Written for Prompts in Panem - Day 3, Queen Anne's Lace
"Fantasy: An illusion, hallucination, fable, or daydream. Fantasies are mental images about events that have not happened but often fulfill a psychological need or wish."

/ five /

When he was five years old, he dreamed about talking to her. He dreamed about bringing her a treat from the bakery, maybe a cupcake or a fancy pastry, if he could get it past his mom, or a flower picked on his walk to school. He imagined that she'd smile shyly, take it from him, and then ask him to sit down next to her. She seemed like that kind of person – kind, honest, charming. He dreamed of hearing her sing for hours. He dreamed with the heart of a boy who has not yet been burned by the reality of the world. He dreamed of striking up a conversation and sharing his lunch with her. He could never actually get up the nerve to do it, but that was okay. He had time.

/ eight /

When he was eight years old, he dreamed of walking her home from school. They would hold hands and he would ask her about her mom and dad and Prim, the only person, it seemed, who could make her smile, really smile. He knew she lived in the Seam, he'd heard his mother's rants about "Seam trash" and "those Everdeen girls" when she thought he was asleep, but he didn't care. His heart had been stolen by a girl he'd never spoken to, a girl with two braids who rarely smiled, and he would have walked to the Capitol and back ten times over if it meant he would get to spend time with her.

/ eleven /

When he was eleven years old, he dreamed of kissing her for the first time. It wasn't like he really wanted to kiss anyone, but his friend Arrow told him that was what boys and girls were supposed to do, and for the first time, he considered it. He figured that if he were ever going to kiss anyone, it should be her. She was the only girl he'd ever thought of holding hands with, the only girl he'd ever wanted to talk to for hours. The only one who didn't gross him out. Once Arrow had mentioned it, he couldn't stop thinking about her mouth. He stared at her in class, watching as she bit down on her lower lip with a few of her upper teeth as she concentrated on the lesson. He gazed at her mouth at lunchtime as she chewed on a sandwich, his apple frozen halfway to his mouth as he stared at her. He ogled from the other side of the hallway as she talked to Madge at the end of the day, worrying her lip with her teeth again, smiling a little whenever Madge made a joke.

He wondered if she had soft lips.

He hoped he would get to find out.

When the mining accident happened two weeks later, he felt intensely sad for her. She must have been missing her father desperately.

But what he missed was seeing her smile.

/ fifteen /

When he was fifteen, he wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to know what she smelled like, what she tasted like, what the pads of her fingers on his face would feel like. His interest in her had always been one of friendship, of quiet love, but suddenly, almost overnight, it seemed, everything changed. He suddenly desired her, longed for her, wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in her arms, her body pressed against his over and over again. She was all he could think about. His friends talked about the girls they took to the Slag Heap, about what they'd done together, about how good it all felt. The next week they would be talking about a group of new girls, comparing them all like trading cards from a game. It was all a game to them.

But Peeta didn't want that. Of course he wanted her like that, more than anything, but he didn't want to just fuck her and move on. He wanted to have her and keep her and spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted to know her favorite color and her favorite song (does she still remember the Valley Song? he wondered) and what he could do to coax a smile out of her. Because he would have done it, whatever it was.

His brothers teased him endlessly about her. "Either you need to make a move on her or you need to move on, Peet," they'd say at nighttime in their shared bedroom. And that was always the worst time for them to bring her up, because then she was in his thoughts and his dreams all night and he had so, so many fantasies about her.

And the worst part was, he was still too afraid to talk to her.

/ sixteen /

When he was sixteen, when he watched Katniss put up a brave face as she volunteered for her distraught sister, he didn't dream about her. Instead he dreamed of dying, right there where he stood, maybe getting hit by a bolt of lightning or even shot by a Peacekeeper, because he couldn't imagine anything worse watching her be slaughtered on the big screen in front of him in just a few short days.

And then his name was reaped and he only dreamed that maybe he could at least kiss her once before the end. Before he died in that arena and he could dream no more.

/ seventeen /

At seventeen, on the beach in the Quarter Quell arena, he dreamed up a life for her outside the confines of the Games. Elaborate fantasies of her future with Gale, with their children, with Prim and her mother by her side. He dreamed of her laughter, her safety, her happiness, her survival.

When he was in the Capitol, being tortured by Snow, he dreamed the same things. Despite the pain and the screaming, the intensity of it all, he dreamed that she was okay, somewhere safe. Somewhere where she couldn't get hurt.

After the hijacking, he didn't dream those things anymore.

/ twenty /

At twenty, all he dreamed of was a simple life. Katniss by his side, a bakery rebuilt, the woods available for her hunting whenever she wished. District 12 moving on, their hands clasped, his lips on hers, all the time in the world to do with as they pleased.

And finally, finally, a dream came true.

fin