Sometimes the truth won't make you happy, so i'm not even going to try. I know sometimes I get angry and say what I don't mean. I know I keep my heart protected, far away from my sleeve. But don't ever question if my heart beats only for you. It beats only for you.
'Cause when you've given up, when no matter what you do, it's never good enough. When you never thought that it could ever get this tough…
That's when you feel my kind of love.
~My Kind of Love by Emeli Sandé
" We should take it slow, Peeta. You know? Fixing us? Making sure whatever this was that came between us, we never let it happen again- healing us. We have all the time in the world. You focus on getting better for right now and I'll be there when you're ready to mend us… Little by little. We have each other. We have time. We'll go slow."
That's what she'd said as her parting words to him in that hospital room a week before, gently stroking his cheek with the pad of her thumb, a steady stream of moisture tracing a path down her cheeks. She'd kept her forehead braced to his the entire time they'd spoken (well, really, she'd mostly spoken because his throat was too raw to contribute much to the discourse), as if losing that physical contact with him were tantamount to losing him to some unseen abyss forever.
He'd wanted to disagree with her in that moment more than anything, tell her taking things slow with her was the last thing in the universe he wanted or needed. That almost dying only reaffirmed his resolve to spend every waking second he had with her in his arms. But either the heavy sedative drip pumping into his veins or the haggard, emotionally drained cast to her dark shadowed eyes – it could've been either or both, really – made the words an impossibility. In the end, he'd accepted her last lingering, reluctant kiss and watched her walk out of the room as Rye held the door open for her.
Then his ass of a second oldest brother'd cracked a heinously tasteless joke about his pretending to die to get some action and completely blown the atmosphere. At least Katniss had been out of the room and far enough out of earshot to miss it. Flax had immediately coldcocked him to the temple.
He'd gotten a sore, strained laugh out of that. The only positive of that nightmarish situation was his oldest brother getting out of school and driving out to be with him. Flax's university had offered a full semester off, so he could help his baby brother cope with whatever injuries he'd suffered (they had no idea he'd suffered none) and the Mellark oldest was taking the institution up on it. He wasn't about to put school before his family.
So, here they sat ten yards away from each other in a crowded cafeteria of subdued students, back after a nine day hiatus of mourning, enforced by the school for 'psychological health'. Him with his usual group of friends and her in a far off corner alone with Gale, who'd condemned himself to a form of self-imposed excommunication from society since Madge's death. The only person outside his family he spoke to was Katniss, his part-time job as a tech at a local small electronics shop not exactly exacting the most conversation skills.
Not that Peeta knew this because she was keeping close quarters, of course. True to her words, she'd made a conscious effort to keep physical distance from him for days, as if she no longer trusted herself around him. She chose instead to keep him apprised of her ongoings through a flood of constant texts and calls. It was an ignoble surrogate for really having her, sensing her. She was one of the most emotionally guarded, closed off people he'd ever encountered. It'd both fascinated and titillated him from the moment he'd noticed her the first day of school all those many years before. Every slight reaction, every spike in her pulse, acceleration to her breathing pattern, subtle softening in lines to the almost ever present scowl she wore around others; he saw all of it as a triumph when he coaxed these out of her with the right twist of a phrase, a smirk, a touch, a kiss.
He hadn't even been sure what she was afraid of doing to him, but now, as he continued staring straight into her eyes that had been adamantly locked on his for the last ten minutes, that look of desperate, unbridled anxious longing, spoke volumes for her, of things she wasn't telling him, terrified to tell him. He could feel the fine hairs on the forearm he rested casually on the table raise in reaction to it. She was terrified her words, her true feelings, would drive him to abandon her again. She was horrified of breaking him.
Somehow, he found that so much worse than any physical pain. How had he never seen this before?
"Hey brainless, you sure you didn't suffer any brain damage in that crash?"
