'til it lights the way back home

[vocalfuel]

It's not the first time since I showed up here that nightmares have woken me up. It's just the first time I've decided to do anything about it.

For the most part, I've started to get used to trying to hide it, muffling screams into pillows and staying as quiet as I can, because even if she'd understand, I don't want to upset Prim. She already has more on her shoulders than she should ever have had to, and worrying about me doesn't need to be added to that list. And it's not like I don't get by, because I do. A lot of the time, I do so without getting a lot of sleep, but I'm fine, or I tell myself I'm fine, that I can handle it. I've gotten through worse, and I've gotten used to this, too, as much as anyone ever can. After everything, I'm pretty sure it's normal.

There is one thing that's always helped, though. I don't know why it's taken me this long to let myself think about that, or about the key Peeta gave me — he had to have had this in mind, right? There's no way he didn't know. All I've got is that I was too proud to consider it, or at least do so seriously, and though I'm not entirely surprised by that being the case, I've got to give it up eventually. A night like this seems the best time for it, when I've spent I don't know how long seeing the dead come back and blame me for what happened to them, haunted by twisted visions of all I've seen and done. I wonder sometimes if it will ever go away; I think about Haymitch with his drinking, and the morphlings, and I know it won't.

In the dark of the apartment, the sheet from my bed wrapped around my shoulders, I make my way to the door quietly, though not before finding Peeta's key, slinking out into and down the hall. I don't want to wake anyone, least of all Prim. I don't even want to wake Peeta before I have to, opening his door without knocking and trying to make as little noise as possible. The apartments are all alike, at least, which helps me find my way to his bed, but I'd get there anyway. I've had to look much harder for him before.

Only when I've gotten there do I dare speak, feeling unspeakably, painfully young, more shaken than I should be. "Peeta," I say, quiet but not overly so, mostly to mask the way my voice breaks. Leaving my sheet on the floor, I slowly crawl into bed beside him, just like we used to do before the Capitol took him from me. I've got him back, now. I don't intend to waste that chance. "It's me."

Comments

[boywiththebread]

He's looked into the face of evil. He's stared it down until his eyes blurred from the effort not to blink, and he's seen it behind his eyelids when he tried to curl up and sleep, tried to drown out the screams that seemed as though they were coming from every direction imaginable. The people here aren't like that. They're just as confused as he feels, but they're making the effort to work together, not tear each other apart in their struggle for survival. As much as he'd felt like this was the Games all over again when he'd first arrived, he's beginning to realize more and more that this is nothing like that.

"Me too," he whispers, tucking his chin down to utter the words across her forehead, lips moving over her skin when he speaks. He doesn't even have to think about it to know it wouldn't have been the same without her here. There's no comparison.

[vocalfuel]

There's a moment, after he's spoken, that I think about lifting my head to kiss him. I push it away quickly. There isn't anyone watching now, no cameras anywhere around — none that I know of, anyway — and no brainwashing from the Capitol to try to pull him back from. I've done it so many times it's like second nature now, the act we used to play with each other, when it was really an act at all, but with all of that stripped away, I don't know how. I don't even know what I want, except for everything to be simple again like I know it never will be. I want just to stay here like this and not let anything else matter. I don't know if we can do that anymore, either.

"Thank you," I mumble, the only thing I can think of to say. However normal this might be for us, I don't want him to think it means nothing. It never has.