#and delly's too soft for them all to stop them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whimsicallyreading · 3 years ago

Text

For Rowaelin Month day 17

“A sick day”

CW- PTSD, mentions of violence

Aelin considered herself a fortunate person.

She has survived genocide, her family's murders, losing loved ones, slavery, torture, and the Great War. Now she is a queen, a mother, a beloved Mate.

Her life had changed since those bleak days where she'd wondered if she would ever escape captivity—the days when Aelin didn't know if she would ever be free or find love again. Every morning she woke up curled into Rowan's side, and while she drank her morning tea, Aelin could count on her young daughter snuggling into her lap.

Yes, she was swamped most days, but that was normal for a queen. But even the moments between boring meetings brimmed with life and laughter. Rowan's hand on her thigh beneath the table. Fenrys' theatrics when conversation spiraled off-topic. And even the hardened lords thought it was hilarious when their three-year-old princess barged into councils and demanded her mother's attention.

Her family gathered for dinners at the end of every day. Aelin's little family, Fenrys, Emrys, and Malakai were the regular attendees. Aedion, Lysandra, Elide, and Lorcan joined when they were present. It was a time reserved for family only, and it was by far Aelin's favorite part of the day.

Aelin had a good life now. Her family was growing, and her country thrived beneath her rule.

So it always took her by surprise when a bad day came.

She had woken up fine. Delly had slammed open the chamber door with a gust of wind and squirmed herself between her and Rowan in the early morning. Usually, Aelin treasured the moments when her daughter joined them, but being pregnant again had taken a toll on her sleep.

Rowan tried to stop their child before she entirely collapsed onto Aelin but was a moment too slow. Delly flopped onto her mother's chest in a disarray of wrinkled nightgown and golden curls. Soft sobs were sputtering out of the tiny figure.

I'm sorry. Rowan whispered into her thoughts. He knew how hard pregnancy was on her and took his mate's comfort very seriously. It troubled him that their toddling daughter woke Aelin so abruptly.

Aelin blinks the sleep from her eyes and sends him a happy smile to assure him everything is fine.

"What's wrong, Dell?" Aelin soothes a hand up her baby's quaking form.

Adelia sniffles harder, unable to talk through the tears. She'd started to have bad dreams in recent weeks, but never had she been so inconsolable.

Aelin shifts as Adelia's arms tighten uncomfortably around her bump. Rowan sees her discomfort and reaches around to pull Dell to him instead, but it is met with resistance.

"No," Adelia finally wails. "Mama. I want Mama."

Rowan frowns. Adelia was a daddy's girl to the bone, and this was the first time she'd ever refused to go to him. Their daughter squeezes harder and burrows her face into Aelin's torso.

"Dell," Rowan leans next to her and whispers, a cool breeze brushing against her flushed cheek. "What's wrong little love?"

Adelia lifts her head, and Aelin's heart contracts painfully. Her cheeks are red and swollen from the intensity of her crying, little sobs still stumbling from her chest as Rowan settles her down enough to speak.

"Mama was gone. She was hurt, and she couldn't see me." Dell sniffles, her green eyes glassy. "Can you see me, Mama?"

Aelin tugs her daughter in closer, unable to stand the sight of her so sad. "Yes, of course, I can. I'm right here."

"You were in a box. She wouldn't let me see you," Adelia whimpers in a small voice. "She told me she was gonna keep you. I don't want you to go, Mama."

Aelin's face blanches. It wasn't possible. Her little baby couldn't possibly have seen what was coming to her mind. She looks at Rowan, and his face is pinched with worry.

"It's not real, Dell." Rowan uses a thumb to wipe the tears off her cheek.

Adelia flinches. "Uncle Ress told me it was. He told me Mama had got stollen and put into a box by the bad lady and that she should have stayed there."

Aelin's heart stops. Nausea crawls up her throat, and Rowan tugs Adelia away just in time for her to crawl out of bed and gag into a potted plant. The sickness grips Aelin, the shudders in her arms only growing worse with her daughter's mumbled cries.

"Daddy, I want Mama to stay here." Rowan hushes her and murmurs quiet reassurances. "Don't let her get stollen."

Ress had said that? In front of her daughter? Aelin tries to close her eyes against the visions creeping into her mind. The places her scars used to be ache, and her hands pulse with the remembered pain of reconstruction.

The baby in her womb squirms under its mother's stress, and Aelin throws up again.

She should have stayed there.

Cairn brings the hammer down onto her frail knees, the ringing of cracking bone splits the air.

She should have stayed there.

Aelin opens her eyes to endless darkness. Sweet smoke wafts through invisible holes and sends her to sleep- leaving her mind vulnerable to Maeve's manipulations.

She should have stayed there.

More and more memories swarm behind her eyelids until a pair of grounding arms wrap around her shoulders.

"Fireheart, you are home. You are safe. Can you breathe with me?" Rowan sighs loudly behind her shoulder, and Aelin tries to force her own breath out.

Breathing in is harder, but Rowan's scent fills her nose and loosens the binds on her lungs. Soon, Aelin is doing the exercises independently, and Rowan nuzzles his face into her neck. His hands snake under her bump and lift some of the pressure, easing more of her tension.

"There you are," Rowan kisses her cheek as Aelin comes back around. "Are you okay?"

Aelin shakes her head and sinks into his arms. "Can you take me back to bed?"

Her legs feel like jelly, and her stomach is weak from turning. Rowan lifts her with ease. His arms are warm, and he murmurs sweet nothings into her ear as he carries his mate back to their bed.

"Adelia?" Aelin looks around for their daughter.

Rowan pulls back the duvet and reveals the sleepy from nestled right into the middle of the pillows. "She fell back asleep quickly."

"I can't believe Ress told her those things," Aelin can feel a tear slipping down her face. Ress had never forgiven her for her days as Celaena. Darrow had grown to accept her, but Ress never warmed up to having Aelin as his queen despite her efforts.

She hadn't realized the extent his hatred went.

Rowan scowls as he lays Aelin down next to their daughter. "Ress is young and foolish. I have forgiven a lot of his hostility and ignored most of his juvenile antics, but Aelin, I can't forgive this."

"He should never have said those things to Dell." Ress's words linger in her head. She tried to do right by her title and live up to her parent's legacy. Aelin took a lot of pride in listening to the demands of her people and tending to their problems personally. But the odds of Ress being the only one to feel this way are slim. Did they wish she'd never returned? Was she arrogant to take the crown just because it was her inheritance? She'd never had the formal training as ruler and relied a lot on Rowan to help manage foreign affairs. Despite the loss of her fire, many still feared her and considered her a murderer. No matter how hard she tried, Aelin's history as Adarlan's Assassin proceeded her.

Tears burn Aelin's eyes, and Rowan's scowl deepens. "He should have never spoken of you like that at all."

Aelin shakes her head, "It's his right to think what he wants. Maybe he has a point."

"No." Rowan growls, and Dell flinches in her sleep. Taking a deep breath, Rowan softens his voice. "He's wrong, Aelin. Ress was wrong to scare Dell, and he has no right to demean everything you've sacrificed. You've suffered for your people."

"I closed the lock because I had to Rowan," Aelin argues. "That doesn't automatically make me a good queen. What if I'm failing?"

Rowan pulls their duvet up to Aelin's chin, and Dell instinctively snuggles to her mother's side. Her daughter was a leach for warmth, and Aelin could feel her remaining flames writhing in her veins agitated.

"You are a wonderful ruler, Fireheart." Rowan bends down and kisses her lips reverently. "I've met my fair share of emperors, kings, and queens. None of them have given up so much to better the lives of their people. They care for you in return."

Rowan steps away from the bed, and Aelin makes a displeased noise. "Where are you going so early in the morning."

"I'm awake now. I feel like a flight through Oakwald. Go to sleep, and when you wake up, I'll bring my females breakfast," Rowan pulls on a plain white tunic. "Sleep, love. You both need your rest."

Rowan can read her too well. Aelin can feel her eyes drooping despite how much she wants to deny it. "Very well, but there better be tea and pastries."

As Aelin drifts back to sleep, she swears that a mischievous smile passes across her mate's face.

~~~

"Aelin," Maeve twirls a lock of blonde hair in her fingers. "Where are the keys?"

Cairn twists the blade in her thigh again, and Aelin screams, "screw yourself."

Aelin writhes beneath the pain and the dark queen's gaze. Her torturer goes to twist the blade again, but Maeve holds up a hand. "Wait. There is a smarter way to go about this."

"I won't tell you anything," Aelin gasps, the blood seeping from her thigh pools onto the table. "There is nothing you can do."

"Not even to spare the princess?" Maeve smiles as the cell door opens. Connall walks into the room, a squirming girl in his arms.

"Let me go," the girl screams, and the air in the room turns frigid. Her blonde hair whips around as she twists and fights. The little girl's head turns, and she freezes when she catches sight of Aelin. "Mama?"

"Adelia?" Aelin asks, confused. "You can't be here. You aren't supposed to be here." With renewed energy, Aelin thrashes against her bonds and bares her teeth at Maeve.

Maeve takes Adelia from Connall and strokes her hair. "Such a pretty one."

"This isn't real," Aelin hisses. "I wasn't pregnant when you took me. Adelia was born in Terresan."

Maeve hums a sympathetic note, "It seems you're confused." Aelin fights as the dark queen sits with a frozen Adelia in her lap. "Begin again, Cairn."

A hot iron is lain against Aelin's neck, and Adelia's screams rattle the stone chamber.

~~~

Aelin wakes with a gasp. Her chest is seizing in uncontrollable fits, and little hands cup the sides of her face.

"Mama?" Adelia's concerned face hovers over Aelin's. "Why are you crying?"

Relief washes over her at the sight of her daughter, safe and sound. She tries to take deeper breaths, but her body fights against her. The baby in her womb squirms uncomfortably. Aelin feels guilt that they are so subject to her moods. She tries to open her mouth to speak, consol her frightened daughter, but Aelin can't get any words out.

"Daddy!" Dell screams, frightened tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

Rowan bursts through the door, "Dell?"

Adelia sniffles and kisses Aelin's face sadly, "Daddy, what's wrong with Mama?"

Aelin grabs at her chest, trying to ease the tightness there. She was scaring her daughter. What kind of mother would do that? Rowan sits beside her, and a cool wind goes up her nose and fills her lungs.

"Fireheart," Rowan lifts Adelia and sits beside her. "Is this a sick day?"

It was the code they'd come up with for the days when the past came back to haunt them. When the turmoil in their mind forces their bodies to rebel, and they can't seem to put on their usual facades. It used to shame Aelin, the days she couldn't rise from bed and do her duty. But her mate's unwavering love soon cracked that lie and eased her burden. Rowan had convincing arguments. Aelin's people needed their queen at her best, and on sick days, she wasn't able to give that to them. Their court was strong. They wouldn't allow Terresan to fall while she recovered. Aelin deserved time to heal.

Rowan must have been able to tell that she wouldn't be able to settle herself this time as his winds continued their push and pull in her chest. "Yes," she rasps dejectedly.

Dell buries her face into Rowan's shoulder. Her mate rests a hand on the side of her face and soothes her cheek. "To whatever end, Aelin. We will get through this just as we do everything else."

Rowan kisses the side of Dell's face. "Little love, do you think you can go to the kitchens and have someone bring Mama tea?"

That fae instinct to fuss rears its head in their child. Adelia perks up at the opportunity to do something useful. "Yes!"

Rowan sets her on the floor, and she takes off in a blur of untamed hair and swishing skirts. They wince as a gust of wind slams the doors of their chambers against the wall.

"She's a handful," Rowan talks, aware of the soothing effect his voice has on her. "But we always knew our children would be. I can't wait to see what kind of chaos our son brings into our lives."

Aelin wraps her arms around him as the remnants of her dreams finally fade away. "You think it's a boy?"

"I know so," Rowan pinches her side, and Aelin smiles. He'd also been confident that their first child would be a girl. His smugness after Adelia's birth was unbearable.

"Rowan," Aelin whispers. "Can we just lay here today?"

"I could never deny you anything," Rowan leans against their headboard and kicks off his shoes. "You don't need to ask, Aelin. It's okay to take time for yourself."

"What if I'm just proving Ress right?" The insecurity slips from her lips before she can stop them. "What if there is someone more capable?"

"Ress won't be a problem anymore," Rowan rests a hand against her bump, and the baby withing kicks at it, bringing a smile to his face.

Aelin narrows her eyes, "What have you done?"

"Nothing that anyone will blame me for," Rowan assures. "He would be in a lot more trouble if the rest of the court learned what he said in front of Dell. Ress should be grateful I didn't do a lot worse."

Aelin sighs, "I don't understand why I can't just let it all go. Why do I allow myself to be so haunted?"

"It's not that simple," Rowan shakes his head. "I'm hundreds of years old, and no matter how many years pass, there are things from my past that haven't healed. The mind is different from the body, and sometimes it takes longer for it to recover. There is nothing wrong with that. You gave up everything for the people you loved."

"Because I had to," Aelin contradicts.

A hardness comes over Rowan, "because no one else could."

Rowan rolls over her body into a plank and looks deep into her eyes. "No one else that day would have made the same sacrifices out of love. Not even me. I was too selfish to let you go. You gave up everything, and by the strength in your soul, you came home to me. In all my decades, I have never met someone so remarkable, and I never will again. Take as many years as you need to recover, Aelin. This world owes a debt to you, and I will make sure it pays. You deserve every happiness."

His hand threads through one of hers and drags it up to rest on the bump between them.

Happiness.

Dell darts back into their room, a cup of tea sloshing in her hands as she runs. "Daddy, I put extra sugar in it. Uncle Fen is coming with more cups, but I made this one special."

Rowan pulls away from her, and the laughter on his face is contagious.

Aelin smiles and accepts the tea from Dell's hands. She even manages a few sips without cringing from the sweetness. Fenrys follows behind her shortly and sets a fresh cup covertly on her bedside table.

There may be hard days, Aelin realizes as her family gathers around her, but the love they showed her every day made it all worth it.

#throne of glass #rowaelin #rowaelinmonth #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #fanfic #tog #angst #rowan x aelin #ptsd #sick day #baby fic #canon #sjm #sjmaas

159 notes · View notes

mega-aulover · 3 years ago

Text

Coming Home

A small birthday story in honor of Katniss Everdeen's Birthday.

Set AU - Where the Hunger Games existed but the war began when they were 16 and ended when they were 22. Katniss never went to the Hunger Games but she did join the Rebellion and fought until the Capitol was taken. not beta'd all mistakes are mine...

special thanks to @rosegardeninwinter for her help earlier!

Rated T - for canon typical violence

“I wish I were able to wear a dress,” Delly said.

There were many uniformed members of the Rebellion, standing around the dance floor, some were dancing, others were milling around the fair grounds. It was a brilliant spring evening one that held promise.

“You’re wearing a skirt Del’s,” Jo said leaning against a pole at the edge of the dance floor.

“It’s still not the same as a long dress. In my head I can dance and move so serenely to the music, I look like a swan moving across the water,” Delly sighed.

“In reality, you move like an elephant with a lit matchstick up its butt,” Johanna said.

“JO!” Delly exclaimed. “Elephants are gentle creatures and besides…” Delly looked down at her feet. “They’d be mortified to know they were ever compared with me.”

Jo laughed. “Okay Everdeen, which one do you want to dance with?” She pointed a group of men off to a corner.

Katniss had remained silent during the entire exchange. Today was her birthday and she didn’t want to be here, but this was a mission to get Delly away from Gale. Gale was badly hurt and Delly came home with him to help him convalesce.

The band played a lively tune and Delly tapped her toes. Even before the war Katniss wouldn’t have come to any of these frivolous events.

Despite having returned home to District Twelve, she did not feel comfortable. It was as if something was missing. Her bed was too soft, the silence was too profound, and the night sky too dark. She still slept on the floor and she found she needed noise of some sort at night even if it was snoring. Loud noises though, like a heavy thump, disquieted her.

“Is the noise too much?” Jo asked.

Jo was a military psychologist assigned to the surviving members of the 451 to help them transition from a military combat unit to a home life.

“No,” Katniss said.

“Why don’t you go for a walk Everdeen. Or better yet go out on the dancefloor and make a fool of yourself.”

Katniss paid no mind to Jo, instead she glanced around at the dance floor where couples slowly shifted their feet to the music. Katniss palms were wet with perspiration, she curled her hands into fists, not wanting to show her nerves. If Delly was disastrous on the dance floor, Katniss was by virtue of her awkwardness, worse.

Dances were horrid.

They were supposed to be celebrations of the human experience. Where people gathered and moved in graceful harmony. Dances were a place to discuss likeminded topics. It was a place to merrily accept another’s body pressed to their own, whilst whirling around a confined space as gleeful and fanciful music played into the air, affecting all those gathered. Katniss was not graceful, she was not a pleasant conversationalist, and she did not like to be touched.

“Stop scowling Everdeen, it’s just a dance,” Jo said.

Katniss gave Jo a withering look, before breaking away. She blindly walked away from the dance floor. This wasn’t just a dance, it was a celebration of the end of a grueling war against the Capitol. A war that the districts won, but at the cost of the blood of many innocent lives. The troops were sent home, most of her unit, the 451, came from District Twelve, but were not dispatched yet. The new government was dispatching the troops by district. Since District Twelve was the furthest away it would be dispatched from service last.

District twelve held a fair and dance to celebrate. Katniss slipped her hand inside of the pocket of her wool brown and green dappled uniform. Her pants were cuffed as she was short, her suspenders were hidden by the vest she wore, her white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and her military issued jacket hung open.

A group of young men who were inebriated stopped to salute her, “Captain.”

“As you were,” Katniss said.

“Do you know who that was?” One of them said in a low gravelly voice.

“No who?” This one had a higher pitched voice.

“Captain Everdeen.”

Katniss heard when they stopped moving to stare at her.

“I heard she shot Snow straight through the eye,” the one with the higher pitched voice said.

Her valor and sometimes stupidity caused her meteoric rise in the military and some fame. She was only twenty and two, but she felt older than her years. As she moved away from the fair and toward the shops that lined the Merchant quarter it became quieter.

It was good be home and at the same time her mind pulled from the recesses of her soul the memories of the war. Six years was a long time to be away from home. Six years to metamorphize, to create a cocoon, t urn into an unimaginable goo, and morph into the person she was today.

Though there were times she wished for a different future. One she imagined and dreamt of often while in her cot. A future of a picnic in the meadow. A bent head with a toddler with bright blue eyes, a girl with dark hair twirling in the distance, and a warm babe in her arms.

Those were dreams. Idyllic nonsense dreamt up by a desperate girl in a monstrous war.

“Katniss?”

Katniss looked up to see Peeta Mellark standing with his family, his brother and father. His mother and other brother decided to fight for the Capitol. Katniss had no idea of what became of Mrs. Mellark or her eldest Aldo. Her heart leapt within the confines of her chest at the sight of his ruddy face, the lock of unruly ashen colored blond curl that fell across his brow. His arms were massive and his chest broader. But his blue eyes still held that warmth and beauty that she recalled from his youth. He was taller and looked more debonair with his cane. His name fell from her lips like a quiet prayer, “Peeta.”

