Chapter Rating: T
Author's Note: I was asked to warn readers when the rating for this fic would change. It looks as if the next chapter, chapter eight, will be rated M, so add a story alert if you don't want to miss the next chapter. I've said this before, but I love my readers and appreciate every review, comment, and kudos more than I can say. It's just a shared Katniss/Peeta love fest I'm chuffed to be a part of.

Chapter Seven

I'm not always blessed with the most restful, peaceful sleep even though Peeta's at my side, which he is—every night. Sometimes I still wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. I imagine I always will. But with Peeta sleeping beside me at night, his arms are there to comfort me. His arms are strong and reassuring, and when he holds me tight and slowly rubs my back through my t-shirt, my sobs peter out and goose bumps replace tears.

And eventually his lips comfort me too. The first time his lips find mine is so startling that I cut myself on a shard of glass that I have gripped in the palm of my hand.

Haymitch has his good periods and his bad. In the good he takes care of his geese as if they're his children and shouts at us from his porch, and sometimes we all have dinner together—hot stew and crusty, freshly baked bread. It's a strange kind of normal between us three. We're an odd sort of family, bonded by unspeakable things. Which is why it sometimes gets bad for Haymitch, and when it's bad, it's as bad as it ever was before.

A niggling suspicion that the reason the geese are all over my yard squawking and hissing is because Haymitch is drunk draws me to his house one afternoon, when it's so hot I cut the sleeves off of an old t-shirt in desperation earlier in the day for relief. I enter without knocking and the state of the living room confirms to me that something is wrong. Calling his name elicits no response, but I finally find him slumped on the ground against the painted kitchen cabinets surrounded by shards of glass from a broken bottle of white liquor. Whatever was left in the bottle before he dropped it is spilled out across the white tiles and soaked into his pants.

He's much too heavy for me to even attempt to move, so I phone over to Peeta's house. I could walk, it's what I usually do, but Haymitch's breathing is shallow and funny sounding, so I don't want to leave him. I cursed him for being a drunken idiot when I found him, but I don't actually want him to die. I don't think I could stand it if something happened to Haymitch. The menace of another personal loss sets my teeth on edge.

Peeta comes into the house with flour on his apron and his hands, looking as if he didn't stop for anything before jogging over to help. "Where is he?"

"Kitchen."

I feel safer when Peeta's around, and I try to tell myself that Haymitch is safer with Peeta here too, but neither of us know enough to actually save him if he needs medical assistance. I follow Peeta into the kitchen and watch silently as he shoves Haymitch forward and hooks his arms under his armpits. Even Peeta can't dead lift Haymitch, but he drags him into the living room, which somehow seems like a better place for him than the kitchen floor, and while Peeta tries to wake him up and get him to drink some water, I work at cleaning up the broken bottle.

It takes me a full ten minutes to locate the dust pan and when I do the little broom isn't with it anymore, assuming at one point it was part of a set. I have to use the full sized broom I find in the pantry, and the handle is broken off half way down, as if it was used for some much more violent purpose than sweeping. The broken broom, empty kitchen cabinets, and dusty curtains remind me that there's no one to take care of Haymitch. He's alone in a way Peeta and I will never be so long as we have each other.

Peeta used to say that I was Haymitch's favorite. In truth, I think he despises me a little bit, because I'm too much like him—it's like looking in a mirror and the reflection isn't particularly flattering. As I kneel, careful not to push my knobby knees into the glass, and angle the dust pan against the floor, I wonder where I would be without Peeta. If my future would lead me to a place very much like this. Something would end up being both my crutch and my undoing. If not white liquor, then morphling or those little blue sleeping pills prescribed by Dr. Aurelius. I used to hold the bottle and read the label—Katniss Everdeen—until I had the dosage memorized. I've felt the weight of them in my hand, which is barely more than a feather, and I used to hear them whispering to me from the medicine cabinet before Peeta.

Before Peeta.

Now it's the after Peeta that frightens me.

It's awkward wielding this too big, broken off broom, so I finally give up and gingerly pick up the pieces of glass, depositing them in the dust pan.

