Canon-compliant post MJ, pre-epilogue look at Everlark. Written for talesofpanem on Tumblr, for the prompt 'heat'.

o-o-o

It takes years to convince them. Katniss always has an excuse; her confinement to District 12 hasn't been lifted, she's worried how Peeta might react to the long train ride, they can't leave Haymitch alone for so long. But Annie wears them down with her letters and phone calls and not-so-subtle guilt trips about how fast little Finny is growing.

So in the fall, when District Four's oppressive heat tempers into something a little more tolerable, Katniss and Peeta find themselves boarding a train far less comfortable than the old tribute trains had been, for a three-day ride.

And Katniss's concerns were for nothing because Peeta finds he loves the train, the scenery that rushes by, familiar and untainted by the Capitol. He loves the narrow bunk they squeeze into, the way they're forced to sleep spooned together, his cock nestled against the firm swell of her ass. And he especially loves how the constant clack-clack-clack of the rails muffles the sounds of Katniss's pleasure as they make use of that tiny bed, the sway of the train only enhancing their lovemaking every night and each morning too. He's almost sad when the train finally arrives at their destination.

But only until he actually sees the district. Only until they're standing outside Annie's weather-beaten little shack just steps from the beach.

They'd stopped in District Four during the victory tour, had danced at the justice building there, seen a glimpse of blue water stretching to the horizon from a car window. But being here by choice is completely different.

He loves it.

They've barely dropped their bags in Annie's spare bedroom when little Finny is dragging Peeta to the beach. Katniss and Annie laughingly tell him they'll follow, once they've changed themselves.

Peeta is awestruck by the beach in District Four. He loves the crash of the waves and the screams of the seabirds. He loves the wide blue sky that reaches down to kiss the equally blue water, a thousand different shades melding together. He loves chasing Finnick and Annie's young son up and down the white sand, stopping to collect seashells and coloured bits of glass along the shore, tucking each treasure safely into a bucket.

When Finny coaxes him into the water, he finds he loves floating in the undulating sea while the youngster swims laps around him, loves the warm, clear water so different from the lake back home. He even loves the salty sting of it against his sunburnt lips.

And he really loves the swimsuit that Katniss is wearing when finally she emerges from Annie's place. He's seen her in less, it's true. Five years married, he's seen every inch of her olive skin, kissed the firm swells and mottled scars, catalogued every freckle and dimple. But strutting down the boardwalk in two tiny pieces of sunshine yellow fabric moulded to her curves like a second skin, she's a goddess.

They spend the day in the sun, swimming and sunbathing, flirting and stealing kisses. As evening falls, they sit on a blanket, eating their fill of briny shellfish and spicy dipping sauce. Katniss traces the new freckles that dot his shoulders and nose, smiling contentedly.

Finny's chatter wanes, his eyes glassy and hooded. Annie takes her tired boy back to the cottage, leaving Katniss and Peeta alone on the blanket, to watch the last of the sunset paint the waves in muted orange and gold. Their part of the beach is deserted, sheltered from the more public areas by a wharf that paints shadow patterns against the darkening sand. "It's so beautiful here," Peeta almost sighs.

"It is," she agrees, but there is something guarded in her voice, and he turns to face her, his brows lifted curiously.

"You sound less sure," he says, a smile in his voice but worry in his heart. He knows that the largest part of the reason they're here is because he wanted it, that Katniss would have been happy staying in District 12.

She shakes her head, not quite meeting his eyes. "I guess I'm just tired," she deflects.

Peeta gazes at his wife, bathed in the sunset. Her hair is loose, the breeze blowing saltwater-waved tendrils around her face. The dying sun gilds her, sets her hair and eyes alight. She's more radiant than the sun. "Not too tired, I hope," he teases. She's still in that nearly indecent scrap of swimsuit, and he's been hard all day.

At her coquettish smile, he advances. He loves kissing Katniss, the way her lips soften and part beneath his own, the low sounds she makes in her throat. It's gentle and loving, at first. But then her hands twist in his hair, tugging the way she knows is his undoing and he groans.