“Captain Everdeen,” Rye saluted.

“Lieutenant Mellark, Sergeant Mellark,” Katniss greeted them both reading the insignias on their shoulders. Rye was a Sergeant and Peeta a 1st Lieutenant.

“Why don’t we meet you by the ah…” Rye trailed off.

“Rooba’s sandwich booth,” Mr. Mellark said pulling Rye and his wife with him.

They stood facing the other. When the war began, they were only sixteen so young naïve and entirely unsophisticated to understand the intrinsic dance of war.

“I heard about Gale,” Peeta said.

“He’s recovering.” There was a time she wouldn’t have been able to stare at him in the face, unless they were trading. “We had to pry Delly away from his sick bed. She’s down by the dance floor.”

“Delly?”

“They got together during the war. Delly’s medical corps unit got assigned to ours, she helped cure a lot of the injured.”

“So, they’re a couple.”

“Between you and I, I think Gale was constantly trying to find ways to get into the infirmary to see Delly.”

Peeta gave her that sweet youthful smile she recalled when she spied on him in school. A small smile crept on her face. They stood there until a group of kids ran between them breaking the moment. They began to move toward the fair. The only sound was their steps followed by the click of the cane as he used it to walk.

“I thought I would never see this day,” Peeta said quietly.

“Me either, when we broke through to the palace, I couldn’t believe…” Katniss drifted off as the violence she experienced that day still battered her mind.

“You were there…at the Capitol?”

“Yes,” Katniss muttered her eyes saw the fire, the sounds - she could hear the whistling of the bombs as they fell to the earth.

“I’m sorry, I heard the 451 lost a lot of…”

“We sustained the heaviest casualties. We were on the front line of the assault.” Her voice did not sound like her own. She sounded haunted and much like the souls of the cadavers of the fallen men and women, hollow.

Peeta took her hand, and she closed her eyes as she let the warmth of his hand seep into her and spread out from the center of her being like a candle being lit in a darkened room. Gripping his hand tightly she looked up at him. “Thank you.”

They continued walking this time hand in hand. “You find it weird to be back at home?”

Katniss nodded.

“I can’t stand my bed.”

“I sleep on the floor.”

“Me too, that is when I can sleep…” Peeta squeezed her hand.

“Do you have them- nightmares?”

“Every night.”

“I hate the nightmares…Prim’s taken to sleeping in the goat shed.”

“Rye has them too, my dad’s sleeping in his downstairs office.”

“You should get him a cot.”

“It won’t matter much.”

“Are you leaving?” Katniss nearly tripped misstep at the thought of Peeta leaving.

“It’s Rye who’s leaving us as soon as he gets his dispatch.”

“You’re staying at the bakery?” Katniss let go of his hand though she wanted to reach back out and take it.

“Even though it feels odd to say this, this is home. What about you?”

“I feel the same way, but I don’t think Prim wants me to stay. She’s all grown up and doesn’t need me anymore.”

“I was shocked when I saw how tall your sister got,” Peeta had some laughter in his voice as he continued. “I’m sure you were shocked to come home to a giant.”

Katniss grinned, it was true her baby sister was nearly as tall as Gale. She was also eighteen and thankfully never entered service, as the war ended. “I’m not that short.”

“Well compared to Prim you’re tiny.”

Katniss playfully swiped at his shoulder. Peeta was always so easy, even though they didn’t speak much, when they did it was so easy. She never stammered or lacked words. When she turned sixteen, she thought she would have time to tell Peeta thank you for the kindness he bestowed on her family after her father died. She had a brilliant plan of leaving him tiny gifts at his desk, of the things he liked to do, such as extra paper and pencils for drawing.

A fond smile lit her lips as she recalled the innocence of that girl. There were many times while on her cot that she imagined how that would have played out. In the end Katniss would have discovered the truth behind those acts, were driven not by a need to repay Peeta, but the fountain of love that flowed from her heart. Even now as she walked by his side, she was acutely aware of her attraction to him, and the depth of tenderness she felt for him.

“So, are you going to dance?”

“No.” Katniss spied Peeta from the corner of her eye. “What about you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.” Peeta stopped walking to rap against his leg. It sounded hollow. “Lost it toward the end and have an impressive bionic leg that I’m still getting used to.”

“Oh.” Her hand reached out to touch him. He was one of the reasons she was able to make it through the horrors of war. The image of Peeta in his wrestling uniform. The image of Peeta’s arms dusted with flour. The image of Peeta’s warm smile gave her the strength to make it through many a cold night.

“How about a raincheck and we dance at the fall fair. By that time, I’ll be good enough to at least shuffle my feet around with out falling or stepping on your foot.”

Laughter burst from her lips. Peeta always had a way of reaching her that no one else had. In her six years she learned the pining, or the bond as she thought of it, was really love. Katniss loved Peeta.

Delly once explained that love that was never fulfilled was an unrequited love.

“I haven’t heard that beautiful sound in years,” Peeta whispered.

Katniss felt her cheeks warm before the colored.

“You were my constant northern star Katniss. I thought of you the entire time. I swore to myself that if I ever got to see you again that I would tell you…”

Katniss gasped and her legs moved on their own as she grabbed the lapels of his uniform to bring his head down, stood on tip toe and pressed her lips to his.

The kiss, long overdue, was as glorious as the sight of her beloved woods. Peeta wound his arm around her small waist before deepening the kiss. Sounds slipped from her mouth as her body became consumed with flames.

Peeta smiled down at her when they stopped kissing. “I love Katniss Everdeen. I’ve been a goner for years…”

Katniss smiled brilliantly at him, “I love you too.”

“Happy Birthday.”

“You remembered,” she was astonished.

“I remember everything about you. I’ve been a goner ever since you sang the Valley Song when we were kids.”

Happiness spilled into her like pure clean water being poured onto a dry parched land. “I don’t want to spend any more time without you.”

“Me either. I want to spend the rest of the time left on this green earth with you Katniss Everdeen.”

Her heart raced. Life was short and she was willing to make leaps and take risks. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Peeta opened his mouth his cheeks became even redder, and he nodded.

“Good. Come on.”

They walked hand in hand to the dance. She smiled and nodded to her mother and sister, then to his family as they passed by on their way to the dancefloor.

“Katniss…” Peeta frowned.

“Trust me.”

A hush fell on the crowd and people gave them space. The band stopped playing. People were staring at them. As she was well known amongst her unit and the people in District Twelve. Peeta had his own notoriety being the beloved son of the baker, a kind and gentle boy who group up to be a handsome compassionate man.

“We’re having a toasting tonight…and this is our wedding dance.” Katniss voice carried into the quite air. “Could you please play the Valley Song,” she asked the band.

Cheers went up.

Katniss took his hand with the cane and positioned it behind her she then took his free hand in hers lifting it up. They shifted on the dance floor, she put her head on his shoulder and for the first time since coming home, she felt at home.

Peeta stopped moving and kissed her once more. That night they promised before all who could see that they would be faithful, loving, and kind in sickness and in health. When they joined in body it was as if torn souls were reconnected and sewn back together again.

Four years after the war Katniss found herself holding her babe as she watched one of their twins play with Peeta in their meadow. Her daughter’s voice could be heard laughing in the wind. A sense of DeJa’Vu washed over her. Katniss realized this was her dream, this was her coming home.

#mega aulover #drabble #Everlark #Birthday Drabble #Katniss Everdeen

115 notes · View notes

baebaejooheon · 3 years ago

Text

Corpse husband x cottagecore! Reader headcanon

Just a cottagecore esque thing where it’s readers birthday and they throw a big meet up/sleepover thing.

Fem reader just bc. Mentions wearing a dress/skirt

A/N: uhhh leave me alone Ik I have a series in the works that I haven’t written for in months. Leave me alone 😎 not edited pls it’s rlly not good , as well as written at 6 am. Based on a maladaptive daydream I had for like a week straight. I could turn this into a real fic if anyone wants it but like ahaha I can barely write once a year 😌🤚🏻 I will probably reread it and fix it later but as of now you get what you get. I literally just typed this on my phone with no sleep so like 🤗🤪

Originally posted by datchidatchi

A little background, Y/N lives in a medium sized cottage esque house. She has a small garden in her back yard, as well as a free roam fluffy brown cow named dellie, and a big chicken coop. As well as a duck that roams the property and a couple of other animals. As well as a huge flower field a little off the premises. (All of this is infact important.)

It’s Your 23rd birthday, and for this big occasion you decided to invite over all your friends, even those who live outside of the country, to your small home in the middle of nowhere. This would be the meetup that would break the internet.

Many people were invited. The typical among us group:Jack, Felix, Rae, Sykunno, Toast, Poki, and even Corpse who was given the option even tho the likelihood was low given the situation.

A few SMP friends you had made through association were also invited: Karl, Alex, Nick etc.

Many people, lots of fun.

The morning of your birthday, You awoke to many messages and posts for your birthday. Lots of bomb selfies on the feed as well as #HAPPYBDAYY/N trending on Twitter. Along with this, you were greeted with a few texts from your non American friends stating that they arrived safely or that they were checking into the hotel rooms they had booked for the weekend.

When the time came for the party, most of the people had managed to show up. The party was in full swing, everyone had a drink in hand, posting pictures, celebrating being together as well as it being your birthday.

Filling the trending tab on Twitter with so many hashtags

Around 10 pm you got a call from corpse and decided to head upstairs to get some peace and quiet from the loud music in your living room.

Answering the phone the conversation wasn’t anything special, corpse wishing you the fourth happy birthday for that day, as well as asking how everything was going. It was a normal conversation, that was, until his breath hitched and his voice started to quiver as he grew quiet, barely mumbling. Asking what was wrong, corpse went on a small tangent about how he wished he was more confident with his looks, how he wished it wasn’t scary showing his closest friends what he looked like etc. and how he wished he could be there at the party with everyone.

“Corpse I’ve told you 100 times. I understand your situation and it’s ok that you couldn’t show up. I don’t hold it against you, but I didn’t want you to feel left out :))”

“What would you say if I said I just pulled up in an Uber and I’m absolutely terrified of what’s gonna happen?”

Sneaking out of the back door as quickly as possible and running to the front lawn preparing herself. Corpse steps out of the car and You just jump in his arms. like full on koala grip on this man.

Holding his face and just showering him with compliments. Lots of reassurance and sweet nothings.

Heading to the back porch in order to allow him to calm down and prepare. The two end up sitting outside in the dark talking for like 30 minutes.

Finally working up the courage to head inside. You hold his hand the whole time and you see his hands start to shake.

Stepping into the living room, Jack noticing corpse was there, smiling but not saying anything after realizing he’s nervous. Meeting eveyone for the first time really being hard on him. No one else knowing what he looks like so no one really has a reaction

“Look who I found”

“Oh Y/N!! We were wondering where you ran off too. Who’s your friend?”

Corpse just hits them with a “uhh, hi 🤗”

Everyone freaking out as soon as they realize who it is and trying to talk to him.

Phones were put away for most of the night in fear of leaking anything.

You going the extra step to check everyone’s camera rolls (with consent of course) just incase and deleting any photo with any form of corpes face.

A group selfie with just corpse’s hand doing a peace sign

Many drunk escapades

Everyone finding a place to crash for the night. Some staying awake on their phones, some heading to hotels, some alresdy passed out for the night.

You check in on corpse before you head to bed, knowing today was a lot for him.

“Surprisingly? One of the best nights I’ve had in awhile :))”

Heading off to bed.

6 am rolls around and ms Y/N is up at the crack of dawn to do morning chores for the small farm.

Cute hobbit esque dress. Brown skirt, off the shoulder white flowy shirt tucked in, white frilly apron, brown corset belt Etc. you know the fit

Walking down the stairs, you see corpse on his phone in the dark sitting at her dining room table. Everyone was still asleep and it seemed like corpse hadn’t even slept a wink. You know, his insomnia and all.

“What are you doing awake? It’s only 6 am and you partied pretty hard last night?”

“Farm life doesn’t stop for a hangover, but I could ask you the same thing mister :) come on you can help me out”

Corpse is 100% not dressed to do anything outside, especially not any farm work.

Tells him to wait on the back porch while she gathers some stuff from the house. coming out with a messenger bag as well as a basket and a blanket.

Sets everything down and continues to feed the animals with corpse, asking him to grab the big bucket of feed. showing him the ropes, filling up everyone’s water dishes. Collecting eggs etc.

Corpse just watching you with a smile on his face. Your just talking to all your animals, yelling at fiesty hens for pecking at your legs and/or talking to Gerald the duck for getting in the way.

Corpse lowkey obsessed with dellie the cow. Pets her and coos for like 5 minutes straight.

When they finish the sun is barely rising everything still looks like a silhouette from far enough away. putting what needs to go inside away, and then grabbing the messenger bag off the porch.

Dragging corpse to the flower field just down the hill at the edge of the property.

Laying out the blanket and sitting just talking for hours.

You plays music from your phone through a small speaker, dancing around and twirling, lost in your own world.

Corpse’s Instagram story is just full of videos and pictures of you in the sunrise, small captions like happy birthweek to the most amazing person Ik. Or damn who knew farm girl had moves.

Literally 30+ story posts at 7 am.

Corpse takes a picture of you making a flower crown. Shadows cast across your skin, the small bit of sunrise light casting a soft golden glow. The field of flowers all around. Literally goddess worthy.

Fans going crazy reposting the pictures, spamming Twitter etc.

His camera roll is FULL of pictures of her.

Giving corpse A flower crown full of an array of wild flowers

Dancing together. Just twirling and laughing.

City boy corpse loving the farm life

Secretly of course

Relaxing and just sitting with eachother as it slowly reaches 10 am.

“Uh, thanks for this morning, I had a lot of fun.” A small sleepy smile on his face. The flower crown crooked on his messy curls as he just stares into your eyes.

You both end up leaning in for a kiss bumping noses as you gently pull away

Definitely the best birthday gift you could have asked for

Heading back inside to see how everyone’s doing.

Rae being one of the few awake asking where the two of you had been seeing it was already around noon

“Those of us awake took it upon ourselves to raid your kitchen sorry not sorry”

Corpse getting sleepy wanting to take a nap seeing as it was noon and he was running on little to no sleep.

You let him rest in your bed as you occupy everyone downstairs

Everyone leaving around 3 pm, corpse is still asleep so you go outside to check on all the animals once again.

Letting Gerald in the house bc he’s being a pain in the ass.

When you come into the house you see corpse coming down the stairs rubbing his eyes and streatching. His shirt twisted and raising slightly, the jewelry and chains he was wearing now gone.

Giving him a good “morning” kiss.

The day is filled with you cooking for him. Making fun of his foil troubles, watching movies, laughing and overall joking.

Spending the rest of the night cuddling together and making the most of the time you had together.

Making things between you official

✨Extra✨

When you post about eachother to tell the fans that the two of you have been dating for like 6 months the captions are wild.

Corpse is like “ugh look at my gorgeous girlfriend, so pretty, so nice and kind, the most amazing person ever” just full on simp. The pictures he uses are from the morning after your birthday.

Your picture is just you guys holding hands. His usual chains and jewelry. Caption just “eww a city boy 🤮, gotta take all the love I can get tho”

35 notes · View notes

xerxia31 · 4 years ago

Text

the Big Bang - an Everlark ficlet

Inspired by a story I read on CNN, that I couldn’t get out of my head. A warning - there are shades of dub-con here that may be disturbing to some readers. Rated M.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Peeta Mellark was fit to be tied.

“I don’t know what you want me to say here, boy,” Haymitch drawled. “You knew where these characters were heading when you signed on.”

“Come on, Haymitch,” Peeta growled. He was standing in Haymitch Abernathy’s office, holding the week’s script while Haymitch, head writer and executive producer of the hit series The Arena, in which Peeta starred, stared at him from under a mop of greasy, overlong hair. Until now, Peeta had loved working on the show, loved the ensemble cast, loved the interesting storylines and well-written scripts.

But not today.

“They’ve been growing together slowly for three damned seasons and now, this week, bam!” Peeta clapped his hands for emphasis, “out of nowhere you have three fucking sex scenes in the script.” For three seasons the show had been teasing a relationship between the character Peeta played, macho FBI agent Barley St James, and his shy, brainy colleague, Allium Winterland. It was a fantastic story, well paced, the dialogue between them always fun. Nearly three years they’d been teasing the audience with it.

And now this week’s script turned everything on it’s head. “You’re just screwing with us.” There was no way the timing was coincidental. Because the actress who played Allium, the actress he’d be stripping down to his skivvies and dry-humping with on national television? She was none other than his now-ex-girlfriend.

Haymitch glanced away. Peeta thought it was in shame until Haymitch spoke.

“You might as well come in, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said, and Peeta spun to look behind him. “We were talking about you.”

Katniss Everdeen was standing just outside Haymitch’s open door. It was the first time Peeta had laid eyes on her in the flesh in two weeks. Two fucking weeks! He hadn’t seen her since the night she walked out of their house.

He knew where she’d gone though, the whole fucking world did. All of the gossip rags, and even the more reputable news sites, were reporting how her on again off again affair with one Gale Hawthorne, star of multiple movie franchises and People magazine’s sexiest man alive 2018, was definitely on again.

“Story of my life,” Katniss muttered as she walked the rest of the way through the door, schooling her expression into a dispassionate scowl as she did. Peeta had no idea why she went into acting, he could read her every emotion through the impassive mask. He always could. Today was no exception, her mask might be in place, but her eyes were flashing with fury, and something that looked suspiciously like hurt.

She didn’t acknowledge Peeta at all, striding into the room on silent feet and stopping a solid six feet away. Her arms were crossed protectively over her chest, but her copy of the script was clenched in one fist. No doubt she’d been planning on storming in here to blast Haymitch. But Peeta beat her to it.

“Save your breath, Sweetheart,” Haymitch said. “Like I told the boy, you knew this was coming.”

“It’s fine,” she said, shooting a cool look in Peeta’s direction. “I’m a professional.” Then she turned, and strutted back out the door, back straight, long, black braid swinging. He could only watch, jaw clenched.

“Brrr,” Haymitch said. “You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime.” He was right, of course, and Peeta knew it. The audience would be expecting a pair of lovebirds. Not two people who could barely look each other in the eye.

“Whatever,” Peeta grunted. She wanted to play it that way? He could be cold too.

o-o-o

The table read went smooth as silk. Katniss sat on one side of the room, chatting lightly with their costar Delly Cartwright between scenes, Peeta sat on the other, joking with Cressida Faulkner, who was directing that week’s episode. Most of the cast had no clue Peeta and Katniss had broken up, because most of them never knew they’d been an item at all. Haymitch had figured it out somehow, clearly, but none of the other cast noticed anything was amiss.

The following day’s rehearsal, not so much. Rehearsals were always in costume and filmed, so that the production team could splice in any good bits that came out of them. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in TV, especially in a weekly series where time was tight. Peeta was used to it.

His first few scenes were fine, his lines came easily, he hit every mark. Then came the first scene he and Katniss shared that week, the one that led up to the first of the three fucking sex scenes.

She walked onto the set, and Peeta’s heart did a slow tumble in his chest. She was utterly beautiful, her hair loose and flowing, and wearing a dress patterned with autumn leaves. Soft orange, his favourite colour.

