Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games, nor do I own the material that this fiction is based off of, the film The Nice Guys. All content belongs to its rightful owners, and no copyright infringement is intended.
*~*~*~* Chapter Eight: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head *~*~*~*
((Gale))
"Quick, bring him to the table."
Katniss' voice is sharp, like the edge of the razor blade that slashed up my back, but as she continues to shout orders (orders regarding how to handle me), her voice dulls. Fuck, it sounds a million miles away.
Slowly, I try to locate the girl. But when I slide my eyelids open, everything is exploding in my vision like blinding fireworks. The jumbo kind you light up in your backyard on the Fourth of July. It makes my head ache, and I moan.
"Careful. On three, we're going to lift him. One, two…"
My ears are ringing. My head feels light, like it's been cut loose from the rest of my body and is floating up toward the night sky. Every one of my nerves is on high alert, sensitive to the lightest of touches.
"Peeta, get me that bottle of whiskey."
"You've got to be shitting me."
"Stop drinking it. I need it to disinfect the cuts."
"How do you know all of this survival shit, anyway, Everdeen?"
"My mom was a nurse before she admitted herself to a mental institution, and my dad used to take me hunting. Now that story time is over, hold him down. This isn't going to be pretty…"
An icy hot wave of pain washes over my back without warning, and a scream rips from my core. It's like they have forgotten that I haven't really left this earth yet, that I can still hear and feel everything they're doing. Two strong hands, presumably Mellark's, are pressing my shoulders down on the counter before I can even realize I've been writhing under them, and I discover that I'm not as cognizant as I must have thought I was.
I feel like I've been tossed into a burning furnace, lying on my back in a bed of hot coals that will sear my skin and devour me until I am reduced to nothing but a charred crisp.
It hurts. It fucking hurts…
"That's hurting him! Mister Hawthorne!" I hear a young voice shout.
"Prim, I need you to stay calm, alright?" I hear Katniss tell her sternly. "I need you to be my assistant. Can you do that? We can't bring him to a hospital, obviously, so we have to do this here, and you have to trust me."
"Is he gonna be okay?"
"We're gonna do the best we can, Prim. The good news is that Cato didn't have enough time to make any life-threatening cuts; it just looks worse than it is."
That is good news, I want to say. The life I've lived certainly hasn't been a picnic, but I'd prefer to have a little more of it if I can help it. I try to articulate that, maybe lighten up the mood with a joke, but I find that I am — what did Mellark call it? — reduced to being an Avox. Rendered speechless, trapped in my own mind. Everything hurts, and I feel like I'm dying.
"He's still in a lot of pain. Peeta, get me some coffee grounds. That should clot the bleeding. And if you have any garlic, grind it up…it'll ease the pain. Prim, I need as many pieces of cloth and bandages you can find in this house, and then go into the pocket on my sheath and get me the vial of morphine and a syringe…"
"You just carry those around?"
"I told you already," I can practically hear Katniss' teeth grinding down on each other from the exertion of gritting them at Mellark's implication that she could have uses those syringes for self-medicating purposes. Until she reveals that it's only partially true, and that she took the morphine from someone else using it for that very purpose, "My mom was a nurse."
Mellark shuts up after that.
The sound of sobs float above me. They make me want to reach out, to soothe the source. I recognize them as Prim's. It only makes the pain worse to know that I can't calm her down.
But when I call out to her, no sound comes out except a scream.
"Prim, go check up on Rue," Mellark barks, sounding somewhat shaken by the noise that's just come from my mouth. "I'll drive her home."
"Gale," Katniss' voice is now a breath away by my ear. "Hold on."
There's a pinch, then cold numbness. It is followed by gradual, complete, utter darkness.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
When I wake with a staggering start, I'm standing in the streets of Chicago, gazing up at the building I used to call home. The windows are broken, shuttered up with pieces of cardboard. There's a giant padlock on the door.
I run to it, banging as hard as I can and pulling at the lock in any attempt to pry the damn thing open.
Because somehow, I can sense that my family's trapped inside. And they're in trouble if they can't get out.
