A/N: OMG CAVE SCENE! Legit. Like legit, y'all. I am like FREAKIN excited.
Anyway, I'll update you on the Catching Fire movie situation: I can't go downtown (which is where they are filming), because I am going... Well, I am going somewere else. I'll never meet Jennifer Lawrence or Josh Hutcherson! D,: Life ain't fair.
Anyways, I hope you guys really like this chapter, because I do :) It was like the funnest thing ever to write. So read it now - but before that, read the disclaimer before you sue me.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Hunger Games because Suzanne Collins does, and she's awesome
Katniss grabs me by the shoulders. I wince. My muscles are sore, stiff, especially the ones in my upper leg. I couldn't move them even if I wanted to; it's like they're locked and the key was tossed away, or lost in the mud that is enveloping me.
"You have to…" Katniss starts in a murmur, but I think she realizes how helpless I am right now. She has to claw the dirt from my chest just to make a cavity large enough to lift me out. What I wouldn't give to have the situation reversed. Not that I want Katniss hurt – it's just that I much better equipped for what she is doing right now. But she's made it this far, and I'm sure she's accomplished things much more difficult than pulling her almost-dead friend out of the muck. So trust her.
But the question of trust leaves my mind as soon as my lower body starts getting closer to the water. I bite my tongue so hard that I taste blood with the more metallic taste of pain in my mouth. I can't contain the sounds that bubble up in the back of my throat when parts of my body that don't want to move are moved. And that's almost every part. Lying in the dirt like the dead for who-knows-how-long will do that a person, apparently.
After a few moment's pause, Katniss tells me that she's going to roll me into the stream. "It's shallow here, okay?"
"Excellent," I manage.
"On the count of three, okay? One. Two…" I'm about to tell her I'd rather die than go through with this. "Three!"
I make a noise close to what one would expect to emanate from a suffocating feline. Katniss strains under my deadweight. We both grunt when she stops moving me. My eyes and cheeks are wet, and I feel hot and sweaty and, for the first time strangely, dirty. My toes are barely grazing the water.
"Okay, change of plans," says Katniss. She seems to be saying "okay" a lot, though it's rather obvious that I am anything but. "I'm not going to put you all the way in."
"No more rolling?" It's more of a plea than a question.
"That's all done. Let's get you cleaned up. Keep an eye on those woods for me, okay?" There it is again. Nothing is going to convince me that I'm alright, even a little. It would have been better if Katniss hadn't found me; I'll only be a hindrance to her.
I don't say anything, though. The Capitol obviously meant to play on the sympathies of the viewers with this ploy. The assumption of a relationship, true or false, between two tributes – well, the popularity probably wasn't thought of until Katniss and me. Since we separated, the Gamemakers were expected to rekindle the relationship, somehow. And that they've done.
I haven't been bathed by someone else – well, since I was in the early stages of my infancy. The stream is nothing like my tiny bathtub at home. For one, the water's not warm at all – the tub was right behind the ovens downstairs, so fortunately we always had hot water. But I don't mind the chill. I can practically feel the liquid from the bottles that Katniss is emptying on my skin evaporating on contact.
She doesn't say anything while she works the dirt off me. It takes a long while, but I just watch, my eyelids drooping, the lashes brushing my cheeks, but the pain prevents me from sleeping. I watch the sun play on her hair, closing my eyes, seeing the light at a different angle each time I open them, due to the sinking sun.
I have to admit, Katniss looks pretty rough around the edges; there's blood on her clothes, caked in nails, and though her hair is free of twigs and such, it has a slightly burned scent, like Portia's did one day when her barely-there curls went mysteriously flat. I can't even begin to imagine what I look like. I think of the tributes I've seen on TV. By the end of the first week, they start looking pretty ragged; by the end of the second, their eyes start taking on a slightly deranged look; and by the end of the third, if anyone makes it that far, they've begun to look like feral animals. I'd say I'm somewhere in the feral animal stage.
I want Katniss to tell me what I've missed, who died. Who she made allies with, if anyone. I want to know how her pain and struggles compare to mine. Now that I'm here with someone, someone who can comprehend my words and return them, all I want to do is talk. And yet, I can't bring myself to break the silence.
Because I'm craving for something real. I'd rather have nothing at all than something insincere. And right here, right now, with Katniss taking care of me, it seems real –and I can't bear to let that go.
I've clearly accumulated a whole swamp's worth of mud, because what surrounds me now could be the perfect breeding ground for alligators and mosquito's. I can't think of any other swamp-dwelling creatures, but before I have to, Katniss moves me over to a rock that I rest my back on. Then she cuts my clothes off and gauges out my tracker jacker stings before she puts some leaves that make the throbbing that I've now grown accustomed to go away.
She salvages what clothes she can. When she takes off my shirt, her hands linger on my chest, and I look at her, wondering what this means. But she dives into her pack and pull out a first aid kit, bringing out some pills.
I can still feel the cool imprint of her hands as she says, "Swallow these." I do. "You must be hungry."
"Not really," I saw, wrinkling my nose. "It's funny, I haven't been hungry for days."
