First new story of 2015! Yay. I can make lame jokes about this story like "I've been working on it since last year" and such, but I'll pass and let you read it instead. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own squat.

Sketches

"What's that?" Katniss asked as Cinna came in late. He held a sketchbook under his arm and the dress she was supposed to wear for her next interview in the Victory tour –they were in district ten now- was slung over his shoulder.

"A sketch book," Cinna said, putting down the sketchbook and massive black bag of pins and sewing equipment and spare ribbons and rhinestones. Katniss' shoes were also somewhere in there.

"Why?" Katniss said. "Please don't tell me you have that many dresses left to make for me."

Cinna smiled. "They're not all yours, no."

Katniss cocked her head to the side, looking at him inquisitively.

"Outside of the Games' season," Cinna said feeling bad about using the Capitol term for the event, "Portia and I run a small shop in the haute couture district. It's not very big, but it's substantial enough to pay its rent and keep us busy in the meantime."

Katniss nodded.

"Maybe I'll let you look if you sit still while I zip you up," Cinna offered kindly.

Katniss nodded again and slipped off the chair where she'd sat as her team attacked her with their tubes and liners and powders.

Surprisingly enough, she did sit still and looked at him expectantly after.

"This isn't all clothes," Katniss said when she got her long-awaited peek as Cinna unpinned her hair after what he knew had been a particularly hard interview to hold her ground through. The tour was nearly halfway done, but Katniss was losing her mind.

"No," Cinna said. He looked over her shoulder. She was looking at a sketch of a condo. "That's my apartment in the Capitol. Well, Portia and I's. It's the way we'd like to decorate it one day."

"Why aren't you doing it?" Katniss asked.

Cinna smiled as he motioned for her to pass him her hairbrush. "Everyone in the Capitol is filthy rich compared to the districts, but not everyone is equally filthy rich."

He was just rich, if that.

Katniss nodded and kept looking through. "And that?"

"That's a sewing machine that I'd saved up months for when I was younger," Cinna said.

"You're not just sketching out clothes," Katniss said. "You're sketching out a future."

"It has to be somewhere," Cinna said brushing the glitter from her dark hair. She was going to have it in there for weeks. He'd told Octavia to use the expensive stuff, he'd told her.

"So what's Portia doing in there?" Katniss asked looking at a new picture.

The alarm bell in his mind rang.

"She was modeling an outfit for me. See that skirt? It's got a new kind of pleat in it."

"I don't see it," Katniss said.

"I wasn't expecting you too," he smiled nervously to celebrate his excellent save, but it also happened to cover his true intentions. Still, he knew that he and Portia would laugh about it over apple martinis tonight in the train's dining carriage, long after Effie had tucked herself into bed for her beauty sleep and soon after Haymitch was drunk and Cinna had carried him back to his bed.

"I strongly, profoundly, fully dislike being back here," Portia said looking out the window and out on district 9.

Portia's family were political refugees who'd made a name in the Capitol by fighting tooth and nail in politics and whorehouses. She'd only been four when she'd left the districts, but she carried nightmarish, foggy memories of dark nights and being picked up and carried away from the hunger and poverty by a man who no longer existed, to the sound of leaves crunching under their feet and peacekeeper dogs barking and children crying.

"It's going to be okay," Cinna said squeezing her hand. "You're a Capitol Citizen officially."

"Looks like you're stuck with me for good," Portia smiled swinging their intertwined fingers back and forth.

Not nearly stuck enough… Cinna said.

The square box in his pocket felt heavy.

He didn't know why he'd brought the ring on the Victory Tour. He really didn't. He nearly lost it in District 8. Another time, Octavia walked into his compartment at the wrong time and just about saw it sitting on top of his dresser- if she ever found out, the cat was out of the bag.

He just couldn't rip himself from it. For the same reason that he kept the sketchbook around even if the name he and Portia had made themselves in the Games had provided them with the luxuries they needed to make it real. He just needed to grip his future between both hands as tightly as he could now that he'd picked one out for himself and decided, after years and years and years of being told what to do and who to be in his life, that he was worth one of his own.

