#alexander.gale

[riiseandfall]

@empyrcals

the elevators were broken. that's all they had really been told. but alexander knew. they may not have been told every detail of the plan—but they knew this one. although they would have appreciated being told just what was going to be displayed on those screens. it hit him hard the first time he watched those deaths...the second time wasn't any easier. he had slipped away, just slightly past where the peacekeepers were watching—solely to light up a cigarette in the hopes it would ease his nerves. only for alex to jump nearly a foot in the air when he sees that familiar white armor—his panic giving way to minor annoyance when he notices who is wearing it.

"...i liked you better when you weren't a peacekeeper..." he grumbles, eyes rolling as he takes a drag, "here to drag me back?"

[riiseandfall]

alex is quiet, taking a slow drag as they listen to gale, brows furrowing. "full of fun thoughts in that head of yours, huh, peacekeeper?" with the arena so close? alex wasn't overly fond of thinking of that hypothetical outcome, especially no katniss given the circumstances. they didn't have a lot in twelve, but they had their little, broken, found family--and alex would fight tooth and nail to keep it. "oh...right." that. the question that had been asked far sooner than alex ever expected it to be, the ring that now wrapped around his finger--it felt so heavy now as their thumb brushed across it. a moment passes before alex raises their hand to show off the band around his finger. "...idiot that i am. never going to see that wedding if the capitol has their way." and the capitol always got their way. they were the real victors of the games. "...maybe i should have said no. maybe it would hurt him less if i--" alex sighs, shaking his head before moving to run a hand through messy curls. "...love's weird, huh?"

"There would be no Katniss and Peeta if I had been selected or if -" Gale paused, knowing it was likely that Alex had met the older of his two younger brothers and his little sister. Twelve wasn't all that huge a place to live. The peacekeeper had to pause, knowing that if Rory had been selected, he would've volunteered. For as much as a younger muscle-bound, Gale loved Katniss as another piece of his soul if it meant coming home to his family to see the little ones that were siblings by blood but his babies because he had raised them in truth - Katniss would've died. There was no way around that thought that he would have done what was needed to come home. He paused now because Gale missed a brother that has been gone too long, fearing, knowing the worse but in just as many years he still pretends to send his mother flowers addressed from the boy that could never come home. The boy Gale pulled every favor for and then never heard of again only to assume he had not made it to thirteen. "Rory if he had been selected, I would've come home then. No, I meant, did you say yes to the proposal. I only saw what aired on the screens for Apollo's interview. Did you say yes?"

[riiseandfall]

"well, that's on you, hawthorne. should've jumped right up and volunteered." alex fires back with his usual level of snark, still managing enough energy to shoot gale a crooked grin. "didn't you catch the memo that the life of a victor is so stunning?" disdain hangs from every word, alex scoffing as he takes a long drag, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other. "'m fine, hawthorne. the whole going to your death thing hits a little less hard the second time around, you know?" brows furrow for a moment as he looks back to gale, "did i say yes to what?"

"It was either die in the minds or find a better way to provide for my family. Not all of us can be victors and receive full rations." Gale shrugged with a half smile, stepping away and taking a moment for a break, knowing it was not an easily handled situation. Would he expect Alex to understand? Despite their life, they were still members of the poorest district and the hardest to live in. Gale saw for a moment a life of what the mines would do to him, the death that would find him if he lived long enough to know the coal eat away at his internals or if the coal pits crushed him. "Did you say yes?" Gale inquired "No, Im not here to drag you back. You okay?"