Disclaimer: The Hunger Games Trilogy is property of Suzanne Collins. This is a parody fanwork by fans for fans. No money was made off of the creation of this fanwork.

The Ten Unwritten Rules of Being a Hunger Games Victor

By Fanfic Allergy

Rule Seven:

Peeta and I didn't have a chance to corner Haymitch much in the following months. It almost seemed like our mentor was going out of his way to avoid us often drinking himself into a stupor. I wasn't sure if he was drinking more to forget the memories of the games and tributes he'd lost or if he was just doing it to be perverse. Either reason was likely valid.

It was less than a month until the Victory Tour and things hadn't gotten any better. Peeta and I still hadn't managed to pry any more of the rules out of our mentor and our relationship, if you wanted to call it that, was at best strained. It didn't help that I still didn't know how I felt about Peeta. I liked kissing him a few of the times I had to for the camera and I could talk to him most of the time. And I didn't get the same feeling of weirdness from him that I got from Gale now.

Things were weird between us, don't get me wrong, but it was a different kind of weird. Before the Games, I would have said that I could have talked to Gale about everything. Now after them, I knew that wasn't true. I couldn't talk to Gale about what it was like in the Arena. How everything boiled down to survival. Kill or be killed. The pain of watching an ally, a friend, die. I couldn't talk to him about those things.

With Peeta, I didn't have to. He knew what it was like. While he hadn't been particularly close to the career pack that he'd joined up with initially, it didn't mean that he'd liked seeing them killed. He'd still gotten to know them. Hear about what they wanted to do when they won the games. Find out about their lives back home. They weren't just Careers anymore, they were kids with names, hopes and fears who also happened to be deadlier than a pack of muttations. Watching them die, knowing that they died and we lived, well it got to Peeta sometimes. It got to me, as much as I hated to admit it.

Which was why I was standing in front of Peeta's door wondering if I should knock on it or not. Last night hadn't been a good one. I got to watch Glimmer and the girl from Four die over and over again in my dreams. Their faces mutilated beyond recognition. It'd taken all of my effort not to scream when I'd bolted awake. I wasn't able to sleep again and spent the rest of the night waiting for the sun to come up so I could flee to the sanctuary of the forest.

But even that was denied me. As I'd approached the edge of the Meadow, I could hear the tell-tale buzzing indicating that the fence was electrified. One of the few times I desperately wanted to escape and I couldn't. I considered briefly chancing it, but decided against it.

I wandered back toward town and the Hob. The old building was strangely quiet with fewer traders than normal. I walked up to Greasy Sae and gave her a coin for a bowl of stew. You could barely even call it that. It was mostly warm water with a few starchy roots and shreds of meat floating in it.

I raised an eyebrow and Sae shrugged. "Shortages," she said quietly.

Looking around the Hob, I nodded. "So that's why..."

"Yeah. Even Ripper is out of stock," Sae said, indicating with her ladle the empty space where the one armed woman sold her white liquor.

"I bet Cray isn't too happy about that."

"Who do you think bought her last bottle? About got into a fight with that mentor of yours over it too."

I absently ate my soup as I imagined the scene. I could just picture Haymitch and Cray coming to blows over the last bottle of spirits. Then a thought struck me. If Haymitch was out of liquor, I could use that to my advantage. My mother always kept a few bottles on hand as a disinfectant/anesthetic I could probably grab one and use it to coerce Haymitch into telling Peeta and I the rest of the rules.

With that thought in mind, I quickly finished my food and rushed home. I checked the cupboard where my mother kept her stores and sure enough there were four bottles of the spirits, one of them partially used. I grabbed an unopened one and walked to Peeta's house. But as I was about to knock on the door, another thought hit me. What if Peeta didn't want to see Haymitch? We kept doing this uncomfortable dance of not knowing how to act with one another. I didn't know how to act around him.

Which is where I stood right now, bottle in hand, trying to figure out if I should knock on the door.

Unfortunately, that choice was taken from me when the door opened and Peeta looked at me in askance.

"I was going to knock!" I said, realizing at the words came out just how silly they sounded.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

I looked down at my hands and the bottle clutched there. "Not really."

"At least you're honest," he said half to me, half to himself. "So I'm guessing it's bribe our mentor into doing his job time?"

"Yeah, with the shortages Ripper's out of stock."

"I know."

My eyes flew to his. "You've been to the Hob?" That seemed odd to me, Peeta was so straight-laced. I had a hard time picturing him going to the black market.

He shrugged. "I can get some supplies that I can't get other places."

"Like what?"

"Paints, spices, things that are hard to find around here, it isn't really important. But the last time I went, I noticed that there were fewer and fewer merchants around."

I nodded. I'd noticed the same thing today. "So you want to go?"

"Sure, let me grab my cane," he said closing the door slightly to open the closet beside it.

When he'd grabbed it, he motioned for us to start walking toward Haymitch's house. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. As the weather got colder, I noticed that Peeta used his cane more and more. I could see by his expression that he was in pain, but didn't want to let me know about it. Consciously I slowed my pace.

Peeta noticed. "You don't need to slow down for me, Katniss."

I debated thinking up an excuse, but decided against it. "Your leg's bothering you."

"I'm used to it. Today's just a bad day. Weather's probably due for a change. I'll be better in a few days."

"I know. You know, you should consider getting a job as a weatherman. You'd to a lot better than Gaius Raines and you're a lot more handsome," I teased mentioning the broadcaster who did the morning weather reports for all of the districts. We used to watch him in class every morning along with the daily Panem Patriotic News.

