Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I personally like it, but you do look silly like this.”

– – –

The first thing I notice when I wake up is Katniss’s eyes on me from the pillow beside me. The second thing I'm aware of is the sound of her laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, rolling over to face her.

“Your hair,” she says, “it’s twice the size it was when we fell asleep.”

I reach up and feel my head with a groan. “It’s the humidity,” I say. “This is why I usually keep my hair shorter in the summer. Less to manage.”

“I can cut it again for you if you want,” she says, reaching out a hand and starting to comb her fingers through my hair. That’s only going to make it worse, but I hardly care. It feels so nice that I just lean into her touch and close my eyes again.

“Okay,” I murmur. “But not right now.”

“No, not right now,” she agrees softly.

I fade in and out of consciousness for a while but every time I open my eyes she’s still gazing at me and running her fingers through my hair. I can hear the steady fall of rain that’s started outside, just loud enough to know Katniss won’t be hunting today. And I have nowhere to be this morning but here in bed with the love of my life. 

Eventually Katniss starts saying my name in that special singsong voice she uses just for me. I pop one eye open.

“Are you hungry, love?” I ask.

She nods sheepishly. “I could definitely be persuaded to eat.”

“Right, like that’s ever taken much persuading,” I laugh. 

I lean over and kiss her before swinging my leg over the side of the bed to attach my prosthetic. As I’m doing so, Katniss bursts out laughing again.

“What now?” I ask.

“Oh, still your hair. I’ll let you see for yourself,” she says.

I see what she means when I get to the bathroom. The right side of my hair is relatively flattened down, since I was laying on that side. Meanwhile, the left side is a frizzy mess, sticking out at weird angles and making me look like half a cotton ball.

“I think I should keep it this way, what do you think?” I joke, leaning against the bathroom doorframe.

“I personally like it, but you do look silly like this,” she admits, still laughing. She prods Buttercup, sleeping on the end of our bed, with her foot and he immediately sticks his head up and hisses at her. She hisses back. “You look like this one that time I had to towel dry him after he fell in my bath,” she adds.

I laugh and head back in to brush my teeth. A minute later, Katniss slinks into the bathroom and wedges herself between my body and the counter. Her movements are amusingly similar to the way Buttercup starts snaking himself around our legs a moment after that.

I have to lean around her to spit in the sink, then I rest my chin on the top of her head and my hands on her hips until she’s done brushing her own teeth. She leans her head back against my chest and I kiss her forehead.

Buttercup jumps up on the counter and meows disdainfully at the pair of us. Katniss shakes her head at him but then surprises me by scooping him up in her arms. He gives a pitiful little meow of protest but he doesn’t fight her. Satisfied at having won this round, Katniss turns to me and nods her head towards the door.

“Come on, puffballs, let’s get some food.”

“If any other person did this to me, they would be in big trouble.”

– – –

I stop by the bakery on my way back from the woods, but it’s clear Peeta’s got his hands full in the kitchen. When I try to leave, though, he asks me to stay and tell him about my day. Reluctantly, I start to tell him about the woods this morning. And even though he’s busy and bustling all around the kitchen while I talk, he’s fully attentive in a really endearing way.

So I stay and talk for quite a while. I’m in the middle of a story about an over energetic squirrel when something bizarre happens. Peeta picks me up by the armpits, moves me several inches to the left, then sets me down to start rummaging through a drawer. I stand there, frozen with shock.

“What did the squirrel do?” Peeta asks.

“Peeta, what the hell was that?!” I burst out.

“I needed to get into that drawer,” he shrugs.

“And you didn’t think to just ask me to take a step to the left?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” he says plainly.

I stare at him another minute before I burst out laughing.

“But what happened with the squirrel?” Peeta presses.

“He became our dinner for tonight,” I answer.

As I keep talking, Peeta continues to occasionally pick me up and move me somewhere else. I start to suspect he’s doing it more for our amusement than out of actually needing me out of the way.

“If any other person did this to me, they would be in big trouble,” I say, somewhere around the fourth or fifth time I’m relocated.

“Oh yeah?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Kind of makes me wish I was any other person. I’d love to see what your idea of big trouble is,” he says in a low voice.

“You don’t want to know,” I say, eyes narrowed threateningly.

“Oh, I absolutely do,” he says.

