Teaser: "Turning Wheels" by: trippy41

Title: Turning Wheels

Author: Trippy41

Rating: MA

Disclaimer: Mature Themes/Sexuality

Summary: The Victory Tour is a difficult time for Peeta Mellark, dealing with the loss of his innocence, his leg and his heart. But when he begins to dream that his unrequited feelings might be returned, the baser instincts of a sixteen year old boy take over.

Teaser:

How should I know? The enormous wheels of will, drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet. Night was void arms and you a phantom still, and day - your far light swaying down the street.  As never fool for love, I starved for you; my throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.  Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view, and your remembered smell most agony. I felt your hot wrist shiver and suddenly the mad victory I planned flashed real, in your burning bending head...my conqueror’s blood was cool as a deep river in shadow; and my heart beneath your hand quieter than a dead man on a bed. 

~

               Peeta sways with the train and he puts a hand out to touch a wall to steady himself. He’d given up his cane only a week before Katniss and he had left on their Victory Tour. He should probably try to sleep. Peeta knows he should sleep, as they will be expected to perform tomorrow morning in District 11. But every time he’d try to sleep back home, Peeta almost always fell out of bed trying to step on a leg he no longer had, or he’d lie awake all night with excruciating phantom pain from his knee downwards to nothingness.

               Not to mention the nightmares. Most of his lonely nights in District 12 were spent in his Victor’s house trying to paint them out of his mind. The Games. His paintings are on the train; his ‘talent’ to be put on display during one stop or another. At the moment, he couldn’t recall Effie’s important calendar of events that she’d been trying to impress on he and Katniss at dinner. All he knew was what time he was supposed to be ready to accompany Katniss on stage to give a speech and play the part that was expected of him. 

               Katniss. The thought of her gives him another excuse to steady himself against the wall again. An agonizing six months barely speaking. Oh, Peeta knew she struggled after the Games as he did, but she had her family living in Victor’s Village with her. And Gale, of course. She had Gale. Peeta had always waited until she left for the day to deliver the bread and cheese buns to the Everdeen household. 

               It was easier that way. For him, for his pride, and for his heart, all three that Katniss had managed to damage. Yet, his body is still buzzing from that long kiss in the snow earlier that day. At dinner, Katniss was quiet, but that was nothing new, and he wasn’t hungry either. Hell, even now he can still taste her. Under fur, and lipstick, there was still her. Her tongue had even briefly touched his. Fuck. His hands trail the wall of the passage towards his quarters. Peeta wasn’t sure of the time, but even remembering that false kiss, calls for a cold shower before his prep team shows up.