So here I am, deciding to write a Gale/Katniss fic for the lovely Ellenka. And it started that way, but it didn't end that way. Oh well. I suppose at heart, it is an unrequited Gale/Katniss fic. Maybe. Anyways, please leave a review. I will give you skittles. *waves bag tantalizingly*
EDIT: OH LOOK. GUESS WHO HAS 30 STORIES? YEAH THAT'S RIGHT. ME! *grins*
EDIT AGAIN: Yes, that is Peeta. *winkywinky*
we are not a fairytale ending
Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. They were not rich. They were not the princesses and princes of the back-in-the-day-times. They were poor. Desperately so, for a time, until they took it upon themselves to survive.
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The boy and the girl meet in the woods - not a fairytale wood, just a wood - and that is when it starts, for them.
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She is fierce. A hunter.
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He is fierce. A hunter.
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They would be perfect together. Their families know that, their neighbours see that. The only person who doesn't see it is the girl. The boy knows this, so he keeps quiet, thinking it better not to ruin something in favour of something that might not work out, anyways.
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He likes stability.
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She has a deadly aim and he has a velvet tread. They work together and laugh together and smile together. One might even say the only time they really live is when they are together. But the girl denies this, and rightly so. Her laughter when her sister says something, the way her eyes light up when she realizes she might be able to buy something special for her sister. She is not dead, ever, but she lives in a state of almost-alive, forever working for the next thing. The next kill. The next meal.
One might say that she is truly alive in the woods, with him.
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For years, on a certain day, her stomach seizes up. Her heart beats too fast, or sometimes just stops. Even when it is no longer her time to be Reaped, she can't sleep for fear her baby sister will be taken from her by Them. Even when her sister is no longer a baby.
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She doesn't have to worry. Her sister, no longer a baby, but still so innocent, is never taken from her by Them.
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One day her sister is taken by someone else, a boy. A town boy with blonde hair and blue eyes and a smile that lights up her sister's face. So she agrees to let go, despite the gnawing empty feeling in her stomach that never goes away, no matter how much food she eats.
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She is hunting one day. The pressure is not as much, with her sister gone, but it is ingrained in her bones now. And besides, there are people still starving.
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On that one day, his velvet tread comes up beside her. She doesn't hear. She never does. His calloused fingers slip her hand in his. And she doesn't draw back.
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They take things slowly, because he likes stability and she doesn't like uncertainty.
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One day, they kiss. Slow. Deep. Hard.
And don't stop.
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One day her mother leaves - dies, she doesn't approve of sugarcoating - and his youngest sister gets married.
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She is suddenly floating. No anchors holding her down.
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She doesn't realize that there is one anchor, a hand small enough that she doesn't notice it at first.
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They decide to disappear.
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She regrets that she won't be able to see her sister's first baby, but she knows that life unanchored will kill her.
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They disappear.
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It's different, in the woods. Forever pinecone smell, always lush and green, in the summer and spring. In the fall, it's an explosion of colours. In the winter, it's hushed and calm and elegant.
She has time to appreciate this, now.
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At first, they are perfect together. Seamlessly melding, the lines where one ends and the other starts melting until they are like a strange mutant hybrid, knowing what the other is thinking without saying anything.
Or a married couple.
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He doesn't realize when the words first start disappearing. But when he does, he can't hear anything besides the silence growing between them. He's not used to it. At home, in the woods, in the mines, it was always loud. Hectic.
But here, with her, it's quiet. Sometimes days or weeks - he's lost his sense of time - go by when they don't say a word to each other.
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She rarely smiles.
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He rarely laughs.
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He knows that she's missing her sister. Heck, he's missing his siblings. But he doesn't want to change what they've worked so hard to get, even if it's not working.
He likes stability. But he's wondering if they are anchored anymore.
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They have an argument. A huge explosion of cutting words and pointed looks and poignant silences.
It's more of a nuclear bomb than an argument, he thinks.
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She decides she can't stay anymore.
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He doesn't want to leave.
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She leaves.
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He doesn't.
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She slips into town, ignoring the shocked looks. She marches right up to her sister's house, doesn't bother knocking on the door, and walks in, expecting joyous welcomes.
She is hit by silence.
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He sits in front of her, hands twisting together, whispering broken explanations. The baby, the birth. Too much bleeding. She's gone.
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She's numb.
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She doesn't leave, not this time.
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Her sister's baby is a little boy and he has her eyes and his hair. And she doesn't realize it when she looks into her sister's eyes in the face of a tiny baby with his father's blonde hair, she doesn't realize that she has an anchor after all.
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She drifts around her sister's house, sometimes singing, sometimes not saying a word. Sometimes she swings the baby into her arms and dances around the house with him. Sometimes she's struck with a lethargy so numbing that she spends weeks lying in bed.
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He doesn't say anything, and she's thankful for that.
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One day, she stands up. Slips back out of town and into the woods again. She makes her way to the place where she used to stay. But she doesn't stay this time. She's hit by a silence, not grief, just silence. And she whispers a goodbye, a proper one.
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When she glides into the baby's room, she picks him up. Dances around the room with him and his laughter washes over her like a healing balm. She whispers promises into his hair. You're adorable. I love you. She loves you. You will have a fairytale ending, even if I didn't. But remember, it's not the ending yet. Not mine. Not yours. Not his. Not hers.
And if he listens, if he understands, he doesn't let on. He falls asleep on her shoulder, whispering dreams through milky sighs.
And she thinks she might even be happy, a little bit.