(a/n) i know this fic isn't exactly katniss/gale pairing despite the label, but i figured it's more of a k/g fic than anything else. hope you enjoy!
{and i don't think you see the places inside me where i find you
~roadside/ rise against}
six and seven
"Mommy?"
The little girl's voice has the musical quality of her mother's and her eyes are a worry-struck reflection of her father's. She watches each of her father's fingers start to turn blue from his grip on the back of the chair.
"He's okay. He just needs a minute."
The little girl watches, wide-eyed, as her mother mumbles something about bread and rain.
"Why don't you two head over to Uncle Haymitch's house, sweetie?"
She grabs her brother's hand and his blonde curls bounce as she leads him down the street to the rotting man's house. She thinks she hears the notes of a panicky lullaby behind her.
—
His mother is terrible at singing.
He sits, bored, at the kitchen table, trying to block out the tune of a work song his mother tells him she used to sing while hacking at trees. He twirls his spoon in his stew for a while, too full from the sweets he'd taken from his older brother as blackmail (he's going to go downtown once their mother's gone). When he gets tired of watching deer meat bob in his bowl he turns his gaze to his mother, her movements jaunty, like she'd learned to walk on forest floors and not flat ground.
"Dad will be home in a bit," she says, stopping her music and turning to face him. She dries her hands off on a towel. "I can trust you alone for a little while, right, kiddo?"
He nods.
She walks over and ruffles his hair, the same dark brown as her own, saying, "Your brother will be home soon", and then she's out the door, calling over her shoulder, "See you in a day kiddo!"
He races upstairs and into his parents'room, heading straight towards the bed. He wriggles partially under the frame and digs out a dusty, crumpled box and hopes his father's a tiny bit late getting home.
He loves looking through his father's trophies and medals, but he's known for a while that they're nothing to be proud of.
seven and eight
She stands close by her mother, keeping one eye on her brother's blonde head at the kitchen table behind them, and the other eye on the hand chopping carrots for their father's surprise dinner.
"Careful, Mommy," she says, watching her finger come dangerously close to the blade.
Her mother laughs. "I'll be alright here, Essa. Why don't you go see what Rhys is up to?"
"I've been looking after him, too," the little girl replies matter-of-factly, blue eyes going the slightest bit stony with seriousness.
Something in her mother's expression shifts, the way it does when she's remembering something from long ago. Essa tenses because these are the kinds of looks her mother has on her face after a nightmare or her father's occasional episodes.
It passes quickly.
"Well, I think you should start on a cake for your Daddy. It would be a nice part of the surprise, wouldn't it?" her mother says, stooping down to fetch flour and sugar from the cabinets.
Essa's eyes light up. "Let me, Mommy. You always put too much flour."
—-
"Come on, Rey," the boy says irritably. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest. "It's my turn!"
His father's voice is a rumble. "I think your younger brother has a point, Rey. Let's give him a few shots now."
Rey heaves a sigh and turns around, amber eyes flashing. He's a blend of their mother and father's features, with lighter brown hair and eyes that aren't grey.
"Fine," he says, slinging the bow over his shoulder. He plucks the arrows from the tree they've been using as a target, and puts the full quiver and bow in his younger brother's hands.
Asher adjusts the bow on his smaller frame with ease, and lines up his arrow with the painted bull's eyes. He breathes, breathes out, and lets go of the string.
He misses by two fingers' breadth.
Asher looks to his father and sees his eyes darken momentarily, the way they do when he sees something like his old war medals or a passage on him in Rey's history books. When he catches Asher looking at him, he snaps out of it and smiles easily.
"You're both naturals," he says, watching as Asher shoots again, this time even closer to the center of the target.
It's clear to them who he's really talking about.
nine and ten
The term "Hunger Games" has floated around Essa for as long as she can remember, but it's only now that she's truly starting to understand that they were a much, much bigger deal than she's thought they were. They have ten entire books about them in her classroom library (out of thirty), and a lot of them have her mother and father's names in tmhem.
In fact, the one she swiped when her teacher wasn't looking is entirely about her parents. Mostly about her mother, though, since her father's name only appears in about half of the book.
Essa waits until night and fakes sleep when her parents come in to check on her (she's getting good at that) and then pulls out the small flashlight she'd taken from the kitchen drawer and hopes she isn't turning into a thief.
She starts to read through the book cover-to-cover, not even skipping the table of contents, and grows more and more confused with each word. At the same time, certain things start to make sense. Why mommy doesn't sleep sometimes and instead huddles by the fireplace all night Why she remembers daddy's face growing redder and redder as he clings to a chair, with her mother's singing trying to shoo away whatever's taken hold of him.
She makes the mistake of asking about them at dinner.
Her mother's knuckles start to turn white from her grip on her fork, and her parents exchange a long look.
"Why don't we sit down and talk about them after your brother's gone to sleep?"
Essa nods meekly.
After the discussion, despite her parents' best efforts to tone down the details, she can't sleep for a week.
—-
"Is it true that Katniss Everdeen is your cousin?" Asher asks at dinner one day, in between bites of beef stew.
His parents exchange a glance and Rey shoots him a look. Asher doesn't pay attention to his brother, and after a few moments of silence, he presses on, "Is she?"
His father says, "No. We were good friends, but we're not related."
"They should correct all of the class books then," Asher says, a crease appearing in between his eyebrows. "All of them say that."
There's dry laughter from his father. "Maybe. It doesn't really matter, though."
