Spark to Flame: A Finniss Story

Pt I: Spark to Flame

She's on her way to the training room the next day when she runs into him again.

She'd had enough sense to take her breakfast tray from the cafeteria and retreat into her room, lest he decide to bother her like he had the previous morning (which she has no doubt that he would), but she hadn't counted on running into him as she rounded the corner of the long and skinny hallway she knew that lead to the training room.

It was too late by the time she noticed him walking towards her, and she knew that it was pointless to try and backtrack behind the corner she'd just turned - he would've noticed her footsteps anyway. So, rather than turn around and walk back the way she came (like she wanted to) she straightened her back and stood her ground. She'd be damned if she was gonna let him alter her decisions just because of his presence.

"Hey, Fire Girl," he greets, smiling as he walks up to her. "Do you know what the temperature's gonna be for today?"

She's a bit taken aback by his question, but she's dealt with him enough times to know that with him there's always an angle, and he's probably just using it as an opener for some perverted joke or disgusting pick-up line he's been dying to use.

Regardless of his intentions, she holds nothing back as she replies, "Yeah, I do, actually. It's gonna be a nice and breezy shut-the-hell-up degrees with a slight chance of screw you."

"Haha, well!" He exclaims, smiling with wide eyes as he pretends to be offended. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cage this morning!"

She doesn't give herself the chance to feel like an idiot as she chooses to reply in the vaguest way possible. "Hmph..."

He comes to a stop just a few feet away, and she realizes that he apparently had no destination except for wherever hers was. She would find it disturbing, but considering that it's Finnick she's dealing with, disturbia quickly makes way for annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, slightly knitting her eyebrows as she stares at him accusingly. "Your room is on the other side of the building."

"Well, believe it or not," he says, bowing his head as he steps closer."Haymitch sent me to get you."

She stares at him with a disbelieving look, though she can tell by his smugness that it's true. Anger flares in her chest like a little fireball, and she feels the need to exhale some of the building heat as she attempts to simmer down.

Haymitch.

That stupid, good-for-nothing geezer. He's probably laughing himself to death right now, probably can't even drink properly because of it. Well, she thinks indignantly. I hope he chokes on his alcohol.

"You okay, there, Fire Girl?" Finnick asks, waving his hand in front of her face. For a moment she thinks he's sincere, but that's before he smirks. "What's the matter? Can't get enough of me?"

"No," she says, officially pissed. "I was just visualizing duct tape over your mouth."

"Oooh, kinky," he grins, briefly running his eyes over her. "I like that."

She wrinkles her face in disgust."Ugh..."

Having had enough 'Finnick' for one day (or one week, for that matter), she angles herself away from him and brushes past him, ignoring him completely as her legs carry her the rest of the way to the training room. It's the cruelest she's ever been to another human being seeking to interact with her, blowing them off like that, but she knows by now that it's not nearly enough to keep him away. He's catching up with her seconds later, and as she suspects, it's him that starts the next round of conversation.