Without breaking the kiss he pulls her into his lap, straddling him, freeing his hands to rove over her bare skin, to trace the goosebumps that erupt under his fingers, to palm the twin swells of her ass, perfect fistfuls. He thrusts his hips upward, grinding his hard cock against her, only two thin bits of fabric separating him from her heat. She gasps, her head tipping back, the elegant column of her throat an irresistible temptation. His mouth waters, and he wastes no time, her skin salty under his tongue.

She shivers. "Let's go back," she murmurs, but he shakes his head, speaking into her throat.

"Too far." Plus Annie will want to chat, and the walls in her cottage are paper thin. "I need you."

She tenses in his lap. "Here?" There's something in her voice that catches Peeta's attention, cuts through his lust-haze. He expected her to demur, to object half-heartedly. It's what she always does when they make love by the lake or in the woods around 12, protests that someone might see them. But that's not what's happening now. This is something beyond her typical inhibitions.

"Katniss?" he whispers, heart stuttering, doubt creeping in, the dark part of his brain arising.

The memory hits him so hard and fast he can't brace for it. Another time, another moonlit beach, wet sand beneath him, Katniss in his lap. Lulling him into a false sense of security with kisses, before she can rip his throat out. The mutt. The murdering, stinking mutt.

"Not real," the mutt is saying, holding his face. "Not real, not real."

It's over nearly as fast as it started, the distorted vision fading away like mist until he's back on the beach in Four, shaking and panting. Katniss is still on his lap, cradling his head against her chest, singing softly under her breath. He wraps his arms around her waist, squeezing her tight, inhaling her natural soothing scent under the chemical sweetness of sun lotion.

"Were you on the beach in the arena?" she asks gently, and he realizes that's why she was so reluctant to make out here. She knew it was too much like the games, was afraid it would trigger a flashback. And she was right.

"Yeah," he rasps. "I'm sorry." Katniss shakes her head, and he knows she doesn't need his apology. They're past blaming each other for the things that happened to them during the games and the war.

In the safety of her arms, Peeta tentatively unpacks the old memory, tries to work past the shiny edges to the truth beneath. Over the past five years, he's gotten pretty good at it. He's seen videos from the games, over and over in therapy sessions, trying to rewrite the distorted versions that the Capitol had fed to him in his hijacked state. But his own memories, those are more tenuous, more difficult to see clearly. He can see her in his mind's eye, younger but just as beautiful. Silver eyes shining in the moonlight, burning with passion. "You wanted me then," he murmurs. "Real or not real?" He doesn't ask very often anymore, doesn't need to, but it's a safety net, a warning that they're looking back on things he's unsure about or things she might still carry guilt for. But she smiles at him, one slender finger tracing his bottom lip.

"So real," she says, her eyes shining just like in his memory, the one he knows is true. "Kissing you on that beach stirred up feelings I'd never experienced." She sighs, her body relaxing, fingers twining in his curls. "If the lightning hadn't hit the tree…" she trails off on a groan, lost in the memory. He can't resist kissing her, and the passion with which she responds surprises him, so soon after he'd lost it and she'd had to talk him down. She starts to rock above him again, grinding against his erection which had deflated a little in his fear and confusion, but which rages back to aching hardness at the feeling of her body moving against his own.

"Let me take you back to the cottage," he says, barely getting the words out around her insistent mouth. He shifts, intending to stand with her in his arms, but she shakes her head, catching his face in her hands, holding his gaze with heavy lidded eyes that burn with passion.

"No," she says. "Here. Now. I want to replace that old memory with a new one. A better one." He searches her face, looking for any sign that she's kidding, or worse, that she's only saying it out of pity. But her expression is open and eager, her cheeks and chest flushed with arousal, her nipples hard and straining against the tiny triangles that hold her breasts aloft.

He's helpless to deny her.

Katniss kisses him again, and he slides a hand between them, teasing the edge of her bottoms for just a moment before plunging in to cup her. "You're already so wet," he moans.

