The Hunger Games (multiple)
Title: Scar Tissue
Pairing: Johanna/Gale
Rating: R
Wordcount: 395
Notes: Written for the fic prompt.
Summary: Johanna and Gale have so much in common in so many ways.
They don't see it until they're both naked together. How could they? The scar each of them bears, in the same place, right across their left hip. The scar tissue itself even looks almost the same.
"How about that," Johanna says, smirking. Gale still can't tell if she really wants him or if this is a game to her. He doesn't care, he stopped caring after the war. "We have matching scars."
"It doesn't exactly matter," he says.
She swings a leg onto the bed, half-crouching with the other to show the scar too clearly. "Mine's from when they slipped up during torture. What about yours?"
"Shrapnel," he says.
"They never tortured you," she says.
Gale would say, They whipped me almost to death, but he knows it's not the same, so he doesn't. He just reaches for her. She's an attractive woman who looks nothing like Katniss, who won't make an issue out of a little sex, who doesn't judge him and find him wanting like everyone from the life he once led does now. So he does want her.
She slaps his hand away. "Not yet. Not until you've told me how you can look at me like that."
"That doesn't matter either," he says. He's not disingenuous enough to ask, Like what? He knows what she means. He has the same look in his eyes as she has in hers, just like they have the same scar on their hip. His gray eyes belong to a man with nothing left to lose.
"Tell me," she says, "or I'll walk out of here and through security like this." She'd probably do it, too. "What kind of right do you have to look like that when you still have so many people left in your life?"
If she really wants to know...well, it doesn't matter if he tells her, either. "Just because they're alive doesn't mean they're in my life anymore," he says. He thinks of his family, who asked for a separate house from his. He tries hard not to think of Katniss or her mother and what he did to them without even knowing it.
"Son of a bitch," Johanna says. "Get over here right now. I'll show you what nothing left to lose is really like." But her smile is bitter and not triumphant.
She knows they match.
Title: The Punishment
Pairing: Johanna/Gale
Rating: R
Wordcount: 267
Notes: Written for the fic prompt. Borderline smut.
Summary: Sex with these two is as rough as it gets.
They're never gentle with each other.
Gale could lie and say it's because the war burned the gentleness out of him, just as the Games and their aftermath burned it out of Johanna. But in truth that's just the groundwork for it. If he were a baker's son he would say, the first layer of the cake. If he were a baker's son, a lot of things would be different. He is a child of the Seam who became a hunter, and a hunter who has become a man of war. That is how things are.
And Johanna, what is she? Not a woman of war, because she was damaged too badly to be of great use to it. But it's all right, because she knows how to be rough. That's all Gale wants.
He doesn't ask much of her. He only asks that she hurt him. He asks that she fuck him and not make love to him.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of secret?" Johanna asked after the first time. "That you're a masochist."
Gale shrugged. "Who would you tell?"
Everyone Gale ever loved already knows worse things about him than a few tidbits of gossip like that.
So when they fall into bed together, she always pins him down without mercy. Sometimes she tears his clothes when she pulls them off, but that's all right--he's rich enough to get new ones now. Her dirty nails dig into his shoulders, and she bites his lips instead of kissing him. Sometimes she draws blood.
They fuck, and she hurts him. It's never enough.
Title: On Waking
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 280
Notes: Written for the fic prompt.
Summary: Peeta's nightmares can be horribly subtle. Katniss doesn't always know how to deal with them.
He knows the best way to be there for me when I wake from the nightmares instinctively, or maybe he just learns really fast. It's not exactly hard. I scream pretty loudly.
It's harder for me to learn how to be there for him. His waking from horror is always a silent affair. But two Games, a war, and--more and more--months of fumbling our way back together have taught me the lay of his land. How his mind works. I start to learn how to sense the sudden rigidness of his body even when I'm sleeping and rise from my own dreams to soothe him.
There was a time when I didn't need to, because all his nightmares were about losing me. I felt awkward and guilty about that, then. Now I wish it were that easy. His nightmares are all grown up now, and they're not that simple.
I wake one night to find him trembling. The worst part is that he's not in my arms to do it. He's coiled up on the other side of the bed. The tugging on the blankets is what woke me. I reach for him, whispering, "Peeta."
"Stay back," he says hoarsely.
I stay back.
"We're both monsters," he says. "Real or not real?"
"Not real," I say, but there's a quaver in my voice.
"You don't know either," he says. I look for the blue in his eyes, but it's swallowed up in shadows. I wonder if I look to him the way he does to me: more haunted than any human being has a right to be.
