"She's almost as stubborn as you."
"Please. No one is as stubborn as me."
"No. No one is as much of an ass as you are. There are however those who possess an equal level of pigheadedness. According to Haymitch she's one of them."
Johanna rolled her eyes. "Why do I care again?"
"Because we want to live. To do so we need her. So we want her to like us."
"She doesn't have to. Haymitch already does."
"Johanna, Haymitch will not be in that arena. He can influence her outside of it but once we're in she's making her own decisions. We want her to like us so those decisions involve us."
"I still think it would work either way. She likes us and we're allies that's fine, everyone is happy. But she doesn't seem like the type to make friends, and you know I'm not, so her hating us would be easier."
"And how would that help us exactly?"
"Well, building a rivalry pre-Games with the Girl on Fire would make Snow very happy and make us his favorites. We would last longer with him rooting for one of us to kill her."
"And when she kills us?"
Johanna rolled her eyes and turned to Blight. "She wont. Not with Lover Boy on our side."
0o0o0
"How are we going to do this?"
"You mean how am I going to do this."
"No, we're a team. How are we going to do this."
Johanna sighed and looked at her district partner. "You are not going to be involved. You aren't pretty enough. This is between the lovers and I, with you as my pathetic arm candy slash loyal sidekick. Now go away."
Blight glanced down at himself then glared at Johanna. "There isn't enough time to address all the ways you just insulted me. You -"
"You're right there isn't time. Why don't you think about that lecture, fine tune it, then give it to me when I meet you in the rooms okay?" Without waiting for an answer Johanna scampered off towards the closing elevator doors managing to slip through just in time. Surveying her captive audience she smirked. There was a knowing gleam in Haymitch's eyes, confusion and awe in the boy's, and surprise and growing annoyance in the girl's. Oh this was going to be fun.
0o0o0
"I'm seriously not going to be involved?"
"No. Just do your thing, which will be drinking with Haymitch and skipping practice. You're already in with me and I can get in with them better than you can. Plus I've already set the foundation."
Blight snorted. "Yeah. Taking your clothes off. Lotta hard work went into that foundation laying."
Johanna rolled her eyes. "You should have seen the way Lover Boy was looking at me, that kid has never seen boobs in his life. Which makes sense with the way she was looking at me too."
"What?"
"Oh yeah. Bitch tried to remember to glare at her boyfriend but was too busy oogling the perfection in front of her."
"Your ego has gone to your head."
"I may be full of myself but not without reason. I don't think 12 is progressive enough to have realized the wonders of girl-on-girl loving but our beloved mascot has a yearning for it."
Blight laughed, almost knocking over his drink. "Johanna, come on. Their love story is an act sure, but she was ready to kill herself before him. There's something there."
"Were you not listening? He hadn't seen boobs before mine. The something that's there is her desire to stick it to the Capitol and his lucky role in helping her do so. But fine. I'll let you have the benefit of the doubt for now. Tomorrow we'll see for sure."
"What are you going to do?" Johanna patted him on the shoulder in her version of goodnight before getting up and walking off. His eyes widened as realization struck him. "Johanna you can't! It's going to be crowded and you've done it already and – and you can't hear me." He reached for his glass. "Why do I have to be stuck with the attractive partner that loves not having clothes on almost as much as she loves women?"
0o0o0
"She's into girls. Or boobs at least. Fucking hell Blight I've never been stared at like that before."
"You ever provocatively oiled yourself up in front of a girl before?"
Johanna stared at him in disbelief until he blushed. "Right. Sorry. Anyway, you're really convinced she's into you?"
"Her subconscious is. She has no idea of course. But anyway, I talked to Lover Boy at lunch. He's actually a really good kid. Comes across as a real person when he's not having his strings pulled by her or Haymitch."
"You get anything good out of him?"
"What? Like her bra size?"
"Is your mind ever out of to gutter?"
Johanna stared wistfully ahead. "She's hot man. Like dirty hot. Hotter than I was expecting. She pulled the bow out today during practice, wasn't holding back with it either. She's gotten better. And hotter."
"You might have mentioned the hot thing already."
Johanna thumped him. "I'm serious. It's a problem. I'm not sure I want her to hate me anymore."
"She's not going to love you."
"Whatever. I told Lover Boy about Nuts and Volts. He thought I was funny."
"Only person on the planet who does."
"Fuck you. I'm funny."
0o0o0
"Your plan failed."
"Doesn't mean you were right."
"You sure as hell weren't."
"Finnick's plan failed too. So did Haymitch's. Everyone's plan failed because she can't cooperate and wants Mags Nuts and Volts as allies."
"It's kind of hard to cooperate when you don't know that you're supposed to be following a plan no one has shared with you."
