you can't win when you are the system

[71st_victor]

WHO: Johanna Mason
WHERE: Behind the Hospital
WHEN: February 20th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Drug Use

---

The box had turned up a week ago, but for the better part of that time, Johanna has been carefully hiding all the other bags of morphling (or morphine, as it'd been printed on the bags) in places that no one would think to look. She'd kept to her usual routine, made sure that she wouldn't cause attention to herself, and hidden them in places with little marking. She knows, on some level, that what she's doing is wrong. She knows that it's wrong because of how she's hiding it, how people will disapprove, but she doesn't give a fuck.

Once she taps into that first bag and lets herself drift into the sweet oblivion she's been missing all this time, she's not letting the others go without a fight. Waiting until she's delivered her wood haul for the day, she slips off her normal routine back to Baze's house, heads instead to the hospital. While she'd been given the bags, they didn't exactly give her needles.

Waiting for an all clear takes at least an hour, but she pockets one, making the smallest of small talk, and then she's at the back of the hospital, hissing as she slides in the morphine through the drip, breathing out the first real relief she's felt in ages as everything starts to float away. The bad memories, the nightmares, the reminder of what the Capitol did to her...

For the first time since she resurfaced in that fucking fountain, Johanna feels like she can let go. Mindful that she can't waste the whole bag right now, she wiggles the needle out, too drugged out to mind the pain (or the blood), and too out of it to realize she hasn't hidden the bag like she should, but just shoved it in her pocket. Everything is brighter, everything sounds incredible, and she thinks the world is thumping in time with her heart, jolting up to meet her.

Stumbling towards the front of the hospital, she sees a hazy figure start coming into focus. "What's your rush?" she drawls, smirking at them as she lets herself lean, loose-limbed and relaxed, like all of her demons are melting into the ground. "There's plenty of doctoring to go around for all of us, take a number," she jokes, like it's hilarious, snorting and giggling to herself as she lets her back hit a pole, sliding into a sit so she can push her fingers into the earth, eyes wide and intent as she watches them dig into the ground.

Comments

[chirrutsluck]

When she doesn't show up like usual at home, Baze is puzzled. She's usually pretty set in her routine, like he is, and if she's not there... well, if she's out being friendly with someone, he's not going to complain. But he has nothing better to do, and hates being in that empty house by himself, so he heads out in an idle search for her. He doesn't really expect to find her; he'd be perfectly all right if he didn't, really, because that probably means she doesn't really want to be found.

Outside the hospital is not where he'd expected to find her, though, if he had. Sliding down giggling to the ground is even less what he expected. He drops to a crouch in front of her. "What happened?" he asks, not finding it nearly as funny as she does.

[71st_victor]

Johanna squints at him and leans forward until she's only inches away from him. "Why does anything need to have happened?" she whispers, like she's fascinated. Waiting a pause, she reaches out to tap his nose with her fingers, moving that finger to her lips like she's asking him to keep a secret.

"Don't tell Baze," she jokes, because she knows very well that she's talking to him, but she doesn't really feel like she's in trouble. After all, who gives a fuck what she does and now that she's finally got some relief, she might be able to sleep. "Why does something have to be wrong? Maybe something's just finally right," she insists, feeling languid.

[chirrutsluck]

"Because I have never known you to giggle," Baze says soberly. "Or to touch me if I have not touched you first. What happened?" She seems drugged; he's seen people drugged, both for medical and non-medical reasons, and that's the most obvious explanation here. But where in the universe did she get something to dope herself up with?

[71st_victor]

"That's because you didn't know me before," Johanna counters, shaking her head fluidly like a figure eight, mostly because she likes the way it feels, like her head is floating right above her neck. Peering at him, she knows that as soon as she tells the truth, he'll take it from her.

Sitting a little harder, the bag concealed away in her clothes, she stares him down. "Nothing happened, nothing changed, nothing ever changes," she complains. "I just decided to take a break from reality today," she says, her words slow and careful, like she's placing each one of them into the sentence.

