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The first time Enobaria goes to the Training Center gym after a client is out of necessity. She returns to the building late, past midnight, but when she gets back to the District 2 apartment, Brutus is still up watching television, and the showers in both the bathrooms are running. The tributes must be in them. The Games haven't started yet, and so the tributes are still there.
Enobaria can't imagine them seeing her like this: all made up by Remake and all disheveled from being someone's fucktoy that evening, so she leaves the apartment again before Brutus even notices she's come in.
The problem with the Training Center, however, is that it's essentially a giant prison, or another arena. There's only so many places to go, and cameras in about half of them. There's the rooftop, but she doesn't want to look out at the skyline, just so see the nets there to catch her when she inevitably thinks of jumping off. There's the mentor's lounge, but she'd be spending enough time there in the coming days once the Games begin and she has to put on the headset and man the sponsor line.
She could try the District 1 apartment. She's sure Cashmere would loan her new clothes and let her shower, but there are tributes there too, and Enobaria is not going to let them see the inevitable fate of winning: that Victory in the arena just means every year you get to come back and be prostituted to some lucky Capitolites.
So she goes to the basement, to the part of the Training Center that lives up to its name. The gym is quiet, equipment still and shadowed so late at night, but she isn't there for that. She wants to use the showers, and take one of the sets of shorts and T-shirts that was always stocked in the locker room. She passes the pool on the way and is surprised to see motion in the water.
She stops, watching, halfway to the locker-room. Finnick is cutting through the water as gracefully as she's ever seen anyone swim, and she wonders how often he comes here? Nightly? Just when he has seen clients? Because she certainly saw him at the club earlier, leaving around the same time she did with some woman. He is swift, burning energy as he turns and does another lap, and she can't tear her eyes away.
"I thought you liked women."
Enobaria looks to the far side of the pool where Johanna Mason is sitting, knees to her chest. Enobaria hadn't even noticed her. Like Enobaria, she's wearing some silky dress from Remake, her makeup a little smudged now. There's a mostly empty bottle of liquor beside her. The words are slurred a little, from the alcohol, but the tone is the usual abrasiveness Johanna was known for, meant to get under the skin. And it works. Enobaria is already tired, already at her limit from entertaining the client, from having to leave her own apartment, and from being startled from what she thought was a private moment.
"Fuck off." She doesn't have a comeback ready and if she did, it doesn't really matter anyways. Johanna is like a fire - she needs to deprive her of oxygen or else she'll become an even bigger problem.
"Rough night at the office?" Johanna says this in a teasing voice, as if she's completely removed from the situation. It makes Enobaria want to shake her, or slap her across the face. Anything to make her stop acting so disaffected, as if the thing that was making Finnick swim like his life depended on it after midnight and was making her feel like her skin was crawling wasn't also eating away at Johanna.
Finnick surfaces before Enobaria has to come up with a retort, and although she isn't the biggest fan of Finnick, either, she is relieved to have him mediating. He is, at least, a much calmer presence than Johanna. "Oh. Hi, Enobaria. Did you need something?"
She wants to ask him how often he comes here, or maybe if the swimming actually works to displace some of the awful feelings of seeing the clients, but she just shakes her head, because Johanna is making an obscene gesture at her from the other side of the pool, out of Finnick's view, and truthfully she wouldn't have been able to ask that had it only been the two of them. "No, I was just going to use the showers." She doesn't apologize for interrupting, because she's only sorry for herself. The two of them can continue on whatever messed up relationship they have for one month a year.
The shower feels nice. The locker room is dimly lit in the evenings, and there's a soft music playing. She switches the stream to the firm setting to make sure to scrub any trace of another person from her skin, and then to the gentle rain setting to just stand under the hot water a while longer. When she exits, she wraps herself in one of the Training Center's distinct fluffy white towels and sits at one of the chairs opposite a mirrored counter, the shelf beneath stocked with everything she could need. There's a hair brush, makeup remover and cotton pads, a variety of hair and skincare products, and other things she doesn't even know what to do with.
She sits in front of the mirror and takes off the makeup that didn't come off in the shower, and then moisturizes her face. It's still the Training Center - it's impossible to forget how she's captive here for another month, still - but it's nice down here, more peaceful than in her apartment, with Brutus chatting and pacing and the wall of windows that looked down into the Capitol and constantly reminded her of where she was.
She misses District 2, the wide open spaces and her family and going where she wants and not having a camera on her. She misses meeting people and not wondering what their intentions are, or making everything a confrontation or a messed up social engagement where she has to play nice so someone she loves isn't murdered. She understands the desire to swim until her lungs ache, but she's never been one for swimming.
When she finally goes up to the District 2 apartment, she feels better, all traces of the client wiped from her skin, even memories of meeting Johanna faded once she had her shower. But the next day is the start of the Games, and so she has no choice but to go back to the mentor's lounge.
