InsaneJournal

Who: Johanna Mason and Gale Hawthorne
When: Backdated: Wednesday, April 8th. Afternoon
Where: The Gym
What: Random Meeting
Rating/Warnings: Family friendly
Status: Complete

Keeping up a training regimen wasn’t all that difficult, even now that he’d transitioned toward the more civilian side of things. Sure, he had his monthly army training but those were always going to be close to home, one of the perks of the Reserves, but it was just that Gale hated going to the gym. He’d rather take a run on the beach, or even in the park, pounding pavement and cranking his iPod up to full blast. Maybe even taking Tella with him. But sometimes the gym was a necessarily evil, when he needed something well-rounded and to get time with weights in, so he headed there with his gear and, yes, with the required iPod cued up to his favorite playlists so he could complete the drudgery of the workout without bothering anyone, and without anyone bothering him.

He’d started with some cardio, a good time with the full body heavy bag. Punching the crap out of shit felt good, he had to admit. Then, the news was going on the overhead TVs while he went for a run on the treadmill, but he had his earbuds in and wasn’t really paying much attention to the goings-on. When he stepped off the treadmill and took a drink of water, however, he was pretty sure he’d been running next to someone familiar.

“Johanna, right?” he blurted out, removing the earbuds. Well, great time to meet when he was a sweaty mess.

After she’d dreamt about her Hunger Games, Johanna had started thinking about joining a gym. It wasn’t that she was out of shape or anything, but she was in such good shape in the dreams and she’d kill to have a body that fit, so she’d started looking at various gyms and upon finding one that had a lot of good reviews she’d checked it out before joining and had started going everyday after work. Today was her third day and so far she thought she was doing pretty well. She’d started small, using the treadmill and elliptical and would soon move up to some of the various classes.

She’d also had her earbuds in while walking and hadn’t been aware of anyone beside her until she heard a voice and saw someone move into her line of sight. Pulling one of her earbuds out, she looked towards the guy, “What?” Was she doing something wrong? She certainly wasn’t a gym expert yet, so it was entirely possible, but he didn’t look like he worked there.

Gale chuckled a little, pulling out a towel to begin wiping down the equipment he used - not like sweat was germy, but it was just bad etiquette to leave a gross mess behind for someone to find when they were trying to get a workout in. Especially nasty to lie down in a puddle of someone else’s perspiration at the bench press, but that was neither here nor there. Personally, wasn’t like he gave a shit since in the army if you got tripped up over stuff like that you wouldn’t last, but not everyone had that sort of mentality. He was attempting to be considerate.

“You just seem familiar is all,” he added, once the music wasn’t blasting in her ear. “I think we might know each other.” In dreams, they hadn’t met yet but he guessed there was still time.

It took Johanna a moment to realize that he was serious and wasn’t trying to hit on her and then she realized that he too seemed familiar and why, “Valarnet. Panem.” He’d replied to her post after she’d dreamt about the Reaping of the Quarter Quell, which was putting her back into the Games. “I haven’t met you in the dreams though. Are you further ahead?” If he was did that mean she survived the Quell? Did they mean Finnick, Katniss and Peeta were all killed? She didn’t know Katniss, but the thought of losing Peeta or Finnick was upsetting.

“I haven’t gotten to the Quell yet, actually,” Gale admitted, and he was probably the farthest behind. But he’d just moved back, and dreams began trickling in again. They’d probably come on at full force soon enough - faster and with more astounding clarity than he would have wanted. “I just dreamed of the 74th Hunger Games. I’m Gale. From District 12...you may know me as Katniss’s cousin who was interviewed when she got to the final eight?”

That made him smirk, as he held out his hand for a shake. Because of course he wasn’t really related to Katniss, even if they resembled each other - coalminer hair and those Seam grey eyes, just barely blue in the right light. Mostly his were void of light, ashen like his homeworld.

“Oh! Yeah. The interviews. Now I remember.” Now that he’d said it, she recalled the various interviews with the Tributes’ families for the 74th Hunger Games. “Are you really her cousin?” Johanna was well aware of how the Capitol could twist things when it came to Tributes and Victors so she was curious. She couldn’t help it and hoped that he wouldn’t think she was being too intrusive. They did sort of look alike, but then again it could have been a coincidence; lots of people looked alike who weren’t actually related.

