A House United, Chapter 4

[shesasurvivor]

Rating:Explicit
Summary: Follow up to Blue on Grey. Katniss Everdeen has done the unspeakable with Union soldier Peeta Mellark. Now she's agreed to marry him. But first, they must make it through a proper courtship while surviving the trials of the Reconstruction Era South. Historical AU.
Warnings: Explicit sex, some violence, racial issues.
Follows Blue on Grey. Part of the A House United series.
AO3 - FFN



Mama draws me immediately off to the side to reprimand me for my behavior. On her face she wears an expression that’s a mixture of embarrassment and concern. “What’s gotten into you, Katniss?” she asks me as she tries to search my eyes that I’m trying to keep as unemotional as possible.

When I say nothing, she lets a long, tired sigh, and begins another lecture on how a proper lady is supposed to behave. I want to tell her that it’s no use, that I am not a proper lady by any means of the word by now. But then all my dirty little secrets would have to be spilled, and there’s no way I could do that at this point.

She commands me to apologize to Haymitch immediately following supper, so after the dishes have been cleared and the kitchen has been cleaned, I find myself in the living room, face to face with a still inebriated Haymitch. In fact, he’s not only still inebriated, I notice - he’s going in for round two by this point, judging by the fresh stench of liquor that rises to greet me as I enter the room, and the unmarked jug sitting not too far away from him.

“What’s that?” I frown at it.

Haymitch hiccups. “Moonshine,” he tells me. “You wanna try some, sweetheart?”

“No, thank you,” I make a face at him. I haven’t completely lost all aspects of being ladylike.

“Suit yourself,” he says as he takes another swig. I sigh, and try to squash down my annoyance as I attempt to get out what I came here to do. “I’m sorry for being rude to you out on the porch... Uncle Haymitch.” I force myself to add the last part.

Haymitch takes one look at me before he bursts out laughing. “Did your mother tell you to do this?”

My hands roll into balls. He looks at me, trying not to laugh at the sight of me, and also trying as hard as he can to stay focused on me. I’m angry, and as far as I’ve concerned I have already accomplished what I set out to do when I came here, so I spin on my feet to march out of the room when Haymitch’s voice stops me in my tracks.

“So you gotta thing for the Yankee, eh, sweetheart?”

I freeze, and turn my head to the side ever so slightly - not enough to be looking at him, but enough to show that I’m paying attention. “What did you say?” I measure my words slowly.

Haymitch takes another swig from his bottle. “The blond one. Saw you two making eyes at each other out on the porch. And throughout supper. Does your Ma know?”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing to tell.”
He lets out another laugh, one that’s much louder than it needs to be. “I bet there isn’t,” he says.

I smolder, giving him my best glare before I turn around and stomp out, making sure to close the door behind me as loudly as possible. I can still hear Haymitch laughing uproariously through it.

“What’s so funny?”

I jump, and turn to find Peeta standing behind me, his mouth turned upwards in a lopsided grin as he looks curiously at the door.

“Nothing.”

Peeta tears his eyes from the door to frown at me. “That’s not good. What’d he say?”

“It was nothing,” I insist, hoping he’ll get the hint. I can’t tell him here, where prying ears may pick up on our conversation. I push past him pointedly, without another word.

It’s my job to tend to the fires that night. I stoke Mama’s and Prim’s, even Haymitch’s, before I tend to the ones downstairs. I put out the ones in the main rooms and the kitchen before I head down the hallway. When I reach the first door, I knock quietly. It opens, and Peeta is smiling at me.

“Hello,” he says.

“I’m here to stoke your fire,” I say as I push past him into the room.

“What?” he gives me a quizzical look as he watches me cross over to the fireplace. “I can do it.”

“I’m tending to other fires,” I say as I cross to the fireplace. “It’s my chore.” I notice his sketchbook is flipped open on the bed as I pass; he must have been drawing when I interrupted him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him give a shrug. “If you say so,” he says, and takes his seat on the bed to resume his sketching. I bend over, and carefully begin to toss pieces of kindling onto the dying flames. Once I’m finished, I turn around to bid Peeta goodnight. I’m surprised to see he’s poised, pencil frozen mid stroke in his hand, his eyes dark as they watch me. Slowly, he brings them up to meet mine.

