#coda tomorrow 👀

[districtunrest]

On the Air

for @mollywog

inspired by this nonsense

The thing Hazelle misses least about her old home is the television. Sleek and alien, set into the old wooden wall like a black mirror, it would turn on by itself whenever the Capitol thought they needed to watch it. It couldn’t be switched off until the closing seal, after the anthem. Nobody ever had a problem watching the Hunger Games, not even during brownouts. 

There were heavy fines if the home television was damaged. Gale used to try to cover it with a blanket but she’d pull it right off before someone saw through a window or an open door. So, instead, he took to sitting in front of it at dinner, his elbows spread to cover as much of the carnage as possible.

Except those last two years, where he made no move to cover it. He sat facing it at dinner when he wasn’t watching it with the Everdeens, waiting for Katniss.

Hazelle finds herself thinking of that now as she sits before a radio that’s been set on the fireplace mantel. She’s in Katniss’ living room but the radio belongs to Peeta. Hazelle knows that’s becoming a fuzzier boundary by the day now; what she doesn’t know is where he found the junky old thing.

Peeta turns a dial on the radio and it crackles to life. He fiddles with it until they can hear the evening weather report. And then he turns another knob, where they catch the end of a high cackle.

“There she is.” He crawls backward until he’s sitting against Katniss’ legs, leaving her and Hazelle to the couch. 

Hazelle has never met Johanna Mason, and she’s never listened to her new radio show all the way through, either. There’s too much swearing and talk of matters she can’t have playing out loud in the house with her children home. 

But tonight she won’t have to turn it off. She can listen to the whole thing, no matter how sideways it gets. And with tonight’s guest, it just might.

Johanna’s talk show is known for many things but it’s a special occasion altogether when another victor joins her. So far, she’s interviewed Beetee and Annie. It was the first and only interview Beetee gave since the war, and they spent more time heavily discussing the new album of the winner from that singing competition than any worthwhile update on their lives. It was the same with Annie, where they talked about everything and nothing. They laughed a lot. They laughed so much there would be seconds of on-air silence as they fought to catch their breaths. 

As far as Hazelle knows, Katniss and Peeta have declined to guest star themselves, given they intend to go to their graves without another interview or television appearance. But they still like to tune in.

While Peeta comments on missing the cold open and the opening jingle, Johanna Mason is saying, “-and anyway, who's counting?” 

“Not me,” Haymitch replies, and Hazelle smiles despite missing the joke. 

He sounds the same. Of course he would.

He and Johanna spend the first few minutes catching up, which she leads into with an irreverent, “So, what’s new with you?” as if the entire world didn’t upend itself last year.

“Whole lot of nothing,” he answers. “Let’s see… I got a bird feeder but haven’t gotten around to getting birdseed yet. My porch railing’s wobbly. Gotta fix that when I get home.”

Johanna laughs. “You sound like an old man.”

“I am retired,” he points out, and Hazelle can picture him shrugging a shoulder in time with his brows in that offhand way of his. “Meanwhile, I see you couldn’t stay out of the limelight.”

“Can’t help myself,” Johanna agrees. “Much better to be on this side of it.”

“You’ve become a professional complainer,” he says, which makes Katniss and Peeta crack up.

They go back and forth like this, and Hazelle can tell they’ve done this for years. It’s surprisingly nice to just listen in; it feels like meeting one of his friends at a party, but all the banter and inside jokes are actually funny, even from the outside. She bets Johanna will get him laughing - really laughing - in no time. Maybe it’ll sound like the one he’ll give Hazelle from time to time, often enough that she’s started to miss it. 

It was his therapist’s idea that he leave for a bit. He needed time away for himself and to go wherever he wanted for a change. She’s surprised Haymitch agreed to it. 

