The Girl Who Out Sang the Birds

I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.

"Then there's Peeta just a few yards away. He looks so clean and healthy and beautiful, I can hardly recognize him. But his smile is the same whether in mud or in the Capitol and when I see it, I take about three steps and fling myself into his arms." — The Hunger Games, Chapter 27

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Including the black and white under the cut, because I think it reads well there too

And, at least in my reading of THG, Peeta's emotions are almost always just bubbling underneath the surface, and it's not all sunshine or innocence.

Because that wasn’t a song the Covey performed at the Hob or around District 12, it was a lullaby that was lovingly passed down to children who were being too fussy, who needed a melody to calm themselves.

Personally, I’m not complaining that Katniss is Covey. She’s still Seam, she’s still from District 12, and I don’t think it makes her the chosen one. If anything, to me it shows even more how she was at the very bottom of the food chain (sorry for the horrible metaphor), the most oppressed of the most oppressed in Panem, and she still was able to deafeat the system not because she was destined for it, but because despite her horrible circumstances she retained her compassion. It also shows how diluted culture often becomes in the face of oppression. But even with much of her Covey heritage unknown to her, she still has the same core traits that were important to them: family loyalty, survival and a rebellious spirit. (Also of course their connection with nature and music)

even haymitch (who is known to throw rocks at his friends) does a better job helping rehailitate peeta. prim's coming up with medical theories. finnick and gale help him.

but katniss can't ("i can't do this") because she's got too much going on already. i don't know why people take her word for it that peeta is gone and will never come back.

The transition from “oh that guy I see you hang around with, your cousin?” -> “that guy who I guess is your boyfriend” -> “that guy I’ve spent a considerable amount of my adolescence distressed about” is peak teenage boy when you consider Katniss barely shared any information about her and Gale. At this point I think Peeta has spent more time thinking about Katniss and Gale than either of them have.

you held me the whole way through

when i couldn’t say the words like you

i was scared, indigo, but i wanted to

i was scared, indigo, but i wanted to

Four Seasons, Four Victors: Haymitch Abernathy in Summer