Chapter Text
She's crazy and delusional.
She has arrived here from a conquered city,
yet she has no notion of how to wear the bridle—
not, that is, before she has been broken in,
her mouth blood-flecked with foam.
I'll not waste further words on her,
just to be disrespected in this way.
- Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1065–1071
Johanna's already in a bad mood leaving the prep room, but when her handlers insist on escorting her to the well-guarded doors of the client's mansion rather than letting her make her own way, it only gets worse.
They leave her with a warning look that says don't fuck this up and Johanna understands she's in for a rough night. She glowers her way through a long, Avox-lined corridor to the main suite where she's about to get bent over.
"Now this is unexpected."
The voice registers before her mind can match it to the face turned towards her—a face she's seen a thousand times on the massive holo-board outside the Victors' Center, sea foam eyes and parted lips blown up in a hundred-foot proportion. "A little bird told me I wasn't going to be alone tonight but I don't think we've actually met."
There are two ways out of this room: the door she just came through and a window behind where Finnick Odair stands over a tray of confections, his good looks running through the room like a peal of bells.
"I know who you are." It probably says something—nothing good—that her team hadn't bothered telling her anything at all before they dropped her off. One of the many things no one warned her about. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Same as you. I guess Lucet thinks we'll make a good pair." He smiles and she tries to pretend she hasn't seen him bare and bathing in the camera's rapturous gaze every time a car takes her back to her apartment.
Under different circumstances, it wouldn't be difficult at all to admire Finnick from up close—he's built for admiration, but Johanna's an asshole even on a good day, so all it does is grate on her, him standing there looking like a trap someone set on purpose. There's a hierarchy, silent and shifting, even among the crowned, and Finnick Odair sits above the rest. His presence changes the math, and not in her favor.
They'd never crossed paths during the misery of her Victory Tour. Not in District Four, when she was dragged onstage before a sea of hateful faces, the sound of waves a dirge to the lies she read off cue cards. Not in District One either, when she'd refused to open her legs for Snow's VIPs. Her brothers, Heath and Holm, had died the next day. Gone over the falls, her father said, even though they'd known never to play near the edge of the escarpment. She hasn't seen Finnick in the flesh since she was propped up in the Capitol like a felled balsam fir in a Wintermas display, finally taking appointments like a good victor. And now that she's pretending she's been properly domesticated, hanging on by the skin of her teeth, he shows up, smiling like this is exactly where he belongs.
"You were brilliant in the arena. The whole helpless-girl act can get a little tired, but even I was fooled by those crocodile tears." Every syllable is rounded off like a pebble in a river, nothing left of District Four's rough accent. "So what happens now that everyone knows your best tricks? Are you still a snake in the grass, Johanna Mason?"
"I wasn't faking the tears." She stares him down, cataloguing the features that earned him a procession of silver parachutes while she'd been busy starving in the dirt: an easy mouth, bronzed skin the Capitol can't get enough of, the kind of pretty that tilts a room. The last year has been spent accumulating a fresh stockpile of the worst moments of her life, one after another, without pause; she'll get splintered before she lets him condescend to her. "But I guess it's better to be the one they want to fuck than the one they want to watch die."
It doesn't matter if his sponsors sheltered him from need—they're both chattel tonight, no different than lumber or livestock.
"That’s the move." Amusement tugs at the corners of his lips. "Shame, isn't it? That the cameras caught up with you in the end."
And they did. Four kills, concealed under the cover of night, up until the boy from Eight with the startled brown eyes trying to scoop his intestines back inside after she split him open. The Gamemakers made sure the whole world saw what she was.
She can't remember his name. Johanna wonders how many Finnick's forgotten.
"Did he sponsor you then?"
His smile thins. "He spared no expense."
Of course. A repeat customer. That's why he's so practiced at being in the belly of the beast. She shouldn't fault anyone for how they survive under the boot of the Capitol, and yet there it is—an irrepressible curl of disgust. Whatever this is, their alliance formed long before she came into this room. She's the odd man out. The unfairness of it pricks at her until she imagines a younger Finnick, fresh out of the arena, laid out across these same sheets, being taught what the room required of him, and that image sits heavy in her chest too.
Both of them turn at the click of the bedroom door opening.
