Home Fanfics Go Back
Johanna can't say she looks forward to the Hunger Games, but it is nice to have a break from her show. All of the Mentors and the new Tributes coming back to the Capitol gives people something new to focus their attention on, and she gets a break, even though she's still working, really.
She had gone to the reaping, she had seen Blight and Jackson. Blight's hairline was receding, Jackson's beard was grayer than she remembered. Both were smoking pipe tobacco, a habit she never spent enough time in 7 as an adult to truly develop a taste for.
And then there were the others: young adults she remembered vaguely from her school years, older people that she might have known, once, younger children she definitely had never met. All were shaking her hand, smiling at her, still nervous about the reaping day, but telling her stories about watching her show.
Now, back in the Capitol, she's still trying to make sense of it. She wonders if this is how all Victors feel: that their Districts love them as much as they are useful to them, or as much as they are entertaining to them. Or maybe it's simpler than that, even. When people have hope, it's easier to accept someone who is a reminder of the Games. When they've lost all hope, a Victor is just a punch in the gut. If that is the case, then she is watching herself de-radicalize her District in real time. They are still poor, they are still desperate and have too little work and are ignored by the Capitol completely. But because they have the illusion of care and representation, because a girl from 7 is showing up on their screens every night giving money away and talking to all of the Districts, she's calmed that rebel fire. God, she was undoing all the work the rebels have been trying to do for years in just 60 minutes a night.
She sits in the Mentor booth, headset on, waiting for the Games to officially start. It's tense in there, with all 12 of them sitting and waiting. She can hear Cashmere chewing gum and Haymitch whispering something to Chaff. She doesn't want the bloodbath - she doesn't want any of these kids to die - but she will breathe easier when there's not so many tense people in this cramped little room.
They will have funds this year. Her popularity on the game show had led to a glut of sponsor interest in the run-up to the games, that much was clear. And it wasn't just the heavy hitters. There were people from her District, people who had almost nothing, gathering what they had so that they could send it along to try to protect their Tributes. She bites her cheek, trying to understand how it all fits together, but it's impossible. In the end, 23 children are going to die, and a lot of people are going to have lost money trying to save the lives of Tributes who were doomed, whether it was due to luck or the strength of their opponent. Really, the entire Games had to go, the entire Capitol had to go. But she got up on television every day and held it up.
She leans back in her chair, her head thudding harder than she means to with the back of the seat, thanks to her headset. There's still a small ache in her neck, and at the base of her skull, from where that contestant had shoved her into the desk, months ago. The Capitol had done a great job cleaning up the wounds, ensuring there was no scarring, but they cared less for damage on the inside. If it wasn't aesthetics, it wasn't as important.
"You good?" Finnick asks.
"Fine," she replies, sighing as she tests her range of motion, hoping her neck and shoulders don't tense up right before a week of sitting long hours at this little station.
Her attention is taken away from herself and towards the screens and it sweeps over the contestants. The two from 7 don't seem particularly strong, but she likes the girl, Willow - she seems wily, able to slip out of danger. But then there is the girl from 12 - the girl on fire - and she wonders if this was some ploy of Haymitch's, because who would dare try something so bold?
She understands why he wouldn't talk with her, none of them do anymore. Not June, who thinks she's a Capitol sellout, and maybe she is. Not Elin, who had probably only been kind to her to take her drugs, and knows she can't play the same trick twice. Not Haymitch or Chaff, who don't trust her with rebel secrets, and not Finnick, who is kind to her, but seems to understand that something has irreconcilably broken between them. Even Blight is cautious around her, as if he's afraid anything he tells her might be tortured out of her later by Snow.
No, the only people she can talk to anymore are Cashmere and Enobaria, and so she truly does not understand what's happening with the 12 Tribute girl.
Katniss. That is her name. She learns it when she gets a bow and arrow from the Cornucopia and uses it to shoot Johanna's boy tribute, Wrest, in the head. Willow has the sense to get away, to grab a backpack and get out of sight as quickly as possible.
