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The kids from 12 do better than he thinks they will this year, especially since he thought they both might go during the bloodbath. They didn't particularly like each other, but they stuck together, along with Chaff's girl, and they last over 3 days, until a Career pack attacks them in the middle of the night. Both his kids are killed. Chaff's girl makes it out, but her shoulder is dislocated and she is limping badly, so it is only a matter of time for her. Haymitch takes off his headset, his job done for this year. Johanna's kids are both out as well, so she is gone from the booth now.
Finnick's girlfriend, Annie, seems to be eluding everyone. She snuck from her original spot to a spot high in the trees, then abandoned that on the second night to cross the stream to the cliff side, slipping into an empty cave. Finnick looks exhausted, his eyes glued to the screen, but Mags comes by to make him take breaks like clockwork.
"Hey, come on, let's relax for a few."
Finnick glares at him, as if to say, 'Easy for you to say,' but that would be a jab at the dead kids from his district, so he doesn't actually say it. But Finnick's running on empty, even his easy-going politeness is in short supply.
"Mags is here now, I see her coming out of the elevator, just fifteen minutes, come on."
It's still the middle of the night, Annie is trying her best to sleep on the floor of the cave with her two gifts: a canvas shawl and a rubber bladder. Right now it's filled with air and used as a pillow, but she could just as easily fill it with water to have something to drink. She did fill it - just once, on her trip across the stream, but it's gone now, a day later.
Finnick sighs, but Haymitch can see him weakening to the proposal. He is stiff from the chair, tense with worry.
"We can use the training center pool."
This seals the deal. Haymitch doesn't like swimming, doesn't want to go swimming at all, but this isn't about him. Finnick insists they stop by to invite Johanna on the way downstairs, but she declines. She opens the 7 apartment door halfway, looking at them warily. "Maybe next time."
It's nice to use the training center facilities when no one else is in them, but they still have tension in the air, the memories of tributes trying to prove themselves before the arena. The pool is large and placid, and Finnick borrows a pair of swim trunks from the supply cabinet before jumping in. He floats easily onto his back, relaxing in the water. "Aren't you coming in?" he asks Haymitch. "It isn't the ocean, but it still feels great."
"Never really liked swimming much," Haymitch admits, sitting on the edge of the whirlpool inset in the corner of the pool and letting the hot water and jets massage his lower legs. "I'll bet Jo isn't all that gung-ho on it, either."
"Yeah, yeah, I don't have the same special damage as you too, I know," Finnick says, a rare bout of sarcasm for him. He propels himself back a little through the water, away from Haymitch, gazing up at the fluorescent lights of the training center ceiling.
Haymitch never really thought about the similarities between himself and Johanna. Certainly Snow had killed both their families, but beyond that, he wonders what Finnick sees, or thinks he sees. He tries again. After all these years, he's good at the coded speech of the Capitol, but sometimes not the right level of detail. "It's more like… some people like to float away, to have someone carry them for a while. Some people are afraid of being carried away. And then there's you, who is like the Ocean yourself."
"I didn't know you were such a philosopher."
He knows it's worry making Finnick sarcastic, so it doesn't upset him. He gets it from everyone else all the time, anyways. "It's the liquor. But face it, Finnick, you live to take care of people. Annie, Mags, your family. Jo, if she'd let you. Isn't that your primary purpose with your clients? They want to be taken care of. You are the water they float in, you hold them up so they can drift off."
Finnick is treading water now, digesting this notion. "And why wouldn't you want that?" The question is implicit there as well, 'Why wouldn't Jo want that?'
"I think…" he mulls it over for a moment. "When the Capitol takes so much from you, even your stress and your worries, even your small confessions become your personal possessions. You might not want to give them up."
Finnick comes to the ladder, the image of a bronze sculpture as he exits the pool, dripping wet. Haymitch realizes even before the drinking, even at the height of his fitness, he never held a fraction of this beauty. "I think," Finnick says, toweling off, "That you're just making excuses to stay sad and self destructive, instead of doing something about it."
Haymitch would have slapped anyone else, anyone else, had they said such Capitol-serving, insensitive crap. As it is, he is on his feet, hand on Finnick's shoulder, looking him dead in the eyes. His voice is low but his words are clear. "Every play the Capitol makes is with unfair stakes, and when you lose, they say 'oh well, guess you should have toed the line'," Finnick's eyes are wide, as if he has never seen this side of Haymitch. "You can look down on me because I've had 20 years to get over my crap and I haven't, but don't you ever say what you just said to Johanna, because you will just lead her into deeper shit."
