Lay Me Down, Let Me Dream
Co-written by Katnissdoesnotfollowback & Titania522
Trigger warnings: Major Character Deaths, Minor Character Deaths, Suicide, Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation (Literally Everybody Dies).
Rated M for Mature Sexual Content.
Day 2 of 7: Rats
Katniss
XXXXXX
Do you know that feeling? When something is so good it just can't last? I didn't really think of myself as a pessimist. Not until things turned upside down so fast that sometimes I forgot how to breathe. How to live. I suppose I should have known, though. My parents were so blissfully in love and happy together, and look where that got them.
The day I married Peeta, Prim stood beside me, bouncing on her toes as though she were a bird ready to take flight. I had no idea where she was headed on her flight, but I couldn't wait to watch her soar. And Peeta…all I had to do was look into the fractals of blue that arrested my attention that day in the bakery and never let go to know that I was exactly where I wanted to be. Where I was supposed to be. I didn't think I had it in me to marry someone within a year of meeting him, but with Peeta, I had no defenses. Didn't need them.
Our life together was almost idyllic. He and his brothers started to take over their parents' bakery when stoic Mrs. Mellark decided it was time to retire and move further south. Good riddance. Peeta never complained, but the things she said to him sometimes made me seethe in anger until he'd grab my hands, clenched into fists, and murmur for me to sheath my claws, after which he would calm me with a kiss.
In addition to the bakery, he painted and showed his work, eventually earning a regular spot in a gallery uptown and a few loyal patrons. As for me, I landed a research grant at the university and went on to earn my Master's Degree. I had plans to keep going for a PhD, as well, but in the meantime, I loved my work with the university. And Prim…Prim blossomed.
I had expected drama and strife when the three of us found a house and moved in together, but Peeta made the transition smooth, the same way he did with every other transition he brought to our lives. He rose to the challenge and exceeded all of my expectations when it came to Prim. The three of us became our own kind of family. It didn't hurt that Prim's mangy cat, Buttercup, took an almost immediate liking to him.
So, really, I should have expected it to all come crashing down. But the thought never occurred to me until it was too late. And I wasn't ready for the fall.
XXXXXX
"Sunscreen, Little Duck," I admonished my sister when she bounded through the kitchen, her braided hair whipping around as she looked over her shoulder to scrunch her nose at me. Then I turned to call toward the studio. "Peeta, breakfast!"
Prim's music blared from her room, competing with the softer tones emanating from Peeta's studio, all layered together with the sizzling sounds of eggs and bacon in the pan. I had all three plates loaded and on the table before Peeta entered the kitchen, walking up behind me and pulling me back against him, dropping a kiss on the side of my neck.
"Mmm, smells wonderful."
"Me or the breakfast?" I teased, wriggling against him and eliciting a low growl.
"Both. And be careful. I'm tempted to cancel your hike and spend the day in bed with you, making your toes curl."
As he anchored me with one arm, the other hand drifted up under my shirt, the rough pads of his fingers tickling the skin over my ribs.
"Stop," I laughed. "You already did that last night."
"Ew. Gross, you two," Prim groaned as she returned to the kitchen, prompting Peeta to release me and slide into his own chair.
Picking up his fork, he pointed it at Prim. "One of these days, missy, I'm going to catch you kissing some boy. And do you know what I'm going to say?"
"Put a ring on it first? Prim likes diamonds?" she suggested brightly and bit into a crispy slice of bacon. "Preferably emerald-cut diamonds."
For a moment, Peeta's mouth dropped open, a little stunned, but then he shrugged and loaded his fork with eggs. "Okay, I can work with that."
"Sunscreen, Primrose?" I repeated as I sat on Peeta's left, across from Prim. "We're going to be outside a long time today."
"Yes, mother. Already put it on." She rolled her eyes, exasperated, but the brightness in her expression betrayed her excitement despite the sarcastic tone she tried to take. "Are you sure you can't come with us, Peeta?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, Prim. I have to meet with the suppliers for the bakery. Besides, you and Katniss get the whole day for girl talk."
