Sleep
Her fingers play with the grown bracelet around her wrist. She doesn't wear it out - she's afraid it might break. But she puts it on before she goes to bed, so she can look at how it looks on her before she falls asleep.
The Games are coming to an end, though not at all mercifully. There are eight tributes left - Katniss and Peeta both being among them. Madge doesn't want to root for one or the other - Katniss had been her lunch friend, Peeta her convenient childhood comrade.
He was nice, she remembers. When their parents would attend the same social gatherings, him, Delly, and her would sneak off and play games, pretending and darting back in and out between the guests. He almost always let them pick who they would be - he acted as his fair share of princes and kings. He was a kind boy. A sweet boy.
She never imagined him to last as long as he did.
She flips over onto her stomach, turning her face sideways on her pillow. She knows it isn't a very ladylike position, when she was younger she even had Isla tell her that she looked like a dead fish when she slept. But it's the way she's most comfortable, and curling up into the fetal position only happens when she cries herself to sleep.
She wants to be happy. She wants to draw as much happiness as she can from the way things are right now. That isn't easy when her father's home and her mother's relapsing and the Capitol guests are eating all the bread and strawberries and people are starving to death every day silently.
The night is short, a summer night that is only a brief pause for the day's sun.
Across town, in the Seam, he lays on his stomach as well, feet sticking off the too-short bed. He can't get comfortable, too tired to fall asleep. His head aches, his shoulder muscles ache too loudly to ignore.
The days counting down to when Katniss will die are decreasing as the strain on his heart increases. He thinks about her more often each day, updates himself on her current welfare, what supplies she has left, that sort of thing.
He still thinks of her as the girl with the braids he met in the woods. Catnip.
Prim's third interview just aired on television last night. She's beloved by many in the Seam, and it's clear why. She's just... good. She put on a brave face, a smile as armor. That's why she keeps getting so many interviews. Even the reporters from the Capitol love her.
He kept his promise. He worked extra to go the Everdeen family dinner each night. It had been taking its toll on him physically, but every time he went he was reminded of the days before. Of Katniss.
He feels rotten inside. Madge was in his head again too. Soft and gentle and sweet.
What if by some miracle, Katniss did come back? Would he still feel the same way about Madge?
He felt like a traitor. Him and Katniss didn't have anything official, not really, but she was his. That was always the way things were. They looked out for each other.
What was love anyway? Was it heat? Passion? Or comfort and dependence? Shared interests?
He flips over onto his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling that get bigger everyday. Another thing he needs to fix. It was summer, so it wouldn't be a necessity until the fall chill blew in. A star winked high above in the sky.
He didn't want to think anymore. It was too much work.
They had a television brought in a couple days ago. It's huge, certified most expensive thing in all of District 12, and takes up almost half of the living room's back wall. Due to its size, the couch is shifted up uncomfortably too close to the screen, the back hitting against the table, leaving barely enough space to squeeze in and out of the room at all. It's got two speakers on both sides too - the better to hear the screaming and crying with.
She sits behind them, perched on a stool Isla dragged in from the kitchen for her. She wouldn't even be here, but she's played sick one too many times, and when she's tried to bow out again, her father had given her a look, and she became the docile lamb she hated. His eyes had said what he'd voiced the night before, "Keep them happy, Margaret. We need them to stay happy here."
The intricate hats and hair and accessories the Capitol guests wear block half her view. In a time like this, she's grateful for their vanity.
She does not, however, miss a second of the scene unfolding in front of her.
The little girl from District 11, allied with Katniss, is caught in a net trap. Katniss appears - the little girl shouts her name - and the boy from District 1 spears her through her stomach.
She bites down hard on her lip to keep from letting out a scream. The Capitol guests do not do the same, instead, they gasp dramatically, turning to one another and whispering.
Katniss, the camera going in for a close-up on her face, immediately lines up her bow and shoots the District 1 tribute with an arrow in the neck. The guests lean back and one even lets out an exclamation. The boy falls.
The girl is still half-alive. Madge watches through misty eyes as Katniss cuts her loose from the net. They hold hands. Katniss tells her that she's destroyed all the food.
Clever Katniss. Her plan worked.
Katniss starts to sing. She always had a nice voice. The lullaby, about the flowers and the meadow. It makes Madge's heart ache, and she feels her eyes start to burn with hot tears. It's a District 12 song.
She has to keep them back. She can't cry here.
"It's so tragic about that young girl. What was her name? Ro?" The woman wearing the pink and yellow hair flower announces loudly.
"Rue." It's the first thing she's said all night, and she struggles not to shout that the girl's name was Rue, and she died for your entertainment, so the least you could do was remember her name.
They all turn and look at her with varying levels of disdain, and Yvette replies, "Yes. Rue."
Her father cuts his eyes at her, but she doesn't care that she's taken a step too far.
She closes her eyes, and imagines herself playing the song on the piano in the next room. It's a quiet song, intimate, to be sung to someone you love.
He goes hunting. It's strenuous, but the fresh air fills his lungs and clear his mind. He's an animal now, a wolf, and he doesn't think. He's all instinct, in the cover of late afternoon and the beginning of night. He's checked the traps, dinner mostly covered by what had been caught there. But now he hunts for something extra, something special to bring home.
He's tired of watching his family eat berries and stale meat for every meal (and they've downgraded to only eating twice a day, to try to make what they've got stretch).
Also, a dark part of him wants to hunt. To bring a knife down on an animal, blood on his hands, so that he can pretend that he's doing something that matters. He can pretend that he's saving the world from the Capitol. The rabbit is President Snow and the Gamemakers and his boss at the mine.
He stares at what he's done after, hacked a perfectly good piece of meat to shreds. He's so angry, it scares him.
He drops the rabbit where he stands, and walks back the way he came, carcasses thrown carelessly over his shoulder. His vest is hot, and his skin is sticky with thick sweat. He grits his teeth.
He walks. He has to keep walking, he doesn't know where he's going, but he does not want to stand still.
It isn't long before he finds himself standing a half a mile away from Madge's doorstep.
He stares hazily at her back porch, the mowed grass, the painted white wood. The lights are on in all the rooms except one, on the second floor, and the curtains are drawn.
He hasn't been able to see her in days, and he misses her more than he expected to.
But he walks away, back to the Seam, back to his house. Posy hugs him as he walks through the door, Vick and Rory holler their hellos, and his mother kisses his cheek. The lights are on in his house.
His fingers are still trembling, as he pushes his trappings onto the tiny table in the kitchen. His mother touches his wrist, asks him if something's wrong. He says nothing, drifts into his room, flops onto his bed.
He closes his eyes, but he can not sleep.
A/N: Hi everyone!
I know some people may be disappointed, not any Gadge interaction in this chapter, and super angsty. But it's important to their individual characters that they go through this stuff alone. Also this chapter is pretty short, but the next one will make up for it (it's a bit of a doozy lol). But I hope some people liked it anyway!
Thanks everyone that followed/favorited/reviewed/read! You all deserve a milkshake (or smoothie, or drink of your choice, I don't discriminate).
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