* Notes
Okay guys, I'm going to let you in on a secret. I am obsessed with telling the Hunger Games from Peeta's prospective. This story is my second go at it.
At first I thought I was writing a completely AU fantasy/fairy tale story, but it has turned out strangely canon-compliant. Yeah it's definitely different from my by-the-book Peeta POV fic, The Last Tribute, and its up-coming sequel Burnt Offering (Catching Fire and Mockingjay) but it's grounded in the Hunger Games canon universe, admittedly with a dark fairy-tale spin. I've almost head-canoned myself into believing that Peeta did have a little something special up his sleeve...
This story will be told in vignettes that stretch from Peeta's first day of school to the epilogue.
Chapter 1
Age 5
Peeta's brothers did what they always do; they left him behind. Even though Peeta was five now and a big boy and could go to school, both his brothers zoomed ahead into the school.
And Peeta was stuck in front of the ash-gray building with his father, waiting, waiting, waiting in line to register with the other first-year students. The line was still so long it stretched out the door and onto the cracked sidewalk.
But waiting was better than being too-young and trapped at home all day with his mother or downstairs in the bakery with his father, kneading and kneading until his arms fell off.
The little boy waggled him backpack, listening to the happy rumble of his new supplies. Everything was dancing all together in his pack. The notebook, folders, mat rolled up teeny-tiny, pencils. And best of all was a box of twelve crayons in all different colors.
Nothing was extra new, the supplies or even the backpack, but they were his now. The really, really good thing, his father always said, was that everything would stay his, too. Peeta got all the hand-me-downs because he was the youngest and the downest.
The line crawled forward and the gap between them and the woman and boy in front of them grew huge while his father stared off. Peeta tugged at his sleeve, but the man just plucked him up, swinging the boy into his arms. The boy craned his neck to see what his father was looking at.
It was a woman in the next line, the one for first-year girls. "You see that woman," his father said. "I wanted to marry her, but she married a coal miner instead."
His father never sounded like that, far away and lost, as if he weren't really there talking to Peeta at all. He wrapped both arms around his father's neck and squeezed tight. Peeta didn't want him to be sad; it made a tight, yucky feeling boil up in his chest. It was the same feeling he got whenever his mother started yelling.
Peeta glanced over his father's shoulder at the woman, ready to turn his extra mad eyes on the person making his father sad.
There wasn't anything special about her; the blonde woman looked like any of the other mothers waiting in line. She cuddled a baby with softly curling blonde hair against one hip. There was a girl skipping around in the still-green grass right next to the woman, a smiling little girl with two dark braids bouncing behind her.
His father turned away, finally catching up with the line, but Peeta was watching the girl now. She wore a red plaid dress, neat and starched, with a hem that brushed against a scrapped up knee, the bruised skin almost as bright a color as the dress. Her shiny black patent leather shoes were getting wet in the glowing morning dew of the grass, but she didn't seem to care. The girl was making the baby in her mother's arms laugh.
She was in his year, wasn't she? That's nice. They could be friends.
Something in Peeta's chest unwound and melted as he watched the girl, crept down both arms until they were heavy. It was like the feeling he got right before he drifted to sleep at night, safe and warm.
But he wasn't sleepy.
His mind raced with images of him with the little girl with dark braids. Them, sitting next to each other in the cold gray school. Peeta would share his almost-new box of crayons with her and she'd smile. They'd eat lunch together. At naptime, they would set their mats up next to each other, hold hands while they sleep. After school, they would play together in the nearby field before going home.
Or better yet, she wouldn't have to go home. She could live with him at the bakery. And Peeta would never let his mother yell at her or throw things or hit her. And they'd both sleep in his bed at night and he would hold her close to keep her safe….
That last thought was strange. Peeta didn't know why they should sleep together or hold hands or any of the other things, but his mind kept throwing pictures at him and they all looked right. Him and her, as easy as breathing.
He belonged with her.
The boy's line moved faster than the girl's and before long, Peeta and his father made it to the entrance of the building. As soon as they stepped into the narrow space and Peeta couldn't see the little girl anymore, he heart began to pound in his chest. He gulped in a breath, but the air felt thick and he couldn't swallow it down, it kept escaping through his teeth. His little body began to tremble.
