fic: i'm little but i'm coming for the crown // katniss+gale // nhl!thg

[electrumqueen]

PROCRASTINATION MAKES ME PRODUCTIVE OKAY :xxxxx

more chicago mockingjays, more of me throwing my life away, you guys i just otp katniss/gale when there is no trauma binding kat/peeta together can we not talk about it? cool.

i am actually internalizing a playlist for this universe. not a joke. for this one i listening to lorde's "still sane" on repeat, interspersed with the kelly c classic "my life would suck without you" (yes, i am that kind of girl) and also bridgit mendler's "postcard", which katniss everdeen would voluntarily listen to in no universe ever.

i'm little but i'm coming for the crown
katniss (prim, gale, peeta, cinna, haymitch, cato, foxface, clove)

The first night in Chicago is cold, lonely. Katniss wraps herself in a sweater and stands barefoot in Cinna’s kitchen, watching him cook. She has never been a fan of that kind of thing, didn’t think he would have time for it, but his hands are quick and clever and he doesn’t object when she steals slices of carrot out from under his fingers.

“So,” Cinna says. “Any boys? Any girls?”

Katniss laughs. “Hockey,” she says. “There’s hockey.”

He looks at her for a long moment, and then he nods.

The first time Katniss Everdeen met Gale Hawthorne, she checked him so hard into the boards that Coach had a ten minute long conversation with her about causing brain damage. He showed Katniss pictures. (Prim would probably be proud, now, but Prim is a worrywart and needs to stop.)

Katniss was ten at the time, playing on the boys’ team of twelve-year-olds because mostly puberty had not yet hit them and she was still equally-sized enough to not be in hideous danger every time she played physical. When she got out of Coach’s office, Gale was sitting on the curb with his gear, squinting into the sunlight.

“Hey,” she said, sitting down next to him.

“Hey,” he said back. “My mom’s running late.”

“Mine too,” she said. “My sister’s sick, so.”

“Hey,” he said, “mine too, that flu is going around, my mom says.” They stared at each other, a little, with that cautious antagonism of children who have just met and are unsure of how to interact. “I just moved here,” he said. “I’m new.”

“Me too,” she said. “I mean. I didn’t just move here. I’m new to the team.”

“Cool,” he said.

“Cool,” she said back.

Her dad showed up, then, and she waved goodbye and gave her dad the note that said she was super violent; he laughed, because he’d been drafted by Detroit way back before Katniss was born and now for fun made his own hockey sticks. One time, Pat LaFontaine bought one. It was pretty sick.

The next day at practice, Gale said, “you’re terrible at checking, stay after and I’ll show you how.”

Katniss blinked, unprepared. “Sure,” she said, “if you let me show you how to spinorama, your trick shots suck.”

(She does not tell people this story because they automatically jump to the wrong conclusions.
People always jump to the wrong conclusion, with Katniss and her teammates. It’s not fair, but it’s part of the job.

She still hates it.)

Gale moved to Buffalo when he was twelve because his mother got a job at a cleaning company and his father had been killed in a hunting accident. He had two little brothers: Rory, who played hockey too and was in the same class as Primrose, Vick, who was barely in school, and Posy, who was daycare-aged. He was mostly responsible for taking himself to and from hockey and the bus was pretty sketchy so Katniss’ dad ended up driving them both, most days. Her mother always invited him around for dinner but he had to stay with his siblings, so he always politely declined.

He was really, really good at hockey, which was lucky, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to afford to play. Selfishly Katniss was glad for it; it wasn’t like she didn’t have friends on the team, but none of them were Gale Hawthorne. (Also, nobody else could keep up with her, seriously.)

Prim made her a card the first time Gale came over for dinner. It said, “CONGRATULATIONS, KATNISS, YOU MADE A FRIEND.”

Katniss loves her little sister more than pretty much anything, but for real, she was thinking about this ravine out behind the school, bodies would totally wash away fast in the snowmelt.

(When Gale turns twenty-one, Katniss gives him the card in a frame, sticks a post-it on the bottom that says thanks for sticking around.

He totally keeps it next to his bed.

