There's this delicious feeling wrapped around me in my dreams. Warm and soft and enveloping. And it's so different from the usual cold dread I am familiar with and have come to expect when I'm falling asleep or just waking up. It's been so long since I can remember having a good night's sleep I think I've almost forgotten what it's like to go to sleep unafraid. My mind is puzzled at this new development and I think I quietly wonder what the reason is before I feel the sensation shift, and the warmth begins to recede from me.
No! I think in panic. Don't leave!
My arms reach out in their sleep automatically trying to trap the warmth with my bare hands.
"I just need to use the bathroom." I hear a voice say after calling my name.
"Huh?" Is my sleepy response. I blink and when my vision focuses I am surprised to see a pair of grey eyes staring back at me.
"Bathroom. Like right now please." Is the annoyed response I get and I let go as fast as I can.
My awareness is starting to come back, as the figure, a girl, a woman, glides from under the covers and scampers quietly to my bathroom and closes the door.
My mouth feels dry, and not just from sleep. She had been completely naked.
I close my eyes and just think about this for a moment. The impossibility of it, the improbability too. Sometimes when I first woke up I forgot it was real, and for a moment it was almost like waking up and finding a stranger in my bed. A warm beautiful stranger, but still a surprise nonetheless.
But no, she was here again. For the fourth time this week. Or was it the fifth?
There's the sound of movement in the bathroom and I hear the shower start to run. I understood the impulse. I had in a moment of distraction turned the heat way up inside the house so it would be nice and warm when she came over. But it had backfired, when our clothes came off. There was something on the fritz with the furnace, it had just kept getting hotter and hotter until we ended up a pile of slick sweaty limbs with plastered hair against damp foreheads.
She had demanded I turn the damn furnace off, and we'd gone to sleep naked and sweaty under the sheets.
But it had been a happy kind of naked and sweaty, nonetheless.
I still couldn't believe it. This was what she wanted. This was what she chose. To spend the night with me not once, but now it seemed that despite whatever she said that first morning after, it was becoming something of a routine.
I left my kitchen door unlocked. She walked over after everyone had gone to sleep.
We curled up on the couch or she perched on the kitchen counter while I whipped up midnight snacks for us. And we'd talk, about anything, about nothing, about everything. And then she'd get this look in her eye that said she was done talking… and sometimes we'd make it to my bed. And sometimes we wouldn't.
But always, always we'd end up together in that new and fierce and all consuming way we'd never been together before. It was new to both of us, that much I was sure of. I could just feel it in the way things progressed. Once we got past the basics, well it had been interesting, endearing, and oh so fucking hot to try new things with her.
And she liked trying things, surprisingly. It was like once she got a taste of what was on offer she couldn't get enough. Sometimes we'd stop and start all night. Sometimes after one time we'd just pass out in a coma of bliss and wouldn't wake up until the sun was blaring in from the windows. It didn't matter to me how many times she wanted me on any given day. I was just happy, no I was ecstatic, that she wanted me.
Maybe it was a little pathetic. Maybe I was fooling myself. (That thought hurt me to admit even just inside my head) But I remembered the way she'd held my hand in the moonlight that first night. Like a wish, almost like a prayer….
All the words she'd finally given me. Answers to questions I'd never asked out loud when I'd find her eyes lingering on my skin in the morning on the train. Or when I'd break a kiss we were performing for the cameras and she couldn't stop herself from grabbing onto the back of my shirt like she didn't want to let go.
Small things...sporadic and rare...but they had happened over the years…..
And I'd realized I could have had a shot this whole time. Maybe for years if I believed the story. All the things she confessed she liked, that she wanted. My hands, my eyes, my shoulders, my lips...well if they had lodged in her brain so long that she had literally built a fortress around herself to keep them a secret then they meant something. Really meant something.
And Gale, he had proclaimed to the whole district and Kaniss herself he was moving on the night of the celebration feast. That had been such a shock, but also if I was honest with myself, a blessing.
It freed Katniss and me up to...well to explore things together without having to worry about stepping on other people's toes.
So, when she'd climbed in my window that night, and confessed she wanted me I'd thought maybe….maybe this was my one and only chance at convincing her we could have something real. There were so many things we already were to each other, friends, allies, neighbors, co-stars, grief counselors, etc. Why not real lovers?
Why not? If she had told me that night she didn't love me and never could I would have told her to go home. That we'd figure something out when the Capitol doctor came back.
But she had said she always tried not to.
