Better Games

8. Masterpiece

Days, weeks have passed and soon Peeta has almost fully moved into my house. I help him move all his clothes and the small amount of personal belongings he brings here. For the record I don't have that many personal belongings either, just my father's hunting jacket,boots, and plant book, a picture of my family, the pearl and locket Peeta gave me during the Quater Quell, and my mockingjay pin. Technically though, the locket/medallion is Peeta's so I give this to him. My house is full of towels and robes and other things that are well over more than what I need, so he can use them too. Today we're moving the last of his things which are his paintings.

We walk through a light layer of snow to his now almost vacant house and walk into a room he calls his studio. We cleared one out of the many spare rooms in my house to become his new studio where he will put his paintings. When we walk into the room paintings are stacked together with gray cloths over everyone of them. I pick a stack up and carry it over to my house. I set it down in the new studio and pass Peeta on my trip back for another stack. I make about 4 trips when I'm about to pick up two of the last paintings when the cloth falls off of one of them and I freeze. It's a breathtaking picture of a girl in dark, damp cave. Sweat dripping down her neck as she looks down at the canister of soup she's taking a spoonful put of. Her grey eyes shine in the dim light of the cave and her eyebrows are knit together in concentration. Her braid is in a tussled mess, yet it still manages to look radiant and full. But this isn't just any girl, this is me. I slowly unclothe the second painting and see that it's one completely different than the first. They're hands, but not just any hands but his. His sleeves are white and his hands are clenched to wooden armrests of a chair. He's so tense you can see his veins and the picture shows that his vision's blurry. But not blurry enough to see the pattern of the expensive carpet, the tips of his shining white shoes, the seal of the Capitol in the cuffs on his sleeves. I can only conjure up one picture in my mind where I think this memory fits. It's when they were hijacking him in the Capitol, forcing him to interview for propos against the rebels. And I think, why would he want to paint this? Wouldn't it trigger something? But then I see in the far corner of the painting, I can just make out a screen. A screen of a girl in the woods, holding on so dearly to a tree, looking up towards the sky with her mouth wide open. And I realize that this was when Peeta heard me sing for the first time since the recap of our first Games. It was when I sand the hanging tree in a propo candidly and this was the program they interrupted with it. Seeing the painting clearer now, I understand he's not just clenching the chair to contain himself, but clenching it because he is being pulled away from it. About to be beaten for warming the Rebels of an attack on Thirteen. "You'll be dead by morning," I think. I slowly sink down, dragging my back against the wall studying these two pictures, paintings, memories. After a while I hear Peeta come into the house, probably wondering why I've been in here so long. He stops at the doorway and I look up. He sees that I dropped the cloth and which exact paintings I've seen, then he looks at me. He expects me to be afraid, maybe repulsed by his memories. But my face says well what I'm thinking of. Gratitude. Sorrow. Relief. Love. Peeta has a gift and this is how he copes. They paintings are beautiful yet frightening and beautiful again. They show what we've gone through through his eyes, they show what has happened to use in ways I will never be able to express.
"They're amazing Peeta. I'm so sorry."
He knows what I mean. So sorry for putting him through this, so sorry for making him relive these things in his sleep, in his dreams. But he doesn't say anything. Just sits down and hugs me. I hug him back. I start to ask him how he remembers these things so vividly, how they come out exactly the right way with every brush stroke. He takes my hand and follows along every single stroke, every mistake, every drop of color. He shows me my face and occasionally touches my own. On my cheek then in the cheek of Katniss in the painting. He brushes my eyelashes lightly with his finger then brushes over each individual one in the painting. "I'll teach you." He says and I only nod. Not wanting to disgrace his gift with my feeble attempt to imitate it, even if I'd just be learning. We sit there for a while and then finally take the paintings to the studio in my-our house. We go into the studio and set the paintings up on the floor around the room, on shelves and the long table against the far wall. He puts his works in progress on aisles then unmasks each and everyone of his works for me to see. A painting