“What is it?” I ask.

I see him swallow. “Are you finished stoking the fire?”

“Yes.”

His eyes dart back down to his sketchbook for a moment, though he doesn’t draw. Then, he sets it aside and looks back up at me; moves off the bed and crosses over to me. Without a word, he throws his arms around me and pulls me to him, kissing me so passionately that I’m actually a bit light-headed when we break apart.

Peeta is breathing heavily, and his eyes look nearly wild as he gazes at me.

“Peeta, what are you doing?”

He just continues to stare, his eyes moving only to trail up and down my body, then his face finally breaks into a silly grin. “I’m stoking the fire.”

I laugh, despite it all, because the joke is so bad. Peeta seems to realize it as well, because his smile turns into a full grin as he laughs with me. He pulls me towards him and gives me another kiss, this one much calmer.

“Are you going to bed now?”

“Yes, in a minute.”

“I wish it were with me,” he grins as he kisses me again, then begins to trail his way down my neck.

“Peeta...” I begin, but I’m cut off with a gasp at the feel of him nipping against my skin. He brings his hands up and places them on my waist.

“The joke was bad,” he whispers, “but my intent was serious.”

“We can’t. There are others here. It’s so risky.”

“I know,” he grins wickedly.

“They’ll hear us.”

“Not if we’re quiet.”

It’s completely against my better judgment, but as Peeta gives me another kiss that leaves me breathless, I know I want it as much as he does. I nod as he breaks away from me.

In an instant, my garments have hit the floor, followed quickly by Peeta’s. He shoves me against the wall, holding me in place with his body pressed against mine inch for inch as he kisses me frantically. His tongue dips into the slit where my lips meet, urging them open so his can dance with mine. I feel him harden; he’s pressed himself up so firm against me that it brushes against my folds, causing me to whimper into his mouth. Peeta grins against my mouth, and purposely rolls his hips against me so that his manhood comes in contact with me firmer. He brings a hand up and carefully runs it through my hair, caressing my scalp and making me shiver violently.

Suddenly he stops and pulls away so that he’s looking me straight in the eyes. “Well. Now that we’re here, I think we should enjoy ourselves,” he says in a husky voice. “So what can I do to you that you’ll enjoy?” He reaches down, takes himself in his hand and slowly begins to work himself. I watch in utter fascination, and he grins when he sees it. He brings his lips up to my ear, just as he had done that night I told him about Rue, and whispers into it with that same hot breath.

“I think about you every night like this,” he tells me. “I think about your heated body pressed up against mine, just like it is now, while I touch myself. Do you ever touch yourself and think of me, Katniss?”

Embarrassed, I shake my head. “I’ve never touched myself before,” I admit in a shaky voice.

“No?” he asks, feigning concern. “I suppose I’ll have to touch you tonight to make up for that, then.” He takes my earlobe in his mouth and gives it a long suck. “Do you want to know what else I think about, Katniss?”

I can’t speak, so I nod. He pulls away and grins at me wickedly. “Go get on your hands and knees,” he commands. “And not on the bed. Do it on the rug in front of the fireplace. The bed will make too much noise.”

I obey, trembling as I settle in position. I’m already warm as it is, but the heat radiating from the fire has me perspiring in no time. I can feel Peeta as he comes up from behind me, feel him put a hand on my bottom cheek and massage it.

Then I feel his tongue slip between my folds. He takes a long lap downwards, stopping just short of that spot above my entrance. I gasp at the contact. He moves back, repeats his motions. Meanwhile I’m having a hard time controlling the little noises escaping me. Finally, after one particularly drawn out stroke, I feel his tongue plunge inside me.

My limbs nearly give way, my entire body shaking. But the longer he works, the harder a time I have staying like this. Finally, he pulls back and my arms and legs finally give.

Peeta flips me over, and picks me up so that I’m sitting in his lap, his hardened manhood sitting flush with my thigh.
“I think about the taste of you on my tongue,” he says, “and the thought of you tasting yourself on it when you kiss me.” And then he does so, lapping his tongue against mine and there is no question that I’m tasting myself on him. He brings his hands up to my chest, and takes a breast in each one.

