a legend's only a lonely boy
Peeta can't remember how he envisioned it when he'd first had the idea: to tear his heart open wide, to share his secrets with the world and hope that they - she - would love him back. He wasn't stupid. He didn't think they'd frolic through the woods, hand in hand, as twenty-two tributes fell to pieces around them.
But he hadn't envisioned it like this.
–
When Cato cut him it felt like fire, but a thousand times worse than when he'd burnt himself on hot metal and flames in the bakery. He's not even sure how he reached this riverbank and hid himself in the mud, delirious from the tracker jacker stings, blood draining steadily from his leg.
Yet here he is, in this peaceful place where forest meets river, and there's been no one in sight for hours. Maybe days. He doesn't know anymore. The sky had gone dark, once, and the birds and insects had hushed, but was that night? He never heard the boom of a cannon or saw pictures floating over him. Was it possible that no one had died?
If ever there was a perfect time for a silver parachute, this is it. But it never comes.
The plan isn't working.
–
There would be sponsors swept away by his grand admission of love, Haymitch had agreed. "They've got nothing better to spend their money on than the hopes that two pretty young things'll fuck each other to death."
Peeta felt sick inside, to think of love in that way - bodies on a screen for the pleasure of others, taking and taking and taking - but this was all he could give her.
And it had felt right, when he'd said she came here with me: the crowd had cried out for them in a way that they never had before, not for anyone. They would watch them, and care for them. They would stand by their doomed lovers of District 12 until the very end, when Peeta would lay himself down for the last time and finally rest because it was one or the other, and he would always choose her.
He knew it.
–
Peeta knows he's getting weaker. He's been in the riverbed for years, he's certain of it, and he hasn't eaten. The sun is setting and the air is cooling, but he's so hot he can't move. He's dying. He's dying.
He wishes he could see Katniss one last time, and apologize. For seventy-three years, no one entered the arena in love - and this was why. Because it didn't work. Because all it got you was guilt and panic and a sword to the bone, a death alone, and not a single gift drifting down from the faces in the sky.
He closes his eyes.
Somewhere in the distance, there are footsteps.