Note: Ha, I had a request for some Gale POV, which we haven't had the pleasure of enjoying for a while. Oh, and shirtless Peeta, something which I wish I could have the pleasure of enjoying for a while. But so yeah, this chapter is all about the boys. Enjoy.

Wrong, in all the Right Ways

Chapter Eight

Unrequited...?

...

(Gale)

It's a world of monotone when I jimmy the latch on window in the room they've put me in. The dark light from before dawn doesn't do much to illuminate the room. We've been back from our adventure about twelve hours, through all of which Undersee has slept. Last I saw, she disappeared into the shower, hobbling down the hall on bruise covered legs, waving away offers of a doctor and muttering something about hopefully dying sometime during the night.

Well, one can only hope.

On the bed next to my lumpy mattress's place on the floor, Rory snores peacefully into the darkness. Well, peacefully for him. Not so much for the rest of – well, the unlucky bastard who happens to be me. It sounds like a herd of fucking pigs have taken a wrong turn and ended up down his nasal cavity.

I suck in a sharp grateful breath as the crisp early morning wind hits me when I pull myself out onto a wide window ledge. My aim is to get drop from this window to one closer to the ground. It's none to easy work, since the ledge is about half the width of my feet and sometimes I really wonder why I go through this shit – but then, it's early. No doubt Katniss is awake. Mellark definitely. The bastard gets up earlier than I do. Bakers. Couldn't risk either hearing me on my way out.

Dropping onto the ledge below me takes climbing skills that I barely have, Katniss would be able to scale this whole building without a second thought. I nearly kill myself just trying to get down to the first story. I manage it though, from here I can safety drop the ground. The window in front of me is large and slightly ajar, with heavy red curtains that are pushed wide to reveal total chaos. A sizable wardrobe vomits an immeasurable amount of clothes onto the floorspace in front of it. I mean, hell, I own four shirts, two pairs of boots, a jacket and a few pairs of pants. That is as wide reaching as my wardrobe room is extravagant in its taste so I assume for a moment that it belongs to blue hair, she seems the kind to sleep at least somewhat naked. This wrongful conclusion is what I draw until the semi-naked form on the bed litterally just below the window, soft pale skin with red blankets tangled strategically around her hips and legs, shifts a little and tangles of her blonde hair are privy to my view.

For a few blank seconds I stare at her and then force myself to look away. Because, great. I'm creeping on naked Undersee while she's asleep. This will be fun to explain if she wakes up. Despite resolving not to linger, I can't help but look for a few moments. Obviously if given the choice, Undersee is no where near the top of my to-see-naked-list, but breasts are breasts and the fact that she's pretty well put together is a fact I can't really dispute in the rare moments when I'm truthful to myself. Not that she's my type, but I'm sure plenty of other guys - not me - would find her, you know, attractive and that. Well, right up until the point where she starts talking anyway. Her eyebrows are knitted together as she slumbers, her shoulders and arms are a patchwork of dark-yellow bruises and superficial cuts, one arm is thrown behind her head, bunched into her pillow and reveals a slight shadow of hair under her arm, which I am thankful for, something not-liable to have me thinking certain thoughts about this situation. Madge whimpers something and turns to clutch at her pillow, completely cutting off the show. I'm now staring at the mutilated patch of her shoulder, skin like winter cream melted with terrible scars, all illuminated in the dawn morning gloom. Which is probably the one thing I can relate to Undersee about.

I'm not exactly undamaged goods myself. I can still remember what it smelt like that night. Her flesh; as it burned.

Which is a bit more than your average kind of fucked up. She shivers against the cold pre-dawn air of her open window and pulls her blankets closer, the raised bumps on her skins make her look like a freshly plucked wildgoose. With cheer I push it completely open to let more cold air in. It's petty, but right now and considering all the bullshit she has put me through in the last twenty four hours, highly satisfying.

I startle then, when my eyes land on what I had thought was a pile of old clothes at the foot of her bed. Almond-shaped eyes stare unblinkingly at me from under a nest of patterned fabric. In which, curled up almost like a guard dog, is the girl, who no-one knows anything about yet. i know she has a cot of her own erected in a spare room of her own until they figure out what to do with her, but I guess I'm not the only person creeping around Undersee's tonight.

