Dreamers Live to Die
I did the cowardly thing and tried to avoid the future as much as possible, even with all the devastatingly powerful information behind my lips. But alas, fate found its way to bite me in the ass. [SI-OC Gale's twin sister]
Published 2020.01.31
Gale had always known his sister was smart. He had seen the curious glint in her eye during a particularly brutal school fight out on the recess field one day and acknowledged her casual comment of the general anatomy the students were hitting. He didn't know how Blaire knew about the technical terms for muscle groups in the bodies, but chalked it up reading too much to the ever growing "weird things Blaire does" shelf in his brain. He knew how she acted like an adult, confusingly mature at times he wanted to throw tantrums, and sometimes only just conversed with him about his daily struggles in math class out of boredom of a long day. She was unnaturally canny, too, having known and taught him how to look out for poisonous foods in the forests by watching how other animals interact with it. If birds and squirrels ate it, then humans most likely could, too.
She helped raise him alongside their mother, as much as he hated to admit. She felt much more like an older sister than his twin, where he was even six minutes older. Perhaps there were times when he was younger and more prideful that made him want to hate Blaire, to envy her brain, to distance himself away from her so he'd stop being "the other twin" or the "not as gifted" twin.
Somehow, in the bottom of his heart, he always always knew that if her name was drawn during the reapings, she'd win the games with resounding flourish.
And that she did. By outsmarting her remaining opponents, using electricity and wires and other gizmos and gadgets and mechanical terms the adults gossiped about but never really fully understood because that was Capitol technology, not a simple coal miner's. How she knew how to utilize technologies and sciences that most adults in their district couldn't even pronounce was what confused him. How she completely obliterated Career tributes by directing a lightning bolt during a sandstorm right down their spines. How she fought off several beastly bird mutations all on her own in heart-stopping, death defying stunts.
The night of the final battle in the cornucopia sandstorm set the entirety of district twelve into festivities. People in the Seam all the way to the merchants section cheered wildly in the streets for her victory, taping homemade banners and posters and decorations all around the city. People stopped work and school just to plan for the homecoming celebration. The influx of money just from her return and victory set everyone in good spirits, especially the children jumping rope and spinning on the rickety playground merry-go-round. District twelve's first victor in nineteen years, who had seemed to be against impossible odds. Barely thirteen. Not even ninety pounds soaking wet, or even eighty by now, judging by the conservative amount of lizard pickings she ate during her time in the arena. Short. Young. Dewy eyed little girl, facing an entire Career pack. And then came the indescribable ring of explosives from the screens. At first, many people panicked that the noise came from outside, that one of the mines burst open so great it could be heard all the way to the neighborhoods. And then more explosions set in and his sister manipulating thin bronze wires connected to radiating power systems revealed to be the case.
She was smart, wise, wily, and witty.
Yet, as the doors of the Justice Building opened and she and her mentor and that outrageous Capitol escort sent two years ago walked out, he saw none of that in the foreign girl waving her hand and smiling like a loony.
That didn't look like his sister. That looked like a stranger. Due to being the victor's family, all five of them stood in the front row of the cheering crowd. Nobody noticed the emptiness of her eyes, the hollowness of her smile, the dimmed emotion glowing so fake and radiant on her face. Nobody but him.
She looked just as thin as the day she left, which meant the Capitol hadn't been feeding her well or something truly was wrong. Unfortunately, the latter could only be true.
When the remaining members of the Hawthorne clan were called up to congratulate and hug Blaire half to death, he ignored everything wrong about the situation and the girl to just hug the living daylights out of her. She yelped in her familiar squeaky voice, holding back tears in front of the numerous cameras about how much he'd grown and that he was shooting up like a weed, but he didn't care. All he cared about was that his twin was back safe and sound and now there was nothing to worry about. No more long winters, no more putting in more tesserae for more oil, no more wondering what time the other would be coming home from their jobs.
Unfortunately, the Capitol hadn't been able to erase the scars from her mind. Besides the long streaks of white lightning on her arm and back, her skin shone bright and clean like one of those porcelain dolls Posy looked longingly for in front of expensive shop displays. But her mind was never fully going to heal. He could barely bring himself to watch every Hunger Games, so he couldn't even imagine what it felt like to be in the games.
