So this is what I'm doing instead of working on my other WiP's lolololololol

I've written the entire thing except for like two or three scenes so it'll be less of a wait than some of my other fics.

Thank you Chelzie for polishing it up and Sassyeverlarking and Fairmellarky for letting me bounce ideas off you two.

There's a banner for this fic made by Ro Nordmann... However.

Disclaimer: Fanfiction is a hobby. I'm not making any money by writing this, even though I did find a Starbucks giftcard while writing it. Call the fucking cops.

I'll never forget my first dead body. Even years later, the smell has completely put me off of roast pork. It's a smell that cuts through the ashy, smokiness of a house fire and sinks straight down to your stomach. Some who recognize the bouquet of human flesh vomit knowing what they're looking for, a crispy critter. I learned on my first day as a firefighter that there was one thing you can do in a burning building when you spill your guts.

Chow down.

"Fire department! Is anyone in here?" Gale calls ahead of me while I swing my arm around trying to cut through the black smoke and poke at something that needs to be brought out before this building is brought down. "Mother fucker, I hate fucking tot finders!"

By law, we have to check every room with a tot finder sticker on them. Unfortunately in these old North Philly row homes, people tend to stick them on every fucking window making our search twice as long. The only thing worse than tot finders are pet finders, especially when said pet is a python that needs to be carried out.

My prybar pokes at something soft. "Hawthorne!" I call, tugging at his pant leg. On my hands and knees, I crawl from the wall, keeping as close to Gale as possible until I have to let go of him and he holds onto my leg. "Found that woman's kid!" I call back before reaching up to the call button on my SCBA. "Found one in the third floor bedroom, Hawthorne and I are bringing him down."

Even through layers of turn-out gear, I can feel the heat. This house is a cluttered mess, a hoarder's wet dream; with our luck, it'll flash over at any moment.

The good thing is that going downstairs is a hundred times easier than it is to go up even with an unconscious human in your arms. Well, I have his legs, Gale has the torso and with both our low pressure bells going off, we hurry.

One of the few things I hate about Philadelphia is how every summer North Philadelphia seems to spontaneously combust. We can't even chalk it up to people being excited about sports with the Phillies on the downturn, the Eagles being the Eagles, and don't even get me started about the Flyers. Who the fuck loses to the goddamn Devils? But, I digress.

Gale and I hand our would-be crispy critter off to the paramedics before getting hosed off so we can safely take off our gear. We barely get our masks off before the street lights up and everything in the row home ignites all at once.

Our mission to salvage the home is now a mission to contain it, especially as the structure gives way and where Gale and I were only minutes before becomes a pile of fiery rubble.

"Fuck, man…" I sigh, tugging down my nomex hood. "We were just fucking in there."

"Fucking tot finders, man. At least we didn't have to bring down a fucking python…"

"That python bit me," I remind Gale, taking off my soaked gloves after setting down my air pack.

I pull my braids out of my nomex hood, which are soaked with sweat. "Ugh, I can always count on North Philly in June to get me out of a shitty date…" I wring some of the sweat out of my hair. "He wanted to take me to Shampoo."

Gale makes a face. "Right? Apparently, twenty-five isn't too old," I say as he goes pale. "What? Is there something on my face?"

He reaches over and pulls a syringe out of my hip. I never felt it go in so there was a chance it just stayed in my gear or got caught in my shorts. Needle pricks in these buildings were common, so common that almost half of us have or have had a hepatitis-C infection. I'm one in that statistic, nearing the end of my treatment. Condemned buildings were basically heroin holes and hep traps.

Peeta

"Sir, do you know why we pulled you over?" Finnick asks.

"'Cause ya pigs ain't got nuttin' better to do than waste my damn time," I shake my head, trying not to laugh.

"No, sir, though we were getting pretty bored. My partner here is shit at the license plate game. Sir, I know it's I-95 but the speed limit isn't 95; I timed you going ninety in a 65."

The man sighs and his hand leaves the steering wheel for the third time on the stop. "Sir! Both hands on the wheel; I will not ask you again!" I caution, my hand reaching for my glock. "You mother fuckers always wasting my time. I got places to go and shit to do! Just write your mother fucking ticket and go pull over some white bitch," I can see the man shaking his head through the window, "Racist mother fuckers…"

Finnick nods his head back towards the car once he finally gets the driver's paperwork. "Racist mother fucker," I tease while writing up the ticket. "VASCAR doesn't care if you're white, black, or purple."

"Last time I saw someone purple in the face, he was loaded on PCP," Finnick sighs. "Oh, come on… hope your running shoes are on," Finnick groans as the front door of the car opens and our boring traffic stop becomes exciting. "Guess he knows he has a warrant out for him."

