OPEN POST pt III

[wunderkind]

-1-
pick a character

-2-
leave me a comment. maybe a scenario, maybe an AU scenario, maybe a picture, maybe a word,
maybe a request to resume old game canon, maybe just a comment.
i don't care. do your worst.

-2a-
helpful note: i am currently obsessed with the Walking Dead, coffee, summertime, AUs, and vampires. can you combine those into one tag?

-3-
let's get it on, like we did last summer



disclaimer: we probably won't get it on
+ there are no promises i will take this seriously

Comments

[alsohawkeye]

The blade catches on Johanna's top as much as her flesh and it tears so when blood wells there's a flash of red against pale skin before it turns to just a dark stain adhering cloth to side. For a moment Kate's reminded of a different set of ribs, a fall of blood as slow as this one, slower than she'd expected when she'd stuck the blade in, after the sick pop she felt against her hand as it punched through. She shakes it off before she starts seeing his eyes instead of Johanna's, his stumble back instead of her race for her axe.

It's a struggle to divorce this from all the fights for her life, to find some middle ground between the blunt-bladed sparring she does with her trainers and fighting to kill. This isn't either - she doesn't want to kill Johanna no matter how annoying she is - but it's easy to forget that.

So here they are back where they started, on their feet, blades in hand. Kate is patient, poised, none the worse for wear than when they started except her hair come a bit loose. She makes a little gesture, a little waggle of her machete at Johanna. It should come with a smirk but there's none of it in her face. Bring it.

[axeyou]

The dampness seeps slowly into the fabric of Johanna's suit, but she ignores it. She stares, fixedly, at Kate, every muscle tensed and all her senses tuned forward. She isn't short of breath, and she isn't sweaty--they've barely grappled--but she is ready. Kate got first blood, but Johanna won't let that stand. Her eyes track the muscles of Kate's arms and legs, a quick hard glance, watching for any hint toward movement.

One second. Two, three. On four, that's when Kate makes that smirk, and Johanna's anger crashes up in her chest, hard, twisting her grip on her axe.

The fact that she reacts is predictable. Pride and anger are too much for her. But Johanna is still capable of being surprising, predictability and all, and she twists forward, abruptly, swings her axe around and throws it, right at Kate's face. No holds barred, not in this moment--though she's confident that Kate will twist away, that she'll be able to step aside--maybe she'll get an ear off at worst--but Johanna is determined to catch her, and jumps forward after her axe, with the intent to strike out and knock the machete from Kate's hand. If she gets the drop on her, her grip will be loose enough--and if they're bare-handed, Johanna will wrestle her down.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate has a split-second to recalculate when Johanna throws, but it's not enough. It's enough for her to avoid getting hit, for her to spring aside out of the way and let the axe fly past her face with the weird whump of it spinning through the air. It's enough to realize that Johanna must know that won't work, that it must be a distraction. But it's not enough to move and to realize and to compensate, and so when Johanna strikes Kate's hand is loose, her focus elsewhere. The machete tumbles to the floor, flipping end to end across the mat before falling a few feet away.

At least they're equally empty-handed, Kate thinks as Johanna attempts to get her to the ground. She resists, of course, trying to keep her feet beneath her. She lashes out to jab knuckles into the wound in Johanna's side - shallow doesn't mean it can't be tender. It's mean and kind of cheap, maybe unexpected given that she doesn't fight with the sort of raw nerve anger Johanna does. She's still calm and breathing even, every move she makes precise, well-chosen and well-practiced. She makes it look like chess. (She's always hated chess.) Her other hand fights off Johanna's grip, twisting and pulling while a foot lifts to stomp at the side of her knee.

