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Johanna is sitting in Illyria with Haymitch when Finnick walks in. The 71st Games have yet to start, so everyone is relaxed, mostly. Haymitch and she had been playing a drinking game against Chaff and June that they would have been winning handily, had Haymitch not been getting distracted by watching Elin smoke in the corner and allowing June to steal glances at the cards in his hand. She saw Finnick, barely, during the Opening Ceremony, but he did not stick around for the after party, and it's only now that she sees him, walking with purpose into the Mentor's only VIP room in the back of the club.
He looks on edge. He walks past the pool table where Enobaria, Cashmere, and Gloss are playing a game, not even stopping to greet them, unusual for someone as gregarious as Finnick, and makes a beeline to her table. "Jo," he says, squeezing into the booth on the other side of Haymitch.
Johanna had been feeling good, for once, or maybe she is just trying to soak up some of whatever this feeling is before it goes away when the Games start. She has friends here: Haymitch, Finnick, June, and they have friends, like Chaff and Alva and Graham. She hates coming to the Capitol, hates the Games, hates Mentoring. But for a couple brief periods - between arriving and the start of the Games, and the end of the Games and going home, she feels good, because District 7 has nothing for her. She has no friends, no family, just a cold, empty District, hardly any food or work for her people, just long hours sitting at home, some liquor, some morphling if she was lucky. She doesn't want Finnick to say anything that will break the spell of one of the only good nights of the year.
"Johanna," he tries again, reaching across Haymitch to nudge her shoulder. She pretends she's more drunk than she is, and takes another sip still, willing the illusion to last. He's bothered about something, and he's going to drag her into it.
"What's up?" She slurs it a bit, trying to stay casual. But what wouldn't she do for Finnick Odair?
"I need to talk to you. Outside."
Haymitch looks at Finnick now, and Johanna doesn't miss the way his eyes catch onto Elin before moving back to her. The District 6 Victor was a year younger than Haymitch, if Johanna remembered right, but she is sitting with Georgiana and Cecelia of District 8, both older. June is tuned into Finnick's unusually serious disposition now, too. "It's Opening night, Fin, can't it wait?" Johanna asks.
He shakes his head. "Please, Jo."
She follows him outside, lighting up a cigarette for something to do with her hands while he paces from one end of the alley to the other, perhaps checking to make sure they aren't overheard. Then he comes back to face her, absolute misery in his expression. "Annie isn't ok," he says. He inhales, as if trying to control something - rage or frustration or fear, maybe. "She's in a special Ward now, after her Victory Tour, she couldn't come back here."
Johanna nods, realizing what Finnick isn't saying: Annie was wanted for the other thing, the expectation of a young, attractive Victor. "Can they fix it? I hear they have drugs for that-"
He punches the wall, and it's so unexpected, she jumps aside as if the blow was aimed at her. She knows Finnick has killed, she'd watched his Games the year before her own, but seeing it on television, in an arena is different from real violence before her. From Finnick of all people. He hisses as he pulls his knuckles away, and they're red and scraped, and she knows it's only a few seconds before they begin gushing blood. "Fuck!" he curses, and she isn't sure if it's about the pain or the frustration of his circumstances. He takes a few breaths to try to calm down, while she finishes her cigarette, stomping the butt under her boot.
"She can't come back here," Finnick says with finality. "I went to talk to Snow about it."
This makes Johanna pause, and then double check that there's no one listening in. "You did what?" It feels unheard of to ask for a special favor from the President, enough to sober her up considerably. She looks back at his hand, now dripping red blood onto his fingers. It makes her feel ill.
He licks his lips. "I didn't know what to do, Jo! You saw her, after the Games, on the Tour. She is mumbling, yelling things, she's so scared. She'll get worse here, or… I don't know, she'll lash out at someone and get her family killed."
Johanna isn't expecting the wave of illness to overtake her as quickly as it does, but she's grateful that she's in the alley as she turns away to vomit. Finnick grabs for her hair to hold it back from her mouth, and she can feel the wet streaks of blood from his fingers along her right cheek as he moves. She retches out liquid, warm and pink and still tasting of liquor, and her eyes burn and water and her nose stings. She's sure whatever makeup they put on her in Remake is running now as she sweats and tears run down her face. "I'm ok now," she assures him, but she just means the vomit. The reminder in his words still lingers, and she sits down on an empty keg and tries to decide if she can handle another cigarette without throwing up again. She doesn't risk it.
He wipes his non-bloody hand down his face. "I'm sorry, Jo. I wasn't thinking when I said that." She knows they're both thinking about it now - how she went too far in the 68th Games, how her entire family was killed after. It was horrible then and it is horrible now, the only small blessing being that she was relieved from being forced to entertain Capitolites sexually - Snow had lost his leverage.
