hunger games fic: why don't we ask scorsese
why don’t we ask scorsese. hunger games. finnick/johanna + snow. r. au. or, the one where Finnick is in the mob and Johanna is his mistress.
“Your problem is,” Johanna says, her place in the bed cold, “you’re too damn pretty for your own good.”
There is a piece of burnt toast in her hand, slathered in butter. She tears away a corner loudly.
Finnick stares at her, perched against his headboard. The sheets wrinkle around his waist and Johanna crunches on the last bite of bread, wipes her hands on his discarded shirt.
“Did you ask if I wanted any toast?”
It’s afternoon. Her house, bought and paid for by Snow himself, sits nestled in Silver Lake. His house is in Malibu. Annie decorated it in blues and Johanna didn’t decorate hers at all.
“You know where the kitchen is.”
Finnick comes home with blood on his hands.
By the end of the night, it is under Johanna’s fingernails too.
She bares her smile like a weapon and Finnick whispers, forgive me as the sun comes up.
Johanna bites at his shoulder and says, what for?
In her dresser drawer, there is a gun.
He put it there.
“For your safety,” he said one night in the middle of summer. She was stretched out across the entire bed, diagonally. He could only sit in the spaces she allowed him. It was late at night and she wasn’t tired.
Johanna licked her lips. It was unbearably appealing, but he would never tell her that.
“I’ve had bigger problems than you, Odair,” she drawled, rolling over to straddle him.
There are scars everywhere on her skin, scars his hands can’t stop touching. He has known her since she was 17, a skinny little thing with a mean mouth and a fondness for prescription drugs washed down with cheap whiskey. Not much has changed since then.
She’s 23 now, her mouth still mean, and he supposes he loves that about her, in the way he loves most things about her.
“For my sake, then,” he whispered into the space where her skin smoothed over her collarbone, the dip that always tasted salty like the sea and she keeps the gun where he put it.
Snow sends her a bouquet of roses, blood red, the kind of gift that’s meant for a lover. The scent of them fills the whole apartment, turning it into a sickly sweet paradise for people who say things like I love you and she doesn’t appreciate that one bit.
She tears petals off one by one and stuffs them down the garbage disposal.
The card reads: for my best guy’s gal
There’s a fresh bouquet waiting the next morning.
Finnick wears suits - slim cut, always navy, no tie. His shirts are crisp and white, unbuttoned slightly, and his cologne will make you lean in.
His belt buckle glints gold like his hair.
Snow approved the uniform back when he first started for him.
He said, “They can’t see you coming, kid.”
Finnick plastered the smile on his face and didn’t let his hands shake.
Snow was wearing pinstripes. He has a preference for Armani, but Hugo Boss will do in a pinch. Finnick learns to demand Prada. It fits his shoulders best and Snow learns quickly that the better Finnick looks, the easier the job is.
Finnick felt his smile stretch even wider and said, “They never do, boss.”
Snow slipped his glasses down the bridge of his nose and looked nothing like a killer. Most people would say the same of Finnick. Maybe he was meant for this after all.
“And that, kid,” Snow smiled, his cufflinks blinking back at Finnick too bright, “is why you’re working for me.”
He met Jo when she was 17. Her id said she was 22 and they were at the Roosevelt Hotel Bar.
There was a target with her, his meaty hand pawing at her skinny thigh.
Johanna was wearing red. She was wearing red and her hair was short and dark and stood up at an angle. Finnick had a silencer in his briefcase, and Johanna looked bored and beautiful, her lips turned down into a frown. He didn't once think she could save him, that she was anything other than someone else's girl.
Later that night, sneaking back into the hotel from the alley, his gun emptied, Johanna pressed her hand to his chest at the bar.
“Seen my date?” she asks, an eyebrow raised. Her phone lights up in her palm. Her face twists into annoyance before she ignores the call.
His hands were still damp from the bathroom.
Her lips were red, too, but he barely remembers that.
She said, “Take me home, stud,” and he didn’t mind it so much, coming out of her mouth.
“You shouldn’t go home with strangers,” he admonished.
In the dim light of the bar she almost looked dangerous, all angles and hooded eyes like a femme fatale.
He used to have a savior complex, before all of this. There was a girl back home named Annie and he’d dug himself into this hole trying to save her in the first place.
Johanna feels too small against him.