He snapped his head away abruptly at the grossly tactless jab, his incensed eyes landing on the dark haired girl leaning back on the stool across from him. "That is not even remotely funny, Jo. Be grateful Delly's not back yet because she'd…"
"Cool your jewel's, golden boy. I've been trying to get your attention forever while you've been off in La-La Land, staring at dark, short and emotionally constipated back there with the disproportionately gorgeous, wallowing sequoia. Desperate measures and all that jazz, you know. And Delly would do what if she were here, dude? Huff indignantly, slam her plate, harangue me with a sermon on my insensitivity as if I can somehow sprout filters in a week, then run off crying? Besides, if she were here, I'd make myself conspicuously absent, just to prevent that scene. That girl does not need my particular brand of salt in her wounds."
"Or you can make a conscious effort to stay quite while in her presence, Jo. It's not written in stone that you have to be a sarcastic, cynical smartass every waking moment."
The Latina rounded on the petite brunette with the duel pigtails perched on the lap of the bronzed demi-god beside her, eyeing her with something akin to reverence. Annie seldom spoke and certainly never with that kind of moxie. "Well lordy-lord, is that what it takes to grow you some balls, girl? A bus full of mangled kids? Jeesh, you're freaking demanding, Cresta. You can't make due with just a pound of flesh? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that was at least a ton…"
"Johanna!" Peeta's hand came down on the table with such force, it groaned from the stress.
Finnick was the one to his feet and in the other girl's face, however. His girlfriend too shocked and slack jawed to get any kind of retort out. "Do you really think that's funny, Mason? What in that sick, twisted mind of yours tells you making light of a bunch of kids dying, completely needlessly, horribly, ten days ago would be humorous to any of us? Much less Peeta, who was actually freaking there. You're an emotional oddity. We get it. Your sentimental meter has a screwed up needle that doesn't sway far enough to allow you to feel crap the way the rest of us do. We can accept that. But have the decency to shut the hell up if you can't understand how the rest of us aren't in the mood to put up with your bull."
Peeta registered the neural connectivity flare through Johanna the infinitesimal fraction of a second before her retort and knew just how off the mark Finnick's comment was. 'Feelings' were definitely not something this girl lacked. "You know what, Finn? Screw the lot of you. I don't need this. I don't need any of this tearing up, bellyaching, 'remember when she and remember that one time he' crap everyone's hung up on. You want to mope and burry yourselves in this pit of despair forever? Fine. But, don't drag me down with you." She finished, getting to her feet heatedly, grabbing her tray and stepping back as she leveled a venomous glare at the couple. So focused was she on her hasty retreat, she failed to notice the large hand that closed around her wrist to halt her until her wide set eyes diverted almost frenzied to its owner.
Peeta ignored the jolt akin to a hit to his funny bone that emanated from where their skin made contact, transcending the avalanche of guilt, sorrow and betrayal the touch unveiled. The emotion was so raw, so present, for a fraction of a moment it weaved itself into an actual image in his periphery, an image of a little girl crying under her bed, holding an even smaller boy. Both had their hands to their ears furiously as a male and female voice rang beyond her bedroom door. Then, the screaming escalated, there was a big boom and the little girl ran. She scrambled out the bedroom window and didn't look back.
Then, in the same flash the image came, it went and Peeta found himself staring into Johanna's seemingly angry eyes. Only, it was no longer anger he saw. It was confusion, attrition, self-deprecation- the enraged anarchism was a mask.
"Jo, don't go. Please. We're all just on a short fuse. I overreacted," he tried, hoping to see that strength, that light of insubordination he now realized was her lifeline, come back to her eyes.
He thought he saw a flicker of it ignite the dark hazel before she flicked them away toward the tray return station, forcibly extracting her hand and turning. "Nah, dude. I'm sick of this negativity. I'm gonna go shoot some hoops or something at the gym. Least the jocks are shallow enough not to care about anything beyond sports. See ya around, Mellark."
Peeta watched her walk away, realizing for the first time he'd never asked her why she never talked about her family. Yes, she always complained about how her grandmother was a pain in the butt who never let her have her way or buy the clothes she wanted to wear. But, beyond that, Johanna Mason, might as well not have had a past. He had no idea what that flash of an image he'd seen when he touched her had been. He'd never had that happen before. But he had a sinking feeling she was desperately trying to erase whatever that past had been.
