Title: Don't Underestimate the Things That I Will Do
Author: Missi Marie
Rating: T (this might be a little bit higher, but I'm not sure. Let me know if you think it should be though)
Warnings: Mentions of sex and suggestiveness
Characters: Peeta, Katniss, li'l mentions of other charcters
Summary: AU. Tentative sequel to "There's a Part of You That Cares For Me" so go read that first. The more Peeta said no, the more determined Katniss was to have him say yes.
Author Notes: This is totally why I don't do sequels to one-shots. x.x Anyway, check out "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele. The working title for this was "Seduction" if you were curious. x)
You would think that seducing someone who is already in love with you would be an easy thing.
It wasn't.
Every time I tried to suggest—with actions, because my words never came out right—that we go farther than just the hesitant, careful kisses that were the only things he allowed when we didn't have an audience, he just pulled away with a shake of his head.
"No, Katniss."
And then he wouldn't look at me the rest of the night. Those were always my worst nights, filled with a different kind of nightmare. One mixed with my weeks in the Games—alone, mostly—watching Rue die, feeling helpless as Peeta succumbed to fever, waiting for hours at the end where we should have won as sticky berry juice dripped between my fingers... And then I would be alone. No one would come for me, no one would sit beside me, no one would hold me. It was just me, there in the clearing at the lake, the lone victor. But the Games would continue on anyway, because the Capitol was laughing at me as I stood there, unable to feel anything.
I hated these nights enough to not cause them frequently. But I still tried.
Tonight was one of those nights. I sat perched on the edge of the bed, practically shaking in a soft nightgown that ended high on my thighs. It was feminine and light and airy—all things I am not by nature. I chose it hoping to make Peeta want me enough to try something on his own.
Sometimes, I was not a good person.
It was a different approach than just throwing my body against him and trying to kiss him. That never seemed to work. He always managed to be a gentleman, never letting himself go much farther than sweet. So this time, I tried using myself as bait. There was more than one way to hunt.
Peeta was in the bathroom now, changing into sleep clothes. When we first returned from our... wedding there was some debate about sleeping arrangements. Peeta didn't feel quite right about sharing a bed with me. We had argued endlessly about whether or not it was a good idea. Initially, he won. He slept down the hall in a separate room.
That lasted only one night, because I had woken up screaming. He had come running down the hall and held me the rest of the night.
Now, we just agreed that it was easier and better for the both of us to sleep in the same bed.
Of course, we agreed upon that before I started actively trying to get him to sleep with me. I wasn't sure Peeta was as certain about that as he had been.
I started absently playing with the hemline of my short nightdress. The material was silky between my fingers, something of the Capitol that had come back with me. Suddenly, I felt like this was a horrible idea. The entire thing was ridiculous and awful and how could I be doing this to Peeta? Tempting him with the one thing he wanted?
But what was I supposed to do? This had to happen. Snow was going to demand a baby and the sooner I could give him one, the sooner...
The sooner what? The sooner we could all be safe? Obviously safety was not in the cards for me or anyone around me. Any child I had was almost surely going to be reaped for the Games. But to not have a child... That wasn't an option either, because then I condemned everyone I cared about to certain—and probably painful—death. Peeta fell into that category now, too, because even though I wasn't madly in love with him as he was with me, I didn't want to see him die.
Snow knew that, the sick bastard.
I closed my eyes and tried to tell myself that this was the right choice.
The door to the bathroom opened and my head shot up to look at Peeta. He stood in the open doorway, frozen, staring at me. My hand tugged at the hemline subconsciously.
"Peeta."
Letting out a frustrated sound, he demanded of me, "Damnit, Katniss, why do you keep doing this?"
He ran a hand through his blonde hair roughly, making it stick up oddly. I had an answer—long and complicated—but it was lodged in my throat, unwilling to come out.
"I—"
"Please," he said, no longer angry, just... tired. "Just stop."
Feeling defensive, I frowned and got up off the bed. "I don't know why you won't just... just..." I fumbled, unable to say it. I could feel my face heating up.
"Yes you do," he shot back, still standing in the doorway.
He really needed to step into the room, I decided. Nothing would change if he just kept standing there.
"Well, you need to—"
"What? I need to what, Katniss? Get over it?" I winced at that, but he kept going. "Accept that you'll never love me and this is all just a sham? That you'd rather be with Gale?"
