What Goes Around
Title: What Goes Around
Written by: @wildlyglittering
Prompt 44: Peeta has a gf before entering college where she meets Katniss. K&P are both in the same major/dept. They break up and he and Katniss become really close and everybody thinks they’re a thing but part of Katniss thinks he’s not over his ex so he never asks her out even if they have chemistry and all. Something happens and the ex ends up transferring to the same major/dept and Katniss is extremely frustrated because she’s fallen for Peeta but the ex is trying to make sure Peeta never gets over her
Rating: T (to start with)
Notes: Because there is something clearly wrong with me I decided to take two prompts and turn them both into WIPs. So this is part 1/ part of part 1 that is now a WIP. I don’t know if I’m entirely happy with how this has turned out so far but thought I would give it a go!
“Well I don’t know. Have you tried under the stairs?” Her foot beat out a constant tap against the wood floor of the hallway as she eyed up the clock on the wall, the big hand steadily ticking its way to twelve. There was a reply from the receiver pressed to her ear but if she was honest she hadn’t heard a word. A minute into the conversation and Katniss had thrown out a series of locations in a panic, hoping to get her Mom off the line. She was, as it turned out, failing miserably.
The million-dollar question was why, with a few minutes until her class started, had she taken the call? Especially when she saw who it was calling. The only explanation was that guilt and a sense of daughterly responsibility had won out which had resulted in a ball of anxiety squirming in her gut for her efforts.
“Mom.” There was no sign of the other woman stopping but Katniss pressed on. “Mom. I have to go.” At those words her Mom’s voice took on a familiar wobbling tone but she knew if she stayed on the call any longer then she would be dealing with another of her mother’s episodes. “Mom, I’m going now. Bye. Bye.” She stressed the last goodbye with more finality before quickly ending the call before another word could be said.
“Jesus Christ.” With each syllable she gently hit the back of her head against the wall she was leaning on and took a moment to shut her eyes.
The desperation to leave home for college had built up over a long, hot summer and every moment she had been in that house, just her and her Mom, Katniss swore she was one minute nearer to committing a random act of violence. When the start of semester finally arrived, she threw everything she had into her old rucksack, chucked it in the car and drove off at full speed.
For about five blissful minutes she had been free.
Before she stupidly, stupidly, answered the phone she had been heading into Professor Abernathy’s Psych class and was now late. Three lectures in and she wasn’t too sure what she had learnt about Psychology so far but she had learnt that Abernathy was a mean, rude man. Due to the classes popularity and mismatched lecture hall size, being late meant you didn’t get a seat. The Professor held a ‘no seat, no stay’ policy, stating that those who wanted to attend his class would ‘damn well be on time.’ In previous lectures those who hadn’t quite made it and who had nervously twitched and hovered by the door were unceremoniously kicked out. One even had a pen thrown in their direction.
That morning Katniss got to watch, with increasing alarm, as fellow students filed in ahead of her. She took a moment to question whether she needed to attend the class at all, contemplating taking a non-attendance mark over public humiliation. The problem was Professor Abernathy also operated a rather strict ‘three strikes’ rule for no-shows and with circumstances the way they were she knew she couldn’t risk it. Those non-attendance marks needed to be bankable.
She groaned out loud to the quiet hallway. There was only one thing to do. “Fuck. My. Life,” she muttered and hoisted her bag over her shoulder. Public humiliation it was then. If she was quick she stood a chance at successfully ducking from whatever it was he decided to throw at her and if a miracle occurred then she might be able to sneak in unnoticed and discover an empty sear. Please, she begged, to no one, to the universe. You have everything else. Just give me this one thing.
Katniss pushed the door open and crept in, her stomach instantly stopping its fight to flee her body. The place where the grumpy, dark haired man usually stood at the front of the hall was…. empty. The miracle she had wanted had happened, she had somehow arrived before the professor. Thank you, she thought. Maybe pathetic pleading does work.
In the absence of an adult, a proper adult, the lecture hall was buzzing. Students sat chatting away to each other, leaning across rows to reach people they knew or were taking the time to scroll through their phones. Some students, the extremely pretty group of blonde girls that gravitated towards each other in lecture one, were even taking selfies. Katniss walked up the first steps past them, rolling her eyes. This is what people did when they found themselves at a loose end? She could be wrong but she was sure class was for learning, not for making friends.
