A/N: I don't know what happened, but I suddenly just couldn't stop writing. This looks to be a oneshot at the moment, but I may expand in the future. Reviews encouraged ;) All mistakes are mine.

Lust and love are very different, she realises.

Love is all-consuming, something that pulls you further under the more your try to fight it, deeper and deeper until you don't know which way leads to the surface and you realise that you're trapped in the endless expanse of… well… she's yet to figure out that piece of the puzzle.

Lust is fire – flames she encourages - that lick and tease your senses. Lust overwhelms you. It can build up if not released. A wild, ravenous, unforgiving beast that erupts from your heart and replaces the blood in your veins and suffocates your lungs and mind.

She stares at him. She imagines how it would feel to run her hands through his hair. If his lips would be soft. If he would smell like paints or flour or fresh air. All the cliché stuff. And then, she delves deeper not only into herself, but into him. She wonders if his happy laugh fills him up inside or if it echoes through him. As he walks past her in the corridors, she wishes that she had the guts to look up from her shoes and present him with a smile.

A tiny, fragile part of her pretends that he smiles at her every time they pass, but she's always looking at her shoes, too busy with her thoughts to notice.

That fragile part of her is like a bird. Trapped in a too-small cage, unable to flap its wings. The bird can't even stretch its wings.

Music floods through her as she bumps along on the rusting yellow school bus, headphones in her ears to block out everyone else. She doesn't even notice he's sat down next to her until she sees the light pink scar on his arm when he reaches down to scratch his knee. Her whole body seizes up. Her heart does a little hoppity-skip that falls flat. All the moisture from her mouth is sucked up into her palms.

"Who is that?" he asks her, his eyes clear and honest and so, so blue. She's lost, swirling and spinning in those whirlpool eyes. "Katniss?"

"Coldplay," she chokes out, tugging out an ear bud.

"Good choice," he tells her with a genuine smile. Her eyes dart to his mouth. "Which song?"

"Your Love Means Everything," she whispers, staring at him.

"Cool," he says, nodding his head. His name is called then from the other side of the bus and he shifts in his seat to answer. Katniss inhales sharply at the sight of his bare back that's revealed when his light cotton shirt moves with his body. It isn't until she's walking to third period that she realises that she looked him in the eyes throughout that short but meaningful conversation. She's on a high all day.

That night, she slips her hand down her body and cups herself, sighing at the contact, and comes shortly after, thinking of his voice and his eyes and his mouth and his back as she flops back on the pillow.

He isn't on the bus the following morning, and she misses him already.

The next morning he is and her heart chokes her when he sits beside her. She yanks out her headphones as he sits and forces a smile onto her lips, though she's sure that it's barely noticeable.

"This is okay, isn't it?" he asks. "Me sitting beside you."

"It's okay," she nods.

"Good," he smiles. "How are you?"

And so it continues.

Every morning she is bouncing on her heels at the bus stop at the end of her street, eager to grab a seat and wait for him to join her three streets over so that she can listen to him and watch him and try not to sound like she's terrified, because that would be telling him how she really feels. She learns more about him and he about her. His favourite colour is orange. (Green is hers). That he hates sugar in his tea, and always double-knots his shoelaces after a mishap on the soccer field when he was a kid. She opens up a little each morning, telling him about how cheese buns are her favourite things to eat, and that she loves archery.

The morning after she tells him about the cheese buns, he steps onto the bus, finds her face among the crowd, and presents her with a steaming brown bag of four buns, oozing with golden cheese.

"You're welcome," he chuckles, settling back in the seat as she gapes at him.

The next day she brings him a pot of orange paint made from things she found in the forest the evening before. His face lights up.

"You made this?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Katniss, really," he says. When they get off the bus he tells her he'll see her around and to have a nice day before pulling her into a hug. Her arms are frozen, her hand up in the air, palm out in a wave, and she feels his heart speed up once she's in his arms, her hand presses against his solid chest.

Three months have passed when she finally gathers the courage to meet his gaze in the corridors. He grins at her and she presses her lips together in a joyful smile, gripping the strap of her shoulder bag tightly. He even waves to her in the cafeteria, and her hand spasms awkwardly in reply before she returns her gaze to her solitary sandwich. He walks her to class four days later, squeezing her hand reassuringly at the door before heading off down the corridor.

The feeling of his hand in hers burns against her skin for days.

Christmas arrives out of the frost and the snow in a flurry of activity. He invites her to go to the town square to watch the lights on the massive tree there get switched on by the Mayor, and buys her a cup of hot tea and a gingerbread cookie. She watches the tip of his nose grow red against the cold, and shivers in her thin coat. He draws her in close, wrapping his own scarf around her neck. She uses the weather as an excuse to pull the soft knitted garment up over her nose, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent.

He smells like gingerbread and soap and oil paints and warmth. He smells wonderful.

When she finally opens her eyes, he's standing in front of her with a kind smile, his eyes bright, the lights of the Christmas tree behind him glowing.

"Merry Christmas," he says, stepping forward, cupping her face his hands and leaning down to press his lips to hers. She squeaks, hands curled into fists at her sides. Her mouth is gentle against his but only because she has no idea what she's doing. He doesn't seem to mind, kissing her and kissing her until she begins to respond and oh!- it's beautiful. His lips are a little chapped from the winter, and he tastes like hot tea and gingerbread.

She shakes, bringing her hands up to his hair and running her fingers through it, sighing against his mouth at the feeling. He hisses, pausing and resting his forehead against hers, panting, before moving back in for another kiss. She drinks him in until she's drunk. He pulls her closer to him, hands at the small of her back, and she squeezes her eyes shut even tighter.

An eternity passes. He pulls away.

"Merry Christmas!" she gasps, her eyes wide as she stares at him. He kissed her. She kissed him back. He chuckles, pulling her in for a hug and burying his face in her shoulder. She presses her own into his chest, listening to his slowing heartbeat.

When they depart later in the night, he kisses her again at the bottom of her front yard and tugs on her braid.

"I hope I didn't cross any lines… that I didn't ruin what- what we have," he says, taking her hands in his and rubbing them, coxing blood back into her digits.

"I… you… it was fine," she murmurs.

"Just fine?"

"No! It was amazing!"

"Alright. Well, I guess I'll see you around, okay? Tomorrow okay for you?"

"What for?"

"Would you come on a date with me?" he asks, and her heart melts at how vulnerable he is in that moment. "To the ice rink?"

"You want to go on a date with me?" she frowns, completely bewildered.

"If you'll allow it."

She pauses, waiting for her own head to catch up with her heart. Hasn't she been the one wanting him for all this time? Shouldn't she be enthusiastically saying yes? She smiles. She should be agreeing to come with him.

"I'll allow it."

In the end, she decides that she prefers love. Lust is fleeting. Once it's reached its peak, it tumbles away like a one-night-stand, exposing you to the harsh reality of the world. Love is dizzying. It warps your mind. You see the death and destruction of the world, but you can relax because you have love. Love will bring you back to your senses.

She prefers love, she thinks, because it is love that brought her here in the first place.