The colour of heartbreak.

They both stumbled through their lines, avoiding each other's eyes, interacting stiffing and unnaturally. Cressida halted the scene over and over again. It was a huge drag on the rest of the cast, slowing down everything.

Peeta’s only solace was that Katniss looked as miserable as he felt.

Peeta left as soon as rehearsal ended and headed for the gym. The call sheet had them both in an evening meeting at the studio, and he was going to need to work off some steam before he faced her again.

He should have asked, though, what the meeting was about. Because when he got back to the studio he found Katniss, dressed in leggings and a tiny little tank top, her face bare and so pretty, sitting cross-legged on a gym mat and chatting with a willowy brunette who gave off crunchy granola vibes. “Did I miss the memo about mandatory yoga?” he drawled.

Katniss scowled, but the brunette smiled beatifically. “Hello Mr. Mellark,” she said softly, her voice like windchimes, musical and irritating. “I’m Annie Cresta, your intimacy coordinator.”

Peeta was too confused to make a joke. “My what now?”

Annie laughed. “Intimacy coordinator,” she repeated. “It’s my job to choreograph simulated sex scenes for actors.”

“I think we know how sex works,” Peeta grumbled, and Katniss flushed, obvious without the stage makeup caked on her skin, then looked down at her lap. But Annie was undeterred.

“Of course,” she said gently. “But it’s about more than just choreography. It’s about helping you both to be comfortable, about navigating respect and consent and keeping the set safe.”

Peeta had heard about this, once before maybe, in the wake of the #metoo movement. But he’d never worked with one before. Katniss must have requested it. Figured she couldn’t even trust him to be a professional on the set. “With all due respect, Ms. Cresta,” Peeta said. “I don’t think we need this. We’ve both filmed scenes like this before.” Not with each other, but that was a minor point.

Katniss, to his surprise, looked inclined to agree. Annie just smiled.

“Not negotiable, I’m afraid,” she said. “All of Panem Entertainment’s productions must have an intimacy coordinator on set.” Peeta frowned, they were in the third season of filming, he’d never seen Annie before. As if reading his mind, she nodded. “I worked with Thresh Watts and Rue Lamonte last year.” That scene had been filmed on a closed set, Peeta had seen the finished product, but not any of the lead-up, and it hadn’t occurred to him at the time to ask about it.

Peeta sighed, and resigned himself to having a stranger teach him how to have fake sex with his real ex-girlfriend.

“Have a seat,” Annie said, indicating the mat beside Katniss. Peeta gritted his teeth, but he sat, his knee brushing hers.

She didn’t react.

“Now,” Annie said. “Communication is key.” Peeta snorted, and Katniss scowled at him. Communication. With the woman who had spoken a single word to him in the past 15 days. Sure. "The most important thing is that the people involved feel safe.”

“Why would we feel unsafe?” Peeta interrupted. There was a Cubs game on TV tonight, he’d rather be watching that.

Annie was unperturbed. “You're revealing a lot in a scene, you're going to places where you're vulnerable, and that requires an awful lot of trust," she said, looking pointedly between Peeta and Katniss. He wondered with some annoyance just how much Katniss had revealed to Annie about their situation before he’d walked in. “I have the script, and an outline of how your director wants it to look. But you two will need to talk with each other and with me and say, 'What are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with?'”

“I don’t want kissing,” Katniss blurted, then flushed again. “I mean,” she amended, “I’m not sure I can concentrate on both that and lines and choreography.” Peeta knew that was bullshit, in three seasons he could count on one hand the number of times Katniss had forgotten a line or missed a mark.

She just didn’t want to kiss him. And it stung.

Annie nodded. “We can work around that,” she said. “There will need to be some close up shots of you kissing, but they can be filmed separately from the simulated sex.”

Great, Peeta thought. Their characters had kissed a lot over the past three seasons, but that had been easy. They were both professionals, and kissing Katniss for the camera had been no big deal. Fun, even, in a comfortable, familiar way. Never sexual, there was always too much lipstick and stage makeup to worry about for there ever to be more than a peck. But steady, and comforting.

He doubted it’d be like that now. Or ever again.

“Let’s start with directorial expectations,” Annie began. “I’ve been given a timeline for the scenes and an outline of the specific angles that are expected. The most challenging part, from an intimacy perspective, is likely to be the third, which will be shot side angle with you, Peeta, on top of Katniss and no sheets to shield anything. We’ll have to block arms and leg placements carefully, and it’s likely you’ll both feel very vulnerable.”

Peeta didn’t see how that would be difficult, yet when Annie positioned him kneeling between Katniss’s thighs, a ridiculous little brocade cushion between their bodies, it was incredibly awkward. Katniss couldn’t hide in this position, with their faces only inches apart, and he couldn’t ignore, looking into her silver eyes, just how much he’d lost.

Two hours of rolling around on the floor, blocking arm and hand and leg movements sucked any sexy out of the scene. It felt robotic and contrived and awkward as hell. Katniss, for her part, looked fucking miserable. “Well,” Annie said finally. “I’m sensing some discomfort, so I think we should close for the evening.”

Peeta rolled onto his back on the mat and stared at the ceiling. Why was this so fucking hard? He was an actor, for god’s sake. He’d filmed sex scenes before, and none of them felt this shitty.

“I think we could do with a couple more rehearsals,” Annie said. “I’ll ask Cressida to schedule some.” Just fucking great, Peeta thought.

Annie floated away like an ethereal being. Katniss hung back, maybe to talk with him, maybe just to avoid Annie. But he wasn’t in the mood. He’d been subjected to her stony silences for two days, his heart hurt and his pride was dented and he just needed to get out and lick his wounds.

“Peeta,” Katniss said softly. Peeta held up his hand.

“Not now,” was all he said.

She scowled. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Peeta almost leapt to his feet, his exhaustion morphing into rage. “Look, you haven’t said a damned word to me in weeks, you haven’t even come home for your things, and now you want to talk?” Peeta spat, cringing internally at his use of the word home to describe the house where they’d been living together until two weeks ago.

Katniss looked puzzled, under all of that anger. “Jo said you threw everything away.” Johanna Mason was a mutual… well... not quite friend. Peeta had often accompanied her to awards shows, in the early days of her career when she was concerned that if it got out that she preferred women, it would stop her from getting leading lady roles. She didn’t need to worry about that anymore, she was a bonafide A-lister these days, and her relationship with an adorably bubbly talk show host was in every magazine. But Jo generally had her own unknowable agenda and sometimes she liked to stir up shit just for fun.

“You think I’d do that?” he asked, voice deceptively soft. He might have thought about it, fantasized about it really, when he found out who she was staying with. But he had more dignity than that, and she damned well should know it.

In fact, everything was exactly as she’d left it when she stomped out of their home, out of his life, 15 days ago. Her toothbrush was beside the bathroom sink, her favourite sweater on her favourite chair. A shabby silver-framed picture of her parents nestled between their awards. All of the homey pieces of her life, all of her simple treasures, abandoned.

Katniss shrugged, like she didn’t care, like his worth, his honour, the life they’d built together, was inconsequential, and it just pissed Peeta off more. He hated her ice princess routine, hated how fucking above it all she was. She’d always been good at freezing him out, at making him chase her, but no more. He didn’t have to put up with her stone cold shit.

“Get you crap or I will toss it,” he seethed, walking away. She didn’t call after him, but then she never did.

o-o-o

Haymitch dropped two of the three sex scenes from the script. Peeta should have been relieved, he was relieved. But he also felt sick about it. Like he was destroying his career.

The tension on set was obvious and palpable now, and he knew it looked like he was the cause. Katniss, always quiet, remained quiet. But Peeta couldn’t fake it, once the cameras stopped. Cold didn’t come naturally to him, and too often he veered into mean and snappish.

He had to figure out a way to get past this, to get past his anger, his hurt, and work with Katniss again. But he had no idea how.

Peeta leaned back in his favourite club chair, in the cozy den at the back of his house, and allowed himself to relive that day, the day it had all come crashing down. Until then, he’d thought he had it all, had the world in the palm of his hand. A great job, a comfortable home and the most radiant woman in the world in his bed every night.

Katniss Everdeen had been a child star on a hugely popular sitcom. He knew her only by name when she showed up to screen test with him. He’d been expecting a cute little moppet. Instead, she was a silver-eyed stunner. And right off the bat, he was a goner.

They clicked, in almost every way. Working together was a joy, chatting together between takes a delight. He loved her intelligence and wry sense of humour. They moved from friends to more at breakneck speed, but it never felt too fast.

She was insistent that they keep a lid on their relationship, even when they eventually moved in together. He understood it, her previous relationship, also with a costar, had been documented to death, she’d been hounded and harassed by the paparazzi constantly, even now they followed her everywhere. He didn’t love keeping them a secret, but he loved Katniss, so he acquiesced.

And that day, the day it all fell apart? It was supposed to be a good day, a great day. The first day of their two-week mid-season filming break. They had grand plans to do nothing but each other. Peeta had run a few errands, then stopped by his agent’s office to sign a couple of endorsement contracts.

That’s when the shit started.

“I figured you’d want to hear it from me first,” Finnick Odair, the best agent in the business, said with a grimace. He handed Peeta a tablet. Loaded up was the National Enquirer, his mother’s smirking face beside a promotional shot of Peeta and Katniss, and the headline, ‘It’s Real’. His fucking mother had struck again. It wasn’t the first time she’d sold Peeta out to the tabloids.

“Shit,” Peeta murmured. Not because the headline wasn’t true, it was. But Katniss guarded her privacy with clenched fists, and for two years, they’d barely let anyone in on their secret. Finn knew, but he was very discreet and like he’d said when Peeta had first hired him, he couldn’t protect Peeta unless he knew all of his secrets.

“She’s going to be pissed, huh?” Finn said sympathetically.

He didn’t know the half of it.

Peeta was in a foul temper and all he wanted was his quiet house and a couple of fingers of scotch before he had to deal with Katniss, who was sure to be furious. But no, he wouldn’t even get that. Because Rye was standing at his front door when he arrived home. Peeta groaned, and parked in front of the house, instead of pulling into the garage, where the door he generally entered by was. They’d chosen this place because the gated community was supposed to offer them more privacy and security. He was going to have to talk with the guard at the gate again. Just because Rye looked like his brother didn’t mean Peeta wanted him here.

“Peet,” Rye said genially as Peeta unlocked the seldom-used front door.

“What do you want, Rye?” Peeta really had no time for his brother’s bullshit, not that day of all days, and he hadn’t bothered hiding his annoyance.

“I can’t just pop by to see my little brother?” Rye never came by unless he wanted something. Often it was money. Rye seldom worked, preferring to live off his association with Peeta There were a lot of people in LA who would wine and dine the families of celebrities, looking for an in. Rye had brought him a few abominable scripts over the years from people who’d promised him a big finders fee if he could get Peeta to sign on.

“Cut to the chase, Rye,” Peeta said impatiently. There was a small liquor cabinet in the living room closest to the front door. Not that they ever lived in this room. It was only for show, the place where outsiders were held, away from the parts of the house where they actually did their living.

“Fine,” Rye laughed. “Tell me it isn’t true, little brother,” he said. There was no point pretending Peeta didn’t know what he was talking about. Rye was a terrible gossip hound. Peeta shook his head. “Thank god,” Rye said. “You can do so much better than that. She’s not very big, and definitely not hot.”

Peeta sighed. Rye’s taste in women only included girls who fawned all over him. Katniss would never make that list.

“Where did Mom come up with that idea anyway?” Rye asked, eyeing the single glass Peeta poured with interest. Peeta was not going to offer him a drink. He wasn’t going to do anything that suggested Rye was welcome to stay. “It’s pretty fucking crazy, even for her.”

“I don’t know,” Peeta grumbled. He knew exactly where. She must have listened in on one of Peeta’s calls with his father. His dad was his best friend, Peeta just couldn’t keep secrets from him. But the old man wasn’t always careful when he talked to Peeta.

“Katniss Everdeen. As fucking if. You have much better taste than that,” Rye laughed. “Remember that chick you were with a couple of years ago? The one who was in Playboy?”

“Cashmere Solomon,” Peeta muttered half under his breath. He’s gone out with her twice, and she’d been a nightmare, only interested in what he could do for her celebrity.

“She was hot,” Rye nodded. “I hooked up with her, after.” That was more than Peeta needed to know.

“Look,” Peeta started, an attempt to get rid of Rye, to get back to his plans for a few quiet minutes before Katniss got home and he’d have to have another, very different conversation on this topic.

“Mom’s a mental case,” Rye interrupted. “Like you’d ever stoop low enough to fuck that Everdeen chick. Stuck up little bitch like that? You’ve got more pride.”

“Are we done?” Peeta was bone weary, and not at all in the mood to listen to one of his brother’s diatribes. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tonight.”

“Right, right,” Rye said. Peeta didn’t give a damn whether his brother believed him or not. He started to guide Rye back to the entryway. “I don’t know how Hawthorne puts up with her, “ Rye said. “Rumour has it she’s completely frigid.”

Peeta laughed, he couldn’t help it. Katniss was the furthest thing in the world from frigid, she was a live wire in bed, far and away the best sex of his life. And she had broken up with Gale Hawthorne some four years earlier, but the media still wrote about them as if they were just taking a break.

“Listen,” Rye said, though Peeta was already shepherding him towards the door. “I know this girl, Glimmer her name is. Tits for miles! She’s working on a pilot.” Working on a pilot was LA code for unemployed. “She’s so hot,” Rye continued, oblivious to Peeta’s irritation, “spend a little time with her, I’ll get my pap friend to follow you. That’ll make the Enquirer story go away. Kill any hint of association with that little piece of work.”

“Bye, Rye, Peeta said, pushing his brother through the door.

“Call me,” Rye said, and Peeta slammed the door in his face, flipping the bolt. Idiot. He exhaled slowly, then turned.

Katniss was standing behind him. Shit. How much of Rye’s crap had she heard?

“How could you let him talk about me that way,” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Peeta cringed. Evidently most of it. “What was I supposed to say? You don’t want him to know we’re together.”

“We have to be together for you to defend me?” Katniss asked, incredulous. “Women are only worth defending if you’re fucking them?”

Peeta rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that bullshit,” he said. “You know I’m not like that.”

“Do I?” Katniss was pacing, little mincing steps that would fit on a pie plate. “Sure as hell didn’t sound like it.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Peeta was yelling. He flung his arms wide, expensive scotch sloshed over the edge of his glass, splashed his watch. Just great.

“How about ‘Katniss isn’t a stuck up little bitch’ for starters?”

“Jesus, Katniss, why do you even care? You know he’s an asshole.”

“He said awful things about me, in my own home, and you just stood there and nodded, like you agreed,” Katniss snapped. “That was a total dick move.”

“Well excuse-fucking-me,” Peeta said, “but it’s not even your house.” She lived there, but the lease was in his name. Her official address was an empty condo in Van Nuys, so that people wouldn’t figure out they were shacked up together. He hated the cloak and dagger bullshit, but she’d insisted.

Katniss froze, face twisted in disgust. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “It’s not.”

Before Peeta even had a chance to respond, the door was slamming behind her.

Peeta knew, even before she’d gotten to her car, that he was wrong. But he was angry, angry with his mother, angry with his brother, and pissed as hell that Katniss insisted on hiding, like he was some dirty secret instead of the man she’d been dating for two years.

She didn’t come home that evening. Peeta wasn’t completely surprised. It wasn’t the first time she’d frozen him out. He’d give her the night, then apologize in the morning.

But when morning came, his phone had blown up with texts. TMZ was running a spread of pictures, grainy and obviously through a long lens. Katniss, standing on a balcony, and not alone. With her was Gale-fucking-Hawthorne, her ex. She was locked in his embrace wearing only a robe, while he was in boxers. The gossip sites were having a field day, former lovers reunited.

Peeta, still in bed, dialed his phone. She answered on the second ring, voice hoarse. “Are you with Gale?” Peeta asked with no preamble.

There was the slightest of pauses. “Yes,” Katniss said.

“You couldn’t fucking wait to go rushing back to his bed?” Peeta yelled. “Or maybe you never really left?”

The line died in his hand. It was the last time they’d spoken, until now.

o-o-o

Katniss made no further attempt to talk to Peeta, outside of what they said on the soundstage. She’d doubled down on the ice princess routine, speaking to him in cold, overly formal tones when the cameras weren’t rolling.

Working with Annie Cresta hadn’t gotten any better either, but at least they’d managed to memorise a routine—hand here, thigh there, twist this way, arch like that. Annie insisted it would look a lot more natural than it felt. Peeta wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t care. He just wanted the thing done.

The scene was set for late afternoon, after the rest of principal photography was done for the episode and the lion’s share of cast and crew had left. “Saving the best for last,” Cressida chirped, but no one really believed that.

Katniss had a rider in her contract specifying no nudity, Peeta knew that. He hadn’t bothered with one himself, he didn’t care who saw him, but Katniss had always been uncomfortable baring everything. In other scenes, the production sometimes used a body double for Katniss. But this scene, the scene, would be her and him, on a bed, doing choreographed dry humping. It had to be her, there wasn’t any other choice.

Haymitch wasn’t on set, something Peeta suspected was Katniss’s doing, but he appreciated it. The crew was at a bare minimum, to make it easier for the actors, but it was still a lot of people. Cressida was directing, busily setting up the scene. Two female grips he’d never met before were behind the stationary cameras, two of his favourite camera guys—Castor and Pollox—had the handhelds. Two more grips had the boom mics, a gaffer adjusted the lights, and a set designer, Octavia, was fussing over the bedding, rumpling it in an artistic way that Peeta knew from rehearsal would last about twelve seconds before they destroyed it. Annie, strangely, was nowhere to be seen. He’d thought that, as their intimacy coordinator, she’d be there to coach when they actually filmed. Apparently not.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Cressida called out, affecting a carefree tone. Peeta knew it was an act, an attempt to get all of them to relax. The antagonism and animosity between the two leads wasn’t exactly a secret, not anymore, and the mood on the small soundstage was tense. No one was looking forward to this.

Katniss had seen him naked a thousand times, had touched and stroked and tasted every inch of his body. Still, it was strange, even on a closed set, to be standing in front of her wearing nothing but a sock tied to his dick. She was clutching the edges of her pink silk robe so tightly her knuckles were white, and looking everywhere but at him.

Cinna approached and helped Katniss out of her robe, careful not to disrupt the cascade of windblown curls Peeta knew had likely taken an hour and several cans of product to achieve. Katniss’s hair was naturally pin straight, yet they were always curling it in the show, and she hated it. So focussed was Peeta on her hair that he didn’t notice what she was wearing until Cinna stepped away, leaving Katniss standing beside the bed in a pair of pasties and an adhesive pad that covered her pubic hair and not much else. Peeta couldn’t help but stare. It was far less than he was expecting, Annie had told him Katniss would be wearing a pair of flesh coloured panties and a little tube top over her boobs. “The sides of her underwear showed in the test shots,” Castor muttered in his ear. “Haymitch insisted on that instead.”

