Title: rainbows have nothing to hide
Summary: "You weren't made to be evil." AU!GalePrim, PrimPeeta, KatnissPeeta
Author's Note: Title from "The Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog. OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone statutory rape. However, I will say that I love this couple and, although it is an alternate universe, to be true to the series, I didn't change the age difference. I've written other GalePrim fics that have included sexual scenes, but I never articulated that, under law, this is statutory rape.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy. I understand that the tense changes between the present and the past are a little confusing, but I wanted it to be a stream of consciousness. xxx
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In the world before Panem, there were laws against this sort of thing. There were laws about a lot of things, but after Reconstruction, most all these laws were deemed the pitfalls of the Americas.
This is why he can touch her like this, why he can hear her puff of an exhale. Her pupils are blown. She's twisting around his fingers. His hips buck from the sounds that escape her mouth, little moans and gasps that hit the air like raindrops. She is barely a woman and he is nearly a man. She is barely human and he is nearly all human.
The Capitol does not think this is wrong. There are no laws against this. In some cases, this kind of relationship is regarded as enviable. Snow's newest wife is only eleven years old. She waves to the crowd with a permanently critical expression fixed on her face, as if she's watching them all, waiting for their next attempt at a revolution. When she opens her mouth, the tips of her teeth are enameled with a dark red color.
The only red in Prim's mouth is her tongue after Gale has sucked on it for a long time or strawberries she gets from Peeta Mellark. Prim tastes sweet and like apologies after she eats strawberries. They're Gale's least favorite berry after nightlock. When Prim kisses him after eating strawberries, he swears corners of his mouth taste sour. Prim says the only reason she takes Peeta's gifts are because her mouth still tastes dead when her mouth isn't on flesh. Sometimes, she takes Gale's flesh between her teeth and his skin turns purple. Sometimes, she looks at him and he doesn't see where she begins.
The Capitol thinks Prim is intriguing. They have a vested interest in her. She gets gifts in the mailbox from people with changing faces. President Snow calls her on the phone and asks her, "Will you reconsider?"
Prim was only twelve when she murdered six Tributes in the arena. She made them close their eyes and handed them each one nightlock berry.
"My sister says these berries are like heaven," she whispered. "I thought we all deserved some heaven here."
The only other Tribute left was a girl the same age. Her name was Rue. She watched Prim for a long time from the trees. When Rue dropped to the ground, Prim laughed.
"You're not going to kill me," Prim said. "You're too good."
Rue was all bones, skeletal. She had eyes that could've swallowed someone's heart one day.
Rue's eyes narrowed, "Are you the serpent?"
"They didn't want knowledge," Prim replied. "They wanted catharsis. They were weak for trusting me. You're not weak because you don't trust me."
The shadow of the mutt was long, but Rue didn't see it. She was too busy looking into Prim's eyes. Prim knew she had to move, but could not break from the stare.
"I feel bad for you," Rue said. "You weren't made to be evil."
The mutt probably had a name. Someone working the arena probably would pet it, feeding it scraps of meat. The mutt may have been soothed with a song by this person. The mutt may have wagged his tail when this person came into the pen where he was stored, awaiting his next Game, maybe his only Game. The mutt was hungry because the person had to prepare.
"I was made of ash," Prim said.
The mutt bit into Rue's shoulder first, digging his claws into her flesh. Her blood splattered a foot before her. Prim should've moved, but she couldn't stop watching. The mutt paid no attention to Prim, just continued to rip into this little girl. When he tired, he looked to Prim. But Prim was not weak. She looked into the mutt's eyes and raised her hand. The mutt sat. The hovercraft reached her. She asked someone on the hovercraft, "What is the mutt's name?"
They responded, "What mutt?"
There was blood on her teeth.
When she got home, Katniss looked at her all wrong. This is when President Snow first asked her if she would like to know what it would be like to fuck a man who tastes like blood. Prim thought she tasted enough. At the next Reaping, Katniss was called to meet Prim on the stage. Prim said nothing, just watched her sister hold her head up high. This in itself was a way in which Katniss expressed that she was above Prim, that she wasn't as brutal or cold-blooded. Prim loved Katniss, somehow, but Katniss didn't know shit. The Mellark boy was called soon after. His curls were tight around his face. He looked like he tasted sweet.
