the hunger games: here i am just waiting
Characters/pairings: Gale p.o.v, Gale/Katniss
Rating: PG
Summary: Gale grows up and falls harder.
Notes: Written for the 2010 yuletide exchange.
Here I Am Just Waiting
Gale’s Father leaves their Mother with a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth, a warm hand to the small of her back and the swiftest, I’ll see you later.
People break their word all the time in this district, I’ll come back the winner, this time next year everything will be different, it’s just one more tiny mouth to feed, everything will be fine.
Gale never forgets the lines around his Mother’s mouth, the way that her sadness seemed to age her tenfold around the eyes and her hands couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She’d gripped Gale with too slack fingers, tiny Posy sobbing and thrashing her fists in her arms, the tears sliding fast and thick down both of their faces.
Everything will be okay, she had said to him. Everything is going to be okay.
They never do retrieve all of the bodies from the mine explosion and his Mother takes to calling Gale the man of the house now, a small smile on her face as if it’s breaking her inside just to say it.
As if it’s a title he could ever live up to.
****
It was one of the hottest days in the whole of the summer months so far and it seemed wrong somehow to be remembering the dead when the flowers where stretching towards the sky and most people had bright smiles on their faces. The sun was a hot ball of fire in the sky and Gale could feel it fast tightening the skin on his exposed neck, that one part of him burning.
Tiny Posy was gurgling in his Mother’s arms and wearing a chain of fresh white daisies in her hair, his two brothers wearing watery smiles as they stood vigil on either side of them.
Gale had stood tall on the plush blue carpet, his feet sinking deep and rooting him to the spot, wanting to remain proud for his family before him, for his Father still lying dead below the ground.
The line of children beside him was small, eight in all; all sombre faced and broken. Too many, Gale had thought, to lose what was most likely the only income for their families.
The medal was heavy when it was placed around his neck, the red ribbon scratching at his skin and irritating it further.
He’d looked out at the line beside him, past the small scruff of a boy by his side and past the girl next to him still crying; his eyes catching on the slip of a girl staring out at the procession angrily, a flick of a braid just barely curling over her shoulder. Her small fingers tightening over the medal in her hands until her knuckles turned white and angry, the ribbon falling slack from her grip as if everybody could see she was bleeding.
****
An old tradition of district 12 is to name their baby girls after colour, after life.
“Primrose,” Katniss tells him, “Prim though for short.” Her teeth catch at her lip when she’s talking, words rounding into a full blown grin as she ducks her head slowly and blushes.
They hunt together now, treading quietly through the dead leaves and brush of the forest floor, the landscape around them turning barren as summer fades ever so slowly into winter.
He teaches her the traps and snares his Father taught him, her thin and dirty fingers testing his lines and their strength; following them back and forth, from beginning to end until she’s learned them.
In return Katniss teaches him about nature, the natural products that grow in the forest that they can eat. The wild mushrooms that take the harsh tang out of squirrel meat, the mossy greens that will do in a pinch if ever you’re in need of water.
Lastly she shows him the roots of her name, the reason she says her Father named her.
The tubers come out bulbous and slimy, cleaning up fast with just a quick flick of Katniss’ fingers, long swipes that remove all the dirt and a swipe on the grass before she shows him.
“Katniss,” she says to him, “not quite as pretty as the rest of the flowers.”
But it can sustain you, Gale thinks. It can keep you alive, keep you moving.
****
Gale is fifteen the first time he kisses a girl.
Juniper is small and thin with the lightest scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the greyest eyes that Gale has ever seen and a mop of dark brown hair cut severe to the length of her chin, strands of it falling against the cut of her jawline.
She’d tightened her fingers around his wrist and made his heart beat fast, his pulse race underneath the pads of her fingers.
Her lips had been cold when he touched them, the lightest graze of his finger soft across the bow of her mouth, the steady intake of breath as she whispered his name slowly.
She had sighed when he kissed her first; his open mouth catching the rest of her breath, his hand moving instinctively to the small of her back, down to hold her waist and pull her close towards him.
Her brother dies a few weeks later in the 71st hunger games. From then on she refuses to see him.
****
He watches Katniss gut the fish they catch, slim silver knife flashing in the shadows as she peels out the innards and throws them spitting onto the open fire.
The logs crackle as they burn, the fish roasting in the winter air as the flames consume them, burning. Katniss laughs as she twists the sticks they’re laid flat on, her fingers always moving, a bead of sweat dripping down the curve of her exposed neck, down and over her collarbone and onwards below the line of her top, disappearing.
