One-Shot: Doctor's Orders
Whenever her mother and sister receive a patient and she happens to be home, Katniss Everdeen's first instinct is to run the other way.
She can't stand the sight of blood, nor the sight of half-naked men. And in her family's line of work, one or the other – sometimes both at once – is a common sight. Most of Mother and Prim's patients, after all, are miners injured on the job.
It's not that Katniss isn't proud of her mother and sister's work. Healing is an honorable profession, and a valued skill. She would just rather not stick around to watch them treat whatever-degree burns, gaping wounds and – in one or two instances – perform amputations found on badly injured miners.
It is therefore a surprise to her when, one cold winter's morning in January, she doesn't have time to make herself scarce when her family is paid a call by a patient who isn't a miner.
He is, however, a minor (spelled with an O). The Baker's youngest son, her age and a classmate in school. Though they haven't spoken beyond a few cordial words while she's traded out back of his family's Bakery. Katniss feels her face grow warm as she quietly admits him into the foyer, stuttering out something unintelligible. Her one hand is combing through her chestnut braid, while the other is bunching up the hem of her blue Reaping dressed and getting the fabric hopelessly creased.
Katniss hovers in the doorframe of their small parlor and kitchen while the boy – Peeta – and her mother confer, murmuring something she can't hear.
When Mother then requests that Peeta take off his shirt, Katniss isn't prepared for him to comply so quickly, and she gets an eyeful of his toned, muscular chest. Her grey eyes bulge and her face burns aflame again. She attempts to mumble out an excuse to beat a hasty retreat, but her path is blocked by Prim, coming in with the antiseptic and herbs.
Mother is spending quite a bit of time examining along Peeta's upper back. That must be where the injury is, for from her full-frontal view, Katniss can't find anything wrong with the man's bod.
In fact, she has to declare said bod… exquisite. Perfect. She unconsciously licks her lips.
"What did you say happened, Peeta?"
Oddly, he won't look at Mother as he answers, hands folded and head bowed in his lap.
"Slipped on a patch of black ice. My shoulder took the brunt of it."
Mother hums demurely and turns to Prim. "Tweezers. And witch hazel." Her apprentice dutifully complies.
Katniss finds herself circling their kitchen table, craning to see over her family as they busy themselves over Peeta. She may not be a Healer, but Katniss has listened to her sister's chittering enough to understand that when someone takes a spill like the one Peeta has just described, the resultant bruising usually occurs in more than one area.
That doesn't appear to be the case here. Also, a fall on black ice would mean that Peeta should have landed on the paved cobblestones seen on the streets of Town.
And yet, Katniss has to wonder if he landed on something wooden…
… because otherwise, why would Mother have to extract splinters and wood shavings from Peeta's skin?
The next time Peeta pays a call on the Everdeen girls, it is spring and Katniss is alone in the house. Mother and Prim are on the far side of the Seam, attending to the birth of Greasy Sae's granddaughter, and won't be expected home until well after nightfall.
Somehow, Katniss talks herself into believing that she can treat a simple shiner, even if she has to wonder how exactly Peeta got a black eye. He's the district runner-up in wrestling, so the chances of someone who isn't his brother landing a punch on him seem negligible, at best.
When she asks, Peeta explains it away smoothly as walking into an oven door that his brother timed opening just wrong.
Katniss doesn't believe him. "Is this a habit of yours? Slamming into stuff?" Maybe it is true, and baking is just as much of an occupational hazard as mining, though somehow, she doubts that.
She meant it as a kind of matronly admonishment, so it frustrates her when Peeta takes her chiding as though it is a joke – and a flirtatious one at that. "Only when you're around to treat me."
She feels her cheeks bloom pink. Tousling her head to clear it, she busies herself over the morphling paste while setting aside one beefsteak. Often, her mother requests skinned game specifically so as to have meat on hand that can treat these kind of injuries. Whenever possible, the family will then purify what they can and eat same meat once the operation is over and if there's any left.
