It takes a good two minutes for what they're suggesting to sink into my brain. As soon as it does, I shake my head vigorously. "I'm not saying that."
"Come on, Katniss. Your mother will know it's a lie." As if that would be my only real objection.
"No!" I shout at Gale but my eyes are drawn to Peeta, sitting in one of the bright chartreuse armchairs, hands clenched with his forearms resting on his thighs. There's a strange tick in his jaw and a gaping chasm between us that I don't know how to breach. My next words are directed at him. "This was your idea, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he whispers. My eyes burn and bile rises in my throat as I run from the room.
"Catnip," Gale pleads. He hasn't called me that unless there's a camera around since before the last Games.
"Let him talk to her and explain," I hear Haymitch say and I know that Peeta's following me. I run to the only place I can think of that might allow me to talk freely, so long as the wind is howling like it was last night. A cold blast of wind hits me when I reach the roof, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Peeta's warmth crashes into my back. I didn't think he'd be able to catch up that quickly.
When I turn, the words die in my throat at the look of anguish in his eyes. I think I say his name and then his arms are around me. I reach up and grip his hair, holding his face buried in the crook of my neck. We've spent the past few days barely talking unless it was about training, strategies, or potential allies. He hasn't touched me since he scrambled out of my bed on the train. He's given up any pretence of being my friend. Just another Tribute in the Games who I'll have to eventually kill, despite our alliance, if I am to win and return to my family and my fiance.
But his arms feel so good around me. No one else's arms have made me feel this safe. Not since my father died.
"I'm sorry." He chants the words into my neck and tightens his arms around me.
We stand there long enough for the others to wonder what we're talking about, but I don't want to be the first to let go. Maybe if we just stay here like this, they'll put us through the tubes together. At least then I won't have to worry about finding him in the middle of a blood bath.
Eventually, Peeta slides his hands up my back to my shoulders and presses down, releasing my hold on him. He steps back away from me, his glassy eyes looking at the ground as it grows between us.
"It will gain you more sympathy. You're facing experienced killers this time. Favored Victors who know each other and whom the Capitol knows. You're still something of a mystery to them," he repeats the reasoning for us forming alliances with the other Victor Tributes, this time in defense of his proposed interview strategy. "Something like this...it invests them personally in your survival."
"But Peeta...a baby?" I croak and he nods.
"It's more than that. They don't think of us as human until after we've won. Even then, they don't realize what's happening. You know this, Katniss. Announcing a pregnancy like this...it might show them why the Games are wrong. At least start them thinking about it."
"It's a lie," I protest and he scoffs.
"We're all liars. Or hadn't you noticed? Every last Victor plays a part in some way. The person you see in the Arena...that's not real. It never is."
"Yes it is," I say and he flinches.
"Okay, would it be better if I brought it up?"
"How would you even do that?" I cross my arms and Peeta shrugs. Then his entire face changes, his eyes bright and his lopsided smile disarming, leaving me momentarily breathless
"Well Caesar, I couldn't let both my Victors go back in there. They had so little time together. Their love is so new. I just wish that I'd gotten a chance to be the crazy uncle," he says.
I gape at him. It'd work. Caesar would ask what he meant by that or if the lovebirds had some happy news to share. And there it is. Baby bomb.
The Capitol charm slips back off his face and he takes both of my hands in his. "Katniss, let me do this."
"But why?"
"Because sometimes I just get so sick of it and I can't stand it anymore," he leads me to the railing and waves over the glory of the Capitol. "Because somewhere back home, a family is living in darkness so the people who live in that building can leave their lights burning all night while they're out at a party. Because people are starving back home in Twelve while here, they're throwing it all up to stuff in more. And because in the next two weeks, at least one mother will bring a child to your mother to beg her to save it and I'm not sure it's even worth it if the child's just going to grow up and face the Reaping."
I find myself nodding at his words and then shaking myself out of the stupor. Roof or not, this isn't the place. I place my hand over his mouth as he opens it to keep talking.
"I know, Peeta. But what are we supposed to do?"
He stares at me for a moment and I can tell he's trying to make a decision.
"There you are," Gale says and Peeta steps away from me, turning his back and leaving whatever he considered telling me unspoken. I curl my hand into a fist to trap the warmth of his lips on my palm, to keep it from floating away on the night air. "Are we…okay?"
