Not Galeniss. Not Everlark- A collection of canon short stories and drabbles focusing on Gale's perspective.
She is smiling at him over a shared meal of bakery bread, berries, and goat cheese when he catches himself. She is grinning and lovely, mirth dancing across her features, and he wants nothing more than to pull her close to him.
Instead, he takes his bottom lip between his teeth and bites hard enough that the metallic taste of blood mixes with the tart juice from the berries. He stops himself before the words tumble from his lips unbidden. They catch in his throat and stick there, he wants to tell her, but soon enough they will be celebrating his last Reaping.
Then he'll tell her, surely she feels the same way, the only other person that can elicit smiles from her as easily as he can is Prim. His heart is full even though his mind is racing.
Forty-two slips.
His name inscribed upon forty-two slips of Capitol grade paper.
It doesn't matter though, if he is chosen he'll come back- he'll come back for her.
…
He knows in that moment which Everdeen sister will be carted off to the Capitol, even though Prim's name is the one that booms loudly from the stage in front of the Justice Building. A foolish promise, made when he earnestly believed that if either of them were to be chosen it would be him, binds him from volunteering.
He forces himself to remember his mother, Posy, Vick, Rory, Prim and Mrs. Everdeen. They need him to provide.
A Merchant boy's name is called next, and he fights the urge rapidly rising, pounding against his lips another short set of words he wants to call out.
He doesn't though, "I volunteer" sticks with "I love you" in his throat.
…
The girl foolishly twirling in the red dress is not his Katniss. She is a Capitol doll, buffed, filtered and glamorized. She is stunning, gorgeous and a sight for all to behold, but he prefers her in an old leather hunting jacket, blood smeared on her hands, as sunlight glints through her hair.
He prefers the girl he knows, not this Capitol creation.
If it weren't for his mother breathing out 'like father, like son' he would have missed the baker's son's declaration of love and adoration for what is his.
Katniss is his, he is hers, anything else is unthinkable.
He is livid.
Blood thrums loudly in his ears as he enters the Hob, searching, seeking for something or someone to assuage the anger that he feels with the fracturing of his heart.
She is all dark hair and grey eyes, but she is not his, and he does not want her to become his. He wants her body for this moment, and she is willing so he bends her over, hands pressed against the cool stone.
Blood thrums elsewhere now, filling, lengthening, and stiffening him to a painful point.
He doesn't waste time with foreplay or easy words before he plunges into her. He doesn't make sure she is ready or even try to pretend to make it pleasurable for her.
She mewls his name anyway, reaching back towards him, clamoring to tell him how she has waited for this moment.
He spills on the ground beside her, straightening her dress and his trousers before gruffly thanking her and walking away.
He is still livid and although sexually sated, wishes for a release he does not know how to satisfy.
…
He knows her, so when he realizes that she is allying with the petite child from District Eleven he says goodbye.
As much as he and Prim need her, he knows that she won't be coming home unless something happens to the child, because Katniss does not have it in her to end a life so fresh and frail. There is a difference between hunting animals and humans, he is painfully aware of this now as he watches her with the doe eyed child.
It surprises him when the angelic child falls and his braided girl mourns and breaks, that he follows suit.
He is not relieved that fate ended the child as he thought he would be. He is enraged.
He is a tempest.
Waling, raging and unleashing his fury, clamoring towards the door for escape from ears that will hear his cries of injustice. His mother stops him, placing calming hands on his chest to quell the rage bubbling up, to prevent him from doing something he will regret.
He isn't sure how, but he knows that he will make them pay.
They will pay for the child, and for her, and for the innumerous other injustices the Capitol has plagued the world with.
There will be retribution.
…
Watching the baker's son die in the mud does not please him. Despite the boy's alliance with the careers and proclamations of love for what is his, he pities the boy instead. Silently he wishes that death would find the boy and carry him away.
The pain in the blonde boy's features is evident as he grimaces and shakes, all the while remaining cleverly hidden from view.
When the cameras focus on the boy still caked in mud, camouflaged and obviously dying on the river bank, he wishes for death to be swift.
He feels pity for the boy and leaves a squirrel on the Bakery stoop, even though he should have delivered to the Everdeen women.
…
There is an announcement and his braided girl breathes the baker's son's name.
His heart fractures.
He justifies.
His girl is resourceful, but she probably won't be able to save him anyway. It's clear to anyone watching that the blonde boy's days are numbered.
Unsurprisingly, he is angry. Katniss is taking on another hindrance, it feels like she has a death wish, like she doesn't want to come home, but he ignores what he feels and focuses on what he knows.
