Somehow, I've given in to expanding another one-shot. I love Johanna and Gale together, so much, and have been asked a few times to write about them. So here y'all go.
Just fyi: I've never EVER taken requests until I started writing Hunger Games. Your reviews are all so wonderful and make me smile the BIGGEST smile and just make me want to write more so I'll get to hear what you guys think. This fandom is wonderful. Just sayin'.
The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins, not to me, though I do enjoy playing with her characters.
She's at a complete loss with what to do with her time for the next week, so she ends up spending most of her time drunk with Haymitch. She's not entirely sure Gale approves, but then, she doesn't approve of him taking off with Katniss every freaking day, so they're probably about even.
The morning they pull the fence down, she knows that Gale's been gone for hours because she's freezing when she finally wakes up. She's frustrated by how distant they've been since they got here, sure their stupid Mockingjay is probably always going to have some impact on their relationship. She sighs, getting out of bed and getting dressed. She heads downstairs looking for something to eat, and finds the kitchen almost bare. She supposes that Katniss must be distracted nowadays, what with occupying the love of Johanna's life, and the boy must be a bit preoccupied with the same issues she is, but you'd think they'd keep something in the house for their fairly unwelcome guests. She sighs and heads over to Haymitch's.
He's asleep, on the floor, so she ignores him and starts searching his cupboards. He'd let it slip when he was drunk two days ago that he hasn't even attempted to feed himself since he got back to Twelve. The kids keep him very well stocked, so she's shocked to see that he has no food either. What the hell have those idiots been doing? More because she's distraught by ideas of what Katniss has been doing besides hunting than because she's hungry, she wakes Haymitch up by kicking him hard in the ribs. He flails around with his knife but she's long since jumped out of the way.
"Why d'you sleep on the floor, old man?" she asks instead of a good morning. "Isn't that bad for your back or something?" He glares at her, adjusting his rumpled clothing.
"Isn't waking me up at this time of day bad for your health?" he snaps.
She shrugs. "There's no food in your house or in the star-crossed idiots. I'm hungry." He rolls his eyes.
"You're a big girl," he tells her sarcastically, getting to his feet and running a hand through his hair. "Bet you could figure out where town is all by yourself."
He walks her there, of course.
"Is she always this distracted?" asks Johanna along the way. He rolls his eyes. He's very hung over.
"You always ask stupid questions?" he mutters by way of an answer. "She's got some stuff to distract her at the moment, in case you didn't notice the tall moron in your bed running off with her every day."
Johanna flushes at the tactless way he puts it, though she was thinking the same thing herself. Despite being sure she's far too old and far too smart to need a mentor, she's been unbelievably grateful for his mostly-drunk input into her life over the last week. He's wiser than he seems.
"I should probably be seducing the boy as collateral, shouldn't I?" she asks, mock-innocently. He snorts.
"Don't think that boy's ever goin' for another woman, but you could try," he drawls. "Oh, shit."
She looks at him in confusion. He's staring at the bakery, where there's a line coming all the way out the door and you can hear the frustrated and angry voices of people who want to get their food and go about their day. Haymitch pushes past them into the store, and Johanna nervously follows him. She's surprised that they let her through until she remembers that they all know who she is (she's a Victor) and that they're probably also aware that she was tortured along with their favorite baker.
He's looking more flustered than she's ever seen him, sweating as he tries to placate an angry customer.
"I'm sorry," she hears him saying as she follows Haymitch up to the counter. "I just made a mistake. So you need four loaves of bread, not four cinnamon buns, that's what you're saying?" He goes to write this in the ledger on the counter and knocks it to the ground. His hands are shaking uncontrollably. He tries three times to pick it up before the customer has pity on him and stoops to get it herself.
Haymitch steps behind the counter and picks up a pen. "Let me, kid," he says more gently than she's ever heard him speak before. He makes up for it a moment later by growling at the woman, "What the hell do you want?" To her credit, she doesn't seem very taken aback by his rudeness. People here must be used to Haymitch.
Her sometimes-mentor raises his eyebrows at her, glaring at her and then at the boy. She gets the picture, though she wonders if anyone else but Katniss would. Whatever. Not time to be thinking about how much she has in common with that moron. She takes Peeta gently by the arm and leads him into the back room, where he collapses on a small stool, his face in his hands. She sinks down beside him, a huge bag of flour making a rather comfortable seat.
"Where's the old lady?" she asks softly.
"She does deliveries before lunch," says Peeta through his fingers. "I usually have no problem handling this. What's going on?" He's still shaking.
"You're a bit distracted," she tells him, and he snorts a laugh. "No idea by what though," she continues. "I mean really, it's not as if we were tortured halfway to death, then managed to somehow fall in love, only to have it all collapse at our feet again. No idea what's wrong with you, kid."
