AN: Wow thanks. 32 reviews. I love you people! In a non-creepy way… Here's the latest installment of Drenched in Water: A Catching Fire Parody. Enjoy!
Someone knocked on the door. The man from the Capitol poked his head into the room. Katniss glanced up briefly but then looked back down at her nails again, disinterested. "Her mother wants to know if you want tea," he told President Snow.
Katniss thought that the president would start yelling "Off with your head!" but he stayed strangely silent. After about a minute, he said, "I would. I would like tea." He said this in a weirdly calm voice, completely different from the way he had been talking to Katniss earlier. Katniss thought that maybe he was bipolar.
The door opened wider to reveal her mom standing in the hallway. She was holding a tray with their new china tea set on it. Katniss' mom had brought one to the Seam when she got married, but Katniss had broken that one in one of her temper tantrums. She had thrown a fit when she had realized that someone had used her hair curler. You see, Katniss was very protective of her stuff.
Behind her mom stood Prim. Katniss groaned when she saw her little sister. Prim looked President Snow straight in the eye. "Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music," she said. Then she ran out of the room. President Snow looked quite taken aback. He mumbled something about crazy kids under his breath.
Then he looked at Katniss' mom and the tray in her hand. "You can set it here," he said, gesturing to the desk. "What a welcome sight. Now I might not have to chop your head off," the president said. He smiled a strange, forced smile that revealed his too-bright large teeth. Were large teeth popular in the Capitol now?
Katniss' mother raised her eyebrows at President Snow's smile. "Can I get you anything else?" she said hesitantly. It looked like she just wanted to get the heck out of there.
The president narrowed his eyes. "No, now go away. Don't make me mad or it's off with your head," he threatened. Katniss' mom suppressed her laughter at the president who looked like a child and shot Katniss a glance. Katniss didn't notice because she was otherwise preoccupied.
President Snow poured tea for himself and didn't offer Katniss any. Not that she cared. She was in the process of putting white polka dots on her pink nails. President Snow looked at Katniss expectantly, waiting for her to speak. As usual, she didn't notice a thing. Finally, after 30 minutes of waiting, President Snow cleared his throat. Katniss finally looked up, extremely miffed that she had to stop painting her nails.
"I didn't mean to start any uprisings," she told President Snow dismissively. She obviously hadn't realized how serious this situation really was.
"Well, off with your head anyway!" President Snow pointed an accusing finger at Katniss, but she just rolled her eyes.
"You keep making threats but you never follow through," she said, bored.
"I can't kill you publicly. That will only make the public even madder than they already are." President Snow was slightly amused at Katniss not knowing a thing about anything important.
Katniss sighed but still looked unaffected. The president glared at her. "Okay. Let me put it this way. If you don't comply, I get to chop your head off," he threatened.
Now, Katniss didn't want her head to be chopped off for fear that she would look ugly headless. "Okay, just tell me what to do," she said, finally looking up from her nails. But maybe she was finally paying attention because her nails were done, not because she was afraid for the state of her head.
President Snow childishly ignored her question like she had ignored him. He wanted to stick his tongue out at her but feared that would be a tad bit too strange. "Did your mother make these cookies?" he asked, picking one up.
"Ehmagawd, no. Peeta did!" Katniss exclaimed.
"How is Peeta?" President Snow asked. Katniss thought this was kind of odd. President Snow had never cared for Peeta before. He had never cared about the state of his health. So why should he start caring now? And the president hadn't asked her how she was, even though she was clearly much, much awesomer than Peeta.
"Good," she said.
"When did he realize that you didn't love him?" President Snow asked.
Katniss gasped. Someone had guessed? It wasn't like she didn't like Peeta. Because she did, a lot. And his poems were pure genius. But all he did was bake. Katniss wanted someone more exciting. By exciting, she didn't necessarily mean emo Gale, but he was comparatively more exciting than Peeta.
"But I do love him," Katniss said. She tried to sound convincing, but was a horrible actress. Her voice rose up in the end, making the statement sound like a question.
"Off with your head!" President Snow proclaimed yet again. His face was red with anger. After a few deep breaths, he managed to calm himself down. "How's the suicidal cousin?" he asked Katniss.
Katniss widened her eyes, which let the president know for sure that he was right. The president wondered why he had ever doubted that he had been right. He was always right.
