Archive of Our Own

Peeta is sick again.

She doesn’t want to worry, but Katniss can’t help the stress that is scratching at her veins as she stares at the empty desk next to her.

Their friends have been relentless in their teasing, chuckling at her for the anxiety that she can’t seem to hide within the compulsive shaking of her leg and the distant, far off look on her face.

"It’s probably just a cold," they say with a roll of their eyes, exchanging amused, condescending looks at lunch. "It’s not like he’s dying.”

Well, maybe not.

But Peeta is never sick.

Not in all the time she has known him, and that is a long while. She remembers the little blond boy moving in next door, how he spied her in her window as if he just knew she was there, waving at her to come down andplay. She had been sick that day, stricken with a nasty cold that she had spread to her entire family, including a tiny Prim, but Peeta had never picked it up despite spending almost every waking hour with her the following week after they had met.

She has had the flu twice this past year alone, really brutal strains that had confined her to her bedroom, but it hadn’t stopped Peeta from cuddling with her while they watched Tuesday night comedy programming together. He never so much as sneezed afterwards.

The bell rings and breaks her out of her musings. She packs up her bag, sending one last glance at the empty desk next to her before exiting the classroom.  

"How’s your brother?" Katniss calls out into the hallway, spotting a familiar blond head in the distance. She walks quickly to reach his side.

"Oh, that fucker is fine," Rye says with a shrug, but his smile is off. "He’s just got some kind of bad sinus infection or something. I think the little prince is milking it.”

“Really.” Katniss looks doubtful, biting her lip. “It didn’t seem like that to me. He looked so-”

“He’s fine.”

"Did he break his hands, too?” she blurts out, pulling on her braid.

“Huh?”

She frowns up at him.  ”He’s not texting me,” she admits, the words tumbling forth uneasily.

A slow smirk spreads across his face. "Aww, did you guys have a lover’s quarrel?"

"N-no," she sputters, her face bright red. "Jesus, Rye."

"Yeah, yeah." He waves her off, giving her a knowing look. "Just friends, I’ve heard it all before. Your inability to go a day without one another says differently, though."  She huffs, but doesn’t deny his words, too preoccupied with the anxiety crashing over her in waves.

“Yeah well, on that note—I’ll be bringing by his homework tonight,” says Katniss, scowling as one Rye’s rowdy friends bumps into her by accident.

If she had blinked, she would have missed the subtle shift in Rye’s expression, a wavering mirage that is soon replaced by his typical easygoing, if not mocking, smile. “Why don’t you just give it to me after school?” he suggests, waving a hand in greeting to a fellow baseball player. “That way you won’t get sick,” he adds, his voice almost deliberate in its bored distraction.

“Focus, Rye,” she snaps. He looks back at her raised eyebrows. “I’m coming over. Peeta can’t avoid me forever.”

“Damn, Katniss. Maybe doesn’t want to see you. Didya think about that?” His voice, sharp as a razor’s edge, quickly melts back into his usual brand of innocuous snark. “Kidding.” He flashes his teeth at her. “Like loverboy doesn’t want to see precious little Kat Everdeen. Come over and get sick if you want.”

He turns around then, whistling as he slaps hands with a couple of people as he goes.

She gapes after him. What the hell was that?

“Hey,” she pokes Peeta in the side gently, causing him to lift his head from the pillow that it's resting on.

“Hey,” he grins at her.

"It’s okay that I came over tonight, right?"

A strange look passes over his face. “Of course. Since when do you even have to ask?”

"Since this mysterious illness that you’ve come down with out of…um. The blue."  

"You mean since you kissed me," he corrects her lazily.

"Um! You kissed me.”

He smiles. “So you admit it happened, then.”

"Well, yeah," she flushes. "But it’s not like I’ve been denying it. I just haven’t really gotten to talk to you much since then."

He sobers. “I’ve just got some kind of shitty bug, Katniss. It’s not as if it’s your fault. How could it be?” He gives her a side-angled look. “It was just bad timing.”

She studies him closely, taking in his pale skin and pink cheeks, analyzing the very faint smudges under his eyes.

“You look better,” she finally concludes.

“Thanks?” he replies with a funny inflection at the end, laughing a little.

“Well, you really looked like shit the other day,” she says with a shrug, eyeing him. She shifts uncomfortably, scooting up against the headboard.

“I don’t know. I felt pretty good for awhile there,” he says casually, his fingers creeping over to hers and wrapping around them.

Neither of them bring up the kiss again.

She clears her throat, but doesn’t pull her hand away. “So, what’s the deal? You going to go to the doctor soon?”

“Nah.” Peeta shakes his head, averting eye contact. “It’ll go away. My dad said he’s had a similar virus before. Whatever it is just comes in waves.”

“Hmmm.”

“Awww. You worried about me?” he teases, batting his eyelashes at her, these ridiculously long golden things.

“Maybe,” she says with a frown. “Or maybe I’m just worried you’re contagious. Your mom acted like she wasn’t going to let me in. Your dad intervened, per usual.”

"You’re surprised?" he asks dryly. "But yeah, no. I think it’s okay. No one else in the house got sick." He looks at her guiltily. "I probably should have thought about that. I selfishly just wanted you around."

Katniss is quiet a moment, the steady stroking of his thumb on hers almost lulling her to sleep. “Why didn’t you text me back today?”

“I was sleeping most of the time,” he responds apologetically. “I didn’t really start feeling better until tonight. It’s, uh, worse in the day.”

“Weird,” is all she says.

He’s back the next day.

