A/N This is a submission to Prompts in Panem (promptsinpanem on tumblr) for the visual prompt of a road trip. Check out my tumblr (absnow) for other submissions from this week's challenge.
Get Your Kicks
It started with a misdialed phone number. The number wasn't misdialed, per se, as Peeta had typed in each digit correctly. It was only after the fact, once he had hit the 'Send' button, that Peeta recognized the error of his ways. That the card, which he had pulled from the Travel Connections Board in the student union, belonged to Katniss Everdeen.
He grimaced, wondering if he could hang up without prolonging the awkwardness, but then she answered.
"Hello?" she asked, in her usual short, harsh voice.
"Katniss, hey." He hesitated, tapping his finger against the glass window that separated the corridor from the union's dining room. "It's Peeta," he said. He paused, waiting for some sort of reaction, but the other end of the line remained silent. Perhaps she had forgotten the night before. "I saw that you needed a ride home. It was on the travel board?"
"You're going home?" she said.
"Yeah."
"Driving?" she asked, her tone incredulous although the statement was harmless.
"That's the plan," he said.
"My last final is Thursday morning, see you then," she said, before promptly hanging up.
Peeta stared at his phone, wondering what had just transpired.
He and Katniss were acquaintances, but he'd never categorize their relationship as a friendship. Sure, they were the only students at USC to come from their small town, Pennsylvania high school – Peeta for film making and Katniss for some special plant biology program, but because of the nature of the programs, their paths rarely crossed.
With the exception of the phone call they'd just exchanged, and the party they both happened to have attended the night before, he had never really spoken to her much at all.
His knees buckled and he let his head fall back against the window behind him. They had kissed the night before, and she didn't even remember.
Thursday morning, after he knew the morning session of finals had ended, Peeta pulled his rusted Cavalier into the circle outside of the freshman dormitory. Katniss was waiting outside of the doors with a backpack slung over her shoulder and a duffel bag at her feet. Peeta popped the trunk for her, and she stuffed the duffel bag inside. She tossed her backpack and jacket into the back and buckled into the passenger seat.
Driving ten hours each day, it would take four days to get to Panem from Los Angeles. Peeta had made the trip once, when he first moved into his dorm that past August. He had been by himself at the time, and found it to be terribly boring. The alternative, however, didn't seem to be much of an improvement.
Katniss was silent on the other side of the car. Her knees were pressed against the dash, and she was slouched in her chair with her weight mostly on her lower back, in a position that didn't look to be at all comfortable.
The song on the radio was drowned by static, and he punched the 'Tune' button to find another station. They'd crossed through the mountains, which surrounded Los Angeles, and were now speeding further away from civilization into the heart of the desert. Peeta sighed as he watched the numbers whiz past without settling on anything but noise. He flipped off the radio, and held the steering wheel with both hands.
"So, how do you like USC?" he asked, after what seemed like an hour of silence.
She turned her head to look at him, and then propped it in her hand to stare out the window. "It's okay," she said.
He turned the radio back on and flipped through the same selection of static. He turned it off.
"You're friends with Madge?" he said after another lull.
Her eyes widened and he could have sworn the olive skin that covered her cheeks turned pink. "She's my roommate," she said with some hesitation.
Madge hung around Finnick Odair, who was a senior, and the captain of the wrestling team. Peeta was on the team too, barely, which was why he was invited to the parties in the first place, and how he knew Madge. She usually showed up with a few girls from her pledge class, but at the most recent gathering, brought Katniss along.
Katniss had looked to be mulling over the logistics of quite literally drowning herself in a red Solo cup for most of the night, and appeared completely disinterested in the idea of socializing. Peeta, however, was half a beer past the point of caring, and worked had up the courage that no one else at the party could. He talked to her. Briefly. Because apparently she was as drunk as he was, and while he knew that words were exchanged, he couldn't for the life of him remember a single one.
Peeta's tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he quickly set his eyes back on the road.
He could remember kissing her though.
"Why didn't you just fly home?" she asked, sounding annoyed with him.
