Songbirds
For tinyangl. (Do you remember there being more of this anywhere?) ♥
Unedited & unbeta’d.
Songbirds (a je!hunger games au)
g. 52. Katniss, Peeta, Gale
She meets Gale first, Gale with his roguish good looks and brilliantly white teeth. Teeth, Peeta thinks with only mild bitterness, that were bought. Gale tugs on the tip of her braid and opens with, “Hey, it’s Catnip, right?”
Katniss whirls around and elbows him in the ribs.
Peeta falls in love.
g. 527. Katniss, Peeta
“You’re not quite what I expected,” Peeta admits to her one day. They’re taking a break from filming and Gale is thankfully nowhere to be found-temporary work truce be damned. “You smile a lot less when you’re not on camera.”
“Well you smile way too much all the time,” Katniss counters grumpily, a sour look on her face.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just-you smile a lot less when you’re not on camera, but when you do smile, it, well, it outsuns the sun.”
She furrows her eyebrows, as if trying to understand his game, as if he has any ulterior motives in saying what he does. She looks and looks and never finds anything because, and he knows it’s silly he’s only known her for a few weeks and she seems like she can barely stand him, but Peeta means every word when it comes to her.
Eventually her eyebrows relax, conceding for another conversation that he’s no threat, and a niggling part of him wonders where this constant self-preservation comes from. The guarded eyes that are clouded even as she smiles and laughs and twirls for the cameras every day.
“You wouldn’t expect me to be in this kind of industry, huh.” It’s a statement, and it’s the most revealing thing she’s ever said about herself so Peeta wisely decides to keep his mouth shut. “Truthfully this acting and singing thing was never something I wanted to do, but now I-I don’t know what else I would do.”
“It’s not too late to find out.”
“There is no finding out.” Her words are like steel.
“Why? Why stay in an industry you don’t even like?”
She doesn’t seem inclined to answer, so he tries a different approach. “Actually, how did you even get into this industry?”
“Oh, that? It’s pretty easy when your mother was Dahlia Dakins.”
“You’re Dahlia Dakin’s daughter?”
“Surprise.” She doesn’t smile at the revelation, and Peeta won’t understand why until much later. For now his thoughts are on one of the most famous actresses before his time. Dahlia Dakins, who used to grace the covers of every magazine and billboard and cover the walls of buses and buildings alike, who’s film credits outnumber almost any other current actor to date. Dahlia Dakins who, in the prime of her fame, disappeared without a trace. Tabloids still run stories about spotting the elusive Dahlia Dakins, but none of the impersonators hold a candle to her.
But before he watched Dahlia Dakins on the screen, before he understood the enormity of her talent and beauty, there was a faded picture his father showed Peeta when he was five. “See that little girl?” his father had said, pointing to a little girl with brown braided pigtails in a plaid red dress. “I wanted to marry her mother.” Peeta understood that his father was referring to the woman next to the little girl, whose hair was the color of spun gold and eyes were bluer than the sky, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the little girl with gray eyes and a smile more radiant than the sun.
Unedited & unbeta’d.
Songbirds (a je!hunger games au)
g. 52. Katniss, Peeta, Gale
She meets Gale first, Gale with his roguish good looks and brilliantly white teeth. Teeth, Peeta thinks with only mild bitterness, that were bought. Gale tugs on the tip of her braid and opens with, “Hey, it’s Catnip, right?”
Katniss whirls around and elbows him in the ribs.
Peeta falls in love.
g. 527. Katniss, Peeta
“You’re not quite what I expected,” Peeta admits to her one day. They’re taking a break from filming and Gale is thankfully nowhere to be found-temporary work truce be damned. “You smile a lot less when you’re not on camera.”
“Well you smile way too much all the time,” Katniss counters grumpily, a sour look on her face.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just-you smile a lot less when you’re not on camera, but when you do smile, it, well, it outsuns the sun.”
She furrows her eyebrows, as if trying to understand his game, as if he has any ulterior motives in saying what he does. She looks and looks and never finds anything because, and he knows it’s silly he’s only known her for a few weeks and she seems like she can barely stand him, but Peeta means every word when it comes to her.
Eventually her eyebrows relax, conceding for another conversation that he’s no threat, and a niggling part of him wonders where this constant self-preservation comes from. The guarded eyes that are clouded even as she smiles and laughs and twirls for the cameras every day.
“You wouldn’t expect me to be in this kind of industry, huh.” It’s a statement, and it’s the most revealing thing she’s ever said about herself so Peeta wisely decides to keep his mouth shut. “Truthfully this acting and singing thing was never something I wanted to do, but now I-I don’t know what else I would do.”
“It’s not too late to find out.”
“There is no finding out.” Her words are like steel.
“Why? Why stay in an industry you don’t even like?”
She doesn’t seem inclined to answer, so he tries a different approach. “Actually, how did you even get into this industry?”
“Oh, that? It’s pretty easy when your mother was Dahlia Dakins.”
“You’re Dahlia Dakin’s daughter?”
“Surprise.” She doesn’t smile at the revelation, and Peeta won’t understand why until much later. For now his thoughts are on one of the most famous actresses before his time. Dahlia Dakins, who used to grace the covers of every magazine and billboard and cover the walls of buses and buildings alike, who’s film credits outnumber almost any other current actor to date. Dahlia Dakins who, in the prime of her fame, disappeared without a trace. Tabloids still run stories about spotting the elusive Dahlia Dakins, but none of the impersonators hold a candle to her.
But before he watched Dahlia Dakins on the screen, before he understood the enormity of her talent and beauty, there was a faded picture his father showed Peeta when he was five. “See that little girl?” his father had said, pointing to a little girl with brown braided pigtails in a plaid red dress. “I wanted to marry her mother.” Peeta understood that his father was referring to the woman next to the little girl, whose hair was the color of spun gold and eyes were bluer than the sky, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the little girl with gray eyes and a smile more radiant than the sun.