Yet another one of those stories I've had lying around my computer for a while. I started this fic because I wanted to write something multi-chapter but without a large, dramatic storyline. As much as I'm prone to writing angst I really enjoyed writing happy Everlark in "Baby Steps" so this will be similar in nature. It's meant to be entirely episodic, a series of ficlets tied together by all taking place in the same story-universe, on a specific date each year. I chose June 9th because that was the day I began writing it and, well, it seemed as good a date as any.
This first installment is from Peeta's POV. The POVs will alternate between the two of them. Since there's no plotline per se I don't know how many chapters there will end up being, or how often chapters will be posted, or for that matter how many years it will end up covering. I suppose I'll keep it up for as long as I can keep coming up with ideas.
It's a little after nine in the evening and the sun has begun to set. From the back deck of Katniss' house we can follow the sun on the first part of its downward journey until it reaches the tree line. There is a lawn, the end of which is marked by a small hedge, followed by about a hundred meters of public domain grass and then the fence and the woods. The grass on the lawn is mowed and well-kept while the grass between the hedge and the forest grows higher and is still sprinkled with yellow dandelions. The summer after our first Games, and every other summer before that, the government made sure that the field was frequently mowed and free of weeds but after the war nobody's gotten around to it. We don't care much. It's rather nice to see the wild growing grass that nobody disturbs and Katniss loves the dandelions.
It's a warm summer's evening, but not quite as warm as it can be at this time of year. Katniss and I are both wearing full-length pants, I've got a sweater on and she wears a long cardigan. We sit together on the hammock, rocking slowly, enjoying the beautiful sight of the setting sun with all its oranges and pinks and blues. Katniss has her feet up on the cushion next to the one she's sitting on and she leans against me with her head on my shoulder and my arm wrapped loosely around hers. The soft fragrance of the primrose flowers fills the air and the only disturbance is the occasional mosquito we have to swat away.
Earlier today Katniss brought home a wild turkey, the first of the year, and we experimented with seasonings and vegetables and ended up with a quite refreshing casserole that we ate with wild rice and fresh salad. A lot of the things we put on the table have been hunted or gathered by Katniss or baked by me but there are some things we buy at the marketplace in town, which is only open during summer and autumn, or in the small grocery store that opened about a year ago. The wild rice is something they didn't originally sell at but Katniss asked them to bring it in from the Capitol and to our surprise they were able to do so within just a few weeks. Things have indeed changed a lot since the rebellion.
In a way it feels like we're still in some state of recuperating from our experiences during the rebellion. Nobody expects Katniss or me to really get a hold of our lives yet. She hunts, I bake and that's all we really do to feed ourselves. The money we won as victors of the 74th Hunger Games is still ours and in theory we never have to work another day in our lives but at some point people are going to expect us to contribute and not just loiter about and do whatever we feel like. It's almost as if we're on vacation, a very strange and often unpleasant form of vacation, but still an interlude between periods of work. I know this way of life has to come to an end at some point. We need more stability in our lives than to just float around and take each day as it comes. I'm just not sure I'm ready for that yet. I like having no pressure, no demands and no musts. I don't even know what I want to do when I reach the point where I am ready. Many people seem to expect me to have the bakery rebuilt or to open up a new one out here but I'm not at all convinced I want to do that. As much as I love the old family business it wouldn't be the same without my family and after the Hunger Games I came to realize that I enjoyed baking much more when I did it for my own sake and baked what I felt like baking rather than have it be a profession and something that came with boundaries and expectations. If I do the whole bakery thing anyway it will be on a smaller scale. I know there's no point anyway in trying to run a real bakery by myself. As for Katniss, I don't really know what she wants to do other than hunt. I will leave it up to her to figure it out.
"Sometimes when I see a picture of a deer or a wild boar what goes through my mind is picturing how I would kill it and later cook it" says Katniss, breaking the serene mood and smacking a mosquito between her hands.
"Utterly charming" I smirk.
"When you see a sunset like this, are you picturing how you could recreate it with your paint box?" she asks.
I take a moment to answer.
"Yes, sometimes. Not tonight, though."
She accepts the answer with a little noise in the back of her throat. Across the lawn we spot Buttercup coming back from a trek around his hunting grounds, what I like to refer to as him doing his evening rounds. He lazily crosses the yard, trots up to us on the back deck and with a grunt of greeting hops up on my lap where he curls up and yawns. Katniss, who has made better friends with the old cat than I ever expected her to, scratches behind his ear and then slowly strokes his fur. Buttercup purrs contently and yawns again.
"Will you stay for the night?" asks Katniss after a few minutes of silence.
"If you'll have me."
She looks up at me and smirks.
"Don't think you're going to get lucky just because I let you drool on the pillow next to mine."
I laugh lightly and place a kiss on the top of her head.
"Remind me before bed to go back to my place and get my pyjamas" I tease her back.
"Nah" she responds. "You probably won't be needing them."
I spend several nights of the week in her bed, on average about four or five. For the first month or so of our relationship we spent all nights together but it started to feel too intense, like we were moving too fast too soon. We're both still just teenagers, neither of whom have been in a real relationship before, and to go from not together almost living together at the drop of a hat was an enormous change. We both need some space from each other at times. Especially if I've had a flashback I want to be alone for the night but we have discovered that it's not so bad to long for each other every once in a while. We're never further apart at night than three houses down the road and we have an unspoken agreement that if we need the other it's okay to go to them. Sometimes when I'm sleeping alone in my own bed I wake up to find Katniss climbing in beside me after having a nightmare and sometimes when I wake up by myself and dreamt I lost her, or killed her, and I can't tell if it's real or not real I go over to her house and get into bed next to her.
Tonight is not one of the nights we'll spend apart. A small smile plays on my lips. The nights when we go to bed together usually entail having sex before going to sleep and getting to do that with Katniss is not something I think I can ever tire of. Her hand leaves Buttercup and lands on my thigh, slowly stroking close to the part of my body she only discovered last year but has loved to give attention to ever since. My smile widens at the gesture. Tonight is definitely going to be one of those nights where we fall asleep in a tangled mess, pleasurably exhausted in post-orgasmic haze.
"I love you" I tell her in a whisper against her hair. She responds by giving my thigh a light squeeze and making an "mmm" sound.
The two of us have survived two Hunger Games, a rebellion, the murder of people near and dear to us, the destruction of our home district, torture and the effects of highjacking but on nights like tonight none of that seems to really matter. Tonight we are just two nineteen year-olds in love, and getting to be together is all that matters.