It’s not lost on her that he’s only been gone a week, and here he is on a late-night show. At this rate, he'll ironically dive off a cliff if he's bored enough. Though, Hazelle supposes he’s in good company with Johanna in more ways than one. She’s another victor, for one, and she’s in recovery herself. It’s something Johanna doesn’t hide on her show, that talking the country’s ear off at home in her pajamas serves her more than being high in a train car, on her way to nowhere. 

It’s not long before Johanna broaches the similarity herself - in her way. “I’m so fucking bored now. Aren’t you?”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” There’s a wry, knowing smirk in his voice. Hazelle can picture the moment it fades a little from his face.

“I make my bed every morning.”

“I match and fold all my socks.”

“I’m now ambidextrous - at jerking off,” she’s sure to clarify.

“Oh, no,” Katniss grumbles, digging her palms into her eyes, while Haymitch laughs out in surprise.

“A leftie now, huh?” he asks.

“Always was for when I was lonely. And then rightie was for when I wanted someone who knows what they’re doing. Sobriety has taken that from me.”

“Shame.”

“Well,” Johanna starts leadingly after a half-second pause, “what’s your schedule now that it’s working again?”

“Oh, please no,” Katniss begs now, trying to stand, but Peeta keeps her legs in place. She leans over for a pillow that he intercepts over his shoulder.

“Don’t you break my radio!” he chides with a laugh. 

Her arm propped on the headrest, Hazelle rubs her temple and ignores how she can feel both their blushes.

Somehow all of this happens in the beat it takes before they hear Haymitch’s reply. “All right,” he says, conspiratorial, “now that the kids back home have destroyed the radio, what did you really want to ask?”

“Who’s your favorite?” Johanna asks back immediately.

“Leftie - Wait, no! Peeta!” 

Hazelle snorts as they erupt into laughter over the sound waves. She takes in Katniss with her face in her hands, her shaking shoulders betraying her, while Peeta has thrown his head back into her lap, laughing himself red. 

Johanna returns with, “Ah, Haymitch. A class act, as always. So glad you could come tonight.”

“Easy there, dollface. Happy to end all the voicemails once and for all. It was really getting pathetic.”

“Yeah, I was running out of ideas. Clearly,” she adds pointedly. “Which leads me to our final, special segment for the evening.” She clears her throat, the sound punched from the radio like the old time clocks at the mine entrances. “Haymitch.”

“Johanna,” he mimics.

“You’re forty-three this year. That’s not that old.”

“I count it in dog years.”

“Shut up. Anyway,” Johanna goes on, “you’re funny, crazy, rich - Whoops, misread my notes. You’re crazy rich. And you’ve looked worse.” Hazelle can attest to that. 

Haymitch coughs in wry disbelief. “I’ve looked better.” She can attest to that, too.

“Stop interrupting me on my own show. What I’m getting at is, you’re kind of a catch. It’s just, you know, your reputation precedes you.”

“Sure,” he says, more curt than before, like he’s lost interest. This is completely at odds with their rapt attention in Katniss’ living room. 

“Where is this going?” Peeta asks aloud in a hushed voice while Katniss looks on in dumbstruck horror. Hazelle shakes her head a little but neither of them is looking at her. She’s quickly getting the impression Haymitch doesn’t know, either.

“And as we both know, sometimes what we need is a little outside help. So,” Johanna resolves, making her flinch from six feet and two thousand miles away, “I took the liberty of putting a little something together for you.”

Nobody breathes as this is met with a few seconds of silence.

“Did you now?” It sounds innocent enough - which is to say, bored and dismissive. Hazelle can only imagine the look that came with it.

Johanna is undeterred. “I did! Allow me to share.” There’s the muffled sound of thin papers crinkling - a newspaper being opened, maybe - and then she clears her throat again. “From the personal advertisement section of the District Seven Post: Veteran in his forties with a house, outdoor pets, and too much time on his hands. Tall enough, dark enough, handsome enough. Looking for something, anything.”

Hazelle’s mouth drops open. Katniss and Peeta have their own reactions but she cranes her ear past them so she doesn’t miss what Haymitch says next.

Which is: “Sounds more like a lonely sod than a catch.”

