A/N: I don't think I've ever had as much trouble with a chapter as I did with this one—I scrapped it completely three times (I even tried writing it from Peeta's POV, but that was a disaster). In the end, I completely shredded the outline… so the turn of events was a little unexpected, but well-deserved, I think. (Fingers crossed.)
Also, I'm sorry because this chapter is embarrassingly long. Oh well.
Disclaimer: Super-smut on the way. This is probably the raunchiest chapter I've ever written, so that's… fun.
005. Spend an Entire Day Building Blanket Forts, Watching Disney Films and Baking Brownies
A freight train of mortification pierces Katniss's chest like a hole-punch when she wakes in the morning.
Shit.
Fuck.
What had they done?
His arms corded around her are enough to keep her anchored, conscious of her surroundings. If Peeta weren't holding her, she'd probably roll straight out of the tree house and plummet to a mitigating death. She reckons it'd be a much easier fate than whatever she's about to face.
He's still asleep, his breath hot as it feathers delicately against her neck. She's thankful he isn't awake just yet. This gives her at least a few solid moments to think, to figure out what the hell she's supposed to do, to figure out exactly what she feels.
(Or to go into denial.)
What was she thinking last night? Or, more importantly, what were they both thinking last night, when they abandoned everything they used to honor? They're not built for this, built to withstand extreme heat or lust. They're not meant to spend nights curled under blankets with fervent kisses and wandering hands—the thought makes her cheeks flush all over again because, oh god, he'd touched her like that last night, hadn't he?—and she knows it. She knows he knows it.
They are meant to be just friends. They are meant to be best friends.
She repeats that mantra over and over again in her head until she begins to believe it.
Now, Katniss isn't stupid. Even though the cool hues of morning have sewn a new type of lucid sobriety over her thoughts, and she sees their situation differently now than she had last night, she can't deny that what happened had been what she wanted at the time. She used to be naïve enough to deny something like that, but she isn't anymore. She wanted Peeta.
But the issue at hand isn't whether or not she wants him. It's whether or not she should. And, most definitely, she should not.
She isn't allowed much more time to explore the recess of her mind before Peeta stirs against her shoulder, his lips finding her skin naturally. She freezes against him.
Sensing her change in resolve, he grows rigid, too.
"Katniss—"
He doesn't have to say anything else. Those two syllables have told all in their apologetic, pleading tone.
She plucks herself from his grasp, putting as much space—literal and metaphorical—as she can between them. "I don't want to talk about it," she says.
He's upright in a second. "Katniss, please—we have to. We can't just p—"
"Peeta," she interrupts, her tone wired thin and strained. "I can't… I can't do this."
Peeta stills, anxious pain registering over his features.
Her back to him, she crawls away, hovering above the ladder. "I—I need time, to think, to… to figure this all out, okay?"
When she turns to look at him, she finds him watching her. He looks like he's just been flattened by a semi.
Breathless. Crumpled.
But he only nods, because whatever Katniss wants, Peeta will deliver.
Her knuckles drum anxiously on Gale's door, hoping she has the address right, because it'd be a pity to wake a stranger at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday. She hasn't been to his new apartment yet; until now, she's had no reason to visit.
When a ragged Hawthorne that looks more like an aggravated house cat than an actual human answers the door in his boxers, his eyes scribbling murder all over her skin, she makes a mental note to never wake him up again.
"What the hell, Catnip! The sun is barely up… why the fuck are you?"
"I need to see Madge."
Gale narrows his eyes at her, clearly reluctant to indulge Katniss, but there must be something feebly desperate in her expression because after a few moments, he gives in. Rubbing his tired face and groaning, he turns around. "Madge, you have a visitor!"
It only takes a few seconds before his girlfriend appears in the doorway, her confusion only deepening as she takes in a disheveled Katniss standing before her. "What's going on?"
"Fucking injustice, that's what's g—"
"Gale, shut up and go make the coffee." Madge turns away from her boyfriend to face her friend. "Are you okay?"
Katniss waits until a half-wounded, half-too-exhausted-to-put-up-any-real-sort-of-fight Gale saunters away from them. It isn't until his back is turned that she allows her bones to crumble, her entire resolve pinching into dust as she presses her hands to her heated cheeks, eyes blankly falling to the floor.
"I did something awful. I think I ruined us."
It's obvious Madge doesn't quite understand what Katniss is getting at, but she grabs her friend by the arm anyway and gently pulls her inside, guiding her to the sofa. "Here. Gale will have the coffee in ten minutes. Talk to me until then, okay?"
"I don't want him to hear this," she whispers. Truth be told, she didn't even want Madge to hear this, but she's reached the point where she knows she can't fix this all on her own. Rarely does she reach out for assistance, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and considering Madge is her most candidly diagnostic friend, the assistance could be helpful.
She scoots closer to Katniss on the sofa, lowering her voice. "We can talk quietly, then. Gale's probably dozing against the counter, anyway."
Katniss nods curtly. "Please don't judge me."
"You know I won't."
"And please never tell anyone."
"My lips are sealed."
She inhales.
"I think I'm falling for Peeta."
She's knows their piecemeal, wobbly friendship isn't back to where it was before she arrived on Friday—will it ever be?—but at least he hugs her when she leaves. At least she still feels his breath in her hair, his palms flattening against her back and shoulders to hold her against him. At least she knows that although he's upset with her, it's for the best.
"I'm sorry I couldn't make you feel any better," she tells him quietly as they stand outside the bakery, Madge's car parked at the end of the walk. After Katniss had told Madge everything—everything, from their first kiss to their adventure last night—she begged her to take her home, so she could escape all this. So she could distract herself, because God knows that's what Katniss does best.
Peeta's breath catches in his throat, as if he wants to say something, but he remains silent.
"Call me after the biopsy, okay?" she whispers. "And when you get the results."
"Are you coming down next week?"
She swallows hard. She didn't think he'd want her to anymore.
"If you'll take me in."
He pulls back, hands on her shoulders.
"I will never turn you away, Katniss Everdeen."
She doesn't expect him to call her on Tuesday after the procedure, but he does.
She doesn't expect it to be more than a five minute conversation, but it is. After an hour and a half she finds herself lying diagonally across her mattress with one leg propped against the wall and the other flattened over her pillow, her stomach aching from laughing so hard at Peeta's stories of his physician, Dr. Abernathy, and his misanthropic narratives.
She also doesn't expect him to call her on Friday with the results of the biopsy just before she and Annie leave for Panem, but he does.
She doesn't expect him to be crying, but he is.
She doesn't expect the doctors to have issued him a clean bill of health.
But they have.
Peeta is safe.
Her Peeta is safe.
And this miracle seems to trigger more of its kind, because not only is he healed but to some degree, so are they; when Annie drops her off at the bakery he meets her on the front steps, his arms coiling around her with boa-constrictor ferocity but instead of robbing her of air, he gives her more, and she can finally breathe again. They're laughing and spinning around (as well as he can with his sore, patched-up knee, at least) with tear-stained cheeks, and for now, she thinks they may just be okay.
Even though Hans is away at college, leaving only Mr. Mellark to accompany the pair, dinner at the bakery practically reaches Christmas caliber. All of Peeta's favorite foods weasel their way onto the table—four cheese lasagna, cinnamon apples, edamame, an array of pastries snagged from the front, and of course, cheese buns. They eat until they all look to be four months pregnant and wind up in the lobby of the bakery for a non-competitive game of charades.
And they're happy. They're all happy. The friction between her and Peeta is all but buried six feet under, because after tonight she's realized petty conflicts mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Not when just a few hours prior, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed sunshine boy's survival was up in the air.
That night, neither of them need to ask for company. Katniss doesn't even waste the time settling in the guest room; she goes straight to Peeta's, letting him tuck her into his own bed, letting him wrap himself around her. Letting him nuzzle into her braid.
She's somewhere in that hazy stratum just above unconsciousness when she feels his lips on her hair.
"Peeta?" Her voice is surprisingly strong.
"Hmm?"
She curls slightly in his grasp, her eyes finding the ceiling.
"Are we okay?"