"Why? Our teacher says that it's important to correct our mistakes."
His father's eyes dull for a moment and his mother puts one hand over his larger one and says, "Your teacher's right. But sometimes it's hard. Think of all of the copies of those books in all of Panem."
Asher thinks for about a moment and decides the number's too big to think about any more.
"I guess."
ten and eleven
She tries.
She really, really tries; lesson after lesson, but her shots all fly astray. Into the bushes, branches, the grass. It's almost like there's a repulsive force that appears around the target whenever Essa has hold of the bow.
Essa bets her brother, with his blonde head barely reaching her shoulder, would have better aim than her.
"Everyone needs practice to get the hang of it," her mother tells her encouragingly, but her words start to ring false around the 20th lesson, and uncertainty starts to creep into her expression.
Essa is the one who breaks first, after one or two more shots, and stomps all the way back home.
After all, Essa's father tells her that her mother was always a natural. She used to bring squirrels to their bakery, before the war, shot clean through the eye.
"Your mother was - is - very brave," her father would say, smiling. "It wasn't even allowed to go into the woods before, but she went anyway to help her family."
"All alone?" Essa asked once.
She saw hesitation in her father's eyes. "No, not alone. She went with a friend, usually."
Essa was confused. "Like Uncle Haymitch?"
Her father laughed. "No, definitely not Uncle Haymitch. A different friend. He moved away a long time ago."
—–
"No, not like that," Rey says, unwinding the rope. He ducks the strands in a different pattern and tightens, holding up the finished product for Asher to see.
Asher frowns down at the rope. It looks like one big tangle to him.
"Show me again," he says determinedly, and his brother takes a deep breath before explaining it again, going even more slowly.
Asher imitates Rey to the best of his ability and still doesn't get it quite right. He wishes he could just use his bow, a sturdy thing made of solid oak, cut down by his mother and carved by his father. On his umpteenth try, Asher storms off, saying, "I'm going to go get my bow."
"I know you're frustrated," his father says, and Asher nearly jumps. His father moves like a ghost through the woods - silent, unseen unless he wants to be. "But it takes a while to get the hang of it. Rey's four years older than you, remember?"
"Rey could tie snares when he was my age," Asher says.
"But he couldn't shoot an arrow as straight as you, could he?" his father replies, kneeling down to Asher's height.
"Probably not," Asher mumbles, allowing himself a small smile.
eleven and twelve
"You'll have to go back sometime, Gale. That place is in your blood," his mother says, holding the card that had arrived at their doorstep that morning in one hand and her mug of tea in the other.
"I go back almost every year," he says gruffly.
"And hide in your mother's house for a few days. How is that going back, Gale?"
"I'm there in District 12. How is it not?" Asher hears him shoot back. The wall is blocking his view of his father, so he can't see his expression, but he sees his mother growing angrier.
"You can't avoid her forever."
"I can try."
"I'm taking the kids with me, and you'll sit here like a coward while I make excuses for you. Oh, yes, we planned for the whole family to come, but Gale's feeling sick. Or maybe I'll tell them you have too much work," her voice rises in volume. "They'll expect that bullshit since it's the hundredth time, anyway, right?"
"Johanna-"
"You didn't kill Prim," she says. "I know it, you know it, and she has to know it by now. She's always been logical, hasn't she?"
"Not when it comes to Prim."
"It's been years Gale."
Silence, and Asher starts to slink away to his room before they both catch him.
"I'll go."
Asher hears his mother's footsteps fall towards the back door of the house, towards the woods, and he hears his father mumble, "The old drunk had to die near her birthday, didn't he?"
—–
The funeral is huge.
Essa clings to her mother's hand on one side and her brother's on the other side and watches the procession with teary eyes. Her brother picks at a scab on his arm, only half-aware that Uncle Haymitch is being buried.
"I didn't know he had so many friends," Essa says to her mother, and she chokes out a laugh in response.
Essa looks over all of the people gathered in the field (they're standing on top of the Meadow) and marvels at how she hasn't seen most of them ever before in her life. She even glimpses some men and women who have the strange hairstyles they sometimes see on the television.
Essa zones out during the speeches and formal words, and at some point, her mother and father head for the microphone to say something, and Essa is left holding her brother's hand.
Sometime during the reception that follows, she hears her father say, "Katniss, don't look now, but I think Gale is here. He's coming towards us."
Her mother immediately turns to look at this Gale person.
"It's alright, Peeta. We have to talk to each other sooner or later, don't we?"
Essa sees a boy who looks slightly bigger than her trailing grumpily behind the Gale person. His hair color is unfamiliar to her - a strange chocolatey brown - but when she briefly meets his eyes she feels a jolt because they're so similar to her mother's.
"Hey, sweetie, why don't you come over for a second?"
Essa turns her head and walks to leave her mother and the man alone.
twelve and thirteen
She catches a boy.
She hears a rustle and the telling thwit of her snare's ropes snapping up, but instead of the rabbit (or maybe deer, she'd allowed herself to hope) she was expecting to catch, she finds a boy.
Essa watches from the shrubbery as he tries to swing himself, and she watches his progress from barely shifting the air to slowly gaining momentum with curiosity. Does he think he'll be able to swing himself up onto the branch?
Her curiosity is further piqued when he does, indeed, swing himself onto the branch, gripping it with the grace of someone who's done it a thousand times. He frowns down at the knot of rope at his ankle. After tugging at it to gauge the strength of the knot, he produces a knife from his boot and cuts cleanly through it.
