Post by KATE on Sept 17, 2011 8:03:56 GMT -8
Title:New Beginnings
Rating: PG13
Category: AU (with some Non-Canon Pairings)
Word Count: 5,006
Summary: New Beginnings can bring so much into a person's life. New friends, new plans, but does fate always bring you back to what you're destined for?
A/N: This is an AU in what if Gale actually grew up in D2. Thats all you have to understand to get this
I don't own the characters you recognize. New Chapters will be up soon in this same thread to make this complete.
Warnings: violence, swearing
Chapter 1
“The reapings are tomorrow you idiot,” the girl snapped, her dark green eyes flashed as she grabbed the youth’s hand and looked at it under the moonlight of District 2.
“Afraid for me?” He smirked.
“More likely afraid for her district’s pride.” Another young man glared at him. “You’re not volunteering with that.”The gray eyed man gestured towards his friends swollen and bruised hand that was bleeding in several places. It was obvious to them that something was broken.
The two young men glared at each other under the street lights that always turned on this late at night. The young woman stood off in the shadows. They all made an interesting set. The woman’s lithe frame was ready to move as she watched the hulking boys. The young man with the hurt hand was simply monstrous from his stature to his cold eyes and only at seventeen years old too. The other man was eighteen, he matched the other youth in height but his muscles were like wire beneath his skin, his gray eyes were not cold, but calculating.
“Cato, you can’t. Next year,” Clove promised him while glaring at his hand.
“Think, Cato. Next year you can go in and be the victor they talk about for years, not just another victor,” Gale tried to reason with his long time friend.
“You can’t stop me!” Cato shoved his friend in the chest towards a brick wall.
“Watch me!” Gale grabbed Cato’s shirt and with a heave switched their positions and slammed Cato into the bricks. “You won’t go in.”
“I’ll volunteer if I have to,” Cato Snapped.
“I’ll volunteer to keep you out. I’m older, I have seniority.” Gale’s voice was barely a growl.
“Gale no!” Clove’s face scrunched into a scowl. “That’s enough you two.”
Cato swung his good fist up at Gale’s head. Gale was ready for it though, he blocked the punch and countered with a knee in his friends stomach followed by an elbow into side. Gale raised a fist to swing again but Clove had grabbed his arm to pull him away.
Clove shoved Gale away from Cato. “Neither of you are going anywhere tomorrow. Got it?!” she yelled at them. “I’ll see you at the celebrations tomorrow, Cato.”
Gale looked between his friends. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cato. Go home, get some rest and have your hand seen to.” He then left in the same direction as Clove, leaving Cato hunched on the ground, glaring.
Chapter 2
Gale stood in the section of eighteen year olds of District 2, watching his friends in the sections for seventeen year olds. Clove did the same, glancing between Cato and Gale. Cato stared intently at the man currently pulling a paper slip out of a glass ball.
“Granice Quarr,” called the Capitol representative. A small girl began to step up but a much larger, and older girl stepped forward. Clove recognized her as Cretia Domin.
Then the time was on them. Before the boy’s name could even be called, Cato’s injured hand shot up into the air. “I volunteer!”
Without thinking, and without hesitation, Gale pushed forward. “I volunteer. Gale Hawthorne!”
Cato cursed and glared. Clove gasped. Gale was pulled on stage before he was carted off to a room for his goodbyes.
His mother came in and wished him luck and hugged him before the tears in her eyes spilled over. His younger brother stayed longer before hugging him and leaving.
Then, his old friend came in. The two boys glared at each other.
“It was mine,” Cato growled. “She was mine. It was all supposed to be mine until you screwed it all up.”
“How did I screw what up?” Gale demanded.
“We were great friends. A year ahead, sure, but still, and then you get chosen for that special Peacekeeper Officer Training. You went to your precious pre-officer training for six months to get you ready for it. Then you get back and you’re even more perfect at it. You’re all anyone can see. You were supposed to be trained to be a Peacekeeper Captain and deployed in another six months. You screwed it all up.”
“Cato-”
“We already decided. You would be the Captain here in District 2. I would be the Victor. Clove would be--”
“Things change! I couldn’t let you go in like that.” Gale sighed and looked away.
“I can’t make it through another year in school.” Cato got right in Gale’s face. “I’ll flunk out and be put in the mines. You betrayed me, Hawthorne. That’s all that changed.” Cato slammed his fist into the other man’s chest and stomped out. Gale was left doubled over.
The door opened again. When Gale looked up, worried dark green eyes scowled at him. “You’re both awful,” Clove told him. “I’m not telling you good bye either. I expect to see you back here soon. Understand? That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
Clove headed towards the door and let her hand rest on the handle. She turned back around and closed the space between them in two steps. “And when Flickerman asks if you have a girl waiting at home for you, you better say me.” She grabbed his shirt collar and roughly kissed him before she rushed out, slamming the door behind her.
Gale stood there, more shell shocked then when he was at his Officer training and being shot at. The snarky, cold hearted Clove that everyone knew kissed him, his best friend punched him,and his mother walked out on him. And he was expected in the Capitol in less than a day.
Chapter 3
When Gale traveled to the Capitol he had learned that his mentor was to be one of the best: Brutus.This was a man of steel, a one way fighting machine, every tribute he ever had came home, and he would not accept failure from Gale.
Once they arrived in the Capitol, the day went by in a flurry. His stylist gushed over his appearance while his prep team shuffled out of the room leaving him.
“So strong,” the fluttery man said while grasping Gale’s bicep. “Grey eyes. Dark Hair. Hello tall, dark, and handsome!” The stylist, Benno, clapped his hands together as he ripped away the robe Gale was covered with.
“Hey!” Gale gasped as cold paint sprayed onto his bare flesh.
Gale was uncomfortable in the chariot, to say the least. He was painted head to toe to appear to look like a marble statue with a strip of linen wrapped around his waist. Cretia Domin was dressed similarly in a longer linen wrap.
