Bring me home in a blinding dream… through the secrets that I have seen. Wash the sorrow from my skin…and show me how to be whole again.

'Cause I'm only a crack in this castle of glass. Hardly anything left for you to see.

~Castle of Glass by Linkin Park

A/N: Some dialogue in this chapter is taken directly from the movie 'Unbreakable' because I found I could not improve upon it, regardless of effort. I did try changing it as much as possible, however.

Peeta stormed through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

"Ouch, god dude, watch it! How'd you think I was getting in the house? Through a window? You almost broke my freaking nose. We got here in the same car, you prick."

He stopped at the landing, just as he was setting foot on the first step and turned partway to send a withering glare at his older brother. "No, Rye. I'm fed up with your crap. There's nothing funny about what I did. That kid's in the hospital. Stop cracking jokes to make me feel better. It's not freaking working and you're pissing me off!"

"Whoa, what's going on?"

Both teens turned to face their oldest brother as he entered the foyer, sporting nothing but pajama bottoms, socks and a cup of something steaming.

"Flax, man, aren't you supposed to be helping dad out at the bakery while you're here instead of moping around all day? This is a super busy time of the year for him."

Bracing his weight on his arm against the banister, the Mellark oldest shrugged a shoulder casually before answering, aloofly, "Bite me, Rye. Dad has plenty of help down there and I haven't had a decent vacation since before I started high school. It's all been internships and summer jobs with dad since I was thirteen. Because I had to set the example for you jerks. I'm milking this. Now, what were you saying about sending some kid to the hospital, Peeta?"

Before he could respond, Rye volunteered with an obscenely inappropriate amount of excitement, "He broke Ulrich's clavicle today in a match. Didn't even need the floor for counter leverage, snapped the bone with his bare hands like a freaking twig. It was brutal. Awesome."

His violet eyes widening in surprise, Flax turned back to his baby brother, failing to keep the astonishment out of his deep baritone, "Always knew Cato'd piss someone off to the point he'd end up bleeding or broken. But, dude, I never figure it'd be you."

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Peeta wasn't sure why he felt so defensive, but he was finding the accusation of doing that to someone, unhinged him. "I didn't even notice I was holding him that tight. I phase out for a nanosecond and the next thing I know, he's screaming bloody murder and the paramedics are trying to immobilize his arms to keep the bone from diverting and puncturing his lung." He felt queasy just describing it. "Look, I've dealt with too much of people getting hurt or dying around me. I'm going to take a nap or something before dinner."

Before he could dash up the stairs, Flax put a hand on his shoulder, effectively regaining his attention. "Peeta, it happens… all the time. Rye and I both have broken or fractured someone's shoulder blade or their arm. Albeit, not that easily, but… it's part of the sport. Heck, it's even happened to us. Remember that time I bruised my calf so bad it was in a brace for a month?

"And I've broken three fingers in my left hand- pinky and thumb on my right, playing tightend", Rye supplied in a hopeful tone with a ridiculous smirk, as if sports-induced bodily harm were a medal of honor or something.

Peeta suppressed a grin at his infantile optimism, stubbornly determined to hold on to his contrition-induced foul mood. But his brothers' words did bring the odd card currently tucked away in his health book to the forefront of his mind. He tried thinking quickly of a time, a game, where he'd been injured, but drew a complete blank. So, he scrutinized his brothers briefly before asking, "What about me, guys? Do you remember me ever getting hurt?"

Rye instantly opened his mouth to respond, having the quickest whit of the three and, by far, the most photographic memory, but shut it with a snap and a befuddled expression a second later. He focused his eyes on Flax as if the older boy's face concealed the answer, bringing his hand up to scratch his chin in thought. Flax's expression was almost a mirror (especially considering how much all three siblings resembled each other), only he tapped all fingers in a sequential pattern on the banister to help him think.

They both seemed to be coming up empty.

"Nah, man," Rye finally spoke up after several moments of introspective silence. "I don't think you've ever been hurt playing sports. I'd remember. You've always had the odds in your favor, you little bastard."

Peeta let out a disappointed breath and turned to go up the stairs to his bedroom, calling over his shoulder to his brothers, "Thanks anyway, guys. And, Rye? We have the same biological parents, so every time you call me a bastard, you're insulting your own mother, moron."