"Ugh," Prim groaned, smiling at me warmly. "So that means we'll be talking about my math homework and the Latin names for every mushroom and blade of grass we come across. And if I have to sit through one more lecture on the importance of fungus to the ecosystem…"
I scowled at her assessment of my lack of girl-talk abilities. "Well, we could talk about what's going on with you and Rory Hawthorne, if you prefer."
Prim's eyes widened and she ducked her head, shoveling eggs in her mouth and then stuffing in a huge bite of biscuit until her cheeks were comically swollen. Peeta coughed, choking on his eggs a little, and dropped his fork. It clanked against the plate and he flattened his palms on the table.
"What's this?" he asked when his airway was clear again. "Do I need to break out my deadly bags of flour? Start rehearsing my big brother speech? And why am I the last to know?"
Prim mumbled incoherently and I stifled a laugh. "I've got it covered," I told him with a raise of my eyebrows.
"Oh geez," he said with a grin. "I thought the idea was to keep her potential dates scared enough to behave, not give them a premature heart attack."
Prim snorted and coughed around her food while I scowled at Peeta and he responded with a wink. When Prim finally swallowed, she glared at us both in turn.
"We are friends. So we talk. A lot. Could you two not traumatize him before he gets a chance to ask me to Prom? Please?" She begged with all the earnestness of a sixteen year old who hadn't had her first kiss but eagerly anticipated it.
Peeta and I shared a look, then shook our heads and spoke in unison. "Nope."
"Ugh. You two disgust me," Prim said before she gulped down her juice and stood. She disappeared to brush her teeth and finish getting ready while I smiled over the rim of my mug of tea at Peeta, pretending not to notice him reaching under the table to feed scraps of bacon to Buttercup.
When Prim was ready to go, her pack hanging from one shoulder, she leaned her cheek against Peeta's, a soft smile on her face.
"See you tonight. And you've got paint in your hair."
Peeta's hand flew to his hair and he fingered the strands at the nape of his neck. He chuckled and said he guessed he'd have to get a shower before he headed into town. Prim skipped towards the garage and I leaned over to kiss Peeta on the lips. He pulled me down to sit in his lap and the kiss turned heated. Three years married and he still never failed to leave me breathless, my body humming the tune of desire under his lips and palms.
"We better get going," I gasped out when our lips separated. "And so should you."
"Have fun," he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine and cupping my cheek to caress it with his thumb. "I'll have dinner and a hot bath ready for you when you get back."
Pecking his lips one last time, I stood and grabbed my car keys from the kitchen counter. Prim poked her head back in and smiled at Peeta.
"Are you making dessert with that dinner?"
With a laugh, Peeta started washing the breakfast dishes. "How's cherry-chocolate cheesecake sound, eavesdropper?"
"Divine," she answered with a breathy sigh. I gave her shoulder a little shove back out the door, but she lingered just a moment. "Love you, Peeta."
"Love you, too, Prim," he said it quietly and delicately, as though he was still almost afraid he couldn't have any of Prim's love. I reminded myself to tell him that night that his love and caring for Prim was one of the things I adored about him.
It was a short drive to the edges of town and up into the hills. The forest lay bedecked in fresh spring foliage, the kind of green so new, it almost hurt to look at it. When we reached the trailhead, Prim unfolded herself from the car and slammed the door. She stretched, breathing deeply of the spring air while I double-checked my rucksack for the supplies we would need.
As we set off down the trail, we remained silent for a time, drinking in the sunshine and growing warmth of the fresh air. Prim plucked a yellow dandelion and tucked it into my braid.
"What's that for, Little Duck?"
Prim shrugged and smiled. "I see Peeta drawing them all the time and you look radiant today. So when are you two going to make me an aunt?"
"What?" I asked incredulously, stunned by the sudden change in subject.
