could you write something where it’s the beginning of the quarter quell and she can’t find the reader? And when Johanna finally found her, she felt anger and relief at the same time, and kissed the reader’s lips. The Capitol still didn’t know that she and the reader had some kind of relationship yet, but Johanna just didn’t give a shit
JOHANNA MASON X FEM READER
i actually finished a req..
The water of the arena was a shocking, violent blue, but Johanna Mason barely registered the color. All she knew was the taste of salt in her mouth, the heavy, suffocating weight of the wet jumpsuit clinging to her limbs, and the blinding, white-hot fury pulsing behind her eyes.
The Hunger Games were supposed to be over for her. She had survived the bloodbath of her own Games, survived the agonizing years of being a Capitol plaything, survived the stripping away of everything and everyone she had ever loved. She had paid her dues in full. Yet here she was, standing on a metal pedestal in the middle of a saltwater lake, surrounded by a pristine, artificial jungle that smelled of damp rot and impending death.
The countdown had reached zero, the gong had sounded, and Johanna hadn’t even hesitated. She had dove headfirst into the water, swimming with aggressive, choppy strokes toward the nearest spoke of the Cornucopia. She didn't care about the weapons. She didn't care about the careers. She didn't care about the alliance Haymitch had tried to badger her into before the hovercrafts took them away.
She only cared about one thing. Or rather, one person.
Where are you? Johanna thought, her teeth grinding together so hard her jaw ached. Where the hell are you?
The Cornucopia was a chaotic, bloody mess. Gloss and Cashmere were already hacking their way through the weaker tributes. Johanna stepped onto the slick stone of the tail end of the golden horn, her hand immediately closing around the handle of a heavy, double-bladed axe. The weight of it felt familiar.
Her eyes swept over the spokes, over the churning water, over the figures frantically splashing toward the shore.
Johanna whirled around, axe raised, ready to take off whoever's head belonged to that voice. It was Blight, her district partner, soaking wet and looking thoroughly unimpressed by the entire spectacle. He had a machete in hand and was gesturing wildly toward the jungle line. "We need to move! The Careers are locking down the center!"
"I'm not leaving," Johanna snapped, her voice like grinding stones. "Go if you want, Blight. I have to find her"
Blight groaned, ducking as a stray spear flew over his head. "She´s probably already in the trees, Johanna! You're going to get yourself killed standing out here like a target!"
"Let her try!" she screamed back, the manic, unhinged persona she wore like armor cracking just enough to let her raw desperate terror bleed through.
Because the Capitol didn't know.
President Snow and his grotesque, painted inner circle thought they knew everything about Johanna Mason. They thought she was the bitter, stripped-bare Victor who had nothing left to lose, the one who stripped in elevators just to watch them squirm, the one who spoke in venom and spat at the cameras. They didn't know that in the quiet, shadowed corners of the training center, away from the hidden microphones and the prying eyes of the Peacekeepers, someone had managed to slip past her thorns.
You were a Victor too, or maybe a tribute thrown into this meat grinder alongside her, but whatever you were, you had become her anchor. A quiet understanding had formed between you in the dark—a desperate, whispered promise that if you both made it to the Quarter Quell, you would find each other. No matter what. The Capitol viewed the Quarter Quell as the ultimate reality television event, a way to crush the rebellion by forcing their beloved champions to slaughter one another. They wanted romance from Katniss and Peeta. They expected bloodlust from Johanna. They didn't expect a quiet, fierce, undocumented devotion between Johanna and a tribute they had entirely overlooked.
And right now, that devotion was driving her insane.
"She isn´t on the spokes," Johanna muttered, her eyes darting across the water. The sun was beating down with a sickening, artificial heat. "If she drowned—if those bastard Careers got to her before I did—"
"Johanna, look!" Blight yelled, pointing toward the eastern sector of the beach, where the jungle met the sand.