He wanted Portia. Not in a possessive way. He just wanted happiness in its best form, and he knew that that was Portia He wanted Portia's everlasting sweet smile, her twinkling mischievous eyes, her playful word choices and movements and the way she changed perfumes every few days to "keep him on his toes" so that there was no holding on to a memory of her, but only to her. He wanted her kisses and the way they tasted like spicy tea. He wanted the birthmarks on her throat and chin, and the one just next to her eye especially. He wanted her infinite creativity and her crafty fingers and her ingenious mind and the way that she could scrap anything to make it whole and beautiful and purposeful. He wanted her generosity and her empathy and the mountains of emotion that she pressed mostly into stitches, but sometimes in words and actions as well.

He held onto the ring until she would, because he wouldn't let go of that.

He didn't think he'd be allowed anybody else like her in a thousand years.

District 7 had some stunning scenery to go for it. Trees shot out of the ground, their trunks too big for Cinna to wrap his arms around and too high for even Katniss to climb. Cinna had to squint to see the underbelly of the foliage clearly. There were smaller trees of course, and stumps where the lumberjacks had already passed through- but for the most part it was stunning. Even the light that filtered through the natural canopy covering the train tracks was tinted a pleasant, leafy green.

Cinna was too engrossed in Portia's green eyes on their ride through, however, to notice how beautiful the scenery was- or how picture-perfect and story-book classic District 7 was for him to pop the question.

Until Effie Trinket darted into their cart to check on the state of outfits they'd prepped ages ago and ruined their conversation and small pocket of calm and privacy.

Katniss looked over her shoulder as they rode the gondola lift up the mountain. Cinna didn't think that she was afraid of heights so to speak, but she wasn't used to being so high up in the air. They were in the transportation district, however, so Cinna didn't know how she'd expected anything else.

"Need a distraction?" Cinna asked taking his sketchbook out of his bag.

Katniss graciously accepted without a word, and started flipping through the pages.

"What would you draw in here that's not already here?" She asked.

"I don't know," Cinna said. "I draw designs as they come to me. I can't predict what I'll draw next week or tomorrow or even tonight."

"I mean for your future," Katniss said. Her pages were touching another rough sketch of a sleek, silvery kitchen with a long table and high stools. In the corner Cinna had scratched the address of an industrial designer who owed him a favour.

Cinna chewed on his lip. He and Portia had agreed that Peeta and Katniss didn't need to know about their less-than-professional relationship. They'd decided that two dying children could be left as far out of their love lives as possible and once aforementioned tributes had survived… well, there was enough mass confusion and stress surrounding them. Cinna and Portia could stay out of it. It wouldn't seem fair especially now that Katniss and Peeta had to skip in front of cameras holding hands and making kissy faces at each other, to hold hands and softly say goodnight with as must honesty as possible. Even Effie -as much as Cinna had grown to love her in a strange, strange way- was out of the loop. The world was nearing its crescendo despite the sturdy climb of the gondola. Now was not the time.

"I always wanted a cat," Cinna said.

"You can have my sister's," Katniss muttered.

Cinna laughed as the gondola came to a sudden stop and Katniss jumped, startled.

There were fifteen power plants in District 5 and out of pride for them, the district Mayor and Manager of Plant A7D were showing Katniss and Peeta and all involved parties around one of the older nuclear plants. Cinna studied the map of the building hanging on the wall as the physics of nuclear energy were explained, and noticed that there were tons of hallways and crevices and stairwells and elevator shafts around.

"You could get lost in here in a snap," Portia whispered to him looking at the floor plan. "With the winding, narrow, zig-zaggy corridors… the entirely empty desolate rooms everywhere…"

Cinna was about to remind her of a spectacularly bad navigational error she'd once made for the sake of seeing her blush, but Haymitch walked past them.

"Yeah, no slipping away you two," he said suggestively.

They fell into step behind him and continued with the tour, but Cinna cursed himself over and over for how he hadn't thought of it first.

The tour was even less interesting after that.

"I love, love, love, adore the beach," Portia said as she swung her hand over her shoulder, fingers hooked in the straps of her heels. Cinna wrapped an arm around the waist. He wasn't minding the sand squishing underneath his feet or the regularity of the tide himself. It was a nice, beautiful, comfortable background for the world to fade away around Portia. She was wearing a flowing sundress that he'd seen her work on last night. Katniss had rejected it, and Portia had happily adopted it. She looked beautiful.

"I wish I could take a picture of the sunset," Cinna said.

"Some things can't be immortalised," Portia said. "Some things are ephemeral. They exist now, in the present, in the moment, and then they just don't. Too bad they're always the most beautiful."

