Catching Fire: The New Story

Haymitch, the Drunk, Makes a Comment

Peeta's POV

My feet throw me around the bakery all morning, baking, cooking, tending to customers, taking orders for later days. It seems like a normal day, an old day, but what is normal now that the Games are over and we are back home? I just felt like working today, never asking for pay, just some ingredients, orders, an oven, utensils and space. I never really work much, now that I have so much money, I don't need to. Yet, I want to again, the feeling of dough in my hands comforts me, pushes the stress that has built up away until the dough is fluffy enough. My mother barely let me in today, my father allowed it. He'd be in trouble later, I pray my mother doesn't blame my brothers, too.

I'm planning on seeing Katniss before my prep team shows, getting me ready for the Victory Tour. I know Katniss is nowhere near excited, or happy for the Victory Tour. Neither am I. She doesn't like the cameras, being away from her family is more of a bother to her than the intensity of the Capitol. It is all too much for her to bare, I could tell by how quiet she got around the cameras following us around for months after we returned home from the Games. It is opposite of me, the cameras never seem to bother me much, and I love how Katniss got all blushed while they interviewed us, as she held onto me and stayed close. I know she has such a loving home, she never wants to leave it unless it's to hunt. I wish I could do something like that, go to the bakery, actually leave home rather than mope all day, clean or reorganize everything about twenty times until I get tired of it. My mother practically forbids me from the bakery, I live alone in a big house with too much food, too much money, and too much space for one person to stay sane in. I paint away most of the days and walk around the district. I have never really seen it before the Games, but now I take in every detail and incorporate them into my paintings. My family agreed they would rather stay in the small home above the bakery rather than live with me in my giant Victors Village home. I could see the pained faces of my brothers and father when she said that. My mother, keeping them from accompanying me to live gratefully. They miss me, they actually miss me. I wish I could have taken them and left my mother to spare on her own. Her gaze is too powerful of the three of them to handle. But she is nothing now that I have survived the Games, and she knows that.

My house is quiet and scar-some of the living. I do nothing but paint. I have dozens of paintings in one room, and more in another, and more in yet another room. To put it in the correct way, you can find paintings in every room of my quiet, lone home. I have one room separate from all the others of the ones I paint of Katniss. Many are of her, but I would feel never to show her any. I feel I would get let down, her stating she wasn't beautiful enough to be put into a painting or they weren't good enough, although I know she would never complement my paintings that way. It pains me to see her so insecure. I would run out of breathe descaling every detail I love about her, how perfect she is in my eyes. Or I wouldn't even have the words to convince her. I know she wouldn't take it well for never being the type of girl to be swung over by words so meaningful, but she should at least know.

"Good morning, son," says my father walking down into the bakery. He smiles brightly at me and gets to work along by my side in the back room. I start making cheese buns, Katniss's favorite, since I've finished most orders for the day and beyond. I always remind myself to make sure I don't burn my hands like other times I have. None too bad, but I've gotten a few scars from over the past years of childhood that have never gone away. It is disturbing to turn my hand around to see nothing but perfect skin, because of the Capitol's fine work of perfectionism for their Victors.

As I finished up the second batch, my brothers come down and head to the front to handle customers and cleaning. I don't say a hello. I am still slightly agitated, and they were still guilty, because they didn't help me out of the arena. Didn't send me a note or any money to help me survive. They just stood there, watching their youngest brother go. They just sat and watched me almost die, but the guilt in me builds for ignoring them for so long.

I have had that argument with them multiple times, why they didn't help me. Why I shouldn't have won. Why I shouldn't be here to argue over the stupid winning, but they'd kick me out or I'd leave before it became physical, like it would get sometimes before the Games when we were younger and couldn't agree on peace. All three of us had been in the wrestling league in school, both of them topping me since I was youngest. They both are starting to sound exactly like Mother.

I quickly left money on the counter for the bread and head out with it nice and warm under my arm, leaving my family to their work. The small bell rings as the door opens and closes, announcing an arrival of a customer or a departure of one finished with their needs here. I nod at a woman entering the bakery with a child wrapped up in her arms. I start to walk home and think of how I could get to sleep tonight. I can't even have an hour or two without nightmares going through my head. One after the other, and I can practically hear Katniss screaming awake from hers three houses down from mine. The guilt of leaving her in the same stage as myself grows every time I hear her screams travel from her house to mine. So, I am all alone hours of the night until I leave the area planning something, or winging whatever comes along my way through the day.

I walked quietly to Haymitch's house to wake him up before the cameras arrive, before I go to see Katniss. Then entering my own house to deal with my own excessive prep team and Effie Trinket, our too preppy Capitol escort.

"...then you should've asked Peeta!" I heard someone say as I open the front door. I see Katniss and Haymitch standing around the small dining table by his kitchen. I walk into it from the shadows, carefully stepping around everything thrown on the floor.

"Ask me what?" I ask to Katniss. She whips her head around from Haymitch and catches my eye.

"To wake me up without giving me pneumonia!" Haymitch screams first to me, then Katniss.

"Well, you should've asked Peeta if you wanted to be babied awake!" she scream back.

"Would you like bread?" I ask them, trying to move from the argument seeming to grow hotter by the minute. I sit down and grab Haymitch's knife from his hands, wiping the blade on the hem of my shirt.

"No. No, thank you, but I should be leaving," said Katniss, never looking me in the eyes. Her voice sounded like she was going to be sick, so I let her walk past me.

"Take a bath, Haymitch. Remember, we have a big, big, big day ahead of us," Katniss says walking to the door. She used Effie's Capitol voice, just without the enthusiastic tone she always had saying it before.

"I just did," mumbles Haymitch, sitting in the chair opposite me. I try to hold back my laughter as Katniss walks out, a chuckle managing to leave my parted lips. I knew she heard me laughing by how hard she slams the door, shaking the whole house structure.

"You've got a real girl on your hands, Peeta," says Haymitch with a drunk smirk. "She's a keeper. Go catch her." I could smell how bad his breath was from across the table where I sat. He reached over to grab a piece of bread, shoving half of it in his mouth.

"Shut up, Haymitch," I mumble, holding my breath as I stood, leaving the knife and cut bread on the table for him to finish. I walk to the door, and leave, slamming the door myself.

•

Author's Note:

I feel like I can't do Peeta's POV very well, like I can do Katniss's fine but not Peeta's or anyone else's. Ugh. Check out my other stories: Truculent; This Changes Everything; Without My Love; and The Prince and The Pauper. Hope you like them. Some are on hold and I am working on the others. I have many story ideas and am recently working on short stories and one shots so don't worry. I'm not dead in updating. I just need time for perfection (although perfection comings at like two in the morning on random days).

How do you think the Victor Tour will come out? Will Katniss and Peeta's bond grow stronger? What could I add or change to make this chapter better for your liking?

Keep reading guys!

~Jez xo