For his size, our guy actually makes it about 100 yards before I catch up with him and tackle him to the ground. "What's next? A stroll on 76 at rush hour?" I ask while easing up a little to put my cuffs on him. "We've got a warrant for your arrest, my friend, but I guess you knew that since you decided to run!"

Most of our work is actually paperwork, arrest reports, tickets, and other flavors of reports. When Finnick and I drop our guy off and head out into the summer heat, we're greeted by another unfortunate duty of ours.

Crowd control.

"God bless North East Philly. Fuckers will try their hardest to burn the whole place down…" Finnick groans after I tell dispatch we're responding since we're technically in the area.

"We get to see my favorite type of people," I joke, "The whackers."

"Takes a real dumb person to run into a burning building, man…" Fortunately or unfortunately, Finnick and I get there just in time to see about the smallest firefighter either of us have ever seen and one of the tallest carry a burned body out of the building and get hosed down. The short guy turns his back to me as the building flashes over. In the bright light of the flames, I can read his last name and company.Everdeen, Engine 29. A loud creak fills the air as the third floor falls into the second and sends the building down like a house of cards, putting out most of the flames.

Whackers are a special breed of stupid. They run into condemned structures that are bound to collapse just because of a sticker on the window from the last century. They pull out charred remains like it's their job and at times come out of buildings looking like porcupines with the discarded syringes in their gear.

"Whoa, game changer. Pint sized is a chick."

See, Finnick wouldn't normally point out a woman unless her tits were out, but seeing a female firefighter was like seeing a unicorn. She has a pink ring around her face where her mask clung to her skin and she's soaked from head to toe in sweat.

She strips out of her soaked gear for the most part to let herself dry, a common practice when one company lets another take over. She's in a bright red halter top and khaki shorts; definitely not Philadelphia Fire Department uniform, but with her tan muscular legs, I'm not going to complain.

"You should ask her out," Finnick suggests. "Instead of eye banging her."

My cheeks grow hot. "I'm not… yeah, how do I start that? 'I liked how you stripped out of your gear, want to get dinner once you've showered?'"

The companies start leaving one by one once the fire is out and the investigators are here. Then I see it, a tiny brown glove in the road.

Everdeen, K., E 29

"We're making a pit stop," I tell Finnick when we get back in the cruiser, "400 West Girard." Our shift is almost over, but I genuinely want to get this girl her glove back. Most of the guys in the fire department are big burly men, and I doubt they have extra small size gloves lying around for her.

The entire department is sitting on the driveway with a flat screen on a milk crate, yelling at the Phillies.

"Whoa, it's the boys in blue. Hawthorne, you get caught under the bridge in Kensington again?"

"Screw you, Thom."

Finnick grabs the glove from my hands. "We're looking for the short shit that owns this."

"Oh, you mean Katniss. She's getting changed, one sec…" the tall guy I saw with Katniss stands up with his beer. "Yo, Katniss!" A few seconds later, the dark haired woman pokes her head out.

"The Phils winning?" she asks.

"Nah, you got some gentleman callers, though. Came in uniform and everything. You must have pissed someone off."

She comes down a few minutes later in a grey Philadelphia Fire Department shirt and baggy sweat shorts, chewing pink bubblegum. "Whatever it was, it was some other Katniss Everdeen, officers."

"We found this at the fire today," Finnick says, handing off the glove. "And my partner wanted to-"

"Continue to eye bang me?" My skin grows cold. "I got ears, Officer Mellark, damn good ones," she says, snapping her bubble gum. "I don't do frilly or fancy. You free tomorrow night? I don't have to be here babysitting these assholes tomorrow."

My mouth goes dry. "Y-yeah?"

"Cool, pick me up at seven. I live in the building on the corner of Third and Brown in NoLibs. And don't bring the fucking police car. I don't normally go for the blue canaries, but you're kind of cute."

Katniss isn't shy, or at least in this moment, she's bold. She reaches into my belt and pulls out my pen and memo pad before scribbling something down.

It's her name and phone number. She doesn't include the area code making me guess between 215 and 267, though 90% of Philly is in the 215 area. At the bottom of the paper, there's a message.

If you thought me taking off my TOG was hot, just wait and see.

"See you tomorrow, Officer Mellark!" And she saunters back into the fire station, leaving me dumbfounded.

"Call me if the Phills actually get a guy on base!" I hear her shout as we get back in the cruiser.

"Dude, what the fuck was that?" I ask, staring at the paper.

"Peeta, just shut up! You might actually get laid tomorrow, did you see her ass?"

Honestly, the only things I can remember about Katniss are her two sweaty braids, how her cheeks flushed from the exertion at the fire today, and her stormy grey eyes. "Did you see those eyes?" I ask.