"If she's not able to work it in, I will," Peeta says then turns to look at me for approval, once more the cool mentor. All I can do is nod.
Sleep eludes me, of course.
The interviews went off perfectly. By the time it was my turn, the other Victors had already laid the groundwork of their own small rebellion, working the audience up until they cried at me in my bridal silks. Then they wailed when Peeta stood up there and spoke with regret of a tiny family just barely begun and the child he'd never get to spoil rotten as a pseudo uncle. For his part, Gale responded appropriately when the cameras trained on him in his black wedding tuxedo, head bowed and eyes misty.
I squeeze my eyes shut and relive the moment when we all joined hands. The last image on the screen of Peeta and I, hands clasped and faces set in determination. Joined in the goal of getting the pregnant woman and her unborn child safely out of the Arena. As I watch the picture fade in my mind's eye, I can't help but think that Portia dressed Peeta to complement me once my wedding dress burned away to Mockingjay plumage.
She dressed him in white. A heavy knit turtleneck with a black metal collar folded over the neck, black metal cuffs peeking out from under the sleeves of the blazer, and a faux metal handkerchief in artful folds and the same shade of onyx in his breast pocket. If my costume brought rebellion to mind, his screamed of bondage. Of suppressed innocence. Knowing how deliberate our stylists are in their choices, I can't help but believe that this one was as well.
Unable to lay still a second longer, I fling aside my covers. I should go to Gale, to say my good-byes since we barely had time in the chaos after the interviews. But my feet lead me to Peeta's door. It's cracked open, so I let myself in, only enough to shut the door behind me.
His bed remains empty and untouched, and as I stand there, he walks out of the bathroom, dressed only in a pair of shorts. As I stare at his chest and then his legs, he tosses aside the clothes he carries. I think I see the turtleneck and the pants from the interview, but really, I can't look away from his leg. I've never seen it before. He always wore pants at night on the trains.
"Is it sprouting warts or something?" he asks, making me jerk my eyes back up to his. Only he's laughing slightly.
"I can't be pregnant," I blurt out instead and he shakes his head, but walks over to the drawers to pull out a clean shirt. He pulls it on before facing me again.
"It's too late to take it back. Do I need to apologize for anything?"
"No," I say. I don't know why I feel the need to explain this to him, but I can't seem to stop the words from coming out of my mouth. "Gale and I haven't...I haven't…"
"You've never had sex," Peeta manages to fill in the blanks for me. His voice carries no judgement in it though.
"When I kissed Gale, in the Arena, that was my first kiss," I murmur.
"Fuck," Peeta says and I glare at him, ready to shred him for thinking less of me. "Katniss, I had no idea. If I had, I'm not sure I would have - I'm sorry. Your first kiss shouldn't be like that."
"Yours was better?" I snap and Peeta's lips quirk.
"No, not really."
"Who was she?" The question flies out before I can think better of it.
"Honestly? I don't even remember. Haymitch got me drunk as a skunk one night after my Games. I have vague memories of a girl waiting on my porch when I stumbled home, some kissing, and -" he shakes his head and changes directions on me and it annoys me. "Doesn't matter. The point is, I wish I could give you and Gale another shot."
The thought occurs to me that this is sort of what he's doing by volunteering for us. But then I think of what he manages to do in his interviews. The ideas and strategies to turn the Capitol on its head. What the rebellion really needs is someone like him. Someone who can, with the simple turn of a sentence, innocuously challenge the system Snow protects so closely. Someone who could rally an entire country behind him with just a few words.
Add in Gale's rebellious fire, both of them mourning their shared loss, they could do it. They could find a way to end the Games.
"You should get some sleep," Peeta urges, his words pulling me from my thoughts. I hadn't realized how close he'd gotten to me while I thought about rebellions. He blinks as we watch one another, waiting for someone to make the first move. In the moonlight, his blond lashes nearly disappear, but I know that they're golden in the sunlight. "Katniss."
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull our bodies together. He puts up no resistance, although his breath hitches as I brush my lips over his. Peeta's hands rest on my back, clenching into fistfuls of my shirt as his eyes close and he shakes his head.
"We shouldn't," he whispers.
