Painting Katniss
Set in thirteen after Peta's rescue. Katniss visits Peta everyday trying to help him recover. He didn't try to kill her and has no real animosity towards her just confusion, fear and pain. I tried to stick to how these characters would really be feeling, but it's a long way to go from pain and torture, to healing and affection. Rated M for sexual content.
Katniss wandered slowly through the maze of halls that lead to the medical wards. She was going to see Peta again as she promised that she would, but her steps were slow and seemingly heavier the closer she got. A medical assistant had sought her out this evening asking her to come again, thinking that her presence may be helpful to him.
She wanted to do anything that she could to help Peta, she really did. But at times seeing the hopelessness in him or when he was totally captured by a vicious hallucination, scared her too and she felt useless like she was doing more harm than good for him. Since the Hijacking that they had tortured him with was still deeply embedded in his brain, Katniss never knew what she would see in Peta, when she got there and that scared her most of all. Gone was the sweet boy who was kind and cared about everyone, and she would do anything it took to get him back. Strengthening her resolve she sped up as she rounded the last corner to the medical hall.
Peta's medical team stood huddled out in the hallway whispering in strained voices and gesturing to Peta's door as she approached. They turned to look at her.
The lead doctor spoke.
"As part of Peta's therapy we instructed him to paint." He paused looking at Katniss as if waiting for some sort of confirmation that she understood. She leveled him with an annoyed glare instead.
"We suggested that he try and paint out some of the nightmares he was having" again a long pause and Katniss wondered if he had forgotten what he actually wanted to say. "Peta has been painting for nine hours now…."
"Well you will probably need more paint then" Katniss said in her typical smartass way. The Doctor chose to ignore her as he continued.
"He seems to be purging very well, but we are worried that he may have moved into a place that will be hard to pull him back from. We wanted you to act as a guide or anchor if you will, to help him keep a fix in this reality as he continues to expunge the images in his mind." Katniss knotted her brows together in a frown.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Just be with him, talk to him, reassure him if you can." She didn't like the sound of the 'if you can' part.
"Ok I'll try." Looking somewhat relived now, the doctor nodded and turned back to his colleges and they headed off down the hallway. One nurse remained outside his door. She touched her arm and said
"Just do what you can, he's been like this for several hours now" She pushed the handle opening the door for Katniss. "I'll be out here if you need anything" she told her as she passed into his room.
Katniss crept quietly in to his room on hunters feet. Slowly she took in the surroundings. His room was covered with paintings charcoal drawings, canvases and papers. The images from his mind were literally everywhere, and everywhere she look she saw nightmares and atrocities beyond her comprehension. The torture and carnage was so deeply disturbing that she literally felt ill, and she gagged. Peta sat on his knees in the middle of the room, with several large sheets of paper scattered around him. Partially finished images on each, and he scribbled madly on the closest one. His movements looking more like an attack then art.
"Peta?" she asked gently not entirely sure which Peta she would get a response from her kind loving boy or the animal programmed to attack.
"There is nothing left! No beauty anymore, they destroyed it they burned it" he hissed through his teeth in a harsh whisper, his arm slashing the pages faster now. But he didn't stop. Katniss walked to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to break his focus and he peered up at her with a tearstained face and bleary red swollen eyes.
"It's all gone!" He whispered to her and he went back to his compulsive scribbling. Deeply disturbed by what she saw she knelt down beside him and took his hand in hers stopping his movements.
"They burned it all away." He said staring at her intently as fresh tears ran down his face creating clean streaks in the smudges of charcoal on his face. "They burned it, they burned US girl on fire!"His voice level has risen to yelling now. Katniss cringed back releasing his hand. Peta shuffled through a pile of papers on the floor and then brought up an image for her to see holding it at her eye level. He shows her a painting of herself burning in flames, her tortured face screaming as seared flesh peels away. She cringed and turns away. Peta reached out and grabbed her arm shrieking like a mad man now "What friendship we had, what caring there was, is now wrapped in evil and hate, and filthy, sickening images that are in my mind" Katniss wrenched her arm free. "They killed me inside" he shrieked laughing and crying. "There is nothing beautiful anymore, everything is burned and dead"
"Peta!" she tried to turn him to her "don't say that, you of all people see the beauty that is around, the good in all people, you can create beautiful things"
"I used to think so" he hung his head exhausted and slumped over to kneel on floor in fetal position rocking back and forth, the charcoal pencil clenched tightly in his hand. He was openly crying now. "There is no beauty left, there is nothing left" he chanted over and over to himself. Katniss pulled back appalled as she backed out of the room, feeling totally overwhelmed by his heart wrenching despair. Finding the nurse in the hallway she grabbed her.
