Fic: Stars Realign
Title: Stars Realign
Author: sweetiejelly
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Characters/world not mine
Characters/Pairings: Katniss/Finnick, Peeta, Haymitch
Word Count: 3374
Warnings: Underage (16/23)
Summary: AU where Annie doesn't win her game and Katniss is sent out to the pre-game party for the 74th on the streets of the Capitol. The one where the girl on fire meets the boy from the sea and stars realign.
Notes: Written for wishlist_fic 2013 for xgirl2222's prompt here. AO3 link.
Everything about the Capitol is ridiculous - over-colored, over-feathered and over-shrill. The pre-game party proves to be no exception. Streets teem with revelers twirling to music and betting on favorites. Merchants hawk everything from tribute trinkets to biscuits and drinks. A group of girls Prim’s age dart through the crowd like it’s a holiday, and for them perhaps it is.
Katniss tears her eyes away.
“Come on,” Peeta tugs her forward, away from the girls.
Katniss should probably be grateful. But all she can think of is that she or Peeta or both of them will be dead in a couple of weeks. Maybe less. She snatches her hand back.
A loud ringing hurtles towards them - a jingling food truck of some sort. Katniss takes advantage of the chaos - apparently whatever’s in it is all the rage - to lose herself in the throng, to lose Peeta.
She does, but somehow she also manages to ram into a lamppost. Katniss hisses from the pain. She's hit her upper arm exactly where a chip’s been implanted to track her location, to make sure she doesn't flee. It’s an absurd notion. She has no map of the Capitol and no wish to put Prim in danger. They had her. But in typical Capitol fashion, of course, they just had to rub it in.
She’s deep in her brooding when she bumps into a solid chest. It’s not unlike her friend Gale’s in its lean column of heat, but it is entirely different because it’s naked. Or mostly naked. The wind doesn't help. It knocks her braid against the side of her neck and billows wide open the stranger's white shirt. Katniss jerks her eyes up from where they've trailed down to the exposed belly button. She's seen many a belly button in her life, but somehow this one makes her blush.
“Sorry,” says the owner of all that skin before she can get out any sound.
She shakes her head once, to clear it. "Sorry." She sidesteps around him and starts to walk away.
“Wait! May I buy you a drink?”
Katniss turns and there he is again, close enough for their breaths to touch. She takes in his sea green eyes and his too smooth smile. She wants to say she’s not affected by his beauty, but the clench of her stomach says otherwise. Unless it’s just hunger. Although she knows it can’t be. She has never eaten as well or as much as in these past couple of days. She is thirsty though now that she thinks about it. "Okay."
“Finnick,” chest man holds out his hand. It's a really nice hand. She can imagine the long fingers flying over piano keys.
“Katniss,” she shakes his hand firmly.
“Nice grip,” Finnick marvels as he lets go.
Katniss blinks and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Well, you need a good grip if you want to shoot anything.”
Finnick stares at her and breaks out in grins. “Very true.” He’s not Capitol, she suddenly realizes. His skin color looks natural and the shadows in his eyes weigh down the frivolity of his smile.
She doesn't smile back. “You wanted to buy me a drink,” she reminds him.
“Ah yes,” he looks at her curiously in the way that Buttercup looks at the wall sometimes, like an insect might appear out of nowhere for him to pounce on and devour. “What would you like? Long Island ice tea? Cosmopolitan? Sex on the beach?” He licks his lips just slow enough for her to look.
Katniss couldn't help the heat spreading haphazardly everywhere, horizontally to the tip of her ears and vertically all the way down to her toes. It annoys her - his flirting, her reaction. She’s not up for manipulation. Especially not tonight. “The ice tea,” she says because it sounds the least bad.
“Are you sure?”
“Look," she snaps, irritated with him and irritated with herself, "if you don’t want to buy me a drink anymore, just say so!”
Finnick holds up a hand. “Be right back.”
And true to his word, he is. The ice tea is not like any tea Katniss had before. It smells like Haymitch and burns going down. She stops at sip two when her cheeks suffuse with heat. “What’s in this?”
“Tea,” Finnick sucks on his straw and smiles. “And vodka, gin, tequila, and rum.”
Katniss holds her glass out, as far away from her as she can. "Trade," she says. Finnick smiles easily, almost as if he was expecting it, and gives her his. It's plain water, much better.