"That doesn't seem safe," Peeta says.

I hear his words before I look over my shoulder and see his feet planted at the entrance to the kitchen.

I stand, still holding a shard of glass in my hand, and turn to face him. Giving my head a toss to free myself of a lock of hair that keeps falling in my face, having freed itself of my braid, I prepare to ask him about Haymitch, but as he looks at me, his brows draw together and his hand goes out to brush my arm.

"Hey, he'll be okay," he says, squeezing my elbow.

He's staring at me so queerly that my left hand goes to my face reflexively, and that's when I realize there are tears wetting my face.

"Damn," I curse, twisting away to swipe with my bare forearm across my cheeks. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You're tired."

He's right. Last night wasn't one of my good nights either. I'm selfish enough to think that Haymitch could at least time his episodes opposite mine.

I lean against the counter and take a deep breath. "You're probably right."

"I've got a big loaf of rye about to come out of the oven. That'll soak some of that liquor up. He'll hate us, but he'll be okay by tomorrow."

"We should check in on him more," I say, rubbing my forearm under my nose once more with a sniff. "He's alone."

Peeta nods.

I look down at the glass in my hand, tilt it until it catches the light, the bright afternoon sun streaming through the window. This liquor means a lot to Haymitch. He's dependent on how it makes him forget or numbs him for at least a space. It's the reverse with my dependence on Peeta—I'm desperate to feel something—but if he was gone, I might also settle for the nothingness a bottle could give.

"I might end up a drunk too."

"No, it tastes awful and the headache after isn't worth it."

I scrunch up my nose, wondering if Peeta speaks from experience.

He leans against the counter next to me and bumps his hip against mine, offering me a half-smile. "No way you'd end up a drunk, Katniss. You're strong."

"So is Haymitch."

It has nothing to do with strength. Still, it's nice to hear. Especially since I feel as delicate as the now smashed bottle beneath my feet half the time.

"It's just that he doesn't have you. Or, I mean, not you specifically. I have you and if I didn't, I wouldn't be strong," I fumble. "That'd be me," I say, gesturing towards the living room.

I'm staring at the wet, glass strewn floor when he tilts my chin up so I have to face him. His eyes are so full of understanding as they look down at me that I feel tears begin to leak out of the corners of my eyes again, and I desperately blink to try to stop them, which seems to only make them fall faster.

"You're wrong if you think couldn't live without me."

My mind goes back to the conversation I overhead in the Capitol, when I was supposed to be asleep. Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.

"It's more than that, Peeta." I'd survive without Peeta, but it wouldn't be living.

"Well, don't worry about that. I'm not going anywhere."

I roll my eyes at this well worn insistence of his.

"Where would I go?" he says with a teasing lilt to his voice, as he moves around me, his feet on either side of mine, so close that the small of my back presses hard into the counter and my toes curl in my boots, as his hands skim over my bare shoulders. "I'm useless on my own."

"So am I," I whisper back, and by the time the words leave my mouth, his lips are touching mine.

It's like a jolt of electricity and my hand clenches involuntarily around the glass, which digs into the soft, fleshy part of my hand. My gasp makes him pull back, although his hands still grasp my arms. I open my hand and grimace at the red blood that runs in thin rivulets down my wrist.

I'm about to complain about the damage I've done to myself, when his grip on me becomes painfully tight. I drop the shard to the floor, and my eyes dart to his face, which is lined in rigid concentration.

"Don't move," he commands much too loudly.

I want to wriggle free of him, find a dishtowel and wrap up my bleeding hand, but his nostrils are flared and I can hear the grind of his teeth against each other. Darting away could make everything go to hell.

"Peeta?"

His eyes squeeze shut, as he says, "It's the blood."

I tuck my bleeding hand behind my back and wait for it to pass, wait for his face to soften, while he squeezes my arms so tightly that my fingers begin to tingle. When his hands finally flex against me, releasing me from his hold, I slip away, turning on the faucet and grabbing for a towel in one quick motion. I exhale as the cold water runs over my hand. When it's numbed some, I turn it off, and in the silence I can hear his breathing evening out as I wrap my hand up. It could probably use a stitch, but a butterfly bandage will do, and I can manage that much on my own.