Whatever his nightmare was, waking up from it was no help.
Pairing: Johanna/Gale
Rating: R
Wordcount: 395
Notes: Written for the fic prompt.
Summary: Johanna and Gale have so much in common in so many ways.
They don't see it until they're both naked together. How could they? The scar each of them bears, in the same place, right across their left hip. The scar tissue itself even looks almost the same.
"How about that," Johanna says, smirking. Gale still can't tell if she really wants him or if this is a game to her. He doesn't care, he stopped caring after the war. "We have matching scars."
"It doesn't exactly matter," he says.
She swings a leg onto the bed, half-crouching with the other to show the scar too clearly. "Mine's from when they slipped up during torture. What about yours?"
"Shrapnel," he says.
"They never tortured you," she says.
Gale would say, They whipped me almost to death, but he knows it's not the same, so he doesn't. He just reaches for her. She's an attractive woman who looks nothing like Katniss, who won't make an issue out of a little sex, who doesn't judge him and find him wanting like everyone from the life he once led does now. So he does want her.
She slaps his hand away. "Not yet. Not until you've told me how you can look at me like that."
"That doesn't matter either," he says. He's not disingenuous enough to ask, Like what? He knows what she means. He has the same look in his eyes as she has in hers, just like they have the same scar on their hip. His gray eyes belong to a man with nothing left to lose.
"Tell me," she says, "or I'll walk out of here and through security like this." She'd probably do it, too. "What kind of right do you have to look like that when you still have so many people left in your life?"
If she really wants to know...well, it doesn't matter if he tells her, either. "Just because they're alive doesn't mean they're in my life anymore," he says. He thinks of his family, who asked for a separate house from his. He tries hard not to think of Katniss or her mother and what he did to them without even knowing it.
"Son of a bitch," Johanna says. "Get over here right now. I'll show you what nothing left to lose is really like." But her smile is bitter and not triumphant.
She knows they match.
Title: The Punishment
Pairing: Johanna/Gale
Rating: R
Wordcount: 267
Notes: Written for the fic prompt. Borderline smut.
Summary: Sex with these two is as rough as it gets.
They're never gentle with each other.
Gale could lie and say it's because the war burned the gentleness out of him, just as the Games and their aftermath burned it out of Johanna. But in truth that's just the groundwork for it. If he were a baker's son he would say, the first layer of the cake. If he were a baker's son, a lot of things would be different. He is a child of the Seam who became a hunter, and a hunter who has become a man of war. That is how things are.
And Johanna, what is she? Not a woman of war, because she was damaged too badly to be of great use to it. But it's all right, because she knows how to be rough. That's all Gale wants.
He doesn't ask much of her. He only asks that she hurt him. He asks that she fuck him and not make love to him.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of secret?" Johanna asked after the first time. "That you're a masochist."
Gale shrugged. "Who would you tell?"
Everyone Gale ever loved already knows worse things about him than a few tidbits of gossip like that.
So when they fall into bed together, she always pins him down without mercy. Sometimes she tears his clothes when she pulls them off, but that's all right--he's rich enough to get new ones now. Her dirty nails dig into his shoulders, and she bites his lips instead of kissing him. Sometimes she draws blood.
They fuck, and she hurts him. It's never enough.
Title: On Waking
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 280
Notes: Written for the fic prompt.
Summary: Peeta's nightmares can be horribly subtle. Katniss doesn't always know how to deal with them.
He knows the best way to be there for me when I wake from the nightmares instinctively, or maybe he just learns really fast. It's not exactly hard. I scream pretty loudly.
It's harder for me to learn how to be there for him. His waking from horror is always a silent affair. But two Games, a war, and--more and more--months of fumbling our way back together have taught me the lay of his land. How his mind works. I start to learn how to sense the sudden rigidness of his body even when I'm sleeping and rise from my own dreams to soothe him.
There was a time when I didn't need to, because all his nightmares were about losing me. I felt awkward and guilty about that, then. Now I wish it were that easy. His nightmares are all grown up now, and they're not that simple.
I wake one night to find him trembling. The worst part is that he's not in my arms to do it. He's coiled up on the other side of the bed. The tugging on the blankets is what woke me. I reach for him, whispering, "Peeta."
"Stay back," he says hoarsely.
I stay back.
"We're both monsters," he says. "Real or not real?"
"Not real," I say, but there's a quaver in my voice.
"You don't know either," he says. I look for the blue in his eyes, but it's swallowed up in shadows. I wonder if I look to him the way he does to me: more haunted than any human being has a right to be.
Whatever his nightmare was, waking up from it was no help.