A/N: Hello! Did you miss me? (Probably not, it's been like two weeks.) So this fic is gonna be quite a bit different than SueTastic. For one, it'll probably suck less. For another, it's more serious. *serious music*
Pwease enjoy, review, flame, and... yeah.
PS: It's my head canon that Mama Everdeen's name is Azalea, Lea for short. and Daddy Everdeen is Tom. Just by the way.
xxxxx
It has been three years since her sister died.
Three years since she lay on the other side of a glass screen, a mutilated shell of a girl, attempting to garble out words with no lips and no tongue, crying, "Prim, I'm sorry, I'm sorry".
It has been three years since Katniss died.
Three years since Rory watched a faceless girl who his brother loved die in the name of high-end entertainment and reminders that nobody needs.
He remembers that day. He remembers Primrose's tears, and how she collapsed into the closest person- Hazelle- and sobbed. Hazelle wrapped her arms around the fragile blonde's waist and cradled her like she does with Rory when he is sick. Prim's mother Lea wrapped her arms around the two, and Gale's arms around her, and everyone, until Rory ended up sandwiched between his brothers. And his sister, tiny Posy nuzzling into the middle of them, barely able to walk, crying because everyone else was.
Gale didn't stay around for very long after that. Over the three years he remained in Hazelle's house, he taught his little brother Rory how to hunt. He let him use Katniss' bow.
Rory said he wasn't near as good as his brother. Gale always told him he was doing fine, but Rory knew he wasn't looking. He was usually staring at something with a nostalgic look in his eye.
Gale left them soon after that. He married the mayor's daughter in this past summer. Katniss' death left both of them broken, but they put each other back together.
Sometimes Rory doesn't think he can do it on his own.
He's hunting for his own family and Prim's. Granted, both families are less one person now. But some days they barely have enough to call it a meal; some days they hardly have anything at all.
They usually eat their meals together, Rory and Prim's families. Their mothers sit close together and talk in low voices. Prim braids Posy's soft black hair. Rory and Vick eat together in silence.
"Prim keeps threatening to try hunting," Lea whispers to Hazelle. "I can't let her, though."
"Why not?" Hazelle's whisper is a bit louder. "It'd be good for all of us."
"What if she was caught one day?"
"They never caught Katniss. Or Tom, for that matter."
"But it's just me and Prim now." Lea stares at her meager cup of mint tea. "I can't risk it. I just can't."
Hazelle gets that glint in her eye she gets when she's about to tell someone off. Rory backs slowly out of the room.
The next day he is informed that he will be teaching Prim to hunt.
xxx
He takes her out a few days later. He lets Prim use the small bow and paints a target on a tree.
"What do I do now?" Prim shifts, uncomfortable with the bow and the boy she hardly knows.
"Just try to hit that target," Rory mutters, and the one thing Prim knows about him tells her he won't be speaking much more to her.
Prim misses the target. She's only used a bow once in her life. Katniss tried to teach her when she was ten. Prim tries again, but she can't see for the tears in her eyes.
" I can't," Prim uncharacteristically whines, dropping the bow and wiping at her eyes. Rory makes an indignant noise and picks up the weapon, thrusting in into Prim's hands. He puts his arms over hers. It's how his brother taught him. When he pushes Prim's flat stomach to make her stand up straighter, it's a rough, asexual contact. He can feel her ribs under his thumb, and for some reason it makes him sad.
Prim gives an angry huff at being pushed around. She starts to regret ever wanting to hunt. It just seemed logical to her, but she only thought about it in the abstract. Now she remembers being ten and crying every time Katniss shot something.
Rory puts his hands on Prim's and aims the arrow at the reddish target. Then he steps back from her. She doesn't miss by much this time.
"Um..." Rory places a hand on he back of his neck. He hasn't shot anything today, and he's got two families depending on him. "Change of plans, Prim."
He leaves Prim at the strawberry plant Gale showed him. Rory hunts by himself, and after Prim collect the strawberries they head back home.