Like I would with Posy I press my finger to my lips in the universal gesture of 'lets not tell anyone about this, ever?'. She nods and copies my gesture. Good girl. I then drop from her window to the ground, biting down some harsh laguage as the impact jars my kneecaps. Other than that, and discounting the little hiccup of seeing Undersee's breasts, a flawlessly executed plan.

Well, that is until I catch Mellark saluting me with a mug of steaming - hot chocolate probably, with marshmallows, to soothe the pain of his womanly cycle– from the Kitchen window a little further down from me. I return his gesture with a one fingered one of my own. His shoulders shake in laughter. Prick. On his collarbone, obscured completely had he been wearing a shirt, is a faint dark buise, the kind usually indicative of a lovebite. Turning away, I sling a leather bag – Rory's hunting satchel probably, - over my shoulder and head out to a large woodland outside the boundary of this place. I don't look back, but no doubt Mellark watches me the whole time.

It takes me little to no time to get to the woodland and even less to find Rory's snare line. It's actually not a bad effort. The wire is probably a bit loose, and it would possibly have caught more than the measly wood rat had it been placed a bit more securely into the trail, you wouldn't bother to eat the rat. Not now. Possibly once I would have cooked it up, a convenient snack in between hunting real game. As it is, I disentangle the small corpse, cut off a bit off a sliver of the meat to use when I reset the snare and then -

"Anyone ever tell you not to mess with someone else's traps?" A voice from behind me says suddenly, and apparently Rory is talking to me again. I don't turn or acknowledge the little creeper immediately. Granted I didn't hear him coming, but I suspected. After all, who was it that he learnt that trick from?

"Yeah." I say, resetting the wire. "I was the one who told you that." I toss him the limp rat. "Breakfast."

Rory plucks the thing from mid air and examines it critically. "Damn. This all?" Immediately he gets his knife out to skin and gut it properly. Waste not, and all that.

"More or less." I reply, going to rub the blood off my hands and onto my pants, but then reconsidering the action, as Ma's phantom nagging rings in my ears about how hard it is to get blood out of clothes. I wipe them on my shirt instead. It's old-ish.

"Nice." Rory comments. "Ma would be proud."

"Eat shit." I return with the usual verve. And then, " I think we need to have a chat."

I can practically see him biting down a groan. "Really don't think we do Gale." He replies evasively.

"Come on Roaring Lion," I say, digging up an old childhood nickname. "What the hell are you even doing here?"

Looking perplexed for a second, his reply is. "Setting the snares." I shake my head. The kid always did well at school, I was quietly nursing the hope of get him into a apprenticeship in town, you know, back in 12. So he wouldn't be in the mines. But then there are times like these.

"I meant here, numbskull." I enunciate slowly, inwardly shaking my head. Sometimes, I swear, you'd look through one of his ears and have a unperturbed view out the other side. "What's the plan here? You going back to thirteen any time soon. You know, with your family. Prim near cried her eyes out for a week after you left."

And yeah, I hope he feels guilty. Watching Prim cry is like watching butterfly's having their wings pulled off, one by one. Not the most heinous of crimes, but no one can feel happy being a part to it.

"First off Ma," Rory begins, as he rounds on me. To my credit, I don't laugh when he puts his hands on his hips. " It wouldn't kill you to cease being a total dick for a few seconds and have something vaguely resembling sympathy. I mean, no wonder Madge thinks-"

Of course he would bring her into it. His new bum-chum.

"Whatever Undersee thinks about me, or anything at all for that matter, is irrelevant." I snap, "The girl is out of her fucking mind. Stark Raving lunacy is a state of rational bliss to which she can never aspire. Fuck Rory. Her hobbies include trying to kill herself and anyone within a four meter radius of her at least once a week."

"You're foaming a little at the mouth, you do realise that right?" Rory points out, hiding a grin.

"Ha-ha. Funny." I gripe, wiping my mouth with my sleeve none the less. "I just pity the poor guy who gets shackled to the nutjob is all I'm saying."

