After the war, Katniss hides inside cupboards, but Peeta hides beneath beds.
He supposes her goal, if one is to attempt and draw logic from a mind shattered by too much of that very concept, is to make herself as small as possible. With her arms clasping her legs to her chest, neck curled over to press her eye sockets against her knees, cabinet walls enclosing her from all sides, she squeezes herself into a tiny ball. He supposes she thinks without thinking that, if she squeezes herself small enough, she can make herself disappear, an entire existence wiped clean without fanfare or grief.
And he supposes his own goal, though his mind is just as shattered by logic as hers, is to make himself as flat as possible. With his arms and legs spread out like a dying star, face unfeelingly kissing the carpet, bed frame eclipsing him from above, he presses himself into the ground. He supposes he thinks without thinking that, if he presses himself flat enough, he can make himself one with the flooring, become a singular entity with the house that neither acts nor feels.
Because the burden of acting and feeling, of being human, is too much for any human to bear.
And yet, somehow, they do.
It is not because they believe death is the coward's way out. It is not because the unknown dark void is worse than the known blinding light. It is not a because that Peeta can put into words. The best because he can come up with is the because of life itself.
It's like this, he tells Katniss as he coaxes her out of one of her fits. There's death, and there's life, and we can't be in both at the same time.
Her cabinet door is ajar far enough for him to have one hand inside, firmly knotted with her own. He knows not what she relives: the jabberjays howling the cries of her loved ones, Rue's body surrounded by flowers, Snow's putrid perfume, the choke of dehydration, the fear of destroying everything she wants to save, her sister's final moments. He knows not, and the not knowing makes his lungs knot around and attempt to strangle his heart, but he keeps speaking, keeps remaining strong for her.
And life is a struggle, he tells her, but it's what we have, and although we're not obligated to stay, we're obligated to try.
Her fingers squeeze his, and he squeezes back. He hears her crying, but he will not comment. He can, and will, remain with her always, but only she can battle the demons inside herself.
We're obligated to test the waters, he tells her, to play in the sand. To find the seeds of good, even when they're bedded in the soil of bad.
He is not a poet, but he does not have to be. A love of life, however strangled, lends itself to expression that, even when not eloquent, pulses with sincerity.
There is life, and within life there is hope, but sometimes it is shrouded by the pain. Sometimes the phantom limbs of his brother will embrace him and beg for a game of catch, for old time's sake. Sometimes Cato's death threats will ghost through his ears. Sometimes Katniss' natural perfume of coal and roasted meats will vanish, and when he stumbles through the house in search of it, all that wafts into his nose is her total absence and cruel indifference.
But even during the sometimes, even when his brain refuses to consciously acknowledge it, Katniss is there. She is here. It is not a give-and-take relationship, not anymore. He does not feel that she still pities him, or that she is continually attempting to pay off a debt she can never repay. It is a relationship of mutual need, of mutual understanding. Of mutual desire to simply be together without demand or expectation. And perhaps it is not love, perhaps neither of them can love in the way that word is meant to be, love, pure and innocent and all-encompassing, but it is still here, and it is still what they both need.
It's like this, she tells him as she coaxes him out of one of his fits. There's you, and there's me, and we're always going to be here.
He lies beneath their bed, face down, imprinting himself into the carpet, trying to melt away the specter of his father. His father stands before one of the ovens, urging him to help with decorating the cakes, and he so wants to stand beside his father, but his father's hands are made of daggers and claws. Katniss lies next to him, ribcage against ribcage, one arm over his back, her face pressed into his shoulder, reminding him not to bake, not to give in, not to leave her.
I'm not saying we're immortal, she tells him, but what we are, the things we've seen and thought and set in motion, well, those things aren't mortal, even if our bodies are.
He cannot see her, because his face is in the carpet, and his father still stands before him, his head beginning to transform into a snarling mutt's. But he feels her everywhere: her pulse thrumming against the floor he has buried himself within, her lips shifting against the skin of his neck, and he tries to focus on that, on her, on the real.
So we do our best to keep those things alive, she tells him, ensure their existence past our deaths. We make books. Paint pictures. Tell our stories.
His father leaps forward, claws and daggers raised, and Peeta cannot fight his own flesh-and-blood, so he lets his father shred his shirt, pierce his shoulder, gouge out an eye. And he cries out in pain, and Katniss strokes his hair, and the unreal hatred can struggle against, yet cannot compete, with the real affection.
And even when we can't stay alive, she tells him, what we know is still alive, and that's how we make all of this bearable: by knowing, or maybe sometimes just pretending, that our lives haven't been useless.
He wiggles an arm around her waist and clutches her to him, and she clutches back, and outside the sun falls beneath the horizon, but inside there is only them.
A/N: Welcome to my first public foray into the Hunger Games fandom. I do hope you enjoyed the read, and if you leave a review, it would absolutely make my day.