(gale) sing to me about the end of the world

[burnwithus]

In 13, Katniss found that she had a penchant for hiding and finding small places to slip into where no one could possibly find her. Places that she could be alone with her thoughts, no matter how dark they were. Today she slips into the caves, avoiding the forest where she knows the Cornucopia glimmers dully in the hot island sun, yet another reminder of things she can't forget.

The bloodstains haven't quite washed away either, despite the snow.

She comes across a pool of clear water and lets her legs dangle into them, tingling against healing scars but in a way that feels good. Cathartic, in a way. Katniss stares quietly at the cavernous ceiling, noting the stalactites on the ceiling, pointing down like great stone arrows.

The fact that she can only hear the dripping of water echoing in the cave helps to calm her just a little bit, closing her eyes and trying to sift through exactly what she's feeling right now. Peeta. Gale. Everything is crowding around her mind right now until it's nearly impossible to see through. Gale had kissed her, and she'd let him. Why? Why did she do that?

It's because she wasn't thinking, Katniss realizes sullenly a few seconds later. And now Peeta knows about what happened after the Capitol took him, and she still doesn't know where they stand or where she wants them to stand.

A sharp, shuddering sigh is released from her lips, and it's loud in the all-pervasive silence of the caves, with plenty of surfaces for it to echo against.

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[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

For a second, she doesn't move, feeling the flush creep up her face, visible even against the dark tone of her skin. "You don't want to see it," is the excuse she decides on, winning out over this is a public place and a straight-out no. While she has ambivalent feelings about her scars for the most part, there's a reason why all of her clothing is long and baggy.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

His grey eyes don't move from her face. He does tilt his head. He reaches back and pulls his own shirt off. He hasn't seen his back, but he knows what it's got to look like.

"I want to see it," he says, fishing the salve out of his bag. "And I want to do something to make it feel better."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

There's a gasp that she can't quite hold back in time because even though Katniss has seen this twice now, it doesn't get any better on repeat. His scars are not yet healed white-pink, but still bare the dark red of barely scabbed-over wounds that form a crisscross against his back, almost as intricate as a spider's web.

She pushes the back of her shirt up but keeps it on her arms, pushing the rest of the fabric against her chest, flushing furiously. Katniss has seen it in the mirror, she knows what is must look like. Half-healed fissures of skin that look melted, patches of pink and olive where the surgeons thought it could be salvaged. She's a patchwork, a fire-mutt. An unfamiliar cool breeze hits her skin and she's surprised she can feel it even through the grafts, shivering slightly.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

The gasp sort of stings, in a weird way, even though he knows what it looks like and he knows that it's a fair reaction. He reaches out, brushing his fingers against her dry skin. His fingers catch the side of her face, cradling and drawing her in for a kiss.

"On your belly," he says, lips smudging against hers. "The salve'll definitely help. I promise."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Gale kisses her a lot, and Katniss doesn't quite know what to make of it. She knows what he wants from her, of course - but that isn't something she can give, so she wishes that they could be friends again. Even if that speaks of the time before the war and she above all people should know that they can't go back. Katniss kneels, sits on her heels on the blanket and glances up at the trees and the occasional bird call ringing in the trees that remind her of Rue's four notes.

Even now, she remembers exactly what those are.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

He watches her looking up and reaches out, tugging the end of her braid lightly the way he used to when they were just kids. He raises his eyebrows at her, but doesn't say anything else.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Her head snaps around at the motion, her braid swinging to hit her across her shoulders. In the past, she might have given him a sour look and eventually a smile at the perfectly innocent expression he'd give her. In the past, she might have laughed.

Here, all she does is turn her head. She does nothing at all.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

He watches her for a moment, grey eyes perfectly level. So much is different here. So much has changed and he has to work out how to react, how to compensate.

He ducks his head, hair falling across his forehead.

"Lie down," he says, gently. "Please."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

It's strange, Katniss thinks as she does so after much hesitation, curling in on herself. Strange that last year, it was Gale on her mother's table like this and she was the one watching, waiting desperately to see if the snow would have any effect. There are too many parallels like this, moments in time that keep repeating like an echo, reminding her of exactly what is missing in the world now. What she's somehow lost along the way. Her cheek brushes the surface of the blanket as she clutches the shirt to her front.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

One day, she's going to trust him again. He hides the fact that it hurts him that she's so tense. He unscrews the salve, leaving the jar on the blanket as he works a little into the tips of his fingers. He swings his knee across her, straddling her without resting any weight on her as he leans forward to start rubbing it into her wounded back.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

The salve helps and she can already tell, smoothing over patches of skin that were rough and red and chafing against her clothing despite how soft and worn and threadbare they are. It's almost as good as the burn cream Haymitch sent during the Games, and Katniss lets out a little bit of a sigh at the coolness of it against her skin and knows that she should probably say thank you or a similar sentiment to that but just can't quite get the words out.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

He feels her start to relax under his hands, pauses to just scoop a little more salve onto his hands which he starts to rub into her back. His finger skim against her ribs and his shifts his weight slightly on his knees.