He sighs. "I think there are a lot of answers we owe each other, and a lot of compromises we need to make, but… we'll never not be okay, not as long as we keep trying to make this work. And I'll never give up on you. I hope you know that."
A small smile ghosts over her lips as she cuddles more snugly against him. Tonight, sleep comes quicker than it has in weeks.
She expects Peeta to try to talk things out with her early in the week, but oddly, he only seems to shy away from the topic. Evasiveness has always been one of Peeta's favorite strategies—she's certainly the blunter of the pair—but still, when he said they both had answers they owed each other, she'd anticipated questions.
Not silence.
She begins to wonder if it's because Peeta's come to regret that night, too. That maybe he's reached the same conclusion she has: Their friendship always comes first, always, over everything.
Or maybe he's realized he deserves better than her, that he deserves sunshine and optimism and imagination, not a girl who rains on parades like it's her day job. Maybe he's come to the conclusion that he was misguided in ever wanting to be more than friends with her.
(It can't be because he's afraid of hearing the truth out loud. It can't be because he'll take ambiguity over a harsh reality any day. No. That can't be it. He must not want her anymore.)
Either way, his vow of silence makes her squirm. She hates vagueness in the same way that vegans hate Big Macs—but what can she do about it? Sit him down and slap him across the face with her candor?
By the time she's returned to UPitt from spring break, she's about ready to play Harry Potter and run headlong into a brick wall, only without a pushcart and without the intention of actually going through the platform.
Time passes with molasses-paced sluggishness, and she learns that even the separation from Peeta doesn't make her feel any better. This monster clinging to her back seems to follow her wherever she goes; avoiding him doesn't fix her problem.
It isn't until sophomore year is in the review mirror that things begin to improve. She assumes coming home to him for the summer will be an entirely new vein of hell, but surprisingly, it only takes about a week of long hours at the bakery, hikes in the woods, movies with friends and nights curled up in bed with her sunshine boy before the invisible string that had once been strangling them slowly begins to unravel.
Maybe it's because she eventually comes to terms with the nature of their friendship. The ambiguity had been killing her before, but she's since grown familiar with it. She eventually understands that their friendship doesn't need a definition to survive; all she needs is him, with her, reminding her every day how to smile.
The best relationships don't always need titles, after all.
Of course, the war with her nerves is never won. Her heartbeat never learns how to stay calm with the touch of his fingertips, and her lower belly aches whenever she finds him wrapped around her under the comforter. The conversation she had with Madge the morning after that night—the night they don't ever dare mention, afraid it'll shatter this peaceful state of ignorance—had brought Katniss to a revelation she'd been battling for so long. She knows exactly what she feels for Peeta; instead of denying it, she pilots around it.
By the end of the summer, she's mastered the art of pining for her best friend while holding him at an arms-length.
The new school year brings an onslaught of change for both of them. With Hans now officially in Harrisburg for his new job, Mr. Mellark has allocated extra responsibility to Peeta. Not only does he craft pastries and man the ovens, but he's been named the official cake consultant at the bakery as well. Additionally, Peeta told her they'd be hiring an extra associate to help run the front and keep the lobby clean, meaning he'll have someone to mentor. She's excited for him; she knows Finnick and Delly keep him company during the school year, but it'll be good for him to have a workmate to keep him from going stir crazy.
On Katniss's end, she's officially moving off-campus into a small apartment with Annie. It'll be strange to transition from Johanna's ceaseless harassment to cohabiting a loft with someone so much quieter than the ever-so-audacious Ms. Mason, but Katniss knows they'll stay in touch, as will be the case with Rue, too.
On top of her residential adjustment, Katniss has also been hired by Heavensbee Engineering, Inc.—a company that designs tools and technology to reduce air pollution, and happens to be based in Pittsburgh—to do something tedious like bookkeeping or filing. But at least she's immersing herself in the industry she aims to graduate into, so it's a start.
The job isn't exactly demanding, as she only works fifteen hours a week, but with another sixteen credit hours piled on for school, Katniss doesn't find much time to stay connected with Peeta once the semester begins. He's always so busy at the bakery whenever she has time to call; she's always in class or at work when he's freed up. Their schedules simply don't align.
And to make matters worse, she has a shift or two almost every Saturday. So whenever Annie can make an impromptu trip down to Panem for the weekend, Katniss is stuck in Pittsburgh.
It kills her. She hasn't seen Peeta since she left Panem for school in August, and she can count the number of real conversations they've had on her fingers.
On the Friday of the first weekend in November, she's about to leave for class when Annie pokes her head into Katniss's bedroom.
"You're working this weekend, right?"
Katniss nods.
"Bummer. Well, just a heads-up, I'm heading back home after I get out of class. Don't throw any wild raves while I'm gone, alright?" She winks.
"Damn. There go all my plans."
"You know," Annie begins, leaning in a little through the door frame. "You are twenty-one now. You can go to parties—Jo could take you. She always knows where the best ones are, anyway."
Katniss only shrugs; she's never been much of a party girl. She didn't even drink on her twenty-first birthday—she'd been so wrapped up in a paper for her Bioethics course that she'd essentially forgotten what day it was until Peeta texted her. Sorry I'm missing the big day. I'll buy you some cheap, fruity cocktail next time you're in town to make up for it. And then bake you an extra batch of cheese buns.
Which reminds her that she hasn't spoken with him all week. So when Annie ducks out of her room, Katniss fumbles in her open knapsack for her phone.
Katniss: Annie's leaving for the weekend, meaning I'm going to spend my Friday night moping on my couch and watching Netflix
Katniss: or you could distract me with a skype date
She's surprised when he answers within five minutes. These days, it always takes him so much longer to respond, since his hands are usually tied up with a piping bag or a sheet of fondant.
Peeta: As much as I'd love to distract you with a pixelated version of my face, I've got plans tonight
It feels like someone just skewered her heart with a toothpick, but she recovers quickly.
Katniss: Oh. Well have fun.
She shoves her phone back in her sack, not waiting to see if he responds.
As she sits through her Analytic Geometry course, twirling her pen absentmindedly between her fingers, she tries to push the thought of Peeta from her mind. But he keeps crawling back in. While elusiveness may be one of his closest friends, concealment is not; Peeta has always told her everything, so why was his text so vague?
Could he… could it be possible that he has a date? Blood curls in her cheeks and her mouth tastes like month-old milk at the thought. She shakes her head, trying to dismiss the image of him smiling at a girl who is not her. He'd tell her if there was someone in his life.
But even if there is someone, it shouldn't bother her. She knows she doesn't deserve Peeta—she's always held firm that he should be with someone better than her, and maybe he's finally found someone. In any case, she should be happy for him.
But it doesn't do anything to quell the nausea in her belly or the tightening in her chest.
She pulls out her phone as her teacher scrawls a barely-legible proof on the board, pulling up Peeta's Facebook. She's never been the most functional user, but he updates pretty regularly, so she figures it won't be too difficult to find out if there is someone.
There isn't anything patent from a first glance, and she feels her anxiety ebb as she scrolls through his most recent posts. She was just overreacting, of course. Peeta would tell her if there was someone, because why wouldn't—
Shit.
Her heart flies up into her throat as a picture surfaces. It's a slightly grainy selfie; a girl is holding the camera, Peeta at her side with a streak of flour under his eye like war paint. Bristel Jimenez was with Peeta Mellark.
Katniss doesn't recognize Bristel Jimenez, the girl who tagged Peeta in her photo, but something unfamiliar swirls on her tongue, tearing through her chest with no hesitation. She has dark hair and an olive complexion much like Katniss, but the comparison ends there; it's clear the girl is at least partially Hispanic, her eyes dark and big and her lips full.
Katniss can't think much beyond She's beautiful, and I hate her.
After glaring at the photo for a few more moments, studying the genuine smile on Peeta's face just before noticing the arm he has wrapped around her shoulder, she reads the caption.
Love the new job and my new coworker!
Katniss wants to scream, vomit, then scream again.
She doesn't understand this feeling coursing through her, like a sort of fog, or mist, swelling around her and filling her lungs until she can't see anything, can't even breathe. But it drowns her, hijacking her senses until her mind is flashing with green anger.
