PLEASE NOTE A MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING- this is a sensitive subject, and may not be appropriate for anyone who has sensitivities to mentions of rape / sexual coercion. Please, please, do not read forward if this is a subject that you want to avoid, or which will trigger you in any capacity.
Peeta's chest rises and falls. It lends a slow, steady stream of comfort.
His apologies ring in my ears, the look on his face as he leans down, kissing me before his heat penetrates. The way he bit down on his lower lip, eyes dilating. The image permeates my memory. How vulnerable Peeta is— how vulnerable we both are, under the surveillance of the president's recording device. It made any reaction that even slightly betrayed our truth borderline criminal. Fragile contours of our bodies press to one another, barely anything to protect from the threats that can end everything at a moment's notice.
Snow could just as easily have his men drag us both into the street and plant bullets in us. That would be wasteful, though. This— this sick blend of affection and fear for my own husband— this solves the president's problem with far less personal sacrifice on his own behalf. His comment before the Victory Tour, about Peeta's reaction to my indifference, had been more than petty commentary. It was a dig, at the two of us. It was seeking out between the Star-Crossed Lovers, who is the weaker link. Who is more responsible for this, for the sign of rebellion that the berries have become. How he can unite us in theory yet divide us by his own means. Inject us with his venom, but keep us alive enough to serve a purpose.
Stuffing us and getting us drunk and parading us around, spoiling us while the districts suffer. We had lamb stew as a parting meal, while half the people in the Seam had been made homeless. What will Gale say?
At the least the alcohol had taken away some of the discomfort, dizzying and numbing and distancing us both from the reality of it all. We could almost pretend it was our decision. Almost. I wonder if Snow, when he views it, will find it more convincing or less than the wedding itself.
Haymitch should be proud. Perhaps they had planted so much in the penthouse to encourage us to get drunk. Then Panem will get a triplet set of drunks. Perhaps they'll say our child being reaped is a liberation, not a death sentence.
Soft breaths hush against the pillowcase between us, Peeta's lips hanging opened. Avoiding looking at the holo on the night-table behind him, I lie still, fingers curling around the silken sheets, gripping them tightly. Peeta turned it off shortly after we had completed the act, apologizing something like a thousand times, before I told him to stop. I fell asleep with his hand running through my hair.
He looks peaceful, the most relaxed I have seen him in weeks. My lipstick has left stains on his cheeks, apple red and glinting in the prickles of sunlight from the horizon. Peeta's own bronzer has rubbed off, too, marring the white bedcovers we had slipped under last night.
A frown puckers Peeta's brow in his sleep. My hand reaches out hesitantly, to brush back a blonde curl. His eyes flutter in his sleep, a murmur like my name giving me pause, sending the thrill that feels so wrong, and yet so soothing. Immediately, I roll over, facing away from him. Lips purse. The tears that linger on the edge of my lids wait on tenterhooks, as if I'll give them permission to appear.
My gaze sets on the window a few feet away, which surveys the Capitol's cityscape. A tiny slice of the sky turns golden-orange, the buildings silhouetted in black as if biting a chunk out of the slowly-changing sunrise. I try not to blink, encouraging the weariness to take over. Eyes slip shut after some time. Darkness swallows me whole.
The wind should be blustering. The crowds should be angry, should shout and spit and jeer aloud. These things we would expect. Instead, it's a calm day with blue skies. Spots of grey clouds drift lazily above us. Snowcapped mountain peaks peer out in the distance. My eyes take in District Two's massive square, the seemingly plastered smiles and hollow applause. It's a different kind of hate, here. They're Careers. They're equipped for pretense.
If not for us, Cato and Clove might have returned home. The hate is unlike what we witnessed in 8, or even in 4 and 3. They want to press forward, I can see it in all of their eyes, but unlike in other Districts, they keep themselves restrained. They stop short of cursing us, or harming us. Their anger is with our victory. It's not the same fire which burns through most of the country.
