Home Fanfics Go Back
It's two and a half days into the 65th Hunger Games, and Haymitch wants nothing more than to take off his headset, to leave this room, to drink half a bottle of white liquor and then pass out, but despite everything, the male tribute from 12 is still in it and he's not going to do him the disservice of leaving him alone, even if he can't speak with him. He needs to be there if the boy needs a gift quick, even if their coffers are abysmally low.
The boy - Polk - hunkers down under a boardwalk and seems to hold his breath, hand trembling around the polearm he's wielding. The past few years have been a strange sort of arena, not entirely organic, but not a city-scape either, a confusing blend of both. Last year, Cashmere's year, the arena was like a planetarium - a big, dark, glowing thing, complete with asteroids coming down to crush the tributes at odd hours, but it also had metal towers, and telescopes for spying across the arena. This year is more like a seaside town, with miles of snaking boardwalk, open beach and a tide that ebbed and flowed, and dozens of cottages, some filled with useful supplies, and some with muttations.
Chaff sets down a coffee in front of Haymitch before sitting back in his own chair at 11's station and putting his headset back on. Remarkably, his girl was still in it as well, though glancing at Chaff's screen, Haymitch could tell she is feverish and would do poorly in a fight. The best chance she has is to hide and wait it out. "Thanks," he says, nodding at the coffee.
"Yes, that's fine," he hears Brutus say, confirming a gift. "Drop it as soon as you can."
"Oh, that's very generous, thank you," Mags is saying. "We're getting close. If we can get it to him, he'll go all the way."
Chaff and Haymitch both turn to the 4 screens, more interested in what Mags is up to than in 2's scheming. Mags's boy is in one of the cottages, biting his lip as he bandages a gash to his side, shirtless and sweating a bit. Haymitch can see it already: the way sponsors will flow in, the way they'll want a piece of this boy who really isn't even a man yet. It disgusts him so he turns away.
He can't fault Mags, of course. Having the boy alive is better than dead, he agrees. But the way to do that - playing up his attractiveness to the sponsors - well, well maybe Haymitch should have done that more, and then he wouldn't have a string of losers in 12 and no money to send them any assistance.
Polk's eyes widen as he detects something. The mentor's booths are in a circle, taking up half of the Mentor's floor, the other half the lounge dedicated to food and drink, couches, tables, televisions - a space to relax. Haymitch's station is next to Chaff's, but it is also next to 1. He realizes with dawning horror that his view and Chrome's, the Mentor from 1, are converging. Chrome's girl has got the jump on Polk, she's going to stab him in the back. But Polk notices in time, and although he can't attack first, he scrambles clumsily back onto the sand, where at least he has a fighting chance. She follows, wielding an axe.
Haymitch hates axes, as a rule, hates how brutal they can be. It's been fifteen years, but seeing this girl hold one,he's still reminded of his own games, of the axe that smashed in the head of his second to last opponent, how it absolutely obliterated her. He dials the gift line, puts a conditional order in for a suture kit and an antimicrobial ointment, provided his tribute wins the fight. Their funds will be wiped, but perhaps the spunk Polk shows here will make some new sponsors show up. Or perhaps he'll have to go soliciting after hours tonight. Either way, two and a half days is longer than 12 has lasted in some time.
The girl from District 1 is sharp, cautious. In comparison, Polk is twitchy, paranoid. They circle each other in the setting sun of the arena, a small jab here, a parry there. Haymitch blocks out the voices of the other mentors, his focus switching between his screen and Chrome's, as he knows Chrome's is as well. It goes on like this for a few minutes, until out of the blue, a golden trident is stabbed through the back of the girl from 1. As it is wrenched out, the boy from 4 is standing there, glorious and heroic with the sun illuminating him like a halo. He is a Golden God, and Haymitch and Polk both understand that he is the next victor. What business does a kid from 12 have facing up to a Career who was just given a golden trident, deus ex machina style? Polk turns on his heel and runs from the beach.
