alsohawkeye | ataraxion inbox

[ It's not the screaming that wakes her. Kate's always been a light sleeper, one of many reasons they've done this only a handful of times over the last several months. But it's not the noise on its own; that slots into her own dream, out the mouth of a blonde teen Kate can never quite reach no matter how hard she runs. A blast of yellow-white fire throws her aside again and again and Kate reaches and Cassie screams-- but Cassie never screamed. No one screamed, there was just the crackle of power and she hit the ground, so softly they never dreamed she was dead. It hits her suddenly, the wrongness of it, and then she's awake.

She's awake and someone is screaming and it isn't her but it's real, she touches the wall of the cabin and presses a hand over her ear and there's cool metal and the sound gets quieter. It's real, and it's Johanna. That takes another few seconds to process, that it's Johanna, who is here, in her bed. Obviously. ]

Johanna. Johanna. Wake up. [ Kate's first attempt at her name comes out as a sleepy croak and she coughs and tries again, pushing up to sit. She tries not to touch her but the beds are narrow and Johanna's no more considerate asleep than awake, so some bumping is inevitable. ] It's Kate, Johanna--

[Johanna, and she will do anything to get free, she will chew her own fucking arm off if it means getting free, they won't fix her this time but it won't matter, there's no one that's going to save her. Johanna Mason of District 7, and Victor of the 71st Hunger Games!, and the sizzle and hum fades into the applause, thunderous--the lights are white bright and hot and she's crying, her teeth grinding together, savage, Johanna--

When she feels the brush at her arm she thinks wire, she thinks more, another wire and another lance of electricity. No, it's wordless, but it's in her shriek, and she surges against the bonds that hold her back.

She should know that it's a dream when her arm breaks free. Tearing backwards out of sleep, jerked half away, still caught in the terror of the nightmare--and when she raises her arm to get away from the wire it comes up, and she doesn't register that the brushed touch was Kate's hand, arm, bumped against her, she registers only escape, she will kill them with her bare hands, one handed, she has to. Blind with terror, still half in her dream, she strikes out, hard--]

[ Kate's duck is a little off, a little slow, and Johanna catches her right in the face, hard enough to prompt a grunt of pain and a whined curse. Kate jerks away and ducks more fully, both hands over her eyes, fingers cool against the skin but not enough to fend off the swelling she can already guess is coming. She mumbles another fuck under her breath and holds a hand out in guard, sitting up only warily, head drawn back out of immediate range. She's on the wall-side, and climbing out around her doesn't seem like any safer an option. ]

Johanna, wake up. You're on the ship. You're having a nightmare. I know they suck but if you try to punch me again I'm still shoving you out of bed. [ because ow that really hurt ]

[Her hand hurts too ok

And the nightmare is fast fading now anyways, dissolving--Kate's voice, Kate's bed, the cold chill of space and the bed and blankets still warm from two bodies. Wild-eyed, she stares--at Kate, at the walls, at the ceiling--her eyes flicking over every object in quick succession, and then back to Kate again, starting over. The force of her breath heaves at her chest, shudders through her nose, in, and then out through her clenched teeth.

The ship, she tells herself. The ship. Fucking stop. Her face is wet, but the wet--when she raises her shaking fingers to her cheeks--the wet is from her tears. Fuck, she thinks, and--]

Fuck-- [She says it aloud, her voice too small and breathless; it catches on the first letter, shaky--] F-Fuck, God--

[But hey even if she's still staring around the room like a crazy person, with her fingers pressed against her cheeks, dragging her eyes down a little--she hasn't hit Kate again. (Yet.)]