They move through the streets, listening to the shouts all around them, the tinkling sounds of joy. Katniss feels distinctly out of place. She's supposed to be with Peeta building on their image of the girl (and boy) on fire. Thus, this red dress she's sporting and these terrible red heels. "Fires burn brighter at night, don't they?" Haymitch had remarked. It would sound smart. Only, he was still mostly drunk. "Go out, have fun," Haymitch had waved them off. "Be back before the fire burns out."
Katniss wonders if that's now. She turns to thank Finnick for the water and to say goodbye. But he turns to her first and asks, "Want to see my favorite spot here in the Capitol?"
"No." Katniss answers quickly, quick enough to be classified rude. But she knows about lures, knows that hooks wait on the other side.
Finnick considers her, his smile no less brilliant than before. In fact perhaps more. "You're quite a girl, Katniss. I like you."
"Why?" Katniss feels her body respond to his stupidly pretty dimples and looks away. "You don't even know me."
"I know you're more interesting than any girl I've come across in years." And there it is again - that sadness in his voice that intrigues her enough to stay. "Do you have a special someone somewhere, Katniss?"
Katniss thinks about Prim and Gale and her mother, even Peeta out there somewhere in all this festivity. She thinks about her father with his beautifu gift of song, long gone. She looks up at the sky, which is too bright with all the Capitol lights. She can barely make out the moon.
"I know a place to see the stars," Finnick says quietly. Somehow she believes him. It doesn't sound like a line.
"Let's go then." It would be nice to see the natural sky while she can. In a few days all she would be looking up to see are faces of fallen children.
Finnick leads her a few streets down and a few streets over into a dark, domed building. "What is this place?"
"Planetarium," he flicks on a switch and stars splash against the ceiling in breathtaking clarity. "One of my- friends gave me the key to this place."
Whatever friends Finnick keeps, they’re obviously Capitol, obviously very rich. Katniss tilts her chin up to take it all in. "This is amazing."
"There," Finnick steps up behind her - close, so close that Katniss feels the steady pounding of her heart like she’s run for miles - and points to serpentine cluster of stars. "That’s Draco, the dragon."
Katniss squints, trying to see a dragon and trying to ignore Finnick. It’s hard though with the way he smells. There’s that faint whiff of alcohol and a stronger hint of chocolate and sea salt, the combination of which shouldn’t smell this good but does. She clears her throat. "It looks like a snake to me."
"Well, snakes are just little dragons, aren't they?" His breath tickles against her cheek.
"Not really," Katniss keeps staring at the stars and deliberately not at him. "Dragons aren’t real."
"They’re not?" Finnick laughs. "What about love?" He asks in a conspiratorial voice. "Is love real?"
Katniss says nothing. She loves food, especially rarities like lamb. She loves the woods and the lake deep in the heart of it. She loves her father’s singing. She loves Prim. Beyond that, she’s not sure she loves anything or anyone. Certainly not any boys. In any case, love is the furthest thing from her mind right now.
"Have you ever kissed anyone, Katniss?" Finnick whispers right into her ear, making that whole side of her face tingle.
"No."
"Do you want to?" Finnick’s not touching her anywhere, but he’s so close that Katniss feels the heat from his body as if he was.
It makes it very hard for her to think. On one hand, it may be her last chance to kiss anyone. On the other, she doesn't know him and she’s unlikely to see him ever again. So, what would be the point? "Do you?" She deflects the question back to him.
Finnick tucks a tendril of her hair behind her ear. It’s the lightest touch and Katniss breaks out in goose bumps all over. "I asked first," Finnick chuckles as he drops his hand and waits.
Katniss swallows and tries to push down a surge of want. "Are you any good?"
"I’ve been told I'm the best."
Katniss swallows again but the want bubbles up, undeterred. "Okay," she says. "But people lie," she can’t help adding.
Finnick cups the back of her head and turns her around slowly. "I have a feeling you don’t."
Katniss stares at him. This close up, his beauty is undeniable. "This is a lie," she blurts. "I don’t usually wear dresses. Or heels."
"No," Finnick runs his palms down to cup her neck, resting his thumbs against her cheek. "This is probably not the best attire for shooting things."