“No,” Gale shook his head, resisting a shudder at the notion. Even here, in this life, it bothered him. “I was passed off as her cousin because being her best friend wouldn’t look good to the Capitol. Especially when she was supposed to be in love with Peeta.” It sort of screamed ‘awkward love triangle,’ or worse, that Katniss’s interests were elsewhere - and that wouldn’t be doing the star-crossed lovers of District 12 any favors. He was also aware that it was because of the way he looked, dubbed ‘too handsome’ (or some shit like that, not that he really cared or agreed) to be interviewed as someone else to Katniss in a non-familial way, and he also had never really played nice for the cameras either. Wasn’t good at that like how Peeta was.

He canted his head in the direction of the smoothie bar at the gym. “If you’re done, we can go get something? Wouldn’t want to block the treadmills,” he grinned.

“Yeah, I can definitely see why they would want to make people believe you were her cousin then,” Johanna had originally intended to go a little longer on the treadmill, but now she felt like she’d gone on long enough and nodded, “Yeah, I’m good.” She was kind of excited about the prospect of talking to someone new about the dreams. Stopping the machine, Johanna proceeded to wipe it down then gathered her things and stepped off to join Gale, “Lead the way.”

Growing up in Panem, Gale had those dreams where he remembered the other Games that took place before the infamous 74th. So he knew who Johanna was, and knew that she’d won her own Games by pretending to be a weakling and then murdering the competitors with an axe after they disregarded her. It was a smart strategy, really. “So I’ve gotta know...”

He settled on a stool at the smoothie bar, ordering something with protein powder mixed in there and a fuckton of fruit, he wasn’t picky. And whatever Johanna wanted, of course, his treat. “Do the axe skills carry over here?”

“I don’t really know.” Johanna said after she’d ordered her own smoothie, “I haven’t tried. Don’t exactly have an axe at home.” She’d be lying if she said that she wasn’t itching to see if her skills from the dreams had bled over, but without an axe she had no way of finding out. “Although, I’ve heard that stuff like that can bleed over in real life. “Anything like that happen to you or anyone you know?”

Here in Orange County, Gale wouldn’t rule anything out. He shrugged, hand running over his jaw, and he likely needed a shave. Just couldn’t curb the dark shadow. “I know people who have gotten dream gifts and things, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t get an axe?” he suggested, and when his refreshing drink was handed to him he had to resist the urge to down it all in one go and give himself brain freeze. But after a long workout, he was thirsty.

“I’d hope you would. It’s kind of your thing, right?”

Johanna nodded, “Yeah, I guess it is. I mean, that’s how I won after all.” Not that winning The Hunger Games had really been a good thing. It just meant that she was smarter and stronger than the others. “If it weren’t for my last dream, I wouldn’t think it was possible to get an axe now, but now I’m not so sure.” She was going back into the Games after all. She took a sip of her smoothie.

“Guess we’ll find out,” he grinned crookedly. “I don’t know what I’d possibly get. Besides a lump of coal.” Joke. But then again, Gale was pretty far behind everyone else in the dreams since he’d been in and out of the OC. While in South Africa, and then later when he returned Stateside, he’d dreamed of the repeats. The growing up in poverty, the daily hunting and trading he’d go through just to stay alive. The Reaping for the 74th Games. It was a bad place to stop, but the newer dreams were starting now - fucking great, right?

Still, he was interested in the parallels with everyone else. For Peeta, he already knew there were a few. “I’m guessing there are a lot of differences between your dream self and you here?”

Johanna had been thinking about that lately, but after what Snow had done to her family, she wasn’t so sure if there were any parallels except for the one, “Well….I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve never done anything like the Hunger Games and I didn’t grow up in a place that’s lumber oriented, but like in the dreams, my….well I lost my family a couple months ago.” She still didn’t like talking about the accident and had really only talked to Peeta about it, but she felt like she could trust Gale. She didn’t know how she knew that, but it was a feeling she had.

His eyes flickered with sympathy; it was a familiar sort of grief that Gale knew well. “Same here,” he said, poking the straw of the smoothie into the cup absently. If only to keep his hands busy. “Well, my father died when I was thirteen. Black Lung,” he tacked on as an addendum. “I’m from West Virginia, where a lot of coal mining happens. Like it was in District 12.” That was a parallel for him. And definitely one that felt like a knifepoint in between each of his ribs.

