Thanks so much to all my lovely reviewers! You honestly help me write so much faster!
This is my favourite chapter. Hope you enjoy.
I do not own the Hunger Games.
She hears the weight of his bed creak the ceiling but she still sits stoically in her chair. Just because he's in bed doesn't mean he's going to sleep. But then she hears the soft mutters and moans that mean he's sleeping, not in a full nightmare but not just lying there, having an episode. She pulls the rabbits and squirrel out of her bag and dresses them, leaving them for another day. She's not hungry, but she's not angry anymore. She just feels empty, despite the stuff and the sounds he brings to her house.
She listens again, to be sure he's sleeping, that he's not about to come down at any moment, before she heads over to his studio, because she's going to burn the portrait of Snow. She won't have it in her house and she knows she'll enjoy watching it go up in flames. She pauses as she flicks on the lights to his studio. Though Peeta has no negative associations with it, it's the same room where Snow threatened her before the Tour. She has barely ever set foot in here except to call him to dinner or the couple times his episodes have happened in here. She sees two sets of canvases covered with sheets: one that says Games and one that simply says nothing. It must be under the unlabelled sheet, because Snow was never in their Games, not really. They were his pieces, not the other way around.
She lifts the sheet off, ready to face her worst fear, and instead comes face to face with herself. It's a picture of her, lying on her back, hair fanned out, in their second Games. She remembers this, remembers how he gazed at her while they were kissing and she blushes at the suggestion in his portrait. She pulls it over to look at the next one: she's in her fire dress at her first interview, and she looks so young and untainted. Next one- she's in her uniform from 13, laughing at something over lunch, and she remembers this, remembers that they were talking about Buttercup. It was the first time she'd laughed weeks. She flips again, estimating that there must be at least twenty canvases here. Are these all of her? This is of her at the Reaping, which would seem grim, but she's holding Prim by the shoulders, and anyone can see the love and devotion there. Next one—it's of her in the first Games, sitting in a tree, looking fierce and independent and so strong. She flips, and now, for the first time, she's swept off her feet. Because this is of a young, young Katniss, soaking wet in the rain, staring disbelievingly at two burnt loaves of bread. She lets the other paintings fall to the floor as her fingers trace this one. He's captured it in perfect detail: her cheekbones stick out, her face is pale, her eyes dead, but lit with a spark of disbelief that anyone would actually want to help her. It's the perfect portrait of the event: there's even a patch of dandelions in the background.
What's sweeping her off her feet is not that Peeta's an amazing painter (he always was, wasn't he?) or that that he's captured this life-changing event so vividly (he was there, wasn't he?). It's that she looks so beautiful that her heart might break. He's spun every event to make her look strong, devoted, fierce, desirable, but this is the first one where she feels like it's truly her, staring at the bread. She looks beautiful yet breakable. How the hell did he do this? How did he remember what dress she was wearing, that she used to have a tiny scar above her right eyebrow, before the Capitol took away all her old scars and gave her new ones? How the hell did he make that dandelion look like it was radiating hope in the rain?
She nearly jumps out of her skin when his warm hand touches her arm. In all the time they've known each other, he has never snuck up on her until now. He's looking at her as if he's completely unsure of who he's seeing, as if he's not sure if she's going to shoot him or hit him or what. Her first reaction is worry that he'll be angry she's in here, then shock that he snuck up on her, then…desire. It's as if the tiny fluttering of her heart or warmth in her chest over the last few weeks were a prelude to this: this enormous feeling of warmth and want.
"Is this really how you picture me?" she asks. He looks at the portrait: though she's bedraggled and emaciated, no one would ever deny that she's beautiful.
"I can't seem to get a clear picture of you," he whispers, and then he kisses her.
This is nothing like their other kisses; it's more beautiful, more full of desire, than any kiss during their Tour or even on the beach in their second Games. She wants him, so desperately, needs him to fill this empty space she'd long given up on having filled. And she's never felt his hands like this before: wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer, his mouth gently opening hers. There's stubble on his chin and she decides that she likes the way it's rubbing against her face. She's running her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, trying so hard not to moan in pleasure because then he might stop, and this kiss is what she's been waiting for.
When they pull apart she starts to say something, but stops. He looks at her, puts a finger under her chin, makes her look into his eyes.
"That would've been a really great first kiss," she whispers, and he grins.
"It's the first one not for the cameras or the audience," he tells her. "It's the first one that's real." She marvels at his ability to always have the perfect thing to say, before she has to go and argue again.
"No, I kissed you right after we escaped the mutts in the Capitol, remember?" she asks, though now that she asks, she's unsure if he does remember since he was so far beyond her reach at the time. "I kissed you, and then I asked you to stay with me, and you said-"
"Always." He does remember.
This time his kiss is less gentle and more demanding; he's pushing her up against the wall, one hand on her waist and one on her lower back, arching her into him. She feels lost in him: his taste, his scent, his hands, the feel of his hair between her fingers. By the time he pulls away for air, her limbs feel fuzzy and her eyes can't seem to focus on anything but him.
"I really like kissing you when we're not under imminent threat of death," she whispers, stupidly. They look at each other for a moment and then sink onto the floor in ridiculous laughter. It's the first time either of them has truly laughed in months, and she decides there's no sound she loves better.
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