It’s the first thing he’s said that makes her grin. But then his lips are there, light on her cheek. And then her other cheek. And then finally there on the dip above her upper lip.
Tingles. All Katniss could feel are tingles. When he nuzzles, rubbing his lips against hers, Katniss opens up on instinct. Finnick just smiles and kisses her slow and sweet, small pressures that are more teases than anything.
"The secret," Finnick tells her, "is to leave them wanting more." He sucks on her lower lip and Katniss gasps. Involuntary. All of her actions are involuntary, all of the sudden necessary. She curls her toes and presses closer, wanting more now.
Finnick reads her just right. Or perhaps it’s the yanking on his shirt that gives her away. He closes his hands over hers and moves them under the shirt to curl hot and nervous around his waist. "Hold on," he says before cradling her head again and kissing her harder, setting the tingling feeling hooked into the pit of her stomach.
Katniss kisses back, mirroring his actions. When she hears his ragged intake of breath, it sets off something in her. She did that. She made him lose the rhythm of his breathing, made him want more. She presses her fingers experimentally to his skin. It’s warm like freshly baked bread, almost hot. She slides her hands up his side and around his back. Knob by knob, she feels up his spine, pressing his chest ever closer to hers.
Finnick pulls back just once more. "Tell me if- when you want to stop." He presses his lips to hers again and then his tongue - a light flick along the seam of her mouth. It takes her by surprise. Her eyes flutter open and just catch the darkening green of his before they close. Katniss registers the shift of one of his hands down her arm. He’s strong, she realizes. And fast. She wouldn’t be able to take him in a wrestling match. She pulls back suddenly.
Finnick freezes before pulling back too. Slowly he opens his eyes and swallows, his cheeks pinking, making him prettier. Not fair. Katniss hauls him back in with a hand on the back of his neck. This time she licks at the seam of his mouth and curls a lick along his tongue. It’s a shock when he licks back, like jumping into the lake in late fall. Every hair on her body - and she has significantly fewer today thanks to her prep team - stands to attention. Katniss can’t explain it. Finnick only has two hands. One curls around her nape and one rests at her waist. But it feels like there are more, like there are hands under her dress slowly parting her knees.
Katniss holds on hard as Finnick burns her from the inside out. "May I touch you?" He rubs kisses into her neck. And Katniss wonders how many nerve endings she has there. It feels like constellations and constellations of them.
"You are," she tells him, a little confused. Because he is. Both of his hands are on her - one on her shoulder now and the other still around her waist.
Finnick laughs into the crook of her neck. "Oh, Katniss," he says as he presses a soft kiss to her lips. "Like this." He moves both of his hands to her hips and slides steadily, slowly, up. "If you don’t want-"
"I know," Katniss shushes him crossly. She holds onto the crooks of his elbows as his hands move higher. She can stop anytime, she knows, but right now she doesn’t want to. When Finnick’s hands cup her, Katniss wonders if this is all there is to it. But then he swipes his thumbs over the centers, making her pebble, making her gasp. Oh. Finnick leans forward and catches her lips again, combining kissing with touching and oh-oh.
Finnick smiles into the kiss as he skates clever fingers over her. It’s all so smug of him that she can’t stand it. She puts her hands on him and mimics him, rolling her thumbs over his nipples to see if he smiles anymore.
Finnick makes a wounded animal sound. A moan, she realizes. Good. The satisfaction barely touches the corners of her lips before he changes the game again, backing her up against the wall, crushing her hard to stars.
She curls a leg around his leg, urging him closer. Everything, she decides. She wants to experience everything with him. She says something along those lines and Finnick groans, clutching her close and burying his face in her hair. "Katniss, you don’t know what you’re saying."
It feels like a rebuff and stings like one too. Katniss pushes him off. "If you don’t want me, just say so." She storms off towards the exit.
Finnick catches her at the door and spin her right back into his heat. "I want you too much." He doesn’t stop kissing her this time though. Or stop touching.
When he licks her right through the light material of her dress, Katniss digs her nails into his upper arms and arches her back. She must make such a picture right now, but she doesn’t care. She never wants Finnick to take his mouth off of her.
She must have said this. Because Finnick's breath hitches - more broken syllables. He reaches under her dress and slides hot palms up her calves, up the back of her knees, her thighs and never once stops pressing kisses all the way down her dress. "Lean back," he nudges her with his nose after slipping off her heels. Katniss leans and looks down at him arranging one of her legs over his shoulder.