It's going to be one of those meager days.
xxx
"What's your favourite colour?"
Prim turns to Rory, squinting at the sunlight behind him. "Why?"
Rory shrugs. "Why not?"
"It's just sort of... Sort of a strange question," Prim mumbles, ducking her head. Rory stares at her like he can figure out her favourite colour just by glowering.
"...Blue."
"What?" Prim looks up again.
"Mine's blue. If it'll help you answer me." Rory's eyes look orangey in the sunrise. He's got those clear eyes that take on whatever light there is.
Prim makes a resigned noise. "Mine's purple," she states. Rory grins when she twists her hands in her lap. Then, he stands up and says, "Change of plans."
"Was there really much of a plan in the first place?" Prim had become a bit snarkier since Katniss had died. Rory grins a bit.
"Not really, but I'm gonna teach you to set snares. It requires a bit less aiming."
Prim huffs. She doesn't like being insulted, especially not by anyone she doesn't know well. But it seems like Rory is made of sinew and silent fire.
Prim's got a knack for detail, and her snares land her a rabbit quite soon. She's much less squeamish than when she was ten, and manages not to cry.
She's nothing like Gale, but she's better at this than shooting. Rory gives her a backhanded compliment.
But this time, she laughs.
Rory looks up at her laugh. It's sharper and louder than anything else Prim does. She tilts her head back and laughs harder, spinning a bit and probably scaring off all the game. It hardly matters- Rory had a good day for hunting. She trips, and he catches her unceremoniously by her forearms. "Come on. I'm not that funny."
"I just haven't laughed in a while." Prim gives him a little lopsided smile. "It feels good."
Rory stares at the lithe blonde girl. She always seemed like something delicate, like she was on the verge of shattering. A porcelain doll. Now she seems delicate, still, but a bit lighter, like Rory's grip on her skinny wrists is keeping her from floating off like blossoms.
Their families eat well, that night. Rory brought home a whole wild turkey.
Prim and Rory eat together. They don't really talk to each other. They talk together to Posy, and they stand, all three of them, crowded around a basin of water to clean the plates. Posy flicks water at Prim when she thinks the older girl isn't looking.
xxx
The warmish edges of September have cooler into October, and the leaves in the forest seem to all catch fire at once. It's a soft looking fall, like being surrounded by dim candles.
It's been three weeks since Prim started hunting. Rory does more of the hunting, and she sets snares, and strings fishing nets across the river that feeds the lake.
Prim learns that Rory likes warm fall days, fires at night, and the colour blue. Rory learns that Prim likes purple, tea after dinner, and apples.
She loves apples.
She hasn't told him that she cries at night. He hasn't asked.
They're hardly symbiotic. The sound of the other's footsteps still startles them. They still only talk about the barest things. But when faced with a pack of wild dogs, Prim, delicate little Primrose, doesn't hesitate to grab Rory by the wrist and run for the nearest tall tree.
Huddled up in the branches, waiting breathlessly, Prim notices that Rory is still, really still. Usually, when someone holds still, they still sway a bit, still fidget, still move without knowing. Rory is like a statue. Prim has to watch him closely to make sure he's still breathing.
The dogs move on, and they laugh, a breathless laugh that's the only appropriate response when you've been hiding in a tree for twenty minutes. Rory climbs down a bit before dropping expertly to the ground, and Prim scrambles out of the tree in a very ungraceful, un-Prim way. She nudges Rory's arm, and disappears into the bright trees.
xxx
"Look, Rory, apples."
"Where?"
"Right up there," Prim points, and Rory follows the line of her finger thirty feet up. "I could get them."
"No, you couldn't," he scoffs. She glares at him under too-long blond bangs. He dodges the kick that comes at his legs. "Hey!"
Prim purses her lips like she does when she thinks she's overstepped herself. She is not about to apologize, though. Instead, she makes for the tree, hauling herself onto a low branch.
"Prim?"
"Ssh." Her fingers almost slip. She's about ten feet off the ground, trying not to listen when Rory tells her to be careful.