"Watch it, pipsqueak!" Peeta literally fell out of his reverie and into the lunch table by his side, his hipbone making harsh impact. Bracing his arm to right himself, he followed the sound of mocking chuckling to the tall, muscular senior invading his personal space, flanked by another similarly built, if slightly leaner, upperclassman- both blondes, both pricks.
"So, I hear thanks to some bull Affirmative Action crap you're being bumped up to the Varsity tournament tonight. That's fair. No, that's totally fair."
Peeta had to angle his head quite a bit to return the sneer the older boy was brandishing upon him. He was hardly the shortest guy in his class and, at five six, he'd read somewhere he was right around average height for sixteen-year-olds. Nevertheless, he was decidedly the shortest guy on the wrestling team and the new Varsity captain since his oldest brother graduated, whom he was currently having this lovely chat with- this freak was six two. He just hoped he wasn't in a chatty mood, he really didn't need a stiff neck from talking to this jackass.
"For starters, Cato, Affirmative Action was instated in the sixties to protect minorities against discrimination. Now, my ancestry is Norwegian, I'm as white as it gets. So, if you're going to say something ignorant and quite honestly idiotic? At least shoot for something that won't come off as blatantly bigoted, too. 'Cause, man, your last name's Ulrich and I'm guessing your family doesn't like talking about who was where doing what in the forties back in the old country."
From their close proximity, the steadily swelling anger felt like the static charge of an inpending storm. "And the roster for tonight's tournament was made last month. The accident had no bearing on it, but your sympathy is overwhelming… really. I weighed out of the JV weight classes. It's that simple. The coach wants me on the heavier class because I honestly couldn't lose the weight if I tried. I didn't doanything to gain it. Look at me. I'm the shortest guy on the squad. So, before I hurt someone who's my size but twenty pounds lighter, Coach decided to move me up. What do you care, anyway? I couldn't possibly be a threat to you, right? I mean, it's been my big brothers who've wiped the floor with you consistently for the last four years, not me." He couldn't help the obscene smirk that edged one side of his mouth as he finished his statement.
A moment later, he found himself on his back over the lunch table, Cato gripping the scruff of his shirt menacingly as he leaned over him, huffing irately, "Listen, you little jit. I don't care what the coach's reasoning is for putting you in our squad a year early. You get on the mat with me tonight, something's breaking."
By this point, Finnick was on the older boy's back, trying to get him off Peeta. But, of course, regardless his impeccable physique as a swimmer, the senior had an easy fifty pounds on him. The fact that his accomplice took to his aide and wrapped Finnick in an impossible hold to subdue him didn't help. What did help was the fact the conspirator seemed a little more aware than his friend.
"Cato, dude, he's not worth getting suspended. The cafeteria monitor's going to see you. Get off him."
Katniss and Gale reached the table as Cato composed himself and none too gently made a show of straightening Peeta's shirt as he sat up, both teens still staring daggers at each other. "You should thank Marvel here for saving your butt, Mellark."
His unimpressed eyes flitting briefly to the leaner upperclassman who was in the process of relinquishing his hold on Finnick, Peeta offered icily, "There's a lot of things I'd like to say to Marvel. But they'll be time later this evening, right?"
Both boys snorted derisively, walking off in the direction of the exit with an air of superiority. Annie immediately came to Finnick's side, fussing over him and not believing his repeated oaths of being unharmed as they walked away together. The trio that remained stayed in awkward, uncomfortable silence, watching them walk off until Katniss finally spoke.
"What was that, Peeta?"
"Spoiled puppy pissing on his favorite fire hydrant," he said without looking away from the couple exiting the cafeteria double doors. But as he felt the hairs on his arm perk slightly, he turned back to find she had an eyebrow raised and her mouth wasn't set in the usual thin line she always kept it in at school. One side ever slightly angled upward. He felt the familiar flutter in his stomach. She had no idea.
