I have to say that the entire cave seen has been difficult to write. I think I have possibly written this chapter about 20 times and deleted it, which is why I haven't posted anything. I am not even sure I am happy with this product but I have to let it go..With that said, I'm thinking 2 more chapters before this ends. It's been really great and I am sure Catching Fire will be a pure joy to write in Peeta's point of view. Thanks loads for being patient!
10
There is a moment where I considered not speaking anymore. If she didn't find me and moved on, her odds would be increasingly better than dragging around someone who was half dead. I have to be selfish though because for the past few days I have wanted nothing more then to see her bright grey eyes, the dark ripple of hair trailing down the curve of her back. It's like my hallucinations are arriving again and as a let out a deep belly laugh, her eyes grow wide at the sight of me caked into mud, weeds and the faint trail of moss making the shape of my body.
"Close your eyes again." she tells me and I am more than happy to oblige. I guess dying by her is better than having a chipmunk make a home on my leg as my corpse rots in the dark. With my luck some capital mutt would have made me dinner.
"I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off." she finally says, a hint of humor in her voice. We are finally friends here, in the place where life is as fragile as a silk strand taut on a spindle. It's nice to know that I don't have to worry that my actions will send her away because we both know we are loyal to each other and nothing else. I smile at her, I really can't help myself. She found me, she cared enough and that is all that truly matters.
"Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying." I joke, feeling the familiar sting of my leg making its numbing way up my body.
"You're not going to die." She says as if she is trying to convince the open wound on my leg and my insides to stop plaguing me, that she is now in charge. All the excitement is wearing at me and I know I'm getting weaker by the second. It's the joy of seeing her face that is keeping me going right now and I still try to make an effort to keep my eyes open to talk to her.
"Says who?" I barely manage to mumble.
"Says me. We're on the same team now, you know." She informs me as if I wasn't in the same arena when the announcement was made. She is trying to justify the need to find me and so am I. It would have been easy for Katniss to move on but something sent her back into the forest and bundling to this stream to save me. I hoped that my efforts to keep her from the careers had revealed my intentions, showed that what I told the capitol was more than some statement me and a drunk cooked up. She asks me where I've been hurt and I can't help my mind from making more comments and the products flowing from my mouth. I was telling her she could kiss me and she she laughed in reply which fills the forest with this refreshing air, giving me a third wind of life for today. Then she eyes me down one more time and prepares to torture me in the form pealing me from my coffin.
She rolls me to the water which makes me feel like I am going to pass out with each inch of ground I cover. I want to throw up but there is nothing left in my system to get rid of. I want to punch the earth just to take out my anger on something I cannot really hurt. I can see Katniss, her face crammed with frustration and compassion. She's talking to me and I am answering but my responses are not registering. I just wish she'd would lean over and give this dying man his one last wish, a kiss so long that I would have to force myself to take a breath. Her fingers flutter over my body and I feel my clothes starting to come off. I watch to see how far she was willing to go just to clean me up, a faint blush rising to me cheeks. I wasn't going to live long enough for this to be awkward later so if she saw me naked it wasn't a big deal right? I tried to keep telling myself those words but nothing hit home.
I watch her bite her lip as she searches through her bag and her hand emerges with a bottle. She slips pills into my mouth and forces me to eat a few bits of dried apple, coaxing them into my mouth as if I was a newborn baby. It's really sexy, the way she is taking care of me, the slight dimple that forms in her cheek when she is thinking too hard. I slip into the realm of a normal sixteen year old boy, the place where I would be aloud to notice these things and appreciate them fully. Reality is so stunning when it slaps you in the face and I find myself asking for sleep, possibly because I know my dreams could be filled with Katniss and nothing more.
Katniss doesn't indulge in my request and dives into looking at my leg. I haven't truthfully seen it in a while and the puss that starts cascading from the deep wound sends Katniss eyes rolling into the back of her head. I want to laugh because I am sure when she is hunting that she has experience a lot worse than my leg but once I catch wind of the rotten smell of my flesh, I gag. I watch her to see if I should intervene but she swallows hard and starts fumbling her finger tips around my leg.
"Pretty awful huh?" I say. Katniss tries to play everything off and explains that she has seen worse than this but I knew that it was a lie. I can sense it, that she is wondering how on earth she is going to keep me living through the night. I've already counted myself as a dead man but the confirmation in her face is still chilling. She shoves more food into my hand and I let out a groan, but her quick look makes me lift the pears to my mouth to take a weary nibble. She explains that she is going to experiment and I try to give her an encouraging nod. After a few minutes of silence I have to speak because I'm afraid if I stop that I'm letting precious minutes slip away.