"Stop being reasonable it's pissing me off."
"Everything is pissing you off. You need to get laid."
"Maybe I will."
"Fine."
"Fine."
They sat in silence for a moment until Johanna stood up.
"I am going to get laid. You stay here and wait for Haymitch and his brilliant plan."
"Gee thanks."
"It was your idea."
"Fuck you."
"I'll pass thanks."
She walked out, leaving him contemplating the empty room and waiting for a plan that would save them.
0o0o0
"Haymitch hates me."
"Maybe your plan did work, just on the wrong person."
"I let him look at me naked, there's no way that backfired."
"He stuck us with Beetee and Wiress, clearly it did somehow."
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
"We might not survive. If we get cornered, they can't fight."
"Yeah."
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
0o0o0
She had been lying. He wasn't much at first, but something had changed that and he actually started to matter. The first night after they met up with the other three Finnick confronted her.
"How much do you actually miss him?"
She closed her eyes. "More than I expected to."
"You two never seemed that close."
"We weren't. That's why I liked him so much. We just were with each other, you know? We said or did whatever we wanted to because neither of us was striving for the other to like or respect them. He was like the world's shittiest therapist. Knew all my problems and secrets and gave me his instead of fixing me."
"Seems like a good deal."
"It was."
She still talked to him, only now she had to respond for him. They weren't one sided conversations, but since she was essentially talking to herself it might have been better if they were. She couldn't help it though, he had been her mentor and she relied on the candidness of their relationship. He was one of the few people never afraid of pissing her off
0o0o0
"I feel like an ass, but part of me was relieved it was Prim's voice. I don't know how it would have felt if she had run screaming after Lover Boy or the Other Boy."
You're jealous.
"Am not."
Are too.
"We're not 5."
You are a little bit. You handle your emotions like you are. What's next, you going to throw an axe at her and tell her you only did it cause you like her?
"I think the action you're looking for is pulling her pigtails."
She doesn't have any and you're too violent for that. Also, I notice you didn't say you weren't going to.
"I haven't decided yet."
Don't kill her. You all still need her.
"Why do you always have to be right? You're dead, let me win this one."
Technically you have since you're arguing with yourself.
Gritting her teeth she started out over the lake. Being stuck in here was driving her mad.
0o0o0
Run!
She promptly tripped over a root and bashed her face into the ground.
That's the opposite of running.
She looked around, half expecting to see Blight standing amongst the trees. There was no one.
"Okay, this isn't fair. You aren't allowed to start talking to me until I start talking to you."
So it's fine for you to talk to a dead guy but your subconscious gives you some advice and you lose your shit.
"It's being given to me in the voice of said dead guy, I'm allowed to lose my shit. Also, bad fucking advice. What did you think I was doing?"
Shut up!
There were feet approaching, shallow panting sounded overhead while the vibrations shook the floor she was lying on. She instinctively pressed herself lower.
"Where'd she go?"
Brutus. Which meant Enobaria was - "I don't know, but I don't think she's here." Right above her. Shit.
You're kinda in a tight spot huh?
She rolled her eyes. Did her subconscious/district partner really have to be an ass while her life was in danger?
There was a minute of silence then an annoyed growl accompanied by a spray of leaves over her as Enobaria kicked out. "Let's go. She's getting further away the longer we wait." With a grunt of agreement from Brutus the two took off and Johanna took a deep breath.
So. . .
She pulled herself off the forest floor and sat leaning against a tree. "What?"
How'd it feel?
"What?"
Don't play dumb, you know what. Being on top of the lovely Katniss Everdeen.
"I was kind of too busy trying to not slice straight through her arm to notice. Now go away."
You'll miss me.
Her head snapped up as the sounds of another figure crashing through the woods met her ears. For a second she tensed and reached for an axe before a faint call for Katniss carried through the trees.
"No I won't. I'm about to have Lover Boy for company."
0o0o0
Johanna?
She lay on the ground, small shocks still coursing through her body.
Johanna!
She closed her eyes, unable to deal with anything. For a couple seconds she had blissful silence then -
It's Katniss!
Her body jerked up as she looked around, fear and hope over the prospect filling her in equal measures. There was nothing around her but an empty cell, the white-washed walls gleaming back at her as the light bounced off of them.
Oh good you're up. Now move.
She groaned and started to drop back down.
I'm serious! Get out of the water Jo, it's making it worse.
"Don't. Call. Me. Jo." Each word hurt as her jaw protested the movement. She was pretty sure she had some cracked teeth, both from clenching her jaw against the pain and from the electric shocks themselves.
You're calling yourself Jo cause you know it's the only way to get the motivation to move. Now do so.