“I think about the swell of your breasts as I make your nipples as hard as rock,” he says as he does exactly that, rolling each one between his fingers. I let out a groan, my head falling backwards both from the feeling and from the words he’s saying. Speaking this openly about my body is frowned on around here.

“And then I think about how they would feel, how they would taste in my mouth as I carefully sucked each one until I was sure they were good and hard.” And he does it, flicking my nipples with his tongue between artful sucks that cause me to whimper and dig my nails into his shoulders.

“I think about your breasts all day, Katniss. How badly they need to be sucked.” He takes more of one into his mouth, mimicking his words. He engulfs it with his lips, then pulls back slowly until only the nipple is left inside. He lays me down on my back while he still has me in his mouth, and his hand begins to dip down between my legs.

“And while I’m sucking on your breasts, I think about making you come with my fingers.” His mouth moves to the other breast, repeating his actions with this one, while one hand begins to move on that spot, rubbing it in circles, picking up the pace as I begin bucking against him. He shifts his position so that he’s resting on his haunches, then brings the other hand down. My breath hitches in my throat as I feel first one finger, and then another and another slip into me, moving in and out of me in rhythm to the fingers on me. My entire body is wracked with shivers as I grind against him, barely able to contain the sounds escaping me now.

Just as I feel I’m about to reach that peak, Peeta stops, pulling his fingers out and away from me. I open my eyes, which I hadn’t even realized were close, and look up at him, questioning; pleading.

He just grins down to me, and raises an eyebrow. He leans over and kisses me, then moves his mouth to the side of my head. “But most of all, I think about having my cock buried deep inside you.”

“Yes,” I gasp, nodding, needing the ache that’s sprung up deep inside me to be satisfied.

“You want that, too?” he asks, grinning mischievously. I nod.

He surprises me by standing up and walking over to his chest. He opens it, reaches inside and draws something out. Walking back over to me, he sits back on his knees and rips open the package. He glances up, sees my questioning look. Suddenly, he seems a little sheepish.

“It’s a condom,” he tells me. My brow creases in confusion.

“It’s to keep you from becoming pregnant. I, uh, bought one off one of the other soldiers. Just in case... this happened.” In the time it’s taken him to explain it to me, he’s managed to get the rubber contraption unrolled and on him. He moves on top of me, kissing me fiercely. Then he positions himself, and slides inside me.

It’s different with a condom. At first it’s almost a little too strange. But Peeta’s movements begin to fall into a repetitive pattern, and I become so caught up in the feeling of him moving in and out of me that all thoughts of the rubber vanish from my mind. I bring my arms up under his, wrapping around his backside, pulling him closer to me. Eventually, his talking resumes.

“I think about fucking you so hard, I make you scream. You scream when you come, and everybody knows what I’ve done to you. There’s no question about who you want to be with then.” He pulls me closer, changing the angle so he can go deeper inside me. I come very close to screaming when I feel him hit spots I didn’t know existed.

“Why are you so afraid to tell the others how you feel about me, Katniss?” he murmurs. “Afraid that if they find out, they’ll know I know what it feels like to have you wrapped around my cock? That I know the whimpers you make, the way your whole body convulses around mine when I bring you to release? That I’ve seen so much more than just your ankle, and have yet to ask anybody but you for your hand in marriage?”

I whimper; he groans.

“Katniss,” he moans, “you feel so... so good. I... I never knew it could feel this good.” He kisses me. “I love you so damn much, Katniss. I can’t wait for you to be my wife.”

His words stir something in me. I draw my head back to look at him; he holds my gaze, and searches my eyes as I search his. Then he’s smiling gently down at me; brushing flyaway strands of hair away from my face as he gazes down at me. He leans down and gives me a long kiss.

“I love you, Katniss,” he continues in a whisper. “All day, I think about you. About ravishing you, worshipping your body, making you sing for me.” Another kiss. “I hate that we have to hide this. I want to tell the world how happy you make me.” Peeta shifts his body again in such a way that causes us both to groan in unison. “I want to hold your hand in public and whisper things in your ear about how much I love you. I want to be able to make you feel good whenever we want to.”

