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"Come on, shrimp, there will be time for that later."
Cashmere grabs onto Johanna's morphling tin, holding it high out of reach, emphasizing their height difference, smirking in amusement. "This is bullshit," Johanna says, accepting defeat and tucking the tin back into her ridiculously gaudy beaded bag once Cashmere hands it back.
"Yeah, that's the point," Cashmere says.
They've been chosen as guests for the preview show for that night's Tribute Parade in the Opening Ceremonies, an honor usually given to Finnick or Brutus or Gloss: someone attractive and social, who liked talking about different Games strategies and was good in interviews. Cashmere had participated before, but Johanna had never had anyone want her opinions on such things, and she'd never wanted to give them.
But now? Now, things were different. Cashmere's face was everywhere in the Capitol, on store windows, magazine ads, television commercials, and Johanna was on every television in Panem. They were blonde, they were beautiful, they were wearing the top styles of the Capitol, and they were undoubtedly Victors.
"Well, this is such a fun perspective," Caesar says, sitting back in his chair to interview them. He gets a desk, they each have a chair with nothing in front of it blocking the view of their gowns, a glass of champagne in hand. "A Victor from 2 and from 7!"
They all know what he's saying: a Career Victory, and a girl from an outer District who got lucky. But Careers aren't exactly legal, so he doesn't use the term on national television. "Now, you had quite the underdog story, so I'm interested in your opinion. Who has caught your eye, Johanna?"
She doesn't know what she says, really, but it doesn't matter. The point is to walk the line - the biggest lesson she's learned from Cashmere: to say something interesting enough to keep people engaged, but not controversial enough that anyone will have a strong opinion over it. And it has to be done well, subtly. No one can pick up on the fact that she doesn't ever really say anything of substance. Walking that tightrope takes all of her effort, so that by the time she show is over and she and Cashmere are released to the rest of the party, she just wants to go back to her apartment and collapse into bed, she feels so drained.
But that's not allowed. She needs to be seen, here and there, moreso now than ever since she's so recognizable. She changes from the blue gown she wore on the preview show to a lighter, more summery gold dress, and helps her Tributes take off their stupid tree costumes. Poor things. They're underfed, tired and scared, and they seem to already understand they don't really stand a chance. Not when the Careers this year are brawny, bright and confident as they traipse through the party as if they've been to the Capitol before.
She sighs. There's not much she can do for them now, but she will try, at least, to help them learn ways to kill without physical strength, ways to survive by avoiding the others. "Let's plan tomorrow before you go to the training sessions," she tells them, wiping the paint from their faces. The stupid stylist who dressed them up is nowhere to be found, her work done. "For tonight, just eat, try to relax." She knows it's an impossible task. She feels stupid saying it.
But they nod, because who are they to argue with her, and they go on their way, faces red from being cleaned of the facepaint, arms too skinny to properly wield an axe. Johanna herself tries to find Cashmere, or Enobaria, but they're in conversation with some Capitolite she has no desire to meet, so she stays away. "Nice performance," Elin says, a knowing smirk on her face. She'd managed to sneak up on Johanna, and they walk to the edge of the room, out of the crowd.
"You know how it is," Johanna says, hoping desperately that she does. June hasn't greeted her since coming back, so she assumes that friendship is over.
Elin nods. "More than most." She gives Johanna a pointed look, then leans in closer. "You got anything?" she asks.
And the tin of morphling that Sep just topped off comes back to her. The high she had been delaying until after she was on television. She nods and disappears into a rather cramped bathroom with Elin. There's enough room to move around, which would have been fine had they been just taking the powder morphling as is, but Elin has a kit in her bag, likely just waiting for someone with a hookup. She pulls out the lighter, the spoon, the syringes, the elastic. It's Johanna's supply so Elin does the work while Johanna sits on the bathroom counter, legs dangling, almost salivating at the thought of pure morphling hitting her veins.
And when Elin ties the tourniquet onto her arm and pushes the syringe into her vein, Johanna's eyes roll back and she almost slides off the counter, forgetting how to hold herself upright. Because this is what she had been waiting for: this feeling. Suddenly, the problems of the Capitol don't seem to matter and she can't quite remember why she had been concerned about those two kids and her show seems a million miles away, and she is tired, but a good tired.
When she opens her eyes again, she doesn't think much time has passed, but Elin is gone, and so is the rest of her drugs. That woman stole from her, not that she should be surprised. It's probably why Elin injected her first, and too much. She coughs, and it's bile, or maybe a little bit of vomit, and she spits it into the sink, rinsing her mouth. But her legs are too clumsy to hold her upright for any length of time and she half-falls to the bathroom floor, hitting her elbow hard on the way down, her heart racing and then settling again into an almost eerie slowness. Outside the door, she can hear the party continue to rage, music and voice and general cacophony, but even that begins to fade as the high begins to claim her again.
After an unknown amount of time, there's a pounding on the door. A few hard knocks, then a pause, then another. She wishes she could just get up and leave, assure whoever it is that she is fine, not cause a scene, but her legs feel like rubber and her thoughts feel too slow. She wonders if Elin had locked the door on the way out, if maybe Elin hadn't shot up in the bathroom at all, just pocketing the entire tin to take another time, at her leisure.