Finnick kisses the side of her knee and up along her inner thigh. Katniss understand all of the sudden why she’s to lean, why a solid wall at her back is a good thing. Finnick noses right into her heat and licks her through her panties, and oh god.
"Fin-Finnick." She grabs onto his hair. This is unlike anything she’s ever felt. Finnick’s mouth is magic, she decides. No, better than magic. Because it’s real.
Finnick sucks lightly up high and rubs and rubs below. True to his words, he leaves her wanting, blowing coolly over where his lips just kissed. Katniss’ knee - the one not propped on his shoulder - buckles. Finnick grabs onto it and throws it over his other shoulder. "I’ve got you."
Katniss doubts it for all of two seconds as she slides down the wall. But then Finnick’s hands are there, wrapping securely around her hips. Finnick’s tongue comes back to her, licking warm and ever wetter over her.
This is the reason, Katniss latches on all of the sudden, why people risk having children in this world. A jolt spears through her, making her toes curl as she cries out. "We’re not- I-I can’t."
Finnick's hands gentle. He lowers her to the floor and pets along her sides soothingly. "Katniss. Katniss, we can stop. I meant to stop earlier."
Katniss hugs him fiercely, wordlessly, as he rubs and rubs her back.
Eventually she calms. "Thank you," she cradles his face. "I guess now I know what the best kisses feel like."
Finnick’s eyes lights up. "You’re not bad yourself, Katniss. Thank you."
They sit hugging and watching the stars inching along the ceiling. "I’ll like to see you again," Finnick says at length.
Katniss scrambles up from his lap and slips on her heels. "I can’t. I’m here - I'm-" she licks her lips and struggles to come back to reality.
"You’re a tribute," Finnick finishes for her, his voice dipped in melancholy again.
She says nothing. There is nothing to say.
"I wondered if you were. You didn’t seem Capitol."
"I’m not! Are you?" She throws the insult back at him.
Finnick cups his hands over one of hers. "I won my game nine years ago."
Katniss sobers. She just made out with the Haymitch of another District. "I have to go. Training starts tomorrow."
Finnick gets up too and smoothes down his shirt. "I’ll walk you back."
Since Katniss doesn’t know her way around the Capitol, she allows it.
Outside, it’s louder and brighter and not a star shines. Katniss tucks her arms around her middle and walks on blindly. So blindly in fact, she almost collides with a swerving vehicle if it were not for Finnick’s fast reflex pulling her out of the way. "Thanks but I’m fine," she tries to shrug him off when he shows no sign of letting go.
"Promise you’ll pay more attention in the arena," Finnick presses.
"What’s it to you?" Katniss burns with anger. Finnick’s probably a mentor if he won his game. He’s diminishing her odds with his very presence, so why should he pretend to care about whether she lives or not?
"Katniss!" Finnick crushes a desperate kiss to her lips - a rash action since their audience is Capitol and large. And armed with cameras.
Katniss pushes him off and stalks off in the direction of the Training Center. At least she's close enough to see the building now. She's not so lost now.
Finnick catches up but doesn’t try to touch her again. "Her name was Annie," he says to the space between them. "She was the only girl I ever loved. She died in her game."
Katniss risks a glance at him. Annie. So that's her name.
"Like I said before - I like you, Katniss. I’d like to see you again.
Katniss doesn't know what to say but Finnick doesn't seem to be expecting an answer. He presses up for the elevator and then four when they step inside it. Katniss presses twelve and contemplates stepping away from him. She doesn’t though when he reaches for her hand.
They grip together tightly, their fingers tangling. When the elevator door opens, Katniss doesn't let go. "Okay," she says. As Finnick presses a lingering kiss to her lips, she leans in and kisses back.
~~
Their picture comes out in the press, as Katniss supposes it must. Star-crossed lovers, everyone calls them. Haymitch tells her to play it up for all it’s worth.
Then Peeta confesses his love for her in front of the whole of Panem. Haymitch tells him to play it up for all it’s worth too.
The tragic love triangle, the Capitol dubs them. Katniss shuts it all out and trains. Her grip on the bow and arrows are firm, her aim true. What the future holds she doesn't know, but hope burns and burns, burrows bright in her chest.
