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wistfulweaverwoman · 9 days ago

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I was looking through my google drive and found this, which I totally forgot I wrote lol. It’s a cannon divergent fic concept that I’ve wanting to read for like ten years, but no one’s written it, so I gave it a go.

The snow is already falling too thickly by the time I’ve got my boots on. I don't even bother buttoning up my coat in my rush to get over to Peeta’s, which is a mistake because the wind blows right through my sweater, chilling me through. I can barely make out the house closest to mine as I stubble through the calf deep snow, and behind me is a white nothing. Panic starts to rise up as I continue in the direction of where I think Peeta's house is. If I walk past it without realizing I could wander too far into the storm and freeze to death.

My shoulder brushes the corner of a building a few minutes later and I walk around to the front of the house by feel, though the term is shaky at best since my hands are completely numb. I half slap half pound the front door.

More time passes than I expect and I’m just raising my hand to knock again when the door opens and a rush of warm air moves past me out into the storm. Peeta yanks me in the house and slams the door shut behind me, the entry floor now covered with snow. I’m shuddering violently now, to the point that Peeta doesn’t even ask why I’m there, just removes my coat and boots, then herds me into the back living room. He pushes me over to the fire and tugs off my sweater, then wraps me in a knitted blanket from the couch. He disappears and then returns moments later with some dry clothes. He retreats to the kitchen while I change and after a few minutes returns with a mug of tea. He watches me on the couch from the side of the fireplace, his arms crossed over his chest unhappily.

“Katniss,” he says. “What were you thinking? Walking out in a storm like that?” I shake my head. My teeth have ceased to chatter, but my head still feels muddled, and my hands, coming back to life, sharply throb.

“I just,” I say. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You left.” He makes a disapproving sound.

“We have telephones, you could have called,” he says. “Now you’re stuck here till it winds down.” His voice is edged in anger.

“I was worried about you,” I say, pathetically. I expect his face to soften, but it doesn’t.

“You could have died,” he says. “I told you before, I don’t want you risking yourself for me.” I don’t know why his words hurt, but my anger flares.

“Well then you shouldn’t leave without telling me,” I say, my cheeks growing hot. His face actually grows harder.

“You hadn’t come down and the storm was getting worse,” he says sharply. “I wasn’t going to stay, trapped with you for three days!” I reel back, as if slapped.

“I’m sorry being around me is so terrible for you,” I say stiffly, rising, suddenly determined to go back home, even if it kills me. Peeta recognizes my intention and tries to grab my arm.

“Wait,” he says in a rush. “That’s not exactly what I meant.” I barely hear him as I dart for the door, slipping in my oversized clothes and socked feet in my rush. I’m still trying to undo all the latches when he catches up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Would you just stop,” he says, grunting as I wriggle away and start to pull the door open. He immediately pushes it shut and I dash under his arm for the back door. I’m furious that he’s trying to keep me here, which I welcome as it’s the only thing keeping my humiliation at bay.

“It’s not being around you that’s awful,” he says, his voice raised in agitation as he enters the kitchen. I pause my attempts to flee. “It’s the thought of being trapped for days with you and Gale.” I turn, confused.

“Why? He’s unconscious?” I say. Peeta looks over my shoulder and rakes his fingers through his trimmed hair.

“It’s the way you were sleeping beside him,” he says. “I’ve seen you sleeping dozens of times and you never looked like that. You were practically telling me that you love him. I tried to stay, but-” He turns his back to me.

Oh. Oh.

I consider this. Picture myself trapped for the duration of an entire blizzard with Gale and his phantom lover, waiting for the burning jealousy I felt last night to return. It doesn’t, not in Peeta’s presence. Then I picture Peeta and some girl, and immediately hate it. I think about what it’d be like to see Peeta with someone else, holding her hand, giving her kisses, holding her while she sleeps. I wonder how I’d been so sure about Gale last night only to wake up longing for Peeta. I again remind myself that I’m not supposed to want him, that it’s the Capitol’s design, what they want. Guiltily, I console myself; Peeta loves me and he wouldn’t have anyone else. I shouldn’t have come. I’m thoughtless, selfish. Peeta stares at the floor, his expression sad.

“Peeta, I would have stayed with you all night if you’d been whipped, too,” I say. I’m not sure what he saw, but he certainly can’t know about my unhinged thoughts that led me to kiss Gale. I hope Gale doesn’t remember, that will only complicate things even more. “And I’m not with Gale, not like that.” He turns back to me, his cheeks flushed.

“But he’s who you want,” Peeta says, pointedly. I laugh, but I don’t deny it, because that’s too close to admitting what I’m trying to not want.

“Since when do I get what I want?” I say, bitterly. “The last time I got what I wanted was right before I watched you die twice.” He looks startled. “They didn’t tell you? Your heart stopped twice on the hovercraft, you saw the video of me losing it, that’s why. I thought they were trying to kill you.” He just shakes his head slightly.

“No, they didn’t mention that after,” he says slowly, his blush deepening. “So there’s nothing that you wanted that you’ve gotten since then?” I understand the implication, that I’d asked him to stay with me on those nights on the train, and my own face grows hot.

“I stand corrected,” I say, primly. Peeta eyes me, and I can see the gears in his mind working as he’s trying to sort something out.

“You should probably call your mother to let her know where you are,” he says. I leave him in the kitchen and find the room where his phone is kept. The conversation is unpleasant, but there’s not much anyone can do at this point. She ends the call warning me to be safe, causing my face to burn. There’s a plate of food waiting for me when I enter, slices of fresh hot bread with butter, eggs, and bacon.