Brutus is particular about mentoring. Enobaria had learned this years ago. He feels he can do it better than Enobaria, that his thoughts about game management, budgeting, and understanding the precise timing of gifts made him a superior mentor, and he had mentored her to victory and she had not mentored anyone to victory, so who was she to argue? But even Brutus had to accommodate the fact that Enobaria was needed for other things in the evenings, that the sponsor money she brought in from seeing clients was more than they would get from him soliciting at the clubs alone.
As a result, Brutus took the first shift - the bloodbath, the Cornucopia - in the mentor's booth, Enobaria took the next, until about sundown, and then Brutus took over again after dark. He would continue to build these convoluted schedules for them to switch on and off again and again daily until the Games ended, just one more thing for Enobaria to manage, on top of her clients.
When she finishes her first shift in the mentor booth, her tributes are still alive. 10 of the others are dead, including both of the tributes from 11, from 12, from 7, and one from 9, 8, 5, and 3. Brutus takes over, and Enobaria has just enough time to get something to eat before she's due to Remake.
Finnick is in Remake when Enobaria arrives, still eating the last bites of her dinner. He's laughing with the stylist and sipping a drink. She wonders if he's taken a Euphoria tablet, and thinks that it doesn't sound like such a bad idea, except that they always make her nauseous. She wants to ask him about swimming, ask if he only goes on really bad nights, or if that was his nightly routine during the Games, except she holds her tongue in front of the stylists and because well, Finnick sort of irritated her.
The stylist begins her work. When she's home, she sometimes has her sister-in-law press her hair sleek and straight, but in the Capitol, she always wears it in braids to avoid lengthy hair styling sessions, and as part of her 'brand'. So the stylist simply uses gel on some flyaway hairs and moves on to her makeup. She looks at Finnick, his hair being coiffed up in some sort of wind-swept look. She wants to roll her eyes.
"Your tributes doing alright?" he asks.
It takes her a minute to realize she's being addressed. She nods. "They're still fine. Yours are, too," she adds, because he is the only District 4 Mentor and any time he spends getting sponsor money is time he spends not monitoring his tributes.
He nods, his easy smile continuing. She knows it's fake, and it makes her hate it. She thinks Johanna must have picked up the habit from him: of never, ever showing what she's actually feeling, of never letting anyone see her sweat. They both drive Enobaria insane. Because as much as she tries to stay calm and composed, she has never evolved into whatever this is: some simulacrum of a person hiding every true emotion.
And she wonders how it would even be possible, really, to hide it all, when the client she is forced to see that night is awful, and she takes the taxi back to the Training Center past midnight with her hands shaking. The men who bought her company all generally wanted the same kind of thing: to dominate the 'violent' woman of the 62nd Games, though some were rougher than others.
She goes down to the basement again, where she can pretend she is in some spa back in District 2, where there are no windows to remind her that this is just another hellish part of the Capitol, and she spends a long time washing herself off in the shower. When she exits, she sees the sauna, a little room in the corner that she hadn't noticed the last time she was here, and she wraps herself in a towel, grabs a bottle of water, and goes to sit inside.
It's warm, too warm, which is nice. It's making her hands stop shaking. She feels too lethargic to scrape her nails down her legs, which is what she wants to do. She is too relaxed to think about vomiting up the alcohol she drank earlier, so she just drinks about half the water bottle to try to keep herself from getting a bad hangover.
When she starts to sweat, she gets up to leave, though she doesn't really know how much time had passed. Her mind had been racing with thoughts, everything from the stupid idea of diving into the Training Center pool to remembering her client from that evening and the way he forced himself on her to thinking about the wasteland arena her tributes were currently stuck in, and what she would do to survive if she was stuck inside.
It takes her a moment to realize that she's no longer alone, that Johanna Mason is sitting at the counter, brushing out damp hair. Had she come in and showered in the time that Enobaria was in the sauna? Enobaria wants to get her things and leave, but she's just in the towel, so she needs to at least take the time to change before she takes the elevator upstairs to her apartment.
Johanna jumps a little as she sees Enobaria in her peripheral vision, and then puts the hairbrush down and turns on the stool to face Enobaria. She's also wearing only a towel, and this fact distracts Enobaria momentarily from the large bruise on her face, just below her left eye. It's the kind of bruise that comes from getting punched, or hit with a hard object, and Enobaria can feel her hand start to tremble again, so she steadies it by adjusting her towel.
"What? You're making this a regular thing now?" Johanna says, all venom as usual.
"What?"
"Coming down here. It'll be annoying if you're always here too."
It hadn't even occurred to Enobaria that Johanna would regularly come down here. She thought she was just there last time to accompany Finnick. But Johanna had been a Mentor for years, and they all had their favorite spots. There's something in Johanna's voice that feels genuine, not her usual masked persona, and so even if she's angry at Enobaria, it's refreshing. "Where'd you get that bruise?"
Enobaria can see the moment the mask goes up, the exact way the muscles in Johanna's face change when this question is asked. She half shrugs, shaking her head. "It's nothing, it'll be gone in Remake tomorrow morning."
