I saw the Midnight Premiere for Catching Fire! It was an amazing experience. I would love to hear what you thought about the movie. I could discuss it for hours. This little story was inspired by something Gale said in the added conversation in the movie. It was a sentence that fit Katniss and Snow's relationship really well. Tell me what you think. I bet I could I could improve it a lot. I'll be posting another one-shot for Turkey Day, and another for a Finnick, Gale and Katniss story.
Disclaimer: I wish I owned the Hunger Games.
"I start working in the mines six days out of the week, and suddenly they think they own the place."
I had no reply for that.
"Did you want to shoot one and bring it for home?" Gale asks me. O' thank him, for he knew me too well. Not bringing up the Games, my new status, my new lover, or my new life; that was what he did for me.
"Sure." I place the bow back into the sheath, and take a step towards him. Even though we've both been through so much these past few weeks, I still don't understand why he looks so different to me. I feel this tranquil like blanket come over me when he's around me, that's still the same. But somehow my heart beats a little faster when he's close.
Maybe he's different because of what those awful mines are doing to him. As he's chiseled out the coal from the deep, underground walls; his environment has chiseled him. His lips are tighter, but somehow more intense, his movements are much more meaningful, and they hold such a powerful feeling of strength. His face is darker, but when I lean towards him, it's like my world becomes clearer, lighter, better.
Peeta. I really wish I didn't get us into this mess. If I had just eaten the stupid berries nothing would cause as much havoc. Life would be simple. Gale wouldn't be heartbroken. Peeta wouldn't be heartbroken. I wouldn't feel so guilty.
"Hey, over there." Gale whispers into my left ear. The Capitol ear. Somehow this action is mocking the capitol to me. They left me deaf in this ear, patched it up, and now it's being used for something completely illegal. He points to a dozen or so birds squawking around aimlessly near my peripheral vision.
We crouch down behind a bare bunch of blueberry bushes. Gale's warm breath leaves my ear and he pulls his bow quietly from around his torso. I do the same and pull two bows out. I hand one to Gale and set the other one up so that I can shoot as soon as the shot is clear.
"Get that one." He nearly begs, his lips once again speaking in his husky small voice, motioning to the fattest bird in the flock.
I nod and hold my bow out ready for the kill shot. I breathe out through my mouth. Goose bumps rise on my hand. I pull back the quiver. Another breath. White clouds form each time I exhale. More goose bumps.
Zip. The arrow flies from the bow and sinks into him. Thud. His knees hit the forest floor with a deep thud, and he pulls the protruding arrow from his neck. "Gah!" I scream and launch backwards into the air.
Marvel's glaring eyes stare me down as the life drains from his body. "Oh no!" I moan. I fall backwards onto my rear and quickly put my head in between my knees.
"Katniss." Gale says worriedly. "Katniss, what's wrong?" He kneels in front of me and pries my hands away from my ears.
"No. It's not real. No." I gasp in between breaths. My brain is feeling dizzy. Breath Katniss.
"Katniss. Whatever happened, it's not real." Gale comforts me. But I'm far from being okay.
This is what the games do to Victors. Even if you're crowned Victor, you're not really. Those who die in the arena, they are the winners, the ones who never have to become involved with the Capitol, and Snow, and all of his horrible ways. Even if you win, you do not have any more power than you had before. President Snow knows how to take it all away with the blink of an eye, knows how to change your ways against your better judgment, and knows how to harm your loved ones to break you. I'd know.
As soon as you're a Victor, you don't have control over anything in your life. Snow basically owns your beliefs, your looks, your actions; who you are. He owns you.
He owns me. Somehow he thinks he owns me.
This is what he's done to me. The thought is maddening.
"I'm okay. I'm okay. Let's go to the cabin." I suggest after repeating reassurances to myself.
"Alright." Gale straightens up and extends a hand down towards me. I stand too, and hug Gale fiercely.
"Don't leave me Gale." I whisper into his neck. "You're the only person I have left."
If he heard me, he didn't say anything about it, because he just takes my hand-rather boldly- and waits for me to get my clarity back. That's the thing about Gale, is that he'll be patient, he'll be caring. Gale will always be there for me no matter what. He'll help me remain strong, but he'll let me voice my own ideas or thoughts.
He knows how much I hate to be babied. And maybe even though he never experienced the Games through my eyes, he did witness them differently with his own and he knows that right now, I do not need anybody controlling me more than I already am being controlled. That's the great thing about my best friend Gale.
"Katniss," Gale swings my arm dramatically and turns his head towards me.
"Hmm?"
"What happened back there?" I knew I couldn't escape it.
"Um, I saw something." I explain blandly.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks me, genuinely interested.
The thing is I do want to talk about it. I don't want to have Gale included in my dark and dank world of enslavement, but if he knew, maybe I'd get over the games faster. But I don't want Gale to feel like I'm placing all my heavy burdens over him. The mines already are placing that heaviness on him. I don't want him to think that I'm using him. I want him to know. I want him to comfort me. "No."
"Katniss, I want to help you. I don't want you to feel so alone." He stops and makes me look into his eyes. The grayness that I've noticed in them before, has been replaced by a light blue which only exists in my dreams.
All I want to do is to have that blue surround me protectively and to have that dark brown, disheveled hair of his tickling my forehead, or to maybe have his unshaven face scratching my own. Would that help me get rid of the pain?
"I can't be that selfish." I say truthfully, though I'm going to regret it later.
"Lean on me Katniss. Depend on me. Let me help you, please."