Her first glimpse of Lucet Blaythe makes her think of a snake in a bird's nest, swallowing eggs one by one. Too pale, cheekbones too sharp beneath the skin, the insides of his lips stained dark like he's swallowed nightlock. She checks for Finnick's reaction by reflex; he watches Lucet approach the way sailors watch a storm gather.
"And here I was worried you'd start without me," Lucet says as he approaches, a bloom of red shadow climbing from the hollows of his eyes, sweeping towards his temples like a fever escaping his skull. "I hope you've been plotting something wicked."
He grips Finnick by the back of his neck, reeling him in close, and then they're kissing, filthy from where she stands, the flash of tongues moving between open mouths. Johanna's no stranger to Capitol indulgence—this is child's play compared to the kind of sex their clients shell out for—but it's different somehow, squaring Four's weird, insular reputation with the soft, wet sounds she hears as Lucet sucks and bites at Finnick's lips. Both are panting when they come apart but only Finnick's mouth looks tender and red.
"Sweet thing. Worth every penny it takes to bring you to me." Lucet pats Finnick's cheek, an unpleasant little smirk in the corner of his lips. "Have you been getting acquainted, my pearl? She's my special gift for you tonight."
"For me?" Finnick wipes his mouth with his thumb, twisting to look at her. "She looks like she'd rather break my knees than say hello."
His gaze, slow and heavy-lidded, rakes down her body. Johanna's never had an appointment with another victor, and she's not stupid—it's clear who's getting fucked tonight—but the way he comes towards her, eyes narrowed like he's assessing how to take her apart, sets her nerves screaming ambush. "It's never my idea, welcoming new victors this way." The words are murmured against her cheek. Up close, he smells like salt and heliotrope. "If only you could control your face half as well as you did in the arena."
Her fear, he means. Johanna gets it. She's tired of it too. She'd rather wrap outrage around herself like tactical armor, but sometimes, with the predators circling, all that's left to conjure up is the acid tang of fear.
He turns his head so his lips brush the corner of her mouth, either to test her temper or see how close he can get before she snaps. Johanna jerks away from the too-familiar touch. "You charging extra for all this advice?"
"I don't give anything away for free."
"Touch me again and I'll make you regret it."
"Bit ambitious when all you're armed with is that considerable Mason charm."
The way Finnick's eyes crinkle with amusement, she has to fight the urge to put her fist in his face. Johanna can't tell what angle he's working tonight, whether they're sparring for Lucet or sizing each other up for something worse, but Finnick's too capable to ignore. And if he's here to take her down while their buyer watches, she'll make sure he bleeds for it. "I don't need a weapon. Won't take much to put you in your place."
Her hostility doesn't faze him at all.
"Why Johanna," Finnick says, low and lazy, and she hates the part of her that tightens at his drawl. "If you want to put me in my place, you need only ask." A flick of his gaze to their client before it settles back on her, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. "Are you going to let her hurt me, Lucet?" There's a pout in his voice, but a real question behind it. Sometimes their clients only pay for sex; other times they pony up enough for pain. Either way, the goods are never free. President Snow doesn't deal in charity—he counts every coin, every moan, every mark left behind on his victors.
"Ask nicely and I'll consider it." Reclined in a chair by the bed, Lucet's gaze slides over to her, curling over her body like a pair of unwanted hands, and Johanna knows instantly that a man like this, a man whose company builds every sensor array behind the Capitol's force fields, doesn't need to consider what he can afford. "You're exquisite when you're overwhelmed, but I haven't decided if our new guest has the appropriate touch."
"I want it," Finnick says, already crowding in close. "Please, Lucet."
Heat rolls off him in waves as he drops his head, sucking a kiss into a tender spot on her neck to mask the quiet words against her ear: "He’ll do worse to both of us if I don’t." By the time he pulls away, Finnick has gathered the proper expression back onto his face—smiling rosewater mouth, teeth white as bone, blank behind the eyes—before he turns to face their hungry host.
Every single muscle goes taut at Lucet's high, delighted giggle. It's a sound that triggers an overpowering reflex to bolt, to bite, to break something and run—but the instinct comes a second too late.
"Think you can put him on his knees, Johanna Mason?" The sing-song way he says her name makes her skin crawl. "What do they even teach the little girls in Seven nowadays? Aside from how to be vicious cunts."
