She still remembered the first time he undressed in front of her. They'd been sleeping in the same bed for a while now, though it had taken them months after he'd gotten back from the Capitol. They'd been distant with each other at first, until she woke one morning with an itch to hunt. Since planting the primroses out front they hadn't had much contact, but every morning since then, there was a loaf of bread waiting for her on the table. She went out into the woods and caught as much game as she could to fill her bag, came home and kept some game for her, Sae, and Haymitch and put the rest of it on Peeta's doorstep. She hadn't knocked. She knew once he found it he'd find his way to her, or he wouldn't.
He had found her the same day, coming over for dinner. A few months after that, between creating the book, flashbacks, and nightmares, she eventually invited him to stay the night. He hadn't even hesitated.
He was still Peeta.
But this particular night, she had gone to bed earlier than him. She never really slept without him. Not since he'd started staying with her. She could rest but she needed his arms, the rise and fall of his chest, his soft snores in order to fully fall asleep. She'd have to be extremely tired to fall asleep without him.
She'd heard him as he came up the stairs. He tried so hard to be quiet, but he wasn't very good at it. And even if he had been quiet, the door squeaking open would have woken her up, or the soft creak of the old wood floor as he made his way to the dresser and then his side of the bed.
He grabbed his nightclothes and turned around, smiling softly at the way her side of the bed was completely untouched. She slept on his side when he wasn't in bed, even moving to his side when he got up to head to the bakery. She left a corner of the cover of the bed upturned, her way of welcoming him here. He went over to his side and sat down his clothes.
She knew she shouldn't peak. He had always been so respectful of her purity, even if she didn't feel the way she used to. She had never told him that, though, so every time they went to bed together, she excused herself to the bathroom, undressing and redressing slowly to always give Peeta enough time to change.
But tonight her curiosity got the best of her. She peaked out at him through heavily lidded eyelashes, making sure she barely opened her eyes. She thought she gave herself away when her breath caught in her throat when he pulled his shirt over his head, exposing those broad shoulders and his square chest. She could just make out the patches of burned skin along his arm and chest. He was muscular but lean, and she found herself appreciating the faint six-pack forming on his stomach due to all his hard labor rebuilding the town during the day.
She blushed scarlet when her gaze dropped to his pants. He was fiddling with his belt buckle and her heartbeat sped up. She wondered if he could hear it in the silence and stillness of the night.
She was tempted to give herself away and throw the covers off of her. Did he not know the effect he had on her?
Of course not, she chided herself. He thinks you're asleep.
Thankfully a soft breeze blew into the bedroom at that moment, rustling the ivory linen curtains. Katniss welcomed the coolness against her face as her cheeks heated up. He pushed his pants down past his waist and Katniss bit her inner cheek to stop herself from moaning.
She wasn't sure what was happening to her. It wasn't the first time she'd thought about Peeta in that way. She still remembered the beach. Vividly. Like it was yesterday. But this was the first time she'd felt something similar. It wasn't as strong as that day on the beach, but she recognized the tightening in her stomach.
She forced her eyes shut when she started wishing he'd take his boxers off.
They weren't ready for that yet.
She heard him rustling around and knew he was putting his tank top on, and a few moments later, after putting on a pair of shorts, she felt him slide into bed next to her. He wrapped his arms around her, gently pushing her closer to her side so that he could have room on his. Then he curled into her, breathing deeply.
She smiled into the night; this was always her favorite part: when they were side by side, and he was holding her. Now sleep would come.
Before she drifted off, though, Peeta's breath was on her ear.
"Enjoy the show?" he asked.
She flushed, even as her fingers interlocked with his.
XxXxXxXx
She still remembered the first time he allowed her to comfort him after a flashback. He'd been back a year, and they had grown quite close. The book was almost finished and Haymitch had just bought his geese—the damn stupid things. Haymitch said it was because they'd help keep him distracted until the next train came, but she suspected that maybe he was trying to wing himself off of his spirits.
He came over a lot now, but he was never as drunk as he used to be. One time he even made dinner.
It wasn't terrible.
She spent most of her time at Peeta's now. After she had had a breakdown a few months ago because she realized how many memories her house held, Peeta suggested that they move to his place. She'd been relieved, because his place held so much more warmth, and not nearly as many bad memories. And they were finally in a master's suite. Katniss had always kept her old room, even though her mother was in 4 now.
He had helped her pack up, and maybe in retrospect it had been her fault. She took one last sweeping room of her house once they were finished, her eyes lingering on the table Gale had laid on.
She wasn't thinking of him per say, but more so Prim and how much she'd grown.
But Peeta had seen her.