He waits for Finnick to nod and lets him go, relaxing again. "Ok," he says. "Now you should get a little bit of sleep and get back to your girl."
Haymitch has no reason to go to the Mentor's lounge. He has no kids left in the Games, nor does Chaff, so he doesn't even have a friend to support. But it's Finnick's fervent energy that drives him back there. He goes there at least twice a day, making sure Finnick is awake in the booth, getting him a coffee or a snack if needed, or sitting in the chair for a moment while he runs to the bathroom or takes a ten minute nap. Annie stayed in the cave, she didn't go out even for water again, and they dared not send her another gift to alert the others to her presence. There was one incident with a monkey-mutt, and Annie killed it with her bare hands, making the creature her only kill so far.
Haymitch is sitting in the lounge, playing checkers with Chaff, when Johanna enters. He can tell she's been out, she's got half cleaned-off makeup, and her hair has been styled - she'd been through Remake. His initial worry that she was doing the dangerous and rather pointless task of entertaining clients for sponsor money for Annie seems to be unfounded, as she sits down on the couch instead of going to Finnick. She starts watching the Games next to June. She's brought her own bottle of wine in.
"Jo, where were you last night?" he asks. "Missed you at Illyria." She rarely comes anyways, now that Snow can't force her into entertaining clients, she mostly hides in her apartment, but the conversation is all for show.
"Had to meet a couple of old friends, more private matter," she says.
"Oh my god!" he hears Cashmere say, followed by an ominous crumbling noise. Haymitch looks at the television, where the dam has started to break, and thousands and thousands of gallons of water are flowing into the valley, crushing the trees, burying the cornucopia, changing the entire arena in an instant.
No, she couldn't have…
Johanna is grinning, lips to the wine, eyes glued to the television. Annie has been forced out of the cave, and she has inserted the rubber air bladder in her shirt, like a rudimentary life vest. It's only a bonus, she's already the best swimmer there. Both in the physical sense, and in the sense Haymitch was talking about - trust. She allows herself to by buoyed around the arena with the current, and grabs into a log to help guide her. He watches a kid drown trying to cling to a heavy weapon, and another fall under trying to climb a tree to escape the rising water. Two kids get into an altercation and wrestle, both of them gulping in lungfuls of water as they fight. It's a disaster.
It takes over 6 hours for Annie to be declared the champion, and by that time, she nearly has hypothermia, but she is pulled out of the arena alive, having killed one monkey-mutt and no tributes. She has her hands pressed to her ears.
Later that night, once the Capitol is busy celebrating the new Victor, once Finnick is finally asleep, once the rest of Panem is finally turning their televisions off, images of Annie cemented in their minds until they see her on the Victory Tour, Haymitch leaves Illyria early. "What? You know they'll be bringing out the good stuff in a bit," Chaff protests.
"Have to go check on something, might be back later," he says.
He makes his way back, hitting 7 on the elevator instead of 12, and Blight answers the door. "She here?" he asks, not daring to call this place home.
He nods, opening the door a little wider. He nods towards the bedroom on the right side of the empty apartment. It is only Johanna and Blight - no tributes, no escort, no Avox. It is as quiet as the 12 apartment. He nods to Blight. "Thanks."
Blight closes the door behind him, but catches his gaze for a moment before they leave the entryway. It's dark - it's always dark in the 7 apartment - and Blight is quiet, as if he's considering what he wants to say. His eyes are narrow, his cheeks pock-marked from tobacco. He's old and sinewy, graceless, except when he plays that fiddle. "I think she's in trouble," he admits. "Not sure what she's gotten into now, won't say a word."
Haymitch only nods in acknowledgment. His gut feeling was correct then. Blight taps his tobacco bag and slips on his shoes, likely going to the roof, and Haymitch is left alone. He stands before her bedroom door, feeling like entering is crossing some line of intimacy they haven't yet gotten to. He remembers when she was in his room - right after her last clients - and his poor attempt at consoling her. Now she's older, he's older, but he wonders if they're any different, really. The Capitol certainly isn't.
He knocks, but she doesn't reply, and so he enters without her permission. He sees the morphling syringe on her bedside table, and he's immediately brought back to Elin, to the final years of their relationship when she constantly tried to kill herself with morphling, instead of the steady coast she is on now. He moves his gaze to Johanna's chest, trying to make sure he can see it rise and fall. He can, but he shakes her for good measure. "Johanna, what the fuck."
