#lip2017

A heavy sigh escapes my lips as I swipe at my nose, trying to not let the tears fall from my already scratchy, puffy eyes. More tears won’t do Peeta any good. Just like my mother’s tears didn’t do her any good when my father was killed. I remember her, curled up into a tight ball on her bed, sobbing for what seemed like days, until she cried herself out. That was the day her eyes took on that vacant, haunted look, nearly resulting in Prim and I starving to death.

Except, we didn’t I think as a lone, petulant tear slides down my face. Prim and I didn’t starve to death on that miserable, cold and rainy day in April, because the sweet, battered boy lying on the kitchen table behind me decided to help us, changing our world forever with two charred loaves of bread.

That’s all it took. Those two loaves of bread provided the spark for me to keep going. They provided the spark for me to remember what my father had taught me about finding food in the forest. They provided the spark for me to survive, to want to survive.

Just the smallest spark, can light the dark. That’s how you change the world.

An old song my father used to sing jumps into my head. It, like many others, was one he only would sing while in the depths of the forest, as he felt the lyrics were too revolutionary to be heard while at home or in Town.

It’s the kind words A simple smile More than showing up Going the extra mile It’s giving everything When you’ve got nothing left Sharing a little hope With a single breath That’s how you change the world

“Katniss!” I hear from behind me, startling me from my thoughts. I turn to see Peeta fidgeting, trying to turn his head so he can see me. “Katniss? Where are you?”

“I’m here!” I say in a loud whisper, sweeping around the front of the table to take his hand, warming it between my own. I sit back onto my chair, crouching down to rest my chin on the hard, wooden surface.

“I’m sorry. I was stoking the fire.”

“You were singing,” he says in a raspy voice. “I could hear you.”

I gulp, my blood going cold at the thought of what President Snow would do to us if he heard me singing that song. “I’m sorry if I woke you.” I brush a wayward curl off his forehead, leaning over to kiss the same spot. “You should try to get some more sleep.”

He shakes his head, as well as he can while lying flat on a table. “No. I want you to sing some more for me. Please?”

A spike of fear stabs my heart, followed directly on its heels by a surge of protectiveness and anger. Fear is exactly what Snow wants me to feel right now. Well, if that’s so, then I choose to not fear. If he wants me broken, I choose to be whole.

At least for right now, in this moment.

After six years of radio silence came the call Katniss Everdeen had been dreading for years. Her mother, the last living member of her family, was dead.

Though it had been six years since Katniss had fled her hometown of Panem, she knew she had no choice but to come back and take care of her mother’s possessions, sell her house, get rid of the last vestiges of the life she once knew.

-------

Amongst her mother’s possessions, she found a small dented metal box she had never seen before. A combination lock hung through the loop. Katniss was about to set it aside for later investigation when she noticed the five numbers the lock had been set to. It was Prim’s birthday.

With an ache in her chest, Katniss pulled on the lock and it popped off in her hand. Inside the box was a mess of mementos and pictures that only worsened the pain. A pale pink ribbon, a painted rock covered in purple hearts, a family picture from that brief, happy period of Katniss’s life when she had belonged to a family of four. Before her father was killed in a work accident. Before Prim was struck by a drunk driver.

Before her mother had slit her wrists.

Katniss was ready to lock the box and drop it into the single cardboard box of her mother’s possessions that she would allow herself to take. She didn’t want these pictures, these memories, but it felt wrong to throw them in the trash. Instead, she would tape the box closed, take it home, and shove it into the furthermost corner of her closest where it would sit untouched, except for a layer of dust.

A blond head of hair caught Katniss’s eye before she could close the box. It was short hair, neatly slicked back. It couldn’t be Prim or her mother. They had always worn their hair long. Katniss dug beneath the pictures of her childhood and found a cracked framed photograph of her mother as a teenager, standing in a dark blue dress with a corsage on her thin wrist beside a man who bore a striking resemblance to Katniss’s ex-boyfriend.

Peeta.

Peeta who she hadn’t seen in six years, not since she had run into him at the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving his junior year of college. He hadn’t spoken to her, had barely looked at her when her cart had nearly collided with his in the produce section. She still remembered how his glare had ripped her open, still remembered all the things she wanted to say: I’m sorry. I lied. I still love you. I never stopped.

But she hadn’t said a word. She couldn’t. Not after the argument they had had two years prior, almost to the day. His last words to her had been unimaginably cruel, but she had deserved them. After all, her last words to him had been a lie.

But she had done the right thing. She knew she had. Even now, kneeling on the stained carpet in her mother’s bedroom, completely alone, she still believed she had saved Peeta from himself. He had been ready to drop out of college, giving up his scholarship in the process. He had been ready to give up his entire future just so he and Katniss would no longer be five hundred miles apart.

