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Night had fallen again in Thirteen, though only the clock told Johanna that in this windowless metal box. Still, secure in the knowledge that she wasn’t going to be tortured and that it was a good while yet before Lights Out and being plunged suddenly into darkness, she and Haymitch were busy with the same thing they’d been doing every night the last two weeks already—namely, sex.
She wouldn’t say it was nightly because it was so utterly fantastic that she was impatiently going through the day waiting to get him naked. That would imply a certain level of passionate abandon that wasn’t there. It had gotten better, true, but there was still that care and certain awkwardness to it, always making sure it was all OK. It wasn’t love. Like she’d told Finnick, It’s just sex, Finn. Relax.
But it meant she could sleep through the night. It meant being touched, by someone who took care to make sure it didn’t bring pain. It meant not being alone, with someone who knew her and stood by her all the same.
Fucking was all about power; that was the lesson she’d learned in the Capitol. It was a matter of being fucked at first, and then being the one fucking them, being their fantasy of the brutal bitch of a victor, the snarky little backstabber, dangerous and violent and sly. Because after Finnick, she knew nobody was going to have the chance to get to her again, to let them see something real. It would hurt too fucking much when they didn’t like what they saw and moved on. So fucking was all she had left to her to feel something, being everything they wanted and using them even as they thought they used her, and having the satisfaction of knowing not a one of them had gotten anything real or true from her.
But Haymitch had been there when she was utterly powerless, screaming her head off in pain or at things that weren’t even there. No point in trying to pretend around him; it would just make her look pathetic. She hadn’t offered that glimpse of herself up willingly but he’d seen it all the same.
Stupid, she thought, even as she felt herself instinctively leaning into the slow caress of his hand down her back, so fucking stupid, what am I even doing? By all rights she ought to have been pretending he didn’t know anything at all and acting like it never happened. Here she was, though, screwing him on a regular basis now. Because it felt so damn good to know she wasn’t the only one messed up and lonely, and to be with someone who would accept those terms.
She gripped his shoulders, bracing herself a bit better to pick up the pace, and saw him wince. She didn’t know what about that in particular would have set him off, but it was there all the same. Stopping, she looked at him, cocking an eyebrow, asking him, OK?
He shook his head. “Peeta. Training. Not you,” he said tersely. It was just a muscle ache or a bruise from how fiercely he went at the military training, not a bad reminder of bygone days. Moving her hands a little, she glanced at him again and he nodded. “Better.”
They were getting better at this. Less constantly watching each other with that tentative caution, less moments of startled awkwardness or simply vanishing mentally back into some other place and time at a bad reminder. That self-awareness was still there, though. It had to be.
But she’d look at him sometimes, and rather than seeing him carefully watching her, or worse than that, the distant look that told her he’d gone away inside himself, she would see a sort of dazed wonder as if he couldn’t quite believe he was enjoying what he was feeling. That was a big thing, him feeling it, because she knew damn well from experience he’d gotten to the point of wanting to feel nothing.
During in the last few days she’d seen something else entirely here and there, a flash of intense heat in those grey eyes. Sometimes the way he kissed her, as if he forgot himself just a little, it was there too. Moments like that—like right now, when as she moved on him and felt his hand on her back clenching into a fist, hearing his breath catching in his throat—she saw that spark, bright and fierce.
She felt a tension stirring in him too. It wasn’t the old alarmed tension of fear, but the tension of impatience, of restraint. It called to that craving sometimes in her that wanted so much more. Suddenly she wanted to see that spark catch and burn, wanted to see what it would be like to test the boundaries of this thing they had made together so carefully. If she pushed him, what would he do, if he really just gave in and lost himself in the moment? What kind of Haymitch would she see then?
