Written for Prompts in Panem "The Language of Flowers" week, Day 7- "Desire"

Standard Disclaimer, I do not own The Hunger Games or its characters.

LIKE THE BUTTERCUPS

I suppose I should have known that Peeta and I would grow back together.

I should have felt it all along, the inevitability of us ending up entwined in every way, first figuratively as we helped each other heal and find our way out of the darkness, and then literally, when we began sharing a bed again and we'd greet the morning sunrise with our bodies wrapped around each other, a tangled mess of arms and legs, warm comfort and cool sheets.

I should have known this all long, but I didn't.

I didn't dare allow myself that kind of hope, because hope was a costly extravagance that I didn't feel I could afford, nor that I deserved.

I should have known that only Peeta would be able to heal what was broken in me. And that I, in turn, would somehow help to heal what had been broken in him too.

In hindsight, I guess I should have seen it, but I didn't.

It began with Peeta planting the primroses at my house, the first gesture that gave me the tiniest, reluctant ray of hope that the inherent goodness and love that once filled his heart was still in there, trying to find its way to the surface.

It grew with each day we spent together, filling the pages of our memory book with my words and Peeta's drawings and watercolor paintings. As the weeks stretched into months, I watched our collective history bloom and come to life on each page, until one day I finally realized as I watched him sketching a flower, just how much I needed him. How he was like the sunlight and I was the flower, always bending towards his life-giving warmth as I grew; how without him I had wilted until I was nearly lifeless.

After that day, I found myself inviting him into my bed at night more frequently, not only for comfort and protection, but because in his arms I'd learned to love the sunrise again.

During the time before Peeta's return, when he'd still been under medical care, I'd wake each morning and curse the slivers of sunlight that made its way around the edges of the heavy drapes I kept closed all the time, angry that my attempts to shut out the entire world had been futile. I'd open my eyes to find that my prayers to never wake up again had failed, and I'd lie there staring at that crack of sunlight on the wall, too drained and exhausted to even cry over the fact that I was still alive when I felt so empty inside.

But when Peeta began sharing my bed again, we slept with the windows open and drapes pulled back, so that we'd wake to birds chirping and the room bathed in the soft, warm orange light he loved so much. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the weight of a new day that felt too heavy of a burden for me to bear alone, when I woke with Peeta's body spooned to mine and his arms embracing me, his very presence gave me the strength to feel like I could face the dawn. With him by my side, I dared to hope that maybe life could be good again.

And bit by bit, we grew together and found that against all odds, we'd found love.

The day that I realized just how hard we'd fallen was a warm spring afternoon, too lovely to stay indoors. We'd packed a lunch and walked out to an open field, all abloom with early flowers and tender shoots of grass. We laid out a blanket and sat in the sun, sharing leftovers from the supper we'd eaten the night before- bread that Peeta had baked, meat that I'd hunted and cooked. When we finished eating, we lay next to each other on the blanket, carefree, content, not needing to speak a word. I lay on my back, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face, and Peeta lay close to me on his side, propped up on one elbow, with his cheek resting in his hand. I reached out into the grass and plucked a handful of wild buttercups, tiny little yellow buds on long slender stems. I aimlessly began playing with the stems, first twisting them around my pinky, then my fingers automatically began weaving the stems together into a braid, as my hands were so used to habitually doing with my hair. Humming a soft tune, I reached over and picked a few more, my fingers working nimbly to incorporate them into my braid of stems until they started to form a chain of yellow blossoms. Suddenly I felt Peeta's relaxed posture change, and his breathing quicken.

"Peeta?" I asked, turning to face him.

His eyes were glassy, fixated on my hands. I saw his pupils constrict and then dilate, his brow furrowed in confusion.

A flashback.

Oh God.

I started to panic. He'd had flashbacks before, when we were in our houses, and so far he'd been able to control them, but who knew how he'd be able to handle one out here in the open, with nothing familiar to anchor him to reality?

"Peeta!" I repeated, dropping my handful of buttercups to the blanket and sitting up. To my great relief, he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, and then looked up at me.

"It's okay, Katniss." he whispered, breathing more easily now. "I'm okay."

"Are you sure? You looked like you were having a flashback."

"I was... well, not a flashback exactly... I think it was a memory."

"Really? Tell me."

"What you were doing with the flowers. I've seen you do that before, real or not real?"

Playing with buttercups? I couldn't recall a time when I'd done that before. We'd been back in twelve for over a year and I knew that we hadn't returned to this field before today. Maybe his brain was confusing the name of the flower with Prim's cat, Buttercup? I was about to shake my head and tell him 'not real' when he spoke again.