[chirrutsluck]

"With a little help, I imagine," Baze says sourly. Because yeah. That is a drugged person, right there. He vividly recalls all her comments about wanting drugs ever since she had her second dunk in the fountain... so he's only surprised that someone or something managed to get her some. "What did you use, and where did you get it?" he asks, resigned. "And how long as it been since you used last?" Does he have to worry about overdose due to lessened resistance? Does he have to worry about her getting sick? Because he will worry.

[71st_victor]

Guilty as charged.

Johanna keeps his gaze, not blinking until she has to, then it's rapid and annoyed, because even through her drugged haze, she remember what being in trouble is like and this feels so much like she's getting in trouble with her father. Funny how that makes her eyes tear up, because she hasn't seen her family in over five years, not since she got them killed.

"It's mine," she insists, a bit rough and possessive. "It came with my name on it, it's making me feel better, it's mine," she vows. "I used enough, I'm not so stupid that I'd kill myself."

[chirrutsluck]

"Are you sure about that?" Baze asks, but it's rhetorical, because he's already moving to duck under her arm-- the one she didn't use for her needle, because now that he knows what he's looking for, he can see the little bloodstain-- to help her to her feet. "I'm going to keep an eye on you for a while just in case."

And once she's safely asleep, he's going hunting for her stash. And contacting her friends from her crappy planet to see if they know anything about this.

[71st_victor]

She grimaces when he pulls her to her feet, weaving a little given that her balance isn't exactly top of the pile right now, leaning into Baze's firm body before she topples right back to the ground like a tree ready to be felled.

"I don't need you to watch me," is her heated reply, the irritation cutting through her haze. Her cheeks are hot with it, annoyed, and she hates that she's being treated like this. "I'm fine."

[chirrutsluck]

"You just fell down. For what looks like the second time," Baze points out, and ducks under her arm again to heave her to her feet. This time, unless she wrenches away, he'll wrap an arm around her waist to hold her up. Obviously, he's not all that afraid of her anger-- as high as she probably is, he could see an attack coming a mile away, and anyway, he doesn't actually think she'll try to hurt him.

If she can't walk, he'll have to see about carrying her completely, but for now, he'll leave her some attempt at dignity.

[71st_victor]

Johanna doesn't really know if she's falling or if she's just tired of standing, but still, she lets him haul her to her feet, glaring at him for pointing out the obvious. "I'm not dying and I'm not hurt, so let me be disconnected from all the shit here," she insists, wanting to float off into the haze of the drugs.

"Don't I deserve a break?" she asks, her voice brittle, because she hasn't really had the chance to have anything decent, not for a very long time.

[chirrutsluck]

"You deserve many good things," Baze says, starting them slowly back towards the house. "Including having someone care about what happens to you. Right now, that someone is me."

[71st_victor]

"Never gotten any of them," is her dulled response. She got fame, money, acclaim, but they expected her to look and act a certain way and when she didn't, they took everything that actually mattered. Now, when she'd tried to rise up, they kept taking and taking. She can barely be around water, even now, and it leaves her jittery and relying on the pines to keep somewhat clean.

"Don't care about me," she mutters. "They'll kill you for it, that's what they do, that's all they ever do."

[chirrutsluck]

"I am already dead," Baze reminds her as they weave in the direction of the house, him mostly supporting her at this point probably. "There is not much worse they can do to me." They could take her away, but then, that's not what they're talking about here, is it? They're talking about her, and she might well be fine with that.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Is it bad that his first instinct is jealousy? It's probably bad. Admittedly, his own urge to drown everything has gotten a little better lately (a difference he can probably attribute mainly to Jude), but the times are still pretty frequent that just getting really fucked up would be excellent.

She'd be proud. He thought "fucked up" without needing to remind himself how to swear.

"I'm walking the dog, actually, but good to know."

Yeah, he's a bad friend.

[71st_victor]

Is there a dog there? Johanna stares for a second until the blurry one shape becomes an actual set of shapes and she sees the animal there. "Is that what you've been doing? Giving Fido his daily walks around the prison?" she asks with an amused little snicker, way too entranced by her own joke than she has any right being, because it wasn't really that funny.

She feels like she's sinking down into the earth, euphoric and finally not thinking about anything. "Did Fido bring any food? I'm starving," she admits, which is also something out of the ordinary.

