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He smiles for the cameras, dazzling and deadly, but his eyes flick - just once - to where you stand by Snow’s side. Nobody notices. But you do. The cheers of the beaming audience and the glare of the strobes nearly overpower your poorly-concealed wandering thoughts.
And so does the President, wrapping a possessive arm around your waist, a cold and controlled action that silently but surely warns, strategic to put Finnick in unease.
You mouth soft words to Finnick, words you wish you could say in person, words that ache in your throat every time you're forced to look down on him, words that linger and die on your tongue as quickly as they came. You understand he can't reply. But you know he wants to, and that's enough. The fact that you both yearn for the same thing gives you a glimpse of the connection you once lost: something buried, but still burning beneath it all.
He says nothing. Not with his mouth or his actions, but perhaps, you hope, with his thoughts. Maybe he's thinking of what he wants to do to you. Or, as much as you hope it's the former, maybe what he wants to do to Snow.
Caesar Flickerman, the Capitol's beloved personality who dresses the part, laden in gold, second only to Finnick, takes a seat opposite the pressured 'Golden Boy'. In the other seat rehearsed muscles sit too perfect, too still, not that the Capitol residents would recognise that. They applaud Caesar's shallow act and consistantly fail to notice Finnick's slipping façade.
His fake smile flashes and morphs into a real one, one he had plastered on his face when you laid together, him stroking your hair and muttering soothing words after you had found out the news. He'd held you like you were his anchor to the centre of the world. He looks up at you again, like he knew what you had remembered.
The strained glance tells you everything you need to.
He says nothing. But his silence begs forgiveness.