Her eyes drop to her hands folded in her lap. They’ve been clenched so tight the past couple minutes, her knuckles are white and her fingers sore. She works to loosen them.

“The people of Seven would disagree with you there,” Johanna counters. “You got quite the response.”

Hazelle can almost hear the joints in her hands creak as they tighten again.

“I’m sure. You left it too open. Looking for something, anything?” Haymitch quotes, not hiding his derision. “That sounds desperate as all get out.”

His tone is so flat, so flippant, like this is nothing to him but a flopping segment he gets to pan in real time. It might be true. 

He and Hazelle, they’re both alone. They’ve both commiserated about how people make that weird when it doesn’t need to be. It’s okay to be alone. 

She knows he’s lonely. She’s lonely, too, in some ways. It lessens when they’re together, and she’s thought he might feel the same at times. But his therapist told him he needed to get away for a bit, and so that wasn’t something Hazelle could bring up without it meaning things he might not be in a place to receive well.

Johanna interrupts her thoughts. “First of all, you’ve never been clear about your type. So I cast a wide net. And secondly, I wanted to make it true to life without giving you away-”

“I’m not desperate,” he cuts in, his voice a little more raised and irked now.

“Yeah, you’re perfectly content with your bird-less bird feeder and your wobbly porch railing. And leftie,” she adds. “Let me go through the responses. I think you’ll be surprised to find how many people are just looking for someone to talk to.”

“Yeah, sure - talk.”

“Since when did you get so stuffy? You could use a good bit of anything, to be honest. Look, here’s a letter from a guy in the logging camp outside of-”

“Don’t share it on air!” he all but sputters, indignant. “These people didn’t know they’d be broadcast.”

“Oh, hush, it’s anonymous. I don’t mess around with that. The plan is, we’ll go through them and you pick who has the pleasure of going on a blind date with you. That’s what you’re doing tomorrow, by the way. That dinner reservation we made? I’m actually staying home.”

“Johanna-” 

Hazelle’s heart clenches at how desperate he’s starting to sound, wearing thin at the edge of his exasperation.

“I mean, I can sit at a different table if you want. I’ll wear a hat and one of those fake mustaches-”

“I didn’t sign up for that, Jo,” he presses, talking over her. “I won’t do it.”

“Oh, come on. Why not? You have nothing else to do. Just you and your birds - Oh, wait,” she corrects herself breezily, very much on purpose, “you don’t even have-”

“Enough!” he shouts, so loud his microphone shorts and whines. Hazelle is already wincing. 

It feels like the whole world goes quiet and waits with Johanna. 

Haltingly, Haymitch grits out, “I’m… sort of seeing someone already.”

There’s more than a few seconds of on-air silence. Nobody is laughing.

Finally, finally, Johanna comes back with, “Oh.” It’s not dripping with intrigue or even guilt. 

Then, there’s a shuffling of papers.

“Could’ve prefaced with that,” she goes on under her breath, probably for comedic effect. “And there’s no way I’m getting you to share more about-”

“Not a chance.”

“Right.” A small exhale, not quite a sigh. “Well, folks, you never know what you’ll get with me. Sometimes I don’t even know. Special segment cancelled.”

The show ends soon after; Johanna tries to recover the conversation, fill the time with something else, but Haymitch has lost all will to participate. Hazelle almost feels for her, as someone who’s also been on the other end of a sullen Haymitch with his shutters closed.

The living room sits silent through the ending jingle. Hazelle has never heard it until now. 

Peeta breaks the following silence. “Huh. Guess he’ll say anything to get out of a date. And he took the episode down with him. That’s the earliest she’s ever wrapped up.”

Katniss leans back and crosses her arms with a huff. “Serves her right. She had no business doing all that.”

“You can’t say you weren’t a little curious, though? To see how it went? I think it’d be nice if he got a little date out of his trip.”

