A/N: I don't know if I mentioned it clearly last chapter but this is a story based off of one word prompts that I take randomly from a list of fifty words. Each chapter will loosely be related to the word that is posted at the beginning of each chapter. Again, I will alternate randomly from Katniss and Peeta. Not everything I write is accurate with all the books. Thanks for reading. I apologize for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

This one is honestly not my best. I'm admittedly not very good at fluff. This is me practicing.

02: Kiss

She isn't hungry at all.

All she can think about is this morning, and that's the last thing she wants to think about. It is awkward and makes her skin itch and her stomach compact into a heavy ball of nerves. No. She won't think about it. She just refuses to. Yet, still, she can not eat, so she pushes her plate away from herself, watching it teeter dangerously over the edge of the table. One more inch and it would have fallen to shatter across the kitchen floor. Doesn't matter. The food had no taste. Her stomach no longer felt hunger. She didn't need all that much food now that all she did was sleep.

Sleep, that sounds nice to her. All the time her body feels tired and useless, and sometimes she thinks her body has betrayed her. Or maybe she has deceived her own body, into thinking she is dead, or so near death, that it doesn't need to work properly. It can be days before her mind realizes she is hungry. Why was that? Is it just lazy? Maybe, it's because she feels like she's in a dark hole, a deep, endless pit of loss and grief and just like her thoughts, her mind can not escape the oppression. But sometimes it does, barely, weakly, with the help of Haymitch and Greasy Sae, her mind remembers what it needs to do, what her body needs to have in order to survive. And that's all she ever really wanted, was to survive. Katniss never said she wanted to thrive, or feel alive, or even be alive.

Katniss hunches forward until her head rests against her arms against the table top. She wants to feel different, but different wouldn't help, because she's not even feeling anything. Loss and grief, they are a special sort of emptiness. They are uncreative emotions that are neither a response, nor an action.. they are just missing something not there. An empty state and feeling that helps no one.

Peeta tells her all the time that it's okay to feel sad about what she lost, but it's an insult to their dead loved ones to refuse to live. Sometimes he makes her get out of bed, or pushes her into going to town. At those times she just wishes they would go back to ignoring each other.. then inevitably, her minds goes to the thought of sleeping in a bed without him there to keep away the nightmares.. and she knows she has to deal with his annoyance because she needs him too much.

Somehow she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knows, someone has slammed her front door and she jerks upward. A bright light illuminates the kitchen and she blinks painfully at the windows. She's been asleep all day, which is nothing new, but the position in which she has slept unquestionably is. Her lower back aches dully as she pushes herself to her feet and her kneecaps throb.

Katniss is unconcerned about the heavy footsteps at the front of her house. Instead of moving to greet the guest or to frighten them away, she reaches for the plate of stale food on the table. She remembers this morning and feels a slight, ungraspable emotion of guilt at the way she snapped at Greasy Sae and kicked her out of the house, when the old woman had only been trying to encourage her to go outside for fresh air. She also recalls that she had promised to do the dishes.. and she always tries to keep her promises.

After dumping the useless food away and moving to the sink, her eyes are fully adjusted to the light. Outside, the sky is a soft, ducky orange, that clings to the distant trees beyond District 12. She's been sleeping all day, and it is sunset, she realizes with a jolt. That's Peeta. He's home from the bakery. Again, a wave of nerves hits her remembering this morning.

Katniss tenses as she hears behind her the footsteps reach the kitchen doorway. They stop just beyond it, timid. She tries to focus on the dishes in her hands as she rinses them, but her face and shoulder heat up the longer their silence drags on. Let's just forget it, she recalls her claim earlier that morning before Peeta left for work, and now she thinks that it was a stupid assumption that they could. She has to face it at some point. Her hands underneath the faucet go still when Peeta starts to speak. "Katniss?"

"Yes?"

"Can you.. look at me?"

She nods curtly, silently, a ball of cotton in her throat. Without hesitation she reaches for the silver knob to turn off the running water before she swivels about on her feet to face him. At the sight of him leaning in the doorway, she leans away, finding support against the counter.

Katniss reminds herself to be nice to him. He couldn't help what happened this morning, and she wouldn't punish him for it, even though it greatly embarrassed them both and made her feel guilty. They were friends after all, and she owed him that much of a courtesy. Especially after all they've been through.. even just in these past nine months since he's returned to District 12. What were they? Nothing truly. They weren't a couple. Though they never truly spoke about it, they had gotten into the habit of sleeping in the same bed. She needed him there, because the nightmares were bad, and he needed her for the same reason. They just couldn't sleep without each other. She couldn't get out of bed without Peeta's insistence and he couldn't pull himself from the dark patches without her stubborn imperativeness. They were essentially nothing, just enjoying the presence of each other and the silent companionship they provided. Sometimes she would sit in the kitchen to watch him bake, or in the bedroom while he painted, but there was nothing to talk of. Even when he would watch her cook or sleep, he said nothing, did nothing. They were perfectly in balance, waiting and watching as the other heals. That is, until this morning, and Katniss woke up to a very unquestionably hard piece of evidence to ignore.

