One-Shot: Distantly Related Through Marriage
At only a few, rare points throughout history has a woman from the Merchant Quarter in District 12 defied all convention and crossed over the dividing line between classes and married a man from the Seam.
It is unprecedented for a daughter of that woman to, years later, cross back over the line separating the classes to take a spouse from Town.
Yet that is just what Primrose Everdeen does the summer after she turns 18 and survives her last Reaping. The beautiful youngest daughter of the Seam Healer – that erstwhile Merchant woman who once eloped with a coal miner – weds Davey Cartwright, son of the Merchant shoe cobbler.
Regarding the nuptials, the bride's elder sister, Katniss, is both at once bemused and despondent. Her little Primmy is all grown up and has flown the nest, leaving the statuesque and beautiful Seam huntress living all alone with a mother whom the grief of widowhood has not aged well. Nevertheless, Katniss is happy for her sister, of course. Delly Cartwright, her new brother-in-law's older sister, was a classmate and sometimes close girl friend when they were in school. Delly is married to the empty-headed middle son of the Town Baker. By reputation, Rye Mellark is known to be a bit of an empty-headed jackass.
However, it is the youngest son of the Baker – Katniss's sister's husband's sister's…. husband's….. brother – who has always held the eldest Everdeen daughter's attention.
She and Peeta Mellark had been classmates in school, the same grade, before aging out, though neither had spoken at all. They had only interacted once, and it was years ago – an exchange with no words. Rather, the communication had been a tossed loaf of burnt bread into a driving rain, when they had both been children and Katniss and her family had been starving.
Now that she and the man are distantly related through marriage, Katniss finds herself in uncomfortably close quarters with Peeta and in the even more uncomfortable position to finally thank him for that kindness, if only she were brave enough to seize the opportunity.
At family gatherings, when the in-laws Cartwright and Mellark gather together, Katniss retreats into her social turtle shell, remaining ever taciturn even as she steals glances at her sister's husband's sister's husband's…. brother from down the table. For his part, Peeta never seems to stay for these family dinners long, mumbling some excuse and ducking out as soon as the main course is over.
On one such evening, Katniss finds herself slipping away after him. She has to nearly chase him back down to the back alley behind the Bakery, where she has often traded, before her call of his name makes him turn back.
"Peeta….. wait. Don't go. We've never really spoken, have we?" Katniss can feel her hands reaching for something to do. One begins to comb through the single chestnut braid running down her back; the other is bunching up the skirts of her old blue Reaping dress and getting the fabric hopelessly creased. Both are nervous tics of hers. She smiles at him weakly. "We have so much in common now."
Peeta studies her for a moment. He sighs, and the melancholy tone in it makes Katniss's heart constrict. "We don't have that much in common. Our siblings do, but we don't." He pauses, searching for the right words. For some reason, he can't meet her eyes. "It doesn't have anything to do with your class or who your parents are, please don't misunderstand me." He now cracks an almost rueful smile. "You remind me of the thing I could have had, if only things were different."
"What thing, Peeta?"
But he glances away, towards the metal door of the Bakery's back loading dock. "I have to go. The first batch needs to be ready for rising. Goodnight… Katniss."
He shuffles back into the Bakery, leaving Katniss lost in thought and staring into space. Confused, the beautiful Seam woman begins the long walk back across the district to her mother's house.
Katniss is still lost in thought as she lies in her bed that night, the wide mattress still feeling empty and cold without Prim by her side, back when they had been younger and poorer and sharing a cot had been necessary.
An image of Peeta swims in her mind and it makes Katniss clench with fear. The sad gaze in his eyes, the already-present stoop to his shoulders even though they are both barely in their twenties…
Katniss bolts upright in bed. The sweet, kind poor boy with the bread is beginning to transform into his father – a man who had always seemed trapped in a loveless marriage. Unless something drastically changes, Peeta is headed for a similar, but far worse fate: looking that old and depressed before his time, except all alone.
Katniss springs out of bed, fishing around for her blue Reaping frock in the dark and slipping it over her head. She tugs on her boots and then squirms into her father's leather hunting jacket. A driving rainstorm greets her when she opens the front door, yet she plunges into it, breaking into a run. It is high time that she repays the debt she owes him – she doesn't know how she's going to, but she will. Tonight.
By the time she arrives at the back loading dock to the Bakery, she is soaked through. Katniss knocks on the metal door persistently until a moptop of golden hair answers.
Katniss swallows hard, gazing at Peeta. She takes a deep breath. "Hi….."
He nods to her. Katniss starts fiddling with her Reaping skirts again. She stares at him, soaking wet, her chestnut locks plastered to her forehead. "I need to know…. what did you mean, when you said I reminded you of the thing you…. could have had?"
Peeta doesn't answer, except to wordlessly take her in his arms. Under the awning, by the light of a single bulb, Katniss gazes up at him, and the blood thunders in her ears from how hard her heart is pounding. She tilts her head back almost in challenge, trying to show no fear, even as her gray eyes grow lidded and heavy.