"I don't care," I confess and a strangled moan rumbles in his chest for a second before his arms clasp me tight and his mouth covers mine. Hunger like I've never known before consumes me, ravaging all thoughts of should or of anything but kissing Peeta. His hands rove over my back, into my hair and down to cup soft flesh in his hot palms then back again. One of us or both of us will be dead in a few days and I have run out of reasons to hold back from him.
His lips skim over my cheek to my ear, then down my neck as I tip my head back and let him. I cling to his arms as my knees quake and vibrant life pulses in my veins. He murmurs my name to the valley between my breasts, and even though I'm still fully clothed, I feel laid bare before him. Peeta grips handfuls of my nightgown, tugging it up to expose my calves to the cool air of his room, but he doesn't push any further, seemingly content to hold me in his arms and kiss me.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, I wriggle out of his embrace. Fear and something else flash in his eyes. He releases my nightgown as I step back, but I take a deep breath and slip the button at the base of my neck through the slot. As I keep going, I manage to bring my gaze down from the ceiling to see if I am having the desired effect. I've never given much thought to seduction before.
Peeta's wide eyes remain riveted to my hands, his mouth open and his chest heaving. A thrill races through me and I use his distraction to lower my gaze further, momentarily startled as I notice something shifting in his shorts. Of course, I know the basics, having seen mating animals before, and that one awkward talk I had with my mother after Gale and I got back from the Games. But knowing it and seeing it are two different things.
By the time I reach the last button, at my waistline, Peeta's shorts have turned into a tent. I bite my lip and suppress a giggle. This probably isn't a good time to laugh, so I focus on his eyes, just in time for him to lift his own to meet mine.
"Can I…?" he licks his lips, teeth catching on the bottom one before he manages to speak again. "Can I touch you?"
"That's kind of what I was hoping for," I say and that's all he seems to need, reaching out with both hands to slide my nightgown off my shoulders. It drops off my body with a little help and pools around my feet. Peeta groans and palms one breast, his thumb swiping across the nipple, making me gasp at the sharp burst of pleasure.
He curses and lowers his head, his mouth making me feel things I never thought possible. THe swift way they course through my body and settle, pulsing, between my legs has me clinging to his hair, my body stiffening in automatic fear. Peeta scoops me into his arms and lays me on the bed, crawling on top of me and murmuring words of praise, beauty, and undying love as he paints kisses and caresses over the canvas of my skin. Gradually, I relax, reminding myself that this is what I want. And why shouldn't I? What we do here tonight will hurt no one. Not if I'm dead in two weeks.
Peeta nuzzles my belly and my abs twitch in response. I curl my fingers through his hair, playing with the tresses as he looks up at me and rests his chin next to my belly button. "I want to taste you, Katniss. Can I do that?"
"Haven't you been tasting me for the last five minutes?" I ask, confused by what he's requesting. His eyes widen for a second and then he kisses my hip before sliding back up my body.
"I'll take that as a no," he says and I turn my head to keep him from kissing me again. His lips land beneath my ear, but he seems content to kiss there as I squirm and try to get out my question.
"I just don't understand," I say petulantly. "Tell me what you mean."
"Alright," he murmurs and one hand floats down my side then between us until he's cupping my sex. "I want to taste your lips."
His fingers rub slowly over the fabric covered folds and my legs relax, opening further for him as warmth begins to pool where he touches.
"I want to taste your sex, your pussy, your flower, your honey," he says. His lips curl up in a smile that I can feel and I hear teasing in his voice, but laughter at the ridiculous words bubbles up in my chest until he moves aside my panties and the rough pads of his fingers trail through my folds. "I want to swallow all of the wet down here and pleasure you until you cover my tongue with more. I want your uninhibited moans as I drink your release, Katniss. So I'll ask again...can I taste you?"
"I guess so," I say uncertainly. He shakes his head and slips one finger inside of me.
"I won't unless you're certain." His finger pumps slowly, my walls catching on him, but his lips and fingers soon have me spread wide on the bed and panting, gripping his shoulders and begging for more with each thrust of my hips into his hand. When his tongue dips into the hollow of my collarbone and I shiver in response, the words spill out.
"Do it! I want you to!"