"Go away." Her voice is slurred, tired and hazy as she lays on her bed. He can't imagine how good she feels right now, pure morphling coursing through her veins, and how empty she's about to feel when it metabolizes.
"Like hell. What are you doing, you idiot?"
There's a few places she could have gotten it - from Elin or Tory from 6, from a particularly sympathetic doctor, or just from a Capitol partier at the clubs. It didn't matter, really. The more important question was why. What had changed between the other day and now, and was this just to numb that pain or was this a botched suicide attempt?
"It's over for me."
The morphling seems to make her surprisingly honest, he realizes, and he is struck with her vulnerability. He never gets to see Johanna Mason without the mask of aggressive standoffishness. He lays down on the other side of the bed, turning on his side so he can continue the conversation. It's a position he never imagined himself in, but he also never saw himself in the pool with Finnick Odair, or in the backroom of Illyria with Plutarch Heavensbee, discussing what it would look like if he could get a Victor's Alliance together. "What did you do for Annie?" he asks.
"Slept with the Gamemaker. Seneca Crane." With great effort, she rolls onto her side, facing him. She looks seconds away from drifting off, but the question seems to give her something to focus on. "The dam was always… set to fail. Tributes could trip it. I just asked him to trip it early."
Crane must have been one of the associate Gamemakers, because Haymitch doesn't know him by name. It's likely that the dam was his particular project for the arena. But he assumes Johanna realizes what he is thinking now - there's no way her meeting with Crane and then the subsequent dam failure will go unnoticed by Snow, no matter how careful she was. Not after her not taking clients for years. Snow finally has leverage he can use against her once again: Finnick, and by extension, Annie. By threatening them, he can get her back to doing his bidding.
He doesn't want to lecture her right now, even though he has things he could say. When she does drift off, he moves closer, resting her against his chest so he can feel it if she stops breathing or chokes in her sleep. He wonders if he was always doomed to fall for women like this: women whose pain mirrors his own, who have a sense of justice incompatible with the Capitol, and have no other way to cope but self-destruction. At one point Johanna reaches for his shoulder, and he wonders who she lays with like this. It must be Finnick, it could only be Finnick. He sits awake, wondering if she should have just let Annie Cresta die.
The next morning, he wakes up, unaware of when he had fallen asleep. Johanna wakes as well, burying herself under her pillows, curling into a ball. He can feel her foot kicking back and forth under the sheets, her body fighting the comedown. He moves closer and wraps himself behind her, pulling her close to him. He's gone back in time 15 years, when he used to wake up like this with Elin. It's all he can think to do - to remind her that she's not completely alone, and to stop her from going to get more drugs.
It feels intimate, or at least more intimate than he's been with anyone in some time. She fights against him - she's Johanna again, not a drugged out version of herself - but eventually the fatigue hits her and she relaxes into his embrace, pressing herself back against him until he can feel her heat, smell her scent, and her face is inches in front of his. "It was your idea," she murmurs resentfully.
"What was?" He has dozens of ideas, he is always suggesting things.
"Getting close to Finnick. You didn't tell me the part where he'd fall in love with someone else."
And he doesn't have a reply for this, because he's just a lush from 12, he doesn't have all the answers.
After Haymitch gets back to District 12, everything feels the same as ever. Its enough to convince him that nothing's changed, which is both comforting and terrifying. He wants to be ok - he doesn't want to hurt any worse than he has, and he doesn't want Finnick or Johanna or any of the people he cares about to suffer more either, but at the same time, every time he steps off the train back in 12, it is just another revolution of an endless cycle. He can picture Snow smiling, sickly sweet as the machine functions as intended. He knows that Plutarch says they need to be patient, that it'll take 5 or 10 more years for everything to be ready, but he's 36 now, he's lived more years past his Games than he lived before them, it's exhausting.
He turns towards the Victor's Village, knowing it's just his house and a couple others, all empty, set apart in a separate section of the town. It's a testament to his failure as a mentor that there as no other Victors there, even though he knows District 12 is set up for failure. No food to build muscle, no weapons training, no media training, nothing to prepare them to win in the arena or appeal to sponsors. The Capitol sets unfair stakes and then says they should have tried harder when they lose. He knows the gambit, and still he falls for it. His hand trembles as he shoulders his bag, stepping off the train platform. He needs a drink.
