up one more time for the Capitol and only thought of making it back for him. He needed his big sister home, and what kind of person would I be to deprive him of that support when I'd already survived one of the worst games to play? I could beat my sick mind. I could stay alive for him. It wasn't until I'd gotten off the train with Finnick and seen my mother, all alone on the platform with red-rimmed eyes, that I knew something was horribly wrong.

        I was tied up in guilt; guilt for wishing I'd gone ahead and ended it in the Capitol, and guilt for so deeply considering abandoning my grieving mother.

        We had a beautiful memorial. His friends from school came, and the neighbours sent food over for days as we combed through the innards of our old house and prepared to move to the new. I couldn't eat or sleep properly, and it seems my mother was so preoccupied in making sure that I did that we lost ourselves along the way of trying to remain normal.

        It was a special kind of torture. The Games continue to torment even after they're long over.

        "I've already sent one to Mags," my mother says loudly from the kitchen. There's a loud bang as the oven door slams shut, and she comes around the corner drying her hands with a dish towel. "This one's for Finnick. A little thank you."

        I stare at the cake on the table, extremely underwhelming in its presentation but still edible. There isn't any added decoration, and for a brief second, I wonder if he'd even accept it. Capitol Darling, Finnick Odair. I would have thought he was too good for basic human processes, like eating and sleeping, had I not seen him do it first hand just a month ago. "A thank you for what?"

        "For mentoring you," she says calmly, but there's a look in her eyes that feels eerily similar to taking an arrow through the heart. What she really means to say is that she's grateful that she didn't have to lose both of her children that week, and the only extenuating factor that might've kept me alive was him working the sidelines and getting me sponsors.

        "It wasn't really his choice, y'know," I tell her smartly, and she huffs in annoyance as she places a lid on top of the plastic dish, securing it into place.

        "Just take the cake and go, Reverie." She says firmly, picking it up and handing it to me. She smiles then, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of event, so I decide to not argue.

        Walking up the pathway to Finnick's house, it occurs to me then how little I'd kept in contact with him since our return to District 4. He'd seemed mentally exhausted having to relive the Games through the lives of two more unwitting teenagers, so I'd understandably kept my distance. Staring up at his big and lonely house now though, one of the many occupied in Victor's Village, I wonder if that was the best choice. He seemed kind of lonely these days. I press the doorbell and knock on the wooden door sharply.

        Finnick opens the door on my third knock, raising his eyebrows curiously as he leans against the frame. "Cake," he says observably, staring down at the Tupperware container. I shrug my shoulders.

        "My mom made it." I tell him. "So please take it, or else you'll break her heart."

        Finnick cracks a smile at that— a normal one, not his flirtatious smirk— and I have to mask my surprise at the genuity of it. "I'd break her heart if I refused?"