Re: Fill: Hope and All That (past Finnick/Johanna)millariAugust 1 2013, 18:45:10 UTC
Part 2
“Fucking Odair,” is all she says in return. She accompanies it with a vicious grin, like she's just dealt him one of her typically tasteless, blunt jabs to his ego. But his answer hurts. Because she sure as fuck already can't remember why she agreed to do this, but she knows it wasn't about hope. Hope isn't something Johanna Mason gets to have. Hope is for those fucking Twelve children in the arena, too young to know better, for that pretentious prick Plutarch Heavensbee, who if all this fails, will probably just go back to his cover as an assistant Gamesmaker and live out a quiet, comfortable life, until the next chance arises, while she'll go back to sucking off Claudius Templesmith and his buddies until she's too old and used-up to be sold - that is, if she isn't killed, or carted off to some top-secret personal torture chamber of President Snow, or even just turned into an Avox, which come to think of it, would hardly be any fucking different than her life now; she might even welcome the lack of whoring.
Even Finnick Odair gets to have hope, because he's got fucking Annie Cresta, and he fucking loves her so much he's willing to one day sacrifice his very life to maybe give her a safe future. Hope is for people who can imagine a future.
Johanna can only imagine a series of consecutive presents.
So when Heavensbee talks about District 13 saving Panem, she sees how Finn leaps at the chance, without even thinking it through.
Maybe Johanna just leaps at the chance for revenge.
But she lets Finn put his arm around her in comfort anyway. He's good at that, even if Johanna thinks of sex with him every single fucking time he does it. These days - the memory of those two whole years where they saw each other during the Games and sat across from each other kissing and getting each other off, because neither of them could stand having a person on top of them without the triggers kicking in - the memory comes and goes mercifully quickly now, in a flash of hurt scabbed over into dullness, even though she had always been the one who had insisted what they had was nothing but convenient.
She watches Heavensbee trot into the room, talking at them even before he closes the distance between them. He's got that confident arrogance she had until recently thought only Capitolites possessed. He looks so authentically Capitol, in his long, flowing turquoise suit coat and the white ruffled collar, and the streaks of green and blue in what surely is a subtle wig. Finnick sits up and listens attentively to the man, but he doesn't take his arm away from around Jo's shoulder, and she takes her small enjoyment of that for what it is. It's not like she's bound to ever get anything better, especially now that the sleeping titans are about to awaken.
East and West are about to rise up, she thinks, each of them armed with nuclear weapons. If this goes anywhere real, it will probably be like the arena - a grand fight to the fucking death with one victor left. But who the hell knows what will be left standing for the young lovers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, when all of this over?
It's a good thing that Johanna doesn't believe in hope.
Thank you! I've never written either of these characters before, and I don't know if I have them much in character even, but the prompt got me thinking of what a raw deal Johanna got in the rebellion, and then this scene just popped in my head, bitterness and substantial use of swearing included. Glad you enjoyed it. :)
Thank you! Glad the bitterness wasn't too much, because looking back on it, it was quite a whole lot of bitterness.
Thank you too for mentioning that line in particularly. It gave me shivers too when I first looked at it on the screen. I love when that happens, and it's even cooler to have moments like that acknowledged. :)
Someone else mentioned this bit but it's so good I think it's worth repeating: Hope is for people who can imagine a future. Johanna can only imagine a series of consecutive presents.
That's Johanna: her hopelessness, her bitterness, her anger.
This is lovely. I have a secret love of all things Jo/Finn, because I can't believe she didn't harbor feelings for him and that he, on some level, didn't feel connected to her. Love this!
“Fucking Odair,” is all she says in return. She accompanies it with a vicious grin, like she's just dealt him one of her typically tasteless, blunt jabs to his ego. But his answer hurts. Because she sure as fuck already can't remember why she agreed to do this, but she knows it wasn't about hope. Hope isn't something Johanna Mason gets to have. Hope is for those fucking Twelve children in the arena, too young to know better, for that pretentious prick Plutarch Heavensbee, who if all this fails, will probably just go back to his cover as an assistant Gamesmaker and live out a quiet, comfortable life, until the next chance arises, while she'll go back to sucking off Claudius Templesmith and his buddies until she's too old and used-up to be sold - that is, if she isn't killed, or carted off to some top-secret personal torture chamber of President Snow, or even just turned into an Avox, which come to think of it, would hardly be any fucking different than her life now; she might even welcome the lack of whoring.
Even Finnick Odair gets to have hope, because he's got fucking Annie Cresta, and he fucking loves her so much he's willing to one day sacrifice his very life to maybe give her a safe future. Hope is for people who can imagine a future.
Johanna can only imagine a series of consecutive presents.
So when Heavensbee talks about District 13 saving Panem, she sees how Finn leaps at the chance, without even thinking it through.
Maybe Johanna just leaps at the chance for revenge.
But she lets Finn put his arm around her in comfort anyway. He's good at that, even if Johanna thinks of sex with him every single fucking time he does it. These days - the memory of those two whole years where they saw each other during the Games and sat across from each other kissing and getting each other off, because neither of them could stand having a person on top of them without the triggers kicking in - the memory comes and goes mercifully quickly now, in a flash of hurt scabbed over into dullness, even though she had always been the one who had insisted what they had was nothing but convenient.
She watches Heavensbee trot into the room, talking at them even before he closes the distance between them. He's got that confident arrogance she had until recently thought only Capitolites possessed. He looks so authentically Capitol, in his long, flowing turquoise suit coat and the white ruffled collar, and the streaks of green and blue in what surely is a subtle wig. Finnick sits up and listens attentively to the man, but he doesn't take his arm away from around Jo's shoulder, and she takes her small enjoyment of that for what it is. It's not like she's bound to ever get anything better, especially now that the sleeping titans are about to awaken.
East and West are about to rise up, she thinks, each of them armed with nuclear weapons. If this goes anywhere real, it will probably be like the arena - a grand fight to the fucking death with one victor left. But who the hell knows what will be left standing for the young lovers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, when all of this over?
It's a good thing that Johanna doesn't believe in hope.
Reply
I loved that though and I kind of want fic for ALL the victors when they joined because ahhhhhhhhhhh
yeeeeah Johanna is seriously bitter and this piece reeks with it, wah. I loved all of this.
Reply
Reply
... Hope is for people who can imagine a future.
Johanna can only imagine a series of consecutive presents.
That just says so much about Johanna, right there, in two little lines. *shivers*
Reply
Thank you too for mentioning that line in particularly. It gave me shivers too when I first looked at it on the screen. I love when that happens, and it's even cooler to have moments like that acknowledged. :)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
By which I mean, very good.
(It's a get emotional over District 7 kind of day!)
Reply
Reply
That's Johanna: her hopelessness, her bitterness, her anger.
Reply
Thanks for reading.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment