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She'd known she was a dead woman walking when they announced the Quell. Current living victors? That came down to her and the drunk next door, and as soon as she'd stopped screaming she went over to find him.
He was drinking, which didn't surprise her, but he was also crying, which did. She paused in the doorway and waited for him to wipe his face and paste a scowl on before coming in. And then they were looking at each other, two ghosts bound together and all Katniss could do was laugh.
"This isn’t funny." He said, but that just made her laugh harder and soon he was chuckling along with her, two crazy victors staring death in the face and laughing at it.
She stayed there all night, watching the Games coverage from the Capitol, where they were excited to see their favorites pitted against each other. Flickerman was already running the odds of different victors and their chances, and she noticed she netted a respectable 7-1 odds of taking the whole thing. Haymitch only had 17-1, but she had a feeling he wasn't as badly off as he let on.
"Don’t even think about it." Haymitch said from next to her, the first words he'd said in a few hours. She looked at him, surprised.
"I know you, sweetheart. And I'm telling you now, you better not try anything foolish on my account."
"Like you've never done the same?" She countered, not even bothering to deny it.
"I'm your mentor. That's my job, even though you like running up and down the country causing incidents left and right." That was a little unfair; her Victory Tour was horrible but fine, politically speaking, and that thing in Four wasn't her fault.
"That thing in Four wasn't my fault-" she started, but Haymitch waved her protestations off. It wasn’t the first time they’d had that conversation, so fair enough.
"Point is, I'm not coming out of that arena, sweetheart. Better get used to the idea." And something hard and nasty clenched in her chest at the thought of it, a life of just her in Victor’s Village, and endless years of mentoring 12’s tributes until twenty-five years down the line when she'd finally get lucky. And given the choices, well. She knew which she’d rather pick.
"Neither am I."
It wasn’t the last conversation they had about it, and by conversation she really meant argument, but they got on the same page in the end, when she pinned him to the wall and told him she had no interest in being a twice-crowned victor. She'd seen what life was like for the Capitol’s favorites, and she had no plans to be the next Finnick Odair. He flinched at that, but stopped fighting her. He didn't want that for her, either, but the survival instinct was a hard thing to override, especially after so many years of relying on it.
"You'll put on a show," he told her, over her protests. "If they think you're commiting suicide by arena, they'll come down on your family." And his voice had the bitter ring of truth to it, so she agreed: she'd try.
"That's all I ever wanted from you, sweetheart," he told her tiredly before leaving to wipe the memory of the conversation from his brain.
"I don't want any allies," she said one evening as they ate soup her mother sent over and bread from the Mellark bakery. It tasted like dirt in her mouth, but she owed them at least her business, if she couldn't save their son. Who knew duty could taste so much like failure? He paused, as if about to say something about her chances for long term survival in the arena, then remembered and closed his mouth. "Fine."
"That means you, too." And he did say something at that, told her she's an idiot, lacking the sense given a goose, and finally she said she's not going to be the one to kill her mentor and she can't watch him die, either. He was still furious, and she ended up storming out of his house as if it was a year ago and nothing had changed. He was at her house the next day, tired and rumpled.
"Come with me." And they walked and finally ended up at the fence. She looked at him and he gestured at her to go past it.
"Ladies first." And she made sure to trip him just for that, but he just cuffed her on the head and it's more affectionate than anything else.
"Where are we going?" She asked and he shrugged.
"Nowhere, really." She eyed him, leisurely strolls to nowhere in particular not really his thing.
"Then what're we doing out here? If you want to get whipped so badly, I'm sure the Peacekeepers will oblige." He snorted, unimpressed with her as always.
"We're not going anywhere, that's not the point." And she'd ask again, but she gets it, this time.
"I've seen enough of the woods, old man." Is all she said. "But you let me know when you're done feeling sorry for yourself." He didn’t say anything and neither did she, and soon they slipped back home.
The reaping was, predictably, awful. But she had nothing to lose anymore, so she cut Effie off and said, "I volunteer as tribute. Again." And Haymitch laughed at her and put an arm around Effie, who was trembling from more than anger at the breach in protocol.
