Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
Love Me Tender, extras
A/N: So this is basically a couple of deleted scene from the beginning of 'Love Me Tender' (the prom chapter). They messed up the flow and tone so I cut them out. I re-read them and worked on them some more, so now they're silly, but they aren't messing up the chapter's tone so that's okay.
April, Sophomore Year
"Slim pickins," Peeta frowns as he pushes another few dresses out of the way.
He'd driven Madge to the mall the last two weekends to try and help her find something suitable for prom. It was such short notice, though, that almost all of the dresses that were left were either the wrong size or completely hideous.
She was beginning to get discouraged.
"I'm never going to find a dress." She may as well tell Gale she can't go.
"Uh-uh, never say never," Peeta holds up a particularly frilly pink dress. "On second thought…"
Madge groans and collapses onto the little bench outside the dressing room. Not only did she need to get a dress, she had to find someone to do her hair, her makeup, oh god, she needed shoes…
"I'm doomed."
"It's just prom," Peeta plops down beside her. "You'll find a dress, and shoes, and somehow I doubt Gale is going to care if you wear makeup or if you have bed hair."
She wrinkles her nose, "Of course he'd care."
"Nope, don't think so."
She hates it when he acts like he knows something she doesn't. He gets this stupid grin and raises his eyebrows, does a ridiculous dance. It's very annoying.
Madge pushes him with her shoulder, "What do you know?"
He snorts, "He's been making puppy eyes at you for the past year. Everytime something happened and he looked like an ass around you, he looked like someone just punched him in the kidney." Peeta pushes her back, "Guy looks at a girl like that, even when she's disgusting and sweaty, he isn't going to care much about how she looks at prom too much."
Madge feels her face heating up, she's probably as pink as the last dress Peeta had shown her.
She finally looks up at him, mouth twitching to hold back her smile, "You really think so?"
Peeta wraps his arm around her shoulder, "I know so, dork." He sighs, "Why don't we head over to the resell shop? No one's going have looked there and, you never know, some rich girl mighta tossed out something that Cosmo hasn't deemed unwearable this season."
"You read Cosmo?" Why did he read Cosmo?
His cheeks tinge pink, "I took Emmer to the minor emergency a couple of weeks ago when he had that stomach bug. I like to take the quizzes when I'm in waiting rooms."
Madge can't keep the snort from slipping out. "Yeah, sure."
#######
Putting her phone in her back pocket, Gale keeps texting her and it's making her nervous, Madge holds up the final dress. Her last hope.
It's lavender, strapless, a bit itchy, but otherwise as good as she's going to find on such short notice.
"Now I need a strapless bra."
Peeta shoots her a look, his eyebrows rise and his mouth turns down deeply, "A what-less what?"
"Strapless bra." Surely Cosmo had mentioned them.
He shakes his head, "I thought those were a myth. Like unicorns or crotchless panties."
Madge is pretty sure crotchless panties are real, but she has absolutely no desire to discuss women's underwear with Peeta. He'll just have to remain ignorant of all the possibilities that may hide under the clothing of all the girls around him until he can find more informative magazines.
When they get to the women's underwear section Madge tries to send him away.
"I can manage from here. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
Peeta looks at her like she's grown a second head.
"Uncomfortable? I'm a teenage boy with a legitimate reason to be in the ladies underwear section, I'm so happy right now I could cry."
So as Madge looks through the handful of strapless bras Peeta explores the wide and unknown world of the lingerie section.
He comes back twenty minutes later wearing a red infinity scarf and a pair of cheap looking sunglasses.
"Look, Madge, I'm New York's coolest quadruped!"
She looks him up and down, "Technically, you're a biped."
He gives her a glare over the tops of the glasses, "You're a fun sucker, you know that?"
Her eye flicker up, "Got bored with panties, did you?"
Peeta pushes the sunglasses up into his hair. "It's not as exciting as I'd imagined." He glances around, "Maybe they lose some of their magical properties if there isn't a girl in them."
"Maybe." A little smirk twitches her mouth up, "Though in your case it would only be magic if it were a specific girl, right?"