For half a minute, Peeta felt really bad for Katniss, knowing her discomfort, knowing what it was costing her to stand under the lights and in front of so many people wearing little more than three bandaids. But then she sighed, and barked, “can we just get this over with?” and any sympathy Peeta felt for her evaporated like spring snow.

The scene opened with them both on the bed. They’d practiced the routine, both on floor mats and on a set bed. But in rehearsal, they’d been clothed, pillows between them to minimise contact.

No longer.

Now, they were essentially naked, skin pressed to skin, staring wide-eyed at each other. She was so soft under him, fit him so perfectly. Her breath—sharp, nervous little pants—caressed his jaw, his throat. Her hands, small but so much stronger than they looked, clutched at this back.

His dick twitched and hardened, he couldn’t fucking help it. They’d fucked a thousand times over the previous two years, he’d always been insanely attracted to her. His dick didn’t know that this time it wasn’t real. He clenched his teeth and kept going. There was no way, positioned as they were, to prevent her from feeling it.

Katniss smirked at him, just a fleeting little hint of amusement, but coupled with his embarrassment at getting turned on when the ice fucking queen clearly felt nothing it was too much. Rage flooded his veins like venom. He sneered down at Katniss, uncaring if the handycam caught his expression. Then he deliberately rocked against her, rubbing his hard cock against her core, only a little strip of fabric and a glorified sock between them.

Her breath caught, a choked little sound.

“Like that, princess?” he spat, lowering his mouth to her ear. “You like knowing that you can still get me hot?”

She moaned softly. It just made him angrier. Was she acting, or actually responding? Was she thinking about Gale while he was grinding against her? Had she always been thinking about him?

The few lines he was supposed to say flew out of his head. “Does your boyfriend get you hot like this?” he groaned instead, anger and lust combining. “Do you moan for him like you did for me?” Her hands, which had been moving through the choreography much more fluidly than in rehearsal suddenly froze. “Does he fill you up as good as I did?”

“Peeta,” Katniss whispered, a hint of warning in her tone. But he was too mad. Mad and heartsick and wildly turned on, it was a potent brew. He couldn’t stop. He ground harder against her, his chest rasping against her breasts, bare but for a pair of stickers. He nipped at her earlobe with sharp teeth, and her gasp was loud over his harsh breaths.

“Do you melt for him, ice princess?” She said nothing, but he didn’t care. He angled his hips and thrust hard, the way he knew she liked. He rocked over and over again, forgetting about the others in the room, lost in Katniss, however fake it might be.

“Do you want to give them a show,” he growled against her throat. “Take off the guard? One last fuck, for old times sake?”

“Stop,” she said, so faintly it was barely a breath. “Please.” Peeta pulled back. Beneath him, Katniss’s eyes were screwed tightly shut, tears leaking from the corners. The anger rushed away, leaving him horrified and utterly ashamed.

He rolled away and climbed off the bed. “Need a break,” he grunted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Katniss had curled onto her side, facing away, naked and vulnerable. The need to comfort her battled with the sick feeling in his gut over how cruel he’d been. How completely unlike himself.

Cressida called out to him, but he didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say. Couldn’t stay another minute on that set.

He pushed past Castor who was staring open-mouthed, the camera on his shoulder still blinking as it ran, and stomped to his dressing room. There, he sank into a chair, the leather sticking to his bare ass. He pulled the modesty bag off his now-deflated cock and dropped his head into his hands.

How had it gotten to this?

How had he gotten to the point where he was tormenting the woman he loved more than life with fake sex on their job site? Bullying her to tears in front of their crew.

He was disgusted with himself. That wasn’t who he was.

He needed to go to Katniss and apologise, for more than just the scene.

Fifteen minutes later, he’d calmed down and thrown on sweats. Katniss’s dressing room door was closed, but he knew she wasn’t in there. He walked past the small set and the little office Annie had used, but he knew she wouldn’t be there either.

Down the hall, past craft services stood the door to the electrical room. It was never locked. Peeta pushed inside. Past all of the clutter and detritus of broken light stands and boxes of cables was another door, narrow and unmarked. A steep set of metal stairs lay beyond it, and at the top a door he had to duck to walk through.

Then he was standing on the roof, a soft Burbank breeze ruffling his hair.

It wasn’t anything special, this part of the roof, gravel-topped and housing the building’s HVAC system. But it was their spot, a place no one else ever went. A place they could find some measure of solitude in the midst of a busy studio. No one ever disturbed them up here.

Katniss was sitting on the low ledge that bisected the roof, wrapped in a robe, her pink silk clad back to him. He knew she must have heard his approach, the gravel beneath him crunched with every step. But she didn’t move, didn’t react as he straddled the cement to lower himself beside her.

She didn’t turn towards him, but she didn’t need to. Her profile said everything: smudged makeup, red nose, puffy eyes. The breeze caught loose tendrils of her hair, blowing them around her face but she was still and silent save for her uneven breaths. An island in a tempest. Her eyes remained fixed on the horizon, past the endless parking lots and low studio buildings to where the sun was sinking low, bathing the sky in soft orange. Her silence wasn’t icy tonight. Pain radiated from every line, every curve.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta started. Katniss nodded, her posture otherwise unchanged. “I was a complete dick in there, and you didn’t deserve any of that. It was inexcusable.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself. “I don’t want to go on like this. Making out for the cameras, then ignoring each other when they’re off. I was hoping that if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at being friends?” It would certainly make their jobs a lot easier.

“I’ve never slept with Gale,” she said softly, and Peeta startled. That wasn’t even possible. She’d run right back to him, was living with him again.

As if reading his mind, Katniss continued. “He’s been a good friend to me, a brother in some ways. But we’ve never had a physical relationship.”

“Bullshit,” Peeta sputtered, conciliatory tone gone. “You were with him for years.”

Katniss glanced at him then, a half smirk twisting her lips. “You were with Johanna for years too,” she said.

“You know that wasn’t real. And Gale isn’t gay.”

Katniss shrugged, and turned back to the horizon.

Peeta continued to watch her. He knew all of her expressions, her every tell. She wasn’t lying.

“Why,” he started, then stopped. That wasn’t the question he really needed an answer to. “You let me think you were together.”

“Maybe I wanted to hurt you,” she whispered. “Like you hurt me.”

Mission accomplished, he thought. He’d been in fucking agony since he saw the TMZ pictures, and the ones that followed; Katniss and Gale riding in his convertible, Katniss and Gale leaving a trendy LA cafe, Katniss and Gale sipping wine on the balcony of his oceanfront estate. It had been a form of masochism, adding her name to his news alerts and reading the day's gossip about her blossoming relationship with Gale Hawthorne.

Could it really have all been fake?

Katniss and Gale had been on the same sitcom as children, had played cousins. So when, years later, they moved in together, of course everyone assumed they were together. They’d certainly never done anything to contradict it.

“You never mentioned that before,” Peeta said quietly. Not that Gale’s name had come up often in their time together, but they’d talked about past relationships, and she’d never said that Gale had been nothing more than a friend. She’d really never said anything about her years with Gale, and that had always made Peeta insecure, wondering if she’d still harboured feelings for him. If she kept their relationship a secret not from the world, but from Gale Hawthorne. Katniss shrugged.

“I didn’t think it would matter. You’re in the business, you know how often dating is just for show.”

He did. But he’d been upfront with Katniss about Jo, he’d never let her think there was anything there. That she hadn’t given him the same respect, hadn’t trusted him, was gutting.

“He kissed me, once,” Katniss said, and Peeta’s stomach clenched in inappropriate jealousy. “I was seventeen. It was the summer after we’d both finished filming Seam Street, but before he got his big break on that superhero movie. Back when we thought we might still be normal.” She was smiling sadly, lost in the moment. “We both gagged,” she continued, and Peeta’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Katniss laughed softly, but it wasn’t at Peeta. It was at whatever she was remembering. “All of those childhood friends to lovers tropes, it definitely wasn’t like that for me and Gale. Kissing him was…” Katniss trailed off, shuddering. “I love Gale, he’s mine, I’m his. But not like that.

“But it didn’t matter. Once the media decided we were together, they invented stories. Every time we went anywhere together, they took pictures and manipulated them to fit whatever story they’d decided to write about us that week.” Katniss sighed, and rubbed her eyes. “We couldn’t have a life, outside of each other. Anytime either of us was seen with another person, the tabloids went crazy. I got my own place, tried to put some distance there. But it didn’t stop.

“And after he started dating Claudia, it all got worse,” she said. “The media, and fans who decided that he and I belonged together, they couldn’t let it go. They hounded her incessantly, called her a homewrecker and things far worse. Trolled her on social media, harassed her family, and anything either of us tried to get them to back off only made things worse. When she finally broke things off with him, he blamed me, at least a bit.” She paused, and sniffled. “It’s why we’ve barely talked over the past few years. First because it bothered Claudia, and then because Gale was so pissed off. It came close to destroying our friendship.”

Peeta sat in stunned silence as realisation washed over him. “That’s why you wanted to keep us a secret,” he said. “You were protecting me.”

“Private,” she said. “Not secret. And that’s what you and I do, protect each other. Or did,” she added softly.

But he hadn’t protected her. Not on the set, and not from his brother’s vitriol.

“I’m sorry,” Peeta said. “I shouldn’t have let Rye talk shit about you. And I shouldn’t have been all defensive when you rightly called me on it.”

She nodded again, but didn’t turn towards him. And he didn’t know how to bridge the gulf. He’d been wrong, on so many levels. But she hadn’t trusted him, and still didn’t. She could have eased so many of his insecurities just by being honest. But she hadn’t.

He wanted to fix things. He wanted to be with her again, this time with more openness and honesty. To build a better relationship, one they both deserved. He wasn’t sure if it was possible with so much hurt between them. But he wanted to try. He just needed to get Katniss on the same page, and he knew from experience that wasn’t likely to be easy.

“We should go back,” Peeta said what felt like an hour later. The sun was almost gone, and though the air still held the perpetual California heat, Katniss was shivering in the breeze. “I’m done being a wounded prick, I promise.”

Katniss turned to him, finally. She still looked so sad, with her red eyes and ruined makeup. His heart clenched. “Cressida called shooting for the day,” she said. “Didn’t think either of us was in a good place to continue.” Haymitch would doubtless be pissed, any disruption in the schedule was tens of thousands of dollars wasted. Peeta sighed, but he knew it was the right call.

“Probably for the best,” Peeta said. “We’re a mess.”

Katniss laughed, just slightly, and Peeta grinned at her. When he extended his hand to help her up, she took it, and it felt so good to feel her fingers entwined with his again, not for show but in actual friendship.

They walked back to the dressing rooms together. “Do you maybe want to get dinner together?” Peeta asked, and he knew he sounded small and uncertain. But to his surprise, Katniss nodded.

“I’d like that,” she said.

They walked out to the lot thirty minutes later, and Peeta led her to his car. She was wearing jeans and a little tank top, her hair pulled back in a no-fuss braid and a pair of sunglasses shielding eyes that still bore traces of the evening’s emotions. She was in every way Katniss, the woman he loved. But he could feel her holding back, feel the stiffness and uncertainty in the way she looked at him, spoke to him. Not intentional, simply reflexive, like she was trying to keep her heart safe. From him. The wall between them loomed large. It was going to take a Herculean effort to break it down.

There was a restaurant, Sae’s, not too far from the house they’d shared. It catered to people like them. The front was nothing so much as a shabby little diner, but in the back were private, windowless rooms where they could have a meal without prying eyes.

Peeta ordered pasta and Katniss got her favourite goat cheese and apple panini. But the way she pushed the food around on her plate spoke to how distressed she still was. Katniss typically ate with gusto, like she was afraid she’d never see food again.

He left her be, keeping conversation light, trying to ease her back into being comfortable with him. Joking with her, the way he always had. She smiled, but it felt hollow. If anything, she seemed to get more sad as the meal wore on. Peeta’s spirits flagged.

He paid the bill, and they headed out the back door. There, he stopped, and pulled Katniss to stand in front of him.

“Talk to me,” Peeta said, voice gruff with guilt.

“About what?” She wasn’t being flippant, if anything, she sounded defeated.

“Katniss,” he sighed. She looked up at him, eyes unfathomable, dark pools in the lamplight. He could tell she was trying to psych herself up to talk. So he leaned against the restaurant wall and waited.

“I’m sorry, okay,” she said finally, and it wasn’t what he was expecting. “I’m sorry that keeping us a secret hurt you. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

Peeta opened his mouth, to say he understood better now, but she pushed on.

“And it didn’t mean I loved you any less.”

“Loved?” Her use of past tense gutted him. “Not anymore?”

In the deep shadows of the single street light, he could see her face crumple. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if shielding herself from another blow. “Does it matter?” Her words were choked, he could hear she was fighting tears again. “I know what you think of me.”

“Katniss,” he said, the word regret-soaked.

“Frigid little ice princess,” she parroted, but there was no anger. Only pain.

“I didn’t mean it,” Peeta said. “I know that’s not you.” She played at being cold sometimes. But underneath, she was a flame, burning bright.

“Everyone thinks that about me. They always have.”

“I don’t,” Peeta said, and he let the pleading come through in his voice, let her hear his own pain. “I know you’re not cold. You’re the girl on fire.” Katniss’s lips twitched at the old nickname, one she’d gotten as a teenager in an action movie. But her heartbroken expression didn’t change. “I was angry, and wounded, and I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said, then she was wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. Peeta pulled her in close and buried his face in her hair. It was the first time he’d felt whole in more than two weeks, like the broken piece of his soul had returned.

Her little body shook against him, he knew she was crying. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her back. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.” It was. He’d make sure of it.

“Just missed you so much,” she muttered. His heart soared.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Please come home.”

She didn’t say anything. But he felt her nod against his chest. And it was enough.

He took her back to his place, to their place. They were both exhausted, emotions raw, and had an early morning call, to redo the evening’s ruined scene. But she climbed into bed beside him, and he held her all night.

They were quiet the next morning, tentative and uncertain around each other, but they were together, and Peeta was committed to making things better, for both of them. He’d be patient. He’d communicate better. He’d lost the love of his life once, he wouldn’t let it happen again.

They climbed back into his car, since hers was at the studio, but as soon as the garage door opened Peeta saw Rye there, waving his phone. Beside him, Katniss tensed, and shrank down into her seat. He could almost smell her pain. Just fucking great. The moron had to show up now, when they had barely started patching things together.

“I’ve been calling you all morning,” Rye said as soon as Peeta stepped out of the car. It was just past eight, Rye didn’t typically get up before noon. Peeta suspected he hadn’t yet been to bed.

“Go home, Rye,” Peeta said. “This isn’t the time.”

“They’re saying this is you and that Everdeen chick,” Rye insisted, shaking his phone in Peeta’s face. Sure enough, on the screen was a dark and blurry shot of him, holding Katniss in his arms. Her face wasn’t visible, but her long black braid and sweet little ass were perfectly recognisable. Fuck. He thought they’d be safe at Sae’s. But he’d been wrong. Again. “I already told the Hollywood Reporter it was fake, that you wouldn’t slum with the likes of that—”

“Shut up!” Peeta roared, and for once, Rye stopped talking. “Katniss is the woman I love, and I won’t listen to you disparage her anymore,” Peeta said. “Now get the fuck out of here and stop fucking talking to the media about me.” Peeta was seething. He was going to make sure that security guard was fired. Maybe his boss too. And his boss’s boss.

Rye backed away, hands held up in supplication. “Sure, yeah,” he said quickly. “I’ll just get out of your hair. We’ll talk more later, yeah?”

Peeta didn’t dignify that with an answer. He spun on his heel, to head back to the car. But Katniss was there already, standing just behind him. She must have heard everything they’d said, and worse, Rye would have seen her there. He flinched, but she just smiled at him, then walked straight into his arms.

“Thank you,” she said.

Fuck. She didn’t need to thank him for defending her, it’s what any decent person would do. “I should have said that last time,” he admitted, tightening his hold on her.

“You said it this time,” she said. Then she stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him.

Relief and disbelief and so much love flooded Peeta. He cupped her ass in his hands and hoisted her into his arms, his lips never leaving hers.

He knew Rye was watching. Knew that some of their neighbours could see them too. “We should go back to the garage,” he whispered between kisses that were growing too hot for the street. “People are watching.”

“Let them,” she gasped. “I don't want to hide how I feel about you. Not anymore.”

He laughed against her lips, and kissed her more.

o-o-o

She was sitting in her favourite chair, a mug of camomile tea forgotten beside her, when Peeta got home. He glanced at the television glowing on the wall and groaned. “Access Hollywood? Really?” Katniss, his Katniss, was watching the creme de la creme of shitty tabloid TV.

Their relationship had been dissected endlessly by the gossip shows in the four months since they’d been outed, first by his attention-seeking mother, then by a slightly risqué public display of affection in front of their house that had been captured on cellphone video by multiple sources. Peeta understood so much better now why Katniss had tried so hard to avoid unwanted exposure. He was sick to death of the coverage.

But they were handling it together.

“Shhh,” she said, grinning. “They’re discussing whether we really did the deed while shooting Allium and Barley’s big scene.” Peeta glanced back at the television. The banner read 15 Times 'Love' Scenes On Screen Were Real.

“Oh my god,” Peeta groaned, and sank into the chair beside Katniss’s, covering his face with his hands.

The day after their disastrous first attempt at filming, they’d gone back to the set and found Haymitch waiting for them. The crusty old bastard had actually apologised for putting them in such a shitty position, and told them he’d take the scene out, make it a fade to black.

“No,” Katniss had said, silver eyes brighter than they’d been all week. “The script needs the scene. Our fans need it. And we’re ready this time.”

The second attempt had been so much better. It was still awkward, the choreography still felt strange. One of her pasties came unstuck and ended up caught in his chest hair. Twice they had to cut filming when Katniss started giggling.

Peeta had been loath to watch it, once it’d been edited. Afraid to reopen the barely healing wounds. But the end result, just as Annie promised, looked real. The cameras caught their very real joy at being reunited, their very real love for one another. And those things made the very fake sex look like something more.

They’d filmed several more sex scenes over the course of finishing the season, each easier than the last. Communication, it turned out, did make the scenes less awkward. And it helped with their real relationship too.

But the first scene, the one that Peeta still cringed thinking about, that episode had aired just days ago.

The television sound cut off abruptly and Katniss burst into laughter. Peeta peeked out from between his fingers. Frozen on the big screen was a shot of Peeta’s ass in all of its hi-def glory, and Mario Lopez was pointing to a spot just between his thighs where apparently a hint of nutsack had been caught by the camera.

Well that brought unwanted exposure to a whole new level.

Peeta groaned. “I’m putting a nudity rider in my next contract,” he mumbled.

#everlark #bang #xerxia writes #this one is a little out there #but what can I say?#and I make no apologies for naming him Barley

196 notes · View notes

katnissmellarkkk · 3 years ago

Text

Andddd here’s my chappy three thoughts 🥳🥳🥳

Hmmm Katniss saying that her mother has a dress made of velvet is actually really interesting because it shows that Mrs. Everdeen Lily-Rose really was well-er off before she married Katniss’ father Hunter.

Or did she get the velvet dress from Maysilee? Oh well, who knows.

Aww, Katniss’ nervous habit of touching soft things repeatedly to soothe herself 🤧🤧.

