Let Time Pass
Summary: Katniss is determined to give Peeta a good birthday, but a certain Haymitch Abernathy doesn’t exactly take well to being told what to do.
Words: 4.8k
Warnings: sfw tickling, familial tickling, mentions of ptsd
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Calls for the mockingjay were few and far between these days, but things still popped up from time to time. They were nothing like old times, there was no war to lead, and no use for the girl who had once shot an arrow through the apple, but they still had need for the mockingjay from time to time.
There were unveilings of newly rebuilt districts and acts to sign, and everyone wanted the face of the revolution there, it marked that this peace, however new, was solid.
Katniss declined most of the invitations she got, or rather Effie did on her behalf. She knew the country would get on without her, she knew she needed to let them learn to live without their mockingjay, but there was one thing she couldn’t seem to say no to, which was how she ended up at a tiny school in district eleven on Peeta’s birthday.
It was often young teachers who reached out to her, seeking to show their classes who was responsible for placing them in the present day. Katniss liked those visits, the kids asked her if she felt brave going into the arena and she told them that she didn’t but she didn’t have a choice. Once, someone asked her if she knew it was the right thing when she eliminated Coin, and it was the first time, with certainty that she got to say yes. However, the highest request wasn’t to hear about her old tributes, or for her gory stories in the games, or even her time in the rebellion. Mostly, they just wanted to know if they could see her shoot her bow and arrow.
Then Katniss would smile and they would round them all up to go outside and she would pull back the string and land a bullseye every time and they would all clap and cheer and beg her to do it again and she would pull out a second arrow hidden in her bag. When she looked into the eyes of the little girls, she could swear for a moment that she saw Prim amongst them, but then the moment passed, and she was left with the kids jumping up and down around her.
When she would come back to the house Peeta would ask her if she had fun and as she spoke she found that she couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. She liked how she felt around those kids, like she could provide them with someone who didn’t involve being a war hero. A few times, her school visits had led to greater discussion, long talks into the night about if she was ready to bring her own light into the world. When the games first ended she thought she’d never feel safe bringing something so soft into this world. However, the tentative peace after the 75th games was growing stronger, and the world had grown into its kindness.
Despite this though, Katniss decided it wasn’t quite time. Katniss liked her school visits and how the district children came to her to sneak sweets on festivals when their parents weren’t looking, but she liked having Peeta to herself for now. At first she had felt guilty for it, but Haymitch had remarked on and on about how young they both still were, and Peeta reminded her with his soft kisses that they still had so much healing to do and however long that took was how much time they deserved.
Peeta was always so good to her, he always had been. On her bad days she felt like she didn’t deserve him in the slightest and on her good ones she was so overwhelmed with her gratitude for him that it hurt.
He had made her celebrate every birthday with him with the grace and the joy of someone who didn’t know what it was like to kill another person. She was beginning to have the slight indents of smile lines, and he kissed each of them every morning, reminding her with each one, how lucky she was to have a mark of age. Peeta, of course, rarely wanted to celebrate himself either, but it was his twenty-eighth birthday this year, and she was not going to let that particular moment pass her by.
She took the train back to twelve, arriving at the old Justice building. It looked so different from when she had first entered the station, doomed to her first games.
It had been blown apart when Snow had bombed twelve, so they’d had to entirely rebuild it. It was a blue tiled building now, the mosaics painting stories of birds and fires, and new rebirths.
She touched her fingers to it, observing the many faces as she passed by, heading into the bright midday glow of the first real day of spring.
The old place where the hob used to be was opened up to the breeze, the doors swung wide. Katniss stepped inside, and grabbed as many things as she could.
Sweets, fruits, streamers, decorations, and pencils in all sorts of colors. Peeta had gotten into drawing recently, and he’d taken to it quite naturally, stating that it must have been from all of those years decorating cakes.
She thanked each of the vendors she’d bought from, and left them extra money on their tables when they weren’t looking. With one last glance around the market, she gathered up everything in her arms, and strolled back out into the sunshine.
She looked out in the distance to see the fields were covered in clovers, and that the sun was already halfway up in the sky, and began to rush home.
She hurried past the geese that wandered through the victor’s village, nearly kicking over their bird feeder as she shuffled by them. She made it to their house when she realized she had no free hands, and so she loudly kicked at the closed door, some of the red paint chipping off at the bottom.
“Would it seriously kill the two of you to knock-” Haymitch started, swinging the door open, then having to look around the pile of presents to see Katniss. “Is any of this for me?”
Katniss raised a brow that she wasn’t even sure he could see. “Is it your birthday?”
“No,” he said, draining the rest of whatever was in his bottle.