She couldn’t let him come home to a mother who treated him so coldly, to a father who turned a blind eye, to a small town he would never escape from. She loved him too much for that. When Rye had called her and told her Peeta’s plan, she knew she had to do something drastic, something cruel, to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

So she did.

She tried to push Peeta from her mind, but it was impossible when she was staring down at his father. She had no idea Mr. Mellark had taken her mother to prom. Had they dated? Had they been in love? Her mother hadn’t met her father until after high school, but she had remained tight lipped at any boyfriends that came before. A few months after a whirlwind courtship, she and Mr. Everdeen had married. No couple had ever been happier or more in love. This metal box had the wedding pictures to prove it.

Katniss popped open the frame, careful not to break the glass further. Maybe she could find a new frame for it and deliver it to Mr. Mellark. He might appreciate the memory. His wife wasn’t around to disapprove. They had finally divorced last year.

The picture of her mother and Mr. Mellark fell into her lap, heavier than a photograph should be. Katniss flipped it around and found a key taped to the back underneath four numbers carefully written in black sharpie. She didn’t recognize their significance, or have a clue as to what they meant, but something stirred within her, a memory or a thought she couldn’t pin down. She had to know what the numbers meant and what the key was for.

If you wxant to know what @mtk4fun wrote after ... stay tuned :)

She settled her head back in his lap and watched her index finger trace the imaginary outline where her lips had been. Peeta's head fell back on the seat and he expelled a deep breath from his lungs, his fingers continuing their soft ministrations on her scalp. It was so relaxing. Her eyes closed and she let her hands rest on his thighs, fingers clinging to the belt loops of his pants. They'd learned something strange at the bank, and now Katniss wanted comfort from the only arms she'd ever cared to receive it from. And she wanted to give it in return, if he'd take it.

Lightly, her fingernails scratched at the skin of his lower stomach. She waited, her stomach a flutter of unsettled nerves until she felt the swelling of his manhood under her cheek. She licked her lips in anticipation of having him again. She'd missed him so much.

Carefully, she released the metal button from the hole, letting his pants fall open a little. She looked up at him for any signs that she should stop, that he didn’t want this. What she saw in his eyes was pure need, and she felt his hips flex ever so slightly. She hooked her finger above the zipper and applied pressure, dragging it down until it wouldn’t go any further, then sliding her flattened palm up his hard shaft. He groaned, lifting his hips to push his clothing down, his cock springing free with the movement.

Katniss looked at the swollen member, memories of their times together flooding back. Reverently she traced it from root to tip, swirling her finger around the head. She couldn't believe she was here again, with him.

Peeta shivered and tightened his hold in her hair, but she wasn't about to rush this.

Katniss nodded. “I didn’t realize they knew each other.” Her fingers brushed against Peeta’s as she skimmed her fingers over the image, and his blood felt like ice. “What do the numbers and the key mean, Peeta?”

Peeta shifted, almost flinched really, breaking the contact between their fingers, and Katniss let her hand fall into her lap. She tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt, his reluctance to touch her even that innocently. Even that fleetingly. After all of this time, she should be over the effect he had on her.

Should be, but clearly wasn’t.

His brows furrowed, and he flipped the small, tarnished brass key over and over, the lamplight catching it with each revolution. Katniss watched, making no attempt to touch the key, or him, keeping her hands tightly fisted in her lap. There were no markings that she could see, nothing to indicate where it could possibly have come from. No way to know why her mother had kept it.

“I think,” he said finally, “That this is a key for a safety deposit box.”

Katniss scowled, looking again at the key that was now still, lying flat on the palm of his large hand. She supposed it could be a bank key, but it also could be a suitcase key or a bicycle lock key or a key for any other damned thing, and something about his tone, his almost certainty, rubbed her the wrong way. “Why do you think that?” she asked, almost managing to keep the pique from her voice.

Almost.

Peeta frowned, then closed his fist around the bit of brass, taking several deep breaths. She watched his eyes flutter shut, could almost hear him making a slow count to ten in his mind. When he finally reopened his eyes, he fixed them on her own, and the blue fire she saw in them was almost enough to make her run again. But she couldn’t, not this time. She could only hold his gaze and listen to the hammering of her heart in her ears.

His mouth opened and shut several times, as if he couldn’t decide what to tell her. It was beyond frustrating, Katniss could remember a time when he told her everything, she knew he was remembering too. But those days were long gone.

Finally, he shook himself free from whatever internal debate he was having, and dropped the key unceremoniously onto the table. “I know it’s a safety deposit box key,” he clarified, his voice flat, tired sounding. “I know because I found one just like it in my father’s things.”