The Games drag on a long time, days turn into weeks, but Willow survives. Eventually, it's just 2, 4, 7, 11, and 12 with Tributes left in the Games, and the Mentor booth has quieted down considerably. It's unbelievable, really, that Haymitch and Chaff both still have Tributes left in this Games - Haymitch with two - but she has to fight for Willow, and she has the resources to do so. There's money in their sponsor accounts, and Johanna wonders if this is what it feels like to Mentor a Career tribute. Her girl wasn't trained for the Games - she has made mistakes and had some near misses - but Johanna has been able to send her a gift when needed without thinking about the cost.
Blight takes over every 10 hours or so, and she goes to the apartment to sleep, usually, but sometimes she has to go to the clubs to talk to sponsors, or go to the studio to give an interview. Since Willow is so close to winning, she has an interview set up for that afternoon. So Johanna goes back to the 7 apartment and showers, resting her eyes on the couch until the call time for her to report to Remake. She has the Games on the television, it's impossible to get away from them, but she drifts off for a while. But then she wakes to the voices getting more excited, to the sounds of danger in the arena.
It's Willow, of course it's Willow, stung by a tracker jacker. She's trying to manage as quietly as possible, hissing against the pain, but Johanna knows it'll only by a matter of time before delirium sets in - Blight needs to get her the antidote now. And Katniss is headed in her direction. Willow has her knife, she's holding it out to fend off an attacker, a bandana clenched in her teeth to keep herself from biting her lips or tongue as she holds in her screams.
Johanna takes off towards the elevator, trying to get to the booth in time. For some reason, Blight isn't acting fast enough, but maybe she can. The elevator isn't moving quickly, and she's shaking the entire ride, unable to see the screen. When she gets out on the Mentor floor and can again see the screen, it's to see an arrow in Willow's throat: Katniss has killed her second Tribute as well.
She marches into the booth to see hundreds of credits left in their account, and no pending gifts. She can't stop shaking, with rage, with betrayal. "We need to talk," she says to Blight, trying to sound as composed as possible. She knows it's a bad look for a Mentor team to argue amongst themselves in front of the others, but she's having a very hard time keeping it together. Slowly, solemnly, he takes his headset off and nods at her, accepting this. She can tell he has tears in his eyes, mourning the girl he had the ability to save but didn't.
Finnick glances over but looks away just as quickly. Brutus, Chaff, and Haymitch don't acknowledge them.
Johanna follows Blight to a sparring room in the back of the training center gym, the kind of room that no one visited once the Games started, so they could be guaranteed at least basic privacy. "What the fuck was that?" she asks, unable to control her body. There's too much adrenaline. She has to pace, to do something.
Blight is quiet for a moment, his face drawn. He's the same as he has ever been: balding and pock-marked from tobacco, but true-blue 7 through and through, sandy hair and and a lean but strong build, quiet but wise. But now she can't even look at him, because she doesn't understand what he's done, why he's betrayed their District. "I hope they'll just call it bad game management," he says, his voice quiet. "They know it was me in there, not you."
As if that was what matters. As if she was here about the blame, and not that he just got a girl from their District killed. "Why?" she asks, trying to force herself to stop moving, to look at him.
He sighs, and she wonders if he thinks she won't understand, that he's gone ahead somewhere without her, that now they lead different lives, him at home, and her in the Capitol. "The girl from 12 needs to win," he says.
Johanna shakes her head. Blight was throwing the Games for a girl from another District, someone he'd never met, and for what? He was right, she supposes, that she will not understand, that she will not agree. 23 kids will die, but how do the rebels think they're any better than Snow if they decide which one? "She's important enough to betray your own District?" she asks.
He takes a step closer, but she shakes her head, taking a step back. "Jo-" he says, but drops his gaze, giving up. He shakes his head. "It's not a betrayal. The rebellion is for all of Panem."
"She's a symbol, then? Does she even know it?"
"Do you?"
His words cut through her like ice, and for the first time since they started talking, she is stilled. Katniss is there to oppose her? It's laughable, almost, except that Blight has a point. She saw how people in the Districts reacted to her. Of course the rebels needed a new symbol. She rubs her hands over her face, clearing her thoughts. What's done is done, and she can either accept it, or lose her relationship with Blight, too. "What choice do I have?" she asks. She means it, too. She wants to know the way out, where she isn't opposing the rebels with her very existence.
