Hey guys! I could go on for hours about how sorry I am that it took me over three months to post one chapter, but instead of wasting the word count, I'll leave it short. College has been crazy good, but the past month hasn't brought the smoothest of sailing, so I've been struggling a bit, but hopefully things will look up from here on out! We only have three chapters (and an epilogue, maybe?) remaining and those are going to be quite climactic, so this one's mostly plot filler. Sorry. I hope some unintended smut at the end makes up for it.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with this story if you're still here, and a special shoutout to Tumblr user madamemarquise for being totally rad and checking up on me when I wasn't at my highest point.
Happy readings!
004. See the Ocean
When the clinking sound of keys in the front door ricochets through the apartment, she's sitting cross-legged on the sofa, spine straight as a pole. Peeta left nearly two hours ago, and each second since has been occupied by a frantic Katniss trying to spruce up the flat. The blanket forts have been torn down, beds made, pillows fluffed, leftover brownies guzzled. All evidence of Peeta's visit has been expunged.
Still, Katniss finds herself anxiously hugging the throw pillows of the sofa to her belly as Annie slips into the apartment. Is it possible that her friend will know what she and Peeta did this weekend just by seeing her?
"Hey, how was your weekend?" Annie prompts as she tosses her car keys in the fishbowl beside the door.
Katniss feels her face flood with heat, outshining the color of a tomato. "Uh—it was, um, good."
She winces. Smooth one, Everdeen. At this rate, she might as well stitch a scarlet A to her shirt—her collapsed virginal state will be exposed within the minute if she keeps this act up.
She fights the urge to fan herself. God, when did it get so hot in here?
The sound of Annie's footsteps echoes in Katniss's head like voices in a cavern, and she feels herself harden to stone as her roommate plops down on the sofa cushions beside her.
Bracing herself for the onslaught of questions she knows must be underway, she keeps her focus drilled into the center of the television screen.
There just has to be something that'll tip off Annie. Her slightly tousled hair. The discolored markings on her neck she tried so damn hard to blanket with makeup. Her scent.
Or just the fact that she's shaking.
God dammit, Katniss. Pull yourself together.
But if Annie notices anything, she surely doesn't think it's worth mentioning, because after an hour of empty silence and gallons of sweat pouring from Katniss's hairline, she yawns, stretches, and excuses herself for the night.
The moment the door closes behind her, Katniss sinks into the sofa cushions and lets out a sigh the size of fucking Russia.
That was a close one.
Not even a minute later, however, the door to Annie's room flies back open, and there stands Katniss's roommate with an open box in her hands, her jaw set.
"Who'd you let in my room?"
Her frown of initial confusion quickly warps into chest-crushing panic as she realizes what Annie's holding for display.
Of all the things right under Annie's nose—Katniss's skittish performance, her poorly-cloaked love bites—the condoms are what she had to notice.
Well, shit.
Instinctively, Katniss's palm flies to cover her quickly-reddening neck. She tries to swallow the acrid tang of dread and nausea, but her throat is bone-dry and every synapse in her body is sending a thousand conflicting signals.
All she manages to do is stutter. "I, uh—they're—"
Annie cocks a brow expectantly.
Katniss can't decide if she's about to disintegrate into a pile of ash or be sick all over the already hideous upholstery of the sofa. At this point, it could go either way.
A few seconds wither away before her head falls shamefully into her hands.
"It was me," she mumbles, her voice muffled and pained.
She's thankful her face is buried in her palms—this way, she doesn't have to endure whatever expression roots itself on Annie's face.
"Oh," she responds softly, all vestiges of anger completely absent in her tone. "You—you used them?"
Katniss only nods.
She can hear Annie's hesitant footfalls as she nears the sofa, her tread almost cautionary, as if she's approaching a rabid animal.
"Was it… the first time?"
"The first time I used one of your condoms or the first time I—" She can't even say it. She shakes her head; the answer is the same for either question. "Yeah. It was my first time."
The cushion dips as Annie sits on the edge of the couch. "Who—who was it?"
Katniss digs the heels of her palms into her eyes until all she sees is grey stars. She doesn't think she can bring herself to say it. Oh, it's no big deal, I just bestowed my maidenhood on the guy who's been my best friend since the pre-K. Carry on, now.
Annie inhales. "At least tell me if I know him. I mean, I never pegged you as the type of girl to just fork it over on some random fling, but if you did, that's your choice, and—"
"It was Peeta," she blurts suddenly, the confession tasting like burnt toast on her tongue.
It was Peeta.
Peeta.
The words echo in her skull.
Annie's silence weighs a thousand pounds as it bears down on her shoulders, and it nearly suffocates her. Just say something, she wants to beg. Anything. Please. Anything that'll replace her pendent declaration, just dangling over them like a storm cloud.
Eventually, finally, Annie releases a soft sigh.
A relieved sigh.
"Good god, and it only took you, what… four years?"
Katniss's head shoots up. Petals of red heat flower over her cheeks as she meets the greens of Annie's eyes, soon acknowledging the smile on her face.
Instinctively, she frowns. "What are you talking about?"
"We've been waiting for this day since prom, Kat. I mean, the way he looked at you that entire night... Even Finn rarely looks at me like that."
Katniss shakes her head violently, still hung up on Annie's first word. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Madge, Gale, Finn and I all took bets on how long it'd take you to—in Finnick's ever-so-elegant words—'shack up' with Peeta. I don't know if you should be proud or embarrassed that you two outlasted all of them. Gale was the closest, I guess, because he said it'd take you until the summer after your freshman year before you realized how much you needed him in your life—"
Katniss feels like setting something on fire. "You guys made bets?"
"Friendly ones, yeah. Come on, Katniss—you two are the Brangelina of Panem. The Beyoncé and Jay-Z."
"I can't believe you were wagering on when we would have sex!"
"I can't believe you didn't tell me you two had sex!"
No matter how tightly she rubs her temples, her head still teeters on the threshold of detonation. Did Annie really expect her to gallivant around the apartment, declaring the state of her defiled purity? Katniss has never been talented with communicating. She has more secrets withheld than the fucking CIA.
It's not that she's ashamed of what she's done with Peeta—she certainly doesn't want Annie to think that—and it's not like she doesn't trust Annie with this sort of information; it's that for the most part, all this attention makes Katniss feel exposed. She feels like a bug under a microscope.
But she reckons she can't avoid the attention forever. Especially in a town Panem's size, she'll have to face the fact that back home, people will care about whatever it is she has with Peeta.
(Maybe that's why she's so hesitant to label it. Because if she labels it, it becomes real, and if it becomes real, then it will be able to exert its tight grasp on everything she does, and it may overpower her, consume her, become her, and God knows she can't afford to be so emotionally vulnerable.)
All Katniss can say back to Annie after an extensive silence has crystallized between them is: "Well, now you know."