"You're not doing him a favor by going into the woods with him each Sunday." By his tone of voice, Katniss could tell that he had his suspicions on what went on in those woods. Or maybe he already knew. But she and Gale had never acted like two people in love before. Unless President Snow had found out about that one time.
But that had just been one time.
After she and Peeta had gotten home from the Games, she couldn't see Gale for weeks. There were so many things to do. So many celebrations…Parcel Day…so much makeup to be experimented with. Katniss had no privacy at all. The reporters would always come flocking to her door, interviewing her about her time in the Games. And then she would scare them away with her incessant talk about makeup and clothing. But then the reporters went home. She and Peeta stopped kissing each other every chance they got. Katniss and her family settled into their new house in the Victor's Village. Everything returned to normal.
Then one Sunday, without telling anyone, Katniss slipped into the woods to see Gale.
She put on casual clothing. Meaning the clothes were slightly less expensive than what she usually wore, but still extremely expensive. She was so happy she could afford this stuff now. She went to their place, her and Gale's. It was the place where they had breakfast so long ago on the morning of that reaping day that had started this whole mess.
She waited there for two hours. Gale hadn't shown up. Maybe he wouldn't show up. Katniss almost cried. She couldn't stand the thought of Gale never speaking to her again. Who else could put up with her constant ranting about hair and makeup? Granted, he only put up with it because he knew she would just talk more about it if he didn't, but still.
Then she looked up and there he was, standing about 10 feet away. Katniss stood up and hugged him tightly before he could protest. Gale pushed her away immediately. He wasn't someone who enjoyed hugs.
That day, they did what they usually did. Gale took his notebook out and began writing emo poetry. Katniss applied even more makeup to her face. Katniss glanced at his notebook and read the first line of his poem. There will be no more blue skies. Katniss stopped reading after that line. There was no need to get overly depressed. It had been this way before Katniss had left because of the Games. After a while, they began talking. Gale talked about how much he wanted to commit suicide and Katniss educated Gale in different fashion styles. They began walking back. By the time they were back at the hole in the fence, Katniss almost believed that things could be the same.
But then, totally and completely unexpectedly, Gale took her face in his hands and kissed her.
Katniss was totally caught off guard. Her only thought was: What if his lips mess up my lipstick? Oh, she was also thinking about how nice Gale's lips felt against hers, but that thought was overpowered by the fear that her lipstick would get smudged. After a seemingly infinite yet short amount of time, Gale removed his lips from hers.
"I had to do that. At least once," he said. And then he was gone.
Katniss, still in shock, sat down with her back against a tree next to the fence. She didn't even care that the muddy ground would get her clothes dirty—that was how shocked she was. She tried to decide how she felt about the kiss, but all she could think about was the feeling of Gale's lips against her own. She was still disoriented and couldn't think straight. She even tried to compare it to the countless kisses she had shared with Peeta. But that didn't work. She had yet to decide whether those counted or not.
She wasn't able to see Gale again until Sunday. She had a whole speech planned out about how she wasn't ready for a boyfriend. She was going to tell him that even though he was hot, she didn't want an emo boyfriend. But it turned out she didn't have to say that speech. Gale just acted like the kiss never happened. Maybe he was waiting for Katniss to show her reaction to the kiss. But she acted like it had never happened too. It was just easier that way.
All of these thoughts ran through Katniss' head as she looked at President Snow. It took her a while to process these thoughts because Katniss was a spoon. She was mad at the Capitol now. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?
"Can you just like, not hurt Gale? Because I think he's going to commit suicide anyway," Katniss told President Snow. Before President Snow could interrupt, she said, "I'll act like I'm in love with Peeta in public." She looked at him pleadingly. Because as much as she hated to admit it, she did care about Gale. Okay, so maybe she only cared about him a tiny bit, but it was still better than nothing.
"Off with your head!" he yelled suddenly. It was random, but he had an irrepressible impulse to say that. And his mother had told him to never hold anything in. Katniss looked slightly confused. Maybe this man was slightly deranged? "Anyway, this tour will be your only chance to fix things," he said, suddenly calm again.
Katniss nodded. "Convince me," the President said menacingly, but he only managed to sound as scary as Nemo. "By the way, I know about the kiss," he said.
The he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him with a click.
AN: Approximately 38 more chapters to go. The random fact used in this chapter was given to me by Oh. Glory-Genius.
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