fic: my limbs sing the hymns of a tyrant
The Hunger Games | Peeta Mellark
Needles dig holes, the holes dig terror, and he falls into darkness just as he vomits.
~3300 words
Mockingjay spoilers; warning because nothing is ever happy with my words
A winter wind brushes through the tangled golden sun drenched hair of his, and he feels a chill. He's inside, far inside, away from anywhere that weather could hit him, but if he closes his eyes he could feel the snow kissing his cheeks and biting his hands.
A kiss, a bite, and then he can't tell the two apart. If they ever were apart. He thinks of a girl with a braid that led a never-ending trail down her back, a girl in a cave and blood, a girl who kissed him, and decides that a kiss and a bite are the same thing.
A kiss can kill. A bite can swallow. And somewhere along the line, both happened to him.
"She destroyed you."
She's the reason I'm alive.
A bite comes then, all across his skin. Destroyed you, destroyed you, the walls seem to scream each time his blood comes through.
It hurts, he says. And I am afraid.
A man laughs back, a rose is placed upon his body like they do every day, and a corpse named Johanna Mason says don't let the bastards win.
(Not a corpse yet but some days she may as well be, they all may as well be.)
I can't let them win? He asks himself as another bruise blooms. The sight of the purple red brings thoughts of his dear sweet mother, and he wonders how much it hurt when Katniss killed them all.
No.
She didn't do that.
Don't let the bastards win.
Because it was another game.
His whole life was a game. Is a game still. A hide and seek game with Death, he plays tic-tac-toe with some poisonous berries, hopscotch with venom. But it was a dance with a girl, a dance and a twirl and she seduced me, she seduced me to kill me and I need to kill her.
No.
He doesn't. She didn't.
He remembers that his love for her was always there, that hers was the one that was pulled and stretched for him. That real memory hurts more than the needle.
They tell him she's dead. She's dead and he may as well be dead and she's just a dead body.
He spits in their faces. I'd know if she was dead. I'd feel it.
He knows she isn't dead because he doesn't feel anything.
Then the needle plunges and the words change.
The needle tells him, the person with the needle tells him, that his thoughts were wrong. The girl that was named Katniss Everdeen wasn't a girl but a parasite and the host was his soul. And it's dead and gone because of her, just like you, boy.
No, somewhere he calls. No it's not. No I'm not. I'm not dead and gone, not from her. She didn't prey on me.
But that is a lie, she was always the hunter and never the hunted.
"Everything you love is dead because of her."
No, no. All I've ever loved is her, and she's still alive.
Another needle in, and he starts to reply in his mind instead of aloud.
"Mutt," the shadows whisper to him. His ears perk up at the word, the blood swirls deeper within. "Mutt," the cracked knuckles repeat, the black eye sings, the bloody lip spits. He splutters on his own saliva, a spot of drool that maybe in a life he once was told he lived he'd be embarrassed. It was mixed with piss and blood, and somewhere in the dull headache he doesn't care.
"Mutt?" He asks the heavy air around him and it seems to crackle with life.
"Mutt," it responds, and he waits for a needle but it doesn't come.
"Mutt," he says again, and he realizes it must be satisfied with him, with this word, and maybe today he won't hurt.
He tries to turn over, the feeling of a broken rib shoots through his body, and he wonders how much that Mutt of a girl could hurt him even when she was so far away.
"Speak," they tell him, and he wonders if he is just a dog that is to comply and do tricks.
(Well of course. He's a dog and she's a mutt and maybe he's a mutt too, maybe, but right now he needs to speak.)
They dress him up, cover the bruises, and he wears a smile as he goes on stage. He sweats and waits for someone to cut him, or maybe to plunge more fluids in him, but he's greeted by color and lights and there's applause from a crowd. He tries to think of the last time he saw this many people, and his head pounds.
"Hello Peeta," A voice comes through and he turns and sees a man sitting across from him with a smile and blue hair. Caesar, his name is Caesar.
And my name is Peeta.
It feels weird for him to think of himself with a name, to be in lights, to feel life around himself. Everyone's breath seems to vibrate in the air and he's more alert to his heart beating than he had been in days.