It's a little annoying how he doesn't even blush at her ribbing.
"What can I say? I'm a man with fine taste." He grins over at her, snatches the bra from her hands. "So this is a strapless bra, huh? Not as amazing as it sounds."
"Give that back," Madge makes to grab it from him.
He dodges her hand, twirls away. "You want it? Come and get it!"
Peeta does a half run, humming the ending to 'Why should I worry', glancing back at Madge as he does so, completely missing the rack of clothes being pushed by one of the women working at the store down the aisle. He plows into it, tangling in the dresses before falling through to the other side.
We're going to be banned from the mall.
Madge walks around the rack, quickly holds her hand out. Peeta makes a wounded noise, but hands her the bra back.
"I'm going to check out." Before they get security to kick them out and she has to go through the painful process of trying on another round of the awful things at a different store.
"So much for 'street savoir-faire'," Peeta mutters as he tries to untwist one of the sundresses from his legs.
#######
"Gale, honey?"
Gale grunts to his mother from under his truck. It has a rattle and he's isolated the source. He wants it fixed before prom.
"Do you know what color Madge's dress is going to be?"
He didn't. Was he supposed to coordinate or something? No one had told him that.
"No…why?"
His mother sighs, he can almost see her covering her eyes, "So I can get her a corsage."
With one last flick of his wrench, Gale slides himself out from under the truck and sits up on his roller. He points his hand up to the shop table strewn with greasy tools, "Hand me my phone and I'll ask her."
Carefully, his mother reaches into the nest of rags he's hidden his phone in and retrieves it. She tosses it to him with a grimace.
A little smile creeps onto his face as he finds her name, recently his most frequent contact, at the top of his texts. He hadn't thought she would say yes, it was nothing short of a miracle in his mind. Now he texts her everyday, has lunch with her, they're going to a dance that, even though he thinks it's a little stupid, she seems excited about.
After a few minutes she responds. Haven't got one yet.
"She's still looking."
His mother chuckles, "Alright, she's blonde too, right?"
Gale nods.
"Do you have any preference for the flowers?"
He doesn't. He thinks pinning a silly little bouquet of flowers on Madge is a little…stupid. "Not really."
"Have you got your tux rented?"
He's beginning to think she's playing a game of twenty questions. "Yes, mom."
She gives him a little smile, "I'm just trying to keep you on task." Her smile slips a little, "Would you be okay with your father and I coming over to her house? So we can get pictures too?"
Gale groans internally. He's going to be nervous enough without an audience, and he doubts Madge will want their first official outing to be documented as in depth as his mother is likely to try and make it.
Reluctantly, he sends Madge another text.
It takes her less time to respond this time, it's nearly dinner, so maybe she's eating and waiting for his next message. He should just call her. It's Saturday so he hasn't heard her voice since Friday night…
That's cool. Or I can come to your house. My parents won't be home.
He frowns. She said her parents weren't home last week either.
Gale flickers his eyes up to his mother before quickly responding.
No, I want to pick you up.He sighs. Guess you get to meet my parents.
They'll love her, he already knows that. She's pretty and smart and she dresses better than any of the other girls he's dated, that alone will make his mother happy. She'd called the last 'girlfriend' of his, a leggy brunette they'd run into at the bait and tackle store, a 'bottom feeding floozy'. Still, Madge is a bit reserved, part of the reason he'd had such a hard time asking her out, he's afraid her quietness might put his mother off at least. His dad, who'd met her, already had an affinity for her, had harassed Gale about why he didn't ask the 'pretty blonde car girl' out after he fixed her starter.
"Because she hates me," Gale had told him.
The day Gale had come home and told him he was going to prom with her, his dad had given him the most annoyingly knowing smirk.
His phone vibrates again.
Great! A second text comes a few seconds later.I'm not being sarcastic either.
Gale snorts.
"Madge said that's fine."
His mother smiles down at him before turning to leave. "Hurry up, dear. Dinners waiting."
#######
"When is your girlfriend coming to dinner?" Posy asks for the millionth time as she pushes her peas around on her plate. A few fall off the sides.