The banners are brighter here. Buildings brag a seemingly endless number of pennants, I'm sure the names of all their victors over the years. What captures my eye, makes me stop, are the large screens mounted across the square. Cato and Clove stare out at us. My hand tightens around Peeta's. He retrieves Effie's cards, reads them obediently. He steps back, prompts my own words. I am stuck, eyes locked on the sight across the square. Despite myself I look at Cato's family. Three blonde-haired, blue-eyed relatives. Two little girls, and an older woman. The girls are perhaps a year or so younger than my own sister. No father, just a mother. They resemble my own family, but stare back coldly.
I feel as if I have been kicked in the gut. I clear my throat, do the best to put on a smile, to read Effie's words aloud. I hear a murmur in the crowd, see the crowd parting ways. Suddenly, a high-pitched scream. The Peacekeepers shift, but not before I see a man rush them, a pistol in his hand that rings out three shots. A pull to my weight.
Peeta slumps to the cobblestone.
"No!" I yell, dropping to my knees. A volley sounds out, more shots. I shield him with my body as best I can. The gunshots dissipate. I grab Peeta's face in my shaking hands. "Peeta?"
No response. Silence. His eyes are shut. The blood oozes out from his stomach and shoulder, head with a graze that pours down his brow. I tap his cheek, his blonde lashes failing to flutter. I repeat his name, voice pitching with fear.
"Open your eyes, Peeta."
The scent of gunpowder lingers, his blood pooling on my hands as I try to press against the wounds. His chest is still.
"Peeta, open your eyes! Please- please." My fingers fumble across his lips. The slightest of hot breath. Alive, but just barely. I jerk my head up, a pair of Peacekeepers approaching us. "Help him!"
They approach, but one hooks his arms around me, and begins to drag me backwards-
I wake up screaming his name. I'm thrashing in the sheets, only stopping when a warm pair of arms engulfs me, a soft voice whispering words of comfort.
Peeta.
My body flinches.
Peeta was dying.
I shake my head. "You're- you were shot-"
"I'm okay," he says, pulling me close. "I'm fine."
I bury my face in his chest, the tears escaping down my cheeks and onto his skin. His bare skin. The cool metal of his prosthetic leg touches my toes.
He's naked.
Of course he is.
Because we've had sex.
"Remember, Katniss?" he asks gently.
I do remember.
We're both naked, his flesh warm, flushed. My eyes seek out the raised, white scar in his shoulder, spidery lines repairing where the bullet had been removed.
We just-
"It's all right," he murmurs, oblivious to my realization. His hand smoothes across the skin of my back, free hand coming to rest at the base of my neck. "It was just a nightmare."
But I pull away, untangle myself from his limbs, and scramble from the bed. I grab the pashmina throw from the foot of the bed, wrap it around myself before retreating to the bathroom. Peeta calls out, his heavy footsteps labored in trying to catch up with me. The lock shuts without with a resounding click behind me. His knuckles rap the wood several times, before he seems to give up. Sitting on the toilet, my head drops into my hands, eyes squeezing shut. Haymitch's voice fights its way into an avalanche of thoughts.
"And every year they'll revisit the romance and broadcast the details of your private life, and you'll never, ever be able to do anything but live happily ever after with that boy." **
Muscles in my stomach clench as my arms wrap around myself. I can taste last night's whiskey on my tongue still, and purposely spit into the toilet basin a few times to rid myself of it. Moving to the sink to wash my hands, my own reflection startles me. There are hooded black smudges underneath and above my eyes. The rouge applied by the prep team has strayed, making it look as if I've been slapped down to the underside of my chin. The lipstick is virtually gone, my lips chapped and dry. Lingering remnants ring my mouth, likely pushed about as we locked lips.
There is a large, purple mark on my collarbone. I vaguely remember Peeta pressing his lips hard to the skin there, sucking on it. The moan that escaped my lips. The warmth that had flowed through me even now makes me clench my legs. I think of all our kisses, of how each was us seeking one another, the comfort that struck me, the way a fire burned between us. This yearning, this hunger had returned; the flicker of a spark, but I push it away, reject it outright. We didn't do this because of us.
We did it so President Snow can have a video of us obeying his orders.
The heat of the alcohol had muddled me enough to confuse me. The kisses wouldn't have had this sort of effect, if not for the haze of the drinks.