"I want little babies with black hair and bright blue eyes to spoil. I am so going to be the cool aunt. Peeta's sisters-in-law aren't gonna be able to compete with my awesomeness."
I shook my head as we followed the zig-zag pattern of the trail down into the valley. Peeta and I had talked about having children one day. Soon, I thought. Depending on how my applications for doctoral programs were received.
We had hiked this trail many times before and had even ventured off the path on occasion. Sunlight filtered through the branches decorated in new foliage and budding blossoms, dappling the ground in splotches of faded color next to the vibrant hues in the shade, turning Prim's hair to burnished gold.
"So Prom, huh?"
A pink flush spread over Prim's cheeks. "Yeah," she said. "I mean, I know I'm only sixteen, but Rory's a senior so he can go, and—"
"Prim," I cut her off with a chuckle. "It's fine. If he asks, we'll go dress shopping, okay?"
"I could get a second-hand dress, yeah? Maybe go shopping downtown instead of uptown?"
"Sure," I answered lightly as Prim scooped up a few more dandelions. "You'd look lovely in vintage."
"Just not retro eighties vintage," she grimaced and our laughter danced among the trees, startling a few birds from their nests. "I don't think I can pull off that many ruffles or chartreuse."
"Hmmm, maybe neon purple," I suggested with mock seriousness. In response, Prim stuck her finger in her mouth and pulled a face. Then her expression softened and she tucked a few of the dandelions in my hair, the rest in hers. I remembered doing something like this with my mother when I was younger. Not the hiking through the woods, but weaving flowers into fragrant crowns we'd wear while we danced in the woods and Dad bounced baby Prim on his knee or conducted an imaginary orchestra for us.
Sighing away the memories, I took the lead through a narrow section and we continued along the trail. Sometimes we talked, other times we absorbed the sights and sounds of the forest returning to life after the long winter.
Prim spotted a robin's nest and pointed excitedly, digging in her bag for her camera as quietly as she could manage. We watched as the mother fed her young and Prim managed to snap a few pictures. Then she crept quietly off the trail into the brush to get a different angle, her feet silent, just as I taught her. She picked her way back towards the trail but stayed in the undergrowth, her hiking boots making soft shushing noises. I joined her and we continued.
Meandering through the woods, I kept track of the sun so we could find our way back to the trail while Prim photographed a few flowers. She even captured a grouping of fungus, showing it to me with a mischievous grin.
"Think Peeta will paint these?"
"You should draw them," I suggested and she smiled, scampering through the woods and snapping pictures of plants to draw later. She wandered further into the brush and I absently checked my watch.
"Whoa," she said, and I looked up to find her arms spread as though catching her balance. She smiled and shrugged at me. "Ground is a little soft here."
As I scanned the area around her, warning bells went off in my head. The plants appeared to be mostly dead or dying.
"Prim!" I yelled as she took another couple steps. And that's when the ground swallowed her.
XXXXXX
A scream lodged in my throat. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Park rangers brought me tea that I didn't drink. They wrapped a blanket around my shoulders that did nothing to halt my shivers. As the shadows grew long around me, I stared into the distance, unable to blink because every time I did, I saw my sister's smile, radiant in the sunshine before it disappeared, and I watched her stunned face as she fell into that sink hole. Heard her final scream before the deafening silence.
Voices around me talked in low murmurs. I only caught a few words. Sixty feet deep. Body irretrievable at this time. Lucky the older sister didn't fall in, too. A few stopped beside me and spoke, I assumed, to offer their condolences. Their words meant less than nothing to me.
All I knew was that I couldn't get to her, couldn't even see her, so I ran full bore back to the trail and flagged down an elderly couple who went searching for the park rangers to help. I don't remember how I ended up back at the trailhead, but I sat on the hood of my car, holding a mug of tea as it grew cold, waiting.
