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“Who the hell are you?” Katniss asks when she reaches the Square, because she’s cranky and hairless and the man with the long blue wig is most definitely not Effie Trinket.
He laughs. “Peeta Mellark. Has anyone ever told you how alarmingly like your mentor you are?”
She scowls at him.
“Effie told me that she left you both messages about how I’d be replacing her, but she said that you may not have gotten them,” he says. “To make a long story short, she got a promotion and you two get me.”
She looks over at Haymitch, who is already both seated and drunk. He gives her a shrug.
"Don’t worry, Katniss, I’ll make it fast and painless.”
He must remember last year at the same moment as she does, because the smile drops from his face.
“Shit. That’s not what I meant at all.”
She doesn’t dignify this with a response. It’s not like there’s anything in the rules that says she has to do anything other than to take her seat beside Haymitch. She holds her hand out and Haymitch slips his flask into it wordlessly. She tips it towards him in thanks and knocks it back, pretending like she doesn’t see the way that Peeta Mellark watches her.
He does make it fast and painless. At least, as painless as a reaping can be. She figures that maybe her penance this year is that they took away Effie, who was the last person she was guaranteed to see on her trip that she liked.
She misses Cinna. She misses him so much.
She’s been in the bar car for a while when the door opens. She turns, half expecting to see Haymitch coming in, already having exhausted the bottles in his room. But it isn’t Haymitch. It barely even seems like Peeta when she realizes just how little he looks like he did earlier.
The makeup is scrubbed from his face, leaving him a shade or two more tan, which suits him much better than the ghastly pale from this morning. His hair is different, too. Blonde and just long enough to show a little bit of curliness. It must be his real hair, she thinks, because when he reaches up and runs his hand through it, it doesn’t shift like a wig. His clothes are much better, too. Easier to take than the shades-of-blue ensemble he had been wearing during the ceremony and the dinner that followed on the train. Surely sweatpants and a tee shirt are much more comfortable.
“Couldn’t sleep, either?” he asks, and she cringes at his accent, because she’s neither drunk or sober enough to deal with it. His is particularly bad, too. If she didn’t know better, she would think it was fake.
“Didn’t try,” she answers truthfully. There’s no sleep for her for the first few nights of the Games. He frowns at her and takes a seat, leaving only two stools between them.
“You should know how highly Effie speaks of you,” he says, as if that’s something she’s supposed to care about. “I mean, it’s like she didn’t think I was properly nervous to meet you or something.”
“Nervous?” she repeats, because nobody in the Capitol is ever nervous to meet her. Anxious, sure. But not nervous. Never nervous enough not to reach out and touch whichever part of her they can reach when she walks near crowds of them.
“So nervous,” he assures her. “Let me put it this way, Katniss. If I was a teenager, I’d have your poster hanging in my room.” He laughs uncomfortably, signaling for the avox serving as bartender to come over so he can place his order for whiskey. “That sounded creepy, didn’t it?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for her to respond. “It’s just that you’re a really phenomenal person, and while the idea of working with you is exciting, it’s also incredibly daunting.”
A really phenomenal person. “You don’t know me,” she reminds him, partially because it’s true and partially because her lips are loose from the alcohol. Effie didn’t know her, either, and she had Effie for years.
“Of course not,” Peeta says. “Not yet, at least. I’d like to, though.”
She shakes her head slightly, because he’s ridiculous. “I should get some sleep,” she says, just to get away from him for a few more hours.
“Okay. Sleep well, Katniss,” he says, giving her a small smile.
“I’m just saying, if we package them together–”
“No,” she says firmly, cutting him off. “We’re not doing that. That isn’t fair to either of them.”
“It’s just going to give them a better edge,” Peeta assures her. “That’s the best thing we can possibly do for them. More interest means more sponsors and more sponsors mean better odds, right?”
She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m saying no and that’s that.”
“So what do you propose, then?” he asks, and she notices that he’s wearing more eye makeup than she was even when her prep team got her ready for the reaping ceremony. “Other than telling them not to fight with their stylists, what are we going to do for them?”
This earns him her best scowl. “We’re going to train them and we’re going to let them go. That’s all we can do.”
“We’re not even allowed to hope for the best?” Peeta asks.
“You’re new,” she reminds him, not adding that he didn’t have to hope for the best when it was his sister in there, and shouldn’t he have something to do other than have lunch with her? “If you think I’m bad, you ought to spend a day with Haymitch.”
“I don’t think you’re bad,” Peeta says, and she believes him. What would someone have to do to be considered bad in Peeta’s eyes? Killing people certainly doesn’t work, if she’s any indication of his measure of what makes a person into someone he wants to spend time around. “I think you’re tired,” Peeta’s eyes dart around before he adds, “I think we’re all tired, Katniss.”
He leaves after this, striding out of the room in these ridiculous black boots and muttering something about odds. She can’t figure out what he means for the life of her. How is he so tired of this before the parade has even started? One thing is for certain. Effie Trinket never tired.
“Looks like your advice worked swimmingly,” Peeta says, nodding towards where their tributes are coming out. The boy’s distaste in his stylist is clear by the way that his arms are crossed, but that makes sense to Katniss. They’ve regressed back into coalminer’s outfits since Cinna was promoted the year before last. “Do you think you’d mind explaining that to me? Because while it is solid advice, something tells me it isn’t just about good manners.”
She sighs, scanning the room just in case she can find him already. “I liked my stylist. Maybe they’ll be lucky and they’ll like theirs, too.”
“Not with those costumes,” Peeta says, and she raises her eyebrows even though she agrees with him.
“A fashion designer, are we?”
“Almost. That route was far too competitive for me, though.”
“And being an escort isn’t competitive?” she asks.
