A/N: Sorry for the delay!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Chapter Two

It was no secret that both Harold and Cato were rebels in District 13. In the Capitol, they were basically traitors. And, because of this, it was only feesible for Peeta to be upset. Broken from the knowledge the not one but both of his boyfriends were on the 'wrong' side of the rebellion. That they were traitors. The citzens expected Peeta to be sad. Maybe even a little bit angry. This, he could do, because he really was sad and angry, just not for the same reasons.

With the knowledge that Peeta was miserable and 'single' again, came the nosey citizens who wished to help. Some baked 'Sorry!' cupcakes, some sent cards, some sent teddies and nick nacks. Peeta wasn't sure whether to be touched by their concern or irritated by their persistance.

He was in the sitting room, seated in a red velvet chair placed in the corner, playing with a penguin plushie someone sent that he'd tried to give to Emily but got turned down as she was still too fascinated with the koala from the previous day. For a large amount of the time he'd been in President Snow's mansion, he'd been given babysitting duties while Semira and Snow went off to do god knows what.

He could already tell that Emily had been spolit by her parents. When he tried to say no to her, she'd cry and not stop until he let her have her way. The first time she pulled this, Peeta had tried to stay strong and not give in but, upon hearing her daughter's cries, Semira had came in and smacked him for not giving Emily what she wanted. After that Peeta decided just to let Emily be a spolied bratt, that it was best to not get involved.

It became clear what Snow intended to do with him when he started forcing Peeta to make public appearances with him. In the Capitol, it was as if they were unaware of a rebellion even taking place. They went on with normal life as if nothing had happened. The only difference was that what they currently had was all they were going to get. The only Districts who weren't on the rebels side were the career Districts 1, 2, and 4, and they continued to provide the city with the necessities they needed. But you can't survive on jewels, weapons and fish all your life. Eventually, they were going to run out of the things the other Districts provided. Things like fabrics were being rationed and meat was sparsely sold anymore. But Peeta soon learned that nearly every house had a fall out shelter. Full of tinned goods they'd saved up in case something like . . . well . . . this happened.

The public appearances were strange. Peeta didn't like having to get dressed up and smile like nothing was wrong but still be able to be sad if asked about Cato or Harold. He didn't want to be the celebrity survivor of the Quarter Quell who somehow hadn't gotten poisoned by the rebels and their 'lies'. At first, he thought this was how Snow was going to punish him. By glamourising his life and turning him into a public icon for the citizens to lean on while most of their other beloved Victors were being treated as traitors.

But that wasn't it.

It took Peeta a week to realize what was happening. Snow wasn't just sending him off to talk shows or photoshoots just for the sake of irritating him, he was flaunting him. He was showing him off to the citizens in a way that told them that he was single and lonely and needed someone to . . . 'take care' of him. Snow was basically putting Peeta up for sale to them.

Now he was waiting to see if someone was actually going to bite the bait.

Emily gurgled in her walkie, the koala discarded on the floor. She was eyeing the penguin in Peeta's hands curiously, as if waiting on him to hand it over to her. "I thought you didn't want this?" he asked her, holding it out of her reach.

Immediately, her face crumpled.

"Okay, okay, calm down, take the damn thing," he said, giving her the penguin before it started a crying match. Emily's face lit up and she started to knaw on the poor penguin's foot. Peeta cringed. Oh well, there were plenty of Capitol plushies strewn across the room to last a lifetime.

As he sat staring at his sister eating the penguin, Snow came into the room with Semira at his heels. Peeta had gotten used to the image of his mother glued to Snow's side, the two of them seeming to be the only people to make each other happy. Two sadists meeting and never separating. How romantic(!) "Don't tell me, Caeser Flickerman's guest has cancelled and you need me to save the day by going on his show and gushing about how happy yet broken I am inside?" Peeta asked dryly.

"Attitude Peeta," his mother scolded harshly.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing what it would probably result in. "What is it then?" he asked.

"You're going out tonight," Semira told him.

Peeta raised his eyebrows. "Oh am I now?" he asked. "And where, pray tell, am I going?"

"We've finally decided on who's going to be your first buyer," Snow answered. "It was actually really difficult, almost as bad a demand as we got for Finnick when he was first put out there."

Peeta hadn't thought about it before, but it made sense that Snow had sold Finnick to the Capitol citizens. It explained why he had someone new on his arm every other week, never having seemed to have withheld a substantial relationship. He was good looking enough to bring in loads of money for Snow and the city. But hadn't he said he didn't deal in money? Maybe he just meant himself, whoever bought him probably paid Snow anyway. The whole system was appalling.

Still, it didn't seem all that horrible. Peeta had been acting for a long time now, pretending that everything was okay when in public, and going on a date with someone and acting like he was enjoying himself wasn't horrifying. He had thought that Snow was going to do something much worse than that. Like torture or mutilation, the standard stuff for traitors and deserters. Sure, going on a date with a Capitol citizen would be annoying but compared to the stuff that could have been done to him, it wasn't so bad in hindsight.

"So who is this guy then?" Peeta asked.

