Tethered
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and characters belong to Suzanne Collins
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Sheets
His eyes gape open as he tries to escape the nightmare. His fingers clutch the sheets, as if they are his tether to the real world. She's sleeping beside him, curled up in a ball. Silently, he reprimands himself for hogging all the sheets. It's the middle of December; she must be freezing.
Gently, she rouses from her sleep. Her eyelashes flicker as her eyes blink awake. She rolls over slightly, catching sight of him, fully awake and tense.
"I thought I was the only one with nightmares, Peeta," she whispers, her voice a thread that holds him to the world.
He wraps his arms around her gently, lightly, as if she's made of glass. He nestles his lips in her hair.
They're not nightmares, he explains. Not really. They're side-effects of the hijacking. Capitol-induced night terrors. Even though the Capitol is no longer in commission, the poison it injected into their lives will never leave their bloodstreams.
Chair
Katniss is somewhere deep in the woods, with her bow and arrow poised and ready. She's somewhere Peeta can't follow - an old home away from home that will always belong solely to her.
The ghosts not only haunt him at night. They come and go as they wish, making their way into the deep recesses of his mind. Visions of his huntress with glowing eyes, snarling, fill his sight. He grips the back of the chair, his nails clawing into the wood.
The front door opens, but he's too busy holding on.
She runs to him whence she sees his desperate state. She drops her game bag, with a loud thud.
She encircles him in her arms, but he never lets go of the chair. She holds him, telling him it's not real, over and over again. She holds him until it's over. Until he releases the chair, his thin string keeping him attached to the real world. She's not afraid of him, but he's too scared to touch her, to reciprocate the gesture.
Pearl
When Peeta's done with his episode, Katniss finds the pearl tucked away in her pocket. The last token the boy with the bread gave her, before the Capitol had rewired his brains.
She shakes her head. No, that wasn't the last token he had given her. He had given her warnings, life-saving, televised warnings that had led to his hijacking. To the coloring of the tiles with his blood.
She clutches the pearl, her fingers wrapped so tightly around it that her nails dig into her palms, causing them to bleed. Her eyes distant, he finds her and holds her. He apologizes again and again for losing it, even though she tells him time and time again it's not his fault.
It kills her that he can't hold onto her during the Capitol-induced flashbacks. That he has to grip onto the back of a chair because he's so afraid of hurting her. It feels unfair, that she holds onto him at night to keep the nightmares away, but he can't count on her in the same way.
She turns around in his arms and finds his lips. She kisses him, her tears wetting his cheek. She holds onto him like he's they're in the Games again, and he's the fragile cord tethering her to life. To survival.