The masses of people created a blur of color and noise when they were taken on their tour of the city. Before they knew it, they were back at the training center.
“Not bad,” Brutus told him gruffly as they headed to the elevator. “You’ll do alright.”
“Hey, Brute, new ‘bute I see.” A young woman, slightly older than Gale came up, a girl dressed as tree trailing her. “Hey, gorgeous,” she winked at Gale.
Gale’s cheeks tinged pink.
“What do you want, Johanna?” Brutus demanded.
She shrugged. “Oh nothing, just out admiring the artwork, you know.” She hit the buttons marked 2 and 7 on the elevator panel.
Gale could feel Johanna’s eyes on him the whole time, looking him up and down shamelessly.
“So how old are you?” Johanna asked.
“Eighteen,” Gale told her.
“Open game.” Johanna winked at him again as Gale followed Brutus out the door and the door shut on them.
Chapter 4
Gale’s time in the training center was ideal for a tribute from District 2; a ten for a training score, cold, calculating, handsome, and desirable in his interview. When asked about a girl back home, one of the standard questions, he told them about Clove. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to say that in front of so many people, and it seemed to make perfect sense.
Before he knew it he was sitting in the dark on his bed the night before the games began. He sighed before tugging a shirt over his bare chest and started to wander the empty halls. He knew they wouldn’t be completely empty, someone was watching in a surveillance room most likely. He needed to let his mind drift though, because it wanted to go back to that hasty kiss before he left.
He found a stairwell that was tucked away in a corner and followed it to a roof top garden. He heard two people, the District 11 tribute and her mentor sitting together, whispering. He ducked behind a large storage shed, most likely filled with tools for the gardeners.
He sat quietly, not wanting to disturb them, and wanting to do his own thinking. He had been friends with Clove since they were small, they weren’t completely different. His father had worked in the mines as a Peacekeeper and met his mother there and later had been killed during a cave in when some granite crumbled on them. Clove’s parents were similar, her mother was a Peacekeeper and her father a miner, but her father never left the mines after marrying her mother, he stayed and suffered the same fate as Gale’s father. They always shared that odd little factor that made them outcasts from the other children of Peacekeepers. Cato was the son of a Peacekeeper and a Victor. It started out as just trying to best Gale when they were younger before they actually became friends.
He never even thought about Clove being more than just his friend, but now that he has actually thought about. It makes sense. They were always together, even when Cato was going on one of his rampages. When Clove would snap at Cato, and the boy would get mad he would puff up and his fists would curl, it was Gale that would step in and put Cato back in to his place. Clove could understand how the world worked. Clove wasn’t one that ran when things got complex. Clove was smart. Clove was…
Maybe, if he did get back, he could have a future with –
“Hey, gorgeous,” someone whispered almost making him jump.
Gale looked over his shoulder and saw the snarky Johanna Mason crouched low and watching the District 11 tribute follow her mentor back down stairs. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the sappy speeches that happen every year up here, they get pretty pathetic.” Johanna stretched out next to Gale. “I get to hear everything from ‘Oh how I love you!’ to ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, just don’t change’ you get used to them.”
“You’re crazy,” Gale told her simply.
Johanna rolled her brown eyes at him. “So I’ve heard, most victors are, but you have to admit the declarations of love just before you go at each other’s throat in the arena is pretty funny.”
Gale thought for a minute but didn’t say anything.
“You’ll understand once you get in the arena.” Johanna leaned on her hand and looked at Gale square in the eye. “That name you threw out in your interview, Clove, was it? You really think she’s waiting for you? She won’t get you back. It all changes in there, gorgeous.”
Johanna stood up and offered her a hand to help Gale to his feet. “If you make it out of the arena, look me up on the Victory Tour, and we’ll see how your life goes.” She winked and patted him on the chest before disappearing down the stairs.
Gale was left staring at the door, alone on the roof and soon he would be facing the arena.
Chapter 5
Gale held his breath as he rose up on the shiny metal plate. He was finally entering the arena. As soon as he could see, he ignored the booming voices of the announcer and took in the landscape. They were in the middle of a plateau of rock. High gray rocks covered the ground on one side, the other sloped down, and cliff walls could be seen in the distance. Looking higher up the mountain all he could see was rocky terrain getting higher and higher.
The cornucopia rested between him and the other tributes, Cretia was three people to his left. The other careers were scattered around them. The sun was just barely coming over the rock wall to their east and made the golden horn quite the spectacle. Gale looked at the different supplies preparing to run. Ropes, gloves with spikes across the knuckles, spears, swords, and survival supplies, the most common cornucopia contents you could get.
When the games actually began, after the sixty second period, Gale broke for the closest weapon he could get, a spear. In his other hand he picked up a long thin chain that he used with the spear. When he turned, the male tribute from District for had a sword leveled on him, Gale swung the chain and wrapped it around the boy’s sword before jabbing the spear into his chest. District 4 had no intentions of joining the career pack this year, and it was evident as he watched the boy from District 1 kill the other District 4 tribute. The other careers broke out into the fury of running tributes. Cretia showed no mercy as she sliced through tributes with a sword in one hand and a spiked glove on the other. The tributes from District 1, Ascot and Angora, helped Cretia wipe them out. Gale ran at the guy from District 10 and plunged his spear through the boy’s chest while he was trying to run away.
AS the Bloodbath came to a halt, the Careers drug the bodies away from the cornucopia so that they could be picked up.
Gale looked at the supplies they had. “We should pull everything out and see what we have before we divide it up or anything,” He said while trying to wipe the blood off his hands.
“Who says you’re in charge.” District 1’s male tribute asked. Ascott glared at Gale through bright blue eyes.
Gale turned on the other young man, Ascot was larger and broad, built a lot like Cato. Gale could handle Cato, Ascot would be no different. “Listen, Blondie. You’re Either doing as I say, or join District 4’s alliance.”
Ascot swallowed but didn’t move.