She feels the heat in her face again. Peeta's eyes don't miss it as he stare at her across the kitchen.

"I just wanted to come over and.. well," he scuffs the floor with his foot and rubs at her jaw with a hand. She can feel the nervousness rolling off of him in waves, gripping her sides like ice. She doesn't want him to feel bad about this morning. It wasn't his fault. He was a man of eighteen now, and most men of that age have needs, and Peeta's never presented the problem before; he was too much of a gentleman. Katniss won't lie. She does not know much about the male anatomy, but this morning... what she glimpsed must have been something to do with sexual appetites.

Agh. Just the words made her shudder. "Peeta, don't apologize."

"I want to. I should have.."

"What? Never felt anything? That you aren't allowed to feel? Ever?" Katniss tries to sound nonchalant, as she crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes as an excuse not to look at him. "I just.. over reacted this morning, because I wasn't expecting it. We're friends, so I was, taken off guard by the.."

"It wasn't anything toward you," Peeta rushes out, then flushes deep scarlet when Katniss raises her head to look at him. "I mean.. well.." Peeta fumbles with his words and a look of brief panic flits across his eye. It is something she finds endearing. "You were a part of it," he breathes slightly, "but I wanted to make sure you understood that by it I wasn't trying to pressure you into something, or make you feel compelled to respond to it. It doesn't have to be problem.. I don't want it to ruin.. what we have."

What do we have? But she doesn't want to think about that, so she forces her thoughts aside. All she wants to do is to get through this. She can do that. She just had a nap, she feels awake.. in fact, she feels lived-wired, her heart beating heavily, not furiously, inside her chest. It is a strange, disconcerting feeling.. it is a different feeling from being a ghost, and her hand that clutches the sink behind her back tightens its grip. This is why she needs him. He makes her feel alive. He gives her a reason to be around, because she knows he needs her as much as she needs him. Just like the bread and the dandelions, Peeta is her reason to limp on, march on together, despite the troubles faced.

This is just another thing they can get through. So Peeta was having physically romantic feelings for her? She doesn't want it to ruin or put pressure on their already fragile relationship, either. And she can tell Peeta has been stressing himself out on this point all day long. He probably thinks she'll kick him to the curb or something equally ridiculous.

"We needs rules," Katniss suddenly blurts.

"Rules?"

"Yeah. Guidelines. I don't.. I want to make sure we understand each other. That there are limits. I don't want this to be.. all messed up like before. Both of us need guidelines, and we need to understand each other.. and what the other persons wants from them."

"So what are you saying?" Peeta asks. "You want us to draw up terms of a relationship.. right now? Here?"

Is that what she was saying? "Uh.."

"Katniss," Peeta says and she forces herself to meet his gaze. Her mind focuses on just absorbing the sight of Peeta standing inside of her house. All she sees is a boy of nineteen standing burly and broad shouldered in a doorway. There is a shadow of dark blonde on is cheeks and jaw, making him seen even older, more sophisticated, but to counter that enhancement his shirt and pants and even his hands are stained with multiple different hues of paint. Some of the paint even looks recent. It makes him look like a kid who got in the art supplies and made a mess of things. There's even a streak of blue paint beside his ear, crusted into his blonde curls, next to his temple and Katniss feels the ghost of a smile tug at her lips.

Katniss strangles that particularly action quickly, burrowing it deep inside her chest. She tells herself that she doesn't like the way the paint looks all over him. He's messy. He hasn't been taking care of himself. But, underneath, she can't deny that she enjoys the sight of it, or the refreshing qualities behind it. The paint just seems to flaunt his childlike antics and carelessness. He looks like a child that has wandered out of the reach of his mother, before she could lick her thumb and scrub at the dirt on his nose.

Peeta looks at her with just as much precision as she is him. At least she knows she doesn't look tired. Self consciously she brushes the tip of her braid over her shoulder and briskly turns her face away from his gaze. What is he thinking? What was he thinking about this morning?

There is an infinite pause of silence, then Peeta says, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, let's do this."

Katniss struggles for a moment because she honestly doesn't know the first rule she would want to present or enforce. All she does is watch emotionlessly as Peeta takes a seat at her kitchen table and indicates with a hand for her to sit in the chair across from him. She knows she did this. She called all of this onto herself, so why does it seem like an extremely hard thing to do?

She sits across from him, sinking slowly into the chair, arms still wrapped around her torso.