“Here,” she says, teeth white against the tan of her skin, her fingers greasy with her cooked offering.
“Thank you,” Gale says, eyes reddening with the fire smoke, his head heavy with the clouds of it. The smell of burnt fish steadily rising.
****
The winter creeps in on frosty fingers.
Vick sits by the fire as Rory stokes it, small sparks and flakes of ash coating his skin and clothing, their Mother washing a stack of starched clothes that the neighbours will later pay her too little for; her fingers aching by the end of it, her skin dry and aging.
Katniss smirks and hums, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, deftly skinning the hare they caught earlier whilst she sings the song his sister twirls to.
Her eyes are dark when she looks at him, the firelight bright and reflective.
****
Later his Mother clasps a hand to his cheek, her thumb resting lightly on his cheekbone.
“She’s a keeper that one you know,” she says.
And then repeats:
“She’s a keeper.”
****
Gale would dream sometimes.
Her hands, her fingertips rough and calloused, dragging over the curve of his ribcage, her body small and warm and heavy, pressing up against him.
His knee settled between her legs, his hands flat against either side of her neck, both of them surrounded by their heavy breathing.
The touch of her lips against the line of his jaw. Her hands moving lower and lower.
Gale wakes up feeling hard and uncomfortable, feeling like he’s fourteen all over again.
Feeling like everything’s just out of his grasp, like he’s falling.
****
“Don’t you ever want to just leave this place?”
Katniss’ hair curls over her collarbone and hangs loosely in one thick braid down her back. The sun is beginning to rise, settling over the treetops and laying claim to the ground; dusky shades of pink hitting the crook of her arms and warming them both to the tips of their fingers.
Her eyes are hard when she looks at him, her lips loose and confused and questioning.
Gale waits for a beat and the air around him becomes tense and uncomfortable.
She laughs once, like a puff of air trying to escape the confines of her mouth.
“Leave?” She says, “Only all of the time. Every single night, every single morning.”
She looks tired he thinks.
And then adrenaline rushes through him, excitement creeping up his spine until he can almost taste it. “But don’t you want to leave here? Don’t you ever just want to keep on walking?” There’s a tense edge to his voice, an underline of barely contained anger.
“All of the time,” she repeats quietly, “if only.”
He thinks maybe he could save her. That maybe he could save himself in the process.
****
He sees them all staring.
There are others that have noticed: the men from the mines whose eyes linger, the ones at school who sidle much too close; the quiet ones like the baker’s son who watches quietly from the shadows.
Darius’ fingers creeping up the length of her arm, pausing at the top of her shoulder; bare skin that touches bare skin and the sound of her laughing.
He feels the twist in the pit of his belly, the sharp sting of jealousy that crawls up the length of his body. The dark places that his mind can go as he watches, his heart thudding too fast against his ribcage.
He could kiss her he thinks, push her back against the bar, his fingers threaded around her wrist, his mouth capturing her own and sealing them together. The backs of her knees would connect with the wall and he’d press his hips towards her, taste her for the first time; her skin hot beneath his fingers.
Katniss turns to him and grimaces, Darius’ hand curled around the back of her neck, still now but waiting.
Gale takes a heavy breath and tries his best to swallow.
****
There is a girl, Melan; blonde and seventeen and pale enough for Gale to almost see through her.
Her skin is cold when he touches it, soft fingers that grip him under his jaw, her leg locked around the back of his knee as she pulls him toward her.
She breathes through her nose when he kisses her, soft puffs of air that warm the skin of his cheeks and tickle. She bites at his lip and pulls and he digs his hands into the soft flesh of her shoulders.
There’s nothing exciting about her.
****
In his dreams he kisses Katniss.
In his dreams she kisses him back.
****
There is a nervous edge to the night with the 74th hunger games fast approaching.
Katniss is quiet and tense, her head heavy against his shoulder, her breathing quiet and low. His hand sits in the dip between her waist and her hips, his thumb circling over the soft layer of skin that peeks out where her top rides up.
There is a moment when Gale thinks he could sit here forever, the district behind them and just the two of them alone, the stillness and the quiet, and Gale feels revived for it. Like the two of them can do anything, so long as it’s the two of them together.
He thinks maybe tomorrow he’ll ask her to run away with him again.
He thinks maybe tomorrow everything will change for the better.
****
Truth be told, Gale loved Katniss first and harder.
Later, when he’s watching the games, stern faced and impatient and Prim propped up against his elbow; heavy and warm against his side, he’ll think this altogether too important.
End.