UPDATED - I found out yesterday that this story had a lot of weird characters all over the place, making it basically impossible to read. So sorry about that, I hope it'll work this time around!
Just a short little one-shot that made me cry writing it. enjoy...? I don't think that's the right sentiment...
"Boy, why do you let her do this to you?"
I looked up groggily. My vision was slightly clouded and I had to clear my throat before answering Haymitch.
"Because otherwise a whole lot of people are going to be in a whole lot of trouble."
"You are hopelessly good, it's honestly sickening sometimes."
"I'm sorry that I want to keep my family and the girl I love alive." I glare at him. He doesn't have anyone, he can do whatever he wants and not hurt anyone else. He's free.
"She's using you, though. When the cameras aren't around, when it couldn't possibly change anything. Don't think I don't know the way you spend your nights together."
"Haymitch we only-"
"Doesn't matter. Nightmares or needs, you just crawl in with her and let her chip away at you."
I scrub my palm over my face. He's technically right, I don't think about how much it hurts laying next to Katniss and knowing that she doesn't share my feelings. I grit my teeth and bear the way her backside rubs against me in her sleep, forcing myself to not reciprocate, thinking of anything to try to calm myself down. Or when her hands trail up and down my sides, raising goosebumps on my skin and sending shivers down my spine. Generally, I get way too hot and wrap the sheets around her and I've gotten used to leaving the window open, even when it's freezing outside. But if it helps Katniss sleep and get the energy she needs to fake being in love with me... I'll do it.
I realize what Haymitch means. She is using me. I wonder if it's our shared trauma of the Games or if I could be replaced by any other warm body to comfort her. My blood boils as I think of Gale in my place by her side.
"I don't care if she's just using me. She needs to sleep, otherwise she can't act at all and everyone is at risk. Besides, I love her. And love makes you do things that hurt if they help someone else."
Haymitch makes a groaning noise.
"Look in the mirror, kid. Look under your eyes. Do you even sleep at all? How much more do you need to tighten your belt to keep your pants on? You're in bad shape. Portia's trying to get you to eat more, and she's taken in all of your clothes so they don't hang on you. You need to do something about this. You really do, it's slowly killing you."
"Haymitch, I wasn't even supposed to survive the Games. You know it, I know it, all of Panem knows it."
"I may have picked her to survive them, I may have put my bets on her, but if I could've picked who SHOULD'VE survived the Games, I'd pick you in a heartbeat." With a swig of his flask, Haymitch gave me a knowing look and ambled out, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I flopped back on my bed, staying there until a gentle, motherly voice called to me.
"Peeta?"
"Hi Portia."
She sat next to me on the edge of my bed and I sit up, looking at the tray beside her.
"What's that?"
"I was hoping you'd agree to a little midnight snack."
"I have to go to Ka-"
She's showering, and Cinna is going to do some fitting when she's done."
"Oh. Okay, thanks."
She handed me a dish of long brown nuts.
"Almonds, have you had them before?"
I shook my head and tried one, finding it acceptable. I ate the rest of them as Portia salted two hard-boiled eggs.
"What's on your mind?"
I look up at her, seeing something akin to curiosity mixed with a knowing look.
"Katniss, the tour, after the tour, but mostly Katniss. As usual."
She nods, passing me one egg as she took a bite of the other.
"Anything you need to vent about?"
I sigh. Yes, I do need to vent. It would probably make me feel a lot better. But I've never liked venting in front of other people. I usually vent to a piece of canvas or a lump of dough.
But I know I can trust Portia.
