Chapter Text
A fresh snowfall started the second I left the warmth of my house, undoing the work of the snowplow that groaned past at two this morning. The streets were clean, sidewalks salted, yet the new snow couldn’t care less. The new layer meant that when I got home, trekking the driveway was going to feel like a mountain, and my shovel would be waiting for me at the front door. My back ached just thinking about it. Beneath the snow, a soft rainbow glow emitted from the bushes and roofs, attempting to brighten up the dreary morning.
Still, District 12 always tried its best this time of year. Strings of lights draped across porches, rainbow bulbs glowing faintly through the haze of white. For once, the town didn’t look like a graveyard. It looked like the front of one of those glossy Christmas cards you’d find in a drugstore.
I’d never admit it out loud, but this was secretly my favorite season. The cold is biting my fingers despite the warm mittens my sister knit for me in her recent attempt of a new hobby. The lumps and bumps offer a little more warmth. She hated the way they looked, but at least I cant feel the cold in those areas.
I’ve been walking to school since I was a little kid, and the distance never seemed to shorten. I’ve only recently enjoyed walking there ever since my best friend decided it would be “good exercise” for him in the morning to join me instead of driving his truck to school. Today, I was hoping he would finally cave and pick me up, but it’s become so routine I don’t think the idea ever crossed his mind.
Beside me, Peeta Mellark- my best friend of a million years- steps on every frozen leaf, every snow clump, and every crack he can possibly find, letting out a ridiculous giggle that even my whimsical sister would cringe at. His blonde hair captures every snow flake that swirls down as he looks up into the sky and sticks his tongue out at as though he doesn’t have a single care in the world.
From the corner of my eye, I can see him staring down at me. I can almost feel the ridiculous one liner he’s trying to think up, when he halts me by singing the one Christmas song I hate, in his favorite rendition.
“On the first day of Christmas, my Katniss gave me to me-“
“Stop,” I groan, tucking my chin down and crossing my arms to warm up my now frozen hands. My breath puffs out like smoke.
He laughs heartily, walking a few paces ahead of me and turning around to face me as he struts backwards. “C’mon, Katniss. You love this song, right? Gimme that ‘partridge in a pear tree’.”
I stare at him, trying not to smile as his bright blue eyes crinkle. “I’m not giving you anything of the sort. What moron gives that as a gift?”
“Humor me. You got the voice for it.”
“No way, Peeta. I don’t sing and that song is stupid.”
He snorts and stops at the stop sign looking down the street for any oncoming traffic. “Yes you do. You just hate anyone hearing it. Except me.”
I shoot a scowl his way before stepping off the sidewalk, but I don’t see the ice patch from the melted ice and slip, sending my bag flying and slamming my back into the cold road. I muffle a curse before opening my eyes, seeing him over me trying hard not to laugh. He reaches down and holds out his arm.
“That was the Christmas spirit telling you to lighten up,” he jokes out. I wrap my hand around his firm forearm and pull myself up, squeezing once thanking him. Instead of letting me go, he hooks his arm under mine and I can feel the heat radiating from his side. Peeta has always been a personal heater for me. No matter how cold it is, it seemed he was always the perfect temperature.
“You’re annoying,” I say as I snuggle into his side more, not caring how pathetic I must look.
He huffs out a breath that moves a puff of smoke towards me that smells like his minty toothpaste. “And yet, you’re still walking with me after all this time.”
I smile softly to myself and let out a small laugh, one that only he can pull from me. We continue our walk in silence, the town slowly growing more alive as people awake from their slumber. Christmas music starts to grow louder from the stores as they open up for business, and Peeta hums along.
We reach our school yard 15 minutes past the last bell, and we say our goodbyes for the morning.
“I’ll look for you later. We can go to the gas station down the street later and grab some soup or something nice,” he says hugging me and planting a kiss on the top of my wet hair. I know what this looks like from the outside- we’re not a couple by any means, but we don’t stray far from that boarder. It’s hard to tell him to stop, though, since I give into it every time. Its something about his presence that puts a warm blanket of calmness around me. It allows me to be vulnerable, something only my sister would ever see if it weren’t for him.
Peeta starts to rush off to his first class, gym, where he will of course dominate in the wrestling practice they have today, and I shuffle my frozen feet towards my class, English.