"I didn't expect to find a boy," Essa says loudly, finally emerging from the foliage.
"And I didn't expect to find a little girl," he says easily, not giving away any surprise at her appearance. He kneels on the ground and picks up the rope, turning it in his hands.
"You were just caught in my snare, big guy."
"A little girl who can make snares," he amends, not looking up. Essa huffs.
She stays perfectly still, watching this strange boy inspect her snare, and after a while, asks, "Do you hunt?"
He's looking at the snare with a practiced look; one that says he's seen many of these before.
"Yeah," he says, glancing up. Their eyes meet briefly. He traces a knot with his finger before dropping the rope to the ground. "What's your name?"
"Essa," she says. She hates how she has to look up at him.
"Asher." He pauses, and then says, "You're Katniss Everdeen's daughter?"
The question is casual, not filled with a certain degree of awe or hate - depending on the person - that it usually is.
Essa nods and studies the boy's features for a few moments. There's something familiar about the rise of his cheekbones and the storm in his eyes.
Her history teacher's voice drones in her head and she remembers. "And you're Gale Hawthorne's son?"
He smirks. "I think we're supposed to be distant cousins, then."
"Our parents aren't actually cousins," Essa says, rolling her eyes.
"That's why I said supposed to be."
Essa's eyes drop to the rabbits he carries on a belt. All of them are perfectly intact.
"Where'd you get those from?"
"I shot them."
"I don't see any marks."
He detaches one and turns it so that Essa can see the small puncture in its eye.
—–
"I'll teach you how to make snares if you teach me how to shoot straight."
—–
The next day, Asher slips out of his grandmother's house after breakfast with his bow, and when one of his cousins asks to come along, he says no so suddenly that all of the adults - his grandmother, his father, two uncles, aunt, and mother - all exchange a look.
When he reaches the clearing he'd bumped into her the day before, she's already waiting with a bow.
"Do you have rope?" she asks, and he nods.
They start with snares.
The girl - Essa - makes a simple snare, and says, "We'll start with this, I guess."
Asher loops his own piece of rope into the same snare with ease.
They sit across from each other in the middle of the clearing, quietly knotting and untying and reknotting snares, with Asher following Essa's lead. Eventually, they grow more complicated, and Asher feels the limits of his abilities draw closer.
The first one he stumbles with, Essa patiently reties her own and guides him through assembling his own.
"No, no, look. With these locking snares, you always put the rope over and then loop it through."
"No, put that piece under the other one, yeah like th- no, the other way."
"Double-knot that part. Not that part, that part. No, the other one."
Her voice grows more and more exasperated and Asher becomes exasperated with her exasperation.
"Look, I told you I'm not that good, you don't need to make faces at me."
She blows a piece of hair out of her face and scrunches her nose. "I'm not making faces."
"You just did it again," Asher says, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice.
Her nose scrunches further. "No I didn't! You're the one whose eyebrows are almost touching!"
The wrinkles between his brows immediately smooth.
"They're not."
"Because you just fixed them!"
"Stop scrunching your nose!"
Then they're both on their feet, fingers pointed at each other, and Asher decides he's done with this crazy girl. He snatches up his bow and turns to stalk off towards home.
"Are you walking away from me?"
He throws a yes over his shoulder and walks right into one of her snares. He's suddenly hanging six feet above the ground.
"Essa!" When there's no response, he twists himself around on the rope.
She's gone.
—–
When they see each other around the district after that, they shoot each other looks filled with thinly-veiled scorn.
—–
Asher befriends the son of a merchant whilst wandering around the Town (he thinks it's strange that the old name has still stuck even there's no more Seam) and finds his connections in 12 multiply through the one boy, and forgets Essa.
thirteen and fourteen
Their visits to District 12 seem to have become an annual thing, now that his father has (in his mother's words) "finally manned up and gotten whatever was between him and Katniss over with". They do not talk, Asher notes, but his father's tension surrounding returning to the district has faded.
—–
He spends his time with the merchant boy, Arin, and his friends after they've finished school for the day. The five of them all spend their time playing a ball game unfamiliar to Asher (he catches on, quickly, though), and afterwards, laze around at one of their houses, poring over newspapers and magazines detailing new technology. A lot of it coming out of Districts 2 and 3, the boys turn their questions to Asher, who answers them as best as he can.
"What's it like in District 2, anyway, Asher?" someone asks.
He shrugs. Everyone's attention is suddenly undividedly on him. "I don't know, like any other district, I guess."
"It doesn't look like any other district," another boy chimes, gesturing towards one of the glossy pictures in the magazines.
"I mean, there's taller buildings, sure, but you get used to it after a while. It doesn't seem special."
"I still don't get why you guys would come here for vacation. I'd kill to travel to the other districts."
Asher shrugs again. "My dad's family is all here. We come by to visit them."
Besides, Asher thinks, there's some things that are better in 12.
—–
The woods are bigger here, and somehow, more familiar.
Asher creeps silently along the foliage, never taking his eyes off of the stag that's he's following. Every time he prepares to nock his arrow, there's a tree or bush blocking his way, and he's lost track of how long he's been after it.
He's finally able to land a clean shot, and quickly raises his bow. His arrow is lined, his bow seemingly humming with energy, and his fingers twitch towards letting the string go.
Something rustles in the trees and the stag runs off. Cursing under his breath, Asher shifts his bow onto his shoulder.
"I didn't know you were back."
