Chapter Text
The gate would be at the end of the terminal, wouldn’t it? It’s the Murphy’s law of travel: when you have ten minutes to catch a connecting flight, you will be required by the laws of physics to catapult yourself through an airport roughly the size of the Milky Way like you’re some kind of frenzied comet sloughing parts of itself off as it rockets through space.
During my marathon to the gate, I drop my neck pillow three times on the floor, and since I’m expected to put that thing against my face, and I have no idea of knowing exactly what sort of flesh-eating diseases might be lurking on the tile, I decide to leave my fallen comrade behind. No, that sad little pillow can’t help me now, and so I let it go. I only drop the handle of my roller bag twice, which is a noteworthy achievement since my palms are coated in a pervasive sheen of sweat.
I have to make this flight. Everything depends on it.
I dodge a cluster of unsupervised school children and try not to trip over a squalling toddler in the process. Then I bob and weave my way as best I can through the endless crowd of travelers who are oblivious to the etiquette of moving sidewalks (stand on the right, walk on the left, people!). Every anonymous, nondescript corridor is stocked with the same rotating cast of restaurants and shops: McDonalds, Starbucks, Hudson News, Auntie Anne’s, Burger King. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s disorienting, and part of me panics that I’m headed in the wrong direction and will never know it. I’ll spend the rest of my damn life in this airport, trying to find my way out.
I’m breathless and panting by the time I make it to the gate, my bag trailing behind me, and my blood pressure spikes as I take in the sea of empty chairs and the gate attendant fastening the door to the jetway.
“Wait!” I call out feebly, running up to her. “Is this Pan Em Flight 1213 to LaGuardia?” The words are little more than a wheeze sputtered into the din of the busy airport, and I bend over, placing both hands on my knees, mentally berating myself for being so horribly out of shape. When I get back to Seattle, I’m hitting the gym at least once. Maybe twice. That should do the trick.
The attendant turns around slowly, deliberately, as if she is struggling to maintain her placid demeanor. She pats her bright orange wig with both hands, adjusting it carefully, as she eyes me with disdain.
“Why, yes it is,” she answers in a haughty tone, “and would you happen to be the Miss Everdeen we’d been paging for the past twenty minutes?” She over-enunciates the “twenty” in some affected accent that, in my mind, I identify as Valley.
I nod by way of answer and stoop to fetch my boarding pass out of my messenger bag. Without looking at her, I ask warily, “Why, you didn’t give my seat away, did you?”
She sighs in an imitation of sympathy and clucks at me. “Unfortunately, Miss Everdeen, the airline has released your seat to a passenger on standby. All seats in coach are fully booked, and as you know, the airline policy states that if a passenger is not–”
I cut her off, fire flashing in my eyes. “Look, Miss…” I glance at her name tag, “Trinket,” I spit emphatically. “I don’t care what the damn policy states. I have a reservation for this flight, and my ass is on it. You do whatever you need to do to make that happen.” I peek around her as covertly as possible to make sure that the plane is, in fact, still there.
It is.
Good. That’s half the battle won.
Miss Trinket heaves a sigh as if she doesn’t have to deal with this same exact problem two dozen times a day and that I am, uniquely, the most tiresome person in the world. I plant myself in front of her, arms crossed defiantly, as she clicks away at her computer.
“Well, the odds are you in your favor today, Miss Everdeen. We have one seat left in first class.”
She looks me up and down appraisingly, taking in the sight of my grubby Converse sneakers, my oversized Huskies hoodie, and the ratty cotton shorts that I wear every time I fly. The way I’m dressed is a paean to comfort, a complete affront to anything that could possibly pass as fashion. I don’t know what she expects from me; the flight from LAX to LaGuardia is almost six hours long. I don’t want to claw uncomfortably at my clothes the entire time just so that my tits look good to some hungover businessman who’s gone from home so often he can’t remember what his wife’s face looks like. She tuts disapprovingly at what she sees. There’s nothing about me that says “first class,” but since there’s everything about me that says "I will gut you like a fish if you don't give me that fucking ticket," she toggles a few keys and then begrudgingly hands me my new boarding pass.
It's stamped Seat 2B.
I clutch my boarding pass in my fist like it’s the winning ticket in the Mega Millions. I've never flown first class before, and as a struggling, poor-as-the-damn-dirt singer, I'm not likely to again anytime soon. I’m going to have to make my one shot count, so I plan to drink no less than three complimentary cocktails, and I’m going to try my damndest to score a second free cookie, too.
As she reopens the jetway door for me and I pass her, I call back over my shoulder, simply to goad her, "Um, excuse me, but is this a window seat because I’d really prefer one with a view?"
