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The best decision Johanna ever made was deciding she hates Finnick Odair slightly less than she hates most people.
Because Finnick, it turns out, knows everything about everyone— and, more importantly when the weight of a Capitol party gets to be too much, everything about everywhere.
That's one of the few things about him that's the same here. Finnick is different in the Capitol. Johanna knows she is too, that they all have to be, but with Finnick it's like whiplash.
For starters, he's literally glowing. When she met him in Four six months ago he was definitely tan, but now he's wearing so much highlighter that his skin is a dewy, iridescent bronze. As he sits with her and Cashmere on a nightclub rooftop, his face catches the neon lights of the city. He looks otherworldly, ageless and yet somehow much younger than twenty.
Cashmere, on the other hand.
Thirteen's ashes, Cashmere.
She's twenty-five today, which is why she's wearing a literal tiara, but she looks older.
That worked to her advantage eight years ago. Not anymore. She's gained enough weight through her twenties that people have started to comment, and her lush blonde curls are splitting at the ends now.
Johanna watches as Cashmere pulls a tissue from her skirt pocket, uses a metal decoration piece on her clutch as a mirror.
Her makeup is sweating off, and the edge on her lips where ivory meets ice-pink is blurred enough that Johanna thinks Cashmere may have done it herself. She wonders if Cashmere, like her, has had any unfortunate incidents with makeup artists that resulted in injuries. (In that particular man's case, on the first night of her Victory Tour, Johanna had broken his nose. Not that she cares. You come that close to a victor, you have to know that's a risk).
She hopes so. The idea of Cashmere punching someone makes her absurdly happy for some reason. It would be nice to know that she's not the only one who directs her damage outwards.
They're sipping drinks from when Finnick had persuaded someone to let him behind the bar. Well, she and Cashmere are. Finnick's enthusiasm for making drinks seems to greatly exceed his enthusiasm for drinking drinks, so he's got his glass sitting on the ledge.
"I should throw this off, see if it hits anyone," Cashmere says into the night air, removing the tiara. She almost sounds serious.
"Do it," Johanna says, because nothing could hurt her anymore, she's so high up. "I heard somewhere that if you dropped a coin off the Justice Building in Three it would kill someone. Momentum and shit."
Finnick rolls his eyes, picks up his drink. "I am officially too young to have to be the adult in the room. Cashmere, you're not allowed to throw anything."
He takes a sip of his mojito, wraps an arm around Cashmere's waist with his other hand. The rumor is that they're an item, but when Johanna had asked Finnick in Four, he'd said they were just friends.
Strangely enough, Johanna still believes him about this. It's not the kind of fucked up she is, as Blight and that makeup artist can attest, but if people touched Johanna as much as they touched Cashmere and Finnick (seriously, it's weird, like they're public property) maybe she'd seek that out from someone safe too.
Well, probably not. But she kind of gets it, at least.
Cashmere dabs at her eyes, looks up at Finnick. "You ever think about what happens when we get older?"
"I hope it means people leave us the hell alone," Johanna says, kicking at the concrete below her and watching the last of the party people start to stagger home.
Finnick looks at her like he wants her to leave, but Johanna doesn't want to. She wants to stay here on this rooftop as long as humanly possible with people she doesn't want to hurt.
Finnick sighs, and seems to understand he can't persuade her to do anything. He switches his attention back to Cashmere. "I'm just focused on getting through the month. I guess I can't think forwards any more than that."
Johanna stares out at the Capitol and wonders how many people she'd kill if she threw her glass off the balcony. It's her version of giving them privacy.
"Well, lucky you," Cashmere says. "Besides, it's not me I'm worried about. It's the next girl, you know?"
That gets Johanna's attention. Because she's the next girl. After Cashmere, there had been a historically long streak of boys— Finnick and Gloss included.
Finnick notices, chuckles darkly to himself. "She doesn't mean you, Jo."
Johanna isn't entirely sure when she gave Finnick permission to call her that, or if she did at all. But for the first time in a year, she doesn't have the energy to be pissed.
"Thirteen's ashes, can you imagine?" asks Cashmere, gesturing to Johanna with her nude acrylic nail, and Finnick raises an eyebrow and almost giggles, and there's a sick private joke here.
"I feel like I'm missing something," Johanna says, finally with steel in her voice.
And Cashmere looks her dead in the eyes. "No, you're really not."
The sincerity dies just as fast as it was born when Cashmere opens her clutch, grabs the used tissue. It's covered in pink and black and nude, carnage and youth.
Johanna watches her throw it off the ledge as Finnick smiles, and wonders how many other things she doesn't know.