She laughs breathlessly. "You've been half naked all day, running down the beach like one of those guys from Plutarch's show." She gasps when his thick fingers delve deeper. "It was torture."

Katniss is seldom the aggressor in their lovemaking, he'd called her pure once, long ago, but shy is perhaps a better description. Not today.

Today she pushes aside one of the cups of her swim top, and guides Peeta to feast on her small breast, moaning just a little too loudly as he suckles hard on the turgid peak, steadily fingering her all the while. She rides his hand and whimpers his name, he smiles against her breast. There are few things Peeta loves as much as his wife calling out his name in pleasure. Nothing so solidly convinces him that she wants him, and no one else.

She slides a hand between them, gripping him over his trunks and he nearly chokes. But the angle is awkward with their arms pinned between them. He moves to lay her back on the blanket, but she shakes her head. "Stay where you are," she whispers, pushing his arms to his sides..

He's amused, but does as she asks, leaning back a bit on his palms. She shimmies his trunks down just enough to pull his cock free, throbbing and aching, a pearly drop of precum already beading at the tip. Her thumb spreading the wetness down his shaft makes him shudder, arching in helpless ecstasy.

She strokes him steadily, knows exactly what he likes. Her hand, her soft noises of pleasure and the visual of Katniss rumpled and flushed, squirming on his lap with her tits swaying slightly is nearly enough to push him over the edge. He groans her name in warning, then groans again when she stops.

The look of pure mischief she flashes makes his dick jump. Then she's taking him in hand again and shifting aside her tiny bottoms. Her wetness envelopes him, scalds him with pleasure as she sinks onto his shaft, and he howls.

She's so tight in this position that she has to wiggle and shift to work the whole length of his cock inside, he gasps and grunts with each slick slide.

Once her body is finally flush with his she pauses just long enough to kiss him hard. Then she's riding him, strong thighs flexing, her pussy gripping every inch, her head flung back.

It's so hot and so unexpected that he barely hangs on. They are technically in a public place, though he hasn't seen any sign of another person in hours. He's even not shielding her body with his own. The knowledge that they could get caught, that someone might see his gorgeous Katniss riding his cock with wild abandon, it's a fantasy come to life.

"Peeta, Peeta," she begs, and he can feel the first flutters of her impending orgasm. He brings his thumb to his mouth, moistening it and making sure it's sand free. Then he slips it between their bodies, strumming her clit.

She comes like a lightning bolt, wailing her release. Her pussy grips him like a velvet fist and that's all it takes to make him lose control. He levers his hips up, fucking her with several hard thrusts, then stills and erupts.

Peeta collapses back on the blanket, Katniss sprawled across his chest, panting and trembling with aftershocks. He wraps her snugly in his arms, pressing kisses to her hair, loving her. She's practically purring, and he's filled with contentment.

Waves lap at the shore, the sound soothing and hypnotic. Peeta would be happy to lie here all night, but Katniss is shivering in the night breeze. He rolls them over, slipping from her body with a groan.

His wife lounges bonelessly, watching him with soft eyes and a languid smile as he rights her bikini, kisses that ticklish spot by her belly button. "That night," she says, her voice dreamy. "I dreamed of this. Of a world in the future with no Capitol and no games. Where we could be together. Where we could be free."

He'd hadn't dreamed it, not then, not like that. On a beach far away, in a different time, he had only wanted to give her a chance at that life. He was certain he'd have no part of it. As if reading his mind, she reaches for him, tugging him back down, his warmth covering her cool skin. She wraps her arms around his back, kisses his jaw. "I only wanted this life with you," she whispers in his ear.

She'd said something similar on that other beach, and he hadn't believed it, not really.

He did now.

His memory of that time is steeped in uncertainty and melancholy. But that time is gone. Now he has a life beyond his wildest dreams. A bright and happy home in a peaceful district. Friends old and new. And Katniss, who really does need him, just like he needs her.

Peeta kisses her again, slow and deep. "Let's make more beach memories," she says, wrapping her calves around his waist. And he laughs.

A lifetime of new memories to replace the bad.

A lifetime with Katniss.

He can hardly wait.