Hunger Games Fic: The Unrecorded Hours
Title: The Unrecorded Hours
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Pairing: Peeta/Katniss
Rating: R
Spoilers: All for series
Word Count: ~24,000
Summary: Katniss and Peeta in the weeks and months after the war.
She's so preoccupied with Peeta's whereabouts that they might as well still be in the arena. It's a similar kind of tension, her unwillingness to accept him as an ally and the gnawing knowledge that he's trying to help her. She's in no position to refuse help, but when he's the one offering she can't let herself accept it. She allows him to plant the bushes out front and bring bread to the house, but she doesn't speak to him or go to him when the nightmares drag her back to hell. Sometimes she sits up all night, avoiding sleep, watching the lights in his house across the courtyard. When they see each other, she's polite, vacant, quick to leave. He always looks tired, but he's regained some weight. She supposes she has, too, though she can't say for sure. One of her first acts upon returning was throwing away all the mirrors in the house.
Greasy Sae's visits dwindle to just once or twice a week, and appearances by Haymitch are very irregular. Others begin returning to town, and Katniss avoids all of them. She makes a grave for Prim by the lake and visits it daily. Sitting beside it for hours at a time, she picks at the grass and wonders if Peeta has done the same for his family. When the weather improves she undresses and floats in the lake, on her back on a good day, face down on a bad one. She hates the sensation of choking and knows she could never actually drown herself. One day, after Greasy Sae leaves with her granddaughter, Katniss climbs the stairs with a knife from the kitchen and cuts her wrist, just lightly, testing. She can't feel any pain, so she cuts again, more deeply, and watches the blood run down over her palm, dripping into the sink. Unmoved, she cleans the knife and then her wrist, puts antibiotic ointment on the cut and bandages it. She goes to bed feeling both accomplished and disappointed: so that's ruled out, too.
Peeta comes daily to bring fresh bread, soft pretzels, cakes, or whatever else he's been filling his hours with making. He enters through the kitchen door without knocking and often without acknowledging her, and she doesn't protest. Sometimes they eat breakfast together in silence. The day after the experiment with the knife, he stares down at her wrist, his jaw tight.
"What's that?" he asks, nodding to the bandage. She actually laughs, feeling herself slipping into a mode of existence not unlike Annie's.
"I ran into a door," she says, giving him a cold stare. The standard line for wives in District 12 who were abused by their husbands. Peeta probably fed it to his teachers once or twice, after his mother had beaten him.
He looks mad enough to kill her himself. She laughs at the idea. When the speech about the value of her life doesn't come, she just watches him eat the sticky buns he brought for breakfast as if he's suddenly ravenous, or wants to get this visit over with as soon as possible. He continues to look furious, but doesn't say anything, which only makes her angrier, and that much more resolved not to say anything herself.
After breakfast, he cleans up, and she stays seated at the table, her bandaged wrist brazenly exposed. She's wearing a formless shift dress, no socks or shoes. Peeta has tucked in his shirt, is even wearing a belt. Ridiculous.
"What are you doing?" she asks when he walks into the front room and sits down on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Staying," he says. "There's no point, the two of us alone in these big houses."
"So you're going to sit there like a lump and watch me?" Katniss says. She can't remember being angrier, but that keeps happening, the anger just building and building, never enough relief to level off before more floods in.
"I don't know," he says. "Do you need watching?"
She doesn't dignify this with an answer. This house has never felt as if it belongs to her, so she doesn't attempt to throw him out. It's still a comfort to know his precise location, and she can hear him moving around down on the first floor. Every cabinet drawer that opens in the kitchen and footstep across the wooden floorboards irritates and comforts her. He's so big. It frustrates her, not just for the amount of noise he makes while walking around, but because his size has made her crave his closeness. That was the best part of sleeping with him, the way she could disappear entirely against his chest, the protective shell of him closing around her. There was also his heartbeat, his hand warm on her cheek, the kisses pressed to her forehead, but all he should really get credit for is being uncommonly large. She lies in bed thinking this, buried under blankets, scowling.
Around sundown, he goes quiet. She sits up and listens, wondering if he left. She's sure she would have heard the door if he had; he would have slammed it. The sun sinks lower outside, the temperature dropping. She puts on socks and moves silently to her closed bedroom door, presses her ear against it and listens. Nothing. A nervous excitement builds in her chest, her heart rate quickening. Where is Peeta? Except when he's pressed up against her under blankets, the question hasn't left her mind since she sprinted away from the Cornucopia during their first Games. Sometimes she gets just his name stuck in her head like a splinter, an almost sing-song taunt: Peeta, Peeta, Peeta, a nagging thing not quite forgotten, difficult to remember.
She opens the door as quietly as possible. Stalking him, weaponless. She's stopped believing that he could hurt her except by disappearing, so she assumes as she creeps down the stairs that whatever she finds will be a relief. She's wrong: he's on the sofa again, head in his hands, breathing hard, pulling at his hair. Suffering one of his episodes, the darkness that the hijacking left behind clawing at him, trying to pull him under. Katniss thinks of the pit that opened in the Capitol just before she reached Snow's mansion, the dark figures that swallowed up the people who fell into it. Peeta is making horrible noises, pulling at his hair so hard that she's afraid he'll yank two handfuls out. She flattens her back against the wall, her heart slamming now. She doesn't want to get pulled in to that darkness, is already too close to her own. She wants to shut him into a room where she can watch this from behind protective glass, flanked by guards.
He crumples to the floor, falling off the couch and landing on his elbows and knees. He might be sobbing; he sounds like he's trying to swallow a knife. Katniss thinks of getting Haymitch, but he's probably drunk. She runs through the list of others she can turn to. No one, really.
"Peeta," she says, but the name doesn't make any sound when it leaves her lips. He doesn't seem aware that she's here, even when she walks slowly into the front room, shaking. She's always been afraid of him when he's like this, though, if she's honest, she never really believed that he could kill her. She's afraid to face the parts of this that are real. His anger, his disappointment. The boy who fell out of love with her.
He flinches away when she touches his shoulder, his back slamming against the couch. His face is red and splotchy when he looks up at her, but he's not crying. He doesn't seem angry, just terrified, his eyes wide and unseeing.
"I can't," he says, trying to back away and finding that he has no where to go. "I can't -- it's -- I can't --"
"Hey." She takes his face in her hands, terrified, and when he tries to get away, she straddles his lap, pressing her forehead against his. "Stop. Peeta. Look at me."
He's panting hard, slumped down so that his chest is heaving between her legs. She won't let herself blink until his pupils shrink back to a normal size, his breath still ragged but slower. He clamps his mouth shut, breathes through his nose, and when his eyes harden she knows that he's back.
"How often does this happen?" Katniss asks. She thinks of him alone in bed, soaking the sheets with sweat, clawing at his skin. Peeta just shakes his head, not as if he refuses to answer but just to tell her that he can't speak yet, that he needs to concentrate on breathing. She nods and strokes his cheeks with her thumbs. He's clammy, heavy bags under his eyes. The sun is almost gone outside, the room just barely glowing with what's left of Peeta's favorite color. She wonders if she should get off of him, realizing only then that his hands are resting on her hips.
She kisses him, because it's the right thing to do. Tells herself it's just a reflex but can't seem to stop. She kisses his nose, his cheeks, his eyebrows. His lips, but only briefly, before pressing a line of kisses along his jaw. His breath is speeding up again, hands closing around her waist.
"Don't," he says.
“Why not?” she asks. She finds his lips again, touching hers to them just barely, her eyes open. His eyelashes are golden even in this light. He blinks out a pair of fat tears and she sucks them off his cheeks, something about this making her remember hunger very vividly, the price of salt. When she pulls back she lets her hands slide from his cheeks down to his neck. He sniffles.
“I made brownies,” he says, and then he starts sobbing. She moans and leans forward to hug him, letting him hide his face against her chest. They stay like that for a long time, Peeta's hands twitching on her back, Katniss sniffing the air, her mouth watering at the thought of a pan of brownies cooling on the oven.
They eat the brownies for dinner like naughty children; Katniss supposes they are still children, by some perverse and irrelevant classification. She puts her bare feet over Peeta's shoes, under the table.
“Why are you so well-dressed?” she teases, pouring him more milk. He still seems fragile, and looks at her like he's confused by the question. “Waiting for a camera crew to show up?” she says.
It's not really funny. Camera crews are a sensitive subject, but what isn't? Water is a sensitive subject. Food always will be. Trees have their ghosts now, too. The fires Peeta makes to bake his bread: ha. Katniss just stares at him, waiting for an answer.
“Would it make you feel better if I dressed like Haymitch?” Peeta asks, eyebrows knitting, angry again. “Walking around with vomit stains on my shirt?”
“It might,” Katniss says. She presses her foot more firmly against his. He grumbles to himself unintelligibly, a habit that started after the hijacking and which never fails to unnerve her. She watches him drain his glass of milk.
She doesn't want him to go. He doesn't. They climb the stairs and enter her bedroom without a word. Katniss shuts the door behind her, though there's no one in the house to see them. She undresses without looking at Peeta, making no attempt at modesty. In bed, she rolls toward the wall and listens to him take off his belt, his pants, hears him arranging his shoes neatly by the wall. He always did that in the train compartment, as if out of respect for her living space, and maybe for the shoes themselves. When he was a prisoner of Snow's all it would take to start her weeping into her hands was the thought of Peeta's shoes waiting for him by the wall, and the way he would kneel down to straighten them before he came to her.
Things are awkward for roughly ten seconds, as always: Katniss' elbows, Peeta's leg, their noses, their breath. Then the blankets come up to their shoulders, they sink beneath them, and everything is just warmth, and clutching, his familiar scars sliding against hers.
They don't kiss that night, but he does get hard against her thigh, which makes her smile, though it shouldn't, because he must have been so lonely for so long, to be excited by just this. She thinks of the first time she felt it, in the sleeping bag during their first Games, the apology in his eyes when she looked at him with confusion, half-asleep. He was blushing, heartsick, maybe afraid she would make some comment that would be caught on camera.
She pushes her hand up underneath his t-shirt after he's asleep and drooling on her shoulder. It's still a stupid kind of thrill, that this boy has been inside her. Just once: the night before the interview for their second Games. Haymitch gave Peeta all the credit for coming up with the lie about Katniss' pregnancy, but it was her who put it into Peeta's head the night before, when she whispered that he had to use something. That was the last night she was happy, if happiness laced with dread counts: the picnic on the roof, Peeta sketching her, the sunset, her hand in his when they crept back to her room together. He laughed when she suggested that it might be their last chance to try sex, and she laughed when his mouth fell open as he realized she was serious. It was awkward, fast, more nervous laughter and trembling than pleasure, but she's never felt closer to anyone than she did when they were finished, lying there with their faces pressed together, Peeta trying not to blubber in gratitude, Katniss trying so hard not to love him. Failing, as she has in everything that ever meant anything.
Peeta whimpers in his sleep, the most pathetic thing she's ever heard. She squeezes him against her, wraps her leg around his waist, wishes she was big enough to make him feel safe.
*
He starts fidgeting at dawn. She rolls away from him, hiding her face in the pillow, not ready to think about starting her day with him here and no schedule to keep. He turns to tuck himself around her, yawning in her ear. She stiffens, hoping he'll get the message, but he just flops his arm over her side and sighs, making himself comfortable.
She has strange, half-lucid dreams as morning sneaks in through the window. Anything but nightmares is rare, and these are full of anxieties but no real danger. Twice she dreams that she gets out of bed and makes her way downstairs, angry because Peeta left while she was sleeping. When she actually wakes up, rolling onto her back under the weight of him, she's relieved to find him there, and irritated by her relief.