Gale shoved him to the ground and before the bigger youth could do anything, Gale had the chain wrapped around his throat. “Any complaints ladies?” Gale looked from Cretia to Angora. Neither of the girls looked like they cared. “So, are you listening, or leaving, Blondie?”
“…Lithening--” Ascot gasped. Gale released the chain’s pressure and the other tribute gasped for breath. “You’re in charge. I’m listening.”
“Good,” Gale huffed before standing and looking at the others. “First thing, let’s find out what we have, and then we’ll take care of the rest.”
Chapter 6
The games were brutal, Gale led the careers with an iron fist, Cretia had even looked to him for direction. Gale pushed the tributes into his human traps one after another. Many times they would split up and block the exits of the other tributes before killing them. Gale would set traps with rope that would send victims over cliff edges to their deaths, or they would be brushed beneath rocks.
Before long the four careers had become half of the arena’s population and split up with their divided supplies. Gale climbed the mountain side every day, listening as his fellow careers picked off the remaining tributes, waiting for them to come and find him. As he watched the sun rise and fall from his mountain side every day he slept less, ate less, and thought more. He thought of ways the others would try to kill him, he thought of ways that he could kill them, and he thought how they might kill each other. Death filled the backs of his eyes until that was all he could think about, waiting for that one fatal blow that had to be stopped.
Then it came. He heard the climber trying to get up the rocky face of the mountain long before the other boy had seen him. Gale was ready though, and he couldn’t believe how easy it would be. The others didn’t think to trap people; they could only face them head on. Gale was prepared and he shoved the line of large and small rocks over the edge, towards Ascot.
The blond boy looked up as an onslaught of boulders crashed into him. The last thing he saw were the gray eyes of the Victor.
Chapter 7
Gale returned home, back to District 2. His family congratulated him as they moved him into his home in Victor’s Village, a short Distance from where he had grown up in the Peacekeeper’s Places. Cato refused to come and see him. Clove waited until he was alone.
Gale was sitting in his house that was big enough for six others, alone, but his mind kept falling back to how he sat on that mountainside waiting for someone to come and finish him off. Waiting for that final blow.
He heard it again, that sound of crackling rocks, and jumped to his feet waiting to attack again. It wasn’t Ascot coming to finish him off though. It was his front door opening and shutting. Standing there just inside the pale yellow glow of his light was a lithe girl. Just a year younger than him, but she had the snarky wisdom of a grandmother.
“It took you long enough to get home,” Clove told him. Her dark green eyes crinkled in humor.
Gale shrugged, the mountainside forgotten for now. Now, he had years of memories with a girl who had always been there for him, and he had never realized just how much she wanted from him. “What can I say; I had to make sure I was entertaining.”
Clove wasted no time in throwing her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her height where she could kiss him properly. Before gale could regain his balance she shoved them both onto the couch. Her lips took the breath out of his lungs, he couldn’t pull in enough air, and the air he did get wasn’t satisfying, it didn’t have enough of her in it.
“I knew you would come back to me,” she whispered in his ear as his lips brushed across her neck.
Gale’s movements came crashing to a halt. He remembered Johanna’s words, this wasn’t the real him. The real him wouldn’t have been ready to kill whoever came through his door unannounced. The real him would have known it, would have threatened them, but he would never have been looking at things like a coat rack as a lethal weapon either.
“Gale?” Clove grabbed his shirt in her hand. “Don’t make me wait for you any longer.” Then her lips crushed his again, and she refused to let him have any more hesitation.
It became apparent as time passed that Clove was disappearing from her own bed in the Peacekeeper’s Places and ending up with Gale in Victor’s Village. They stayed awake most the night, she kept him up as long as she could he watched her sleep until morning.
He was never alone. Clove was by his side every night. His fellow victors were with him every day. His old friends from Peacekeeper training took him out with them as they were preparing to be deployed. The only person Gale didn’t depend on seeing was Cato.
So long as Gale wasn’t alone, he wasn’t getting ready to kill anyone.
Chapter 8
As Gale and Clove got closer, he and Cato slipped farther away. It had been almost six months since he had talked to Cato before his games. Gale thought it was time to try and talk to his old friend before he left on his Victory Tour.
As soon as Cato opened the door to Gale, the wood slammed back into place. “Cato,” Gale called. “Cato, come on, let’s just talk.”
Gale stood there for half an hour by himself before he he couldn’t take the loneliness anymore and gave up on the young man ignoring him inside the house, and left.
Clove was waiting for Gale next to his front door, his prep crew and stylist would be arriving soon to take him to District 12.
“You went to talk to him didn’t you?” Clove’s green eyes were intent as she watched Gale approach.
Gale nodded.
“He won’t talk to you; I tried talking to him once after you left. It didn’t turn out so well.” Clove leaned her head on Gale’s shoulder as his arm rested across hers. “He…wasn’t happy with my decision.”
“I thought we were friends,” confessed Gale. “We had been, hadn’t we?”
Clove’s lips pursed for a moment in thought. “No, not really. You were competition. You fought against each other over everything; position in training, powerful friends, me.”
Gale’s eyebrows snapped together. “You?”
Clove grinned. “Well, you didn’t have to try too hard. “ Clove looked around Gale and winced. “Well, I’m gone. They’re here.” Clove kissed him and hurried away as Gale got ready to leave his District.
The Victory Tour flew by, District 12 was interesting. Seeder from District 11 was kind. District 4’s victor was gave him a funny look. The most interesting District was 7 though.
Johanna was there during almost the entire time he was in the wooded forest. She made snarky comments at everyone’s expense and when ever Gale had drifted away from the crowds, and his mind started to drift back to that mountain top, Johanna was there discussing some of the tour guides were sold they were starting to become the woodwork of District 7.
The rest of the time on his tour, Gale was the perfect victor of District 2. Always preened. Always ready to fight. Always ready.
Chapter 9
Then the worst thing Gale could have ever imagined happened, the 74th Hunger Games came and we was to be a mentor. Clove was reaped. Cato volunteered. When the tributes and past victors had been loaded on the train, Gale wasted no time.
