burnwithus | the world was on fire and no one could save me but you ➴ gale

the world was on fire and no one could save me but you ➴ gale

Katniss wakes up screaming, sweat-drenched and shaking, eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling yet the only thing she can feel is the sticky blood on her skin and the feeling of being grabbed and dragged by dozens of hands. It takes her a moment to realize that she's still in the hut, in the same place where she went to sleep and that her hands are clean and the pain is gone.

It takes a long time for the adrenalin to stop pumping through her veins, triggering the fight reflex in her and her heart is pounding so fast and hard in her chest that she just wants to run away. It hurts to see District 12 and know that she's escaped her fate for now, but for how long? People disappear from the island all the time.

Gale didn't shoot her.

She can't forgive him for that. Even if Katniss knows that she had failed him similarly before, she can't.

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She's screaming and he's already moving, barely away that he's awake before he's crambling on all fours towards the bedroom. His fingers still almost feel like he's holding a bow. His stomach has that same raw, hollowed out feeling that came from shooting and watching men fall with his arrows standing proud.

"Katniss," he says, in the doorway. "It's okay."
The words it was a dream are on his lips, but he knows that's not true.

"Why didn't you do it?" Katniss demands from the get-go, shaking limbs already moving to wrap around herself, as if needing to defend from more attacks. Every muscle in her body is tensed and aching from it. Her hands are still curled as if they kept gripping the knife she'd used, thrashing and kicking like a wild animal until blade met flesh and blood flowed. "Why didn't you shoot me?" they had a deal, or at least she used to have one with the Gale from before. An unspoken agreement that they would look out for each other. That it was better to be shot than taken.

There's anger coursing through her body, that he'd let her be dragged off like that, to be executed. That he didn't have the guts for one clean shot. That's all it took, and he didn't.

But Katniss doesn't know if she could have, had the roles been reversed. She was prepared to kill Peeta after blowing out the force field in the arena, one empty needle against the entire Capitol.

He should have known that that question was coming. He drops down into a crouch, back against the wall, head cradled in his hands. His throat feels like it's closing and he swallows hard.

"How can you ask me that?" he says, quietly, voice raw. "Of course I couldn't."

She draws her legs up to her chest, resting her cheek against her left knee and breathing hard. "Because you asked me to," Katniss still remembers the moment vividly; Gale being dragged off and the fact that she couldn't make out what he was screaming at her. Two words: shoot me. But she hadn't realized in time, and it had felt like a betrayal and made her sick to her stomach. She needs her bracelet, needs to feel the metal cutting into the skin of her wrist to bring her back to reality. Sometimes it's harder; sometimes Katniss wonders if she doesn't have more in common to Annie Cresta than she originally thought.

"Because I needed you to."

"I never asked you to, Katniss. Somebody who looks like me did. And I don't even know what you're talking about." He wishes he could get her to underestand that; the Gale she knew then and there, the Gale who did those things, Soldier Hawthorne, it's somebody that he never grew into.

"I'd have killed a hundred of them for you."

"Don't," Katniss breathes, already starting to feel the stinging in her eyes and the tightness in her throat. She hates crying and it's almost like she's been doing far too much of it lately. It makes her feel weak, when she grew up in a world where only the strong got to live.

Then again, in the end it hardly mattered, because the Capitol had bombs that could take out entire cities with just the press of a button.

"I wanted you to, Gale! And if you can say those things, it means that you're him, too. It's the future, but it's still you."

"You can't." He chokes on it and he's quiet for a moment. He can't look at her. He tries, but he can't lift his head. "I can't imagine a world where I'd be able to shoot you, Katniss. Whatever I said. Whatever I...meant."

His voice breaks. The stinging in her eyes increases, culminating in hot tears that slip down and a throat that closes up completely for a moment, choking. For a moment she can't say anything until she swallows hard, wincing as raw vocal cords are irritated. "It's going to happen," it's amazing how small her voice is now, considering that she once shouted the slogan of an entire revolution. "When I leave this island. They're going to execute me."

He can't say anything but he does slowly push to his feet, stumbling until his knee hits the bed and he's reaching for her, pulling her in against his chest with both arms, holding her tight.

"I love you," he says, quietly, tears rolling down his face. "I'd do anything I could to save you."

