THG fic: "Spin Control" [13/22]
Title: Spin Control
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12
Chapter 13: A Little Glimpse At Liberty
They arrived in the district late. The Village was already covered in dark shadows when they entered it, no sign of the housekeepers long since. Muttering awkward goodbyes, they split up in front of their respective houses; Finnick climbed the stairs to his porch feeling as if his head was too light.
In the corner of his eye across the lawn, the shadow of Haymitch was fiddling with the keys on his own porch clumsily, faintly swearing to himself. It would be dark in his house, Finnick wanted to offer going in there first and turning on the lights for him. He couldn’t help but remember how Johanna had gotten one night after she’d tumbled into a club’s bathroom with a stranger of her choosing, the way that had backfired for her in a scary way, and was suddenly seriously worried all over again that he’d thrown Haymitch into some weird kind of episode or flashback. It couldn’t be true when Haymitch said he didn’t have those.
But when he drew a breath to speak, staring at his own door like an idiot, nothing came out.
There was a moment when there wasn’t any sound, not even of Haymitch’s keys.
Then Haymitch’s voice rang through the night, muffled. “’s gonna be fine, Odair. Go to bed.” Finnick knew he meant, Let’s say this never happened. Let’s act like nothing’s changed. But it had and those short words gave him a pang as if some tribute had shot an arrow right through his diaphragm; it almost surprised him when he didn’t taste blood.
Haymitch’s door fell shut too loudly and Finnick just stood there on his porch, feeling like there was nowhere he could want to go.
***
It was so obvious that he wouldn’t get an ounce of sleep that night that he didn’t even try. He just kept haunting his house, in turns settling in on his bed, leaning upright against the headboard completely unable to get any rest, or on his living room couch, watching the light fall through the windows from across the lawn, where Haymitch’s shadow sometimes trudged from room to room. He tried reading, writing letters, but failed miserably.
He waited for that certainty to settle in that there was something disgusting about him, the way it often did after seeing a client, but if it came, it was only the faintest trace, the dread of what he should be feeling more than the actual sensation.
Finnick knew he’d done an unforgivable thing with that kiss because all of Haymitch’s reaction had let him know that he had, because of their long, awkward, silent hike back to their homes that said he’d fucked up good. Haymitch thought this had been an unbelievably stupid thing to do, never mind he’d been just as eager for it as Finnick -Finnick was in the best position to know that what your body did wasn’t always what your mind wanted you to. But Finnick just couldn’t make himself feel like it had been the wrong thing to do, still filled with that stark, scary, overwhelming sense of right.
He thought he’d never stop longing to feel like that again.
It was so late at night that no sounds could be heard from the district anymore at all, when he sank down onto a chair and buried his face in his hands, sick and tired of his mind running in circles and trying to figure it all out.
Haymitch had liked what they’d done.
Finnick had liked what they’d done, and it was so much what he wanted that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t known that before. But if he had known, he still wouldn’t have expected that it would feel like this.
He just wanted to be close to Haymitch, he wanted to touch him so that Haymitch would make more of those small, involuntary sounds. And he wanted to see that expression on his face again, the one that had said he, inconceivably, wanted more of Finnick.
The craziest thing was that all the arousal he’d felt during that kiss returned along the memory, persistently, whenever he thought back to what being so close to Haymitch had been like. So he eventually took a page out of Haymitch’s book and took a shower, warming himself up after the day in the water and the hike. He got himself off under the hot spray, having to brace himself and, bizarrely, hearing himself whimper when he came, his cock scarily eager to respond. It felt nothing like sex - like sex as he knew it, at that.
It struck Finnick, abruptly, that he apparently felt attracted to men. To Haymitch, yes, but that meant, also to men, to broad shoulders and heavy frames and to chest hair, possibly. He’d hardly want for Haymitch to rather be a woman, that would have been ludicrous. Up until now, he’d vaguely have dismissed that whole train of thought; he would have supposed that he probably just felt attracted to everyone. Everyone could get him going, after all.
It still didn’t once enter his mind that this could be no more than a physical reaction, that he could be wanting anything but a whole relationship from Haymitch. This was, after all, Haymitch, who he’d always put in a special category in his mind.
There were a million different reasons why such a relationship was a terrible idea, of course. Finnick was aware of all of them. While Snow didn’t usually get involved in victor relations, as long as they happened off camera, they would still make the President angry, daring to be happy during what was supposed to be punishment. Also, Haymitch was a recovering addict and Finnick was a whore, and they were tied together uncomfortably already, for life.
Then he thought about what Mags would say and knew, without a trace of doubt, that she’d take his face in her hands and tell him they both deserved to be happy.
And just exploring the possibility of being with Haymitch made something tilt inside of Finnick, taking his breath away. It would make him happy.
If it just made Haymitch happy, too.
Clinging to that sense of freedom and choice that he’d felt in the lake, Finnick decided that he wouldn’t act like this had never happened. He didn’t want to act like this wasn’t all he wanted, he didn’t want to use this little leeway of choices in his life to tell more lies. He was resolved about it even before he’d toweled off after his shower.
It was this one amazing thing ready for the taking, if Haymitch wanted it, too, and it would just be their own damn fault - not the Capitol’s or Snow’s - if they didn’t grab it quick.
***
Finnick let himself into Haymitch’s house when the sun came up. Insecure about how they stood, he didn’t start breakfast like he might usually have, compromising on brewing some coffee to stop his anxiety. Cup in hand, so much sugar in it that he’d have to factor into his training routine the next day, he settled down at the table, listening for Haymitch moving around on the upper floor. Bedroom to bathroom, shower, bathroom to bedroom. Eventually, his heavy steps rumpled down the stairs, and he appeared in the doorway, drying hair starting to curl around his temples. He looked at Finnick, and Finnick thought he had to be appearing pretty miserable, because there had been resolve behind Haymitch’s eyes.