"Katniss...How about that kiss?" I say, looking into her eyes. She laughs at me, just like before, and I want that kiss so badly that I reside to the innocent one year old pout.
"Something wrong?" I keep on in a soft voice.
"I...I'm no good at this. I'm not my mother. I've no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus, Ew." she says. She changes the leaves again but is a bit more truthful about how disgusted she really is. I like this playfulness and if I could only get that kiss, I would be set to die right on the bank of the stream. I think that it can't be that easy, otherwise I would have gotten one a half hour ago.
"How do you hunt?" I ask, tilting my head sheepishly to the side.
"Trust me, Killing things is much easier than this, Although for all I know, I am killing you." Katniss jokes.
"Can you speed it up a little?" I request.
"No. Shut up and eat your pears." She snaps, but then gives me a little smile.
It occurs to me that neither of us have had much human contact since the games has started. We have been able to talk to other players but there has always been this nagging feeling in the back of our brain, on when we are going to have to kill whomever we are with and how it will happen. We are actually at peace here, not worrying about who has what weapon, whether it is best to sleep with a spear pointing toward your opponents head. It makes the capitol feel so far away even though we are placed underneath its careful eye.
I let all of my reservations go. The scared baker who would not dare say a word to the girl with the braid has completely vanished. I need to just be...whomever I was too chicken to be before. I need her because that is what my heart keeps screaming at me. No more second guessing her actions and wondering how much trouble I have gotten myself into this time. Faded blushed kissing my cheeks are a thing of the past. I am ready just to enjoy the limited minutes I have left before I become a faded memory. Katniss hands me a backpack and I let my eyebrow lift a little in reply.
"Here, cover yourself and I'll wash your shorts." She instructs and after my mental breakthrough, I have become a little shameless.
"Oh, I don't care if you see me," I reply, rolling my eyes at this. Covering myself with a backpack, what has this world come to with me stripping down to nakedness on television?
"You're just like my family. I care, all right?" She responds. I refrain from teasing her too much because she could give my leg one good squeeze and send my mouth into a tight lock. I abide by her rules and send my last piece of clothing into the water, a splash signaling that I am now bare with nothing but a capitol product to cover me. If one of the other tributes came upon us in this moment I think I would choose to die sitting in this position rather than force a run with my bits hanging out. Actually, I would pay to see their face if they came upon this scene, pure genius this is. Katniss is by the stream and I focus my attention on her, like I've dedicated most of my life to.
I sit in the cave looking down at Katniss. Blood poisoning was meant to be the end of me but Katniss couldn't let it be. She had to go into the mix of things once more and this time her wound is entirely my fault. I can't even think of the times we kissed so far anymore, the joy and triumph of the very first one has left my lips. I am feeling raw and out of tune because she is still out cold and my bandage hasn't seemed to help her much in the way of returning to me. Waking up to see the one person you would take several beatings for, face death and laugh at it for, swimming in a pool of her own blood is enough to send your mind into a tail spin.
I never wanted this...I wanted to be the one who sent her home to her mother and sister, I never wanted to live without her. I stroke her forehead and steal another kiss, my lips grazing her forehead. I scoop her up and lay her in my lap, hoping that there is someway I can will her back to life. I keep praying to whomever takes care of our lives, I want to be taken away instead. I plead with the capitol last night when I found her to just shoot me because the games were not worth it...my life wasn't worth it. How can I be so dramatic, so suicidal, when I just talked to Katniss for the first time only a short while ago? It's the same feeling I had when I risked that beating to give her the bread, that life wouldn't be the same unless she was on earth.
Her arm twitches and I set her back down on the sleeping bag, afraid to startle her too much by having her wrapped in my arms. I hover, like a worried mother, and keep repeating her name.
"Katniss, Katniss, can you hear me?"
Her eyes open with a jolt. She looks frightened, even upset, but something calms her as she looks on at me and I can't help but feel relived that she may be glad to be waking up to my face.
"Peeta," She barely whispers, but my name melts like chocolate off her voice even in her frailty.