"I don't want to sleep with Gale!"
I don't know why I shouted. I didn't mean to. Maybe it was because it had become a bit of a sore subject for me. Gale and I had shared a lot of things—he understood me in ways no one else ever could—but romance had never been one of them. At least, not for me.
I didn't think it did.
It wasn't like I didn't care about Gale, I just didn't... There wasn't... I never wanted any of this with anyone, so Gale just hadn't really been given any consideration. I had been forced to think of Peeta in that light and now it was to the point where I couldn't really think of him in any other light.
I just didn't really know what that meant.
"You don't want to sleep with me either," Peeta finally told me. At last, he stepped into the room, but he was careful to avoid me. He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, laying on his side so that he could turn away from me.
Thoroughly frustrated, I let out a huff. Angrily, I tore off the stupid frivolous dress and grabbed a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt. It nearly reached my knees and might have been Peeta's. It felt rough on my skin after the silkiness of the dress, but I accepted it gratefully.
More comfortable now, I climbed into bed, sticking to the opposite side. I turned away from him as well and spent the next half-hour fuming before managing to nod off. There had been probably a foot between us when we fell asleep, but by morning we were wrapped around each other again.
Subconsciously, at least, we had figured out how to accept one another.
The more Peeta refused me, the more determined I was to make this happen. I spent hours of my time trying to think of ways to convince him. Long speeches played through my head, all of them about duty and necessity and how things had to be to make sure everyone would be okay in the end. I thought of him as I stood near the fence staring out into the woods that I could no longer enter. I thought of him when I helped Prim with her schoolwork, though she hardly needed it. I thought of him when my mother brought in the sick and dying, when I passed Gale in the street at night after he spent the day in the mines, when I spread around my newfound wealth at the Hob. Everything I did now was laced with Peeta.
And it still did me no good.
Every night I tried to push things, he would tell me no and crawl into bed, facing away from me. The task had become impossible and it was driving me crazy as the days wore on.
How could I make him understand that this had to happen?
It had been three weeks since our marriage and we had done little more than kiss occasionally. It was always for show, because now even here in our own district we had to keep up the charade. Our wedding was a sham and everyone knew it, but we couldn't let anyone know it, so me and Peeta pretended we were happily married and everyone else pretended they believed us.
I thought it was probably starting to upset people.
Part of our lie included taking walks during the day so that people could see us together. We would hold hands and talk about inconsequential things. Peeta usually carried the conversation, always with a smile on his face, although it was killing him. I didn't think anyone could tell, but I had learned to spot the tell-tale signs that came when he was upset or hurt or angry.
Like now. We were out in the streets, kicking up coal dust with our shoes and gently swinging our clasped hands between us like schoolyard children. He was chattering on about something amusing in the bakery—some kids coming in and arguing about whether bread or cookies were better for dinner—and was smiling all the while, as though he couldn't be happier pretending to be my husband. But I knew he was upset about something. His eyes weren't as bright, almost gray like mine, and his dimples looked more like he was chewing on the inside of his cheeks than smiling. The usually soft crinkles around his eyes looked harsh and jagged. Everything about his expression was just a little harder than it usually was. All signs that something else was on his mind besides the laughable arguments of little children.
"I couldn't even believe a six-year-old would turn down cookies, you know?"
I didn't respond—Peeta rarely needed me to—still scrutinizing his face. But he had looked over at me right then, apparently expecting a response this time, and I saw his smile fracture for a second.
"Katniss?"
I shook my head and looked away. "Sorry. I would choose bread, I think."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him frown. "Everything okay?"
I shrugged. "You tell me."
He didn't respond. Our pace had slowed until we just stopped walking altogether, now standing at the edge of the Seam that had once been my home. Peeta had never spent much time there—he had grown up a Merchant—but I had spent almost all my young life there. There and the woods. Now I was denied both places. The Seam no longer felt like home, because I didn't belong there anymore, no matter how much I felt I did. The woods had been stripped from me, forbidden by the new Peacekeepers and a live fence.
"What do you mean?" he asked casually. His jaw flexed ever so slightly.
"Something's on your mind," I told him.
"What makes you say that?"
"You're dimples told me so."
As soon as the sentence was out of my mouth, I felt like an idiot. You're dimples told me so. That was one of the stupidest things I had ever uttered and was further testament to the fact that I was not good with words. I felt my cheeks burn and looked down.
