Hiii! Like ten hours late but here’s my take on the first prompt Stockings from @everlarkedalways’ Everlark Christmas Month list. It’s short and basically unedited — but that’s become v on brand for me as of late and why must we be too uptight or perfectionistic — but I hope y’all enjoy it! It was fun to write. It’s set about 9 years Post-Mockingjay.
Oh and it accidentally became a canon divergence partway through writing it… I think you can pretty easily see where I changed the ending of the books… 😆. I think it adds something extra to the holiday cheer though. 🤷🏼♀️
Day One : Stockings
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“Peeta,” I say, my tone just a little exasperated.
“Shh,” he immediately hushes me and I reach with the fire poker to jab him.
He swiftly avoids the metal stick and goes back to hanging my stocking over the hearth.
“This is over the top,” I retort as he steps back to admire his work.
“No,” my little sister cuts in, coming up behind Peeta with her own stocking in hand. “It’s just the right of holiday spirit,” she insists and shares a look of solidarity with my husband.
It’s been years since the war ended, since that day in the Capitol Square, where those bombs went off and took the lives of countless children. A little less devastatingly, the same bombs also a leg and arm from Prim.
And yet, nothing — not even an arm and leg made of plastic and metal — manages to dampen her holiday cheer. Two years after the war, District One and Two took on a holiday a week before New Years. A couple years later, Three and Seven also made it part of their community and slowly the festivities spread across Panem but I figured it wouldn’t make it all the way to Twelve.
Now nine years after the games, the rebellion and the war — and with three limbs lost between Peeta and Prim — Yuleday has finally made its way to Twelve.
“We knew she’d be a wet noodle,” Prim remarks to Peeta, acting like I’m not here as she rises up on tiptoe to hang her pink stocking next to mine.
“Excuse me,” I start to complain but Peeta comes to sit on the chair behind me, tugging me to sit on his lap.
“I love your terrible holiday spirit. It’s the kind of consistency I’ve come to count on,” he teases and I shoot him a glare.
“Give him a break, Katniss,” Prim says, stepping back and admiring the three stockings, just as Peeta did. Unconsciously she rubs her metal hand with the flesh of her real one, the mere moments of leaning over the fire heating the prosthetic up quickly.
She catches me staring and rolls her eyes. “Stop,” she orders. “Or I’ll put my burning hot hand on your cheek.”
“I wasn’t looking at you,” I immediately defend but she doesn’t buy it.
“Look at the stocking your husband made you,” she suggests sardonically.
“I could have made that,” I say, eyeing the dark green stocking with my name printed in careful gold cursive.
“You could have. But you didn’t,” Peeta betrays, chuckling at his own joke.
Prim joins in and I huff, standing from Peeta’s lap and making my way out of the living room and towards the front door. “I’m going to go out and find your husband, Prim. Maybe he won’t gang up against me,” I taunt, shooting Peeta a meaningful look.
He’s undeterred though. “I’m sure he will. Your an easy target, my love.”
“If you do see him, tell him I’m not making his stocking for him. He makes it himself or he doesn’t get one,” Prim asserts, setting aside the last blank one, it’s chocolate color a nice contrast to her light pink, my dark green or Peeta’s delicate orange.
“I’ll make sure to let him know,” I quip, grabbing my father’s old jacket — that’s hanging on by it’s last thread at this point — and pulling it on.
Peeta murmurs something to Prim as he kneels down to build up the fire some more and she laughs loudly. And my chest constricts in the best way possible, as I peer back in to see my little sister and my husband, the two people I love more than life itself, smiling at each other.
I may be a wet noodle — or whatever phrase Prim has attached onto in reference to my lack of holiday cheer — but, though I wouldn’t admit it out loud, I can’t help but fill with gratitude during this time of the year.
I may not care for all the parties and drinking and public dancing — or all the people in general — but I care for them. I care for their happiness. And if hanging stockings with our names on them over a fire brings them joy then this is a wonderful time of year.
Not that I’ll tell them that.
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