“Cato! You worthless bastard!” Gale screamed as he ran down the corridor of the train.
“Gale don’t!” Clove ran after him. “Brutus help!”
Gale’s reared back and kicked Cato’s door in just like he had been taught in Peacekeeper training. As he charged in, Cato had been waiting and swung his fists in Gale’s face.
Gale fell to the floor but rolled back up to his feet and threw Cato to the floor. The two young men were mixed jumble of thrown punches and kicking feet. Curses were throw in the air like they came with their breaths.
Clove jumped right into the middle of it. Shoving Gale away and pulling at Cato’s arms. It seemed useless and soon she was hitting and cursing at them right back.
Brutus stormed into the room. “Attention,” his voiced boomed.
Gale tried to jump to his feet, years of Peacekeeper training drummed into his head. Cato didn’t listen. Cato went to attack again, but Brutus’ arms, which were as big trees, grabbed Cato and threw him across the room. Clove was left sitting on the floor.
“Hawthorne, report.” Brutus glared at the trio.
“She was reaped, we were all friends. He shouldn’t have volunteered.” Gale’s teeth were clentched.
“I don’t care. You’re no longer a mentor, dismissed. Tributes, back to your quarters, you’re due to see me and the other mentor in half an hour.” Brutus turned and walked ot, taking Clove and Gale with him in his wake.
Gale hated being in the Capitol, watching Clove get ready to go against Cato in the games. He didn’t care about anything other than how he could get people to help Clove.
He even fell into old clichés he thought when he watched Clove smile weakly at him and leave him on the roof top after he told her he loved her.
Johanna came out from the shadows, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Either part of her comes back, or none of her. Either way, you’re still here. You might as well make the best of it.” Then the woman left him alone.
Gale thought that Clove had a good chance of winning, if she could beat Gale, the only other challenge she would have was that jumped up wannabe career from District 12. He growled when the District 12 tributes went off with their plans. He slammed his fist into the wall when the tracker jackers fell. He cheered when he heard the ruled change. He cursed when he saw food be blown up. He groaned when the feast was announced.
When the rock fell on her head, he sobbed. He threw his chair across the room. He hit the wall so many times his knuckles broke. Then he ran. He went straight out of victor’s quarters, past the control centers, and to the roof. He fell to his knees as sobs ripped his chest open.
He was alone. He was alone on the roof. Just like he was alone on the mountain, waiting to be killed, waiting to kill.
The door opened behind him, Gale jumped to his feet, a feral look in his eyes, his hands curled into claws ready to kill anything that came at him as he dove towards the would be attacker.
Johanna knew this behavior though. She side stepped him and grabbed his wrist before twisting it up behind his back and driving him to his knees.
“Gale, it’s me, Johanna,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s just me, Gale. Now, come on.”
Gale fell to the ground as Johanna released him. “She’s gone,” was all he said.
Johanna remained silent and just let Gale take his time.
“She’s gone.” Gale mumbled, the sobs starting to be replaced by moans of pain. “I’m all alone.”
This she could reply to. “You’re not alone, Gale. You still have the other victors, your family, and if you need you’ve still got me, but if you tell anyone I’ll deny it all.”
That won a small smile from Gale.
“Look at it like this. She won’t have to live like you live as a victor. Let the dead die peacefully. It will make her think you’re desperate.” She winked at Gale. “Do something with yourself that Clove would be proud of.”
Gale sat with Johanna until the sun had sunk without saying a word. Then, without warning he leaned over and kissed her. Johanna wasn’t one to let the opportunity go to waste. They found themselves in her room that night, both with a dead tribute, a heavy heart, and a world to shut out.
Chapter 10
When Cato and Clove had both died in the 74th Hunger Games, Brutus moved on, more future tributes to train after all. Gale couldn’t. He was stuck thinking about the young man that had been his friend -or his competition at least- for half his life and the young woman that he had been in love with.
Gale made do with phone calls to District 7, at first just to try and bring back the lust filled pain killer that they had created between themselves, and not long after it became more.
His life was still lonely though. He now felt alone in District 2. His brother was preparing to be deployed as a Peacekeeper. His mother’s mind had been going in several directions for his siblings, none of which pointed at him. His sister was being looked at as a possible future bride for another young boy from the Peacekeeper part of town.
He didn’t refuse the company when one of the old victors started to drop by and visit, and soon take him on walks over the loud mine shafts.
Lyme spoke to him one day over the mountain side. “You say you have no interest in what I’m doing.”
“You’re talking about rebelling, you’re crazy,” Gale snapped back.
“So you’ve told another that has spoke to you.” Lyme glanced at gale and then at a frost bitten shrub. “Though, I must admit many people believe she is scary rather than crazy.”
“Who…Johanna?” Gale stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe she was part of this wild scheme Lyme had been proposing to him.
The older woman nodded. “Johanna is good for the job, she hates everyone –mostly everyone- so she will tell everyone about how she hates certain people and why.”
Gale mind was racing, was everything Johanna said to him a ruse just to get him to go along with her? Before he could ask though, Lyme answered his question.
“She didn’t want me to pull you into this, but I think we need someone who has more connections in the Peacekeeper Protocols than I do, and I refuse to even consider looking at Brutus. So what do you say Gale?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“I want you to remember something,” she told him and placed a hand on his shoulder, her eyes were dark as she looked at him. “Your father wouldn’t be dead if the Capitol didn’t make him do those kind of patrols. Cato would be alive if he wasn’t raised in the light of the Capitol. Clove would be alive if she didn’t have to play the Capitol’s game. Everyone was forced into something by the Capitol, whether they know it or not. Are you going to sit back and let it continue, or do you want to put them in their place?”
Gale stopped for a minute. Johanna had once told him to do something that would make Clove proud, wouldn’t this be that something? His gray eyes landed on the older woman with confidence after looking across the horizon that protected the Capitol’s border. “Just tell me what needs to be done.”
