Here I am with a longer than intended “drabble” (it’s 2.6k words is it really a drabble at this point?) of Gale’s rude and misguided thoughts during his convo at the Everlark house on Tupelo street from Monday’s chapter of my fic, Uncross Our Stars. Brace yourself for some male nonsense. Bone apple teeth
I've waited too long to do this, I know that, but it's been so much harder to find time to talk to her since we can't meet in the woods. We're trapped inside the district fence like rabbits in a snare. We don't even have the Hob anymore. I see her on the road sometimes, which is no place to really talk, and half the time that baker kid is following her around like a lost puppy anyway.
He's probably here right now, those odds are not in my favor, but it's several weeks into spring and if I don't get her out now I never will. I tried to find a time when she would be alone but Rory only knew that when Prim goes over on Saturdays they're always both there. Useless.
It's a damn big house. I knew it would be but the sight of it still burns a bit. White washed too, and with a proper shingles roof. I shake my head as I climb the porch steps and rap my knuckles against the front door. I guess some people would do a lot to live in a place like this, but I know I wouldn't.
When the door creeks open it's Mellark who answers. Of fucking course. He's all shock and confusion when he sees me, as if it's so odd for Katniss's oldest friend to come knocking.
For a moment all he can manage is my name, but then he adds, "Come on in. We haven’t had a chance to have you over yet. Welcome to our home."
I tense at the word "our" and the over polite merchant manners are nearly enough for me to roll my eyes but instead I step into the house and look around, tracking coal dust into the merchant house for the first time. The living room and kitchen are the size of my whole house and there are several doors off a hallway. Painted walls, curtains on the windows, she's even got flowers on the table like she's Madge Undersee or something. Playing the good wife, I suppose. It makes my jaw tick.
The hall doors hang open to reveal one emtpy room and one with furniture. There go my dreams of her sleeping alone all winter. I stand feet apart and straighten to my full height, hands in my pockets to keep them from doing anything reckless, and scowl down at the guy. Blond, broad, that vacant, friendly face. Three days in my world would eat him alive.
At the sound of my footsteps, Catnip appears from the kitchen, hair pulled back and face flushed from the heat of the stove, the perfect picture of a pretty Seam girl but in the totally wrong frame. She looks good, I have to admit. Bakery bread has done good work on her figure and she's no longer the scrawny little girl I found alone and scared in the woods all those years ago, she's a woman grown. The woman I want. I'm about to give her a smile and call her by our old nickname when I notice the shirt. It's not one I've ever seen before, and she isn't frivelous with her wardrobe, she wouldn't buy new clothes at a time like this. No it's not hers, it's too big for her, hiding some of the curves I'd like to see, and it has buttons down the front like a mans shirt. I ought to knock Mellark's teeth in. I have several inches on his height, it wouldn't be hard to put him on the floor.
I knew there was some performance to this arrangement, that she'd have to pretend, but how far did that go? Katniss isn't the type of girl to sleep around. She's never at the slag heep, never messed around with boys in school. I thought she was better than that but maybe if she was desperate enough, if he pushed for more… the thought of his hands on her makes me sick.
"Did something happen?" She asks me.
"No, nothing like that," I assure her.
Peeta offers me something to drink with a smug look as he moves around the table to stand closer to Katniss. He even mentions adding lemon which confirms everything I needed to know about him. While Seam children starve and rot, he sips citrus in his tea.
But I didn't come here to reprimand the baker's kid about how he spends all his money, I came to talk to Katniss. I haven't had much time with her this year but I know there are things left unanswered between us. She might be standing in Peeta's kitchen wearing his shirt, but last autumn when I told her she should leave him in the spring, she didn't say no. She didn't say she loved him. All she's ever wanted him for was help and rescue during a winter she didn't think she could survive. I don't approve, but I do understand. Maybe this is her coal mine.
"No, thank you," I say to the offered tea. Then, looking Katniss in her pretty, chilly, eyes, I ask, "You got a minute?"