Polk lasts another 20 hours - remarkable really, before he is taken down by a mutt in a cabin where he is trying to hide from an alliance of the remaining tributes coming together to take down Finnick. Haymitch learned his name during a coffee break. He tries not to learn their names - those kids from the other districts - it makes their deaths easier. But Finnick is going to win, not if, just when, so it doesn't matter that he has a name. He'll be one of them now. He sees Mags, dutifully at her post, making calls and thanking all the sponsors. She was right, he realizes. That trident must have cost a fortune, but once it was in his hands, the game was as good as decided.
When they hoist him from the arena, Finnick has a broken collarbone, burns to his left arm, the gash on his side, and severe sleep deprivation. The subtitles list his full name as Finnick Odair, Age 14. Despite his injuries, his beautiful face is intact, and he is still clinging onto that golden trident, as if he knows enough already to show appreciation for what he was given. But of course he does, Haymitch thinks. It's been all Careers lately. Enobaria, then Gloss, then Cashmere, now Finnick. Four Career winners in a row, and four lookers for the Capitol to exploit. At least the boy is only 14… he would have some time before… the Capitol comes asking him to repay his debts.
After the Games, Haymitch spends the rest of his time in the Capitol like he does most years: getting drunk alone, getting drunk with Chaff, entertaining just enough of the Capitol people to keep Snow off his back, and carefully choosing the ones who might have some useful information. There's nothing, though, or everyone's lips are sealed, or maybe he's just not as good at coaxing information out of people now as he was when he was 20, but he ends up back in the empty 12 apartment feeling like shit, and waiting for the train to go back to 12 to feel like shit there too. Polk's parents don't come to see him. The girl - Opal's - parents do. They aren't angry, just sad, and he isn't sure which is worse. He brings back her token, the ring she wore into the arena. Her mother takes it and holds it as if it were her daughter.
The next year, he's surprised to see Finnick Odair. "Are you sure, Mags?" he says when they arrive at the training center.
"Oh he's not getting out of my sight," she assures him. "But I'm not getting any younger, and it'll be easier to have another mentor."
He scans the lounge to see who he'll be working with this year. Cashmere and Gloss are there as they have been every year since they won, watching something on television, as is Chrome. From two, he sees Enobaria, Brutus, and Timon. There's two mentors from 3, but it looks like no "extras" came for socializing, and only Porter from 5. It's only Blight from 7, and only Elin from 6. He makes eye contact with Elin for a moment before she looks away. She's too thin now, strung out from too much morphling, and she looks older than him, though she's a year younger. She'll ignore him this year, like she did last year and the year before, ignoring their history. Chaff clears his throat - a reminder they can drink about it later.
Haymitch sees Ceci from 8, and Georgina as well. Surprising that they both came, but since they are lovers, he supposes why not, as long as they can hide it from Snow. 9 sent Lenta only. 10 sent Pepper, and from 11 both Seeder and Chaff. It is a whole reunion. They watch the interviews as a group, sipping on liquor and teasing one another. It's the same every year. Sometimes he remembers it, sometimes not.
This year, his boy is young - only 14, but the girl is older - 17, and tough. She's strong, good with traps, and she won't easily get lost. He thinks she has a shot. Not gonna put too much hope in it, but if 12 has had a chance in the last few years, it's Gemma.
The Careers give good interviews as always, talking about their passion for winning, their love for the Capitol, and how they want to get started. The boy from 4 in particular mentions Finnick, and how he volunteered in order to be like Finnick Odair. He's charming, though not quite as handsome as Finnick, and Haymitch thinks he'll have no shortage of sponsors. 5 and 6 give rather standard interviews, though there's a sort of ambition in the 5 boy's eyes that strikes Haymitch. The interviewer has to lower the microphone for the girl from 7, but even then, it's difficult to hear her. She looks terrified, her hands trembling in her lap, like someone who will be murdered in the bloodbath. Cashmere and Gloss laugh. Blight looks torn up about it, and Haymitch pours him a drink.