"You've got to tell me all about it," Annie tosses back, leaning in. "I mean, I didn't even have a clue that you two were an item, but here you are, letting the lucky boy deflower you—"
She grimaces, but she doesn't know where to start, so she decides not to start at all.
"Maybe tomorrow," she says. "I think I'm just going to turn in for the night."
A look of disappointment feathers over Annie's features, but she doesn't push her luck. She bids Katniss goodnight, and with an eleventh-hour "I'm holding you accountable for tomorrow, then," she disappears in her own room.
Muscles still tingling from her overcharged nerves, Katniss feels herself trembling as she readies for bed. It takes her five or so minutes longer than usual, and instead of calming her like it typically does, the process has no immediate effect on her emotional state, and she finds herself slipping into bed with a throbbing headache.
And then she checks her phone for new messages to find a few floating on her screen.
Peeta: Call me
Peeta: :)
Peeta: (I forgot the smiley face in the first text and I didn't want it to sound like you were in trouble)
From merely reading his texts, she unwinds just enough for her hands to stop quivering as she dials his number.
He answers almost immediately.
"Would it be cheesy for me to say I miss you already?" she hears him laugh into the receiver, and the resonance of his voice uncoils the tautness from her clenched muscles, sending warmth to every last corner of her body.
"I like cheese," she says back dumbly.
His chuckle makes her stomach curl. "And I like you, Ms. Everdeen. So, how's the evening been?"
She exhales. "Annie found out." There's not much of a point in keeping that from him.
(There's not much of a point in keeping anything from him, honestly. Which is why she's never really tried.)
She hears him suck air through his teeth, an awkward pause disseminating over the line.
"So… how'd she take it?"
"She seemed relieved. Apparently, she's been expecting it—and she wasn't the only one. Did you know our friends have been making bets on how long it would take for this to happen?"
He sputters. "Hold up. What?"
"Apparently Annie, Finnick, Madge, and even Gale tried predicting how long it would take for us to shack up." The words feel like coalesced syrup dribbling off her tongue. It makes her want to gag. "Since prom, evidently."
"Aw, how flattering. I've always wanted to be a human poker chip." He sighs. "Are you okay?"
She smiles at the courtesy. "Yeah, I'm alright. At least Annie took the news well." With a sigh, she snuggles deeper into her mattress. "This entire weekend just feels like one giant dream, you know? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all."
"Not a nightmare though, right?"
"No, not a nightmare." She smiles again, lulled by the sound of his breath over the line. "Well, apart from learning that our friends have known about my feelings for you longer than I have. But whatever."
"Hey, don't let that bother you," he says softly, his voice tethered in soothing cadences. "What we have belongs to us, not to them. Not to anyone. No one but you and I can dictate the pace of this. So what if it took a year or so too long? We're here now—that's all that matters."
Each word sends music pulsing through her veins, and she curls up under the blanket with the phone plastered to her ear, imagining that the heat trapped under her comforter is his. If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend he's right beside her.
The sheets still smell like him, after all. Honey, cinnamon, nutmeg. Peeta.
"Yeah," she affirms quietly.
"I mean, is the time this took even relevant at all? Whether I'd kissed you on prom night or waited another twenty years to tell you how I felt… this would have happened anyway."
Her entire body feels as if it's made of sunlight.
"This would have happened anyway," she repeats, the words tasting like truth on her lips.
Unlike in the cheesy loves stories she loves to completely bash, being in this ambiguous realm of a relationship with Peeta doesn't change much. It's not as if the world's color spectrum becomes suddenly bright, or as if songbirds flock around her on her morning jogs, or as if her life now has a meaning it didn't have before.
The only real difference is that Peeta uses the heart-eyes emoji persistently when texting her. And that he's begun using beautiful as a term of endearment. And that now, the loneliness seems magnified, because his physical absence is so much more significant.
But he's still Peeta Mellark, her best friend since toddler-hood, her optimistic day-brightener, her sunshine, her source for cheese buns. Now, of course, she wants to kiss him all the time, but if she recalls correctly, she's been wanting to do that for years. At least now she doesn't need an excuse, and she doesn't feel insanely guilty for wanting it.
Now that she's been subjected to the transition from friendship to something-more-than-friendship-that's-basically-bestfriendship-with-tonsil-hockey-and-possibly-some-NC-17-rated-stuff-thrown-in-there, she doesn't know why she didn't assent to this before. Originally, just the thought of showing Peeta her true feelings horrified her, because that made her vulnerable, and Katniss's greatest fear may just be one of personal weakness. But from the time that he—in the wise words of Annie Cresta—"deflowered" her, Peeta hasn't treated her any different. In fact, she quickly discovers that she likes it more this way, because there's no need for her to lie to herself anymore. Now she doesn't have to pretend what she feels for Peeta is either wrong, nonexistent, or a lethal concoction of both.
Of course, there's still a tiny, pestering thought buzzing in the back of her mind that keeps her awake some nights. What if the cancer comes back again? Or what of something else of equal magnitude threatens to rip him away from her? Possibly that was the chief voice urging her to hold back for so many years. Not her fear of loving, but her fear of losing who she loves. Just like with her father, the only other man in her life who showed her the sun, who knew how to make her smile.
And that fear isn't something that'll evaporate, but she knows better than to let it dictate her entire life from here on out. Humans aren't put on the earth to fear.
Thanksgiving break rolls in relatively quickly, and Katniss is only minimally nervous to test the waters and experiment with her new "relationship" with Peeta back home. She's anxious to see how Mr. Mellark will treat them now that they've jumped one step up—will he supervise them more closely? Will he even let her stay in the room sharing a wall with Peeta?
When she arrives in Panem, however, Peeta's father's treatment of them hasn't changed one bit, and it isn't until right before Thanksgiving dinner that she figures out why.
She's just tugged her dress over her head when she hears soft knocking on the guest room door; without even smoothing the wrinkles from her garment, she strides across the room to face her visitor.
In the company of his never-endingly charismatic grin, Peeta stands with his arm braced on the doorframe, clad in a pair of khakis and a cobalt dress shirt that makes his eyes look as blue as a damn smurf.
"May I escort you down to the prestigious dining hall, mademoiselle?" he bids, taking her hand and kissing the back of it.
She rolls her eyes. "Only after I finish getting ready."
In her haste to answer the door, she'd left the sleeve of her dress slightly folded lopsidedly; Peeta reaches out, his fingers curling along the trim of the fabric, smoothing it out. "You look perfect," he says quietly.
He follows her when she saunters over to the mirror hanging above the dresser, her fingers nervously plucking at a few strands of flyaway hairs—this is what she gets for leaving her hair down while walking outside. The air outdoors had been crisp but relatively mild for late-November, so she'd coerced Peeta into taking a short promenade with her around town, which had done awful things to her hairdo but wonderful things to her temperament. (As do most things with Peeta.) It wasn't the first time they'd publically held hands, but it was the first time the act had left her cognizant on the community's reactions. To her relief, no one seemed overtly aware.