"He has been like this for hours now?! Give him something! You have got to stop this, please sedate him, it's killing him inside he can't handle this. Please help him."
"I'm sorry miss but doctor's orders are to let him continue for as long as he can" Katniss grabbed her arms shaking her.
"He can't do it anymore, this is torture, please stop this, let him sleep in oblivion. I can't bear to see him suffer anymore." Looking resigned the nurse freed herself and quickly pulled a syringe out of her pocket, and headed in to give it to Peta.
A few minutes later the nurse emerged from his room, a look of horror on her face. She glanced at Katniss then nodded and walked down the hallway leaning heavily against the walls for support. Katniss returned to Peta's room to find him dumped in his bed, but sleeping soundly, his face almost peaceful with slumber. She pulled his blankets up over him, brushed the hair off of his forehead and kissed him on the cheek. She cleaned up his room stuffing all of the pictures into his closet and tightly closing the door. She really wanted to burn each and every image but didn't feel she had the right to make that decision. She grabbed a chair and extra blanket and pillow and settle in beside him to keep a silent vigil and stand guard all night.
Late in the night Prim came to check on her, she had seen some of the pictures Peta had painted when she was helping out in the medical ward and she had heard that Katniss was with him now so naturally she came by. Katniss rested her head against her sister's waist, as she hugged her while standing.
"I don't know how to help him. I don't know what to do. I feel like his soul is dying. How do I save him?" she sounded defeated to her own ears.
"Always trying to save everyone right?" she gives Prim a sad look "I know Peta is different to you. Don't give up yet he needs you right now. You are his closest friend and you better than anyone else can understand what he is trying to endure."
"But he says all beauty is gone to him now, how do I make him see beauty again?"
"Katniss don't you know? You were the most beautiful thing to him. Show him that you are not gone. Give him your beauty to paint, instead of the horrors in his mind." Katniss smirked at her.
"Should I consult a prep team first?" her sister smacked her hand "oh stop it, all beauty Peta ever saw in anything was on the inside and you know that, show him your beauty" Katniss looked away from her now.
"I'm not sure there is any left in me." Prim gripped both sides of her face forcing her to look deep into her eyes. She held her gaze assessing.
"Yes there is," Prim told her. "I can see it, and he will too." Katniss hugged her around the waist.
"How did you get so smart?"
"Good role model growing up." Prim leaned in and kissed the top of her head "Get some sleep if you can." She wandered out.
Several hours later as the sedative wore off Peta started to moan and thrash around in his bed. Katniss went to him grabbing his hand kneeling at the side of the bed trying to wake him up. He contorted in the grip of the nightmare, thrashing again fighting his sheets. She was unable to break him out of the dream, and she started yelling at him now.
"Peta! Wake up! Peta!" nothing was working. Katniss grabbed his face and kissed him roughly breaking the hold that the terror had on him, bringing him back to reality, to her.
Blinking awake, he looked at her and her worried eyes. His expression was unreadable and she wondered if she is going to have to run fending off an attack if the hallucination still held him. His hand tightened on hers, and she braced to pull away fast adrenalin pumping through her.
"Katniss?" he sound scared and unsure but not lethal and she relaxed her muscles some.
"Did you kiss me? How did I get in bed? I was painting, then you came" his brow furrowed "I was having a bad time" he paused again and pulled her into bed with him wrapping his arms tightly around her. His thoughts were still fuzzy from the meds and he shook his head "did you sedate me?"
"Shh you talk too much." She tucked herself against him and rested her head on his chest. "Just sleep Peta. We will fight off the nightmares together."
Peta did fall asleep again with her in his arms. But Katniss lay awake her mind constantly churning as she puzzled how to help Peta. As Dawn approached she thought of an idea she wanted to try with him.
Carefully so as not to wake him she snuck out of bed early to put her plan into action.
