Home Fanfics Go Back
There are only 4 tributes left in the Games, so it almost certainly will end in the next day or two. Johanna had to sit with Cashmere and Caesar for an hour for an 'evening recap' of that day's events, and now she's at some stupid Capitol party because as she was leaving, Caesar suggested they come along, and Cashmere's escort Oracle thought that was a 'great idea' and Johanna knows that saying no isn't ever a real option in the Capitol.
She still considers it for a moment, feigning illness or something, but then she remembers the pilot in the prison, and instead she just swallows a tab of euphoria and gets in the car with the others.
"Gloss is going to be pissed," Cashmere says, pouring a glass of champagne from the minibar in the back of the car. "Crystal still has a shot at winning, and I won't be there to relieve him til dawn."
It is bullshit, Johanna agrees. They were already stretched thin as mentors, moonlighting for sponsor interest, but now that she and Cashmere have to do this other shit as commentators and attend these extra parties, their tributes are getting fucked over. "Maybe this one won't go that late," she says, but they both roll their eyes, because they've never been to a Capitol party that ended early.
The party itself is at a mansion, some gaudy stone building on the south side of the city. There is a large screen projected in the main room of the Games, just to keep an eye on the tributes, in case anyone tried anything overnight. And there are the usual excesses: a fountain of champagne, a man breathing fire, several Avox playing instruments and others bellydancing.
Johanna isn't sure what her purpose here is. Probably just to be seen — to drink and mingle with the important people of the Capitol, to laugh with them so they can get their requisite time with a victor. Finnick is better at this than she is. She feels stiff, uncomfortable, even with the euphoria making the music sound impossibly good, and the champagne delightfully bubbly against her tongue. It also makes her teeth clench, and she's impossibly thirsty.
She watches the screen, where the cameras continue to follow the tributes. There's a boy from 10 camped out under rubble, tossing and turning as he tries to get comfortable against the packed dirt of the desert arena. There's the girl from 1 and the boy from 2, near the Cornucopia, the 1 girl keeping watch as the 2 boy slept, a knife in hand. And there's the boy from 6, mouth bloody from some injury Johanna had missed, awake and crying silently as he limps towards one of the only trees in the arena.
As always, she wonders if it's better to win, really. Licinius Crowley catches her attention as he parades around in some ridiculous outfit with too much leather and studs, the kind of thing that is only ok in these private parties under cover of darkness, the kind of 'perversions' that Snow allows, but only nocturnally, and in safe company. She jumps at a tap on her shoulder, but it's only Cashmere.
"See that woman? That's her, the diplomat." Cashmere gestures to a blonde woman in the next room, leaning against a pillar and sipping a drink, speaking with a minister Johanna didn't know by name.
"Really? Here?"
Cashmere nods. "Yeah. I met her the other day. She's here with another man to get the pilot back."
Johanna can't help but think of the pilot, begging for death, trapped in the hellish prison. "Like… to leave Panem?"
Cashmere pulls out her lighter and raps Johanna on the head with it. "Yeah. Are you slow? What's wrong with you, do you need a smoke?"
She already feels uneasy, like the euphoria and the champagne are not mixing well inside her, plus she hasn't had much to eat today with the stupid tight schedule. Her tributes are dead, but that didn't seem to matter. But she nods anyways, because it allows them to leave the main rooms for a bit and walk to the courtyard, where there are only a couple other people hanging around, including a couple practically glued to each other, ferociously making out, and another couple smoking in the opposite corner.
Cashmere pulls out two cigarettes and lights them, handing one to Johanna. She can feel the kick as soon as she exhales, and realizes these must be laced with something, probably some kind of uppers. It makes sense — how else can Cashmere keep up with the non-stop schedules she has during the Games and after, the modeling, the interviews, the guest appearances? She keeps smoking anyways, there's no reason to decline. "Did you talk to her?"
Cashmere is silent for a moment, smoking. She's so pretty it's irritating. There should be a difference between the face on those Capitol posters and the television commercials and the woman in real life, but she's just the same, or maybe even more beautiful in person. "I was only around her with Snow in the same room," she says, her voice hushed.
"Well, he's not here now." Johanna almost smiles at the thought of Snow seeing Licinius in the leather and spikes, or prissy Marcella getting way too touchy, but the whole thing makes her want to vomit instead.
But Cashmere turns to her, looking down at her, her face suddenly set and serious. "Don't even think about it. You'd be stupid to talk to her here. He has eyes here and you know it."
"Why did she even come here?" Johanna has no idea what anything is like outside of Panem. She has no idea what anything is like outside of the Capitol and District 7, really, except the glimpses she saw on her own Victory Tour. She doesn't know if parties like this are normal, and this woman is used to such debauchery. But they're only normal here, in the Capitol, she thinks, she's never heard of any of the districts with such excess.
Cashmere only shrugs, as if the matter isn't worth any more thought. She reaches up and tucks some of Johanna's loose hair behind her ears, and it hurts, like it does every time anyone is gentle with her. "Relax," Cashmere says, letting the back of her finger trace along Johanna's jaw.
Johanna has to remind herself that this is Cashmere, this is the Capitol's fucking Golden Girl, and then she can jerk her chin away, to reject any affection. Cashmere is only appealing to her to make sure she doesn't do anything that would draw attention to them, Cashmere hates Johanna as much as Johanna hates her. "If we don't try, we'll never know," she says, because she's desperate, every inch of her being hoping for something else, for a Panem where Autumn could just sit on the steps of her father's shop and those Avox inside wouldn't be forced to sleep with people for the rest of their lives. "See if she wants company tonight." It has to be Cashmere. Cashmere is prettier. Cashmere is a better talker.
But Cashmere just laughs airily and lights up a second cigarette. "You read the flyers they dropped, they told us we're on our own. And we have no fucking chance on our own." She exhales, turning her head to blow smoke away from them. "I'm not convinced Crane wasn't murdered. I prefer being alive, thanks."