Note: This chapter was extremely hard to write. Mainly, I wanted to show the reason behind Peeta's hand twitch when Katniss watches him speak with Ceasar the second time and she notes his deterioration. So this chapter is about the time he left his cell until the end of that interview with Ceasar. He's been slowly losing his mind, but there's something else also that's rendering him in this state.
Again, this is a very dark and heavy chapter, as this whole fanfic is, which shows Peeta's descent into madness with the Capitol's constant physical and mostly psychological torture.
I thank you for reading, and every comment is appreciated.
Chapter 3: The Itch
One morning, or was it afternoon? Or perhaps it was evening... Well, one day then, when Johanna was returned soaking wet and dripping with what Peeta hoped was water - he didn't ask because he was too afraid of the answer come this point - Peacekeepers took him for a ride. That's how they called it because of the long backs and forths and lefts and rights of the elevators, thanks to the endless maze of corridors. Eventually he was regurgitated from the machine's belly back onto human beings' level. Or so it felt. It could also be another illusion, another mind game. His ears popped at some point so he figured he was either brought deeper into the bowels of the Capitol, or he was taken to the surface. He preferred the latter.
Peeta followed with no arguments though he dragged back slightly due to his prosthetic leg which had been bothering him a while now, digging into the stump of his knee. He'd been scratching at the scabs a whole lot, ripping dark red morsels of dried coagulated jelly. An infection had started somewhere where his leg stopped at the knee, and the soreness he felt now resonated all the way to his mid-thigh. Each step forced a soft hiss out of him and the longer he was forced to walk, the more his environment became coated in a white membrane. Thicker and thicker. His hands twitched.
The peacekeepers took cruel pleasure in urging him forward. They pushed and tripped him. "Hurry your ass, stumpy", they chimed. "Let's go, Lover Boy", they laughed. He cast them a mean look, reminded of the Careers of the 74th Hunger Games, and they snickered right back. None of this was coincidence. They knew what they were doing.
He made little protests. He moaned and groaned and grunted, but he didn't return their words. It unnerved them. They wanted further reason to beat the Boy with the Bread, you see, because then, when asked, they could say, "he had a filthy mouth! It was filled with coal, and if you'd smelled his breath, it was rancid and putrid. If you'd touched his hair, it was moist with oil, in clumps, smelled like dirt and shit and piss. And his hands. His hands smelled like meat, maggot filled meat, ammonia bathed meat. And he talked back, little shit. He thinks he owns the Capitol, you know? Him and his bastard baby and his fake marriage over a piece of fucking donut. ("Bread", Peeta would remind them, and they'd respond with "Whatever, shut your hole". ) He thinks he knows it all. So we taught him manners. Manners! Ha! Ha! See what I did there?" But Peeta never gave them the satisfaction and they didn't say these things. They kept it to themselves. Reluctantly.
He was taken to a room with lots of mirrors, lights, clothes and colors, not unlike the room his prep team had taken him during the Games. He was surprised to feel a certain ease when he walked inside. The warmth of the glow from the light bulbs brushed his skin, and the aroma of perfumes made his head spin. But it was all better, he thought, then the smells and bone white disturbing uniform light of the cell below.
His leg itched. His hands twitched.
Once the door closed behind him, his old prep team scurried from piles of clothes and wigs and accessories from hangers, followed quickly by Portia. A sense of relief washed through him. He suddenly felt light, thought he might just lift from the floor like a helium filled balloon. Portia greeted him, pulled him to her, and she made a noise between a squeak and maybe a sob. When finally she held him at arms length, she whispered: "Oh, what have they done to you", in an accent that was never very much like that which you find in the Capitol.
That's when he saw his reflection in the mirror.
Except he was seeing someone else, surely, because the boy staring back at him couldn't have been Peeta Mellark. His cheeks had become hollow with the sharpness that came with malnutrition and the dark bruised circles around his sunken eyes reflected the kind of agony that forced bile up his throat. His skin was ghastly in color, but his lips were blood red with maroon cracks down its middle. He was filthy, dirty, covered in forest colored and orange grime. His clothes were tattered, hung loose on shoulders once broad and strong. His hand twitched. It twitched and twitched. The need to scratch the stub of his leg was growing stronger, barely holding back. Only then did his nostrils acknowledge the smell of rancid meat, of sour milk, sticking to him like a plastic film, suffocating, choking.
