Fic: The Whole World Minus One
Title: The Whole World Minus One
Author: wrldpossibility
Fandom: Hunger Games
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Warning: Spoilers through Catching Fire
Summary: Peeta’s POV during the Catching Fire tribute interviews.
Author’s Note: New to this fandom, not new to fanfic. Set during the Catching Fire interviews. Peeta‘s POV. Icon made by greenconverses.
The audience shrieks and gasps and then their approval catches and burns, their applause deafening. Outside in the square, the roar of the crowd rises like the rumble of coal cars sliding into District 12, powerful and unyielding. Peeta seems to be the only one caught frozen in fear. When Katniss finally stops, breathless and gasping, all of Panem is holding their breath with her, eyes burning, no doubt, with their tears instead of the smoke now clouding their screens. She lifts her new wings experimentally, the dark feathers catching the light like the shadow of a bird of prey descending.
The Capitol sees only their girl on fire, but Peeta sees so much more…layers of ashes left unturned:
Katniss singled out from the start, singing her song before their primary class.
Her father, tall and lean, quick with a smile for the baker’s son. Peeta’s own silent purgatory of mourning when he dies.
His mother, telling him he’s not allowed to play in the Seam; he’ll track coal dust into the house on his shoes.
His awareness of Katniss’ hunger, as certain as his awareness of her pain: a streak of empathy as rich as a vein of black coal in their rocky hills, leading deeper and deeper into the heart of him.
The bone-deep fatigue on her face as he passes her on the road into town, game bag slung over her shoulder, Gale Hawthorne by her side.
The way she shames him without even trying, making him feel like a child (when all he wants is to feel like a man), with his meaningless wrestling practice and false challenges. With his sweat chilling on his skin exerted only for sport.
The squirrel meat sitting on the chopping block at home, a calling card of sorts that confirms all his best and worst suspicions.
The Reaping.
Effie’s wig. Katniss’ hands pushing Prim aside.
The tops of his own boots as he took each step toward the stage.
The stunned beat of silence following his declaration of love. The satisfaction only a purge of truth ten years in the making can bring.
Caesar Flickerman‘s loss for words. The monitors which broadcast Katniss’ blush the world over.
His surprise at her assault. The stab of pain from a dozen shards of urn as he lifts his palms for her to see, broken and bloody.
Their shared victory, snatched from the hands of the Capitol. The bones of the Gamemakers’ agenda stripped clean, leaving only gleaming white.
Katniss at this very moment, still breathless in her black feathers, her eyes bright with satisfaction and rage, her cheeks pink with the heat of Cinna’s fashion show and the heat of her anger.
He rises from his seat and crosses the stage to Caesar with the united voice of the crowd still calling for only her. Not many people could follow this act, but Peeta can. When he speaks, he has the whole world eating out of his hand. The whole world minus one, anyway. And it’s always been this way, since the very beginning. Because if he had to determine a beginning, it wouldn‘t be that first day of school--that first day he saw her--but the day she finally saw him. The day with the bread.
She hadn’t eaten out of his hand then, either.
And doesn’t know what he’d expected, but not that. No, that’s a lie. He does know: he’d expected her to tear into the bread, burnt or not, right then and there. Pull it apart with fingers burning from the hot loaf, devour it.
He’d hungered for the sight of her full. Sated. He hadn’t known her well enough then to guess as to why she’d denied him this. He does now.
So as he stands ready and willing to defend her, to cover her, to rescue her with his Capitol banter, with his ideas and his strategies and his favorable rapport with those who matter, he forces himself to remember it is due only to a single chink in Katniss’ armor, one long-ago slip in her defenses in front of a boy and a pig trough that gives him the sliver of a chance he has with her now. That provides the smallest crack in the door which might mean his life instead of his death.
Lest he forget who’s saving whom.
Author: wrldpossibility
Fandom: Hunger Games
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Warning: Spoilers through Catching Fire
Summary: Peeta’s POV during the Catching Fire tribute interviews.
Author’s Note: New to this fandom, not new to fanfic. Set during the Catching Fire interviews. Peeta‘s POV. Icon made by greenconverses.
The audience shrieks and gasps and then their approval catches and burns, their applause deafening. Outside in the square, the roar of the crowd rises like the rumble of coal cars sliding into District 12, powerful and unyielding. Peeta seems to be the only one caught frozen in fear. When Katniss finally stops, breathless and gasping, all of Panem is holding their breath with her, eyes burning, no doubt, with their tears instead of the smoke now clouding their screens. She lifts her new wings experimentally, the dark feathers catching the light like the shadow of a bird of prey descending.
The Capitol sees only their girl on fire, but Peeta sees so much more…layers of ashes left unturned:
Katniss singled out from the start, singing her song before their primary class.
Her father, tall and lean, quick with a smile for the baker’s son. Peeta’s own silent purgatory of mourning when he dies.
His mother, telling him he’s not allowed to play in the Seam; he’ll track coal dust into the house on his shoes.
His awareness of Katniss’ hunger, as certain as his awareness of her pain: a streak of empathy as rich as a vein of black coal in their rocky hills, leading deeper and deeper into the heart of him.
The bone-deep fatigue on her face as he passes her on the road into town, game bag slung over her shoulder, Gale Hawthorne by her side.
The way she shames him without even trying, making him feel like a child (when all he wants is to feel like a man), with his meaningless wrestling practice and false challenges. With his sweat chilling on his skin exerted only for sport.
The squirrel meat sitting on the chopping block at home, a calling card of sorts that confirms all his best and worst suspicions.
The Reaping.
Effie’s wig. Katniss’ hands pushing Prim aside.
The tops of his own boots as he took each step toward the stage.
The stunned beat of silence following his declaration of love. The satisfaction only a purge of truth ten years in the making can bring.
Caesar Flickerman‘s loss for words. The monitors which broadcast Katniss’ blush the world over.
His surprise at her assault. The stab of pain from a dozen shards of urn as he lifts his palms for her to see, broken and bloody.
Their shared victory, snatched from the hands of the Capitol. The bones of the Gamemakers’ agenda stripped clean, leaving only gleaming white.
Katniss at this very moment, still breathless in her black feathers, her eyes bright with satisfaction and rage, her cheeks pink with the heat of Cinna’s fashion show and the heat of her anger.
He rises from his seat and crosses the stage to Caesar with the united voice of the crowd still calling for only her. Not many people could follow this act, but Peeta can. When he speaks, he has the whole world eating out of his hand. The whole world minus one, anyway. And it’s always been this way, since the very beginning. Because if he had to determine a beginning, it wouldn‘t be that first day of school--that first day he saw her--but the day she finally saw him. The day with the bread.
She hadn’t eaten out of his hand then, either.
And doesn’t know what he’d expected, but not that. No, that’s a lie. He does know: he’d expected her to tear into the bread, burnt or not, right then and there. Pull it apart with fingers burning from the hot loaf, devour it.
He’d hungered for the sight of her full. Sated. He hadn’t known her well enough then to guess as to why she’d denied him this. He does now.
So as he stands ready and willing to defend her, to cover her, to rescue her with his Capitol banter, with his ideas and his strategies and his favorable rapport with those who matter, he forces himself to remember it is due only to a single chink in Katniss’ armor, one long-ago slip in her defenses in front of a boy and a pig trough that gives him the sliver of a chance he has with her now. That provides the smallest crack in the door which might mean his life instead of his death.
Lest he forget who’s saving whom.