fic: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most broken of us all? (THG)
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most broken of us all?: A THG fic
Fandom: The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Pairings: Gale/Johanna, past!Gale/Katniss, past!Finnick/Johanna
Rating: T
Wordcount: 1584 words
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games
Notes: Written for the Girl on Fire ficathon. Mockingjay spoilers. Prompt by nicalyse (THG - Gale/Johanna: we're not that different after all.
You must be so proud of her,” Caesar Flickerman says on the television screen (his hair and complexion are a myriad of reds and blues this year).
Finnick Odair turns to Annie Cresta, beaming and flashing his irresistible smile at the audience. “Of course I am. She was so brave.”
Flickerman says, “Of course she is. So, so brave.” And the audience claps politely, and nothing more is said because Annie Cresta the Victor has gone mad and all anyone feels is pity.
That’s what everyone sees in Finnick’s eyes as he looks at Annie: a desperate mixture of pride and pity (everything a mentor should feel).
But Johanna Mason knows him too well. He knows the look on his face, and she can see it in his eyes.
She sees love.
And fuck, does it kill her.
-
Katniss Everdeen’s lips are on Peeta Mellark’s again and the entirety of the Capitol is swooning.
Gale Hawthorne knows Katniss. They were best friends, hunting partners, root and stem, bow and arrow. He knows that before now, before today, she never felt anything for him but a sense of District partnership, a sense of obligation.
But this time, it’s different. He knows her too well. He knows the look on her face, and he can see it in her eyes.
He sees love.
And fuck, does it kill him.
-
Crack!
The whip strikes his back again, anguish shooting through his shackled body. Crimson rivers of blood snake down his naked olive skin, and he is humiliated –but he doesn’t scream. He can hear the animalistic noises escape his lips, his face twisted in agony, but he doesn’t scream.
Again and again, they whip him, the crack echoing throughout the square, but he doesn’t scream.
He won’t let them have that.
-
She is soaked yet again, an agonizing wave of electricity shot through her shackled and nearly-naked body. The pain that rips her apart is like no other, and she is humiliated –but she doesn’t scream. She is wet, cold and hairless, her veins begging for death, but she doesn’t scream.
Again and again, they send the shocks running through her body, the Capitol man’s yells echoing throughout the chamber, but she doesn’t scream.
She won’t let them have that.
-
Rory won’t speak to him. His bombs killed Prim, he and Katniss are no longer two halves of a whole being, and Rory has run away. The rest of his family moves back to 12.
Hazelle speaks to him, but not really. Not like before. She tries. She calls him sometimes, but Gale knows it’s because she feels that she has to. Because he’s her son, and that’s it.
He’s changed too much – they all have – and war just breaks things (not like a child dropping a ceramic mug, no – more like bits of a mountain breaking off over the years. It’s not anyone’s fault. It happens, and it’s inevitable, and no one ever sees it coming).
After sometime, he just doesn’t pick up the phone.
-
Her family won’t speak to her. Finnick won’t speak to her.
(That’s probably ‘cause they’re all dead.)
She doesn’t take cold showers and all the stupid head doctors are worried about her. They call and they call and they call, the strident shrieks of the phone filling her dead house in the Victor’s Village. All she wants to do is run outside and chop trees in the forests of Seven, but that’s before she realizes that she sees each and every one of her victims in the reflective blade of her axe.
So she answers the calls, just so she can yell at them and shut them up. Somehow - somehow - the bastards just don’t get the fucking message.
After sometime, she just doesn’t pick up the phone.
-
He takes a job in 2.
He knows better than anyone else than once a hunter has snared his prey, no one but the hunter is left to clean up the blood left behind.
Day after day, hour after hour, he maps reconstruction plans of the Nut and surrounding electricity lines and roads and neighborhoods.
Every morning, some task or the other awaits him, and he loses himself in it.
And every night, some girl or the other awaits him, naked and willing, and he loses himself in her.
(He tries not to think of her, but it’s always the Girl on Fire who explodes beneath his muscled body, and never anyone else.)
Weeks later, he is watching something stupid on TV and there’s a thunderous knock on his door. It bursts open before he even gets off his rugged couch and in steps Johanna Mason.
“Ugh, took forever to find this place,” she says, loudly dropping her bags on the floor. “Hope you don’t mind if I stay here.”
And Gale is thinking nothing but what the fuck? s Johanna Mason stomps through his tiny little apartment and throws herself on his pathetic excuse for a couch.
They fight about this a few minutes later, about her staying at his place. But she knows better than he does just how lonely he is.
To his surprise (or maybe not), he is relieved when Johanna unpacks her things and tosses her clothes into his closet.
The air smells like her, he notices. And he thinks he likes it.
-
She takes a job in 2.
She knows better than anyone else than when a lumberjack chops down a tree, he has to plant another one it its place.
Day after day, hour after hour, she works with floor plans and wood samples and earthquake-proof building foundations.
Every morning, some task or the other awaits her and she loses herself in it.
And every night, some guy or the other awaits her in the corner of the bar, and she loses herself with him.
(She tries not to think of him, but it’s always the District 4 ocean she feels as the wetness spreads all over her thighs.)
She and Gale fight, weeks later. They don’t know how it started but it’s about Finnick, and it’s about Prim (and therefore Katniss).
“This s why no one sticks around for you!” he yells, pained and angry. “Everyone fucking leaves you, and they’ll keep on leaving you, just like Finnick –”
Her eyes flash at that, and it’s like she’s back in the arena for the very first time.
“And no one’s lef you? No one’s left you because you blew up their fucking sister?!”
It’s the first time they’ve mentioned these people to each other, and the first time, it’s always a bit too much to handle.
He storms out of the apartment, incensed, leaving her exhausted and burnt out. She doesn’t know if she regrets what she’s said. Johanna Mason has improved a little since the war, but not by much.
To her surprise (or maybe not), she is relieved when he returns home, at three-thirty in the morning.
The air smells like him, she notices, and she thinks she likes it
-
Gale Hawthorne sleeps with lots of girls. It’s fast and hard and sweaty and all for the purpose of forgetting. It does the job, for a few seconds, before the fire comes back to haunt him.
(It’s funny. He fell in love with the Girl on Fire, and he sent her sister up in flames.)
-
Johanna Mason sleeps with a lot of guys (and girls). It’s fast and hard and sweaty and she too, simply wants to forget. It works, for a few seconds, before the water comes back to haunt her.
(It’s funny. She fell in love with the Boy from the Ocean, and it is the water that soaks her again and again in her nightmares.)
-
It’s a hot summer night when he first kisses her. They’re in the balcony and the air is laced with the scents of cheap beer and poorly cooked rabbit.
And now they’re in his bed and everything smells like sweat and pine trees and oranges.
It smells like them, and they think they like it.
-
Months later, Johanna comes home from the doctor’s, the nausea threatening to consume her.
She tells him.
He’s speechless.
They don’t talk that night. And they don’t fuck either.
But in the morning, he finds her in the balcony, her nails digging into her palms in frustration, drawing blood. He gathers her in his arms and kisses her and tells her he’s not going anywhere. He is not leaving her and he is not leaving his child.
“Fuck this, Hawthorne. We’re too different for this to work out,” she half-heartedly snaps back, vicious tone of voice not quite hiding all the vulnerability that lies in it
(She knows she’s lying, and he knows it too.)
“We’re not really that different after all, Jo,” is all he says. He brings a washcloth, damp with water, and cleans up the crimson on her palm she drew herself.
(Yes, it’s water, and it’s cold, but she does not run this time.)
THE END