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Mockingjay tomorrow, which means it's time for me to post my Catching Fire fic.
Title: Sleep to dream her
Author: elly427
Summary: Wish I could bend my love to hate her / Wish I could be her creator / To twist her arms now
Rating: Teen. Peeta/Katniss. Violence.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: Title from Dave Matthews Band. Originally this was intended to be a multi-character piece about what minor characters in the Hunger Games 'verse dream about since Katniss’s dreams are such a large part of Catching Fire, but I’ve only ever been happy with the Peeta part so here it is.
Also: I am a terrible person.
[][][]
Something disrupts the gentle sway of the train car and his eyes fly open. In the blackness of the cabin Peeta can't see anything but he can feel her. His nose in her hair, his hand on her waist confirms it's Katniss beside him, against him, leg and arm thrown around him.
He forces himself to relax, takes a deep breath and inadvertently tenses his arm around her. She burrows closer and makes a sound in the back of her throat.
No dreams so far tonight. They've been doing this - sleeping next to each other (not together) - long enough that he can tell the difference between her night noises and her dream ones. He knows now that some movement is normal, but tossing and turning is not.
Deadly stillness is the worst, and on those nights he is always ready to brace himself and defend himself from her while she dreams. Her body moves from being still as a corpse to nothing but flailing, angry arms and legs in moments on those nights, and Katniss knows how to hurt. He’s had to hide more than one bloodied nose from her, and Portia had learned best how to cover a bruise cheek bone more quickly than she’d ever wanted.
Tonight, Katniss slides closer, nuzzles into his neck and he freezes again, can't help it. She tenses and he forces himself to take a breath.
The best and worst part of waking from his nightmares is having her here, having her here, in his arms and pressed right next to him.
He dreams more than he tells her.
Katniss already seems like she has the weight of the entire district, if not all of Panem on her shoulders. It seems like sparing her another burden is perhaps the only thing he can do.
Some nights his dreams are violent. He watches Glimmer hold her down, choking her, or Clove cutting pieces of her skin away to reveal the bone and blood and meat and heart that makes her her. He saw enough during the recap he was forced to watch (with her curled by his side, he remembers, oh, he remembers, the one good thing about that night) that his mind is filled with violent images.
Her, shaking and hallucinating from the tracker jacker poison.
Her, visibly recoiling at the revelation of the muttations.
Her, barely managing to survive the many brutish and painful ways the gamemakers found for her to almost die.
There's plenty there for his mind, fertile ground to plant seeds for his unconscious to seize upon.
Other nights, well. Other times it's him, another Hunger Games where the Capital is a little less interested in their love story, is a little more interested in seeing one lovebird shot from the sky, silenced forever. A Games where Katniss doesn't play her part, admits to loving someone else, is too stubborn and scared to play along.
Those, those are the dreams that scare Peeta the most, because he becomes someone else, the boy (man, he thinks, because the Hunger Games have done that much) who banded together with the Careers to take out the most credible threat. He’s the man whose name was pulled from the ball and who's first thought was how will I kill them all first? and spent a second looking at Katniss as prey before everything in him rebelled.
In those dreams, Peeta isn't injured buying Katniss time. In those dreams, Peeta finds Katniss before anyone else and convinces her he's not a threat. In those dreams, Peeta backs Katniss against a tree and kisses her the way he's maybe always wanted to but never let himself take.
That Peeta isn't gentle, and he isn't understanding, and that Peeta wants to hurt Katniss, wants to take her and break her and make her understand everything, everything he feels for her, and that Peeta isn't patient enough to wait for words, for things to sink in.
That Peeta takes her, takes what he wants, hands and eyes and mouth and skin, and when she's shuddering against him, Peeta places his hands lovingly on her cheeks and snaps her neck.
Those dreams, those dreams leave him gasping and shaking and he has to slide out of their cocoon and onto the cold floor.
He waits there, shivering, body coated with clammy sweat and unbearable loathing until Katniss starts to struggle and flail, her hands in the sheets and in the air and his name escaping in little, dangerous sobs from her lips.
Then he climbs back into his bed, their bed, and holds her, rocking and murmuring and pulling his hands through her hair until she wakes up.
He never tells her about those dreams. He won’t. He can’t.
