BLOOD ON MY HANDS || Finnick Odair

twenty; alone.

For three nights, he hadn't been allowed to see his daughter.

The Capitol doctors had only told him that there had been some kind of complication while she had been in for a regular checkup and they were doing everything we can. Eden was just ready to break the fucking doors down but there were too many peace keepers. They had watched him rip someone apart with complete clarity and still wouldn't tell him anything.

It had gotten to the point where he had been escorted out of the hospital and back to his apartment by an entourage of peace keepers, publicists, handlers, and half a dozen other people they felt were needed to keep him under control.

All he did was pace around the apartment, and lay motionless on the couch.

For hours he tried to configure shapes from the textured ceiling, pulling any kind of distraction from his imagination. He found a bird with a long feathered tail; a cow, something that looked like a horse with a massive horn protruding from its forehead. There was a goat, a chicken, a deer, hell, he even found a bear.

The longer he stayed awake the stranger a place his mind until he was looking at a large flower with legs and wings and Eden decided enough was enough.

As he got off the couch a peace keeper turned to face him, and that was when he knew they wouldn't be leaving him alone. "Shower," was all he said.

Without so much as a nod, the soldier followed him into the large, lavish bathroom. There was easily enough space for it to be considered a communal bathroom so Eden was in no way cramped but it still felt strange to take his clothes off with another man in the room.

But this was the closest to alone he would be for a while, so he was willing to settle.

Slowly and evenly Eden removed his shirt first, then his jeans and socks and finally his underwear.
The air around him was cold and sent his skin pricking upwards, the hairs on is body rising with the chill. The Peace Keeper stayed where he was, hands resting atop his weapons.

Very slowly, he reached over and twisted three knobs on the shower wall until the water was a decent temperature and pressure, and over the course of the next fifteen minutes twisting and pushing various dials and buttons to see what they did. At first the pressure was almost too harsh, digging deeply into his aching muscles. Then it was too light, so he pressed down on a dial and immediately flinched.

The water changed from slowly spaced drops to a fine mist, clinging to his skin. Without realizing it Eden went ridged and moved himself into the corner of the space, eyes scanning around frantically.

Something moved through the gaps between the trees; watching, waiting.

With nausea twisting through him, he reached over and slapped another button that sent a shower of foamy soap onto him.

The textural difference was enough to snap him out of whatever was happening, and he heaved out his breaths and tried to get the water going.

He scrubbed all kinds of dirt off of him that he hadn't realized was there until he could've practically been shining. Awkwardly, Eden reached over and pressed a button with some kind of fruit on it and instinctively shut his eyes in time to shield them from the splattering of red soap...or was it something else?

It ran in rivulets down his arms and back, coating his freshly cleaned skin until all he could see was a sheen of red. Drops rolled off his finger tips and splattered on the shower floor in oddly perfect circles and for a moment, Eden was almost certain he was standing in the arena again.

He heaved in a gasp of air and shook his head, trying to clear it of all the memories threatening to come up.

But Eden stared down at his hands, at the thick red liquid coating them and his arms and a good portion of his body, and felt something within himself sink. It went lower than he thought it could until all his extremities were numbing with anxious cold and a kind of hazy fog filled his mind.