His shirt smells like familiar things, even here. Pine and leather from the strap of a hunting bag or quiver. Yet instead of being a comfort like it normally might, it only serves to remind her of the woods behind 12. Still Katniss buries her face into the rough cotton, probably soaking through the fabric and onto Gale's skin.

"Well, you can't," it's cold, but it's also the truth. She'd killed President Coin, and more importantly, Katniss doesn't regret it at all. Whatever might happen to her because of it, she would regret only that she wasn't quick enough to take the pill before Peeta stopped her.

Fingers pushing into her hair, he cradles her close. He doesn't care if her tears are soaking through his shirt, not when hers are splashing into her hair. He swallows hard.

"That doesn't mean I wouldn't try, Katniss."

"Everyone tries," Katniss gasps, feeling the dampness of his tears in her hair and not quite knowing what to think of this. It's Gale, and she's only ever seen the strong (or admittedly terrible) sides of him; not this. Soldier Gale Hawthorne probably wouldn't have cried. It helps her make the distinction between them, even if some days she's not sure if she wants to.

It feels as though she's been here before, Haymitch stroking her hair while she cried about how she couldn't be the Mockingjay if it was hurting Peeta. Always crying, doing far too much of it lately although most of her emotions have been replaced by a sort of enveloping numbness. A relief, really.

"Peeta tried too. I had a pill, poison. He didn't let me take it, and I'm not sure whether to hate him for it."

He ought to pull away from her and wipe his face, he feels like he ought to, but he can't pull away from her. He can't relax. He just wants to curl up and hide. It's not a familiar feeling.

"Well, I don't," he says, and swallowing against the lump in his throat.

It's worse that he's crying, which means that she can't quite make herself stop, even though her tears are caustic and stinging dry skin as they drip off her nose. She doesn't cry prettily, never has, all red eyes and sniffling, olive skin blotchy. Some girls have that ability, she's noticed over the years, but Katniss never has.

She doesn't answer him, taking the time to bite back some of many bitter retorts. "I'm tired, Gale," is all Katniss says in the end, voice plaintive and small, choking on her words. "I'm too tired for this anymore."

He does it; he pulls away and wipes his face, sniffing. It's the memory of the house where his mother lived, but it's worse than that; it's the memory of watching his arrows hit somebody in the chest and stick. It's the thought of killing someone.

"Lie down with me," he says.
He doesn't want to be on his own and he's banking on her not wanting t, either. He could always go to Helena, but...right then, he needs Katniss. He needs it to be her.

It's true that the idea of being alone in the dark, alone with her thoughts and nightmares is a terrifying prospect because Katniss doesn't know what she'll do anymore. Sometimes she thinks of it, Katniss can't lie - the purple nightlock pill sitting round in her hand. How she had thrown it into the sea on her second week here, under some notion that Prim would have wanted her to live. How it had taken every last shred of her will to do so.

Sometimes Katniss fixates on that moment but she doesn't quite know if she regrets it still.

She hesitates for a moment, apprehension lining a face that usually only displays boldness or a forced neutrality. Katniss nods once, after a minute or two of silence passes.

They've been sleeping for two days, but sleep isn't what Gale's interested in, right now; what he needs from her, more than anything, is closeness. He just wants to hold her in his arms and remember that she's the one person left in the world (this world, right here), who knows him.

He lies down on the bed and then waits for her to settle with him, holding out one arm to her.

She's already on the bed, legs curled up underneath her. Her shoulders are so tense that they hurt, every muscle expectant of an attack. Katniss forces herself to take a few deep breaths before taking his arm settling down beside him although her eyes slip closed, squeezing to try and get the images out. But they stick better in the complete darkness of her eyelids. They always did.

When she lies down against him, he can feel how tense she is. He wraps his arms around her, rubbing one hand down her spine over her shirt. He presses a very gentle kiss against her forehead. The tears stop, but his eyes feel tight and dry and sore.

"Is your back hurting?" he asks.

"No," it's said on an exhale, like just that single word took so much of her energy to say. He presses a kiss into her hair and part of her wants to lean in and kiss him, to feel something other than this, but she doesn't because it's such an incredibly selfish impulse given what she knows Gale thinks of her. For what had to be the thousandth time in the past year, Katniss wished that he didn't love her and that her life would be easier if that were true.

