fuelforthefire | [[For Katniss]]

[[For Katniss]]

I know that I have my own house, but there are nights that I don't go home. It isn't far from Katniss or Prim's, I chose that purposely. It's not close like it had been in Victor's Circle either, and I miss that. I miss the security of it, of having her and her family nearby. I miss having Haymitch too, crazy as it might seem some days. They've always had their secrets, their plan and their bond, but they're the people that managed to keep me alive.

It isn't just that. They were more a family than my own. She's more my family than that. She's more to me, even if I've never managed to make her see that outside of the Games. So here we are, something between friends and who knows. But in this place, this strange crazy place she and Prim are all I have.

Sleep isn't something that comes easy to either of us some nights. I've been on the couch, lying there awake, trying to not see the explosions in that sky whenever I close my eyes. It doesn't work, and I get up to ostensibly to get a glass of water, but really to check on Katniss. If I'm not sleeping there's a good chance she's not either, I think as I crack open her door.

She is sleeping, only it's not the good kind. Her sheets tangled into a ball from thrashing, she's making those sounds she makes when the nightmares get to their worst. Before she wakes herself up with it, the low panicked sounds that are so unlike anything else I've ever heard from her. Like the dreams have her cornered, like she's a wounded animal and they're going in for the kill.

It's been two months, but I've always woken her up before. I've stood in the door and called out her name low to try and not wake Prim. Not tonight. Tonight I need her too, padding across the floor to sit on the edge of her bed.

"Hey, Katniss," I say softly, brushing back her hair. If she wakes up and attacks me, it's my own fault I know. "You're having a nightmare."

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If it were possible to get used to nightmares, I would have a long time ago. Even this far removed from home, they're almost nightly, always the same things — visions of the dead, knowing that they're gone because of me, more twisted versions of what happened in the Arenas. By the time I wake up, I can barely remember them a lot of the time anyway. I just know what it feels like, that awful panic and the fight for breath when I've woken up again, like someone's hands are around my neck.

When something draws me from it, I startle, and it's only in being so shaken that I don't instinctively try to grab for a weapon. There's already a sob in my throat, though, and I'd know Peeta anywhere. He and I have spent too many nights like this. Even after all this time, I hate him having to see me like this, but there's nothing to be done about it. "Peeta," I gasp, arms wrapping around his neck like I'm holding on for dear life. In the dark like this, it doesn't matter what baggage is between us, or everything I've been doing my best to keep from him. It just matters that we're both here, that we made it.

There’s that brief second where I wonder if I’m going to have to scramble away. But it’s gone and done so quickly, even after all this time. I don’t know what that says about us, about what we are, but I know that now isn’t the time to dissect or think or try to analyse. Not tonight, not when we’re both just survivors, people where they would have had pawns, scarred in ways that can’t always be seen.

My reaction to this is always the same. Once I know she’s okay I wrap my arms back around her, holding her tight. The nightmares change all the time, I know that, and they aren’t always something I want to talk about, but I will if she does. I’ll do a lot of things if she wants them, and I know that she doesn’t even realise it half of the time.

“I’m here,” I say softly, my cheek pressed against her hair. I want to say that we’re safe but how can I? This place is so strange, our reason for being here so unknown it would be a lie. I might be good at lying to the crowd and the cameras, but never to her. “We got out.”

Any other time, I'd scoff and tell him I now that. We're here, after all, it's obvious enough. Right now, though, my face pressed into his neck, I can barely even stop shaking, unable to catch my breath. Besides, I'm not so sure it's true. Even in an entirely different world, I'm not sure it's possible to completely leave the Arena. A piece of us stays there. At night, it's like I've never left at all. I'd tell him that, too, but I think he's just as aware of it. I'm not the only one of us who has nightmares.

No matter how much I might be at a loss, I have to say something. I can't just sit here, a total mess. In spite of that, I don't pull away when I speak, wanting to hold on to him while I can, too shaken still to hold on to the thought that I should pretend otherwise. "I — I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No. No, I couldn't sleep." For much the same reason that she couldn't I figure, the dreams, the nightmares. I am pretty sure that I know what she's thinking, but I've been wrong before. Katniss has that way of surprising me and not always in a good way. Right now I'm pretty sure that she's trying to not think about it, trying to not think about that piece of us that will never be the same.

"I was getting some water. I could get you some?" Or we can stay here, I think, but don't say.