It’s okay. Katniss isn’t telling anybody.)

Katniss was fourteen when she moved to Michigan. Her dad drove her, cried the whole way there; Prim had hugged her so tight Katniss had been a little worried she wasn’t actually going to let go. Gale was in her phone, chirping her about how much she was probably crying and she rolled her eyes, said try not to drown in yr own sadness buddy but she was actually kind of terrified so it was like a safety blanket, almost, to have him there on the other end of the line.

She’d never been billeted before, never spent so much time away from Prim, from her mother and father; she’d been on roadtrips, obviously, but it wasn’t quite the same. The family were nice, though; she learned a lot, didn’t cry more than was minimally acceptable.

Her phone bill at the end of the year was the size of a small planet but nobody complained. When she came back in the summer Prim refused to sleep in any bed but Katniss’ and Katniss’ mother stopped being frosty for two minutes in order to hug her and Katniss’ father

Gale threw a rock at her window. “Hey, jerkface,” he said, even though he’d be gone for juniors the next year so he had no room to give her shit, “I got us ice-time, don’t be a pussy. I wanna see all those fancy Michigan moves.”

Katniss was seventeen when she signed with London, with the OHL. She went low because she’d verbally committed to NCAA; Gale was already there. They didn’t ever talk about it, but he totally asked them to draft her. They’ve always played well together.

Edmonton drafted him, first round, but he was down in Juniors to condition and that was fine with Katniss, because he was still the best linemate she’d ever had.

They were on a line and it was amazing. He was a good centre - not as good a centre as she was a wing, but they’d been apart a while; she figured it would take him a little time to catch up.

They slept together for the first time in a shitty motel in Peterborough; she didn’t have a roommate and they were coming off a win and it just seemed like the reasonable thing to do. It wasn’t her first time and she’s pretty sure it wasn’t his. She told him she was in love with the backhand between-the-legs pass he’d sent her so she could score; he said, you know I’m nothing without you and they both laughed, drunk and glittery-eyed and happy.

It was a routine but not one they talked about because they were friends, best friends, and they didn’t want to ruin it, not when Katniss was draft-eligible this year and Gale was one points streak, one Oilers injury from getting called all the way to Alberta.

Peeta is nineteen when he and Katniss meet at training camp. It’s different now that they are on the same team, now that it is all their responsibility to bring back hockey to Chicago. He’s got neat hair and a grey suit and he doesn’t shove his hands in his pockets like all the boys Katniss has ever been friends with, all the boys who awkwardly shuffled around and got in sullen fistfights and never treated her like she was different from them, not after a couple of days of awkwardness before Katniss proved to all of them that she could hold her own.

“Hi,” Katniss says. She’s wearing three day old jeans and a t-shirt of Gale’s because packing was a mess; Prim came over to try and help but it was no go, seriously, for someone who spends her life on the road Katniss was pretty horrible at untangling her life from Gale’s. Her hair is in a braid and it’s messy as hell.

“Nice to meet you,” Peeta says. His handshake is firm. He’s stocky and solid and she is envious of the way he can skate into the offensive zones because she’d get plastered, be out for weeks, if she did. It’s just a fact. “I uh, had fun watching you at Worlds.”

“You too,” Katniss says. “I mean, I didn’t have fun watching you destroy us, but uh, sick moves.” He’d scored three goals in that shootout, each move entirely different; she’d been dry-mouthed, captivated, because it was mesmerising to watch.

He ducks his head. “Thanks.”

When they’re on a line together it’s - it’s fucking absurd, is what it is. Katniss has played with Gale for a long fucking time and it’s basically intuitive; she knows before she’s even got the puck on her stick where to go, where to put herself to send it to him and into the net. It took them forever to get there, though, it took them growing up together in Buffalo then London to build that kind of preternatural communication.

When she plays with Peeta it’s not there, not quite, but she can feel something shivering at the edges of her bones, at the ends of her blades. Christ, they’re going to be good.

It’s like everywhere Katniss is weak is where Peeta is strong. They are not reading each other’s minds, not yet, but how long could it take?

