At long last someone comes... not quite home.

[shinyisfalse]

Who| Peeta Mellark and OPEN
What| Peeta's been held in questioning for a few months, and now he gets to be around people again.
Where| Around the training center/tribute tower
When| After his release
Warnings/Notes| Nothing from Peeta, but who knows who he'll run into!

Sunlight. It was such a beautiful thing, something you didn't think you would miss until it was gone. Peeta may be a baker's son, but he did enjoy being outdoors. Not as much as Katniss, of course, but no one wanted to sit in a room with the only entertainment being a deck of cards. Countless card houses, countless card castles had been made, and he thought about starting up a tally when someone came in and said he was free to go.

Whatever it was, he passed, and he didn't question it. Not right then. It was something to be questioned privately, and not in full view of everyone else. Things had changed around here. And Peeta, too. He'd changed. He was supposed to be a mentor now. It made him cringe a little to think that he had left all of these new District Twelve tributes with Haymitch and Katniss... Katniss. He missed her. Did she miss him as much as he had her? A silly little hope. Maybe the whole "star crossed lovers" thing had died down? It would be nice to not have to pretend so much.

That's what he was thinking when he walked into the training center. He could already tell people were recognizing him; they'd started to recognize him on the street as well. He'd given them all a wave and a smile, and continued on his way. He was expecting cameras and news crews and whatever else they did here, and hoping that they never showed up. He wanted time to walk around, perhaps see the new people here.

Comments

[knifewithnoname]

After Pruna's tantrum she had spent a long time sleeping, curled up in her room, though her body didn't feel tired her mind did and so she slept for a long time.

When she finally woke up she began tidying the mess of her room, she felt a little bit silly for wrecking it now, because it was a nice room and the things probably cost a lot of money. She had never been angry like that before and though she still wanted to go home and see her sister she was sort of glad she wasn't properly dead.

Even if she didn't understand how.

When she walked into the lounge she saw someone she had never seen before and stopped still, a wary look in her eyes. There were a lot of people she didn't know though and Cinna had said that only people who were number twelves could come here.

[shambler]

He wasn't alone in there.

There was a hunched figure over at the knot station, a guy with awful posture and reeking of one of the most popular perfumes from District 4 - Peeta could probably smell it all the way from the entrance, a trail of Tide's Sigh cologne that's strong enough to make anyone's eyes water. Yeah, it's that bad.

It's either that or the smell of decomposition.

R's trying to practice his knot-work Eva showed him before the Arena, nooses that she says you can kill someone with. He has a major case of zombie fingers, his hands working out knots so loose they fall apart if you so much as look at them wrong. It's keeping busy, basically. Even something like this makes it hard to think since he sucks at multi-tasking. The sound of footsteps, even, more sure than another zombie, makes R look up and for a second he's convinced his Escort is coming at him with another safety spritz of perfume. R blows out a wheezy sigh of relief when he sees it's someone else: a Living guy, neat blond hair, a square jaw that would've made his Escort dizzy with all the possibilities.

"Any...tips?" R groans out. Relief he can practice in peace makes the zombie chatty.

[inciting]

It took her a moment of seeing the blond boy across the room, something so familiar and yet so strange in this setting, for her brain to register that he was here, that he was alright.

"Excuse me..." She muttered, pushing past a pair of Tributes chatting, not caring that Effie would be rating her a 0 on the manners scale. Her heart was pounding, and she wanted to get close, to be sure he was real.

The sinking sick feeling when Prim had arrived was gone. Seeing him, there was just relief, that he was ok, that's they'd be in this together again.

"Peeta!"

[andproper]

It wasn't just random strangers looking at Peeta - there was also at least one face he might recognize right back... The last person to have surprised Katniss with her appearance, in fact. She'd been quite worried about him.

"Peeta?" she asked, skidding to a stop a little bit away from him. After Darius, she was a bit worried about seeing people from home - and she was studying his face with obvious worry.

[riptheseams]

Calico felt much the same way as Peeta did. Months and months, cooped up in that white room. White bed. White chair. White table. White television fitted into the wall. Under artificial lights that flickered on and off at set times. Eating when she was given food.

She'd caught a glimpse of Peeta when they took her in - but it was only a glimpse. She recognised him, of course, as the surprising Victor from the last Games. He and Katniss, of course, had sparked the trouble. And Calico had to applaud the pair of them - had they even planned it? Either way, try as she might, they were two names she couldn't forget.

Still, now, walking along the street, Peeta looked unharmed. She smiled a little, and lifted her hand to him in greeting.

"Hey there, you."