What the hell is wrong with her?
Seething, she slams her phone upside-down on the table. The more she looks at that photo, looks at those blue eyes she hasn't seen in months next to those brown eyes she's never seen in her life, the more she wants to fist whole chunks of her hair from her scalp.
It takes an agonizingly long hour before the class is up, and almost immediately she jets from the lecture hall to her now-empty apartment. Without a single drop of penitence she slams the door behind her, tearing through the lounge and shutting herself in her room.
Only once her face is buried safely in the pillow does she finally scream.
Why didn't he tell her he was working with a girl? Why didn't he tell her anything about her? Was he purposely trying to keep this from her? Each unanswered question spurs a million more of its kind, and before long Katniss finds herself shoved under a pile of sheets, muscles rigid in anger.
Is this why he's been so distant? His hours at the bakery probably aren't much longer than usual. He's probably just spending time with Bristel Jimenez. It must be why he can't Skype her tonight—he already has a date planned.
She wants to blame her anger on the fact that he didn't tell her, not on the fact that there's a girl in his life in the first place. She promises herself that if she hadn't figured out about Bristel Jimenez on her own, she'd be less irate. That this is about Peeta lying to her, not about him replacing her.
Replacing her. The words echo off the walls of her skull like her head is a fucking cave, hollow and dark and cold. This is why he hasn't needed to text her or call her as often as he used to… because he has someone else. Another girl. Another girl who looks vaguely like Katniss, but is prettier and more exotic and actually knows how to take a selfie.
She groans into her pillow, damning Peeta Mellark for keeping her in the dark, damning Bristel Jimenez for being beautiful and using exclamation points and being there for Peeta when she couldn't, and damning herself for feeling whatever she's feeling now. It's like anger and melancholy coiled together, drizzled with a brush of fear and powerlessness.
It's green, it's monstrous, and it's everywhere.
She's the picture of indolence, curled up on the sofa with a pint of Ben & Jerry's tucked in her lap. There are few things in the world she hates more than romantic comedies, so in order to productively reroute her anger, she's pulled up My Girlfriend's Boyfriend on Netflix, because nothing makes her more aggravated than sappy movies that are even shittier than their titles suggest.
"Happy Friday night to you, Katniss," she announces to the empty apartment, spooning a mound of peanut butter fudge ice cream into her mouth.
It can't be more than a minute later that her self-pitying wallow-fest is interrupted by a quiet knock on her door. She didn't think she could possibly get more furious, but with the idea that someone has the nerve to interrupt her in the middle of such an intimate moment, her rage only flares. She has half a mind to completely ignore whoever is at her door, but after a second round of knocks, she gives in, slamming her ice cream on the coffee table and stomping over to the entryway.
Clad in her ratty old sweatpants, a black t-shirt that probably belonged to Peeta at some point (she'll remember to burn it later, if she's still in this mood in an hour), and a fresh scowl, she throws open the door.
Both her stomach and her jaw drop to the floor.
"You see, a Skype call would've been nice and everything, but I wanted to see your face in person."
There before her stands Peeta Mellark, blue eyes wide in amusement under a baseball cap, a duffel bag swung over his arm. She can't decide if it's the way his jacket stretches over his shoulders that makes his biceps look so thick, or the way his dark-wash jeans hug his legs so perfectly, or the way his blonde hair curls out from underneath the cap, or the way his adorably devious smirk stretches crookedly on his lips, but in this moment she forgets she's supposed to be angry. She springs across the threshold to wrap her arms around him.
"You should've said something," she murmurs to his neck, closing her eyes as the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg and Peeta ribbons around her in warm tendrils. It isn't until he hugs her back, until she feels his palms flattening against her spine and shoulders, that she realizes just how deeply she missed him. How much she'd craved his touch.
"I know you hate surprises," he chuckles, "which is exactly why I had to do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't get to see that scowl of yours I love so much."
She melts into putty in his arms.
They stand like that for a few moments, relearning the weight and feel of each other in their grasps, before she suddenly pulls back.
"How the hell did you get up here?"
"What… You forget I can drive? I had to whine for a good half hour, but dad finally caved and let me borrow the car." And then his eyes flit past her. "Oh my god, what are you watching? You hate romantic comedies."
She feels heat creeping in her cheeks. "I… I was mad. I wanted to redirect my anger into something without a face and a heartbeat."
He looks to her, frowning. "What—why were you angry?" His eyes flash. "Did someone hurt you?"
She's only briefly flattered by Peeta getting protective over her. "No, not really. I just… I made up a scenario in my head that was a little… exaggerated."
He cocks a brow, begging continuation, but she's not too eager to tell him about it. Instead, she changes the subject. "Jesus, Peeta. It's your first time in Pittsburgh and I haven't even invited you inside to show you around."
By the way his jaw flexes, she knows he's not happy to drop the previous topic, but he concedes with a sigh. "Alright, Ms. Everdeen. Give me a grand tour of the castle. Show me where you keep the prisoners."
She grabs his hand and pulls him into the flat, shutting the door behind him. The feel of his palm on hers makes her entire body tingle; she shivers, swallowing hard.
"Alright. So first, we have the living room with one whole couch and a secondhand 32-inch TV. And a coffee table from Walmart. This is where we entertain our guests—and by we, I mean Annie, because she's the social butterfly of us two, which makes me the misanthropic moth of the residence." She motions to the other side of the room. "And that's our meagre excuse of a kitchen, complete with a fridge, microwave, and probably-still-edible Pad Thai from last week. No dishwasher. Apparently, cleaning things by hand builds character." She drags him a few feet past the couch. "That door leads to Annie's room. I'm not about to show you it, because she'd decapitate me, but trust me when I say the walls are Pepto-Bismol pink. I have no idea how Finnick manages to fuck her in that room, considering it probably once belonged to a five-year-old girl, but he does, because these walls are paper thin and I can hear everything." She ignores Peeta's chuckles and motions to the other door beside Annie's. "And through that door is the dragon-guarded dungeon. That's where we keep the prisoners. It's also where I sleep."
"Will you show me it?" he asks suddenly, lifting a brow suggestively.
She looks to the duffel slung over his shoulder and then back to his face. "Would it be outrageous for me to assume you've packed to stay for the weekend?"
He smiles guiltily.
"Then you'll be staying in there with me, so I'll show you tonight. But first, I have to take you gallivanting across the city—and across campus, of course, so you can see where my soul has come to die."
He chuckles, tossing his bag onto the couch before enveloping her in a bone-crushing hug. "I've missed you, Katniss. Nothing's the same without my favorite misanthropic moth."
She hates alcohol. Three beers and one shitty cocktail later, Katniss hasn't swayed in her opinion. She's the absolute lightest of lightweights, and while some people may like the buzz, Katniss hates the blurriness behind her eyes, hates her thoughts being jumbled. She loves being in control of everything in her being, and the alcohol takes that away.
But she likes being with Peeta, and she finds Peeta quite funny when he's drunk, and so she doesn't mind all that much.
"…and then, he says to his bride, 'I'm ready to stop being a cacti, and start being a cactus," Johanna tells Peeta, leaning down the bar as she cackles at her own joke.
Katniss frowns at the bad joke as Peeta laughs at her side, "God dammit, if only that joke was grammatically correct—"
"Shut up, you fucking English laureate. You're drunk, you're not supposed to care about plural tenses."
Peeta chuckles again, running his hands through his hair and looking down at his empty beer bottle with wide eyes. "God, I am drunk, aren't I?"
"Even the best fall down sometimes." Johanna pats his back in mock-reassurance. Then she glances at her phone. "Well, as much as I'd love to spend the rest of my Friday night at a shitty bar with my mute ex-roommate and her surprisingly charming best friend, I do have places to be and people to play tonsil-hockey with." She hops down from the bar, grabbing her purse and leaving a few bills fanned out over the mahogany surface.
"It was wonderful meeting you, Johanna," Peeta laughs, turning to look at her. "I never thought I'd ever encounter someone even more mordant than Katniss here, but I'm happy to be proven wrong."