In the following days, they moved to a house across from Haymitch Abernathy, that old drunk, in Victor's Village. The new house - no, mansion - was a dream. An exorbant amount of room able to fit maybe a dozen of their old house in the new one, working electricity and gas stoves and enough fireplaces for a small coal mine. Everyone now had their own room to run around and play in, including Vick and Rory who pretty much screamed about having their own bathroom and not complaining about the other hogging the toilet. Gale enjoyed his mornings of heading to the bakery and purchasing expensive cheese and strawberry strudels, where he then shocked his little siblings with the beautiful, bountiful breakfast. He even brought the Everdeens a bag of fresh pastries, as if apologizing for not needing to hunt with Katniss any longer. Of course, he hunted with her anyway, wanting to let out pent up stress and to help his best friend feed her family.
But the first of August represented the start of hurricane season. Normally, he enjoyed hunting big, fat frogs in running streams throughout hurricane season, but the day the first storm thundered in was the day Blaire's careful facade of being okay began to crack.
The idea of rain and being drenched on sounded absolutely wonderful, considering the waves of dry heat district twelve had been receiving the entire summer. But I hadn't thought about what brought on rain. Thunder. Hordes of thunderclouds, all crackling with lightning energy. The first strike glared through my bedroom window, alighting features no doubt petrified with fear. I couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't breathe as the sky rumbled and groaned and screamed in my ears.
Lightning girl, afraid of lightning and thunder. How ironic.
Waves of pain rippled through my coiled, too tight muscles, but I couldn't bring myself to relax. The weather seemed to be wholly against my very being, reaching out and tearing off bits of my soul and sanity. Someone creaked the door open, said a few blurry words, then carried me somewhere where the sound became more muffled and bits of warmth from a fireplace sparked through. This room functioned on gross kerosene lamps, but the burning stench of smoke and flames calmed me a bit. Like a bee. I laughed at the comparison, but whoever carried me here seemed to think the laughing was crying and layered me in thick, fluffy blankets. No matter. I went straight to sleep at the person's humming and comforting scent.
Waking up was strange, as it was the first time I hadn't been plagued by nightmares ever since I got out of that arena with burning sands and slicing winds. The answer came in the form of Gale curled up against me. It reminded me of a time when we were four years old and he clambered into my bed for cuddles because he didn't want to sleep alone after a vivid nightmare. Content and carefully ignoring the outside weather, I snuggled back inside his arms, ages be damned. No one was too old to be comforted.
I woke up again when the sun shone brightly through bedroom windows - it seemed as though I had been displaced again. Gale must be stronger than previously thought.
In the past two weeks since arriving home, the days rolling by became nightmarish in intensity. I avoided sleep as much as possible, preferring to cramp myself in my crowded wood studio alongside my plentiful creations. My rich new clothes began sagging off my bony body as I stopped eating, having lost my appetite forever ago. But the shock of having intense trauma for something as common as thunder made me realize that I couldn't go on like this. More and more thunder clouds would appear as the season progressed, and it wasn't like I could just hole up in my studio and tinker away, ignoring my family. They needed me to be safe, happy, and healthy. So I rolled out of bed and, for the first time since coming back, joined the rest of my family for breakfast.
Mom baked blueberry muffins and scrambled eggs with salt and basil this sunny morning.
"You're awake," she smiled, handing me a plate from the counter top. "Join your siblings in the dining room."
She pretended nothing was wrong, as if Gale hadn't told her about my breakdown. As if my depression and anxiety didn't matter to her. Because I was still her daughter.
In response, I kissed her cheek and gave a real smile since coming home, cradling the hot plate as mom set the remaining muffins in cool on the granite counter top.
The first person to speak up about my appearance was Posy. "I missed you," she squealed from her baby stool at the front of the table. I peppered her forehead with wet kisses, enjoying the giggles they caused to erupt.
"You're eating now," Vick noted with pride. "And Rory said that you were going to shrivel into a twig."