That was two hours ago; they'd hurried home to help Mr. Mellark and Hans, who was visiting for the holiday, with dinner preparations. As anticipated, Katniss was about as useful in their undertakings as a hippopotamus in a beauty contest, so after half an hour of awkwardly floating from counter to counter, she retreated to the guest room for a nap.
And now, she's desperately smoothing out her Medusa-inspired bed-head, eventually deciding to solve it with a French braid.
As her nimble fingers pleat her hair into a delicate crest down her skull, Peeta squares himself behind her, his arms weaving around her waist as he stares at their interwoven silhouettes in the mirror. She flinches automatically at his touch, because even though Peeta's always been physically affectionate she's still growing used to him always wanting his hands on her. Not to say she doesn't enjoy his expressive displays. (Because enjoy them, she definitely does.)
"Peeta?" she begins as she snaps a rubber band around the tail of her braid.
His lips find purchase on the soft juncture of her neck and collar. "Hmm?"
"How come your dad hasn't said anything about us, uh… being together?"
So marginally she barely notices, Peeta's muscles tauten.
"I didn't tell him."
Katniss frowns.
"Oh."
She'd been sure Peeta would be the type to do celebratory cartwheels when he got home, which may have been a little brash to assume, but still... He'd wanted this for a while, from what she'd gathered. And on top of that, he and Mr. Mellark have a much closer relationship than most boys his age do with their fathers.
So why hadn't he said a word?
The question must be scrawled in boldfaced script across her face, because Peeta explains before she can even open her mouth.
"I didn't know if you'd want other people to know," he says, his arms tightening around her thin waist. "You've never been the biggest fan of having your affairs be public, so I… I didn't tell anyone. Well, except for Finn, but that's because Annie got to him first and he made it his civic duty to give me shit about it for two straight weeks."
The look she delivers through the mirror is contrite. "I don't want you to think I'm afraid of people knowing about us, Peeta."
"I don't think that," he promises, pressing a soft kiss to the pressure point behind her ear, making her suck a pocket of air through her teeth. "I know you, Katniss."
With tingles crystallizing in her veins, She wriggles in his grasp, spinning around to face him so that their noses align. There will never be enough time in the world to make up for every last squandered opportunity to kiss him, but she reckons she might as well try, so she slants her lips under his as his palms spread over her waist, ribs, back. She loves the way he touches her.
Their kiss is slow, languid, his mouth capturing hers so reverently as he slides his tongue in measured affection against her lower lip. "I will never get used to kissing you," he whispers almost inaudibly, the statement more of a desperate gasp than anything.
She shivers. She doesn't suppose she will, either.
He scrawls honey-flavored poems over her lips with his own for a while longer, invoking that heat, that rumbling sensation against the floor of her belly, the feeling she's only ever felt with Peeta. She knows she could kiss him for ages, grateful that now, after all these years, she's allowed to… but there will be time for this later. She sighs against him, disconnecting their mouths so she can find his gaze.
"I want to tell him," she breathes, her focus swiping over his glossy lips.
He smiles, kissing the tip of her button nose. "Your wish is my command, sweetheart."
And so, side by side, they march down to the kitchen to help set the table.
Katniss has always adored dinner with the Mellarks. Or any meal at their table, for the matter. It's a custom her family was never able to adhere to; with Mr. Everdeen always at the mines when he was alive, and Mrs. Everdeen too dejected to throw meals together after his death, Katniss grew used to either brewing a meagre meal for her and Prim, or simply holing herself up in her bedroom with a bowl of cereal.
But this, with the Mellarks, feels like family.
Dinner conversation begins with Hans prattling on about his new job in Harrisburg, so no opportunity for the happy couple's announcement rises until after Mr. Mellark has brought out the pie. As he stands arched over the platters, his knife just beginning to carve the dessert, Peeta grasps Katniss's hand underneath the table and clears his throat.
"Dad, Katniss and I have something we need to tell you."
Mr. Mellark freezes stock-still over the tabletop, his eyes lost somewhere in the green beans. A long silence elapses before he draws back, standing straight to look at them, the cherry-smeared knife clutched threateningly in his hand.
"Son, if you try to tell me you knocked her up, I will not hesitate to castrate—"
Color explodes on Peeta's face like a Fourth of July firework. "What the hell, Dad! No!"
Katniss's focus is so raptly trained on the slowly-unwinding Mr. Mellark that she barely notices Hans practically losing his shit at the end of the table.
"Oh." Peeta's father sets the knife down, his stare less accusatory and more puzzled as he regards the couple. "Well, say what you have to say."
"Jesus, Dad—we just wanted to say we're together now."
Mr. Mellark looks at the pair as if Peeta's just spoken in fluent Chinese. "Wait, together? As in… wait, are you engaged?"
She briefly considers slamming her forehead into the pile of half-finished mashed potatoes on her plate. After glancing at Peeta, he seems to be just as aggravated.
And then there's Hans, uselessly seeking to muffle his laughter with a napkin.
"No, we're just… together," Peeta presses. "As in, we're in a relationship now."
His father's frown doesn't cede.
"Now? Haven't you guys been dating since high school?"
Hans chuckles. "I told you they were 'just friends,' Dad."
With his confusion now replaced with mild amusement, Mr. Mellark sits back down in his chair, looking at the wildly blushing pair. "Well, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you two. I just… I had no idea you weren't already an item. I mean, don't think I don't hear Katniss sneaking out of the guest room and into yours whenever she's here. I may be growing old, but my ears are as sharp as ever."
Katniss feels like she's about to vomit. Even Peeta looks a little green.
Without waiting for them to respond—both are too shell-shocked to say anything coherent, anyway—Mr. Mellark retrieves the knife and starts carving into the cherry pie.
He doesn't look up as he says, "I hope you two are being safe, because if you do knock her up, Peeta, my threat from earlier stands."
The first night in the spring that they spend curled up together in their treehouse, rain-stained and weathered from age, is also the first night she finally realizes he's not going to change his mind about her.
She should've expected better from Peeta—because when has he ever given her reason not to trust him?—but the winter had been hard on her. Something about skies the color of sheet iron and a poorly-insulated apartment had really cast a negative hue on everything. It seemed that the cold brought out her nightmares, because when the air felt like it was made of glass shavings did the loneliness actually became palpable. She was so keenly aware of every moment in which she had nothing to keep her warm besides an old sweater of Peeta's, and each moment dragged her deeper.