He’s a nice kid, is the thing. It would be easy to hate him, her automatic PR best friend; Katniss has never been one for doing as she’s told. They could very easily play together brilliantly and never speak off-ice; it’s not common but she’s done it before, it was fine.

She doesn’t want to like him, you know? He’s the golden boy and she’s fucking great, she is, and they all know it, but she’s awkward in front of the cameras and he lights them up like he lights up the ice and she - she’s as far from the good Canadian boy as you can get, doesn’t even have being a fuckup like Johanna Mason for the human interest of it. She needs him, needs him to make the team interesting so they can keep playing, keep playing gloriously, and she hates that, has never been able to depend on anyone, not even Gale whose city she left as soon as they were playing together like they were indivisible.

Peeta should get under her skin, should make every proud prickly part of her chafe.

Peeta tells the dumbest jokes in the world and laughs when she rolls her eyes, does the dorkiest victory dance she’s ever seen if she cracks even the slightest smile. Mostly hockey players are good with kids, because arrested development means they’re all kids, but.

Cinna says, “So we need to get this team noticed.” They’re with the PR team, which is headed by Portia, and Effie, Katniss and Peeta’s agent, who wears so much makeup Katniss doesn’t know how her face hasn’t slid off yet.

Peeta knocks his knee against Katniss’. “I might have an idea.”

“Oh no,” says Haymitch Abernathy. He smells like - god. So much whiskey. At training camp he kept a flask in the locker room but managed to stay on skates, fuck up Katniss’ backcheck and throw Peeta three beautiful assists so whatever.

Katniss leans over, behind Peeta, and hit him in the shoulder. “Hey,” she says. “Let Peeta Bread talk.”

“Is that nickname ever going to die?” Peeta sighs, rolling his eyes. “Knew you liked me best, Everdeen. Which is uh - kind of my idea, I guess?”

Cinna blinks. “Go on.”

Peeta goes on tv with too much foundation on his forehead, making it look strange and immobile, something out of a creepy CGI movie (Prim watched The Polar Express so many times and it creeped Katniss out every time, which she’s pretty sure is why Prim kept doing it). He says he’s been kind of in love with Katniss since World Juniors.

Gale calls her, after. Everyone calls her, really, but she only picks up for Prim and Gale. (Prim’s easy; Prim says, “Are you for real?” and Katniss shrugs and Prim says, “Just don’t be a dumbass, Katniss, for fuck’s sake,” and then hangs up. Prim has always known what to say to Katniss.)

“Hey,” she says. “Don’t start, Hawthorne.”

For a moment she thinks there is something tense in it, that Gale might say something, might bring up all those nights in London, on the road with the Knights. He is playing for Edmonton now and she is in Chicago and it’s not a thing that they talk about, not ever.

He laughs, instead. “Make sure to use protection,” he says, “I hear Middle America frowns on other preventative measures.”

“Fuck you,” she says. “At least Middle America cares about my team, man. When was the last time Edmonton was relevant, Gretzky?”

Three days later, she gets a gift basket of assorted condoms and lube. She forwards it to Gale with a selection of assorted dildos.

The weird thing is that it works.

People care.

Shit blows up; they’re on Oprah, covering half the sports magazines in the country; E! has them in-studio and so does CBC. Effie is so excited that it’s kind of gross, genuinely; her and Cinna both. Portia at least has the decency to mostly pretend like this isn’t completely unheard of.

“Everybody loves a soap opera,” Prim tells Katniss sagely, Skyping her with a mound of homework piled on her desk, ink-marks on her cheek.

“Ugh,” Katniss says, staring at the glossy printouts they sent her after she and Peeta did a photoshoot. She’s sitting in a chair, hair down and glossy, Peeta leaning on the back of her chair, this look in his eyes that she’d almost peg for real if she didn’t know better, if he hadn’t bumped his fist to hers and promised, nothing weird, though.

“I can’t believe you agreed,” Prim says. ”I mean, I can, because you’re a hockey weirdo, but even for you this is crazy.”