“Ah, I don’t know if I’d go that far. There was certainly more training than you would think. College courses and seminars and papers to write, not to mention all the times I had to apply.”
“Only to get Twelve,” she says, her voice full of mock-sympathy. “What a hard life you have.”
She’s surprised when he grins. “I know. It’s ridiculous, really, how many hurdles I’ve overcome.”
He’s joking with her, but she sees Cinna across the room, so she doesn’t come with any good responses. District One’s outfits are as gorgeous as ever, all shimmering and sparkles. They start the parade and Cinna heads towards her, wrapping her into a tight hug.
“How are things?” he asks lowly into her ear. She shakes her head, because she doesn’t want to talk about it. She never wants to talk about it.
“You must be Peeta,” Cinna says when he pulls away, shaking hands with her new escort. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Peeta returns with a winning smile. “Katniss here was just talking about how much she likes you. I suppose congratulations are in order, too, for that promotion. Twelve to One is quite a leap, isn’t it?”
Cinna gives a small smile. “It’s certainly different from my experience with Twelve. Katniss here will always be my muse when it comes to design, though. Who knows, maybe I can talk my way back into my old job.”
“You never know,” Peeta says, stepping out of the way so that their tributes and stylist can get to the chariot.
“I’ll let you get back to it,” Cinna says, glancing over his shoulders at his new Victors. “Katniss, I’ll see you again soon, okay?”
She nods, but she doesn’t believe him. Try as they might, they don’t have many chances for interaction these days.
“He’s nice,” Peeta says, and she watches him skeptically, because if he has anything bad to say about Cinna, she knows that it’s over. “What? I’ve met a few stylists. I know what I’m talking about. He’s nice.”
The only time that she really gets away from him is when they’re training their tributes separately. Other than that, he’s by her side with ideas and comments. He’s not bad to drink with at night at all, but that’s the only time she comes close to liking him. He doesn’t even try to fill up every single silence that passes between them then, which is probably the best part about him.
Their boy dies on the very first day. From his spot beside her, Peeta lets out a heavy sigh.
“You’ll get used to it,” she says, even though she hates herself for it. Her first thought when their tributes were reaped was that they had no chance. Of course, she felt disgusting for thinking it, but it was true. Nobody that’s reaped these days ever has any chance, and she knows that it has to be her fault. But she can’t save them. She can’t save any of them. That’s the point, really, that Snow must be making to her.
“I hope not,” Peeta says. She expects him to say something about them getting another Victor, but he doesn’t. He just turns his attention back to the screens, flinches when another tribute is killed at the bloodbath.
Effie never flinched, either.
Peeta is always coming up with ideas of how to better market their remaining tribute, and almost all of them are among the worst and most tacky ideas Katniss has ever heard in her life. She has to remind herself over and over again how very new at this he is. That his ideas will either get less annoying or seem less annoying as time goes on.
She’ll be gone any day now, Katniss can’t help but to think, and then she won’t have to deal with anyone in the Capitol for another year. Of course, she feels guilty for the thought instantly. What have they done to her by dragging her out here for the last five years? If this is her life already, then how terrible must Haymitch’s thoughts be?
It’s about a week into the Games that Peeta starts to receive an unusual amount of phone calls and texts. It would be nice, having the time away from him, if it wasn’t so suspicious, the way he clutches his phone and hurries out of the room when it rings. She hears him one night, but not clearly enough to make out any words, just a low murmuring voice that somehow sounds nothing like his own.
Their tribute makes an ally. Katniss thinks it’s a bad thing, but Peeta is thrilled. Has he ever even watched the games before? Does he not know that it will only ever end badly?
They’re together, since he seems to be tethered to her, watching while their tribute begins to tell stories about Katniss.
“Is that true?” Peeta asks after the rumor about birds stopping to listen when Katniss sings comes up. “Do they, I mean?”
Katniss shrugs.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “Friends share.”
Friends. The word pulls her up short. Not because she thinks that they are friends, but because he does. And out of everyone in the Capitol that’s tried to be her friend, he isn’t the absolute worst.
“It’s what they used to say about my father,” she tells him. “It just transferred to me when I was famous and I sang. It’s a nice thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Very nice,” he agrees. “So do you not sing very much, then?”
“Not if I can help it.”
He nods, and she can tell there are thousands of other questions he wants to ask her, but he holds his tongue well, watching instead while the focus of the stories shifts to, of all people, Prim.
As if anyone could have forgotten what her sister looked like, Prim’s photo comes up in the top left corner of the screen.
“She loved her so much,” their tribute is saying. “The rumor is that when she died, Katniss wanted to start a rebel-”
The shot cuts to one of a stream. Nothing is happening by it, which makes what the girl was saying even more clear. The rumor is that when she died, Katniss wanted to start a rebellion.
Peeta grabs her arm, reading something from the phone he holds in his other hand.
“Relax,” she says, but her voice is sort of shaking. “It’s a rumor for a reason. And it’s not like you have to turn me in. They’re going to–”
“I’ve got to get you out of here,” Peeta says, and his voice is gruff. Urgent.
“What?” she asks.
“I need to get you out of here,” he reiterates, his grip on her arm still tight.
“Why?”
“You saw what happened!” he says. “It’s going to be a shit-storm. You don’t want to see just how angry Snow can get, do you?”
His accent is completely missing, now. Peeta doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Where?” she asks weakly, following him when he stands up. “Where do you want to take me?”
“Thirteen. They’re waiting for us on the roof,” he answers, already heading for the hallway. She watches him, mouth hanging open like a fish as she tries desperately to process something, anything about what’s happening. “Katniss, I swear I’ll explain everything on the way. Just, please, come with me.”