Author's Note: This is my first foray into the Hunger Games fandom. I devoured all three of the books about a week ago and now I'm officially obsessed. This little Johanna/Finnick ficlet came to me while I was doing a free write. Hopefully it will be the first Hunger Games fic of many. I do hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of the Hunger Games.

Younger Gods

It's been a long time since I last saw him. A year is a long time, a mess of days that run into nights and all the pauses in-between, the moments of breathless twilight and the dawns that seem to linger until their past their prime, until the sky above the Capitol is bruised with both sunlight and moonlight. I think of him most in the mornings, when the world can't decide if it's ready to wake up or fall back from the threat of each new day. It's when I'm at my most uninhibited. It's when I'm free to roam the streets, alone if I please, shaking off another sleepless night or the dreams that come and crush me in their jaws. I like to remember him when the air is still wet with dew and I can catch of whiff of the sea, because that's what he smells like. The largeness of him, his power, his charm, his beauty, all wrapped together in that slightly sweet, slightly salty scent that follows him everywhere.

When I see Finnick in the stables underneath the Training Center, I think of how he smells. And I remember when we said goodbye last time, after Katniss Everdeen and her lover-boy where still new to their laurels, and we had four dead tributes between us. Finnick had made a joke about us being disappointing as mentors. I wonder if he's still laughing now.

I only catch a glimpse of Finnick being wrapped in low-hanging toga made of netting. The corners of his eyes are tilted up and I can tell that he is joking with Mags, his old mentor, because the woman has begun to rasp and cackle behind her gnarled hands. She's smiling and patting his chin and Finnick is glowing already even before his stylist starts applying gold paint to his stomach and chest. I envy his ease with beauty. Nothing ugly could ever touch him, he told me once, unless he would let it. And even then I don't think Finnick would understand what it means to be truly hideous. He's a fool, in that way.

From afar, standing in the bed of my chariot, I savor his foolishness, wishing it could have been mine. I had a taste of ignorance once, before my first Games, and I liked it at lot.

But I can only pretend for so long. My stylist, Minerva, is reaching up to me, pulling my chin down with her talons. There's a dragging sensation above my cheekbones. I stoop my shoulders awkwardly and try to get closer to her.

"Excellent, Johanna," she hisses. Her nails, custom made and sculpted from sterling silver, end in jagged points that tap against my throat, close to the jugular. "I can't say enough about your brown eyes. Thank goodness brown and green are practically made to match each other!"

She's been saying this for years, ever since I was first reaped and I landed in her lap, a mousy girl who had big arms from lifting heavy logs and she had to make something out of me overnight, enough to woo Panem, enough to buy me a few days of survival in the arena.

She does her job well, Minerva. I won't say she's a genius. She lacks too much creativity. But there's something reliable about her that I've come to depend on.

Although I do wish she wouldn't dress me as a tree again. The first time I was too nervous to care what I was wearing. Now, I think, I have a reputation to uphold.

And of course, it wouldn't hurt if I looked good. If I looked a little better than tall graceful Katniss. Even Finnick's been making eyes at her. I notice. I notice every time he looks at her and his mouth curls up in a small, tight grin of appreciation.

It would mean a lot to me, of course, if I ever caught him looking at me like that.

Not that I'm the jealous type. Not that I'm any type at all, really. It's easier to be faceless in a world of masks. Or so I tell myself when Minerva starts arranging a crown of vines around my head. The synthetic leaves reek of imitation, of plastic and paint and the most horrid green dye I've ever seen. It doesn't smell like the forest, my costume, although Minerva obviously thinks she's hit the mark.

"Perfect," she purrs through a row of glittering silver teeth that match her nails. "You look just like Daphne."

I don't know who Daphne is and I'm not in the mood to ask. Minerva applies a final layer of bark-colored rogue to my cheeks. "Johanna," she says with an appreciative sigh, "you really can look beautiful."

It's the insinuation that I'm not beautiful that stings me. I'm not sure why I care. Beauty doesn't run deep in the people of District 7. We're tree-folk. Lumberjacks. In District 7 there's no shame in having dirt under your nails. And the women walk around with pine needles in their hair, smelling of sun and sky and the forest that would probably run on forever if the Capitol didn't fence it in.

Turning my head so that Minerva has access to my left cheek, I glance at Finnick and try to imagine what it must be like to have a vast ocean at your disposal. There's something limiting about being on land all the time. I think I could run away to sea, if I didn't have to go alone. I think I could leave my forest if someone asked me too.

Minerva pats me on the shoulder, signaling an end to her fussing. She takes a step back from me and admires her work.

"You'll catch the eye of every man in the Capitol," she tells me as if it's a promise.

My face screws up in a frown. I don't think Minerva, with her overconfidence, can truly believe what she's saying.