Gale cleared his throat and mumbled a barely discernible goodbye to Katniss and something about seeing her later to study. Peeta reminded himself the kid was in mourning and no threat to squelch the jealousy that threatened. Then, the older boy left them to their own devices.
Face to face for the first time since the hospital, they found they could barely meet each other's eyes. It was really ridiculous.
Finally, Katniss huffed out a breath and stated unsurely, "I might as well be getting to creative writing, then…"
Something about her dismissive tone had him feeling she was shutting him out again and he went into panic mode. "Um, let me walk you there. It's on the opposite side of the building from my next class, but I can use a walk to clear my head."
She looked uncertainly from him to the door, then back, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth before replying with finality, "Sure. It'd be nice to walk with you a little while."
They walked in complete, suffocating silence, that same sense of fear emanating off her in mild waves that made his skin crawl, until finally, they came across a staircase to the second floor. Without presage, he grabbed her arm, spinning her through the doorway and into the empty stairwell, locking the door behind them. A surprised squeak left her at his sudden action and at being shoved up against the wall, but his mouth descending on hers quickly silenced that.
She was too surprised to respond for a second, but soon her hands found their way to his hair, tangling in the longish waves at the nape of his neck to pull him closer. They knew this dance well and when he nipped softly at her bottom lip as she'd been doing earlier to herself before lightly running the tip of his tongue over her upper lip, she eagerly opened her mouth to grant him entry. It became a slow exploration, a relearning of every curve and angle, of becoming reacquainted with that peculiar sound that came from deep in her throat when he skimmed the bridge of her mouth from back all the way front. It was slow and full of that which went unspoken, fulfilling.
When they broke apart, they kept their foreheads joined the way he knew she needed it, that connection that kept her feeling safe, grounded. His words were a hushed, plea, "Come see tonight. I love it when you're there with me at my meets."
She breathed out slowly and already he could feel her slipping, closing off. He joined their mouths again. This time slanting his over hers while stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb, his other arm holding her flush to him almost crushingly; this was faster, an attempt to coax the acquiescence from the very source. His lips were rough as he ravaged her upper lip, taking it between his teeth to gain entry into her mouth where he dominated, conquered, elicited unwitting moan after moan from her.
Then he pulled away abruptly, causing her to chase after the feel of him, rue his absence on her swollen skin. Her eyes snapped open to find his boring into hers, beseeching, heated resolve like blue lava, coiling in what little of his irises was visible. She found herself getting lost in those eyes. She couldn't deny him. "Fine, Peeta," she huffed resigned. "I'll go. But I have to study with Gale after, okay."
No. That wasn't okay. He wanted her to stay with him afterward, not go off with some other guy, regardless of 'friendzone' status. But he was aware of the tenuous state of their relationship and the sizable concession she was making, considering her ambiguity with him and sports at the present. He could live with it.
"That sounds perfect," he replied, gracing her with a brilliant smile.
She actually snorted in response. "Now walk me to writing class or Boggs is going to flay me."
He raised her hand and placed a kiss to the underside of her wrist, causing her to flush in a way he didn't have to be hyper empathic to feel through his skin. "As you command, sweetheart."
She smacked him in the shoulder- hard. "You're a cheesy idiot."
It took them no time to get her to class and, this time, the silence was companionable. He raced down the quickly filling halls to his locker to get his books for his next class, health. Upon reaching it, he quickly turned the lock, and opened it, what looked like a business card launching out at him. Apparently, it'd been wedged in the crease of the door and he'd failed to see it in his rush.
He stooped down to pick it up and read the neat handwriting:
How many days of your life have you been sick?
Peeta looked up from the odd card, hoping to spy who might have left it. Not noting anyone paying particular attention to him, he shrugged and flipped it over. The other side wasn't much more helpful:
limitededition-by-glass dot tumblr dot com
It was a freaking blog. Someone was screwing with him. He was so not in the mood for that. With an irritated huff, he shoved the card in his book, shut the locker and ran to class.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
This was why Katniss hated coming to these things. She felt closed-in around crowds, smothered. And she was about three seconds from rounding on the two idiots directly behind and above her on the bleachers, grabbing a fistful of each of their perfectly primped hair and dragging their screaming butts the six steps to the floor to accuse them of sexual harassment against their fellow students to the coach.