[axeyou]

Leave it to Kate to pick the tender spot, to use the wound to her advantage. That's what you do to survive. Everyone who's won the Games knows that. A weakness is an opportunity, and you take whatever opportunities you're given. She can't even be mad at Kate, even if the pain, in the moment, makes her angry. She makes a single sharp noise, an exhalation with only the slightest tint of pain to it--

But when Kate goes to knock her leg out from under her, Johanna is ready. That quick recovery that helped to buy her victory in the Games, that comes in handy here. She lets Kate fight off her grip and instead goes low, bent like the pain of the jab has doubled her up--but instead she grabs hold of Kate's foot, her ankle, leg, tugs it close to her chest and throws herself down--one quick, sharp movement, dropping them both to the mat. She has to slap her palm against it to manage her own impact, but it's worth it. Even one-armed, if she gets Kate's leg in the right place, she could snap it. If not, they're both down, and she twists to try and lock her leg, hold it painfully twisted--

[alsohawkeye]

Kate goes down hard, hitting the mat with a thump and a huff of breath leaving lungs. It's not quite enough to really knock the wind out of her, she's spared that awful moment of paralysis, but there's an unavoidable rush of fear just at being brought down. So she's quick to haul herself up, letting the panic speed the process of getting limbs under her again.

It's not quick enough to avoid Johanna getting a hold on her leg and she knows immediately that pulling isn't going to free it. She has no desire to dislocate her knee if she can avoid it but she's also not tapping out (is tapping out even an option? it's not like they set rules here), so she strikes out with elbows, twisting to drive one at Johanna's face, then pound a couple more quick punches at her ribs until her fist comes away sticky with blood.

[axeyou]

She avoids the strike to her face--just barely, but she avoids it, heaves herself to the side a little--but Kate is quick to follow that up, striking at her ribs. Her elbow is sharp--first missing the cut, hitting just beside the, but the second strike catches exactly, hard, and the third is worse. Angry, Johanna makes a noise from between her teeth, shoving right past the pain. She hauls herself sideways, lets go of her leg--moves into Kate, meeting the fourth strike head on. The closeness throws her strike off, leaves Johanna space to maneuver right on top of Kate, straddling her just above the hips--shoves herself up, one hand scrabbling to hold Kate down, either by the throat or the shoulder, whatever she can get a grip one--and with her free hand, hauls back to try and punch her, right across the face, legs gripping hard to stay on top.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate's head snaps to the side with the punch, a solid crack of fist to face. She gives herself a little shake, tilting back to center, and smiles.

"Are you going to hit me, or just sit there?" It's a particularly blatant bit of goading and Kate's expression is infuriatingly placid. Some part of her wishes there were blood between her teeth right now to complete the picture but she's had too much practice taking a punch to have bitten anything accidentally. She'll take another if Johanna will give it, but this time she's ready. When her arm comes across Kate reaches up for a lock, pulls in the direction of Johanna's momentum and heaves them over. Those legs keep their grip but now Kate's weight is between them.

She doesn't have the position or the leverage to sit up and get a punch off, so settles for trying to wrap an arm around Johanna's neck, looking to get a lock and pull her head in for a good smothering.

[axeyou]

Kate's plan works--because of course Johanna is going to hit her again, because she can be controlled and patient, she proved that in the Arena--but in the moment, bloody and ready, all instinct and fight, it is harder to think so clearly. In some other circumstance, maybe she could still manage it, but she has never done very well with goading.

The easy switch of control happens so quickly it might be dizzying. One minute on top, the next with her head slammed back against the mat, and Kate on top of her instead, a warm pressure. Johanna tucks her chin a little in the roll, trying to think, but the force throws her out of that, leaves her open for that lock, and the next she knows she's pulled in close to Kate.

And this is a friendly fight, only a friendly fight, this should be a game. It's hard not to see it as something else, to look at Kate and not see rival, killer, feel like she's got to go for a knife. Johanna feels that way about all of them, always, in parties and at dinners and watching parades. You'll get used to them, Finnick has told her, you'll even probably start liking them--you like me, don't you?--but Johanna doesn't know that she ever will, both wants to and doesn't.