"I'm with the girl on fire." He said, her old nickname sounding like an inside joke for only the two of them. She was a little surprised that the district saluted them, again. If anything she'd think they'd be miffed that both of them were leaving 12 to fend for itself until the next time they scraped up a victor. Still, it was nice to not leave her home a traitor, so she gripped Haymitch's hand and stood proud and tall for the cameras.
That night, they watched the other reapings. It's really, really pointless, but they'd driven Effie to the point of tears already, and neither she nor Haymitch wanted to push her to a breakdown. At least, not on the first night. And anyways, it was nice to sit with Cinna and have him curl an arm around her comfortingly. His eyes were sad but he didn’t say anything, didn't make it her problem, just stroked her hair and spoke up occasionally to offer an insight about some tribute or the other. In the end, only a few interested her. The siblings from One. Brutus and Enobaria from Two. Two old victors from Four, both of them volunteers, one for Annie Cresta and the other for Finnick Odair. Johanna Mason from Seven, who was also the only female victor from her district. She didn't wait to get drawn, either, just marched up to the reaping ball and pulled her own name.
“I should’ve thought of that,” was all she said.
The bitch of it, she thinks, was that Peeta had it right all along. He didn't want to be toyed with, so he didn’t play to win. She'd decided that she could live with being jerked around a little if she got to go home. Now, it looked like all her stint in the arena had earned her was a year of borrowed time, the whole thing a colossal waste of time and energy.
"I'd have died last year if I'd known it'd be like this," she told Haymitch at breakfast. "Saved us all some time." And it's not a joke but it's not-not one, but he just looked pissed.
"After all that work I put in, keeping you alive? If you'd died in there, I'd have come after you and killed you myself." It's as close to "I love you" as the two of them are ever going to get. Judging by the set of Haymitch's shoulders, he knew it, too. Effie tutted at them for being so cold, but he just met her gaze and rolled his eyes.
She wasn’t trying to make friends, and neither was anyone else, really. Which is why she was surprised, but not startled, when Finnick Odair reached around her to finish a knot she'd been struggling with.
"Should you even be in here?" She asked, because they'd never met but apparently they were foregoing pleasantries.
"Probably not," he admitted, "But you and I both know life's short. Might as well enjoy it while we can." It was a ballsy thing to say to a tribute, and he knew it.
"Shorter for some of us than others." She said, dryly. He smiled and his eyes crinkled up in a way that didn't seem entirely fake.
"It's a pity, you know, sending you back in so soon. Everyone's been waiting to get their hands on you." Coming from Finnick, that was a warning. Haymitch’d given her “The Talk” on her Victory Tour, and Finnick’s presence at their stop in 4 on the arms of the mayor had served as an object lesson.
"I’m sure they did. Still, everyone gets lucky now and again." It was carefully ambiguous, and she could be preemptively claiming victory for the second year in a row, or celebrating her near-miss of the Capitol’s demands. The implications weren’t lost on him, and he leaned in.
"Oh, I like you." She flushed embarrassingly, but pushed on.
"You should tell Haymitch that. He thinks anyone who can find it in themselves to like me deserves a medal or a trip to the psych ward." She said. Finnick laughed for real that time.
"Well, don't take it personally. He’s not known for his taste.” His voice went low, as if he was about to tell her a secret. “You know, I hit on him once, and he turned me down.”
“Sounds like good taste to me.” She said, and he rolled his eyes.
“You’re both hopeless.”
A trainer started looking at them strangely, and clearly their time was up. He noticed it, too, and made to leave.
"It was a pleasure, Katniss. Good luck in there." He winked at her and she watched him go, then turned back to the knots.
Who knew, a noose might come in handy in there.
The Games sucked. She expected that, but it bore repeating: the Games sucked. Still, though, her strategy of running the fuck away and talking to nobody had been working pretty well. She hadn't seen Haymitch since the gong went off, and she hoped to keep it that way. Every cannon worried her, but it wasn’t until the parade of the fallen the fourth night that she saw what she'd been dreading. She froze, knowing the cameras were trained on her, hungry for her reaction. She couldn’t hide a sob, but she schooled her expression into one of quiet grief, and not of complete and total devastation.
