littlecatnip | Open RP Post

A wave of guilt washes over her when he asks that and she closes her eyes for a moment and takes in a deep breath of the fresh, morning air. There's parcels of truth in both of the answers. At the heart of it, leaving him hadn't been her choice. He was the one that should have been rescued and she had fought for that the moment they knew they were going back into the Games.

After what feels like the longest moment of her life she answers, "Not real. I had no choice, I was injured and Haymitch promised..." She lets it trail off there. They shouldn't have been split up like that, she should have fought harder to stay by his side and he could have been saved. All excuses and no help now.

"I didn't want to leave you." But I had no choice.

He waits impatiently for the answer, feeling the irritation rise with the time it takes her. The boy with the bread, the one with infinite patience who always knew the right thing to say is gone. That knowledge upsets him more than his lack of patience. But he waits, silent, unmoving, the only sign of his impatience in the way his hands dig into his pockets. His fingers retrace the rope unseen.

His hands relax the minute she answers and he nods slowly. Peeta remembers what Haymitch's promises can mean sometimes. How they aren't really promises at all. So he relaxes a noticeable degree and nods again. "You can look if you want."

There's a small wave of relief. Part of her had been worried that the answer wouldn't have been enough, but she knows that's the guilt talking. Saving Peeta or not had never been her choice to make, even if she had been led to believe otherwise.

"Come in," she prompts and leads the way into the house, only glancing back to make sure he's following her. "We can have some of the bread you made."

Peeta hesitates only a second before following her, closing the door gently behind him. He moves with her down the hall, keeping a short distance between them for safety. That's how it is now. His hands fall from his pockets, feeling more at ease, in spite of the building anxiety at the idea of letting her take care of him yet again. He's a burden, he knows. It's why he told her to kill him in the Capitol. But she wouldn't.

"I made it for you," he replies softly. It's a gift. Symbolic. Peeta wants her to have something of her own instead of always inserting himself into her life.

The bag is deposited in the kitchen, but not before she grabs a roll from it and breaks off a piece to hand to him. With how scarce food had been growing up and the recent bland meals of district 13, it's nice to have access to fresh bread. If only more had survived to enjoy this.

"I appreciate it." She knows she already thanked him, but she means it and even manages a real smile for him. Even now he's considerate of her. "I don't know how you make it. I try, but it always comes out flat."

Peeta accepts the piece of roll because he knows he has no choice. Accept it or argue and then accept. He hovers awkwardly in the doorway, dropping his eyes as he turns the piece over in his hands. The truth is, he's not very hungry anyway. At her words, his eyes lift to return to following her around.

"You're too impatient." Criticism or teasing? He's not sure. Both, maybe. One half of his mind is proud that he's mastered something she can't ever do right; the other half wishes he could teach her. "It needs time to rise on its own."

He purposefully ignores the parallels in that phrase.

"You could say the same about Haymitch some days." A joke and she tries to keep her voice light even if it's hard these days. They've won, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

She breaks off a piece of the roll to eat herself as she clears off a space on same table Gale had been treated on in what feels like a lifetime ago. She'll leave him for only a moment to retrieve the few vials of medicine that are lurking in the house and clean rags. It's a task she's seen her mother and Prim do a hundred times over the years and the familiarity is oddly comforting despite the pang of loss that accompanies it.

"Haymitch," he echoes, closing his eyes for a second to force away the darkness before it begins. His muscles tense with the reminder and he grimaces anew with the fresh pain from his injury. It's not that bad - almost nothing compared to the Games - but the pain makes it difficult to concentrate and Peeta needs to be able to think clearly.

He remembers Gale on that table. Remembers watching the man for awhile, so Katniss could take a break. The man who promised to kill him if things went bad in the Capitol. The man who saw fit to save several families from District 12, but not Peeta's own. It doesn't matter. Gale's gone now. His eyes continue to watch her whenever she's in his line of sight. Otherwise, he remains almost unnervingly still.

He's always being watched out of the corner of her eyes. She wants to be able to trust him completely again, but she is well aware that she has to be on her guard even around him.