Me and Katniss are joking again and I can't help but blink a few extra times to make certain that we are both still alive and doing far better than when originally teamed up. Katniss thinks Thresh has found my imaginary bread bush and I am too keen on giving a laugh to offer another joke back to her. I think Haymitch owes me something for wanting to basically find Cato to end my life after Katniss's little stunt and I mention to her what on earth we could do for him to show us some kindness. She pauses as if to contemplate something but starts to smirk.
"Well, he probably used up a lot of resources helping me knock you out." she says, her voice a little husky, almost like she is trying to tempt me. I can feel my body exploding. It doesn't matter that there is dry blood in her hair or that neither of us have bathed in what seems like forever. She is sending me over the edge by batting her eyelashes and it's taking all restraint not to lean over and give her a real kiss.
"Yeah about that, Don't try something like that again." I say, letting my fingers intertwine with hers.
"Or what?" she asks, blinking slowly at me.
"Or...Or...Just give me a minute." I am speechless. I don't think there has ever been a time where I have been completely lost for words but I sit here practically dumbfounded, and I know it is the effect Katniss seems to have on me.
"What's the problem?" She asks, delighted with having gotten her way.
"The problem is we're both alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing." I state simply.
"I did do the right thing," she defends. In my mind she didn't. I don't know why but even though the two of us are seemingly happy, I can't shake the feeling that something is going to ruin this picture and one of us is still going to have to die.
"No! Just don't, Katniss! Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors. All right?" I yell, and I feel my fingers grasp her tighter, willing her to understand. I don't want to come out and say that if she died, everything that she had sacrificed for me would be a waste, that I would go home an empty shell of a person, but if she can't see reason I may have to. I could never leave here and go back to a normal life if she stopped existing, never.
"Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren't the only one who...who worried about...what it would be like if..." she stammers. My heart stops. Is it possible that this is hard for her too? That maybe I'm not the only one who though that if the other dies, going back to district 12 wouldn't be an option. I don't know but I want desperately to find out.
"If what, Katniss?" I say, stroking her hand with my thumb.
"That's exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to steer clear of," she says but I'm not letting this moment go, no matter what drunk man says. He is not in the arena and he can't begin to know how I feel right now.
"Then I'll have to fill in the blanks myself," I say, and I move forward. This kiss is different from the others, I can feel it in the way her lips greet mine, hungry and waiting for more. Her hands seem to wander a bit, trying to grasp my shirt to pull me closer, and I reply by kissing her harder. I have never felt this way, the tingling in my veins, the sensation on her skin skimming mine. I have to break us up, which is a first for me because I can smell the salty copper of blood. She still looks at me longingly and I only give her another kiss on the nose because no matter how much I want kiss her again, I would never do it at the risk of harming her.
"I think your wound is bleeding again. Come on, lie down, it's bedtime anyway." I tuck her into the sleeping bag and feel triumphant at the fact that she is in my arms and I can actually protect her. She nuzzles into me a bit and I let my mind wander for the first time tonight. If she hadn't started bleeding, I wonder how long that kiss would have continued? I wonder what my mother thinks of the girl I have chosen and what will happen if the both of us go home? Can you really date after something like this or is it an immediate given that you'll be together forever? I don't know but I hope that she loves me too.
Nothing is extraordinary about the next day but her curiosity peaks and she asks how long I have had a crush in her. I think it is safe to say that it is more than a crush, considering all that has happened but I satisfy her thirst for knowledge by telling her of the first time my dad pointed her out to me. She doesn't believe me, that it could go back this far, but I know from the torment I've faced for years that it is very possible to go on what seems like forever hoping she would love me back, or even talk to me. I tell her I thought I was lucky to get picked for the reaping because I finally had my moment to say all those things I wished I hadn't spent years not saying and she steals a glance at me to see if I'm telling the truth.
"You have a remarkable memory." She says sweetly.
"I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't paying attention." I say as I tuck I strand of hair behind her ear. I do remember everything, what the sound of her voice is like when she is thoroughly amused, the way she always is grimacing, the dimples, the sparkle in her eye...everything is always noted.
"I am now." She whispers and it's all i've wanted to hear since I was five, but I can't help but feel if Gale was somewhere in this arena, he'd be in my position receiving all of her affection.
"Well, I don't have much competition here." I state thinking of the fact that I am the only person not trying to kill her.
"You don't have much competition anywhere." She lets slip and I can feel my inner self dancing, make that flipping, with absolute joy. For the first time in my life I let one crazy notion slip from deep in my brain. When I get home, if nothing has changed, I am going to marry this girl, no matter what.