"I can draw blood."
A black grin meets her. What she sees in it scares her down to her bones. "Promises, promises."
"Or we can focus on other bodily fluids," Finnick interrupts smoothly, stepping forward, angling himself towards Lucet. "I know all your favorite ones." The sultry undertone sets her teeth on edge but somehow it works, lifting that oily attention off her and coaxing Lucet away from the edge of violence. He sits back in his chair, knees open in sleazy anticipation, like he's welcoming Finnick to crawl between them. It's foul watching him offer himself up, a soft and shining possession, hollowed out so they can pour their want inside. She can't do that. She won't, even if it keeps her alive.
"Tell me—what's the Capitol into these days, Odair? Pissing? Vomit? Plain old missionary?"
Finnick flicks her a look of exasperation, tight and fleeting, like it'd be smart for her to shut her mouth now, but Johanna's not feeling smart. Adrenaline beats inside her, a second heart ever since her name was called out at the Reaping.
The last of her composure frays as Lucet rises halfway out of his chair, erection tenting his pants. A shark's smile dipped in tar lights up his face. "They always start off willful. Luckily, we know how to handle a feral girl once her axes are packed away. You need someone who will use you. Someone to spread you open and fuck all that fury out of you until you're dripping come and covered in bruises. Am I close, Johanna?" Across from her, Finnick goes very still. His smile stays in place, flat and hollow as a marionette's.
"Are you just going to keep talking until you get the guts to come into range?" Wide green eyes find hers. It doesn't matter what Lucet thinks he's paid for, she's not going to lay back and open her legs for them. She tries not to wonder who Snow will kill for this. "Maybe you're both strong enough to take me down. But one of you is about to have a very bad day."
A flicker of movement and Finnick closes the space between them.
His honeyed mouth catches her off guard, warm, sweet enough to fizzle out her outrage before it can escape. He kisses Johanna like he's doing her a favor. Like he's sorry for everything. Her pulse betrays her hard, kicking up when his tongue curls around hers, as his hands rise to cradle her face, drawing her into his mouth.
She has to dig her nails into her thigh to keep from following when he pulls away.
This doesn't mean anything, Johanna thinks as he steps forward, trying to walk her towards the bed.
"What about me, Lucet?" Their bodies collide when she refuses to give way. "Why let her have all the fun? I thought you liked me best." Begging eyes stay fixed on hers, only inches away, though his voice is teasing. Something crosses Finnick's face, quick as a breath and gone just as fast—frustration, Johanna thinks at first, until she sees Lucet's hand insinuate itself between them, a sweaty palm catching on golden skin.
"You know you're my favorite," Lucet thumbs a nipple with easy ownership. "I didn't know you wanted it so badly."
A sharp tug and Finnick shivers. His lips part on cue. "Always, Lucet. No one fucks me like you do."
She doesn't blink when Lucet rakes his nails across Finnick's chest with cruel familiarity, when Finnick arches into the touch like he's asking for more. She can't look away. A hand pushes into the waistband of his shorts and before Finnick throws his head back, rolling his hips into the touch, Johanna can see his eyes are empty, empty.
Stupid to think she needs protecting, if that's what this is. She tells herself again what she already knows: they took him young and made him something they could use. Taught him how to lie down and smile through it.
People are an anchor, Johanna thinks. They'll sink you down, keep you there whether or not it's safe to remain. She has no people left, only ghosts and fury and a promise to inflict as much damage as she can before she sees herself out. Johanna came here to burn.
And yet.
Rooted in place while Lucet strips Finnick bare, she's not so sure.
There's no covenant between victors. They've all been plucked from their homes, thrown into the morass to fend for themselves. Still, she watches Finnick lift his arms so Lucet can peel away the straps of his shirt and asks herself what any of them owe each other. What survives if the answer is nothing.
And then it's worse somehow, once Lucet shoves his shorts down his thighs, because Finnick is beautiful, and she is clothed. Lucet is clothed. He is not.
