Hello all! I decided to do a 30-prompt challenge for The Hunger Games. I can't promise super quick updates, since school has began.
First of all, many thanks to my friend Casey (burnithot) who helped me SO much with ideas. She thought of the whole Catching Fire connection, so all credit for that goes to her :) There are a bunch of other connections to the books, I hope you can catch them. Thanks to a sweet anon who reviewed Honey and Wheat today, which motivated me to finish up this story. Maybe I'll get motivation again for that story, too.
This can be considered sort of AU, since Katniss and Peeta never spoke before the bread. Let's ignore that for this story ;) Please review, and enjoy!
#1. Beginning.
Peeta's stranded on the metal plate. He stands there, frozen, as if the gentle blue waves are a more menacing opponent than the nearby, weapon-yielding tributes.
Katniss regrets never teaching him how to swim. She's poised to retrieve Peeta when Finnick says he'll get him. Only her faithfulness to the pregnancy story keeps her from diving in herself.
It wouldn't be the first time she's saved his life. It wouldn't be the first time she's saved him from a rough current. As Finnick throws his arm over Peeta and glides back through the water, she's thrown back nine years.
Katniss chews her lunch slowly and smacks her lips. Squirrel jerky has never tasted so good.
She leans back on the rock she is perched upon, the tips of her toes dangling in the stream. Being early April, the water still has an icy chill. Katniss doesn't mind it. She is used to it, from hunting trips with her father, the winter stream water seeping through her boots and thick socks. He won't let her shoot a thing yet.
"Soon," he always says.
"I'm eight years old!" she replies, crossing her arms and stomping through the slush to climb a tree until her temper has passed. But he lets her hold the bow now, to get a feel of its smooth wood and how to correctly hold it.
Katniss takes a swig of berry juice from her canteen. She will do anything to get out of the cramped lunchroom of the schoolhouse. It's stuffy and musty and smells of all the meager packed lunches: salted, pickled, and sometimes rotting. She can't stand the stench. The stream behind the schoolhouse, separated by a climbable chain-link fence and masked by a cluster of pines, is the perfect place to escape. She hardly speaks in class, so her absence isn't noticed.
Here, she feels safe. She can say anything she wants. The gurgling water, the rustle of young leaves, and the quacking of distant ducks are better listeners than her gossiping, disheveled schoolmates.
As the ends of her tangled braids swirl in the stream, she sings the song her mother croons every morning at dawn.
Little child, good morning
What shall this day bring?
The sun is a'shining
The mockingjay sings
The trees provide shelter
The sun keeps us warm
Such a day of blessings
The doves no longer mourn
Ker-plunk. Ker-plunk. QUAAAAAAACK!
A loudly crying duck interrupts Katniss. His plumage, streaked with green and purple feathers highlighted by the sun, flails as he fights another duck for a floating chunk of bread.
"Timothy! I was singing. That is just simply disrespectful. Is that what your Mama taught you, to interrupt others while they sing?"
Timothy stares at her innocently. Ker-plunk. Another bit of bread lands next to Timothy, and he fights the other duck once again.
"Timothy! Frederick! Stop fighting. It doesn't solve any problems, and there's bound to be another piece of—"
Bread grazes her nose and falls into her lap.
"You name the ducks?"
Katniss raises her head to see a boy her age wading in the creek nearby. His overalls are haphazardly rolled to his knees.
"Why, you don't?" Katniss replies in a cool tone, turning her head from the boy.
"Oh, I do," he says in a serious tone, blue eyes widening at the idea of people not naming the ducks. "But I named the green and purple one Poppyseed, because he likes the bread with the poppyseeds."
"Huh," Katniss said. "Looks more like a Timothy to me. Regardless, people don't call me Squirrel Jerky."
The boy wrinkles his eyebrows, but tentatively wades further into the stream toward Katniss's rock. She slides over, granting him permission to join her, so he hoists himself up.
Playing with the remains of her squirrel jerky, Katniss asks, "What's your name?"
"Peeta Mellark."
"Pita, like the bread?"
"I'm the baker's son. And it's with two E's."
"My name is—"
"Katniss."
She raises an eyebrow at his quick interruption.
"You sang the Valley Song on the first day of school," he continues, cheeks reddening and voice softening. "I could hear you singing from down the stream, just now." Peeta leans his elbows back on the rock and shakes a cottonweed seed from his shaggy, sandy hair.