Her sunken mood left on a brief holiday when she spent Christmas with the Mellarks, because suddenly Peeta was anywhere and everywhere. They spent most days cooped up indoors because the northeastern region of the country thought it would be a wonderful time to recreate the Ice Age, and so walking through town would've been less pleasant and more suicidal than usual.
But on the bright side, it meant even more time with Peeta. More hot chocolate by the fireplace, more cuddle sessions in the mornings, more scary movies in the twilight hours, more quiet book-reading while curled up together on the sofa on lazy afternoons. Nothing had really changed between them apart from the physical nature of their relationship, so never did she find herself uncomfortable. Spending nights with him again—just sleeping, of course, as they both wanted to acclimate to the relationship before fully delving into full-fledged intimacy—quelled her anxiety for the time being.
But that dark, heavy feeling returned after she settled back into her apartment with Annie. Peeta always seemed busy at the bakery, and she was always caught up in work, and the mock Ice Age was still on a rampage through Pennsylvania; she felt so inexplicably alone. She'd always missed Peeta when away, but now that feeling was coupled with the irrational fear that her absence would remind him that he didn't need her after all.
Then spring break popped up from around the corner. Thawed, renewed, and crisp, the world was suddenly more accommodating, and the fear ebbed to the back of her mind for the time being.
Because she saw Peeta. Because the moment she walked into that bakery, he stumbled past Bristol at the register to lock her in a bear-hug so tight she was afraid her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. Because he kissed her, full on the lips, in front of the two customers standing by the counter. He was like a puppy, devoted and excitable and adorable.
So now, that night, he takes her to the treehouse, the wooden planks slightly damp and spongy from a previous thunderstorm; the air smells like pine and sandalwood, welcoming and warm. Peeta brings along a few blankets, laying them out over the floorboards so they have somewhere dry to unfurl. Gazing up at their faded, flaking stars, he says to her: "Let's go visit Prim and your mom this summer."
For someone so frustratingly elusive, his blunt request throws her for a loop.
"What?"
He tosses her one of his unendingly charismatic grins. "Well, I've got to see the ocean at some point in my life—and it's the next thing on my bucket list. It's been so long since you last went, and considering how much they mean to you, I know you'd be going down there soon anyway. And I'd love to come with you."
As he speaks, she snuggles tighter up against his chest, fingers curling in the knit fabric of his shirt. "You really want that?"
"Of course." There's the gentle feeling of lips planting a kiss on her crown; she can remember, now that she allows herself to think about it, how he's been doing that for years. "I'd travel the world with you if I could."
She weaves her fingers into the web of his, his words sending feathers of heat all through her body. "You'd get tired of me." She laughs, but the words taste sour on her tongue.
His lips find her hair again. "Not a chance. Our friendship practically dates back to the invention of the wheel, and I still think you're pretty cool after all this time."
"But things aren't the same," she murmurs.
"Right." His finger hooks under her chin, tilting it up so he can look at her. Blue searches grey, eliciting a small smile with their promise. "They're better now."
She lets him kiss her, his mouth tasting like strawberries against hers.
When he draws back, his palm cups her jaw, thumb dragging gently over her cheek. He gazes at her like Jack looks at Rose, like Rhett Butler looks at Scarlett O'Hara, like Narcissus looks at a mirror. Like she's a divinity, a treasure. Like she's the sun.
Aside from with her father and Prim, Katniss has never been accustomed to giving love, much less receiving it. But this, with Peeta—whatever it is—might just be what she's been missing all along.
The air is still cold and clammy from the early morning when he arrives at her apartment door, errant blonde hair curling around the edge of his backwards baseball cap and a smile wider than the pacific scrawled over his pink lips. It'd been too long since she saw him—seven whole weeks—and in a spurt of eagerness, she abandons all composure and springs on him like a koala on a tree, wrapping her legs around his waist and pawing his shoulder blades with her hands.
His responding laugh fills her with sunbeams; she hugs him tighter.
"We need to get you to a forest ASAP," he chuckles, dropping his duffel to wind his arms around her. "Because you've got to start climbing actual trees, not your best friend since pre-K."
She nuzzles her nose in the downy-soft shock of curls behind his ear, re-memorizing the cinnamon-honey scent she finds there. Not like she'd forgotten it, of course.
"I missed you," she tells him honestly, smiling when she feels him shiver at the sensation of her breath on his neck. She figures she'll never grow tired of his physical reactions to her.
"Usually that calls for a hug, not a panda-bear imitation." When she pulls back to cast an iron glare his way, he only retaliates with that goofy, knee-weakening grin of his that'd captured her since day one. "But I won't complain."
"That's more like it."
Scrambling out of his arms, she takes his hand and leads him into the empty apartment. Finals had ended the previous week, and Annie had already taken off for Panem, leaving Katniss on her own. Most people would cash in on the free time but, since Katniss is Katniss, she instead cocooned in her aloof introversion and only left the apartment in dire situations. (Like when she realized she was out of orange juice.)
But even someone as unsociable as Katniss still craves some degree of human interaction, so Peeta's arrival is like a sunrise after months of gloom.
And of course, the excitement of his company is coupled with her anxiety of flying, yet excitement to see her sister. So already, her emotions are in full Fourth-of-July mode.
"Are you all packed?" he asks, scanning the living room. She retrieves her suitcase from her bedroom, dragging it out behind her.
When she emerges into the common area, she finds Peeta leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes trained on her. The look he gives her now isn't too entirely different from the ones she's been awarded for the past several years, but now there's no inhibition in it, no coyness; he holds nothing back from her. He looks at her with bold reverence, just as he did that night in the treehouse over spring break—that Rhett Butler, Jack Dawson-infused gaze—and it frightens her in the most delicious way.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she says softly, unable to hide both her smile and its paralleled blush as her stare sinks to her shoes.
"You've got something in your teeth," he deadpans. But when her fingers fly self-consciously to her lips, he eliminates the space between them to clasp her cheeks in his palms. "I'm kidding, love."
The endearment sends a tidal wave through her stomach.
Helping her with her bags, Peeta leads Katniss down to the street to hail a taxi. Despite never being a superfan of PDA, she doesn't hesitate to snuggle up against him in the backseat.
It's been a long seven weeks.
She realizes just how much she loves the way he looks when he's asleep—lips parted slightly, brows slack, golden eyelashes panned so beautifully against his cheeks—when he dozes off on her shoulder on the plane ride. So peaceful. His hand rests absentmindedly on her thigh, fingers sprawled against the denim fabric. The way he always needs to be touching her, now that they're together, at least, sends a fluttering trill through her chest.
He's still completely out of it when the plane lands, a vagrant band of sunlight parting through the small window and casting his skin in gold; she's hesitant to wake him from this impromptu Kodak moment. God, he looks like a fucking cherub.
But with the steady stream of passengers filing down the aisle, she eventually caves, tracing her finger over the back of his hand until he stirs.