"I'll take care of you", Portia let him know, and when her hands squeezed his shoulders, he took the gesture, fell into her and buried his face in her shoulder. There he wept, his fingers crisped at her small, frail back. When his legs gave out, she followed him, stroked the oily clumps of blond hair back, whispered sweet things. She was the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had and that had him cry with clumsy gulps of air, snot slipping to his upper lip and saliva across his chin.
She waited for him to calm down a little bit and informed him that they needed to get working. He asked her for what. She responded that it was for an interview with Ceasar Flickerman. He felt flabbergasted at the notion. Why? Why an interview now? Portia had no answer for him other then the gentle caress of a warm hand upon his cool, clammy cheek.
She helped him out of the grey clothes which stuck to him like second skin, washed the red blisters that formed below his armpits and at the joint connection between his thighs and groin. She helped him in a bath of scented oil; washed him completely. It took a while because dark crust had settled at the back of his neck and his back. Sometimes it peeled away a thin layer of skin because the filth was practically fused with it, leaving behind a very pink, very moist version of his flesh which burned and sometimes soaked in droplets of blood.
The smell of sour milk and rancid meat was eventually replaced by jasmine and roses. His hair, dark with oil and filth, returned to its late cornfield color. Portia and her assistants sat him in a crimson chair, still bare, and they proceeded to apply creams and make-up, apologizing profusely whenever he hissed as it burned onto chaffed flesh.
"It's alright", he assured them.
One of them, Calla, burst into tears then. The man, Joque, patted her back and rubbed it.
"No, really, it's alright", he repeated and made a strained smile, a pale imitation of the smile he offered weeks and months ago. It was the first smile he'd made in so long, even if it was fake and notably off his marbles, his dim eyes squinted perpetually tight.
And that's when the screen on the left, the one mounted on the wall that looked like an aquarium up until this point, switched on.
His smile faded.
The prep team looked at each other with inquiring eyes. Who turned on the television? Was it you? Or you? Or was it you, Peeta?
Portia frowned deeply, searching for the remote control. She didn't reach it. At least, not on time.
Not that it mattered, because Peeta had seen too much already.
Peeta was already standing, his fingers first strained around the arms of the rotating chair before letting go once he was fully erect. His prep team and Portia appeared as statues while only he was allowed to move within the thick string of time.
He'd seen her. Only a moment, only a flicker, but he'd seen her, there, with a gorgeous midnight bow. A building crumbled under the weight of Capitol bombing. It weighted at his heart because he knew there were people in there, people who were injured, people who could not have, even if they wanted, escaped on time. All of this was intercut with testimonies of people he didn't know, or couldn't place. Except one. Gale Hawthorne. Something swelled beneath his ribcage, a feeling between dread and hope. Maybe even a spark of jealousy. Because now that he'd seen her, and now that he'd seen him, he thought about how unfair it was that Gale was allowed to be by Katniss' side while he, Peeta Mellark, was stranded in the Capitol, grinded by the machine. Away from her.
His leg itched. His hand twitched.
And then she was there. On the screen. All there. So. Completely there. Not for a mere second, but for far longer. For him.
When he saw her again, he gripped a coat hanger like he would his cane not so long ago when he was still getting used to walking with the prosthetic. She was majestic; she was beautiful. His black angel, his girl on fire. He quivered in apprehension for the way the screen separated them. He wanted to reach out, stroke her hair as he did months ago on the roof; how they'd watched the sun set, how rested and soft and beautiful she'd looked as she slept. He wanted to kiss her lips, remember the creases of them against his own. He'd forgotten. Already he'd forgotten so much. God... Please...
She stood and spoke, strong and powerful, but he heard her as though she was under water, as though it was nothing but a dull hum hum of a sound. He clung to it desperately, and then everything was static.
She was gone.
He made a noise at the back of his throat, and with his whole weight pressing on the prosthetic, he couldn't hold on, even on his good leg which decided to give up as well.
