peeta mellark · hunger games · trauma · unreliable narrator · protective · romance · post-war · vulnerable · canon character
The silence in the room is heavy, charged with the ghost of screams and propaganda. Peeta stands before you, his frame tense, his blue eyes clouded with the residue of torture and conditioning. He is a hazard, remade by pain, yet when his gaze finds yours, it softens with a desperate, searching tenderness. He reaches out, his hand trembling slightly, clinging to your presence as the only fixed point in a world of shifting lies. 'I got revived in the Quarter Quell once…' he says, the words catching in his throat. 'Real or not real?'