Catching Fire (Peeta's P.O.V.)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I only have enough time to get to my house. Grab a slice of bread and stretch out on my couch when my prep team and Portia come bounding in. They don't even bother to knock. I can't really say I care though.

"Up! Bathroom! Now Peeta! Come on!" Cries Edan jollily.

My prep team Parcifel, Majella, and Edan literally push me up the stairs into the master bathroom and rip my clothes off of me.

In the Capitol, the styles are always changing. Last year Parcifel had green skin and long yellow curls. He still looked masculine, but just. No he has a shade of dark purple skin and golden straight hair. He looks much more his age and his gender.

On the contrary Majella, and older looking woman, looks just like she did last year. Unhealthily pale skin that's tight to her bones. Fire red hair (although, I think Portia might have had something to do with that) and as always she's wearing a long happy, colorful robe...thing. Edan has changed a little, but he is still recognizable. I would say Edan is trying to hard to look his age. I think Edan is probably about twenty or twenty three, which would make him only a few years older than I am, but as of right now. He could pass for thirty. He has yellow blonde wavy hair that's gelled back and red swirly tattoos on his cheeks and he wears very, very tight clothes that look like they are sucking the air out of his body.

I am thrilled to have my prep team here. I've been in kind of a downer mood lately and leave it to their idiocy to cheer me up. Since I'm not a girl, I don't have to have every hair ripped from my body. So I pretty much just have to sit and play doll while they clean me up and make me pretty or whatever.

They walk around me and then sit me down onto a stool.

"Hands." Demands Majella.

I stick out my hands and Majella takes them and examines them.

"My goodness Peeta! Did you stick your hands into a fire or something?" She cries in horror in her ridiculous Capitol accent.

I laugh. When ever people from the Capitol get upset their accents become even more highlighted. It's not much of an accent, just over annunciation on their vowels. But it's still very funny, to me at least.

"No. I've been baking." I laugh.

"Well, go buy yourself a pair of oven mitts!" Majella cries.

I laugh some more as she starts to remove the burn from my hands with various lotions and ointments.

Edan begins to run a pick through my hair. He gasps in horror every now and then and finally Parcifel asks him,

"What is the all that ruckus about?"

"Tell me Peeta. How exactly do you get and keep frosting in your hair? Don't you shower?"

I laugh, hysterically at this. I don't have to turn around to know how big his eyes are with horror. I'm laughing so hard and I can barely even answer,

"No, no. I didn't shower this morning since you were coming. I decorated some cookies last night."

"And this-," he holds a dry piece of green frosting in my face, "is funny to you?"

"Hilarious." I choke.

"You are an odd boy." Edan says, affectionately patting my head.

I laugh as I think of the horror he would feel if he saw some of the kids from the seam who can't bathe daily. Who probably have much worse things tangled up in their hair.

"Are you taking some of your paintings to the Capitol, Peeta?" Asks Parcifel.

"Yeah. Probably."

"Do we get to see them?" Squeaks Majella.

In the Capitol, the Games are such an event, that every little thing a victor does seems like some miracle or life to them.

"Sure."

Majella squeaks with happiness and finishes making my hands look perfect and girly, then movers on to my nails. Edan is trimming my hair to perfection and adding some blonde to my roots where it's getting darker. Parcifel works on everything else. They talk about all their Capitol drama and I just laugh at most of it. Every now and then they'll ask me an opinion on something someone wore or said. And soon I am just about as 'pretty' as I'll let them get me.

"Don't make me look like a girl, please!" I say, almost in a complaining voice.

"We are not going to turn you into a girl." Edan says.

"But-,"

"But nothing, Peeta. We're going to make you a very handsome boy." Pipes Majella.

I am relived as Portia walks in and examines them.

"He's right. Your about to turn him into a girl." She says, "I'm ready for him anyways."

They scramble downstairs to re-do their make up for the cameras.

Portia dresses me in layers, but luckily not in a girl way, just in enough layers to keep warm in the freezing weather outside.

"Out." She says and nudges me, then she grabs my arm and pulls me back her, and kisses me on the check, "For luck."

Portia and Cinna, Katniss's stylists, may be the only sensible Capitol people out there. And that sensibility is probably why Portia is wishing me luck. I bet her and Cinna have figured out that Katniss loved me for the Games. I take a deep breath and smile and open up my front door. I walk out and see how much it has snowed since I left Haymitch's. I start to make my way to Katniss's when I see a little dark figure hurling at me. Katniss, a completely different Katniss than the one I briefly spoke with this morning, throws herself into my arms tacking us both into the snow. And then she kisses me, it's not like the ones in the arena because I know it's just for the cameras. The ones in the arena were surround by blood, death, sorrow, and hatred for the capitol. This kiss is surrounded by snow, cameras, and lipstick.

Katniss jumps up and pulls me up and them slips her arm through mine and pulls us towards the JusticeBuilding jovially.

First we go to a dinner/lunch meal in the JusticeBuilding. The food is amazing and rich in texture. Katniss toys with my hair and comments how soft it is. She hands me different breads and asks me about them and we take turns feeding them to each other. Then after everyone is finished and we are all just sitting and socializing she goes back to playing with my hair, avoiding looking me in the eyes.

"Did they dye your hair?" She asks.

"Yes. I think so. Why?" I ask.

"It's more blonde." 

"That's obsevative."I say, because it doesn't make sense why she would notice.

"I notice everything about you, Peeta. You're the one who hasn't been paying attention." She quotes.

I laugh. I said that to her in the arena. And I still do notice everything about her. Like how her hair is to dark to need dying until she's much older and her hair starts turning grey.

"What have I not been paying attention to?" I ask.

"I don't know. I was just quoting. Not thinking." She says.

I laugh and roll my eyes.

After the meal we say good-bye to everyone and get on the Victory Tour train. I shower and go straight to bed.