"Ma! Posy!" I cry, receiving nothing but the empty, hollow echo of nothingness in return from the other side. I even call out to my brothers, Rory and Vick, like we're all kids and they haven't up and left just like the rest of the sorry men in my family.
"It's me, guys! Let me in!"
A blustering wind wails down the barren street. A gale force wind, like my namesake, whistling through the boarded windows and pushing me out of the way of the door.
When I find my footing and catch my breath, I come face to face with him. His eyes, exactly like mine, are wrinkled around the edges. His hair is thinning and gray. His smile is sad, lips cracked and dry from years of smoking cigars.
"Dad?"
The man nods. Something deep inside of me starts to ache, glowing like an ember that I had previously thought had been extinguished. It burns bright in the very presence of him.
There isn't much time to celebrate this reunion, however. I remember the door. He's a mechanic. Surely, he could figure out some way to get the family out of there, before whatever danger that is looming on the horizon comes for them. I rush up to my father, but he takes a step back.
I try not to let it cut me.
"Dad…they're trapped inside. The boys, Ma, Posy…I can't help them. You have to help them."
Dad's smile fades. He turns away from me and starts walking up the street.
That fuzzy, warm coal burning in my chest is abruptly extinguished, and my insides go cold. He's leaving us again, that bastard.
"Come back! Come back here, you coward!" I shout at his shrinking backside till my throat is dry and raw.
He breaks out into a run, into a murky green mist that will swallow him and allow him to disappear forever unless I stop him. I start sprinting after the asshole, knowing I can't let him get away. Not again.
"Dad! Please, Dad!" I shout. My father races into the green cloud, and begins to scale the nighttime sky.
I feel my feet lifting from the ground with sudden weightlessness as I continue to chase him. Swimming in a pool of air with zero gravity, I broaden my strokes, putting all of my energy into a full-fledged sprint in order to keep up with him…but he always manages to be just out of my reach whenever I think I'm close enough.
Another gust of wind pulls me away from father's disintegrating shadow. I call out to him one last time, my voice carrying across the vast expanse of universe stretched out between us.
And then, he's gone. Evaporating into thin air.
My screams eventually morph into something that sounds entirely different. Soothing, almost. It isn't until a soft chirping matches my pitch and finishes out the tune of a familiar lullaby of my childhood that I realize I'm singing for the first time since I was a little kid.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow…
"How do you know that song?"
The Mockingjay that swoops through the clouds beside me opens its mouth to cackle in my face.
"How the fuck don't I know that? I know every song," the bird practically hums, it's long, sleek black beak moving.
Even when she speaks, the Mockingjay seems to sing. Despite the fact that seemingly everything coming out of its mouth is a crude insult to humankind.
"You're not even real."
"Course I am. At least I was, till the smog became too much. I mean, look at the shit we're swimming in. It's disgusting. Now, birds like me either face extinction or drive around in cars."
"Cars?" I ask incredulously.
"Yeah, cars. Same fuckers who are killing us, ironically. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em…now, get outta my lane!"
The bird nearly skewers me in the stomach with her pointy beak, and as I fall to earth, a loud whistle follows me.
"That is some elaborate psychosis," a much more familiar voice chimes in, adding his two cents wherever he feels it's necessary, as per usual. "Wouldn't take you for one to have fantastical dreamscapes, Hawthorne."
I tell Peeta, who now sits beside me in his Cadillac convertible as we race down the empty LA highway, to shut the fuck up.
"I must have been talking in my sleep or something."
Mellark snorts unapologetically. "Yeah, you've been out cold for a while. I'd say I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but you talk in your sleep, so it's like you never left."
"Where are we going exactly, Mellark?"
His eyebrows arch high up on his forehead.
"To get the peace offering for Katniss. Keep up, Hawthorne. Last time I let you sleep on the job..."
Thumbing the car upholstery of my seat, I lean back and try to ignore the way my heart still races and my back still feels like it's been set on fire. Had I dreamt the past few hours? Being with Madge, fighting off Cato, getting stabbed in the back...was it all not real?
Beside me, Mellark smirks in that particularly unnerving way that makes me want to punch him and laugh with him at the same time.
