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When Katniss is woken, she’s annoyed at first. It was a rare, dreamless sleep and she relished in the dark nothingness, but the jerky movements beside her pulled her up and out of restfulness. She blinks hard to get her bearings in the dark, the moon still perched high in the sky, the stars winking at her through the open window. She sits up, wonders why she is awake in the first place before she hears a muffled cry next to her.
Peeta.
He is clutching the thin blanket tight in his fist and he digs his head roughly into the pillow, twitching. It's been a few nights since his nightmares were bad enough to wake her up, and she gently lowers herself down closer to him, and softly pets his hair away from his forehead. Her touch usually soothes him, and when that doesn’t work, her voice. His grip doesn’t get any looser and she comes in a bit closer and hums to him. No song in particular, just another aimless tune she’s either heard in passing or made up in that moment. The low thrum lilting up and down as she waits for him.
She usually doesn’t have to use her words, but tonight his dreams don’t let him go easy. There is a thin sheen of sweat on his pallid skin and she sings to him softly. A lullaby from when she was younger, something distant and safe and comforting. As she pets his hair and sings quietly, he still doesn’t wake and curls in on himself further. She stops, worried, and slowly moves her hand to rest on his shoulder. She is reluctant to wake him from his nightmare completely, not having done so since the Quarter Quell train, but as his breathing quickens and his knuckles turn white she doubts she has another option.
Her fingers press into his arm in a light squeeze, hoping she doesn’t need to use any more force than that. But nothing.
“Peeta,” she whispers. Nothing.
She squeezes his arm again and whispers another, louder, “Peeta,” and in flash she feels a clammy palm against her throat as his fingers dig . She is knocked back and barely registers the pain in the back of her skull as she meets his frantic eyes.
They look straight through her and she is frozen, back in the white, sterile room in 13. Hundreds of feet underground and the walls close in, tighter, tighter. His eyes had hated her then, and his eyes fail to recognize her now. Unblinking. Afraid. Dangerous. His breath comes quick and shallow behind bared teeth and his wide eyes glisten with unshed tears and her vision swims. He’s still in his nightmare, still in danger, and he wants to kill her. He’s going to kill her.
It’s all she can do to clutch at his forearm and choke out another pleading, “Peeta.”
In a second, he comes to himself, blinking once before releasing her and throwing himself back and away from her.
Coughs wrack through her body as she struggles to gulp the air back into her lungs. She tips to the side as she lets her breathing slow, staring at Peeta’s bare, shivering body. His face is horrified but he physically restrains himself from coming any closer.
“Katniss. Katniss. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His breathing is rapid still, but for a different reason. He sits perched forward, gripping the sheets under him roughly, eyes boring into the mattress.
Once she’s regained her breath, she goes to sit up and her neck is stiff with pain. It’s not as blindingly painful as the first time, but she knows she will bruise. She gingerly traces her finger along a tender spot and takes a sharp, staccato breath in through her nose and her head pounds.
“It’s-” her voice is rough and it hurts to speak, so she swallows thickly and tries again. “I’m ok.”
“No. I’m so sorry. I’m s-” he cuts himself off and scrubs a hand hard over his face when the tears come suddenly. He’s always been silent in the rare moments he’s cried in front of her, and now is no exception. His shoulders shake and he snivels weakly before wiping his face with his palms and grabbing at his pants.
She reaches forward to him, and he jerks away. “Peeta. I’m ok. You didn’t mean to.” She really shouldn’t be trying to speak now, but she hates to see him like this. Maybe she should let him stay away from her. She’s supposed to help him. He said she was the only thing that did. This should come easier (she’s all too aware of how comfort and tenderness with anyone other than her sister has never come easy for her once in her life).
He’s shaking his head at her and refuses to meet her eye as she crawls closer to him until he drives himself nearly off the bed. When she thinks he’s going to stand up from her completely, she reaches out and clutches his hand hard until it slowly releases the sheets. It shakes violently in her grasp.
“Peeta. Please.” Katniss waits for him to look at her, but his gaze remains glued to the blanket. She’s never been the most patient, and she shuffles closer to him. His palm turns slightly to hold her own better and his other hand lets go, returning to his lap. She comes closer, and settles herself right against him, until she can wrap her legs loosely around his waist while still being seated on the bed. She presses her forehead on his shoulder and waits for his breathing to fully even.
“Katniss,” is all he can manage before the sniffling returns. She presses kisses onto his bare skin and reaches for his free hand, settling it against her calf.
“It’s ok. You’re ok.” She stares down at their laps. The pain in her head has reduced to a dull throb. He didn’t mean to. But, for a moment, she could see in his eyes that he was back in that horrible, empty room too. And when he saw her, he didn’t see Katniss, but a monster. A silver parachute sent to destroy him and everything in her path.
She’s not sure how much time passes, but eventually his hands brush the downy hair on her leg and his breathing has returned to normal, fuller breaths.
“We’re in 12, in the Village, and it's… August. Real or not real?” he asks.
“Real.” she says. She feels him nod. More minutes pass.
She lifts her head to look at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He swiftly shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut, “The same thing. The labs.”
She simply nods and holds him closer and tries not to remember what he had told her before of one of his worse nightmares. When he was in the Capitol, drugged and helpless and from the other side of the wall he would be forced to listen to Johanna's agonizing screams as they shocked her naked, soaked body. Days, he had said. It would last for days.
Once more he whispers, “I’m sorry,” and Katniss tilts his face towards hers and places a chaste kiss on his lips, his chin, his shoulder.
“Let’s go to sleep.”
He looks at her then, her throat to be precise. His eyes are crestfallen and they slowly make their way over to the spot above her pillow, where a small crater sits indented into the wall, mocking. The throb has faded substantially. He withdraws from her, shaking his head.
“I can’t. I can’t. Katniss, I-.”
She holds his chin to look her fully in the eyes and she tries to channel her mother in the authority of her voice, before she was left vacant and widowed.
“Sleep, Peeta. Please.” Finally, he nods dully before they make their way back up to the pillows, and she makes a point to rest her head on his chest so it doesn’t need to touch her pillow.
She knows he doesn’t sleep for a while, but she listens to his heartbeat as her eyes slip shut.