Community: drabble123
Prompt: #19 - secrets (20 drabbles total)
Slightly AU.
better than nothing
Sometimes he swears she knows, just by the way she looks at him. Like he's not just Peeta Mellark, hiding behind silence and steel – but someone who sees Katniss for who she really is.
Obviously, that's before the games.
In the arena, there are no secrets. There is no such thing as shame – and that is how they come to be fucking on the floor of their cave because they're angry and bitter and in a lot of ways can't stand each other.
But it's not as if they can kill each other outright.
So they do it by degrees; a suck to the skin over Peeta's jugular one day, fingers against Katniss's cunt the next.
And it's not like these hidden acts can be seen on camera.
They hope.
They have to get rid of their anger somehow; they'd both rather come close to hurting each other than drown in their internal pain.
It just works, somehow, and in the context of the arena it seems almost normal, albeit just as barbaric as the real murder taking place almost on their doorstep.
Sweat and soaked skin and cum are just as deadly as the blood, the gore of limbs spread open, heads dashed against rocks or knives, and tributes walking straight into traps set for them like they're cows to the slaughter.
Murder weapons take many forms.
Lust combined with anger is possibly the most dangerous of them all. Spears, knives, arrows, fists – none of them could harm Katniss or Peeta the way this lethal mixture will. Because in the end, it is easy for both of them to endure physical torture.
The tricks that the Capitol plays on their minds are far more painful; the tracker jacker psychosis, muttations – worst of all, not knowing what is real.