"Time's running out, you know," he says.
"I know."
"You aren't nervous at all?"
"No…should I be? Why aren't you?"
Mellark simply laughs, tossing his head back. The sound floats out of the convertible and up to the stars.
"Because I've got insurance," he says calmly, lifting his pant leg to reveal a gun strapped to his ankle.
"Is that an ankle gun?" I ask. Mellark nods, pulling his pants back over the concealed weapon and refocusing on the road. "That's pretty sweet."
"Yeah, it is…" he yawns. "You're a bad influence. I think I'm starting to fall asleep at the wheel here. Good thing this car can drive itself."
Now, I'm really lost. Blinking, I ask him to make sure I've heard him right, "What the hell are you talking about, Mellark?"
Peeta doesn't answer me right away. He just forces me to watch as his hands miraculously leave the wheel. As if it has a mind of its own, the wheel continues to turn and keeps the car straight on its course. He then takes his foot off the gas pedal and smiles at me, proud of his little trick.
I scowl. I was willing to play along before, but now, he's pushing it.
"Very nice. Now, put your hands back on the wheel before you get us killed."
Mellark eyes me contemptuously. "Where have you been, Hawthorne? All cars do this now."
And then he falls fast asleep, letting the vehicle steer itself down the road. I try waking him up, but my efforts are in vain. He's snoring before I can even utter his name. I'm left alone in the self-driving car, which I still can't believe is self driving.
Once I allow myself to accept it as truth, the hum of the engine remaining steady on the highway actually begins to soothe me.
I'm about to doze off, too, when someone starts honking their horn as they drive straight toward us.
"Mellark, wake up!" I shout, shaking a lifeless Peeta beside me as our car drives right into the oncoming headlight. "Wake up!"
"Wake up…wake up…"
I gasp as my eyes fly open, and my vision is flooded with the tacky harsh lighting of Mellark's kitchen. A cold sweat soaks my body, which has been wrapped in a warm blanket.
"Gale, wake up," the voice I recognize Katniss' voice is much clearer, much closer now. The quiet, yet hardened timbre matches how the Mockingjay spoke. "You're having a bad dream."
I start to rise, but the feeling like my back's being clawed open by a rabid animal practically knocks me out. The back of Katniss' hand is suddenly on my forehead and neck.
"Your fever's breaking, at least. Which is good," she whispers with a warm smile as she comfortingly brushes the sweaty strands of hair from my face. "Prim was worried sick that you were a goner."
I manage a smile and tell the young rebel, "Tell her I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna stay right here, cause all kinds of trouble."
This earns a laugh from Katniss.
"You should get some more sleep. It's late. We're all taking turns keeping watch." Her lips twitch humorously. "You know, in case you die."
"Thanks," I grumble. "Appreciate it."
Katniss leans back in the kitchen chair that has been stationed beside my makeshift hospital bed on the table, and she starts fiddling with something long and shiny in her hands.
It reminds me of the ribbons Madge wore in her hair the night we met.
Which reminds me of something else…
"Katniss."
Her head shoots up. "You alright? Need anything?"
"Madge called earlier, said she had a gift for you on behalf of Snow. A family heirloom as a peace offering…"
Katniss' dark eyebrows knit together in confusion. Slowly, she unravels the gold chain from her fingers and holds it up to me. A bird, with an arrow in its mouth, is cutting through a golden band, which has been welded to the front of an old pocket watch.
"You mean this pin? I stole it from Grandfather ages ago…Plutarch made this watch for me out of it. We were using it in the film."
As she speaks, the ticking clock with the Mockingjay pin swings back and forth, back and forth, taunting me with each swing of the pendulum — symbolizing every second that passes by.
Time is running out, you know…
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em…
There are two sides to every story…
Promise me you'll get this to Katniss, and make sure that only she has it at all times…
"My coat pocket," I rasp to Katniss. Whatever I brought home is still nestled in my coat pocket.
