A handful of days pass with more of the same: at night, Haymitch stays quiet and stays awake. During the daylight hours, he sleeps and stays quiet - as long as I'm curled up near him. There were strictly no repeats of the kissing episode, though. I'm not crazy enough to pull that stunt again because, unlike some people, I still value my life. But regardless of what Haymitch'd said that day, and the barriers he'd made very clear every day after, I can't help but get the feeling that he liked it, that he wouldn't mind it happening again. I know I would. I just get the feeling he thinks he's protecting me by keeping me distant. Yeah, okay.
Most days I try to split up my sleeping equally between daylight and nighttime so I can still be somewhat with the world. I go to Haymitch's when he starts screaming, say, mid-day, and stay until I wake up. I make mornings – my afternoons, really – my time in the woods, frequenting it when daylight begins to break, bringing Haymitch something to wake up to at night. Then Sunday rolls around before I'm even thinking about it, and I enter the woods only to see another figure hunched in the grassy knoll of my clearing. Our clearing. Because, after stepping closer, I realize it's Gale there waiting for me.
His face alights into its relaxed, I'm-finally-free state when he turns and sees me coming, but once I sit down next to him, he curls up his nose and says, "You smell like him."
"Good morning to you, too." I say.
"It's like, rancid."
"What is?"
"The overwhelming Haymitch smell on you."
"I've been sleeping over at his house," I shrug.
Gale raises an eyebrow at me.
"It shuts him up," I say. Last Sunday I brought my qualms about going-through-withdrawals-and-terrorizing-Prim Haymitch to Gale. He suggested I douse him with water until he stops. So besides being Gale, he should really be understanding in this moment.
But when he says, "I'll bet it shuts him up," I get defensive. The way he says it, the intonation, it's all wrong.
"What are you trying to imply?" I ask him outright, not going for this unspoken crap any longer.
"You know exactly what I'm implying," he says. I do, and I don't like it. Because what Gale's implying, the way he's implying it, makes it seem like I'm sleeping, actually sleeping with some dirty old man who is taking advantage of me. And just because Gale'd like to take advantage of me doesn't mean that's what Haymitch is doing. We haven't even – I mean I've never –
I'm sure my face is changing colors from this train of thought, but I stop, knowing I have to combat Gale's implications with something.
So I scoff. "Right," I say, clearly indicating just how wrong he is. "Let's just hunt, okay?"
"Okay," he smirks at me as he agrees. Clearly the whole purpose of that exercise was just to get me hot under the collar. Well, it worked. And it's given me a lot more to think about than just how I smell.
When I bring the game over to Haymitch's that morning, I find he's still awake. He's been doing that in recent days, waiting for me to bring him a kill before snoozing. Spoiled bastard. I'm feeling pretty melancholic as I heave the game bag onto the counter. He looks up at me from his water glass. Seriously, Haymitch has to be the most hydrated person in 12 now that it's dry. Trying to make up for the dryness I suppose.
"What's eating you?" he asks, gruff maybe, but a lick of concern dotting his bloodshot eyes. He needs to go to bed.
"Gale," I mumble, pulling out a bird and berries.
"Your dear cousin?" he mocks.
"Yeah, he annoys the shit out of me," I say angrily, furiously beginning to pluck at feathers.
"Good," is all he says. He sips from his water, eyeing me over the glass.
"Aren't you even going to ask why?" I grumble exasperatedly, not knowing why I felt I had to discuss this with Haymitch.
He shrugs.
So I volunteer, "He told me I smell like you."
His eyebrows raise at that one.
"And he finds that... repulsive," he drawls.
"Yeah," I say like, duh. That's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Do you?" he asks.
I turn from my plucking frenzy to glare at him. But as his question sinks in, the glare fades. "No," I answer.
I feel like we're suspended in time, just looking at each other, until I feel my gaze lowering involuntarily to his lips. He notices, his eyes blinking twice until he waves his glass in a circle and toasts. "Well there you go, then." And I'm wondering what, exactly, I am having a go at.
"Go to bed," I tell him.
He shrugs, pushing himself up out of the chair and makes his way out of the kitchen and to the staircase. "If that's what you wanna do," he taunts, knowing I'll be right behind him.
"Bastard," I mutter as he begins to creak up the stairs.
"I heard that," his disembodied voice calls down.
I roll my eyes and get back to my bird.
AN: OMG GALE WAT? And again, another short chapter. I just wanted to cut things up right with scene-age and suspense, you know? Stay with me here. I hope I'm not pissing anybody off. Review?