ourshinycity | katniss | and there were dirigibles (we were happier then)

No matter how strange and somewhat awkward things got between himself and Katniss, Peeta still couldn't help but worry about her. She had been through a rough time and even though they've been here for over a year, their lives hadn't been made up of the sorts of things that could be so easily recovered from. Just because he had told her that he didn't want to hear about the terrible things that had happened to him, to the mess that he apparently become didn't mean that he didn't care about her. It was uncomfortable, but that wasn't likely to change.

With a sketch book under his arm and a couple of pencils tucked behind each of his ears, he took off in search of Katniss' hut. He wasn't certain where he would find her, but he hoped that she would stay in one place long enough for him to find her. He was glad that she didn't live all the way out in the middle of nowhere like she could, but it still took some time to get there.

Standing outside her hut, he took a deep breath wondering why he felt a twinge of nervousness. It was probably just a side-effect of the mess of their lives. Knocking on her door, he stepped back.

"Katniss? Are you home?"

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Katniss, for her part, was not inside. She was hardly ever indoors, because the feeling of four walls around her was stifling rather than secure. It was a place to sleep and nothing more, just a place to drop her stuff off - which was what she was doing now. Having dropped off her game to the kitchens, there's an empty canvas bag bunched in her hands and a bow strapped across her back as she emerges from the forest, Buttercup at her side.

The cat smells him before she can see him, and goes bounding off. Katniss doesn't follow, assuming that it's just Buttercup being...Buttercup, but as she pushes back the last bits of brush she sees Peeta standing there. With the cat nuzzling his legs. Probably because he looks like Prim, she thinks to herself, moving closer.

"He likes you better than me," Katniss remarks as she opens the door to her hut, biting down on her bottom lip as she holds it ajar - a silent invitation for Peeta to come in. The sketchbook and pencils had told her all that she needed to know, but it still couldn't stop the guilt and the rapid beating of her heart that begun every time she saw him. Despite her best attempts to shut herself off from all emotion, anything that reminded her of home provided a maelstrom of them, and Peeta more than anything.

If someone had asked him Peeta would not be able to explain why he had thought that Katniss would be inside. It had been the natural assumption, that if a person had a hut they would at least spend some amount of time there. But Katniss has never done the expected thing. The fact that he was alive was just another example of that.

Crouching down he scratched behind the ears of the cat, dividing his gaze between both the animal and her. "I guess I just have that way with animals," he said with a slight shrug trying to not read much into what that would mean. Perhaps that cat was just curious or confused. It didn't matter.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?"

You have a way with people too, Katniss thinks wryly, because he's still Peeta. The old Peeta, who could move crowds with just a sentence. Who could manipulate emotions, perceptions and thoughts with his words. Charming and more powerful than he'll ever know. But she doesn't mention this, because that speaks for a different time.

"Not at all," she says quickly in response to his question. "Come in," the hut - more like a treehouse than anything else, is small, but it's all she needs for the few hours that she is able to sleep. Katniss sets her things down on the floor inside at turns to face him, hands slipping into the pockets of her baggy pants.

"...Hi."

Peeta was well aware of his way with people. He had seen it on the faces of the crowds in each of the districts they had passed through. Words were something that came naturally to him. It was just a different sort of creation and though he's certain that he'll never write that stuff done, he didn't mind it.

But he didn't like to talk about that stuff all that much. It was still too closely tied to the Games and to the Capitol. There was too much baggage hanging around with that skill. Animals were just easier to think about it. Following her inside, he glanced quickly around the room before his gaze settled on her.

"Hi." Lifting his sketchpad he shrugged. "I just thought maybe we could brainstorm for the book. I had some free time and it seemed like a good thing to get started on."

The room's a mess, in that strange, unlived-in way that neglected homes begin to get when the curtains haven't been drawn in days and a fine layer of dust has settled over absolutely everything. It hardly mattered when she was using it for a few hours each night and then leaving, but now it feels like evidence of something all too telling.

Fine. Whatever. Trying to change it now would only look worse. Though she does draw the blinds open because it's so dark that she can't see his face. "It's a good idea," Katniss nods, and sits cross legged on her bed for lack of any other furniture in her room at all. "How...do you want to do this?"

It'd be easier if Peeta knew about Finnick, and District 13, and Boggs. What she tells him has to be carefully censored, because he's already told her that he didn't want to know. There was no chance of letting something slip like last time.

Taking a look around Peeta tried to not let his thoughts play out across his face. This didn't really resemble the sort of place that someone actually lived. Even though he spent the majority of his day outside of his own room in the Boarding House it still had that decidedly lived-in look. This did not, but that didn't really surprise him.

He looked around for a place to sit, but when none immediately sprang to mind he settled himself against a wall where the light was better than it was in the middle of the room.

"You can describe things, what you want to remember. People, things, and I'll sketch it. See what I can do with what I know. How does that sound?"

katniss | and there were dirigibles (we were happier then)

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