A/N: It's been a while. Sorry. But I finally watched Mockingjay Part 1 the other day and oh. My. God. It was amazing.
Also, in this fic Johanna is short. I checked and Suzanne Collins has never said how tall Johanna is, so I kind of developed this headcanon that she's fairly short (like 5'2", 5'3" ish). I really like the idea of her being short and yet still being able to seriously hurt you if you screw with her. (It's also partially because Gale is supposed to be over six feet tall and their height differential would be super cute, but hey.)
Merry Christmas/belated Hanukkah/early Kwanzaa!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. Nor am I Suzanne Collins, because if I were, I would not have killed off half the character she killed off.
The first time Gale sees Johanna again, she's drunk.
They're at some fancy function, and Gale's wearing an itchy suit and Johanna's wearing a dress that wraps around her body like a bandage. She walks up to him when she sees him watching her, stumbling in her shoes. Up close, Gale can see her makeup has smeared, her hair, now almost as long as his, disheveled. She's a mess.
"Hey, handsome," Johanna greets him, and if it weren't for the bitter edge in her voice, she would've almost sounded alluring. "What brings you here?"
"I live here," Gale answers, rolling his eyes as he flicks his glass up to his mouth. Johanna's not the only one who can drown her sorrows in alcohol, after all. "I also work here."
"Well that's no fun," Johanna purrs. "You need to live a little, gorgeous."
Her hands come up against his chest, curling into the lapels of his jacket. When she looks up at him—craning her neck to do it, too; how did he never realize how much shorter she was?—her eyes are shining like shards of two am whiskey, cold and dead. He can see himself reflected in them: hair tucked behind his ears, circles under his eyes, hollowed cheeks.
Johanna's drunk, and not the tipsy kind of drunk, either: she's a Haymitch kind of drunk, the kind that's never too intoxicated to forget.
But past the ghosts in her eyes Gale can see what she's offering him, and he's too far past reckless to say no.
/
When he wakes up the next morning in his apartment, naked and his head threatening to split open, the bed sheets are ruffled and Johanna is gone, the only thing of hers left the imprint of her body beside him.
"Johanna?" he calls quietly, just in case. But she's gone; the only thing that answers him is silence. The bed is cold. She's been gone a while.
And when he stumbles into his kitchen five minutes later, there's a note beside the still-warm coffeemaker that reads thanks for the place to sleep, handsome.
/
The next time he sees her, two months later, she's standing outside his front door, hair plastered to the sides of her face, clothes drenched.
"You gonna let me in or what?" Johanna snaps impatiently as Gale gapes at her. Wordlessly, Gale steps back and opens the door further; Johanna strides right in as if she owns the place, kicking her wet shoes up onto his coffee table.
"For someone so at home here, you sure left in a hurry," Gale finally says, following her into his living room. The edge of irritation in his voice doesn't entirely mask the hurt.
"Staying is for the sentimental, Gale," Johanna retorts, reclining back on the couch. "And in case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the kind of girl who likes to stay and cuddle. I don't do morning afters. Sorry to burst your bubble, lover boy."
Gale harrumphs, but doesn't respond. Hurt radiates through him in shock waves; for some strange reason, the rejection stings the wound that Katniss left more than a year ago. "Get your feet off the table," he says instead, reaching out to swipe at her legs. He can hear the petulant anger in his voice, raw and unadulterated.
Johanna gives him a razorblade smirk. "Wow. Never thought I'd see you being all domestic, Gale."
Gale clenches his jaw, tells himself to not let her get to him. "Why are you here, Johanna?" he asks carefully, ignoring her snipe.
"Can't I visit a friend?"
"Oh, is that what I am? I was under the impression that I was just someone you used when you were drunk."
Johanna leans forwards and grabs him by his shirt, her eyes suddenly blazing. "I'm not your girlfriend, Gale. Hate to ruin your little fantasy. It must be a real blow to the ego, getting rejected by two girls in a row."
Gale pushes himself up and away from her, his entire body shaking with anger. He can't think, can't stop the horrible words from spilling out. "You know why I think you're here, Johanna? Because you have no one left but ghosts. Your family is gone. Finnick is gone. All your friends—Annie, Peeta, Katniss—they've left you, too. You have no one left, Johanna. No one. So you came to me because I was your last choice, because you were lonely and sad and you needed someone to forget yourself with. But I'm not going to be that person again, Johanna."