"Oh, um, I'm afraid of flying," he said sheepishly. The road was flat and disappeared over the horizon in an unending haze. "You know, between gas, food, and hotels, it's almost cheaper to just fly," he pointed out.
She shifted in her seat. "Not when you try to book a flight right before Christmas. My boss is a dick and wouldn't give me the week off until the last minute, so I wasn't even going to go home in the first place." She bowed her head, embarrassed by the smile that crept across her lips. "I'm trying to surprise someone."
Peeta exhaled louder than he had intended. He remembered in high school that she was always hanging around with that Gale guy, even after he had graduated. And now here Peeta was, chauffeuring her across the country so that she could reunite with him for the holidays. He felt like he was going to be sick.
That was another thing about Katniss, that Peeta had failed to mention. He may have been head over heels in love with her. An unrequited love that began the moment he first laid eyes on her in the first grade.
When he had first sent his letter of intent to USC, he had no idea that Katniss would be attending as well. It was only at orientation, when he saw her lumped in with the freshmen class for the School of Science, that he realized kismet had come into play, and while he never had the nerve to talk to her in high school, his opportunity had been extended by four more years.
Except not. Because she still had a boyfriend.
His desire to go home grew even less, if that were possible.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, pulling him from his sulking.
"Huh?"
"You're driving like 90 miles an hour, which I'm fine with, but before you were barely breaking the speed limit."
His eyes shot to the speedometer, and he lifted his foot from the gas to slam on the breaks.
"Sorry," he chuckled nervously. "Sometimes I get a little lead footed." He glanced at the road sign up ahead, which read 'Flagstaff.' "Ever been to the Grand Canyon?" he asked.
"No?" She was eying him as if he were crazy, and he really couldn't blame her.
"Me either, and that's a shame because it will be the second time I've passed it now." He was talking too loudly and too fast, but he couldn't control it. "I mean, isn't that the quintessential bucket list entry? Really, we're doing a disservice to the human race by so thoughtlessly driving past it."
"What are you suggesting?" she asked, her arms folding across her chest.
"That we take a detour. What's an hour to a 40 hour road trip?"
Her lips pursed as she looked up at the road sign ahead.
"Okay," she acquiesced.
He smiled and pulled the car off the road at the next exit. It was winter - the off season, and most of the trails were closed. Peeta begrudgingly paid the park fee before navigating through the twisting paths that would lead to the Grand Canyon village, where he planned on having a late lunch and buying obscenely stupid souvenirs.
It seemed odd as they drove through the thin forest that surrounded the south rim, Peeta thought the park would be more extravagant, more breathtaking, but there wasn't much to see at all. And then, when they pulled into the parking lot to the village, he saw it.
The ground opened and swirled into intricate ridges, bouncing the light off the canyon walls to produce the most beautiful shade of orange he had ever seen. It was like an immortalized sunset, carved into the earth.
He stepped up to the stone barrier and began snapping photos with his phone, silently admonishing himself for not packing along his DSLR. There was a rustling beside him, and he watched as Katniss stepped over the wall to inch closer to the ledge.
"What are you doing?" Peeta shouted.
"I'm getting a better look," she said, glancing calmly over the edge.
There was a good 10 feet that separated the area that had been roped off from where Katniss stood, but Peeta could only laugh indignantly at her statement. "A better look? Katniss, the canyon is literally more than 100 miles wide, a couple extra feet isn't going to get you a better look."
"I was curious," she shrugged, and reluctantly stepped back over the fence.
Peeta bought a hotdog from one of the food stands at the gift shop, while Katniss unpacked some beef jerky and chips she had brought with her. There wasn't really any indoor seating, so he suggested eating in his car, but the weather wasn't too bad, and there were plenty of picnic tables in the courtyard at the center of the village. They ate quietly both overlooking the canyon the entire time.
"You ready to go?" he asked when they were finished.
She looked at him, confused. "Aren't we going to go inside?"
"Is that even allowed?" Peeta said. "Don't you need to sign up for a tour?"