"Such a gentleman." She winks at Katniss. "He's a keeper, this one. Give him a nice big kiss for me." After turning to walk away, she calls out over her shoulder, "Thanks for the entertainment. Let's do it again sometime."
There's a moment of silence shared between Peeta and Katniss as they watch her disappear through the front door, Katniss speechless in mortification and Peeta, in amusement; a few seconds lapse before he lets out a breathy chuckle.
"She's… something."
"Try living with her for two years."
Peeta looks at her, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in a genuine smile as he shakes his head. "I'm completely washed out after spending an hour with her, so I've got to admire your endurance. How'd you survive for so long? Please, tell me your secret. Ear plugs? Chloroform?"
Katniss finds herself unleashing a giggle that's pathetically un-Katniss-like, but she's drunk so she figures she can't be held liable for any atypical behavior.
But Peeta doesn't stop there. "You know, there's so much about your experience here that I had no idea about. You've told me so much—about Johanna, about the city, about the culture—and I thought I understood, but I didn't even know the half of it. You've got a life out here, Katniss."
She snorts. "Not a very good one."
"Maybe you don't think so, but at least it's something you can call your own. You have an apartment, complete with a tiny TV and wallpaper that looks like something my grandmother would plaster over her walls... You have big-city friends, like Johanna. You have… you have independence." His face darkens. "And I'm a twenty-one-year-old cancer survivor living above the family bakery with my father. I envy you, Katniss. I really do."
She blames it on her alcohol-lowered inhibitions, because she blurts out, "You can come here, you know. With me. My walls aren't Pepto-Bismol pink. In fact, they're quite a manly beige."
"A manly beige," he repeats, chuckling and shaking his head. And then he looks up to her, his smile sad but deep, eyes searching her face for something. "I couldn't do that, not even if I had an excuse to abandon everything at home to live in Pittsburgh."
"Couldn't do what?" she asks.
He blinks. "Intrude on your life, Katniss. This—everything you've built for yourself—is yours. It's not mine to take."
She doesn't know what's gotten into him, how he did such a quick one-eighty from being a cheerful comic to someone so grave, but it hurts her. She doesn't like seeing Peeta so emotionally sobered, even in his mildly drunken state.
"I don't want it to be mine," she says bluntly, quietly, and he looks to her in surprise. "I mean, I'm thankful I'm here. Thankful I'm able to attend such a nice university and get an education that'll hopefully put me where I want to be, but… this isn't the life I want to live forever. This isn't my home, Peeta. My home's in Panem." My home's with you.
She thinks it must be the alcohol that drives him to cover her hand with his, as if he understood her silent thought. They gaze at each other for a while, the bar whirling out of focus until it's just them, studying each other's expressions until their minds are numb.
"Let's go back to my apartment," she says after an immeasurable silence. "We can watch Sherlock on Netflix or talk about politics or drunkenly arm wrestle…"
He laughs then, pushing off his stool to help her down from hers, and after he's paid the bartender they slip out of the tavern, arms interlocked.
November in Pittsburgh is certainly not the friendliest of months, and he's seemed to catch it on a particularly cold day; after they leave the bar they're immediately assaulted with a wall of icy air. Even the alcohol doesn't completely save them from the cold, and Peeta's arm slips from hers to wrap around her shoulder, pressing her exposed ear to the warmth of his chest.
"Welcome to Antarctica," she blurts as they stumble along the sidewalk.
"I feel like I've just entered the set of Frozen." He eyes the thin dusting of snow on the concrete around them. "In my slightly inebriated state, if I start to channel my inner Elsa and sing Let it Go, please put me out of my misery and smash my head into a telephone pole."
She giggles again, wrapping herself around him tighter.
The journey back to her apartment feels miles longer than it actually is, but eventually they make it, stumbling through the door in a panting, chattering mess.
"I'm going to put something warmer on," Katniss announces as she stumbles toward her room, cursing herself for having changed out of her sweats when they left to explore Pittsburgh a few hours back. She's just going to put them right back on again, anyway.
After she's swaddled in the sweatpants she'd left strewn over her floor, plucked off her bra and tugged an oversized UPitt sweatshirt over her naked torso, she slips into the living room. She starts at the sight of Peeta hovering over the sofa in a pair of flannel pajama pants and absolutely no shirt, padding through his duffel. Only a few seconds pass before Peeta manages to pull a t-shirt over his head, but a few seconds are all she needs, because in that short time she melts twice over at the sight of his broad shoulders and corded back muscles. A memory flashes back through her head, one of her grasping those shoulders as he kissed her, as he slipped his hand under her the band of her sweatpants—the same sweatpants she's wearing now, actually—and made her come undone with his fingers.
She gulps.
Shit. This is going to be a long night.
He stands up straight, his eyes scanning her up and down before settling on her face with an approving smile. "I love the relaxed college-girl look on you. Well, I think I like all your other looks, too. But this is pretty nice."
She rolls her eyes and meets him by the sofa, plopping down on the cushions. "What do you want to do, baker boy?"
He sits beside her, and before she knows what's happening he's pulling her onto his lap, his fingers absentmindedly playing with the tip of her braid. "I want to know why you were angry earlier. You never told me."
Fuck. She thought he'd forgotten.
"It's not important." She avoids his eyes and tacks on quietly, "I'm not mad now."
"It was something I did, wasn't it?" he murmurs.
"You're not supposed to be perceptive when you're drunk, Peeta," she giggles, although her chest hurts now.
Their gazes weave together, and she sees the pain blossoming around his dilated pupils. "It was because you thought I didn't want to talk to you, wasn't it? I'm sorry, I… I just wanted to surprise you, Katniss, I… I didn't want to upset you…"
She looks down, feeling stupid for thinking he'd ditch her so readily.
But… that doesn't explain the whole situation with Bristel Jimenez. Why he hadn't told her about his new coworker.
Before she knows what she's doing, her gaze is digging into his again, and she's asking him, "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
Peeta frowns, confusion threading in his brows. "Her?"
"B—Bristel. You didn't tell me about her. That's why I was angry. I thought you had a date when you said you couldn't Skype with me, and so I… I went onto your Facebook, because I thought there might be something there, and I saw her in a picture with you, and I thought… I mean, she's beautiful, Peeta, and—I don't know, I don't know what I thought…"
As her voice tapers off, she makes a mental note to never ever ever drink again, because then she gets talkative, and God knows all hell breaks loose whenever Katniss opens her mouth.
Peeta's frown only deepens with every word, but by the end his eyes are closed, his face pinched up in some degree of pain that makes her own chest feel like it's been hammered with a sock full of batteries.
"Katniss, I—I never told you about her because… I mean, I didn't think you'd care, I didn't think she mattered—"
"She's taking pictures with you and posting them everywhere, but she's not even worth mentioning in one conversation?"
He rubs his temples. "Please don't make this into something it's not. She's a very sweet girl, she—"
"So you like her, then?"
Peeta's eyes shock open, his jaw popped in mortification. "Katniss, she's sixteen. She's five years younger than—she's practically a baby! You think I'd—I'd—no! God, she's only been working here for… three weeks, maybe four? She's in the front most of the time so I don't even see her much. I didn't think—"
"What? You didn't think I'd want to hear about a new friend of yours?" The words taste wrong leaving her mouth; she's not anywhere near as upset as she sounds, but the alcohol twists her mind until her emotions are categorized and she only knows extremes. In this case, extreme anger.
He stares at her in disbelief, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he struggles for the right words to say. And then, so softly his voice comes out as pure velvet, he whispers, "I didn't think she was worth your time."
Her lungs stop working.
"Katniss—" His fingers are on her neck now, on her jaw. "Please, I never meant to hurt you. I barely get to talk to you enough as is, and I literally don't care for Bristel, so I didn't want to waste the little time I have for conversation with you on someone inconsequential. She's a nice girl, and I'm not going to lie and tell you I hate working with her, but she feels like a cousin to me or something. Believe me when I say she doesn't matter."
Katniss has no choice but to believe him. It's the most sober she's seen him all night, and it wrings her heart out like a dishcloth but makes the space between her thighs pulse.
She feels so stupid. She should've trusted him.
