Title: An Ugly Truth
Summary: To everyone else, Peeta Mellark was the kindest young man in the village. A prime choice for a husband. Only Katniss Everdeen knows an ugly truth. AU
Rating: M
Spoilers/Warnings: Mildly graphic with a touch of smut.
A/N: Written for Prompts in Panem Round 4, Day 1: Wrath
The tittering of girls around her draws Katniss' attention up from the stew she is so thoroughly enjoying. Wooden spoon halfway to her mouth, she catches a glimpse of the cause of her peers' excited giggles. Across the banquet hall where many in their village have gathered for the winter feast, she sees Peeta Mellark has just entered.
His shock of unruly blonde hair is peppered with snow. It also trails across the length of the fur cloak wrapped around his broad, muscular shoulders. His face is flushed pink from the cold and his eyes… are set intently on her.
Katniss averts her gaze, bringing the spoon to her mouth. Only now, the stew seems too thick and tasteless. She has a hard time swallowing, trying her best to drown out the gleeful whispers shooting around the table. Whispers of how Peeta is now of age to find a wife - something that every young maiden in their village should be excited about. Peeta, who is handsome and sturdy. Peeta, who is without a doubt the kindest soul any girl could ask for in a husband.
Only Katniss has her doubts. More than that, she knows better than everyone around them. She is likely the only one, besides Peeta himself, who knows the truth.
She lets her spoon clatter into the bowl, ignoring the yelps of protest from the distracted girls around her. "Excuse me." She whispers to no one in particular, pushing back from the table. She glances up briefly to see Peeta is still across the hall, and still watching her purposely.
Katniss spins on her heels, bumping into drunken villagers as she tries to hasten her way out of the back through the kitchens. She can't do it. She can't stand to be in the same room as him. It's all too much.
She sits with her back to the barn across from the banquet hall, knees pulled up to her chest. The cold wind and snow piled up in the hay around her is making her shiver, but not as badly as the memories that now come flooding back…
It was the first truly warm day of the spring of that year, something that made Katniss almost giddy. She hated the cold - the cold reminded her too much of her father's untimely death. Spring meant rebirth and somehow brought the greatest things in her life to her, like her baby sister.
It was an enjoyable day, despite all of her work tending to her Uncle Haymitch's animals. She had even snuck in a swim with Prim at the creek when they were supposed to have been eating their midday meal. She hoped the night would bring an equal amount of pleasant memories.
Instead, the first truly warm evening of spring brought the first raid. Why that night had been chosen by their enemies, she never knew. Her village barely had much stored up for the taking. But they came nonetheless, and as always brought death and destruction with them.
Katniss ran from the home she shared with her sister, mother, and uncle, the bow she was so skilled with at the ready. Only no raiders seemed to have made it as far as her family's property. She heard the screams and fighting all around… and yet it was if some sort of barrier was protecting her home from them.
Until one raider came barreling past the house towards her, his axe raised to lob her head off. Before Katniss could loose her arrow, the man collapsed face first into the dirt with a pained gurgle. Startled, she glanced up from the dying man with a knife protruding from his back. A shock of blond hair is what she noticed first, then the determined scowl of Rye Mellark.
Peeta Mellark's older brother had just saved her. She was stunned, but before she was able to express any sort of gratitude for his assistance, a second raider came up behind him. He must have caught her look because Rye turned around in time to have an axe buried into his throat.
Two seconds later his attacker collapsed to the ground beside him, Katniss' arrow lodged through his skull.
Katniss rushed to Rye's side, horrified of the blood gushing from him. She moved to kneel down beside him, to be with him as he passed over into the hands of the gods, but found herself shoved hard to the ground. Shocked once more, she stared at the person who had pushed her out of the way.
"Rye…" Peeta's choked whisper came, his hands hovered over his brother's wound. "What do I do?" Rye brought his blood-covered hand up to rest against Peeta's neck.
Katniss looked between the brothers, at Peeta's stricken face and Rye's too-pale one. He was gasping, trying to express something to his younger brother. What it had been, neither of them knew. He gurgled his final difficult breath, his hand falling from Peeta's neck and eyes growing unmovingly distant.
Tears pricked Katniss' eyes. She had hardly known Rye, only through the briefest of exchanges because she was fond of talking to his brother. But he had been kind. Roguish, crude and annoying, but kind in way that was very much like his brother. She reached out and grasped Rye's thigh, silently saying her prayers for him.