Author: sweetiejelly
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Characters/world not mine
Characters/Pairings: Katniss/Finnick, Peeta, Haymitch
Word Count: 3374
Warnings: Underage (16/23)
Summary: AU where Annie doesn't win her game and Katniss is sent out to the pre-game party for the 74th on the streets of the Capitol. The one where the girl on fire meets the boy from the sea and stars realign.
Notes: Written for wishlist_fic 2013 for xgirl2222's prompt here. AO3 link.
Everything about the Capitol is ridiculous - over-colored, over-feathered and over-shrill. The pre-game party proves to be no exception. Streets teem with revelers twirling to music and betting on favorites. Merchants hawk everything from tribute trinkets to biscuits and drinks. A group of girls Prim’s age dart through the crowd like it’s a holiday, and for them perhaps it is.
Katniss tears her eyes away.
“Come on,” Peeta tugs her forward, away from the girls.
Katniss should probably be grateful. But all she can think of is that she or Peeta or both of them will be dead in a couple of weeks. Maybe less. She snatches her hand back.
A loud ringing hurtles towards them - a jingling food truck of some sort. Katniss takes advantage of the chaos - apparently whatever’s in it is all the rage - to lose herself in the throng, to lose Peeta.
She does, but somehow she also manages to ram into a lamppost. Katniss hisses from the pain. She's hit her upper arm exactly where a chip’s been implanted to track her location, to make sure she doesn't flee. It’s an absurd notion. She has no map of the Capitol and no wish to put Prim in danger. They had her. But in typical Capitol fashion, of course, they just had to rub it in.
She’s deep in her brooding when she bumps into a solid chest. It’s not unlike her friend Gale’s in its lean column of heat, but it is entirely different because it’s naked. Or mostly naked. The wind doesn't help. It knocks her braid against the side of her neck and billows wide open the stranger's white shirt. Katniss jerks her eyes up from where they've trailed down to the exposed belly button. She's seen many a belly button in her life, but somehow this one makes her blush.
“Sorry,” says the owner of all that skin before she can get out any sound.
She shakes her head once, to clear it. "Sorry." She sidesteps around him and starts to walk away.
“Wait! May I buy you a drink?”
Katniss turns and there he is again, close enough for their breaths to touch. She takes in his sea green eyes and his too smooth smile. She wants to say she’s not affected by his beauty, but the clench of her stomach says otherwise. Unless it’s just hunger. Although she knows it can’t be. She has never eaten as well or as much as in these past couple of days. She is thirsty though now that she thinks about it. "Okay."
“Finnick,” chest man holds out his hand. It's a really nice hand. She can imagine the long fingers flying over piano keys.
“Katniss,” she shakes his hand firmly.
“Nice grip,” Finnick marvels as he lets go.
Katniss blinks and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Well, you need a good grip if you want to shoot anything.”
Finnick stares at her and breaks out in grins. “Very true.” He’s not Capitol, she suddenly realizes. His skin color looks natural and the shadows in his eyes weigh down the frivolity of his smile.
She doesn't smile back. “You wanted to buy me a drink,” she reminds him.
“Ah yes,” he looks at her curiously in the way that Buttercup looks at the wall sometimes, like an insect might appear out of nowhere for him to pounce on and devour. “What would you like? Long Island ice tea? Cosmopolitan? Sex on the beach?” He licks his lips just slow enough for her to look.
Katniss couldn't help the heat spreading haphazardly everywhere, horizontally to the tip of her ears and vertically all the way down to her toes. It annoys her - his flirting, her reaction. She’s not up for manipulation. Especially not tonight. “The ice tea,” she says because it sounds the least bad.
“Are you sure?”
“Look," she snaps, irritated with him and irritated with herself, "if you don’t want to buy me a drink anymore, just say so!”
Finnick holds up a hand. “Be right back.”
And true to his word, he is. The ice tea is not like any tea Katniss had before. It smells like Haymitch and burns going down. She stops at sip two when her cheeks suffuse with heat. “What’s in this?”
“Tea,” Finnick sucks on his straw and smiles. “And vodka, gin, tequila, and rum.”
Katniss holds her glass out, as far away from her as she can. "Trade," she says. Finnick smiles easily, almost as if he was expecting it, and gives her his. It's plain water, much better.