Katniss crossed the courtyard to approach the opening of the guard rail where a trail began. "Race you to the bottom?" she teased.
His feet followed after her on their own accord, and he wondered what he was getting himself into.
"You going to give me head start?" he said, when he was at her heel. The trail was only a few feet wide with a rock wall to the right and an endless drop into the canyon on the left. She turned to lean against the rock wall, arching her eyebrow at him before glancing over the ledge. He laughed and shifted his weight so that he was leaning beside her. "I see where this is going," he said.
She smiled sweetly at him, and Peeta couldn't help but notice how nice her smile was. She didn't do it often. She was usually scowling - at what, he didn't know. When she smiled though, her face relaxed, and her eyes opened a little wider, and he could appreciate the silver flecks of color in them.
"You're trouble. You know that?" he said, willing himself to move away. He couldn't though, he really wanted to kiss her.
That would be okay, right? They had done it a few nights before. Granted, they were drunk at the time and neither had spoken of the event since. There was also that looming possibility that he was driving her home to see her boyfriend. That certainly complicated matters as well.
He sighed and pushed off the wall to look out at the canyon again.
"This was nice," he said. He could feel her arm brush against his as she stepped beside him, and she nodded in agreement.
They didn't walk much further down the trail, before turning to go back to the top. It was getting late - the sun set earlier this time of year, and the park closed at sundown. Peeta had planned on driving a bit further on the first day, but there weren't many places to stay beyond Flagstaff, which had plenty of hotels, all cheap during the off season.
When he pulled into a hotel with a promised room rate of $35 a night, he killed the engine, but paused to open his door when Katniss didn't move to open hers.
"Did you want to share, or..." he trailed off. Suddenly he dreaded her answer because he wasn't sure what he wanted to hear.
Her face flushed and she looked down at her hands in her lap. "Could we? Money's tight, and I'm kind of freaked out about being alone in the middle of nowhere. That's how most horror movies start out, right?"
He thought of the girl who leaned over the far edge of the canyon ledge earlier that afternoon, and tried to imagine her as anything but fearless.
"That's fine," he said, trying to hide his smile. "I'm sure they have some double beds open."
The hotel was nearly deserted, and they got a room on the ground floor next to where he'd parked the car - in case they needed to make a quick, horror movie propelled escape. Although, Peeta had never heard of such a plot taking place in a Ramada Inn before.
The room was nice for the price. Clean anyway, with two double beds, a television, and a small refrigerator. Peeta moved to the bed closer to the window when Katniss set her bag on the one near the door. He was tired, and ready to call it a night, but as he drew back the comforter, and began to unbuckle his belt, he noticed that Katniss was perched on her bed, nervously playing with the zipper on her duffel bag.
"Are we going to need a Wall of Jericho or something?" he asked with a grin, trying to ease the tension that seemed to be rising in the space between them.
"Huh?"
"It Happened One Night? Frank Capra?" She still looked confused, so he continued. "It's this road trip movie from the 30's. Two strangers get caught up in a road trip and it turns into a comedy of errors. It's a classic. Anyway, they have to share a hotel room, so they string a blanket across the middle of the room and call it the Wall of Jericho."
She looked at the space between their beds as if contemplating the logistics. "Is that what you want?" she asked.
"I don't care if you see me," he shrugged.
"Me either," she said, quickly looking into her lap again.
She didn't look at him when he pushed his jeans form his hips or as he pulled his sweatshirt over his head, leaving him only in a tee shirt and his boxer shorts, and when she changed, she hid in the bathroom, and came out wearing heavy flannel pants and a large USC sweatshirt.
It was strange, sharing a room with a woman. Peeta had shared a room with his brother while growing up, and there were a few occasions where he had shared his bed with a girl, but there was something different about sleeping a bed apart from Katniss Everdeen. It was like his senses were heightened. He could hear every dip of her mattress, the rustling of her sheets, and the soft sighs she made in her sleep, but she was so far away, she may as well have been a dream.