"I have food on the stove," she answers, nodding over her shoulder. I can smell pork and potatoes and it makes the hollow in my gut ache. I haven't eaten since yesterday and haven't had meat in weeks.
"You're welcome to stay and have dinner with us, if you have time," he says. So he won't let her be alone with me. I wondered if that was why I haven't seen her much.
"Didn't come for that. I just need to talk to you," I say.
I have to get her out of here. I need her by my side if rebellion and a new world are really possible. A world where our siblings don't have to go to reapings and neither of us have to suffer indignities to get enough to eat. Mining or marriage.
"What about?" She asks.
"Come walk with me. Just for a minute," I plead.
I need to talk to her alone, give her a chance to tell me the truth. So we can work together on finding a way out for her. So I can explain what's being planned in the mines without Peeta getting in her head and turning her against it. I have to make her see what our future could be together in a free world. But she glances at him and shakes her head. Alright then, I'll have to tell them both.
I square my shoulders, and I tell her everything I can. I remind her of the Seam, of the people there. I tell her what we're going to do to make things right. I think for a moment that she hears me. I know the capitol makes her angry too, I know she's got the fire and the fight to see what I see, to do this with me. She's one of two people in all of district twelve with a weapon, she's great with it, and I trust her more than I trust anyone. I need her in this. I need her to understand.
But she doesn't. She gets snippy and angry too fast, arms crossed over her chest like she used to in the woods, when I'd say something too hot headed for her tastes, eyebrows low and scowling.
"How do I get ready for you to get yourself killed?" She snaps. I groan inwardly. If she'd only point that thunder storm at someone other than me for once.
"If that's what you think then maybe you shouldn't join us," I tell her.
It's going horribly. She's digging her heals in further the more I talk, demanding answers, waving her hands. When I tell her she has the ability to move people to action she laughs at me. Peeta, of course, has something to say here. He actually has the stones to tell me how she interacts with people at the Hob, as if I don't know.
I knew he was trading there before it burned. I've seen him a few times and Greasy Sae gives me updates. He's playing some sort of game at being Katniss's helper, acting like he understands our world. I've been trading at the Hob with Katniss since she was twelve years old, side by side our whole lives as we fought and struggled for every mouthful we needed to grow taller, to grow up. I know how she holds herself above it all, how quiet and unyielding her steady gaze can be. I know her deadly aim, her clever negotiation, her stubborn sense of justice. I know the way the traders have always respected her. And only I know the way the woods beyond the fence leaves her light and smiling. Only I have seen the wilderness illuminate her up from the inside out, the peace of our trees and long walks, the comfort of finding the food we need in the earth and the company we need in each other. Only I can give her that.
"What do you imagine killing does to you?" Peeta asks when I remind Katniss that she's been a fighter long before this. "Do you think it's something you can just clean off your hands when it's over?"
"If it needed to happen? Yes. If someone doesn't do this it'll never get done." I am tired of waiting for someone to come and save us. It's not going to happen. When my father died, the only thing I could do was step up, be the man he trained me to be, and handle the bloody, difficult task myself. Katniss did the same. Its clear Mellark was raised too soft to know what it means to get your hands dirty for the sake of your family, but she will understand this.
"What if you make things worse?" she asks, in a quiet voice. Her eyes cut to the side and she pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth.
"How much worse can it get?" I ask. I'm nearly shouting. She's been gone too long, under his thumb too long. She's forgotten where we came from and what we've seen. I'll make her see. I will make her.
I tell her about the people we know who have been hurt. Hard working, family people, with siblings and children to protect and care for, who aren't able to because of the hell the capitol has rained down on our heads. I remind her of the pain and the death that's wounding everyone around us. She hisses that she knows all that, that it doesn't mean she has to be the one to help. I really thought she'd be braver by now, especially after all we've seen in the district this year. I thought she'd be over this childish hesitation. She's younger than me, yes, and she was never as quick to lash out against the capitol with her words. But she's never been weak or timid like this.
