Many thanks to everyone who is reading.
The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins.
What if Gale, overtaken by the grief of seeing his oldest friend about to be swept into the monstrosity that is the Hunger Games, volunteered for Peeta and took his place?
Gale Hawthorne x Katniss Everdeen
Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.
My thoughts were frantic, desperate. I was minutely aware of the hot tears rimming my eyes, the almost arthritic pain in my joints, my gaping mouth. My lower lip viciously quivered as if bracing itself for the scream brewing and boiling in the pit of my stomach.
Stay calm.
"Haymitch! Do something, you useless drunk!" I heard Effie Trinket wail from my side, her heeled shoes clacking loudly against the hollowed surface of the stage in time with my rabid pulse. I heard the two glass balls that were once positioned neatly at the center of the stage fall on their sides, the shards forming a sharp, crystal pool around my feet.
"Bah!" A gurgled grunt, slurred and drawled, gave me a slight start. "Why don't you, ya old hag? I stopped carin' about the tributes a looong—" He hiccupped. "—time ago." A splash of liquid hit the ground, room-temperature droplets spraying my ankles.
Effie let out a loud screech, dripping with annoyance. "I know where you get your booze, Abernathy, and I swear to God I'll—"
"Okay, okay! Sheesh, woman," the man grumbled in a gravelly tone before letting out a loud belch. It felt as if in the next moment his glare was burning into my side, causing me to uncomfortably crane my neck to peer under Gale's arm only to see a drunken, elderly man make his way up the stage with a bottle of unidentifiable alcohol in his swelled fist, spilling all over the front of his dress shirt and the stage as he stumbled over his feet. I felt a flare of recognition at the man's aged appearance. Haymitch Abernathy—one of two District 12 victors that we have had in the past seventy-four years. The only one alive.
"C'meeere," he hissed under his alcohol-tinged breath before reeling himself toward Gale and I, "Ya're juss a bunch o' regular ol' idiots, aren'tcha?" He threw a hand up in the air and made it land across my shoulders, giving me a start.
"Less get goin' to th' Justice Building before ya cause any more..." Haymitch paused, silently thinking for a word. His eyebrows furrowed, the loose skin of his forehead wrinkling like leather. "...mishap!" he finally yelled triumphantly, his arm around my neck shaking me from side-to-side in celebration for his small victory.
My muscles seemed frozen in place as Gale slowly lifted his head from my hair, his eyes slitted, glinting like blades. "I don't recall ever saying you could touch her."
The wetness that I felt in my scalp after that indicated the presence of tears in my hair, and I felt my eyes widen at the thought. I've never seen Gale show even a slight sign of weakness, and the moment he does, we just so happen to be broadcasted all around the country.
"Oh?" Haymitch said with a tinge of amusement in his tone, his eyebrows raising as his mouth hung open like a fish out of water, "We got a feisty one! And here I thought that you were..." He let another pause stretch out the already strained conversation. "...soft. All blubberin' on national TV." He let out a low bellow of laughter.
Gale's frame instantly stiffened against mine, but he remained silent, choosing instead to direct his attention to what became of the spectators in front of the stage. His grip around me tentatively loosened, and I gently nudged myself away.
My face blanched with such intensity that I could feel it—the muted prickles of blood leaving my face, draining, leaving me lightheaded and sick. I was only allowed a split second to look at the scene before Haymitch clumsily turned me away, but it had already burnt itself into my vision like a morbid watermark.
The paved ground was spread with smears of red, and at the end of the messes laid the occasional body—bodies of the people who were too slow, who were abandoned and trampled over by the others who wanted desperately to get to the safety of their homes. Peacekeepers, their white uniforms now spattered with blood, scooped several of these corpses up at a time before tossing them into a single pile, as if they were throwing away bags of garbage.
I felt a scream build up behind the tangled muscles in my throat, my chest heaving. It wasn't much of a challenge to elbow Haymitch out of the way and direct my attention to Gale, his face a single contorted pallor of sickly shock, so strong it stuck to his features like multiple interweaving scars. His Adam's apple quivered in his gullet as he brought a stone-stiff hand to his mouth, and without thinking, I grabbed it with my own. Our fingers tangled in a knot that was more painful than it was comforting before he turned to me and whispered in a voice that sounded like a strangled, breathless snarl: "Vick."
I raked my blurred gaze to the side, seeing a tiny figure sprawled out on the ground, looking like he was stopped in his tracks on a frantic trip back to the cottage with his family. He was laid out on his stomach, a petite arm held outstretched in front of him, his fingers bowed and hooked as if they were stepped on. Vick, the second youngest in the Hawthorne family. I swallowed hard in an attempt to force breaths out of my now tightened chest, choking as if my lungs were filled with water.
