FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

5.4 a hollow heart

Falling asleep was something that had felt nigh impossible for far too long. It had taken a terrible amount of time for her to get there, but eventually the safe grip of Finnick's strong arms and his steady sleeping breaths were enough to send Calypso into a deep slumber she very much needed.

By the time she woke up, he'd detached himself from her. His warmth was no longer enveloping her, forcing her to open her eyes to see where he'd gone with the hope he'd do it again, perhaps for an eternity. As her eyes adjusted to the tolerable dim light, she took in the sight of his stationary figure still laid at her side. He stared back, eyes hollow and red and bloody.

They weren't eyes at all. Finnick stared at her, indeed, but he had no eyes. Those sea green gems she loved so much had been pulled from the sockets, still attached through strings of disgusting flesh and veins. Finnick looked at her with a deathly stare that she had to wonder if she had caused. Calypso closed her eyes once more.

"Not real," she whispered to herself, as if such a simple statement could make the truth before her go away. What was the truth anyway? Maybe she was still in that horrible room and just playing out a prolonged dream that would be ripped away from her when the inevitable beep came to wake her up. "Not real. Not real."

"Not real," his voice came like the whisper of an angel. A sinking pressure on the side of the bed made Calypso slip to the side until her waist hit Finnick's hip where he sat. His hand gently came upon her shoulder, squeezing with just enough pressure to let her know he was very real. When she opened her eyes, he was not laid in front of her with no eyes, but sat up and looking down with care and concern. "It's not real, love."

"It's not," she agreed quietly and pulled herself up to Finnick's level so she could not to be plagued with the image of him lying dead any longer. With her face so close to his, she could drink in the details of his stormy eyes. Real. So real. "You're here."

"I am, I'm here" he soothed softly, running a hand up and down her arm. Shifting his head to the side, he placed a gentle kiss on her temple and rested his cheek against hers. There was a good few seconds where he thought they were the closest to peace they had been in a very, very long time. And yet, he could still hear the quiet tremble in her unsteady breath. "When Death herself came knocking at my door..."

She furrowed her brows at his words, almost forgetting the way he used to create and recite his pretty words on a whim in the quiet moments when it came so naturally to him. Her time in the Capitol had so terribly thrown her through a loop that she'd almost forgotten she was so deeply in love with a poet and that she was his hopeless muse.

"...I let her in," he finished the line, breath hot on her ear. Finnick's fingers danced over her jawline before tangling gently into her hair at her neck. "For she had a hollow heart and a wanting hand, and I had a hollow hand and a wanting heart."

The image of his gouged eyes was gone from her mind as easily as it had come, all focus now on the sensation he'd just given her, so refreshingly familiar in a way she thought no longer possible. Calypso pulled herself back until she could nuzzle her nose against his, as if asking permission for more of his touch. Finnick obliged, lips brushing hers every so softly.

One small kiss. One small kiss he gave, and a deeper one she returned. It was a moment she knew would not last, but in that moment, being loved and loving in such a way, she thought she might just be invincible after all.

-

The mess hall was a place Calypso had wanted to avoid, the lights too bright, the noise too loud and the people just too much in every way. Even at a table with people who claimed to be her friends and family, she was getting judgemental and wary looks. On either side of her sat Finnick and Monica, and Annie next to Monica, all of whom were treating Calypso no different. On the opposite side of the table sat Katniss, Gale, Haymitch and Effie, the former pair of which were giving said looks. Katniss was wary. Gale was judgemental. Calypso was on edge.