Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
The Talk, pt 2 or Uncomfortable Family Discussions
Gale thinks the conversation will die after his attempted self smothering.
Vick says nothing more, just looks moderately disappointed, and Gale threatens to lock Rory in the wood box to shut him up.
When they get to the dinner table he expects to have a quiet, though unsatisfying, dinner, hearing about school and Posy playing with Lady the goat.
"So are they gonna do it?" Posy whispers rather loudly to Vick.
Not you too. He groans and puts his elbows to the table, covers his face with his hands. It's bad enough dealing with his brothers, Posy's just a baby really.
Vick gives her a sad little smile and shakes his head.
Posy huffs and turns her head to Gale, a look of utter disgust on her little face.
"Who is doing what?" Hazelle asked as she placed the last glass of tepid water in front of Rory.
"Not doing," Rory clarifies with a shit-eating grin. "And Gale and Madge."
Someone is visiting the wood box. Gale glowers at Rory who only smiles serenely back.
"What are Gale and Madge not doing?"Hazelle asks again.
Posy pouts, "Getting married."
"Oh," Hazelle's forehead creases a little. "That's, uh, too bad."
She glances at Gale as if to say what prompted this?He just shakes his head.
"I just wanted them to get married so they could make each other happy," Vick mutters into his thin soup.
Hazelle pats his head, "Honey, getting married doesn't necessarily make someone happy."
He sighs, "But that's not what the book said."
And so it begins. Gale braces himself for the worst.
"What book?" Their mother asks hesitantly. She seems to sense this conversation is about to head down a path even she, with four children, can't predict.
"At the library."
"There are an awful lot of books at the library, Vick, you'll have to be a little more specific."
Rory pipes in, a little less than helpfully, "He means the one about sex."
Of all the things she might have expected, hearing that her youngest son had been reading up on sex was clearly not among the contenders. Her mouth drops just a hair and she looks to Gale.
What is going on here?
"The book said sex makes you happy cause it makes your body release stuff that makes you happy and Gale and Madge need to be happy too so I thought they could get married so they could have sex and be happy."
Gale glances at his mother. She's standing with a look caught somewhere between horror and hilarity, she'll either burst into tears or burst out in laughter.
Her mouth moves but no words come out, her youngest son's latest foray into match making and chemically induced euphoria has rendered her mute.
"Vick," she finally starts, "two people can't get married just so they can have sex."
Rory slurps down some soup, "I told him that. Told him all they had to do was go to the slag heap." He grins over Gale snottily, "Gale knows the way. I've heard some of the girls at school say so."
"Rory!" She snaps. She isn't dense. Hazelle is perfectly aware her son is no angel and even more aware he's been visiting the slag heap regularly since he was just shy of fifteen. That, however, doesn't mean she wants her youngest two exposed to that knowledge.
"What's at the slag heap?" Posy asks innocently.
Vick gives her a most serious look, "It's where people go to have sex."
She nods sagely. "Oh, okay." She looks perplexed, "Is Gale going to take Madge to the slag heap for sex, then?"
This is getting ridiculous. Gale sets his head against the table and begins gently banging his forehead against the wood.
"He can't take Madge to the slag heap, Posy. She's Madge. That place is too filthy for her," Vick tells her. He turns to Gale, still face down on the table, "Her room is really nice. If you marry her maybe she'll let you have sex on her bed."
"I bet it's a lot softer than ours, Gale," Rory smirks as he lifts his soup to his lips.
It is, Gale actually knows that for a fact. She's put him it to have him sleep off a night of drinking after the Quarter Quell announcement. Most comfortable night of sleep he's had since he was fifteen and had gotten too tall for his own mattress. He isn't about to tell his already dirty minded brother that he has any knowledge of what Madge Undersee's room looks like or how soft and inviting her bed is, though. There's enough fuel on this fire as it is.
He tosses his spoon at Rory's head instead. Unfortunately he ducks and it misses him.
"Gale isn't having sex with Madge. Not at the slag heap, not in her bed, and," Hazelle turns to Rory, cutting him off before he can say it, "no, not in his bed either."
His middle brother looks sorely disappointed for not having gotten to throw that little nugget in.
