The Hunger Guy : A GENDERFLIP of The Hunger Games

By: Storychan

Summary: What if Katniss were a guy? And Peeta and Gale were girls? And the entire Hunger Games cast of characters was also genderflipped? How would it change the outcome of the Games? Here's a look at potential answers to all those burning questions. M!Katniss/F!Peeta

Chapter 1.

My little brother, Herb Everdeen, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, looked like a sleeping cherub in our dad's arms. I know, it's not the coolest thing for a 12-year-old boy to sleep in the same bed as his father, but, well, we only own one bed. I'm not a girl, so Dad had no problem forcing me to sleep on the floor (the one time he acted commanding, like a normal father).

I don't mind, though. I can rough it. Herb can't. He's one of those sensitive boys who can catch a cold from a mile away and cries harder than the girls in his class when he sees a dead butterfly. There's no way he could sleep on the floor with me. He couldn't handle it. His cat was eyeing me, being the only other creature awake. I'd tried to drown it once. I figured since I was the "man of the house", I could decide how many mouths we had to feed. Herb convinced me otherwise, of course. I feed the cat entrails from my kills all the time. It's the closest bond I have with a girl, even though I'm a sixteen-year-old boy.

Well, I've had ONE close relationship with a human female- my mother. She was a total tomboy, which was good since my dad is so girly it's pathetic. He made her work in the mines while he played house-husband. It got her killed. My mom was a tiny woman. When a tiny woman tries to fight a mine explosion, the mine explosion always wins.

Since Dad became a gibbering heap after that happened, when I was eleven, I, Tuber Everdeen, became the head of the household.

It wasn't so bad. Protecting and feeding my family is the one thing that makes me happy in this life of penury on the Seam here in District 12. Well, that, and my best friend, Galeina.

My two sources of happiness were about to unite, I thought with a smile as I pulled on an old shirt, pants, and my leather boots that were so worn-in they seemed to remember my feet. I was going hunting with Galeina.

I tiptoed out of our shack, careful not to wake my sleeping brother and father. I wanted to give them every chance to stay in their happy dreams as long as possible- today, the waking world was going to be a sad place. Today was the day of the reaping.

It didn't take long to get to the fence. I'm a skinny guy, so I fit under it pretty easily. Malnutrition has its benefits. Being able to get under the fence and into the woods for food is the one reason I'm OK with having such a girly, thin, untoned body. It doesn't make me cute, but it makes me able to escape the Seam, if only for a little while.

I quickly found my bow, which my less-than-femininely hunting-obsessed mother had made me, under the tree where I'd left it last. As I tromped up the hill to meet Galeina, my cool façade slipped, and I started smiling like a little boy with a new baseball glove. Galeina fit my personality just as well as a glove fit my hand, so it wasn't that unusual. I smiled.

Galeina was there, at our place. She's two years older than me, and she's a lot like my mom. She has the olive skin and grey eyes I inherited from my mother. All Seam families look alike. She has an athletic build, like my mother did. You get that when you spend more time setting snares than staying in the kitchen. She had on a simple shorts outfit- girly clothes would've been hard to hunt in. But that was alright- she looked beautiful anyway. Not that I was checking her out or anything…it was just that the guys at school always talked about how beautiful she looked in boyish clothes. They would point at her like morons, so I had to notice. I don't get why she wastes her time with me…..well, except for the fact that I can help her get food for her two sisters and one brother.

Starvation unites us all.

"Hey, Tuba," said Galeina with a grin. My name's Tuber, but the first time we met, I introduced myself in such a soft voice she'd thought I said "Tuba". Now it's my nickname…if only to her.

"Hey, Galeina," I smiled back. "So….what should we do first? Hunt, fish, or gather?"

"Let's fish," said Galeina, pulling out a fishing pole she had made herself (a more useful skill than something expected, like sewing, if you ask me- you can't eat a thread). "And we can pick strawberries later."

I nodded. Food was food. My real reason for coming out here was to try to forget about the reaping, anyway. While we fished, Galeina started another one of her hysterical rants about the Capitol and its injustices. I let her talk because we're alone. If we discussed this in public, we'd be hanged. I was glad Herb wasn't there to hear it….Being alone with Galeina is the only time I can talk freely. If Herb heard me say something like the things coming out of Galeina's mouth, he might repeat it…..and then I'd have brought down the whole family with me, shooting off my mouth. I'm not that stupid. I'm my family's patriarch, after all, since Dad never seemed up to the job.

I was stunned out of my thoughts when Galeina grabbed my hand. "Tuber," she said seriously. "We could do it, you know."

"Do….what?" I asked. I didn't know where this was coming from.

"Run away from here…live off the land. Maybe have a couple kids," Galeina said softly.