Then, there wasn’t anymore.
“You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?” the other man said, in a tone that suggested he felt guilty about having made that happen. Finnick shrugged, refraining from pointing out how there were tired circles around Haymitch’s eyes.
Then he looked Finnick over and seemed to realize that the plan of never speaking of it again just wouldn’t fly.
“Come on up. This ain’t the kind of conversation I’m having in this house.”
Accepting the cup of coffee Finnick pushed across the table for him with a grunt of gratitude, Haymitch waited for him to pick himself up, holding the backdoor open for him on the way out. It was in equal measures a strangely formal and a respectful gesture, filling Finnick in parts with anxiety and warmth. At least their friendship hadn’t gotten damaged. But Haymitch also had made sure not to touch him while he did it.
They trudged across the street towards Swagger’s house, where Haymitch led him to a low window in the back that tilted when Haymitch pushed at it the right way, allowing him to reach inside and open the one next to it fully.
“No need listening in on a dead man’s life,” he shortly said when Finnick raised his eyebrows at him, his knowledge undoubtedly a side benefit from acquainting with Beetee for so long. Swagger’s house, of course, would also be furnished, unlike the unused ones.
They climbed in and made their way through the ghostly old-fashioned rooms, dark-wood drawers and empty shelves covered with dust. The layout was the same as their own houses’, though, so they found the kitchen easily, sterile and empty and dusty - somebody had packed up even the cutlery to send back to the Capitol. Haymitch pulled a chair from a table that was identical to the one Finnick had been sitting at in Haymitch’s house, and took a seat, coffee cup immediately forgotten in front of him, waiting for Finnick to follow.
It struck Finnick that Haymitch hadn’t once refused to talk about his struggle with addiction and insomnia in the vicinity of listening devices, resigned to the Capitol monitoring as he was, but he refused talking about kissing Finnick where outsiders might hear.
It meant something to him, too. At least that much. Of course, it did.
But that might just be all there is.
“Let’s get this going,” Haymitch said, face tightly controlled, and Finnick took a deep breath.
“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted in a small voice, when no words would come out despite all the thinking he had done. It was too new.
Haymitch harrumphed. “I say we skip the part where you apologize.” He knew him too well. Apologizing for spooking Haymitch, at least, had been pretty high on his list of things to say first, even though he didn’t think it had been a trigger reaction anymore. Just that Haymitch had reconsidered his actions.
When Finnick just offered him an apologetic grimace, Haymitch slumped into himself and clasped his hands together while he considered his next words.
“Alright, Odair,” he said eventually, each word handpicked. “Listen here. You and me, we’re both adult men. Now what happened, it’s not like we planned it or anything, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Nothing to be ashamed of. You’re lonely here, I get that, and you’re young, and you’ve got a lot of confusing things going on in your life. And Capitol knows, so do I. So maybe you… we were acting on impulse, alright, so what. Nothing happened, and nothing’s gotta come from it. There ain’t a reason not to just go on the way things used to be. I’m not mad at you. Nothing’s changed.”
Finnick looked at him in mystification. It took a moment until those words started making sense in his head, because that wasn’t what he’d expected, it was completely off the wall. That wasn’t what it had been like. Haymitch saying these things was… it was like when children died on the screen and then Flickerman cheered and talked of scores - just a little bit surreal.
“I don’t want to forget that it happened, Haymitch,” he said, using his first name on purpose - considering that kiss, he thought, bristling, that he was entitled. “I didn’t… it wasn’t because I was lonely. I’ve never…” His breath hitched. “I didn’t just want a kiss. I want…. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know that you’d want me. I think… I feel these things for you and I want it to, I want to be with you. I do.”
“Thirteen’s smoking ashes,” Haymitch breathed, a trace of pain in his voice. He didn’t want to be having this conversation, that was obvious. He’d said the things he’d said in the hopes that Finnick would take that easy way out.
That hurt, so Finnick looked at him with a faint trace of accusation. “I didn’t have a feeling that you were that opposed to the idea yesterday.”
“Ain’t a matter of what I want,” Haymitch immediately said.
“Yeah, it is,” Finnick replied, recollecting his arguments. “It’s about what you and I want. I want to kiss you again, a lot. I want to, I want to try being with you in that way, I want to give that a shot. If you don’t, okay, I mean…” He tried to calm himself. “I mean, I’ll deal. But it isn’t because I’m lonely.” He wet his lips before he admitted, hesitantly, “This is the first time I’ve wanted anything like this in my whole life. And I’d never even known what it was that I’d want. Now, I want… I suddenly want so many things.”
Imagining what it should feel like, being with people because he’d decided he wanted to be with them, had become harder every year. Just two years ago when he’d mentored for the first time, during that bad summer when everything had felt impossible, he’d threatened to cry every time he managed to picture it, and he’d tried making himself stop. He hadn’t wanted to think about that anymore. It was a stupid weakness of his, how he kept trying to imagine things, and he’d been relieved when he’d managed to stop.
That had been then.
But Haymitch was shaking his head, refusing to listen. “You’re telling yourself that. It’s just the two of us here. It’s not like you’re having a choice, there isn’t anybody else…”
“Was that what it felt like when you fell in love with Lyra? Like you had to?” Finnick asked, and just from the way Haymitch’s face darkened immediately, he knew that it hadn’t.
“Just means I know what I’m talking about, now doesn’t it?” Haymitch very carefully enunciated.