Sometimes he feels like a mystery item that tumbled out of a backpack she snatched from the Cornucopia: What am I supposed to do with this? Even outside of the arena, she doesn't have enough expendable energy to carry around unnecessary things. She rolls a strand of his hair between her fingers, watching him sleep. He's so heavy, pressing down on her ribs, making it difficult to breathe.
"What are you doing?" he asks, mumbling the words against her collarbone, startling her. She continues touching his hair as if she's not embarrassed to have been caught doing it.
"Checking you for lice," she says. He laughs.
"Find any?"
"Not yet, but I'm only just getting started."
He lifts his face to smile at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. She knows his breath will be bad, and that his lips will be very warm. The rage trembles between her ribs, telling her that she's been tricked into feeling this way. Peeta sits up on his elbow and straightens her hair, which is matted and tangled, uncooperative. She needs a shower.
“Any lice?” Katniss asks as he pulls her hair through his fingers.
“Multiple colonies,” he says, grinning. “Where have you been sleeping?”
Without you, she thinks. He seems to see it in her eyes even when she won't let herself say it, her lips tightening around the words. It's not fair that she's come to think of her life this way, divided into two states: with or without Peeta. He kisses the tip of her nose and sits up, stretching. Katniss braces herself for him to slide out of bed, pad down the stairs and start baking some goddamn thing, but he just sits there, his shoulders slumped, then reaches for her wrist. She watches him gently lift one side of the bandage and peer at the cut. He winces when he sees it.
“Katniss,” he says, softly. It takes her off guard: when was the last time someone said her name out loud? Not long ago, actually, but it's the first time in awhile that it's actually felt like her name, something that belongs to her and no one else.
“It's not a big deal,” she says, yanking her wrist away from him. “I just wanted to know what it would feel like. God - just. You wouldn't understand.”
“Yeah.” He scoffs and throws the blankets off of his legs, their cease fire over. “How could I possibly understand what you've been through?”
More incoherent muttering as he dresses. He doesn't tuck in his shirt or put on his belt. Her fists are clenched when he stomps out of the room, and she refuses to acknowledge his departure, staring at the ceiling instead. Her body is still buzzing with the aftereffects of being pressed against his, and she's prepared to feel angry about this, too, but then decides to make use of it. Her body needs things: fine. She's always been a slave to this. One hunger has been replaced with another, that's all. She can't love him, because that's finished, a failed experiment, but she can sneak through the fence when the electricity isn't humming, can find a way to get what she needs.
They skirt around each other that day, keeping close but not making eye contact. Peeta mixes paints on the back patio, using overripe berries to make one of his reds look more bloody. She doesn't want to know what he'll paint with it, but watches him out of the corner of her eye as she makes arrows at the kitchen table, getting wood shavings everywhere.
“Summer's coming,” he announces when he bangs back into the house at midday, his arms loaded with jars of paint.
No shit, she wants to say, but she just shrugs, keeping her eyes on her work. He leaves the door to the patio open as he makes lunch for both of them, birds singing outside. Katniss is in her shift dress and boots, wondering if he would allow her to traipse off to Prim's grave alone. She's not sure she wants to go alone today, and she blames him for her uncertainty. He complicates things, as ever.
“I'm going to collect some bricks after lunch,” he says while she eats the sandwich he made for her. “So I can make an outdoor oven here.”
“Can't you just use the one at your house?” she asks. It was custom installed for him after he moved into Victor's Village.
“I don't want to go back over there so often,” he says, muttering. She opens her mouth to ask why, then thinks of how she sometimes sees Prim on the stairs when the sun hits the second floor window just so.
“Fine,” she says, sliding her boots over to touch the tips of his shoes. “I'll help.”
They work without speaking, neither of them commenting on the fact that searching the rubble for bricks feels like grave robbing. Somebody is going to have to bury the charred bones that remain if they ever hope to have any kind of life here. Katniss doesn't volunteer, and neither does he. He's shaking when they wheel the bricks back to the house, but he won't let her take the wheelbarrow.
“I can do it,” he says, nearly dumping them as he jerks the handles away from her outstretched hands. She scoffs and keeps twenty feet between them after that. When they reach the house he starts unloading the bricks on the patio, and she gets her bow from the kitchen, heading for the woods.
“Where are you going?” he shouts. She doesn't answer, waiting to see if he'll chase after her and tackle her to the ground. She wants him to. He doesn't.
She's sweating by the time she reaches Prim's grave with fresh wildflowers to set around the simple stone. Sometimes she sings to this rock, but today she just glowers at the grass, her bare legs splayed out in front of her. She came here to be with Prim, but Prim is gone and all she can think about is Peeta, even when she drills her fists into her eyes and demands her mind to go elsewhere. When doesn't work she growls in frustration and wastes two arrows, firing them pointlessly into a tree. She thinks of climbing it to retrieve them, but feels weak enough to fall over when she stands. It's not that she hasn't had enough to eat or used too much energy gathering bricks; Peeta would barely let her touch the blackened things. Something else has worn her thin.
Back the house, still a few hours away from sunset, she expects to find him huffing and puffing on the patio, putting his oven together. The bricks are there, stacked neatly, the ash cleaned from them, but Peeta isn't there. The feeling that cut a permanent gash in her heart when she lost track of him during the Games returns. It was just before Foxface died, the silence of the trees like a taunt, Peeta not answering her calls. She'd flown at him when she found him, furious for what she already knew but wouldn't accept for a long time afterward: surviving wouldn't mean anything if she lost him.
“Peeta?” She crashes into the house, ready to shout at him, though she was the one who disappeared into the woods this time. He's not in the kitchen, and the oven is cold. Her breath is coming fast as she puts her bow and the arrows on the table, and she hurries into the front room, expecting to find him with his face in his hands, panting through another episode. He's not there.
She runs up the stairs, calling for him again, getting no answer. Something's happened - someone came for him, someone who wants to hurt her and hasn't forgotten how best to do it. They'll never be safe, the Games will never be over, he should have let her swallow the nightlock pill, she can't do this, she won't let them hunt her until she can only rock in a corner with her arms hugged around herself -
“What are you doing?” she shouts when she finds him sitting in the tub in the large bathroom that's attached to her bedroom. She's out of breath, her voice shaking, hands clawed around the door frame. “Didn't you hear me calling? Peeta!”
He doesn't look at her, doesn't seem to hear her. He doesn't look tense or terrified, just blank, not as if he's ignoring her but as if he's been erased. She feels a defeated sob welling in her chest and shakes her head.
“No,” she says, making her voice as hard and defiant as she can. She bites her lip as she tears her boots off, rips her dress over her head and walks to the tub in only her underwear. She's going to leave them on, but there's ash in the water, and she knows by now that any sort of wall between them is what the Capitol wanted when they hijacked him. Together, they're unstoppable, dangerous. Separated, they're just frightened children. She steps out of her underwear and winces as she puts a toe into the water. It's ice cold.
Bracing herself, she sinks into the water, trying not to cry out at the temperature. Peeta is shuddering, and she should get him out, but she has to get him to remember himself first. She wraps herself around his back, her legs clamped against his sides and her arms circling his chest. He doesn't respond, but she won't be convinced to give up on him again.
“Peeta,” she whispers, putting her chin on his shoulder. “I'm here. I'm back. I only went to visit my sister. You make me - so angry, because -” She shakes her head; that's a conversation for another time.
“Where is Peeta?” she asks, squeezing herself more tightly around him, beginning to shiver as the temperature of the water seeps into her bones. “Where is he? Hmm? Have I scared him away? Is he still mine?” Somehow this becomes a song, her own insanity trembling behind the eerie lullaby as she rocks him in her arms. He sighs powerfully, his breath pushing against her legs, which she's wrapped around his waist. One of his hands rests lightly on her ankle.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice soft, still distant. “Where -” He lifts his other hand, examining the waterlogged ash.
“You took a bath,” she says, petting him, trying not to cry. “To clean up after working on your oven. You just got distracted, that's all. But I'm back now. Do you want me to help you clean up? The water in the shower is still working, I think - did you fill the tub with the tap?” She worries about the day when whoever is in charge of the water supply to the Victor's Village realizes that it's still functioning and shuts it down, but they have the lake and the streams, and bigger problems in the meantime.
“Yeah,” he says, turning to look over his shoulder, frowning. She's still rocking him, smoothing his hair with a trembling hand. “You're naked,” he says, his back heating against her chest. She laughs.
“You've seen me naked before,” she says, though she's not sure this is really true. She was naked when they had sex, but they were under the blankets and the room was dark. She thinks of that day during the first Games when she cleaned him, trying not to show her nervousness when he told her - how had he put it? Oh, I don't care if you see me. She was afraid to, then.
He's still a little out of it as she brings him to the shower, and she could cry with relief when she finds that it's not only still running but still capable of getting hot enough to steam. She guides Peeta into the glass stall first, then follows him inside, shutting the door behind her. He's stares at her as the hot water washes the ashes from his skin, his cheeks just faintly pink.
“How do I look?” she asks, striking a pose. “Like I've been chewed up and -”
She loses her voice when he pulls her to him and hugs her hard, one arm snug around her waist and the other across her back. His heart is pounding under her right breast, his breath ragged in her ear.
“I heard you singing,” he says.
“Where were you?” she asks, her tears disappearing into the hot water.
“Back in my cell,” he says. “They cut part of me out and kept it there.”
“No.” She shakes her head and surges up onto her tiptoes to hug his shoulders, making him stumble until his back finds the wall of the shower. “No, no, that's not true. Not real.”
She washes him first, then herself. He comes back to himself little by little, sighing, touching her wet hair, his eyebrows creased with concentration. When he's clean, she buries her face against his neck and breathes in the smell of him: dill, nutmeg, flour.
“Peeta,” she says, smoothing her hand down the back of his neck.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” She pulls back to look at him. “I just - it seems like I never say your name out loud until I'm screaming it through the woods or the house. When I can't find you.”
He smiles. “I like it when you say my name.” His hand slides down to the small of her back. She ties her wet hair into a knot, figures it's now or never.
His eyes go so wide when her hand closes around his cock, and she almost laughs, but stops herself in time. Sex has always been a little funny to her, especially because Peeta seems so gravely serious when faced with it.
“What -” he starts to say. She shakes her head and puts her fingers over his lips, standing up as tall as she can, still falling a few inches short of his height. He's already half-hard, quickly growing thicker in her hand.
“Let me make you feel better,” she says. They're definitely the wrong words, she can see it in the way the startled wonder in his eyes turns to disappointment. She curses herself inwardly, vowing to leave words out of this next time. She's never been good with them.
“You don't have to,” he says, taking her wrist and pulling her hand from him. It makes her mad, not just because he's rejecting her offer to make him feel good - good, that's what she should have said, not better - but because she was beginning to enjoy it herself. She's never felt the weight of him change in her hand before, his body responding not just to her closeness but to her touch.
“Maybe I want to,” she says, blushing now, scowling. He scoffs and shuts the water off.
“Yeah, right,” he says. “You pity me. I get it. Thanks.”
She's so angry that she doesn't try to refute this, turning her back on him as he steps out of the shower. Her nakedness suddenly seems ridiculous, humiliating, so she shuts the shower door, hiding herself behind the steam-fogged glass until he's left the bathroom. She turns the water back on, afraid to walk out into the bedroom and find him there dressing. She feels abandoned, her body trembling with unfinished business, and she shifts until the water is touching her the way he might have, if he wasn't such an idiot, and if she hadn't ruined this for him by faking it when she had to. The spray of the shower is a poor substitute for the heat of his hands, which slid between her legs only briefly the night they had sex. She had redirected things after one gasp and jerk of her hips, embarrassed by how much she liked it. She needed to maintain control then, to make what they did about the fact that it was her own decision, not something suggested by her team of image makers. Not about what she wanted, just about what she had chosen. She's never been okay with wanting Peeta, and as she dresses she finally understands why. It's unbearable, actually hurts.