He was halfway up the stairs when he heard the retort.

"I'm more than fine with that, smartass."

Peeta finally let out the snort he'd been repressing. None of them was particularly fond of their matriarch.

First thing he did upon reaching his room and securing the door, was going for his window, bracing it wide open. He had no idea why Flax liked keeping it seventy-five degrees whenever it dropped below sixty outside. It was like his oldest brother was reptilian. Peeta was always suffocating two minutes after setting foot in that house whenever Flax commandeered the thermostat. He settled the duffle bag with his wrestling uniform into his closet (he'd throw the uniform in the wash later) and set his book bag next to his laptop for easy access when he started on his homework later.

He made quick work of the now stifling thin knit sweater vest and long-sleeve button-down he'd worn to school, leaving him in a wife beater and corduroys. He was working on the fly to the pants when he heard the telltale beep of his cell, alerting him to a new text.

Shrugging the sweltering garment off quickly, he ruffled through the back pocket for his phone and unceremoniously plunged himself on his bed to answer the message, side-eying the pieces of clothing he'd left scattered on his floor in his haste. He was anal about not picking up after himself. Something about not having a maternal figure to take care of that kind of stuff for him, he'd always figured. But, then again, Rye was a pig who cleaned his room once a year because their dad literally twisted his arm and the man kept insisting they derived from the same genetic material, and they'd both definitely been abandoned by half its composition, so there were some very obvious holes in that theory. Maybe he just had OCD… or his brother was a lazy, disgusting jerk. He was leaning toward the latter.

Katniss: Are you okay?/ You didn't look so hot when they took Cato to the hospital / You need me to come over after I finish helping Gale out with his essay?/ We can just talk

'Oh, god, yes! For the love of all that is holy, please come over. Come over right now. Screw Gale. Wait. No. Don't screw Gale. But, yes. Come over!'

Of course, that's what his heart and likely some other teenage hormone driven areas screamed at his brain to answer her the instant he saw what she'd written. He took a minute to write, delete and rewrite his response, however, allotting for areas of his anatomy which were properly oxygenated to dictate the content of the message.

He needed her. There was no denying that. But, he knew she was trying to figure stuff out, too. And overwhelming her with everything he wanted to share with her, everything he'd experienced that day, what he thought he'd seen with Jo and Cato, the crushing guilt he was feeling over what he'd done to him. The even greater attrition he felt over not feeling nearly guilty enough about what he did to Cato, not after that flash of whatever that was he'd witnessed…

How could he explain all of that to her without driving her off? Without having her label him a freak? Especially, when they were just starting to feel somewhat comfortable with each other again. Yes, she was the first person outside his family he'd ever trusted enough to tell about his 'quirk'. But this was different and, as their relationship stood, he simply wasn't sure he should risk it.

Peeta: I'm fine/ Just shaken/ That's never happened before to me but it happens all the time in wrestling/ I'll send the jerk a get well e-card or something ;p

He hoped that read more chipper than he felt. He waited a moment for her reply, bringing a hand up to run through his hair roughly, eying the clothes on the floor again. He was beginning to rise to get them to the hamper when the phone beeped again and he brought it up, smiling at her reply.

Katniss: LOL/ Okay/ Don't believe the e-card thing/ See you tomorrow/ Walk me to class?/ XOXOXO

This time his response was spontaneous.

Peeta: Always

Still smiling (he had still to figure out how she always managed to get him out of a funk), he got out of bed, scooped up the discarded clothes, joined them with the uniform in his duffle bag and threw them in the hamper of the Jack and Jill bathroom he shared with Rye. Then, he plopped down at the chair at his desk, still in just his boxer briefs and wife beater, bringing his book bag to his lap to unzip it. He figured he might as well get homework out of the way early. There was no way he was getting a nap in before his father got home for dinner, not that he believed his restless thoughts would allow him the respite necessary for sleep. He could already smell the signs of their nightly meal wafting up from the chef's kitchen downstairs.

Technically, it was his night to cook. His dad had made sure to teach all of them the culinary arts right along with baking pretty much since they could see over the counter. It was a survival skill in a household dominated by testosterone and the overactive metabolisms of growing athletes.