of a brown, curly haired girl here. Her toes poised pointedly, her arms slightly extended as if about to take of for flight, in a tree where the my little bird belongs. Jumping from one to another: Rue. Another picture there, of Her...Prim being carried away by...Gale...in the reaping of our first Games. I quickly look away to see a picture of piercing green eyes on a red coated mutt, Foxface in our first Games. A pearl, a trident held by it owner, a woman dressed as a tree, then with an axe, a grey haired woman drinking from a leaf bowl, the familiar golden haired man who had held the trident and a fragile red haired woman holding each other's hands for dear life, even if the man is reaching for a tray of food and the woman is turned slightly looking off into space. More and more paintings line the room, but with Peeta holding my grand, watching me, I'm alright. Not sucked back into different Games or Districts or Times. I even lead him to a painting of a man holding a piece of fabric in his hands, an infinite amount of amazing things those hands can do with a mere piece of fabric I know it's Cinna's, I move my hand lightly over the fabric in the painting. A tear stings my eye and I let it fall down my cheek to my chin, struggling to smile. Peeta picks up a blank canvas, still holding my hand with his free one as dearly as Finnick and Annie in his painting. He takes brushes and some of his paint with one hand then guides mine to pick up a brush with the other. We talk about the paintings, the memories, everything while he teaches me simple brush strokes, never letting go and standing right behind me. He holds me close to him as a let him paint with my hand. I close my eyes and feels the way he strokes the canvas with the brush, barely listening to what he's saying anymore. When I open my eyes I see two grey eyes, so simple on the white canvas yet so clear.
"Peeta?"
"Yes."
"I have an idea."
"Go a head," he allows, releasing my hand. With this far wall white, with much potential to be painted on and Peeta's painting safely covered again on the other sides of the room. I dip a small paintbrush in yellow paint and muster as much creativity I have left I mention, "Peeta. Turn around and close your eyes."
"Katniss what are you doing?" He asks arching an eyebrow.
"Do you trust me?"
"With my life," he says chivalrously.
"Then you might want to turn and close your eyes. And also cover your ears," I grin.
He returns the smile, still questingly but obediently does what I tell him. I turn back around towards the painting with my brush and splatter it. Craning my neck to see if Peeta has peeked, fortunate for him he has not. I turn back around to the painting and splatter more colors around the eyes careful not to mix the brushes into different paints. When I'm finished layering splatters after five minutes I get another grand idea. I say Peeta's name a couple of times and he doesn't respond. Then I take my splatter paint project and move it to the back of his shirt. Laughing so hard I almost can't breathe I out all my paint brushes down and tap Peeta on the shoulder.
"Done," I call out, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.
"Why are you smiling like tha-," he starts until he looks over my shoulder and sees the painting. "Katniss that's really good." He looks at me with those bright blue irises. Wait until he sees the rest of it.
"Thanks but I did another project too," I add as he's reaching out for a hug, ducking away from him still grinning.
"Katniss what...what did you do?..." He asked clearly suspicious now.
"It came out great! Amazing," I chuckle making an okay sign with my hand by touching my pointer finger with my thumb as if about to flick the air, "you might want to pay your self on the Back for teaching me so well." I add. He looks totally confused as he reaches his hand to his back and brings it up to see that his hand is covered in paint. "Katnissss!" He exclaims struggling to keep the grin off his face. This is my cue to run!

He chases me with his painted hand around the house into the dining room where he corners me.
"Peeta wait, wait..." I stall, holding my hands up giggling beyond control. He smiles slyly. "You have to give me some credit," I continue, "I made a masterpiece." Saying masterpiece proudly.
"Well then," he lifts up his chin as he gets closer causing me to back up into the wall, still giggling, "let me congratulate you on that Masterpiece!" He lunges forward as he says masterpiece and hugs me. Wiping the paint all over the back of my shirt and my back, my hair and my face. I scream in delight.
"Peeta! Peeta, stop stoopp, Haahaha," I laugh.
He then kisses me, one kiss by one all over my face, spreading paint kisses around it. We press our foreheads against each other and smile.
"Your a masterpiece." He says kissing my lightly on the lips. I return the favor. "And you are mine." I smile.