thearena | [Closed] Like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

Who| Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen
What| Meeting up.
Where| To the west in the arena.
When| Second day/night.
Warnings/Notes| Can't think of anything, they're pretty good at staying PG-13.

The arena was nothing like the one they'd been in, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. It was still an arena, and here they thought they wouldn't be back in one ever again. That was the point of being a Victor, wasn't it? You never had to go through it again. You got to sit back and watch it from the safety of the tower, with everything on a big screen, and trying to ignore the commentary.

And Peeta knew that they hadn't trained for this. They weren't out of shape, but running around hills and going through a jungle? Not something he was prepared to do. This leg was going to get him killed. It was gong to get them both killed, but he had to find Katniss first. There was a lot of stuff at the cornucopia this time, but he knew that running in was not something he could do. Especially if he wanted to get out alive. So once the alarm sounded, he high tailed it out of there pretty quick, going in the direction that was right behind his platform. West. That worked out well.

But now the problem was that he was wandering around without any food, water, or weapons. The hunger was easy to ignore, but the thirst was quickly presenting a problem. He hadn't seen anyone just yet, so he was fine with being weaponless, for now. And once he started to see cages, and all kinds of other stuff, he thought that maybe he would be able to find something to use. A rusted pipe, something like that.

There was no way he had the energy to even try wrenching something free, though. The best he could do was stop for a little bit, and then try to make his way back to the cornucopia. He had to find her. Together, they could work on staying alive. And Peeta was determined that Katniss would survive.

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His leg might be a mixed blessing. It had it's draw backs of course...but it also gave him a very unique set of tracks. With as many tribute as were in this arena, without it, finding him would have been hopeless.

It still almost was. Even her tracking skills were stretched thin, and several times, she had to just search back and forth, canvas the area until she picked them up again.

Moving was slow going, but she had to be close. He couldn't have moved much farther than where she was now. Night would be falling soon, and if she didn't find him before then, she would have to settle in for the night.

She stopped, looking, searching for a print, anything...she didn't want to call out, in case he wasn't the only person near.

Calling out for each other was a surefire way to get them killed. Someone would hear them, and then follow the voice to where they were, and they wouldn't even have a chance to find each other. When he'd gotten close to the cornucopia again, he found a safe spot (a hopefully safe spot) and sat down.

Best he could do for right now. After watching so many arena, Peeta knew that most people grabbed stuff, and then left the cornucopia as fast as possible. Careers were different now then what they were before, but everyone knew that it wasn't really safe to be here.

Which is why he was here. And which was why he saw her, and he slowly started to rise.

"Katniss?" If it wasn't her, then. Well. Shit.

She let out a huff of relief as her heart leapt, rushing over to him. There was no obvious damage, though without though she padded him down, checking to make sure everything was there that should be.

"God, you're ok, good, good..." The relief rushed through her, nearly over whelming her. She clamped her hands on his shoulder, to tremors going through her.

It welled up again, how unfair this was, and she fought to press it down. It was late, dark and they needed to find some place safe. Not cry to each other about how unfair life was.

"I'm here, I'm here. Don't worry, I'm here." Peeta smiled up at her. Everything was where it was supposed to be, and everything was good enough for right now. He put his hands over hers on his shoulders, trying to give her a reassuring touch.

"It's okay. We didn't lose each other for too long, right?" He went to get up from where he was sitting.

His grip was reassuring, and she nodded, taking a deep breath and helping him up.

"We need to get out of here..." She said softly, still keeping her hand in contact with him. Just to be sure he didn't disappear. "Pruna was with me, but she vanished in the night. We should find her and Sandy, but...probably tomorrow."

Unless they wanted to travel at night, they weren't going anywhere far right now.

"I was worried about them, I'm glad to hear they're still out there." Peeta smiled, though he didn't let go of her hand. Not yet. Just because... not yet.

"Okay. I don't know about you, but I've been wandering around for awhile and all I've seen is jungle." Suddenly, it popped into his head. "Did you manage to grab anything from the cornucopia? Maybe some..."

Well that was a kind of stupid question, about to ask if she'd grabbed any weapons or anything like that. "Sorry, never mind. Which way should we go?"

Oh god, he probably hadn't eaten anything. She hadn't even thought about it.

"Come on..." Pulling him into at slightly hidden alcove, she unslung the backback from her back, pulling out a can of beer, and what was left of a package of spam. A little more rustling around, and she came up with a handful of trail mix. A bit more than she would normally dose out for one meal, but he probably hadn't gotten anything yet.

"I actually made out like a bandit. I've got a tent, a rope, food, and..." She twisted do he could see the curve of the bow on her back.

Peeta followed her obietently. Oh, food. Yes, food would be amazing, because he was starving, and thirsty. Peeta didn't want to take any more then he had to, though. But the sight of the spam, and trail mix made his stomach grumble. Yeah, he needed some food.

"You did a lot better then I did. As soon as the gong sounded, I took off in the opposite direction." A preservation thing. It made him sound weak, yes, but he wouldn't have made it out of there if he'd gone in.

"Thank you." He took the food gratefully, as well as the beer, which caused him to raise an eyebrow.

"That's why I got enough for both of us."

She caught his expression, and shrugged. Beer wasn't exactly her favorite either. Dulled her edge, although at least it did fill her up a little bit.

"Don't look at me, I just grabbed what I could."

They needed to get up, safe. She wasn't going to let them get worn down too soon, especially with neither of them being in top shape.

Peeta softly laughed, shaking his head. "It's good, you did really great. Not that I wasn't impressed with you before, but..." He tried to tease her a little, while he tried not to wolf down the food. Anything tasted good after going hungry for a little bit, they both knew how that one was.

"I wonder if things would have gone differently if beer was one of the things we could grab, back in our arena." Let's be honest. Some people would have been easier to handle if they were drunk. Peeta opens up the can and takes a drink from it with a frown.

He wasn't sure if he'd ever be a big alcohol fan.

"You better be impressed." As stressed as she was, being with Peeta helped relaxed her. Knowing she wasn't alone. If nothing else, she owed Peeta more than she could ever pay back simply on the fact he kept her smiling during things like this.

She snorts at the thought, and then feels a small wave of guilty.

"Well, hopefully it'll help us out here."

"I'm very impressed! I'll say it as many times as you want, I am very, very impressed by you." He jokes about it, fully able to keep going if she wants him to. But then it'll just get annoying.

Plus, there's something else to think about. "You know, I tested some of the alcohol things here. Not a lot at once. But the different wines, and champagnes, and they have that white liquor from back home..."

He trails off, before getting back on track. "Basically, beer has nutrients in it. So it's a blessing in disguise."

"Yeah. It'll keep our stomachs full." She says, also ignoring the awkward feeling that the mention of white alcohol brought up.

She started picking through the rest of her bag, pulling out the tent and some of the other supplies, and looking up into the trees.

"There's some nasty things out here. I think if we get high enough, we'll be ok..."

"That's all we need, right? It gives us one less thing to worry about for a few hours." He looked up at the tree as well. Could he make it up there? He wasn't the climber that she was, but he could probably haul himself up there.

"Okay. Let's try for some sort of pulley system. One of us gets up there, we pass the stuff along, and the person on the bottom then comes up after everything else is already there." He looked at her with a small smile, and a little bit of nerves.

"Would that work?"

And then a raptor chased them up a tree and Katniss shot it some, and then they had a fitful nights rest the end.

[Closed] Like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

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