Enobaria wants to know why the hell Johanna is protecting any of their sleazy clients, why Johanna, a rebel if she's ever seen one, is denying the fact that one of these Capitolites hit her, but even more than that, she wants the real Johanna to come back. She regrets asking the question because she lost actual connection with another person, which was so hard to come by in the Capitol, even if they had only been arguing. So she does the only thing she can think of, which is purposely picking a fight. "Did you fight with Finnick?" she asks, stepping a bit closer into Johanna's space.
Johanna holds her ground, raising her chin at Enobaria. "No, you idiot. You have no idea what you're talking about."
But she won't back down. "Did you tell him you're sick of being the other woman?" She knows this will sting, and it does. Johanna shoves her, enough to push her back a step or two, but Johanna follows, in her space now.
Johanna looks amused, a confused look on her face as if she can't believe what Enobaria is even suggesting. "This is funny, coming from you," she says. Enobaria is against the lockers now, there's nowhere to back up to. "Fucking Cashmere who's only in it so you can tell her she's pretty." Johanna leans in until their faces are inches apart. "Which one of us is more pathetic, really?"
Enobaria can't breathe for a moment. She hadn't realized anyone had even noticed that she and Cashmere had been anything more than friends, and considers that if Johanna has noticed, there's a chance that Snow has. Instinctively, she reaches out to cover Johanna's mouth, to keep her from making any more accusations that could get Enobaria's family killed.
Johanna grins, Enobaria can feel it behind her hand, and then she feels Johanna's tongue on her fingers. It's enough to make her pull away, but there was something there, in that last second of being licked that makes her unable to form coherent thoughts. Desire. The idea runs so contrary to any previous thoughts she's had about Johanna that it's almost impossible to comprehend, but she can feel it in her gut and between her legs: the way Johanna's tongue on her fingers was enough to make her remember the excitement of touching and being touched, when she wants it to happen.
Enobaria decides to push the limits, wonders what she has to lose besides sleep and risking more of Johanna's ire. She puts her hands on Johanna's shoulders, grip tight to remind Johanna that she is older, that she is the Career, that she is in control. "I am not pathetic," she says, spitting a little on the p so that Johanna has to turn her head away.
And this loosens the towel just a bit. Enobaria can see it nearly falling away from where it is tucked against Johanna's chest, and she's stuck staring at the exposed skin of Johanna's neck and sternum. "Prove it," Johanna says, leaning in close, her breath hot against Enobaria's ear.
And what other invitation does she need? It's the Games, where the rules don't apply. Yes she's sleeping with Cashmere, and Johanna with Finnick, and yes she and Johanna have never gotten along for the years they've been mentors, but she's wound up, and more than that, she's being challenged. She drags one of her hands down from Johanna's shoulder, pushing the towel away, and it falls to the floor. Johanna is nearly flat-chested beneath, more ribs and hip bones than anything else, the body of someone pushing morphling in the time between Games.
She reaches perhaps more firmly than she might with a lover, hand squeezing Johanna's breast, fingers pinching her nipple tightly. Johanna's face is still pressed against her shoulder, and she can feel her teeth sink in, a rather hard bite.
Enobaria turns them around so it's Johanna against the lockers, so she has something to brace her against. She wants to fuck Johanna, she realizes now. She wants to watch her come. She wants to see the bliss override the passivity or the rottenness or any other masks Johanna wears around the Capitol. It doesn't even have to be mutual. She thinks the memory will be enough to help her with her own pleasure later on.
She moves her other hand down between Johanna's legs, and she can feel wetness there, confirmation that she isn't the only one aroused by this confusing tension. She curls her fingers into Johanna's folds and slips one inside without warning, and Johanna leans her head back, hitting it against a locker with a thud.
Her neck is exposed, and Enobaria bites down. She knows she ought not to - she never bites Cashmere - since her teeth are such a distinct shape, but she can't resist, and the whine Johanna lets out sounds like a mixture of pain and pleasure and it makes her go back for more. She adds a second finger, and she can feel plenty of moisture around them now as she pushes them in and out.
Johanna bites her lip, a ligament in her neck straining as she pushes harder back against the locker. Enobaria's towel slips now, too, but she doesn't mind it, it's the nature of their position to be forced to be naked more often than normal. She twists again at Johanna's nipple, and a 'oh!' sound comes from Johanna. Finally, she slips her fingers up to Johanna's clit and rubs back and forth similar to the way Cashmere liked, but with more urgency, almost too much pressure. But Johanna leans into her hand, seeking out the contact. She pushes her chest against Enobaria's, challenging Enobaria to wonder if she really was giving the stimulating experience she thought she was, because Johanna was pushing for more and harder, and so she gives her what she wants, teeth on her breast and flat fingers pushing against her clit, and Johanna rides her hand.