“Crying is not an option. There will be more cameras at the train station.” — someone tell that to Peeta 🤣🤣🤣.

Okay I gotta stop picking on Primmers, I know but like. How small is she that she sits on Katniss’ lap like a toddler but then in the following year is the same height as her? Doesn’t matter I know but still I wonder.

Okay so Mrs. E is the doctor for the people of the Seam? Idk I never thought about this but who does people like Peeta or Madge or Delly go to if they’re sick or hurt? Is there a still running apothecary shop that Katniss never mentions? Are her grandparents still running the family biz?

Also okay, I gotta stop having so many thoughts on all the lil details I know but like. Katniss says here she’s familiar with the herbs her mother doesn’t grow on her own so like a). Katniss is more of a healer than she leads on because no average person knows what kind of plant is medicinal and b). Her mother is just growing herbs and Katniss never mentions it again in the whole series? Or I just missed it.

Okay imma move on from this one singular paragraph but Gale and her made a pact a year ago that they’ll supply each other’s family with game if they were to be reaped... I’m feeling like their close friendship is probably only one year old then? Idk. Just my interpretation.

Honestly I love Katniss getting mad at her mom here.

She’s sixteen, for God’s sake, of course she’s angry at what her mother’s illness put her through.

Also I lowkey like that her mother got mad back because that lady in the movies had zero personality.

“Boys who are two to three times my size.” She sounds so little, omg 🥺🥺🥺.

“I don’t care if we’re rich, I just really want you to come home” 🤧🤧🤧😩😩😩😩 okay Primmers, you got me here.

“the Peacekeeper is at the door, signaling our time is up, and we're all hugging one another so hard it hurts and all I'm saying is ‘I love you. I love you both.’ And they're saying it back...” this is so sad leave me be 😫😫😫😫

Katniss is burying her face in a pillow to block out her emotions this is too much for me 🥵🥵🥵

Omg I forgot Peeta’s father visits Katniss 😅

Why does he visit Katniss?

She describes Peeta’s father as a “big, broad-shouldered man.” And then describes Peeta as stocky. Idk the comparison of the two descriptions has always led me to think Peeta is gonna be a big dude when he grows up like his father. This made no sense and had zero correlation but I thought, so I said it, no regrets

Oh he brought her cookies 🤧

WAIT WAIT WAIT. I just had a new thought, y’all. What if instead of the baker bringing cookies being a thing he does for all tributes, what if he’s bringing the cookies because Peeta asked him to, because he made them and wants to give them to Katniss and knows she’ll never accept / trust them coming from her competition? What if that’s the real reason the baker visited her in the first place? Because Peeta asked him to? This was such a shipper comment but idc, no regrets, remember?

Omg Peeta’s father is just mute 🤣🤣🤣

Between an abusive, angry mother and a mute for a father, the Mellark brothers must have had a fairytale of a childhood 😅😅😅😅.

But seriously #PoorPeetaMyBaby

Aww Peeta’s father is gonna help keep Prim alive 😭

Omg I just remembered he’s her mother’s ex boyfriend. Haidon Mellark, as I named him in my fics.

That one fic where he was thought to be Prim’s real father is just playing now in my head, rent free.

But does Katniss not realize that he may be offering to help Prim as a favor to her? Like she claims Prim is just so wonderful people adore her but there’s like zero evidence in the text that make her endearing? Okay I need to turn this bus around, I need to find a love for Primmy Deen.

Madge is not one for preamble apparently. No “hi, how are you? I’m sorry you’re gonna die? What will your last meal be?” Just right to “here, wear this family heirloom of mine, k thanks.”

I like that Madge had to kiss her cheek for Katniss to realize they were friends 😅😅😅.

I remember always loving her and Gale’s hug here. I’ve always felt like it was platonic, but especially when I first read the books and had zero preference one way or another for Gale or Peeta, I really liked how she said even with nothing romantic between them, “when he opens his arms, I don’t hesitate to go to him” or something I’m paraphrasing ok I’m lazy

Also though, this is the first time they’ve ever hugged? Idk why that surprises me? It shouldn’t because where is a hug gonna fit into a hunting trip 😅🤣😂 “I just caught a deer!” “let’s celebrate with a hug!”

I like that Katniss remembers how her father even failed to make a good bow sometimes. Random, I know.

I like that the Capitol weren’t entertained by the people freezing to deaths because it wasn’t bloody enough 🤭🙃

“How different can it be [to kill a human vs an animal]?” She’s about to find out, Gale 🥺. And when she comes back you won’t understand 🙄😔

What did Gale want to say before the Peacekeepers dragged him away?

I used to think it was a confession of love but I’m actually sure it wasn’t now? Just the wording “remember I-“ doesn’t sound like it, considering he never confessed anything prior to her coming home.

I’m assuming now he was just gonna give her some more advice to stay alive 🤷🏼‍♀️. Clearly if it were relevant it would have made its way to the others books.

Aww, she’s never been inside a car before 😭😭. I didn’t even know they had cars in this universe but okay.

I notice though how she says “In the Seam, we travel on foot.” So is Peeta just riding his trolly down the street every day with the other merchants then? 🤣

Peeta just openly crying on camera 😅😢.

I like how Katniss is like “ooo is this an act to get sponsors?” when in reality Peeta’s like “no, I’m just a soft and genuine boy ™️”

Omg I just realized this totally goes along with Peeta’s thing later on “I want to die as myself”

He’s refusing to hold back his emotions because he thinks he’s doomed to die and he’s already refusing to pretend to be or feel something ingenious.

But a Johanna mention in book 1 chapter 3 woohoo 🥳🥳🥳 also Katniss comparing Jo and Peeta is kind of like foreshadowing of their shared torture in book 3.

Omg she just called Peeta broad-shouldered and strong. 🥰🥰🥰 my headcanon for his post-canon body is confirmed

Also why does Katniss keep allotting his strength to carrying bread trays around? Are they heavy? Why have I never once heard of people who carry bread trays being strong? I always thought Peeta was really strong because he learned to fight in order to defend himself against his mother but that’s probably wrong.

But if a mother is abusive, it can lead to one of the kids being physically violent as well and we know Peeta isn’t but he has two older brothers I’m gonna cut myself off now but I think we all smelled what I just stepped in.

Also I just find it so fascinating now how she regards herself vs Peeta here.

When talking about herself, she says, “The competition will be far beyond my abilities. [...] Oh, there'll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins.” But when she talks about Peeta, she immediately says, “It would take an awful lot of weeping to convince anyone to overlook him.”

It’s just funny how she discounted herself right from the start but thought he was a real contender and then come to find out, Peeta believes it’s the exact opposite 😂🙃. They’re both so stupid I can’t even take it.

Wait did they actually give the location of the Capitol and the location of District Twelve in today’s world? And I just overlooked it? Brb I’m gonna go to google maps right quick.

Okay so basically what I gathered is the Capitol is probably in New Mexico and District Twelve is somewhere between Kentucky and Alabama. Irrelevant I know. But just a reminder now to everyone that Katniss and Peeta are literally speaking, crying and screaming in thick, backwoods southern accents.

It’s literally so sad how everything for Katniss is about food. Like every motive she has, every action she does is about preventing starvation ever again. 🤧🤧🤧

First mockingjay mention 🤭🤭.

“My father was particularly fond of mockingjays” 😭😭😭 I bet he was 😭😭😭😭

We always go on and on about how Katniss is a mockingjay or her children are mockingjays but Katniss herself here says mockingjays represent her father imma cry, y’all 😫😫😫😫

“It’s like having a piece of my father with me, protecting me” shut up shut up shut up shut up

Awww, Katniss has never had food like this before 😔😔😔

Neither has Peeta 🤧🤧

Katniss disliking the way Effie put the two kids from the year before down and so began to eat like a pig just to prove her point, is so her. And the beginning of her fighting for the underdog.

Omg the Rue introduction 🥺🥺🥺

Bahahahaha the commenters calling District Twelve backwards but charming 😅😅😅 they really are the hillbilly district

Peeta’s unexpected laugh 🥺🥺🥺 I love you, baby

“He was drunk. He’s drunk every year.” “Every day.” Katniss and Peeta are already finishing each other’s sentiments and teaming up to get on Effie’s nerves I love them so much 😍

Oh my God, Effie, you selfish jerk. They’re kids having fun for like one second, no need to throw in their faces they’re gonna die if the drunk won’t help them. I’d forgotten why I don’t really like the book version of her. I actually prefer her as comedic relief in the movies.

I actually just realized I really dislike Effie Trinket, I hope they never speak to her again Post-Mockingjay. Idc how you’re raised you don’t need to treat teenagers who are sentenced to a probable death badly just because they laughed at you 🙄🙄🙄😡😡😡😡. They didn’t even really laugh at her, she’s just annoying and awful, we don’t stan Effie in this household.

Okay, that’s all for my thoughts on chapter three! Until next time, y’all ! If anyone actually read this long mess of a post.

#thgagain #this is so long I’m sorry #also yes I’m gonna use a Jennifer gif again

40 notes · View notes

jlalafics · 4 years ago

Note

#16 “Are you hurt?” “No.” “Then why are there bruises all over your face?”

And now for some teen Everlark...

“You want him to notice you, right?” Johanna, her cousin, asks. “The first thing is that you have to make him see that you’re a girl.”

Johanna is a seventeen, a good four years older than Katniss. She’s popular and pretty—her dark magnetic eyes capturing the eyes of many boys in the senior class. However, it isn’t just that; her cousin exudes a confidence and allure that she could only dream of imitating.

“What do you think I should do?” Katniss asks over the phone.

Downstairs, her mom and dad are getting ready to head next door to help the Mellarks set up for the party. Prim, her three-year-old sister, is already is there, playing with Delly, who is Rye Mellark’s girlfriend and the Everdeens go-to babysitter.

“Well…have you tried some makeup?” Johanna suggests kindly. “Some lipstick…eyeshadow…blush?”

“I don’t know how to put any of that stuff on!” Katniss tells her in a panic.

“Do you have magazines? Seventeen? Teen Vogue?”

“No, I’ve never really been interested in them,” Katniss admits. She’s seen the other girls in class looking through issues of Seventeen, but those kinds of magazines didn’t interest her as much as the life cycle of a frog or the works of the Brontë sisters. “I’m just not like the other girls. I’m different…I don’t even know why I’m trying.”

“You like him a lot, don’t you?” Johanna muses over the phone. “Okay, why don’t you gather a few things from your mom’s makeup stash? I’ll guide you over the phone.”

“Okay,” she readily agrees.

“So, you’re going to need some eyeshadow, blush, and maybe a nude lipstick…”

++++++

Katniss practically skips over to the Mellarks, an hour later.

It might’ve taken a few tries, but she had managed to follow Johanna’s careful instructions.

Now, she’s a new person—in a butterscotch baby doll dress and brown ankle boots—as she opens the door and steps into inside the Mellark home. She’s spent most of her childhood there and they always leave the door unlocked, in case she wants to hang out with the boys.

All the adults are gathered in the living room, chatting over coffee and her mom spies her first.

“Katniss—OH!” Her eyes widened and she shoots up from her spot next to her husband to join Katniss in the entryway. “You look…different.”

“I borrowed some of your makeup,” Katniss says. “Are you upset?”

“No, sweetheart,” her mom replies. “But uh…how did you know what to do?”

“Johanna taught me over the phone,” she tells her.

There’s a series of stomps as Rye and Delly come downstairs. In Delly’s arms is Prim, who squeals at seeing Katniss. As the couple get to the final steps, their eyes zero in on Katniss and they immediately freeze.

“Who did this?” Rye asks immediately, concern in his eyes.

He’s always been protective of Katniss, seeing her as a little sister. Katniss can understand why a new look might make him worry about her getting some attention.

“Katniss has decided to try a new look,” her mom informs the couple hurriedly. “Doesn’t she look like a whole new woman?”

“Oh yeah!” Delly walks over to her, a tight smile on her face. “I have a lipstick that would go great with it. Why don’t we go upstairs—”

The conversation is interrupted by a group of boys coming from the backyard. Vick and Gale Hawthorne, who live across the street, are arguing over the right way to pitch, their catching mitts on, while Evan, Delly’s younger brother follows behind with Pe—

“Whoa.” Vick stops in front of her. “What happened to your face?”

Gale puts a finger to her carefully applied blush. “Are you hurt?”

Katniss swipes his finger away. “No.”

Vick peers even closer. “Then, why are there bruises all over your face?” He steps back. “Is that makeup?” He begins to cackle loudly. “I think you went a little overboard—”

“Vick.” Mrs. Hawthorne has suddenly joined them, eyes hard. “Why don’t you go home?”

“What did I do?” he yowls.

“You didn’t learn the proper art of subtlety,” Rye growls, leading the boy out the door.

“Katniss?”

She turns at the soft, kind voice to find Peeta Mellark approaching her, his luminous blue eyes gazing at her in worry.

“Hi, Peeta,” she greets him with a nervous smile. “Happy birthday.”

Katniss tries to tap down the excitement of Peeta seeing her new look.

Maybe now, he’ll see her as more than his teammate on the softball team. She might not be as developed as some of the other girls in class, but he can’t deny that she’s not a girl, especially with her new makeover.

“So, you’re going for a new look?” he asks.

She wants to say it’s all for him, but instead just nods in nervousness.

Katniss has to know. “Do you like it?”

There’s a panicked expression on his handsome face and his pallor goes scarlet.

“It’s…interesting,” he finally tells her.

Something sinks at the look in his eyes. “You hate it.”

Katniss can feel her face begin to crumble and she heads towards the door, stopping suddenly when she catches her reflection in a mirror next to the door.

She’s hideous.

The brown eyes shadow is spread too thick on her lids, some of it has traveled under her eyes making her look bruised. The blush is streaked on her cheeks; she looks like she’s been slapped on both sides and the lipstick makes her look ghoulish.

Katniss should have listened when Johanna said less was more.

Throwing the door open, she rushes out, slamming it behind her and barely making it home before bursting into tears.

++++++

She’s getting ready to go to bed, sans makeup, when there’s a knock on the door.

Her mom steps in, giving her a gentle smile. “Now, there’s my girl.”

“I’m not a little girl,” Katniss bristles, sitting on her bed, and crossing her arms. “Not like anyone even notices.”

“I’ve noticed,” her mom replies, joining her, and putting an arm around Katniss’ shoulders. “Maybe I’ve just been in denial because I’m not ready to let go. You’re my first baby.”

“I’m tired of people not seeing me,” Katniss tells her.

“People see you.” Her mom lifts her chin. “You have no idea the effect you have on people.”

Katniss looks to her. “What do you mean?”

“There’s someone who wants to see you on our porch.” Her mom stands and tugs her up. She quickly undoes Katniss’ braid, combing her fingers through to define her daughter’s waves. Then her mom goes to her closet, grabbing her long burgundy cardigan. “It’s chilly, so wear this.”

She eyes her mother. “Okay.”

“Don’t stay out too long,” her mom replies with a slight grin. “Your dad won’t be too happy.”

Together, they leave her bedroom, separating at the stairs so her mom can go check on Prim.

Downstairs, her dad is in the living room. He looks to her, warmth in his gaze.

“Give him hell, sweetheart,” he advises with a wink.

Katniss nods her head before going to the front door, opening it then stepping out.

Peeta is standing on the porch, hands in his pockets. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You left my birthday party,” he replies. Going to a corner of the porch, he reaches down and grabs a small white box. “I didn’t want to blow out all my candles without my best friend.”

“Oh.” Katniss tries to hide the sting of disappointment at the word ‘friend’ even though it’s attached to such a magnanimous title. So instead, she sits down on the steps and pats the spot next to her. “Alright then. Let’s blow out your candles.”

Peeta sits down, opening the box and revealing a single cupcake—chocolate with buttercream icing, her favorite—with a candle sticking up on top.

“Before I light this,” Peeta begins. “Why did you suddenly decide to wear makeup? I mean, it’s not something that I thought you were interested in—"

“Because you don’t see me as a girl, I get it,” she interrupts in frustration.

“No!” Peeta lets out a frustrated breath before turning to her. “I know you’re a girl…a lot of people know you’re a girl…a lot of guys, specifically.”

Katniss shakes her head. “No one ever looks at me—”

“Because I tell them not to! Because you’re not some piece of meat that they can ogle when you walk by with your hips swaying…” Even in the darkness, she can see his reddened cheeks. “…I’ve always seen you as a girl and I hate that other guys are starting to notice. Because…uh…I mean…I…um—”

She takes his hand, worried that he’ll start to heave. Knowing Peeta, he’s probably forgotten his inhaler at home.

“Take a breath and continue,” she says.

“Because I always thought of you as just mine,” he admits quietly. “Since that day in Kindergarten when you sang the Valley Song in front of the class. You were so brave. And I always thought that maybe you were singing for me…”

“I was.” Katniss’ mouth rises in a soft smile. “I’ve always been singing for you.”

Peeta’s own mouth bursts into a wide grin.

“Good—I mean, I’m happy that we are…and it was…just for me.” Anxiously, he runs a hand through his golden locks as he pulls out the lighter from his pocket. “Why don’t we just blow out the candle?”

“What about singing ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Everyone already sang it, and it was ruined because you weren’t there,” he tells her. “So, it’s okay.”

“I’ll just sing another song.”

Katniss searches her head for the perfect tune. Suddenly, a song comes to mind.

Her mother once said that it reminded her of Katniss in some way. At the time, she laughed it off.

How could Vanessa Williams have any insight on the life of one Katniss Everdeen?

Now, as she sits face to face with Peeta, Katniss realizes that her mother understands her more than she realizes.

She looks to Peeta. “Don’t laugh, okay?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “I’d never laugh at a serenade.”

Katniss shakes her head in amusement before clearing her throat and singing out:

“Sometimes the snow comes down in June

Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon

I see the passion in your eyes

Sometimes it's all a big surprise…”

She closes her eyes, realizing how much she relates to the lyrics and that maybe there are other people out there who wish for the kind of love that she wants from Peeta. The kind where your first love can become your last love.

Her mother always said that she was much too wise for her age.

Her eyes open to find Peeta in rapt attention, and their eyes meet, his own soft and filled with something that makes her ache.

“Sometimes the very thing you're lookin' for

Is the one thing you can't see…”

He is suddenly sitting much closer, so close that she can count every little freckle along his cheeks…every little eyelash…

Katniss swallows down her nervousness and continues her song.

“But now we're standing face to face

Isn't this world a crazy place?

Just when I thought our chance had passed

You go and save the best for last…”

There’s a moment of quiet and her hand covers his.

“Happy birthday, Peeta.” She takes the box in his grasp along with the lighter and lights the candle. “Make a wish.”

Peeta gives her a small smile before blowing out the candle.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you wished for,” Katniss jokes.

He shakes his head. “I can show you.”

“How—”

Peeta suddenly cups her face between his hands and presses his lips to hers.

He tastes of sugar.

Her own hand reaches to the nape of his neck as she tilts her head to slot her lips closer to his.

It is everything Katniss could have ever hoped for in a first kiss.

Reluctantly, they pull apart, panting, and grinning.

“That’s what you wished for?”