Asher doesn't flinch when a dark head appears in his field of vision, attached to a body swinging down from the branches above his head. This was the disturbance.
"Thanks for startling the stag," Asher says, neatly sidestepping Essa's dangling head. She swings herself down from the branches and onto the ground with surprising speed and nimbleness.
"No hello?" she asks, one hand on her hip.
"Last time I saw you, you strung me up in one of your snares."
"I didn't tell you to step there."
"You could've warned me," he shoots back, and then stays quiet because he will not enter another argument with this girl. He steps away a few paces and kneels in the grass, pulling out some of his smaller kills to field dress. He doesn't need to, of course, but hopefully, she'll wander away and leave him to hunt again.
He feels her gaze on his back as he skins and slices the animal. Sometime between cutting and wrapping the meat in clean cloth, she finds her way in front of him.
They are both too stubborn to apologize so she pulls out a length of rope and starts knotting, and Asher puts away the meat and mirrors her.
—–
They hunt together, following the short snare line that Essa's set up. She mostly tracks and lets Asher do the shooting, only nocking her own arrows when she's sure they'll be a clean shot. She still can't get the animals through the eye like he does, without fail, every time.
By the end of it, they have more kills than Essa has ever gotten at once.
"This is more than my family could eat," Asher says, skinning a squirrel. After he's done, he hands it off to Essa, who sitting a good six feet away, has to lean forward stretch her arms to their maximum take it from his hands.
She starts carving off the meat. "We can sell it," Essa says.
Asher looks up at her briefly. "To who?"
"This woman my mom always sold to, Greasy Sae. She has a shop in Town," Essa says, and then adds as an afterthought, "Well, her granddaughter runs it now more than her."
Asher nods. "Let's go."
They walk across the forest floor, bumping into each other occasionally, and shoot each other angry glances.
"You keep stepping on my feet," Essa says, putting a few more inches of space between them. She's forced back by his side, though, when they pass through a narrow opening between trees.
"It doesn't help that you're so hard to see," he clips, neatly ducking under a tangle of branches. Essa jogs slightly to catch up with his long strides.
"You're not that much taller than me," she says. Asher suddenly stops and Essa nearly bumps into him. "Hey-" she starts, and he's suddenly very close, and she automatically cranes her head to look up at him.
He raises an eyebrow.
She huffs.
—–
"Hey, Essa," Sae's granddaughter says as soon as they plow through the door. There's a long, gleaming counter at the left for taking orders and a space to the right with booths and tables. "Made a new friend?" she asks, looking kindly at Asher. Her swollen belly lightly bumps the counter as she juggles pans of searing meat.
"Kind of," Essa mumbles, and then the door behind the counter is swinging open, and an old woman with bright eyes walks out.
"What have you got for me today, Essa?" she says, eyes shining, and Essa pulls out cuts of meat from her game bag. Sae inspects them for a few moments, noting "The squirrel is shot through cleanly today, was your mother with you?" - to which Essa shakes her head - and then Sae's gaze slides across to Asher.
"Feels like I've gone back in time," she says. "Gale's son, aren't you? I bet you can tie snares like the best of them."
Asher shifts, "Actually, I'm better with a bow."
"He shot the squirrels," Essa says with a note of glumness.
Sae buys all of their extra meat off of them and offers them both a bowl of beef stew, rich with vegetables, and Sae forces the bowl into Asher's hands after he says that he really should get going back home.
—–
A few days later, Essa stands behind the bakery's glass display, rearranging the pastries in the case to her satisfaction. It's early morning, and the yeasty smell of baking bread fills the entire bakery.
There's the sound of something dropping in the back kitchen and Essa calls, "Need help, Dad?" to which he tells her not to worry about it. Essa sits on the stool they keep behind the counter and starts to ice a tray of bare cupcakes. She's not anywhere near as bad as her mother at this, but her frosting still seems to lack the effortless grace her father's.
The bell above the bakery's entrance tolls.
"Hey, Maeve!" Essa calls, not looking up. Her friend's the only one who's ever at the bakery this early. "Just a second!"
She finishes off the last cupcake and stands up to see Asher on the other side of the counter.
"I don't know who Maeve is, but can I have a loaf of bread?"
She's surprised to find that seeing him doesn't make anger curl up in her. "Sure, I'll get it from the back."
While she's wrapping up the bread, he asks, "Are you going hunting today?"
She was planning to go right after Maeve dropped by and her shift ended. "Yeah, after an hour or something."
"Okay," he says, taking the package.
"Okay," she says, taking his money.
When Maeve comes, she pulls out her usual stool from the kitchen and calls a greeting to Essa's father (morning, Mr. Mellark!). She tucks her inky hair behind her ear as she chews on a slice of bread.
"You know, we had guests over yesterday. An old friend of my dad's. They came from District 2."
"Really?" Essa says, pretending she doesn't know exactly who it is.
"Yeah. He had two sons. One was pretty old, I think he was talking about starting to study business. The other one's my age."
Maeve is a year and a half older than Essa. "What's his name?" Essa says idly, slicing loaves of bread and wrapping them in paper.
"Asher," Maeve replies, and then adds with a grin, "He's pretty cute. And tall."
"Ew, Maeve."
—–
They hunt for all of twenty minutes and instead end up sitting against a large, flat rock and - to Essa's surprise - talking.
"Our parents used to hunt together," she says out loud for no good reason. Her ratty canvas game bag and bow, both inherited from her mother, sit by her side, and she suddenly wonders if Asher's dad used to carry them and use them. The thought is dizzying, for some reason.
