bakerstreet | i think this is liked well enough

i think this is liked well enough

cuddle meme

TO DO!

✔ Post a comment with your character's name and fandom plus preferences, if you have them.
✔ Use the magic RNG (1-12) to pick the scenario.
✔ Cuddle it out!

CUDDLE CHOICES!

① SWEET DREAMS: It's been a long day and all you want to do is sleep or just rest your eyes for a bit. Hopefully whoever is close by doesn't mind if you use them as a blanket.
② STORMY WEATHER: The heavy rain, thunder and lightning won't be letting up anytime soon. Luckily, it's the perfect weather to stay indoors and snuggle up close and keep warm.
③ LAZY DANCER: It's the end of a party, or maybe it's only the two of you, but the tempo is slow and the lights are low. Let your dance partner take the weight and just sway.
④ SURPRISE ATTACK: Time to invade someone's personal space. Are they working too much and need a distraction? Maybe you just wanted to brighten their day. Either way, they won't see it coming.
⑤ MOVIE NIGHT: It can be on the sofa or in a darkened theater, but you've got your popcorn and someone to settle against during your favorite movie.
⑥ I LOVE YOU, MAN: It's totally platonic, really. You're just very good friends, no matter what people like to think. But you just love your friend so much you want to hug them, whether they like it or not.
⑦ JEEPERS CREEPERS: Welp. You were just frightened. Was it a spider in the washroom, a ghost in the attic, a bad dream? Either way, you're looking for someone to cling to right now, and who better than that person right there?
⑧ HURT AND COMFORT: Whether you're sick in bed, just been dumped or suffered a traumatic event, you need someone to wrap their arms around you and make everything go away.
⑨ SUNDAY MORNING: Maybe you just had a wild night. Maybe there’s just not enough space at your place and you need to share your bed. Or maybe you just got really tired and someone else happened to be there. Doesn't matter because now the person with you looks way more comfortable than any blanket or pillow. Drape to your heart’s content.
⑩ MOMENT AFTER: You just had incredible, vigorous sex (playing out is totally optional) and if you weren't a cuddler before, you are now. You're probably too exhausted to do anything else anyway. Just enjoy the moment.
⑪ MÉNAGE À TROIS: Or four, or five. Get a group and cuddle away.
⑫ PLAYER'S CHOICE: Pick one yourself or make up your own!

org: http://memebells.livejournal.com/155699.html

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[One day... Katniss will learn not to run to Haymitch when she's freaked and Peeta is unavailable, because it's Haymitch and he is the LEAST CUDDLY PERSON EVER. But oh well. She's here. Haymitch is awkward. And he's trying not to be... Callous.]

What is it now?

[...Not as callous?]

[ She can't help it. Short of putting a tracker on that boy, there's no saying whose kitchen he might be in, and by the time she'd checked her own it'd simply been too much and Buttercup had run away when she tried to squeeze him instead. Haymitch was the next best thing (as rare as the occasion to say that might be). ]

[ It must be some special occasion for the smell of alcohol and vomit in his shirt to not be overwhelmingly terrible. She's able to press her face into it without gagging, though it muddles her speech when she replies. ]

I had another nightmare.

[Haymitch exhales in something that's half sigh of frustration and half sigh of relief. Something tells him if Peeta ever died before Katniss- perish the thought- he'd be the second to know about it, because he wouldn't be able to pry Katniss off of him once someone pried her off Peeta's corpse. Morbid, but, well, their lives were morbid.]

I know. [Because he hasn't been nightmare free since he started drinking and even then, the alcohol only makes them less real.] You didn't think they'd go away, did you? Doesn't just stop just because you're not playing anymore.

No. I didn't.