"You had your head in my lap. You were playing with a bunch of little flowers like that, making them into a chain, and then you held it up to me, and you'd woven the stems into a circle." His eyes narrowed as he tried to describe what he'd seen in the vision."It was like... like you'd made a circle of flowers or something."

Then it hit me, the memory he'd seen.

"YES! Real, real real, Peeta!" I exclaimed joyfully, grabbing his hand and pulling him to sit up with me. "That was before the Quarter Quell. You and I were on the rooftop all alone. You were playing with my hair. I made a crown of flowers! You remembered!"

"It must have been a good day." he said wistfully. "The memory felt warm... happy."

"It was a good day." I replied. "So good, that you told me you wished you could freeze that moment and live in it forever... or something to that effect."

"Ah, that sounds like something I'd say." Peeta grinned. "I think I must have always known that I'd want to be with you forever."

"I think you did," I admitted softly, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry it took me so long to know how much I needed you, too."

"It's okay, it was worth the wait." he reassured me. "You want to be with me now, real or not real?"

"Real." I whispered, nodding my head in affirmation.

I watched as he picked up the collection of buttercups from the space between us and pulled out a single long stem with a tiny, barely opened bud on the top, then took my left hand in his. Without saying a word, he positioned the little yellow blossom at the base of my ring finger, then gently wrapped the stem around my finger one, two, three times and tucked the end of the stem underneath, so it looked like I was wearing the flower as a ring.

"A flower ring?" I asked, giving him a teasing smile.

Gently rubbing the top of my left hand as he held it, he answered my question with another question.

"Did you know that according to folklore, the ring finger of your left hand has a vessel that connects directly to the heart?"

"No, I don't think I've heard that." I replied skeptically.

"Well, that's what they say. So this flower is like me- wrapped around your finger." he smirked. "And hopefully, connected to your heart."

He gave me a warm smile that lit up his eyes, then he became more serious again.

"Katniss, you make me want to keep getting better. I want us to be like the flowers here in the field. Vibrant. Not just alive, but thriving. Proof that beautiful life can grow out of the ashes. I promise you, I'm going to keep trying to get better, to keep growing, to keep getting my memory back so I can remember every single thing about you."

He lifted my left hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles, just above the buttercup ring.

"This is to remind you to do the same. To keep growing, keep thriving, like the buttercups. And that I'll be here to help you do it every step of the way, as long as you want me to. We'll grow together."

"Like the buttercups..." I repeated, the corners of my lips curling into a smile. This was how I knew that deep down, Peeta's heart and soul were still intact. He could still see beauty and hope and promise in places where anyone else would overlook it, including myself. It was how I knew that no one else would ever make me want to grow and thrive the way he did.

"I'd like that." I agreed.

With his other hand that wasn't holding mine, he reached up and tenderly tucked behind my ear a few stray tendrils of hair that had come loose from my braid, then cupped my cheek in his hand.

"Me too." he said, as he leaned forward and kissed me.

For a while we lost all track of time, letting our kisses express just how deeply we needed each other in a way that words alone could not.

Even after we'd had our fill of kisses, we stayed there in the field for a while, feeling no need to say anything else. I wondered to myself, when was the last time I'd felt this free, this safe? Peeta gave me the priceless gift of hope, the feeling of security. He breathed life into me when for so long there had been none. With him, I dared to open myself up like the petals of a spring flower. For the first time, I felt free to just live and breathe and feel the afternoon sun; free to be like the buttercups.

Like the memory of that day on the rooftop, I lay with my head in Peeta's lap once again. I made myself a flower crown, and then, just for the fun of it, Peeta asked me to make him one too. Ending this one perfect afternoon when the sun began to sink below the treeline, it felt fitting to walk back home through the woods decorated in buttercups, worn on both of our heads, and one still tied around my finger.

When we entered my front door, I offered Peeta my hand in wordless invitation, leading him up the stairs and into my bedroom. I shut the door behind us, even though we were the only ones in the house. Somehow feeling enclosed inside this space together just felt right, as if it were our own private sanctuary.

We both set our flower crowns aside on the dresser, and I gently removed the buttercup tied around my ring finger, setting it in one of the small velvet recessed sections of the jewelry box that Effie had given me as a gift on my birthday last year. I didn't have many pieces of jewelry, but in the box I kept everything that was meaningful to me- my mockingjay pin, Peeta's locket, the pearl he'd given me in the arena, and now a slightly wilted buttercup ring.