Katniss shrugs. “Cinna asked,” she says. “And, I mean, Haymitch laughed for like a decade but didn’t say it was a horrible idea, so.” (Haymitch hasn’t seen her attempt to act, but. Hope springs eternal. Maybe they’ll get her an acting coach. Maybe she’ll get herself an acting coach; it might not be the worst idea.)

“He’s nice,” Prim says, smirking a little bit.

“Ew,” Katniss says. “You’re a foetus, don’t even.”

Prim rolls her eyes. “I know,” she says, “boys on your team are off limits.”

“Equal opportunity,” Katniss says, “teammates are off-limits. You don’t even like hockey players anyway, we’re all too dumb for you.”

Prim shrugs. “He seems smart,” she says. “I mean, that was his idea. I like his eyes.”

“His dumb idea,” Katniss says. “Please stop talking now or I may have to pour bleach into my skull and then who is going to pay for you to go to medical school?”

“Scholarships,” Prim counters, grinning, “but okay, fine, the Hawthornes say hi. Rory busted his ankle last week, apparently, so he’s home from Medicine Hat and he won’t stop bitching about it.”

The first time Chicago plays Edmonton is a month into the regular season. Katniss and Peeta go for dinner with Gale after the game. Katniss didn’t especially want to bring Peeta but Cinna looked at her like he would actually skin her so she asked and Peeta shrugged and said, “I’ll bring Fox,” which is his nickname for their goalie, who prefers not to have her actual birth name spoken aloud.

Katniss doesn’t get goalies but thankfully it’s not her job to get goalies; it’s Peeta’s, because everyone is already calling Peeta Captain. Katniss is glad it’s him taking on that stupid responsibility; she’s got her hands full playing NHL level without like, also breaking every single one of her bones. She’s not saying they have it out for her, except for how every team’s enforcer slams her into the fucking boards when they can catch her, ignoring all the etiquette rules; Haymitch has gotten in two fights for her, Cato four (though he’d smirked, it’s about respect, not your face, Everdeen), and Peeta one memorable shitshow that ended in a spectacular loss for him but a series of wolf-whistles from the crowd and a lewd Reddit subthread on what Katniss was going to do to thank him. (Katniss didn’t find that one on her own: it got plastered all over her stall for the next week and a half, she’s not pointing fingers but it was totally Abernathy.)

They’re in a private room at Katniss’ least favourite steakhouse. She picked it because they do kobe the way that Gale likes and he can't find a place in Edmonton; he's not picky about anything else so she figures she'll cut him some slack, even if his team did somehow manage to beat hers.

Fox doesn’t really talk; orders a bloody steak and a berry salad and chews thoughtfully while staring at all of them. It's kind of creepy but that's how she is.

“So,” Peeta says. “How’d you guys meet?”

Gale laughs. “She almost broke my wrist.”

“It was a sprain,” Katniss says.

It’s surprisingly nice, after that. Peeta doesn’t quite belong in Katniss-and-Gale but he’s not obtrusive, either, not wrong. That’s fucking strange but Peeta’s always been like that: easy. He laughs, cracks terrible jokes, doesn’t flinch at Katniss stealing Gale’s food from his plate or the way Gale’s arm fits easy around Katniss’ shoulders, the way they don’t have personal space and the way their stories are double-barrelled, from both mouths.

They manage to get a laugh out of Fox, too - admittedly, when Gale gestures too hard and knocks Katniss' water glass into her shirt, but hey, Katniss will take what she can get. Peeta ducks out to get paper towels and Fox goes with him, smirking like a woodland predator.

Gale murmurs, “He’s not as bad as I thought he’d be.”

Katniss laughs. “He has a way of doing that.”

His eyes are dark: the wood behind her house, where she took him that first summer, like a promise that they would always be friends.

“Hey,” she says. “Come home with me.”

He smiles and it’s so warm, Christ. This is what he has that Peeta Mellark never will, she thinks. “Anything for you, Catnip,” he says.

She presses a finger to her lips and can already feel the warm of his.

Cinna says, “So you and Gale Hawthorne?”

“We’re best friends,” she says. “It’s not like that.”

He looks at her, careful. “I trust you,” he says.

Don’t fuck this up, she hears.