#plus a bonus peeta pov

[thesweetnessofspring]

Katniss Wants Kisses: Part 5

Drabble series: Katniss is fed up with getting no physical affection from Peeta during their training for the Quarter Quell, so she takes matters into her own hands. Rated T.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Read on ao3

I expect Peeta to hide from me the next day, so I’m surprised when in the early evening, he’s knocking at my front door and asking me to go on a walk with him. I take my father’s jacket with me and head out the door. 

The snow has melted and patches of grass have come through. Though it’s warm enough, Peeta’s hands stay securely in his own coat pocket.

“I know you want Haymitch to go into the Quell with you,” Peeta says. I don’t deny it. I can’t lie to Peeta. Not any more than I already had to in the Games. He continues, “And you know that I’m planning on going in there.”

“Peeta–”

“I’m not here to fight with you about that,” he says. “I’ll make my plans, you make yours, and we’ll see what Haymitch decides to do. But what you’re doing–it’s not fair.”

“And what exactly am I doing?” I ask.

“Come on, Katniss. The massage? The kiss? You’re trying to give me hope of what we could be, if I let Haymitch go in and you win. To convince me to stay behind,” Peeta says.

“What?” 

What he’s accusing me of is cruel. And after the offense strikes me, I try to imagine how this has been for Peeta. How I played up our romance to save his life before, without him knowing and the hurt when he found out it was for the show. The distance I put between us after the Games and then again after Gale’s whipping. It doesn’t make sense why now I’m longing for Peeta’s touch, Peeta’s kiss, after all of that history, unless I’d returned to the act.  

“I’m not doing that,” I say. 

“Then what are you doing, Katniss?”

I shrug. I don’t know how to explain it to him. I don’t even quite understand it, just that right now when I’m so scared and worried, he makes me feel warm and good. 

We’re quiet as we keep walking. Peeta’s question hangs over us. Why do all I can to have physical contact with him? Why chase after his arms, his kisses? Because now, it doesn’t matter. I only have these few months left. The things I used to worry about that kept me distant–having children, losing them–they won’t ever happen. My guard has dropped, just as Peeta has put his up, suspicious of everything I do.

I’m so stuck in sorting all of this out that I don’t notice where we’re going until blackened faces with olive skin appearing along wrinkled creases start to pass us by. The west mine entrance.

I stop before going any further down the way. “Why are we here?” 

But I know. I know that we hadn’t been walking down a random path. Peeta’s brought me here deliberately. 

He has a sad smile on his face. “Reminding you that you have a future.”

Gale’s coming down the path–he’s taller than just about anyone else in the whole District and impossible to miss. A future. A future with Gale, he means. I’d made that decision once, but that had been before. Before it would be Peeta’s life or mine.

Peeta turns around, catching my eye and masks the hurt of this whole situation and I want to scream and cry that this isn’t fair. None of it. Not the Quell and not using Gale for him to get his way. Then he walks away, leaving me to be alone with Gale.      

“Hey, Catnip,” Gale says when he’s in front of me. A stream of miners step around us as we stare at each other. His gray eyes stand out against the black coal dust on his face. 

“Hi,” I say.

I think about last Sunday, how I’d ignored him all evening, not wanting to give Peeta the satisfaction of having his distraction work on me. Now, though, this same distraction has a heavier weight after my conversation with Peeta.

“Walk me home?” Gale asks.

I nod, feeling odd that my fiancé has set me up on a date. To others it would just look like two cousins taking a walk, but I know better. And I know what Peeta is trying to do, what Gale is helping him with.

Gale starts talking, reminiscing about memories of the woods. Finding that patch of strawberries, practicing duck calls, sledding in the winter with a long strip of bark. I laugh along with him at the memories, but it's only an echo of those days so long ago. Days that were both harder and easier than now.

Gale has a spigot outside his house and he starts washing up, though I remember from my father the dust never really comes out the whole way. Once he's cleaned up, he turns to me and says, "Come inside and have dinner with us. My family would like to see you."

If I cross that door and follow Gale in, I'll step for a moment back to the days of two kids trying to survive and save our families. 

But those days are gone.

“My family is expecting me," I say.

He gives me a nod and we go our own ways.

It’s completely dark now. I make my way through the Seam, across the town square, and to Victors Village. As I walk up the street, I see that Peeta’s kitchen light is on at the back of his house, so I sneak up the side and around to the back door. I pause, watching through the window as Peeta cleans up dishes, his back turned to me. And for a moment I picture things that could have been. A extra set of dishes, towel in my hand as I dry, ending the day with his arms wrapped around mine. 

But we still have time.

I knock on the glass window of the door. Peeta jumps and then sees that it’s me. I wait as he dries his hands on his apron and heads toward the door to let me in. His wide shoulders have slouched and he's frowning as the door opens.

“Katniss,” he says, voice deflated. I can't take his disappointment, so I lean forward, pressing my mouth to his. He hesitates, and I screw my eyes tight, willing him to allow this. It takes a moment before his arms enclose my waist and mine go around his neck, scrunching my shoulders up to pull him into me. I want to taste more of him, feel his heartbeat against my chest, and never let him go. 

He breaks the kiss and while holding me in his arms, looks down at me with a mix of wonder and conflict. I hold my hands together around his neck all the tighter. But something passes over him, smoothing his brow, and then his lips are on mine while he steps back into his house with me and shuts the door. 

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #thg fanfiction #katniss wants kisses #one more drabble after this! #plus a bonus peeta pov