Chapter 10
"This could be much worse," Gale tells him. "You understand that. You could be tortured, beaten… deprived of food and water and sleep. This is nothing." And for all that Peeta knows and agrees, he can't help the shudder that passes through him at the curl of fingers into his flesh, the sharp drag of teeth against his throat, warmth engulfing him and his breaths harsh, needy, lungs burning for the lack of oxygen. If he could just—move, then the pressure in his spine would begin to ease and—
Gale give a sharp, high pitched little whimper and Peeta's eyes snap open to a ceiling that's unfamiliar to him and surroundings that he can't place. It comes back to him slowly; the torn down curtains, the scattered, broken furniture. Gale's decision to have him moved to different quarters in the south wing. It shouldn't be his call to make, but then Katniss hasn't been in to see him since that first day and Peeta is fast giving up hope that she will anytime soon. Perhaps there's strategy in her absence. Perhaps she just doesn't care.
He showers quickly and efficiently, scrubbing his face in the sink until any memory of ghostly fingers on his wrists has faded to the reality of puncture scars on pale forearms. The shigawire left a mark on his flesh just as solitude is twisting his mind. That's all there is to it.
Dressing himself takes time, but only because Peeta insists on dragging out the minutes. There won't be anything for him to do but pace the length of the room like he did yesterday. If he'll come up to a step or two less than usual, he'll know to start again, this time adjusting his strides until they match perfectly. Then he'll stop and look out the window—this one smaller than the last and without curtains—to see the sands stretch out beyond the shield wall. He'll look for wormsign, but won't find any.
Maybe he will try to stay awake to catch sight of the pretty servant girl who brings his food and collects his laundry. Maybe he will fail. Sooner or later, sleep will claim him again and his dreams will betray him with unconscionable visions. He will wake again and catalog the memories as meaningless debris.
He will go mad.
Peeta rights himself slowly, considering the sharp edges of the mirror and the rough corner of the sink. He has belts, too, in the armoire in the other room. It wouldn't take much to provoke the guards, if he doesn't dare go through it alone. But a deeper query begs to be considered; what if he is brought back? There is nothing he can do to fully obliterate his body. The Tleilaxu are crafty enough to use the tiniest speck of blood for their experiments and Peeta doesn't want another shot at this.
After eleven hours of waking torment, he watches the 'thopters swarm over the palace keep and disappear into the blackness of the night. He knows, though no one has come to tell him, that Katniss is aboard, gone to celebrate in her sister's name in the one place Peeta will never be welcome.
"See anything interesting out there?" Gale's voice comes through loud and clear, but he's no figment of Peeta's guilty imagination. He stands in the doorway looking tired but not unhappy, his belt devoid of the usual ceremonial weapons. A pack of hexagonal game cards is in his hand and he waves it sloppily when Peeta's gaze drifts to the new object. "I thought we could play."
It's not the most surreptitious attempt Gale has made of forcing him to talk. Peeta keeps this in mind as he steers himself away from the window to the only seating offered by the sparsely furnished room. "The bed will have to do."
They share the cards between them, ten each and the deck laid out with only the topmost card revealing a painted figure. Gale examines the hand he's dealt himself and passes the turn. He doesn't speak much through the operation, just like he didn't speak much while on the back of a worm, his body a thin, taut line against amber sands. Peeta's hand is better. He could meld three cards even without picking up the solitary offering and take the lead in what is likely to be a short game. It was like this with his brothers, before the reaping, before they refused to do for him what Katniss did for her sister. He misses their games.
"Do you know where my folks are?" Peeta turns down the top card, flicking another one from the deck. "They haven't been to see me or… They must know I'm here." The whole world knows; what happens in Arrakeen happens to the empire, be it revolution or domestic drama.
Gale's smile is full of regret (but not, Peeta is surprised to note, pity). "They're still at the sietch. I think. I haven't heard any petitions." And Peeta thinks: of course you haven't, they know their interest and I'm too much of a live wire to take into one's arms.
He melds three cards just to show he can and shifts against the bed, wishing for the crawling in his bones to stop. Three months of this and he's already proving his Masters right; he's weak.
"If it were me, I'd wait until the Regent made a decision. No point risking my family before I know my son or brother will get a definite pardon. And if he doesn't, I have time to prepare his escape." Gale doesn't meet his eyes. "That's what I would do."