"I-I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I knew Katniss didn't give me a second thought when the Games started, and I knew better than to hope that she'd fall in love with me in the time before the Games. I assumed I would die in the arena, so nothing was really at risk if I told everyone, but then she came and dug me out of the riverbed. When there was absolutely nothing in it for her. Or so I thought. She made me believe she was saving me because she cared about me, and not to keep up the 'star-crossed lovers' thing for sponsors. Or because she thinks she owes me for whatever. I believed she might actually have felt something for me. Of course, that's not really her fault, there was no way to tell me without the whole thing going out the window. And then... And then after..." I sucked in a deep breath. "Afterwards, she seemed like she might have liked me a little. Just a tiny bit, and I was overjoyed, I could work with a little crush. How she seemed like she wanted to see me when we weren't being filmed, how she kissed me..." I shivered a little, recalling how deeply I'd felt her kisses in my soul, giving me courage and hope. I gave a bitter laugh. Hope.
"But... then..." I'd been fighting the tears for the last several sentences. But recalling the past, I covered my face in my hands. "Then she told me." I wailed. "She told me it was for the cameras and that it was all fake." The last word ended in a choked hiccup. "That she really didn't love me, or as I realized, she didn't even LIKE me. At all. She left right away and I didn't see her until the day we left for this tour." I curled up under Portia's arm, my heart breaking all over again. Haymitch is right, I am in very very bad shape.
"And it was all true, everything my mother told me, it was all true. I didn't want to believe her, but now I know." Portia stroked my back and hair, rocking me gently like I was a small child. I sobbed quietly, sinking down lower when I failed to remember a single time my own mother had comforted me.
"Shhh. Peeta, it's okay. I'm here for you, I'll be here for you as long as I can." Eventually I ran out of tears, still shaking a little as I sat up, not sure if I should be embarrassed or relieved.
"Thank you for telling me, sweetie." I nodded.
"I'm sorry, Portia, I have never had much control over my emotions." I sniffle, laughing a little which ended up sounding like a sob.
She wiped my cheeks with her thumbs, and I tried to smile a little.
"There's no reason to be sorry, Peeta. Everyone cries, even boys." She smiles at me.
"Now, do you want to explain what your mother was right about? Don't feel like you have to if you aren't comfortable." I shook my head, there wasn't anyone I was more comfortable with than Portia. I grimaced as I thought of having this conversation with Haymitch.
"I-well-my... My mother, she's very... She's-really strict. And she has a bad temper. Like I said in the Games, my dad wanted to marry Mrs. Everdeen. Obviously that didn't happen and he married my mother instead. And of course she knew that he settled for her. I think... I think that when she found out I liked Katniss, it reminded her of my dad liking Mrs. Everdeen. So she would... Sometimes... Often... Take her anger out on me. Sometimes my brothers, but mostly me."
Her hand traced over the skin on my back, the scar gone after the Capitol's full body polish, but she saw me completely naked so she of course saw the ugly marks I'd brought with me. I know she remembers it. I nod weakly.
"That's awful! I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault. Anyway, she usually yelled at me before she hit me, and to her I was always the 'worthless, weak, girly little boy.' I guess it didn't help when I never fought back or argued. I'm still not sure if that would have made her more mad or make her stop." Portia's coco skin grew reddish, as she hugged me fiercely to her.
"Peeta. No child should ever hear that from their mother, of all people. I want you to know. To always know and to believe me when I tell you this. You are not worthless. You are not weak. And you are not girly. Okay?" I don't really believe her, so I don't respond and she pulls away from me, holding my face in her hands and looking me straight in the eye.
"One day, you'll realize. How many people love you, how much you've overcome, and how beautifully artistic you are." She pauses. "Do you think Cinna is girly?"
I shook my head.
"No, of course not. He's not girly, he's fiercely talented. Wonderfully artistic. Brilliantly creative. Do you agree?"
I nod. Of course I agree, I don't even know how many sponsors we got from Cinna's styles alone.
"The same is true for you. Drawing, painting, those aren't girly things, those are creative things. Do you believe me?" I nod, not completely convinced, but encouraged to know she believed her words so passionately. She planted a kiss firmly on my cheek, hugging me again.
"Are you feeling a little bit better?"
"Yeah. Thank you, Portia."
"That's what I'm here for." She smiled, patting my shoulder before standing.