Everyone in Panem has seen Finnick naked. It's almost a rite of passage. There's no shortage of racy photo shoots, even the rare skin flick, but seeing the way Lucet fondles Finnick's flushed cock like it belongs to him feels like a trespass in a way the other things don't. Lucet tugs and strokes until Finnick is standing at attention, low noises escaping his throat—pleasure, maybe. Or more likely what he's been taught to do: make sounds that reassure his clients of their prowess, sounds for the cameras even when there are none. Finnick Odair likes being watched, she's heard people say; he gets off on the attention. But Johanna looks into his eyes and knows no one wants this.
He stands between them, being mauled, and somehow she's the one crying.
Nudged forward by Lucet's hand, Finnick moves. He avoids looking at her as they shuffle toward the bed, pressing her onto the mattress and climbing on top of her. His knees are a yoke across her hips holding her down, his erection prodding at her hip. Being in such a vulnerable position should be terrifying but Johanna can tell he's holding his weight off of her, trying to keep from crushing her into the mattress as Lucet fits himself behind.
For one brief, aching beat, she can read everything on his face, written out plain as day: resignation in the tight line of his mouth, loathing. A sharp exhale. His body freezes up, eyes squeezed shut like he can't bear to see Johanna anymore.
The brutal rhythm of skin slapping skin fills the room. Short exhalations slip from his throat, body rocking with each thrust. One moment he's biting his lip to stay quiet, lying against her, his back a rounded bulwark against the assault from above. Then something changes. Johanna feels it before she understands it, the way a crowd leans in to watch a spectacle. There's fucking, and then there's what she's witnessing now: the smallest adjustment as his body relaxes into itself, settling. Spine loose, Finnick's whole body yields as he rolls his hips, fucking back down onto Lucet's cock.
It's conditioning, she tells herself, watching him slip into a different shape. Sweat glitters over his throat, gilding him as it beads and drips down his skin; Johanna wants to run her tongue over the trail it leaves. She turns away with a grimace.
"Are you enjoying yourself, pet?" A pale hand cards through Finnick's bronze hair.
"Yes," Finnick breathes in the filthiest, most fucked-out voice Johanna's ever heard. "I need you. Please. Split me open—"
Pain snatches the words away as Lucet pinches Finnick's nipple, nails biting into tender flesh. "You're neglecting your playmate, lovely boy," he says, a grin cutting across his face when Finnick curls in, whimpering. His words are punctuated by staccato breaths as he pounds into Finnick at a punishing pace. "You know what she's for." There's a warning in his tone. Lucet's paid for the symmetry of having them both.
Moving to obey, Finnick braces himself on one arm, reaching down between them with the other, and she waits for the nudge of a cock pushing inside her.
Instead, he goes quiet. Just the sound of his breath quickening, ragged and thin.
Their gazes meet. There's panic there. Johanna's seen salmon in a grizzly's mouth look less afraid.
Checking down between their bodies, Johanna can see his hand moving, but he's—soft. Too soft to do what Lucet wants. A sick, sinking feeling fills her stomach. The illusion he's enjoying himself is perilously close to breaking.
Later, she'll try and fail to recall her logic, why she imagined what she does next might spare him pain. A better person would have found another way. Right now, she thinks of the river rock she found on her pillow as the train left District One, marked with unmistakable silica veins; her mind pictures Heath and Holm at the bottom of Ockert Falls. All she knows is the shape of survival as it's been taught to them. Finnick stepped between her and Lucet's crackling violence without hesitating. Johanna follows, body first.
Twisting sideways, she slides out from under Finnick and shifts toward the head of the bed, their limbs tangling as she goes. Johanna leans against the pillows, one knee crooked open.
This is going to hurt, she thinks, reaching for him.
It only takes Finnick a second to catch on once she knots her hand in his hair. A glimpse of his expression as she angles her hips towards his face—caught off-guard—before he drops his shoulders to the mattress, stretching out between her thighs. He hadn't expected help. The blackest part of her knows: this can't possibly count as help.
Tugging the crotch of her panties aside, he lowers his head.
Lucet's movements stutter. He digs his hands painfully into Finnick's hips, forcing him to still while he waits to see what they're scheming.
She's not the worst person in the room, Johanna tells herself. But she's close. She pulls Finnick's mouth between her legs.