She puts on a sweater, pants, socks, and braids her wet hair tightly. Actually goes to look in the mirror over her dresser before she remembers that she got rid of it. As if it matters, what she looks like for him. Flushed, frustrated, she pads down the stairs and hopes he'll stay out of her way. He's painting in the study, the door cracked, the smell of his paints wafting out into the hall. She goes to the kitchen and starts to make dinner, the sun sinking now, an orange glow spilling in through all the windows. The birds are singing down the last of the day, the way they always do at the start of summer, as if in thanks for the extra hours of daylight.
They're both tense at dinner, and Peeta won't look at her. He has a smudge of white paint on his cheek, and she wants to ask him what he was working on, but doesn't give him the pleasure of knowing that she's curious. He still doesn't trust her, and she's not sure if it's because of the hijacking or because she's lost his trust on her own. She eats a lot of bread with her stew, dunking it until she's absorbed most of the moisture, tasting him in the crust. She's offended when he goes back to painting after dinner, leaving her the dishes.
There should be someone she could confide in about what's happening to her. Gale, far away in District 2 - it's laughable to think of writing letters about Peeta to him. If Madge were alive, maybe - Katniss puts her hand over her face, sitting on the sofa and listening to the distant sounds from the study, Peeta's brushes clicking against the jar of water he keeps them in. If Prim were alive. If her mother wasn't as good as dead, nothing left but a robotic devotion to healing. If only, if only.
She thinks of Haymitch and laughs out loud. Across the courtyard, there isn't a single light on in his house. He's probably been passed out drunk for hours. Anyway, he would just tell her she should be grateful to have Peeta. He would miss the point. She is grateful, glad, and it's terrifying. She's never been able to keep anything that mattered. Even the woods were taken away from her once, and now that they've been returned to her they feel hollow and watchful, as if there are cameras hidden in the trees.
She goes to bed alone, wondering if Peeta will stay. Maybe it would be too awkward, after what happened in the shower. By the time she hears his footsteps coming up the stairs she has the corner of her pillow squeezed into her fist, her whole body tense with anticipation. He opens the door, and she waits to see if he's only whispering goodnight before leaving. He sighs, shuts the door behind him, and she flushes when she hears him pull down his zipper, his pants dropping to the floor.
“You asleep?” he says. She doesn't answer, keeping her eyes closed, her back to him. He gets into bed and undoes her braid, her hair still damp as he threads his fingers through it. She's shaking, afraid that he can tell she's awake. He arranges her hair on the pillowcase, fanning it out, and his fingers slide down her neck, making her shiver. She's wearing her undershirt, but even through the fabric she can feel the heat of his fingers as he rubs them across her back.
“You don't really want me,” he says, low enough that she can't tell if he means for her to hear this or not. “I'm just what you got stuck with. I should have known I'd end up that way, like my mother. I know you didn't like her, but she knew she was my father's second choice, and it made her bitter. I can understand that now, how it would warp you, but I won't get mean like that. I won't take it out on you or - ”
Was he going to say our children? Ha. That will never happen. She hasn't even had a period in almost a year, is pretty sure that her body, in its wisdom, has responded to the stress of the war by making itself barren.
Peeta settles down behind her, his fingers still moving across her back, just lightly. It feels good, waking up her body even as her mind begins to drift closer to sleep. Her first dream is about Peeta hovering over her, radiating warmth that she tries to pull down against her, wanting his skin pressed to hers. She can't do it, her hands passing right through him, and he just smiles down at her when she whines with frustration.
The dreams get worse. She runs up the stairs, heart pounding, knowing this time that she'll find Peeta in the tub, but when she throws open the bathroom door the whole thing is burned to cinders except for the bright white tub, which is full of black water, choked with ashes. She screams Peeta's name and plunges her hands into the water, searching for him, unwilling to give up even when she pulls her hands out and finds only thick clumps of mud and pieces of what might have been organs, limbs. She sobs and keeps searching, finally locating a shoulder, then the back of his head, his chest, everything still in one piece. She pulls him out and he gasps for air, blue eyes bright through the muck, but she experiences no relief. Instead, she loses control of her hands and pushes him back down, holding him under the water when he struggles, trying to drown him, her throat raw with a horrified scream that doesn't end. She can't make herself stop, she has no control, they've hijacked her, she'll kill him -
She wakes up thrashing, as if she's the one being held under water. Peeta is trying to calm her, but she's so panicked that she can't even make sense of his words. Her first instinct is to get away from him so that she can't hurt him with her hijacked hands, but the need to grab hold of him after a nightmare is more powerful, overriding everything. He pulls her wholly into his lap, and she wraps herself so tightly around him that she knows it must hurt. His heart is pounding, his pulse thumping against her cheek when she hides her face against his neck. She can't believe how hard she's crying, her whole body jerking like she's been electrocuted.
“It's okay, it's okay,” he says, chanting it, sounding terrified himself. He cups his hand around the back of her head, kisses her temple, strokes her back. “It's over,” he says. “You're okay.”
“Peeta,” she cries, the name breaking in two as she touches his shoulders, his neck, trying to convince herself that it wasn't real. “Peeta - ah - you were -”
She's never attempted to tell him about the nightmares before. He doesn't need to envision what she sees when she closes her eyes; he was there.
“Shh,” he says. “I'm okay. I'm here.”
“You're here,” she repeats. This only makes her cry harder, cling tighter. She feels him swallow heavily, trying to keep his composure.
“Always,” he says.
“No,” she says, hiccuping the word out. “They'll take you from me. They take everyone - I'll be like Johanna, nothing left to lose.”
“Nobody's going to take me.”
“You don't know that! They took you before - oh, God, Peeta, they took you, I -”
“I know, shh, just -”
“You think I don't want you,” she says, sitting back, showing him the wreck of her pinched-up face. “They made you believe that. Or I did.”
He stares at her, lips parted, his hands cupped around her waist. She hides again, hugging herself to him, her face pressed to his shoulder. She'll regret that when she wakes fully. She's embarrassed him, telling him that she heard him before. His hands go to her back, his touch almost cautious now. He swallows again, and takes a deep breath, her body rising along with his chest, sinking back down when he exhales.
“Just - you're okay,” he says, petting her. She sniffles, knows she won't sleep again tonight. For awhile they just lie there, Peeta's back propped against the headboard, Katniss spilled out on top of him, her arms looped around his neck. He rubs his fingers across her back the way he did when she fell asleep, and what she meant as a sigh comes out as a tired moan. He shifts, clears his throat, and pulls the blankets up over her back.
“Don't stop,” she says, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“What?”
“The - what you were doing -”
He gets the message after a few seconds, his fingers sliding across her back again. She knows his promises don't mean anything, that a hovercraft could appear overhead at any moment, dragging him away, fire bombing the house - those who are in charge will always be able to do whatever they want, and no one will forget that she's here. They might not have a lot of time, every day together potentially their last. It will always be that night before their interviews, the one when she told him it could be their only chance. She sits up and pulls her undershirt over her head. He looks worried, and keeps his eyes fixed on hers for a few seconds, wets his lips. When he finally looks down at her naked chest it's just a quick, embarrassed glance.
“They wanted to surgically modify me,” she says flatly, remembering that this can only ever be about her body, so that her heart is only a victim when the dreams don't give her a choice.
“Surgically-?” he says, looking lost, his cheeks going red.
“These,” she says, taking her breasts in her hands. They're not as small as they were during her first Games, the improvements in her diet lending them some fat, but they barely fill her hands. “I always think of that when I see them, how Cinna saved them for me. I would have hated it if they had stuffed me full of plastic. What do you think? Aren't they better like this?” She circles her nipples with her index fingers and his mouth falls open, his hands moving up to her waist. He's staring for a moment, mesmerized, then his eyes sneak up to hers.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Talking too much,” she says, remembering her vow. She takes his hands and brings them up to her chest. They're warm, shaking, and they cover her breasts easily. When he starts to stammer and pull away she falls forward to kiss him hard, holding his hands against her.
“Stop,” he says, panting when he pulls back, his mouth wet.
“Why?” she asks, the fury that pours in making her hands close more tightly around his, which are trembling on her chest. “Don't you want to? Didn't you like it, before?” She's humiliated by the question, wants to take it back.
“Just a second ago you were screaming your head off,” he says, his eyes filling. “Yesterday you were cutting your wrists -”
“Oh, forget it!” She throws his hands away and climbs off of him, feeling like her ribs have been replaced with knives. She scoots away from him as much as possible, facing the wall, her knees pulled to her chest. Peeta is sniffling, and she wishes she was cruel enough to tell him that she doesn't want him, to get out. When he settles down onto the pillows again his back is curved against hers. He's taken his t-shirt off, for some reason.
“You don't have to pretend anymore,” he says. “I don't need it.”
“Good,” she says harshly. She picks up the pillow and puts it over her face. Forget it. Bad idea. Failed experiment. They're both too damaged by the charade they had to live for the cameras. Among other things. She doesn't need him. She's lived with hunger before, and she won't crawl around in the rain, pathetic and needy, until he tosses her some bread.
As summer makes the days grow warmer, things get cooler between the two of them. Peeta works on his outdoor oven and Katniss wanders the woods, sometimes hunting, sometimes just walking. She climbs trees to check them for cameras and finds only birds' nests.
Always, at night, the cease fire. She usually goes to bed first, but sometimes he gets there before her, taking up too much space, making it impossible for her not to touch him. He's there to hold her when she wakes from nightmares, but she doesn't take her shirt off again. Sometimes she wakes up to his erections pressed against the small of her back, Peeta asleep and oblivious. Once, while she's extracting herself, he moans very softly and twitches in his sleep. She escapes into the shower, puts her hands between her legs and tries to think of anything but him. On another morning she wakes early to hunt and realizes halfway through her breakfast that she left her boots upstairs. She's quiet when she creeps back into the room, not wanting to wake him, and she spins on her heel as soon as she's through the door, accidentally slamming it after she sees him on back in bed, eyes closed, mouth open, his hand moving under the blankets. She stays away for most of the day, wearing her slippers as she wanders through the woods, feeling dazed. He avoids her eyes at dinner.
Peeta still has his episodes, and she knows how to pull him out of them now. First step: get him into a seated position. Second step: straddle his lap, lock eyes with him, cradle his tightly locked jaw with both hands. Finally, she sings. Different songs, but the one she invented for him in the bath works best. Where is Peeta? Will he come back to me? Is he still mine? The theme song for what's left of her life. His eyes will soften slowly, and he'll begin to take deep breaths, his jaw softening under her hands. She always wants to kiss him as he comes back to himself, and sometimes she does, just softly. He usually doesn't kiss back, just stares at her like he's still kind of dying inside, his hands tight around her waist, keeping her in place until he recovers.
Summer thickens and the heat begins to linger after sundown, making the blankets on the bed unbearable. Peeta sleeps in only his shorts, and Katniss wakes in the middle of the night to watch him as he seems to glow in the moonlight that reflects off of his damp skin. The heat makes her whole body throb, and she has to talk herself out of touching him. He doesn't think she's sane enough, or sincere enough, or real enough, to want him. She knows how to hold a grudge, and she'll take this one to her grave, even if it means that the heat between her legs never welcomes anything but her own fingers.
Delly finds out that they're staying in District 12 and comes to visit. They try to invite Haymitch for the dinner they make for her, but he tells them he's not in the mood for an optimist and slams the door in their faces. Katniss is beginning to worry about him, and she distracts herself with cooking too much food for Delly, hoping that she'll show up with her brother or a boyfriend so that they'll have another mouth to feed. Peeta makes a cake and some cheese rolls, hovering over Katniss' roast turkey and potatoes, dipping a roll in the juices from the bird when it's finished cooking.