Rating: PG13
Category: AU (with some Non-Canon Pairings)
Word Count: 5,006
Summary: New Beginnings can bring so much into a person's life. New friends, new plans, but does fate always bring you back to what you're destined for?
A/N: This is an AU in what if Gale actually grew up in D2. Thats all you have to understand to get this
I don't own the characters you recognize. New Chapters will be up soon in this same thread to make this complete.Warnings: violence, swearing
Chapter 1
“The reapings are tomorrow you idiot,” the girl snapped, her dark green eyes flashed as she grabbed the youth’s hand and looked at it under the moonlight of District 2.
“Afraid for me?” He smirked.
“More likely afraid for her district’s pride.” Another young man glared at him. “You’re not volunteering with that.”The gray eyed man gestured towards his friends swollen and bruised hand that was bleeding in several places. It was obvious to them that something was broken.
The two young men glared at each other under the street lights that always turned on this late at night. The young woman stood off in the shadows. They all made an interesting set. The woman’s lithe frame was ready to move as she watched the hulking boys. The young man with the hurt hand was simply monstrous from his stature to his cold eyes and only at seventeen years old too. The other man was eighteen, he matched the other youth in height but his muscles were like wire beneath his skin, his gray eyes were not cold, but calculating.
“Cato, you can’t. Next year,” Clove promised him while glaring at his hand.
“Think, Cato. Next year you can go in and be the victor they talk about for years, not just another victor,” Gale tried to reason with his long time friend.
“You can’t stop me!” Cato shoved his friend in the chest towards a brick wall.
“Watch me!” Gale grabbed Cato’s shirt and with a heave switched their positions and slammed Cato into the bricks. “You won’t go in.”
“I’ll volunteer if I have to,” Cato Snapped.
“I’ll volunteer to keep you out. I’m older, I have seniority.” Gale’s voice was barely a growl.
“Gale no!” Clove’s face scrunched into a scowl. “That’s enough you two.”
Cato swung his good fist up at Gale’s head. Gale was ready for it though, he blocked the punch and countered with a knee in his friends stomach followed by an elbow into side. Gale raised a fist to swing again but Clove had grabbed his arm to pull him away.
Clove shoved Gale away from Cato. “Neither of you are going anywhere tomorrow. Got it?!” she yelled at them. “I’ll see you at the celebrations tomorrow, Cato.”
Gale looked between his friends. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cato. Go home, get some rest and have your hand seen to.” He then left in the same direction as Clove, leaving Cato hunched on the ground, glaring.
Chapter 2
Gale stood in the section of eighteen year olds of District 2, watching his friends in the sections for seventeen year olds. Clove did the same, glancing between Cato and Gale. Cato stared intently at the man currently pulling a paper slip out of a glass ball.
“Granice Quarr,” called the Capitol representative. A small girl began to step up but a much larger, and older girl stepped forward. Clove recognized her as Cretia Domin.
Then the time was on them. Before the boy’s name could even be called, Cato’s injured hand shot up into the air. “I volunteer!”
Without thinking, and without hesitation, Gale pushed forward. “I volunteer. Gale Hawthorne!”
Cato cursed and glared. Clove gasped. Gale was pulled on stage before he was carted off to a room for his goodbyes.
His mother came in and wished him luck and hugged him before the tears in her eyes spilled over. His younger brother stayed longer before hugging him and leaving.
Then, his old friend came in. The two boys glared at each other.
“It was mine,” Cato growled. “She was mine. It was all supposed to be mine until you screwed it all up.”
“How did I screw what up?” Gale demanded.
“We were great friends. A year ahead, sure, but still, and then you get chosen for that special Peacekeeper Officer Training. You went to your precious pre-officer training for six months to get you ready for it. Then you get back and you’re even more perfect at it. You’re all anyone can see. You were supposed to be trained to be a Peacekeeper Captain and deployed in another six months. You screwed it all up.”
“Cato-”
“We already decided. You would be the Captain here in District 2. I would be the Victor. Clove would be--”
“Things change! I couldn’t let you go in like that.” Gale sighed and looked away.
“I can’t make it through another year in school.” Cato got right in Gale’s face. “I’ll flunk out and be put in the mines. You betrayed me, Hawthorne. That’s all that changed.” Cato slammed his fist into the other man’s chest and stomped out. Gale was left doubled over.
The door opened again. When Gale looked up, worried dark green eyes scowled at him. “You’re both awful,” Clove told him. “I’m not telling you good bye either. I expect to see you back here soon. Understand? That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
Clove headed towards the door and let her hand rest on the handle. She turned back around and closed the space between them in two steps. “And when Flickerman asks if you have a girl waiting at home for you, you better say me.” She grabbed his shirt collar and roughly kissed him before she rushed out, slamming the door behind her.
Gale stood there, more shell shocked then when he was at his Officer training and being shot at. The snarky, cold hearted Clove that everyone knew kissed him, his best friend punched him,and his mother walked out on him. And he was expected in the Capitol in less than a day.
Chapter 3
When Gale traveled to the Capitol he had learned that his mentor was to be one of the best: Brutus.This was a man of steel, a one way fighting machine, every tribute he ever had came home, and he would not accept failure from Gale.
Once they arrived in the Capitol, the day went by in a flurry. His stylist gushed over his appearance while his prep team shuffled out of the room leaving him.
“So strong,” the fluttery man said while grasping Gale’s bicep. “Grey eyes. Dark Hair. Hello tall, dark, and handsome!” The stylist, Benno, clapped his hands together as he ripped away the robe Gale was covered with.
“Hey!” Gale gasped as cold paint sprayed onto his bare flesh.
Gale was uncomfortable in the chariot, to say the least. He was painted head to toe to appear to look like a marble statue with a strip of linen wrapped around his waist. Cretia Domin was dressed similarly in a longer linen wrap.
The masses of people created a blur of color and noise when they were taken on their tour of the city. Before they knew it, they were back at the training center.