The vials, rags, and a bowl of warm water are placed on the table nearby and she hesitates only a moment before stepping closer to him. "I need you to lift up your shirt."

"I've been waiting for you to say that." Peeta smiles at her, joking, trying to be the boy with the bread again. His eyes soften to give her the same look he used to when keeping her company on the train, full of a deep understanding between them that no one else, aside from maybe Haymitch, will ever comprehend.

But he does as he's told, fingers curling around the bottom of his shirt and sliding it up to his chest to give her plenty of room. Peeta turns slightly to give her full access to the laceration, which begins in front but extends partially onto his sides near where his left kidney is. Right now, the wound is sloppily covered in bandages that are near bleeding through.

He watches her closely, smiling, finding some comfort in the memory of how awkward she is about sexuality. Johanna on the elevator, stripping out of her costume. Before her screams were his constant companion in the Capital.

"Very funny," she mutters and there's a slight tinge of pink to her cheeks as he lifts his shirt. Awkward is one way to put it. It's just never something she's had time or cared to think about before.

The moment of embarrassment is brief, however. As soon as she sees the bloody bandages and extent of his injury, she's quick to get to work. She's no where near as good at medicine as her sister or mother, but knows how to clean and dress a wound.

"What did you do? Get in a fight with a bear?" She's reminded of the story she told him about her having to fend off a chasing bear in the woods. If she weren't so concerned about how he got hurt, she would have smiled at the thought of him having a similar experience.

It almost feels natural. In that one second, Peeta can almost forget everything else between them and pretend they can be that natural again. Except the stinging of the medicine on his wound sends fresh images through his mind and he has to close his eyes and focus. Focus on the familiarity of the hands, ignore the memory of the pain.

Her question catches him off guard and his eyes snap open to look at her. He smiles again, though now with a tightness at its edges. "I was careless helping with the construction yesterday. It won't happen again."

She'll be as gentle as she can, mindful of how fresh the wound is, while trying to be quick. It's a good thing she couldn't fit all the vials of medicine in her bag when she had brought some back to district 13.

"Construction? What were you working on?" Katniss is unsure she buys the story. It might be something she has to grill Haymitch about later.

"I volunteered to help with the Justice building." It's technically true. Peeta has been helping them with supplies, food, errands, and so on for a couple weeks now. But he's never directly involved in the construction himself and rarely gets close to the projects for fear of being triggered and becoming a hazard to anyone around him. He hopes she doesn't know that. He knows she won't buy it, the same way she's often seen through his manipulations even when he couldn't see through hers.

"Katniss." The word is soft, gentle. Peeta's free hand moves to take hers for a second, willing her to look at him, but lets it go as quickly to hold his shirt again. "I'll be fine. You don't have to worry about me."

His voice causes her to stop before his hand does and her eyes catch his for a brief moment before she focuses back on his wound.

"I'm not worried," she insists. The most obvious lie she's ever told him and she knows it. How is she supposed to stop worrying about him when it's partially her fault that he's like this? It should have been her trapped in the Capitol, not him. "I didn't think they'd clear you to work construction."

He flinches at her words, though its timing is conveniently aligned with a new wave of stinging antibiotic and Peeta's happy to pretend it's the surprise of the pain and not her lack of faith in him which caused it. The baker's eyes dart away to some irrelevant detail in the room, a blue flower in a vase that's long since dead.

"Thanks for the confidence." The words slip out because he forgets to focus. They're bitter, laced with disgust and resentment and a million other things he feels for her at any given moment and usually keeps under tighter control.

His words hurt, but she refuses to let it show. That's not Peeta talking. That's what the Capitol did to him and it's hard to keep the two separate when they have the same voice. The boy with the bread would never talk to her like that and Haymitch's words ring in her head once more. She never would deserve Peeta.

"That's not what I meant. You've never done construction before and with everything that's happened..." She shakes her head slightly, eyes focused on her work. "Are they teaching you then?"

Peeta closes his eyes, trying to focus again. His hands start twitching a little, anxious to stretch. He can hear her breathing close to him. Traitor. The one who manipulated and abandoned him. Not real. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who picked the daisy. Real. He looks at her and his smile is pained at best, entirely forced as his mind continues its war with itself.