Peeta surprised me with a gentle laugh. "My dimples tell you things?"
I glanced up at him cautiously. His expression had softened; his dimples were real. He had given his first genuine laugh of the day. Well, the first one around me. "Only when they're being moody," I mumbled.
He laughed again, and shook his head. We started walking again.
I didn't spend a lot of time with Gale anymore. There were a lot of reasons for this, most of them presumably my fault and revolving around Peeta. The marriage had been hard on him, I knew. Between being the Best Man and having to watch me walk down the aisle to someone who was standing about a foot from him... Well, it was pretty damn miraculous that there hadn't been a funeral following that wedding. Then there was the idea that Peeta and I were... were doing what I was trying to get us to be doing, but weren't... That was pretty rough, too. And even if there wasn't all of that, we no longer had the woods. Gale now spent his time in the mines.
Ultimately, Gale and I just never had any time to spend together. It would have been bad for the image of the Happily Married Mellarks anyway.
But the fact that I no longer had Gale to confide in hurt a lot. He was someone to rely on for companionship. Not in the sense of romance, just in the sense of friendship. I didn't have a lot of friends. I had Gale and that was about it. Then the Games tore him from me, threw Peeta at me, and then I didn't have anyone.
Except Madge.
I found that while the Games had torn me and Gale apart, it had developed what had once been a very distant friendship with Madge, the mayor's daughter. We knew each other just barely; she was one of the few who was okay with talking with me before. She had given me my Mockingjay pin as a token when I was reaped and I have never forgotten it.
Now, in my loneliness and frustration, I turned to her, because I had no one else.
In a way, I was grateful that I had her and not Gale. Not because I didn't miss Gale terribly, but because Gale was a boy and Madge was a girl and the kind of things I needed to ask weren't things I could ask Gale.
Especially since they were about Peeta.
"I don't know how to... to make him... I mean, he doesn't..." I couldn't even figure out how to say it. "He won't... um, touch me... you know, like that."
Yeah, real smooth, Katniss. I would have laughed at myself if I had been an outside observer. No wonder I couldn't seduce Peeta. I couldn't even talk about the damn thing!
To Madge's credit, she didn't laugh at me. Nor did she patronize me or treat me like I was some special child. She just took a moment and thought about what I said, her face frowning pensively.
"Do you want him to?" she finally asked.
Did I want him to? Well, that was sort of complicated. I needed him to. This had to happen. I wanted him to just accept that so that we could get this over with and somehow move forward. I didn't think that was the same as wanting him to.
Madge was looking at me inquisitively and I blushed.
I had never wanted any of this. "Since when does it matter what I want?" I finally huffed.
"It matters to Peeta, I think," she responded evenly.
I frowned. Of course, she was right. It was inevitably very important to Peeta, but that was inconsequential in the end. It didn't matter what either of us thought or wanted.
"I wish it didn't," I muttered.
Madge carefully placed a hand on my shoulder—I think she knew I was a little skittish with affection—and smiled sympathetically. "These things aren't easy for anyone, Katniss, but I think you two are in a tricky position."
Understatement of the century.
"I guess..." she thought it through once more in her head before continuing. "I guess I would tell you that Peeta doesn't want to force you. If you make him make you, then it's the same thing and Peeta would never forgive himself."
That... didn't make a lot of sense to me. I didn't understand. I was the one trying to get him to do this, so didn't that make me the aggressor and therefore exempt him of any of the blame? Frustrated, I ran my hands through my hair, for once down instead of in a braid. I realized it was a habit I had picked up from Peeta and immediately felt annoyed.
I couldn't get away from him.
I stood, thanking Madge for listening and her advice. It was getting late in the day and I wanted to make it back to Victor's Village before the miners returned so that I wouldn't have to see the broken look on Gale's face.
"Good luck," Madge called after me. "Just talk to him. And remember, it matters to Peeta."
When I got back, Peeta was sitting on the sofa staring at his empty hands. He didn't look up at me when I came in; maybe he didn't hear me at all. I stalked silently over to him; he continued to stare at his hands, apparently fascinated. I looked over his shoulder and down at them. They were covered in callouses and scars, most from the bakery, some from the arena, others ones I just couldn't place.