Suddenly, I become hypersensitive to every little detail: the way Peeta’s musky scent surrounds me, his strong arms framing me and the way they strain with every thrust he makes. My hands climb up those arms, rock hard to the touch from the way he’s holding himself; I feel him shudder at my touch as my hands trail upwards. I slide up his shoulders, wrapping my arms around them and pulling him down to me.

Peeta has stopped talking by this point, and concentrates only on his movements; the way our bodies fit together. He moves an arm underneath my neck, elevating it so he can greet me halfway as I lower him to me. When our lips meet, it’s as if a fire has been sparked inside of me. I want to crawl up into him, melt into one being with him. I feel as though I already have. Though I can still feel the delicious stroke of him as he slips in and out of my body, it becomes hard to know where I end and he begins.

“Peeta,” I hear myself whine as I wrap myself around him completely. “Oh, Peeta.” He turns his head so that he can kiss me in the crook of my neck. He pulls his arm out from its place behind my neck, lowering my head gently to the ground, and moves his arm down to take hold of my hand, guiding it to that place between my folds where pleasure seems to come from. Together, we begin to rub me until I’m trembling.

“Come for me, Katniss,” his hoarse voice whispers into my ear. “Come for me. Come on me.” My hand falls away to the side, grabbing a handful of the carpet. His fingers stay on me. “Come on my cock.”

I let out a strangled cry that he immediately swallows by covering my mouth with his own. My body writhes against him, my back arching up off the floor, pressing into him. I grab desperately onto his shoulders, sinking my nails into them as white sparks begin to blur my vision. I can feel myself shaking, feel me clamping down on Peeta inside me which only makes the whole thing feel even more amazing. I’ve never felt this alive. Peeta swears under his breath at the feeling of me on him, and a moment later he spills into the condom.

He collapses on me, still inside me, both of us breathing hard and still trembling. Peeta drops kisses onto my lips while he collects himself, and at first I eagerly return them. But after a while, something begins to creep up on me. I think of all that happened tonight, all the things he did to me that I never, in my wildest imagination, would have come up with. And slowly it begins to dawn on me where they came from. Conflicting emotions begin to bubble up inside me; torn between the intense closeness I feel to him after this last session, and something else. Something that makes me feel completely unsure about all of this.

We’re both silent for a long while after Peeta pulls out of me. I turn over on my side, my back to him, needing a chance to collect my thoughts. After a minute, I feel him press himself up behind me, cupping my small body with his larger one. Wrapping his arms around my mid, he pulls my back flush against his chest, cradling me. I let him do so, but still I say nothing. Like always, it’s him who ends up breaking the silence.

“Katniss,” he says my name in a hushed, almost reverent voice. I don’t answer. I feel him absently draw lazy patterns on my arm in the absence of my response.

“I didn’t know it could feel that way.” He says it so quietly, almost as if he’s saying it to himself instead of me.

For some reason, this gives me spark to find my words. “Oh? Not something you learned from one of your whores, huh?”

“What?” He makes no attempt to mask the confusion in his voice, and I know I’ve caught him completely off guard. Behind me, I can feel him raise himself up on one arm. He stares down at me for a minute, but I refuse to turn my gaze to meet his. Instead I just keep staring out in front of me.

“Are you angry about that, Katniss?”

I say nothing.

“I told you I would take that back if I could.” He’s sat up completely now, leaving me alone, rolled up on the floor. I curl up further, trying to make myself into a ball. Maybe then I could disappear; not have to deal with all these new feelings pervading my mind.

“At least I’m not engaged to someone else,” he says at last. I twist my head around and finally meet his eyes with a glare. He holds it, steady and stern, unrelenting. I open my mouth to fire out a retort; close it again. Open to try once more before I think twice and shut it again, and turn my glare back to the space underneath his bed.

I hear Peeta give out a languished sigh. “What’s wrong, Katniss?” he asks, and reaches out to gently stroke my hair. I close my eyes at the feeling, and for a minute let it lull me into a calmness.

“Did you learn it from them?” I ask, my voice small.

“What? From the prostitutes? Yes,” he admits. “But not the last part, Katniss.”

