#ic. c.

                 maybe she should be mad at herself for turning to the morphling again. not that she ever really stopped, but it was getting better. she was getting better. she was training, getting ready to fight the fucking capitol and finally get some blood on her hands that deserved to be there. but they knew her weakness and flooded the training area. so now she’s back in the hospital, doped up on her stolen extra feeds of painkiller.

                 waves of feeling like she’s sinking into the hospital bed she lays in roll over her and she keeps her eyes closed, just trying to focus on that. trying to not focus on the fact that soon enough everyone but her basically is going out and filming or fighting or doing fucking something for this war, unlike her. all she did was get caught and tortured. she’s not good for much else.

                 the feeling of someone else’s presence comes through, and opening her one eye slightly, she sees that it’s bellamy. shit. they’re both better at knowing when the other is in the room with them, the drugs messing with her ability to know he was there right away. she opens her eyes fully and tries to sit up slightly. she was better before at hiding her shit ; now she doesn’t care as much. but she doesn’t want bellamy to know just how fucked up she’s getting herself, how much she’s coping by not coping. her head swims with her attempt at fast movements and her weight on jelly arms. she doesn’t know if she’s happy to see him or mad that he’s probably trying to just mentor her again, but she can’t really feel any of that. it’s bellamy, and that’s all she can register for the moment.

                 ❛        hey -–– what brings you to my neck of the                  woods, huh ?          ❜

                 she realizes that she’s still breathing because she can feel how her lungs heave against the body that’s carrying her. they’ve never carried her before, and she wonders if this time they’ll just DUMP HER INTO THE WATER without paying attention. let her SINK LIKE A STONE and fucking die there without it being entertainment, because WHAT USE IS A SQUEAKY WHEEL that won’t squeak the secrets you want to hear ? she’s been RAVAGED. DESTROYED. RIPPED APART. and still won’t talk. they have to be annoyed enough by now to kill her, isn’t that right ?

                 WRONG. she tries to clear her mind up a bit more and realize the chaos that’s going on. she’s focused so long on her permanent water clogged lungs stay alive, deep-breath-in-deep-breath-out, that it takes a while for the chaos around her to come through. SHE ISN’T IN HER CELL ANYMORE. it’s not a peacekeeper that has her in their grips but someone else. opening her eyes, she closes them again soon after. it hurts to look around, and she’s so fucking tired. EVERYTHING HURTS, and she’s about to tell the motherfucker to put her down because the jostling is waking up enough pain in her that she feels like she’s about to black out from it. she must have a broken rib or something. moving, trying to get out of their grip, the person running just tells her stop moving. we’re getting all of you out of here. we’re going to thirteen.

                 eyes open again. she makes them open, despite the amount she just wants to fall into sleep. IT SEEMS LIKE A FUCKING LIE, it has to be, because there’s no fucking way she’s actually getting rescued from the underbelly of the capitol. there’s no way that the rebellion was able to get their rescue team in here for all of them, THE FORGOTTEN THINGS AND SPOKESPERSON, PEETA MELLARK. but sure enough there is a battle all around her. ONE SHE’S NOT FIGHTING. she’s aware enough to see a peacekeeper on the ground as the person holding her runs past, bleeding out upon his white uniform with a wound that would surely kill him. she knows a kill shot when she sees it. a laugh hacks up and she swallows it down because IT TASTES LIKE BLOOD.

                 the forgotten underneath the capitol, the tortured prisoners of war NOT DISPLAYED IN TECHNICOLOR for the world to see but still watched by security cameras in every hall and cell. still always watched. she knew that snow could see her always, watched THE FIRST TIME she broke a shiver from being cold, THE FIRST TIME she cried by herself alone in the cell. THE FIRST TIME she screamed because of what they did to her, the way she reacted to THE WATER, to THE ELECTRICITY. how they could create a mess of an animal instead of a human by just dumping a bucket of water upon her and how she couldn’t even get a curse out in their direction when they fucking laughed about it.

                 she wakes up before him, barely able to sleep any reasonable amount of hours during the night. even after she left her EMPTY, LARGE HOME & snuck into his bed. it’s not the first time. won’t be the last. but in the weeks since the VICTORY TOUR, she’s been more CONSTANT in it. laying inches away, on her side facing him, she watches as bellamy stirs & slowly starts to wake up. she’s staring at him as his eyes open, & SHE SAYS ALOUD for the first time, the words that have been BURNING HER TONGUE since she got home from the tour, since she was told -––––

                      send me “thoughts on” + a character name and my muse will give their opinions of that character.