Their lips meet. They kiss tentatively, and into Peeta's mouth, Katniss lets out a gasp.
Fireworks.
The kiss rapidly and unexpectedly deepens, to the point that Katniss yanks Peeta out from under the loading dock's awning and into the downpour. Seam huntress and Merchant baker embrace, and Katniss makes a little noise, like a curious hum, in the back of her throat. The sound parts her lips and she sucks Peeta's probing tongue into her mouth to twine about and grapple with hers.
When Peeta dares to dip his large and calloused hands below Katniss's waist and grope her supple and accentuated buttocks, Katniss galls them both by helping him grip the inside of her thigh and hike it up. In one fluid motion, she raises her leg to his hip, curling it about his torso at the back of the knee.
After several languorous minutes, the couple breaks apart. If Peeta is shocked, Katniss is thunderstruck, not the least of all with herself.
Slowly, Peeta holds out his hand to her. Katniss hesitates and looks deep into his eyes. Eyes as blue as a summer sky….
…. Then she takes it. Slides her palm into his.
With purpose, Peeta wordlessly guides Katniss by the hand into the bakery….
Katniss and Peeta make love in the bakery's basement storeroom.
She shivers as Peeta lovingly spoons her from behind, trailing kisses down the sweaty, soft curve of her neck, which she now bares to him. Curling her hand around the back of his own neck, Katniss hungrily brings his mouth down to hers and they kiss lazily, languorously as the thunderstorm continues to roll outside. It matches the thundering of blood in her ears, throughout her whole body.
The pair fall back into a pile of flour bags, ready for shunting. Making this her bed, Katniss swallows, her throat dry, and spreads her legs for this handsome man.
Her blue Reaping skirts are being shoved up and over her torso. Peeta grips the toned flesh of her thigh and hikes it up, up and above his hip, before he swiftly mounts her and claims her. He takes her in one, smooth thrust.
They have sex. Slapping their pelvises together, Katniss and Peeta exchange twin groans and grunts in between exchanging their tongues amidst heated kisses. Kisses that make the Seam huntress's head spin.
Her breathing has become heavy, ragged, staccato and labored. Her pleasured moans reach a melodious pitch. Peeta raises her leg higher still and couples with her madly until….. –
Her toes curl, in the spilled flour at their feet.
So do her hands, her fingers clasping the sweat-slicked skin at his rippling shoulder blades, nails digging almost dreamily into his flesh.
Lashes fluttering shut, her flinty grey orbs roll into the back of her skull.
She cums. A dazed and disbelieving Katniss vaguely realizes that she has been brought to orgasm. Her virginity has been claimed by this man, and she is pure no longer.
For someone who once swore a vow of chastity, pledged to never marry or have children, performing the act that most reliably leads to the procreation of babies leaves Katniss feeling oddly ambivalent.
When he finishes inside of her, Peeta tells the beautiful Seam woman that he loves her.
… Katniss says it back.
"I love you, too."
It is inevitable that, overcome by lust, they would go for another round. Katniss and Peeta spend the better part of that night making love in the bakery's basement storeroom.
Katniss kisses him deeply as Peeta deftly shrugs her daddy's hunting jacket off of her shoulders. The leathered garment lands with a soaked splatter on the stone. Off comes her blue Reaping frock next. There are four buttons on the front of the bodice. Peeta unbuttons them skillfully, and once the garment's blouse parts like curtains, Katniss grips his hand and guides it to amorously cup the swell of her breast. The blue skirts eventually go the way of the hunting jacket, pooling with a rustle at their feet.
Undressed and naked in all her beauty before him, Katniss is shivering, and not from the cold. Rather, from the heat. Peeta weighs the swell of her bare breast in his palm once more, this time daring to tweak the hardened and pebbled peaks of her nipples. Katniss mewls pleadingly into his lips where they sup from hers.
"Mmmmmmhmmmmmmm…."
Her hips burn where his other hand lightly rests on her hip before wandering lower to finger the soaking wet, musky dampness of her sex. Palm her slit.
Peeta steers her over to a sack of flour and shifts them both to their knees. Bending Katniss over on all fours, she lifts her buttocks in the air, suddenly trembling and terrified as she only has a vague idea of what is about to happen, if their Family Planning classes in school were anything to go by.
Once more, Peeta now mounts her, and mates with her.
His cock slides into her anus, right in between the round, globed cheeks of her buttocks, as though he has always belonged there. He grips her bum in his fists.
They are intimate once again. Katniss bucks into him until she can feel Peeta's balls slapping the toned flesh of her rear. He rubs against her faster, and the lovers rut against each other like beasts of the field in heat, in a carnal manner that Katniss would have thought fit for beasts only. By the light of a single bulb, the ravished young woman takes in the sight of their conjoined shadows coupling, mating, and she has to suppress a chuckle – no wonder sexual intercourse is sometimes called playing The Beast with Two Backs. Her moans of pleasure are louder this time, rich and alto and lowing.
