Disclaimer: Nope, just a fanfiction writer. I would be richer, if I did.8/9
Story: Peeta dies. Katniss isn't returned home and is forced to live in the Capitol. Seneca tries to be her salvation. AU drabbles.
Set AU at the end of the first book, "The Hunger Games."
Spoilers: Just the first book.
Warnings: Cursing and violence for now…hm, just in case since I'm usually writing it, bit of crazy humor, perverted humor, morbid or sarcastic humor, and maybe some sexual situations…
Pairings: Seneca/Katniss, ambiguous Gale/Katniss, one-sided (almost not) past Peeta/Katniss.
Caged Nightingale
Phobias Part V
Genophobia (fear of sexual intercourse):
The morning after the surprise (and yet it really shouldn't have been) bachelor party, the two are still sleeping in bed. Neither are too willing to get up and rather tired from the events of yesterday, and last night he managed to massage her into exhaustion (if such a thing were possible). He, on the other hand, had spent the entire night musing over their situation, as the bachelor/bachelorette parties had brought them into stark lighting.
Now he's tired as well, and he doesn't want to get up to go to work. He would much rather stay wrapped around Katniss, holding onto her and probably go back to sleep.
"Call in to work," she murmurs, cutting into his thoughts and echoing them at the same time.
"Should I?" he asks her in amusement.
She huffs and turns around in his arms to face him, looking up blearily at him.
"Why not? You work too much. I kind of want to just laze around in bed today," she snuggles into his chest, trying to repress a yawn.
"That does sound nice," he hmmed, thinking about it. He has plenty of sick days. He's never used one of them. Today, though, might seem like a good time to use one…
He's shocked out of his internal debate, when he feels a tentative lick to his collarbone and he jerks back away from Katniss to stare at her wide-eyed. Her face is flushed in embarrassment and she's not looking at him.
"K-Katniss?"
But then she practically throws herself on top of him, catching him by surprise as she pushes him onto the bed and moves to straddle him, soft and very enticing kisses pressing against his neck and downwards as she moves lower.
But his mind clears from the haze full of lust he was drowning in, and he's gently pushing her away and moving her to sit beside him.
"Katniss…what's wrong?" he asks quietly, brushing a lock of hair that falls into her face and hiding part of it from his view.
She's visibly clenching her jaw and he runs his knuckles tenderly under it to try to comfort and calm her.
"I was just thinking…about the wedding…and the way we got together…and everything else…it's all been dictated by Snow. I just…I want to be able to decide one important thing. Damn it, I won't let him dictate the first time I have sex with you also –if there's one thing I can, if there's anything I won't let him take from me –I want to be with you on my own terms. Not his," she sounds frustrated and upset and he doesn't know what else to do but embrace her.
"God, it's not fair," she squeezes his torso tightly. "Everything is by his direction. I wish…I wish I could have fallen in love with you normally," she mutters into his neck and he nuzzles the top of her head affectionately.
"I know. Me too," he tells her back. "But I'm just glad I was able to love you at all."
He tentatively moves back so he could look her in the eye, grabbing hold of her hands and clutching onto them reassuringly.
"But we can't, Katniss. We shouldn't do it, not like this. In the end, you'll be doing it with me because of Snow anyways –because you don't want him to make the decision but you're making the decision based on him either way. I promise I'll make love to you, Katniss. But not like this, not right now. Not because of that."
She swallows heavily and throws herself at him again, only this time to hold onto him tightly. She doesn't cry and she's very quiet, but she has a vice grip on him and her head is buried into his chest and she won't show her face.
Today seems to be a perfect day to call in sick.
Glossophobia (fear of speaking in public or trying to speak):
Katniss is glaring at the wall and he averts his eyes, busying his hands with making coffee. He putters around the kitchen, trying to find menial tasks for himself to do, and the two of them just don't talk or acknowledge each other.
"What are we going to say?" she finally asks quietly, startling him from where he was standing, trying to put away dishes from the dishwasher.