I felt Peeta step up behind me, sliding his hands up the sides of my waist underneath my shirt. Smiling, I turned around to face him, and without saying a word, I lifted my arms up over my head, hinting that I wanted him to undress me. Reading my cue, he gathered up the hem of my t-shirt in his hands and slowly slid it up my arms until he could pull it up over my outstretched hands, then tossed it to the floor. I did the same to him, relieving him of the shirt he'd been wearing and dropping it down at our feet.

I gazed at him in his state of half undress, and I couldn't help but notice how striking Peeta's features looked in this lighting.

The whole room was awash in a soft tint of blue, thanks to the dusky early evening light that filtered its way through the partly opened curtains that fluttered just slightly with the breeze.

In this just-barely-past-sunset twilight, the faint shadows cast across his body highlighted the strong curve of his jaw, the tendons in his neck, the definition of the muscles in his shoulders and chest. How the azure glow that permeated the room made his eyes look even deeper, darker, like the ocean. How in this rapidly fading light between sunset and moonrise, the scars that still dotted his skin seemed to disappear, the faded pink lines and marks suddenly no longer noticeable unless you touched them.

"Look, Peeta." I whispered incredulously. I held out my arms in front of him in demonstration. "In this light... it almost looks like we have no scars."

He looked at my arms and then at his own, marveling that for that brief moment in time, as long as this lovely blue light lasted, we both were made flawless again, all the physical scars of our suffering gone...even if only for a few fleeting minutes.

"You're perfect." he said, trailing his fingertips down both of my arms.

"So are you." I murmured as I slid the palms of my hands up his chest to his shoulders, feeling the familiar pattern of slight raised imperfections here and there that I'd long ago memorized, but my eyes were deceived into not seeing.

He looked so beautiful that I couldn't help feeling like I had my boy with the bread here in my arms again, unmarred by the destruction of war and the torture of his captivity, except that he was now a few years older and with the subtle, smoldering sexiness of maturity and masculinity.

I studied his features, so familiar yet suddenly also so new to me. Scars or not, time had changed him for the better.

As I slowly traced his skin, the sensation of need, of hungry desire began to grow deep in my body, spreading its warmth through my limbs. I pulled him closer to me, wrapping both of my arms up around the back of his neck, and pressed my lips to his. He returned the kiss with the same urgency, leaning his body into mine until my buttocks pressed up against the front of the dresser drawers.

His hands held me firmly, caressing the small of my back as he kissed me, skillfully alternating between soft, loving kisses, and more needful ones that made me sigh in enjoyment when he lightly sucked on my lower lip between both of his.

I felt his hands slide forward from my back to my hips, and in one swift, fluid motion, Peeta grasped me by my hips and lifted me just enough to sit me on the top of my dresser. Moving himself in closer between my legs, his lips found mine again, then began trailing kisses down my chin and throat.

"Peeta..." I sighed, sliding my fingers up the back of his neck and tangling them into his hair. I surrendered to the pleasure of his lips, closing my eyes and letting my head relax backwards a bit, allowing him access to kiss his way down the side of my neck. His hands moved up my sides and towards my mid-back until he found the clasp of my bra and unhooked it. Breaking our body contact just briefly, he eased the straps down off my shoulders, until the he could pull the bra free from my body and let it fall to the floor.

He touched me with reverence as he made his way up the front of my ribs until he could cup both of my breasts in his hands. He held them, feeling their warmth and softness in his palms as he caressed them with his thumbs, making my nipples pebble and harden in response. Lowering his head just slightly, he traced circles around the peak of one nipple with his tongue before taking it into his mouth to suckle, then pressed his lips in a line of kisses across my chest to my other breast, giving it the same attention.

I opened my eyes to watch him and when he glanced up at me from between my cleavage, I instantly recognized the expression of love and lust that I'd come to crave like a drug in recent weeks, since we'd grown more intimate and begun experimenting with our sexuality. When Peeta looked at me like that, like I was the one thing that his body hungered for, like he desired me above all else, it never failed to take my breath away. It made me yearn for his touch, for the almost worshipful way his hands traversed the curves of my body as if he were committing every inch, every freckle, to memory.

My gaze settled on his lips, parted just slightly as he exhaled. I studied them, heat surging through me when his tongue darted out to moisten his lower lip.

For a moment I got lost in my thoughts, thinking about how much I loved the way his lips felt on me. I'd long known how nice they felt when his kisses were tender and soothing, chasing away nightmares. But now I knew that those lips had a whole different feel when they were passionate, when he sought not to soothe me, but to arouse me. How sensual they felt when he'd kiss me in places I'd never been kissed before- sometimes kissing a path from my belly button up to my breasts, another time laying me down on my stomach and mapping the entire curvature of my spine with those lips, from the nape of my neck all the way to my tailbone.

