Deep in the Meadow - Peeta Mellark X Reader

1. Reaping Day

"True that love in withdrawal was the weeping of me
That the sound of the saw must be known by the tree
Must be felled for to fight the cold
I fretted fire but that was long ago"

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

I stand, staring blankly as the tension of the warm day grew thick in the air. It was quiet. The silence was so deafening I could almost convince myself I could hear the coyotes in woods beyond the electric fence. That cursed fence that keeps us trapped in the district like cattle waiting for slaughter. Well, almost keeps us trapped.

I think of my time spent this morning sitting in the meadow, a little ways out from town. The big tree that rests in that field, such a sacred thing for me. I had been under its branches, humming softly to myself as Worm rested beside me. Worm. My beloved cat. My only family. My only friend.

I suppose he technically isn't my only family. Not when I have a dad, but is he really my dad? I never see him anywhere but our couch, slumped over and covered in sticky alcohol. I can't blame him, if I was a victor who, year after year, was forced to mentor and watch two kids die every year for the past twenty years, I too, would be slumped in my couch fast asleep with a bottle in hand. He hadn't always been this bad, but on this fateful day, four years ago, the worst that could've happened, did. My brother, my dear sweet twin brother, Sage, was whisked away onto that stage. His death was the hardest on dad.

I can't imagine having to mentor your own kid, your twelve year old who hadn't even hit puberty yet, was very easy, and his inevitable death was dad's last tipping point, which I hadn't even known could be possible. After that, dad was fully checked out. The infamous Haymitch Abernathy, never to be seen again until the reaping ceremony. Not a word was spoken to me, it was as if I simply didn't exist. No more "good luck", no more trying to convince me that everything would be okay. Nothing. Just him and his bottle against the cruel world.

Of course, he wasn't my real dad. No, he was more like the drunk uncle. My mother had been the sister to his late girlfriend. The girlfriend who was murdered because of his victory, or at least how his victory came about. At least that's what I heard. Somehow, in some twisted fate, he had been the one to take us in when our mother died of an illness, and our father had been long gone in a mining accident. He felt it was the last thing he could do to make it up to my aunt, feeling nothing but grief and responsibility for her murder. He didn't mind being called dad, but as I got older, I stopped addressing him that way to his face, or really to anyone I talked to. He wasn't my father, and he made no effort to be one, but he was the closest thing I had to it. It kept me out of the family home, away from the angry hands of those in charge of it, and despite Haymitch's booze habit, he was a victor and paid well, so nobody dared to try to remove me from his custody, which I was thankful for.

The girls around me stand, palms sweating, a nervous and scared aura encasing them in this quiet clearing. It was almost suffocating. I watch as they steal glances with their siblings or friends, a silent conversation between them. A conversation only they fully understand, but others could guess. A way of saying "It's okay. You won't be picked this year."

I glance to the sixteen year old section of the boy's side, the section my brother should have been standing. The one I should have been making eye contact with right now, but alas, he was not there. I knew he wouldn't be, but it still hurt. The look of his face on that screen when he was killed during the bloodbath haunts my every moment.

Instead, I meet the gaze of a boy I know to be Gale. Presumably, he had been making that nonverbal conversation with the girl next to me, Katniss, a small smile on his face as if she had said something funny. But now, his eyes rest on me. He nods and I nod back, glancing forward as the unbelievably boring video begins to play, as it does every year.