All is normal. They smile and laugh and their friends revel in telling Peeta how miserable Katniss is without him, describing her mopiness in great detail.

He gives her an unreadable look. He slides a hand onto her knee under the table, and when she squeezes his thigh in return, he shudders.

Peeta’s sick again.

He doesn’t answer his texts. She knows why—it still doesn’t make her feel any better. She’s got a bad feeling settling in the pit of her stomach, like when it’s raining cats and dogs out and she has to drive through the storm anyway.

She catches Rye’s eye in the hall, and he shrugs, a resigned look on his face.

“See you tonight,” he says as walks by, not even having to ask.

His mother frowns at her, but let’s her pass through the front door without argument. Katniss runs up the stairs and doesn’t know what she expects to see, but it’s not her best friend sitting up in bed, sketching what looks suspiciously like her braid.

“This is getting old,” Katniss says archly, kicking off her shoes and sliding under the covers with him. “Get better. I need you at school.” She lays her head on his shoulder. “You’re abandoning me.”

He kisses her hair absently, focusing his attention on his sketch before dropping the pencil onto the comforter. “Never,” he reassures her.  

They sit on Peeta’s bed and watch old reruns on the Food Network, Peeta critiquing the chef’s every move in a hysterically snobby tone of voice that is eerily reminiscent of his mother.

“You’re way too good at that,” she chuckles, her head on his shoulder. She feels like she can’t get close enough. Soon they will have to talk about what lies between them, but right now her best friend is sick and she just wants him to feel better, just wants him okay. Everything else is irrelevant.

“Yeah well, I hail from a long line of assholes,” he deadpans. She’s still laughing, her eyes clenched tightly shut, when she feels softly warm lips on hers, Peeta’s cool hands cupping her burning cheeks.

Oh.

It feels so right, this unspoken continuation from a few nights before, like it’s been a long time coming. It’s as if her lips are stars and Peeta is a satellite; she craves more more more but can’t find purchase, and her mouth parts instinctually for a deeper kiss, his tongue lapping eagerly at hers in response.

It’s cold in the room but Peeta’s body heat suddenly becomes stifling, smothering, and she is drawn to it, her leg swinging over his so she can straddle him. She wants to burn.

She rocks against him, and his hands have found their way to her hips, tightening into a punishing grip. It would have been painful if not for the distraction of a sudden, shooting pinch she feels in her bottom lip, the taste of copper trickling into her mouth.

He bit her!

She jerks back, but he cups her head and holds her to him even tighter, and their lips mash together again and again. Hard, then gentle, but then rougher still, and she soon forgets about the little hurt in her lip as he suddenly pushes up with his elbows and rolls her onto her back.

He hovers above her, his blue eyes like fathomless wells, ocean pools with fat black pupils as he kisses her again and again, sloppy and deep and consuming.

“Peeta,” she says breathlessly between beautiful assaults, her words stuttering out in jagged, panting gasps. “This is so weird, isn’t it? I mean, you’re sick, should you be…?”

He grunts in response, his hands running up her sides as his lips move to her pulse point at her throat, and she gasps in shock when he sucks hard, scraping his teeth lightly against the sensitive flesh.

This is so fast. So fast, Katniss thinks, her body a traitor as her eyes roll back in her head. She pulls on his hair as he nips at her neck, his mouth insistent. Kissing shouldn’t feel this good, this euphoric, but the feeling passes over her in waves as he presses down onto her. There’s something sharp at her throat, but his hand creeping up her jean skirt is distracting, distracting, distracting, his fingers suddenly there taking the edge off of the rough pulling and tugging of his mouth on her skin, the calloused pad of his thumb rubbing her clit through the cotton material of her panties.

It’s only when she feels something hard and heavy, a sign of his urgency bearing down on her upper thigh, that she finally sits up to push him away. Katniss blinks as he rolls backward with a super fast movement, practically a blur but that can’t be right, and he tucks into a ball with his back facing her.

“Peeta,” she says, panting hard. He shudders violently, silent.

“It’s- what just happened?” She tries to laugh, but it comes out as a shaky gasp instead, a weak thing stuck in her throat.  “What’s wrong?”

He’s still silent, and the room is mostly dark as an informercial has taken over the TV screen that is mounted onto the wall. How much time has passed?she thinks inanely, her eyes sliding toward the clock. She’s shocked to see it’s been hours.

Her eyes fly back to Peeta’s still form. “Why aren’t you talking to me?” she demands anxiously, sitting up onto her knees. She tugs down her skirt and inches over to him, peering over his shoulder. She blanches, because she could swear that it looks like he’s vibrating, he’s shaking that hard. She touches his shoulder and he stiffens, a pained raw noise escaping from deep within. She withdraws her hand quickly in fear, but she doesn’t know if it’s for him or herself.

"Peeta, I’m getting help-"

She shrieks as she’s suddenly flipped onto her back, Peeta’s face taut and wild as he presses all of his solid, considerable weight down onto her, her fingers futilely scrambling against his shoulders as he vibrates, he’s fuckingvibrating on top of her and his mouth looks so strange. His lips are trying to form words but his teeth are in the way-

The door flies open, and then Peeta is flung off of her.

“You should go home, Kat,” Rye says calmly, as if his brother isn’t writhing on the floor. “Peeta’s having a seizure.”

“What?” she exclaims in horror, swallowing violently. She stares at his shivering body and how Rye is kneeling on his back, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead with the effort of keeping Peeta down, even though Rye has at least twenty pounds and two inches of height on his younger brother. “No, it’s- it’s just a virus-”

She breaks off into a nonsensical stammer as Mr. Mellark walks into the room, his normally cheerful face solemn. Peeta is gurgling and foaming and holy fuck she’s scared.