"Hello," he responds and a smile chisels onto his mouth and he tries to remember who Peeta is. He thinks of Peeta, of himself, and how he's been on this stage before, talked to this man before, been so close to wanting to die in front of all of these people before.
Why? His brain asks. Why? And he knows it was for her, it was always for her and as he sat on the stage he knows that this is for her as well.
Somehow it's easier in the lights to pretend that his name is still who he is, that he isn't woozy from blood loss or lack of sun. Somehow his brain is hazy but there's one thing that's clear, and it's the feeling of soft dark hair in a braid as he slowly lets it fall on slight shoulders.
She can kill him, wants to kill him, will kill him. He knows. He knows because they tell him and when he agrees they do not hurt him.
"Mutt," he says, and he gets a meal.
"I love her," he adds, and the blood runs darker as holes appear on his arms. He might scream, scream for her, for her love or her hate or just death, just give me death, but he isn't sure.
The red is dark and thick, and he thinks back to a canvas. He remembers a canvas and paints, where he used to lose himself for hours. He tries to in the middle of it all, to think of the feeling of a paintbrush in his hands, tries to think of how his hands could create a world upon nothingness, tries to think of how it felt like playing god.
He remembers how he painted his nightmares.
In the middle of it all, in the dingy room in the Capitol, he only has the color red and it's dark and thick. He looks down and sees specks of it on him, and he tries to pretends its his oils, the smells around him maybe just the spirits that he mixes in the paints, and if he closes his eyes hard enough he could pretend that he sees a sunset, still wet and newly painted, the coarse canvas texture coming through even after layers of colors.
The feeling of canvas beneath his fingers is a thing that he starts to forget, so he tries to shut his eyes harder and coax his fingers to get the feeling. Everything around him is smooth though, not that there's much. The colors around him are whites and blues and greys, and they don't even give him the Capitol lavish colors here in this room.
They plunge a needle in, and behind his eyes he sees his oils. They mix and swirl and he tries to pretend its his palette, he's getting ready to paint a forest, her forest, but it always goes back to the dark, thick red from him, the dark, thick red that she made come out of him.
He tries to count the times he bleeds for her, but loses count as he goes unconscious.
They show him a video and there's fire, and that's all he can focus on at first.
"Do you know what you're looking at?" They ask him, and he looks.
Fire, he thinks, but he looks more.
Home, he realizes, as the camera pans out and he can take in the school as flames shoot out the windows. He tries to think of classes he had in that place, but all he can remember is the back of her head as she stared out a window. The camera keeps moving, and he watches as people (were they once neighbors? Friends? The words feel weird and he isn't sure if they can be used here) struggle to get away and don't succeed. He watches as the camera stops and focuses on a building he knew, a building he grew up in, the reason why the word home was something to him.
He didn't have a home anymore, and he watches as a bakery in a place called District 12 turns to soot.
They tell him his family was in there, that if they had audio he would be able to hear their screams, and he nods. He doesn't cry, although somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks that maybe he should.
"Do you know who did this?" They ask him, and he knows, and they know that he knows.
His answer comes up on screen, and he sees Katniss laughing as the camera goes back to the flames.
He says the name Katniss, but it comes out like Mutt, and they give him stale bread as they bring him back to the room.
He still doesn't cry, but he doesn't dwell on it as he eats his bread and his mind is loud with flames.
"I hate her," he tells the body that used to be Johanna Mason. She is still wet from the water and her body is still shaking from the tremors of electricity and she doesn't turn to look at him.
"No you don't." Her voice is weak, weaker than she ever lets it be, and he wonders if she'll ever get out of here to deny how much this place makes her stammer.
"Yes I do." And he feels his anger. It feels good, running through him, and it makes him forget the pain that ripples through his bones. He goes after it. "I hate her and she's a mutt and she never loved me."
Johanna Mason then lets out a coughing laugh, some dark red staining the ground below her mouth where she is laying, and she turns slightly to look at the body that was once named Peeta Mellark. Somehow she finds a way to laugh, to make a joke, as if she isn't already dead. "You're just as brainless as her. She loves you."