She can feel Johanna tense as she's cresting the wave, and looks up just to see the expression on her face. Her eyes are shut with just a hint of tension between her brows, and her mouth hangs half-open, a hoarse moan coming out as she climaxes.
Enobaria can feel her pushing away, can tell she's trying to break the contact, but she's always been one to push her limits, so she slips her fingers back inside, pushing in and out as Johanna's breath comes back more rapid than before and she uses her hands to push Enobaria away. The separation is a loss, like a spell being broken, and she can feel Johanna's walls going back up as she comes down from her high.
Enobaria picks up her towel and wipes off her fingers. She looks at the red bite marks on Johanna's neck and breast, one of the tooth marks a bloody puncture. She smiles, amused at her work. Remake would fix it, and with just a little luck, they would associate it with whatever client gave her the bruise. She forgets about her own bite mark on her shoulder until she walks back in front of the mirror.
The next day, Enobaria is exhausted. She's running on next to no sleep, but the Games wait for no one. Brutus is expecting her by 9AM, which meant she had only about 4 hours to sleep if she wanted to get to Remake and grab some food to bring with her to her shift. And coffee, of course. She oversleeps, in the end, skipping Remake, knowing she'll have to go that evening before she goes out to see clients again. Twice in one day just feels excessive. She has a hangover pill (the best part of Remake) stashed in her apartment anyways, and she is sure to wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt to cover most of her bruises, despite the fact that she was always too warm in the booth.
On the way there, she grabs a breakfast sandwich, a smoothie, and a coffee, her arms laden as she approaches the booth where she'll have to sit with the headset on until late afternoon. She pauses before coming around the corner as she hears urgent voices, afraid to incur someone's ire for interrupting a private conversation, even if they were having it in the very public mentor's lounge.
"I need to talk to you, before you go in." This is Johanna, certainly, speaking in a harsh tone, but her voice is quiet, as if she doesn't want to be overheard. Unfortunately, Enobaria is just a few feet away.
"I gotta go." Finnick. Enobaria can place his calm, placating voice at once. "We can talk as soon as I'm out, where should I find you?"
"No! That's too late! It's about tonight-" There's something whispered Enobaria can't hear, then, "I need you to talk to Miranda or someone."
Finnick sighs. "Jo, I'm already late. But I will talk to her, as soon as I'm out."
Enobaria realizes they're going their separate ways, so she starts walking towards the booth to look like she's been in motion the whole time, not lurking and eavesdropping. "Jo-"
But Johanna ignores her, walking past with an irritated expression on her face. She's been to Remake, Enobaria can tell, no imperfections on her skin anymore, the bruise gone, the bite marks disappeared. But Enobaria has no time to dwell on it anymore, as she has to get to work.
When Enobaria gets out of the mentor's booth that day, Cashmere is sitting in the lounge, drinking some pink drink that smells highly alcoholic. "Want to hang out before we have to go to Remake?" she asks.
Enobaria is tired, even more than usual, thanks to staying up with Johanna the night before and getting up early to help her Tributes. But she tells herself this is only for a month, and they're already 10 days in: that the Games are such a small part of her year and then she can go back to District 2, so what is a few nights of no sleep? She follows Cashmere up to the District 1 apartment, hoping Cashmere had something to eat, at least.
Once they're there, Cashmere changes to a tank top and shorts, and the Avox makes them something to eat before Cashmere sends her away. Gloss is in the mentor booth, and the Escort is out doing her press duties, so it's quiet in the apartment now. Enobaria sits on the couch and eats, drinking a glass of red wine along with her meal, and Cashmere mutes the television which is tuned to the Games, like always.
"I hate sitting in the booth," Cashmere complains. "All the guys get all sweaty and it's just a cloud of body odor. I can still smell it on me now."
Enobaria laughs. It's not funny, really, because of course everyone is sweating trying their best to keep their tributes alive, but she knows the exact musty smell that Cashmere is complaining about. It's stifling in the booth. It's warm and smelly and the tension is too high, since someone's tribute was always close to dying. "You can shower if you want, I'll just sit and drink."
Cashmere shrugs. "I'll shower when we get to Remake anyways. Unless you wanted to go together?"
And she does, in a way. It's nice to be with Cashmere, because Cashmere made things easy. They were casual, never really overly romantic, but they were kind to each other, and the intimacy with Cashmere was a nice contrast to the sex she didn't want to have with the Captolites. Plus, Cashmere was always discreet. But she remembers the bite mark that still remains on her shoulder, one that perhaps she could attribute to last night's client, but Cashmere was a little too savvy sometimes.
She pauses a second too long, and Cashmere seems to change her mind. "Eh, nevermind, sitting sounds better."
So they drink and gossip a bit about the others and then go down to Remake at the allotted time, and Enobaria watches as Cashmere is transformed from tall and beautiful and blonde to someone almost too perfect, to the face she sees on the ads in the tabloids and on the sides of buildings when she looks out the Training Center windows. "What do you think of the brown mascara?" Cashmere asks, as they make their way to the club. "I think I might prefer it."