He looks at her, opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He raises a hand to his forehead and rubs it slowly.
"He wants us to make an announcement that we're getting married. So we just announce our engagement. The less information, the best. We'll…we'll make a public announcement on screens, and then Snow expects us to do an interview with Caesar," Seneca feels sick and can feel himself shaking.
"Never mind how terrified I am of having to speak to everyone –you know I'm horrible at speaking to people in general when they're in front of me, so how am I going to handle doing a broadcast to everyone? But…but what about everyone's reactions back home? Gale's gonna flip his lid. He's never been too cozy with the Capitol, but he'll do something too far this time, I know it. And Prim, she doesn't quite know the truth about us. And the rest of the district. And shit," Katniss actually cursed, "what about that rebellion you were talking about?"
Seneca puts the plate he was holding back into the shelf of the dishwasher and walks towards her, feeling like his legs were like lead and he was dragging them towards her.
"I'm not too thrilled with having to do this announcement either," he admits and she looks at him in surprise. "But I hope you'll at least speak quite a bit for it. At least for my sake."
When she looks at him questioningly, he takes a heavy breath and sits down across from her.
"If I do most of the talking, it'll probably give credence to the theory that you don't want this and that you're being forced and chained to me, sweetheart. And you know…I kind of don't fancy being assassinated before I got to actually marry you," he jokes weakly.
She clutches onto his arm, closing her eyes tightly.
"I want to kill him. Would you go and report me for making death threats against Snow and possibly going through with them?" she jokes just as weakly as he did at the end.
He snorts and gives an exhausted, world weary sort of laugh. "No. In fact, I think I'd join you."
She laughs a little bit more energetically at that before quieting.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"Me too," but he helps her up and supports her as he helps her to the bathroom, where he holds her hair back as she heaves and eventually throws up into the toilet.
Haphephobia (fear of being touched):
"We would like to announce our happy engagement to all of Panem," Seneca has a cool smile on his face, and she's reminded more of the time she knew him only as the Head Gamemaker than ever.
She wants to hurry and go back home so she can have her Seneca back.
She feels like she's suffocating. The bright lights and cameras are bearing down on her and she could only smile nervously and look around. She wants to speak and make it look as real as it actually is (Would someone actually assassinate Seneca? She can't bear that thought and it's starting to make her sick). But Katniss…can't. No words would form, she couldn't make her face look happier than it's already been made to look, and she can't even move.
'I'm so sorry, Seneca.'
It isn't even her fear of speaking in public or to others that was preventing her from speaking. She's just genuinely floundering and lost in the action, not understanding her role right then or what she is supposed to do or what to say.
Her mind whirls and she remembers a conversation she just recently had with Finnick.
"You know, you can be pretty blunt sometimes, Katniss," Finnick chuckles.
She feels a bit sheepish at that, knowing it was true.
"But you know what? You should stay that honest. Too few people prefer or are willing to say the truth in these times. That and people just like that about you, Babydoll," he shakes his head in amusement. "Even when people usually think that such a trait is too abrasive in others, or when you are so blunt to the point of rude, there's just something in the way you say it or just about you that makes people like you anyways –despite or even because of that.
"Stay honest, Katniss. Stay true to yourself."
When things seem to be winding down and the press conference seems to be ending, she takes an audible breath that echoes because of the microphone and steps up closer to speak into it, drawing everyone's attention back to her. She can see from her side that Seneca is looking at her in question, but she has to do this.
"Sorry for being so quiet," she smiles awkwardly. "If people here don't know already…I really dislike speaking in public. It's alright I suppose in gatherings, but this kind of thing especially makes me want to hide somewhere instead."
There is a ripple of laughter through the crowd and she takes that as incentive that she's doing this right so far, and encouragement to keep going on.
"You see, I didn't want to just leave here without saying at least something. This event is important to me and I feel a little stupid having stood here the entire time in a daze," there were calls of encouragement and her lips twitches upwards reluctantly for this crowd full of strange people she had never thought she'd understand.
