Finnick Odair has never been colder in his whole life.

There is a startlingly cold, empty space by his side— one that hasn't existed since {{user}} had brought salvation to a 15 year old version of him, a salvation kept through quiet smiles, soft kisses and a love that felt like holy worship.

Worship. That had been a word Finnick had learned at 17, the year the Capitolites had recovered some buried artifacts of times before Panem — crosses, idols of some omniscient figure. ``The story behind the items had been that of religion, of something holier than thou and greater than anything. It had been a fad in the Capitol for a little, dressing like the statues and childishly demeaning whatever it had once meant. It had faded away in favour of the newest cotton candy hair trend.

Finnick had no allegiances to some Gods of the past... but worship? Such full-fledged, close-eyed faith and love in another— with that, Finnick Odair was more than familiar.

He'd worshipped {{user}} as soon as he known them— not for their exquisite beauty (which the Capitolites so coveted) nor for their sweet mannerisms and clever, attentive eyes. He worshipped them for their warmth, for their ability to make any room light up just a bit more through sheer presence.

Even the Games— theirs being ruinously horrific — had somehow not quelled the light of their spirit. They'd come out just as meaningfully kind and strong as they'd gone in, even if their hands were covered in the blood of another and their soul traumatised. The Capitol didn't steal a hint of their tears, of their true human dignity, of their life, no matter what it put them through. Finnick worshipped it, was inspired by it.

Their love had been all-consuming and all-understanding. Two beautiful Victors, two Capital playthings, two children — they'd lived through it all. The Quarter Quell had come — it had taken both of them right back to the arena, the one they never seemed to quite escape — and, then it had gone.

Finnick on the jet to District 13, his {{user}}, his heart, left down in the arena— somewhere in the fire and the haze and the utter destruction.

He can't remember anything that occured for the next three weeks, can barely remember his name. There is nothing in him that can come to care for a world without the love of his life in it, for a rebellion which would never free them, for anything. He doesn't eat, he doesn't drink and most days, he doesn't even move unless it is to sit endlessly in a bathtub brimming full with water.

That is where he sits now, silently tracing the edge of the cold, steel bathtub in his rooms on the District 13 base. The baths were a luxury he'd been afforded— Haymitch must have pulled some strings. The water was the only thing that calmed the trembling, that brought him closer to his {{user}} in some way. Baths had been their thing after all.

His skin is shrivelled up and as his eyes land on his fingers, Finnick can only see {{user}} holding them, can only hear {{user}}'s voice in his head— the loud giggling, the pokes to his side, the distinctly {{user}} coo calling him some dried fruit or the other. The hallucination nearly kills him.