Who? Peeta (narrative, guest-starring Sherlock.) Where? Sleeping Car #6 & Palour Car #5 When? Tuesday Evening. What? The birds and the bees. Rating? Could get high - language, violence etc
Peeta had promised Sherlock that he would stay in his room, and so far it hadn't really been a difficult promise to keep. Peeta was used to going to days without food, and his room on the train was certainly more comfortable than some places he'd spent the night in before. And he knew what was outside the room - creatures he had hoped he would never have to encounter again.
Reading the network stressed him out. People frustrated him. They told him things that he couldn't understand, they gave him conflicting information... he found that his headaches were getting more and more frequent. No one, except Sherlock and possibly Primrose, was being straight with him. He still didn't have a reasonable explanation as to why he was on the train, where they were, or where they were going. It seemed like no one on board really knew - even the network device wasn't helping him to understand it any better. It looked like a Capitol invention to him, and now with the mutts on board... he was just about certain. And that scared him more than anything.
It had lasted about ten minutes - the sound of his mother dying. He knew it was a jabberjay - he knew it, but he could hardly bear it. He'd opened the window of his room and tried desperately to locate it, to throw books at it, to shoo it out of the window... but he wasn't having any luck. And then suddenly it stopped. Another ten minutes passed in tense silence before another started - this time, it was outside of his door, in the hallway perhaps. His father, screaming. He'd curled up on his bed, put a pillow over his head and tried to ignore it, but it was getting worse - his brothers' voices joined in, screaming in pain, screaming for his help. He choked out a sob. "It's not real... it's not real..." became his mantra.
He lay there and took it for a good twenty minutes before he felt as though he was going to be driven insane. More insane than he already was. In a fury he jumped from the bed, picked up a book and pulled the door open, stepping out into the corridor beyond. His face was streaked with tears, and he could barely stop himself from sobbing again.
"Shut up! Shut up!" he screamed, tossing the book in the direction of the tormenting noises. "You're not real! Shut up!" he sobbed, looking around for something else to throw. The bird was moving, the voice of his father pleading with him to help. It didn't matter that it wasn't real. All Peeta could think was that it could very well have been his dying words. It was his fault. Why had he been so stupid? He'd brought Katniss into their lives, and now- he picked up the book and threw it again. The bird moved along a perch, taunting him, drawing him in with familiar voices.
He didn't hear the buzzing. He didn't even have enough sense left to be concerned that he had been led out of the sleeper car into the adjoining palour. At least here there were things to use as weapons - a glass, a bottle, a chair - he really wasn't thinking about health and safety anymore. A bottle of wine just missed, smashing against the wall, the red liquid dripping down and staining the hideous wallpaper.
Peeta dropped to the floor, weak with crying. It would never stop. He couldn't make it stop. "Not real. Not real. Not real," he whispered, desperately trying to cling to what he understood of reality. Another scream - he reached out for another bottle, throwing it without direction. Even if he had been trying, his eyes were too full of tears to make anything out properly. That was his mistake.
Now he could hear the buzzing. His eyes grew wide in panic as he scrambled to his feet. It was with a sudden clarity he remembered why he wasn't meant to leave his room - tracker-jackers. He was done for.
A searing pain in the side of his neck confirmed his fears, and he reached up to smack the wasp away, trying his best to get out of the room. Another to the back of his hand, another to his forearm - he could hear himself screaming, over the deafening buzz of the deadly wasps. He was going to die. A stab to the back of his neck. The door looked far away - and then close - and then far away - and then tiny - and then massive - somehow he reached it, pushing his way out and slamming the door closed behind him. His back pressed up against the door, he swatted desperately around him until he felt himself slide to the floor. The pain was too familiar. The feeling... the way everything looked... why was this so normal to him?
He didn't know how much time had passed as he fell in and out of consciousness. Everytime he opened his eyes the walls of the train moved in and out, the doors opening and closing, the floor turning to water and fire and crawling with insects. And then there was that kind man who had said he would bring him tea. "I didn't stay in my room," he slurred, wanting to apologise, wanting to explain, but he wasn't even sure if he'd said the words out loud or not.
The man was talking to him, but every time he opened his mouth the words that came out were garbled. He wasn't making any sense - it sounded like he was under water, and then suddenly it was deafeningly clear, but it was his father talking. "We're going to sell out of cheese batons!" He wanted to ask what he meant, but he didn't have the energy anymore. Everything was fading away.