There’s a mischievous glint in Peeta’s eyes for a second, then all at once my world spins as I’m tossed over his shoulder.

“Oh, now you’re going to get it!” I growl, kicking my feet more for show than actual protest.

Peeta starts repeatedly pinching my rear end and I let out a surprised yelp. “Am I in trouble yet?” I can hear the grin in his voice.

“Big trouble,” I confirm. “You’d better take me to your office so we can discuss your punishment.”

Peeta lets out a triumphant laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

When I walk through the door there’s a sudden clatter from the kitchen.

“You okay?” I shout.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Katniss shouts back. “Just can’t get this damn bowl to fit in this damn cabinet.”

By the time she’s reached the end of her sentence I’m in the kitchen, watching her attempt to wrestle an oversized mixing bowl onto a shelf over her head. I come up behind her, resting one hand on her waist and grabbing the bowl in the other to easily slip it onto the shelf she can’t reach. Katniss gives me a sheepish grin over her shoulder.

“Thanks. How was your day?” she asks, spinning around in my arms and leaning back against my hand and the counter.

“Good, typical. Not super busy,” I shrug.

“That’s good, you wanted a quiet day,” she says, as if reminding me.

Because today’s my 30th birthday, and I insisted that I didn’t want to do anything big. I insist on this every year, actually, but Katniss usually ignores the request to some degree. She likes to celebrate me, she says, but even after more than ten years of birthdays together I still don’t like having a big fuss made over me.

I’d almost believe that this is the year she actually heeded my request, if it wasn’t for the smudge of soft orange frosting on the corner of her lip.

“I did,” I say with a smile. “Glad for it too. This has been the perfect birthday. God, I think if I even had to look at a birthday cake right now I’d be sick.”

For a split second her face falls, but it’s quickly replaced with an exasperated grin.

“I would’ve gotten away with it if you kept the baking supplies at normal person height,” she complains.

“They are at normal person height, you’re just tiny,” I remind her. She gives a huff and a make a swipe for the frosting on her lips, holding my finger out accusatorially. “You’re busted either way.”

Katniss leans forward and licks the frosting from my finger.

“Technically I still followed your directions. I didn’t make a cake, it’s just an oversized, extra fluffy cookie,” she says.

I bark out a laugh. Then I drop a featherlight kiss to her lips.

“Thank you, love,” I mumble against her.

“You haven’t seen it yet,” she says. “Although I h have to admit I think it’s my best one yet.”

“I’m sure it’s lovely.” I kiss her again, this time with a little more heat behind it. “Thanks for wanting to celebrate me when I explicitly told you not to.”

“I did a pretty good job. But you can’t go without cake on your birthday. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal,” she says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I should know I’m married to a baker,” she nods seriously. This time she’s the one to punctuate her sentence with a kiss.

I laugh against her lips, then I lift her up so she’s sitting on the counter. She immediately wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me close to her. She’s already fumbling with the button on my pants.

“I love you,” I whisper into the side of her neck.

She grasps at my hair and breathes out a soft laugh.

“I love you, too,” she whispers, pausing to nibble on my earlobe before adding, “old man.”

"forever mine” kisses

When I was 5, there was a girl with two braids and a red dress, singing her way into my heart.

Now she’s here, in our kitchen. In the home that we share. Her hair hanging loose along her back. Her soft orange dress flowing around her as she twirls and hums around the kitchen. Giddy. Have I ever seen Katniss so giddy? What a privilege it is to see sides of her no one else has. To keep learning about her for the rest of my life.

My wife. I can’t believe she’s my wife.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, her expression turning shy as her eyes meet mine then flit away.

“How am I looking at you?” I ask, amused.

“Like I’m ridiculous.”

I roll my eyes before taking her hand. I spin her once before catching her by the waist and pulling her close to me.

“You are a bit ridiculous, but I’m feeling rather ridiculous myself right now,” I tell her.

After that, I lead her in an exaggerated waltz around the kitchen. She sings and tries to teach me some of the traditional dances of District 12. Emphasis on tries. I was never much of a dancer, and now we can both see why. Eventually she takes pity on me and pulls me close again, softly singing the Valley Song with her arms around my neck.

“I’m so glad you’re mine,” I whisper in her ear between verses.