“Not bad,” Brutus told him gruffly as they headed to the elevator. “You’ll do alright.”
“Hey, Brute, new ‘bute I see.” A young woman, slightly older than Gale came up, a girl dressed as tree trailing her. “Hey, gorgeous,” she winked at Gale.
Gale’s cheeks tinged pink.
“What do you want, Johanna?” Brutus demanded.
She shrugged. “Oh nothing, just out admiring the artwork, you know.” She hit the buttons marked 2 and 7 on the elevator panel.
Gale could feel Johanna’s eyes on him the whole time, looking him up and down shamelessly.
“So how old are you?” Johanna asked.
“Eighteen,” Gale told her.
“Open game.” Johanna winked at him again as Gale followed Brutus out the door and the door shut on them.
Chapter 4
Gale’s time in the training center was ideal for a tribute from District 2; a ten for a training score, cold, calculating, handsome, and desirable in his interview. When asked about a girl back home, one of the standard questions, he told them about Clove. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to say that in front of so many people, and it seemed to make perfect sense.
Before he knew it he was sitting in the dark on his bed the night before the games began. He sighed before tugging a shirt over his bare chest and started to wander the empty halls. He knew they wouldn’t be completely empty, someone was watching in a surveillance room most likely. He needed to let his mind drift though, because it wanted to go back to that hasty kiss before he left.
He found a stairwell that was tucked away in a corner and followed it to a roof top garden. He heard two people, the District 11 tribute and her mentor sitting together, whispering. He ducked behind a large storage shed, most likely filled with tools for the gardeners.
He sat quietly, not wanting to disturb them, and wanting to do his own thinking. He had been friends with Clove since they were small, they weren’t completely different. His father had worked in the mines as a Peacekeeper and met his mother there and later had been killed during a cave in when some granite crumbled on them. Clove’s parents were similar, her mother was a Peacekeeper and her father a miner, but her father never left the mines after marrying her mother, he stayed and suffered the same fate as Gale’s father. They always shared that odd little factor that made them outcasts from the other children of Peacekeepers. Cato was the son of a Peacekeeper and a Victor. It started out as just trying to best Gale when they were younger before they actually became friends.
He never even thought about Clove being more than just his friend, but now that he has actually thought about. It makes sense. They were always together, even when Cato was going on one of his rampages. When Clove would snap at Cato, and the boy would get mad he would puff up and his fists would curl, it was Gale that would step in and put Cato back in to his place. Clove could understand how the world worked. Clove wasn’t one that ran when things got complex. Clove was smart. Clove was…
Maybe, if he did get back, he could have a future with –
“Hey, gorgeous,” someone whispered almost making him jump.
Gale looked over his shoulder and saw the snarky Johanna Mason crouched low and watching the District 11 tribute follow her mentor back down stairs. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the sappy speeches that happen every year up here, they get pretty pathetic.” Johanna stretched out next to Gale. “I get to hear everything from ‘Oh how I love you!’ to ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, just don’t change’ you get used to them.”
“You’re crazy,” Gale told her simply.
Johanna rolled her brown eyes at him. “So I’ve heard, most victors are, but you have to admit the declarations of love just before you go at each other’s throat in the arena is pretty funny.”
Gale thought for a minute but didn’t say anything.
“You’ll understand once you get in the arena.” Johanna leaned on her hand and looked at Gale square in the eye. “That name you threw out in your interview, Clove, was it? You really think she’s waiting for you? She won’t get you back. It all changes in there, gorgeous.”
Johanna stood up and offered her a hand to help Gale to his feet. “If you make it out of the arena, look me up on the Victory Tour, and we’ll see how your life goes.” She winked and patted him on the chest before disappearing down the stairs.
Gale was left staring at the door, alone on the roof and soon he would be facing the arena.
Chapter 5
Gale held his breath as he rose up on the shiny metal plate. He was finally entering the arena. As soon as he could see, he ignored the booming voices of the announcer and took in the landscape. They were in the middle of a plateau of rock. High gray rocks covered the ground on one side, the other sloped down, and cliff walls could be seen in the distance. Looking higher up the mountain all he could see was rocky terrain getting higher and higher.
The cornucopia rested between him and the other tributes, Cretia was three people to his left. The other careers were scattered around them. The sun was just barely coming over the rock wall to their east and made the golden horn quite the spectacle. Gale looked at the different supplies preparing to run. Ropes, gloves with spikes across the knuckles, spears, swords, and survival supplies, the most common cornucopia contents you could get.
When the games actually began, after the sixty second period, Gale broke for the closest weapon he could get, a spear. In his other hand he picked up a long thin chain that he used with the spear. When he turned, the male tribute from District for had a sword leveled on him, Gale swung the chain and wrapped it around the boy’s sword before jabbing the spear into his chest. District 4 had no intentions of joining the career pack this year, and it was evident as he watched the boy from District 1 kill the other District 4 tribute. The other careers broke out into the fury of running tributes. Cretia showed no mercy as she sliced through tributes with a sword in one hand and a spiked glove on the other. The tributes from District 1, Ascot and Angora, helped Cretia wipe them out. Gale ran at the guy from District 10 and plunged his spear through the boy’s chest while he was trying to run away.
AS the Bloodbath came to a halt, the Careers drug the bodies away from the cornucopia so that they could be picked up.
Gale looked at the supplies they had. “We should pull everything out and see what we have before we divide it up or anything,” He said while trying to wipe the blood off his hands.
“Who says you’re in charge.” District 1’s male tribute asked. Ascott glared at Gale through bright blue eyes.
Gale turned on the other young man, Ascot was larger and broad, built a lot like Cato. Gale could handle Cato, Ascot would be no different. “Listen, Blondie. You’re Either doing as I say, or join District 4’s alliance.”
Ascot swallowed but didn’t move.
Gale shoved him to the ground and before the bigger youth could do anything, Gale had the chain wrapped around his throat. “Any complaints ladies?” Gale looked from Cretia to Angora. Neither of the girls looked like they cared. “So, are you listening, or leaving, Blondie?”