He coughs as he rouses, frowning and straightening up to stretch. When his hand leaves her thigh, the skin beneath the denim feels suddenly cold.
"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," she murmurs, brushing her hand through his sleep-ruffled curls. "We're here."
He leans over her to peer out the window.
"I don't see any water."
Cue the necessary eye-roll. "You can't see the ocean from literally every single spot in Miami, Peeta. I think your bucket list will have to wait another hour."
"Is your mom's place on the beach?"
She shrugs. "Not quite. It's about a ten minute walk away. But we can go down there tonight, if you'd like."
He pulls back, grin brightening his lips. "I'd love that."
Warm fingers curl around her knee then, and she can't help but smile up at him.
"It's a date, then."
His lips press against her temple.
They've barely made it out of the terminal before the wind is nearly knocked out of Katniss, her bags falling unceremoniously to the floor as pleats of blonde hair swipe her cheek, a warm body fitting the contours of hers.
"Katniss, it's so good to see you," Prim whispers, and Katniss finds her own thin limbs coiling like vines around her sister on their own volition. She can feel the flutter of Prim's heartbeat through their t-shirts, reminding her of all the nights she slinked back into her room after midnight, the smell of Peeta still bleeding from her clothes. Prim was there in the bed they shared, always there, always curling up against Katniss in a way that reminded her she was loved, if not needed.
She hasn't felt so close to those days in years.
When Katniss pulls back to get a good look at her little sister (or her not-so-little sister), eternally grateful for the healthy flush in Prim's cheeks and the flicker of light in her blue doe-eyes, she feels her throat growing thick and a tingling sensation prickling behind her eyes.
"You look beautiful, Prim." Sun-kissed, graceful, mature, even at seventeen.
Prim angles a bashful grin her way before turning to Peeta, leaving Katniss to her mother. She doesn't know what to say, so instead she just accepts Mrs. Everdeen's soft embrace. The feeling of her mother's hands brushing over her braid in a gentle display of maternal affection is what really crushes the eldest Everdeen daughter's reservations.
"Thanks for letting him come," Katniss says quietly.
"He's a good boy." She draws back, her eyes searching her daughter's. For what, Katniss doesn't know. Possibly some sort of indication of what Peeta is to her daughter… but Katniss, the ever-so-secretive recluse, isn't about to give that piece of news up willingly.
She nods faintly at her mother's artless statement.
"That, he is."
The sand feels like powdered sugar against Katniss's heels, clouds of white dust kicking up behind her as she pads along the shoreline. Apart from the fact that she feels like she's actually inhaling the ocean itself, and that the salt in the air makes her skin feel sticky, she's in an abnormally good mood.
"So, when are you going to show Peeta the beach?"
Prim's fingers ghost affectionately against Katniss's hip as the two sisters trek side-by-side, their gaits nearly identical—only Prim looks like a Hawaiian goddess with her long, floral skirt whipping behind her as they walk, her golden corn-silk hair streaming in perfect sheets over her shoulders. Katniss, on the other hand, is still wearing jeans and a faded t-shirt, sweat beading at the top of her disheveled braid.
She always thought that, of the two of them, Prim definitely had a leg up in the genetic lottery.
"I was planning on taking him out here in the evening," Katniss replies, her eyes scanning the distance between the sun and the horizon. Ideally, she'd want to show him the ocean during his favorite time of day, when the sky is painted with the pastel oranges she knows he loves so much. "After dinner sometime."
"I still can't believe that Mom roped him into helping her cook tonight," Prim laughs. "He hasn't even been here for two hours and we've already put him to work."
In truth, their mother had needed to do very little persuading; Peeta eagerly volunteered. Unlike Prim, his offer to play chef for the night hadn't surprised Katniss one bit—Peeta was always looking for excuses to put his expertise to good use—but the fact that he did it so willingly, knowing that it'd confine him to a room alone with Mrs. Everdeen for an hour… that had startled her. As key of a player Peeta had been throughout her whole childhood, she could hardly remember more than two or three conversations passing between her best friend and her mother.
"Well, better him than either of us." Katniss picks at some sand underneath her nails. "Unless the main course is prepackaged or can be cooked in a toaster, neither of us are exactly qualified to help."
Prim snorts in agreement. "Remember that one time we tried to make Hamburger Helper on our own with the game you brought home?"
"Oh, God." Cringing, Katniss looks to her sand-dusted toes. "That thing looked like it'd been eaten twice over by the time I'd put it in bowls."
Prim grins at her older sister. "Tasted like it, too."
Of their own accord, their fingers weave together, arms swinging between their bodies like joined ropes as they meander in silence along the beach. The closeness sends sunlight coursing through Katniss's veins, a smile unhindered on her lips. Being with Prim always made so much sense, just like with Peeta. It always felt right, even in—especially in—the quiet moments, where nothing needed to be said, because it was just them, and that was all that mattered.
But Prim's never been one to foster silence longer than necessary.
"It must be hard not having Peeta around every day," she says, randomly, matter-of-factly.
Maybe Katniss can blame the muggy, stagnant air for the color that illuminates her cheeks. She can sense the point of Prim's conversation coming from a mile away, barreling toward them like a freight train downhill.
So, Katniss does what she does best: avoid the objective.
"It's not easy being away from you guys every day, either."
Prim's responding glance is brimming with amused reproach. "Katniss…"
"Of course it's hard." Cue the evasive nail-biting. "But I make do."
"Does he ever come up to visit you?"
"He's done it a couple of times."
"And was Annie there too? Or did you guys have the apartment to yourselves?"
When did it get so hot out here? The sand feels suddenly so much coarser between her toes, and she kicks at it angrily. "Annie goes back to Panem most weekends."
Even with her eyes pinned devotedly on the stonewashed skyline of hotels and resorts at the end of the beach, her peripherals don't miss the devious look scrawled over her sister's face.
And then that knowing smile curls at the corners of Prim's lips.
"I've seen the way he looks at you."
Searching for something to nervously toy with, Katniss's fingers play with the cotton collar of her t-shirt. Or Peeta's t-shirt. Shit. There's another red flag. "I think you've been in Miami too long. Too much saltwater between your ears."
"I've seen the way you look at him, too." She's impossible. When did Prim become so goddamn intrepid? "And the way he touches you. He always has a hand on your back, or your arm, in case you haven't noticed."
Katniss glowers at her sister, but says nothing. She doesn't know how to circumvent the topic any longer.
"Katniss…" Prim's eyes are wide as saucers as she takes up that I'm-a-cute-little-puppy-so-please-give-me-what-I-want act, the one that makes Katniss want to tear her hair straight from her scalp, the one that Peeta always tries on her, the one that she always gives into. It's her eternal weakness; she knows it, Peeta knows it, and indubitably, Prim knows it, too. "You used to tell me everything."