I expect immediate results, but Peeta takes his time moving down my body until I'm growling with impatience and frustration when he slips his fingers from me. A second later, my back bows on the bed and I stuff the sheets in my gaping mouth to stop the noises as he laps at me. My toes curl and his tongue zig zags through my folds, dips inside me as the hunger shifts to unbearable starvation. Fire rages behind my eyelids and my knees knock into his head until he grips my backside and sits up, taking me with him until he's kneeling and I'm practically upside down, drawn tighter as he tastes and tastes and sucks, making a meal out of me and my pleasure.
"Peeta," I manage to say, the fear rife in my voice as the feelings hold me together for one brief moment before I fly apart and kick wildly in the air.
When I am able to think again, I open my eyes. Peeta has already set me back on the bed and now kneels between my spread legs. He uses the sheets to wipe glistening moisture from his lips and chin, a faint smile quirking his lips. His shorts are still tented, a small patch darkened with something wet. I reach out to touch it, wondering if he was able to ejaculate while he tasted me. His penis twitches at my touch and I look back up at him.
"Is that it?" I croak. Peeta cringes and moves to stand, but I sit up and place a hand on his thigh to stop him, unsure what I said to hurt him. "I just meant that you…"
Lacking the words, I drop my gaze to his shorts and take another deep breath before I pull out and lower the waist band until his erection bobs free.
"Huh," I say curiously. I've seen one before, since naked bodies are not an oddity in the home of a healer, but never one in its erect form. I reach out a tentative hand and touch the liquid on his tip, rub it between my fingers as he sucks in a breath. Since he's not protesting, I run a finger down his length and watch the thing respond. His skin is hot to the touch, but it slides over the underlying rigidity. Peeta uses one hand to hold his shorts down out of the way and I use both hands to explore him, occasionally looking up to watch his chest rise and fall with heavy, steady breaths. His teeth digging into his lower lip, and his lashes quivering against his cheeks.
Just when I think I've got the hang of touching him, he snaps his shorts back into place and shrinks away from me. Before I can protest or explain my inexperience, his lips find mine again, pressing me back down into the bed as I startle at the strange taste on his lips. It's different and as his tongue sweeps through my mouth and his hips grind into mine, I realize that it's myself I taste on him. Knowing this, I make a study of the taste until I decide that I like sucking it off his tongue and his lower lip. Or maybe I just like the noises he makes when I do that.
Either way, it stirs the hunger back to life and I tug at his shorts to let him know I want him in me.
"Katniss, maybe we should stop," he groans but neither of us makes a move to quit or leave the bed. "I don't have any protection."
"Doesn't matter," I say as we get his shorts off and he kicks them to the floor. He winces and I read pain in his eyes for a moment. He probably thinks I mean that it'd work to our advantage. Then there really would be the possibility of a baby when I leave the Arena. But he doesn't know that I don't plan on leaving the Arena at all and I somehow know he won't want to hear it now, or if he does, he'll just start talking about how my family needs me and test my resolve over who should survive these Games and that's the last thing I want right now, so I pull his head down to mine and kiss him swift and short before saying something I think he'd rather hear instead. "I want to feel you. All of you. And just you. Inside of me."
He looks uncertain, but grips himself. The head of his penis shifts through my folds as I try to relax, but he's only an inch or two inside me before the stretch begins to hurt.
"No I can't. I won't hurt you," he says. I grip his rear and sink my nails into him, refusing to let him go.
"Don't leave me," I beg. We stare at one another a moment and then he pulls out of me, I make to argue but he rolls onto his back and pulls me on top of him, shifting my hips to align us again.
"Take as long as you need. I'm all yours," he says as I lower myself on him. He bites his lip and closes his eyes, flexing his fingers as I drop and rise, swivel and grind until it feels good again. Bit by slow bit, my walls stretch to fit him. Inch by slow inch, he fills me until I feel the pressure of fullness low between my hips.
"Oh," I say in wonder as I sit with him fully inside of me. He's still not looking at me, though, and I am torn between relief that he can't see my awkwardness and consternation because I want to feel connected to him. This is pointless if he feels a million miles away. "Peeta?"
"Trying not to embarrass myself," he says and I laugh.
"Why would you embarrass yourself?"
"Because I've never done this before," he admits quietly. His words confuse me.
"But that girl...the night you were drunk as a skunk…"
"She sucked my cock, Katniss. We didn't go any further than that. We didn't...have sex."