"I don't blame you," he says, and his shoulders sag a bit. "But try not to blame me too much, either."
Enobaria found Seneca Crane to be a strange person, but her mission was to seduce him, and so she ended up spending more time with him than any other client. Sometimes he just wanted her company - to talk, to tell her about his worries, to have her confirm that he was making the right choices. These were useful visits, Enobaria thought, because she could gather information and ingratiate herself to him all at once. Sometimes he wanted to sleep with her, and as expected of a Head Gamemaker, he wasn't exempt from the specific perversions or stereotypes that so often occurred with the clients she saw.
"Bite me, on my neck," he'd say, and then shove her off and enter her, a parody of her Games, except he won this time. The clients always had to win, she learned quickly.
He is just a man, Enobaria reminded herself after things like that happened, even if he had one of the most important jobs in the Capitol. He drinks too much, his suits are too gaudy, and he eats far too many sweets. He is much too invested in the tabloids and Capitol drama, and she often wonders if he'd rather be there, at the clubs and parties, rather than up in his penthouse, making sure the Games he spent a year configuring are running perfectly.
"What happened with 7?" he asks her that night, when she comes by.
She shrugs. "Brutus was in the booth at the time. Said that Blight missed the chance to send the antidote and the girl got too delirious." It was a rookie mistake, and not one Blight would make. He managed Johanna's Games perfectly, she knew he had to have thrown Willow's on purpose. But if that was a rebel plot, it wasn't hers, so she kept her nose out of it.
"Tracker jackers," he says, nodding, as if he's warming up to the idea. "I wasn't sure about them, but I'm glad we used them in the end."
Enobaria says nothing.
Crane pours himself another drink, holding the bottle up to Enobaria in a silent offer, but she shakes her head no. He continues on his train of thought, unbothered. "In any case, I'm pleased. I know I cannot have any influence on the Games, but I do have personal opinions. And that little girl from 7 seemed just as rotten as her Mentor."
Enobaria had gathered from past meetings with Crane that he had once spent a night with Johanna and she had said something that he had taken great offense to. When she had asked Johanna, she couldn't even remember, but Enobaria had learned to tread lightly around the topic in Crane's company. He now saw the Games as a competitor to Johanna's show, even though Johanna stopped broadcasting for the month of the Games. "I didn't get a chance to meet her," Enobaria says diplomatically.
"Well, in any case, we have the highest viewership in several years - since Finnick Odair's Games. So I really hope this doesn't end anticlimactically."
Enobaria wants to ask what he thinks anticlimactic would be - probably the boy from 11 - but she refrains. She moves closer, sitting with him on the sofa. "You said you have personal opinions. Who has caught your attention?"
He smirks at her now, rubbing a hand up her thigh. "I personally hope it comes down to the boy from 2 and the girl from 12," he says.
She knows her instructions, she was given them by Plutarch Heavensbee himself, but the hand on her thigh is making her want to throw up. She's usually not so sensitive - how many times had she been touched in more invasive ways by even more vile men? - but the lack of sleep from Mentoring coupled with the anxiety over the sheer treason of what she is trying to accomplish keeps holding the words in her throat.
She thinks of that night, years ago now, when she stumbled to Johanna's apartment after becoming overwhelmed with a client. She imagines that now, imagines that after this, she could go to Jo, could hold Jo and be held, be told that everything would be alright. The illusion is enough to calm her, at least. "Do you think they love each other?" she asks, leaning into him. "The two from 12?"
This question seems to take Crane by surprise, and she uses his silence to push the contact back at him. She traces patterns on his knee with her finger, resting her head on his shoulder. He smells of alcohol and a little bit of sweat, and again she just imagines she's somewhere else with someone else.
"I don't know," he says, after a moment, and for all she knows, he could be questioning if her affection is real. "At first I thought it was all for show, but the more I watch, the more I think it could be real."
"I think so too," she says. "I wonder if she'll be able to finish it, if he were to die."