She avoids his eyes. The silence seems to gather around them, as he puts together his thoughts and she barricades her composure. When a faint smile crosses his lips, Katniss hugs herself tighter and forces her eyes not to focus on them. "Just so you know, I'm keeping the beard. So if that's one of your conditions, you might want to come up with a different one," Peeta says lightheartedly, weakly. Again his hand raises to rub at his jaw. It leaves behind a smudge of green paint.

Katniss tries not to scowl at the sight of that. It's his new fidget, his new fix. He likes his ridiculous beard. Part of her just wants to reach across the table and rip his hand from his face and hold it tightly in hers; the other half takes a deep breath and resists the impulse.

She gets that he's joking. He's trying to make this less awkward. It won't work. She's forgotten how to use playful banter.. she remembers how Finnick liked playful banner. How Prim should of had a lifetime of loving jokes with a man she would have loved dearly, or to the many children a person like Prim should of had. Maybe even Boggs, maybe he secretly liked the silly things people like Peeta say... Katniss struggles to pull herself from her pit. She tries to remember what Peeta originally said. "Well, maybe I like the beard," she finally manages to respond, with a shrug of indifference.

"Do you?"

"Eh." Honestly, yes, she does. She likes the way it makes him look; rugged, older, laid back, and combined with the lazy and warm smiles he gives her at times, it has an unknown physical and mental impact on her. It gives her something to think about.. sometimes she wonders what it would feel like underneath her fingers, because he rubs at it so much himself... and she wonders if it would tickle her face if she kissed him...

No. I don't want to kiss him. We're prefect just as we are. This is why we need rules.

Peeta is looking at her. His stare is imploring, searching. She can feel those crystalline blue eyes nudging at her soul, making inquisitions, checking inventory. She meets the stare. She's too stubborn to look away first. He's.. what is thinking? She doesn't know what he might add to the list of rules, she's not even sure what the rules entitle, are they really just guidelines? Or will they be the conditions? A deal of some sort? An agreement? Whatever he's trying to decide about her, by staring so intently, she's determined not to let it show. However, the longer their regard for each other lasts, a flush of red falls hotly across her shoulder and lower neck. What does he see? What is he hoping to find?

Abruptly, before she gets her answers, he breaks eye contact and looks about the kitchen, as if seeing it for the first time. "This is a poor room," he says finally. "A poor place to sleep." He glances at Katniss out the corner of his eye.

"I find it warm enough, and pleasant," she says, indignant. Ridiculously, she feels obliged to defend her house, while truthfully, her house is messy and empty, and she dislikes it.

He grins. The brightness of that, the sheer amused quality of that stretch of his lips, takes Katniss off guard and she feels her expression slip momentarily. "Nevertheless, I would prefer that you spend your nights with me from now on."

Katniss feels her stomach leap at those words. Was that an offering..? To..? Peeta is either far more bold than she recalls or he has alternative motives. She stares at him, her steely grey eyes hardening into quarters, as she tries to understand him, to find his ulterior plans.

"I mean to say: Move in with me."

"No," she says, decisively.

"I thought you might say that," Peeta sighs. He rocks a little in his chair; fidgeting, nervous. "I just wanted to make the offer. Your choice. Spend your nights with me, or..." his eyes bounce around the kitchen, "here."

She stared at him, clearly untrusting. "What do you mean? Why can't you sleep here anymore? You have been for months."

Peeta eyes hold such a weighty penetration, that it's hard to hold onto her void expression. He opens his mouth more than once, before he looks away and manages to say, "Spend your nights with me— I am demanding no sexual favors or comforts from you— and I'll.. make your favorite cheese buns all the time?"

Katniss can't help narrowing her eyes at him. She cocks her head slightly, just to convey her extreme confusion. She almost feels bad for Peeta when his cheeks burn scarlet underneath her consideration. "You remember that?"

"Remember what?" Peeta looks her in the face quickly, eye flying across it, trying to absorb her topic. "That we used to sleep together like that before the war? I remember... a little, yeah. I.. I missed it before I came back here.." and he swallows thickly. She feels his instant vulnerability. He's just admitted to something. He's done it first, and she feels relief at that. "All I'm saying is that you never leave this house. I want you to move into mine."

Katniss can see the fear in his face and wonders if he thinks she'll take advantage of the easy target he's just strung up between them. Instead, she ignores most of his words and corrects herself. "I mean, the cheese buns. You remember that they're my favorite. You've never.. mentioned that before.."

Peeta shrugs. "I remembered all along."

That's a lie. He didn't even remember his favorite color when he first returned to her broken. Except.. this doesn't seem like broken Peeta. Nor does it seem like old Peeta. This Peeta is a strange mixture that she has been dealing with for nine months. He is sweet and lighthearted, but he far too timid and skittish to be old Peeta. Yet... he wants her like old Peeta used to.. but for how long? She knows it's been a long time since his last episode, and that he would never hurt her... really, all he's asking for is a little piece of sacrifice on her side. Can she give that? For cheese buns? But it's a little more than that, she decides. He wants her inside his house, why? To get her out? Just to test her willingness to do as he asks?

