Jealous of a Pillow

On the train, coming back to district 12 Peeta saw how Katniss slept with her body pillow. The capitol had fallen, but it had taken time before they could come back.

Time he had needed, in any case, to recover.

There weren't any body pillows back in district 12, so this had been a new development. When they were in the capitol there were all kinds of decadent luxuries that and pillows were among the least of these.

Sharing a bed he couldn't help but see Katniss sleeping. These were no longer the spacious cars that whispered of a depraved decadence. Now Katniss slept curled up to a body pillow. Peeta thought back to the time in a cave when she had slept curled up to him. Now when the nightmares came she would wake crying and bury her head farther into her pillow.

She shouldn't be seeking comfort from some cushion; she should be coming to him. He'd whisper that everything was all right, and hold her as she cried when she thought of everyone that had been lost. He wanted to be that pillow for her. Now he was just the person on the other side of the bed, across a barrier made of pillow.

Not that he was actually so bold as to suggest that she ditch the pillow and snuggle up to him, but he could dream, as he had to so often with Katniss.

The third night of this Peeta was awake one night after Katniss had drifted off to sleep, as her breathing evened out and deepened. Gently he tugged the pillow out of her grasp and scooted closer to her. As she adjusted in her sleep to him, he laid back, just enjoying the moment. Despite his intentions to put the body pillow back, eventually he too, fell asleep.

Katniss was balancing between dream and wakefulness. She was somewhere warm and she felt heated, and hungry in a vague achy way. She snuggled closer to her pillow to find a more comfortable position, hooking one knee over it to bring it closer. She drifted back down to slumber.

Peeta woke up some time in the early morning to find Katniss curled closer to him than she ever had before. One of her legs was intertwined in one of his, her thigh close to his groin. She moaned slightly in her sleep and wiggled against him, pushing her breasts to his chest. He knew she was still asleep, since she was kind but still so aloof in her waking hours. He smiled to himself. If this was what it was like to be her body pillow he was going to be filling the position for as long as possible.

Katniss woke up in actuality later that morning. She'd slept good, really good and she stretched as she opened her eyes she knew she must have tossed and turned because the bed was messed up, she felt something hard against her. She must have twisted the blanket around her again.

As she opened her eyes she realized that the things twisted around her were NOT the blanket, it was arms. She wasn't curled up around her body pillow, but around a person. She looked into the face, but she already knew who it must be, Peeta. Because, really who was always there for her but him, always him.