“Then no,” she said, then let everything drop to the floor. She pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You said you wouldn’t drink today.”
“Did I?” Haymitch asked.
Katniss shut the door behind her, and glared at him, mustering as much malice as she could. It took more effort than it used to, but he got on her nerves enough that she could still manage it sometimes.
“Alright fine,” Haymitch walked over to the large white sink and set the glass in it. “That was the last one of the day.”
“Promise?” Katniss asked, knowing it was the only way she could tell if he was lying.
Haymitch rolled his eyes like it was stupid of her to even consider that he would lie about it. “Promise.”
“Good.” Katniss looked back down at the pile that lay between them. “Now help me set this stuff up.”
Haymitch took off his brown hat and threw it in the sitting room. “Yes ma’am.”
They began diligently setting up the party as the afternoon passed them by. Katniss got out the orange cake that Greasy Sae had spent a week on. Her arthritis was getting worse as she got older now, but she still insisted that someone had to make a cake for the boy, and Peeta still hadn’t gotten his bakery open to the public yet.
She did an excellent job decorating it, the cake perfectly matched the ombre effect of a setting sun, red fading into orange, and pink, and yellow. Katniss could even see the tiny details of twelve in the background behind the green swirly writing of ‘happy birthday Peeta’. Katniss hadn’t known Greasy Sae possessed such artistic ability back in the day, much less now, but she supposed that she had less to worry about now then the old shopkeeper did back then.
Haymitch walked by as she set it on the counter, and swiped a bit of the icing off of the side of it. “Hmm, can we get one of these for my birthday?” he asked, licking his finger off.
“Haymitch!” she yelled, cringing internally when she heard a hint of Effie in her voice. “Get your fingers off of the cake,” Katniss hissed, whacking him with the towel.
Luckily, he was still quite quick on his feet, and managed to dodge the blow. “I just had to taste test it,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender.
“It’s for Peeta,” she said indignantly.
Haymitch cocked his head at her. “Peeta doesn’t care. You could tell him that you got him nothing for his birthday and he’d still look at you like you had moved the sun and the moon.”
Katniss’ face flushed without her giving it permission to. She knew it was true, but it didn’t give Haymitch any right to touch the cake. “Just go work on wrapping the presents,” she said, pointing to the sitting room, and feeling a little like she would rather herd cats than be in charge of Haymitch.
“Fine,” he said, walking away.
Katniss started to wash the berries, for their dinner. She had gotten fruits of all sorts, ones that they never would’ve had access to when the districts were cut off from one another. She’d got cherries, strawberries, peaches, and plums. She was careful never to get any small blue berries even if they were in season, because neither of them could bear to look at them without other thoughts racing through their minds. She was pretty sure it would freak Haymitch out too if he ever saw, even though he’d never mentioned it.
After hours of tending to it and kneading it, she finally slid the cheesy bread into the oven to bake, and she lowered the heat on the squirrel stew she was cooking. She’d gotten the recipe from something Peeta’s mother had passed down before she’d passed away in the bombing, and she hoped she was doing it justice. She considered making a capitol recipe, but decided it was best not to remind him of that on this beautiful day.
Her and Haymitch worked in semi silence this way for a while, the only sounds being the sound of the spoon clanking against the bottom of the pan, and the sound of paper tearing. It was nice to sit in such comfortable silence with her old mentor, instead either banding together on some ridiculous force, or being at each other’s throats. She had already been fond of him after the last games, especially with him having her back in thirteen and up in the capitol, but it was difficult to come up with excuses as to why they spent most of their waking hours together, either in his field of geese, or out in the meadow, or in her sitting room taking turns making entries in the journal.
She turned around to look at him, only to see the absolute mess that he was making in the sitting room. The spoon fell out of her hand, and sunk into the bowl.
Katniss looked at the heaps of brown wrapping paper all over the floor, and it was like a tiger had mistaken the paper for food, and shredded it all apart. The gifts that had managed to be wrapped were being held together by a boatload of glue and the box's wrappings were twisted at the ends like little poorly made candies.
“What are you doing?”
Haymitch looked up at her like it was obvious. “I’m wrapping the gifts.”
She forced herself to take a deep breath, but even when Prim had been little, she had done a better job than this. “Have you ever wrapped a gift before?”
Haymitch looked up at her through his hair. “Yes.”
Katniss looked down at the present, then at him. “Are you drunk?”
Haymitch leveled a scathing look at her. “I only had four drinks today, do you really think that’s doing anything?
Katniss threw her hands in the air, sensing she would get nowhere by answering his question. “Just hang up the decorations.”