Small hands surrounded his shoulders, little arms pulled him in and a new warmth pressed to his bare back. He stared ahead, between harboring and being grateful to have gotten a look, if only brief, at the girl he'd loved for over a decade, surrounded by the licks of fire and standing under a rain of ash.
He felt a breath by his ear. It was light as feather and cool, brushing as silk would upon his flushed, broken flesh. "You're stronger then they are", Portia told him, her voice as smooth as her minty breath."I believe in you. Never forget, the wings that hold you together. Never forget. Do not let them make you forget."
After that, things were rather hazy. They sat him back in the chair, twirled left and right as they applied make-up after layer of make-up in an attempt to conceal the sharp edges of death glowering off him. All over his body, they worked at him. The other girl of the prep team began sobbing when she couldn't conceal the dark puffed bags under his eyes. Coats and coats of blush and creams did nothing to hide what they'd done to Peeta Mellark. He was as quiet and gentle as a lamb, and he kissed her purple forehead. She quivered between chaffed lips, which she painted back to a natural color and instructed him, while she gasped between sobs, not to bite them or it would show that his lips were painted.
They dressed him well: a blue silk suit with padding at the shoulders meant to make him look more broad than he truly was. Sadly, underneath all the expensive fabric, they could not fully hide the toll the Capitol had taken on the clear eyed boy he once was. His prep team still shed tears because they knew, but now he felt there was something more underneath. Their sobbing was gradually going from soft hums and random sniffles to hysterical. Something else was going on. He felt it in his gut, felt it tear him from the inside like an ulcer bursting and infecting every organ the pus touched, gripped with slimy, cool yet burning fingers. They clutched at his throat but they didn't squeeze, not yet.
His leg itched. His hand twitched. Twitch. Twitch.
He reached to the stub of his leg and began scratching at it mindlessly. Portia gently moved his hand away but like a two year old testing a parent, he went right back to it with round eyes.
Itch
"Why do you only scratch that knee", she asked.
Twitch
"It itches under the prosthetic. I just want to remove it", he responded with half the voice he once possessed.
"No, you can't. We're out of time."
"Oh..." He didn't know what more to add. He realized this was one of the rare times when words had been stolen from him.
Portia took his hand between hers and pushed the last strands of hair from his brow, effectively drawing away little beads of sweat that had formed upon his now burning skin. "Now you look perfect", she told him. She let go of his hand and cupped his face lovingly, pressing her lips upon his briefly. It was not sexual. There was no longing. Only love for the boy, motherly feelings that she wished she could have expressed further until now. He'd grown on her, that boy, and it pained her to see him like this.
Her forehead pressed to his, and she whispered. "I love you. I love you. I love you." His eyes didn't close, and he murmured a gentle "thank you" for the first loving words he'd heard in weeks. She stood back and smiled at him, holding onto his hands as though ready to dance. "Do not forget me?"
He frowned, creating deep creases above the bridge of his nose. How would he forget her? Portia, sweet Portia, with her inflated yellow hair, and her kind eyes, eyes like Cinna. Eyes like someone who knows this is all wrong. Eyes that worry, like a mother should.
His lips parted into a response but he never so much as uttered a single word. There was a sound, like someone dropping a heavy object, yet there was no tremor that followed. No aftershock, except how Portia's hands nearly crushed his fingers with a near inhuman grip. The mirror was suddenly smeared in red, a dark crimson line so thick and perfect until it began leaking like tears. Portia's hands became moist and heavy in an instant, as though she'd been suddenly covered in a heavy, humid mist. They turned clammy, rubber like, then loosened and brushed across his finger until they lost their hold altogether. Peeta remained frozen, his eyes moving between the mirror and the collapsing shape that was once his stylist. Half of her head was gone, leaving her with a large gaping smile of teeth and half a tongue. Her hair, yellow and thick, had gone nearly black and thin where there was some left. Her good eye looked up into the eyelid and she crumbled like a half empty sack of flour.
Itch
He heard the noise three more times, a large fist knocking at a metal door, and then the shuffling of limbs and clothes as the three members of Portia's prep team collapsed.