Now that softens Katniss pretty effectively, too.
"Okay, fine. You win."
Prim smiles triumphantly, squeezing her hand around her sister's. "Don't leave anything out, Miss Concubine."
"You can't tell Mom, though."
Prim traces an X with her fingers over her chest. "Cross my heart."
"Okay. Well. Um, I guess Peeta and I are together."
She expects Prim to do something girly like squeal or do some childish happy-dance, but instead, her little sister only rolls her eyes.
"In other news, water is wet."
"Prim—"
"What?"
Katniss feels a growl curling in the back of her throat. "You asked me to tell you."
"I asked you to spare me no details. When did it happen? Where? What made you suddenly decide to get over yourselves? Is he a good kisser? Is he… good at other things?"
If only Katniss could shove her head in an ice machine right about now.
Or a paper shredder.
"We just… well, we decided we cared about each other too much to be just friends. So sometime in the fall, we—" Had drunk sex? "—made an agreement."
Prim looks like she's been watching paint dry for the entire afternoon.
"I'm seventeen years old. I go to public school. I can see R-rated movies. I've read every Nicholas Sparks novel—"
"Real life relationships aren't anything like Nicholas Sparks novels, Prim."
She rolls her eyes. "You get my point."
There's no pleasing this girl, is there?
Katniss sighs. "You're impossible, you know that?"
"Impossible and proud."
But Katniss can't refuse her sister—Prim could ask her for both of her kidneys and probably still get little fuss from her—and she knows this battle is lost. With a surrendering groan, she tugs her sister to a nearby bench. And before she knows exactly what she's doing, words are tumbling out of her mouth with Usain Bolt-inspired speed, all caution thrown to the wind; Prim's going to wheedle it out of her one way or another anyway, so she might as well relinquish her dignity now.
She begins with prom, when she first felt that thing for Peeta, that slow, tingly burning sensation in her core; how she tried to ignore it, hide it, deny it for ages, how she tried to cover it up with people like Marvel. She tells her about their first kiss in the treehouse, then about the impossible periods of not knowing whether she wanted Peeta or if she was just being hormonal, about how many times she was worried the cancer would take him, or even just come back. She filters out their inebriated state and the actual events of that night back in November, but she's pretty sure Prim's able to figure out for herself exactly what Katniss means when she says "hooked up." She is, as she so constantly reminds Katniss, seventeen after all.
"And when we tried to tell Mr. Mellark, he thought I was pregnant, and not just dating his son," Katniss tacks on, tilling her toes self-consciously through the bone-white sand. "So that was an adventure."
Prim's expression is full of stars, her eyes doing that comically wide, cartoonish thing.
"I can't believe you finally hooked up with Peeta Mellark." She says his name like twelve-year-old fangirls say Harry Styles, with saccharine embellishment and imaginary hearts coming from her ears. It makes Katniss want to gag.
"You can't tell Mom, though," she pleads, hands on Prim's shoulders. "I don't want to have to talk about it with her. I don't know what I'd say."
"That you've finally arrived at the inevitable?" she taunts good-naturedly, her blue eyes twinkling. But then her smile softens. "Don't worry, Katniss. Your secret's safe with me."
Dinner, as anticipated, is not a particularly eventful affair. Apart from Mrs. Everdeen raving about Peeta's cooking—since when does she rave?—the evening flows as anticipated. Conversation over the meal is feather-light and not at all incriminating, a nice change from the afternoon grill-session with Prim on the beach. Apart from the knowing stare she uses to tether Peeta and Katniss together, Prim keeps her pretty mouth shut for most of the dinner, to Katniss's relief. As annoying as she may find her little sister, she's thankful that she'll always be able to trust her.
After leftovers have been parceled up and stacked in the fridge, and dishes have been cleaned and put away, the four of them retreat to the living room for an absolutely brutal game of scrabble. Katniss has never been a wordsmith—Peeta's the forever-reigning king of articulation, anyway—but she's picked quite an interesting vocabulary in her classes, and somehow, she manages to stay neck and neck with him. Prim's not too shabby, although linguistics are also not her strength. And poor Mrs. Everdeen took a nose-dive from her first word.
The evening, to Katniss, feels almost like what she shares with the Mellarks, heralding some sort of familial minimalism, where things are simple, and effortless, and genuine. She's not used to falling in so comfortably with her own family, but here she is. With her mother, sister, and especially Peeta—who brings some much-needed testosterone into the balance—it all feels so right.
As the sky beyond the parted drapes turns from slate blue to gold in the waning hours of daylight, the walls cast in a warm hue, Katniss can tell Peeta's growing a little restless. As soon as the game board is folded back in the box, she turns to him.
"There's something we need to do, isn't there?" she teases.
The way his eyes light up, like a child who's just been told he's going to Disneyworld, sends heat flurrying through her veins.
"Hey, Peeta and I are going to go to the beach," she announces, rising to her feet as he does, too.
With a devious smile, Prim calls after them, "Don't stay out too late, you hooligans!"
Katniss leads him through the kitchen and out the back door, reigning in all the initiative as she cuts through the path toward the beach. Most of the way is paved, but Katniss's feet are permanently calloused and hardened from so many barefooted adventures out in the woods behind their old shack in the Seam, so she hardly feels a thing. But Peeta, whose soles may as well be made of flower petals, seems to be having a slightly more difficult time.
"We can go back and get shoes," she comments, slowing her pace and reaching behind her to lace her fingers with his. His hand feels so warm and gratifyingly rough on her palm.
He chuckles. "Shoes are for wimps. I can do this."
"You just keep telling yourself that, champ."
Quickening his stride so he can walk alongside her, he parts their hands and wraps an arm around her slender waist, his lips pressing a chaste kiss to her sweat-laved cheek. "I did that once, you know."
"Wore shoes?"
"Told myself I could do something over and over again until I did."
She rolls her eyes, but still surrenders a slight blush when he ghosts his fingers across her hip. Accustomed to the temperate Pennsylvanian climate, this stagnant, merciless Miami heat is killing her, and she's convinced she has absolutely no room left in her searing veins for warmth, but this effect he has on her still manages to worm its way into her core. Everywhere he touches turns to an icy fire, tingles feathering out in her core.
"This sounds like the beginning of a cheesy documentary. What'd you do, tell yourself you could bake twenty batches of cookies in an hour?"
He leans in, his lips brushing mischievously against the shell of her ear. "I told myself I could win over a pretty girl." Kiss on her temple, fingers dancing against her waist. Shivers lodging in her spine. "Although it took a decade and a half, I think my five-year-old self would be very pleased."
She giggles when he nuzzles her neck demonstratively, unsure of how she grew to be so comfortable with PDA, because overdone physical affection had earned quite an ornate pedestal as her nemesis for so long. Snuggling with Prim as a kid seemed natural, and even sharing a bed with Peeta when she was younger felt right, but both of those gestures were platonic. This, what she has with him now, is a horse of a different color.