"Yeah," Asher says, and then he adds, "They used to be best friends, I think."
"Except now they don't even talk."
Asher turns to look at her, and says hesitantly, "He didn't mean for the, uh - he didn't mean for the bombs to fall on her," he ambles out.
The fact is written in every history book, for whatever reason, that mentions his father and her mother together. As a part of the main text, footnote, sidenote, or those little boxes put as an afterthought. Gale Hawthorne became estranged from his cousin after he designed the weapons that lead to her death.
"I think my mother knows that. She just isn't so good with talking, sometimes."
"He used to have nightmares where he'd wake up screaming her name. I think I knew who your aunt was before I knew who your mother was."
"Well, that's something different," Essa says. Every child in Panem knows the story of the Mockingjay, albeit a very stripped down version, by the time they're five.
There's a silence, not entirely uncomfortable, and Essa eventually says, "My mother and father have always had nightmares." He stays quiet, picking at the stalks of grass near his feet, and she adds on in a jumble, "They've gotten a bit better now, but they still wake up screaming sometimes. Always about something different. I used to take my brother and go down to Uncle Haymitch's house or to Maeve's house when we were really young. I learned how to inject morphine when I was eight to sedate them."
Asher lets out a breath. "Both of my parents, too. My father's always had it slightly better than my mother."
He talks about his mother's fear of water, how she screams for her dead family ("I have no family on my mother's side. None.") and friends. How his father jumps at anything that sounds remotely like an explosion, and how at a certain time of year, he always takes off into the woods for a few days to mourn.
They exchange stories until it's dark - whispering, even though there's no one out there to hear them.
—–
When they return to District 2, Asher dreams of endless woods.
fourteen and fifteen
Asher starts to notice, really notice, girls.
At first to his chagrin, and now to his fascination, girls have always seemed to take a keen interest in him. He watched it happen to his older brother, who always preferred to make snares and study and paid the girls no mind ("At least one of them hasn't completely turned into you," his mother said, nudging his father), and now, it's happening to him.
Asher is not his brother.
It's disconcerting at first, sure, but then Asher makes full use of the attention, and soon he is flying through girlfriends - if you can call them that - and accompanying girls who are often older than him to upperclassman parties and events. Asher might be just over fifteen, but he has filled out over the past year and is more lean than lanky, and has learned to control the embarrassing cracks in his voice, so that nothing gives away his true age when he needs to hide.
His father eyes him warily as he flits from girl to girl, party to party, sighing and telling him to stay safe, and his mother rolls her eyes at him, telling his father, "Well, I guess we know for sure he's Gale Hawthorne's son."
Asher is given a talk by his father when he's nearing sixteen, and he thinks that parents are usually supposed to be uncomfortable during this, but his mother and father strangely seem to have fun with it, with his mother cheerfully adding in details his father misses and a wicked curl of the lips on his father's face. They both laugh when their goal of turning Asher red is reached.
—–
Essa starts to see boys the way Maeve does.
Instead of seeing them as just, well, boys, Essa starts to really see them. She takes note of different eye colors, hair colors, how strong or weak someone's jawline is, the slopes of their noses, their heights.
Neither her father nor mother are very good with this kind of stuff, as Essa learns when her mother almost clinically explains her monthly cycle to her (not out of discomfort, Essa notes, but with a careless sort of detachment), and her father turns pink when her brother starts teasing about Essa and one of the merchants' sons, Arin.
Arin, Essa decides - and Maeve agrees - has very nice eyes, hair, a fairly strong jawline (although it could be stronger, Maeve adds), a gently sloping nose, and is tall enough that the top of Essa's head reaches his ears.
After a few whispers to boys and girls in their grade and the grade above, Essa and Arin are dating (she would never dare tell her mother and father) - if it can be called that.
—–
They've arrived in harvest season, this time, and the beginnings of the Harvest Festival celebrations are in the candle vendors lined on the streets, the spice-soaked air, and the strange happiness on people's faces.
"There's nothing like this in District 2," Asher says, looking out at the changing streets, and his father replies, "Well, this is one of the only things District 12 did right before the war."
The first place Asher goes is to the woods, skipping over the candy and candle shopping his parents and aunt and uncles and cousins are doing. The woods are a bit chillier - and he shivers because it was still warm in District 2 - and digs out the bow Essa hid in the hollow log, hoping she won't mind.
He's caught a few squirrels and picked and eaten some berries and is tracking a rabbit when there's shifting in the foliage. He instinctively aims his arrow at Essa.
"Hey," she says, both hands up, and he immediately lowers the bow.
"Hey."
And then they are hunting together, and after a little while, sitting by that big flat rock and skinning their kills.
"You guys came at a good time this year," she says, pausing to tie her hair up in a ponytail. "Harvest Festival is the best part of the year."
"It looks pretty nice," Asher says, and Essa raises a brow.
"'Pretty nice'? What, not good enough for a big shot like you?" she asks, and he smiles.
"Pretty amazing," he amends. "We don't have anything like it back home. The district's too big for everyone to come together like this."
"Well, at least you'll get to see it this time around. You should come with me and Maeve afterwards. The upperclassmen usually have a bonfire after the festival."
Asher pauses. "Thanks, but I should probably see what Arin's doing first. He told me to stay with him when we were here last time."
Essa pinks. "Actually, I'm going with Arin, too."
Asher takes in her slightly flushed face and wags his eyebrows at her suggestively. She scrunches her nose and throws a rock at him.
