must work hard, tolerate cats.
Prompt 140: In Panem AU where Peeta is a Mail Order Husband. As the youngest son of a merchant class Capitol family, he has accepted he will never inherit the family bakery. But when his family contract him to an arranged marriage to further the business he will never own, he escapes by signing up to a programme to relocate and marry a district woman. Why Katniss needs a husband, is up to the author. Everlark endgame :) [submitted by @louezem] by @mendontprotectyou/lesbianophelia
The Everdeen women pick him up at the train station. As promised in the letter he received, Katniss is wearing a blue dress. She’s sure by his standards, it’s simple, but it’s actually the nicest thing she and her sister own. Not that there’s a lot of money to spend on stupid things like clothes. Just a few years ago, she would have been wearing this to a Reaping. Not to meet her husband.
God. Her husband. She still isn’t sure Prim will survive to the end of the week for what she’s done. The worst thing is, Prim is right. There’s no other way to claim the Apothecary. One of them has to be married, and Katniss absolutely won’t let it be her eighteen year old sister. That doesn’t mean she wanted her to go off and pick a husband for her. Let alone one from the Capitol. Peeta Mellark. That’s his name. Apparently he comes from a long line of merchants – something that Prim is certain will work in their favor. Rich assholes from the Capitol who ran a chain of bakeries. Katniss really isn’t sure how that translates into him being any help at all at the Apothecary, but then – she isn’t really sure how she’s supposed to be much help at the Apothecary, either. It’s theirs, though. It belongs to them, rightfully. That’s what Prim keeps saying. It would have from the beginning, if their grandmother hadn’t so hated the joy her mother found with their coal miner father. And Prim is such a natural healer, and with their mother so recently dead in the war, isn’t this such a wonderful way to honor them? A wonderful way to honor them that apparently includes Katniss marrying some random asshole from the Capitol. Great. He kisses the back of her hand and she yanks it away before she can help herself. They’re in public, and they’ll need to be convincing in the Justice Building tomorrow, but also, god, she doesn’t want him to be touching her. He’s fine enough looking, she guesses. Medium height, stocky, blond hair. He’s got what’s clearly at least three holes in each ear from piercings he was clever enough not to wear to District Twelve, and the shirt he’s got rolled up around his forearms is probably made of fine enough fabric to keep them all in bread for a week. “Katniss,” he says, and his accent twists the name, makes it so much longer than it needs to be. “It’s so nice to meet you,” he says. “And you must be Prim. Pleasure.” His smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes. She doesn’t trust him. Not even a little bit. “So, is the Toasting–” She can’t help the absurd bark of laughter that escapes her. “We’re not Toasting,” she says, and something in his eyes lights, just a little. “Sorry to disappoint,” Katniss doesn’t feel sorry, but it escapes anyway, just manners. “I read–” “Katniss doesn’t need a husband,” Prim is explaining, something genuinely remorseful in her tone. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to say so in the letter, but it’s why I talked about the Apothecary so much.” “You wrote the letter?” Peeta asks, and Katniss is struck by how open he looks, suddenly. As if she would have written those letters. Or the ad in the first place. Must work hard, tolerate cats. “Wait– so if you don’t need a husband–” “I need to be married.” Katniss’s voice is flat. They probably shouldn’t be getting into this right away, on their walk to the house in the Seam that they’ll probably get to leave tomorrow, assuming he goes along with this. “To get the store. And we need –” She cuts herself off, hating that she admitted to needing anything. “You could work with us. For us.” “I –” it’s obvious that he’s attempting to work this out. “Not – you don’t want a husband?” he asks, and there’s something in his voice that she can’t place, not at all. Not until a smile breaks across his face like butter across hot toast. “Okay.” It’s a full grin, now. “That’s – I can work with that.” …
He can do much more than work with that. By the time Katniss wakes the next morning, Peeta has gone to the Justice Building by himself. She wants to be irritated by the nerve when he slides what’s obviously a deed across the breakfast table, but it’s – oh. It’s in her name. Well. His name, too. Looks like he decided to change from Mellark to Everdeen. “Aren’t we supposed to be married for a week first?” Katniss asks, tracing her fingers against the embossed seal. “Yeah.” Peeta bites his bottom lip. “But I – uh. People tend to listen to me. Sometimes.” She hopes he doesn’t think he ought to get used to that. …
Her objections to a Capitolite husband begin to feel more and more stupid as the days drag on. Peeta doesn’t talk much about the Capitol, maybe because he knows Katniss doesn’t actually care, but she overhears him mentioning something to Prim about how he used to work twelve to sixteen hour days at his family’s bakeries. Of course he’s telling Prim and not her. Because she tries not to be alone with him if she can help it. He’s polite, but she hasn’t been exactly warm to him and he hasn’t seemed to care much, which seems odd for someone who was so prepared to come and have a Toasting. One night, in the darkness of the bedroom, Prim lays in the bed beside her and shares everything she knows about the man who lives with them. Starting with his family being horrible and ending with him making the decision that marrying some random District girl would be better than marrying the woman his parents picked for him, a woman from a long line of Gamemakers. It explains enough, she guesses. Why he was so relieved that Katniss didn’t want a husband. Why he’s so willing to work. And work, and work, and work. He never even complains, though she’s always waiting for him to crack and mention how irritated he was to have to haul the new delivery back from the train station. But he doesn’t. He even builds new shelves one weekend, sturdy and reinforced, and packs everything from the boxes onto them before either of the Everdeen women are down the stairs in the morning. Prim launches herself at him, hugging him so hard that it must hurt, and then he’s laughing, sharing pastries from the bakery next door – which he’s apparently set up a trade deal with – and telling them all about when he saw a cake stand go crashing to the ground because it wasn’t steady enough. And then he passes the bag to Katniss when all that’s left is the lonely cheese bun he managed to trade for and says, “Here. Your favorite.” And she can’t look away from him the rest of the day, try as she might.
…
None of the Townie girls can, either. And she’s surprised, one day, to realize just how much that bothers her. It shouldn’t. Business is booming. It’s better than she ever expected it to be. “Do you get lonely?” she asks one night when she finds him still awake in the middle of the night, a mug of tea cupped loosely in his hand. “It just – doesn’t seem like you have friends.” He laughs softly. “Doesn’t seem like you have many of those, either,” he says. And she wants to be annoyed, she does, but instead she finds herself smiling. “Yeah,” she says. “But I have my sister.” “I think, technically, I do too,” he says, and before she can be too horrified, he clarifies. “She’s my sister-in-law, right?” “Oh.” Katniss shifts her weight. “Okay.” … “This is a good life,” Peeta says one evening. They’re out on the porch, watching the sunset. Prim went inside to get a drink of water. “It’s – better. Than what I left.” She’d like to be prideful. To hate him for lying to her, or something. But there’s something in the way he looks at her that tells her that this is the truth. Her hand finds his, and she’s somehow unsurprised when it flips over beneath her palm, large fingers threading in the spaces between hers. It’s nice, somehow. He’s nice, somehow. “It’s a good life,” Katniss agrees, half wondering if he might ever want to kiss the back of her hand again, the way he did when they met. “I used to work so much longer days, in the Capitol–” he starts, but she’s already worked up the nerve to say the next thing, and it falls out of her mouth before she can stop it. “You should take me out, sometime. On a date. That would be – I think I wouldn’t mind.” He squeezes her fingers, just softly. “I think I wouldn’t, either.”