The Capitol had sent me home polished and sparkling—better than before—but Peeta... they left him in beautiful tatters. The scars they left behind deliberately, to make him appear stronger, tougher. A survivor.
Which, he was, in a way, but not the way that scars would really suggest.
I looked down at my own hands. Smooth. A gold ring glinted on my left ring finger. Frowning, I looked again at Peeta's hand. Sure enough, he was twisting his own ring again and again around his finger.
"Peeta?"
He visibly jumped, quickly turning around to face me. "Katniss," he said, clearly surprised. "You scared me there."
"Sorry," I mumbled sheepishly.
He shook his head. "No, it's fine. I just didn't hear you." He grinned at me. "You're always so quiet."
I didn't think of myself as unnaturally quiet, personally. I just thought of Peeta as unnaturally loud. Maybe that was sort of the same thing.
"I guess I don't think about it."
We stood there awkwardly for a couple of long minutes, listening to the silence filling the room, quiet enough to hear our own breathing filling it. I didn't know what to say. There was something nagging at me, something about the way Peeta was watching that ring, but I didn't know what it was or what I was supposed to do with it. And then I knew that I was supposed to be trying to seduce Peeta, to figure out how to make him understand that none of this would be placed on his shoulders. I would be taking all the blame for our actions, but I didn't know how to approach that.
So instead I stood there, looking at anywhere that was not his face and trying to figure out the secret of the ring and how to convince him and whatever the hell Madge was getting at...
My mind needed to slow down.
I sighed and rubbed at my face harshly.
"You okay?" I heard Peeta ask me carefully. Always so concerned with my well-being. It was starting to piss me off. I didn't need him to be concerned with my well-being, damnit. I needed him to start being concerned with his own. And the damn boy just wouldn't.
"Fine." My voice came out harsher than I meant it to.
Probably not the best way to persuade Peeta to sleep with me.
"Well, that was convincing," Peeta told me sarcastically.
I shot him an irritated glare. "Shut up," I told him. I even stuck out my tongue at him.
He tried to hold it in, I could tell, but he couldn't. He let out a laugh at my antics. I was still irritated with him. Really. But I couldn't help it. I laughed a little bit, too.
When our laughing died down, he caught my eye, determined to hold my gaze.
"Katniss, I..." He shook his head and smiled sheepishly. "I don't know."
I nodded. "I do. Peeta... You don't have to do anything. I won't... this isn't... If I ever wanted anything Peeta, I would want it with you."
That was pretty honest on my part, though perhaps not for the reasons he might be hoping. I had never allowed myself to want anything from or with anyone. I didn't want to have to lose it all. But Peeta... things were always a little different with him.
"If I ever let myself want anything..." I trailed off, no longer quite sure where I was going with this or what I was trying to say.
Peeta smiled at me gently, something flickering in his eyes. It made my heart jump uncomfortably. He moved around the couch to stand in front of me. He reached out his hand and touched a few loose strands of my hair, rubbing them between his fingers.
His closeness made the room feel warmer. I couldn't tell if his body heat was the cause, or if my own body was just reacting to him. It was a strange thing to try to decipher.
"I wish you weren't scared," he whispered and I wondered if maybe he didn't know my heart better than I did.
Night had fallen. We were getting ready for bed and I could tell that we were both a little fidgety. Something was in the air tonight, something charged and electric and dangerous. I thought it might be the night where, if I tried, I could finally get Peeta to succumb.
It made me nervous.
I should have worn something liquid and provocative. Something silky or slinky. Maybe even pink. But I couldn't make myself do it. It was that electric feeling that was filling the room. And it was what Madge had said earlier that day.
Instead I wore a long shirt that went almost to my knees. It was comfortable and warm.
I knew I could do it tonight. I knew, somehow, that Peeta's defenses were down—it was the hunter in me that sensed it—and that he was vulnerable. I knew that, should I impress it upon him, he would bend to my will.
The opportunity would never be better than this night.
But I couldn't do it. It didn't feel right and while I thought it was a little stupid of me to start having moral qualms about things now, I couldn't help it. It wasn't about what I would have to do. I felt strangely okay with the idea of giving Peeta free reign to explore my body.
I squirmed a little at the thought, not sure what to make of the knots tying themselves in my stomach.