“Well, she didn’t feel like she only had one option, or she would have gone for it the second you proposed it.”
This time, Haymitch almost growled. “This definitely isn’t about Lyra, Finnick.”
“What is this about then?” Finnick asked, more nervous by the minute, so nervous that it verged on anger. A small voice in his head kept insisting that Haymitch hadn’t yet so much as implied that he wouldn’t want Finnick back. But Finnick needed him to say that, he needed him to make a statement about it either way, either say yes or squelch that stupid hope. Everybody wanted Finnick, but it was so hard to believe that anybody would want Finnick. “Is it so hard to believe that I could feel attracted to you? You’re one of the best people I know. You’re amazing and strong…”
“This is getting ridiculous,” Haymitch announced and got up from his chair.
Then he moved to stand at the dusty, empty kitchen counter, leaning onto it hard with tense shoulders, presenting his back to Finnick, like he’d done before when things got hard to bear.
“You could at least look at me,” Finnick said softly, then bit his lip.
But Haymitch turned around again immediately, hands grasping the counter on both sides with tense muscles, obeying his plea before he could have consciously thought it through - unable to not give what Finnick had asked.
He spoke on vehemently, not allowing Finnick to add anything more on the matter of Haymitch Abernathy’s desirability.
“If you think…” He stopped himself and started anew, strained. “Odair. Finnick. This isn’t… You just got confused, alright? I know what you’re going through with what Snow makes you do in the Capitol, trust me. Acted like I didn’t really, I know, but it happened to me, too, for a stretch. I know what that’s like. There’s a lot you’re going through, a lot of crazy shit that you can’t keep apart anymore, but this isn’t the answer you’re looking for. This isn’t the way to some private rebellion, if that’s what you think. I can’t go and help you make yourself even unhappier, you can’t ask that of me. What with how your family is relying on me now, I’m already playing a big enough part in that as is.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Finnick said before he could stop himself, a mix of a little exasperation and a strong edge of hurt.
It looked like Haymitch had trouble forming the words, his jaw too stiff to get them out. “This only is what you think you want, Finnick.”
“Why? How do you know that?” Finnick demanded. Too anxious to sit, he got up himself, taking two steps away from the table just to freeze in the middle of the empty kitchen when he didn’t know where he even was going with that - if he wanted to get closer to Haymitch or the opposite, seek safety from a distance - crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest and turning to look at Haymitch. “You think I’m that big a Capitol slut that I don’t know the difference anymore? That I’ll just do it with anybody like some sort of default, because I like it so much? Is that what you think?”
Haymitch had physically flinched. “’Course not. Shit. Don’t call yourself that, fuck.” A beat. “I think… I think you’ve probably got some sense of obligation to keep me going, or something like that. I don’t know, fuck.”
“So my only way of keeping you healthy is talking you into fucking me, since I’ve proven so incapable of doing it just as your friend?” If Finnick’s arms weren’t locked in the position he’d put them, tight around his chest, he thought he might have actually thrown them in the air, or punched something, which he’d never wanted to do before outside the arena. “Cut me some slack here.” His voice could have sliced bread. “I’m not talking about getting off. I’m fucking scared of…” His breath hitched, but he barged on through. “I’m not even sure about that part, I think, but that’s a shitty reason to stop wanting things.”
Haymitch’s whole body tensed further against the counter, making it clear how much he hated conceding the point. He thought too well of Finnick not to, though, Finnick knew that. It would never even occur to Haymitch to assume something bad about him, to look at him like the slut he’d become. That was one of the reasons Finnick felt so damn attracted to him, probably, because he was addicted to the version of himself that Haymitch had built in his head. He wanted to believe that there was a little truth in it.
“You know what,” Finnick said restlessly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is all just because it’s only the two of us living here. Maybe if we had a lot of other people here every day, people who’ll talk to us, I wouldn’t spend so much time with you and I wouldn’t feel for you the way I do. But if that’s true, I don’t even care,” he managed. “It makes me feel happy, I don’t care why.
“I want to keep feeling like this,” he added, helplessly. “Please tell me if you’re just trying to say that you’re not… you’re not interested in me that way.” His voice broke. Even to his ears, the line sounded like something out of a bad novel, terrible overused, and it shocked him how much it still felt like it was cracking him open. “I’d understand. It’s not like I’d want me.”
“Oh for the love…” Haymitch managed, then hit the counter with one angry balled fist as if casting for a way of making something inside of him stop.
Finnick pressed his lips together, looking at him.
“Listen, Finnick,” Haymitch managed and paused, visibly fighting for words.
“Just bring it on,” Finnick goaded him, as if this was the arena and Haymitch his opponent during Final Battle, trident versus knives.
Haymitch swore again.
“You’re a regular font of stupidity sometimes, you know that?”
Finnick chuckled darkly, because that really, really wasn’t enough.
“I’m a waste, okay, Odair?” Haymitch said it like there was no room for arguments on that front at least. “I’m an addict. I’ll always be an addict. I can’t sleep without a fucking bed lamp, and I mean, look at me for just a fucking second here. You deserve somebody better than that, at the very least somebody your age. It’s just a matter of time until I do something unbelievably idiotic again and then I’ll be gone, and hopefully it’ll just be me and a couple more tributes who’ll be fucked.”
“Like I would let you! I’m not going anywhere, that’s not going to happen!” Now Finnick was in motion after all, pushing his hair out of his forehead and casting around the kitchen, although those were just the empty shelves of a dead man, who, unlike them, couldn’t change his miserable life anymore.
Maybe Swagger March had killed himself when everything became too hard to bear, but Finnick refused to believe that the two of them would ever be anything like that. He wouldn’t allow Haymitch to believe it, and for that to happen, he also couldn’t let himself.
