So, I'm totally shipping those two. They deserve more love.
Mentally unstable.
Yes, she supposed she was. It was a fitting description for someone who'd fallen on the ground and started yelling her lungs out as soon as a little water flooded the training block. Back in 13. She hated 13. She hated the doctors declaring her out of her mind, she hated the now-deceased Coin with her perfect hair and cold remarks, and most of all she loathed the fact that the wretched district had saved her. Maybe that's why she'd agreed to be part of the squad assuring the Mockingjay's safety in the arena – because she didn't want to live long enough to get out of it but still be able to do something useful. For once. For once, it wouldn't have been giving advice on killing or welcoming another young, unfortunate, and sad murderer back to later on parade at his side, smiling at cameras, and playing the proud card. Proud of a killing machine. A killing machine she'd instructed.
Mentally unstable.
At least, it kept questions at bay. It allowed her the liberty to freely shout whenever she felt like it, to ignore those whose questions were too much for her tired brain. The morphling drip was still here, by her side, but unavailable at the same time.
Yes she was a pretty woman and yes she'd enjoyed it in the past. Now, Johanna Mason wanted to become a grey-skinned, thin to the bone morphling addict. It was the easy and cowardly way out. She'd spent her life being strong and now felt she'd earned the right to collapse, curl into a ball and be weak. A coward who hid from this new reconstructed society. She didn't have the strength to partake in this rise from the ashes.
Maybe she would have tried something if Katniss had been there to help. Only she wasn't. Katniss had gone just as mad, shooting the president, starving herself to almost-death in her room, and then had been shipped of to 12. She, Mellark, and Abernathy were leading a quiet, isolated life there now. Well, all the best to them. The Mockingjay had witnessed too much death in a period of time too short to get out of the ordeal unmarred. She respected that and refrained from spitting insults.
Why she'd been sent to Four was a mystery. She had cursed, had called Plutarch, yelled that this was no place for her and that she couldn't survive in this city which smelled of salt water, but in the end her cries fell on deaf ears. Despite everything, she had been told that she wasn't stupid – that's probably why as soon as stepped out of the train she was escorted to the newly built hospital.
Oh, the irony.
And that's how the mentally unstable stamp returned on the inside of her wrist.
When she bumped into him, she thought she would lose her voice. There were just too many curses to be let out at once.
"What the hell are you doing here ?"
Volts – she supposed she could be condescending and call him Beetee after everything they've been through, but quickly renounced the idea – only readjusted his glasses.
"Hello, Johanna."
"The insanity finally caught up with you too ?" she said.
"Only helping with the installation of the new machines."
Scans, MRIs, FMRIs, those old devices and some new ones had to be implanted in the hospital. Apparently, Beetee wasn't only an electricity expert – he was one of everything that the latter related to. Which was pretty much every little machine on earth.
It became some sort of game to watch him stroll down the hall, come back when he forgot something, and never cease his fidgeting. Sometimes, she would walk out of her room and mock him.
"How are you, Johanna ?" was all he would say.
His politeness gripped at her throat.
"I hope you get electrocuted !" she shouted after him once.
And then, for the first time, he stopped, turned around, really looked her in the eye. "Yes." A hoarse laugh escaped his lips. "I kind of hope I do, too."
It left her speechless but not surprised.
Following the arena, all the victors, after having taken so many lives, just wished for theirs to desert them as well.
Except maybe those from One and Two. Those bastards were happy with the outcome and their place in the victor's village.
She didn't know when her quips got toned down, her insults lost their cutting edge. At some point, this diversion turned into her calling after him. He would always stop and talk to her and never mind the violent tone. Just like today.
"You're greying," she told him. "Ha." That was a particularly stupid thing to say coming from a woman who got her own hair cut to the point of nonexistence and was now sporting and uneven mane.
His hand found what she was talking about, brushing those short strands away from his face. "Yes," he confirmed. "Yes, I am."
But it wasn't enough, not anymore. Him always agreeing with her had become frustrating.
"You would have drowned in that pool of blood if it wasn't for me," she hissed. Technically a storm, but who cared.
He paused. "Yes."
"Stop being so kind !"
She'd yelled, she'd called him names, but physical aggression had never been part of the deal. Her nails met his neck, dug into there, and refused to retreat until some burning liquid coated them. Beetee cried out in shock but reacted quickly. They've all had amazing reflexes. At least, one good thing the arena left them with. Soon, she was back in her room, forced against a wall as she fought against him, pushed onto her bed and restrained until some nurses arrived. Then, he just left.
Why he came back was beyond her. She was sitting, her left arm and both legs restrained, the right one free so she could flip the pages of some book she'd been given.
"Go away."
"How are you feeling ?"
It went on for quite a while. For weeks, actually. She was silent, angry, depressed, always denying him an answer. But in the end, even Johanna Mason could break down. And she did.
"Hurt. Upset. Useless."
He shook his head. "The first two will pass. And useless ? You're not useless, Johanna, never was." He was the only one who always used her name. It annoyed her to no end.
Her teeth gritted, she said, "Really ? So tell me, Volts, how am I of value ? What the hell have I done except killing people ?"
"You've helped a nation to overthrow its dictator. That's quite an accomplishment, if you ask me. Besides," he scoffed, "if we're talking killing, I'm afraid my death count is much higher than yours."
Special weapons. Bombs. Primrose Everdeen. She had nothing to say to that.
