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Tweak says, "I need a new name"

Katniss Everdeen is busy reblogging squirrel pics (tindernest) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2012-09-15 23:48:00

Entry tags:

katniss everdeen, peeta mellark

Who: Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Ghost!Mr.Everdeen and Ghost!Cato
Where: Cindy's house
When: Backdated to kickoff night of ghost plot
What: GHOSTS. It's either happy or OHSHIT depending on who you are.
Warnings: TBD
Status: In progress
In her dream, Katniss was standing by the seashore. She knew the sea only vaguely, only as seen through a train window, passing by in a long blue flash of glinting sunlight and waves rendered frozen by sheer speed. There had been a sort of sea in the arena of course, for the Quell, but that had been different. It had been flat and odd and artificial and she had hardly looked at it, consumed instead by terror, so that the salt of that sea mingled in her mind with the taste of blood. The sea in her dream was the real sea, Finnick’s sea, the sea of District Four. She watched it rise and fall in rhythms like a heartbeat, smelled the air and let it comb her hair back from her face. For a moment, even locked in unconsciousness, she had a feeling of relief, of respite. Though she could not remember the concept of nightmares, she was thankful not to be having one. Until she heard him calling her name.

“Katniss!” Peeta was out on his disc, transported from the games into the middle of this sea, but he wasn’t fixed in place, he was floating away, out towards the horizon. Katniss widened her eyes, she knew she hadn’t meant to let him get so far away, and she raced to the shore, feet sending up little flurries of sand as she ran. When she was at the edge of the water she stopped, sucked in a breath of air, and prepared to dive forwards. Except suddenly she knew, the way things are known in dreams, suddenly but intuitively, as if they have always been known but have only just been remembered, that if she let her skin touch the water she could never walk on land again. She hovered by the water’s edge, calling for Peeta, pacing, but never letting her toes edge up to where the waves lapped the shore. For his part, Peeta grew smaller, let the tide take him away, and when she could still see his face it was the saddest thing she had ever seen, it was like being torn in half. In the dream she crouched and tangled her fingers in her hair, pulling, and began to cry.

“Shh, you’re all right, it was only a dream,” Katniss jerked slightly limbs twitching once and then settling, as she eased from her melancholy sleep into a drowsy sort of twilight between dream and reality. She could feel wetness on her pillow from where she had been crying, but she didn’t think this had been a screaming nightmare. If I’d been screaming Peeta would have come, she thought and started to close her eyes again, relaxing into the familiar feeling of a broad, callused hand stroking her hair in time to the soft shushing noises his voice made.

…which was when she realized that the hand soothing her didn’t belong to Peeta.

Katniss started upwards and scrabbled back, feet and hands sliding on the sheets for purchase, until her back hit the bedframe, her eyes dropping to her hands as she fumbled for the knife she kept under her pillow. Damn it how did someone get past Cindy’s wards? How did someone break in here without Cindy or Peeta or I waking up? Is Prim-

“Your sister’s okay, I’m with her too. You don’t have to worry, Katniss.” The voice became familiar then, distinct from simply ‘male and not Peeta’ and Katniss jerked her head up again, her eyes going wide but her movements stilling until her breathing was the only thing that distinguished her from a wax doll, a model of a person. Perched at the end of her bed, hands raised in a placating gesture, was a man in his early thirties, dressed in sooty coveralls and letting a pickaxe rest against his thigh. His face was coated in grime and lines had been etched around his eyes and mouth, deeper and earlier to form than the people Katniss had gotten used to seeing in Lawrence, people who moisturized and applied sunscreen and tried not to frown too often. Despite the soot and the grim lines, however, the man’s face was kind. Half the lines, upon closer inspection, were from his eyes crinkling up during a smile, and his eyes themselves were clear and gentle, a light gray that Katniss hadn’t seen mirrored back to her outside a looking glass in years.

