[fic: the hunger games]
they came and flayed my name from me
the hunger games. peeta mellark. spoilers. "you will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast." ~1200 | r
for brittany
His snowy white hair is a halo around his head, glowing like sun in the winter. Peeta Mellark thinks, I am afraid. I am very afraid. But in this blue world edged with green, he cannot think why.
And behind him, a cave.
The man tilts his head. His mouth moves but his words flow out from a great distance. “You don’t have to go in there, Peeta Mellark. You don’t. You could stay out here, in the sun. Why get up? Why go in? Into that dark cave?”
The grass ripples like water, and he hears the cry of a mockingjay and Peeta Mellark looks at this man with his snowy white halo hair and gets up. He stands, he turns, he walks to the cave behind him. The old man, he thinks, may sigh.
Katniss Everdeen waits for him.
In the dark they draw him into their unreal world.
They peel his skin, they plunge needles underneath his eyes. Hair glows white in the darkness.
This is not real, Peeta Mellark tells himself, this is not real.
He slips out of the nightmare and into reality.
Effie Trinket guides him through the trees, weaves him like a basket through the woods. They step over a dead girl’s body, her pretty brown eyes staring blank and lifeless up at the clear blue sky. Pink dust settles like filaments on her cheeks. A spear kisses her chest. To think once this girl had a name, and a bird settles on her chest to sing her a gentle psalm.
“Come along now come along,” Effie Trinket says. “It’s a big big big day and you want to make a good impression!”
The cave seems to grow out of the ground, a wide dark mouth with jagged teeth. He can’t see inside but it feels like the whole world is waiting for him, a universe compressed between those rocks. His side aches, suddenly, like it’s been stabbed.
“Oh don’t,” Effie Trinket lays a hand on his wrist. “Don’t go in there. You’ll get all dirty, you know, and it wouldn't it be terrible-too meet everyone covered in blood and dirt and grime? Stay out here, if you please.”
“I have to go.”
“You always go.” She sighs, like an old man did another life time ago, with snowy white hair like a halo. Hers is pink and curly and kisses the nape of her neck in cheery springs.
Peeta turns from her and enters the cave where Katniss Everdeen waits for him.
“In that cave,” some unreal voice says against his ear, “you loved her, didn’t you?”
He clings to himself with the edges of his fingertips. Hauls him into reality with grit and determation. “No. Not in the cave. I loved her before. I’ve always loved her. She sang once, and I loved her.”
“But did she love you?”
They push him and he tumbles, but he falls out of this pretend world, drives a hole through the dark shroud and meets sunshine.
“You’ll always go into that cave, you know,” Haymitch says. He holds his bottle with two fingers and alcohol sloshes noisily against its sides like a woman swollen with her child. “You will always be a fool. You will always be dead.”
He turns his head, and nebulas cluster at the edges of his hair. The world sparks green.
“Do you know why?”
Behind him, the cave waits. Innocuous, a spider on the pillowslip. A siren plaiting her hair on the rocks. He is the captain too blind to rope himself to the mast of his ship. His legs are already walking there, though he stands still.
“You will always be dead.” Haymitch drinks, and blood slips passed his lips to coagulate at the underside of his chin. “Because she will always kill you.”
In the cave, Katniss Everdeen is already kissing him.
He is an egg and they crack him open, spill out his yolk and replace it with something else, something that ticks like machinery-tick tock this is a clock-with gears and wires that whiz and whirl and somewhere far away a body he thinks he might have once called Johanna Mason screams electricity.
“She’s killed you, you know,” the man with the snowy white hair says. His face is compassionate, drawn, etched in geometric lines of timelessness. “That’s what mutts do.”
There’s a needle in his arm, and a hot liquid in his veins, and the world is green and the world is unreal and real and converges and diverges and he spins out, the thread of a quilt being yanked. He doesn’t know which way to turn and in his mind, in a world that is not real but once was, he runs to the cave and to her.
Katniss takes his hand and kisses him gently, fire hanging like a badge at her breast. Her lips are soft and warm, she tastes like woods and milk and green. The cave is dark, quiet. Water drips down its sides. Tears collect in crystal pools.
Her hands move, draw him through the cave and to District 12, and it burns like a solar flare on the surface of the sun. It smells like ashes and corpses and singed hair.
“You are a fool,” she whispers against his mouth. He’s holding a knife, and she takes it from him.
She stabs Madge Undersee, and slits Primrose Everdeen’s throat. Rue lays still and dead on the ground and she shatters her skull with her boot.
She tears the Justice Building down brick by brick, to where mothers cower with their babies. She pulls their limbs from their sockets and her face stains red with blood and he stands still as stone, the taste of her on his lips. She gathers up his family, his mother and father and brothers, locks them in the bakery. She sets them all on fire, and makes him watch them burn.
His fingers grip her hair, so thick and dark and how can there be so much of it? So much of it when there is so little left of him? Fire eats a path from her face to her cheek and carves deep, pinkish scars under her eyes like lightning bolts. And how can there be so much of her and so little of him, when she is the one on fire?
With a laugh she says, “You are a fool and will always be a fool and you will always love me.” She kisses him, and bites down into his lip until it bleeds. “And I will always kill you.”
There’s a knife, pressing up into his ribs. He doesn’t feel it.
The strong hands fist, and the scream becomes mangled and torn in the throat. In the real world, in the real dungeon that smells like corpses and stale terror and electricity burning through Johanna Mason, District 12’s tribute opens his eyes.
There is only horror.
“She killed them all,” he says.
President Snow shakes his head sadly. “You shouldn’t have gone into that cave, Peeta Mellark.” He pulls the needle from his vein. There’s nothing left of the venom. “But you always will, because you will always be a fool.”
He screams.