Haymitch saluted her, and stalked over to the windows, where he started blowing up balloons. “You know, we’re lucky to get these,” he remarked, tying off the end of one. “These used to be a Capitol exclusive.”
“A lot of things were,” Katniss murmured, going back to her stew. She knew she was much younger than him, but even she could recognize how different things were now. She wondered what it was like for him, who had seen so many more games, and to know that it was over now.
Life hadn’t been kind to Katniss, but the people around her were. Even Haymitch, despite all his years in the games could be kind, and she wondered how much it took for him to find his way back to it, how much violence it took for the world to find its kindness again.
As she watched the sun setting behind the budding trees out past the meadow, she hoped it stayed like this, nothing disturbing the peace except for children being called inside for the night, and the birds chirping.
The last of the orange rays from the glowing sun burned into the yellow green grass, almost making it golden, like the blonde strays in Peeta’s hair. It was difficult to believe he was turning 28, when there had been a time where they’d believed they wouldn’t make it past sixteen, but here they were, still alive.
Not just alive, but no longer condemned to tell the Capitol’s story every year, nor stuck under the rebels' thumbs.
Katniss turned back towards Haymitch, intending to ask him something about twelve, or Peeta when she saw that his happy birthday sign was crooked.
“The right side needs to be further up,” she instructed just as he’d stepped off of the ladder.
“Now you tell me?” he grumbled.
“I just noticed,” Katniss said flatly.
Haymitch sighed and climbed back up, adjusting the string up towards the corner of the windowframe. “Better?”
Katniss held her hands up to angle it, like she was preparing to shoot her bow. “A little farther up.”
Haymitch moved it.
“A little to the left,” Katniss stopped herself. “No, sorry, right.”
Haymitch made the adjustment, and looked back at her. “Good?”
Katniss furrowed her brows. “Maybe down a little.”
Haymitch moved his hand down an inch. “Have you been studying Effie a bit too much recently?”
Katniss frowned. “No, now that’s too far.”
He moved his hand back to where it was. “That’s too far up.”
“Okay, I’m done.” Haymitch huffed, letting the right side of the happy birthday sign fall to the floor.
“Haymitch, he’s gonna be here any minute, we have to get it perfect.”
“Look around Katniss, everything is done.”
Katniss looked around to see that even though all the gifts were poorly wrapped, they were wrapped, she didn’t know if the stew was good, but it was done, and the birthday sign was legible, even if it was halfway on the ground.
She deadpanned at him. “Peeta would never leave the house in a state like this.”
Haymitch shrugged. “Peeta’s more decent than you and I.”
“Yes,” Katniss agreed quickly, because that was the one thing that they could always agree on. “But we’re trying to be more decent because it’s his birthday, so help me fix this sign,” she said, walking over to pick up the piece of string on the floor.
“I’ve got a better thing to fix.”
Katniss narrowed her eyes, his tone ringing oddly as his footsteps neared closer to her.
She turned toward him, just as one of his fingers wiggled into the side of her neck.
Katniss jumped away from the touch, but barely managed to suppress a giggle.
“Ah, so it does still work,” he said, a mischievous smile gracing his face that made him look much younger.
“Haymitch,” Katniss said, dropping the birthday sign, and backing up towards the kitchen. His eyes had a flicker in them that she didn’t particularly care for.
“Katniss,” he echoed back.
“Okay, the sign is fine,” she said, halfway through the kitchen with him still following her. “We’ll leave it there.”
Haymitch shrugged, nearly grinning at her. “Good to know.”
She squeezed her fingers together, she felt that same fluttery feeling in her chest whenever her dad would race her to the lake. “Would you stop it then?”
Haymitch innocently widened his eyes. “Stop what?”
Katniss suddenly wished she had her hunting boots on, they were easier to run in. “I will hunt you down.”
“You will not.” Haymitch laughed. “Your Burdock’s daughter, he was a softie and so are you, even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”
Maybe he was right, or maybe he wasn’t, either way, Katniss dove around the corner, trying to get away from him. Unfortunately, he anticipated her running this way, and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her down towards the ground.
Katniss tried to grab a hold of the kitchen counter but Haymitch wiggled his fingers across her ribcage, and it instinctively made her pull her arm down.
“Are you going to apologize for threatening me?”
“No,” Katniss huffed, trying in vain to wiggle out of his iron grip. “I’ve said way worse to you.”
“Fine, I’d rather enjoy this than get an apology anyways,” Haymitch said, as he sat on top of her legs.
“Ugh, you’re heavier than I remember you being,” Katniss groaned, trying and failing to push his dead weight off of herself.
“Did Effie teach you nothing in those politeness classes?”