"Hey!" Rory yelled. "I didn't say nothin'!"
While disturbing the twins thought that of my body, mom chewing Rory out for yelling at the table (again) became a topic of hilarity. I inhaled my breakfast with surprising gusto and drank nearly half a pitcher of apple juice. That's what I got for only nibbling on snacks the past few weeks, I mused.
When it was time for the three boys to head to school, Gale's raised eyebrows asked if I was to join them. I thought long and hard about making an appearance at school. Dozens of kids cramming themselves into my periphery to ask everything about the Capitol and the Hunger Games. At the sole thought of having to talk about the games one more time, I nearly broke the glass of apple juice in my hand.
"Have a good day at school!" I waved my brothers farewell at the doorstep, watching them walk down the polished cobblestone roads of Victor's Village alongside mom holding Posy in her arms.
After they left our vision, the silence ensuing with a bubbly Posy wrangling herself out of mom's arms and running around the first floor.
Mom tucked her curly black hair into a loose ponytail and sighed. "Blaire. I understand if you want to be alone in your studio all day, but we miss you. Your family misses you. Please - ."
I cut her off with a hug. "Don't worry, mom. I'm here now. Maybe not entirely here, but I'll try to come down more. I don't want to push you away."
To distract ourselves from crying, we cleaned up the breakfast tables and did the dishes. She filled me in on what I'd missed in casual sentences, as if just reminding me about something I'd just forgotten. Mom had quit her job as a laundry woman and now filled her days by trying to be a more involved parent to her kids. She developed a new hobby of cooking and baking, as we could now afford to by these luxury items at the grocers and markets, instead of just the sludgy grey grain and squirrel meat previously adorning our plates. While continuing our long overdue mother-daughter bonding time, she taught me how to make a variety of soups and stews out of fancy vegetables from the markets. I learned that Posy started learning how to brush her own teeth and hair and could climb onto her own chairs now. Rory was won the school hundred-meter dash, while Vick won the boy's wrestling competition for his age group. She mentioned the second place wrestler was the sweet, lovely baker's son and my thoughts immediately went to Peeta. But Peeta had to be around eleven right now, and Vick was eight. Did Peeta have younger siblings? I didn't remember.
When the first stew, a spicy paprika, sausage, and vegetable based stew, was done, mom poured half of it on a large wooden bowl with a glass lid and told me to give it to our neighbor.
Haymitch. My mentor.
Did he even want to see me? Was he capable of normal human interaction outside the capitol?
While mom helped Posy prepare for her nap, I waddled out the door in my special new sandals and cream colored sundress. Puddles from last night's storm gathered at basins along pipelines, so there were none to splash in on the short walk across the street. Knowing better than to knock, I rammed straight in, holding the bowl in my arms resolutely. Time to face the music.
The stench of nineteen years of neglect hit like a bulldozer. Little tears pricked at the corners of my eyes from the rancid smells, but I soldiered on to the living room, where I found the greasy haired man asleep in a pile of empty bottles of Ripper's specialty white liquor.
"Wake up," I commanded, settling the pot of piping hot stew on the only place on the table not polluted by alcohol stains and liquor bottles. "Hey. Hey, wake up."
When was the last time the man had eaten real food? The capitol? How did he even survive in his cave of sorrows? Knowing the only thing that could wake him up now was a bucket of cold water, I trembled on around his lonely mansion. The other floors weren't even in use anymore, swamped in a layer of dust. Even the unoccupied houses were taken better care of, as the haggard groundskeeper did try to clean the other ten just in case anymore victors popped up.
I entered my own, obviously lived-in house, and helped mom with the remainder of the stews and soups. I barely had the chance to ask why she had so much food lined out before a bunch of vaguely familiar women rang the doorbell and trampled on in. Apparently, there was a school party celebrating the long career of Miss Milligan, who decided to retire to her cozy cottage off in the merchants section, alongside her husband who recently entrusted his shoe shop to their nephews. Most school parties didn't involve providing meals, instead playing big group games and cheering on the winners. But with mom's ability to feed the hundred or so students with the victory money, well. It was almost expected of her, as she had four school aged children and too much money for even this generation. Today many children would be able to experience countless bowls of steaming hot lunches.
