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dem-obscure-imagines · 4 years ago

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New Year’s Eve Drabbles 2020

Fandoms: Jumanji, Rise of the Guardians, Ben 10 Alien Force, Maleficent, the Hunger Games

Note: Happy New Year! Here’s to hoping 2021 is a little kinder. I did a set of New Year’s Eve drabbles a few years ago and it was a lot of fun, so here you go! I hope you like them!

Warnings: Hunger Games spoilers

Alex “Seapilot” Vreeke x Reader

Word Count: 0.4k

The idea of a new year, admittedly, made Alex a little nervous. It was only a few months before that you had found your way into Jumanji with your new friends, rescued Alex, and brought him with you to modern day. And the six of you had figured: What better way to celebrate the new year than to have a little party?

So, you’d helped Bethany and Martha get the living room of Bethany’s house ready while Spencer, Fridge, and Alex picked up pizza, snacks, and drinks. You set some party favors out on the table. There were cute glasses proclaiming the new year, noise makers, candy, streamers, balloons, and some confetti.

When the boys got back, you helped set up the kitchen and Alex walked over to you, helping you unload the pizza and breadsticks and garlic knots. You kept catching him glancing at you, but every time you looked at him, he glanced away nervously, chuckling to himself.

“What?” You asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just…I have this irrational fear that when midnight hits, all of this will go away.” He exhaled a long breath. “And I’ll be there all over again.”

“Hey.” You grabbed his arm, grounding him in the moment. “That’s not gonna happen, alright? You’re not going anywhere, and neither are we.”

“You’re stuck with us, Vreeke.” Fridge said, giving Alex a pat on the shoulder. “Nothin’s gonna happen. It’s over. The game is gone.”

“I know, but…It’s just stuck in my head.”

“It’s gonna be okay, alright? I’ll…” you bit your lip, thinking. “I’ll take your mind off of it.”

“Okay,” He nodded. And he didn’t know exactly what you meant, but he trusted you.

So, when 11:59 rolled around, you walked right over to where Alex was standing, his hands shaking, his eyes fixated on the TV screen, and you cupped his cheeks in your hands, turning his face to yours.

“Stay with me. Stay right here with me.” You whispered to him, your eyes focused on his. “No numbers, no countdown, just us. Just you and me.”

“I like the sound of that.” He whispered back, his hands resting on top of yours for a second before sliding down to your waist and tugging you closer.

And so you stayed there, and when the clock struck midnight, your lips met his, soft and sweet and everything he ever dreamed they’d be. When you pulled away, he exhaled a long breath, his eyes sparkling.

“That’s the first time I’ve been kissed in twenty years.” He said softly.

“You want a second one?” You asked.

He didn’t even reply, just pulled you closer and aligned his lips with yours once more.

Jack Frost x Reader

Word Count: 0.3k

The relationship you had with Jack was, well, complicated. You were a college student. You’d been friends with Jack for a few years because you were, what he called, the oldest believer. Even long after Santa had stopped bringing you presents, you still believed, and therefore, when Jack had flown past your window one night and your jaw dropped, he decided to loop back around.

The rest was history.

You were at a college party to celebrate the new year, but honestly, you just weren’t feeling it. So, you wandered up the stairs, found an empty bedroom, and opened the window to get some air.

“Oh come on, party girl, tapping out already?” Jack said, floating just outside the window.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.” He shrugged. “What’s up?”

“New Year’s Eve party.” You told him. “It’s hot down there. And loud.”

Just as you said it, all the people in the lower level of the house started shouting numbers.

“Sounds like it’s almost over, though.” He floated closer and sat on the windowsill. “Hey, uh…” he reached up to scratch the back of his neck, his icy blue eyes landing on yours. “Do you mind if I do something I’ve been wanting to for a really, really long time?”

“What would that be?”

“Well, it’s a surprise.” He tilted his head. “Can you close your eyes?”

And while you knew Jack was a trickster in every meaning of the word, you closed your eyes, waiting in the window, the cold air refreshing on your face and in your lungs. And then, a few moments later, you felt something cold and soft against your lips. You couldn’t help but kiss him back.

Ben Tennyson x Reader

Word Count: 0.4k

It was Kevin’s idea to have a little New Year’s Eve party. Of course, it was just the four of you, the team, celebrating. You had been exiled to the back seat with Ben and because you were on patrol, there was no champagne to be had.

Gwen had, however, brought along some plastic wine glasses and a bottle of sparkling grape juice. It was better than nothing, and though you didn’t admit it, you were glad you were with the other three of them. It was better than spending the night alone.

Kevin drove the car out into the middle of the field and parked, tuning the radio to a New Year’s Eve broadcast. It was then that the four of you split into pairs. Kevin wrapped an arm around Gwen and they stepped off away from you and Ben, who stayed closer to the car.

“Want me to top you off?” He asked, holding up the bottle of sparkling juice.

“Sure, thanks.” You held up your glass and he poured more juice into it.

“A new year, huh?”

“Yeah…” You nodded an took a sip. “Weird.”

“Weird.” He agreed. “I have this weird, funny feeling that things are just gonna get weirder from here on out.”

“It always seems to where the four of us are involved.” You chuckled, sitting on the front of Kevin’s car.

Ben joined you.

You motioned to Kevin and Gwen, off in their own little world. “They’re good together, you know?”

“They are.” Ben chuckled, shaking his head. “That’s weird too, but…it’s getting less weird.”

“Mmhmm.” You nodded. You sighed and looked up at the stars. There were so many. So many planets and solar systems and galaxies in the vast, vast universe spread out before you. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It is.” He agreed, but he wasn’t looking at the sky. He was looking at you.

About twenty minutes later, the countdown started. You’d never had feelings for Ben. You didn’t know why. He was cute, he was confident, and yet, you’d never felt anything romantic for him. Well, until tonight. When the countdown got dangerously low, he looked at you and you looked at him and it just…clicked.

So, under the sparkling stars, side by side, you brought in the New Year with Ben Tennyson, his lips interlocked with yours.

Diaval x Reader

Word Count: 0.3k

You had to hand it to her, Maleficent threw quite the party. It was the eve of the new year, and to celebrate, Maleficent had called together all of the people of Aurora’s kingdom and all the fae of the Moors.

You were an enchantress from the kingdom, someone who was magical, but unaccustomed to the woods. You were wearing a fine silver gown made of silk and a moonstone circlet around your head. In your hand, you held a goblet of champagne, and as you walked through the forests, which were lit up with the gentle glowing magic of the creatures who inhabited it, you couldn’t help but be amazed by their beauty and grace.

You continued through the Moors and, inevitably, ran into a tall stranger. Quite literally. You found yourself standing right in front of a tall man with dark hair hanging in his face. It took you a moment to recognize him. This was Diaval, Maleficent’s companion and shapeshifter.

“Pardon me, didn’t see you there.” You apologized.

“I blend into the dark, I’m afraid.” He chuckled. It was true, with his dark hair, dressed in all black, he did indeed blend in with the shadows.

“No harm done.” You smiled. “I’m (Y/N).”

“Of the (L/N) house?” He asked, his eyes widening. “You’re the enchantress.”

“I am.” You nodded, smiling softly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said, taking your hand in his and raising it to his lips. “Maleficent has mentioned introducing the two of us, but she’s been…busy, it seems.”

“I can imagine taking care of two kingdoms would be quite the task,” you mused softly. “Well, the pleasure is mine, Diaval. I will admit, your abilities are intriguing to me.”

“Oh. They’re not mine. It’s Maleficent’s magic that granted me this form. Usually, I’m a raven.” He admitted, a sheepish smile finding his face.

“Fascinating.” You said, your eyes alight with awe. “Well, Diaval, what do you say to accompanying me for the evening?”

He slipped his arm through yours, his dark eyes sparkling and a promise written in his smile. “I’d be honored.”

Peeta Mellark x Reader

Word Count: 0.7k

Another New Year’s Eve alone with your books. You couldn’t complain, though. It was quiet. It was nice. It was you, the TV, your cat, and the Hunger Games books. Specifically, you were reading the first book, starting the series over again for what felt like the thirtieth time. Your books were very worn, the spines cracked beyond repair. You loved them and everything they stood for.

So, you opened the cover and pulled the bookmark out. You were nearing the end of the games. Peeta was hiding from the careers somewhere while Katniss took care of Rue. And when she died, as she always did, you cried. A few of your tears landed on the page of the book, and when the third tear landed on the paper, you heard a thud in your kitchen.

Looking up, you searched the room for your cat, but you spotted him on the chair across from you, notably, not making a mess in the kitchen. So, slowly, you walked through your apartment until you reached the doorway of the kitchen. You thought maybe one of your barstools had fallen over or something. But no, sitting in the middle of your kitchen, a shocked look on his face and a large gash on his leg, was none other than Peeta Mellark, right down to the District 12 jacket and the Josh Hutcherson face.

“What the fuck.”

“Is this…Where…where am I?”

“In my kitchen. In my apartment. Are you…You’re Peeta Mellark.”

“How did I get here?”

“I don’t know.” You shook your head. You looked at his leg, the shock of a fictional character sitting in your kitchen wearing off when you realized he was injured and bleeding pretty badly. “Shit, you’re bleeding! Um, I’ll get a first aid kit. Stay right here.”

You ran to your bathroom and back, carrying your first aid kit. He was lucky you knew your shit. He was also lucky he’d landed there before it got too badly infected.

“What district is this?” He asked, looking around your apartment, still sitting on your tile floor. “Where am I?”

“Peeta, I don’t know how to tell you this.” You sat down and opened your first aid kit, pulling out some ointment and bandages. “This isn’t one of the districts. This is another…world? Reality? I don’t know the terminology, but…”

“What do you mean?”

“Once I patch you up I will try to explain everything, okay?” You applied some hydrogen peroxide to his cut and then put ointment on it, wrapping it up in bandages. “Is that too tight?”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you.” His eyes were grateful, but you could tell he was still shaken up.

You helped him to his feet and he limped to the living room with his arm over your shoulder for support. Once you got him settled in a chair, you walked back out to the kitchen and got him a glass of water and the leftover half of a Subway sandwich that was in your fridge. You were planning on eating it for lunch the next day, but he needed it more than you did.

“You must be starving. Here.”

“Thank you so much.” He said, taking an eager few gups of water. You knew he was definitely dehydrated. “I’m pretty sure this is just some amazing dream.”

“It might be.” You shook your head, chuckling to yourself. “I don’t know how to explain this to you, but, here…” You handed him all three of the Hunger Games books and watched his face as he looked them over, curious but sullen.

“This…this is a joke, right? I’m not…this is…how…?”

“I don’t know either. But, um, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to. Or as long as you want to. I can’t imagine going back to a place like that. To the games…”

“You’ve read these a lot, huh?” He noticed how beat-up they were and looked up at you. “Why?”

“They give me hope. Things are pretty bad in my country right now, and it gives me hope that even though things are bleak, they can get better.”

“So they do get better?”

“They will, Peeta. It’ll get worse first, but they will get better.”

He smiled a soft but painfilled smile.

Your TV announced that the new year had arrived, and when you looked, it was indeed midnight.

“Happy New Year,” you said quietly.

He nodded and let out a long sigh before repeating, “Happy New Year.”

#alex vreeke #alex vreeke x reader #seapilot x reader #jumanji #jack frost #jack frost x reader #rise of the guardians #ben tennyson #ben tennyson x reader #ben ten #ben 10 #diaval #diaval x reader #maleficent #peeta mellark #peeta mellark x reader #hunger games #imagines #fandom imagines

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sparklingdust4612 · 3 years ago

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So I read @muttpeeta's "For a good time call" and went crazy (in a totally good way!)

STORY THEORY AHEAD!!

When i finished reading chapter 5 and he said he had to tell her something, i thought it was about the number on the bathroom stall. i had two assumptions (which were wrong lol)

1- Finnick did it because he saw Katniss working at Sae's and wanted to help his best friend get laid by his crush.

2- Johanna and Peeta were secretly friends and he was totally stalking Katniss through Johanna, who wrote the number at his request because they knew Katniss would come across it!!

Favourite quotes/parts:

1- "And say what? Hey, I saw your number in a bathroom, wanna have sex?"

2- "Um, I'm not really sure. What do you recommend?"

Peeta tips his head in the direction of the cinnamon rolls. "Well, you look like you were trying to communicate telepathically with those rolls just a moment ago, so I'd probably start with one of those if I were you."

3- "Not exactly. We've got some pastry puffs filled with feta cheese and spinach, if you think that fits your green leaf quota."

"Yeah, I might feel a little better about my life choices if you include one of those,"

4- "A flour accident? I hope no cinnamon roll was injured."

5- "People know me. They wouldn't dare do anything to endanger their daily bread deliveries."

6- No pressure or anything, but I think my cinnamon rolls miss you.

Well I don't want to speak for them, but I think the spinach and feta puffs do too.

Katniss E [Nov 6, 2014 2:30 pm]: No offense to the puffs but I think I only have eyes for the cinnamon rolls.

Peeta M [Nov 6, 2014 2:31 pm]: I respect your commitment.

7- "And I'd hate to stand in the way of true love, would you like me to arrange a rendezvous for you and the rolls?

8- "Just give me the pleasure of your company while I cook."

9- "Orange."

She almost laughs, not quite expecting that answer, but she considers this, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "So, what that says about you is...you're a traffic cone."

Peeta laughs loudly. "Quite an accomplished traffic cone, at least."

10- "He kissed you?!" Madge exclaims excitedly, and Katniss scowls despite her blush.

"Yes, calm down. We're not in high school anymore; this really isn't that scandalous."

11- "There's always a line at the bakery of women who want my buns."

Katniss groans loudly. "You did not just really say that,"

12- "See, you're already improving just by virtue of being in the proximity of my bowling prowess," he congratulates her

13- "We don't have to stay long," she suggests, her pulse fluttering in excitement, and he nods eagerly.

"Yes, you know, I definitely feel like I'm going to start getting tired around, say, 11 o'clock?" he says questioningly, his mouth stretching into a grin when she laughs.

"Yeah, that's usually when it hits me too,"

14- 'Katniss, I'm gay. And being with you helped me realize it. Thank you.'

'Katniss, I'm actually married and have three children in a different town.'

'And also, you are not the only woman I'm having an affair with.' (best parts were how Katniss' over active imagination worked lol)

I really loved how the story worked out though. It was funny, smutty and totally HEA!! Really enjoyed reading it lol

#hunger games #hunger games fanfic #everlark #muttpeeta #modern day au #For a good time call #reviewing #Stella reads

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everlarkbirthdaygifts · 4 years ago

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Happy Birthday, everybirdfellsilent!

Happy belated Birthday, @everybirdfellsilent! Apologies once again for all the mix-ups and confusion with your gift! I hope you had a truly wonderful day back when it actually was your birthday, and that it was much more orderly than this! To bring the party feels back, @ally147writes has emerged from everlark retirement to write a birthday gift just for you!

AN: Let me tell you, @everybirdfellsilent, I agonised over the ending. This was the neatest and tidiest I could make it without writing you a novel. I hope it makes you chuckle a little.

Also a good time to let the audience know that I cannot write horror, or ghost stories, but dang it, I can write borderline crack, and I wanted to write Buzzfeed Unsolved-inspired ghosthunter!everlark so damn much.

Unbeta’d, because that’s how I roll.

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The old Undersee mansion doesn’t look haunted.

Not that that really means anything. Most of the houses they’ve visited over the years haven’t looked haunted. They’ve been completely normal — except for that one in District Ten that had some kind of summoning circle in the basement (Peeta will die hoping it was drawn with red paint, a super weird kid’s project, but he’s got a feeling he’ll be dying disappointed. And extremely terrified) — with completely normal gardens in completely normal streets.

So, no. Like most, the old Undersee mansion doesn’t look haunted, but it definitely feels haunted.

Peeta pauses at the bottom of the winding path. At its end, atop a small hill, the innocuous house sits empty, Madge and her family out for the next few nights while he and Katniss investigate. It’s as normal looking as any of the other exorbitantly large mansions on the street, but the longer Peeta stares down the deceptively cheerful, sunshine-yellow door, a deep, intense foreboding settles in his gut and ferments there.

He swallows. “Uh, Kat?”

Katniss sighs and stops at the first step to the porch, and Peeta swears he can hear her eyes rolling. Hard. “What is it, Peeta?”

“I just… I got a real bad feeling about this one.”

“Peeta,” she starts, mounting the first step, “you’ve had real bad feelings about all of them so far. And you’ve been wrong every time.”

“No,” he replies quickly, following behind in the relative safety of her shadow. “You’ve just chosen to deny whatever proof we do find.”

“A battery running out in our flashlight does not mean ghosts were playing with it.”

“It ran out at the exact moment I told the spirits to turn it off!”

“I don’t know how else to tell you that was a coincidence. The flashlight had been on for a good two hours by that point.”

“A little convenient, don’t you think? Come on, Katniss. Plus, it turned right back on again when we were done, so the battery can’t have been that damn flat.”

“I can’t understand why you’re so eager for this all to be the work of ghosts when it scares you shitless every single time.”

“What about the time the spirit box said your name?”

“Peeta,” she says with a strained laugh. “It said, Can’t Miss. As in, the District 12 Mockingjays Can’t Miss. It was a snippet of a goddamn basketball ad. It’s on the radio all the time on game days.”

“Yeah, and the spirit box allows ghosts to use radio waves to communicate. Of course it wasn’t going to find Katniss — who the hell’s advertising katniss? — so it picked the next best thing.”

“I’ll just sit here and wait for them to use a snippet of a pita bread company ad to talk to you, then.”

He glares at the back of her head. “I’m sure they would, if there was a pita factory nearby that advertised.”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Peeta. Let’s go find you a ghost.” She lifts a camera to her eyes and kicks the heavy mahogany door open and flicks on the gently swinging chandelier light.

“Ghosts, spirits, urban legends and other assorted demonic entities, how are we all this evening?”

“Katniss,” he hisses as he closes the door. “Some respect, maybe?”

“What part was disrespectful? I covered, well, maybe not the full the spectrum of possible occupants, but definitely most of them, and asked how they were. Honestly if they’re not going to reply, they’re the disrespectful ones, not me.”

The light flickers out. Katniss snorts. Peeta lets out a squeak he’s not proud of.

“She doesn’t mean it,” Peeta calls frantically. “For the love of God, she doesn’t mean it. I’m sure you’re all lovely and polite.”

The light flickers weakly and comes back on. The chandelier fitting swings like a pendulum, casting stretching and receding shadows over the white-sheet covered lounges and a thick, dark coffee table.

“What the hell do you call that, Katniss?”

“Shoddy wiring?” She shrugs. “Peeta, this house is about a century old. Probably more, actually.”

“Madge said it was renovated and rewired two years ago.”

She shrugs again. “Rats? Raccoons, maybe? That would explain the supposedly unexplainable shuffling sounds Madge thinks she hears.”

Now he rolls his eyes. “Why am I married to you, again?”

“Because divorce is costly and time consuming,” she says, kissing his cheek. “Besides, my logic goes well with your fatalistic romanticism.”

“None of that’s going to matter when this house goes all Poltergeist and swallows us.”

“Then what a good thing it is that that’s never going to happen.” She plonks herself down on one of the lounges and sets a pair of small motion-sensing cameras pointing at each entrance. Peeta swallows and hitches a thumb towards the kitchen.

“I’m… uh, gonna look around for a bit.”

“All right,” Katniss says absently. “Scream if you need me.”

“Will do.”

That dread in his stomach recedes and grows with each room he enters. He doesn’t feel anything wrong with the kitchen, or the dining room, but as he ventures up the staircase to the bedrooms, he swears he can feel something weighty on his shoulders.

A sound like a dry, rattling whisper like nails on paper echoes through the long hall leading to the attic entrance. Peeta gulps. “Hello?” He thumbs open the recording app on his phone and turns it on. “Is anyone there?”

The whispering sound grows. It doesn’t sound like words, exactly. At least, not words that he knows. They race up and along his spine until it sounds like they’re shouting in his ear.

Peeta squeaks, jumps about a foot in the air, and something skitters past, too fast to see. A wave of cold washes over him, settling in icicles on his bones, and for a moment he stands stock still, not even breathing…

Another whisper, one that sounds very, unnervingly close to hello, and he sprints back down the stairs to the living room, triggering the motion sensors into a high-pitched beeping sound.

Katniss bolts upright. “What the hell is going on?”

“Kat, were you… God, were you sleeping?” he asks, aghast.

“What? It’s boring down here.” She blinks blearily up at him. “Are you okay?”

“There… there’s something up there.”

“Something as in actually something? Or something like your imagination run wild?”

“Something like… it was making the strangest whispery, scratchy noises. I thought they were words, but… and then, something just… ran right past me. I didn’t see, but it was so so fast, and I —”

“Peeta, it’s probably vermin. And the wind. And just… a bit of everything coming together to make you think it’s ghosts when it’s… just, not.”

But his hands are shaking, and his pulse is more like one long thud instead of lots of little ones. “I just… I don’t…”

She rolls her eyes. “Would it make you feel better if I went and checked? You can stay here with these stupid motion sensors; they’re only picking up bugs, anyway.”

“No. No, I’ll go with you,” he says, setting a fist against his chest like that’ll do any good against his heart’s very valiant escape attempt. “Just in case.”

“Right,” she drawls, “just in case the wind gets me.”

He follows a step behind her, through the kitchen, down the corridor, and up the stairs. He doesn’t feel quite as heavy this, time, either. She cracks open every door they pass, six unused bedrooms, three bathrooms, two studys, and a small library, all silent. They’re left with one room at the very end. As she opens the final door, the whispering starts again, and a low moan like racing wind echoes.

She steps in, and he turns on the light. The room is huge, but full. A writing desk sits in the far corner, and a neatly-made four-poster bed occupies the other corner. Beside the door, a seated vanity with a wide, oval mirror wiped free of dust. On its table, a collection of large and small hairbrushes, and an open box filled with tangled threads and needles and buttons and snippets of fabric. But none of those things holds Peeta’s focus for long.

Instead, he stares at a wide cabinet spanning nearly the whole length of the back wall, covered so densely in dolls of every conceivable material, fabric and wool, porcelain and plastic. The whispering is almost deafening, and every time Peeta turns his head to look somewhere else, he could swear the dolls are twitching, blinking, watching.

“Did, uh, Madge ever mention the doll collection?”

Katniss scowls at the dolls. “She might’ve? I don’t really remember.”

“Oh, I don’t think you would have forgotten something like this,” Peeta retorts.

“I… well, yeah, this is definitely weird, but I don’t think we can call it haunted, or otherworldly.”

“What the hell else would you call it?”

“Any number of perfectly reasonable and logical things, Peeta. Mrs. Undersee likes weird, creepy dolls; what more can you say?”

“Don’t call them weird and creepy.” He sets a finger against her lips. “I’ve read about haunted dolls. If you’re not respectful, they might curse you.”

She rolls her eyes, but nods all the same. He doesn’t take his eyes off hers as he lowers his finger and shoves his hands in his pockets.

He turns back to the dolls, and clears his throat. “Uh, we mean no harm or anything. It’s just… you’ve kind of been terrifying my friend and her parents, and we’d like you to please stop. Please.”

Katniss whispers, “You already said please.”

“Can’t hurt to say it twice.”

“Did you bring the, uh… the thing? You know, the thing that reads the waves or whatever it was?”

He shoots her a dour look. “You mean the EMF?”

“Yeah, that. Do you have it?”

“No, I don’t.” He sighs. “It would have been in the pack with the motion sensors, so it’s still downstairs.”

“Spirit box?”

“In the pack, too.”

She surveys him strangely, arms crossed over her chest. “You really didn’t come prepared, did you?”

“I was prepared! I just… didn’t think I’d be accosted in the very first hallway I went into.”

She snorts. “Yeah, well, maybe next time you’ll think —” She stops, freezes, eyes riveted on something Peeta can’t see. His heart thumps harder and louder than he’s ever felt before.

“Uh, Katniss? Is something wrong.”

“Peeta,” she says, deadpan.

“What?”

“Look over there, in the gap between the cabinet and the desk. See that?”