A sound caught in Gale's throat—sick, stifled, croaky. I was suddenly overcome by a desire to take his colorless face into my hands and lug him off into the woods to run away, to forget about the games and the Peacekeepers, but those thoughts were almost instantly interrupted by a faint flutter of relief I involuntarily felt in the pit of my stomach. It was because my family—Prim, my mother, even the baker's blond son—had all escaped unscathed. And yet Gale, who had done nothing wrong, would live with the image of his younger brother strewn across the paved ground for the rest of his life, weighing him down like a sack of stones on brittle bones. The guilt I felt after this realization hit me like a slap to the face, and it didn't help that Gale's eyes swept over and locked on mine with the unyielding trust he always gave to me that I never deserved.
I inhaled sharply, feeling dizzy. My feet had unconsciously carried me closer to Gale, the hurt twisting his features beckoning me forward.
"Them," he suddenly hissed, stopping me dead in my tracks. His expression hardened to steel in a matter of seconds as he swept a heavy glare across the stage toward Effie and Haymitch. "Were two deaths not enough for today?" His silver eyes raked over to the group of Peacekeepers still busy with their pile of corpses, pure hatred hardening his irises and making me wince. "Hell, were twenty-three deaths not enough for today?!" He was referring to the rest of the tributes, all freshly reaped, their faces revealed to the Capitol on shining television sets. Only one survives, I remembered, and I felt unsteady on my feet.
"Get used to it, fruitcake," Haymitch grumbled, giving me a start. He carried a sudden sense of soberness about him. "This sight—the bodies, the loss. Get used to it."
I felt my face twist into an enraged grimace at his words. Almost on cue, the Peacekeepers filed on stage and grabbed all of us by our forearms, startling Gale and causing him to begin taking blind swings at them with unyielding fists, only to have more Peacekeepers restrict him. The blood that soaked certain parts of their white uniforms made my nose flare and my throat churn as I was roughly dragged forward, hearing Haymitch's drunken protests as he was hauled behind me.
I've seen this happen before in the previous Reapings. Not exactly this—they usually just marched the tributes to the Justice Building—but I guessed that the circumstances pushed them to extremes this year. I felt my muscles tense as the image of Vick's corpse filled my thoughts again.
A row of Peacekeepers at the front kicked open the door to the Justice Building before hoisting me inside, and the distant sound of Haymitch's slurred babbling made me assume that Gale and him weren't far from joining me. I silently wondered where Effie had gone off to as I hastily took in my surroundings, the plush carpet and cream-colored walls surprisingly different from the intimidating outside structure. The stuffed furniture was made entirely with velvet, something usually too luxurious and rare for District 12, and on each ceiling hung a sparkling chandelier of great size.
"Take the boy into Visiting Room B," one of the Peacekeepers ordered in a far-off voice, nodding towards the opposite direction I was heading and making panic rise in my throat. I silently watched out the corner of my eye as Gale defeatedly let himself be led into a spacious hallway and out of my sight.
It wasn't until we arrived at a door with a sign that read "Visiting Room A" that I was finally let out of the Peacekeepers' iron grips, only to be tossed into the room before they promptly turned on their heels and left in a single, hauntingly synchronized wave, one sticking behind to guard the entrance. I clumsily steadied myself on my feet after my harsh entry before whirling my head around to glare at the single Peacekeeper posed at the outside of the door. I quickly contemplated if I could outrun him and make it to where Gale was before getting caught, deciding against it after a few strained moments; I had heard enough gunshots for today.
With a sharp breath, I let my feet automatically drag themselves to the opposite end of the room. It was filled with only a red, velvet-covered couch and three cherrywood chairs. I seated myself onto the cushions of the couch with a plop, the soft texture of the fabric underneath my fingertips giving me a slight feeling of comfort, a slight solace in a sea of worry. My visitors would be issued in any minute now, as per tradition.
The muscles in my throat contracted together as I swept my fingers through the velvet more fiercely, shaking my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts. I couldn't afford to let myself become undone here; not only would it hurt my family, but it would also cause me to greet the cameras waiting at the train station with reddened eyes.
I tried to trail my thoughts away to a different subject in an attempt to clear my head, and they ended up finding their way to Gale—his stricken features on the stage and that one throttled sob, muffled as if spoken into a bottle and so tremendously filled with pain. My hand swept through the air and landed on a velvet cushion posed at the side of the couch, and I immediately clutched it to my chest in an attempt to hold myself together.