She holds the compact, circular tin out to Peeta now, making sure to look him in his….. entrancing blue eyes…. as she does so. She is flustered by how Peeta gazes right back, and she feels his hand grasp the tin.
His fingers brush just the slightest bit along hers as he does so, and Katniss exhales the tiniest of gasps. Electricity shoots up her skin where they touch, and then just like that, the shock is gone again as she drops her hand, ducking her head along with it so that he doesn't see her blush.
"For…. for your eye."
The skin around Peeta's right iris has darkened into a pronounced purple. Observing him study the tin, she elaborates, "It's morphling."
"Really?" Peeta's eyes brighten, his face sagging in relief. "Oh, thank Panem! I thought I was going to have to stick a needle near my eye!"
Katniss laughs, even smiles, a little. Strange – she can't remember the last time she's smiled at anyone or anything that didn't have to do with Prim. "I don't think that would have been very safe…. But you're right, most morphling is applied with a syringe. That's the proper way to do it."
Peeta is unscrewing the cap and peering at the contents. He dips his nose in once to sniff. "So how will this work?"
"It's a paste. Just lather it around the injury and you should feel the relief in moments." Peeta scoops some of the morphling paste out with two of his fingers, examining it. She wants to huff at him impatiently, but refrains. "Oh, here…."
Sliding her hand up to catch his wrist, Katniss guides his fingers covered in the morphling paste to a spot just above his right eyebrow. Holding each other's gaze, she slowly and methodically lathers and works the paste into Peeta's purpled skin. The morphling absorbs after a few moments, and she feels Peeta exhale in comfort; he's close enough that his breath tickles her face. Turning back to the tin, Katniss scoops some paste onto her own fingers and sets to work around the rest of his eye, absorbing and lathering the stuff smoothly and tenderly.
"So," Peeta chirps conversationally as she continues to work, biting her pursed lips in concentration. "You're acting strangely cryptic as you slather goop along my injured face…" Katniss snorts out another laugh at this. "Are… are you a Healer too?"
"My mother's the best Healer in the district," she shrugs self-deprecatingly, almost bashful. "You pick up a lot just by standing around and watching her treat people…. Even if you can't stand the sight of blood."
Peeta wriggles as his own laugh overtakes him, and Katniss yanks him upright and closer to her firmly. "Stand still!" she hisses in a commanding, prissy tone. "If this paste gets in your eye, you'll be wishing I had stuck it with a needle instead!"
Peeta keeps admirably still as she continues to lather him. Or at least his body is still – his mouth won't stop moving.
"And your father?"
Katniss start a little, so that she nearly slimes Peeta directly in the eye with the paste. "What about him?" she chastises herself for the harshness of her tone.
Peeta shrugs. "Just making conversation. I've never seen him around. Or is he always at work?"
Katniss glances away from him, down at her feet. "My…. my father is dead. In that horrible collapse, from four years ago."
Peeta's blue orbs bulge. "Oh. I'm…. I'm sorry."
She shakes her head, blinking back the tears as she lifts her gaze back to his. "It's not your fault. But…. thank you."
There must be a drafty chill here in the house, for she feels herself shiver quite suddenly. Odd, considering it's the height of spring and the sun has brought plenty of warmth. Katniss finally lowers her hand, working the remaining bit of morphling paste in between her own fingers. She gulps. "There." She actually whispers it.
Peeta's grateful grin seems to heat her more than any of the sun's rays might. "Thank you, Katniss."
She nods. "You're welcome."
For a moment, they just stare at each other. The spell is broken by Mother and Prim, come home early. Katniss is incensed when her baby sister has the gall to smirk at her, glancing curiously between her and Peeta.
It is a brutally hot day in midsummer.
Katniss is out back of the homestead, drawing water from the well pump when she spots Peeta approaching from a distance. He's cradling one of his rough, calloused, massive hands against his chest, and she feels her stomach drop. What has he done now?
Lifting the skirts of her blue dress, she dashes down the path to meet him, looking stricken. "What happened?" she breathes in a whisper.
