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Thanks again to my beta reader NotNearlyAMuggle :)
Katniss gradually rolls me into the stream because I can't move one inch on my own two feet, never mind walking several meters. She decides to retreat and starts pouring water from bottles over me until it cleanses all of the mud from my skin and clothes. To treat my wounds, Katniss eases off my clothes and has to cut off my undershirt with a knife because it's stuck to my skin with blood. A greeny-yellow looking pus was mixed with my blood.I swallowed down the sick that was pushing its way up my oesophagus. How could Katniss stand it?
She moves me over to a stone and leans me against it, pulling something out of my green stings from the tracker-jackers. Katniss drags me over to lean next to a stone and I resist the urge to scream in pain as she pulls something out of the stings. My resistance slips and I let out a wince. She rubs in some leaves to the stings on my chest and behind my ear, relieving them from all the green mush inside them then rubs some cream into my burns and cuts. I can't even look at them myself without wanting to be sick. Mind you, Katniss' mother brings back some who are on their death beds with so many diseases, infections and broken bones. Maybe that's where Katniss gets her resistance from.
Something keeps nagging me to ask if she was given the cream from sponsors, but I just stay silent as she rubs the cream into my skin, making my burns feel like they're covered in ice. As I watch her work she finally takes her eyes away from my disgusting wounds and stings to look at me. I think to avert my eyes but I hold her gaze instead. I figure the cameras will like that better, and she does have beautiful eyes anyway.
"Swallow these," she says, rummaging in her backpack. Soon she is holding two tiny pink and blue pills in one hand and a bottle of water. "You must be hungry,"
"Not really. It's funny, I haven't been hungry for days," I lie, taking the pills and water. I am not hungry, I am absolutely starving, and I'm just scared I'll puke up all over her if I eat. I'm also not a good liar and I think she notices.
"Peeta, we need to get some food into you," she insists. She opens out her backpack again and tries to get me to eat a leg of meat from some kind of bird and some dried apple. The meat makes me feel sick just looking at it, so I just agree to eat the dried apple.
"Thanks. I'm much better, really." I make a terrible attempt to assure her, "Can I sleep now, Katniss?" I ask.
"Soon," she replies. Katniss insists on seeing to the wound on my leg, the work of Cato's sword, and she begins to awkwardly pull off my shoes, socks and trousers. She doesn't take off my under-shorts, thankfully. I notice her hands are awkwardly trying to avoid touching my bare legs, like an innocent child.
The gaping wound on my leg has gotten worse since the last time I saw it; really swollen and teeming with disgusting pus, scabs and blood. I think the dried apple is thinking about coming up again, so I look away while she works on it. She uses more of the mushed up leaves that she used on my stings and I can feel them tingling against the cut. I hear her groan in disgust as the pus runs down my thigh.
"Katniss," I break the silence and wait until she catches my gaze. What about that kiss? I mouth, smiling. She laughs, just as she did when I suggested it earlier, and returns to tending to my leg.
"Something wrong?" I ask innocently.
"I'm no good at this! I'm not my mother!" She laughs, "I've no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus!" That makes two of us. She wrinkles her nose up and shudders as she wipes away the mushy leaves from my wound and applies fresh ones, "Euuugh!"
The wound is a whole lot better, though she tells me she has no idea what she is doing. She definitely has her mother's healing hands.
"Here, cover yourself with this and I'll wash your shorts," she says, throwing me over a backpack.
"Oh, I don't care if you see me," I say, raising my eyebrows, even though I am speaking the truth.
She turns away and I whip my shorts off and throw them into the stream. As she turns, her innocence and vulnerability really shine through. I joke about how squeamish she is, even though she kills and skins animals almost every day back in twelve.
"I wish I'd let you give Haymitch a shower after all!" I joke, thinking back to when I washed him when we were on the train to the Capitol. It was horrible.
She wrinkles her nose up, just as she did when she wiped the pus from my wound. It's like the thought of giving a bath to a drunken Haymitch is as bad as something as disgusting as wiping blood and pus from an injured, half-naked boy although, when I think back, bathing Haymitch is probably worse.
"What's he sent you so far?" she asks.
"Not a thing," I say, pausing as I wonder about the cream she used on my burns earlier. "Why, did you get something?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.
"Burn medicine," she says, confirming my thoughts, "and some bread."
He picked her. Even though I knew this, it still kind of hurts me that he still hadn't sent me anything...
"I always knew you were his favourite," I think aloud, I know that she thinks that Haymitch hates her, maybe he does but he has chosen her because, even in his drunken state, he knows she has a better chance of winning. I stop myself from asking about how the bread tasted but only barely.
Katniss lets me go to sleep, and for the first time since I was announced tribute, it comes easy. I wake at what looks like late-afternoon with Katniss shaking my shoulders. She tells me we have to move downstream and find a place to hide until I have recovered.
She takes my wrists and pulls me to my feet. I try to stand on my own but I think I'm going to keel over and she grabs hold of me again. It's annoying having to rely on someone else to haul you around all of the time and help you put clothes on but right now I care more about getting dressed than being manly. I lean against the rock as she helps me put my trousers and shirt on. It's like being drunk- Haymitch deserves some credit.
"Come on, you can do this." she smiles, and leads me down to the river edge.
"Why are we walking in the river?" I ask. It seems a bit bizarre to me and I can see in her eyes she thinks it's a stupid question.
"Make sure our footprints aren't traceable, we don't want anyone following us."
Now I understood, Katniss really had thought of everything.
I watch her as she fixes leaves, vines and moss to the opening of the cave we had found - our 'home' for the night. Once I am cosy in Katniss' sleeping bag I stop to study her. She peacefully arranges the greenery around the mouth of the cave, as if she's arranging flowers, before tearing it down in aggravation. I suddenly think of back in the training centre, when Katniss was in her private session with the Gamemakers, and I made a promise to Haymitch, and to myself. I would make Katniss my first priority and I would help her win in whatever way I could.
I call her over. She walks over, kneels down and brushes the hair away from my eyes, making me feel as if I have butterflies in my stomach. "Thanks for finding me." I tell her.
"You would have found me if you could." She says while checking my temperature, and I realise I'm covered in beads of sweat. She's right, I would try to find her even if it killed me and not just because of my promise. I had something I wanted to share with Katniss that I know she won't like, but I tell her anyway.
"Yes, if I don't make it back-" She interrupts me before I can go any further.
"Don't talk like that; I didn't drain all that pus for nothing!" She says firmly though jokingly.
"I know, but just in case I don't-"she puts her index finger on my lips before I can continue, making the butterflies return.
"No Peeta, I don't even want to discuss it."
I try to protest; try to talk about what will happen when I die. And that's when she kisses me.
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