“Dad?” she whispered, her voice just a croak, squeaking up through a suddenly dry throat. “Dad?” This time she didn’t resist when he reached out for her, when his hands closed gently around her shoulders. “I’m right here,” Mr. Everdeen said quietly, reaching up to brush a few strands of hair behind her ear. Katniss opened her mouth to ask one of the thousand questions competing with each other to rise through her suddenly swollen throat, but her father beat her to it. “I was allowed to come back for a while to see you and Prim. I can’t stay long, but right now you’re safe, Prim is safe, everything’s okay.” And though that wasn’t much better (back from where? Who let you? clamored in the back of her mind) she found that she couldn't doubt him, couldn't even doubt that this was him. For the first time since she was eleven she took someone’s word for Prim’s safety and she let herself be pulled into a hug, let herself feel very young and responsible for no one.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-16 05:12 am UTC (link)

Peeta had been having trouble sleeping since Oliver, Mia, and Chloe had gone. It wasn't that he felt uncomfortable in Cindy's house — quite the contrary — it was just that it made him worry that, any day now, Prim or Katniss would be sent back and neither situation suited him much. Or worse, that he would go back and he'd read what happened to him in those books on the Wikipedia. He didn't like to think if there was no way for him to stop it happening. With Prim and Cindy around, Peeta had felt all right about using the headphones and mp3 player he'd indulged himself in buying a few weeks ago for his jogs, cranking the music he'd downloaded for his therapy and letting it drown out everything, forcing him into a mostly dreamless sleep.

He hadn't expected to be awoken, of course, but if Katniss was having nightmares and he hadn't come, she could have come looking for him. She wouldn't have, however, decked him to wake him up. Eyes shooting open and a hand whipping up and out from under the covers to clutch at his jaw, Peeta ripped the headphones from his ears with the other hand. "What the—"

"Wake up, Loverboy, I'm sick of sitting here by myself."

When Peeta's eyes focused and adjusted in the darkness, they settled on one person he never thought he would see again. In his attempt to scramble away, Peeta fell out of the bed and, ignoring Cato's laughter, moved away until he felt the door against his back.

"Oh, come on, I'm not so bad am I?" Cato asked sarcastically and Peeta shuddered, looking back at the other boy's bloodied clothes. He was wearing what he had been back in the 74th Games and Peeta could tell the blood wasn't his; it belonged to the other tributes he had killed.

"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino qui fertis super caelum," Peeta gasped, stumbling over the pronunciations as he tried to remember what Oliver had taught him after camp.

Cato's face wrinkled with disgusted confusion. "Shut up, what is that?!" he snapped, stepping forward and reaching down to pull Peeta to his feet by the collar of his t-shirt. "Is that how they talk here? Stop." He pushed a forearm against Peeta's throat and stared him in the eye. "Miss me, Loverboy?" he asked in a low voice.

"Katniss!" Peeta screamed before he could stop himself, shaking under Cato's hold.

The other boy let go of him then and smiled mischievously, his eyebrows lifting with interest. "Oh!" Cato started, taking his chin in one hand thoughtfully. "She's here, too, then? The Girl on Fire? Perfect."

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tindernest
2012-09-16 05:46 am UTC (link)

For a while, Katniss had just rested against her father. He had told her they could talk in the morning, that she needed sleep now. Normally she would have been too suspicious of what was going on to let herself follow those instructions, would have insisted on checking on the others for herself, but she could as little disobey her father as she could have suddenly shot up tall enough to reach the highest shelves in her old home when she was eight. She’d laid back down, head on her pillow, and her father had stroked her hair like he had when she was a small child in bed with a cold or waking up from a nightmare. Her eyes were dragging themselves closed almost of their own accord, her breathing evening out—

”Katniss!” she was on her feet before the second syllable of her name had sounded, muscles tensing back into readiness and hand closing on her bow.

“Katniss, wait-“ her father began, reaching out for her, but she’d already put an arrow to her bowstring and eased into the hallway, her heart pounding what felt like sour bile all through her, up into her throat, into her nose so that she smelled and tasted acrid fear. The scream had been Peeta and he had been more afraid than she’d heard him since the cave. There were sounds of a scuffle from across the hall and Katniss regulated her breathing sternly, taking note of the pace of her heartbeats, readying her body for the focus she would need to shoot whatever was in his room, whatever had frightened him that badly, whatever he was fighting now. How the hell did it get in? she wondered for the second time that night, just before she threw open the door to Peeta’s room, bow up, and did a quick sweep for her target…but only saw Peeta sprawled on the floor as if he’d just been dropped. Her forehead creased into a frown and she backed up and to the side a few paces so that she was standing between her friend and the majority of the room (and hopefully whatever had attacked him) still scanning the shadows.