"I don't know," Rory says slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "She not that bad really. Once you get to know her... Actually she's kind of-"

"A venomous bitch." I supply, "Yeah, trust me. I know." At which point I note the slight flush on his cheeks, the reproachful look he shoots me. Disbelief twists in my gut at the conclusion I draw. I hold up a hand and rub my other over the bristles on my cheek. "Don't - please, don't tell me; you think you're love with her?"

His blush deepens and his voice cracks and up several octaves. "No!" Thankfully. "Well-"

Hells teeth. She's like lice, gets into everywhere. Or a particularly persistent disease, and destroys.

"Please tell me you're joking?" I question as a last resort, trying to keep calm. When all I want to do is go find Undersee and wring her pale little neck. She's small, I'd probably only have to use one hand. "Just up and left Prim for Undersee. Are you off your fucking nut? Prim's, smart, caring, funny, so beautiful it's a pain sometimes and-"

"Well, if she's so great." Rory snipes, partially under his breath, "Why don't you marry her?"

"Mature Kid." I tell him stone faced. " What are we... Twelve years old?" Not amused by the thought at all, even if it was in jest.

"Yeah," He says shuddering. "Sorry, didn't really think about it before I said it. And no, I didn't leave Prim. Couldn't have left her if I tried, we weren't exactly..." He makes some sort of obscure hand gesture, and starts pacing. The dead foliage crackling under his boots is loud enough to warn game in the immediate vicinity of our presents.

"- And anyway, there was some Doctor, back in 13, she was really impressed with him. Wouldn't shut up about the guy... and I mean,... she's Prim. You know? And I'm just.." He spreads his hands in a wordless gesture that I understand all to well. The Everdeen girls really take their toll on your self-worth. Again he rubs the back of his head. "And then Madge-" A sharp look in my direction, to check probably that I'm not going to go on a tangent about her again. I refrain, for now. "I mean – you have eyes Gale, you can't tell me you've once never looked. Ever." His eyes take on a glassy faraway quality. "Sometimes she does stuff, you know? And she doesn't even realise how it makes you want to just-"

"Wouldn't touch her with a ten foot sanitized pole." I interrupt instantly, despite you know, peering through her bedroom window not half and hour ago, even as another memory comes to mind.

"Pretty Dress" And it is too, crisp, clean and pretty. Curvedd in all the right places. But then, of course she would. Being well fed and not having to take out tresserea for starving children will do that for you. The collar of her dress is low cut, well, lower cut than anything Catnip would wear. Displaying delicate collar bones and skin. White, softer and paler than Catnips, like cream which I had only ever had once, with Dad, on a birthday. Following the eyeline of the most interesting pasts bring us to the Pin, real gold ,worth more than anything I could afford – ever. It would be beyond Katnips means too, even with her mothers chest of dresses and trinkets.

"Well," The Mayors Daughter says, pretty lips pursed in annoyance as she replies. "If I end up going to the capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?"

Moral to the story being, that yes, I'm not fucking blind, so yeah, maybe I have looked once or twice. Sue me. But acting on any half-cocked drunken impulse on my part would be beyond not worth it, a fact which is not really the point anyway, since guys like me and Rory may as well not exist to girls like Undersee. Which clearly the little idiot is either unaware of or blissfully ignoring.

"Right. I guess you're more into... you know, brunettes." Rory replies, with an almost pitying look. "Well, as to Madge," He shrugs, "She beautiful and the only advice I can give you that might chance your mind is to get her to eat some strawberries. The noises she makes...it's like getting a phantom handjob under the table."

"You know," I begin mildly, walking over to reset the closet empty snare, inwardly shuddering though because I didn't need to hear that. Nor do I ever need it repeated to me again. "All I got from what you just said, is that you get your jollies from watching Undersee eat fruit. Information which, little brother, is probably best kept off the public record."

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever Gale."

A short pause as he retrieves the catch from the last snare a good few meters away. He comes back with a relatively decent sized rabbit. I busy myself with getting a fire ready, kindling and everything. Somewhat out of practice – this kind of thing is why they invented the enlisted man - it takes me a little longer to get a fire lit. Rory picks up on this fact and grins to himself as he sets about preparing our furry meal.

To wipe that smug shit eating grin off his face, I ask, Undersee's all or it then? Already planning the wedding is she?"

