Room 504, Thursday Evening

[wesleynotponcy]

So Wesley had books. Lots of books. And they were... interesting.

By interesting, he meant that they made him blush pretty much constantly. They were that kind of books.

"She'd like that?" he wondered at one point, copying over a particularly surprising passage into his notebook. "How would I even -- " He turned the page, revealing a diagram. "Oh. Oh."

Yeah. Totally blushing.

[[Open door and post, expecting one. I'm a jerk.]]

Comments

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

She immediately climbed up beside him, nestling her head against his shoulder without a trace of shyness. She needed the comfort right now. "I started writing Annie. See how things are going with the baby."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, wonderful," he said earnestly, wrapping one arm around her and rubbing gentle circles on her back. "That'll be good for you, I think. And for her. Is she back in Four, or...?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"To be with her family," Katniss said with a nod. "I think so. Johanna might be with her. I mean, we didn't really stay in touch."

Entirely her fault.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley realized that his question hadn't been entirely sensitive, so he was quiet for a moment and just rubbed her back.

"I could find out, if you'd like," he said softly after a while. "I mean, if you didn't want to, er. Call yourself."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"...if you'd like," she said, because she was trying to let him help more. She knew he liked to. "I was going to call Haymitch, but if you'd like to do it, I...I mean, there's too many people there I still can't talk to."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, no, if you're at all comfortable with it, then you should," Wesley said sincerely. "I just thought -- if you weren't ready yet, I'd be glad to make contact for you. Should that become an issue."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"I'll let you know," she said, tucking herself against him. "Can I stay here tonight?"

She didn't think there was any point in beating around the bush.

"I just...sleep better."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Oh!" That was... a better topic. If slightly surprising. "Oh, of course. Yes. Certainly. Of course."

There was a whole wide world of ways to agree to something, apparently!

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"If you don't want me to, it's okay. But that's why I came up here," she said, now a little shy. "You help me, um, calm down."

And also to feel less like the girl who should be dead with everyone else, and to feel less like her nightmares might be real again, and to feel.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Faintly blushing now at that display of awkwardness, Wesley shook his head. "No, no, of course you're welcome to stay," he said earnestly. "I'm happy to help." That sentence was getting used a lot when he was around her. "I'll just -- go and change, and you can, er. Get comfortable?"

He went to his dresser to select a meticulously-folded set of sleep clothes, then awkwardly slipped out to go get changed.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss watched him, hiding a smile before tucking herself into his bed, getting comfortable.

It was just awkward without him. But given that she was already a bit relaxed, and...well, how things had gone recently, she wasn't anticipating settling down to sleep right away anyway.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Well, Wesley would be glad to know that at least it wasn't awkward with him.

Even though it really, really was.

After changing clothes and checking that he was at least moderately presentable (and, okay, maybe doing a quick breathing exercise for reasons that were nobody's business), he came back in and put away the clothes he'd been wearing, then hovered near the doorway. "Would you, ah. Like the light off?"

People usually did when they were sleeping, Wes, yeah.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Do you leave it on to sleep when I'm not here?" Katniss wondered, raising an eyebrow at him from where she was curled up in his bed.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wes' response was perhaps not the most intelligent thing he'd ever said.

"Well -- that is -- it dims."

It dimmed, Katniss! Wasn't that exciting?

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss just shook her head slowly, considering her response carefully.

"I love you. Turn off the light, Wesley."

The 'you dork' was implied.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Right!" And off it went.

Then he padded back over to his bed, taking a moment to assess the situation. Easing himself in alongside her took finesse, because, well, it was a small bed, and while Katniss herself was small enough for there to be room for the both of them, he didn't want to overstep any boundaries by sliding in too close to her. Which ended up with him only half on the bed, with his outer leg crossed awkwardly over the other one so that he wouldn't topple off.

"Er. I don't suppose you could perhaps...?" he tried hopefully, assuming there was any room to scoot over.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss scooted the...admittedly not large distance so he'd have a couple more inches, and peered at him, a little confused. And maybe a touch hurt -- did he not want to touch her? No, that didn't make sense. He'd gotten those books, but....

"Is that okay?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Okay. Better.

So awkward. So awkward.

"Er. Thank you," he said, shifting into a slightly more comfortable position. That, yes, involved some touching, though thankfully not the awkward sort of near-shoving that he'd deliberately tried to avoid. "Are you -- I mean, is that -- comfortable?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Well, now he was touching her, so Katniss was pretty sure that she was in the clear.

Still. Time for a bolder move.

"No. Hang on." She shifted onto her side so she was tucked against him, draped a leg across his, and nestled her head onto his chest.

"Better."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Good, because he had icons for that.

"Much," he agreed, bringing a hand up to run through her hair. "So, ah... what did you do today?"

Not his best line, true. He had a Katniss laying on his chest. It was excused.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

She laughed, low in her chest so it reverberated against his and she could hear it in her ear along with his heartbeat. She liked those little reminders that she was alive and there was a reason for that, and it was good. They kept her tied to here and now better than anything else.

"Went out into the woods. Everything's dying or flying away or going to sleep, now, so it's my last chance to hunt for a good long while," she admitted.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley felt the vibration of her laugh against his chest too, his breath catching momentarily as he thought of how far she'd come in terms of simple expression and vitality in just a few days. "Oh, good," he said sincerely. "Did you catch anything?"

It was Katniss. Of course she'd caught something.

"That is," he amended, smiling faintly, "what did you catch?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Squirrel and rabbit," she murmured, skimming her foot along his leg lightly. "They're all fat for the winter."

And now she was sliding her fingertips under his shirt, tracing them along his hip. It just seemed like a good place for her hand, and his skin was all warm and lovely and she shouldn't be this easy to distract. "And you?"

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Oh. And... there was touching. The way she was laying on him made it a bit hard to reciprocate anywhere like that, but he slipped one hand under her hair to gently rub the nape of her neck.

Real sexy. Really.

"We had a reserves meeting today," he said, after a moment of Katniss-fingers and a resulting moment of not being able to come up with just what he'd done for a whole week. "Worked on bandages, first aid, that sort of thing."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I'll start coming to reserves again," Katniss sighed softly, because even if that wasn't an obviously sexy sort of thing to do, it was soothing, and she liked his hands and her neck was sensitive and maybe she hadn't realized how starved she was for contact until recently. She tipped her head up a little, nuzzling along his jaw. "I stopped last year because I didn't really see the point if I was...going home."