All she can do is nod, ducking her head to tuck it under his chin. He wraps his arms around her, holding her against him as she presses her ear to the expanse of his cotton-clad chest, the dull thud of his heartbeat music to her pounding head.
They sit like that for a while, not speaking, just listening to each other's silence. She feels his hands gently undoing her braid, and she lets him, savoring the feeling of his fingers brushing over her scalp. She sighs contentedly, playing with the fabric of his shirt.
And then, out of the blue, she hears him laugh.
"What's so funny?" she mumbles.
But he doesn't answer, his laughter only growing in magnitude, his hands moving from her hair to his face.
"Peeta?"
And then he says it, what she'd been afraid of this whole night, his voice light and cheerful but knowing, and it makes her bones turn to sludge.
"I inadvertently made Katniss Everdeen jealous."
She pulls back, her eyes fire as they rake over his pride-frosted face. "What?"
"I'm sorry," he laughs, palming his forehead. "I know I shouldn't be laughing, but… I made you jealous."
"No you didn't," she grits, but her denial is weak.
"I think I did. And do you know what that means?"
"Peeta—" she warns.
"It means that somewhere, deep down, you actually care about me."
Her breath catches.
His deduction both enrages her and shatters her heart into a million pebbles of glass. Could it be possible that Peeta really thinks she doesn't care about him? That after all they've been through, he isn't her world?
She reads his expression, seeing the drunken humor laced over his features, but underneath that rests a dormant sadness, one that breaks her all over again.
It makes her want to cry. Or vomit. One of the two.
She can't be here anymore. At once it's all too much; his words, his elated sadness, his honey-cinnamon-nutmeg scent, his ocean irises, his heated body under hers… it's overwhelming, drowning, even. Without thinking, she clambers off his lap.
That's all it takes to silence him. "Katniss?"
She's scrambles away from the sofa, hurrying to her room. It's not like she can escape him—once she's in her room, where will she go? Her bathroom? Down the fire escape?—but she isn't all that concerned with being rational at the moment. All she knows is that she needs to put as much space between her and the boy she cares entirely too much about.
Because she wants him. Just like she did on the night they dutifully avoid speaking of, she wants to feel him, wants to kiss him until she's made of light and wings spurt from her back, wants to come undone, wants to make him come undone…
And she can't have that. Because now she knows just how much she's hurt him. She has him convinced that she doesn't even care about him because every time he gets closer she only runs away from him; all she does is run, and he thinks it's because she's trying to escape from him.
In this moment of alcohol-induced clarity, she realizes she's never been running away from him.
He was never the problem.
It was always her, wasn't it? Always her?
She dives into her bed, burying her head in the pillows as she gasps for air that isn't coming, her entire body trembling. Her blood feels like it's made of lead; she can feel it crawling through her veins, weighing her down, crushing her systems.
And then he's there.
"Katniss, please—talk to me."
His hand is on her shoulder, gentle but insistent. She sobs into the pillows, "You need to stay away from me," but he only laughs nervously.
"Katniss, I can't hear you with your mouth full of fabric."
Without even a second of delay she's bolting upright, her face inches from his.
"Stay away from me, Peeta," she tells him as powerfully as she can, her voice deep and rumbling. But the effect is lost; her words shake.
He sits on the bed, blinking at her through the gloom.
"I... I can't do that, Katniss."
"You have to," she urges, her eyes stinging from looming tears. "If you want me to be more than your friend, I'm sorry, but I can't. I'm not made for that."
He gazes at her for what could be years.
And then he says it. He says everything, summing it all up, knowing and understanding and confirming.
"Katniss… do you not care about me, or… or do you not want to care about me?"
Her entire body is trembling at his words.
In that moment he's cracked her being in half, discovered the core of her depravity, of their misalignment.
She should've expected this. Peeta knows her better than she knows herself; of course he'd figure out why she's denying him, even if he doesn't completely understand.
She can't lie to him any longer.
"The second one," she whispers miserably.
She hears him sigh and surprises herself by not pulling away when his hand finds hers in the dark.
"You're trembling," he whispers.
"You're observant."
"You're beautiful."
She hiccups. "You're drunk."
He startles her by chuckling slightly. "Alcohol doesn't make you blind, Katniss. No matter how many beers I've had, or how many beers I haven't had, you're still beautiful."
"Why won't you just leave me alone, Peeta?" she moans.
"I told you. I can't do that." His voice is pained but unrelenting; she can see him well now that her eyes have adjusted, even though his face is washed of color in the shadows. But his expression is clear to her. All she sees resting in his features is a silent plea.
She feels his hand tighten on hers.
"Why not?"
And then, in a whirl of blurry silhouettes he's laid her out on the bed, hovering over her. Somehow, his knees land between hers, his hands grasping her palms and holding them against the pillows on either side of her head, not firmly, but it gets the point across.
His nose swipes over hers, and she feels her chest automatically stir.
"Because once, a while back, an incredible girl told her best friend that she wanted him to fight for her."
His nose nuzzles hers again, and she feels her entire body tingle in response, knowing that she should be pushing him off but… she doesn't want to. At all.
"And I've been so stupid," he continues, his voice silk against her skin, "for watching you keep talking yourself out of this, hurting yourself, and doing nothing about it. I cared about you, Katniss, enough to make me think that accepting your friendship for only its face value would make you happy. But it isn't making you happy. It's making you miserable, and I'd be the shittiest best friend in the world if I let you keep hurting yourself because of some skewed belief that you don't deserve something. I know you, Katniss. I know your favorite color and the way you take your coffee and how you loop the tails of your g's and y's when you hand-write things. And I also know your self-esteem is a thousand feet lower than it should be, and that maybe you think you don't deserve to be happy, or that your love isn't good enough. But, above all, I know you well enough to know that it is. Your love is good enough, Katniss. It's pure and rare and a thousand times better than I could deserve, but I want it. I want to earn it so badly. And I will fight like I've never fought before to earn it. I will fight for you. I will always fight for you, Katniss."
His eyes are so close to hers, pleading, and she finds herself crumbling underneath him.
"Why?" she asks shakily. "Why would you ever want to fight for me?"
And then he smiles that half-crooked, dimple-inducing smile, the one that melts her and reassures her and reminds her of all the reasons she's ever adored him in the first place.
"Because you're my lunar girl," he whispers, his lips brushing her forehead and her cheek, making her shiver. "Because you're the mysterious huntress that sings like a bird. Because you can climb trees and calculate trajectories and laugh and cry and be honest and real and beautiful. Because I can't remember what it was like to not want to make you smile."
His lips are now grazing over her neck, leaving a trail of tingling, white-hot flesh in their wake. She gasps, her back arching slightly, and he lets go of her wrists to grasp her hip and the side of her face.
Automatically, her palms flatten against his chest. She's going to push him away. She needs to push him away. It's what she should do. She shouldn't let this go on, let him waste his time with her—he's just drunk, and he'll regret this all in the morning.
She tells her hands to shove him off, but her body has a mind of its own. Instead, her fingers do the opposite of their instruction, curling around the fabric there, pulling him closer.
Her mouth is on his before either of them understand exactly what she's doing. She hears a small sound of surprise in the back of his throat—he hadn't expected her to instigate the kiss—but his response time is impressive, and he's kissing her back with a hunger that matches hers in concentration within seconds.
And she's on fire. Her body is a flame, and Peeta's her oxygen; he makes her burn brighter, higher, until she's more drunk on the taste of his lips than on the booze from earlier. He's everywhere but nowhere at the same time; she needs him closer, flush up against her, with the feel of his skin fusing to hers.
She needs him.
She pulls his shirt off in record time.
Before long, their clothes have melted away, leaving them in nothing but their underwear, their bodies tangling like ribbons below the blankets. His hands leave no inch of her untouched, lips mapping territories all over her skin. When his mouth finds the peak of her breast, raw voltage shocks through her veins and she lets out a gasp she didn't know she was withholding; he moans against her skin as he draws the flesh between his lips, his hands on her in possessive reverence.