The same way I'd been trying for years to keep things platonic between us.
So maybe these things that we'd both been working so hard to keep from happening were….
Inevitable?
Unavoidable?
Undeniable.
Maybe instead of fighting it we should have been savoring it all along.
Because we had slipped so easily into it. It felt so natural. Sometimes I felt like I knew her body better than she did. And the reverse seemed true for me. The things she made me feel... in my flesh, my mind and my soul all at once were astounding. I felt like a different person on many levels. And I knew it wasn't just because I'd finally lost my virginity.
No, it was more than that. It was giving myself the chance to step out of that relegated role I'd been playing for so long that had never really fit.
The tragic unrequited lover.
The platonic best friend.
Because even if she didn't fall in love with me when this was all over...at least I'd know that somehow on some level I'd been wanted and desired by the girl I'd also wanted and desired for so long.
That alone almost made up for so much of the time I had wasted.
Did I want more? Of course. Now that I'd known what it was like, the absolute unbelievable joy and satisfaction there was to be found in being together with her and not just sexually, but together intimately...in a way that brought our deeper selves close, I knew I'd never want anything else.
So I tried to take Haymitch's advice to heart. I tried to build it up, subtly, this thing that was growing between us. Because if I could get her to see just how undeniable it was, just how incredible, then maybe...just maybe...she'd ask me to stay.
So I get up from the bed and pull the sweat soaked sheets off. Toss them down in a crumpled heap in the corner. Then I pull out fresh ones and slap them onto the bed corners as quickly as I can. And when that's done, I head for the bathroom.
"Mind if I come in?" I ask as I creak open the door.
It's steamy and humid in the bathroom, but the shower is still going.
"Peeta, it's your house. And your bathroom." She tells me in a voice I know is being paired with a spectacular eye-roll even though I can't see her through the steamy glass of the shower.
Well, I can't see her clearly. At least not entirely
There is of course the slightly blurry outline of her body visible as she stands in the middle of the shower
"Well right now it's your shower, and I don't want to intrude if you'd rather be alone. But I was hoping to wash off some of the sweat from earlier." I tell her, going for brevity and chivalry in the same stroke.
"I think I'd prefer that." She says lightly and I chuckle. Then I open the door to the shower and slip in. The sight that greets me is so pleasurable.
Warm golden skin covered in beads of water, long dark wet hair plastered against a smooth back, slick and wet curves that make my heart start racing. I find the image intoxicating and very very worthy of being burned into my brain for all of time. She's just standing there under the spray with her eyes closed as she rinses the shampoo out of her hair.
"I also changed the sheets." I tell her quietly and she opens her eyes to peer at me.
Tiny raindrops on dark eyelashes that frame otherworldly grey eyes. I guess I know what my next painting will be…
"Oh that's fantastic." She says with a relieved sigh, and then takes a small step to the side to offer me some room so we can share the stream of water coming from the showerhead. I try to watch my footing on the slippery tiles. It's always a bit tricky to keep my balance in the shower since I could only sense the traction and stability of my steps with my one good leg.
But she had never said anything about it. And in all the years of sleeping side by side on the train she had never shied away from me when I removed my prosthetic to sleep at night. Recently I had taken to keeping it on until I was absolutely sure we were done for the night. But in the mornings, sometimes she'd want to do things...even before I had time to put it back on.
I guess we had an advantage in that, since we'd been friends for so long at first, we knew most of each other's secrets and frailties. But now I was more aware of the disability...sometimes it made some of the things we wanted to try a little precarious.
But if we lost our balance, or if we fell down, or had to change our initial plans because the leg made it difficult, she'd just switch gears. She'd chuckle good naturedly and suggest the couch, or a different position. And I felt only a slight flash of embarrassment, because then she'd start kissing me again making me forget about everything except just being with her.
It was wonderful. She was wonderful.
I was so happy sometimes I thought I would burst. Like right now. Her being here in my shower felt incredible but also a little uncanny. Some of the things that had been happening lately felt like old teenage fantasies coming back to life.
How many times on the train had I been forced to relieve some tension in my private bathroom when even the coldest showers weren't helping me anymore after sleeping with her in her bed? How many times had I envisioned her, naked with me under the water.
And now she was.
And it was surreal.
I let the water wash over me and I thought back to all the previous incarnations of my past self over the years.
Desperate tribute. Love sick co-star. Rejected victor. Determined friend. Loyal ally.