Rising silently from her chair, Everdeen understands that there is where the mystery peace offering waits. She follows my request, going to the other side of the kitchen to fetch my tattered, blood-soaked jacket. She reaches into the pocket and pulls out the white package. Katniss holds up the rose to her eye-level with a trembling hand, before she throws it out the window like it has burned her.
A chill runs up my aching spine as she pulls at the delicate ribbon tied around the package, opens it up, and lets hundreds of tiny bits of paper flutter to the floor.
Snow tricked us all.
Katniss is right. Snow is the criminal.
The world goes black again.
((Peeta))
"I can watch him."
Her tired voice breaks through the evening's eery stillness and startles me. To calm myself, I remind myself again that she's still alive. A little traumatized, sure, but alive.
"Your shift doesn't start for another ten minutes, Little Duck," I say, rubbing my leaden eyes.
Beside me, Hawthorne snores and comically drools on my table like a tranquillized bear. His face is twisted in pain — whether it's from his cuts or his irrefutable nightmares, I'm not sure.
Prim shrugs. She watches Gale with a nerve-wracked expression, still untrusting of Katniss' assurance that he was going to be up and walking by tomorrow after she patched him up like a professional. The kid does enough fretting for the lot of us.
"I couldn't sleep if i wanted to anyway. I'm starting to feel like you."
Although I can feel myself laughing along with her seemingly innocent joke about my habits rubbing off on her, I silently pray that it never actually happens.
"Where's Katniss?" I ask my sister as we switch places.
"She climbed through the hole in the roof — the one from the fallen tree — a while ago. Said she couldn't sleep either," Prim answers. "I think she's still up there."
I suppress the groan that rises in my throat. With everything that's happened tonight, a tree impaling the rental home is one of the few events that I managed to put out of my mind until now.
But given the state of the rest of the place, a hole in the roof is the least of our concerns.
Prim bites her lip, knowing that our living situation has always been a sore subject. Now, with the place obliterated, we have nowhere to go, and no money to pay for the damage. She's undoubtedly blaming herself and her constant disapproval of the house for this, since she's such a firm believer in karma.
I wink down at my little Atlas as she positions herself comfortably in the chair to watch over Hawthorne. She deserves to take a break from carrying the world on her shoulders once in a while, and I hope that she knows that.
"I never liked this place, anyway," I tell her earnestly.
It isn't much, and it certainly doesn't secure our future, but it it's enough. Prim smiles up at me before she turns around, rests her head in the crook of her arms, and gazes up attentively at Hawthorne.
When I find her, perched on the roof with her legs tucked against her chest and her chin resting on her knees, she's staring longingly up at the stars. Or at least what can be seen of them through the thick curtain of smog. She's finally rid herself of that itchy red dress, now clad in the oversized t-shirt and a pair of boxers I loaned her.
And a part of me can't help but wish she were wearing my clothes under a different set of circumstances, that this act I've made up in my head between us could maybe be real.
With a sigh, I hoist myself through the hole and up onto the caved-in roof, careful not to cause any more damage.
I'm not sure she even notices I'm here when I situate myself beside her and follow her gaze. It's only when Katniss begins to speak that I know she senses my presence.
"See that constellation up there?" she asks.
I squint up into the nighttime sky as she points out the shape of an oblong, slanted rectangle with a little tail attached to it — sort of like a kite trapped in the branches of a tall tree.
"That's Lyra. It's supposed to represent the lyre played by Orpheus, son of Apollo. He played it so well that even wild beasts, rocks, and trees were charmed by his music. He fell madly in love with a beautiful nymph, Eurydice. They were only married for a little while before Eurydice was bitten by a snake in the grass trying to run from another man who had been pursuing her and died from its poison. Orpheus was devastated. He went to the underworld to retrieve his wife and sought audience with Hades and Persephone, who were so struck by his music that they returned the ghost of Eurydice to him. Together, they were allowed to leave the underworld, but on the condition that Orpheus could not look back until they had reached the upper world. Orpheus, strength failing and eager to see his wife, looked back as soon as he arrived at the Earth's surface, and Eurydice, having not yet crossed the threshold, disappeared. For a second time, he had lost his love. He was eventually dismembered and his lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses."