“Do you hear yourself?” she asks back, her brow raised. “He’s supposed to go and find himself. Not shack up with someone in another district.” She looks disturbed at the thought. 

He starts to grin at her. “What, you think that’s how every date should end?”

“No, I’m just saying-”

They go on like this. But Hazelle barely hears them. She’s staring at the radio.

She’s certain there’s nobody like that in Haymitch’s life. They talk too much for that not to come up. They go on too many walks for her not to notice a whole other person in his life, someone he’s seeing. He’s never even said anything about wanting to date, let alone starting to.

But… Hazelle has the oddest sense Haymitch wasn’t lying just then, like the kids assume. While they could all tell he was starting to feel cornered, his escape didn’t seem painless, either. If that was a last-ditch effort to get Johanna off his case, he held onto it longer than necessary, like he was holding it close and didn’t want to give it up. 

Because maybe he thinks there’s truth in what he’d said.

Which begs the question of who the hell he thinks he’s talking about - because it’s not Hazelle. 

But if it’s not her… who else could it be?

She runs through anyone she can think of in the district that’s even on a first-name basis with him, that she’s heard him commend more than complain about. 

There’s no one else. 

Hazelle doesn’t stay long, which Katniss and Peeta pay no mind; they invited her over to listen to the show, and that’s over now. She leaves thinking about the responses Johanna garnered with her ad. Hazelle ignores how much it eats at her stomach, that she almost heard reply after reply of people interested in something, anything from him - almost heard him give his impressions, deliberate with his host, and pick the winner. All while Katniss and Peeta bickered over it, none the wiser to Hazelle burning a hole in the radio beside them. The idea of a follow-up episode on how the date went makes her face twist up. She has to shake the thought from her head.

She imagines herself reading that newspaper. The man in the ad does sound pretty lonesome - that goes without saying - but he sounds intriguing, too, with baggage of his own. Just like her. Just like so many people these days. She’d read that and reach out and wait to see if anything came of it. Maybe he'd pick her and they'd go to dinner. Someone else might have minded if the man in the ad ended up being Haymitch Abernathy - but she wouldn’t have. At the very least, it would make quite the story, and Hazelle could use some lighter stories in her life again. 

Too bad he’s seeing someone already. 

She just would’ve liked to have known that before the rest of the country.

coda

[terramous]

#8 on the anger list is very 👀

i know that dawn is a bitter end

20 prompts for every emotion - anger #8 “You lost them? How do you lose a whole person!” [anger 19] [fear 11] [fear 19] [surprise 7] title: our mirage - nightfall word count: 2.3k a 4x03 coda of sorts

The 126 very quickly left after TK’s phone call with Carlos, having picked up on his sour energy. He knew he had fucked up with the visit to Iris but he didn’t imagine that things would have gone this bad because of it. 

Obviously he knew that he didn’t cause her kidnapping, but the firm edge Carlos had regarded him with felt like the blade of a knife against his skin, like if he moved he would bleed all over Carlos’ favourite rug. He’d grabbed his phone only once since the call and that was to text Carlos, just a quick ‘Sleep well, I love you xx’. He had hoped Carlos would reply, make it seem like he at least wanted to talk to him and wasn’t still angry, but TK couldn’t get that lucky.

Radio silence. 

TK supposed he should be grateful for it, maybe the distance meant they wouldn’t get into an argument tonight and that Carlos would feel better tomorrow. Maybe things would be easier because they spent tonight apart. 

He had slept alone at the loft before. Often Carlos would be working late or even working a night shift and TK would be left alone to ponder about the loft until he went to bed by himself. But that typically came with the promise that Carlos would join him in bed during the night or be there puttering around in the kitchen when he woke. 

Maybe Carlos would come back in the morning before his shift, maybe TK would wake up to the sound of something frying for breakfast, but maybe he would wake up alone.

finish reading on AO3

[causeimasinger]

PLEASE write the Eddie Maddie episode coda!!!

i might just have to take my laptop to chemo tomorrow because my brain is already full of ideas 👀