Kind of a weird chappie... hope you like.
Topsy
"You're not going to like it," I warned him, stroking the rabbit on my lap with idle fingers.
"It's the Games," he says simply. "No one should like it."
"Alright," I said, taking a bracing breath. "Where should I start?"
"The arena," he says, voice stiff in preparation.
"It's… a whole different world, really. Like you're completely isolated and yet exposed for everyone to see, at the same time. But it's really just another hunting game, if you can think like that. Move silently, kill swiftly, and you should be fine." My voice receded to whisper. "Surely you saw what it was like just by watching us- me."
"Looked tough, but I knew you were tougher. Though I admit I was a bit worried when I saw the bow and arrows at the Cornucopia… it was a bloodbath…"
"O ye of little faith," I mutter, elbowing him. He half-smiled.
"And then you disappeared for a while. I mean, you must've been fine because the cameras didn't bother giving you screen time. They bothered in watching that boy from nine die slowly, though…" He paused, mentally editing. "And your alliance with Rue? Why?"
"I guess I didn't ask that. I asked why not? She seemed trustworthy, though not about to run off when she gets bored with me… we had stuff in common. It was a mistake—" My voice cracked.
"The alliance?" he prodded gently.
"No. The friendship. I was stupid, thinking I was going to gain anything by having a friend in the arena. Knowing that one of us is going to die. And the other is going to suffer. Nobody gets out unharmed."
"And you sang to her…"
"I sang her to death, yes. And covered her in flowers…" I let the thought fade away with any moisture that had gathered in my gaze.
Sensing the need for a topic change, Gale finally chipped the tip of the iceburg we had yet to climb. "And… Peeta?"
I gave a humorless laugh, just one. More of a rushed exhale. "And Peeta. I really did want to kill him, when he was with the Careers… wait, he did save me from Caoto, right?" I waited for him to say no, or give me a weird look, but he just looked solemn and nodded.
"Tracker-jacker venom?" he asked for explanation.
"Yeah… horrible stuff."
Another pause clogged the air.
"What was the worst part?" I asked quietly, setting the rabbit down by my boots. "For you?"
"It can't even compare to what you've been through," he warned, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands hanging before him. "But there were only really three."
My silence told him to go on.
"The fireballs. Your burn from them- I'd watched the other tributes get hurt before you, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't their skin that got fried. It wasn't their bone showing. It wasn't their blood."
I pressed back the memory of endless heat and firey pain, trying instead to think of how their cameras could've seen me through the gagging smoke.
"The cave."
I waited for an explanation before realizing I didn't want to hear it.
"You… you're a damn good actress." His steely grey eyes skipped over the surface of the lake, up to the treetops, down to his worn boots, anywhere but my gaze. He was bothered. But he didn't need ranting for this. His silence was harsh enough.
"And?" I prodded. I could guess, though.
"The berries." Thought so. The ultimate profession of a love that I branded as fake for so long before I stopped and actually thought. Even realized that not only is this my only ticket out of the arena… but I couldn't honestly live without him. After all he'd done.
His explanation didn't come, so I guessed my own. "You thought you'd lost me." I meant to death. His gaze finally lifted to mine, and I realized he didn't.
"I'd already lost you by then," he said bitterly. "I'd lost you as soon as you called out for him in that tree. And I keep looking," his eyes searched my face, "but I can't find you."
In one fluid motion, he was on his feet, bow scooped from the ground. He cleared his throat gruffly, retrieving the rabbit from my boots. "So," he coughed. "Do you want to eat, or what?"
I nodded and got to my feet, but the hostility waving off him set off my hunter's mentality, and I only ended up with two geese. I forgot all about the doe. We didn't talk at all as we hunted, only emitting frustrated sighs when we screwed up, or relieved rushes when we didn't. The way his eyes were guarded stopped me whenever I tried to say something, and after a few hours I couldn't help but begin to feel angry with him. I'd looked forward to coming home to a relationship that I didn't always have to question, or gave me headaches to think about. I'd been dreaming of this day, when we could just go hunting together and have it be normal- no questions about any alternate intentions. I'd been stewing over this for so long, by the time we neared the fence again and Gale had the wit to ask if I needed help over it, I acted childishly.
The rabbit I'd been carrying around found itself flung through the air and smacked into the back of Gale's head.
"Ouch," he complained slowly, though I could see he wasn't actually in any pain. "What was that for?"
"For—for—making it hard!" I exclaimed as I realized I didn't quite know my intentions behind my rabbit-attack. "And for a lousy welcome," I added in a childishly stubborn grumble.
"I'm making it hard?" he said, matching my tone of impatience. "I'm the not the one who spent her whole Games stuck to a wimpy baker boy!"
"You think it was easy?"
"Whispering sweet nothings and making out all day? Didn't seem too taxing to me."
I dropped my armload of geese to better gesticulate what had been bubbling up inside of my head for so long. "And having my leg burnt to a crisp? Being attacked by Tracker Jackers? Almost dehydrating to death? And then—because I, like you said, had it too easy—having to single-handed nurse a dying, immobile guy back to pristine condition—"
He opened his mouth to interrupt, but I didn't give him the time.
"—while watching both our backs for the people who are out to kill us. All the time. Not to mention knowing that if I'm being too boring, someone up in the Games control room can press a button and have my only safe haven explode! So maybe I did like kissing him—maybe I came up with the berries because we both knew that we'd saved each other's butts—but if that looked too easy for you, why don't you try it. And the odds—" I took a huge huff of breath, "—are not in your favor."
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