Here goes... something... again. Enjoy & be safe!
V.
The Reaping
One claim Katniss makes for herself
One for Prim. Twenty for her. Forty-two for Gale. Katniss keeps repeating the numbers in her head as they stand corralled in their respective sections, waiting to be called… or spared. One. Twenty. Forty-two. Any number for just one body, a body the Capitol feels free to take, like it didn't matter at all. Katniss digs jagged nails into her own palms, unable to stretch her hands towards the two that complete her world. Prim she can't even see over the many-headed crowd. Gale, taller than most, does catch her eye, reassuring yet equally desperate.
He'd talked about running away just the morning before, beyond the fence. Knowing as well as she did that they couldn't, not with their families, not without.
For them, they had to return and face… this.
Before they parted for the reaping, Katniss wanted to say something, thought he wanted so say something, but neither broke the silence, and now she can just look at him over the crowded square, with the horrible, hollow feeling that he might have slipped through her fingers forever.
Or Prim, however tightly she'd held her sister before she had to leave her in the twelve-year-olds' section.
Katniss holds her breath.
Slips of paper slip through manicured fingers.
In the end, it's not Prim.
Not her.
Not Gale.
She breathes a guilty sigh of relief.
Later, Katniss doesn't know what to do with herself. She keeps hugging Prim until her sister rolls her eyes and pushes her away, reassures her she's not going anywhere. Katniss doesn't miss the quiver in her laugh, though, and barely lets go of her hand long enough to eat dinner. They are dining at the Hawthornes' again, celebrating survival cramped around one battered table. Gale is at Katniss' other side, their shoulders almost touching, elbows bumping. Every touch brings relief – he is here, not gone, not gone – and a spark of something that makes her shy away every time he tries to catch her eye.
Only after he walks them home and the door closes behind her mother and Prim (she'd swear her little siter winked, but it might have been just a trick of the waning light), Katniss faces Gale on her doorstep.
(With the step adding to her height, they are standing properly face to face. And very close.)
"I'm so glad they didn't take you," she whispers, "you are…"
Her voice falters. What was she going to say? Safe? Safe for now before you have to go down into the mines? Or something else completely?
Gale sees her hesitation and grins to lighten it. "Yeah, I'm all yours, Catnip. Isn't that great?"
Reading her damn mind.
She lets out a nervous laugh and hides her face against his chest, her cheeks suddenly hot.
Gale slowly wraps his hands around her waist, slides his palms over her lower back and up her spine, pressing her close. "For the record, I'm very glad they didn't take you either."
Katniss silently clenches her fingers in his shirt, clinging for dear life. They are still wearing their reaping clothes, Katniss a blue dress from her mother, Gale an old dress shirt of his father's, the fabric soft and thin with many washings. For a long moment, they just stand there on the threshold, close and warm, hearts beating against their cages.
"We should get an early start tomorrow," she whispers at last, not moving away just yet.
They need to do their best to stock up before the mandatory viewings begin, trapping them in front of the screens and behind the electrified fence.
Gale nods and releases her slowly, his hands slipping over her waist and away.
Katniss shivers at the sudden loss of warmth, wringing her empty palms together. She's too busy looking at his mouth to catch him looking at hers.
"Goodnight, Catnip."
"See you at dawn."
By the time the sun fully rises above the treetops, they make their way to the lake, cast their fishing lines, and settle on a blanket to wait. They've been hard at work since the first light, setting snares and gathering along the way, and now they share a meagre breakfast and a cluster of honeysuckle flowers for sweetness. Hands brushing in the companionable silence, something unsaid between their fingertips. After, Gale lays back on the blanket, one hand behind his head, the other stretched out. Inviting, Katniss thinks as she looks over to him, inching closer.
A year ago, even a mere month, she would have nudged him hard in the unprotected ribs, perhaps used her advantage to start a tickle fight, but now… after years of sharp glances and sharp elbows, something in her softens, a prickly bud unfurling to bloom.
The relief of still having him with her floods her again, along with the urge to touch him just to make absolutely sure. She lowers herself beside him, a little awkwardly, lays her head on his shoulder and stretches against his side. Not so different from a hug, she thinks as Gale wraps an arm around her shoulders, long fingers playing with her braid. Katniss slowly relaxes against him, their breath settling into the same rhythm.
She doesn't really know what to do with her free hand, stretches is across his chest to his other shoulder, then pulls back, her fingers brushing bare skin where his shirt gapes half open in the balmy summer air. She jerks away as if burnt, but moments later, her fingers steal forward again, tentative, curious, until she wraps them around the frayed edge of his shirt, knuckles of her tight fist against his chest. His breath quickens under her touch, but Gale rubs slow circles on the back of her hand until her fist unfurls, her open palm seeking his hot skin and the wild heartbeat underneath.
Gale presses a kiss against her hair, her forehead, rough fingertips moving away from the wrist to caress her cheekbone.
In the darkness behind her closed eyelids, her face buried in the crook of Gale's neck, Katniss dares to admit that she likes it. Wants it.
Admits in her heart, if not aloud, that she's past building defences and the roots of whatever has grown between them are already in too deep. The fear of loving him and losing him fades next to the impossibility of not letting herself love him at all.
She imagines other hands, capitol hands, touching him, grooming him for the games, and digs her nails into his skin, possessive. Hers. Gale is hers.
The darkness of the mines might still take him, she knows that, but he's with her now, in the light and fresh air of their forest, their world.
Katniss opens her eyes to take him in, slides her hand up his chest and neck to his cheek, mirroring his caress. Her feelings are reflected in his eyes, lighting them up in a way she's never seen – or just never noticed –, though she would have sworn she already knew every flicker of emotion in them, every storm and silver lining. She might have seen very expression of his mouth, too, but only now she gets to feel the softness of his lips – against her fingers, her cheeks, the edge of her jaw, every touch stirring more curiosity that it sates.
His breath against her lips, her fingers tangled in his hair.
She bridges the last inch of distance between them and kisses him. Once, twice, twenty, forty-two times, not like she was counting that far, unnumbered kisses slipping into one. Instinct guides her on a path to new wonders; the taste of mint and honeysuckle on his tongue, the heat of his mouth.
She pulls away before it all overwhelms her completely, but only a fraction, only for a breath, to see him alight with raw happiness.
"I've wanted to do this for a long time, you know," he says softly, the words rumbling in his chest, brushing against her kiss-swollen lips.
Katniss wouldn't lie, not now, not to him, not to herself. "In all honesty, I had no idea. Not until… very recently." She laughs at his knowing grimace. "What were you waiting for?"
Gale smiles even wider. "The right moment, of course."
"And that was?"
He squints at the sun as if trying to gauge the time. "Well… a few minutes ago. But really… I waited to be sure you want it too. And it's after my last reaping, so… when I said I'm all yours, I meant it. I you want."
She nods, words too big and too small caught in her throat, and kisses him again, claiming him for herself.