[pray your dreams will leave you here]
peeta/katniss
rated r
a first time fic, set during Catching Fire
She doesn’t really know what to expect, and has nothing to compare it to, but Peeta is bigger than she imagined. She hardly knows how this works; she knows what goes where, but semantics aren’t really important here. Being intimate with Peeta is as easy as breathing and this is another part of that; but she doesn’t know what to do.
“Katniss,” he says softly and she looks up at him. “I’m sorry; we don’t have to -- “
She shakes her head, cutting him off. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she says. “I know we don’t, but I… I want to.” He closes his eyes for a moment, and she doesn’t know if he’s savoring this or trying to figure out if he’s dreaming. She feels guilty for putting so much doubt there, for not giving him everything he deserves, for not being able to admit that she loves him.
She takes his hand, places it at her hip, just under the hem of her shirt and he inhales sharply. His hands are so warm; he’s always so warm. She can feel him, hard, pressed up against her thigh, and it’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once. She doesn’t think she could do this with anyone else. And maybe she is a hormone riddled, confused teenager, but this seems right - being with him this way seems right.
“It’s ok,” she whispers, leaning to kiss him. “You can touch me.”
He kisses her then, deep and like he means it more than anything he’s ever meant. She wishes she knew what he was thinking, wishes she could tell him everything she felt and didn’t really understand. Her thoughts jumble with his hands on her skin; his fingers are soft, ghosting over her ribcage, up, up, until the flat of his palm is warm against her breast. She arches into his touch, and pulls at his shirt; he pulls away long enough to pull his shirt over his head, and to help her out of hers.
“Katniss,” he whispers and kisses her. She doesn’t think anyone will ever kiss her like Peeta does; she isn’t sure of all of her feelings, but she’s sure she doesn’t want anyone else to even try to kiss her like this.
She touches him, hands moving over his smooth skin - the muscles of his arms, the soft skin of his back, the muscles of his abdomen, and lower, brushing against the waistband of his undershorts. She doesn’t ask permission, not the way he always looks at her and asks with his eyes, she just slides her hand down, in, and touches him. He felt big, pressed against her, and he feels bigger in her hand. He’s warm and hard, but the skin is so silky, so smooth. He gasps into her mouth.
“I want this,” she says, when he pulls back to look at her. “Peeta, I want this - with you.”
The look in his eyes makes something in her chest squeeze tight; there is so much love and admiration in his blue eyes, so much trust and awe. Haymitch was always right - she could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, not one bit. She stops thinking when he slides her underwear down, off of her hips, over her thighs. It’s strange, for a moment, someone touching her down there; she hardly has an experience touching herself. He slides his fingers through the slick mess of her and the warmth in her belly rages, burns up until she can feel it in her fingertips and toes. He kisses her when he slips his fingers into her - maybe as reassurance, maybe to swallow the noises she makes, maybe both. It feels foreign and feels strangely good, his fingers in her like this, but it feels like such a tight fit - she doesn’t know how he’ll fit inside of her, so much bigger than a couple of fingers.
She’s squirming under him, and pushes at his shorts, struggling to get them off of him, and her fingers brush the strangely smooth and mottled flesh where his real leg ends and the prosthetic begins. He inhales sharply. “Katniss, don’t,” he says, looking away.
“I don’t care,” she says. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s a part of you, Peeta, and I - “ she wants to say I love it, because I love you, but the words don’t come out. He seems to understand, and kisses her while they work off his shorts the rest of the way, and then she’s instinctually parting her legs to let him settle between them.
It’s so hot between them, their skin burning with this, and he’s there, pressing at her and she has to swallow her fear. “We don’t have to do this,” he says, voice rough. “I don’t want to hurt you; we can stop.”
She shakes her head. “I want you,” she replies. It’s enough.
She presses her face into his neck, eyes squeezed shut tight as he pushes in; he feels bigger than he even looked, and he’d looked plenty big enough. It’s uncomfortable, at first, and then there’s the resistance and he pushes harder; she feels something give and he pushes in farther, and it burns. The pinch is sharp, and the burn that follows is unpleasant. She digs her fingers into his shoulders, makes the smallest sound of pain and he stops completely. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, kissing her neck, her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She urges him to continue, ignores the discomfort, lets him kiss her to distraction until she realizes he’s inside of her, he’s as far as he can go, and her legs are trembling around his hips. He’s watching her, looking at her in awe, waiting, she realizes, for her to change her mind. She kisses him instead, soft and steady, full of meaning, of all the things she can’t say. And then he starts to move.
His movements are slow at first, a little awkward; neither of them have done this, it’s all new, but they find a rhythm. The uncomfortable fullness, the pinch and burn fade, and blur into something else entirely. Peeta makes her feel good in a way she never has, a warmth starting in her core and slowly ebbing out until she feels like she might shake apart. But it’s not enough to get her there, not enough for her to tumble over that edge she’s chasing. They’re both breathing hard and she takes his hand, guides it down, presses his fingers where they’re joined and then slides them up. The pleasure is sharp and she arches her back. “Peeta…” she whispers, wrapping her arms, her legs, as tightly around him as she can. He rubs at her, moving faster in her, and then she’s crashing - she’s freefalling and trembling. He murmurs her name and then he’s kissing her, his hips stuttering against hers and she’s filled with an entirely new kind of warmth.
They lie still for a while, after, Peeta softening inside of her; she finds that she likes the weight of him, the warmth of him on top of her. But eventually he kisses her, moves off of her and to the side, pulling her close almost immediately. “I love you,” he says and her chest tightens. She can’t say it, is incapable, so she kisses him instead, the watery grey light of pre-dawn filtering through the train’s window.