“Looks good,” he says, and he kisses her cheek, which freezes her in place, making her forget what she was about to do. Mash the potatoes? Mop up the flour that he's left all over the counter? She turns and peeks at him, hoping he's not looking. He doesn't notice, too busy setting the table. He's made a centerpiece out of pine cones and greenery that she's tempted to laugh at, though it's actually kind of lovely.
Delly arrives in a fluster of tearful exclamations about how well they both look, hugging them both hard and pushing presents into their hands. She has no boyfriend and her brother hasn't come, the idea of seeing District 12 again still too painful for him, but her presence makes the whole house feel full, between her constant chatter and easy warmth. She tells them all about the new hospital in District 4, which is doing well under the direction of Katniss' mother. It isn't easy for Katniss to hear about, her mother's devotion to taking care of anyone but her. She opens the bottle of brandywine that Delly brought as a gift and pours herself a glass.
“I can't believe it's already been four months since everything happened,” Delly says as they come to the table for dinner. Katniss turns from the oven in surprise, the mashed potato casserole in her hands. She had no idea it had already been that long. Peeta seems to catch this on her face and gives her a sympathetic look that annoys her. Delly looks pretty and composed, her hair soft around her shoulders, her dress a cheerful shade of purple. Katniss looks like she's been cooking all day, and she ran out of time to wash her hair, which is escaping from her braid in greasy strands. The bandage is gone from her wrist, but there's still a thin, pink scar. No one who saw it would think anything of it - she's covered in scars, as anyone would expect. Delly told her she looked radiant, but she thinks everyone does.
She drinks more brandywine as she listens to Delly and Peeta tell stories about their childhood, laughing. It's not so different from when they were in District 13: Delly offering Peeta comfort, a ray of joy piercing his otherwise horrible days, and Katniss watching from behind glass. Eventually they pick up on her silence and an awkwardness descends as Delly attempts to include her in the conversation.
“The house looks lovely,” she says to Katniss. “It's so wonderful that this didn't get destroyed.”
“I guess,” Katniss says. “They probably only left it here so they'd know where to find me if I came crawling back.”
Delly gives Peeta a nervous look, but he's staring at Katniss.
“This wine's pretty strong,” Peeta says, lifting his empty glass. Katniss scoffs at his attempt to subtly tell her to stop drinking it. She grabs the bottle and pours herself another, wishing Haymitch were here.
“How's Annie?” she asks Delly, eager to see how she'll try to spin her answer into something positive. Delly sighs and tugs at the sleeve of her dress.
“Not good,” she says. “Your mother tries to look after her -”
“Ha. Really.”
“She gets confused,” Delly says, her eyes becoming wet. “She doesn't - she forgets. That he's gone. She'll ask me sometimes, 'did I get married, or was that a dream?'” Delly puts her hand over her face, and Peeta scoots closer, sliding his arm around her shoulders.
“I'm sure my mother is a great help,” Katniss says. Easier to get angry about this than to think about Annie without Finnick. Or the last time she saw Finnick. The look in his eyes.
“There is one good thing - well, we hope it will be good,” Delly says, taking a napkin from Peeta and using it to wipe her eyes. “Annie is pregnant with Finnick's baby.” She pushes out something that's half laugh, half sob. Peeta is actually rubbing her shoulder now, leaning in close. Katniss thinks of her mother comforting Annie, helping her separate her feverish visions from reality, being patient with her, braiding her hair. She gets up from the table.
“Katniss,” Peeta says, sharply. Scolding her. She laughs and goes to the sideboard.
“Relax,” she says. “I'm just getting your cake.”
“Oh,” Delly says, sniffling. “I always loved your cakes.”
“Me and Prim liked looking at them,” Katniss says, aware that she's being petty now. “Never could afford them.”
“I didn't get to eat many of them myself,” Peeta says, giving her a cold-eyed stare as she sets the cake down. He seems worried, as if he suspects she might throw it in his face. She gives him a phony grin and goes for her wine.
They stay up for another hour, Peeta and Delly talking, Katniss drinking wine and thinking about Haymitch. Surely he's passed out, dreamless, drooling. She always wants to be in his company when people's attempts to be kind to each other begin to seem ridiculous and childish.
Delly sleeps in Katniss' mother's old room, and Katniss makes sure she has everything she needs: clean towels and soap, a pillow that suits her. Katniss even brings her a hot glass of milk, feeling guilty for the way she acted as the buzz from the wine dies down.
“It must be strange for you,” Katniss says, sitting on the end of the bed as Delly settles in. For a moment, Katniss misses Madge so badly that her chest aches, then Finnick, Prim, even Johanna, who is alive but far away. Delly is sweet, but they've never really been friends.
“What must be strange?” Delly asks, cocking her head a bit. Katniss laughs.
“Sorry - being back in District 12. I don't know why I assumed you would know that's what I was talking about - I'm out of practice when it comes to talking to people, and frankly I was never that good at it to begin with.”
“Out of practice?” Delly says, smiling. “But you have Peeta.”
“Yeah, well.” Katniss picks at the wood on the bed's ornate foot board. “We don't talk much.” She looks up, maybe a little defiantly, to catch Delly's surprised expression. She doesn't look surprised, or even sad. She's smiling, reaching across the bedspread to touch Katniss' hand.
“He loves you so much,” Delly says, whispering, as if it's a secret.
“Interesting interpretation for someone who listened to him rant about how I was a mutt for weeks.”
“Oh, Katniss.” Delly sits back and rolls her eyes, reminding Katniss very much of Prim for a moment, the way she would wave her hand at Katniss' moods. “That was all fake.”
“Some of it wasn't,” Katniss says, defensive. “He accused me of lying - I did lie. I acted like I loved him.”
Delly sits back and sighs. Katniss stands, doesn't need her pity, or condescension, or whatever this is. She doesn't need Delly sitting there thinking, You do love him, silly, anyone can see it. It's stupid, oversimplified, and whoever Peeta loves, anyone could see that Delly would make him happier than the burned out shell of a girl who was set on fire.
Peeta is pulling off his undershirt as she walks into their bedroom. She feels his eyes on her but won't look back. She's so tired of being angry, especially of being angry with him, but she can't seem to stop.
“Have you sobered up, Haymitch?” he asks. She feels like throwing her boot at him as she slides it off.
“I was never drunk,” she says.
“Uh-huh. C'mere.”
“What?” she says, whirling on him. “So you can give me a sobriety test?”
“Come here,” he says, more firmly. His eyes are hard but not angry, and realizing this sends a lazy peel of heat down her spine. She totters a bit, trying to decide what to do, and he smiles.
“What are you doing here?” she says, determined to spend the evening feeling sorry for herself. “You don't owe me anything. All your debts are paid off, in full, and then some.”
“Fine,” he says. “You won't come to me, I'll come to you.” He crosses the room, and she braces herself, not sure what to expect. By the time he's reached her she can see it in his eyes, and she gasps even before he lifts her off the ground, presses her back against the dresser full of empty drawers and kisses her, his tongue still sugar-coated from the frosting on the cake.
She wasn't drunk before, but she is now, opening wide for him, her legs wrapped around his back, the hard edge of the dresser digging into her back. His lips trail down to her neck and she lets her head fall back, giving him full access, wanting his mouth everywhere.
“You were jealous,” he says when he lifts his head to look at her, grinning. She rears backward, narrowing her eyes. She's not drunk, but maybe he is.
“Excuse me?” she says. He just laughs and carries her to the bed. She's not sure if she wants to cling or pummel him, and when he sets her on top of the sheets she braces her hands against his chest before he can drop down onto her.
“Admit it,” he says. “I didn't get it at first, I thought you were just drunk, but. You were all. Possessive.” He's victorious, and she wants to throw him off, but not as badly as she wants to pull him down onto her. There can only be one victor, until you find out there can be two, only to be told that, come to think of it, there can only be one after all. Ha-ha-ha.
“Okay,” she says, remembering her decision to make this about what she needs, her hands turning to claws around his shoulders. “Then, yeah. Do it.”
“Do it?” he says, laughing.
“Just - possess me,” she says, no good at being seductive, resigned to communicating what she needs with the force of her fury, her eyes hard and unblinking, teeth gritted. The amusement drains from his face, and his breath quickens.
“Katniss,” he says. “I never know -”
“So listen to me for once,” she says, pulling his face down to hers. “Either write me off or - don't. Decide. Make up your mind.”
He doesn't hesitate; she would have pushed him away if she had. She arches and moans when he tears open the front of her shirt, wanting Delly to hear, to know that he's still hers. Never mind that Delly would only smile into her pillow, that she would be happy for them. Katniss needs to win, and if she can't compete with him she must construct another rival. He locks his arm around her back, pressing their bare chests together. She gasps into his mouth, her legs winding around him, one hand fisted in his hair and the other scrabbling at his thigh, trying to pull him closer.
She nods like a maniac when he hikes up her skirt and rubs her through her underwear. It's better, really, because it would be embarrassing if he reached inside and realized how wet she is for the first press of his hand, how desperately she needs this, though it's probably obvious from the way her back bows and her eyes glaze. She keens and presses herself into his touch, squeezing his arms as he kisses her neck, his teeth scraping her skin. It's not gentle, not nervous - there's no trembling, no laughter. She bites her lip hard enough to taste blood, and shouts when her body contracts and flutters under his circling thumb, until she's spilling out beneath him like a yoke that's been pierced.
He kisses her, warm and wet and perfect as she tries to regain her bearings, letting him breathe the life back into her. She manages to get her heavy eyelids open and finds herself looking straight into him, his eyes unguarded, so bright. Nobody else has ever seen all the way into her the way he can, nobody.
“Take them off,” she says, fumbling at his pants, barely remembering how zippers work. He grins.
“That didn't happen last time,” he says as he pushes his pants off. “That - what you just - that was new.”
“Don't brag,” she says, still breathless, wanting to tell him that scooting across a tree branch made that happen once, though it was nowhere near as intense. He laughs into her mouth, kissing her so wetly that she laughs, too. He's actually drooling for it, which is funny until her hand wraps around him and she hears him groan, feels him shudder. It would be hilarious, the way he goes to pieces, except that she knows exactly what it felt like to wait too long for this.
“Katniss,” he says, panting her name against her shoulder. “Oh - that's -”
“Shh.” She licks his ear, wonders if she should speed up or go slower, not sure that it matters at this point. She knows she should shut up, but there are words welling up in her chest, and the way he bucks into her grip tears them out of her.
“I think about it,” she says, her lips moving in his hair, which smells good, a kind of poison that's drawing this confession out of her. “That night. A lot.”
“Oh - shit,” he says, and the way it comes out in a whisper, the way he swells in her hand, tells her everything. “I - never stop - thinking about it.”
He cries out and drops down onto her, and she's so feral for this that she licks his come from her fingers. It tastes bad, mostly, but not that bad. She wraps her legs around his back and kisses his face while he tries to catch his breath.
They've seen each other die plenty of times, in nightmares and in what might have been real life. It's blurry already, their history so quickly hard to believe, and this felt like a good death, one that they survived together. She doesn't want to believe that there's anything real but this: the two of them flopped across the bed, perpendicular to the pillows as Peeta struggles up onto his elbows and kisses her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and she laughs.
“Yes,” she says. “Are you?”
“I don't know.” He grins and presses his face to hers, his eyes pinched shut. “Yes.”
She sleeps deeply, her nightmares like storms in the distance, too far away to catch up before she wakes and rolls over to hide her face in Peeta's chest. He makes little noises of protest when she shifts in his arms, his fingers tangling in her hair as he cradles the back of her head, and she presses her smile to the soft skin under his chin. He smells so good, like something freshly baked, not just dough anymore.