I smirk as I watch her face flush several shades of scarlet. She huffs and snaps, "A little gratitude would be appreciated.” She recomposes herself, no doubt channeling every corporate customer service mantra that she knows, and adds in a sickly sweet tone, “Have a pleasant flight.” As she locks the door behind me, I hear her muttering under her breath, "Well, I never. Such appalling manners..."
A friendly-faced flight attendant with flowing ginger hair greets me at the end of the jetway.
“You made it just in time,” she says with a smile so sweet and genuine I can’t help but grin back. She holds her hand out for my boarding pass, which I show to her. She gives it a cursory glance and hands it back to me. “2B is on the aisle, right next to the gentleman with blonde hair. Welcome aboard.”
I step onto the plane and turn the corner, freezing instantly when I spot a messy mop of yellow curls peeking over the headrest of the seat in front of him. I’d know that tousled golden hair anywhere. Fuck me. Not him.
Before she disappears into the galley, the flight attendant gives me a gentle tap on the shoulder and asks softly, “Miss, could please take your seat so that we can push back? You’re right there.” She points patiently like it isn’t the most obvious fact in the world that the number “2” comes after “1” or that it is the last empty seat on the plane.
Mortification doesn’t begin to cover how I feel right now. I’m exhausted from a poor night’s sleep and my early morning flight into LAX. I’m dressed like a hobo with shorts that have “PINK” emblazoned across the ass in all caps. I’m disheveled and sweaty from my race through the airport, and of all the planes in all the towns, in all the world, he had to be on mine.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and walk toward my seat. Maybe he won’t recognize me, I try to console myself, or if he does, maybe he won’t remember my name, and he’ll be too embarrassed to talk to me because of it. I mean, it's been seven years since we graduated high school, and it’s not like we ever really talked to each other back then. I just pined after him hopelessly for four years, that’s all. And then there was only that one time we...
As I approach, those piercing blue eyes look up and lock on me. My heart hammers so furiously in my chest I’m seriously at risk of passing out. My hands are trembling, and all my limbs feel like melting rubber pooling to the floor.
I think I want to die.
I make it to the spot next to my chair and attempt to hoist my roller bag above my head to stow it in the overhead compartment, but this is virtually impossible considering that it weighs half of what I do, and my arms have become about as useful as a T-Rex’s. I try once to lift the bag, but my arms buckle, and the bag swings back down to the floor in a humiliating thud.
He unfastens his belt buckle hastily and stands, moving toward the aisle. “Here,” he offers. “Let me get that for you.”
I step back, my eyes refusing to meet his. As he stands, I take in the sight of him. Time has been so unbelievably good to him. I thought that he was built back in high school, but the man standing in front of me now is a sculpted work of art. He’s broad-shouldered and strong, lean and muscular, and I gape at the ghosting of stubble along the sharp line of his jaw. He makes short work of stowing my bag, and when he lifts it casually above his head, I drink in the sight of the muscles in his bulging forearms pressing against the rolled sleeves of his unbuttoned flannel shirt. I can see through his close-fitting t-shirt that he’s sporting a six pack. As if he needed to get any better looking. Christ.
The next six hours are going to be the most excruciating agony for me. I have to sit in awkward silence, shoulder-to-massive-shoulder, next to the person that my teenage self wanted to screw into oblivion before marrying and then bearing his beautiful children.
“Thank you,” I tell him, and when he hears the sound of my voice, his eyebrows shoot up and a wide smile breaks across his face.
“It is you!” he exclaims, and before I know it, Peeta Mellark’s arms are wrapped around my waist, holding me tightly to him in an enthusiastic hug. I hesitate for a moment and then wrap my arms around his neck. I bask in the feeling of his warmth, radiating into me, and the unfamiliar sensation of his strong, solid body pressed against mine.
It feels good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go. I don’t know if it’s because he’s the first man to touch me in over two years or if it’s because it’s Peeta Fucking Mellark, but my body rebels against me, and I can feel my nipples grow taut from want as my breasts brush lightly against his chest. I take a steadying breath, but the way he smells–like a walking pantry, a medley of spices and delicious seasoning–has the opposite effect.
It feels like we only hug for a fraction of a second before it’s already over. He pulls away, placing his hands on both my elbows to hold me in place. Locking those clear blue eyes on me again, he says, “Katniss Everdeen, I thought it was you, but I wasn’t absolutely positive until I heard your voice.”
Wait, what? How and why would Peeta Mellark know me by the sound of my voice?