When she glanced to Peeta, she frowned in confusion at the look she found there. It wasn't sadness, or loss, or pain. It was something new entirely - something she had only seen on the faces of their most ardent and bloodthirsty warriors, which Peeta was not. He was kind and gentle and affectionate…
He grabbed her wrist, turning towards her abruptly. "Get your bow." He whispered in an unwavering voice.
It scared her, but Katniss found she couldn't refute it. She grabbed her bow from where she'd dropped it when he'd pushed her and then stood.
Her grey eyes widened in disbelief when Peeta yanked the axe from his brother's throat swiftly. He tested its weight as he stood, then looked at her expectantly. "You know the woods, yes?"
Katniss swallowed and nodded, completely caught off guard by the intense look in his eyes. She had never seen hatred burn so brightly in anyone before.
"Good." Peeta nodded, stepping over his brother and yanking the arrow from his killer's head. He turned back towards her, the bloody arrow dripping as he offered it back to her. "You're going to take me to them."
Katniss flinches in surprise as a warm weight settles around her shaking shoulders. She glances to her left, tears running down her cheeks, to find a familiar blue-eyed stare. The same blue eyes that blazed with rage as Peeta had torn down every last raider that had invaded their village that night.
She sees the same memories reflected in his clear eyes now. Sees the way he gracefully maneuvered weapons into the chest, arms, legs, necks, and heads of those who had attacked them. Sees the way he never flinched at her arrows piercing flesh as easily as his blades had. Katniss had merely done as he had told her that night, the absence of remorse in his whispered commands still haunting her.
Katniss had followed his orders - Peeta had acted as he pleased.
"Do you fear me?" He asks her quietly, reaching out to adjust his cloak he'd draped over her. He then reaches up and brushes the tears from her cheeks, cupping the side of her face gently. Katniss stares at him wordless, mind flashing back to the night that has hung heavy between them for months.
She was acting on instinct now, doing all she can to wash away the blood from his clothes, face, and hands. She couldn't even begin to wrap her thoughts around what she just witnessed and participated in. Sweet, innocent Peeta had murdered a raiding party without even pausing to think about it.
She didn't know how that much anger could exist in a person without devouring them whole. How Peeta had kept something like that hidden from everyone their entire lives.
A blood-stained hand wrapped around her wrist. She stopped her vigorous scrubbing of his tunic in the creek bank and let herself be pulled to her feet. When she met Peeta's gaze, she found the angry fire still burned harshly in his eyes.
"Do you fear me?" He asked roughly, the same bloodied hand he'd used to pull her up resting against her cheek. The metallic, cloying scent stung her nose, but she found herself leaning into his touch regardless. She watched him wordlessly, her heart pounding in her chest, terrified of the answer that wanted to spring past her lips.
Peeta didn't give her a chance to utter it, his own lips crashing against hers forcefully. Instead of cowering away, Katniss found herself compelled to move closer. She dropped his sopping wet tunic at their feet, wrapping her arms around his neck. She allowed him to push her lips open with his tongue, giving it access to the inside of her mouth. His free hand grasped at her hip, tugging her flush against him.
Katniss could feel the anger radiating off him, knew that he was using her as nothing more than a release for it in that moment. Like he had when he'd slaughtered those men. But that knowledge didn't sting her like she thought it would. Quite the opposite - she found herself growing more excited at the thought.
He kissed her roughly and she returned it with equal fervor. It didn't take long before Peeta was lowering her down onto the damp grass that ran along the shores of the creek. Katniss moaned as he pulled on the base of her tangled braid, exposing the side of her neck to his lips. His answering moan sounded like a growl to her ears when she thrust her hips up against him instinctively.
All too soon, he sat up. She huffed out an agitated breath, brushing away the wisps of hair that had fallen into her face. It was then that she realized he was untying the strings on his pants while staring down at her heaving chest, the laces of her bodice having come undone. Katniss knew she should be stopping it - that it was wrong and he was in no frame of mind to be doing what they were clearly about to do.
But she didn't. She, instead, untied the strings on her own pants and shimmed them down her legs. Before she had a chance to think of the feeling of the wet grass against her bare skin, he was pushing into her. She didn't hold back the cry that burst from her, the sensation of him inside her bringing both pain and pleasure.
Katniss finally lets her answer free.
"No." She whispers, leaning into his hand like she had that night. She doesn't fear him at all, and that's what scares her. She should be terrified of who she'd seen then. Should run inside and scream to the rest of the village she knew who had killed those raiders, the same person who had easily compelled her to do the same.
"It's not you I fear, Peeta Mellark." Katniss mumbles before leaning in to kiss him, her insides quaking at the thrill that runs through her. The same one Peeta had ignited the night he'd let his wrath and vengeance free.
The night she became his forever.
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