burnwithus | (hoping to rid us of this little hell)

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(hoping to rid us of this little hell)

Bit by bit, things get better. It's hard to accept, sometimes, but the nightmares are less frequent then they used to be. Her neighbors will be happy to note that the screaming has mostly gone down. There are days when she wakes up unable to feel anything, but that's a marked improvement from one year ago, and Katniss will take what she can get. Even if getting better somehow feels like an affront against her sister's memory. Like she's slowly forgetting how painful it was to lose her.

The island will make sure she doesn't forget. The Cornucopia was just a warning, but even that was melted down, thrown into the ocean. Gone. Out of sight, out of mind.

Katniss moves through the forest as soon as the first rays of sun begin to light up the sky. These are reflexive movements that feel like home. But there's a rustling in the trees that she moves to investigate, one arrow nocked to the string. Probably a boar or something of the sort, which will make her first hunt of the day. Even before she had even set up any snares. Except that it isn't a boar, or a bird, or any other sort of wildlife known to the island.

It's Buttercup. Her sister's cat. That ugly, mashed-in face and dirty squash-yellow fur could not be mistaken. There he was, pawing at a bush, mewling and pacing as if looking for something. Katniss approaches before she even realizes what she's doing. "Are you looking for Prim?" she asks, as Buttercup turns to face her. A cold sort of fury takes over, rage and grief mingled together , and her throat closes up as surely as if it were blocked by tears. "She's not here. She's gone. Do you hear me? She's dead. She's not coming back."

But Buttercup doesn't understand. He stares stupidly at her for a moment before continuing to root around in the bushes. Katniss picks up a handful of rocks, grass, dirt, anything she can reach and flings them in that general direction, although her aim is so haphazard and poor that none make the target. "Go away! Get away from here! She's dead, you stupid cat! There's nothing left for you here!" her voice raises to a scream, shrill and too loud in the normally quiet forest. And before Katniss knows it, there are real tears now, flowing hard and fast as her legs give under the shaking strain and her knees embed in the soft dirt. Buttercup stays out of reach, warily watching her, hissing. He still probably remembers how she tried to drown him in a bucket when he was a kitten.

"She's dead. She's dead. She's not coming back," her voice is quieter now, brought down from screams to choked whispers. Cautiously, Buttercup puts one paw forward and then another, approaching her. Katniss reaches out for him, arms closing around rough, matted fur. For something that inevitably arrived from District 13, he's done well for himself. She clutches the stupid cat and cries, though she couldn't tell you for how long, until she's laying on her side in the dirt. Her knees curl inwards towards her chest, ignoring the way the cold and damp seep through her clothes. Buttercup seems to understand, too, because he's still for once. He normally never lets Katniss touch him. Prim was the one that he loved, not her, even though she was the one who fed him. Technically.

Maybe he understands. Maybe he needs this as much as she does.

[OOC; katniss' second item! open to all in-game, though it's probably not the best time to meet her. Feel free to have your pup encounter her during her encounter with Buttercup, or hours later. She'll be there for a while.]

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He's far enough away that it's not her screams that summon him. It's not even her tears or the wet, exhausted sniffles that come after it. It's pure, dumb luck that sends Jason through this part of the jungle today, following a route he rarely takes in an attempt to throw his estranged brother or sister off his trail. They seem to be taking it in turns, Red Hood Crazy watch, Jason's come to call it, and he doesn't mean to give them any satisfaction.

Neither does he expect to happen on the scene he does, but Jason's a quick adapter when his adrenaline is up. Blood rushing in his ears at the sight of Katniss on the ground, Jason drops to a crouch, instinctively searching her for injury. "What happened?"

Buttercup doesn't enjoy being squeezed as hard as he is, and he shows his displeasure by hissing and scratching and her arms in an attempt to break free. Finally, he bites down on her thumb, hard, and she responds with a hiss of her own, releasing him. Bounding away, he doesn't go very far but circles warily, keeping his distance nonetheless. To make up for the loss of him, Katniss curls up even tighter in the dirt until her chin is touching her knees, wiry limbs tucked neatly. Part of her pride doesn't want Jason to see her like this, so it's a very long time before Katniss answers, face turned away from him. Hidden by a messy mass of hair.