"What did Snow say?" she asks, trying to move the conversation away from her dead family. She can't handle thinking about them without getting a terrible headache, or a craving for morphling so consuming it makes her bones ache and her skin itch.
Finnick sighs but doesn't speak. It makes her nervous. "What is it?" she presses him.
"I don't even know how to ask this," he says. "I don't think I can."
A favor, then. He had run into Illyria with such urgency that she figured he needed a favor, but they had gotten off-topic since then, or maybe this was all just a prelude. "Just tell me," she says.
"He wants… you," he says. "To keep Annie from coming back to the Capitol, Snow wants to make some kind of deal with you."
It's a shame she's already thrown up, she thinks, because now would have been a great time to empty herself in horror. Or, had she been holding a cigarette, she could have marred his perfect skin with a burn, singeing him to show her frustration. But she has nothing - she is already empty, nothing in hand, and so she just turns to go back inside, not bothering to dignify him with a response.
She passes the Careers at their game of pool first, and for once they don't even heckle her: even Cashmere looks more horrified than amused, and Enobaria opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but Johanna rushes past. She can't stay in Illyria, there's too many people. She needs to get back to the elevator, back to the 7 apartment.
She passes Haymitch, still sitting with Chaff at the same table, though June has wandered off. He catches her arm, and she wants to shake it free but she stops, just for a moment, because she hasn't been touched in almost a year, and she craves it at this point, like breathing. "Are you bleeding?" he asks.
"It's Finnick's," she says, and he gestures for her to sit at the edge of the booth, and wets a napkin in some ice water, wiping off her cheek. She closes her eyes against his hand that holds her jaw steady, holding back tears for when she's alone in her apartment.
"What did he need?" Haymitch asks, and he's let her go now, she can run to the elevator at any time. This fact lets her calm down, a bit.
But how can she say it? How could Finnick even have asked it? The idea of trading her freedom for Annie's is already offensive, but it's worse, because she's not even free. She's already stuck coming here every year, but any progress she's made getting out of seeing clients is sure to be erased if she makes a deal with Snow. And she's not even Finnick's girlfriend! How could he ask her to do this?
Because he knows you can't deny him. A little voice in Johanna's mind can already picture her going to Snow tomorrow, to figure out what he wants of her. She's upset not because she's offended he'd ask, but because they both know she'll agree, in the end. She just cannot deny Finnick anything, really. "Ask him yourself," she says, as she sees him walking back inside, knuckles crusting with drying blood. She leaves.
Enobaria watches Finnick return from the alley behind the Illyria VIP room after Johanna, knuckles bloody, less on edge than he had looked when they had left, but now his shoulders are hunched, and he looks almost defeated. It is an unfamiliar look on someone usually oozing confidence and charm.
He straightens up upon seeing her group, nodding a greeting in their direction, pausing to lean against the half-wall that divides the pool table from the rest of the room and Enobaria wonders why, until she sees Haymitch still talking to Johanna, and she realizes he's going to wait it out, and let her exit before he goes back to the table or the elevator or wherever he's going.
"You alright?" Cashmere asks, and her tone is filled with concern, but Enobaria has known her long enough to know she's really just curious, eager to know what happened. Finnick and Johanna have been Mentors for a few years, they know to check carefully before talking, there likely won't be a tabloid covering their argument. She'll have to worm information out of him.
He grunts, a bit, signaling a passing Avox over to bring him a drink. "Fine," he says, and his voice is pleasant, calming, even. "Just lost my temper for a minute."
Gloss hits one of the striped balls in, but then misses his second shot. Cashmere takes over, moving her focus from Finnick to the game. The Avox returns with a towel for his hand, and a lowball of amber liquor. Gloss comes to stand beside Finnick, reaching for his own drink. Normally, they didn't dare let their drinks out of their sight for a moment, but in the Victor's-only room, they could relax just a bit. "Listen, man, I'm sure it's tough coming back on your own, but it's opening night, you should relax a bit. It's only gonna get tougher from here."
Enobaria knows Gloss is just continuing on Cashmere's crusade, trying to get more information, like where Annie Cresta was, and what Finnick fought with Johanna about, and why they were both bloody, but Finnick does seem to lighten a bit at Gloss's words. He nods, letting the reassurance wash over him. "It's better that Annie and Mags can stay home," he says, finishing the liquor in a deep swig. He takes another look over his shoulder, sees Johanna has left, and takes her vacated seat at the table with Haymitch and Chaff, laying his head in his arms.