They move through the streets, listening to the shouts all around them, the tinkling sounds of joy. Katniss feels distinctly out of place. She's supposed to be with Peeta building on their image of the girl (and boy) on fire. Thus, this red dress she's sporting and these terrible red heels. "Fires burn brighter at night, don't they?" Haymitch had remarked. It would sound smart. Only, he was still mostly drunk. "Go out, have fun," Haymitch had waved them off. "Be back before the fire burns out."
Katniss wonders if that's now. She turns to thank Finnick for the water and to say goodbye. But he turns to her first and asks, "Want to see my favorite spot here in the Capitol?"
"No." Katniss answers quickly, quick enough to be classified rude. But she knows about lures, knows that hooks wait on the other side.
Finnick considers her, his smile no less brilliant than before. In fact perhaps more. "You're quite a girl, Katniss. I like you."
"Why?" Katniss feels her body respond to his stupidly pretty dimples and looks away. "You don't even know me."
"I know you're more interesting than any girl I've come across in years." And there it is again - that sadness in his voice that intrigues her enough to stay. "Do you have a special someone somewhere, Katniss?"
Katniss thinks about Prim and Gale and her mother, even Peeta out there somewhere in all this festivity. She thinks about her father with his beautifu gift of song, long gone. She looks up at the sky, which is too bright with all the Capitol lights. She can barely make out the moon.
"I know a place to see the stars," Finnick says quietly. Somehow she believes him. It doesn't sound like a line.
"Let's go then." It would be nice to see the natural sky while she can. In a few days all she would be looking up to see are faces of fallen children.
Finnick leads her a few streets down and a few streets over into a dark, domed building. "What is this place?"
"Planetarium," he flicks on a switch and stars splash against the ceiling in breathtaking clarity. "One of my- friends gave me the key to this place."
Whatever friends Finnick keeps, they’re obviously Capitol, obviously very rich. Katniss tilts her chin up to take it all in. "This is amazing."
"There," Finnick steps up behind her - close, so close that Katniss feels the steady pounding of her heart like she’s run for miles - and points to serpentine cluster of stars. "That’s Draco, the dragon."
Katniss squints, trying to see a dragon and trying to ignore Finnick. It’s hard though with the way he smells. There’s that faint whiff of alcohol and a stronger hint of chocolate and sea salt, the combination of which shouldn’t smell this good but does. She clears her throat. "It looks like a snake to me."
"Well, snakes are just little dragons, aren't they?" His breath tickles against her cheek.
"Not really," Katniss keeps staring at the stars and deliberately not at him. "Dragons aren’t real."
"They’re not?" Finnick laughs. "What about love?" He asks in a conspiratorial voice. "Is love real?"
Katniss says nothing. She loves food, especially rarities like lamb. She loves the woods and the lake deep in the heart of it. She loves her father’s singing. She loves Prim. Beyond that, she’s not sure she loves anything or anyone. Certainly not any boys. In any case, love is the furthest thing from her mind right now.
"Have you ever kissed anyone, Katniss?" Finnick whispers right into her ear, making that whole side of her face tingle.
"No."
"Do you want to?" Finnick’s not touching her anywhere, but he’s so close that Katniss feels the heat from his body as if he was.
It makes it very hard for her to think. On one hand, it may be her last chance to kiss anyone. On the other, she doesn't know him and she’s unlikely to see him ever again. So, what would be the point? "Do you?" She deflects the question back to him.
Finnick tucks a tendril of her hair behind her ear. It’s the lightest touch and Katniss breaks out in goose bumps all over. "I asked first," Finnick chuckles as he drops his hand and waits.
Katniss swallows and tries to push down a surge of want. "Are you any good?"
"I’ve been told I'm the best."
Katniss swallows again but the want bubbles up, undeterred. "Okay," she says. "But people lie," she can’t help adding.
Finnick cups the back of her head and turns her around slowly. "I have a feeling you don’t."
Katniss stares at him. This close up, his beauty is undeniable. "This is a lie," she blurts. "I don’t usually wear dresses. Or heels."
"No," Finnick runs his palms down to cup her neck, resting his thumbs against her cheek. "This is probably not the best attire for shooting things."
It’s the first thing he’s said that makes her grin. But then his lips are there, light on her cheek. And then her other cheek. And then finally there on the dip above her upper lip.
