I was starting to break into lucidity when I felt the sprinkling of something on to the exposed skin of my ankle, where my boots stopped and my trousers began. As I started to open my eyes to investigate, I heard a sound that I could only compare to the noise my sword makes as it swings swiftly through space, slicing the air into shards; that speedy whoosh.
Before I could think any further into what it could be, there was a resounding crunch less than a metre away from my feet. I instantly shot up, eyes burning from the sudden exposure to the sun and the nippy arena air. Training at the academy had taught me how to slow down these manic-fast moments, so I could see everything unraveling before me, instead of just relying on reflex and hoping that I'll make the right choice.
I blinked a couple of times to clear the fog of my morning eyes - the giant Capitol-created wasp mutts were flying everywhere, trying to find what disturbed them but stinging everyone in proximity to defend their queen. I was on my feet, darting away before my mind even registered that they were tracker jackers and that this would likely result in someone's death. The adrenaline coursing through me numbed the stings that were biting at my ankles and left elbow. Nothing hurts me.
I start to slow down and stumble a bit, because I swear someone just filled my boots with lead; and I swear the ground beneath my feet is moving… almost as if there were a treadmill beneath each of my feet, going in opposing directions to each other.. I try to rationalize or think or scream or anything but my thoughts won't work. As soon as I begin to think of something, it is gone and my mind moves on to something else. Where was… ouch that… wow the clouds… my ankles are… is… wha…th… P… Peeta.
The racing thoughts get replaced by complete, but very odd hallucinations. I'm noticing the trees start to bend inwards as if their trunks are made of soft rubber. My breath hitches because I am not sure which way is up. I hear a cough behind me, and spin around so fast that I slip, landing on my ass.
The coughing seems to be coming from no one, though now millions of baby spiders crawl out from the cracks in the dirt, heading towards me. I try to shuffle myself backwards with my hands and bum but the spiders shoot out their silk and begin to weave over my hands and feet, securing me to the ground. I shout in fear and slight disgust, shut my eyes as tight as I can, and upon opening them I realise… no more spiders.
Noticing some people running out from the shrubbery to the left of me, I crane my neck to look, all defensive instincts gone in the haze of my hallucinations. I squint, I making none but "Lover Boy" Peeta. Three figures of Peeta, in fact, running up to me, tripping over a rock, and falling less than a metre away from where I'm sat.
I reach over, offering him a helping hand, even though I too am on the ground. Looking up at me, he opens his mouth to speak. I'm deafened to his voice, but there are words coming out of his mouth. Literal written words, in neat cursive handwriting, stringing out from his mouth, flying up over our heads, and floating away into the sky.
Cato, reads the handwriting, with Peeta's face locked into a terrified gaze.
Cato what is this? I follow the words with my gaze as they float up and away. Turning back to Peeta, I reply; the same tone-deaf-yet-visible text happening to me as well.
Tracker jackers… I state simply.. Peeta's wild-eyed expression softens as his eyes begin to roll back into his head, his body going visibly limb and starting to fall forward into mine. I put up my arms and catch him at the shoulders, giving him a brisk shake and a hard slap across the face.
Hey! Snap out of it, Twelve. The words fly out of my mouth, bounce off Peeta's hair and flow up through the canopy of the forest, into the sky. His muscles suddenly stiffen under my hands, and I quickly let go - the sudden rigidity a shock. His eyes shoot open, pupils so dilated that the ring of color around them was completely invisible - two black orbs blasting themselves so wide that I'm afraid his eyelids will tear off.
Stand up, he demands, the words coming out now in bold block letters. I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, and Peeta's hand wraps around my wrist before I even detect that he had moved it. The fact that my senses are so dulled is worrisome, but the thought leaves me as quickly as it came.
Now, I'm not the kind of person that gets scared. Creeped out, yes - and this was creeping me out. I study the other boy's complete change - the once sensitive and gentle lover-boy now gripping my wrist so tightly that his knuckles whiten and I swear I hear a crunch come from my wristbone. I didn't know he was this strong, and where did this disrespect come from? I try to shake his hand off of my wrist but it won't budge. In fact, it just vices even tighter.
Stand UP, he repeats, and the even larger letters hit me in the face. My legs carry out the motion of standing before I have even asked them to, and I feel the burn of where the stingers are still stuck in the back of my ankles. Gritting my teeth, I swallow down any show of pain. Pain is weakness. Weakness is pain.
Peeta's free hand finds it's place on my chest and starts pushing me backwards, as he guides me quickly but not hastily to a large tree a few metres back. Its trunk is thick, about the width of someone's front door. It, along with all of the other trees that had been bent by my mind, have straightened out to normal - solid, tall, and broad.
"Now stay," he demands, and this time I hear his voice. It's a relief to be undeafened, though his voice is angry and husky, as if he'd just inhaled too much campfire smoke. He looks around the clearing, and behind the tree I'm up against, though what he is looking for I'm not so sure.
He comes back in front of me, just breaths away from my face. My eyes zero in on the long vein running up the side of his neck, throbbing with his pulse. Some force is keeping me glued to the tree; something is not letting me move my arms up to sock him in the face, after the rudeness he'd just shown towards me. Just standing and watching him act before me, I feel removed, like I am audience to a show.