So, a schedule had been instated since their mother had bailed, along with their list of chores to keep the house from falling apart, indicating which boy prepared meals on which day of the week- except for Sundays. Sundays were always daddy-cooking days. It was the reason the man demolished their formal dining room to extend the kitchen into the massive room it now was, with double industrial ovens, a sub-zero freezer, two refrigerators and an eat-in counter, large enough to sit eight comfortably.

However, since Flax was home and loved to do it anyway, he was volunteering to take over the duties for his younger siblings during his stay.

From the smell of it, big brother was making ham-stuffed chicken breasts. Peeta's stomach rumbled in anticipation. He'd have to raid the fridge for a snack before dinner. Flax was killing him.

Doing his best to ignore the aroma permeating the house, he started pulling out books one by one until he came upon his health book and paused. Frowning, he opened it to the front page and found that odd card staring back at him. He sat back, tossing the book on his desk with the others as he flipped the card through his fingers, looking around his room at the plethora of awards and plaques his father insisted on using as wall décor. His eyes settled on a framed perfect attendance certificate from fourth grade and instinctually, he sought out another from seventh nearby, then another from second, kindergarten, last year… he realized he had one for every year he'd gone to school.

That was odd, wasn't it? Never having missed a single day of school sick? He remembered Flax staying home with chicken pox when he'd been around four. His mother had made such a fuss about having him and Peeta home all day and having to take care of such a sick child. She was definitely not winning any mother of the year awards, that one. He also recalled that Rye had caught it from him the very next week and his mom had just about blown a gasket. She'd gone to stay with her sister. Their dad closed the bakery to look after his older brothers until they got better. But, for the life of him, he couldn't remember having caught it himself.

And he was pretty sure his father made a conscious effort to infect him when Rye first caught it, too. He remembered sharing weird oatmeal baths with an itchy five-year-old, who kept squeezing disgusting boils time after time, even though their father kept telling him not to. His brother's back still bared the jigsaw puzzle evidence of his obstinate idiocy.

What was stranger still, Peeta couldn't recall a cold, a serious cough, anything beyond a mild headache after getting knocked on his head. But he remembered sitting through all of those with his brothers at some point or another. He'd felt pain. That much he knew. He'd cut and burned himself plenty of times cooking or baking. It was a hazard of learning the Mellark trade. But, he couldn't remember getting sick.

The crease between his brows deepening, he reached forward and powered up his laptop. He had a Tumblr, too, but barely used it. Mostly, he followed artists for inspiration with his own work, to hone his technique. He'd taken art classes since he'd first shown his father his rudimentary drawings from art time in pre-K. His dad had always nurtured any kind of artistic talent he or his brothers showed. Flax considered his glee club membership a conversation starter to hit on girls and made it a point to show off his range- to anyone. Inhibition didn't exactly run rampant in their family. Rye could've been a concert pianist if it weren't for his penchant for breaking fingers. Well, that and his complete lax when it came to actual practicing. He had an amazing natural talent, though.

Their old man even divided the basement into a music and art room with an easel, art supplies and a grand piano on one end and a playroom with a pool table, projection TV and row of theatre seats at the other. His father basically dedicated himself to becoming mother and father to them for the last decade, making sure their every emotional, intellectual and physical need was met. The man was irreplaceable.

And Katniss believed he had any kind of desire to move away from home after high school?

Truth be told, if he could have his way, he'd just forgo college altogether and take over the bakery so his dad could retire early. But, the man was only forty and loved what he did. It'd basically be an insult to ask him to retire any time soon, tantamount to rendering him obsolete. The best he could do was study close to home, something that could earn him a good steady salary in a field he enjoyed, until his dad was ready to leave the shop behind. Then, he'd take over so the old man wouldn't have to worry about their family's legacy going to some stranger who'd run it into the ground. He owed the man that and infinitely more.

Once the laptop booted, he immediately clicked into the browser and typed the address on the card. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but somehow, the minimalistic, almost sterile theme with post after post of comic book characters sketches, was decidedly not it. He allowed his eyes to roam the page toward the URL icon and they immediately widened in recognition.