Regardless of feeling, instinct kicks in, overrides everything. When Kate pulls her in close, Johanna twists to get away--a good move, one from training--but she needs more, she needs an edge, she needs an out, and when she twists her head she bites. Just a little, more a scrape of her teeth than a real proper chomp, but still, unmistakably, a bite--snakes her hands between them and digs the heels of her hands against Kate's ribs, like to heave her off--

[alsohawkeye]

Kate almost brought a knife. She had to remind herself to pull it out of its hiding place and put it down before Johanna arrived, and it was exactly a moment like this that she was thinking of when she did it. It's not the way Johanna fights her, it's her own leverage pinning her down, the arm snug around her throat that makes this the moment to stick a blade between her ribs and end it. It would be over so quickly she probably wouldn't even know. Kate can feel it in her arm, the itch to reach for where that weapon should be, how easy a motion it would be, so little real thought required.

But it isn't there and Johanna bites her shoulder, which she should have seen coming. There's a scrambling moment as she pushes at her ribs and Kate shifts her weight and changes her hold, weight pressed down through hips and knees so she can arch up and drive Johanna's head away. Instead of pulling her close into elbow and chest she pushes her into the mat, forearm braced across her throat.

It puts them face to face, an absurd moment of intimacy Johanna now has in common with the people Kate has killed this way. And she has killed this way - there's too much in her face to believe otherwise even if it weren't in her montage (there's been another since but that's for Snow's highlight reel, not hers even if it's playing in her head right now). Training and instinct and tenacity and revulsion all jumbling up behind eyes that should be dead and cold like a shark's by now. They aren't, but she doesn't ease off.

[axeyou]

Johanna had been mostly left alone to prepare for her Games. And that was fine; that had suited her fine. She had trained alone, but she hadn't needed much. She'd been throwing axes in the camps since she was four years old. This is not a memory that she likes to think about. But she had worked, in secret. She had watched old videos, footage, like that was going to help prepare her. Every Game was different. Everyone knew that. That was part of the thrill and sport of them.

Kate had killed, and she had killed well. Johanna does not like her, but even she can admit to that. But this: hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye--their bodies pressed so close, nearly flush--if this were another setting, without the threat of death, this closeness might mean something else entirely, and the chill of fear nearly feels like a chill of something more, desire and hatred, arousal and death, all twisted up together.

But Kate's arm is strong, pressed against Johanna's throat, and her eyes are narrow and dark, and Johanna knows that look, she knows it because she has worn it herself, felt it twisting her face. She stares up at Kate, her mouth twisted--open, a little, as she tries to draw in breath, but Kate's weight is bearing down on her, she can't.

Angry, she heaves herself up--just her hips, pushing up against Kate's--once, and she flops back but then, again, surging up with everything she's got--and again, with an angry noise that she makes from between her teeth, and she gets one hand up to claw at Kate's arm, her blunt fingernails scudding against her skin as she heaves herself up again, slamming all of her lower weight up just as hard as she can to try and unseat Kate, or at least make her strength waver.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate's barely aware of their position, her attention narrowed down to the throat beneath her arm, the breath she's crushing out of it. She barely sees Johanna's face above it, another's features blended into hers, into the twist of her mouth and the jut of her jaw. This is too easy and too difficult all at once.

But then Johanna throws herself upwards and she snaps back to awareness - that she's just sparring, that it's Johanna, that they're pressed together at a dozen not entirely unpleasant places, all made more noticeable with Johanna pushing up against her like that. It's a weird moment, that and the nails scraping at her arm, conflicting input as if she needs more of that. She shuts her eyes for a second, ducks her head and squeezes them closed until all she sees is black, gives her head a shake that does nothing to clear it.

She hauls back and punches Johanna in the face twice, fast and hard and without releasing the pressure on her windpipe. Until the second blow is struck and then suddenly she's on her knees and on her feet and moving away, stepping back quickly out of range, hands lifted to her head.

[axeyou]

The punches strike hard and quick--Johanna feels something in her nose give a little, and the spill of hot blood confirms it--but that only spurs her on, as the taste of her own blood fills her mouth. She chokes, trying to get in a breath--

And then Kate is gone, all of the pressure lifted from her. One second, two; Johanna sucks in a breath, her throat already sore--three, and then she hauls herself up with another noise through her red-stained teeth.