The moms carried the pots of stews and soups away, leaving me alone with a napping Posy upstairs. Posy slept in mom's room. Neither of them wanted to sleep alone, I guessed, as Posy was still too young and mom still mourned the empty hole in her heart from dad's death.
Not having anything else to do, I whittled away a variety of animal figurines next to Posy's crib, humming simple tunes from a life long ago.
I mustered up the courage to confront Haymitch the next morning after breakfast. But the undeniable stench of the years of neglect became all too much and I started cleaning up empty bottles and dead mice and bugs off his floors before considering talking to him. At nine a.m., he probably just went to bed, anyway. Or collapsed in his living room from drinking.
Surprisingly, he was no where to be found in the living room. The bowl of stew was found empty and thoroughly cleaned. I raced back home to put the pot away, and came back with industrial cleaning gloves and supplies.
It took a week of gathering up his junk and scrubbing away decade old stains off the furniture before declaring it livable again. All the windows I left open to air out the remaining nasty smells and headache inducing scent of cleaning solution. Mom approved of this new hobby, but didn't enjoy the fact that I decided not to return to school. Still, she never pushed the issue and let me do my own thing. My school friends never visited, which was a shame, as I had really thought they wanted to see me once Rory most likely gossiped I came back into sanity. For the most part.
That was fine. It stung, to be rejected by the people I sat next during lunch whenever Gale wasn't around, but they were children. I was closer in age to Haymitch and my mother, really. The man in question had to only be two years older, mentally.
Towards the end of August, Haymitch and I finally conversed again.
The hot, muggy late summer day made Gale and I just want to strip to our underclothes and splash around in the lake outside the fence, but he was too dutiful of a friend to Katniss to stop hunting with her for just even a day in prime hunting season. His worrying amount of devotion to a girl who'd never be able to return his feelings made me want to cut off their friendship, just to keep his heart intact. But then he'd never grow if I kept babying him, so I watched from the distance as he and the girl on fire grew closer and closer.
I bought two apple strudels from the bakery, where a small angel haired boy with the name-tag 'Peeta' clipped to his shirt pocket rang up my order, staring not discreetly at my paint splattered blouse.
"Do you like to paint?" He blurted out randomly as I tucked my wallet back into my skirt pocket.
I blinked. The paint splatters were from trying to bring vibrancy to my wooden figurines, as the most coloring they got was by what type of wood they were cut from. "Sorta. Not really."
His eyebrows furrowed in concentration during our awkward moment where he wanted to say something further but couldn't because I had already paid for my order. The fault laid on me, however, as I continued to loiter around the bodega.
"I like to paint," he yelped out in a quick stammer, as if his words were forbidden.
A terrible thought flitted through my mind. I tried to squash it down, but that became a futile effort. Another customer entered through the squeaky glass doors and the rest of my idea blurted out in quick recession. "That's cool. I've been looking for a painter for my art, since my brother recommended selling them. I'll talk to you about it during school tomorrow. Bye."
School. Tomorrow. Monday.
I groaned on the way back to the Victor's Village. Unbeknownst to the world, my way of heading back to school was by way of a blond eleven maybe twelve year old kid.
The rest of my mood soured as I headed through Haymitch's door for breakfast. Perhaps one in the afternoon was too late for breakfast, but I knew this was the time he started waking up for the day, anyway.
"Come on, you lazy old drunk," I said while bursting through his bedroom door. A surprising day whenever he actually slept up here. "I even brought you breakfast. Hope you're not allergic to apples."
He laid face-planted on his pillows, reeking of liquor. Not wanting to get stabbed in the eye for waking the man up the wrong way, I set the pastry bag down and flitted around every window, scrolling the blinds all the way up and opening the windows for fresh sunshine filled air to waft through his room. I didn't even know why I kept making sure he was alive. It wasn't as though he was ever awake whenever I deposited food and new clothes, anyway.
"You don't have to keep doing this," came Haymitch's low, growly voice. I whirled around, feeling the breeze lift my hair at the back. Or, whatever hair I had. It barely reached my jaw in the back.