I smile uncertainly at him, my stomach a roiling pit of nerves warring with the hundreds of fluttering butterflies–or possibly birds. The sensation is so violent, clamoring to escape, and all I can manage to murmur is, “Hi, Peeta.” It’s the first time I’ve ever spoken his name to him, and it sounds like the sweetest and most delicious dessert on my tongue. I savor every letter and crave more of its taste.
He shoots me a crooked grin when he hears me speak his name. “It’s probably a good thing that you remember me, or else I have a feeling I’d be getting tackled by an air marshal right now.” He laughs good-naturedly. “Man, it’s good to see you,” he adds, completely oblivious to the curious looks we’re getting from the nearby passengers. One of them, a paunchy, middle-aged man, takes a draw from a tarnished silver hip flask (how did he sneak that past security, I wonder) and rolls his eyes, unimpressed by our reunion. The passenger next to him, a wickedly attractive man with bronze hair and sparkling emerald eyes, shoots me a suggestive smirk as if to say he can see exactly how badly I want in Peeta Mellark's pants. This does anything but calm me. I must be so fucking obvious.
I laugh shyly and nod. “It’s good to see you, too.” I marvel silently that in the past thirty seconds, I have already far eclipsed the number of words I had the courage to utter to him in all of high school, which were, respectively, “okay” and “bye.”
This has gone so much better than I could have imagined. Not only does he remember me, which is shocking in itself, but he actually seems excited to see me. I don’t understand it, but the 14-year-old girl inside me squeals to herself in delight and dies happily, spasming on the ground in a convulsing heap of nerves. I can’t wait to land in New York and call my best friend Madge to tell her about this. Life made, I think. Peeta was always a well-liked guy in school, and although he’s probably like this with every old acquaintance, it still feels good to know that he’s pleased to see me, that he ever thought enough of me to know my name, much less remember me now.
Peeta shakes his head once as if to clear it, and then looks away, eyes darting around at our surroundings.
He laughs and rakes his right hand through the back of his hair bashfully. “Oh, shit. I guess we better take a seat.” He moves quickly back into his chair and pats my seat, encouraging me to join him.
I take a deep, cleansing breath to calm myself and sit gingerly next to him, buckling in and nervously fiddling with the end of the strap to hide that my hands are shaking.
He turns his shoulders to face me squarely, and he immediately starts to talk. “So where did you disappear to? Do you live in L.A. too?” His tone is conversational, but there’s also a note of remonstrance there, as if he had been disappointed or upset somehow that he’d lost track of me. This is ridiculous because I have no reason to believe that he, or anyone else, had been keeping track of me in the first place.
I shrug, not sure how to answer his first question, but I feel like I need to defend myself somehow. “I didn’t disappear… I mean… I went to the University of Washington for college, and I stayed in Seattle.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but he seems crestfallen. “So you’re still living in Seattle?”
I nod, puzzled by his expression. I don’t know why he would care.
He shifts gears. “But I mean… you say you didn’t disappear, but it seems like no one that I’ve spoken to from school has seen or heard from you since we graduated.” His eyes are sparkling at me as he winks. "But maybe I just don't know any of the right people."
Wait, has Peeta Mellark been asking about me? I’m growing more confused by the minute, and I’m overwhelmed and uncomfortable by these baseless, hopeful thoughts that keep darting into my mind. There’s no chance, none at all, that Peeta is being anything more than politely attentive to me. He was always known for being a personable guy–not that I would know from extensive first-hand experience or anything, but he’s certainly being Mr. Congeniality now.
I look down at my hands, unsure of what to say. I’ve never been good at small talk or making and keeping friends. Peeta must sense my discomfort because he amends his statement. “I just know that you’re one of the people that folks wonder about, that’s all I mean. You’re not on Facebook or anything, right?”
I smile ruefully at him. "No. I never really saw much point to that. For me, anyway. I keep in touch with a few of my old friends, but otherwise I can't imagine why anyone else would want to know the banal details of my life." I steeple my fingers together and stare down at them, but I can sense his eyes boring a hole through me.
"Well, I think you can afford to be a little more imaginative than that. People do care, you know," he says, a coaxing timbre to his voice.
His tone is so persuasive that I consider signing up for Facebook on the fucking spot, resigning myself to a lifetime of Candy Crush requests, ultrasound photos depicting what the inside of random acquaintances' uteruses look like, and inflammatory political status updates from drunk uncles I haven't seen since I was five just so that I can friend Peeta Mellark and stare at his gorgeous face every day. I'm sure it wouldn't ruin my life at all creeping on my old high school crush from hundreds of miles away.