“…Lithening--” Ascot gasped. Gale released the chain’s pressure and the other tribute gasped for breath. “You’re in charge. I’m listening.”
“Good,” Gale huffed before standing and looking at the others. “First thing, let’s find out what we have, and then we’ll take care of the rest.”
Chapter 6
The games were brutal, Gale led the careers with an iron fist, Cretia had even looked to him for direction. Gale pushed the tributes into his human traps one after another. Many times they would split up and block the exits of the other tributes before killing them. Gale would set traps with rope that would send victims over cliff edges to their deaths, or they would be brushed beneath rocks.
Before long the four careers had become half of the arena’s population and split up with their divided supplies. Gale climbed the mountain side every day, listening as his fellow careers picked off the remaining tributes, waiting for them to come and find him. As he watched the sun rise and fall from his mountain side every day he slept less, ate less, and thought more. He thought of ways the others would try to kill him, he thought of ways that he could kill them, and he thought how they might kill each other. Death filled the backs of his eyes until that was all he could think about, waiting for that one fatal blow that had to be stopped.
Then it came. He heard the climber trying to get up the rocky face of the mountain long before the other boy had seen him. Gale was ready though, and he couldn’t believe how easy it would be. The others didn’t think to trap people; they could only face them head on. Gale was prepared and he shoved the line of large and small rocks over the edge, towards Ascot.
The blond boy looked up as an onslaught of boulders crashed into him. The last thing he saw were the gray eyes of the Victor.
Chapter 7
Gale returned home, back to District 2. His family congratulated him as they moved him into his home in Victor’s Village, a short Distance from where he had grown up in the Peacekeeper’s Places. Cato refused to come and see him. Clove waited until he was alone.
Gale was sitting in his house that was big enough for six others, alone, but his mind kept falling back to how he sat on that mountainside waiting for someone to come and finish him off. Waiting for that final blow.
He heard it again, that sound of crackling rocks, and jumped to his feet waiting to attack again. It wasn’t Ascot coming to finish him off though. It was his front door opening and shutting. Standing there just inside the pale yellow glow of his light was a lithe girl. Just a year younger than him, but she had the snarky wisdom of a grandmother.
“It took you long enough to get home,” Clove told him. Her dark green eyes crinkled in humor.
Gale shrugged, the mountainside forgotten for now. Now, he had years of memories with a girl who had always been there for him, and he had never realized just how much she wanted from him. “What can I say; I had to make sure I was entertaining.”
Clove wasted no time in throwing her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her height where she could kiss him properly. Before gale could regain his balance she shoved them both onto the couch. Her lips took the breath out of his lungs, he couldn’t pull in enough air, and the air he did get wasn’t satisfying, it didn’t have enough of her in it.
“I knew you would come back to me,” she whispered in his ear as his lips brushed across her neck.
Gale’s movements came crashing to a halt. He remembered Johanna’s words, this wasn’t the real him. The real him wouldn’t have been ready to kill whoever came through his door unannounced. The real him would have known it, would have threatened them, but he would never have been looking at things like a coat rack as a lethal weapon either.
“Gale?” Clove grabbed his shirt in her hand. “Don’t make me wait for you any longer.” Then her lips crushed his again, and she refused to let him have any more hesitation.
It became apparent as time passed that Clove was disappearing from her own bed in the Peacekeeper’s Places and ending up with Gale in Victor’s Village. They stayed awake most the night, she kept him up as long as she could he watched her sleep until morning.
He was never alone. Clove was by his side every night. His fellow victors were with him every day. His old friends from Peacekeeper training took him out with them as they were preparing to be deployed. The only person Gale didn’t depend on seeing was Cato.
So long as Gale wasn’t alone, he wasn’t getting ready to kill anyone.
Chapter 8
As Gale and Clove got closer, he and Cato slipped farther away. It had been almost six months since he had talked to Cato before his games. Gale thought it was time to try and talk to his old friend before he left on his Victory Tour.
As soon as Cato opened the door to Gale, the wood slammed back into place. “Cato,” Gale called. “Cato, come on, let’s just talk.”
Gale stood there for half an hour by himself before he he couldn’t take the loneliness anymore and gave up on the young man ignoring him inside the house, and left.
Clove was waiting for Gale next to his front door, his prep crew and stylist would be arriving soon to take him to District 12.
“You went to talk to him didn’t you?” Clove’s green eyes were intent as she watched Gale approach.
Gale nodded.
“He won’t talk to you; I tried talking to him once after you left. It didn’t turn out so well.” Clove leaned her head on Gale’s shoulder as his arm rested across hers. “He…wasn’t happy with my decision.”
“I thought we were friends,” confessed Gale. “We had been, hadn’t we?”
Clove’s lips pursed for a moment in thought. “No, not really. You were competition. You fought against each other over everything; position in training, powerful friends, me.”
Gale’s eyebrows snapped together. “You?”
Clove grinned. “Well, you didn’t have to try too hard. “ Clove looked around Gale and winced. “Well, I’m gone. They’re here.” Clove kissed him and hurried away as Gale got ready to leave his District.
The Victory Tour flew by, District 12 was interesting. Seeder from District 11 was kind. District 4’s victor was gave him a funny look. The most interesting District was 7 though.
Johanna was there during almost the entire time he was in the wooded forest. She made snarky comments at everyone’s expense and when ever Gale had drifted away from the crowds, and his mind started to drift back to that mountain top, Johanna was there discussing some of the tour guides were sold they were starting to become the woodwork of District 7.
The rest of the time on his tour, Gale was the perfect victor of District 2. Always preened. Always ready to fight. Always ready.
Chapter 9
Then the worst thing Gale could have ever imagined happened, the 74th Hunger Games came and we was to be a mentor. Clove was reaped. Cato volunteered. When the tributes and past victors had been loaded on the train, Gale wasted no time.
