I'm starting a new fanfiction because I just can't seem to stop flowing with ideas for them. This one is more of a fluffy romance type unlike Running was, I think you Everlark shipping hopeless romantics will like it. The story is named after the song mentioned below.
Side note: This is set in Panem. Prim and Peeta were never reaped and therefore Katniss never had any reason to volunteer. She is now 18 and has finished her last reaping.
Merry Christmas, I'll try to update soon if you guys like it. xx :*
And it's you I see but you don't see me
And it's you I hear so loud and so clear
I sing it loud and clear
And I'll always be waiting for you.
~Shiver, Coldplay
"Gale, we don't need a cake."
He knows just like I do that bakery wedding cakes are so costly, it feels a bit selfish to spend the money from hunting and gathering so stupidly on sweets. Especially when our siblings don't have enough nourishment and are twig thin in result. I made it my endeavor, my mission, the most significant thing in my life when I was just twelve; Prim's health. Everything else is on the sidelines, for as long as I live she will be my main priority. That will never be changed or swayed.
"Katniss we deserve at least one simple luxury, the capitol has taken so many from us, we should at least have this. We're getting married I want to do this right."
I shake my head at him, when he's not calling me by Catnip that's how I know he's serious. This is so stupid he knows better. Of course he wants some extravagant cake for the wedding, it'd be a blow to his ego for people to think of him as cheap. That's the problem though, he's not thinking further than himself at the moment.
"Think about your brothers, and Posy, think about Prim, they'd make much better use of the money. You're right it is a luxury, but nothing more. It's not a necessity for the Seam, only the Merchants. What about Vick Gale, his shoes have been reduced to nothing but torn rags!"
He rubs the bridge of his eyes as if are augment has placed much fatigue upon him. It irks me in a bad way.
"Katniss, I've noticed and I've got it covered, I'll give him Rory's outgrown shoes. This isn't some small thing, we're getting married. You don't have to worry yourself about money anymore we're doing good. It's spring. Your bringing in game and everything is going well in the mines, we make enough and we can afford this."
That's the one thing about us. We're so alike that we clash, both of us are like to blunt blades we're so stubborn that we just push and push at each other never moving or relenting. But that flame that causes us to argue makes us work, when we go hunting all our moves and thoughts and decisions match, like we're of the same body.
I know that if I don't let him get this cake he'll always throw it back in my face and remind of it. He wants it to be some big grand seam wedding that screams of how well he takes care of his family. Of course he's usually not some ego driven guy but everyone has a little streak of pride that they base their decisions on. His is just different than mine, while he wants the respect of others and the label of high class seam guy whose not like the rest I just don't want to be looked upon as a weakling that could be picked off so easily.
It's hopeless, I know, but I make one more weak attempt to dissuade him. The cake isn't something I'm so strongly against it's just the money pumped into such things that could be spent elsewhere. "Gale, are you sure that's what you want to spend your money on?"
"Of course, and it's not my money, it's our money," his face softens, "that's why I asked you about it."
My mind flickers to Prim, I see her pressed in the bakery window and the bright cakes aligning the glass that she'd grew up lusting to taste. And all at once I agree.
"Okay." I swallow the lump in my throat. "We can spend our money on this."
He smiles, finally, and pulls me in by the waist to kiss him in the living room of my house. It's fleeting, lasting a mere few seconds and it just feels like my lips being tickled and his hand pressing into my middle.
I scowl at him, he's always been the first to kiss me. "Prim could've walked in on that."
He shakes his head at me. "She knows we're getting married. Knowing her she wouldn't mind."
"Whatever," I exhale a sigh. He's right and he knows it, Prim would've been thrilled to walk in on that.
"She's fourteen, in highschool, loosen up the reins. Anyways, I need to go, it's Sunday and I need to hunt."
I'm a little surprised when he doesn't ask me to come along like he always seems to.
"What about the cake?" I ask, but I think I already know the answer, Gale doesn't seem like the kind to step into a bakery.
"I thought that's something you'd do, you pick it out." He fishes through the pockets of his thread-worn trousers, and outstretches his hand to me. "Here."
I take it and put it in the pocket of my pants. "I'll see you soon then."
"Alright, see you."
He strides through the door and the whole house is enclosed in silence afterwards. It's hard to think that once I marry him I'll move a few houses further into the seam and away from this one. I've lived here my whole life. It's bright out today but the house is still dark, the only light that comes in is through a shabby coal dust stained window, little fuzzy specks of dust swirl in havoc through the illuminated parts of the house. Buttercup sits in the sun his tail swishing back and forth as he watches me with those ugly eyes that hold a cat-like glare.
Moving to the small space I call my own I put the money under my pillow, there's hardly any break ins in twelve because it's punishable by death but I'd rather not tempt anyone passing by outside. I remember a time when I was desperate enough to steal, it was a rainy day when I was twelve and had nothing but the battered rags on my back.
