Dancing with our hands tied: 75th - part 5, hunger games series - all media types, hunger games trilogy - suzanne collins, the hunger games (movies) fanfic

everythingisundercontrol

Characters

Katniss Everdeen/Johanna Mason, Effie Trinket, Blight (Hunger Games), Finnick Odair, Haymitch Abernathy

Tags

Angst Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Slow Burn Hurt/Comfort Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD Not Beta Read Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence Quarter Quell (Hunger Games) allies to friends to lovers Song: Dancing With Our Hands Tied (Taylor Swift) Hunger Games Mentor Katniss Everdeen Mentor Johanna rip peeta gone but not forgotten

Summary

peeta and katniss are declared as the winners of the 73rd hunger games, but he collapses before the hovercraft can rescue themwithout peeta, katniss is left behind to deal with the mounting revolution on her own...until she meets johanna mason. as mentors for the 74th games, the two become trusted allies and friends in the face of unanticipated dangerbased on dancing with our hands tied by taylor swiftpart of my joniss as reputation songs series (probably the longest part if im being honest lmao)

Note

okokok i need to explain several things to make this fic make sense <3first of all: katniss wins the 73rd hunger games (NOT the 74th) in this fic because i wanted her to have a year as a mentor before the quellnext: peetaso obviously killing off peeta so early into canon creates a lot of issues...like way more than i initially expected. although at first i planned to have cato kill him, my friend suggested keeping the berry scene to add fuel to the fire of the revolution and then just have peeta's leg kill him (tysm to my friend!! love you girlie). so that fixed a lot of my issues with building the revolution and all that.the next issue is the quell which i'll explain when we get to itin terms of peeta keeping katniss grounded/sane when she's processing the trauma of the games, i'm going to be leaning on everyone else for that (johanna, haymitch, cinna, prim, gale, etc) and it won't be the same kind of comfort, but it'll just have to be enough <3 lolanother plot hole has to do with mockingjay (you can probably guess...) but i'm not going to address that until we come to it either in order to avoid spoilers and also because i haven't made a final decision on that yetfinally, there's the issue of katniss "being subjected to the same fate as finnick" because peeta isn't there. again, i'm not sure what to do about this yet but we'll find out together i guess!!dwoht is one of the rep songs that inspired this entire series for me so i really recommend giving it a listen <3and if anything is unclear regarding the plot or anything i've mentioned above, pls reach out to me in the comments!! i know there's a lot to consider so i'll try to clarify lmao <3

75th - part 5

April 20, 2025 at 09:43 AM

katniss’s pov

“Well…” Haymitch begins as soon as we sit down to dinner, “at least half the tributes want you. So who’s it gonna be? I’m assuming you want Jo—”

“I don’t want Johanna,” I blurt.

The whole table falls silent, looking at me with total disbelief. I guess my past alliance with District 7 was obvious, because even Portia looks horrified that I’ve betrayed Johanna and Blight. Well, it’s for the best that I betray them now.

“Why not?” asks Haymitch carefully, squinting at me.

“Because I don’t want to have to kill her,” I say quietly. I don’t want to have this conversation with everyone, but I need to shut down this alliance now. I can’t go on any further worrying about this. “Or watch her die. I don’t want her, and I don’t want Blight either. I want Mags and District 3.”

“Mags and District 3?” repeats Haymitch. “Are you sure?”

“Either them or I don’t want anyone.”

Cole scoffs loudly. “But we need allies,” he says, looking at Haymitch for support, “and I think we need someone a little more—”

“Wiress and Beetee are smart,” I retort.

“Sure, but they’re dead meat if someone like Johanna—”

“I don’t want—”

“SHUT UP,” roars Haymitch. Even Effie doesn’t dare to challenge him as he glares at me and Cole. Silently, he stares at me for a while, thinking to himself until finally he mutters, “I’ll tell them you’re still making up your mind.”

“Go ahead, but my decision is final,” I argue.

His jaw clenches as he glares at me. “We’ll see about that.”

I could hit him, I could throw a fit, I feel like I could probably flip the table and dump his dinner all over him. All my rage over being thrown back into the arena bubbles in the pit of my stomach, but I don’t act on it. What good would come of it?

But I can’t be Johanna’s ally. I can’t risk it coming down to us and Cole. I couldn’t kill her, not after the way she helped me survive last year’s Games, the way she saved me from Cole’s Victory Party, and the way she made me trust her. Today, at training, I realized that I can’t hate her. Even when I shouldn’t be, I’m still on her side. I just can’t be her ally anymore.

Maybe I could try to save her over Cole, but I can’t betray him like that. After the way things ended with Santhe, I owe it to him to protect him one last time. Plus, he’ll be able to keep Prim company once I’m gone. And maybe he’ll hold Haymitch together.

If Haymitch is going to force me to have allies, I’ll take Wiress, Beetee, and Mags. Part of me doubts I can kill them if necessary, but if it comes down to them or Cole, I’ll have to. And if I have to, I’ll be able to.

I couldn’t kill Johanna. Or Blight, but…I really couldn’t kill Johanna. Honestly, I think I would let her kill me. I wouldn’t bother to put up a fight, I would just lay down my weapons and let her kill me. After so many years of fighting to stay alive, I would throw it all away rather than hurt her. Johanna’s my friend, the person I would protect in the arena if not for Cole. I care about her more than I should.

Would she kill me?