"Huhhh….. Uhhhhh….. UGGH! Er! HMMMMM! MMMMMMM! Mmmmmhmmmmm…." Even with the rolling thunder masking their union, Katniss cries of ecstasy grow dangerously louder in both volume and pitch. Peeta claps the one hand now gripping her hip over her mouth to silence her moans and he thrusts into her faster, fucking her.
Katniss feels lightheaded, dizzy. Squirming his hand off of her mouth, she replaces it with his as she kisses him hungrily, fiercely, so that he may swallow her groans and her pleas in this way.
"Please," she whispers around where his tongue is now curling with hers in a pattern dance, her voice strangely hoarse. "Please make love to me. I want you to fuck me! I want you to finish me, Peet-ahhhh….. Ahhh….. Ahhhhhhhh!... AHHHHHHHHH! Ah! – Ah….."
Her buttocks clench, trapping and milking him. She cums once more, and he quickly follows in ejaculating.
Thoroughly deflowered, Katniss now sings to him, gathering this man who has loved her close:
"Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you! … Ahhhhhhh, I know at last the secret of it all!..."
In post-coital bliss, Peeta asks Katniss for her hand in marriage.
She hesitates, and looks deep into his eyes. His proposing is oddly adorable.
… She says Yes.
Late the following summer, wedding bells are heard ringing in the tower above the Justice Building, usually a signal that someone has gotten hitched.
Inside the small chapel, now 23 and more than old enough to wed in the eyes of the district law, Katniss Mellark (neé Everdeen) marries her love.
There are dandelions woven into the bride's chestnut tresses. She is clad in her mother's bridal gown, the Merchant heirloom that in many Townie circles is still seen as a rite of passage, reverently handed down from mother to daughter. Mrs. Everdeen had absconded with the prized garment when she wasn't much older than her eldest girl, upon eloping with Katniss and Prim's father.
The Justice of the Peace blesses the union, declaring the couple wed in the eyes of the district law. Smiling up into eyes of summer-sky blue and weaving her hands into locks of golden-spun hair, Katniss softly closes her eyes as she embraces and kisses her new husband. Peeta clutches her close and their wedding kiss deepens. When the Baker and Seam huntress lovingly break apart, the small congregation of witnesses breaks out into cheers.
Curling into her husband (Peeta's her husband!) with a bashful smile, Katniss laughs – and the sound turns into a pleased gasp as Peeta tugs her close and kisses her furiously again. Melting into it, Katniss absently tosses her bouquet of dandelions and pine needles aside. She is amused when she learns later that her flummoxed sister – though already happily married - catches the dandelions; the pine needles are left to scatter upon the floor.
Tucking under her knees, Peeta lifts Katniss in his arms without breaking the kiss, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her bridal style out into the morning sunlight before setting her gracefully down.
Leaving the Justice Building to well wishers, Peeta takes his bride by the waist and lifts her onto the back of a rented cart. The walk to their new home together in the Bakery is short, just off the Square, but Katniss doesn't mind.
Upstairs in the bakery loft, Katniss allows her bridesmaids to change her from her wedding dress into her blue Reaping frock. Among them is the new Mrs. Gale Hawthorne (Madge) and Delly Cartwright, her new sister-in-law by Rye.
Descending the stair, Katniss stands before her spouse and their roaring hearth, where the pair Toast a bit of bread and share it. Peeta then pulls his bride close, so that the pronounced swell of her belly is nestled between them.
The baby hadn't been planned during their passionate, in-secret affair following their first night alone together in the bakery storeroom, but once Katniss had sensed her breasts ballooning with a mother's milk, felt the little one stirring inside of her, she had cast aside her first reaction of a terror as old as life itself. Peeta had assured her they would be OK – they'd have each other.
And she does have him, now and forever, as, with the firelight dancing in her grey eyes, now solemn, Katniss tilts her head and permits her husband to kiss her deeply.
A toast is made on the newlyweds' behalf, led by Rye Mellark. "I'd ask to kiss the bride myself, but I don't think I want to get decked…" He glances from his brother to his sister-in-law. "…. Or shot." All the guests laugh uproariously, as Katniss curls into her husband, the picture of a blushing bride as she flushes red with embarrassment.
Mr. Cartwright graciously takes to his fiddle and Katniss and Peeta dance at their wedding. She shyly teaches him how to perform the reel. But it is Peeta's gift to his bride that will prove to be the cadenza.
Upon seeing the immaculate Toasting cake he has baked for her, Katniss draws both hands to her mouth in astonishment.
"OH! Snow's Roses, it's a vision! But…. but how did you….? You didn't! You shouldn't have!"
Peeta just spoons her. "Do you like it, Sweetheart?" And though she's never been one for public displays of affection, Katniss nonetheless loops her arms happily about his neck to kiss him soundly.
"Oh…. darling, I love it! I love you!" She's even too ecstatic to mind having to shoo her brother-in-law, Davey Cartwright, away from the concoction.
The evening ends with Peeta carrying Katniss into their home with Prim and Delly leading the singing of the traditional district wedding song.
Six months later, Katniss and Peeta's daughter is born.
They name her Hope….. to remind her parents of how they got here, in spite of everything.