I slowly slide into my chair in the back of my class as my teacher drags on about her plans for Christmas break after an awkward silence and eyes followed me from the door to my seat. Today, she has most of our desks pushed against the walls and our chairs in a weird circle. I assume we’re just talking about our plans for break. I pull my bag from my back and place it on my lap, hugging it close to conserve the heat in the room. A few girls in my class talk about a ski trip their families are planning, a boy talks about how he will be staying home with his father and siblings. I tune everything out when a tap on my side bring me back to my senses. All eyes are on me and I shrink.
“I’m sorry, what?”
My teacher clears her throat and tilts her chin down. Oh yeah, my plans. I sit up and look around the room. I didn’t have any really. I usually just stay at home while listening to my sister banter with her friends that she has over, or I go see Peeta at his fathers store. I clear my throat and shrug.
“I don’t ‘really have any. My mom works during the holidays and my sister and I just hang out,” I mumble softly, playing with my nails. My awkward response is cut off by a knock on the room’s door. A administrator whispers to my teacher and nods towards me.
“Ms. Everdeen, this is for you,” he says, handing me a pink slip of paper. I hold it up, already knowing what it is, before letting my hand drop back to my bag. Wonderful. Detention. My stomach sinks, heat flooding my face when the chorus of “oohs” breaks out around the room.
An annoying choir of ‘oohs’ breaks out which makes my face flood with embarrassing heat. The rest of class is filled with the plans of my classmates and well wishes for the Christmas season, and the relief of a bell lets us run. My teacher waves us out and announces that she will miss our class and that we will see her next year. A groan escapes a few of us.
Outside the door, Peeta waits for me along the wall. His hair is wet from his post gym shower and he holds his jacket in the crook of his arm. He flashes his twin pink slip to me, laughing as I do the same.
Before I know it, it was lunch time and my stomach starting to growl. Nausea from my empty stomach creeps in and I rip out an alcohol pad from my book bag. I inhale deeply, finding relief immediately. An old trick my mom taught me growing up. After my father died, food insecurity became a problem in our household, so nausea was not uncommon in a house full of women. Even though we don’t face such an issue now, the occasional nausea wave from not eating enough still permits me to carry the pads.
I wait for Peeta by the front of the school, and finally he shows up with some apology about taking so long.
“I was just chatting with one of the subs we had in one of my classes. She was telling me about how long she’s known my family and wanted to know if I was working in the bakery still,” he says shrugging on his hoodie.
I nod and watch him, slowly giving into a sly smile. “You sure it wasn’t because she thought you were cute? She is younger, you know.”
He scoffs and opens the door for me. “Right, yeah absolutely. How could I not of thought of that.”
The walk to the gas station was short, the neon ‘open’ sign humming as it turned on and off. I pick a booth by the window and wait for him to grab our soup. It smells of burnt coffee and old fryer oil. As he sits, I slide him a five dollar bill which he shakes his head and folds it into my hand. The steam clounds between us as a slight blush fills my cheeks. I blame it on the cold.
As a joke, our detention slips are held down by the salt and pepper shakers at our table like trophies. He laughs at his action and blows gently on our soups before holding up his like a glass of champagne.
“To a lifetime of causing trouble,” he announces almost too loudly. I snort and clink mine against his, spilling it onto his hand.
“Whoops, sorry!” I wipe his hand with a napkin and he doesn’t even flinch.
“No worries, didn’t even feel it.”
Strange. This soup is piping hot, but I blame it on how cold his hands look. His fingertips are almost looking blue and I start eating. The door chimes behind me and a couple our age comes in, shaking their coats of fresh snow. They order quickly and slide into the booth behind me, pressing together so close they almost look like a conjoined twin.
Their laughter comes out soft. A ding indicating their soup being ready rings and we notice theres only one bowl with a single spoon. The intimacy of it makes me groan.
Peeta blows on his spoon and eats, tipping his head towards them. “Look, its us in another life.” He laughs and continues eating.
Leave it to Peeta to get me to choke on my soup. I cough hard and sip some water from my bottle. My chest tightens as I force out air to sound like a laugh, but it comes out like a strange and strangled noise.
“Right, yeah, us starving over gas station soup,” I squeak out. Its not the idea of us actually doing it that makes me nervous, but its just how easy it is to picture that. I look up at him and roll my eyes.