[ It's the truth. This seemed an occurrence she would have to get used to, despite how much she hoped it might get better - though truth be told, Katniss was beginning to forget what it was to hold out hope against the nightmares. She had just gotten used to remedying the horrors painted on her eyelids by seeking out Peeta and shaking in his arms until they stopped. But when be wasn't around... ]

[ He was supposed to stay with her. Forever if possible. Though that did not mean he could be around her forever. ]

[ Katniss removes her face from his shirt and wipes at her eyes and nose with the back if her hand. ]

I thought they'd get better. Eventually, at least - they're over. [ And if she sounds a but angry about that...well, it's because she is. ]

[Haymitch draws back from her and wanders over to the cabinet, pulling down a bottle of blueberry wine he'd been convinced into buying by a group of extremely persuasive District Eleven children when their parents came into town to trade. That was ages ago, back when the idea of Districts visiting and trading with each other was still a novel concept. It was about as strong as watered down sleep syrup, but it had a decent flavor, and if Peeta asked, he'd... Well, actually, he wouldn't make excuses. He'd just shrug and move on.

Still- offering Katniss a drink was their bizarre ritual. The least he could do was pretend to care about whether or not he was making her out to be an alcoholic.

The silence between them is too loud as he forages for a clean glass, so he speaks up.] But? [He recognizes that tone well enough. Just because he's examining the bottoms of glasses doesn't mean he's not at least partially interested.]

...but they don't.

[ The dreams don't go away. The nightmares don't stop. She's not even sure the Games have fully stopped because when things finally settled into peace, it almost felt too peaceful. Katniss eventually realized she only really watched the news feeds on her television to watch for signs that their new president was turning down the same path as Snow (or Coin, even) just in case it was all about to start again. ]

[ Her voice is hollow and without prying she isn't going to offer details from that nights mental assaults. ]

[ She fidgets instead. Her hands are in the pockets of her jackets and she's found a small ball of lint in the left one, now rolling it between her fingers. For a moment, she's almost tempted to ask Haymitch what he dreams about, but thinks better of it (that seems like some unspoken agreement; she can ask Peeta, and Peeta can ask her, but Haymitch...could confess his terrors to the blueberry wine and the bottoms of the cups he was so closely inspecting. She would not pry.) ]

[ Instead she eyes the bottle. Sometime around mid-day she'd regret drinking with him - remember the last time? But now...it looked as if it could be a new friend. Maybe one to mumble the details if her dream to under the pretext of blowing bubbles with her mouth. ]

No. [He finally finds a glass that's mostly inoffensive and pours the wine into it before handing it off to her as an afterthought as he goes to find something stronger. Since Hazelle stopped being his housekeeper, it's gone back to being disorganized and disgusting, but at least he knows where everything is.

And if Haymitch talked much about his experiences, he'd speak of candy pink birds with razor sharp beaks and how even the most innocuous of animals and plants make him tense up during his waking hours. He'd speak of waking up nights in a sweat feeling like he's drowning in a lake of fire. How he can't sleep at night, because Careers travel by dark and even now he's being hunted. But bottles of white liquor, expensive Capitol brews, homemade concoctions that would probably kill a man who wasn't already dead, and more besides are all that hear about Haymitch's turmoil. Everyone he could tell died a long time ago and any attempt to open up to another person was met with a single piece of logic. The Capitol will always own you.

True then, true now. He and Katniss didn't fit into the New World Order- she a fallen figurehead, he her drunken mentor, too clever by half, but too drunk and broken to amount to anything. Best he watch her, make sure she didn't lose her mind and plunge the entire system into anarchy, but Haymitch knows what Katniss won't say. The Mockingjay has finished her song. She will not sing again. She's just a common bird now and she'll be no symbol and have no meaning until long after she's dead when her exploits become the stuff of legends that they talk about with the same somber tones they used to talk about the Dark Days.

He finds his last bottle of white liquor, frowns at it, and then rejoins her at the table.] And they never will. Things don't really change. The Dark Days, the Games, whatever they're calling this? [He waves a hand.] It's all variations on the same thing.

[ If she were to compare being an ordinary bird to being the Mockingjay, the former would triumph. Of course the former was allowed to fly wherever she pleased and forage for worms and berries without the fear of being pinned under the eyes of predators while eating them. She wasn't even a song bird anymore - the few reporters who tried to continually get stories to regale invested people with had given up several months ago. She didn't miss it. ]

[ Birds could get good and drunk off fermented berry juice, too. The thought tickled some long-quite sense of humor in the back of her mind as she stared at the dark contents of the glass. Even ordinary birds. ]

They were supposed to.

