My first novel-length fan fiction, the Hunger Games from Peeta's POV starts on Friday, February 6th, but I'm posting a little drabble from a shorter fic every day in anticipation.

Without A Toasting

Chapter 1

Cinna stands behind me, adjusting the drape of the gauzy robe he has arranged over my shoulders. I watch him in the mirror in front of me. For once, even his presence does nothing to calm my frayed nerves. My eyes drift back to my own reflection and I try to steel myself. Just this and President Snow will be satisfied. Just this and I can go home. I've already made it through the lavish ceremony, mouthing the strange words they say at Capitol weddings and I can get through this.

I twist the wedding band Peeta put on my left ring finger. I don't normally wear any sort of jewelry and it feels tight, constricting. The small P engraved in a flourish of swirls shine up at me. Peeta. My husband.

I push the thought away. He's not my husband. Not really. It's not a real marriage without a toasting. I cling to this fact and attempt to dredge up why I'm doing this, to remember the people whose lives are in danger without my cooperation. Prim. My mother. Gale. No, I can't think of Gale back home, how he must have felt as Peeta and I got married live on television, how he must feel now knowing what comes next.

But Snow would have killed them all if I couldn't stop the uprisings, couldn't convince the districts that I love Peeta. For them, for Prim I have to be willing to give up everything.

This would be bad enough if it were just Peeta waiting for me on the other side of this door, but behind a two-way mirror there will be ten patrons who have paid for the pleasure of watching us. A fine tremor that I can't control takes over my body. Why would they even want to watch? Two kids who have no idea what they're doing? It's perverted. Sick. Almost worse than the Games.

The door opens and Effie Trinket trots in, her metallic green wig still in place. She chose it to match our wedding colors, green and gold, which she also chose after I refused to make the decision.

She comes up to me and kisses the air around my cheek, avoiding the makeup my prep team so artfully applied. "Oh, looks like someone's having a little case of wedding night jitters." She chuckles. "It's to be expected, after all."

I glare at her. I have to remind myself it's not really her fault, no one's foolish enough to tell her anything.

"Cinna," she says. "Would you mind stepping out, hmmm? I want to spend a few moments alone with our bride. Girl talk, you know, before the big event."

Cinna gives my shoulder a little squeeze, smiles sadly and leaves me in the room with Effie. I prepare myself for some embarrassing explanation of what goes on between a man and a woman or worse, advice on how I should act.

For a moment, I'm taken back to the four hours I spent with Effie before the interviews, learning how to smile and walk in high heels. No, Katniss, you must walk gracefully up to Peeta and remove your clothes slowly. I'm almost hyperventilating now. The last thing I need are more lessons from Effie.

Effie pastes a bright smile on her face that doesn't reach her eyes. Maybe she's not as in the dark as I thought. "I have a present for you," she trills, holding out a small, brightly wrapped package in a golden bow. I reach out to take it.

"It's from President Snow," she continues. "A matching set, one for you, one for Peeta."

My hand recoils at the sound of the Snow's name as if the gift were a snake ready to strike. I don't want anything from him.

"Go on, take it," says Effie.

I take the square box in my hand. It's tiny. The whole thing fits in my palm. What could it be? Some final torture? What could make this any worse? With growing dread, I slide the top off the box.

Inside, nestled in red silk is a single white pill. Is it poison? A way to get rid of me now that he has what he wants? Or is he giving me a chance to escape this humiliation?

"It's Charm," Effie says when she sees my confusion. "Something to make you relax. Enjoy everything a bit more."

In other words, something to ensure his cronies get a good show.

I look at the little pill. I don't want to take it, serve them right if we weren't able to perform, but I don't want to go in there and ruin everything now after we've worked so hard.

Effie pours me a glass of water from the pitcher left sitting on the side table and hands it to me. I look at the pill one last time before closing my eyes and swallowing it down.

Effie hugs me once before leaving and Cinna comes back in, silently. He seems to sense how I don't want to talk. He brushes my hair out, letting it tumble pass my shoulders. It had been braided for the ceremony, the way my mother does it, so now it cascades in waves.

Cinna finishes as the door to the bedroom slides open.

The pill doesn't work. I can feel my heart pounding as I step into the candlelit room. More than candlelit. The walls themselves have a faint glow as well. All the better to see us. My eyes stray to the large mirror on the other side of the room and I have to fight the urge to run.