She hears the lock click, a technique she knew most Victors knew for resetting the locks in this building, and she tries to lick her lips, to moisten her dry, dry mouth, but her tongue won't follow even simple commands. Finnick steps in, locking the door again behind himself.
"What the hell, Jo?" he asks, coming to crouch beside her, pushing her hair back to check on her, helping her sit up straighter.
She wants to explain that it was Elin, that someone else dosed this injection, that she didn't intend to be stuck in here, unsupervised, unable to use her own legs, but her mouth isn't working right and really it's her own fault, to leave her drugs unattended with a known addict. "I messed up," she says, the words coming out slurred, but it's as concise as she can say it. Her breath tastes awful.
He looks beautiful, groomed and coiffed to Capitol standards, but even beneath that, he's just a good looking person. Tanned skin, wavy hair, blue eyes, he was like something from a fantasy standing before her. "Shit, Jo, I'm sorry, I-" he sighs, running his hands through his hair. "Fuck, I'm sorry."
She uses every muscle in her body to sit up straight, every ounce of focus to stay attentive to the conversation he's having with her. After three years of them fighting, ignoring each other, unable to communicate effectively, it's her overdosing on the bathroom floor that has him actually apologizing to her. "It's fine," she says, "I'm used to it now." Because isn't she? All she has to do is run the game 5 nights per week. Well, and fuck the Capitolites, of course. But she's used to it, like she said. She knows people now, she understands how it works. She has a manager and a schedule and more money than she knows what to do with, and the people in her District don't want her around anyways.
"I'll talk to Snow! For real!" he says, his hand on her cheek. It's warm against her cold and sweaty skin, and her head lolls back against the bathroom wall as she temporarily forgets how much concentration she had been actively putting into muscle control. "I'll figure it out. You don't have to kill yourself for me."
Morbidly, she thinks that he's just afraid she might die because then he won't have any leverage with Snow anymore, then Annie will need to come back. "It's too late," she says, her words coming out more clearly now. "You should have thought of that three years ago." Finnick going to Snow now would be pointless. It would just get them both into more trouble, just like it did the first time. He seems to realize this and backs down. "Help me find Enobaria," she says.
She forces herself to stand with sheer willpower, shoving down a wave of nausea that roils through her chest. It feels like her Games, when she wants to just curl up and lay down, but she knows she needs to keep going just a little longer. "Enobaria? Why?"
She doesn't bother answering, she just goes to the door and he rushes to follow, a hand on her back to make sure she doesn't stumble. Luckily, the night has grown only more raucous, so no one is looking their direction as they reenter the fray. She finds Enobaria rather quickly, drinking red wine as she talks with Seeder near the back of the party. They both look up as Johanna and Finnick approach.
"Are you alright?" Seeder asks, and Johanna has to look away from the gentleness in her gaze.
She shakes her head. "Drank too much," she says, hopefully a passable lie. "Walk me home?" she asks Enobaria.
"Sure," Enobaria says, but she looks over her shoulder as she does, and Johanna wonders who she's watching out for. "You good?" she asks, once they're by the elevator, on their way back to the 7 apartment.
Johanna nods, trying to convince herself. "Elin stole my stash, injected me with a little too much. I've just got to sit up a while, but I'll be ok."
"Jo…" They step into the elevator, and Johanna can't read Enobaria's expression clearly, but then, in the mirror, she realizes it's fear. They stand side by side in silence on the elevator, all too aware of the camera in the corner, watching them as they ride. And once they arrive at the 7 apartment, Enobaria steps inside, just for a moment. It's silent, Blight and the Tributes either asleep or still at the party, and she wraps Johanna in a hug, burying her face in Johanna's shoulder. Johanna is too surprised for the first moment, her arms hanging limply at her sides, and then she hugs back, holding onto Enobaria, realizing that Enobaria has stayed with her all this time, even as Finnick has chosen Annie and June has called her a traitor and Haymitch feels torn between them all. "I'm glad you're alright," Enobaria says, into her neck.
And there's a lot that Johanna should say. How she's sorry for scaring Enobaria, how she's glad Enobaria has stayed beside her. How she might only have kept this up this long because Enobaria has been there. But she has never been good with expressing herself, and Enobaria probably understands that by now. But still… how can she just let Enobaria leave? As Enobaria straightens up, turning back towards the door, Johanna pulls her back, hugging her from behind. "I… I love you," she says, quietly, knowing the words are treason even as she says them. She has spent so long hiding her feelings for Finnick, burying them somewhere deep, deep down, that she isn't even sure when they were snuffed out and replaced with feelings for someone completely different.
She doesn't expect Enobaria to say it back, she doesn't expect anything at all, really. She just hopes she isn't met with complete rejection. But when she sees the small, satisfied smile on Enobaria's face, she can't help but hold her more tightly, biting down lightly on her shoulder.
"I love you too," Enobaria says, in almost a whisper. "Now please stay up until dawn, at least, and eat something, and no morphling for at least a couple days."
