Trigger warning, domestic abuse, for this chapter. The reference is somewhat mild, but just FYI.

Peeta:

I woke up nearly smothered by a thick nest of ratty, russet hair. While we slept Katniss and I had shifted and sighed until it seemed we were irrevocably conjoined. She was on her back while I was on my stomach, my arm gripping her waist and my face nestled into her neck and loose locks. Our legs were pressed more intimately against each other than I knew she'd be comfortable with.

This was not a forgiving situation for my morning wood.

I slowly pulled my arm back across her stomach, reveling in the way the muscles in her abdomen unconsciously tensed at my languid attention. The shirt I let her borrow last night had inched up slowly in the night, revealing all but her breasts. She still smelled distinctly of liquor. In this moment she was radiantly innocent, so completely trusting and lying supine before me. Sometimes I wished I could just capture her in these moments, before she jolted awake and remembered all of her guilt and became a whirlwind of anxious activity.

I leaned forward and pressed a slight kiss to her temple before grinning and lightly grabbing her arm to jostle her awake.

"Rise and shine, sweetheart!"

She pushed me off of her and grunted. "You sound just like Haymitch."

She attempted to pull the covers back over her head but I caught her arm and stilled her.

"Speaking of our dear ol' boss, I have another chapter or two to bang out before Monday, so I'm making breakfast and kicking you out… darling."

She finally opened her eyes and looked up at me pathetically, "Okay so there's that... but I'm also pretty sure there is a small alien-being attempting to hammer it's way out of my skull and the room is still spinning. Take pity on my poor, sorry soul."

I chuckled softly, rising from the bed only to reach down and yank the covers completely off the bed.

"No pouting Everdeen. I tended to your poor soul, and fist, last night."

At this she brought her hand up to her face and groaned when she saw the bandaged, bloodied mess.

Still staring at her hand she let loose a heavy sigh, "If you let me shower here and tell me exactly what happened last night I will be eternally in your debt."

We were perpetually in debt to each other, so I didn't bother answering her beyond a small smile. Lately, she owed me far more than I owed her, but I let it go. After my oldest brother died senior year and my mother and father took off shortly after, she essentially wrote my thesis for me. Hell, she basically dragged my wounded ass through the entire year. She said she understood. Though Prim died suddenly and Bane's cancer ate away at him for as long I could remember, their deaths were still a shock. She was the only person who understood that. At the end of the day Primrose and Banneton were here, and then they weren't; no matter the circumstance.

I crossed the room to my dresser and pulled out a pair of basketball shorts that surely wouldn't fit her, but might just cover her enough for me to get through this morning. I tossed them on the bed and made my way to the door.

"I'll tell you about your fun, fun night over breakfast!" I exclaimed, smiling almost manically, mimicking my publicist Effie, "Oh, and I'll make something with bacon and cheese."

For the first time that morning she looked up at me with a smile.

"You know I'll always be in your debt right?" She is smirking but I can tell her face is almost uncomfortably contorted. "I'll never deserve you."

I try to keep my face blank as I remember what she whimpered to me last night, "You don't love me the way you're supposed to." I want to believe that she's saying exactly what I want to hear, what I've wanted to hear for years… but I know this is just another thing she feels guilty about. Another thing she feels she can't repay.

"Hey! We look after each other, right Kat?" I try not to smile at the way she blanches at her least favorite nickname. "It's you and me against the world. You're never going to leave me behind and I'm never going to let you go."

Finally she gets up and slowly makes her way over to me. She plants a soft kiss on my cheek before picking up the pants I laid out for her and heads towards my bathroom.

Many times we could have abandoned each other, probably to our own personal benefit, but somehow we've developed a strange allegiance to one another. At the end of the day it would always be the two of us against the powers that be.

I learned long ago that the best way to protect her was to never touch her. It was a sacrifice I was still learning to live with.

"So exactly how much do you remember from last night?"

Katniss sits across from me, pushing the now cold scrambled eggs around her plate. The shirt I let her borrow is hanging off her shoulder, and instead of her bare flesh turning me on, I can't help but think I should feed her a couple more pieces of bacon.

She begins talking to her nearly full plate, "Well, I remember being with Johanna, and everything was going okay. But then I got a missed call from Mom and instead of answering I ordered a couple of shots and reached into the pill bottle she handed me last time I was home."

She paused there and stuttered fruitlessly, trying to get the rest out. She frequently complained about having a mother who was both a nurse and a junkie, so whenever Katniss mimicked her behavior she tended to lose who she was for a few days.

"N-Next thing I know I was with Gale." She lets out a heavy sigh and her fork clatters down her plate. "And that's it."

We are both silent for a few beats.

"So how did this happen?" She says gesturing to her bandaged hand.