He does see that. He backs up so hard he’s going to have a massive bruise on his ass from the vanity he’s just about knocked over. “Holy shi — Are those… are those eyes?”

“Yeah, they’re eyes. You wanna know what kind of eyes?” She picks up a hairbrush from the vanity stand next to them and hurls it at the gap.

“Goddamn raccoon eyes, Peeta,” she says as the small pack of raccoons scatter. “There’s probably holes in the drywall or something, hence your scratchy whispers.”

“I… oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Raccoons, Peeta. Ninety-five percent of the time, it’s probably rats or raccoons.”

“It wasn’t rats or raccoons in that place in District 10.”

“That… was an outlier of a house, I’ll give you that, but it was probably still just people. Very strange, very creepy people.” She nudges him gently with her elbow and cocks her head to the door. “Come on, we should try and see if we can find the holes they were coming in through.”

“You want to do home repairs?”

“Hey, we promised Madge an exorcism, didn’t we? This is just a different kind of exorcism.”

She hooks her arm in his, and they leave the doll room together. A sound like bye follows them out, but this time he can ignore it. Raccoons. Obviously.

“Why do you come with me to these things?” he asks when they reach the bottom of the stairs.

“Peeta,” she says seriously. “Know that I say this with all the love in my heart… you would die if I didn’t come with you.”

“If I did die, I would so mercilessly haunt your ass.”

She pats his arm, shakes her head. “No, you wouldn’t, Peeta. Ghosts aren’t real.”

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #everlarkbirthdaydrabbles #everlarkbirthdaygifts #fan fic #by ally147writes

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aila-reads-stuff · 5 years ago

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Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

The Huge Divide

What really boggles me the most with Hunger Games is that it really accentuates the huge divide between the working class and the rich people.

It's absurd that each district works to provide the elite class their needs. The coals, the fisheries, those kinds of stuff and yet what do they get in return? A tribute that is essentially just a sacrifice for the sole entertainment of the rich.

A sick, twisted way of instilling fear to people.

People from the different districts sleeps in rough beds, hunts for additional money and food, and is too busy trying to survive to care about fashion. Yet, here are the rich people with their high-tech rooms, scrumptious meals, and with their lavish and colorful clothing. They even have a pill to help you throw up so that you could fill your bellies with more food during parties.

I feel like the fashion of the rich classes is a huge statement. You wouldn't bother about being fashionable if you're still worrying about what and how you're going to eat your next meal; Yet with the presence of their extravagant clothings, it implies and emphasises that they don't worry about those things and is more bothered if their colored hair matches with their clothes or if their accesory complements their body. It's a privilege and a leisure that the working class (the districts) do not get to have.

Government

Evil.

That's the word the encapsulates its government.

Evil in a way that treats the common masses as slaves to them.

Evil in a way that it will do any form of violencevto oppress people furthermore-- to instill fear more to people in hopes of lessening or even eradiating dissent.

And I hate that this kind of concept is still reminiscent to my country's type of government.

Hates dissent so much that they're very willing to kill an old man for whistling.

Katniss is right, the government is too fragile that it was broken for a couple of berries.

Mockingjay's Ending

I know I’m supposed. to be happy with how Mockingjay ended because Katniss and Peeta essentially had a good. ending. They had kids. They live peacefully now. But I just can’t get this one thing out of my head: The capitol cannot give back the childhod, the lives of the tributes, their loved ones. They can never reverse the scar that they left on Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, Johanna, and every person in the district.

Yes, Katniss can sleep peacefully now but nightmares of the past will still contiue to haunt her. But atleast, she got Peeta and now their children by her side to cuddle with when the nightmares get too scary.

Other Hunger Games Tribute

Although I do love Katniss, I often wonder while reading the lives of the other tributes. Finnick and Johanna and even the morphlings were the characters that I was fascinated so much.

Johanna Mason

Johanna because she went through so much hardships that it's already so hard for her to form new relationships. Her individuality almost torn apart that the act of Katniss giving her a few bundle of lumber made her cry because that's the only personal belonging that she had.

Her being ferocious was the only thing that the capitol couldn't almost take away from her. Almost. Imagine not being able to shower for the memories of being electrocuted comes with it. She was supposed to be fierce, yet she trembles at the sight of a harmless rain. What's worse is that she has no family to share these with.

Finnick Odair

The great heart breaker of District 4. Only 14 when he won the 65th Hunger Games. Desired by many, especially the capitol. But desire is not always a good thing. Because of this, despite being a victor, he did not live as one. What kind of "victor" does not even have any autonomy with his body? At only age 16 he was sold by Snow to different Capitol citizens to be a prostitute. Known as the heart breaker, yet little do they know that these so called lovers were nothing but mere customers. Not exactly what a 16 year old should have gone through.

But even all of that, atleast he still managed to create meaningful relationships with having Katniss, Johanna, and Mags, her mentor, as his life-long friends. Also, especially Annie. I was so happy for him when he got married with Annie because she was his life. That's why it was so heartbreaking when he died near the end.

[ Although it wasn't in the books, the scene where Annie wrote Peeta and Katniss a letter and a picture with their son, I absolutely loved it. Also because in the books you don't have the answer as to what happens to the other characters ]

Haymitch Abernathy

Winner of the 2nd Quarter Quell by taking advantage of the forcefield, thus making the capitol look like idiots. A guy who spent so much time trying to numb all the pain that the capitol has given him by dinking himself to waste. Having the annual trauma of being close to the yearly tributes only to be looking at their brutal death on large screens.

I know that all these characters are fictional and therefore their pain is not real, but I if I could I would give all of them a huge warm hug. (Mainly maybe for my sake because reading all those storied definitely hurt)

[ALSOO

They were not accentuated much in the books, but the tongueless Avoxes were also really interesting. Pollux 😭]

#book review #books #hungergames #hunger games #finnick odair #johanna mason #katniss everdeen #haymitch abernathy #catching fire #mocking jay #too much feels man #revolution #suzanne collins

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the-resurrection-3d · 4 years ago

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so what was ever good about acotar anyway?

For some reason, I’ve been very tempted to reread ACOTAR lately, and so I’m going to just make a quick list of what I remember specifically endearing the book to me back when I first read it in 2016 so we can compare notes later. This will, however, also include some retroactive criticisms now that we’re four years on from ACOWAR ruining everything forever.

Twigger warnings for discussions of abuse, csa and neglect, as well as me using my complimentary R Slur Pass.

For some context:

>Be 18yr me in 2016.

>Be in your first semester at college.

>Be so fed up with YA romance that you avoid books just for hinting at them in the summary.

>Be also brainstorming a series with your roommate called The Cuckmaster Saga.

This is probably going to sound embarrassing, but I’m being completely sincere when I say that part of why this book excited me was simply the novelty of finding a YA romance book that I liked.

I’d fallen out hard with YA in general by this point in my life, partially because of a string of fairy tale “retellings” that clearly gave zero fucks about the source material beyond using the iconography in its marketing. Folklore had been my special interest for a while, and my excitement for the series and all its little extra niche references coincided with finally getting to study folklore in a true academic setting.

Which leads me to point one:

I love the idea of combining BatB and the Tam Lin ballad. I know some people have complained about this, but honestly, I enjoyed finding a retelling that mimicked the mix-and-match structuring of a lot of folktales. ACOTAR isn’t even the messiest or least coherent mash-up by a huge margin. Unfortunately, this aspect of the series severely lessened as it went along — remember when we all thought ACOWAR was going to be a Snow White retelling and then there was just one scene with poisoned apples? Lmao.

[If anyone wants an author who does YA mash-ups that are actually YA, I’d recommend Rosamund Hodge, whose books are always interesting in their sheer weirdness even when the story itself slightly falters. I mean, I wrote a whole 20-page thesis on her Red Riding Hood/Maiden Without Hands retelling and still didn’t cover everything I had thoughts on. (Tragically, however, I must inform you all that she is a Catholic Reylo. Rest in pepperoni.)]

It is fucking hilarious in retrospect that SJM clearly knows a bunch of different folktales and folkloric creatures but thinks it’s believable for shadowsinger powers to have no theorized origin “even [in] the rich lore of the warrior-people” (ACOFAS 65). Bro fuck outta here.

But this leads into point two — Feyre and her family. It’s very obvious that SJM based Nesta and Elain’s dynamic with Feyre off the common folktale trope of having the youngest sibling be the only competent person in the room (and Katniss Everdeen). I thought it was honestly a lot of fun to see this trope done with some interiority; you can practically hear Feyre seethe about what useless hoes her sisters are between every line. I genuinely giggled through these parts on my initial readthrough.

I’ve seen some people complain that Nesta and Elain’s behaviors aren’t realistic in this situation, but au contraire! Nesta and Elain’s actions in book one are (...almost) perfectly realistic. Without revealing too much, my grandmother grew up in poverty with a few older sisters, and yet my great-grandmother would make her do all the work and constantly force her to give up her possessions (like her car) to the older sisters whenever they wanted them. Even to this day, when they’re all in their 70s and 80s, one of these sisters still relies on my grandma to do basic shit like balancing her checkbooks. I’ve also observed similar dynamics play out plenty of times between an adult child and an overindulgent parent, with people literally ruining their lives and bodies all for the sake of sitting at home all day buying furry porn off the internet.

Nesta and Elain are basically the psychology of this type of person split in two — Elain the soft, delicate, perpetually victimized front they put on for the world, and Nesta the ice-cold, bitter, and aggressive bitch they truly are.

Honestly, the only thing I would change about this set-up is either keep Ma Archeron alive or give Papa Archeron more personality than a plank of damp wood. What’s truly missing here is a parental figure enforcing this fucked up dynamic — I don’t remember it being clear that Feyre’s always had this role, just that she took it on after her mom’s death. Making it clear that Feyre’s always been forced to be this way — alongside giving the mom more characterization — would have gone a long way towards making this dynamic feel more realized and less like the narrative using trauma and pity as a shortcut towards reader engagement.

Then again, that would require SJM to have a female villain in this series who isn’t a rapist, and quotes I’ve seen floating around from ACOSF make it pretty clear SJM doesn’t know same-gender sexual abuse even exists.

Anyway.

Point Three (or rather 2B): Feyre realizing she doesn’t have to hang around her family just because she feels obligated to love them was a fucking banger. I loved it so much; having a story, especially a YA story, that showed you aren’t obligated to love a family that treats you like shit was so special to me. Especially since I was also leaving my family for the first time, and going home to visit them every other weekend felt like being hit point-blank with a Psyduck blast.

Thankfully, my relationship with my family has gotten a lot better, but I’m still really disappointed that Nesta and Elain were forced back into the story, rather than them reaching out to Feyre and making amends because they wanted to do better. The closest we got to this was the revelation that Nesta almost made it to the Border by herself after Feyre was taken, which was definitely badass, but also unfortunately the only Nesta scene I’ve liked in this entire fucking series. If SJM was going to force Feyre to regress into being Nesta and Elain’s tardwrangler again, then she should have followed up on Amren’s line in ACOWAR that Feyre treats Nesta and Elain the way Tamlin treated her.

“I asked them to help once—and look what happened. I won’t risk them again.”

Amren snorted. “You sound exactly like Tamlin.”

[. . .] and I said, “She’s right.” (169-170).

But I’m sure everyone who’s read ACOSF knows how well that’s going.

Point Four: the femindhjdfhfdh I can’t even write that with a straight face. I mean let’s be real, I too enjoy seeing female characters I like become queens and all that other stuff, but it was clear to me even on my initial reading of ACOMAF that it was all shallow and designed to help delineate good guys from bad guys without much in the way of nuance. It certainly took me out of the experience a little, but at least it ties into the books’ themes of recovering from abuse and shacking up with a Certified Women Respecter.

My actual point four: Truthfully I only bought this series for the meme of having the first shitty love interest getting cucked in the second book. ACOWAR gave me some complicated feelings on Tamlin, and I honestly think he should have just stopped appearing in the series after that — BUT, having him be dragged back in once per book just to call him a cuck and cockslap him around a little bit is fucking hilarious. Pointless! But hilarious.

I also think that this kind of arc is a great critique of the standard “happily ever after,” acknowledging that in real life, you’re much more likely to just pass from one abusive household to another because you don’t know what healthy love, communication, and boundaries are. (Arguably many folktales are the fantasies of women who are well aware of this reality but want to imagine a world that’s otherwise). I definitely have a lot of problems with SJM’s claims of “sex positivity,” but acknowledging that Feylin used sex as a means of avoiding communication was another great touch.

I wish that this whole King of Hybern shit was completely cut just to focus on these themes more; it’s very clear SJM only included it because fantasy series = BIG EPIC WORLD-ENDING STAKES!! I've read maybe ten pages of Throne of Glass, so I can't speak for how she handles epic fantasy there, but I know for me and a lot of other stans, the Hybern plot had licherally nothing to do with what we liked and connected to in these books.

But I must soften here, because I totally empathize with feeling like big stakes are “necessary” for a fantasy story and that no one would want to read your books without them. YA fantasy is the reason why TV Tropes coined the term “romantic plot tumor,” after all. (Source: I’m making shit up.)

What else… what else… uhhhhh. I think that might be it, at least for substantial things I don’t have to qualify too much. I of course have plenty of little things I used to like but have now been tainted because ACOWAR ruined everything forever and ACOFAS danced on the graves (such as how I liked Lucien but everyone in the books shits on him now to the point it’s stopped being funny). But this post is too long anyway.

#long post #anti sjm #abuse tw #csa tw #r slur #neglect tw #what's been eating feyre archeron?

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kriscme · 4 years ago

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One Life to Live

Hi, sorry for the delay if you’re following this story on Tumblr. The chapters that have been put on AO3 have at last caught up with the chapters here. New chapters will go up weekly from hence on. You might find it easier to read on AO3 though. I’d link if I knew how. I’m Kris22 over there.

As always thanks to Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn‘t Take” available on AO3 and FanFiction. Chapter 30 “Marcus presents well on TV, doesn’t he? You wouldn’t guess how much he hates it.” My hand stills as I focus on the screen and Buttercup nudges his head beneath my palm in protest. I absently go back to scratching him behind the ears and his chest rumbles in contentment. “Yeah, well, you soon learn to fake it,” replies Johanna from the other end of the sofa. “You should know that better than anyone.” “Yeah,” I say. Fake or not fake, real or not real, on television who can tell the difference? “That’s where Gale and I used to meet to go hunting,” I tell her. Cressida had Marcus stand with his back to the valley, using the mountains in the distance as backdrop. The sun was directly behind him and it shone through his golden-brown hair and set it aflame as if it were a halo. Man-on-fire, I can almost hear Cinna say. He’s the darling of the media now. I don’t envy him. I nervously wait for the moment Cressida interrupted the interview to ask me how I feel about a national park but it’s like it didn’t happen. It’s been edited so seamlessly that no one would guess there’d been a break in the dialogue between Marcus and herself. True to her word, there’s not even the slightest glimpse or mention of me anywhere. And nothing either in the separate feature she did on District 12 that had aired immediately before.

I let out my breath in a long exhale and feel the tension ebb from my muscles. I imagine Marcus in District 13 having the same reaction. We felt sure that if there were any compromising footage it would come out either before the interview was broadcast or during. And apart from that . . . um . . . incident in the woods, what else could they have on us? Only that Marcus was a guest in my house but that was a very reasonable arrangement given the circumstances. Otherwise, it was all very circumspect. No public displays of affection, no chaining naked to trees, no fights with logging companies. Only Johanna knew the extent of our relationship, and I doubt she’d have told anyone. Peeta’s engagement to Lace would have made a juicy story, but thankfully he’s protected, having done nothing to attract publicity to himself – either through his own actions or through association with another. “Looks like you’ve dodged a bullet,” says Johanna. She reaches for the remote to switch off the television and then settles back onto the sofa. A plate of Peeta-made cookies is on the coffee table delicately iced in Peeta’s signature style. She takes one and scrapes off the icing with her teeth. Johanna likes the icing best. If you let her, you’d end up with a plate of cookies that look as if mice had been at them. “It would seem so,” I reply. I wish I could feel more certain, but if I’ve learned anything from my experiences is that life seldom is. In fact, feeling safe almost guarantees that you’re not. I forget to stroke Buttercup again, and tired of my erratic attention, he decides it’s time to move on. He drops to the floor and ambles over to his favorite lounge chair, tail swishing. He leaves behind a layer of cat hair on my dark green trousers. “I told you nothing would happen,” says Johanna. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the fantasy they’d put so much effort into perpetuating, would they? I stand naked against a tree for a good cause and the media goes berserk. You get caught shagging against a tree with the current golden boy and then nothing.” “You know that’s not true,” I say, exasperated that she still thinks like this. “Maybe at one time, when it would have made the Capitol look stupid if the truth came out, but not now. They’ve had no compunction giving Marcus bad publicity in the past so I can’t see why it would be different just because I’m involved. We were mistaken about what we heard that’s all, and then we let paranoia take over.”

I’d agonized over whether I should tell Marcus about Remus and the knowing look he gave me when I returned to camp. In the end, I decided that he should have all the information just in case he needed to be prepared. That was a mistake. Between Cressida’s return to the Capitol the following day and Marcus’s for District 13 a week later, our waking hours were spent alternating between optimism that we had nothing to worry about and then dread that we had everything to worry about. Marcus was petrified that another scandal would put his mission in jeopardy. As there’s no official mandate from the central government to establish national parks, he depends on the goodwill and co-operation of individual districts and a negative association with me – any association with me, actually – could have that support withdrawn. Especially in 13 where my name is anathema. For me, it was the terror of a media onslaught, that what had happened before could happen again – my private life no longer private but entertainment to be analyzed and exploited. That the careful re-building of my life as plain Katniss Everdeen would all come to naught. That it might impact on Peeta, who’s only just now finding himself after what Snow did to him. We had our first ever real argument. I told him it was his fault for breaking his own rule and luring me into a clandestine meeting with him for sex. And he said it was my fault for . . . he couldn’t quite articulate why it was my fault but it had something to do with being Katniss Everdeen. It seems if I’d been a nobody we could have fucked in the main street (his words) and while it would likely have had us arrested in 12 it wouldn’t have merited even the smallest mention in the Capitol. Because, you know, we’re just ignorant hayseeds and they are so much more sophisticated than we are and they have no morals (my words). Oh, and he wasn’t exactly a nobody either. In fact, that was the problem. We did calm down and apologize to each other and had make-up sex, which was nice, but it wasn’t how I imagined we’d be spending our final days together – tense, fearful, with each blaming the other for our predicament. It wasn’t until the night before he departed for 13 that we came to a mutual understanding. Neither of us were at fault. We were victims of our celebrity – a celebrity that neither of us had sought. Mine was thrust upon me, and his was a regrettable consequence of his life’s work. But I did tell him he was partly to blame. If he had been fifty, pot-bellied and bald instead of young, handsome and with eyes the color of maple-syrup that could melt any women’s heart, he wouldn’t attract a fraction of the media attention that he does. And then he told me that if I had been a scraggy, wrinkled old bat instead of young and nubile with eyes like silver moons and hair evocative of midnight, all the Games prowess in the world couldn’t have made me the cultural icon I’d become. We were just too good looking for own good. And then we laughed and had sex – playful, affectionate, I-want-to-remember-this-forever sex.

But the worry was still there when we lay in each other’s arms that night, and the next morning when we said our goodbyes. It was a bitter-sweet ending to what had been an unforgettable interlude but as I watched him pass through the Village gates for the last time, rucksack piled high, long legs in hiking boots striding purposely towards the next wilderness to be saved, I was struck by the rightness of it. It was how it was always going to end; how it always should have ended. Johanna tosses a denuded cookie back onto the plate and picks up a fresh one. She ignores the pained look I send her way. “Would you have gone with him?” she asks. “If you could?” I brush cat hairs from my trousers to give me a few seconds to think about it. I’d honestly never considered it since I can’t leave 12. But there was a time when I could have happily left everything behind and followed him around the country, hiking mountain trails and making love at every opportunity. It was at the concrete house by the lake, the morning after we’d made love for the first time and there weren’t enough superlatives in the world to describe how wonderful I thought he was, although now I find it hard to determine exactly what I did feel for him.

“No,” I say eventually. “Even if didn’t mean being in the public eye again, I still wouldn’t. We don’t want the same things.” I hesitate, wondering if I should say anything, but then blurt it out. “I don’t think I’m normal.” I brace for the sarcastic response I’m sure to get, but to my relief it doesn’t come. “None of us are,” she says grimly. “You don’t go through what we have and come out normal at the end of it.” She’s silent for a moment, but then rouses herself. “But if you want me to comment further, you’ll have to be more specific,” she adds. I sigh. I don’t know to explain it to myself, let alone to someone else. “Well, it’s about how I felt about Marcus. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago when I would have done almost anything for him. He made me feel so . . . so . . . “ “Turned on?” she smirks. I feel my face grow hot. I should have known the real Johanna couldn’t be too far from the surface. “Yes, but more than that. Wanted. Desirable. And we had so much in common too. But when he left, I didn’t feel much of anything. I should have been devastated, shouldn’t I?” “Rebound.”

“What?” “It was a rebound. It’s when you haven’t got over one relationship and you dive straight into another. Marcus gave you the validation that Peeta didn’t. It’s not so complicated. Pretty simple, in fact. Happens all the time.” “It does?” “Yep. It goes like this. You feel like shit because you’re still hung-up on your ex so you’re looking for a distraction – something or someone to make you feel better. So along comes Marcus who is clearly attracted and you transfer the feelings you don’t think Peeta wants on to him. Only it doesn’t last because it’s not based on anything real.” But some things were real. I really did like him, felt a connection with him, even. And I liked the sex, but maybe that’s just a physical thing. I haven’t been with enough men to know if it’s different when it’s with someone you truly love. “A rebound is bad then?” I ask. “Depends,” she says. She takes another cookie from the plate. “Has it made you feel better or worse? And then there’s the person on the other end of it. It’s generally considered not fair to them. But, if you had to pick the ideal man to have a rebound with, you couldn’t have done better than Marcus. I told you at the beginning– one track mind. Nothing competes with saving the forests for him.” Gale. He was like that. The cause is more important than any relationship. As soon as Gale heard about the uprisings in the Districts, he no longer wanted to escape with me into the woods when just minutes before, he’d been so keen. But Peeta, he would have gone with me, even though he knew it was a bad idea. “He told me he doesn’t keep girlfriends for very long. I guess that’s why,” I say. He’d also have figured out what a liability I’d be to him. And I certainly wouldn’t want the kind of life a relationship with him would entail. That final week had been an eyeopener for us both. But at least it ended well, all things considered. I put out my hand for a cookie but change my mind when I can’t find one that hasn’t had the icing scraped off.