“Alright, you’re an addict,” he agreed, forcing a measured tone of voice. “And I’m a whore. And who gives a fuck how we deal. You understand what my life is like. All the other people don’t. I want you, not somebody else, I want you to want me back.”
Breathing hard, he added to the side, “Not that you’d tell me if you did.”
“I want you so much I can’t fucking breathe, Odair,” Haymitch ground out.
His mouth dried out.
Everything around him jerked once, abruptly, then settled back into a slightly different position that it had been in before.
Something inside Finnick’s chest relaxed, as if it had just become so much easier to breathe, but it also viciously shook up his balance.
Having something he wanted right in front of him, something that he could have, getting that thing too - it was too overwhelming to grasp. Not some idealized fairytale idea of true love from a novel or fantasy, some vague thing, but this particular man in front of him, exactly the way he was, grumpy sarcasm and all.
Finnick slumped down on his chair at the kitchen table, so hard that its joints creaked ominously under his weight, scratching across the floor.
On the other side of the room, Haymitch was sitting down on his own chair again, gingerly, looking lost, the fight draining out of both of them now that they’d… that they’d both of them won, Finnick supposed.
Or he hoped so, anyway.
He tried to think.
He hadn’t been very good at that since yesterday.
“Not really sure where to go from here,” he admitted, rubbing his face and laughing at himself just a little bit.
“Oh for all that’s mighty in the district,” muttered Haymitch at the same time.
Then he looked up at Finnick. “You just keep doing these things to me.” It sounded apologetic and drained.
Finnick snorted. “Like I’m having a master plan.”
They smirked at each other weakly, bonding over how bizarre all of this really was, including them sitting here in Swagger’s kitchen, discussing starting… something between them like some theoretical thing.
“What does it feel like?” Finnick added, almost curious, because he couldn’t decide for himself. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking about.
“Scary as fuck,” Haymitch replied promptly. Finnick snorted a laugh in agreement.
There still was that slight string of anxiety inside of him that could as well have been caused by the night without sleep, but Finnick had a feeling that it hadn’t been, and that it wouldn’t go anywhere soon. It wasn’t a kind of anxiety that should be there, but he also thought that it would just forever stay with him, that he’d always be nervous about wanting things, getting them, waiting for the catch. He thought he could handle it, though. He wanted to handle it, if that was the price he had to pay for all those… for those good things.
“I haven’t really thought about the mechanics,” Finnick said. He hadn’t dared, just had kept picturing that kiss, like a music player with a slack joint, stuck in a loop. “I think I’m a little messed up.” He did all kinds of things with all kinds of people all the time; it wasn’t that he couldn’t but maybe he didn’t want to do all of them and thinking about it from that angle, it left him a little confused. What did he want? How did he want to… bend, where to put his hands, where did he want Haymitch to put his hands? Shouldn’t he know these things? Normal people knew these things. Thinking about it just unsettled him more. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how… what’s it like for you, what do you want?”
“It ain’t the problem what I want,” Haymitch categorically said.
Finnick threw him a look, disbelieving about how they were covering that again.
“Alright, alright.” Haymitch threw up his hands in defense. “Red roses and fluffy pillows for the both of us it is.”
Finnick snorted another laugh.
“You’ll tell me if I do anything you don’t… anything, even if it’s small…” he started saying, because he thought maybe that scared him the most, suddenly, doing… things … with Haymitch who might decide to just hide it if something happened that he didn’t like, who might get spooked like before out of the blue. He didn’t want to hurt Haymitch, but Haymitch had a tendency to hide. And Finnick didn’t want this to be like with a client.
Still, Haymitch nodded.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “You do that, too.”
“Can I kiss you again?” Finnick asked, experimentally.
It said a million things that Haymitch didn’t have a quip for that one at hand, just saying, “Yeah.”
Nervous in almost exactly the same way he’d felt when he was fourteen and sneaked into the bank brush with Caira Mallony without a clue what would happen - and he’d never felt that particular way with any client at all - Finnick got up and walked around the table, still not entirely sure about how it would go, where to put his hands, how it would go.
“Okay if you stay put?” he heard himself say when Haymitch started getting up, so Haymitch sank back down onto the chair, glancing up at him.
“Yeah,” he said again, quietly. “Yeah, alright, that works.”
Grabbing the back of the chair with one hand and propping himself up against the table top with the other, Finnick bent down so that he hovered over Haymitch, not quite expecting that he’d want to bolt but relieved to have the option, just, that physical freedom of movement. It shouldn’t work for Haymitch on the opposite end, crowded like that, and Finnick couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that they’d been fine like that once before, but Haymitch released a breath when they kissed, a good kind of breath, just a small one. His lips again felt softer than expected. His hair was still wet.
It was different this time, more halting and less desperate but no less wonderful. It had the possibility of kissing again sprawling out in front of them. Finnick closed his eyes, neither letting go of the chair nor edging away. It was easier to focus on Haymitch like that, what he tasted like and felt like, traces of coffee, uniquely him. He could feel tension seeping out of Haymitch in abrupt little spurts, not all of it but a noticeable bit, opening his mouth to Finnick and allowing him in, tongues brushing against each other.
He still couldn’t believe how great this felt and how hard he got from it, too, just from this, even though he couldn’t remember having done something that shy and halting even before his Games, in the bank brush of Four.
He could have gone on like this without thinking any further and never stop.
Tbc.
