So...**blushes**… I've never had more than a hundred reviews before. I don't even know what to say. Other than…THANK YOU! You people make me smile on the worst of days.
This turned out a teeny bit like a filler. We'll get back to the serious stuff soon, I promise. But…it's also my favorite chapter (I know, I said that about ch. 8. But I changed my mind).
I do not own the Hunger Games.
The next few weeks pass in a blur. She learns that Delly is married to the boy, Dalton, that they're here because he's a stoneworker. She's pissed that Peeta didn't tell her this right away, let an entire week pass where she was hot with jealousy every day (which he took advantage of every night, precisely why he didn't tell her). Haymitch comes around a couple of times, but now that Peeta isn't pushing himself into the episodes, they're much less frequent, and so there's not a whole lot for him to do. Eventually, he just gets drunk and stops coming.
Peeta and Greasy Sae make the most amazing team; they feed everyone, work out of Greasy Sae's house, Peeta's old house, and she can tell that Peeta loves being part of a community again, loves baking for a great number of people, not his washed-up mentor and her. She brings game for the soup and stews, loves having an excuse to hunt more and for longer, because she still isn't strong enough to handle a lot of people all at once. She also goes to visit Haymitch more, pretending to follow up after Peeta's episodes, really just craving his company because he, too, hates that there are people here. She loves that they can sit in solitude for hours on end, not speaking, watching the others with narrowed eyes. She can't do that with Peeta—the only time he's really quiet is when he's falling asleep, his fingers running through her hair. He chatters endlessly at her: about Greasy Sae's soup, about the bread he wants to bake tomorrow, about Delly and Dalton's wedding…The only thing he doesn't talk about, in fact, is them.
Things have been different since that night, the night she found the painting of Prim that now hangs in their living room. They sleep in the same bed, familiar scars against each other, and he kisses her awake every morning. She's not sure how to qualify what happens in between, but the idea that they are a couple doesn't seem so laughable anymore. She hunts and cooks, even cleans their house now that he's out so much. She tries to keep busy with these things so that her mind won't occupy itself with the only question that matters anymore: can she survive without him? The question of choice is null and void. She can clearly survive without Gale, she has for months now. But…could she survive without Peeta? She tells herself she could, while she traps and shoots and skins animals, cooking meat pie for Haymitch, washing their clothes and blankets. He comes home to her every night, face bright, full of stories about Greasy Sae and the people who occupy Victor's Village, people whose names he knows, stories he is learning. She's too confused to remember their faces, much less anything else. She's more confused about why he's still with her.
The only thing she's sure about with Peeta is that she loves his hands on her, his lips on her. She hasn't stopped pulling away emotionally, or going still every time she thinks she might need him, but when it comes to being with him physically, she's stopped playing games, stopped pulling away. She doesn't initiate anything, but he is more than capable of doing that, and she never resists. She has never wanted anything so badly (wanted, not needed, she reminds herself) than she wants him, and he is always so eager to comply.
Fall is hanging in the air the night he comes in the door covered head to toe in flour. She is sweeping their kitchen after she spent the day making new arrowheads and getting wood chips everywhere, and she bursts out laughing. He smiles; a different person than the boy muttering in his sleep that she'd kissed good-bye this morning. She's mashed potatoes and glazed carrots for supper, was getting frustrated that he wasn't home yet, but her dinner and her cleaning and her frustration are all forgotten as she doubles over in laughter, kept standing by her broom. He slams the door, glaring at her, but ruefully, unable to keep the smile off his face.
"What the hell happened to you?" she giggles, trying to wipe some from his bicep. He is absolutely covered: his hair, his ears, his biceps, forearms, chest…
"I'm not telling," he snaps childishly, pushing past her to go to the sink, washing up, brushing the flour off roughly. "People who laugh at me don't get to know that I lost a flour fight with Greasy—"
He's cut off by her roar of laugher, and this time she can't stay standing, has to collapse into a chair.
"You lost a fight with…" He's glowering at her, and she sees as he's drying his hands that he's missed patches of flour on his chest, his shoulders, his face, and this only makes her laugh harder.
"She's stronger than she looks," he mutters, peeking at the supper she's prepared.
"No, she's not!" cackles Katniss, "and you're double her size!"
She can't remember the last time she laughed this hard, that her laughter was louder than her screams. He leans against the counter, arms crossed, and she wipes away the tears that have trickled down her cheeks.
"I'm s-sorry," she manages, rising and crossing to him. "You just look so darn cute." He raises his eyebrows at her.
"I always look cute," he mutters, pouting, and she kisses his lips, pulling the lower one between her teeth.
"Sure you do," she mutters, "but if you want me to stop focusing on how cute you are and eat dinner, we better get rid of this." She wipes away some flour that's sticking to his T-shirt, over his chest. He raises his eyebrows at her. She's never the one who initiates physical closeness between them, even if she is incredibly enthusiastic once it begins.
"And this," she whispers, brushing some from his cheek. There's a spark in his eyes.
"And this," she whispers, and she licks some off the side of his neck.
He's so quick after that she's confused: one minute they're standing by the counter, the next she's flat on her back across the kitchen table, and his hands are all over her, his lips on her neck. She moans, wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer. It's not enough, and she pulls his shirt over his head.
"I'm coming home covered in flour more often," he gasps, his lips trailing over her collarbone while he pulls off her sweater.
"Oh, God, please do," she moans, pulling him on top of her so his lips are on hers. She's groaning as his hands move to her waist, tugging her even closer to him, and she's—
"What the hell are you doing?"
The voice is familiar, but the tone is not. She's never heard Haymitch embarrassed before. He's standing in the entryway of their kitchen, glaring at them, his face beet red, as theirs must be. He turns to go and she giggles as she runs after him, straightening her camisole, Peeta trailing behind her, pulling his shirt on.
"Haymitch, stop," she calls as she sees he's down the steps of their porch. "Come back, we didn't mean to—"
"You told me to come over if I was hungry!" he yells, and she's blushing as she sees that there are others watching, Delly and Dalton among them, and that Peeta's still pulling his shirt on.
"You didn't tell me you'd be going at it on the kitchen table!" Now she's embarrassed, her face red, and she protests.
"We weren't going at it on the kitchen table," she tells him, trying to keep her voice down, but the houses aren't far enough apart for the others not to hear her.
"Yet," adds Peeta helpfully. She glares at him and he winks at her.
"I'm not eating off that table," Haymitch tells them, but she can see even he wants to smile. She feels a strange swooping of possessive pride: annoying as he is, Haymitch announcing this to the entire Victor's Village makes it beyond clear that Peeta is hers, that he belongs to her now, that it's her he's laying across the kitchen table, no one else. She feels herself blushing again.
"Come in," she insists to Haymitch. "We'll wash the table."
He makes them eat in the living room anyways.
Reviews make me smile.