She said, “I can take care of myself.”
Finnick kissed her then, his knee nudging her legs open, her mouth smearing red against his own. He’s never sure if he did it because he believed her or because he didn’t.
There is a job.
There’s always a job.
This one goes bad.
Finn shows up with a hole in a place where there used to be bone, where there was muscle and so much blood and now all of that blood is pouring out of him onto Johanna.
He bought her carpets for her floor and now his blood is all over them. Johanna doesn’t even like carpets, let alone Persian rugs from the black market and now his blood is all over them. She tries not to let her hands shake.
“God, you fucking idiot,” she stutters, carding her fingers through the hair falling into his face.
She doesn’t have enough time to think about Annie. Later, she’ll think small miracles and there will be a tiny part of her that loves the way Annie looks too frail in her funeral clothes. She’s not proud of that, but all’s fair and you know the rest of it.
He doesn’t say I love you. She wasn’t expecting it.
Finnick dies in her arms and she breathes Finn into his palm pressed against her mouth, the skin still warm. When she was a girl, her mother always wanted her to care more about boys but Johanna’s knees were scraped and her teeth were too big for her mouth.
Once upon a time, when Johanna was 17 and Finnick was 20 they met in a dark bar. She was high off Xanax stolen from her roommate and with the kind of bad guy mothers were always telling their wayward daughters to watch out for. Johanna was itching for something, for a kick, and had asked if anyone had coke on them. She was looking for a drug and instead she found Finnick. He pinned her arms behind her head and licked his way into her mouth, into her, and he also killed the bad guy.
In bed, he called her Jo with an intimacy he hadn’t earned yet. It was practically careless.
Johanna has never let anyone else call her Jo. Maybe this is what her mother was talking about.
There is a knock on her door.
It is nighttime and Johanna is alone, wearing Finnick’s old t-shirts and reading bad crime novels. The bottle of wine next to the bed is empty. The book is about a man who knows right from wrong in love with a girl who doesn’t care about the distinction. Someone has just died, or is about to die, or is drifting somewhere in between with bullets riddled through his body, ripping their selfish way through what used to be a person.
There’s a knock on her door and a gun in her drawer.
Johanna sets the book down on her nightstand. She doesn’t bother marking the page.
There are no happy endings.
She never believed in them anyways.
“Your problem is,” Johanna says, her place in the bed cold, “you’re too damn pretty for your own good.”
There is a piece of burnt toast in her hand, slathered in butter. She tears away a corner loudly.
Finnick stares at her, perched against his headboard. The sheets wrinkle around his waist and Johanna crunches on the last bite of bread, wipes her hands on his discarded shirt.
“Did you ask if I wanted any toast?”
It’s afternoon. Her house, bought and paid for by Snow himself, sits nestled in Silver Lake. His house is in Malibu. Annie decorated it in blues and Johanna didn’t decorate hers at all.
“You know where the kitchen is.”
Finnick comes home with blood on his hands.
By the end of the night, it is under Johanna’s fingernails too.
She bares her smile like a weapon and Finnick whispers, forgive me as the sun comes up.
Johanna bites at his shoulder and says, what for?
In her dresser drawer, there is a gun.
He put it there.
“For your safety,” he said one night in the middle of summer. She was stretched out across the entire bed, diagonally. He could only sit in the spaces she allowed him. It was late at night and she wasn’t tired.
Johanna licked her lips. It was unbearably appealing, but he would never tell her that.
“I’ve had bigger problems than you, Odair,” she drawled, rolling over to straddle him.
There are scars everywhere on her skin, scars his hands can’t stop touching. He has known her since she was 17, a skinny little thing with a mean mouth and a fondness for prescription drugs washed down with cheap whiskey. Not much has changed since then.
She’s 23 now, her mouth still mean, and he supposes he loves that about her, in the way he loves most things about her.
“For my sake, then,” he whispered into the space where her skin smoothed over her collarbone, the dip that always tasted salty like the sea and she keeps the gun where he put it.
Snow sends her a bouquet of roses, blood red, the kind of gift that’s meant for a lover. The scent of them fills the whole apartment, turning it into a sickly sweet paradise for people who say things like I love you and she doesn’t appreciate that one bit.
She tears petals off one by one and stuffs them down the garbage disposal.
The card reads: for my best guy’s gal
There’s a fresh bouquet waiting the next morning.