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing with sexual trauma; rape fantasies; self-hate; canon-typical violence; minor character death (of major canon characters); implied physical abuse of children (in the Mellark household); alcoholism & drug abuse
Summary: When Haymitch Abernathy’s alcoholism makes the prime time news, Finnick Odair is sent to live in District Twelve to pick up the pieces. But it’s hard to save a friend if you can barely stand looking yourself in the eye. And it might become impossible once that friend decides to move hell and high water to bring two of his tributes home at once, even if it should cost him his own life.
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Chapter 12
Chapter 13: A Little Glimpse At Liberty
They arrived in the district late. The Village was already covered in dark shadows when they entered it, no sign of the housekeepers long since. Muttering awkward goodbyes, they split up in front of their respective houses; Finnick climbed the stairs to his porch feeling as if his head was too light.
In the corner of his eye across the lawn, the shadow of Haymitch was fiddling with the keys on his own porch clumsily, faintly swearing to himself. It would be dark in his house, Finnick wanted to offer going in there first and turning on the lights for him. He couldn’t help but remember how Johanna had gotten one night after she’d tumbled into a club’s bathroom with a stranger of her choosing, the way that had backfired for her in a scary way, and was suddenly seriously worried all over again that he’d thrown Haymitch into some weird kind of episode or flashback. It couldn’t be true when Haymitch said he didn’t have those.
But when he drew a breath to speak, staring at his own door like an idiot, nothing came out.
There was a moment when there wasn’t any sound, not even of Haymitch’s keys.
Then Haymitch’s voice rang through the night, muffled. “’s gonna be fine, Odair. Go to bed.” Finnick knew he meant, Let’s say this never happened. Let’s act like nothing’s changed. But it had and those short words gave him a pang as if some tribute had shot an arrow right through his diaphragm; it almost surprised him when he didn’t taste blood.
Haymitch’s door fell shut too loudly and Finnick just stood there on his porch, feeling like there was nowhere he could want to go.
***
It was so obvious that he wouldn’t get an ounce of sleep that night that he didn’t even try. He just kept haunting his house, in turns settling in on his bed, leaning upright against the headboard completely unable to get any rest, or on his living room couch, watching the light fall through the windows from across the lawn, where Haymitch’s shadow sometimes trudged from room to room. He tried reading, writing letters, but failed miserably.
He waited for that certainty to settle in that there was something disgusting about him, the way it often did after seeing a client, but if it came, it was only the faintest trace, the dread of what he should be feeling more than the actual sensation.
Finnick knew he’d done an unforgivable thing with that kiss because all of Haymitch’s reaction had let him know that he had, because of their long, awkward, silent hike back to their homes that said he’d fucked up good. Haymitch thought this had been an unbelievably stupid thing to do, never mind he’d been just as eager for it as Finnick -Finnick was in the best position to know that what your body did wasn’t always what your mind wanted you to. But Finnick just couldn’t make himself feel like it had been the wrong thing to do, still filled with that stark, scary, overwhelming sense of right.
He thought he’d never stop longing to feel like that again.
It was so late at night that no sounds could be heard from the district anymore at all, when he sank down onto a chair and buried his face in his hands, sick and tired of his mind running in circles and trying to figure it all out.
Haymitch had liked what they’d done.
Finnick had liked what they’d done, and it was so much what he wanted that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t known that before. But if he had known, he still wouldn’t have expected that it would feel like this.
He just wanted to be close to Haymitch, he wanted to touch him so that Haymitch would make more of those small, involuntary sounds. And he wanted to see that expression on his face again, the one that had said he, inconceivably, wanted more of Finnick.
The craziest thing was that all the arousal he’d felt during that kiss returned along the memory, persistently, whenever he thought back to what being so close to Haymitch had been like. So he eventually took a page out of Haymitch’s book and took a shower, warming himself up after the day in the water and the hike. He got himself off under the hot spray, having to brace himself and, bizarrely, hearing himself whimper when he came, his cock scarily eager to respond. It felt nothing like sex - like sex as he knew it, at that.
It struck Finnick, abruptly, that he apparently felt attracted to men. To Haymitch, yes, but that meant, also to men, to broad shoulders and heavy frames and to chest hair, possibly. He’d hardly want for Haymitch to rather be a woman, that would have been ludicrous. Up until now, he’d vaguely have dismissed that whole train of thought; he would have supposed that he probably just felt attracted to everyone. Everyone could get him going, after all.
It still didn’t once enter his mind that this could be no more than a physical reaction, that he could be wanting anything but a whole relationship from Haymitch. This was, after all, Haymitch, who he’d always put in a special category in his mind.
There were a million different reasons why such a relationship was a terrible idea, of course. Finnick was aware of all of them. While Snow didn’t usually get involved in victor relations, as long as they happened off camera, they would still make the President angry, daring to be happy during what was supposed to be punishment. Also, Haymitch was a recovering addict and Finnick was a whore, and they were tied together uncomfortably already, for life.
Then he thought about what Mags would say and knew, without a trace of doubt, that she’d take his face in her hands and tell him they both deserved to be happy.
And just exploring the possibility of being with Haymitch made something tilt inside of Finnick, taking his breath away. It would make him happy.
If it just made Haymitch happy, too.
Clinging to that sense of freedom and choice that he’d felt in the lake, Finnick decided that he wouldn’t act like this had never happened. He didn’t want to act like this wasn’t all he wanted, he didn’t want to use this little leeway of choices in his life to tell more lies. He was resolved about it even before he’d toweled off after his shower.
It was this one amazing thing ready for the taking, if Haymitch wanted it, too, and it would just be their own damn fault - not the Capitol’s or Snow’s - if they didn’t grab it quick.