As soon as his tongue touches her, she knows she's lost. Finnick kisses along the seam of her cunt, wet and open-mouthed; he finds her clit, teasing, brushing back and forth against it with soft lips. When she arches up in frustration, wanting more, he presses into her outer folds, opening her wide, laving at her with the flat of his tongue. She pulls him in by the hair, grinds against his mouth, and Finnick accepts it so easily, beautifully. Like he was made for it. Muscles deep inside her body clench up, making her moan under the soft, slick heat. It shouldn't feel this good, but the maddening flicks of tongue send warmth rolling up her spine. She follows that shivery feeling, squeezing her thighs tight around his head, insistent until he obliges, sliding his fingers through her wetness and pushing inside.
Firm pressure against her inner walls while Finnick finds her clit again, closing his lips around it and sucking. Between the rhythm and the needy groans coming from deep in his throat that she can feel as much as she hears, Johanna's legs start to shake. When she remembers this later, she'll try to tell herself they're too honest to be faked.
They've all carved out the core of him, she thinks as she rides Finnick's face, trying to chase the star-burst waves coursing through her. They've left him shining. Made him bright enough to blind.
It's not what Lucet expects. She registers that much the moment her vision clears. Some part of her knows he'll like it better if she's mean, so she yanks Finnick's head back by the hair, his throat a vulnerable arch.
"I'm sorry." Finnick licks his lips. His voice is almost a whine as he tries to catch his breath. "I wanted to taste her, Lucet. I had to. She smelled so good—I knew she'd be sweet—" Whimpering, he strains against her hand in his hair as if it's torture being kept from Johanna's cunt.
A black-toothed grin spreads across Lucet's face as he takes in Finnick's feverish eyes, chin glazed with her juices. "That mouth was made to be fucked," Lucet hisses with a harsh thrust of his hips. "Give the boy what he's begging for."
This time, it's easy to obey. Finnick tugs her panties off and drops his head back down to lap between her legs, a hand splayed on her thigh, thumb stroking her clit in neat small circles that send her rocking once again into the drag of his tongue.
"Sluts." Lucet looks on approvingly.
Finnick brings her off twice more, shuddering under his palms while everything roars in her head. Each thrust of Lucet's cock inside him pulls soft noises from his mouth, hot puffs of breath against her skin. He mouths lazily at the crease of her thigh, drifting up to the hollow of her hip, avoiding anything else as they wait for Lucet to finish. He can probably sense just how overstimulated she is. If she's already this raw from just his mouth, how much longer can Finnick last with Lucet still pounding away above him? As long as it takes, she imagines.
A frustrated noise from the other side of the bed brings them to a pause. Lucet pulls out, his erection bobbing in the air, angry red and slick with lube.
"We'll need the box," he says, short, breathing hard under a sheen of sweat.
Finnick's eyes find hers. The wariness in them sets off alarm bells in her head. "Lucet, do you want me to try?" he asks, turning to look over his shoulder. He wets his lips. "You know how good I can be." Johanna wants to beg him to shut the fuck up before he brings more trouble onto himself.
"Remarkable how much lenience you think an eager mouth can buy." Lucet's grin is faint, thin as a papercut as he gestures for Finnick to approach. It pains her to watch him crawl, to see how Lucet grabs him by the jaw with a fond little shake.
"Open," he says, and Finnick, still beautiful, his chin still shining and wet from her cunt, complies.
Lucet hooks his finger in Finnick's bottom teeth, pushes his mouth wider. He nudges the head of his cock inside, thrusting shallowly once, twice. "You can't stand it when I leave you empty, can you?" An indulgent smile, hand on the back of Finnick's head as he pushes in deeper. "Hungry for cock, like you're still starving in the arena."
They're past the days of Bloodbaths and Cornucopias, she thinks as she watches Finnick dip his head, how he hollows his cheeks and works his tongue. Now, they learn quieter deaths. Kneeling below him, Finnick puts a hand on Lucet's thigh. His eyes are closed as he adjusts himself, trying to find a more comfortable angle while Lucet pistons in and out between his lips.
He isn't ready at all when Lucet forces his head down.
A horrible retching noise. He tries to rear back, but Lucet brings down his other hand, pinning him in place, fists knotted in his hair.
They'll take everything you have, Johanna thinks, watching Finnick's body convulse. Your dignity. Your air. The human body is many things, all of it meaningless without oxygen.
She knows she should shut up, but she can't make her mouth listen. "I guess Victors' Affairs has a going rate for snuff now."