Tingles. All Katniss could feel are tingles. When he nuzzles, rubbing his lips against hers, Katniss opens up on instinct. Finnick just smiles and kisses her slow and sweet, small pressures that are more teases than anything.
"The secret," Finnick tells her, "is to leave them wanting more." He sucks on her lower lip and Katniss gasps. Involuntary. All of her actions are involuntary, all of the sudden necessary. She curls her toes and presses closer, wanting more now.
Finnick reads her just right. Or perhaps it’s the yanking on his shirt that gives her away. He closes his hands over hers and moves them under the shirt to curl hot and nervous around his waist. "Hold on," he says before cradling her head again and kissing her harder, setting the tingling feeling hooked into the pit of her stomach.
Katniss kisses back, mirroring his actions. When she hears his ragged intake of breath, it sets off something in her. She did that. She made him lose the rhythm of his breathing, made him want more. She presses her fingers experimentally to his skin. It’s warm like freshly baked bread, almost hot. She slides her hands up his side and around his back. Knob by knob, she feels up his spine, pressing his chest ever closer to hers.
Finnick pulls back just once more. "Tell me if- when you want to stop." He presses his lips to hers again and then his tongue - a light flick along the seam of her mouth. It takes her by surprise. Her eyes flutter open and just catch the darkening green of his before they close. Katniss registers the shift of one of his hands down her arm. He’s strong, she realizes. And fast. She wouldn’t be able to take him in a wrestling match. She pulls back suddenly.
Finnick freezes before pulling back too. Slowly he opens his eyes and swallows, his cheeks pinking, making him prettier. Not fair. Katniss hauls him back in with a hand on the back of his neck. This time she licks at the seam of his mouth and curls a lick along his tongue. It’s a shock when he licks back, like jumping into the lake in late fall. Every hair on her body - and she has significantly fewer today thanks to her prep team - stands to attention. Katniss can’t explain it. Finnick only has two hands. One curls around her nape and one rests at her waist. But it feels like there are more, like there are hands under her dress slowly parting her knees.
Katniss holds on hard as Finnick burns her from the inside out. "May I touch you?" He rubs kisses into her neck. And Katniss wonders how many nerve endings she has there. It feels like constellations and constellations of them.
"You are," she tells him, a little confused. Because he is. Both of his hands are on her - one on her shoulder now and the other still around her waist.
Finnick laughs into the crook of her neck. "Oh, Katniss," he says as he presses a soft kiss to her lips. "Like this." He moves both of his hands to her hips and slides steadily, slowly, up. "If you don’t want-"
"I know," Katniss shushes him crossly. She holds onto the crooks of his elbows as his hands move higher. She can stop anytime, she knows, but right now she doesn’t want to. When Finnick’s hands cup her, Katniss wonders if this is all there is to it. But then he swipes his thumbs over the centers, making her pebble, making her gasp. Oh. Finnick leans forward and catches her lips again, combining kissing with touching and oh-oh.
Finnick smiles into the kiss as he skates clever fingers over her. It’s all so smug of him that she can’t stand it. She puts her hands on him and mimics him, rolling her thumbs over his nipples to see if he smiles anymore.
Finnick makes a wounded animal sound. A moan, she realizes. Good. The satisfaction barely touches the corners of her lips before he changes the game again, backing her up against the wall, crushing her hard to stars.
She curls a leg around his leg, urging him closer. Everything, she decides. She wants to experience everything with him. She says something along those lines and Finnick groans, clutching her close and burying his face in her hair. "Katniss, you don’t know what you’re saying."
It feels like a rebuff and stings like one too. Katniss pushes him off. "If you don’t want me, just say so." She storms off towards the exit.
Finnick catches her at the door and spin her right back into his heat. "I want you too much." He doesn’t stop kissing her this time though. Or stop touching.
When he licks her right through the light material of her dress, Katniss digs her nails into his upper arms and arches her back. She must make such a picture right now, but she doesn’t care. She never wants Finnick to take his mouth off of her.
She must have said this. Because Finnick's breath hitches - more broken syllables. He reaches under her dress and slides hot palms up her calves, up the back of her knees, her thighs and never once stops pressing kisses all the way down her dress. "Lean back," he nudges her with his nose after slipping off her heels. Katniss leans and looks down at him arranging one of her legs over his shoulder.