"You're not planning on going anywhere, are you?" Cinna asked. He was trying to push himself to add May I ensure that you won't? Because honestly, I don't know what I'd do and I don't even think that I'd bother doing it if you weren't there. After that, it would be so easy to slip the box out of his pocket…

Portia turned to smile at him and kissed his cheek.

"No, but I hope you're planning on shaving soon. You're scratchy, icky and hairy."

"For you I might," Cinna said. "I've been working on the dress for District 12 nonstop."

"And I've been getting lonely with all these visits and jobs and the godforsaken, everlasting, never-ending, absolutely dreadful paperwork," Portia pouted.

"Stop it," Cinna said as he realised that he was going to have to kiss Portia that second despite the fact that Katniss and Peeta had been standing on their hotel's deck when they'd left for their walk and could probably see them.

"Make me," Portia said. She took off into the surf.

What was Cinna going to do? Not run after her?

He had a moment to sketch into his memories.

"Peeta's a sweetheart," Portia said as she tucked herself into his bed once she snuck into his assigned room. They tried not to do it very often, but when Portia snuck into his room, what was Cinna going to say? Something stupid like no?

"Tell him you're taken."

Portia wacked his shoulder. "Not like that. He's just so, so, so very… caring."

"Caring?" Cinna asked.

"He asked me if I had a family in the Capitol and if I missed them while I was on Tour," Portia asked. "I didn't even know he thought of us that… complexly, humanely, fully."

"They both do," Cinna said. "What did you tell him?"

"I told him I had a sister that I loved very much and a boy that I loved as well," Portia said. "And that I missed both of them very much."

"Which is why you couldn't help but sneak in tonight?" Cinna asked.

"Mmmhmm," she said snuggling up against his left arm. He wrapped it around her obligingly. "It's a shame that the boy can't do anything about it."

"Portia, they will pick up on things if we're not discreet," Cinna said. "Peeta just proved that today."

"Oh, I know," Portia said resting her hair against his chest. Strands of her hair tickled his skin. "I'm not stupid and I'm not that desperate. I'm just excited to have you all to myself again soon."

Cinna was fully conscious that the ring box was under his pillow. I can't wait to have you all to myself forever.

"Are you done?" Portia asked.

"Almost."

"How about now? This moment? This second? What about now, are you done now?"

"You're doing it on purpose."

"Yes I am," Portia sing-sang back at him. But she didn't move. Portia knew better than moving even a muscle when she was posing for Cinna. It more often than not led to the silent treatment as he simmered over a ruined picture. Especially when it was Portia and the picture was so hard to ruin, that he got angry when he did.

"My nose itches."

"We must all make sacrifices," Cinna said.

He drew a wedding band on her left hand without even thinking about it, panicked about how it couldn't be erased now, and told her that she could go ahead and scratch it- the picture wouldn't be good enough for her to even look like anyways honestly he wasn't being overcritical he'd just throw it away right that second no she couldn't watch it.

"I wish I could draw," Katniss said.

"You could learn."

"I could not," she scoffed. She pressed her head against the cool mirror as Cinna arranged the skirt of her dress with a small armada of pins. "I wish I could draw a future."

Cinna felt like an absolute mess of incompetence and cowardice when he heard her say it. He realised that Katniss was lucky amongst the poor- she had a future nearly promised to her. And Cinna was above average as far as fortune went; he lived far from disease and hunger. Oppression and corruption maybe not so much, but he would nearly surely never die young. He'd grow old and even when he'd be old he'd be beautiful thanks to the technology and richness that surrounded him.

And here he was being afraid to take a chance to get that future started.

Cinna squeezed Katniss' shoulder after packing up the dress she'd worn for the interviews. She looked exhausted. Acting always took a toll on her and he knew that tonight had been particularly difficult with the proposal and all.

"I want to go home," she said tiredly.

"It's our next stop," Cinna said. "You're doing great."

Katniss nodded and Cinna kissed her forehead. "Get some sleep, will you?"

She nodded.

"I'll see you after breakfast tomorrow morning," Cinna said.

"You're not spending the night?" Katniss asked.

"I live in the Capitol," Cinna said. He was a bit ashamed for saying it. "I'm going to go home for tonight. Unless you want me to stay, I'm sure there are rooms left that I can check in…"

"That's alright," Katniss shook her head.

Cinna said goodnight and peeked into an ecstatic and bubbly and overworked Effie's hotel room to do the same, but skipped Haymitch because he was surely drunk or well on his way. He said goodnight to Peeta, though he and Portia had wrapped up a long time ago. Portia was straddling a chair and Peeta looked like a marionette whose strings had been cut, despite Portia's hands holding his.