Slowly she dragged herself out of the puddle that had been created as an amplifier for her torture. Resting against a wall she waited. And waited. "Nothing to say about how I move like an old lady?" There was no response and panic suddenly welled up in her gut. "Blight?"
Good job kid.
She sighed in relief before jerking forward again as screams suddenly started up. Peeta. Right on schedule. "Fuck."
I'm sorry for leaving you to do this alone.
"It's okay."
0o0o0
You need to stop.
"Don't want the advice, don't need it. Now shut up I'm trying to concentrate." She was pretty sure she could find the vein, the problem was not sticking the needle all the way through.
Seriously, you need to stop. We always mocked the morphlings, you're going to become one.
"They might have been on to something."
I can't believe you.
"Fuck off."
No. You're destroying yourself because you can't deal with a little pain? What the hell happened to the old Johanna Mason?
"Let's see. She lost her family, lost her friends, lost her district partner, got sacrificed to the Capitol so some priss with a stick up her ass could escape, got tortured for said priss, got rescued, and was introduced to the wonder drug."
That priss isn't going to fall for a morphling husk.
"I don't want her to."
Yes you do.
"Shut up."
She won't you know. You were right, there isn't anything real between them. And she does care about you. The only reason it doesn't seem like it is because you're both too stubborn to talk to each other. She agreed to be your roommate so she's going to find out if you keep doing this. It's also the perfect opportunity to get to know her, but you know she won't want to get to know you as someone hopped up on painkillers.
"I hate you."
Because I'm right.
She examined the needle. "I don't know if I can stop."
Then tell her and let her help. She's been through shit too.
Before Johanna could decide the door to her room opened and Katniss entered. She walked into the room, stopping when she saw Johanna sitting on the floor holding a syringe full of morphling.
Ask at least.
Taking a deep breath she looked at the other girl. "I might need help."
0o0o0
"I don't want to go back."
So don't. Go to 12.
"That feels like a bad idea."
Cause you're scared.
"Am not."
I'm not going to do this with you.
"I can't just show up. We're not close enough for that."
You lived together! But is see you're point. Go to visit Haymitch and work your way into her pants.
"If you were real I'd hit you right now."
Smack yourself in the head. It's the same thing.
"I'll pass thanks."
So are you going?
She looked around the train station at the Capitol. She was allowed to go anywhere she wanted, she could even stay if the desire hit her. But she didn't want to stay and she didn't want to go to 7. Which left one real option. "Yeah I'm going."
I knew you would. Let's go find your girl.
0o0o0
"I got the girl."
I know. I've been here the entire time.
"I got the girl."
I know!
"I got the girl."
Oh. You're like majorly freaking out right now huh?
"I'm about to marry the girl."
And looking mighty fine doing so if I do say so myself.
Johanna looked down at herself. She was wearing tailored black dress pants and a dark green button up with a black vest. A blood red bow-tie matched the color in her hair and for the first time she had managed to avoid being attacked by stylist leaving her mostly make-up free with her hair spiked messily.
"We're gonna have to make a deal."
Oh?
"We can't talk anymore. I've gotten away with it until now but it's been three years. Time to stop."
Good for you.
"No argument?"
You're finally moving on. It's healthy. But I do have one requirement.
"Yeah?"
I'm sticking around long enough to make sure you get your ass all the way to that tree.
Taking a deep breath she walked to the edge of the clearing. They were getting married in the woods, under a tree, and an audience of about 10 people. Small, intimate, not scary. As she saw Katniss standing opposite her, wearing a similar outfit with different colors she smirked.
"I think I'm over the freak-out. That won't be a problem."
A/N: Hello my lovely readers, my last author's note where I said I would post more with the return of school seems to be a lie. I changed my entire schedule and have been readjusting to having to wake up and function before noon so writing fell by the wayside. Sorry about that.
Some housekeeping:
I apologize for this but I'm bowing out of the Joniss fandom for an indefinite period. My source material seems to have run dry and while I know the same topic gets written on in multiple ways in fandoms, I can't bring myself to steal prompts given to other writers no matter how long I troll the Tumblr Joniss tag. As a result I'm taking a break so I no longer have to sit here and stare at a screen utterly bereft of ideas (I'm hoping to jump into some other fandoms, we'll see if time permits). You all have been wonderful, hopefully I'll get some inspiration and return soon.
I will continue to work on Everyday since the remaining chapters are set up, I just have to find time to sit down and do it. All The Little things will be on an indefinite hiatus seeing as I think I'm gonna need Mockingjay (Part 2, is Johanna even gonna be in Part 1?) to come out so I can develop more headcannons. I'm also going back to beta my previously written stuff, my inspiration is strongest at two in the morning but dear lord reading some of that during a decent hour makes me wanna hit myself with a club. Ew.