Finnick kisses the side of her knee and up along her inner thigh. Katniss understand all of the sudden why she’s to lean, why a solid wall at her back is a good thing. Finnick noses right into her heat and licks her through her panties, and oh god.
"Fin-Finnick." She grabs onto his hair. This is unlike anything she’s ever felt. Finnick’s mouth is magic, she decides. No, better than magic. Because it’s real.
Finnick sucks lightly up high and rubs and rubs below. True to his words, he leaves her wanting, blowing coolly over where his lips just kissed. Katniss’ knee - the one not propped on his shoulder - buckles. Finnick grabs onto it and throws it over his other shoulder. "I’ve got you."
Katniss doubts it for all of two seconds as she slides down the wall. But then Finnick’s hands are there, wrapping securely around her hips. Finnick’s tongue comes back to her, licking warm and ever wetter over her.
This is the reason, Katniss latches on all of the sudden, why people risk having children in this world. A jolt spears through her, making her toes curl as she cries out. "We’re not- I-I can’t."
Finnick's hands gentle. He lowers her to the floor and pets along her sides soothingly. "Katniss. Katniss, we can stop. I meant to stop earlier."
Katniss hugs him fiercely, wordlessly, as he rubs and rubs her back.
Eventually she calms. "Thank you," she cradles his face. "I guess now I know what the best kisses feel like."
Finnick’s eyes lights up. "You’re not bad yourself, Katniss. Thank you."
They sit hugging and watching the stars inching along the ceiling. "I’ll like to see you again," Finnick says at length.
Katniss scrambles up from his lap and slips on her heels. "I can’t. I’m here - I'm-" she licks her lips and struggles to come back to reality.
"You’re a tribute," Finnick finishes for her, his voice dipped in melancholy again.
She says nothing. There is nothing to say.
"I wondered if you were. You didn’t seem Capitol."
"I’m not! Are you?" She throws the insult back at him.
Finnick cups his hands over one of hers. "I won my game nine years ago."
Katniss sobers. She just made out with the Haymitch of another District. "I have to go. Training starts tomorrow."
Finnick gets up too and smoothes down his shirt. "I’ll walk you back."
Since Katniss doesn’t know her way around the Capitol, she allows it.
Outside, it’s louder and brighter and not a star shines. Katniss tucks her arms around her middle and walks on blindly. So blindly in fact, she almost collides with a swerving vehicle if it were not for Finnick’s fast reflex pulling her out of the way. "Thanks but I’m fine," she tries to shrug him off when he shows no sign of letting go.
"Promise you’ll pay more attention in the arena," Finnick presses.
"What’s it to you?" Katniss burns with anger. Finnick’s probably a mentor if he won his game. He’s diminishing her odds with his very presence, so why should he pretend to care about whether she lives or not?
"Katniss!" Finnick crushes a desperate kiss to her lips - a rash action since their audience is Capitol and large. And armed with cameras.
Katniss pushes him off and stalks off in the direction of the Training Center. At least she's close enough to see the building now. She's not so lost now.
Finnick catches up but doesn’t try to touch her again. "Her name was Annie," he says to the space between them. "She was the only girl I ever loved. She died in her game."
Katniss risks a glance at him. Annie. So that's her name.
"Like I said before - I like you, Katniss. I’d like to see you again.
Katniss doesn't know what to say but Finnick doesn't seem to be expecting an answer. He presses up for the elevator and then four when they step inside it. Katniss presses twelve and contemplates stepping away from him. She doesn’t though when he reaches for her hand.
They grip together tightly, their fingers tangling. When the elevator door opens, Katniss doesn't let go. "Okay," she says. As Finnick presses a lingering kiss to her lips, she leans in and kisses back.
~~
Their picture comes out in the press, as Katniss supposes it must. Star-crossed lovers, everyone calls them. Haymitch tells her to play it up for all it’s worth.
Then Peeta confesses his love for her in front of the whole of Panem. Haymitch tells him to play it up for all it’s worth too.
The tragic love triangle, the Capitol dubs them. Katniss shuts it all out and trains. Her grip on the bow and arrows are firm, her aim true. What the future holds she doesn't know, but hope burns and burns, burrows bright in her chest.