Katniss walked along a green shadowy path deep in the forest outside of thirteen's compound. She had gotten permission from Coin to take Peta outside as part of his therapy and the Doctor had agreed that a change of scenery might help. Peta walked along behind her his head down he watched his feet as they went.
Katniss found them a nice clearing with a few fallen logs for sitting on and she stopped to unload her pack. It was peaceful, secluded away from people and guards. Katniss set up his board and paints for him.
"We came out here so you can paint Peta" and she handed him a brush expectantly. Peta looked at it blankly as he took it from her. After several minutes of hovering she decided to let him be and she went off exploring on her own. She hunted and explored around, finding a pretty feather, some berries, a nice shiny rock. She sang to herself, and climbed trees.
Peta sat in front of his blank papers and did nothing, except watched her. Every so often she would glance at his page and frown hoping that he would at least sketch something, but the page remained clean. As the hours passed, and the day grew darker, she eventually sighed giving up and said that they must return.
She was heartbroken that this did not help, that he just sat there barley moving all day. As she threw the pack up on her shoulder and began to lead the way back Peta stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She turned looking at him.
"Can we come back tomorrow?" elation rushed through her easing the tightness in her chest.
"Yes, Yes. Of course we can."
For days they came. Katniss played, relishing every moment she could spend outside, forgetting herself and that she was supposed to be focused on Peta. Shucking her boots to go barefoot, she rolled the cuffs of her jumpsuit up to her knees. She had already shed her hunting jacket as well, and held her exposed arms out to warm in the sunlight. She wandered about and sang with the birds. Peta just watched her. Suddenly remembering and felt guilty for indulging herself, and she climbed out of the tree she just had a nap in and walked down the broken log he was on to sit beside him.
"Why don't you paint Peta? There is so much to see out here" He just looked at her with large sad eyes. Determined not to give up on him she took the paint brush from his hand, and leaned over his shoulder to the paper.
"Can I try?" Peta nodded at her and loaded the paint pallet with a few colors.
"Any other colors you want?"
"Green" she said as she looked around at the forest, "and orange". It caused him to smile a tiny bit.
"Real or not real, your favorite color is green?"
"Real" and he smiled again a little bigger this time.
She took the paint and sitting away from him tried to paint a tree. Brown trunk, green leaves, straight bottom, round top. It looked like something she might have done in primary school. She frowned at it trying to get it right. Hrumphing madly at it, she held her picture away thinking that at least some other skills of hers had advanced if not her artistic ones. Peta came beside her to look, and she tried to hide it from him against her chest. He pulled it from her.
"I want to see…." She had succeeded in smearing her original effort and she thought that this may actually have been an improvement. Sheepishly she showed it to him.
"I like it Katniss"
"Ya, but I wreaked it" and looking down at herself she added "and I got paint all over me too" he looked down at her chest and noted with a half smile,
"I like that too."
An idea popped into her head "Can you help me fix it?"
"But it's your picture"
"Please help me"
"Umm, ok". He reached for the brush in her hand but instead of taking it from her he wrapped his hand over hers. Lifting his arm over her he hugged her to himself and dipped the brush into bright purple paint. She gave him a wry look
"Purple? But Peta the tree is green."
"No it's not" he said as his brush lightly touched the page, he shaded in areas under her smudges, next was red which he turned in to leaves back lit by the sun as it shone through the canopy, and shades of orange that filtered through in sun beams not yet interrupted by the branches. His look was intense as he concentrated, and although he hugged her to him, he seemed miles away.
Katniss felt like a doll as he moved her hand in a dance that only he understood. And she just relaxed against him letting herself feel the painting as he did. As she watched, an amazingly beautiful scene unfold on her lap. His actions slowed and he would pause for longer periods inspecting the page. Then adding some small detail here and there, until he finally stopped and lay the brush back down in the tray.
Katniss stared at the painting showing the forest around them and she swore that mockingjays would fly right out of the treetops at her, staring she could almost hear the leaves rustle as the wind stirred them, and she could feel the peace of it all.
"Peta," she breathed out softly.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes, I do. I'm an amazing painter. Who knew?" She shoved him playfully with her elbow.
"Can I keep it" he asked her.
"Please do, I made it for you."
Handing the paint brush back to him she said "Paint something else Peta. Anything you like."
