The Sterling Nightingale ⟷ Finnick Odair/OC

A veteran of wind and rain

Chapter Sixty Six | A veteran of wind and rain

"Then at least she would be there by his side, to comfort, love and cherish, to cheat death perhaps at the last by making it seem sweet, if they died both together, locked in each other's arms, with the supreme happiness of knowing that passion had responded to passion, and that all misunderstandings were at an end." Emma Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel

With Dorsey's stolen bottle of brandy in his hands, Finnick Odair finds himself on the veranda once more. This time, he is alone, and grateful for it. His thoughts are churning, his head is spinning, and he feels sick. This doesn't stop him from drinking his way through a good portion of the brandy, though.

His hands shake when he lifts the bottle to his lips. Despite the nausea that threatens to take a more physical form, he takes a generous drink in hopes that it will somehow ground him. But the ground beneath his feet is no longer solid, and he feels like he could float away at any moment. Lost, now, on the ocean he had until recently been convinced he could navigate, he sinks.

Finnick's mind flashes once more to the conversation he had just come from. The conversation that keeps restlessly circling his head on repeat.

"What?" he breathes. The air in his lungs leaves him in a hard exhalation. He stares at Sil with wide eyes, waiting for her to tell him that she is joking, that what she's saying is not real.

But she doesn't.

Holding back tears, she throws herself into the chair and gasps, "Felix was...gentle with me, sometimes, and I – I saw things that weren't there. I saw you instead of him, and I thought – "

She breaks off with a grimace and bites her mouth so hard that it draws blood.

Finnick just stands there in the center of the room, feeling lost and surreal. He can't bring himself to do anything – to speak, to move – so instead he just stares at her with his mouth hanging open and his eyes as wide as saucers.

He was not expecting this.

"Then after I...after I..." she swallows and breathes, "He thought it was amusing. He came back later with...with more of the drug. It made me hallucinate and I saw you everywhere – Felix just disappeared and you took his place and I – that's why I've been pushing you away, because I keep confusing you for him and I just keep seeing – "

She clenches her eyes closed and curls in on herself.

"...You keep seeing Felix whenever I'm here," he finishes for her. His voice is thick and his eyes are wet. The sight of her makes his heart shatter in his chest.

She clamps down on her jaw and doesn't look at him.

"He...you – you made me feel...I felt good," she whispers. The shame in her eyes bubbles over to the rest of her face and stays there.

"I liked it, at first," she says, barely coherent. "Because I thought it was you."

Then, she falls silent, staring at her hands like they're not even a part of her. Like they're some foreign thing that she doesn't want anymore. A curse.

And suddenly his hands are covering hers gently, and Sil looks up because she hadn't even noticed that he had crossed the room. If anything, she would have thought that he'd leave in disgust, but –

There is no disgust in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, and reaches for her face. But she flinches away from his touch as if it burns her, and her reaction makes him recoil in turn.