"Katniss Everdeen, your first visitors have arrived," the Peacekeeper announced in a gruff voice, snapping me out of my reverie. I raised my eyes and tried to desperately drain the look of pain out of them as I watched my mother and Prim stalk into the room, sporting identically blank masks as their gazes raked over me.
"Honey..." my mother choked out, disregarding the chairs in front of me and seating herself next to me on the couch, sweeping stray strands of hair out of my eyes. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say more, but snapped it shut and instead continued to sweep her clammy hands over my face. Her movements were robotic, tired. I bit my lower lip before nodding in her direction, determined to not let any sign of emotion show.
Prim made her way over to us before climbing onto the cushions and gripping my forearm tightly. "You and Gale are really loved in the district," she announced in her tremulous voice, threatening to crack the mask covering my strained grimace, "That's why everyone started protesting. No one wanted to lose either of you."
"...Oh," I responded lamely after a few moments, lowering my eyes and concentrating them on individual fluffs protruding from the carpet.
My mother let out a pained laugh, making me clutch the velvet cushion tighter into my chest. "We all know about how you two felt about each other, too," she started, making me shoot her a confused glance, "You both participating in the same games was just too much of a tragedy for the crowd to bear."
I swallowed hard, my already uneven breaths becoming even more shaky. I was sure that their words were meant to comfort me, but they only seemed to make the pain in my chest even greater, to the point where it was almost unbearable. I needed to stop it, so I instantly changed the subject to the things they needed to take care of in my absence.
I stressed that Prim was not to take any tessarae, no matter the circumstance, and that they would need to get by on the spoils from the milk and cheese from Prim's goat and my mother's small apothecary business instead. I told them read over my father's herb book if they could, to study the pictures, and pick any that they could find on the outside borders of the fence. I didn't mention hunting because it didn't seem like an option—even if Prim had the necessary skills, she wouldn't be able to bring herself to shoot at a defenseless animal; she would end up insisting on taking it home as a pet instead.
"...You need to stay in school, Prim. No matter how hard it gets," I continued, locking my eyes on hers and making sure that she understood, "Gale will provide anything you ca—" My eyes widened in realization before my tongue instantly became limp in my mouth, making my sentence drift off into gibberish.
No, he wouldn't. He'll be off in the arena with me, putting his life on the line instead of staying in District 12 where he was needed to feed our families. Because he volunteered.
Every event that took place this afternoon washed over me in a single wave, weighing down in the pit of my stomach and sending my pulse into a flurry of emotions—remorse, despair, grief...But most of all, anger.
How could he volunteer, when he knew full-well that it was synonymous with death? Now not only will I be gone, but him too!
I was only slightly aware of Prim's tiny hands grasping frantically at my cheeks as I felt all the welled up emotions in my chest burst in one fluid motion, sending my muscles into spasms as my hands flew to my throat in a struggle for air.
"Katniss!" my mother bellowed, her insistent hand grabbing my chin and forcing it to turn so that I was looking at her. "We. Will. Be. Okay. Do you hear me?" Her sudden determination caught me by surprise, making my eyes widen involuntarily in her direction. "I want you to worry about nothing but surviving from here on out."
A strained silence filled the air for a few moments afterwards, my mother's crystal blue eyes seemingly being dusted from the cobwebs collected over the years and revealing the fierce woman my father fell in love with. She let out a sigh before letting her hand drop to her lap and mumbling, "Really, Katniss. Have more faith in me. I raised you, after all."
I stared blankly in my mother's direction, dumbfounded not only by her sudden outburst, but also how it had succeeded in comforting me. My lips pursed together, and before long, words were tumbling out of my mouth without my permission. "I love you. I love you both, and I'll miss you so much."
My mother and Prim prepared themselves to say it back, only to be interrupted when a Peacekeeper swung into the room and ordered them out, stating that their time was up. They begrudgingly got to their feet before heading out of the room and shutting the door behind them, leaving me to gaze blankly in their direction, still dumbstruck by the fact that my mother had seemed to develop an uncharacteristic backbone in seconds. Maybe the thought of me being sent to my death finally awakened her.
My fingers dug themselves deeper into the velvet cushion as I let out a groan, my breaths getting increasingly more difficult to force out with each passing second.
"Katniss Everdeen, your second visitors are here," the Peacekeeper announced, immediately causing my eyes to dart up in confusion. I had thought that Prim and my mother were my only visitors.
"Who...?" I muttered in a light voice, only to be answered when two men with identically stocky builds from lifting and tossing flour bags hesitantly made their way into the room. I instantly recognized the older one to be the baker I had heard stories of from my mother and the younger one to be his son. The one who was reaped before Gale—volunteered.