Finnick wears suits - slim cut, always navy, no tie. His shirts are crisp and white, unbuttoned slightly, and his cologne will make you lean in.
His belt buckle glints gold like his hair.
Snow approved the uniform back when he first started for him.
He said, “They can’t see you coming, kid.”
Finnick plastered the smile on his face and didn’t let his hands shake.
Snow was wearing pinstripes. He has a preference for Armani, but Hugo Boss will do in a pinch. Finnick learns to demand Prada. It fits his shoulders best and Snow learns quickly that the better Finnick looks, the easier the job is.
Finnick felt his smile stretch even wider and said, “They never do, boss.”
Snow slipped his glasses down the bridge of his nose and looked nothing like a killer. Most people would say the same of Finnick. Maybe he was meant for this after all.
“And that, kid,” Snow smiled, his cufflinks blinking back at Finnick too bright, “is why you’re working for me.”
He met Jo when she was 17. Her id said she was 22 and they were at the Roosevelt Hotel Bar.
There was a target with her, his meaty hand pawing at her skinny thigh.
Johanna was wearing red. She was wearing red and her hair was short and dark and stood up at an angle. Finnick had a silencer in his briefcase, and Johanna looked bored and beautiful, her lips turned down into a frown. He didn't once think she could save him, that she was anything other than someone else's girl.
Later that night, sneaking back into the hotel from the alley, his gun emptied, Johanna pressed her hand to his chest at the bar.
“Seen my date?” she asks, an eyebrow raised. Her phone lights up in her palm. Her face twists into annoyance before she ignores the call.
His hands were still damp from the bathroom.
Her lips were red, too, but he barely remembers that.
She said, “Take me home, stud,” and he didn’t mind it so much, coming out of her mouth.
“You shouldn’t go home with strangers,” he admonished.
In the dim light of the bar she almost looked dangerous, all angles and hooded eyes like a femme fatale.
He used to have a savior complex, before all of this. There was a girl back home named Annie and he’d dug himself into this hole trying to save her in the first place.
Johanna feels too small against him.
She said, “I can take care of myself.”
Finnick kissed her then, his knee nudging her legs open, her mouth smearing red against his own. He’s never sure if he did it because he believed her or because he didn’t.
There is a job.
There’s always a job.
This one goes bad.
Finn shows up with a hole in a place where there used to be bone, where there was muscle and so much blood and now all of that blood is pouring out of him onto Johanna.
He bought her carpets for her floor and now his blood is all over them. Johanna doesn’t even like carpets, let alone Persian rugs from the black market and now his blood is all over them. She tries not to let her hands shake.
“God, you fucking idiot,” she stutters, carding her fingers through the hair falling into his face.
She doesn’t have enough time to think about Annie. Later, she’ll think small miracles and there will be a tiny part of her that loves the way Annie looks too frail in her funeral clothes. She’s not proud of that, but all’s fair and you know the rest of it.
He doesn’t say I love you. She wasn’t expecting it.
Finnick dies in her arms and she breathes Finn into his palm pressed against her mouth, the skin still warm. When she was a girl, her mother always wanted her to care more about boys but Johanna’s knees were scraped and her teeth were too big for her mouth.
Once upon a time, when Johanna was 17 and Finnick was 20 they met in a dark bar. She was high off Xanax stolen from her roommate and with the kind of bad guy mothers were always telling their wayward daughters to watch out for. Johanna was itching for something, for a kick, and had asked if anyone had coke on them. She was looking for a drug and instead she found Finnick. He pinned her arms behind her head and licked his way into her mouth, into her, and he also killed the bad guy.
In bed, he called her Jo with an intimacy he hadn’t earned yet. It was practically careless.
Johanna has never let anyone else call her Jo. Maybe this is what her mother was talking about.
There is a knock on her door.
It is nighttime and Johanna is alone, wearing Finnick’s old t-shirts and reading bad crime novels. The bottle of wine next to the bed is empty. The book is about a man who knows right from wrong in love with a girl who doesn’t care about the distinction. Someone has just died, or is about to die, or is drifting somewhere in between with bullets riddled through his body, ripping their selfish way through what used to be a person.
There’s a knock on her door and a gun in her drawer.
Johanna sets the book down on her nightstand. She doesn’t bother marking the page.
There are no happy endings.
She never believed in them anyways.