She could care less about a reason for Kate's retreat; she isn't thinking that way. She only thinks to go for her, and she does, claws her way to her feet and dives after her. Kate's hands are in her hair, and she's hunched, a little--all the better to grab her, and Johanna does, fingers seizing a grip in her hair and twisting her head back in one sharp wrench. Not ideal, but it will hurt, and that's what she wants, as she hauls back and punches her in the face--once, and then again--and with a little shriek, lets go of her hair, shoves into her with her shoulder, to knock her back onto the mat. The blows will have been enough to dizzy her, at least.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate knows she's coming. Even without the sounds - the noise of her breathing, the shuffle of cloth and feet on the mat as she rises - Kate would know. Of course Johanna isn't going to leave it there. Why would she? They're not the ones left alive because they let opponents just walk away.

But when the pull twists her head Kate resists only as much as reflex requires, just enough to not seriously wrench her neck. It still hurts, and so do the punches, so does the mat striking her spine, jarring shoulder blades, thumping against the back of her skull. It all hurts, but that's the point, isn't it? She lifts her arms up to shield her face, a classic guard and a passive one. Behind them she stares at the ceiling, watching the beams and piping weave unsteadily.

Winning was confusing: too many instincts, too many memories, too many faces in her head, too many thoughts that only meet in the middle at I'm a killer. This is simple.

[axeyou]

Blood on her face, blood on her side, in her teeth--she throws herself onto Kate when she goes down, grabs her by the front of her shirt and hauls her up so she can punch her across the face again. She's silent now but for her sharp intake of breath, a sound punctuated by the heavy meat sound of her fist hitting Kate's face--and then again--

But Kate is not fighting back--she is still conscious, obvious by the dull flash of her eyes--but limp, and Johanna loosens her grasp to let her fall back onto the mat. She's straddling Kate again, just as she had been when she first got her down--but now there's blood smeared on both of their faces, and Johanna sucks in a ragged breath, her fingers still twisted in her shirtfront.

"That's it?" she spits out, disgusted. "Get up. Get up, this isn't over."

[alsohawkeye]

Kate's head snapped to the side for the first few punches, now it rolls and flops when Johanna hauls her up and drops her again. There's blood in her mouth and dripping down her cheeks, even in her eyebrow where Johanna's fist sent it spraying. Her nose is a sharp ache, her cheek already a dull throbbing one, and she can feel a tooth coming loose on that side. She worries at it with her tongue and it comes out with little provocation, to be spat onto the mat with a wad of bloody saliva.

She really is dazed, vision narrowed and focusing a strenuous activity. But she's conscious, unfortunately, enough to watch Johanna get even angrier than before. Her shirt stretches but the back of the neck cuts into her nape when Johanna pulls.

"Why not?" She smiles, crooked and crimson and not as crazy as it should be given the circumstance, "Do you feel like you've lost?"

[axeyou]

"If you're giving up, then I didn't lose."

But it feels like a loss. Johanna lets go of her, all at once, lets her fall back against the mat entirely. If she wants to put on this fucking rag doll act, she's welcome to it. Johanna is done with it. There's a wary part of her that hangs back--this could be some act--oldest trick in the book, one she's used herself, to perfection.

But Kate doesn't rise. Johanna stares down at her, flatly, her chest rising and falling sharply, her face sticky with her own blood. Kate's blood is drying on her hands, stiffening her fingers. Her legs are still gripped at her sides, holding tightly to her, holding her down--but it hardly seems necessary now. Kate's listlessness, her small smile--Johanna wants to rip it right off of her face. Instead, she sneers down at her, defiant.

"Come on. Where's the famous Kate Bishop now."

[alsohawkeye]

Johanna lets go and Kate hits the mat with a boneless slap. She gets the feeling she isn't going to get hit again, at least not right away. She'd expected more, but her head already aches like a three day hangover so maybe Johanna's just more efficient than anticipated. She stays there, flat on her back with her eyes almost closed, and the only move she makes to wipe blood from her mouth. Her hand comes away with a thick smear of red and more is already dripping heavy from her nose, from the splits in her thickening lip, but it lets her breath.

Where's the famous Kate Bishop now?