No, it was more complicated than that. I was concerned about what it would do to Peeta. My plans were to save all those I cared about and while I did not feel the same for Peeta as he felt for me—surely that just wasn't the case, couldn't be—I still included him in those plans. I still cared about him.
I still remembered a kiss in the Games where I had wanted another.
Peeta stepped out of the bathroom then, dressed in sweats and a white undershirt. It was dark in the room, but the window was open and the moon was out. His hair seemed to glow a pale gold in the light and his eyes seemed effervescent. I don't know why the sight of him made my heart beat a little faster. It wasn't as though I hadn't seen him a dozen different times in similar states. It wasn't as though I hadn't seen him with less clothing, even. Which had sparked feelings of embarrassment within me, of course, making my face burn.
But it had never made me feel like this.
Like I wanted to trace the lines of his body with my hands. To memorize the scars on his skin. To see what it felt like to kiss a part of him that wasn't his lips.
I had never considered things like this before and the thoughts were setting my face ablaze.
I didn't know why tonight was different.
"Katniss."
But Peeta felt it, too.
"Yes?"
Because he was staring at me the way I felt like I was staring at him.
"You're wearing my shirt."
Our voices were quiet, breathy, as though afraid to break a spell.
"Do you want me to take it off?"
I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I never planned for this tonight.
"Yes."
So I did.
When I awoke, it was still night. I hadn't been jarred from sleep by nightmares or sobs or some outside force. My body had just decided it didn't want to sleep anymore and my eyes had opened. Now that I was I realized how I had fallen asleep.
In Peeta's arms. Not unusual. What was unusual was that our clothing had mysteriously disappeared...
I remembered what had happened earlier in the night. The charged air, our breathy whispers, the shirt hitting the floor. None of it had been part of my plan. I had decided, finally, that I didn't want to force Peeta into anything that he might regret later. It was as though the moment I finally made that decision, the weight and walls that had been keeping us from one another had been lifted. When we came together, it had been a strange, beautiful, heated accident.
Glancing over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of his blonde curls, still pale in the lingering moonlight. His face was buried against my neck and he was sleeping soundly, arm tucked tightly around my waist.
It was strange feeling him pressed securely against me, skin to skin. This was a new experience for me on a lot of different levels and I wasn't sure what to do about it. Especially since this emotion I felt growing inside me wasn't about physical pleasure—which, I can only blushingly admit there had been—it was about something else. Something... something I couldn't place. That I had no reference for. I didn't know what it meant.
This wasn't part of the plan.
I was never supposed to feel something.
I had been trying to seduce Peeta for weeks, but now, as we lay curled in bed together, our bodies bare beneath the covers pressed against one another, it occurred to me that Peeta hadn't needed any seducing at all. It had been I that had to learn to fall into his embrace and feel something more.
But that had never been a part of my plan.
Of course, I wasn't the only one with plans.
What had Haymitch told me? He's already there. And he had been, all this time. He never refused me because he hadn't wanted to hold me as a husband holds his wife. He had just wanted me to feel something in return.
Well, I did. And it terrified me.
I lay awake, unable to shake the feeling of dread forming in the pit of my stomach where hours before there had only been fire. I couldn't make myself regret what had finally started growing between us, but... but I knew there would be a high price for it. One that might be Peeta himself.
Something dark gripped my heart at the thought.
Now that I... now that I cared about him, now it would be time to lose him. That was how things worked in my world, wasn't it?
The boy sleeping beside me—no, he was a man now—pulled me closer in his sleep as though sensing my apprehension. I took a moment to pity him. Every time it seemed he finally had me, I managed to come up with reasons to pull away. It didn't matter how hard he tried to keep me, he just never could in the end.
I was a lost cause.
"Sleep, Katniss," he mumbled quietly in the darkness. I hadn't realized he was awake; maybe he wasn't.
"Okay," I whispered back, my voice sounding foreign here in his—our—room.
Tomorrow things would be different. I tried to ready myself for it, because I had a feeling it wasn't going to be pretty. Whatever had grown between us—I was not yet ready to acknowledge my suspicions that it might be love—it would be shattered come morning. I knew it already. Because I was scared. Of what it meant, of what it would cause, of the idea that I had found something precious and now it was going to be taken away from me.
My own fear was going to destroy anything beautiful that this night had created.
And I couldn't do a damn thing about it.
A/N: Um. I don't know. I feel maybe like apologizing for this one. x.x