"What do you think that's about?" Cashmere asks. She's one ball away from winning, so she asks the question distractedly, lining up the last shot.
Enobaria shrugs, finishing her drink as Cashmere sinks the last ball.
"Rematch!" Gloss demands. They're now tied at one game apiece.
"I'm going to get some air on the roof," she tells them. "Be back in a bit."
She takes the elevator up, grateful for a few minutes of silence. When the elevator lets off on the roof she takes in a deep breath of warm night air. The temperature change in the Capitol is less extreme than in the deserts of District 2, so she doesn't feel chilly in the Capitol, just happy to be out of the dark, subterranean feel of the club. It's dark up here too, of course, but there's only gentle music playing, and she can see all the lights of the Capitol, spread out all around her like an empire. And the net, of course, reminding her she can't jump.
She assumed she wouldn't be alone, but she's surprised to see Johanna up on the roof. She would have thought she'd go back to her apartment after she fought with Finnick. She looks up at Enobaria from the bench she's sitting and smoking on with pure revulsion, a trademark 'stay the fuck away from me' Johanna glare, and Enobaria does keep her distance, just leaning against the rail, staring down at the main roadway, watching the cars pass through the major intersection. After three turns of the light, Johanna speaks.
"I can't go back yet, until my Tributes are asleep," she says.
Enobaria turns but doesn't move any closer. They never talk, not ever. Jo's face isn't bloody anymore, but her makeup is runny, and Enobaria thinks there might be vomit in her hair. She looks absolutely miserable. "I imagine it won't be long now," she says. It's after midnight, easily now.
Johanna's eyebrows furrow. It seems like she's trying to work something out, but the fact that she's speaking with Enobaria of all people doesn't seem to matter. Or maybe the distance helps. She exhales, smoke clouding their vision of each other for a moment. "I was an idiot," she says. "God, I'm so fucking stupid." She scrapes her hand back through her hair, all of the styling coming out, it falling limp again.
Enobaria doesn't know what she's talking about, but she doesn't really believe any of them are stupid. Idiots don't win in the arena. "What happened?" she asks. Her voice is quiet. They don't dare speak at full volume, just in case anyone else is lingering around.
Johanna looks up at her, almost as if finally realizing who she's speaking with. She seems to remember that they're not friends, that they never interact, that they didn't hate each other, exactly, but they certainly kept to different circles. She stands, coming to the railing at the edge of the roof beside Enobaria. But she doesn't look out, just down at the net. "I thought I was done. That if my family was dead, I couldn't be bought anymore." She leans her head back, closing her eyes as if exhausted even thinking about the topic. "Like I said, an idiot."
As far as Enobaria knew, Johanna didn't have any lovers, no entanglements Snow could exploit. She had been free from the most awful part of Mentoring, the sex work, for two years, and something had happened to drag her back under. "What does he have on you?" Enobaria asks, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Johanna puts out her cigarette, pushing it into the ashtray beside the rail. She turns to Enobaria, making eye contact for the first time that night. She smiles, and it's terrible. "Nothing," she says. She holds one hand flat and punches it with her other, making a 'pfff' sound effect to go with it. Finnick, then.
Enobaria can't imagine what kind of relationship they have, that Johanna would trade her freedom to protect Finnick. She also can't imagine what kind of trouble Finnick is in that he needs Johanna to intervene. But mostly, palpably, she can't imagine why Johanna would even consider agreeing to such a proposal. Certainly Enobaria had friends here in the Capitol, but she wouldn't let Snow extort her over them. And she wouldn't expect them to do anything like that for her. Finnick was a Career as well, and she wouldn't expect him to go out of his way for anyone else. If the exchange was reversed, she was almost certain he would let Johanna down. And yet Johanna was here, mourning the end of her freedom, because Finnick had asked.
She doesn't care, really, except that Johanna is torn up about something that isn't even a problem at all. And it isn't worth telling her not to bother, because Enobaria can see in her eyes that Johanna is set on it, that she is about to sacrifice the only good thing about the murder of her family for a man from District 4 who probably forgets her for 11 months out of the year. So she doesn't waste words. She does something far stupider, probably. She moves from the railing to where Johanna is standing, a few feet away, leans the few inches down, and kisses her.
It's gentle, it's brief, all lips and no tongue, and to Johanna's credit, she accepts the gesture with surprise, but not disgust. Enobaria knows it's selfish, that she's lonely and exhausted and feeling sorry for them both, and craving affection from another woman, but she doesn't regret it. "I'm sorry," she says, before turning away, meaning the situation at large, but letting Johanna think it's the kiss, if she wants to.