Breathing lets her laugh. Just a little, a thick, choking chuckle that doesn't last long enough to suggest actual hysteria. When she pushes herself up on a hand it leaves a smear of red on the mat but doesn't shift Johanna from her seat. She makes no move at all to attack, nothing in her posture that suggests she's even considering it. Her stare is flat, her words rough, deadpan.

"Do you want me to kill you?"

[axeyou]

They're curled more closely together, with that movement, Kate's face somewhere around Johanna's chest--but the moment is more tense than anything else. The outright question and the awkward closeness--that might suggest that Kate isn't planning anything, but Johanna knows better. It can all change in a second, in only the time that it takes for Kate to shift her weight forward and throw Johanna back against the mat instead.

"Think you could?"

There is no challenge in it. Just a question, one Victor to another. The idea of pitting them against one another, in an Arena--in real and honest competition--it's not something anyone would really suggest. Victors are Victors because they've won. The game they get to play after, that isn't like the Hunger Games. It's something more complex, still riddled with death.

But Johanna has never thought about giving up and dying. She wouldn't fight the way that she does--and has--if that was any kind of option for her. Blood drips from her nose, onto her chin and falls onto Kate--her hands, sticky, too--but she only stares back at Kate, hard-eyed and silent. Waiting.

i actually have a bloody face icon but p sure she's also dead in it

[alsohawkeye]

Kate could do a lot of things from this position and as the immediate blaze of pain fades she runs through them in her mind, quick little visualizations, pros and cons, ways to free herself, attacks, other (surge and flip, bend knee and twist and pull, lock around the neck and roll, jab to the throat, hook to the kidney, headbutt to jaw, wipe blood on her shirt, lick that drop off her chin, find nipple with teeth...). Sometimes the categories blur.

She does nothing, just looks up and meets Johanna's eyes at the question. The lack of challenge is strange, surprising, enough to perversely raise her hackles. That it takes her a moment to reply shouldn't be misinterpreted to suggest she needs to think about it. There's no hesitation, no debate going on behind her eyes. She just gives the moment the weight it feels like it deserves, and doesn't look away.

"Yes."

She could point out that she nearly did just a few minutes ago, but it feels unnecessary and she isn't looking to pick a fight (not another one). So it's a simple answer, just plain certainty and nothing else in her tone, no arrogance, not a hint of pride. One nostril is clotting closed but the other is still dripping so half her mouth and chin are drying dark, already crusting around the edges while the other side is fresh and wet and bright. She just sits there and waits.

just wait. jk.

[axeyou]

Johanna holds that gaze for just a second longer, her eyes playing over Kate's face. Under their twin masks of blood, they must look almost similar, like they've dressed to match. Like the fucking Arena all over again.

She doesn't laugh, when Kate answers. Yes. She keeps studying her, at all the precise little tells that hint toward what her injuries will be. Blood has started to dry on Johanna's face, too, stiffening, hardening the mask over. Their stylists will fix all of this. It will be like it never happened. But right now, with Kate's blood on her hands and her own blood on her face--

Johanna smiles. Just a lift of her lips, that shows the slightest hint of teeth, stained in red. And then she reaches out and shoves at Kate's shoulder, a final blow that carries no weight--maybe just enough to push her down, if she's weak enough from the fight. If not, who cares: Johanna swings herself off, climbs to her feet with her hands first braced against the mat and then up, a single smooth motion no matter how dizzy it leaves her.

"Later," she suggests, and turns to stride back toward her axe, turning her back on Kate--not so much as a gesture of trust, but more of disregard. This part of the fight is over. For now.

[alsohawkeye]

The shove doesn't budge Kate, perhaps surprisingly. She holds her ground here, with her broken nose and busted lip and throbbing behind her eyes; she'd probably take another punch but she's not going to be pushed around. She doesn't follow when Johanna gets to her feet, watching her rise, hunting for some hint of unsteadiness. She's a little impressed to find none. Next time she'll have to hit harder.

"Later." She watches Johanna all the way out the door before easing back to lie down.