Enobaria nods, her words momentarily caught in her throat. "You look pretty."
And in that known blind spot, between the elevator and where the corridor turns to enter the club, Cashmere pushes her against the wall and kisses her, hard. It's fast, over in less than two seconds, but the timing was too precise to be a coincidence. Johanna's words return to her, how she was there to validate Cashmere. "Let's get this over with," Cashmere says, already onto the next thing.
That night, after Enobaria has finished with her client, she leaves the room quietly. She never stays the night, not when she can avoid it. Sometimes they offer, and sometimes she's so, so exhausted, but she's found they never want her there in the morning - the people who buy her company don't want to see evidence of their indiscretions once they're not high or drunk or once the sun is up again. So, quietly as she can, she slips her dress back on, tries to calm the frizz of her hair, checks the mirror for any smudges of makeup, and exits the hotel room.
The hotel is silent at this time of night, just long corridors of identical doors. Occasionally as she walks she'll hear a quiet conversation, or the thunk of a bed moving rhythmically as two people continue to fuck, but this is rare. It's well past midnight, time to be sleeping, and past when she usually gets back. A wave of nausea rolls through her as she thinks of how exhausted she'll be at the mentor booth tomorrow, but that's just how it is. It's only a month. She's repeated this to herself countless times, a mantra to help herself get through the Games. After this she'll have eleven months back home.
Down in the lobby it's quiet. The typical Capitol hotel arrangement is a digital kiosk for check-in, with a human attendant available only after picking up a phone, for maximum discretion. So Enobaria is surprised to see anyone at all waiting on the seats in the lobby, though perhaps she shouldn't be - there were always others, other victors and Avox and more people exploited to be the rich Capitolites' entertainment.
"Johanna?" Enobaria recognizes her late, because she's sitting on a leather couch turned away, in a gaudy fur coat. She doesn't turn to Enobaria, so Enobaria goes to stand in front of her. She looks fine, at least there's no black eye this time. But something is off, certainly. Why was she just waiting here? There's a certain kind of misery around Johanna, the sort of hopelessness that kept her anchored in the hotel lobby, unable to even call the car to go home.
"Hey, you ready to go home?" Enobaria asks. Johanna nods, barely, and Enobaria goes to the phone booth and calls for the taxi to take them back to the Training Center.
It arrives in less than five minutes, and they get in the back seat. There's a divider between them and the driver, and Enobaria wants to know more - anything more, really - but she doesn't know where to start. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." Johanna is sitting apart from Enobaria, her head leaning against the window.
Just one month. Then you can go home.
When they get back, Johanna takes the elevator up to 7, and Enobaria presses the button on 2, and gets off, but then changes her mind and goes down to the pool. She is so tired and painfully aware of how it will be dawn in a few hours, but the conversation she overheard between Finnick and Johanna a few hours before is replaying in her head, and she knows she won't be able to sleep anyways.
She hears the rhythmic noise of swimming before she even enters the pool area. There is only one person she knows with such perfect, even strokes. In fact, there is probably only one person in all of the Capitol. She walks to the edge of the pool unsure what she wants to say. She's too sober, too on-edge, way too wired from lack of sleep and the caffeine she's used to compensate. She waits for Finnick to surface, for him to see her stupid, gaudy boots crouched at the pool's edge.
"Enobaria?"
"What did you get Johanna into?" She's annoyed with herself even as she says it, that she's showing too much of her hand. She has no reason to concern herself with Johanna or Finnick, no reason to care about Johanna's misery at all. But there was something there, the night before, something of the actual Johanna, not the bitchy persona she liked to display, and now Enobaria feels… what? Something, certainly.
Finnick sputters for a moment as he treads water, pushing his hair back to keep it from dripping into his eyes. "Jo? What, is she alright?"
And Enobaria can see the momentary panic that he masks almost instantly, the realization that whoever 'Miranda' is, whatever favor he was supposed to do for her, he almost certainly forgot. But Enobaria feels it's right there, like a puzzle she just can't find the last piece to, and it's irritating her. Cashmere would be able to solve it, with the way she could always hunt down Capitol gossip, but Enobaria isn't quite so clever or ingrained in everyone's lives. "Why is she even seeing clients?" she asks. Her whole family is dead, is implied.
Finnick licks his lips, obviously uncomfortable answering this question, and Enobaria knows this is the crux of it. Johanna and Finnick are tied up in some stupid arrangement, and she doesn't know if she really wants the answer, in case she gets dragged under, too. "It's nothing," he says, too calm, too casual. He's almost smiling, placating her in that unsettling way of his. "It has nothing to do with you or Cash or Gloss."
Oh. He thought she was concerned about Johanna mucking up her safety in the Capitol, about Johanna dragging her into a messy plot or whatever was happening expanding outward to involve the Careers. "But it involves you," she confirms.
"I… what is this about?" he asks, and it's as if he sees her for the first time.