After she calmed down, she did some quick math. The only ones left were her, the Careers, and Johanna. The arena had burned through them all pretty quickly, and she'd been hanging back from the action as much as possible, but with that many infirm tributes and this fucked of an arena, she wasn’t surprised the whole thing was almost over in less than a week.
Cashmere and Gloss found her early the next morning, and she was ready for it, fully expected it to be her final showdown. But they were woozy and injured from some kind of poison, and there was no way to lose to them without it looking suspicious. So she shot them, one after the other, and dragged their bodies next to each other. She was a killer, but she wasn’t heartless, and if anyone understood what it was like to be willing to die for a sibling, it was her. She said as much to their corpses as she pulled the arrows out of them and closed their eyes. Between this and the thing with Rue she was probably getting a weird reputation for her fixation on dead tributes.
When it was over, she moved on. Climbed down the jungle and near the treeline, but didn't end up finding much of a fight over the course of the day. That night, she found out that Brutus and Johanna got themselves killed, and fuck, now she was in the final two and going to have to work for it. She didn't remember survival being this fucking easy last time around and the irony’s enough to make her choke.
And then it was her and Enobaria staring at each other. Enobaria was stock-still, and watched her to see what came next, if she’d make a move or stay rooted. It was strange for her to not take advantage of Katniss' obvious unwillingness to strike first, but Enobaria’d lost friends to this arena too, and maybe not diving into the murder was the only way she could make a statement about it.
"It's hot," she said, and it was a nonsensical thing to say but hearing her voice seemed to snap Enobaria out of her reverie.
"Yeah," she said, "it is." Her voice was a million years old and they both moved closer and by silent agreement sat down on the sand. The Gamemakers were probably shitting bricks, but she was a dead woman walking, she was entitled to have this one last conversation with an almost-friend at the end of the world.
"I killed your mentor," Enobaria said, and it wasn’t gleeful or mocking, just matter-of-fact and almost an apology if you knew how to look. Katniss did. Still, her eyes shuttered as she imagined it, missed Haymitch with an ache so deep it felt like a wound.
"Was it quick?" She asked, in a voice that wasn’t familiar. Enobaria said, quietly, "Yeah,” and that was good enough for her.
"Appreciate it." Was all she could think to say, and Enobaria laughed, broken and almost a sob.
“No problem.” It’s the little things, she thought, that can keep you going. The promise of a painless death. Two enemies on a beach. The relative safety of the ocean in the hours leading up to ten o’clock.
"I’m sorry about Brutus." she said, because apparently they were confessing to each other, one last heart to heart. Enobaria shrugged but it didn't mask her pain, not really.
"He died fighting. It's what he would've wanted."
"It's what he got, regardless." Enobaria winced but didn’t disagree.
The sand was warm underneath her ripped jumpsuit and there was dried blood from the fight with Cashmere caked underneath her fingernails and all Katniss wanted was to feel a little bit alive before the spell holding them broke and they had to kill each other (and they did have to kill each other. There was no other way out, and the Gamemakers would blow up the arena with both of them inside it before letting them think they'd actually won anything, or done anything other than survive.) So she stopped thinking, stroked Enobaria's cheek and when she turned to look, kissed her, eyes surprised and blown wide. And Haymitch's words echoed in her mind, telling her to put on a show.
It was nice, as far as kisses made for the screen went. The sharp nip of Enobaria's teeth grounded her even as the addictive slide of their lips overwhelmed all other sensations. Enobaria pulled back, lips slick and a teasing smile on her face, surprised but not displeased.
"You got an arena fetish, or something?" And what did it say about her that she'd only ever kissed someone when the country was watching and she had something to prove?
"Got a thing for fangs," she said sardonically, and Enobaria laughed and as the sun glinted off her teeth Katniss pulled her back in. Whispered in the micrometer between their lips,
"Do it," and she knew Enobaria'd heard her by the way she stiffened underneath her before kissing her even more fiercely. She let herself get lost to it, the plush silky feeling of her lips and the fingers sliding through her hair and tugging. Their eyes were both wide open, and she knew the end was near when Enobaria's hardened slightly, and she closed her own, and when the knife found its home between her ribs she almost thinks she could hear a sob, not quite muffled by a cannon.