Other things trembled, too. Things up and down the dimly lit hallway. Stacks of books clattered off tables, chairs overturned. One lady tripped, sprawling face first to the linoleum floor. Peeta squirmed out of his father's arms, forcing a little chance to catch him by surprise. He needed to get outside to the girl. What if something happened to her?
The little boy sprinted for the door, but he didn't make it. His father recovered enough to make a grab for Peeta's legs, tackling him to the ground.
The boy howled. "I need to go!" He didn't sound like himself, but like some shrieking monster, even to his own ears. He clawed at his father's hands and twisted wildly, trying to get outside. He knew the other people were staring, but he didn't care. He had to go. He bucked, wrenching one leg free. Almost, he thought. Just a little bit more.
Using his own chance, his father got to his feet and flipped the boy upside-down over his shoulder. Peeta still struggled, but his father's chance was much stronger than any five-year-old's.
The man carried Peeta to a nearby bathroom with high, tiled walls an indeterminate color between gray and green. He sat the boy down on the counter top. Both of them were breathing hard, their twin ragged gasps fighting with the random dribble of the faucets in the dank room.
The man reached over to the paper towel dispenser, ripping a couple of the sheets down before wetting them and wiping the little boy's face.
"What got into you, boy? You know better than to use chance in public."
Peeta watched his father's hands as they scrubbed at the dirt staining his cheeks. Angry red scratch marks crisscrossed the man's skin. He shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have scratched his father. Guilt nibbled at his edges, but the need to get out to the girl gnawed at his chest.
"I want to go outside, now," Peeta said. With his father's chance holding him in place, it was the best rebellion he could muster.
"Why?"
"There's a little girl. With dark braids," Peeta said. "I need her." Out loud the words didn't make sense, Peeta knew, but it didn't stop his need to go to her, to see her, make sure she was still all right.
The wet paper towel plopped from his father's hand to the floor. And he didn't even pick it up, even though it made a mess. He seemed fixed in place, his eyes set on a spot somewhere over Peeta's head.
"He's only five," he said to the wall. The man turned away from the boy and dragged a hand through his hair.
When his father turned back to him, he leaned down and gazed for a long moment into the boy's eyes, searching for something.
It made Peeta fidget.
Whatever he saw there made him inhale with a sharp, hissing sound. The man took a deep breath before putting his hands on Peeta's shoulders. "You know how we aren't like most people, Peeta?"
Peeta nodded absently. He was looking for a gap in his father's chance so he could get away. The little girl was in the building now, somehow he could feel it, but he said what his father had taught him to say, "Only us and the Cartwrights at the shoemakers."
"Yes, us and the Cartwrights," his father said. "And this feeling you have? It's one of the ways we're different. It's like our ears and like chance."
Peeta's hands strayed up to his ears, feeling past the normal curved lobes that people could see and up to the flour-dusted part people could not see. The sharp tips that poked through his wavy blond hair.
His father squeezed Peeta's shoulder a little. "Even meeting her now, you shouldn't have reacted to your match until at least puberty. I don't know why…" he voice trailed off, but the word match hummed in Peeta's mind. The little girl was his match.
"What I'm trying to say is that this girl isn't like us. If you race out there now, throwing chance left and right, you're going to scare her. Is that what you want?"
Peeta shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to scare her. The thought made his tummy hurt. "I didn't mean to force chance, it was on accident."
His father gave him a hard look and Peeta remembered the purposeful shove he'd given him. "Mostly on accident," he amended.
"And just because you want…," he trailed off again, rubbing a hand down the side his face…I don't know… you're so young… maybe you want to play with her all the time? Whatever you're feeling, it doesn't mean she feels it. She's still a stranger. You don't know her and she doesn't know you."
His father sounded sad again, but Peeta was shaking his head. No. No. No. All the pictures that filled his mind earlier flickered and dimmed. His father was telling him that the girl with the braids, his match, might never like him, might never be his friend.