Katniss is still stuttering as Mr. Mellark gently leads her down the stairs, out the front door and to the end of the driveway, watching her carefully as she numbly walks into the side door of her kitchen. She turns back once, but Mr. Mellark has already disappeared.

She thinks she hears a scream as she shuts the door, and Katniss hates herself when she runs to her room and throws herself onto the bed, crying because she locked the door behind her without even considering going back to check on Peeta.

Peeta is sick again.

She stares at the chair next to her and trembles, thinking of last night and Peeta’s heavy body on top of hers and how he just looked so sick. How he was vibrati-

“Peeta’s out?” Johanna asks with a raised eyebrow, sliding into the desk on the other side of Katniss.

“Yeah,” she mumbles out a response, her leg compulsively jiggling up and down. Up and down. She sees Johanna’s wide set brown eyes zero in on the movement before searching Katniss’ face suspiciously.

“Well, is he okay?” Delly Cartwright demands from behind her, her normally cheerful voice threaded with concern.

Johanna tries to exchange a knowing look with Katniss, but she’s staring blankly at the desk in front of her. The other girl’s eyebrows furrow when Katniss doesn’t take the bait. Delly Cartwright has been campaigning hard for years to be Peeta’s number one girl, starting in second grade when the boy with blond waves and a box full of cupcakes showed up and won the hearts of all of Panem Elementary School. Unfortunately, Delly lost equally hard to Katniss, who had never even tried to compete.

It’s a running joke in their group— Delly’s obsession with Peeta Mellark. How helpful she is, how quick she is to offer a pen or answers to a quiz that he doesn’t need or even a plate of tater tots that she just happened to buy by accident, but I know how much you like tater tots, Peeta!”

Delly also lives in their neighborhood, but her family is more on the level of the upper scale Mellarks, something she had tried to twist to her benefit before realizing that Peeta could care less about how many bathrooms the Cartwright house had, even though Katniss’ cozy little split level only had one.

Needless to say, there had been many a Saturday spent hiding from Delly Cartwright while growing up. She had a shocking lack of respect for doors, or privacy, or generally leaving Peeta Mellark to his own devices. Katniss vividly remembers giggling as they slid into his closet behind a pile of clothes, or climbed his tree house before swiftly pulling up the ladder behind them, Peeta hiding his smile guiltily when Delly would pass through looking for him.

“Well? Is he?” Delly repeats impatiently, leaning so far forward that her curtain of blonde hair falls over Katniss’ shoulder. It smells strongly of expensive shampoo, and the combination with her equally pricey and overly potent perfume is what snaps Katniss out of her daze, jasmine and roses invading her nostrils.

“He’s fine, I think,” she mutters, her eyes watering. Delly’s scent is ten times more powerful today, but Katniss isn’t sure if it’s the smell, or thinking about Peeta that is bringing tears to her eyes.

“Well, don’t you know?” Delly presses, her voice striped with a tone that implies that Katniss is the worst friend ever. “You gave him his homework last night, right? I mean, you are keeping him up to date aren’t you? He has one of the highest GPAs in the entire school, he can’t afford to fall behind.”

“She’s aware, Cartwright. Jesus fucking christ, stalker much?” Johanna rolls her eyes.  

The shadow of Mrs. Trinket, their homeroom teacher, falls over Katniss’ desk as she hands her two homework packets. Even the teachers know that Katniss and Peeta are inseparable.

“I can take him his homework if it’s too much trouble for you,” Delly volunteers eagerly, grabbing the worksheets from Mrs. Trinket’s hands, who looks over at Katniss in surprise before moving to the next row of students. “We have theseworksheets to fill out by tomorrow. He might need them.”

Johanna snatches the papers from Delly, widening her eyes mockingly at the other girl’s offended look.

“She’s got this, Delly,” Johanna says patronizingly, wordlessly handing the homework to Katniss.

“Let her,” Katniss says faintly, drumming her fingers on the desk mindlessly.

She thinks about his body pressing against hers, how he’s never been sick in his life, the seizures, the ignored text messages, that he doesn’t want to see her, and it’s all too much.

Why won’t he answer his goddamn messages?

“What?” Johanna ask somewhere in the background, Katniss’  thoughts drowning out classroom conversations. She vaguely registers Delly speaking triumphantly in return, but she ignores both girls and stares down at her phone instead, compulsively reading the string of increasingly desperate messages.

You okay?

Peeta…

Why aren’t you answering me?

I’m not mad at you.

Just let me know you’re okay, jesus christ.

And finally:

I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.

I meant it.

She almost drops her phone in shock. Her hands fumble to respond, but another text shoots through.

Stay away.

The bell rings. “I’ve got it,” Katniss says with finality, sliding the papers off Johanna’s desk and gathering up her things hastily. Delly sits back in her chair and sulks.

Katniss gives a hurried goodbye and flies out into the hallway without a backwards glance, approaching Rye’s locker with purpose. She waits for a moment and sees Rye’s girlfriend, whose locker is conveniently located next to his.

“Where’s…” she starts, but Cashmere interrupts her.

“He’s not here today,” the other girl practically snarls, violently slamming around the contents of her locker. “And when you do see that little shit, how about tell him: thanks for bailing on our oral presentation.” She scowls down at Katniss as if she’s to blame for all of the Mellarks’ flaws. “Since he’s too much of a lousy fuck to even answer his texts.”

Katniss looks down at her phone. Peeta doesn’t respond to her the rest of the school day.