She doesn't know. She really, honestly has no idea what this is about, but Johanna shouldn't even be seeing clients, except maybe to get sponsor money, and her tributes were out of the Games, so why was she at the hotel tonight? And she was miserable, a special, deep kind of miserable, and she had asked Finnick for help, and he had let her down. The whole thing was confusing and strange, and Enobaria should really let it roll off of her, like she did every other horror of the Capitol, but this time she couldn't. "I think you're being a shitty friend," she says, because it's the easiest way to sum it up.
His expression changes, from placidity to suspicion to anger in the course of a second, and she gets a look, for the first time in knowing Finnick, of the man who won the Games. He is always calm, charming, and gregarious in front of the other victors and Capitolites, but here, just the two of them, he's truly angry, and reaches for the edge of the pool to get out and come meet her face to face.
It's instinct, really, that causes her to push him back into the water, that arena self matching arena self, and she pushes him hard enough that he falls back under the water. She holds him down, underwater, and feels his arms tug at and scratch hers, struggling to pull her in or pull himself up. For a few tenuous seconds, she wonders if she should do it - just kill precious Finnick Odair, Capitol sweetheart, and she even smiles as she imagines it. She's tame now, in real society. This isn't the arena where she can just murder as she sees fit, but when she's got the edge on someone, when she ostensibly could end a life, it feels a bit like the Games.
But after a few seconds, no more than ten, she lets go, lets him float back to the surface. He swims away from her - hard - and exits the pool, scrambling away awkwardly from the water as he coughs and sputters without letting her out of his sight. They're about thirty feet apart now, the corner of the pool separating them, and she's soaked with the water he splashed up in his struggle.
"What the fuck, Enobaria?"
How does she answer him? She doesn't even know why she did it, really, just a vague notion that he is making Johanna's life miserable, and so she felt the retribution made sense. And also, because god she felt so raw and used and constrained while she stayed in the Capitol, and it felt good to know she still could hold someone's life in her hands, if she wanted to.
Enobaria's last tribute dies overnight, and this puts Brutus in a terrible mood, but it gives Enobaria one less responsibility during the Games. She feels bad, she always feels bad when her tributes die, but she's so tired and ready for the Games to be over she also feels a guilty sort of relief. She sleeps in, late into the morning, and when she goes up to the mentor's lounge for breakfast, she runs into Cashmere, leaving the booth as Gloss takes over. They still have both tributes in the arena.
"Hey, I'm going back to eat and watch TV, want to come?"
Enobaria agrees, and before long they're flopped on Cashmere's bed, the meal prepared by the Avox set on trays beside them, and a pitcher of juice and vodka on the table beside the bed. The television is set to something other than the Games for once - some mindless Capitol soap opera - and Enobaria is warm and full and a little drunk, and halfway to falling asleep again with Cashmere's head on her shoulder when Cashmere changes the subject from her previous topic of the Games.
"What's up with Finnick?" she asks.
Enobaria can feel her jaw clench, and hopes that Cashmere cannot feel the tension that immediately fills her whole body. "What do you mean?" she asks.
"He was so weird in the booth today. Really short, slamming the phone down, things like that. And when Haymitch went to ask him what was up, he wouldn't say. Just sat there like with his head down, it was so odd."
Cashmere can't see Enobaria's face, from her position laying on her shoulder, but Enobaria bites her lips. Had she done this? Had she made Finnick reflect on something, or put him in a foul mood for some other reason? But even if she has, she doesn't know why, aside from the fact that it is unpleasant to almost die. "What do you think it is?" she asks, because Cashmere has more insight than she into all the tenuous relationships of the Capitol.
She feels Cashmere shrug against her. "Maybe his girlfriend broke up with him."
"Johanna?"
Cashmere laughs. "No. His real girlfriend. The one in District 4. He obviously pulled some strings so she wouldn't have to come back and mentor, so maybe she dumped him and now he's pissed that he's doing extra work for nothing."
Enobaria feels the last puzzle piece sliding in, but wills it not to be true. "You mean the victor from last year? What was her name? Annie?"
Cashmere nods. "She was strange on the Victory Tour. I wonder if she lost her mind." She says this with amusement, like it was a another strange sight of the Capitol, and not someone's life. Enobaria begins losing her focus as Cashmere starts tracing patterns on her thigh lightly, with a fingertip. Cashmere shrugs. "But that's just a guess. I was wondering if you heard anything."
"No, nothing," Enobaria lies.
That night, Johanna accosts her on her way out of Remake. "I need to talk to you," she says, none to kindly.
Enobaria doesn't want to deny this request, exactly, it's just that in the Training Center, it's almost impossible to actually have a private conversation. There are cameras here and there, and there's always someone listening, an Avox or escort or someone on the staff, ready to report any indiscretion that could be used to help themselves. "Ok. Where?"
"The 7 apartment is empty," Johanna says.
