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

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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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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

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..."

"Fuck, Katniss, I am not asking you for anything other than to stop making me pay for something I didn't do," he snaps, pushing to his feet and then bending again almost immediately to grab his shirt. "So you'll never love me; I might hate it, Katniss, but I can live with it. I'm not Peeta. I get that and I can't change it. But you keep looking at me like I did...Like I was..."

His jaw tightens.

"The last time I saw Prim was a month ago, and I kissed her cheek goodbye." He pulls his shirt on over his head. "But you want to make me pay? Fine. But I am not..." He looks away. "I can't hurt enough for you, Katniss. I never could."

He's right. She knows that all of this is true, and that yes, Gale has a point but Katniss never claimed that her mind's associations were things of reason. They used to be, but not anymore. Not since the war spun everything about so thoroughly. He's angry, but she doesn't want to fight, not when there's an all-pervasive tiredness weaving its way down to her bones. Not only pertaining to her muscles, but her mind. Her experiences. She feels as if she might as well be a hundred years old, but with none of the wisdom.

It hurts. She drags in a whistling breath, one hand tugging on the end of her braid like the pain will ground her like it always does.

"I know that. I know all of that! And I'm not trying to make you pay. I'm..." what is she doing here, exactly? Katniss honestly doesn't know, and her face begins to fall before she rallies herself again. "You didn't do it and I know that but...you did. You do."

"Not here I don't," he says, quietly, staring at her for a long moment. "And I'm never going to be able to outrun that."

He slings his bag across his chest and pushes his hair back from his face.

"Sleep in my bed tonight. I'll be checking my snares. I won't be there." He turns his back on her to go.

This feels like another moment in time, another thing playing endlessly on a loop as she watches him turn. He turned away from her once before, in 13, and she had desperately wanted to call him back but didn't. She didn't because it hurt too much, and because her voice had stopped working for the moment. Then, the pain had been fresh and immediate. Here, it's dulled but no less raw.

"Gale -" it's quiet enough that anybody else might not have heard it.

For anybody else, he wouldn't have stopped. For her, though; always for her. He stays, his head hanging and he doesn't look at her.

"What, Katniss?"

It had taken all of her will to make herself call out, and she hadn't thought of what she would say when he actually turned around - if he ever turned around. Now that he was, and he was waiting for her to answer, she was surprisingly speechless. "I'm trying," Katniss tells him in the end, hands tense against her sides. "It's not easy."

"No," he says quietly. "It's not." He turns, glancing back at her. "I'll be here." His voice is rough and he takes a moment to clear his throat. "When you...If you figure it out. I'll be here."

It's the best she can do right now. Katniss swallows painfully for a moment, just looking at him and remembering the things they used to do together, before the Games wrecked it all. Growing up together, teasing each other, taking care of each other. Making sure that both of their families got enough to eat. Compared to the state she's in now that blurry watercolor past seems perfect even though she knows that it was anything but. "Okay. You'll...be the first to know."

"I mean it about the house, Katniss," he says, quietly, almost smiling, trying to smiel as he looks up at her. "There's room there for two of us. Just...let me do that, okay?"

It feels like an ultimatum, almost - even if Gale doesn't say it like that. She gets the feeling that this is the last, paper-thin bond to the friendship they had, dangling on a fraying string. It makes her a little bit sad and that shows in her eyes for once as she nods, numbly before clearing her throat, voice hoarse. "Okay," she's trying to compromise. She's trying her best, but it isn't enough. Still, if there's one thing Katniss knows it's how to make do with less than enough.

He nods. He lfits one hand, like he's going to hug her or touch her hair or something but, in the end, he lets it drop.

"I'm going for a walk. Check the snares."

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

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