Or that night just a few weeks ago, when he'd kissed his way from my ankle all the way up my inner thigh, and then for the first time, explored my most intimate parts with both his lips and his tongue, introducing me to a whole new ecstasy like I'd never known before.

And I wanted more of those lips... so much more.

"Kiss me Peeta," I breathed, pulling him closer to me.

Obliging my desire, he returned his mouth to mine, laying claim to my lips one again. A low growl rumbled in the back of his throat as he leaned his whole torso against mine, making me instantly aware of the hardness inside his jeans that was pressed between my thighs, slowly thrusting against me. His hands released my breasts and found their way to my bottom, kneading my buttocks a few times before sliding them underneath my upper thighs to lift me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

"Bed?" he questioned between kisses.

"MmmHmm." I answered, my mouth still pressed to his.

He turned to face the bed and lay me down on my back, separating himself from me only long enough to unbutton and remove my pants and underwear, then doing the same for himself, all the while never taking his eyes away from my naked body. He climbed up on the bed to join me, laying himself down between my legs.

By now, the last remains of daylight had mostly faded into darkness, so the only illumination in the room came from the waning crescent moon just making its ascent. It wasn't long ago that I would dread this time of the day, shuddering in fear as night fell because I knew that with the dark came the nightmares. But now with the blossoming of our sexual relationship, Peeta had begun to give me back my nights. Now when darkness neared, my heart raced for a different reason. Instead of my bed being the place where I writhed and whimpered in fitful sleep tortured by terrifying dreams, now I'd come to know my bed as the place where I writhed and whimpered in carnal pleasure as Peeta and I learned each others' bodies.

"Are you comfortable, Katniss?" he asked.

"Very." I answered, hoping he could hear the smile in my voice. After that, few words passed between us the rest of that night; we didn't need them. Instead, we let our bodies do all the communicating.

We kissed, we touched. We explored each other with curious hands that delighted in giving the other pleasure. It thrilled me to take his hardness in my hand, to feel his pulsing heat against my palm when I stroked him, to hear his breath grow rapid and shallow as I slid my hand up and down his length, to feel the sticky wetness of his climax when he finished within the gentle grasp of my fingers.

We pleasured each other with our mouths, allowing the increasingly familiar taste of each other's arousal to linger on our tongues. Peeta was becoming more and more skilled at finding my erogenous zones, kissing me everywhere to find more than just the obvious places. During his explorations, I'd come to know how surprisingly erotic it was when he seductively sucked on one of my fingers, how it sent shivers down my spine when he'd nip me softly at the nape of my neck just below my hairline, and most of all, how incredibly hot it was to feel his eyes on me, watching for the moment when the perfect kiss of his tongue between my thighs would make me shatter into a million pieces.

On most nights, this would have been enough to sate us, and we would have settled into each others' arms to sleep, daring to hope that our bliss wouldn't be undone by nightmares later on.

But that night we both still hungered for more.

"Do you want to go further?" Peeta murmured into my ear as we lay cuddled together.

"Yeah." I nodded, turning my face to capture his lips in a kiss, igniting the spark of heat between us all over again.

We'd only just recently lost our virginity together, so sex was still very much a work in progress. But that night something had changed, and for the first time, I understood why it was called lovemaking.

There wasn't the nervousness or the physical discomfort of my body learning to accept his, like I'd felt during our first time last week; there were none of the awkward pauses and embarrassed giggles of our second time a few nights ago.

This time around, everything fell into place. Joined as one, our bodies rocked together in a careful, steady rhythm. I slid my hands up and down the expanse of Peeta's back, basking in the warmth radiating from his skin and the tautness of his muscles that shifted slightly with each gentle thrust. He touched me, kissed me everywhere, patiently seeking to find what I needed and holding back his own pleasure to wait for mine. The closer we each got to our release, the more urgent our need became. We gasped hungry breaths of air, quiet moans whimpered between rosy lips, our pulses racing, hands trembling as they clawed at skin that had grown click with sweat. So when we finally shared that moment, looking into each others' eyes, our bodies shuddering and pulsing as we each experienced the others' gratification, it was like nothing we'd ever felt before.

In the middle of that big bed, as we lay tangled together coming down from our rapture, with a soft pillow beneath my head and smooth cotton sheets draped over Peeta's hips, I finally understood that all of this would have happened anyway. That no one else would ever be able to make me feel alive the way Peeta did.

