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fembuckTitle: Marginally Okay
Author: Janine
Fandom: Hunger Games Series
Pairing: Katniss/Johanna, friendship with hints of pre-femslash
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,316
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: If Johanna won’t take a bath, Katniss will have to make her.
Note: Takes place during Mockingjay, but other than Johanna being dirty there are no real spoilers.
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If someone had told me six weeks ago that I would end up routinely giving Johanna Mason baths I would have taken my ‘mentally disoriented’ bracelet off and given it to them, completely confident in the knowledge that they needed it more than I did. Yet, for the third time in my short, tumultuous life I found myself kneeling at the side of a small ceramic bathtub using one hand to draw a sudsy cloth over Johanna’s naked skin while she clutched my other hand tightly.
It was madness, but it was a madness I had invited upon myself when the sight of her grimy nails and grubby skin became too much for me to handle one night while we were quizzing each other on battle strategies. After staring at her intensely for a few moments I blurted out, “If you don’t take a bath I’m going to attack you in the hall outside of one of the bathrooms, drag you inside by what’s left of your hair and forcefully hose you down.” I expected a biting comeback after my outburst, but Johanna simply smiled sadly before she ruefully tucked her chin into her chest and murmured, “You might just have to.”
I didn’t have to wrestle her to the ground, but when I returned to our room the next night after my bath I did have to forcibly drag her across the hall. Once we were in the bathroom she stripped down in front of me without complaint, grinning at me brashly the whole time, but when the tub was filled her bravado left her and she started scrambling backwards towards the door, ready to bolt naked into the hallway rather than face the tub.
I had to wrap my arms around her waist and haul her back to the tub. It wasn’t easy, her fear gave her thin body more strength than I’d seen from her since the arena, but I was determined too and I eventually managed to strong-arm her to the back of the room. I was wheezing due to the exertion by the time we were by the tub again, and if she’d tried to bolt again I couldn’t have stopped her, but she didn’t try to run. She simply stared blankly into the pool of water for a moment before suddenly reaching out to grip my hand, the force of her hold so tight that I emitted a pained hiss and winced. However, with my hand firmly ensconced in hers she placed one of her feet in the tub, and then the other, and after standing still and tense for a minute she bit down hard on her bottom lip and then lowered herself into the water.
As I scrubbed off the grime that had accumulated on her over the days since her last bath she talked incessantly, making sarcastic comments about the others in our training group and going on about what a massive waste of time it was to try and teach victors of the Hunger Games how to survive. Her voice was steady and her acerbic words were spoken with confidence, but the whole time she was in the tub her hand never stopped squeezing mine and the tremors that always started the moment she was engulfed by the water never ceased.
When her skin was rosy and pristine once more and her feet were creating dainty puddles on the stone floor, her hand released mine and the flow of words stopped as she took the regulation towel clasped in my hand from me and began to dry herself off. Out of the water, she was herself again, strong, unruffled and abrasive, and in this state I left her to her own devices and crossed the hall to our room.
She never said thank you when she returned to the room. We didn’t stare into each other’s eyes meaningfully, communicating without words. We simply settled onto our mattresses. Sometimes we talked about what we had learned in training until the lights were turned off, other times we just sat in silence, but once the dark came we always lay down on our beds and hoped to make it through the hours that followed without being woken by nightmares.
Johanna was often more successful at this than I was. When we first moved in together I regularly tossed and turned until I jolted myself awake. Once awake, I would usually curl into a fetal position and stare resentfully at the still slumbering figure across the room. Johanna’s sleep wasn’t usually peaceful, but it was continuous and that was enough to inspire my jealousy.
Things changed the night after I bathed her for the first time however. I woke up from one of my familiar night terrors that night to find Johanna kneeling next to my bed. Seeing her sent me into a new fit of agitation, but she reached out and caught my flailing hands, holding them steady as she spoke calmly to me until I came back to myself. When I had calmed, she released her hold on me and moved her hand towards my face. I thought that she was going to stroke my cheek, and I remember being mildly alarmed by the thought, but I needn’t have worried because what she actually did was shove me quite roughly before irritably muttering, “Move over.”
I didn’t appreciate being ordered around in my own bed, but I was too exhausted to fight with her when she insisted that it was ‘for my own good’ and continued to shove me, until finally after a minute of harassment I shifted over on the mattress to make room for her and she squeezed onto the bed beside me.
