The Hunger Games: Continued

Always (One-shot)

It feels like drowning.

At least, what I can remember of it. I was ten; Prim, six. Our father had taken us to the lake in the valley beyond the Seam. The sun was beaming brightly in the sky, swelling like a cancerous mass and reddening my olive skin. The sun makes me feel like an inverted sunflower - cowering under its vitality; perhaps that's why I never grew particularly tall.

Although, the sun and I have never been particularly acquainted, it often acts as a happy hue in my memories; particularly of my father. Hot spring days in nature, picnics with the Mayor's finest strawberries and whatever we could catch in the woods. The game was always mighty strong in Spring.

Prim could never bear to watch as my father shot into the city of trees. A squirrel with an arrow straight through the eye never failed to turn her stomach; she didn't complain so much once it was skinned and cooked. Perhaps in the Capitol, they can be far pickier about their diets; avoiding any animal produce - not in the Seam; we'd have died without the sustenance the chewy flesh of a furry rodent could provide.

Beggars can't be choosers.

The sun had been so strong the day we went to the lake that my father had suggested we swim. It was a Sunday afternoon, and a rare occasion that my father was able to avoid the sweltering dusty heat of the coal mines. Time with my father was valuable as gold; I wouldn't have dared to deny his requests, especially when he had said it with such enthusiasm.

So Prim and I had stripped of our boots and belts and paddled in the lake with our favourite person in the world. We splashed each other and laughed and cried of laughing until I got too ambitious, as I often do, and found myself in far deeper waters than I had anticipated. Of course, my father had taught me to swim; the outdoors was his most favourite, and as his eldest child I was taught to manipulate and facilitate the elements of nature before I could even spell nature. However, I hadn't often had the chance to put my swimming abilities to the test; mother was not as taken with the outdoors, and I hadn't been allowed to venture without my father who was more often than not, ten feet underground.

It's the panicking that kills you; the flailing limbs and sinking chin, straining desperately to stay above the water. You're suddenly sure you had never learned to breathe at all; never mind under water. It hadn't been long thanks to the ever lurking eyes of my father - but for an eternal moment, by head had been engulfed, my feet unable to reach the rocky ground below. I felt helpless; the water pouring into my mouth, my throat, my lungs, weighing me down like nothing but an absorbent sponge.

That's when I philosophised; how long must we flounder before the sea decides our fate?

Those helpless seconds of being plunged beneath the surface of the lake felt like a lifetime of suffering; a lifetime of begging for survival, relief.

It makes you wonder how much suffering is worth. Would the relief of letting go have been worth the water in my lungs? I was lucky I had my father to save me, but I don't have him now. I don't have anyone.

Except him.

Except the boy in the room just a train carriage behind me.

It feels like drowning - needing him. I'm not sure there is much of a difference between needing someone and wanting them - if there is, I'm sure it aches. It's hard to think about wanting him, because I don't want to; I can't afford to. The more things you love; the more things will kill you when you lose them.

It feels like drowning. I ask myself to let go; but I'm not sure what letting go means when it comes to Peeta. Should I let him in, let him hold me like I so desperately need him to? Or do I shut him out completely, if I never have to look at him, I never have to think about him.

He's in my dreams. Sweet, sweet nightmares. I've watched him die a hundred times. I've watched Rue die, Foxface, Thresh; even Cato, who's mutilated body thrashing under the ferocious hunger of the mutts makes me grieve the life he should have had, but didn't. A life spent in the swelling sun, in a shallow lake, eating strawberries and living for himself; not for The Capitol that indoctrinated him into believing that the Games were fair sport.

White flowers, acres of luscious green grass with an unnatural scent. Tracker-jackers, mockingjays, nightlock and so much blood. I see it every night. Every night, my mind is plagued and tormented by the never-ending trauma of the Games. And I can't look at their families. I can't look at the families of those who lost their lives; those who died so I could live. The Victory Tour is fresh torture. Everyday we grace a microphone, an audience, that I can't speak to. What spills from my mouth is nothing but Effie's voice using me for a mouthpiece.

I'm an inverted sunflower, I cower away when things get too hard.

But he isn't. He is a beautiful dandelion; beautifully alive in the face of adversity. His prosthetic leg is nothing but a fallen petal and nature thrives on charming imperfections.

He has rooted his way inside me. He is alive as long as I am; and I am alive as long as he is. I would have given up long ago if it had not been for his reliance on me. I know that he cares about me. And I know that I hurt him after the Games when I walked away. One thing I can do to make it up to him, is stay alive.

He's all I've got. My mother hasn't had the ability to look out for me since my father's death. Prim is so astonishingly mature since I returned from the Games; I suppose she didn't have a choice. But I refuse to drown her in my own sorrow. Haymitch knows how I feel; but he's too intoxicated to have any coherence.

I did have Gale. But I lost him somehow; or he lost me. The Games have changed me. I'm not his Catnip anymore, I can't be. My heart has been tainted, burst open and bled dry. My tears are rust-red and viscous; he can never know me like he did. He can't love me because I am unreachable and inaccessible to him; I'm still in the Games; the large domed forcefield that entrapped us is where I live now. It's where Peeta lives, and Rue and Haymitch, and everyone dead or alive who ever felt first-hand the wrath of President Snow.

That's why I need him. Peeta is all I have here. We are surrounded by death; nothing is fresh anymore - everything rotten and tainted and bleeding. The only sweet relief I can find is the warmth of being enveloped in his arms. The way my untouched heart beats against his skin; his breath on my ear, the thick sound of his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, the way he groans slightly in his sleep - all of the things that let me know he's alive. And the sweet, fresh way it makes me feel in my chest.

Peeta is the only thing on this earth I know to be alive.

He makes me feel. He reminds me that I too, am alive. Death is what makes the living weak. And I am too weak to stop myself from needing him.

So, when I wake screaming from a nightmare of white roses and poisonous meadows and his stocky shoulders and tousled blonde curls fill the doorway; it's impossible for me to let him walk away.

"Peeta, will you stay with me?"

I'm sure I hear him sigh with relief. I open the duvet to welcome him. He is immediately warm to the touch and I am thankful for I sometimes believe I was carved from ice. His large hands grip tightly to my waist, like if he holds me tight enough, the night terrors can't reclaim me.

Then he whispers. "Always."

I think at first that I imagine it. Wishful thinking, perhaps. That we could just be this way forever, that nothing and no one could ever hurt us again.

He is my dandelion, he is what makes me brave enough to embrace tomorrow. If I drown, I know he will pull me to the surface. We will get through this Tour together. It makes it easier not to cower when he stands so tall. I will make sure the Capitol won't hurt him like they hurt Rue. I won't let them. I need him to stay.

And he said he always will.

I hope you guys enjoyed my first addition to my series of requested one-shots!! It's been a while since I wrote about The Hunger Games so I hope that I've managed to do it convincingly! If there's anything you'd like to see me do please leave a request on the previous chapter!

Hope you're all safe and well.