Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
It's all fun and games
Fall, Freshman Year
Madge groans as Katniss gets incrementally closer to Gale's face, little sprays of spittle flying out of her mouth as she continues her tirade.
At least she had thrown down her golf club. Being unarmed made the likelihood that this little adventure will end in the emergency room a little less.
Really, there's no reason to be fighting. It's only putt-putt golf.
Madge knew, from the moment Peeta had invited her, that she should've said 'No'. Katniss and Gale are hypercompetitive, and giving them weapons is the worst possible thing she can think of doing.
After all, these are the two that had turned a game of Monopolyinto a casualty case.
It had started simple enough. Gale had helped Katniss and Madge finish moving into their apartment, the week before classes started, and Peeta, sweet, unsuspecting Peeta, had stumbled upon Madge's board games.
"Chutes and Ladders! Candyland! MONOPOLY!"
He'd ordered pizza and set up the game. Things had gone downhill from there.
Katniss and Gale had argued over who got to be banker, accusations were made about games from long ago, before Peeta was finally appointed the position.
"He's her boyfriend, he'll help her cheat!"
"I don't cheat you lying jackass!"
They were really a charming pair. Madge could see why Peeta liked hanging around them so much.
Then they'd argued over playing pieces.
"You got the racecar last time!"
"No I didn't! I had the battleship! I get the car this time!"
Were they eight? No, Madge thought, eight year olds weren't nearly so ridiculous over a board game.
Once they'd finally decided that Peeta would be the racecar and Madge got the battle ship, the only fair arrangement, the actual game had started.
Between quibbling over rules, standard or Peeta and his brother's 'Get Rich or Die Trying' rules, which Madge felt should've actually been called 'The Godfather Rules', and fighting about what the 'free parking' prize was, it actually became enjoyable. That was, until Katniss took Boardwalk and Gale got Park Place.
Madge is still unclear what happened after that, something to do with the railroads and Illinois Ave, but Katniss and Gale started arguing again. Then the Scotty dog was thrown.
How Peeta ended up hit was still a mystery. Madge thinks he was reaching for a discarded pineapple from Gale's pizza, but she isn't sure. All she knew was that less than half an hour later she was sitting in the emergency room with a very contrite looking pair of bankrupt millionaires and Peeta with a washrag over his very reddened eye.
When Peeta was called back Madge had sent Katniss and Gale out to the parking lot. They were still assigning blame for the injury to the other.
"Make up before Peeta and I get back," she'd told them, giving them her sternest glare as she did so. "I'm not listening to the two of you bicker all the way home. It was aboard game. We shouldn't be in the ER over a board game."
"Monopoly injury, huh?" The doctor, white-headed with a bushy, bristly mustache and a limp, squinted at Peeta. "You aren't the first and, god help me, I doubt you'll be the last." He turned back to the computer affixed to the wall. "Looks like a corneal abrasion."
The nurse, a younger woman with cherry lipstick and flaming red hair, nodded at his assessment.
"Looks small," he grunted, just barely giving Peeta's eye a glance. "Take some Tylenol or Motrin. You'll be fine."
The nurse, her badge read 'Angela' arched her eyebrows, "Should he follow up with an ophthalmologist?"
Madge got the impression she meant to say 'he should follow up with an ophthalmologist' but didn't seem to have the authority.
"Sure, if he wants."
When the doctor left, Madge never caught his name and he had his badge turned suspiciously backwards, Angela told them to make an appointment to get Peeta's eye checked as soon as possible and that if his pain got worse or his vision went south to come back.
"You're a new student?" She'd smiled at them as she finished giving Peeta his paperwork.
Madge nodded. She had just wanted to get home, they'd been in the white walled hell for almost five hours just to be told to take over the counter medication.
"Living in the dorms?"
"No," Madge told her. "Opted out. We have an apartment off campus."
Angela looked relieved, "Thank god." She gave them both a firm look, "Those 'Uno' tournaments the dorms have always end here." Her head shook, flaming locks flowing the motion, "Dehydration and palpitations from energy drinks, all over a card game."