Peeta nods, still breathless. “That and a chance to take you to the movies tomorrow night.”

“Alright,” she agrees immediately. “I think I know what I’m going to wish for my next birthday.”

Peeta puts an arm around her, pulling her to his side. “What?”

“For Peeta Mellark to be my boyfriend.”

He beams. “I think you’re going to get that before your birthday.”

++++++

“How long am I going to allow him to be out there?”

“Theo, stop peeking out,” his wife tells him. “It’s creepy.”

“Suze, they’re out there feeding each other cupcake pieces like newlyweds!” The man turns to his wife. “Why did you allow this? I thought I would have more time before fending off a boyfriend!”

“It was going to happen, anyway,” she replies easily. “Give them five more minutes.”

“And then I can turn the sprinklers on them?”

Suzie Everdeen shakes her head at her husband. He has conveniently forgotten that they had gotten together when they were around Katniss’ age.

And they never looked back.

For now, she’ll give him this one thing.

“Fine.” She kisses her husband’s cheek. “I’m going to bed.”

Less than five minutes later, Suzie hears the screams of the young couple as they are soaked by the new power sprinklers that Theo installed last week.

FIN.

Song: “Save The Best For Last”—Vanessa Williams

#19fundiesandcounting #teenage angst #teen!Everlark #Everlark #Everlark Fanfiction #Fic request

128 notes · View notes

seasonsofeverlark · 4 years ago

Text

you & I (just meant to be)

Author: @rosegardeninwinter

Prompt: This silly, silly ditty was inspired by two (count ‘em! two!) lovely prompts which are as follows “Peeta can’t stop staring at Katniss in her costume :0” and “Everlark meeting at a fancy dress party dressed as a ‘matching’ pair, although they don’t each other - maybe a famous couple but who don’t need the other … Joker and Harley Quinn, Batman and Robin or my favorite: Anna and Elsa from Frozen … Peeta would make a wonderful Anna” - I thought these two went well together, and took a couple of creative liberties to make them jive. Hope you lovelies like! [submitted by @deardiaryithinkiamaghost and @wendywobbles]

Rating: T, for implied Everlark shenanigans

Author’s Note: Thank you to my dear @archersandsunsets for her second pair of eyes on this one and to all the lovely moderators and coordinators of @seasonsofeverlark, the true MVPs. It’s been a busy month, so I apologize for any incoherence. Sometimes, the heart just wants goofy modern AU fluff. Alrighty, Chatty Cathy is done … enjoy!

____________

“Katniss, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Prim exclaims, though it sounds pretty pathetic with her congested, pinked nose. “You make the perfect ice queen!”

“I don’t think that’s usually a compliment,” Katniss says dourly, plopping down on the couch where her sister is situated with several fuzzy blankets, a box of tissues, and a large bowl of ice cream. She can’t taste it very well, but it’s the spirit of the thing that counts. Prim is in denial.

“I wish I could go,” she whines, holding the “o” in a long, dramatic note.

“I wish I could stay,” Katniss shoots back, holding the “ay” just as long.

“No you don’t,” Prim shoos. “You love our friends.”

“I do,” Katniss sighs, plucking at the silver sequined sleeves of her—well, Prim’s—Elsa costume. It’s too long on Katniss, with her sister’s good half inch on her, but it’s all they’ve got. Her original plan was to pull the classic black top and pants plus cat ears, but when it became apparent Prim wasn’t budging from the couch this Halloween, the real snowy blonde princess of the family had insisted Katniss take her outfit.

“You can’t show up to Finnick’s in a slapdash, last second costume, Katniss,” she’d said. “The man lives for Halloween. Don’t insult his extravagance with plastic headbands and tails.”

“I do love our friends, but … I don’t want to go out tonight. I’m tired.”

“Just half an hour,” Prim says. “Snag me some candy, make some pleasantries” — “okay, Jane Bennet” — “and then come home. At least one of us needs to show up. Just pretend to have a social life for thirty minutes, okay? For me.”

Katniss rolls her eyes as she gets up from the couch in a twinkling of blue overlay and snowflake hair pins in her braid. She does a quick once over of her shadowy makeup in the hallway mirror as she grabs her car keys. “What do you want?”

“Chocolate. Anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I’ll save it for when I can experience taste again,” Prim calls back. “Oh, and if Delly’s cousin is there, all of the cupcakes he brought.”

“Mmkay. All the chocolate and cupcakes, coming right up,” Katniss says with a resigned smile. On her way out, she clicks on her phone. It’s just now eight. She resolves to be firmly ensconced in bed by nine at the latest. She gives her sister a wave, keys jangling. “I’ll be back. Soon.”

At ten thirty, Prim looks up from her Harry Potter induced doze to find she’s received a text from her sister.

Staying a little later. Fifteen minutes maybe. Have the treats.

Prim checks the time stamp. The text was sent forty five minutes ago. This might be cause for alarm were it not for the text underneath Katniss’s, from Finnick. It’s a photo, taken in front of a makeshift photo op with purple and silver and orange streamers in the background and cutesy little bat and pumpkin and vampire fang cardboard props for people to hold up. It’s captioned “You can’t marry a man you just met!”

Prim brings her hand to her mouth to catch a laugh before it turns into a cough. Her sister, Elsa costume sparkling in the flash, is pretending to shake her finger disapprovingly at her “Anna” counterpart. The laugh breaks free this time. Prim grabs for her tepid tea to soothe her throat as she cracks up over the really incredible image of Peeta Mellark, Delly Cartwright’s stocky older cousin, in a red braided wig, and strikingly accurate green rosemaled gown, sitting quite comfortably, if amusingly, over his athletic build. He’s pretending to gripe back at Katniss about why exactly he can marry Hans of the Southern Isles. Their mock scowls barely contain smiles.

Prim quickly fires a text back to Finnick: How??? Did that happen???

Finnick’s text comes through a second later: The Lord works in mysterious ways! Idk!

Okay but like?? Yes??

I know!!!!

Some people are worth melting for????

Her cold never bothered him anyway? *finger guns*

Omg.

Katniss arrives back at the house at five to midnight, and Prim pretends to be asleep, watching with one eye cracked half open as her sister unstraps her silver heels and dumps them by the front door, drops her keys into the bowl. Sets down a full bag of what Prim can only guess are cupcakes and sweets.

She’s humming under her breath. It sounds like the chorus of “Love is an Open Door.” Prim wonders if it’s possible that her folk and indie music loving sister actually listened to a Disney album on the way home. Katniss unbraids her hair and shakes it loose, dropping the pins on the side table as she sinks into the squashy chair kitty-corner to Prim’s couch. She curls up, knees to chest, making her look like some sort of ice mermaid as she takes out her phone and taps something on it, still humming. Prim watches her chew her cheek pensively, as if deciding to send the text. She takes a deep breath and taps one final time on the screen, then drums her phone nervously against her lips for a moment. Prim’s nerves are firing with anticipation.

They wait a silent minute. Two. Three. Three and a half —

Katniss’s screen lights up again and she flips the phone up to stare at the reply. Her whole face softens. Eyes, brow, edges of her mouth. Katniss bites her lip and closes her eyes, letting her head fall back onto the chair cushion with a contented sigh. “‘You know what’s crazy?’” she sing-songs in a mumble under her breath. “‘We finish each other’s sandwiches … I’ve never met someone who thinks so much like …” She yawns. “Me.”

“You know,” Prim says, and Katniss shrieks, sending her phone flying to the carpet, “Peeta Mellark strikes me more as a Kristoff than a Hans.”

“Prim!” Katniss yelps, going red. “Wha — what? What do you mean?”

“So we’re done with stupid plastic cat ears for Halloween then I take it?”

[the very next Halloween]

“Whoa. Okay.” Peeta sits up from the pile of cushions at the head of their bed, eyes wide and staring in approval, pupils gone dark. “Katniss Everdeen in cat ears is not something I knew I needed until this moment.”

“Oh sure,” Katniss laughs. “Because it’s definitely the cat ears that are doing it for you. Not these.” She hoists one stockinged leg up onto the bed like a mountain climber posing for a magazine.

“Well, those are certainly part of the appeal,” he teases, reaching for her leg, running his hands up and down the silk tights. “As is this lovely number.” He toys with the hem of her dress, a strapless black velvet thing that falls just above her knee. “Where’s this from?”

“Jo,” Katniss sighs. “She says if I’m going to be a cat, I need to be a Gretchen Wieners level cat.”

“For whose benefit, I wonder?” Peeta muses, cheek nuzzling gently at her lower thigh.

“You wonder?” Katniss laughs, taking her leg away and flopping onto the bed. She glances over at him, eyes sly and somehow soft at once. “I don’t.”

“I can’t help thinking,” he muses. “that this is something of a counterproductive plan on Jo’s part. Because now, I have a sudden and distinct interest in staying in tonight.”

“Oh?” Katniss raises a come hither eyebrow and pushes up on her elbows to accept the kiss he plants on her lips as he crawls over her, urging her back to the headboard. “Is it the cat ears?” She reaches up to give the (already molting) plastic and faux fur ears a flick.

“The Kat ears,” he says. He nips softly at her real ear and she shivers. “The Kat nose.” He kisses that too. His nose nudges her head back, inclining her neck at the perfect angle for him to plant a stretch of kisses down it. “The Kat neck.” His mouth wanders down the front of her dress and he scoots down the bed with it. “The Kat’s cradle.”

“You have that,” she says, hiking her legs up to hug around his middle because her arms can’t reach to hold him. “You’ll always have that.”

“A piece of that Kit Kat bar.” He kisses her stomach. “The whole Kit and Caboodle,” he teases and she laughs loudly, but on a dime his tone is changing, from silly and playful into husky and dangerous, as he moves lower. “Kitten,” he murmurs and her fingers curl in the bedsheets at the name. “Grab my phone,” he tells her, hooking his fingers around the band of her tights, “Tell Finnick we’re going to be late.”

An hour or so later finds the cat ears lost somewhere among the remains of their costumes and a hasty snack of pepperoni rolls cooking in the convection oven. Peeta, festooned in boxers and an old apron, presides over the food like it needs a baker’s supervision. Katniss perches on the counter, wrapped chest to toes in the white sheet she pulled from their bed, feet batting absently at the cabinets.

“This is a good look too,” he tells her, gesturing with the salad tongs he’s using to handle the pepperoni rolls.

“What is? This sheet?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of sexy ghost.”

“Or sexy Roman senator,” she laughs, tossing one edge of the sheet over a bare shoulder. “Sexy Julius Caesar.”

“You’d make a good Julius Caesar,” he says.

“Why?”

“You’ve got that “came, saw, conquered” vibe. Least that’s how I felt that night at Finnick’s party.”

“Conquered?”

“I was gonna say seen, but — yes. Conquered too. I couldn’t stop looking at you.” He snaps his fingers. “Sexy ice queen? Definitely.”

“I’m not exactly sure what kind of Freudian analysis one could make on falling in love with the guy dressed as your fictional sister but — ”

Peeta shrugs as the timer beeps, and he sets to fishing the pepperoni rolls onto a plate for them to share. “I choose to think of it as a metaphor for how the two people you love most in the world are your real, actual sister …” He sets the rolls beside her on the counter and sets his hands gently on her sides. She lets the sheet fall and pool slightly around her waist to cup his face as he leans in to kiss her forehead, very gently, thumbs rubbing circles on her hips. “And some loser who has the luck of … oh, I guess having the same first initial and hair color as she does,” he jokes.

“And the same beautiful heart,” Katniss corrects in a whisper. “I mean that.” She’s rarely so sentimental to anyone except him. She smirks. “And I haven’t even started drinking yet.”

“Well, my pretty kitty,” he starts, wrapping both his arms around her middle and hoisting her off the counter. She rolls her eyes, even as her hands card through his hair. “The night is still young.”

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #autumn #autumn 2020 #rosegardeninwinter #submission #octoberlark 2020 #octoberlark

129 notes · View notes

hutchhitched · 4 years ago

Text

So Wrong, So Fast

Written by: @hutchhitched

Prompt 79: Peeta has been planning this marriage proposal for months. It goes horribly wrong. Tell me all about it and what happens next? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Ratings/Warnings: T

A/N: I’m continuing to post the nine @everlarkficexchange prompts I took and then sat on throughout the early months of the pandemic. This is the fourth of the nine. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy. Huge thanks to @javistg for understanding the delays. Hope this helps ease your stress during hurricane season, @katnissdoesnotfollowback. This story can be read in the universe of An Everlarking Christmas as a prequel.

____________

“Finn, have you seen my tie?” Peeta Mellark yelled down the hall of their apartment. “I’ve got two minutes before I need to head out.”

“Nope. Haven’t seen it.”

He turned and burst out laughing. His roommate stood in the doorway in ragged sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt. Wrapped around his neck was Peeta’s favorite tie.

“Are you trying to ruin this night for me?”

“I would never do such a thing,” Finnick crowed and loosened the tie. With an exaggerated wink, he tossed it to Peeta and plopped down on the bed. “So, what’s the plan? Wine and dine Everdeen and then bring her back here for a little roll in the hay? Should I change your sheets for you? Make myself scarce?”

“I don’t know how Annie puts up with you,” Peeta muttered and tugged the knot in his tie. It wasn’t quite sitting right, and it was driving him a little nuts. It had taken a lot for Katniss to agree to a formal dinner for their anniversary. She was much more comfortable out of the spotlight or working behind the scenes. Peeta’s insistence that she be showered with affection made her squirm anxiously any time he brought it up, but he’d wanted to do something special to show his girlfriend how much he really loved her, and a fancy dinner date seemed like a tried and true method for demonstrating affection.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Finn. I’ll probably stay at her place tonight. I mean, I am planning to pop the question.”

Finnick yelped and sprang from the bed to engulf his roommate in a bear hug. Lifting Peeta off the floor, he spun them around and finally set Peeta down again when they were both completely dizzy.

“How could you keep this from me?” Finnick barked in a mock offended tone. “You know how much I love romance, and I’m running out of fresh material. What have you got planned? Music? A special menu? The ring in the dessert? No, scratch that. In the champagne? Got her favorite flowers? Rose petals at her place and lit candles? Tell me everything.”

“You’re worse than Delly,” Peeta snorted, referring to his childhood best friend who enjoyed being a woman more than almost any other female. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to jinx it. There’s only so much a guy can handle before he breaks down in a puddle of nervous goo.”

“Can I see the ring?” Finnick asked, still practically vibrating with excitement. “I need ideas for the one I’m gonna buy—because we both know it’s going to be sooner rather than later.”

“You’re a mess. You know that?”

“I am a lovable, sex god who’s given up my reign for the fair Annie Cresta.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot in love who supports you in your inferior attempts to romance women.”

Offended, Peeta glared at his friend. “I am very romantic. Katniss just doesn’t really like it.”

“Oh, really?” Finnick hooted and crossed his arms. “You still haven’t told me what your plan is.”

“You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow because I need to go.” Turning to his friend, Peeta exhaled and held out his arms. “How do I look?”

“You look good, man. You got the ring?”

“Shit! The ring.” He scrambled to his nightstand and opened the top drawer. Rifling through the contents, his fingers settled on a velvet box, and he grabbed it and stuck it in his pocket. “Gotta go. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck!”

Finnick’s well-wishes rang in his ear as he rushed out the door. Jumping into his car, he slammed the door, turned the key in the ignition, and…nothing.

“No, no, no, no, no! Not tonight.”

Turning the key again, Peeta groaned when the battery didn’t turn over and smacked his palms on the steering wheel. Frantic, he leapt from the car and ran into the house.

“Finn! My car won’t start. Can I—?”

“Keys are on the counter. I’ll have Annie pick me up. You’ll need to get gas.”

“Thanks, man!”

He was halfway to his girlfriend’s house when he glanced down and saw the gas gauge was almost on empty. Swearing, he crossed his fingers he could make it to Katniss’ place and then to the restaurant before he had to stop. Irritated that he’d hit almost every red light between his house and hers, he jammed the car into park and rushed to her door.

“You look gorgeous,” he breathed when she opened the door, and he grinned at her shy smile. He leaned forward to kiss her. Closing his eyes, he inhaled her scent and nudged her lips open with his. She tasted amazing, her lips soft and coated with lip gloss. When she moaned into his mouth, he pulled away and took a shuddering breath. “You ready to go?”

She nodded and took his hand. “I’m not used to heels,” she laughed when she wobbled a little against him. “Or dresses. Or makeup. Or not wearing a braid. Why do I let you talk me into these things?”

“Into dinner?” he teased as he helped her into the car and shut the door. He hurried around the car, jumped in, and turned to her. “Sorry. My car wouldn’t start.”

“Into a fancy dinner,” she answered. “What’s wrong with your car?”

He shrugged and grimaced. “Probably a battery. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. How was your day?”

Peeta listened as he drove. He was still jumpy, but having her by his side calmed him a little bit. She wore a slinky peachy, salmon colored dress that dipped low on her chest and hinted at a tiny dip of cleavage. Her gorgeous legs stretched from the hem that rested just above her knees to strappy, gold heels that elongated her legs and made them look twice as long. Her dark hair, which she usually tucked back in a braid, hung loosely in waves around her shoulders and halfway down her back. God, he loved her.

He pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot and helped her out of the car and to the door. Still unused to the heels, she leaned against him, and he reached over to kiss her forehead just as they got to the maître d. He gave his name and frowned when the man looked over his reservation list with a bored look.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t seem to see your name.”

“That’s impossible. I made the reservation two weeks ago. Mellark, table for 2. Can you check again, please?”

“Certainly, sir. Let me just check tomorrow, too. Just in case. Sometimes we make mistakes. Ah, yes, here it is. I’m afraid we have you down for tomorrow evening instead.”

“But—”

“Not to worry, sir. I’m sure it was a miscommunication,” the man assured in an infuriatingly disinterested voice, but Peeta flushed with discomfort. He had a niggling feeling that maybe it was his mistake and not the restaurant’s, but he was grateful they seemed willing to accommodate them—even if the guy looked like he’d rather do anything than speak to them. Possibly it would all still work. Perhaps the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach would be soothed by good food and attentive service. Maybe he’d ask the woman of his dreams to marry him and she’d say yes. Otherwise, he might die of humiliation.

“Uh, I—”

Katniss watched with a bemused expression. When Peeta seemed incapable of stringing together more than two words, she suggested calmly, “Perhaps we could wait at the bar while the table’s prepared?”

“Yes, miss. If you’ll just step this way, we’ll serve you there. Might I suggest a red?”

Peeta followed and sagged gratefully onto a stool. The bartender asked for their orders, and Katniss surprised them both when she asked for a gin martini. Taking his cue from her, he ordered a bourbon. The smoky, caramel flavor washed over his tongue and eased his jangling nerves. Grateful for her calm, he entwined his fingers with hers and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

“Sorry for the confusion,” he said in a low voice. She took a sip of her drink and looked at him over the rim through her eyelashes. A bead of liquid lingered on her lower lip, and he gave her a soft kiss to lick away the stray drop.

She hummed against his mouth. “I think I can forgive you,” she murmured and kissed him again.