“Forever,” she adds, shimmying her ring finger in front of my eyes before cupping my face in her hand.

“Forever mine,” I whisper. I press my lips to hers slowly, and I feel her smile against me.

hushed conversation in-between kisses

I ease the door shut to Rye’s room, and to my right I see Peeta doing the same at Willow’s door.

“Did we do it?” he whispers, eyebrows raised.

“I think so,” I whisper back.

Immediately, Peeta presses me to the wall between our children’s doors, kissing me fiercely.

“Did she give you any trouble?” I ask as his lips make their way down to my neck.

“None.” He sucks lightly on my pulse point. “Him?”

“Out like a light after 3 songs,” I respond.

Peeta gives a little hum of acknowledgment then makes his way back to my lips.

“We should probably take this to our room,” I say.

“I’m afraid if we move from this spot, the spell will be broken.”

I get what he means. We’ve yet to have a nap time like this where both kids are asleep. Rye’s transition from two naps to one has been brutal. The fact that he’s asleep now is probably only the result of many overtired days finally catching up to him.

“We’re wasting time,” I argue.

Peeta must agree, because he grabs my waist and turns me to start moving in the direction of our room. We keep kissing as he walks me backwards, backwards…

Crrrreeeeeek

That old floorboard, the one we’re careful to avoid during bedtime when we’re not distracted. We both freeze and listen, waiting to see if we activated the pod or not. We stand there frozen for five, ten, fifteen seconds…

“Mama!” Rye shouts. Peeta and I both groan.

“Game over,” I mumble.

“The best laid plans,” Peeta whispers, kissing my forehead.

Then he releases his grip on me so I can try to get our son asleep again.

“Until next time,” Peeta salutes to me.

kisses with their last dying breath (**I actually can’t write or read anything about everlark dying without getting profoundly sad, so sorry this is going to be sillier than you were hoping for)

When I get home from the woods, Peeta is sprawled out on the kitchen table, with both of our children standing over him on chairs.

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

“He needs surgery,” Rye says. Peeta nods gravely.

“Oh, I see,” I say with a chuckle. “What seems to be the problem?”

“He needs a heart transplant,” Willow says.

“And he swallowed a goose!” Rye adds.

“No he didn’t,” Willow rolls her eyes.

“Did too!”

“Didn’t!”

Peeta settles the argument by pushing out his stomach and making a honk sound.

“Fine. Heart transplant and goose removal,” Willow concedes.

“Can I—” Peeta chokes out in a raspy voice, “—kiss my wife—before I go?”

“We’ll allow it,” Rye says.

I take a seat near Peeta’s head, and stroke his hair back from his forehead.

“Katniss!” he wheezes. “Is it you? Have you come to say goodbye?”

“Yes, but you’re going to be just fine,” I say reassuringly. “I hear these surgeons are some of the best in the world.”

We both look over to our children; Willow in a button up shirt to imitate a doctor’s white coat, Rye in a pair of oversized rubber gloves. Both of them have begun pulling tools from their toy doctor kit for the procedure. A shot, a thermometer, a pretend hand mixer that’s definitely supposed to be with their kitchen toys.

“I’m not even sure they’re the best surgeons in this kitchen,” Peeta whispers to me.

I stifle a laugh. “Well you’re the one who agreed to play doctor with them. Rookie mistake.”

“If I don’t make it,” Peeta says, again in that dramatic raspy voice, “tell my kids I love them! What are their names again? Billow and Fly?”

“Daddy!” Willow groans in almost embarrassment. “It’s just pretend.”

“And you!” he continues dramatically, ignoring Willow and caressing my cheek. “You have been the best wife!”

Then Peeta kisses me like it’ll really be his last. It catches me off guard, there’s a lot more gusto behind the kiss from what we’d normally show in fact of the kids. They let out a chorus of ewwws.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” I say, rolling my eyes.

tummy kisses

I’m dozing on the couch. I hear Peeta’s feet on the stairs and startle awake again.

“Did she go down okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, she’s disappointed in my singing as always, but she’ll get over it,” Peeta shrugs.

He kisses my forehead as he passes by me into the kitchen.

“Ooh, can you grab one of those cookies for me?” I ask.

“Only if you say the magic words,” Peeta smirks.

But he’s already standing over me with a plate of cookies.