"What if she says 'yes', though," Vick asks. He looks at her with his wide eyes.
She gives him a stern look. "I forbid you from asking her."
Vick bites his lip.
Gale looks to his mother and arches his eyebrows. Yeah, that look means exactly what you think it does.
Her hand raises up and covers her eyes, as if not seeing her children will make their antics go away. "Oh, Vick…"
"She said she'd think about it," he tells her. As though that will make the situation any better.
Hazelle goes to her seat and sinks down. She rests her elbows on the table then begins massaging her temples. She's probably formulating how to explain to her son that you cannot ask a girl to have sex with your brother and how she's going to apologize to said girl for the proposition.
"I told her Gale might even shave, 'cause he's so hairy, you know?"
Because that'll seal the de-wait, what?
"You told her what?" Gale can feel the heat rising in his face, climbing up his chest and over his cheeks.
"Well you are hairy, Gale."
"It's normal to have hair!"
"Not in those places!"
Posy looks confused, "What places? What places, momma?"
Hazelle just shakes her head and sighs, she's lost control of the situation. Rory is grinning and eating his soup. The evening entertainment is an absolute delight to him.
"He has it all-"
"Vick!" Hazelle stops him from telling Posy just where those places were, complete with hand gestures and a look of revolt.
She looks to Gale. It's obvious they're going to have to have a talk with Vick about the changes his little body is soon to be running through, most likely Hazelle. Gale isnt' in the mood, nor does he foresee any time in the immediate future when he will be. Gale had suspected, sadly, that Vick's little crush on Undersee was the beginning of that ugly phase.
They need to do it before Rory has the chance, though. No telling what lies he'd try to fill Vick's head with otherwise.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Vick huffs. "Madge didn't seem upset when I told her about it. I just told her he'd shave 'cause she's so smooth."
Gale tries to find it funny that his little brother somehow managed to have an entire conversation about having sex and body hair in private places with the Mayor's daughter, but somehow the fact that it had mostly centered on him made the whole thing less than amusing. The fact that he's also somehow certain Vick made it sound as if he's some kind of sasquatch only makes it worse.
No, the fact that Undersee apparently didn't seem to mind, according to Vick, anyway, was what made the whole thing worse.
Now Gale was going to be plagued with all too pleasant nightmares of soft, smooth skin, and a squishy warm bed. He really didn't have time for that crap, no matter how nice a distraction it was.
Hazelle starts to tell Vick and Posy to 'just finish your dinner, please' and Rory continues to smirk at the whole situation. Gale goes to retrieve his spoon, smacking Rory on the back of the head with his open palm for ducking it.
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"So," Vick looks a little mortified, "Madge is all hairy, too."
Gale runs his hand over his face. He does not want to talk about Undersee's hair, not the golden locks on her head or the soft fluff she undoubtedly has anywhere else on her person.
It makes him uneasy because he enjoys thinking about it a little too much. Damn hormones.
Vick chews his tongue, "Huh, the book didn't say that."
That book apparently left quite a bit up to the imagination, it seemed.
He thinks for a minute, "Does it go up insi-"
"No."
God, why didn't his mother have this conversation.
Gale wishes, for the millionth time, that his father was around. He'd been so good explaining this crap to Gale, and Gale had passed the knowledge, almost by rote, to Rory. Rory had also seemed to pick up a few of the unmentioned things watching Gale and listening in on he and his friends, something Gale now wishes he'd been a little more vigilant about not letting happen.
Vick was more curious though, asked too many questions Gale didn't have the answers to.
"Doesn't it hurt her," he looks terrified, for Madge and probably every other girl Gale's ever had any sort of relationship with.
Doesn't seem to. Gale thinks mildly. Probably not the answer Vick needs though.
"Well, babies come out there too, right? And babies are pretty big."
Vick raises his hands in the air, approximating the size of whatever baby he's seen most recently's head size. His eyes widen. "I guess you're right."
They sit there on Gale's bed, Vick pondering the wonders of the female body while Gale tries desperately not too, in silence.
"Mom and Dad did it four times," Vick finally says, looking both amazed and disgusted.