I winced at my own thoughts. The word volunteer had begun to stung.
"Katniss," the younger one started with a brief nod, brushing a hand through his yellow hair before seating himself down on a chair. Once he was settled, his eyebrows flew upward and his eyes widened. "O-Oh wow, sorry, I should've started by introducing myself. You probably don't know me, but we go to school together. My name is Pe—"
"Peeta," I finished, his name bursting out of my lips before I could stop it. "I know you."
His eyes were the clearest shade of blue I've ever seen, even rivaling with Prim's, and they flashed with a sort of ardency as soon as I spoke. His father awkwardly sat in the chair beside him before catching my attention with a loud grunt. "For you," he mumbled, holding out a neatly packaged box in my direction.
I tentatively reached my hands out and took the box from his grasp, flipping the top open and immediately being attacked by the sweet fragrance of cookies, something I usually could never afford—a luxury. The scents of melted chocolate and sugar dizzied me. "Thank you," I murmured under my breath, my eyebrows furrowing. It was still hardly believable that they had even taken the time to visit me, let alone give me one of their most expensive goods. "...But you don't—you don't need to feel...responsible."
Peeta and his father seemed to straighten up in surprise in sync.
"Responsible?" Peeta echoed in bewilderment.
I winced slightly, tucking the top securely back into the box. "I mean...You're only here because Gale volunteered for you. It's appreciated, but," I swallowed hard before holding the cookies back out to them, "it's unnecessary."
We sat in silence for a moment, and I watched Peeta's chest fall with a hardy sigh. "I guess we should've visited him, too, huh?" His father nodded silently beside him, the box of cookies hovering in my hand between us.
"What? You didn't...?" I trailed off, and Peeta began sputtering in a hurry to explain.
"I mean, maybe we'll go after this, but—" He directed his eyes harshly to the floor, the tips of his ears turning red. "But...I really, my dad, too, we...We wanted to say goodbye. To you. Not out of thanks. Or pity." He directed his blue eyes back at me, looking through his thick fringe of eyelashes. "But out of...friendship?"
My mouth tightened quizzically, and it was with shaken hesitation that I brought the box of cookies back onto my lap in silent acceptance. "...I didn't know we were friends."
Both the Mellarks suddenly looked at me with an expression filled with sad wistfulness, and I stiffened. Peeta took a deep breath before mumbling, "I didn't want our first conversation to be like this."
I saw a flash of hurt shadow across his father's features out of the corner of my eye, making me direct my attention to him before he quickly raised his voice with a sudden burst of authority. "We'll look after the girl. Make sure she's fed."
I instantly gathered that he was talking about Prim, and I felt the muscles in my face relax. It reminded me of how the people in my district were particular fond of her, and how they would never let her go hungry if they could do something about it. I felt some of my worry lift away.
The Peacekeeper made yet another appearance, much to my dismay, and led Peeta and his father out of the room before sending in my next visitor, who also took me by surprise.
"Madge? What are you—"
She interrupted me halfway through my sentence by taking bold strides across the room and throwing a golden mockingjay pin in my direction. It landed lightly on the cookie box. "Every tribute needs a token," she mumbled flatly, as if it would explain everything.
I gingerly picked up the pin before studying its intricate details—the carving of the feathers in its wings, its thin beak, the curious arrow that framed everything together—before shooting Madge a confused look from under my eyelashes. "But why...?"
She exhaled sharply before kneeling in front of me and forcefully pinning the mockingjay onto my dress, taking my face into her insistent palms before looking at me straight in the eye. "Because I said so," she proclaimed, frowning, "You try your absolute best, you understand? You're coming home; you are the only person keeping me sane at school." Her blue eyes flared with a strange amount of confidence as she mashed her lips together, waiting for me to respond with words as equally powerful as hers.
I gulped and instead replied weakly with a, "I'll try." It would've been easier to answer if my best friend wasn't participating in the same arena. I creased my eyebrows together, making it a point to not make any promises.
After staring into my eyes for a bit, perhaps studying them to see if my words were genuine, she casually walked out the door. The Peacekeeper eyed her confusedly as she took her leave before her time was up, but didn't question it.
"Those are all of your visitors, 12. We'll take you and the other tribute to the train station as soon as he's done with his," the Peacekeeper announced in a droning voice before strolling away from my open door and leaving me in silence.
Madge's insistent demands echoed in my ears, lingering in the air around me. It was almost funny how she had meant for her pep talk to make my chances stronger, when in reality, it had only made me silently make an agreement with myself.
I won't be coming home. Gale will.
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