He hadn't said anything, and neither had she, but she was putting her clothes in the closet when she heard glass breaking downstairs. She rushed to the kitchen, fearing the worst, and sure enough, he was gone.
Normally he asked her to leave. In fact it was one of their conditions about being together—if that's what you'd call them. They never talked about the soft kisses or the trailing fingers, or the way they talked about going or coming "home."
He had dropped her kitchen supplies. She hadn't needed to bring a lot of kitchen utensils with her, but she was particularly fond of the wine glasses Haymitch had gotten as a "gift," even if he got more use out of them than she did.
Those were gone now.
She could tell he had just tied himself up. His eyes were in and out of focus, but heading towards glassy.
"Peeta," she said softly, standing in front of him.
"Go, Katniss," pleaded Peeta, and she thought about it, for a moment, until she remembered that they were living together now. Could she run every time he told her to?
Dr. Aurelius said that he could control his flashbacks, so he'd never actually kill her. Hurt her, maybe. For the past few weeks Dr. Aurelius had been trying to explain to her how she should deal with the flashbacks now that she was spending so much time with him—and actually returning his calls.
"I'm not leaving you," she finally tells him, and she knelt down in front of him. "It's not real. Whatever it is, it's not real."
"Gale," rasped out Peeta. "You loved him."
Katniss froze for a moment, her body stiffening. She had the mind to run, run to her closet, because maybe she'd been too forward for this.
"Go ahead and run, Mutt. It wouldn't surprise me. Running is what you do best. But you won't always elude capture. I'll find you. I'll find you and I'll kill you." His voice was so cold but she straightened her back and looked him in the eye.
"Not real."
She lost track of how long he was out of it, but she sat at his feet, holding his tied up hands, her head resting against the seat, until he finally snapped out of it.
"Katniss?" said Peeta hoarsely, and Katniss jerked up.
"Real," she said, grasping his face in her hands.
"Katniss. Why are you here?"
"Because I live here," responded Katniss as she started to untie his hands.
"I could have hurt you!"
"Tied up to a chair?" Katniss smirked.
"Jesuse, Katniss, it's not funny!" Katniss didn't answer. She just wrapped him into a hug, holding him tighter as he tried to pull away. "I could have hurt you. Got damn it, Katniss, you were supposed to leave."
When he finally broke down she led him upstairs to his—their—bedroom. They lied on the bed, his head on her chest, and she soothed him by running her fingers through his hair and singing the Valley Song softly.
XxXxXxXx
She remembered the first time she told him that she loved him.
Not the time after that hunger had fully returned, and she finally succumbed to it. When he had kissed away her nightmares and she had clung to him like a lifeline. When he'd kissed away her tears, as if he himself hadn't had a flashback but a few minutes before bed.
She had comforted him until they'd fallen asleep, but then she dreamt of flames and Prim with Finnick's eyes.
She'd gulped for air, relishing in his kisses, taking from him, as she always did, and her hands were all over him, followed closely by her lips and he didn't seem all that surprised, because they'd been touching each other for months, ever since that time she'd walked in on him touching himself.
She'd known people did it…. I mean she was a regular girl once, before the Games, and she had overheard her peers talking about it in the bathroom in school. But she had never done it, even if she'd thought about it over the past few months, especially when she started to consistently feel him against her, hard and long.
She'd been experiencing that ever since that night he caught her undressing.
So when she walked into the bathroom to find him stroking himself, she stood there for several moments, too shocked to move. And instead of being embarrassed, she was curious.
So she asked to watch.
She'd been intrigued, so later that night she asked him if she could touch him.
He came in her hand a few moments later.
After that, things started to speed up. Hands started going places they never had before, and eventually lips. They never went all the way, though when his tongue made its way to her center she realized there wouldn't too much more time before he replaced his tongue.
When that moment finally came, he had thought that she was rushing it, that she was too emotional to think clearly, until she told him that she knew this was going to happen, and she'd wanted it to be now.
"Are you sure?" he asked her one last time, his eyes dark, his voice low, and she answered him by shoving her tongue down his throat. He moaned, igniting a flame in her lower stomach. She loved that sound, just as much as she loved the way he whispered her name when he was close to cumming.
They were all over each other then, clothes flying off. They were long past the point of being embarrassed by removing their clothes. Normally he shoved her shirt up, exposing her breasts, and she would lower his boxers to expose him. But after they were done his boxers were always pulled back up, her shirt pulled back down.
That night, though, they had slid each other's clothes off fully for the first time, shirts and pants and shorts alike falling to the floor. He lifted her hips and entered her slowly and gently, and she wondered if it would have been easier to just shove himself into her. She doubted it'd hurt any more or less.