***
Finnick let himself into Haymitch’s house when the sun came up. Insecure about how they stood, he didn’t start breakfast like he might usually have, compromising on brewing some coffee to stop his anxiety. Cup in hand, so much sugar in it that he’d have to factor into his training routine the next day, he settled down at the table, listening for Haymitch moving around on the upper floor. Bedroom to bathroom, shower, bathroom to bedroom. Eventually, his heavy steps rumpled down the stairs, and he appeared in the doorway, drying hair starting to curl around his temples. He looked at Finnick, and Finnick thought he had to be appearing pretty miserable, because there had been resolve behind Haymitch’s eyes.
Then, there wasn’t anymore.
“You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?” the other man said, in a tone that suggested he felt guilty about having made that happen. Finnick shrugged, refraining from pointing out how there were tired circles around Haymitch’s eyes.
Then he looked Finnick over and seemed to realize that the plan of never speaking of it again just wouldn’t fly.
“Come on up. This ain’t the kind of conversation I’m having in this house.”
Accepting the cup of coffee Finnick pushed across the table for him with a grunt of gratitude, Haymitch waited for him to pick himself up, holding the backdoor open for him on the way out. It was in equal measures a strangely formal and a respectful gesture, filling Finnick in parts with anxiety and warmth. At least their friendship hadn’t gotten damaged. But Haymitch also had made sure not to touch him while he did it.
They trudged across the street towards Swagger’s house, where Haymitch led him to a low window in the back that tilted when Haymitch pushed at it the right way, allowing him to reach inside and open the one next to it fully.
“No need listening in on a dead man’s life,” he shortly said when Finnick raised his eyebrows at him, his knowledge undoubtedly a side benefit from acquainting with Beetee for so long. Swagger’s house, of course, would also be furnished, unlike the unused ones.
They climbed in and made their way through the ghostly old-fashioned rooms, dark-wood drawers and empty shelves covered with dust. The layout was the same as their own houses’, though, so they found the kitchen easily, sterile and empty and dusty - somebody had packed up even the cutlery to send back to the Capitol. Haymitch pulled a chair from a table that was identical to the one Finnick had been sitting at in Haymitch’s house, and took a seat, coffee cup immediately forgotten in front of him, waiting for Finnick to follow.
It struck Finnick that Haymitch hadn’t once refused to talk about his struggle with addiction and insomnia in the vicinity of listening devices, resigned to the Capitol monitoring as he was, but he refused talking about kissing Finnick where outsiders might hear.
It meant something to him, too. At least that much. Of course, it did.
But that might just be all there is.
“Let’s get this going,” Haymitch said, face tightly controlled, and Finnick took a deep breath.
“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted in a small voice, when no words would come out despite all the thinking he had done. It was too new.
Haymitch harrumphed. “I say we skip the part where you apologize.” He knew him too well. Apologizing for spooking Haymitch, at least, had been pretty high on his list of things to say first, even though he didn’t think it had been a trigger reaction anymore. Just that Haymitch had reconsidered his actions.
When Finnick just offered him an apologetic grimace, Haymitch slumped into himself and clasped his hands together while he considered his next words.
“Alright, Odair,” he said eventually, each word handpicked. “Listen here. You and me, we’re both adult men. Now what happened, it’s not like we planned it or anything, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Nothing to be ashamed of. You’re lonely here, I get that, and you’re young, and you’ve got a lot of confusing things going on in your life. And Capitol knows, so do I. So maybe you… we were acting on impulse, alright, so what. Nothing happened, and nothing’s gotta come from it. There ain’t a reason not to just go on the way things used to be. I’m not mad at you. Nothing’s changed.”
Finnick looked at him in mystification. It took a moment until those words started making sense in his head, because that wasn’t what he’d expected, it was completely off the wall. That wasn’t what it had been like. Haymitch saying these things was… it was like when children died on the screen and then Flickerman cheered and talked of scores - just a little bit surreal.
“I don’t want to forget that it happened, Haymitch,” he said, using his first name on purpose - considering that kiss, he thought, bristling, that he was entitled. “I didn’t… it wasn’t because I was lonely. I’ve never…” His breath hitched. “I didn’t just want a kiss. I want…. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know that you’d want me. I think… I feel these things for you and I want it to, I want to be with you. I do.”
“Thirteen’s smoking ashes,” Haymitch breathed, a trace of pain in his voice. He didn’t want to be having this conversation, that was obvious. He’d said the things he’d said in the hopes that Finnick would take that easy way out.
That hurt, so Finnick looked at him with a faint trace of accusation. “I didn’t have a feeling that you were that opposed to the idea yesterday.”
“Ain’t a matter of what I want,” Haymitch immediately said.
“Yeah, it is,” Finnick replied, recollecting his arguments. “It’s about what you and I want. I want to kiss you again, a lot. I want to, I want to try being with you in that way, I want to give that a shot. If you don’t, okay, I mean…” He tried to calm himself. “I mean, I’ll deal. But it isn’t because I’m lonely.” He wet his lips before he admitted, hesitantly, “This is the first time I’ve wanted anything like this in my whole life. And I’d never even known what it was that I’d want. Now, I want… I suddenly want so many things.”
Imagining what it should feel like, being with people because he’d decided he wanted to be with them, had become harder every year. Just two years ago when he’d mentored for the first time, during that bad summer when everything had felt impossible, he’d threatened to cry every time he managed to picture it, and he’d tried making himself stop. He hadn’t wanted to think about that anymore. It was a stupid weakness of his, how he kept trying to imagine things, and he’d been relieved when he’d managed to stop.
That had been then.
But Haymitch was shaking his head, refusing to listen. “You’re telling yourself that. It’s just the two of us here. It’s not like you’re having a choice, there isn’t anybody else…”
“Was that what it felt like when you fell in love with Lyra? Like you had to?” Finnick asked, and just from the way Haymitch’s face darkened immediately, he knew that it hadn’t.