He rolled to lay on his back, the tightening in his groin causing the sheets to tent across his lap. He tried not to groan, and muffled his face beneath the extra pillow. He would have to suffer through two more nights of this, with three long days of driving. If he couldn't find a way to fall asleep now he'd be doomed. He glanced at her moonlit outline, and hesitantly gripped his length.
She wouldn't know, he reminded himself, she wouldn't even hear. He stroked, once, twice, no. It was too weird. He waddled to the bathroom and turned the sink to the highest setting then thrust into his palm until he came into his hand. At this rate, he wasn't going to make it.
The next morning they crossed the rest of Arizona. When they reached New Mexico the road dropped away in sharp turns and rocky edges. Katniss noted that it was called the Devil's cliff, but Peeta was gripping the steering wheel too tightly, and jerking it too rigidly to hear much of anything.
Finally the ground flattened into a smooth surface. The endless farmlands became a welcomed relief. He didn't mind only seeing fields of corn and livestock for hours at a time.
All the radio stations played country music or songs about Jesus, and Peeta could have swore he heard Katniss humming along, even though she didn't know the words.
They made it too far that day, part of the way into Oklahoma, and Peeta found himself panicking for a way to stall. He didn't want to go home, and in two days, that was where they'd be.
That night when they were tucked into their separate beds and flipping through the channels, Katniss stumbled upon "It Happened One Night."
"They talk awfully loud," she said thoughtfully after a few moments of watching.
Peeta was caught off guard by her interest and smiled. "They were still mostly stage actors back then."
She nodded and they watched the rest of the movie before going to bed.
That night Peeta dreamed about Katniss crawling into bed with him, begging for him to take her away to some special island, unable to live another day without him. She would need him. Someone would need him.
In the morning, the bed was cold beside him, and Katniss was still sleeping on the other side of the room. Nobody needed him.
There were trading posts all along the route, something he had noticed the day before, but today he suggested stopping at one and so they did. It was a lone, weathered looking building on the side of the road, with one large room filled with antiques and guns and old fashion candies. Peeta tried on cowboy hats and gun holsters in the mirror, while Katniss braided decorative feathers into her hair like a bird. Peeta ended up buying an old Brownie camera and Katniss a handful of arrowheads, and then they left.
They reached St Louis by late afternoon, just as the lights that illuminated the arch began to glow. They could have taken a tram to the top to see the city from the sky, instead they decided to explore the city from the streets. Snow dusted the ground, and it was much colder than it had been in Arizona and Oklahoma, but it was nice to stretch their legs and be up on their feet, rather than being cramped in his car.
Katniss approached the shore of the Mississippi River, which ran passed the city. The water was cloudy and dirty looking, almost brown. It was nothing like the beaches in Los Angeles. She dipped the toe of her shoe in the water, leaving Peeta watching her quizzically.
"You can either see something or become a part of it," she said. "It makes a different story entirely."
Peeta wasn't sure he understood, but he touched the river with his foot anyway, until the cold water seeped into the sole of his shoe and drenched his sock.
"So what now? Do we forward the river and hope we don't get dysentery?" he joked.
She rolled her eyes. "This isn't the Oregon Trail."
"That will have to be another adventure, I suppose," Peeta said. It was a silly suggestion since they weren't really friends, and Oregon wasn't on the way to anywhere they'd be headed. She didn't laugh at him though, so he let the awkwardness fade across the water and into the night.
The next day Katniss offered to drive. Peeta's eyes were tired from three endless days on the road so he agreed. They'd reach their destination that evening, and he knew if he were the one behind the wheel, they'd never get there. He would get lost and drive around forever if he could, as long as it meant he never went home.
Katniss was not a very good driver. She stepped on the gas until the entire car shook and the bolts rattled, then she'd brake abruptly to weave through the slower traffic. They'd barely crossed into Indiana when the engine began to sputter and choke.
Peeta considered it a preemptive suicide.
They sat on the side of the road, bundled tightly in their hats and jackets while they waited for the tow truck to arrive.
"Sorry," Katniss said sheepishly, but Peeta saw the detour as a blessing.