[ She's not going to get a black hand that's not even a thing

Kate tries lowering her hand from her face, but it hurts to blink, an ache already settling in along the bone, and she covers it back up, fingers pressed into her forehead. She wishes she had something to prop her elbow on so she could just lean. ]

Breathe. In two three four, out two three four five six, if you count it'll slow it down to normal just try it. [ The last bit might get droned a little, tired again as the immediate rush of adrenaline fades and fully anticipating her attempt to help getting her smacked in one way or another. ]

[look hands can bruise too]

Sh--

[Shut up, is what she intended, but the word gets choked off, as her breath heaves again. Hysteria is fading, quickly, bleeding out of her and leaving every muscle feeling wrung-out and limp Fuck, she thinks again, and the start of her glare gets cut off as she shuts her eyes, shoves her fingers up to press her fingertips against her eyelids, stars bursting across her vision.

And she tries it, what Kate suggested. She breathes in; it shakes; she counts. Two, three, fucking God fucking-- three, four, five, six-- Shoulders hunched, she tries to make her knees bend too, bring them up to her chest, but it's like she doesn't have any control over them.]

I can't-- oh, fuck--

[More miserable than angry. She presses her fingertips, hard, against her eyes, makes the stars burst again. If her legs don't work, she can't run. She wants to leave, to jump out of the bed and take off. She wants to stay where she is, close--not to Kate, but to Kate, everything is so fucking tangled-- In, two, three, four; she tries to fix her attention there. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck.]

You can. Just breathe.

[ Kate rakes her hand back through her hair and tries to leave her eye alone, just touching gingerly at the edges of the bruise before knitting her fingers together in her lap. She makes no move to touch Johanna, no hand set on back or shoulder, as much as she'd sort of like to. But when she folds her legs up her knee rests against Johanna's calf through the blankets, a buffered but steady presence.

That's really all she does, not counting aloud again unless it seems like Johanna definitely needs it, staying silent to try to let her get herself together without making it more embarrassing. ]

[Bizarrely, it's that quiet assertion that is quickest to clear Johanna's head. It isn't that she can't do it, she can do anything, and her eyes snap open so she can turn a glare on at Kate--eyes a little too wide but mouth dead set in a scowl. It lacks a little of her usual heat, tear-stained and pale under her flushed cheeks--but it's a start, anyways.

Hate is something grounding, something she can hold to. She can, and she'll prove it, and she sucks in another great gulp of air, too much--but she lets it out, steady, steadier than she was before--and the next is better, and the next is better still. Kate's knee is warm and solid and real, not affectionate or cloying but there, just there, enough. Johanna shuts her eyes again, and this breath is even steadier--and then she sags back, a melt back against the pillow and mattress, her eyes still wide open and staring up at the ceiling.

There, she thinks, with finality. Her heart is still beating hard in her chest, and she wills it to stop. There. Done. Her gaze flicks over to Kate, one quick glance, and then away, like she's afraid of what she might see. Except she's never afraid. She burned off all of her fear. That has to be true.]

[ There are plenty of things in Kate's face for Johanna to latch onto and twist and hate if she'd like to; concern, sympathy, but mostly understanding. There's a knowing cast to her expression, a note of recognition that lessens the concern, tempers the sympathy before it can become pity. If she stared at the tears (she did, just a little; it's such a strange sight) it was when Johanna wasn't looking.

She still doesn't say anything right away, as she hasn't while Johanna's caught her breath and calmed down. She lets her flop back down and breathe some more before she joins her, easing down onto her back. She should probably continue to not say anything. She knows that, she knows that trying to talk about it is an excellent way to earn Johanna's scorn or convince her to flee. But somehow she still sort of feels obligated to try. Who else is ever going to? ]

What're yours about?

[Purposefully, she does not look at Kate, in case she does see something worth hating. It's not worth it, not right now. Give her ten minutes, and she'll be snarling and in full denial, but right now, laying on her back, as wrung out as an old flannel face cloth--]

Everything. [It comes out raspy. She coughs, without so much as lifting a hand to cover her mouth. And she laughs after, just as dry.] But it always ends the same.

[And it always will, she thinks, and there are whole years attached to that always, year after year after year. She keeps her eyes shut. The inside of her eyes looks black and velvety. It's almost calming.]

