2

Peeta sleeps late the next morning. Part of it is because how much Katlanna wore him out the previous night. The other part is fear of what more Katlanna will do to him if he's awake. But if she does, he sure hopes it's sex; last night's was AWESOME and EPIC.

Someone squeezes his scrotum. He yelps.

"Get up. You'll be late for work."

Peeta blinks his eyes. They're still blurry from sleep. Katniss is a brunette again! And she seems in dimmer spirits than before.

"Katniss? Is it really you?"

She chuckles. "What the fuck you talking about?! It's always been me. Now get up and get to work; this house doesn't run on faith...and neither does your hygiene, if I might add."

Peeta scoffs. His wife gets more stink complaints than he does.

Outside, Katniss is building a mousetrap. Or rather, that's what she calls it. Peeta would call it a contraption that tortures mice for ages before killing them. If anyone else didn't know any better, they'd say that Katniss was biased against mice...

Buttercup lies on the porch, purring and licking himself. Katniss tries to ignore it for as long as she can. But at long last, she pulls a machete out of an umbrella stand that contains enough machetes to equip a posse. She throws it, and the cat makes a disgusted sound and sprints away.

Okay, fine; it's not mice she's biased against, after all...

"You know," Peeta offers, coming outside, "mice are as smart as humans. It's like you're torturing our kindred spirits before killing them, and..."

"These mice are a scourge," Katniss grumbles. "So is Buttercup. And Buttercup sits around here WAY too much. It's about time we got something more suitable to replace him."

Peeta chuckles. "You know how stubborn that cat is. And he doesn't have anywhere else to go. Our nearest neighbor isn't..."

"I DON'T CARE," Katniss shouts. "Cats aren't the only means of killing mice, and it's about time I forgot about my sister! And Buttercup does WAY more than remind me of her. Now, if I recall correctly, MILA's got a job for you that she can't do herself-for some weird reason I'm not high-tech enough to understand."

Peeta is just glad Katniss is herself again. He creeps up behind her, and tries to hug her from behind...

"Go to work, Peeta!" Katniss shakes him off, and keeps working on the trap.

Peeta sighs, and does what she says. He swears that some days it feels like Katniss doesn't love him.

At work, he takes his lunch breaks with MILA's other employees. He likes them, but... Sometimes it feels like they only like him because he's married to the Girl on Fire. And if recent things between him and Katniss don't become really easy really soon, he could be barking up Divorce Tree, and when and if that happens, he'll soon be eating lunch alone...like the solitary kid he once hoped never to become.

They talk to him about how wonderful his wife is. His wife inspired a lot of them during the Revolution, and their lives have gotten SO much better after they realized they could be free from Snow's reign, and start jerking off to hot sex fantasies of the Girl on Fire in the buff, and declare their independence from fiances who they'd been pledging marriage to for years before...

At last, Peeta cuts them off, and tells them that he's been having problems with her. He tells them about the night before-as best he can, considering that he'd rather not have them know the details. Plus, they'd take too long to list, and this lunch break isn't infinite. MILA hates it when her slaves take long lunches, after all...

"Ah man, that sounds serious, Pete. You should bring her to MILA, and have her check her out."

One of the other guys shushes him. "You know how MILA feels when her slaves accuse her of being a lesiban behind her back!"

"She's an AI," a third one says. "She shouldn't be feeling anything!"

"Look," Peeta outlines. "So far, she's only done this just this one time. I won't take her to MILA before I know how serious this is. Tonight, she'll probably still be the same old cold-shouldered, mouse-torturing, clothed, brunette Katniss..."

Six hours later, Peeta's hanging upside down over a barrel of whiskey, in the buff, with a long stick tied to his back. He's almost sobbing.

Next to him, the two hogs and coyote from last night are hanging over their own separate whiskey barrels. They're lucky; they're already dead.

Katlanna Snowdeen is back. Her hair is blonde again, and she's back in the buff. She holds up a pistol, for Peeta to see. Peeta shivers...

Katlanna pulls the trigger. A flame burns from the muzzle.

At first, Peeta sighs with relief. But then Katniss sets the first hog's barrel of whiskey on fire...and Peeta remembers his troubles with the scarier half of...who should be his wife, but doesn't seem to remember that, for some weird reason.

When the hog's fire is lit, it severs a string. The hog falls. One end of its spit lands on something. The spit falls over, to where it's slowly turning.

Peeta shivers. He faced a lot of scary things in the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell, but...he never imagined that his legacy would be his roasted long pork feeding his wife.

How could she do this to him? She HATED Snow...didn't she?

She travels slowly. Peeta wishes she'd hurry up-not that he's ambitious about dying, or anything...

She smiles, and studies the barrel the coyote's hanging over. She smiles, rubs the poor dog's brisket one last time, and lights his whiskey.

Now Peeta's whimpering like a dog. Nearby, Buttercup hisses angrily-as if he mistook Peeta for an actual dog.

"Now, now, calm down, kitty-kitty," Katlanna smiles. "If one of those real awful things was nearby, you wouldn't even be out here to observe."

She stops by the second hog's barrel, and looks at the hog. Peeta watches.

She looks it up and down, for a long time, and sighs. A nourishing breeze blows by the shotgun house, and her hair all around her face. And, she smiles. Peeta's half-relieved...

She starts to walk past the hog. Peeta almost sighs with relief.

At the last second, Katlanna lights the hog's booze. The hog's spit falls into place, and the hog starts roasting.

Peeta starts whimpering again. Buttercup hisses again.

Katlanna shushes him again. "Quiet, kitty. Those coyotes love their BDSM. One of them could mistake your hiss for a distress call, and come out here and start tooth-wrestling you."

After that, Buttercup doesn't so much as pur. Peeta smiles...but it doesn't last long; the second hog's barrel was the last one before his.

Katlanna walks up to him, twirling the lighter in her hand. Peeta's almost crying. She looks at him. He's begging her for mercy.

She smiles at him. She turns around, squats, and rummages around in a pile for something. Her bare ass is in full and present view. And with no full moon out tonight, her moon is the fullest he can see...

She stands, and turns back around. She's still got the lighter. And, she's got a goblet in her other hand. Peeta watches her, in horror...

She moistens her lips. She lights the lighter; Peeta winces. She sticks the burning end into the goblet, moves it around, moves it over the rim of the goblet a few times, turns it off, and puts it away. She fetches some booze from the barrel, and drinks it. She refills it, and wets Peeta's lips...as he's hanging upside down.

She lies down on top of the barrel. She severs Peeta's string. His spit falls, and he falls down, front-down, on top of her. He's on the spit now, and he's rotating-they both are.

She clings to him as his spit spins around and around. "Tonight," she says, smiling and kissing him, "I'm not just the Girl on Fire. I'm the Girl AND the Fire. And I'M roasting you," she giggles, "Pete-Pa."

Pete-Pa?! Now THERE'S something Katniss has never called her husband-or any man, that matter, let alone Gale...

This would make Peeta sick-if he'd had more than one goblet of booze. At least Katlanna has more access to drinking it than he does...even if it's only every 360 degrees...

The little things add up, of course. By the middle of the night, she'll be drunk enough to fall off this spit, and drown in that barrel of booze.

Peeta sure hopes she doesn't, though. Someone's gotta cut him free, after all...