By the time they got their table, his stomach rumbled, and Katniss had the look in her eye she always got indicating she’d crossed into hangry. However, the waitress, a slight young woman named Rue, took care of them graciously and attentively. She suggested flash fried spinach for an appetizer and left them to themselves.

Dinner was spectacular. The food was delicious and they chatted and laughed as they enjoyed each other’s company. Wrapped in each other, they shared bites and tangled their spoons over the last bit of sorbet and ganache. Everything was perfect until the bill came and he reached into his back pocket. Peeta’s face drained of color. Stricken, he looked at Katniss. He couldn’t believe what he’d have to do.

“What’s wrong?”

Devastated, he answered, “I can’t believe I did this.”

“Did what?”

“Katniss, I forgot my wallet.”

“You forgot…”

“Yeah, my wallet,” he repeated, his cheeks flaming with humiliation.

She laughed and leaned across the table to grab his hand. “It’s no big deal. I can get it.”

“That’s not the point, Kat. I asked you to dinner. I made a huge deal of it, and now I can’t even pay. I’m so sorry.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you for this gaffe,” she teased. “I might as well just break up with you right now. I mean, how could I ever trust you again? Be honest, hon. You’re really just looking for a sugar mama, aren’t you?”

He knew she was teasing, knew it meant nothing and was intended to make him feel better, but he was sick to his stomach. After all this time, all the planning he’d put into proposing to the love of his life, and he couldn’t even manage to remember his wallet. If nothing else, it seemed like a terrible omen. How could he handle a marriage if he forgot such basics? He tried to tell himself he’d never done this before, that it was the only time he’d ever been quite so careless, but his insecurities got the better of him.

He was quiet as Katniss paid the check and they walked to the car. Maybe there was still time to salvage the evening. He had the ring in his pocket. The proposal would make his mistakes all better. He’d planned for weeks. Arranged for every variable. It was going to be perfect. He just had to get them to where they’d first met.

Music played softly as they drove with the windows partially lowered. A gentle breeze whipped through the car, and her hair created a cloud around her face. She sang softly, and his heart clenched at the joy on her face. He always wanted her to sing more, since it brought her such pleasure, but it was highly personal to her. He didn’t get to hear it nearly enough.

They were less than a mile from their destination when the car started to chug, and his stomach dropped. “No, no, no!” he growled. “Please, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“God, please keep going,” he begged, but Finnick’s car shivered and shook and ground to a halt. If it’d been a person, he would have said it coughed itself to death. “Shit.”

“Peeta?”

“We’re out of gas.” Slamming the palm of his hand against the steering wheel, he released a long groan and thumped his head against the headrest. Grumbling, he closed his eyes and took in a huge gulp of air. “What a fucking night.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s so bad.”

He glanced over at her and gave her a sad smile. “You’re so amazing.”

“I’ve heard that before,” she grinned. “My boyfriend tells me that all the time.”

“Does he?”

“He really does.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“He really is.”

The way the moonlight fell across her face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to paint her in that moment, so he could freeze time and live in it forever. More than anything, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with this woman.

“How married are you to the idea of those shoes?” he asked suddenly.

“I despise these things, Peeta. You know that.” A smile played across her lips, and he stretched across the seat to kiss her.

“Take them off.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. I have a plan.”

Full of renewed energy, he bounced out of the car and ran around to open her door. Offering her his hand, he pulled her upright and threaded his fingers through hers. Without a word, he kissed her forehead and led her down the street.

“Are we going to the meadow?” she asked as they rounded the corner. “Sweetheart…”

He grinned and guided her to a tree at the edge of the open area before hauling her in for a passionate kiss. She melted against him, and he cradled her to his chest.

“I love you so much, Katniss,” he murmured against her lips. “I can’t remember what my life was like without you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Grinning, he dropped to his knee and looked up at her. Her eyes widened when he sank down, and he reached into his pocket to pull the ring box free.

“Every day since I’ve met you has been better than any best day I had before we met. I don’t want to have another one without you. Katniss Everdeen.” He paused and opened the ring box. Holding it out to her, he asked, “Will you please make me the happiest man in the world and spend the rest of your life with me?”

Katniss nodded vigorously. “Of course, I will, Peeta. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t even been aware how nervous he was until she agreed to his proposal, but he suddenly felt like his limbs were limp noodles. He couldn’t comprehend the buzzing in his veins, but he was sure his blood was florescent with endorphins. That wasn’t a thing, but still. Thrilled, he reached into the box to get the ring and—

“You have got to be kidding me!”

The ring box was empty. The ring he’d picked out for her wasn’t there. Instead, the slit where it should have been grinned at him manically, and he wondered briefly who he’d pissed off in a past life to make this night go so spectacularly terrible. After all the planning and soul searching and angst, the perfect proposal had disintegrated into such a total pile of—

“What’s wrong?”

Katniss stood over him, trembling and half-grinning/half-weeping. The longer he remained on his knee, the more concerned she became. He looked down at the empty box that mocked him and huffed in annoyance. He realized as the moisture from the ground soaked into his pants at the knee that he’d grabbed the box he’d kept from a prank gone wrong with Finnick on Valentine’s Day. In his rush, he hadn’t even bothered to make sure he got the one with the ring in it.

“I’m an idiot. That’s what’s wrong,” he groaned.

“Are you— Do you not want to…” she asked in a tortured whisper.

He popped to his feet and wrapped her in his arms. “Oh, no, sweetheart! Of course, I want to marry you. I’m so happy you said yes. I just, uh— I forgot the ring.”

“You forgot the ring?”

Frustrated, he nodded and hung his head. “I really, really did.”

Silence hung for a few seconds, but then he felt panic bubbling inside him until— Laughter poured from him in lusty bursts that shocked him and caused her to chuckle. Before he knew it, he was doubled over, heaving for breath, and laughing so hard, he almost fell over. Katniss joined him after a few seconds, his mirth contagious as he struggled to gain his composure. Soon, they clung to each other as they guffawed, unable to stop.

“Who proposes and forgets the ring?” she howled, her eyes sparking with humor.

“I do!”

“Runs out of gas. Forgets his wallet.”

“Me!”

“Why is this so funny?” she giggled. “Bless your heart. You tried so hard.”

He forced himself to get it together and pulled her close. Brushing her hair back, he tilted his head and kissed her. “I really did.”

She hummed against his mouth and opened it as his tongue swept inside. The kiss grew heated quickly, and he slanted her mouth so he could devour her. When she whimpered, he tangled her hair in one hand and let the other drift lower to cup her hip and then pull her leg up and over his.

“Katniss,” he hissed as she rocked her hips against his.

“How mad do you think Finnick would be if you abandoned his car?”

“Furious. Why?” he asked between heated, open-mouthed caresses.

“I really don’t want to wait for help when we could get a ride to your place.”

“I thought we were staying at yours tonight.”

“We could,” she breathed against his cheek before catching his earlobe in her teeth and biting it gently. “Or we could go to yours, put that ring on my finger, and consummate our engagement.”

He grinned and nuzzled her neck. “That sounds pretty amazing,” he breathed as he nibbled along her jawline.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm. Maybe we can salvage this night after all.”

“You mean me agreeing to marry you wasn’t enough for our date to be a good one?” she teased as she pulled away and started walking back to the car. “Shoes. Purse. Would like to take them with me.”

He tugged his phone from his pocket and arranged for a car. Grinning, he called after her, “It all went so wrong, so fast, but I think we’re on our way to making it even more memorable.”

“I love you, Mellark,” she yelled over her shoulder.

“I love you more, Everdeen! Gonna marry the hell out of you.”

She backed away from him, and he followed. The last thing he wanted was to let her slip away from him into the darkness.

#everlarkficexchange #springtime edition 2020 #prompt 79 #everlark #everlark fanfiction #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #so wrong so fast

104 notes · View notes

seawolvesanddragons · 4 years ago

Text

AWAE 25 Days of Christmas Day 17: “You want to stop and feel the snow?”

Bash’s first winter in Avonlea had not been one he enjoyed. It was cold. There was white, wet muck falling from the sky all the time. The sun hid behind clouds for three months straight and the only flavoring for miles was salt. Blythe was totally unsympathetic to his plight. The only good things about that first winter, in Bash’s opinion, was Mary and his first Christmas dinner, in that order.

When Bash’s second year came around, he thought he was prepared. He pulled out the blankets. He chopped twice the amount of wood in the fall so that they could have a fire going all winter. He hid the salt from Blythe and banned him from the kitchen (an action whole-heartedly supported by Mary).

“Your god-cursed Canadian winter is not getting the best of me this year,” he swore vigorously when Gilbert asked if Bash was planning to build a second house with all the wood. “I know what’s comin’ this time.”

Bash’s preparations were not a day too early. The first flurries arrived in November. Mary and Gilbert both treated this as if it were some miraculous thing, leaping out of their seats at the first snowflake and staring out the window.

Bash, like the sensible man he was, glared out the window. The snow was his enemy, and he would not forget it. Who on God’s great earth could like something that hid all the bright colors of the sky and ground? Pure nonsense.

For a few weeks, there were only flurries. Then, as Gilbert and Bash were making their way back from town, the skies clouded over and snow began to fall thickly, blanketing Avonlea. Within minutes, it felt like it was three inches deep. Bash swore he could feel icicles forming off of his nose.

They were still a few miles from the house, so Bash pressed forward as quickly as he could, determined to get home before they froze to death.

“Bash, wait,” Gilbert laughed from behind. The idiot mook was grinning up at the sky as if he had never seen snow before, stretching out his hands to catch the snowflakes. “Try it!” He called out.

“Are you kidding Blythe?” Bash said incredulously. “We’re in the middle of a blizzard and you want to stop and feel the snowflakes?”

“This isn’t a blizzard,” Gilbert scoffed. “The snow is falling too slowly for that, and there’s not enough wind.”

Bash stared at him. He had always been told a blizzard was when a lot of snow fell from the sky. When Bash saw his first snowstorm, he had assumed that that was it. After all, how could snow possible fall more?

“It can get worse?”

Mary was just as unsympathetic as Gilbert when she learned of Bash’s confusion. In fact, Mary and Gilbert began to team up to tease him whenever they caught Bash shivering or looking out the winter dolefully. It was an absolute betrayal that Bash was certain would not have taken place were it not for the existence of winter.

Bash witnessed a real blizzard that year. He did not enjoy it. To make matters worse, his carefully procured stash of blankets were pilfered from him one by one.

“But Mary, I’m freezing,” Bash pleaded when she took yet another one from his pile. He was down to only three now, all atop him like a strange circus tent. Gilbert snickered from his armchair. Like a true nutter, he didn’t have any blankets on him at all.

“I’m from Trinidad, Mary, I need the blankets.”

“And I’m pregnant,” Mary responded. Which, there was not much Bash could argue with that. Balefully, he let her steal another blanket.

Really, the only good thing about that winter was the birth of Dellie. Bash found he couldn’t hate the snow quite as much when he remembered how the soft, freshly fallen snow around him when he had held his daughter for the first time.

For his third Canadian winter, Bash had manfully committed to gritting his teeth through the season in silence. He had two years under his belt now, after all, and he was beginning to acclimate at last to the colder temperatures of the north. Besides, he had already given Blythe two years of ammunition, and he didn’t want Elijah to join in. This year, he was determined not to give either of the two young men the satisfaction.

They had already had several snowfalls by the time Gilbert returned from his first term in Toronto. Elijah had born the seasonal change with ease, and Dellie laughed every time she saw a snowflake. Gilbert’s homecoming coincided with a winter storm, and his teeth were chattering when Bash met him at the train station.

“Cold, Blythe?” Bash asked smugly. His own teeth were chattering too, but Bash ignored that.

Gilbert’s exchange with Eljah was stilted yet polite, but he greeted Hazel with a warm smile and hug.

“How are you finding your first Canadian winter, Hazel?” Gilbert asked politely, bending down to tweak a squealing Dellie’s nose.

Bash’s mother than did something he hadn’t seen her do in all of his years.

She pulled a face of disgust.

“In all honesty, Mist- Gilbert- the weather here is ridiculous. Who lives here in such cold!? Likely to freeze your blood and your brain in such weather. And there’s no sun! Who ever heard of living somewhere where the sun disappears behind clouds for months?”

Gilbert cast an amused look back to where Bash stood staring at his mother like he had just witnessed the second coming.

Bash was very busy trying to process two previously impossible thoughts.

Number one, for the first time in his life, he agreed whole heartedly with his mother on something.

And number two, he had an ally against this ridiculous weather! He wasn’t outnumber by fool hardy Canadians!

Which meant he could begin complaining again. “It’s total nonsense, I’ve been telling Blythe for years,” Bash said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand it. And this isn’t even the worst! There’s blizzards,” he shuddered.

Hazel gave him a horrified look. “It gets colder?”

Bash nodded solemnly.

“You can’t raise a child like this! It can’t be good for it’s health!”

Gilbert and Elijah both protested at that, being of Canadian stock. Bash left them to it, whistling happily to his daughter as he began pulling out extra blankets. “Sebastian! We need more wood! Immediately! Apparently this lasts for months!”

There was a long winter ahead of him, but it looked a bit brighter now that he had someone to complain with.

#awae #anne with an e #hazel lacroix #bash lacroix #sebastain lacroix #gilbert blythe #mary lacroix #delpine #elijah lacroix #25 days of christmas challenge #prompts welcomed #thanks to alwaysavonlea for the prompt!!!#awae fic

59 notes · View notes

everlarkficexchange · 4 years ago

Text

A Simple Choice

Written by: @justajjfan

Beta’d by: @sunsetsrmydreams

Prompt 83: Katniss is whipped instead of Gale in Catching Fire, Peeta’s the one who’s there to take care of her after. [submitted by anonymous].

Prompt 116: Peeta braids Katniss’ hair to soothe her. [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: Mature

Warning: Mention of whipping. Use of coarse language.

