Hi lovely readers- so this fic is a side-piece to my 'Called Out In The Dark' HG Catoniss piece and links up well with it in parts. It can be read as a standalone though in the same AU and is mostly focussed on the background of Johanna/Finnick pairing.

'Paint Our Love'

Chapter One: Containment.

She'd once been what her mother had described as a 'happy-go-lucky' child: always smiling and laughing and delighted with the world and the people in it. There were even photos of her when she had painted her entire face blue 'just because'; and photos of her grinning toothily at the age of 6 with both hands stuffed with sweets, trying to offer them to a collection of stuffed toys…

So different to what she was now; who she was now. When she was reaped; still a sweet and chirpy 17 year old, no-one thought she would even survive. No-one knew that she had that hardness, that violence, that coldness in her. She knew. She knew the second she reached the podium and had shaken hands with Frederiken. She knew she could kill to survive, she knew she could play the game and win.

Finnick had known it too; but not until he saw her at the presentation of the tributes. During the reaping his attention had been on Frederiken- on that well-built, hard-edged 16 year old boy. His eyes had drifted over Johanna- a petite, pretty honey-haired girl who looked like the perfect prey: the deer to the Career lions- but only briefly. Briefly, yet long enough to make him blink twice at her wide dark eyes that seemed to lock on him through the screen. Then he saw her at the presentation and he knew what the rest of Panem was yet to realise: she was going to be the Victor. Of course, there were moments during the Games when he doubted that first thought: when she was hiding, wounded and exhausted after her brief scuffle at the Cornucopia he thought then it might have been down to the lighting, or the noise or the cleverness of her stylist. But by the end of the games he could only recall the vision of her at the presentation and how similar- yet terribly different- she looked when she knew she had won.

She'd been completely silent both times, and staring intensely. At the presentation she had looked out of place and completely at home at the same time- she moved gracefully and carefully, but inconspicuously: she looked good, but nothing outstanding compared to the Career girls of District 1 and 2, who were adorned in jewels and gold armour. To everyone but Finnick, Johanna had looked normal and… unimportant. But he saw something in her eyes: something in the way she wore her surprisingly stylish forest green and burnished copper dress with disdain. She looked at him only twice and each time her burgundy-painted lips quirked up at him and her eyes blazed in a manner that seemed to say 'You're right; you'll see.'

He watched her closely after that and informed Mags of his thoughts – even when she was given a distinctly average 6 on the rankings. He thought her interview was bizarre, more contrived than any before, and it was then that it became clear to him that not even the girl's mentor really knew what she was going to be like in the arena. She wore a strange dress- like a ballerina that had run through a forest- white and smeared with deep reds and greens and coppers. She looked like a creation from a fairy tale and she was surprisingly witty with Caesar. Everything about her was charming but forgettable and Finnick wondered a few times throughout the Games if she had played that card on purpose.

When she killed the Career from District 2 he knew instantly that she had. She had been unreservedly vicious in response to the attack; until that point she had only hidden away, surviving on the water she had collected in a pot from the first rain. She had seemed like she was waiting to be hunted. But when Theses found her she turned into a savage. She fought not from training, Finnick knew, but from instinct and rage. She was quick and flexible and Finnick watched her dodge Theses' sword and launch at the boy's face with a dark fascination. She killed Theses with his own sword- wrestling and beating him to the floor with a ferocity the boy had clearly not been expecting, and though he was strong and beat her off several times she still managed to fiercely bite and tear the sword from his hands and drive it into his belly with strangled cries. After that, she was quicker with her kills. Not that there were many: the female Career from 2 who had wounded Johanna from behind but was eventually flung off the waterfall edge, and the boy from 5 who she had saved Frederiken from with some very well-aimed axes… and the final battle with the odds-on favourite Nero from 1. That last fight was the worst, but Finnick had known she would win, even when Nero had jabbed his spear into her stomach in a way that she could have let kill her. They were both smeared with blood and dirt when she finally drove an axe fatally into Nero's side as he crouched over her on the rocky caverns. She stood up as soon as she had shoved him onto his back away from her and walked to the edge of the cliff of the mountainous terrain the Games had centred around. Finnick had almost paused the screen to simply look at her- her expression was one of containment: like it had been that night at the presentation, as if she had been holding back a natural ferocity that she could only let loose in the Games.