"Yeah. Get out."
Eventually, she did calm down. It didn't mean that the desire to live overtook her, no, she simply wanted not to spend whatever remained of her life within white walls. She ate what she was given, talked without cursing during her therapy sessions, and ate mouthful of pills. They made her dizzy, she threw up more than once, but after months she was released.
Only now, she was no one, had nothing to do. That gave her the possibility to go jump under a train.
But before, Johanna decided, she would get drunk. One last time. Good liquor always quelled the pain, and she was a coward – to die she did want, but for agony to accompany it scared her.
"Hi. I'm drunk."
Upon discharge, she'd been told that her emergency contact information had been filled. That had caused her eyebrows to do an odd, little dance. She had asked who the daring soul was and, unsurprisingly enough, had been informed that a certain engineer from three had scribbled his name into the blank slot. She had kept the paper with his information.
A sigh on the other end. "Where ?"
She laughed in the receiver, coughed, called him an idiot, but at long last told him the address. So an hour later he arrived. By foot. It was expected, there weren't many cars available since after the war. Still, she got angry.
"Do you have anywhere to go ?" he asked.
Johanna brought her finger to her lips, shushing him as though he was her confidante. "To the train station !"
A raised eyebrow, a quizzed look. "To do what, may I ask ?"
"Ah. Ah. Aie. The end."
"I beg your pardon ?"
"To die, you idiot." Was it the fourth or fifth time that she'd called him such ?
"All right."
And of course they didn't end up at the train station. He brought her to some cottage the government had issued him while he was camping in Four. It was big, spacious, with three bathrooms for some reason. She locked herself in one of them, drew a bath, poured all the shampoos she could find in it, and took delight in the hot water and quickly-multiplying bubbles. Soon, some of them fell out of the tub to decorate the tiles of the floor. She didn't care.
After coming out, his image swam before his eyes. She said his name. For the first time ever, she said his name. He frowned and asked if anything was wrong.
"You're shivering. I, uh, I think I have a bathrobe somewhere, uh..."
"Beetee."
"Here it is."
"Volts, shut up."
It somewhat brought him back to reality. The house was warm, the bath had been warm, the long towel she'd draped around herself was warm – and he was as well as she crossed the distance between them and pressed herself against his hesitating frame.
"Don't worry, no commitment, no nothing." Her words were sluggish, lazy. "Just fucking relax."
He kept pushing her back. "You are drunk." But it didn't sound confident, not at all. Then again, it never did. "You, ah, are drunk..."
Every movement, every breath, of his screamed inexperience. It was both amusing and unnerving. She asked him how old he was – it was a rhetorical question meant to hurt. It earned her a nervous puff of air against her face. But she did nevertheless wake him up a second time during the night.
In the morning, she was hugging the toilet and vomiting her heart out. He was holding her hair back, caressing it even.
What little things she had, all provided by the hospital, were packed in a suitcase she grabbed the instant after brushing her teeth with a toothbrush he had had the time to buy her.
"Where are you going to go ?"
"Why do you care ?" she growled back, the hangover already gnawing at her bones. "You got your fun now show me out."
"You're going to kill yourself," he pointed out quietly, unlocking the door for her.
Johanna shrugged. "I just might."
She thought about, imagined a slow demise by morphling or a quick one by a slicing of the throat. Both were gruesome ends.
"You could stay here."
The proposition killed her spite, stole her venom. She stared at that thin man, considerably older than her, that district three victor who had won by electrocuting the remaining kids, and the pitiful figure he was. Volts, she called him.
"Yeah, I'd rather die."
With those words she left him.
The new Capitol was more pleasing to the eye, but she didn't stay there for long. Despite it being altered, it still reeked too much of the past. 12 held her attention longer. Katniss, in that new, dead voice of hers, asked if she would be willing to contribute to some book Peeta and she were writing. She felt a little worthless after describing Finnick's eyes and her experiences with him. That's all she could offer, there wasn't anything else. The other tributes had never really been her friends.
Well, there was Cecelia, a kind enough woman who'd left behind three children. She told her a little about how she, despite being just a few years her senior, had acted as a mother towards her. Of course, her actions had always been rejected. Johanna never told it out loud, but now she hated herself for that.
Then again, what didn't she hate herself for ?
For keeping Katniss alive. For doing the same for Peeta. For dragging Nuts and Volts out of the blood rain.
Seven was closer but Four was calling. It was raining when she arrived and as soon as she stepped out into the street, panic overtook her. She cried, the rain luckily washing way those traces of weakness from her cheeks, and trembled like a dog left in the cold. It seemed as though the pain of electricity racing through her body was renewed with the cool water touching her.
She resembled an animal as she reached his cottage. The lights were off. He had probably already left, moved on to another assignment in another district. Her teeth began chattering against each other as she crashed her fist on the wooden door.
It didn't open. She kicked it.
One light came to life, then another one. It took a good five minutes before the door finally unlocked.
But it was he who was standing there, glasses, silver hair and all, and so the wait was worth it.
"Johanna ?" he murmured her name warily.
"Can I still stay here ? I've got nowhere to go," she confessed and it wasn't laced with animosity or hatred.
He didn't answer at first, just taking in the sight of her. Longer hair, protruding cheekbones, watery eyes, clothes from 12. She felt him take her by the shoulders, pulling her in.
"I'll get you a sweater."