"Prim, we don't need it." And they don't, it's been a surprisingly good day.
Twenty feet up, she slips.
"Prim!"
She scrabbles for purchase a minute, then hits the forest floor with a thud. She groans, rubbing her left ankle, and Rory is beside her in a second. "Damn it, Prim. I told you not to."
She fiercely wipes at the tears, just starting to form, with one hand, and holds out a single apple with the other. He rolls his eyes and asks if she can walk.
"I don't know, I haven't tried," is all he needs to lift her to her feet. She can't put a lot of weight on her left foot, hardly any at all. Rory helps her lean against the tree. Then, he slings her pack over his shoulder, wraps an arm under her shoulders, and together they hobble home.
Lea diagnoses it as a Grade 1 sprain, bandages her ankle, and gives her a bit of sleep syrup. It isn't really enough to knock her out, but she stays in a sort of hazy state. Rory eats dinner with her on the floor, and when Lea comes back from the Hawthorne house, Prim's asleep. Her head is pillowed on Rory's chest, one hand clutching the front of his shirt. He isn't looking at her, he looks at the hearth, at the window, at anything else.
But as Lea walks over to take Prim to bed, he runs a finger over her cheekbone, and his lips quirk to the side.
He's a bit reluctant to walk home.
xxx
The next week is slow and boring. Prim can't walk, so Rory is alone in the woods, doing a job really meant for two people. He doesn't do as well as they did together, but some of the food is saved up.
They're all still hungry.
So one day, Prim walks out of the house on make-shift crutches, and her and Rory go to the bakery.
Peeta's father made good on his promise. As soon as Rory helps her over the doorstep, he disappears into a back room, and comes back with a loaf of bread. Prim reaches for her pocket, but he pushes the bread at her, giving her a stern look.
A day and a half after Katniss died, Peeta, delirious with fever and illness, hauled himself out of the cave, and was promptly killed by Cato. Prim hardly remembers it, most of the games were blocked out by sadness. She remembers Cato winning, and life carrying on as normal thereafter.
Well, some semblance of normal.
He still refuses the money. Prim leans heavily on the counter, takes the bread from his hand, and presses a coin into his heat-scarred hand. She leaves her fingers on him a second longer than she should, and he puts his other hand on hers, a familiar, fatherly, asexual contact. He looks at her, lips pressed together, with far more grief, strength, and empathy than can be put into words. It's anger, really. Sheer anger that a person- let alone two people – could die and leaver her here. Could force her to swallow every shred of herself and hunt in the woods.
Could look at her, at the way every bone in her body stood out, and not do everything in their power to help her.
He takes the coin, because if he didn't they would be here all day, Prim and Rory. Glaring and seething at him because they don't need his charity. They're fine. They'll always be fine.
Nobody says a word.
xxx
Prim can walk in two weeks. She limps a bit and is louder in the forest than usual, but everyone still eats.
It gets cold outside. Game stays huddled up until late in the morning, and Prim and Rory are almost late for school sometimes.
One morning in late October, there's a bit of sun. A bit, because it only lasts two hours before the fall clouds tucked it away. But there was more sunlight than Rory thinks he has ever seen. Everything glows. The lake by their hiding place. The still-dewy leaves. The edges of clouds.
Prim.
Her hair looks like sunlight, and it seems so foreign to think, but it does, it really does. She glows like a candle in a pitch-black room, and her hair is gold, and her eyes are the sky, and before any sense comes back, he brushes her bangs out of her eyes.
She looks sharply at him. Her lips twist to the side, and she tries to figure him out. He doesn't make any sense, how he just whispers and moves through the trees and he really doesn't make any sense at all. But Prim leans into Rory, and he puts an arm around her shoulders, and they breathe and blink and they just sort of are for a few seconds.
Katniss is dead.
Gale is distant.
Prim and Rory are here. Nothing is normal. Nothing will ever be normal.
And they think they might be okay with that.
xxxxx