“You’re disgusting,” I tell her. But I can’t keep from laughing. It’s part amusement, part relief. No repercussions from that lapse of judgement in the woods and an explanation that makes sense to me about my feelings for Marcus. I feel a sudden rush of affection for the woman who’s helped me through this – and more besides. Once I compared her to an older sister who really hates you. I guess I have to revise it to an older sister who sometimes seems to hate you but really doesn’t, and you can always depend on to have your back. “I’m going to miss you,” I say. “Yeah, I know,” Johanna replies casually as if she were picking lint off a sweater. “But my reason for coming here in the first place was to help Marcus out and he’s gone. Peeta doesn’t need me anymore either. So even if I hadn’t been asked to, it still would have been time for me to go home.” “You’re going to be great mayor.” “Thanks, but I’m not mayor quite yet. I have to be elected first. It’s the way it’s done now.” Before the war, District mayors were appointed by the Capitol but now all governing roles are decided by vote. It’s the republic Plutarch had talked about, just like in the history books. The people elect their own representatives. “You’ll get it,” I say confidently. “They love you in 7. They wouldn’t have asked you to run, otherwise.” Who’d have guessed that Johanna would be destined to be Mayor of District 7, but when you think about it, it’s the perfect fit. She’ll bring passion, commitment and integrity to the role. And essential for a career in politics, a thick skin. “So, have you thought about what you’d like to do on your last night here and to celebrate your candidacy?” I ask. “How about drinks first at the pub and then dinner at that restaurant you like or maybe see a movie. Or we could do all three. Anything you like. “ “Anything I like?” she asks ominously. Images of pub crawls, strippers and naked sprints through the streets flash through my mind. “What I’d like is dinner with just the four of us. You, me, Peeta and Haymitch.” I groan. This is far, far worse. “You more than anyone know the circumstances – “ “I don’t care,” she says flatly. “Ever since I got here, I’ve been stuck between the two of you. Haymitch has too. Why don’t you think of other people for a change and how it affects them? You and Peeta are Haymitch’s family! What do you think it’s been like for him?” “He hasn’t said anything,” I say, on the defensive. “How can I know if – “

“It should be fucking obvious! How brainless can you get?” She gives me a look filled with contempt. I guess she’s back to being the older sister who hates you. I hadn’t considered it from Haymitch’s perspective. He’d have missed the dinners, I suppose, but it’s not as if they could continue forever. They were only intended to help us establish a routine. And besides, it was Peeta who showed the first signs of breaking from them. “It’s not like I started it.” As I say it, I realize how false that is. I was the one who put a complete stop to the dinners and made things awkward between Peeta and me. All because I couldn’t handle him being with Lace. “I don’t care who started it,” she says, but less angrily than before. “It’s time for it to stop. Is this how you’re going to live the rest of your lives? Forever trying to avoid being in the same place at the same time? You’re neighbors, for fuck’s sake. You’ve been in two Games and a war together. You don’t throw away a bond like that because he fucked another woman when his brain was mush. And now that you’ve fucked another man, you’re even. There’s nothing standing in your way now. So, what’s stopping you? It can’t be Lace. She’s gone.” Gone, but not forgotten. Not by me, and not by Peeta either. But Johanna does have a point. If Haymitch is a kind of father figure to us both, then that makes us his children. And having two children who don’t get along and won’t join in any family activities if the other is there too, can’t have been easy. For my own part, it has been a strain avoiding Peeta when we live so close, work similar hours, and have Haymitch in common. But it hasn’t been just me. Peeta stopped seeking me out like he used to when he found out that I’m in love him. Nothing about our situation has changed, Lace or no Lace. He stays away from me because he knows that I’m in love him and he feels bad that he can’t love me back. And I stay away from him because I know that he knows, and feel humiliated that he does. But if . . . “You’re right,” I say. “It is ridiculous. You make the arrangements and I’ll be there.” “And now that Marcus is out of the picture – “

She stops suddenly, confused. “You will?” “Yes. In fact, I can hardly wait. It’ll be fun.” I rise from the sofa to gather the cups and the plate of ruined cookies to signal that the visit is over. Johanna looks stunned as if she can’t believe how easy that victory was. She was probably all primed to go into battle and then it failed to materialize. How disappointing that must be.

“Oh, Johanna!” I call out cheerily just as she’s about to walk out the door. I’ve just remembered something Haymitch told me. “Maybe we should let Peeta do the cooking. He likes to do it. He’d always take over when we had our dinners.” If I have to do this thing, I at least want the food to be good. “Sure,” she says, still dazed. And then she’s gone. I wonder if Peeta has already agreed to it, or that she still has the job of guilting him into it too. I decide that it doesn’t matter either way. Peeta will be motivated by the same reasoning as me. The present situation can’t continue. It’s funny, in the way that’s weird rather than amusing, that mine and Peeta’s situation is now reversed. In the days following the Games and before we embarked on the Victory Tour, he avoided me for pretty much the same reasons I avoid him now. And, in turn, I avoided him for the same reason he avoids me. It’s the discomfort of being around someone whose feelings you don’t return. But there’s one crucial difference. Peeta had hope. I know that now from what Haymitch told Peeta before the prep teams arrived. He could afford to wear his heart on his sleeve knowing that there was a good chance that if I was given the space I needed, it was only a matter of time before I felt the same way. I have no hope. Therefore, my strategy will have to be different. This is about survival, not about capturing Peeta’s heart.

Peeta will have to believe that whatever I felt for him, I no longer do. That’s the only way we can be at ease with each other. I may never stop loving him, but I know how to bury my feelings so that they don’t show. I’ve had plenty of practice at it. After my father died. When I was reaped. When he started going out with Lace. I can do this. I can put on a show. I don’t even have to be good at it. In the Games, Peeta was convinced I was in love him because he wanted to believe it. So now I do the opposite and he’ll believe because he wants to believe. And if he can’t do that, he’ll pretend. We’re both very good at pretending. Chapter 31 Venia purses her lips at the state of my nails. “There’s not much I can do with these apart from a polish. If you want artificial nails, you’ll have to come back when Octavia’s here.” “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I mostly just wanted my hair trimmed.” The shape Flavius had cut into my hair has nearly all grown out. Working at the school during the week, and out in the woods with Marcus on the weekends hadn’t left much time for trips to the beauty salon. I ask, “Where’s Octavia? Not sick, I hope.”

It’s unusual not to see Octavia at her station, her auburn head bent over her task. Since Venia re-united with her coworkers, each has settled into their former specialties as beauty therapists. Flavius is hair and makeup. Octavia is the nail expert. And Venia is skin treatments and waxing. “She left work early,” smirks Flavius. “She has a date.” Venia collects a few tools from the nail station and returns to my side. While Flavius cuts, Venia smooths and buffs. It reminds me of my days as a tribute when all three of them would be working on various body parts at the same time. “We weren’t busy, anyway,” says Venia. “You’re the last customer for the day.” I know. That’s the reason I chose to come at this time. I didn’t want to take the chance of running into Lace when she’s having her roots done. “Anyone I know?” I ask. “Possibly,” replies Venia. “He’s from 12. Thom something. Bick? Hick?” “Hickory?” “That’s it. Hickory. Octavia’s had crushes before but she’s got it really bad this time. I caught her looking through wedding catalogues.” Venia pauses mid-buff. “I’m worried for her.” “How come?” Thom is a nice guy. He was a friend of Gale’s who helped with the clean-up of 12 and gave me a ride home in his cart when I was too weak to walk home. That was the day Peeta came back. “Because of . . . you know, of what we did before the war.” I don’t miss Venia’s use of “we”. If Octavia is accused of being a facilitator of the Games, they all are.

“But doesn’t Thom already know? He was in 13 at the same time as you.” All the survivors from District 12 actually. But Venia shakes her head. “Octavia didn’t know Thom then. We didn’t mix very much with the people there. We thought it safer to keep to ourselves. Especially after the bread.” I suppose being shackled to a wall and beaten for simply taking an extra portion of bread wouldn’t exactly endear the populace to you.

I try to reassure them. “You do know that I’d vouch for you if it ever came out? And tell them how you helped prepare me for the rebellion propos and Snow’s execution?” “I know you would. And maybe we’re worrying over nothing. But we risked a lot coming here and 12’s our home now. Flavius has met someone too – he’s from the Capitol, so that’s not a concern but if we had to leave . . . And Lucia is settled in school and has made friends and Cicero has a good job at the medicine factory . . .” And so Venia goes on. Flavius chimes in too. He tells me they’re set to take on two apprentices and once the tailor has moved out, they want to expand the salon –

“What? Arthur’s leaving?” This is the first I’ve heard of it. But maybe that’s not so surprising. I haven’t seen much of Arthur lately. It’s been only been Max, Johanna and me at pub nights. Arthur is obviously spending his Saturday nights elsewhere. “Oh, he’s not going far,” says Venia. “Just to another store on the main street. He says it’s better situated for passing trade and with the dressmaking shop next door it will likely bring more business to them both.” “I don’t think more business is the only thing those two want from each other,” says Flavius with a suggestive wink. “Flavius!” chides Venia, but she can’t conceal a smile. “It’s true, though. We misplaced the stone we use for sharpening scissors and Octavia went to ask Arthur if we could borrow his. But no one was there even though the door was open. So, she went through to the back, thinking that’s where he’d be, and she caught them red-handed, kissing, and his hand was up her skirt. Octavia forgot all about the stone.” The two of them collapse into giggles. “We didn’t think he had it in him,” says Venia, when she’s able to speak. Neither did I. I can’t laugh about it though. Peeta will be devastated when he hears that Lace has moved on. And so soon after their break-up too. But as badly as I feel for Peeta, I also can’t help feeling happy for Arthur. If there was ever a man who deserves reward for long devotion, it’s him. I only hope that Lace proves worthy of it. One thing I do know is that Peeta isn’t going to hear of it from me. I’m done being involved in his love life. It’s brought me nothing but trouble ever since he made that confession to Caesar Flickerman years before. My only objective is to get over him if I can and make sure that he thinks I have. And that makes this dinner tonight so important. It will set the stage for our relationship going forward. We’ll be friends. Not necessarily close friends. But at least friends who can enjoy social occasions together and feel comfortable in each other’s company. Johanna wants us to dress up so I guess that means I’ll have to wear a cocktail dress. I have one already in my closet. It’s the emerald green dress I wore to the party in 8. But it’s long sleeved and in a heavy fabric and that makes it too hot for this time of the year. I’ll have to go down to the basement where most of the Cinna clothes are stored. There’s a whole rack of cocktail dresses to choose from. But what do you wear when you want to show that you’ve made an effort, but don’t want to appear as if you’ve set out attract anyone in particular – and by anyone, I mean Peeta.

I begin by eliminating colours that are evocative of sunsets or flames. That takes care of anything orange, red or yellow. And then anything that Lace might choose. If Lace is Peeta’s idea of feminine allure then I should make sure to do the opposite. Therefore, no pastels, ruffles and especially any kind of lace. No. No. No, I think as I reject one dress after another. And then I find it. The perfect dress. And so different from the girlish or jeweled frocks that Cinna usually dressed me in that it’s almost as if he knew that one day, I might have a need for a dress such as this. It’s in unrelieved black. Simple and unadorned in slinky silk jersey. I really like it, but Peeta, who loves colour, probably won’t and it’s sure to send a message that I didn��t dress to please him. I accessorize it with black high-heeled sandals and silver and jet earrings. The dress comes to just above the knee with a deep halter neck. It’s impossible to wear a bra without it showing, so I leave it off. I turn around to check how it looks in the mirror from the rear. The clinging fabric does set off my best asset, but since it’s a dinner and I’ll be sitting on it, no one will see it. The burn scars, although much improved from the skin treatments, are still noticeable on my back. I decide to draw attention to it by putting my hair up in a kind of messy bun. This will contrast with Lace’s unblemished skin and immaculate hair and will surely show Peeta that I don’t care at all about being attractive to him. I arrive at Peeta’s door at the same time as Haymitch. He’s wearing a dinner suit, but his white shirt has already untucked from the waistband and his tie isn’t around his neck but dangling from his breast pocket. His eyebrows rise as he takes in my appearance and his lips curve in a sardonic smile. If I needed any confirmation of how incongruous I look in this get-up, I just got it. Johanna answers the door, elegant in a wine-red fitted dress with matching shoes. She appears to have paid a visit to the salon too, because her hair is now a uniform color and has been restyled to lie flat against her skull and frame her face instead of the usual red-tipped spikes sticking up all over her head. “I like your new look,” I tell her. “Yeah, it’s more conservative than I usually go for but I figure I have to start looking the part of mayor sooner or later. But what about you? What have you done with Katniss Everdeen?” I smile and shrug. I’m unsure if not looking like myself is a compliment or not. Peeta stops short when he sees me, his mouth gaping, but he collects himself quickly. “You look beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks,” I murmur. He sounds sincere but I know how easily Peeta can fake it. “You look good too.” And he does, in a cream suit designed by Portia. We move into the dining room. Johanna’s gone to a lot of trouble. I can almost imagine we’re at one of those fancy restaurants in the Capitol. Fresh flowers, dim lighting, the furniture polished to a high sheen. The table is resplendently laid out with the finest dinnerware and gold cutlery. These came with the house. I have them too but I’ve yet to use them. I wonder if Peeta recognizes the pattern on the plates as the same as those that accompanied our feast in the cave. Johanna and Haymitch take seats at opposite ends of the table. That leaves Peeta and me to sit across from each other.

White wine is poured into cut-crystal glasses and starched linen napkins are laid across laps. I wait for either Johanna or Peeta to start bringing in the food but they stay seated. How are we to eat if the food never leaves the kitchen? I eye the woven gold basket filled with soft rolls in the center of the table. Is that all we get? Just then, Cass enters the room carrying a large silver tray. “Good evening,” he says, as places a bowl of soup in front of each of us. “I hope you brought your appetites with you. Don’t forget to save room for dessert.” And then he’s gone. Presumably back to the kitchen. “What was that?” I say to no one in particular. “Cass is doing all the cooking tonight. He’s a qualified chef. He can cook all sorts of things - not just pastries and desserts,” says Johanna. “Yes, I know that. But what’s he doing here?” Peeta answers. “Johanna thought it would be nice to have a professional do the cooking so we could relax and enjoy ourselves.” Right. I just wish Johanna’s idea of relaxation was drinks at the pub, or a barbeque in the backyard. Any place where I didn’t risk locking eyes with Peeta at any minute. We can scarcely look at each other. Every time his eyes chance to meet mine, they flit away. It’s like being back at school. We’re doing a very poor job of acting at ease with each other so far. I’m a lousy actress at the best of times but I expected better of Peeta. Clearly the knowledge that I’m in love with him freaks him out to the extent that he’s forgotten all his acting skills. The food is a welcome diversion and I tuck in. The soup is creamy pumpkin sprinkled with slivered nuts and little black seeds. Sublime. I recognize it as one of the soups at the Capitol feast. It’s followed by those delicious little roasted birds filled with orange sauce. Then fish swimming in a green sauce flecked with herbs. And then, oh, I don’t believe it! Lamb stew with dried plums! On a bed of wild rice!

That makes me think of our feast in the cave, of course. It’s even served on the same patterned plates. My eyes instinctively search out Peeta’s. Do you remember it? You must, surely. How excited we were when that parachute arrived. How careful we were to eat only small portions so we wouldn’t be sick after so many days of hunger. And then how we whiled away the time until we could eat again – snuggled together in the sleeping bag, my head on your shoulder, your arms wrapped around me, imagining our life together if we survived the Games. You, me and Haymitch, you said. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games tales. You must remember it!

But Peeta doesn’t look my way. His gaze flickers between Johanna and Haymitch without it ever landing on me even though we’re sitting directly across from each other. And he laughs just a little too loudly at Johanna’s poor taste joke about prunes and how we’ll all shit well tomorrow. He remembers our feast in the cave, all right! I’m certain of it. He just doesn’t want me to know that he does. To spare me the humiliation, probably. I want to kick myself. Gawping at him like a love-sick idiot – practically begging him to remember one of our most intimate moments together. At least Peeta has his wits about him, not letting on that the stew holds any particular significance.

I quietly return to my stew. It’s not as good as I remember it and I can only manage a few mouthfuls. Saving room for dessert, I tell Johanna, when she comments. Unfortunately, there’s a long break between this course and the next. I suppose Cass wants our stomachs to have a rest before he brings out the dessert which is sure to be spectacular. But it makes the pressure to appear congenial and unaffected by Peeta’s presence that much harder when I don’t have the food to distract me.

Since I got here, Peeta hadn’t spoken a great deal, and me even less. The conversation has been carried mostly by Johanna and Haymitch. She’s been picking his brain about the challenges of town planning and the provision of services such as garbage collection and road maintenance. Johanna had better get this job for mayor. She already acts as if it’s hers. That’s why it’s a surprise when the focus of attention turns to me. I’d been occupied twisting my crystal glass around by the stem watching the colours change across its facets. Anything to keep my mind off the person sitting opposite me. “You’ll step in, won’t you, Katniss?” Johanna asks. My head jerks up. “Hmm? What – “ “She doesn’t have to,” says Peeta quickly. “Step in for what?” I ask, directing my question to Johanna. “To watch the tapes with Peeta.” says Johanna. Before I can respond Peeta interjects again. “There’s no need to bother Katniss. I’ll be fine with Haymitch.” “You won’t,” says Haymitch. “The tapes labeled ‘to be watched with Katniss’ are all that’s left. It’s probably why the content has become repetitive lately. Aurelius has obviously run out of material I can help you with.” “You need to watch all the tapes,” Johanna adds. “You don’t know what memories are missing until you do.” “Katniss has already done her share. I’ll be fine watching on my own,” says Peeta. Johanna shakes her head. “You know that’s not how it works. You need someone to put it into context. Besides, the tapes were her idea to begin with. She should see it through.” Peeta turns to me for the first time. “There’s really no need.” He’s almost pleading with me. I really want to accept his offer to not watch the tapes with him. I know he’s giving me an escape but if I go along with it, it gives the impression that I’m afraid and that’s not good either. It has to appear as if I have nothing to hide. Which I don’t. Except the part that I’m still in love with him, of course. I can see where he’s coming from. After my slip-up with the stew, he’s worried that if I’m compelled to watch the tapes with him, I’m sure to give myself away. He’s protecting me from myself. I look coolly into the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent and I promise myself I will defeat his plan. Johanna is right. I should finish what I started. Remember that my primary objective was for Peeta to find himself. And if those tapes hold the final pieces, then I’m determined that he shall have them. I will watch those tapes, no matter how bad they are, and he will never guess from my reaction that I still carry a torch for him. It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to act normally around each other. “I’m happy to help,” I say. “Same time and place?” All eyes are on him. He’s trapped and he knows it. Peeta’s nod is almost imperceptible. What a timely moment for Cass to bring out the dessert. It’s a tower of pastries filled with different flavored custards, welded together with chocolate and studded with raspberries and sugared violets surrounded by an immense web of delicate spun sugar. There’s enough for at least a dozen or more people. But the best thing about it is that its position in the center of the table effectively blocks out my view of Peeta. So, Dr Aurelius has sent tapes that he wants Peeta to specifically watch with me. I wonder if I was ever going to be told about them. Probably not if it had been left up to Peeta. He’s obviously anxious about what’s on them. That makes me think that he has most, if not all, of his memories back. Enough, at least, to guess at how I feel about him. It seems that the tapes have progressed from those which showed me either indifferent or acting a part to when I began to return his feelings. And the irony is that it’s made not a scrap of difference. I’m glad now that Dr Aurelius sent the compromising tapes first. I had never stood a chance with him, even without Lace.

Cass comes out to clear away the dessert plates and the remains of that pastry thing. He frowns at how little impact we made on it. But it really was huge. To make him feel better, I ask if he can wrap it up for me to share around the staff room tomorrow. Max will probably make some joke about chocolate covered balls and phallic symbols. We finish with tea for Peeta and me and coffee for Johanna and Haymitch. Haymitch takes from his pocket a silver flask and pours a generous slug of whatever’s in it into his cup.

The dinner finally comes to an end. I pull Johanna aside before I go, ostensibly to say goodbye to her. I won’t see her tomorrow. The train for 7 leaves very early and Peeta has offered to walk her to the train station.

“The whole night was a setup, wasn’t it? To get me to watch the tapes with Peeta again?”

She doesn’t bother denying it. “Yep. Someone had to give the two of you a nudge in the right direction.” She gives me one of her stern big sister looks. “Don’t waste it.”

“I won’t,” I say. She doesn’t have to know that I have something completely different in mind to her.

I hug her goodbye and wish her luck. I don’t know when we’ll meet again. Not with me stuck in 12 and Johanna busy being mayor but maybe she’ll find time in her schedule to visit at some point.

“Don’t be a stranger,” she calls out as I leave. Where have I heard that expression before? Ah yes, Plutarch. They were the last words he spoke to me before he left the hovercraft that brought me back to 12. Thankfully, even after that scare with Marcus, that’s exactly how it’s stayed.

“Never,” I call back. No one could ever be the little sister that Prim was. But maybe I’ve gained a pretty good substitute for an older one.

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junie-bugg · 5 years ago

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Prospects and Propriety - Chapter One

Summary: Everlark Jane Austen AU

“We’re very similar, you and I.” He turns the leaf over in his palm one last time and then presses it into my hand. His fingertips are warm where the leaf is brittle.

We are, aren’t we? Me, a girl forced to marry by the rules and expectations of society and him, a boy whose freewill was stolen away before he could even walk. We’re both prisoners. Destined to fates we did not choose ourselves. Now I see what was so funny to him.

The two of us: we are absolutely tragic.

Katniss Everdeen and her younger sister Prim are the adopted daughters of Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, a wealthy man with no biological heirs. By the rules of Panem society, an older sibling must be married before the younger can wed. In a time when women have no means of making their own living, marriage is the only way for Katniss to save her sister from destitution and set her up for a happy marriage of her own. Katniss sets her sights on Mr. Gale Hawthorne, a wealthy man who just moved to Whitley and who seems to have his eye on her. But what of the poor baker’s boy who once took a beating to save her life?

Read here on Tumblr or on my AO3 account: izzacrosswriting

Author’s Note:

This is a story inspired by my love of Everlark and Jane Austen’s novels. I am in no way an expert on the Regency period and I include fashions/details that are not historically accurate.

The setting is an alternate England-like Panem.

The plot is my own (Gale is not Mr. Darcy people, don’t get it twisted) but does borrow aesthetics and ideas directly from Jane Austen and Suzanne Collins.

The cast of characters is a mix of canon Hunger Games and original characters I’ve created.

I plan on including links to music and ambiance videos I used while writing so feel free to explore those! I typically play nature sounds and music together on my laptop so sorry if you're reading on a phone!

Warning: I do plan on this series getting a lil smutty. There will be graphic depictions of violence, sex, and possibly death. I’m still working everything out:)

Nature ambiance(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9uyQI3pF0&t=1694s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjUhZ1Yy7Y

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cc9ofwF-e4

(If you want to listen to this on Spotify it's called 'The Secret Life of Daydreams' from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack.)

Word Count: 1,727

Chapter One

I run my hands through the tall grasses at my waist. It’s the perfect morning. The crisp air doesn’t quite hold that harsh bite of winter that will soon sweep the countryside in blizzards and ice. Emerald leaves hint at the coming autumn with the slightest tint of yellow along their stems. The sun shines bright through branches and I watch the forest come alive with squirrels and chipmunks that scurry through the thick brush. The dirt path I followed to get here grazes the edge of the woods, but I’ve abandoned it to traipse through the wild-flower dotted hillsides instead.

From this high up, I can see everything. The village of Whitley lies to the west. I can just make out the rooftops of the squat brick buildings off the main square. By this time the merchants will have opened their shops for business. The rest of the countryside is peppered with grand estates and bountiful farmland. Rivers gleam like veins of silver and dirt roads are wreathed in the dust kicked up by horse-drawn carriages. I wish I could stay and sit here all day. I would drink in the sun and drown in the low hum of insects, though Haymitch has warned me of the nasty gossip that follows a lady with a tan and a set of freckles.

A lady. I almost snort. Apparently, that’s what I am. Or what I need to be if anyone is ever going to ask for my hand in marriage. The thought ruins the good mood my morning stroll had put me in. I throw myself down among the tall grasses and begin plucking mindlessly at their stems.

Haymitch Abernathy, the legal guardian of me and my sister, has never been one to force us into doing things we dislike. I’m allowed to ride my horse alone, hunt with a bow and arrow, and take off into the woods whenever I please, like some woodland nymph from one of my father’s old stories. If it wasn’t for Prim and my greenhouse back at home I would probably live out here. Until it got cold of course. I’m allowed more freedom than any other young girl in the county, I’m sure. But not even Haymitch can protect me from matrimony.

My sister is excited for me. I imagine she’s fantasized about her wedding since she knew what a wedding was. To her, marriage is a romantic fairytale. A strong, handsome man of large fortune will sweep her off her feet and give her an estate to run and small, cherub-faced children to care for. To me, marriage sounds like a death sentence. They say if I’m lucky, I’ll marry for love as well as for fortune, but I never want to love someone as much as my mother loved my father. Because when he died, in a way, so did she. The only person I know that I truly love is Prim.

Primrose Everdeen, my little sister, was never the outdoorsy type like me. She’s fair, with golden blonde hair that hangs in ringlets past her slight shoulders, and a face as fresh and as pure as a spring dewdrop. She spends her days drawing, flower arranging, and studying languages with my old tutor Mrs. Winthrop.