"Are you almost done?" The words are strained. Peeta grips the hem of his shirt until his knuckles turn white as he turns to look at her again. He wants to kiss her. He wants to kill her. With any luck, he'll be able to settle for leaving without doing either.

"Yeah, in a second." She has to keep her gaze downward, although she can see the pained smile out of the corner of her eyes. She hates seeing him like this, hates everything that's been done, and hates how they're the ones left picking up the pieces.

Wound cleaned, she gets a fresh bandage over it, fingers lingering over his side before she steps back. "Tell me if you need a fresh one."

The feel of her fingers on his side almost sends him over the edge. Fortunately, she withdraws a moment later and he's able to drop his shirt and let his fingers splay out at his sides. Peeta focuses on his breathing, then flexes his hands, fist to fan and again. He looks at her, his expression suddenly distant, as if he doesn't quite know who she is or what he's doing here. Tentative.

"I'll be fine." An echo of something he's already said. It's easier to repeat than to think of something new. But it seems unsatisfactory and the way she looks at him makes the tribute realize as much. Instead of focusing, he blurts out the first thing he can think of: "Prim is dead. Real or not real?"

She freezes when he asks that. The memory of her sister's death plays out in her mind and she has to fight back the prickling of tears. All the hope of Prim having a better future once the rebellion succeeded, the loving sister she had done everything to keep save, was gone in an instant.

"Real," her voice is strained and the weight of that word is enough to bring her down. She's so tired. "She died in the raid on the Capitol."

His eyes meet hers with a cold ferocity, not aggressive but intentionally detached now in a different way. Peeta stiffens, his muscles tensing to match her own. It's an unconscious thing and he doesn't notice it, busy watching her for signs of her reaction as if studying a lizard being poked with a stick.

"You couldn't save her." It's not an accusation, but a fact. He states it as such. The hijacking is creeping back in.

"No, I couldn't." A painful fact and one she's slowly been coming to terms with. She refuses to turn away and meets his gaze, not with confidence, but one hoping for understanding since she knows she can't be forgiven. Where's that boy who understands the pain they went through? The one that could comfort her when the nightmares came?

"You couldn't save me either." Real or not real? Peeta's not sure it matters in this moment. He can feel the buzzing anger that builds and has to find a release before he can push it away again. It engulfs and swallows him and suddenly he needs an answer, needs to understand what drove them to this point. It's a knowledge he already possess but can never keep straight.

Peeta tilts his head and smiles. This time, it's cruel. "Why do you even try, Katniss, when you can't save anyone at all?"

He's a weapon. A weapon made just for her and more precise than anything else the Capitol could have created. Her nails dig into the palms of her hands and she can't lash out at Peeta. That's too far even if there's anger welling up inside her at his words.

"Because I have to do something, Peeta! I didn't ask for any of this to happen to Prim, to me, to us." He should know that, he needs to know that and her voice has a layer of urgency to it. "I did everything I could."

It's the pain that starts to bring him back. The more tightly his muscles tense in anticipation of a fight, the more it tugs at his freshly bandaged wound. That her words then insist she did everything she could pulls him back from tumbling off that precipice. His hands splay at his sides and hold there. Peets drops his gaze to look at them, consciously willing them to remark before lifting his eyes again.

"It wasn't enough," he says quietly. Angry, but also hurt. The tribute smirks again, with less confidence. "Thanks for the bandage. I suppose when you can't fix anything, bandaging it is the next best option. Helping me because maybe one day I'll heal enough that you won't have to feel guilty anymore. I hope I don't. I hope I never do."

Not real. Peeta seems to catch that the words are lies as soon as they leave his mouth and awkward straightens in his posture. The renewed pain helps ground him again. "No. Why wouldn't you let me die? I should have died."

She stands strong even if his words are boring beneath her skin and latching onto the vestiges of guilt that remain. No, it hadn't been enough, but what was she to do? She can't raise the dead or turn back the clock. Tick tock. Too many ghosts still remain.

"Peeta, I..." Here she pauses and takes a deep breath. "I wasn't going to let you die then and I'm not going to let you die now. I want to help you." Please.

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