"She doesn't love me and I don't love her." He finds that saying these words feels good and right. How could he even say he loved her when he was here? Wherever he is, whatever the room is, there isn't enough space for love. He was a fool for trying to say there was before, but he knew better. The needles told him.
But then the girl who used to be Johanna Mason seems to have a fire in her voice. "Don't you dare." She has anger too, anger against his anger, and he for a second considers faltering. "Don't you dare say that and believe it. Don't you dare let them win. We're not going through all of this for nothing."
"We're going through this for her." His words are a snarl. Anger feels good, because everything about this is aggravating. Why couldn't they just kill him? It would be easier. There is so much pain, so much terror. Anger feels good.
"We're going through this for her, for the rebellion, for all of Panem. If you lose your love for her, if you lose yourself in it all, I swear to god Peeta Mellark."
He laughs, the mention of a god was something to behold. There wasn't much talk ever in Panem about religion, but some people had their beliefs. Johanna Mason never seemed like one to hold them, but maybe in the water she found her god. He laughs again at that thought, until all he can do is laugh, laugh at her, laugh at the thought of someone looking over everything, laugh at how the sound echos off the walls like their screams do, laugh at his blood and how some of his wounds start to open with his laughter.
A man with a needle comes in then, and the boy that was once named Peeta Mellark is still laughing. Needles dig holes, the holes dig terror, and he falls into darkness just as he vomits.
He thinks of green.
There was green surrounding his old home, he remembers that. He remembers the trees and how they held a certain mystery that called to him and scared him all at once. Green brings him to the arenas, the forests of the first and the jungles of the second. Most of all, green brings him to her.
He doesn't like green.
He thinks of orange.
He doesn't know why he thinks of orange.
He thinks of red.
He always thinks of red. He doesn't mean to. He sees red and tastes it and all of his existence can be described as red. He thinks of sunsets and how at the last second of it all, everything is painted red, but that's all he can remember of sunsets. He tries to imagine all of it, how they seem, how they change and all the colors that are made of them, but can't and he feels a sob rip through him.
He tries to stop because it's just a goddamn sunset, but tears continue to fall and there's salt stinging down his cheeks and it hurts when they go over wounds. He feels, suddenly, feels pain and loss inside, where he was positive there was nothing left, and he just wants to feel comfort, feel safe and lay in a big bed holding her to keep her nightmares away and he feels.
He tries to stop his tears, tries to stop feeling anything because it hurts and it hurts more than any of the other damn things they put him through. He stops eventually and feels empty until he eventually goes back to feeling nothing.
Nothing is better.
Someone comes in and there isn't a needle in their hands. He thinks that maybe they are going to take Johanna Mason again, still moaning from her last treatment.
Treatment. He's ready to bark another laugh at the words that they use with the two of them, but the person without needles comes over to him and grabs him by the arm.
A ghost of himself, of who he used to be, rears up in him and the thought to fight back comes through, but in the end he slumps against the person's hold on him. Well this was definitely new, he thinks, and he wonders if he should try to smile about that because the ghost of who he used to be, he remembers, would make a joke.
He closes his eyes and he realizes that they're shouting. There's more people in here, running and yelling, and if he listens hard enough there are explosions that seem to be going off above him. They're still yelling and his eyes swivel to theirs. He can't focus but the words break through finally, and it's a word he hasn't heard in a long time. "Peeta!" They're screaming. "Peeta, come on!"
Peeta, he thinks to himself as he tries to put his feet on the ground. They hold him up and he tries to steady himself and the word, the name, his name, floats through his head. Peeta.
They lead him out the door and he is suddenly afraid again. He follows because he knows that's what he's supposed to do, what he has to do and if he is being honest with himself the thought of not following doesn't even cross his mind.
"Where are we going?" He asks finally as they pass the only rooms that people have brought him to. They're leading him to places that don't know his screams, and he is afraid.
"We're getting you out of here, Peeta. We're getting out of the Capitol."