"Seneca has been supportive and very caring to me in this transition in my new life in the Capitol. Without him, I would still feel very lost and uncertain. I don't think I can imagine a life without him," her face is entirely red and she's embarrassed to be admitting all this aloud and to the whole world (and she really can't look at Seneca right now), but she's starting to feel more comfortable confessing all this.
"You see, I'm looking forward to this wedding and sharing it all with you. And I'll probably be even more nervous about it than I am right now. But I hope you all will just be nervous with me, and we can just be a bunch of nervous wrecks together, right?" Her awkward smile returns and she shrugs helplessly at the audience.
Another wave of laughter greets her because of her gestures, but the crowd enthusiastically cheers her on and she hears promises of sticking with her and being just as nervous.
It's kind of endearing.
Afterwards, as the two quietly head towards their ride to where they would head over to Caesar Flickerman's stage, they stop short when President Snow steps in front of them.
The good mood the two were in instantly vanishes and the hands the two have clasped are tightening to a painful grip. Seneca's high from Katniss' speech deflates, and her prideful feelings of having actually done it and relief that she did and that Seneca could be a little safer fade.
He clasps a hand heavily to her shoulder and smiles coldly.
She wants to scream and fling his hand off of her. His touch feels disgusting, running like oil over her shoulder, even though it's clothed. It feels heavy and chaining her down, and all she wants is his hand off.
"Good job, Miss Everdeen. That was very believable," she could feel Seneca's questioning eyes, but she squeezes their tightly gripped hands to signal she'd tell him later. "Continue the impeccable performance, won't you? Good day, you two. Head over to Caesar's now."
She waits until he's completely out of view, before sagging against Seneca exhaustedly and never letting go of his hand.
Hemophobia (fear of blood):
She's been listless. Ever since that confrontation with Snow, he sees her moving through the house like some restless ghost, unable to stay still or be at peace. She stares out the window blankly or she'll curl up on the couch and stare vacantly in whatever direction she's kept her head in.
It was like she has regressed back to the Katniss straight after the games. Like all the progress he's made with her, all the time she had helping to heal her –it's disappeared and it's like from scratch.
It scares him. It scares him so bad, he stays up at night and thinks thoughts that are in chaos, holding her as he stares at the ceiling. It scares him so much, that he sits at work and feels like he hadn't ever left home because his mind and thoughts are all on her. He's so scared that he contemplates barricading himself and Katniss in their home and never coming out and facing the world again.
He feels like he's been proven right to this, when he comes home and sees Katniss in the kitchen, frozen with a knife hovering above the cutting board, and seems like she's staring at it. He worriedly hurries closer and he glimpses her slightly bloodied hand in the area that he guesses where she's staring at, and he's even more worried now because of the wound and about fixing it up. He comes to right behind her and places a hand on her shoulder gently, and she catches him by surprise as she whirls around suddenly and slashes at him with the knife. He narrowly avoids it, though he does end up with a small cut on his cheek. He firmly but not roughly takes the armed hand and grabs hold, using the other to grab Katniss' face and force her to look at him.
"It's me, Katniss. It's me," he tries to keep the grief out of his voice as he reassures her.
Her eyes are dilated but slowly return to normal, and she starts shaking as she regains awareness and looks at him. Her hand drops the knife and a second later she starts to slide to her knees, and he follows her at the same time. She breaks into sobs and he holds her quietly, offering silent comfort.
Both of them had thought they were done with these traumatic flashbacks –things seemed better. They both realize they're wrong, and things might never completely be better, or those flashbacks or anxiety and panic attacks will never just go all away.
Seneca takes her to the sink, washes away the blood, disinfects the wound and rubs medicine on it so it'll go away and never be seen again (they know it'll be there and they'll always remember no matter the disappearing wound that leaves no visible scar but is still very much seen). She grabs onto his shoulder to prevent him from moving away, and takes a small dab of the medicine and wipes it across his injured cheek, refusing to look at him. He sees her teary eyes and he reaches over to embrace her again, and she cries into his neck.