"What?" Peeta blinks.
"To your hand!" When he proceeds to hold out his unharmed palm, Katniss prissily rolls her eyes. "Your other hand!" She grabs his palm and examines it. The skin is pink, mottled and raw. Looks like a classic third-degree burn. Possibly second-degree. She'll have to ask Prim.
Peeta grins sheepishly. "I was an idiot. Placed my hand on the stove and didn't realize the burner was on."
Katniss cocks an eyebrow skeptically. "Really?" she hums demurely. "Placed there or held there?"
She searches his deep blue eyes carefully and, just as she expected, provokes a reaction. Peeta glances away fom her. "It was an accident."
"If by 'accident,' you mean she didn't mean it," Katniss presses boldly. It is a statement, not a question.
"It's not like that," Peeta insists, shaking his head. "We Mellark men are made of stern stuff."
"Well, so am I," she sniffs, taking him carefully by his unburned hand and leading him to Prim and her mother. "But I doubt I would be stern enough to take parental abuse." Neglect has been more her mother's thing.
Katniss still vows that she is going to have words with the Witch the first chance she sees her. Give her a piece of her mind.
Katniss can feel the cool, autumnal breeze tickling her bare thighs as she crosses back through the Meadow. Ordinarily, she wouldn't go hunting in her blue Reaping dress – the nicest article of clothing she owns – but her hunting trousers and jacket are at Hazelle Hawthorne's, the district laundress.
Hanging her boots up on the coatrack in the foyer, Katniss walks into controlled chaos.
Their kitchen has seen more than its fair share of casualties lying prone on the table, but it is usually in the wake of a particularly bad mine collapse. But she didn't hear an explosion today. And here, as far as Katniss can see, there isn't a queue.
There is only one person being treated on the table.
"PEETA!" she cries, lunging towards him like it is a primal instinct. The handsome baker's boy's face is ashen and her grey eyes flit over his form desperately. She freezes and has to resist the urge to hurl when she sees how his right leg is contorted at an odd angle.
"Oh, gods…. What happened?"
"He barely got here before he collapsed," Mother explains gravely. "I have no idea how he managed to walk from Town on that leg, except that maybe he was in shock and that numbed him to the pain. There's no saving it, though."
Katniss feels all the blood drain from her face. She must look like as much of a cadaver as Peeta. "You mean… take his leg…?" The thought horrifies her. He likely won't be able to wrestle again, and pain settles in her gut. She's attended some of the matches, sitting high in the stands, even watching him lose the championship bout to his brother. Peeta is so strong….
Katniss roams her gaze over Peeta again, hungrily, absently pulling up a chair to sit vigil at his side, clutching his hand. She can feel her sister's eyes on her, but she doesn't care. "Did he say what happened?"
"He came up just as we were about to put him under morphling," Prim pipes up. "He says he got into a fight with his mother and he fell. Then she knocked over a brand-new refrigerator they had just ordered from the Capitol. It… it landed on him. Pinned his leg." Her sister bites her lip. "We don't know if the Witch knocked it over, or pushed it deliberately."
For once, the story sounds plausible enough to be true. As to whether the fridge going over was an accident or not, Katniss isn't sure, but knowing the Witch… she allows herself to think the worst.
She stands with astonishing calm. "I'm going to kill her," she declares softly, somewhere outside of herself. Her bow is in the woods, but she can double back for it.
"Katty, dear, don't," Mother tries to talk her down. "Miriam is not to be trifled with…"
"She hasn't met me yet," Katniss vows darkly. "I'll be more than a match for her!" Her voice is starting to rise in volume; she is working herself up into a tirade.
"Katty, please!" Prim begs, her blue eyes betraying deep sympathy for her sister. "We need you to mind the patient while Mother and I go get the…. the tools we need for the amputation."