—–
When they haul their kills over to Greasy Sae's, Essa notices that they've stopped stepping on each other's toes.
—–
The festival passes by in a blur of food and drinks and singing and dancing, and Asher thinks he has never seen his mother and father so carefree and happy. The atmosphere is intoxicating.
The smell of cinnamon, butter, apples, and fresh bread linger in the air, and the fiddlers are playing music at the fringes of the town square while most of the district is gathered in the middle, swinging around and stepping to the rhythm. There is the slightest chill on the air but it is snuffed out by the warmth of hundreds of burning candles.
Asher thinks he has danced with half of the district - even Greasy Sae - by the time he reaches Essa. She grabs his hands with a smile and her loose hair flies around her as they duck and twist in the fast-paced dance (Asher has mastered it after hours of watching and dancing) and they move with a fluidity that should only come from years of dancing together.
"I think you're the best partner I've had all night," Asher says jokingly. She spins under his arm.
"Same here," she replies, eyes bright and a little breathless.
Asher's brow creases when there is a pause in the dance and he spots Essa's mother watching them from end of the square and his father watching from the other.
Maeve finds Essa at her father's cart full of bread and pastries after the dancing and looks dreamily at Asher.
"He's gorgeous," she says. "I mean, he was cute before, but he's really something now."
Essa glances at him and shrugs.
—–
Essa is the youngest one at the bonfire.
She'd expected it, but it's still a little strange, watching all of the older guys and girls sidle up to each other, passing around several thermoses full of something spiked with something. Arin takes generous gulps of the stuff when it comes his way but Essa only pretends to sip some and then hands it on, gripping Arin's arm a bit more tightly. Maeve shoots her a look that says they can leave, if she wants, but Essa refuses.
Asher seems right at home. He jokes and laughs with everyone, and Essa's brows shoot up when he flirts with the oldest of the girls. But whatever's he's doing seems to be working and soon he's sitting amongst them, carelessly throwing his arm around one of the prettiest one's waist. He throws back huge amounts of something-spiked-with-something each time it comes his way.
"What're looking at?" Arin slurs from behind her, and belatedly Essa realizes everyone in her circle was laughing at something while she'd sat there quiet.
She smiles. "Nothing." She reaches up and wraps her arms around his neck, tentatively pressing a kiss to his mouth. His arms come around her waist as he kisses her back, and her cheeks burn when everyone start to whoop and holler.
When they part Essa can't help but glance over at Asher, and he's looking at her with something like a smirk in his eyes. She sticks her tongue out at him and he laughs.
—–
Asher is swept up in the noise of the upperclassmen after the Harvest Festival, and only catches glimpses of Essa around the district (he's sent by his grandmother to buy bread every morning, though), and so it's nearing the end of his family's stay when he returns to the woods.
By some unspoken agreement, Essa has allowed Asher to use the too-big bow she hides in the hollow, and Asher makes his way straight to the clearing to retrieve it.
Essa is sitting silently against a tree, picking at the grass near her feet.
"Hey," Asher calls, and she twists around to look at him. His smile fades when he sees that her eyes are watery. "Hey, what's up?"
She must not have realized her eyes gave her away and blinks rapidly. "Nothing. You up for hunting?"
Asher looks at her admonishingly. "After you tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing," she says firmly, and Asher sits down next to her. They sit quietly for a while and Essa sniffles twice, but Asher doesn't say anything.
Finally, she says, "It's just my dad. He had one of those spells this morning, so Mom shooed me out of the house."
Asher doesn't need to ask to know it was a bad one. "And your brother?"
"At a friend's house."
They sit in silence, shoulders touching, until Essa decides she should go check on her brother.
—–
"Until next year, yeah?"
They're at Sae's place, sitting across from each other, empty bowls between them.
"Until next year."
fifteen and sixteen
Annie falls ill, and without a question, the whole family heads to District 4 for a few weeks, and Asher's mother stays for a month.
There is no trip to District 12. Asher sends Essa a letter, instead, and it is the first of many.
sixteen and seventeen
"I think that's Katniss's daughter coming up the walk," Asher's grandmother is saying. She's having her evening tea at the kitchen table and Asher wonders why she isn't melting. He lies as best as he can on the couch, with half of his legs hanging off, to somehow stave off the heat. The sun is almost gone from the sky, and yet it lingers in the air.
As Essa is presumably drawing closer to the door, she adds, winking at Asher, "She's really turning into something."
Asher is long past the point of blushing at such comments and lets out a long breath. "I'll get the door."
His shirt sticks uncomfortably to him in the humid heat, different from the dry summers they have at home, and he doesn't know how Essa is smiling up at him when he opens the door.
"Hey," she says cheerfully.
"Hey," he says, and smiles for the first time since morning. He glances at her quickly from head-to-toe and decides his grandmother was right. Her hair is longer and her cheekbones more prominent, and he can't help but notice that she's finally filled out.
She raises an eyebrow at him, and his gaze levels with hers. She's started turning red. He smirks.
"Go away," she says, making a move to shove at his chest. He catches her forearms and something passes between their skin that makes them move away from each other as if shocked.
Essa clears her throat. "Well, I thought we could go out to hunt. If you're not busy."
He's already closing the door behind him.
—–
"You got taller," Essa says as they walk towards the clearing, almost sounding betrayed. She has to crane her head the slightest bit more to look at him.
He laughs, and something in Essa lifts at the noise. She'd missed him."Don't sound so glum."