“She’ll be a highly accomplished woman by the time I’m done with her. Mark my words, this young girl is special,” Mrs. Winthrop had said to Haymitch mere days after first starting Prim’s lessons. She had been my tutor for years and had never said anything nearly as flattering about me. Sullen Katniss Everdeen must have been a lost cause in her eyes.

I’m four years older than Prim who’s a mere twelve. We share the same parents, though we look almost nothing alike. Where she received the fair skin, blonde curls, and gentle blue eyes of our mother, I received the olive-toned, straight black, and storm grey palette of our father.

I sit up suddenly, aware that I left home hours ago and it must be getting time for my lessons. I dread heading back to that stuffy room where I’m required to sit straight and learn to be “lady-like” under the scrutinizing gaze of Ms. Effie Trinket, my new tutor. Manners are of the utmost importance to her, seeing as she makes her living off of teaching them. She considers being late an unforgivable sin.

With this in mind, I take my time gathering wild-flowers. There are so many at my feet, their delicate white and yellow petals peeking up amongst the grasses. I deftly craft two flower chains. One for me, which I place on the crown of my head, and one for Prim clutched in my hands. I notice some dirt under my nails and smile, wondering what Effie will say when I arrive late and grimy.

She purses her lips and crosses her arms as I enter the room. “Where were you?” She demands in that high pitched voice of hers.

“Out,” I shrug. I hadn’t seen Prim on my way in so I’m still clutching her flower crown. I offer it to Effie instead. “Flowers?” She squints at my offering, probably checking for bugs, before gingerly taking it and placing it down on a side table.

“Katniss, I need you to take today’s lesson seriously.” Her clipped tone sets my teeth on edge.

“I always do-” I start, but Effie cuts me off.

“Don’t lie to me, Katniss. I know you don’t care for etiquette. I know that to you a spoon is just a spoon, even when that spoon is a soup spoon and should only be used for soup!”

Again with the soup spoon thing, it was one time. But she’s right. I find learning manners and etiquette a waste of time. I’ve only been out in society for a short while. I barely attend balls seeing as I’m sixteen and prefer to stay at home anyway. I look up and realize that Effie is still talking at me.

“Are you even listening? Mrs. Winthrop was right, you are hopeless.” She sighs and wipes non-existent dust off of her shimmery lilac skirts. “It is imperative that you start paying attention and make some kind of progress in these lessons. Mr. Gale Hawthorne has recently taken possession of Templeton and is traveling here, as we speak, to take up residence indefinitely. Do you know what this could mean for you?” Suddenly, her annoyance melts away and is replaced by a teary, almost hopeful expression. The way this woman’s emotions swing back and forth between happy and exasperated hurts my head. She comes to clasp my face between her palms. “Mr. Hawthorne earns ten thousand a year, Katniss. Ten thousand!”

I have in fact heard of the Hawthornes. Maybe those lessons have had more of an impact on me than I thought. I was forced to spend months poring over books filled with the names and family trees of wealthy, well-known families that I had either already been acquainted with or might be acquainted with in the future. A healthy knowledge of people, especially rich people, will get you far in life. At least that’s what Effie says.

Gale Hawthorne is the eldest son of the wealthy businessman Ezra Hawthorne. I forget exactly how Mr. Hawthorne first made his fortune but the word mine sticks around in my head. What his mine produced, I’m not sure. Precious gems? Gold? Coal? All I know is the Hawthornes are incredibly wealthy, and Gale being the eldest son inherited when his father died. He is in possession of everything from the family fortune to a legion of servants to the many extravagant houses in Town. Now it seems he’s grown tired with the city and has decided to try his hand at country living. Good, I think. A wealthy man who’s used to the high society of the Capitol won’t last long out here. He’ll be out of my hair before the month’s up. Effie must not realize this since she’s still staring happily into my face.

“And?” I ask.

“Well, he’ll fall in love with you and ask for your hand in marriage!” She beams as if this is obvious. “If you play your cards right of course. For instance, he won’t find you very agreeable if all you do is scowl at him like you do me-” I jerk out of her grasp.

Of course. Marriage. It’s one of the only things Effie has talked about the entire time I’ve been her pupil.

“Yes, Mr. Abernathy warned me that'd you'd be. . .avoidant. But don’t you see? That’s the reason I’m here. To teach you how to win a husband! It’s an art you know.” She sighs, probably seeing the panicked look on my face, and slips back into a tone of tired annoyance. “You’ll have to marry someone, Katniss. Might as well marry knowing you’ll spend the rest of your life in the lap of luxury.”

She’s right, of course. There’s no way for women to make their own living. I can’t go to university to study business or law, I can’t run my own shop, I can’t inherit Haymitch’s estate or fortune. When he dies the money goes to some estranged cousin on his father’s side. I am a woman, therefore, I am destined to either marry or die poor and unprotected. And Prim…

If I don’t marry, then Prim can’t marry. One of the rules of proper Panem society is that a younger sibling cannot marry unless the eldest has, meaning I must be happily settled before my younger sister can even entertain the idea of love. If I don’t get married and Haymitch goes and does something stupid like die, there will be nothing I can do. For either of us. We’d be turned out of the house and left to beg for scraps. And I will not let that happen to Prim. Not again.

I force myself to swallow past the lump in my throat and spend the rest of the afternoon paying careful attention to Effie. She’s trying to teach me to communicate with men via body language, long gazes, and the fluttering of lashes.

This is the only way to save Prim, and with each horrible flutter I produce and each disappointed sigh from Effie, I feel my chances slipping away.

#everlark #thg #thg fanfic #everlark fluff #katniss everdeen #Peeta Mellark #gale hawthorne #haymitch abernathy #finnick odair #pride and prejudice #jane austen au #regency #everlarkfic #The Hunger Games

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everlarkficexchange · 6 years ago

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Extended Office Hours

Author: @hutchhitched

Prompt 22: Student/Professor. Katniss is stressing out about an assignment and decides to go and talk to Professor Mellark about it, as he’s always been understanding and patient in class. However things turn awkward when Katniss stumbles upon him in his office after hours watching porn on his laptop. Is it deliberate, maybe he needed to relieve some stress or did his brother/friend send him a link to something that he shouldn’t have opened?? It’s up to you writer :) [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Rating: M

Summary: Peeta Mellark, an English PhD student, teaches at Panem Community College. Seeking help from her professor, Katniss Everdeen visits his office just when Peeta opens an email that probably should have been read at home.

“Remember, your essay is due next Monday. I’ll be in my office during office hours, and feel free to swing by other times if you’re near the building,” Professor Mellark announced as the class packed up their notebooks and paper drafts.

“Will you be there?”

Peeta tried not to laugh as Katniss, one of his better students, rolled her eyes and shoved her stuff into her bag. Cashmere was easily the most irritating girl in the class and clearly not very bright if she’d just asked that question.

No, of course I won’t be there. That’s why I told you to stop by.

He cleared his throat and studied Cashmere, unable to tell if she was really that vapid and unaware or if she was being coy. Struggling to keep his expression and tone neutral, he confirmed, “I’ll be around a lot this week, yes.”

Katniss had no intention of swinging by to see her professor during office hours or otherwise. He knew that. He’d overheard her one day as she left the class explaining to a friend that she was “doing fine in the class, thank you very much.” She seemed pretty shy, too, so he doubted he’d ever have the pleasure of seeing her in his office.

He watched her leave and sighed in frustration when he was finally alone in the room. Disgusted with himself, Peeta sank into a chair and took several deep breaths. He’d never been so attracted to someone—especially not one of his students—and he was both dreading and excited for the end of the semester when he wouldn’t see Katniss again. He’d done everything he knew how to do to control his interest in her, but she was lovely and interesting and peculiar in a really good way. He’d never been that conventional, and Katniss wasn’t either. He needed to not have her as a student anymore—not if he wanted to maintain any sort of professional integrity.

Not that he’d done anything. He certainly hadn’t. That would be breaking the ethical responsibilities of his job, and Peeta was unquestionably responsible. He always had been—all during childhood and high school. Even through college when he’d turned down an athletic scholarship at Panem State University, so he could stay close to home and help out at the family bakery. He’d attended his parents’ alma mater and worked the opening shift at Mellark’s every day until he graduated and broke the news he was going away to graduate school. He’d put his own dreams on hold for long enough, and it was time for him to leave the small town where he’d been raised.

By the time he was 27, he’d landed a job as an adjunct professor at Panem Community College as he finished his degree and become a full-fledged PhD. It was only his second semester when Katniss Everdeen walked into his classroom and made his heart skip a few beats. She was reticent and quiet, but her papers showed depth and insight that made him want to call her into his office and juice her brain until he knew everything about her.

For the most part, he was able to control himself, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to having a few fantasies about her. He didn’t watch porn that often, but when he did, he tended toward ones with dark-haired students who frequented office hours. And if he couldn’t find one he liked, he allowed himself to imagine for a few minutes…

Peeta shook himself and packed up his papers, folders, and pens. He wasn’t going to give into a lewd fantasy about one of his students in a classroom where anyone could walk in and see his arousal.

Maybe it would be easier to deal with the situation if he hadn’t, in a moment of weakness, confided in his friend and colleague, Finnick Odair, another young professor whose philosophy classes filled up seconds after registration opened. Dr. Odair’s popularity with the female student body was legendary, and Peeta didn’t mind that his own status had increased from the fall to the spring. His schedule for the next fall was already almost full, and early registration had been running for only a few days.

He entered his office and flung his bag on the floor at his feet. As he powered up his desktop, he shuffled a stack of essays he needed to grade for the next day’s class in hopes of finding his reading glasses. He answered a few emails and then turned his attention to the papers. Losing himself in his work, he didn’t look up until a chime indicated he’d received a new email.

“What does Finnick have to say now?” he mused as he bit the cap of his pen. He clicked on the attachment and blinked at the screen when a half-naked woman in a short plaid skirt who looked exactly like the student he couldn’t get off his mind spread her legs and leaned back on her elbows on a wooden desk. Fascinated, he watched a clothed blonde man cross to her and caress her legs.

“You know your homework scores are much too low,” the man reprimanded.

The Katniss look-alike blinked rapidly and arched her back so her exposed breasts jutted upward. “I’m so sorry, professor. I’ve been a very naughty girl, but I simply cannot fail anatomy. Can’t I do something to make up my grade?”

“I might be able to offer some extra credit. If you’re willing to help me study a specimen.”

Peeta’s mouth dropped open as the man flipped up the girl’s skirt and spread her lips. He alternated fingering her hard and licking his fingers. The action repeated several times with the girl begging him in breathy moans to make her cum like the bad girl she was. The camera cut to a close shot of the girl’s pussy, and Peeta sucked in his breath at the moisture seeping from her. It was so wrong to watch this, but it was so, so, so hot to see someone who looked so much like Katniss building to a climax.

His eyes were riveted on the screen when the man shed his pants and rubbed his cock between the girl’s legs. Peeta shifted in his seat and adjusted himself as the male porn star entered his make-believe student. They fucked for a while before he directed her onto her knees and the pace quickened.

For a fleeting moment, Peeta’s thoughts flickered to the cracked door and the possibility of being overheard. However, it was late and the last week before finals. Campus was practically deserted, and he was almost always alone in the building by himself by this time in the evening.

The brunette begged to be fucked on the computer screen in ever-increasing decibels when Peeta finally slipped his hand into his own pants. He groaned at the sensation and pumped himself in rhythm with the two on his screen. He bit his lower lip as he jacked off. There was something weirdly freeing about doing something so private in a public building, and that only made him more determined to—

“Professor Mellark?”

“Oh, fuck,” Peeta hissed at the sound his name in a feminine voice. He tucked himself back into his pants and slapped at the keyboard to mute his computer while calling out, “Just a second! Let me just finish this—”

The door swung open, and Katniss stood there, her brow furrowed in concern. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No! No, you’re fine,” he yelped and frantically refastened his belt below his desk. He wiped his palm on the side of his pants before motioning for her to enter and take a seat in a chair facing his desk. “Sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was out there. I was, uh… Yeah, anyway. What can I do for you, Katniss?”

She clearly didn’t believe him—probably because his face flamed in what must have been the brightest shade of red known to man—but he refused to acknowledge what he’d been doing. She shifted back and forth on her feet a few times, and he willed himself to think of really, really unsexy things to help deflate his erection. Thank fuck for the desk. Otherwise, his favorite student would have gotten an eyeful of his junk in a very inappropriate way.

Katniss glanced over her shoulder and finally stepped into the room and crossed to a chair. She stared down at him for a few seconds before sinking down and perching herself on the edge of the seat. She looked like she would flee at any moment, and Peeta yearned to make her comfortable.

“Are you having trouble with the final essay?” he coaxed when she remained silent. Her gray eyes penetrated him and made him squirm. It was as if she could see inside him where he hid his past hurts, imposter syndrome, and insecurities.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

He flushed again and waved away her concern. “No, no, no. I was listening to a podcast. You didn’t interrupt a thing.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure, Katniss. Absolutely positive,” he assured her in a rush. “It’s a pleasure to have you here in my office. I-I mean, so glad you’re seeking me out. For help. With the paper. Or whatever.”

Peeta’s face flamed, both for his unintended sexual innuendo and his inability to hide his nervousness. He’d allowed himself one too many fantasies of her alone with him in his office and working out something that had nothing to do with academics. One too many times speculating about the feel of her smooth olive skin under his hands, the sounds she’d make, how good she’d feel, how being with someone like her would make him feel whole, how building a life with her would fulfill all his dreams. He was a complete wreck.

Katniss reached down and pulled a stack of papers out of her bag and thrust them at him. She twisted her hands as he flipped through the pile and spoke only when he stopped to look at her.

“I’m trying to get into Panem State next year, and I need a recommendation letter. I don’t really know too many faculty here—non-traditional student and all that—so I didn’t know who to ask, but I’ve really enjoyed your class, and you did say you could help with anything we needed.”

Peeta leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. “Of course, I’ll write a letter for you! I’m happy to help.”

“Really?”

He nodded as she twisted her braid around her palm and tugged on it nervously. “Absolutely. I just need a little more information.”

“L-like what?”

He flashed a grin at her in an attempt to ease her anxiety, but he wasn’t sure it worked. She still looked like she wanted to sprint from the room at any second.

“I didn’t realize you were a non-traditional student. Can you tell me a little bit more about your story? I’d like to reference your circumstances in the letter.”

“It’s not much of a story,” she mumbled.

“Everybody has a story, Katniss.”

“I guess that’s true,” she grudgingly admitted and then smiled softly. “My father died when I was in middle school, and my mom took it hard. She was practically catatonic for most of high school, so I raised my younger sister and worked odd jobs until I was old enough to get real employment. When I graduated, I took on as much work as I could until she went away to school. Then I decided it was time to get a degree, so I’m here.”

“How much younger is your sister?”

“Four years.”

“So, that makes you…24?”

“Yeah, although I look like I’m 16.”

Peeta chuckled at her wry assessment. “You look lov— I mean, I just hadn’t realized how similar we are in age. I’m 28, and I’m sure at any second everyone is going to realize I don’t really belong here. Professors are supposed to be old and gray, not bumbling around like the twenty-something I am.”

“You’re a great teacher,” Katniss said softly. “I’ve never been good with words, but in your class…”

“Well, that’s a wonderful compliment. Make sure to put it on the teacher evaluation at the end of the semester.”

“Oh, I-I will.”

“I’m teasing, Katniss. No coercion here.”

“No, but I mean, you really are a great teacher. Normally, I’m not a very verbal person. I’d rather do things than talk, but you make me want to do both.”

The double entendre hung in the air between them, and neither spoke or broke eye contact. Peeta wasn’t sure if she’d meant to hint at something other than his teaching, but the flush on her face indicated she realized what she’d said.

He jumped at the sharp rap on his door and glanced up to see Finnick grinning at him. “Peeta, my friend, want to grab a beer? Oh, I didn’t realize you had company.”

“I was just leaving,” Katniss blurted and jumped to her feet. “Thanks for writing the letter for me, Professor Mellark. See you next week at the final.”

“No problem, Katniss. I’ll have it for you then. And keep working on your essay. I’m sure you’ll do well. You always do.”

Katniss slipped through the door, and Finnick perched on the edge of the desk. His eyes sparkled as he observed his friend.

“Katniss, huh?” he mused. “Is that—? That’s the girl you told me about? The one who makes you want to throw your career to the wind and do her on the classroom floor?”

“Shut up, Finn.”

“But that’s her?”

“Yes, it’s her! And thanks for the email earlier. I just happened to open it right before she knocked on my door. Talk about awkward.”

“What email?”

Peeta turned his computer screen so Finnick could see it and brought up the link. When he clicked it, Finnick guffawed. “She’s the spitting image.”

“I know. Thanks for sending porn to my work email, asshole.”

Finnick laughed and slapped Peeta’s shoulder. “I must have copied the wrong link. That was supposed to be an invite to the end of the semester party at my house next week.”

“Well, that makes more sense.”

“Come on. I need a drink after grading that last set of essays, and my wife’s out of town.”

“Give me a second.”

“What could possibly be more important than drinking alcohol with me?”

Peeta grinned at his friend and answered, “I’m forwarding that email to my personal account. No sense letting good porn go to waste.”

#Springtime Edition 2019 #submission #hutchhitched #peetaspikelets #prompt 22

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katnissdoesnotfollowback · 6 years ago

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Directors cut - Pure, please and thank you

Random dash scrolling leads to one of my favorite stories that I have written....EVER.

This gorgeous wedding picture is not mine. It belongs to Justin and Mary Marantz. However, it is the picture that launched Pure. I was sitting on the couch late at night in October of 2016 when I should have been working on COBLMF. It had been a hell of a day so I was sipping some wine and scrolling along when I saw this picture and thought, “Wow that looks like Everlark...” I don’t even know how to describe the mental parkour my brain went through after that thought except to say that it made stops on Pretty Woman and An Officer and a Gentleman and then twenty minutes later I was pounding away at the keyboard, writing the first chapter.

When I finished the first chapter, I sent it to my then beta, @peetabreadgirl with the message. “I tried something a little out of my comfort zone and I don’t know what to think of it. Tell me if it’s crap or if I need to continue it. Warning...it’s a little dark and unpleasant.” What I sent her is almost exactly the first chapter you all know and have read. I made very few changes to it between her first reading of it and me posting it. After she read it, she sent me back a message that was basically screaming at me that she didn’t care how I got them to that wedding picture but it needed to be done. So I got to work on chapter two.

I tend to gravitate towards making Everlark two sides of the same coin (pardon the tasteless pun) or opposites in come way that make them perfect for each other, make them balance one another out. In this case it was she’s extremely experienced in terms of sexuality but she’s never been in love with someone, so she’s “pure” in that sense. While Peeta is “pure” in the sense that he’s never had sex, but he is not innocent or naive the way Katniss initially thinks he is, nor is he the perfect untouched soul she imagines he is in the first chapter. His mother’s abuse has already done its damage, but she doesn’t see that until much later.

I submitted chapters one and two to @promptsinpanem Round 9 - The One That Got Away and then kept working. At that point, I had no solid outline. It was actually all in my head rather than written down, and it wasn’t very well fleshed out. I had what some sailors would refer to as way points. Scattered scenes and points in their relationship that they needed to reach. I knew that I wanted her to help him find a place to live, not knowing that she was also helping him pick out their future home together. I knew that his mother was going to die and that Katniss was going to go back to Twelve to help him deal with that. I knew Finnick’s role in this story from the start and that Katniss would meet him when she goes to the Navy ball with Peeta. I wanted her to go to that dance with him as a completely different person from the one who missed out on going with him to the dance in Twelve when they were in high school still.

I’ve mentioned before that I usually have a few very vivid scenes in my head before I start writing. For this story, it was Katniss walking through a snow covered district in her boots and short skirt, trying to make herself as small possible; his mural in Twelve; Peeta screaming in the woods after talking to his dying mother and the birds startled into flight; Katniss crying over her family’s grave while in Peeta’s arms; the scene when they return from Twelve and Katniss tries to push Peeta away but he won’t let her this time;Finnick in the ballroom trying to build up Katniss’ courage and then her asking Peeta to dance with her; the words “This is real purity” during her and Peeta’s first time together; and Peeta destroying Katniss’ phone to cut her ties to Plutarch and her life as a prostitute.

Twists and changes that were added along along the way that I’m really glad came to me, even if some of them are painful and most of them resulted in me adding another chapter ... and then another ... Peeta’s tattoos and the bathtub scene. The lunch scene with Plutarch and what happens as a result of that. Glimmer/Sarah becoming a friend. Katniss actually meeting Madge. Originally I had planned for Madge to return to town to try to fix her marriage to Gale, which would have led to Gale getting frustrated and taking that anger out on Katniss. I felt nauseous writing some of those scenes and the thing about this Katniss is that at that point, she didn’t care enough for her own well being for that to be the thing that caused her to break it off with Gale. She needed to see it affecting someone else. This Katniss has this idea in her head that she’s a selfish survivor, not much better than some of her clients, and so the way for her to grow and see that she’s worthy of love is by helping others, in a sense, and learning how her job affects far more than just her. Which made meeting Madge crucial to Katniss’ character development.

The weather and elements imagery I used came mostly from that picture. Most of this story was written chronologically, so “It’s always snowing when I fuck up.” was the first sentence I wrote. From there, the idea of purity and snow just sort of went hand in hand and, at least from the writer standpoint, seemed to happen organically, but it is one of the things I am most proud of, using the weather going on around her as a sort of barometer for her moods and thoughts on life. Katniss associates so much of her life with snow and ice because she removes herself from feeling much of anything in order to get her job done and survive here, but she still has that fire in her. Each of the other natural elements show up in other ways -- earth, air, fire, water -- hence Peeta’s tattoos reflecting that.

I know a few people really want to know the meanings behind his original tattoo before the additions of the arrow and Katniss’ initial, so I’ll probably disappoint when I say that my thoughts on it were that he drew it one day when he should have been sitting at attention taking notes at the academy and couldn’t get the image out of his head. He would have felt attached to it for reasons he couldn’t really pinpoint, and then Lavinia spots it and comments that it’d make an amazing tattoo. It’s connected to Katniss and his time with her in the cabin and at her mother’s funeral but he wouldn’t have even realized that connection until much later when it’s already embedded in his skin.

I spent a lot of time and emotional effort worried about this story since it deals with several delicate subjects. It was always important to me, from day one, to neither belittle nor glamorize the things that sex workers have to deal with. There was also a fine line I had to walk to keep Peeta as a source of strength to Katniss, willing to forgive, to be supportive in a tough situation, and show her that life could be good again, without making him subjugate his own needs for hers or make him a doormat. I never wanted him to tell her or to even come close to implying that she couldn’t see a client or even that she shouldn’t see a client or to throw a fit that she was having sex with other men. When it came to her role as a prostitute, his focus needed to always be on her well being and the effect her job had on HER, not on him. Anytime the effect of her job on him and his feelings comes up, she’s the one to bring it up.

The last chapter was posted in March of 2017, almost two years ago?! And I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long. Also I can’t believe it only took me five months to write a 117k word fic... Anyways, Pure is one of the stories that I’ve considered turning into an original some day, but for now it’ll stay right where it is.

Thanks for the ask @jroseley! Let me know if there’s something else or something specific that I didn’t cover that you wanted to know!

#jroseley #look at that ask

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sophieakatz · 6 years ago

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Thursday Thoughts: The Right Medium For The Right Story

I’m a bit obsessed with the topic of adaptation – and by “a bit obsessed” I mean “I wrote my undergrad thesis about it.” Adaptation is a kind of re-telling; you take a story that was told before, and you change some things when you tell it again.

For example, West Side Story is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s the same basic story, but it’s set in 1950s New York instead of 1300s Verona, and the warring “families” are rival gangs instead of members of the nobility.

But there’s another kind of adaptation here that’s perhaps even more important than the change of setting – the medium. While Romeo and Juliet was originally a stage play, West Side Story was a musical, and later adapted again into a film. Adapting a story across mediums changes the work just as much, if not more, than anything else – or, at least, it ought to.