Again, I say nothing.

“Does it really bother you that much? You never said anything before.”

He makes a fair point. He told me about them the first time we ever were together. It bothered me then, but not like it is right now. I sit up, but I still don’t turned to face him.

“That last part wasn’t from them,” he repeats. “That was us. Just us.” He waits; I say nothing. “Do you want to talk about it?”

No, I don’t, actually. “What part?”

I hear him sigh in exasperation. “You know what I’m talking about. Katniss, come on. Don’t shut down like this. Tell me what’s bothering you, so I can fix it.”

I bring my arms up and cross them across my body, cupping my elbows. I drop my gaze. “I wish you hadn’t been with them,” I finally admit quietly.

“So do I. But I’ve told you that already. There isn’t anything I can do about that. It doesn’t make what you and I do any less meaningful, though. Is that what’s bothering you?” he asks when he sees my frown.

It’s not just that, though it is a part of it. “No. I don’t know,” I tell him as I pick at a piece of the carpet that’s sticking up next to me.

“Yes you do.”

I sigh. Fine. If he wants me to tell him, then I’ll tell him, though I’m almost mortified to have to admit it. “I don’t want you to be with anyone else,” I confess.

He waits. “Is that it?”

I mean to tell him yes, but when I open my mouth, more spills out. The next thing I know, I’m babbling something about how I don’t understand what’s happening to me, and how I’m afraid I’m beginning to act like the girls around the neighborhood who were always so clingy over their various beaux in a way I never understood, and Peeta is laughing at me.

“What?” I snap.

“You,” he says. “Did you think you were immune to those feelings?”

I scowl.

“So what does this have to do with prostitutes?”

I look at him, hoping it’s enough, that he’ll be able to understand without my having to say it. He doesn’t. Or if he does, he doesn’t admit to it. Instead he waits for me to speak. Then, when I don’t, he surprises me by moving so that he picks me up and sits me in his lap. He rubs my arm soothingly, kisses the back of my neck, then murmurs into my ear, “Tell me, Katniss.”

“I don’t want you to be with anyone else,” I admit at last.

“I won’t be,” he kisses my shoulder.

“I wish you had been with me, first.”

Peeta continues his caresses quietly for a long minute. Then, lifting me out of his lap, he stands, then helps me up. He moves to the bed, draws the sheets back, then motions for me to climb in. I do, and he follows, sitting with his back against the headboard and pulling me to him so that my head rests against his shoulder. He tucks the blankets in around us.

“I love you, Katniss,” he whispers into the silence.

“I know,” I admit.

“It doesn’t matter if you weren’t my first. Because it doesn’t change that.”

I say nothing.

“It’s different with you, Katniss,” he continues. “When I’m with you, it’s not about relieving myself, like it was with them. It’s about you. Making you feel good.”

Still I say nothing, but he takes hold of my hand and weaves his fingers between mine. “You’re my first everything else. You’re my first love.”

I look up at him in surprise. Surely that can’t be true. “You’ve never been in love before?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Not even back in Nebraska?” Another shake of his head.

“So I’m the first lady you’ve ever done anything proper with?”

“Well, now I didn’t say that,” he says looking slightly amused. “I courted a few ladies back home before the war. But none of them left a lasting impression. Until you.”

I’m quiet for a long while as I think about this. Peeta fidgets a little in this silence, then tightens the hold he has on me. Finally, I speak.

“I never had any beaux before Gale.”

He looks at me, but says nothing, encouraging me to go on.

“Not a one. The other girls had plenty, but I never was involved in any of that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think any of the young men around here saw me as desirable enough.”

“I don’t believe that,” he says, and plants a kiss on my temple.

“It’s true,” I sigh. “Mama used to fret about it constantly. If I didn’t marry a good husband, she would have felt like a failure. But then the war broke out, and it didn’t matter anyway because the men all ran off to fight it,” and I can hear the bitterness in my voice as I say it. “I’m not sure why Gale proposed when he came back. It took me completely by surprise.”

“He never courted you before the war?”

I think back, trying to remember. Those are memories that I’ve tried my best to forget by this point. Because there’s no sense in it. No sense in dwelling on days we’ll never have back again.