Why would he of all people leave a card like this in his locker?

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

He had no idea why he was so apprehensive about approaching this dude. He was just another dude.

No. That wasn't true. He wasn't any ordinary dude. He was some creepy senior who'd left a card in his locker instead of approaching like a normal person.

And then there was the other thing. The elephant in the room thing. Seriously, how many kids had a Segway parked beside them all the time in school? The only period he shared with Beetee Malhotra was study hall and he'd never spoken to him. As far as he knew, no one in the school had. He sat alone, perpetually reading something or another on an electronic pad or on hard copy. For all Peeta knew the kid was mute. He had to be differently abled in some way. The school didn't make concessions for his expensive mode of conveyance and the elevator key he obviously employed to maneuver it from floor to floor, otherwise.

He'd only known of him for as long as they'd shared study period, which was barely half a year, but both his brothers had been in classes with him longer and had shared rumors about him. Apparently, his parents were both government-contracted engineers and wealthy enough that he had no reason to attend a public school like District Twelve. The way the stories went, he'd been in private schools, likely specialized for whatever was wrong with him, until he started high school, at which point his parents decided it was in his best interest to finish his education here.

Peeta could not fathom how this place could possibly ever compare to a fancy private school, but he wasn't going to question someone else's choices. After all, Madge's father was major of their town and one of the wealthiest investment bankers in the state, but he still honored his daughter's wishes to have what she considered a 'normal' high school experience and allowed her to come here. Peeta now wished he hadn't. He would never have met her but she'd still be around.

Approaching the table in the solitary corner of the library the eighteen-year-old sat at with a caution that, once again, had him internally kicking himself, he cleared his throat. When the boy with distinct, angular, south Indian features that should likely have been a dark copper shade but were ashen from sun deprivation (probably from far too many hours spent indoors), moved his almond, shadowed eyes slightly away from his reading material to acknowledge his presence without really looking at him dead on; he immediately outstretched a hand.

"Hello, I think you left something in my locker," he fumbled uncertainly.

The older boy's eyes flitted with a degree of curiosity from his hand back down to his magazine, his lips a thin line before he spoke, not bothering to accept his greeting, "If you're that uncertain I left it, I highly doubt I did."

Peeta found himself transfixed by this young man. Not so much by his outward rudeness. After all, having your reading interrupted by a stranger could be construed as rude, also. What fascinated him was the fact that he was putting off next to nothing- no emotional charge, no neural activity. He was at some sort of flat line. He wasn't close enough to sense a heartbeat, but something told him he'd be unable to register even that if he were. He'd never met someone with this level of control over their body's normal responses. It was as if he was in a coma. It was so bizarre.

At the sound of the older teen's icy retort, however, he managed to break out of his stupor. "The card… whoever left it… it had your Tumblr on it and a question. It asked if I'd ever been sick."

This got the boy's attention. He sat forward in his chair, closing his reading material, which Peeta could now see was a comic book, in order to focus his eyes more properly on his face, analytically. Even with the outward shift in demeanor, Peeta still registered nothing. "So, have you ever taken ill?"

"Dude, that's a pretty freaking weird and honestly creepy thing to ask a random stranger you've never met before… and on an anonymous card."

To Peeta's surprise, especially since it did not register in any way as a spike in his emotions, Beetee's frown deepened as he interlaced his gloved fingers - black leather Isotoner touch screen gloves, he noted… neat. "A card with a webpage address is hardly anonymous. And besides, is there anything about my outward appearance that strikes you as ordinary, Peeta?"

He had to admit, he had him there. "Good point. Still creepy."

"I'm not much of a socializer. My skills are rudimentary at best. Take a seat, please," Beetee motioned to the seat across from him with a slight head gesture and, if out of nothing but morbid curiosity, the younger teen found himself settling into it. "Now, can you please answer the simple question?"

Peeta bounced the fingers of his right hand on the table, narrowing his eyes and huffing out an exasperated breath. "I don't know how to answer it, man. I've never missed school because I was sick and I don't remember getting any normal childhood diseases like my brothers did. I couldn't give you a definite number of days, though. I don't remember. Why would you ask me of all people that in the first place?"