Minor spoilers for The Hunger Games books and movies as well as Disney’s Aladdin and The Lion King ahead.

[Image: The Hunger Games movie poster]

A Rose By Any Other Name Is Different

As a writer, I firmly believe that you must find the right medium to tell a story in. If you later change the medium, then something about the story is going to need to change as well. As much as a reader might want the film of a book to be completely loyal to the original text, a story originally designed as a novel is not going to work if you simply transfer it page-for-page onto the screen. This is because there are fundamental differences between books, a textual medium, and films, a visual medium.

My favorite example of a book-to-film adaptation that shows a clear understanding of the necessity of change is the Hunger Games franchise. Suzanne Collins’s books are told from a first-person perspective, giving the reader insight into Katniss’s thoughts the whole way through. Because we are hitchhiking along in Katniss’s mind, we get a lot of exposition about the world through her memories, and we know exactly what she thinks and feels about everything that’s going on. Importantly, this includes her confusion about how much of her affection for Peeta is real or just for the Capitol audience.

The Hunger Games film, on the other hand, is shot in a traditional third-person manner. Consequently, in the adaptation process, we lose Katniss’s point of view. We don’t get so many of her memories, aside from a brief dream sequence. We also lose her inner conflict about the performed romance (though the sequel, Catching Fire, plays catch-up on that point).

The filmmakers could have tried to make the film more like the book by adding a voiceover to explain what Katniss is thinking throughout the film, to sidestep the limitation of not actually being inside Katniss’s head anymore. Plenty of films do that. But The Hunger Games does not.

Instead, the film leans into the differences between the two mediums, seizing the opportunity to explore things that the book could not. While we lose Katniss’s inner voice, we gain everything that Katniss could not see. We get scenes of President Snow talking politics with Seneca Crane, making the viewer aware of the greater stakes of Katniss’s behavior in the Games much earlier than Katniss herself is. We also see the riots in District Eleven as they happen, instead of learning about them much later. In the third film, Mockingjay, scenes of Katniss’s work creating promotional videos with the rebellion are paired with the actual acts of rebellion that her words have inspired (I particularly love the “hanging tree” sequence at the hydroelectric dam). The effect is haunting, and it all truly drives home the magnitude of what’s going on.

As a result, the Hunger Games films remain true to the heart of the story without trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. A rose you read about in a novel might smell just as sweet as one seen on film, but only if you acknowledge that you can’t depict the rose in the exact same way in a book as you would in a movie.

[Image: The 2019 Aladdin movie poster]

Anything Is Possible… But Not Always

The current trend of live-action Disney film adaptations provides us with a fascinating case study in the power of adaptation, and of how well the adaptors succeed in transitioning a story from one medium to another. The original animated films (which themselves are mostly adaptations of oral fairy tales – but that’s a whole other blog post) and the new live-action and/or photorealistic CGI films are, of course, both films. But the kind of story you can tell in traditional animation is different than the story you can tell in a more realistic “live action” style.

(Not to mention that the kind of story you can tell in a mainstream media production today is different than the stories told twenty-plus years ago, representation-wise… but again, that’s a whole other blog post.)

Animation is a medium of imagination. That’s why animated fairy tale movies have always done so well. The un-reality of the medium lends itself to depicting the kinds of fantastical transformations typically told of in fairy tales. The viewer can suspend their disbelief and forget about the rules of the real world while watching an animated film. It’s much harder to forget those rules when the people on the screen are human actors.

The live-action Aladdin hits all the same story beats as the animated Aladdin, but it makes several brief but notable changes along the way. There are just some things that the animated film could get away with that the live-action film could not.

For example, the Genie spends a lot more time in a “human” disguise than he does in his natural blue form. If you were on the internet at all when the first images of Will Smith as the Genie were released, then you likely saw the backlash – for a lot of people, it just felt weird. A blue character with cartoony proportions who is constantly shifting into different shapes and sizes works very well in traditional animation, but less well when it’s an otherwise normal-looking human guy who is just… blue. You can smush and stretch the 2-D animated Genie and nobody will bat an eye, but if you tried to do the same to Will Smith – ouch! It conflicts with our idea of what is possible in the real world, and a live-action film is always going to feel more like the real world than a 2-D animated film.

This is likely why Jafar does not transform into a snake in this movie. Jafar-as-snake is arguably one of the best parts of the original Aladdin film – it’s certainly one of the best parts of the Fantasmic show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s awesome, it’s terrifying, and it does not happen in the live-action adaptation of Aladdin. Jafar does a lot of other magic – mostly levitation, paralysis, and creating a storm – but he does not turn into a giant snake. The world of Agrabah established in this film is many things, but it is not established that this is a world where people can turn into animals. We do see some animals turning into other animals – Abu becomes an elephant, and Iago a monstrously huge bird – but neither of them remain transformed for very long. The audience’s suspension of disbelief will only go so far in a live-action film, and the filmmakers probably guessed, and I think correctly, that Jafar turning into a snake would not have gone over well in this medium.

Another thing that would not have gone over so well in live-action is the scene in the marketplace where a shopkeeper threatens to chop off Jasmine’s arm for stealing an apple. Just picture it – a man grabbing a young woman and threatening her with a sword, and they are both real people with real-people proportions, and it is a real sword instead of a cartoony dinged-up scimitar. In the animated film, the moment is quickly played off as funny, but here it would have been scary, much too scary for the first act of an otherwise cheerful film.

A savvy adapter sees and accepts what won’t work as well in their chosen medium, and so makes the appropriate changes.

[Image: The 2019 The Lion King movie poster]

Rules? What Rules?

Which brings me to the new “live-action” Lion King. Now, if you enjoyed this film, then I’m happy for you, and I neither expect nor want to change your mind.

However, this film does not successfully adapt its story from one medium to another. It keeps almost everything about the story, the music, and the dialogue exactly the same as before – but now, the world and animals are photorealistic. Throughout the film, I kept wanting to close my eyes and just listen to it, because the film that I was hearing and the film that I was seeing just plain did not match up with each other.

When Mufasa dies, Simba’s voice actor is obviously crying – you can hear the tears in his voice. But Simba himself is not crying, because real lions do not cry. The disconnect between what the viewer hears and what the viewer sees reminds us that what we are watching is not real, consequently breaking the suspension of disbelief and robbing the scene of vital emotion.

A musical and a nature documentary are two very different things which we watch for very different reasons. Put bluntly, this new Lion King imposes the rules of a nature documentary onto a musical. In a nature documentary, the animals must look and move a certain way which does not line up with human emotional behavior, and the world must look and behave in a certain way which features muted colors and subtle movements. A musical, on the other hand, is all about heightened human emotion – that’s why characters sing, because their emotions are so big that they can only be expressed in song! Musicals are also about visual spectacle over strict realism (with some exceptions – compare the elaborate stage effects of The Phantom of the Opera or the intensive choreography of Hamilton with the much more subdued The Spitfire Grill).

There are a few moments where the rules of the animal world line up with the rules of the Lion King story, to wonderful effect. For example, when Nala is telling Simba to return to Pride Rock and confront Scar, Simba paces back and forth in a real form of lion body language which reads to a human eye as frustration. The slouched-to-the-side way that lions sit looks a lot like the casual lean of a confident villain, giving Scar a marvelous aura of attitude. Also, the frantic, bouncy, here-and-there movement of a meerkat lines up well with Timon’s jumpy, shifty personality and dialogue, adding humor at key moments.

But for most of the film, there is little to no bridge between the story that they are trying to tell and the medium that they have shoved this story into. The Lion King is not a realistic story. Audiences did not go see The Lion King in theatres in 1996 because they wanted to see a realistic story. They went to see a colorful, fantastical musical about talking animals with human emotions. Photorealistic CGI is simply not the right medium for that kind of story, and the story was not changed nearly enough to fit the new medium.

[Image: Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World]

What Comes Next?

I see nothing wrong with telling a story again. As I said before, I love adaptation. It’s clear that today’s filmmakers, especially the filmmakers at Disney, are eager to try their hand at recreating the stories that they watched and loved when they were younger. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but there is a wrong way to do it, and I hope that future adaption films move away from that way.

One of the biggest things that Walt Disney loved about Disneyland was that, unlike the films, he could change things in the theme park if they no longer worked for the audience or if they could now be done better than before. I think he would be intrigued by the current culture of adaptation, and curious why today’s filmmakers aren’t doing more to explore the differences between mediums and the different kinds of stories that you can tell in different mediums.

Adaptation does not have to mean being stuck saying the same thing over and over. It could, and should, lead to us telling more stories, different stories, and better stories, because when it comes to adaptation, change is a good thing.

#disney #adaptation #the hunger games #the lion king #aladdin #hunger games #lion king #filmmaking #thursday thoughts #nonfiction #film analysis #reviews #musicals #animation #live action #storytelling

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xerxia31 · 7 years ago

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I wish you would write a fic where peeta has a failing bakery because he isn't able to implement anything new and exciting due to parents etc, and katniss is like gordon ramsay in kitchen nightmare trying to convince peeta that he's not an idiot sandwich. Is that too specific? sorry if it is, i've just been thinking about this for a while...

This took an incredibly long time to write, anon, if you’re still around, I’m sorry for that! But this idea gripped me, and wouldn’t be satisfied with a hundred word drabble…

The B Word

rated T

He had watched her all through middle school, and high school too, had spent years of his life imagining her walking into the bakery his parents owned where he could woo her with artisanal breads and fancy cakes.

But this was definitely not part of his fantasy.

“You are an idiot sandwich!” Katniss Everdeen hollered as she pressed two pieces of bread to the sides of his head. It was the good hearty bread too, filled with raisins and nuts, a bestseller at the bakery and one of his favourites. A myriad of emotions played through his mind; horror and humiliation, a feeling that he just might cry, but beneath was that familiar quickening of his heart rate at the way her white chef’s coat strained to cover her pert breasts. Thump thump thump his heart pounded, and she smirked, even as she pressed the bread more firmly to his ears.

Thump thump thump. “Peeta! Get your ass out of bed!” Peeta Mellark groaned as he pried his eyes open in the darkness and glanced at the clock on his bedside table. 3:45 am. The alarm wasn’t set to go off for another fifteen minutes.

“Dammit, Rye, it’s not even four,” he grumbled, dislodging the pillow - flat and slightly drool-dampened - from over his ear.

“That TV show chick is coming today,” the voice hollered through the door. “It’s going to be a big, big, big day!” Rye was far too perky for a quarter to four in the morning. But despite his pique at being awoken early, Peeta couldn’t blame his brother for being excited. Their little bakery was going to be featured on a brand new show from one of the hottest television personalities in Panem.

Kat Flickerman was a household name, her sarcastic and expletive-filled television show, Kitchen Nightmares, was must-watch TV. And her new show, The B Word, featuring small-town bakeries, was promising to be even better. Mellark’s, a staple in District Twelve for over seventy-five years, would be the first establishment showcased. The publicity and sales uptick that came from being featured on the program more than made up for the embarrassment of having a five-foot-nothing firebrand rip apart every aspect of your business. Or so the producers that contacted his brother said.

Peeta wasn’t convinced. After all, he’d been making a fool of himself in front of the former Katniss Everdeen his whole life, and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere.

Neither Rye nor their father seemed to remember that world-famous Kat Flickerman had once been Katniss Everdeen, from the poor part of Twelve. But Peeta remembered. He remembered everything about her, though she’d never paid him any attention.

He remembered her sparkling silver eyes as she skipped through the halls of their elementary school, singing to herself. Eyes that dimmed and hardened after her father’s death. He remembered how hollow her cheeks were in the months after that, when he’d leave part of his lunch in her cubby each morning. He remembered how she’d grown into a solitary, sometimes sullen but always striking young woman who worked and studied and never participated in any of the meagre social activities District Twelve offered.

He even knew how a quiet, shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks parlayed a gig reviewing restaurants for her college’s newspaper into fame and fortune, though that part he’d read on her Wikipedia page. He wasn’t sure he understood it though. The Katniss who’d stolen his heart when he was only a boy wasn’t a lot like the girl on fire he saw on television. Not that he watched her shows.

(He definitely watched her shows.)

But none of that mattered anymore, not really. Because Katniss Everdeen left District Twelve five years ago and had never, as far as Peeta knew, come back. There was no mention of District Twelve in any of her bios or interviews. Katniss Everdeen had essentially disappeared. Kat Flickerman - foul-mouthed, foul-tempered, fire and fury Kat Flickerman - was the woman he was going to meet today. And he was fairly sure she wouldn’t remember him anyway. Probably wouldn’t even notice him, unless it was to berate some mistake he’d made or pick apart the menu items.

o-o-o

Peeta had the display cases full of glossy frosted cookies and perfect cupcakes long before the production crew showed up. He knew that there wouldn’t be any filming that morning, save for some generic ‘before’ shots, but still he wanted to put his best foot forward. Mellark’s might not be world-class, but it had been in his family for generations, it was a part of him. Rye, too, was beaming, polishing the countertops until they gleamed in the shafts of sunlight that came through windows so clean they looked devoid of glass. Their father spent an hour on a ladder, writing the day’s wares on the menu board in practiced chalk strokes. Though District Twelve was nothing more than a tiny backwater village, the Mellark men had their pride.

The group that descended on their small shop was definitely not from around there. Loud voices and loud colours shattered the sleepy District Twelve ambiance. The TV crew consisted of a pair of burly cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who had a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings. On careful observation, it appeared his tongue had been pierced, too, and he was wearing a stud with a silver ball the size of a marble. Peeta shuddered slightly. But missing from the crew was the one woman he’d been longing to see.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. She was the star after all, doubtless she’d breeze in only for her own scenes. But his disappointment was almost tangible.

Peeta opened the front shop and kept it running while Rye and their father walked the crew through the back, mapping out electrical outlets and places where spotlighting could be temporarily installed. Occasionally, the sound of laughter floated forward, but for the most part it was a typical Tuesday morning. The regulars wandered in and out, and he chatted with everyone, the comfort of familiarity soothing him.

He had just packed up some cookies for old Sae’s granddaughter when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Standing in the doorway of the shop was a ghost. Katniss Everdeen.

She wasn’t dressed like Kat Flickerman. Instead of a chef’s coat and crisp black pants, she was wearing jeans and a muted orange sweater. Her black hair was in the braid he remembered from their school days, long and thick, glinting blue in the morning sun. She was stunning.

She’d been glancing around the front shop but then froze, lifting her eyes to Peeta’s, as if feeling the weight of his stare. So many times in school she’d caught him staring, and each time he’d looked away quickly, blushing. But not today. Today he held her silver gaze. And then she smiled. “Katniss,” he whispered, or maybe he just thought it. Either way, her smile widened.

“Hello, Peeta,” she said, and his name in her mouth evoked a rush of arousal so potent he was certain she could see it stealing across his face. “It’s been a long time.”

“Five years,” he said without even realizing. He was stunned she even knew his name. Her eyes widened a little, but her soft smile didn’t fall.

“It looks exactly the same in here,” she said, and Peeta stiffened. It was true that the decor hadn’t changed in a long time, except for the addition of some of his paintings, and the fancy European coffeemaker he’d insisted on when he became a partner after college. He’d always thought that was part of the charm of Mellark’s, it’s dependability. He viewed the warm wood and twinkling glass as classic, elegant. But he’d watched enough of Kat Flickerman’s shows to know that she was seeing only tired and shabby. It hurt to envision what her team might do.

“Well,” he drawled. “Not much ever changes in Twelve.”

“You have,” she said, her eyes sweeping over him and he felt the heat rising in his cheeks. She was right, though it felt kind of shitty to be reminded. In high school, he’d been all state in wrestling, had worked out every day and watched his diet carefully to make weight. Had been even more serious about his sport in college, until a torn ACL killed that. Nowadays, he stayed fit running and playing pick-up football with the guys. He was in good shape, but he knew he wasn’t lean like before. “Yeah,” she said, distracted, her pink tongue snaking out to sweep over her lower lip. He had the distinct impression that she was checking him out. But that couldn’t be. “You look good,” she murmured.

He crooked an eyebrow. “Thanks?”

Her eyes widened. “I just, uh. I mean. Working here. If, uh. If I worked here I’d weigh a ton for sure.”

Peeta laughed; Katniss couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. She’d always been tiny. “You’re around food every day,” he said. She shrugged.

“But everything you make is fantastic.”

A small, pleased smile teased his lips. But before he could respond, one of the Capitol people came through the swinging doors that separated the front shop. “Kat,” she practically yelled. “We weren’t expecting you for a few hours yet, we haven’t started assembling the tasting.”

Katniss stiffened, seeming to grow taller and more menacing before Peeta’s eyes. Her expression darkened and shuttered, a mask sliding into place. It was a fascinating and frightening process. The woman who acknowledged Cressida with a scowl bore only a superficial resemblance to the woman Peeta had been chatting with.

“I told you I would be choosing the menu items to feature,” Katniss said, and the frostiness of her tone made Peeta shiver.

“Of course,” the other woman said. “We could start now?” All of Cressida’s brashness faded into supplication.

Rye and their father had come into the frontshop and were watching the exchange warily. Peeta stood back as Cressida introduced the rest of his family to Kat. “We can set up in the office,” Mr. Mellark said.

Katniss nodded and followed the others through the swinging doors. His father turned back to Peeta. “Could you bring back some coffee?” he asked, and Peeta’s heart sank. Twenty-six years old, and still low man on the totem pole, still the one who was given the grunt jobs, relegated to the wings, or just dismissed outright. As much as he loved the family business, he hated the family dynamic.

Stuck in the shadows or not, Peeta remembered a few things about Katniss that the rest of his family didn’t know, and one of those was her hatred of coffee. Oh, it was likely that she’d learned to tolerate it over the years, as he’d done himself. Still, he thought as he steamed milk; coffee drinkers are born, not made.

He carried a tray ladened with hot beverages back to the room that acted as staff lounge and office for the Mellark men and the handful of part-timers they employed. Already, half-filled plates littered the table top, various bakery items cut open, then abandoned. And at the head of the table like a queen commanding her court was Katniss, still wearing her Kat Flickerman expression, sheafs of yellow notebook paper scattered around her. Peeta set the tray of coffee in the middle of the table, but he grabbed the lone different cup and placed it wordlessly beside Katniss, then backed away, unwilling to disrupt her.

He couldn’t resist glancing back as he exited the room, and he found Katniss watching his retreat, surprise in her silver eyes and the barest hint of a smile stealing across her lush lips as she traced the rim of the mug of hot chocolate he’d brought her with a single slender finger.

o-o-o

Peeta was busy the rest of the day, manning the ovens, covering the phones, serving the lunch rush. His father reappeared a few times to make more coffee or grab something specific from the display cases, but there wasn’t an opportunity to talk. And with Rye occupied in the back, catering to the Capitolites, there wasn’t time for Peeta to take a break either. By the time the rush was over, and Peeta staggered to the back full-bladdered and empty-stomached, the film crew - and Kat Flickerman - were gone. His father was cleaning up the mess they’d left behind in the office, and Rye was staring at a sheet of yellow paper with a particularly sour expression on his face.

“What’s going on?” Peeta asked as he stuffed half a day-old scone in his mouth. Rye grunted, and tossed the paper his way.

“They want all of this ready and plated for that woman tomorrow evening.”

Peeta scanned the list. There were only six items, and all were things they’d typically make anyway. All except the goat cheese and apple tart - they hadn’t made that particular recipe in years. “I don’t understand–” he started, but Rye cut him off.

“She hated everything, she’s going to rip us to shit.” Peeta rolled his eyes, but held his tongue. There was no point in reminding Rye that this had all been his idea.

“It’s going to be fine,” their father’s tired voice broke the silence. “She never said she hated anything, Rye.”

“You saw her,” he barked. “Cutting everything up, barely picking at it before tossing it aside. Big city bitch, probably never tasted real bakery bread in her life.” It was on the tip of Peeta’s tongue to tell his brother that not only was Katniss not a big city girl, but he knew for certain she’d had Mellark’s cheese buns before. But before he could defend Katniss, Rye turned back to him and smirked. “She wants you to be the one on camera with her.”

Peeta nearly choked on his scone. “What?”

“Yeah,” he sneered. “Guess she can tell you’re easy to push around. Bet she makes you cry.” Rye had inherited their late mother’s cruel streak, though he hadn’t aimed it in Peeta’s direction much since her death.

“Fuck you, Rye,” Peeta spat. Rye only laughed.

“Save the backbone for the camera.”

“Boys,” their father groaned, but Peeta had had enough.

“You can close up alone, asshole,” he snipped at Rye, tossing his apron on the table and heading out the back door.

o-o-o

Filming would take place after normal working hours, when the bakery was closed, both to keep compliant with health codes, and to keep small-town busybodies from trying to usurp the spotlight. But that didn’t change the fact that it was a Wednesday. There were customers to serve and orders to fulfil on top of the list of bakery items the show producers wanted ready for closing.

Apparently, Rye’s bad mood persisted. He stormed into the kitchen hours late, after Peeta had done the entire morning prep himself and had been forced to call in frontshop reinforcements - his father and one of the summer students. Rye bashed around the kitchen and snapped at the customers for an hour until their father simply sent him home again.

“He’s just jealous,” Mr. Mellark told his younger son, “Because Katniss asked for you specifically.”

Peeta looked up from the cookie he was painting with delicate white blossoms and arrow-shaped leaves. “You remember her?” he asked, though it was clear his father did. The older man laughed.

“I’m not yet senile, Peet,” he smiled. “She looks different on television, but seeing her in person yesterday, she hasn’t changed much from that little girl who used to come in here with her daddy way back when.”

Peeta chuckled. “I’d say she’s changed a whole lot, Dad. She used to be so reserved.”

“I have a feeling she still is,” he said cryptically. “She certainly wasn’t having any of your brother’s flirting.” Peeta huffed out a laugh; after the way Rye had treated him over the previous twenty-four hours, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of pleasure in the idea that Rye had struck out.

His own crush on Katniss had nothing to do with that satisfaction.

“She’s a big celebrity now, Dad. She wouldn’t have time for a small-town baker.”

“Not so sure about that either, but Rye wasn’t the baker she was watching,” he muttered before wandering out to the front shop to help the lone part-timer clean up.

Peeta didn’t have time to ponder what his father meant. There were still cupcakes to frost and cheese buns to bake, and the film crew was due within the hour.

o-o-o

A prep team came twenty minutes before closing to get him ready, parking their small trailer in the lot out back. They clipped and tousled and gelled his hair, then powdered his face. Peeta had dressed in a nice blue button down shirt, but that was nixed in favour of a soft red Henley the crew brought along with them, surprisingly in the right size. They even let him push the sleeves up, the way he was most comfortable.

The woman who arrived later with the film crew was the one he knew from television. In a starched white chef’s jacket, and with hair and makeup done, she was gorgeous, fierce, unforgettable.

Peeta was a goner.

He barely saw her, though, as the director demanded his attention, coaching him on what to expect. “Kat doesn’t work well with being told what to say,” she admitted. “So all of the questions tonight will be unscripted.” Peeta nodded. “Think of it as a laid-back chat with a friend,” Cressida smiled, and Peeta barely bit back a snort. Twelve years in the same schools and they’d barely exchanged ten words; a conversation with Katniss Everdeen would be anything but relaxed.

Another half hour of explaining camera blocking and marks, and finally Cressida led him to the front shop, which had been transformed into a stage. Hot lights blinded him, microphones dangled over his head and it felt like a thousand people were crammed into the space.

Then she was there, Katniss. But no, not Katniss, Kat Flickerman. Aloof and business-like, gorgeous but cold. Untouchable.

Everything went exactly as Cressida had explained. Kat asked him questions, about the history of the shop, about the recipes, about the little town where they’d both grown up (though she didn’t mention that part).

Though Peeta was gregarious by nature, this was so far out of his comfort zone, the cameras, the crowd, all of them fixated on him, watching him interact stiffly with the woman he’d had a crush on since before he even knew what that meant. Sweat beaded on his upper lip and more than once he stammered, fell over his own tongue or outright blanked on an answer. He could feel Katniss’s frustration mounting. The fourth (fifth? thirtieth?) time it happened, Katniss cringed and turned away. “Clear the set,” she bellowed.