"His name is Hunter. He's actually a close friend of mine who-"

"Who you didn't choose because he was better than the others, you chose because he's your friend," Peeta said flatly.

"Don't interuppt," Semira snapped.

"Who paid a substantial amount of money for you," Snow finished.

"I knew this is what you were going to do," Peeta said, almost truimphantly. "Well, too bad for you, it actually doesn't sound all that bad. Compared to what you could have decided to do to me." Snow laughed. Semira looked amused too. Peeta suddenly wasn't feeling all that confident about the easiness of his task. "Why are you laughing?" he asked.

"Because, my dear boy, you don't seem to realize the extent of what we were charging for," Snow explained.

"At first we thought we were going to just torture you, like what is currently happening to Miss Mason, Miss Cresta and Miss Green in the prison cells," Semira continued. The thought of Ava, Johanna and Annie being tortured made Peeta feel hollow inside. "But we realized that that wouldn't suffice. You'd feel the pain, sure, but I know you, Peeta, and you'd grit your teeth and bear it. For the sake of your . . . boyfriend." She spat out the last word like it was acid on her tongue.

"So . . . ?" Peeta asked.

"So, Snow came up with an ingenius idea," Semira said. "Something that will make you pay for ruining the arena."

"But what is it?"

"We decided to use the one thing you've never fully understood against you," Snow explained. "Your sexuality."

"My . . . what?"

"In the absence of Finnick Odair, you will play escort to any and all men who pay for you," Snow said.

Peeta stared at Snow. One part shock, the other indifferent. He had expected something worse and he had gotten it. A part of him thought that he should be horrified and disgusted, but for the past two weeks he had been with Snow in his house, he had grown much more. He wasn't going to give Snow the satisfaction of seeing him break. He couldn't. That was what he wanted.

He wasn't going to give Snow what he wanted so easily.

Instead he found himself thinking of something completely different and totally irrevelvant.

"Where's Cinna?"

If Snow was surprised by Peeta's lack of reaction to his threat, he didn't show it. "Cinna?" he asked, as if he could not recall who he was talking about.

"You know who I'm talking about," Peeta said. "Cinna. My stylist."

"Oh, him," Snow said. "Dead. Killed during interrogation."

"What were you interrogating him for?" Peeta asked.

Snow shrugged. "Nothing in particular."

Peeta clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to snap something nasty back. They were interrogating Cinna for nothing. They killed Cinna for nothing. Because of the Mockingjay wings he built into his suit jacket. He died trying to increase the image for the rebellion. And now Peeta was stuck here, in the Capitol, being forced to take on Finnick's role as an escort with nothing to do but sit and watch the rebellion brew. This wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to be the image. Wasn't that what the Districts were looking for?

And he could do nothing.

Some Mockingjay he turned out to be.

"I would have thought your reaction to Snow's punishment would have been different," his mother said a little while later. Snow himself was off doing Presidential things and they were the only two in the sitting room, unless you counted baby Emily.

"I'm used to punishments like that," Peeta replied, picking at a loose thread on the chair. "You develop an immunity to it."

"Aren't you worried about what your boyfriend will think of you?" Semira was trying to poke a reaction from him. She did it a lot when he was little, Peeta could recognize it a mile off by now.

"I was raped by a Capitol man and Cato never batted an eyelash," he simply answered. "I'm not worried about what he's going to think of me."

"Aren't you scared?" Semira insisted. Peeta risked a glance at her. Her blue eyes were bright, searching. It reminded Peeta of the first time someone told him that he looked like her. He had been ten years old and one of Semira's friends came into the bakery. While he had packed up the bread for her, she'd taken a hard look at him and said, "You're the spitting image of your mother." Back then he hadn't minded that much but once the trauma with Mya occured, he hated the fact that he looked like her.

"I've been scared ever since I was kidnapped. Every waking hour is filled with nothing but fear. When you experience that kind of thing every day you become accustomed to it. I don't expect you to realize that, since you seem to have been enjoying yourself ever since you were arrested." It was odd saying 'enjoying yourself' and 'arrested' in the same sentence.

Semira chuckled, as if this were amusing. "You're right. Your mother has been living on easy street since the arrest."

"You're not my mother. You lost the right to that title the moment you sent me out of the bakery that night." Peeta didn't look away from her as he said this. He didn't even flinch.

Semira scowled but she didn't say another word. She focused all her attention on Emily. Peeta preferred it that way. He didn't like it when she tried to be nice, tried to be a mother figure, as if she hadn't destroyed his life. Emily seemed to adore her mother, laughing when she cooed at her, grabbing her finger when she held it out, reacting to all her little jokes and animations of her toys. Peeta couldn't help remembering how she treated him when he was two. He was treated like a rat who had invaded her household. Dirty. Unwelcome.

Sometimes he wondered if Semira ever loved him.

"You should get ready," Semira said, not turning away from Emily. Her voice was dead. Emotionless. "Hunter will be waiting."

~xXx~

President Coin was a complex woman.

Either you were on her good side, or her bad side. The best side to be on, obviously, was her good side. Cato wasn't sure which side he was on at the moment. He didn't feel like he merited to be on the better side, since he had been ignoring her schedule and been spending all his time in the medical ward, staying by Rye's side and watching his sister learn from Prim.