“Peeta?” she asked cautiously, flicking a quick gaze down towards him before returning to her scan of the room, “What is it? What’s here? Or was it a night-“ she cut off as she looked over at him again, her eyes widening when she saw the purpling bruise on his jaw. Not a nightmare then. But what…

Her father had walked into the room behind her and he was standing in the doorway now, looking down at Peeta. “Mellark’s youngest,” he said quietly, then looked up, into the empty space where Katniss was pointing her bow, and set his jaw. “Katniss,” he said quietly, “we should leave.” Katniss, however, merely shot him a look of shocked disbelief, sure she’d heard him wrong, and shook her head vehemently, hands still tight on her bow.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-16 05:57 am UTC (link)

He did have to give Katniss credit; she had the reflexes of a cat and she was quick. If she wasn't the reason he was dead; the reason he had died a pathetic death, she might have even been that much more attractive for it. When she burst into Peeta's room, Cato's smile grew. It fell away in an instant, seeing the man beside her and his eyes narrowed. "Oh, please stay," he replied in a voice thick with sarcasm-laced saccharine. He looked back over at Katniss. "God, look at you, you can't even be in a house without that stupid bow. Are all of you in District 12 so uncivilized? Is that why you got your eleven? They pitied you?"

"You can't see?" Peeta gasped, gesturing wildly at Cato. "You can't hear him?" His face was etched with disbelief. How could she not? The other tribute was only a few feet away and he wasn't exactly trying to keep quiet. Katniss looked away from Peeta with a look that mirrored his own and shook her head. "Katniss...?"

Cato, looked back and forth between them. His sick sort of glee faded again. "She can't see me? Fine," he said, moving across the room and picking up a book. "Post-traumatic stress disorder? Oh, Loverboy, that doesn't even scratch the surface, I bet," he said, rolling his eyes and chucking the book against the wall a few inches away from Katniss's head. "Over here, Girl on Fire," he called, holding his arms out to either side, opening himself up to her. "I'm right here. You wanna shoot me again? Or is it going to take you hours to make a decision again? I have all night."

"Stop," Peeta snapped at him and flinched back when Cato looked back over at him. "She obviously can't. She'd have reacted by now, don't you think?"

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tindernest
2012-09-16 03:42 pm UTC (link)

Katniss looked around frantically, the aim of her bow following the direction of the half-panicked, half-simply confused looks Peeta was sending towards a spot across the room. “What…who am I supposed to be seeing?” she asked, her voice taut as her bowstring, unnerved by this invisible enemy that she couldn’t take proper aim at. Her father walked further into the room and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking almost sad as he glanced down at Peeta. “He has his own ghost Katniss,” he said reluctantly, clearly not eager to discuss it. “I can’t interfere in that, I’m here for you and for Prim.” Katniss’s shoulders dropped slightly and she couldn’t stop the crestfallen expression that took hold of her features for the briefest of moments. Of course he’s a ghost. Just a ghost. He said he couldn’t stay, it was stupid to hope that he’d come through the seal and…

“You can’t see him either, can you?” she asked Peeta, voice almost a whisper as she jerked her head towards where her father was standing. Mr. Everdeen shook his head, but Katniss looked back towards Peeta for confirmation, hoping despite all the evidence to the contrary, the way he talked about being in two places at once, the way he’d just suddenly appeared where she was, that he was just mistaken, confused from popping up in Lawrence. “It’s my dad,” she said quietly, “he’s right by the door, he says he’s with Prim too.” Mr. Everdeen took a few more steps into the room and looked like he was inspecting Peeta more closely now, “I remember him smaller than you were at that age, standing on a stool to see over the bakery counter,” he muttered almost to himself, “and now he’s on television with you telling the entire country he got you—“ “Dad,” Katniss hissed, reddening, a rare blush that spread right up to her hairline. “He didn’t…he had to say…”