And he is more afraid. He can't remember anything outside of the walls and the fluorescent lights, and just the feeling of carpet underneath his worn out shoes instead of the slick linoleum is enough for him to almost collapse. He is more afraid, and he doesn't know where they are going because he has no home and he doesn't know who's going to be there because he has no family.
He has an idea of someone, though, and he asks if Katniss will be there.
For the first time in a long while smiles come through instead of needles at the mention of her name, and they say to him, "Yes, she will be there. She missed you."
They're on their way out then, and he loses himself in his mind. Katniss, the word, the name, her name, hisses in his mind and he lays down. People take his pulse, check his wounds, and he flinches at every touch. Katniss, it hisses, and he gets a headache. He is still afraid, but there's also a building anger as all that takes him over is her name. She missed you, she missed you. He knows they are lying, that she's only missed him because she can't kill him if he is away.
He thinks to a dark cave. She drew him in and kissed him and then she bit his lip and drew his blood and she drank it, and drank him in and there's a part of him, he's sure, that is stuck forever in that cave. She made sure of it.
She missed you, they tell him, and everyone around him smiles wider as they take his blood to check. It is a successful mission, they saved everyone stuck in the Capitol, and everyone is in an afterglow of a successful mission. He tries to feel empty because it's easier if he does, but she missed you, she missed you fills him up and he wants to tear the blanket that they put over him.
Everything feels clogged in him and it all swirls and he tries to remember the feel of canvas beneath his fingertips but he can't because she missed him, she missed him.
He doesn't hear his name again until she says it. Her eyes are wide and look right at his and he wonders if he ever really saw grey before and he wonders how her hair could have even gotten longer. She says his name, Peeta, and he thinks her name, Katniss, and he remembers needles. Needles in him, they became the only thing he could depend on, and he concentrates on the feeling that the needles gave him. The liquid drains his blood black and his eyes, he knows they darken, and all he feels is needles as she comes towards him. She looks happy, she missed you, she missed you, and he knows that she's happy because finally, after all of this, she can truly kill him. All he feels is needles, and he remembers what they told him before. Mutt, they said, and he replies in his head with the same word. The mutt is in front of him.
He listens to the needles and his hands find her neck.
Needles dig holes, the holes dig terror, and he falls into darkness just as he vomits.
~3300 words
Mockingjay spoilers; warning because nothing is ever happy with my words
A winter wind brushes through the tangled golden sun drenched hair of his, and he feels a chill. He's inside, far inside, away from anywhere that weather could hit him, but if he closes his eyes he could feel the snow kissing his cheeks and biting his hands.
A kiss, a bite, and then he can't tell the two apart. If they ever were apart. He thinks of a girl with a braid that led a never-ending trail down her back, a girl in a cave and blood, a girl who kissed him, and decides that a kiss and a bite are the same thing.
A kiss can kill. A bite can swallow. And somewhere along the line, both happened to him.
"She destroyed you."
She's the reason I'm alive.
A bite comes then, all across his skin. Destroyed you, destroyed you, the walls seem to scream each time his blood comes through.
It hurts, he says. And I am afraid.
A man laughs back, a rose is placed upon his body like they do every day, and a corpse named Johanna Mason says don't let the bastards win.
(Not a corpse yet but some days she may as well be, they all may as well be.)
I can't let them win? He asks himself as another bruise blooms. The sight of the purple red brings thoughts of his dear sweet mother, and he wonders how much it hurt when Katniss killed them all.
No.
She didn't do that.
Don't let the bastards win.
Because it was another game.
His whole life was a game. Is a game still. A hide and seek game with Death, he plays tic-tac-toe with some poisonous berries, hopscotch with venom. But it was a dance with a girl, a dance and a twirl and she seduced me, she seduced me to kill me and I need to kill her.
No.
He doesn't. She didn't.
He remembers that his love for her was always there, that hers was the one that was pulled and stretched for him. That real memory hurts more than the needle.
They tell him she's dead. She's dead and he may as well be dead and she's just a dead body.
He spits in their faces. I'd know if she was dead. I'd feel it.
He knows she isn't dead because he doesn't feel anything.
Then the needle plunges and the words change.