As it stood, she was drawing on all her quickly depleting equanimity just to remain seated, her legs twitching violently as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to focus of the matches. She would've preferred to sit just about anywhere else in the auditorium, but pickings were uncommonly slim for this event- apparently everyone in the school wanted a reprieve from the cloud of doom and gloom looming in the atmosphere- and a sporting event was a good distraction. Also, she'd figured if Peeta'd asked her there, he'd want her within easy sight, not up in the nosebleeds where she was most at ease. So, here she was, dab-smack in the middle of the fangirl-groupie-ex-girlfriend-current girlfriend-reject-wannabe-girlfriend section, right above where the wrestlers sat awaiting their next matches. If only the seemingly endless vacuum of nothing but crap and disgusting sexual innuendo behind her would give it a rest for five minutes.
"Bow down to these painted on wrestling uniforms, though, right?"
And you just had to love their eloquence.
"I know, right? I mean, Marvel's got legs only poultry could envy, but Rye… those thighs… and everything else connected in his lower body… Do they wear cups or is that nature?"
She couldn't help the pained moan that escaped her. She was certain Peeta's brother would be one of the few people vain enough to find objectification like this flattering, but they were angling dangerously close…
"Pretty sure those are cups, Clove. You should know. We both know better than Cato being what's advertised here," the blonde she'd unwittingly learned to be Glimmer snickered mockingly, before continuing in a more appraising tone, "Baby brother's not bad at all, though. A little on the shrimpy side and he's got the whole sophomore thing going against him, but the massive back and chest make up for the height problem nicely. The lowerclassman thing can be overlooked for a body like that. And you know what they say about big things coming in small-"
That did it.
"You say one more word about Peeta Mellark and it'll be hissed through missing teeth." Regardless of her diminutive stature, the way Katniss loomed over them, her steel eyes fierce, challenging, arms crossed taught across her chest, managed to make both girls shrink into themselves. She was small for her age, but if she could field dress a young buck and haul it five miles to their beat-up old truck during hunting season, she was sure she was plenty strong enough to make good on her threat to these prima donnas.
Not surprisingly, she watched the rest of the meet in blissful silence.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
He couldn't keep what probably came off as an idiotic grin to everyone else off his face.
She was likely oblivious, well, she was usually oblivious to most things where reading others was concerned. So, it really was no surprise she was blissfully unaware to the fact that he'd heard her little confrontation with the girls behind her, even though he'd been in the middle of a match. Katniss was anything but reserved when her passionate side surfaced.
He'd already weathered some good natured ribbing from the guys on the team because of her outburst, including a delightful satire from Rye about finally understanding why he'd go for a girl that cold- she knew how to heat things up just right when properly motivated. His older brother probably meant to get more of a jab in, but the swift Charlie horse to his ribs had him doubled over, simultaneously gasping for air and laughing too hard for words to be plausible.
The smile was still plastered on his face when the coach announced the final two matches and he learned he'd be pitted against the team captain, having bested every other opponent that afternoon. His brother was on the parallel mat, facing a two hundred twenty-five pound senior named Thresh, who'd easily taken down guys a head taller and twenty pounds heavier than Rye. His brother was getting the shorter end of the stick there, if anyone were to ask him.
Casually walking up to the mat to take his place while stretching the slightly overused muscles of his arms by extending each in turn across his chest and holding his shoulder with the opposite hand, he graced his opponent with that same pleased smile.
"You used to your girlfriend fighting your battles for you, midget?"
Peeta's smile only grew in size and insolence at the older boy's transparent attempt to rattle him. "Pft, I wish. She's terrifying when she's ticked, man. And she has intimate knowledge of the use of sharp projectile objects. I think she made your girlfriends up there piss themselves."