Johanna stands up to her full height just as suddenly and jabs her finger at his chest forcefully. This close, with the top of her head almost level to the base of his nose, less than three inches away, he almost backtracks. If her eyes blazed before, it was nothing compared to now, when they burned like supernova, a thousand deadly explosions. "Just because Katniss left you doesn't mean you get to be an asshole, Gale," she screams, and her voice breaks on his name. He watches as her face falters, falling from anger into something else, something more vulnerable, more human, and then suddenly she spins away from him, her shoulders slumping. Then rising. Then slumping again. It takes him a moment to realize she's crying, that she, Johanna Mason, victor of District 7, the girl of snark and fiery attitudes, is crying.
The anger fades, leaving him hollowed with guilt. "Johanna?" he asks tentatively, reaching a hesitant hand towards her. She doesn't respond, save for a quiet, almost imperceptible sniffle. Gale steps forwards carefully, places a hand on her shoulder. "Jo?" he tries again, and doesn't register the nickname until far afterwards.
Her shoulders curve in further in response. Gale takes her lack of fighting back as a sign to move in front of her, and after she continues to not do anything, as a sign to try and comfort her, pulling her to his chest lightly and wrapping his arms around her. She's so small, so tiny compared to him. He can rest his chin on the top of her head easily.
Johanna tries to fight, but her resistance is weak. Try as she might, she's completely dwarfed by Gale, and her defenses are crumbling, breaking. Her silent cries turn into hoarse sobs. He can feel her chest rising against, heaving at double pace, the point of her nose resting against his sternum. The dampness of her hair tickles the stubble on his chin.
Gale doesn't know what he could say to this person, this not-Johanna, the thing that looked like her and yet wasn't her, not at all. So instead he just holds her, one hand against the knobs of her spine and the other on the back of her head, and swallows against the lump forming in his throat.
"I'm sorry, Jo," he finally says, knowing it isn't good enough, isn't nearly sufficient. But it's all he has.
"You should be," Johanna hiccups into his shirt, her voice holding a ghost of the old her. Gale laughs, and slowly, she stops crying.
And for an entirely different reason, she stays the night again. Gale lends her a t-shirt to wear, because her clothes are still soaked with rainwater. This time, he keeps an arm over her waist, too. Johanna makes no attempt to shrug it off.
When he wakes up the next morning, Johanna's gone, his arm is stretching across the empty bed. The shirt he gave her is gone, too, as are her clothes. But this time, when he goes into the kitchen, there's a cup of coffee waiting for him on the counter, still hot.
/
The third time, he sees her in the market, a week and a half later. It's just after dinner; he catches sight of her leafing through a barrel of oranges, and walks up to her. She looks different now—but then again, she's been different every time he's seen her, first as a fiery, drunk girl putting on a brave face, then as a sad, lonely girl who needed a friend, and now as this. Normal Johanna, wearing a simple white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, grocery shopping. Without the makeup and masks, she almost looks like a regular girl.
"Hey, lover boy," Johanna says without turning to face him. "What's up?"
"What are you doing here, Jo?"
He didn't mean for the words to sound so rude, but Johanna doesn't seem to mind. "Now, is that any way to greet a friend?" she asks him, smiling her signature razor blade smirk.
"You know what I mean," Gale says impatiently, frowning at her. "I thought you lived in District 7."
"I moved," Johanna answers carefully, shoving a few oranges into the bag. "There was nothing left for me there but ghosts."
"You left again," Gale says suddenly. Johanna stops in her tracks.
"Yeah, well, I told you I wasn't sentimental, Gale," she retorts, and starts to walk again at a brisker pace than before.
Gale follows her, a small smirk dancing on his lips. "You made me coffee, Jo. That seems kind of sentimental to me."
Johanna rolls her eyes. "That wasn't sentimental, Gale. That was me saying thank you."
It's Gale's turn to stop. "You didn't need to say thank you," he tells her, grabbing her arm gently to stop her from walking away. "It was my fault in the first place."