"Katniss!" Peeta cried and then he was there, pulling me into his arms. We sat on the ground, with me in his lap and the tears finally came, hot and fast, spilling over his shoulder. His hands ran over my back as he murmured soothing words and rocked us back and forth. Back and forth.
XXXXXX
It didn't seem real. I went to sleep every night hoping to wake and find this had all been some twisted nightmare. If that were the case, then when I woke from my nightmares, I could run down the hall and find Prim, fast asleep in her bed, brush her hair back off her forehead and take a few calming breaths before I returned to my bed where Peeta would kiss away the remnants of my nightmare.
Only the nightmares were just as bad as the waking. I watched her disappear beneath the earth over and over again, a scream of warning stitching my lips shut instead of springing free. I woke to find her battered and bleeding, in a soft lilac Prom dress, pointing an accusatory finger at me only to wake again to the silence of our house.
Sometimes, I woke up alone in bed. The first time that happened, I frantically searched the house and found Peeta in his studio, furiously sketching, eyes red and rimmed with the purple bruises of sleepless nights. Their pain matched my own. I watched him silently that night for a long time before I finally shuffled back to bed alone and stared at the wall. I don't think he even noticed me there. My feet made no noise on the tile floor, then again, I did everything silently those days.
Peeta tried to talk to me. During the day, he carried on conversations with me as though I was actually speaking. If he was in bed with me when the nightmares started, he shook me awake and held me while I trembled uncontrollably. Eventually he started pleading with me to talk to him. My lips would part and press back together in an imitation of a fish suffocating on the shore. No sounds issued forth.
I tortured myself with what I could have done. Should have done. I should have stopped her, saved her. Never put her in danger. As I lay down at night, I told myself that would be the night that I saved her, bringing this hell to an end.
But the worst nights were the ones when the rats came. Swarms of them that scratched and clawed their way out of the hole that became her final resting place. In my sleep, I screamed at them to get off of her before they swarmed over my body, their claws sinking into my flesh and their horrid, beady, blood red eyes taunting me.
"Katniss, you have to eat," Peeta said hollowly the morning he returned to the bakery. I had been sitting in the kitchen since two in the morning, my muscles long gone stiff from their rigid pose. Slowly, I lifted my eyes to his. Peeta broke first, heaving a sigh as he placed a heaping plate in front of me and bent to kiss my temple. "I love you, Katniss. Come back to me, please."
I listened to him walk out to the garage and start his car. After the whirring of the garage door closing ended, I blinked, a pair of tears leaking from my eyes. How could he do this? How could he just walk out and return to his life with such ease? Pushing the food around the plate, I took a few bites, not because he asked, but because my head had started to hurt. Even sitting down, I felt dizzy. When Peeta came home, he had a list of therapists clutched in his fist.
"Just to talk, Katniss. I'm worried about you, and if you can't talk to me, maybe you can speak with a stranger. Please? She wouldn't want you to do this to yourself."
He had no idea. And neither did I, because Prim wasn't here to tell me what she wanted anymore. But I nodded at Peeta and took the list from his hands, vowing to burn it the first chance I got. But days passed and still, the list remained tucked inside my work satchel.
The rats taunted me. Prim started screaming my name from the depths of the earth. And Peeta sketched late into the night. I surprised myself a few days later by handing him the list back, one of the names randomly circled, and he ran for the phone, making an appointment for me and then driving me to it. I spent the hour sitting in a leather chair, staring at the man's face as his nose twitched, his teeth poking over his lower lip. He droned on about grief and loss, asking a few pointed questions that I answered with nods or shakes of my head...or ignored completely. When my time was up, I couldn't remember his name. It was fine. Referring to him as Dr. Squirrel-Face suited my needs just fine.
Once we returned to the house, Peeta stood behind me in the kitchen and rubbed my shoulders, resting his head on mine, whispering to my hair that we'd get through this, somehow. Still tense from my hour of therapy, I shut my eyes against his words, but for the first time since my sister died, I allowed myself to lean back against Peeta, to let his touch relax me.