After awhile, he takes her to their room and they go to bed early, even though they stay wide awake holding each other and staying silent.
Seneca wishes he can go back and do things all over –somehow prevent Katniss from ever coming near the Hunger Games, even if it meant that he would never get to meet her, get the chance to love her or have her in his life. She would live in District 12, maybe marry an alive Peeta, or even that Gale or any other male in her district. She would marry and love and have kids with someone that wasn't him. But it was okay because she would be happy, or at least content.
And she would never have to be suffering like this.
Hypnophbia (fear of sleep):
She has horrible nightmares that night, when they finally fall asleep. She wakes up, screams in terror, and has trouble falling back to sleep. Every time she does, she ends up waking up in terror again. So they both say to hell with it and travel back to the kitchen, hours later after they tried to go to sleep the first time. They sit at the table, drinking coffee and looking at anywhere but each other.
"I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep."
He forces himself to look up and to look at her, and he sees her red eyes and her chest starting to heave.
"I'm afraid to go back to sleep," she admits to him.
He swallows heavily and looks to their medicine cabinet, thinking about the sleeping aids he could offer her and think of all the things he can give her to help her sleep –then thinks oh God he can't and she'll get dependent and he doesn't want that even though it's not positive but it still could happen and he's scared and doesn't know what to do and he justcan'tdothattoher –and he forces his eyes away and stares at the table before looking back at her.
He reaches across the table and grabs her hand.
"Then I just won't sleep either and we'll stay up together, for as long as you need."
The implied meaning of the indefinite sentence of not just that night but who knows is comforting to her.
Lupophobia (fear of wolves):
Seneca hopes that the party they attend will help keep them awake. They've been awake longer than they should, he knows, and he's worried –but she's still afraid and he can't deny her this. They drink coffee, even at the party, and they ignore some stares that come with that.
Her fingers start jittery taps on their table and his legs are jerkily bouncing up and down underneath it.
They've been awake for 7 days, 3 hours, and 15 minutes.
The longest anyone's ever stayed awake has been 18 days and 17 hours, 11 days without any stimulants. Their time is winding down and he's afraid what would happen next and what he's going to do.
He realizes he's drifted off and shakes his head, trying to become more aware. The next thing he knows, Katniss somehow now has his cup of coffee and is drinking it, with her own completely already drained. He tiredly hails down a server and asks for a refill, drifting off soon after.
A loud growl interrupts his exhausted mind and he looks up and blearily sees a wolf mutt being brought in by…someone. He can't really recognize anything or anyone at this point (except aside from Katniss obviously) and he thinks he's dreaming seeing this muttation right now, when it's not the arena.
Then he remembers that some of the more eccentric and highly rich citizens of the Capitol like to buy "souvenirs" from the games, and he inwardly groans. His hand fumbles around the table to grab his coffee cup back, and thinks he's going to throw it at the mutt or the owner or just someone (whether or not this is or this isn't a dream). Instead, his hand touches Katniss' and he lethargically looks over at her and sees her trembling, staring wide-eyed at the wolf mutt.
Katniss suddenly gets up and brings attention to herself. Everyone is staring but neither care as Katniss stumbles away and Seneca clumsily follows after her. He finds her in the women's powder room, throwing up into the toilet, and he trips over to her side. He lovingly gathers up her hair and familiarly holds it behind her as she continues, nuzzling the nape of her neck and sleepily planting kisses there. She finishes, cries into his neck, and climbs onto his lap as he sits back and leans against the wall of the bathroom. He holds her as she cries and he blinks blankly –he absentmindedly rocks a little and his head lightly hits against the wall, but that's okay because the light pain wakes him up.
"Are you two –?"
And he automatically looks up, stares in the direction he thinks his friend is, and speaks in a monotone he's only mildly surprised at.