Kids? I thought. Where did that come from? I figured Galeina was just feeling sentimental since it was Reaping Day. Either way, she can have her pick of husbands if she wants kids. Just not me- I'm not going to agree to father children, just to have them reaped. The Everdeen name will have to be carried on by Herb. I'm not doing it- besides, Herb is going to grow up to be more handsome than me, anyway. And also, we both know that if I ran away with Galeina, Herb would starve. So would Galeina's sisters and brother. I didn't know what she was thinking.

Lucky for me, Galeina dropped the subject as quickly as she brought it up, probably embarrassed to be caught thinking about something as submissively feminine as motherhood. She's a feminist, after all. She prefers being out in the woods with me to staying in the kitchen.

We didn't talk for a while, just gathered strawberries until late in the day, when I broke the silence, saying, "Galeina, it's getting late. We have to be at the square soon for the reaping."

Galeina nodded. If we didn't show, the Peacekeepers would come for us. We needed to get our trading done before it was time to head over there.

With strawberries, fish, and a squirrel I'd shot when it ran across my path in our hands, we trudged back to the Seam and entered the Hub, the black market where we make most of our money.

Greasy Sam was there, and he traded for our squirrel, throwing it in his cooking pot. He became the owner of a small café in the Hub after he got too old to mine. We like Greasy Sam…..he's the only guy we know always willing to trade for wild dog. It's not like we hunt dogs on purpose, but if you catch one sniffing around in the woods, it can be good eating. Nobody on the Seam would turn down a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers here in District 12 can be a little more picky. "Once it's in the stew, I'll call it beef," Greasy Sam says with a wink hidden behind his bushy eyebrows. He's a nice old man- I want to be like that if I live long enough to get old.

Next, we headed to the mayor's house. She loves strawberries, so we knew we could count on a trade. That day, his son Max answered the door, wearing a white three-piece suit. It was an expensive one- the suit jacket alone could feed a Seam family for a week. On it was a pin made of pure gold. Galeina's eyes narrowed.

"Nice suit," she said, clearly feeling the sting of the economic gap between Seam kids like us and town guys like him.

"Thank you," said Max. "If I get chosen to go to the Capitol, I want to look handsome, right?"

I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but either way, I could tell it ticked Galeina off. As if Max's chances of getting reaped were that high! You get put into the reaping lottery every year after you turn twelve. Max was sixteen like me- four years of being a potential tribute meant-what, four slips bearing his name?

But on the Seam, we did tesserae- meaning we traded bread and oil for extra slips with our names on them in the reaping pool. I had tens of them, as did Galeina. It was unfair, but it didn't bother me the way it did her.

Maybe because I was around Max more. We were both quiet guys, not a lot of buddies at school, so we often got paired in activities and assignments. We ate lunch together, too, for the same reason, never really talking. That was always alright with me- I'm a man of few words.

I gave Max the strawberries to give to his mom, and then promptly dragged Galeina out of there before she did something stupid. Then I went home to prepare for the reaping.

It was Herb's first, so I helped him get ready- he was wearing one of my old reaping outfits- a little shirt with a clip-on bow tie and slacks. I realized Herb hadn't tucked his shirt in- it made him look like he had a duck's tail.

"Careful, little duck," I chuckled, and pulled him into a hug. I'm not normally a real affectionate guy, but if my name got drawn at the reaping tonight, I might never see Herb again.

Herb pouted, twisting out of my arms restlessly. "Come on, Tuber," he whined. "Papa says no being late, 'kay?"

"OK," I smiled. I took a deep breath and walked, hand in hand with Herb, to the square. He trotted off to go stand with the other 12-year-old boys, and I headed to stand with the guys in my year. Madam Mayor came to the podium and started making her yearly reaping speech.

She read the same old story: After a string of disasters destroyed North America, the country of Panem, a Capitol surrounded by 13 districts, rose from its ashes. Then came the Dark Days of rebellion. Districts 1 through 12 were defeated, and District 13 was wiped out entirely. To quash any more rebellions before they started, the Capitol created the Hunger Games- a deathmatch from live TV where one boy and one girl, reaped as tributes from each district, kill each other. The last one left standing gets enough food to feed their District for one year.

Next, he called up our only Hunger Games victor, Haymiss. She's the town drunk, and its least eligible bachelorette. Her name sounds like "Hey, Miss!" and guys yell at it her just to see her turn and fall down. I'm not very confident that the old dingbat will be a good mentor to me if I get reaped. I don't yell at her like the other guys….I just think she's kind of stupid. I mean, shouldn't a woman her age have more class?

I almost snickered when she fell off the stage, drunk as a skunk, while shaking hands with Eddie Trinket.

Eddie Trinket, our representative from the Capitol, had got on stage to pick two District 12 tributes from the reaping lottery. He's a weird-looking guy, like most Capitol men. His hair was pink and his tux was spring green. He was wearing matching eyeliner, too. "Ladies always go first," he joked, like he does every year. "except today! Let's pick a boy tribute, shall we?"

I realized there was a pretty good chance my name would be called. I braced myself as Eddie opened his mouth to speak.

But he didn't call my name.

He called Herb's.