She presses the doorbell impatiently, blinking in relief when it’s Peeta who opens the door.

“You look awful,” she says with blunt criticism, staring him up and down.

He smiles wanly, leaning against the doorframe for support. His blue eyes are even bluer today, almost glacial in contrast to his unnaturally pale skin. He looks clammy and exhausted.

She still wants to kiss him. It’s sick how much she wants to feel his lips on hers.

“Tell me how you really feel, Katniss,” Peeta jokes, but his tone falls flat.

“You really freaked me out yesterday,” she says honestly, straight to the point. “What happened? A seizure? What the hell?” She holds up her phone accusingly. “And then you texted me to stay away from you!”

He looks down and murmurs an unconvincing apology, shifting on his feet.

“Well, aren’t you going to let me in?” Katniss presses, looking past his shoulder into the hallway. “I can play nurse.” She tries to smile at him, to let him know that everything is okay— the kissing, the vibrating, but he just looks back at her, expressionless.

“You should, just…go home,” he says, a pained look finally creeping across his face.

“Excuse me?” She raises an eyebrow, her mouth opening in shock. Peeta has never told her to go home in her life. The rejection stings like a knife.  

“What if I’m contagious?” he asks half-heartedly, looking somewhere over her shoulder. He won’t even make eye contact with her. Fear and self-loathing wells inside of her.

“Your dad said you weren’t,” she protests, stunned. “You told me that. He said-”

“Yeah, well, my dad has said a lot of things,” he interrupts her with a mutter, his tone turning dark as his hand squeezes the doorknob reflexively. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere other than talking to her.

“Fuck that noise. I’ll live,” she says stubbornly, crossing her arms. “Peeta, I don’t care if I get sick. I just want to be around you.”

He looks at her a long moment, his eyes briefly flickering to her lips. His face hardens as he meets her eyes.

“Go home, Katniss.”

He shuts the door.

Peeta is sick.

Peeta is sick.

Peeta is sick and he won’t answer her texts. Rye isn’t in school again and it’s radio silence on both of their ends and she swears to god she is just going to storm over to their house this afternoon and-

Her phone vibrates. There he is.

Come over, Kat.

Damn right, she is.

She eats her dinner as quickly as possible, a sad little casserole her mother left in the refrigerator for her and Prim to heat up. Her sister had just wrinkled her nose at the food before leaving to eat at the Hawthorne’s, typical of her whenever their mother worked the night shift at the hospital.

That suits Katniss just fine, because she has plans to go over to the Mellarks and get answers about what the hell is going on with Peeta.

Katniss deposits her dirty dishes into the sink and washes her hands before heading over to his house, locking the door behind her as she leaves. She pauses a moment, surprising herself because she can’t remember the last time she has done that. Their neighborhood is a disgustingly safe and wholesome place.

You locked it the other night, a little voice says in the back of her head. She ignores it.

She zeroes in on Peeta’s second floor window as she approaches their house. It’s not quite dark out yet, but she can still see the flicker of the TV slightly, and it relaxes her in its normalcy. It’s a commonplace thing for Peeta to be watching TV in his room at this time of day, so how sick can he really be?

The front door opens before she can even knock.

“What do you want, Katniss?” Mrs. Mellark asks, her voice sharp and tired.

His mother had never loved Katniss—not like the rest of the Mellarks. As long as she could remember, the woman had just barely tolerated Katniss’ presence, but her proximity next door made it hard to avoid her.

Katniss was never sure if the older woman disliked her because of their house, the smallest, shabbiest in the neighborhood, a remnant from before the large, more modern homes had sprung up around it, or that Katniss was from a single parent family, or because her youngest son was inseparable from her. Either way, there had never been any love lost between the two of them, Katniss disliking her in equal measure.

“I came to bring Peeta his homework pack,” she says, holding it up in her hand like an offering.

Mrs. Mellark snatches it from her grasp and starts to shut the door,wordlessly rude.

Is she really going to slam the door in my face? Katniss thinks in disbelief.What the fuck is up with this family right now.

“Wait,” Katniss says, shoving her foot into the doorway as a buffer, ignoring the daggers being shot from Mrs. Mellark’s eyes. “How is Peeta? He asked me to come over.” She holds up her phone.

Mrs. Mellark’s eyes narrow. “He’s fine,” she starts, but is interrupted by a cheerful voice that sends a streak of relief down her spine.

“Katniss!” Peeta’s dad smiles from behind his wife, his large hand pushing the door open wider. “Here to see Peeta?”

“Katniss was actually just leaving,” Mrs. Mellark says coldly, giving her husband a pointed look.

Mr. Mellark wipes his mouth with a napkin, a bit of jam still stuck to his mustache, and Katniss can’t help smiling back at the baker despite the tense moment.

“Well, that doesn’t sound right,” he says mildly, looking down at his wife. Katniss cheers inwardly; Peeta’s dad has always been her greatest champion. “The boy is sick, and I think a visit from his best girl is just the ticket to make him feel better.”

“Bran, this is not-”

“Come on in,” Mr. Mellark interrupts his wife, ushering Katniss inside with a gentle squeeze to her shoulder. Mrs. Mellark clenches her fist and shuts the door with a beleaguered sigh, her back to Katniss as she reaches into her pocket and fumbles at the door for a moment. A lock clicks in place behind her, and the noise is startlingly loud in the unusually quiet house, Katniss used to music and the television and brotherly arguments between Rye and Peeta being shouted throughout the rooms.

Katniss feels an uncomfortable prickle, her skin raising in protest as she’s lead further into the hallway, and she’s disturbed, because she has been in this house more times than her own in the past decade of her life but right now she feels like an absolute stranger.