Despite the win on a temporarily absent professor, she was faced with her second battle. Her eyes scanned the lecture hall for a seat and succeeded only in find a whole lot of nothing. Well shit. Maybe this was why people made friends with classmates. When you end up in a crappy class with bad seating arrangements at least a friend could help you out when you ran late. She turned around and was about to head out the door in defeat when she heard it. Over the noise of the talking and the laughter, Katniss thought she heard a yell of ‘hey by the door!’
Frowning, she looked up and around, her eyes sweeping over the heads of her peers. Then she saw it. Six rows up on the right side by the aisle. An arm waved in the air followed by another shout from a voice, a guy’s voice. “Hey, do you want a seat?”
Katniss looked behind her quickly to see if another tardy student had followed behind her. No. Just her.
“Yeah, you with the braid. There’s a spare here!”
Heat flushed her cheeks. Well this was public humiliation on a different level. A quick glance around however, told her that no one seemed to have paid any attention. Her foot waivered on the step. It was probably a matter of minutes before Professor Abernathy turned up and Katniss had learnt the hard way that beggars couldn’t be choosers. Gritting her teeth, she made her way up the stairs towards where the arm was still waving. Great, she got to be a charity case here too.
When she reached the seat, the guy was bent down, shoving his bag onto the floor of the spare seat next to him as he moved across to it, freeing up the aisle one for Katniss. A quick look at his back told her nothing aside from the fact he had wavy blonde hair and very broad shoulders. Jock, she noted. I see how this is. A dumb jock who thinks he can copy from me. This day is just getting better,
She murmured a quick ‘thanks,’ and threw her own bag onto the ground sliding into the seat next to his, keeping her eyes down whilst hoping that would be the full level of their interaction.
There was a chirpy, “you’re welcome!” followed by a pause. “I saw you on the phone out there and thought you might want a seat saved. I know how this class gets.”
He was obviously a talker. Marvellous. If she humoured him and thanked him again he may just accept it and leave her in peace. If he didn’t, then she would tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t interested in conversation. Katniss turned to look at him, her mouth open with a quick and curt reply.
Oh. Oh. He wasn’t entirely what she was expecting. He was grinning at her. No, not grinning, beaming at her, a wide and pleasant smile spreading across an equally pleasant face. She realised that her mouth was still open but no reply was coming out. She quickly spoke, “um yeah. Thank you. Again.”
“You’re welcome. Again!”
She mustered a small smile at him and looked down at her bag, readying to get her notebook out but he must have read the smile as a sign of encouragement because he leant towards her, his voice low. “You know he does it deliberately?”
“Sorry?”
“Professor Abernathy overbooks his classes on purpose. It’s not because he likes to make people suffer,” he shrugged. “Ok, maybe there’s a bit of that, but it’s his specialist area of interest. His first ever thesis was on in-group and out-group behaviour in stress related situations.” He leaned in, even closer, and Katniss saw that his eyes, a remarkable shade of blue, were shining with humour. “A few years ago he took his final thesis students on a survivalist week and created awful living conditions to see how they would react. It was so bad that by the fifth day they snapped and tied him to a pole.”
She laughed before she could help it and watched as his face lit up. “Guys a mad genius. His next study is on conformity to authority. I think he’s started with yelling at people to get out of his class. Who knows where it will go.”
Where indeed, she thought. Instead she asked, “how do you know all this?” and internally cringed as she said it. Dammit, a conversation was the one thing that she didn’t want to start and now she was actively participating in one. He didn’t seem to mind though, in fact he almost seemed pleased that she’d asked.
“My brother took this class. He was actually the one that had the idea to tie up Professor Abernathy to the pole.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline and the guy chuckled.
“I swear it sounds worse than it is. According to my brother Abernathy told him he had ‘spunk.’”
“And are you taking this class because you’re hoping to tie someone up?” As soon as she said it she regretted it. A stunned look took over his face and there was a pause while his mouth opened and closed. He was now either thinking she was implying he was a sadist of some sort or was thinking she was flirting with him. It wasn’t the first and it certainly wasn’t the last. Mortification flooded through her and she started to look around for another seat. If she couldn’t find one then maybe she would chance it and just let Abernathy throw stationery at her head.
