Chapter 1: Just What Friends Do
Inspired by: Catching Fire, (pg 233): "Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go. And why should I? I have said goodbye to Gale. I'll never see him again, that's for certain. Nothing I can do can hurt him. He won't see it or he'll think I am acting for the cameras. That, at least, is one weight off my sholders."
This scene take place around Pg 296 of Catching Fire, after the day on the roof: "We stay on the roof until bed time and then quietly slip down to my room without encountering anyone."
She wonders at it now, how naturally he's become part of her life, how accustomed she is to his solid presence, warm and reassuring against her. She's still pretending to herself that this is just what friends do, even though part of her, the part she resists desperately because she doesn't know where it will take her, thinks that just friendship doesn't quite describe how much she enjoys feeling Peeta against her; how painfully glad she is that he's here with her now, on the brink of the arena again, facing into the abyss together.
She's never been good at normal friendships. Not with Gale, not with Peeta—both relationships now colored by an edge of heat and need that unsettles her. The thought reminds her of the images that woke her up, not nightmares for once, but just as disturbing, in a different way. Of Gale, pressed against her as he was in the cabin by the lake, kissing her hungrily, the kind of hunger that he's only put into action twice now, and both times she's pushed him away, not let herself answer back, not let herself start something she couldn't finish. But Gale is gone to her now, far away and beyond her reach, and more importantly, she reminds herself earnestly…she is never going to see him again. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had done with him back at the lake what she was now doing in the dream—kissing him back, putting all her pent up feelings into action, like the Capitol didn't exist and it was just the two of them in the forest, with no one to come back for. She can still feel the throbbing heat between her legs.
But now she's here with Peeta, whose body and scent she knows so well, familiar like the taste of his mouth and his hands against her every night as he soothes her to sleep. When they're not in front of cameras, his kisses are bland and respectful, like he's afraid he'll frighten her away if he reveals too much. Most of the time she's grateful for that, that he doesn't make her choose, and most of all, grateful that he's come back to her, now that they've been thrown together again by the Quarter Quell. Grateful enough to pretend that this is just what friends do, what they'll keep doing until they've used up the little time they have left. She's grateful enough that's she ignores Peeta's erections pressed against her every morning, pretends she doesn't hear when he moans her name in his sleep, pretends the answering wetness between her legs has nothing to do with him.
Although she's started to wonder lately if maybe she isn't making a mistake. Maybe her efforts to keep herself detached are foolish, when she'll be dead in a few weeks anyway. What difference does it make if she does something stupid? What can the Capitol take from her now, that she hasn't already planned to give? She won't be alive for the repercussions to hurt her, or anyone else. She's always been a fucking coward, she thinks angrily, too fucking scared to admit what Gale meant to her until it's too late, and now she's in the same predicament with Peeta, again, and it's almost too fucking late. Only a handful more nights like this one, warm and secure in his arms, and the clock's ticking against them.
She shifts then, frustrated and angry and scared, to look at Peeta's sleeping face, trying to calm herself down. Her abrupt movement causes him to stir, and he moans softly, exhaling, and then pulls her tighter against him, so he's spooning up against her, his chest pressed against her back, one arm tight and secure around her, his fingers inches away from her breasts through the thin nightgown. She feels the idiocy of her subconscious defense—just what friends do—keenly; he feels so good against her that she can't resist pressing back towards him, gasping slightly when she feels that he's hard again and his hips are shifting against her.
Katniss freezes. She could push him off now-he won't remember in the morning-keep a safe distance between them, avoid his eyes at breakfast. But she's so tired of resisting, pretending she doesn't want it, it's a hard façade to keep up at the best of circumstances, much less when Peeta's asleep and pressed against her. She thinks suddenly, firmly, that if she acts now in this dreamlike daze maybe she can have her cake and eat it too. She moves against him again, feeling him press into her through the thin layer of their underclothes, hot and tantalizing and not close enough. She's moves his other hand, pushing it up from where its resting on her ribs up so it covers her breast, his fingers still slack with sleep but an enticing pressure against her nipple and she can't help gasping again. She's never felt anything as unspeakably intimate as Peeta's cock twitching against the back of her thigh, his hand cupping her breast, breathing steadily against the back of her neck.
Is he really sleeping through this? she wonders. It doesn't matter. She's too curious, too frustrated, too hot and desperate and needy, for too long, and she thinks maybe she can get some relief is she plays this one out. She wants to push Peeta, claw away his sweetness and gentleness and make him prove he wants her the way she wants him right now, prove she's not so pure—if only he knew. So she shifts again, gently, trying not to wake him, so that his cock is caught between her thighs, pressing against her, so close… She feels more than hears his moan, so she does it again, pressing forward and back, and now Peeta's definitely breathing harder.
"Katniss..." He's moans into her ear. And suddenly he's moving, almost thrusting against her, his arm locking her in place, pressing her face-down into the mattress. She'd feel suffocated if she wasn't so turned on, so wet now she's almost dripping. His hips jerk hard against her and he stills, and there's a sudden sharp satisfaction when she realizes why he's stopped, as she feels the warm wetness seeping through the thin cotton against her crotch. He's still pressed up against her, shaking slightly, but his breathing's slowing. She's starts to think he's still asleep, and she feels relieved—she won't have to face what's happened til the morning or maybe not at all, if she can slip out of bed before he wakes up...
Her thoughts are interrupted when he abruptly jerks off of her, sitting up. She turns her head cautiously to face him in the dim light, filled with the hideous sense of a dissolving dream, but when she looks up at him, his head is down, blue eyes wide and glassy, maybe staring at the wet spot on his pants?—she can't tell.
His glance flicks over to the matching wet spot on her crotch, and he buries his face in his hands, refusing to meet her eyes. "Shit, Katniss," he moans. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."