"You should go before it's dark out," Peeta told Portia as soon as Cinna crept in.

"It's never dark in the Capitol," Cinna said. "I can step out for a second…"

"It's fine," Peeta said. "Goodnight."

Portia kissed his forehead before walking out of the hotel room. As soon as the door was inched shut, Cinna took her hand. He only found the guts to talk when they were locked in the elevator.

"Hard night?" he asked.

Portia nodded. "He really loves her."

"She really can't," Cinna said.

"I don't know which one is worst," Portia said. She rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad I'll never have that problem."

The elevator doors opened and they crossed sidewalks and streets and illuminated windows and colourful billboards and it had never occurred to Cinna before that the Capitol's artificial light drowned out the stars. But when he stupidly tripped and fell, Portia's laughter and smile made up for it.

They'd gone through a slew of apartments together, including a rickety one above a rickety shop, a dusty overpriced shoebox that smelled of concrete, and –most memorably- a work room in an old factory. Cinna had actually loved the ambiance there and the copper pipes riddling their walls and ceilings, but Portia had been less than pleased by how old their crumbling haven was.

Now they had the penthouse with its dramatic windows and sleek, modernly rounded furniture and pristine white walls, dotted with photographs from friends in the art world or pinned up designs when one of them was in a mood. Cinna had only agreed to purchase the flat once they'd established that there were plenty of places to cram sketchbooks, and Portia had only been attracted to it because of the gorgeous view. Now it was home sweet home in a thousand more ways.

"Lights on," Portia called as Cinna locked the door behind him.

"It's a pleasure to have you home Portia," the computer answered as it dimmed the lights on.

"It's a pleasure to be home," Cinna said, picking Portia's shawl off of her shoulders and hanging it as she kicked off her shoes and charged into the flat barefoot. By the time he'd put away his coat she was sitting on a high chair at a breakfast nook under an ingeniously complex light fixture, resting her head on her arms.

He played with her hair for a few seconds before she spoke.

"They're two good, good kids," Portia said.

"I know," Cinna said. He and Portia had been together for so long and worked together so often that they often ended up having synchronised emotions.

"And even if those two did want to get married… They blew the romance in it," Portia said. "They ruined it for them."

"You can't ruin romance," Cinna said softly.

"Yes you can," Portia said. "Those two kids are dreadfully, completely, absolutely confused and they can barely tell at all what's real and what's the act that's kept them alive. Survival is their reality. What's love in that mix? Romance is officially broken."

Cinna's fingers were wrapped around the ring box.

"Maybe I can fix it for you."

He watched Portia stride in and out of their work room, to make sure that nothing had been touched by her house-sitting sister, in and out of the bathroom as she wiped the make-up off her face, in and out of the closet as she changed into her nightdress… He loved watching her go with her busy, surefooted steps and constant motion.

Portia only looked at her ring when the light caught on it. Other than that she was looking at Cinna, as if he made her even happier. Cinna collapsed on the bed, mentally exhausted by the effort that that had taken. He'd barely finished his wine, too.

"I wouldn't have bitten," Portia laughed as she stood by the dresser, face to face with a wide mirror, and plucked her earrings out and hung them back up on her jewellery stand.

"I know that now," Cinna said. "I wasn't so sure before."

"I don't bite."

"Yes you do," Cinna said.

"Only how you like it," Portia said. Cinna swallowed sharply as she looked over her shoulder to see his reaction. His expression must have been worthwhile. She gave a short, playful laugh before falling back on the bed. She rolled to her side and her lips were inches away from his ear.

"Will you design my dress?" she asked.

"Only if you design my suit," he replied.

She kissed the back of his ear –his most sensitive spot, as she'd taken no time to discover- and shivers ran up and down Cinna's body like lightning storms in his veins.

"It would be my honour," he said as a response of his own, flipping them so that he straddled her hips. Portia laughed and pulled him down. He felt the cold band of gold against the back of his neck, and that was more satisfying in itself than any kiss she could have given him.

"Last time," Cinna said as he zipped up Katniss' dress for the last stop in the Victory Tour: District 12.

Katniss nodded, but they both knew it was a lie.

The future drawn in Cinna's sketchbooks -of wedding gowns and bridesmaids dresses- told the tale.

