Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

The Talk

Vick is sitting at the counter with a slight grin on his face as Madge slides the cup of tea across the way to him.

She narrows her eyes in suspicion, "What're you grinning about?"

He'd been in a particularly good mood since his arrival after school. Madge had helped him with his arithmetic homework and the entire time he'd been smirking. It wasn't that amusing a lesson.

"Nothing."

She takes the seat next to him and pokes him in the side, eliciting a giggle, "No one grins like that for nothing."

"I just," the grin slips a little, "I just figured out why you don't want to marry Gale."

That again. She'd thought they'd left that conversation back over a month ago, before the Quell announcement.

"Oh," she's fairly certain, by the way his dimples deepen, that she does not want to know his theory.

"Yep," he takes a sip of tea.

She refuses to ask, he'll tell her if he wants, and he most definitely wants to. He fidgets and cuts his eyes to her expectantly.

"You wanna know?" He finally asks.

Really? She doesn't. It's bound to be something embarrassing. Last time he'd thought it was because of the whipping and that he'd told her Gale was hairy.

Madge props her chin in her hand against the counter and looks at him. She takes a sip of her tea to steady her nerves.

Let's get this over with.

"It's 'cause you don't want to have sex with him."

Her eyes widen as she chokes on the tea.

She bangs her balled fist against her chest, coughs painfully, gasps for breath.

"What?"

He eyes her warily, stays quiet until he's certain she's finished her fit, then he shrugs.

"I went to the library, at school today, because Rory said married people have to have sex. You know, to have babies, and I didn't really know what it was. I mean, I know," he looks up with his wide gray eyes, "I just didn't know."

Relationships, the physical part, aren't exactly secret in the Districts. Most live in small houses with thin walls, it's inevitable children would know from a young agesomething of it. It wasn't part of the school curriculum, though. The less the people of Panem knew of their bodies and how they functioned the more children they would produce, the more warm bodies for work and sacrifice.

Parents didn't always have a great education on the subject and so their children, like their parents and grandparents before, were left with raging hormones and only their basic instincts to guide them. Madge had learned some of the more colorful aspects ofthose relationships watching Capitol programming. She'd been so scared she too had taken to the school library.

She and Vick had probably read through the same pitiful book with ancient photos of genitalia and cartoon drawings of the mechanics of intercourse.

"I know it looks gross, but people keep doing it, so it can't be that bad," he tells her as she buries her face in her arms. This is quite possibly the most awkward conversation she's ever been involved in since her own conception. The only one that even came close was when she found Mr. Abernathy passed out in one of the guestroom showers with his hand down his pants.

Actually, no, the two conversations were about equal in their sheer mortification.

"Maybe he can shave…"

"Vick," she finally forces her crimson face up to look at him. "Vick, it isn't that-"

"So you do want to have sex with him?"

She snaps up, "That's-I didn't-I-no-I mean-ye-no-I-"

She's dissolved into a sputtering mess and he seems to find it amusing. His delight in her apparent distress is the first thing she's ever found to tether he and his oldest brother together.

She collapses back onto the counter.

His warm hand pats her on the head.

"The book said it releases eno-fins, eno-dor-ins, en-oh," he sighs, "things in your head that make you happy. You and Gale can get married and then you can make each other happy."

She wishes he could stay so wonderfully sweet and naive, a child with such an uncomplicated understanding of the world forever.

It's so simple for him. He has the problem of two people he clearly cares deeply about, both sad, both a little broken, and he has the solution. Marriages are happy, so marriage will make them happy. He was apparently even willing to put aside his own little crush on her to make she and Gale happy. Little guy even did the research to make sure he had solid scientific evidence to back him up.

If only it really were that simple.

Madge finally sits up, looks him over.

"Vick, Gale and I aren't getting married and we aren't going to…uh…make each other happy."

"But Katniss and Peeta are getting married. So Katniss can't marry him and make him happy." He looks like his whole little plan is falling apart, and he'd worked so hard. "And I like you, Madge. I want you to be in our family."

Vick looks heartbroken. He'd had it set on this plan working. That the two idiots he was setting up seeing just how brilliant it was.

Madge leans over and kisses his forehead, "We're still friends, Vick."

"Friends can go away. If you were a sister, you couldn't."

That's not true though. Her mother and Aunt Maysilee were proof of that.