How on earth did she come to crave this?
When they stumble onto the sand, the sun is just beginning to sink behind them, the sky stretched over the seas a cool periwinkle, meshing beautifully with the rosy and orange pastel hues the streak the eastern part of the sky. With daylight rapidly fading, the last few occupants of this stretch of the beach diffuse, leaving them in their relative quiet.
She leads him onto an ebony dock, the wood slightly slimy from the sea salt and the algae, and tugs him down to the edge where they sit with their feet dangling in the water. His arm naturally snakes around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.
"What are you thinking?" she prompts, noting he's been silent since they reached the beach.
"How beautiful it is," he begins, hesitantly, wistfully, "and how I don't think I could possibly capture it. With a paintbrush, I mean. It's just so… big."
"I think that's the most stunning thing about it." Her toes skim the glassy surface of the ripples, gainsaying the current, opposing the waves that'll keep breaking over the shore.
He presses a soft kiss to her hair. "I can think of things more stunning."
Warmth claws in every corner of her stomach, and she squeezes her legs together in attempt to ward off whatever's starting to anchor in her core.
They stay there for a while, the pale pastels of the sky fading to a purple twilight, every plane of their bodies dusted with the spray of the waves. The mist is cooling, but even in the sun's absence her skin still feels alive with heat. Without thinking twice, she removes her shirt to reveal a faded green bikini top she hasn't worn in years.
Peeta's looking at her then. "Up for a swim?"
"As long as you promise you won't splash me. Saltwater in the eyes hurts like a bitch."
He chuckles in accordance and, too, tugs off his shirt, revealing the washboard of muscles on his stomach, the broad shoulders, and those thick, steady arms she can vividly remember wrapped around her as he made love to her. Despite the heat, she shivers at the thought. It's been so long. Waiting to steady their footing as a couple before revisiting that sort of intimacy seems, at the moment, to be the worst choice in the world. If it were between invading Russia in the wintertime, or swearing off sex with Peeta for the rest of the summer, she'd pick the former in a heartbeat.
She wonders if he feels it, too. That need to be together.
Fuck. Saltwater does bizarre things to her libido.
Before the moonlight can cast a bright spotlight on her pathetically cherry cheeks, she scoots forward on the dock and lowers herself into the water. The Atlantic, especially this far south, is much warmer than the Pacific at this time of year, but without the sun beating on her shoulders and face, her muscles tense and coil like a copper spring.
"How's the water?" he calls from the dock.
Still acclimating to the temperature, she begins to propel herself backward. "Why don't you find out for yourself, Mr. Mellark?"
He seems a little hesitant, dipping his toe in suspiciously, but with a nervous gulp and closed eyes, he pushes himself off the edge into the water. Salty spray sprouts in the air all around him before he emerges, wiping his eyes.
"It feels like someone's pouring kerosene in my retinas," he chokes out as he stands above the choppy surface. This area's shallow enough that his entire torso is exposed, cast a beautiful ivory, sort of the shade of the inner corners of magnolia petals, the broad planes of his chest marbleized in the moonlight.
Despite the pounding in her temples and the ache between her legs, she manages to hold her ground, wading out a few meters from him.
She's watching him wipe the water from his face when suddenly he looks at her, his eyes growing comically wide. "Katniss, there's—"
The rest of his voice distorts against her eardrums as a massive wall of water slams into her back, upending her. The water feels thick as it pounds her below the surface, and she finds herself a struggling mess of limbs as she tries to regain her footing, but the ocean floor is too deep here.
She strains for the surface, every muscle in her body live with electric current, and suddenly her hand is breaking through the glassy plane. She's pulling herself up, up into the air, gasping…
Hands are on her shoulders now, steadying her, pulling her in closer to shore. Her eyes sting as badly as if she doused them in a bottle of shampoo, and her hair is all over her forehead and cheeks, but she can breathe, and with that first massive gasp she finds herself releasing a choked laugh.
"Are you okay?" Peeta asks, brushing the sticky tendrils of hair from her face as he holds her near the shore.
"Yeah," she coughs, pressing her palm to the flat expanse of his chest. The beads of water pebbled up on his skin are cold, but underneath she feels heat radiating to her palm, and she leans a little closer to selfishly steal some of that warmth. "I think I just forgot that the ocean has actual waves."
"Silly girl," he chuckles, his hands moving from her face to her hips. "What will I ever do with you?"
He's playing with the tails of the string on the back of her bikini, not pulling with enough force to actually undo the bow, but the subliminal implication is clear as day.
"You mean, you don't like pulling a Hercules on a damsel in distress?"
"I don't like my lovely damsel to be in distress in the first place." Fingers on her shoulder blades, neck, cheek. She shutters. Feathers flutter in her core. "And if anyone needs saving—" Lips on her earlobe, breath on her neck—"it certainly isn't going to be you."
When his mouth slates hot, leisured kisses up and down the side of her throat, she presses her body flush against his until his skin and her skin are virtually one and the same. Her greedy fingers twist themselves into his damp curls, still soft and velvety even with the moisture, a sharp gasp flying up the column of her throat as his teeth gently nip at the juncture of her shoulder and neck.
"I don't think I want to swim anymore." His voice is barely a breath on her flesh, but his words are husky, crafted with sandpaper, and the simple need she hears there gives her wings. She could fly to heaven right now and not feel a thing.
With his fingers stroking agonizingly slow across the crests of her ribs, she can barely manage to utter back, "There are much better things to do."
"We could go back to the townhouse, you know." Lips on her jaw. Cue moan.
"We could."
"And get ourselves out of these wet clothes." Kisses peppered on her cheeks.
"That may be nice."
He draws back then, baby blue eyes almost silver in the shards of moonlight that break over the waves. Whatever she was feeling just moments ago has clearly rooted itself in Peeta.
They've always been fairly in sync, after all.
He leads her out of the water, his arm winding around her waist as they make their way up the beach after grabbing their discarded shirts. Every few moments, without prelude, he'll lean over to kiss her somewhere, anywhere. Cheek, jaw, throat, nose, forehead, temple, hair. Lips. Everywhere.
"How could we have denied each other for so long?" she whispers to him after they've snuck through the back door, up the stairs, into the bedroom designated for Katniss. Peeta's is down the hall, but neither of them were under any pretense that he'd be sleeping apart from her. There's no point, anyway. His arms are the best sort of lullaby.
Cupping her jaw with his palms, he draws her lip gently between his teeth. "I don't know, but I'll never deny you again."
"That's a big promise to make."
He yanks at the strings of her bikini top, loosening the bows until the garment falls unceremoniously to the floor. His palm finds her breast, cold and firm from being smothered with wet Lycra fabric for so long, and she gasps at how warm he feels as he kneads her like a roll of dough. Gently, carefully, but resolutely.