Why had she deprived them of this for so long? She sees no rhyme or reason to it now. Her loyalty has always lied with Peeta, and his with her. Surely it'd be easier to blame this all on the alcohol than confront the frightening reality that she's falling for him, claiming her desire will fade away as her sobriety replenishes, but she's tired of pretending. She's tired of running away from him out of some warped yearning for self-preservation.
"Peeta," she breathes as his hand slides down her belly teasingly. It does nothing if not electrify her.
Without warning, his mouth suddenly releases her breast and he slides up to her, his fat pupils locking with hers as he pants, fingers lingering just above her underwear.
"I want you so much, Katniss," he whispers, lifting his palm to cup her cheek. "But I have to know you won't regret this come morning. That you're not going to—to regret us. I can't... I can't lose you again."
She gazes up at him, blinking, aware of what she should say, but oddly unable to say it.
Peeta is a man of impossible patience, because although she doesn't immediately respond, he dips his head down to kiss her gently. "I know you're scared of what might happen with us. But I'm not going to hurt you, Katniss. I will go to my grave protecting you, if that's what it takes."
Her entire body is coiled, the words impetuous on her tongue, but for some reason, she can't set them free.
His forehead finds hers, his eyes fluttering closed; she studies his eyelashes, the smooth lines of his face, the sharpness of his jaw… the face she's memorized time and time again but looks so different now.
Because he's not just her friend anymore.
She doesn't want him to be only that.
"If you don't want this, I can go sleep on the couch and give you space. I just want you to be happy, Katniss," he murmurs, his breath curling over her lips. And then his eyes shock open. "What do you want?"
The answer is obvious—it has been for months, years now, even… hasn't it? She's known it since before their night in the treehouse, since before their cupcake war, since before their first kiss, since before their senior prom. Its origins may be rooted all the way back on the day he gave her that bread, although it surely wasn't clear then. But it's been clear for a while now; she's just been too afraid to accept it.
She takes a long breath before snaking one hand up to curl in his hair, the other sweeping over his broad shoulders, anchoring him against her.
"I want you, Peeta," she whispers, finally, and the moment the words leave her mouth she confident they're the truth.
The expression blossoming over Peeta's features makes her entire body turn to a sugary, goopy mess. Dimples polka-dot his cheeks as he closes his eyes, nuzzling his forehead more snugly into hers, painting over her bottom lip with his thumb like she's his canvas.
And then he's kissing her, his mouth gentle but greedy as his tongue sweeps the seam of her lips, stealing her breath and giving her life. Everything about this—about _them—is so new and uncharted, but at the same time it feels timeless, because this is Peeta. This isn't some strange boy in her bed. This is the man who's been her universe, every last star in her night sky, since they were kids.
She has no doubts anymore. She instantly aware of what they're about to do—what she wants them to do—and she's not afraid, not like she thought she'd be.
And so, with barely trembling hands, she hooks her fingers around the band of his boxers to pull them down.
He freezes on top of her.
"Katniss?"
His hand has found her wrist, halting her movements. All she can do is look up at him with wide eyes.
His jaw tenses in shock. "You—are you sure you want this?"
"I want you," she repeats, once more, because it's the simplest truth she knows.
"It's not too fast?"
She shakes her head. It's been a long time in the making; she knows that. She knows he knows that.
And she wants this. So badly. She wants to feel him, every last inch of him, to know what it's like to make love with a boy she's been crazy for since she realized the opposite gender doesn't have cooties.
The restraint he's struggling to put forth is being inked over with his desire, but he manages one last caveat.
"I've never… I've never done this." His voice is small.
She doesn't have to tell him she's in the same boat.
"I want to," he clarifies, "with you, though." And then, more quietly: "I want it to be you. I always have."
She melts.
She can't think of a better person to be with like this. There's no one that's ever come close.
"I can sneak into Annie's room," Katniss offers quietly. "I know where she keeps the condoms."
Peeta only nods, shifting off her. But he gives her one soft kiss before she leaves.
Despite her typical modesty, she doesn't bother covering herself as she slinks into Annie's room, digging through the drawer of her roommate's nightstand for a foil square. Her heart is drumming with each second, her trembling magnifying; is she really about to do this? Is this really what she wants to do?
She stills for a few moments to catch her breath and think it through one more time.
Yes. Yes, this is what she wants to do.
When she returns, Peeta's lying sideways underneath the sheets, the blankets covering him from the waist down. Bands of moonlight lace over his exposed torso in intricate patterns, and all she can see are muscles and soft lines and milky flesh and Peeta, her Peeta.
She stands there for a moment, drinking him in, absolutely appalled with his unearthly beauty.
And then he sighs.
"I wish I could capture this moment with a paintbrush."
Her cheeks flood with color as she dips her head in embarrassment, crawling onto the bed and covering herself with the blanket.
But he gently pulls it back, the heel of his palm ghosting over the swell of her breast as he does so. "Don't be ashamed. You are absolutely exquisite, Ms. Everdeen."
His words have the opposite effect from their intention; her blush only deepens.
Before she can respond, however, he brushes the hair from her temple, kissing her forehead. "We don't have to do this, love. Not until you're sure you're ready."
The endearment makes her heart flutter uncontrollably, shooting up into her throat. She swallows it down before it can do any damage.
"I'm sure," she tells him, handing him the foil square.
But he sets it aside for the moment, repositioning her underneath him where he tilts her chin up for a painfully slow kiss. "I want to do this the right way." And then he snorts. "If there is any 'right way' for two twenty-one-year-old, half-drunk virgins who've been best friends since the Clinton administration was in office, of course."
Her responding giggle is taut with anxiety, but when their mouths connect she tastes the smile on his. Even though she's afraid, she trusts him, and his kiss detangles her muscles and she begins to relax beneath him.
His fingers chart her skin from her collar all the way down to her thighs, tracing over the tender flesh and making her shiver before curling around the waistband of her panties and pulling them down. She awkwardly kicks them to the side, fully naked beneath Peeta for the first time. He's the first person to see her like this, and although her nerves are already firing violent impulses from their synapses at the thought… she's glad it's him. He's the only one she could ever put so much faith in not to hurt her.
She knows he'll keep her safe.
And then she feels his fingers sliding over her entrance, teasingly at first, but the throbbing between her thighs suddenly heightens as she aches for some sort of pressure to relieve it.
The whiney mewl she releases is embarrassing when he finally dips a finger in, then two, collecting the moisture that's developing there. But he only seems more aroused by it, because she can feel him growing even harder through his boxers, his lips capturing hers. Someone moans; she's not sure who.
"You're so—so warm," he groans, his tongue flicking out over her lips. And then he retracts his hand. "I think—I think you're wet enough."
She whimpers in protest as she feels him shift away from her for a moment, but then he's suddenly over her again with the foil square wedged between his index and thumb. He starts to tear at the package, but she plucks it from his grasp.
"Let me."
He swallows hard.
She tries to ignore the shaking of her hands as she rips the foil, pulling out the condom as Peeta slips his boxers off. The fact that they're both completely naked is not lost on her, only making her more nervous, but she gulps down her fear.
This is Peeta. She should have nothing to be afraid of.
He lets out a strangled gasp when she wraps her tiny hand around him, and her nerves flare up instantly.
"How—how the hell am I supposed to fit that in…" She feels her chest tightening. Fuck, she can hardly even use regular sized tampons, and those have nothing on Peeta. Katniss has a mind rooted in science and math, and just from simple calculations she knows there's no way these dimensions will work in her favor…
He kisses her temple. "I'll be gentle."
That isn't the exact answer she's looking for, but it'll have to do. She steels herself and resumes her endeavor, rolling down the condom down his length inexpertly. He keeps his jaw clenched the entire time.
With the condom safely on, she draws back her hands and weaves them around his shoulders, seeking comfort by holding him close. Despite the countless nights she spent with his body flush against hers, everything about this moment is unsettlingly new.
But this is Peeta. Her kind, gentle, compassionate Peeta.
And she's not the only novice; at least she has him fighting alongside her.
When their eyes align, she sees the same anxiety ballooning in his irises, and it calms her knowing she's not alone.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks her once more, because God forbid he act as anything less than an annoyingly perfect gentleman.