They were torturing me, before I came here. Me and Peeta. Enobaria. Annie Cresta.

[The names feel thick on her tongue. Kate is still quite close to her, close enough that she can hear her breathing. This is very real.]

Shit, [ says Kate. It's not blurted out, for once, but something she chooses, the only word she can find that seems suitable after some consideration. Surprise, horror, sympathy, guilt at having ever compared the things she's gone through to Johanna's, a desire to find some acceptable middle ground between taking it lightly and showing the sort of concern it really merits-- it holds a lot, that little word. It's all she says for a minute.

She's still at Johanna's side, not quite touching though the bed's too narrow to put more than a few inches between them at shoulders and hips even thin as they are. Kate's breathing stays steady, not as quiet as the room, just the faint constant hum of distant engines and closer air vents. ]

Water?

[Her smile jumps up, quick and sharp, but her eyes stay shut.]

And electricity.

[It's easier to say it in the dark. Sweat makes her skin feel chilled. She huffs another laugh before she swallows again, and doesn't move any more than that. The slackness of her face, and her limbs, makes her almost look as if she's asleep, or getting back toward sleep.

If she rolled on her side, just a little, she would be that much closer to Kate. She doesn't move.]

Good guess.

Shit. [ It doesn't seem to have been the wrong thing to say the first time and doesn't feel any less appropriate the second. Kate says it a little bit slower, a shade more seriously.

And she thinks seriously about rolling over, to look at Johanna, maybe hug her. She wishes Johanna were even the tiniest bit the sort of person that would work with. It's a selfish wish, since it'd make this easier on Kate, make her feel less completely useless and floundering in the face of it.

Instead she says, ] Attacking a bathtub faucet wasn't exactly subtle. [ And tips her head to flash just the briefest hint of her kindest teasing smile before she sets her head back down. ]

There used to be this one dream I had over and over. So every night before I went to sleep I'd make myself play it out in my head start to finish, but I'd change something so in my version I broke his nose and ran. Every night I'd picture it like that instead until finally I started dreaming it that way. Might be worth a try. Give yourself an axe.

[She gives Kate half a glance, and half a smile--grim and quiet and darkly amused. If there's one thing Johanna isn't, it's subtle, and that carries over across the board.

She rolls her head back, turns her face up toward the ceiling, her eyes so narrow they're nearly closed. And she doesn't say anything, only listens for the moment. What's the use in explaining how completely she had been captured by the Capitol? How she can't even imagine a way that she would get free--by rescue, or her own hand. It's all so fucking impossible.

Instead, after a moment of heavy silence:]

What's yours.

[ Kate had sort of just assumed there wouldn't be follow-up; usually Johanna doesn't care enough about her life to ask questions.

She lies there for a minute and debates her answer, tests out words on her tongue until she finds some her brain and whatever hold the ship has on it will allow. It doesn't seem fair to lie, even if she could. Barely fair to dodge, and she has limited options for how to do that. But telling isn't really an equal trade; Johanna's only telling her while she's telling...Johanna. ]

All sorts of things, lately. This ship is a great place to acquire new nightmares. I still wake up choking thinking my own hands are around my throat. [ She rolls her eyes at herself as soon as she's said it. It's true and it's been genuinely disturbing but right now it's so transparently an attempt to avoid telling her the actual answer to her question that it's even worse than just refusing. She sighs, and lifts a hand to scratch at her forehead. Whatever. Who cares. This shouldn't still be this hard anyway, right? ]

When I was fourteen I was attacked and raped, it was about that. [ And then she begins a countdown to Johanna earning a matching black eye. ]

[The long silence means that she's probably going to lie. That's okay: Johanna would have lied too, if she'd been able to. She had just felt so tired. She still feels tired. Another ten minutes, maybe, and she'll be back out of it.

The hand thing that Kate says, that's real. But it's not as real as the second part. Just from the way that Kate says it, she knows that it's true.