Katniss gave him her smarmiest look, right up until he started dusting his fingers across her stomach. She twitched violently, and immediately shoved a hand against her mouth, as her other hand tried to pry his off to no avail.
“Ahh, finally some peace and quiet,” Haymitch sighed. “No one to tell me what to do.”
“Stop it!” Katniss hissed out, taking all of her power not to let her laughter pour out.
“Oh, and there’s that nagging little voice again.”
“I hate you!” she screeched, her voice bordering on shrilly. Her feet were drumming against the wood, her whole body spasming from the effort of keeping her giggles in. As she looked up at a smirking Haymitch, she could help but recognize that boy she’d watched on the tapes of the games all of those years ago, overly cocky, but still so young, and not quite broken by the world just yet.
“Oh, now that I don’t believe for a second sweetheart. Once upon a time, yes, but now we’ve come to an understanding about one another.”
Katniss rolled her eyes, which was an effort given her state. “Since when does our understanding include this?”
“Since Peeta dropped this little tidbit about you ten years ago.” Haymitch shrugged like they were having a casual conversation over tea. “Now, where’s the spot he told me about-” His fingers began to wander to the sides, landing on the sides of her ribcage. “Oh yeah, this one.”
Katniss snorted as he gently squeezed between the bones, then promptly clamped her hand over her mouth again.
“Aw, feeling a bit shy down there?” Haymitch asked, practically cooing.
Katniss flipped him off as she wiggled around on the floor, desperate to not let her laughs escape her. He was being so gentle with her, the damn bastard. If he was being rough with the touch at all, it wouldn’t have any effect on her. The capitol had all but wiped that away, but even some sensitivities had been left when the burn scars had faded and all her skin had been replaced.
She didn’t mind it with Peeta, but he at least gave her the decency not to tease, but Haymitch wasn’t as kind, and her face was already on fire from holding her desperate laughter in.
“You know what, I’m bored. Let’s just go for your worst spot shall we?” Haymitch said, clapping his hands together.
“No!” Katniss yelled trying to grab him.
He gently traced his fingernails against the side of her neck, and she slammed back down onto the ground, curling into a ball to get away from him. She waited for his hand to move to attempt to strike again, but her chance never came.
Unfortunately, he knew she tended to fight like a stray alley cat, so he wasted no time in diving for her feet, and wrestling them into a headlock. Katniss wasn’t even offered a chance at surrender until he began scribbling on her toes.
She sat up immediately, hitting his back as hard as she could trying to get him to let up, but he only laughed as she pounded her fists into him, her punches growing weaker the longer he held on.
“Just laugh already sweetheart, you’re fighting a loose battle.”
She felt like she was sixteen again, determined to prove him wrong, even if they were on the same side. “ No.”
“Alright, suit yourself,” he said, then began tickling her arches.
“No!” she yelped, but this time she wasn’t quick enough to get her hand over her mouth. Laughter began to pour out of Katniss Everdeen, loud, bright, and deep giggles escaped from her clutches, occasionally turning into snorts when he reached a bad spot.
“I hate you!” she yelled again, pounding her fists into the floor. She tried to turn it off, tried to focus on anything else other than the sensation of ten wiggling fingers against her bare feet, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t turn off her feelings anymore like she used to, too much time had passed, and too much healing had been done.
She tried to tell herself to block it out, to tell herself to escape, but her muscles had gone limp in Haymitch’s hold, her stupid trusting body knew him too well for her to fight him effectively.
“Are you done throwing your tantrum now?” Haymitch asked.
“I wasn’t throwing a tantru-” she started, then cut into a squeak as he resumed tickling her feet. “You are the wORST!”
“Nothing you haven’t said before,” he clucked, murmuring her earlier words.
Katniss had nearly met death before, but as she rolled around on the floor laughter pouring out of her, she was certain that this was truly what death felt like.
She whacked Haymitch in the back with what little remaining strength she had. Her face felt so red, her stomach ached with laughter, and her face hurt from smiling so widely.
The door creaked open, and Katniss rolled over to see who it was.
“Peeta help!” she instinctively yelled, then immediately collapsed back into laughter.
Peeta, being the evil man that he was, only smiled down at her. He didn’t even do her the service of looking surprised to see his wife being tickled to pieces by Haymitch on their kitchen floor. “What happened here?”
“I decided to give you the gift of giving Katniss an attitude adjustment for your birthday. Like it?” he asked, gesturing back at Katniss’ face.
Peeta bent down over Katniss’ bright red face and brushed some hair out of her face as she giggled herself silly.
“I do,” he smiled, briefly wiggling his finger into the side of her neck.