It's sacrilege and comfort in a single, unnecessary answer. Peeta can't decide what he's to make of it; Gale has never given an inkling of friendship towards him. He's not supposed to care about his survival, but rather to define the best way to murder him. "That's the difference between you and most people in the sietch," Peeta murmurs thinly.
Genuine interest seems to prompt a question. "What?"
"You think Katniss is just a person… She's not, is she? If she wants me dead…"
"Katniss doesn't know what she wants." This, from her most loyal defender, strikes Peeta as the worst sort of betrayal. He bristles on her behalf, but there's no time to jump to her defense. Gale has that angle covered front and center: "She's taken the court to the sietch to celebrate her sister's coronation. She doesn't want Prim on the throne any more than she wants to take a stand against her. But she's the only one who can make that call. The rest of us, we're just pawns, aren't we?" Gale's blue-in-blue stare pierces like a silver-tipped arrow. "You should know that better than most."
"Because I'm ghola?"
Gale has the temerity to shake his head, his expression shuttered. "No. Because you were a boy made to fight to the death for the amusement of perverted elites."
Memories are conjured up too easily. Peeta knows this, having spent the better part of a year trying to parse truth from lie and first impression from second-hand information. He's no better prepared to tell one from the other, but he has questions and he feels brave enough to ask them.
The cards in his hand fold into a neat stack, the sharp points digging into his fingers. "How did she lose her arm?" It's obvious he wasn't there to witness it; or, if he was, his memories are blocked by some mechanism of Tleilaxu origin. One failing is no better than the other.
"There was a fire. The Gamemakers lost interest in the slow turnover, so they thought they'd rush things along. Katniss survived, but the flesh on her arm couldn't be rebuilt. There was nerve damage, infection…" Gale averts his eyes. "When it was over, she asked for a working prosthetic. It hasn't changed her much, she's still good with a bow, when she has time to shoot." Not often, Peeta infers, and Gale misses their time together.
"I died before that, didn't I?" He hears his own voice as if it's coming from faraway, an echo of a question perched on the edge of his lips, tumbling into uncertainty.
Gale struggles with himself. This must be one of the things the council deems Peeta should recall, if he's to be regarded as a full person. But the council hasn't seen him in months and Gale is alone here, with only his conscience as guide. Peeta watches his fingers as he manipulates the cards—three melded Bishops and a Rook facecard turned up on the deck—with a killer's precision. This is the man who's had ten years with Katniss, with the new world order and his own freedom. This is the boy who rode worms while Peeta stared longingly from the cliffs and yearned to be out on the sands, in control of his own destiny.
"Tell me." He means it as an order, but the plaintive edge mangles the words. The cards in his hands have twisted to rumpled carton.
"You broke your neck. I assume." Gale rests his chin in his hand, looking inexplicably tired—for this, Peeta feels some small amount of compassion, but not enough to keep playing the other man's games. "The explosion you remember blew out Katniss' ear and propelled you back into a tree. Shrapnel put a whole in your spine. After that…"
"They flooded the arena with fire." Peeta remembers heat licking at his fingertips, the scorching pressure of a fireball inside his mouth. Pain so excruciating it rendered him unconscious.
He doesn't realize he's shaking until Gale has a hand on his nape, his voice low but urgent, telling him to breath. To relax.
It's over now. Fear is the mindkiller.
After, Peeta isn't sure how it happens. He remembers Gale's hand—fingers chilled and strong as they slide into his hair—and his mouth, but not the hitch of his own breath, the tentative drag of teeth against the fullness of Gale's lips. The warmth coiling in the pit of his stomach. He expects Gale to kiss with violent intent and bruising force, only to find him careful and reserved, as if he has as much experience with this as Peeta does with wormriding. The comparisons are there, if he looks for them; but there's no space for thinking.
Gale keeps close in the aftermath, shuddering with tension and unspoken things. His fingers card through Peeta's hair at a feeble pace. Up, down. Up, down. "We shouldn't have done that," he sighs, the warmth in his voice spilling over Peeta's ear in a tremulous sigh. Strange, it isn't like Gale to make mistakes. That's Peeta's territory.
He doesn't offer him absolution, but the second kiss is made easier by the softness of the bed and Gale's hands on the small of his back.