His eyes linger on me for a little longer than I think he intended and then gives me a soft smile, then continues to eat. His gaze shifts to the detention slips and he sighs heavily.
“Cant’ wait to hear what my mom says about that,” Peeta breathes out. I look at the detention slip and see there is a line for his parent to sign. Peeta’s mom is… challenging. Not exactly a warm person unless shes dealing with a customer, or shes been lit on fire. May or may not have thought about that once or twice. Her and Peeta have a tense relationship, and always have since I met them.
At an attempt to make light of it, I shrug. “She might take the ‘perfect son’ trophy off the shelf, but I think you’ll manage.” He doesn’t really laugh, just sips his soup. I realize he is actually stressed about showing this to his parents. I pull out a pen and scribble her signature on his slip, despite his advance to pull it away once he saw my pen.
He looks at it and squints his eyes. “How did you make it look so much like hers?” He laughs and puts it in his back pocket.
“I’ve seen your moms signature on all of our field trip forms growing up. Its not rocket science when she barely writes her name,” I say sipping on the last remnants of my soup. “Now hurry up, we gotta walk back to school.”
The rest of the day blended together, each class feeling like the last with the commonality of asking each other what we’re doing over break. I consider lying and telling them a different story each class to keep it interesting. As history turned into math, and math turned into gym, I considered taping my eyes open. The soup from lunch warmed my belly and put a sleepy contentment to my body, making it hard to stay awake.
The end of the day rolled around and the final bell brought me to my senses. Of course, I thought about shoveling the snow from this morning, just to be reminded by Peeta tugging me to the choir room that we had detention. I scold him for looking so excited, but of course, the choir room was another one of Peeta’s oasis’s. He loved being in there with the acoustics and how easy it was to hang with the teacher Ms. Cresta.
Ms. Cresta is a younger teacher, with it being her first teaching gig after graduating from college a few years ago. They gravitated to each other since their personalities matched so swimmingly. Peeta swung the door open so hard it nearly smacked me in the face as he walked in, shouting a hello to Ms. Cresta.
“Better quiet down before they find out you enjoy detention, Mr. Mellark!” a voice rings from the back office. The chairs in the room were already stacked and the music stands in their back corner. It honestly didn’t even look like we had anything to do. Peeta pulls two chairs from the stack and plants them in the middle of the room, his back mucle rippling through his shirt. I glance away and bite my lip softly, punishing myself for staring as I sit down. The entire room is lined with cheesy posters and break downs of notes, pictures of the choirs at competitions, and trophies in glass cases covered in a thin layer of dust.
Ms. Cresta pulls out a folder and hands it to Peeta, and as he flips it open I peer over his shoulder to look at what hes reading. I look at the title, it being a solo from a favorite musical of mine: Phantom of the Opera. It’s the Phantoms solo ‘Music of the Night’ and it has pencil markings all over the page in Peetas neat blocky handwriting.
Jokingly, Peeta closes the folder, a small gust of wind blowing in my face from it. “Do you mind, miss?” he laughs softly as he stands. I pull my knees up to my chin and hug my legs to me. I never get to hear Peeta practice, so this is a treat for me. He leans on the piano as he studies the score for a few minutes, humming the tune as Ms. Cresta opens the piano lid and warms up her frail looking hands on the keys. The piano sounds old, a key actually sounds out of tune, but she covers it with chords as it rings out.
“Okay, so I marked out a good 2 minute section for you on there, so let’s just work on that part today. Sound good?” she asks as she marks something in her accompaniment music. He nods and glances over to me, his cheeks burning red.
“Stop staring,” he mumbles shyly. I’ve never known Peeta to be a shy type, but this intimate environment has him completely at my mercy. He coughs and nods to Ms. Cresta as she starts to play.
“Softly, deftly, music shall surround you
Hear it, feel it, closing in around you
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness that you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night”
His voice filled a part of me I didn’t know was empty. His speaking voice was never this dark, never this deep—it was almost like I was listening to someone else entirely. I closed my eyes and tried to picture him singing on a stage, but I couldn’t conjure up his face. The voice didn’t fit the boy I thought I knew. As his low notes hit my ears, it rattles my ribcage.
When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me. Blushing. Then turning away like he hadn’t been caught to face the whiteboard in the room. Ms. Cresta tells him to turn back around and he inhales. His face changes into someone else, like a persona that he has for only himself and he breathes in for the next section.
“Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before”
Ms. Cresta speaks over the piano boldly, putting power into his stance. “Inhale big here. Remember the vowel placement!”
“Let your soul take you where you long to be!”
I let out a small gasp as his voice echoes around the room, surrounding me. Goosebumps prick my skin and make me shudder. Its just so beautiful. The next line, he looks at me directly, singing the line gently, almost seductively.
“Only then can you belong to me”
My pulse thumped in my throat so loud I’m sure he could hear it. He smiles like he said he funniest joke in the world and leans on the piano, now getting silly with his movements as he sings effortlessly.
“Floating, falling ,sweet intoxication
Tough me, trust me, savor each sensation
Let the dream begin
Let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write
The power of the music of the night”
Ms. Cresta’s piano playing grows heavier as she dances the melody across the keys. Peeta looks at her lovingly, going back into his persona. His jaw twitches then clenches, which causes a tingle in my belly.
“You alone can make my song take flight
Help me make the music of the night”
Ms. Cresta finishes then nods to him. I clap loudly and obviously cheering him and her both on. “That was amazing!”
Peeta bows low – and just as obnoxiously as I had clapped- as he closes the folder over and looks to Ms. Cresta. She nods in agreement and flips the page over to the beginning.
“It was great, now lets make it perfect,” she says simply. He nods and they start working again. I eventually got antsy and she hands me a cloth of wipe down the class windows and trophy cases. I pay extra attention to scrub Peeta’s name which was on more than one of the trophies. After about an hour, they take a break and Peeta helps me clean the rest of the windows and wipe down the whiteboard. Ms. Cresta starts playing the authentic Christmas music, which of course Peeta and I sang along to, (including the one I hate).
“Katniss, Peeta has told me you have a beautiful voice- I’m glad I can finally agree for myself!” Ms. Cresta pats my back and turns down the volume of the music. Blushing, I thank her and press my lips together to not sing again now that theres been some attention drawn to me. “Peeta, lets go ahead and run it a few more times. It’s almost 6:30.”
He nods and pulls out his folder again, smoothing the paper down before rubbing his eyes sleepily.
“I think after today, you should be ready for that audition,” she chides him and warms up her fingers again on the keys. This stops me in my tracks, which he notices and tries to breeze past by nodding to her to play.
“Audition?”
He sheepishly looks at me, and Ms. Cresta looks between us both, her cheeks growing a shade of red. “Oh, sorry, Peeta I thought she knew!”
“Its, uh, its not a big deal. Just… Capitol Talent opened up auditions for an exclusive season, and I thought I’d… I dunno, maybe give it a shot?” he reaches his hand to the back of his neck and bites his inner cheek. I cross my arms and arch up a brow. “I was going to tell you!”
“Uh huh, you tell me everything, Peeta. Why not this?” I suddenly sound extremely defensive but I cant stop the attitude before it comes.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d say about it. I know we make fun of those shows but-“ he stops himself like hes biting back something. He tried to laugh, running a hand over the folder. “It’s just… a passion. Wouldn’t hurt to win some money, maybe get my name out there. Who knows—Disney might call me.” The joke landed too flat. I heard the strain behind it.
He moves to me , and I think hes about to hug me, but we’re in front of someone I barely know. I glance over at Ms. Cresta and back to him. He gets what I’m trying to tell him telepathically and puts his hand on the piano, leaning on it as he stares into my soul. I realize this is huge for him, and what kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t support him? He’s supported me through all my endeavors- why would I deny him this?
I flash a kind smile, and his gaze softens. “You’d be a singing frog, not the prince.”
He belly laughs and gives me a ‘Ribbit’ before he moves my hair behind my ear, making me laugh. “Atta girl. Maybe you should give it a shot, too, yeah? You’d totally beat me out.” I blush at his compliment and hide it by picking up my bag and swing it onto my shoulder.
“That wouldn’t be fair- I’d get you knocked out in the first round.”
He moves back to the front of the piano and sighs as he looks down at the music. “Sure you don’t want to stay?” He says half-teasing, half- hopeful.
I shake my head, gesturing to Ms. Cresta. “I’ll leave you two to your oasis.”
Outside, the cold bites harder than this morning. My sisters knit mittens now have a small hole in the thumb and the ice is making sure I know it. I start down the snow- covered road, humming Peeta’s song.