The needle tells him, the person with the needle tells him, that his thoughts were wrong. The girl that was named Katniss Everdeen wasn't a girl but a parasite and the host was his soul. And it's dead and gone because of her, just like you, boy.
No, somewhere he calls. No it's not. No I'm not. I'm not dead and gone, not from her. She didn't prey on me.
But that is a lie, she was always the hunter and never the hunted.
"Everything you love is dead because of her."
No, no. All I've ever loved is her, and she's still alive.
Another needle in, and he starts to reply in his mind instead of aloud.
"Mutt," the shadows whisper to him. His ears perk up at the word, the blood swirls deeper within. "Mutt," the cracked knuckles repeat, the black eye sings, the bloody lip spits. He splutters on his own saliva, a spot of drool that maybe in a life he once was told he lived he'd be embarrassed. It was mixed with piss and blood, and somewhere in the dull headache he doesn't care.
"Mutt?" He asks the heavy air around him and it seems to crackle with life.
"Mutt," it responds, and he waits for a needle but it doesn't come.
"Mutt," he says again, and he realizes it must be satisfied with him, with this word, and maybe today he won't hurt.
He tries to turn over, the feeling of a broken rib shoots through his body, and he wonders how much that Mutt of a girl could hurt him even when she was so far away.
"Speak," they tell him, and he wonders if he is just a dog that is to comply and do tricks.
(Well of course. He's a dog and she's a mutt and maybe he's a mutt too, maybe, but right now he needs to speak.)
They dress him up, cover the bruises, and he wears a smile as he goes on stage. He sweats and waits for someone to cut him, or maybe to plunge more fluids in him, but he's greeted by color and lights and there's applause from a crowd. He tries to think of the last time he saw this many people, and his head pounds.
"Hello Peeta," A voice comes through and he turns and sees a man sitting across from him with a smile and blue hair. Caesar, his name is Caesar.
And my name is Peeta.
It feels weird for him to think of himself with a name, to be in lights, to feel life around himself. Everyone's breath seems to vibrate in the air and he's more alert to his heart beating than he had been in days.
"Hello," he responds and a smile chisels onto his mouth and he tries to remember who Peeta is. He thinks of Peeta, of himself, and how he's been on this stage before, talked to this man before, been so close to wanting to die in front of all of these people before.
Why? His brain asks. Why? And he knows it was for her, it was always for her and as he sat on the stage he knows that this is for her as well.
Somehow it's easier in the lights to pretend that his name is still who he is, that he isn't woozy from blood loss or lack of sun. Somehow his brain is hazy but there's one thing that's clear, and it's the feeling of soft dark hair in a braid as he slowly lets it fall on slight shoulders.
She can kill him, wants to kill him, will kill him. He knows. He knows because they tell him and when he agrees they do not hurt him.
"Mutt," he says, and he gets a meal.
"I love her," he adds, and the blood runs darker as holes appear on his arms. He might scream, scream for her, for her love or her hate or just death, just give me death, but he isn't sure.
The red is dark and thick, and he thinks back to a canvas. He remembers a canvas and paints, where he used to lose himself for hours. He tries to in the middle of it all, to think of the feeling of a paintbrush in his hands, tries to think of how his hands could create a world upon nothingness, tries to think of how it felt like playing god.
He remembers how he painted his nightmares.
In the middle of it all, in the dingy room in the Capitol, he only has the color red and it's dark and thick. He looks down and sees specks of it on him, and he tries to pretends its his oils, the smells around him maybe just the spirits that he mixes in the paints, and if he closes his eyes hard enough he could pretend that he sees a sunset, still wet and newly painted, the coarse canvas texture coming through even after layers of colors.
The feeling of canvas beneath his fingers is a thing that he starts to forget, so he tries to shut his eyes harder and coax his fingers to get the feeling. Everything around him is smooth though, not that there's much. The colors around him are whites and blues and greys, and they don't even give him the Capitol lavish colors here in this room.
They plunge a needle in, and behind his eyes he sees his oils. They mix and swirl and he tries to pretend its his palette, he's getting ready to paint a forest, her forest, but it always goes back to the dark, thick red from him, the dark, thick red that she made come out of him.