"Marvel. I killed him. I killed him in cold blood. I shot to kill. And I… I… I'm a… kill… kill… killer." I sobbed into his neck. My tears created a sticky paste between me and his flesh, but neither of us minded.
"But you still are human." He made a point.
"I'm not who I was before, Gale. I want to go back to just us, before the games, before Peeta Mellark, before everything. But I can't. I don't have control over anything I do anymore, and I just feel like fading away into oblivion." I say angrily. I'm not mad at Gale. "Death would be so much easier." I mutter nonchalantly to myself. Damn Gale for those un-mundane hunting ears.
"Catnip, you're alive and you're with me right now in our woods. You're in your hunting boots and father's jacket, and your hair is in its special braid," He says whipping my hair around like a lasso.
We both laugh weakly. I notice that his eyes gleam with some foreign expression that I've never noticed on him. "I'm glad you're out here with me." I tell him.
"Me too."
We're silent until we get to the cabin. We both take to sitting in front of the fireplace. Neither of us makes a move to light a fire. We sit next to each other while the sky gets darker.
"He thinks he owns me." I say to no one in particular. That's why I'm surprised when Gale responds. He seems upset.
"Who? Peeta? Haymitch?"
"No." And I'll just leave it like that. He doesn't need to hear my fears. But I'm a selfish mutt so I tell him anyway. "Snow."
He understands. We settle into silence again, and about an hour into our pattern Gale gets up, jogs around the house, comes back in and sits down like nothing happened. "Um?" I question.
"What?" He asks out of breath, and accusingly. "I needed to cool down." I refuse to think about what he meant about that… its forty degrees out at least.
I stare at his pink nose, and then his flustered cheeks, and then his mussed, spiky hair, and then his bright eyes. "Gale I missed you." I say.
"I missed you. I'm so sorry."
"Gale I miss you." I clarify. He scoots closer to me and leans against my shoulder. "Gale I missed you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you so much." I lean forward, head between my knees, and scream into the floor.
"Katn-" He says loudly. I wail louder. "Catnip." Gale says softly and comfortingly, rubbing a hand over my back. It's a foreign touch from Gale and I jerk away just a millimeter from the touch.
He notices.
Unfortunately.
"I'm sorry."
"No, come back here." I say desperately grabbing for his hand. "Please. I need you here. I'm so scared Gale." I beg. "Call me Catnip again one more time." I add.
"Catnip."
We smile warmly towards each other. "Once more?"
"Catnip."
I bite my lip because the love that I need right now is radiating off of Gale as he says my name over and over…
I bring my mouth to his. Close my eyes, and let my other senses mark this in my brain.
His rough face feels right on my face. It was always meant to be like this. His eyelashes flutter near my eyebrows. Is he as nervous as I am? His woodsy, ashy, sweaty aroma fills my nose more than ever before, and I know I am home.
Peeta. He is waiting at home. But I don't care.
I savor Gale's touch a second more and then let him go. "Say it again." I order.
"Catnip." He whispers. "Catnip, Catnip, Catnip." I remain silent, happy, and content. "Cat got your tongue?" He teases.
"Cat got yours." I say and kiss him frenchly. He laughs against my face and so I laugh as well. Our breaths mingle and honestly, it's the most romantic thing I've ever experienced.
"Why did you bring me here again Catnip?" Gale asks when we are both recovered.
"I don't remember." I shrug bashfully.
"I know what we could do while we're out here." He winks at me. "Let's hunt."
By the time we get back to the meadow, we have four turkeys and many roots mixed in one burlap bag. He stops us before we reach the seam and pulls me in for one more secret kiss. "I had to do that, just once."
"What?" I say, pain coursing through me. Was this not a permanent thing?
"You're with him Katniss. There is no us anywhere in that." I wanted it so badly though. He made me feel safer than Peeta. I didn't feel obliged to love him like I did to Peeta.
"No." I say less than audible.
"Catnip, it's the only way."
"No." I repeat. Louder this time. With a more aggressive verve.
"Katniss. Don't make this more challenging."
"I'm not. You are." I accuse, full on storm brewing. Could he really just toss our beautiful afternoon away so easily? It was so un–seam like, such a waste. He dragged his hands down his face and left without saying another word. "Get back here Gale Hawthorne… immediately." I demanded sharply. He didn't listen to me.
I saw red. I was in love with him and he couldn't bother to let me show him that he meant a lot to me. "I'll kill myself, to lose the pain." I yelled so he could hear me from where he was. Just so he knew I wasn't kidding. I took his longest snare twine from the hunting bag and walked to the nearest tree. "Are you, Are you coming to the tree?" I asked him in a sing-song voice. My eyes were closed as I completed the noose.
I had no intention of jumping, but right now I was more desperate than I had ever felt before. I was going to lose Gale because he thought that I didn't love him. That was a complete inference on his part.
Let me be the damsel in distress for once. "No Katniss." The rope was yanked from my fingers and I was swept up into someone's arms. I grinned in triumph and opened my eyes.
"Katniss don't let me find you like that ever again."
"Peeta? What are you doing out here?"
"I was going to come looking for you. Your mom told me to tell you dinner's ready and she invited the Hawthornes' over."
Gale left me. Was the only thought I could comprehend. There was no single word that could explain my intense set of feelings. I was mad. I was sad. I was confused. I was disappointed. I was upset. I was jealous. I was angry. I was enraged. I was lonely.
And there was nothing I could do about it. Because I didn't control my life. He did. Because somehow those turkeys thought they owned the place, and somehow Snow thought he owned me. I was just a piece in the Capitol's Games. Somehow they thought they owned me. Somehow they thought they all owned the world. Somehow they thought they all owned the place.