An eyebrow quirked on the older boy at his question, but he just continued as if he had not asked it. "Well that doesn't give me a vote confidence…" Peeta wasn't sure he was still directing himself at him, the way his voice seemed to trail off pensively, his gaze unfocused. Then he locked those cold onyx eyes on him to ask his next question. "I assume you've never been injured, would I be wrong in that assumption?"

Peeta could do nothing but glower in confounded fascination at this void of a boy for a fraction of a moment before snorting out in aggravation, "Dude, I was raised in a bakery. Of course, I've gotten burns and knicks. It's part of baking!"

The boy before him sat back in his chair, a slow breath escaping him and, once again, Peeta was at a loss. The kid showed every outward sign of frustration, yet no inward reactions. What kind of person could function like this?

"I'm going to be extremely skeptical of all this."

Okay, he'd had enough. This dork needed to stop speaking in this Jedi knight bull language he was using. He didn't want to be mean, but he had better things to do. "Yeah, look Beetee, I'm supposed to be studying for an AP Euro History test next period, so if you're not going to tell me why you left that note in my locker…" He was getting up to leave when the sudden drop to the tone the boy used as he spoke his next words made him pause and straighten in his chair to listen.

"I've studied the form of comic books intimately, Peeta. I've spent most of my life confined to hospital bed after hospital bed with nothing to do but read. At the age of nine, due to my condition, I refused to walk out my own home. Therefore, my mother, in an attempt to draw me out of my own fears, placed a gift on the bench in a small playground facing our home. If I wanted it, I had to go out there and get it. Well, at that age, desire certainly outweighed reason, so I ventured out onto that park, onto that bench and, folded in fine giftwrapping, was a limited edition Amazing Spiderman comic book. My mother sat beside me as I looked upon it with awe and promised a new one every day I ventured out to that bench. And so began my fascination with this medium. I believe comics are a last link to an ancient way of passing on history. The ancient egyptians drew on walls, many civilizations all over the world still tell stories through pictorial form, the aboriginals in Australia... You're an artist yourself. You can sympathize with this, can you not?"

Peeta found himself nodding absently, enraptured by the unaffected passion in the teenager's words, something in the back of his mind questioning how this kid knew his favorite hobby.

"I further believe comics are a form of history, something someone at some point experienced, drew, set down in ink and paper. Then, of course, the commercial machinery distorted it, blew it up, cartoonized it to make it marketable. This small town of ours has seen its share of disasters. Do you know why I'm here in this school, Peeta? My parents hoped to find a 'safer' environment for me. You see, I've had the misfortune of being a firsthand witness to some of these at my previous schools. When I was ten, there was a fire in my grade school. It was after hours and the only casualties were a small group of six children in the afterschool program, plus the aide who looked after them. This was a state of the art magnet school. Nothing but the best for my parents' sickly only child. The automatic doors to the room they were all in malfunctioned. The smoke seeped in through the AC vents. They all suffocated."

"In seventh grade, this didn't even have anything to do with the school, really. It could've happened anywhere. Pure happenstance allowed it to occur on a weekend class trip to the falls, on a tour of the hydroelectric plant. My parents only allowed me to participate because it was a learning experience they thought important. They've always imparted a respect for mechanics and engineering in me. The spa at the resort we all stayed at shorted out with nine students in it. All were electrocuted."

Peeta swallowed thickly, uncomfortable. Though, he wasn't sure if it was because of the morbid undertone of the conversation or the fact that the blatantly emotive redaction was coming from this vacuum of a living being. The boy, however, continued, either oblivious or uncaring of his discomfort at the topic so soon after his own ordeal.

"I'm an observer. I watched the aftermath of that fire. I watched the ambulance cart the bodies of those children off to the morgue. I watched the news, waiting to hear a very specific combination of words, but they never came. Then, several days ago, I saw the news story about an overturned bus from my very own school and I heard them: 'There is a single survivor and he is miraculously, unharmed."

Beetee let out a relieved scoff, as if the retelling had been as much an ordeal for him to share as it was for Peeta to hear. The complete lack of flux in the upperclassman's output, made him seriously doubt it had, however.

