accidentalrebellion | Exsilium; IC contact

[ The first thing he does is breathe out.

He could be wrong. This might not be her, might be another trap from the Capitol, some ploy to get information out of him or make him suffer; but she knows the right things, reacts in the right ways, and right now that's good enough. What'll come will come. ]

Katniss.

[ He says, and it's relieved and - wondering, because this is impossible, and he'd already known that odds of seeing her again were slim now, the odds of even hearing her voice like this so soon down to nothing. But he knows too that he should find some way to identify himself, let her be sure, because she must be thinking of all the same concerns he is.

He laughs a little despite himself, shakily. ]

I guess this time I do have something I need to apologize for.

[She's been trying so hard. Trying so hard to hold it together, to not let herself be so easily ensnared into a trap. To be as strong as she has no choice but to be.

But when she hears her name, spoken in just the way she knows, in that way that's so irrevocably Peeta, it's all over.

About a thousand different emotions, all messy, muddled, and indecipherable, begin to overwhelm her. Blips of things that are recognizable (automatic relief, equally automatic and suffocating guilt) surface for brief instances before blending in to the mass once more, over and over in a cycle that consumes all else. Thought. Breath.

It's another few long moments before she finally manages to say something.]

No. [She takes a pause to swallow down the lump in her throat.] You don't.

[I do]

[ There's sadness that'll come, anger, guilt, plenty of flavors of negativity just waiting on the brink - but for now, for now, for now - ]

I want to see you.

[ More than see, but one step at a time ]

[Maybe this is a mistake. The fatal one. The one that will finally eliminate the Girl on Fire, the Mockingjay, the Capitol's public enemy number one. That will take care of Snow's greatest nuisance without him even having to lift a finger. Quick, easy. Efficient.

But she wants (needs) to see Peeta just as much. She needs that final piece of confirmation, no matter what the potential risks could be. She needs to know that he's real.

There's only one relevant question.]

Where are you?

[ He provides his location, somewhere not far off from the transport apartments, and waits. He's not armed - whatever that woman might have said, a pack of colored pencils doesn't make him armed, and nor do playing cards or a Capitol-like communication contraption. Even if he was being treated well - surprisingly well, in fact, enough to keep his nerves on edge - by the Capitol, there's no way he'd be allowed to keep a weapon with him. The place at which he was basically under house arrest had been carefully stripped of sharp objects, with things like utensils replaced with less dangerous plastic counterparts. He couldn't help but think it was as much to ensure that he didn't try to kill himself as much as that he couldn't attack anyone else (and that was - something he'd thought about, it's true). The necklace he'd worn as token in the last Games had been gone by the time he'd woken up in Capitol custody, and he'd known it'd be useless to ask after it.

He waits quietly, with the air of one at ease even if the line between his shoulders is tense, and he watches his surroundings for signs of movement. ]

[By now, she has a fairly extensive mental map of the area, at least within a few-mile radius. There's nothing to do, nothing to keep her sane, but to wander. Every morning, she rises as early as she always has (not that she ever sleeps much; her nightmares are worse than they've ever been) and sets off, bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She never finds much of anything, but at least her thoughts can be kept at bay while her restless feet have something to occupy them.

So she knows exactly where he's described.

After a time, she approaches with quiet steps, her senses as alert as they'd be on a hunt as she scans her surroundings. Just in case, her bow is directly in her hand instead of over her shoulder, ready to be placed into a defensive position at a moment's notice. (People like them, survivors like them, know to be ready for anything.)

She isn't ready, though, for spotting what she's been looking for. Immediately, she stops in her tracks, unable to do much of anything apart from let out a very audible gasp, one that would obviously give her away anywhere. In a setting that's still so strange, there's one thing that jumps out as familiar. Achingly so.

Unless she's hallucinating, it's him. Really him. Not on a television screen, not a product of the thoughts that continually haunt her, but existing in the flesh, standing just a small distance away.]

[ He turns to look when he hears the gasp, maybe a little too sharply - and when he sees her, he stills, expression going blank with surprise for a second. It's very different to hear her voice - maybe her voice, probably her voice, easily could be a fake even if she knows things only she should know - and to see her, to know she's only a matter of feet away, as if they're still in District 12 or the arena before everything went wrong (and who's to say this isn't another arena?). The way she holds her bow is no less than he'd expect of her, lending credibility to the thought that it really might be her. It really might be that somehow he and the girl on fire both got brought to this strange strange place, where there are a thousand new dangers and where they can be together.

(Or, if this is some kind of a trick or hallucination, maybe he can't bring himself to care anymore.)

He doesn't run at her or anything, but he does take a few steps forward, a bit cautious of that bow among other things. ]

[In one moment, time stops.

The bow slips unceremoniously from her fingers and onto the ground without an attempt to stop it. That gasp was her last; now, she can barely breathe at all. Her awareness, normally so in tune with everything around her, ready for anything, hones in on just one thing and shuts the rest of the world out. It's dangerous, dangerous because a whole army of mutts could line up behind her back for an attack, and she wouldn't even know. Wouldn't even know if the entire world was burning to ash in her midst.

In the next moment, it's nothing but certain. The intricate impossibilities of the hows and the whys don't matter. Not now, anyway. All that matters is the irrefutable evidence of what is.

There's only one thing to do.

Without preamble, without so much as a second thought, she closes the remaining distance between them at a run, and throws her arms around his neck when she does.]

[ He has his arms out already, wraps them around her as she crashes into him. And with that crash comes something else breaking, three months of smothered fear and worry splintering under the warmth and weight of her presence. Her presence. Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, the girl from the Seam he admired from afar for years before getting noticed by her in the most terrible of circumstances; the girl who didn't let him die in the mud or the caves, risked her life for his, later became a co-conspirator, a fiancee, a "mother," a Mockingjay, but -

- it's just, it's a lot of fancy names for the girl he holds right now, as tightly as he's able because who would've thought this would be possible, a girl who at the end of the day is just Katniss. He kisses the top of her head, doesn't bother pulling away to look at her because there'll be plenty of time for that later. ]

I missed you. [he admits. ]

Edited 2012-11-30 19:40 (UTC)

[Until now, she's never considered the possibility of this. Seeing him again. Hearing his voice in her ear. Feeling the comforting warmth of his arms around her, the same warmth that got her through so many nights, so many horrors in that arena. No, she could never have afforded to consider it. Even if he wasn't dead, even if she'd keep fighting hard to keep him alive, there was never a guarantee of how long that'd last. ...

But the boy with the bread has not yet slipped away.

She feels something start to break inside of her. A thin thread solely responsible for holding her together, for preventing her from coming apart at the seams, slowly begins to unravel. The wall, the pillar of all her pseudo-strength, threatens to crash to the ground and crumble to dust. She tries for a steadying breath, but there's a profound hitch in it she can't suppress. There's something stinging in her eyes that's not easily blinked back.

There are no words with which to respond, even if she weren't disadvantaged in that area already. Maybe in another lifetime, such an admission would've garnered a much different response out of her; a rolling of the eyes, that old stab of guilt and awfulness whenever he alluded to anything sentimental. But now, it just causes her to cling to him more tightly, as tightly as she possibly can. To shut out the world around her for a while.

She won't be the first to let go.]

Exsilium; IC contact

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

action!

action!

action! also wow sorry i am slowy mcslowpants

HAHA I'M SLOWER

NO I'M SLOWEST