WHO: Finnick Odair and OTA WHAT: Falling apart and putting himself back together WHEN: Backdated to Saturday morning, about 12 hours after this WHERE: Primarily the beach WARNINGS: Mention of past suicide attempts, sexual slavery, etc. It's Finnick. STATUS: Open, Complete
For the first few hours it barely hurt at all. It happened that way sometimes with bad wounds. Like when Granite had cut him in the side during the Games. He hadn't even known he was bleeding until the fight was over and then it hit him all at once.
He felt numb. He lay in his hut, staring up at the ceiling, going over and over the conversation in his mind. He indulged in some magical thinking, caught in a fantasy that if he could find the exact moment it had gone wrong, and come up with the exact right thing he should have said, then he could go back and fix it. It didn't seem real yet, so it couldn't really hurt him.
But eventually the reality started to sink in. He couldn't fix it. It was too late and there was absolutely nothing he could do or say that would make it OK. Ever. He'd thought this place could be different. He'd hoped he could be happy here. But now he knew nothing was ever going to change. He turned onto his side and started to sob. His chest felt like it was closing in on him, trying to implode. He'd always assumed "broken heart" was a clumsy metaphor, but now he understood because there was actual physical pain.
When he'd cried himself out he thought about calling Briseis, but when he flicked on the bracelet he happened to see an old post from Lydia instead. Just a random post, not directed to him, but there were her picture and her words. He tore off the bracelet and flung it across the room. He didn't want to talk to anyone anyway.
It was almost dawn. He got up and walked down to the beach. Back in Four he'd always gone to the beach when he was in pain. Sometimes the ocean washed it away, sometimes it just echoed his pain back at him, but it always made him feel less alone, in a cosmic sense. When he got to the beach he turned and walked south about a mile. The beach directly below their camp was the busiest part, and he didn't want to be disturbed. When he found a spot where he thought he'd be alone he stripped off his clothes and waded into the surf. It was stupid swimming at dawn, he thought. Sharks fed at dawn and dusk and every kid in Four knew not to swim at those times. He decided he didn't care. He didn't know if there were sharks here anyway and if there were they were welcome to try.
Not that he particularly wanted to be eaten by a shark. For one thing he thought it would be a pretty terrible way to go. For another thing he wasn't actually trying to kill himself. He had tried plenty in the past, so he knew it wasn't an option for him. Or at least tried to try. He couldn't get as far as making a serious attempt. The year he was fifteen and still pretty shaken from the horror of his new life he'd tried just about every method he could think of and couldn't go through with any of them. He'd sit in the bathroom with the razor blade at his wrist for hours, willing himself to press down but unable to do it, until Gaius would knock on the door and and ask him what the hell he was doing in there and he would put down the blade and open the door, pale and sweating. Then Gaius would dress him up and send him out to the next client. Over and over. Once he was back in Four he'd tried too. One day he'd decided to swim out so far that he wouldn't be able to swim back and he'd drown. That hadn't worked either, but it came the closest. When he'd been almost out of sight of the beach and so exhausted he could barely stay afloat he'd panicked, turned and swum desperately for shore. He'd barely made it, had thought he wouldn't make it. But it turned out that when his life was actually on the line he fought harder than he'd have dreamed possible to keep it. You didn't win the Hunger Games without an extremely powerful survival instinct and his wouldn't let him die even if he wanted to.
So, now when he swam out as far as he could go and didn't look back, he wasn't trying to kill himself. He just wanted to loose himself and not think about anything but swimming. Maybe he wanted to test the edge a little and make sure it was still there. Just to feel it. He just swam until he was at the edge of exhaustion. He stopped and floated on his back to catch his breath, and for the first time he saw how far he'd come. He'd gone even further out than the time when he was fifteen. He was older, taller and stronger now, with a grown man's body and he could swim faster. He hadn't realized how far he was going. He felt that moment of panic again. Oh god, I'll never get back. I've succeeded without trying. He turned and swam for shore feeling real fear that he might not make it, and that fear felt good in a way, because he felt something different than just misery. The fear let him know that he was alive and wanted to be.
He did make it, but by the time he reached the shore he was too exhausted to walk or even stand up for long. He crawled back to the rock where he'd left his clothes, collapsed naked in the shade of the rock and fell asleep for the first time in two days.