As predicted the smile slides right off his mug and into the dirt. "No..." He peels back the rabbit skin with particular verve. "Well, I'm going have to wait a few years aren't I? You know, before I can-"

"Make your move?" I snigger into the flames.

"Well, yeah. I guess." He replies looking uncomfortable, "Plus, by that time, if the war is still going I should have enough credits for a bit of decent farming land. I was talking to this guy up in eleven and he reckons-"

Credits, the biggest boon the rebellion has to offer. The Rebel council is banking on the fact that after they, hopefully, win the war the districts will be liberated and there'll suddenly be be all this free land knocking about. They get the cities of course, but, from what I understand, everything else is fair game.

So, to boost moral and keep people focussed on The Cause, every enlisted regardless of ran, gets the same amount of credits for the same amount of service. The longer you serve the more credits you get, then, theoretically the more land you can buy. You can trade the bastards in for leave if you have too, or pretty much anything else really. Credits are a universally accepted currency, since everyone has them. Desperate folk even gamble them away for booze or good- if not relatively clean - company. I've used most of my credits up a few months ago, almost had a solid three years of service. I, theoretically now own almost all of the woods around 12, the land itself was cheap as piss since you can't do much with it and most people, even now, stay the hell away from home. Not the most appealing of places, Panems largest Mass grave. Last time I was there the soot and dust from the fire and coal has started to solidify somewhat after the rain to create this sort of gray concrete in most places. Bodies still trapped within. Pleasant. But still...

Twelve; that's where I'm heading after this war is over. That, or an early grave.

Of course, credits and all the benefits attached to them sound lovely, assuming we win, which is by no means guaranteed. A few bits of official looking paper with my name and the title deed on it means sweet fuck all when I can be the king of my very own 3 by 4 execution cell. There's a small fortune to the lucky bastard to bring me in, dead or alive. Of course, the bounty for Katniss, Cheesy Buns and even Haymitch is higher. But still, you know you're doing something right when the President has personally threatened your life, not once, but twice within the last decade.

"-Wouldn't even need much, see," I hear Rory continue when I realise he's still speaking. "Because I would just plough my bit for a year or two, make some money and buy some more land." The excitement in his voice rises at the thought. It's good to see that he has a plan. Farming is pretty respectable, a side up from illegally poaching in the woods anyway. Dad would be proud.

He turns his eyes to me with eagerness, to see what I think about it. It occurs to me briefly that I should probably start sprouting some sappy speech about brotherhood and always being there for one another. But I'm no Peeta Mellark, so my response to him is; "Alright then. You hungry? The rabbit is nearly done."

"Yeah, sure." Rory sighs audibly. "Dibs on the leg."

...

A/n: Cliché' I know, having Rory crush on Madge.. but I figure, it's not uncommon for younger men to become infatuated with slightly older women. Madge, you unintentional cougar, you. I find the pairing a bit freaky myself and no, nothing serious is going to happen between them. Just thought I'd add some more potential drama into the story... because it hasn't got enough of that or anything /sarcasm.

Like I said, I know there's a lot of kind of cliché stuff happening, but I guess at this point in the story I want it to be known that Gale doesn't hate Madge, I didn't know if I was getting this across with the arguing and stuff. But he sort of thinks of her as this really fucking annoying person that, unfortunately along with his Family and the Everdeens to some extent, he has to take care of. And also to illustrate, I guess, that he has very little romantic interest in her – maybe some subconscious attraction going on, that he's honest enough to admit - but that's it.

Madge on the other hand... well, yeah, she hates him. A lot.

And yeah, did I steal the 'wintery cream' description from the Princess Bride. Not that I'm claiming Madge is as beautiful as Buttercup, or Gale as poetic as Wesley. In my opinion though, Gale would have liked that book as a child. Madge definitely did.

Pinched the Roaring Lion line from Sollarysis and her ah-maz-ing story, which I have plugged a lot in past chapters, but that's just because it's awesome. Rebel like You. If you haven't read it... hop to it people, chop, chop. :)

Anyways, it's 4:30 in the morning I've got to proofread (haha, not really.) and I'm off to have a coffee and write an ILAC about some intentional tort scenarios.

Fun..

Peace, and reviews.

-Is.