"You put your fist through my bathroom mirror."

"Oh," she breaths softly, studying everything in the room but my face when I begin to talk.

"Look, I get that you were upset last night… and it's ridiculous for us to think that you'd be fine just a year later..."

Her shoulders visibly tensed, and I could tell she was curling into herself, but if I was going to keep playing the part of the knight in sullied armor, I needed to know where the other cast of characters fit in.

"…But I don't understand why you call HIM."

Once again, cold gray eyes met swimming blue.

"I don't really know." Her eyes drop down until she's fixated on her hands.

"Honestly, I think it's because I spend so much time thinking about the car accident, and how if I had just moved around my plans for that day, or even called her and told her to sit tight for ten more minutes, how I wouldn't be sitting here feeling… so fucking hollow."

I recognized the small hitch in her breath, but let her continue.

"I can run through all the 'what ifs' I want Peeta, but he's the only one with answers. He was the only one that was with her when she died. So as much as I fixate on the accident, I fixate on him driving."

She lets out a heavy sigh and runs a hand through her knotted hair, tugging sharply at the ends where her hand gets stuck.

"If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that we're both really good at punishing each other. When I'm with Gale I get to be as angry as I want to be. Most of the time I hate him, but he's the only other person I know that's as haunted as I am. I can taste death on him and I crave it. It makes me feel more whole. I feel like I deserve it; just like the few jabs and pushes after it all happened."

She hung her head a bit lower, her voice almost a whisper, "I berated him. I pushed him until he didn't have a choice. We were both hurting and I lashed out. How can I blame him?"

I reach across the island in the kitchen and lift my hand to her cheek. It's moments like these that scare me the most.

"Please talk to Dr. A again, Love."

At this she rolled her eyes, "you know I hate it when you call me that."

"That's not what you said last night," I reply playfully, smiling at the red flush spreading over her cheeks.

It's then that the door slams open and I quickly pull my hand back and turn around to stare at a fuming Clove.

Clove and I have been shouting in the bedroom for a good half hour and I can only imagine how Katniss is feeling, left cowering in my kitchen.

"It always comes back to her, and I'm tired of it!" Clove is poking in me in the chest and glowering up at me.

"You know that's not true. You are always my priority. It's just hard for her around this time of year," I try to desperately explain.

"It's always sooo hard for her Peeta!" Clove throws her arms up in frustration. "When are you going to realize it's not your job to take care of her? She's a big girl and you're not her fucking therapist."

I'm open my mouth to tell her exactly how selfish I think she's being when she cuts me off, "Don't you dare tell me I'm acting crazy. I come home to find another woman, a woman you were in love with all throughout college, dressed in your clothes."

My mouth shuts at this. As much has I hated to admit it, she had a point.

"Don't think I didn't notice the lack of blankets on the couch either. I know where she slept last night. How did it feel Peeta?"

I look at her, confusion coloring my features, "How did what feel Clove?"

"How did it feel to have her lying on my side of the bed? How did it feel to have her wrapped around you this morning?"

It's then that I hear the scrapping of a chair against the floor in the kitchen, but Clove grabs the side of my face and redirects my attention to her.

"It wasn't like that." I spit out through gritted teeth.

"Don't fucking lie to me." Her hands squeeze harder on my cheeks. Despite the anger brewing in my stomach, I can feel myself getting harder under my sweat pants.

"Nothing. Happened."

It's then that she lunges forward and latches onto my lips forcefully. I grab her waist and jerk her roughly into my hips as she bites my bottom lip.

As we rip the clothing off of each other and she pushes me onto the bed, I think about what Katniss said about deserving punishment, and how that could sometime happen along with pleasure.

Clove alternately bites and sucks on my jaw and neck while she rides me frantically. I reach out and squeeze her breasts forcefully. As she moans plaintively and I feel my body stiffen below her, I think of lithe thighs replacing the muscular ones pressing against me. I think of whimpers and sighs instead of the grunts and loud moans currently filling up my bedroom. But most of all, I think of stormy gray eyes fixed on my own as I shudder beneath her.

Clove rolls off of me and falls asleep almost immediately, but I deftly shimmy out of the bed and pull on my boxers before making my way into the living room.

When I heard the scrapping of the chair against my floor, I knew that Katniss had bolted, but my stomach still sinks when I spot my shirt and sweatpants folded neatly on my coffee table. On top of the pile is a note, scribbled on a napkin with red lipstick:

"I'm sorry. Please tell Clove too."

What the hell did she wear home?

Yo, I'm not used to an abundance of reviews (and by that I mean more than like, five)! Extra brownie points because they were thought-provoking and motivating and I love you all! So, thank you for the reviews and PMs!