It's a haunting story of two star-crossed lovers, one that she can practically recite from rote. I find myself taken by the way she weaves images out of words without even trying. Her voice rises and falls with swells of passion, and her hands are filled with lively movement while she speaks.
It's hard to tell what I'm more enraptured by: the story of the famous Greek myth or the girl who tells it to me.
"It's my favorite constellation," she admits, hands tucked under her folded knees. With eyes downcast, she adds, "I think it's because Lyra reminds me of my father."
It isn't the first time her dad has come up tonight. Given what Hawthorne tells me from his interactions with Madge, he was a highly influential person in her life, and his death had possibly an even greater impact.
I guess I know a thing or two about what that's like.
"You two were close?"
Katniss nods, firmly pressing her lips into a thin, pale line.
"He was my best friend. He loved the stars. He told me the story of Lyra all the time, because I asked to hear it so much…now, I can't even see it anymore with this stupid smog," she says, voice thick and strangled with emotion.
Her eyes suddenly meet mine, two burning coals melting away at my icy exterior. I swear, I can see the stars reflected in those glittering eyes.
While I'm waxing poetic about her damn eyes, she speaks up, reminding me why we're even on this roof to begin with.
"I'm fighting for what I believe is right. You don't have to agree with how I do it, but all I ask is that you understand it," she tells me. "Then, maybe we have a shot at being friends."
Friends. The word rolls off her tongue and tangles in the wind like a harmony melding with its adjoining melody. I was aiming for ally, but I can work with friend.
But it comes with a price. In exchange for her trust, I owe her my understanding.
I offer her a smile of reconciliation and nod, telling her that I do understand, which earns me a smile in return. After everything we've been through tonight, I think it's safe to say that we can put aside our differences and at least attempt to get along.
I couldn't afford to think like that before, but after she saved my life tonight, I need every friend I can get.
"What changed?" I ask, rather bluntly, now that we're on the road to friendship. "You saving me back there…I didn't expect you to…I thought you…"
Katniss shrugs.
"When I was resting in your sister's room before Cato came I remembered something. About the bread."
I blink, confused, as she stares me down like that's supposed to bring me to some kind of epiphany. I've seen a lot of bread in my lifetime, so she could be alluding to any number of things. When she realizes that I have no clue what bread incident she's referring to, she goes on.
"Dad had just died. My mother was unreachable, and Grandfather was unbearable, so I fled. I had nowhere to go, which didn't bode well when it decided to rain in California for once. So I hid out in a Food Mart…and I saw this loaf of bread. I didn't have any money, but I was starving, and that bread just looked so good…"
Then, I remember. My mouth flies open in shock.
"You stole it," I finish for her. "Or at least you tried to, but then the manager caught you and dragged you back into the store, threatening to call the police…"
"And you stepped in from the bakery and told the manager you gave it to me. Then you paid out of pocket to make up for it. I remember you hardly had enough money to buy the bread for yourself."
I hang my head, a little embarrassed by her sharp memory, and nod. It's true. I was in between failing the night classes I needed to take to earn my degree in criminal justice and was working long day shifts at the local grocery store bakery to pay for rent. Money was always tight. Just looking at Prim those days was unbearable. I could practically see her ribs poking out of her shirt.
But when the rain-soaked girl with fire in her eyes came into the store, I knew that I wasn't the unluckiest person in the world, and until I stopped acting like it, my situation was never going to get any better.
Helping that girl turned my life around. Kicked my ass into gear to earn my degree and my P.I. license after four years, got me a job that could pay for rent, put food on the table, and got the color back on my sister's face.
That girl, the one I credit with forever changing my life, was Katniss Everdeen.
"Once I realized who you were, I stopped thinking of ways I could attack you in your sleep and escape," she says with a shrug that is both effortlessly cute and so attractive at the same time. It drives me wild, and I tell my head, heart, and dick to shut up.
"It had been a long time since someone had shown me kindness," Katniss continues. "Finnick was right. You're a good guy."
I have a hearty laugh at that. Katniss eyes me quizzically. Maybe I was a good guy when I gave her that bread, but if she took a look at my track record since buying her that loaf of bread almost five years ago, she wouldn't be going around calling me good.
