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When she pulls herself together he eats, but she does not. She won't get off him, is scared if she lets him go for an instant he'll run to his studio and paint another goddamn picture of Snow (or of her, which would be worse). Why the hell doesn't she trust any of his promises? He's the trustworthy one. Instead, she sits on his lap as he eats her dinner, offering her bites again and again, complimenting her soup.
"This is my favorite," he offers, smiling. "It reminds me of our cave." She snorts.
"Yeah, we sure had some good times there," she mutters sarcastically. He shakes his head at her.
"We did have some good times there," he tells her, as if he's reminding her. She remembers.
"Our first kiss…you know, the one where you faked having feelings for me?"
"I felt something," she tells him, desperate to make herself sound better than she is. She's determined to be better than the girl in his nightmares, to be a radiant, glowing presence in his life, not the destructive inferno that she seems to turn into with so little effort.
"I felt something that time you kissed me right before my head started bleeding…when…" but she's trailing off because she's remembering how desperate she felt, that hunger for him. She remembers that first real kiss, how badly she did not want to lose the boy with the bread. She knew then that her survival in the arena would mean nothing if she lost him. She stops herself there, sure that if she lets her thoughts continue, she'll have to face the fact that her survival will still mean nothing if she loses him.
"When what?" he whispers, his soup forgotten.
"Nothing," she whispers, but it's such a weak defense. Why is she always hiding from him?
"It's always amazed me what a terrible liar you are," he says conversationally. He dips his bread in the soup. "I mean, you're such a radiant, compelling, lethal person, but when you open your mouth to lie—"
"I can lie!" she protests, her face going red as she realizes she hasn't succeeded in lying to him in an awful long time. He smirks at her.
"Give an example," he requests, digging into his soup again as though he knows he'll be waiting awhile for her answer. She stutters over it, trying to think of a good example, one that won't push him over the edge or break this tenuous hold she seems to be keeping on her sanity. He smiles as he eats, and she realizes, without meaning to, that he gave her an out, that he's keeping up this light conversation so that she doesn't have to revisit the cave or the Games or her own broken promises if she doesn't want to. She runs a hand down the back of his neck, grateful.
"I drugged you with sleeping syrup by telling you about sugar berries," she reminds him, and he bursts out laughing through his mouthful of soup, barely manages to swallow.
"Sugar berries," he laughs, and she grins. "I'd completely forgotten about that."
"And then after you were out, I whispered, 'Who can't lie, Peeta?'" she tells him, looking at him from under her eyelashes for dramatic effect. He laughs again.
"Bet Haymitch loved that."
"Oh, it's a safe bet that everything I did in the arenas pissed Haymitch off, but he had to let me live," she says carelessly, as if none of this matters anymore. As if it isn't what keeps her up at night.
"He needed someone to feed him if he ever made it home," agrees Peeta, finishing off his supper. He looks questioningly across the table at her untouched meal. She shrugs.
"I think I'm going back to bed," he tells her, and it's not a request for her to get off him, merely a reminder that he's hung over, drank an entire bottle today, barely slept because he was throwing up, but she jumps off of his lap as if he's on fire. He kisses her cheek, softly, thanking her for the meal, and then ascends the stairs, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
She wonders if he's hoping she'll eat if he leaves her alone. He's such an idiot, because all she does is clean up, make coffee, and sit in a chair listening to the floor of his bedroom creak above her head. The entire time he's gone she's worrying about him: his nightmares, his stitches, his episodes. She doesn't want him to have another episode, especially not alone, in bed, at night. He'd come get her, wouldn't he? She wasn't awful today. But what if he can't come get her? What if he's all alone, trapped in his confused world of memories, real and not real, Games and not Games, violent and…
She's halfway up the stairs before she realizes what she's doing, but once she's come to herself she doesn't stop. She's quiet as she enters his bedroom, completely convinced he'll be mid-episode and about to slit his own throat. But he's not mid-episode; he's sitting up with the lamp on, sketching something. He looks up as his door opens, not in fear, just in curiosity.
"Do you need something?" he asks politely, after she stands there, frozen, not entering the room but not leaving him alone either. She crosses to him, puts her mug of coffee on an end table, and wordlessly climbs into his bed. She snuggles into him as he puts the sketchpad away, but he's not quick enough for her to miss that he's sketching her, sitting on his lap and laughing as she had been less than an hour ago.
"You can't have an episode alone again," she tells him, simply. "I won't allow it. And someone needs to be here to watch that you don't pull out your stitches accidentally. And…"
She's out of reasons, but one look at his face tells her she didn't need any in the first place, that he isn't interested in rationalizations, he's only interested in her. He nods consent, turning out the light. Things are awkward, for a few moments: she sits up to get her coffee, but he slides down, his hands seeking her waist, her elbows, his hands pulling up the blankets, and so on. But then they lay there, his head on her chest, arms around her, and she sips coffee and plays with his hair as he falls asleep.
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