It felt like someone was trying to turn him inside-outside, saw him up until he was drippy and red like the pig they slaughtered last spring.
Up and down the counter, faucets started to rumble and gurgle, but his father stopped the noise with a frown.
"And you can never use chance on your match, not ever. Do you hear me? It's wrong. Always. Not to mention it puts us in danger. We're in hiding."
Peeta's face turned red, not with embarrassment, but with anger. How could his father think he would try to force chance with the little girl? If she liked him because of chance, it wouldn't be real.
For another long moment, his father studied him. "The lure of a match is too strong, and you're too young to control it. You'll end up revealing us. I'm going to have to bind you."
"Noooo," Peeta cried out. "Don't! I promise I'll be good!" Peeta wrestled against the chance that held him. He broke the hold for a moment, but his father caught him before he could jump from the counter.
"You're not safe around her."
"I am!" Peeta screamed. "I'm safest around her and she's safest around me."
"It's either a binding or we teach you at home." His father voice had gone flat in the way that meant no more discussion.
Peeta couldn't remember ever seeing the little girl at the bakery. If he were homeschooled, he might never see the girl again. And he needed to see her. She had somehow become the most important thing in his whole world.
Peeta stopped struggling and held out his arms.
The man reached into his back pocket and drew out a sachet of flour. It was their medium and the reason they owned the only bakery in District 12. The man took a pinch of the fine white powder and drew a line around one of Peeta's wrists, then the other until Peeta wore two flour bracelets that only he and people like him could see.
"Earth to earth and blood to blood. Peeta Mellark is bound from communicating with his match until his eighteenth birthday…or until she needs him, whichever comes first."
The howling monster that broke out of Peeta in the hallway raked its claws against his insides, demanding he fight this binding and find the girl, that she needed him now, would always need him.
Eighteen? That was years and years away. He was already five and he'd be five plus five plus five again and still not eighteen. He'd be a grown-up. Years and years until he could even talk to the girl.
This was bad. Peeta let the heavy teardrops stream down his face, a silent plea. Only his father could change or annul the binding.
His father's eyes found the ground. "You have to trust me, it's for the best."
He wiped Peeta's face again in silence and then led the boy back to the deserted registration table and then to his class.
Two dozen boys and girls sat crossed-legged on a circle rug around a standing woman. The woman, Peeta's new teacher, found a place for the boy. It was a spot to the left of the girl with the dark braids.
His heart pounded in his chest. He opened his mouth.
Hi, my name is Peeta.
He willed his mouth to say the words, but the binding blocked his voice. He could talk to the blond boy sitting on the other side of him, but if he even thought of talking to her, his voice froze.
The teacher came back with a name tag and pinned it to Peeta's shirt.
"Now, we were just about to learn the Valley Song," the teacher said. "Does anybody already know it?"
Before Peeta could blink, the girl's hand shot straight up in the air. The teacher helped her up onto a table, and, without a hint of shyness, she began to sing in a voice so sweet the mockingjays outside stopped to listen.
If sounds were colors, Peeta would have pulled out his best pastel crayons. Rolling swirls of blues and greens, a dusting of pink, yellow just at the edges. It was a song of hope and spring.
The new beast that now lived inside Peeta's chest and raged against his binding, liked that the girl was so close, even if Peeta couldn't talk to her. It curled up, lulled to sleep by the sound of her voice. Some of the pressure that had been building inside of him dissipated and Peeta felt a little more like himself.
Much too soon, though the song was over and the girl hopped down from the table, not at all afraid of the distance. She landed right in front of Peeta's crossed legs. Then she looked at him. Right at him. Gray-gray eyes, not the color of ash, but of storm clouds looked at him. His heart boomed. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Fast, like he'd run and run.
I'm Peeta. He said it in his head.
The girl didn't smile at him, but she didn't frown, either. After a second, he had to look away or else his heart would explode.
"Thank you, Katniss," his teacher said. "Everyone please give Katniss a round of applause."
As the class clapped, all Peeta could think was, "Her name is Katniss. Katniss is my match."
The girl, Katniss, gave a little bow and said, "Thank you for your consideration," before sitting back down next to him.