It was only a few weeks later, after classes had settled down, that Madge had learned about the annual 'Uno 'til you out' tournament the nurse had been talking about. Half of Madge's English class went missing for several days after the commencement, all coming back with tells of heart monitors and fluid boluses.
Now, in the half lit back lot of the 'Fun Zone', just a few paces from a creepily grinning head of a clown with a missing tooth and weather worn paint, Madge wonders if maybe a caffeine and candy fueled card game extravaganza in the comforts of a dorm common room wasn't a well reasoned plan.
"I'm not even keeping score," she tells Peeta quietly. "No one is winning."
He shrugs, "I'm thinking we ditch them and go play in the ball pit."
Madge rolls her eyes, "You can't, remember? The manager told you if you got in there again he'd call the police and have you banned for life."
No amount of joy from jumping head first into a pit of balls, that are no doubt covered in slobber and snot, is worth ending up on a predator watch list.
"Kids get all the fun," he grumbles.
It's going on ten minutes, Peeta had set the timer on his phone, when Gale and Katniss finally yell themselves out, stomp off in opposite directions.
Peeta starts to go after Katniss, and Madge, naturally, follows behind. He stops, gives her a slight look, "Uh, I'll take care of her, you get Gale."
"What?" No, she will not 'get Gale'. "Can't we just get Katniss, calm her down then go find him together?" Gale's cranky and irritable, more so now that he's been arguing with Katniss. "Besides, I'm the last person he'll want to talk to."
"Whatever," Peeta rolls his eyes. "Gale likes you just fine. Go talk him down. They both just need some time to cool down."
Reluctantly, Madge trudges off to find him, certain she's going to lose a limb when she does.
#######
He's playing skee ball, easily racking up tickets, when Madge finds him.
His eyes cut over, for just a few seconds, when Madge comes to the side of the machine, leans against the wall.
"Katniss was cheating," Madge starts. It's true. She'd kicked her ball and moved it after the windmill had knocked it off course, put it back in the playing area.
Gale grunts, "Would've been more helpful to say that during the fight."
"It's miniature golf, Gale, not the Masters Tournament," she sighs. "Who cares if she cheated?"
The answer to that is apparently 'Gale Hawthorne'.
"She gets away with crap like that all the time and you guys let her do it," he tosses one of the heavy balls up and it lands in the hole labeled '50', sending several tickets spitting out at his knees. "Katniss gets a pass on everything because she's Katniss and things always go her way."
Madge gets the sudden sinking feeling they aren't talking about stupid mini golf.
"Um…"
"My grades were just as good as hers, but did I get a big fat scholarship? Nope. I'm in the same boat as she is, worse actually, I have three siblings, and I still can't get near as much help as she gets." He throws another ball, hits another '50'. "She's just as cranky, more antisocial than me, but she still gets Mellark drooling all over her, forgiving her everytime she does something jerkish, and I-yo-I can't…"
Suddenly Gale looks a little lost in the wildly flickering lights of the arcade games that flash and flare around them, the mechanical chiming music that plays, congratulates people throwing little basketballs and footballs across the game room each time they make a basket or hit their target.
"And then there's you…"
Oh god, here it comes.
He's never seemed particularly fond of her, tolerates her at best, but she'd hoped college had eased that dislike. Madge was too rich, made grades that were too good, was too this or that…
Now that he's had his go at Katniss and her perceived perks he's going to pick on Madge.
She braces herself.
"You…" his eyes flicker over, up and down her, "You wouldn't understand."
That's true, she probably wouldn't. She's never struggled, at least not financially, not like he has. She's never worried about how she's going to pay for anything. It makes her feel more than a little guilty.
He reaches down, rips what appears to be hundreds of tickets from the front of the skee ball machine and takes off, leaving Madge still leaning against the wall.
Nearly tripping, she takes off after him, catches him as he weaves between the tables blocking his way to the counter where they count tickets.
"Gale, none of that's Katniss' fault."
His feet come to a stop, he glances down at her, sighing, "No, just the way it is." One of his hands, the one free of tickets, comes up and runs over his face, up through his hair before settling on his neck. "I just-I wish I could catch a break."