"You must be," says Katniss, going for the pack again. She takes out some kind of animal leg. It smells like grease and it makes my stomach churn.
Katniss look truly worried now. "Peeta," she says gently, "we need to get some food in you."
"It'll just come right back up," I point out, judging by the pain in my stomach.
Katniss puts the pack under my nose. "You must want something," she says.
The only thing that doesn't smell rancid to me is some old-looking apples. I close my stiff-feeling fingers around a few and pop them into my mouth. After a few minutes, my stomach starts feeling the ill-effects, but Katniss is right when she says that I'm starving myself.
Even digesting is making me tired. "Thanks. I feel much better now, really," I lie. "Can I sleep now, Katniss?"
"Soon," she tells me. "I need to look at your leg first.
Fear trills through me. "You can see it fine from here," I want to say. But she starts taking my boots off, then my filthy, dirty sock and pants. I don't want to look at the wound, so I watch my caretakers face, careful not to look in her eyes, lest I see the reflection of what she does.
And evidently, what she sees is not good. I can feel the blood flowing freely, unstaunched by anything, stinging acutely in the open air. Katniss's face takes on a petrified look.
"Pretty awful, huh?"
Her features slacken. "So, so" she says, and shrugs. "First thing is to clean it well."
But she doesn't clean it. Not the wound, anyway. She cleans me, good and well, and puts a sheet of plastic on the rock so the water will slide back into the river. Every time she looks at my leg, Katniss looks a little green.
She puts something on the sting on my knee, and I sneak a look at the gash.
It's disgusting. There's a weird disconnect between my leg and the rest of my body in that moment. Like I can't believe that's a part of me, my body, looking like that. It's the kind of thing that always happens to someone else. The pus, the blood, the swelling – it's destroying my leg. Cato destroyed my leg, and I know that I will never get it back. It's the first part of me to go, or maybe it's the second – I think my mind left a few days ago.
"We'll just give it some air," Katniss says after a while.
"And you'll patch it up?" I suggest half-hopefully.
"That's right," she says, nodding a little bit too hard. "In the mean time, eat these." She hands me some more dried fruit – this time pears.
I eat them, watching her thoughtfully. The star-crossed lovers act is still playing out. I'm just waiting for the intermission. The moment we get alone – but then I realize: We won't be alone. Not in the arena, not will all the cameras. Now that we're together, they will be watching 24/7. Maybe it will just go on and on, and we won't have to act anymore. But how satisfying would that really be? No one should be forced to love or care for someone. Don't things like that work of their volition?
Katniss goes down the bank where I can't see her, but she pastes my wet clothes on a hot rock when she comes back with a determined look on her face. She rifles through the first aid kit and come up empty handed.
"We're going to have to experiment a little," she says, cracking her knuckles in a way that makes me slightly nervous. She grabs some leaves from a patch of weedy-looking plants, chews them up, and spits them back out into her hand. I've seen things more gross than that today, but I feel her saliva on my leg when she puts them on the wound. I feel something dripping down my thigh. I need to distract myself, because I can't afford to lose the contents of my stomach. I weigh the remaining pears in my hand and think of how little is in there now.
"Katniss?" She looks at me. "How about that kiss?" I ask silently. What I'm really saying is, I haven't forgotten about the romance ruse; have you? She barks out a laugh.
"Something wrong?" I ask, though I predicted this reaction.
"I… I'm no good at this," Katniss admits. "I'm not my mother, I've no idea what I'm doing, and I hate pus."
But I trust you, I think. And I'm not going to trust many more people during my lifetime.
Katniss spits the leaves on my leg again. "How do you hunt?" I ask. She seems so dainty, even about regurgitating a strange plant on a dying person's leg.
"Trust me, killing things is a lot easier than this." She pauses for a moment, wiping her mouths and brushing some stray strands of hair behind her ear. "Although for all I know, I'm killing you."
"Can you speed it up a little?" I ask.
"No," she says. "Shut up and eat your pears."
I oblige, and when the pears are gone and Katniss stops to survey her work, I ask, "What's next, Dr. Everdeen?"
"Oh, maybe I'll put some burn ointment on it. It helps with infection anyway," Katniss contemplates. "And I'll wrap it up?"
I nod. Good. I don't want to look at that thing anymore. It isn't mine, not my leg anymore.
Katniss wraps my leg like a real professional. I don't feel her hands on the inside of my thigh – the upper portion of the limb feels strangely numb. The bandage is stark white, even against my pale skin. It's the dirt that really sets it off, though.
An empty pack flies into my lap. "Here, cover yourself with this and I'll wash your shorts." So Katniss noticed as well.
I roll my eyes. "I don't care if you see me," I tell her. This is a doctor and patient scenario, nothing more. Though I'm not sure how the people of Panem will take my words. Oh, well; I'll let it remain an enigmatic statement.
"You're just like the rest of my family," Katniss say, putting her hands on her hips. "I care, alright?"
I snort a little, take the shorts off, and fling them past Katniss into the river. I was aiming for the back of her head; I'm not sure how she'd take it if I'd actually made my target, though.
