~~ Okay, here's a nice dash of angsty fluff for all you Peeta/Katniss lovers! I was a little inspired by my own dreams, which are somewhat similiar to Katniss's, which is a little disturbing if you think about it, especially since my life's relatively peaceful and unviolent. Anyways, I wanted to write a romance fic, and this ended up popping out. It starts out depressing, but it gets better, I promise! For those of you so patiently waiting on another chapter for my TMNT fic, I promise it's coming! I've rewritten it about four times and I'm hoping that by writing this lovely ficlet, I refreshed my muse and will get it done sooner. Flames will be used to roast my Human A&P tests and reviewers will be given cookies! Review, review, review! If you don't mind the first-person POV and think I should do a chapfic using Hunger Games, let me know! ~~
The dreams are always horrible. They don't ever change where that's concerned, because I can feel the pain even after I woke up and I've stopped breathing like I'm running a race again. It's the Games, those damn tricks, and every waking moment I spend thinking of who died where and when. All those lives, lost. It makes me sick. And when I'm not thinking about it during the day, I'm dreaming about it at night.
I can hear them, screaming inside my head. Watching them get cut down, like animals. We were always animals, led to the slaughter. It's gotten to be a local legend, of how I volunteered to go to the Games, instead of Prim. People talk of how I volunteered myself, sacrificed, took her burden on my shoulders. It didn't save her, not really. She died anyway.
Prim-dreams are the worst. I can see her as clearly as I could, months ago, and she never points fingers. She doesn't blame me, doesn't even talk at all, and I wish she would. I stand there and scream at her to something, anything, anything at all and she smiles at me, gently, in that Prim-like way, that said, I understand, I get it. No one else does, but I do. And her lips form the words "I love you" and I'm crying so hard that when I wake up, my pillows are soaked and my face is one salty river. It seems that I don't cry when I'm awake, but everything comes pouring out in my dreams. I want her to say something, to blame me, to hate me, because maybe she'd still be alive if I'd done something different, maybe.
But she doesn't. In true Prim fashion, she tries to comfort me. It's the worst thing. If she hated me, blamed me, hit me, screamed her lungs out, I'd take it. I would bathe in the hatred, because it would mean that I could accept the responsibility and not watch it dangle out of my reach. I could be self-pitying and self-loathing and have a good reason for it, because Prim blamed me. But she won't, dammit, and I wake up every morning wishing she would.
I can't tell anyone that either. Mother's not coming here. She's already fragile and this place would break her, immediately. The memories, everything. Sometimes I think that it's breaking me, slowly, one forsaken piece at a time. But then, when I wake up, tears streaming down my face and screams echoing from my lips, I feel arms wrap around me and I feel the comforting warmth of love, compassion, and devotion. It's the best thing.
I don't tell him about my dreams either, but he knows. The first time I woke up screaming, Peeta came running into my room and grabbed me, which scared me and I nearly threw him into the wall. But he talked to me, stroked my hair, and held me, as carefully as though I was porcelain and I clung to him like he was my only lifeline. And he's still like that. He came the first four times to answer my cries and the fifth night, I nearly stepped on him coming into my room, and saw that he was making a pallet next to my bed. I didn't comment, but I gave him one of my blankets and when I woke up, shuddering all over, he was by my side immediately.
The ninth time, the second time that night, he fell asleep in my bed, arms wrapped around me and my forehead nestled against his chest. I woke up, for the first time without screaming, and realized where we were. One of his arms was over my side and his palm pressing into the small of my back, while the other cradled my neck, my cheek pressed against his bicep, tucking me against him. Several locks of my hair fell against his face, stroking down like streaks of dark paint down his cheek and jaw. He didn't wake up, but I stayed awake, staring at his face to memorize every inch of it.
The twelfth night, I told him he didn't have to wear a shirt to bed that night. He agreed. And I didn't have a single nightmare.