Twitch
It became very evident then that their crying was likely not for him, but because they knew of their fate. He remained a statue among the dead, his lips parted slightly and his eyes glazed with a purple veil. A hand gripped his upper arm and pulled him out of the way of the stream of blood that would have stained his perfect shoes otherwise. He stumbled back with the same, placid mask. Somewhere, something creaked. Snapped. The peacekeeper who had taken three shots out of four, forced Peeta outside and shoved him forward.
Peeta stared ahead.
The stump of his leg itched. His thigh burned. He stammered. His hand twitched.
Twitched and twitched.
A man in a bright white suit matching his bright white smile greeted him next. It took him a moment to recognize Ceasar Flickerman, forcing himself out of the dark mist he'd cast himself into. Forcing Portia and his prep team, dead, out of his mind. Ceasar's shiny smile faltered once he got a good look at Peeta Mellark. Once sturdy, once charismatic, now he was but a shadow of himself. He liked that kid, he wouldn't deny it. Despite his job description, he sympathized with these children, got attached. He patted Peeta on the shoulder, but the boy made no response. It visibly pained Ceasar but he didn't push on, instead bracing himself for an interview that was bound to be difficult.
"Did they tell you what the interview will be about?"
Peeta gazed at the wall, at that invisible bloody shape there. His leg itched, felt like venomous insects were crawling into fresh made cavities. His leg itched and his hands twitched. And twitched. And twitched. Ceasar saw it, but Peeta did not register the way Ceasar's lips thinned into a fine line and the way he eyed him with pity. He gave Peeta a piece of paper, which he set in the victor's hand himself and closed his fingers around them. "This is for you. This is what you must say. Do you understand?"
Peeta looked at the paper from a million miles away, unfolded it, read the lines. He didn't understand what he was reading. The words imprinted in his mind, burned themselves behind clouded eyes where Lavinia concealed herself and laughed and screamed. The words danced before him. But he didn't understand them. The paper was soft and humid now where sweat had saturated it.
"Can I take off the prosthetic", he asked, but there was no one to respond. Ceasar was already talking on the stage.
Sea-green light filled the platform. The peacekeeper pushed Peeta forward, and he stumbled, only to suddenly catch himself the moment he was caught under the sheet of warm light. Peeta Mellark woke up under the spotlight, linked himself with the crowd as he had a few times before. They clapped, and raised, full of bright, warm and cold colors. Full of paint. Paint on a canvas.
They loved him.
Itch
He hated them.
Twitch
He waved and sat in the chair near Ceasar, who eyed him with momentary amazement, not understanding how someone could turn themselves on and off so easily.
On.
Switch. On.
Itchy. Itchy. Twitch. Twitch.
The crowd fell to silence and Ceasar turned from the camera to Peeta, who gave his most charming smile.
"Peeta! Good to have you back", Ceasar welcomed him.
Peeta nodded, but his gaze was empty. Something was off. Beads of sweat hung at his brow."Glad to be back, Ceasar."
The interviewer seemed uneasy. Why? Empty looks, he'd seen for decades in tributes. He was no stranger to it. But it was the way Peeta looked away from him. Looked into the darkness.
"Ah, well, Peeta, tell me, have you gotten used to the showers yet?"
The boy's smile grew and grew and grew. It looked as though his face was made of rubber, the same texture as Portia's hands when her life had ended. He shook his head. His smile was broad, but his eyes were dark. And then they gained an unnatural shine, the light reflecting off them. "Nah", he said brightly, shaking his head with a chuckle that was robotic, "I mean, I tried, y'know, but there's just too many buttons."
The crowd laughed. Stale.
The stub of his leg itched. He wanted to scratch at it so bad, but he couldn't. His hands twitched, awkward.
"Well, you smell pretty good so you must have done something right", Ceasar said, seeking the camera. When Ceasar returned his attention to Peeta, the humor left him.