Katniss reached out, her fingers fumbling as she tried to pick up the key. It was really a very non-descript piece of dull metal. Something that could easily be lost again, dropped down the back of a chair or forgotten at the bottom of a drawer. It could be that easy to leave all this behind.

But there was the challenge of those suspicious eyes, watching from across the table for her next move. He wasn’t going to volunteer any more of his story; not without some sort of a fight. “Suits me,” she muttered and pushed back her chair. Swinging her mane of dark hair over one shoulder, she reached back to untie the leather cord that always stayed around her neck.  Briskly, she pulled the locket out from her shirt, pretending not to care what he thought about her still wearing it, and threaded on the key so they clinked together.

She raised her eyes to his defiantly. “For safe keeping.”

He still wouldn’t speak to her. He had said too much already.

“I suppose a visit to the bank is called for then,” she sighed, her energy sapped by his resistance. “Will you walk with me at least...Please?”

It was her pleading that broke his resolve.

On the way, they had to pass by the park. It had been changed, fewer trees and more play equipment. Less places to hide. “Remember how we….” kept starting in her head, but there was no point in that. She was sick of it; this whole day and the way things were between them. She kicked at the gravel, dragged back to a much younger version of herself. “Fuck it,” she thought, there was nothing to lose anyway. “I’ll race you!” she picked up her speed a little turning to see his puzzled expression.

“First one to the swing is the winner!”

He shook his head, but couldn’t help a small smile from sneaking out.

“Scared I’ll beat you?” she taunted and jogged in place, before setting off.

“Fuck it all,” she thought and let herself run. Her boots were heavy but she pounded down the path, pumping her arms, the locket and key hitting her chest with each stride.

Blind to the looks of joggers, she sprinted past them helter skelter, focused only on her own race. She could practically hear young Katniss, laughing at her breathlessness and how weak she had grown.  Approaching the swing set, all she could see was a blur of red through either her sweat or tears. She seriously wondered if she had started to lose her mind, as well as everything else that had been taken from her. Until he passed her, his familiar lolloping gait rousing her spirit. No way was he going to beat her now. She gave a last spurt, brushing his shoulder as she made it past him to the prize. First to sit on the swing.

He fell down on the grass at her feet, hands thrown back over his head, chest heaving, and peered out from under his arms. Of course she had beaten him. He sat up and rubbed his damp hands through his hair, realising he was glad that hadn’t changed.

“You always have to win don’t you Everdeen.”

“If you think I’ve won, then tell me,” she gasped, still barely able to speak. “What did you find in your father’s deposit box?”

---

Peeta didn’t say anything, but a corner of his mouth twitched as he stared at her shoes. Katniss followed his gaze, and saw a small bird pecking at the crumbs of their lunch. “You sure about that?”

She shifted, trying to put some distance between herself and the bird, but the movement sent it fluttering away. “It left,” she said flatly, refusing to meet his gaze.

“But it approached you. It felt safe with you.”

“It was hungry, Peeta.”

She felt her hand come to rest on top of hers in her lap. “So am I.”

Instinctively, she flipped it over and slotted her fingers through his. “You’re lame,” she muttered.

“You love it,” he teased back, jostling her shoulder.

She squeezed his hand, then leaned back on the steps, staring up at the cloudless sky. The bright blue that greeted her was almost blinding, but she could make out a plane coming from the west. It would fly right over the house, but none of the passengers would know it was there. They might see dark shapes, might guess they were flying over a small town, but the specifics were insignificant. They had better places to see, to be. Just like her.

She turned to look at Peeta, and was unsurprised to find that he had leaned back as well, and was watching her. “C’mon,” she blurted out, and sprinted back into the house. Peeta followed, holding fast to her hand. They ran out into the garage, and she finally let him go to unlock her car. Popping the trunk, she began to rummage through the boxes.

“What are you looking for?” Peeta asked, but she shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. She wanted something meaningful, but disposable. Something she could tear and shred and burn, a final “fuck you” to the life she thought she had left behind. All that remained, though, were things she had already decided to keep. Everything else had long been thrown away or donated. She slammed the top of the box she was rifling through, and collapsed against it.

She felt Peeta’s hands on her waist, pulling her upright, and into his embrace. She stood frozen, his arms against his chest, as he squeezed her comfortingly, his thumb sweeping the stretch of skin between her neck and shoulder.

They swayed softly, back and forth, and Katniss felt the fight leave her body. As if Peeta could sense it, he uncurled one arm from around her waist, and guided her to his own car. He climbed into the backseat, then reached an arm out to her. She crawled in, closing the door behind her, and curled up with her head in his lap.

“Thanks,” she said, as his fingers stroked her hair. Then, impulsively, “You’ve always been my best friend.” She pulled his shirt up a little to kiss his stomach, and sighed.