"You know," I observe, "you're kind of squeamish for such a lethal person. I wish I'd let you give Haymitch a shower now after all."I shudder at that memory.
"What's he sent you so far?" Katniss asks, kneeling on the bank, her hands in the water.
"Not a thing," I say somewhat bitterly, though I haven't really been in many situations of need. Not desperate ones, anyway. Then I have a thought. "Why, did you get something?"
"Burn medicine," Katniss says. She stops washing. "Oh, and some bread," she finishes guiltily.
"I always knew you were his favorite," I say, trying for a light tone, but really I am taking a little dig at Haymitch. Maybe he'll feel some guilt when he sees this air.
"Please, he can't even stand to be in the same room as me," Katniss protests, straightening up.
"Because you're just alike." It's true; Haymitch and Katniss are both sullen and stony survivors. Underneath it all, though, they both have good hearts. At least Katniss does. You can never be sure with Haymitch.
No more words are exchanged. Katniss comes and sits by me, her eyes boring into my face, watching intently for my feelings. My eyes slowly shut and I sink into a deep, comfortable sleep.
It doesn't last long, though. I'm woken after what seems like an unbearably short time.
"Peeta." I start. Who…?
"Peeta, we've got to go now."
"Go?" Where from? "Go where?"
"Away from here. Downstream, maybe. Somewhere we can hide you until you're stronger," says Katniss. Katniss. I remember now. My leg feels… better. Yes, I remember.
I put my dry clothes back on with Katniss's help. They feel strangely clean. A foreign feeling.
Katniss pulls me up and tries to have me walk. I can't. This stump of a leg can't support me. It's useless.
"Come on," Katniss prompts. "You can do this."
I can't, though. I stumble alone blindly. I can't tell where I'm putting my feet because my vision is darkening and my head and leg are throbbing.
When my sight finally clears, I'm lying on a floor of cold stone. Shivers run through my body. I'm hurting so badly. I feel water slide down my throat and I see Katniss holding some dried fruit up to my lips. I shake my head. She sighs and stands up.
I watch her as she puts up a curtain of vines to hide the entrance of the cave that I'm guessing we're now in. It blocks out a little bit of the light that is streaming in and making my eyes hurt. Oh well. It's better than being in the dark.
I think about my family. They never made me feel alive – well, my father did, sometimes. My mother made me feel alive with anger once in a while. My brothers… they were just there. Fixtures in my life, all of them. Fixtures that I'd taken for granted until the second they were taken away. The only thing that gave my meaningless life and kind of substance. I never even told them. I never told them that it wasn't the girls that I brought home, or the hours spent away that made me happy, or Peeta. It was them.
More light spills onto my face when the curtain is ripped down by a frustrated girl. I'm glad for the bright warmth, now. It was most certainly dark and cold where I was going, lonely. And I realize – I have been dead. I was dead from the moment I left the Careers, or they left me, whichever way you want to view it, and I came back to life the moment I was found by Katniss. Because death to me is loneliness. Maybe I was never really alive until that minute when someone found me, laying in the dirt.
"Katniss." My voice is feeble. I feel I hand on forehead, in my hair. Cool and comforting. "Thanks for finding me."
"You would have found me if you could," she tells me, running her hand across my sweat-slicked forehead.
"Yes." Of course I would have. I've cared more about her than logically possible ever since the bread – before that even. I can't even pinpoint when I became interested in Katniss's well-being, or that of the people in the Seam.
My mind drifts back to my family. "Look, if I don't make it back –"
"Don't talk like that," Katniss commands quietly. "I didn't drain all that pus for noting."
"I know," I say, trying to continue, "but just in case I don't –"
"No, Peeta." I feel fingers on my dry lips. "I don't even want to discuss it."
She at least has to know how I feel about her, before I go. It doesn't seem personal enough to say good-bye to my family on television. My time with them has passed. "But I –"
I feel something else on my lips. Not a finger, but something I haven't felt in a long time. A pressure. From Katniss's lips.
I never even thought about my last real kiss. Truthfully, I don't even remember the first one, they all blur together in my mind, the mouths of countless girls that I tried to fill the void in my life with. Their lips, whether moving in speech or on mine, sometimes felt like enough. But never as much as this.
That, by comparison, was nothing. This is what I have been searching for. Real care, though given the circumstances, I'm not sure what else could be expected. I feel safe with Katniss here. Safe and sound, for once in my life, and maybe by this kiss, she means to say that she feels safe with me.
"You're not going to die. I forbid it," Katniss says, releasing me, looking into my eyes. "Alright?"
"Alright," I whisper, because I think that I believe her.
I just now realized I am kind of making Peeta sound like a schizophrenic… oops :3 Suzanne Collins would probably disapprove. Anyway, he's not developing psycho-mania whatever stuff. Think of it more like an ongoing metaphor. Anyway, please review, I really want to know what you guys think!
And thanks to Serpent91 (even though that it probably not your username) for your kind, kind reviews.
And I've been foretting, but thanks a thousand to Sanctuaria for betaing this chapter and many others, and not saying anything when I forgot to give my thanks in the author's note x)
Review, and thanks for reading!
-seastar