His hand comes up slowly, and he now has long, sharp, talon-like nails; another hallucination. Using the nail of his index finger, he slowly draws it down the side of my neck, cutting a thin trail of blood - and then down my shirt, tearing it open right down the center, all the way down to the waistband of my trousers. Retracting the claws, he gingerly slides the halved shirt off of my arms, and it flutters off, seeming to swim through the air for hours before crumpling on to the ground.
When I return my gaze back to Peeta, his clawless fingers work at the snappers of my sword belt, then the button and zip of my trousers, pulling them down to settle around my stinging ankles. My eyes widen in disbelief as I realize the blonde boy on his knees, at my feet, is stripping me down to just my pants. But I still can't move.
Peeta runs his fingers delicately down my sides, from my ribs, over my waist, hipbones, and down the outsides of my thighs. Repeating this motion, he begins to lick my inner thighs up to the hems of my boxer briefs, and back down. Up, and back down. I try to remember if hypersexuality is an effect of the tracker jacker venom, but as I feel his palm rubbing me through my pants, all intelligent thought is no longer possible.
My eyes shooting open, I looked down to see him reaching up through the bottoms of my pants, fingering and shuffling about with my junk. I want to kick him away but I can't, and it does feel good, which is seeming obvious by my growing hardness. I can still not move.
I swallow hard as his hooked his fingers snap the elastic of my pants, sending shockwaves up and down and in and … oh god. He pulls them down with one swift movement, exposing me to the biting air. The lump in my throat is still there as I swallow once more, and let my head fall back, feeling his strong fingers wrap around my erection.
He firmly pulls downward, exposing my tip, then up again, down, then up again; but oh, so different from the times I've done it alone in bed. Already, after a few strokes, I feel my groin throbbing in ecstasy, the end of my cock becoming wet with arousal. I hear someone groan and realize the guttural sound had been produced by me myself.
The frenzied pulsations only become more intense as the boy at my feet increases his speed, and I let my eyes flutter closed. He continues to keep a good pace, wanking me off as little moans start to build in my throat. The delightful throbbing starts to spread, weighing my balls, tickling my inner thighs.
My eyes shoot wide open, and I gasp as I feel his tongue flicker out, licking my tip between his pumps on my cock. I grip the sides of the trees, white-knuckled, as he continuously licks and suckles each time he pulls the skin back on a downward stroke, then pulling his mouth away on each upward stroke.
"God damn it, Twelve.." I groan, as he finally lowers his mouth down onto my cock, halfway down for the first few bobs of his head, but then fully down as he gets used to the stone-hard length and girth.
He giggles, the vibrations giving me a sensational feeling, and I start to experience the pre-orgasmic head fog. I am becoming unable to hold in my moans when my hips shoot up towards his face, hitting the back of his throat and making him gag and cough. It's so hot that I can't stand it, and I just keep going, keep going, not caring, this feels too good.
Peeta begins to dig his nails into the skin of my hips, where his fingers firmly hold, and I reciprocate, digging my own nails into the corklike bark of the tree behind me. My knees begin to shake. His hot mouth feels just so, so good around my cock, his satin-like lips gliding effortlessly over every inch of its length. My hips buck up wildly a couple more times before...
...the white smoke-like haze washes around my edges and every nerve ending in my body shakes wildly. I open my eyes as I come, but not in his mouth, no...
The scene changes as my vision refreshes to a clarity I didn't even know I was missing, and my senses clear. He's laying unconscious on the ground, belly-up with his shirt torn off, just as mine had been. I'm slightly confused as I come, more than I think I've ever come, blanketing Peeta in streams hot milky-clear sex.
Looking down I realize that my hand is loosely wrapped around my softening cock. What happened? I am so confused. There is a trail leading from Peeta's feet to the middle of the clearing. Had I dragged him? The stings on my ankles and elbow start to needle with pain. I pull up and fasten my pants and trousers, and pick my sheathed sword up off the ground, poking it into Peeta's side semi-gently.
"Twelve," I prompt him, getting only a moan and slight tossing to the side as a response.
"PEETA!" I try again. This time he opens his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows. His sleepy eyes blink a few times before focusing on me, my sheathed sword, and my bare chest. His eyes trail along, observing the two shirts on the ground, then his bare chest and stomach coated in puddles of come.
"What the fuck?" he inquires, grabbing his destroyed shirt and using it to wipe the come off of his body, toned and strong.
"Cato, what the fuck?" he repeats... and I honestly don't know what to say. I shrug my shoulders, and ask him if he knows what had happened.
"Do you? Are you serious, Cato?!" Peeta whines.
"I woke up on the ground with you wanking off above me! I tried to get away and you kicked me in the head... then everything went black til', well, just now!" … my stomach twists into painful and humiliating knots as Peeta recites his version of what had just happened.
This did not happen. I can't have just done this, no. I did not just wank off onto District 12's tribute, with everyone in Panem watching.
"What... I called out dryly in disbelief. Had that happened? Was this all just a hallucination? I don't know what to believe.