Soon, I realize, I'll live with Gale and no longer share this small bed pushed back to back with Prim, my mothers bed will no longer be just a few feet away. The idea of sleeping somewhere else is so strange and foreign that it's like being submerged in the lake inside the woods during late fall, before everything freezes over.
I push the tension in my throat down with a heavy gulp and head to the small dark kitchen and grab the largest pot we own. It's filled near the brim with water and then it's placed on the burner to heat.
A little before it boils I remove it and carry it to the iron tub nestled in a corner of the house and pour it in. I consider using one of my mother's bars of soap she kept from her merchant days, but decide against it. I sink into the warmth of the water, it laps against the mid point of my leg. From the rim of the tub I pick up a vial of grinded soapwort plant, and fill my palm with it. It's a ugly yellow-brown color but it smells like cloves and works like the cheap soap you can buy from the hob. If more people were brave enough to enter the woods and had the survival knowledge I do they could make their own soap for free.
That's why I finally said yes to Gale. We have just the right knowledge for survival, the marriage, I decided, would be better for our families.
I rub myself down in the oil and sink each part of me underwater one at a time, the tub is to small to go underwater all at once and I don't have enough water to cover myself entirely. Finally when I finish I rub the droplets of water from my eyes with the back of my soaked hands. The water around me has turned frothy with the homemade soap.
I dry myself with the one sturdy towel that is shared by, Prim, mom, and I. Afterwards I wrap my chest in plastic, something I'd usually not do. My reaping dress is pulled out, I clothe myself in it. It fits a bit tight but albeit not in a noticeable manner. When I was twelve it was too loose and slipped off my bony shoulders, but I wore it anyway because the capitol was watching us, taking entertainment in our terror. I'm relieved to have had my last reaping finished but I worry so constantly about Prim. And Gale's siblings, we try our best to shield them from the terrible world in which we live.
I unknot my hair with the tips of my fingers and then proceed to braid it.
If you're from the seam and you're going to order something from the merchant side of town it's best to present yourself in the best way possible. If not, you'll be looked at like a pig trying to be a sheep. Especially if you're going to the bakery, I have seen and heard of Mrs. Mellark and if I encounter her I need to look the part of somewhat wealthy. They'll always pick out a seam from a merchant though, our dark hair gives us away. But as long as we're buying and making them money they'll leave us alone. Merchant's are the people Gale and I can't stand the most, they have such money compared to us, they can bathe in it, they waste it on frivolous things and do the things we never could afford.
I remember watching blue eyed boys buying grey eyed seam girls for a night in highschool. It was so sickening to watch, my stomach would twist in knots and that's when I remember feeling such an intense disliking for the rich. At thirteen I'd pulled out all the sugarcoating you hear growing up and revealed life for what it really is.
That's why I was reluctant to buy a cake for my own wedding, I had my poor starving neighbors in mind but I then thought of Prim and her innocence that she remains smothered in even at fifteen.
In minutes the bakery is in sight, it's not hard locating it considering the fact that I usually trade squirrels with Mr. Mellark today. But this is different, I always knock on the back door but today I will walk through the front. I usually come in with dark clothing and a leather jacket slipping into the merchant side like a shadow but today I am dressed like one of them, plus I'm buying something that's not of necessity.
My form is reflected in the shiny cake displaying windows as I stroll past them, I don't look like myself. Finally I reach the door, it glass, outlined with black trim and a polished handle.
I'm so out of place here. I step in slowly, and a bell chimes as the door opens, my dress swishes between both legs as I make way toward the counter where no one has came out to yet. I feel so exposed wearing a dress, I'm so used to trousers that I just feel naked having no fabric tightly fitted to my legs for once. I don't like it. "I'll be out in a minute," I hear a voice from another room drone, and I hear a small voice telling me I can change my mind.
While waiting I smooth down my dress, that's when I realize I have cleavage showing, the plastic wrap has managed to push up my breast and make them look better than they actually are. I pull up the dress and awkwardly shift but it can't hurt to appear rounder than I actually am.
As predicted the merchant women are heavenly compared to us from the seam, they smell of rose water and sweet smelling fragrance, they are clean and free from soot and they're hips are wide and their chests are full. It's very seldom a boy from the seam snags one but that doesn't mean they don't try, my father was one of the lucky, he caught one and she became his wife.
A door opens from behind the counter and a stocky man pops out. My breath catches in my throat and a shiver sweeps down my spine. Of all people who work here it had to be him.
I'm shocked and flustered and lost for words. I'd thought he moved out to get away from his mother, but obviously not.
Before me is the boy with the bread, he saved Prim when I was at my weakest time, he revived me, and for that I can never repay him. His eyes widen like a rabbits does when you notch an arrow a second before you release it. I'm hopelessly out of sorts.
I'd never spoken to him, at least not directly, but I kept tabs on him. I spent years trying to thank him and wondering why he took a beating for me.
His cheeks are red like they're every time I see him.