I sit there in silence, considering his words and the strange joy that spreads through my limbs at the realization that this is something that is ours. Something that we share.
"If you've changed you're mind-" I stop Peeta's words by moving my hips experimentally. His mouth rounds in a silent "o" and his knees bend up, supporting me as I keep moving, hands braced on his clenching abs, his feet planted firmly on the mattress.
The hunger spreads more slowly this time, driven out to the tips of my being my our shared pleasure and the rush that I feel at the effect I clearly have on him. Our eyes lock and his hands roam over me, help me at times and titillate at others. Time seems to stand still as all that matters is us. Just Katniss and Peeta and whatever this seed is blooming between us.
"Katniss," he moans, his neck arching as his fingers dig into me and pull until I fall forward, catching myself with my hands on his chest as a tiny pearl of pure sensation rubs against him and I gasp. He seems lost to the world, so I move my hips of my own accord, frantic and crazed for the release I can feel coiling taut. My body clenches with need until it bursts under the pressure and I thrash on top of him.
Awareness is slow to return and with it comes embarrassment. Something wet and sticky pools between us. I open my eyes to find red claw marks crossing his chest. But his hands rub up and down my back and his breath dances over my hair as we lay there, a heartbeat away from sleep.
It's only when I wake in my room, with Cinna knocking on the door and reminding me that I might want a shower that the guilt sets in my bones. How am I supposed to pretend he's nothing but an ally?
I grip handfuls of moist soil in my hands as I watch Finnick work and Peeta's life drain away. It's my fault. I hadn't warned him in time about the forcefield. My chest aches and I tell myself it's from Finnick stiff arming me just a second ago, but as Peeta finally coughs and rolls to his side, the aching bursts into sunlight and I scramble over to him.
"Peeta?"
"Careful," he says. "There's a forcefield up there."
I laugh but it's tainted by the ugly crying.
"You were dead!" I sob, not thinking of the prudence of my words. "Your heart stopped!"
"Seems to be working now," he says.
I help him sit upright and brush his hair off his forehead, scattered leaves from his wetsuit. I press my hand to his chest where I had my ear earlier, to feel the reassuring thud where just moments ago I found stillness and silence. It's only Finnick's presence and his comment that pregnancy hormones are clearly making me overly emotional that keeps me from flinging myself at Peeta and kissing him for our entire world to see. He's alive, and that's all that I care about. But the warning reaches Peeta's ears, too and translates into the look he gives me.
You're engaged. To Gale. You're supposed to be pregnant with his baby.
Not crying over Peeta.
I'm careful after that.
The jabberjays provide a real test as Peeta holds me and I cling to him afterwards. Even the beach as we wait for midnight and he talks about my family waiting at home and how I'll make an amazing mother. As he speaks, I want to silence the lies with my lips, but I know that I can't. Our survival depends on the entire world believing that I'm carrying Gale's child and that Peeta is nobly sacrificing himself to save a family.
And yet, I can't help but think that if either of us could be a parent, it should be Peeta. It doesn't stop me from dreaming of a world with no Games and no Capitol. Of a meadow, like the one in the lullaby I sang to Rue, where Peeta's child could be safe.
When our allies suggest we separate, I search for a reason to argue. I can see he is too, but we have nothing. No argument to stand on if we're nothing more than allies. I've already pushed too far, and yet...as I tell him that I'll see him at midnight, my body sways towards him and his towards me. We halt ourselves just in time, and I can only hope the audience blames the heat and dehydration.
Everything falls apart so fast I don't have time to think about audiences or anything other than finding Peeta and protecting him as I race through the jungle. The blow to my head slows my thinking and I stare at the wire next to Beetee, trying to figure out the plan. The canon sounds and I screech his name. His response is much closer this time. I kneel in the foliage as I hear someone approach from the opposite direction of Peeta's voice and scream again, drawing them into my trap.
Then the moonlight glints off of Finnick Odair's bracelet and Haymitch's voice is in my head. I wrap the wire around my arrow just as Peeta crashes through the undergrowth and halts to watch me. His knife drips red. I aim towards the weak point in the forcefield, my eyes flickering to him for one last view and I scream at him to get away from the tree.
As I loose my arrow, he smiles. Lightning strikes and the world explodes.
