First Entrance

[real_or_notreal]

It only takes one step.

To know this is not his house in Victor's Village.
Not any place found in District 12.
Not Seam or Merchant or Hob.






Peeta's not one of the best people for random surprise locations.
Especially after The Capital & The Arena & Victor's Village.



[Tiny!Victor Tag: Peeta Mellark
Everyone's thread to take place after Gale's.]

Comments

[real_or_notreal]

About the same age. At least roughly guessing. Especially when factoring the bruising. How wrong is it that makes him more sure. Peeta at least gave a faint nod.

"He deserve it?"

[not_his_pa]

"Yes, he was tellin' lies about my mother,"

And his father sort of but that was more indirectly, it felt good to punch him.

[real_or_notreal]

"Hopefully, he learned his lesson then. You want any ice?"


It's even a logical reasons to check out the kitchen!

[not_his_pa]

"Could do with some more, the dry keeps makin' it open up again. He was until we were pulled apart."

[real_or_notreal]

"I saw a kitchen that way. I'm sure they have some in it somewhere," he said, getting up and pushing his chair in. Starting to lead the boy that way, he said, "I'm Peeta."

[not_his_pa]

"William, yeah, think there's one behind the counter,"

He hasn't been back there yet and follows Peeta.

[real_or_notreal]

Peeta can't go skulking off by himself. But with a purpose. At least there's a multifaceted nature to it. He'd like to know everything. But getting into a kitchen isn't entirely about reconnaissance.





Even if he does stop a few feet inside the door.


"Huh." There's a lot of unfamiliar stuff on the counters.

[not_his_pa]

Its the cleanest kitchen William's ever seen and he stares,

"What's it all do?"

[real_or_notreal]

"Make something for eating, I assume."

Even as he's staring rather close at something on the counter with some twenty buttons on it and a glass contraption on top, there's some sense to his words.

"It might be best not to touch them." Yet.

[not_his_pa]

"Wasn't plannin' on it,"

He's wearing his work gloves and has a fine layer of dust on him, he hates to think what all that dust would do to those ovens,

"You know about cookin'?"

[real_or_notreal]

Peeta walked along one of the counters, headed toward an tall standing ice box, with more doors than normals, but looking over the strange things loitering the counter on the way there.


"My parents are bakers."


It's a little strange to not be known here.

[not_his_pa]

"Oh, we've got a head of cattle,"

At this point he's running the ranch, but that gets in the way and he follows Peeta. That thing sort of looks like an ice box.

[real_or_notreal]

While Peeta knows what that is he's never seen one outside a text book. But it doesn't keep him from nodding like he might have. It's habit. From the Capitol now.

Smooth. Straight.


The End of the Universe Ice Box is all sorts of baffling. There's a few different doors and drawers in it. With a lot of things Peeta can't tell the shape of, no less if it would be edible or kill one for breathing it.



"You'd think it couldn't be too hard to find the--Oh, here it is. Under--well, whatever that is." It was purple and solidly frozen. But Peeta wouldn't want it on his face.


"You see a cup or some kind of bag anywhere?"

[not_his_pa]

"I've got a bandanna, that'll work fine,"

The purple thing looks odd and William opens his bandanna for the ice.

[real_or_notreal]

Peeta picked ice pieces out that weren't in unmanageable frozen-together clumps. Placing handfuls of it into William's bandanna.


"You should be good with that."

[not_his_pa]

"Thanks, yeah, nice to be able to get ice here. Doesn't really last long at home and its expensive,"

He puts the bandanna on his face and relaxes slightly as his face numbs.

[real_or_notreal]

"It's like that a lot in our district, too."

He doesn't really count himself as an example of everyone anyone. Not since they moved him to Victor's Village. Where the money, as well as the eternal servitude to winning changed the availability of everything.

[not_his_pa]

"Where are you from?"

Its always hard to tell here.

[real_or_notreal]

"District 12 in Panem."

[not_his_pa]

"Don't know it. I'm from outside Bisbee in Arizona Territory."

[real_or_notreal]

"I don't know yours either."

There's some faint relief in getting to help someone his age instead of having to consider the alternative. The fact the alternative creeps around his mind, like a ghost never letting him forget.

"I've heard it's normal here?"

[not_his_pa]

"Seems to be, but I've met folks from home here too,"

His gaze darts over to the rats moving around their feet, seeing his Pa here hurt.

[real_or_notreal]

The rats are still weird. So is the whole idea they serve food to people. It seems terribly unsanitary. His parents shut down things for a day if one was seen. All situations to be handled.


And they were normal here.



"Really?"

[not_his_pa]

William still wasn't used to them, mainly they were something to look at,

"Yes, my Pa and another fellow,"

There's a lot of pushed down hurt and anger in his voice as he tries to find something else to talk about.

[real_or_notreal]

It shows, for anyone paying enough attention. And Peeta is all about the details of this completely impossible, supposedly non-Capitol, place that existed at him for supposedly no reason.

Different tactic. He switches, with a smile, closing the strange ice box back up. Stacking things how they were before he'd ended up moving them.

"How long've you been here?"