"How's your boy look?"
"Better, but he's got a bad temper. He'll make a mistake. At least she's got a good head on her shoulders." Blight drinks, as if that will help them forget their role in their whole affair.
12's boy, Ky, gets a 6 as his training score, as good as Haymitch could hope for. Gemma gets an 8, and he purposely told her to hold back a little. Blight's boy gets a 7. His girl gets a 3.
The arena for the 66th games is stupid, is what Haymitch decides, almost immediately. There's a few arenas he had imposed this judgement on over the years, notably the one that went from blindingly bright to pitch black over the course of 24 hours. In the mentor room, they are allowed to see this year's arena about two minutes before the tributes do, and this assessment he makes immediately.
"What the fuck?" he hears Cashmere say, and that about sums it up.
The arena is a labyrinth of tall concrete walls, though there are several ladders that allow the tributes to walk up on top of the walls, and bridges that let them cross to different sections without going through the maze, though that leaves them exposed to detection. There are, of course, mutts crawling through the labyrinth and all sorts of traps, and the cornucopia at the center, the tip of it visible from all parts of the maze. It looks like something for lab rats. It is a mindfuck. The tributes are lowered down, given a brief view of the expansive maze, and then dropped about two turns from the cornucopia. The choice is theirs: risk a blind corner for weapons, or retreat back further into their own private sector of hell.
Both of Haymitch's kids run for the cornucopia, as he instructed them to, before he knew anything about this arena. "Watch each other's backs - at least for the first 30 minutes. Help each other get weapons and supplies and not die, and then you can do your own thing if you want." It is the best strategy he had in all his years mentoring, the best way to keep his kids alive past the bloodbath. They do as they have been told, and he watches as Gemma grabs a backpack and a knife, and Ky grabs a bow and arrow and a smaller pocketknife.
He looks up to the "official" feed to see if anyone has died. It isn't really the official feed streamed to the districts - that is a few minutes behind in case anything had to be censored, but every mentor also had a feed giving a live general overview as well. It looks like one of 6, one of 5, one of 10, and both of 11 have died in the bloodbath. Not surprising, but not great. That is 5 already. Oh, and there goes the boy from 7. Chaff's head is in his hands, and Blight swears.
He needs to focus, now. He is still in this, with both of his -
And just like that, the 2 girl slashes Gemma in the gut as she dashes around a blind corner. Haymitch's hope - Haymitch's champion for 12 - is bleeding out on the floor of this unforgiving labyrinth. The 2 girl smiles a similar toothy grin to Enobaria's, and although Haymitch knows it isn't her fault, that she had been indoctrinated since childhood to think this brought honor to her and her district, he hates her in this moment. He really does hate that girl.
Ky lashes out at her, as Haymitch knew he would, provoking a girl with more height and fighting experience than him, and before he knows it, the other 2 tribute is there, and it is 2 on 1. Haymitch usually stays until the end, but he doesn't want to see the death of both of his tributes less than an hour into the games. How did it all go so badly so fast? What a cursed arena….
He stands up and goes to pour himself a drink. The lounge, of course, is also playing the Games, so that Mentors taking a break or getting food won't miss anything important. He watches with a detached perspective, getting more and more drunk. But on the lounge feed, he can't avoid learning their names.
Chaff comes to sit with him after a while, once his bottle is half empty, and they both watch in silence. The feed recaps that both tributes from 1, 2, and 4, and one tribute from 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 remain. That is 12 total tributes eliminated in 4 hours. They watch the Careers stalk in pairs through the labyrinth. They see the girl from 3, Kyrie, trying to etch out a map on the sandy labyrinth floor, as if maybe she can figure out a clue. They see the boy from 5, Jones, climbing a ladder, trying to see what's up above, though the camera pans to a mutt-wolf a ways away. They see the 6 boy, Logan, hunched in a corner, trying to figure out if his wrist is broken. It definitely is. They see the 7 girl, Johanna, tucked into a shadow, nearly hyperventilating with panic. She must have ran away from the start. She doesn't have a weapon or any supplies. The 8 and 10 boy are together - Paul and Rylan, facing up against some sort of large, dive-bombing bird.