[onlyeverdoubted]

It's much more like Aurora takes Bodhi for walks, but that's not what he's likely to lead with. He also has no idea why she's calling the dog Fido, but that's the kind of thing he's gotten good at just eliding past. No reason to think the explanation would make any sense.

"I think when she has food she just eats it," he says after a pause. He checks his own bag, but, as anticipated, there's nothing helpful. Bodhi's to the point where he can make food happen, but not such a woodsman that he makes it easily stored or transportable. "You'd probably have to follow me home."

He's not trying to be tactful, really. He just doesn't know that her current state is any of his business beyond preventing imminent bodily harm.

[71st_victor]

It takes her a little while to stumble to her feet, mainly because she and gravity are at odds with how it exists right now, but she does get there, inevitably not wobbling. "In that case, I guess you'll have one pet and one stray following you home," she guarantees, gesturing for them to walk.

"I can't remember the last time I was so hungry," she admits, though that's a lie. She's hungry all the time, but food usually makes her feel sicker. Now, she's actually hungry, actually craving something.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi thinks about helping her up, but she might punch him. Not because of her current state. He just always assumes that about her. He's also slowed down in the altruistic impulse by the knowledge that even at her best, she has a habit of getting in his space in ways that make him edgy. On purpose.

The hesitation goes on long enough that he doesn't actually get in there before she's on her feet. "then sorry you're just heading for whatever's in the pantry? If you're lucky, um, I didn't cook it."

[71st_victor]

"Fine by me," she guarantees, because she's not picky at all at this point, driven on by the need for something to keep her appetite sated and to enjoy herself when it comes to the flagging edge of the morphine. She's definitely going to be taking another hit before she sleeps, unwilling to subject herself to more nightmares, again.

Finally finding her balance, she stands victorious. "So who made the food, then?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

"If it's not me it's usually Kira." Though the whole point of the big central building is wrangling newcomers, at least in theory, Bodhi's not great at it and Kira's missing most of the memories that'd tell him to do it. They're not exactly careful curators. "I'm, well, I usually cook alright, actually, but not... not interestingly?" Carrying on conversations with the chemically altered has always been a skill of his. He can roll with this.

[71st_victor]

Johanna keeps staring at Bodhi with a look on her face that says that he's not escaping from the comment she's about to make, not right now. "So, Kira is the one who cooks for you? You two live in a little old house with a cute little dog and he cooks," she says, making a faux-pout.

"Isn't that sweet, at least someone is getting taken care of," she says, as if Baze isn't looking out for her all the time, but she's teasing Bodhi right now, she's not intending to talk sense.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Fortunately for him, that comment's power to wound or even to irritate much is gone. Whether it's fortunate for her depends on whether she'd rather have the fun of bothering him or his willing attempts to babysit her through whatever this is. (He might have some intention to try and get a few answers once she comes down, but who is he to comment, really?)

"It wouldn't make much sense for both of us to cook," he says, perfectly calmly. Nothing to get upset about when she's teasing him about the wrong person, or when the right person isn't an unattainable torment but his to snuggle whenever he feels like it.

[71st_victor]

She's listening in a haze, the drugs doing the excellent work of making her not really give a shit about any of this. It's something that just sort of flows over her, letting her be distracted and pleased with it, something that she can let keep her mind at ease.

Basically, it's a hum, a boring hum that she can listen to. "It does, because what happens when he goes?" she points out, like it's a given statement that he will, because everyone goes, eventually.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Well, that one stings. It'd sting even without the specific history, but he already lost Kira, and every day feels like it's less likely he'll get his friend back from the stranger without his memories. But he rallies after a moment. You can't take things personally from anyone in this state of mind. Or, for that matter, from Johanna. "Last time? I, um, mostly got by on bread and tea for a bit." Not that he can't cook. He'd just been a panicked, miserable mess at the time.

[71st_victor]

She squints at him, tries to remember why he said 'last time'. "You mean, when he went before. Because I bet you didn't notice when I was gone," she says, with the guarantee that no one had. Maybe now, Baze would, but she's too good at keeping herself isolated and locked away.

Now she's feeling guilty, because she's thinking about how people have been kind to her. "I hope you don't listen to me when I talk about shit like that at you," she says, rambling as she walks, not bothering to look at him.