Prim is right – anything sharper than a butter knife is only available to the district citizenry if its express purpose is in the pursuit a profession, like Rooba and her butcher knives. Even then, sometimes you have to put a request out for a tool with the district armory, where the Peacekeepers store what they deem to be the most dangerous weaponry. Weaponry that, if the wrong hands, could be used in an uprising. The bone saws and scalpels Prim and Mother will need for the amputation will be stored there, halfway across the district, closer to the Justice Building.
Katniss sinks back into her chair at Peeta's sickbed, her eyes trained on him while Mother and Prim gather their traveling cloaks.
"What…?" Katniss sniffles, stunned to realize that her face is wet and that she's crying. "What should I do if he wakes up…?"
"Talk to him, keep him calm. If we're lucky, maybe he'll go back under," Mother murmurs at the door. "I gave him a decent dose. Perhaps he'll need a reinjection once we come back with the…" she can't finish, and she and Prim hurry out.
They haven't been gone a half-hour yet when Peeta groggily comes to. Katniss flits over him, shushing him tenderly.
"Sssssh….. It's Katniss. You're at my house; Mother and Prim are going to get you better…" She's weeping quietly, her tears falling onto his upturned face like sweet rain.
"Katty girl….?" Peeta rumbles. His impossibly blue eyes are unfocused and he tries to sit up, ignoring Katniss's chittering pleas to lie still. She witnesses the moment he sees his leg, bent at an impossible angle. "The fridge…" he grunts, thinking back.
"Mama and Prim told me what happened," Katniss murmurs. A beat, and then she has out with it. "Did…. did your mother knock it over, or….?" She can't finish, the idea that it might have been on purpose is too horrible, even for that hell-devil.
Katniss freezes when Peeta gazes directly at her and, for once, tells the truth. "Pushed," he whispers. "I couldn't get up or get out of the way in time."
He doesn't elaborate on what might have happened to set her off, but in Katniss's mind, this hardly matters – nothing could have warranted nearly killing your own son and ultimately crushing his leg. Anger builds behind her irises all over again, and she rises deliberately, scurrying for her boots.
"Where… where are you going?"
"Hunting," she answers dismissively. "I've never hunted me any witch before, but it can't be any different than hunting animals." That's what Gale has always said, when they've been made to watch the horrors of the Hunger Games.
Peeta's eyes go huge with stunned horror. "Katniss, you're not going to risk getting thrown in the stocks on murder charges for me…. I'm not gonna let you!" He catches her arm fiercely as she comes up with a spare, empty quiver she errantly left lying around here.
Katniss glowers at him fiercely. "You would do it for me!" Her expression softens just slightly. "… Wouldn't you?"
Peeta just gapes at her. "…. Why are you doing this?"
Katniss studies him with a hard expression for a moment. Then, it collapses into something almost gentle. Wordlessly, she drops the empty quiver, bends over the handsome young man and kisses him deeply on the mouth.
She doesn't say it, what with her lips pressed to his, but her actions and intentions have made it clear enough:
Because I love you.
Katniss and Peeta sensuously break apart. He is gazing up at her in awe, and Katniss has to wonder if he thinks he's dreaming this, or hallucinating it while under the influence of morphling. He should really try to rest, but she doesn't trust herself to administer morphling in liquid form the way she does with paste.
"Now there's no way I'm letting you go."
"Peeta…." she sighs, shaking her head.
Suddenly, his massive hands are in her hair and he's yanking her mouth down for another kiss. To properly kiss her back. She squeaks, and then moans, melting into the embrace instantly.
The kiss deepens, Peeta parting her lips under his, and with a shuddering gasp, Katniss grants his tongue entrance. Feeling bold, she suddenly, forcefully slams Peeta onto his back and hoists herself onto the table with him, as she moves to straddle him.