Eventually Haymitch sleeps, and then wakes, finding himself still in the lounge. Frustrated at his own filth, he showers and changes, then assesses who is still mentoring before daring to look at the screen. After so many years, it's easier this way. Looking at the adults is easier than facing the dead kids, even through a screen.
Gloss, Brutus, Mags and Finnick, Blight, Ceci, and Pepper. So 3 is out and 6 is out, it seems.
"Are you sure? It will cost that much? Just for that?"
Haymitch looks over at Blight, who looks weary with lack of sleep, but is making some kind of gift arrangement. "Yes. It's set? Drop it now."
He hangs up the call and swears again, rubbing his hand through his hair. "What a racket. Can't believe the price gouging. You'd think I was trying to get her a golden fucking trident."
To his left, Haymitch can see Finnick flinch, but he pretends he hears nothing. He watches as a little parachute floats down to Johanna's hiding place, delivering her gift. And just from that, Haymitch can see the terror of this arena - every gift is an indication of where a tribute is hiding. Surely others are coming for her now.
Johanna seems to be in much the same condition she was in the night before - weaponless, enhausted, nearly, if not outright panicking. She unfolds the package she receives to find… a pile of dirt and a bundle of pine needles. Her trembling hands seem to freeze over this, and she picks up the pine needles, smelling them as if she has all the time in the world. Then she tucks them into her collar, where presumably their smell might continue to reach her. Haymitch can see she's crying now.
Then her hands reach down into the dirt and she buries them in it, into deep, dark loam, so different from the cement walls of the labyrinth, and the clean polish of the Capitol. She smears it on her face. She puts a little in her mouth and tastes it, smiling with black teeth. She shoves some in her jumpsuit pockets. She takes the rest and tucks some into her boots, perhaps so she's always walking on 7's dirt, even while she's walking in the arena.
The effect isn't the same as giving the trident to Finnick. Johanna doesn't have any weapon still. But the calm that has overtaken her is immense. She isn't in the arena anymore. She might not even be in Panem. She is disgusting - small and dirty and tear-stained, and yet Haymitch can't look away. He stays out of Blight's way so he can continue handling calls and switching feeds, but his eyes stay fixed on the 7 feed. As predicted, the 2 pack finds Johanna soon, but she trips one coming around the corner, kicking him in the head as hard as she can before taking his axe and swinging it as hard as she can at the girl. "Yes, an axe!" he hears Blight say.
After she takes down the girl with a blow to the gut, she makes sure to finish the boy with a chop to the neck. Absolutely brutal. She makes quick work of the boy from 4, though the girl gets away. Watching her, Haymitch thinks again about how much he hates axes. But he can't argue with results.
When he next checks in, Blight is asleep at the console. He places a coffee before him, waiting for him to wake up. "How's the shrimp?" Haymitch asks, nodding at the screen. Chrome, Finnick, and Georgiana are there too. Last 5.
"She got hurt, pretty bad, when the walls closed in," he reports.
Haymitch doesn't know what he's referring to, but he's not surprised that this stupid arena has concrete walls that close in. "But she managed to get an axe wound in 1's boy."
"Sponsors biting?"
"Here and there… one offered a bathing kit but I promise she's not gonna clean off that dirt."
Of course. Of course the sponsors want to see her face more clearly when she's not crying or panicking or covered in dirt before they decide to shell out.