She still doesn't see what's wrong with her house. "You move in here."

"I made that suggestion first, that's my condition."

They are conditions, then. "Well if we move into your house, what more do I have to bargain for?"

"Throw something at me. I'm sure we can find a compromise."

Katniss thinks it over. "Let's say.. I do move into your house. If I do, you have to promise never to make me go out unless I want to. And if I don't want to get out of bed, you leave me there."

Peeta seems uncertain. "If that happens, I might promise, but you have to really move in with me. All your stuff has to go to my house, and you can't back out."

That sounds frighteningly permanent. "What if we have a fight? Or you break the deal? Or.."

"Then I'll sleep on the coach. I won't kick you out of a house, and if you find it hard not to kick me out, I'll crash at Haymitch's. Don't try to find loopholes. You're the one who wanted this all laid out. I want you close to me, so I can watch you, and.. because I need you around.. I can't imagine a future without you. Just spend your nights with me. I'll make you all the cheese buns in the world and this way it's easier for us to talk more. I want to talk to you. This is all I'm asking for, nothing less, nothing more."

He's baiting her into sharing a bed and house with him by taunting her with cheese buns and words. "Why do you want that so much?"

Because I want you, his eyes seems to say. "Because I want to know you better, and I want you to know me." Katniss frowns, and instantly he can see her trying to fathom the trap. "No trap," he whispers.

"With you there is always a trap."

"No trap," Peeta swears and crosses his heart.

"Are you sure..." she starts to say, then forgets what she originally wanted to ask. Instead, she thinks of the dark pit, but for some reason it's not clawing at her from the inside, trying to drag her out of the present. No, she feels very present, and her thoughts feel very clear. Startled grey eyes fly up to look at Peeta. "Do you really want me there?"

Shock flits across Peeta's eyes. "I don't play with promises, Katniss," and his voice seems richer when he says her name. "I really want you there... I wish you'd be there a lot more. Not just in my bed, because I swear, I will not force you to any sexual play that you do not want. That you do not ask for. I just want to be around you. You make me.. happy.." Peeta's words slam to a halt. Frustratedly, he grabs at his jaw again and meshes his lips together, then he shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to throw my soul at you. I know how you hated it the first time around." A smile appears on his face suddenly. "I guess it's like you said. I don't know what to say or how to act around you either."

Katniss tries to absorb everything that's passing between them. He's always been good with words, she knows, but somehow she knows it's not the words that make her stomach drop through her feet. It's the emotion. His actual, genuine want for those things he speaks of. Does she want them, too?

Katniss licks her lips nervously. It's not a bad deal; in fact, all it's asking of her is that she doesn't slip away from him during the days and that she remains at his house instead of hers. She hasn't been to his house since before the Quarter Quell, though, and like he said, what would they talk about? She mulls it over multiple times. Really, he wasn't asking her for as much as she thought he might. She thought Peeta would ask for kisses and affection and love, like he used to want.

She is critically silent, and Peeta is waiting anxiously for an answer. Then, with some obvious reluctance, she nods. "Okay. I'll move into your house and start to be around more, if you promise not to pressure me to go out."

Peeta's triumphant beam is enough to make her heart swell. "We must seal the bargain with a kiss."

Wait. She stutters in her thoughts."You said no sexual play I did not ask for!"

"It is but the conclusion of a pact, Katniss, and common enough," he waves a careless hand in the air. Then catches her eyes and she sees the mischievous, playful spark there. He leans forward across the kitchen table. "Come on. One kiss."

"One?" she asks.

"One."

Katniss can't help but feel he was planning this all along as he leans further across the table, his eyelids hooded, lips parting slightly, and she can't help but lean forward as well, to meet him there, as he lays his mouth very gently against hers. For a moment her eyes are closed too, and his scraggly cheek brushes hers. Her hand that had unknowingly gone limp on the tabletop is pulled into one of Peeta's, and his thumb brushes lightly across her knuckles.

He let it go at that, waiting, and is rewarded when she sighs, and moves her mouth more firmly under his. He increases the depth of his kiss, but still keeps it undemanding. For an instant she resists, and then all her want and need, all her desire for him floods through her, and she opens her mouth completely under his. She melts against him, and, very, very slowly, they pull apart.

Katniss immediately drops her eyes to their intertwined hand. Her words are a sigh of defeat. "One more thing... another condition of mine."

"Yes?"

"Marry me."

"Done," Peeta immediately shoots off and his grip on her hand tightens lovingly, a sweet, lazy smile appearing on his rugged, paint-stained face. "But you have to kiss me again, to seal the deal."

This time Katniss does not hesitate in leaning across the table to press her lips into his.

Coming up next is 03: Soft