He bends down to retrieve the bow that's unofficially his, and Essa thinks, he's more than just gotten taller. He's filled out more, and she stupidly watches his arms as he gets back up.
"I don't think Arin would appreciate that," he says jokingly, and Essa turns her attention to the rope in her hands to hide the rising heat in her cheeks.
"We broke up a while ago," she says, tying a knot with more focus than necessary. "He turned into kind of a douchebag." She suddenly looks up at Asher. "Sorry, I forgot you were friends with him."
Asher shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. We weren't close or anything."
He doesn't tell her she's the only one he's ever bothered writing to, because he gets the feeling she already knows that.
Despite it being nearly a year and a half, they move in tandem through the forest, anticipating each other's movements, letting each other take shots they know they're stronger at and leaving shots they know they're weaker at. It's like the other few times they've hunted together, and at the same time it is not.
Essa doesn't remember feeling a strange turning in her stomach when his skin brushed hers, or the shivers that run down her spine when he whispers something close enough that his breath touches the back of her neck or ear.
The silence between them as they go to Sae's is more comfortable than ever.
—–
"This is stupid," Essa whispers to Maeve. The other girl rolls her eyes. The forest is quiet around, and a fire burns a few feet off, illuminating the group of ten or so people.
"Loosen up. Besides, Asher is playing. I'd kill to have my spin land on him," she says.
It's Essa's turn to roll her eyes. She meets Asher's gaze across the circle.
Relax, his eyes say.
I am relaxed, hers say, and he shakes his head.
They're playing some hybrid of spin the bottle, strip poker, and truth or dare, with a drinking game thrown in for good measure, it seems. When the first girl spins, the bottle lands on Essa, and she's told to take a swig from the thermos at the side of the room. She knocks it back without thinking to cheers, and the game begins in earnest.
Ten spins later, Arin has kissed Maeve, one of the girls is down to her underwear, Essa's mind is fuzzy, and Asher's shirt is off. She sneaks glances at him when she thinks he isn't looking, and Essa doubts she's being very sneaky since the alcohol has slowed her mind considerably.
Laughter flows freely and a few spins later the boys have all shed layers anyway. There are echoes of too hot across the circle.
"Next spin for a kiss," Maeve announces, and it is Asher's turn.
It lands on Essa.
Her heart stops in her chest. There are cheers from everyone as Asher draws closer to her and he lowers himself in front of her slowly.
A shiver runs down her spine when he cups one cheek with his hand. Her blood turns to wine. His breath tickles her ear and then his lips brush gently across her cheek.
"No fair," someone calls, and a chorus goes up. Essa suddenly feels too hot, and she's glad it wasn't a proper kiss, or she might have spontaneously combusted.
A little while later, she really does feel like she is suffocating, and wanders away from the group until the camp fire's light doesn't quite reach her. She stands against a tree, trying to settle her spinning head, and turns more slowly than she usually would when she hears branches snap behind her. She thinks it might be Asher for a moment but then realizes that his footsteps are never that loud.
"'ey Essa," someone slurs, and she registers belatedly that there's a weight on top of her.
The person is sloppily trying to kiss her, and she pushes weakly at them. "Arin," she gets out. "Stop it."
She finds her arms pinned to the tree.
"Come on, Essa," he says, his forehead landing on hers. She flinches away as best as she can. His mouth finds hers and she turns her head.
"Arin," she hisses. She readies her legs to knock him to the ground, she's Katniss Everdeen's daughter, he should know she can break him right now-
When Asher sees Essa pinned to the tree by Arin, all he sees is Essaand Arin forcinghimself on her, and as he rushes towards them in long strides, he doesn't quite see Essa jab her elbow into Arin's ribcage and stomp heavily on his instep, making him stagger away and mumble a half-hearted, drunken apology.
Asher turns Arin around and shoves him roughly to the ground. A few more guys immediately run over to aid Asher or mediate, depending on what they see, and everyone's heads turn towards the three of them standing by the tree.
Asher is baffled when Essa shoves at him.
"I had it handled!" she shouts at him, her voice louder than usual.
He takes a step back, and Arin groans. "I-"
"-messed it up!" She turns and starts to walk off, mumbling, "I can handle myself, big guy."
Asher watches her walk away.
The party disbands not too long after because they have to find Arin something for his shiner and the branch stuck halfway into his shoulder.
—–
It takes a few days, but she forgives him, and they resume their usual routine.
—–
"You can be an idiot, but I'd still better see you next year."
"I'll take that as evidence of your undying affection for me, and you will."
seventeen and eighteen
"Gale, you might want to see this," Asher's mother is saying, handing his father a colorful magazine.
Asher looks up from his breakfast and the notes he'd been cramming from. His father, as a matter of principle, does not read gossip magazines.
He looks at it and frowns. "Since when do you read those?"
"Since they're about you and someone else."
"Johanna, you know that-"
"I know, I know. But take a look at page nine."
His father's frown becomes deeper and deeper. "That was useless."
His mother takes away the magazine. "It was. I just thought you should know."
—–
Of course, Asher flips to page nine of the magazine later on, when his parents are occupied with something.
Kissing Cousins, the headline says, and it's an article about an alleged romance between Gale Hawthorne and Katniss Everdeen, complete with slightly blurry, old-looking pictures in the woods.
—–
"A party? On my first day here?" Asher says. While he does enjoy parties (the last place he'd been in District 2 before coming was at one), he'd been looking forward to hunting.