All of those moments seemed to coalesce into this one. As if someone was distilling me down to my essence and giving me the chance to leave behind those characters and finally be myself. I smile, and reach for the soap but her quick hand darts out and snags it before I can.
She grabs the sponge that sat next to the soap and begins to work a lather in her hands. He looks over at me. Curiosity and a gentle expression in her face. I smile over at her. Not in a hurry to take my turn with the soap. I could watch her lather, rinse and repeat all day if necessary.
But then instead of using the sponge on herself she steps forward and glides it across my shoulders. I can feel my left eyebrow quirk up in surprise. She blushes and looks down.
Oh...how I loved this girl and her blushes...after everything that had happened between us she still got shy sometimes about the simplest things. I smiled down at her and let my eyes express my intense gratitude and appreciation.
She looks up, sees my expression and rolls her eyes. That only made my smile bigger.
Her hands made a slow soapy progression across my skin and I closed my eyes just relishing the heavenly feeling of it. The texture of her fingers as they moved across my skin, the way she washed me, it felt different, very different from the way I normally showered. And well, she was naked, and so was I...and she was touching me all over…
By the time she got down to my waist I was more than a little enthused. Okay, fine, I was so hard I was probably cutting off circulation to other major organs...my brain probably being one. And of course she noticed. It was impossible not to. She looked up at me and I just gave her a helpless shrug.
She smirked in an amused way and reached down with the sponge and her other hand to wash me...a particular part of me that had been dying to feel her touch for a few minutes now.
Between the feeling of her hand wrapped around me, and the soapy bubbles, and the water and all the nakedness I was definitely enjoying it all. So when I reached down and put my arms around her to drag her closer, it was like...an open ended question that was finally being answered.
And she tilted her mouth up to kiss me. And I captured her against my lips as I let my hands touch her everywhere, absolutely everywhere I had always wanted. The drenched kisses burned through me until I was sure I was providing more steam than the shower and then I was backing her against the shower wall, and fitting my body to hers. She moaned a little, just a soft sound really but still it sent a spike of electricity through me. She panted, as she broke the kiss and whispered in my ear.
"Can you lift me?" She asked and I knew what she wanted. It might be a little risky, here in the shower...but life was about taking chances and this was definitely something I wanted to do.
"Yeah, wrap your legs around me on three." I whisper back to her and she nods. I count to three and lift her up, at just the right height, and she wraps her legs around me before I lower her, letting her sink down onto my lap. And it feels amazing. Just like every time before.
But it's also tricky, to keep both of us balanced this way. So I tell her to let me do most of the maneuvering, since I will be able to more accurately control and predict the traction I'll need to maintain. She nods, and a breathless little noise escapes her throat as I move against her. It makes me want to go faster, harder, but I try to tramp down on these urges. We've only been doing this kind of thing for a short time, and I've heard stories about girls getting sore if the guy isn't careful. So I opt for deep, slow strokes and she tilts her head back in an expression that's wrapped up in pleasurable sensations.
I memorize it in minute detail as I both simultaneously take and give pleasure to her. I close my eyes and concentrate on the tension I feel building in her, on the way her muscles respond to me. It's a torturously rapturous feeling, when she climaxes around me. Sharp and vivid and encompassing. I wait until she is almost...almost done...and then I allow myself to break free.
She clenches around me again, not quite as hard as before, but hard enough for her to gasp and say my name. That sends me into overdrive and I can't help it...I pound into her for the last few strokes. She bites down on my shoulder and I curse.
And then she's looking up at me in that slightly bewildered, slightly awestruck way since the first time I made her come with my mouth. I smile down at her as I catch my breath.
"Well, that was nice." She says after a beat. I laugh.
"Best shower of my life." I tell her honesty, and she practically chortles. Then I move to let myself slip out of her body, and I'm lowering her carefully down so her feet can reach the slippery tiled floor.
"Would you mind if I borrowed a shirt of yours?" She murmurs as we exit the shower and start to towel off.
"Darling, take whatever you want. My clothes, my food, my….everything." I tell her with a sweep of my arm to indicate the whole house. And I meant it. Whatever I had to give she could have. House, bed, heart. All of it belonged to her deep down. Just like me.
She looks a little startled at this and I remind myself that Haymitch had advised subtlety.
"But for tonight, how about starting with one of my shirts and a turkey sandwich?" I offer instead something smaller that I hope will put her at ease.
She relaxes, visibly and nods her head.
"That sounds perfect." She tells me, and I smile.
Subtle, it seems, is working out very well.