"I don't feel that way," I admit. "I haven't felt good in years."
Silently, she takes my weighty implication in, and I instantly regret my admission. I'm not one for opening up to strangers. I don't even open up to friends. Something about the night air hitting the back of my neck and this girl in my clothes beside me allows every guard I've ever held up to come crumpling down.
One look. That's all it takes. One little slip up, and suddenly I find my eyes having locked with hers and my trap shooting off sap again.
"I have no idea what I'm doing, anymore," I confess to her, "I became a private investigator because I wanted to make this world right. Given everything that's happened in my life, I thought if I could do good, I could feel good…but all it's managed to do is turn me into something I'm not. A monster. If I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't still be me anymore. Does that make any sense?"
"A lot, actually," she eventually says. Her gaze softens as she releases the breath she's been holding. "Peeta, I'm sorry. For putting you and your family in danger like this. Whoever is sending these people — Cato, and Clove, and Marvel — isn't going to stop until they've killed me. If you need me to leave, I can…"
I cut her off with a hand covering hers. The rooftop is cool, but her hand is impossibly warm, causing my stomach to swoop and somersault in a way that I've never felt before. The impact shocks us both so much that we pull away at the same time.
"You have people who need you to stay alive, Katniss," I say, trying in vain to ignore the jolt that runs through me. "You have to live for them."
"And what about you?" she asks. What she means to ask is, What happens if you risk your life for me?
I shrug.
"No one really needs me," I tell her.
And it isn't meant to be self-pitying. It's all true. Hawthorne doesn't need me. If I had died in that shootout, it would have complicated the case, but he could solve it on his own. It would be hardest for Prim, but she's and stronger than I ever was. She could learn to survive without me holding her back. She could be with a family that provides better for her, and go to a good school, and live the life I've always dreamed for her without me around to be the fuck up.
"That's not true," Katniss refutes me as if reading my mind. "Hawthorne's very good at his job, but it's a team effort that brought you here. That little girl downstairs would be damaged beyond repair without you. I see the way she looks at you. You are everything to her."
Everdeen's eyes meet mine, and with the same determined look she's given me all night, she tells me, "And now...I need you."
I feel that electric tug drawing me closer toward her once again, but this time, it bursts like a star on its last leg, spreading from my chest and throughout my body until the sensation threatens to pour from the very tips of my being.
I'm about to tell her everything I feel about her, or kiss her, or some stupid combination of both, when Prim's voice rings out from the floor below.
"Come quickly!" Prim cries.
The strangled sob in her voice has me flying through the hole in the roof and encasing her in my arms within seconds. With Katniss close behind, we make our way to the living room to watch a breaking news cast that plays on the television.
"At around half past one this morning, the sounds of gunshots were reported by residents of a Panem neighborhood. Authorities followed the calls to find a body abandoned on the side of the road with a bullet wound in his head on Clear Lake Avenue. The body has been identified as well-known adult entertainment star and close cohort of Annika Breasta, Nick O. Police are investigating the scene for further information on the murderer and the intent. Stay tuned for updates…"
I freeze. Finnick Odair is dead. Shot just three blocks from where he fled…where I let him go.
Prim cries. Katniss sinks to the floor and buries her head in her hands. Hawthorne groans in pain.
My fault. This is all my fault.
And I feel the world beginning to come crashing down, like a tree through the roof of an exploding bakery.
A/N: Hello! In honor of me impulse-buying a DVD of Nice Guys yesterday, here's an update. So now, Gale's going to pull through, we know that Snow sent for Gale and Peeta to get that "gift" in order to have Cato kill Katniss, Everlark is heating up, and unfortunately, Finnick suffered the same canon fate. I did promise twists and turns! There are still more to come!
Thanks for your feedback! I truly appreciate it! Please, feel free to comment on what you think will happen next, what you thought of this chapter, etc - I'd love to hear all of it! I'm currently working on uploading the fics on this site as well as upcoming work on AO3 (same penname), so be on the lookout for updates on that!
Till next time,
ILoVeWicked