Cato made a dismissive sound as if he couldn't possibly care, but the accelerated breathing and heartbeat he could pick up from the boy, told a very different story of the impact those words had on his volatile temper.
They got into their starting stance with Cato at the bottom, since he technically had the size advantage and the coach always did this at the start of matches. Peeta's plan of attack was the same as it'd always been: get under, sweep the feet, pin. He'd gotten used over the years to using the girth of heavier, more muscular opponents against them and, being smaller, he had a better balanced center of gravity than the behemoth wrestlers he faced. They also tended to underestimate him, mistaking his small stature for weakness. Which was stupid to begin with, because they wouldn't be wrestling each other in the first place if they didn't fall within the same weight class range. This is how jocks ended up with a bad rap- athletes who never bothered learning the nuances of their own sport.
The moment the whistle rang, Cato twisted from beneath him, which he allowed easily. After all, he needed him on his feet take him down for a double score. Then, predictably, Cato went for his shoulders, attempting to use brute force to twist him onto the mat for a score and possible quick pin. However, anticipating this, Peeta bent his knees with his left foot slightly distended, locked his hand around the older boy's neck just as their bodies collided, allowing Cato's momentum to drive him full into him. Then, he used his greater speed and agility to twist his head into the other teen's midsection, quickly bringing both hands down into the back of his knees and lifting, effectively taking Cato's feet from under him before he could even react.
Cato instantly flipped onto his stomach, trying to find the purchase to get to his feet. But, Peeta was already on him the moment his body hit the mat, the entirety of his torso weighing the senior down at the upper back, his knees bent close to his body for leverage. He wanted this over as soon as possible. So, in the blink of an eye, he reached for the wrist Cato flailed to propel himself upward in an effort to push him off, yanking it forcefully into the boy's upper chest while simultaneously wrenching his other arm under the older teen's opposite armpit and completely across his neck to lock him in a half-Nelson. He then propelled them both forward using the powerful muscles in his legs, making sure to lift Cato's elbow with his own as he flipped them and completed the pin, holding the older boy's shoulder down to the mat with his broad upper body splayed across him without conceding an inch on the hold.
In the seconds it took to complete the maneuver, he could feel the violent currents anger and frustration coil through his opponent. He'd dealt with enough such onslaughts to ignore the resulting unsettling effect that reverberated through him. However, the moment he pinned him, it was as if the cascade of vicious bile hit an apex and, as it had happened ealier in the cafeteria with Johanna, like a flash of light, the sensation crystalized into a tangible image in his mind's eye.
This was an image of Cato, much as he looked today in the cafeteria, drinking out of a beer bottle in the passenger seat of a pickup. As the scne shifted, he screamed excitedly to the driver as he saw someone in the upcoming corner- a girl, a young rather unpopular girl from their school who was chatting with friends. He hollered a command to the driver to speed up as they passed her. Then, Cato popped his entire upper body out the window, screaming obscenities at the girl. The moment she turned to look, the beer bottle he'd been drinking from shattered into her temple. The girl dropped to the floor with a hand to her bleeding head, the sound of Cato's raucous laughter echoing in background as the pickup sped off.
Peeta emerged from the split second vision to the sound of agonized screaming and the site of the EMT's that always stood by for sporting events charging toward him. It took him a moment to realize the screaming was coming from the boy in his grasp and another to register the awkward, angular lump to Cato's limp shoulders before quickly releasing him and scurrying a few feet back as if he'd been physically damaged by the contact, shock widening his blue eyes.
He hadn't even heard the bone snap.
A/N: Okay. I know I promised the villain reveal in this chapter and believe me, I tried. But this thing is honestly writing itself and grew way too long to include that dialogue in here. So, it'll be at the very beginning of the next chapter… unless I get sidetracked by the Everlark again. Everlark is endgame here, after all. Tee-hee-hee.
I did, however, do a reveal of sorts. I didn't want the Tumblr on the card to be a total fake, so anyone who's curious will find a nice surprise if they look it up.
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