The repair shop was the only one in town, and when the mechanic reviewed the symptoms he grimaced. A fuel pump or timing belt maybe. Something that would put him out $900, obviously.
Peeta wasn't even sure the car was worth that much, and if he put that much money on his credit card, his mother would definitely kill him. There was nothing like being eviscerated over Christmas dinner.
It was all becoming too much to deal with. His doomed feelings for Katniss. The looming threat of facing his mother. He pushed through the door to stand in the bitter cold. It was easier to breathe, even though his lungs felt frozen. His short breaths clouded in front of his face like swirls of smoke. He pretended each puff of air was a long drag from a cigarette. Those were supposed to be calming. He didn't feel any calmer.
"Are you okay?" Katniss asked, following behind him.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said.
"Peeta I'm sorry," she said. "I won't be able to cover it right now, but I'll pay you back for the damage, I promise."
"You think it's your fault?" he said, only now recognizing the desperate worry plastered across her features. "The car's got 100,000 miles on it, anything you did today was nothing compared to the horrors my older brothers used to put it through."
"Maybe it isn't bad?" she offered. "I'm sure we'll be back on the road in no time." The smile she flashed him was too hopeful. He couldn't do it anymore.
"Or we can just scrap it," he said, running his fingers through his hair and sighing heavily. "Look, why don't you catch a bus or something, I'll pay whatever the difference is. I think I'm just going to fly back to LA and be done with it."
"What? Why?" She narrowed her eyes at him and frowned. "Wait. I thought you were afraid of flying."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed his shoe against the pavement. "Maybe I'm not," he said, shrugging his shoulder. "Maybe I was stalling."
"Why?"
"Look, Katniss, you may be excited to go home and see whoever it is that you're seeing, but I could go about a thousand lifetimes without another Mellark Family Christmas. They're not exactly the most joyous gatherings of the year."
"Why's that?"
He sighed and scratched his finger against his temple. Where could he even start? "My brothers can be huge asses, my mother always treats me like some huge disappointment, and my father's too busy sitting passively on his recliner with a case of Yuengling to intervene. I was thinking if I drove, that would be a week of Christmas Break I wouldn't have to be home for."
"What about your friends? You had lots of those."
He did. In high school he was rarely alone, he naturally got along well with others, but while he spent time with these people, they didn't keep in touch. He couldn't name five classmates he had spoken to since graduation.
"Not really," he said. "There were people I hung around, yes, but we weren't close. No one would miss me if I wasn't there."
"Don't talk like that," she said. "I can't say we're good friends or anything, because we're not, but if we were, I'd miss you if you didn't come home."
"You don't have to say that," he said and bowed his head so that she couldn't look at him anymore. She stepped closer to him then, tentatively placing her hands on each side of his waist. He flinched at the contact - he liked it too much, and when she leaned forward to kiss him, he didn't stop her.
Her lips were soft against his. Waxy, from the Chapstick she was wearing. The first time they had kissed she tasted sour from the cheap beer, but now all he could taste were the peppermints she had swiped from off the auto shop's counter. He brought his hands to the nape of her neck, where his fingers tangled into her braid. She tipped her chin to open her mouth to him, and he timidly swirled his tongue against hers, repeating the motion with more certainty when he heard her sigh pleasantly in response.
The bell above the shop door jingled, and their kiss ended abruptly.
The mechanic was leaning out from behind the door, chuckling with amusement. "Your car will be ready in about twenty minutes," he said.
"What? How?" Peeta said, and although Katniss had stepped away from him at the interruption, his hand still lingered on her arm.
"You were out of oil," he said. "Luckily your engine sputtered out before any real damage could be done."
Peeta pursed his lips. He was about 3 years overdue for an oil change, something he probably should have considered before trekking out on a 3000 mile journey. "So no fuel pump or timing belt or $1000 bill?"
"You lucked out this time," he said, nodding before he closed the door.
It was cold outside, slush crunching beneath their boots. Katniss crossed her arms over her chest to muffle her shiver. Her cheeks were rosy and her lips were swollen from the kiss. He knew it was wrong, but he really wanted to keep on kissing her.
