tell me all your thoughts on God

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

tell me all your thoughts on God

Peeta/Katniss, thunderstorms and a leaky roof, for blooddancer :)

Another drop hits the pail, and Katniss seems to curl in on herself.

The thunderstorm doesn’t appear to bother Dani, who continues to babble to herself as she tries to eat her stuffed bear, but Peeta recognizes the deadened daze that creeps across Katniss, and he is desperate to stop it. Another drop falls from the leaky roof. Katniss draws her knees to her chest.

He should’ve fixed the roof.

They’ve lived over the bakery for years; they moved in as soon as it was built, as soon as they could, desperate to escape the ghosts that haunted their houses in Victor’s Village, and Peeta loves the home they’ve made for themselves. It’s small, but it’s warm, and it’s theirs, and he loves it.

He needs to repair the roof, though. Katniss told him that it needed to be fixed weeks ago.

She volunteered to do it, but he protested, promising that he would.

But he hasn’t, not yet, and the rain that beats against the roof slips through four different cracks.

Dani shoots to her feet, wobbles, and lands on her butt. She rocks for a second, moves to her knees, and, triumphant, stands. She stumbles towards Katniss, and Katniss pulls Dani into her lap with practiced hands. She doesn’t seem to think about it, her eyes trained on the wall. Dani waits.

She doesn’t wait for long, though. She pokes Katniss in the stomach. “Ma. Ing.”

They’re new, the demands. Dani wants what she wants when she wants it, and they’re not allowed to refuse or they’re faced with tears and screams and thrown teddy bears. And what Dani wants most, rain or shine, is to have her mama sing something for her. “Ma. Ing.” She wiggles, impatient.

Katniss blinks, eyes almost owlish when she looks at Dani, as though she can’t remember who her daughter is. She looks at Peeta, and he nods, crosses the little room, and scoops Dani from her lap.

Dani isn’t thrilled, and she kicks his stomach, her forehead creased, reaching for Katniss.

He doesn’t let her start to cry; instead, on a whim, he starts to sing himself. His voice cracks during the first verse, but Dani stares at him with wide, shocked eyes, silent and still, as though she can’t fathom this new development. He makes a funny face, and she giggles, delighted. He spins, and her babble becomes louder and louder, and happier and happier, and more and more unintelligible.

The windows glow with lightening, and the thunder follows, booming, and rain leaks through another crack on the roof. Peeta holds Dani on his hip as he starts downstairs for another bucket.

As soon as he can tomorrow, he will repair the entire stupid roof.

Katniss touches his arm, and he is surprised, but she takes Dani from him. She smiles.

Her eyes are her own, and she isn’t lost. “Do you want to dance, Dani?” she asks. Peeta hears his daughter giggle as he moves down the dark stairs, and he smiles to himself. He doesn’t really understand; usually when Katniss loses herself, she is lost for at least a few hours, but maybe —

Maybe their worst days are over.

Maybe their darkest days are finished. Maybe the days when Katniss couldn’t leave bed from sunrise to sunset and he was forced to lock himself in the bathroom for the entire afternoon are finished.

He finds a chipped flour bowl that will work, and he returns to his girls.

Katniss is sashaying around the room, Dani on her hip, twirling and singing and acting silly, and Dani laughs madly, face pink, chubby fists flailing. “Are you going to gawk at us, Papa,” Katniss starts, “or are you going to dance with us?” She raises her eyebrows. He raises his arms, sways his hips, smirks at her. And she snorts. “It looks like you can dance as well as you can sing, Mellark.”

“I love when you boost my self-esteem,” he says, and he breaks into song.

He suspects his eighteen-month-old might not be the only one who enjoys his awful vocals.

The storms doesn’t pass as quickly as the worst storms usually do, but Dani falls asleep before another hour passes, and Peeta turns off the lights as Katniss crawls into bed. The rain continues to pound the windows, and drops continue to hit the five pails scattered throughout the small flat.

“Goodnight,” he murmurs to Katniss, kissing her forehead. “I’ll fix the roof tomorrow, I promise.”

He closes his eyes.

“Our house in the Seam was shoddy,” Katniss whispers. “The roof always leaked.”

And he opens his eyes. She wants to talk about it. She doesn’t usually like to talk about it.

“The old bakery used to leak, too,” he admits.

Katniss curls closer. “Prim hated thunderstorms.”

He nods, waits, strokes her hair.

“But I used to tell her not to listen to the thunder,” she continues, voice so soft. “I told her that the rain from the leaky roof, hitting the buckets, was like a song. I told her to listen to that. And we would sing, and dance, too, and she wouldn’t be scared.” He can feel her smile against his chest.

It’s quiet. A moment later, lightening flashes, sends shadows through the flat. A crack of thunder follows. He listens to the rain drops hit the pails and buckets and bowls. It is like a song, he thinks.

“Peeta, you’re a really good father,” she murmurs. She shifts, and she props her arms on his chest, looks into his face. “Don’t let me be like my mother,” she says. “Don’t let me forget to love Dani.”

He thinks of lots of things to say. She won’t forget to love Dani, she couldn’t. She isn’t like her mother, never has been and never will be. She is the most wonderful mother in the whole world.

But none of that is what Katniss needs to hear, is it?

“I won’t,” he whispers.

She leans forward, kisses him, nuzzles his nose. “Goodnight.”

He is ready to tackle the roof as soon as he finishes the morning bread orders, but Katniss tells him not to bother. “There are worse things than a leaky roof,” she says, emptying the pails in the sink. She flicks a little water at him, and she uses Dani as a shield when he tries to flick flour at her.

Cheater.

fin.