"Don't be dramatic. It takes a great deal to kill a victor," Lucet says, droll, like he isn't still suffocating Finnick with his cock.
Not always, she wants to say. Not the way you'd expect.
"—and this one has been especially resilient." He raises both hands as if to demonstrate, and Finnick lurches away, saliva dripping down his chin, dragging himself on hands and knees to the far side of the bed. "It's harder than you'd think to fuck a throat," Lucet explains over Finnick coughs and gasps. "His hole would take me right in. That's what it wants to do. But a throat resists. It has to be compelled." Voice soft, almost patient, he lets the words sit as Finnick struggles to breathe.
Then he snaps his fingers, patting the bed beside him. "Come now, pet. We'll try again."
"Please." Finnick cringes back, like every cell in his body wants to refuse. She's watching someone trapped in a burning building, so close she can press her face to the glass, see the flames licking at his skin. "It hurts. Don't make me."
Johanna thinks of her parents. Mama's scarred palms. The hewing hatchet papa passed down like a bloodline. How they'd both loved their family roughly but well. She thinks of Heath and Holm running through the lodgepole pines. All gone. No one is worth keeping alive enough to endure this.
Johanna looks at Finnick Odair and sees a man who loves too much. If she's reading Lucet's face right, he knows it too.
"Sweet boy, let me remind you how this works. I don't make you do anything. You chose. Every time. I gave you a trident. You used it to win the Games. You came to me begging for medicine for your tributes. Was it worth it, for Four to crown another victor?"
Understanding hits her all at once. One of the most celebrated moments in the Hunger Games, rebroadcast so often it's basically myth: an enormous case carried by three silver parachutes descending like providence. And the boy who catches it, shimmering in the surf, dripping salt and blood and victory. The most extravagant gift in the history of the Games, and Finnick's never stopped paying for it.
Johanna doesn't move, doesn't speak. They hang these debts like a millstone around your neck, she thinks. Debts they'll say you owe for gifts you can't refuse.
She watches him crawl back to Lucet. A flinch as Lucet's penis bumps against his mouth, the wet tip smearing against Finnick's lips before he parts them. He moans then, desperate, committing an act of terrible compliance.
"Look at you," Lucet says, a hand around Finnick's jaw, guiding his mouth down his erection. "Such a good boy. You'll take what I give you and be grateful."
This time, Lucet doesn't bother with tricks. Fisting a hand into Finnick's hair, he pulls him immediately into a harsh rhythm, too rough for anyone to accommodate.
A strangled sound; gagging again, fat tears slide down Finnick's face as he struggles to accept the cock pushing past the back of his tongue. When Lucet lets go, he immediately caves inward, breath breaking in panicked heaves.
"Stop, stop. Please. I can't—" His voice is wretched. "I'm sorry. Ask for something else. Anything else." Frantic pleading that sends fury crawling up Johanna's throat, stinging her eyes. When the tears spill over in a way she's helpless to stop, she doesn't wipe them away.
"Don't make a spectacle of yourself," Lucet scolds over Finnick's ragged breaths. "You've made choices, Finnick. And if you want to keep making them, you'll take my cock in your mouth and choke on it."
And then he's cupping Finnick's cheeks and feeding his cock back in, bearing down on him like it's nothing—like the throat in front of him is an orifice made for fucking, not speaking, or eating, or laughing, or breathing. "My eager boy," Lucet murmurs. All of his attention is fixed on watching Finnick come apart. Withdrawing just enough for a little momentum, Lucet allows him one quick gasp of air before he drives inside and holds himself in place. A hand closes around Finnick's neck, squeezing to feel each flutter of resistance. "You're lucky, you know. Being so greedy for the very thing that repays what you owe." More poisonous nothings land one after another, each making Johanna want to rip out his tongue.
Finnick's shoulders shake with swallowed sobs, his face red with exertion and lack of oxygen. It's almost a relief when Lucet pulls out, gasping as he finishes on Finnick's face, spurting in ropes over his cheeks, his chin.
"Such a disgusting state," he says, panting. He gathers a streak of come on his fingers, pushing it between Finnick's lips, probing inwards. "What do you say."
A slow blink. "Thank you, Lucet," Finnick says around the fingers in his mouth.
When Lucet pulls his hand away, his fingers are shiny with spit. "Again. More convincing this time."