He tries to count the times he bleeds for her, but loses count as he goes unconscious.
They show him a video and there's fire, and that's all he can focus on at first.
"Do you know what you're looking at?" They ask him, and he looks.
Fire, he thinks, but he looks more.
Home, he realizes, as the camera pans out and he can take in the school as flames shoot out the windows. He tries to think of classes he had in that place, but all he can remember is the back of her head as she stared out a window. The camera keeps moving, and he watches as people (were they once neighbors? Friends? The words feel weird and he isn't sure if they can be used here) struggle to get away and don't succeed. He watches as the camera stops and focuses on a building he knew, a building he grew up in, the reason why the word home was something to him.
He didn't have a home anymore, and he watches as a bakery in a place called District 12 turns to soot.
They tell him his family was in there, that if they had audio he would be able to hear their screams, and he nods. He doesn't cry, although somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks that maybe he should.
"Do you know who did this?" They ask him, and he knows, and they know that he knows.
His answer comes up on screen, and he sees Katniss laughing as the camera goes back to the flames.
He says the name Katniss, but it comes out like Mutt, and they give him stale bread as they bring him back to the room.
He still doesn't cry, but he doesn't dwell on it as he eats his bread and his mind is loud with flames.
"I hate her," he tells the body that used to be Johanna Mason. She is still wet from the water and her body is still shaking from the tremors of electricity and she doesn't turn to look at him.
"No you don't." Her voice is weak, weaker than she ever lets it be, and he wonders if she'll ever get out of here to deny how much this place makes her stammer.
"Yes I do." And he feels his anger. It feels good, running through him, and it makes him forget the pain that ripples through his bones. He goes after it. "I hate her and she's a mutt and she never loved me."
Johanna Mason then lets out a coughing laugh, some dark red staining the ground below her mouth where she is laying, and she turns slightly to look at the body that was once named Peeta Mellark. Somehow she finds a way to laugh, to make a joke, as if she isn't already dead. "You're just as brainless as her. She loves you."
"She doesn't love me and I don't love her." He finds that saying these words feels good and right. How could he even say he loved her when he was here? Wherever he is, whatever the room is, there isn't enough space for love. He was a fool for trying to say there was before, but he knew better. The needles told him.
But then the girl who used to be Johanna Mason seems to have a fire in her voice. "Don't you dare." She has anger too, anger against his anger, and he for a second considers faltering. "Don't you dare say that and believe it. Don't you dare let them win. We're not going through all of this for nothing."
"We're going through this for her." His words are a snarl. Anger feels good, because everything about this is aggravating. Why couldn't they just kill him? It would be easier. There is so much pain, so much terror. Anger feels good.
"We're going through this for her, for the rebellion, for all of Panem. If you lose your love for her, if you lose yourself in it all, I swear to god Peeta Mellark."
He laughs, the mention of a god was something to behold. There wasn't much talk ever in Panem about religion, but some people had their beliefs. Johanna Mason never seemed like one to hold them, but maybe in the water she found her god. He laughs again at that thought, until all he can do is laugh, laugh at her, laugh at the thought of someone looking over everything, laugh at how the sound echos off the walls like their screams do, laugh at his blood and how some of his wounds start to open with his laughter.
A man with a needle comes in then, and the boy that was once named Peeta Mellark is still laughing. Needles dig holes, the holes dig terror, and he falls into darkness just as he vomits.
He thinks of green.
There was green surrounding his old home, he remembers that. He remembers the trees and how they held a certain mystery that called to him and scared him all at once. Green brings him to the arenas, the forests of the first and the jungles of the second. Most of all, green brings him to her.
He doesn't like green.
He thinks of orange.
He doesn't know why he thinks of orange.
He thinks of red.
He always thinks of red. He doesn't mean to. He sees red and tastes it and all of his existence can be described as red. He thinks of sunsets and how at the last second of it all, everything is painted red, but that's all he can remember of sunsets. He tries to imagine all of it, how they seem, how they change and all the colors that are made of them, but can't and he feels a sob rip through him.