A book, one of the titles Dr. Moore had given to Peeta during his therapy, distracted her from that particular scene by lifting suddenly off the shelf. Katniss widened her eyes slightly, swinging her bow back so that it hung over her shoulder and depositing her arrow back into the quiver at her back in one fluid motion. If this were a ghost, and it certainly seemed to be, her arrows wouldn’t help, she had her regular hunting arrows rather than the iron-tipped ones with her at the moment. A second later she was glad she’d freed up her hands as the book came flying towards her. She ducked down and away, hearing it smack the wall inches from where her head had been a moment before, and crouched next to Peeta, body half in front of his, as he snapped at their invisible assailant.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-16 04:10 pm UTC (link)

Katniss couldn't seem to locate Cato and it was sinking in that much faster that Cato wasn't real. Except, Peeta thought as he raised his hand to his face again without even noticing he'd done so, Cato had felt real. When Katniss asked who it was she was supposed to be seeing, at first, Peeta didn't want to say. She would panic, he worried, and things had finally started to settle since Oliver had gone. Not entirely, but some. Instead, he let his focus pull to her asking whether he could see someone with her. Peeta's brow crinkled in confusion.

"Oh...isn't that awful? She brings around the parents and you can't even meet them properly," Cato laughed.

"Shut up!" Peeta shouted at him, setting his jaw. He paused before looking back at Katniss and scanning the empty space to either side of her. An apologetic look slid onto his face as he shook his head. There was nothing there. "No..." he admitted. "I can't."

"To be fair," Cato point out, "he's still pretty small." He didn't quite understand the rest and so he left it, smirking at the way Katniss reacted. Well, this was certainly going to be entertaining.

Katniss's face went red and Peeta watched her with confused interest. What had her ghost said? ...about him, it seemed. "What?" he asked her, eyebrows lifted.

Almost before she would have had time to respond, she was ducking the book Cato had thrown to get her attention and Peeta sat up all the way. "You better go," he hissed at Katniss as Cato moved toward them. "Go." He got to his feet then and stood to block Katniss from Cato's view. Looking back at the other tribute, he stood up taller, puffing his chest out slightly in an attempt to make himself look larger than he was. "She can't see you, that's not a fair fight," he pointed out. "You're not even here for her; leave her alone."

Cato dropped his arms to his sides and moved even closer, until he was inches from Peeta, leaning down so that they were eye to eye. "Or what, Loverboy?" he asked and moved a hand up between them, closing a fist around the collar of Peeta's shirt. "You'll cry?" he taunted and tossed Peeta aside with little effort, setting his sights on Katniss. Peeta shivered as a burst of cold air washed over him and was gone just as quickly as it had registered. He hit the wall sideways with a thud and dropped to the ground, crumpled in a heap. "Cato, stop!" he barked, scrambling back up to his feet.

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tindernest
2012-09-16 06:41 pm UTC (link)

Katniss closed her eyes briefly when Peeta confirmed that he couldn’t see her father. Even though it was stupid, would have made even less sense than the usual events in apocalyptic-Lawrence, for a few moments she’d let herself hope that her father was here to stay. Well he’s not, so just get over it and pull yourself together. Whoever Peeta’s seeing isn’t friendly, they’ve already hurt him once, and if you look weak… as if on cue Peeta was snapping at his ghost again and Katniss tensed, turning back out towards the room, even if she knew she wouldn’t see anything. Except then he was asking for clarification on what her father had just said, and Katniss couldn’t quite make herself make eye contact. “My dad uh,” she said quietly, “well, he…wishes you’d picked a different thing to say during the second interview. For the Quell, with the…yeah.” She muttered, awkward to the point of sullenness, refusing to look at either her father or Peeta. This is ridiculous, I’m seventeen, and I was fine with him saying that, it worked, she thought, but before she could say any of that to her father things had erupted again as Peeta pushed himself to his feet and made his stand in front of her.

“Peeta,” she snapped, pushing herself to her feet as well and reaching for him, laying a palm on his upper arm in a gesture meant to both calm him and hold him back, “I’m not going anywhere if your ghost is going to-“ and then Peeta was airborne, hovering for a moment and then flying backwards, through her father which was incredibly eerie, until he hit a wall and crumpled. She started towards him but her father was behind her suddenly, pulling her backwards gently and shaking his head, “The boy’s right,” he said firmly, “this isn’t your fight Katniss, he isn’t here for you.” Katniss shook her head, trying to pull away. She knew her father was trying to protect her, didn’t want her near any kind of fight, just the way he’d picked her up and practically thrown her behind Greasy Sae’s stall when she’d been a little girl and a fistfight had broken out in the Hob over a trade when he’d taken her there with him one morning. This time, however, she wasn’t a child, and she had her own loyalties in this fight.

