VII
Consummation Games
Some lessons Katniss does want to learn
"Everyone thinks you fuck like rabbits out here. Have been for years. And they wonder how come you didn't get pregnant yet. But after all, your mother is the healer…" Madge trails off and laughs at Katniss' dumbstruck expression.
"Everyone as in…?" Katniss grates out when she gets her voice back. Now, she's torn between regret at taking Madge along to the woods at all, and relief that there's nobody around to overhear.
"People at school, from what I know." It's not like Madge talked to classmates besides Katniss all that often, but apparently, she listens more than she speaks. "You never noticed?"
"Nobody said anything around me," she shrugs. Truth is, she did develop a little interest in the bathroom whispers recently… listening for tips and tricks, one might say. Ideas that were of no interest to her a couple of years ago are now taking form in her imagination with surprising ease. If she is a subject of some gossip herself, though, Katniss hopes none of the younger kids caught a word of that. She'd have to keep a closer eye on them from now on. Or more like a closer ear. It wouldn't do if they overheard something crude. And untrue. Mostly untrue.
Katniss and Gale were not ones for big announcements, but they have grown more relaxed around their families, holding hands and leaning into each other, exchanging chaste pecks to much awwing and ewwing from their siblings. That's about as much Katniss would share with the people dearest to her, the rest of the District better mind its own business. Gale made that clear enough in the Hob, shooting icy glares whenever someone dared to whisper something within earshot. He's left school almost two years ago, but she might just be intimidating enough by herself there. She is certainly lonelier, and more grateful for Madge's company. Katniss still catches herself glancing at the doorway during her lunch hour, out of habit. Now she wonders if she's been that obvious about him, and that oblivious to anyone else. Perhaps. When she mentions that to Madge, her friend nods sagely. "Don't worry, your not-secrets are safe with me. They are just jealous you snagged the hottest guy around, it's not your problem."
Katniss still feels her face burning, but concedes the point.
Katniss she snorts under her breath whenever she remembers the conversation. Like rabbits.
(She has seen rabbits going at it many times, it didn't look particularly satisfying. She'd always feel bad about shooting them afterwards and let them go, giving the next generation a chance. Her own survival depended on that after all.
In her own case, though, a next generation was the last thing she wanted to think about now. Enough hungry kids as it is, with the shadow of the reaping – her last – hanging above them all.)
By the time she meets Gale on Sunday, she's been biting her tongue for days, waiting to tell him in the privacy of their woods. Even though she doubts she could say it aloud without her face catching on fire.
Before she can mention it, Gale wants to know something else. "What do you want for your birthday, Catnip?"
It's still a couple of months away, the spring is just beginning, gold slowly fading into green. Katniss bites her lip. Regarding what she's want, she can think of a million things and nothing at all. Or everything. "You."
He raises his eyebrows. "In any way you don't have me yet?"
Truth is, they have grown somewhat reckless, indulgent, devouring each other with kisses on an empty stomach. At first, she used to be surprised at how much lower her thoughts would go when Gale trailed hot, wet kisses down her neck, afraid almost, but her apprehension was easily giving way to curiosity. And desire. And a somewhat frantic need to taste everything life has to offer before it might be too late.
"Yes," she says firmly.
She almost laughs at his expression, the eager and hopeful grin, quickly replaced by concern. "But…"
"But I'll have to ask my mom for the right herbs, yeah," she finishes for him.
"Would you do that? For… for me?"
"For us," she corrects him. "I've been thinking about it lately. I… want to."
"I love you, you know," he says.
The words hang between them, never spoken aloud until now, but their truth alive in every moment they've shared, perhaps for longer than either of them realized. "I mean… I love you, I mean that," he stumbles over more words. "But maybe this was a stupid moment to say it. Not like it… depended on what you are willing to do… physically. I've loved you for years and will love you until I die, whether you want kids or not, whether kissing is all you want to do or not, whether you… love me or not."
He is quite breathless by the time she finishes, and she almost laughs again, but the moment seems too fragile for that. She caresses his face, coaxing him to breathe again. "I know. I love you too."
He wraps his hands around her wrist, presses a kiss into her palm, breathes a sigh of relief against her fingers. "I love you," he repeats, the little words safer and sweeter than long explanations, echoed between their lips as she leans closer to kiss him. His hands slip under her thighs, lifting her lightly into his lap, and she wraps herself around him, tangles her fingers in his hair, kisses him like never before.
When they pull away to take a breath, she's dizzy and excited, too excited to care about ruining a moment that started out altogether too serious. "By the way, Madge said people already think we fuck like rabbits out here."
It takes a second for her words to sink in. Gale laughs boisterously and squeezes her even closer, long fingers wrapped around her hips. "Bet we could give them a run for their money."
She laughs with him. "You mean the rabbits or whoever is talking about it?"
"Both."
"Not like anyone here had much money anyway."
"You wouldn't want to know what the guys in the mines are talking about. And the women too, for that matter."
"About us?"