A door on the other side of the room opens to reveal Peeta dressed only in pajama bottoms, the hard planes of his chest tapering down to his lean stomach. It's been almost a year since I've seen him so undressed. Then, he'd been near death, shivering from fever and starvation in the Games. There's nothing left of that now weakness now.

Despite the nightmare that is this situation, I am relieved to see him, but I find myself pulling on the hem of my very short robe. I know it's pointless, but I can't stop myself. Peeta's eyebrows raise at the motion and I can feel myself blush.

We stand there. Neither of us moves from in front of our doors, but then Peeta is walking toward me and I go to meet him. I mean, what's the point of putting it off?

Peeta pulls me close and I bury my face against his chest, slowly taking in breaths of his warm, clean scent. I can feel myself relaxing into his arms. And then Peeta's tilting my face up and his lips find mine.

I give myself up to the kiss. Peeta's kissed me hundreds of time. There's no reason to be nervous about that. For the first time, I feel what must be the effects of the pill Effie gave me, an incredible warm that moves down my body and makes me gasp against the warmth of his body against mine, the hard length of him pressed against my stomach. The room turn soft and golden around the edges and I find myself rising up on tiptoe, my hands knotted in his hair, drawing him closer.

Without breaking the kiss he picks me up, moving away from the two-way mirror, but not towards the bed like I'm thinking. I find myself pinned against the far wall. We stay like that for a long time, him just kissing me, his hands tamely at my waist, but the drug makes his every touch electric. Just the pressure of his hands above my hip leaves me gasping with pleasure. Then I feel his hand slips to my robe, untying the bow, letting the fabric open to reveal my body.

"Beautiful," he murmurs against my neck.o:p/o:p

I want to tie it back up, hide, not from him, but from the eyes of those vulture watching us. In the Games, the audience is miles and miles away, but there are people, almost in the same room with us, behind a thin plane of glass watching every touch, every caress. I hate them. There's a part of me that wants to go over to the glass and tell them exactly what I think of their depravity.

The frustrated must show on my face because Peeta stops and pulls me back into the shelter of his arms.

"Don't Katniss… don't think about it. There's just you and me here," Peeta says.

He kisses my forehead then my cheek and finally my lips until the drug fogs up my thinking again and I wrap my legs around his waist.

It is in this haze that I realize why Peeta picked this corner and not the bed. They won't be able to see me here, Peeta is blocking their view of me with his body. My heart swells with thankfulness. I can't be more grateful that it's him here with me. That I still have him to protect me.

His warm hands cup my small breasts, gently brushing the sensitive tips to send waves of pleasure through my body. After that, Peeta's the only thing holding me up because I've gone limp. His hands move downward around the curve of my thigh and then one finger, then two are inside me. It feels strange to have him touch me like that, foreign but then he does something and the heat that had been simmering, boils over and I'm moving against his hand, shuddering uncontrollably into his shoulder. I hear myself call his name. When the shockwaves subside I look into his blue eyes, incredulous, but there is just something faintly amused in his gaze tinted with something else. A kind of satisfaction. I didn't know it would be like this, never imagined this kind of pleasure.

It has to be the drug.

He kisses my cheek, before maneuvering between our bodies to pull his pants away and kick them aside. I see the outline of his hardness and even though it's much too late for modesty, I look away. Without taking his eyes from mine, I feel him push against me and I hold tight to his shoulders until he's buried fully inside, and we're both breathing hard. He drops his forehead to rest against mine and I can feel his struggle for control before he's moving inside me, slowly at first until I begin to response, matching him. I close my eyes, letting the pleasure wash over me.

Peeta begins breathing in heavy gasps that turn into groans. The same tension as before builds inside me and I come apart against him again, but this time he follows me, shouting my name in his release.

Long moments pass before I come back to myself and Peeta's carrying me to the large canopy bed in the center of the room. He lays me down against the soft covers and I nearly panic, thinking he's going somewhere, but then he's slipping in next to me, wrapping me in his arms, his hand running soothingly down my back. He yawns loudly. As I'm drifting back into sleep, a thought occurs to me.

"It's like eating the Capitol food," I say drowsily.

"What is?" Peeta asks.

"This," I say.

He snorts softly, "You would think that."