It took several moments before she allowed him to move, but once he did, she was filled with a foreign feeling that she'd never experienced before.
It'd been incredible, the way his body hovered over hers, even if it had been awkward at first. It took them a few tries to find the right rhythm. Katniss hadn't really known how to give up control, so he' pinned her hips down so that he was the only one moving. She whimpered at the loss of control until he belted out throatily, "Let me lead," his voice strained.
She had nodded and he let her hips go and she followed his lead, seeing stars the moment she did.
"Ah, fuck," he moaned in her ear after a few moments. "I'm not… are you close? I don't think…."
She was close, close to what she wasn't sure, but something delicious was definitely building in her lower region. She heard herself making noises she hadn't known were possible.
"Katniss," groaned Peeta, and she felt his thrusts start to become erratic. He moved his hand down below and found the spot his thumb was so familiar with, circling it. Her back arched and her legs tightened around her waist, and that seemed to undo him. He choked out her name and spilled himself into her, apologizing, though he hadn't really needed to because she followed closely behind when his thumb pressed her nub harder.
Their breathing had been hard as he slid off of her.
"You love me? Real or not real?"
She'd been thrilled that finally she could say real, and it was the truth.
But the first time she'd said the three words had taken a little more time, and they'd slipped out by accident. It's not like she didn't want to say them, she just didn't think she needed to. He knew she loved her, and that should have been enough.
She had just gotten home from hunting. It was one of the first warm spring days, and her game bag was full for the first time in a few months. She had walked into the house to find Peeta home from the bakery, flour all over his face and even in her hair. There was also flour all over the counters and probably on the floor too.
She stopped at the entrance of the kitchen, her game bag dropping loudly next to her feet as she stared at the sight before her.
At the noise he looked up and smiled, and he just looked just so damn adorable.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.
She just smiled at him and walked up to him. "You have a little something right… here," she said, brushing his cheek and leaving a clean trail. He pulled her to him, rubbing his nose on hers until her nose was covered in flour.
"And now you do too," said Peeta with a laugh. Then he grabbed a handful of flour and threw it at her.
She threw her head back and laughed. "God, I swear I love you," she said. She laughed until she realized he wasn't laughing, but staring at her intently. "What's wrong."
"You've never said it," replied Peeta, and her face flushed.
"But surely you knew," she told him, and she hated the plea in her voice. He knew her. Peea knew her better than anybody.
"Yah, but I don't mind hearing it every now and then. Just to, you know," he shrugged, but she could tell he was forcing himself to sound casual, "to know it's real."
"It's real, Peeta," said Katniss softly, cupping his cheeks. "It's real."
And when he took her right there on the counter, and he was sliding in and out of her, she chanted out, 'Real, real, real, real, fucking real,' to the rhythm of his thrusts.
XxXxXxXx
She still remembered the way his eyes lit up when she finally told him yes, she'd have a baby. His baby.
It had taken her years. Five, ten, fifteen. It had taken her years to get over her fear, and then when she got pregnant and felt the baby kick, she felt like she'd aged a million years.
But that was after.
Before then, they'd had discussions—and sometimes arguments—about it. She told him that he wasn't being fair. He had known that she didn't want children when she agreed to marry him. He had no right to try and change her mind. That usually took the wind out of his sail, and he'd sigh and relent, agreeing that she was right, and he'd drop it.
And then a year ago, when she tried to use that argument, he had a counterargument that shut her up.
"The girl who was too afraid to have a baby grew up in a world that no longer exists, Katniss. The Hunger Games are over. President Paylor has kept her word. The Games are not coming back. Our children will never be reaped."
She had opened her mouth to respond, but then shut it. She hadn't known what to say, and even if she had, Peeta wasn't done.
"I don't want you to change your mind. I just want you to think about it. Your mind's been made up since you were a young girl. Our children won't have to grow up the way we did. So all I'm asking is that you'll think about it, Katniss. Okay? Can you do that?"
She stared at him, stared into those azure eyes that still, after all this time, made her go weak in the knees and could make her panties wet. They were pleading with her, and damn it to hell, it made her stomach twist in knots.
"Fine, Peeta," she said, stomping away from him and grabbing her father's hunting jacket. "I'll think about it."
She shrugged into the coat and marched to the closet, blowing an angry huff of breath into the air as she put on her hunting boots. As she walked to the door she noticed Peeta hadn't moved an inch. She swung open the door when he said,
"Are you coming back?"
Her back went up and then she spun around, a scowl on her face, ready to tell him off, until she saw the pain and turmoil in his eyes.
Fuck.