"Oh, cheer up. You love these kinds of things. Besides, I promised Maeve I'd come," Essa says.
She's already dressed up, and it's the first time Asher has seen in anything slightly formal, and he can't seem to stop sneaking glances at her. She's wearing a dress that hugs her torso in a way that's unfair and then flares out over her hips, not clinging to them, but showing that she's filled out even more than before.
"I don't think Cora would appreciate that," she teases, and he realizes that she's throwing his own words back at him but it takes him a few moments to place who Cora is,but he does, eventually.
"Her? She was nothing. I think I said that in my last letter."
Essa shrugs. "I must've missed it. Anyway, get changed quick. I'm waiting."
Evening is falling as they make their way to the sight of the party, Arin's house.
"Arin's house?" Asher says with distaste.
"I know, but his parents have gone to District 10, so his was perfect."
There must be almost a hundred people at the party, more people around his age than Asher realized even lived in District 12. It's a party like any other, with a lot of spiked drinks and dancing and food, and Asher mostly leans against a counter, sipping from his cup and catching up with some of the others. He always seem to have one eye on Essa, though, and he wonders she never struck him like she does now, like a blow.
As the night wears on the group from last year that were at the gathering where Asher accidentally punctured Arin's shoulder with a twig gathers to one side of the party, and they all talk and laugh loudly, minus Arin.
No sooner has Arin's absence registered in Asher's mind that he appears, holding what looks like a magazine.
"Hope you're enjoying the party," he says, two unfamiliar guys lingering behind him.
Essa shoots Asher a look that says for him to be polite and Asher tries. "Yeah, I am. Thanks for letting me come over, by the way."
Arin holds out what he's holding to Asher, and Asher realizes with a slight sinking of his stomach that it's the magazine his mother had been showing his father a few months ago. Except, this one's a newer addition, and his father's face is still on the cover.
"No thank you, Arin. I'm not exactly burning to know" - here he pauses, searching the cover - "the latest nail polish trends."
A chuckle ripples through the group. They've started getting the attention of the rest of the party, and it's a few notches quieter than before. Essa looks at Asher for an explanation, and he shrugs.
Arin looks in between them. "It's kind of strange that you two seem to be having a thing going on-"
"We do not have a 'thing going on'," Essa interjects, starting to stand up. Arin all but ignores her.
"-considering this."
He flips to a certain page and presents the article to Asher.
"I hate to break it to you, Arin, but this is really just a gossip article. This is the same magazine that claimed Paylor was marrying Haymitch a while back."
Another ripple of laughter in the room.
"Except there's photo evidence," Arin says.
There's more photos, this time, of a younger version of his father holding tight to a girl who looks the faintest bit like Essa.
"Old photos. All pre-war. What's your point, Arin?" Asher says. He's never liked games like these.
"If you think about it, it does have a grain of truth, doesn't it?" Arin says, crossing his arms. "I don't know if anyone else knows this, but your father used to come to 12 before these past few years, but he would do it quietly and leave after only a day or two. He would always come by our shop."
"You know nothing," Asher hisses.
"The point, Arin," Essa says, her hands curled into fists at her sides.
"Essa and you look similiar enough. Who's to say that your parents weren't-"
He never finishes his sentence because Asher rears back and slams his fist into Arin's jaw. Arin staggers back, smiling around a mouthful of blood.
"That would make your little relationship with Essa inc-"
Another blow, and a few others spring up to hold Asher back. He strains against them, his face livid.
"Finish your sentence, you bastard," he taunts. "Finish your sentence and see what I'll do to you, you son of a bitch."
Someone else lays a hand on his arm and he looks up to see Essa, anger etched into every line of her face, her nose scrunched slightly the way it always is when she's angry.
"Let's go," she says quietly. Asher rips away from the arms holding him back and delivers a last kick to Arin before turning and walking out with Essa.
—–
They end up in the woods.
"I can't believe he would do something like that!" Essa's saying, throwing rocks at a tree. Asher watches her more calmly than he should, but Essa supposes he already got his release, unlike her.
"Your bow would do more damage," he notes.
She turns on him. "If I can shoot Arin, then yeah, hand it over," she says drily, and then goes on, "I knew he was a douche, but what was even the point-"
Asher crosses over to her in a few strides and presses his lips to hers to silence her. He smirks against her mouth when her hands grip his arms tightly and her knees weaken.
Her eyes are half-lidded and lips parted slightly when he pulls away.
"You're cute when you're angry," he breathes, and his breath tickles her.
She raises her hands in a half-hearted shove but he holds onto them and lowers his mouth to hers again, backing her against the nearest tree. He pins her against the trunk and the bark starts to dig into her back but she doesn't mind because the way their lips are moving together makes her mind too fuzzy to think of anything else. She strains on her toes, struggling to keep their mouths connected, and feels heat lazily spread out from her core. Asher lifts her by the hips so that her face is level with his and she locks her ankles around his waist.
She makes a disappointed noise almost like a whine when they separate momentarily and he groans. Her stomach twists in the best of ways when she sees that his gray eyes are almost black. His hand fists in her hair and he fits his mouth roughly to hers, and she tilts her chin up, pressing back just as hard. His lips trail down to her jaw and then her neck, and her head falls back against the tree trunk.
Eventually, they find their foreheads pressed together, and Essa mumbles that they should probably head back to their homes.
"Not yet," he says, helping her feet find the ground.
They sit against the tree into the night, talking and stealing kisses, and eventually fall asleep leaning against each other.