This is my first ever attempt to write a Hunger Games story, so be gentle with me. This is set somewhere during Catching Fire, not entirely sure whereabouts... I'm bored so I'm writing, okay?
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KATNISS
"Gale?" I call to the empty space in front of me, currently populated only by tall cedars and some kind of scrubby undergrowth and definitely not, as I had hoped, my best friend. A twig crunches somewhere behind me and I wheel around, my breath hitching in my throat, my long and uncharacteristically messy braid whipping forward and striking the side of my face. The woods are still. Nothing moves. Everything stays silent.
"Gale?" I whisper, my cautious, low voice laced with uncertainty. Where has he gone? Why has he left me here alone? I know that there's something here, something nearby. I feel foreign eyes burning into me, searing menacing marks onto my flesh from an unknown location. These woods are my salvation, my haven, my personal sanctuary, but today, they feel all wrong. Another twig snaps. A pile of dying leaves rustles. My hand flies to the sheath of arrows behind my head, but I do not feel reassured. My confidence with the glorious wooden bow carved years ago by my father wanes entirely. I don't feel like a hunter. I feel like prey. And it's all because my partner, my best friend, my soul mate, has disappeared among the trees. With no one watching my back, I feel isolated, inaccessible and, above all, more vulnerable than ever.
Then suddenly a pair of strong hands find my waist, slender from a lifetime of hunting every day, and lift me effortlessly into the air.
"Gale!" I shout as I hit out at his muscled shoulders pathetically with my fists, but the only response I get is his laughter. He hoists me up higher and throws me over his shoulder in a haphazard fireman's lift. I stop resisting and relax, my body slumping and becoming a dead weight on top of him. This quickly proves not to be a problem.
"Always so stubborn, Catnip," he laughs, lowering one shoulder so that I fall forward, screaming all the way. But before I can even approach the hard dirt, he manfully swings my legs upward and curls me into his arms. I sigh, relieved.
"Did you honestly think I'd drop you?" he asks, lowering himself down onto the crook of a curved tree trunk and pulling me into his lap. I turn my face to his. A lightning storm rages in his deep grey eyes and the aroma of his skin so close to mine is laced with fresh air, wood smoke and the cologne I bought him from the Hob for his nineteenth birthday. The combination of the two means I have to fight to remain coherent and able to string words together to make sentences.
"Wouldn't put it past you," I rib him good-naturedly. We sit in silence for a moment, and I stare up into the sky. The sun's position startles me.
"Shit," I mutter, sitting upright and attempting to stand, but Gale's hands tighten around my waist. "It's getting late," I offer by way of explanation.
I catch Gale's deep, irritated sigh as he releases me and I find my way to my feet. His expression has become surly. I instantly work out what the problem is. I know him too well, and have done for too long, to not understand. I sit down beside him, making sure we don't touch.
"He's my fiancé, Gale," I say. "I kind of have a duty to go back to him before it gets dark. I don't want him to worry about me and do something stupid. You know what Peeta's like."
"Yeah, I do." Gale leans forward toward me. "I know exactly what he's like. He's in love with you, Katniss, and you and I both know it."
I don't have anything to say, so instead, I take his hand and pull it into my lap. The skin of his long fingers is rough from hunting and working in the mines. I turn it over and interlace my fingers with his. I stare at the ground and say nothing. My eyes close, but I can feel his on me and anger suddenly wells up inside my chest, spreading out to my arms and legs, making my face grow hot. For a second I try to breathe, but I lose control.
"What do you want me to do, huh?" I ask, unintentionally raising my voice, springing to my feet and placing my hands on my hips. "Do you want me to just break everything off with him? Try to go back to how we were before?" I shake my head, tears stinging my eyes. "I can't do that, Gale! Don't you realise what would happen? They would kill him! They'd kill Peeta, my mother... Prim..." I stare at the horizon, not really seeing anything. "Gale, they'd kill you."
"Katniss, don't you get it?" he shouts, his own anger suddenly evident on his handsome, chiselled face. "I don't care! I don't care if they kill me!"
"Don't you dare say that," I spit out at him, taking a step closer. My eyes narrow. "Don't ever think like that. Think of your family, Gale. Think of Posy. Would you let them starve?"
Gale doesn't answer. He just glares at the ground, his hands shaking with fury.
"I don't care if they kill me," he mutters after several endless seconds. "Katniss." I continue to stare at my feet as he closes the gap between us in two strides, leaves crunching under his boots. He lifts my chin with his fingertips, forcing me to look up at him and meet his eye. A single, traitorous tear rolls down my cheek as his eyes bore into mine.
"I don't know what you want me to say," I whisper, almost inaudibly, as Gale brushes away my tear with the side of his index finger.
He leans down toward me and suddenly our faces are so close that our noses touch. I close my eyes again, guilt swelling up within me, flooding my insides. I love Peeta, I tell myself over and over again. I love Peeta, and I'm going to marry him. I love Peeta. I love him.
Gale's lips brush across mine, slowly, carefully, so gently that nobody could call it a kiss. His breath comes rapidly, warm against my skin and, without thinking, I tilt my head up toward him.
"Say you love me, Katniss," he murmurs against my lips. "Say you love me like I love you."
I feel his hands slip around my waist, pulling me closer so that every inch of our bodies is touching. I don't resist.
"I didn't know..." I try, my hands snaking slowly upwards around his neck, my fingers tangling in his silky, dark hair. I've never touched Gale like this before – I've never had a reason to. He's been my hunting partner for several years, but have I always clandestinely known there was more to it than that? Of course I have. Of course I knew.
"If you marry Peeta, I don't care if they kill me. Because that'll mean my chance... or any chance we ever could have had is gone. And I couldn't live with that."
"Gale..." I protest as he moves back from me slightly, his grip on my waist loosening.
"So they can kill me." He throws his hands up, emotion flickering across his face. "I can't live without you, Katniss Everdeen, and if that doesn't work for you, then..."
"Gale, just kiss me," I murmur, and he crushes his lips to mine hungrily, desperately, his body pushing against mine until my back hits the wide trunk of a tree. I feel the palms of his hands flatten on the trunk either side of my head, locking me in place, holding me prisoner in his arms. But I don't complain. Our bodies fit together perfectly like corresponding pieces of a jigsaw, like we had both been created for each other, to be together, simply meant to do this forever.
"Katniss..." he whispers as I tilt my head back and lean against the tree. Gale's lips move from my own to the corner of mouth before showering kisses along my jaw line, my neck, my now-exposed collarbone. "3 words..." He reaches down and hitches my leg up around his waist. "Eight letters..." He ravishes my neck, kissing and nuzzling, causing me to shudder. I moan when he nips territorially at my pulse point, the pleasure-laced pain assuring me that there will be a mark there in the morning. "Say it and I'm yours, Katniss. Just say it."
I don't say it. Instead, I capture his lips with mine once more, pulling him around and up against the tree so that our positions are reversed. I stop for a moment and stare into his eyes, our faces mere millimetres apart, and in that moment, I hear our heartbeats thudding loudly, rapidly, keeping perfect time with one another.
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A/N: Go on, review me, you know you want to.