Sighing her anger deflated. "Always," she told him, and grabbing her bow she made her way out into the woods.
She went to the lake and thought, like she promised she would, and came up with one million reasons as to why it'd never, ever work.
And then she went home and rode her husband like a woman possessed, grinding her hips into his until he picked her up, slamming her back down on to him until they came together, screaming the other's name.
Then she burst into tears, telling him he should divorce her and marry a woman who wanted children because she can't, can't, can't do it, she doesn't know how, and everyone she ever tried to protect was dead.
And then he told her that yes, though Rue and Prim were dead, there was all of Panem she had saved, including him, and Haymitch, and Annie, which meant that she had saved Finn, and then there was Johanna and Gale and a shit load of other people too.
"If you don't want a baby Katniss, that's fine. But if your only excuse is that you don't think you're going to be a good mother, you have a lot more thinking to do. We don't have to talk about it anymore right now, okay?" He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her temple. "I love you. Go to sleep."
She thought she'd found her way out; only she couldn't stop thinking about it. She couldn't stop imagining the way Peeta's eyes lit up whenever a child came into the bakery, or how good he looked with a child in his arms.
Especially the girls.
Katniss knew when she had a daughter Peeta would spoil her rotten.
Wait. What did she just say?
When?
If. She had meant if.
But what ifs started taking over her mind.
When she saw a family of ducks at the lake one day, swimming together, Katniss felt a longing she never had before.
So that night, before bed, after Katniss was done brushing her teeth, she reached inside the medicine cabinet for the package with the little white pills, intending to pop one.
Except she couldn't.
She couldn't bring herself to push the foil and force the little pill out of its square package.
Instead she found her legs carrying her to the bedroom, stopping to stare at her husband, who was reading in bed.
She undid her braid that she had just done—he liked making love to her with her hair down—and walked to his side of the bed.
He looked up at her and she pulled the strings of her nightdress from behind her neck, allowing the dress to drop to the floor and pool at her feet.
She watched as he shut his book, swallowing audibly, a tent rising in his shorts.
Even after fifteen years she could still turn him on.
She took the book out of his hands and put it on the nightstand. Then she took his glasses off and put them on top of the book.
And then she raised her hand to reveal the pack of birth control, and she placed them next to his book.
"Yes," she said, walking up to him and tugging at his shirt. It came off, and she added it to the pile, her underwear falling closely behind. Then she reached down for his boxers. "Lift your hips," she told him huskily, and he obliged.
She started to reach out to turn out the lamp when he grabbed her, finally moving for the first time.
"I wanna see you," he told her, his own voice low. His blue eyes flickered to the birth control and then back to Katniss' gray eyes. "But first… I need to hear you say it."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Peeta. Let's have a baby."
He took a deep breath, glancing at the package again. "Are you sure?"
To prove she was, she placed her legs on both sides of him and sunk down onto him.
"Got damn," he groaned, and she gasped and arched her back, her hair swinging behind her. She stilled for several moments and then raised her arms to the top of the headboard for leverage.
And then she started rocking, hard, hard, hard, so hard that the headboard banged loudly against the wall.
When Peeta's curses became louder than the banging, she slowed down so he wouldn't cum yet.
Taking the hint he grabbed her waist and forced her on her back without ever pulling out.
"You want a baby?" he grunted.
"Your baby," whispered Katniss.
"You sure?" Katniss nodded as she moaned, arching her back again. "Say it."
"Yes," she grunted out, though from his question or from the pleasure she wasn't sure. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."
"I'm gonna cum, Katniss."
"I want you to," Katniss assured him, and he cursed. "I want you to cum inside me."
It would be different this time. This would be the first time she wouldn't be on the pill, but she was okay with that. There'd be no turning back now.
They came together, a talent they'd perfected over the years, and he held her closely as they regained their breath and composure.
"Are you sure?" he whispered again in her ear.
She smiled against his cheek. "Real."
It hadn't taken long. Peeta had had a baby in him all along. She'd been excited, until she felt it kick, and then an overwhelming sense of fear forced its way into her veins and affected the rest of her pregnancy.
But now, as she watched her husband and her daughter in Willow's room, sleeping on the bed, a book on his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his even breathing, Willow's head in the crook of his shoulder, she thought about how she was going to tell him that yes, she was ready and wanted to have another one.
Katniss had a lot of first memories over the years, and she couldn't say which one was her favorite. What she did know was that Peeta was there for every first, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
She could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve him.
But she'd damn sure try.
And when she died, and she came back, she'd love him even harder, even better.
She probably wouldn't get it all right, but she'd get it.
And for now? Well, for now…
Here's to her first.