"But not a difficult one, love."
They help each other out of their shorts and crawl over the comforter, each movement monumentally more confident than it would've been back in November. It's been so long since they were last like this, but by this point they're comfortable with their relationship, comfortable with each other, and their feelings, and there's no hesitation.
"I've been wanting to do this for months," Peeta murmurs against the skin of her breast as his lips suction around it, drawing the flesh into his mouth, and she desperately tries to contain the sounds that threaten the seam of her lips. She shares a wall with Prim, and god knows that girl doesn't need anything else to fuel her tormenting of Katniss.
"Remind me why we didn't," she whispers, her hands coiling in the sheets.
She forces herself to throw a pillow over her face to muffle her sounds as soon as she feels Peeta's mouth between her legs, slow, but reverent. Every drag of his tongue is luscious torture, and she feels her back arching up off the bed like a cat basking in the sun.
"We wanted to wait," he murmurs to her skin before tasting her again, and again, and again... "We wanted to be sure we were doing this for the right reasons. We wanted to be comfortable with each other."
She moans as his kisses align with the point where she needs him most, as his tongue paints designs all over her flesh, luring her to that ethereal summit somewhere beyond her tangible grasp. She can't imagine anyone else in the whole world having the ability to affect her like this. To deliver her to this foreign, sweet rapture. Something so intimate, so real, so magical.
Everything in her body feels like its shimmering with fairy dust, alive and shining with delicious fire as he brings her to the pinnacle of reality. Daggers of heat plunge all over her body as she stiffens, arches, cries out. She empties his name into the cotton pillowcase, over and over again, until it's branded on her tongue.
The mattress creaks and dips as he leaves the bed. Still gathering her scattered bearings, she shakily props herself up on her elbows to see him rummaging through his duffle, returning with a foil square.
"I came prepared this time," he chuckles as he returns to his position between her boneless legs, and she knows she could feel so exposed like this, but Peeta's presence is more calming than the sound of rain on windowpanes or any sonata ever composed.
"You just assumed you were going to get lucky?" She's more amused than surprised. After all, she'd been lobbying for it, too.
He rolls his eyes and rips the foil. "I was right, wasn't I, love?"
She sits upright to snatch the latex from his hands and, just like last time, rolls it on, secretly pleased with how tight his jaw clenches as he feels her fingers working over him. Knowing that the effect he has on her does not go unreciprocated sends fronds of color firing out of her core.
He idly strokes the inner skin of her thighs as they position themselves, his fingerprints leaving white heat in their wake. She's already feeling that torturous ache between her thighs, so anxious for him to soothe it.
"Katniss, I—" She's taken aback by the sudden vulnerability cracking like popcorn in his voice, her eyes locking with his through the gloom.
"Yeah?"
He swallows hard, his forehead coming to rest on hers as a hand braids itself in the roots of her hair. "I want you to know that you mean the world to me."
His focus flickers between her eyes, searching for something, but she's not sure what.
So she holds his face in her palms, her thumb brushing over his glossy lips.
"You're my sunshine boy," she whispers back, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
His lips find hers, tasting salty from the sea but sweet from her, which is an odd tang, but she accepts it. His kiss is slow at first, soft, lips fitting in like puzzle pieces with hers. Feeling him at her entrance, she locks her ankles around his hips to urge him downward, refusing to break the kiss as he slowly proceeds.
It's not as painful this time, but it still takes a few moments to adjust to his girth, but soon the sting from the fire is replaced by something more deep-rooted and widespread. Her belly feels like it's filled with molten lead, swelling with each movement, and she angles herself to take him deeper, always deeper, and he moans, and she thinks it's the sweetest sound to ever grace the planet.
His mouth is sloppy as it drops to the column of her throat, and she tangles her hand in his sweat-dampened, saline curls, murmuring gentle things in his ear, telling him how much she cares about him, how good he feels, how special he is to her, how he's her everything. Because he is and always has been.
The air around them tastes like ocean spray and is muggy from the humidity and their body heat, the sheets confining them to this little sanctuary of theirs. For now, the world around her disappears. Nothing matters anymore, nothing but him.
Things are less clumsy, less frantic, more measured and intentional this time around, but they still have plenty of room for improvement, and the thought thrills her. Will this always feel so new to her? Will she grow tired of this?
She doesn't imagine she could.
After she's brought him to the summit that had welcomed her earlier, after they've laid together, panting, kissing lazily, sweeping sweaty, sticky hair from each other's skin, he momentarily leaves her to dispose of the condom. He's back before she can register how cold she feels alone, taking her in his arms.
"Katniss, I have something to tell you."
Her euphoria is still too resilient for any worry to cloud her thoughts, and she hums in encouragement, leaning her forehead against his with her eyes shut.
"Can you look at me?" he whispers.
There's something desperate, something almost anxious coating his words, and her eyes shoot open to gage his expression. His pupils are the size of moons, the blue surrounding them swimming with affection and… something else.
Fear?
"Peeta?" she begins cautiously.
"I—" He gulps, frowning, jaw clenched. "I want you to know something."
"Is everything okay?"
He draws his lip between his teeth, and she can see the bones in his cheeks clenching under strain. "More than okay," he chuckles breathily, but the nervousness is still present. She tries to sooth him with her hands on his jaw. "I just... Katniss Everdeen, I think I'm in love with you."
Love.
Her heart conducts a jolt of electricity like a lightning rod, and she jumps a little in his arms. It's the first time he's ever directly used the L word before, in this context, at least. Of course he loves her, and of course she loves him back, but the emotion he speaks of now is of much greater magnitude than what she's been willing to admit to herself.
Because he doesn't just love her. He's in love with her. That's something different, right?
At least, she knows he means it to be set apart. She knows what he's saying. It's not exactly a concept a single word—or phrase—could encompass, could explain, but his intention rings clear.
"Peeta, I—" She swallows hard, her mouth tasting like stale crackers. But there's something else there, too. Something in the pit of her belly, moving and swelling. It feels like ocean waves, lapping at the shore, breaking on rocks.
It's a strange sensation, but it's not unpleasant. Not in the slightest.
And it tells her what to say to him.
"I think I might just be in love with you, too, Peeta Mellark."
I hope that was somewhat worth three months of absence! At least, as worthy as a plot filler chapter could possibly be.
Reviews or PMs are always so appreciated, and as always, you can find me on Tumblr at the-peeta-pocket! Come talk to me about everlark, or life in general, or about Mockingjay Part 1 (AAAHHHH) because I saw it last night and it absolutely destroyed my life in the most pleasant way ever. At this point, my roommate probably hates me, because it wouldn't surprise me if I sobbed "Peeta" in my sleep all night. Oops.