Without thinking, Madge reaches up, gives him a little pat on the arm, "You will."
She doesn't actually know that. Heaven knows in the areas she wants to catch a break in Madge certainly hasn't. She has money but her parents are absentee, and a little attention is all she's ever really wanted. Gale has to be luckier. He has so much, even if he doesn't realize it, and that will pay off more than all the money in the world someday, she's certain of it.
When his eyebrows scrunch together Madge realizes she still has her hand on his arm, lets it drop quickly down.
He's off again, leaving her behind as he takes long strides over to the counter and deposits his tickets for the pimply faced boy to put through the counting machine. For several long minutes Gale ignores her, watches the paper tickets run quickly through the machine and the digital numbers increase.
"Uh," the boy, his voice is cracking, finally squeaks out when the last ticket shoots through. "You can get anything you want."
That's a lot of tickets. He must be very good at skee ball.
Gale's eyes flicker to Madge, he makes some kind of grunting noise, his generally preferred means of communication with her, then points to a large bird of some kind. It's yellow, like a giant stuffed canary.
The moment the boy puts it in Gale's hands he shoves it at Madge.
"Hold this," he tells her roughly.
Great, I'm his pack mule now. She thinks irritably.
They leave the building, cross the grounds, past the batting cages and the bumper cars, to where Peeta and Katniss are sitting at a picnic table, munching on an atrocious looking basket of nachos.
"Nice bird," Peeta snorts, eyeing the enormous bird as Madge plops it down next to him.
Katniss crosses her arms, looks like she might start arguing again, and Gale does the same, but then Peeta makes a noise, somewhere between a grumble and a tut, and she deflates a little.
"Sorry." Since she doesn't say what she's sorry for Madge isn't sure Gale will accept the apology, and for a second it looks like he won't. His eyebrows knit together, mouth turns down firmly, then his glare flickers to Madge, to the giant yellow atrocity she's planning on using to suffocate them both with if they start fighting again, and sighs.
"Whatever."
They spend a few tense seconds staring at each other, then Peeta breaks the tension.
"You won quite the bird for Posy, huh?"
Gale's mouth turns up into a smirk, "Nope."
Katniss' eyebrows arch up, "What do you mean 'nope'?"
"I mean 'nope'," he makes the 'p' pop a little louder than necessary. "That's Madge's bird."
Madge gives the bird a look. For some reason she doubts Gale's suddenly feeling generous with her.
Katniss seems to have the same line of thinking, frowns, then her expression flickers into confusion, "Where are my tickets?"
Gale was holding the…oh.
"I was going to get Prim something!" She starts to get out of her seat.
He shrugs, "Well, I got Madge something."
That's why he said the bird was Madge's. Katniss wouldn't care if he'd swiped her tickets to get his baby sister a big stupid toy, but giving it to Madge wasn't quite the same thing.
Peeta puts his hand on her shoulder. It takes a second, she still looks annoyed, but she calms enough to sit back down.
"Fine," she gives him a dark look. "Next time you're helping me win all those tickets back."
Gale shrugs again, "Fine."
They stare each other down, trying to bore holes in the other's head, then, just as quickly as they'd started fighting, they stop.
"Wanna go get on the go-karts before close?"
Katniss nods, "Sure."
They head off, toward the little track, probably to get in another fight when one or the other makes a questionable pass.
Knowing they should turn tail and leave, Peeta and Madge slowly get up and, dragging their feet, follow after them.
"I'm never coming with you guys again," Madge tells him, squeezing the giant bird to her chest.
"At least you got a prize," he mutters. "Katniss told me I couldn't even think about getting the giant 'Mad Hatter Hat', even though she had plenty of tickets ages ago."
"You poor mistreated thing." She stops gives him a bright smile, "At least you didn't end up in the ER."
He rolls his eyes, "The night is still young and we're about to get in tiny cars and go very fast." His shoulders slump, "Just don't let Gale be the one to give me mouth to mouth, okay?"
Madge snorts, "You got it."
