Muffins and Interrogation [CLOSED]

[peeta_mellark]

After breakfast, Peeta spends most of the day camped out in various areas of the park, sketching whatever catches his eye and people watching. He'd hoped to come across Daine while he was out as he hasn't seen her for a couple of days, but neither she nor the dogs ever appear at any of the places he stops. He settles for working on one of his sketches of her with Molly.

Near three o'clock, he packs up his bag and heads toward the northern end of the park and Sunshine's apartment. He's never been to the rebel apartments before, but Sunshine gave him directions on how to get there, and he dutifully pulls those from his bag as he leaves the park near 96th. A little while later he's outside the building, a nondescript apartment complex that stands out from its neighbors only by its comparative simplicity.

After a last quick glance at the directions sheet, Peeta folds it and returns it to the bag. Then he finds Sunshine's apartment number on the call box and presses the call button.

Comments

[peeta_mellark]

"My country is split into twelve districts and the Capitol. A long time ago, the districts rebelled against the Capitol. They lost. Every year since, one boy and one girl between the ages of 11 and 18 are chosen from each district. They are put in a specially made arena - which can be anything from a desert to a jungle - and are forced to fight to the death. They call it the Hunger Games."

That's a simplified version of what life in Panem is like, but it's enough to provide the basis for what Peeta actually wants to get to.

"Everyone is forced to watch the Games. People in the Capitol view them as entertainment. And if they like one of the competitors, they might send things to them in the arena, like food or weapons or medicine." He's avoided Sunshine's eyes as he's talked, staring blindly out the window instead, but now he meets her gaze. "You want to get them on your side."

He pauses again and takes a deep breath, not looking away from Sunshine.

"I was picked for the Games, along with a girl my age, Katniss. There is a lot of pageantry in the few days before the Games actually start, a chance for the people to get to know the kids, and a chance for the kids to impress possible patrons. I used it to tell everyone I was in love with Katniss. It was true, but it also set us up as star-crossed lovers. That, and everything else I did in the Games, was to protect Katniss. She returned the favor when an announcement was made that two victors would be allowed if they came from the same district. She found me, and played along with being in love. It helped us win, especially when they changed the rules back to allowing only one victor."

His gaze grew distant as he talked, but now he blinks himself back into the present. "We'd defied the Capitol, though, so we were conveniently chosen for the next Games. I was there when the Rift pulled me out." He gives Sunshine a small, crooked smile. "Anyway, my point is I know something about fake relationships and saving someone's life."

[rae_of_sun]

Whatever Sunshine was expecting, it wasn't that, and she stands, stiff with growing horror, as Peeta tells his story. At first, she has no idea where he's going with it, or if this is just some attempt to even the scales now that he knows more about her personal life than she wanted him to. But what's he spilling this disproportionate tragedy for?

Then, 'it was true,' sends a jolt through her, sympathy mingling with anxiety, and she thinks poor kid even as she remembers a disappointed sigh ghosting over her skin and a brief nuzzle against her bare shoulder. She gets it.

No. He gets it.

Sunshine remains silent for a few moments after he stops and offers her a smile - look at him, still smiling after all that - and then she says, stupidly, "… Damn." What else is there to say? It's not enough, though, and she gives her head a little shake to clear it. "Um. Gods, that's… appalling." Bad things happen to kids back home, too, but it's not institutionalized badness. It's not like the Hunger Games. It's just… unfortunate accidents, overdoses, moments of stupidity, maybe a vampire with certain tastes, not a slaughter on the television. "I'm sorry." The apology is more for what he went through than her own understandable presumption that Peeta wouldn't have had experience with faking a relationship to save someone's life, but it could cover both.

She also can't help thinking that it's not that straightforward. Yesterday afternoon might not have been smart, or her proudest hour(s), but… it wasn't a lie, either, or a - a show.

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta nods in acknowledgment of Sunshine's apology, and walks around the bar to finally join her in the kitchen.

"Katniss and me - it was complicated." He is excellent at understatements. "We had started to build something real, though, whether because we kept having to pretend or because of what we went through together."

He stops at the sink to give his hands a good wash. "She wasn't indifferent to me, anyway," he says, that half sad, half self-deprecating smile back on his face.

Hands clean and dry, he turns to survey the spread Sunshine has collected. He knows about distracting yourself, too (Sunshine's earlier loss to cleaning stands explained), and figures they might both like the distraction of baking right about now. "So, muffins. What wisdom do you have for me?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine absently runs her fingers over her necklace as Peeta comes into the kitchen, and nods her understanding when he speaks. Yeah, she gets that, too. Maybe that kind of thing is inevitable, when you throw two sexually compatible people into an intense situation and make them claw their way back out of it together. Hell, maybe it would have happened even without the earlier fake-outs. Though she can't help wondering just how much of it all was a front and how much… wasn't. Or wasn't necessarily. And she can't help remembering his question: not so bad, was it?

Oh, gods.

Focus on Peeta, Sunshine. It's not hard when he shoots her such a thoroughly depressing smile, and she can't resist pulling him into a brief half-hug, as if he was one of her brothers, before giving her own hands a good scrub. And when he turns the conversation back to muffins, she doesn't object.

"More than one lesson's worth," she replies with a wry smile. "But you already know the basics, so I figured we'd focus on flavor combinations."

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta's a little surprised by the hug, but returns it without hesitation. As he looks over the ingredients Sunshine has laid out, a thought occurs to him.

"Have you come across any flavors here that you didn't have at home?" It's something he's wondered about before, but he didn't think his world was the right match to make comparisons. With the Capitol in charge, there could have been flavors in his world that were just never made available to him. Thinking of how different Sunshine's world is, he adds, "Or are there any flavors you had at home that aren't here?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine shakes her head. When she was searching for herbs for teleportation purposes, she got a pretty good idea of what this universe has to offer, and there wasn't anything wholly unfamiliar to her. "There are some different names that I've noticed, but that's about it. I'm not even sure if it's a different-universe thing or just a different-region thing, honestly."

She knows enough about how limited his resources were in his hometown to be a little hesitant in turning the question around on him, but he's the one who brought it up. "What about you?"

[peeta_mellark]

"Well, there's nothing missing that I can tell," he replies. It would be difficult for there to be, given what he had to work with in his world compared to the large variety available here. "I have found some things that I didn't know about before, but I don't know if that's because they didn't exist in my world, or if they just weren't made available to my district."

In theory, he should be able to reproduce anything he made in Panem here. In practice, however, he found that not to be true. Even with the abundance of resources he now has, he wasn't able to exactly replicate a couple of his favorite dishes from home when he tried. Somehow, that failure made his loss, his displacement more tangible than anything else that had happened.