#british officerpeeta
One more, sorry! :( Because I miss Moustached British Officer!Peeta and Indian!Katniss (The Journey Home), and I really loved this part. (Small edit for length/content.)
It was the rainy season, and she was quickly wet through, her sleek braid plastered to her skull, and she shivered. She did not often walk alone; unless one or another of the maids was spending the night with an officer, they all walked home together. This was a dangerous route for an unaccompanied girl. She wondered if she should move through the shadowed alleys herself rather than wait for whatever might come out of them.
“Wait!” a voice called from behind her. “Please wait, miss!”
She knew who it was before she turned, though she could scarce comprehend the reason for his pursuit, unless he meant to add his tongue-lashing to Mrs. Trinket’s. The young captain stood, flushed and breathless and as wet as she, the basket of naan from the dinner table wrapped inside his scarlet coat.
“I am truly sorry,” he said, and it was clear he meant it. “Forgive me, miss. I was – I just…I wanted to touch you,” he said quietly, and his cheeks flushed darker still. […]
She looked now at the young captain in front of her, his big hands holding his jacket closed around the bread basket, and wondered exactly what he wanted of her.
“Do you understand my speech?” he asked, for she had not yet spoken, and his handsome face grew a little worried.
“I do,” she replied. “The English priest taught us your tongue.”
He nodded, looking relieved. “Then you know I am sorry,” he said. “The fault was mine entirely. I fear I have cost you much with a thoughtless touch.”
“It has cost me little enough,” she told him, and wondered why it mattered so much that he be reassured. “Mrs. Trinket will not dismiss me over clumsiness; my English is too good. I shall simply go a night without supper.”
“You and who else?” he asked softly.
She looked again at the bread basket tucked inside his uniform jacket, and understood at last. Understood why he had taken it, and for whom it was now intended. A smile tugged at her lips. Mrs. Trinket could hardly chastise an English officer for stealing the entire table’s worth of bread.
He smiled in return, but there was worry behind the expression. “It cannot be safe for you to walk this way alone,” he said. “Come, I shall walk with you the rest of the way, and you may have the loan of my jacket.”
He placed the basket in her arms, then stripped off his scarlet coat to hold over her head. She was already too wet for it to make much difference, save that it kept the naan dry and the rain from her eyes. They did not converse on the way, but the warmth of his silence spoke volumes. Her hand never inched toward the dagger in her waistband, and her shoulder was flush against his chest before they reached her home. He smelled of damp wool and sandalwood soap, of butter chicken and fresh bread and hope.
