Do you have the time to listen to me whine?

[theluckygirl]

WHO: Claire Temple
WHERE: Around the village
WHEN: February 20th/21st
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None to start but will update

---

It was practically inevitable that it would happen. Most would probably tell her that they went through their own version of a breakdown. How could they not? Being dumped (literally) in a place that one couldn't escape from and forced to live a new life, away from friends and loved ones were the hardest things to adjust to. Let alone the passing of time that eventually felt like it was going backwards. Even focusing on a menial routine drew the hours out instead of making them pass quicker.

Over the last week, the nurse abandons the things that she's been focusing on as a distraction. She avoids the clinic, isolates herself in her room where she spends more time sleeping in hopes of forcing back the sadness of missing her mother, Luke, Colleen and even Danny.

And then there's Matt, who she hasn't properly grieved.

Early one evening, one might catch her walking around without any purpose other than to stretch the muscles out in her legs from laying so much. She stops at the inn, but not long enough to let anyone catch her for company and conversation, though that doesn't work as well as she hopes. On her way out, Claire manages to find a patch of ice and slips, banging the back of her head.

That's when it happens.

In a matter of seconds, the nurse snaps and lets out a very loud, angry scream that echoes in every possible direction, making it seem louder. When she's done and out of breath, she lays there before bursting into tears.

She's really had enough.

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.