But some terrible part wants to.
Title: Sleep to dream her
Author: elly427
Summary: Wish I could bend my love to hate her / Wish I could be her creator / To twist her arms now
Rating: Teen. Peeta/Katniss. Violence.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: Title from Dave Matthews Band. Originally this was intended to be a multi-character piece about what minor characters in the Hunger Games 'verse dream about since Katniss’s dreams are such a large part of Catching Fire, but I’ve only ever been happy with the Peeta part so here it is.
Also: I am a terrible person.
[][][]
Something disrupts the gentle sway of the train car and his eyes fly open. In the blackness of the cabin Peeta can't see anything but he can feel her. His nose in her hair, his hand on her waist confirms it's Katniss beside him, against him, leg and arm thrown around him.
He forces himself to relax, takes a deep breath and inadvertently tenses his arm around her. She burrows closer and makes a sound in the back of her throat.
No dreams so far tonight. They've been doing this - sleeping next to each other (not together) - long enough that he can tell the difference between her night noises and her dream ones. He knows now that some movement is normal, but tossing and turning is not.
Deadly stillness is the worst, and on those nights he is always ready to brace himself and defend himself from her while she dreams. Her body moves from being still as a corpse to nothing but flailing, angry arms and legs in moments on those nights, and Katniss knows how to hurt. He’s had to hide more than one bloodied nose from her, and Portia had learned best how to cover a bruise cheek bone more quickly than she’d ever wanted.
Tonight, Katniss slides closer, nuzzles into his neck and he freezes again, can't help it. She tenses and he forces himself to take a breath.
The best and worst part of waking from his nightmares is having her here, having her here, in his arms and pressed right next to him.
He dreams more than he tells her.
Katniss already seems like she has the weight of the entire district, if not all of Panem on her shoulders. It seems like sparing her another burden is perhaps the only thing he can do.
Some nights his dreams are violent. He watches Glimmer hold her down, choking her, or Clove cutting pieces of her skin away to reveal the bone and blood and meat and heart that makes her her. He saw enough during the recap he was forced to watch (with her curled by his side, he remembers, oh, he remembers, the one good thing about that night) that his mind is filled with violent images.
Her, shaking and hallucinating from the tracker jacker poison.
Her, visibly recoiling at the revelation of the muttations.
Her, barely managing to survive the many brutish and painful ways the gamemakers found for her to almost die.
There's plenty there for his mind, fertile ground to plant seeds for his unconscious to seize upon.
Other nights, well. Other times it's him, another Hunger Games where the Capital is a little less interested in their love story, is a little more interested in seeing one lovebird shot from the sky, silenced forever. A Games where Katniss doesn't play her part, admits to loving someone else, is too stubborn and scared to play along.
Those, those are the dreams that scare Peeta the most, because he becomes someone else, the boy (man, he thinks, because the Hunger Games have done that much) who banded together with the Careers to take out the most credible threat. He’s the man whose name was pulled from the ball and who's first thought was how will I kill them all first? and spent a second looking at Katniss as prey before everything in him rebelled.
In those dreams, Peeta isn't injured buying Katniss time. In those dreams, Peeta finds Katniss before anyone else and convinces her he's not a threat. In those dreams, Peeta backs Katniss against a tree and kisses her the way he's maybe always wanted to but never let himself take.
That Peeta isn't gentle, and he isn't understanding, and that Peeta wants to hurt Katniss, wants to take her and break her and make her understand everything, everything he feels for her, and that Peeta isn't patient enough to wait for words, for things to sink in.
That Peeta takes her, takes what he wants, hands and eyes and mouth and skin, and when she's shuddering against him, Peeta places his hands lovingly on her cheeks and snaps her neck.
Those dreams, those dreams leave him gasping and shaking and he has to slide out of their cocoon and onto the cold floor.
He waits there, shivering, body coated with clammy sweat and unbearable loathing until Katniss starts to struggle and flail, her hands in the sheets and in the air and his name escaping in little, dangerous sobs from her lips.
Then he climbs back into his bed, their bed, and holds her, rocking and murmuring and pulling his hands through her hair until she wakes up.
He never tells her about those dreams. He won’t. He can’t.
But some terrible part wants to.
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