"Are you okay?" he asks and he sounds so much different than he did a few minutes earlier. His episodes take a toll; they wear him out, even these little ones that don't really bloom into something terrible.

"It's fine," I say, holding up my blue checked towel wrapped hand. "I'll be okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"I ruined that, didn't I?"

The kiss, he means the kiss, and as I realize it, my eyes are drawn to his lips, which in that brief moment had felt soft and pliant.

"No. It was my fault."

I watch him swallow, watch the roll of his Adam's apple above his soft white t-shirt, and for a moment I picture him without it. He's got a hint of a farmer's tan from sitting out on the front lawn with me sometimes in the early evening. I know about that tan, because he only sleeps in his shorts, so I see his skin in the slanting moonlight, when his skin's warm against mine. Warm like an open oven.

"Can I try again?"

If I wasn't thinking about running my hands over his naked chest, I might have said no. The shock of the pain in my hand has dried my tears and he doesn't have me cornered. I'm not as vulnerable as I was a few minutes ago, so I could say no, but I don't. I nod yes, and he closes the distance between us in two steps.

His arms reach me first. They slip around my back, his large hands pressing into me until I'm flush against him and I'm certain he can feel my heart beating out of my chest. For a moment we stand like that, his head tilted down close enough to kiss me, his lips slightly parted so I feel his breath ghosting over mine. He smells like dough. It's a good smell, a reassuring smell, and I know his stillness isn't an episode. His face is never this relaxed during a hijacked memory, and though his eyes are closed, I can see they don't track quickly behind his lids the way they do when he's reliving a nightmare. But he waits as if for some sign.

I murmur his name, and his lips find me. They close over my lower lip, pulling, gently working my mouth open. I'm rusty at this and slow to catch on, but I finally think to return the favor, sucking at his lip until he slants his mouth against mine. At the stroke of his tongue, I make an embarrassing sound, which I don't have time to regret, because he's already drowning my noise out with one of his own. I feel it rumble through his chest and in my mouth as much as I hear it, and I grip his arms to keep my feet, to prevent myself from sinking right down into the minefield of glass below. Another sweep of his tongue and I chase after him, my heart skipping and thrumming against my ribs, as I desperately breathe through my nose so I don't faint. The lightheadedness has to be oxygen deprivation. It has to be.

A curse and a crash from the living room make me jerk free of his arms, and Peeta groans angrily, his empty hands fisting in the air.

"Why can't you sleep it off, damn it," he mutters under his breath.

I'd laugh at his frustration, which is sort of sweetly amusing, but I'm ready to yell at Haymitch myself. I don't know where we were going with that kiss, but it felt good. It felt so real, and no one was watching.

"I should…we should..." I stammer before sidestepping him and walking towards the living room.

It would seem that Haymitch knocked over a table and its lamp in trying to scramble off the floor, but despite the upturned state of room, he appears more interested in me than the damage he's caused, while I right the table with my uninjured hand and test to see if the lamp still works.

Peeta stands behind him, his arms crossed over his chest and still looking irritated. Maybe he can't bring himself to help quite yet.

"I interrupt you two?" Haymitch asks with a cough.

I straighten up. I look from Peeta back to Haymitch with his bleary, bloodshot eyes. I can feel my cheeks heat, and I wonder if it's written all over my face, if my lips are swollen or…

"You have flour all over your ass, sweetheart."

Looking down, I can see that it's not just the seat of my pants. Everywhere that Peeta touched me, everywhere our bodies pressed together I'm dusted with white, and if Haymitch wasn't staring at me I think I'd like to leave it be. I think I'd like to just goggle at the patches of white that suddenly seem like proof that against what initially seemed like insurmountable odds, Peeta and I are growing back together. They tried to ruin this—tear us apart, make an enemy out of Peeta—but they failed.

*Don't forget the upcoming rating change!*