“Dad, you don’t understand, I have to-“

"Cato, stop!"

Katniss froze, eyes widening and breath hitching in her chest as, just for a moment, she was on top of the Cornucopia, clutching Peeta, trying to keep him from bleeding out as Cato screamed and writhed under a pack of mutts. Pity and fear and rage (she didn’t know how to think of him, this person who had tried to kill Peeta, who even the other Careers had feared for his coldness and cruelty, who had died screaming and had been only seventeen) rose up in her throat like bile and she clenched her fists, eyes darting around the room for a weapon. Her eyes landed on an iron poker next to the fireplace which looked decorative, but had probably been placed there tactically by Cindy. She feinted forward and then dove for it instead, fingers curling around the iron and yanking it upwards to swing out in a semi-circle around her.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-16 07:41 pm UTC (link)

Katniss's response was...less than desirable. Peeta's own face colored with embarrassment. He'd said what he had said in the hopes that it would have exempt her, somehow, from the Quarter Quell; as if the audience in the Capitol, who would undoubtedly be heartbroken at the idea of the unborn child of the star-crossed lovers of District 12 being caught in the crossfire of another Games, would have some sort of a say in whether Katniss had to enter the arena or not. It hadn't worked to his liking, but it had gotten them the sponsorship they'd needed when they'd needed it most, so in the end, it had been worth it. "I'm sorry. I had to try," he replied hastily, "to keep you — her — safe," he finished switching pronouns when he realized he was meant to be apologizing to the invisible Mr. Everdeen rather than Katniss herself.

Cato rolled his eyes. "Is all of District 12 blind to the whole point of the Hunger Games, Loverboy, or is it just you? I know how you both got out of our Games...but you can't really have thought you could do it twice," he said, knitting his brow with disgust. "I knew you were stupid when you pretended to align with us but...well, this is just impressive," he added with sarcasm. He turned to look back at Katniss just in time to duck out of the way of her swinging a fire poker at him. "Whoa, easy, Girl on Fire. You'll put someone's eye out," he laughed. Then, shaking his head, he smirked. "You can't even see me. You think you can hurt me? I'm not even alive," he pointed out and then, he lunged at her, making his move strategically so as to miss being swatted, just in case.

"No, don't!" Peeta yelped, but it was too late and Cato was upon her. Only...Cato hit the floor silently and quickly got to his feet, eyes wild with rage. He'd gone right through her. "What?!" he growled. Peeta let out a huff of relief. "Katniss," he said quietly, beckoning her toward him, his eyes on Cato as he towered behind Katniss, clenching his fists. "He can't hurt you," he whispered.

"Oh, yes I can, Loverboy!" Cato insisted, whirling in place and picking up the lamp from the small table beside Peeta's bed. He turned back toward Katniss and raised his arm to bring it down over her head. "Katniss, move!" Peeta shouted.

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tindernest
2012-09-16 11:29 pm UTC (link)

For a moment everything was chaos, her father saying her name sharply, Peeta crying out almost in unison, the despairing cry of someone who knew he was calling a warning too late, and she was swinging the poker, but she couldn’t see Cato, she could only strike out blindly and then there was cold so sharp she couldn’t help but shudder, a full body movement, so that she couldn’t even brace herself for…nothing? Katniss lowered the poker slightly and looked around cautiously as she heard her father sigh in relief and saw Peeta huffing out a breath of relief, reaching his hand out to gesture for her while keeping his gaze trained on something behind and slightly above her. Cato, she realized, Cato must be standing right behind me, and for a moment her face blanched pale and frightened, even if pretending a strength she didn’t feel had become ingrained in her after two Hunger Games and all that had come in-between them. Katniss was a hunter and she relied on her senses, on sound and scent and most of all sight, and Cato (who had scared her more than she would ever admit while he was alive) had suddenly become immune to all of them.