President Coin was also an intimidating woman. She stood with a posture so stiff you wonder if her bones were made of metal. Her expression gave nothing away. You couldn't even see tints of emotion smouldering underneath her placid features. You could only guess what she was thinking. And most of the time you'd be wrong.

"Tell me Cato, why have you been spending so much time in the medical ward?" Coin asked. She had an unwavering gaze that would make most feel small but was a gaze that Cato was able to hold. He may have been many things, may have let many people make him feel many things, but small was not going to be one of them.

"I've been sitting with Ryean Mellark when his father can't be there," he simply answered.

Coin wasn't impressed. "You've been ignoring your schedule for a boy you barely know." It was a statement, not a question.

"No offence but I find Peeta's family much more important than your schedule," Cato replied. He felt like he was being unfairly scolded by a teacher who'd caught him doing something he shouldn't in class. "And I'd much prefer to look after Ryean in Peeta's absence than I'd prefer to follow your silly schedule."

"Silly?" Coin demanded. "The schedule is not silly. It's to teach you the skills needed to become a solider for the rebel forces. You may be the image of this rebellion but it doesn't mean you automatically know what you're doing. All you have going for yourself is a temper problem and the ablity to wield a sword. These are not useful skills when faced with a military problem. Tell me, Cato, do you know how to use any other weapon other than a sword?"

"Yes, that's how careers are trained. With every weapon possible. We choose the weapon we're best at in the arena."

"So you know how to load and shoot a gun?"

"Obviously not, guns are forbidded in the Games. They kill too quickly."

"Well, you have to learn. When faced with an opposing force with a gun and you're armed with nothing but a sword, who do you think is going to win. You or the solider with the gun?"

Cato frowned. "The man with the gun."

"And you still wish to witter your time away babying a boy who doesn't even know you're there?" Coin sounded like she didn't fully understand why he wasn't seeing what she was trying to say. Cato knew what she was trying to say but it didn't matter to him. The safety of Peeta and his own families was always going to come first. Not some District 13 concentration camp style schedule.

"Ryean is important to Peeta. So he's important to me."

"But you barely know him."

"He's Peeta's family."

"But he's not yours."

Cato shook his head. "Can't you see it doesn't matter what you say to me, I'm not going to follow your orders Coin. You're not the boss of me."

President Coin's gaze sent a shiver down his spine. "I thought you'd act like this," she stated. Cato watched as she went to one of the tech guys and took over their computer, rapidly typing on the keyboard and bringing something up on the massive screen on the back wall. At first, Cato didn't understand what he was looking at. It looked like a website of some description but as he took a closer look, he realized it was a contract. He leaned forward, squinting to read the small print.

'I consent to pay the amount of money previously agreed upon to spend (insert number of minutes/hours/days) with President Snow's step-son, Peeta Mellark. I recognize that I cannot claim ownership or relationship status with the person above and will not keep them longer than the time agreed.

Rules that must be upheld:

Marks can be body polished but no severe harm can be caused.

Do not engage in an activity you don't fully understand that might/will put yourself or above person at risk of death.

You can flaunt your activites to friends and family but do not advertise person above's services.

Signature:

President's Signature: Corneiluis Snow

Relationship to person: Step-father.'

"What the hell is this?" Cato demanded.

Coin gestured to the screen. "This? This is what they're doing to Mr Mellark in the Capitol. They have replaced Mr Odair's services with Peeta's as punishment for blowing up the arena. You want to stay by Ryean's side and not bother aiding the revolution in any way, fine, but we won't have a Mockingjay and without an image we have no legs to stand on. And the longer this war goes on, the more aquaintances Peeta will be introduced to and get to know on more than a name only basis."

Cato felt sick. He remembered Clove telling him on their floor in the training center the previous year about how her mother had bought Finnick for a night because her dad had stopped wishing to be intimate with her. Clove's mother was a sadist, she liked being control and watching the person beneath her writhe in pain and know that she is the one causing and controlling it. Clove had said she found the receipt. She said that her mother had been allowed to do whatever she wanted with Finnick, as long as she paid the correct amount of money.

Now that was happening to Peeta.

"I don't see how my following a schedule is going to help," Cato said helplessly.

"It will aid you in becoming a solider," Coin replied. "It will help the army grow stronger. And, sometimes, you will film propos to appeal to those in the Districts who are still unsure about who's side they're on."

"Propos?"

"Propaganda."

"Will I still get to visit Ryean and Mr Mellark?" Cato asked.

Coin didn't look too happy about the idea but conceeded. "I'm sure it can be arranged." She watched Cato carefully while he made his decision. Now that she had shown him that contract, Cato knew he couldn't just sit around and wait for things to pass. If learning to be a solider and being an image for the rebellion was going to help Peeta's safety come quicker, then he'd have to do just that.

"I need an answer, Cato," Coin said impaitently. "Will you be the Mockingjay?"

The answer was obvious. Cato nodded. "Yes. I will."

A/N: Again, sorry for taking so long.

Please R&R! ^_^