The crew leapt to attention; within moments, they were alone. Peeta stared at his shoes while he waited for Katniss to dismiss him too. His father was back in the office, perhaps he could take over and save the show.

Then a small, cool hand landed on his forearm, startling him from his misery. “Take a deep breath,” she said. Her voice was gentle, not Kat Flickerman anymore, but Katniss, the woman he often thought of as his Katniss, though she wasn’t that either. But she smiled at him, the barest quirk of her perfect peach lips. And a deep, guttural sigh escaped him as he started to relax. “Good,” she murmured, her hand on his arm squeezing lightly. “Feeling better?” He could only nod.

She pulled over the plate with the delicate painted cookies, smiling softly at the flowers she clearly recognized. “These were always my favourite when I was a kid,” she murmured.

Peeta looked up in confusion. He knew how much Katniss liked Mellark’s cheese buns, but he couldn’t remember a single time she’d bought the cookies. As if reading his mind, she shrugged. “I’ve never eaten one,” she admitted, softly. “They’re far too pretty to eat. But I used to come by with my sister and look at them in the display window.

He could see it in his mind’s eye; Katniss, her hair in two glossy braids, holding the hand of a smaller blonde girl, both peeking through the window. “Not very often,” she whispered. “Your mom was kind of scary, she’d chase us off if we got too close to the glass.”

Peeta cringed, and started to apologize, but Katniss waved him off. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, still speaking softly, intimately. “You’ve never been anything but kind, always.” She looked away, laughing just lightly under her breath. “I always wondered how you could be so nice, having grown up with her.”

He shrugged, and deflected. “You should try a cookie now. Better late than never.”

Her smile widened, and it transformed her face, elevating her from beautiful to radiant. “Better late than never,” she murmured.

She didn’t eat the cookie, but they continued to talk, and Peeta got more and more comfortable. They talked about recipes - the age-old traditional wares that Mellark’s had been making for generations and the newer flavours and he and Rye enjoyed experimenting with. She admitted that she’d asked for the apple and goat cheese tart because it was one she remembered fondly, something her father had loved all of those years ago.

He filled her in on the things that had happened in Twelve since she moved away, their classmates, who had gotten married, who had children now. She was engrossed and engaged, reminiscing about people Peeta hadn’t even been sure she knew. She laughed at his anecdotes, and it was like bells ringing, clear and bright.

He even found himself telling her how much he loved the bakery, but how he longed to make it more, how he wanted Mellark’s to be a gathering spot, in tradition of the great Parisian cafés. “Have you been to Paris, Peeta?” she asked, and his smile faltered a little. Here he was talking about big cosmopolitan ideas when he’d never even left the district. Katniss, he knew, had been everywhere, had reviewed restaurants not just in Paris, but in Milan and Amsterdam and Vienna… what a fool she must think him, backward, small-town boy with grandiose ideas. He shook his head, embarrassed.

Katniss didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “Paris is awful,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Crowded and loud and it smells like cigarettes and pee.” Peeta laughed lightly and she grinned at him, disarming him completely. “But Twelve isn’t any of those things,” she murmured. “I think this is a perfect spot for a café. People are already drawn here, they already gather at Mellarks. It’s always been so warm and inviting here.” Her words tugged at his heart. That’s exactly how he’d always felt about the family business too, how he’d always hoped others would see it. “I know I’d love to sit here and watch the world go by.”

“With a hot chocolate?” Peeta teased lightly, and she looked away, shyly.

“And a cheese bun,” she murmured.

“I wish you would,” he said, barely breathing. “Come back sometime, I mean.” She met his eyes then, and a myriad of emotions played across her expressive face. He just couldn’t understand what they meant.

She took his hand, shocking him with how good, how intensely right it felt. She guided him over to where the largest of his paintings hung, a spring landscape of the meadow that was on the edge of town, dotted with clover and dandelions. “This is yours, isn’t it?” He nodded. “It’s gorgeous,” she breathed reverently. She paused, and Peeta could see her weighing her words. “I always thought you’d make a career in art, open a gallery maybe.”

Peeta sighed, looking down at where their hands were still linked. He knew she wasn’t intentionally trying to pick at the barely-healed wound of his dead dreams, but it stung.

“You were always drawing in school,” Katniss continued, oblivious to his turmoil. “You designed the yearbook cover one year, and you won that award when we were seniors.” She trailed off, and they stood silently for several long moments. Finally, Peeta blew out a forceful breath.

“My eldest brother was supposed to take over the bakery. He and my mom, they, uh. There was a car accident,” he whispered, voice cracking. He’d been offered a job right out of college, with a studio in the Capitol, but the accident that took his mother and brother forced him home. Katniss squeezed his hand, hard.

“I heard,” she admitted, and it surprised Peeta. The accident was almost four years ago, well after she moved her mother and sister out of this dumpy town, never to return. “I’m sorry.”

Peeta cleared his throat. “Anyway, my dad was all alone here after that, trying to run this place. So Rye and I agreed to become partners.”

They stood silently, looking over the meadow painting, lost in their thoughts. “Are you happy, Peeta?” she asked, barely a whisper.

“Sometimes,” he said. He was happy in that moment, talking with the girl of his dreams, holding her hand, feeling the warmth of her body just inches away. He was happy right then, and that was something at least.

There was a scuffling sound behind them and they sprang apart. It was the red-headed cameraman, tucked unobtrusively to the side. Peeta hadn’t noticed his return until that moment, so focussed was he on Katniss, on talking and connecting with her, something he had never imagined possible.

But all good things must come to an end. “Do you think you can go on? Just the three of us?” Katniss asked. And Peeta nodded.

o-o-o

It was late when Peeta finally staggered home to the apartment he shared, often reluctantly, with Rye. The set tear-down had been pandemonium, people and equipment flying like a tempest, a whirlwind of follow up questions and paperwork and releases and by the time he could take a deep breath, Katniss was gone, slipped away like a thief in the night without even a farewell, before he could ask her if she’d like to go out with him sometime. And while he was trying not to be disappointed, the fact that after they’d shared what he had thought was a real connection she’d simply vanished without a word hurt more than he wanted to admit.

“How did it go?” Rye’s voice drifted from their shared living room. Peeta popped his head in. Rye was slumped on the couch, a tumbler of what could only be whiskey balanced on his thigh.

“Seemed okay,” Peeta said, carefully. It was hard enough to gauge Rye’s mood when he wasn’t drinking, with the addition of alcohol he wasn’t sure which version of his brother he’d find.

Rye smirked, then lifted his other hand, tipping the bottle in Peeta’s direction. “Have a drink with me,” he said. Still, Peeta hesitated. Rye shook his head. “I’m not going to rip your head off, little brother.”

Peeta grabbed a glass from the sideboard and Rye filled it with a couple of fingers of liquid fire. For a while, they simply sipped in silence. “I’m sorry I was a dick earlier,” Rye said quietly.

Knowing how much it cost his brother to apologize, Peeta nodded. He wasn’t really a grudge holder anyway. “It’s fine,” he said.

“It’s not though.” Rye sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. “I was really hoping this show would be the wake-up call Dad needed to let us make real changes at the bakery. It was supposed to be him in front of the camera, getting dressed down by that woman. When she insisted on you, I saw red.” Rye sighed, and downed the remainder of his glass. “You know he’s going to blame us now for every shitty thing she says.” Rye’s bleary eyes met Peeta’s. “If we’re going to be stuck here forever, we should at least be able to drag this place into the modern era.”

Peeta felt a pang of sympathy for his brother. He wasn’t the only one who’d had to give up his dreams for the future to come help their father run the business that neither of them had ever planned on inheriting. Rye’d had big city plans and a big city girlfriend who dumped him when he moved back home to sleepy District Twelve. He had every right to be bitter, even if he sometimes chose inappropriate targets to lash out at.

“She didn’t say anything mean, anyway,” Peeta said. “The whole thing was pretty tame. Not at all what I was expecting.” The beginning had been rough, but he felt good about what they’d filmed after he’d calmed down. He thought he’d presented Mellark’s in a pretty good light, all things told.

“Naw,” Rye said with a sigh. “They’ll add all of that in later. It’s always voiceovers.” That idea shocked Peeta. Was that possible? Would the screaming, nasty Kat Flickerman only make an appearance in the finished version? Surely not?

o-o-o

Days, and then weeks, passed, and while Peeta thought about Katniss often, there wasn’t a peep from her. Not an email, not a phone call, nothing. A cameraman returned to film some exterior and kitchen shots, and though Peeta tried to ask him about Katniss, he was all but mute on the subject.

There had been something between them, that evening in the bakery, he was sure of it, sure she’d felt it too. He couldn’t understand why she’d disappeared. She hadn’t even said goodbye. As if he hadn’t mattered at all.

Rye’s words rolled around his head, festered, made him doubt everything from that day. He compulsively rewatched old episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, looking for any hint that the screaming and cursing was added in after the fact. It was impossible to tell. But with every installment, his memories of sweet Katniss faded, replaced by the snarling mutt.

With every day that passed, his mood plummeted further. Because Rye was right: the majority of the screaming and vitriol could well have been voiced over. He just couldn’t tell what was real and what was not real

A message on the bakery phone almost two months after the filming convinced him. One of the producers wanted to give them a ‘heads up’ on what to expect for the broadcast, scheduled for the next week. It could only have been a warning. He was about to appear on national television looking like a chump, as useless and pathetic as his mother had always told him he was. Peeta deleted the message without even telling his father or brother about it.

There were two more calls after that. Peeta deleted both of those messages too, unheard. The only thing he couldn’t delete was the ache in his heart.

Every gentle thing she’d said to relax him, to ease him back in front of the camera, it had all been lies. Katniss, no, Kat, had used their past, their tenuous connection, just to manipulate him. Just to make him look like the idiot he was.

o-o-o

“I booked the lodge for our viewing party.”

Peeta glanced up from the wedding cake he was working on to stare at his father in confusion. “What?”

“With how many people want to watch the show, I can’t fit them all in at the house.” Peeta’s father still stubbornly lived alone in the bungalow where Peeta had grown up. It was large enough to host two dozen or so, at least.

“They all have televisions, they can watch at home,” Peeta grumbled. Despite his best efforts to ignore the existence of Kat Flickerman’s show entirely, the local station had been aggressively promoting the upcoming episode. Someone from the morning news had been in the week before, interviewing Rye and their father. Peeta had refused to take part.

“My boy,” his father laughed, steadfastly ignoring Peeta’s pique, as he had for weeks. As they’d all done for weeks. His mood had gotten progressively worse the more he thought about Katniss and how she’d used him, and he knew everyone around him could tell. “This is a great occasion! Our little bakery on national television. Of course we’re going to celebrate with all of our friends and customers.” Peeta cringed, but his father continued, undeterred. “I wish my own father was here to see it.”

The reminder of how much this meant to his father had Peeta feeling even worse. “Dad, it’ll be embarrassing, for all of us. I’m going to look like an idiot. People are going to stay away from Mellark’s after that.” He knew he sounded petulant but he didn’t care.

His father smiled. “I spoke with that director, Peet, the one with the strange tattoos? She called the house the other night.” Peeta groaned inwardly; he’d underestimated that woman’s tenacity. “She says the show looks great, that you were a natural.” Peeta knew there was no point arguing with his father. Once the elder Mellark had his mind set, he was intractable.

“How many people did you invite?” Peeta groused.

“Oh sixty, maybe. Plus the guys from the bowling league.” Peeta’s heart sank; at this rate, the entire town was going to be witness to his humiliation. “But don’t worry, I’m having Rooba cater it.”

“Geez, Dad, don’t you think that’s too much?” The elder Mellark set down his own piping bag and grasped his son’s shoulders, turning him until they were face to face.

“What’s gotten into you, son? You’re not usually this pessimistic,” he said, his hands squeezing soothingly. It took every bit of Peeta’s strength to hold his tongue. As much as he loved his father, the shame was his alone to bear.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “I just don’t think it went very well.” The two men stared at each other, and Peeta knew without a doubt that his father hadn’t bought his explanation. But he wasn’t ready to share his heartbreak, his stupidity. He’d been so caught up in that long-held crush he’d almost willfully ignored reality. Mr. Mellark simply sighed.

“I wish you’d talk to me Peeta. But okay.” He clapped Peeta on the shoulder, and turned back to his work.

o-o-o

Three days before the show was to air, there was a call on Peeta’s cell from an unfamiliar number. He let it go to voicemail. The bakery phone had been ringing non-stop it seemed with calls from media outlets, wanting interviews in advance of the airing. He assumed one of his well-meaning friends had given his number to someone at the D12 Gazette.

But when he picked up the message later, he nearly dropped his phone in the sink.

It was Katniss.

The message was brief, simply a request for him to return her call and a number, her number.

Peeta had no intention of calling her back. But it didn’t stop him from listening to the message five, ten, fifteen times.

There were two more messages the next day. He wanted to delete them unheard, but he couldn’t. Even wounded and wary, the bone-deep need to hear her voice prevailed. The content of each was the same, but her tone seemed progressively more urgent. The sound of her voice, the way she called herself Katniss instead of Kat, all of it pulled at his heartstrings, confused him even more.

The same cowardice and insecurity that had kept him from seeking her out their whole childhood silenced him now. Though his fingers twitched to redial her number, he did nothing.

o-o-o

“I said no, Dad.” Peeta knew he was being petulant but on this point he was firm: he was not going to his father’s viewing party. He’d capitulated to helping his father set up, he wasn’t a complete dick. But he’d decided the best thing for him to do would be to hole up in his apartment during the actual airing.

If only because he couldn’t get a last minute flight out of the country.

Rye, ironically, had been the most understanding about Peeta’s desire to avoid the show and all of the insanity their father was planning around it. “I’ll text you,” he said the evening before, when Peeta told him he wasn’t even intending on watching. “Let you know how bad it is.”

“I just don’t understand what you’re afraid of,” Mr. Mellark said with a shake of his head. “You’re going to be on national television, it’s exciting. The promos look terrific.” Those, Peeta had been unable to avoid. And while they hadn’t looked scathing, he no longer trusted his instincts.

“You’ve watched her other shows,” he groaned, the thousandth time he’d made the same argument, but his father was having none of it.

“This was different and you know it. You had a connection with Katniss, we could all see it.”

“Stop,” Peeta barked, and his father’s eyes widened. Peeta cringed, sad and ashamed of himself for taking his foul mood out on his father. “That was just for the cameras,” he said softly, giving voice to what his head had been telling him for weeks. “None of that was real.”

“You’re wrong, Peet. I know what I saw.”

“You know I had a crush on her, that’s all,” Peeta groaned, but his father cut him off.

“No,” has said firmly. “I saw how she looked at you.”

“Then why did she disappear? Two months, Dad, and not a word.” It wasn’t completely accurate, but Peeta wasn’t going to mention the messages to his father, who would surely read more into them than was there.

“I don’t know, son. Maybe for the same reason you’re avoiding her now.” Peeta shot a startled look at his father, who simply shook his head.

o-o-o

Peeta paced his apartment like a caged tiger, the dark television taunting him. The broadcast was scheduled to start any minute, his father’s party was more than an hour old, and he was alone with only a six pack of microbrew and his demons to keep him company.

One last message had come to his phone just a couple of hours earlier, a text message this time. Please talk to me, Peeta, was all it read. He’d been so tempted, so damned tempted to reply. Had started typing a dozen times, but erased every word. What could they possibly have to say to each other now? Too much time had passed.

The television called to him though, a siren song he was powerless to resist. He told himself he’d only watch the beginning, would shut it off as soon as she started yelling. But the moment Katniss appeared onscreen in the opening credits, beautiful face larger than life with glossed lips smirking, he knew he wouldn’t be able to look away.

The tone of the program was markedly different from her Kitchen Nightmares shows. The camera showed flattering pictures of the exterior and interior of the bakery while his own voice spoke overtop, recounting the history, the generations of Mellarks who had lovingly built the bakery into the the hub of District Twelve that it was.

But that was only the beginning.

The video unfurled almost like a love letter. But not to the bakery, or not exactly anyway. Instead, it showed Peeta himself, over and over. Peeta painstakingly frosting gorgeous cupcakes. Peeta laughing with a customer. Peeta kneeling before one of the small children that frequented the shop, handing her a cookie from the jar he kept behind the counter. Typical scenes from his everyday work, scenes he hadn’t even realized he’d been filmed in. Over and over he was shown smiling, laughing, creating.

Finally, Kat Flickerman began to speak. Rye was right that her part would be voiceovers, would be words she hadn’t spoken during the interview. But there was no swearing, no cursing. No yelling about the quality of the food or the shabbiness of the surroundings. No idiot sandwiches.

Kat Flickerman, Katniss, talked about the warm, welcoming atmosphere at Mellark’s, the three kind bakers who treated every customer like a friend. She paraphrased Peeta’s own hushed confessions about the improvements he wanted to make, and presented them as if they were things already planned to be implemented. Peeta, sitting on the couch in his apartment, laughed out loud. Somehow, Katniss had managed to manipulate the entire show in a way that would force his father to bring Mellark’s into the modern era after all. As if she knew exactly what he wanted.

Of course, she had known. He’d told her, when they’d spoken so intimately, about his hopes. He hadn’t realized how closely she was listening. But now, as he thought back, he understood that she’d directed their discussion back to his dreams for the future, time and again, and then worked all of those things into the show.

All but the one he hadn’t confessed. How he felt about her. How he thought she was gorgeous, more radiant than the sun. And now, because he’d wasted so long being wounded, he’d never get the chance.

His phone buzzed near continuously on the table beside him, but he didn’t spare it a glance.

As the ending credits rolled, there was a gentle tap-tap-tap at the apartment door. It could have been any number of people, friends or neighbours who knew he was home. But as he stood to answer, he was struck with the certainty that it was Katniss standing on the other side.

His hands shook as he unbolted the door and pulled it open. She wore a dress the colour of candlelight, her hair was loose and she had just a hint of makeup. “You didn’t come to the party,” she said, a glint of accusation in her silver eyes.

“I didn’t know you’d be there,” he said honestly, unblinking as he took her in. As if he could have forgotten how beautiful she was, watching her shows compulsively over the past few weeks. But the camera never captured her luminosity, the way she lit up a room, commanded the attention of everyone within it. He was awestruck.

“Your father invited me,” she murmured. “Can I come in?” Peeta shook off his stupor and ushered her into his space with a muttered apology.

The television still blared, playing a Food Network promo, and Peeta quickly muted it. “Did, you, uh. Did you want a drink? Beer?” Peeta asked, not meeting her eyes. She nodded.

Only when they were settled side by side on his couch did Katniss speak again. “You watched?” It wasn’t a question, not really. Peeta nodded. She raised a single eyebrow at him, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” he said quietly. She frowned.

“You were waiting for me to scream, rip apart your family business, destroy your reputation?” There was no amusement in her tone. Peeta felt the heat rising in his cheeks.

“Kind of,” he admitted.

She’s silent for a long time, picking at the edge of the label on her bottle. “Did you really think I’d do that to you?” she asked, and there was a fragility, a vulnerability to the words.

Peeta sighed. “I didn’t know what to think,” he said.

“I thought…” She sighed. “The way we… connected,” she whispered. “I guess I thought you’d know.”

Peeta battled with himself briefly, whether to be honest with her or not. The warm room, the beer and the uncertainty in her eyes convinced him. “I couldn’t tell what was real,” he said, “and what was for the camera.”

“You really thought I’d manipulate you like that?” Katniss stared at the bottle in her hands, shoulders slumped in defeat. “I know my reputation, I know that people think I’m a bitch,” she said softly. “But we’ve known each other since we were children. I thought you knew me. The real me, at least a little.” She glanced up at him and his breath caught. She was so open, so guileless. But he still wasn’t certain what to believe.

“We never really spoke, back then,” he said. “And I know that was my fault. I was a coward.”

Katniss shook her head. “You were always kind, even when no one else noticed I existed. You saved me back then, you know. When my mom lost herself.” Those stunning silver eyes searched his own. “I owe you.”

“You’ve never owed me anything,” Peeta said, but Katniss wasn’t done talking. She set her bottle on the table and turned slightly to face him.

“That’s why I did this show. To pay you back.” Peeta was more confused than ever. “I had a plan,” she continued. “When I heard that you were here, instead of in the Capitol, I started lobbying the network to create this show.”

“What?”

“Delly Cartwright,” she said. “My sister keeps in touch with her brother. She said that you were back home, running the bakery. It took awhile to get the go-ahead for this show.” He’d been at the bakery more than three years, surely she didn’t mean that long? “I’ve always kept track of you,” she said, answering his unasked question.

“Why?” His voice was hoarse. She shrugged helplessly. “You disappeared, after the taping,” he blurted. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was really confused. And afraid.”

“Of me?” Peeta was incredulous.

“I’ve never been able to forget you, Peeta. I only intended on breezing in, giving you some publicity, then leaving again.” She brushed her hands together, as if wiping him away. “I thought paying you back would get you out of my mind.” Peeta flinched; that hurt to hear. He dropped his gaze to the bottle in his hands and swallowed back his disappointment.

“But then I got here,” she continued. “And you were even nicer than I remembered. And…” He glanced up at the pause. She was biting her bottom lip, her cheeks were flaming. “And even more handsome. I didn’t expect to be so attracted to you,” she whispered.

They stared at each other, the air between them charged. Then Katniss began to squirm, as if embarrassed.

“I’ve had a crush on you for as long as I can remember,” Peeta said, and Katniss’s eyes widened.

“Me?” she squeaked.

“You really don’t understand the effect you have on me. That’s why I was such a doofus when you were at the bakery. I’ve never known how to talk to you.”

“You did just fine,” she smiled, tiny and tentative, but real. “I didn’t want to leave. It, uh. Well, it scared the crap out of me. I’m not very good with people.”

“You’re here now,” he said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Katniss said. “But I want to find out.”

She shuffled just a tiny bit closer to him, and he reached out a tentative hand to cup her face. Her eyes fluttered shut, thick black lashes brushing her cheek. When he finally pressed his lips against hers, she sighed, and in that tiny, involuntary noise he found certainty.

The kiss was slow, almost chaste, a teaser of what could be possible.

A slow smile spread across his face as he pulled back, staring into her hazy silver eyes. Was it possible, that they could be on the same page? But as quickly as the hope flared it his chest, it was extinguished. Katniss, Kat, had a life, a busy life full of travel and tapings and all of it far from sleepy District Twelve. What they shared at the bakery, what they were sharing now, that was all they’d ever get. His hand dropped into his lap, his eyes followed suit.

“I, um. I’m going to be producing the new show out of a little studio in Victor’s Village,” she said. “I signed the lease on the studio space three weeks ago.” They were still so close that he could feel the words on his skin, a caress. A promise.

Victor’s Village was only a twenty minute drive away. Peeta shook his head, certain he’d heard wrong. “I thought you lived in the Capitol?”

“I do, or, well, I did anyway,” Katniss said. “I moved my mother there as soon as I could afford to. It was too hard for her, being in Twelve, surrounded by all of her memories.” Katniss pursed her lips, and Peeta’s eyes were drawn to them, plump and perfectly kissable. Lips he’d now tasted, after so many years of imagining. “But it’s the opposite for me,” she continued. “I hate the Capitol, I hate the noise and the crowds and the smell. Being back here, it made me realize how much I missed it. Missed home.”

“You’re going to be living in Victor’s Village?” Peeta asked, still struggling to understand what was happening. Katniss shrugged.

“I was thinking twenty minutes isn’t such a bad commute. Maybe…” she trailed off, then sighed. “Maybe it’s time for me to come home, where I belong.”

“To Twelve?” He could hardly breathe.

“I’d still have to travel a lot, for filmings. But yeah.” She laughed. “The people here, they don’t care about Kat Flickerman. To them, I’m Russ Everdeen’s kid, not some hot shot television personality. I walked here, from your dad’s party, and there was no paparazzi, no TMZ following my every move. There was just old Mr. Mitchell waving at me from his porch and asking after my mother.”