Enobaria doesn't exactly like the optics of entering the 7 apartment, if the corridor is on camera, since it's not like she has a reason to make an alliance with Johanna, with their tributes now out of the Games. But Johanna takes the stairs up, which is much more exhausting then the elevator, but luckily more private, and then it's just a two-second switch from stairwell into the apartment. "Blight went home early," Johanna explains. She says nothing about the Avox or the Escort, but neither are there.
Enobaria walks in further, ignoring the empty bottles on the counter and the tobacco here and there - District 2 has their own vices, after all - and sits on the couch in the living room. It's the same as every other district apartment, clean and sparse, but lived in now that the Games are going on. "What is it?" she asks.
Johanna comes into the room as well, still standing, her brow furrowed a bit. "What did you say to Finnick?"
Say. She wanted to know what Enobaria said, not did. This allows her to relax at least a minuscule amount, but the nervousness is replaced with irritation. "What are you talking about?"
Johanna sighs, as if to ask why Enobaria is making this conversation difficult. "You talked to him, last night or this morning, he said that much, or hinted at it at least. He made it sound like I put you up to it."
Enobaria doesn't know any other way than to just say it outright. It was how things were done in District 2, straightforward. "I did speak to him," she admits. "It isn't my place, but I think it's bullshit that you're taking extra clients for his girlfriend."
Johanna perches herself on the arm of the chair opposite, as if she's shocked to hear these words aloud. It's silent in the apartment for a few seconds. "You're right," she says, "It's not your place."
But she doesn't deny the accusation, which Enobaria takes as an admission. "Why, Johanna?" Enobaria wants to reach out to her but doesn't dare. The whole apartment suddenly feels so tense that she doesn't want to move.
"Because I love him." The answer is so simple, and ready, as if Johanna hadn't had to think about it at all. Or maybe it's the words she's been telling herself every night as she's been doing the terrible sex work demanded of her on behalf of Finnick's actual girlfriend. Enobaria bites the inside of her cheek, unsure how long she can tolerate this conversation.
She wants to tell Johanna she's being stupid, that Finnick will never love her as much as he loves someone from his District, another Career, someone he can be with 11 months a year. But she thinks that Haymitch has probably already told her as much, and Johanna knows it herself, and even if she does, what does it matter? The deal is done. "You…" she loses her nerve after the first word, but she sees Johanna unclench, just a little.
Johanna stands and opens a bottle of wine, pouring them each a generous glass, and hands one to Enobaria. She sits beside her on the couch. "I what?" she asks.
Enobaria takes a long sip to steel her nerves, letting the wine settle in her chest. "You were really upset last night. That's why I went to Finnick."
Johanna looks up at her, her brows still furrowed in suspicion, as if she cannot believe Enobaria would do anything out of concern for her. And this is probably wise, Enobaria cannot really justify her own actions. "I can manage," she says, her voice losing all of its venom. It's the same soft Johanna she met in the locker room the other night. "I mean, it's just what you and Cash and Finnick have been doing all along, right?"
And how to answer this? Because Enobaria has been dealing with the clients and the sex all along, but she has a family to go home to. She has her siblings and her mother and her nieces she can see when she goes home, and she can eat the food they cook and listen to them talk and hold them in her arms. She has friends here and at home, she has had lovers on and off. She has things to live for. She imagines it's intrinsically different to do the unsavory work of mentoring without any of that, for someone you love who goes home to someone else.
So she doesn't reply, because it isn't the same at all, at least, she doesn't think that it's the same for any of them. Not for herself or Cashmere or Johanna or any of the victors asked for more when they come back as mentors. They each have their own burdens, and their own things they wish to protect. Instead, she just sips the wine again, trying to decide what she can say that isn't a lie, exactly, but then Johanna leans forward and kisses her, just for a moment.
She sits back afterward, biting her lips, studying Enobaria as if trying to figure her out like a puzzle. "Why?" she asks.
Enobaria wants to ask why. What question does Johanna have to ask 'why' about, when she's the one who just initiated a kiss? "Why what?" Enobaria asks. Her head is swimming with the unexpectedness of the kiss, her eyes can't look away from the wine stains on Johanna's lips.
"Why do you even care? Everyone's miserable here."
It's a fair question. Everyone is miserable in the Capitol, even the people who trick themselves into thinking they aren't, and Johanna has gone out of her way to be irritating and downright mean to Enobaria. "Why did you kiss me just now?" she asks back.
Now Johanna delays answering with a sip of wine, and Enobaria can't help but think of fucking her, of holding her against the locker and making her come, and she wonders what Johanna is looking for in her: attention that she's missing with Finnick, or someone to let her cede control without it meaning harm for her, like it might with a client? Was it something else, that she can't discern? "You see through the bullshit here, I can tell," Johanna says. Her voice is quiet now, as if this is a confession, and perhaps it is. "And you wouldn't ask… that of me."