I must be miserable, because I don't thank her for her time and effort and, hmm, creativity. She's too excited to be offended, though, and bounces off to join some of the other stylists who have already finished with their tributes and are comparing notes on the sidelines.

A grin pulls up the corner of my mouth, my lips stiff with glittery paint. I try to tell myself that the stylists look like a bunch of blue jays twittering around on the same branch. But then again, most people don't realize how mean the birds can be when they're nesting. It's a very apt metaphor for the Capitol, really. All silver and gold with a predator's heart.

I look over at Katniss and Peeta and wonder just how much Snow is burning to have them dead. Finnick and I made a bet about them last year, when we had four dead tributes between us, and the two lovebirds were the only ones to come out of the arena alive. I told him they wouldn't make it a year after they were crowned victors. Finnick said I should have a little faith. He wanted to see them survive, I think, but not the way he has.

Because when you get down to the real meat of things, we've all bartered bits of our soul to survive. For Finnick, it's been his body. For me, I don't know. Maybe it's my happiness. But what's worth more?

"A penny for your thoughts," he says, his mouth close enough to my ear to send a pleasant little tingle up my spine. My back arches and I pretend to be surprised, although it's hard to catch a victor off-guard even after they've been out of the arena for a few years. I hear smelly old Haymitch still sleeps with a knife. I'm not that paranoid…yet.

"You still owe me," I tell Finnick. He's leaning against the wheel of my chariot, dangerously close one of the horse's rumps. It would be funny if he got cow-kicked, even though these creatures seem numbingly docile. Like the rest of us, the Capitol has trained them well.

"For what this time?" he asks. His jaw stretches in a bored yawn.

I scowl savagely. It's not fair that Finnick can look so casually beautiful even when he's standing back-to-back with a horse's ass. "They won't make it a year," I say gesturing at Katniss and Peeta. "And I don't care what you say about them, no one survives the arena twice."

"That includes us, of course?" he asks.

And suddenly, I'm hating his indifference to life, because it's so much like my own. There is precious little I can care about these days. Finnick, however, is a notable exception.

I fumble for the right words, but Finnick is quicker. He's like a fish with bright scales, flittering away through the water with long, fluid strokes that add unneeded grace to his tapered limbs. He scoots around, slinging one long arm over my shoulder to pull me into a loose embrace. But only I feel the need behind his touch. It's not desire, but loneliness, vulnerability. I tell myself that we belong together, in a way. Birds of a feather. Not blue jays. Not even Mockingjays. We're just two little fledglings caught up in a whirlwind, looking for a safe harbor, as Finnick would say in his fisherman's parlance. And in my guilty soul, I like having something in common with him, even though it's painful. I like that we share the same nightmares and the same fears and maybe, the same heart.

He smells like the ocean. He smiles and he's the sun and the moon all at once. He's the great roaring tide that rushes up onto land, the rushing sea that he promised he'd show me someday. Not now, though. And maybe, I'm beginning to think, not ever.

"You have to admit," Finnick says, his hand falling from my shoulder and settling at his waist, just above the intricate knot that holds his toga together, "they make for a nice couple." He jerks his chin in the direction of the District Twelve tributes.

I stare at Katniss and try to find that hidden glory in her, that hope we're all supposed to rely on when the time comes, but I can't see past all the smoke and mirrors the Capitol has rigged around her. And I can't tell if she really is a true Mockingjay, only mimicking what we want to hear, but not actually saying it.

And then there's Peeta, drifting aimlessly in her wake, a boat without an anchor, as Finnick once called him. A sailor lost to the overwhelming power of the sea.

I want to walk right up to the kid and tell him that it's all just a joke. A very clever ruse. He can love Katniss all he wants and we can all love her. That doesn't mean she'll ever love us back.

I look at Finnick, but he's not paying any attention to me. It's better this way, I tell myself. It's better for him and, even more so, it's better for me.

I'm about to tell that I think Katniss Everdeen looks as docile as a doe and not much smarter, when Minerva flounces over to us. She's grinning from ear to ear like we've done something wonderful. Her taloned-fingers fold over her chin, barely containing her sterling smile.

"If only you two could see yourselves!" she crows. "Like Daphne and Apollo exactly. Oh, it's perfect!"

I'm finally going to ask her who Daphne and Apollo are, but Finnick just gives a little chuckle and plucks one of the fake leaves off my headdress.

"C'mon, Apollo," he says to me. "Your chariot awaits."

Minerva starts to interrupt him, starts to tell him that his wrong, but I won't let her.

"After you, Daphne," I reply with a bow.

Finnick smiles and for just a moment, I smile for him.

Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. Feedback makes me insanely happy. Have a great weekend!