[ Gazing at the depths of her cup has lead her mind back to berries from birds, and it's stuck there, putting a rather unpleasant and sour aftertaste in Katniss' mouth before she even so much as sips at it. Instead she looks to Haymitch's bottle, feels a faint flicker of remorse that he still has it in his hands so often, refuses to admit that she's encouraging the destructive behavior by being here to drink with him, and then elaborates. ]

...to get better, I mean.

[ And sometimes things weren't...so bad. To the point where one might even call them better. But never good. And never better enough to make up for the bad things, or overshadow them and make them go away when she closed her eyes. ]

[Haymitch fixes her with a look- it's equal parts sardonic and tired. Yes, things were supposed to get better. Like they were supposed to get better years ago when he won the second Quarter Quell and brought some glory to District Twelve and maybe drag it out of being a second-rate district, when the only thing that came of it was give him that little taste of rebellion and make him hate the Capitol more for the consequences that had. Or when he actually managed to mentor two brilliant (like hell he'd admit that- Katniss didn't need that kind of leverage) children out of the arena and then manipulated a girl into becoming a revolution's best hope. Yes, things were supposed to get better.

But the history books have never lied. If things were supposed to get better, Panem might never have existed.]

Katniss. [His tone manages to hide any traces of sympathy, any traces of paternal feelings he may or may not have, buried under the usual layer of acerbic snark.] When did you get so optimistic?

[ That look is simultaneously making her hackles rise and convincing her that perhaps she shouldn't have come here after all. While the very presence of another person - a familiar and human presence at that; Buttercup was plenty familiar but he lacked the skill of giving her a drink and then driving her to drink it through dry, hurtful humor - was comforting, if he was just going to make fun of her, it might have been more emotionally advantageous to stay at home and suffer in silence. ]

[ ... No, most likely not. But it was good to think she had the alternative. ]

... Shut up. [ Katniss rebukes after a moment's thought, complete with sucking on her teeth and raising the cup to her mouth. ]

I didn't.

[ One does not simply 'become optimistic' - not after war and war games. She could drown her optimism in drink just as successfully as you, Haymitch; just watch as she takes a good mouthful of wine instead of further defending herself. ]

[Haymitch snorts.] Clever. [Like most people who've lived long enough to take nothing for granted, very little out of Haymitch's mouth when he was at his most comfortable (not sober enough to be insane and not drunk enough to be passing out in his own sick) was pointless. He rarely said things to be cruel and when he did, he took the time to realize it. Katniss got comfort and senseless hope from Peeta. From him? She got reality. She needed both.]

Good. [He half smirks] Then I should probably tell you there's not even enough alcohol in that to get your cat drunk. Just in case. [He takes another pull from his own bottle. No one ever said that Haymitch made good company, but he was just frustrating enough to distract from the night terrors.]

[Thunder and lightning and the worst storm there's been in a while. Sounds like bombs dropping all over again, and there's sure to be need to repair buildings and structures from fallen trees by the next morning. The Victor's Village is tucked away nicely, out of distance of flora that threatens to come crashing down.

Still, the ruckus is enough to make even Peeta start to shake and jump, and he - well.

'Avoided the worst of it' ... that's a funny little phrase, isn't it? It implies there is something that can define as 'worst' instead of twenty different shades of bad, all terrible in different ways. But that day was not the day that he lost one of the most important things to him.

So he turns up the collar of his jacket and braves the rain and storm through the short distance of the elements across the square and to Katniss's door, knocking swiftly.]