“Just means I know what I’m talking about, now doesn’t it?” Haymitch very carefully enunciated.
“Well, she didn’t feel like she only had one option, or she would have gone for it the second you proposed it.”
This time, Haymitch almost growled. “This definitely isn’t about Lyra, Finnick.”
“What is this about then?” Finnick asked, more nervous by the minute, so nervous that it verged on anger. A small voice in his head kept insisting that Haymitch hadn’t yet so much as implied that he wouldn’t want Finnick back. But Finnick needed him to say that, he needed him to make a statement about it either way, either say yes or squelch that stupid hope. Everybody wanted Finnick, but it was so hard to believe that anybody would want Finnick. “Is it so hard to believe that I could feel attracted to you? You’re one of the best people I know. You’re amazing and strong…”
“This is getting ridiculous,” Haymitch announced and got up from his chair.
Then he moved to stand at the dusty, empty kitchen counter, leaning onto it hard with tense shoulders, presenting his back to Finnick, like he’d done before when things got hard to bear.
“You could at least look at me,” Finnick said softly, then bit his lip.
But Haymitch turned around again immediately, hands grasping the counter on both sides with tense muscles, obeying his plea before he could have consciously thought it through - unable to not give what Finnick had asked.
He spoke on vehemently, not allowing Finnick to add anything more on the matter of Haymitch Abernathy’s desirability.
“If you think…” He stopped himself and started anew, strained. “Odair. Finnick. This isn’t… You just got confused, alright? I know what you’re going through with what Snow makes you do in the Capitol, trust me. Acted like I didn’t really, I know, but it happened to me, too, for a stretch. I know what that’s like. There’s a lot you’re going through, a lot of crazy shit that you can’t keep apart anymore, but this isn’t the answer you’re looking for. This isn’t the way to some private rebellion, if that’s what you think. I can’t go and help you make yourself even unhappier, you can’t ask that of me. What with how your family is relying on me now, I’m already playing a big enough part in that as is.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Finnick said before he could stop himself, a mix of a little exasperation and a strong edge of hurt.
It looked like Haymitch had trouble forming the words, his jaw too stiff to get them out. “This only is what you think you want, Finnick.”
“Why? How do you know that?” Finnick demanded. Too anxious to sit, he got up himself, taking two steps away from the table just to freeze in the middle of the empty kitchen when he didn’t know where he even was going with that - if he wanted to get closer to Haymitch or the opposite, seek safety from a distance - crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest and turning to look at Haymitch. “You think I’m that big a Capitol slut that I don’t know the difference anymore? That I’ll just do it with anybody like some sort of default, because I like it so much? Is that what you think?”
Haymitch had physically flinched. “’Course not. Shit. Don’t call yourself that, fuck.” A beat. “I think… I think you’ve probably got some sense of obligation to keep me going, or something like that. I don’t know, fuck.”
“So my only way of keeping you healthy is talking you into fucking me, since I’ve proven so incapable of doing it just as your friend?” If Finnick’s arms weren’t locked in the position he’d put them, tight around his chest, he thought he might have actually thrown them in the air, or punched something, which he’d never wanted to do before outside the arena. “Cut me some slack here.” His voice could have sliced bread. “I’m not talking about getting off. I’m fucking scared of…” His breath hitched, but he barged on through. “I’m not even sure about that part, I think, but that’s a shitty reason to stop wanting things.”
Haymitch’s whole body tensed further against the counter, making it clear how much he hated conceding the point. He thought too well of Finnick not to, though, Finnick knew that. It would never even occur to Haymitch to assume something bad about him, to look at him like the slut he’d become. That was one of the reasons Finnick felt so damn attracted to him, probably, because he was addicted to the version of himself that Haymitch had built in his head. He wanted to believe that there was a little truth in it.
“You know what,” Finnick said restlessly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is all just because it’s only the two of us living here. Maybe if we had a lot of other people here every day, people who’ll talk to us, I wouldn’t spend so much time with you and I wouldn’t feel for you the way I do. But if that’s true, I don’t even care,” he managed. “It makes me feel happy, I don’t care why.
“I want to keep feeling like this,” he added, helplessly. “Please tell me if you’re just trying to say that you’re not… you’re not interested in me that way.” His voice broke. Even to his ears, the line sounded like something out of a bad novel, terrible overused, and it shocked him how much it still felt like it was cracking him open. “I’d understand. It’s not like I’d want me.”
“Oh for the love…” Haymitch managed, then hit the counter with one angry balled fist as if casting for a way of making something inside of him stop.
Finnick pressed his lips together, looking at him.
“Listen, Finnick,” Haymitch managed and paused, visibly fighting for words.
“Just bring it on,” Finnick goaded him, as if this was the arena and Haymitch his opponent during Final Battle, trident versus knives.
Haymitch swore again.
“You’re a regular font of stupidity sometimes, you know that?”
Finnick chuckled darkly, because that really, really wasn’t enough.
“I’m a waste, okay, Odair?” Haymitch said it like there was no room for arguments on that front at least. “I’m an addict. I’ll always be an addict. I can’t sleep without a fucking bed lamp, and I mean, look at me for just a fucking second here. You deserve somebody better than that, at the very least somebody your age. It’s just a matter of time until I do something unbelievably idiotic again and then I’ll be gone, and hopefully it’ll just be me and a couple more tributes who’ll be fucked.”
“Like I would let you! I’m not going anywhere, that’s not going to happen!” Now Finnick was in motion after all, pushing his hair out of his forehead and casting around the kitchen, although those were just the empty shelves of a dead man, who, unlike them, couldn’t change his miserable life anymore.