“Traitor!” she yelled, with a snort until she finally fell into silent laughter, squeezing her eyes shut as her body still twitched with laughter.
“Ah, I think that should be enough for the night,” Haymitch said, hopping off of her.
Katniss planted her feet against the floor, as if it would protect her from his wiggling fingers.
“I will get you back.”
Haymitch shrugged. “Not ticklish, remember?”
Katniss groaned in remembrance. “Not fair.”
“Life isn’t, sweetheart.”
Katniss hugged Peeta tightly, and then pulled him in for a quick kiss. “I’ll find another way.”
“Sure you will,” Haymitch drolled. He picked up another bottle of whisky, and Katniss didn’t bother to stop him that time.
“So what happened here?” Peeta asked, gesturing to the room around them. Katniss took in the messy sitting room, their lopsided sign, and the cake with a dent in it, and sighed.
“Happy birthday?” she said. “It was supposed to be more elaborate.”
“Careful, you’re still in arms length,” Haymitch warned.
Katniss took a step away from him, and into Peeta’s arms, which she wasn’t certain was much safer, but at least he was more ticklish than her. “It was supposed to be much more put together, but someone decided to be difficult.” She cleared her throat, but as she did so, she swore she could smell something burning.
She turned around to see drifts of smoke coming out of the oven, and belatedly remembered that she had left the bread in there.
She hurriedly opened the oven door, and pulled the bread out, to discover that most of it was entirely black. Grey smoke poured out of the oven and she coughed as she forced it shut.
“Well this is a waste,” she sighed.
Peeta smiled, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t know, burnt bread seems like a good way to ring in a new year.”
Haymitch cracked open the screen door to let some of the smoke out, the fresh spring air filling the house. “Yeah, I can’t think of any time that’s been significant to you two.”
Katniss rolled her eyes, but laughed. She hated to admit it, but he had a point.
Still, she couldn’t quite meet Peeta’s eyes, not when he was always so careful with her. He always made sure she had a good birthday, that he gave her space, but never let her wander far enough that she forgot all of the people who loved her here.
The year prior he had gathered everyone from district twelve to do a big feast where everyone brought their favorite foods and they all danced and sang late into the night.
It had been perfect, and she just wanted to give him that same glowy feeling in his chest like he had built in hers.
“Sorry for giving you a bad birthday Peeta,” she murmured, sheepishly looking up at him.
“What do you mean?” he asked, planting a kiss on her forehead. “It was perfect.”
Katniss snorted. “Yeah right.”
“No, I’m serious, walking in to see the two of you smiling was the greatest birthday gift I could ask for. Besides, this cake looks delicious,” Peeta said, sticking his finger in the icing just like Haymitch had.
“Huh,” Haymitch said, knocking his shoulder into hers. “Maybe I should do that more often.”
“Don’t get any ideas Haymitch.” Katniss rolled her eyes. “I let you do that.”
“Interesting,” he said, not commenting on it, but his eyes did all of the talking for him.
Peeta came to stand beside her, wrapping her in a tight hug. He smelled like vanilla and a hint of smoke which was probably her fault. “Thank you for the most amazing birthday.”
Katniss hugged him back, though she didn't feel that she was deserving of such praise.
Same time next year?” he asked, and she smiled. She knew what an honor it was to say that. What an honor it was to be alive a decade after the games, and to know that they had each other for many more birthdays.
She knew that eventually death would take them all, that Peeta’s hair would fade from blonde to brown, and perhaps even grey. She knew that Haymitch didn’t have as long as them, and that one day her and Peeta would be the village elders, but she had made the decision long ago that that was what she wanted.
She wanted not to be remembered for her childlike beauty, but to let mother nature have her way with her, to have marks from a life long lived. She wanted to be at every one of Peeta’s birthdays and him at hers, until they were celebrating their days with two graves next to each other.
“Happy birthday Peeta,” Katniss murmured.
“Happy birthday,” Haymitch said, saluting him with his bottle.
Katniss let the cool spring breeze dry the tears that were threatening to spill out of her eyes. War had taken so much from them, but if she could have this every year, even irritating Haymitch, then she would be happy for the rest of her life. She could be happy, because she still had her family.
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Author’s note: hi guys!!! It felt so good to write this one. I haven’t disappeared, I’ve just been working on my book for the past couple years. However, I got a little bit of a break so I decided to come and drop this like a cat dropping a dead mouse lovingly at your doorstep. I was v scared to write this one because Suzanne Collins is a once in a generation writer, and she has more talent in her left pinky than I ever will, but this idea was in my head since my reread last summer so I had to get it out. @writingfics-passingtime if you see this, thank you for encouraging me to write this like six months ago, lol.