[ One thing that could be said about their games was they never got caught in storms. The only two who had been out in the massive storm had been Cato and Thresh, fighting to death in the field of (what she still considered to be) wheat beyond the lake where as the two of them had holed up in a cave and sheltered. The lighting storm in the Quarter Quell hadn't really come to any sort of significant completion, seeing as they'd caused their own storm. The climax of the lightning storm had coincided with their chaotic release of fireworks and hovercrafts and bad choices on Coin and Haymitch's part. On everyone's part. ]

[ The mist had not counted as a storm; it was more a slowly slithering snake in comparison to the quick onsets of rain and hail, but she didn't react much better on foggy mornings than she did now. ]

[ Katniss wasn't sleeping. She had sat up in her bed at the first several cracks of lightning, blankets from the bed pulled up and around her and hands pressing the corners of the comforter to her ears in an attempt to muffle the sounds. For all the good it did, however - she still physically shuddered every time there's a clap and her floor and bed are illuminated through the shades of her bedroom window. ]

[ At first she's not sure if she hears the knocking - it it's really there or if it's some creek of the floorboard because she hasn't seen Buttercup yet and he hates storms almost as much as she. Maybe he's running somewhere. But when she peels the blanket away from her ears and listens, it's knocking. For sure. It takes more than a few minutes to convince her cramped legs to unfold and them Katniss tried her best to tip toe to the door as if any sound from her would set off another clap and rumble. Turns out they weren't directly related and the thunder sounded behind her anyway. ]

[ It spurred the girl into motion, and her feet thudded on the stairs as she raced downstairs. There was no need to even check who was at the door at this time of night and in this weather. It was only ever one person, though she's far too choked up and upset to greet him. ]

[Once upon a time there'd be no words. He'd just pull her close and hold her, because being able to touch her and know she was alright would make it all better for him, and his being there would make it all okay enough for her. And that was enough, to know he could give her that little bit of kindness, to ease her pain even a little bit, for a little while.]

[Instead, Peeta stands there awkwardly for a moment, staring at Katniss. He had just been about to leave or find a way to break in, he wasn't sure which honestly.]

... Hey. [He looks at the door, steps in, closes it behind him, and wraps his arms (damp and cold from the rain) around her, and it's a little bit like once upon a time again.]

[ Those old moments are gone now, sadly, marred by the continual pauses; hesitance before actions and almost fear that sparked between the two of them. It rarely happened during the day - from dawn to dusk, things could be normal (not good, not bad but balanced enough to have themselves considered normal by just spending the day together) and even in sleep too at times. But here, on edge, with thunderous roars above head, it made it much harder to Rene berthed had no reason to be scared of each other. ]

[ I love you. ]

[ Her arms reach around to cling at him, and she won't mind his cold and damp arms so long as hd doesn't mind the fact she might be holding him a little too tightly. The 'don't-leave" sort of tight. ]

[Being held down too tight beings back bad memories, but the context is so entirely different that there's only a half second pause before he relaxes into it, holding her so close as if that could make all the bad memories go away.]

[ I love you, too. ]

[He leans back against the closed door for support, but the next roll of thunder feels like it rattles it down to its very hinges. But maybe that's just a hallucination. Sometimes he still wonders what's real or what isn't. Peeta pushes off from the door, relaxes his hold on Katniss just slightly.]

Come on, let's get you up to bed.

[ There are several beats before her fingers finally unfurl from his shirt. Her hands rest for a moment more, splayed across his shoulders and doing their best not to shake before she drops them to her side. ]

[ At this moment his neck seemed the most ideal place to lean into; to bury her face in and see if the warm crook between neck and collar could provide more of a muffling buffer between her ears and the storm. But that's...that's needy. And he's wet, and probably scared too and she should do something to reciprocate the comfort without scaring him off and hrs suggesting they move -... ]

[ Katniss leaned back just a little, just to get a good look at his face. She did her best to keep her gaze and tone steady when speaking. ]

I can't sleep.

[ Though that really ought to have gone unsaid. It was obvious, and not really a one-sided problem here. ]

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i think this is liked well enough

katniss everdeen → hunger games

7; And I am only a little bit sorry. ...And I never get to use this icon.

it is a heartwarming icon - THOUGH NEVER BE SORRY

It symbolizes the awkwardness that is in Haymitch's soul.

It is a fabulous soul, marred as it is by awkwardness.

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