He can smell both of them, sweaty and lived-in. He swallows, bending his head and brushing the tip of his nose against hers, just staying close.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he doesn't even know what he's apologising for, right now.

Everything. Things he never even did.

He apologizes for what seems like the tenth time and part of Katniss wishes he would stop, because saying it doesn't take back anything that happened. But now that she's been back to District 12, Katniss understands better than she ever thought she would and remembers how frantically she'd said the words in her mind, as if it would bring the dead skulls crunching under her feet back to life. I'm sorry I killed you. And you, and you, and you...

Well, it doesn't help. It's said to help the person saying it, she knows that now, because what good do the dead have for their useless words? "I know," Katniss breathes, and it's not said with spite at the very least. Even though they've been sleeping for two days, Katniss is tired and worn down in a way that she didn't think was possible.

He rubs his hand down her back again, feels the tension in her, btu then he starts to push away from her, his hand lingering against her until last of all. He's almost unwilling to stop touching her. He rubs his free hand under his t-shirt, across his own belly.

"I need to shower," he says, glancing towards the door that leads to the shower-room off the bedroom. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine," she thinks about leaving. Her stomach hurts, a sharp sort of hunger pain that Katniss is so accustomed to back from the days when they used to eat bark and mint leaves soaked in hot water if there was nothing else. "You can leave," Katniss is already pushing herself off the bed, rebraiding strands of hair that had come loose, matted against her scalp.

She doesn't quite look at him, because all she pictures is his arrows sticking out of the chests of men on the ground. It feels like such a hypocritical thing, this disgust of hers over killing people, considering what she's done. Yet this feels more like...tainting the Gale that she knew, the one whose arrows were made and intended only for animals.

He doesn't want to leave her; he never wants to, but he's also learned to pick his battles and he doesn't know how much him staying is actually going to do. He pushes his hair back from his face. Hunger can wait; every part of him feels greasy. He needs to wash the sick feeling off his skin. And he knows why she won't look at him, and it's like a punch in the gut.

"One more thing for you to hold against me, Katniss," he says, and his smile is so sad, as he pushes up off the bed and walks towards the door. "I'll see you later."

The sheer injustice of that statement makes her seethe in ways that Katniss didn't think was possible. She stands, every muscle tensed with her arms crossed against her chest. "That's not fair!" her voice comes out louder than she expected it to, too loud in this small hut of his (not theirs). She attempts to modulate it a little bit. "You don't get it. You don't understand what is was like,"

Katniss moves now towards the door, characterized by her usually stubborn determination that dares Gale to stop her without saying a word. If he knows what's good for him, he won't.

He's never really know what's good for him where Katniss Everdeen is concerned; the problem with being in love wtih the girl on fire is the danger of egetting burned, even if she barely smoulders now. There's still heat there. It's still danger than he ought to know how to walk away from.

He steps out of her way but he doesn't look away from her.

"No, I don't," he says, jaw tight. "Just like the other kids in District 12 never understood what it was like to be starving. And it's going to be like us and them forever, Katniss, only, now, it's going to be and you. We never forgave them for not knowing that kind of hungry and you are never, ever going to forgive me for not being there."

He sits down, abrubtly, before he knows that he's going to do it, back to the wall, head in his hands.

He's not going to watch her go this time.

"I don't blame you," Katniss says automatically, but they both know that's a huge lie that falls flat and fake even to her own ears. The truth is that she does blame Gale. The truth is that she might never stop blaming him. What her brain knows and what it thinks are two entirely different things, and try and they might to get back the easy friendship they had before, Katniss doesn't know if it's possible.

Who are they kidding, really?

She's hurting him. She never wanted to hurt him, no matter what it is he's done and Katniss hates being in this position, with someone else's well-being in her hands.

"Gale," her voice drops low, breaking at the end and Katniss wants to cry again but there is no way that she'll let herself. "I'm trying. I'm trying so hard."

They're hurting each other. He keeps his head bowed low for a long moment, dragging in a breath through his nose. He knows that she's trying; he can see that but, somehow, it just makes it worse.

"I know," he says, quietly, voice raw. "I ust...I wish I knew what I could do."

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the world was on fire and no one could save me but you ➴ gale

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