"Buttercup!", I hiss for the third time this week. The bed is wet again, and I'm beginning to doubt whether these accidents are actually accidents. The first time Peeta accounted for it as him not being able to find a way out of the house. The second time, he referred to it as an accident. However, this time I can't dismiss the red flags that go off in my head.
I collapse on the bed, the battle between fatigue and my body ending.
Before long, there are arms that wind around my waist and pull me up.
"He did it again", Peeta murmurs into my hair.
I turn in his embrace to face him. I nod, "What if-"
He crushes his lips against mine and pulls me to him. He hates these words. These words of negativity, words that lie dormant but continue to choke me when activated. He knows these words and their triggers, which is why he proceeds to gently push me against the wall.
"Peeta" I shift him off me and go to the bed to pull at the corners of the sheets. He takes the other ends and throws it rather forcefully into the bathroom. The telltale signs of distress and frustration mark his face from the furrow of his brow to strong set of his jaw.
"Katniss, I—" He begins.
"Will you go downstairs for new sheets?"
He too is worn, but for my sake he smiles weakly. "Of course"
I am Katniss Everdeen. I am thirty-three years old. I will lose yet another loved one. Yet something in the unacknowledged part of my mind tells me that this state I'm in is not solely because of Catnip. It's the constantly fought memories, the nightmares coming back. The inevitable horror that will forever imprison me.
I fall apart. My hands begin to shake, and the trembling spreads to grip my entire body.
Peeta drops the sheet at the door and immediately runs to me, folding me in his arms. His hand cups my head as the other snakes around my back. I grip his shirt with shaking hands. My weakness, his strength.
"We can go to Four tomorrow for veterinary care. For reassurance".
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
The sheet abandoned, he presses me against him, his face to my neck and kisses my collarbone, my cheek, my lips. He knows I won't sleep tonight and he's just as effective as a drug.
His hands go to the back of my thighs and with that he picks me up. I wrap my legs around him and wind my arms about his neck. Over the years, I've memorized his body from the contracting and expanding muscles in his arms and on his back to the angular protrude of his hip bones, but the weakness that weighs him down is entirely new.
He tenderly lays me down against the bed, one hand against the small of my back the other holding the back of my head. I press him down against me, my fists knotted in his shirt.
But he refuses, I suddenly can't hold his heavy gaze.
"Your hands are cold," he mumbles, capturing them with his own."We're okay, you and I"
I meet his eyes. "We're okay."
He pulls me up and hugs me. I rest my head against his shoulder, tightening my hold against his center.
"Katniss..." he whispers, his voice hoarse. His hands slide up the hem of my shirt, gripping my waist. He kisses my neck as I rock against his stiffening hardness. I trace the lingering scars against his chest and the effect is immediate. His breaths become shorter and heavier as he presses his hips into mine, holding back a groan. Amused, I smile.
I bite his neck, this does so much, earnestly he pushes my shoulders against the bed, kissing me with this fervor I match. He gathers my shirt over my breasts as I raise my arms and he slides it off, momentarily breaking contact.
He promises to raise his voice louder than the terrible ones in my head. He promises to fight away nightmares, to silence the thoughts of death. I promise to sing when the residual venom coursing through his veins takes control and takes him away. I also promised him things that I couldn't fulfill. My promises are made to be broken.
I gasp as his lips find my breast. It hurts, and it dazes me to know that he's the source of the pain. I bear through it for if I speak it would hurt him more than any form of imaginable physical pain. The fact of knowing that he's hurting me aches more than I physically do.
"I'm sorry I've recently been such a mess." My voice sounds strangled.
"You make me a mess," he whispers.
His lips find their way to my navel, his hands compressing my sides. Unlike the pain, I can't fight the nausea. Sickness floods its way up my throat and I hold it off long enough to run to the bathroom and shut the door. I heave into the toilet and lose what little I ate of dinner. There is no end nor anything left. He pounds against the door and calls my name.
I would open the door for the sake of his sanity. But I'd lose mine as he would attack me with questions I would have no answers to, What's wrong? Why does this happen? Are you alright? When the apprehension and panic passes, We need to see a doctor.
Rather, I choose tofall asleep to the sounds of his concern.
The moment I wake I run out of the bathroom to the phonebook in search of a vet. I make an appointment and run upstairs to dress. Peeta remains asleep on the floor near the bathroom door, his shoulder tucked beneath his body. A knot ties together my lungs as guilt claims my throat. "Peeta..." I wake him, I brush away the hair that clings to his face, I touch his cheek.
He opens his eyes and when his eyes find mine he darts up. In a moment I'm surrounded by his arms. He buries his face in the nape of my neck. Tears run down my nude body as he silently weeps. I stroke his hair until his breaths regulate.
His arms tighten around my waist, "Are you alright?"
I kiss his neck and smile against him. "I'm fine..."
He stares at me, his gaze wounded. I promised I wouldn't shut him out, wouldn't isolate myself to struggle on my own. My throat and eyes burn as I remember his eyes the night in the rain, a tangle of limbs and a haze of lips against skin.
I smile tightly, he sees through the notion but makes no remark.
"We have to go" I detach myself to dress. He looks up, Buttercup? I nod.
He takes my hand, lacing his finger with mine. As that hallowed, empty feeling grips my abdomen again I know that if he weren't there beside me I would fall. I hold on tighter.
Should I continue?