Easing back just a little, though still not letting go of him, I shake my head quickly. My mouth is dry, my throat raw like I've been screaming despite being sure I haven't, but I don't want him to go. Not now, when I'm still so shaken, too much so to pretend I'm not. Besides, I know that, by the time he got back, I'd have been able to pull myself together some, and then I wouldn't have any excuse to keep him here.

"No," I say, ignoring the hoarseness in my voice. It will pass. The residual fear will, too, but that's a lot easier to acknowledge as such. "No, I'm okay."

"I know you are." She always is okay, in the end, even when she doesn't think she is. Katniss has always been so strong, it's the thing I admire about her, even when it's driving me crazy.

I shift, my arm loose around her dropping down to the bed. I don't want to pressure her, to push, but I'm still close, not going anywhere yet. "You remember that last night, before the Arena?"

"Which time?" I ask, though I nod anyway. Whether he means our first trip into the Arena or our second, I remember it. Nothing about either of those nights was especially forgettable, when I was so sure, each time, that it might very well be the last night I spent alive, and certainly my last outside of there. "Probably."

"The second," I say, shifting along her bed slightly. I try to picture that night and it's not that hard. The air had a cool edge, and the party from beneath wasn't as raucous as it had been our first time only a year before. "The sunset and the sunrise. I wished it had been back in Twelve. The colours weren't the same. They weren't as bright."

But it was still the best night I'd had. She was there with me and for that night no one could make us their pawns.

I draw in a sharp, shaky breath before I can help it, still holding on to him. I remember that night, of course. I remember District 12, too. My memories of it just aren't the same as his, and right now, after a dream like that and with him so close, I can't pretend that that doesn't hurt, a lump in my throat before I can try to dismiss the thought. "Peeta —" I start, and I nearly choke on it. "It's gone. District 12. They bombed it. Burned the whole place down."

I know that she’s been keeping things from me. She looks at me strangely sometimes, as if she doesn’t trust me or isn’t sure what I’m going to do. It’s only when she doesn’t think I can see her, not realising that I see her almost all the time when she’s around.

That just isn’t the secret I expect.

“What? How-“ I don’t want to know how. I don’t want to know why, even though I can be sure it has to do with us. With the rebellion that was brewing and the Games they’d design to try and thwart it. Fire. Fire was always so dangerous, the coal dust was so flammable. I want to ask how she knows, about my parents and my brothers, about her mother and everyone else in the District.

I can’t ask. I can’t even make words form, instead tightening my arms around her waste, pulling her close. I need a minute to understand what she’s told me.

“They’re bastards. Snow. He-“ I finally manage the words and my voice cracks, breaking. I’m crying, mourning for a home that would have been the stuff of nightmares for many, but was still my home. It was our home, and it was gone.

It's all I can do not to start crying, too. Even then, I feel a few tears prick at the corners of my eyes, no matter how hard I try to fight them off. It isn't even the memory that does it so much. Remembering how it looked all burnt to the ground, it isn't easy, but it's something I've had time to come to terms with, as much as I can at all. What hurts more is hearing how it gets to Peeta, the way his voice breaks. It's all the more reason not to let mine do the same. If I'm doing so for his sake, I can keep it together.

"I know," I say, hushed, my hand running through his hair. "I know." I should tell him more, about Thirteen and all the rest of it, but I can't bring myself to tell him about his family. Not yet. "I didn't — want to tell you like this, but —"

“How were you supposed to tell me?” I say the words, managing to get them out without making them sound angry or accusing. It isn’t her fault, and I want her to know that, she’s not to blame. It’s them, those people who put us in the Arena not once but twice. It’s the fault of Snow and his cronies, of people who didn’t understand what it was like to live under someone’s thumb, where our only chance of escaping was to murder teenagers from other Districts.

I wipe my face, smearing tears with the palm of my hand. There’s a question I have to ask even if I don’t really want the answer. “My family?”

I should have known he'd ask as much. It's so much of why I didn't want this to come up at all that I think I should be prepared for it. I'm not, though. The words hit hard, catching me off-guard, a lump forming in my throat and preventing me from answering right away. He shouldn't have to find out like this. He shouldn't have to find out at all, but obviously, it's too late for that.

Unable to speak, all I can do for a moment is shake my head, staring down at the bed instead of at him. Even when my vision starts to blur, I don't realize that I'm crying again, too, until it's too late, my breath catching on a sob. "I'm sorry," I manage. "I'm so sorry, Peeta."