"Really? Anything?"
"Yes"
"Can I paint you Katniss?"
"Yes"
Holding her hand he turned it over and noted the paint that had gotten there while they painted together. He ran his fingers over hers smearing the wet paint across her skin with his fingertips, and making her pulse quicken. He pulled her hand to him and carefully with his paintbrush he painted a slow green circle on the palm of her hand. The bristle of the brush tickled as they passed over her skin. Then he slowly traced a thin line up to her wrist and up her arm the coolness of the wet paint making her skin tingle. Peta then went back down her covering her in varying shapes and sizes of leaves camouflaging her arm.
Turning her he painted her exposed shoulder blade, sending a ripple of ticklish tremors through her and her pulse increased. His brush trailed up her neck and she tipped her head away closing her eyes as the soft bristles kissed at her skin, changing her colors darkening her skin, the wet liquid passed over her pounding pulse.
He brushed her long braid back from her neck with his hand as the other moved the brush tip back close to her hairline adding more pressure here, making her shiver. He circled her following the line around her neck, tracing little vines leaves and trails off in different spiraling curls. Coming back around to her face she opened her eyes to watch him.
Peta's face was masked in concentration as he painted but not the scary locked in madness look he had when painting in his room. Taking a different size brush now, a smaller and more delicate one, Peta traced over her brow. Then circling around under her eye and sweeping back again over her cheek. He dipped his brush in a different shade and she was reminded of her prep team's ministrations where she had to endure hours of painting and primping at their hands. But it was nothing like having Peta touch her face. The trails he left tickled, as every nerve was enflamed at his gentle caress with his brush, and she tipped her chin up to him exposing her face more as a new paint brush now traced the bottom edge of her lower lip. She pressed her lips together trying not to lick them in front of him.
"Don't move" he murmured sounding miles away in his head.
"Sorry" she said her mouth slipping into a smile.
"Don't move." he repeated a little more forcefully, and she fully smiled at him now.
"I can't help it"
Inches from her face he placed his fingers gently under her chin and tipped her face more towards him. Then he leaned down and kissed her quickly, parting her lips and tasting her a bit with his tongue. She almost moaned at him.
"Don't move" he said again.
"Aw come on, that wasn't fair!"
She tried to keep talking but he placed the brush over her lips and she was forced to press them together to keep from tasting paint. She rubbed them against each other the new wetness making them slide back and forth. She finally closed her eyes again and just let him decorate her. The small brushed playing near her eyes and dancing over her eyelids, the larger ones taking big elaborate sweeps of paint back into her hair. And a thick wide one coating trails down her neck again. His brush trailed over the top of her chest and briefly down her shirt to her cleavage. His movements stopped and she broke her trance looking at him. Indecision was written on his face.
"What?" she asked him. He traced a finger under the edge of her collar as he looked at her.
"I'm not done" he looked away embarrassed. Katniss looked at him confused for a moment but then realization dawned as she saw his face turning red. He wanted to paint more of her skin, but didn't know how to ask her. She was temped at first to refuse him out of modest pride, but then she thought about Peta and how since his rescue she had not seen him this engaged in anything. She loved the feeling of the cold wet paint sliding over her skin, and the little trembles and shivers it sent through her body, and she loved the way he stared at her so intently.
Her mind made up, she took a deep breath and undid the buttons on the front of her jumper. Peta's eyes opened wide in wonder. Carefully pulling one arm out and then the other she lowered the top of the jumper off her back and held it clasped over her breasts. Since she felt no need to wear a bra, she now also didn't need to remove one. Not wasting any time Peta moved behind her and ran his hand down her smooth back as if she was a fresh canvas. She shivered noticeable under his warm touch.
"Are you cold?" his voice deep at her ear. She shook her head.
"No" her voice catching "no" she tried again clearer this time. Katniss watched as Peta dipped his fingers In the paint and she felt him touch them again to her exposed back. The paint was cool and wet his fingers were warm and applied just some slight pressure along her spine. She closed her eyes and rolled her face up to the sun moaning under her breath. His hands and the brushes danced along her skin trailing little designs. Her breathing started to come faster and she could hear Peta behind her as his breaths got deeper as well. It turned her on. Peta's painting moved around to her side tickling the edges of her ribs and she moaned and leaned the opposite way opening her side up to him. As she bent, the material covering her breast slipped down exposing her to his sight. She heard him suck in a tight breath and his paintbrush ran a river of color along the underside of her most sensitive skin. Releasing her hold on her other breast she leaned back against the log she sat on, stretching out on her back in the sun.