I don't really know what to say, so I sit there in an awkward silence trying to puzzle through everything. If only I were better with words, I'd find some way to pass off his sweet comment with a joke. As it is, I can only sit there speculating who from high school would actually care whether I disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle or fell off the side of Mount Everest. I can't think of anyone other than the couple friends I've made a point to keep in close contact with.
“So… what did you study in college?” he prods, trying to keep the conversation from stalling.
I hesitate before I answer. This is where people scoff at me, belittle me with some disparaging half-joke about wasted time and money, but he’s looking at me so attentively, so earnestly, that I decide I can trust him to at least keep any unfavorable opinion he might have to himself. “I majored in music,” I reply, biting at my lip nervously. My eyes make a quick survey of his face, tracing the path of the faint brown freckles that span the bridge of his nose and cheeks. They look soft and sun-kissed, and maybe it's because they're exactly the color of caramel, but I want to lick them to see if they taste as sweet as they look.
His eyebrows quirk up, but not in surprise. He looks impressed, and when he responds my heart beats furiously at his awed tone. “Of course you did,” he says. “I’m so glad to hear you pursued that.”
His reaction makes me blush, and when he sees me squirming uncomfortably from the praise, he clarifies, “You always had such an amazing voice. I mean, everyone knew it… I think it would have been a waste not to do anything with talent like that.”
He’s being so kind that it makes me want to crawl on his lap and lavish him with kisses–although, I admit, that was something I wanted to do the second I laid eyes on him... among other things. I think I could have gone my entire life not knowing the full extent of Peeta’s wonderfulness. I hate whatever horrid woman gets to benefit from it on a daily basis. I can’t keep listening to his thoughtful questions and compliments; there’s nothing behind them, and so I deflect the conversation back to him before I do something awkward and uncalled for like profess my undying love for him.
“So where did you go to school?” I ask.
“USC.” He pauses a beat, dragging both of his hands mindlessly along his muscular thighs, and continues. “I double-majored in business, because of my parents' bakery, you know... and art.”
“That’s quite a combo,” I laugh.
He grins and rolls his eyes. “Tell me about it. My oldest brother, Graham, ended up inheriting the bakery when my dad retired, but he calls me for advice sometimes, so that worked out well. What I'd really like to do though, what I'm saving up for, is to open my own art gallery–to use the little talent I have to showcase everybody else's."
I smile at him appreciatively. He's a fascinating blend of humility and ambition. "Where would you open this gallery of yours?" I press.
He drags a hand along his jaw, considering the question, and as his hand moves down its length I can hear his stubble rubbing against his palm. I can't help wondering what it would sound like scratching against my body, how it would feel burning a path up the skin of my thighs... I pinch myself covertly on the arm to will away the unbidden thought. It's just rude to imagine someone fucking you with their mouth while they're trying to have a polite conversation with you.
"Oh, I don't know," he ruminates. "I guess I'm pretty open to wherever I find the best opportunity."
"Is that why you're flying to New York?" I blurt, immediately wincing at the intrusiveness of my question. It's not really any of my business why he's traveling. Dammit, why am I so awkward?
He touches my arm lightly and chuckles when he sees how embarrassed I am. "It's okay, Katniss," he reassures me. "You can ask anything you want about me, okay?"
I nod sheepishly, trying not to tremble from his touch, and quietly tell him, "Same here." As I say it, I'm stricken by the fact that it's true. Peeta can know anything he wants about me. He has this way of making me feel simultaneously at ease and agonizingly alive. He can know anything, have anything, and all he needs to do is ask.
He leans toward me conspiratorially and nudges me with his elbow. "I'll have to remember that," he whispers in jest. "Maybe I'll ask you about the really personal stuff." When my face blanches he laughs and says, "Like what your favorite color is." He leans back in his chair and shakes his head, grinning. He obviously enjoys teasing, but there's nothing malicious behind it. I decide that, yes, maybe I do love this adorable dork and that I'm impossibly screwed the minute I walk off this plane and lose him again forever.
Peeta continues, "No, I'm nowhere near being able to open the gallery yet. I'm visiting my brother Rye and his wife. They just had a baby girl. Mabel Rae." His voice drips with affection for a baby he hasn’t even met yet, and my ovaries threaten to launch into Earth’s orbit at the mere thought of him cradling his infant niece.
"Oh, that's great!" I exclaim, genuinely happy for Peeta and his family. "Congratulations! Are you a first-time uncle?"