"What were you doing here?" Katniss asks.
Peeta holds up his hemp bag of bread. "The bread that Ma thinks is unsueable for sale."
"Unsuitable?"
"Yeah, that. It's burnt or tough. I feed it to the ducks, because I'm sure that they get hungry."
"No wonder Timothy turns his beak at my squirrel jerky. Hey, a piece of it for a roll of bread?" She offers her last piece.
Peeta's forehead creases. "I've never had squirrel; is it good?"
"So good. Try it."
Peeta grabs a slightly crisp roll from the bag, hands it to Katniss, then takes a bite of the jerky. As he chews, he closes his eyes, the sunlight catching his light eyelashes.
"This is so good."
"I'll try to get my Pa to trade some at the bakery next time he hunts in the woods."
She claps a hand over her mouth, and Peeta's eyes enlarge.
"N-no one's supposed to know that he—that he hunts. Please don't tell."
"I won't," Peeta says gravely, patting her on the back.
"Swear?" Katniss casually swipes at a watering eye.
"Swear on Timothy the duck. Also known as Poppyseed. Swear on that dandelion." Peeta points at a lone dandelion on the bed of the creek. He offers his hand, and Katniss grasps it in a shake.
"Why have I never seen you here before?" she asks.
"I guess I stay at my part of the stream, and you stay at yours." Peeta replies. "Sometimes I like to stand on rocks and pretend I'm a bird."
He softly whistles the signature, haunting call of a mourning dove. Katniss always thinks they sound so sad and confused, calling, "Who? Who? Who?"
Katniss giggles. "So you're the dove I always hear."
Peeta smiles widely, freckles dappled across his dimpled cheeks.
He stands up and imitates a crow. "Caw, caw!" he croons, flapping his arms wildly. Katniss laughs harder, joining him in flailing her arms.
"We're king and queen of the world!" Peeta cries, throwing his arms back and simultaneously losing his balance.
"Peeta!" Katniss shrieks as he falls, hitting his head on the rock and slipping into the creek.
"Swim, Peeta! It's only a few feet deep!"
"I don't know how!" He chokes out, arms thrashing and head barely above the surface of the water.
"Take my hand, Peeta." She leans forward as far as she can on the rock, stretching her hand into the water.
Tears tumble down his face, and blood from his head wound trickles. "I can't, I can't."
"Please stop crying. I don't want your freckles to wash away." Katniss says, extending her arm further.
Peeta, gulping mouthfuls of streamwater, flounders in the water and makes slight headway.
Katniss feels a surge of panic radiate from her rapidly pounding heart to her turning stomach. She barely knows this boy, but already, she knows she can't lose him.
I don't want to lose the boy with the bread.
"Just look into my eyes and reach," she says.
Blue and grey collide. Peeta bites his lip in concentration until his small index finger encircles Katniss's own. The remainder of his numb fingers entwine with hers tightly. Katniss pulls his body toward the rock, helping him climb to the top.
Peeta spews inhaled streamwater over the edge of the rock. Once he is finished, Katniss pulls him toward her and grips his overall straps tightly. They stay there, Peeta panting heavily, Katniss nestling her face between his soft cotton shirt and drenched hair, attempting to keep him warm.
"I—"
"Shh." Katniss places her hand over Peeta's mouth, and rips cloth from her skirt to press on his bleeding forehead.
"You look like a wet dog." She says matter-of-factly.
Color returns to Peeta's face with a blush.
"A cute dog, though," Katniss says, backtracking. "Better than a wet cat. My cat Buttercup is ugly all the time, but especially when he's wet." She laughs to herself.
"You saved my life." Peeta says solemnly. "If you weren't there, I would've died."
His eyes well up with tears, and Katniss scoots closer to him. Tearing some material from her skirt, she wraps the cloth around his head like a bandage.
"You, mister, need to learn how to swim."
"Can you teach me?" Peeta straightens up eagerly.
"Tomorrow. I'll teach you tomorrow," Katniss says. She takes his hand, and they carefully hop off the boulder. They splash through the water until they reach the bank of the stream.
Peeta spots the dandelion from earlier, and grasps it in his small hands.