No, Enobaria wouldn't ask Johanna for a favor a fraction of the size Finnick did. She knows Johanna is different from her, at some base level, that she always will be fighting for change that Enobaria is too disenchanted to believe will ever arrive, or too afraid of the toll such a rebellion would take. But she is touched, all the same, by this admission - that she was someone Johanna could trust, at least in some way. She places the wine glass on the coffee table and leans forward, bringing her face close to Johanna's. Johanna doesn't back away. She kisses Johanna this time, and it's gentle at first, but then she wants more, or Johanna wants more, and then she feels teeth against her lips, hands on the back of her neck, and then she's lying on Johanna, wine probably spilled somewhere.
It's hard to answer Johanna's question of why she cares. She cares because of a feeling, really, something hard to explain. Why does anyone care for some people more than others? Johanna is prickly and in love with someone else, and it's stupid and inherently dangerous to even get involved with her, but here she is, because of her stupid desires.
She slips a hand under Johanna's tank top and there's no bra, her hand coming to rest on Johanna's breast. She squeezes, tugging a bit at the nipple, and Johanna moans, pulling herself closer to Enobaria.
It's hard to remember that she had come here to talk, that Johanna was upset about something just minutes before as Enobaria slips off Johanna's shorts and slides her hand into Johanna's panties. She's more gentle than she was the first time, moving with more care, but Johanna is as desperate as before, pushing into the contact, as if gentleness isn't even an option anymore.
It stirs something in her, once again. Cashmere is always pliant, always ceding to Enobaria's touch, but Johanna is different. Johanna doesn't take control, but she fights Enobaria every step of the way. Enobaria flashes her teeth and pushes a forearm against Johanna's chest, enough to hold her down as she slips her fingers inside.
Johanna is wet, just as before, and she moans as Enobaria pushes two fingers up inside of her. She bends her knee so that her thigh is pressed against Enobaria's core, and Enobaria rocks against her as she pushes in and out. Enobaria slips her fingers out to rub against Johanna's clit, and still Johanna strains against her, pushing up to change the contact or their position.
Enobaria moves her forearm up against Johanna's throat. She sees the actual fear there in Johanna's eyes, for just a second, and then an erotic look of pleasure, despite the pain. Enobaria grinds harder against Johanna's leg and rubs against her clit rapidly, knowing she only has a few seconds. Johanna's face is turning red, desperate, but then she feels it, her thighs pressing around Enobaria's hand, and her eyes flutter closed in pleasure and this is enough to push Enobaria over the edge as well as she keeps the contact against Johanna.
She releases the pressure on Johanna's throat, pulls her hand from her panties, and drops down to lay on Johanna's chest. "What the fuck?" Johanna says, once she recovers her breath, but she sounds amused.
Enobaria doesn't want to explain about how maybe the Capitol has ruined her for normal sex and she can't perform unless she knows she has complete control. She doesn't want to explain her theory that maybe it's fucked Johanna up too, in some perverse way, to challenge others but ultimately seek domination, because that's all she's ever received. So she's quiet for a few minutes, running her fingers through Johanna's hair, until their breathing settles back to normal. "He'll never love you the way you want," she says, finally, and she doesn't even know why she says it. It's not like she could provide anything better. They were all lonely and trying their best, really.
"I know," Johanna says. "Of course I know that."
The boy from District 6 wins the Games, and Enobaria sees Johanna at the after party,playing some drinking game with Finnick. Enobaria is attending the party with Cashmere, but Cashmere is in a foul mood as her tribute was the final kill of the Games. It's raucous: the Victory Party always is, with drinks and drugs flowing freely, and mentors and famous Capitolites and Games staff all around. This year's party is set in the penthouse of a high-rise, and they can look down at the Capitol lit up, with large screens showing Rory's face, video clips highlighting the crucial moments of his Victory.
Enobaria sees Johanna at the bar as they're both waiting for another round of drinks. It's the first time they've spoken since they're encounter in the 7 apartment, the last time they'll see each other for a year. "Here with your stupid blonde girlfriend?" Johanna asks.
Enobaria thinks of the depths in Cashmere that Johanna probably can't fathom. The way she can capture a room when she reads aloud, the way the sun flows through her hair, the way she can hold onto Enobaria and make her feel like everything in the Capitol might be alright. "I'm here with Cash," she answers. "You're here with Finnick, aren't you?"
Johanna shoots her a glare, but doesn't reply. She looks for the bartender, but she is busy with other patrons. "Don't come find me next year," she says, after the pause. "I don't want this to happen again."
Logically, Enobaria knows this is smart. That Johanna is probably a rebel, and even if she isn't, it isn't good to be seen with anyone Snow can use against you. But in the part of her that still held personal desires, it hurt. She wants more. "Fine," she agrees. She wonders if she'll stick to this agreement in 11 months.
She watches Johanna take her drinks back to Finnick, laughing with him about something. She thinks again how stupid she is for agreeing to anything for Snow on Finnick's behalf, but what's done is done. She turns back to Cashmere, to the party, and tries to forget.