This is for Michaela, with her prompt 'should have been a soldier, i could have fought and died. there was no revolution, so i bought a bride.' We didn't know what to do with it, really...and it turned out pretty tragic. We did manage some hope in, at least a bit. So anyway, Happy New Year. We hope you'll like it.
It's so sharp in Johanna's mind, not the clever kind (oh, she used to be clever but the arena tugged that out and left a gaping nothing) but the stabbing hurting glassy kind. There are knives and there are shards and there are things that crush bone. It's all hurting Snow first, cutting out his bloody tongue and shoving it down his throat so he can never say I'm terribly sorry, Miss Mason, there was an accident in your family's home ever again. Johanna smiles at him as he chokes, saying this is for the rebels, this is for what you've done, this is for Finnick, this is for my family, you bastard, and takes her gory revenge. She concentrates on this. They can't take it away from her. She has to believe in something better than white tiled walls, white ceiling, white cuffs, white tiled floor with a drain that smells like death. She has to believe in something else.
This is until they douse her again and shoot fire through her and everything she believes in is broken like her body and mind. It's Snow smiling now in her head behind her eyes as Johanna bloodies her own tongue, and she doesn't care what he tells her, if her family has to die all over again because you should have accepted my job for you, Miss Mason, she doesn't care but it has to stop.
"Miss Mason, it would benefit you to tell us about the rebels. I'm sure we could have you transferred to a more comfortable setting if you would cooperate."
She knows shit all about the rebels and their brave revolution, hip hip fuckin' hooray for them letting her get caught so they could save their precious knocked-up-ingjay, but it wouldn't matter if she said it. If she did have anything to tell, it would be a struggle not to. What have they done for her besides let her end up here? If they'd taken her before the arena, or taken her at all, she could be fighting right now with Finnick, a soldier instead of a shivering victim. Death is so easy compared to dying. She can't manage the first, but she's stuck in the second. Sounds like part of a joke. First base. Second base. Ha-ha. Get me out of here before I'm insane. Probably already am, though.
A struggle, though. She can do that. She can't do anything else now. Be brave and strong, like Finnick who's somehow brave after all the shit he's been through, and the only person she can call a friend. Johanna dredges up the last thing like strength in herself and spits red. It doesn't even reach her interrogator's feet. "Y-you know what I can tell you about the r-rebels? I'll t-tell you everything you want. Go fuck yourself-"
Water. Fire. Cooking her into a tasty entree. Johanna a la barbeque for a Capitol New Year party going on over her head. Johanna food. Right, she is already insane. Could be fighting right now, not food.
Electricity all through her that'll stop her heart. They'll start it again, though. Dying, then death, then dying again.
Fire. Screaming insults because she can't do anything else.
Then, nothing.
Then, fire.
Why won't you let me die?! The words almost make it out. Is Snow really there now, watching, or in her head? Maybe he did hear. He's smiling.
"Happy New Year, Miss Mason. I thought you might like to know."
Happy New Year. Love the party you've put on for me, you bastard.
Fire.
Never even got a chance to be a fucking rebel.
There's only cotton in Finnick's mind. The blistering pain is numbed. They've drugged him up and his clarity's gone to high hell. Nothing is clear. Everything urgent he has to think about should have pointy edges but they're rounded and sluggish like molasses, which doesn't make sense even to him. Annie is gone. Annie's gone. She's in the Capitol, where Finnick bent over when they told him to and begged or simpered when they wanted him to and did things he can't think about or he'll scream, because he did all that just to keep Annie safe but none of it mattered (with every horror he did it didn't matter), she's there now. Still, only one thing can stick in his head, and to his eternal shame, that isn't Annie. The worry that's driving him insane is for Johanna.
He doesn't think he knows why at first, but then he does. Annie's been broken since her head crested the floodwaters in her arena and so did her partner's, a hundred feet away from his body. Johanna is still brave and strong and cunning and unbroken (unless she isn't, unless they already beat her down), and if they break her too, that's not something Finnick can handle. His best friend and his lover are trapped. If he could just do something, go out to fight and save them, his initial rescue over Johanna's and Annie's would be worth it. Would be. But he's not allowed to be a soldier yet when a thousand ghosts are pounding through his head. There's no point to being a rebel if he can't fight and die for the people who are worth it.
When they ask him how he feels, he says he's fine. Nobody believes him.
He'd been going to marry Annie and ask Johanna to be his best man, just to laugh and get punched after her indignant refusal. Now he might never see them again. He might never have his beautiful bride, and he could lose the bravest, cleverest friend he's ever had.
Despite the world crashing down on him, he remembers something.
Curled up in his hospital bed, he cries. It's the first New Year he's ever spent alone and without a celebration. It's also the first New Year Johanna and Annie have spent in cells, he'd imagine.
"Happy New Year," he sobs like a child, pretending they can hear him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
The pain in his head is back again, and it's like fire, but he knows they're doing worse to the only people he loves.
Some rebel he turned out to be.
Katniss is hollow, and if the Capitol took Peeta to break her, they've done it already.
There's no rebellion left in her. There's nothing left at all.
But Peeta told her he always loved the New Year. Maybe he knows it's going on. Maybe he's thinking about it right now.
Happy New Year, Peeta.
It's demented, but Katniss thinks, if after everything the new year can go on, bigger things might happen, like saving him. Maybe there's some kind of hope left, she thinks. Just because a day is changing to another day, a rescue could work. A city could end. A president could fall. Just because a little thing like the new year can happen no matter what. It doesn't make any sense.
But it is something, so she lets herself hope.