“Rye!” Mr. Mellark calls out. He appears at the top of the stairwell, looking harassed. “Would you let Peeta know Katniss is here?” he asks meaningfully.

“Hi, Kat,” Rye says, his expression clearing. “Peeta’s going to be thrilled to see you.” He disappears from sight again, leaving Katniss to stare up after him in confusion.

“How have you been lately?” Mr. Mellark asks suddenly, rocking back on his heels. Mrs. Mellark has fled the room, which is no surprise.

“Oh, fine,” Katniss says distantly. “Just doing homework and things,” she adds vaguely, her eyes sliding up the staircase. She looks again and again, as subtly as possible, but Mr. Mellark is watching her carefully. She quickly schools her features. “Watching after Prim.”

"Oh, is your mom on the night shift again?" he asks casually, his blue eyes so much like Peeta’s as he looks at her sympathetically.

"Ah, no. She’s just- out. Right now," she lies. Why is she lying to Mr. Mellark?

He nods thoughtfully. “I’m sorry for what happened the other night,” he says, looking regretful. “Peeta is just not himself right now.”

He ushers her over to two plush chairs in the hallway. It all feels so strangely formal. “Sit, sit!” he encourages her, pulling out a chair. “I’m sure he’ll be down in a moment.”

Katniss sits stiffly on the edge of the seat, making noncommittal sounds as he speaks to her about Peeta’s changing dietary needs, his exhaustion and dehydration, but she isn’t really listening, because there is a girl’s shoe peeking out at the top of the staircase, and jam in Mr. Mellark’s mustache that doesn’t really look like jam after all, and expensive perfume in the air that smells like jasmine and roses.

Jam. Roses. Shoe.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she smiles painfully, standing up and stepping backward. Her foot slides slightly, and she looks down at the dark red streak that her shoe leaves behind.  

She freezes. She slowly raises her head. Her eyes water.

“Okay, Katniss,” Mr. Mellark says gently.

“Really, maybe, I’ll just come back later,” she babbles in a reasonable tone. She hears a dog barking in the distance. “Peeta must be so tired, he’s busy,” she continues, backing away.

"You can’t go," he says, his voice maddeningly calm.

She stares at him, breathing heavily. A clock strikes the hour, and it chimes out one of those haunting tonal tunes that stays in your bones for minutes after. It’s one of those grandfather clocks, shaped like a big wooden box, like a casket— an imposing and creepy family heirloom that has a small chamber underneath, just big enough for Katniss and Peeta to squeeze into when they were smaller.

When they would hide from Delly.

"Really, I have to go," she says, her voice cracking at the end.

And then she turns and runs, her legs wobbling slightly as she slides from thejam, jam under her shoes, her hands flying out in front of her to balance because fuck she can’t fall, she just can’t. Her mind is curiously blank as she reaches the door, her fingers scrabbling for the lock, but there isn’t a lock anymore. There’s only a keyhole. Her fingers slide uselessly against it before she wheels around, Mr. Mellark staring at her in concern.

"Katniss," he starts, holding his hands up soothingly. He approaches her as if he would a wounded animal, like the hurt fox that had been hit by a car when she and Peeta were in the fifth grade. They had begged his dad to take it to the vet, but he had said some wild animals were better off being out of their misery, scooping it into a box and disappearing behind the house. More humane, he had said. "Calm down."

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and he moves so fast that he’s a blur as her phone is suddenly in shattered pieces on the floor. She stares down in shock.

He sighs as Katniss barrels past him and runs for the stairs.  

“Oh, for the love of…” she hears Mrs. Mellark emerge from the kitchen, a sneer in her voice. “Rye, stop her!” she calls upstairs after her.  

Peeta, Peeta, Peeta, she chants as her feet pound the steps. What if he’s dea-

She reaches the top of the stairs and trips hard, landing palms down. It’s that fucking shoe— but it isn’t just a shoe, because it’s attached to a foot, and a leg, and a really chipper blonde girl that smells like jasmine and roses and blood but her head is turned all wrong and her throat is just-

Katniss screams, and screams, and screams, trying to crawl away but her palms slip through the slickness of the floor.

“Kat,” Rye says, shaking his head as he drops to his knees beside her. “Shhh,” he scolds her, petting her cheek fondly. She flinches away from his touch and chokes on the noises stuck in her throat.

He gently winds her braid around his hand. “Time to take a nap, Kat.”

And then he slams her head into the hardwood floor.

Her head hurts.

That’s the first thing Katniss registers as she slowly swims her way back to the surface of consciousness. Her mouth is dry and stuffed with something soft and cotton, and her eyes are so heavy that she can’t bring herself to open them just yet.

“Peeta’s going to be so damn pissed,” comes Rye’s voice from somewhere in front of her, but it’s distorted.

A hand connects to skin with a sharp smack.”Ow. Jesus, mom.”

“Watch your mouth,” Mrs. Mellark gripes.

“It’s true though,” Rye says, more sullen now. “Did you hear him a few minutes ago? I think he’s aware of what’s going on…somewhere in there.”

“Peeta will understand.” Mr. Mellark’s voice is soft with reassurance. “Once he’s himself.”

His wife makes a harrumph in the back of her throat. “Peeta has never been rational when it comes to that girl,” she says, as if Katniss isn’t in the same room.

“She’s his mate, Liesel,” he says patiently, as if he’s said it a thousand times before

“Well she might be his dead mate,” comes her dry reply. “Rye cracked her head something good.”

“She was screaming!” Rye protests guiltily. “You told me to stop her.”

