how dare you speak of grace (the hunger games | foxface/johanna mason)

[fiachairecht]

how dare you speak of grace. the hunger games - suzanne collins, foxface/johanna mason. marissa wins because she's already dead and the revolution still comes. 708w, rated t. for a prompt at a now-forgotten ficathon.

Marissa is not the first person to win the hunger games by wit and luck alone. Nor is she the first person the Capitol has hated for it — they want a show, they want excitement, they don't want her lithe form slipping through the trees, running and hiding and surviving while the other tributes kill each other for her). But there is a certain edge to their hate, a vitriol not shown to any of the other victors, because she was supposed to die, and the lovers from twelve were supposed to have a triumphant homecoming.

And if she's honest — she really shouldn't be, this deep in the Capitol, but old habits die hard and she's only being honest with herself, anyway — she wishes they'd had that homecoming, not her. The lovers had each other, and the girl had a sister, and Marissa?  She's an only child, orphaned since age four, and her district partner was a brute.

She gives her victory interview, because she must — rather, she shows up for her victory interview, hair dyed like a fox's tail and nails like claws, wreathed in the lights Katniss's old stylist wove into her red and black gown. She doesn't speak a word, just glares accusingly at the audience as they become more and more unsettled. They wanted a person they could hate, wanted her to trip and stumble over her words like a good, frightened little fox so they could reassure themselves that, yes, this one should have died instead. They've forgotten how cunning foxes are, that Marissa survived the arena by being silent. She can hold her tongue a little longer. Ceasar cracks a joke or two about it, but she marks the moment where her silence stops being a quirk and starts being a liability in his eyes, and he cuts the interview short.

Johanna Mason yanks her aside after, races with her through the bright cartoon city, presses her against the wall in a dark alley that most people have probably forgot exists, and Marissa thinks dimly that she would be scared if the arena hadn't stripped her of the ability to be anything but numb. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the older woman hisses without preamble.

What sort of game is she playing? 'Concern' doesn't match Marissa's image of Johanna. "What's the alternative, becoming a plaything to the rich and famous like you, or a falling down drunk like Haymitch?" She's not been in the Capitol long, but she knows how it works. "Pretty corpse doesn't sound like a bad bad way to end up, when you think of it like that."

Johanna just stares, and Marissa arches an eyebrow as she waits for a response. Finally: "You're assuming they'll let you go quietly. You're delusional."

She turns on her heel, ready, Marissa supposes, to sweep off to wherever victors go when they're not putting on a spectacle for Snow. Marissa grabs her am, black fox claws digging in hard enough to puncture the wispy fabric Johanna's draped in. "Well, you're assuming I'm going to let them decide when I go. Who's really the delusional one around here?"

Johanna laughs, then, and it's the first thing that's felt real to Marissa since her name was called at the Reaping. "Planning to start a revolution, dead girl?"

Marissa doesn't know what makes her kiss Johanna — the woman's whisky-rough laugh, the fact that she knows better than anyone else that Marissa's already dead even though she survived the arena — but she does, nails tangling in Johanna's hair and scraping down her neck and Johanna's tongue in her mouth and it's messy and harsh and the first and last good thing to ever happen to her.

"The revolution started when the lovers died," she says once she gets her breath back. "I'm just here to help."

Johanna stares again, and this time Marissa can tell that something's shifted in the other woman's evaluation of her. She meets the gaze unflinching, and when Johanna nods once, firmly, like she's come to a decision, Marissa dares to smile.

"You want some help with your little show, fox?" She asks.

Yes. "Will it hurt?"

Johanna hesitates, shakes her head. "No."

She's lying. Marissa doesn't give a damn.