Maybe Swagger March had killed himself when everything became too hard to bear, but Finnick refused to believe that the two of them would ever be anything like that. He wouldn’t allow Haymitch to believe it, and for that to happen, he also couldn’t let himself.
“Alright, you’re an addict,” he agreed, forcing a measured tone of voice. “And I’m a whore. And who gives a fuck how we deal. You understand what my life is like. All the other people don’t. I want you, not somebody else, I want you to want me back.”
Breathing hard, he added to the side, “Not that you’d tell me if you did.”
“I want you so much I can’t fucking breathe, Odair,” Haymitch ground out.
His mouth dried out.
Everything around him jerked once, abruptly, then settled back into a slightly different position that it had been in before.
Something inside Finnick’s chest relaxed, as if it had just become so much easier to breathe, but it also viciously shook up his balance.
Having something he wanted right in front of him, something that he could have, getting that thing too - it was too overwhelming to grasp. Not some idealized fairytale idea of true love from a novel or fantasy, some vague thing, but this particular man in front of him, exactly the way he was, grumpy sarcasm and all.
Finnick slumped down on his chair at the kitchen table, so hard that its joints creaked ominously under his weight, scratching across the floor.
On the other side of the room, Haymitch was sitting down on his own chair again, gingerly, looking lost, the fight draining out of both of them now that they’d… that they’d both of them won, Finnick supposed.
Or he hoped so, anyway.
He tried to think.
He hadn’t been very good at that since yesterday.
“Not really sure where to go from here,” he admitted, rubbing his face and laughing at himself just a little bit.
“Oh for all that’s mighty in the district,” muttered Haymitch at the same time.
Then he looked up at Finnick. “You just keep doing these things to me.” It sounded apologetic and drained.
Finnick snorted. “Like I’m having a master plan.”
They smirked at each other weakly, bonding over how bizarre all of this really was, including them sitting here in Swagger’s kitchen, discussing starting… something between them like some theoretical thing.
“What does it feel like?” Finnick added, almost curious, because he couldn’t decide for himself. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking about.
“Scary as fuck,” Haymitch replied promptly. Finnick snorted a laugh in agreement.
There still was that slight string of anxiety inside of him that could as well have been caused by the night without sleep, but Finnick had a feeling that it hadn’t been, and that it wouldn’t go anywhere soon. It wasn’t a kind of anxiety that should be there, but he also thought that it would just forever stay with him, that he’d always be nervous about wanting things, getting them, waiting for the catch. He thought he could handle it, though. He wanted to handle it, if that was the price he had to pay for all those… for those good things.
“I haven’t really thought about the mechanics,” Finnick said. He hadn’t dared, just had kept picturing that kiss, like a music player with a slack joint, stuck in a loop. “I think I’m a little messed up.” He did all kinds of things with all kinds of people all the time; it wasn’t that he couldn’t but maybe he didn’t want to do all of them and thinking about it from that angle, it left him a little confused. What did he want? How did he want to… bend, where to put his hands, where did he want Haymitch to put his hands? Shouldn’t he know these things? Normal people knew these things. Thinking about it just unsettled him more. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how… what’s it like for you, what do you want?”
“It ain’t the problem what I want,” Haymitch categorically said.
Finnick threw him a look, disbelieving about how they were covering that again.
“Alright, alright.” Haymitch threw up his hands in defense. “Red roses and fluffy pillows for the both of us it is.”
Finnick snorted another laugh.
“You’ll tell me if I do anything you don’t… anything, even if it’s small…” he started saying, because he thought maybe that scared him the most, suddenly, doing… things … with Haymitch who might decide to just hide it if something happened that he didn’t like, who might get spooked like before out of the blue. He didn’t want to hurt Haymitch, but Haymitch had a tendency to hide. And Finnick didn’t want this to be like with a client.
Still, Haymitch nodded.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “You do that, too.”
“Can I kiss you again?” Finnick asked, experimentally.
It said a million things that Haymitch didn’t have a quip for that one at hand, just saying, “Yeah.”
Nervous in almost exactly the same way he’d felt when he was fourteen and sneaked into the bank brush with Caira Mallony without a clue what would happen - and he’d never felt that particular way with any client at all - Finnick got up and walked around the table, still not entirely sure about how it would go, where to put his hands, how it would go.
“Okay if you stay put?” he heard himself say when Haymitch started getting up, so Haymitch sank back down onto the chair, glancing up at him.
“Yeah,” he said again, quietly. “Yeah, alright, that works.”
Grabbing the back of the chair with one hand and propping himself up against the table top with the other, Finnick bent down so that he hovered over Haymitch, not quite expecting that he’d want to bolt but relieved to have the option, just, that physical freedom of movement. It shouldn’t work for Haymitch on the opposite end, crowded like that, and Finnick couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that they’d been fine like that once before, but Haymitch released a breath when they kissed, a good kind of breath, just a small one. His lips again felt softer than expected. His hair was still wet.
It was different this time, more halting and less desperate but no less wonderful. It had the possibility of kissing again sprawling out in front of them. Finnick closed his eyes, neither letting go of the chair nor edging away. It was easier to focus on Haymitch like that, what he tasted like and felt like, traces of coffee, uniquely him. He could feel tension seeping out of Haymitch in abrupt little spurts, not all of it but a noticeable bit, opening his mouth to Finnick and allowing him in, tongues brushing against each other.
He still couldn’t believe how great this felt and how hard he got from it, too, just from this, even though he couldn’t remember having done something that shy and halting even before his Games, in the bank brush of Four.
He could have gone on like this without thinking any further and never stop.
Tbc.