Johanna nods, accepting these instructions, knowing Enobaria needs to go back to the party now to avoid suspicion. And she settles onto the couch in the living room, picking at heat-and-eat food from the kitchen, and thinks about Elin, someone who messed with rebellion too much and got burned, who was now stuck thieving and doping to get through life. She wonders if such a future awaits her if she pushes against the Capitol too much, if she ought to just accept that her life could be worse, that she has small pleasures here and there and someone she cares about, and Snow is obviously alright with letting her keep those things as long as she falls in line.
Enobaria is not in the Mentor booth when Amycus wins. Brutus is, and she cracks a smile as not five minutes later he comes down into the club, still wearing his T-shirt and casual pants to come celebrate. No one seems to mind: they understand that he was running the gift line, helping ensure his Tribute got to the end. Finnick's girl came in third, and Gloss was in the booth as well, his boy the final kill of the Games. Good year for Careers.
Johanna is at the party, drinking with Cashmere. It's interesting, how they get along now, but she thinks they've come to understand each other. At first impression, other Victors might think that Cashmere doesn't want to become friends with anyone else, but Enobaria has found it's the opposite. Cashmere might be a little vicious, but she is generally harmless. Mostly, it's others who won't warm up to her. Now that June and Elin and Finnick have crossed Johanna, she has come to realize Cashmere isn't so bad, and Cashmere understands that Johanna has no plans to dethrone her as the Capitol's Golden Girl. So she watches the two of them laugh about something as Johanna rolls them cigarettes and Enobaria wanders off to find her actual target: Haymitch Abernathy.
Haymitch, as usual, is too drunk for the hour and sitting with Chaff. "I need to talk to you. Alone," she says, and he looks up at her with his sad, weary eyes.
"I'm trying to celebrate," he complains, in a tone that says he hasn't celebrated anything in a long, long time.
"Yeah well, you can go back to that in a bit. Now come on."
He stands, perhaps a little intrigued now. She has never sought him out. She could count the number of times they've ever had conversations on one hand. But she had told herself she would do this, and he would be going to District 12 soon, so she needed to get things moving.
He follows her to one of the private rooms in the back, and the bouncer lets them in, raising an eyebrow just a millimeter. As if she'd sleep with Haymitch. The room is small and dim, just a couple couches and a table for their drinks, a speaker to pump in the same music from outside on the main floor. But it gives them some privacy. "What can I do for you?" he asks, sounding twice as sober as he did just thirty seconds ago. She wonders if he was faking being drunk, or if he's now faking being sober.
She sighs, wondering if she really has the gumption to say what she needs to say. She gestures for him to sit on the couch, and he does, and then she leans on the arm so she's close enough to whisper in his ear. She can't even say the words aloud into a private room. "I… Let me help the rebels," she says.
Haymitch starts, but seems to control his reaction well. "Are you sure?" he asks. "Do you understand what that means?" She had been unsure, at first, mostly because of everyone she'd be putting at risk. But then she went home for the reaping and found her brother, sister-in-law, and nieces gone. Disappeared right out of District 2. Her brother had taken them and likely gone to the Wilds, or somewhere else where they hopefully wouldn't be found. Her heart ached because she might never see them again, and she felt lighter because it was four less people she had to protect. Now, it was just her sister, who was a Peacekeeper, her mother, who lives with her sister on the military base, and Johanna.
"Yes. I don't make decisions lightly," she says. She thinks of her brother, exiting that torture chamber of a prison. She thinks of the photograph of her and Johanna, tucked deep in one of her drawers.
He sighs, nodding. She retreats a bit, still on the arm of the couch but not leaning over his shoulder, and he is silent for a while. "I'm glad," he says, "I'm just trying to think about what this all means."
"They tortured my brother," she says, as quietly as she can. "He's making me stay here as punishment." She thinks about whether to disclose the next part or not. "And under threat."
Haymitch doesn't ask who the threat is against, and it doesn't matter, really. "Listen," he says. "I can't give you information about the rebels until I know I can trust you. I need you to help us first. I'm risking my life by even telling you this much."
"I understand. What do you need?"
He looks at her fully in the eyes for the first time, as if really comprehending that a Career Victor from District 2 is volunteering to be a rebel spy. He seems to soften a bit, then. "Have you ever been asked to be an escort to the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane?"
She shakes her head. "I think Johanna was, once."
He nods, looking to the side, as if checking for a camera, and then whispering back to her. "Yeah, this was going to be her task, but it got kind of messed up with the current circumstances."
"It's alright, I can arrange to meet him."
He looks at her, and she doesn't like that he seems to recognize something there. But then he nods. "Try to meet with him several times during the year. We want someone on the inside for when he's running the Games next year. Just stroke his ego, tell him he's amazing, give him the girlfriend treatment."
It's an easy enough task, even if it's disgusting. "Fine. I can report in during the Victory Tour."
"Good." He stands, just a little off-balance from the drunkenness, and faces her. "It's just a chain, huh?" he asks, and she looks at him in confusion. "He threatens Finnick with Annie, and Jo with Finnick, and you with Jo." He smiles, punching her lightly on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're fighting back."