She musters a weak nod, clenching her jaw. "Peeta?"
He presses his forehead against hers.
"I—is this supposed to hurt?"
He gives her a sad smile. "A little, I think. But… I'll be so careful, Katniss. Just—just tell me to stop if it's too much, okay?"
She swallows and nods.
He looks down between them, one hand moving to her hip and the other to guide himself in; she keeps her eyes trained on his face, watching his brows knit together in concentration, his jaw tense.
It's then that she notices he's trembling.
Her hands bracket his cheeks, and his eyes snap up to hers, the panic ringing bright in his dilated pupils.
"You're trembling," she whispers.
He gives her a nervous smile. "I just… I want this to be good for you."
"What about you?"
"I don't have to worry about that," he laughs. "I've—I've been wanting this since before I can remember."
She's a little startled by his admission, but his voice is so small in its vulnerability, which softens her resolve and spurs her pulse even more.
"Then let's do this," she whispers. "Together."
He smiles. "Together."
With a slow kiss, he begins to push in.
She winces at the initial sting, but tries to relax—she knows this'd be so much easier if she just took a deep breath. But her body doesn't readily welcome the intrusion, and "relaxing" is easier said than done. Yet her palms flatten against his lower back, slowly urging him forward despite the discomfort.
When he's completely sheathed inside her, he lets out a soft moan and stills for a moment to allow her to adjust. She grateful the pain isn't as sharp as expected, as it's more like a dull pinch, but she still needs a few moments to recover.
"Is this okay?" he murmurs, his lips sending tingles down her spine as they brush against her ear, the sensation travelling all the way to where they're joined.
She bites her lip and nods. "Yeah. You can, uh—start moving. Just go slow."
His mouth captures hers as he draws his hips back, then forward again.
At first, his movements are measured, cautious, and with each motion the discomfort begins to fade. Her nails dig into his shoulders when he goes in farther than before; a new type of pleasure twists into strained helices in her belly. She had no idea what this could feel like, but through the rapidly dissolving pain, she encounters a sensation that turns her upside down. It feels otherworldly… and she vocally articulates it. Her gasps trigger soft moans to fall from Peeta's tongue onto hers, and he pulls back to look at her as he rocks into her slowly.
"Katniss, you're... so... beautiful," he murmurs tightly, his words punctuated with each thrust. His jaw is slack and his sweaty curls hang over his brow, but his eyes drill into hers as if she's the only thing in his world, and it makes her stomach coil.
Katniss doesn't believe there has ever been a moment in which she felt so magnificent. And Peeta gives this to her. He gives her this power, this feeling of security even in her vulnerability…
How could she have ever thought it'd be possible to be with someone that wasn't him?
She tries to concentrate on the sensation of him moving in and out of her, but the pleasure isn't building as quickly as she'd like, so she tries to angle her pelvis to meet his movements a little more efficiently. It doesn't work as planned. It throws off their rhythm entirely, and at some point he accidentally slides all the way out, and it takes several moments of nervous laughter and shifting for them to regain their lost footing.
His rhythm is uneven and he's not all that sure what to do with his hands, and she still has yet to find an effective way to meet his thrusts, but she'd expected their first time to be sloppy, and even through the chaos, their moment is still exhilarating.
And oddly, the inelegance of the entire thing comforts her. It feels more real this way.
Without warning, he grasps the back of her thigh and thrusts deeper, changing the angle. "Is this okay?" he asks.
"Y—yes," she gasps, her head falling back and her chin tensing. "Peeta, please—"
She doesn't know what she's pleading for—him to go faster? Harder?—but the moment his name falls from her lips he moans and grasps the headboard with his free hand, burying his face in her neck. He rocks more insistently into her, his movements sharpening her gasps into knives, their sounds piercing the sweaty air of the room.
As she feels the roots of her pleasure anchoring deeper in her core, she grasps whatever of him she can, pulling him closer. Her mind has metamorphosed into white heat and desperation; all she can think of is the scent of honey-cinnamon mixed with sweat and drunken love, wrapped in their rough gasps and the creak of bedsprings.
"I—I can't—I'm not going to—" He tries to warn her as his fingers snake between them, finding that spot between her thighs that makes her writhe to hasten her own summit. She knows she's not quite there yet, but the idea that she has this effect on him still thrills her. She twists her fingers in his hair, moaning against his ear as she concentrates on how unreal it all feels, with him in her, rocking back and forth, over and over and over…
His rhythm soon loses all pretense of control as he draws the skin of her neck between his lips, hard enough to leave a mark but not enough to hurt (because Peeta would never hurt her, no, not ever). And then, with him pouring a strangled moan into her neck, his ragged movements go still as he reaches the same crest he'd provided her on their night in the treehouse.
He lays limply over her for a few moments to catch his breath, his weight a delicious addition to the sex-laced air. However, after a moment, he pulls away from her to dispose of the condom. The instant his heat has left hers, she suddenly feels frozen, the sheen of sweat coating her body welcoming the air with a haunting chill. She lays like that, still strung tight and surprisingly cold as she waits for him to return.
It's only a few moments before the mattress dips under his weight and his hands gently part her legs; she feels him wipe her nearly-numb flesh with a warm washcloth. Momentarily, she feels something against her hipbone—his lips?
"I didn't make you come," he murmurs, his words tickling the flesh stretched over her flat belly. There's an ambiance of remorse in his tone, and it crushes her lungs.
She reaches down, brushing his sweaty curls from his forehead. "It's okay. It—it felt incredible, Peeta." Neither of which are lies. He transformed her into a volcanic blaze and made her feel like fucking stardust; she regrets nothing. Not with Peeta. She's done regretting her feelings for him, especially after that.
But then he presses a soft kiss just below her belly button, and the throbbing between her thighs suddenly whirrs back to life. Damn Peeta and those perfect lips and his unintentionally arousing behavior.
He pulls his mouth away from her skin all too soon. With him suddenly absent, her thirst becomes unbearable, and she opens her mouth to protest.
And then he's parting her thighs wider, positioning them over his shoulders. Petrified, she tries to scramble up the bed, but his arms curl around her legs and grasp her hips, his lips nearly inches from the slick heat that's an impossible meridian between sorely numb and throbbing with impatience.
"Peeta!"
"You didn't come," he says again, softly, his mouth so close…
She feels a billion words dueling in the back of her throat, but all that comes out is a barely articulate, "I—I know, but—but it's okay, you d-don't, uh… you don't have to—"
"I want to," he insists, a devious glint in his eyes. She nearly chokes when he plants an open-mouthed kiss on the inside of her thigh. Half of her wants to scream bloody murder while the other half of her wants to moan because even just his breath there spurs the fire in her belly.
Holy shit, he's actually about to do this. She's panting, her heart racing at the speed of sound as she props herself up on her elbows to watch him, still convinced there's no way he's going to proceed.
"Peeta, really, this isn't necessary. It's okay if—"
All her words crumble to ash in her throat the moment his tongue darts out to taste her, and she falls back against the pillows, some inhuman sound wrenching from her throat.
And that's the full extent of her protestation. The hands that had been so ready to push him away weave into his golden curls now, holding him there as he lifts her off the earth. Compared to a few moments ago, his mouth is so much softer, so much gentler and reverent and focused… it brings her pleasure to an unimaginable pinnacle almost immediately.
She tries to muffle the sounds that escape her mouth with the inside of her arm, because now she's the only one in the room who's moaning and she feels so exposed, her sticky body bared completely while his tongue scrolls poems between her thighs. But the moment she's flung her arm over her lips, Peeta raises a hand from her waist to lace his fingers with hers.
He lifts his head from her only long enough to murmur, "I want to hear you."
Her composure is lost.
She doesn't know if it's the magnitude of it all, the latent pressure from their last endeavor, or simply the pressure of his tongue, but every ounce of feeling in her core is amplified tenfold. Her cries only augment his enthusiasm and it doesn't take long for the knots in her core to grow more rigid, tenser, so unbearably tight until it all finally bursts, her spine arching so far off the bed that Peeta has pin her hips down with his muscle-corded forearms. She twists her neck to try to stifle her sounds with the pillow as galaxies of heat and color and prose and music completely drown her, but her attempt is useless.