Through the haze of smoke, water, and chaos, Johanna caught a glimpse of a uniform. A jumpsuit identical to hers, dragging itself out of the surf and collapsing onto the wet sand. The figure shook their head, coughing violently, trying to scramble into the safety of the dense, tropical foliage.
It was you. You were alive. You were moving.
But you were also entirely exposed, and Enobaria was already eyeing the beach from the upper rim of the Cornucopia, a wicked, jagged knife balanced in her hand.
Without a word to Blight, she launched herself off the stone spoke and back into the water. She swam, her axe held high out of the water in one hand, her legs kicking with a furious, desperate strength. The saltwater burned her eyes, but she refused to blink, keeping her gaze locked on the precise spot where you had disappeared into the thick green canopy.
Don't die, she prayed to whatever twisted gods ran the universe, though she had stopped believing in them years ago. Don't you dare die before I can kill you myself for making me worry like this.
The moment her feet hit the shallow sand, she didn't slow down. She bolted out of the water, her wet boots sinking into the fine white grains, driving herself straight into the suffocating humidity of the jungle.
The transition from the open water to the dense forest was jarring. The air was thick, smelling of sulfur, wet dirt, and strange, tropical flowers. Vines tangled at her ankles, and giant, broad leaves slapped against her face, but Johanna pushed through them like a bulldozer, her axe clearing a path wherever the brush was too thick.
"Where are you?!" she hissed under her breath, her voice a harsh whisper that barely carried over the screeching of the artificial insects in the trees. "Where the hell are you?"
She followed the trail of broken ferns and smeared mud. You were hurt, or at least exhausted—the tracks were sloppy, uneven. Johanna’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The Capitol’s cameras were everywhere, hidden in the bark of the trees, tucked into the hollows of rocks, flying overhead on invisible hovercraft paths. She knew Caesar Flickerman and a room full of Capitol citizens were watching her right now, probably analyzing her erratic behavior, wondering why the fierce axe-wielding Victor from District 7 wasn't hunting down the competition, but instead tracking someone with the frantic energy of a bloodhound.
She didn't care. Let them watch. Let Snow see. Let the whole damn world see.
A sharp snap of a twig to her left made her spin on her heel. She raised her axe, her muscles coiled, ready to strike, her eyes narrowing as she peered into the dark green shadows of a massive banyan tree.
A figure stepped out from behind the trunk.
It was you. Your jumpsuit was torn at the shoulder, covered in dark mud and seaweed, and there was a nasty scrape along your cheekbone that was oozing blood. In your hand, you held a flimsy, pointed stick—a makeshift spear you’d managed to grab from the beach. You looked terrified, exhausted, and utterly beautiful.
For a fraction of a second, neither of you moved. The jungle around you seemed to fall dead silent, the distant screams from the Cornucopia fading into white noise.
Then, the sheer, overwhelming weight of the moment crashed over Johanna, and the relief was instantly swallowed by a roaring wave of furious, unadulterated anger.
"You absolute idiot!" Johanna roared, storming forward. She didn't drop the axe, but she slammed the blunt end of the handle against a nearby tree trunk, the wood splintering under the force. "What the hell took you so long?! Do you have any idea—any damn clue—what was going through my head out there?!"
You blinked, startled by the sheer volume of her voice, taking a half-step back as she invaded your space. "Johanna, I—the current—"
"I don't give a rat's ass about the current!" she shrieked, stopping mere inches from you. She was trembling, a violent, full-body shudder that had nothing to do with the cold water. Her face was flushed, her chest heaving as she glared up at you, her dark eyes flashing with a terrifying mixture of rage and desperation. "You were supposed to be right behind me! We had a plan! You almost got yourself killed before the damn clock even hit five minutes! If Enobaria had looked down a second earlier, you'd have a knife through your throat right now!"
"Johanna, breathe," you said softly, reaching out a trembling hand toward her shoulder. "I'm okay. I'm right here."