Peeta's leg itched. Insects. Nesting. Peeta's hand twitched. Again and again it twitched. And streaks slithered the over powdered cheeks. The make-up was waterproof, and in this light, at such a distance, only Ceasar was allowed to see the anguish of the boy with the rubber grin and eyes that had seen too much. In this instance he looked like an angel and a monster. He looked inhuman and yet powerful in his emptiness. The glamor man didn't want to continue with the interview.
He went on.
"Tell me, have you seen Katniss Everdeen's propos for the District?"
Peeta's pupils retracted, gave way to endless panes of ice. Cold. He didn't want to share his angel of fire and ashes, but he also had to stay alive. Stay alive so he could see her again one day."Yes, I have."
His leg itched.
Insects
Twitch
Twitch
"They're using her, obviously", Peeta responded while he tried to ignore the little bugs making holes in his flesh, lay eggs in his bones, "To whip up the rebels. I doubt she even really knows what's going on in the war. What's at stake."
Itch
Twitch.
Except Peeta knew she knew. She was smart. So much smarter than any of them, and Ceasar knew it too. To see that bright boy reduced to this, it broke his heart further, and so he added, "Is there anything you'd like to tell her?" He wants to reach out, squeeze his hand as Portia had, but he kept his mic tightly wound between gloved fingers.
"There is", Peeta responded, and shifted in his seat. He felt her then. He felt her watching. His hand twitched. His knee... god, the stub. It was being eaten away. All of it. But he still starred at the camera, imagined Katniss there, standing with the midnight bow, in her midnight suit, surrounded by fire. Surrounded by ashes. Grey eyes and flushed cheeks. He could feel the heat of her stare from across the miles and miles separating them, all through that lens. And just as he woke up under the spotlight, his silver tongue came to life now that it held a greater purpose. "Don't be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They've turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental to the destruction of humanity. If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it's too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't... find out."
Silence. Ceasar frowned, then nodded at the voice in his ear. "It's over", he announced Peeta gently. Suddenly the crowd, so bright earlier, had become tern, lifeless. They sat there and stared as tarnished puppets would, as robots would. They dimmed and greyed with the light, still as statues.
He looked back at Ceasar and said with the cracked voice of a child who was crushed beneath something heavy, "it's itchy."
Ceasar's brow raised. "What's itchy, Peeta?"
"My leg. Can I take it off? There's something. Something in it. It's itchy."
"I don't think that's very wise... Why don't you -"
Peeta jerked to his feet, his features a mask of anguish and pain. He was not smiling anymore. Tears had mixed up with sweat and despite the waterproof make-up, it's begun leaking in streaks, leaving him a monstrous creature the Capitol manufactured. He laughed, a sound that was off-key; sounded like rust. "Why won't you look, any of you?! Are you afraid they'll eat you too?" He turned to the crowd, "are you afraid to see what you've done!?"
"Peeta...", Ceasar began as he got up. He registered the peacekeepers edging dangerously toward the boy, looking like hyenas about to rip the flesh off a fresh carcass.
"Well come on! Don't you want to see the fruit of your labor?! They're all dead! All of them and it's so itchy!" He gripped his head in both hands, fingers digging as claws through straw. His leg tapped uncontrollably against the stage.
"Peeta!"
He didn't respond, only glanced at the blue haired entertainer, glanced with eyes so wide and red with burst veins it seemed as though they might pop and roll off his cheeks. He refused to be broken, but now, now he was on the verge. Right there. He couldn't see the insects, crawling into his flesh and not so long ago, he wouldn't have believed they existed. Now, there was no knowing what he knew for him.
"There's no one", Ceasar told him gently, as gently as he did approaching Katniss Everdeen about the sister she volunteered for, short of taking his hand between his gloved ones, then motioned to the sea of empty velvet seats. All along, empty seats. "There's no one there."
He looked.
His hands twitched in his hair, long nails scraping his scalp and drawing blood beneath them. Heavy goosebumps erupted across glistening skin. He felt cold, then hot, then cold. Ice, lava, ice.
His leg itched. The insects drew closer to his heart while Portia, Lavinia... all those who had died because of him, to break him, edged further away.
The last thing that went though Peeta's mind while his body gave up and he collapsed, was that finally, in unconsciousness, the itch would be gone.
End of Chapter 3