She can barely feel a thing when he maneuvers himself from between her thighs, peppering kisses all the way from her center up to her throat. She lays there in a sweaty, panting, boneless puddle, convinced that her own capacity for pleasure has officially gone extinct. She's down for the count. Possibly forever.
"How was that?" he chuckles nervously, pushing her sweaty hair from her brow and pulling her into his arms.
She responds with nothing more than a dreamy hum, relishing the feel of his body securing hers. At once, she feels full again. Safe again. His heat welcomes her, smothering her fear until she's sated in his grasp, his skin like velvet on hers.
She allows the looming black to descend on her as he presses a soft kiss to her crown, his thumb stroking her shoulder absentmindedly. Somewhere, in the midst of budding unconsciousness, a string of blurred words threads through her mind, possibly in a dream.
"It was always going to be you."
She doesn't know if those words are real or not real.
The room still smells like sex and cinnamon when her eyes flutter open in the morning, only the bed is cold and she's alone.
Her heart thuds. Where's Peeta?
For a moment she wonders if she's dreamt the whole thing, and anxiety sears her from head to toe. The dry, thick taste of a hangover swells in her throat, and she wonders if maybe she'd gotten drunk with Johana last night and imagined it all.
But the dull soreness between her thighs tells her otherwise, and before she can question herself she feels her lips curl up in a smile.
She knows she should be mortified, as she was the morning after the treehouse incident, but the sensation she's searching for is absent. All that's filling her head is an onslaught of confusion as to where Peeta is—and why there aren't any clothes on the floor like last night—and a fucking brutal hangover.
Not that she knows what a true brutal hangover is. Last night was the first time she got legitimately drunk.
She guesses last night was the first for a lot of things.
Mindful of the crushing pressure in her head, she sits upright slowly, wrapping the sheets around her slender, naked silhouette as she rises from the bed. On her way to the living room, she passes a mirror and almost vomits at the sight of her hair. She looks like fucking Mufasa.
She slowly stumbles into the kitchen, clinging tight to the sheet as she rounds the corner.
Relief floods her systems.
There stands Peeta, squared at the stove in nothing but his Batman boxers—he did that on purpose—as he scrambles up some eggs in a skillet.
Thanks to her stealthy footwork, she's able to stand in the entryway to the kitchen and study Peeta for a few moments without him noticing. As he works over the stove, the muscles in his back flex and relax, the movement causing Katniss's mind to whirr. She's never denied that she finds Peeta attractive, and she knows she never will in the future, either. He's capable of exhibiting the cuteness of a puppy but the charm of any bigtime news anchor. And then, last night… well, that was an entirely different type of allure that she hadn't ever expected.
As she leans against the frame of the entryway, she thinks about how even though his magnetism from the previous night had been off the charts, he was still so… gentle. He'd do anything to keep from hurting her.
That's how she knows this isn't a mistake. Of course, rarely can she make a decision so large without some element of fear seeping in—what if she does lose Peeta?—but knowing he'll protect her with everything he has convinces her.
She still doesn't deserve him, of course. She never will. But he deserves to be happy, and if this is what he wants, she has nothing beyond a few meagre excuses to not comply.
Besides, after last night, it's all or nothing.
And there's no way in hell she'll chose nothing.
After watching his shoulder muscles work away for a bit longer, his disheveled curls swaying with his movements, she alerts him of her presence by clearing her throat.
He starts a little, turning around. What begins as an expectant expression soon breaks into genuine elation, and then after studying her sheet-draped silhouette, his eyes flicker with something less chaste. It makes her stomach flip pleasantly.
"How long have you been here?" He pads up to her, wrapping his arms around her. If she'd had any last lingering doubts, with his touch, they easily evaporate.
"Just a few seconds," she lies, letting him kiss her forehead. "What are you making?"
"Good hangover food," he laughs, motioning to the eggs. "And there's also some brownies in the oven."
Even though brownies are easily one of her favorite food groups, the thought doesn't agree with her stomach.
She grimaces. "Care to explain?"
"I thought today presented the perfect opportunity to knock the next thing off my bucket list, which happens to involve brownies, Disney movies, and blanket forts. Care to join?"
"I'll pass on the brownies for now, but the rest seems absolutely lovely." She yawns. "After I give myself a few minutes to wake up, that is."
He smiles down at her, and her heart thuds against her ribs as he tilts her chin up with a finger, his mouth slanting over hers.
"Take all the time you need."
Calling in sick to work has never sounded smarter.
After forcing down a helping of scrambled eggs and banana toast, Katniss slips into an oversized t-shirt that once belonged to Peeta, a pair of cotton panties, and calls it good for the day. She then strips the sheets from her bed and steals the covers from Annie's, so she and Peeta can make the most outrageously elaborate blanket fort in her living room she's ever seen. It collapses pretty regularly, but oh well. Neither of them are getting a degree in engineering for a reason.
They spend the rest of their day in their quasi-stable fort, packing as many animated Disney films into the daylight hours as they possibly can while munching on the brownies Peeta made that morning. It takes plenty of obnoxious coaxing on his behalf, but eventually Katniss caves and sings along with the songs on the screen. At first, she does so purely to shut him up, but after belting out I'll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan and making Peeta double over with laughter, he tells her that her voice was the first thing he fell in love with about her.
Safe to say, she sings every song for him after that.
And by the time they've made it to Mufasa's death in Lion King, they've curled up on a bed of pillows, Katniss's head dipped under Peeta's chin as he plays with her hair.
She doesn't know why he's selected such a gloomy moment to spring this topic on her, but he does, and she knows she can't avoid it like she once would.
"What does this make us, Katniss?"
She pulls her head back to look at him, searching those deep blues for an answer, but all she finds is desperation.
He's terrified that she'll run away. He doesn't have to say it; she can read it in his expression as if it was tattooed on his forehead.
"I don't know," she says back softly, because she truly isn't sure; calling him her "boyfriend" doesn't seem right to her. He's more than that.
Noticing his panic still hasn't ebbed, she leans in to kiss him, hoping it'll remind him that she's here. That she's not about to flee. "But I don't think it really matters."
He gapes at her, and she realizes her wording probably wasn't the most sensitive, so she quickly revises. "I mean, I don't think we really need a label. Whatever we have isn't typical, Peeta."
Although the anxiety still lingers in his eyes, he smiles and taps her nose. "That's because there's nothing typical about you, Ms. Everdeen." And then he sighs. "If you don't want to put a sticker on it, that's fine. I just… I just need to know that... that you're not going to leave."
Her throat thickens, and she tries so hard to swallow the lump that's formed there, but it won't budge.
"I'm not leaving you, Peeta. I can't." It's too late now.
That seems to comfort him just enough, because he settles back against the sofa and pulls her onto his lap. Her back flattens out against his chest, and she tilts her head against his shoulder, relishing the way that her own body sways with each breath.
Not too long after their discussion, Hakuna Matata starts blaring from the TV, and Katniss and Peeta find themselves in a particularly interesting sing-a-long, where she agrees to sing only if she can voice Timon and Peeta will voice Pumbaa.
Peeta is probably better at swallowing knives than he is at singing, but their duet instantly dissolves them into a pile of giggles. Moments like these are enough to remind Katniss of exactly what Peeta is to her, quelling any rising doubts.
Because even though she doesn't know the exact extent of her affection for Peeta, and their relationship can't be so easily defined, she knows he's her sunshine, and that's all that really matters.
So that's what happens when I write a chapter sans outline. We still have quite a roller coaster ahead of us, but at least Katniss is done being stupid, which should make the rest of the chapters bearable.
Also, since I'm going off to college in five days (yikes.) I don't know exactly how erratic my updating schedule will become, but I promise you I will not abandon this story unless I'm on my deathbed.
I love reviews, PMs, and anything on Tumblr at all (find me at the-peeta-pocket), so please let me know what you're thinking! I hope I haven't completely messed everything up with this last chapter, but hey, I'm pretty happy to write some legitimate Everlark that won't be undone by the next chapter. Woohoo.