He tries to stop because it's just a goddamn sunset, but tears continue to fall and there's salt stinging down his cheeks and it hurts when they go over wounds. He feels, suddenly, feels pain and loss inside, where he was positive there was nothing left, and he just wants to feel comfort, feel safe and lay in a big bed holding her to keep her nightmares away and he feels.
He tries to stop his tears, tries to stop feeling anything because it hurts and it hurts more than any of the other damn things they put him through. He stops eventually and feels empty until he eventually goes back to feeling nothing.
Nothing is better.
Someone comes in and there isn't a needle in their hands. He thinks that maybe they are going to take Johanna Mason again, still moaning from her last treatment.
Treatment. He's ready to bark another laugh at the words that they use with the two of them, but the person without needles comes over to him and grabs him by the arm.
A ghost of himself, of who he used to be, rears up in him and the thought to fight back comes through, but in the end he slumps against the person's hold on him. Well this was definitely new, he thinks, and he wonders if he should try to smile about that because the ghost of who he used to be, he remembers, would make a joke.
He closes his eyes and he realizes that they're shouting. There's more people in here, running and yelling, and if he listens hard enough there are explosions that seem to be going off above him. They're still yelling and his eyes swivel to theirs. He can't focus but the words break through finally, and it's a word he hasn't heard in a long time. "Peeta!" They're screaming. "Peeta, come on!"
Peeta, he thinks to himself as he tries to put his feet on the ground. They hold him up and he tries to steady himself and the word, the name, his name, floats through his head. Peeta.
They lead him out the door and he is suddenly afraid again. He follows because he knows that's what he's supposed to do, what he has to do and if he is being honest with himself the thought of not following doesn't even cross his mind.
"Where are we going?" He asks finally as they pass the only rooms that people have brought him to. They're leading him to places that don't know his screams, and he is afraid.
"We're getting you out of here, Peeta. We're getting out of the Capitol."
And he is more afraid. He can't remember anything outside of the walls and the fluorescent lights, and just the feeling of carpet underneath his worn out shoes instead of the slick linoleum is enough for him to almost collapse. He is more afraid, and he doesn't know where they are going because he has no home and he doesn't know who's going to be there because he has no family.
He has an idea of someone, though, and he asks if Katniss will be there.
For the first time in a long while smiles come through instead of needles at the mention of her name, and they say to him, "Yes, she will be there. She missed you."
They're on their way out then, and he loses himself in his mind. Katniss, the word, the name, her name, hisses in his mind and he lays down. People take his pulse, check his wounds, and he flinches at every touch. Katniss, it hisses, and he gets a headache. He is still afraid, but there's also a building anger as all that takes him over is her name. She missed you, she missed you. He knows they are lying, that she's only missed him because she can't kill him if he is away.
He thinks to a dark cave. She drew him in and kissed him and then she bit his lip and drew his blood and she drank it, and drank him in and there's a part of him, he's sure, that is stuck forever in that cave. She made sure of it.
She missed you, they tell him, and everyone around him smiles wider as they take his blood to check. It is a successful mission, they saved everyone stuck in the Capitol, and everyone is in an afterglow of a successful mission. He tries to feel empty because it's easier if he does, but she missed you, she missed you fills him up and he wants to tear the blanket that they put over him.
Everything feels clogged in him and it all swirls and he tries to remember the feel of canvas beneath his fingertips but he can't because she missed him, she missed him.
He doesn't hear his name again until she says it. Her eyes are wide and look right at his and he wonders if he ever really saw grey before and he wonders how her hair could have even gotten longer. She says his name, Peeta, and he thinks her name, Katniss, and he remembers needles. Needles in him, they became the only thing he could depend on, and he concentrates on the feeling that the needles gave him. The liquid drains his blood black and his eyes, he knows they darken, and all he feels is needles as she comes towards him. She looks happy, she missed you, she missed you, and he knows that she's happy because finally, after all of this, she can truly kill him. All he feels is needles, and he remembers what they told him before. Mutt, they said, and he replies in his head with the same word. The mutt is in front of him.
He listens to the needles and his hands find her neck.