“Anyway, it was why I joined the army when I turned eighteen. I didn’t want to stay in the same spot, with the same things happening to me.” He couldn’t afford to go to college at the time, and there wasn’t much in the way of gainful employment where he lived. There were the factory and warehouse jobs, the ones he’d been working as soon as he’d been old enough - so he could help take care of his family - but for the rest of his life? Hell no.

"My parents and brother were in a car accident last year." Johanna bit her bottom lip as she stirred her smoothie with the straw. In the dreams it hadn't happened all at once like in real life. Snow had used her family as leverage against her to act the way he'd wanted and considering Johanna wasn't exactly good with authority, it had all blown up in her face. "How long were you in the army? A friend of mine was also in the army." She had no idea that Peeta and Gale knew each other in real life yet.

“About three and a half years,” Gale replied, and he’d take care of the unanswered questions for Johanna. How nice of him! “I did a tour with Peeta, in Afghanistan. If you know him.” It was possible that the Panem people didn’t, even if they were in the area, considering the thing with Haymitch and Peeta and the chilly silence between them. Not to mention Katniss, but that was a whole other situation. “I’m Army Reserves now, just transitioned over from Active Duty status. So, I don’t know, I guess you have someone else to commiserate with now,” he grinned crookedly.

"Yeah, I know Peeta." She's only known Peeta for a few months, but she already considered him one of her closest friends in Orange County. She would admit that she had a bit of a crush on Peeta, but she had a feeling that that mostly had to do with the fact that he was such a nice guy that it was hard not to like him. "So what made you decide to move out here? You could have gone anywhere when you got out."

Well, Gale didn’t have a crush on Peeta (at least not in anything besides a bromantic way), but he felt closer to the guy here than he did in the dream world. District 12, specifically the Seam, was just such an oppressive and stifling place - his rage had simmered for far too long, and though it wasn’t necessarily Peeta’s fault (he couldn’t help being born into the family he was), Gale still always felt that undercurrent of resentment for the ones who didn’t have to work their fingers to the bone to get by. But that was less at people personally, and more at the system that made things unfair. Still, there wasn’t that now. He trusted Peeta, and considered him a good friend.

“I lived here a little bit before, I was at Fort Irwin,” he explained. “Then I got sent to South Africa for an exercise. But when it came time for me to come back, well,” he shrugged broad shoulders. “It just kinda felt like home last time, so, I thought I’d try it again. What about you? You like it here?”

“Seems like a good enough reason as any to move back. South Africa must have been pretty interesting though.” Johanna said, taking a sip of her smoothie as she watched him before answering, “I’m from Portland. Lived there by whole life until the accident. There were too many memories. I needed to start over. So, I decided to move out to Orange County.” She couldn’t really remember why she had chosen Orange County out of all the other places, but she was there now and aside from the crazy dreams, she liked it. “But yeah, I like it here. Sure crazy shit happens and some of us have horrible dreams about evil dictators that no one seems to try and take out, but other than that, I like it.”

He understood about wanting to start over. To distance from bad memories. For Gale, his were kind of shackled to him no matter where he went - he saw them in his nightmares, and not just the ones about Panem. But he was trying the same thing, sort of - starting a new chapter in his life where he wasn’t so tied to the Army. He still was, but the strings were just a little looser, and that came with both benefits and drawbacks. “I think it’s like that for a lot of people,” he laughed a little. “They still stick around for some reason. Maybe stubbornness or whatever.”

Checking the time on his iPod, he realized he probably should get going. For a number of reasons but mostly... “I probably smell, so, think it’s shower time.” Said jokingly, before he slurped at the dregs of the smoothie cup. Refreshing. “But it was good to meet you. Nice to have another Panem person around.”

“Oh sure, I don’t want to keep you.” She wrinkled her nose, a small smirk upon her lips, “And you’re right. You do stink.” She may have just met him, but she couldn’t help but tease him. Picking up her smoothie, she got off the stool and nodded, “But in all seriousness, it was nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.” If they were both friends with Peeta then that was a distinct possibility. “And thanks again for the drink.”