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

[burnwithus]

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.

Comments

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

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."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

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.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

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.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

"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."

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

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."