“She shouldn’t have been here at all!” his mother bellows. “Don’t think for a second that we aren’t aware you asked her to come over here today. We weren’t at all prepared for this yet.”

Katniss thinks about the text she received earlier. How stupid she is. Come over, Kat. 

“It had to happen sooner or later. Peeta’s spiraling. Plus she was getting all suspicious. I tried to stop her from coming over before, but you know how those two are,” Rye says, his tone exasperated. “She was here when his change started, anyway. This isn’t new.”

“She triggered his metamorphosis,” his father corrects him.

What. The. Fuck.

A hand pats at her hair, and she groans around the gag in her mouth, an involuntary sound. Her eyes slowly blink open, the harsh kitchen light painful as it intrudes through her slitted eyelids.

“You’re awake,” Rye says from across the table, and if she wasn’t tied to a kitchen chair, bound and gagged and her head throbbing like she was dying, it would have been a normal scene that greeted her at the Mellarks.

Rye is eating an apple, a calculus textbook open in front of him. Mrs. Mellark is stirring what looks like a pot of soup; it smells like the hearty chicken noodle kind she normally reserves for extra cold Sunday afternoons. Mr. Mellark is whisking something in a bowl. It’s red. Thick. Congealed.

Where is Peeta? is her first thought.

The second: I have to get the fuck out of here.

"I’m sorry I had to knock you out, Kat," Rye says sincerely, looking up at her with a sheepish smile. "You were freaking out."

She moans around the gag in her mouth.

"Can’t we take that thing out?" he asks his parents, his eyebrows furrowing together as he turns in his chair to look at them.

"Not yet," Mrs. Mellark snaps. "Do you want the entire neighborhood hearing her? Your father has had to compel the police twice this week."

"She won’t scream again. Will you?" his father asks her kindly.

She shakes her head. They look at her warily.

"Rye, take it out then," he says. "But Katniss— if you scream again, I’m going to hurt you."

"Rude," Rye mutters, standing up and walking over to her chair. He kneels beside her.

She sputters slightly when the gag is removed, her tongue thick and dry in her mouth. She coughs, and Mr. Mellark brushes past Rye to hold a glass of water to her lips, but it’s as if she’s so numb that she has forgotten the most basic of tasks, too much in shock to even remember how to swallow.

She coughs out a mouthful of water, spraying it out onto the cheery blue and yellow kitchen floor tiles, and he gives her a reproving look as he moves to clean up the mess.

“Always with the dramatics,” Mrs. Mellark mutters coldly, turning back around to stir the pot on the oven.

“Why…” her voice comes out in a cracked whisper.

Mr. Mellark sighs, standing to throw the napkin away that he used to clean up the water.

“You have to understand,” he starts, his back to her. “We didn’t ask for this. Not me, or Peeta.”

“I got lucky,” Rye chimes in, patting her ankle before standing up and sitting back down across from her. His father gives him a level look. “Sorry, “ he adds with a mumble.

“The Mellark men…we have, ah, a blood condition,” Mr. Mellark says delicately. “Not every person is affected. Not even every generation. We never thought Peeta would change.”

“But then he bit you,” Rye adds helpfully.

“And then he bit you,” his father repeats gravely. “The blood…and the fever.” He holds his hands out as if to weigh his words. “He might have made it through the change without a full metamorphosis, but the blood of his mate changed things considerably. I take responsibility for that. I didn’t prepare Peeta for this at all. I had hoped…” he trails off with a shake of his head.

“His mate? Are you fucking crazy?”  Katniss finally speaks, her voice throaty and raw and hoarse. Her normally olive skin is alarmingly waxen and pale. “Delly Cartwright is dead. She is dead, and her head is practically ripped-” The words catch in her throat, hysterical and disbelieving. “You’re talking about curses and conditions and mates-”

“Delly was a lovely girl and a regrettable casualty. She came in without our knowledge and went upstairs and…well. We didn’t stop her in time. Peeta will of course be upset about what happened, but it wasn’t his fault,” Mr. Mellark says calmly, casually glossing over the reference to the dead girl lying upstairs. Katniss thinks about the jam in his mustache, and suspects he’s not very sorry at all. “But yes. You’re certainly his mate. We knew it as soon as we moved here.”

“Psh, let’s be real. It’s why we moved here,” Rye says, snorting. He points at her. “Peeta started obsessively drawing all these creepy pictures of little girls and maps.” He stops at Katniss’ stunned face. “Wow, I guess Peeta doeshave secrets from you,” he says musingly, sitting back in his chair.

“Did Peeta know about…?” She can scarcely finish the sentence.

“No, he didn’t. Not until recently.” Mr. Mellark shoots a warning look at Rye. “Moving here was part of the reason why we never thought Peeta would fully manifest. Only the bond of a mate can control the…” he searches for a word, looking at her apologetically when he speaks again. “Beast within. Ah, it sounds much worse than it is.”

“Let’s not coddle the girl now,” Mrs. Mellark says flatly, her back still turned to them. “She’s going to find out the truth shortly. Especially now that he’s had a taste of blood. Twice,” she adds. “And one from a tribute.”

“A tribute?” she asks faintly, her head drooping slightly. She feels so tired. She feels done.

“Blood from a non-mate. It’s an older term, from more, well. Archaic times,” Mr. Mellark clarifies, looking at his wife disapprovingly. “Stop scaring Katniss.”

“I told you not to come,” Rye says, shaking his head. “If he hadn’t bit you before his fever passed, none of this would have happened.”