Part II
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Pairing: Peeta/Katniss
Rating: R
Spoilers: All for series
Word Count: ~24,000
Summary: Katniss and Peeta in the weeks and months after the war.
She's so preoccupied with Peeta's whereabouts that they might as well still be in the arena. It's a similar kind of tension, her unwillingness to accept him as an ally and the gnawing knowledge that he's trying to help her. She's in no position to refuse help, but when he's the one offering she can't let herself accept it. She allows him to plant the bushes out front and bring bread to the house, but she doesn't speak to him or go to him when the nightmares drag her back to hell. Sometimes she sits up all night, avoiding sleep, watching the lights in his house across the courtyard. When they see each other, she's polite, vacant, quick to leave. He always looks tired, but he's regained some weight. She supposes she has, too, though she can't say for sure. One of her first acts upon returning was throwing away all the mirrors in the house.
Greasy Sae's visits dwindle to just once or twice a week, and appearances by Haymitch are very irregular. Others begin returning to town, and Katniss avoids all of them. She makes a grave for Prim by the lake and visits it daily. Sitting beside it for hours at a time, she picks at the grass and wonders if Peeta has done the same for his family. When the weather improves she undresses and floats in the lake, on her back on a good day, face down on a bad one. She hates the sensation of choking and knows she could never actually drown herself. One day, after Greasy Sae leaves with her granddaughter, Katniss climbs the stairs with a knife from the kitchen and cuts her wrist, just lightly, testing. She can't feel any pain, so she cuts again, more deeply, and watches the blood run down over her palm, dripping into the sink. Unmoved, she cleans the knife and then her wrist, puts antibiotic ointment on the cut and bandages it. She goes to bed feeling both accomplished and disappointed: so that's ruled out, too.
Peeta comes daily to bring fresh bread, soft pretzels, cakes, or whatever else he's been filling his hours with making. He enters through the kitchen door without knocking and often without acknowledging her, and she doesn't protest. Sometimes they eat breakfast together in silence. The day after the experiment with the knife, he stares down at her wrist, his jaw tight.
"What's that?" he asks, nodding to the bandage. She actually laughs, feeling herself slipping into a mode of existence not unlike Annie's.
"I ran into a door," she says, giving him a cold stare. The standard line for wives in District 12 who were abused by their husbands. Peeta probably fed it to his teachers once or twice, after his mother had beaten him.
He looks mad enough to kill her himself. She laughs at the idea. When the speech about the value of her life doesn't come, she just watches him eat the sticky buns he brought for breakfast as if he's suddenly ravenous, or wants to get this visit over with as soon as possible. He continues to look furious, but doesn't say anything, which only makes her angrier, and that much more resolved not to say anything herself.
After breakfast, he cleans up, and she stays seated at the table, her bandaged wrist brazenly exposed. She's wearing a formless shift dress, no socks or shoes. Peeta has tucked in his shirt, is even wearing a belt. Ridiculous.
"What are you doing?" she asks when he walks into the front room and sits down on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Staying," he says. "There's no point, the two of us alone in these big houses."
"So you're going to sit there like a lump and watch me?" Katniss says. She can't remember being angrier, but that keeps happening, the anger just building and building, never enough relief to level off before more floods in.
"I don't know," he says. "Do you need watching?"
She doesn't dignify this with an answer. This house has never felt as if it belongs to her, so she doesn't attempt to throw him out. It's still a comfort to know his precise location, and she can hear him moving around down on the first floor. Every cabinet drawer that opens in the kitchen and footstep across the wooden floorboards irritates and comforts her. He's so big. It frustrates her, not just for the amount of noise he makes while walking around, but because his size has made her crave his closeness. That was the best part of sleeping with him, the way she could disappear entirely against his chest, the protective shell of him closing around her. There was also his heartbeat, his hand warm on her cheek, the kisses pressed to her forehead, but all he should really get credit for is being uncommonly large. She lies in bed thinking this, buried under blankets, scowling.
Around sundown, he goes quiet. She sits up and listens, wondering if he left. She's sure she would have heard the door if he had; he would have slammed it. The sun sinks lower outside, the temperature dropping. She puts on socks and moves silently to her closed bedroom door, presses her ear against it and listens. Nothing. A nervous excitement builds in her chest, her heart rate quickening. Where is Peeta? Except when he's pressed up against her under blankets, the question hasn't left her mind since she sprinted away from the Cornucopia during their first Games. Sometimes she gets just his name stuck in her head like a splinter, an almost sing-song taunt: Peeta, Peeta, Peeta, a nagging thing not quite forgotten, difficult to remember.
She opens the door as quietly as possible. Stalking him, weaponless. She's stopped believing that he could hurt her except by disappearing, so she assumes as she creeps down the stairs that whatever she finds will be a relief. She's wrong: he's on the sofa again, head in his hands, breathing hard, pulling at his hair. Suffering one of his episodes, the darkness that the hijacking left behind clawing at him, trying to pull him under. Katniss thinks of the pit that opened in the Capitol just before she reached Snow's mansion, the dark figures that swallowed up the people who fell into it. Peeta is making horrible noises, pulling at his hair so hard that she's afraid he'll yank two handfuls out. She flattens her back against the wall, her heart slamming now. She doesn't want to get pulled in to that darkness, is already too close to her own. She wants to shut him into a room where she can watch this from behind protective glass, flanked by guards.
He crumples to the floor, falling off the couch and landing on his elbows and knees. He might be sobbing; he sounds like he's trying to swallow a knife. Katniss thinks of getting Haymitch, but he's probably drunk. She runs through the list of others she can turn to. No one, really.
"Peeta," she says, but the name doesn't make any sound when it leaves her lips. He doesn't seem aware that she's here, even when she walks slowly into the front room, shaking. She's always been afraid of him when he's like this, though, if she's honest, she never really believed that he could kill her. She's afraid to face the parts of this that are real. His anger, his disappointment. The boy who fell out of love with her.
He flinches away when she touches his shoulder, his back slamming against the couch. His face is red and splotchy when he looks up at her, but he's not crying. He doesn't seem angry, just terrified, his eyes wide and unseeing.
"I can't," he says, trying to back away and finding that he has no where to go. "I can't -- it's -- I can't --"
"Hey." She takes his face in her hands, terrified, and when he tries to get away, she straddles his lap, pressing her forehead against his. "Stop. Peeta. Look at me."
He's panting hard, slumped down so that his chest is heaving between her legs. She won't let herself blink until his pupils shrink back to a normal size, his breath still ragged but slower. He clamps his mouth shut, breathes through his nose, and when his eyes harden she knows that he's back.
"How often does this happen?" Katniss asks. She thinks of him alone in bed, soaking the sheets with sweat, clawing at his skin. Peeta just shakes his head, not as if he refuses to answer but just to tell her that he can't speak yet, that he needs to concentrate on breathing. She nods and strokes his cheeks with her thumbs. He's clammy, heavy bags under his eyes. The sun is almost gone outside, the room just barely glowing with what's left of Peeta's favorite color. She wonders if she should get off of him, realizing only then that his hands are resting on her hips.
She kisses him, because it's the right thing to do. Tells herself it's just a reflex but can't seem to stop. She kisses his nose, his cheeks, his eyebrows. His lips, but only briefly, before pressing a line of kisses along his jaw. His breath is speeding up again, hands closing around her waist.
"Don't," he says.
“Why not?” she asks. She finds his lips again, touching hers to them just barely, her eyes open. His eyelashes are golden even in this light. He blinks out a pair of fat tears and she sucks them off his cheeks, something about this making her remember hunger very vividly, the price of salt. When she pulls back she lets her hands slide from his cheeks down to his neck. He sniffles.
“I made brownies,” he says, and then he starts sobbing. She moans and leans forward to hug him, letting him hide his face against her chest. They stay like that for a long time, Peeta's hands twitching on her back, Katniss sniffing the air, her mouth watering at the thought of a pan of brownies cooling on the oven.
They eat the brownies for dinner like naughty children; Katniss supposes they are still children, by some perverse and irrelevant classification. She puts her bare feet over Peeta's shoes, under the table.
“Why are you so well-dressed?” she teases, pouring him more milk. He still seems fragile, and looks at her like he's confused by the question. “Waiting for a camera crew to show up?” she says.
It's not really funny. Camera crews are a sensitive subject, but what isn't? Water is a sensitive subject. Food always will be. Trees have their ghosts now, too. The fires Peeta makes to bake his bread: ha. Katniss just stares at him, waiting for an answer.
“Would it make you feel better if I dressed like Haymitch?” Peeta asks, eyebrows knitting, angry again. “Walking around with vomit stains on my shirt?”
“It might,” Katniss says. She presses her foot more firmly against his. He grumbles to himself unintelligibly, a habit that started after the hijacking and which never fails to unnerve her. She watches him drain his glass of milk.
She doesn't want him to go. He doesn't. They climb the stairs and enter her bedroom without a word. Katniss shuts the door behind her, though there's no one in the house to see them. She undresses without looking at Peeta, making no attempt at modesty. In bed, she rolls toward the wall and listens to him take off his belt, his pants, hears him arranging his shoes neatly by the wall. He always did that in the train compartment, as if out of respect for her living space, and maybe for the shoes themselves. When he was a prisoner of Snow's all it would take to start her weeping into her hands was the thought of Peeta's shoes waiting for him by the wall, and the way he would kneel down to straighten them before he came to her.
Things are awkward for roughly ten seconds, as always: Katniss' elbows, Peeta's leg, their noses, their breath. Then the blankets come up to their shoulders, they sink beneath them, and everything is just warmth, and clutching, his familiar scars sliding against hers.
They don't kiss that night, but he does get hard against her thigh, which makes her smile, though it shouldn't, because he must have been so lonely for so long, to be excited by just this. She thinks of the first time she felt it, in the sleeping bag during their first Games, the apology in his eyes when she looked at him with confusion, half-asleep. He was blushing, heartsick, maybe afraid she would make some comment that would be caught on camera.
She pushes her hand up underneath his t-shirt after he's asleep and drooling on her shoulder. It's still a stupid kind of thrill, that this boy has been inside her. Just once: the night before the interview for their second Games. Haymitch gave Peeta all the credit for coming up with the lie about Katniss' pregnancy, but it was her who put it into Peeta's head the night before, when she whispered that he had to use something. That was the last night she was happy, if happiness laced with dread counts: the picnic on the roof, Peeta sketching her, the sunset, her hand in his when they crept back to her room together. He laughed when she suggested that it might be their last chance to try sex, and she laughed when his mouth fell open as he realized she was serious. It was awkward, fast, more nervous laughter and trembling than pleasure, but she's never felt closer to anyone than she did when they were finished, lying there with their faces pressed together, Peeta trying not to blubber in gratitude, Katniss trying so hard not to love him. Failing, as she has in everything that ever meant anything.
Peeta whimpers in his sleep, the most pathetic thing she's ever heard. She squeezes him against her, wraps her leg around his waist, wishes she was big enough to make him feel safe.
*
He starts fidgeting at dawn. She rolls away from him, hiding her face in the pillow, not ready to think about starting her day with him here and no schedule to keep. He turns to tuck himself around her, yawning in her ear. She stiffens, hoping he'll get the message, but he just flops his arm over her side and sighs, making himself comfortable.
She has strange, half-lucid dreams as morning sneaks in through the window. Anything but nightmares is rare, and these are full of anxieties but no real danger. Twice she dreams that she gets out of bed and makes her way downstairs, angry because Peeta left while she was sleeping. When she actually wakes up, rolling onto her back under the weight of him, she's relieved to find him there, and irritated by her relief.
