A/N- Just a quick thank you to all the reviewers. I hope you all enjoy the story. Please tell me any opinions, questions, concerns, etc. Even negative reviews are helpful. Thank you.
Training starts the next morning, but when I arrive at a few minutes after ten, which was when we were supposed to be there, only eleven or twelve other tributes have even showed up. I find myself wishing that I would have skipped as well when we start and I realize how boring it is. I already know how to fight with almost anything, so I spend the first part of training just wandering around, trying to look like I actually have some purpose in mind. Then I see Katniss messing around at the knot tying station, and figure that having a nice little chat with her might cheer me up.
Sneaking up behind her, I easily finish the knot that it seemed like she'd been working on for a while. It was similar to one that I used everyday when I worked on my dad's boats a million years ago, and I love how the grudging respect in her eyes. Deciding to have even more fun with her, because she's so wary around me, I tie a quick noose and pretend to hang myself, but she just rolls her eyes and walks away.
"Gees, not even a goodbye," I mutter under my breath, trying to hide a smile. She's amusing, I'll give her that. And I also have to give her props for not falling for my amazing charms. A very, very unique girl.
After that, I walk over to the wrestling station, where Johanna's standing completely naked, one of the Capitol helpers waiting to take her on. I smile at her.
"You know, Honey, if you want to get naked and wrestle, you could just ask me."
"You are so annoying here," she hisses at me under her breath. Meaning that she doesn't like my Capitol self very much. I shrug off the comment, because I personally think the look on her face is well worth any bitterness on her part.
"Neither does Katniss. I think she's worried I'm going to make a move on her."
"I wonder why she'd think that," she says sarcastically.
"The question isn't why she'd think it, but why she seems so put off with the prospect. I mean, even you've already ripped off your clothes in a questionable District 7 mating ritual."
"Finnick Odair, keep talking, and I'm going to cut off something very important to you." I hold up my hands innocently.
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving."
"You better be," she growls. I laugh and turn to the attendant ready to wrestle with her, flashing my most devious smile.
"Have fun, she's a feisty one." His eyes sparkle, and Johanna starts screaming at me, but I hurry out of her reach, so she doesn't jump me or something. I'm not quick enough, however, not to hear when she asks for a change in partners.
"Causing trouble?" Cashmere, a girl from District 1, asks me. I think I may have slept with her before, although I'm not positive. If I did, I never got her name, but her face is extremely familiar. Huh. Maybe I should leave. But she doesn't appear to think that I owe her any explanations, or is under a delusion that we're in a relationship, so either I never met her, or she's just not stupid.
"Me? Of course not." She rolls her eyes.
"Yes, of course not. Then why is Johanna Mason looking at you like she wants to murder you?"
"You know, expressions like that lose their amusement when they could be taken quite literally by the end of the week."
"She wouldn't kill you. You're all she has. I can see it in her eyes. You're her whole world."
"I'm everyone's world, aren't I?" I ask dryly, because she makes it sound like I'm everything to Johanna, whereas really, I'm nothing. So we're friends, but it's not some huge dynamic friendship or anything. If I were to die, she'd come to the funeral, but she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't feel a huge loss. It's too hard for Victors to get that close to people unless it's something special, like Annie and me.
"I think you have a point," she says, and now I see that she has exterior motives for talking to me, and I want to leave. "But which one of those girls is your world?"
"Enobaria," I answer, my voice bitter. "I like women who bite." That leaves her gaping, and I quickly duck away before she says anything else.
Looking for sanity, I go to find Mags, then drag her to the edible plants station. I really don't try, but instead sit there and make quiet conversation with Mags, even if she doesn't always speak back. When the guy running the station figures out that we aren't doing anything, he chases us off. I take Mags' hand again and drag her to go to the trident station so I can spend another hour or so relaxing, when I see Katniss at the fishing station. I figure that if I'm going to be allied with her, Mags will be too, so I decide to introduce them.
"Katniss," I purr, leaning in really close to her ear. She jumps about a mile in the air, almost banging her head against mine.
"What?" she snaps, and I can see that she's about to leave again. I gesture to Mags. She looks at us in confusion, and I give my most flirtatious smile.
"She's my latest lady," I say. It's funny, because she actually believes it. Her eyes widen in horror, and I can see that she's trying to say something, but can't think of anything. I shake my head. "A joke."
"Oh." She looks embarrassed. I sigh.
"Katniss, this is Mags. She's the other tribute from my district." Her eyes widen in recognition, and I don't miss the approving look that she gives her. I wonder if it's because she volunteered for Annie. I remember Katniss doing the same for her sister, and just thinking about that has me squeezing Mags' hand.
"Nice to meet you," she says, seemingly sincerely. I start to leave, but Mags stops me.
"Stay." So I do, basically just reclining on the ground and closing my eyes while Mags and Katniss work together on the fishhooks.
When Katniss finally gets done and leaves, I decide that Mags looks tired, and that I've done enough for one day anyway, so Mags and I start to leave but just before we're out the door, I hear murmuring and turn around to see Katniss at the archery station. She's hitting the dummies that I struggled with easily enough that her eyes are glazing over with boredom. I pull Mags to a stop.
"I want to watch this," I whisper, and she nods, because no doubt she wants to see just how good this girl is. I saw a lot of her skills last year during her Games, and I'm interested in seeing just how good she really is.