This time, Katniss reached for him, her small hand cool against his feverish skin. “And you’re here,” she whispered, just before she kissed him. This time, he was the one moaning as her tongue curled around his own.

With a little tug, she was in his lap, and he marvelled at how perfectly her body fit against his, how right she felt in his arms. Kissing Katniss Everdeen was incredible, something he was certain he’d never get enough of.

“Peeta,” she whispered against his lips. “I want–”

The door to the apartment crashed open, startling Peeta, pulling them apart. “Peet, why aren’t you answering your phone? You’ll never– oh.” Rye stood before them, slack-jawed. Katniss buried her face in Peeta’s shoulder, but he could feel her smile.

“Okay,” Rye chuckled. “Yeah. This uh. This makes a lot of sense. I’ll just…” He turned back towards the door.

“Rye,” Peeta called before his brother could leave. “Is Dad okay?”

Rye glanced back over his shoulder and smiled. “Yeah, man. He really is. I’ll tell you more later. Or tomorrow.” And with one last laugh, he was gone.

“Cockblocked,” Peeta groaned, and Katniss laughed, hugging him tightly. He stroked her hair as his heart rate slowed.

Peeta smiled down at the woman in his arms, who was still laughing softly. He kissed the tip of her nose. Though he longed to go right back to making out with her, he was grateful for the interruption. After waiting so long, they both deserved to do things right. “Have you eaten?” he asked. She shook her head. “Let me take you out for dinner,” he said, the words he’d wanted to say all of those weeks ago.

“I’d like that,” Katniss smiled.

————–

I wish you would write a fic where...

#everlark #xerxia writes #I wish you would write...#memes

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ellanainthetardis · 7 years ago

Photo

We find out some things today. Hopefully not all bad ones.

[ff] or [ao3]

54. 7 Months & 17 Weeks

Effie angrily pushed the remote’s button, switching channels before she could get too upset. She didn’t often watch the news, that was more Haymitch’s thing, but she had gotten stuck in front of a supposedly neutral documentary about a group of Capitols who wanted to bring awareness to the fact District people hadn’t been the only ones to get hurt during the war. The leader of that group, she suspected, was the one her Mother had gone to listen to.

The journalists had been patronizing and even mocking with him when not outright disbelieving.

Effie sighed and turned to the playpen to make sure April was alright. Her daughter didn’t seem in anyway disturbed by the TV, she was happily hitting the colorful buttons of a toy Peeta had bought her in town two days earlier. Every time she managed to push one, a little plastic animal popped out. She was trying to get them loose but failed every time and it frustrated her to no end until she forgot and pushed another button.

She watched April, more interested by the way her daughter finally gave up on the toy to roll on her back and then on her stomach and slowly crawled to where her toys where, sometimes letting out joyful little chirps. She grabbed her stuffed elephant – or tried to because it was slightly too big for her little hands and she often dropped it – and amused herself by picking it up a few times before she suddenly moved her head in a telltale way.

“Mama is right here, sweetie.” Effie hummed, settling on a fashion channel and turning the sound off. She carefully sat up, placing a hand on her stomach before swinging her legs off the couch. She was having small cramps that day and she didn’t like the tearing sensation in her lower stomach. It would go away, she was confident, but she didn’t like it. “Do you want Mama to play with you?”

She plucked her from the playpen along with the stuffed elephant and a handful of colorful toys and settled them back on the couch. She didn’t really feel up to rolling around on the floor at the moment.

Four months done and five to go, she told herself, her mind going back to everything she needed to do. She hadn’t gone as far as writing down a schedule but she had certainly made it clear to Haymitch that she wanted to have the nursery and April’s room sorted earlier than they had last time. She remembered how exhausted she had been at the end and she really didn’t want to have to worry about a thing past her sixth month.

She was distractedly waving the elephant in the air for her daughter to catch when she felt the baby kick. It was getting stronger but not enough for anyone else to feel it yet. Still, she smiled and gently petted her stomach with her free hand.

“It will be amazing, the four of us, darling…” she promised her daughter. “It will be so, so good, you will see…” She let her imagination wander and the picture was so clear in her mind… With April in front of her, it wasn’t hard to imagine another child who would look like her. Girl or boy didn’t make a difference to her although she had a strong inkling this one would be a boy. She just… She felt it. Only hours to wait before they would know anyway… She picked up April and sat her on her lap, peppering her stomach and cheeks with kisses to make her laugh. She felt a little guilty about being more… relaxed into this pregnancy than she had been for hers. “Mama loves you. Mama loves you so much.”

Her eyes darted to the clock eventually but there was still plenty of time before the appointment at the clinic. She was nervous and excited and couldn’t wait for the morning to end so it was finally time. She had been a ball of nerves for two days and Haymitch had delighted in mocking her.

The sudden commotion outside distracted her from April but before she had time to do little more than stand up, her daughter protectively held close in her arms, she heard the front door opening, Haymitch’s raised voice ordering someone to let go and… A flash of white dashed in the living-room, straight to her, growling a little… Haymitch came running after the dog, still snapping at Snowball to let go…

Effie was confused until she spotted the dead rabbit dangling from the dog’s jaws.

She shrieked and jumped on the couch, forgetting all about pregnancy or the baby in her arms or even the fact that Snowball was certainly no mice and had no problem with couch jumping. The dog hopped on the grey couch, lifting on his hinder legs to receive the usual post stroll cuddle. The dead rabbit was far too close and in an attempt at not getting in contact with it – or worse letting April get in contact with it – Effie stepped back and almost fell over. It was lucky one side of the L-shaped couch was pushed against the window because her back hit the glass instead of her simply tipping over.

Haymitch had finally managed to get a hold on the dog by that point and he started wrestling the dead thing from his mouth.

“Drop this now.” he warned in a low serious voice. Snowball growled a little, stubbornly staring back. “I’m so not in the mood for this. Drop. It. Now.” How long had this been going on? The dog let out another annoyed growl and got a small warning whack on the nose for his trouble. “Drop it.”

“Snowball, drop this disgusting thing now or I swear.” she snapped.

The dog looked at her, whined and – miracle of all miracles – dropped the dead rabbit.

On the couch.

Effie climbed down and moved to the other end of the room, next to the bookshelves, hiding behind one of the armchairs.

“Good boy.” Haymitch acknowledged, pointing at the dog’s bed. “Now down. We said we would never bring dead things to Effie, remember? That trick was supposed to be for Katniss only.”

Effie pursed her lips, really not pleased. “Have you been training my puppy to hunt, Haymitch?”

“Haven’t been training him to do shit, Princess.” he scoffed. “He’s a dog. He sees rabbits and squirrels dashing past him in the woods, he chases them. Sometimes he catches them. I give them to the girl before you can freak.”

“So why is there a dead rabbit on my couch?” she hissed, cradling the back of April’s head in her hand. Their daughter hadn’t exactly liked all the commotion. She wasn’t crying but she didn’t look happy either.

“Got distracted.” he grumbled, clearly irritated.

He plucked a rolled-up newspaper from the pocket of his coat and tossed it on the armchair she was hiding behind before disposing of the rabbit. She dearly hoped he also intended to disinfect the couch. Ideally she would have burned it and replaced it but couches were hard to come by in Twelve.

She waited until the dead thing was gone – and if there was rabbit stew tonight she would gladly not think about how it ended up on her plate – before reaching for the newspaper. It was Twelve’s local one.

‘Another Abernathy Baby On The Way?’ screamed the headline.

She let out a small unsurprised sigh, skimming through the accompanying article. It was compiling rumors, some sightings of her with an open coat, mainly at the Clarkes’ coffee shop, and their frequent visits to the clinic.

“Have you noticed how slower our private news hit the press when Plutarch isn’t made aware?” she asked when Haymitch came back, lacking his coat and scarf, sleeves rolled up – hopefully because he had just washed his hands. Perhaps it was a bit unfair of her to think so because the former Head Gamemaker was always happy to help when they asked for a favor but she couldn’t help but think the man put his interests first and theirs later. “We lasted four months. We knew we would not be able to hide it forever.”

“I know.” he granted, running a hand through his hair. “Just… Today’s supposed to be happy. Wasn’t exactly ready for Sae to corner me at the Hob and ask me if it was true.”

Effie made a sympathetic face, knowing how much he hated feeling trapped like that. She handed April over when he outstretched his arms and went straight to the kitchen, wondering how best to clean the couch. Haymitch followed her, making their daughter bounce a little, his annoyance softening at her delighted sounds.

“If it is in Twelve’s newspaper today, it will be public knowledge by the end of the day.” she pointed out, crouching in front of the cupboard under the sink with some difficulties.

“Don’t do that.” he grumbled, trying to haul her up with his free hand. “Here, take the baby and tell me what you want…” She waved him off. She was already there anyway. She grabbed a few products and gripped the edge of the counter to stand up, immediately placing a hand on her stomach when she was back on her feet. This baby didn’t like exercise much, she had noticed. Haymitch was studying her with rapt attention. “Shouldn’t overdo it.”

“I am not overdoing it.” she protested. “I spent the whole morning lounging on the couch.”

If it had been left to her she would have been doing things while April was busy playing with her toys. The laundry for instance, that she had put on the backburner for days and that was now threatening to become unmanageable. But her body warned her she needed rest and so she rested.

Haymitch didn’t really look happy but she suspected he wouldn’t be happy with much that day. He hated it when their private life was dragged on print for everyone to read, it was the reason he had been so angry about Katniss publishing those remembrance books to begin with. She wasn’t any more thrilled about it but she had grown up expecting it so… It was sad how used to it she was.

“I’m surprised Plutarch didn’t call yet.” he grumbled, distractedly poking the cartoonish dancing bear on April’s soft woolen sweater.

“Oh, I am sure he will call tomorrow to congratulate us once everyone in Panem knows and apologize he wasn’t able to sit on the news any longer.” she snorted. “We should confirm it and then refuse to comment further. It will be a week or so before they move on. Us getting married and having babies is old news now.”

She winked at him, eyes sparkling in mischief.

“Yeah… Probably boring to them.” he smirked, leaning in to steal a kiss when she walked past him to the living-room.

She pecked his lips willingly enough. “I wouldn’t exchange our boring life for anything else.”

“Got enough excitement back in the days.” he sighed and dropped on the couch, far from the place contaminated with dead rabbit germs. Snowball lifted his head when she walked past him but she ignored the dog, not keen on rewarding the kind of behavior that involved him bringing her dead animals. “Still think it’s a boy?”

There was a small hint of teasing in his voice and she grinned before starting to disinfect the couch, not even taking offense. “I am ninety-nine percent certain it is a boy. I told you. I have this feeling.”

“How come you had no feeling whatsoever for April?” he snorted. “’Cause that would have been helpful.”

She paused in her scrubbing to purse her lips, avoiding his gaze. “I was too afraid to lose her.” That put an end to his teasing quickly but she hadn’t really meant to damper the mood so she forced herself to smile and add a cheer to her voice. “We should probably start discussing names, you know.”

“Good thing is… If it’s a boy, we’re covered.” he answered, wrapping his arms protectively around April when she curled up against his chest. “If it’s a girl we’re back to name hunting…”

“You still want Aidan for a boy?” she asked, her gaze darting to the baby falling asleep against him. “It was meant for her originally… I wouldn’t want her to find out one day and think we replaced her with her sibling because…”

“Sweetheart… We ain’t about to toss the shrimp to the streets.” he said gently but with that hint of amusement that told her he thought she was being ridiculous. “We like the name… If it’s a boy, I don’t see the harm. It’s not like we want a boy so bad just to call him Aidan. Besides, we’ve still got a ton of stuff in the attic you said was too boyish and half of it is branded with that name so…”

She straightened up, giving up on the cleaning, and placed her hands on her hips, lips pursed. “It should not be about it being convenient.”

He rolled his eyes, automatically lowering his voice when he realized April had fallen asleep. “Do you like Aidan?”

“Well… Yes.” she admitted.

“Do you like another name better for a boy?” he insisted knowingly. “For our son?”

She mulled that over for a few seconds and then surrendered. “No.” A grin stretched her lips and she sat down, snatching the stuffed elephant and hugging it close to her chest before she could help herself. “Our son.”

“Wait for the ultrasound.” he chuckled with unabashed amusement. “What if it’s another girl? You want a boy that bad?”

“I do not want a boy, I know this baby is a boy.” she argued, hugging the elephant tighter. “And if I am mistaken… Obviously I would not mind as long as she is healthy.” She ducked her head a little to hide her smile because it was so manic it was starting to hurt. “I still cannot believe we are having another one sometimes. I am… Oh, I am so happy, Haymitch…”

She might not have been over the moon at first but now…

“I’m happy too, sweetheart.” he confessed, tenderly combing April’s hair with his fingers. “More than I ever thought I could be.”

Effie climbed on the couch and curled up into his side, resting one hand on her stomach and the other on their daughter. “If it is another girl, we will find her a pretty name… Just like her sister.” That word made her grin again. Sister. “They will have a great relationship, won’t they? We won’t make any difference between them. I want them to be close. Not like Lyssa and I.”

“I was close with my brother.” Haymitch offered after a short silence. “He… He was a pain most days but… Yeah… We were close.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever Larcher tells us it is, we should plan for another name just in case it’s another surprise.”

“I agree.” she hummed quietly. Snowball uncertainly padded over, silently placing his head on Haymitch’s knee, his dark eyes all pleading. Effie sighed. “Yes, you are still my pretty baby. Even if you are also a disgusting one.”

The dog barked joyfully and jumped on the couch with them, eager to get his cuddle from Effie – and yet always somehow careful not to hit her in the stomach, it was uncanny how he seemed to know. She struggled to keep his head away from her face, not keen on being licked by a tongue that had been in contact with dead game.

Lunch was a quiet affair, mostly because Effie was so excited for the upcoming appointment that she could barely focus on anything else. She fed April her mashed carrots and tried not to get any on herself – a feat when her daughter had decided she didn’t like something – grumbling at the way Haymitch laughed at her. It was annoying to her that he had seemed so much more adept at feeding her from the start. Feeding her child was supposed to be her job.

Except she wasn’t able to feed herself properly most days so… If it had been left to her, she would have survived on take-away, crackers and fruits. Instead, she ate the roast leftovers from the previous night and it was still just as good as she remembered. Haymitch muttered that she was being stupid when she mentioned it – because somehow his ability to cook seemed to be a point of embarrassment instead of pride.

She had just put April down for her nap when Katniss showed up, nose and cheeks red from the cold, the woolen hat Effie had knitted for her pulled low on her head to cover her ears.

“Wrap up.” the girl advised her. “It’s freezing.”

“Smells like snow outside.” Haymitch confirmed, glancing through the window.

The joy of winter in Twelve, Effie thought but didn’t voice, while Katniss and Haymitch started a debate about smelling versus feeling snow. She was fidgeting so much that Haymitch eventually rolled his eyes and stood up, suggesting they went ahead even if they were half an hour early before she could burst from excitement.

She glared at him but jumped on the offer, taking five minutes to shoot out a list of recommendations Katniss didn’t really need by now. The girl might not be fond of babies but she had learned to babysit well enough.

And in any case, they should be back before April woke up from her nap. It wouldn’t take that long.

At Haymitch’s insistence, she made sure her green coat was buttoned all the way up. She let him adjust her pink scarf and hat while she pulled on her gloves, refusing to comment on the quirk of his mouth that meant he was finding the color mix ridiculous. Bundled up as warmly as she was going to get, they set off for the clinic.

The weather was bad and there weren’t many people out but the few they saw left no doubt as to how popular that rumor about her pregnancy had become. A few of them greeted them with a nod or a word, others just stared rudely as they were in a habit to do in her presence… When Haymitch was at her side, she didn’t have to worry about insults or anything getting out of hand, he was too impressive for anyone to try it. But still… It felt to her as if everyone looked at her stomach at least once.

They must have been disappointed because the coat hid everything.

“Can we make a quick stop at the coffee shop on our way back?” Effie hummed. “I promised Eileen I would tell her how it went right away and I wouldn’t mind one of those hot chocolate with whipped cream she makes.”

“Sure.” he shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind one of those pumpkin drinks myself.”

“It’s a date, then.” she purred.

He smirked and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t the most practical to walk with her stomach starting to get in the way but she melted into his side anyway.

The moment they stepped into the clinic’s waiting area, every pair of eyes in the place turned to them. It seemed to be a slow day, fortunately. A couple of elderly people, a woman and a man who all stared at them with curiosity and, in some cases, reprobation. She was strongly reminded of Clay but Haymitch led her to a seat before her hands could truly start shaking, mumbling at her to sit down while he checked with the nurse at the front desk. Nobody called her out and nobody made a scene. When she accidentally met the old man’s gaze, he nodded once. It was a little stiff but it was also polite so she smiled in answer and quickly averted her eyes.

She took off her hat and patted her hair, not deluded enough to think it still looked presentable with all the humidity in the air and a trip under a hat. Surely enough, the blond curls seemed out of control under her palm. She tousled them a little, hoping it didn’t look as wild as it felt.

Haymitch’s gaze when he walked back to her said it all though. His grey eyes had darkened a little with a familiar hunger that told her the curls were completely out of control. It drove him mad with lust when it looked like that.

“Won’t be long.” he said.

She drummed her fingers on her thigh nervously until he covered her hand with his. She turned it so their palms could slid together and she entwined their fingers. After they had stopped at the Clarkes’, maybe they could stop at the toy store. She wanted to buy something for their jellyfish. Her mother had sent things as soon as she had told her naturally, for the new baby as well as for April, and the children had bought a darling little romper… But she and Haymitch had yet to buy anything specifically for the new baby. A stuffed toy, she decided. She would buy him a stuffed toy. A white bear, maybe. A very soft one…

“We should paint the nursery blue.” she hummed, her mind jumping to the white bear she wanted to buy to decoration matters. “We could keep Peeta’s drawing and paint underneath and over it.”

“So, April’s room’s gonna be pink and the baby’s room’s gonna be blue?” he snorted. “What happened to gender neutral colors?”

She pursed her lips. “I got bored with yellow. And it does not suit me at all. I look ill in a yellow room.”

“The kitchen’s yellow.” he pointed out.

Unwisely, in her opinion.

“I will take that into consideration when we go buy paint.” she declared.

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe it’s a girl.”

“It’s not.” she protested, shaking her head.

He was mostly arguing to tease her, she figured. He was annoying like that.

The nurse had barely finished calling Mrs Abernathy when she shot out of her chair. The woman chuckled at her impatience as she settled them in the examination room but Effie didn’t mind. She didn’t even mind the white walls or the distinctive smell of disinfectant.

She barely even answered Doctor Larcher’s greetings properly when he entered the room, her eyes glued to the ultrasound machine. Haymitch was clearly dying to mock her but was good enough to keep himself in check. Besides, he looked a little impatient too.

Small talk was quickly put out of the way when the doctor instructed her to lift her sweater and unbutton her pants so he could have access to her stomach. She flinched a little because the gel was cold and Haymitch grabbed her hand, maybe mistaking that for a sign of an incoming panic attack.

She was doing well though.

She just wanted to see her baby.

“Did you notice anything unusual or is there anything you would like to ask me?” Larcher asked distractedly, as he tinkered with the machine to turn it on.

“Not really, no.” she dismissed. “I finally stopped feeling sick in the afternoon and I do not get any dizzying spell anymore.”

“That’s very good.” the doctor smiled.

“Hormones are up the roof.” Haymitch muttered and shrugged innocently when she glared at him.

“That’s to be expected.” Larcher chuckled. “Now… Let’s see if we can tell what we will be having…” He shot them a guilty look. “Accurately this time.”

“Yeah, that would be great.” he deadpanned.

She squeezed his hand to warn him not to spoil the moment. It took almost a whole minute for Larcher to find the right spot and the doctor was frowning by the time he located the baby. Effie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him appear on the screen, not paying attention to anything but to the tiny baby moving in her belly.

“Here you are…” she whispered. “Look, Haymitch…”

“I see.” he smirked, just as enthralled by the sight as she was. Larcher pushed a button and the sound of a strong and steady heartbeat filled the room, bringing tears to her eyes. Haymitch’s smirk grew wider until it blossomed into a real smile. “So? Can you tell if it’s a boy? ‘Cause we’ve got a bet going…”

Larcher took a while to answer, moving the probe lower on her stomach, then to the right and the left.

Effie finally noticed the frown.

At the same time Haymitch did.

“What’s wrong?” they asked as one.

“Is it the baby?” she worried, a lump in her throat. “Is something wrong?”

“The baby is fine.” Larcher said in a firm reassuring voice. “The heartbeat is strong and he’s growing well. A bit small but April was small too so that isn’t worrying.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Haymitch insisted, squeezing her fingers so hard it hurt. She almost didn’t notice.

The doctor hesitated, moving the probe again until the baby was front and center. “Did you lose blood at all, Effie? Even a few drops?”

“No.” she denied at once, barely comforted by the thought her baby was fine. Something was wrong, it was plain to see and it might affect her child. It might… “I would have called you.”

She had lost blood with April, at the beginning, but not this time… The worst she had had this time was a few cramps that weren’t even so terrible… And she had had them with April too so, surely, there were no reasons to worry? Upset stomachs were to be expected. It was in every pregnancy book.

“Alright.” the doctor said calmly. “First thing first… The baby is doing well. I don’t want you to worry.” They exchanged a look and they didn’t even bother to pretend not to be worried for the other’s sake. Larcher cleared his throat, bringing their attention back to him. “It is a boy. No false positive this time, look… Here are the fingers and toes… And here is the penis… No tiny hands in wrong places.”

He pointed out everything in turn and Effie relaxed a little despite everything.

“Our son.” she breathed out, smiling up at Haymitch.

Haymitch wasn’t smiling though. He was barely looking at the screen. His attention was on the doctor.

“If it’s not the baby, then it’s Effie.” he said, his voice clipped with anxiety. “Tell me what’s wrong. Now.”

Larcher slowly placed the probe back on its cradle. “There’s no need to panic, Haymitch. Effie, I will have a nurse settle you in a private room. We will run some tests and I will examine you, alright? Haymitch, maybe you should go get a coffee while we…”

“No.” she protested, coiling her free hand around his wrist, clinging to his fingers. She looked up at him, eyes wide and frightened, making an effort to keep her breathing under control. “Don’t leave me.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, it would take an army to keep me away.” he spat, covering her other hand with his free one. He was glaring at the doctor now and maybe it was unfair because it wasn’t Larcher’s fault but she couldn’t even begin to tell him off. It was… “What’s wrong with her?”

“Please, try to remain calm.” the doctor requested. “We won’t know for sure until…

“What is wrong with me?” she snapped, raising her voice loud enough to be heard in the hallway probably. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “My apologies. I…”

“The placenta is very low.” Larcher cut her off, dismissing her apologies with a wave of his hand. He didn’t look offended, just worried. “It might be nothing, it might be something. We need to make sure for your safety and the baby’s.”

“Is that really bad?” Haymitch asked, nervously licking his lips.

The doctor’s face said it all.

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #april showers

18 notes · View notes

peetabreadgirl · 7 years ago

Text

Writer’s Block, CH7

Here it is! Thanks @litlifelover for the gif suggestion! I’m going to use it because there is a stay moment here. Thanks also to everyone that gave their gif opinion! I think we can all agree we just like Everlark together, however we can get them there. So here’s a little ‘togetherness’ for you. Read on AO3 or FFnet if you like. And happy continued bday to @katnissdoesnotfollowback. It’s almost time again! Lol. I’m slow....

“Done.”

I open one eye and stare at Peeta, sitting cross-legged next to me on my bed with his computer in his lap. The bright glow of the screen is the only lighting in the room. It’s two in the morning and our project is due in 6 hours. He’s been re-reading and editing here and there while I fell asleep. I don’t know how he’s still awake.

“Really?” My voice is raspy from sleep and my eye closes, too heavy to care that it’s finally finished. But my body feels weightless at the news.

“Really.” I listen to the click of the laptop closing, the sliding of it onto my nightstand before he says softly, “It’s late. I should go.” He stands from the bed but doesn’t get far before my hand is around his wrist. I let my fingers slide down, tangling with his.