"Good for your Tribute," he says.
She nods, but solemnly. "I wonder if I'm more romantic than I thought."
For a moment, she doesn't know if he'll buy it. But then he turns to her, fully facing her, and kisses her. When he pulls away, he considers her for a moment. "It must be hard," he says, "As a Victor, you can't really have a proper romance."
"Exactly," she says, and she thinks of that stupid photograph, of her happiness with Jo being used against her. It's enough, and there are tears in her eyes.
"Come on, let's go to bed."
When the climax of the Games does come, Enobaria is sitting with Johanna in Illyria. Brutus was always more serious about Mentoring than she was, or at least, he always felt he knew better about when to give gifts, when to move and when to hold back and all that. And being that he was sitting in the chair when she won and when Amycus won, who is she to go against him?
Jo and Cashmere are smoking District 7 tobacco in a smoking lounge and Enobaria is sipping red wine beside them, all eyes fixated on the screen as Cato faces off with Katniss and Peeta. Enobaria has done her part, she's done all she could, so now she has to wait and see. But God, it feels awful to watch this boy who should win, in any other circumstances, come so close and then fall to a girl from District 12.
When Cato dies, Cashmere's mouth is in a round 'oh', and Johanna has an eyebrow quirked, but she keeps quiet. Enobaria just continues to watch, trying to tell herself that this is how the Games work, that 23 kids die every time. Betraying her District for the rebels was something that was bound to happen sooner or later, but when it does happen, it hits her like a gut punch. She feels sick from the wine, and it's hard to keep track of the conversation. She knows in her heart that Katniss winning is what's best for Panem, but Katniss winning over a boy who spent his life training for this moment just… hurts, and she needs some time to process it.
But the Hunger Games waits for no one, and there are only two Tributes left, both from District 12.
"You won against your own District partner, didn't you?" Johanna asks Cashmere. It's rare for them to talk about their Games.
Cashmere nods. "Had to kill him, and got impaled for my efforts. He was a nice guy."
They all watch as Katniss and Peeta negotiate, and more and more people come into the club, the announcement that there was only two Tributes left obviously making the rounds. Enobaria wonders what Haymitch is doing, sleep deprived and finally sober. Either way, District 12 was getting a new Victor.
Or so it seemed. Katniss is holding the poison berries, and Enobaria realizes what she is proposing. She hopes Seneca Crane does. He must, she thinks. He designed the entire arena. Those were his poison berries. Her fingers tap on the bar, desperately anxious. Katniss was their hope, their symbol of the rebellion. They each sacrificed their chances at their own Tribute winning, they all risked more: sleeping with Capitolites, gathering intelligence, dodging threats. If Katniss were to die before the end of the Games, it would all be for naught.
And then, just as Katniss and Peeta are about to take the poison, the Games just… end.
"What the hell?" Cashmere asks.
"Did the arena just break?" Johanna asks.
Enobaria shakes her head. She thinks she knows what this is. She thinks this is Seneca Crane, plied enough with conversations about romance and love, and afraid of a failure of a Games with zero winners, was pressured into ending the Games early with an unprecedented two winners.
She almost, almost allows herself to hope. What was more rebellious than a pattern broken? They had gotten their girl on fire, and a bonus Victor, too.
Caesar Flickerman is on screen, explaining the situation, but Cashmere is watching, uncomprehending. "They… both… get to win?"
Enobaria can understand how this would be a gut punch for her in particular, who had to kill her District partner to win, who didn't have the suicide pact loophole as an option for her.
"Holy shit," Johanna says, reaching under the bar to squeeze Enobaria's hand.
Holy shit, indeed. This was what she wanted, wasn't it? Something to change? Something impactful? But now that things had started to move, she wonders about how Snow will react. She sees him on the screen, coming out on a stage to prepare to crown the new Victors. They were probably being cleaned up now to be presented to Panem, two lovers, real or pretend, that everyone could get behind. And Snow was there, smiling as he prepared to congratulate them, but Enobaria was certain he was upset. He did not like a break in the pattern, and he would want to punish those responsible.