"Huhhhh….. Uhhhhhhh…." Her breath is coming in labored, rough gasps, and she shivers as she feels Peeta's hands gliding up her thighs, pushing the skirts of her blue dress up and over her hips. Katniss can feel the dampness between her legs. Groaning, she spreads them, allowing Peeta to shove his thigh into the space between her legs. She grinds against his thigh to gain friction, humping him frantically and moaning with pleasure. Squirming, she shrugs her bodice down to reveal her pert, bare breasts. Her nipples have hardened to painful tenderness, peaking in the cool autumn air. Arching her head, she shoves her boobs into Peeta's face and groans when he tastes them. He licks her one nipple into his mouth and then bites down on the nub.
"Uhhhhhh….. Peeta…."
Hands trembling, she palms his clear erection through his pants, and manages to shimmy them down far enough without adding more injury to his bum leg. Peeta comes up for air from her tits to kiss her deeply on the lips again and Katniss returns it with a sigh.
She goes down on him.
They make love with the awkwardness of two people who have never before done the dirty deed, yet with the passion of two people who clearly want and love each other. Katniss rides Peeta frantically, her hands bracing his firm chest as she bounces up and down on him.
She can feel her core overheating, and she throws back her head with a cry.
"Ohhhhhh… Uhhhhhhhh… Uggghh….. Huhhhhh….. Peeta, I'm….. I'm gonna-Ahhhhh….. Ahhhhhhhhhh!... AHHHHHHHHH!"
Her toes curl.
She cums.
Sweaty and noodly, a spent Katniss collapses on top of her lover. Her dress is half-hanging off of her, nearly torn, and she shudders happily when she feels Peeta's hands encircle her bare back, holding her close. She marvels at how such strong, rough, large hands can embrace her so gently.
She sings to him:
"Ahhhh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!..." Peeta grunts and weakly jerks his hips up into her wetness, her warm heat, until he finally ejaculates deep inside her himself. "Ahhhh, at last I know the secret of it all!..."
It is dark now, and the moon is high. Katniss and Peeta are still canoodling on the kitchen table, post-coitus. Mother and Prim are still not yet back with the supplies for the operation, but it hopefully will be soon.
Katniss hasn't been sure how to broach the topic with him, or if she even should and risk going against her family's protocol.
Peeta must read her expression, and she supposes that must come from two people who have shared such intimacy. "It's all right, Katty girl. If they have to take my leg, I'll be fine."
"I'll still want you," she blurts out, boldly. "Whether you have one leg or not." His face relaxes in relief when she says this.
Grey eyes sick with love, Katniss reaches up and softly kisses him again. Her lips pepper along his before she mouths down his jawline, working her way down along his neck, then back up to his ear. Gumming along his earlobe, Katniss suddenly whispers sultrily:
"If we have a Toasting, you can't ever tell me what to do!"
She draws back to gauge his reaction, and he looks stunned, and what did she just say?
Well, she can't take it back, now. And she won't, even if she wanted to… which she doesn't. Katniss has never been the type to want to get married, but now…
She holds his gaze, expression solemn and no nonsense. "And if we get married, I won't have children. Not as long as there are still Hunger Games. I'll hunt whenever I want. And I can't promise I'll be civil to your mother."
Peeta is still gazing at her in wonder. Smiling shyly, she ducks her head to snuggle under the crook of his chin. She's delivered the terms for this potential marriage. "Go ahead, then," she croons. "Ask me to marry you. Propose."
Peeta cranes his neck to look down at her, combing his fingers through her brown hair, mussy now that they've made love.
"Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?"
Katniss grins at him. "Yes," she murmurs. "Though, to be fair, I already proposed to you, didn't I?"
"Hmm," Peeta agrees. "At least we'll have a straight story when people ask."
This is deeply funny, coming from a guy who's lied about his injuries, but Katniss just throws back her head and laughs.
"But where would we live?" Peeta wonders. Justice Building housing policy stipulates that new dwelling units are assigned after a wedding or if a previous occupant has died.
"Here. With me," Katniss coos, kissing his jaw again. She gazes into his eyes. "So that she can never hurt you again." A pause, and then: "And also so I can make love to you whenever I want."
Peeta lifts one golden brow. "With your mother and Prim in the house?"