"Not really," Johanna says quietly, and in her face he can see a shadow of the girl from a week and a half ago. Then she lifts her head and it disappears. "Anyways, I should probably give you your shirt back. If you feel like waiting until I'm done, you can follow me back to my place and I'll give it back to you."
Gale raises an eyebrow at her back as she stalks off with as much haughtiness as she can muster, and follows her around like a stalker until she's done shopping. The walk back to her apartment is mostly silent—Gale has known for a while that Johanna's not exactly the touchy-feely type, but looking at her now, he could see the tension in the planes of her face, the unease. For a moment, he thinks that maybe she's scared of him, but no, that can't be it. She's Johanna Mason. Gale's heard rumors that she sleeps with an axe beside her bed, and after watching footage of her in the games, he knows how well she can use it. Regardless of her size, Johanna is a considerable force to reckon with. And then he realizes that it is him—but not physically. Emotionally. She's let him in. He's seen the parts of her she hid from anyone else; he's seen her vulnerable face, and accepted her despite it, regardless of it. Now, she's inviting him into her home and trusting him, putting herself out on a limb and giving him the opportunity to hurt her. She's risking herself, and that unnerved her.
Her apartment is small and bare, washed out of color. It's hard to picture Johanna living there, in a place so bare of personality and color. Gale doesn't know what he expected—maybe lots of red and a collection of weaponry or something—but it's not this. The only thing in the apartment he can associate with her is the coffeemaker on the counter, shiny and new, and the collection of mugs lining the counter beside it.
"Just give me a sec," Johanna calls, dropping the grocery bag onto the counter unceremoniously and opening a cabinet. "Just let my put this stuff away."
The image of Johanna standing in her own apartment, putting away groceries, doesn't reconcile at all with the her from the rebellion, the one with the shaved head and angry eyes, the one who wouldn't stop pushing herself in training, who spit fire to push everyone else away. But somehow, Gale likes this her better.
He moves to help her, stacking cans in the adjoining cupboard. "My, my, Gale," Johanna laughs when she sees him. "What a gentleman." Gale just rolls his eyes. He's used to her by now.
Their hands meet a few times, and Johanna pulls her fingers away quickly each time, busying herself with putting more groceries away. She won't look him in the eye. Gale smirks to himself.
After they're finally done, Johanna goes to her bedroom to retrieve the shirt. When she comes back, her face is even more nervous than before. "Here," she says as soon as she's within reach, shoving the shirt at him unceremoniously. "I washed it. Thought, you know, it might not be too polite to return it while it smelled like someone had died in it."
Gale unravels the shirt from the ball Johanna gave it to him in. "I could have washed it myself," he says, trying not to smile. "Your clothes should've been dry by then, too."
Johanna glares up at him, but even at her full force death glare, Gale doesn't find her intimidating. "I was trying to be nice about it, asshole," she snaps, taking a step closer. She's close enough now that her hair stirs when he breathes. "Next time, maybe I won't."
"Next time?" Gale asks, taking an infinitesimal step forwards. He's mere inches away from her now.
Johanna's face turns furious. She opens her mouth, starts to say something, but Gale cuts her off. "Next time," he breathes, leaning in even closer to Johanna, who freezes, eyes wide like a deer staring at a hunter, "you can keep the shirt."
He's not sure who kisses who. He thinks it was him, or maybe it was Johanna, fisting her hands in the material of his shirt. Regardless, Gale lifts her up by the waist until she's standing on her tiptoes, and pulls her even closer.
The next morning, when he wakes up, he's naked beneath the sheets and Johanna is gone. But the bed is still warm beside him, and her clothes lie strewn across her room where they were discarded carelessly the previous night.
And when he goes into the kitchen, he finds Johanna sitting atop the counter, wearing his shirt and smiling almost shyly at him over the rim of her coffee cup.
"Morning, gorgeous," she says, and hands him a mug of coffee.
Gale curls his fingers around it and returns her smile with a wide one of his own. "Morning, Jo."
/
The fourth time they meet, she stays.
Reviews are nice, guys ;)
~Alex (aka dontforget2live) x
(P.S. if you want to follow me on tumblr, my username is alexofthewriterpeople. Just sayin'.)