Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games or any characters, or the song in which I'm referencing.
Oneshot inspired by the song Stupid by Sarah McLachlan; but I like the Mark Bell Remix the best. It's somber but still so intense. I HIGHLY recommend listening to it while reading this; I think it'll help set the tone of the story. I do use the lyrics to base the scene, or even as a thought. I don't own anything!
Peeta x Katniss
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I wake up with my mouth open, the scream that was pouring from my lips dying as I rise out of my nightmare. A sheen of sweat glistened on my body, and pressed my blonde curls to my forehead. I notice that there's a strange feeling in my arms. I look and see that I'm clenching the sheets so hard that my hands are turning white. I release them with a gasp of breath and the blood flows back into my oxygen-deprived hands. I have fully given up hope on getting a good night's sleep – the nightmares are always on the brink of my muddled mind, waiting to pounce on my unconscious and tear me apart even more.
But this nightmare was different.
It was a life without Katniss Everdeen.
I look to the window across my room and see that it is dawn; the light of the sun just barely beginning to crest over the horizon, tingeing everything that was gray with a light pink.
Sleep has abandoned me now. I know that I won't be able to fall asleep – but the question is, do I want to?
The nightmare forces its way to the front of my mind. In it, she had died, been mutilated by Cato during the Hunger Games, and it was down to he and I. I won, but I had to live with knowing that I had failed to save the girl that I loved with my entire being. I had to live with the picture of her mangled body stamped in my mind. That image was there every time I closed my eyes, even when I blinked. And in my dream, I tried to kill myself. To be with her, or to get rid of that image that haunted me? I don't know. I did die, after trying three times. But when I met Katniss in the afterlife, she was still maimed. She still had flesh hanging off of her in tatters. She still had half of her face carved off. I could see the muscles moving when her bloody mouth turned down into a grimace. When she reached towards me, her fingernails had been torn off, and the blood ran down her hands, her wrists, her arms. I had been running towards her, to embrace her, but I panicked. I tried to scramble away, but I was frozen as she clasped her fingers around my throat and squeezed, her yellow eyes boring into mine as she wailed that I left her to die.
A sob burst from my lips, and I wipe my eyes, before seeing how hard my hands are shaking.
This is what is so wrong. It's been a month since Katniss and I returned from the 74th Hunger Games, and we haven't spoken a word to each other since then.
I close my eyes and slowly shake my head. Just thinking of her, my heart seems to expand in my chest. It begins to beat faster, and suddenly I can feel the softness of her skin on my fingertips, and the gentle push of her lips against mine. I see the sun reflecting off of her dark hair, and her eyes. Her eyes. The dark pools of gray that swallow me whole every time I see them. I love her so much, it physically hurts. My heart feels ready to burst.
How stupid could I be? A simpleton could see that she's no good for me. But she's the only one I see.
But now I know that she doesn't love me back. She won't ever love me back. Love has made me a fool. It blinded me. It set me on fire, with passion and admiration to drive me forward, and I exposed myself, telling her of my love. I thought that with my declaration of love, she would be honest with me about her own feelings. But she came around in her own time. She gave me kisses that I thought were true, that were in fact false. With her actions, she painted me an oasis where we could live together and love freely, and not give a care in the world. Then I learned that she used me to stay alive. That she never loved me. That oasis dried up when she left that dreamland, and now I'm dying, burning, in this desert without her.
She's supposed to be the girl on fire. But I'm the one who's burning to death because of her flames.
Everything's changed now. It's all falling apart, and I feel like I can't put it back together; I'm spinning out of control. I'm lost in this whirlpool of nightmares, demons and fears. Even my love for her can't bring me out of the vortex that has sucked me into the dark depths of the earth.
I close my eyes and picture her. She's perfect. She smiles, she leans forward, her mouth opening just slightly as she stretches her fingers towards my face. They brush my cheek, and I burst into flames.