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Neither of them were exactly sure where the boxes had come from. Years before, when the rebuilding of District 12 was in full swing, Peeta had offered up some of the extra room in his house to keep them. There were boxes and boxes of things, random things, things with no home. After all that had happened, the few returners to District 12 had decided those things, whatever belongings had survived, couldn't just be thrown out with the trash. At first Peeta had been curious about what was in the boxes but as time went on, he had simply forgotten about them. He was spending less and less time in “his” house and was working hard to spend less and less time worrying about the past. The basement was never a place he cared to use anyway so, between that and his attempts to stop obsessing about the past (“You'll never be able to change what's happened,” Dr. Aurelius would tell him), the boxes had sat, untouched, until that day.
The District was still growing and changing, even after the initial rebuilding had been completed. When the new district council sent a letter to Katniss' house in the Victor Village (where Peeta was an unofficial resident) asking for her input on the idea of building where her family home had been, it sent her into a bit of a tailspin. After a talk with Dr. Aurelius and a long discussion with Peeta, they'd decided a smaller house near her old home would be a good place for them. They didn't really need all the space they had now (especially not two houses worth of it) and it would give Peeta an easier, quicker daily walk to the bakery.
So now the two of them were sorting through everything in both houses and moving things to their new, almost finished home. They'd decided to start with Peeta's house, thinking that the only real belongings left there were some paintings and supplies.
Then they'd wandered into the basement.
“So, we don't know whose stuff this was or anything?” Katniss asked, starting to open a box.
“Uh, yeah, it was stuff that wasn't claimed by anyone so I don't really know what we should do,” Peeta replied, running his hands through his hair.
Katniss stood back up and walked over to him, knowing he might be nervous about what could be in the boxes. He almost never had flashbacks anymore but that was in large part because he knew what could provoke them and he was able to relax himself before things got bad.
“We don't have to do this now, you know,” she smiled at him, grabbing his hand. “We could go through the stuff next door first then come back when we're ready.”
“No, no, let's get this done. There aren't too many, maybe we can be done before dinner. I'm ready to get this done.”
They'd worked together on planning the layout of their new home but it had really become Peeta's baby. He'd learned a lot while helping to rebuild the district, especially when they'd put up the new bakery. Katniss suspected he might be even more excited than her about their new place.
He walked to the opposite end of the basement and started opening another box.
An hour later they'd sifted through most of the boxes. There were clothes, books, pictures, and children's toys, almost all of them burned to some degree. Kantiss and Peeta had decided that they'd throw out whatever had lost it's usefulness and donate or save the few items that were in decent shape. They'd started a pile of any pictures they found, no matter how terrible the condition. They decided those deserved a home, even if it wasn't the home they belonged to.
They'd been making small talk as they organized, chatting about the things they still needed to do for their new home, about what they would eat for dinner, until suddenly, Katniss was silent. When Peeta looked over, she was flipping through an old book, clearly more interested in whatever she was looking at than what they would be having for dinner.
“Uh, Katniss? What'd you find?” Peeta teased in a sing-songy voice.
“Huh? What? I, uh, I...” Katniss stammered, snapping the book closed.
Peeta managed to use that moment of catching her off guard to grab the book from her hands. The cover looked like any other old book but he could tell as soon it was in his hands that it was older than most of the other items in the boxes.
“Peeta, it's not-” she started as he opened the book.
After flipping through a few pages, he raised his eyebrows at her blushing face.
“Well, I, wow, Katniss.”
“Let's just throw it out, okay?”
“No, come over here,” he said, patting the spot on the floor next to him.
Reluctantly she moved to the spot and leaned against him, peering back into the book.
The large text at the top of the page read “The Sphinx.” Below it was an illustration of a man and a woman. She was laying on her stomach, one leg bent at her side, holding her top half up. He was laying on top of her, his hands on either side of her hips. There was also a description below that, giving details on how exactly to get into the positions and why it would lead to a mind blowing orgasm for both participants.
“Well, who in town do you think this book belonged to?” Asked Peeta, finally breaking the silence that had descended into the room.
Katniss looked over at him and couldn't hold back. She burst out laughing and he soon followed. The idea that anyone they'd known back then could have done this, owned this book, was just too much.
After a few minutes of belly laughing and howling, they'd calmed down enough to speak.
“Seriously, though. I mean, where do you think this came from?” Peeta asked again.
“I really, truly, have no idea. And I'd like for it to stay that way.”
“Well, it's ours now!” Peeta replied, a huge smile on his face.
“Oh, don't you look at me like that, mister!” Katniss teased.
They'd been intimate for a while now and Katniss was finally getting to a point where they could actually discuss sex. It hadn't been easy for her. She'd told Peeta early on that she didn't think it was something that needed discussion outside of the bedroom. He tried not to push but he wanted to talk about it with her. Not because it was sex but because he wanted to talk about everything with her.
He finally managed to convince her that communication could make things even better after a series of phone calls he'd made to her while he was at work. The bakery had a tendency to be slow in the mid afternoon, especially on days when the weather wasn't good and Peeta decided he needed to take advantage of that. It had been weeks before she'd stopped hanging up on him as soon as the dirty talk started. He'd finally convinced her that the fact that he was the boss meant neither of them would get in trouble for any conversations he had while at work.
As he'd expected, those phone calls had opened up a line of communication between them that changed everything. He finally felt like she was enjoying herself in bed which, in turn, made him enjoy their time together that much more.
“So, see anything you want to try?” He asked, trying to keep his excitement out of his voice. He didn't want to scare her off but the idea of the book had clearly aroused her.
“I don't know, Peeta. That book isn't even ours.”
“Katniss, it's ours now. What are we going to do, donate it to the library?”
He sat the book down and took both of her hands in his.
“How about we put the book away and if you want to use it one day, we can try whatever you want? If not, we pretend it never existed. Your call.” He gave her a quick kiss.
“Or...maybe we could, you know, pick one now?” Katniss stammered.
He grabbed her hips and moved her closer to him, kissing her harder, more urgently this time.
As he picked the book back up he noticed the cover. “Kamasutra? Where did this thing come from? We might have to do some research!” Peeta made a face, leading to a giggle from Katniss. He rarely heard her laugh like that and it went straight to his groin.
She grabbed it from his hand, turning to another the page. She simply pointed to the drawing, a position called “the frog,” before Peeta grabbed her hand and practically ran up the stairs.