Kneeling in the dirt beside the log, Peta dragged his paint box over beside him as he peered over Katniss' stunning form, her exposed breasts making his mouth water. He dipped his fingers again in the paints mixing and smearing until the color was just right. Then very slowly, he reached out to touch her body. She sighed in relief releasing a breath that she didn't know she had been holding. His fingers trailed over her firm abdomen then came to caress the underside of one breast and then the other. He stopped dipping in the paint again with both hands as he reached out to her again. Cool dripping fingers ran over her breasts, circling her nipples in unison as they became painfully erect, his fingertips brushed over them again tweaking them as each passed over. She mewled arching up to his caress. His hands covered her torso in big sweeping strokes, smearing the paint over her slippery skin changing her colors as he went. He touched her everywhere, with his fingertips or the palm of his hand or with the ticklish brushes, the contrast driving her crazy. Every bit of her exposed was paid homage to. And she was wriggling under each touch from him, as aching need growing rapidly inside her.
At one point he left her torso and moved down to her feet that she had bent up on the log. He started with each little ticklish toe and the already heightened senses of her body had her squirming and giggling as his brush ran over each little one. He firmly grasp her calf and raised her foot to be up and placed flat against his chest as he painted around her sensitive ankle and up her lower leg. Katniss was restless and enflamed and each touch from him ignited heated sensations. She kept tensing her calf and pressing her foot against him. Tensing and releasing the muscles in her leg in unison to the heartbeat pounding in her ears. After he covered her legs, his paintbrush returned to her belly and ran slow circles around her belly button before venturing lower and tracing back and forth across her belt line asking silent permission.
She nodded at him looking him straight in the eye. His face was flushed his eyes dilated dark and wondering, and he was breathing with his mouth open in little panting breaths. She could see the bulge in his pants and the thought of his arousal enflamed her more. He hooked fingers inside the edge of the jumpsuit at each of her hips and then looked in her face again for confirmation. She opened her mouth to take a breath as a wave of lust passed through her and she raised her hips for him, bracing her newly painted feet on the log.
He inched her garment lower slowly over her hips and was pleased to see that underwear were not high on her priority list as well. He dragged the jumpsuit off totally and dropped it in the leaves and debris beside the log forgotten to him. Her pale hips and thighs stood out noticeable in contrast to the rest of her painted skin.
Peta acted quickly to remedy the situation. Covering his hands with paint again Peta slid his hand under her thigh and grasping it firmly he lifted her leg so he could slide his other hand under her to firmly grasp her buttock. Katniss was surprised at his firmness and confidence, and the abrupt actions only enflamed her further. He used big sweeping strokes under her ass bringing the painted color around to her hip crest and then up to connect with the color of her abdomen.
Katniss was heated, and writhing now under the attentive ministration of Peta. He touched her everywhere completing her as his masterpiece, everywhere that was except for the one place where she so desperately needed him to. As his fingertips trailed over her inner thigh she parted her legs for him and begged in a soft husky voice.
"Please Peta." She felt his hand tremble where it had come to rest against her thigh. His fingertips ran up to the very core of her trailing paint as they went and they parted her sensitized lips as she gasped. He ran his paintbrush over the sensitive little nub that was the core of her pleasure and she gasp aloud bucking her hips up off the log.
"Oh Peta" he trailed the paintbrush again each stiff bristle that passed over her setting off little jolts of pleasure. Then his fingers followed sliding seamlessly through the wet pain and the warm flowing moisture of her arousal. She mewled again raising her hips as she clenched her ass cheeks, every nerve in her body strung tight like a bow. Peta worked attentively over her, caressing and pressing flicking her sensitive bud. He slid a finger into her tight opening and felt all of her muscles inside clenching as well. She was raising her hips in a regular rhythm now panting and pulsing against his hand he felt her tighten against his intruding finger. His thumb circled again and again around her clit while his finger pressed at her from the inside, easily sliding in and out of her tight heated sheath.
Katniss felt her body building, tightening rapidly towards her release. She was bucking up towards his clever hand and panting his name under her breath.