He nods proudly. "Yup. I can't wait to meet her, and then, while I'm in town, I'm going to this exhibition opening in Williamsburg. There's this shindig they're throwing, and I scored an invite because they're showing a couple of my paintings." When he sees my eyes bug, he adds dismissively, waving a hand in front of him for emphasis, "No no, it's nothing like that.... It's no big deal."
I refuse to accept his self-deprecation as fact. It's my steel gray eyes that meet his and hold on unflinchingly. In my desire to express to him how significant his achievement really is, I throw my shyness out the window–some of it, anyway. "Peeta," I say, relishing his name again, "it sounds like a big deal to me. I've never known anyone to have their art displayed in a gallery, much less in New York City."
“It’s just this little bohemian place. Really. There will probably only be twenty of us there… all the artists, basically,” he demurs, laughing. “Watch. I’ll show up, and it will be in someone’s basement. Could even be at my brother’s.”
The tone of his laughter is infectious, and I can’t help but join in with him. “Well, maybe I’ll have to check it out while I’m in town,” I say in an attempt to sound casual, but I feel like my words drip with the desperation to see his paintings. Hell, who am I kidding? To see him.
I hear the bronze-haired man behind me chortle, and I shoot a furtive glance at him between the seats. He’s pretending to read the in-flight magazine, and when he catches me glowering at him, he waggles an eyebrow at me and mouths, “Check it out.” Eavesdropping asshole.
Peeta’s voice sounds strained and weak, as if the effort of crafting a polite reply is too much effort for him. “Yeah. That would be great. Maybe you should.” He pauses, as if to say something else, but thinks better of it. His mouth snaps shut, and he assesses me silently. I’m thankful for his silence. I can’t handle tepid niceties.
His eyes have this disconcerting habit of flitting between my eyes and my mouth. I can't help it, but my eyes fall to his lips, too, and I find myself wondering what they would feel like pressed against mine. His lower lip is slightly fuller than his upper, and I imagine drawing it into my mouth and sucking on it to make him moan. Would his kiss be soft and intimate? Would he be gentle and curious? Or would he kiss me firmly, passionately, his tongue blazing a trail through my mouth?
Maybe he reads something lascivious in my thoughts, because when he catches me looking at his mouth, he turns away quickly, pressing both shoulders squarely against his seat. A faint pink color has spread onto his face and the tips of his earlobes. I hope it’s from the heat of the cabin and not out of mortification for the sad girl from high school who’s sporting a big, fat crush on him.
I fan myself, too, because suddenly I’m feeling hot, and I reach up to check whether the air vent is working. My fingers can feel the cool, recycled air rushing from it.
He makes no effort to continue our conversation, and I'm starting to feel like some heavy breathing in a barf bag would do me a world of good. He totally caught me checking him out, and I'm sure that even if he doesn't have a wife or girlfriend (and surely he must), then I know there's no way he could find me even remotely attractive. He's so far outside my league he might as well be another species altogether–a magical species, a fucking unicorn or something. The thought occurs to me, and it makes me groan inwardly, that if he has caught me checking him out then maybe he’ll realize I have always been irresistibly attracted to him. And maybe he'll know that's why I crashed and burned colossally the one time I had any sort of chance with him.
I close my eyes to shut out as much of the humiliation as I can, to try to find some happy place that doesn't involve being pinned beneath Peeta's thrusting hips, and before I know it I've fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I don't know how long I sleep, but my neck pillow is so deliciously soft and warm against my face that I nuzzle further into it, feeling blissfully happy, protected and safe. I wake up just enough to swipe carelessly at a string of drool pooling at the corner of my mouth, and then I drop my hand onto the firm armrest and doze back off.
I’m just being lulled back to sleep when the plane hits a pocket of severe turbulence, and the jarring force causes me to clutch the armrest in sleep-induced terror. My eyes snap open, and it's then that I realize how I've been sleeping.
I don't have a neck pillow anymore. No, it died its swift death on the floor of LAX. I cringe and gasp and want to vomit.
I've been sleeping on Peeta Mellark's shoulder.
And I haven't been clutching an armrest at all. I look down, the horror of the situation dawning fully upon me. I am clutching his arm in a death grip as if my life depended on it.
My eyes climb slowly from where my hand still rests on his arm (I can't move it...why can't I move it?) up to his shoulder, which has a small pool of drool (my goddamn drool, in the shape of the state of Florida) on it, and then I force myself to look into his face. I have a thousand apologies waiting to spill from my lips. I don't know what to expect when I meet his gaze. Will he be annoyed, disgusted, or just sorry for me? I brace myself for a tsunami of disappointment and shame.
I am in no way prepared for what I see: fear.
Peeta Mellark actually looks afraid… of me?