But even at his protest, he looked better than he ever had in years. Filled in features, less gaunt eyes, an absence of sweat stained clothes. Perhaps whatever made him so attractive during his teen years was coming back after weeks of somewhat regular healthy eating and better personal hygiene.
"Maybe I do," I bit back, unsure of how to react of finally talking to him after weeks of nothing. "Maybe I'm trying to keep the one person alive in my district who actually knows what I've been through."
He sat up all bleary eyed and groggy. "If I've been a shit mentor, just say so."
"No. You weren't a shit mentor. You were great. You gave me honest advice and actually believed that I could win when you sent down that antibacterial cream. I just need you alive so I don't have to mentor countless number of kids alone every fucking year."
His mentor died shortly after he won the games. Shortly after he lost his mom, brother, and girlfriend. What did that leave him? Alone and miserable and with no one left. Nothing to live for. I was amazed that he kept on living after losing everything, but his moral compass to at least provide the children with someone to stand next to during their reaping overcame it all. I didn't know if I was strong enough to last losing my first tribute. Haymitch went through losing himself through the bottle, but I couldn't stand the idea of losing yourself so irrevocably to the point of hardly ever having sobriety.
And I had a mother. Brothers. A sister. Maybe even friends, however half-assed they were. The man before was alone. Had been completely alone for the past nineteen years. He made me feel privileged. Me, a girl from the Seam. All because I at least had someone who loved me.
"Well, don't guilt trip me, sweetheart," he choked out, and that's when I knew I won.
We wandered down to his somewhat clean kitchen and finished the strudels. Judging by how quickly he devoured the pastry, he rather really enjoyed apples or hadn't eaten actual food since my last delivery a day and a half ago. I suspected a mixture of both.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. I threw the plastic pastry bag in the overfilling trash can.
Well, don't remind me now. "Do you really expect me to go back to school? It's enough socialization just hanging out at my house, where my four siblings can be seen making some kind of annoying noise at all hours. Posy's in the middle of her terrible twos. Nothing but tantrums every afternoon."
He started eyeing his cupboards where he stashed his white liquor when I realized I was basically flaunting my home life to his face. "If you've come here to ask me about the nightmares, let me just tell you: no, they never go away. Learn to live with yourself in the least destructive way possible."
And then he reached into the cupboards and pulled out a bottle of liquor and an empty glass.
"I've got my whittling. I've got my siblings. I've got my mom," I protested. "I'm not self destructive."
He poured himself a glass. "What's your problem, then?"
I bit my lip. "Every time I look at my siblings, I see the faces and voices of the kids I killed in the arena. I'm responsible for taking the life of children. The boy from eight was fucking fifteen years old and I sent thousands of volts of electricity through her brains. The girl from two was eighteen, barely an adult, and I made her stroll right outside into a sandstorm where she was burned alive. Nobody dares enter my room anymore, because the last time Vick threw a pillow on my face as a prank to wake me up, and I just kept thinking about choking on burning sand and if you hadn't given me medicine, those bird mutations would have eaten my warm body and left me buried under piles of desert sands. I almost attacked him. My brother. My little baby brother. I need someone to commiserate with, Haymitch."
He raised his glass. "To the victor, the spoils."
"Talk to me, Haymitch," I nearly begged. I felt like crying.
He slammed his glass down, making me jump. "I... No. I can't," he refused, already pouring another drink. "You're just a kid. Thirteen years old. If I unwind everything to discuss things like friendship, I'd be responsible for you. I can't do that to you."
I wasn't thirteen. I was thirty-three. But he didn't know. Would never know that. "You became responsible for me ever since my name got pulled out of that box," I accused. "I can't talk to my family about the arena. Never can, never will. So how will I be able to cope when Snow eventually sells me out to the highest paying customers? You're the only one who understands."
He leaned his head back. "My only advice?" He finally responded. "Don't tell Snow no. He'll kill your family, your loved ones, as revenge. You've got three years of innocence left. Treasure every minute."