She was gathering herself to move when Peeta cried out again and she ducked and whirled around in one movement, fluid and fast, but not fast enough. She’d trapped herself in a corner when she’d dashed for the poker, and while she could duck down, there was nowhere for her to go except forwards, directly towards the lamp. Cato could either bring it straight down on her head or hit her in the face with it as she tried to run past, and the crouch she’d dropped into at Peeta’s shout meant she couldn’t get a good range of movement with the poker. All she could do was try to bring her arms up in time to protect her face, to hope wildly that she wouldn’t be knocked unconscious, because if that happened Peeta would jump into the fray without her being able to stop him, and while he could probably have out-wrestled Cato when the other boy had been alive, death seemed to have imbued him with strength beyond anything Peeta could take on alone.

Then, in the time it took her to blink, her father was in front of her, across the room so quickly he must have used some kind of power, and he’d caught the lamp.

“She isn’t yours,” Mr. Everdeen said, his voice measured, stern and confident rather than angry and then, seemingly unable to stand communicating with the other ghost, he turned back to Katniss, throwing the lamp to the side so that it shattered against the opposite wall, away from both living teenagers. “He can’t hurt you,” he repeated Peeta’s words, and Katniss nodded, getting to her feet and glaring in what she assumed was Cato’s general direction before quickly scooping up the iron poker and moving to Peeta’s side, pressing it into his hands and giving his arm what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze before backing up a step, behind his shoulder and out of the line of fire.

“My dad won’t let anything he decides to throw around hit me,” she said quietly, voice hard, bitter with the knowledge that she wasn’t going to be able to do much to protect her friend, that trying might just endanger him if he thought she was going to be attacked. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She and Peeta had been allies so long now that taking on a threat independently seemed actually unnatural. And I can help him if Cato tries to grab him or hurt him physically. I could be sure where he was then, she thought almost desperately.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-17 02:48 am UTC (link)

Peeta flinched as Cato brought down the lamp and his breath hitched with surprise when it stopped in mid-air only to change course and crash into the far wall, shattering into tiny shards that glittered the hardwood floor in a jarring sort of way. Peeta's eyes shifted back to Cato who, to his credit, looked surprisingly calm even if there was an all too familiar glint of anger in his eye.

"Yeah? Well I wasn't hers, either," Cato countered, setting his jaw. "Clove wasn't hers. Glimmer wasn't hers, but that didn't stop her having a hand in all of it, old man," he responded.

Peeta held one arm out as if to block Katniss changing her mind about standing behind him. He was surprised by her movement, but in a good way. It was very uncharacteristic of her, really, to be hiding behind him that way, but at least for the time being, she was willing to set that aside in favor of logic; she couldn't see her attacker and he could. It only made sense. With his other hand, he gripped the iron poker tightly, holding it up diagonally in front of the both of them. He thought, for the time being, keeping quiet was a better move than saying anything back to Katniss or to Cato.

"Get out," Cato said, narrowing his eyes at nothing — presumably, in actuality, Mr. Everdeen. "Take her and get out or I'll throw everything in this room until I don't miss."

"Katniss, you have to go," Peeta whispered, turning his head just enough so that the sound would carry back to her but little enough that he hoped Cato wouldn't notice his movement. "He says he won't stop until you go."

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tindernest
2012-09-17 03:55 am UTC (link)

Katniss stood behind Peeta, tense as a bowstring drawn back, and waited. Peeta was tracking something, some conversation or movement from the ghosts, but she didn’t know what Cato was saying, only that it made her father’s eyes harden, made Peeta raise the poker in front of them both in a defensive gesture.

“I seem to remember you came after my daughter, not the other way around,” Mr. Everdeen snapped. “Chased her up a tree and waited at the bottom for her to make a move.” Katniss flinched visibly, realizing what they must be talking about, the first Games, Glimmer’s beautiful face swelling and her limbs contorting with pain and the way she’d screamed… Katniss curled her fingers gently into the back of Peeta’s t-shirt, not gripping so tightly that she would have restricted his movement if he had needed to duck or feint quickly, but tethering them together all the same. The helplessness of standing like this, tucked away behind Peeta like a child while ghosts discussed the merits of her kills, like someone he needed to protect, someone powerless to protect him made her skin itch like it was trying to slither right off her body, like she was so angry that she could just ignite from the inside out. But I am useless, she thought, gritting her teeth and taking a deep breath as whatever Cato must have said next made her father nod sharply.