"Oh also, there's the little matter of my job... I need to take some new measurements to alter your clothes, is now okay, or do you want me to come back later?"
I shrug. "Now is as good a time as any." I shrug off my t-shirt and pants, leaving my boxers on since we were just measuring.
"I want you to try to eat a little more, sweetie. You're getting thin again." I nod.
"Have you been sleeping well? I know you've been with Katniss at night, but-" I cut her off, mildly irritated with everything after the realizations I'd come to earlier.
"We just sleep. We don't even kiss when there isn't a camera around." I practically hiss the last sentence, more frustrated at myself for letting this go on than anything else. "And no, I haven't been sleeping well." Portia steps back, still holding her tape measure out between her hands, pursing her lips at me.
"Is she sleeping well?"
"As far as I know."
"I assume there isn't anything I can get you..." I shake my head. No sleeping pills, I have to be able to wake up if Katniss needs me to calm her down.
I groan, how did I not see this before they did?
"Peeta?"
"I'm okay. Haymitch decided it was time for a confrontation about Katniss and my 'arrangement.' I'm finally realizing how little I get back from it."
"But you're not going to stop." It's not a question.
"Of course not. It's not her fault I love her and she doesn't. I don't help people for things in return." Portia smiles and pats my shoulder before continuing to measure me. I wonder how someone so down to earth could possibly be from the Capitol.
"Keep yourself in the picture, Peeta. There's only so much heartbreak one person can take." I don't respond. I hadn't even considered what would happen once the star crossed lovers are not the center of attention, when we won't need to fawn over each other and what I'll do when she disappears from me just like she had between the Games and this tour. When she doesn't need me, she leaves. And I stay around like an idiot. I think of two nights ago, when she'd unconsciously rubbed against me, throwing a leg over my hips and grinding down. It felt incredible. I had to bite down hard on my pillow to smother my groans. Eventually she'd stopped, but left me with a raging hard on that I couldn't get rid of. I left her room, going into my shower and turning the water on as cold as it got, hissing as it hit me, freezing cold stinging my hot skin. After I'd released, I had melted into a puddle of misery on the cold tiles, coming back to the reality of a loveless life. I stayed there for at least an hour before redressing and going back to her bed as if nothing had happened.
I'm sick.
Silent tears streamed down my face, neck and bare chest, and Portia didn't notice as she measured my waist until an errant drop met her fingers and she looked up, gentle purple eyebrows raised in confusion.
I'd never seen her cry, she was the strong one, the one I leaned on. So when she saw my face and her eyes welled up, I crumpled down to her, letting her envelop me in her arms and stroke my back. We sat there on the floor for a very long time, both of us running out of tears before we rose. She wiped her face, then mine as she smiled at me.
"I'm here for you, Peeta. I'll be rooting you on as long as I live. I love you, okay? I love you, sweetie."
"Thanks, Portia. I'm glad somebody does." She grew serious again.
"I don't want to you to think like that. A lot of people love you. I love you, Cinna loves you, Effie loves you in her own, colorful way. Even Haymitch does, although he'd never admit it. And you know, I think Katniss does too, she just doesn't realize it quite yet."
I shake my head.
"If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that Katniss loves one person on this planet and it's her sister, not me."
"See that's where you're wrong. You know that look she gives that little angel, Prim? When nobody's looking, or when she thinks nobody's looking, I've seen her give you the same look."
"I really can't quite believe that's true, but thanks anyway. I love you too, Portia. I don't know what I'd do without you. Probably crumple into a little ball and cry whenever the cameras are gone... Although I really just did that, didn't I?" We both laugh a little.
"Well I'm going to put your measurements together to adjust your next suits, really Peeta, you're three inches thinner than last time I measured you, and that was right out of the Games. I want you to eat all of that," she pointed to the tray, "and try to get a good night's sleep. Okay?" She brushed my hair out of my eyes and patted my cheek as I agreed. Then she left, and I slumped back down on my bed wondering what the heck just happened.