Disclaimer: Hunger Games not mine. Title comes from the song Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens.
and he takes, and he takes, and he takes
.x.
his dreams are of smoke and clogging lungs, of burnt skin and dying air, of claustrophobia and the dark.
(and oh lord, you poor child, these will not be the first injustices you bear.)
.x.
The first thing you learn in District Twelve, in the Seam, is how to go without food. This is the vital lesson to learn and you have the corpses of dead children, skeletal except for bloated abdomens of malnutrition, to make it stick.
this could be you, this could be you, the corpses whisper, bones pointing towards the graves.
On average a Seam family will lose at least one child to starvation. It is a loss, but no longer a tragedy, no, no, it is too expected to be tragic anymore.
(the hawthorne family doesn't lose a single child, bless them, bless them.
oh. except, wait. they lose a father instead.)
.x.
"I bet that getting trapped in the mines must feel like drowning – it's all just death by suffocation, right?"
(he's never actually been in water, is not sure of what drowning would actually feel like, but he's seen enough games to imagine it – oh dear, dear, look at how he struggles for air, oh i fear our tribute from twelve must be a goner caesar flickerman would narrate.)
Katniss grips his shoulders, looks him in the eyes.
"Stop it, Gale," she says, voice ferocious (but with an undercurrent of panic that he can still pick up.)
I would, I would he wants to say buts his lungs have run out of space and it's one of those days where even here, even out in the forest, out in the air, he feels the sky closing in on him, too tight, too small, and oh god he is going to die.
(he doesn't talk about it the next day, nor the day after that, but sometimes he practices breathing, perfect and even and steady, just in case, just in case he forgets.)
.x.
The first time he traps an animal he is young and he cries. His father rushes over and strokes his hair, whispering oh gale, gale, this is good, this is food, it's alright, it's alright.
(he is too young to understand that it wasn't the death that scared him but the trap – does he have any right to that kind of power? to that kind of trick, that lie, that lure?)
.x.
"You know what I would do, if I could?" he asks.
"No," Katniss replies, cautious because she knows him so well, knows this tone in his voice, this tone of fear and bitterness and anger.
"I would make the Capitol send their own kids to a Games, make them watch as their kids tear each other apart, turning into little monsters."
There is a fire in his eyes, a viciousness in his voice that scares Katniss a little.
(but she knows him, knows him so well.)
"No you wouldn't," she says, placing her hand over his, "you'd have had an enough of kids dying."
He grabs her hand. She is right, of course.
(but still, it was his idea first and later, later, he isn't sure if he would've voted against it, isn't convinced he wouldn't have felt vindicated by it, if only for a moment, a small, small, moment.)
.x.
The night before his first reaping he dreams that he is in the Games and that he wins by trapping all the other tributes in his snares, like birds, like squirrels, and when he cries his father whispers oh gale, gale, this is good, this is food, it's alright, it's alright.
.x.
"You know, Catnip, I bet we'd have the best shot out of anyone in this district at winning the Games, if we had to."
Katniss looks at him, intently.
"Why? You thinking about volunteering?" she asks, almost mockingly, and he has to laugh.
(has to laugh because survival is too ingrained in him to be as suicidal as that, as suicidal as those career tributes with their sharpened teeth and claws.)
"No, but if it had to happen, I bet we'd show the Capitol something, show them that we won't be underestimated or looked down on."
(gale, i'd rather not have to show them anything, she'll say, but maybe he doesn't hear her, maybe not this time.)
.x.
but when katniss volunteers he hears her and it is horrid.
(and yet, and yet, aren't you lucky, capitol, that you didn't get the boy with the snares instead? because he would've trapped you and he would've eaten you right up.)
A/N: I posted this a while ago on the Girl on Fire ficathon on livejournal, and just got around to posting it here too.