“And she will always kill you.”
the hunger games. peeta mellark. spoilers. "you will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast." ~1200 | r
for brittany
His snowy white hair is a halo around his head, glowing like sun in the winter. Peeta Mellark thinks, I am afraid. I am very afraid. But in this blue world edged with green, he cannot think why.
And behind him, a cave.
The man tilts his head. His mouth moves but his words flow out from a great distance. “You don’t have to go in there, Peeta Mellark. You don’t. You could stay out here, in the sun. Why get up? Why go in? Into that dark cave?”
The grass ripples like water, and he hears the cry of a mockingjay and Peeta Mellark looks at this man with his snowy white halo hair and gets up. He stands, he turns, he walks to the cave behind him. The old man, he thinks, may sigh.
Katniss Everdeen waits for him.
In the dark they draw him into their unreal world.
They peel his skin, they plunge needles underneath his eyes. Hair glows white in the darkness.
This is not real, Peeta Mellark tells himself, this is not real.
He slips out of the nightmare and into reality.
Effie Trinket guides him through the trees, weaves him like a basket through the woods. They step over a dead girl’s body, her pretty brown eyes staring blank and lifeless up at the clear blue sky. Pink dust settles like filaments on her cheeks. A spear kisses her chest. To think once this girl had a name, and a bird settles on her chest to sing her a gentle psalm.
“Come along now come along,” Effie Trinket says. “It’s a big big big day and you want to make a good impression!”
The cave seems to grow out of the ground, a wide dark mouth with jagged teeth. He can’t see inside but it feels like the whole world is waiting for him, a universe compressed between those rocks. His side aches, suddenly, like it’s been stabbed.
“Oh don’t,” Effie Trinket lays a hand on his wrist. “Don’t go in there. You’ll get all dirty, you know, and it wouldn't it be terrible-too meet everyone covered in blood and dirt and grime? Stay out here, if you please.”
“I have to go.”
“You always go.” She sighs, like an old man did another life time ago, with snowy white hair like a halo. Hers is pink and curly and kisses the nape of her neck in cheery springs.
Peeta turns from her and enters the cave where Katniss Everdeen waits for him.
“In that cave,” some unreal voice says against his ear, “you loved her, didn’t you?”
He clings to himself with the edges of his fingertips. Hauls him into reality with grit and determation. “No. Not in the cave. I loved her before. I’ve always loved her. She sang once, and I loved her.”
“But did she love you?”
They push him and he tumbles, but he falls out of this pretend world, drives a hole through the dark shroud and meets sunshine.
“You’ll always go into that cave, you know,” Haymitch says. He holds his bottle with two fingers and alcohol sloshes noisily against its sides like a woman swollen with her child. “You will always be a fool. You will always be dead.”
He turns his head, and nebulas cluster at the edges of his hair. The world sparks green.
“Do you know why?”
Behind him, the cave waits. Innocuous, a spider on the pillowslip. A siren plaiting her hair on the rocks. He is the captain too blind to rope himself to the mast of his ship. His legs are already walking there, though he stands still.
“You will always be dead.” Haymitch drinks, and blood slips passed his lips to coagulate at the underside of his chin. “Because she will always kill you.”
In the cave, Katniss Everdeen is already kissing him.
He is an egg and they crack him open, spill out his yolk and replace it with something else, something that ticks like machinery-tick tock this is a clock-with gears and wires that whiz and whirl and somewhere far away a body he thinks he might have once called Johanna Mason screams electricity.
“She’s killed you, you know,” the man with the snowy white hair says. His face is compassionate, drawn, etched in geometric lines of timelessness. “That’s what mutts do.”
There’s a needle in his arm, and a hot liquid in his veins, and the world is green and the world is unreal and real and converges and diverges and he spins out, the thread of a quilt being yanked. He doesn’t know which way to turn and in his mind, in a world that is not real but once was, he runs to the cave and to her.
Katniss takes his hand and kisses him gently, fire hanging like a badge at her breast. Her lips are soft and warm, she tastes like woods and milk and green. The cave is dark, quiet. Water drips down its sides. Tears collect in crystal pools.
Her hands move, draw him through the cave and to District 12, and it burns like a solar flare on the surface of the sun. It smells like ashes and corpses and singed hair.
“You are a fool,” she whispers against his mouth. He’s holding a knife, and she takes it from him.
She stabs Madge Undersee, and slits Primrose Everdeen’s throat. Rue lays still and dead on the ground and she shatters her skull with her boot.
She tears the Justice Building down brick by brick, to where mothers cower with their babies. She pulls their limbs from their sockets and her face stains red with blood and he stands still as stone, the taste of her on his lips. She gathers up his family, his mother and father and brothers, locks them in the bakery. She sets them all on fire, and makes him watch them burn.
His fingers grip her hair, so thick and dark and how can there be so much of it? So much of it when there is so little left of him? Fire eats a path from her face to her cheek and carves deep, pinkish scars under her eyes like lightning bolts. And how can there be so much of her and so little of him, when she is the one on fire?
With a laugh she says, “You are a fool and will always be a fool and you will always love me.” She kisses him, and bites down into his lip until it bleeds. “And I will always kill you.”
There’s a knife, pressing up into his ribs. He doesn’t feel it.
The strong hands fist, and the scream becomes mangled and torn in the throat. In the real world, in the real dungeon that smells like corpses and stale terror and electricity burning through Johanna Mason, District 12’s tribute opens his eyes.
There is only horror.
“She killed them all,” he says.
President Snow shakes his head sadly. “You shouldn’t have gone into that cave, Peeta Mellark.” He pulls the needle from his vein. There’s nothing left of the venom. “But you always will, because you will always be a fool.”
He screams.
“And she will always kill you.”