"Is this a problem with my age? Am I too young to kindle a friendship with you?" I demanded, wiping tears from my eyes fiercely. "If that's so, you're fucking stupid. I stopped being a kid when the Capitol tossed me into the games. So help me plan how to survive my oncoming victory tour!"
"I don't want to ruin you!" He barked, clutching his glass. "I can't just hang around you because I don't want you following my footsteps. A drunk. A failure. Alone, surrounded in pity and misery."
"Well, maybe I don't care," I said. "Maybe all I need right now isn't the righteous path, but a way to remember that I'm not alone. That I've got someone who understands, even if he's never sober and who'll no doubt be higher than a horse by the end of today!"
And I ran out the door, so full of intense loathing at no one in particular. Oh, wait. The Capitol. I hated the government. I hated President Snow. I hated everything about the leader of Panem I wanted to stab him with a rusty knife so he'd feel every bit of the pain till his death. I raced all the way to my studio, ignoring mom's curious glances from downstairs. And then vented out every last bit of frustration using a chisel and knife.
As the baker's son, Peeta had a bunch of people whisper nasty things about him. That he gorged himself on expensive foods every night due to his privileged birth. That he never had to lift a finger for work, unlike all the kids who lived in the Seam, selling themselves for every trade possible. That he was an over-educated kid who lived in the merchants section of town and never knew the horrors of the world.
All of it was untrue. Except for maybe the horrors of the world part, but he didn't know anything singularly terrifying enough to be counted as that fear mongering.
Before school and on the weekends, he slaved over a kitchen counter top, making his arms sore with the effort of kneading dough and developing callouses on his fingers from grasping whisks too tightly. He'd never starved or gone hungry, but there were many nights where the food on his plate looked only slightly more appetizing than what they fed the pigs. The grains available to the general population of district twelve resembled mushy oatmeal more than actual bread. He slept in the floor above the bakery itself, where he shared a room with his two older brothers. They slept on a bunk bed and he, a pull-out mattress couch. However, his distinct blonde hair and blue eyes saved him a spot at the lunch tables outside with the other kids from the merchants section. But appearing so obviously above the Seam kids wasn't what he wanted in life - especially with a special someone in his heart.
But his normal day to day routine was interrupted when a Seam girl walked into his family's bakery one day during his weekend shifts. She wore a rumpled white blouse halfheartedly tucked into a green plaid skirt and leggings - a mostly normal outfit, if the material seemed more on the rich side than normal for someone from the Seam - but what really sparked his attention were the red and blue paint splatters all over her front and rolled up sleeves. Naturally, he gravitated the topic to his own interest in painting, but then he was offered to help the mildly familiar girl paint things to sell. Selling items meant profits. That meant money.
As the third and youngest son of the family, he wasn't at all expected to inherit the bakery. Rye, the oldest, was the heir. Banner existed in case Rye somehow couldn't inherit. Him, the third son. The heir, the spare, and the third son. Naturally, the prospects of finding his own original job was appealing, but he didn't know if he could trust a Seam girl to rise up into merchant status. She looked about his age, too.
So when every single student hushed into quiet out on the recess field the next day, he looked around for the cause of it all. Behind him, the girl from the day before.
"Oh, hey," he greeted, easily falling into conversation. "I don't think I've seen you in class. Are you in one of the older kids' classes?"
The slightest of smirks quirked onto her lips as she shook her head and told him she didn't go to school anymore. He briefly wondered if her dropping out at such a young age had to do with this art of hers.
"Have you got paint at home?" He tried instead, getting a bit weirded out at the recess field's stillness. Everyone stared at his exchange with the mysterious girl who stopped attending school at however old she was. Twelve? Thirteen?
"Lots and lots," she assured. "And a variety of brushes. When are you free today? I'll walk you to my house."
He found himself in mild disbelief at a girl with such obvious Seam features - grey eyes, tanned olive skin, black hair - being able to afford different paints and paintbrushes. Perhaps they were all homemade. He didn't want to play around with what he imagined as dipping twigs in wild strawberry mush, but for some forsaken reason, he agreed with the strange girl to help her out. "My curfew is until dark. I'll meet you outside the front entrance when classes end?"