Maybe he’d had enough of slow and steady, of patiently letting her keep control. If she kissed him, inviting that door to open, maybe he’d just roll them both over and go ahead and let go already. Imagining it, thinking about him braced up over her and fucking her hard and fast into the mattress, about hanging on to him for dear life and watching that spark roaring to life in his eyes all for her, she felt the shudder of pleasure go down her body at that, right down to where she moved yet again against him, feeling the stroke of him in her. It could be good. It could be really good. She felt herself going at it harder in response, spurred on by the urge to chase that heat within herself.
But in the next instant the image of Haymitch was replaced by Clark and Gaius Luna and Thalius Eland and too many others, and suddenly in her mind she wasn’t screaming in pleasure but in terror, once again trapped and helpless. She let out a gasp at that, freezing, almost wanting to push away from him entirely because for just a moment, everything about him was too male, too much: the hard muscle under her hands, the deep pitch of a half-suppressed grunt of pleasure, the musk-and-sweat smell of him, and most of all, the feel of his cock in her. No, obviously having him being on top wasn’t a good idea. There was plenty of reason she’d never let anyone have that willingly.
She looked away, embarrassed at flipping out like that, even more awkward at the thought of him trying to figure out what had suddenly gone wrong, and maybe having to explain. Pissed off a little bit too, at being so unraveled by an old fear again, so much so that she was almost tempted to just roll onto her back and force herself to endure it to prove a point and just get over it. But that was stupid and knowing him, he'd refuse anyway if he saw her gritting her teeth like she was waiting for torture rather than pleasure. No, not tonight. Not yet.
He stopped immediately himself, his hands relaxing on her, his grip easing until it was just the barest contact of his fingers. At least he didn’t go so far as to take his hands entirely off her like he used to do, making that awkward moment where he silently waited for her to tell him it was OK to touch her again. Finally willing herself to look back at him, he was watching her steadily, the question there in his eyes. “Nothing you did,” she said, willing him to not ask more.
He didn’t tease or snark at her. Right now both of them took this seriously enough to leave the sarcasm with the clothes. He just gave her one of those rueful little smiles, and kissed her. Gentle, not hot, but when he wrapped his arms around her and drew her in closer against his chest for a moment, that meant plenty anyway, and she let him do it. She’d have maybe even let him hang on a little longer if he hadn’t let her go.
Neither of them was a prize, scarred skin and hair barely grown out into short tufts from being shaved, so many issues beyond counting too. So she had no illusions, of course. What she had left to give, what he had left to give, wasn’t going to lead to some sweet little fairy tale of an ending. Odds were one or both of them might die in the Capitol anyway, and if they survived, she knew chances were he wanted to just go back to Twelve with Katniss and Peeta and drink himself to death in relative peace.
It wasn’t like she could offer him much anyway. She couldn’t even lie back and let him fuck her. Something like an actual relationship felt distant and unreachable as the stars. Didn’t mean she hadn’t gotten in too deep anyway. Night by night he’d helped her gain back pieces of herself but each one, a little bit was lost again because it was no longer only hers, tied to him and tangled up in this as it was. Seemed like between Finnick and now Haymitch she was doomed to only be able to get involved with men where it was totally hopeless.
But if she had to die, or go back to Seven to live alone, at least she would have knowing someone had seen her truthfully and not turned away, and instead tried to comfort her. She’d know too that if he didn’t have a whole heart left to give, at least she’d probably seen the most of him than anyone had after the girl he’d loved and lost when he was just a kid himself, before all his own damages.
His fingertips tapped a light rhythm on her back, calling her attention back. She glanced up and saw him looking at her, asking if she was all right. “Still here,” she told him, seeing the quick smile she got in answer to that, seeing his too-short hair and trying to not wish this would last long enough for it to grow out enough for her to run her fingers through it.
They had a week or so left and that was it, best to accept what was and make the best of it. Because maybe this wasn’t everything; but it was far from being nothing. Even if the trouble was having it only left her sometimes wanting more than either of them could bear, even if it was only for a few weeks, she thought that was true enough to be worth having. She'd count the cost later.