“It’s for the baby,” I say, smiling.

It’s still fresh for both of us. We only found out this afternoon.

Peeta hands me the plate then joins me on the couch, laying his head across my lap. He raises my shirt and presses his lips to my belly.

stay strong" kisses / 43. "we'll get through this" kisses

The sobbing wakes me up. I instantly reach for Katniss but she's not there.

"Damn it," I mutter, fumbling in the dark for my prosthetic. The bed is still warm and the screams are still loud, so I just might be able to catch her in time.

But only barely. By the time I reach the hallway Katniss's hand is on the doorknob to our daughter's room.

"Katniss, no," I say firmly.

"We can't let her cry like that!" she whisper-scolds. Her scowl is something fierce, even by her normal standards.

"We're teaching her to fall back asleep on her own," I say.

"Well I don't think it works!" she huffs. "I think all we're teaching her is that we won't be there when she needs us."

"We agreed to try this," I remind her. "Give it a fair shot."

Katniss crosses her arms tightly in front of her. "Five minutes."

"Ten," I counter.

"Seven, final offer."

"Fine."

Katniss slides down the wall next to Willow's door and curls into a ball. I sit next to her, and after about a minute I pull her onto my lap. I whisper kisses and murmurs of "stay strong" into her hair. Willow's sleep regression has been terrible, none of us have gotten anywhere near decent sleep in weeks. Something needs to change, though I have to admit this current method isn’t working for me either.

"DADA!" Willow screams.

And my heart shatters. More likely than not she's not even calling for me specifically, she hasn't quite mastered "Mama" yet. She's calling us both, and we're both failing her.

"No. Nuh-uh," Katniss says when I start to scoot her back off of my lap. "You don't get to be the hero after forcing us into this failed experiment.”

I chuckle and stand up, pulling her to her feet as well. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, you’ve got the secret weapon,” I remind her, glancing down at her chest.

“DAAADAAA!” Willow screams.

“Go, get our girl,” I nudge Katniss.

She doesn’t need to be told twice. Katniss bursts into the nursery, and I head back to bed.

By the time I’m settled back under the covers, I’m surprised to find Katniss following me into the room with Willow clinging to her neck.

“I said I wanted to be the hero, not that you couldn’t see her at all,” she says. “Go see Dada, Willow.”

Our 11 month old pops her head up from her mama’s shoulder and finds me, reaching her chubby arms towards me. I scoop her into my arms and kiss her cheek.

“It’s okay, little love,” I whisper. “Daddy’s got you. Mama’s got you. You are so loved, and so safe. Close your eyes, it’s okay.”

Willow looks up at me, transfixed. Katniss is also watching me with soft eyes, smiling softly. The baby’s calm again, but not looking sleepy in the slightest.

“Willow, do you want to eat?” Katniss whispers, stroking her cheek with the back of her finger. Suddenly the baby’s calm again goes from calm to manic, clawing against me to get back to her mother.

“I think that’s a yes,” I chuckle, plopping Willow into Katniss’s arms.

Katniss gets Willow latched and lays back. Willow, as always, reaches one hand for the end of Katniss’s braid and the other clutching the little ponytail at the top of her head. Within 5 minutes she’s sound asleep, using Katniss as nothing more than a pacifier.

“So much for falling asleep on her own,” Katniss sighs, stroking back one of Willows loose curls.

She carefully dislodges her breast from Willow’s mouth and quickly replaces it with her tiny thumb, Willow’s second favorite pacifier.

Katniss looks exhausted and defeated. I’m sure I don’t look much better. I rub her thigh comfortingly. She drops her head onto my shoulder.

“Peeta, I’m so tired,” she whispers.

“I know,” I sigh. “We’ll figure something out.”

“How?” she pleas.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Back to the drawing board in the morning. For now let’s sleep while we can.”

I climb out of bed and walk around to her. As slowly and as carefully as I can I ease Willow into my arms. We’ve almost successfully completed the transfer when in the last second Willow jolts herself awake. Her eyes fly open, and the cries resume.

Katniss groans and throws her head back. She looks like she’s about to start crying too.

“I’ll go rock her for a bit, try and sleep love,” I whisper. I lean down and give her a slow kiss. “We’ll get through this.”

“Promise?” she whispers.

“Promise.”