"Prim's cat," she croaks, and it sounds terrible - all phleghmy and scratched and muffled against her knees. It's all she has to say for Jason to get it.

Jason spares only the quickest glance for the cat - after Catwoman, he's pretty cool on the subject of them in general, but even were he not, Katniss makes for a far more compelling subject.

"Katniss," he says, coming nearer across the dirt. He knows she'd rather not have him, he's the same sometimes when he's upset, but he can't hear her voice like that and not go to her. "Can I touch you?"

She'd rather not have him, would rather be alone to wallow and cry, but Katniss vaguely understands that her screams must have carried in the woods and of course Jason must have heard and come running. Her body is so tense, shivering against the cold that has begun seeping into her clothing but refusing to move. "Go away."

Katniss' eyes squeeze shut, tears leaking out even through the tight grip. She hates this weakness, hates admitting it to Jason of all people, one of the only people she admits to wanting to think well of her.

"Please."

"No," says Jason, the word coming instant, but not unkind. She's so far gone she hadn't even noticed his arrival, her body curled and unprotected on the ground. He's not leaving her exposed like this, and he'll fight anyone who makes him try, including Katniss.

"I won't touch you if you don't want, but I won't go."

Unprotected. The thought hadn't even occured to Katniss, who no longer feared anything, even the dinosaurs with all of their teeth. Even the Capitol. There comes a time when a person, pushed to something of a brink, becomes incredibly dangerous; when there genuinely is nothing left to keep them in check. Katniss Everdeen was one of these people, but luckily for the people on this island, she'd turned those emotions inwards instead of out, instead of lashing out violently.

Instead, she doesn't move. Jason should know how easy it is to become as still as a statue. "Go. AWAY." her voice raises - it's not a scream, but it's too shrill for her normally low and rough voice. It cracks from the strain, tears stinging inside her throat.

If he doesn't move, she'll throw things at him, too.

"No." His voice is quiet where hers is loud, pushed out of a throat that feels suddenly just as raw. It hurts to see her hurt, stoic Katniss, who ran from him when she learned he was resurrected, but not when it was time to pull him from the ground. She didn't leave him.

He's not leaving her.

That one word infuriates her beyond belief, pulls at emotions that are already running high and out of control, replaces grief with anger and rage and hate, which are all familiar feelings for Katniss. The line between them is thin enough to be negligible. They aren't directed at Jason, but he's there and he's refusing to leave, and she has no other outlet other than wanting to scream again, and again, and again. Even if she did now, it wouldn't help, because her throat's already clogged up with tears anyways.

She pulls herself into a sitting position, tiny hands bunched into fists as they rain down against his chest. Weak and ineffective against solid muscle and bone, they bounce right off, probably without even hurting him. But maybe that's the point. Katniss doesn't want to hurt him, she wants him to hurt her. Because she's still punishing herself inwardly, and probably always will be.

Go on, hit me back, her eyes seem to say. Her entire body is tensed for it.

"No," says Jason breathless this time. There should be more to say, more to do, but he doesn't know what it is. He doesn't know how to help her, isn't sure he's not hurting her more now by staying, but he can't leave. He can't do it, so Jason stays, and he lets her beat her frustration onto his body, her little knuckles sharper than she thinks, and he doesn't say anything but "No," all the stupid sobs that want to rise up after trapped inside his throat.

"Not gonna," not going to hurt you, not going to leave.

Somewhere in the midst of what had to be madness, those little sobs manage to puncture through, and her motions stop immediately because somehow, Katniss realized that she was hurting him. She had to be, even if he wasn't saying anything about it. A muted noise, the closest thing to an apology she's capable of right now escapes from her lips.

Instead of hitting him, her fingers curl around his shoulders - not tightly, but an anchoring touch. Something to keep her mind from reeling like it so obviously wants to. "Make it stop," she finally whispers, sounding small and plaintive and altogether almost like a child. Katniss Everdeen had once brought an entire country to revolution. Control, especially over herself and her own emotions was something she used to prize.