"You want to wait inside?" he said instead.
The detour only cost them two hours, and $80 from his wallet, still, it was dark by the time signs for Columbus, Ohio came into view.
"Do you want to stop for the night?" Katniss asked from where she sat cross legged in the passenger seat.
"It's less than three hours past Columbus, we can probably make it there before 10," Peeta said. It was the 23rd, after all, and he figured she'd want to be home for Christmas Eve.
"Or we can take our time," she said. "There's no rush. What's another day from our winter vacation?"
He knew she was stalling because of what he had told her earlier, about not wanting to go home, but it didn't make sense to him. She had a guy waiting for her, why would she want to spend another day listening to Peeta wallow?
He was selfish though. He wanted to spend more time with her, even though the sympathy she showing him was just that, sympathy.
"Are you sure that won't blow your travel budget?" he asked, giving her another out. "That's an extra night in a hotel."
"Not if we eat from the vending machines."
They found a place on the west side of Columbus, the type that didn't have hallways because the room doors faced the parking lot, with a vending machine next to the ice bin in the corridor at the bottom of the staircase. It wasn't snowing now, but it had been recently, and a blanket of dirty ice littered the sidewalk and pathways.
Peeta jingled some loose change in his hand and scanned over the vending machine's offerings. The first few rows were harmless enough – cookies, chips, crackers. However, the bottom row, which was generally reserved for chewing gum and breath mints, was filled with toiletries such as dental floss, tooth pastes and Kleenex. Peeta couldn't help but draw his attention towards the foil wrapper tucked into the last slot. The one with the word "DUREX" printed across it repeatedly in a large font.
He smiled. "Dear, I brought you some Cheetos and condoms, what more could a girl ask for?" He shook his head. Now that would be inappropriate.
Slipping in a few quarters, his thumb traced along the numbered panel before punching in the appropriate codes.
"Dinner is served," he announced as he passed through the doorway to their room.
Katniss sat on one of the beds, idly surfing through the television channels, and could only muster a dull smile in response.
"I tried to cover all the major food groups too," he said, emptying his coat pockets to drop onto the mattress beside her. "For grains we have buttered crackers, a double whammy for dairy and vegetables with these nacho cheese corn chips, gummy bears covers fruit, protein – peanuts, and finally for my favorite food group, Krusty snack cakes for dessert."
She couldn't help but laugh. "Well thank you for the well balanced meal." There was a silence as she sifted through the snacks before selecting the bag of chips.
"So what's on tap for this evening's entertainment?" he asked, ripping into the package of cupcakes. "One of those disturbing, puppet animated, Christmas classics?"
"There aren't any porn channels, if that's what you're asking," she intoned.
He sat down on the mattress beside her – even though there was another bed on the other side of the room, and snatched away the remote. "You're obviously not looking hard enough, I read the sign outside, it said 'HBO and Cinemax'."
"You're not serious!" her eyes widened at the thought.
He flipped off the TV, and she sighed, relieved.
She finished off her bag of chips and set the bag aside, brushing the cheese dust from her fingers. "You doing anything fun over break?"
"Probably not," Peeta said. He finished his cupcake then extended the second one to her, which she accepted.
She picked at the dense layer of frosting. "Maybe we can do something," she said, sounding noncommittal.
He looked at her warily. When they got to Panem, she'd be spending all of her time with Gale. It would be awkward, after what had happened to pretend to be friends. He didn't think he could be her friend. His gaze fell to her lips. He could taste Chapstick and peppermint on the tip of his tongue. He turned away.
"I don't think it's right, what we've been doing," he said, staring at his hands folded in his lap. "We've kissed twice now, once at that party and then earlier today, and all the while you're on your way to see him?"
"Him?" she said, her eyebrows shooting up.
"Your boyfriend," Peeta said dumbly.
She shook her head, letting out a laugh that sounded indignant. "I don't have a boyfriend."
"Then who are you trying to surprise?"
She blinked a few times, still caught off guard by his accusation. "My sister," she said as if it were obvious. "I didn't get to see her at Thanksgiving."