It's a few weeks later when he can't stand being alone anymore. Sometimes he'll stumble into town to the tavern, or he'll try to call Chaff, but the people in town have been jumpy lately with the rations shortages, and he doesn't want to face their ire, and Chaff doesn't have a phone line at the moment on account of electrical problems in 11.
He calls Mags instead, hoping to hear good news about Finnick and Annie. Instead, the phone rings and rings. He opens another bottle of white liquor, sitting back on the back two legs of the spindly wooden chair near the phone and calls Finnick instead.
"Hello?"
He sounds as exhausted as he did sitting in the Mentor's booth during the Games. "Finnick… it's Haymitch."
"Is everything alright?"
"It's fine in 12. What's going on with you?"
He sighs, and Haymitch can feel him sagging through the phone. It's late evening now in 12, but he imagines the sun is still setting over 4 on the other side of Panem. "Mags had a blood clot in her brain. She's alive," he adds quickly. "But she's in the hospital. She can't talk, or walk. She can't feed herself."
Haymitch knows Finnick is finding a way to blame himself for this - that he didn't let Mags rest enough, or that he caused Mags too much stress worrying over Annie. But Haymitch knows the truth: Mags had a lifetime of stress to build up to this, and it could happen to any of them at any time if Snow willed it. "Give it time, Finnick," he says instead.
"I'm trying," he says, "But…" he sighs again, as if deciding whether or not to confess something else. "Annie… she's in the hospital too. She's not right… after her Games, I don't know how they're going to do the Victory Tour. She's hearing things that aren't there. Sometimes she doesn't even realize I'm there."
Now Haymitch pauses, taking a long sip of the liquor. He isn't surprised. Annie didn't look well in the arena, and looked worse coming out. "She'll get through it with you at her side," he assures Finnick.
"I was going to propose to her," Finnick confesses. "Before the Victory Tour. I know it could never be public, but just something for us to share. But now I don't want to burden her. It will be enough if I know she's ok and away from… all that." He speaks vaguely in case anyone is listening, but Haymitch understands.
"Did you do anything about that?" he asks.
"I spoke to him about it. I think I can keep her safe."
At the 71st Games, Finnick arrives alone. Haymitch sits near him during the Opening dinner, and he reports that Mags is doing better, able to hobble around with a cane somewhat, but her speech remains garbled and she could not manage as a Mentor, so he was here alone.
"What about the rest of your Victors? Doesn't have 4 have spares?"
He shrugs. "No one who wants to come back to this cursed place."
Haymitch can't blame them, of course, but he knows what a burden this will be for Finnick.
"What did you promise him? For Annie?" he asks, when they're in a corner with a good degree of privacy.
Finnick sips his champagne, a blithe smile on his face as if they were discussing guesses on sponsors for that year. "Just some changes in the types of clients, the frequency, my loyalty." He leans in closer. "I think he was mostly pleased he got Johanna back."
Haymitch knows what Finnick is saying. In the world of the Capitol, Annie meets the beauty standard much more than Johanna, and probably would have been more popular among the elite citizens. But for Snow, it's more important politically to have Johanna Mason under his control. To him, winning that back is worth sacrificing Annie Cresta - she is the bait. Haymitch leans closer, irritated with the whole situation, with everyone involved, but Finnick is right in front of him. "I hope it's worth it to you, sacrificing one to save the other."
He moves away before Finnick has a chance to rebut, before he can see the pained expression on his face that shows that this was not an easy choice for him - not a choice at all, really, but rather a convoluted puppet-show put on by the Capitol where he is just one of many characters whose strings are being pulled.
But there's the rub. Haymitch is being dragged back under as well. Finnick's feelings for Annie Cresta make him liable to be manipulated by Snow, then be extension Johanna can be manipulated with her feelings for Finnick. Every time Johanna comes to the 12 apartment, he wonders if anyone sees her - if it can be traced, used against them to make him do things for Snow under threat to Johanna. Even their friendships are dangerous, he found that out quickly enough after Elin won her Games, so now he tries to only be seen with Chaff consistently.
He sees Johanna across the room, outside on the balcony smoking with Blight. Her hair is a little longer, down to her shoulders now, but he can't see her face, to gauge her expression or how much it looks like she might have dipped into morphling in 7. He walks towards the balcony, intending to speak with her, and it seems his timing is good as Blight comes inside just as he's coming out, but Blight makes eye contact with him, pulling him aside towards an empty wall. Blight never seeks Haymitch out, he immediately wonders what's wrong with Jo. He glances at her on the balcony, trying to get a glimpse of her face, but June has stepped outside, the two of them silently staring at the stars.