Sometimes he feels like a mystery item that tumbled out of a backpack she snatched from the Cornucopia: What am I supposed to do with this? Even outside of the arena, she doesn't have enough expendable energy to carry around unnecessary things. She rolls a strand of his hair between her fingers, watching him sleep. He's so heavy, pressing down on her ribs, making it difficult to breathe.
"What are you doing?" he asks, mumbling the words against her collarbone, startling her. She continues touching his hair as if she's not embarrassed to have been caught doing it.
"Checking you for lice," she says. He laughs.
"Find any?"
"Not yet, but I'm only just getting started."
He lifts his face to smile at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. She knows his breath will be bad, and that his lips will be very warm. The rage trembles between her ribs, telling her that she's been tricked into feeling this way. Peeta sits up on his elbow and straightens her hair, which is matted and tangled, uncooperative. She needs a shower.
“Any lice?” Katniss asks as he pulls her hair through his fingers.
“Multiple colonies,” he says, grinning. “Where have you been sleeping?”
Without you, she thinks. He seems to see it in her eyes even when she won't let herself say it, her lips tightening around the words. It's not fair that she's come to think of her life this way, divided into two states: with or without Peeta. He kisses the tip of her nose and sits up, stretching. Katniss braces herself for him to slide out of bed, pad down the stairs and start baking some goddamn thing, but he just sits there, his shoulders slumped, then reaches for her wrist. She watches him gently lift one side of the bandage and peer at the cut. He winces when he sees it.
“Katniss,” he says, softly. It takes her off guard: when was the last time someone said her name out loud? Not long ago, actually, but it's the first time in awhile that it's actually felt like her name, something that belongs to her and no one else.
“It's not a big deal,” she says, yanking her wrist away from him. “I just wanted to know what it would feel like. God - just. You wouldn't understand.”
“Yeah.” He scoffs and throws the blankets off of his legs, their cease fire over. “How could I possibly understand what you've been through?”
More incoherent muttering as he dresses. He doesn't tuck in his shirt or put on his belt. Her fists are clenched when he stomps out of the room, and she refuses to acknowledge his departure, staring at the ceiling instead. Her body is still buzzing with the aftereffects of being pressed against his, and she's prepared to feel angry about this, too, but then decides to make use of it. Her body needs things: fine. She's always been a slave to this. One hunger has been replaced with another, that's all. She can't love him, because that's finished, a failed experiment, but she can sneak through the fence when the electricity isn't humming, can find a way to get what she needs.
They skirt around each other that day, keeping close but not making eye contact. Peeta mixes paints on the back patio, using overripe berries to make one of his reds look more bloody. She doesn't want to know what he'll paint with it, but watches him out of the corner of her eye as she makes arrows at the kitchen table, getting wood shavings everywhere.
“Summer's coming,” he announces when he bangs back into the house at midday, his arms loaded with jars of paint.
No shit, she wants to say, but she just shrugs, keeping her eyes on her work. He leaves the door to the patio open as he makes lunch for both of them, birds singing outside. Katniss is in her shift dress and boots, wondering if he would allow her to traipse off to Prim's grave alone. She's not sure she wants to go alone today, and she blames him for her uncertainty. He complicates things, as ever.
“I'm going to collect some bricks after lunch,” he says while she eats the sandwich he made for her. “So I can make an outdoor oven here.”
“Can't you just use the one at your house?” she asks. It was custom installed for him after he moved into Victor's Village.
“I don't want to go back over there so often,” he says, muttering. She opens her mouth to ask why, then thinks of how she sometimes sees Prim on the stairs when the sun hits the second floor window just so.
“Fine,” she says, sliding her boots over to touch the tips of his shoes. “I'll help.”
They work without speaking, neither of them commenting on the fact that searching the rubble for bricks feels like grave robbing. Somebody is going to have to bury the charred bones that remain if they ever hope to have any kind of life here. Katniss doesn't volunteer, and neither does he. He's shaking when they wheel the bricks back to the house, but he won't let her take the wheelbarrow.
“I can do it,” he says, nearly dumping them as he jerks the handles away from her outstretched hands. She scoffs and keeps twenty feet between them after that. When they reach the house he starts unloading the bricks on the patio, and she gets her bow from the kitchen, heading for the woods.
“Where are you going?” he shouts. She doesn't answer, waiting to see if he'll chase after her and tackle her to the ground. She wants him to. He doesn't.
She's sweating by the time she reaches Prim's grave with fresh wildflowers to set around the simple stone. Sometimes she sings to this rock, but today she just glowers at the grass, her bare legs splayed out in front of her. She came here to be with Prim, but Prim is gone and all she can think about is Peeta, even when she drills her fists into her eyes and demands her mind to go elsewhere. When doesn't work she growls in frustration and wastes two arrows, firing them pointlessly into a tree. She thinks of climbing it to retrieve them, but feels weak enough to fall over when she stands. It's not that she hasn't had enough to eat or used too much energy gathering bricks; Peeta would barely let her touch the blackened things. Something else has worn her thin.
Back the house, still a few hours away from sunset, she expects to find him huffing and puffing on the patio, putting his oven together. The bricks are there, stacked neatly, the ash cleaned from them, but Peeta isn't there. The feeling that cut a permanent gash in her heart when she lost track of him during the Games returns. It was just before Foxface died, the silence of the trees like a taunt, Peeta not answering her calls. She'd flown at him when she found him, furious for what she already knew but wouldn't accept for a long time afterward: surviving wouldn't mean anything if she lost him.
“Peeta?” She crashes into the house, ready to shout at him, though she was the one who disappeared into the woods this time. He's not in the kitchen, and the oven is cold. Her breath is coming fast as she puts her bow and the arrows on the table, and she hurries into the front room, expecting to find him with his face in his hands, panting through another episode. He's not there.
She runs up the stairs, calling for him again, getting no answer. Something's happened - someone came for him, someone who wants to hurt her and hasn't forgotten how best to do it. They'll never be safe, the Games will never be over, he should have let her swallow the nightlock pill, she can't do this, she won't let them hunt her until she can only rock in a corner with her arms hugged around herself -
“What are you doing?” she shouts when she finds him sitting in the tub in the large bathroom that's attached to her bedroom. She's out of breath, her voice shaking, hands clawed around the door frame. “Didn't you hear me calling? Peeta!”
He doesn't look at her, doesn't seem to hear her. He doesn't look tense or terrified, just blank, not as if he's ignoring her but as if he's been erased. She feels a defeated sob welling in her chest and shakes her head.
“No,” she says, making her voice as hard and defiant as she can. She bites her lip as she tears her boots off, rips her dress over her head and walks to the tub in only her underwear. She's going to leave them on, but there's ash in the water, and she knows by now that any sort of wall between them is what the Capitol wanted when they hijacked him. Together, they're unstoppable, dangerous. Separated, they're just frightened children. She steps out of her underwear and winces as she puts a toe into the water. It's ice cold.
Bracing herself, she sinks into the water, trying not to cry out at the temperature. Peeta is shuddering, and she should get him out, but she has to get him to remember himself first. She wraps herself around his back, her legs clamped against his sides and her arms circling his chest. He doesn't respond, but she won't be convinced to give up on him again.
“Peeta,” she whispers, putting her chin on his shoulder. “I'm here. I'm back. I only went to visit my sister. You make me - so angry, because -” She shakes her head; that's a conversation for another time.
“Where is Peeta?” she asks, squeezing herself more tightly around him, beginning to shiver as the temperature of the water seeps into her bones. “Where is he? Hmm? Have I scared him away? Is he still mine?” Somehow this becomes a song, her own insanity trembling behind the eerie lullaby as she rocks him in her arms. He sighs powerfully, his breath pushing against her legs, which she's wrapped around his waist. One of his hands rests lightly on her ankle.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice soft, still distant. “Where -” He lifts his other hand, examining the waterlogged ash.
“You took a bath,” she says, petting him, trying not to cry. “To clean up after working on your oven. You just got distracted, that's all. But I'm back now. Do you want me to help you clean up? The water in the shower is still working, I think - did you fill the tub with the tap?” She worries about the day when whoever is in charge of the water supply to the Victor's Village realizes that it's still functioning and shuts it down, but they have the lake and the streams, and bigger problems in the meantime.
“Yeah,” he says, turning to look over his shoulder, frowning. She's still rocking him, smoothing his hair with a trembling hand. “You're naked,” he says, his back heating against her chest. She laughs.
“You've seen me naked before,” she says, though she's not sure this is really true. She was naked when they had sex, but they were under the blankets and the room was dark. She thinks of that day during the first Games when she cleaned him, trying not to show her nervousness when he told her - how had he put it? Oh, I don't care if you see me. She was afraid to, then.
He's still a little out of it as she brings him to the shower, and she could cry with relief when she finds that it's not only still running but still capable of getting hot enough to steam. She guides Peeta into the glass stall first, then follows him inside, shutting the door behind her. He's stares at her as the hot water washes the ashes from his skin, his cheeks just faintly pink.
“How do I look?” she asks, striking a pose. “Like I've been chewed up and -”
She loses her voice when he pulls her to him and hugs her hard, one arm snug around her waist and the other across her back. His heart is pounding under her right breast, his breath ragged in her ear.
“I heard you singing,” he says.
“Where were you?” she asks, her tears disappearing into the hot water.
“Back in my cell,” he says. “They cut part of me out and kept it there.”
“No.” She shakes her head and surges up onto her tiptoes to hug his shoulders, making him stumble until his back finds the wall of the shower. “No, no, that's not true. Not real.”
She washes him first, then herself. He comes back to himself little by little, sighing, touching her wet hair, his eyebrows creased with concentration. When he's clean, she buries her face against his neck and breathes in the smell of him: dill, nutmeg, flour.
“Peeta,” she says, smoothing her hand down the back of his neck.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” She pulls back to look at him. “I just - it seems like I never say your name out loud until I'm screaming it through the woods or the house. When I can't find you.”
He smiles. “I like it when you say my name.” His hand slides down to the small of her back. She ties her wet hair into a knot, figures it's now or never.
His eyes go so wide when her hand closes around his cock, and she almost laughs, but stops herself in time. Sex has always been a little funny to her, especially because Peeta seems so gravely serious when faced with it.
“What -” he starts to say. She shakes her head and puts her fingers over his lips, standing up as tall as she can, still falling a few inches short of his height. He's already half-hard, quickly growing thicker in her hand.
“Let me make you feel better,” she says. They're definitely the wrong words, she can see it in the way the startled wonder in his eyes turns to disappointment. She curses herself inwardly, vowing to leave words out of this next time. She's never been good with them.
“You don't have to,” he says, taking her wrist and pulling her hand from him. It makes her mad, not just because he's rejecting her offer to make him feel good - good, that's what she should have said, not better - but because she was beginning to enjoy it herself. She's never felt the weight of him change in her hand before, his body responding not just to her closeness but to her touch.
“Maybe I want to,” she says, blushing now, scowling. He scoffs and shuts the water off.
“Yeah, right,” he says. “You pity me. I get it. Thanks.”
She's so angry that she doesn't try to refute this, turning her back on him as he steps out of the shower. Her nakedness suddenly seems ridiculous, humiliating, so she shuts the shower door, hiding herself behind the steam-fogged glass until he's left the bathroom. She turns the water back on, afraid to walk out into the bedroom and find him there dressing. She feels abandoned, her body trembling with unfinished business, and she shifts until the water is touching her the way he might have, if he wasn't such an idiot, and if she hadn't ruined this for him by faking it when she had to. The spray of the shower is a poor substitute for the heat of his hands, which slid between her legs only briefly the night they had sex. She had redirected things after one gasp and jerk of her hips, embarrassed by how much she liked it. She needed to maintain control then, to make what they did about the fact that it was her own decision, not something suggested by her team of image makers. Not about what she wanted, just about what she had chosen. She's never been okay with wanting Peeta, and as she dresses she finally understands why. It's unbearable, actually hurts.