“Cato! You worthless bastard!” Gale screamed as he ran down the corridor of the train.
“Gale don’t!” Clove ran after him. “Brutus help!”
Gale’s reared back and kicked Cato’s door in just like he had been taught in Peacekeeper training. As he charged in, Cato had been waiting and swung his fists in Gale’s face.
Gale fell to the floor but rolled back up to his feet and threw Cato to the floor. The two young men were mixed jumble of thrown punches and kicking feet. Curses were throw in the air like they came with their breaths.
Clove jumped right into the middle of it. Shoving Gale away and pulling at Cato’s arms. It seemed useless and soon she was hitting and cursing at them right back.
Brutus stormed into the room. “Attention,” his voiced boomed.
Gale tried to jump to his feet, years of Peacekeeper training drummed into his head. Cato didn’t listen. Cato went to attack again, but Brutus’ arms, which were as big trees, grabbed Cato and threw him across the room. Clove was left sitting on the floor.
“Hawthorne, report.” Brutus glared at the trio.
“She was reaped, we were all friends. He shouldn’t have volunteered.” Gale’s teeth were clentched.
“I don’t care. You’re no longer a mentor, dismissed. Tributes, back to your quarters, you’re due to see me and the other mentor in half an hour.” Brutus turned and walked ot, taking Clove and Gale with him in his wake.
Gale hated being in the Capitol, watching Clove get ready to go against Cato in the games. He didn’t care about anything other than how he could get people to help Clove.
He even fell into old clichés he thought when he watched Clove smile weakly at him and leave him on the roof top after he told her he loved her.
Johanna came out from the shadows, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Either part of her comes back, or none of her. Either way, you’re still here. You might as well make the best of it.” Then the woman left him alone.
Gale thought that Clove had a good chance of winning, if she could beat Gale, the only other challenge she would have was that jumped up wannabe career from District 12. He growled when the District 12 tributes went off with their plans. He slammed his fist into the wall when the tracker jackers fell. He cheered when he heard the ruled change. He cursed when he saw food be blown up. He groaned when the feast was announced.
When the rock fell on her head, he sobbed. He threw his chair across the room. He hit the wall so many times his knuckles broke. Then he ran. He went straight out of victor’s quarters, past the control centers, and to the roof. He fell to his knees as sobs ripped his chest open.
He was alone. He was alone on the roof. Just like he was alone on the mountain, waiting to be killed, waiting to kill.
The door opened behind him, Gale jumped to his feet, a feral look in his eyes, his hands curled into claws ready to kill anything that came at him as he dove towards the would be attacker.
Johanna knew this behavior though. She side stepped him and grabbed his wrist before twisting it up behind his back and driving him to his knees.
“Gale, it’s me, Johanna,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s just me, Gale. Now, come on.”
Gale fell to the ground as Johanna released him. “She’s gone,” was all he said.
Johanna remained silent and just let Gale take his time.
“She’s gone.” Gale mumbled, the sobs starting to be replaced by moans of pain. “I’m all alone.”
This she could reply to. “You’re not alone, Gale. You still have the other victors, your family, and if you need you’ve still got me, but if you tell anyone I’ll deny it all.”
That won a small smile from Gale.
“Look at it like this. She won’t have to live like you live as a victor. Let the dead die peacefully. It will make her think you’re desperate.” She winked at Gale. “Do something with yourself that Clove would be proud of.”
Gale sat with Johanna until the sun had sunk without saying a word. Then, without warning he leaned over and kissed her. Johanna wasn’t one to let the opportunity go to waste. They found themselves in her room that night, both with a dead tribute, a heavy heart, and a world to shut out.
Chapter 10
When Cato and Clove had both died in the 74th Hunger Games, Brutus moved on, more future tributes to train after all. Gale couldn’t. He was stuck thinking about the young man that had been his friend -or his competition at least- for half his life and the young woman that he had been in love with.
Gale made do with phone calls to District 7, at first just to try and bring back the lust filled pain killer that they had created between themselves, and not long after it became more.
His life was still lonely though. He now felt alone in District 2. His brother was preparing to be deployed as a Peacekeeper. His mother’s mind had been going in several directions for his siblings, none of which pointed at him. His sister was being looked at as a possible future bride for another young boy from the Peacekeeper part of town.
He didn’t refuse the company when one of the old victors started to drop by and visit, and soon take him on walks over the loud mine shafts.
Lyme spoke to him one day over the mountain side. “You say you have no interest in what I’m doing.”
“You’re talking about rebelling, you’re crazy,” Gale snapped back.
“So you’ve told another that has spoke to you.” Lyme glanced at gale and then at a frost bitten shrub. “Though, I must admit many people believe she is scary rather than crazy.”
“Who…Johanna?” Gale stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe she was part of this wild scheme Lyme had been proposing to him.
The older woman nodded. “Johanna is good for the job, she hates everyone –mostly everyone- so she will tell everyone about how she hates certain people and why.”
Gale mind was racing, was everything Johanna said to him a ruse just to get him to go along with her? Before he could ask though, Lyme answered his question.
“She didn’t want me to pull you into this, but I think we need someone who has more connections in the Peacekeeper Protocols than I do, and I refuse to even consider looking at Brutus. So what do you say Gale?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“I want you to remember something,” she told him and placed a hand on his shoulder, her eyes were dark as she looked at him. “Your father wouldn’t be dead if the Capitol didn’t make him do those kind of patrols. Cato would be alive if he wasn’t raised in the light of the Capitol. Clove would be alive if she didn’t have to play the Capitol’s game. Everyone was forced into something by the Capitol, whether they know it or not. Are you going to sit back and let it continue, or do you want to put them in their place?”
Gale stopped for a minute. Johanna had once told him to do something that would make Clove proud, wouldn’t this be that something? His gray eyes landed on the older woman with confidence after looking across the horizon that protected the Capitol’s border. “Just tell me what needs to be done.”
Can't wait to see where you go with this! (Hopefully some G/J...?)