"No. At least not when I can hear them. Just about… better things one could be doing than hacking at coal, you know. But yeah, I don't know if you want to hear that."
She sees an opportunity and takes it. "You think a hands-on demonstration would be better?"
"Hands, too."
She wiggles a little against his tight grip. "Someone is looking forward to it." Not like he could hide his own excitement from her when she was sitting on his lap, chest flush against his, legs around his waist.
"I'm all yours, Catnip, I've told you already. Whenever you want."
"My birthday, then."
They have spent some nights outside the fence already, when the electricity suddenly turned on and caught them unprepared. Shared body heat awkwardly in the early years, a necessity for survival, and eagerly later, exchanging goodnight kisses that lasted for hours and then spooning in a hollow under some bushes, cocooned in their jackets.
Now they plan to spend the night out at the house by the lake in the woods. They've managed to repair and furnish it a little in the course of the last year, making the trip perhaps one Sunday a month, whenever they could spare the time and energy. (The effort put any thoughts of trying to quit the District with their whole family into a harsh perspective, but they still tried to prepare for any contingency. After all, the whispers in the mines weren't only about love. The main topic was fight.)
Conveniently, Katniss' birthday falls on a Saturday. They celebrate with the whole family right after Gale's shift in the mines, and when the sky begins to darken and Posy begins to nod towards sleep, Katniss and Gale make for the woods, the moon and stars guiding their path.
The lake is dark and placid under the night-bright sky, still chilly but too inviting after their trek. After making fire in the small hearth, they take a dip in the water, naked and free.
Staying close to the shore, and close to each other, they end up standing chest-deep in the water., face to face. Katniss raises her hand slowly, fingertips skimming over his moon-silvered skin. After almost two years in the mines, Gale is leaner and stronger than ever, all weary bones and wiry muscles. Beautifully sculpted, but too thin, she's all too aware of that, and same goes the other way around. He traces her slight curves under the water, gently, reverently, thumbs brushing over her ribs, her hipbones. Then he lifts her against him, stifles her yelp with a kiss as he shifts her into his arms and wades out of the lake.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she clings to him and allows him to carry her over the threshold of the little house. Into their nest of blankets by the fire, under a patched roof in the middle of their woods - perhaps the truest home they'll ever know.
Remembering the way he carried her more than two years ago, she realizes that was the moment that might have started the gradual change in her – when he held her in his arms and she liked it. Or, more precisely, she realized later that she liked it, let something important slowly settle into place. Allowed herself to find her home in his arms.
He sets her back on her feet by the fire, they dry off and sit on the blankets.
"I do have something else for you. If you want it." Gale reaches into his bag and fishes out something tiny, presents it to her on the palm of his hand, unwrapped.
A ring.
She'd kill him for buying one, he knows that all too well, but this is obviously handmade, his skill put to a different use.
The elaborately wound wire is silvered, expensive enough to have kept him hungrier than usual for weeks. The stone is rough but perfectly clear, firelight dancing in the depths.
Her breath catches in her throat.
"It's a piece of quartz I found, you know. The guys keep talking about digging out diamonds down there in the mines, but that's bullshit. There are no diamonds here. We have to make do with what we've got."
She looks into his face, so familiar and so precious to her, the sharp angles and rough facets, the silver glint in his eyes. The fire and steely resolve that would bend to her will. She smiles. "I'll gladly do that."
Gale holds the ring out for her, pinched between his fingers, not a trap but an open path to be chosen freely. She slips her finger into the ring, her hand into his palm. "I love you," she says it first this time.
He echoes her words and pulls her to him. "Happy birthday, Catnip," he whispers against her lips.
Gently, she touches his face, runs her hands down his neck, over his shoulders. His chest is familiar territory already, but now her fingers trail downwards, tentative, curious, touching him more intimately than ever. Letting his hand guide hers at first, soon finding the rhythm herself and watching his face in fascination, revelling in the effect she has on him. She enjoys seeing him like that; cheeks flushed and lips parted, completely unravelled and completely hers, spilling life into her hand. The wild, dark look in his eyes as she brings her fingers to her mouth for a taste, a promise he'd fulfil at once: fingers rubbing her raw, his cheeks rough against her inner thighs, her body soon clenching around his fingers, quivering at the tip of his tongue.
After, she pulls him up to taste herself on his lips, wraps her thighs around his hips as he slides into her. They make love then, slowly, gently, thoroughly, moving as two parts of one being until her body arches like a bow and she clings to him in her ecstasy, the life-lines of her palms all but etched into his shoulders, claiming him for her own.
Whatever the future brings, this night is just for them. Whatever the future brings, they will face it together. Katniss and Gale – the companion by her side, the friend watching her back, and now, finally, the lover in her arms.
Ok so… this was never meant to be a big comprehensive story, so I shall just leave it here… but for the record, they live more or less happily ever until the heat death of the universe or District 12, whichever comes first. I hope that helps, the idea certainly helps me. And so did finally getting this out of my system. Cheers to the chapter that was originally supposed to have been posted on Valentine's Day, 2015. Bye.