His girl is strong, brave, fierce, and loyal, and what she is doing is right because if both can come home, shouldn't they work their hardest to make this happen?
He is splintering, the rage and grief consuming him.
He has to keep it together though, because he has to be whole in order to put her back together when she returns to him.
…
He is irritable and pissed, even being curt with Posy who is the one person aside from Katniss that he cares what she thinks of him.
A cave has brought about these feelings a seemingly innocuous cave, where his girl and the baker's son have taken refuge. At first he relaxed when they found the cave, assuming the boy would die there and then Katniss would have a safe place to rest aside from scaling trees.
There is coaxing and kissing, and other things that he has never gotten to share with her, things he is almost positive she has never shared with anyone.
It isn't a huge deal though, because he can tell there is a motive here from the way she is tight lipped when she smiles and talks to him.
It's genuine on the blonde boy's part though, he can see this, would be blind not to.
Then he is no longer pissed. He is numb and unfeeling, then conflicted and burning.
He is rage.
There was a kiss.
This kiss was different. There was no hesitation on her part, there was mashing of lips and touching of tongues, and everything he wishes she would have saved for him.
She appears hungry in her need for this kiss, in her need for the blonde one.
He can't bear to watch.
Maybe Katniss isn't his after all, maybe she is the blonde boy's, maybe she doesn't need him.
He does the one thing that makes sense. He sets out to take something from the blonde boy. He knows exactly what he wants- he's seen her many times and often in the presence of the baker's son. She is the shoemaker's daughter, and she isn't very pretty or thin, or really anything special, but he wants her because she belongs to the boy taking away what is his. At least he thinks that they belong to one another.
She is crying when he finds her, watching footage of the Games in the square, sitting with her brother looking bereft and broken, and obviously mourning the blonde boy like he is mourning Katniss.
Seduction is an easy game, he reassures himself that she is not really so different from the other Merchant girls he has charmed the panties off.
Hunter meets prey.
He hopes that she is easy, because he really doesn't know what his plan is from there, or if he could put the effort into convincing her to follow him to somewhere hidden for a clandestine rendezvous.
And then he can't even bring himself to approach her.
Even if she wanted him, it is not his place to fuck her, or claim her, or any of that, because while he may be extraordinarily angry, a brute he is not.
Instead he slips into the woods even though it is damn near impossible to see.
He risks it because he needs it, he needs to release this pent up aggression on something or someone, and where better than the woods.
The woods though are no longer a haven, he is surrounded by memories of Katniss. Her quiet concentration, her light laugh, her braid whipping behind her, her smile, the smile that only he is accustomed to seeing here, in their woods.
It's too dark to hunt or check snares, so he grasps himself roughly. The skin of his hands calloused and course against the silky skin of his cock. He doesn't care though; his hands have been ruined since his father died, forcing him into the woods. Then there was the harsh lye of the soap his mother used to do other people's laundry that ate at his hands while he helped her.
He strokes.
He pulls.
He urges.
Working his rigid length until it is straining under the ministrations of his hand. He spits to assuage the chaff and burn of his coarse hands against his delicate skin, he likes the pain, the pain makes him feel alive, makes him forget.
He is engulfed in a haze of delirium, of red and black, of fury and pleasure, of nothing and everything, and he forgets her for a few seconds, and he is almost happy.
But, the feeling is fleeting and he is left with emptiness.
…
The berries.
Those goddamn berries.
Is this really happening? What is she thinking? She could come home, the blonde one is ready to die for her so she can come home to him.
He can't breathe. He fears she will cease to breathe forever.
He needs her.
She is his.
…
There is a shell left where she once was. He misses her, but can't even muster to fight for something that was never his to fight for.
She wasn't ever his, no she is the Capitol's.
This little drabble or ficlet, whatever it is was inspired by WickedlyClever who provided this prompt:
"Gale watching the 74th Hunger Games, seeing Peeta and Katniss in the cave, and then going off to the woods to angrily masturbate because of what he saw."
And because I am apparently experience a Gale feelings spiral lately, I fleshed it out to this form here and then had to stop myself before it became a full blown one shot. Thank you to the lovely, WickedlyClever for the prompt! Also, I'd like to thank LondonRainings for encouraging my raging Gale hard on and subsequent spiral!
Also, I am not listing this as complete and will be posting more drabbles from Catching Fire and Mockingjay as the mood hits me or I receive more prompts for what people are interested in reading.