the world recedes

[fuelforthefire]

It's quiet out here usually, at this time of the afternoon. There's a field through the trees to the west where there are cows, and sometimes I can hear them. When it's the school year, there's a bus that rumbles down the road at the end of the drive that leads up to my house, taking the few children who live out this far to their homes. But it's summer, and all I hear is a few birds in the trees.

Just the birds and Claudia. I hear her as the door to my little house closes behind me. I'd gone out to paint, an hour or two out by the side of the house. I keep trying to catch the sun as it filters through the trees at this hour, but it's nothing I could keep my mind on. I heard her laugh at something, and I find that I need to know what. Not because I'm jealous or worried, but because I'm curious. The past few days have been relaxing for us both, and it seems that she's forgetting the things that she's lost so recently and letting herself be happy again.

That makes me happier than I can even explain. She makes me happier than I can explain, and all I can think is that we should have done this earlier. Gotten away and spent some time together. But then, it might not have been right. It might not have worked. I've learned that you can't force things, no matter how hard you might want them to work for you.

I set the easel and box by the door and go up behind her, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss her cheek. "What are you laughing at?"

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[warehousenextgen]

I point at the tv, which I'd had on for background noise as I plucked at my guitar. It's my back-up, the first one I bought when I got here and the tuning's a little twitchy but it works for me to pretend to compose on. I just haven't had the guts to full-on replace my performance piece. Actually, this is the first time I've picked up a guitar since that night. I guess maybe I am feeling better. I feel less rage-y all the time and I know I've got Peeta to thank for that. How did we get so domestic, co-habitating and everything? Not that we're doing anything, but it just... it's the best sleep-over ever.

"This station is doing, like, these interviews with people and their theories on how we-" I motion to the two of us, like the people that just arrived here- "and this guy is literally wearing a tinfoil hat."

I'm pretty sure that he doesn't get my reference in the larger sense, but the guy is still on the screen, tinfoil hat and all and really, that's the kind of image that speaks for itself.