While he touched up the curls of her hair, he let Katniss flip through the pages of her sketchbook. Every now and then she recognised a sketch that they'd posed as one of the dresses that her "talent" had brought her to design on that phony Capitol report, and she smiled but didn't say anything in case the room was bugged.

"This isn't one of mine. Who's getting married?" Katniss asked when she looked at one of the white gowns.

To be honest, it was a ball gown that Cinna had drawn with Portia's image glowing in his mind. The bodice was snug and striped with diagonal lines of silver beads imprinted into the corset and then down the skirt, as if the bride was the center of a spiral. The train was generous and imposing, the beadwork was simple but fascinating.

Katniss flipped to the next one; a gown with intricate folds in the taffeta bodice, and touches of lace on the mermaid skirt. This one showed off the figure that Portia was so proud of, and a meticulously haphazard shawl would hide the scar on her shoulder that she was always did her best to hide.

After that came a dress with long white sleeves and a tight fit like a sheath to a sword. Peepholes and slits were strategically placed over the shoulders and ribs and around the wrists to give the gown a quaint, unique look.

Romantic chiffon, bold ribbons racing all over the dress, lace skirts, sheer sleeves, intricate backs… try as he might, Cinna hadn't been able to design a dress for Portia that he liked. Actually no- it was the other way around. He'd drawn and drawn and drawn and there wasn't a single dress that he didn't like. Mostly because he visualised Portia in all of them.

"Nobody," Cinna said. "Portia and I were wondering if we should add a bridal shop section to our store. Traditional marriages are coming back into fashion since yours was announced, you know."

Katniss nodded and looked at the ground.

The truth was that the dress was for a happier bride.

Portia had been told to disappear. She had. Not only had Haymitch taken the courtesy of running down to tell her even though he should be monitoring the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, but Cinna himself had been acting awfully cryptic since the incident with the Mockingjay wedding dress.

He'd kissed her and held her face between his hands, lightly as if she was a glass object and tight as he could without hurting her.

"I didn't want to modify the dress without you," Cinna said. "I know we have an agreement. Still, some things aren't worth hurting you for. And I don't want you to get hurt. I want you to run away from anything that could ever hurt you if you get a sign."

She'd associated this intense worry with overflowing concern for Katniss and Peeta, but now she had a daunting suspicion that there was more.

Anyways, she'd rung up a few friends whose ill-timed laser eye colouring surgery left them unable to look at screens, ergo unable to watch the Quarter Quell. They were going to rend a villa on the outskirts of the Capitol for the time being. Since they were bitter about their inability to watch such important Games ("what will we tell our grandchildren for them to forgive us!") and excited since Portia hadn't selected any brides maids yet ("it's a very important decision dear and a very big honour"), they'd accepted this spontaneous vacation. Portia had laughed and said that after all the time and energy they'd put into the flaming costumes and morphing dresses, she needed a break from the games.

The plan was for her to pack a bag, empty her bank account and run. Haymitch had promised to find her and pick her up when and where he could if she stayed put at the villa he'd picked out for her, which belonged to Plutarch Heavensbee for whatever godforsaken reason. But on her way out of their flat, it dawned on Portia that this was the last time she'd be seeing this flat one way or another- and certainly everything in it. Of course, there were some knickknacks too big and too unworthy to bring, but there were pieces of Cinna… well, Portia had been told that she'd never have him back but pieces of him…

She cursed herself and grabbed another bag and crammed in portfolios, sketchbooks, notebooks, computer chips on which his digital designs would be saved. She had to bring these since the fact that she couldn't bring him… well, it was dawning on her.

In her haste she dropped one. Swearing and puffing and slowly stifling a cry (she must've been in the room right next to him with Peeta, right next to him) she picked it up until she noticed what it was filled with.

Wedding dresses.

One after the other. There were fun and flowy dresses, traditional gowns, ball gowns that must weigh a ton and flirty shorter dresses. Every manner of beading and embroidery and decoration had been exploited and Portia had never, ever seen Cinna on such a good run of designs.

The last one in the book had been scratched out in thick black ink- scratched out! Cinna had penned a little note:

I don't care what she wears. She'll be beautiful and we'll be each other's. I may as well let Haymitch pick.

Portia's resistance and all the composure she'd mustered to walk herself from the arena to their flat –Cinna having the keys on him- melted like snow in the rain and she didn't get back up with the book, but she too melted onto the floor in a puddle of embarrassing but deeply necessary sobs.

It was because of that last note that she ended up being too late.