I guess I should have known that the boy who'd saved my life all those years ago would be the only one who would be able to bring me back to life once again, by showing me how to live like the buttercups in the field. To not just live, but to thrive. To be living proof that beautiful life can grow out of the ashes.

So I suppose it should not have surprised me that even after a year had passed since that day spent among the buttercups in the field, Peeta would keep finding ways to keep our love growing.

"Come on!" he laughed, tugging me along as we walked towards the field, one of his hands clasped with mine, and the other clutching our now well-used picnic basket. "I have something for you!"

"Ooh, I hope it's cheese buns!" I teased him. We'd returned to this field many times for picnics in the past year, and he never failed to bake my favorite pastry beforehand.

It was late summer now, and most of the wildflowers that had filled this field in the spring had given way to tall green grass. It was lovely in its own way, but not the same as in early spring when flowers of all colors dotted this field like confetti for as far as the eye could see.

When we reached a shady corner at the edge of the field he stopped walking, turned to me and said, "I want to give you a flower."

I looked around at the expanse of green grass swaying in all directions around us, and then looked back at him.

"Good luck finding one," I chuckled. "There aren't any flowers left."

"No worries." he replied with a smirk. "I brought one from home."

Before I could even question what that meant, he reached into the picnic basket and pulled out a small black velvet box. Popping the lid open, he held out the box in his palm for me to see. Inside the box was a dainty silver ring that looked exactly like a tiny flower whose stem had been wrapped around in circles to form a ring. The flower itself resembled a buttercup with delicate petals of silver, and nestled in the center of the petals was a perfect single pearl.

"What?" I asked, nearly stunned speechless. "Where did you-"

"I was dusting the dresser one day and I knocked the lid off of your jewelry box by accident." he explained. "I saw that inside, you'd saved the buttercup from that day that I'd tied it around your finger like a ring. After a whole year, you still had that flower. It must have meant a lot to you."

"It did." I rasped, my voice giving away how touched I was by this gift. "It still does."

"And next to that dried up little buttercup was your pearl." he continued.

The pearl he'd given me in the arena. That pearl meant everything to me, because it had been all I had left of Peeta once he'd been captured. So many times I'd rubbed it against my lips, mourning my belief that I'd never get to kiss the lips of the giver again.

"I hope you don't mind, but I took the pearl and brought it to a jeweler and made them a drawing of how I wanted it set into a ring. I thought that if those two things, the flower and the pearl meant so much to you, then they shouldn't stay hidden in a box. You should be able to wear them close to your heart all the time. I thought they'd make the perfect engagement ring."

The words had barely had time to sink in when I looked up from the ring box to see Peeta lower himself down onto one knee in front of me.

"Will you marry me, Katniss?" he asked.

It was moments like these that reminded me that his thoughtfulness and capacity for love was limitless.

"Yes, Peeta!" I exclaimed, nodding my head enthusiastically. "Yes, yes!"

He quickly rose to his feet, grabbing me around the waist and lifted me up off the ground, spinning me in a circle. When he set me down, he kissed me, then took my left hand and slid the flower ring onto my finger.

"I love it." I beamed, holding my hand out to admire the ring in the bright sunlight. "And I love that you designed it. No one else will have the same engagement ring as me. It's perfect, Peeta. Just perfect."

"Well, you never did strike me as a diamond wearing kind of girl."

"No, I'm definitely not."

"Besides, I thought that using the pearl for your engagement ring was quite fitting for a couple from twelve," he continued with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Everyone knows that if you put enough pressure on coal, it turns to pearls."

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at Peeta's sarcastic reference to that ridiculous statement that Effie had made. I was surprised he'd remembered it, since I'd only told him that story once.

"That's right, Peeta." I giggled, pulling him back into my arms and kissing him again and again. "That's exactly right."

The next day, we added a new page to our memory book to commemorate our engagement. Peeta worked all afternoon doing the artwork, and when he was finished, he showed me the new page and asked, "Do you like it?"

"Oh, it's beautiful, Peeta!" I smiled, touching my fingers to the page.

It was gorgeous. In colored pencil, he'd drawn a picture of the ring on my hand, and in fancy calligraphy, he'd written Effie's quote about the coal turning to pearls. Then with his watercolor paints, he'd framed the whole page in a never ending chain of sunny yellow flowers in bloom.

Just like the buttercups that I wore in a crown on my head and filled my bridal bouquet of colorful wildflowers the day that Peeta and I said our wedding vows in that field the following spring.