"Anyone can go away." She pulls him into a hug, "I'll try my best not to, though, alright?"

He nods into her shoulder.

"Will you think about it at least?" He looks up with his sweet face. She can't tell him no.

"Fine," she finally sighs.

###############################################################

Gale collapses face down onto his too small bed.

His back is killing him. The strain of work in the mines and his still healing wounds is wearing him down.

He doesn't even get the weekly release of the woods anymore, that would ease the pain.

He's about to take a quick nap before their abysmal dinner, washing up properly be damned, when he feels the heaviness of little eyes on him.

One eye pops open and he finds Vick perched, cross legged, across from him on his own tiny bed.

"What?" Gale croaks. He's tired and dirty and hurting, he hopes it isn't help with homework. He wishes, not for the first time, he had his own room.

"I-uh-I," Vick sputters. Gale's tone must've startled him, though he hadn't meant it to.

Rolling over he gives him a somewhat forced smile, "What is it, Vick?"

"I know how to fix your problem."

Oh, which one? Gale wants to say.

The one where they're nearly starving and have no new clothes? The one where their mother has to work for that louse Haymitch? The one where he can't go into the woods to maybe lessen their suffering?

"Well?" This ought to be good.

The boy seems to calm some, takes a deep breath, then begins rattling.

" -endor-endorfinsandtheygetreleasedduringsexandsoyouneedtomarrymadgesoyoucanmakeeachotherhappywithendor-rophins."

He's out of breath when he finishes, glowingly happy with whatever the hell it is he just spouted off.

Gale raises his eyebrows. Out of that mess he'd only picked up two words fairly distinctly: Sex and Madge.

"What about sex and Madge?" He sits up, feeling a little perverted. He would only hear those two words.

Vick's mouth hangs open for a minute, he obviously hadn't thought he'd have to repeat himself.

"He thinks you and Undersee should get married so you can have sex and that'll make you happy," Rory explains. He's been watching the entire exchange from the top of he and Vick's bed, a look of endless amusement on his face. "They don't have to get married to have sex, though, Vick. That's what the slag heap is for."

Gale gives him a sharp look. He's too young to know about the slag heap, and he definitely shouldn't be telling Vick about it.

"Madge is too-too-too something for that nasty slag." Vick doesn't seem to have the word for what exactly Madge is that disqualifies her from a visit to the slag heap, though he has a look of absolute certainty about the matter.

Gale runs his hand over his face then lets it settle on his neck, massaging the sore muscles.

"Vick, I'm not marrying, or having sex, with Undersee."

Rory scoots to the end of the bed. He has a grin on his face that Gale knows means he isn't going to like what comes out of his mouth. "Not marrying her I understand, let's face it, she's way too good for you-"

Gale has half a mind to smack him on the head for that. Then he continues and he thinks he might just strangle him instead.

"-but not wanting to have sex with her? I've seen some of the girls you've taken to the slag heap, Gale, she's way better. Since when are you so picky?"

What exactly Rory is playing at, other than being an irritating shit, Gale doesn't know, but at the moment he doesn't care. He puts his hand on his middle brother's shoulder and gives him a heave, knocking him off the bed.

Vick simply watches.

"Will you please think about it, Gale?" Vick bites his lip, "Then Madge could be our sister. I know she said anyone can go away, but it's harder when they're family right?"

He looks so small, so like the little boy Gale is working so hard to keep him as.

He's about to say 'fine', placate him, when something he said causes the sluggish gears in his brain to whirl to life.

"What do you mean 'she said anyone can go away'?"

Surely he hadn't-

Vick shrugs, "When I talked to her about it and told her she could be our sister and not go away, she said anyone can go away."

Gale presses his fingers to his temples. "You-" he can't even formulate the sentence, "-talked to Undersee about having sex? With me?"

Vick nods giving Gale a look that plainly says why wouldn't I?

His mouth starts before his brain can catch it, "What did she say?"

A great disappointment settles over Vick's features, "She said 'fine', she'd think about it."

Rory pushes himself up from the floor, "Probably take more than one go. Selling Gale to her is going to be a lot harder than her to Gale."

Gale takes his foot and gives Rory a little shove, pushing him back to the floor. "Hey!"

Gale flops back onto the bed and attempts to suffocate himself.

He really wishes he had his own room.