"Yes. It does," I say sternly. It does have to be her.
"Why, because you two think I’m the next Finnick Odair?" She ask. "People aren’t going to pick up rocks and throw them at peacekeepers because I ask them to."
I'm at my wits end. What's gotten into her? I thought there would be some trouble getting her out of her marriage and I'm not suprised she doesn't like every detail of this plan, but fucks sake. She's acting like she'd be happy to lick peacekeeper boots and send kids off to the reaping with a smile and a Mellark cupcake. This isn't her, it's not the girl I know.
I need to get her out of this house, away from this boy who's filling her up with fear and dosing her fire. I'm not sure I can. I never was particularly certain but now. Fuck. I can't even talk to her alone to poperly ask her.
Well, it's now or never. I dig the heel of my boots into the floor boards of this stupid towny house and ask,"How long are you going to be here?"
"We'll go to the bakery tomorrow morning but we're always home by sun down," she says with some confusion in her voice.
No, Katniss. Listen. "Are you leaving?"
She turns her face down and away, like she does when she's looking for an argument inside her skull. So much rides on this question that I'm not even sure she understands. Her freedom, my hopes, our entire future I've had planned for years, the life I could give her after the revolution. In the world I'm going to build I could even take her away from District Twelve, and everything she ever said she wouln't want to do while living here would suddenly be possible for us. Marriage, children, a shot at a real life. All she has to do right now is give me a look that says she's unsure, or she can't speak here. A flicker of hesitation or fear in her eyes when they meet mine, would be enough.
"Katniss?" I insist.
That's not what she gives me. When she looks up her gaze is steady and stern, piercing and determined as an arrow. "No," she says with a shake of her head.
No? A flat no?! No explanation, no apology in her face. In fact she seems angry I even asked. As if she didn't tell me to my face she married this kid for his money, that it wasn't what she wanted. I offer her a way out, a better option, and all she says is no? I don't know what he did to her, or how he got her mind so clouded with his soft, buttered up life. Lemon rinds and a decent meal sure did take the fight out of her quick. Every muscle in my body tenses and I clench my jaw and flex my fingers. I'd really, really like to hit him. His smug, doughy face could use a few bruises. Maybe a broken nose would ruin his looks and change her mind.
But Katniss isn't the only person I'm responsible for. There are others I need to save, and she can still help me from this house. So I shove it down, hold the anger in my shoulders and my hands as I talk, and I tell them what they can do. If they give even one shit about District Twelve, they can put this house to good use at least. But somehow even that is too much.
Mellark speaks for her and says no, they don't have room to store a few essentials for those who would risk their lives for all of our freedom and when all she does is glance at him and say nothing I fully give up on the conversation.
"Fine," I say, no longer able to hide how angery I am at the way she's acting, what a disappointment she's been. "I thought you'd at least want to help. For Prim. You're going to let her go to the reaping this summer and not even try to stop it?"
She stands there, silent and grave, and says nothing in response. So I shake my head and walk out the front door. It's what I always seem to do when I talk to her, get angry then walk away. I leave her to her big house and her soft life. It won't last. Even if she doesn't help, revolution is coming. Change will be purchased in blood and her world will shake and shatter along with everyone else's. Maybe when it's done, she'll see why I did it, that it was for her, for all of us. Maybe eventually she'll be grateful.
everyone is so quick to call peeta the ultimate yearner without acknowledging that katniss "i'm going to roll this pearl on my lips to simulate your kisses" is right there with him.
Honestly the "but Peeta wanted kids so bad" line from the Mockingjay epilogue is really funny to me because for three books Katniss has been projecting her desire for children onto a guy who hasn't really ever verbally expressed any interest in having kids, so I do genuinely think the whole "kids vs. no kids" debate happened entirely internally for Katniss and one day she just went "ok, you win, let's have kids" and Peeta's at the kitchen table like"?????? Ok??????"
jacobvanloon
gummygunk
titsay
izzy806
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