Gale is perfectly certain his parents did that far more than four times, there were nearly five years between he and Rory after all, it isn't something he likes to mull over.
Finally, Vick sighs, "So…do you really not want to have sex with Madge?"
Gale presses his fingers to his eyes.
His body, the faithless thing, most certainly wouldn't turn it down.
His heart beat a little bit faster and everything that was supposed to react to a pretty girl reacted just as it should. He'd caught himself one too many times, in the dark mines during their all too brief lunch breaks, imagining her brightness, her soft hair and her soft body, little pink lips saying his name…
His mind, however, knew that was cruel. Undersee, Madge, with her sad little smiles and her big eyes and her willingness to let his brother embarrass her to crimson, deserved better than to be his warm body. His empty comfort as he and Mellark waged their little battle over Katniss' heart.
Really, it would be easier to hate her, but like Mellark, she was just too damn easy to like.
She was soft and sweet and she really was too good for him. Rory had been right about that.
"She likes you, Gale." Vick looks down at his hands, "She won't say it 'cause you like Katniss, but she does. I know it. And Katniss is with Peeta."
Madge likes him, but maybe not in that way, probably not. He was an ass to her, or had been, for months.
Vick's head leans over on Gale's shoulder, "Just don't hurt her, please?"
She's his friend, his after school help, someone who makes him not feel quite so useless, and Vick is just perceptive enough to know she might have a crush on Gale. And just perceptive enough to know Gale has both the potential and the propensity to hurt her. He'd even tried to curb it with his little proposition. A way to make them happy and, maybe a little selfishly, he is only ten, to keep Madge from fleeing his life. Gale wouldn't hurt her if they were married, he wouldn't break her heart or his vows.
Vick, Gale decides, is far more deviant than Rory could ever hope to be.
"I'll try," he mutters into his brother's hair, giving him a little kiss while doing so.
He hopes he isn't lying.
######################################################
Madge's mother glides in, like the wisp she is, after Vick leaves. She gets in the icebox and pulls out some butter, then reaches in the bread bin for a roll before settling on the stool Madge had recently vacated.
Madge is cleaning out the cups, the housekeeper is off taking care of her grandbabies, both sick with the measles, so she tries to keep things from getting too backed up. Beside, Mrs. Oberst would have kittens if Madge let the teacups sit in the sink too long.
"They'll stain," she'd once told Madge gruffly.
She's nearly done, finishing up on the second one, when her mother, airy as ever speaks.
"Are you going to have sex with the Hawthorne boy?"
Madge nearly drops the cup out of her still wet hands.
This isn't happening.
Her mother must've been listening at the door. She's practically a spirit anyway, Madge shouldn't be surprised she ghosted her way down stairs to eavesdrop. She tries to ignore the question. Maybe she'll forget it, drift back into her own world.
"Did you hear me, love? Are you going to have sex with him?"
Madge finishes drying the cup, continues ignoring her, and is deciding if she can just walk out of the room and make her mother think she'd been hearing things when her mother sighs.
"You'll want to find special condoms, love. I'm allergic to latex, you might be too. Brake out in a terrible rash. All itchy. You wouldn't want that down th-"
"Mother!" Madge spins on her heals. She won't, can't, have this conversation with her. It's beyond mortifying. "I'm not having sex, with anyone."
She looks mildly confused, "Are you sure? The little boy, he's such a smart thing, he made a good point."
"I'm positive."
Her mother frowns, her nose wrinkles up a bit. Then she nods serenely, "I'll get your father to buy the special ones, just in case you change your mind."
Oh, god, no.
"Mom, no, please."
But her mother is off, humming to herself and buttering her roll. As though she hadn't just endorsed her daughter having sex by offering prophylactics.
Madge flops herself across the counter, covers her head. This day couldn't possibly get anymore humiliating.
Then, as if somewhere in the world there was a cruel overlord, a singular being whose sole purpose was to make Madge's day just that much more of an exercise in embarrassment, the back door opened, and in stumbled Mr. Abernathy.
Madge raises her head just enough to glare at him. He kept coming by to raid her father's liquor cabinet because Peeta had tossed all his.
He smirked at her, "What's your problem, Pearl?"