"Better?"

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

"Better," she answers even as the blush still hasn't subsided from her face and she feels more exposed than she's ever been. Even when she was naked in front of her prep team, it hadn't been as bad as this, even if this is just her back. It feels different, somehow and she squirms a little bit, unconsciously reflecting how awkward she feels right now.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

"Good."

He watches the way she shifts, careful not to rest any of his weight against her hips because this is awkward enough alrady and there's no way he's going to make it worse. He presses, lightly with his thumbs, massaging as he rubs the salve into her.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

From a purely objective point of view it's good because there isn't any way Katniss could have reached spots where the chafing was the worst. Yet she can't help but wonder what this means to her, and she's sure that it means something to him. This is the issue here, a guilt that she can't quite reconcile for some reason. An uneasiness in her gut that Katniss can't get rid of, yet muscles that have been tensed for what feels like years are beginning to relax.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

Her skin feels really good under his hands, the heat of her more than anything, just under his slippery palms. He can feel a slow, lazy heat building in his face and it's on a whim, a complete and utter whim, that he leans forward and presses a kiss against scarred skin, right between her shoulderblades.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Katniss tugs her shirt down over her back, rolling over and not caring if she gets salve that hasn't quite dried on her clothes. The thick part of her braid digs into her shoulder and she tugs it out from underneath her, looking up at him. "Gale," she exhales, eyes flickering back to the sky and then back to him. "You should stop kissing me."

Because I don't know anything anymore, Katniss adds silently, a recurring theme that simply won't go away. Indecision, with each pathway leading to a different negative circumstance. What is the lesser of two evils? Since that's what it's come to be, in her mind. Her guiding star, when she finds that the line between saints and villains become too blurred to see properly.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

He's still straddling her. Which makes this all so much more awkward that it is already. And he doesn't know why he's surprised; this is Katniss Everdeen he's dealing with. He looks down at her, sticky hands resting against his thighs.

"I have no idea where I am with you."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Gale needs to get off her first in order for her to move away, only compounding the amount of awkwardness she feels about all of this. She could use the flat plant of her feet on the ground to push herself forward but that would all but erase whatever good the salve did to her back. She chooses to sit up halfway instead, if only because it gives her time to distract herself before what is probably going to end up being an argument.

"We're friends. Can we please just leave it that way?" she sounds tired, weary to the bone. Her voice drops and softens, because the last thing Katniss Everdeen needs right now is a fight. "I could really use a friend, Gale."

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

It's on the tip of his tongue to argue but then he realises that there's no really anything to argue with, there. There's no way to argue with that. He looks at her for a long moment and nods, pushing up away from her and walking towards the stream, crouching down to carefully wash his hands in the quick flowing water.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Selfishly, the first emotion Katniss feels is relief, but there's also a twist of guilt there too, tainting everything because she knows that she's hurt him. Even if he doesn't admit it and turns away before she can see it on his face. But what is she supposed to do? She can't lie, not to Gale, and she never could.

"Thanks for the salve. It feels much better now."

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

"Good."

He glances back over his shoulder at her, hands dripping wet and hanging between his knees. "That's good, Katniss." He dips his head, pushing wet fingers back through his hair. "You should still stay. I'll get another bed."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

"You're not going to get any sleep," Katniss tells him, her jaw jutting out with a hint of its old stubbornness. There's a reason why she hardly sleeps in her room at the Compound, if only that she doesn't wake anyone else up with her nightmares. No need to disturb those precious few who can sleep, even if she forgets what it feels like at this point. "I can't do that to you."

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

"I'm not giving you a choice here, Katniss," he says, the stubborn tilt of his chin exactly matching hers for a moment. They really do look alike, sometimes.

"You slept, the other night. While I was there. And...whatever this is. Whatever we are. I can give you that."

He stands there and, for a moment, it's painfully clear: he needs her to let him having something here.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

It's not about the sleep, not really. It isn't about anything like that, and Katniss supposes that there's no use pretending otherwise anymore, especially when she's spent so much of the past year pretending to be something she wasn't and forced into the roles that others gave her. If there's only thing she appreciates about the island, other than its relative safety even if that could taken away at any moment, it's this.

There's a time when one has to turn around and face things. It took her a little longer this time because she's had enough of fighting to last a lifetime.

"Tell me how I'm supposed to be around you after..." Katniss trails off, because her words have an edge she never meant. "I just..." one hand goes up to her face, brushing the scar at her temple that she equates with confusion.

"I don't know, and you're asking me for these things and I can't..."