Katniss swats him. "Of course not, silly!" The thought makes them both collapse in peals of awkward laughter.
Katniss eventually, reluctantly steals from her lover's, her…. fiancé's side and redresses herself with dignity. And just in time for Mother and Prim to return home with the tools for the amputation.
Just before they put Peeta under again with morphling, he asks her: "I haven't dreamed this, have I? About you agreeing to marry me?"
Katniss hears her mother gasp and Prim squeal from next to her. She doesn't care, as she dares to stoop and kiss her husband-to-be square on the mouth, and in full view of her family. "No, you're not dreaming. And yes, I will marry you."
Peeta slips under the anesthesia with a smile on his face. Though later, once he's woken up, he and Katniss still cry together over the loss of his leg.
They marry in the Meadow, on a warm day in spring, when the dandelions have burst into full bloom.
Katniss and Peeta first have to go stand before the District Justice of the Peace and sign a wedding license in the Justice Building, so they can be wed in the eyes of the district law. Primrose and Mother act as witnesses.
Katniss is so proud of her… her husband (Peeta's her husband!) for escorting her all the way to the Justice Building and back under his own power, aided by the artificial leg they managed to order from the Capitol. She is wearing her mother's white wedding dress – considered in Merchant circles to be a family heirloom, traditionally passed down from mother to daughter. Someday, Prim will wear the garment.
Later, over a bonfire, in the Meadow, Peeta toasts a bit of bread and feeds his bride a piece. Katniss returns the favor, and then tilting her head, her grey eyes solemn in the firelight, she permits her husband to kiss her. When he does, her mouth falls open against his, like a dandelion bursting into full bloom. He tastes of the raisins and nuts in the bread she fed him. He tastes like home.
Mother and Prim lead the singing of the customary wedding song, and Katniss laughs gaily as Peeta sweeps her off her feet and carries her bridal-style into her house – now their house. She and Peeta will share a master bed in her old room upstairs, while Prim while share with Mother. Eventually, she and her husband will move into their own place, once a unit has become available through the Justice Building.
Katniss and Peeta spend their entire wedding night amorously making love, kissing languorously and deeply.
"Stay with me," Katniss pants between passionate thrusts.
"Always," Peeta promises, as solemnly as when they gave their vows.
The next morning, sweaty and naked, a humming Katniss awakens in the bed they share to find herself alone. Pulling on a bathrobe and padding down to the kitchen, she finds her husband fixing breakfast.
A breakfast which apparently includes…. cake?
It is a wedding cake for his bride, one that Peeta baked himself to surprise her. "Do you like it, sweetheart?"
Beaming, Katniss flies into his arms and reaches up to kiss him soundly on the mouth. "Oh…. darling, I love it! I love you!"
She showers and dresses, eating breakfast and laughing at Peeta wanting to wait on her hand and foot. Finally, she shrugs on her hunting jacket and softly kisses him goodbye.
"I'll be back," she murmurs along his mouth.
Katniss… Mellark doesn't head for the woods right away, to hunt.
She has bigger game she's tracking….
In the rear alley, on the back loading dock behind the Bakery, she knocks on the metal door purposefully.
Just as she had hoped, the Witch for once is the one who answers it. Katniss stares down her new mother-in-law.
Miriam Mellark's beady little eyes blink, then cast down to where she clearly sees the new golden wedding band adorning the beautiful Seam huntress's finger. Peeta's mother had not attended the wedding – not that she would have been invited – but no doubt she has heard of the nuptials. The youngest son of the Town baker taking the hand of the daughter of a poor coal miner in marriage will surely have caused quite a stir, much as it did in Katniss's parents' day when they got married.
Katniss gets right to the point.
"If you ever hurt my husband again, I'll kill you."
The Witch lets out a startled yip, stammering and attempting to voice some faux-outrage, but Katniss doesn't give her time to respond. Turning on her heel, she flounces out of the alley and towards the direction of home. Perhaps, once she's collected some game, Peeta will be waiting up for her with cheese buns, her favorite.