Finnick swallows once, then ducks his head, turning until he can press his mouth to Lucet's palm. "Thank you, Lucet." Inhaled smoke, heat crackling through his lungs. "I'm grateful."
And Johanna believes him.
Maybe that's it, she thinks, listening to Finnick's breath, still coming in shallow, irregular gasps. Maybe they're done for tonight.
"That's my boy." Lucet lifts Finnick's chin. "Let's see how far that gratitude goes."
He can't expect Finnick to keep going. Not now, broken open and trembling like a stiff breeze could blow him over.
And yet, she watches, incredulous, as Finnick nods. He doesn't move an inch until Lucet leaves the room in search of his special box.
As soon as the door closes, he walks gingerly on his knees to the bedside table. Johanna watches him yank the drawer open, fumbling through it.
"Is there anything—"
"No. I've looked." Finnick's voice is a rasp, barely audible. His face is bleak. Without meeting her eyes, he pushes a tube into her hands. "Can you help me? Please."
It's lube. Looking down, everything seems a little muffled, distant.
"What?" The word doesn't feel like it comes out of her own mouth.
"Please, Johanna. Before he comes back." He lays back down on his side, pulling a knee to his chest to make it easier for her to reach, and the vulnerable curve of his body makes him seem so fragile. "It won't hurt so bad if you play along." Finnick's voice is flat.
"He'll hurt us as much as he wants, no matter what we do."
When he turns to her, his eyes are an undertow, dragging her down. "Just do it, Johanna."
This fucking, fucking miserable place. She scans the room for a backup plan, something they've overlooked.
"Maybe I can take it." The words come from nowhere.
"We don't have time for this." The look on his face is scared, but above all, resigned. They're out of options. Some days, a choice you hate and a choice you can live with aren't all that different. She slicks up her fingers.
"Sorry, sorry," she says when the first touch draws a full body flinch. The apology is completely inadequate when she pushes into Finnick's body anyway, two fingers inside of him where he's already soft and open. She twists to loosen him further.
"Another," he says, and then turns his head so that he doesn't have to see her anymore. "More. Please." Bile rises in her mouth.
This is how Lucet Blaythe finds them, the fingers of Johanna's hand tucked as carefully as she can inside Finnick, the other rubbing his hip, trying uselessly to comfort him with soft, whispered apologies. He laughs at the sight, delighted and mean, as he stalks towards them, eyes fixed where her hand disappears between Finnick's thighs.
"You, girl, come here." Lucet opens a plain black box, utterly innocuous, but what he pulls out makes Johanna freeze. Finnick isn't nearly open enough for the implements Lucet is setting down tenderly on the bed beside them.
"Can she—Lucet, let her hold me?" The sound of Finnick's voice punches the breath out of her, high and tremulous, cracking with stress. When she turns to look, his lashes are clumped with tears. It throws her off balance, like she's missed a step in the dark. "I want to be good for you, but I'm scared. She can keep me in place. Please, Lucet."
The devil takes the hindmost, her mother used to say.
"Oh, darling. You want her to be your teddy bear?" The look on his face is almost tender.
"Yes," Finnick says, voice hardly a breath above a whisper. He sounds so small. So young. "Please."
Something inside her fractures.
Lucet taps a finger on Finnick's bottom lip and he closes his mouth around it, sucking. "Of course. You do better with an audience." Straightening, he wipes his fingers off on Finnick's cheek; Johanna's hands clench into fists. "Now, on your hands and knees. Quick, before I change my mind."
"Thank you." He reaches out for her, tugging Johanna closer by the wrist and guiding her down onto the bed. "Thank you for letting me have her, Lucet."
Johanna doesn't fight him on this. She lies back. Under him, shielded by his body, she'll be as hidden from Lucet as anyone can be in this room. She isn't small, but neither is he; she can disappear almost completely underneath him.
She draws her arms around Finnick's shoulders, folds him in close. He's already trembling, breath high and afraid.
Then it begins.
Johanna might as well not exist with the way Lucet's gaze locks onto Finnick, every inch of him caught in that terrible focus.
Finnick stays between them the entire time, his face pressed against her neck.
She holds him through it, as tight as she can, until her arms ache.
When the night breathes its last, they find they've both survived.