He starts to cry. Shit, she didn't mean it like that.
"Peeta," she whispers, her hand on his arm. He grasps her small hand in his huge one. She'd forgotten how big he is, how strong.
"She's gonna leave me," he whispers.
"No," says Johanna. "She wouldn't do that."
"And all I can think about is, if she does, there'll be no one to pull me out of my episodes. I'll end up an insane, violent, sadistic bastard they'll have to lock up because I keep-"
"No," says Johanna firmly, probably too loudly, but she doesn't care. He's going to make her cry, and she doesn't cry twice in the same week, end of discussion. "Haymitch and I will not let that happen, you hear me?" He keeps crying; he's trembling so violently she's worried he'll fall off the stool.
"And it doesn't matter, because she's not leaving you. Because if she leaves you, he leaves me." This doesn't help at all; if anything, he squeezes her hand tighter. Stupid, empathetic kid: he's probably just as affected by the idea of her pain as she is. She needs to lighten the mood, fast, or they're going to end up blubbering Victors in a bakery, and that's just the start to a bad joke.
"They're not leaving us," she repeats firmly. "Nobody dumps Johanna Mason." This has the desired effect, sort of: at least he starts laughing through his tears.
"Nobody," he echoes, smiling a very shaky, watery smile. He meets her eyes for the first time.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, serious again now that he's paying attention. "I hate that they targeted you as a way of targeting her. I hate that you two are so alone, going through this alone."
"Not as alone as you are," he whispers. He's still holding her hand. "Gale can't understand what you've been through. You've got it way harder than we do."
What is this kid's problem? He's been taking notes from his mentor, if he thinks he's allowed to cut straight to the heart of her problems like that. Jerk.
"Yeah, totally, so why don't you stop feeling sorry for yourself and pity me?" she tries, which again, makes him laugh, but he's still got tears on his cheeks. She wipes them away.
"They were rougher on you than they were on me," she whispers. She doesn't talk about this, ever, not even with Gale, but she's willing to bend the rules for him.
"They weren't," he sighs. "Mental torture and physical torture are completely different tools, and one is not worse than the other." How can he be so charismatic when he's barely holding himself together?
"But you're stuck there," she says before she can stop herself. "You still have those…what'd she call em, episodes…whenever something upsets you."
"And you don't?" he counters. "You don't have nightmares that keep you in bed for days? Don't have mornings where you still can't shower because you can't stop thinking about it?" She sighs, concedes defeat.
"I don't know how to do this," he whispers. He's not crying anymore. Their pain goes so far beyond tears; she learned a long time ago that crying or throwing tantrums does nothing to alleviate it, though she, like him, falls prey to it sometimes anyways.
"None of us do, kid," she mutters back. "We just gotta keep on living and figure it out as we go."
"I didn't mean that," he sighs. "I meant being with her. Loving her. I don't know how to do that when I'm only half-way put back together." She stares at him, somewhat in shock.
"You really are a moron, aren't you?" she asks incredulously. He completely ignores her insult. She's pretty sure that he's too used to it to care.
"You were there, Johanna. You've seen what I do to her. Sure, I'm not violent anymore but I don't know a damn thing when I get like that and no one can help but her!"
"I was there, Peeta, remember? I understand your episodes more than anyone! I saw so much of what they did to you, and the point of all that shit was to get to her. They wanted to fu-mess with you so they could destroy her. The fact that you're doubting your ability to love her makes me want to beat you until you-"
"I'm not doubting my ability to love," he sighs, running a hand through his hair so white specks of flour mix in with the blonde. "I'm doubting…whether it's reasonable for me to be attempting it with her. We're both so fragile, Jo."
"Doesn't matter how fragile you are: she needs you," Johanna mutters. She'd meant to lead up to that with a sarcastic comment or two, but there's something about an honest and hopeless Peeta Mellark that cuts through all her bullshit.
He shakes his head. " She's never needed anyone. She doesn't need me to put her back together."
Johanna stares at him. "Where the hell have you been for the last year?" she demands. "The war, torture, the Games, they've changed us, all of us. That girl and I-" oh, shit, she never wanted to confess this to him- "we have way more in common than either of us likes. Yeah, she never needed anyone before. Guess what? Neither did I! And now I'm here, sitting on a goddamn bag of flour because I can't leave Gale for a week without going insane."
He nods, still not sure what this has to do with Katniss.
"She might not have needed anyone before, but she has needed you since your first Games, moron. She might not have loved you then like she loves you now, but need and love are very different."
Peeta's quiet for a very long time. Johanna isn't sure what he's thinking, and she doesn't want to hurt him more, but she needs to get it all out in the open.