"Don't fuck around with her," Blight says, his face surprisingly good at maintaining the same calm neutrality as Finnick's. They are still at a Capitol-hosted Victor's social, after all. Blight is old, and balding, and relatively removed from the drama of the younger Victors. But it makes sense that he looks after his own.
Haymitch doesn't have a reply to this, the opening so unexpected from Blight's usual calm politeness.
"I let you in because she was shutting me out, last year, but if you fuck her over…"
Haymitch's hands are trembling, not from the lack of alcohol, but from having no outlet of something to hold. He is used to accusing others, to holding the cards, to being the older Mentor, that it is a distant memory to remember being on the other end. "I-" he struggles for a moment under Blight's gaze. "You know I'd never want to hurt her," he offers.
Blight sneers. "Of course you wouldn't," he says, all pretense of a lighthearted conversation between them gone. "But you might anyways. I was there for Elin, don't forget."
Haymitch shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them still. He needs a drink. He deserves this - he isn't going to run away from this conversation - but it doesn't mean it isn't difficult to listen to. "Johanna and I aren't dating. We don't love each other." It's a deflection, but it isn't a lie. They have purposely maintained a distance, aware of the consequences of closeness.
Blight steps back, his piece said. But he bites his lip before deciding to respond. "Listen, she is lonely, I'm not trying to take her few friends away from her. But Anna is always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for people to leave her. Don't prove her right."
Haymitch's boy lasts 8 hours into the 71st Games, and his girl lasts 39 hours, and he can't even remember if that's better or worse than last year. When she dies, he takes off his headset, thinks about drinking, but decides he is exhausted, and walks back to his apartment just to sleep. He is surprised and alarmed to find Plutarch Heavensbee inside the 12 apartment, pouring himself a mug of coffee.
"Welcome home," he greets.
"What are you doing here?" Haymitch's voice is gravely from lack of sleep, but also from fear - is this a Capitol plot? He thought, he was fairly confident even, that Plutarch was on the side of the rebellion, but perhaps this is the part where the rug is pulled out from under him.
"Don't worry, we're alone," Plutarch assures him, gazing around at the walls to indicate there are no listening devices or cameras. "I just needed to chat, thought it was easiest if I come to you, since I had to come by the Training Center anyways."
"What about?" Haymitch asks, pulling out his bottle of liquor and a glass. It seems the nap will have to wait.
"Well, things are moving. For one thing, Snow is appointing a new head Gamemaker."
Haymitch pours his drink, nodding to indicate he's listening.
"Seneca Crane."
He pauses, his bottle still held sideways. Why does he know that name? "He did the dam last year," he recalls.
"Good memory. Yes, call it failing upwards." Plutarch chuckles. He sips the coffee, slurping a bit. "I've been appointed vice-Gamemaker, so I'll be able to whisper in his ear, so to speak."
"What's your plan?"
"Two things. Get things in place in the next few cycles. Seneca is a great Head, very… malleable. My plan is to go with him for now, then get him fired, after the 74th. I want to take over during the Quarter Quell. That's when they want to move, tentatively."
Haymitch drinks quickly, trying to absorb this information. Plutarch is always too quick to risk other people's lives, handwaving away 'a few more cycles' of Games as if that isn't 23 dead kids each time. And no one gets fired from appointments such as head Gamemaker, they are most definitely imprisoned or worse. Which is why he feels a twist in his gut as he realizes this isn't just a house call for Plutarch to update him on the rebellion. It's a request for a favor.
As if on cue, Plutarch sets down the empty coffee mug. "Seneca Crane has requested the company of Johanna Mason in the past. Do you think we can leverage this?"
Haymitch pauses for a moment, deciding whether to offer Johanna up to this man who might be their salvation, but at a heavy cost. "She hates the Capitol as much as any of us," he says. It's as much as he can promise for any of them, him or Beetee or Elin or Chaff.
"I'll have to schedule a meeting, then," he smiles. He feels as if he's given Johanna a lifeline, a reason to live, and stabbed her in the back at the same time. He feels shame in pulling Johanna into his plot. He learned his lesson before, he knows he cannot offer her salvation as a lover, only by showing her that there is a rebellion. But even so, he wonders if he is really so different than Finnick, saving Annie by using Johanna. Achieving his goals with her dirty work. Plutarch will say the ends justify the means, but Plutarch has never had to sleep with Seneca Crane,has never had to risk his own life by being the betrayer if caught.