“No. We were friends since childhood. But he never seemed to have much interest in courting, me in particular, until he came home. And I agreed, because I thought it was the only offer I would ever receive. And I couldn’t disappoint Mama.”

“But you didn’t love him? You don’t now?”

“No,” I insist, and feeling defensive I set up and away from him. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“You know why.”

I rest my head in my hands. “I don’t know how to get out of it, Peeta,” I confess.

“Start with the truth.”

I sigh. Yes, that would be the right place to start, of course. But Peeta makes it sound so much easier than it’s going to be. “I don’t want him to hurt you,” I murmur.

“I’m a soldier in the Union Army, Katniss. I think I can handle myself.”

He’s right, of course. I lean back into him, turn so I can bury my face in his bare chest. He brings a hand up, comfortingly stroke my hair while trying to coax me back out. I have to tell him. I don’t know how to do it without opening up that part of me that I’ve never allowed anyone in before. Finally, I manage to bring myself back out, sit back and fix him with a serious look. He returns it to me, his eyebrows raised as he waits for me to speak.

“You’re mine, too,” I mutter, running the words together as though it will somehow make the impact lessen, and he’ll let it go. It doesn’t work.

“Your what?” I know he knows what I’m talking about. He just wants to hear me say it. And clearly. So I sigh, and gather myself, look away from him. The lack of eye contact should help me with this, at least.

“You’re my first love as well,” I tell the fireplace.

I’m being pulled backward, and Peeta’s mouth meets mine; hot, but not frantic as it had been earlier. Now he savors every little part of it. He breaks apart, rests his head against mine and grins as he looks me in the eyes. “You love me, Katniss?”

I nod.

“Good. Because I love you, too. And I would have courted you from the moment you were of age,” he says as he kisses me again. “I guess I’m just lucky that they left you for me.” Peeta shifts us so that he’s on top of me and begins kissing me repeatedly. Finally, he pulls back and looks me straight in the eyes.

“Katniss. You must break things off with Mr. Hawthorne. Soon.”

“I know,” I say.

He searches my eyes. “I’m not just talking about being able to court publically...” he trails off. “This... us... we...” he swallows, and I’m surprised to realize that he’s flustered. I can’t help smiling, because the sight of Peeta Mellark unable to find the right words was not one I thought I would see any time soon. My grin seems to seep into his own, and for a moment he gives me a shy smile. This relaxes him a bit, and he begins to gently push my hair out of my eyes.

“Katniss,” he breathes, starting again. “We can’t keep dancing around the fact that we connected in the way we did just now. I think we’re both feeling pretty intensely for each other. Aren’t we?”

I stare into those blue eyes of his, take a deep breath, and shove away every sense telling me to take flight. Still holding his gaze, I slowly nod.

He smiles, and leans in for another kiss before drawing back and growing serious again.

“I would be crushed if I found out you were doing this with someone else behind my back.”

I open my mouth to protest, to assure him I would never do this with anyone else, to once more assure him that it has never been like that between Gale and me, but he puts a hand on my mouth to stop me.

“You don’t need to tell me about your lack of feelings for him again,” he tells me.”I’m just saying, I don’t think he would appreciate being strung along like this. And as for us,” he says, pulling my head to him for another kiss, “I think it’ll be a lot less stressful when the only thing we need to pretend is that our courtship is a chaste one. Because I think we both know this will probably happen again.”

“It can’t,” I protest.

“I know,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean it won’t,” he says as he lets out a yawn. He moves so that he’s beside me again, and gathers me up in his arms.

“Let’s be good from now on, Peeta.”

“All right,” he says lazily, his eyes beginning to drift shut. I watch him for a while as he nods off to sleep, bringing a hand up to run gently through his hair as he does. When at last I know he’s asleep, I kiss him once, on his forehead, before I slip out of his arms, dress myself, and sneak back upstairs to my own bedroom.

Once in my own bed, I don’t fall asleep as easily as Peeta did. I lay awake for a while, thinking about him, the things he said to me; the things I know I must do. More than ever, after tonight. When at last I do drift into sleep, though, it’s a peaceful one.