After another minute of hitting stationary targets, the guy at the station starts launching fake birds for her to hit. I watch in awe as she takes down bird after bird, even as he increases the numbers he throws up. I think everyone else turns to watch too, because suddenly everything gets very quiet. Katniss doesn't seem to notice, though, and just keeps hitting them with amazing speed and accuracy. I realize that she's starting to scare me, because it would be so easy for her to just hide up in some tree and snipe everyone down before I even got a chance to make an alliance, and that's not a good thing. I don't want to die at the end of one of those arrows.
Eventually, she takes down five of the birds at once, and she finally seems to realize that people are watching her. Glancing around at all the staring victors, she lowers her bow and quickly walks off, but I still keep staring, completely memorized. I know I've seen her kill before, but it astounds me how such a sweet little girl can be so fierce.
The hell with her being the Mockingjay, I'd want her as an ally anyway.
The next day, I find Katniss almost immediately, deciding that it would be intelligent to spend more time around her, get her to realize that I respect her and open up her mind to the possibility that I could be a valuable ally.
"Finnick," she says when I walk over to her, her face twisting unpleasantly. I pretend not to notice and take another step closer.
"That was impressive shooting yesterday, girl on fire."
"Are you trying to flirt with me?" I smile at her.
"I wouldn't want Peeta to kill me now, would I? No, I have enough company, although I won't be opposed to entertaining you later on-" It takes everything I have not to break down laughing at the way she's looking at me.
"Finnick-"
"Calm down. Right now, all I'm asking is that you teach me how to shoot a bow."
"And what do I get from it?"
"I'll teach you how to be as amazing with a trident as I am."
"Deal."
So for the rest of that morning, I work with her. Or try to. In all reality, she drives me insane. She isn't exactly a whiz with a trident, and there are multiple times when I'm inches away from getting impaled. It's even worse, because she gets pissed when she's not good at something, and by the time the hour of trident lessons are up, she's not in the best of moods.
That, of course, makes my archery lessons hell. By the end of the first half hour, I've been called an incompetent pretty boy four times. After I get the hang of it, she gets better, but I find myself pitying poor Peeta. He must be really lovesick if he actually wants to marry her. I'd be surprised if she hadn't stabbed him with a kitchen knife before their first anniversary.
Speaking of Peeta, after I finally manage to shake his little Mockingjay, I decide to go have a chat with him while he's chucking spears.
"Nice fiancé you have there," I say, walking up behind him. "Mind if I borrow her?" He turns around to face me, then smiles when he sees who it is. I try not to smile back. At least someone is smart enough to see a joke when they hear it. Maybe if this does all turn out, Katniss will be around him long enough to learn from him.
"Oh, no. If she's okay with it, go ahead." I smile, picking up a spear and turning it around in my hands. I got my first kill ever with a spear. Ah, the joyful memories.
"Well, in that case, I think you can have her. I already asked once, and she turned me down very harshly. It hurt, deep down."
"I'm sure, Finnick," he said, whipping a spear at a dummy with such force that I find myself surprised. He looks like such a powder puff that him showing any strength whatsoever is surprising.
"It did. The pain of rejection is new to me. I'm not used to it." He snorts, and I can see in his eyes that he knows what Katniss is doing with him. In all reality, he's had her rejection of him rubbed in his face for the past year, and he has to live pretended that she's as in love with him as he is with her.
"Well, I suppose that there's a first time for everything." I smile at him. He's more amusing than Katniss, and it's better because his amusing is in a good way. Not in her 'I hate you' kind of way.
"If you insist, although I'm not giving up yet. I'd keep a close eye on her if I were you, Peeta." He smiles good-naturedly.
"Just watch yourself."
"With those arrows of hers, I'd better." I notice her start walking over from the corner of my eye. "Well, your love approaches. I'll leave you two alone."
Then I walk away, giving Katniss my most charming smile while I walk past her.
The next day, it's time for our training sessions. I really don't care about my score, because people know how lethal I can get, so I don't worry too much about not having any idea what I'm going to do. I end up just walking in there, grabbing a trident, and repeatedly stabbing a dummy with it, again and again. Really, it's not half as impressive as the show I put on when I was fourteen, but I'm not trying to win sponsors now, and very little will impress the Gamemakers in the way of my trident skills. I even see Plutarch give me a tired look, so I figure that just killing the one dummy until it was unrecognizable was good enough, and that he probably wants me to leave. I kick it a couple times for good measure, then wait for the Gamemakers to dismiss me. When they say I can go, I retreat back to my room to just relax during one of my last free days before I have to go to the arena.
That night, when Mags and I are watching the replays of the scores, I'm mildly surprised to see that I actually got another eleven, like I had in my first year.
"I guess they liked the show of violence," I mutter, but looking at the other scores as they flash across the screen, it seems more biased than anything. The crowd favorites all get high scores, like Johanna's eleven, where the talented tributes that no one likes get lower scores. I remember Beetee and the way that he shocked the rest of the tributes in his Games, and have no idea how his score could be as low as a five. But it's just a game of favorites.
Then I see Katniss and Peeta, and the twelves they both pulled and I'm almost sure that my theory is confirmed. But something tugs at me. Peeta isn't that impressive. They wouldn't just automatically give him a twelve unless he could do something amazing. So that leaves another option. The two of them planned something stupid, and Snow wanted to draw targets on their backs. Huh. Again, I find myself more and more impressed with those two. Maybe they aren't the disturbingly annoying lovers that they're portrayed as. In fact, the two of them are starting to grow on me.
I guess it's a good thing that we'll have plenty of time to become friends later on, isn't it?
I laugh at the thought of Katniss becoming actual friends with me. The moment that I convince her I'm more than just a sex symbol will be the moment that hell freezes over.
But at least I'll probably get many more chances to bug the hell out of her, which is more amusing than friendship, in her case anyway.