"Well, you can use a bathing kit," Haymitch teases. Truly, Blight stinks a bit, he hasn't left the console except for food or the toilet in the three days the Games have been going on. He likely never expected his tribute to last this long, especially not the girl. "Need a few minutes to shower? I can sit."
"Yeah, that would be amazing. Might sleep for twenty minutes or so too. Send someone if she gets in trouble. I'll owe you for next year."
Haymitch sits at the 7 booth, not sure exactly what the difference is between him sitting here and not, but supposing it's mostly for Blight's peace of mind. That if Johanna did die, she wouldn't be without her mentor. The girl looks completely different than she did the first day, her grip tight on her weapon, her eyes focused. Haymitch can tell her ribs ache from the way she is walking, but she seems to have a purpose, and he can tell after a few turns that she is hobbling back towards the Cornucopia. Though, he supposes it's the first trip for her, who never stopped to risk the Bloodbath the first time on entering the arena. And given the state she was in then, it was probably a good decision.
The camera pans over to the Cornucopia on the global feed, and he sees that the Gamemakers have dropped water jugs. He realizes that he hasn't seen any type of water cache, and since he hasn't watched every feed, he isn't sure if everyone is nearly dehydrated, or if there's some secret way to get water that some have found and some haven't. But Johanna is wandering back with the announcement of water, and so is the girl from 4, at the very least. Finnick is on the phone a few stations over, trying to arrange some sort of gift for her.
"No, fishing line, clear. Right, right. …How much? Ok, that's fine. Arrange it for an hour from now."
Haymitch wonders what Finnick's plan is for fishing line. He imagines stringing it up across a long corridor of the maze, and baiting someone into a chase. It could be used to trip opponents, or even dig into their neck if hitting it at a high enough speed. Or perhaps his plan was something entirely different. Haymitch has half a mind to check 7's sponsor balance, but assumes that like 12's, it's nearly empty. Blight wouldn't bluff on something like that, and Haymitch has mentored long enough to know what kind of tributes, and mentors, the sponsors go for.
Meanwhile, Johanna has made it to the Cornucopia. She shoves one of the water jugs into her bag - a bag she must have stolen from a tribute she killed - before slashing the other 4 with her axe. Then she takes off back into the maze. "Hey, what the fuck?" the girl from 4 calls.
Johanna keeps jogging, turning back into the maze, trying to escape. The girl from 4 is in hot pursuit, with no other aim than getting water, obviously. "Slow down, Fern," he hears Finnick muttering. Joanna stops, not risking too many blind corners in case of mutts or other tributes, her hand balled into a fist. For a moment Haymitch thinks she's going to punch the 4 tribute, despite the other girl holding some sort of machete, but instead Johanna throws a handful of dirt in Fern's face, right into her eyes and mouth.
Coughing, sputtering, and blinking tearfully, Fern's arms go up in defense as she takes a half-step back but it's too late, as Johanna's axe is already swinging. She's dead less than a minute later. After, Johanna sits in a shadowy corner a few turns over, sipping water and catching her breath. In the mentor room, Finnick sits back, catching his own breath. "It's over," he says to no one in particular.
"Maybe for you," Gloss says, coming to take over for Chrome, both 1 tributes still in the game.
Later, once Blight returns and once the sun goes down, Haymitch takes a shower himself and decides to go down to one of the lower lounges, one of the bars where you had to know someone, certainly, to get in, but it wasn't just Victors hanging around. He sees Finnick on the way, looking forlorn as he sits in a fluffy chair in the Victor's lounge, messing with a piece of rope tied around his wrist. Haymitch recognizes it as his district token he wore into the arena last year. "Wanna get a change of scenery for a bit?" he asks.
Finnick shrugs. He stands, though, to come along, and Haymitch can see how he's still so young. He's 15, almost 16, though he stands taller than most Victors, his face untouched by wrinkles or scarring or the pockmarks of too much tobacco use, just the usual circles of too-little sleep under his eyes. They take the elevator down to "Illyria" a favorite lounge of some Capitol associates of Haymitch, though tonight it's all eyes on the screen. The Games are almost certainly due to conclude tonight.