Peeta felt like an idiot. He had completely forgotten about her little sister, Prim. She was four years behind them, and still in middle school when they graduated.
"Oh," he said slowly. "So you and Gale aren't –?"
She laughed, louder this time. "Gale? What? No! He's like my cousin!"
Peeta felt like an even bigger idiot now. He shook his head, still not ready to believe her.
"But in high school, you were together all the time," he said.
"We were friends," she argued. "I never liked him that way." She shrugged her shoulder a lowered her voice to a mumble. "I liked someone else."
"Who?"
She cringed. "You?" she said.
Peeta nearly fell out of the bed at her confession, his eyebrows lifting, encouraging for her to continue.
"I'd be lying if I said I thought about you often," she said, her face flushing around her cheeks. "But you looked kind of cute in your wrestling uniform." She covered her face with her hands. "Oh god, that sounds awful."
"No it doesn't," he said quickly.
"And then I saw you at that party last week. I knew you went to USC too, but it was the first time we'd run into each other, and I don't know. I guess they call it liquid courage for a reason."
"Katniss?"
She turned her head to look at him, a smile ghosting her lips. "Yeah?"
By default, when it came to words, Peeta always knew the right ones at the right time. He was captain of the debate team in school, and he had served on the student council every year in high school. But in this moment, he knew he didn't have to talk. For once, Katniss had done it for him.
Instead he kissed her. It was different than the ones before. It wasn't sloppy from the alcohol or hesitant, like the comfort she had offered him earlier that day. This one was something else.
The hungry kind, where kissing didn't seem like enough. The kind where bodies deliberately moved and twisted to lay flush. And where soft, approving hums grew into something less abandoned.
He pinned her beneath him. His mouth moved to cover her jaw then her neck. His hand smoothing over her ribcage to squeeze her breast in his palm. She bowed off the mattress in response to connect their bodies where they didn't already meet, singing her approval when he slipped his hand beneath her shirt. Her nipples were already pebbled into tightened peaks, which he pinched between his thumb and forefinger, grunting when her hips rocked against his in response.
He rolled onto his side slightly to rest his weight on one arm and used the other hand to trail down her abdomen, then dipping his fingers between her legs. His breath hitched when pressed his fingers against her heated center. Even through her flannel pajama bottoms, he could feel how wet she was.
"Jesus," he murmured into the crook of her neck.
She gripped his shoulder tightly, her breaths coming in short pants. "Do you have a condom?" she whispered in his ear.
He groaned, loudly. The weight he had been holding on his arm collapsed as he rolled onto the empty space of the bed beside of her. "No," he said. His head hit the pillow, hard, and he stared up at the ceiling with a petulant sigh. He didn't even have one in his wallet, which he knew was a bad place to keep one anyway, but he couldn't help it. He really wanted to have sex with her.
Then he remembered it. The oddly placed merchandise on the bottom row. The vending machine.
"I do," he said, jumping off the bed and gathering some change.
He adjusted himself beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts, and rushed to the machine, plopping coins in with shaking fingers until he had enough for the condom on the bottom row.
Peeta wasn't the most experienced, admittedly. He'd only had sex a handful of times, and each time the girl didn't act like it was anything amazing. It hadn't shattered his confidence and he didn't necessarily think he was bad, he just really liked Katniss, and he really wanted to impress her.
His wrist began to cramp, moving his fingers in tight circles between her legs, but he refused to stop until her toes curled into the sheets and her back arched from the mattress. And then, when he was inside her, he closed his eyes and willed himself to relax, fighting the tightness in his cock, refusing to release his orgasm before her walls to clenched around him.
After, when they lay tangled and boneless, he struggled to catch his breath. Although she hadn't been overly vocal, she had seemed pleased enough, yet he found himself feeling anxious over her response. He hid his face in her hair, unable to look at her.
But then she kissed him. And when she asked, "Do you have anymore?" Peeta ran into the snow barefoot, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and carrying a handful of quarters to empty the vending machine.