"Make it stop hurting. Please," it's an impossible request, and she knows it given the way that her face crumples and her head drops.

She goes still all at once, makes a sound as sad as Jason feels, and he can't help himself, he promised not to touch but he has to. "I will," he says, and it's not because of the boy he used to be, the little bird winging color into the darkest corners of the night. He doesn't want to help her out of duty, or even simple fucking kindness. He wants to help her because he loves her, and she doesn't deserve to hurt.

"I'm sorry," he says, his arms around her and drawing her in, tucking her head beneath his chin where she can hide. "I'm sorry, I love you, I'm so sorry."

The shuddering breaths eventually slow down after a few long moments, lying there still as a rag doll, or a corpse except for the sharp rise and fall of her chest. Katniss isn't a pretty crier. She has no idea how other girls do it. With her, it's all clogged up throats, mucus and sore, red eyes. And an itchy nose. Vaguely, she can hear his heart thumping against the shell of her ear, curled up there with Buttercup watching with confused golden eyes mere paces away. He sticks his nose up and trots away after a moment, but Katniss doesn't notice. Jason's words have caught her by surprise, and it's almost enough to cut through the vague haze of tears. She says nothing and the silence stretches until she can't take it anymore.

"I -- if I say it, you'll die," she manages to rasp through a throat that feels like thistles. After all, she had loved Prim and look at what had happened. She'd loved Finnick too, in her own way. Peeta as well, and back home he was broken enough that it hurt her chest to look at him here. "That's what happens."

She has issues with the word love, too. Even if she's sure Jason doesn't mean it in that way, but almost in the grudging way that she supposed Haymitch loved her as well. Too many arguments with Peeta, and Gale, and the things they wanted, the things they expected from her, that she couldn't give. It had warped her. It's scary. Terrifying, actually.

Jason coughs a wet laugh against her hair and just holds on. "Beat you to it," he says, shifting on the forest floor. It might be sense memory for any other person, but Jason isn't a child who was rocked, and the way he gathers her up, his movements so slight they're almost not there at all, is purely instinct.

"Been there and back again, Katniss," he says, cheek to her hair, talking to set them apart, to make them more than how half the island must see them, two hurt animals in the woods, "I'll break your curse."

Katniss isn't usually accustomed to a lot of physical affection. She was not rocked to sleep any more than Jason had. Maybe earlier in life, before her father had died, but after that, good times were hard to come by. This was a pattern she had long accepted, and had therefore managed to make sure that she'd never have to rely on anyone else. Always alone, always fiercely independent.

But now, she curls up against Jason without complaint, odd for someone who had been attacked so many times. Katniss doesn't allow herself to think about anything else, fingers tightening in the cloth of his shirt. The tears have more or less slowed, her eyes stinging and red, swollen.

"Promise," Katniss demands, swiping at her face. "I'm stalling. Because -- Peeta... it's weird and stupid and I can't..." Katniss' brain is mush. She takes a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts. "I love you, okay?"

"I know you do," says Jason, breathing easier. It's all he wants, to be loved. He'd spent so many years trying to force it, to make people care, build up a family around him only to fail over and over again. He'd given up, tried to burn it all back down, and it feels stupid. It feels young and stupid, because in just a year of sitting still he has this.

"We're family."

Family. No, her family was dead, or might as well be. Father dead, sister dead. Mother gone when Katniss most needed her. The word doesn't carry very many positive connotations at this point. But, she supposes that these things could maybe be created. Haymitch, and Peeta were examples of that, in some nebulous and indefinable way. Katniss is hesitant to declare something so openly because she's still afraid of attracting fate, but Jason's braver than her - or at least far more reckless.

She presses a kiss to his cheek, brief from dry and cracked lips before pulling away, rubbing painfully at her eyes for a moment. "Thank you," it's quiet, understated, but genuine all the same. "I don't know what I'd do without you." Crash and burn, maybe. Descend into something worse than this. The Peeta here doesn't understand madness like Jason does. Doesn't understand her like Jason does.

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(hoping to rid us of this little hell)

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