Peeta laughed. "I'd only be good at predicting when it was going to rain or when it's going to get colder."

"Then you'd still be loads better than Raines. He can't even get the weather right after it's happened." It was true. Raines' report was so inaccurate that it'd even turned into a joke. Most people didn't even pay attention to what he said. Other than a few betting souls who were part of the prediction pool. Last year Raines was right about ten percent of the time. Up from the previous year's eight percent. The Capitol really didn't want us getting any useful news. At least not in my opinion.

We reached Haymitch's house and the door opened. "Saw you coming from the window," he grunted, his voice sounding more rough than normal. "Come to pump me for information, kiddies?"

"Yes," Peeta answered.

"You bring any encouragement?" Haymitch's voice sounded hopeful.

I brandished the bottle in my hand as an answer. Haymitch made grabbing motions toward the bottle. "You look like crap," I said bluntly, taking a step back away from my mentor's hands.

"I feel like crap. But I'll feel much better once you give me that bottle."

I shook my head. "No. You tell us the rest of the rules, then you get it. No more song and dance."

Haymitch narrowed his eyes. "Or I could not tell you at all."

I glared back at him.

"You'll tell us," Peeta said softly, from beside me. "Because these rules will keep us alive. And you don't want to add our faces to your nightmares."

Both Haymitch and I looked at Peeta who shrugged.

"Look who's become all knowing," Haymitch grunted. "Maybe you don't need to hear these rules. Sounds like you already know 'em."

Shrugging again, Peeta said, "I won't be sure until you tell us."

"Fine," our mentor said brusquely. "But I get to decide when to tell you the rest of them."

"I thought you were doing that already," I retorted.

"No, you two kids have been bugging me for them. From now on, no more disturbing my peace with your pesky requests. If I feel the time is right, I'll tell you. You don't tell me."

"Then I guess, I don't need this bottle," I said, turning to walk back to my house. "I'll just take it back to my mother's stores."

"Fine!" Haymitch exclaimed. "Fine! You win. You get one rule tonight and you leave that bottle here."

I looked more closely at the older man and noticed that his hands were shaking a little more than usual. The lack of drink was really getting to him. From my mother's comments, he probably was also starting to get nightmares and hallucinations. And knowing his past, I could guess they were pretty gruesome.

Peeta seemed to guess this as well because he said, "So long as Katniss agrees, I can live with that."

Seeing Haymitch's expression, I nodded. "I can live with that too."

I could almost see relief flood the older man's body. "Good. Now here you go. Rule Seven: No one else will understand you quite as well as your fellow victors. District rivalries don't matter anymore. Survival does."

"That one actually makes sense," Peeta said.

"I'm not sure that's an actual rule, though," I replied. "It seems too obvious."

"Doesn't make it any less true, sweetheart. Now hand over the goods." I gave Haymitch the bottle which he opened almost reverently and took a long pull from it. "That's the stuff."

"Thanks, Haymitch, we'll leave you to your new friend." Peeta touched my elbow and motioned to me that we should leave.

I considered arguing but noticed that Haymitch wasn't even paying attention to me. "Don't drink that all in one shot," I said instead.

The man responded to me with a rude gesture and walked back into his house and shut the door.

I looked up at Peeta. "So why'd you say that the rule makes sense?" I asked him.

Peeta shrugged and started limping back toward our houses. "Because it does. Surely you've noticed."

"Noticed what?"

"That it's harder to talk to people who you used to talk to all the time before the Games."

I thought of Gale, Prim and my mother. I'd noticed things had changed between us, just not how much. "That doesn't mean that I'm going to go out and become best friends with Finnick Odair!" I protested, tossing the name of the most famous victor out there as an example.

"I'm not saying that you are. But when I got home, I found I couldn't talk to my brothers or my dad at all. I used to talk to them all the time. But when I got back, it was different. They were happy I was alive and they'd watched the whole thing. But that didn't mean I could talk to them about it. Then there's Farl."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah, I can see it every time I see him. He feels guilty because he didn't volunteer to take my place."

"But no one volunteers."

"You did," Peeta pointed out.

"Oh." I hadn't really thought about that Peeta had had one of his older brothers still young enough to volunteer in his stead. And Farl was the district wrestling champion so the odds would have been more in his favor to an outsider who didn't know Peeta as well as I knew him. Then it all clicked. "That's why your family doesn't live with you."

Peeta nodded. "They haven't said it in so many words. And I did offer to have them live with me, but they refused saying that they couldn't leave the shop. But I know that's not the real reason. They don't know who I am anymore."

"Well, I know who you are," I said.

"Oh? And who am I?"

I smiled at him. "You're still Peeta. You're still the boy with the bread."

He smiled back at me. "Thanks."

I resisted the urge to reach out and squeeze his hand and instead murmured. "We victors have to stick together."

"I'll always stick by you, Katniss."

"I know."

AN:

Up a little early, but it's Thursday in most of the world so it still counts, right?

Not quite as long as last chapter, but still a good length. Again I made up Gaius Raines, but I could totally see mandatory news time in school. Kind of like Channel One for those people who remember that, which I do, Anderson Cooper's first gig! I swear they were trying to kill poor Anderson by sending him to Somalia, Bosnia, and Kuwait. Also since there is no reason given in canon why Peeta doesn't live with his parents I thought that this would make sense. I always felt that Peeta's middle brother would have some serious guilt over not volunteering especially since Katniss did.

I hope to hear from you about how you liked this chapter. Reviews are the currency of the fanfic writer, we receive no other reward.

Thank you for reading.