Madge is about to tell him to go dry out and leave them be, he isn't entitled to her father's drinks, when her mother pipes up.
"She's deciding whether to have sex with the Hawthorne boy or not."
If having this conversation with her mad mother wasn't bad enough, now Haymitch Abernathy was in on it.
He looks at Madge, horrorstruck. "What?"
"He's rather handsome, isn't he? Very tall."
Haymitch snatches the roll and butter knife from Madge's mother, and before Madge can say a word in her own defense, he gives her a hard look.
"Don't even think about it, missy. He's no good. Got a reputation, I have ears, I hear everything." He finishes buttering the roll and hands it back to Madge's mother before brandishing the butterknife at Madge like a pointer, "Probably eaten up with all kinds of venereal diseases. Herpes and Chlamydia, ebola, crabs, bubonic, the clap!"
Madge was fairly certain at least a few of those either weren't real or weren't transmitted in the way Mr. Abernathy was implying they were.
"Calm down, Mr. Abernathy, I'm not," she closes her eyes, loath to say it, "having sex with Gale. I'm not doing that with anyone."
He seems unconvinced, "You better stick to your guns, kid. I don't care what he tells you, what half baked thing he tries to convince you to let him in your panties, you don't let him get so much as a fing-"
Madge makes a strangled noise and throws her hand out. "Don't! Please! I-I'm not-we aren't-no!"
"Oh, Haymitch, don't be crude," her mother takes another bite of her roll.
Madge feels a little faint. A sex talk with Mr. Abernathy is surely a punishment from above.
He gives her mother a sharp look, "I'm trying to help your girl here, 'Tilda. No telling what lies that boy has fed her. I was a teenager once, I know how those little bastards minds work."
"Look, I'm not doing anything with Gale or anyone else. No one."
"Even mouth things," he starts. "Get you down on your kne-"
Madge puts her fingers in her ears, she sincerely does not want to know where that sentence is going.
She turns when she hears the backdoor clatter shut. Her father surveys the situation with a frown.
"Everything alright?"
Mother and Mr. Abernathy have lost what little sense they had left.
"Daniel! Tell your daughter she can't have sex with Hawthorne," Mr. Abernathy tells him before Madge so much as opens her mouth.
Her father looks at Madge and raises his eyebrows. He knows she's no closer to having any kind of relations with Gale Hawthorne, or any boy in the District for that matter, than she is of rocketing to the moon. He turns and gives Mr. Abernathy a shrewd look, "I'll assume you're talking about the oldest one, the other two are a bit young and only one has even hit puberty. So," he gives Madge a little smile, "Madge, please don't have sex with the Hawthorne boy, it seems to be upsetting Haymitch."
He breezes by her, "I just came to pick up some papers. I forgot them this afternoon after lunch."
Haymitch is sputtering, "This isn't a joke, Danny boy!"
Madge is given a reprieve from his sudden parental attentions as he grumbles off to follow her father.
She's about to sneak off, her mother is vacantly eating the last of her roll and has apparently forgotten the whole horrible conversation, when her father and Mr. Abernathy reappear.
"-knocked up, or fleas, or Dutch elm disease, or-"
Her father holds up his hand, "I appreciate the concern, Haymitch, but I feel I've raised a bright enough girl that she won't be getting pregnant or a tree fungus, no matter what she does or does not do or who she chooses to do that with."
Madge gives him a grateful smile, he at least isn't making this into a production, won't entertain the wild imagination of a mad Victor. He kisses the top of her head and heads out.
Mr. Abernathy isn't finished.
"Or parvo!" He shouts out the door after him.
"That's a dog disease! My god, what exactly do you think he does?"
He turns back to her, "You never know, sweetheart."
Madge buries her face in her hands.
"Mr. Abernathy, please, I'm not going to do anything with him," she hears her own muffled voice mutter. She spreads her fingers over her eyes, "He doesn't even like me."
His eyes soften and he reaches out, gives the end of her ponytail a tweak.
"He's fool then, and just one more reason not to let him get his filthy hands on any part of you." He takes her hand from her face, "Don't let him hurt you, Pearl."
She gives him a faint smile, "I'll try."