At Night
By: Knottedenergy
Summary: Peeta's unable to be a part of his young family's life, a fact that's tearing him apart.
Visual Prompt: Triumph Over Mastery.
Warnings: This is dark (mostly because Peeta is feeling hopeless for most of it); Mentions suicide. So, if that's not something you want to read you might skip this. If you might like a fanfic about a situation in which a beloved character looked forward to something that didn't turn out as happily as he planned then read on...the story does have some hope.
[Written for Day 2 of Prompts in Panem back in MARCH]
Random brushstrokes against the canvas sound like thunder in my ears. I know none of this will make sense in the morning, and the painting will either be glorious or horrific. My demons trouble me so many nights. Lately I haven't slept for more than an hour, and my brain is starting to play tricks on me. Yes, I'm mad. No, there's no remedy for it. Katniss can't even be here for me because she's with our baby, just as she should be.
Madness has impeccable timing. When you can afford it least it strikes. Haymith reminds me almost daily that I need to be careful. He keeps saying that Katniss and the baby's safety are of the upmost importance. He doesn't need to remind me of that.
Haymitch has been good to me, though. He doesn't want this arrangement any more than I do. He hates sacrificing his privacy to let me stay in this spare room. It's still the only inhabitable room in the house. Despite the fact that I'm barely functioning I manage to keep this small space clean.
With our baby strapped to the front of her body, Katniss brings me food most days. I can only watch the two of them as they make their way through the dandelion besieged yard between our houses. I can see our daughter holding her head up more confidently, and her arms and legs are growing longer. When I hear Katniss' voice or the baby's cry I have to plug my ears with my fingers, but when the two of them leave I can be found waving to my wife and daughter as I stand in the bedroom window fighting back tears.
If Haymitch had an attic then I'd be the crazy person living in it, but instead I'm the crazy person occupying his spare bedroom. And that's what I feel like as well. I feel like I am expendable. I'm just a spare parent living in a spare bedroom. Obviously I'm not necessary or Katniss wouldn't be able to keep going about her days and nights with the baby in my absence.
Being separated from my family reminds me of how much I hate him. Snow. I hadn't thought of him much in the decade and a half that followed the war because he was Katniss' personal enemy. For me the whole system of the old Panem constituted an enemy, but for Katniss everything is personal. She waged a personal war, never really joining the larger one fully. But Snow is dead, isn't he? Yes, but he's not dead at the same time. He still crushes me when I want to be strong the most, so I hate him in my fragmented thoughts, thoughts he fragmented.
My hand moves carefully, then frantically across the canvass. I'd do anything to release these feelings.
As my mind reels I want to run home to Katniss and our baby. I want to fold Katniss in my arms and draw on her warmth and comfort to get me through this nightmare. Everything will be okay if I can see that I haven't lost her, but I can't do any of that. Personally, we won the battle but lost the war. Snow has separated me from Katniss just as he wanted. All over again my family has been stripped away from me. Worst of all I feel I might be a threat to those I love. If I start to believe that I might really hurt them then I'll have to take matters into my own hands. Nightlock became my last resort in the arena and in battle, so I won't hesitate now if I have to use it now to keep my family safe from me. After all, that's why I held the berries in my hand the first time. I couldn't fathom killing the woman I loved even when she impulsively drew an arrow back and aimed it at my heart.
Thinking about the arena reminds me of the ways I've been disillusioned with our new government. In many ways, I'm still trapped in my circumstances and manipulated by the politically powerful. They think they know so much in our new and improved Capitol, believing that they are so different from the government that oppressed us. They arrogantly tell us all how to live their lives with no understanding of the intricacies of those lives – the minutia, passions, depths, upheavals, triumphs, and defeats of the lives of real people in the districts. A person could be drowning and gasping, their legs and arms flailing but failing to keep them afloat. The vicious and desperate fight could be happening right before their eyes, and these detached people would shout, "Just breath. Just breath." And if the drowning person had only one good leg, he'd just drown a little faster. The water would fill his lungs until they were drenched through and unable to move in and out. Right before their eyes…a man could be drowning…and they'd sing their anthems and march in their parades rather than notice.
"What was your problem?" They might say if they did rescue the drowning man.
"Any number of problems," he might say. "My problems have numbered the stars in the sky, and yet I've always held on to hope."
"We can't handle your problems," they might say.
I guess I can't blame them. I can't handle my problems either, but then they'd add, "Your problems make us uncomfortable. Seeing you makes us ashamed, and hearing what you say makes us cringe. So we'd rather not…"
And then there'd be nothing more to say. That would be the end.
So don't hurt me. Don't help me. Who gives a damn if I know what pain is? What emptiness is? What feeling really is? I understand them better than they think. I understand much more than they imagine. I feel deeply, know deeply…much deeper than they do. Too deeply, it seems. Deep…deep…deep. And from the depths I can tell them what heaven and hell might be like, if they still believed in them, which they don't.
In such a few short years they'll teach my child not to think, feel, consider, or open her mind. She'll be told such pursuits are not worth the danger involved. People like Gale believe in something, and that something claims that a better way to do things exists. Best of all, it doesn't involve killing children. Perhaps they don't kill them physically anymore, but they may kill them in other ways.
My hand makes a deep motion downwards and back on the canvas, and I dip the end of the brush into the paint recklessly. Orange spills down the sides of the container.
Back to where I started, I'm achingly lonely because the loves of my life are safest without me. I'm hungry, but there is nothing I want to eat. So I forget to be hungry the next time. Nothing I've tried has made me good enough to be my child's father. Wearing myself thin will never make me good enough. Dying will make me dead, but still not good enough. I spend a great deal of time wondering if my baby will even know me.
As I drag my brush across the canvass the first smile I've felt loosen my lips today begins to form. The painting will still be here as evidence, but none of tonight will make any sense in the morning, least of all the smile. I throw my brush down, and it splatters orange paint on the floor. Then I rush down the stairs and out the front door. Katniss has left our back door unlocked, and once inside our house I hurry to our bedroom. My heart pounds as I open the door a inch or two with my paint covered fingers. I can manage peeking through a crack in the door at her, but I will go no closer. The moonlight shines against her dark hair, and I can see the bassinet beside her bed. Nearly soundlessly I close the door before sliding down to the floor in front of it.
At this point in my life I just want to sit beside my wife and hold my daughter for the first time. I'm asking for a vanilla existence knowing that it will be enough for me. Maybe tomorrow will be the day. I'm certainly willing to settle for small triumphs over mastery.