Johanna doesn't say anything. She doesn't roll onto her side, move closer to Kate, put an arm around her. She doesn't acknowledge it for a few moments, nearly a full minute. Just the two of them, in the dark of the room. Dark is the closest that the ship can get to natural light.

Blind, with her eyes still closed, she lays her hand between them--not really between, more on their thighs, where their legs are pressed together. Palm up, fingers uncurled. It's not the same as taking Kate's hand, but it's there.]

[ Kate's steeled herself for Johanna's response enough not to flinch at the touch, but this wasn't at all what she'd anticipated, even further from what she'd feared.

She doesn't move right away, waiting a moment the way Johanna did. Not quite as long, but she wouldn't want to seem too eager. (That isn't all it is, this isn't a time or an offering that deserves that level of skeptical gamesmanship, but it crosses her mind.) It's such an unexpected gesture, beyond rare, that she wants to give it the weight it deserves even if it's something they're probably never going to acknowledge happening now or later.

So it's a heartbeat or two of stillness, and then Kate sets her palm atop Johanna's and curls her fingers between hers, grip firm. ]

[She curls her fingers up in response, pressing their palms together--still without acknowledging any of it, or saying anything to Kate. Because there's no point in saying sorry, or asking about it, or anything. It happened. That's it. She gets it.

She settles back against the pillow, her eyes still closed, fully content to leave their conversation right there. It will take a long time for sleep to come back to her--if it ever does, tonight. But she also doesn't want to talk anymore.]

[ They've said everything they need to say, and Kate's likewise content to leave it at that, even though it means lying in silence staring at the ceiling or the inside of her own head for the next few hours. That's what she often does anyway, so this is an improvement.

She's not going to try to force it, but she'll keep hold of Johanna's hand as long as it's offered, even when she eventually dozes off an hour or two before 'morning'. ]

[Johanna doesn't sleep. At best, she dozes, but she's always quick to jerk awake soon after. And she doesn't unknit her fingers from Kate's, but leaves her hand where it is, palm pressed close.

Hours go by like this, until at last Johanna is done with it. She shakes free of Kate's had and pushes herself to sit up, so she can start to crawl over Kate and get out.]

[ Kate's hand is easily pried off but she wakes as soon as Johanna starts crawling, startling half up onto an elbow and looking around. But she's quick to figure out where she is and what's happening and she eases back, eyes already half-shut again. She reaches up to brush knuckles a little clumsily against Johanna's ribs as she passes. ]

y'okay? [ It's a sleepy mumble but she cracks one eye open a little wider to try to check. Just leaving, or is something wrong? ]

Yeah.

[Her voice still sounds rough. She rubs the back of her hand against her throat, briskly, the movement surprisingly crisp and sharp despite whatever hour it is.]

I'll be back. Later.

[She wipes her newly freed hand against the leg of her shorts. And she hasn't shifted off the bed yet, but takes the moment to tug at her shirt, pulling it down. The skim of Kate's fingers left a warm little trail that's not exactly faded.]

Edited 2015-02-01 03:11 (UTC)

Kay. [ Kate's easily assured and seemingly near to drifting back off, cheek rubbed against the pillow and lids sinking lower as she gives Johanna's side another half-conscious rub and lets her arm flop back across her own stomach after. ] See you later.

[She lifts her hands to her hair, making sure to avoid the second brush of Kate's fingers just as much as she can. There's a beat, when she looks back at Kate, already laid sleepily across her pillow.

And then she huffs, once, quietly, something of a laugh.]

That's it?

[This is nearly her regular tone again, hoarse though it is.]

[ Kate fumbles back awake a degree, slow to process, reluctant to keep putting sleep off in case it skitters away again and doesn't come back, but making an attempt to re-engage. She tips her head up a little bit out of the pillow, and blinks eyes wider, pushing her eyebrows up like it's an easier way to lift her eyelids. It works on the one that isn't currently swollen half-shut; the other side she drops as the pull immediately starts aching. ]

What?

Edited 2015-02-01 04:13 (UTC)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject