A/N: This is not WtM and not Strawberry Time, a fact of which I am painfully aware. :( My life is extremely difficult and disheartening at present (and has been for the past several months) so I decided to use some of the quiet moments to try to peck away at this ridiculous project I've had in mind for several years. And wonder of wonders, some prose came out.
I really love (and ship) this particular pairing and this is my first attempt at writing them "on screen." Smut may follow.
Luka/Johanna
The best part of waking up is something Johanna Mellark is loath to admit outside her own head. It's the damn Folgers commercial that is being married to Luka. Coffee and kisses and the brown-haired little peep-peep burrowed against her chest.
Luka isn't an "O-dark-thirty" riser like the rest of his family – with his overnight shifts, he's usually en route to bed during the busiest part of their day – which is handy because Johanna has no desire to open her eyes before 7:00am – ideally, 10:00am, but that would mean not seeing Elske before she leaves for preschool. Of course, when Luka's on overnights Elske ends up in bed with her mama most of the time anyway, and like most youngsters she kicks like a mule in her sleep, but then there are tiny arms and puppy-soft breaths and baby-bird hair under Johanna's nose – things she never thought to experience, much less enjoy.
They worked overnights together for a while, but after Elske came along they had to reevaluate. Overnights meant picking up the baby at breakfast-time and falling into bed for maybe six hours of bad and broken sleep, interspersed with inarticulate arguments as to which of you was more tired when the baby wanted something twenty minutes after you finally dozed off.
Luka's mother, divorced and lonely, would take her in a heartbeat for as long as they wanted. Her heart had broken with longing for a daughter, and the upside of having three sons – admittedly, the gentlest, sweetest boys alive – was that they all kicked off their own generation with girls. Raisa was spoiled for choice when she wanted a granddaughter to watch, but when it came to Elske, Luka and Johanna had to decide whether they wanted to miss two-thirds of their baby's day or stagger their departures so one of them could always be home with her. It meant seeing less of each other, especially during those miserable toddler days, but it also meant being able to hand her off as you reached your wits' end, and with Elske in school now, things are finally starting to level out.
Johanna smiles at the distant gurgle of the steam wand, pecks her daughter's head with a kiss, and commences the mental countdown. Hazelnut triple-shot latte arriving in three minutes or less, hand-delivered to her in bed by the sexiest man alive.
Luka was a devastatingly handsome teen, and marriage – and fatherhood – fit him like the proverbial glove. It doesn't matter that Johanna's a paramedic as well; it makes her husband no less hot in his uniform, and the fact that he's still wearing it at this moment means he had a quiet night.
"Hey chicken," he says with a crease of his wicked dimples, setting the mug on the nightstand and crouching to kiss her forehead. "Peet was wondering if Chicken Little could come over and play with Ashpet today."
Saturday, she realizes with a slow, decadent smile. Ordinarily that means errands with the squeaker while Luka sleeps, but cousin play-dates mean an opportunity to join this beautiful man in bed, for fun – or, as often as not, for additional, unadulterated, glorious hours of sleep.
"When?" she wonders, and his dimples deepen deliciously.
"He's downstairs right now," he replies.
Johanna leans across their sleeping daughter for a long drink of latte – perfect as always: piping hot, silky-frothed and nutty and pleasantly bitter all at once – and settles back to stroke Elske's hair. "Think he'd take her like this?" she wonders wistfully and Luka holds up their daughter's always-packed overnight bag, patterned with pink and purple owls, with a grin.
"If we play our cards right, there might even be a sleepover to follow," he reveals.
She kisses Elske's head with embarrassing fondness and slips out the opposite side of the bed. "I need the bathroom," she says. "Meet you in there?"
He scoops up the little girl – as heavy a sleeper as her mother – and carefully hefts her up to rest her head on his shoulder. Like every other aspect of Luka as a father, it's disgustingly adorable. "Dressed or not?" he mouths.
She rolls her eyes. "Ask a silly question."
Seven minutes later her husband comes in to find the shower running and Johanna waiting topless in his pajama bottoms, perched on the toilet lid like she's waiting for her stop on the subway. "I couldn't decide," she says frankly. "Too many choices."
"Mamma mia," he murmurs in appreciative reply, one dark eyebrow arching as he edges her legs apart and slides down to kneel between them.
Johanna's small-framed but buxom, with an everyday cup-size equivalent to the average mother's nursing proportions. The kind of woman who wears two bras at the same time – one for containment and one for support – and for all that she's always talked frankly about sex matters, at heart she's a voluptuous, vulnerable tomboy. Luka's the only man she's ever been with, and the first time he saw her breasts – Homecoming Night of senior year – he'd been perplexed by the two bras and agog at what lay within.
They'd been friends and running partners before dating and had even spent platonic nights together when Luka started having nightmares about Peeta's snowmobile wreck, and it was no mystery that Johanna was busty, let alone to Luka, who had secretly, wildly adored her for years. But the unencumbered dimensions of her were something else entirely, and her face had burned at the slack-jawed Homecoming King sitting on her bed, gaping at her bare breasts like they'd just arrived from another planet.
Well, I can't very well run track with this bouncing on my chest, now can I? she'd snapped in response, cupping and jiggling the offending flesh in his face. Or throw a javelin.
Luka promptly made it clear that he had absolutely no complaint with those magnificent breasts, nor shortage of interest in them.
"Cor blimey, Hanna," he sighs around a damp mouthful of nipple. "You realize you're the best of all worlds, right?"
She bends to press a kiss to his dark blond hair; a tender, even sentimental gesture, and her husband chuckles softly. "Case in point," he says.
Johanna always thought she'd be a voracious lover, but while she and Luka have certainly enjoyed lively interludes – saucy stripteases, deep purple love bites on unexpected parts of the anatomy, sex on or against some very creative surfaces and in a few creative positions – what she loves most is this everyday sort of intimacy. Undressing each other after work, sharing a shower, then just fitting together like it's the next step in the process. More than once they've done it right here on the toilet lid: halfway through drying off, she sits Luka down, slips him inside her and rides him quietly, toes curling on the tiles, her arms hugging his shoulders and her cheek resting against his hair.
They've both known pain and loss, and their work, while meaningful, contributes its share. Soft, sweet sex can be the best balm in the world.
"How badly do you need that shower?" she asks – because if she's going by how great he smells right now, it's years in the future – and he lets her nipple slide from his mouth.
"Paperwork night," he says, taking a breast in each hand and kneading gently. "No calls. Figured I could go another day before washing my uniform."
"Better get you off your knees, then," she replies with a crooked smile and helps him to his feet before shutting off the spray.
It's funny – pleasantly so – how little those practical interruptions truly impact desire. The first time after the birth that Luka went down on her – a moment they'd both been aching for – he had just settled between her bent legs, all soft slippery lips and flickering tongue, when Elske let out an almighty wail from the bedside crib, her brand-new diaper filled to the brim and reeking to high heaven.
Don't. Go. Anywhere, he ordered raggedly.
Wouldn't dream of it, Johanna panted back.
Some twenty minutes and six verses of a lullaby later, Luka threw his t-shirt in the general direction of the hamper and himself into bed, smelling faintly of Lysol and lavender, where he promptly buried his face between his wife's legs with an almost desperate moan. Adrift between dozing and delayed desire, Johanna gave a bemused laugh at the lap of that somehow-still-eager tongue and rolled over to straddle his face, then nestled herself down over his mouth.
A groan of Manna from heaven! resonated deep between her legs, and she shifted forward to brace on her forearms – a position that thoroughly delighted Luka, as it gave him dangling breasts to enjoy at his leisure, though he remained at his post much longer than she had dared hope for, like she was a four-course meal and he meant to savor every last taste. She was leaning heavily on her arms, eyes closed and mouth slack in bliss, when Luka slid up her body to sample a breast and prodded hopefully between her legs with the most glorious erection she'd ever felt.
In spite of herself and all the very grown-up pleasantries they were in the process of enjoying, Johanna giggled. Where'd your pants go? she demanded, because somehow in all that time she'd never felt him pull them down.
They got tight, he grunted from the valley between her breasts. Needed some air.
I don't think you'll find any where you're headed, she bantered back, but he'd left her so wonderfully soft and slippery with his mouth that she couldn't help dipping down to slither along the length of his penis, lubricating him and savoring the friction all at once.
And here I thought you chose this position for my benefit, he said tightly, sucking hard at the curve of one breast as a hot, eager drop trickled from the head of him against her clitoris, and she chuckled.
Your engine was due for a lube job, she teased, gliding shamelessly along his length, and this one's free.
Call it a draw, he replied, looking up with a wicked grin. I think I serviced your engine first.
Thoroughly, she conceded, and sank down to envelop him to the root. It had been so long and exquisite a build-up that Luka gasped a little, both at the swiftness of her movement and the relief of finally being inside her.
Luka still makes the most beautiful sounds in bed – or wherever they choose to be intimate.
She unbuttons his dark blue uniform shirt and drapes it neatly over the towel rod, then tugs up the t-shirt beneath for a glimpse of his belly. "Where's your sticker?" she asks with a very good imitation of genuine puzzlement, pulling off the garment entirely and dipping behind him to peek at his back, as though she might have placed it somewhere different last time.
"I'm nowhere near due for a servicing," he replies with more tenderness than humor and tugs her back around for a long, soft kiss. "But I bow to the wisdom of my mechanic."
She looks him up and down and frowns thoughtfully. "Well, that belt needs to go for a start," she says, unbuckling it quickly, then undoing the button and zipper beneath. He's erect, of course – the slightest glimpse of her breasts will do it – and she shucks down his pants and boxers in one fell swoop.
He left his shoes and socks out in the bedroom, so with a few quick shifts she's got a fully naked husband in her sights, and as always, Luka is a sight to behold. Not as endowed as certain other members of his family, maybe, or so she's gleaned, but then she's never had any complaints with the equipment. It's beautiful – perish the thought – and so very, wonderfully functional. She could climb on him right now and climax before her latte has had time to cool.
"If you're planning on the 28-point inspection, I'm not sure I can make it today," he says lightly, and she scrambles out of her pajama bottoms – well, his – and mounts him in a leap. She's small enough that this position isn't too strenuous for Luka, even at the end of an overnight shift, and they reinforced the towel rod behind him years ago for this very purpose. His hands grip her buttocks for support but he lets her guide the action entirely, squeezing his hips with her strong legs and grinding fiercely at their junction as though she would wring him out, her hands white-knuckled on the towel rod.
"The best of all worlds, Hanna," he groans, sucking wetly at her collarbone, and then she clenches, her head falling back and eyes closed tight. He fills her with a shudder and a jerk of his lean hips and suddenly they're on the floor in a knot of melted limbs, with Johanna in her husband's lap and his work shirt – no worse for wear – fallen down over her head.
He lifts it off with an utterly foolish grin and kisses her wet and deep, like a foolishly grinning boy has no right knowing how, then leans back to consult his wristwatch. "Three minutes down," he informs her. "How do you want to spend the rest of the day?"
A/N: I headcanon in modern AUs that Luka was with Peeta when he had the accident that cost him his leg and that Luka consequently went on to become a paramedic (as did Johanna), which is why he's no longer (actively) at the bakery.