He had expected her to be exactly the same in her Victor interview, for that look of containment to have vanished and for her to be as charming as before; just more memorable. But she wasn't, she was still witty, but she let the hardness dominate it. She smiled as if she were baring her teeth, her eyes on Caesar, the audience and President Snow himself were a threat. He watched Snow place the crown on her head, saw him whisper some words in the girls' ear and saw her eyes harden into ice and Finnick knew that she had just realised what all the other Victor's already knew: she would never be free again, her freedom died with her victims in that arena.

When he finally met her she seemed to hate him automatically. She scowled at him the moment he was within metres of her and refused to say anything other than a curt 'Hello' when her mentor Blight introduced them. Finnick had an idea of why she hated him- he had come out of the Games even more charming than when he had gone in and in the 6 years since he had been a Victor his popularity as the Capitol's favourite had soared. She thought he was one of them; he could see it in her eyes later in the evening when President Snow raised a toast to the Victors and the socialite daughter of one of the chief Gamemakers' had her arm tucked firmly into his. Johanna was watching him, glass of champagne not in the air but dangling precariously from her slim hand at her side, and her eyes were full of it: that rage she held deep down that was starting to seep out of her. He didn't see her again until the Victory tour, but he watched her every stop on the way. He couldn't help but laugh at her biting wit and the District presenters' unawareness of it or, even funnier, inability to handle it. He noticed that she was quiet and restrained at District 5 and he wondered if it was because she felt regret for the boy she had murdered from there. When she arrived in his District, he was there to greet her with a grin that he knew would make her furious and she did not disappoint.

"Johanna, how delightful to see you again." He bowed to her courteously, but winked provocatively on his way up from it and couldn't help but grin wider at the clench of her jaw.

"Likewise." She could hardly have sounded more sarcastic if she tried and he laughed. There was something about her that made him want to push her buttons- to see that savage temper again. The Games screwed everyone up, even him, and it seemed he had found someone who made him feel strangely ok with it.

Her Capitol guide was delighted to see Finnick again and seemed to have –in her mind- decided that Finnick and Johanna would make a wonderful combination, so she insisted on having Finnick accompany them for Johanna's speech and then join them for the rest of their journey. Finnick could sense Johanna's outrage, but was surprised that she said nothing. It wasn't until they were back on the train- obligatory speech made- when Johanna and Finnick were left alone for the first time that she finally spoke to him a full sentence.

He hadn't said a word to her since Geena had left the carriage to find the maître-d, but he had stared at her. Partly to annoy her; partly to look. All the scars she should have had were non-existent. Not that this surprised him; once he had won he had spent at least 2 days being polished up again. But her natural loveliness seemed to have converted into an Amazonian-esque beauty: within months she had gone from being a pretty, sweet looking 17 year old girl to an 18 year old fury of a woman.

After a minute, longer than he expected her to take the attention, she turned on him.

"Stop fucking looking at me. I know you think you're charming, and to most of this deluded country you are 'the golden boy'. But I hate you. I hate all of you, all of it. Don't look at me, talk to me or come near me unless it's absolutely necessary for the cameras."

So she was smarter than he thought: she knew what had to be done to keep everyone (President Snow) happy. He grinned back at her, though he was angry. She had no clear idea yet of what life as a Victor- his life as a Victor- was really like. He wouldn't tell her. Let her figure it out for herself. She'd be safe for a few years yet.

Part of him wanted to warn her, and later on that night when he saw her skin glimmering in the candlelight at dinner part of him wanted to show her what would happen, to take her to his room…

He didn't do either.

He simply carried on annoying her, teasing her, flirting with her shamelessly until he thought she might scream. It was only when he saw her eyes flash like they did after she killed Nero that he would stop. He didn't want to break her… he just wanted to push her as close to the edge as possible and watch her pull herself back.

Thanks to any readers so far!

For any 'Called Out In The Dark Fans' this fic starts to blend in with that from around chapter 4 onwards really. This piece is a lot shorter as it will stop when it officially hits into the same storyline as 'Called Out In The Dark' but this does feature an epilogue for that & this!

Please review - it really does help inspire!

xx