Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are always there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
I remember that night so clearly. My nightmare was laced with fear, the emptiness of mourning Rue and being chased by a small ferocious animal with her eyes, intent on avenging her death. "I'm so sorry!" I sobbed back to it, my voice barely audible through my breathless racing, my feet crashing through the forest to get to safety. But there was none. My death ghosted after me, always on the edge, almost catching me. Katniss, I heard the mutt hiss. Katniss, it said, more urgently. "I'm so sorry!" I cried again, feeling myself fade.
"Katniss!" I was brought to consciousness by the gentle but insistent voice I knew so well. My eyes opened, my vision blurred by unshed tears, and Peeta was there, his gaze upon me.
"Peeta," I whispered thickly, my voice clogged with emotion. His arm snuck around me and drew me close, the warmth of his body against mine. As my eyes cleared, I rested my head next to his on the pillow, feeling my heart race. The scent of the man I shared my bed with was stronger next to him. I could smell his breath, not sweet but not unpleasant, the smell of his skin, somehow still reminiscent of bread and flour and icing, and the smell of his hair. His hand rubbed comforting circles against my back, reassuring me about the calmness of the present. We weren't in the games.
"It's okay," he said softly, his voice full of compassion and concern. One of my hands reached up around his neck tentatively and I nuzzled closer to him, our noses touching. Fearful of a flashback, I opened my eyes to watch his reaction. Had his eyes darkened slightly? He didn't look afraid, but I couldn't identify that look in his eyes.
Slowly, sweetly, I watched him move closer to me. Our lips touched once again, for the first time after we had returned to District 12, and I felt a rush of something like relief flood through me. My lips returned his kiss, just as gently, so thankful for his comfort, his presence and his love. Almost like they knew what to do, my arms connected around his neck, tighter, and Peeta's lips became more urgent, more needy. I felt his hand smooth down my back, joined by his other hand. In a symmetrical pattern, they moved up my sides, warm through the fabric of my Capitol-style silk nightdress that rustled and moved against my skin, leaving a tingling sensation.
A strange feeling was stirring in the pit of my stomach, but it wasn't hunger. Was it? I had felt this once before, on the beach, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it then. We were being watched, and I was going to die. That was the plan. But here, now? We were both alive, and neither of us expected to die shortly. And we were very much alone.
This thought came to me as his left hand broke pattern and softly moved down my back, ever lower, leaving glowing skin in its wake, down and down to my leg. I was very aware of when our skin connected, nothing between it, as suddenly, I – the girl on fire – was being kindled by the boy with the bread. His hand tucked into the crook of my knee and I felt my leg move as if it was the most natural thing in the world, holding him to me because I knew now that I needed something that only he could give me.
Our kissing was no longer the gentle motions of comfort; we were pressed against each other, both of us needing more, our breathing heavy and mingling in the dizzy haze we were in. A small, breathy moan escaped my mouth as his hand slid up my leg, half way up my thigh, and the other came up to tangle in the hair about my face, fastening us together. I could feel a coil tightening in my stomach. My hands began to explore his back, taking in the broadness of his shoulders, the power that lay in the muscles along his back. The skin was smooth, unaffected by burn scarring, and yet hot like he was on fire. We were both burning. One of my hands traced down to the waistband of his sleeping trousers, and around his hips, and I was rewarded with the reverent, breathy expression of my name in our kissing.
Almost forcefully, he rolled me onto my back, resting over me on one arm. The pressure against me only fanned the flame and I pressed myself against him, needing more of him, the hunger and the flames consuming me from the inside. I pulled him closer with my hands, one against his neck, fusing us together at the mouth, and the other at his hips, and I became very aware of the evidence of his desire. His stray hand moved up my leg underneath my nightclothes, dipping into the sensitive skin at the join of my hips and making me catch my breath with the intensity of that simple touch, up and over my ribcage, just brushing against my breast. Something inside of me coiled tighter, and an almost inaudible moan that could have been Peeta's name breathed through my lips as his thumb swept across my nipple.