Haymitch gets a drink at the bar, and a soda for Finnick, and they take a seat at the mezzanine level, where they can keep an eye on the screens showing the Games, but not be faced with any questions, any unwanted conversation as Victors. "So this is it?" Finnick asks, eyes on the table, eyes on nothing. "Come here every year, try to keep two kids alive, probably fail, watch them die, then go home?"
Haymitch shrugs. Sips his drink. He isn't sure what to say. Finnick summed it up well enough, mentoring, at least. But then there was… the other thing. The entertaining. The part that would certainly begin next year, when he was old enough in the eyes of the law. Was it crueler to tell him now, and give him a year to decide if Haymitch was lying, and dread it, or crueler to have it be a surprise, and hate Haymitch for keeping it a secret?
Haymitch quickly settles on the second option, both to keep himself safe from Snow, lest the boy blab, and to let him enjoy one more year of innocence. "Yeah, I mean, it doesn't get any better," he replies. Not a lie, at least.
There is an "ooh" from the crowd, and they watch as the boy from 1 and Johanna are facing off, in some horrible part of the labyrinth where the walls are spikes. It's bloody, it's dirty, and they're both obviously starved and beyond exhausted, so it's clumsy. He has her pushed back, her back impaled a bit on the spikes, when she spits on him, followed quickly by a kick that must result in her getting pushed further into the spikes. But it does enough, and she's able to slip away, enough to grab his halberd. She swings it wildly, catching him in the side, though only with the blunt section, and he falls to his knees. And then she's over the back of him, trying to choke him out. He falls onto his back, trying to crush her, and then he pushes his chin down enough that he is able to bite the back of her hand, tearing out a chunk of the flesh.
She lets out a mighty yell but doesn't release him, and already, Haymitch can see he is going limp, that she is winning. The 1 boy is fading, his brain is losing oxygen. Once he falls asleep, she hits him with the blade of the halberd across the neck, execution style, and falls to her knees to await the hovercraft. Johanna Mason has won the 66th Hunger Games.
The 67th Games is a whole event, with Haymitch being called to the Capitol a week early due to some "extra events". He wonders what unrest is going on that is causing them to make an extra hubbub around to Games. Cashmere and Gloss are in the Victor's lounge when he arrives to pour a drink, his head on her lap as she plays some sort of video game. It's odd behavior for siblings who are what? 19? 20? 21? But Haymitch finds he can't blame them for it. Both of them surviving the arena is reason enough to have bad coping skills, but add to that the Capitol's sexual proclivities, and he's sure that some clients would want the beautiful siblings from 1 as a set. Whatever they need to get through the Games, as long as it isn't hurting anyone else, he has no right to complain.
Ceci arrives by dinner, Georgiana staying behind this time. He doesn't see Chrome, and wonders if the older man is leaving everything in the hands of the siblings this year. He sees Mags at dinner, but not Finnick. He wonders if she pulled some strings to let him stay behind. He wouldn't put it past the conniving woman. He sits with Chaff, catching up on news in 11, and nods at Blight and Porter and a few others as they come in. He sees Elin again, almost dozing during the meal from her high, not even attempting to save face in the Capitol. He feels bad for her tributes. He sees Brutus and Enobaria, but looks them off as usual.
At the end of dinner, he sees Finnick and another girl join the table, though they don't eat a bite. She pours a glass of wine and sips it, and Finnick whispers in her ear, looking rather ill. "Snow must've given them 'The Talk'," Chaff says, nodding at the two newcomers. Only then does Haymitch realize the girl must be Johanna Mason, now all cleaned up from her messy run in the arena, and another year older. He was drunk and kept the television off for her Victory Tour, and he realizes he never really saw what she looked like when not consumed by panic or in a death game.