“We’re going,” Mr. Everdeen said, and Katniss scowled, “No we’re not,” she argued, almost in unison with Peeta directing a quiet comment back towards her, “He says he won't stop until you go." Her hand curled tighter into his shirt and she hissed out a breath, plainly wracking her brain for any reason that this was not the best plan, any reason she should stay besides the fact that leaving him now ran counter to every instinct and feeling she had.

Then her father was behind her, his arm looped around her waist, and she cried out in surprise and anger and in fear at the yawning mouth of the hallway and the waiting without really knowing that she already knew came next as her father yanked her firmly backwards and she lost her grip on Peeta, stumbling towards the door to keep from being lifted off her feet. “No,” she half-growled, flinging out a hand towards Peeta, but knowing that he wouldn’t take it even as she reached for him. Her father’s arms around her were gentle but strong, too strong for her to pull away, and a moment later they’d crossed the room and were at the door and she had time for one more glare in what she hoped was Cato’s direction, a silent promise that if anything happened to her friend she would make him suffer, dead and invisible or not, before she was through the door and it had slammed shut, cutting off her last line of sight with Peeta.

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peetanotpita
2012-09-17 05:51 pm UTC (link)

Cato made a face of disinterest. "Do you also seem to remember that waiting her out was Loverboy's idea?" he asked, amused. He looked over at Peeta and narrowed his eyes, then. "I should've gone up and killed her when I had the chance instead of listening to you," he snapped. Peeta decided it wasn't the time to point out that Cato had attempted to scale the tree unsuccessfully. Instead he crowded himself in front of Katniss that much more, holding the poker out at Cato threateningly. At that, Cato raised his hands in front of himself in a mocking form of defense. "Relax, Loverboy, if I wanted to hurt her again right now, I'd just do it."

Somehow, Peeta doubted the validity of that statement, but he nodded just slightly. Katniss's reaction came out of nowhere, although he supposed her father must have said something in response to Cato because the larger tribute gave a terse smile and his eyes settled on Katniss again; what little of her he could still see behind Peeta, that was. "Katniss, go," he said softly, feeling her hand tighten around his shirt, pulling the fabric a bit more taut. "I'm okay. I'll get some salt once you're back in your room," he assured her. Leaving the room to head to the kitchen, of all places, while Katniss was still in sight wouldn't be wise and Peeta knew it.

He felt he pull away sharply from him and held the poker up higher, making sure it blocked Cato from him entirely as he chanced a look over his shoulder. Katniss was clearly being dragged away by some unseen force and it broke his heart to look away again when she held a hand out to him, reaching for him. If the tables were turned, his reaction would be the same; Peeta knew she was going to be hurt, but worse, she was going to be angry, because that was an emotion Katniss was more comfortable with, he'd observed.

Looking back at Cato, Peeta frowned. "Let me shut it," he said.

Cato gave a disinterested sweep of his arm. "Be my guest," the other tribute responded.

With that, Peeta looked back at Katniss one more time. I'm sorry, his lips spoke with no sound at her and then he pulled the door shut roughly.

"I'm excited. Aren't you excited? This is going to be a great time, Loverboy," Cato was saying with more sarcasm than Peeta could stand, and the wicked grin in tandem with other tributes' blood on his clothes made Peeta's stomach turn. As soon as he heard Katiss's bedroom door shut, Peeta took a deep breath. Here went nothing...he sure hoped Cindy and Oliver had seen the result of iron for themselves and that this wasn't just hoping what he'd learned was true. Peeta lunged forward and swiped at Cato with the poker. With a growl of anger and surprise, Cato disappeared for the time being.

Peeta let out a huff of relief and yanked his bedroom door open. He'd make a beeline to the kitchen, grab the extra container of salt he'd found the other day while cooking, in Cindy's pantry, and lock himself in the bedroom until this thing blew over. That was the safest bet for everyone, himself included, he thought. There was no getting away from Cato, it looked like, but he could cower in a salt circle while keeping Cindy, Katniss, and Prim safe, at least. It wasn't ideal, but...it would do. It would have to.

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