A/N: This chapter is in Katniss’ POV. So we’ll finally get to hear her side of the story. Thank you to @everlarkficexchange - @javistg and @xerxia31 for allowing me to post this chapter in advance. This chapter is dedicated to @sunsetsrmydreams for her inspiration 🌼.

~~~

Chapter 5 - (Katniss POV)

Peeta looks at me with wide eyes and I know he’s waiting for me to elaborate. These past few days…weeks seem so surreal; I hardly know where to begin but he needs to know as much as I know myself.

I won’t keep anything from him…not now…not ever.

“I bet your boyfriend wasn’t too thrilled when you told him why you wanted to come back. I’m surprised he didn’t try to stop you,” Peeta replies, with a questioning look.

“He did but I snuck away when everyone thought I was asleep,” I tell him. “And Gale and I aren’t like that!” I add hoping Peeta understands.

“Everyone in Twelve thinks you two are a couple…including me.”

I shake my head and slide a little closer to Peeta, “it’s not true Peeta!” I say, my voice sounding raised but not out of anger. “Gale kissed me…once when we were out hunting and up until then, I didn’t even know he had feelings for me,” I start. “We were hunting partners and that was it…that’s how it will always be with Gale and me,” I say, needing him desperately to believe me.

Peeta doesn’t say anything and it pains me to think how my careless words affected him in ways I never meant. I foolishly thought it was for the best but in reality, all I did was hurt him.

“I wished I’d never said all those things to you on the train.”

“But you did and you were pretty convincing,” Peeta chuckles, nervously rubbing the back of his neck and when he looks at me, the smile on his face disappears. “I kept asking myself what I did to make you hate me so much.”

“Oh no Peeta, I could never hate you. The Games…what we went through to survive. I was so messed up and confused but mostly scared of feelings I couldn’t explain. The closer we got to Twelve the more confused I got. Then after we got home, Gale came to see me and I had no choice. I had to stay away and I’ve regretted that decision every single day since.”

Peeta thinks over my words and the passing seconds seem like hours before he opens his mouth to finally speak, “everyone makes bad choices sometimes.”

He’s right of course and those choices can cost you dearly.

I’ve been so miserable without him and being this close to Peeta has my heart beating so fast it feels like a pounding drum. And now it takes every ounce of strength I have to keep myself from flinging into the only arms that make me feel safe.

“Haymitch said there were no bugs in my house and I don’t mean the insect kind.”

My head pricks up and Peeta notices the surprised look on my face, “I’ve had some time to think things over and I’ll wager all of my earnings on our mentor being much more than what he has led people to think,” he says. “You can talk to me Katniss; it’s just the two of us here and we’ve got all the time in the world.”

I turn to look at the trees swaying in the breeze from the opened window before turning my focus back to Peeta, “no, if anything, it feels like our time is slowly running out.”

“Then we shouldn’t waste any of it. Tell me everything.”

I nod and draw in a deep breath before telling Peeta how this nightmare started, “Gale told me a group of rebels approached him while he was out hunting on his own. They wanted to use all the attention I was getting from the Games to help recruit support from the other districts and the only way to get to me was through him,” I begin to explain.

“Go on,” Peeta urges.

“I wanted to tell you but Gale swore me to secrecy. He went on to tell me the rebels believed if we were seen together it would draw too much attention especially from the Capitol and Snow hasn’t forgiven us for the berries. It would have meant a death sentence for both our families and I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to them. I had to think of Prim.”

Peeta squeezes my hand. He understands I would do anything to keep my sister safe.

“I didn’t know Gale had planned to take me to the rebel headquarters until we were out hunting on Sunday. We walked further than we’ve ever dared to venture before but Gale seemed to know where he was going…

Two rebels, Bonnie and Twill were sent out to guide us back to their headquarters and as we started to walk deeper into the woods, Bonnie told us how the rebel army had been working closely with a secret ally and a combined strike on each of the districts before their final assault on the Capitol was just days away. Gale was glued to every word but all I could think of was how many innocent lives would be lost in the process?”

The feel of Peeta’s thumb rubbing against my hand has a calming effect and when I look up at him, he gives me a smile of encouragement and nods for me to continue.

“I told them we needed to go back and warn people but the two rebels were not about to let that happen. They needed the element of surprise. Gale managed to convince them to let him go back for our families while I remained behind, a decision I wasn’t happy with but in the end I agreed. Before Gale left, I made him promise to bring you back with him…even if he had to tie you up and carry you through the woods himself. He looked me straight in the eye and promised he wouldn’t leave you behind, no matter what and I believed him.”

Peeta has always been good at keeping a calm exterior and not letting anyone see his true emotions come to the surface but he can’t fool me. There’s a storm brewing in his eyes.

“It was dark by the time Gale arrived back at the rebel headquarters with our families and I was relieved to have my sister and mother safe with me but I kept looking for you. When I realised you weren’t with them, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Gale tried to calm me down, he told me you refused to go with him because you were engaged to Delly and wanted to toast with her. He said you wanted to forget me and that your future was with her,” I say, my voice cracking as I repeated Gale’s treacherous lies. “I screamed at him, punching and scratching until I was pulled away…I don’t remember much after that. Gale promised me he wouldn’t leave you behind…and he broke it.”

Peeta’s jawline tightens and I can see the temples on the side of his face pulsating as he tries to contain his anger. His tight lips turn upwards into a smile, a dark chuckle escaping his lips.

He cups my face with his hands and looks deep into my eyes, “nothing Gale told you is true. Yes, I was seeing Delly…at my mother’s behest. And yes, we kissed a few times but that was the extent of our relationship,” he says gently rubbing my cheeks with his thumbs. “I-I didn’t even know you were gone until the whipping. The curtains in your room were drawn like they always are on Sundays and I thought you and Gale were—” he stops talking and stands abruptly to pace around the room, the hint of laughter under his breath until he picks up the lampshade from his bedside table and hurls it across the room.

“He fucking knew!” Peeta shouts angrily, and his outburst startles me. “Gale knew if he came to me and said you needed me, I would have gone with him,” he tells me tugging at the ends of his hair. “I would have left everything behind and never looked back if it meant you wanted me for real.”

I never understood until now why Gale would always draw the curtains when we came into my room. Unbeknown to me, he was sending Peeta a certain type of message and the thought enrages me. I was never alone with him; grateful mama insisted my bedroom door remained open and Prim stay until he left.

“It was real Peeta,” I say softly, drawing back from my thoughts. “You and me…it will always be real.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Yes,” I say.

Peeta’s face lights up and rushes the few steps to reach me, kneeling in front of me to gently take my trembling hands in his, “if the peacekeepers didn’t find you…” his voice cracking as he tries to speak. “What would you have done if I told you I wanted to stay in Twelve?” He swallows hard and bites his lower lip nervously waiting for my answer.

“Then I would have stayed…with you.”

He closes his eyes and takes in a shaky breath before opening them, “you said earlier you were scared of your feelings, what did you mean?”

My mouth feels dry and my heart is beating so fast it feels as though it will jump right out of my chest but I know what Peeta is asking me to do. I’ve never been good at saying something but looking into his eyes as he waits patiently for the words, I should have never been so afraid to admit…even to myself.

Peeta’s hand reaches for my braid just like he did in the games and his fingers begin to gently stroke and caress my hair and it calms me, “please Katniss…I know words are not your thing but this is important.”

I know it is and no matter how I tried to run away from the truth in the past, this is about Peeta and he deserves to hear them.

“I-I was afraid of becoming just like my mother,” I finally find the courage to admit it out loud. “She gave into her feelings a long time ago and it cost her dearly when she lost my father.” I try to explain.

Peeta opens his mouth then closes it again, the seconds flying by before Peeta speaks, “tell me,” he asks in a soft pleading whisper, still stroking my braid.

“She lost herself…because she loved him.”

Peeta leans into me until our lips touch. It’s a tender and sweet kiss at first and I instinctively wrap my arms around his neck letting him know I want more. Our lips lock again and because I’m much better at showing rather than saying, all my pent-up feelings are expressed in this passionate kiss.

When we break apart there’s a wildness in Peeta’s eyes sending a strange desire between my legs. There’s no denying how much I want to give into to whatever this is but I need to be completely honest and open with him before we take this further.

“There’s something I need to confess,” I say and Peeta looks at me with some concern. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but when I woke this morning I could hear voices coming from downstairs,” I start my admission and his face immediately reddens. “The walls are thin and it wasn’t hard to realise it wasn’t Haymitch you were talking to. I overheard most of what you and Delly were saying and I’m sorry.”

Peeta shakes his head, “you have nothing to apologise for but thank you for telling me. There shouldn’t be any secrets between us, right?”

I nod, relieved to have this off my chest, yet ponder over some things Delly said, “she’s right about one thing…I don’t deserve you.” Peeta looks at me with questioning eyes. “But if you’re willing to give me a second chance, I’ll never break your heart again.” I say, crumpling the end of his shirt nervously in my hands.

Peeta gently lifts my chin so my eyes look up to meet his, “my heart has belonged to you since I was five…it will always be yours,” he says. “But it would have saved us both so much pain and internal suffering if you came to me and explained what was really going on. I would have kept away knowing you—” he stops mid-sentence to take in a deep breath. “There’s just no point in keeping secrets from each other, is there?”

“There’s no point at all,” I agree shyly, before pressing my lips tenderly on his.

We lay on Peeta’s bed and with his arms wrapped around me, my head finds its place on his chest and the strong beating of his heart is so soothing my eyes begin to close to the calming rhythm. I have been so lonely for him all these weeks I realise life without Peeta Mellark would be unthinkable.

I love my boy with the bread.

***

“Katniss.”

“Hmmm,” my sleepy voice says.

“Time to wake up.”

I feel so warm and contented I want to stay right where I am but reluctantly lift my head and rub my eyes to see a pair of bright blue eyes staring back at me.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I reply groggily. “Did I fall asleep?”

Peeta kisses the top of my head before answering, “just for a little while but I think we should get out of this bed. And as much as I like seeing you in nothing but my shirt, we should definitely grab some clothes from your house,” Peeta suggests. I like being in his shirt too and the thought brings on a new rush of heat and I can’t help the smile forming on my face as I bury my head into his warm chest. “Then we find Haymitch,” he adds and I agree.

Peeta helps me out of bed and holds my hand as we start to walk out of his bedroom but I stop in my tracks and turn back to the breakfast tray sitting on the bedside table.

“What’s wrong?”

I don’t answer Peeta straight away, my mind focused on grabbing the cloth napkin still folded neatly on the tray and wrapping what’s left of the two pieces of toast he made just for me.

“Absolutely nothing,” I reply, standing on my tip toes to kiss him quickly on the lips before we head towards my house.

…tbc

#Springtime Edition 2020 #justajjfan #prompt 83 #prompt 116 #submission

50 notes · View notes

twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years ago

Text

Déjà Vu (Or are we losing our minds?) VIII -Modern!Shirbert

A/N: I need a group of friends that live near my house so we can all have crisis together -Danny

Words: 2,790

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Eight: 2nd. Déjà Vu.

'We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known’

—Carson McCullers

"Anne, I’m sorry!” Cole called from the other side of the door, “If I had known that finding out about that asshole’s engagement was going to upset you like this, I would’ve kept my mouth shut…”

“You couldn’t take a guess?” Josie scoffed, leaning against the wall beside him. She continued in a whisper, "She's on her period, and you thought it'd be okay to just drop the bomb?"

Anne opened the door abruptly, almost causing her friend to fall forward into the bathroom. Her face was still red from anger, but there was no sign of tears treatening to come out.

“He’s a monster!” She yelled, making a bee line back to her bedroom. “First tries to make me believe I’m the love of his life and that he’s the man of my dreams, and then cheats– now he’s telling the same tale to one of my classmates he met thanks to me! What the actual fuck?!”

“Anne,” Ruby said tentatively. “I think that you need us to leave you alone...”

“What?” Her eyes widening. “No, no, no, no, please don’t leave, please don’t go, I need you here! I thought I was going to be better in the morning but I had this dream… and the nightmare from real life just continued, Roy and Lauren were inviting me to their wedding and I was so upset! I was plotting to ruin their party, I was… oh, it was so out of control– don't you dare say this is because I'm on my period, Josie!” She glared at the blonde in front of her, who just raised her hands in surrender.

“Then let’s do something,” Cole put one hand on her shoulder, “let’s go downtown, let’s visit Muriel! I bet she’s eager to see us, c’mon Anne, you love visiting her...”

“Maybe we could ask her about her husband?” Anne asked, suddenly hopeful. “Her love story could give me hope.”

“For what?”

“For believing love not is not yet another scam of society,” She sentenced.

“Oh my god,” Josie let out a tired sigh. “Fine, we’ll visit her, but please take a shower first, you stink of anger and drool.”

___________________

There she was again, the same girl. Was it the same girl? Gilbert couldn’t remember her face at all, but both definitely had the same red hair, the same soft-looking skin…

“Gilbert, you’re spilling coffe on the table!” Mary’s yell brought him back instantly.

With a start he lifted the kettle and stopped pouring the liquid onto his cup, it was filled to the brim. He let out a tired sigh and reached out for a napkin.

“Sorry,” He mumbled. “I was thinking…”

“A bit too much,” The woman raised a brow. “What is it this time, a scholarship you’re trying to get? An essay that might’ve been one page too long?”

“A dream,” He said quietly.

“A dream,” Mary shook her head skeptically. “You can't even rest while sleeping, then? I’m glad Winnie’s taking you out for the day, Lord knows you need a distraction...”

Winnie arrived at two o’clock, punctual as usual. She was holding a bouquet of flowers that were meant to be for Dellie, but the little girl was having a nap, so she left them on the kitchen counter.

“Sunflowers,” Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “You’re trying to call us haughty?”

“What?” Winnie tilted her head. “No, I just thought they were pretty– Hold on, that's their meaning? How the hell do you know that?”

“I…” Gilbert smiled faded. “I think I dreamt about it.”

Winnie laughed at this.

“You dreamt about it, so it must be real, right?” She shook her head. “Come on, Gilbert, it’s time to get you out of the house.”

___________________

“Anne, why are you stopping?”

The redhead was standing outside a flower shop, she was glancing at it inquisitively, as if pondering whether to take a quick look or keep walking.

“Anne?” Cole called her softly. “Are you okay?”

“What if I do exactly like in my dream?” She asked absentmindedly. “Is it too petty to buy a bouquet just to say 'fuck you'?”

“Very,” Cole raised a brow. “It’s classy though, I like your style.”

“We can talk about whether you should buy your ex venomous flowers once we’re at Muriel’s,” Josie pulled both of them forward. “Let’s go, she’s waiting for us!”

The woman was delighted to receive her former students, they sat in the small dining room and talked for hours until lunchtime. Anne was in a much lighter mood, and offered to prepare a meal, to which they responded with skeptical looks.

“Don’t worry,” Anne rolled her eyes. “I’ll stay far from the oven. Honestly, you burn something once and everyone acts like you’ve been ten years in jail for arson…”

Ruby, Cole and Josie remained at the table while Muriel and Anne entered the kitchen.

“How’s my best student coping with college?”

“You ask that every time I come to visit,” Anne grinned. “And it’s always the same answer. I’m fine, it has been kind to me, it's nothing I can’t handle.”

“Cole told me something happened,” Muriel leaned against the counter. “He said you wanted to ask me about my husband?”

“Oh,” Anne looked up from the bowl she was rinsing, a blush covering her cheeks. “Yeah, I did say that but you know me, I was… upset. You know I tend to be dramatic–”

“If it makes it easier for you, I’d love to tell you about my Jonah, not many people ask me about him, they think I’ll get upset,” Muriel smiled. “It’s been quite some time now and to be honest, talking about him feels different now, the further the memories are, the sweeter they taste.”

Anne wasn’t sure she understood what Muriel was saying, but it encouraged her enough to ask.

“Was it love at first sight? Did you know it’ll be him?”

“Oh no,” She chuckled. “We got along right away, yes, but we didn’t date until our last year in Uni, when all was a bit quieter. Just then we realized that it was always meant to be that way, us together.”

“Did you had partners before him?” Anne went redder. “I’m sorry, is not my business–”

Muriel laughed.

“Anne calm down, I said that you could ask, didn’t I? We’re friends, it’s fine,” She stayed quiet for a moment. “Hmm… well, I only had one official boyfriend before him when I was in highschool, I dated a few kids and never settled– Now, don’t look at me like that!” She laughed, “I was not a heartbreaker, every single sweetheart left with a smile, I think they knew it wasn’t meant to last. I have the feeling that all humans have the ability to know when a person is meant to be with them.”

“I never felt it,” Anne lowered her gaze, “I mean, Roy was the first man I ever dated, he talked about big plans and a future together… but it didn’t matter how much I liked him, how beautiful he was, I never felt the thrill.”

“Sometimes is not thrill what takes over you,” Muriel replied, “sometimes, it’s a subtle tickling on the tip of your fingers, the anticipation that comes a second before you walk into the rain, when you can feel the breeze on your face and… am I making any sense?”

“Yes,” Anne said breathlessly. “Like knowing what’s coming because it’s right in front of you, yet there's something stopping you from having it and remains there, unreachable until you are ready to walk up to it…”

“Exactly,” The woman smiled. “Love is different for everyone, Anne, and most times is not a fairytale, but we make it work when we are with the right person.”

“I suppose you’re right,” She walked up to the fridge. “I’m an adult, I shouldn’t be daydreaming with princes coming to my rescue- especially since I do not need to be saved from anything, my life is great. It’s silly, I'm a grown up now but still have such a childish spirit.”

“It’s okay to dream,” Muriel said reassuringly. “Real life can be magical if you look at the right things, if you pay enough attention.”

“The little things in life?” She looked over her shoulder as she kept handing ingredients to her former teacher.

“Yes, but also no,” The woman frowned, a little smile playing on her lips. “It’s funny, I hadn’t thought about it in a long time...”

“What thing?”

“A month before Jonah and I got together I was having the weirdest déjà vu’s… whenever I was with him it was like watching a scene I had already lived out in a dream, so strange…”

“I read once that when you dream about someone, in a romantic way, that means that person is also thinking about you!” Anne said with excitement. “Maybe he was dreaming about you too!”

“I never asked him,” Muriel shook her head, “what a shame, if he was indeed dreaming of me, that would’ve been such a romantical tale to tell you, I’m sorry I can’t confirm your lovely story.”

“You can’t deny it either,” Anne winked. “That’s enough for me.”

“All this time I thought I’d dreamt about him simply because I was thinking him too much during the day,” Muriel laughed. “It’s so much better to see it through your eyes! I might need to change my version of the story.”

“I had a dream this morning,” Anne giggled. “I was buying Roy a bunch of flowers to tell him to fuck off,” She laughed louder at Muriel’s expression. “Am I allowed to swear in front of you? It feels so weird… anyway, I was buying flowers and the poor man helping me…” She felt a giddy as soon as she remembered him, ��he had to deal with my anger while still being completely helpful, if only real people were as patient as he was when I rambled on about my ex and how much of an asshole he was!”

“I hope you gave him a lot of imaginary money for helping you,” Muriel joked.

“Oh, he wouldn’t take it,” Anne rolled her eyes, a silly smile on her face. “That's my childish self, imagining a flourist man- a very handsome flourist man- just giving away his work to me for free, like some sort of selfless hero,” She chuckled. “Well, not so selfless. I remember him asking me to go back and have lunch with him. I mean, I offered the lunch part, but he was the one who asked me to go back…”

“Looks like the mistery man managed to charmed you. I thought the dream was about your ex but it sounds like you were having a jolly time with the flourist!”

“I was,” Anne shook her head. “I have no self-control, even in my dreams I'm incapable of keeping it in my pants.”

“Anne!” Muriel exclaimed over Anne’s cackles. “You’re right, it does feel strange listening to my former student talk like a sailor.”

“A sailor?” Anne asked, still laughing. “More like a pirate! Ahoy, you dirty animals! Hold the anchors! Let’s go south and kill those ravenous monsters while we steal their gold! Captain Shirley doesn’t have time for this buffoonery!”

“Oh Captain, my Captain!” Muriel replied, following the joke. “If you consider it addecuate, we shall start cooking!”

“Oh,” Anne looked down at the untouched ingredients. “Yeah, we should do that.”

___________________

“...And then I told her we could still be friends, but I wasn’t looking for anything serious,” Winnie shrugged, finishing her drink.

“Did she cry?”

“She understood, I told her since the start. I wasn’t leading her on or anything, but I guess she’d grown fond of me, she did cry a little, yeah.”

“Winifred Rose, you must be a nightmare back in Paris,” Gilbert snorted.

“Well I’m not lying, am I? I tell them exactly what I want since the start and they agree!”

“Probably just because they’re too distracted by your looks to actually listen to what you’re saying,” He teased.

“Well that’s on them,” Winnie raised her brow. “Now really, I know you said you’ve had zero fun, but c’mon, there’s gotta be someone…”

“You mean like a prospect?” Gilbert took a quick sip of his coke while Winnie nodded. “I told you before, I don’t have any.”

“Why?” She tilted her head. “I didn’t raise you to be like this, Blythe.” The man laughed.

Winnie was a year older than him, when he was a freshman in Highschool she had taken him under her wing, she was popular (and wealthy) so Moody and him had a decent time during their adolescent years. That if you didn’t take into account the time his father got sick and died, which had been the majority of three years.

“You want me to be honest?” He let out a sigh. “I guess that if I tried, I could make time to go out and meet new people, if I were that eager to go out and… Have something.”

“But?”

“You’re gonna laugh at me.”

“Of course I will, but that doesn’t mean I’ll think less of you!” Winnie saw his distress and her smile faded a little. “I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re not the type to sleep around with strangers. I thought that you would at least try to meet someone and see how it goes, though. Formal relationships are not that hard to find, you know?”

“I know,” Gilbert shook his head. “Every time I consider it, just when I’m this close to ask you or Moody to set me up with someone you think would be a good fit for me, something just stops me. It’s like I’m stuck in one place, waiting around for a girl to pull me out of where I’m drowning.”

“I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly,” When Gilbert gave his agreement, she continued. “What's stopping you? Is it that you’re secretely gay, or is it that you actually met someone, and you don’t want to tell us who she is?”

“I’m not gay, Winnie,” Gilbert rubbed his forehead. “I’m being honest, I feel like I’m on pause. I don’t know, maybe I met my soulmate and I fucked up so now the universe is forcing me to turn around and find my way back, or I could be losing my mind,” He joked. “It certainly feels like I am, lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, it’s stupid,” He shrugged, signaling to the waiter so he could bring them the check. “I had this dream two times in a row, or more like I dreamt about this girl two times already…”

“So there is a girl!”

“No! Not really— She’s not… I think I’ve seen her before,” Gilbert frowned, struggling to remember something besides her striking red hair. “Maybe on tv? She might be a minor celebrity… I’m so sure I’ve seen her somewhere in real life, there’s no way I’m dreaming about her with such clarity…”

“Gilbert you’re not making any sense," Winnie raised a brow. “If I’m honest, it does sound like you’re losing your mind.”

Gilbert gave up on trying to explain, he didn’t know what he was trying to say anyway, so what was the point? He hung his head low and kept on rubbing the weariness out of his temples. He felt like crying but didn’t know why; the more he thought about this girl, the more the void got bigger and bigger, like having some kind of treasure handed to him only to watch it disappear just as quickly.

“How about,” Winnie started, “I’ll stop nagging about finding you a date until New Year’s Eve. It’s the Orchard’s anniversary, right?”

“Yeah, the fiftieth,” He said. “Why is it important?”

“I’d like you to have someone on your side by then, the anniversary's on January, I know, but your father would’ve wanted you to build a life outside school and work, if you let me find you a nice girl…”

Gilbert frowned, it wasn’t that easy, and it was low to bring up his father so casually when he was well aware that he hadn’t done the one thing his father had asked him before dying, which was to live a life full of love and adventures. He knew this, but he couldn’t stop now… could he?

Or was he stopping himself because he was, as Bash had kindly put it, crushing on a fantasy? Some sort of dream-mermaid lurking in the back of his mind, ready to eat him up and finish him when least expect it…

“I’ll think about it,” He mumbled awkwardly.

Taglist.

@ninizkd @http-itsrebecca @fuckthisshitimoutyall @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @little-boats-on-a-lake @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual

#twoidiots writing #anne with an e fanfic #anne with an e #anne shirley x gilbert blythe #anne shirley cuthbert #Gilbert Blythe #DV fic #shirbert #shirbert fanfic #awae

15 notes · View notes