It's amazing how quickly a video can be prepped to air, even when "prepping" involves drastically reshaping the whole encounter, reordering sequences, looping others, fabricating some entirely to smooth the transitions, trimming dialogue. It's packaged as a special exclusive, with a sneak peek to follow the Tribute interviews, unprecedented footage of two of your favorite Victors facing off in a stunning inter-district showdown that til now was only the stuff of a fan's dreams and might -- dare he say it? -- might be the stuff of a few more dreams tonight. Ha ha ha!

Kate throws the remote across the room when she sees it, and then remembers she's still in that same stupid building and makes a rude gesture at the ceiling just in case someone's still watching.

[axeyou]

In the short time that she's been a Victor, Johanna has managed to avoid a great deal of media attention. Everyone suffers a little--she's been forced to take her time in the sun, just as everyone has, and it's worse, just before the Games--but Johanna had almost tricked herself into believing that her own unwillingness to participate had absolved her of the worst of it.

Which was stupid. Because of course the Capitol was only saving up, really. She's reminded of that as she stares at her video screen, alone in her spacious room in the District 7 suite.

She throws her remote right at the screen. It sparks, and then flickers out completely in another shower of sparks. Johanna doesn't look twice at it. Nor does she look toward the cameras that are undoubtedly recording her outburst. She has no axe--weapons aren't permitted in the suites--but she strides to the door with her hands clenched and her jaw set, and walks just like that all the way to Kate's suites, where she pounds on the door.

[alsohawkeye]

The District 1 suite is as densely populated as they get and she isn't expecting visitors, so Kate doesn't answer the door. An unfortunate assistant escort has that somewhat dubious privilege, but despite Johanna's attitude he doesn't seem to mind, and the moment he's finished directing her to Kate's door he's tittering behind his long, curly-nailed hand with a friend.

Kate's door requires more of a pounding than the first, and Johanna will no doubt hear the moment Kate spends stepping up and checking to see who is outside before she releases the token locks and opens the door.

"I had nothing to do with that," she says, wasting no time at all, "So if you just came to accuse me, you can go. If there's anything more, come in." That there are cameras everywhere doesn't make her more keen on carrying on conversations arguments in the hallway for anyone to watch live, and she steps back to let Johanna pass if she wants to. Beyond her, the room is brightly lit and the dull fuzz of voices from the screen can be heard still going.

[axeyou]

Of course Johanna wants in the room, and if Kate hadn't stepped aside, she'd have shoved her way in regardless. In some situations--life-or-death situations--Johanna is able to think beyond her anger, hit some clear plain of high-efficiency action. Smaller things are more difficult to think through, like maybe they're not worth the effort that it takes to navigate them with any subtlety.

So maybe it's a mistake, going publicly to Kate and going right into her room, feeding the fire of any implications they want to make. Johanna is in the room anyways, and she glares at the screen, where the news broadcast is ongoing.

"So," she says, rounding on Kate with a glare, "you had nothing to do with it. That doesn't make me any happier. So what. What are you going to do about it now that it's happened."

[alsohawkeye]

Kate shuts the door behind her and follows less quickly, letting Johanna storm ahead and maybe work off some tiny scrap of her furious energy before engaging. She's been more in the news over the last six years, has had more chances to become familiar with how the Capitol operates, how they think. So she has a pretty good idea of what's going to happen next, but unfortunately she's guessing rivalry, not romance, so letting Johanna in and letting the gossip-mongers outside see her come and go feels like a good choice, something that's going to neutralize the situation, if only slightly.

The remote is in pieces in a corner and Kate crosses to pick it up, pressing some buttons that of course do nothing before tossing it back down. On the screen the broadcasters are recapping the night's news, memorable Tribute quotes, fashion highlights. The room is all shiny surfaces and hard angles, as sleek and garish as everything in the building and for once totally at odds with Kate, who takes a seat on the square-cushioned couch and draws a bare foot up beneath her. In soft pants and a loose sweater, neutral tones, hair down, she doesn't look so much like the Victor from the party the other night or the one laughing through her own blood this morning, but she's just as irritatingly calm.

"What would you like me to do about it?" she asks, the question so dry it's nearly rhetorical. "They're going to have us on to do interviews. Probably we'll have to shake hands and say nice things about each other's districts, which I'm sure even you can manage because someone will write the words for you. It's not a big deal."