“That took a while,” he says, noticing me. “Long lecture about being ‘safe’?” He gives me a sympathetic look.

“How did you know?” I say, too surprised to deny it.

“I got the same one from Haymitch when we got back,” he says, smirking slightly. “Little does he know that’ll never happen.”

“Never,” I say, agreeing. “I don’t want children.” Peeta gives me a funny look. “What, you do? When Victor’s kids are reaped more often than not?”

“No, it’s not that,” he says. “You do know what birth control is? You can have sex, without pregnancy?” I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I shove the rest of the bread I’m holding into my mouth, hoping it’ll take so long to chew that he’ll change the subject. He waits.

“There’s herbs, but they’re not always effective,” I say, embarrassed. “There’s been plenty of women that have tried and turned up pregnant. My mother warned them, only never having relations is a sure way to not have children.” He blinks, for a second.

“There’s other ways, more sure, uh, methods,” he says. “How do you think most merchants only have one or two children?”

“I never wondered,” I say, pointedly shoveling more food into my mouth, concentrating on my plate.

“There’s a shot, Capitol medicine,” he says. “It lasts five years. My oldest brother, Bran, had to save up for a whole year to afford it, before he could get married to his wife, Daisy.”

“They waited a whole year so they could use the medicine?” I say, suddenly curious. “It really works that well?”

“One to two kids,” says Peeta. “It’s a sure thing.” I can’t quite reconcile the idea that someone could have the kind of love that leads to children and just never get pregnant, the concept is so foreign. The implications of what something like that could have on my life are more than I can even process right now, but something kind of breaks open in me, like an egg; I can have some freedom in at least one area of my life.

“Why did your parents have three?” I say. Peeta smiles self-deprecatingly and turns to clean the dishes.

“My mom really wanted a girl,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I say. He looks over, flashing me a wry smile. He looks exhausted, deep blue bruises under his eyes.

“I need a nap,” I say. “I had nightmares all morning.”

“Good, I need some sleep too,” he says. “Did you want to sleep on the couch?” I give him a look and he grins at me. “I’ll be there too,” he says. I shrug.

“Fine,” I say. He lays down first and tries to make room for me, but I end up having to tuck one of my legs over his to keep from rolling off. “Sorry,” I say with a grunt, pressing into his side as I wiggle away from the edge of the couch. He tugs a blanket over the both of us and sighs. He must feel as relieved as I do.

His chest rises, slow and steady, already asleep. The warmth of him seeps into my muscles, and the thump of his heart lulls me to the precipice of sleep.

Sometime later my eyes blink open. The same half dark light comes through the windows, no indication of what time it could be. My cheek, the one hit with the lash, is throbbing sharply and I recall my decision to rebel. I shift the angle of my head to look at Petra’s face, soft with sleep, his thick, nearly translucent lashes brushing his cheeks. One thing I don’t need to worry about is whether Peeta will stand with me. I know he will.

For the second day in a row I impulsively press my lips to the mouth of a sleeping boy, fueled by a rush of affection. Unlike Gale Peeta does not stay unconscious. I shouldn’t be surprised. No one lives through an arena and sleeps soundly after, not for very long anyways. He inhales sharply and his eyes pop open as I withdraw, burying my face in his shirt.

#wistfulweaverwoman #everlark #cannon divergence #oops #i should not be making new fics #i have so many wip #don’t look at me 🙈

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bumbleklee · 2 years ago

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I can't be the only person who feels like ur baby series is not exactly inclusive to poc. 😬 I don't want to be annoying but in the way the kids are described, (especially nikolai, since ginger hair + blue eyes is an actual realistic appearance) feels like it was written with a white reader in mind, since if his mother was a woc he probably would not have ginger hair or blue eyes...

nikolai is described as a ginger with blue eyes because childe is a ginger with blue eyes. like that’s his son, he’s supposed to be a mini version of him. all of the children are and i feel that anytime i’ve described their physical features, it’s been that they look exactly like their dads. when it comes to art i’ve drawn or people have drawn for me, this has been the general consensus. little bug-eyed babies that look just like their genshin impact dads. (and poc can absolutely have redhead and blue eyes. it’s rare but it’s totally plausible especially in the fictional world i created for that series!)

i tried my best to be as inclusive to all races as possible in that series and i’m sorry if anything slipped through the cracks that looks biased towards white women but if i’m being honest, i never wrote the family series with a reader in mind. the whole family au came about because me and my friends were hyperfixated on genshin and having baby fever, so we started to brainstorm about what we could do and we came up the au. childe was married to lumine, diluc was married to jean, zhongli was married to guizhong and kaeya was a single dad. i wanted to share everything i was writing with my followers but knew characterxcharacter ships didn’t do well on tumblr, so i changed some things around and swapped out the wives for a reader-insert 🤷‍♀️

i think i did a good job at being inclusive when it comes to reader-insert fanfiction. i wanted anyone to be able to open the story and envision themselves as the main character. i always specified if there was a specific feature i was purposely focusing on, otherwise it was entirely up to the reader to decide how they wanted to look.

tldr: the kids were designed to be carbon copies of their dads because anime babies 👍

#using nikolai being a ginger with blue eyes as your prime example shows me you don’t actually care btw #you just want brownie points for calling something out but you just look performative #anyway back into my cave i go 🙈

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