After that brief interlude to exhale, the older boy continued in the same unaffected manner, "I have something called osteogenesis imperfecta. It's a genetic disorder. My body doesn't produce sufficient levels of a specific protein, causing my bones to be very low in density- very easy to break. I've had twenty-one breaks in my life and I have the tamest version of this disorder… type one. There are type two, type three, type four… type fours don't last very long."

"So, that's how the concept struck me. If someone like me exists in this world and I'm at one end of the spectrum, hypothetically, couldn't there be someone else opposite of me at the other end? Someone who doesn't get sick, who doesn't get hurt like the rest of us?" Beetee leveled a pointed look at him, his voice changing in tenor with his vehemence to be understood, "And this person probably doesn't even know it. The kind of person," he gestured at his closed comic book with an open gloved palm, "these stories are about. A person put here to protect the rest of us… to guard us." He finished with a beseeching glare at the younger boy.

Peeta gaped in return, unsure how to respond to, well… the absurdity of all of that. Mostly, he just felt sorry for the kid, obviously lonely, isolated, suffering a horrible disease. He could understand how he would conjure up such an outlandish fantasy- such an impossible theory. But, he'd gone there that day seeking answers, hoping whoever left that invasive note had somehow read into him the way he read into others and could help figure out why he was so unique- not some lonely weirdo looking for someone to play World of Warcraft with and feed ridiculous bull. He'd actually woken up hopeful that day. Now, he was just irrationally angry and disappointed.

Knowing he'd likely feel guilty later for letting that disillusioned anger out on this poor kid, he responded in a scornful huff, "So what? You think I can fly, scale walls? That's wonderful." He violently pushed away from the table, getting ready to leave.

"I never said that," Beetee exclaimed urgently with that same eerie aloofness. "It's just a possibility, one with many holes," he tried to convince him.

Peeta rounded on him, the last of his patience wading. Forgetting the fact, he was talking to someone ill. "Look, I don't want to be part of whatever social experiment you're conducting out of boredom or desperation or whatever. I've had a rough couple of weeks. I've lost friends. That question you asked… thinking about it made me feel… I don't know… less sad somehow. I don't know why and I was hoping whoever thought it up could help somehow, but you obviously have some other crap going on. So please don't leave any more junk in my locker. If you knew anything at all about me, you'd know clutter's a pet peeve."

He turned to walk away to another section of the library in the hopes to get some study done before his next period, when Beetee's parting remark met him. "I hear congratulations are in order, Peeta. Getting into Florida State as a sophomore is no small feat. Your family must be so proud, as must be that pretty dark haired girl you favor."

That halted his progress. He'd received a formal recruitment email from the university less than twelve hours before, letting him know of their interest in him, that they'd be sending a formal acceptance letter with details about his scholarship in the mail in a few weeks. He hadn't even discussed it with Katniss, yet. Not because he wanted to keep it from her, necessarily. He just didn't know how to tell her, needed time to think up the right words. That and he was holding out on a couple other local universities, anyway. There was no rush to jump the gun. Not when he knew her feelings on the matter already and could foresee the unpleasant way that conversation would undoubtedly play out.

The question was, how did this kid he'd just met for the first time in his life not ten minutes ago know about it? He turned back to face him, his brow furrowed in prelude to his inquiry, when Beetee beat him to it.

"As my blog page says, Peeta. I'm a tinkerer… and as you learned today, I am an observer. My page has a URL tracker. That paired with a little computer skill…"

"Were you even going to tell her? Or, are you willing to sacrifice it, your plans, your desires, all for her without so much as letting her know? Give up what you want for the woman you love, such altruism… Sounds like the stuff of stories to me."

Trapped in a whirlwind of conflicting reactions: confusion, outrage, admiration, invasion, speculation, skepticism… Peeta settled on lashing out as a blind defense mechanism, stomping away fuming.

"Stay out of my computer, man. I swear, I'll turn you in to the cops for cyber invasion. That's so not okay. And while you're at it, stay the hell away from me, too."

A/N: The action in this fic will definitely pick up from here. I just needed this transitional chapter to get everything set up. Now that all the pieces are on the board, we can really start the game. (And hopefully get some more Everlark fluff in here.)

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