We'll Watch the Sunset - Peeta Mellark x Reader Story

Chapter 10 - The final 4

The next morning I awoke, having slept downstairs that night, to find the tv still on, and Peeta and Katniss looked incredibly excited, and I noticed that Peeta looked a lot better, and Katniss' cut was healed. They could both come home, and with Clove dead, they were the only two who came from the same district. I counted in my head the remaining tributes.

Cato, district 2. The girl from 5, who's name I recently learned was Finch, or Foxface. Thresh, district 11. Peeta, 12. Katniss, 12. 5 left and only 1 or 2 would leave.

It is a little later in the day and I have just got to The Hob with Gale, walking over to some of our main customers, since we got a pretty nice haul of game. Some of the old battered TV's were showing the coverage of the games.

I ran my hand over my face, quite tired from the days hunt, my e/c eyes trained on the nearest screen while Gale worked out a deal with a customer of ours.

A canon went off, causing many people in the area to look at the nearest image of the games to see who had died, everyone most likely hoping that it was neither Katniss or Peeta.

An image of a ginger haired tribute came on screen, showing that Finch was dead, while Caesar Flickerman explained what was going on and how she died. I tapped on Gale's arm to get his attention since he had just continued negotiating with the man.

"What is it y/n/n?" He asked, taking the money from the customer.

"Thank goodness for Mr Everdeen's knowledge in plants else both Peeta and Katniss would be dead as well as Finch."

"So Finch was the one who died. How many are left now then?" Gale asked, as we walking out and heading towards the Seam, counting how much game we had in our bags to take home to our families, our boots kicking up small dirt clouds as we walked long the path.

"Four tributes. Cato-"

"Hate him."

"Thresh-"

"Is he the one who showed Catnip mercy?"

"Yeah. And Peeta and Katniss."

"So they could both come home?" Gale questioned.

"Potentially, but this is President Snow we are talking about. He could tell the Head Gamemaker to change that rule."

"What are we going to do?" He asks me, as we come up to his house, he turns and faces me. 

"We can't do much Gale. I feel helpless, and I hate it." I say, waving to Posie who was sitting on the counter top by the window while Mrs Hawthorn washed some clothes. She frantically waved back, a smile on her face.

"I guess we will see how it ends tonight, hopefully, with only four left, they'll try to round them up or kill them off." Gale looks at me, before pulling me into a hug, "I love you, Y/N, and promise me that no matter what happens, whether we lose them or not, one or both, you will never push me away, because we need each other, more than we realise. You are my sister, even if we're not related, you will always be my sister."

I wiped a tear I didn't even realise fell from my e/c eyes, before burying my head further into his chest, "I promise."

"Okay... Good. Now go home before your game starts to attract something." He says, letting me go. 

I smile as he pushes me along the path, towards the direction of my house in the Seam, I turn back before he heads inside, "Gale."

He turns back round with one foot inside the door.

"I love you too." He smiles, and gives me a wave, before heading inside and shutting the door, and I here the yells of his three siblings saying his name in excitement as they have barely seen him all day. We spent longer in the woods than we expected, collecting game, waiting in comfortable silence, speaking about anything other than District 12, and the 74th Hunger Games, we talked about our best memories with Katniss, and mine with Peeta, our favourite parts of the day, where we forget we live in Panem, and feel like normal people, not people who have to sneak out to kill food, kill enough game to get money to buy other things, but still enough for our families. 

"Mom! I'm home." I yell as I drop my game bag on the kitchen unit and shrugging off my hunting jacket and kicking off my boots and kissing Axel's head, his eyes fixed on the tv from the sofa in the middle of downstairs. I hear her light footsteps come down the stairs and walk over to me to give me a hug. 

"Hey sweetie. How was Gale?" She asked, as she started on making dinner out of what I had gathered in the woods.

"Yeah, good." I say, sitting on the sofa, "Hey, go help mom with dinner."

He rolls his eyes but goes and helps anyway, and I took over the role of the family member glued to the games and updated the two in the kitchen on anything of significance.

A little while later, it was down to three. With Cato holding Peeta near the edge of the Cornucopia, which was trying to be scaled by hungry mutts. Katniss froze, trying to figure out how to save Peeta but kill Cato. Peeta silently signalled to her to shoot his hand and she understood. Let's just say that it worked, Cato falling to the hungry creations of the Capitol. Cato screamed in pain and I covered Axel's eyes and my mother, his ears, not wanting him to witness such a horrendous death.

I thought about how the only thing left to do was to shoot him and put him out of his misery. At the end of the day, he was just a kid thrown into that arena of nightmares as well. Katniss must've had the same idea and aimed her final arrow into the crowd of mutts. She fired, and the final canon went off. There was an eerie silence, everyone taking in what had happened. 

We heard a few joyful yells from our neighbours at the fact that we finally had some more Victors, and that both of them would be coming home.

But of course, the game makers had to step in and ruin it.

"Attention. Attention, tributes. There's been a slight rule change. The previous revision allowing for two victories from the same district has been revoked. Only one victor may be crowned. Good luck. And may the odds be ever in your favor."

Edited: 27/12/22