                  ❛        she’s a child.        ❜

                  johanna’s DISTASTE of the girl is not something she tries to hide. it PISSES HER OFF how she was THE FINAL STRAW that tipped the world into REVOLUTION. her love for her sister, for that little girl rue, for peeta -– she thinks of her own anger & fire when she thinks of rebellion, not love. it leaves a sour taste in her mouth. maybe she’s being CHILDISH -– she is. maybe she’s JEALOUS -– kind of. maybe she’ll NEVER truly let herself know the girl, because she knows that women with walls up have them up for a reason. she doesn’t want hers knocked down, so why would she knock down anothers ?

                  but still, peeta asks this while they lay there in their cells. johanna can feel the blood pumping behind her eyes that form into a headache. is he just curious at what johanna thinks ? or is he slowly giving in, slowly losing his state of mind & katniss ?

                  ❛        -– so are you, i guess. i don’t think we’ll ever be                   friends,   &   i’m MORE THAN FINE with that.    if  the                   rebellion wins,     then at least we’ll have that.    i don’t                   need to think any more of her than that,   i  guess. just                   like anyone else.        ❜

              a figurehead is a figurehead,    & johanna has heard enough whispers from the peacekeepers & others in the cells. maybe they’ll be RESCUED at some point. maybe they’ll be KILLED before then. johanna doesn’t know. cares less & less every day.

                     send me “thoughts on” + a character name and my muse will give their opinions of that character.

                  ❛        who ?        ❜

                                    district twelve’s escort. capitol born and bred.

                  johanna’s eyes narrow. why would anyone ask her what she thinks about a capitol citizen, let alone one that allows themselves so close to THE HEART of the games ? she doesn’t care about any kind of fucking sympathy the woman might have or act like she has. she is still a fucking COG in the machine that GRINDS AGAINST HER FUCKING THROAT,      & any idea of REDEMPTION ARCS can kiss her ass. fingernails dig into her palms.

                  pry into the jo ( if u dare )

                                      deathless.

                  she never gave herself time to really sit down & think about it. it seemed like a FOOLISH thing to do. because dying isn’t something you can STOP. it comes for every person, starts to wait for you the moment you’re born. add to that living in a district & you’re double–fucked with it. johanna mason has cheated death a couple of times, really. should have been dead years ago. but instead she finds it now -– OR IT FINDS HER. in a stupid, foolish way. & she is, of course, at the end of it all, alone.

                 if she ever did take the time to think about how she would die, it would’ve never been like THIS. it’s almost pathetic, & she’s glad that she is all alone when it finally catches her in her house. seven is called something new, something LIBERATING & HOPEFUL but she doesn’t let it drop from her tongue. she has become some sort of mythological creature, she guesses, that the rest of the residents know of but never see. she lives in the house right near the end of the woods, & no one else really wants to build another house nearby. no, there are no other victors surviving that live in this town anymore. no, she hasn’t helped with rebuilding. no, she hasn’t gone to any of the memorial events. is she even still alive ?

                 at least that last question will get a new answer.

                 a cough racks through her body when she sees the other woman. CASHMERE IN THE FLESH, only not really. johanna has a fever because of the sickness that has taken over her body & it fills her with the taste of DEATH & ASH already. she knows that she is going to die. it snows outside still, a reminder of how & why her end came to her now. she can still feel it in her body, THE FREEZE & THE SNOW that lodged around her lungs. a foolish woman that was ill prepared for the weather she got stuck in in the woods. it’s happened before, sure, but it never hit like this. it never KILLED her. johanna figured that her body just took too much between the two games, the torture, the morphling–haze of war. she didn’t have it in her to fight it. she’s spent too long fighting. it felt good to know that finally, she can give in.