Next to Finnick, she looks absolutely average, but that is just a sign of his absolute remarkableness. Taken alone, she's got a nice face, with shoulder-length rich brown hair, clear pale skin, and fierce gray eyes. She's short, certainly, but the overall effect is a lot of energy packed into a small person. After dinner, there's some sort of social, and they are ushered into a Remake session and then taken to a Club, to meet some Capitol socialites, Haymitch is sure. There was an official event description given to him at some point, but the event was always mandatory, so he didn't much pay attention to the details.
He sees Mags fussing over Finnick, who looks as shellshocked as Haymitch would expect. What he doesn't expect is for Johanna to be sipping her second drink, alone and unbothered. The stylists have her suited up in some sort of strappy black dress, her height bolstered a bit with heeled boots, and her hair piled into a bun on top of her head. The whole effect is so over-the-top Capitol, Haymitch almost has to laugh, but he refrains, in case she thinks he's laughing at her.
"Where's Blight?" he asks.
She shrugs. "Smoking, probably."
He did know, vaguely, that smoking is a pastime of 7, but he never really paid much attention to Blight. He never took clients in the same way some of the others had to, Blight was gifted at the fiddle and that seemed to be enough to play for some fancy get-togethers. It always felt unfair, like maybe if Haymitch just had a better skill he wouldn't get such a shit deal. And well, Blight wasn't a bad guy, he was just kind of… boring.
Johanna leans in, her voice a low whisper. "Did Snow really have your family killed?" she asks, then goes back to sipping her drink through the tiny straw. It's an unbelievably invasive question, and he would probably have a million questions for her, had Enobaria and then Gloss not asked him the same thing a few years ago.
Haymitch answers as if she was asking about a Peacekeeper telling her to stop her underage drinking. "He did. His threats are real. Whatever he is telling you to do, you have to do." He thinks of Elin, then forces himself to focus again on Johanna.
"What the fuck."
It's disconcerting, really, how much she's not freaking out. How the girl who was panicking for two straight days in the arena, who couldn't even complete her interview before her games, was just threatened into forced prostitution and her answer is "what the fuck." It was like a switch had flipped and that girl from before was gone, or buried somewhere very, very deep.
Haymitch sits on the barstool beside her. He sees Finnick talking to Mags, gesturing desperately with his hands as he speaks. Mags catches Haymitch's eye and then turns back to Finnick. "What happened with the dirt?" Haymitch asks Johanna.
"The dirt?" she finishes the drink and gestures for another. She's young, and small, and he knows she'll be hungover, but she's got thousands of hangovers ahead of her so who is he to stop her from this one.
"In the arena."
"Oh. There's a phrase in 7 - well there's hundreds - but there's one that goes 'to forget how to work the soil is to forget ourselves'. I guess from the moment of the reaping I got lost, and that helped me find my way back."
He gnaws on the phrase, thinking that there were quite rebellious undertones in there. That such a phrase conflicted existentially with the clean, unnatural feeling of the Capitol - that Johanna herself, who rooted herself in soil, of all things, is out of place here.
He looks at Finnick again, who seems to have plastered on a pleasant expression, at least for the sake of the conversation he and Mags are having with an older Capitol woman Haymitch places as a wife of one of the transportation secretaries. If Johanna is roots in the soil, Finnick is floating on the waves, able to adapt to this Capitol life as needed, or at least keep up appearances.
He clears his throat. "Listen, I am no good as a Mentor, my tributes never win, but my advice is to find a friend you can trust to help you through things. Mine is a good drinking pal, and it helps, when you have to deal with your kids dying or any of the extra… stuff," he waves his hand around vaguely.
"You're trying to set me up with Finnick?" she asks skeptically, and now she's also watching as he stands to shake the hand of the transportation secretary's wife.
Haymitch shrugs. "I think you might have some things in common."
He feels, rather than sees her roll her eyes. "Yeah, me and the tall, perfect Career, sure."