A spoon clatters. “None of this would have happened if you weren’t such a little tramp that insists on wallowing around with my son in his bed every night,” Mrs Mellark hisses, whirling around. “You brought this on yourself.”

“Jesus, mom!’ Rye yells, slamming the cover of his calculus book closed. “Chill out. And you wonder why I never bring Cashmere over!”

Katniss screams then; she can’t help it. She’s fucking petrified, and the noise is curtailed as quickly as it leaves her lips, the airflow suddenly cut from her lungs. She’s lightheaded, more so than before, and she hears yells and guttural shouts that aren’t hers. Muffled, familiar, but off.

“Peeta is not liking this,” Rye says apprehensively, his eyes lifting toward the ceiling.

“I told you not to scream,” Mr. Mellark says, releasing her throat from his grasp. He’s breathing heavily, his blue eyes ringed in red. He looks excitedbefore he visibly collects himself.

Her eyes water. “I want Peeta,” she suddenly sobs out, her words coming out in nonsensical gasps. She is losing her goddamn mind, she can’t think, her throat hurts, her head is killing her, where the fuck is Peeta none of this makes sense oh god.

His parents exchange looks. “Okay, Katniss.”

Her crying fit turns into a ragged series of coughs, and she’s dizzy and woozy and barely able to make out Mr. Mellark’s murmured instructions to his son. All she knows is that she is untied and lifted into Rye’s arms, and she’s too weak to even think about making an escape attempt. She is filled with fear before a curious sense of calm comes over her at this realization.

She gives up.

“There has to be an exchange of sorts, Katniss,” Mr. Mellark is saying now, his voice full of gentle regret as she and Rye move away from the kitchen and toward the stairs. “Peeta will know what to do. It’s instinct. And when the time comes…” he looks away. “Don’t fight him.”

Rye mumbles something in warning, but she doesn’t catch it. “What?” she asks faintly, her face pressed into his chest. She winces when his hand catches in her braid.

“Peeta’s different now,” Rye repeats gruffly. He grunts from carrying her extra weight as they climb the stairs. “But try not to judge him. He’s going to hate himself later.”

Soon enough, Katniss is set back on her feet, and she clutches at the wall as Rye fumbles with the doorknob. “Shoulda locked this before,” he mutters, casting a disparaging eye toward the crumpled blonde heap to their left. She’s gently pushed into Peeta’s room a moment later.

“I’m sorry, Kat,” Rye says, shutting the door behind her, the lock clicking back into place.

She stands there, swaying on coltish legs as her eyes dart in search of her friend.  

“Peeta.” Her whisper rings out like a shot. She trembles as she takes a tentative step forward into the darkened room. She says his name again, and a shuddering growl echoes back. Her spine stiffens, and the flickering of the TV is eerie in it’s shadow casting on the walls.

Her heart pounds and her eyes come into focus on the bed, but Peeta’s not there amongst the pile of sheets, either.

“Peeta,” she whimpers, staggering a step forward, a hand to her head. “Please.”

Is he crouched beside the dresser?

Is he in the closet?

Under the bed?

Her thoughts horrify her, because Peeta’s not a monster. Of course he isn’t. His parents are fucking crazy, deranged. Peeta doesn’t even like monstermovies. But still. Still.

“Peeta,” she says again, her voice cracking as she falls to her knees. She hears scratching on the ceiling, and a rush of air across her face before a solid mass lands with a thudding crack in front of her.

He’s on her before she can scream, knocking the breath from her lungs as she lands on her back, her legs still bent behind her at an unnatural angle. She pushes against his bare chest but he’s unyielding.

“Stop! Stop, Peeta, it’s me,” she cries out, her hands sliding uselessly against his burning skin. “I’m your best friend,” she babbles, frozen as his bent head rubs against her neck. His hair, normally so soft and silky and pale, is now red-flecked and matted and rough against her skin. An icy cold gust of breath pants against her neck as his mouth moves upwards, not quite a kiss as he drags his lips against the plane of her throat. He nips her in a sharp warning as she pulls away involuntarily, and she feels a warm trickle moving down her skin a second later.

She looks down and meets his eyes for the first time, and immediately, she knows.

She’s made a mistake.

This isn’t her Peeta looking back at her. His eyes are black as night, blue streaky irises barely visible as he regards her like a wild thing.

She’s breathing hard now, and terrified panic is setting so deep that she can’t fucking breathe. She’s jerking away but she can’t move, he’s so heavy and immoveable as stone and she. Cannot. Move.

“Calm,” he grounds out a command, his voice deep and ragged like gravel.

And suddenly, she is.

The once-blue wells of his eyes are dark as coal as he stares down at her, two bright spots burning in his face.

“Accept me,” he slurs around lengthening teeth, bone-white and deadly. His voice is coarse like rocks and ancient with promise. “Mate. Accept me.” He slides his mouth across his wrist viciously, thick red drops streaming puddles down onto her chest.

Her body feels both weightless and heavy as granite all at once, her eyes like dry, glassy marbles. Her vision becomes useless because all she sees is Peeta. Her mate. Peeta. My mate.

“Mate,” she agrees dreamily, a whispered contract as she opens her mouth to accept the stream of red drops.

And then, he rips her throat.

At least, that’s what it feels like as he sinks his teeth into her jugular, but it’s strange, so strange, because the piercing, agonizing pain is only temporary, like a vague memory. It feels like the ocean when she taught Peeta how to swim when they were little, she can taste the sea salt in her mouth…it’s dripping in her mouth. She looks up with bleary eyes, and Peeta leaning over her, his face feral and his lips running red with her. Her blood.