I blink quickly, before I do something stupid, like let myself begin to sob.
Peeta. The boy with the bread.
It's not his fault, I tell myself. It isn't.
But it was his face, his tongue, his hands…
Looking down at myself, I hesitate before gingerly placing a hand on my inner thigh. It's dry, but the mess of last night plagues me. Invisible grime and dried sweat cling to me. My legs are sore, I notice the more I stand here, and each moment that passes I feel a new form of exhaustion making me shake uncontrollably.
I'm struggling to keep from playing it over, and over. Sharp breaths come all at once, sending me back in time, the way seeing Prim in Cinna's designs brought Rue back to my mind with frightening realism.
It's hard to breathe. Impossible.
I see his face as he groaned out, as the slick release accompanied it. I bite my tongue between my molars.
Peeta smiling at me in the schoolyard; in the rain, tossing me the bread; taking my dandelion. Peeta at the river, whispering my name in relief. Peeta holding me tightly, in the District Two hospital ward.
I can't count the things he's done for me, on one hand. I need to keep a list, though. I need to start. A list of all the good deeds he has done. A list to reassure myself that never, never would he hurt me this way.
A stinging throb appears between my things, aching, making it difficult to ignore.
Snow's venom is sinking in. I can feel it, potent and vicious and slowly paralyzing me.
He's winning. I can't even say it wasn't Peeta who caused me this pain, just that he was doing it under threat.
My hands brace the counter, head ducking before the urge to vomit gets the better of me. I focus on the tile of the sink and begin to count each tiny, honey-brown square. After a time, when my breath is more steady, I straighten, avoiding the grey of my own eyes looking back at me.
Whiskey haunts the back of my tongue.
I rummage through the drawers for a mouth-rinse, practically chugging the minty green liquid before swishing it around. Spitting and wiping my chin with the back of my hand, I see in a drawer a small basket labeled 'aftercare package,' filled with gels and lotions. At the bottom sits an innocuous little pack of pink pills, dates on them which include this morning. Lifting the pack from its resting place, I flip it over and study the instructions. I have to read the words several times before I understand that this is a pill to prevent pregnancy.
Prevent.
Only Snow wants us to have a child.
Or was that a bluff?
Or are the pills a bluff?
I drop the pills down, glancing over the rest of the items and their guidelines. One of the gels is to be applied 'post-coitally, following vigorous sterilization.' At that, my mother's words come to me. She murmured advice about washing thoroughly, about being certain to relieve myself, to avoid infections. I had pulled away from her, tried to ignore her words, stupidly thinking somehow that having sex could be put off. I thought, at the earliest, eighteen would be the expected age. She knew better.
That shortness of breath creeps along the perimeters of my mind. Bare feet slap chilled tiles, trembling fingers smashing buttons randomly. Thick pinkish-purple bubbles emerge from two different faucets, steaming hot water from the third. The aroma of crushed lavender hits me as I step in, accompanied by a second scent, sweet, powdery and utterly foreign. I lean my neck back, wincing as the hot water pounds the bruised blemish on my collarbone. My hands soothe smooth circles about the spot, slow and careful to move from there to my head. Fingernails scrape at my scalp, scrubbing my hair out. Letting the hot water run down my back, I build up the courage to dare another glance in the direction of my pelvis, still aching. The anger swells, but is drowned by the sob that builds in the back of my throat, quickly swallowed into my palm.
Minutes tick by, before I take a sponge hanging from the nozzle, soaking it in the foamy spray. Touching a hand to the wall, half-afraid I might fall, I run the sponge along my skin, starting at the shoulders and working my way down. The soap leaves behind a trail, the water cleansing some parts quicker than others. The froth slides down one leg, and then the other. I am at my hip, when I pause, reaching my free hand to the wall for balance, and slowly slide the sponge down, between my legs. My eyes burn, another cry bitten off as teeth plunge into my lower lip, hand pressing the sponge up, slowly massaging at the spot. I pull it away, tossing the sponge aside and hunching my shoulders up, trying to hold myself together. Eyes squeeze shut. The water drowns me, gently, as I inhale the steam then exhale slowly.