I can’t say how long we lay stiffly beside each other, but Johanna finally bit the bullet and moved to drape her arm over my waist. I resisted the overly familiar touch at first, but it felt good to feel another human body beside mine and eventually I couldn’t deny the comfort the warmth of her body offered me. I sighed deeply, but my body relaxed and when it did she pulled me against her. A moment later, in a voice far gentler than I had ever heard from her before, she whispered, “Go to sleep,” and despite myself and the reservations about our cozy new arrangement, that’s exactly I did.
A bath and a good night’s sleep didn’t make us bosom buddies. We didn’t start sharing our hopes and dreams with each other. Johanna didn’t start braiding my hair, and we didn’t cry into each others arms for comfort. We just weren’t that kind of people. However, I did come to anticipate the moment she would slip into bed with me once the lights went out, and when I felt the mattress depress and her arm slip around me, a felt an enormous weight lift off of my shoulders. My mind calmed and cleared, and as her breath, steady and warm, hit the back of my neck, the anxiety constantly churning my stomach during the day would recede. When she whispered, “G’night, Brainless,” my lips curved into a smile and a genuinely affectionate, “G’night, Axe-Wound,” would fall from my lips. Then my eyelashes would flutter shut and the warmth of Johanna’s body would begin to usher me to sleep. Secure in her arms I would begin to fall to slumber, but before I did – if only for a moment – I would find myself thinking that I might just be okay, that all of us broken, damaged, scarred, hollow people might find our way back to being at least marginally okay, as long as we had each other.
The End
Comments and feedback are always welcome and greatly appreciated :D
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 10:30 pm (UTC)I was wondering if anyone else had ever thought of this pairing.
I'm surprised not to have seen anything about this pairing too (especially after the 'roommate' thing in Mockingjay). There doesn't seem to be much femslash in general though for this fandom *le sigh*
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 03:45 am (UTC)The roomate thing was totally what got me started. X3 While the boys are fighting over Katniss, she can run away with Johanna. Lumberjacks are so rugged after all.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-04 03:57 pm (UTC)I like this scenario!
Lumberjacks are so rugged after all
Very true! The image of Johanna chopping up a pile of wood is very appealing!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 10:21 pm (UTC)Too good a set up to resist!
I really do love this pairing, but it sure is difficult to get them together within the context of the series at large, without negating canon completely and going the AU route...
Oh, I know. Mockingjay gave me a little wiggle room, but it's still so hard to really and truly slash them.
I also wish that we'd gotten some indication of where Johanna ended up/what she was doing at the end of the novel. *Shakes head at Katniss*
I'm glad that you enjoyed it though, and hopefully I'll be able to wiggle a few more short fics out of the 'roommate' window the book provided.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 08:28 am (UTC)HOWEVER. I am still going to cheer for a sequel because I love what you write, always.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 10:23 pm (UTC)You should totally read the book! The first book is genius, I enjoyed the hell out of it. The second book is pretty good as well. The third was a bit of a chore, but I just had to know how it all ended (and the third, "Mockingjay" is really the one with the most fertile ground for femslash).
And, I think I'll be able to mine a few more fics out of this fandom (I'm a bit obsessed right now), so there should be more Katniss/Johanna to come!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 08:14 am (UTC)And I found this, which isn't relevant to this story, but it IS relevant to your interests:
http://youtu.be/qy9YCFn1qYU
no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 03:14 pm (UTC)Oh, that video! LOL I remember seeing it around the time season 2 first aired, and I loved it for confirming Cara's gay, but OY VEY. So awkward. Tab looked like she could barely keep a straight face and I can't blame her. Still, I'd have answered that ad in a heartbeat.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 10:27 pm (UTC)and you always gotta wonder what went on in their room.
It my mind it will always be something kind of sexy and kind of sweet. One thing I suppose about not too much being revealed about it is that we can make of it what we want.
Hi
Date: 2011-06-12 05:29 am (UTC)'slip around me, a felt an enormous weight lift off of my shoulders.'
It would make more sense if you had written 'I felt'.
But either way, wonderful story, I'm just nit picking a bit, I really did enjoy it and plan to read these stories that you gave me access to. Thank you.
Re: Hi
Date: 2011-06-12 05:39 am (UTC)Just a typo. It's been fixed now, thanks for the heads up :)
Editing mistakes aside, I'm glad that you enjoyed the story! I've written one other Katniss/Johanna story (http://fembuck.livejournal.com/349080.html#cutid1) you might be interested in checking out.