"What're you kids doing here?" Katniss glances first at the shoes of the speaker, heavy boots, then slowly upward to see his white insulated suit. A Peacekeeper.
"This area is off-limits. Don't they teach you kids to read by now?" He roughly gestures toward the sign on the chain link fence.
"We're so sorry, sir, we didn't see the sign…" Katniss frantically replies.
"How old are you now, eight? Where I come from, we're literate far before then." He grasps Katniss and Peeta by the backs of their shirts, dragging them back to the schoolhouse. As they hurry along in attempt to keep up with the Peacekeeper, Peeta reaches his hand out to Katniss, still holding the dandelion. Cold fingers mesh, and Katniss grasps the flower.
"Thank you," she mouths.
Kicking open the schoolhouse door, the Peacekeeper interrupts a reading lesson. Their teacher looks up, and her rosy face goes pale at the sight of a Peacekeeper.
"No wonder these delinquents can't read signs. They're missing reading." The Peacekeeper says more loudly than necessary.
"Where were they?"
"Down by the river."
Teacher's face becomes more pallid, if that is even possible, and her voice goes high-pitched and squawky.
"You can never go back there. That area is off-limits. Katniss, how many times have I told you?"
"It was my fault. I took her back there," Peeta intercedes.
"We will not be having shenanigans by the river. Peeta, just go home right now to deal with that injury."
She turns toward the Peacekeeper. "Thank you, sir. We will see that these two don't pass boundaries again." The Peacekeeper brusquely shoves Peeta out the door.
"Peeta!" Katniss cries, biting her lip. She wishes she could take him to her mother. She could fix that gash in a minute.
"Miss Everdeen, sit down."
Katniss scans the room for a bench to sit at. Most students sitting alone at a desk place their bag beside them. Their eyes scream, "This seat's taken."
Only Madge Undersee slides over on her bench to make room for Katniss. Katniss, face red from embarrassment and heat, but mostly anger, grabs her book from her sack.
As Madge tucks a strand of fair hair behind her ear and points out the current chapter to Katniss, she whispers, "You can sit with me at lunch from now on."
Katniss gives a subtle smile of thanks.
The bakery is steamy with the smell of yeast and spices when he enters. His mother viciously rolls a slab of dough on the counter with a rolling pin, as if the dough has somehow personally offended her.
"Um, hi Ma."
She whips her head around, some curls exploding from her head scarf. "Peeta, what in the world are you doing here?"
"I-I got sent home. I hit my head."
She squinted her eyes and inspects the cut. "That's just a scratch. You'll be fine. Do you know how many burns I get daily baking?"
"Um, lots?"
"You better believe it, lots. How did you hit your head?"
Peeta considers lying, but doing such typically comes back to bite him in the future.
"I was playing in the river."
"With whom?"
"Katniss Everdeen."
"That Seam trash?"
Peeta clenches his fist. "She's not trash, Ma. She's very smart."
"Psch. She's smart enough to get your head bashed in."
"I thought you said it was a scratch."
She slams down the rolling pin.
"Peeta, I am not in the mood for your attitude right now. I do not want you associating with that scum."
Peeta's knuckles go white. He wills himself not to cry, for probably the third time that day. But he's never been good at hiding how he feels.
"Ma, please, she's not—"
His mother lunges, her flour-dusted hand slapping his cheek with a sharp sting.
"My sons don't cry. You are not speaking to that girl again. Discussion over. Roll the dough."
The lump of dough on the counter is as large as the lump in Peeta's throat.
The next morning, Katniss eagerly gets ready for school, for the first time. She has a new partner to sit with. Peeta Mellark. Maybe they can try to escape to the river again. She can show him the ducks at the lake in the woods after school—he'd like that. She opens the door to find Peeta sitting on a bench in the front row.
"Peeta!" She cries. He looks up at her with an expression of such pure dread that she falters slightly. But she continues to the desk and sits next to him.
"I brought something for you, Peeta." His forehead is wrapped in the same blood-soaked scrap of Katniss's skirt, and his cheek has a new bruise. His blue eyes apologetic, he rises from the bench and sits next to Delly Cartwright. They strike up a cheery conversation about the daily cupcake special at the bakery.
Katniss stares at her hands, holding the piece of squirrel jerky. Yesterday, her father let her hold the bow. It was the first squirrel she ever shot.
I don't want to lose the boy with the bread.