She hears a ripping sound, harsh tears of cloth, and then cool air and colder skin against hers. Her thighs are wrenched apart but she feels calm again, she’s still weightless, and the sudden intrusion between her legs should probably hurt but it doesn’t. Not at all.

“Mate,” he says hoarsely, not quite gravel anymore, but more like the boy who brings her danish and coffee every morning. And suddenly, her mind feels as split as the space between her legs, as her thighs that are wedged open as wide open as the bite mark in her neck.

Her mind can’t reconcile it, because there’s Katniss and Peeta who climbed into tree houses and burned apples pies and made paper airplanes from old crayon drawings and then there is Katniss and Peeta who are fucking on his bedroom floor, covered in blood, and she’s pretty sure she’s dying, dying, dying.

She opens her mouth to say something, anything, to tell him it’s okay and that she’s glad that it’s him, but her eyes are so heavy and she just…wants…to sleep…

She closes her eyes.

The nightmare seems so real this time.

That’s what Peeta can’t shake as he strains above her. He feels alive and impossibly good, his body is strong and vibrant and his veins are alive with a singing current, but his tongue is coated with a sick slickness and he’s horrified at the blood— and her, lying beneath him. Why does it always have to be her?

He would never hurt her.

“Katniss,” he chokes out, the familiar tingle already creeping up the base of his spine. Somewhere in that back of his mind is the awareness that his mother is going to kill him, yet another night of sticky semen and sweat soaked sheets after another wet nightmare.

This is where I wake up now, he thinks gratefully, and since it’s a dream, his nightmare to own, he leans down to lick at the shiny, glittering blood that’s streaming from her throat.

But, it’s not shiny. It’s dark and thick and intoxicating; it’s real.

“Katniss,” he chokes out, and he almost collapses onto her because it’s his voice ringing out into his room. His dream self is a monster voice that talks in nightmare speech.

WAKE UP.

But he doesn’t wake up. Katniss makes a sick, wet sound and her head lolls, her olive skin waxen as her eyes flutter shut.

"Katniss?" he whispers again, freezing. He’s aware of their nakedness all at once, at what he did. Her nearness, that he is inside of her. Oh fuck. No. No. No. He pulls out with shaky hands, so careful. He’s painfully earnest in his attempt not to hurt her.

He sits back and runs his hands through his hair and rips out the strands in torment, an inhuman howl tearing from his throat. He hunches over her body and shakes her lightly, then harder, begging for her to wake up Katniss please wake up I’m sorry please Katniss please please please.

He doesn’t even look up as the door bursts open, his father taking in the scene calmly.

"Son," he says, walking across the room and stepping over a rapidly pooling puddle of blood. "Son," he repeats, crouching down next to him. Peeta moans, rubbing his blood streaked face into Katniss’ hair.

"You have to turn her, son," Mr. Mellark says, his voice soft. He reaches down to feel her neck, and Peeta whips his head around, his eyes dark and almost feral.

"Don’t touch her!" he snarls, his arms flattening around her still body.

"She’s not dead yet," his father says patiently, but the thin thread of urgency is clear underneath. "But she will be if you don’t turn her."

Peeta deflates, his eyes blue again as he stares at his father. “What did I do?” he cries. “Dad, I hurt her. I love her so much and I hurt her.”

"It’s not your fault," he says soothingly. "But Peeta, she’s your mate. I should have explained all of this to you much earlier and we don’t have time now, but you’ll both be lost if you don’t act now.”

“I don’t care about me,” he moans.

“Do it for Katniss, then,” Mr. Mellark urges.

Peeta looks down, frantic and worried and sick. “What do I do?” he whispers, his voice still slightly slurred around his extended teeth.

“She needs your blood,” he says.

“She already had some, I- I think,” Peeta stutters in shame and self-loathing, remembering what he thought was a nightmare.

“She needs more. You have to be sure. Now bite your wrist.” Peeta does as he’s told, barely flinching as he tears open his wrist again. He pries open Katniss’ slack mouth, whispering apologies, begging softly for her to forgive him as the thick red liquid flows down her throat.

“What now?” he asks anxiously.

“Now you kill her.”

Peeta stares at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t, I don’t-”

“She has to die by your hands with your blood in her system. Drain her while injecting her with your venom. Your body knows what to do. Now do it!”

“I can’t!” Peeta shakes his head violently. “I can’t.”

“She’s almost there. You have to. If she dies now, she’ll come back, Peeta. She’ll come back and she won’t be Katniss. She’ll be a ghoul living a half-life and then you’ll have to cut off her head and burn her heart. Is that what you want?”

“No! God!”

“Now, Peeta.”

“I hate this. I hate myself,” Peeta says dully, his eyes wide with shock.

“Hate yourself in the morning,” his dad says with finality. “Now do it.”

He shakes violently, leaning down and stroking Katniss’ hair from her face. “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers, kissing her cheek. “I love you.”

And then he bites her.

“How long will it take?” Peeta asks flatly, staring down at Katniss’ prone form on his bed. After it was done, after he had drained her of her lifeblood and felt her last heartbeat in his mouth, he had sobbed like a child. His father and Rye had to pry him from her body, lifting her onto the bed and sending Peeta to get cleaned up.

“It’s different for everyone,” he replies, watching as his son gently cleans Katniss’ face with a warm towel.

“Will she be the same?” he whispers.

“She’ll be better.”

The clock ticks and the room is dark. Peeta is stretched out on his side next to Katniss, lightly sleeping when he feels cold trailing fingers on his face. His eyes flicker open and he smiles.

“I’m hungry,” Katniss says.