Mattie

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You awoke with a start, your eyes blearily darting around the dark, dimly lit room. It wasn't your room back at your home in the Victor's village of District Four right on the water, but at least not the cold, hard floor of the arena. Anywhere but the arena. The smell of burning bodies was still fresh in your mind, even though it'd only happened almost a year ago. You thought it'd be a distant memory by now, the screams, the blood, the cold, the fear. But it's worse now than it was back then. The only downside of an active imagination.

The memory of thick smoke, the feeling of not being able to get as much oxygen into your lungs as you could get out, and the memory of your skin being on fire haunted you.

You'd always been a bit of a firebug as a kid, all the way up until last year. A week after your fifteenth birthday, when you were reaped. Two days after you were put in the arena, and the entire thing was on fire. A cruel joke. No water for miles despite the arena being a thick, inexplicably thriving rainforest. Safe to say your love for fire didn't stick for long afterwards.

You could swear there was a figure in the corner of the room. The first person you killed in the arena. The rough outline of a surprisingly stocky district three boy with closely cut hair, one you didn't bother to remember his name until a day ago. Asher. The day you saw the faces of his loved ones – the face of a young girl, and two heartbroken parents all with tearstained cheeks – your heart practically being ripped out as you read off scripted lines, feeling like you killed him again.

A spear through the heart. "An impeccable shot" the Capitol had said, and you'd held true. You wish you hadn't. You can still remember the blood pool around his still corpse.

You blinked once, twice, but the figure was still there. A trick of the light, a night terror, maybe. It all felt so real, every night from the past year blending into one. Your hands shook, your vision blurred as you felt the temptation to curl in on yourself, the three G's planning to take you again; grief, guilt, and what the Capitol had labelled as "glory", but was something so, so much worse than that. Something you couldn't name but could feel – a heavy weight on your chest every time you took a breath.

Your hand worked its way into your already dishevelled hair, the tears threatening to spill like water from an over-filled dam. And then the lights came on.

The figure was gone, your watery eyes darting to the doorway, eyes dilated in fear as your hands shook. Maybe it was a peacekeeper, or maybe even Snow himself here to get the job done. To kill someone that was meant to have died long ago. Your heart clenched. You knew you'd deserve it. You'd rather be dead with the rest of them than alive to tell the tale of the nightmare that was the 66th games.

At the doorway, the threshold that barred the outside world from your room that felt more like a cage, stood a bleary, half-asleep Finnick. All fluffy bronze hair sticking up at varying angles, he looked years younger than the traumatised and used 16-year-old boy he was.

"Why're you up?" You asked, hurriedly wiping away at stray tears that broke free, rolling down your cheeks in protest.

"Heard you. Walls are thin, you can hear everything if you listen," Finnick explained, shrugging as if it was a fact, which you suppose it was by now. After going through a death match that he'd been trained for his entire life at fourteen, you'd suppose he's wired for it much like you are. "Night terrors?" Your only response was a brisk nod.

"Are you alright in here? On your own, I mean," He asked gently, and you could hear the tired empathy in his voice.

"Yeah," you mumbled quietly, before repeating yourself louder when he looked at you funny, as if he hadn't quite heard you the first time. "Yeah, I'm fine."

You weren't fine, he knew that, and you knew that. You both knew for certain he wasn't fine either, but it was easier to lie. To hide behind that façade of feigned strength like so many others had.

Although, for him to leave without a word? That definitely threw you for a loop. He'd done a lot of things over the time you'd known him, but that was unexpected. Until he wandered back in with his own thin blanket under one arm and a pillow under the other.

"What are you doing?" you asked, watching as he laid down the blanket at the foot of your bed, and setting down the pillow as if he planned to sleep there like a guard dog.

"Isn't it obvious?" he stated with a look, as if you were being intentionally dense.

"That's not what I meant," you groaned, shaking your head.

"Then what'd you mean?" Finnick asked, tilting his head as he sat down on his makeshift bed. Definitely didn't help the guard dog comparison.

"I meant— whatever, you're going to hurt yourself sleeping on the floor," you tilted your head back to look at the ceiling as you flopped back to lay down.

"And what's your genius idea?"

"I don't know! Sleep in my bed? Anything but the floor."

"Your bed?"

"Yes, my bed, idiot. Not the closet, not the non-existent windowsill. My bed."

"With you?"

"Yes, with me! Is that issue? Are you five and still think cooties are a thing?"

"No, I'm a man."

"Yeah, sure, a sixteen-year-old man. Whatever you want to tell yourself. Just get in the bed."

And with that, Finnick quickly got up and moved to sit on the edge of your bed, almost eagerly, even if he would never have admitted that, but you didn't ask. Instead, you shuffled over, making room for him, before turning to face away from him. You could practically feel him behind you, every muscle tense as he faced towards the door.

In the dark silence, you couldn't help but let your thoughts wander. Why was he still here, trying so hard to be kind to you? And then the doubts crept in. What did he want? People only stuck around if you had something they wanted. That's how the world worked, right? Besides, who would want to be near a monster like you? A murderer?

That's when your attention turned elsewhere. To the cameras that were likely discreetly hidden in the room. The cameras that had peacekeepers likely watching them. Privacy was unfortunately a luxury no one could afford, with no amount of winnings from the games, or however far you ran, the Capitol was always watching. Snow was always watching.

But Finnick was there next to you, like some kind of disturbed guard dog. You needed comfort, sure, but maybe he needed it more than you did.

Maybe you needed each other to heal. But maybe you were too tired to tell.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Made by Mattiessunflower, please don't repost and have a great Easter :)