The star crossed lovers thing was good. Prim had to give it to Haymitch — it was a compelling story. Katniss didn't really want to do it because there was nothing left, just a broken shell of a baby sister that was decades older than she, but did it when Prim insisted. After her Games, Prim just wanted Katniss to understand what it was like to be a Victor. What that meant. What that hurt. She wanted everyone to stop creeping around her.
The finale went like this: Katniss and Peeta were together, wrapped in one another, and then Cato came. The mutts were by his feet. Their heavy pants turned white in the air. Peeta took Katniss' hand and held two fingers to the sky in mourning. The mutts knew Katniss, they knew that Prim did drugs with the sponsor that sent the burn salve that saved Peeta's life. They knew Prim dropped to her knees, swaying side to side, doing her part to bring Katniss home.
Yet, they simply did not care. Even now, Prim thinks it must've been Peeta. Peeta with the wide eyes and tight curls, even with the burns and camouflage — Peeta, it must've been Peeta. The mutts launched themselves at Katniss. Quickly, Peeta launched, with his hands, a broken arrow into Cato's neck. It took too long for Cato to bleed out, but the mutts finished him off. But Katniss was also dying — snapped neck, chunks of skin missing.
She barely raised a weak hand to Peeta, rubbing his hand placed next to her as he murmured promises of escape with the other, tracing her face.
"Katniss, come on," he muttered. "Katniss, please. Prim wants you to stay alive."
Katniss blinked oddly, her voice distorted by the broken neck and all the blood, "I would stay alive for you."
The hovercrafts came and Prim felt nothing. Peeta came home Victor and her sister came in a coffin. They placed primroses along her body, poisoned to stay yellow. They didn't really match Katniss, but they weren't really for her. It was a reminder for Prim. Nothing was promised in Panem. You could degrade yourself, you could try to bring your sister home, you could try to make amends — but nothing was certain.
So Prim did what she had to do. She went into Peeta's room and watched the tears fall down his face.
"How do you pretend things aren't real?" he asked her.
She shrugged, "I'm more of a realist."
And then, she got on his bed. She stroked the smooth expanse of his skin. She curled her finger under his chin.
"Have you ever fucked before?" she asked.
His Adam's apple bobbed as he looked her in the eyes. She wondered if he was morphing her to be Katniss. It was never a Game for him, never a strategy. It was Love for Peeta Mellark. And that was sad. That was why the Capitol would love Peeta Mellark, but never ask for him to come back.
But Prim wanted it back. She wanted her sister, even with her superiority complex. She wanted love. She wanted the arena still in her bones, in between her thighs. She wanted blood. She wanted Peeta.
"No," Peeta responded. "I haven't."
"Get ready, then," Prim whispered.
Sometimes, in school, they talked about how sex was supposed to be between two people in love. Prim thought this was okay, that they were two people in love. It didn't matter if they were in love with each other. They were in love with death and that was okay.
He tasted sweet all over. She felt like she could gag. After, he cried. Prim wondered if it was worth another try. Her thighs felt wet and sticky. When she looked down, there it was.
Blood.
She had won this Game, but who else was there to play? The lights of the arena flooded her mind — there was one more. He was beyond Reaping years, but he was still haunted by the arena.
When she returned home and tucked Peeta into his new bed, in his new home, she pulled her hair up and walks to the woods. When she first saw him, she felt as if like she had suddenly been transported back into the arena with all the trees over her head, swaying in the wind. There were nightlock berries only five feet away from her. Her mouth was dry and then Gale turned around and she was back in the woods, grounded.
"Hi," she said.
His eyes were sad, but he still smiled. In the presence of that smile, it was hard to remember anything of the Games. Her mouth didn't taste like blood, her fingers weren't stained. When he first looked at her, she was clean again.
When they first kissed, the whole world disappeared into the fire Gale dreamed about. She felt the flames lick up her legs, burn her chest, and, yet, she still kissed him open mouthed.
"Do you love me?" he asks.
His hands are between her thighs. He rolls his fingers over her favorite spot. There is no doubt that her mind, if she could love, she would love him.
"Is this wrong?" she asks.
Her eyes are folding under her pleasure, her desire for him. Her vision has blurred his face.
"Do you even know what right is anymore?"
Before there was Panem, there were laws to protect young children from things such as this. Young children were meant to safe.
But Primrose Everdeen is no child.
"I love you," she says. Her voice cracks and she doesn't know why that is.
He puts his face between her thighs to avoid her eyes. He tastes the darkness that pools there, and yet, he stays.