It's not her fault. None of this is her fault any more than it's mine. Anyone who ever said that if she wasn't who she was things might not have gone the way they did didn't understand Katniss. They didn't understand our lives or who she was or that I never would have made it through alive without her.

But my family... It was hard to accept, and I know that I haven't. I know that I haven't as I pull her as close as I can, holding onto her the way that I can't hold onto my family. I'm crying too, I realise, curling up against her, her hair damp.

"I- I love you."

They're three such simple words, and yet they're infinitely more complicated than they have any right to be. Of course, that's not entirely our fault. We didn't ask for the position we were in, and our pretended relationship did save our lives more than once. I'm not even sure he thinks about it like that. Even after all we've been through, there's something pure about Peeta, something that the Capitol never managed to rid him of, some inherent goodness that I was probably missing at the start. I think, maybe he means it. Maybe here, away from that whole world, he can mean it.

What that means, though, I don't know. It's not something I'm ready to think about, fact too blurred with fiction, especially when I've barely been able to process all that Peeta here hasn't been through. Do I love him? I think I might, but I don't even know how I'm supposed to determine that, or what, for us, it really is. It wouldn't be fair to say it now. I've done enough lying to him, and I've given him enough truths for one night, too.

All I am sure of is that I want him close, not ready to pull back. This is my Peeta, one I wasn't sure I would ever get back, and that's not something I know how to take for granted. Ducking my head, I shift just enough to catch his gaze, and then I press my mouth hard to his, hands coming up to cup his jaw. Is it love? I can't tell, but it's something.

I don't expect words from her, no quick return of what I've said. I didn't even mean to say what I did, but it's the truth, I know that deep inside of me. I've loved her since that day I first saw her in the school yard, since my father first told me who she was. But it's changed since the Games.

I've always seen her for what she is. Katniss is proud and strong, she's determined, but she's kind too. She's better with people than she thinks. She's impatient and gets frustrated and yet has all the time in the world for people who love her. Katniss doesn't trust easily, and I don't expect her to trust what I've said -- not yet.

But the way she turns, the way she looks up at me and then kisses me, that says more than any words of hers could. My hand covers hers, her lips warm where they meet mine. We've kissed before, but not like this. Not for us rather than the camera -- even if I didn't always realise it at the time.

I kiss her back, soft but insistent. I don't want this to stop.

I shouldn't be doing this, I know that. There's too much still unclear, too many things I've kept to myself, too much this might mean that I'm not sure if it does. Right now, though, I don't care about that at all, however selfish of me it might be. Holding him close like this, knowing that this is my Peeta, not the one the Capitol took from me, it means too much to let go of, and goes a lot farther than just the nights we'd crawl into bed together after having nightmares. While I can make it last like this, I will.

Eyes falling shut, I shift closer, mouth still against his. What happens after this, I don't know, and I don't want to find out. That's all the more reason to let him be the one to take that step, to stay where I am until both of us can't anymore.

It’s a relief to be like this, to kiss her and to be close. I’ve always believed it when she kisses me, and tonight is no different, even if some of those times in the past have been for show. I know I don’t want it to stop, but I don’t want to push her either. Katniss is too important to me to hurt, or to lose.

I tug, shifting on the bed to pull her down with me. I want to curl around her, I want to stay there and hold her like I used to when she had her nightmares before. I want other things too, but right now this is enough.

With Katniss, just being here is always enough.

“Katniss,” I whisper her name, brushing my thumb over her lips, my fingers across her cheek. “You should sleep.”

I don't want to stop. I don't want to sleep, either, too sure of what will happen when I do. A hand curling around his shoulder, I lean into his touch, opening my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. Deep down, I know he's right, and I know I shouldn't be so selfish as to keep this going when I can't be sure of what it means. He deserves better than that.

That doesn't mean I'm about to let go yet. Letting him shift and pull me close, I curl in close against him, eyes all but pleading before I can help it. "Will you stay?"

I'm not used to her looking at me like that. It's enough to take my breath away, the thought that maybe she does need me after all. Maybe she does need this, even if we can't always make it come together outside of nights like these. "I'll stay."

I'll always stay, I want to say, but I don't. I just pull her as close as I can, hold her tight against me and hope that it's enough. That morning won't come too soon and I won't have to let go.

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[[For Katniss]]

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