                 you will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear.

                 her telephone rings in the other room & she listens as annie’s voice fills her empty home, leaving a message. oh, johanna thinks distantly, not being able to comprehend the words but she has a feeling that when she’s finally discovered, it will be annie. she hopes that annie comes alone for that visit. doesn’t want annie’s son to have to see a dead body if he could be shielded from it. a luxury she never knew, but hopes at least annie’s son can have it.

                 maybe cashmere appears in front of her as a vessel of repressed guilt from johanna. she isn’t a woman that actively allows space for regrets or guilt, but that woman really didn’t have to die in the quell. THE CAREER GROUP -– if the allies could’ve just delayed a bit longer, they would’ve been a good asset for the rebellion. cashmere wouldn’t have gotten an axe to her chest & be nothing more after. johanna is grateful, at least, that she doesn’t imagine the woman with her bloody mortal wound in her.

                 it’s not the first time that MORPHLING has made her see something that wasn’t there. but it’s the first time since forever that she’s felt so cradled. it’s not a bad way to die, of a sickness caught within her woods & morphling eating away at your thoughts. not that she’s been fucked on morphling for these past couple of years since the war, but every now & then she dives into it. her supply was out after today. it’s a good thing she wouldn’t have to worry about that, anymore.

                  ❛        i don’t believe in ghosts,     so if you’re                   trying  to  CURSE  ME  to an eternity of winter                   or something, you’re wasting your breath.        ❜

               & then she laughs, because it’s funny. telling the figment of a girl she killed years ago that she’s wasting her breath. as if the figment had a breath to lose. but johanna did, & she coughs again in the laughter. her hand comes back with SPECKS OF BLOOD on it & her head throbs slowly as she closes her eyes.

                  ❛        can’t    outlive    the    odds    forever,                   can you ?        ❜

               calming sentence starters.

         her eyebrows furrow at him with his words,  & maybe that’s how it helps.          it makes her react,   &  she can’t remember the last time she was able to          have something sharp about her.  it’s groggy in her head,   loaded up          on morphling & the lack of fighting. she wants to spill the capitol’s blood.          wants to make them fucking bleed.                           but she also wants to          just stay in bed,  iv hooked up   &   pumping her with the  o b l i v i o n          that will rot her away.

         gale hawthorne is a LIAR.  she doesn’t know why he says this, why he’s          even visiting her & trying to -– comfort ?   maybe it’s some selfish reason.          it’d make more sense.  they  are  both  selfish  &  violent.    it’s why it          worked. it’s why it’s temporary.  it’s  why  at  the  end  of  war, they will          never see each other again. they both know it. it doesn’t matter. everyone          leaves   -–  it’s a comforting thought by now for johanna mason. you too,          she thinks. you especially.

         so instead she laughs.     her hand reaches up for the dial on the bag  &          she filters more of the liquid into her bloodstream faster.  a sigh of relief -–          she can’t keep the furrowed eyebrows up any longer. her expression goes          slack ; she feels it.  as if it falls off of her. a nice thought. gale hawthorne is          runny in her line of vision,   like the scrambled eggs   (   or what they called          scrambled eggs   )   were this morning for breakfast.  the white of the walls          &    the complexity of the machines all blend together within their lack of a          window in this fucking place. no matter. who  needs  the  forests  when          you  can  sink     deep,    deep,    deep    into the trenches of drugs ?          it almost feels like the sunshine hitting your back when you’re climbing a          tree.      &  johanna  doesn’t  have  to  worry  about  falling  to  the  ground.          (     because  really,   she  can’t  fall  further.     )

         she moves over in her bed & pats the spot next to her.

         ❛      sure. you want your own iv of this shit or                 something ?     i have an extra bag or so                 that i -– borrowed.       ❜