"She might be able to get food or water or shelter all by her lonesome, but in Panem, that isn't all you need to survive. After what happened to us, we need people." She sighs, because she's still loathe to admit that. "And trust me, boy, if there is anyone left that she needs, it's you. It was always gonna be you, not my tall, dark, and idiot boyfriend." (Haymitch's nicknames are really catchy).
He smiles, though he seems unsure. His hands are shaking less, the one clasped in Johanna's firm and warm.
"You wanna talk about it?" she asks quietly. "The Capitol? Because if there's anyone who's gonna understand, it's the starving Victor you got trapped in your little bakery." He laughs aloud, gets up and brings her an assortment of biscuits and pastries.
"Ah, I knew there was a reason the girl kept you around," she jokes, then remembers why there are still tear stains on his cheeks. "Kidding!" He only rolls his eyes, anyways.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" he counters. She shakes her head and ends up getting powdered sugar everywhere.
"I don't talk about it," she admits. "Ever. With anyone. But I'd make an exception for you, kid."
He smiles. "I'm flattered Jo. It's too bad you're with tall, dark and idiot." She laughs again, spraying powdered sugar all over her shirt. Maybe she should stay away from pastries.
"I'm the Victor with the most tasteless jokes, boy," growls a voice from the doorway. "Don't even think about stealing my title." Haymitch's face is flushed and his shirt is dirty.
He sinks down next to Johanna and stuffs an entire pastry in his mouth at once. She applauds; she wants to get away with manners like that but is pretty sure she'd need to be drunk full-time in order to do so.
Peeta's staring at him, unimpressed. "I'm assuming Sae is back with her granddaughter?" he asks.
Haymitch nods. "Said you should go home, that she'll be fine without you for one day." Peeta sighs.
"I don't need to go home," he mutters, but he's lying to the wrong people. Johanna's eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline. Haymitch just chuckles.
"Yeah, you're fine, boy, what were we thinking? D'you know you gave Thom eight loaves of rye when he asked for eight cheese biscuits? What the hell's he supposed to do with eight loaves of bread?"
"Lay off him," Johanna demands, suddenly furious despite the fact that she herself was far from gentle with him a few minutes ago. "He's been through hell and back. If he wants to waste bread, he can."
Peeta snorts. "We never waste food," he mutters. "It'd send Katniss back over the deep end." Haymitch chuckles. She has no idea how he's managed to stay on his feet this long without a drink.
"Are you sober?" she asks incredulously. She mostly needs a diversion from talking about Katniss' fragile mental state, because she's simply not up for discussing yet another one of their similarities.
"Are you?" Haymitch demands, belligerent as always. But the way his hands are shaking (hard enough to knock his next pastry to the ground) speaks volumes. She rolls her eyes.
"Kid, why don't you go drink it off with him? I can handle the bakery." Peeta stares at her.
"Do you usually just kick people out of their own homes when they start talking about subjects you want to avoid?" he asks.
Haymitch sniggers. "I bet ole Gorgeous has spent a few nights on the couch, hasn't he?" She glares at them, mostly because they're right. Gale has spent nights on the couch, but not for the reasons they're assuming. Her issues run far deeper than that.
She wonders if Peeta ever sleeps on the couch. Somehow, she doubts it.
"Gale never sleeps on the couch," she murmurs instead of telling them the truth. She isn't up for honesty right now. Her voice is low and seductive. "I'm far too insatiable for that," she basically purrs. They're both intrigued, somewhat, not because they're attracted to her, simply because they've probably both doubted any ability she has to seduce after watching her chop people into pieces in the Games. While they're distracted, she manages to get a good handful of flour without them noticing.
"Want to know what I do to him when he pisses me off?" she asks, eyebrow raised. Haymitch catches onto her trick a moment before the flour hits him, which means the bulk of it ends up on Peeta's face and hair. He's coughing out clouds of flour while Haymitch chortles with laughter.
"None of your damn business!" she snaps, throwing another handful and getting at least some of it on the sober moron. Both of her boys are laughing now, and with a nod from Haymitch, Peeta pins her down and they proceed to absolutely cover her face and hair. She's a good wrestler, but the boy's huge: he's probably got a hundred pounds on her.
"C'mon, kid," laughs Haymitch, pulling him off Johanna, who's spluttering and coughing through a mouthful of flour. "Let's get you a drink." They head out without so much as a goodbye to her, though, she figures as she gets up and tries to brush her face off, it's not like she's got anyone else to talk to once she's done. Shockingly, she hasn't made a lot of friends, what with her terrifying reputation and general hatred for all things related to 12.
"What?" she barks at the first customer who dares to openly stare at the flour that adorns her where Capitol women have make-up and hairspray.
"This is what a baker's supposed to look like."
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