FIC: there's a pull to the flow; my feet melt the snow
there's a pull to the flow; my feet melt the snow. the hunger games, peeta/katniss, set during catching fire. pg.
there were no star-crossed lovers, there was only double-crossing. back at district twelve, two attempts for midnight comfort, for sleep without nightmares. (for the lovely liketrains who gave me the prompt!)
Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever.The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so they they can feel this way, too.
(Lemony Snicket)
i.
“My nightmares are usually about losing you.”
Everything is quiet. Everything is still. Everything is pitch-black.
Peeta can’t move. His mouth is useless, glued shut. His arms and legs seem as if they are pinned to the bed, invisible nails driven through his limbs. His eyes are open wide, very wide, and they flick madly around the room, like two buzzing flies.
There’s nobody on the pillow next to him. There’s nobody else in the bed. There’s nobody else in the room. There’s nobody else in the house. He frantically tries to will himself to feel the pillow next to him, just to be sure, but he knows what he’ll find.
He’s had these dreams before. In the Arena, he’d dream that she’d be killed by Clove or Cato, that he hadn’t done enough to protect her from Cato when there were trackerjackers. That she would die, slip away from him.
But then, he’d wake up, and she would be safely in his arms, the two of them nestled up together in a sleeping bag, and everything was okay and Peeta was reassured that it would be, because he was with her.
He’d thought this would be a feeling that’d stay with him -- no matter what the Captol did anymore, they would be together. He hadn’t counted for the ‘Katniss’ part of the equation.
Now, back in District 12, with the truth out in the open, and both of them in hiding, what happens in Peeta’s dreams seems to match what happens during the day. The winter is cold, and they are equally cold to each other.
They never talk, they hardly acknowledge each other, and Peeta feels as if he’s gone from everything to nothing. What stings the most, however, is that, if he really looks at it, he never even had everything.
As he finally manages to turn his head and reach out to what he now sees is a blank space next to him, his heart rate skyrockets.
----
Peeta gages the step between the train and the platform. It’s District 12; most things are ramshackle and neglected, and after the Hunger Games and the Capitol, he is not used to this. Another function this mental occupation serves is to distract him. He clutches Katniss’s hand in his, but he wants to let go.
He had thought that the two were in tune, two people with hearts beating as one, like all the cliched star-crossed lovers. This was a lie. There were no star-crossed lovers, only double-crossing.
He tries to block all the thoughts from his head, the doubts about their conversations, her actions, everything. Peeta feels as if the Katniss he had gotten to know, after so many years of wishing he could, is once again, foreign to him, miles and miles away.
But that’s not why he wants to let go of her hand. He feels betrayed and stabbed in the back and is questioning whether anything is real anymore - but at the same time, he feels disgusted by himself. Under everything, the mixed emotions brewing a thick, bubbling liquid, he still wants Katniss.
She doesn’t love him, apparently, and never has, but Peeta is ashamed that his acknowledgment of that fact has changed nothing for him. He wants to get to know this new, foreign Katniss all over again, without pretenses, without lies and subterfuge. He wants to take her back to the new Victor’s Village house he will own, and kiss and talk and hug like they did in the Arena, but this time, for it to be real. This makes him feel immoral and obsessed.
----
He feels as if he may vomit. Once able to move again, he ripped off the bedsheets and threw them on the floor. He threw a pillow against the wall. He smashed an urn on the floor. Now, standing amidst the carnage of his bedroom, he contemplates cleaning it up, but instead, doubles over and leans against the wall. Blood thumps in his ears, and he’s swearing loudly.
He’s never going to get to know Katniss again. She’s too far away, and she’s always been too far away - and that vain hope he held at the train station, as repulsive as it made his character, is no more, in his mind.
His attempts to rebuild what was shattered, or what was never built, will fail. He never even got the chance to try.
Peeta thinks that he is so alone, so very alone. He has never connected with his family, they do not live with him, his friendships are shaky, at best, and he refuses to put Katniss in one of these categories, add her to this list. This loneliness has never bothered him before, but all of a sudden, it threatens to eat him up.
Impulsively, he rips the door open and runs next door.
All the lights in their house are turned off. This is not a surprise, it’s probably a ridiculous hour in the morning. When he gets to their front porch, he realizes what a fucking stupid idea this is. He doesn’t know what bedroom Katniss sleeps in, he doesn’t know if she’s even at home, and he doesn’t know how he’ll get inside the house.
Even if everything went right, she would scream at him, she would call him a creep, she would tell him to get out of her house. Peeta shudders.
He presses a hand to the door, hoping to find some warmth hidden there - it is winter, it is night, it is cold - but finds none. He brushes the snow off his shoulders, turns around, and leaves.
ii.
Can I come to your house?
Caught in the ropes and the wires
The sun settles hard in the south
(Winter Bones - Stars)
Three days after the Victor’s Tour has ended, and Peeta and Katniss are back in District 12 once again. They do not continue with the arrangement they had on the train; they do not share a bed and keep the nightmares away. Perhaps it is out of pride, a wish to appear independent and strong, on both their behalves. Perhaps Katniss is ashamed, and perhaps Peeta does not wish to make her feel so.
But the nightmares come back, for both of them, worse than before. Katniss is afraid, so very afraid, of President Snow and the Capitol. The first night, she screams so loudly that she wakes both Prim and her mother up. Meanwhile, Peeta is terrified that things will return to the status quo. He does not want to lose Katniss again, even though now, it cannot be in a physical sense - they will have to be around each other, they are engaged. (This seems like a cruel joke to the both of them.)
On the fourth night after their return, Peeta does not lock the door to his house. There is nothing coordinated, nothing planned, but Katniss wakes in the middle of the night, thrashing and screaming, and runs across the padded snow to Peeta’s house and Peeta’s bedroom.
----
Peeta rouses because strands of long, black hair, tickle his nose and run across his face. His eyes snap open and his head tilts to the side.
“Hi.” She is ashamed that she’s come, and they are both stilted and awkward.
“We’re not on a train, are we?” Peeta asks, rubbing his dreary eyes.
Katniss shakes her head, and more runaway strands of hair fly out. Her braid is loose and wild.
“It’s hard,” she says. “I can’t... It’s not... I had a nightmare. I was scared, and there were things...” She trails off. This is the most explanation either of them have given to their sharing a bed at night, and it is enough for Peeta. “You’re the only one who understands.”
There is a pause. The two of them are probably busy, fighting the demons in their heads. Eventually, Peeta asks, “When we’re married, will we have seperate beds?”
It’s like somebody has dropped a stone on Katniss’s ribcage. She’s winded and breathless and in pain. She mumbles something about how she doesn’t know, how she hasn’t thought about it, and she tells herself that she doesn’t want to think about it. People may come to their house, into their room, and comment on the double bed. Gale would sneer, her mother would be shocked, Prim wouldn’t understand, and Gale’s family... would be silent.
On the other hand, the Capitol may come, or President Snow may come. Anything could set him off, anything could mean her death. She feels terribly pressured from both sides. Peeta looks at her blankly, not aware of the ramifications of this question. He might just want to know the answer, so he’ll know if there’s a chance of nightmares. Oddly enough, though he’s the one asking the question, Katniss does not feel pressured by him.
“I understand.” Peeta says, and closes his eyes. Katniss plants a kiss on his cheek.
“You don’t. But thankyou.”