She puts on a sweater, pants, socks, and braids her wet hair tightly. Actually goes to look in the mirror over her dresser before she remembers that she got rid of it. As if it matters, what she looks like for him. Flushed, frustrated, she pads down the stairs and hopes he'll stay out of her way. He's painting in the study, the door cracked, the smell of his paints wafting out into the hall. She goes to the kitchen and starts to make dinner, the sun sinking now, an orange glow spilling in through all the windows. The birds are singing down the last of the day, the way they always do at the start of summer, as if in thanks for the extra hours of daylight.
They're both tense at dinner, and Peeta won't look at her. He has a smudge of white paint on his cheek, and she wants to ask him what he was working on, but doesn't give him the pleasure of knowing that she's curious. He still doesn't trust her, and she's not sure if it's because of the hijacking or because she's lost his trust on her own. She eats a lot of bread with her stew, dunking it until she's absorbed most of the moisture, tasting him in the crust. She's offended when he goes back to painting after dinner, leaving her the dishes.
There should be someone she could confide in about what's happening to her. Gale, far away in District 2 - it's laughable to think of writing letters about Peeta to him. If Madge were alive, maybe - Katniss puts her hand over her face, sitting on the sofa and listening to the distant sounds from the study, Peeta's brushes clicking against the jar of water he keeps them in. If Prim were alive. If her mother wasn't as good as dead, nothing left but a robotic devotion to healing. If only, if only.
She thinks of Haymitch and laughs out loud. Across the courtyard, there isn't a single light on in his house. He's probably been passed out drunk for hours. Anyway, he would just tell her she should be grateful to have Peeta. He would miss the point. She is grateful, glad, and it's terrifying. She's never been able to keep anything that mattered. Even the woods were taken away from her once, and now that they've been returned to her they feel hollow and watchful, as if there are cameras hidden in the trees.
She goes to bed alone, wondering if Peeta will stay. Maybe it would be too awkward, after what happened in the shower. By the time she hears his footsteps coming up the stairs she has the corner of her pillow squeezed into her fist, her whole body tense with anticipation. He opens the door, and she waits to see if he's only whispering goodnight before leaving. He sighs, shuts the door behind him, and she flushes when she hears him pull down his zipper, his pants dropping to the floor.
“You asleep?” he says. She doesn't answer, keeping her eyes closed, her back to him. He gets into bed and undoes her braid, her hair still damp as he threads his fingers through it. She's shaking, afraid that he can tell she's awake. He arranges her hair on the pillowcase, fanning it out, and his fingers slide down her neck, making her shiver. She's wearing her undershirt, but even through the fabric she can feel the heat of his fingers as he rubs them across her back.
“You don't really want me,” he says, low enough that she can't tell if he means for her to hear this or not. “I'm just what you got stuck with. I should have known I'd end up that way, like my mother. I know you didn't like her, but she knew she was my father's second choice, and it made her bitter. I can understand that now, how it would warp you, but I won't get mean like that. I won't take it out on you or - ”
Was he going to say our children? Ha. That will never happen. She hasn't even had a period in almost a year, is pretty sure that her body, in its wisdom, has responded to the stress of the war by making itself barren.
Peeta settles down behind her, his fingers still moving across her back, just lightly. It feels good, waking up her body even as her mind begins to drift closer to sleep. Her first dream is about Peeta hovering over her, radiating warmth that she tries to pull down against her, wanting his skin pressed to hers. She can't do it, her hands passing right through him, and he just smiles down at her when she whines with frustration.
The dreams get worse. She runs up the stairs, heart pounding, knowing this time that she'll find Peeta in the tub, but when she throws open the bathroom door the whole thing is burned to cinders except for the bright white tub, which is full of black water, choked with ashes. She screams Peeta's name and plunges her hands into the water, searching for him, unwilling to give up even when she pulls her hands out and finds only thick clumps of mud and pieces of what might have been organs, limbs. She sobs and keeps searching, finally locating a shoulder, then the back of his head, his chest, everything still in one piece. She pulls him out and he gasps for air, blue eyes bright through the muck, but she experiences no relief. Instead, she loses control of her hands and pushes him back down, holding him under the water when he struggles, trying to drown him, her throat raw with a horrified scream that doesn't end. She can't make herself stop, she has no control, they've hijacked her, she'll kill him -
She wakes up thrashing, as if she's the one being held under water. Peeta is trying to calm her, but she's so panicked that she can't even make sense of his words. Her first instinct is to get away from him so that she can't hurt him with her hijacked hands, but the need to grab hold of him after a nightmare is more powerful, overriding everything. He pulls her wholly into his lap, and she wraps herself so tightly around him that she knows it must hurt. His heart is pounding, his pulse thumping against her cheek when she hides her face against his neck. She can't believe how hard she's crying, her whole body jerking like she's been electrocuted.
“It's okay, it's okay,” he says, chanting it, sounding terrified himself. He cups his hand around the back of her head, kisses her temple, strokes her back. “It's over,” he says. “You're okay.”
“Peeta,” she cries, the name breaking in two as she touches his shoulders, his neck, trying to convince herself that it wasn't real. “Peeta - ah - you were -”
She's never attempted to tell him about the nightmares before. He doesn't need to envision what she sees when she closes her eyes; he was there.
“Shh,” he says. “I'm okay. I'm here.”
“You're here,” she repeats. This only makes her cry harder, cling tighter. She feels him swallow heavily, trying to keep his composure.
“Always,” he says.
“No,” she says, hiccuping the word out. “They'll take you from me. They take everyone - I'll be like Johanna, nothing left to lose.”
“Nobody's going to take me.”
“You don't know that! They took you before - oh, God, Peeta, they took you, I -”
“I know, shh, just -”
“You think I don't want you,” she says, sitting back, showing him the wreck of her pinched-up face. “They made you believe that. Or I did.”
He stares at her, lips parted, his hands cupped around her waist. She hides again, hugging herself to him, her face pressed to his shoulder. She'll regret that when she wakes fully. She's embarrassed him, telling him that she heard him before. His hands go to her back, his touch almost cautious now. He swallows again, and takes a deep breath, her body rising along with his chest, sinking back down when he exhales.
“Just - you're okay,” he says, petting her. She sniffles, knows she won't sleep again tonight. For awhile they just lie there, Peeta's back propped against the headboard, Katniss spilled out on top of him, her arms looped around his neck. He rubs his fingers across her back the way he did when she fell asleep, and what she meant as a sigh comes out as a tired moan. He shifts, clears his throat, and pulls the blankets up over her back.
“Don't stop,” she says, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“What?”
“The - what you were doing -”
He gets the message after a few seconds, his fingers sliding across her back again. She knows his promises don't mean anything, that a hovercraft could appear overhead at any moment, dragging him away, fire bombing the house - those who are in charge will always be able to do whatever they want, and no one will forget that she's here. They might not have a lot of time, every day together potentially their last. It will always be that night before their interviews, the one when she told him it could be their only chance. She sits up and pulls her undershirt over her head. He looks worried, and keeps his eyes fixed on hers for a few seconds, wets his lips. When he finally looks down at her naked chest it's just a quick, embarrassed glance.
“They wanted to surgically modify me,” she says flatly, remembering that this can only ever be about her body, so that her heart is only a victim when the dreams don't give her a choice.
“Surgically-?” he says, looking lost, his cheeks going red.
“These,” she says, taking her breasts in her hands. They're not as small as they were during her first Games, the improvements in her diet lending them some fat, but they barely fill her hands. “I always think of that when I see them, how Cinna saved them for me. I would have hated it if they had stuffed me full of plastic. What do you think? Aren't they better like this?” She circles her nipples with her index fingers and his mouth falls open, his hands moving up to her waist. He's staring for a moment, mesmerized, then his eyes sneak up to hers.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Talking too much,” she says, remembering her vow. She takes his hands and brings them up to her chest. They're warm, shaking, and they cover her breasts easily. When he starts to stammer and pull away she falls forward to kiss him hard, holding his hands against her.
“Stop,” he says, panting when he pulls back, his mouth wet.
“Why?” she asks, the fury that pours in making her hands close more tightly around his, which are trembling on her chest. “Don't you want to? Didn't you like it, before?” She's humiliated by the question, wants to take it back.
“Just a second ago you were screaming your head off,” he says, his eyes filling. “Yesterday you were cutting your wrists -”
“Oh, forget it!” She throws his hands away and climbs off of him, feeling like her ribs have been replaced with knives. She scoots away from him as much as possible, facing the wall, her knees pulled to her chest. Peeta is sniffling, and she wishes she was cruel enough to tell him that she doesn't want him, to get out. When he settles down onto the pillows again his back is curved against hers. He's taken his t-shirt off, for some reason.
“You don't have to pretend anymore,” he says. “I don't need it.”
“Good,” she says harshly. She picks up the pillow and puts it over her face. Forget it. Bad idea. Failed experiment. They're both too damaged by the charade they had to live for the cameras. Among other things. She doesn't need him. She's lived with hunger before, and she won't crawl around in the rain, pathetic and needy, until he tosses her some bread.
As summer makes the days grow warmer, things get cooler between the two of them. Peeta works on his outdoor oven and Katniss wanders the woods, sometimes hunting, sometimes just walking. She climbs trees to check them for cameras and finds only birds' nests.
Always, at night, the cease fire. She usually goes to bed first, but sometimes he gets there before her, taking up too much space, making it impossible for her not to touch him. He's there to hold her when she wakes from nightmares, but she doesn't take her shirt off again. Sometimes she wakes up to his erections pressed against the small of her back, Peeta asleep and oblivious. Once, while she's extracting herself, he moans very softly and twitches in his sleep. She escapes into the shower, puts her hands between her legs and tries to think of anything but him. On another morning she wakes early to hunt and realizes halfway through her breakfast that she left her boots upstairs. She's quiet when she creeps back into the room, not wanting to wake him, and she spins on her heel as soon as she's through the door, accidentally slamming it after she sees him on back in bed, eyes closed, mouth open, his hand moving under the blankets. She stays away for most of the day, wearing her slippers as she wanders through the woods, feeling dazed. He avoids her eyes at dinner.
Peeta still has his episodes, and she knows how to pull him out of them now. First step: get him into a seated position. Second step: straddle his lap, lock eyes with him, cradle his tightly locked jaw with both hands. Finally, she sings. Different songs, but the one she invented for him in the bath works best. Where is Peeta? Will he come back to me? Is he still mine? The theme song for what's left of her life. His eyes will soften slowly, and he'll begin to take deep breaths, his jaw softening under her hands. She always wants to kiss him as he comes back to himself, and sometimes she does, just softly. He usually doesn't kiss back, just stares at her like he's still kind of dying inside, his hands tight around her waist, keeping her in place until he recovers.
Summer thickens and the heat begins to linger after sundown, making the blankets on the bed unbearable. Peeta sleeps in only his shorts, and Katniss wakes in the middle of the night to watch him as he seems to glow in the moonlight that reflects off of his damp skin. The heat makes her whole body throb, and she has to talk herself out of touching him. He doesn't think she's sane enough, or sincere enough, or real enough, to want him. She knows how to hold a grudge, and she'll take this one to her grave, even if it means that the heat between her legs never welcomes anything but her own fingers.
Delly finds out that they're staying in District 12 and comes to visit. They try to invite Haymitch for the dinner they make for her, but he tells them he's not in the mood for an optimist and slams the door in their faces. Katniss is beginning to worry about him, and she distracts herself with cooking too much food for Delly, hoping that she'll show up with her brother or a boyfriend so that they'll have another mouth to feed. Peeta makes a cake and some cheese rolls, hovering over Katniss' roast turkey and potatoes, dipping a roll in the juices from the bird when it's finished cooking.