"I'll make dinner," he murmured when he finally released me. "Do you want to go lay down or stay in here?"
I shook my head and stepped away, headed towards our bedroom. But I found myself stopping in front of the door to Prim's room instead. The door had remained shut those past few days. Or had it been weeks? Pulling the sleeve of my shirt down over my hand, I turned the knob and pushed the door in gently. My breath caught when I was not met by a pack of rats or a gaping hole in the floor. Despite Peeta's soothing touches, my muscles began to tense again, squeezing painfully under my skin as I listened to the sounds of him in the kitchen and my own ragged breathing. I gingerly stepped across the threshold into my sister's sanctuary.
Everything was the same as the last time I had been in there. Her bed sloppily made, a sundress and denim jacket discarded on the rumpled quilt. Her closet open with a small pile of shoes scattered on the floor. Framed pictures lined her dresser: Buttercup, me and Peeta, me and Prim, Mom and Dad. About a dozen pictures of her many friends tucked into the frame of her mirror, the edges starting to curl. She had recipes, and pictures for baking and sketching inspiration tacked to her bulletin board along with a couple of movie ticket stubs and a Valentine's Day card from a friend. On her desk, a fine layer of dust covered the clutter of colored pencils, flute sheet music, and her sketchbook.
Picking up the sketchbook, I wiped off the dust and fingered the corner of the cover. I wondered if her drawings would be like Peeta's. He had been teaching her, guiding her as she developed this craft, as well as the baking they did together. Would I be able to see a glimpse of her heart and mind in her drawings? It felt almost like an invasion of privacy, though, and unsure if I was ready to look, I carefully set it back down. Redirecting my motions to dust off the rest of the desk, my hand brushed against a small bowl and I tipped the rim to peer at the contents.
Dandelions. Half a dozen dried and shriveled, yellow dandelions. Prim tucking dandelions in my hair then hers...
My already tense muscles clenched into excruciating knots and the room spun around me at a nauseating speed. I couldn't get the smell of the forest or the slant of the light over her skin out of my head. My palms began to sweat. As I backed away from the desk, my heart pumped furiously in my chest, the beats powerful enough to be painful. It paused then sped up in an irregular pattern. And then came the sound of her screaming as I crumpled to the floor, trembling from head to foot.
"Katniss, what's wrong? Katniss!" Peeta's voice reached me from a great distance as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to banish the memories that would never leave me alone. I'm not sure if I wanted them to leave me alone in that moment. This was all I had left of my sister.
XXXXXX
Lost as to what to do with me in that state, Peeta called Finnick, and, unable to reach his friend, rushed me to the ER. I nearly cracked under the strain of trying to keep myself together while my body seemed determine to break me apart. My mind wasn't helping either. When the nurses finally called my name and led me to an examination room, I frantically tried to keep their hands off me. No one was allowed to touch me except Peeta and Prim.
But Prim was dead and their cold hands felt like the feet of rats, so I fought, giving one nurse a black eye and knocking a tooth loose in the mouth of another. I have no real memory of this. Only the word of Dr. Squirrel-Face to go on. Eventually, that nervous breakdown of mine landed me in a mental health facility. An institution, just like my mother. And I blamed Peeta for that, screeching at him as they admitted me to the sterile white hospital that he was leaving me alone and making me like my mother, nothing but a shell.
It wasn't true, not really. Those words were born from the loss of my sister who was more like a daughter and the certainty that I was responsible for her death. But those were the first words I had spoken since Prim had died, and after they left my mouth, I held on to the rage and sense of betrayal behind them, even though I didn't understand the feelings at the time, because rage was preferable to emptiness.
I suppose Peeta and I fixed things between us eventually, but I'll never get to take back those months of silence, or my thoughtless words. And now, in my darkest moments, I doubt whether I ever adequately repaired the damage I did to us in that time.
XXXXX
Thanks to abbythebear and solasvioletta for betaing this fic!