randomshit | It's 3 AM, I must be lonely

[It's not like this is unusual by any circumstance.

Like clockwork, she returns to consciousness with a jolt. The kind of jolt that has her gasping for breath while her heart pounds, so intensely it practically leaps out of her chest. This nightmare. Again. No matter how frequent it is (and by now, it occurs at least two or three times per night), her reaction will always be the same. She'll never be used to it.

The afterimage still burns her retinas even minutes later, the same one that has haunted her incessantly for months on end. Her little sister, not even fourteen, transformed into a human torch right before her eyes, with nothing she can do to stop it. No matter how hard she tries to run, something always pushes her back. No matter how hard she tries to scream, something always strangles her.

And, if anything, that image has only become clearer over time.

Fire always burns brighter in the darkness.

The darkness. Something that a part of her, some deep-seated part of her that she can only just barely acknowledge, doesn't want to combat alone.

Before she's even aware of what's happening, her feet touch the floor, guiding her over to the window that looks onto the house nextdoor. Peeta's house. She doesn't know what she's searching for. A light? Some kind of sign of life? None of those things are there, yet something keeps her standing still, just watching.]

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[Nightmares have become his constant companion, even more so than after the Games.

Peeta's sitting alone in the dark kitchen. His teeth are gritted, his eyes clouded over slightly. His fingers are gripping the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles turn white. And like a wave, reality washes over him, relieving him of most of the darkness. But remnants of distortions remain. They'll always stay with him.

He doesn't really know what he's doing when he gets up. He just lets his feet take him outside. The air seems to be heavier in District 12. Just ash and smoke.

His feet lead him to Katniss' door. It felt selfish to wake her at such a late hour, especially if she was actually getting sleep.

He sits down in front of her door. He didn't feel as alone out here than he did in that big empty house.]

[It could be minutes. Could be hours. But for however long she's standing there, she sees no change. There's nothing across the way but a dark, lifeless house. Just like hers.

Just like they all were.

Whatever she'd been trying to find... this is pointless. She drops her gaze, mentally shakes herself. Her nightmare is her only reality. Loss, emptiness, pain, those are the only constants. These are constants from which there is no relief. From which there will never again be relief.

But when she lifts her eyes to the window one last time, she catches a glimpse of something moving across the ground. A figure, moonlight against shadow, but its motion is distinct. Her heart does a funny thing where it gives a small, inexplicable flutter, pumps a surge of life through her bloodstream.

She's not staying in this room.

The stairs are taken care of in no time flat; even rusty and out of practice from her time of living as a lifeless shell, she's still fast and quite agile. No, she has no idea where she's going, or even why. But somehow, it's what makes sense to her right now.

Her hand reaches for the doorknob, and pulls it open. And that's when she stops.]

[He turns, blinking in surprise. Her skin was just as scarred as his, but he couldn't help but admire the way the moon left shadows around her face.

She wasn't the same Katniss he had stood on stage with, or kissed in the snow, or gave the locket. She was different. But still beautiful to him.

It saddened him that a small part of him still panicked upon seeing her. He runs a hand across his face, still shaking a bit from the episode in the kitchen.]

Nightmares?

[Frozen, there's nothing to do but watch him. Study him. And that action doesn't escape her notice.

She knows he still has the episodes. Something twists inside of her. A part of her finds herself selfishly wishing this could be the Old Peeta on her doorstep, the one who kept her nightmares at bay those nights on the train, before the Quarter Quell. The Old Peeta, who never quite came back. Who probably never will. Just another thing the Capitol took away from her, one she didn't even realize how much she needed until it was gone.

A voice, though, sounds at the back of her mind, reminding her of something she was told once, what now seems so long ago. "There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don't give up on him." Prim's voice.

Prim. Everything seems to remind her of Prim lately. Ghosts of her lurk behind every corner of that house, constantly following her around, haunting her just as much as the nightmares. Keeping her there, locked in a certain pocket of space and time, not quite the past but not quite the present, never able to move on...--

In a delayed response, she nods, just slightly, but that's as much as she'll admit. As much as her sessions with Dr. Aurelius (even if she has managed to start picking up the phone) will allow her to. Anything else is too painful. She has no words for the details anyway, for the agony that tears through her night after night, rips her soul into pieces all over again. She was never good at them.

But she's being selfish. Just like she always is. Another part of her hates herself for it. She swallows, but her throat is still impossibly dry. When she finally manages to speak, it's quiet, choked.]

You?

[Peeta sighs, nodding.]

It's hard sometimes... I forget what's real. I saw Foxface. She stuffed berries in my mouth until I was choking, suffocating...

But that was a nightmare, wasn't it?

[The filter on what is okay to say and what isn't hasn't quite worked right since the hijacking. He just looks up at her, a hint of desperation in his eyes. Because he still isn't entirely sure it was a nightmare.]

[There's only one thing that look reminds her of. It's similar to that of a wounded animal caught in a snare, or the last look given before the final blow is delivered. Lost, desperate. Helpless.

From this source, it scares her. He's looking to her for something she can't give. Answers; she's never had those. Certainty; she's barely sure what reality even is now, constantly drifting back and forth between the world of her dreams and the world of consciousness, not entirely sure where to find the line that separates them.

The eye contact is so painful it's almost burning. She drops her gaze. But she owes it to him to try, for so many reasons.]

Just a nightmare. [She takes a steadying breath.] Not real.

[He takes a breath himself.] Thank you.

[It's hard to keep his own eyes on hers. He feels ashamed. Not of the burns. The burns feel almost fitting- a new skin for a new creature. He's ashamed that he can't look at her exactly the same. That he can't entirely fight that fear.]

You... wanna sit with me for a while?

[The question wasn't as simple as it sounded. Do you want to stay? Do you mind my company? Are we still a team?]

[She exhales; she'd hardly been aware she was holding that breath in.

But even with her eyes fixed firmly on the ground, she can't escape the weight of that question. It creates an automatic change in the air, one that presses on her shoulders with a force, practically crushes her. Since he came back to 12, since he started bringing bread to her house, their interactions have been minimal, superficial at best. Almost... delicate. As if she's ashamed of herself, shuts herself down more than she already has because she's ashamed of what she's become, that she's simply better off hiding away from the world. As if she has fears of her own, mixed in with the abyss of grief and loss.

All of this that she doesn't know how much longer she can bear alone. Not with that deeply-buried part of her slowly starting to surface more and more the longer she stands here. She's been alone for so long.

They've always worked better as a team.

In a split-second, she makes the decision before there's time to rethink it, and one word, the one word that holds so much power, tumbles past her lips in a soft whisper:] Okay.

[... Before she steps out to join him, and closes the door behind her.]

It's 3 AM, I must be lonely | Closed to peeta_bread

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