MASSIVE SPOILERS FROM THE THIRD BOOK. DON'T READ IF YOU LIKE, HAVEN'T READ THEM ALL.

Always the boy with the bread – Part 1

Katniss bit into her doughnut, lashings of cream flowing from it's doughy goodness and dripping down her mouth. She didn't both licking it up; she was too busy enjoying to calorie full treat, dusted in powdery, white sugar.

Peeta's eyes drooped, sadly in a way which indicated that he was sad. Things just hadn't been the same lately. Ever since he'd re-built and opened the family bakery in District 12 Katniss changed. She's gained at least five pounds in a matter of weeks and only answered him when he waved a loaf of bread around in her face, wafting that oh-so-good, bready smell around her nostrils.

She was driving business away too. "The Boy with the Bread Bakery" had been steadily losing money, because Katniss kept eating the produce. He sometimes wondered if a combination of years of starving and the food in the arena had psychologically damaged her and given her an unhealthy attitude towards eating, but he'd shaken that idea aside. He'd obviously been looking into things too much.

He sometimes wondered if it was a strange coincidence that the day she'd chosen Peeta over muscular Gale had been the day he'd announced he planned to re-open the bakery. One time he'd asked her and she just just looked around uncomfortably and said, "Peeta, Peeta. The boy with the bread. How could I pick Gale over you? I mean, what is he? A blacksmith or something govermentish? No food to be gained there- err, I mean, Gale killed my sister inadvertently! The Bastard."

"Shut up Katniss! That's a lie and you know it! Gale was conceived within a legal marriage and- oh, you didn't mean that kind of "bastard". I get'cha." It had put his worries to bed for sometime, but her sudden weight gain and the way she slept with several loaves of his fine bread tucked under her arm each night brought back every insecurity.

"Mmmmm." She said, indicating the doughnut was good and tucking into one of Peeta's freshly bakes loaves. "Fuck me," she swallowed, "this bread's so good."

"Y-you want to have sex?" he asked hopefully and good-naturedly.

She looked looked appalled, "N-no, no, no, no. I err, I can't do that. It'd be insensitive."

"How?" he asked, miffed.

Standing up in rage she scowled at him, "God Peeta, my sister's DEAD. How could you expect me have sex now! Where's your respect!"

He sighed, "I just don't get how your sister being dead means we can't have sex. I mean, we're a couple now, aren't we?"

"Peeta, it's disrespectful! Don't make me wish I'd chosen Gale."

"Sorry!" he said quickly. She threatened to leave him for Gale at least three times a day. One time she'd actually stormed out to find him, but he'd been too busy making mass-war weapons to hang out with her and they didn't really see each other anyway. He had a government job or something. "How can I make it up to you?"

She looked at him coyly, "I think you know..."

"Katniss, that's your fifth loaf today!"

"PRIM'S DEAD AND-"

"Fine, fine! I'll make you some bread. I didn't know you were still hungry."

"I'm always hungry." she replied.

He privately thought this might be because she felt so cold and empty after being forced into murdering other children and the association between food and comfort had become warped, altering her perception of eating forever, but once again, he'd probably looked too far into it.

As he got to work on a fresh loaf he sighed. He wasn't really sure what to do and he didn't have any bro's to ask for girl advice. He thought of Gale and how muscular he was and how Gale would never have any problems with women. Peeta knew Gale used to get off with women behind the bike sheds all the time before he'd fancied Katniss. He was such a man.

Peeta wished he could be a manly man like Gale.

"I wish I could be a manly man, like Gale." he muttered to himself, waiting for the yeast to foam up. "Gale would know what to do..." he trailed off and decided he'd go and ask manly man Gale for his manly help down at the blacksmiths or maybe at that government job he had. Something like that.