She accepted, then sauntered off the school grounds. He blinked, as if reorienting himself to reality. People began talking and playing again. Everything went back to normal.
But when he tried talking to his friends, they shut him down with nervous giggling and careful scooting away. Finally, at the end of recess, he asked Banner, who was older than him by three years, what the commotion on the recess field was about. Or, the lack of commotion.
Banner laughed at him for not having figured it out and then went back to his smirking friends. Peeta wasn't sure how to feel about how everybody at school treated him, so he ignored that line of thought and instead sketched out basic designs for cakes his father wanted him to decorate next week. Oh, how he yearned for actual canvas and a medium other than frosting pipe bags. He drew chalk designs on the sidewalks and filled up scratch paper with sketches, but he doubted the cheap replacement could measure up to holding an actual paintbrush and specially tailored paper. Did that girl need a painter for portraits? Or sculptures? Or pottery? He hadn't thought to ask, too caught up in the moment. He hadn't even asked her name, he realized. His mother would kick him if she knew how bad his manners had been then.
Still, his confusion plagued him for the rest of the day.
Finally, finally, when the clock ticked three, he bounded out the classroom door to wait outside for the girl. He was the first outside, having ran with a fervor.
"You're a bit early. Don't you guys play on the recess field a bit before actually leaving school?" A familiar voice drawled out from behind.
He jumped and whirled around. The girl, still wearing a paint splattered blouse and green skirt, folded her arms, unimpressed. She smiled at his stuttering for an explanation - the first smile he'd seen out of the girl - and gestured for them to start walking. By the time they passed by his family's bakery did he realize something was wrong.
"Hey, aren't we heading in the wrong direction?" He asked.
The still unnamed girl hummed. "I'd hope not."
That wasn't a clear answer. He began to wonder that perhaps this girl wasn't from the Seam, but actually apart of the merchants section. Maybe her mom or dad or something married into higher class status from the Seam, leaving their children with the differing features. But then they turned left from the Justice square and headed farther north than even the Mayor's home, where his classmate Madge Undersee lived. Not many people lived in the far northern part of town. In fact, only victors in Victor's Village lived this far up...
"Wait, you're Blaire Hawthorne?" He blurted out. His voice echoed far louder than he wanted it to and he clamped his hands over his mouth in embarrassment.
To add insult to injury, the girl - no, Blaire, the freakin' victor of the sixty ninth Hunger Games - startled from his outburst. "Wait, you didn't know? Then who'd you think I'd be able to sell my stuff to?"
They paused right at the entrance of Victor's Village, where Peeta could see a dozen mansions circling around an abandoned fountain centerpiece. "I - I - I don't know!" He yelped. "I just... nevermind. Sorry."
She lifted an eyebrow, shrugged, then continued on, seemingly unbothered by the entire ordeal. He scampered in her footsteps, trying to wonder what dimension he'd woken up to that made a literal victor of the games even reach out to him, never mind the fact that she wanted him to paint for her. There had to be a catch. Maybe Blaire ate mud and ordered around elderly grandparents to do her chores. Maybe she hated kittens and used paper bills as fire starters. Maybe she was an awful person, just to balance out everything impossible about his current situation.
But no. He entered a house he could only dream of spending the night in, with furniture he was too afraid of touching in the fear that he'd break it somehow and then have to pay for the damages. She offered snacks with impressive politeness (and how could he refuse, eating rich people food?), then glided up the multiple stories to her private studio. Except that the studio could fit three of his parents' bedrooms inside and still have room, so he gaped wordlessly at the entrance. He dawdled like an idiot for a good minute before joining her at a small table in the center of the room crammed with all sorts of wooden carvings and paint buckets.
"So, Peeta," she began. He didn't remember giving her his name. "I need you to paint this toadstool village I've been working on for the past week. We can be branded partners, each getting a fifty percent cut. Whaddya say?"
Fifty percent? Fifty? Five-zero? He wanted to say that that was a ridiculous price for just providing the colors and tonal shading, but stopped himself before saying anything stupid. "It's a deal," he finalized. They shook on it.