"Don't tell me to breathe!" she snarled, slapping your hand away, though she didn't actually move away from you. In fact, she leaned closer, her breath hot against your face. "I am sick of it! I am sick of this place, I am sick of these people, and I am sick of you making me feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest! You think you can just wander off and leave me alone in this nightmare? I swear to God, if you die on me, I will find your ghost and kill you again!"
She was screaming at you, her voice cracking with a raw, agonizing vulnerability that she never, ever showed anyone else. The anger was a shield, a desperate attempt to keep from crying, to keep from falling apart in a place where weakness meant death. She was furious because she cared. She was furious because the thought of an arena without you in it was a horror she couldn't survive.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, your own throat tight with emotion. You didn't shrink away from her anger. You knew her too well. "I'm sorry, Jo."
The anger was still there, buzzing beneath her skin, but the relief was winning, heavy and intoxicating. Your heart was beating. You were right in front of her.
"Damn you," she whispered.
And then, she grabbed you.
Johanna dropped her axe into the dirt, entirely abandoning her weapon, and threw her hands up to cup your face. Her fingers dug into your hair, sticky with saltwater and sweat, and she pulled you down into a kiss that was nothing short of a collision.
It wasn't a soft, romantic kiss meant for the Capitol cameras. It wasn't the carefully choreographed tragedy of the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12. It was desperate, and fiercely possessive. It tasted like salt and iron. Johanna pressed her lips against yours with a bruising force, pouring every ounce of her terror, her rage, her relief, and her absolute refusal to let the Capitol win into the touch.
You gasped against her mouth, the shock lasting for only a heartbeat before your arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against you. You held her as if she were the only thing keeping you anchored to the earth, returning the kiss with the same desperate intensity.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, a cold spike of panic flared. The cameras, you thought. The Capitol. Snow.
They didn't know about this. You had spent over a year hiding every glance, every brushed shoulder, every stolen second in the training center. You knew what the Capitol did to the people Victors loved. Johanna had lost her entire family because she refused to let them sell her body; if Snow found out that she loved you, your life would be forfeit the moment you stepped out of the arena—if you even made it out.
You tried to pull back, just an inch, a muffled warning forming on your lips. "Jo... the cameras... they're watching..."
Johanna didn't let you go. She gripped your hair tighter, tilted your head up, and kissed you harder, deep and biting, her teeth catching against your lower lip until you tasted a faint hint of copper. She poured her entire soul into the kiss, effectively shutting down any argument, any fear, any rational thought you had left.
When she finally pulled back, she didn't step away. She kept her forehead pressed against yours, her thumbs wiping away the blood and mud on your cheek with a roughness that was entirely affectionate. Her breaths were loud and ragged in the quiet of the jungle.
"Let them watch," Johanna whispered, her voice dangerously low, a feral, vicious smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. She looked up, her dark eyes scanning the canopy, locking onto a specific, unnaturally still knot in a tree branch a few yards away—a camera lens. She glared directly into it, her eyes cold and unyielding. "Let the old man see. Let him see that he hasn't broken a damn thing."
"Johanna, they'll use it against us," you breathed, your hands still resting on her hips, feeling the steady, fierce thrum of her pulse. "They'll make it a game."
"They already made it a game," she snapped, her focus returning to you, her expression softening into something fiercely protective. "They threw us back in here to die. They think they own us. They think they get to decide who we love, who we kill, and how we play. Well, screw them. I don't give a shit anymore."
She reached down, scooping her axe up from the mud with a fluid, practiced motion, the weight of the weapon returning to her hand like an extension of her own arm. She didn't look like a victim. She looked like a executioner.
"We play by our rules now," Johanna said. She took your hand, her fingers intertwining with yours, her grip tight enough to bruise. "You stay behind me. We find Blight, we find whatever stupid alliance we need to survive the night, you don't leave my sight again. Understood?"
Johanna nodded once, a sharp, satisfied movement. She gave your hand one last, reassuring squeeze before turning her face back toward the deeper jungle, her axe raised, ready to cut down anything that dared to stand between the two of you and survival.