"Peta, oh Peta, Peta" She felt a tidal wave of sensation rushing through her and she could only just barely hang on. "Ah ah ah ah…. PETA! PETA! AH AH! PETA!" he body clenched and tightened around his hand. She arched tight like a bow as she rose off of the log, her feet and her head the only part touching, her arms raised up in the air her fists clenched and her face tense. "Oh Peta, Peta! Peta! AHHHHH!" her body released in thunderous orgasm, her chamber tightening rapidly milking his fingers as warm fluid flowed over him. She collapsed sated resting again back on the log.
Peta came to hover over her face his talented hands stroking her cheek,
"You are the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen Katniss."
"Oh Peta!" She wrapped a flopping arm over his neck and pulled him tight against her too spent to kiss him she just hugged him tight her lips pressed tight against him not moving. They remained that way for several long minutes time seemed to warp and when he became aware of his surroundings again the sun seemed to be much lower on the horizon.
A far off noise in the forest had Katniss jumping up alert. And she paused, deadly still, listening. Her head whipped around to the direction it came from her eyes going wide in panic. Quickly she climbed up the nearest tree and hovered there just as a troop of guards from district thirteen came into their clearing.
"We are here to escort you back" the young guard stated firmly.
"No thanks" Peta said looking nonchalant.
"But, but we have to…" the guard almost whined.
"Well I'm going to wait for Katniss to come back, and personally I just don't want you guys here ok"
"Where did she go?"
"I think she's off climbing a tree somewhere" the exasperated guard looked up into the foliage of the tree never once noticing the camouflaged forest nymph that lay pressed against the bark.
"Fine we will wait for her to get back"
"No thank you"
"But we have to"
"Look I know you have a job to do, but if you stay here you may set off the craziness in my head, and I need all the calm I can get right now. Being under guard reminds me of my capture and imprisonment." The young guard who must have heard some of Peta's story gained a look of sympathy.
"Ok we will leave you, but only if you agree to meet up with us at the doors and we all return together."
"Definitely agreed, thank you" and the guards departed as a green brown leaf colored shadow of a person dropped silently to the ground beside him. He turned to stare at her in awe.
"They never saw you, and I think at one point he actually even looked directly at you." Katniss just grinned in return. He grasped her arms and held them out to the side. "Look at you. You are the forest, completely. You are so at home here you are a part of it. You are so beautiful to me Katniss" she hugged him tightly to her, not feeling her nudity at all. She was painted, she was covered. She was at one with the forest.
Katniss did a quick swim in the river to wash the paint off.
"Come in and join me" she tried to coax Peta.
"I can't swim very well right now with one bum leg, and besides I don't trust myself very much around you right now." He grinned at her from the bank. They met with the guards and returned to the sunken terrain of district thirteen.
Haymitch met them in the elevators as they descended.
"Where the hell have you two been all day? Eh?"
"We went to the forest to paint as part of Peta's therapy" Katniss said defensively
"Oh I see." Haymitch stated and he just stared trying to decide if he should continue this fight or not. He noticed how they stood closer to each other and how they blushed when looking at each other. Then he spotted paint on Katniss' neck leading under her collar.
"You have paint on your neck Katniss" she blushed and pulled her collar up instead of giving him some smartass response.
"Oh do I?" Haymitch hid a smirk at their expense, and punched a button in the elevator to let him out.
"Just don't let it happen again."
The next day when Katniss went to check on Peta she found that he had been up again all night not able to sleep, but this time instead of being haunted by unseen terrors, he had spent his hours painting the forest. The one picture that they had done together hung on the wall above his bed. She studied it closely for several long minutes. Something about was different from yesterday. As she stared she became more aware of an outline of a person hiding in the branches of the tree. It was her naked self, painted camouflage and hiding in the branches of the tree. Her mouth popped open when she realized it. And she spun around to see a grinning Peta behind her.
"I was wondering if you would notice" He started to blush "you're not mad are you? I wanted to remember that moment forever" But she wasn't mad, she was overjoyed, she hadn't seen him grin like that in a long time and it warmed her heart. She went to him wrapping her arms around him tight.
"Peta, you can paint me again any time you want to." And she turned to face him pressing her lips against his smiling mouth.