“Stay?”

He doesn’t hesitate, nodding and stripping off his shirt before he climbs back onto the bed. My eyes are suddenly not so heavy, but it’s too dark to see much, so I turn over as Peeta curls around me, pulling a blanket over us. His arm across my stomach is comforting, and the warmth of his body would lull me right to sleep, but there’s something pressing against me that’s not going to allow that.

Peeta’s hips flex once, and my lungs stop working. His breath ghosts across my neck and cheek, my mind racing and heart starting to thump harder. He doesn’t move again. Eventually his breathing evens out and I know he’s asleep. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. A mixture of both maybe?

I inhale deeply and try to go to sleep. Since it seems Peeta can do it so easily after being turned on, I should be able to as well. But no. An hour later, I’m still staring at the plain off-white wall, turned dingier by the lack of lighting. My eyes are big enough to set tea cups on and drier than the desert. I bet I haven’t blinked in seven minutes. I rub them closed and huff a big sigh, which causes Peeta to shuffle and his hand moves from my ribs to my lower stomach. An instant surge of need hits me. Shit.

And it’s not going away. Not with him so close. If anything, it’s getting worse. Or better, depending on how I want to look at it. I count sheep to keep from thinking that the only things separating our private parts are four minimal layers of clothing - my sleep pants, Peeta’s basketball shorts, and our underwear.

I don’t mean to wiggle my butt and push into him, but I can’t help it. He breathes and adjusts, turning his hips slightly away from me and repositions his hand back to my ribs. Not exactly what I had in mind.

What do I do now? I guess I could get up to go to the bathroom and take care of it myself. At least it would help me get some sleep out of this busted night. But I’m too… something to move. Too nervous or too aroused. Should I just wake him up and ask? No. I can feel my cheeks turn scarlet at the mere thought of it. We haven’t done more than steal a few kisses over the last week. There just hasn’t been time between work and school.

But there is now.

I wiggle against him a second time. “Peeta?” It’s a whisper, just to test if he’s fallen into deep sleep yet.

“Mmm,” is his sleepy response and he snuggles close to me again, but goes still. I lace my fingers through his, wiggling once more before I give up. This night is going to suck. I’ve decided to close my eyes and ignore my body when his fingers curl in deliciously against my bare stomach where my shirt has ridden up. Sparks ignite inside me as he starts to draw lazy circles with every one of his fingertips.

“Aren’t you tired?” he asks in a sleep-roughened voice.

My heart beats a few times as I decide how best to answer. “No,” I whisper truthfully. His lips touch the bare skin of my shoulder while his hand continues to create delicate art above the waist of my pants. I can’t help reaching behind me and sinking my fingers into his hair. He groans and flattens his palm against my belly, pulling my hips into his. I can feel him again, but my concentration is lost when his fingers wander further south.

“Katniss?” His lips are at my ear now. The warm breath that tickles me also lights me on fire. My lips are pressed together so hard my only response is a muffled, “Mmm?”

“Can I touch you?”

I don’t say anything. I am physically incapable of speech right now, so I cover his hand with mine, guide it to the waistband of my pants and push it underneath, letting him know without words that I want him to touch me. I need him to touch me. Sleeping next to him even for the few nights we have has turned into sweet torture. To hell with slow.

When his fingers sink between my legs, my toes curl. It’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for, but way too soon he removes his hand. My chest almost explodes with disappointment until I realize he’s tugging on the elastic sitting lower on my hips than it was moments ago. His lips hover just below my left earlobe, and the warmth of his breath raises tiny bumps across all of my body when he asks me, “Can you take these off?” Again, I say nothing. Just shed my clothing like he wants. I’ll do anything he asks right now.

His hand returns to the place I want - no need - it most, and my body is on a climb to the top of an imaginary mountain. Every stroke of his finger is a step towards the peak, and when I finally get there, there’s no time to spend ogling the view. I jump off the other side without a parachute. Weeks of frustration and longing shatter beneath his touch as I sail to the valley below. It’s even better than the first time it happened in his apartment and I wonder how soon we’ll be doing that again, out loud apparently because he answers with a soft laugh.

“Anytime you want. That was amazing.” He nuzzles my neck with his nose as I float down from my spectacular high. My body sags against his as he cocoons me from behind, completely and utterly relaxed. He doesn’t try to go any further than that. If I had the energy I might wonder why, since the story is technically finished and there will be no more adding to it. No opportunity to write our experiences as Julia’s and Adam’s. But I don’t bother to analyze it, and in no time at all I’m drifting off.

“It’s a big, big, big daaaa-aaaay!” Professor Trinket sing-songs at the beginning of class on Monday. “Hopefully, you all sent your submissions in to my email by the start of class. I’ve already seen a few that I can’t wait to read.” Professor Trinket claps her hands together and gives me a pointed look. There’s a gleam in her eyes that makes me certain ours will be first. And probably read more thoroughly than any other. It causes a bit of a nervous flutter, but then Peeta’s knee knocks into mine and he gives me a smile that almost makes me not care about what the professor thinks. I got something even better than a perfect grade out of this project. Something that rooted itself inside me and grew before I knew what was happening.

I return his smile, unable to imagine what life was like before him, and then I blush, looking away quickly when I remember what happened in my bed last night. Peeta was gone before I got up, leaving me half asleep with a quick kiss to the back of my head, so I didn’t have the opportunity to be embarrassed around him. Which is what’s happening now.

“Obviously there’s no way I can read all of these in a week, so I’ll task you with one more assignment, which will also be part of your final grade.” My attention snaps from last night’s events to the present at the professor’s statement. Everything around me is forgotten. “You will read and review another group’s project - no skimming,” she warns. “You have until end of class Friday. Time starts now, class. Chop chop.”

I look at Peeta, always so calm and collected. The exact opposite of how I’m feeling right now. Most of our story is about us. Me. Finding my way through my own sexuality and a boy I despised but came to... like a lot. I only recently became okay about Peeta and Professor Trinket reading it, and now I have to let more people in? This can’t be happening.

Before I can collect my thoughts, Cato looks past me to Peeta. “You guys want to switch?”

My breathing stops as Peeta looks around at the other pairs, already partnering up and says, “Sure,” before I can scream No! at the top of my lungs. I can’t fault him, though. He has no idea how uncomfortable Cato makes me feel. Should I tell him?

“Here,” Cato says, placing a sheet of paper in front of me. “Write down your email and number for me.” I panic, grateful I don’t have a number but I don’t want Cato to have any way to contact me. I’d rather him not even know my name. Or that I exist as a person.

I grab my things faster than I ever have and excuse myself, not meeting either of their stares even though I can feel them burning into me. “Actually, I have to go. Peeta can you handle that? Thanks.” I don’t wait for a response before I’m barreling towards the exit.

I go on with my day, tense and anxious for most of it. I try desperately not to think about the last leg of the project. I am also trying not to plan Professor Trinket’s slow death. I partially succeed at the first one. I tell myself every ten minutes that it’ll all be over in a matter of days, and while it’s true, it doesn’t make letting a stranger into the doc any less daunting.

It’s not until later when I’m in my room that Peeta knocks on my door. I open it and find him leaning against the frame, a curious look in his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asks as I push the door all the way open in invitation. He shoves off his shoulder and walks in, closing the door behind him. I plop down on my bed, fold my legs under me and shrug my shoulders.

Peeta follows, sinking slowly next to me and places his hand on my knee, shaking it lightly. “Talk to me.”

From anyone else, the statement would come off demanding, but with the person who’s come to mean more to me than almost anyone, it’s an opportunity to purge my feelings in a safe place. Something I’ve never really had before.

“I was just surprised that we have to share our story with other students, and honestly Cato is not the person I would have chosen to review it.” I shiver at the thought of what the brute will have as ammunition after he reads it. “He’s kind of a creep and now he has my email.”

Peeta squeezes my knee in what feels like an apology. “He doesn’t have your email.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No. I didn’t want to partner up with him, either, but it seemed like everyone else was already taken. But I wasn’t about to give another guy my girlfriend’s information anyway, so I just gave him mine.”

I’m almost compelled to tell him I love him right then, and I might have if it hadn’t been for the word he just used. “Girlfriend?” I can feel one brow inch its way up my forehead. We haven’t talked about it and I haven’t given any thought to labeling us. I’m not sure I want to. I don’t want to ruin the easy feeling between us.

“Yeah,” he replies, his hand inching up my thigh, making me lose focus on our conversation. Then his brow creases as his hand pauses. “Are you okay with that?”

I swallow and my eyes flutter. I want him to stop talking and finish where I think this is going, but I know he’s going to want an answer. I don’t have one for him right now, partly because he’s touching me and partly because I haven’t had time to think about what it means, so I answer his question with one of my own. “Are you?”

He leans in and his lips are so close I can feel the smile on them. “I’ve been okay with it since the day I met you.” And then he kisses me. Something in my chest flutters. I stop thinking and fall back on the bed, Peeta following without breaking the kiss. He’s on top of me and his weight is like a welcome home hug. Except way more indecent.

One of his legs finds its way between mine as his tongue divides my lips and conquers my mouth. I raise my white flag of surrender by driving my hips into his. I can feel his hardness pressing against my thigh. He grunts and one of his hands slides down my side to rest at my hip. He squeezes and it feels urgent.

Our kiss speeds up, my pulse with it, and I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him tight to me. Our hips are in a rhythm that feels so natural and… primal. I can feel his length sliding against me, but I want to know more. I need to know what it feels like in my hand. I want to see if I can make him feel good, too.

His hand begins its descent between my legs and for a split second I forget all about wanting to do something for him.

“Peeta, wait.” I say through our kiss. He freezes, his body tensing above me.

“‘I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s not that, it’s um, I want to…” Just tell him you want to touch him.

Peeta must think he knows what I’m trying to say, because his eyes widen and he drops his weight off to the side of me, scrubbing a hand over his face and uttering a soft curse. “I, uh, didn’t bring anything with me.”

I raise up on my elbows to stare down at him and narrow my eyes, trying to decipher what he would need to bring with him other than his cock, which is definitely present, when I realize he means a condom. “Oh! No I didn’t mean - I just wanted to t-touch… you,” I stumble around the words, not able to meet his gaze. Instead, my eyes land on the very large object in question. I don’t want to look away but I know I should. Shouldn’t I? Then it moves. Just the tiniest twitch, and my eyes flick to his, dark sapphires now.

I sit up on my knees and reach for the hem of his shirt, pushing it up a little. “Can I?” My fingers itch and my stomach is a ball of nerves. The good kind I guess, because they’re not holding me back. He nods and his eyelids shutter a few times before he closes them. It’s a bit of a relief not to have him watching my first attempt at pleasuring a man. I’m not a hundred percent sure what to do, so I recall a few scenes from my reading. Scenes that at first made me cringe, but now make my mouth water and my legs tighten when I think about them.

I release the brass button of his jeans and drag the zipper down. Peeta helps by raising his hips and pushing them even further. I’m unprepared for the way it springs up at me and I jolt a little. It’s just… standing there. I bite my lip, watching as it twitches again. A quick glance at Peeta and he’s watching me as intently as I’m watching it.

He breathes out a shaky breath that sounds like my name, and that’s all it takes for me to reach out and grip it in my hand. It’s warm and the skin is soft.

“Fuck.” The curse is quick and soft, freezing me in place.

“Did I hurt you?” I loosen my already loose grip.

Peeta shakes his head and one side of his mouth lifts barely in a crooked grin. “Here,” he says as he puts his hand over my own. “Grip it tighter like - fuck - yeah... like that.” He guides my hand up and down and when I’ve got the hang of it I move his hand away and straddle his thighs.

“Holy shit, you’re gonna… kill… me,” he says between breaths. I bite back a smile. I was always a fast learner. “Feels… so good.” His groans mixed with his affirming words make me feel so empowered. Like I can do anything. I’ve got the world at my fingertips instead of just his cock.

His hips start to pulse in time with my hand and he grabs fistfuls of my comforter. I can feel the dampness in my panties. I fight back the urge to rub myself on his leg, but it’s no use. My body joins the same rhythm as my hand and his hips, like a well-timed harmony.

I wonder what would happen if I just stop thinking and let my body take complete control. I’m tempted to give in and see, but Peeta tenses beneath me. I watch, mesmerized, as his his eyes close tight and his lips purse together. When his hand wraps around the top of his cock, I freeze again, unsure if I should let go or keep going.

“Don’t stop,” he grunts, as warm liquid trickles down my hand. I start pumping until he stills my movement and lets out a deep, shuddering breath.

“Katniss, that was amazing.” Peeta says softly, his face tilted to the ceiling, eyes still closed and lips parted. I feel like I just aced a test and got the extra credit.

“Yeah?” I ask, finally letting go to survey the mess on my hand and his body. It’s gooey and… weird. I grab a few tissues from my desk and hand them to Peeta, then clean myself. It’s strange how satisfied I feel after doing that to him, and he hasn’t even done anything to me yet. I guess he doesn’t need to. I’d be happy to lay next to him and take a nap.

I sit back on the bed, Peeta still laying there with his eyes closed and a contented look to his features. He’s mostly covered again, except for a sliver of muscled abs. He cracks one eye open when he feels my weight next to him, and I have no time to react as he lunges up and grabs me, twisting us so that I’m pinned underneath him. I’ve never been wrestled before but I have to admit that I may take up the sport.

“Your turn,” he says with an adorably crooked smile. He laces his fingers with mine, raising them to the pillow above my head. Then, he nudges my chin to the side with his nose and I feel his lips on my neck. The nap I wanted evaporates like drops of water in the driest climate.That satisfaction I said I felt? It’s long gone. And in it’s place is a hunger I’ve only acted on over the last few weeks.

“Katniss?” he asks as one of his hands skims from my hand all the way to my waist and under the hem of my shirt. His fingers draw figure eights on my skin, up and up and up. He stops just below my breast. It’s difficult, but I use my words and give him the permission he seeks to make me feel good.

He pinches and rolls my nipples between his fingers for a long time, making me squirm and arch beneath him before he undresses my bottom half and parts my legs. He caresses my inner thighs and I can feel his breath hit my center. My pulse thunders in my ears and my chest rises and falls, more labored than a sweatshop in China.

Peeta takes an inordinate amount of time exploring the flesh around my hips and down my legs. He kisses my calves, licks the underside of one of my knees, and bites the inside of my thigh. I both love it and hate it. I wiggle my hips at him, growing more frustrated by the second.

“Touch me,” slips out in a panted plea.

“I was thinking maybe, if you want me to, I could… go down on you.”

I tense when I realize he means he wants to put his face there. I know guys do it. I’ve overheard a few girls talk about it before and I thought it was disgusting. How could someone let a human being put their face down there? Bodily functions happen from there. But now, with Peeta so close, I don’t have the same grossed out feelings, but I also don’t know if I want him to do that.

“We don’t have to.” he says, his hands skimming my legs before he crawls up my body. He kisses me and I relax a little.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “Can we just… kiss for a little while?” The desire I felt moments ago isn’t quite as strong, and I feel like I need to slow down. His answer is just to kiss me again, soft and slow, with no end in sight. His hands don’t venture any place other than my hair, cheeks and neck, and it’s not long before we’re holding each other and falling asleep.

It’s Wednesday and I’m at work, sitting in the box office with a Marie Claire magazine I discreetly snagged off the table of the students’ lounge the day before. One of the articles is about oral sex and, curious, I want to see what all the fuss is about. Maybe get some tips on what to do or how to prepare. I’m mainly concerned with whether or not Peeta will think I’m gross after the fact. Pubic hair and body fluids aren’t exactly sexy in my book, but I’ve learned over the length of this project that whatever I have an aversion to, learning about it helps me understand. Take the edge off whatever reservations I’ve built up over time.

The main question I have is does he really want to do that? According to Marie, he’s fantasized about it. The article is fascinating, though, and what I thought was going to be a cringey read is getting me a little excited and making me feel strangely desired.

I’m insatiable for more on this subject, and I’m rounding out my third read-through when I glance up at some movement on the curb and see Cato strolling towards the building. I stash the magazine hastily like I’ve been caught by my mother with porn. When he’s only ten yards away my heart leaps to my throat. I’m sure I won’t be able to form any words, which is ironic considering mere words can’t express how badly I don’t want to interact with him.

The thought dawns on me that he’s here for me and not to see a movie. It’s matinee time on a Wednesday. The only people who ever come to see movies during this time are the elderly and mothers with toddlers. He is neither of those and he’s alone. Smiling unnervingly. It’s not an ugly smile, and if I didn’t get a bad feeling every time he’s in my vicinity, he might actually be attractive. But I do.

His hulking frame takes up most of the window space. “Everdeen,” he says, tapping his fingers on the outside counter. I clear my throat to speak into the microphone.

“Can I help you?” I pray that being professional and aloof will hurry up whatever this is. Maybe he really is here to see a movie. By himself. In the middle of the day. His smile grows wider, showing bright white teeth all in a perfect row.

“Yeah, I just wanted to see if I could buy you some dinner after work. I read your story. It was a real page turner,” he winks at me, “and I want to give you my thoughts on it.”

“Oh,” comes out as a squeak, but I cover it quickly with, “I already have plans, but you can leave comments in the doc. I probably won’t be able to get to them until late.”

“I don’t want to leave them in the doc. I’m more of an in person kind of guy.” He leans over, elbows on the counter, his face so close to the glass his breath creates a light circle of fog. One of his eyebrows raises in an assumptive way and it makes the fake cheese from the nachos I had at lunch curdle. He tries again. “What about tomorrow?”

“Ummmm-”

“Come on, Everdeen, don’t make me beg.” He winks again.

“I really can’t tonight or tomorrow. I’m sorry.” I hold my hands up and shrug while silently praying for this to please be over.

“Damn, girl,” he replies, and I catch a sliver of annoyance in his tone. Then one side of his lip curls up. “You’re making it hard.” He winks for a third time and I’m starting to think maybe he has something in his eye. But no, he read my story. My very dirty, very private, should have only been read by my professor story.

“How about I drive you to wherever you’re going after work? I know you don’t have a car.” The way he says it gives me this feeling in my gut. Like I should watch out for myself. I freak out inside. An imaginary mallet strikes the lever on my panic meter and the puck goes straight through the bell. So I lie. Anything to get him to leave, and that’s giving him a ‘yes.’

“Yeah, okay. I get off at eleven.” Not true. I get off two hours earlier. I can’t look him in the eyes through the deception. I’ve never been good at lying, so I stare at my computer screen and click the mouse a few times to make it look like I’m working, then say casually, only glancing up once, “But you don’t have to wait around. Just come back later.”

He taps his fingers on the counter twice and a huge smile overtakes his face. A sign of victory, I suppose. If it weren’t for his cold eyes, he might seem harmless. Or at least not as intimidating as he does. “You got it, Babe,” he calls out as he walks away.

A shiver rips its way through my spine. Babe. I can’t wait to get out of here.

By 8:30 I’ve kept a running total of the cash I’ve exchanged tickets for and cleaned my area three times to make sure I can walk out the door by 9:01. I want as much time between myself and Cato’s arrival as I can possibly get. My hands tremble a little more with every minute that ticks by. I swear my bottom lip is going to be one giant bruise tomorrow morning from how hard I’ve been biting down on it. My stomach is twisted into fifty knots. And counting.

The door to the box office pops open and my boss leans his head in, irritation in his voice and a snarl on his lips as he tells me, “Bristel called in. I need you to close tonight.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just slams the door, the sound of it reverberating through my ears, settling in my stomach as a boulder, flattening all those knots. When it’s gone, I’m left in complete silence. A needle could drop in a haystack and I’d hear it. I stare at the door knob, feeling like if I tried to turn it I’d find myself locked in. And with only a small opening in the bullet proof glass, there’s no other way out.

My heart beats faster and within moments I feel beads of sweat on my forehead. This can’t be happening. I told him to come back! And now I have to stay? Fuck!

No.

I can’t stay.

I won’t stay.

The walls start to close in. I need air. This place is feeling more like a tomb that wants to swallow me up rather than four walls designed to keep people out.

I’m not supposed to leave the box office unattended, but I don’t care much about it right now. I need to tell my boss I can’t stay late. Fear is eating away at my insides, trying to keep me rooted in place and bolt out the door at the same time. I peel my leaden feet from the floor and choose the latter.

On my way to Marv’s office, I throw a quick prayer up, promising I’ll never lie again if I can somehow get out of this. Begging a higher power for him to have mercy on me. I start coming up with a list of good deeds, like working in soup kitchens every holiday or reading to underprivileged kids at the public library. I could volunteer at the old folks home on the weekends. I’ll do anything.

I shouldn’t have to, though. I’m a good worker. I come in early and leave late. I do my job, going over and above to make sure I’m never written up or give anyone a reason to think I’m slacking off. I’m his best worker. He’ll understand. Or not. He’s kind of a douchewaffle.

I rap my knuckles on his door, my fear waning some in the face of the confidence I’ve built in my work performance.

“Come in,” he hollers. “Yeah?” he barks when he sees me. He’s extra cranky tonight.

“About closing, I-”

“I need you, Everdeen. You know we don’t keep a big staff on Wednesdays. Take it up with Bristel the next time she’s in.”

I stop just short of whining, even though I really want to. “But, I can’t stay.”

“Look, I’m in a bind and you’re my go-to girl.” He sighs, as if deciding whether or not to say something that’s on his mind. “I’ll be needing an AM soon and I was thinking of recommending you for the position. It’d come with a significant pay raise and get you out of that box. Just say you’ll do it and the job is yours.”

Huh. I did not see that coming. I should have told him ‘no’ months ago. I’m about to graduate college, and while I’ll be looking for work in my field, I also know it could be weeks or even months before I find something. I could really use the raise.

I set both options on the scale - weighing them out against each other. On one side - Cato. But more money. On the other - hiding out from him at my place. He may even know where I live. He knows I don’t have a car. Would avoiding him now help me? He’ll probably come back anyway and I’ll have to deal with him another time. He’s been persistent in making me feel uncomfortable for the last few months. I think it’s about time I told him to back off.

“Fine,” I answer Marv with the same snarl he gave me earlier. “But you better not be screwing with me.” I close the door harder than I meant to, but maybe that will seal my point with him. I’ve never spoken to my boss like that, but only one thought is at the forefront of my mind as I return to the box - I need Peeta. He should be here to hear Cato’s thoughts, too. He wrote half the story and edited most of it.

I enter the tiny cubicle, no less nervous about Cato, but I do have an idea of what I’ll be buying as soon as I get my raise - a cell phone. And Peeta’s number will be speed dial numero uno.

I glance at the dingy, white phone hanging on the wall of the tiny room. I could use it, but the one person I need to call right now is unreachable because I don’t have his number.

The doc! I bounce on my toes a few times in relief before springing into action. Employees aren’t supposed to be on the internet with work computers, but I’m desperate to reach Peeta. If Marv finds out I’ll get written up and my record won’t be so perfect anymore, but I don’t think too hard on it. I log in to my google account and click on my gmail, sending off a quick email to get Peeta online. Then I open hangouts and the doc, and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

A line starts to form for the late shows. It’s not long, but it takes my attention away from the screen. A few people trickle up to the window, but it dies down as it approaches ten o’clock. Peeta still hasn’t gotten online. My stomach turns over a few times. 52 minutes and 36 seconds left if Cato doesn’t show up early.

At 10:15, it’s time to close the box office and help clean up the concession area. I have to log off the computer, but before I do I send a message through hangouts, hoping with everything in me that he gets it and comes, but trying not to put all my eggs in that basket. I may actually have to do this myself. Which is fine. Totally fine. I’m a big girl.

Can you come by the theater around 10:45?

I add ‘please’ to the end, hoping he realizes that’s me begging.

I shut the lights out. I’m about to leave when I spot a figure in the far corner of the parking lot, leaning against the hood of a red car, arms folded while he checks his phone. Goosebumps pepper my skin and my mouth dries up instantly.

Cato is here. And he’s so early that I wonder if he even went home.

#writer's block #chapter 7 #katniss and peeta #peetabreadgirl #reblogs are love #talk to me!

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