Alright, so this is my first Hunger Games fic. It's become quite an obsession lately, but I'm sure most of ya'll can relate! Anyway, this is just a little Angsty BTS of what might've happened during Mockingjay after Peeta tried to strangle Katniss.

It doesn't happen often that Gale and I meet up in the forest in this manner. When it does, the intimate rendezvous usually corresponds directly to a setback in Peeta's hijacked condition.

I need a distraction; we both do from the reality around us, and Gale is willing to be what I need him to be. The kisses that we share are far from perfect and serve just the purpose of distraction, and only that. They are not heated and passionate as a person would expect between two young lovers. They are sorrowful, listless, and at times distant.

Neither of us is getting what we really want.

Gale is not getting the kind that I know he wants; the kind that incited such hunger in me with Peeta—and I suspect he knows deep down he never will-, and I'm chasing that ephemeral, all-consuming spark that ignited me in the cave and on the beach of the Quell. It frustrates me to no end that I can't reach it.

I can feel the contradicting roughness of Gale's hands against his tender motions as he runs is hands over my back and down my arms and as he dominates my mouth with his tongue. It leaves me wondering what my touch must feel like to him now as I feel my own hands simply going through the motions. My reason for this whole arrangement was to distract myself from my lost boy with the bread, to distract myself from the fact that I can feel myself becoming my mother. There are many times, though, when Gale touches me and I feel our mouths move together, that I can't help but shut my eyes just a little tighter and imagine that my hands are buried in waves of blonde hair, that the callused hands that hold me are the soft and gentle hands of a baker.

It is with these thoughts that the guilt of what I'm doing will consume me. But then, isn't that what Peeta wanted? It was Peeta's dying wish for me to be with Gale—the old Peeta that is. My mind reasons that Peeta is still here, but the capitol replacement of him that exists now is cold, suspicious, and violent. In a sense, he is dead as I knew him. That's the thought that helped me sleep better at night; not just to stomach this feeling of guilt, but to push away the soul crushing despair of losing him to the capitol in an effort to keep myself from turning out like my mom.

Then there's Haymitch.

No one knows about our little makeout sessions out here in the woods, but if anyone were to catch on, It'd be him. That thought alone adds weight to our most recent spat. He's not wrong in what he said either. If I were half the person Peeta was, I wouldn't have given up on him so readily. Then again, I also wouldn't be out here in the woods necking with the very person he's been competing against for my affection.

I mull that conversation over in my head for several weeks, and then one day it dawns on me how horribly I've hurt both men. I lied to Peeta, realized a moment to late that I love him, and then let the ghost of my father drive me to my best friend's lips the minute he called me a mutt. And Gale, I've taken advantage of his affection for me in order to soothe my own festering emotional wounds.

And he let me.

I really don't deserve either man.

I sense it the moment Gale senses my change in mood. It comes second nature to him after so many years of hunting together. He pulls away slowly to look me properly in the eyes. Just for a moment, my mind sees a flash of blonde hair and blue eyes before the image buries itself back into the dark recesses of my subconscious.

"Catnip?" He speaks softly, and I feel the pad of his thumb come up to stroke my cheek. It is only in that moment that I realize I have shed tears.

Without saying a word, I realize that he has understood the direction of my minds wanderings. I see a brief flash of hurt and a sad smile cross his face as he puts distance between us and retrieves his bow from the forest floor.

I know now that I have been wrong the whole time. I have given him false hope for something more from me; something I can't give.

"I'm sorry." My voice is small and it sounds strange under the weight of suppressed guilt fighting it's way to my surface.

When he speaks again, his tone is not what I anticipate. I expect him to be angry, but he sounds forlorn and vaguely accepting. It's almost as if he knew all along that really having me was too much to hope for. Then he repeats his words from weeks ago.

"Like kissing a drunk."

With one last sad shake of his head and pitying glance in my direction, he stalks off back towards the compound of District 13.

I hate him for looking at me that way. It's the same pitiful expression people used to look at all the widows with after the mining explosion. It's the way they looked at my mother; a woman lost in her own sea of depression without the anchor of my father to tether her.

I do not want to be like my mother.

Well, that's it for this fic. Thanks for reading, please R&R!