"Just go, Plutarch. Just go," he also sounds obviously tired.
Plutarch hesitates but leaves them behind. He can hear him speaking to the rest of the crowd before he tunes them out and goes back to being absentminded and rocking a vacant Katniss.
"Party's over, folks. Time to leave –"
He's exhausted and he's blanking out a lot and his body's aching and lagging (his mind more), but his Katniss needs him and she doesn'tcan'twon't sleep.
So he won't either.
Until death do us part, in sickness and in health, right? He hasn't said his vows yet, but he's committed himself to them and her from the moment he unconsciously did whatever he could to make sure she lived through the games.
Necrophobia (fear of death and/or the dead):
"Katniss. Katniss, wake up."
Katniss blearily opens her eyes, blinking in exhaustion as she realizes she and Seneca had fallen asleep. She looks to the direction of where she thought she heard someone calling to her and her heart feels like it's stopped.
It can't –it can't be.
But Peeta, Rue, Foxface, and even Clove, Glimmer, Marvel, and Cato are standing in front of her and staring unblinkingly in her direction.
"Katniss."
Peeta is smiling and she stares back uncomprehendingly.
"Join us, Katniss."
She screams and she starts to scramble on top of Seneca, trying to get as far away from the apparitions as she could.
She doesn't want to see them. She doesn't want them haunting her. In the back of her mind, she remembers that if you stay awake long enough you start to dream while you're awake –and that this is most probably a waking dream (nightmare, more like). Seneca's asleep, but she never did and now she's paying for it.
"Join us."
"No!" she screams, still scrambling in panic on Seneca's lap to get away from them. "No!"
She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to leave Seneca behind. She doesn't want to be without him or imagine not being able to be with him.
The hold around her tightens and Seneca's murmuring into her ear.
"It's okay. I'm still here. Don't worry."
He wasn't asleep after all and maybe he'd been in a waking dream himself.
She's so tired of crying and she hates it, but her tear ducts don't want to listen to her and she starts to cry anyways.
Starts 8/9/12 – Completed 8/17/12
A/n: Thanks to everyone's support! It really means a lot. I'll let everyone know about the Tumblr thing (should I add roleplay to that as well?) on the next update (turns out there's going to have to be one more Phobia part –which funnily enough ends up being number six and there being six more prompts for it). Sorry about Nightlock not getting updated still, but I'll try for Monday, alright? And to hell with my schedule (my usual readers get that I have this fixation on updating on Mondays/Tuesdays and Thursdays/Fridays at 11 to 12 am to pm Pacific) –Imma just update whenever the hell I want. And I want to update now because in 15 minutes, it's Happy Hunger Games! And I want my damn blu-ray now.
To Chuck Finley: XD Yes, I've grown very fond of occult-fearing!Brutus. For some reason, I've always thought Plutarch and Seneca would be friends, and that Seneca would have joined and maybe even be a big part of the rebellion had he lived. Her little visit to District 12 will be important, I think. I try not to feel insecure about my writing, but I pay too much attention to statistics and compare myself to others too much. Oh, I try not to. But it's hard to ignore or slide over reading/glimpsing/etc. other stories that seem to do better simply because of a cliché plot, a popular pairing, etc., even when the writing sucks for various reasons. I kind of just stare and wonder if there's something wrong with what I'm writing or I'm doing something wrong (shrugs). I've been on this site for eleven years and that and the way the site is being run seems to have just run me down and tired me out. However, your words really help a lot and make me smile and continue to think working on fanfiction is still worth it.
As for my laptop, the people working on it told me the motherboard was fried (my screen kept going green and pink rainbowish lines every time I move my laptop and especially the screen). It's going to get replaced, but they're going to have to end up doing something or other that'll end up wiping the whole thing. I did a system back up before handing it over, so hopefully that would have included data back up as well.
To Lena: Thank you so much! Your words are very supportive and helps me keep my head up.