Before she could swap one embarrassment for another Katniss heard a chuckle from her right and she glanced over at him. He was rubbing the back of his neck and his face had pinkened, a blush decorating his cheeks. “I promise I’m not taking this class for some re-enactment of my brother’s glory moment. Professor Abernathy is really revered in his field. I just finished his new book before the semester and-”
There was a slam from the hall door and the man in question stormed in. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he called out to the room. “I’m late and I’m not going to apologise for it. Now shut the hell up and pay attention.” Katniss rolled her eyes. Well glad to see that he could be late without consequence.
Her new conversation buddy caught her attention from the corner of her eye and mouthed ‘yeah, I know!’ followed by a sheepish smile at which, for some strange reason, she found her mouth had moved itself into a half smile in return.
For the rest of the lecture she couldn’t help but peek at him from the corner of her eye. There was something so irritatingly wholesome about him and Katniss realised, as she watched him take note after note on the material, that she had him wrongly pegged as a dumb jock. If anything, it was more obvious that she would benefit from copying from him.
Still, she hadn’t been entirely wrong on the jock front. When she first saw him she had noticed those broad shoulders and his physical presence seemed to take over the flimsy lecture hall seat he was sat in. Not in weight but in frame. While Katniss seemed to be small and inconspicuous in hers he seemed, solid. Stocky. And because she wasn’t a complete idiot she had also noticed that his sweatshirt said ‘D12 Wrestling Team 2017.’ That explained the build even if the slightly angelic looking blonde waves didn’t entirely fit the image.
When the bell finally rang, signalling the end of the hour, Katniss started. For someone so desperate to make it to this lesson she had paid surprisingly little attention during it. The guy next to her was packing up and she started to close her notebook, wincing at the lack of decent notes. She felt a rush of irritation at herself for getting distracted. This wasn’t why she was here. She couldn’t afford distractions. Sighing she grabbed her bag and threw everything in, leaping up from the chair and was wondering if the professor would post the lecture content online when she heard his voice again.
“Hey!”
She turned and almost tripped over her own bag strap but his hand shot out and grabbed at her elbow, keeping her upright. “Sorry! That was my fault, I shouldn’t have distracted you!” His eyes were wide and Katniss thought she could see genuine concern but she wrenched her elbow away from his grip, the feel of his warm fingers around her bare arm making her shift uncomfortably.
“Sorry. Again.” The same blush as before started to bloom across his face. She nodded and turned to walk down the steps. After a few seconds she realised he had joined her.
“I’m really hoping I’m not coming across as creepy but I was wondering if you wanted to take a copy of my notes? I noticed that you hadn’t written much and I think it was my fault. I probably put you off with what I was saying before the lecture so if you want my notes I’m happy to share.”
Jesus was this guy for real? She wanted to tell him that she was fine. She didn’t need his notes, she didn’t need his conversation and she didn’t need him to save a seat for her. Except, frustratingly, she did. Not the conversation maybe, she had never been one for that but she had needed a seat. And now she needed his damn notes. Sighing she turned to him. “Yeah that would be good, thanks. Maybe we could meet up before the next lecture. I could take some copies then?”
“Sounds great. I’m Peeta by the way.” He held out his hand for her to shake, such an unexpected gesture that she stalled and was immediately jostled by someone behind her. You are winning at life today Everdeen. She scowled at the person behind her who held their palms up and walked round her. She then scowled at Peeta’s upturned hand. Ugh. This is not want she wanted. She did not want polite people and possible friendships.
Reaching out with her hand, she shook his. “Katniss.” She would meet him before the next lecture, get copies and then go. It was a large class and she was small, she could blend in so he would never find her and start up a conversation again.
When they exited the lecture hall they walked to the side of the hallway and stood in the same place earlier where Katniss had answered her phone. Peeta had insisted that they swap numbers so that they could arrange to meet up for Katniss to get the copies. It made sense but she was still reluctant in giving her number over, not fully trusting that he would meet up and hand over the notes and dubious over the intentions of any guy with a girl’s number.
When they finished she said goodbye and turned to walk away but before she could he stopped her again. “I know I’m a pain in the ass.” She said nothing. “But I was thinking it would be good to have someone to talk over the lectures with, go over the assignments with, that sort of thing. Thought we could tackle this course together. If you’re interested?”
She frowned. Katniss didn’t know whether it was at him directly, at the whole concept of a class friend or if this was her face now. A semi-permanent frown.
Together? What the hell was he thinking?