Never. Gale still needs to prepare Madge for the madness that usually ensues when Rory and Vick get going. She's an only child, all the fighting that goes down between his brothers might be a bit of a shock to her system.
Plus, they were both getting a bit girl-crazy. Rory had already gotten in trouble with some of his friends for making crude jokes and Vick had started staring at cleavage. It might be a while before Gale has Madge ready to deal with two adolescent boys.
"Later," Gale finally tells her, more than a little vaguely.
His father chuckles, "Much later?"
Decades.
"Well, your father and I get to meet her before they go to dinner," his mother tells them as she picks up a few of Posy's stray peas and puts them back on her plate.
Gale grunts in acknowledgement as his father's eyebrow arch up.
"Oh?" He looks genuinely confused, "You really want us there?"
Not really. "Sure. Whatever."
Unlike his mother, Gale's father seems to realize Gale isn't exactly thrilled with his parents tagging along for a photo op. "I don't think that's such a good idea."
The smile that had been on Gale's mother's face slips off, "Why not?"
Gale keeps his head down. Much as he wants his dad to win this sudden discussion, he isn't about to get involved. He can feel his siblings' wide eyes taking in every detail though.
"Do you really think that's the best way to meet the poor girl? When she's nervous and uncomfortable?" One of his hands goes to his neck and starts rubbing at the muscle, "Don't you remember prom? It's enough of a nightmare without parents being there, which yours were." He raises his eyebrows as he looks at her, "I recall that quite vividly."
A small grimace flickers on Gale's mother's face. She thinks for a moment before nodding, "You're probably right." Her gaze flickers to Gale, "It just isn't fair her mom and dad will get to see the both of you looking so nice and I won't."
Instilling maximum amounts of guilt in children must be a course they teach all mothers, and Gale's pretty sure his mother must've been at the top of her class.
He glares at his plate. Meeting her gaze isn't an option, he's too close to not having her 'oohing and awwing' over he and Madge to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
"Madge's parents won't be there either." He spears a carrot, "They're out of town."
Indefinitely, apparently.
His parents exchange a look, a bit concerned, but don't say anything.
"See, Hazelle? You won't be left out."
Gale lets his eyes flicker to his dad.
He's smiling at his wife, willing her to see reason. While Gale is fairly certain it's a hopeless cause, he got his own stubborn streak from her, he can still hope. If anyone can change his mother's mind, it's his dad. It's his super power. He gives her a dopey grin and she's at least fifty percent more likely to listen.
After several tense seconds, his mother sighs, "Fine. We won't go." She shoots Gale a sad look, clearly still sending out guilt-vibes, "But you have to promise me you'll take pictures."
Hard as he tries, Gale can't keep the tiny smile from creeping onto his face as he nods.
#######
"You owe me big, mister."
Gale nods at his dad. He'd just saved him from an awkward meeting.
He could already imagine his snap happy mother, filling up the memory card on the camera they'd gotten her for Christmas with pictures of he and Madge looking sweaty and uncomfortable in the stupid prom getups.
"So," his father begins, picking up various tools, rearranging them on the work bench. "When doyou plan on letting your poor mother meet the elusive Miss Undersee?"
Gale checks the dipstick in his oil for the tenth time as he considers the question. He finally decides on, "When we figure out how to keep Rory from speaking."
"That far off then?"
A garbled laugh comes out Gale's chest. "I guess we can lock him and Vick in a closet or something."
His dad chuckles, "We aren't that bad."
It gets quiet for a minute before Gale sighs.
"It isn't that I don't want her to meet everyone. It's just that," he frowns down at the engine of his truck, "she's kind of quiet and, let's face it, no one in this family is. We might overwhelm her."
He's spent too much time building up to this point, he doesn't want his rowdy brothers or nosy mother to scare her off.
With a tilt of his head, Gale's dad smiles, "I didn't get the impression she was easy to throw."
Oh god. Gale has imagined what dorky as hell things his dad had said to Madge back in the fall when he'd brought them the starter for her car. Probably talked her ear off, and, god help him, told her one of his completely unfunny, corny jokes.
That's the final straw, Madge is never getting to meet any member of his family.