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I do not own the Hunger Games.
The rest of her day is spent helping Delly unpack. The boy, Dalton, has disappeared and the thought of leaving Peeta with Delly when he's just had an episode is unbearable. Something is welling up in her, some emotion that makes her face warm and her blood hot, and she can't name it for the life of her.
Watching Delly and Peeta together, laughing at things from their school days, is a knife in her heart. They're so happy, so satisfyingly nostalgic that even Peeta looks carefree. She feels like an intruder on their joyful optimism. She is not happy, not nostalgic, not optimistic. She's broken: doesn't have enough sanity to name her own emotions. She wants to hate Delly but she can't. The only person she's truly capable of hating anymore is herself.
Peeta is beside himself at having friends here again. Greasy Sae drops by to tell him she and her granddaughter will be living in his house (after a pointed question about where he sleeps that makes both of them blush), and suggests that he join her in feeding the people who now make up their district. Greasy Sae will cook her usual stews and soups, Peeta will bake. The idea of having someone cook while he bakes reminds him of his family, of his home.
It turns out that they're not here solely because they wanted to return home. Paylor wants to rebuild the districts, to turn them into places that will provide resources for everyone to share, resources not to be destroyed by greed and Games. They're here to rebuild, to turn this back into something resembling the place where she grew up. Though apparently, people won't be starving, since they won't be mining coal, they'll be growing food. Everyone is living in Victor's Village until they've cleaned up in town. She has no idea what "cleaned up" means, since she hasn't set foot in what used to be town since she's been back. She's so confused; was sure that this was just a larger prison for the drunk and the mentally deranged. She was confined here until they figured out what to do with her, real or not real? Real- they had no idea what to do with their precious Mockingjay after the war, but Plutarch told her that she'd be useful if there was another one. Does this mean there won't be another one? Maybe…maybe this will be the one that sticks. The idea warms her, makes her somewhat grateful for all the faces. Maybe, with so many living people here, she'll stop seeing ghosts. She doubts it, but she tries to cling to some of Peeta's optimism, some of Delly's joy. It drains her in less than a minute. How do they do it all day?
They're trying to get her to join in the conversation, but she doesn't know how. It's too much for her to take in. She hasn't talked to anyone but Peeta or Haymitch in months and they give her time to take things in. Greasy Sae, Delly: they have no idea that she's a burned-out shell of the girl she was. They don't take her silence as anything extraordinary. She was always quiet.
Finally, Delly's unpacked, and Dalton's come home, and though they're invited for supper, Katniss pretends she isn't hungry. She can't stomach it for one more minute: after having solitude, or near-solitude for so long, she can't handle the different voices. Her head is going to burst. So she shakes her head at their offer of dinner and goes to leave, only to find that Peeta, too, claims not to be hungry and is leaving with her. He takes her hand on the walk home, and though she would normally push it away, she finds she wants Delly to see, to know that for now he still belongs to her.
She feels strange when they're back home, as if she's with a stranger.
"Are you hungry?" he asks, and she nods, finds that her stomach is growling.
He goes about getting some buns he'd made the day before, and she watches the muscles in his back in admiration. She's trying to drink him in, take in as much as she can about him, because it's been made so clear to her today that he needs people, has needed them all along. He needs people who are real, not people who are half-ghosts like she is.
"It was nice to see Delly again," she mutters, forcing the lie out of her mouth as she flops in a chair. He puts a cheese bun in front of her, sits across from her with his own. He remembers her favorite and this brings a small smile to her face.
"It was great," he agrees, though he has a strange expression on his face.
"You really like her, huh?" she asks, and he shrugs, avoids the question.
"I think it'll be great to open shop with Greasy Sae," he tells her, and at that, she actually smiles.
"You two will be a wonderful, if unconventional team," she agrees. Her cheese bun is amazing, and she's thinking of some of Greasy Sae's dishes, soups she actually enjoyed despite the fact that she knew the ingredients.
"She'll need game," he reminds her. "So you'll be on our team, too."
"Right," she mutters, nodding noncommittally. She's not sure what is going to happen to her, with this shift in the dynamic. She isn't sure that she won't end up starving to death if (when) Peeta leaves her. She so often forgets to eat and was so used to hunger for so long that it doesn't seem to affect her the way it should. Maybe she'll just move in with Haymitch and drink herself to death. Maybe she'll head into the woods and never come back.
They finish in silence and ascend the stairs. She looks at him as they're about to go into their separate rooms.
"Stay with me?" she requests. She doesn't want to ask this, doesn't want to need him in her bed, but she needs to take advantage of the time she has left.
"Always," he sighs, his voice soft. They go into her room this time, which is good, since it's bigger. Things are awkward for a moment as she realizes she usually sleeps in her underwear. She considers finding pajamas, but he doesn't have any. She pulls off her sweater, is in a tiny camisole and unsure what to do about pants. He's pulling off his sweaty shirt, his back to her, when he speaks.
"Did you really think it was nice to see Delly?"
He turns around to raise an eyebrow at her. He's pulling off one sock with the other foot. She raises her chin again. It makes her braver.
"No," she admits. "It wasn't my favorite thing."
"And why is that?" he asks, eyes gleaming. She has no idea what he's getting at.
"I dunno," she tells him. "I don't like having people here. I don't like people."
He laughs, lets his pants fall to the floor. What the hell is he doing? Why is he—
"You were fine seeing Greasy Sae," he reminds her, and now he's crossing the room to her. She's standing in front of her dresser, still wondering what to do with her pants.
"I like Greasy Sae," she tells him. "I just…Delly's really touchy, and she's too bubbly, and she—"
She's cut off from what was quickly becoming a rant by his lips on hers. She gasps into his mouth, which gives him the perfect opportunity to slide his tongue into her mouth with an intensity she has never seen from him. He's hitched up one of her legs onto his hip, one hand below her thigh and the other on her lower back, arching her into him. She was already arching into him, one hand on his bare chest, the other on the back of his neck.
"You don't like seeing me with Delly," he grunts. She's never seen his eyes like this before: he is on fire.
"No," she tells him, and she finds her voice strong, firm. "I want to scream at her to get her hands the hell off of you."
He moans, a sound of want, and it sets her on fire. He wants her. He lifts her up, setting her on the dresser, wrapping her other leg around his waist. He pulls back from the kiss, running her lower lip between his teeth, before he starts pressing kisses down her throat. He scratches his teeth over the point where her neck meets her shoulders, and she cries out, both her hands on the back of his head, urging him to keep going.
"You…are...so…hot…when you're…jealous..." he moans in between kisses. He only has to say the words for her to realize this is exactly what she's been feeling: jealousy. She should've just asked him about her feelings. He knows them better than she does, anyways.
His eyes are dark and hazy when he pulls his face back up to hers. He kisses her, intently, and she pulls him closer, her legs around his waist. And now she gets to kiss him, taste him, her lips on his neck, teeth on his collarbone, tongue in the hollow of his throat… He's groaning, making noises she's never heard before.
She isn't sure how much longer she can deny needing him, because right now, in this moment, she's pretty sure she'd rather starve to death than lose him.
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