“Looks good,” he says, and he kisses her cheek, which freezes her in place, making her forget what she was about to do. Mash the potatoes? Mop up the flour that he's left all over the counter? She turns and peeks at him, hoping he's not looking. He doesn't notice, too busy setting the table. He's made a centerpiece out of pine cones and greenery that she's tempted to laugh at, though it's actually kind of lovely.
Delly arrives in a fluster of tearful exclamations about how well they both look, hugging them both hard and pushing presents into their hands. She has no boyfriend and her brother hasn't come, the idea of seeing District 12 again still too painful for him, but her presence makes the whole house feel full, between her constant chatter and easy warmth. She tells them all about the new hospital in District 4, which is doing well under the direction of Katniss' mother. It isn't easy for Katniss to hear about, her mother's devotion to taking care of anyone but her. She opens the bottle of brandywine that Delly brought as a gift and pours herself a glass.
“I can't believe it's already been four months since everything happened,” Delly says as they come to the table for dinner. Katniss turns from the oven in surprise, the mashed potato casserole in her hands. She had no idea it had already been that long. Peeta seems to catch this on her face and gives her a sympathetic look that annoys her. Delly looks pretty and composed, her hair soft around her shoulders, her dress a cheerful shade of purple. Katniss looks like she's been cooking all day, and she ran out of time to wash her hair, which is escaping from her braid in greasy strands. The bandage is gone from her wrist, but there's still a thin, pink scar. No one who saw it would think anything of it - she's covered in scars, as anyone would expect. Delly told her she looked radiant, but she thinks everyone does.
She drinks more brandywine as she listens to Delly and Peeta tell stories about their childhood, laughing. It's not so different from when they were in District 13: Delly offering Peeta comfort, a ray of joy piercing his otherwise horrible days, and Katniss watching from behind glass. Eventually they pick up on her silence and an awkwardness descends as Delly attempts to include her in the conversation.
“The house looks lovely,” she says to Katniss. “It's so wonderful that this didn't get destroyed.”
“I guess,” Katniss says. “They probably only left it here so they'd know where to find me if I came crawling back.”
Delly gives Peeta a nervous look, but he's staring at Katniss.
“This wine's pretty strong,” Peeta says, lifting his empty glass. Katniss scoffs at his attempt to subtly tell her to stop drinking it. She grabs the bottle and pours herself another, wishing Haymitch were here.
“How's Annie?” she asks Delly, eager to see how she'll try to spin her answer into something positive. Delly sighs and tugs at the sleeve of her dress.
“Not good,” she says. “Your mother tries to look after her -”
“Ha. Really.”
“She gets confused,” Delly says, her eyes becoming wet. “She doesn't - she forgets. That he's gone. She'll ask me sometimes, 'did I get married, or was that a dream?'” Delly puts her hand over her face, and Peeta scoots closer, sliding his arm around her shoulders.
“I'm sure my mother is a great help,” Katniss says. Easier to get angry about this than to think about Annie without Finnick. Or the last time she saw Finnick. The look in his eyes.
“There is one good thing - well, we hope it will be good,” Delly says, taking a napkin from Peeta and using it to wipe her eyes. “Annie is pregnant with Finnick's baby.” She pushes out something that's half laugh, half sob. Peeta is actually rubbing her shoulder now, leaning in close. Katniss thinks of her mother comforting Annie, helping her separate her feverish visions from reality, being patient with her, braiding her hair. She gets up from the table.
“Katniss,” Peeta says, sharply. Scolding her. She laughs and goes to the sideboard.
“Relax,” she says. “I'm just getting your cake.”
“Oh,” Delly says, sniffling. “I always loved your cakes.”
“Me and Prim liked looking at them,” Katniss says, aware that she's being petty now. “Never could afford them.”
“I didn't get to eat many of them myself,” Peeta says, giving her a cold-eyed stare as she sets the cake down. He seems worried, as if he suspects she might throw it in his face. She gives him a phony grin and goes for her wine.
They stay up for another hour, Peeta and Delly talking, Katniss drinking wine and thinking about Haymitch. Surely he's passed out, dreamless, drooling. She always wants to be in his company when people's attempts to be kind to each other begin to seem ridiculous and childish.
Delly sleeps in Katniss' mother's old room, and Katniss makes sure she has everything she needs: clean towels and soap, a pillow that suits her. Katniss even brings her a hot glass of milk, feeling guilty for the way she acted as the buzz from the wine dies down.
“It must be strange for you,” Katniss says, sitting on the end of the bed as Delly settles in. For a moment, Katniss misses Madge so badly that her chest aches, then Finnick, Prim, even Johanna, who is alive but far away. Delly is sweet, but they've never really been friends.
“What must be strange?” Delly asks, cocking her head a bit. Katniss laughs.
“Sorry - being back in District 12. I don't know why I assumed you would know that's what I was talking about - I'm out of practice when it comes to talking to people, and frankly I was never that good at it to begin with.”
“Out of practice?” Delly says, smiling. “But you have Peeta.”
“Yeah, well.” Katniss picks at the wood on the bed's ornate foot board. “We don't talk much.” She looks up, maybe a little defiantly, to catch Delly's surprised expression. She doesn't look surprised, or even sad. She's smiling, reaching across the bedspread to touch Katniss' hand.
“He loves you so much,” Delly says, whispering, as if it's a secret.
“Interesting interpretation for someone who listened to him rant about how I was a mutt for weeks.”
“Oh, Katniss.” Delly sits back and rolls her eyes, reminding Katniss very much of Prim for a moment, the way she would wave her hand at Katniss' moods. “That was all fake.”
“Some of it wasn't,” Katniss says, defensive. “He accused me of lying - I did lie. I acted like I loved him.”
Delly sits back and sighs. Katniss stands, doesn't need her pity, or condescension, or whatever this is. She doesn't need Delly sitting there thinking, You do love him, silly, anyone can see it. It's stupid, oversimplified, and whoever Peeta loves, anyone could see that Delly would make him happier than the burned out shell of a girl who was set on fire.
Peeta is pulling off his undershirt as she walks into their bedroom. She feels his eyes on her but won't look back. She's so tired of being angry, especially of being angry with him, but she can't seem to stop.
“Have you sobered up, Haymitch?” he asks. She feels like throwing her boot at him as she slides it off.
“I was never drunk,” she says.
“Uh-huh. C'mere.”
“What?” she says, whirling on him. “So you can give me a sobriety test?”
“Come here,” he says, more firmly. His eyes are hard but not angry, and realizing this sends a lazy peel of heat down her spine. She totters a bit, trying to decide what to do, and he smiles.
“What are you doing here?” she says, determined to spend the evening feeling sorry for herself. “You don't owe me anything. All your debts are paid off, in full, and then some.”
“Fine,” he says. “You won't come to me, I'll come to you.” He crosses the room, and she braces herself, not sure what to expect. By the time he's reached her she can see it in his eyes, and she gasps even before he lifts her off the ground, presses her back against the dresser full of empty drawers and kisses her, his tongue still sugar-coated from the frosting on the cake.
She wasn't drunk before, but she is now, opening wide for him, her legs wrapped around his back, the hard edge of the dresser digging into her back. His lips trail down to her neck and she lets her head fall back, giving him full access, wanting his mouth everywhere.
“You were jealous,” he says when he lifts his head to look at her, grinning. She rears backward, narrowing her eyes. She's not drunk, but maybe he is.
“Excuse me?” she says. He just laughs and carries her to the bed. She's not sure if she wants to cling or pummel him, and when he sets her on top of the sheets she braces her hands against his chest before he can drop down onto her.
“Admit it,” he says. “I didn't get it at first, I thought you were just drunk, but. You were all. Possessive.” He's victorious, and she wants to throw him off, but not as badly as she wants to pull him down onto her. There can only be one victor, until you find out there can be two, only to be told that, come to think of it, there can only be one after all. Ha-ha-ha.
“Okay,” she says, remembering her decision to make this about what she needs, her hands turning to claws around his shoulders. “Then, yeah. Do it.”
“Do it?” he says, laughing.
“Just - possess me,” she says, no good at being seductive, resigned to communicating what she needs with the force of her fury, her eyes hard and unblinking, teeth gritted. The amusement drains from his face, and his breath quickens.
“Katniss,” he says. “I never know -”
“So listen to me for once,” she says, pulling his face down to hers. “Either write me off or - don't. Decide. Make up your mind.”
He doesn't hesitate; she would have pushed him away if she had. She arches and moans when he tears open the front of her shirt, wanting Delly to hear, to know that he's still hers. Never mind that Delly would only smile into her pillow, that she would be happy for them. Katniss needs to win, and if she can't compete with him she must construct another rival. He locks his arm around her back, pressing their bare chests together. She gasps into his mouth, her legs winding around him, one hand fisted in his hair and the other scrabbling at his thigh, trying to pull him closer.
She nods like a maniac when he hikes up her skirt and rubs her through her underwear. It's better, really, because it would be embarrassing if he reached inside and realized how wet she is for the first press of his hand, how desperately she needs this, though it's probably obvious from the way her back bows and her eyes glaze. She keens and presses herself into his touch, squeezing his arms as he kisses her neck, his teeth scraping her skin. It's not gentle, not nervous - there's no trembling, no laughter. She bites her lip hard enough to taste blood, and shouts when her body contracts and flutters under his circling thumb, until she's spilling out beneath him like a yoke that's been pierced.
He kisses her, warm and wet and perfect as she tries to regain her bearings, letting him breathe the life back into her. She manages to get her heavy eyelids open and finds herself looking straight into him, his eyes unguarded, so bright. Nobody else has ever seen all the way into her the way he can, nobody.
“Take them off,” she says, fumbling at his pants, barely remembering how zippers work. He grins.
“That didn't happen last time,” he says as he pushes his pants off. “That - what you just - that was new.”
“Don't brag,” she says, still breathless, wanting to tell him that scooting across a tree branch made that happen once, though it was nowhere near as intense. He laughs into her mouth, kissing her so wetly that she laughs, too. He's actually drooling for it, which is funny until her hand wraps around him and she hears him groan, feels him shudder. It would be hilarious, the way he goes to pieces, except that she knows exactly what it felt like to wait too long for this.
“Katniss,” he says, panting her name against her shoulder. “Oh - that's -”
“Shh.” She licks his ear, wonders if she should speed up or go slower, not sure that it matters at this point. She knows she should shut up, but there are words welling up in her chest, and the way he bucks into her grip tears them out of her.
“I think about it,” she says, her lips moving in his hair, which smells good, a kind of poison that's drawing this confession out of her. “That night. A lot.”
“Oh - shit,” he says, and the way it comes out in a whisper, the way he swells in her hand, tells her everything. “I - never stop - thinking about it.”
He cries out and drops down onto her, and she's so feral for this that she licks his come from her fingers. It tastes bad, mostly, but not that bad. She wraps her legs around his back and kisses his face while he tries to catch his breath.
They've seen each other die plenty of times, in nightmares and in what might have been real life. It's blurry already, their history so quickly hard to believe, and this felt like a good death, one that they survived together. She doesn't want to believe that there's anything real but this: the two of them flopped across the bed, perpendicular to the pillows as Peeta struggles up onto his elbows and kisses her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and she laughs.
“Yes,” she says. “Are you?”
“I don't know.” He grins and presses his face to hers, his eyes pinched shut. “Yes.”
She sleeps deeply, her nightmares like storms in the distance, too far away to catch up before she wakes and rolls over to hide her face in Peeta's chest. He makes little noises of protest when she shifts in his arms, his fingers tangling in her hair as he cradles the back of her head, and she presses her smile to the soft skin under his chin. He smells so good, like something freshly baked, not just dough anymore.
Part II