Katniss Everdeen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
accidentalrebellion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
randomshit2012-08-11 03:25 am
accidentalrebellion) wrote in randomshit2012-08-11 03:25 am
It's 3 AM, I must be lonely | Closed to peeta_bread
[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.]
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
[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?]
no subject
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.]