he not busy being born is busy dying
Gale Hawthorne, Katniss Everdeen.
507 words. PG.
Summary: They will scrape by and live. That's what they do in the Seam.
Note: For![]()
jada_jasmine! I feel like I still don't have the hang of writing THG, but...hope you like it anyway!
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It's not that Katniss is beautiful, though he thinks she is. It's not that they get along real well because, hey, Gale's a pretty likeable guy, he can get along with lots of people if that's what he wants to do. It maybe has a little bit to do with how she's better at this than he is, that after all his practice and hard work she shows up some slip of a thing in her dad's old coat, arms arching perfectly and arrow striking true. Maybe it has a little bit more to do with how her eyes are gray like his, but cold, cold like a sky full of rainclouds – except sometimes in the soft mornings in the woods, when she looks at him with something like happiness on her thin face and her eyes are nearly burning.
It maybe has something to do with the fact that she just doesn't get it, that Gale can look and look and look, can be so obvious that even his little brothers abuse him for it, but Katniss is oblivious. Or indifferent, but that's harder to swallow. He thinks he knows her well enough to know that she's just focused elsewhere but he feels secure that one day it'll be over – the struggling, the Games, everything, it has to end because Gale cannot imagine a life where it doesn't – and when it is, Katniss will have the time to look back in his direction.
The morning of the Reaping, they eat bread and cheese. Gale is not an overly-positive person, just a realistic one, but he thinks it's pretty great, as mornings go. The Reaping is one more hurdle to get over, like finding enough food or making what they do have last. He doesn't think anyone he really loves will be chosen because Gale cannot live in a world where someone he loves dies in the Hunger Games. They will scrape by and live. That's what they do in the Seam.
He looks at Katniss while she is not looking at him and wonders, absently, what it would be like to kiss her chapped lips. He wonders if she's ever thought the same about him and then he gets sick of wondering, shakes those thoughts out of his head.
In the crowd during the Reaping, waiting, he catches Prim's eye and winks. She's too nervous to laugh but her lips twitch in a frustrated smile. He thinks it's crazy sometimes, how much Prim smiles, and he decides it's because Katniss can't, so Prim has to pick up the slack.
He catches Katniss' eye next, the black-rimmed gray stark even from a distance, and she is serious, determined, strangely lovely. The thin line of her mouth picks up at one corner. Gale thinks after this he can bring her and her family over to his for dinner and they can pretend things are decent, for a little while.
Later he will scold himself for being naïve enough to think he could pass through the world mostly unscathed.
Gale Hawthorne, Katniss Everdeen.
507 words. PG.
Summary: They will scrape by and live. That's what they do in the Seam.
Note: For
jada_jasmine! I feel like I still don't have the hang of writing THG, but...hope you like it anyway!
It's not that Katniss is beautiful, though he thinks she is. It's not that they get along real well because, hey, Gale's a pretty likeable guy, he can get along with lots of people if that's what he wants to do. It maybe has a little bit to do with how she's better at this than he is, that after all his practice and hard work she shows up some slip of a thing in her dad's old coat, arms arching perfectly and arrow striking true. Maybe it has a little bit more to do with how her eyes are gray like his, but cold, cold like a sky full of rainclouds – except sometimes in the soft mornings in the woods, when she looks at him with something like happiness on her thin face and her eyes are nearly burning.
It maybe has something to do with the fact that she just doesn't get it, that Gale can look and look and look, can be so obvious that even his little brothers abuse him for it, but Katniss is oblivious. Or indifferent, but that's harder to swallow. He thinks he knows her well enough to know that she's just focused elsewhere but he feels secure that one day it'll be over – the struggling, the Games, everything, it has to end because Gale cannot imagine a life where it doesn't – and when it is, Katniss will have the time to look back in his direction.
The morning of the Reaping, they eat bread and cheese. Gale is not an overly-positive person, just a realistic one, but he thinks it's pretty great, as mornings go. The Reaping is one more hurdle to get over, like finding enough food or making what they do have last. He doesn't think anyone he really loves will be chosen because Gale cannot live in a world where someone he loves dies in the Hunger Games. They will scrape by and live. That's what they do in the Seam.
He looks at Katniss while she is not looking at him and wonders, absently, what it would be like to kiss her chapped lips. He wonders if she's ever thought the same about him and then he gets sick of wondering, shakes those thoughts out of his head.
In the crowd during the Reaping, waiting, he catches Prim's eye and winks. She's too nervous to laugh but her lips twitch in a frustrated smile. He thinks it's crazy sometimes, how much Prim smiles, and he decides it's because Katniss can't, so Prim has to pick up the slack.
He catches Katniss' eye next, the black-rimmed gray stark even from a distance, and she is serious, determined, strangely lovely. The thin line of her mouth picks up at one corner. Gale thinks after this he can bring her and her family over to his for dinner and they can pretend things are decent, for a little while.
Later he will scold himself for being naïve enough to think he could pass through the world mostly unscathed.