A/N: I know, I'm awful. This was supposed to be up, like, a week ago. Sorry about that :/

Anywhoo, thank you all so much for the reviews. You all are so kind and wonderful and it's nice to know I'm not the only one unable to sleep at night (: Some of you had some really great tips.

Disclaimer: Magnificence and intricacy, thy name is Suzanne Collins. Other than the very apparent insomnia, none of this is mine.

Song for this chapter: Sleeping Lessons—The shins (Ha ha.)

"I swear to God if I cough one more time I'm going to pop a blood vessel, I can feel it." Peeta griped petulantly, his deep voice muffled and nasally. I sighed lightly and ran my hands through his incredibly unkempt hair, my fingers feeling the searing temperature of his scalp beneath my fingertips.

He had been feverish with influenza for the past week with the last two days being the worst ones yet. Peeta had taken to the sick-boy routine with intense vigor, tossing and turning and coughing and wheezing the night away. As of late he was sprawled across the sofa with his head situated on a pillow in my lap. Needless to say, Peeta had a difficult time getting to sleep lately and the fact that he was sleeping less than usual meant that I hadn't been sleeping at all.

I wasn't exactly sure if he'd noticed my lack of rest amidst the hellish sickness. After all, yawns were hard to hear when one was sneezing in intervals of one and two seconds.

"You're not going to pop a vessel. It's just the flu, you're supposed to cough." I reassured for what must have been the billionth time. He frowned at me through slightly hazy eyes, "You don't know that. How could you know that?" he asked accusingly.

I refrained from rolling my eyes. "I was the healer's daughter, remember? I saw this kind of thing during the winter all the time. All you need is some—,"

The rest of my sentence was silenced and vetoed by a round of some very violent coughing from Peeta. I couldn't help but wince along with him, the tearing, painful sound making me cringe. My hands unintentionally moved from his hair to his face, brushing his forehead soothingly as he coughed.

"Holy God. Are you honestly going to tell me that you didn't hear blood vessels popping?" he asked adamantly.

I sighed again. "You should try rolling over, you know. It helps the coughing." I couldn't say I wasn't worried. Despite knowing that what Peeta had was harmless and benign, I didn't like seeing him this way; with burning skin and bleary eyes and taking shallow, shallow breaths. It was all too vivid a reminder of a time when Peeta hated me, when his veins burned not only with transfused blood but also residual poison.

Peeta shook his head. "I like it here. I have an incredibly clear view of your face."

"You'll have an even better view of my face if you weren't closing your eyes all the time because of the coughing fits." I pointed out to him, trying not to roll my eyes at his absurd reasoning. As if my tired, strained face was something someone would want to stare at any way.

Peeta shook his head again, and this time I couldn't stop the frustrated sigh that spilled from my lips. "Please? You'll be a lot more comfortable if you were lying on your side." I murmur to him softly, leaning down and hoping he'll do that thing where he looked into my eyes for a few moments and then succumbed quietly.

Instead of listening to reason and the pleading tone of my voice, Peeta squinted at me suspiciously. "I'll be more comfortable or you'll be more comfortable?" I opened my mouth to respond but was stinted when Peeta hoisted himself into a sitting position, regulating our height differences and making it so that I had to stare up at him to see his face.

His flushed face was coloured with concern, his forehead creasing. "You're tired," he stated, as if just stumbling upon a new revelation. His eyes studiously scanned my face, focusing on the bluish smudges beneath my eyes. He raised his hands to my face and gently brushed his thumbs in the hollows above the panes of my cheek. My eyes closed of their own accord and I leaned into his touch, drinking in his feverish warmth like a drug. I heard him murmur a curse before he tilted my face towards his.

I opened my eyes to see him looking down at me with a mix of worry and quasi-anger. "When was the last time you slept?"

I pulled away from him, shaking my head, "You're the one who's sick Peeta, not me. I'll be fine."

"When?" he asked again, raising his eyebrows.

I sighed and mumbled, "Whenever you slept last was when I slept last."

Peeta exhaled and raised his hands to my face again, tilting it towards his. "You've been so busy taking care of me that I forgot to take care of you." His words were apologetic and I immediately opened my mouth to admonish his guilt, but he spoke over me. "I'm being a bad boyfriend, aren't I?"

My mouth snapped shut as the term left his mouth, an action I'm sure that not even his bleary eyes consciousness had missed. I didn't like his casual use of the word for a multitude of reasons, the first and foremost being that it was such a ridiculously normal term it was almost comical when he applied it to our relationship. We had been known as so many things in the past few years—anywhere from District Partners to Star Crossed Lovers—that the term boyfriend and girlfriend was an ill fit. Peeta was so much more to me than a silly infatuation, he was so much more to me than a crush. I wish there was an adequate enough piece of verbiage that could be applied to whatever Peeta and I personified. But then again, I had never been good with words.

I cleared my throat. "You're not a bad…boyfriend." I murmured, staring at the collar of his shirt. Peeta sighed and slid his hands down my shoulders, causing me to shiver slightly.

"I'm not a good one either," he said, leaning forward to kiss my forehead and wrapping his arms around my waist. "Come here." He murmured tenderly, as if it were possible for me to get any closer to him than I already was on the narrow sofa. He laid us back against the cushions, both of us on our sides facing each other, legs tangled, and my head resting on his shoulder. It was a desirable position to say the least. I played with the buttons on his shirt as he ran his hands through my tangled hair. His hypnotic ministrations had me drowsy and ineffably warm within moments, I was yawning and curling myself around him sooner than should have been possible.

"Does it make you remember?" he asked me quietly after a few moments.

"Hmm?" I mumbled unintelligibly, working to keep my eyes open.

"Seeing me sick. Does it make you remember the caves? The…Games?"

Oh.

"Because it makes me remember—being like this." He finished quietly, his words and voice lost in my hair.

I felt myself go rigid as an opus of memories flooded through my mind. His wan smile as I fed him groosling, his effort to hold back cringes and winces as I tended to his torn leg. Not all of those memories were bad, but some of them fingered a nostalgic chord in my chest and the melancholy vibration echoed through my hollow ribcage.

After a long while of not moving, I nod my head against his chest. Peeta expels a sigh. "I hate remembering." He whispered, a touch of pain lacing his voice. I turned to look at him, forcing my heavy eyelids open.

"Then don't," I told him forcefully. "Don't remember a thing. Just stay here." I curled my fingers into his shirt and bring him closer, a desperate note reverberating through my touch.

"Stay here?" he questioned, brushing my temple with his thumb before leaning down to touch it with his lips.

"Stay here with me." I whispered, pressing myself closer, until he had no choice but to press back. He sighed in warm comfort as our connected heat mixed and enveloped us both. A cloud of beautiful, blissful, somnolence spilled over us and I felt myself drift, still holding on to Peeta with all my might.

"Okay," I heard him murmur, far in the distance, already dreaming.

"I'll stay with you."

Yay? Nay?

Cute? Boring?

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Oh, also: I need a beta. Hmu if you want to help me out ;)

So tell me, what song do you listen to when you can't sleep?