Peeta is my ally.
Peeta with the berries; on the train; bringing me cheese-buns. Peeta painting Rue on a small canvas, white flowers covering her body. Peeta holding me tighter than he needed to at our wedding.
I can't tell if there are water droplets from my own tears, or from the shower head, but I stand and let my body shudder under the drizzle for some time, before I feel drained enough to call it calmness.
We're in this together, I tell myself. But we don't own each other.
Snow doesn't own me. I mouth the words, knowing better than to say them aloud, even here.
I am Katniss Everdeen. They called me the Girl on Fire. I am seventeen years old. Peeta Mellark and I were forced to marry. We won the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. Snow does not own us.
The thought of Peeta, who I ran away from moments ago, fills me with dread. I don't dread him, but dread what the next step is. And the next, after that.
Bracing myself for an onslaught of conscience, I program the blow-dry system that warms me and rapidly evaporates the water from my skin. I wrap a soft bathrobe around myself, pressing my nose to the vanilla-scented cloth and hugging it tightly around myself.
I take a deep breath, before unlocking the door and hesitantly stepping out into the bedroom.
I find a disaster zone. A bedside ashtray has been smashed in its place on the nightstand, the footstool at the end thrown across the room and lying in bits and pieces.
Oh, Peeta.
My eyes search for the holo, and I find it undamaged on a cabinet in the corner of the room. He tore the room apart, but not the recording.
"Peeta?" I call out, careful to avoid any shards that might have sprayed out from the glass tray's destruction.
I hear the clinking of utensils from outside of the bedroom, and distinctive buzzing of a television program playing. Hurrying towards the sounds, I see him sitting at the dining room table, a bountiful feast in all shapes, sizes and colors laid out before him. His hair is combed back, and I can tell from the wet sheen of it that he has showered, himself. There are dark circles under his eyes, a bruise just beginning on his knuckles. He doesn't look up, even as I come and sit next to him. My stomach feels almost ill at the sight of all this food, though I spot lemon scones and cheesy-potatoes among the spoils and take a few onto my plate. The rest, I do not recognize. I don't think I could eat much more without wanting to retch.
Peeta holds out a cup of hot chocolate.
"Thank you," I offer.
"You're welcome." Peeta's blue eyes do not meet mine, instead focusing on his meal.
Similarly, my food receives my full attention. I finish my helping quicker than I expect, and scoop more out. We don't say anything to one another, words hardly able to mend the damage done here. It is impossible to get home sooner than Snow sees fit, and when home, impossible to leave this behind us. No forgetting, no ignoring it.
The background noise runs a news program, gossiping about the Star-Crossed Lovers' first night together. Peeta Mellark, according to them, has planned the most romantic getaway, upon which we will be departing by noon today. I pause, glancing at Peeta. He is frowning at the television, looking as confused as me.
"A honeymoon." Peeta's jaw clenches, still not meeting my gaze before he throws down his knife and fork in frustration. "We're getting a honeymoon."
I don't know what to say to that, but I find my fingers gripping my fork tighter.
An Avox appears, holding out a silver tray with a small, white envelope on it. Within the package are two tickets, a train ride from the Capitol to District Four.
"A romantic, three-day getaway to the West Beach Resort."
It further holds a congratulatory message, signed by President Snow himself.
I feel the fury in me, but quell it, and swallow down the words that threaten to spill out. Blue eyes finally look at me, anger written all over his face. I reach out and place my hand on his.
"Together," I murmur.
His fingers squeeze my hand in response, before he leans forward, pausing and giving me the option of meeting him in the middle. Is it because he needs the comfort of a kiss, or a determination to continue playing our parts? Would he even know, if I asked? After a hesitation, I lean over to peck his cheek.
The elevator rings out, and the chorus of our prep team makes us pull far apart from one another.
It isn't until they've swarmed us, hugging and kissing us, that I see Effie has a clipboard.
I realize the 'getaway' will be anything but.
big thank you to GreenWool and Lovethybooty for their help and support, and thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed. xoxo
**blockquote is direct from Catching Fire Chapter Three.