The disappointment that rushed through me when he broke away from my mouth was so strong that I tried to follow him, but he knelt up, between my legs, and looked at me with such darkened eyes that I forgot what we were doing and felt a pang of worry eat away at the warmth in my abdomen. But he didn't look scared, instead only like he shared my hunger equally.
Peeta bowed over my body, his nose finding the hem of my nightdress next to my bellybutton, and his fingers moved along my skin. These combined movements drove all worry from my mind, replacing it with a pleasure that rose over me like a wave, as his lips left a fiery trail behind, travelling upwards. The silk hem glanced teasingly over my taut nipples, and Peeta leant back to help me take it off completely, before returning to my skin, feathering it lightly with kisses. His mouth was hot, his tongue inept but stirring as he worshipped me. And there it was, the coiling within me that made me lose my breath. The sensation of his lips closing around the peak of my breast, pulling it into him and sucking, and tickling and licking was so overpowering that my head fell back and I wound my fingers into his hair, fastening him to my skin, lost in the flooding sensations. His breath lingered over my breast and my skin, glistening with a light haze of sweat, responded with tingling as he kissed his way up to my face, finding my lips again and catching them in a passionate embrace. This time, my body was against his, skin to skin, and I could feel every contour of his torso, each ripple of muscles. The need was so strong now, for both of us, and I murmured his name before my hands smoothed down to his waistband, and suddenly we were both naked, our desires both very evident. Peeta leant over me again, catching my mouth in a kiss heavy with lust.
I pressed my hips up against his, feeling the warmth radiate from him as I knew he felt mine. He pulled back, looked at me as if for permission and my reply was a kiss so urgent he couldn't mistake it. The moment I felt him press against me, I felt both a stirring of excitement and of fear, but he was gentle. As he entered me, I was aware of my tightness, of the slight pain of stretching to fit him, and he stopped, afraid. We broke apart and he looked at me, concern furrowing his brow.
"Should we stop?" He asked softly, breathlessly, and I knew that as much as he would if I said yes, he would be as disappointed as me. I shook my head, words unable to describe my depth of emotion at this point.
"Slowly," I whispered, and he nodded, still watching my face as he pushed further into me. I tried to keep my face impassive and succeeded for the most part and after a bit, I realised that he was fully in me. I had never felt so complete, and when the pain subsided after a few moments, a sort of instinct began to take over. My breathing still heavy, I pulled his face down to mine, eager for him to feel my need.
And he started to move. Achingly slowly, he pulled out of me, inch by inch, and pushed back, filling me again. As he picked up a bit of speed, I met his movements and pushed against him, my hips meeting his with pleasurable force. The coil in my stomach was winding up again, the pressure increasing with each stroke, and fire was consuming me from my abdomen up. Tighter and tighter the coil wound, and I found myself moving to match him, grasping at his hair so I didn't fall away from him and the earth, his name coming out in breathy moans from my lips, hearing mine echoed from his. The pleasure was too intense for me to not be burnt up, and the tension in my stomach was impossibly tight.
Suddenly, bringing an unbidden cry from my throat, I felt the coil in my stomach snap back and fireworks sparkled through my bloodstream, reaching the ends of my fingers and toes, tingling and warm. Peeta moaned roughly, his lips against mine unmoving in their ecstasy, and after a moment of pure rapture that lasted an eternity, he stilled inside of me. We lay there, caught in our embrace, both with a sheen of sweat, waiting for the world to realign around us. I opened my eyes and found him looking at me with such heartbreaking love that I couldn't help but smile.
We rolled onto our sides, satisfied and sated, our eyes still locked. His voice was almost inaudible, but I heard it perfectly.
"You love me. Real or not real?"
I moved forward and rest my lips against his, feeling sleep curl around us.
"Real."